Restoration Advisory Board – Alameda Point Environmental Report

Navy recruiting volunteers for Alameda Point cleanup board

The Navy is seeking new members to serve on its volunteer Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), which reviews and comments on environmental cleanup of the former Navy base. The Navy is also conducting an online community survey to better understand the interests and concerns about the environmental cleanup at the base.

Despite all the new construction at Alameda Point, there are still a variety of cleanup issues for the Navy and regulators to address. Some issues are new, some involve the long-term monitoring of sites that maxed out the active remediation methods and now rely on natural biological degradation of the remaining contaminant. And sometimes ongoing monitoring results show that the remediation has not sufficiently reduced a contaminant. This leads to follow-up work plans, which are vetted by the RAB.

Environmental cleanup meeting tonight

Presentation will feature history of radiological cleanup

The Navy will make a presentation on the status of its radiological investigation and cleanup at the next Alameda Point Restoration Advisory Board meeting, which will be held Thursday, March 22, 2018. The meeting is open to the public and begins at 6:30 p.m. in the second floor meeting room at 950 W. Mall Square on Alameda Point.

Multiple sites became contaminated with paint waste that contained radium-226, an element used in making aircraft dials glow in the dark.

Navy contractor scanning for radiation in Building 5 hangar. Navy photo.

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Restoration Advisory Board Responds to Navy’s Meeting Cutbacks

At the October 2011 Alameda Point Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) meeting, the Navy announced that Alameda Point’s monthly RAB meetings would be reduced to quarterly meetings due to budget cutbacks. The Navy said it would welcome a written response from the RAB on how the Navy might continue to carry out its responsibilities for community dialogue during difficult budgetary times.

On February 22, 2012, the RAB sent a letter to the Navy’s Environmental Coordinator for Alameda Point cleanup, Derek Robinson. The letter cited the magnitude of the cleanup effort at Alameda Point – 25 percent of the Navy’s nationwide cleanup budget in Fiscal Year 2011 – as justification for having more than four meetings per year. The RAB offered a reasonable compromise schedule that would add two meetings, bringing the total number of meetings this year to six. The Navy has already indicated that it would continue to host its annual tour of cleanup sites at Alameda Point, which would be in addition to the six meetings being proposed by the RAB.

The RAB also suggested having more than one cleanup site presentation at a meeting in order to make more efficient use of the Navy’s time and money spent on hosting the meetings. In past years, multiple presentations were made at meetings, but this practice ended because of the Navy’s concern that the meetings were too long and community members in attendance would leave before the end.

The complete letter is here.