Asbestos Exposure at Edwardsport Power Station (Duke Energy Indiana LLC)
Edwardsport, Knox County, Indiana
⚠️ URGENT FILING DEADLINE WARNING FOR Indiana residents
Indiana’s asbestos filing deadline is 5 years from your diagnosis date under Ind. Code § 34-20-3-1 — but that window is under active legislative threat right now.
HB 1649, currently pending in the 2026 Indiana legislative session, would impose strict new trust disclosure requirements for asbestos cases filed after August 28, 2026. If this bill passes, claims filed after that date could face significant new procedural hurdles that do not exist today. The 2025 attempt to cut the filing window to 2 years died without becoming law — but the legislative pressure on Indiana asbestos claimants is real, ongoing, and accelerating.
Do not wait for the legislature to act. Call a mesothelioma lawyer indiana residents trust today. Every month of delay increases the risk that changing laws, lost records, and fading witness memories will weaken your case — or that new legislation will complicate your ability to file at all.
Opening: What Former Workers Need to Know
If you worked at Edwardsport Power Station and have just been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or lung cancer, you are not reading this by accident — and you do not have time to sit on this. Workers at this facility may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials from manufacturers including Johns-Manville, Owens-Illinois, Combustion Engineering, Armstrong World Industries, and Garlock Sealing Technologies, with little protection and no adequate warning. This facility operated for over a century. For much of that time, asbestos-containing materials were installed, disturbed, and removed by tradespeople who were never told what they were breathing.
Former employees and their families have established legal rights to file claims against the manufacturers and distributors of those products. For workers and families based in Indiana or Illinois — including those in the Mississippi River industrial corridor stretching from St. Louis through Granite City, Alton, and beyond — these rights are enforced in state courts experienced in asbestos litigation, including Lake County Superior Court, Madison County Circuit Court in Illinois, and St. Clair County Circuit Court in Illinois. An experienced asbestos attorney indiana can evaluate your exposure history and move your case forward before deadlines close the door.
Legal Notice
If you or a family member worked at Edwardsport Power Station and have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer, or another asbestos-related disease, you may have substantial legal rights. This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Statutes of limitations apply — call a qualified asbestos cancer lawyer Indianapolis area today. Do not wait.
Indiana residents must understand the following:
- Current law: Indiana’s statute of limitations for asbestos disease claims is 2 years from the date of diagnosis** under Ind. Code § 34-20-3-1. The clock runs from diagnosis — not from the last day you were exposed decades ago.
- The 2025 threat that died: The proposal to cut that window to two years died in 2025 without becoming law. The current five-year deadline remains in effect.
- The 2026 threat that is alive right now: August 28, 2026.** Claimants who wait past that date could face procedural burdens that do not apply to claims filed now. The legislative environment in Missouri is hostile to asbestos claimants — and it can change with a single vote.
Call a mesothelioma attorney indiana today — not next month, not after the next legislative session. The combination of Indiana’s existing 2-year deadline and the looming August 28, 2026 procedural shift under HB 1649 means that for many Indiana workers and families, the window to file under current, more favorable rules is closing faster than most people realize.
When you contact our office, we will explain how Indiana’s statute of limitations and available Asbestos Indiana resources work together in your specific case.
Table of Contents
- What Was the Edwardsport Power Station?
- Why Asbestos Was Used at Power Plants
- Timeline of Alleged Asbestos Use at Edwardsport
- Which Workers Were at Highest Risk?
- Asbestos-Containing Products Allegedly Present
- How Workers May Have Been Exposed
- Asbestos-Related Diseases from Occupational Exposure
- Family Members and Take-Home Exposure Risks
- Your Legal Options and Rights
- How to Choose an Asbestos Attorney
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Contact an Attorney Now
1. What Was the Edwardsport Power Station?
Location and History
The Edwardsport Power Station is located in Edwardsport, Knox County, Indiana, approximately 25 miles northeast of Vincennes along the White River. The facility has operated as a coal-fired electricity generating station since the early 20th century, with commercial power generation reportedly beginning around 1920.
Ownership changed several times over the decades:
- Originally operated under Indiana Gas and Electric Company and Indiana & Michigan Electric Company
- Later operated by PSI Energy
- PSI Energy merged with Cincinnati Gas & Electric to form Cinergy Corp
- Duke Energy acquired Cinergy in 2006 and now operates the facility as Duke Energy Indiana LLC
From Coal to Gasification
For most of the 20th century, Edwardsport operated as a conventional coal-fired steam station. Coal combustion produced high-pressure steam that drove turbines to generate electricity — a process requiring extensive thermal insulation. Asbestos-containing materials from manufacturers including Johns-Manville, Owens-Illinois, and Combustion Engineering were reportedly the utility industry standard for decades.
In the 2010s, Duke Energy constructed an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant that came online around 2013, converting coal into synthetic gas before combustion. The project was among Indiana’s most expensive power generation undertakings.
What that transition means for asbestos exposure: IGCC construction required demolition and renovation of older coal plant infrastructure. Workers involved in that work may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials from Johns-Manville, Owens-Illinois, Combustion Engineering, Armstrong World Industries, and other manufacturers that were installed decades earlier and left undisturbed — until those renovations began.
