Fort Myers
The Fort Myers Power Plant went online in 1958. The oil-fired facility continued to operate until the late 1990s, when its owner, Florida Light & Power, implemented a modernization program in excess of half a billion dollars. The modernization, part of a broader program to upgrade several aging facilities throughout the state, was completed in 2002. The Fort Myers Plant has been converted to burn natural gas and its generative capacity has been increased by 960 megawatts.
The Fort Myers Power Plant was one many industries during the last century to utilize asbestos-containing materials because of their flame and electrical retardant properties. The dangers of asbestos exposure have been known to medical science and the asbestos industry since the late 1930s; however, the asbestos industry itself engaged in a forty-year cover-up of the facts in order to preserve profits at the cost of human life. The conspiracy was exposed in the course of asbestos litigation in 1977 when documentation was discovered in one of the corporate offices.
Industrial health and safety experts have long stated that power plants are high-risk work environments. In power generation plants, machinery that includes generators, boilers and turbine combustion engines as well as thermal control devices have all been insulated with asbestos, particularly the “blue” crocidolite variety. This type of asbestos is a very efficient electrical insulator; it is also strongly implicated in the development of mesothelioma and other asbestos cancers. Such asbestos-containing materials were also used in fire doors, wallboard, wall insulation, electrical cloth, junction boxes and pipe and conduit lagging.
Today, EPA and OSHA regulations protect workers and govern the handling of asbestos. Violators are subject to fines that can exceed $250,000 in addition to imprisonment for up to five years.
Asbestos diseases can take as long as fifty to sixty years to become apparent, at which time the disease is usually far advanced. However, thanks to new diagnostic methods, today's pathologists can detect the early “markers” of asbestos cancer. Former power plant employees should discuss asbestos exposure with their family doctor and get frequent checkups.
As health conditions like asbestosis and mesothelioma disease may not appear until many years after a person first is exposed to asbestos, people who worked at Ft. Myers Power Plant, as well as their family members, should talk about their history of asbestos exposure with their doctors regardless of how long ago they worked there.
This site was one of many factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, in much of the last century, utilized the mineral asbestos for its ability to withstand fire. Although asbestos' strength as an insulator undoubtedly protected people and property in the short term, the long-term consequences of using it were horrible, and thousands of people suffered serious illness from contact with asbestos. The reason large numbers of employees have died from illnesses such as pleural plaques and cancer of the lungs is that when humans inhale strands of asbestos, the mineral infiltrates internal organs; once there, the tiny, jagged bits of asbestos damage tissues. Also, mesothelioma, the rare but deadly cancer of the mesothelium, the tissue that lines the pleural cavity, is associated with mild to moderate asbestos exposure.
Now, we are aware of the dangers associated with asbestos exposure, and laws ensure the well-being of people who work with or near friable asbestos. Those who worked around job sites constructed with asbestos prior to the passage of such laws, however, usually spent their days in sites where asbestos fibers were prevalent, and they as a rule received little or no information about how to minimize risks when dealing with the mineral. If companies did not provide decontamination methods, workers inadvertently transported particles of asbestos home with them in their work garments, thereby exposing others in their household to this deadly toxin.
As conditions like asbestosis and mesothelioma often don't develop until many years after a person first is exposed to asbestos, people who were employed at asbestos-contaminated sites, as well as family members of such workers, are advised to discuss their history of asbestos contact with their medical care providers no matter how long ago they worked there as mesothelioma prognosis can be positive when detected early.
Sources
FL&P Company Profile.
http://www.fpl.com/about/history/pioneers_of_power_1925_1929.shtml
Reichel, Bill. "Fort Myers Repowering Project, Fort Meyers, Florida." Power Generation, 16 June 2008.
http://powergen.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/fort-myers-repowering-project-fort-myers-florida/
Bowker, Michael. Deadly Deception (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.
