Asbestos at the New York State Power Authority Vischer Ferry Hydroelectric Plant
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In Saratoga County in the Capital District of New York, the Mohawk River is home to a concrete dam that rises feet above the river’s surface, stretching nearly two thousand feet from bank to bank. Behind it sits one of the oldest continuously operated hydroelectric facilities in New York State. The Vischer Ferry Hydroelectric Project is located along the Mohawk River in Saratoga County, New York. It has a very extensive history, as its dam was designed in 1907 and it eventually began generating power in 1925. Under Chapter 532, Laws of 1922, the Superintendent of Public Works was authorized to develop the potential water power at the new Barge Canal dams located at Crescent and Vischer Ferry. The two projects were developed in tandem, sister facilities on the same river, sharing a history and, as would become clear decades later, a common legacy of asbestos exposure that has placed generations of their workers at risk of devastating illness.
A Century of Changing Hands
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The Vischer Ferry plant’s institutional history is as layered as its physical history. The Vischer Ferry Dam, also known as Dam 3, is 30 feet high and 1,919 feet long, completed in 1913 for hydroelectric use and to aid river navigation. The powerhouse that accompanied it began generating electricity in 1925, making it one of the earliest hydroelectric facilities on the Mohawk River. For decades it operated under state transportation authority, its power helping to run the canal locks and infrastructure of the New York State Barge Canal system.
New York Power Authority purchased the Vischer Ferry and Crescent plants from the New York State Department of Transportation in 1984. Under NYPA’s stewardship, the facility underwent significant expansion. NYPA added two turbine-generators to each project in 1990, for approximately 6,000 kilowatts of combined new capacity. This preceded its 1993 overhaul of the two original turbine-generators at each facility, dating back to 1925.
Today, the Vischer Ferry plant is rated at 9.9 megawatts and is comprised of 4 generators. Most recently, the New York Power Authority completed further upgrades at its hydroelectric power plants at Vischer Ferry and the adjacent Crescent plant, with four of the eight turbines at the two Mohawk River hydro plants updated at a cost of $20 million as part of NYPA’s efforts to help meet the state’s Clean Energy Standard calling for 50 percent of the state’s electricity to be supplied by renewable sources.
But each wave of construction, overhaul, and upgrade at Vischer Ferry carried with it the same fundamental risk that shadowed the plant from its earliest years of operation: asbestos.
A Plant Layered With Asbestos Across a Century of Construction and Maintenance
The Vischer Ferry plant’s unusual history with original turbine-generators dating to 1925, new units added in 1990, overhauls completed in 1993, and further upgrades in 2017, means that workers at the facility encountered asbestos-containing materials across multiple construction eras. The 1925 powerhouse and its original equipment were built during a period of virtually unrestricted asbestos use throughout the power generation and industrial construction industries. Every subsequent renovation and expansion brought new workers into contact with those original materials and, in many cases, added new layers of asbestos-containing products on top of them.
Asbestos use was so widespread during the construction of many of these facilities, it is difficult to know exactly where this material is located in the powerhouse, which is the first step in determining how to deal with it. At Vischer Ferry, with its century-long accretion of construction activity, the challenge of mapping the full extent of asbestos contamination is especially complex.
In hydropower plants, asbestos was used as insulation for generators and turbines and sprayed on piping and conduits. By the mid-twentieth century, it was used in fire-retardant coatings, concrete, bricks, pipes, gaskets, pipe insulation, ceiling insulation, fireproof drywall, flooring and roofing. At a plant whose earliest powerhouse dates to 1925, many of these materials were present from the very beginning, and remained in place, aging and potentially becoming more friable and more dangerous, through the subsequent decades of operation.
The New York State Power Authority, like many other similar facilities during the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, utilized toxic asbestos materials in its construction, maintenance, and use. 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 by its unsuspecting victims.
The 1990 Expansion and 1993 Overhaul
Among a significant period of asbestos exposure risk at the Vischer Ferry plant were the NYPA-era expansions and overhauls of the late 1980s and early 1990s. When NYPA added two new turbine-generators to the facility in 1990, construction crews worked within and alongside a 65-year-old powerhouse that had accumulated decades of asbestos-containing insulation, gaskets, tile, and fireproofing in its walls, ceilings, and equipment. Any construction activity in such an environment, cutting through walls, accessing existing equipment, running new conduit, creates the risk of disturbing those legacy materials and releasing their fibers into the air.
