Treasure Island cleanup exposes Navy’s mishandling of its nuclear past

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By Matt Smith, Katharine Mieszkowski, The Center for Investigative Reporting, February 24, 2014 . Published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

“And by then, hundreds of San Franciscans were living in modest townhouses on Treasure Island and neighboring Yerba Buena Island–with the Navy’s assurances that doing so was perfectly safe.

Then, the sensor needle hopped.

“We picked up readings from inside the truck, without even getting out of the vehicle,” said McLean, speaking publicly about his discovery for the first time. That first detection was not the last.
“We found radiation, contaminated materials, in playgrounds and in areas that had previously been playgrounds,” said McLean, 52, who lives in North Carolina. “We found it in front yards. We found it underneath sidewalks and along the roadways.”