nuclear-news

USA’s Treasure Island hid nasty radiation secret

 residents were not fully informed about contamination. “They should have been more open and upfront, because there would have been people who would have chosen not to live here,”

Treasure Island radiation discovery casts shadow over expansion plans
Contamination left by US navy found to have 400 times the EPA’s human exposure limits, but military branch denies report Rory Carroll in Los Angeles guardian.co.uk,  17 August 2012  It was called Treasure Island in honour of Robert Louis Stevenson’s pirate classic, but the artificial island off San Francisco bay has nothing but trouble buried in its soil: radioactive contamination left by the US navy.

Internal documents and emails from the navy and public health officials reveal that the contamination, a legacy of ships exposed to atomic blasts and radiation training during the cold war, is more widespread than previously thought.

The navy reportedly bungled a clean-up, leaving topsoil with 400 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s human exposure limits.

The revelations have alarmed some of the island’s 2,800 residents and cast a shadow over plans to start building high-rise apartments for 20,000 more people next year. The documents were disclosed by the Bay Citizen , a nonprofit news organisation covering the bay area. “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 … regarding the nature and extent of the radiological contamination present at Treasure Island,” Stephen Woods, an environmental clean-up manager for the public health department, wrote in a 2011 email.

A burgeoning file of radiation discoveries, Woods said, undermined the navy’s continued use of a 2006 report as a basis for claims that some parcels were clear of radiation and ready for housing development.

The navy and a separate state regulatory agency, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, said California‘s public health officials were wrong and that there was no health risk.

Treasure Island, spanning 535 acres, was created by the federal government from landfill in 1937. It was named in honour of Louis Stevenson’s book because he lived in San Francisco from 1879 to 1880. It hosted the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition before being handed to the navy.

The island used the base to repair and salvage vessels exposed to atomic blasts during the 1940s and 1950s. Cannon sights contained radioactive glow-in-the-dark material. A training ship, the USS Pandemonium, was intentionally doused in radiation so sailors could practise scrubbing it. The navy had a radiological “counting room” to test personnel and equipment for contamination…..

in recent reports and emails state health officials faulted the navy’s 2006 report. They noted that contractors removed 16,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil, some with radiation levels 400 times the EPA’s human exposure limits. Residents on the island are required to grow plants in above-ground pots to avoid soil-borne chemicals.

Emily Rapaport, president of Good Neighbors of Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island, who has lived on the island for a decade, said residents were not fully informed about contamination. “They should have been more open and upfront, because there would have been people who would have chosen not to live here,” she told the Bay Citizen…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/17/treasure-island-radiation-us-navy?newsfeed=true

August 18, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, history, USA