Geographic Context: The Mississippi River Industrial Corridor
Edwardsport sits in southwestern Indiana, but its workforce drew from a broad regional labor pool — including skilled tradespeople from Missouri and Illinois who traveled to power plant construction and maintenance projects throughout the Midwest. The Mississippi River industrial corridor — encompassing major industrial facilities from St. Louis through Granite City, Alton, East St. Louis, and Wood River in Illinois, and from St. Louis through Labadie and Portage des Sioux in Missouri — produced generations of boilermakers, pipefitters, insulators, and millwrights who regularly worked at facilities like Edwardsport.
Workers with ties to Missouri facilities such as AmerenUE’s Labadie Power Plant (Franklin County), Ameren’s Portage des Sioux Power Plant (St. Charles County), Monsanto’s chemical manufacturing complexes in St. Louis, and Granite City Steel in Madison County, Illinois were part of the same regional union halls that supplied tradespeople to Indiana power plants. Many of these workers may have carried overlapping asbestos exposure histories across multiple sites, including Edwardsport.
Indiana workers in this corridor face a particularly urgent situation: If HB 1649 passes before August 28, 2026, the procedural landscape for Asbestos Indiana claims could change dramatically. Workers with multi-site exposure histories who need to pursue Asbestos Indiana claims alongside court litigation are especially vulnerable to those changes. An asbestos cancer lawyer can help protect your rights before that deadline arrives.
2. Why Asbestos Was Used at Power Plants
Thermal Insulation Requirements
Coal-fired power plants operate under extreme conditions. Steam temperatures routinely exceed 1,000°F, requiring high-performance insulation on boilers, pipes, turbines, and heat exchangers. Asbestos-containing materials were the utility industry’s primary solution for maintaining thermal efficiency, preventing burns, and reducing energy loss for most of the 20th century.
Three types of asbestos fiber were used extensively:
- Chrysotile (white asbestos) — the most widely used, found in pipe covering, gaskets, and insulation board
- Amosite (brown asbestos) — favored for high-temperature applications including block insulation and pipe lagging
- Crocidolite (blue asbestos) — used in specialized insulation products and widely considered the most dangerous fiber type
Workers in thermal maintenance and insulation roles at facilities like Edwardsport may have been exposed to all three fiber types, depending on which products were installed during which eras.
Asbestos-Containing Products Allegedly Present in Power Generation Facilities
Workers at facilities like Edwardsport may have encountered asbestos-containing materials including:
- Pipe lagging and thermal insulation products marketed under trade names including Kaylo, Thermobestos, and Aircell
- Block insulation for boiler surfaces
- Spray-applied fireproofing marketed as Monokote
- Insulation blankets and sheets marketed as Superex and Unibestos
- Rope packing and gasket materials
- Refractory brick marketed as Cranite in fireboxes
- Valve packing compounds
- Floor tiles and ceiling materials including products marketed as Gold Bond and Sheetrock
Manufacturers Who Supplied the Power Industry
The electric utility industry’s use of asbestos-containing materials was not accidental — it was deliberate. Manufacturers engineered and marketed these products specifically for power plant applications, and internal corporate documents produced in asbestos litigation have shown that many of them understood the health risks long before workers were warned. Those manufacturers — whose products workers at Edwardsport and similar facilities may have encountered — include:
- Johns-Manville — asbestos insulation and pipe covering
- Owens-Illinois — mineral insulation products
- Owens-Corning Fiberglas — insulation products
- Armstrong World Industries — floor tiles, ceiling materials, insulation
- Combustion Engineering — boiler components, refractory materials
- Foster Wheeler — heat exchangers
- Babcock & Wilcox — boiler systems
- Garlock Sealing Technologies — gaskets and packing
- Crane Co. — mechanical seals, packing, and valve components
- John Crane — mechanical seals and packing
- A.W. Chesterton — packing and gasket materials
- Flexitallic — gasket materials
- W.R. Grace — insulation and refractory products
- Georgia-Pacific — building materials
- Celotex — insulation and thermal products
Many of these same manufacturers supplied products to Missouri and Illinois industrial facilities, creating overlapping exposure histories for workers who traveled between regional job sites.
The Regulatory Timeline: Protections That Came Too Late
Federal occupational exposure rules evolved slowly — and for many workers, far too slowly to matter:
- 1971: OSHA set the first permissible exposure limit (PEL) at 5 fibers per cubic centimeter (f/cc)
- 1976: OSHA tightened the PEL to 2 f/cc
- 1986: OSHA reduced the PEL to 0.2 f/cc
- 1994: OSHA reduced the PEL to 0.1 f/cc
During the 1940s through the 1980s — when the most intensive construction and maintenance work occurred at Edwardsport — either no federal asbestos regulations existed or existing limits were wholly inadequate. Workers handling asbestos-containing products from Johns-Manville, Owens-Illinois, and other manufacturers during boiler repair, insulation work, and pipe maintenance may have worked in environments with fiber concentrations far exceeding any level now considered safe.
For Indiana workers affected by this regulatory failure: The five-year filing deadline under Ind. Code § 34-20-3-1 runs from your diagnosis — not from the decade when the exposure occurred. If you were diagnosed recently, your clock is running right now. Call
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