About Sycamore (IA) Power Station

Location and Regional Context for Iowa workers

Sycamore Power Station operated in Johnston, Iowa (Polk County, northwest of Des Moines) as part of the central Iowa electrical grid serving residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial customers throughout the twentieth century.

While Sycamore Power Station is located in Iowa, the workers who built, maintained, and operated comparable facilities throughout the Missouri-Illinois corridor — including the Missouri side of the Mississippi River from St. Louis north through St. Charles and Franklin counties, and the Illinois side from Madison County through St. Clair County — shared identical occupational profiles, identical asbestos-containing product exposures, and face the same diagnostic and legal landscape today. Laborers, pipefitters, boilermakers, and insulators frequently worked across state lines, moving between Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois job sites throughout their careers. A worker who spent three years at Sycamore and ten years at Labadie or Portage des Sioux may have cumulative exposure claims arising from multiple jurisdictions.

This regional overlap matters urgently in 2025 and 2026: Iowa workers with multi-state exposure histories need to evaluate their Iowa mesothelioma settlement and asbestos trust fund claims now, before HB 1649 potentially alters their rights under Iowa law as of August 28, 2026.

Facility Infrastructure and Asbestos-Containing Materials Reportedly Present

Power generating stations of Sycamore’s type reportedly incorporated asbestos-containing materials throughout their infrastructure, including:

  • High-pressure steam boilers with extensive mechanical insulation
  • Miles of high-temperature steam and condensate piping
  • Turbine-generator units requiring thermal protection
  • Electrical switchgear and transformer systems
  • Coal handling equipment or fuel oil storage systems
  • Cooling water system components
  • Control rooms and administrative structures

Every coal-fired, oil-fired, or natural gas power generating facility built or substantially expanded before the mid-1970s reportedly made extensive use of asbestos-containing materials throughout original construction and subsequent maintenance cycles. That was the universal industry practice of the era — and it was equally true at Sycamore in Iowa, at Labadie and Portage des Sioux in Missouri, and at facilities throughout Madison County and St. Clair County, Illinois.

General Equipment at Sycamore (IA) Power Station

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 Iowa Department of Natural Resources (Iowa DNR) 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 Iowa DNR 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:

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 Sycamore (IA) Power Station

High-Risk Occupations at Power Stations

Asbestos exposure at power generating facilities cut across multiple trades and job classifications. Workers in the following occupational categories may have faced significant exposure risks.

Insulators (Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 — St. Louis, MO)

Heat and frost insulators at Missouri power facilities may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials through work that included:

  • Mixing and applying asbestos-containing insulating mud and cement products
  • Cutting, sawing, and fitting pre-formed asbestos-containing pipe covering and block insulation
  • Applying asbestos-containing lagging cloth and tape to pipe joints
  • Removing and reinstalling damaged or deteriorated asbestos-containing insulation during equipment repairs
  • Working in boiler rooms and turbine halls where insulation debris allegedly accumulated on surfaces and floors

Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (St. Louis, Missouri) represented insulators at Missouri power stations including Labadie and Portage des Sioux throughout the peak decades of asbestos use. Members of Local 1 who cut, fit, mixed, and installed asbestos-containing materials may have generated heavy dust concentrations in enclosed or semi-enclosed work areas. Insulators are statistically among the trade classifications with the highest rates of mesothelioma and asbestosis, and Local 1 members who worked Missouri’s Mississippi River corridor power facilities during the 1950s through 1980s are at particular risk of late-manifesting disease today.

Former Local 1 members — or their surviving families — should be aware that Iowa’s 5-year asbestos statute of limitations under Iowa Code § 614.1(2) runs from diagnosis, not from last exposure. A diagnosis received today still creates a viable filing window — but that window is actively threatened by HB 1649, which could impose new restrictions on claims filed after August 28, 2026. Do not assume you have time to wait. Contact an experienced asbestos attorney Iowa today.

