 
Bayview Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.
Photo courtesy US Navy.
By Carol Harvey, guest contributor
September 29, 2009
As a child, Marie Harrison, Greenaction environmental justice activist and Bayview Hunter’s Point resident, fished in San Francisco Bay. Strolling Bayview’s Candlestick Point, where the City plans to build condos, she notes, “There’s more water (now) when the tide rolls in.”
The San Francisco Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) predicts a 16-inch mid-century sea level rise, covering Bay Area coastal lands and eventually swamping downtown San Francisco up to Market Street.
The primary global warming gas is carbon dioxide. Methane gas, heavily implicated in global warming, has been emitted for years from the Bayview Hunter’s point Naval Shipyard. Sea level rise will release methane gas from wetlands and landfill of which most of Hunters Point is composed.
Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D., environmental toxin expert, notes that methane gas can exacerbate global warming by serving as a vehicle for carbon dioxide, and that other gases, like volatile organic compounds and radioactive materials, can also catch a ride on it.
Both Hayward and Andreas faults straddle Bayview-Hunter’s Point wetland and landfill. Biochemist, Dr. Raymond Tompkins, observes that this loose-packed, sandy soil, diluted by flooding, if slammed by an earthquake predicted within 30 years, could experience “echo effects” — intensifying shock waves — then liquefy, undermining or collapsing S.F. City and County infrastructure.
Toxic and radiated materials are buried in all parcels at the U.S. Naval Shipyard and Hunters Point. This Superfund Site was radiation-contaminated by depleted uranium left after atomic bomb “Little Boy” was assembled there.
Drs. Sumchai and Tompkins fear that rising waters and earthquakes could shake loose unknown volatile, and carcinogenic compounds. States Dr. Sumchai, “The Navy plans to cap (Parcel E), subject to liquefaction” (which won’t) prevent “lateral methane gas migration” nor stop lateral movement of unknown toxins beneath.
Dr. Sumchai believes the key emerging Bayview environmental justice issue is toxic exposure and “the very real prospect that redevelopment at the Hunter’s Point shipyard on radiation-contaminated parcels at D and E will generate airborne and soil releases of contaminants that contain low-level radiological materials.”
She confirms that Parcel E, the site of a 46-acre industrial landfill, is worst. Dr. Tompkins attests that radium dials, irradiated animal carcasses and other unknown carcinogenic contaminants are buried in Parcel E. In 2000, Harrison, along with most of the Bayview community, was choked by the light gray to ebony smoke of a month-long underground fire, flaming bright blue, yellow, and green from a mix of potential combustibles generating airborne toxins.
Said Dr. Sumchai, “As early as 2010, the Navy’s, and the City and County of San Francisco’s intent, is to accept a series of segments of parcel D in what’s called an ‘early transfer’ — technically a ‘dirty transfer’ — of property,” to build homes, a park, and a green tech center there. “Lennar Corporation in a recent interview with John Upton in the San Francisco Examiner announced they will consider residential development on this radiation-impacted property to be a viable option. That is absolutely frightening.”
Dr. Ahimsa Porter-Sumchai
Organizer Jaron Browne, asserts the position of POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights). “The rush to transfer the land before it’s clean, or cap it and build on top of it, is driven by developer rather than community interests.”
Chemical Pea Soup
Greenaction’s Harrison warns of the “cumulative impact” of multiple toxins coming together.
She isolates six primary sources of toxic Pea soup ingredients spread by wind over Bay water:
1. The Mirant Power Plant spewing mercury and lead;
2. An asphalt-concrete recovery plant, crushing rock into particulate matter;
3. Vehicle emissions from two freeways, 101 and 280, producing a particulate matter cloud, PCBs, and heavy metals.
4. Asbestos dust produced by Lennar tractors crushing and grading serpentinite rock;
5. Post World War II Superfund site after testing and dumping of depleted uranium deposited hundreds of radioactive elements in the soil;
6. Navy “recapture” in 2008 of 66 radioactive materials in Naval Shipyard sewer lines and connectors.
Marie Harrison
As a result, Bayview residents, particularly children, suffer respiratory illnesses and asbestosis attributed to particulate matter from crushed serpentine rock, vehicular emissions, and other sources.
Environmental toxin expert, Sumchai verified that the highest documented African-American infant BVHP mortality rate is significantly raised at 15 per 1,000.
Dr. Tompkins reports that melanin in dark-skinned people attracts heavy metals. Francisco Da Costa verifies heavy metals attack immune systems weakened by poor nutrition, drugs, and HIV/AIDS contracted by previously-incarcerated men and women who infect the community.
Dr. Tompkin’s research exposed elevated breast cancer rates in Bay Area women, but higher at Bayview-Hunter’s Point — suspected culprit: radiation exposure across the Bay.
Poltical, Corporate Interests Blocking Information and Testing
Coupled with an exponential rise in insurance rates, dropping property values cause real estate brokers to pressure the U.S. Navy, the San Francisco Health Department, Bay Area Air Quality Control Management, and the EPA who then inadequately monitor cumulative pollution. Media, funded by powerful political and corporate interests, blocks information to the public and Hunter’s Point residents.
However, in her April 2009 San Francisco Bayview article, “Singing In The Rain: Hunters Point Shipyard Enriches SF’s Most Powerful Families,” Dr. Sumchai, SF Bayview environmental science editor, exposed “A chronology of legal, ethical and regulatory oversight violations involving the transfer and development of Parcel A of the Hunters Point Shipyard with investigative followup 2002-2009.”
To counter news blackouts and education lag, and to pre-empt exclusions of low-income peoples of color from the global warming / climate justice debate, Harrison holds informal “table meetings” explaining unfamiliar science behind climate change. She reports that, on a 1 to 10 scale, Bayview residents’ understanding of water rise and global warming is about 4. Despite a forced focus on the constant struggle to survive lack of jobs, high unemployment and crime, and fear for their youth, Harrison reports her neighbors are asking the right questions.
