Flint Creek Power Plant

Flint Creek Power Plant is a coal-fired power generation facility located just west of Gentry, Arkansas. Under joint ownership of the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation and American Electrical Power, Inc., it has one unit. The coal that fuels this unit is mined in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, which is shipped in by rail. Coal from this region is lower in sulfur than that mined in the Appalachian region.

Despite this, the Institute of Southern Studies identified the Flint Creek facility as one of the top polluters in the U.S. in January 2009, having released over 110 tons of combustion waste into surface impoundments in 2006.

In addition to by-products of fossil fuels, power generation facilities such as the one at Flint Creek are also known for their asbestos hazard. While asbestos from power plants is not a particular danger to the general public, it subjects maintenance workers and engineers to a high degree of risk from mesothelioma and other asbestos diseases.

This was graphically illustrated by a 2003 study in Puerto Rico, in which the chest x-rays of 1100 such workers were analyzed. When tobacco use was factored out, over 130 of the images showed signs of asbestos disease. Today, industrial safety experts consider power generation facilities to be among the most dangerous for asbestos exposure.

Asbestos was likely to be found throughout the structures and in the moving machinery as well. Once these fibers were loose in the building environment, there were not only inhaled and ingested by workers, but were likely to become lodged in hair and clothing, where they were brought into the home – exposing family members.

Although the use of asbestos-containing materials was phased out beginning around 1980, anyone who worked at a power generating facility before the 1980s, or had a family member so employed, should discuss it with their doctor and get checked frequently. Mesothelioma disease has a long latency period, and by the time symptoms are apparent, it is usually too late to treat the disease. However, recent advances in biotechnology have made it possible for pathologists to detect the early “markers” of the disease; when diagnosed in its initial stages, asbestos cancers such as mesothelioma can usually be treated successfully.

Up until the 1980s, it was normal for plants, mills, and factories to be built with the mineral asbestos because it offered high resistance to transferring heat and electricity. While asbestos' abilities as an insulator undoubtedly protected people and property in the short term, the unforeseen results of its use were devastating, and untold numbers of workers contracted serious illness and even died from asbestos exposure. The reason for this is that asbestos strands, if inhaled or ingested, embed themselves into the lungs, leading to debilitating diseases such as "miner's lung" and cancer of the lungs. The most serious of the asbestos-related disorders is mesothelioma, which is a form of cancer that involves the cells lining the chest cavity; mesothelioma prognosis is often discouraging as the disease is very difficult to treat, and patients seldom live more than two years after being diagnosed.

Now, we are aware of the dangers associated with being exposed to asbestos, and health and safety statutes ensure the well-being of people who work with or near friable asbestos. Even as late as the 1970s, however, laborers unprotected by masks or other safety equipment often toiled in places thick with asbestos dust. Spouses and children were also subjected to asbestos exposure when employers didn't offer showers, as employees carried asbestos particles home with them on their clothes or in their hair.

Since asbestos-related illnesses such as asbestosis and mesothelioma often don't develop until decades after asbestos exposure first occurs, those who were employed at asbestos-contaminated sites, as well as those who lived with them, should talk about their history of asbestos contact with their doctors regardless of how far in the past they worked there.

Sources

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.

SourceWatch. “Flint Creek Power Plant.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Flint_Creek_Power_Plant