'Rogue Employee' Stashed Uranium at Navy Site
Unapproved radiological items, chemicals found at Hunters Point shipyard cleanup site
By Rob Quinn withNewser.AI
Posted Jun 17, 2026 1:20 PM CDT
Navy Probes Rogue Worker Who Stashed Uranium at SF Site
This Jan. 23, 2002 file photo shows Hunter's Point Shipyard photographed from Bayview in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
See 1 more photo
An already contaminated San Francisco shipyard now has a new twist: Investigators say a former employee of a Navy subcontractor allegedly slipped uranium, thorium, and other hazardous materials onto the site without anyone in charge noticing. The Navy says about 200 radiological items and 70 jars of chemicals, including sulfuric acid, were discovered in April in a locked cabinet inside Building 400A at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a Superfund cleanup site, SFGate reports. "It was a rogue situation by a rogue employee," said Jeff Bale of RSI Entech, the Navy subcontractor now overseeing remediation.
Bale said many of the items were "check sources," small samples of uranium or thorium that are used to calibrate equipment. Navy officials say preliminary checks show "no health or environmental concern" and that the area is now secured and under radiological control, but that did little to calm a tense citizens advisory meeting this week. Residents and committee members questioned how the materials could sit there for years—believed to be between 2019 and 2022—without detection, and why RSI Entech remains in charge.
The former employee, previously with Envirachem before its 2023 acquisition by RSI Entech, is under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division. Citizens advisory committee Malik Seneferu tells SFGate that he hoped for more "clarity" from officials at Monday's meeting. "One thing about the Navy is they've never had too much respect for civilians," he says. "So trying to get information out of the Navy is like trying to get water out of a stone." This is the latest in a long line of controversies at the site. San Francisco plans to redevelop the area with 10,000 housing units and waterfront commercial districts, the Guardian reports.
Both natural uranium (u-238) and thorium (Th-232) emit low-level alpha particles, which are stopped by a few centimeters of air (or the shell of a metal container). It is difficult to understand how they could be detected. The chemicals, if properly sealed, would likewise have no tell-tale emissions. Probably no more dangerous than the storeroom for a high school chemistry teacher. People are always the most deeply afraid of what they are ignorant. (And there's a lot of ignorance about.)
The other thing about natural elements like U238 and Th232 and others and the synthetic isotopes is how astonishingly poisonous they are. The Soviets and their puppets used heavy metal micropellets as an assassination weapon.
You may be referring to the 2006 assassination of Alexander Litvinenko by a pellet of polonium-210. What killed him was acute radiation syndrome, not heavy metal poisoning. Polonium-210 has a half-life of ~138 days, whereas radium-226 (the most common natural isotope) has a half-life of 1600 years. Naturally occurring uranium and thorium are nowhere as radioactive. Natural uranium can sometimes be found in granite used for counter-tops, as included pitchblende. U-238 is often used as radiation shielding, notwithstanding its own (small) radioactivity.
It's basic science. I was an avid science student in junior and senior high school. On one occasion, in my senior chemistry class, after a demonstration of the vaporization of iodine (purple vapor), I asked the teacher if he had a bromine sample in his chemical stores behind the main classroom. After a pause, it occurred to him that he might, so we went back into the storeroom, and he rummaged around to produce a box somewhat smaller than a shoebox. We looked at each other. He took the lid off. There was cotton packing. He removed it. There was a large, capped tin cylinder...with nasty-looking brown corrosion at the seams. (Bromine in its elemental state is a dark brown liquid.) We looked at that for a silent moment. "I don't think we should open this," he finally said. I nodded in agreement.
I went on to handle solid rocket fuel later in life.
Any chance this "Rogue employee" may not be very American?
Was his name Muhammad or Bengi. Maybe Roberto!
To me this sounds like an employee didn't want to deal with proper handling and disposal channels - and figured:
"hey it's already a superfund site. the boss won't check paperwork, and it becomes someone else's problem tomorrow instead of mine today"
probably let's his dog use the lawns in the neighborhood but never picks up.
Been seeing that word a lot lately, "rogue"... synonym for "renegade" but with maybe just a little less treason. 33 Q drops.
