Mesothelioma at Ghent Powerhouse in Ghent, KY (Podcast)

In this episode, John Maher speaks with Paul Kelley, partner at Satterley & Kelley law firm, about asbestos exposure and mesothelioma cases linked to the Ghent Powerhouse, a major utility plant in Kentucky. Paul explains how asbestos was widely used in the powerhouse’s construction and maintenance processes, posing a risk for various workers over the years. He outlines the legal process for those diagnosed with mesothelioma or asbestosis due to work at Ghent and highlights the importance of prompt legal action. For more information on filing a claim, visit Satterley & Kelley at satterleylaw.com or call 855-385-9532.

John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher and I’m here today with Paul Kelly. Paul is a partner with the Kentucky personal injury law firm, Satterley & Kelley, which has over 45 years of collective experience in litigating mesothelioma and asbestos clamps. Today we’re talking about asbestos and mesothelioma at the Ghent Powerhouse. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Kelley: Hey, John. How are you doing today?

Maher: Good, thanks. How are you?

Kelley: Doing great, thank you.

About Ghent Powerhouse

Maher: So, Paul, tell me a little bit about the Ghent Powerhouse, where they’re located and what it is that they do.

Kelley: Sure. So, the Ghent Powerhouse is owned by Kentucky Utilities. It’s one of Kentucky’s major utility companies, particularly in this region. I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, and actually Louisville Gas & Electric is our power company here. But in some of the adjacent counties, as we head further north, Kentucky Utilities provides a lot of power.

And I believe today, KU and LG&E may be owned by the same company. In any event, Ghent is a powerhouse, and it opened in about 1973. They started building the powerhouse in 1970 or ’71. It has four units, and what that means is every unit contains a turbine and a boiler and a lot of other equipment that’s associated with it.

The boiler heats steam, provides steam to the turbine, and the turbine provides electricity to its customers. I’m not an engineer, it’s a very simplistic description, but that’s essentially what the powerhouse does. And the first unit opened in ’73, and then I believe another unit, they number them Ghent One, Two, Ghent Three, Ghent Four. So, I believe Ghent One was ’73, Ghent Two was probably around ’74-’75 Ghent Three in the later ’70s.

And then Ghent Four came up in the 1980s. The area it’s located is Carrollton, Kentucky, Carroll County. It’s probably 50 miles north of Louisville and about the same distance south of Cincinnati for those that are familiar with that. And my law firms had a lot of cases over the years involving the Ghent powerhouse.

Ghent Powerhouse and Asbestos Exposure

Maher: Yeah. So, talk a little bit about how the Ghent powerhouse is related to asbestos and mesothelioma clams.

Kelley: Well, it’s a powerhouse, and so we’ve talked a lot about powerhouses over the years. This one’s a little bit unique because of the timeframe in which it was built. So we know that Ghent One, which started construction in 1971, that’s an interesting timeframe because 1971, the latter part of 1971 is when OSHA came into effect, the Occupational Safety Health Act, and started regulating asbestos products. And so, a lot of things that were built, powerhouses, big industrial manufacturing plants prior to 1972 were virtually guaranteed to be built with asbestos containing materials.

The turbines were insulated with asbestos. All the piping that was connected to the turbines, as well as the piping that ran throughout the plant contained asbestos, the gaskets, the connected pipes contained asbestos. The boilers that were used to heat the steam, the fire brick and refractive material contained asbestos.

The valves were used that controlled steam moving from one location to the other, frequently those valves either were insulated over top of the valves and frequently they had what’s called packing that was located inside the valves, those contain asbestos. You had motors, a lot of motors in these kinds of facilities. Big motors, small motors that operated all kinds of equipment that contain asbestos. There were something called precipitators in the plant that contained asbestos.

And Ghent One was built and it was intended to be built with asbestos. We know that from working on prior cases, and we’ve seen the specifications. Well, Ghent Two is interesting because Ghent Two started construction sometime after 1973 when Ghent One came up and Ghent Two was supposed to be asbestos-free.

It was supposed to be. Because in 1972, OSHA imposed a limit on exposures to asbestos that people could have in the workplace. It was called a permissible exposure limit. Thermal insulation was one of the most common asbestos products that people were exposed to in the ’60s and ’70s before OSHA came into effect. And people received very high exposures from working with thermal insulation.

