I will be adding content to this as there are many training manuals and I will provide links to those online. I have to go through all ofthem. Here are some relating directly to Treasure Island, indicated in the documents.
Photographed on Treasure Island. Notice the Marine Headlands in the background and Alcatraz Island. This is near the Arsenic bubble that the Navy had to clean up , it would be in this picture behind and to the right and right next to the mock up ship the USS Pandemonium.
GB is Sarin Gas VX is a Nerve agent Mustard Gas burns the skin, lungs, eyes etc U is Uranium Pu is Plutonium Cs is Cesium 137
Background on Joint training and the manuals
The Training at Treasure Island referred to in this Environmental Impact Statement for the creation of a new Chemical Biological and Radiological School which also includes the Environmental impact of a school. The entire book is an instruction manual on the use of Mustard, Sarin and VX Nerve Gas well as biological aand radiological training with step by step instructions.
This has been consistent in all training manuals, they encompass all sites with the training usually at Edgewood Arsenal, Treasure Island and Fort McClelland as shown below from the 1952 Chemical Warfare Defense manual cites those three sites for same training manuals, I will cite more below. Fort McClelland temporarily took over from Treasure Island from 1967 to the early 1970s when they moved the training devices and mock ups from the west side of the island under the present day housing to the north east side of the island.
Lists of chemicals including Formaldhyde using in Biological Warfare Defense Training Manual 1953 below
The Navy forgot to mention to the CDC and the NIH its use of Formaldhyde in Biological Warfare Training at Treasure Island and allowed these people to be harmed. The NIH investigated why these people were showing signs of Fomaldehyde Poisoning, but instead of evacuating everyone the Navy decided to COVER IT UP!
The training manual Biological Warfare Defense 1953 used on Treasure Island details the use of these toxic chemicals in the cleaning up of biological contamination at the Chemical Warfare School on Treasure Island.
As you can see the trainers would purposely infect vehicles for Atomic, Biological and Radiological Defense and this was the method used for Biological Training decontamination. For Chemical and Radiological decontamination they were dressed in chemical suits and washed the contaminents directly off of the vehicles and equipment and that is why this tiny Navy Base had several bus painting facilities to decontaminate and repaint the equipment for reuse in training.
ABC Warfare Defense 1960, 1963ABC Warfare Defense 1960, 1963 Field Gun at Treasure Iland being decontaminated. That’s Alcatraz and the Marine Headlines in the background.
PDF report: Health hazard evaluation report: HETA-82-176-1236, U. S. Customs Service, Patrol Division Office, Treasure Island, San Francisco, California Worker exposures to formaldehyde (50000) were investigated on April 21, 1982 at the United States Customs Service Patrol Division Office (SIC-9999) at Treasure Island, San Francisco, California. The evaluation was requested by the National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 165, on behalf of eight workers who complained of eye, nose and throat irritation. Area air samples were analyzed, and employees were questioned about medical symptoms. Air samples contained 0.15 to 0.23 parts per million of formaldehyde. NIOSH recommends that formaldehyde exposures be kept to the lowest feasible limit. The workers reported eye and respiratory irritation, cough, chest tightness, headache, nausea, and fatigue. The authors conclude that formaldehyde exposure hazard exists at this work site. They recommend improvement of the ventilation system.
From 1970 onwards the Navy used short lived Isotopes that they would paint onto surfaces of a mock up of a training ship the USS Pandemonium where they washed it off and scrubbed it off the ship into the Bay. Here is the training from United States. Army. U.S. Army Nuclear, Biological And Chemical School (AL,MD): Environmental Impact Statement. , 1979. We know it was done at Treasure Island because it says so in this text. We also know this because the training manuals including the 1960 and 1963 “ABC Warfare Defense” Training Manual (Atomic, Biological and Chemical) were photographed on Treasure Island. This is a photograph of the training with Alcatraz and the Marin Headlands in the background.
Note this training was regularly and continuously conducted as they had to train members of all branches of the military. Schedules can be found in navy publications of the times from 1947onwards for ABC Training.
You can see Alcatraz and the Marin Headlands in the background.
RADIOLOGICAL AFFAIRS SUPPORT OFFICE REPORT OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE VISIT TO NAVAL SCHOOLS COMMAND, TREASURE ISLAND, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 15 APRIL 1974RADIOLOGICAL AFFAIRS SUPPORT OFFICE REPORT OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE VISIT TO NAVAL SCHOOLS COMMAND, TREASURE ISLAND, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 15 APRIL 1974
Note the number of miscellaneous radioluminescent devices, held in a plastic bag were utilized as check sources were radium dials and radium foils that were found buried all around the original location of the USS Pandemonium which is under the housing at Treasure Island. See this article on the amounts of radiation dug up exposing the residents to over 90 REMS of nuclear radiation each year with one object that radiated 30 REMS a year found in 2021.