I gotta wonder if this is somehow connected to Grogu and the near universal panning of his recent movie release.
'Rogue Employee' Stashed Uranium at Navy Site Unapproved radiological items, chemicals found at Hunters Point shipyard cleanup site
By Rob Quinn withNewser.AI Posted Jun 17, 2026 1:20 PM CDT
Navy Probes Rogue Worker Who Stashed Uranium at SF Site This Jan. 23, 2002 file photo shows Hunter's Point Shipyard photographed from Bayview in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) See 1 more photo An already contaminated San Francisco shipyard now has a new twist: Investigators say a former employee of a Navy subcontractor allegedly slipped uranium, thorium, and other hazardous materials onto the site without anyone in charge noticing. The Navy says about 200 radiological items and 70 jars of chemicals, including sulfuric acid, were discovered in April in a locked cabinet inside Building 400A at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a Superfund cleanup site, SFGate reports. "It was a rogue situation by a rogue employee," said Jeff Bale of RSI Entech, the Navy subcontractor now overseeing remediation.
Bale said many of the items were "check sources," small samples of uranium or thorium that are used to calibrate equipment. Navy officials say preliminary checks show "no health or environmental concern" and that the area is now secured and under radiological control, but that did little to calm a tense citizens advisory meeting this week. Residents and committee members questioned how the materials could sit there for years—believed to be between 2019 and 2022—without detection, and why RSI Entech remains in charge.
The former employee, previously with Envirachem before its 2023 acquisition by RSI Entech, is under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division. Citizens advisory committee Malik Seneferu tells SFGate that he hoped for more "clarity" from officials at Monday's meeting. "One thing about the Navy is they've never had too much respect for civilians," he says. "So trying to get information out of the Navy is like trying to get water out of a stone." This is the latest in a long line of controversies at the site. San Francisco plans to redevelop the area with 10,000 housing units and waterfront commercial districts, the Guardian reports.
Both natural uranium (u-238) and thorium (Th-232) emit low-level alpha particles, which are stopped by a few centimeters of air (or the shell of a metal container). It is difficult to understand how they could be detected. The chemicals, if properly sealed, would likewise have no tell-tale emissions. Probably no more dangerous than the storeroom for a high school chemistry teacher. People are always the most deeply afraid of what they are ignorant. (And there's a lot of ignorance about.)
The other thing about natural elements like U238 and Th232 and others and the synthetic isotopes is how astonishingly poisonous they are. The Soviets and their puppets used heavy metal micropellets as an assassination weapon.
You may be referring to the 2006 assassination of Alexander Litvinenko by a pellet of polonium-210. What killed him was acute radiation syndrome, not heavy metal poisoning. Polonium-210 has a half-life of ~138 days, whereas radium-226 (the most common natural isotope) has a half-life of 1600 years. Naturally occurring uranium and thorium are nowhere as radioactive. Natural uranium can sometimes be found in granite used for counter-tops, as included pitchblende. U-238 is often used as radiation shielding, notwithstanding its own (small) radioactivity.
Good info! Did you work in this area of science?
It's basic science. I was an avid science student in junior and senior high school. On one occasion, in my senior chemistry class, after a demonstration of the vaporization of iodine (purple vapor), I asked the teacher if he had a bromine sample in his chemical stores behind the main classroom. After a pause, it occurred to him that he might, so we went back into the storeroom, and he rummaged around to produce a box somewhat smaller than a shoebox. We looked at each other. He took the lid off. There was cotton packing. He removed it. There was a large, capped tin cylinder...with nasty-looking brown corrosion at the seams. (Bromine in its elemental state is a dark brown liquid.) We looked at that for a silent moment. "I don't think we should open this," he finally said. I nodded in agreement.
I went on to handle solid rocket fuel later in life.
H/T to Awakened Outlaw https://x.com/AwakenedOutlaw/status/2067324167255720321
To be honest, we've all done this at least once...
One of the best summaries you'll see on this:
https://x.com/TonySeruga/status/2067355052080267386
GO DEEPER
https://x.com/radioactivered/status/2067304200296362393
What was going on with the Warehouse Fire??
I think a berg or a stein is behind this one. See the Numec affair for a fine example.