Asbestos Exposure at Jacksonville Shipyards and Naval Stations

By David Meldofsky, California-licensed attorney · Founder, Lawsuit Informer

Last updated: September 7, 2026

Jacksonville, Florida, has long been a Navy town, and its shipyards and naval stations on the St. Johns River were among the most asbestos-intensive workplaces in the state. For generations, the people who built and repaired ships there — and who built and maintained the bases themselves — worked around asbestos every day, often without knowing it. This page explains, in plain terms, how and where exposure happened in the Jacksonville area, who was affected, the illnesses linked to it, and why that history can still matter today.

Shipbuilding and the Navy in Jacksonville

Jacksonville's position on the St. Johns River, near the Atlantic, made it a natural center for shipbuilding and ship repair, and the Jacksonville–Pensacola region grew into one of the most concentrated military areas in Florida. The Navy commissioned Naval Station Mayport near Jacksonville in 1942 to support the war effort, and it later grew into a major seaport and air facility; Naval Air Station Jacksonville became another major installation in the area. Alongside the bases, commercial shipyards and dry docks along the river built, serviced, and repaired both Navy and civilian vessels for decades.

Florida has the second-highest total of mesothelioma cases in the country, and much of that traces to its coastline of naval shipyards and ship repair facilities together with its dense network of military installations. Through the decades when Jacksonville's yards and stations were most active, asbestos was a standard material in shipbuilding and base construction alike, which is why so many of the people who worked there were exposed.

Why Asbestos Was Present

Jacksonville is a repair story rather than a building one. A repair yard spends nearly all its time aboard older vessels, cutting into insulation, lagging, gaskets, and packing that have been in place for decades. That disturbance is what puts fibers in the air. The commercial yards along the St. Johns serviced Navy and civilian ships side by side, and the naval stations produced their own maintenance exposure aboard both ships and aircraft. For the general background, see asbestos exposure in shipyards and naval service.

Where Exposure May Have Happened

Exposure settings spanned the river yards and the bases:

• The downtown repair yards and their dry docks, where machinery spaces of older vessels were opened and stripped
• Floating dry docks and repair berths along the St. Johns
• Ship maintenance at Naval Station Mayport, including work alongside tenders and repair availabilities
• Aircraft and facility maintenance at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, where asbestos appeared in brakes, gaskets, and base buildings
• Boiler and engine room repair work, the dustiest jobs on any waterfront
• Yard shops where contaminated components were rebuilt

Repair work is intermittent and varied, which means many workers were exposed across dozens of different vessels rather than a few.

Aircraft Work Was Its Own Kind of Exposure

Every other exposure site in this section is about ships. Jacksonville is the one place where a large share of the asbestos work was done on aircraft, and that changes both where the fibers came from and who breathed them.

Naval Air Station Jacksonville opened in 1940 on 3,400 acres along the west bank of the St. Johns. During the war the Navy built Overhaul and Repair shops there to rework the station's planes. That operation never stopped. It was renamed the Naval Air Rework Facility in 1967, renamed again as the Naval Aviation Depot in 1987, and continues today as Fleet Readiness Center Southeast. Aircraft have been torn down and rebuilt on that site for more than eighty years.

Asbestos sat in different places on an aircraft than on a ship. It was in brake and clutch linings, which shed dust every time a wheel assembly came apart. It was in engine gaskets, heat shielding, and firewall insulation, all of it in the hottest parts of the airframe. Mechanics doing engine and brake work handled these materials directly, often in hangars and shops rather than in confined compartments. Our page on asbestos exposure from brakes and clutches covers the brake side of this in more detail.

The buildings matter too. More than 700 structures went up on the base before the end of the war, and buildings put up during that period were full of asbestos in insulation, fireproofing, floor tile, and roofing. Many wartime buildings intended to last twenty years were still standing and in use decades later, which means maintenance and renovation crews disturbed that material long after the aircraft work had modernized.