The Hunger Site
October 3, 2009 at 11:03 am
The CorpWatch report link I listed above is no longer current.
An active link for the report is at:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14549
October 3, 2009 at 10:58 am
It is very important for all to understand that the “Global Compact” is a massive and -private- corporate greenwashing organization which has managed to finagle the loose stamp of approval of the United Nations but is -not- part of the United Nations.
Here are some links to show you the real deal on the United Nations “Global Compact” with which Newsom announced the proposed partnership.
A scathing CorpWatch Report about the “Global Compact”.
http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous5.html#140202
Coke, Nestle, & Suez manipulation of “Global Compact”.
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/coke_nestl_and_suez_push_greenwashing_envelope_to_the_highest_level
Toxics Watch also critiqued Coca Cola joining the “Global Compact” with the following crucial paragraph:
“It must be noted that the emptiness of UN’s Global Compact that was announced by Kofi Annan in January 1999 at the World Economic Forum in Davos and officially launched at UN headquarters in New York in July, 2000 has been exposed by the “UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights†approved in August, 2003, by U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights resolution. The Compact is an impotent voluntary guideline based on nine principles of human rights, labor standards and environmental protection and adherence to it depends on the whims and fancies of the companies based on nine principles. Theoretically, companies cannot become signatories of the UN Global Compact if they violate human rights, tolerate forced or child labor, manufacture or distribute anti-personnel mines, or violate other relevant commitments of the UN. In practice, the UN does not have the wherewithal to check compliance or non-compliance with the UN Global Compact. Not surprisingly, no company has been removed from UN Global Compact membership because of guideline violation. In effect, UN has allowed the sale of its logo (blue-washing) in the interests of major corporations like Nestle, Shell, Nike, Rio Tinto and BP Amoco whose poor track record with regard to commitments to environmental sustainability, social protection and human rights is well known.”
October 3, 2009 at 10:52 am
It is very important for all to understand that the “Global Compact” is a massive and -private- corporate greenwashing organization which has managed to finagle the stamp of approval of the United Nations but is -not- part of the United Nations.
Here are some links to show you the real deal on the United Nations “Global Compact” with which Newsom announced the proposed partnership.
A scathing CorpWatch Report about the “Global Compact”.
http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous5.html#140202
A blog dedicated to critiquing the “Compact”.
http://globalcompactcritics.blogspot.com/2009/04/convicted-korean-businessman-on-global.html
On this site be sure to page down to the section entitled “Sources for critics” and look through the links, especially the first one a detailed report about the Global Compact entitled “2008 – The Global Compact and its critics: activism, power relations, and corporate social responsibility” which explains what the “Global Compact” actually is – essentially a bunch of corporations trying to do an end run around global justice and environmental activists.
http://toxicswatch.blogspot.com/2009/04/coca-cola-un-global-compact-tharoor.html
On Coca Cola joining the “Global Compact” Which contains the following crucial paragraph:
“It must be noted that the emptiness of UN’s Global Compact that was announced by Kofi Annan in January 1999 at the World Economic Forum in Davos and officially launched at UN headquarters in New York in July, 2000 has been exposed by the “UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights†approved in August, 2003, by U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights resolution. The Compact is an impotent voluntary guideline based on nine principles of human rights, labor standards and environmental protection and adherence to it depends on the whims and fancies of the companies based on nine principles. Theoretically, companies cannot become signatories of the UN Global Compact if they violate human rights, tolerate forced or child labor, manufacture or distribute anti-personnel mines, or violate other relevant commitments of the UN. In practice, the UN does not have the wherewithal to check compliance or non-compliance with the UN Global Compact. Not surprisingly, no company has been removed from UN Global Compact membership because of guideline violation. In effect, UN has allowed the sale of its logo (blue-washing) in the interests of major corporations like Nestle, Shell, Nike, Rio Tinto and BP Amoco whose poor track record with regard to commitments to environmental sustainability, social protection and human rights is well known.”
Greenpeace organizer’s critique.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2DF143AF935A35757C0A96F9C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
Coke, Nestle, & Suez manipulation of “Global Compact”.
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/coke_nestl_and_suez_push_greenwashing_envelope_to_the_highest_level
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Global_Compact#Criticism
October 2, 2009 at 5:42 am
The US Navy deposited tons of heavy metal based paints in the bay for 70 years by sandblasting ships over the water. They deposited battery chemicals from the submarine base there. They deposited radioactive materials undergound and filled the depositories with concrete. Hunter’s Point is a toxic dump. Digging it up will make it worse, without the Navy doing a complete and total mitigation. People who are worried about this should leave the area. You don’t have to stay. Exercise your rights!
September 30, 2009 at 2:31 am
Where there is proof of the claimed depleted uranium contamination since DU did not exist in any significant quantity in WW-II and is nothing more than naturally occuring Uranium 238 found everywhere on earth and in every living thing as well. This article’s main strength is the superb photo of Hunters Point with ships still docked there. Its weakness is the quality of the reporting. Let’s see some actual verifiable facts not a lot of hyperbole and speculation.
September 29, 2009 at 10:04 am
Thanks for this Carol.
I dont have the expertise to produce the following, but for some time I have been looking for, or suggesting someone create what I believe could be a very powerful visual aid to present at all and any meetings concerned with Lennar’s proposed Urban Renewal boondoggle. A blow up of one of Lennars pretty pictures of the project footprint and a transparent overlay that would show new water line, both conservative and more catastrophic. It might make some folks realise how many of the proposed new structures would require a dock and mooring facilities.