Just when you thought it was safe to re-develop the old Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard into a mix of commercial and residential property, the old issue of radioactive waste comes bubbling to the surface.
The shipyard, besides a toxic soup of chemicals buried and dumped within its confines, was the site where ships from the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll were decontaminated, and also played a role in shipping "Little Boy" on its tragic trip to Japan.
And the new wrinkle to the disaster scenarios painted by activists is that it also lies only barely above the level of San Francisco Bay, which could rise considerably in the coming decades.
Gild the lily with the threat of the sandy soul liquefying in an earthquake on any of the nearby faults, and you have a disaster scenario sure to break any real-estate developer's public relations resolve if the economy hadn't already broken the accountant.
Yet Lennar, the company that so eagerly wants to develop the parcel and enjoys support from city agencies and politicians, persists.
Good luck with that, guys.
Photo by Patrick Boury.
Jackson West wonders if superfund sites shouldn't be left fallow as de facto nature preserves like Chernobyl.
Could Redeveloped Shipyard Melt Into Toxic Swamp?
Rising sea levels add to the danger surrounding the radioactive issue of Hunter's Point redevelopment
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