Navy Shipyards

U.S. Navy Shipyards
Nine Principal Government-Owned Naval Construction and Repair Facilities
Yards in Hub	9 (4 active, 5 closed/repurposed)
Oldest Yard	Norfolk Naval Shipyard (1767)
Newest Yard	Long Beach Naval Shipyard (1943, closed 1997)
Heaviest Asbestos Era	1939–early 1980s
Documented ACMs	300+ shipboard products
WWII Peak Workforce	~70,000 (Brooklyn alone); 250,000+ across the 9 yards
Latency to Diagnosis	20 to 60 years from first exposure
2026 VA Rate (100%)	$3,938.58 / month
Trust Funds Available	$30+ Billion across 60+ trusts

U.S. Navy Shipyards: Asbestos Exposure Across the Nine Principal Naval Yards

Executive Summary

The U.S. Navy operated nine principal government-owned shipyards through the era of heavy asbestos use — a network of construction, repair, overhaul, and decommissioning facilities that built and maintained the Atlantic, Pacific, and submarine fleets from the 18th century through the late Cold War. Across these yards — Puget Sound (Bremerton, WA), Norfolk (Portsmouth, VA), Boston (Charlestown, MA), Pearl Harbor (Oahu, HI), Mare Island (Vallejo, CA), Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA), Portsmouth (Kittery, ME), Long Beach (Long Beach, CA), and Brooklyn (New York, NY) — over 300 documented asbestos-containing products were used in vessel construction and repair, exposing hundreds of thousands of civilian and military workers between the 1930s and the early 1980s.

Mesothelioma latency from first asbestos exposure runs 20 to 60 years, which means diagnoses tied to Navy-yard work in the 1940s through the 1970s continued to emerge into the 2020s. Epidemiological cohort studies of yard workers — including a long-term follow-up at Pearl Harbor documenting an 11.6-fold increase in mesothelioma incidence over the Hawaii statewide rate and a U.S. Coast Guard shipyard cohort showing significant excess mortality from mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis — have repeatedly confirmed that yard work was among the most dangerous occupational exposures of the 20th century. (For the full standardized mortality ratio (SMR) data set across yard trades, see Shipyard_Workers.)

Compensation pathways differ for civilian and uniformed yard workers. Civilian shipyard workers — pipefitters, insulators, boilermakers, electricians, machinists, riggers — are typically covered by the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act and may also pursue asbestos trust fund claims and product-liability lawsuits against the manufacturers that supplied the Navy. Active-duty and veteran personnel pursue VA disability compensation under the 2022 PACT Act, which classifies asbestos-related diseases as presumptive service-connected conditions, plus parallel trust fund and lawsuit recoveries. The 2026 VA disability rate at 100% is $3,938.58 per month for a veteran with no dependents.

At a Glance

• Nine principal yards — Government-owned U.S. Navy construction and repair facilities: Puget Sound, Norfolk, Boston, Pearl Harbor, Mare Island, Philadelphia, Portsmouth (Kittery, ME), Long Beach, and Brooklyn. Four are still active (Puget Sound, Norfolk, Pearl Harbor, Portsmouth); five are closed or repurposed.
• 300+ documented asbestos-containing products — Pipe insulation, boiler lagging, gaskets, packing, deck tile, sprayed fireproofing, electrical insulation, valve components, and bulkhead panels were standard across every yard from the 1930s through the early 1980s.
• 11.6-fold mesothelioma incidence at Pearl Harbor — A retrospective cohort of 7,971 male Pearl Harbor workers documented an incidence of 67.3 per million per year against a Hawaii statewide rate of 5.8 per million.
• Coast Guard yard cohort confirms excess mortality — A 4,702-worker retrospective cohort at the Coast Guard yard in Baltimore showed a standardized mortality ratio (SMR) of 5.07 for mesothelioma (95% CI 1.85–11.03), plus excess lung cancer and asbestosis.
• 20- to 60-year latency to diagnosis — Workers exposed during the WWII shipbuilding surge began developing mesothelioma in the 1970s; the FRAM-modernization cohort (1950s–1960s) is still being diagnosed today.
• FRAM program drove sustained exposure into the 1960s — The Navy's Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization program extended the service life of WWII-era destroyers by stripping and replacing asbestos insulation, a process that disturbed legacy materials yard-wide.
• Civilian and military pathways are independent — LHWCA federal workers' compensation, asbestos trust funds, product-liability lawsuits, and (for veterans) VA disability with PACT Act presumptive recognition can be pursued in parallel without offsetting one another.
• 2026 monthly VA rate at 100% disability is $3,938.58 — Mesothelioma is a presumptive service-connected condition under the PACT Act; veterans typically qualify at the 100% rating.