NAS Jacksonville is an active Navy installation and an EPA Superfund site, with cleanup reviewed on a recurring five-year cycle. That designation covers a range of contaminants rather than asbestos specifically, but it reflects how much industrial activity the site absorbed.

Who May Have Been Exposed

Those most exposed included:

• Repair gangs, boilermakers, and pipefitters and steamfitters opening up machinery spaces
• Insulators stripping and replacing lagging on vessel after vessel
• Machinists, welders, and electricians working the same compartments
• Sailors at Mayport aboard ships during repair availabilities, and aviation mechanics at NAS Jacksonville
• Contractors who moved between the commercial yards and the bases

Take-home exposure through work clothing reached family members here as it did at every waterfront.

Illnesses Linked to the Exposure

The diagnoses that follow this work, mesothelioma (pleural and peritoneal), asbestos-related lung cancer, and asbestosis, surface decades later, often after a worker has retired.

Why This History Can Matter in a Claim

Jacksonville claims differ from navy-yard claims in one way that worries people unnecessarily. The major employers here were private companies, and the main downtown yard closed in the early 1990s. A company being gone does not end the road.

Asbestos cases usually run against the manufacturers and suppliers of the products involved rather than against the yard that employed you. Many of those manufacturers went bankrupt and set up trust funds that pay claims tied to documented exposure, including at facilities that no longer exist. Florida's courts also see asbestos disease regularly, given the state's retiree population, whether the exposure happened here or somewhere else entirely.

The window to file generally counts from the diagnosis rather than from the exposure, state deadlines vary, and whether any particular situation fits depends on the facts.

If you are looking into this for yourself or a family member of yourself or a family member, our companion directory can connect you with Florida asbestos lawyers who handle these matters, and you can also see who may qualify for an asbestos claim.

Records That Can Help

Three different kinds of employer means three different record trails, and knowing which one applies saves a lot of wasted searching. Private yard work is best reconstructed from Social Security earnings statements, which list every employer and year even when the company's own files are long gone. Federal civilian work at NAS Jacksonville runs through Department of Defense personnel records. Navy service at Mayport or the air station runs through service records, which were never held locally. Union locals and coworker testimony fill the gaps in all three. Job titles, dates, vessels or aircraft worked, and which yard or base all help. See records that help support an asbestos claim.

Common Questions

The shipyard company is long gone. Who would a claim even be against?

Usually the manufacturers of the asbestos products used aboard the ships, not the yard itself. Many of those manufacturers also established bankruptcy trust funds that pay claims tied to documented exposure, including at closed facilities.

I was an aviation mechanic, not a ship worker. Is this the right page?

Yes. Aircraft carried asbestos in brake and clutch linings, engine gaskets, heat shielding, and firewall insulation, and the overhaul operation at NAS Jacksonville has run continuously since the Second World War under three different names. Aviation ratings and civilian depot employees are part of this exposure history, not a footnote to it.

I was stationed at Mayport but never worked in a shipyard. Does this page apply?

It can. Sailors aboard ships during maintenance and repair availabilities, especially in engineering ratings, encountered the same disturbed materials as the repair crews.

How do I prove I worked at a yard that no longer exists?

Social Security earnings records list employers by year regardless of whether the company survives, and union and coworker evidence has anchored many claims from closed yards.

Sources

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Jacksonville Naval Air Station Superfund Site Profile — the installation's Superfund status and five-year review cycle.
• Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council, NAS Jacksonville OU 03 site summary — the 1940 establishment date, acreage, and the station's industrial and aviation-support role.
• Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, NAS Jacksonville environmental restoration — the Navy's own restoration record for the site.

Figures and dates above should be confirmed against the original sources.

Related Pages

About the Author

David Meldofsky is a California-licensed attorney and the founder of Lawsuit Informer, an educational platform focused on helping people understand lawsuits, consumer safety issues, and legal rights related to defective products and toxic exposures.

Learn more about our Editorial Policy, About page, or Contact us.

Last Updated: September 7, 2026

Educational information only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed.