At S.F. city hearing, Navy says: Don't panic about plutonium

"At a Board of Supervisors hearing on Monday, representatives from the U.S. Navy reassured San Francisco city officials that the discovery of radioactive contaminants at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard last year was "unusual," but no cause for concern. But the feds were criticized for only notifying regulators 11 months after plutonium was detected in the air above Parcel C, a subsection of the shipyard, at twice the "action level," which is the threshold requiring action to monitor and review dust control."

""Our greater concern is not notifying the regulators," said Dr. Susan Philip, the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. The department on October 30 released a public letter soon after it was made aware of the elevated levels, which officials said today should not be an immediate danger for the public. That level of plutonium is still "very, very small," said Dr. Kathryn Higley, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at Oregon State University, at the city hearing today. The level is less than one would be exposed to on a flight from San Francisco to New York, for example."

"Still, Philip said, that determination should have been made by the city and the EPA, not the Navy. The EPA said today it will review the Navy's actions, and that it must notify regulators of any high reading within two weeks - even if the Navy doesn't deem it to be a safety hazard. "We need to get an understanding of what it means when they say they will do better," said Michael Montgomery, the EPA's director of its Superfund and Emergency Management Division."

Representatives from the U.S. Navy told city officials that radioactive contamination found at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was unusual and not cause for concern. Plutonium was detected in the air above Parcel C at twice the action level, and regulators were notified 11 months after the reading. San Francisco public health officials expressed greater concern about the delayed notification than the immediate exposure level. Experts characterized the detected plutonium amount as very small and comparable to routine flight radiation exposure. The EPA will review the Navy's actions and requires notification of high readings within two weeks. The shipyard has been a Superfund cleanup site since 1989 and continues active remediation and material transport.

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