Asbestos and Mesothelioma at Air Products & Chemicals in Calvert City, KY
In this episode, John Maher speaks with Paul Kelley about the history of the Air Products facility in Calvert City, Kentucky, how asbestos was present throughout the plant, and how workers and contractors may have been exposed over time. They also discuss what mesothelioma patients should do quickly to protect their legal rights.
John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher and I’m here today with Paul Kelley. Paul is a partner with the Kentucky Personal Injury Law Firm, Satterley and Kelley, which has over 45 years of collective experience in litigating mesothelioma and asbestos claims. Today we’re talking about asbestos exposure at Air Products & Chemicals in Calvert City, Kentucky. Welcome, Paul.
Paul Kelley: Hey, John. How you doing today?
Air Products Facility History and Operations
John: Doing well, thanks. Paul, tell us a little bit about Air Products & Chemicals and their background.
Paul: Sure. Air Products & Chemicals, it’s of course a chemical plant in Calvert City, Kentucky. It started…the physical building was opened in 1961. It was originally owned by a company called Airco, but in about 1971, Air Products took over the facility, operated it for almost 40 years. And now I think it’s owned by a company called Wacker Chemie, which is a German company. They historically have manufactured a chemical called vinyl acetate ethylene. It’s not particularly important for our purposes as to what that chemical is and what it did, but it was something that’s been produced in that plant for many, many years. And I think the people in Calvert City, Kentucky, which is in the western part of the state of Kentucky, are very familiar with that facility.
How Asbestos Was Present at the Air Products Plant
John: Okay. And how was Air Products & Chemicals related to asbestos and mesothelioma cases?
Paul: So, as far as I know, from litigating out of that plant for many years, Air Products did not utilize asbestos as a part of the manufacturing process, per se, but the plant was absolutely loaded with asbestos. It was built during the period of time that you would expect there to be a considerable amount of asbestos products, from thermal insulation to gaskets to electrical wire and cable, boilers, other pieces of equipment like furnaces, ovens.
All of the chemicals that were being produced in the plant, a lot of those were hot processes that ran through piping that had to be insulated with asbestos or some form of insulation. They used asbestos. The piping contained gaskets that were asbestos containing. The boilers had asbestos all over them from an insulation standpoint. So there was a great deal of asbestos that was there, that was necessary for the operation of the plant, but not necessarily used to produce any of the chemicals other than to carry the chemicals through the piping, if that makes sense.
How Workers and Contractors May Have Been Exposed
John: Okay. And so if that’s the case and the asbestos wasn’t necessarily in the chemicals themselves, how and when were employees exposed to the asbestos in the plant?
Paul: So for many years, I think probably employees and contractors and anybody that came into the plant for any period of time were likely exposed fairly significantly. A plant of this size — and it was many football fields long, multiple buildings — there was a lot of maintenance and renovation activities that occurred from 1961 through the ’90s and into the 2000s.
And so, just imagine that you would have maintenance employees that would have to perform various tasks with respect to the piping that was in the plant. And they would come into contact with the asbestos insulation that was on the pipes. They would hire outside contractors that would come in and perform work on the piping to replace pipes, to repair damaged pipes, to add additional piping. And they would be exposed to the insulation on the pipes. They would be exposed to the gaskets that connected the pipes together.
They would hire boilermakers to come in and work on the boilers, and what we call overhauling the boilers, where they would strip down a lot of the materials and then build them back up. Boilers frequently contained what we call refractory material, which is fire brick and some other types of materials that went over the fire brick that frequently contained asbestos.
Electricians would come in and work on electrical wires and cables, and frequently wires and cables that were on furnaces, ovens, the machines that operated the chemical plant. So, usually a chemical plant, any type of chemical plant, would have an operator’s room and operators would work in there and press numerous buttons and perform various activities, and all of that equipment at one time or another required work. And for equipment that was built and supplied in the 60s and 70s, a lot of that equipment contained electrical wire and cable, and electricians would be exposed to those sort of things.
Over the years, those materials, particularly thermal insulation — and thermal insulation is what was on the pipes — those things deteriorate. And frequently, if they’re not either removed, or covered in some way, we would get stories from people that worked in the plant of those materials just falling down on the ground. So you’ve got people that are working in the plant doing all kinds of different activities and just, during the course of their day and doing the work that they perform, insulation falls on them and hits the ground and somebody has to clean that up, and it’s in the air.
And most people aren’t familiar with this kind of process or thermal insulation and how it works. We hear about asbestos, and I think generally everybody knows that asbestos is not something that you want to be exposed to, but people don’t fully appreciate how you can get exposed.
And so, if you’ve got a piece of insulation that’s a hundred feet in the air — and I’m no physicist, and I can’t run those calculations, but — it’s coming down at a pretty high rate of speed and it’s hitting the floor with significant force and all that dust proliferates all over the place. And you’ve got people that are working in the plant. And there’s a concept called entrainment or re-entrainment. And so once that asbestos gets onto a concrete floor or tile floor or onto a piece of machinery, it’s just constantly being re-entrained over the course of a day, unless someone comes in and performs a true industrial hygiene cleaning of the product. That didn’t happen. You have to have special equipment that is used, what we call HEPA filtered vacuums and other pieces of equipment, and that kind of thing didn’t happen. So over the years, there’s asbestos that’s just in the plant and it gets stuck in the duct work.
