The first settlement has been finalized in a web of lawsuits related to the cleanup of toxins and radioactive materials at San Francisco’s Bay View – Hunter’s Point shipyards.
Homeowners who filed the class action suit are celebrating their win, but this isn’t the end of the fight.
The $6.3 million settlement with developers Lennar and Five Point has Theo Ellington celebrating along with fellow homeowners who filed lawsuit.
“I’ve always said that the Bay View and the Shipyard is always the sunniest part of San Francisco, and today the sun is shinning a little brighter,” said Ellington.
Plaintiffs will be getting checks, anywhere from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands even though the companies involved don’t admit liability.
Attorneys representing the homeowners say this settlement is important beyond just the money.
“It’s a big victory,” explained Anne Marie Murphey, attorney at Cotchet, Petrie & McCarthy. “And I think it will have significant repercussions as the rest of the cases, including the rest of this case, moves forward through the court system.”
There are still early a dozen cases pending against the main defendant Tetra Tech, which was hired to clear out radioactive soil at the former Navy shipyard.
In 2017, two Tetra Tech employees pleaded guilty to falsifying soil samples form some cleanup site locations.
Tetra Tech has maintained that was an isolated incident by those two workers, and the rest of its cleanup effort has been legitimate and successful.
The Navy has ordered new testing of the soil by a different company.
“If you look at who lives in the shipyard, there’s families, there’s working class people who all really came together under the same call,” said Ellington, “and that’s to fight against big corporations like Lennar and Tetra Tech who need to finally own up to their wrong doings.”
NBC Bay Area reached out to Tetra Tech for comment on this settlement – which the company opposed – as well as lawsuits it sill faces, but have not heard back.
Source: NBC Bay Area
Be First to Comment