By Glenn S. Draper on February 17, 2010

It is undeniable that Puget Sound Naval Shipyard has brought great prosperity to the Kitsap Peninsula. Indeed, the Defense Department is one of the largest sources of jobs in the Puget Sound region. In late 2008, ten thousand workers were employed at PSNS and the number was expected to grow by this year. Of those workers, civilians outnumber military by more than 10 to 1. Throughout the nation’s economic downturn, local crews have continued to renovate some of the military’s most sophisticated vessels, including nuclear powered aircraft carriers and fast attack submarines. But the contributions of PSNS have not come without a price. In the early 1990s, the Navy admitted the presence of high levels of heavy metals such as lead and cadmium, pesticides, and PCBs in the soil and groundwater throughout the shipyard. Taxpayers have been forced to foot the bill for cleaning up after an oil spill there that continued for 70 years. Many workers at PSNS have suffered unnecessary hearing loss from their exposure to continuous loud noise on the job.

And then there is the asbestos. Last summer, the Navy spent $2 million to paint and refurbish the Shipyard’s landmark Building 460, an asbestos-clad structure built in 1941 to repair battleships during WWII. Paint won’t fix the damage, however, for the thousands of servicemen and women and civilian employees exposed to asbestos while working at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard during WWII and since. For far too many of these individuals, their service to their country led to the development of asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma, a rare cancer virtually always caused by exposure to asbestos. Mesothelioma most commonly attacks the lining of the lungs, though it may also appear in the lining of other organs, including the stomach and heart. Most workers who were exposed will not develop the disease, but those who do will not experience symptoms for decades after their first exposure. By that time, the cancer is in its final stages. Mesothelioma is always fatal.

Prior to the 1980s, asbestos insulation was commonly used throughout ships – for insulating steam and hot water pipes and fittings, fireproofing doors and even for muffling sound between decks. For decades, it was nearly impossible not to be exposed to asbestos on board Naval vessels. Asbestos covered the pipes running throughout the ship, even pipes that ran just inches above bunks in the sailors’ sleeping quarters. Navy personnel with the greatest risk for significant exposure were those who worked without ventilation in the ships’ fire and engine rooms where insulation and refractory products were necessary. These personnel included a number of occupations, such as boilermen, enginemen, firemen, machinist mates, shipfitters, pipefitters, electrician’s mates and seabees, who performed military construction.

Conditions were no better for shipyard workers who were also exposed when the vessels came in for overhaul. Workers toiled for months on end stripping away old asbestos and then re-applying new asbestos insulation on pipes, engines, boilers, pumps, valves and other equipment. Statistically, working in an American shipyard during WWII was almost as dangerous as fighting in the war. While the combat death rate was around eighteen per thousand service members, fourteen shipyard workers of every thousand died from asbestos-related cancer. And this figure does not include workers who died from asbestosis or related complications. Nor does it include the workers’ family members who were exposed to the asbestos the men brought home on their clothing. In a 1984 medical study of Norfolk Naval Shipyard workers in Virginia, 79 percent of workers showed signs of lung abnormalities caused by asbestos exposure and 8 to 9 percent of the workers’ wives demonstrated similar abnormalities.

As lawyers who have represented hundreds of Puget Sound families devastated by mesothelioma and the asbestos that caused it, we are continually amazed that this tragedy did not have to happen. Since at least the 1930s, the manufacturers of the asbestos products used on the ships docked at PSNS knew their products were dangerous and yet they did nothing. The asbestos manufacturers didn’t test their products to see if they could be safely used; they didn’t protect their own factory employees who manufactured the products; and they they didn’t warn the workers at PSNS who used the products. They were too busy making money to care.

That attitude is the maddening part. Whether it’s mortgage brokers selling bad loans, Toyota selling bad brakes, or asbestos manufacturers selling dangerous insulation, corporations must be made to care about more than making money. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, with all the welcome prosperity it has brought to our region, is another lesson in that.