Asbestos at the Frederick R. Clark Energy Center in Marcy, New York
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In the Town of Marcy, just northwest of Utica in Oneida County, stands one of the most strategically important energy facilities in New York State. The Frederick R. Clark Energy Center is not a coal-fired behemoth or a nuclear reactor, but it is no less critical. It is the Energy Control Center that directs and monitors the New York Power Authority’s statewide operations, consisting of 17 generating plants and more than 1,400 circuit-miles of high-voltage transmission lines. As NYPA’s president described it, the facility is “the command station for the vast trafficking in electrons that is our business.” From this site on Glass Factory Road, engineers, electricians, mechanics, and linemen have for decades managed the flow of power across the entire state of New York.
The Power Authority chose the Town of Marcy, northwest of Utica, for the energy center because of its central location in the state. Opened in 1980, it is named for Frederick R. Clark, who served as the Power Authority’s chairman from 1977 to 1979, and continued as a NYPA trustee through 1982. As the hub of NYPA’s statewide power transmission facilities, the Clark Energy Center sits at the terminus of a 765-kilovolt line that stretches more than 100 miles from the Canada–U.S. border, and connects to almost 1,000 miles of 345-kilovolt power lines that crisscross New York State.
For the workers who built, staffed, and maintained this facility. and who worked on the vast electrical infrastructure radiating outward from it, the Clark Energy Center represented steady employment at the heart of the state’s energy system. It also, for many of those workers, represented a source of asbestos exposure that may only now be revealing its consequences.
A Facility Built at the Peak of Asbestos Use
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The Clark Energy Center opened in 1980, at the end of the era during which asbestos was most heavily used throughout the power generation and transmission industry. Although health issues related to asbestos were first documented in 1906, any plant built between the 1930s and into the 1980s still used asbestos products to insulate for intense heat. Plant workers who maintained, repaired, or operated this machinery were inevitably exposed to these toxic fibers, and are unfortunately being diagnosed with mesothelioma and lung cancer.
The Clark facility’s dual role as both an energy control center and a generating installation housing gas turbines made it a site where asbestos-containing materials appeared throughout the infrastructure. A gas power plant is a thermal power station that burns gas to create electricity. Gas power plants convert thermal energy into mechanical and electrical energy through turbines. Those turbines, and the complex supporting equipment that kept them running, were built with and surrounded by asbestos-containing materials from the time of their installation onward.
Turbines used asbestos to insulate the inside and outside of the turbine, often in the form of blankets or thermal insulation. Turbines were connected to numerous pumps and valves which required asbestos-containing packing and gaskets. When turbines were inspected and maintained, these materials had to be disturbed, exposing power plant workers to asbestos.
The pumps and valves that supported the facility’s turbine operations were no less saturated with asbestos. There were hundreds of pumps in powerhouses including boiler feed, steam, water, oil, chemical, and cooling pumps. These pumps were insulated with asbestos on the outside of the pump. They also contained casing gaskets and flange gaskets. Pumps also used packing in glands to seal the pump. When pumps were opened up to be cleaned, inspected, repaired, or replaced, the asbestos covering on the pump was disturbed making it easy to inhale or ingest.
Beyond the generating equipment itself, the Clark Energy Center’s building infrastructure was itself constructed during an era when asbestos-containing materials were standard in commercial and industrial construction in floor tiles, ceiling tiles, insulation board, fireproofing compounds, joint compound, and fire doors throughout the facility.
The Broader Transmission Network and the Impact on the Workers Who Maintained It
As the hub of NYPA’s statewide transmission network, the Clark Energy Center’s is the nerve center through which power flows from generating facilities across New York to the communities that use it. The workers who staffed Clark tended to equipment within the facility’s walls but many of them also worked throughout the vast transmission infrastructure the facility coordinated, maintaining substations, switchyards, high-voltage lines, and the electrical equipment connecting the state’s generating assets.
In June 2004, the Power Authority celebrated completion of a pioneering transmission-control device at Clark called the convertible static compensator, which is largely contained in a gymnasium-sized building. The device provides for increased power flow on heavily utilized transmission lines and for instantaneous shifting of power in the same substation from one transmission line to another. The construction and installation of this device brought new crews of contractors and tradespeople into the facility. These were workers who, depending on the construction protocols in place and the condition of existing asbestos-containing materials, may have encountered disturbed asbestos in an aging building.
