Mesothelioma Lawyer Indiana: Urgent Filing Deadline Advisory for Asbestos Claims at Merom Station

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Asbestos Exposure at Hoosier Energy Merom Generating Station — Sullivan County, Indiana

For Workers, Families, and Former Employees Who May Have Developed Mesothelioma or Asbestosis

If You Worked at Merom Station, You May Have Been Exposed to Asbestos-Containing Materials

For decades, Merom Generating Station in Sullivan County, Indiana supplied electricity to rural electric cooperatives across Indiana and Illinois. Like virtually every large-scale power generation facility built during the 1970s and 1980s, Merom Station reportedly incorporated large quantities of asbestos-containing materials throughout its construction, operation, and maintenance outage cycles.

If you worked at Merom Station as an insulator, pipefitter, boilermaker, electrician, millwright, or laborer — during construction, maintenance outages, or routine plant operations — you may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials on a repeated, potentially heavy basis. Many workers from that era are now reaching the age at which asbestos-related diseases manifest. These diseases carry latency periods of 20 to 50 years. This article explains what you or a family member may have been exposed to, identifies warning symptoms, and outlines your legal options for pursuing an asbestos claim.

Facility Overview: Hoosier Energy Merom Generating Station

Location and Ownership

Merom Generating Station sits near the town of Merom in Sullivan County, southwestern Indiana, adjacent to the Wabash River. Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., a generation and transmission cooperative headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, owns and operates the facility. Hoosier Energy serves distribution member cooperatives throughout central and southern Indiana and portions of Illinois.

Construction Timeline and the Asbestos Era

Unit 1: Commenced commercial operation in 1982
Unit 2: Came online in 1987

This timeline is critical for exposure purposes. The 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s represent the final years of heaviest industrial asbestos use in the United States. During that period, manufacturers including Johns-Manville Corporation, Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Armstrong World Industries, W.R. Grace & Company, Garlock Sealing Technologies, and Eagle-Picher Industries continued supplying asbestos-containing insulation, gaskets, packing materials, and refractory products to large industrial construction projects — even as internal documents show those companies possessed knowledge of the associated health hazards.

Facility Configuration: High Temperatures, High Pressures, Extensive ACM Applications

Each of Merom’s two coal-fired units incorporated:

High-pressure steam boilers operating at supercritical or near-supercritical temperatures and pressures
Steam turbine-generator sets
Extensive steam and feedwater piping networks throughout the facility
Air preheaters, economizers, and flue gas systems
Coal handling and preparation systems
Cooling water systems and heat exchangers
Electrical switchgear and control buildings
Pumps, valves, and auxiliary equipment throughout

Extreme heat, high pressure, and continuous thermal insulation requirements created conditions under which asbestos-containing materials were reportedly specified and installed throughout virtually every major system at the plant.

Operational History: Annual Outages and a Rotating Craft Workforce

Both units at Merom Station underwent regular scheduled maintenance outages — typically annual or biennial — during which:

Hundreds of contract and craft workers arrived at the facility, including members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (St. Louis, MO), Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562 (St. Louis, MO), and affiliated craft locals throughout Indiana and surrounding states
Boiler inspections, turbine overhauls, piping repairs, valve repacking, and insulation work occurred simultaneously on a concentrated basis
Asbestos-containing materials were allegedly disturbed repeatedly across multiple systems at once
The workforce included both permanent Hoosier Energy employees and union craft workers from pipefitter, boilermaker, insulator, electrical worker, and millwright locals

Closure and NESHAP Abatement

Merom Station announced its planned closure, with Unit 1 ceasing operations in 2023 and Unit 2 scheduled to follow. The facility’s decommissioning phase involves NESHAP (National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants) asbestos abatement work. That regulatory process, by its nature, documents and confirms the historical presence of asbestos-containing materials throughout the plant.

Asbestos-Containing Materials Allegedly Present at Merom Station

Why Power Plants Concentrate Asbestos Exposure

Coal-fired power plants built during Merom Station’s construction era rank among the most asbestos-intensive industrial environments outside of shipbuilding and petrochemical refining. The physical demands of power generation — extreme heat, high pressure, thermal cycling, vibration — made asbestos properties (heat resistance, tensile strength, chemical stability) attractive for dozens of applications throughout the plant. This same pattern has been documented at comparable facilities including Labadie Energy Center (Franklin County, MO — Ameren UE), Portage des Sioux Power Plant (St. Charles County, MO — Ameren UE), Rush Island Energy Center (Jefferson County, MO — Ameren UE), Shell Oil Roxana Refinery (Wood River, Illinois), and Clark Refinery (Wood River, Illinois).

Workers throughout the Mississippi River industrial corridor historically faced heightened asbestos exposure risk across multiple industrial and utility sectors.

