Long Beach Naval Shipyard, located at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California, served as the primary US Navy ship repair and overhaul facility in Southern California from WWII through the shipyard’s closure in 1997. The yard was a major employer in the Los Angeles area and performed overhaul work on a wide range of Pacific Fleet surface ships — including aircraft carrier overhauls — as well as destroyer and cruiser repair and refurbishment. The overhaul work at Long Beach Naval Shipyard involved extensive asbestos pipe covering removal and reinstallation in the engineering plants of ships undergoing overhaul, creating sustained asbestos exposure for the shipyard’s military and civilian workforce.

Ship Overhaul Asbestos Exposure

Long Beach Naval Shipyard conducted surface ship overhaul with significant asbestos use:

  • Aircraft carrier overhaul work — Long Beach Naval Shipyard conducted Selected Restricted Availability (SRA) and Complex Overhaul (COH) work on aircraft carriers, including the overhaul of carrier boiler plants with asbestos lagging removal and reinstallation and the overhaul of carrier steam systems with pipe covering removal throughout the engineering spaces. Aircraft carrier overhauls generated the highest quantities of asbestos-containing waste at the Long Beach yard due to the size of the carrier steam plant
  • Pipe covering removal and reinstallation — PI (Pipe Insulator) trades and Navy ratings at Long Beach Naval Shipyard removed and reinstalled asbestos magnesia pipe covering on steam system piping during each ship overhaul. The pipe covering removal — stripping deteriorated asbestos insulation from steam lines in the ship’s engineering spaces — generated high asbestos fiber concentrations in the engineering spaces during the stripping operation
  • Boiler lagging and refractory — boiler overhaul at Long Beach required removal of asbestos boiler lagging and refractory brick from the boiler exterior and furnace before boiler maintenance, with the lagging removal generating the most intensive asbestos exposure in the boiler overhaul sequence

Southern California Naval Industrial Complex

Long Beach Naval Shipyard operated in proximity to other Long Beach naval facilities:

  • The Long Beach Naval Complex included the shipyard, Naval Station Long Beach, and the homeport for Pacific Fleet combatants — the concentration of naval activity creating a large workforce of military and civilian personnel with overlapping asbestos exposure pathways across the Long Beach naval complex

VA Claims for Long Beach Naval Shipyard Veterans

VA evaluates asbestos-related disability claims on a case-by-case basis. Veterans generally need evidence of in-service asbestos exposure, a current asbestos-related diagnosis, and a medical link between them. Military and civilian workers who performed ship overhaul work at Long Beach Naval Shipyard and have since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or asbestos-related lung cancer may qualify for VA disability benefits.