Naval Base Kitsap, located on Puget Sound in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area, consolidates the former Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS, Bremerton) and Naval Submarine Base Bangor into a single installation complex. PSNS is one of the Navy’s four public shipyards performing major overhaul and depot maintenance on the Pacific Fleet, including nuclear-powered surface ships and submarines requiring refueling availabilities. Naval Submarine Base Bangor is the Pacific Fleet’s primary SSBN homeport, home to the Trident ballistic missile submarine force.

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Asbestos Exposure

PSNS has been one of the heaviest-use asbestos exposure environments in the Navy system — both for shipyard workers and for ship’s company personnel whose vessels underwent overhaul there:

  • Insulation trades at PSNS performed the most intensive asbestos work in the naval industrial complex — stripping decades-old asbestos insulation from boilers, steam turbines, and piping on ships undergoing major overhaul, and replacing insulation with new or substitute materials. Thousands of shipyard workers in the insulation, asbestos, and related trades worked in environments with extremely high asbestos fiber concentrations during insulation removal operations
  • Ship’s company asbestos exposure during availability — all crew members who remained aboard their vessel during PSNS overhaul were present in spaces where asbestos insulation was being removed and replaced, accumulating significant asbestos exposure during the shipyard period even without directly performing insulation work
  • Nuclear ship overhaul and refueling at PSNS involved nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (Enterprise, Nimitz class) and submarines requiring the same asbestos removal and replacement work in secondary steam circuit components during nuclear overhaul availabilities

Naval Submarine Base Bangor, located on Hood Canal in the Kitsap Peninsula, is the Pacific Fleet SSBN homeport. Ohio class Trident submarines home-ported at Bangor used a pier-side maintenance program at the Trident Refit Facility (TRF), where submarine engineering personnel and refit facility workers performed maintenance on submarine nuclear steam plant components:

  • Ohio class submarine steam plant maintenance at TRF Bangor involved engineering personnel and civilian refit workers performing secondary steam circuit maintenance on Trident submarines, encountering any residual asbestos in secondary steam components from the period before full asbestos elimination in naval construction

Older Shore Infrastructure

The PSNS Bremerton complex includes buildings and infrastructure dating to the shipyard’s establishment in 1891, with extensive construction from multiple eras containing asbestos in building mechanical systems and materials.

VA Claims for Kitsap/PSNS Veterans

VA presumptive service connection under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) covers asbestos exposure at Navy shipyards and installations. Veterans who worked at PSNS Bremerton — as civilian shipyard workers or ship’s company during overhaul — and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer may qualify for VA disability benefits.