In September 2010, Washington state health officials signed off on a plan by Seattle City Parks to allow an indoor sports arena to use an old Navy hangar at Magnuson Park. The conditions were it could be used while radioactive materials found in an attached painting structure were cleaned up.
Since then, the director of the state health department s Radioactive Materials Section has retired, Arena Sports is thriving with daily indoor soccer matches and a health club, and a section of land near the contaminated area has been fenced off. But the cleanup still hasn t happened.
The Navy, which owned the property at its Naval Air Station Sand Point before donating it to the City of Seattle, is responsible for the cleanup and said it will begin the project later this year.
Navy documents show the arena area of the building has been surveyed and cleared of any of the elevated radiation levels found in the attached building. No government agencies have publically announced the discovery of the radiation.
Parks Department officials said they cannot talk about the project; it s a Navy operation. They also said they are reviewing their agreement to see if they met requirements to post warning signs that radioactive materials were in the contaminated area.
No such signs were visible at the site but could exist inside the sealed off structure.
The Navy will address this issue with KING 5 during an interview scheduled for Tuesday.