Key Facts

Metric	Finding
Yards in this hub	9 principal government-owned U.S. Navy shipyards
Currently active yards	4 (Puget Sound, Norfolk, Pearl Harbor, Portsmouth/Kittery)
Closed/repurposed yards	5 (Boston/Charlestown, Mare Island, Philadelphia, Long Beach, Brooklyn)
Heaviest asbestos use period	1939 through early 1980s
Documented shipboard ACMs	300+ products specified by Navy MIL-SPECs
Pearl Harbor mesothelioma incidence	67.3 per million per year (vs. 5.8/M HI population)
Coast Guard yard SMR (mesothelioma)	5.07 (95% CI 1.85–11.03)
OSHA shipyard standard	29 CFR 1915.1001 (PEL 0.1 f/cc 8-hr TWA)
Latency to diagnosis	20 to 60 years from first exposure
2026 VA 100% rate (no dependents)	$3,938.58 per month
Asbestos trust funds available	$30+ billion across 60+ active trusts

Why Did the U.S. Navy Use So Much Asbestos in Its Shipyards?

The Navy specified asbestos use in submarines beginning in 1922 and progressively expanded the requirement through dozens of military specifications (MIL-SPECs) covering thermal insulation, gaskets, packing, fireproofing, deck coverings, and electrical components. By the 1939 mobilization for World War II, the federal government had classified asbestos as a critical material and begun stockpiling chrysotile and amosite for naval and merchant shipbuilding. The 1942 Asbestos Conservation Order banned non-military uses to prioritize the mineral for ship construction.

Three engineering pressures drove the demand. First, asbestos provided thermal insulation that could withstand the high-temperature steam systems essential to a steam-turbine fleet. Second, naval combat-survivability requirements called for compartmentalized fire barriers, and asbestos was the cheapest mass-produced flame-resistant fiber. Third, asbestos packing and gaskets sealed pressure systems against vibration in a way that synthetic alternatives of the era could not match. The result was that virtually every space on a 1940s through 1970s Navy vessel — engine room, boiler room, fire room, magazine, berthing compartment, mess deck, electrical panel — contained asbestos.

For yard workers, this translated into ubiquitous exposure. Every overhaul, every battle-damage repair, every modernization, every decommissioning required cutting, ripping, sanding, or replacing asbestos materials. Confined below-deck spaces with limited ventilation amplified airborne fiber concentrations to levels that industrial-hygiene measurements taken decades later documented at 5 to 100 fibers per cubic centimeter — between 50 and 1,000 times the 0.1 f/cc 8-hour permissible exposure limit later set under OSHA 29 CFR 1915.1001.

Federal specifications for subsidized ships eliminated asbestos lagging and insulation in 1978, but ships delivered before 1975 still contain extensive asbestos materials. Vessels delivered between 1975 and 1978 contain asbestos in the form of insulating cement on machinery casings. OSHA accordingly mandates that any pre-1980 vessel be presumed to contain asbestos for purposes of repair, maintenance, or demolition work.

The Nine Principal U.S. Navy Shipyards

The yards profiled below are the nine government-owned facilities most central to U.S. Navy construction and repair during the heavy-asbestos era. Each has its own dedicated wiki page covering yard-specific litigation, ship construction lists, environmental remediation, and worker testimony; the summaries here are the hub overview only.

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Bremerton, Washington)

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was established in 1891 and remains the Pacific Northwest's largest naval shore facility. Tens of thousands of civilian and military workers serviced surface combatants, carriers, and (in the post-WWII era) nuclear submarines through the heavy-asbestos period. A 1970 U.S. Navy occupational health survey of yard pipe coverers and insulators found that 21 percent had pulmonary findings consistent with asbestos exposure — an early internal Navy acknowledgment of the scale of the problem. Industrial-hygiene reviews covering 1962 through 1972 documented extremely high airborne fiber concentrations during WWII and Korean-War-era operations.

