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)

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 in the comment, and urge that the Review be completely redone and reissued for public comment.