A Navy Superfund Site, a Government Contractor, and a Neighborhood Left Holding the Risk

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is a peninsula jutting east into San Francisco Bay, in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. Understanding the timeline of what happened there requires knowing exactly who was supposed to do what, and when the chain of accountability broke.

• The Navy began operating Hunters Point Shipyard in 1940 and used it until 1974. During that period, the shipyard housed the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory and was used to decontaminate ships — including vessels exposed to nuclear testing in the Pacific. This activity left the land contaminated with radionuclides, the radioactive byproducts of nuclear processes.
• In 1989, Hunters Point was placed on the EPA’s National Priorities List — the official Superfund registry for the country’s most contaminated sites. Superfund status triggers a formal, federally supervised cleanup process under CERCLA (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act).
• In 1991, the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended the shipyard for permanent closure, setting the stage for eventual transfer of the land to the city of San Francisco for redevelopment — a promise that has been dangled over the Bayview community for over 30 years.
• The Navy, as the lead cleanup agency, contracted Tetra Tech EC, Inc. to perform the radiological investigation and remediation work on specific parcels of the site. Tetra Tech EC was paid with federal funds to survey contamination levels and then remove or neutralize contaminated soil to meet regulatory standards set by the EPA and California Department of Public Health.
• According to the federal government’s allegations, Tetra Tech EC surveyed and sampled contaminated soils in ways that resulted in the disposal of radioactive soil into trenches and other locations across the site — the opposite of what cleanup is supposed to accomplish. Tetra Tech EC denies these allegations.
• The EPA and California Department of Public Health determined the Navy could not rely on Tetra Tech EC’s work to satisfy cleanup standards, and ordered an entirely new investigation and remediation. The Navy has been paying for that re-do ever since, and the document confirms costs are still accumulating.

Three Decades Next to a Radioactive Yard: What the Dollar Amount Cannot Measure

Bayview-Hunters Point is a neighborhood in southeast San Francisco. It is one of the city’s historically Black communities, shaped by redlining, disinvestment, and industrial zoning that made it the place where the Navy built its shipyard, where the city put its power plants and waste facilities, and where the land most likely to poison people was left behind when the money moved on. The people there did not get a choice about living next to a Superfund site. They were already there when the Navy arrived in 1940, and they are still there now, in 2025, waiting for a cleanup that has been restarted from scratch because the company hired to do it allegedly cheated.

Think about what it means to wait. The EPA put Hunters Point on the Superfund list in 1989. That was not the beginning of the contamination; that was the moment the federal government officially acknowledged that the land was dangerous enough to require a national-priority cleanup response. People in Bayview-Hunters Point had been living next to, working near, and raising children adjacent to that land for decades before the government even gave it a formal label. And then, once the cleanup started, the contractor the Navy paid to remediate the radioactive soil allegedly dumped it in trenches instead. The work had to be done over. The timeline extended again. The community waited again.

The consent decree lists, by case number, six separate civil lawsuits still active in the Northern District of California. One of them is filed by Bayview Hunters Point Residents. Another is filed by Kevin Abbey, an individual. Another is Pennington v. Tetra Tech. These are not abstractions. These are people who have gone to federal court because they believe they were harmed by what happened at that site. The consent decree — the $40 million agreement between the Navy and Tetra Tech EC — explicitly carves those cases out. It does not resolve them. It does not compensate the residents. It is money going back to the federal government for the cost of re-doing the cleanup. The people who breathed the air and drank the water and raised families in the shadow of what was allegedly buried in those trenches are in a separate legal queue, with no resolution in sight from this particular document.

There is a specific cruelty to what allegedly happened here that goes beyond ordinary corporate negligence. The city of San Francisco and the Bayview community were promised that once the cleanup was done, Hunters Point would be redeveloped into housing and economic opportunity for the neighborhood that had absorbed decades of sacrifice and contamination. That promise was sold as redemption: we made this place toxic, and now we are going to clean it up and give it back to you as something good. What Tetra Tech EC allegedly did was sell that promise twice: once to the Navy as a contractor being paid to make the land safe, and once to the community as the company whose work would finally let their neighborhood move forward. If the government’s allegations are correct, neither payment was honored.

The document before us is careful and legal. It says “Tetra Tech EC denies the United States’ allegations” four times. It says the settlement is not an admission of liability. The lawyers who wrote it were doing their jobs, and the hedged language is standard for this kind of agreement. But between those disclaimers is the operational reality: the EPA and the California Department of Public Health decided the work was not good enough to rely on. The Navy agreed to pay for everything to be done again. That re-do is still ongoing as of January 2025. Whatever Tetra Tech EC did or did not do, the people of Bayview-Hunters Point are now living through a cleanup that, by the government’s own accounting, has to be treated as if it never happened.

