Mesothelioma and asbestos exposure in Portsmouth

The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has served the Navy since the early 1800s and became a major submarine builder and overhaul yard in the twentieth century. Although it sits in Kittery, much of its workforce has always lived in Portsmouth and the surrounding New Hampshire towns, commuting across the river each day. Submarine work involved insulated steam and water piping, pumps and valves packed with asbestos, and overhauls meant stripping out older insulation in confined compartments. Pipefitters, insulators and electricians often worked shoulder to shoulder, so exposure was shared across trades rather than limited to the people handling insulation.

Pease Air Force Base, which operated in Portsmouth and Newington for decades before closing in the early 1990s, housed aircraft maintenance shops, heating plants and hundreds of buildings from an era when asbestos was common in construction. Base maintenance crews, civilian contractors and families living in older base housing may have encountered those materials during repairs and renovations. Together, the shipyard and the base shape most asbestos claims from the Seacoast region. Many local residents also worked in paper and textile mills elsewhere in New Hampshire and Maine, adding more possible exposure sources to their work histories.