When OSHA came into effect and it put those permissible exposure limits into place, it was over. Everybody knew that there was no way that you could safely or nobody knew that you could work with asbestos within those limits. So, Ghent Two was supposed to be asbestos-free. We learned in a case about 15 years ago that they got a little impatient and they needed to get their powerhouse built.

And so, they chose to install asbestos even though the specifications called for non-asbestos materials to be used. So, Ghent Two has asbestos materials, probably not to the same extent that Ghent One does, but certainly it had asbestos thermal insulation all throughout the facility very similar to what Ghent One had.

Alternatives to Asbestos

Maher: And is that because the alternative to asbestos was just not available or was taking extra time to become available at that time? Or what was the reason why you said they got impatient and started installing asbestos anyway? What was sort of the understanding there?

Kelley: Yeah, it’s all about money. Time is money. And they had a timetable they wanted to get this project completed by. The non-asbestos materials for whatever reason were not available. And so, KU and the engineer and the general contractor, they all made a joint decision that we’re not going to wait. We’re going to install these asbestos materials. And that’s what they did. And it was all about money.

And it wasn’t necessarily that the asbestos was cheaper, it was available, and that’s why they chose to do it. They wanted to get Ghent Two going. They wanted to generate electricity, and it’s all about money. And quite frankly, that’s historically what we’ve seen. Whether it’s this powerhouse or another manufacturing plant or some other company, it was always about money. It was either a time-saving issue or it was a cost-saving issue.

How Were Ghent Powerhouse Employees Exposed to Asbestos?

Maher: Right. So, talk a little bit about how and when the employees at the Ghent Powerhouse were exposed to asbestos or could have been.

Kelley: Sure. So, I mean, there’s a lot of different crafts and trades that were exposed. Certainly during the construction of Ghent One and Ghent Two, when they built those units, it takes a lot of manpower and a lot of different crafts to build a powerhouse from carpenters to millwrights to pipe fitters, boilermakers, electricians, bricklayers. All of those crafts were exposed one way or the other. Insulators, of course, during the construction of the facility.

And it takes a long time. The thermal insulation is one of the last things that comes in. So, they’re getting really close to operating the plant at that point. And so, there’s a high likelihood that now KU employees are in the facility during the insulation process and some of those folks were exposed. We know that there were scores of engineers that were on site. We know that there were a lot of kind of white collar type people that were there during the construction phase for various reasons. And a lot of those people would be exposed to all of these products.

And then when you move forward, the turbines have to be overhauled every two or three years. They’re not a piece of equipment that they can go maintenance free for a long time. And when they did the overhauls, they took the asbestos off. So, the way that a turbine would be insulated with asbestos turbines are typically horizontal. And they could be 25 to 50 feet long or wide, and the outer shell would be covered either with what’s called a block insulation, where they kind of cut it and then they try to apply it and they put it on with mud and you have to cut the form.

And they’re not perfectly squared off pieces of equipment. So, there’s a lot of angles and nooks and grannies and things that you got to cover. And the purpose for it was to retain heat and also to protect people from touching the outer shell and being burned. Sometimes they used asbestos blankets, and so they would just cover, the blankets were a little more malleable, and they just put a bunch of blankets, dozens of blankets covering the outer shell.

So, when the turbines had to be overhauled, if it’s the blankets, you take the blankets off, put them off to the side, do the work, takes about eight weeks to do the overhaul, you put the blankets back on. Blankets are old, they’re dustier than all can be, but those blankets can absolutely be reused over and over and over again for years. Now, the block insulation typically couldn’t be reused because it had to be cut, torn off, destroyed.

Millwrights typically, and insulators tearing that insulation off, would receive massive exposure. They had to re-insulate. As the years progressed, I’m confident that they probably did start using non-asbestos, but for the first several years they re-insulated with asbestos-containing products. And so, you got to, again, cut it and mold and then they would apply some muds and cements over it. And those muds and cements originally came in a dry format and then they mixed them with water. And so, there’s exposure that way.

All the piping that’s connected, you have to take a lot of that off in order to do the work on the turbines themselves, the gaskets. So, people who overhauled these pieces of equipment, the same thing’s true for the boilers. They had to tear those out and they have to get in. These boilers are massive, I mean stories high, 5, 6, 7, 8 stories tall, and they have, I couldn’t even begin to say how much fire brick was in these things. And they have to tear all that out, all the piping and the tubing and everything associated with it, everything had to be torn out. And so, the boilermakers, the bricklayers, sometimes the millwrights, even the electricians, electricians had to deal with the wires and cables and the gauges and the electrical components.