Pipefitters and Boilermakers (UA Local 562 — St. Louis, MO; Boilermakers Local 27 — St. Louis, MO)

UA Local 562 (United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, St. Louis, Missouri) represents one of the largest pipe trades locals in the country. Members of UA Local 562 worked extensively at Missouri power stations, industrial facilities, and chemical plants throughout the decades of heaviest asbestos use. Pipefitters may have been exposed through:

  • Installation, maintenance, and removal of insulated piping systems
  • Repairs and modifications requiring disturbance of asbestos-containing materials
  • Participation in scheduled boiler and turbine overhauls where asbestos-containing insulation was allegedly removed and reinstalled
  • Handling asbestos-containing gaskets, packing, and sealing materials
  • Work in confined spaces where asbestos fibers may have accumulated

Boilermakers Local 27 (St. Louis, Missouri) represented workers who performed intensive boiler maintenance and repair work at Missouri power stations. Boilermakers who may have worked inside boiler casings during turnaround outages — at Labadie, Rush Island, Portage des Sioux, or Sioux Energy Center — allegedly faced some of the highest-concentration asbestos-containing material environments at any power facility. Boiler fireside work during an outage required working inside insulated enclosures reportedly lined with refractory and asbestos-containing materials, often without adequate respiratory protection by current standards.

Iowa members of UA Local 562 and Boilermakers Local 27 may currently pursue claims simultaneously through the civil court system and through asbestos bankruptcy trust filings. These two tracks run in parallel under Iowa law — filing a bankruptcy trust claim does not bar a civil lawsuit, and a civil lawsuit does not forfeit bankruptcy trust rights. HB 1649 directly threatens this dual-track right for cases filed after August 28, 2026.

Members of these locals — and their surviving families — should act now, while both avenues remain fully available. Contact a Iowa asbestos attorney today. Do not wait for August 28, 2026.

Electricians

Electricians at these facilities may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials through work that included:

  • Installing and maintaining electrical panel insulation reportedly containing asbestos-containing materials
  • Working in switchgear rooms allegedly lined with asbestos-cement panels
  • Handling asbestos-containing arc chutes and electrical insulation materials
  • Exposure to asbestos dust from concurrent work by other trades in shared spaces

Boiler Room Operators and Maintenance Mechanics

  • Performed high-temperature equipment maintenance and repairs
  • May have removed and replaced boiler insulation reportedly containing asbestos-containing materials
  • May have been exposed to friable asbestos-containing materials during deterioration and disturbance events
  • Worked in the most heavily insulated zones of the facility

General Laborers and Outside Contractors

  • Handled and transported asbestos-containing products
  • Performed clean-up and debris removal following maintenance work
  • May have been exposed to asbestos dust that allegedly accumulated on floors, surfaces, and equipment
  • Often worked without specialized safety training or protective equipment

Both direct utility employees and rotating contract labor — including insulation contractors, pipe trades crews, and boilermaker teams — may have encountered asbestos-containing materials in concentrated quantities during specialized projects or boiler outages. In the Missouri-Illinois corridor, it was common for contract insulators and pipefitters to rotate between Iowa facilities such as Sycamore and Missouri facilities such as Labadie or Portage des Sioux during seasonal outages. Workers who did so may have accrued exposure at multiple facilities across multiple states, potentially creating claims in multiple jurisdictions.

For Iowa workers with multi-state exposure histories, the urgency of evaluating claims before August 28, 2026 cannot be overstated. HB 1649 could complicate the trust disclosure process that is often essential to maximizing total compensation across multiple claim types.

Secondary Exposure: Family Members and Wrongful Death Claims

Workers who may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials at Sycamore Power Station — or at Labadie, Portage des Sioux, Rush Island, Sioux Energy Center, or comparable Missouri-Illinois corridor facilities — did not always leave their exposures at the job site. Asbestos fibers allegedly traveled home on work clothing, in hair, and on skin. Family members — spouses who laundered work clothes, children who embraced a parent returning from a shift — may have been exposed to asbestos fibers secondhand without ever setting foot on a job site. This mechanism, known as take-home or para-occupational exposure, is well-documented in occupational health literature and has supported mesothelioma and asbestosis claims brought by family members of industrial workers.

If a family member has died from mesothelioma or asbestos-related disease, Iowa law may support a **wrongful

Generating Unit Equipment — Public Registry

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.

