Critique by the Committee to Bridge the Gap of the Navy’s Draft Five-Year Review Hunters Point Naval Shipyard

Click here to read the entire critique. (PDF warning)

Pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA, also known as Superfund), the Navy is required every Five-Years to review the
protectiveness of cleanup remedies at the Hunters Point Superfund site in light of current
information and knowledge. At the core of this requirement is the recognition that new
developments—e.g., evolving scientific findings about toxicity, tighter modern cleanup
standards, discoveries of failures of cleanup actions taken at a site—can mandate going back and undertaking more cleanup in order to protect public health and the environment . . . .

Unfortunately, the current Five-Year Review draft is woefully deficient. The problems are not
merely inadequate and/or misleading content, but a failure to consider key matters that should be critical parts of such a Review. The deficiencies are thus not just with what it says, but what it
doesn’t. As is often the case, the key is the “dog that didn’t bark.” We discuss these problems
below, and urge that the Review be completely redone and reissued for public comment.