About Eckert Station | Lansing, MI
Eckert Station is a coal-fired electrical generating plant operated by the Lansing Board of Water and Light (BWL) in Lansing, Michigan. The BWL is one of the oldest and largest publicly owned utilities in the United States. Eckert Station sits along the Grand River on the west side of Lansing and employed generations of mid-Michigan workers throughout the twentieth century.
Like virtually every coal-fired steam electric generating facility constructed or substantially expanded during the mid-twentieth century, Eckert Station was reportedly built and maintained with extensive use of asbestos-containing materials (ACMs). Products manufactured by Corporation**, & Co., ceiling tile Corporation, and Corporation are alleged to have been installed throughout:
- Boiler house systems and refractory materials
- Pipe insulation and thermal systems, including calcium silicate pipe insulation, Thermobestos, and pipe insulations
- Turbine hall components and casing insulation
- Electrical infrastructure and asbestos-containing electrical components
- Ductwork and support structures lined with asbestos-containing board materials
The facility operated with six documented generating units constructed between 1954 and 1970, with capacities ranging from 44 MW to 80 MW. Boiler manufacturers included Babcock and Wilcox and Combustion Engineering. Coal-fired steam electric plants operated at temperatures and pressures exceeding 1,000°F (538°C) in steam turbine systems, requiring materials that could withstand sustained high temperatures, reduce heat loss across process piping, shield workers from contact burns, suppress industrial fires, and hold structural integrity through repeated thermal cycling and pressure swings.
General Equipment at Eckert Station | Lansing, MI
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 Michigan EGLE (Environment, Great Lakes & Energy) (Michigan EGLE) 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 Eckert Station | Lansing, MI
Workers who spent careers at Eckert Station — or who performed contract maintenance, repair, renovation, and construction work at the facility as members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (Detroit), Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 333 (Lansing), or other trades — may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials in the course of their daily work. Those alleged exposures are associated with mesothelioma, asbestosis, and asbestos-related lung cancer.
Maintenance cycles during the 1960s–early 1970s peak use period requiring removal and re-application of asbestos-containing pipe lagging and boiler insulation may have produced high fiber concentrations in worker breathing zones. Ongoing maintenance of aging asbestos-containing materials continued to disturb pipe insulation, boiler breeching insulation, and related products throughout subsequent decades, and formal abatement projects may have begun involving licensed contractors in the 1980s–1990s.
Critical Filing Deadline & Next Steps
Michigan law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 3 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (MCL § 600.5805(13)). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 3 years from the date of death (MCL § 600.5852). 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 Michigan 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
Many workers followed the industrial trades across state lines. Insulators, pipefitters, and boilermakers who worked at Eckert Station may also have worked at facilities along the Mississippi River industrial corridor — including coal-fired plants and industrial sites in Michigan and Illinois — where comparable asbestos-containing materials were allegedly in widespread use. The same pattern held across the Mississippi River industrial corridor — from Illinois and Missouri power plants like Labadie Energy Center (Franklin County, Missouri), Portage des Sioux Power Station (St. Charles County, Missouri), and Granite City Steel (Madison County, Illinois) to comparable Midwestern utilities. The same manufacturers supplied asbestos-containing products to facilities across this entire region, and many of the same union tradespeople worked at multiple plants throughout their careers.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)
- Michigan EGLE (Environment, Great Lakes & Energy) 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.