Hope Creek
Hope Creek Generating Station located in New Jersey outside Lower Alloways Creek next door to the Salem Nuclear Generating Station. Two reactors were originally planned, but only one ultimately built. That unit came online in 1986 after over twelve years of planning and construction. That boiling water reactor has a generative capacity of over 1.2 gigawatts. It is owned by PSEG Power, Inc.
Although the danger of radiation is an issue, nuclear plants are otherwise far more environmentally-friendly than coal or oil-fired plants. However, asbestos was common to virtually all such facilities.
Asbestos was commonly and abundantly used frequently in almost every type of industry. Although asbestos' usefulness as an insulator as well as its low cost prevented thousands of fire-related deaths; more importantly, it has saved perhaps billions of dollars in property damage and business losses. Asbestos was used to insulate many parts of power generation for several decades prior to the 1980s, after which most types of asbestos were gradually phased out. Existing asbestos, as it aged, had a tendency to become brittle and crumble into dust. In this state, it is known as friable; asbestos materials in this condition was generally removed or sealed up with resin. However, this did not happen before workers were exposed to billions of these fibers.
A Puerto Rican study published in 2007 strongly supports what industrial health and safety experts have been saying for some time: power plants pose a high degree of asbestos exposure risk to employees. The Puerto Rican study showed signs of asbestos exposure in 13% of subjects who participated.
The reason is the extensive use of asbestos insulation throughout the construction of power generating facilities. Such insulation was also used in the machinery as well; crocidolite asbestos is quite effective as an electrical insulator.
Not only were workers at risk, but their families as well. Asbestos fibers could become lodged in the hair and in clothing and carried into the home. Several court cases in recent years have involved secondary exposure, in which family members contracted an asbestos disease as the result of this type of exposure.
Asbestos disease is fairly rare, but it is painful, expensive to treat and invariably fatal unless diagnosed in its earliest stages. Symptoms of mesothelioma often do not appear until many years or even decades after a person first is exposed to asbestos. Men and women who were employed at an Edison facility, as well as their family members, should discuss their history of exposure to asbestos with their physicians and get checked as regularly as possible.
This installation was one of countless factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, during the first seven decades of the 1900s, used asbestos for its ability to withstand heat. Although using asbestos was usually intended to protect human life, it sadly ended up with the opposite effect: asbestos exposure on the job has resulted in illness and death for untold numbers people. The health conditions caused by asbestos exposure include "miner's lung" and lung cancer; the greatest risk of developing these conditions occurs when products containing asbestos become friable, releasing strands into the air where they are easy to inhale or ingest. Also, pleural mesothelioma, which is a nearly always fatal cancer of the lining surrounding the lungs, is known to be caused by mild to moderate exposure to asbestos.
Because researchers have demonstrated the link between asbestos exposure and diseases such as asbestosis, modern-day employees are protected by government regulations that control how asbestos is to be handled. However, in the past, workers unprotected by masks or other safety equipment frequently toiled in areas filled with airborne asbestos. Furthermore, if employers did not provide facilities to wash off asbestos fibers, workers inadvertently transported asbestos fibers home on their clothes or in their hair, which exposed spouses and children to this dangerous substance.
Because asbestos-related illnesses such as asbestosis and mesothelioma may not appear until many years after asbestos exposure first occurs, those who were employed at contaminated plants, as well as their partners and children, should discuss their history of contact with asbestos with their doctors no matter how far in the past they worked there. Those who may have been exposed negligently should seek the consultation of 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.
PSEG Nuclear. “The Hope Creek Generating Station.”
http://www.pseg.com/companies/nuclear/hopecreek.jsp
