Nine Mile Point

Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station shares a site with the Fitzpatrick nuclear plant on the shore of Lake Ontario, 20 miles northeast of Rochester, New York. Two General Electric reactors have a total generative capacity of approximately 1.75 gigawatts. The first unit began operations in 1969, making it one of the oldest continuously operating nuclear reactions in the country. The other came online in 1988.

The current owner is Constellation Energy Group, which took over from the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation in 2001. In 2006, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted 20-year license extensions that will allow the operation of Unit 1 and Unit 2 through 2029 and 2046, respectively.

Plans are currently underway to construct a third unit, which will add another 1.7 gigawatts to the plant's capacity.

Whether nuclear, fossil-fueled or hydro-powered, all electrical generation facilities constructed prior to 1980 have had asbestos exposure issues.

Asbestos is more than a flame retardant; the “blue” and “brown” varieties most likely to cause asbestos cancers such as mesothelioma are also excellent electrical insulators. Asbestos-containing materials were used extensively throughout the construction of power plants prior to 1980. Some of the areas in which asbestos-containing materials were found include:

• fire doors
• electrical cloth
• pipe fittings and conduits
• insulation
• gasket materials
• turbines and other machinery

Power generation plant workers are at high risk from asbestos exposure and are substantially more likely to contract disease such as mesothelioma. In 2003, Puerto Rican researchers analyzed the chest x-rays of 1,100 workers who had worked at least fifteen years in such a facility. 13% of the images showed signs of asbestos disease.

This has also been an issue for the family members of power plant workers; asbestos fibers could become lodged in clothing and in hair. Thus carried into the home, it resulted in what is known as “secondary exposure” to spouses and children, some of whom developed asbestos cancer themselves later in life.

Those who were employed at a power generation plant prior to 1980 as well as their families should have regular health screenings if possible and discuss the asbestos exposure with their primary care physician. When diagnosed and treated early, asbestos cancer patients have a much better prognosis, although cancer that has been removed can recur; in most cases, lifetime monitoring is necessary.

This location was one of many factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, during the first two-thirds of the 1900s, used asbestos for its ability to resist fire. It is ironic that protecting lives was generally one of the primary reasons behind utilizing asbestos in companies for the result was actually to place laborers in danger of serious illness due to asbestos exposure. The reason for this is that particles of asbestos, when inhaled, embed themselves into internal organs and cause debilitating health conditions such as asbestosis and lung cancer. Also, workplace asbestos exposure is a known cause of the extremely hard to treat form of cancer known as pleural mesothelioma, which develops as a tumor of the mesothelium, the tissue that lines the chest cavity (pleural mesothelioma) or the abdominal cavity (peritoneal mesothelioma).

People whose job sites contain asbestos in present times are usually protected from inhalation because of the many guidelines regulating its use, presence at job sites and demolition. People who worked around job sites containing asbestos before such rules were implemented, however, usually spent their days in sites where asbestos was prevalent, and they typically were provided with very little training about safe ways to handle the substance. Moreover, employees brought dust containing asbestos to their homes on their clothes or in their hair when showers were not provided at the company; as a result, this carcinogen also endangered wives and husbands of those who worked with asbestos.

Asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma can take 20 years or more to manifest, and their symptoms are often difficult to distinguish from those of less serious conditions, so men and women who were employed at such facilities at any time in the past, as well as their partners and children, should chat with their physicians about their history of contact with asbestos. Workers who could have been exposed negligently should speak with 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.

Constellation Energy Corporate Website. “Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station.”
http://www.constellation.com/portal/site/constellation/menuitem.487e3f1fe004e1908d84ff10025166a0/