Navy Won't Investigate Nuclear Pollution At San Francisco's Treasure Island

Lasrick writes "The Center for Investigative Reporting spent a year investigating whether San Francisco's Treasure Island is contaminated with radioactive material left over from the decades the island was a naval base. Treasure Island is being transferred into civilian hands, and the city of San Francisco has plans to turn it into a 'second downtown.' Despite the fact that radioactive debris has been found around the island, the Navy refuses to conduct testing that might show whether radiation cleanup should be started before development begins, Independent testing by CIR and others has found high levels of cesium 137 and other radioactive substances at several spots on the island, and by examining unclassified military documents, CIR has found that the history of the nuclear work done at Treasure Island and the lack of safety protocols at the time mean the contamination is most likely wide-spread. Complaints by current residents has only resulted in bureaucratic infighting among state health departments and the Navy."

Ooh Scary!

[Lawrence_Bird]

You have to read to just about the end to get this:

Those concentrations do not confirm a health hazard, according to Jan Beyea, a prominent nuclear physicist specializing in the health effects of low-level radiation. They are no greater than common contamination worldwide from 20th-century nuclear fallout.

Re:It's deja vu ...

[voodoo cheesecake]

Thought you might like this from Troubled Lands The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Destruction by D. J. Peterson
http://www.rand.org/pubs/comme... [rand.org]
(Chapter 5)

"For example, in the town of Sillamae in northeastern Estonia, nearly
300 children attending two kindergartens suffered a loss of hair in 1989.
When the story first broke in March of that year, the Soviet press agency,
TASS, reported that specialists initially had suspected the cause to be
natural radioactivity emanating from local shale deposits. Subsequent
tests, however, revealed that background radiation in the town was
normal. After months of speculation and controversy, the former director
of the Baltiets enterprise, a local defense industry, revealed that his com-
pany had dumped radioactive wastes in the town. The two kinder-
gartens were built over the dump, separated from it by only a thin layer
of sand."