Mare Island Naval Shipyard — located on Mare Island in Vallejo, California — was the United States Navy’s oldest naval facility on the Pacific Coast, founded in 1854 and operating continuously through the Cold War era before its 1996 closure. Mare Island built and overhauled submarines, surface ships, and naval vessels throughout its history — including major submarine construction and overhaul during World War II and subsequent decades. The shipyard’s construction and overhaul work, spanning more than a century, involved massive quantities of asbestos insulation installed and removed in the confined engineering spaces of naval vessels at every stage of the shipyard’s operations. Mare Island workers — including pipefitters, insulation workers, Machinist’s Mates, and the full range of shipyard trades — were exposed to asbestos throughout the shipyard’s active construction and overhaul history. Publicly filed asbestos litigation records document Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the formal asbestos litigation framework: testimony identifying Mare Island in asbestos exposure contexts, 1983 asbestos documentation from the facility, asbestosis cases specifically involving Mare Island employment, and Mare Island in formal multi-defendant naval asbestos proceedings.

Documented Asbestos — Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Litigation

1983 — Mare Island Asbestos Documentation

Testimony — Mare Island Naval Shipyard Identification

Asbestos Exposure — Mare Island Employment

Asbestos at Mare Island Naval Shipyard

Submarine construction and overhaul: Mare Island was the Navy’s premier West Coast submarine construction facility — building submarines and performing submarine overhauls throughout WWII and the Cold War. Submarine engineering spaces presented the most confined and highest-concentration asbestos work environments in naval shipbuilding.

Surface ship construction: Mare Island constructed surface combatants and support vessels with the full complement of asbestos insulation used in naval construction of each era — from steam-powered battleships of the early twentieth century through the guided missile ships of the postwar period.

One hundred years of asbestos work: Mare Island’s continuous operation from 1854 through 1996 meant that workers at the facility encountered asbestos insulation across multiple generations of Navy construction specifications — early asbestos cloth and paper products, mid-century asbestos pipe covering, and the modern asbestos-containing gaskets and insulation of the postwar era.

Drydock operations: Mare Island’s drydock facilities were the venue for intensive asbestos removal and replacement operations during vessel overhaul — the work that generated the highest asbestos fiber concentrations at any naval facility.

VA Claims and Legal Options — Mare Island Naval Shipyard Workers

Navy veterans who served at Mare Island Naval Shipyard — as military personnel or civilian workers — and veterans whose ships were built or overhauled at Mare Island, who subsequently developed mesothelioma, asbestos-related lung cancer, asbestosis, or pleural disease, may qualify for:

  • VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) for veterans with documented duty at Mare Island Naval Shipyard or aboard vessels built or overhauled at the facility
  • Civil claims against asbestos product manufacturers whose materials were installed at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, based on the documented asbestos exposure and asbestosis cases at the facility

Key documents:

  • DD-214 or service records — documenting assignment to or duty at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo
  • Employment records — civilian employment at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in any construction or maintenance trade
  • Diagnosis — mesothelioma, asbestos-related lung cancer, asbestosis, or pleural disease

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Documented asbestos exposure information derived from publicly filed asbestos litigation records. This does not constitute legal or medical advice.