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The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was a
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are shipbuilding, built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes m ...
in
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, located on of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city. Originally, Hunters Point was a commercial shipyard established in 1870, consisting of two
graving dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...
s. It was purchased and built up in the late 19th and early 20th century by the
Union Iron Works Union Iron Works, located in San Francisco, California, on the southeast waterfront, was a central business within the large industrial zone of Potrero Point, for four decades at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. ...
company, later owned by the
Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco-based shipyard Union Iron Works. In 1917, it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuil ...
and named Hunters Point Drydocks, located at Potrero Point. Known as "The World's Greatest Shipping Yard", President Theodore Roosevelt trusted his
Great White Fleet The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the group of United States Navy battleships that completed a journey around the globe from 16 December 1907, to 22 February 1909, by order of President Foreign policy of the Theodore Roosevelt ...
of battleships to be serviced at Hunters Point in 1907 according to historical records. The shipyard was purchased by the Navy in 1940, a year before the
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...
. It began operations the next year as the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, and operated until 1974 when it was deactivated and renamed Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Used commercially for a time, in 1986 it was taken over by the Navy again as the home port of the USS ''Missouri'' battlegroup, under the name Treasure Island Naval Station Hunters Point Annex. The base was named redundant as part of the
Base Realignment and Closure Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) was a process by a Federal government of the United States, United States federal government commission to increase the efficiency of the United States Department of Defense by coordinating the realignment and ...
effort in 1991, and was closed permanently in 1994. Since then the site has been part of a
superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...
cleanup effort to remediate the remains of decades of industrial and radiological use. Parcels have been sold as they were remediated, mostly for
condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...
development.


History

The original docks were built on solid rock. In 1916 the drydocks were thought to be the largest in the world. At over 1000 feet in length, they were said to be big enough to accommodate the world's largest warships and passenger steamers. Soundings showed an offshore depth of 65 feet. During the early 20th century much of the Hunters Point shoreline was extended by
landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...
extensions into the
San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
. Between
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
and the beginning of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the Navy contracted with the private owners for the use of the docks. The docks provided deep-water facilities between
San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
and
Bremerton, Washington Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington, Kitsap County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The population was 43,505 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and an estimated 44,122 in 2021, making it the largest city ...
. The main naval base in the area was at
Mare Island Naval Shipyard The Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY or MINS) was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean and was in service 142 years from 1854 to 1996. It is located on Mare Island, northeast of San Francisco, in Vallejo, Califor ...
, but silting in the area made it only suitable for shallow-draft ships. A Congressional hearing on Pacific Coast Naval Bases was held in San Francisco in 1920 at San Francisco City Hall, wherein city representatives, Mayor Rolph, City Engineer O'Shaughnessy and others testified on behalf of permanently siting the Navy at Hunters Point.


Navy purchase

At the start of WWII the Navy recognized the need for greatly increased naval shipbuilding and repair facilities in the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
, and in 1940 acquired the property from the private owners, naming it Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. A bill that would have set aside $6 million for the purchase of the Hunters Point property from
Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003, it was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success ...
was deferred in March 1939. The property became one of the major
shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are shipbuilding, built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes m ...
s of the west coast. It was later renamed Treasure Island Naval Station Hunters Point Annex. During the 1940s, many workers moved into the area to work at this shipyard and other wartime related industries. The key fissile components of the first
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...
were loaded onto in July 1945 at Hunters Point for transfer to
Tinian Tinian () is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Together with uninhabited neighboring Aguiguan, it forms Tinian Municipality, one of the four constituent municipalities of the Northern ...
. After World War II and until 1969, the Hunters Point shipyard was the site of the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, the US military's largest facility for applied nuclear research. The yard was used after the war to decontaminate ships from
Operation Crossroads Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity on July 16, 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices sinc ...
. Because of all the testing, there is widespread radiological contamination of the site. After the war, with an influx of
blue collar A blue-collar worker is a person who performs manual labor or skilled trades. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involve manufacturing, retail, warehousing, mining, carpentry, electrical work, custodia ...
industry, the area remained a naval base and commercial shipyard. In 1947 the Hunter's Point crane completed construction at the site by the
American Bridge Company The American Bridge Company is a heavy/civil construction firm that specializes in building and renovating bridges and other large, complex structures. Founded in 1900, the company is headquartered in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsb ...
. It was the largest crane in the world, and was intended to be used to remove the turrets of
battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
s so the guns could be quickly replaced while the old set was being refurbished on land. The Hunter's Point crane succeeded ''YD-171'', better known as ''Herman the German'', as the largest crane in America. In 1959 the gantry crane was the site of Operation Skycatch, where dummy
Polaris missile The UGM-27 Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fuel rocket, solid-fueled nuclear warhead, nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). As the United States Navy's first SLBM, it served from 1961 to 1980. In the mid-1950s the Navy ...
s were fired and caught via a string of arresting cables, before being lowered to the ground for testing. Previous versions of the test had the missiles flung out into the bay and retrieved from the ocean floor. A large trapezoidal frame was erected atop the gantry crane for the
UGM-73 Poseidon The UGM-73 Poseidon missile was the second US Navy nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) system, powered by a two-stage solid-fuel rocket. It succeeded the UGM-27 Polaris beginning in 1972, bringing major advances in warheads ...
missile test facility; the structural members were lifted by Marine Boss in 1967. The addition of the frame brought the total height of the crane to nearly . The crane dominates the landscape in the area, as it is easily visible from miles around.


