About Hutsonville Power Station Hutsonville Illinois
Hutsonville Power Station sits along the Wabash River in Hutsonville, Crawford County, Illinois — a small rural community on the Illinois-Indiana border. This coal-fired steam-electric station employed workers from the surrounding region for more than five decades, operating as part of the Illinois Power service territory alongside comparable facilities in the broader Mississippi River industrial corridor, including the Labadie Energy Center (Franklin County, Missouri), the Portage des Sioux Power Plant (St. Charles County, Missouri), and Monsanto and Granite City Steel operations across the river in the Illinois-Missouri border region.
The Mississippi River industrial corridor connecting St. Louis, southwestern Illinois, and the broader tri-state region was among the most heavily industrialized zones in the United States during the postwar decades — and among the most heavily saturated with asbestos-containing materials.
Key Facility Details:
- Facility Name: Hutsonville Power Station
- Location: Hutsonville, Crawford County, Illinois
- Plant Type: Coal-fired steam-electric generating station
- Generating Capacity: Approximately 75 megawatts (MW)
- Operational Period: Approximately 1953–2011
- Original Operator: Illinois Power Company / Illinois Power Generating Co.
- Current Corporate Successor: Vistra Corp (100%)
Coal-fired steam-electric plants operate as large heat engines: combust coal to generate high-temperature gases, transfer heat to water in massive boilers to produce high-pressure steam, route that steam through miles of insulated piping to turbines, spin generators, then condense the steam back to water for recirculation. Every stage of that cycle operates under extreme temperatures and pressures. For three decades, the industry’s answer to that engineering problem was asbestos-containing materials.
General Equipment at Hutsonville Power Station Hutsonville Illinois
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 Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois 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.
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 Hutsonville Power Station Hutsonville Illinois
Construction tradesmen — including members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (St. Louis), UA Local 562 (United Association pipefitters and steamfitters, St. Louis), and Boilermakers Local 27 (St. Louis) who reportedly traveled to job sites throughout the Mississippi River industrial corridor — may have been exposed during installation of pipe insulation on steam, feedwater, and condensate lines, application of boiler insulation and lagging, installation of turbine insulation and casings, application of fireproofing materials to structural steel, and installation of asbestos-containing gaskets, packing, and expansion joints.
During the first two decades of operation, workers who may have been exposed during regular maintenance and repair of asbestos-containing pipe insulation, boiler lagging, and turbine insulation include those involved in annual or semi-annual boiler outages requiring removal and replacement of damaged insulation — outages during which members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1, UA Local 562, and Boilermakers Local 27 may have worked alongside plant employees in shared spaces. Additional exposure occurred during turbine overhauls disturbing asbestos-containing gaskets and insulation in confined spaces, routine pipefitting and valve work breaking into insulated lines and replacing asbestos-containing packing and gaskets on high-temperature valves, electrical maintenance disturbing asbestos-containing wiring insulation and switchgear insulation, and building and structural work involving asbestos-containing drywall and insulating products.
Critical Filing Deadline & Next Steps
Illinois law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (735 ILCS 5/13-202). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (740 ILCS 180/2). 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 Illinois 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
Workers from Missouri and the Mississippi River industrial corridor face particular risk due to the concentration of coal-fired power plants, chemical facilities, and heavy industrial operations that reportedly relied on asbestos-containing materials throughout the postwar decades. Workers who moved between facilities in this corridor may have accumulated exposure from multiple sites, each supporting independent legal claims. The Mississippi River industrial corridor connecting St. Louis, southwestern Illinois, and the broader tri-state region was among the most heavily industrialized zones in the United States during the postwar decades — and among the most heavily saturated with asbestos-containing materials. Workers from Missouri and Illinois who may have been exposed at Hutsonville — and at related facilities along the Mississippi River industrial corridor — should contact an asbestos attorney to discuss which entities may bear responsibility for their specific exposure period.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)
- Illinois 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.