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A contractor hired for a radiation clean-up project at a former shipyard in San Francisco has agreed to pay $97m after a 12-year legal battle. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Tetra Tech EC was hired 20 years ago to remediate a former shipyard at Hunters Point, near the city’s Mission District. A federal case began in 2013 after whistleblowers alleged that Tetra Tech EC misrepresented the source of soil samples it submitted for radiological testing and also falsified data collected from radiological surveys. The company, a subsidiary of engineer Tetra Tech Inc, will pay $57m to settle allegations brought under the False Claims Act and $40m for claims brought under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. A spokesperson for the contractor told the San Francisco Chronicle that the settlement did not admit liability. Tetra Tech EC previously denied wrongdoing and blamed the cleanup problems on rogue employees. In 2018, two of the company’s supervisors were imprisoned after pleading guilty to fraud charges. According to the SEC filing, the company will pay the settlement with “cash on hand” and by “drawing on its credit facility”. The settlement will now be assessed for adequacy and fairness by the judge presiding over the case, followed by a 30-day public comment period. The contamination at Hunters Point shipyard began in the 1940s after it dealt with ships contaminated by fallout from atomic bomb tests in the Pacific. The site will eventually be converted into prime bayfront real estate, but plans to develop 10,500 homes there have been delayed by the failure to remediate the site. The Navy has previously estimated that the financial consequences of the inadequate soil treatment could be as high as $570m. Tetra Tech EC is still involved in a number of legal cases relating to the project. |