These facilities, of course, they’re very hot. They have duct work that runs throughout the plant and sometimes they would have even dust collection systems, which I know sounds like a great thing, but what happens with dust collection systems is it all kind of gets sucked into one place. Well, those things have to get sucked in through duct work and piping and things like that. Well, those things don’t get cleaned, and it just filters through the air.
So the long and short of it is, is I think that everybody who worked in that facility probably from close to when it opened in 1961 through the ’90s and into the 2000s had some level of exposure. Some people would have more because they are directly implicated with the asbestos components. Either they’re replacing it, they are disturbing it in some way, but even those folks that really shouldn’t have had any involvement at all are still likely going to have an exposure in some way, just because of the ubiquitous nature of asbestos and how, once it’s in the environment, it’s very difficult to get out.
And it’s not like it got into the general plant, into the air, once. I mean, this was a frequent occurrence. And when it happens, again, it’s just constantly being re-entrained. And unless they made an effort to come in and have a professional company clean it, and then it happened again. People were frequently exposed. And over the years, I’ve been doing this for almost 25 years myself, and we’ve represented a handful of people that were either direct employees of Air Products or people that worked for contractors that had to perform work at Air Products, and they’ve developed various asbestos related diseases, I believe, as a direct result of working at that plant.
What Mesothelioma Patients Should Do Next
John: So if you did work at that plant, whether you were an employee at Air Products & Chemicals, or whether or not, like you said, you were maybe a contractor that came in, did some work at that plant, and now you have mesothelioma, what should you do?
Paul: So there’s a lot of things that people have to focus on. For those who may not know exactly what mesothelioma is, unfortunately, it’s a terminal cancer. It is uniquely associated with asbestos, and there is no known cure for it. There are a lot of different treatments that can prolong people’s lives, improve their quality of life, and things can go pretty quickly for people.
The average life expectancy from diagnosis is 6 months to 18 months. And so people have a lot of things that they have to deal with when this diagnosis comes through. First and foremost, it’s not legal. It has everything to do with their medical care and what plan they’re going to take. And that’s what every person with this disease needs to work out between themselves, their families, and their medical providers. What are they going to do? Where are they going to go?
Unfortunately, in Kentucky, we don’t have a lot of time to pursue our legal rights. We only have a year from the date that we know or should know what caused our disease, or that we have a disease and what caused it, in order to pursue a legal claim. That’s not necessarily one year from the date of diagnosis, but my recommendation is, certainly, you want to file your case within a year of your diagnosis to make sure that there’s no issues.
And while you’re trying to figure out the best way to treat your disease and deal with the emotional component of what it is that you’ve been diagnosed with, you need to pursue your legal rights. And our recommendation is to certainly speak with attorneys that have knowledge concerning asbestos matters in particular, certainly people that have knowledge about the particular locations that you worked at.
I’ve been doing this work for 25 years. My partner’s been doing this work for almost 30 years. And what I’ve learned more than anything is asbestos litigation’s not something that you dabble with. I have a database of documents and materials that we refer to frequently, and it’s important to find someone that has experience with this litigation, hopefully has experience with the particular location that’s at issue, and of course, somebody that you feel comfortable with, somebody that you feel like is going to fight for you and do what is appropriate for you and your family under the circumstances.
Frequently, John, most people aren’t exposed to asbestos at one place. So Air Products, more than likely for most people that would come to me, it would just be one location out of potentially many. It could be the only place for a lifelong employee, but that’s what we’re here to figure out. Lots of times people…it’s not obvious to them where and how they were exposed. I’ll frequently get people that have worked at a place like Air Products for a long time and say, “Gosh, I worked in a control room for 30 years. I don’t know how in the world I could get exposed.” And we dig into it a little bit and we determine, well, they spent a lot of time out in the plant. Just because you spend eight hours a day in the control room, that hour a day outside for 30 years can be a potential source of substantial exposure. And we may identify some other exposures outside. So our recommendation is, unfortunately, move quickly.
There’s a lot of resources out there, and you’ll be able to find lawyers that you’re comfortable with that are knowledgeable. One of our primary goals is for you to be able to participate in your case. And I mentioned a moment ago that the averages are not terrific as to life expectancy beyond or past diagnosis. And I want to be able to take your deposition. I would love to be able to get your case to trial before your health situation deteriorates. And the quicker that we can get started, the better chance we have of getting your deposition in.
And it’s not just so that we can develop proof. And it is true, John, that the best source of proof of someone’s exposure is our client themselves, but we also want to give people the opportunity to tell their story, to let the judge, jury, the defendants, anybody that may watch their testimony, let them know how this has impacted this person and their family.
I can’t emphasize enough, it’s a devastating and tragic diagnosis. And while there’s a lot of good stories out there about people having good outcomes, there’s a lot of terrible stories too, and we want to be able to give people the opportunity to tell the stories themselves, and it’s most effective coming from you, not coming from doctors or even family members and alternative sources.
So you’ve got a lot to deal with, but you do have rights. There is a potential for significant compensation for you and your family during this devastating time of need. And so I encourage people to pursue their legal rights immediately so that they can really increase the likelihood of a meaningful recovery for you and your family.
John: All right. Well, that’s really great information, Paul. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Paul: Thank you, John. I appreciate it.
John: And for more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, visit the law firm of Satterley & Kelley at satterleylaw.com or call 855-385-9532.