Valmy Generating Station

The Valmy Generating Station is a coal-fired power plant located in the northern Nevada town of the same name, approximately 130 northeast of Reno. The two units have a total generative capacity of 522 megawatts. It is owned and operated by the NRG Energy corporation.

Power generation facilities constructed before the early 1980s were likely to have incorporated massive amounts of asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) throughout the building and machinery. Asbestos was used primarily because of their resistance to fire and heat; however, crocidolite asbestos (also known as “blue” asbestos) is also effective as a form of electrical insulation. This type of asbestos is one of the most toxic varieties known; although all types of asbestos are known to play a part in the development of lung cancer, crocidolite and amosite (“brown” asbestos) work much faster in causing the cellular mutations that result in cancers such as mesothelioma.

ACMs were common building materials in any event, but in power plants, they were found any or all of the following locations:

• electrical cloth
• fire doors
• pipe and conduit lagging
• work surfaces
• turbines

In moving machinery such as turbines, ACMs created a particular hazard by ejecting millions of asbestos fibers into the air, where they were not only inhaled and ingested, but settled in worker's hair and on their clothing as well. Tragically, they unknowingly brought these fibers into their homes, where secondary exposure to family members resulted. There are several documented cases in which wives and children developed pleural mesothelioma as a result of such exposure.

In 2003, medical researchers in Puerto Rico examined chest x-rays from 1100 power plant workers. The results of the study, published in 2007, showed that there were indications of asbestos disease in 13% of the subjects. Power plants such as Bailey are regarded by industrial health experts as the most hazardous of industrial jobsites when it comes to asbestos.

If you or a family member have ever been employed at Bartow, it is important to discuss this with your primary care doctor and get regular health screenings as well. Recent advances in biotechnology have enabled pathologists to detect protein “markers” in the blood that indicate the early stages of mesothelioma. When detected in its early stages, mesothelioma is highly treatable, although the disease can recur later and lifelong health monitoring is usually necessary.

This location was one of numerous factories, mills, power plants and worksites that, throughout the first seven decades of the 1900s, used the mineral asbestos for its ability to withstand fire. It is ironic that protecting lives was usually one of the main justifications behind utilizing asbestos in places because the outcome was in fact to put workers at risk of serious illness or death due to inhalation of or other contact with asbestos. The reason is that asbestos strands, when inhaled, can infiltrate internal organs and cause serious health conditions including "miner's lung" and cancer of the lungs. Furthermore, job-related contact with asbestos can lead to the almost always fatal cancer called mesothelioma, which develops as a tumor of the mesothelium, the tissue that lines the pleural cavity (pleural mesothelioma) or the abdominal cavity (peritoneal mesothelioma).

Today, regulators are much more knowledgeable about the risks of inhaling asbestos, and responsible employers ensure the well-being of those whose jobs put them in contact with friable asbestos. Even up to the late 1900s, however, workers commonly were expected to toil in spaces in which asbestos dust was not filtered; in most cases, the dangers posed by asbestos inhalation were unknown. If employers didn't provide showers and decontamination methods, workers inadvertently transported strands of asbestos home on their clothes or in their hair, thereby exposing others in their household to this deadly toxin.

Those who worked at this site at any time in the past, as well as their spouses and children, should learn more about these health conditions and tell their healthcare professionals about their history of exposure to asbestos, because the symptoms of asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma are often mistaken for those of other conditions. Seeking the legal consultation of a mesothelioma attorney is recommended for those who have been negligently exposed.

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.

NRG Energy. "Press Release."
http://www.nrgenergy.com/media/2000/10192000.htm