Omaha Public Power
The Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) serves over 310,000 residences and small businesses in southeast Nebraska. The organization was founded by the State of Nebraska in 1946, and maintains headquarters in Omaha.
OPPD power generation stations are located throughout the region and include nuclear, gas-fired and fossil fuel facilities as well as wind turbines. Although environmental and workplace safety issues differ from one type of plant to another, all that were constructed prior to the 1980s have presented an asbestos hazard to their workers at some point in their history.
Health hazards related to asbestos were not generally known prior to the late 1970s, although medical science had made the connection some forty years earlier. Between the late 1930s and 1977, corporations involved in the manufacture of asbestos products made certain that health information about asbestos was either suppressed or not taken seriously. This conspiracy was exposed with the discovery of the “Sumner Simpson Papers” in the course of an asbestos case; discovered in a closet of the CEO's office at Raysbestos, Inc., these papers proved that asbestos manufacturers had been aware about the danger of their products and were willing to sacrifice human life in the name profits.
Doctors in Puerto Rico published a study in 2007, confirming that which industrial health and safety experts have said for many years; power plants pose some of the highest risks of workplace asbestos exposure of any industry. In the study that was done in 2003, chest x-rays of 1100 power plant workers were examined and analyzed. Over 1300 of the images showed “abnormalities” indicative of the early stages of asbestos disease.
Asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) were commonly used in almost every industry before the early 1980s. These were found in any location where heat, flame, electricity and corrosive chemicals were a hazard. As they aged however, these materials began to deteriorate and crumble. In this state, it is considered friable. Fibers could be inhaled and ingested by employees. They would also become lodged in hair and clothing and carried into the home, subjecting family members to secondary exposure.
Mesothelioma is a difficult disease to diagnose. The early symptoms are similar to those of many other respiratory diseases. By the time more specific symptoms begin to show up, the cancer is usually in an advanced stage; most patients diagnosed at this point can expect to survive only about six to twenty-four months. Still, when diagnosed early the cancer can be treated with mesothelioma chemotherapy by doctors such as Dr. David Sugarbaker at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA.
Those who were employed at an OPPD facility and any family members should advise their family physicians regarding any asbestos exposure they may have suffered. New methods now available allow pathologists to detect the markers of mesothelioma in earlier stages when the disease is highly treatable, so it is important to be checked early and often.
This installation was one of countless factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, during much of the 1900s, used asbestos because of its ability to withstand electrical current. Although using asbestos was usually intended to protect human life, it sadly ended up with the opposite effect: asbestos exposure at jobsites has resulted in illness and death for thousands of people. The health conditions caused by asbestos 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, mesothelioma, a nearly always fatal cancer affecting the mesothelium, the tissue that lines the pleural cavity, is associated with mild to moderate exposure to asbestos.
Because statistics have demonstrated the link between asbestos exposure and illnesses such as asbestosis, 21st-century employees are protected by laws that control how asbestos is to be handled. Even as late as the 1970s, however, laborers unprotected by masks or other safety equipment frequently toiled in places filled with airborne asbestos. Furthermore, if the employer did not provide showers, workers inadvertently transported asbestos fibers home with them in their work garments, which exposed others in their household to this dangerous substance.
Since conditions like mesothelioma may not appear until 20 years or more after asbestos exposure first occurs, those who were employed at asbestos-contaminated sites, as well as their spouses and children, are advised to talk about their history of contact with asbestos with their doctors regardless of how far in the past they worked there.
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.
OPPD. "Who We Are."
http://www.oppd.com/WhoWeAre/index.htm
