. would you eat the pesticide ddp kwbp that is exactly what you might do to catch fish in it in this part of san francisco bay. it was once a shipyard and it might some day be a thriving neighborhood, but is enough done to clean up hunters point? you might not see it on the antique road show, but this historic tugboat was hidden treasure bought at a bottom price. and he is still thrilling

audiences in his late 60s. we'll revisit the life and times of the paul mccartney, all ahead on "a second look." good evening san francisco! >> good evening, i'm julie haren haener and this is second. one area of the san francisco bay where the warnings are urgent. ken pritchard brought us this report last week. talk to those who frequently fish the bay. >> halibut. >> reporter: can i eat it? >> sure. >> reporter: and you find many who keep and cook their catch, but as fisherman anthony flores says it's best to limit the amount you eat. >> you can eat them, but you can't eat too much. >> reporter: there is a spot in the bay where no fish are fit to eat. it's a large part of the inner

richmond harbor, here the main contaminant is ddt, the once widely-used pesticide. >> we want the communities to be aware of existing "do-not- eat" advisories. >> reporter: sharon lynn is with the environmental protection agency and we met her at the superfund site. it was a major pesticide manufacturing plant decades ago, sandwiched between 4th street and richmond and the canal. the plant is long gone, demolished after the company went bankrupt in the 1960s. but the company left a legacy of toxins that continue to threaten people and the environment. >> the contaminant levels that we find for ddt and pesticides in fish in the channel is much higher than the rest of the richmond harbor air and sky harbor bay. >> reporter: high-levels of ddt in the inner richmond harbor were first detected in 1960.

ddt was once considered safe and in this archived footage from u.s. government, ddt can be seen widely sprayed on agricultural fields to kill pest and even directly on pep. today it's a known carcinogen. the site was cleaned up, removing 100,000 cubic yards of soil highly contaminated by the pesticide. immediate test result shows that it worked. >> a year later, when we came back to do yearly monitoring, unfortunately, the level went back up. now the superfund site is scheduled to be cleaned up again, but not until 2015. while that location in the inner richmond harbor is highly contaminated, the epa says it's also somewhat isolate and says there is no indication that ddt

there is make its way out tot bay. but birds and fish that move in and out of the inner richmond harbor are exposed and until a second clean-up is completed, fishermen are advised to avoid the area. >> they don't break down in the environment. they build up in fish and then they build up in humans are. >> he is with contra costa health services that posted signs,sips that often go ignored. of particular sewn are fishermen from the laotian community because fish caught him provide sustenance. he is with the asian pacific environmental network and says efforts to warn the laotian communities are complicated by many dialects of the laos

language and distrust of the government. >> they say they just don't want us to fish a lot and if the fish is contaminated, how come they still swim? >> reporter: he is concerned that his community will continue to eat fish from the contaminated area. advice to any angler, if you caught a fish here, throw it back. advice worth following until the decades-old contamination is cleaned up. still to come, cleaning up hunters point naval shipyard and could it become one of san francisco's premiere redevelopment projects. and coming up later, how could a tugboat by a treasure?

. >> san francisco board of supervisors this week accept an environmental report on one of the biggest redevelopment probings in the city in decades. it would transform and revitalize the hunters point

shipyard. the corporation has proposed a plan to build more than 10,000 homes along with retail and business facilities. nearly half the area would remain as open space. but the hangup over the years has been on contamination in the ground and the effort to clean it up. ktvu's randy shandobil brought us this report five years ago. >> reporter: so old, so decrepit, it looks like a depression-era ghost town, but potentially this is actually some of the most valuable real estate in california, san francisco's hunters point shipyards with its views of the bay. ♪ memories, light the corners of my mind ♪ >> reporter: about the navy first closed the shipyard 31 years ago, this was the no. 1 song. 1974. american troops were returning

from vietnam. watergate was bringing down president nixon. decades later, the potential here remains untapped. navy briefly recommissioned part of the shipyard in the 1980s and then shut it down again, but today, hunters point is for the most part still a contaminated wasteland. we have a number of the harvey contam nants and pollutants, bcbs, lead in soil and other types of contam nants. >> reporter: even the navy, which promised to clean up the shipyard before turning it over to the city refers to this beach as "metal reef." >> we're at high tide, but the debris extends out to the low tide line and the kind of things you will see would be metal debris, like this. more metal debris over here. >> reporter: metal reef, one small chunk of a once thriving