A Superfund designation means the site is among the most hazardous in the country. Radionuclides are not like chemical spills you can see and smell. They are invisible. They accumulate in bodies over time. The effects are statistical: elevated cancer rates, compromised immune systems, reproductive harm. You cannot point to a single moment and say “this is what the radiation did.” That invisibility is part of what makes the alleged fraud so destructive. When you falsify cleanup data or shortcut remediation, you do not trigger an alarm. You just quietly leave people living on and near contaminated land, and the harm accumulates slowly enough that no one can prove a direct line from what the contractor did to what the body suffers.

What the Court Documents Actually Say: Direct Quotes, Unedited

The following are verbatim passages from the Partial Consent Decree, Case No. 3:13-CV-3835 JD, filed January 17, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. No paraphrasing. No editorial framing inside the quotes.

“During the process of site investigation and remediation, Tetra Tech EC engaged in the process of surveying and sampling in a manner that the United States alleges resulted in the disposal of contaminated soil into trenches and other locations on the Site.” — Background Section C, Partial Consent Decree, January 17, 2025

“The Navy alleges it is required to complete the investigation and cleanup to comply with statutory and regulatory standards and alleges it cannot do so relying on Tetra Tech EC’s work. Accordingly, the Navy alleges that oversight agencies, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and California Department of Public Health, required the Navy to undertake a new site investigation and cleanup at the Site.” — Background Section D, Partial Consent Decree, January 17, 2025

“The United States alleges that Tetra Tech EC is liable pursuant to Sections 107(a)(2) and (4) as an operator of a facility at the time of the disposal of hazardous substances and as a transporter of hazardous substances for disposal. The United States alleges that, among other things, Tetra Tech EC disposed of soils that were contaminated with radionuclides above action levels in trenches in various locations at the Site.” — Background Section G, Partial Consent Decree, January 17, 2025

“The Second Amended Complaint asserted claims under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-33, common law causes of action including breach of contract…” — Background Section E, Partial Consent Decree, January 17, 2025

“The United States reserves, and this Consent Decree is without prejudice to, all rights against Settling Defendant with respect to… criminal liability…” — Section IX, Reservations of Rights, Paragraph 15(b), January 17, 2025

What This Means Beyond the Courtroom: Public Health and Economic Harm

Public Health

Hunters Point’s contamination profile involves radionuclides — radioactive materials left from decades of nuclear ship decontamination and the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory. The government’s allegations that contaminated soil was buried in trenches rather than removed has direct, documented public health consequences.

• The EPA and California Department of Public Health determined the Navy cannot rely on Tetra Tech EC’s work to certify that any parcel of the site meets cleanup standards. This means that portions of the site previously declared clean based on Tetra Tech EC’s data must now be treated as unverified — an unknown quantity of potentially contaminated land adjacent to a residential neighborhood.
• The site’s contamination includes radionuclides, which are radioactive isotopes that can cause cancer, organ damage, and reproductive harm upon prolonged exposure. Superfund action levels for radionuclides are calibrated to protect against elevated cancer risk; the government’s allegation is that soil above those action levels was moved to new locations rather than removed.
• Because the investigation and cleanup had to be entirely restarted, the period during which the community lived adjacent to a site that was believed to be progressively safer is now retroactively uncertain. People who were told areas of the site were remediated cannot be assured of that without independent verification.
• Six active civil lawsuits — including one filed by Bayview Hunters Point Residents and one by an individual named Kevin Abbey — are still pending in federal court as of January 2025. These cases may involve claims of direct personal harm, though their specific allegations are not detailed in this consent decree.
• Bayview-Hunters Point has historically high rates of environmental health burdens. The neighborhood’s proximity to industrial facilities, waste infrastructure, and Hunters Point itself made it one of the most environmentally burdened communities in San Francisco long before this specific contractor fraud was alleged.

Economic Inequality

The economic harm from the alleged fraud extends far beyond the $40 million the Navy is recovering. It reaches into the lives and futures of a low-income community that was promised development and received continued uncertainty.