Pacific Reserve Fleet, Hunters Point

Pacific Reserve Fleet, Hunters Point, also called Pacific Reserve Fleet, Hunters Point Group, was a
United States Navy reserve fleet The United States Navy Caretaker (military), maintains a number of its ships as part of a reserve fleet, often called the "Mothball Fleet". While the details of the maintenance activity have changed several times, the basics are constant: keep t ...
at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The mothball fleet of World War II ships was next to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Some ships there were reactivated for the
Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
and
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
.


Navy closure

The Navy operated the yard as a repair facility until 1974, when it leased most of it to a commercial ship repair company, who used it until 1986. A copy of the planned closure list was obtained by the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
in 1973. The Hunters Point Shipyard was reactivated briefly between 1986 and 1989 as an annex to Naval Station Treasure Island. The Hunters Point Shipyard Artists (HPSA) is a community of artists who rent studios in the former U.S. naval shipyard on Hunters Point in the Bayview community of San Francisco. An artist community since 1983, the Hunters Point Shipyard is now home to more than 250 artists. In 1987, the Navy considered reopening the shipyard as the home port for the newly reactivated , which would move from
Long Beach Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...
. Rear Admiral Robert L. Toney and Mayor
Dianne Feinstein Dianne Emiel Feinstein (; June 22, 1933 – September 29, 2023) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from California from 1992 until her death in 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the 38th ...
signed an agreement that committed San Francisco to spend up to $1 million per year to maintain the infrastructure, including dredging and traffic improvements. After Feinstein was succeeded as mayor by
Art Agnos Arthur Christ Agnos (born Arthouros Agnos; September 1, 1938) is an American politician. He served as the 39th mayor of San Francisco, California from 1988 to 1992 and as the Regional Head of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Dev ...
, Agnos declared his opposition to the new home port, stating the costs would outweigh potential benefits. A referendum was held on the issue in the November 1988 general election. One proposition offered support for the Navy's plan, and another proposition, sponsored by Agnos, stated the infrastructure costs would be borne by the Navy, and 351 new civilian jobs were required to be created. Despite the passage of the proposition supporting the Navy's plan, the
Base Realignment and Closure Commission Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) was a process by a Federal government of the United States, United States federal government commission to increase the efficiency of the United States Department of Defense by coordinating the realignment and ...
(BRAC) recommended building the base for ''Missouri'' at Long Beach, San Diego, or Pearl Harbor. In 1989, the base was declared a
Superfund site Superfund sites are Pollution, polluted locations in the United States requiring a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contaminations. Sites include landfills, mines, manufacturing facilities, processing plants where toxic waste h ...
requiring long-term clean-up.


BRAC, remediation of environmental contamination, 1994

in 1994, the Navy closed the shipyard and base as part of the next round of
Base Realignment and Closure Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) was a process by a Federal government of the United States, United States federal government commission to increase the efficiency of the United States Department of Defense by coordinating the realignment and ...
recommendations. Besides
radioactive contamination Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of Radioactive decay, radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is uni ...
, Hunter's Point had a succession of coal- and oil-fired power generation facilities which left a legacy of pollution, both from smokestack effluvium and leftover byproducts that were dumped in the vicinity. The BRAC program has managed the majority of the site's numerous pollution remediation projects.