Dear Ms. Linz: Can you send this to the meeting members The Naval Research Laboratory conducted tests using mustard gas at Treasure Island to test the use of Decontamination Solution 2 versus DANC to be used in chemical warfare training on all navy bases. Mustard Gas was plentiful because the Navy was conducting chemical warfare training at Treasure Island.
DANC is tetrachloroethane and RH195 powder which is a very concentrated form of Chlorine. The Navy at the time used the TCE for the tetrachloroethane when today we use it for Trichloroethylene which are both toxic in parts per million. They mixed 25 gallons at a time in metal garbage cans and dumped it directly onto the ground.
These photographs are from that article and their references are linked.
The training manual ABC Warfare Defense 1960 and 1963 were photographed on Treasure Island. You can see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands in the background of the decontamination of the field gun photograph.
DS2 is 70 Percent Diethylenetriamine (DETA 28-percent methyl Cellosolve 2-percent sodium hydroxide by weight, also known as Lye or Caustic Soda.
DS2 was also dumped all over the ground and used on trucks, field guns, and the first USS Pandemonium which was located on Gateway Avenue right about where Kevin Elizabeth Kempf lives.
DS2 was so corrosive it required the repainting of the guns, trucks and vehicles used in the training , hence the need for auto hobby shops and bus painting facilities to repaint them for the next set of students. Later just painting over the vehicles was a way to contain the contamination but this presents a serious problem, what happened to those vehicles?
I have been going through the Navy reports starting with Operation Crossroads where on December 10, 1946 the Navy admitted to dumping radioactive sand from sand blasting and the radioactive acid from cleaning the pipes of the ships contaminated at the nuclear test at Bikini Atoll directly into San Francisco Bay and the order was given for all bays and harbors on the west coast and the Pacific making sure to not inform the barges that the content was radioactive so as to not cause a panic and in the process exposed the ecosystem to the contaminants directly.
So you see you should be looking for more chemicals and radiation in the Bay and on Treasure Island. The Army did it right and published their decontamination of the Edgewood Arsenal that also conducted the same training. You can learn from them! They did this with the EPA.
DTSC says that Treasure Island is unique for people living on a radiation site. It is unique to the DTSC but the EPA has 40 years of experience cleaning up nuclear radiation with people living on the site and you know what they did, they evacuated them!
I have been documenting the USNRDL technical reports where they were charged with decontamination of radiation in live fire incidents where the Navy purposely contaminated areas in Hunters Point Shipyard, Treasure Island, San Bruno and Camp Stoneman (Pittsburg CA) and Camp Parks (Dublin CA). The reports span the foundation of the lab all the way up to the late 1960s when the shipyard was determining the effect of sea water at depth on the SNAP portable nuclear reactors which were used in spacecraft (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo as well as satellites) and since the Navy was testing them at depth I am guessing sonar buoys?
Quite frankly I cannot see how you can justify placing people onto these sites.
There is a list of chemicals that were listed on site T117 in the Baseline report from 1994 and here is the link. The city placed the Treasure Island Skatepark between the Hazardous waste facility for Treasure Island when it was a base and the Radium Vault located on the other side of the building that forms the south wall of the skatepark. (between 343 and 342) You could not have picked a worse location for kids and young adults.
Your contractors who are sampling the locations need to know that this history has taken place and adjust their sampling methods to search for this contamination and to warn them for their own personal safety of the types of contaminants present. One thing that needs to be said, and that is the people on the ground who are cleaning this up and the TIDA Members, the Navy, the staff and officials at City Hall, anyone who has stepped foot on these bases has been contaminated. It is not just the residents. So for your own health you need to investigate further before you subject 20000 more people to the contamination.
Building 458 is on the same block as the Radium Vault, the location where Treasure Island stored its nuclear materials from the Atomic Energy Commission and then later by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The materials were first sent to Fort Mason and the Military Sea Transport Service took them by ship to Treasure Island because you cannot move munitions over the Bay Bridge. So all of the area around Fort Mason needs to be evaluated by the EPA for not only nuclear radiation but chemical compounds as this fort was used in world war II to ship out material and personnel.
San Francisco has many bases that were used in World War II including the Damage Control School which was located at 21st street and Folsom Avenue in the Mission District.
The Navy has denied that any radiological activity took place on Treasure Island even when they have found 60 Rems per year of Radium from the top 10 inches of soil under the public housing on the site and just recently in May 2021 they found another 30 REMS per year of nuclear radiation under the public housing on the site. They originally made these claims while the Radiological School was still in operation on the Island, so there is no excuse, THEY LIED and the politicians have used this lie to perpetrate a fraud on the people of San Francisco, leaving them holding the bag for the cleanup.!