navy base mayor unanimous heads the base team. >> i think they face a similar set of challenges. on the other hand it's some fabulous land and all of these communities, alameda, treasure island and here at hunters point shipyard, the pace of that development has been severely thrwarted by the amount of money, which is available for clean-up. you can't develop the bases until cher cleaned up. >> reporter: recent base closures saved the pentagon almost $7 billion. much of that money was supposed to be used for clean-up, but the money to clean up hunters point and the money to clean up much of the old bases has been slow in coming. >> the department of defense's perspective, cleaning up old base sans obligation, but it's not a top priority.

this is the top priority, the war in iraq, building new weapons, looking ahead, not cleaning up things left behind. >> reporter: the military has spent about $350 million in the past 31 years to clean up parts of hunters point. sounds like a lot, but the pentagon spends that much every couple of the days in iraq. >> we have been an afterthrough the. >> reporter: the "we" referred to is the african-american community in the hunters point. >> my father and my brothers and my uncles, everybody worked in the shipyard. >> reporter: the bay view was already in drine when the shipyard closed and the bottom fell out. >> the shipyard closed down and it destroyed a lot of people. >> reporter: and few have invested in an area that

borders a massive environmental scar. >> and we're still hemorrhaging. >> reporter: officials say a turn around is in sight, 15% of the shipyard has been cleaned up and turned over to the city. soon, this delap dilapidate the area. >> reporter: it should be ready by 2020, 46 years after hunters point first closed. when we come back on "a second look," how a san francisco bay tugboat captain made an historic found at a shipyard auction. and bit later we look at paul mccartney and his concerts in the bay area, including two historic stadium shows in san francisco.

. some people shop at thrift shores and yard sales looking for hidden treasures, but at- was at a ship repair yard in 2002 that one bay area woman found an old tugboat that play a key role following the attack on pearl harbor and as bob mackenzie told us in this report a year later she got it for almost nothing. >> reporter: when this rusty old tugboat was put up for auction by a san francisco marine repair yard, they just wanted to get rid of it, almost nobody wants it. almost. one person at the auction knew what the boat was. 29-year-old melissa parker had done her homework. she knew that the ship was a survivor of the 1941 attack on pearl harbor. she even found a picture of the ship, using its water cannon to put out a fire on one of the ships bombed in that attack. >> they went ovand helped with

the nevada when it was being bombed and they were trying to sink it in the channel. this boat and another were working together to get it out the channel and beach it and they worked on the california, the u.s.s. california for three days, trying to fight fires and save it. >> reporter: so the boat's a here? >> yes and the men who work on her. >> reporter: knowing all of that, melissa knew she couldn't let it go to the scrapyard. she bid $50 for the old tug and got it. though there isn't a spot on the boat that doesn't need scraping or cleaning, she says it's sound with two good engines. and she knows what she is talking about. she is today a professional tugboat captain on san francisco bay. her enthusiasm has affected a number of other boat lovers and they form a nonprofit organization to restore the old tug. she even has her parents

chipping and painting. >> we think it's wonderful. >> are you proud of her? >> we're proud of her, but it's a lot of work. >> she is a woman with vision. >> reporter: melissa and her friend hope to put it back on the bay and take visitors for rides and teach them a bit of history. >> take kids out and teach them how to tie knot and teach them about maritime culture and history. >> reporter: and you will have little kids falling in love with boats like you did? >> exactly. >> reporter: to save a ship like this with this kind of history is a worthy project and to take on a project like this require a lot of courage. maybe it requires that you be no older than 29. >> ten years before he filed that report, ktvu's bob mackenzie told us about another tugboat story and this about high-tech and the high seas. here is that report from 1993. >> reporter: there is a romance about tugboats that is hard to

explain. maybe it's partly because tugs are little guys that pack a lot of power. at any rate the men who drive tugboats generally don't want to trade jobs with anyone else, but as container ship and tankers have been heavier, tugboats have found them harder to push around and that led to this remarkable invection, that probabliry looks to you like any other tugboat. this is a tractor tug, a new vehicle that can push as hard sighways or backward as forward. it can do tricks like spinning arounded on its own axis. this tractor tug taking on the job of guide a gigantic japanese ship into port is one of two on the bay. it's owned by bay and delta towing a new company in a very competitive business. hook on to the container ship with a line, they with push or pull, whichever look like the right idea at the time. here you see why it makes old