EPA cleanup actions identified asbestos, mercury, lead, and other contaminants on shipyard grounds and in surrounding waters. The yard remains active and continues to perform major nuclear-submarine maintenance; legacy asbestos persists in older structures and in vessels arriving for decommissioning. Documented worker lawsuits target the asbestos manufacturers (Johns-Manville, Raymark, and others) that supplied the yard rather than the Navy itself.

Norfolk Naval Shipyard (Portsmouth, Virginia)

Norfolk Naval Shipyard — established 1767 — is the oldest continuously operating naval shipyard in the United States. The yard's exposure record is among the most documented in the network. EPA reports indicate that approximately 320 cubic yards of asbestos waste per month were disposed of from the yard between 1954 and 1983, and a 2018 EPA assessment confirmed that asbestos remains likely in older buildings.

Litigation arising out of Norfolk has produced significant verdicts. A boilermaker employed at the yard in 1969 and through the 1970s reached settlement against asbestos product manufacturers after his mesothelioma diagnosis. In a separate pipe-coverer case, manufacturers including Johns-Manville settled and then attempted to shift liability to the Navy; the court ruled the manufacturers remained liable for failure-to-warn — a precedent cited across naval-yard cases. The yard remains active and continues to overhaul Atlantic Fleet vessels under modern OSHA controls.

Boston Naval Shipyard / Charlestown Navy Yard (Charlestown, Massachusetts)

The Boston Naval Shipyard, originally the Charlestown Navy Yard, was established in 1800 and operated for 174 years before closure on July 1, 1974. WWII employment peaked at approximately 50,128 workers in 1943 — over 50,000 employees working three shifts per day, seven days per week. The yard built more than 200 warships and serviced thousands more, including 14 Fletcher-class and 10 Gleaves-class destroyers, 52+ destroyer escorts, four Tench-class submarines, and four Casa Grande-class dock landing ships.

Asbestos use spanned the 1920s through the 1980s. Notably, Navy medical officers at the yard were already recommending safety controls for asbestos handling in 1939 — well before the wartime expansion — but use continued and grew. Modern litigation includes McIsaac v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp. (2019), brought after a rigger's 2019 mesothelioma death, settled out of court, and Hovsepian v. Crane Co. (2012), filed by a marine machinist who worked at the yard 1958–1964. The site is now divided between the Boston National Historical Park (which preserves USS Constitution and the museum ship USS Cassin Young), residential and commercial development, and educational/medical institutions including the MGH Institute of Health Professions and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. The Charlestown Navy Yard is classified as a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS); cleanup spending has totaled $13.7 million with $6.13 million in additional work expected.

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (Pearl Harbor, Hawaii)

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard was authorized in 1908 and became the Pacific Fleet's principal repair facility after December 7, 1941. WWII salvage and repair operations returned all but three of the damaged battleships to service while exposing thousands of workers to asbestos-laden materials without protective equipment. A retrospective cohort of 7,971 male yard workers, followed up to 29 years, documented a mesothelioma incidence of 67.3 per million per year — an 11.6-fold excess over the Hawaii statewide rate of 5.8 per million. The study concluded that the long-term relative risk for mesothelioma may exceed that for bronchogenic lung cancer.

The 12,600-acre Pearl Harbor Naval Complex is an EPA Superfund site, with remediation actions identified at hundreds of facilities. The yard remains active with approximately 6,300 employees and a roughly $1 billion annual economic impact, but the latency-driven case load from earlier exposure decades continues. Hawaii courts have recognized take-home (secondary) exposure liability, including awards to family members who developed mesothelioma after laundering asbestos-contaminated work clothes.