And frequently, a long time ago, in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, a lot of big thick cable was insulated with asbestos. They had cut it off for the knife and they’d get exposure doing that. But again, they have four units and the reason why they have four units is so that they will always be able to produce electricity even when one of the other units or two of the other units are down. So even the people that are working in the plant that are actually operating the plant, they’re doing the work that generates the electricity.

Those folks had exposure during these overhaul operations. Back in those days, those days, meaning the ’70s and ’80s, they didn’t do what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to put up enclosures. They were supposed to have the people doing the work wearing special protective suits and respirators and masks and keep anybody that’s not essential to that operation out of the area.

Well, that didn’t happen very often until probably the mid-’80s and into the ’90s. So, if they’re not containing it, asbestos has this amazing quality of being drift. The fibers drift throughout an area. And studies have been shown that people that were hundreds of feet away when asbestos was disturbed would be exposed. So that’s what was happening in a power plant. And then certainly they had scores of maintenance people and maintenance people would have daily interaction with asbestos materials, maybe just not on widespread, let’s tear out five miles of pipe.

But if a pipe busted, they’d be the ones that would work on it. If a piece of equipment broke, they would be the ones that worked on it. So, I would say that that virtually everybody that worked in the Ghent Powerhouse from the time that was built, mid-’80s had certainly had exposure or high opportunity for exposure. And it didn’t matter whether you were an outside contractor or a Ghent employee.

Didn’t matter if you were an operator, didn’t matter if you were a high-level supervisor that had to spend a lot of time in the plant. Asbestos doesn’t care who you are, doesn’t care what you wear, doesn’t care what your job is, it just cares if you have lungs, have the ability to breathe.

Which Turbines Used Asbestos?

Maher: Right. So then in later years when the Ghent Three and Ghent Four turbines were created, did they not use asbestos in those? But of course, it wouldn’t matter if One and Two were still there with asbestos being used on those ones, you’re going to be exposed anyway, but the later ones were not?

Kelley: So, it’s my understanding Ghent Four absolutely did not. There may have been a few products in Ghent Three that were installed because they came several years earlier around the same time Ghent Two was put up. So, One and Two had substantial amounts, Three probably a little bit, and Four should be none. I’ve been working a lot of cases with respect to that facility. And so far, we haven’t seen any evidence of asbestos in Ghent Four.

What to Do if You Worked At Ghent Powerhouse And Have Been Diagnosed with Mesothelioma

Maher: Okay. So, if you worked at the Ghent Powerhouse and now you have mesothelioma or asbestosis or another lung disease like that, what should you do?

Kelley: So, you and your family have a lot of decisions to make. One decision, the most important decision, is how to proceed with your medical care. It’s a very tough diagnosis to get. There are various types of mesothelioma, which we don’t need to discuss today. There are various levels in terms of aggression of mesothelioma, and then of course there’s the staging aspect. And so, you and your family have a lot of decisions to make as to what kind of treatment you’ll get, where you will receive that treatment.

Will you stay in Kentucky? Will you go outside Kentucky? And certainly from a health standpoint, that’s the most important thing. But the problem is that unfortunately you don’t have a lot of time to determine your legal rights. And so, I think it’s important to start researching and try to identify and retain an attorney that can provide you with advice concerning what your legal rights and help determine whether you have a lawsuit against somebody for causing this disease.

If it’s the Ghent Powerhouse, I can most assuredly tell you that you do have a case. And it’s just a matter of finding out the particulars of your case and filing it and getting started. But it’s important to do that. There’s a lot of different reasons for it. Time is just of the essence. And I hate to tell people that you have this one big problem of dealing with your health and figuring out what you’re going to do to get treated, but you also have to fool around with trying to find the best lawyers for you.

And I wish that you had a lot of time to do that, but sadly, you do not. And so, it’s important to start researching your rights and consulting with somebody that can really tell you what your rights are, and most importantly help you obtain your right to compensation and right to justice.

How Much Time Do You Have To File a Mesothelioma Claim?

Maher: So, how much time do you have to file a mesothelioma claim, and why is it that working with an attorney like yourself in Kentucky can help to speed up that process?

