While Navy boiler-room workers (Boiler Tenders, Machinist’s Mates, and Firemen) experienced continuous asbestos exposure during routine operations at sea and in port, the most concentrated periods of asbestos exposure typically occurred during depot-level overhaul availabilities at the major U.S. Navy public shipyards. During a typical Regular Overhaul (ROH), Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH), or extended Selected Restricted Availability (SRA), boiler rooms were torn down to bare metal — boiler tubes pulled, refractory ripped out, insulation stripped, gaskets scraped, and every flange opened — generating extraordinarily high concentrations of airborne asbestos fiber in the immediate breathing zone of the workers performing the work.

These overhaul availabilities lasted 3 to 18 months per ship, and many Navy boiler-room veterans rotated through multiple overhaul cycles across their careers, accumulating extensive exposure across multiple public shipyards.

Major U.S. Navy public shipyards where boiler-room overhaul work occurred

West Coast

  • Mare Island Naval Shipyard (Vallejo, California) — operated 1854-1996. Submarine and surface combatant overhaul; one of the most heavily-litigated naval shipyard asbestos exposure sites
  • Hunters Point Naval Shipyard (San Francisco, California) — operated 1939-1974 by Navy; EPA Superfund site since 1989. Major World War II + postwar overhaul facility; also handled Operation Crossroads decontamination work in 1946
  • Long Beach Naval Shipyard (Long Beach, California) — operated 1943-1997. Major Pacific Fleet overhaul facility; performed the 1980s Iowa-class battleship recommissioning overhauls

Pacific

  • Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (Pearl Harbor, Hawaii) — operated 1908-present. Pacific Fleet’s principal forward-deployed overhaul facility; major asbestos exposure venue
  • Puget Sound Naval Shipyard / Bremerton (Bremerton, Washington) — operated 1891-present. One of the four currently-operating U.S. Navy public shipyards; major aircraft carrier overhaul facility

East Coast

  • Norfolk Naval Shipyard / Portsmouth Virginia (Portsmouth, Virginia) — operated 1767-present. One of the four currently-operating U.S. Navy public shipyards; major aircraft carrier and surface combatant overhaul facility
  • Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) — operated 1801-1995 (closed via BRAC). Major East Coast overhaul facility
  • Boston Naval Shipyard / Charlestown Navy Yard (Boston, Massachusetts) — operated 1801-1974. Major East Coast destroyer and frigate overhaul facility
  • Brooklyn Navy Yard / New York Naval Shipyard (Brooklyn, New York) — operated 1801-1966. Built USS Missouri and many other Navy vessels; major NYCAL asbestos litigation venue
  • Charleston Naval Shipyard (Charleston, South Carolina) — operated 1901-1996 (closed via BRAC). Major submarine and surface combatant overhaul facility

Portsmouth NH

  • Portsmouth Naval Shipyard / Kittery Maine (Kittery, Maine — historically called “Portsmouth NH”) — operated 1800-present. One of the four currently-operating U.S. Navy public shipyards; principal submarine overhaul facility

Concentrated asbestos exposure during boiler-room overhauls

A typical boiler-room overhaul during the asbestos era involved:

  • Boiler tube replacement — pulling and replacing thousands of fire-side and water-side tubes per boiler, disturbing the asbestos block insulation, refractory, and gaskets at every tube-bundle penetration
  • Refractory tear-out and replacement — removing the asbestos-bearing furnace refractory (firebrick, castable refractory, plastic refractory, gunite refractory) and rebuilding the furnace interior from bare metal up
  • Steam-drum penetration gasket replacement — every penetration into the steam drum (valves, gauges, instruments) had asbestos gaskets that were renewed
  • Manhole and handhole gasket replacement at every manhole and handhole on the boiler shell
  • Casing insulation tear-out and replacement — removing and reinstalling the asbestos block insulation jacketing the boiler shell
  • Soot-blower replacement — removing and replacing all retractable and rotating soot blowers, disturbing the asbestos insulation around the soot-blower penetrations
  • Burner front rebuild — tear-down of the burner registers, fuel-oil burners, refractory throat, and burner-tile assemblies
  • Steam, feed, fuel-oil, and condensate piping tear-out and reinstall — extensive asbestos pipe insulation disturbance
  • Auxiliary equipment overhauls — fans, fan motors, fuel-oil pumps, fuel-oil heaters, feed pumps, deaerating feed tanks

Worker populations and trade contractors

During an overhaul, the ship’s own boiler-room crew (BT, MM, FN ratings) typically worked alongside extensive shipyard civilian workforces including yard pipefitters, yard insulators, yard refractory masons, yard sheet metal workers, yard machinists, yard boilermakers, yard electricians, and yard riggers. Some overhauls also brought in trade-union contractors (HFIAW insulators, UA pipefitters, IBB boilermakers) for specialty work.

The result was that during a multi-month overhaul, hundreds of workers were simultaneously disturbing asbestos materials in the same confined boiler-room and engine-room spaces — producing some of the highest asbestos fiber concentrations of any work environment in U.S. industrial history.

If You Served in Navy Boiler-Room Ratings or Worked at a Navy Shipyard

If you served as a Navy BT, MM, FN, or related rating — or worked as a civilian shipyard worker or trade-union contractor at any of the U.S. Navy public shipyards listed above — and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer, or another asbestos-related illness — you may have legal rights.

Free, confidential case evaluation: Speak with O’Brien Law Firm — (314) 936-2956

All consultations are free. No fee unless a financial recovery is made on your behalf.