About Apollo Power Generation Facility
Power generation facilities — including the Labadie Energy Center, Portage des Sioux Power Plant, Rush Island Energy Center, and Sioux Energy Center, all operated by Ameren UE — ran steam turbines, boilers, and piping systems at temperatures exceeding 1,000°F. From the 1940s through the mid-1970s, asbestos-containing materials were the engineering standard because they resisted extreme heat and fire, could be sprayed, woven, cast into cement, or formed into rigid shapes, cost little, lasted long, and outperformed any available alternative for industrial insulation.
These Missouri and Illinois facilities sat within the Mississippi River industrial corridor — a densely concentrated band of power plants, steel mills, refineries, and chemical plants stretching from St. Louis north through the Metro East region. Workers often moved between facilities throughout their careers, accumulating exposures at multiple sites operated by different employers using products from many of the same manufacturers.
Labadie Energy Center (Franklin County, MO) — Ameren UE’s major coal-fired plant was constructed and expanded during the peak decades of asbestos use. Workers at Labadie may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials allegedly supplied by various manufacturers.
Portage des Sioux Power Plant (St. Charles County, MO) — Also operated by Ameren UE, this facility served the Missouri grid through the same decades of intensive asbestos use.
Rush Island Energy Center (Jefferson County, MO) — Ameren UE’s steam systems, turbines, and boilers at this facility may have contained extensive asbestos-containing insulation and gasket materials.
Sioux Energy Center (St. Charles County, MO) — This facility’s mechanical systems may have incorporated asbestos-containing materials in insulation, gaskets, and building components.
General Equipment at Apollo Power Generation Facility
The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.
Documented Asbestos Evidence
The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.
No Ohio EPA NESHAP abatement notifications have been identified for this facility in current public records. Per the framing above, absence of state-agency documentation should not be read as absence of asbestos — only as absence of a formal, regulated abatement event meeting reporting thresholds. Workers who recall encountering pipe insulation, block insulation, gaskets, or other asbestos-era construction materials at this facility may still have viable claims regardless of whether a state record exists.
Material Categories in Documented Records
The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:
Who May Have Been Exposed at Apollo Power Generation Facility
Members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (St. Louis) and Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562 (St. Louis) reportedly performed insulation and pipefitting work at the Labadie Energy Center throughout the plant’s construction and maintenance history. Insulators affiliated with Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 and pipefitters with UA Local 562 may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials during maintenance and renovation work at Portage des Sioux Power Plant. Boilermakers with Boilermakers Local 27 (St. Louis) may also have been exposed during boiler overhauls and repairs at this facility.
Workers from Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 and Boilermakers Local 27 reportedly worked maintenance outages at Rush Island Energy Center alongside Ameren UE’s own maintenance workforce. Insulators applied pipe insulation by hand, cutting blocks and wrapping sections around hot pipe — a process that generated heavy concentrations of airborne fiber. Pipefitters and maintenance mechanics who worked alongside insulators during these operations may have been exposed even though insulation installation was not their primary trade.
Boilermakers who opened, repaired, and relined boiler units during maintenance outages may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials from the existing installation as well as from refractory cement, castable insulation, and block insulation on boiler exteriors, breechings, and associated ductwork.
Critical Filing Deadline & Next Steps
Ohio law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (ORC § 2305.10). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (ORC § 2125.02). The two deadlines run on separate tracks — preserving one does not extend the other.
The personal-injury clock runs from diagnosis, not from exposure. Mesothelioma latency is typically 20 to 50 years, so workers exposed in the 1950s–1980s are being diagnosed today.
Practical first steps
- Document what you remember. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, coworker names, and dates of employment. The WorkChain widget on this page can save a copy you can email yourself.
- Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
- Identify household members. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children of plant workers are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
- Speak with an asbestos attorney with Ohio experience. The first conversation is free and confidential. Asbestos trust-fund claims and civil claims run on different tracks — both can be pursued in parallel.
Asbestos-Related Diseases
Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.
Mesothelioma
A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.
Asbestosis
A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for compensation under most trust schedules and civil claims.
Lung Cancer
Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.
Other Recognized Diseases
Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.
If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.
Cross-State & Regional Corridor Workers
These Missouri and Illinois facilities sat within the Mississippi River industrial corridor — a densely concentrated band of power plants, steel mills, refineries, and chemical plants stretching from St. Louis north through the Metro East region. Workers often moved between facilities throughout their careers, accumulating exposures at multiple sites operated by different employers using products from many of the same manufacturers.
Monsanto Chemical plants operated by Monsanto ran steam systems and boilers allegedly insulated with asbestos-containing pipe covering, gaskets, and building materials at facilities on both sides of the Mississippi River. Maintenance and operations workers may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials across multiple job sites within these facilities. Monsanto’s St. Louis-area presence meant that workers from the same union locals who worked Missouri power plants may have also worked Monsanto maintenance shutdowns.
Workers across the Ohio-Illinois Mississippi River industrial corridor faced comparable exposures at major industrial employers. Madison County and St. Clair County, Illinois — both significant asbestos litigation venues — sit directly across the river from Ohio, and many workers living in Ohio held union cards that sent them into these Illinois facilities throughout their careers.
Cases involving Granite City Steel exposures have been filed there by former workers residing on both sides of the Mississippi. Ohio residents who worked Laclede Steel maintenance may have viable claims in Madison County Circuit Court as well as Ohio courts. A pipefitter or insulator working out of St. Louis in the 1960s might work Labadie Energy Center one month and Granite City Steel or the Wood River refineries the next. The cumulative exposure picture matters — and it matters in court.
Data Sources
Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:
- EPA ECHO Facility Compliance Database — enforcement and compliance records for industrial facilities
- OSHA Establishment Search — federal workplace inspection history
- EIA Form 860 Plant Data — power-plant equipment and ownership records (where applicable)
- Ohio Environmental Protection Agency NESHAP asbestos abatement notification records
- Published asbestos trial and trust fund records (publicly filed court documents)
- AsbestosIndex Product & Manufacturer Crosswalk — historical asbestos-containing product schedules linked to manufacturers
If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.