sailors scratch their heads in amazement. is it pulls sideways or in any other direction because it has twin propellers that could go 3670 degrees. it has much more punch, much more power and it's much more maneuverable. >> it's a fascinating to have this much power and usually the people around tugboats are interesting people, great guys, just a lot of fun. >> reporter: this captain put the tractor through some of the paces. tractor tug can do a wheelie, turning within its own length in either direction. brantner's father has been behind the wheel since he was 17. >> you could really damage a ship or dock or something. you have to know what you are

doing. it takings years' of experience to get there. >> reporter: you wouldn't trade this for anything? >> never. i will always be out here on the tugboats. when we come back on "a second look," paul mccartney talks about the beatle's decision 44 years ago to make san francisco their last life concert as we look at his performance at at&t park this month.

. if you noticed more people than using humming beatles songs in the last week it might be because of paul mccartney owes concert at at&t park on july 10 jmp. >> it was the first time that mccartney performed in san francisco in 44 years. the last time was also the beatle's last live concert ever held at candlestick park in august of 1966. mccartney even marked occasion about a song about san

francisco bay. although mccartney had not performed in san francisco in decades, he performed in the bayer over the years. he played a pair of concerts in oakland and san josi in 2002 and that when was craig heaps brought us this hook at paul look at paul mccartney's life and career. >> reporter: no longer the fresh-faced kid he was when the beatles first came to the bay area in the mid-109 mid-1960s, but it's still the super bowl of music when paul mccartney shows up. ♪ i will fight for the rite right to livefield?

>>? >>. >> . >> reporter: now he has penned song after song that bring crowds to jam stadiums and auditoriums to hear him sing. >> this up with you might recognize -- . ♪ yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away ♪ now it looks as though they are here to stay ♪ ♪ oh, i believe in yesterday ♪ >> reporter: his yesterdays are nought without pain. his wife linda died of breast cancer in 1998. two of the four beatle, john and george are also gone, and even the end of the beatle's public tours and eventually the breakup of the group itself was not without pain. on his last musical tour visit

to the bay area in 1990, mccartney talked about events that led to the beatle's decision to make the concert at candlestick park in 1966 their last. >> it was kind of beginning to come to a bit of a boil, know? the guys, particularly john and george were getting really fedup with touring and schlepping around and we were starting to have some success, you want to stay at home and you want to spend your money instead of just traveling coach the rest rf your life, you know? so it was coming to a bit of a head and i think finally at that time i threw in with them and said you are right and we ought to stop touring. so we got into recording and did thing like "sergeant pepper." >> mccartney says as he prepared for that 1990 tour that he realized something. >> the lovely thing that i suddenly realized that i had never done it rife, because this is when the beatles gave up touring. so like "fool on the hill,"

sergeant pepper," hey jude," and quite a few of those songs from that period we reintroduced them. we would do some of the new stuff as well and the nice thing for us, it doesn't seem to conflict. it's all kind of stuff i have been involved in writing. so miraculously it seems to all work. so we're quite happy with it it. ♪ we're sergeant pep ear's pepper's lonely hearts club band ♪ sergeant peper's

pepper's one an only lonely hearts club band ♪ [ music ]♪ . >> reporter: now more than a decade later, paul mccartney has buried his wife and seen his grandson born. he organized a fundraising tribute to the victims of 9-11. and he seems still to exude much of the same energy and optimism that he talks about during his last about with his last visit in 1990. >> 40 seem to be the next landmark. now i'm 47 and i'm still feeling good. what is go on here? what is he taking? [ laughter ] you know, i'm just enjoying myself. i still love music and people still come and see me. as long as they come, i will show up. >> reporter: and for now, it seems as long as paul mccartney

shows up, it will be a show to remember. ♪ try to see it my way. only time will tell if i am right or i am wrong ♪ close your eyes and i will kiss you, tomorrow i will miss you. remember, i'll always be true ♪ and if while i'm away, i'll write home everyday, and i'll send all my lovein' to you. ♪. >> reporter: and that is it for this week's "a second look." i'm julie haener and thank you for watching.