A federal judge approved a $57 million False Claims Act settlement on August 24, 2026, resolving claims against Tetra Tech EC Inc., an environmental contractor that performed radiological cleanup work at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco under contract with the U.S. Navy. The settlement addresses allegations that Tetra Tech employees and subcontractors falsified soil sample results by substituting clean soil for potentially contaminated material before submitting data to the government, and fabricated radiological readings that the Navy relied upon to assess the progress and integrity of the remediation project.
The case originated with a qui tam complaint filed in 2013 by seven individuals with direct knowledge of the shipyard operations: Arthur R. Jahr III, Elbert G. Bowers, Susan V. Andrews, Archie R. Jackson, Anthony Smith, Donald K. Wadsworth, and Robert McLean, all former Tetra Tech employees or contractors. The seven relators will collectively receive approximately $11.97 million, representing roughly 21 percent of the total settlement. Their 2013 filing set in motion more than a decade of litigation and investigation that ultimately produced one of the more significant environmental contractor fraud recoveries in recent memory.
The Hunters Point cleanup was already a matter of intense public scrutiny, the former shipyard sits in a predominantly working-class neighborhood and had been the subject of longstanding community concern over radiation contamination, making the data manipulation particularly consequential.