Mare Island Naval Shipyard sat on San Francisco Bay in Vallejo, California, and was the first United States Navy shipyard on the West Coast. The Navy operated it from 1854 to 1996, when it closed under a base realignment decision. Its own wartime and overhaul records document asbestos material on the site, both in shipboard work and in the ground beneath parts of the former yard.
The yard’s decades of submarine construction and, later, submarine overhaul work are the reason asbestos shows up in its own records. What follows is drawn from Navy history records, the yard’s own command histories, and state and federal environmental filings.
What work happened at Mare Island Naval Shipyard
The California Regional Water Quality Control Board describes the site’s primary activities plainly: “ship and submarine construction, modernization, and repair,” running from 1854 until the yard’s official closure in April 1996 (California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Order No. R2-2015-0028). The Navy’s own history office records more than 500 vessels constructed at Mare Island over its operating life, and thousands more repaired, including 391 ships built and 1,227 ships repaired during World War II alone (Navy History and Heritage Command, Mare Island).
After 1954, Mare Island became a submarine specialist. It built 17 nuclear submarines, starting with USS Sargo (SSN-583) in 1957, the first nuclear submarine built on the West Coast, and ending with USS Drum (SSN-677), launched in 1970 as the last submarine built at the yard (Navy History and Heritage Command). The yard’s own 1976 command history records that Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) had asked Mare Island that April to study building new Los Angeles-class (SSN-688) submarines, then reversed course in December 1976 and told the yard new construction would stay with civilian shipyards (Mare Island Naval Shipyard Command History, 1976). Mare Island never built another new submarine. From 1972 until closure in 1996, its work was overhaul, refueling, and repair of the existing submarine fleet.
That shift matters for exposure history. New construction installs material once. Overhaul work removes old shipboard insulation and material and replaces it, a process the yard’s own 1976 history calls “rip-out.” In 1976, Mare Island set up a dedicated Rip-Out Material Control Center in Building 151 specifically to support Production Department work at Berths 7, 8, and 9 (Mare Island Command History, 1976). That same year’s and the following year’s command histories name specific submarines undergoing overhaul, refueling, or inactivation work at the yard, including USS Seawolf (SSN-575), USS Tang (AGSS-563), USS Darter (SS-576), USS George Washington (SSBN-598), USS John Marshall (SSBN-611), USS Patrick Henry (SSBN-599), USS Robert E. Lee (SSBN-601), USS Halibut (SSN-587, being inactivated), and USS Tautog (SSN-639), which arrived in December 1977 for the yard’s first overhaul of a Sturgeon-class (SSN-637) boat (Mare Island Command History, 1976 and 1977).
Ships in our roster built at this yard
Our shipyard database currently tracks fourteen Navy ship classes, not every vessel ever built at every yard. Within that limited roster, 18 ships built at Mare Island Naval Shipyard appear, and all 18 are submarines: ten Balao-class boats and eight Gato-class boats, commissioned between 1941 and 1948. If a ship you are researching does not appear below, that does not mean it wasn’t built here. It likely means it falls outside our fourteen tracked classes.
| Ship | Hull number | Class | Commissioned |
|---|---|---|---|
| USS Silversides | SS-236 | Gato-class | 1941 |
| USS Trigger | SS-237 | Gato-class | 1942 |
| USS Wahoo | SS-238 | Gato-class | 1942 |
| USS Whale | SS-239 | Gato-class | 1942 |
| USS Sunfish | SS-281 | Gato-class | 1942 |
| USS Tunny | SS-282 | Gato-class | 1942 |
| USS Tinosa | SS-283 | Gato-class | 1943 |
| USS Tullibee | SS-284 | Gato-class | 1943 |
| USS Seahorse | SS-304 | Balao-class | 1943 |
| USS Skate | SS-305 | Balao-class | 1943 |
| USS Tang | SS-306 | Balao-class | 1943 |
| USS Tilefish | SS-307 | Balao-class | 1943 |
| USS Spadefish | SS-411 | Balao-class | 1944 |
| USS Trepang | SS-412 | Balao-class | 1944 |
| USS Spot | SS-413 | Balao-class | 1944 |
| USS Springer | SS-414 | Balao-class | 1944 |
| USS Stickleback | SS-415 | Balao-class | 1945 |
| USS Tiru | SS-416 | Balao-class | 1948 |
Note the USS Tang above (SS-306, a Balao-class boat commissioned in 1943) is a different vessel from the diesel submarine USS Tang (AGSS-563) named in the 1976 overhaul records in the previous section. The Navy reused ship names across different hulls, so a name alone does not identify which vessel or which era of service is meant.
Documented asbestos use at this yard
Mare Island’s own records are the strongest evidence here, not outside claims. The yard’s 1976 command history states directly: “During 1976, the Supply Department made serious efforts to purge the Shipyard of loose asbestos material. The material stockpiles of the Supply and Production Departments were cleared of material containing asbestos. In addition, new standards were imposed on all incoming materials which are checked for asbestos before acceptance. Materials with asbestos pressed hard in gaskets and the like are still used, but asbestos in the loose form is not” (Mare Island Naval Shipyard Command History, 1976). That single passage confirms two things: asbestos material, including loose asbestos, was present and handled at the yard before 1976, and gasket-form asbestos products remained in authorized use afterward.
