About Rocky Road Power Station East Dundee Illinois

Rocky Road Power Station is a natural gas and oil-fired electric generating facility located in East Dundee, Kane County, Illinois, approximately 40 miles northwest of Chicago. The facility is a combustion turbine or combined-cycle peaking facility with a capacity of approximately 122 megawatts (MW), which began operations around 2000. It is operated by Lincoln Power LLC, with The Carlyle Group Inc. reportedly holding 100% ownership interest. The facility’s purpose is to supplement base-load power generation during peak electricity demand periods.

The facility incorporated equipment and systems typical of natural gas peaking stations of that era, including natural gas combustion turbines reaching turbine inlet temperatures exceeding 2,000°F, heat recovery steam generators, and high-pressure mechanical systems. Workers performing construction, maintenance, repair, and daily operations may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials across multiple equipment categories including pipe and mechanical insulation, turbine and generator insulation, boiler and heat recovery steam generator materials, and gaskets, packing, and sealing materials.

General Equipment at Rocky Road Power Station East Dundee 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.

Boilers View crosswalk › Steam Turbines View crosswalk › Steam Traps View crosswalk › Condensers View crosswalk › Feedwater Heaters View crosswalk › Cooling Towers View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Block Insulation View crosswalk › Refractory Lining View crosswalk › Valves View crosswalk › Gaskets View crosswalk › Pumps View crosswalk ›

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.

The following generating units are documented in the North American Electric Generating Plants database for this facility. This database is maintained by UDI/S&P Global and draws on federal EIA filings and state regulatory records.

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:

Thermal System Insulation View crosswalk › Asbestos-Cement Board View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Roofing & Flashing View crosswalk › Spray Fireproofing View crosswalk › Floor Tile & Mastic View crosswalk › Ceiling Tile View crosswalk › Gaskets & Packing View crosswalk ›

Who May Have Been Exposed at Rocky Road Power Station East Dundee Illinois

Union tradespeople — particularly members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1, UA Local 562 (Plumbers and Pipefitters, St. Louis), and Boilermakers Local 27 (St. Louis) — routinely worked at Rocky Road and comparable facilities throughout the Mississippi River industrial corridor. Workers disassembling turbine components for maintenance, repair, or refurbishment may have been exposed to asbestos fibers from deteriorated insulation and wrapping materials. Workers performing maintenance on heat recovery steam generator systems may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials when cutting, removing, or replacing these components. Workers performing maintenance on pumps, compressors, turbines, or high-pressure piping may have been exposed to asbestos fibers when disturbing, removing, or replacing gasket and sealing materials. Workers involved in routine maintenance on insulated piping, turbines, or heat recovery equipment may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials without adequate warning or respiratory protection.

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

  1. 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.
  2. Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
  3. 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.
  4. 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

Rocky Road Power Station’s location in northern Illinois places it within a broader Mississippi River industrial corridor stretching from Chicago southward through Illinois into Missouri. Union tradespeople — particularly members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1, UA Local 562 (Plumbers and Pipefitters, St. Louis), and Boilermakers Local 27 (St. Louis) — routinely worked across multiple facilities in this corridor throughout their careers. If you worked at multiple Missouri facilities and at Rocky Road, you may have accumulated compounded asbestos exposures supporting claims under both Missouri and Illinois law. That multi-state exposure history requires specialized handling by an asbestos attorney Illinois experienced in multi-jurisdiction litigation.

This corridor encompasses some of the most asbestos-intensive industrial facilities in the American Midwest, including Labadie Energy Center (Franklin County, Missouri), Portage des Sioux Power Plant (St. Charles County, Missouri), Monsanto Company facilities (St. Louis, Missouri), and Granite City Steel (Granite City, Madison County, Illinois). Workers who rotated between Rocky Road and these corridor facilities may have accumulated asbestos exposures at multiple sites, with each site potentially supporting independent legal claims under Missouri law.

Data Sources

Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:

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.