Kelley: So, in Kentucky, we only have a year from the date that we know or should know that we’re injured and what the cause of the injury is. The first part’s easy. If you’re diagnosed with mesothelioma, you know you have a significant disease. But contrary to what some of my adversaries would say, if you have mesothelioma, it was caused by asbestos exposure, guaranteed.

If you worked at the Ghent Powerhouse for a long time, either as a direct employer or as a contractor, that’s what caused your disease. But you might not know that because it wasn’t advertised to the employees that worked there necessarily what they were being exposed to or how harmful it was. But as a rule of thumb, I never go, if somebody comes to me within a year from the diagnosis, we would never go beyond that year.

Technically speaking, you can file beyond the year of your diagnosis, and you may maintain your case, but now you’re leaving it in the hands of somebody else to make the determination as to whether you filed your case on time. And the law and statute of limitations in Kentucky is very harsh. I think most of our trial judges would love to be lenient and to err on the side of helping the victim out, but lots of times their hands are just tied and they can’t.

So that’s a huge reason in and of itself that a year goes by fast. And I think you and I are probably of the same age, and the older you get, the years go by really fast. So, it’ll go by fast, but there’s a more practical reason for wanting to get done or get this process started. And the statistics are not really on your side in terms of survival rate.

And I hate to say that, and certainly there’s outliers and I hope that anybody that might be listening or that would come to me would be an outlier. But the statistics say that most people will pass away within six months to 18 months from their diagnosis. And you want to be able to make the decisions on what happens with your case.

You want to be able to give a deposition, testify, tell the world what’s happened to you, tell the world how you were exposed, tell the world that you weren’t advised of the hazards that you were forced to work with at this facility. I hear so many compelling and heartbreaking stories about the impact of this cancer on people’s lives.

It’s devastating from going to a normal exercise three days a week, travel, spend time with my family, go to the kids or grandkids games, to doctor’s appointments, chemotherapy surgeries, shortness of breath. And I can tell that story so much better with you because I’m not telling it, you’re telling it. I’m just kind of the conduit for doing that. So, we want for every one of our clients to be able to have the opportunity to look at the jury and say what’s happened. Now, unfortunately, it may be two years before the case goes to trial. So the way we do that is we take a deposition and that deposition is conducted as if we were in front of the jury and the judge at trial, and you tell your story, say what’s happened.

The longer we wait, the less likelihood that you have to be able to tell your story whether your health gets poor, and you can’t do it. Sometimes there are impediments that we have to fight with our adversaries, or depending on what court you’re in. Sometimes there’s different procedures for doing all of that. So, time is of the essence in that regard. And so, one of the reasons why it’s important for you to go to an attorney that has experience with not only asbestos litigation because it is something that you just don’t do, you don’t dabble with. It’s highly specialized.

I’ve got 50 years of documents and materials in my database related to all kinds of places, including this particular powerhouse. And because time’s of the essence, you don’t want to hire somebody that has to spend any more time than necessary to file your claim. And there’s a very good likelihood that if you worked at the Ghent Powerhouse as a contractor in particular, you probably worked at a bunch of places. And there’s a very good chance you worked at a bunch of places that I have experience with.

But every now and again, we come to find some job sites that we’ve not had a ton of experience with. So, you want to be able to go to somebody that they can hit the ground running, that has a treasure trove of information already, might know out of the box a hundred percent of the defendants you’ll see, or 75% and you need to spend a little bit of time. Every case is unique. They don’t fit into a nice little box. But quite frankly, there’s very little at this point that we haven’t seen in Kentucky, very few job sites that we’re not familiar with and that we don’t know what to do with.

But that’s not always true. If you hire somebody out of state or hire somebody that might necessarily doesn’t do these kinds of cases, but they think that they want to because they’re really good attorneys in what they do and say, “This is just asbestos, I’ll figure this out.” It probably won’t work out that way. Because again, you don’t just dabble in this kind of law and you shouldn’t have to recreate the wheel when it’s already there. And that’s important and that’s why it’s important to do your research. And certainly you want somebody that you feel comfortable with and I would like to believe that you feel most comfortable with the attorneys that know what to do. And I think we know what to do. And with respect to this job site, the Ghent Powerhouse, we absolutely know what to do.

Maher: All right, well that’s really great information, Paul. Thanks again for speaking with me today.

Kelley: Thank you so much, John. I appreciate it.

About the Law Firm of Satterley & Kelley

Maher: And for more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, you can visit the law firm of Satterley & Kelley at satterleylaw.com or call 855-385-9532.