This report resides in multiple PDF files on the Envirostor Database and so there will be many links and it is the denial that was used to whitewash the 1995 report to deny any radiological activity but in the fine print it says the direct opposite, citing dumping of radioactive waste on the site where two examples are listed below and other references to the radiation can be found using a simple search of the documents.
The Paper Trail – the following is a list of people and their correspondence who made the false statement in the report that here was no radioactive materials buried on the island.
“Radioactive Materials/Mixed Wastes. File information was reviewed to identify parcels where radioactive materials/mixed wastes were stored and the period of time they were stored. EFA WEST also provided information to ERM-West regarding radiological activities for all of the parcels on Treasure and Yerba Buena Islands. This information was obtained through the Naval Sea Systems Command Detachment, Radiological Affairs Support Office (RASO). A description of the material was included in the database.”
This is the letter that DTSC uses to claim no radiation at the site. This paragraph is in reference to a chart of each building and areas defined in the map (above) found at the beginning of the document that broke up Treasure Island into 120 separate areas and another 26 on YBI and this chart has no indication of radiation, no checkmarks in the radiation tab for each site. Why would they have it as an item if there are no checkmarks on it anywhere unless the report was censored?
There are other references to the USS Pandemonium and radiological training on Treasure Island in this overall baseline report. Again I want to emphasize that the reports conclusions do not match up with the content in the document.
Note T102 is the location of the first USS Pandemonium where they lost the Radium Needles and Radium materials (see below)
“Radioactive Materials/Mixed Wastes. A check mark indicates that radioactive materials or mixed wastes are currently or were formerly used, stored, or disposed of on the parcel. This condition may preclude a parcel from being considered for CERFA-eligibility. Radiological issues were of particular concern to regulatory agencies for BRAC classification. Therefore, in addition to the review of on-site records, EFA WEST requested that RASO search for information on known and potential uses of radioactive materials at the base. RASO concurrence is required prior to nomination for CERFA, for lease, or for transfer. In a March 8, 1995, letter from Lt. Commander Heron of EFA WEST, to Mr. David Wang of DTSC, RASO concluded that there is no potential for residual contamination at NAVSTA TI (NSTI) as a result of licensed activities and no radioactive materials were disposed of on site. This conclusion from RASO applies to all parcels at NSTI and is documented in the results and bibliographic reference databases (Appendices A and B, respectively).”
The transcript is provided below. Link to the video of the meeting The proceedings of the February 8th 2021 San Francisco Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee Hearing on the Treasure Island Cleanup was censored by someone in the City of San Francisco’s Government to remove sources, change the dialogue to make content appear to be the opposite of what was intended. They censored Board of Supervisors: Myrna Melgar, Matt Haney, Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston.
My testimony on the cancer and mutations of wildlife in the Bay was censored in this hearing. They removed my sources, including the Sausalito Marine Mammal Center and they added content that was not there. I want the person who did this to face the consequences of this crime!
The question I have is how long have they been doing this and how can we trust the public record if they are censoring it!
I took the hearing transcript made by Investigative ReporterCarol HarveyofThe San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper which she confirmed the testimony with the parties that spoke as it was a 4 hour hearing and I compared it to the transcript the city published and it doesn’t match up. The city transcript does not match the video.
The deleted content will be strikethroughs and the added content by the censor will be in blue with square brackets around that text []. There is a lot of bad spelling in the censored transcript and content was added to change sentence structure and so when all of a sudden the censor decided to start a new narrative other than the one presented in the actual hearing, I noted the words changed, so if you see for example “word [Word]” the censor decided to start a new sentence where there was none. The background white text is the transcript by Carol Harvey of the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper.
Treasure Island was an EPA site for RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) (RCRA) Laws and Regulations for Hazardous Waste and this report from 1991 states it was listed on 2/12/1988. I have the full text of the report below with a table indicating that Treasure Island was a separate and distinct EPA site from “Treasure Island, Hunters Point Annex” and the Shipyard was still yet another EPA site. Then you add in Yerba Buena Island, the coast guard station was also added to that list of distinct sites.
Enclosed in this text of the “Fact Sheet Federal Agency Hazardous Waste Compliance Docket” 1991 from the EPA. This EPA report includes a cover sheet, the EPA Fact Sheet, the Federal Register report and an EPA spreadsheet showing over 1600 government owned sites that were placed on this list. To see the full spreadsheet you will need to download the report. I will include Bay Area and other related sites in a table at the end of this document.
