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Title: Treasure Island Radiation More Widespread than Reported Source: NBC (San Francisco Bay Area) Author: Matt Smith / Bay Citizen Date: Aug 17, 2012
Radioactive contamination at the Treasure Island Naval Station, where San Francisco plans to build a high-rise community for 20,000 residents, is more widespread than previously disclosed, according to a new U.S. Navy report and other documents obtained by The Bay Citizen. [...] The draft report, dated Aug. 6, marks the first time the Navy has fully acknowledged that the island, created from landfill in 1937, was used as a repair and salvage operation for a Pacific fleet exposed to atomic blasts during the Cold War. [...] Since 1993, the Navy has been preparing the site for handoff to the city, which has agreed to pay $105 million for it. [...] [State health] officials have raised questions about exposure for residents of the island. At an August 2011 meeting, a summary shows, the health department alleged that a Navy contractor might have inadvertently exposed children to radioactive dust at a Boys & Girls Club and a child development center on the island. The Navy and state Department of Toxic Substances Control, a separate agency also monitoring Navy cleanup activities, said the Boys & Girls Club and child center never were contaminated with radioactive dust. They also say that, in general, radiation levels found on the island are too low to endanger human health – only slightly higher than natural radiation found in ordinary backyards. However, in a Dec. 17, 2010 email, state public health official Peter Sapunor said Navy contractors had dug up and hauled off 16,000 cubic yards of contaminated dirt, some with radiation levels 400 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s human exposure limits for topsoil. Sapunor said he believed extensive radioactive material remained in the soil surrounding those excavations. [...] In October 2010, Larry Morgan, an environmental management specialist with the state Department of Public Health, told the Department of Toxic Substances Control that “the finding of relatively high level radioactive sources … raise(s) additional unanswered questions” about assumptions related to various locations on the island. Morgan recommended a new “conceptual model” that assumed radioactive contamination could be more extensive than previously believed. Six months later, an environmental cleanup manager for the public health department, Stephen Woods, wrote that “the large volume of radiological contaminated material, high number of radioactive commodities, (individual items or sources,) and high levels of radioactive contamination … have raised concerns with CDPH regarding the nature and extent of the radiological contamination present at Treasure Island.” [...] Criticism from state public health officials took a legal turn in a June 2011 missive from the department’s radiological health enforcement specialist, Kent Prendergast. He issued a notice of violation against the Navy’s chief cleanup contractor, Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure Inc. [more on Shaw here BBC journalist on Fukushima story you didn't hear on CNN: "They Knew" -- "I've seen a lot of sick stuff in my career, but this was sick on a new level"] , for repeatedly digging, piling, spreading and transporting dirt from sites contaminated with toxic chemicals. Shaw had not tested that material for radioactivity, Prendergast wrote, potentially spreading radiation beyond its original location. [...] Radiation exposure was once such a concern on Treasure Island, the researchers found, that the former Navy base had a radiological “counting room” where specialists tested Navy personnel and equipment for contamination. [...] “That amount of radium found to date,” [environmental cleanup manager for the state Department of Public Health Stephen Woods] wrote, “cannot be explained by gauges, deck markers and decontamination activities.”
Radioactive contamination at the Treasure Island Naval Station, where San Francisco plans to build a high-rise community for 20,000 residents, is more widespread than previously disclosed, according to a new U.S. Navy report and other documents obtained by The Bay Citizen.
[...]
The draft report, dated Aug. 6, marks the first time the Navy has fully acknowledged that the island, created from landfill in 1937, was used as a repair and salvage operation for a Pacific fleet exposed to atomic blasts during the Cold War.
Since 1993, the Navy has been preparing the site for handoff to the city, which has agreed to pay $105 million for it.
[State health] officials have raised questions about exposure for residents of the island. At an August 2011 meeting, a summary shows, the health department alleged that a Navy contractor might have inadvertently exposed children to radioactive dust at a Boys & Girls Club and a child development center on the island.
The Navy and state Department of Toxic Substances Control, a separate agency also monitoring Navy cleanup activities, said the Boys & Girls Club and child center never were contaminated with radioactive dust. They also say that, in general, radiation levels found on the island are too low to endanger human health – only slightly higher than natural radiation found in ordinary backyards.
However, in a Dec. 17, 2010 email, state public health official Peter Sapunor said Navy contractors had dug up and hauled off 16,000 cubic yards of contaminated dirt, some with radiation levels 400 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s human exposure limits for topsoil. Sapunor said he believed extensive radioactive material remained in the soil surrounding those excavations.
In October 2010, Larry Morgan, an environmental management specialist with the state Department of Public Health, told the Department of Toxic Substances Control that “the finding of relatively high level radioactive sources … raise(s) additional unanswered questions” about assumptions related to various locations on the island. Morgan recommended a new “conceptual model” that assumed radioactive contamination could be more extensive than previously believed.
Six months later, an environmental cleanup manager for the public health department, Stephen Woods, wrote that “the large volume of radiological contaminated material, high number of radioactive commodities, (individual items or sources,) and high levels of radioactive contamination … have raised concerns with CDPH regarding the nature and extent of the radiological contamination present at Treasure Island.”
Criticism from state public health officials took a legal turn in a June 2011 missive from the department’s radiological health enforcement specialist, Kent Prendergast.
He issued a notice of violation against the Navy’s chief cleanup contractor, Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure Inc. [more on Shaw here BBC journalist on Fukushima story you didn't hear on CNN: "They Knew" -- "I've seen a lot of sick stuff in my career, but this was sick on a new level"] , for repeatedly digging, piling, spreading and transporting dirt from sites contaminated with toxic chemicals. Shaw had not tested that material for radioactivity, Prendergast wrote, potentially spreading radiation beyond its original location.
Radiation exposure was once such a concern on Treasure Island, the researchers found, that the former Navy base had a radiological “counting room” where specialists tested Navy personnel and equipment for contamination.
“That amount of radium found to date,” [environmental cleanup manager for the state Department of Public Health Stephen Woods] wrote, “cannot be explained by gauges, deck markers and decontamination activities.”
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