Shipyard Redevelopment

As of August 2020, the former shipyard site is still being decontaminated, and has been split into multiple parcels to allow the Navy to declare them clean and safe for redevelopment separately. While Lennar has built and sold hundreds of new condominium units on the property, regulators, activists, and cleanup workers have claimed that the site is still heavily contaminated and that
Tetra Tech Tetra Tech, Inc. is an American consulting and engineering services firm based in Pasadena, California. The company provides consulting, engineering, program management, and construction management services in the areas of water, environment, inf ...
, the company contracted to handle the cleanup and testing, has repeatedly violated established cleanup protocols, deliberately falsified radiation test results at the site to falsely show that there is little remaining radiation, and fired employees who attempted to force workers to perform radiation tests as required. According to an article published in 2017, the Navy stated that at least 386 out of the 25,000+ soil samples that have been collected over the past two decades were identified as "anomalous." New homes built on the property were set to be available to tenants in the winter of 2014/2015. The first residents began moving into homes in June 2015. In September 2016, the
United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...
(EPA) halted the transfer of additional land at Hunters Point from the Navy to the city and to real estate developers. Per a letter sent from the EPA to the Navy, the process was placed on hold until "the actual potential public exposure to radioactive material at and near" the shipyard can be "clarified."


Proposition P, 2000

In 2000, San Francisco voters passed Proposition P in a landslide, with 86% voting "yes". The proposition stated that the Navy would be responsible for cleaning up the shipyard to the highest standard. The year after the proposition passed, the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the board of supervisors, legislative body within the government of San Francisco, government of the San Francisco, City and County of San Francisco in the U.S. state of California. Government and polit ...
passed, and the mayor signed, a resolution titled "Adoption of Proposition P as Official City Policy for the Environmental Remediation of Hunters Point Shipyard." The resolution made it clear that it was the city's policy that Hunters Point "be cleaned to a level which would enable the unrestricted use of the property - the highest standard for cleanup established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency." The Navy modified its Record of Decision (ROD) for Parcel B of Hunters Point Shipyard, which weakened the cleanup standards for the parcel. Despite this, the Navy still found contamination levels higher than its cleanup standards, and in 2009 moved to rework its entire cleanup strategy for the parcel. The Navy once again amended the ROD for Parcel B, this time to change its remediation strategy from removing all contaminated soils from the parcel to installing covers in the soil as a means of suppressing the contamination. By abandoning its commitment to pursue a remediation effort based on cleanup, the Navy also abandoned its commitment to clean up Hunters Point to unrestricted residential release standards. In Parcel G the Navy followed a similar pattern of disregarding Proposition P, and therefore San Francisco city policy, by lowering cleanup standards and shifting the future land use of the area. The 2009 ROD for Parcel G outlined its future use as mostly industrial, and therefore required lower cleanup standards than a parcel set for residential use. In 2017, the Navy released an Explanation of Significant Differences for the Parcel G ROD which stated that the parcel would be zoned largely for residential use. This shift occurred without tightening the cleanup standards to a residential level; the Navy instead put "action levels" in place, which are still lower than the criteria for residential use. In Parcel C and Parcel E the Navy bypassed its commitment to a full cleanup as outlined by Proposition P, relying instead on soil covers and 'institutional controls'. Under the National Contingency Plan (NCP), which is the central regulating process for governing Superfund sites, community acceptance is one of the nine criteria for establishing cleanup requirements. The text of Proposition P and the Board of Supervisors resolution adopting it as city policy references the NCP and the community acceptance provision. The proposition and the resolution both make clear that the community is committed to the highest level of cleanup. Thus, the Navy, by refusing to establish cleanup standards that allow for unrestricted residential use, is violating federal superfund law under CERCLA and putting future residents of Hunters Point at risk.


Attempts to reinstate the RAB, 2020

In 2020, the Navy BRAC decision not to reestablish the Restoration Advisory Board was based on a limited survey return of 40 respondents, which did not match the response of over 200 petitioners who signed the community-led initiative to reestablish the RAB.
Biomonitoring In analytical chemistry, biomonitoring is the measurement of the body burden of toxic chemical compounds, elements, or their metabolites, in biological substances. Often, these measurements are done in blood and urine. Biomonitoring is performe ...
funded by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health detected
thallium Thallium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Tl and atomic number 81. It is a silvery-white post-transition metal that is not found free in nature. When isolated, thallium resembles tin, but discolors when exposed to air. Che ...
and manganese in high frequency among shipyard workers and residents.


Dry Docks


See also

* Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park *


References


External links


HUNTERS POINT NAVAL SHIPYARD CALIFORNIA EPA ID# CA1170090087
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pages on Hunters Point site.
Renaissance of the Hunters Point Shipyard
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Redevelopment Agency.

*
Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). It administers three programs established to document historic places in the United States: Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American E ...
(HAER) documentation, filed under San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA: ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** {{Authority control United States Navy shipyards Bethlehem shipyards Landmarks in San Francisco Headlands of San Francisco Historic American Engineering Record in San Francisco
Naval Shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes more involved ...
Military installations closed in 1994 Military Superfund sites 1870 establishments in California Superfund sites in California Military facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area Closed installations of the United States Navy Bayview–Hunters Point, San Francisco