Judge dismisses Treasure Island environmental lawsuit

A federal judge has tossed out a class-action lawsuit by residents of Treasure Island seeking an injunction against new development and $2 billion in damages for toxic contamination.

U.S. District Judge James Donato dismissed the suit, filed two years ago and amended three times, saying it didn’t meet precedent for “violation of bodily integrity,” the San Francisco Business Times reported.

He also said plaintiffs’ lawyers had failed to properly serve defendants in the case.

Construction has already begun on the more than 8,000 homes planned for Treasure Island and nearby Yerba Buena Island in a $6 billion redevelopment project by Lennar, Wilson Meany and Stockbridge Capital.

The 400-acre Treasure Island is a former U.S. Navy site for air operations and a training center for radioactive decontamination in San Francisco Bay, and was a dumping ground for radioactive and toxic materials.

The Navy vacated the man-made island in 1997 after an agreement with San Francisco to allow civilians to move onto the former naval station. It’s now home to 2,000 residents, 42 percent of whom earn less than $50,000 a year, and a majority of whom are people of color.

The initial complaint alleged that the Navy didn’t properly assess levels of cesium-137, a fission byproduct, in soil samples dating back to the 1970s. Residents, many who were once homeless, claimed injuries from cancer to heart failure as a result.

Initial defendants included Lennar and its offshoot, Five Point Holdings, and two Navy contractors involved in the island’s $297 million cleanup, Tetra Tech E.C. and Shaw Environmental.

The lawsuit later added several Navy liaisons, property management firm John Stewart Company, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, and the city’s Treasure Island Development Authority, Department of Public Health and a Treasure Island Homeless Development Initiative.

But the judge ruled that in the 14 months since the filing was last amended, none of the new defendants added had been served.

He also dismissed a prior amended complaint because the allegations were “so vague and perfunctory that they give defendants ‘little idea where to begin’ in preparing a response.”

Donato said the plaintiffs would not be granted a “fifth opportunity to make a viable claim,” but would have until Sept. 12 to submit a statement “demonstrating good cause for the failure to serve” the new defendants to prevent the case from being closed.

A development authority official told the Business Times that 70 percent of Treasure Island had been cleaned up and turned over to the city. He said eight buildings were poised to obtain construction permits for 1,200 apartment units, to be completed by 2024.

Developers have spent five years building infrastructure for 8,000 housing units and 140,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, plus offices, schools, hotels, entertainment venues and 300 acres of parks to serve as many as 20,000 people on Treasure Island.

— Dana Bartholomew