A federal judge ruled that Navy contractor Tetra Tech EC doesn't have to pay damages to Hunters Point homeowners, despite the shipyard cleanup remaining unfinished and two former managers going to prison for falsifying cleanup records.
US District Judge James Donato ruled Tuesday that Navy contractor Tetra Tech EC cannot be held liable for the economic losses of the more than 300 Hunters Point homeowners' at Parcel A — the only completed residential section of the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment — stemming from the botched radiological cleanup of the former shipyard, as the Chronicle reports.
The decision comes despite years of allegations that radiological cleanup work at the former shipyard was falsified, the imprisonment of two former Tetra Tech EC managers over fraudulent soil testing, and an unfinished cleanup that continues today.
According to the Chronicle, Donato found that the federal Price-Anderson Act bars homeowners' claims against Tetra Tech, as the law only allows lawsuits for bodily injury caused by radiation and not claims seeking damages for economic losses, including diminished property values.
The homeowners argued Tetra Tech EC should be held responsible for the decline in their property values and the uncertainty surrounding homes built after the cleanup. Their attorney, Anne Marie Murphy, argued the law was never intended to shield contractors accused of carrying out a fraudulent cleanup.
“It's tragic — there are 300-plus families that have been injured very concretely by the Tetra Tech fraud as alleged in the complaint,” said Murphy, speaking to the Chronicle.
Murphy also argued that the Price-Anderson Act “is designed for a Three Mile Island incident or Chernobyl — not a fraudulent cleanup.”
The lawsuit followed years of revelations surrounding the Navy's cleanup of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, where Tetra Tech EC performed radiological remediation work between 2003 and 2014 under Navy contract. The former base housed the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, where ships exposed to atomic weapons testing were decontaminated after World War II, leaving behind radioactive and industrial contamination that placed the property on the EPA's Superfund list.
NBC Bay Area first revealed in 2014 that the Navy had discovered soil sample irregularities two years earlier. Former radiation control technician Anthony Smith later alleged that supervisors instructed workers to replace contaminated soil samples with clean ones. As Curbed SF reported in 2018, the Navy concluded after reviewing more than a decade of cleanup records that roughly 48% of Tetra Tech EC's radiological data was either suspect or showed evidence of potential manipulation. A letter from the EPA later questioned as much as 90% to 97% of the data in parts of the shipyard.
The scandal ultimately led to criminal convictions in 2018 for former Tetra Tech EC supervisors Stephen Rolfe and Justin Hubbard, who admitted to substituting clean soil for contaminated samples and falsifying records so contaminated areas would appear to pass federal testing requirements, according to Engineering News-Record West. Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison by Judge Donato, who also issued Tuesday's ruling in the homeowners' civil case.
Planned construction on additional housing remained on hold while the Navy conducted new testing, and in 2019, watchdog groups accused the agency of covering contaminated areas with clean soil and asphalt rather than fully removing radioactive material, allegations the Navy disputed.
The legal fallout then unfolded on multiple fronts. In 2022, developers Lennar and FivePoint Holdings agreed to pay $6.3 million to settle homeowners' claims alleging they failed to adequately disclose contamination concerns and cleanup problems before selling more than 300 homes on Parcel A. The settlement resolved claims against the developers without admissions of wrongdoing.
As ENR West reported in 2025, Tetra Tech EC agreed to pay $97 million to settle civil claims brought by the US Department of Justice under the False Claims Act and the federal Superfund law. Federal authorities alleged the company improperly disposed of contaminated soil and misrepresented soil samples submitted for testing. Tetra Tech EC said it entered into the settlement to avoid prolonged litigation and did not admit liability. The agreement also did not resolve the homeowners' separate lawsuit.
Meanwhile, cleanup work at the shipyard remains ongoing. According to a Navy progress report from 2024, per ENR West, crews were continuing to verify earlier radiological remediation work, address mercury contamination in groundwater, investigate additional chemical contaminants, and evaluate radioactive objects discovered in areas that were not previously believed to require radiological cleanup. The Navy and EPA also announced plans that year to excavate and remediate contaminated soil on another parcel while cleaning contaminated sediment along the shoreline.
As Local News Matters reported last month, those efforts have done little to reassure many Bayview-Hunters Point residents and environmental justice advocates, who argue the cleanup remains incomplete and should be independently verified before additional redevelopment proceeds. Following the discovery of radioactive materials inside a cabinet at the shipyard earlier this year, Greenaction for Health & Environmental Justice and the Marie Harrison Community Foundation called for community-supervised retesting and independent experts to evaluate the remaining contamination.
Residents also described generations of illnesses they believe are linked to pollution surrounding the shipyard, including asthma, cancer and other chronic health conditions, while urging Mayor Daniel Lurie and other officials to support independent testing and greater community oversight as the Navy continues work at the site.
Previously: $6.3 Million Settlement Awarded to Hunters Point Homeowners Over Toxic Waste
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