Alameda Sun – Radioactive Waste at Base

Written by Marc E. Albert Published: Friday, 28 September 2007
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Radioactive contamination at the former Naval Air Station Alameda is so extensive that some areas remain off limits and parts of the sewage system might be contaminated with radioactive material, according to a U.S. Navy report. Most of the affected sewers empty directly into Seaplane Lagoon and the San Francisco Bay.
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Members of a local school’s baseball team jog through the former Alameda Naval Air Station Tuesday, past building 400, a site contaminated with radium that also once stored depleted uranium.

Photo by Joe Mariscal

Radioactive contamination at the former Naval Air Station Alameda is so extensive that some areas remain off limits and parts of the sewage system might be contaminated with radioactive material, according to a U.S. Navy report. Most of the affected sewers empty directly into Seaplane Lagoon and the San Francisco Bay.

“I’ve heard people refer to Seaplane Lagoon as the Navy’s toilet,” said Alameda Mayor Beverly Johnson. “I remember when the base first closed, there used to be a pier out there in the Seaplane Lagoon and I’d see people fishing off of it … it’s scary,” Johnson said. Two-thirds of sediment samples collected from Bay mud in Seaplane Lagoon showed radium contamination. One sample was recorded at seven times the normal level, according to the Navy’s report.

The report covers use of radioactive materials at the former base from 1941 to 2005. According to the report, radioactive elements including: cesium-137, plutonium-239, promethium-147, radium-226, strontium-90, thorium-232, uranium-235, depleted uranium, cobolt-60, and krypton-85 might have been used on the former base. The contamination could be long lasting; the half-life of the various elements range from 5.27 years for cobolt-60 to over 4.7 billion years for uranium-238. The Earth itself is 4.5 billion years old by comparison.

“Radium waste was disposed of in the storm-drain system leading from Buildings 5 and 400 and into the Seaplane Lagoon … Radium waste was also disposed of in [Installation Restoration] Site 1, 1943-1956 Disposal Area, and into IR Site 2, [also called] West Beach Landfill, which operated from 1952-1978,” notes the June report, titled Alameda Naval Air Station Historical Radiological Assessment Volume II. The report does not list estimates of the quantities of radioactive materials that were dumped or estimate how much it would cost or how long it would take to decontaminate the site.

“The problem is that standards and practices from half a century ago are far and away different from what they are today,” said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a military information Web site. “Stuff that would just get washed down the sink when Lyndon Johnson was president, these days would get classified as a national sacrifice area,” Pike said.

Cleaning up the site will take time and lots of money. “The Navy is required by state and federal law to clean it up,” Mayor Johnson said. “The question is when will they get the money to clean it up … . There are some areas where it may be many, many years before it is safe to develop,” she said. Johnson said the potential remediation costs could be staggering and might derail plans to re-develop more than what is now referred to as “phase I.” Phase I would include about 1,100 of the 1,800 housing units planned for the site. Several contaminated buildings, including buildings 5 and 400, are designated as the “mixed-use” and “civic core” areas under the redevelopment plan.

According to Johnson’s recollection, it was estimated several years ago that toxic remediation of the base would cost about $525 million. “The Navy got really offended because [the estimate] was too high, now we’re back to the Navy cleaning it up themselves and I read somewhere that they already spent $200 million.”

“In order to convey the land from the government to the public, it has to be cleaned enough to allow little children to roll in the grass,” Pike said. “It has to be as pure as the driven snow, and they don’t even let you eat snow anymore,” Pike said.

Contact Marc E. Albert at malbert@alamedasun.com