History and Legacy of Environmental Racism in the Bayview Hunters Point Neighborhood

Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP) is a historically black neighborhood in Southeast San Francisco. This community has struggled with poverty and a long history of industrial pollution.1 Exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants has impacted this community for generations, leaving residents susceptible to a myriad of health complications such as asthma and cancer.1,2 Hunters Point was established as a commercial shipyard in 1870 and was later purchased by the US Navy in 1937 to be repurposed to build naval warships.3 The promise of jobs brought African American workers from all over the United States to work in the shipyards, following the Second Great Migration. The neighborhood was integrated for a time, but as African American workers arrived, it began its transition to a majority black neighborhood.4 After World War II came to a close, the economic boom that came with it also faded and the residents struggled to find employment. In the 1960’s the shipyard became a site to decommission radioactive ships, including ships that were used to conduct nuclear tests in Bikini Atoll. In 1946, the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL) was established in the shipyard to research effects of radiation, atomic weapons, and decontamination methods. In 1986, both hazardous chemical and low-level radiological contamination were identified at HPS.5 The radionuclides associated with the decontamination activities are plutonium-239, cesium-137, and strontium-90.3 Other contaminants found at the site include lead and mercury. Decontamination efforts were considered unsuccessful and in 1989 the shipyard was designated a CERCLA site, or “Superfund site”. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act or CERCLA was in enacted by congress in 1980, and would force responsible parties to perform cleanups.6,7 Despite the shipyard eventually being decommissioned, the effects of radioactive contamination still harms the people of Bayview Hunters Point. To this day, as the responsible party, the US Navy is still in the process of managing the cleanup.5 

Furthermore, in 1929, the Hunters Point Power Plant (HPPP) was established and one of the first sources of electricity for the entire city. Owned and operated by PG&E, the plant had a reputation for being especially dirty and polluting, and many residents blamed it for their poor health. Placed in East-Central BVHP, it was near many residential centers. In 2004, the plant generated approximately 215 megawatts of power and served more than 200,000 customers on the San Francisco Peninsula. The primary pollutants HPPP emitted were nitrous oxides (NOx’s), with 321 tons emitted in 1999, and carbon monoxide (CO), with 164 tons emitted in 1999.8 Nitrogen oxides create ground-level ozone, which causes an array of respiratory issues for those who inhaled them. For decades, the plant emitted over 600 tons of pollutants annually over Southeast San Francisco, primarily into the BVHP neighborhood. The power plant was shut down in 2006 after years of residents pleading with the city to take action. Ozone levels have since stabilized, but residents still contend with higher than average rates of asthma. Based on data from EPA and California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), hospitalizations from asthma in BVHP are in the 96% percentile in California and 99% in the United States.2,9

In 2018, the BVHP community filed a 27 Billion dollar class action lawsuit against the contractors Tetra Tech, claiming they had falsified soil samples and indirectly caused death and health complications in the community.10 Tetra Tech is a private environmental engineering and science consulting firm. The private company had been commissioned by the Navy to clean up the site and provide regular radiological tests in 2002 and was given 1 billion dollars for the contract. The lawsuit levied by the BVHP residents accused the company of “blatant, conscious, callous disregard of Bayview Hunters Point residents’ lives, born and unborn” and “unfair and fraudulent business practices.”10 A year later in 2019, the US Department of Justice also sued Tetra Tech for fraud, finding more evidence for data manipulation and falsified records. They were shown to have repeatedly violated safety protocols and even fired employees who had raised concerns over the dubious clean up process.11

If the toxins and contaminants are not dealt with properly and soon, it could spell even more disaster for the BVHP community. With the looming crisis of climate change, rising sea levels are a real threat to coastal communities around the world. The water levels rising from the bay would flood the previously dry Hunters Point shipyard and potentially carry the toxins and contaminants that were buried and stationary. This could flood the community with even more toxins leading to even worse health effects.12 Although the Navy is responsible for the cleanup per EPA superfund standards, according to the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury, “These serious risks have not been accounted for by the Navy in designing its remedies”.12  They mention that in the Navy’s five year review of the contaminated site13, the “Navy muses about whether it needs to make any changes to its plans in light of updated sea level rise guidance from the State of California––and concludes that it does not”.12

According to the U.S. bureau of labor statistics, as of May 2021, 8,200 chemists work for architectural and engineering industries, nearly 10% of all chemists.14 Additionally 5,580 chemists work under the supervision of the executive branch of the US Government, a federal category the Navy falls under. 

Chemists and engineers, both working for the Navy and private corporations, were directly responsible for conducting evaluations and determining what issues were in BVHP that could contribute to negative health and environmental effects. Scientists have had a large impact on the future of this neighborhood and due to a lack of foresight and care for those who lived there exposed them to dangerous toxins. It is the responsibility of the government who began to follow through with their promises to clean up this site, however this promise still goes unfulfilled today.

According to the EPA, around 21 million Americans live within 1 mile of an active superfund site, and roughly 73 million live within 3 miles of the site, around 22% of all Americans.15 Although the extent of pollution and contamination varies from site to site, research shows that living within a 1.8 mile radius of an EPA registered superfund site can put residents at risk for health complications.16

References:

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