The listing required certain reports to be made within 18 months for the EPA once a site is placed on this list and this is a link to that report which does not mention the fact that this site was the Navy’s (ABC) Atomic, Biological and Chemical Training Center which was still in operation on the site when they made the report and continued up to the closing of the base! Here is the report:
FINAL PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT/SITE INSPECTION (PA/SI) NAVAL STATION, TREASURE ISLAND, CALIFORNIA UIC: N60028 Prepared by: Dames & Moore San Francisco, California Contract No. N62474-85-C-3385 PA/SI Team Members Ann M. Becker, Team Leader, Engineer Carol L. Creasey, Hydrogeologist James G. Ritchie, Geologist Dale D. Shileikis, Biologist William H. Welsh, Engineer Naval Energy and Environmental Support Activity Project Manager Ronald E. Tickle Prepared For: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DEPARTMENT CODE 112E Naval Energy and Environmental Support Activity Port Hueneme, California 94043 April 1988
The Navy lied and covered up their contamination of the island in 1988. All of the activity since then is all based on their cover up. Port Huemene (which also has ABC warfare contaminated sites which I list below) which compiled this report is directly implicated in radiological tests on locations throughout the Bay Area and at Test Sites with the US Navy’s Radiological Defense Laboratory and so the Navy chose the Foxes to guard the Hen House!
The US Navy’s training publication, “Naval Training Bulletin” regularly published articles and schedules of Atomic Biological and Chemical Training at Treasure Island and I have compiled a Chronological listing of the contamination starting in 1946 and it is at my Chronology Page which can be accessed at the top of this blog or here.
Note the Biological warfare test in 1950 which they filmed to turn the test into a training film where they purposely contaminated the 116 square Miles of the city of San Francisco, the Bay and on into Oakland. In the film you see the minesweeper based at Treasure Island spraying the bacteria outside of the Golden Gate to be carried by the winds, where it hospitalized 12 people and killed one. The Bacterium was thought to be harmless when exposed to 18 year old recruits but it turned out to be a disease that causes cancer. The Navy has been continuously damaging the immune systems of the people of San Francisco since 1946.
The ABC Warfare Defense Training Manual from 1960 and 1963 was photographed at Treasure Island, and the pictures are here in this article. The 1963 version is online at https://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435011833688
In 1964, the USNRDL, the US Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory based at Hunters point Shipyard conducted a chemical warfare test at Treasure Island to see how effective a new cleaning agent DS2, Decontamination Solution 2 was in cleaning up Mustard Gas as compared to DANC. Treasure Island had mustard gas on hand to test. This photograph shows a mechanized gun being cleaned of Mustard Gas with the first USS Pandemonium training mock up ship in the background. Today houses are located on that site! TI-The Smoking Gun – Chemical Warfare test at Treasure Island Navy evaluates methods use to clean up Mustard Gas
5 inch Gun at Treasure Island California used for chemical training. Note the USS pandemonium in the background looking east by southeast. p 15, The gun mount is shown in Fig. 8.” Page 15, Field Decontamination Studies with Chemical Warfare Decontaminating Solution D52 https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/612665.pdf
And here is a direct link to that report: https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/612665.pdf DS2 solution was banned by the Navy in 1986 because it is almost as bad as the chemical warfare agents, it kills life on contact. This means that all Navy Bases and all ships used this substance since the training on Treasure Island was to train people to conduct this training on their bases and ships.
Note that Lewisite is a chemical weapon made of arsenic and acetylene which is an oil substance and the arsenic bubble detailed in the February 8 2021 San Francisco Board of Supervisors Meeting is located just downstream from the Original USS Pandemonium that was located where public housing is today. Lewisite is used with Mustard Gas as a combined chemical weapon and we know Mustard Gas was used at this location, where buildings 1311 and 1313 were located. There are two culverts that were used to collect the run off next to the sea barrier.
ABC Warfare Defense Training Manual from 1960 and 1963, USS Pandemonium Treasure Island ABC Warfare Defense Training Manual from 1960 and 1963 USS Pandemonium Treasure Island
Oh and if someone at the Board of Supervisors can explain who authorized the permit to harass and kill Marine Mammals: Gray Whales, Humpback Whales, Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, Harbor Porpoise, Northern Elephant Seals, and Northern Fur Seals, including Gray Whales to put in the Ferry Pier at Treasure Island, that would be helpful! The city of San Francisco featured in the movie “Star Trek Voyage Home,” has become the Whalers! TI- City of San Francisco application to Harass and Kill take Marine Mammals to build Ferry Pier on Treasure Island
The Navy covered up the Atomic Biological and Chemical Training at TI. Their willful actions have killed people. The City must evacuate all people from the island and seek JUSTICE!
The Document:
Date: 01/10/92
FEDERAL AGENCY HAZARDOUS WASTE COMPLIANCE DOCKET UPDATE #5 Listing by Region
Treasure Island California 