The 1993 overhaul of the two original 1925 turbine-generators was potentially even more hazardous. Those machines had been operating for 68 years, continuously insulated with asbestos-containing materials, their gaskets replaced with asbestos compounds through multiple maintenance cycles, their surrounding pipework wrapped in generations of asbestos insulation. Overhauling them required workers to strip away that accumulated history, layer by layer, releasing fibers that had been accumulating since Calvin Coolidge was president.
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.
Pump gaskets would need to be removed and replaced when pumps were repaired. Packing material would wear and need to be repaired and replaced on a regular basis. Valves control the flow of material through pipes and to various pieces of equipment and are insulated on the outside with asbestos.
The Vischer Ferry plant’s story cannot be told in complete isolation from that of its neighbor, the Crescent Hydroelectric Project. The two plants sit on the same river, with their project boundaries touching at river mile 4 and 14 respectively. They share the same ownership history, both were developed in 1925, both were transferred to NYPA in 1984, both received new turbine-generators in 1990, and both underwent the same 1993 overhauls. Workers who moved between the two facilities, as many did, accumulated asbestos exposure at both sites.
Plant workers who maintained, repaired, or operated this machinery were inevitably exposed to these toxic fibers, and are unfortunately being diagnosed with mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and other asbestos-related diseases. The NYPA operates a large number of generating facilities, where exposure to this cancer-causing material has occurred.
Who Faced the Greatest Risk?
The workforce at the Vischer Ferry plant spanned a wide range of trades and job titles, 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.
Electricians who maintained the plant’s generating and transmission equipment worked in proximity to asbestos-insulated cable and switchgear. Pipefitters who serviced the plant’s water control systems encountered asbestos packing and gaskets at every pump and valve. General laborers who cleaned up after skilled tradespeople and assisted with maintenance work breathed the same asbestos-contaminated air as the tradespeople themselves.
And the 2017 upgrade, which was the most recent major construction activity at the facility, brought contractors to a plant whose infrastructure accumulated asbestos over nearly a century of construction. Any renovation or upgrade at a facility built with asbestos-containing materials carries the potential for renewed exposure as workers disturb old insulation, remove aging gaskets, and work in proximity to decades-old materials that may have degraded over time into a more friable and more dangerous state.
The danger also did not stay within the plant. Workers who carried asbestos fibers home on their clothing at the end of each shift exposed their families to secondary contamination, a recognized pathway to asbestos-related disease that has claimed the health of spouses, children, and household members of power plant workers across New York State.
The Long Latency
Mesothelioma, the aggressive and incurable cancer of the tissue lining surrounding the lungs, abdomen, or heart, is caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure. Its most defining characteristic is time: the disease’s latency period can span anywhere from 10 to 60 years between initial exposure and first symptom. Power plant workers are eight times more likely to die of mesothelioma than the general population. The risk is especially high for employees who worked in power plants before the 1990s, when asbestos was widely used for its heat-resistant and insulating properties. Today, large numbers of power plant workers from that era are receiving mesothelioma diagnoses.
For a worker who participated in the 1990 expansion or the 1993 overhaul of the Vischer Ferry plant’s original turbines, the latency window reaches squarely into the present. For workers who were present during the plant’s pre-NYPA era, maintaining the 1925 powerhouse through the 1960s and 1970s, the diagnostic window has been open already for many years.
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.
Seeking Justice
If you or someone you love worked at the New York State Power Authority Vischer Ferry Hydroelectric Plant, whether as a NYPA employee, a state transportation department worker during the plant’s pre-1984 era, a union tradesperson, or an independent contractor brought in for the 1990 expansion, the 1993 overhaul, the 2017 upgrades, or any other construction or maintenance work, 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 Vischer Ferry plant across its long history bear significant legal accountability for the harm those 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 to you or your family.
Statutes of limitations govern asbestos claims in New York State, and the window to file can close.
