Toxic City: A Must-Read for Anyone Committed to Climate Justice
By Dave Rhody, Climate Reality Leader
In this blog post, CRBA activist Dave Rhody explores the compelling themes presented in the book Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco by Lindsey Dillon.
Dillon, a critical human geographer and Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz, sheds light on a long history of environmental injustice afflicting Bayview-Hunters Point — a community on the margins of the glittering skylines, majestic bridges, and green spaces San Francisco is famous for. We hope you enjoy this preview of Dillon's inclusive account of contamination and systemic neglect in Bayview-Hunters Point along with the book’s homage to the resilient community activists fighting for environmental justice.
“James Baldwin once described Bayview-Hunters Point as ‘the San Francisco America pretends does not exist,’ a sentiment that still rings true decades later.”
None of San Francisco’s political scandals, past or present, match the depth of its racial and environmental injustice toward the Bayview-Hunters Point community. In Toxic City, released in 2024, UC Santa Cruz Sociology Professor Lindsey Dillon explores the city’s decades-long betrayal of this predominantly Black neighborhood. Dillon presents the environmental racism there as part of a broader history of harm, including decades-long struggles to fight against environmental injustice, as linked to the legacies of slavery.
Bayview-Hunters Point Shipyard
A Wasteland by Design
Though the radioactive contamination and health crisis the Navy left behind at the Hunters Point Shipyard draws our focus today, the Southeast corner of San Francisco was treated as the city’s wasteland long before the Atomic Age. In the late 19th century, industries like cattle, meatpacking, tanneries, and ironworks all made their home in the tidelands of Islais Creek and further north, at Hunters Point.
The San Francisco Chronicle described the area in 1889 as “a perpetual recurrence of boggy road, clouds of dust, reeking malarious acres of black mud and stinks that battle comparison or description.” Historical hindsight describes the policies of cities like San Francisco as wastelanding. While San Francisco rose as the financial capital of the West, the Hunters Point area became its dumping ground, a place where all the dirty work was done.
A Legacy of Contamination and Neglect
The Hunters Point Shipyard operated commercially in the early 20th century until the Navy purchased it in 1940. Along with Treasure Island, it was a central base of operations for the Navy during WWII. When the war was over, the vast majority of Bayview-Hunters Point residents were employed by the Navy and the shipyard businesses that served it. The majority were Black.
But it wasn’t the jobs that kept Black San Franciscans confined to Bayview-Hunters Point. While white veterans received Federal Housing Administration (FHA) home financing after WWII, Black veterans did not. Racist housing policies left local Black residents just two choices: Bayview-Hunters Point or the Fillmore District. While both were underserved by city services (garbage collection, DPW street repairs, etc.), the Navy had an even bigger surprise in store for the residents of BVHP.
In 1946 the Navy secretly established the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL) at the Shipyard, introducing radioactive contamination through ships used in nuclear testing, just a year after the U.S. ended World War II by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan.
As Dillon documents, however, the contamination extended well beyond the laboratory; workers inadvertently carried radioactive particles into their homes, affecting the health of the community for generations.
Meanwhile, as NRDL continued to poison the soil in and around Hunters Point during the 1960’s and 70’s, more and more Black San Franciscans arrived. When urban renewal projects displaced residents from other neighborhoods, many Black San Franciscans were forced to relocate to the still-contaminated Hunters Point.
An Ongoing Fight for Justice
By the time the Navy pulled out of Hunters Point Shipyard in 1973, leaving behind a toxic legacy, 97% of the Bayview Hunters Point residents were Black — but the struggle wasn’t over. Companies leasing the Shipyard continued to dump hazardous waste, compounding the contamination.
It was only in 1989, after the EPA finally came in to examine the contamination, that the Hunters Point Shipyard was designated a Superfund site.
Then, even after the Navy handed over the property to the city in 1991, cleanup efforts still fell short: the navy was and continues to be responsible for the cleanup — but only up to arguably dubious EPA standards calling for remediation rather than eradication of the radioactive contaminants.
When all is said and done, Lindsey Dillon’s documentation of the thirty-three-year travesty perpetrated on the residents of Bayview-Hunters Point is mind-boggling: Lies from Navy contractors… Loose EPA oversight... An out-of-state development corporation building new residences on land still contaminated... City, state and federal agencies treating residents with condescension and disrespect… Political leaders choosing their own self-interests over the community’s needs…
Adding insult to injury, the Navy even had the gall to shut down the federally required Community Advisory Board during the transition of U.S. military bases to local communities. Navy officials simply did not want to hear from residents, especially about the escalating health crisis in Bayview Hunters Point.
Today, life expectancy in Bayview Hunters Point remains 15 years lower than in other San Francisco neighborhoods, with elevated rates of cancer and respiratory illness linked to environmental toxins. Despite these well-documented health disparities, the San Francisco Department of Health has yet to declare a public health crisis in the community.
Voices of Resistance
Drawing on nine years of community work, Dillon and her book Toxic City give voice to dozens of impassioned community leaders who have spent their lives fighting for environmental justice in Bayview-Hunters Point. One prominent leader was Marie Harrison, an advocate with Greenaction, whose daughter, Arieann Harrison, continues her legacy through the Marie Harrison Community Foundation. Arieann will tell you that the fight is far from over.
Larger Implications
“Large-scale remediation and redevelopment in Bayview-Hunters Point ought to be a socially, economically, and ecologically reparative process. Instead… remediation and redevelopment are complicated and uneven in their social benefits and have contributed to new forms of dispossession, marginality, and environmental harm.”
James Baldwin once described Bayview-Hunters Point as “the San Francisco America pretends does not exist,” a sentiment that still rings true decades later. The toxic legacy at Hunters Point serves as a powerful reminder of the widespread environmental injustices that persist across the United States. For anyone committed to understanding the intersection of racial and environmental justice, Toxic City is essential reading.
By shedding light on these issues, Dillon's work challenges us to confront the injustices that have long been swept under the rug in cities nationwide. Toxic City puts a spotlight on a part of San Francisco that many San Franciscans would prefer to ignore, but the long history of environmental injustice Dillon’s book recounts is also a reminder that environmental contamination continues to impact communities all across America, making Toxic City a must read in the fight for greater justice at the intersection of racial discrimination, gentrification, environmental justice, and the struggle for reparations.