Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, located in Somervell County, Texas, has had thousands of employees over the years, many of whom may have come into contact with toxic materials.
The plant was constructed with two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors and began operations in 1974. Up until the 1980s, asbestos was used in many power generating stations around the world.
Due to relatively high fire hazards at the Comanche Peak Nuclear power plant in Texas, asbestos insulation is likely to be found throughout facilities in piping, boilers, heaters, electric components and certain equipment on the power plant site.
Asbestos exposure was likely for many workers in the past, and they potentially inhaled or ingested toxic dust which can in turn cause serious conditions and cancers like asbestosis and mesothelioma.
Years after first exposure, workers can be diagnosed with cancers related to asbestos that can get lodged in lung tissue and lay dormant until the cancer spreads. Once symptoms begin to appear, the cancer may already be in a later, dangerous stage.
Nuclear power plants used asbestos when they did not know the full extent of the health risks. The material was believed to be a great insulator, but turned out to be one of the biggest environmental and occupational health disasters of the modern era.
Now scores of former nuclear power plant employees in Texas and around the country have fallen ill and subsequently filed toxic exposure cancer claims against former and current employers for failing to provide a safe work environment and for failing to provide proper warnings of the potential occupational health risks.
Joe Lyon is an experienced asbestos cancer lawyer representing power plant workers nationwide in a wide variety of toxic tort and asbestos cancer claims.
