Military Electrician: Toxic Exposure and VA Claims

Evidence accepted in VA appeals documents that Navy ships built between the 1940s and the 1970s relied heavily on asbestos for insulation of wires, pipes, walls, floors, and gaskets. Electricians pulled cable through insulated engineering spaces, opened switchboards and distribution panels, and drilled or cut into lagged bulkheads to mount fixtures, work that could release friable fibers. VA adjudicators have treated the Navy electrician occupation as carrying a probable likelihood of asbestos exposure, and VA notes that most military exposure occurred before the federal government began regulating asbestos in the mid 1970s. Ashore, electricians renovating older base buildings faced the same insulation, flooring, and roofing products.

PCBs were used in transformers, capacitors, and other electrical equipment because they resist fire and insulate well, and older fluorescent lighting fixtures also contained them. ATSDR specifically identifies transformer maintenance and repair as an occupational exposure route. United States production stopped in 1977, but PCB filled equipment remained in service aboard ships and in base facilities for decades afterward. Electricians who serviced, drained, or replaced this equipment could get leaking dielectric fluid on their skin or breathe contaminated air from deteriorating components well after the manufacturing ban.

One of the two major historical uses of trichloroethylene was removing grease from metal parts. Electricians used solvent degreasers to clean motor windings, relays, contacts, switchgear, and tools, frequently in cramped shipboard shops and engineering spaces with limited ventilation. VA appeal records document electrician's mates reporting routine use of TCE, alongside PCBs and asbestos, during shipboard electrical work, with buddy statements from shipmates describing the same use of these chemicals in that rating. (Add https://www.va.gov/vetapp22/Files11/22063127.txt to the sources array to support this statement.)

Older ships and base buildings were coated in lead based paint. Running conduit, mounting boxes and panels, and pulling cable meant drilling, cutting, scraping, and sanding painted steel and plaster, which produced dust that workers could breathe in or swallow. NIOSH reports that lead exposure occurs in construction and manufacturing work, that workers can unknowingly carry lead home on clothing and personal items, and that no safe level of lead exposure has been identified. VA appeal files include Navy electricians reporting lead paint exposure during shipboard service. (Support via https://www.va.gov/vetapp22/Files11/22063127.txt)