Ingalls Shipbuilding - Specific Job Sites & Asbestos Exposure

Ingalls Shipbuilding is located in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where the Pascagoula River empties into the Mississippi Sound. (1) It is the largest employer in the state, with almost 11,000 employees, although in the past as many as 25,000 people have worked there.(2)  Ingalls is a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman.

Ingalls has been making large commercial vessels of all sorts since 1938, including luxury cruise liners, cargo and container ships, and oil tankers. Their versatile workers also make platforms and equipment for the offshore drilling industry. (1)

In the early 1950s, Ingalls also began building and maintaining surface ships and nuclear submarines for the U.S. Navy. (2) They’ve built 82 major warships since 1975, including amphibious assault ships, submarine tenders, destroyers, ammunition ships, nuclear submarines, and guided missile cruisers. Ingalls has also made warships for the Israeli Navy, and recently upgraded two frigates for the Venezuelan Navy. (1)

According to the Navy, any ship built prior to 1980 is believed to contain friable asbestos insulation. (3) This means that, throughout the ship but especially in the engine and fire rooms, any fibrous material protecting against heat, liquid, or noise probably contains asbestos fibers. This includes pre-formed pipe insulation, pipe mud, gaskets, lagging, brake and clutch linings, winch and capstan brakes, and roofing and flooring materials. (3)

The shipyard workers who installed insulation prior to the mid-1970s usually did so under unregulated working conditions. No one warned these workers of the dangers of inhaling asbestos fibers, especially in enclosed and unventilated areas, like the working spaces aboard ships. And the shipyard workers who breathed asbestos dust died at almost the same rate as the soldiers who fought on the battlefields of World War II. (4)

There have been several precedent-setting court cases involving asbestos exposure at Ingalls, some of them going through the justice system as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. (5) In one, the widow of a shipyard worker sued Ingalls not only for the years she did not get to spend with her husband because of his early, asbestos-related death, but also for the salary he did not earn because of his illness. She won her case, and the higher court affirmed the decision upon appeal. (6)

'Ingalls Shipbuilding - Specific Job Sites & Asbestos Exposure' Resources:
  1. Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. Online. “Building Freedom . . . One Great Ship at a Time.”
    Accessed: 31 July 2007.
  2. Federation of American Scientists. Online. “Military Analysis Network: Ingalls Shipbuilding.” 21 February 1999.
  3. Department of the Navy, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. “Navy Safety and Occupational Health (SOH) Program Manual for Forces Afloat. OpNav Instruction 5100.19E. Volume I: SOH and Major Hazard-Specific Programs.” 30 May 2007.
  4. Burke, Bill. Online, May 2001. Shipbuilding’s Deadly Legacy/Disease: 9,000 Sick or Dead
  5. Oyez U. S. Supreme Court Media:, Online. "Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc. v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation.” 18 February 1997.
  6. Kaiser Papers. , Overly v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc. California Court of Appeals, First District. Online. “First District Court of Appeals Allows Tort Victims to Recover ‘Lost Years Damages’.” 16 August 1999.