Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant

The Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant is located near Southport, North Carolina. Two General Electric boiling water reactors use waters from the Cape Fear River, which is then discharged into the Atlantic. The plant is owned jointly by the Progress Energy Corporation and the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency.

The site contains two, which are cooled by water collected from the and discharged into the Atlantic Ocean.

Virtually all electrical power generation facilities constructed before the 1980s containing large amounts of asbestos and asbestos-containing materials (ACMs).

Before that time, the health hazards of asbestos were largely unknown, although industry insiders at Raysbestos, W.R. Grace, Johns-Manville and other asbestos manufacturers had been well aware of the facts since the 1930s. In 1977, a plaintiff's attorney in an asbestos case discovered papers that outlined the four-decade conspiracy to keep the public ignorant of asbestos dangers.

Flame, excessive heat and electricity are all hazards at power generation plants. Because of this, power generation facilities made extensive use of asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) in their construction; such materials could also be used in the turbine machinery itself. Other asbestos hazards include:

• electrical cloth
• fire doors
• pipe and conduit lagging
• work surfaces

When these materials became friable (a crumbling state in which fibers are released into the environment), the resulting asbestos dust was not only inhaled, but could become lodged in workers' hair and clothing, subjecting unsuspecting family members to the hazards of secondary exposure.

In 2003, medical researchers in Puerto Rico examined chest x-rays from 1100 power plant workers. Signs of asbestos disease were seen in 13% of the subjects. Power plants are considered to be among the most hazardous industrial jobsites when it comes to asbestos by industrial safety experts. This danger was tragically extended to family members as well. Asbestos dust often became lodged in the hair and on the clothing of workers, who then unwittingly brought the substance home. Several recent asbestos cases have centered on instances of asbestos cancers resulting from such secondary exposure.

Those who were employed at such facilities prior to the early 1980s should discuss this with a medical professional if possible and receive frequent check-ups. Asbestos diseases such as mesothelioma have long latency periods; symptoms may not be apparent until several decades after such exposure. However, new tests allow pathologists to test for the protein “markers” that are indicative of the early stages of such cancers. Early detection and treatment can mean a much better long-term prognosis, although lifetime monitoring is usually required.

This location was one of thousands of factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, in the first 70 years of the last century, used the mineral asbestos for its ability to withstand flame. While the use of asbestos was intended to reduce the risk of injury, it unfortunately ended up with the opposite effect: asbestos exposure in the workplace has resulted in serious illness for untold numbers people. The reason large numbers of people have fallen ill from health conditions including asbestosis and cancer is that when humans inhale or ingest strands of asbestos, the mineral infiltrates the lungs; once there, the tiny, jagged bits of asbestos damage organs. The most serious of the asbestos-related disorders is pleural mesothelioma, a form of cancer that affects the cells lining the pleural cavity; it is a disease that usually kills within two years of diagnosis.

People who work around asbestos now are generally protected from inhalation because of the many laws controlling its use, inclusion in products and disposal. Even up to the late 1900s, though, laborers commonly were told to operate in spaces in which airborne asbestos was unfiltered; in many cases, safety procedures were not explained. Moreover, employees brought asbestos strands to their homes on their work clothes when change rooms were not offered at the company; the consequence of this was that this potentially deadly mineral also put at risk offspring of those who worked around asbestos.

Those who worked at this site at any time in their job history, as well as their spouses and children, are encouraged to find out about these health conditions and tell their healthcare professionals about their history of exposure to asbestos, because the symptoms of asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma are often mistaken for those of other conditions. Workers who could have been negligently exposed should seek consultation with a mesothelioma attorney.

Sources

Bowker, Michael. Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America. New York: Touchstone, 2003.

Cabrera-Santiago, Manuel et al. "Prevalence of Asbestos-Related Disease Among Electrical Power Generation Workers in Puerto Rico." Presentation at American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, 2007.

Energy Information Agency. “ Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant, North Carolina.”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/brunswick.html