User:Envs2455/Hunters Point Naval Shipyard

Proposition P and the Navy's Coverup

In 2000, San Francisco voters passed Proposition P in a landslide, with 86% voting "yes". The proposition stated that the Navy would be responsible for cleaning up the shipyard to the highest standard. The year after the proposition passed, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed, and the mayor signed, a resolution titled “Adoption of Proposition P as Official City Policy for the Environmental Remediation of Hunters Point Shipyard.” The resolution made it clear that it was the city's policy that Hunters Point "be cleaned to a level which would enable the unrestricted use of the property - the highest standard for cleanup established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency." However, despite the resounding passage of Proposition P and the subsequent resolution confirming it as city policy, the Navy has repeatedly tried to establish cleanup standards that fall well below the highest and most protective standards. The Navy's modification to its Record of Decision (ROD) for Parcel B of Hunters Point Shipyard dramatically weakened the cleanup standards for the parcel. Despite this, the Navy still found contamination levels higher than its cleanup standards, and in 2009 moved to rework its entire cleanup strategy for the parcel. The Navy once again amended the ROD for Parcel B, this time to change its remediation strategy from removing all contaminated soils from the parcel to installing covers in the soil as a means of suppressing the contamination. By abandoning its commitment to pursue a remediation effort based on cleanup, the Navy also abandoned its commitment to clean up Hunters Point to unrestricted residential release standards.

In Parcel G as well, the Navy followed a similar pattern of disregarding Proposition P, and therefore San Francisco city policy, by lowering cleanup standards and shifting the future land use of the area. The 2009 ROD for Parcel G outlined its future use as mostly industrial, and therefore required lower cleanup standards than a parcel set for residential use. However, in 2017, the Navy released an Explanation of Significant Differences for the Parcel G ROD which stated that the parcel would be zoned largely for residential use. This shift occurred without tightening the cleanup standards to a residential level; the Navy instead put "action levels" in place, which are still lower than the criteria for residential use. In Parcel C and Parcel E, too, the Navy bypassed its commitment to a full cleanup as outlined by Proposition P, relying instead on soil covers and 'institutional controls'. Under the National Contingency Plan (NCP), which is the central regulating process for governing Superfund sites, community acceptance is one of the nine criteria for establishing cleanup requirements. The text of Proposition P and the Board of Supervisors resolution adopting it as city policy references the NCP and the community acceptance provision. The proposition and the resolution both make clear that the community is committed to the highest level of cleanup. Thus, the Navy, by refusing to establish cleanup standards that allow for unrestricted residential use, is violating federal superfund law under CERCLA and putting future residents of Hunters Point at risk.