Soda Lake I & II
Located 30 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada, Soda Lake I & II are two binary geothermal plants with a combined generative capacity of over 26 megawatts. Electrical energy produced at this facility is sold through the Sierra Pacific Power Company.
Any type of power generation facility built prior to the 1980s has contained large amounts of asbestos insulation at some point. Asbestos offers excellent resistance to heat and flame as well as electrical current; generators, boilers and turbine combustion engines as well as thermal control devices were regularly insulated with asbestos. Industrial use of asbestos has saved thousands of lives while preventing massive property loss over the past century.
Before the 1980s, knowledge of the health hazards of asbestos were kept from the general public by the corporate conspiracy of silence that was exposed during litigation in 1977. The evidence that came to light proved that the entire asbestos products industry had in fact engaged in a massive cover-up that went back to the 1930s.
Industrial health and safety experts have long been concerned about the effects of asbestos in the workplace. Asbestos illness was demonstrated to be a serious hazard for power plant employees in a 2003 study by Puerto Rican researchers. The team examined chest x-rays from 1100 such workers and discovered indications of asbestos disease in over 130 of the images.
The asbestos hazard was extended to family members as well. Loose asbestos fibers became lodged in workers' hair and clothing, and was unknowingly brought into the home, exposing spouses and offspring who later developed asbestos cancer as a result.
Today, EPA and OSHA regulations protect workers and govern the general handling of asbestos. However, asbestos disease symptoms take decades to manifest; most of those who are diagnosed today suffered asbestos exposure long before such hazards were generally known.
New diagnostic methods have recently been developed and approved by the FDA. These tools now enable pathologists to detect the signs of asbestos disease at their earliest stages. Former power plant employees should discuss asbestos exposure with their primary care doctors and receive regular checkups whenever possible.
This installation was one of thousands of factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, in much of the 20th century, utilized the fibrous mineral asbestos because of its ability to resist flame. Although the use of asbestos was generally considered a way to reduce the risk of injury, it sadly all too often had the opposite effect. Exposure to asbestos associated with work has resulted in serious illness for far too many people. The illnesses linked to asbestos include asbestosis and cancer of the lungs; the greatest chance of developing these conditions occurs when products containing asbestos become fragile, releasing particles into the air where they are easy to inhale or ingest. The most deadly of the asbestos-related diseases is mesothelioma, which is a form of cancer that affects the lining of the abdominal cavity; it is a disease that usually kills within two years of diagnosis.
People who work with asbestos now are generally protected from exposure due to the many guidelines regulating its utilization, presence at job sites and disposal. However, in the past, laborers unprotected by masks or other safety equipment commonly toiled in places thick with asbestos dust. Spouses and children were also subjected to asbestos exposure when companies didn't provide ways for employees to wash off asbestos fibers, because employees inadvertently transported asbestos dust to their homes in their work garments.
Pleural mesothelioma and other asbestos-related illnesses often take 20 years or more to develop, and the signs of these illnesses can be mistaken for those of less serious conditions, so men and women who worked at these sites in the past, as well as family members of such workers, are advised to talk with their doctors about their history of contact with asbestos. Those 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.
Nevada State Office of Energy Website. “Soda Lake I & II.”
http://energy.state.nv.us/html_info/sodalake.html