Mare Island Naval Shipyard (Vallejo, California)

Mare Island Naval Shipyard was established in 1854 as the Navy's first West Coast facility. WWII peak employment reached approximately 46,000 workers, who built and overhauled surface combatants, submarines (including a substantial fraction of the WWII-era U.S. submarine fleet), and Cold War-era nuclear submarines. The yard closed in 1996 under the Defense Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) process; the site has since been redeveloped for mixed industrial, commercial, and residential use, with ongoing environmental remediation overseen by the Navy and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Mare Island workers — pipefitters, insulators, boilermakers, electricians, machinists, and riggers — are heavily represented in California asbestos litigation. The yard's submarine work in particular generated extreme confined-space exposure, because submarine compartments concentrated airborne fibers far above surface-ship levels.

Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Philadelphia Naval Shipyard traced its origins to a 1776 yard at Front Street and Federal Street, with a permanent League Island facility commissioned in 1876. The yard was one of the principal Atlantic-side construction and repair facilities through both World Wars and the Cold War, building battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers and modernizing destroyers under the FRAM program. The Navy closed the yard in 1996; portions of the site continue to operate as a private-sector ship repair and naval-vessel layberth facility (the "Philadelphia Naval Business Center"), and the Inactive Ships Maintenance Office still uses parts of the property to maintain decommissioned vessels.

Philadelphia's high-volume modernization work — particularly the FRAM-program rework that disturbed legacy WWII insulation — produced a sustained second wave of asbestos exposure into the 1960s. Litigation arising out of Philadelphia involves the same product-manufacturer defendants seen across the network: Johns-Manville, Owens Corning, Pittsburgh Corning, Eagle-Picher, Garlock, and others.

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Kittery, Maine)

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard — located on Seavey Island in Kittery, Maine, despite its New Hampshire-port name — was established in 1800 as the Navy's first government-owned shipyard. It is the Navy's specialized facility for nuclear-submarine overhaul and is still active. Through the heavy-asbestos era it built and overhauled diesel-electric and nuclear submarines whose tightly compartmentalized engineering spaces produced some of the highest fiber concentrations in the network.

Portsmouth's submarine focus is significant for litigation purposes because submariners and yard workers servicing submarine compartments faced confined-space amplification of airborne asbestos. Submarine classes overhauled at Portsmouth — Gato, Balao, Tench, Skipjack, Permit/Thresher, Sturgeon, and Los Angeles — are all on the Navy's documented heavy-asbestos list.

Long Beach Naval Shipyard (Long Beach, California)

Long Beach Naval Shipyard opened in 1943 as Terminal Island Naval Shipyard. It was inactivated in June 1950, reactivated in January 1951 for the Korean War, and operated as a non-nuclear surface-ship overhaul facility for the Southern California fleet. At its Vietnam-era peak (1965–1970), 140 ships and 40,000 personnel were homeported at Long Beach. The yard closed in 1997 under BRAC.

A 1979 Comptroller General report focused specifically on asbestos contamination at Long Beach, documenting asbestos dust aboard two ships, stray fibers on pipes stripped of asbestos insulation, and pipe ends with exposed asbestos materials in a vessel's fire room. A January 2010 Navy cleanup report covered asbestos plus chemicals from storage, ship-manufacturing waste, degreasing agents, and other contaminants. The site has been converted to commercial container-port operations under the Port of Long Beach. A NIOSH cancer cohort study of Long Beach workers found excess mortality and incidence of mesothelioma, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer across all three asbestos exposure groups studied.

Brooklyn Navy Yard (Brooklyn, New York)

The Brooklyn Navy Yard (officially New York Naval Shipyard) was established in 1801 and was the largest individual U.S. Navy shipyard during World War II, with WWII peak employment of approximately 70,000 workers. The yard built battleships, aircraft carriers, and amphibious vessels through both World Wars before closing in 1966. The site is now operated as the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation industrial park.

Brooklyn's workforce density and ship-construction tempo made it one of the most heavily exposed yards in the network. Notable mesothelioma compensation includes a combined approximately $190 million awarded to five Brooklyn Navy Yard workers diagnosed with mesothelioma after years of asbestos exposure at the yard — among the largest combined yard-worker recoveries on record.

