Oklahoma City Asbestos & Mesothelioma Lawyer

Oklahoma City’s industrial story began on December 4, 1928, when the Oklahoma City No. 1 well came in just south of the city limits. Within eighteen months the field had pushed into the city itself, and it became Oklahoma’s most productive oil and gas field and one of the largest in the nation. Drilling rigs, tank farms, pipelines, and refineries followed. With them came the asbestos-containing pipe insulation, gaskets, valve packing, and boiler materials that were standard across the petroleum industry for most of the 20th century. Two former refinery properties in northeast Oklahoma City, the Fourth Street Abandoned Refinery and the Double Eagle Refinery, were later placed on the EPA’s National Priorities List. Cleanup at the Fourth Street site, which operated from about 1940 to 1968, included demolishing on-site structures and disposing of their asbestos insulation. The EPA found more asbestos in the soil there as late as 2011.

Aviation added a second major source of exposure. Tinker Field opened during World War II. At its wartime peak, more than 18,000 military and civilian employees repaired and modified B-17, B-24, and B-29 bombers there, while the neighboring Douglas Aircraft plant built more than 5,000 C-47 transports. After the war, Tinker took over the Douglas plant, and by 1950 it had become the Air Force’s largest maintenance and supply depot. Asbestos was used in aircraft engines, brakes, and gaskets, as well as in base buildings and housing. That put aircraft mechanics, engine overhaul crews, pipefitters, electricians, custodial staff, and service members at risk. Concerns about asbestos at Tinker did not end with the war years. In 2019 and 2020, disturbed asbestos in on-base family housing drew Senate attention and a federal investigation of the base’s housing contractor.

Exposure didn’t always stop at the plant gate or the flight line. Asbestos fibers can travel home on work clothing, in hair, and in vehicles. Spouses and children of refinery workers, aircraft mechanics, and other tradespeople have developed mesothelioma decades later without ever working in heavy industry. Oklahoma City also received shipments of W.R. Grace vermiculite between 1948 and 1993, a product later linked to asbestos contamination. Because mesothelioma can take 20 to 50 years to appear, many Oklahoma City families are only now connecting a diagnosis to a parent’s or spouse’s work history. Take-home exposure can support a legal claim just as direct workplace exposure can. Danziger & De Llano can help identify the job sites, products, and companies involved, even when the original employer no longer exists.