• The redevelopment of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was tied to a long-promised plan to bring affordable housing, jobs, and economic investment to Bayview-Hunters Point — one of San Francisco’s most economically marginalized communities. The cleanup’s failure directly delays or jeopardizes that redevelopment.
• One of the active civil cases listed in the consent decree is Five Point Holdings v. Tetra Tech et al. (Case No. 3:20-cv-01481-JD). Five Point Holdings is a real estate developer involved in the Hunters Point redevelopment project. The existence of this lawsuit signals that the alleged fraud caused financial harm to the development pipeline, not just to government cleanup costs.
• Another active case, CPHP Development v. Tetra Tech et al. (Case No. 3:20-cv-01485-JD), is similarly a developer suing over the fallout from Tetra Tech EC’s allegedly defective work. Multiple development entities having to pursue litigation is a signal that the redevelopment timeline has been materially disrupted.
• The $40 million paid to the Navy under this consent decree goes into the DON BRAC Account — funding for Base Realignment and Closure costs. None of it is directed to community members, residents, or the civil plaintiffs whose cases remain open.
• Taxpayers funded the original cleanup contract with Tetra Tech EC. Taxpayers are now funding the restart of that cleanup. The private company that allegedly failed to perform the work it was paid to do is settling the environmental portion for $40 million — with no admission of liability — while the public absorbs the ongoing costs of a re-do that could run for years more.
• The False Claims Act claims, which remain unresolved, allege that Tetra Tech EC submitted fraudulent bills to the government for work it did not properly perform. If those claims succeed, the financial exposure multiplies, but the harm to the community timeline and the years of lost development opportunity cannot be recovered through any financial judgment.

Translating $40 Million Into Something Real

Who Is Watching, What Can Be Done, and Where the Money Goes Next

This case is not over. The $40 million settlement resolves one legal theory in one amended complaint. Multiple fights remain active, and the question of who is held accountable for the people who actually lived and breathed next to this site has not been answered by any court yet.

Who Holds Authority Over What Comes Next

Based on the source document, the following corporate role at Tetra Tech EC is identified as the settlement contact: Andrew Bolt, 1230 Columbia Street, Suite 750, San Diego, CA 92101 (identified in the consent decree as the individual to receive payment instructions on behalf of Settling Defendant). Tetra Tech EC’s legal counsel of record is Davina Pujari, WilmerHale. Individual executive names responsible for the underlying conduct are not identified in the source document.

Regulatory Watchlist

• U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Environment and Natural Resources Division, Environmental Enforcement Section: The primary federal prosecutor in this case. The False Claims Act claims and the CERCLA case are being handled by DOJ’s ENRD. The reserved criminal liability sits with DOJ. Contact: eescdcopy@usdoj.gov
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): One of the two oversight agencies that determined Tetra Tech EC’s work was unreliable and ordered the Navy to restart the investigation. The EPA co-supervises the ongoing Hunters Point cleanup and sets the radiological action levels Tetra Tech EC allegedly violated.
• California Department of Public Health (CADPH): The state-level agency that, alongside the EPA, reviewed Tetra Tech EC’s work and found it insufficient. CADPH has ongoing authority over public health standards at California Superfund sites.
• U.S. Department of the Navy (DON), BRAC Program Management Office West: The client agency that hired Tetra Tech EC and is the lead cleanup agency for Hunters Point. Contact: Anthony Megliola, Director, 33000 Nixie Way, Building 50, San Diego, CA 92147
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge James Donato: The court retains jurisdiction over enforcement of this consent decree and is presiding over all six related civil cases listed in the document. Any failure by Tetra Tech EC to pay the $40 million on schedule can be enforced directly by this court.

What You Can Actually Do

• The six civil lawsuits involving residents and community groups are still active and their plaintiffs need support. Look up the Bayview Hunters Point Residents case (Case No. 3:19-cv-01417-JD) and the Pennington case (Case No. 3:18-cv-05330-JD) on PACER (pacer.gov) to follow their progress and understand what the community is alleging in their own words.
• The consent decree was lodged for 30 days of public comment before final entry. That window may have already closed depending on when you are reading this. However, public records requests (FOIA to DOJ and DON) can surface the underlying investigation documents, sampling data, and the original Navy contracts with Tetra Tech EC that are not included in the consent decree itself.
• Bayview-Hunters Point has active community organizations with decades of history fighting environmental contamination at Hunters Point. Connecting with or donating to local environmental justice organizations in that neighborhood — particularly those working on the redevelopment pipeline and cleanup oversight — puts resources directly where the harm is concentrated.
• The False Claims Act portion of this case may produce whistleblower disclosures. The original case was filed as a qui tam action — “ex rel.” in the case title means “on behalf of” relators, which are whistleblowers Arthur R. Jahr III, Anthony Smith, and Donald K. Wadsworth. Supporting whistleblower protection organizations and legislation strengthens the legal infrastructure that made this case possible in the first place.
• If you are a San Francisco resident, your city council members and state legislators have oversight and advocacy power over both the Navy’s cleanup timeline and the redevelopment process. Demanding public hearings on the cleanup restart timeline and the impact on Bayview-Hunters Point housing development is direct democratic leverage.