Asbestos Eras: From World War II Through Decommissioning

World War II (1940–1945): The Construction Surge

The Navy's WWII shipbuilding effort represented an unprecedented industrial mobilization. Nationwide, approximately 4.5 million shipyard workers were employed at peak across naval and commercial yards. U.S. asbestos consumption averaged 783 million pounds per year during the war years (1940–1945), compared to 197 million pounds in the Depression year of 1932. Workers built ships in three shifts per day, seven days per week, often in below-deck compartments with no functional ventilation and no respiratory protection. The combination of high-tempo work, dense workforce, and confined-space asbestos handling produced fiber exposures that have driven the post-war mesothelioma epidemic.

Korean War and FRAM Program (1950s–1960s): The Modernization Wave

The FRAM program (described in detail in the next section) extended the service life of WWII-era destroyers and required yard workers to strip and replace existing asbestos insulation systems. Where WWII workers were exposed primarily through new-construction insulation installation, the 1950s–1960s cohort was exposed through the disturbance of legacy materials — a process that often produced higher airborne fiber concentrations than original installation, because torn-out insulation aerosolized fibers as it came out.

Vietnam Era and Cold War Submarine Construction (1960s–1970s)

Through the late 1960s and 1970s, yard work shifted toward nuclear-submarine construction, overhaul, and refueling. Submarines posed the most extreme confined-space asbestos exposure of any vessel type because crew and yard workers operated in sealed compartments with recirculated ventilation. All U.S. submarines built between 1922 and the early 1980s contained asbestos in flanges, gaskets, insulation, packing, piping, seals, tape, valves, water pipes, deck coverings, bulkhead panels, and engine-room lagging.

Decommissioning and Asbestos Abatement (1980s–Present)

Federal specifications eliminated asbestos lagging and insulation requirements for subsidized ship construction beginning in 1978, and the Navy phased asbestos out of new-build vessels through the 1980s. Yard work in the 1980s and 1990s shifted toward asbestos abatement under the OSHA 1915.1001 shipyard asbestos standard, which mandates engineering controls, regulated work areas, respiratory protection, exposure monitoring, and medical surveillance. Modern abatement is significantly safer than legacy work, but every pre-1980 vessel still entering yard work — and many in active service or reserve fleet status — must be presumed to contain asbestos.

The Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) Program

The Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) program ran from 1959 through the late 1960s and was central to the asbestos exposure record at every yard with destroyer overhaul capacity. The program extended the service life of WWII-era Allen M. Sumner- and Gearing-class destroyers by approximately 8 to 12 years through systematic upgrades: new long-range radar, ASROC anti-submarine rocket launchers, DASH (drone anti-submarine helicopter) facilities, modernized sonar, hull strengthening, and updated propulsion auxiliaries.

The asbestos consequence was that nearly every FRAM rework required removing and replacing legacy steam-system insulation, boiler lagging, gaskets, and packing — effectively re-exposing the entire engineering plant. Yard workers performed this work in compartments still in use for adjacent system testing, which meant insulators, pipefitters, machinists, electricians, and laborers shared overlapping confined spaces. Industrial-hygiene measurements from FRAM-era work do not exist in the public record at the granularity later studies provide, but the trade-specific mortality patterns observed in international yard cohorts (described in detail at Shipyard_Workers) match the FRAM exposure profile precisely.

The destroyers modernized under FRAM remained in active service through the 1970s, which means yard workers at every Atlantic and Pacific yard with FRAM workload — Boston, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Long Beach, Mare Island, and Pearl Harbor — accumulated additional asbestos exposure each time a FRAM ship returned for routine availability or battle-damage repair.

High-Risk Trades — Cross-Reference

The trade hierarchy of asbestos exposure at U.S. Navy yards mirrors the international shipyard cohort literature: insulators carried the highest risk, followed by pipefitters, boilermakers, sheet metal workers, welders, electricians, and machinists. Trade-specific standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) for pleural cancer in the most-cited cohort study (the 55-year Genoa/Fincantieri follow-up, 3,984 workers) ranged from 1,703 for insulators to 519 for stakers, with statistical significance at p < 0.05 across nearly every trade. A prospective Norwegian shipyard cohort of 3,893 workers documented 11 mesothelioma cases against 1.5 expected — a 7.3-fold excess — even after asbestos exposure ceased.

