“Treasure Island was presented as the “Magic Isle” at the 1939 World’s Fair, an idyllic, futuristic and man-made fantasyland to be used as a military airport. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, the island was relinquished to the U.S. Navy, which used the island as a training site during World War II. After the end of the war the Navy remained, using the island as a radiological decontamination site. According to Reuters, which conducted an investigation into the legacy of toxic waste on the island, soldiers were trained to scrub clean mock ships containing pouches of radioactive material.
Class action lawsuits against Treasure Island authorities have been filed in the past. In 2011, a number of residents including Patterson, in collaboration with San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin, attempted to file suit under the California Environmental Quality Act to halt redevelopment plans. Eight years later, the Washington, D.C. nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility followed; however, both suits failed.”
