Why Waco Workers and Families Are at Risk for Asbestos-Related Disease

Waco's industrial history is anchored in the agricultural processing economy of Central Texas. This includes cotton oil mills, grain elevators, food processing facilities, and the farm equipment manufacturers and dealers who served the surrounding agricultural region. Cotton oil mills in the Brazos Valley region used asbestos extensively in steam lines, dryers, boiler systems, and high-temperature processing equipment that operated continuously during harvest seasons. Workers maintaining and repairing this equipment, such as boilermakers, pipefitters, millwrights, and industrial mechanics, accumulated asbestos exposure across careers often spanning 20 or 30 years in the same facility. Grain handling and processing facilities similarly relied on asbestos insulation for steam-heated equipment and fire-resistant building materials.

Waco's commercial and industrial construction trades also generated asbestos exposure across the mid-20th century. Carpenters, plasterers, drywallers, tile setters, electricians, plumbers, sheet metal workers, and roofers who worked on Waco's commercial and industrial buildings from the 1940s through the 1970s routinely handled asbestos-containing ceiling tile, floor tile, insulation board, joint compound, pipe insulation, and roofing materials. McLennan County's steady commercial growth during this period, including industrial plants, warehouses, schools, hospitals, and government buildings, sustained a large construction workforce whose cumulative asbestos exposure was not widely recognized at the time.

Waco's proximity to Fort Hood (approximately 40 miles north in Killeen) also brought a population of veterans and military-adjacent workers to the area whose asbestos exposure histories began during their service years in barracks, maintenance facilities, and on military equipment. Mesothelioma's 20-to-50-year latency means that Central Texas residents with industrial, construction, or military service histories from decades past may only now be receiving diagnoses. Danziger & De Llano represents Waco-area families regardless of whether the primary exposure occurred locally or at earlier work sites in the region.