The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), located in Monterey, California on the former Del Monte Hotel grounds, has served as the United States Navy’s graduate education institution since 1947 (and in predecessor form since 1909). NPS educates officers from all US military services and international partner nations in engineering, operations research, national security affairs, and other advanced disciplines. The campus’s historic buildings — many constructed in the 1940s and 1950s — and its subsequent postwar construction incorporate asbestos-containing materials consistent with civilian and military institutional construction standards of those periods.

Historic Campus and Asbestos Sources

The Naval Postgraduate School occupies a campus built across multiple construction eras. The Del Monte Hotel building, which became the administrative and academic heart of the campus, dates to the early twentieth century. Expansion and construction through the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s added academic buildings, laboratories, barracks, and support facilities using materials standard in institutional construction of those eras:

  • Herrmann Hall and older academic buildings constructed or extensively renovated in the postwar period incorporated asbestos pipe insulation, floor tile, and ceiling materials
  • Steam heating systems serving the campus used asbestos-insulated piping throughout the distribution network
  • Barracks and residential facilities for students and faculty built in the postwar era used asbestos-containing construction materials standard in Navy shore installation housing
  • Laboratory and research facilities constructed in the 1950s and 1960s used asbestos in ceiling tile, pipe insulation, and laboratory bench materials

Officer Students and Shore Duty Personnel

Officers assigned to NPS for graduate study typically spent one to two academic years at the Monterey campus. During this period, they occupied classrooms, laboratories, offices, and residential facilities in buildings with asbestos-containing materials. Permanent faculty, administrative staff, and maintenance personnel assigned to NPS accumulated longer-duration shore duty exposure in the same campus facilities.

Federal Facilities Documentation

The Naval Postgraduate School campus has been the subject of environmental assessment and hazardous materials surveys as part of federal facilities management. Environmental review processes at installations of NPS’s age and construction history typically identify asbestos-containing materials in older buildings — consistent with the postwar construction era represented in the NPS campus.

VA Claims for Naval Postgraduate School Veterans

VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) covers shore-duty asbestos exposure at Navy educational and support installations including NPS. Officers who attended or were assigned to NPS before the early 1980s and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer may qualify for VA disability benefits. DD-214 records or official orders listing Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA document the duty station.