About Marysville Power Plant | Marysville
What the Plant Is and Who Operates It
The Marysville Power Plant sits in Marysville, Michigan (St. Clair County) along the St. Clair River — geographically connected by waterway to the same Great Lakes and Mississippi River industrial systems that powered manufacturing across Michigan and Illinois for more than a century.
DTE Electric Company — formerly Detroit Edison — operates the facility, which has supplied electricity to southeastern Michigan throughout its operating history.
Like every coal-fired steam-electric generating station built in the United States from the early 20th century through the 1980s, the Marysville Power Plant allegedly relied on asbestos-containing materials throughout its construction, maintenance, and ongoing operations. Workers who built, operated, maintained, and decommissioned portions of this facility may have been exposed to asbestos fibers across careers spanning multiple decades.
This includes workers from Missouri and Illinois who may have traveled to Marysville on union dispatch — a common practice at major industrial facilities along the entire corridor connecting the Mississippi River industrial region to the Great Lakes. Missouri plants such as AmerenUE’s Labadie Energy Center in Franklin County, Ameren’s Portage des Sioux Power Plant in St. Charles County, and facilities associated with Monsanto and Granite City Steel across the river in Illinois operated under the same industrial culture of itinerant skilled tradespeople who followed work across state lines.
DTE Electric Co., as successor to Detroit Edison, carries documented responsibilities for legacy asbestos conditions across its facility portfolio, including Marysville.
Workers and family members of workers at the Marysville Power Plant in Michigan may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials now linked to mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer. Coal-fired power plants ran on asbestos-containing materials for decades — in pipes, insulation, gaskets, and scores of other components — while employers and manufacturers withheld known health hazards from the workforce. Symptoms do not appear until 20 to 50 years after exposure. Legal claims remain available to many workers and surviving family members, but filing deadlines are strict and unforgiving.
Although this facility sits in Michigan, it is directly relevant to Michigan and Illinois workers: insulators, pipefitters, boilermakers, and other tradespeople from the Mississippi River industrial corridor — including members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1, UA Local 562, and Boilermakers Local 27 — were regularly dispatched to out-of-state plants including Marysville during construction outages and major overhauls. Michigan and Illinois residents who may have been exposed at this facility have legal options in both states, including filing in the highly plaintiff-favorable venues of Wayne County Circuit Court, Madison County, Illinois, and St. Clair County, Illinois.
General Equipment at Marysville Power Plant | Marysville
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.
No Michigan EGLE 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:
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.
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.