Palisades Nuclear Power Plant
The Palisades Power Plant is located in Cover Township on the shore of Lake Michigan. Originally operated by the Nuclear Management Company and owned by CMS Energy Corporation, the facility was sold to Entergy in April of 2007. The 725 megawatt turbine was designed by Westinghouse, and first came online in 1971. Currently, Palisades has been granted an extension to its original operating license, allowing the plant to continue in operation through 2031.
Because of the elimination of the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada, spent fuel rods are being stored onsite. This is a problem for nuclear plants, though arguably they are preferable to those fired by fossil fuels as toxic emissions into the air are not an issue with nuclear plants. Asbestos however is an issue common to all power generation facilities.
Palisades and other power plants were among the numerous industries that utilized asbestos for its resistance to heat, flame and electricity. The most important issue was property; the use of asbestos in fact saved billions of dollars worth of property damage due to fire over the years. In addition, thousands of workers were saved from burn injuries and death by fire – arguably, one of the most painful ways to die.
However, a substantial number of workers have developed respiratory diseases over the years, which are nearly as bad and usually fatal. When inhaled or ingested, asbestos fibers have been proven to cause a range of diseases that range from calcification of the lungs to cancer of the visceral lining, known as mesothelioma. Because these diseases have latency periods that are measured in decades, symptoms usually do not appear until many years after initial asbestos exposure.
Workers exposed to asbestos at power plants could also unwittingly bring asbestos into the home on their clothes or in their hair, exposing family members as well.
According to a 2003 Puerto Rican study in which 1100 power plant workers participated, rates of asbestos disease may run as high as 13% among such workers.
Although most industrial uses of asbestos have been phased out since the early 1980s, it is important for former Palisades workers and their family members to discuss asbestos exposure with their primary care physicians and get regular health screenings so such disease can be detected in their earliest stages when most treatable with mesothelioma chemotherapy by doctors like Dr. David Sugarbaker at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA.
This installation was one of countless factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, during the first 70 years of the 20th century, used the naturally occurring mineral known as asbestos for its ability to resist flame. It is ironic that protecting lives was almost always one of the driving reasons for utilizing asbestos in worksites because the outcome was in fact to put workers in danger of serious illness due to asbestos exposure. The reason large numbers of workers have fallen ill from diseases such as "miner's lung" and cancer of the lungs is that when humans inhale or ingest strands of asbestos, the mineral embeds itself into internal organs; once there, the tiny, jagged bits of asbestos damage cells. In addition, mesothelioma, the nearly always fatal cancer of the lining surrounding the lungs, is associated with mild to moderate exposure to asbestos.
Employees whose jobs put them in contact with asbestos today are generally safe from contact due to the numerous laws regulating its use, inclusion in products and disposal. In the past, however, workers without proper safety gear commonly toiled in places where asbestos dust filled the air. If companies did not provide decontamination methods, workers carried particles of asbestos to their homes in their work garments, thereby exposing family members to this deadly toxin.
Since health conditions like lung cancer and mesothelioma often do not develop until many years after a person first is exposed to asbestos, people who had jobs at contaminated plants, as well as their family members, are advised to discuss their history of contact with asbestos with their medical care providers no matter 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.
Energy Information Agency. “Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, Michigan.”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/palisades.html