The full SMR dataset, trade-by-trade exposure profiles, and bystander-exposure documentation live at Shipyard_Workers. That page also covers take-home (para-occupational) exposure to spouses and children of yard workers, which has produced its own substantial body of mesothelioma cases and litigation.

Compensation Pathways for Navy Shipyard Workers

Civilian Workers (LHWCA + Trust Funds + Civil Suits)

Civilian U.S. Navy shipyard workers — pipefitters, insulators, boilermakers, electricians, machinists, sheet metal workers, riggers, and laborers — are typically covered by the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq.). LHWCA provides medical coverage for reasonable treatment, disability payments at two-thirds of average weekly wages, and death benefits for surviving dependents. Coverage applies to workers performing maritime employment on navigable waters or in adjoining areas, including shipyards, piers, terminals, and dry docks.

LHWCA does not preclude civil lawsuits against the asbestos product manufacturers that supplied the Navy. Most yard workers were exposed to products from many different manufacturers across a career, which means asbestos trust fund claims and product-liability lawsuits run on independent legal tracks alongside LHWCA. Over $30 billion remains available across more than 60 active asbestos bankruptcy trusts. Major trust funds relevant to Navy yard exposure include the Manville Trust (Johns-Manville), the Owens Corning/Fibreboard Trust, the PCC Trust (Pittsburgh Corning), and the Eagle-Picher Trust. Most yard workers qualify to file with 10 to 20 trusts simultaneously based on their documented product exposure history. (The full process and timeline is documented at Asbestos_Trust_Funds.)

Active-Duty and Veteran Personnel (VA Disability + DIC + Trust Funds)

Active-duty Navy personnel and veterans whose asbestos exposure occurred during military service — including service aboard ships built or overhauled at the yards in this hub — pursue VA disability compensation under the 2022 PACT Act. The PACT Act classifies asbestos-related diseases (including mesothelioma) as presumptive service-connected conditions, which means a veteran no longer needs to prove a direct link between their service and their diagnosis. Mesothelioma is typically rated at 100% disability for VA purposes.

VA pathways include monthly disability compensation, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) for surviving spouses, Aid and Attendance for veterans needing daily assistance, and access to specialized mesothelioma treatment programs through VA medical centers and affiliated hospitals. See VA_Benefits_for_Veterans_with_Mesothelioma for the full benefits framework.

2026 VA Disability Compensation Rates

The 2026 VA disability compensation rates (effective December 1, 2025 through November 30, 2026 following the annual COLA adjustment) are:

VA Disability Rating	2026 Monthly Rate (Veteran Alone)	Notes
100%	$3,938.58	Presumptive for mesothelioma under PACT Act
90%	$2,297.96	Significant chronic asbestos disease
80%	$2,044.89	Substantial pulmonary impairment
70%	$1,759.19	Moderate-severe pulmonary impairment
DIC (surviving spouse)	$1,699.36	Plus dependent supplements

Veterans with a spouse, dependent children, or dependent parents receive higher monthly rates than the veteran-alone figures shown. DIC is paid when a veteran's death is service-connected — which mesothelioma typically is for any veteran with documented Navy asbestos exposure.

Pursuing All Pathways in Parallel

VA disability, LHWCA (for civilian workers), asbestos trust fund claims, and product-liability lawsuits are independent legal tracks that do not offset one another dollar-for-dollar. The standard maximum-recovery strategy for a Navy-yard worker or veteran with mesothelioma is to file with every applicable trust, file civil suits against still-operating manufacturer defendants, and (for veterans) maintain VA disability and DIC claims simultaneously.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which U.S. Navy shipyards are still active in 2026?

Four of the nine principal Navy shipyards remain active: Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Bremerton, WA), Norfolk Naval Shipyard (Portsmouth, VA), Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (Pearl Harbor, HI), and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Kittery, ME). Five — Boston/Charlestown, Mare Island, Philadelphia, Long Beach, and Brooklyn — are closed or repurposed.

Did all Navy yards use the same asbestos products?

