The dispute came to a head in a sharply worded Oct. 30 letter<\/a> from San Francisco\u2019s Department of Public Health, which charged that the Navy failed to promptly disclose a November 2024 plutonium detection at the long-contaminated bayfront property. The Navy did not inform the city until about 11 months after the sample was retrieved, though the Navy said it took a long time to discover the issue and sort out whether it had found anything at at all.<\/p>\n \u201cSuch a delay,\u201d wrote Dr. Susan Philip, the city\u2019s health officer, \u201cundermines our ability to safeguard public health and maintain transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n Her letter resulted in Navy officials issuing a seldom-seen public apology at a Nov. 17 community meeting. It also prompted admonishment from U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi<\/a>, one of the most reliable supporters of the shipyard\u2019s development plans. \u201cThe continued cadence of misfires in communication and delays with the completion of the cleanup further erode the public trust in the Navy\u2019s ability to complete this long awaited clean up and redevelopment,\u201d Pelosi told Navy Secretary John Phelan in a Nov. 24 letter.<\/p>\n But emails<\/a> obtained by the San Francisco Public Press show city officials knew about the finding since at least Oct. 2, and chose to keep both the public and Mayor Daniel Lurie in the dark until Philip\u2019s Oct. 30 letter appeared in selected media outlets.<\/p>\n In a Nov. 7 response<\/a> to Philip, Navy officials wrote that the result was an anomaly that \u201ccould not be reproduced\u201d by later tests.<\/p>\n The plutonium concentration initially reported by a contractor \u2014 about 8.16 quadrillionths of a microcurie per milliliter of air \u2014 represents a tiny amount of radioactivity. Independent scientists said the health effects of the element, if actually detected, would be extremely small, equivalent to about two chest x-rays if inhaled continuously for a year.<\/p>\n But the affair reignited long-standing community mistrust about the $1.1 billion cleanup of the former naval base, once the site of ships contaminated by Pacific atomic bomb tests and later a major radiation laboratory that studied materials, military readiness and human and animal biological effects.\u00a0<\/p>\n Several neighborhood environmental and health watchdogs decried what they called another sign of the military\u2019s long-running neglect of its pollution legacy, while one national group blamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for this \u201clatest fiasco<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The episode also added to the public relations headache for the decades-long effort to build more than 10,000 units of housing at the 450-acre former base. Pelosi said ultimate responsibility for the real estate project\u2019s needed turnaround belonged to the military: \u201cThat effort is entirely reliant on the Navy\u2019s ongoing, frequent dialogue with total transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department of Public Health accepted federal agencies\u2019 analysis that no hazard existed, while also heaping skepticism on the Navy. \u201cBased on the information currently provided by the Navy, and preliminary assessment from the EPA, no immediate action is required from a public health safety standpoint,\u201d the local agency said in response to emailed questions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Navy\u2019s conclusions cannot be accepted at face value,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cWe must review, with our regulatory partners, the information to ensure it is complete, accurate, and protective of community health.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked to explain the timing of its announcement, the health department emphasized the necessity of transparency: \u201cWhen information about possible contamination is delayed for nearly a year, we have to speak up,\u201d adding, \u201cThe department informed the community because transparency builds trust \u2014 silence does not.\u201d<\/p>\n Planned meeting canceled abruptly<\/p>\n The first local official to learn of the plutonium question appears to have been Dr. Veronica Hunnicutt, chair of the Hunters Point Citizens Advisory Committee<\/a>, a panel charged with communication with local stakeholders. Michael Pound, the Navy\u2019s environmental coordinator, first mentioned it to her on Sept. 22, according to an email chain obtained by the Public Press.<\/p>\n After Hunnicutt contacted Pound with further questions, and expressed concerns that incomplete information could lead to public confusion, on Oct. 2 Pound forwarded her email to officials at the Department of Public Health and the city Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, which oversees residential and commercial redevelopment at the former shipyard.<\/p>\n In his response, Pound noted that he mentioned \u201cthe Pu exceedance\u201d \u2014 a reference to the possible detection of highly radioactive and long-lived plutonium-239 \u2014 to Lila Hussein, the senior project manager for the shipyard\u2019s redevelopment, sometime that day.<\/p>\n Aware that the story needed to get out, Pound asked for Hunnicutt\u2019s \u201crecommendations for sharing the information with the public.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hunnicutt urged restraint, warning against triggering panic over what might be a \u201cfalse positive,\u201d writing, \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s very important to avoid any hasty announcement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At a recent affordable housing ribbon-cutting at the shipyard, Hunnicutt declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n To address other agencies\u2019 questions, the Navy scheduled a meeting with local, state and federal interests for Oct. 29 to coordinate disclosure, a Navy spokesperson told the Public Press.