Judge rules Navy contractor owes no payout in Hunters Point cleanup suit

A federal judge ruled on Aug. 5 that Tetra Tech EC does not have to pay Hunters Point residents in a toxic cleanup suit, a setback for Bayview-Hunters Point homeowners who have spent years arguing that the former shipyard’s radiological cleanup left them with damaged property and shaken trust. The case has centered on claims that fraudulent cleanup work at Hunters Point Shipyard harmed hundreds of nearby residents and left parts of the neighborhood carrying the burden of contamination without compensation.

The ruling followed an earlier federal decision in a related homeowners’ case in which Judge James Donato granted summary judgment to Tetra Tech EC. Donato said the claims fell under the Price-Anderson framework, the federal law that governs certain nuclear-related disputes. In plain terms, that legal structure narrowed the homeowners’ path to damages and kept the case inside a federal system built for radiation claims rather than a broader neighborhood injury lawsuit.

The battle over Hunters Point has stretched back years. In 2018, residents filed a $27 billion class action against the Navy contractor. Later that year, the U.S. Department of Justice joined lawsuits against Tetra Tech EC over the mishandled cleanup. Two former managers went to prison for falsifying cleanup records, a fact that has only deepened skepticism in Bayview-Hunters Point about whether the site was ever handled honestly.

The consequences reach well beyond one courtroom loss. Residential development at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been largely on hold since 2018, leaving promises of housing and revitalization tied to unresolved questions about safety and oversight. Separate litigation has also continued to pressure the cleanup itself: Berkeley Law’s Environmental Law Clinic filed suit on June 28, 2024, on behalf of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice against the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the Hunters Point Superfund cleanup.

For residents living near the shipyard, the ruling reinforced a long-running reality: the fight over accountability, health risks and redevelopment is still being decided through the courts, and the neighborhood is still waiting for answers that match the scale of the harm it says it has endured.