6/6/11, Alabama Mesothelioma Lawyer: Manufacturing has long been the backbone of the Alabama economy. Indeed, many of the heavy industries where asbestos exposure was a potential danger can be found in Alabama. The state is home to no fewer than eight power generation plants, six steel and iron mills, four oil refineries and two marine construction and repair sites.
Alabama Drydock & Shipping Co. and Bender Shipbuilding were two prominent employers along the Gulf Coast. In addition, the paper products company Kimberly-Clark, an owner of major pulp and paper mills, had plants within the state.
Other Alabama Job Sites and Asbestos Exposure
One of the most significant industrial customers for asbestos, however, was the Cement Asbestos Company Product Company (CAPCO) of Ragland, Alabama. The company made asbestos cement pipes and pipe products.
Asbestos, when added to Portland cement, created a substance that was at once heat and cold resistant, flexible, and extremely durable. For that reason, asbestos cement was widely used in a number of community water systems throughout the state.
Several hundred miles of asbestos pipe is still carrying water to homes and schools in more than 80 Alabama communities. The people whose job it is to oversee these water systems say that they “doubt their pipes ever leached asbestos fibers into the drinking water.” Nonetheless, they have no proof that it hasn’t occurred. Most of these systems have never been tested; the few that have been were last tested in 1994.
Even worse, in Ragland – where the pipes were produced – people have used these asbestos pipes to build fences on their properties.
CAPCO has been named in thousands of asbestos lawsuits around the country. It eventually filed for bankruptcy.
Suit Alleges Asbestos Exposure at Work
Consider the asbestos-related lawsuit filed by an Alabama woman, Carol Davis. Her complaint alleges that her now-deceased husband, J.L. Davis, developed mesothelioma due to his work at a number of companies. The Madison-St. Clair Record reports that J.L. Davis worked as a laborer, calendar operator, dust collector operator and forklift operator at CAPCO from 1965 until 1984. He also worked as a forklift operator at Temco Metals from 1986 until 1994, and as a laborer for St. Clair County from 1959 until 1965.
The Davis case is a cautionary tale for Alabama workers. However, asbestos exposure in Alabama may have been an occupational hazard for many of the state’s workers who were unknowingly exposed on the job and now suffer from such life-threatening diseases as asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma.
Asbestos Exposure Sites in Alabama
Some of the job sites from the state of Alabama where workers were potentially and unnecessarily exposed to asbestos and put at risk for developing asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma, a rare and deadly form of cancer include Bender Shipbuilding and Repair and the Reynolds Aluminum Plant.
While many Alabama asbestos exposure sites have taken steps to keep their employees and visitors safe since the problem was discovered, people who worked in or visited these areas in the past may still have been exposed to asbestos. Individuals who lived or worked near these areas or other known asbestos exposure sites in Alabama should be checked regularly for signs of mesothelioma and should contact a Alabama mesothelioma lawyer as soon as possible after a diagnosis in order to file any lawsuits within the state’s statute of limitations.
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