Thermal Insulation Systems

Pipe Insulation

The steam lines, feedwater lines, extraction steam piping, and drain lines running throughout both Merom units reportedly required many linear miles of thermal insulation. Products allegedly used in this application included:

Asbestos pipe covering — magnesia-asbestos and calcium silicate-asbestos formulations — from Johns-Manville Corporation, Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Armstrong World Industries, Owens-Illinois Glass Company (Kaylo brand), and Celotex Corporation
Asbestos block insulation for larger-diameter piping and equipment surfaces
Insulating cements and finishing cements containing chrysotile and/or amosite asbestos fibers
Canvas lagging adhesives and coatings containing asbestos
Thermobestos insulation products from Thermal Industries
Aircell asbestos-containing insulation board from Owens-Illinois

Boiler Insulation and Refractory

The boiler systems at Merom Station reportedly incorporated:

Asbestos block and blanket insulation on boiler casing and steam drum surfaces, allegedly from Johns-Manville Corporation and Owens-Corning Fiberglas
Refractory cements and castable refractories containing asbestos fibers
Boiler gaskets and rope packing for access doors, manways, and expansion joints, allegedly from Garlock Sealing Technologies and Crane Co.
Asbestos cloth and tape for sealing and wrapping applications, allegedly from Johns-Manville Corporation and Armstrong World Industries

Turbine Insulation

Insulation on main steam turbines, extraction steam piping, and turbine casing reportedly included asbestos-containing block insulation, blanket insulation, and specialty turbine insulation products — including Unibestos products from Pittsburgh Corning Corporation and products supplied by Combustion Engineering, which provided turbine and boiler equipment with integrated asbestos-containing components.

Gaskets and Packing: Tens of Thousands of Individual Applications

Every flanged joint, valve, pump, and mechanical seal in a power plant of this era reportedly incorporated asbestos-containing gaskets and packing. At a facility the size of Merom Station, that translates to tens of thousands of individual applications throughout the plant.

Asbestos-containing gaskets and packing materials allegedly present at Merom Station include products from:

Garlock Sealing Technologies — gaskets, packing, and sealing products including Cranite brand reinforced asbestos sheet
Crane Co. — valves with integral asbestos-containing packing and expansion joint materials
John Crane, Inc. — mechanical seals and packing materials containing asbestos
Flexitallic Gasket Company — spiral-wound metallic gaskets with asbestos filler
A.W. Chesterton Company — pump packing and sealing materials
Anchor Packing Company — valve and pump packing containing chrysotile and/or amosite asbestos

Every time a worker broke a flanged connection for maintenance, repacked a valve, or replaced a pump seal, that worker was allegedly disturbing asbestos-containing materials — often generating visible dust in confined or partially enclosed spaces.

Boiler and Pressure Vessel Components

The boilers at Merom Station reportedly incorporated additional asbestos-containing components:

Boiler door and access gaskets — thick rope and sheet gaskets sealing access doors, inspection ports, and cleanout openings, allegedly from Garlock Sealing Technologies and Crane Co.
Expansion joint packing — asbestos-containing materials sealing thermal expansion joints in boiler casing, ductwork, and connected systems
Boiler breeching and ductwork insulation — large duct systems connecting boilers to air preheaters, economizers, and stack systems reportedly incorporating asbestos insulation from Johns-Manville Corporation and Owens-Corning Fiberglas

Electrical and Control Systems

Asbestos-containing materials were also reportedly present in the electrical and control infrastructure:

Arc chutes and arc shields in electrical switchgear, allegedly manufactured by General Electric Company and Westinghouse Electric Corporation with asbestos-containing insulation components
Cable penetration seals and fireproofing — asbestos-containing firestop materials including Monokote spray-applied fireproofing from W.R. Grace & Company, used where electrical cables passed through walls and floors
Electrical panel and switchboard insulating materials — insulating sheets, gaskets, and barriers within electrical equipment from General Electric Company, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and Square D Company

Building Materials: Flooring, Ceilings, and Structural Systems

The buildings comprising Merom Station reportedly incorporated asbestos-containing building materials consistent with 1970s and early 1980s construction practice:

Vinyl floor tile containing chrysotile asbestos — 9"×9" and 12"×12" formats — allegedly from Armstrong World Industries, Georgia-Pacific, GAF Corporation, and Pabco Products
Floor tile adhesive mastics containing asbestos
Ceiling tiles with asbestos-containing composition from Armstrong World Industries and Georgia-Pacific
Spray-applied fireproofing on structural steel, including Monokote from W.R. Grace & Company
Gold Bond brand joint compounds and taping compounds from United States Gypsum Company — many formulations sold during this era reportedly contained asbestos
Sheetrock brand acoustic coatings from United States Gypsum Company, used on interior walls and ceilings in certain areas

Who Was Exposed: Trades and Job Titles

Workers in virtually every trade category who spent time at Merom Station during construction, outages, or operations may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials. Exposure risk was not limited to insulators. The nature of power plant work — multiple trades operating simultaneously in the same spaces, with insulation and gasket disturbance generating airborne fibers that did not respect trade boundaries — means that bystander exposure was as real as direct-contact exposure.

Trades and job classifications whose workers may have been exposed at Merom Station include:

Insulators / Heat and Frost Insulators — direct application and removal of asbestos pipe covering, block insulation, blanket insulation, and finishing cements
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