About Olin Brass East Alton Illinois
For generations of workers in the Metro East Illinois region, Olin Brass in East Alton meant steady employment and skilled trades work. The East Alton area has hosted large-scale industrial manufacturing since the late nineteenth century. Olin Corporation operated multiple facilities in and around East Alton, Wood River, and Alton. Its Olin Brass division produced copper and brass alloys, rod, tube, sheet, and strip products. The facility sat near Shell Oil’s Roxana Refinery in Wood River and Clark Refinery in Wood River, forming an integrated industrial corridor that extended throughout the region—part of the broader Mississippi River industrial belt shared by Missouri and Illinois. Olin Corporation traces directly to the Western Cartridge Company, founded in East Alton in 1898. Through mergers, acquisitions, and corporate reorganizations, the East Alton complex grew into one of downstate Illinois’s largest industrial sites, rivaling Monsanto Chemical’s operations in nearby Sauget and St. Louis.
Major Olin East Alton Operations:
- Olin Brass division — copper and brass alloy manufacturing
- Western Cartridge Company / Winchester — ammunition manufacturing
- Squibb and other manufacturing divisions at various periods
The exposure window runs roughly 1930 through 1980. During those five decades, asbestos-containing materials were embedded throughout American heavy industry and were allegedly present throughout the Olin Brass facility.
Olin Brass ran high-temperature metal processing around the clock. That work demanded thermal insulation throughout the plant. The facility included:
- Melting furnaces operating above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit
- Casting operations with extensive piping systems
- Rolling mills with water-cooled and steam-heated rollers
- Annealing furnaces for temperature-controlled metal treatment
- Heat-treating equipment requiring precise temperature control
- Vast networks of steam pipes, boilers, and heat exchangers running thermal energy through the entire complex
Asbestos was the insulation material of choice for every one of those systems—from the 1930s through the early 1970s. The facility employed hundreds, at times thousands, of workers across multiple shifts.
General Equipment at Olin Brass East Alton 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.
Regulatory Landscape
Facilities of the type and age associated with the Olin Brass East Alton campus — large-scale metal fabrication and rolling operations that operated through much of the twentieth century — are subject to federal asbestos regulations that remain actively enforced. The Environmental Protection Agency’s National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), codified at 40 CFR Part 61, Subpart M, governs asbestos emissions during renovation and demolition of industrial structures. Any significant structural work at aging industrial sites in the East Alton corridor would require advance EPA notification, asbestos surveying by a licensed inspector, and proper waste disposal under these standards. OSHA’s construction asbestos standard at 29 CFR 1926.1101 similarly applies to any contractors engaged in remediation, insulation removal, or building modification work at the 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 Olin Brass East Alton Illinois
Asbestos exposure at Olin Brass affected insulators, pipefitters, electricians, boilermakers, and maintenance workers. Many were members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 and Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562, whose work put them in direct, repeated contact with asbestos-containing materials every day they reported for their shift.
When members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 and Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562 cut, fitted, or disturbed thermal pipe insulation products during maintenance and repair, visible clouds of asbestos fiber filled the air. Insulators and pipefitters working directly with this material faced extreme risk. So did electricians, boilermakers, and other tradespeople working nearby while insulation work was underway.
Workers servicing, repairing, or replacing boiler components—including union members from Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 and Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562—encountered asbestos in multiple forms simultaneously: loose fiber, friable block, and cement dust generated during removal and replacement operations. Pipefitters and boilermakers who removed old gaskets and packing—work requiring scraping, grinding, or wire-brushing with hand tools—faced some of the highest measured asbestos fiber concentrations documented in any industrial setting.
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
Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 in St. Louis and Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562 in St. Louis both sent members to work at Olin Brass and comparable Metro East facilities during this period. Workers exposed during this era may now qualify for a Missouri mesothelioma settlement or trust fund compensation. The facility sat near Shell Oil’s Roxana Refinery in Wood River and Clark Refinery in Wood River, forming an integrated industrial corridor that extended throughout the region—part of the broader Mississippi River industrial belt shared by Missouri and Illinois. Missouri courts have similarly accepted claims from workers who resided in the St. Louis metropolitan region while employed at Illinois facilities across the river.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.