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The secrecy behind an ex-Navy nuclear arms training program in California likely contributed to the faulty environmental cleanup of the site, says a new report.

The man-made landform Treasure Island was used for nearly 50 years as a base for training military personnel in nuclear war tactics. A number of radioactive materials were used there including plutonium, radium and cesium 137. However, when the Navy decommissioned the San Francisco-area site in the 1990s and began restoring it for eventual civilian use, a significant amount of radioactive waste remained behind, unknown to some of the San Franciscans who moved into new townhouses on the island, according to a Tuesday expose by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The Navy was aware that radioactive materials at the Treasure Island Naval Station were not always properly handled, according to the report. However, because the service did not go public with the installation’s nuclear weapons background, the environmental remediation personnel and other workers tasked with preparing the base for civilian use could have accidentally disseminated poisonous substances around Treasure Island, the report concludes.

In 2007, Robert McLean was assigned by New World Environmental — a Navy contractor — to carry out an initial study of the presence of radiation on the island. A report ordered by the Navy the year before had indicated there was a low probability that any notable radioactive sources would be found so McLean said he was not expecting much when he began his survey.

But that was not the case.

“We picked up readings from inside the truck, without even getting out of the vehicle,” he said.

“We found radiation, contaminated materials, in playgrounds and in areas that had previously been playgrounds,” McLean said. “We found it in front yards. We found it underneath sidewalks and along the roadways.”

McLean shared his concerns with the California Health Department’s radiation division chief, Kent Prendergast. Recounting their discussion, the California health official in an internal 2008 email wrote, McLean “was concerned that the sources could represent a hazard to children or something the bad guys could use to make a dirty bomb.”

Jonathan Weisgall, author of “Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll,” said a lack of public access to information has been a big impediment to initiatives to safeguard civilians from radioactive contaminants left over from the U.S. nuclear arms program.

“What I saw at the birth of the Cold War and the testing program was this ignorance, arrogance, and secrecy, which combined into a hairy-chested attitude of, ‘If you can’t feel it, it doesn’t hurt you,” he said in an interview. “As I’ve looked at the history every since, that hairy-chested attitude continues to permeate the approach of government agencies that have dealt with the legacy of atomic weapons.”

In a statement to the center, the Navy defended its efforts to rehabilitate Treasure Island: “The Navy’s Environmental Restoration program is a data driven, iterative step-by-step process with the goal of protecting human health and the environment. … All cleanup work continues to be conducted under rigorous state oversight with the highest priority given to safety.”