Asbestos Exposure at Mare Island Naval Shipyard

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

Last updated: June 6, 2026

Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, was the first U.S. Navy base on the Pacific Coast and one of the most significant asbestos exposure sites in the West. For generations — and especially during decades of submarine construction and overhaul — the people who built and repaired ships there worked around asbestos every day, often without knowing it. This page explains, in plain terms, how and where exposure happened at the yard, who was affected, the illnesses linked to it, and why that history can still matter today.

About Mare Island Naval Shipyard

Established in 1854 on Mare Island in Vallejo, California — about 25 miles northeast of San Francisco — Mare Island was the first U.S. Navy base on the Pacific Coast. It operated for 142 years, until it was closed in 1996 under the federal Base Realignment and Closure process, and is now a National Historic Landmark. Over its history the yard built roughly 500 vessels and overhauled thousands more.

Mare Island reached its peak during World War II, when more than 40,000 civilian and military personnel worked there and the yard became one of the busiest in the world, building submarines, destroyer escorts, and landing craft. In its later decades it was the leading submarine port on the West Coast, building its first nuclear-powered submarine in the 1950s and its last submarine in 1970, then continuing as a major submarine overhaul facility. Through the decades when the yard was most active, asbestos was a standard shipbuilding material, which is why so many of the people who worked there were exposed.

Why Asbestos Was Present

Mare Island's defining work was submarines, and submarines created the most concentrated asbestos conditions in all of shipbuilding. Every boat carried insulated piping, machinery lagging, gaskets, and packing packed into a pressure hull with almost no interior volume, so any insulation work filled the entire boat with dust. The yard built submarines from the early 1900s through 1970 and overhauled them for decades after, which meant repeatedly disturbing original asbestos inside those same confined hulls. For the general background, see asbestos exposure in shipyards and naval service.

Where Exposure May Have Happened

The yard's exposure settings reflect its submarine specialty alongside its surface-ship work:

• Inside submarine pressure hulls during construction, where trades worked shoulder to shoulder in unventilated compartments
• Submarine overhauls, when original machinery insulation was stripped and replaced inside the same confined spaces
• Engine room and machinery compartment work on both submarines and surface vessels
• The building ways and dry docks during the WWII surge of submarines, destroyer escorts, and landing craft
• Yard shops where insulated components, valves, and pumps were rebuilt
• Berths where boats sat through long refit availabilities

In a compartment where two workers could barely pass each other, there was no such thing as being far from the insulation work.

Who May Have Been Exposed

More than 40,000 people worked the yard at its WWII peak, and submarine work continued for five more decades. Those most exposed included:

• Insulators working inside hulls where dust had nowhere to disperse
• Pipefitters and steamfitters and boilermakers fitting machinery in confined compartments
• Machinists, electricians, and welders sharing those same spaces
• Submarine crews aboard during construction, trials, and refits

Vallejo families exposed through dust carried home on work clothes are part of the yard's pattern as well.

Illnesses Linked to the Exposure

The confined-space character of submarine work is reflected in the diagnoses that have followed: mesothelioma (pleural and peritoneal), asbestos-related lung cancer, and asbestosis, appearing decades after the work itself.

Why This History Can Matter in a Claim

Mare Island claims benefit from both geography and timeline. California maintains some of the most active asbestos litigation in the country, centered in the Bay Area courts nearest the yard, and Mare Island's materials, suppliers, and working conditions have been documented across decades of those cases. And because the yard operated until 1996, its exposure window reaches far later than most naval facilities, meaning workers from its final decades are still well inside the latency period.

Filing deadlines run from diagnosis rather than from the original exposure, and they differ from state to state. If you are researching on behalf of yourself or a family member, our companion directory can connect you with California asbestos lawyers who handle these matters, and you can also see who may qualify for an asbestos claim.

Records That Can Help

Federal civilian personnel records cover the yard's workforce, Navy service records can tie a submariner to specific boats and refit periods, and the hull numbers of submarines built or overhauled at the yard are well documented, which helps anchor a work history to particular years. Vallejo-area union locals kept their own records. Job titles, dates, boats, and shops all help; see records that help support an asbestos claim.

Common Questions

Was submarine work really more dangerous than other shipyard work?

The exposure conditions were among the worst, because the spaces were the smallest. Insulation dust generated inside a pressure hull stayed there, and every trade aboard breathed it regardless of their own task.

The base closed in 1996. Where do the records live now?

Federal civilian employment records moved to national records repositories rather than disappearing with the base, and Navy service records were never held at the yard at all. Closure complicates record-gathering less than people fear.

I worked there in the 1980s and 90s. Is that too recent for asbestos disease?

No. Disease appearing 30 to 50 years after exposure puts the yard's final-decade workforce inside the window right now and for years to come.

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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.

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Last Updated: June 10, 2026

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