Substantially yes. Navy MIL-SPECs governed asbestos use across the entire fleet, so the same categories of asbestos-containing products — chrysotile and amosite pipe insulation, boiler lagging, sprayed fireproofing, gaskets, packing, deck tile, electrical insulation — were used at every yard from the 1930s through the early 1980s. Specific manufacturers (Johns-Manville, Owens Corning, Pittsburgh Corning, Eagle-Picher, Garlock) supplied multiple yards, which is why most Navy-yard plaintiffs qualify to file with the same major trust funds regardless of which yard they worked at.

If I worked at one of these yards in the 1960s, am I still at risk for mesothelioma in 2026?

Yes. The mesothelioma latency period is 20 to 60 years from first asbestos exposure. A worker exposed in the 1960s is well within the diagnosis window in 2026, and yard workers from that era continue to receive new diagnoses every year. Anyone with documented yard exposure who develops persistent chest pain, shortness of breath, or pleural effusion should be evaluated for mesothelioma, ideally at a mesothelioma specialist center.

Can civilians who worked at a Navy yard file VA claims?

Civilian workers do not qualify for VA disability benefits — VA benefits are limited to veterans of the uniformed services. Civilian shipyard workers pursue compensation through LHWCA federal workers' compensation, asbestos trust funds, and product-liability lawsuits. The combined recovery from these civilian pathways is often comparable to a veteran's combined VA-plus-trust-plus-lawsuit recovery.

What is the FRAM program and why does it matter for asbestos cases?

The Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) program (1959–late 1960s) extended the service life of WWII-era destroyers by upgrading their weapons, sensors, and engineering systems. FRAM rework required stripping and replacing legacy asbestos insulation, which exposed yard workers to a second wave of high-concentration asbestos disturbance after the WWII construction surge. FRAM-era yard workers (1959–1969) are a distinct exposure cohort whose latency window extends from the 1980s well into the 2030s.

Are wives and children of yard workers also at risk?

Yes. Take-home (para-occupational, secondary) exposure occurs when yard workers carried asbestos fibers home on their clothing, hair, and skin, exposing family members who laundered work clothes or shared confined home spaces. Multiple court decisions — including Quisenberry v. Huntington Ingalls Industries in Virginia — have recognized employer liability for take-home exposure. See Secondary_Asbestos_Exposure for the full pathway, epidemiology, and litigation framework.

Where can I file a claim if I worked at one of these yards?

Claim filing depends on whether the worker was civilian or uniformed. Civilians: contact a maritime/asbestos attorney to evaluate LHWCA, trust fund, and lawsuit pathways. Veterans: file the VA disability claim plus parallel trust fund claims. Both groups: gather employment or service records (DD-214 for veterans, employment records or Social Security earnings statements for civilians) and any documentation that places the worker in specific compartments aboard specific ships during the heavy-asbestos era. The full pathway is documented at Filing_a_Mesothelioma_Claim.

See also

• Shipyard_Workers — Trade-by-trade SMR data, bystander exposure, and international cohort comparison
• Brooklyn_Navy_Yard — New York Naval Shipyard yard-specific page
• Boston_Naval_Shipyard — Charlestown Navy Yard yard-specific page
• Long_Beach_Naval_Shipyard — Long Beach Naval Shipyard yard-specific page
• Mare_Island_Naval_Shipyard — Mare Island yard-specific page
• Norfolk_Naval_Shipyard — Norfolk Naval Shipyard yard-specific page
• Pearl_Harbor_Naval_Shipyard — Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard yard-specific page
• Philadelphia_Naval_Shipyard — Philadelphia Naval Shipyard yard-specific page
• Portsmouth_Naval_Shipyard — Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Kittery, ME) yard-specific page
• Puget_Sound_Naval_Shipyard — Puget Sound Naval Shipyard yard-specific page
• Navy_Asbestos_Exposure — Fleet-wide Navy asbestos exposure overview
• Korean_War_Asbestos_Exposure — Korean War-era exposure context
• Vietnam_War_Asbestos_Exposure — Vietnam War-era exposure context
• Asbestos_Trust_Funds — Trust fund framework and filing process
• VA_Benefits_for_Veterans_with_Mesothelioma — VA disability, DIC, and PACT Act benefits framework
• Secondary_Asbestos_Exposure — Take-home (para-occupational) exposure to family members
• Mesothelioma_Specialists — Mesothelioma specialist treatment centers