Moore Dry Dock Company

Facility Overview

Moore Dry Dock Company traces its origins to 1905, when Robert S. Moore, his brother Joseph A. Moore, and John Thomas Scott purchased the National Iron Works at Hunter's Point in San Francisco and founded Moore & Scott Iron Works. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the original facility; in 1909, Moore and Scott relocated across the Bay to purchase the W.A. Boole & Son Shipyard at the foot of Adeline Street on the Oakland Estuary. In 1917, Moore bought out Scott and renamed the company Moore Shipbuilding Company; in 1922, as post-WWI demand collapsed, the yard shifted to repair work and was renamed Moore Dry Dock Company.

When WWII shipbuilding demand surged, Moore rapidly expanded its construction capabilities. Between 1938 and the last vessel launched in 1945, the yard built over 100 ships for the U.S. Navy and merchant marine, including submarine tenders (USS Greenlet, ASR-10) and amphibious dock landing ships. Moore ranked 82nd among all U.S. corporations in the value of WWII military production contracts — a remarkable standing for a single-yard commercial shipbuilder. Peak employment reached approximately 37,000 workers during 1943–1944.

After the war, Moore returned to its repair-yard focus. Shipbuilding ceased in 1945; repair operations continued until the yard closed in 1961. The Adeline Street site was subsequently acquired by Schnitzer Steel (now Radius Recycling), which operates a scrap metal facility there today.

Fleischer-Drinker 1946: USMC-Commissioned Pipe Covering Survey

The primary government industrial hygiene record for Navy contract yards like Moore Dry Dock is the Fleischer-Drinker 1946 survey: "A Health Survey of Pipe Covering Operations in Constructing Naval Vessels," published in the Journal of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology, Vol. 28, No. 1 (1946). The study was commissioned by the U.S. Maritime Commission and authored by Comdr. Walter E. Fleischer (MC, USNR), Frederick J. Viles Jr., Robert L. Gade, and Philip Drinker, Chief Health Consultant to the U.S. Maritime Commission.

The survey examined pipe covering operations at four yards — two Government Navy Yards (A and B) and two Navy Contract Yards (C and D) — documenting dust counts during seven distinct operations: laying out and cutting amosite felt, band saw cutting, sewing and preparation of boots and jackets, cement mixing, molding, grinding, and on-board ship installation. The survey found that amosite pipe covering and felt had been used on "almost all destroyers built since [1934] and on all other combat vessels built since before the War," and documented visible asbestosis in workers at the initial inspection yard that triggered the broader survey series.

Moore Dry Dock, as a major Navy contract yard ranked 82nd in U.S. war production, used the same Maritime Commission-specified amosite pipe covering and boiler block insulation documented in the Fleischer-Drinker survey. The survey's findings — that cutting and fitting amosite in confined engine rooms and boiler spaces generated hazardous dust concentrations — apply directly to the occupational conditions at Moore Dry Dock during WWII peak production.

W.A. Simons Asbestos Trust — California Site List (2020)

The W.A. Simons Asbestos Trust's California Site List (September 2020) lists MOORE DRY DOCK–OAKLAND, CA (ADELINE ST) at Exposure Level H (High). The Simons Trust site list is a claims-administration document reflecting the trust's determination, based on its own evidence review, that workers at listed sites were exposed to asbestos-containing products for which the trust is liable.

The "High" exposure designation — the second-highest level in the Simons Trust's four-tier scale (VH, H, S, L) — is consistent with the documented use of amosite pipe covering and boiler block insulation at a major WWII Navy contract yard with a peak workforce of 37,000. The Simons Trust listing covers both the WWII construction period and the post-war repair period, reflecting the trust's recognition that asbestos-containing materials installed during wartime construction remained in place and were disturbed during subsequent maintenance and repair operations.

Historical Context: The "Moore Dry Dock Standards" (1950)

Moore Dry Dock is historically significant beyond its asbestos exposure record. In 1950, the National Labor Relations Board decided Sailors' Union of the Pacific (Moore Dry Dock Co.), 92 NLRB 547, 27 LRRM 1108 (1950), establishing the "Moore Dry Dock Standards" — the NLRB's foundational rules for determining when a union's secondary picketing at a neutral employer's premises is protected primary activity rather than an unlawful secondary boycott.

The case arose when the Sailors' Union of the Pacific picketed Moore Dry Dock's Oakland facility while a ship owned by a separate company (Samsoc) was in dry dock for repairs. The NLRB held that the picketing was lawful primary activity — not an unlawful secondary boycott — because the ship was the union's primary target and was temporarily located at Moore's neutral premises. The four-part test established in the decision (the "Moore Dry Dock Standards") remains the controlling NLRB standard for situs picketing more than 70 years later.

The labor law significance of the yard is relevant to asbestos litigation context because it establishes the occupational trades present at Moore Dry Dock — sailors, boilermakers, pipefitters, insulators — and the scale of union activity at the facility. The same trades that were the subject of the 1950 NLRB case were the trades most heavily exposed to amosite pipe covering and boiler block insulation during WWII construction and post-war repair operations.

Asbestos Products Documented at Moore Dry Dock

The Fleischer-Drinker survey and corroborating records document the following asbestos-containing products at Navy contract yards of Moore Dry Dock's type and scale. All WWII-era Pacific Coast Navy contract yards used the same Maritime Commission-specified product set.

"Verified" = named in a primary government survey document or trust site list. "Probable" = consistent with documented product use at comparable WWII Pacific Coast Navy contract yards; not yet named in a Moore Dry Dock-specific retrieved document.

Bay Area Cluster: Moore Dry Dock vs. Marinship vs. Hunter's Point

Moore Dry Dock, Marinship Corporation, and Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard form the core Bay Area shipyard cluster — three yards within 15 miles of each other, all active during WWII, with distinct evidence profiles.