She said the city needs additional staff across all departments if it intends to focus on how groundwater rise could affect Bayview-Hunters Point or other neighborhoods.
“We’re concerned that they may miss other similar problems because there aren’t enough of them, and they don’t have a range of expertise,” she said.
The committee invited all the regulatory agencies overseeing the Superfund site — the Navy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board — to the meeting, but none of their representatives attended.
“The U.S. Navy declined to show up today,” Walton said. “They sent a letter rather than show up for the people of this city.”
Susan Philip, health officer for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, did show up. And the supervisors grilled her with questions. Does she feel the department has the opportunity to increase staffing to monitor groundwater rise? How involved is her department in the Navy’s process? What actions had her department taken to analyze concerns around sea level rise prior to the jury’s report?
Philip told the supervisors the agency has a dedicated staff person, but with the scale of the issue, Walton told her more are needed.
“I personally believe that the least the department can do is probably put some resources together to have more eyes on the monitoring of additional science,” he said.
Apartment buildings in the Bayview sit behind the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco on March 8, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
When asked how much control Philip’s department has over the cleanup, she responded by saying the agency does not have regulatory power over the shipyard but will offer recommendations and comments when allowed, like during the five-year review of the Navy cleanup in the spring of 2023.
Responding to the Civil Grand Jury’s message that public information about the toxic sites is difficult to find and unintelligible, Phillip said that, with the upcoming five-year review by the Navy, her goal is “make it as understandable as possible” for the public.
Walton said he is pushing for a 100% clean-up of the site and will ensure that takes place before the land can be redeveloped into housing or businesses.
Community members pleaded with the supervisors to take action. Arieann Harrison with the Marie Harrison Community Foundation said independent testing has found that residents, including herself, already have high levels of contaminants such as uranium in their bodies.
“If I tested positive for that stuff, I’m pretty sure that a lot of other residents will test positive as well,” she said.
Dr. Marcy Adelman, a psychologist and a resident of District 10, asked the board to develop recommendations that will support community health.
“We’re on a precipice here, and if we don’t act, it will be too late,” she said. “The city has to get in the game.”
In a letter to the committee, the Navy says it disagrees with the jury report and has accounted for both sea level rise and groundwater rise. Officials wrote the Navy is “methodical in its cleanup approach, which is based on the best available data, science and engineering.” Officials also wrote the next five-year review will “include an evaluation of the potential effects of sea level rise and associated groundwater elevation changes on the remedies currently in place.”
