Navy failed to alert San Francisco to tainted shipyard water, documents show

I remember this as I was the Environmental Director up at Northwest. We'd meet once a year at Amherst and share notes. The first transfer occurred in 2004 from what I remember. Even when transferred, the environmental tail still belongs to the Service. That's why we had to go back to Sandpoint (WA) to deal with a Radium issue related to a former luminous dial painting operation during WW2. Lead/Copper from pipes is typically caused by corrosive water. That happens when you change the source most frequently. CO-2 in the water kicks copper out, etc. Flint MI old lead pipes went sideways when they changed the source. Normally a pretreatment plant is installed upstream to get this stuff under control. I wouldn't know what other elements of that timeline were. A fix would be part of the negotiation related to the transfer. Many PUDs prefer to put their own stuff in and have BRAC pay. We've done it both ways. Even then, drinking water is tested monthly so I don't know if it was a couple spikes or persistant. The article just leaves me with many more questions vs. answers. Since I knew many of the players, the culture is to figure it out and deal with it at the field level. Hopefully politics upline didn't intervene. Had that happen too. Oh, and the high arsenic level at Boardman/Umatilla OR? Naturally occuring, hence we pushed back hard on taking liability for that one.

Are you surprised? Tyndall AFB also has massive lead poisoning issues, and plays it down...even as kids go to school on one of the major sites, and drink water from fountains in the school