Cardinal Power Plant
Cardinal Station is located in Brilliant, Ohio. Built in the mid-1960s, this power plant has three coal-fired units designed and built by Babcock and Wilcox. The total generative capacity is over 1.6 gigawatts. Cardinal Station is operated by American Electric Power and jointly owned by Buckeye Power.
Coal-fired power plants are a major source of air and water pollution in the U.S. The management at Cardinal is attempting to address these issues by installing scrubbers and a selective catalytic reduction system in order to reduce air emissions of sulfur oxide; however, these solutions create their own problems when it comes to mercury and arsenic.
Asbestos is yet another toxic substance that is a problem at power generation facilities.
Any type of power generation facility built prior to the 1980s has contained large amounts of asbestos insulation at some point. Asbestos offers excellent resistance to heat and flame as well as electrical current; generators, boilers and turbine combustion engines as well as thermal control devices were regularly insulated with asbestos. Industrial use of asbestos has saved thousands of lives while preventing massive property loss over the past century.
Before the 1980s, knowledge of the health hazards of asbestos were kept from the general public by the corporate conspiracy of silence that was exposed during litigation in 1977. The evidence that came to light proved that the entire asbestos products industry had in fact engaged in a massive cover-up that went back to the 1930s.
Industrial health and safety experts have long been concerned about the effects of asbestos in the workplace. Asbestos illness was demonstrated to be a serious hazard for power plant employees in a 2003 study by Puerto Rican researchers. The team examined chest x-rays from 1100 such workers and discovered indications of asbestos disease in over 130 of the images.
The asbestos hazard was extended to family members as well. Loose asbestos fibers became lodged in workers' hair and clothing, and was unknowingly brought into the home, exposing spouses and offspring who later developed asbestos cancer as a result.
Today, EPA and OSHA regulations protect workers and govern the general handling of asbestos. However, asbestos disease symptoms take decades to manifest; most of those who are diagnosed today suffered asbestos exposure long before such hazards were generally known.
New diagnostic methods have recently been developed and approved by the FDA. These tools now enable pathologists to detect the signs of asbestos disease at their earliest stages. Former power plant employees should discuss asbestos exposure with their primary care doctors and receive regular checkups whenever possible.
Through the 1970s, it was extremely common for industrial sites of all types to use the naturally occurring, fibrous mineral known as asbestos because it offered high resistance to transferring heat and electricity. Even though asbestos' abilities as an insulator undoubtedly protected people from injury and even death, the long-term results of using it were horrible: far too many men and women suffered serious illness because of contact with asbestos. The reason so many people have died from illnesses including pleural plaques and cancer of the lungs is that when humans inhale asbestos strands, the mineral remains in internal organs; once there, the tiny, jagged bits of asbestos damage cells. Also, mesothelioma, which is a rare but deadly cancer of the mesothelium, the tissue that lines the pleural cavity, is associated with mild to moderate inhalation of asbestos particles.
Today, we are aware of the dangers associated with asbestos exposure, and government regulations ensure the well-being of those who work with or near this material. However, in the past, workers without respiratory equipment all too often toiled in places where asbestos dust filled the air. Furthermore, if the employer did not offer showers and decontamination methods, workers carried asbestos dust to their homes in their work garments, which exposed spouses and children to this dangerous substance.
Since conditions like pleural mesothelioma may not appear until a very long time after a person first is exposed to asbestos, men and women who had jobs at contaminated sites, as well as their spouses and children, are advised to talk about their history of exposure to asbestos with their doctors no matter how far back they worked there. Workers who believe they may have been exposed negligently should contact a mesothelioma attorney.
Sources
Bowker, Michael. Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America. New York: Touchstone, 2003.
Buckeye Power Corporate Website. “Cardinal Station.”
http://www.buckeyepower.com/about_bp_cs.asp
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.