<\/p>\n But at the last minute, the Navy said, the Department of Public Health canceled that meeting. Instead, department staff sent two letters, dated Oct. 30. The first went to the Navy. The second letter<\/a>, addressed only to Hunnicutt\u2019s committee and another community group, stated: \u201cFull transparency with our communities and the Department of Public Health is critical, and we share your deep concerns regarding the 11-month delay in communication from the Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n Lurie said he was out of the loop for the four weeks that officials were deciding what to do. \u201cWe got the news when we all got it, about a week ago,\u201d the mayor told the Public Press on Nov. 7 at the ribbon-cutting event.<\/p>\n Cold War legacy<\/p>\n The presence of plutonium, the key ingredient in nuclear weapons, should not\u00a0 surprise anyone familiar with the shipyard\u2019s history.<\/p>\n As the Public Press reported last year in its investigative series \u201cExposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point<\/a>,\u201d airborne plutonium was detected around the docks as early as 1947. The source was target vessels towed back to San Francisco after they were blasted in above-ground atomic weapons tests on Pacific islands early in the Cold War. Hundreds of workers were ordered to \u201cclean\u201d the ships with hand tools and sandblasters \u2014 which only served to spread the contamination.<\/p>\n The Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, the research unit that directed this work, exposed at least 1,073 service members, dockworkers and scientists to radiation in occupational and medical tests that pushed up against the era\u2019s emerging ethical standards, according to fragmented historical records from the National Archives, science journals and other databases.<\/p>\n Researchers reported to the Navy that plutonium and other hazardous material could have migrated to the nearby majority-Black neighborhood on the wind, yet no evidence could be found that the Navy ever warned local residents. The military never studied the shipyard\u2019s effects on local health outcomes, which have been found to be some of the worst in the Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n The redevelopment project has for decades been plagued by seemingly endless controversy, including supervisors at Navy contractor Tetra Tech EC being sentenced to prison in 2018 for having submitted faked testing results on soil samples in the cleanup zone. That set the project back years and prompted retesting that is still ongoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n In her email to the Navy\u2019s Pound, Hunnicutt also referenced detection in 2021 of strontium-90, a radioactive isotope. That led to accusations that the Navy was covering up the finding after it reanalyzed samples using a different method that detected no strontium. \u201cThat case was botched because it created an unnecessary anxiety in the community, and to this day the stakeholders still talk about it,\u201d Hunnicutt wrote.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s plutonium affair is reigniting these fears at a key moment. Next year the Navy wants to start demolishing shipyard buildings<\/a>, some of which could contain traces of radioactive substances. After apologizing to community members at the Nov. 17 meeting for sitting on the plutonium finding for nearly a year, the Navy also found itself fending off rumors that it planned to take down the buildings with dynamite.<\/p>\n Ambiguous test result<\/p>\n The Navy claims it was first informed last March that a contractor cutting through an asphalt cover the previous November to retest areas tainted by the TetraTech EC fraud scandal discovered plutonium-239 in an air-monitoring station. Although the reported concentration was minuscule, it exceeded the site-specific \u201caction level\u201d that triggers review.<\/p>\n The Navy halted work while sending the sample for retesting and said follow-up analysis failed to detect any plutonium.<\/p>\n \u201cThese inconsistencies called into question the validity of the result,\u201d wrote Anthony Megliola, director of the Navy\u2019s Base Realignment and Closure office, in the Nov. 7 letter<\/a>. \u201cGiven these facts, we believed it was prudent to work with our experts to attempt to validate the authenticity of the result before communicating it publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometime after the Navy found out, it published quarterly air-monitoring reports<\/a> on its website that claimed no plutonium detection. That \u201cwas mistakenly uploaded<\/a>\u201d and later corrected, a Navy spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times.<\/p>\n The Navy has not explained why it did not alert the U.S. EPA until Oct. 23, weeks after it told the city, said Michael Collins, an EPA representative.<\/p>\n To be sure, the health effects of the plutonium detected, if it even existed, would probably have been relatively insignificant, independent experts said.<\/p>\n \u201cPlutonium is bad news and raises many flags,\u201d said Tom McKone, a professor emeritus of environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_3227-copy.jpeg\")
As environmental cleanup continues at the shipyard, the Navy continuously monitors several locations for airborne contaminants including radioactive materials. Credit: U.S. Navy photo<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Ad-300x250-1.png\")
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On Nov. 17, the Navy convened neighbors to discuss their concerns about the plutonium detection, calling it a false positive reading but apologizing for delaying communication about it. Credit: Chris Roberts \/ San Francisco Public Press<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/EXPOSED-logo-COMBINED_2_600w.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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Navy officials told residents at the Nov. 17 community meeting that only one air monitoring station picked up a trace of plutonium-239, and a re-analysis of the sample came up negative for the isotope. Credit: Chris Roberts \/ San Francisco Public Press<\/p>\n