Insulators, pipefitters, and other utility workers who routinely fitted, drilled, and cut asbestos products during the course of their jobs now find themselves at risk of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. The cutting, drilling, and sanding of asbestos is what causes the toxic fibers to become airborne and inhaled.
NYPA’s Statewide Asbestos Legacy
The Clark Energy Center does not exist in isolation. It is one node in a network of NYPA facilities across New York State, all of which share the same era of construction, the same industrial materials, and the same failure to protect workers from the consequences of asbestos exposure. The New York Power Authority, like many other similar facilities during the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, utilized toxic asbestos materials in its construction, maintenance, and use. The NYPA operates a large number of generating facilities where exposure to this cancer-causing material has occurred.
Workers at the Clark Energy Center were not only potentially exposed to asbestos on-site, but also within NYPA’s statewide transmission infrastructure, which itself was built and maintained during decades of heavy asbestos use. Electrical cable insulated with asbestos, switchyard equipment containing asbestos components, and substation structures built with asbestos-containing construction materials all formed part of the environment in which Clark’s workforce operated.
Workers who were employed at power stations prior to the 1990s are at a high risk of developing mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other asbestos-related diseases. The companies that made and sold asbestos products knew asbestos was dangerous as far back as the 1920s, yet continued selling their products for decades without warning workers or educating them about safe handling procedures.
Who Was at Risk?
The workforce at the Frederick R. Clark Energy Center was diverse in its skills and responsibilities, and the asbestos hazard touched workers across that spectrum. Power plant workers maintain many types of equipment at power generation and distribution plants. These workers include pipefitters, electricians, maintenance mechanics, boiler operators and tenders, plumbers, welders, and laborers. Workers were exposed to asbestos when installing, inspecting, maintaining, repairing, removing, and replacing boilers, pumps, valves, heaters, electrical boxes, and other equipment.
Engineers who staffed the Energy Control Center around the clock, monitoring NYPA’s statewide generating network from within the facility, worked in a building constructed during the peak asbestos era and potentially exposed to asbestos-containing building materials throughout. Electricians who maintained the facility’s vast electrical infrastructure, mechanics who serviced the gas turbines, and linemen who worked on the transmission equipment feeding into the Clark switchyard all faced their own potential points of exposure.
The danger also extended beyond the facility itself. Workers who carried asbestos fibers home on their clothing and equipment exposed family members to secondary contamination, a well-documented pathway to asbestos-related disease that has affected the families of power workers across New York State.
The Long Latency of Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma, the aggressive and incurable cancer of the tissue lining surrounding the lungs, abdomen, or heart, is caused by asbestos exposure. The disease’s latency period can span anywhere from 10 to 60 years between initial exposure and first symptom. A construction worker who helped build the Clark Energy Center in the late 1970s, or an electrician who worked within its walls throughout the 1980s, may be only now entering the window when mesothelioma is most likely to present itself.
Plant workers who maintained, repaired, or operated this machinery were inevitably exposed to these toxic fibers, and are unfortunately being diagnosed with mesothelioma and lung cancer. The connection between a former Clark Energy Center worker’s current diagnosis and their work at the facility or its associated transmission infrastructure decades ago may not be immediately apparent, but the medical and legal record connecting asbestos exposure in power facilities to mesothelioma is unambiguous and well-established.
Seeking Justice
If you or someone you love worked at the New York State Power Authority Frederick R. Clark Energy Center in Marcy, New York, whether as a NYPA employee, a contract worker brought in for construction or upgrade projects, a union tradesperson, or a lineman or electrician maintaining the facility’s associated transmission infrastructure, and has since been diagnosed with mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, or another asbestos-related illness, legal options may be available to you.
People who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma are victims of the asbestos industry and have the right to seek compensation from the companies that caused their illness. The manufacturers of the specific asbestos-containing products used at the Clark facility, such as insulation suppliers, gasket manufacturers, fireproofing companies, and cable makers bear significant legal accountability for the harm their products caused. An experienced asbestos attorney can review your work history, identify the relevant manufacturers, and pursue compensation through personal injury litigation or asbestos trust fund claims, at no upfront cost.
Statutes of limitations govern asbestos claims in New York, and the window to file can close. Time, as with the disease itself, is a critical factor.
