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Radioactive Hazards

The United States Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL) often experimented with and disposed of nuclear material with little apparent concern that it was operating in the middle of a major metropolitan area.

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Sewage Hazards

Eight out of 10 San Francisco toilet flushes flow to a treatment plant in Bayview-Hunters Point, creating a stench that infuriates the neighborhood and now impacts a city fix of the Bay Area's main water supply.

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PM2.5 Hazards

Health effects attributable to long-term exposure to PM2.5 include ischemic heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lower-respiratory infections (such as pneumonia), stroke, type 2 diabetes, and adverse birth outcomes.

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Contaminated Soil

It has become an all too familiar sight for the 131 families living in Midway Village — the largest public housing complex in San Mateo County. Workers from the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control are once again dredging up seemingly endless tons of soil.

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NRDL Facility
Radioactive Sign

The United States Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL) was an early military lab created to study the effects of radiation and nuclear weapons. The facility was based at the Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, California. Activities of the facility led to:

  • Oversaw the dumping of huge amounts of contaminated sand and acid into San Francisco Bay after they were used in attempts to clean irradiated ships.
  • Spread radioactive material on- and off-base, as if it were fertilizer, to practice decontamination.
  • Burned radioactive fuel oil in a boiler, discharging the smoke into the atmosphere.
  • Sold radioactive ships as scrap metal to a private company in Alameda.
  • Hung a source of cobalt-60, a nuclear isotope that emits high-energy electromagnetic radiation similar to X-rays, in San Francisco Bay for two weeks, apparently just to see what would happen
Sewage Plant
Waste Water

The impoverished, isolated and largely African American neighborhoods didn’t always have the dubious distinction of being San Francisco’s outhouse. Until a revamping of the city’s sewer system in the 1970s, only 20 percent of the city’s sewage went to the area’s Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant. Since the revamp, residents there have beseeched the city to do something about the plant’s odor and the unfair sewage burden placed on them with more sewage to come.

  • 27- acre sewage plant just southwest of the corner of Evans Avenue and Third Street — the intersection serving as the portal to the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood
  • 10 digesters — tanks that give off a rotten egg-like stench — and two flare stacks that spew odors when the systems aren't working right.
  • 67 million gallons of sewage flow to the plant, get treated through a biological-chemical process for about 10 hours
PM2.5 Hazards
Homeless Shelter

Environmental justice advocate Ray Tompkins says homeless shelter residents are forced to breathe air filled with tiny particles that can become embedded deep in the lungs due to placement near cement factories.

  • Scientists have said that there is a clear link between the particles and health problems while questioning the safety of the homeless shelter site.
  • A 2020 draft study by the city’s health and planning departments noted that aggregate handling near Islais Creek, not far from the shelter site, contributed to elevated PM 2.5 levels nearby.
  • Masks and filters only afford so much protection against the particles swirling everywhere.
  • "Just because they’re homeless, doesn’t mean they’re not deserving a clean breath of air.” - Ray Tompkins, Retired Chemistry Teacher
  • "This the worst place for a human being, in terms of air quality. It’s in the middle of a gravel pit, which is used for making cement.” ~ Ray Tompkins, African American Community Health Equity Council
Dredging Contaminated Soil
Escavator

Around the corner in this Daly City community, bulldozers cast diesel fumes into the air as workers clad in hazardous-materials jumpsuits rip up her once neatly groomed neighborhood park, now festooned with dozens of warning signs: CAUTION. NO TRESPASSING. HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS.

  • Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and state officials concede that toxic substances seeped into the earth during the early 1900s via a gas manufacturing plant, which was taken over by PG&E and is now the company's Martin Service Center.
  • During World War II, Navy builds Midway Village housing complex next to site of the shut-down gas plant.
  • PG&E finds contaminated soil at its Martin Service Center. PG&E and the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control haul away affected soil.
  • Later, PG&E's Martin Service Center is placed on the Superfund list of most- contaminated industrial sites in California.
  • Later, The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry releases a document showing high levels of genetic abnormalities among Midway Village.
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