SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Calling the lawsuit “a mess,” a federal judge on Thursday said he would likely dismiss claims that the U.S. Navy and Environmental Protection Agency mismanaged radioactive waste cleanup at Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco.
Among other issues, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said the environmental group behind the case improperly organized its claims in the suit, including listing what he viewed as multiple claims under the banner of a singular one.
Despite his harsh words for the plaintiff, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, the judge conceded he would let the group amend its lawsuit.
“I think that what I’m going to recommend is that they just go back to the drawing board after this discussion, because there are so many problems with the complaint that they filed,” the judge told attorneys at a motion hearing.
Greenaction, a grassroots environmental group in San Francisco, claims in its lawsuit that the EPA has failed to enforce its Hunter’s Point cleanup agreement with California and the Navy, violating the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, the National Contingency Plan and other laws.
At Thursday’s hearing, Chhabria picked apart several of Greenaction’s claims, further questioning the organization of the lawsuit.
“Why do you need to bring a claim they are violating EPA guidances when presumably you can already bring that under CERCLA?” he asked.
“The concern at the time we were drafting it was that we might lose on some other causes of action, but we might win on guidance,” Steven Castleman of the UC Berkeley Law School Environmental Law Clinic, who represented Greenaction, told the judge.
Meanwhile, the Navy argued that it was too early to bring many of the claims against it, stating it was currently working to address radiation concerns at the shipyard as part of its re-testing agreement. It claimed that the court couldn’t adequately determine whether an injury had occurred until the Navy completed its work because the Navy might address that injury before it finishes the work in 2028.
“The Navy and EPA should be allowed to finish their work and make a final decision on the scope of retesting before this court gets involved,” David Domagala Mitchell of the United States Department of Justice, who represented the Navy, said.
When Chhabria asked why the Navy couldn’t just re-test 100% of the site for radiation, Mitchell called the idea a “major” and “expensive” endeavor.
Between 1945 and 1974, the Navy operated Hunter’s Point in the city’s Bayview neighborhood. The site was home to radiation experiments from 1946 to 1969. Ships returning from hydrogen bomb tests were also decontaminated there, furthering the risk of radioactive contamination.
The EPA oversees the Navy’s cleanup efforts of the site, which is being redeveloped for housing. Greenaction claims the Navy has missed key deadlines to review work plans, and seeks to force the military branch to honor a 2018 agreement to re-test approximately one-third of the site previously decontaminated by its former contractor, Tetra Tech EC.
In 2018 the federal government sued Tetra Tech after whistleblowers accused the contractor of falsifying soil tests that were supposed to verify the decontamination of a 400-acre site where more than 10,000 homes are slated to be built — one of the largest redevelopment projects in San Francisco history.
Greenaction filed its first amended complaint in October 2024. The Navy filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit one month later.
On Thursday, Chhabria expressed a desire to move quickly for the benefit of those living in the area.
“This is a site that is contaminated with radiation and has caused devastation in the Hunter’s Point-Bayview community. And there is an obligation on the part of the federal government to clean it up,” the judge said.
At the end of the hearing, the judge admonished Greenaction for its drafting of the lawsuit.
“Let me be candid with you: You need to learn how to draft a complaint,” he told Castleman, adding that Greenaction may need to get more help with the case.
The judge did not indicate when he would issue a ruling.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the hearing.
Attorneys for Greenaction did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
The motion hearing took place at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in San Francisco, California.