Hookers Power Plant
The Hookers Point Power Plant was a coal-fired facility located in Tampa, Florida. It was shut down in 2002. During its operational years, it had five steam turbine units with a generative capacity in excess of 220 megawatts.
The plant was constructed in the late 1930s as war with Japan seemed increasingly imminent. It came online in 1940 to serve the needs of the nearby Army Air Force base and the growing population of the region. Except for a four-year period in the late 1980s, the Hookers facility continued to operate for forty-six years.
Dismantling of the facility began in 2002. 99% of the metals recovered were recycled; however, the site itself has been designated as a “brownfield” but the Florida DEQ. These are properties that include “industrial facilities where expansions or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.” Although plans are in place to clean up the site, it may be several years before the property is ready for use again.
Part of the problem, which was common to virtually every industry in the nation prior to the 1980s, was asbestos and asbestos-containing materials.
Power plants constructed built prior to the 1980s usually contained large amounts of asbestos insulation at some point. The reason is that asbestos offers excellent resistance to heat and flame as well as electrical current. Asbestos-containing materials have indeed saved thousands of lives and prevented massive amounts of property loss over the past century; however, those who contracted asbestos diseases suffered disproportionately.
Asbestos illness was clearly shown to be a serious hazard for power plant employees in a 2003 study carried out by Puerto Rican researchers. The research team examined chest x-rays from 1100 power plant workers; once tobacco use was factored out of the equation, indications of asbestos disease were noted in over 13% of the images.
For most of the century, generators, boilers and turbine combustion engines as well as thermal control devices contained large amounts of asbestos insulation. Prior to 1977, knowledge of the health hazards of asbestos were kept secret by the corporations that manufactured asbestos products. In 1977 however, evidence came to light proving that the entire industry had engaged in a massive conspiracy of suppression going back to the 1930s.
EPA and OSHA have since issued strong regulations to protect workers and govern the general handling of asbestos. However, asbestos disease symptoms take decades to becomes apparent. By then, the disease has usually advanced into its final stages.
New diagnostic methods have recently been developed that enable pathologists to detect the signs of asbestos disease at their earliest stages when mesothelioma prognosis is most encouraging. Those who have ever been employed at a power generation facility should tell their primary care doctors and get regular checkups whenever possible.
Given its insulating properties, asbestos was commonly used within numerous factories, mills, power plants and worksites throughout the US. Although the use of asbestos was generally considered a way to save lives, it unfortunately ended up with the opposite effect: asbestos exposure at jobsites has resulted in serious illness for far too many employees. The reason is that strands of asbestos, when inhaled, damage the lungs, leading to life-threatening illnesses such as asbestosis and cancer. In addition, mesothelioma, which is a fast-growing and mostly untreatable cancer of the cells that line the chest cavity, is known to be caused by mild to moderate asbestos exposure.
Now, we are much more knowledgeable about the risks of inhaling asbestos, and health and safety statutes protect people who work with or near this dangerous substance. Those who labored around asbestos-containing materials prior to the passage of such laws, on the other hand, generally spent their shifts in sites where asbestos was prevalent, and they typically were offered little or no guidance concerning how to minimize risks when dealing with the substance. Moreover, workers carried asbestos strands home in their work garments when change rooms were not offered at the job site; as a result, this potentially deadly mineral also endangered offspring of those who worked with asbestos.
Those who worked at this site at any time in their job history, as well as their family members, should find out about these health conditions and tell their family doctors about their history of exposure to asbestos, because the signs of asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma disease are often difficult to distinguish from those of less serious conditions.
Sources
“Hookers Point Power Plant.” TRC America.
http://www.trcamerica.com/hookers_point_power_plant.htm
“Brownfield Areas - November 2008.” Florida Geographic Data Library, 16 February 2009.