Unit Year Capacity Fuel Boiler Type Boiler/Steam Sys Mfr Turbine Mfr Generator Mfr Steam Params Status
Sycamore (Ia) Gt 1 1974 85 MW Oil N/A N/A Wh Wh Operating
Sycamore (Ia) Gt 2 1974 85 MW Oil N/A N/A Wh Wh Operating

Source: UDI/S&P Global North American Electric Generating Plants database (NAMERICA 2025). Public reference data.

For informational purposes only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this page. © 2026 Rights Watch Media Group LLC — Disclaimer · Privacy · Terms · Copyright

⚠️ Critical Filing Deadline

Iowa law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease victims 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal injury lawsuit (Iowa Code § 614.1(2A)). For wrongful death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (Iowa Code § 614.1(2)). Miss either deadline by a single day and the right to file is permanently gone. No exceptions, no extensions.

About the two deadlines: Iowa keeps the personal-injury clock (Iowa Code § 614.1(2A)) and the wrongful-death clock (Iowa Code § 614.1(2)) on separate tracks. The 2 years personal-injury deadline runs from the date of diagnosis and applies to the diagnosed person's own claim while they are alive. The 2 years wrongful-death deadline runs from the date of death and applies to surviving family members. The two are independent — preserving one does not extend the other, and an asbestos attorney with experience in Iowa can keep both options open as the situation evolves.

The personal-injury clock runs from the date of medical diagnosis — not from the date of asbestos exposure. Mesothelioma can take 20 to 50 years to develop after exposure. Many workers are only now receiving diagnoses from exposures that occurred decades ago.

Treat the 2 years deadline as a hard outer limit, not a planning horizon.

⚠️ Why You Must Act Now

Iowa's filing window may sound like ample time. It is not. Every month that passes after a mesothelioma diagnosis is a month in which your case gets harder to build and your options narrow.

Witnesses Become Harder to Reach

The tradespeople who worked alongside mesothelioma victims at facilities of this era are now in their 70s and 80s. Witnesses from many years ago are harder and harder to contact by the day — coworkers who can testify about which asbestos-containing materials were used, who supplied them, and how the work was done are increasingly difficult to locate. Once first-hand testimony becomes unavailable, that record is gone.

Records Disappear

Employment records, union records, purchasing records, and product invoices that document exactly which asbestos-containing materials were used at this facility are being lost every year. Plants close. Corporate owners change. Storage facilities are cleared. Records that existed five years ago may not exist today.

Mesothelioma Cases Are Complex to Build

Identifying every responsible manufacturer and every jobsite across a tradesperson's career requires intensive investigation by experienced toxic-tort counsel. A case against the manufacturers who supplied asbestos-containing materials to this facility may involve dozens of defendants. That investigation takes time that waiting families do not have.

Asbestos Trust Fund Claims Run on a Separate Track

More than 60 asbestos bankruptcy trusts exist to compensate victims whose exposures came from manufacturers that have since gone bankrupt — including the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, established after the 1982 Johns-Manville bankruptcy. Each trust has its own claim forms, exposure criteria, documentation requirements, and processing timelines. Pursuing trust-fund compensation in parallel with a lawsuit takes months. The trust-fund process should start now, not after you decide whether to file suit.

What To Do Next

If you or a family member has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, asbestosis, or another asbestos-related disease — and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or worked at neighboring industrial sites in the corridor — the practical next steps are:

  1. Speak with an asbestos attorney with experience in Iowa. The first conversation is free, confidential, and creates no obligation. An experienced attorney will help you understand which trust-fund claims may apply, which civil claims are viable, and what documentation you should start gathering.
  2. Gather what you can about your work history. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, names of coworkers, and dates of employment all become important evidence. The WorkChain widget on this page can help you organize and email yourself a copy of your facility list.
  3. Preserve your medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests all become part of the legal record. Ask your treating physicians for full copies of everything in your chart.
  4. Identify household members who may also have been exposed. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children who hugged a parent returning from the plant are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when they have been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
  5. Act before the filing deadline runs. Iowa's statute of limitations is a hard outer limit. Even if you are still in the middle of treatment decisions, beginning the legal process early preserves your options.

Get a free case evaluation from an asbestos attorney with experience in Iowa →

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:

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.