Nebraska Asbestos Areas

Nebraska has a mix of industries among its agricultural areas that were in all likelihood using asbestos products at some time in the twentieth century. Power plants are always candidates for asbestos products because they generate heat in order to produce steam to drive turbines. Many of the early (and current) resources for electrical power were created by local cooperatives. Those plants were designed to serve selected areas and almost exclusively were steam plants rather than hydro-electric. Any such plant constructed prior to 1980 or so probably used asbestos to insulate pipes and boilers and as gasket material for pipe connections.

Chemical and fertilizer plants dot the landscape in Nebraska; these facilities have processing equipment that probably had asbestos coating for insulation or products containing asbestos that went into the processing line. There are also several oil refineries in the state: these plants have massive piping systems and utilize heat to refine crude oil into petroleum products. Many refineries were built thirty years ago or more and are guaranteed to have asbestos components unless there has been a comprehensive effort to clean them up.

Omaha has been a shipping point for products coming out of the slaughterhouses there for more than a century. For much of that time those products were shipped out via railroad; old rail yards and equipment are all suspect for asbestos products. Finally, the state is home to a couple of Air Force bases that probably have their own power plants and piping systems; those too may be sources of exposure to asbestos.

Asbestos Jobsites in Nebraska

Below are some locations in Nebraska that are known to be sites for potential asbestos exposure, either today or in past years. If you were employed at any one of them it's worth a discussion with your doctor about the possibilities of asbestos-related health problems.

Asbestos Related Deaths in Nebraska

A study made public in 2004 looked at national trends in asbestos related deaths. The two lethal forms of asbestos-related disease are asbestosis and mesothelioma cancer. Asbestosis is not a form of cancer and is not always a fatal affliction. The same cannot be said for mesothelioma, which is a lethal form of cancer that usually attacks the lining of the lung area or the abdominal cavity.

The study looked at recorded deaths from asbestosis and mesothelioma from 1979 through 2000. They also looked at demographic and industrial patterns, and made the assumption that some portion of the deaths reported to be caused by lung cancer may have been due to pleural mesothelioma. For that reason they report mesothelioma deaths in a range rather than with a specific number. 

In Nebraska over that period there were 65 deaths attributed to asbestosis and between 129 and 210 deaths from mesothelioma. Because it often takes twenty years or more after asbestos exposure for symptoms of mesothelioma to show, the Center for Disease Control expects mesothelioma to be a factor for years to come. Currently about 3,000 people in the United States die from this disease annually.

In 1999 the federal government began keeping specific records of mesothelioma deaths. From 1999 through 2004 there were 98 mesothelioma deaths in Nebraska. 

Cancer Treatment in Nebraska

The National Cancer Institute has selected forty one cancer treatment facilities around the country and designated them as comprehensive treatment and research centers. These facilities will be participating in coordinated research on various forms of cancer, as well as clinical trials for new medications and cancer treatment methods. One of them is in Omaha:

Eppley Cancer Center
University of Nebraska Medical Center
600 South 42nd Street 
Omaha, Nebraska 68198-6805 
Tel: (402) 559-4238 
Fax: (402) 559-4652    
http://www.unmc.edu/cancercenter/

There are several other cancer care facilities in Nebraska; the state Department of Health and Human Services has its own Comprehensive Cancer Control Program that can direct you to cancer care facilities around the state:

Nebraska Comprehensive Cancer Control Program
Nebraska Health and Human Services
301 Centennial Mall South PO Box 95026
Lincoln, NE 68509

Phone: (402) 471-4411
Fax: (402) 471-6446
Email: NebraskaCARES@dhhs.ne.gov