Separately, the Navy’s own base closure environmental-restoration records name asbestos explicitly at one parcel of the former yard: Investigation Area H1, a 230-acre former shipyard landfill and waste-disposal area, where contaminants are listed as “Metals, PCBs, VOCs, PAHs, TPH, asbestos, discarded military munitions” (Navy BRAC Program Management Office restoration award record, Investigation Area H1).
A cleanup contractor’s own project description adds detail on the scale of remediation involved. Weston Solutions describes its early-transfer cleanup work at the former shipyard as “removal and on-site consolidation of over 35,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with volatile and semivolatile organic compounds, metals, PCBs, pesticides, lead-based paint, asbestos, and petroleum fuels,” with roughly 50,000 more cubic yards planned before final closure of the cleanup (Weston Solutions, project description). This is a contractor’s account, not a government record, but it corroborates the same contaminant.
Trades and ratings with documented exposure
Mare Island’s civilian shipyard tradespeople, distinct from professional and clerical staff, were represented by the Federal Employees Metal Trades Council (FEMTC), a fact the yard’s own 1976 and 1977 command histories record directly. Those same histories describe Production Department crews performing “rip-out” work, the removal of old shipboard material during overhaul, concentrated at Berths 7, 8, and 9 and supported from 1976 by the dedicated Rip-Out Material Control Center in Building 151.
We were not able to locate a trade-by-trade breakdown specific to Mare Island, the kind that would name individual ratings such as pipefitter, insulator, or boilermaker. Rather than guess, we are stating that plainly. What the primary record does confirm is the general category (Wage Grade tradespeople represented by FEMTC) and the specific kind of work (overhaul rip-out at named berths) most associated with the yard’s asbestos handling.
The scale of the workforce touched by this work was large. Navy history records more than 39,000 civilians employed on Mare Island alone during World War II, with thousands more in uniform, and the yard also supervised 28 private Bay Area shipyards employing roughly 40,000 additional Navy contractors during the war (Navy History and Heritage Command). Later, precisely dated snapshots from the yard’s own command history put the workforce at 10,477 people (10,425 civilians, 48 officers, 4 enlisted) as of December 31, 1976, and 9,867 people (9,813 civilians, 51 officers, 3 enlisted) as of December 31, 1977.
Environmental record
Mare Island Naval Shipyard is not on the federal Superfund National Priorities List. The Environmental Protection Agency’s own site profile (EPA ID CA7170024775) lists its status as “Not on the NPL,” tracked instead as a federal facility under “Other Cleanup Activity: State-Lead Cleanup” (EPA Superfund site profile, CA7170024775). Cleanup runs under a 2002 Federal Facility Site Remediation Agreement among the Navy, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, not under an EPA-led Superfund process (California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Order No. R2-2015-0028). This is worth stating precisely because it differs from some other Bay Area Navy yards, and EPA’s contaminants page for this site is not populated the way it would be for a listed NPL site.
What the state and Navy records do show: a 1987 Regional Water Board order (Order No. 87-170, since rescinded) covered 18 named waste management units at the former yard, including a 100-acre landfill dating to the early 1900s, a sandblasting operation active since 1952, a former paint shop, and a metal-plating shop (California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Order No. R2-2015-0028). In 2019, the state approved a cleanup decision for a separate parcel, Investigation Area F1, covering removal of 1,250 cubic yards of lead-contaminated soil and 3,600 cubic yards of metals-contaminated wetland sediment (California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Record of Decision, Investigation Area F1). In 2024, the Navy proposed a remedy for a different area, the Paint Waste Area, addressing lead- and nickel-contaminated paint debris; that proposal does not name asbestos as a contaminant of concern (Navy Proposed Plan, Paint Waste Area, 2024).
Asbestos, specifically, is named in the Navy’s own record for one parcel, Investigation Area H1, and independently referenced in a cleanup contractor’s project summary covering a broader area of the former yard. We have not found a single consolidated asbestos-specific contaminant inventory covering the site as a whole, and we are not implying one exists.
If you worked at this yard
If you or a family member worked at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, whether in uniform or as a civilian tradesperson, a few kinds of records tend to help establish where and when that work happened. A DD-214 or other service record can confirm Navy service dates and duty stations. Civilian personnel or employment records can show which department someone worked in and for how long. Union records, since Mare Island’s Wage Grade tradespeople were represented by the Federal Employees Metal Trades Council, can sometimes confirm a specific trade or work assignment. Family records such as pay stubs, ID badges, or photographs from the yard can also help fill in dates.
None of this requires urgency or pressure. It is simply easier to gather these records while they are accessible, and having them ready can make later steps more straightforward.
For a broader look at other Navy shipyards in our roster, see our shipyards directory. For background on how asbestos trusts work in general, see our trust overview. If you are looking into VA benefits related to a diagnosis, our VA forms guide walks through the paperwork. And if you would like help thinking through your specific situation, our veteran case review page explains what that process looks like.