About CML&P Generating Facility No. 2

Based on documented patterns at comparable municipal and cooperative power generation facilities in Kansas and the Midwest, asbestos-containing materials may have been present at generating stations like CML&P Generating Facility No. 2 across several distinct operational phases.

Construction and Initial Commissioning (1930s–1950s)

During original construction, asbestos-containing materials were incorporated as standard practice. Materials that may have been present at this facility include:

  • Boiler insulation (potentially calcium silicate pipe insulation or pipe insulation products, supplied through Missouri and Illinois distribution networks)
  • Pipe covering and thermal insulation systems
  • Turbine and generator insulation blankets
  • Pump packing materials (potentially or gaskets and packing)
  • Gaskets and sealing materials (potentially gaskets and packing or similar products)
  • Expansion joints and vibration isolation systems
  • Fireproofing materials (potentially Armstrong spray-applied fireproofing or similar spray-applied products)

Asbestos concentrations in these materials reportedly ranged from 15% to more than 90% by weight.

Construction crews at Kansas utility facilities in this era reportedly included tradespeople dispatched from union halls in Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis, Missouri. Members of Boilermakers Local 27 and Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 may have performed boiler installation and insulation work at facilities like this one, potentially bringing with them the same asbestos-containing materials and practices documented at Missouri facilities including the Labadie Energy Center (AmerenMO) on the Missouri River and the Portage des Sioux Generating Station on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis.

Major Expansions and Capacity Upgrades (1940s–1960s)

Kansas communities grew rapidly after World War II. Generating facilities expanded to meet demand, adding boilers, turbines, condensers, and piping. Each expansion may have required fresh installation of asbestos-containing materials, and workers affiliated with Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (St. Louis) or Local 27 (Kansas City) who performed this work reportedly had no knowledge of the health risks they faced.

Materials used in these expansions may have included:

  • Thermobestos block insulation
  • pipe insulation
  • ceiling tile Gold Bond insulation systems
  • boiler assembly and refurbishment products

The same union contractors who reportedly worked expansion projects at Missouri facilities — including the Monsanto chemical complex in St. Louis and the Granite City Steel facility across the Mississippi in Granite City, Illinois — also performed outage and expansion work at comparable utility facilities throughout the region, including in Kansas. Workers who can document employment at multiple sites along this corridor may pursue claims arising from cumulative asbestos exposure in Missouri across facilities and states.

Ongoing Maintenance and Repair (1940s–1980s)

Routine maintenance was likely the most consistent source of ongoing asbestos exposure at facilities like this one. Maintenance tasks that may have disturbed asbestos-containing materials included:

  • Removing and replacing boiler insulation
  • Changing gaskets and packing during valve and pump overhauls, potentially using products from gaskets and packing, Superex, or
  • Disturbing turbine insulation for inspection and repair
  • Servicing pumps, compressors, and turbines with asbestos-containing sealing materials
  • Removing and replacing boiler refractory, potentially involving asbestos-containing castable materials

Workers who performed these tasks — and workers in the vicinity when this work occurred — may have been repeatedly exposed to asbestos fibers released from disturbed materials throughout their careers. Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562 (St. Louis) and Local 268 (Kansas City) members who worked at this facility may have sustained substantial cumulative exposure through gasket and packing work using asbestos-containing products from gaskets and packing, and

A mesothelioma diagnosis changes everything — your prognosis, your finances, your family’s future. If that diagnosis connects to decades of work in a power plant boiler room, you are not facing this alone, and you are not without options.

Workers at power generation facilities may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials built into the plant’s infrastructure long before they ever set foot on the job site. The diseases that result — mesothelioma, asbestosis, asbestos-related lung cancer — can take 20 to 50 years to emerge. That means workers who spent their careers at facilities like CML&P Generating Facility No. 2 are receiving diagnoses right now.

This article explains what conditions reportedly existed at this facility, which workers faced the greatest risk, what diseases are now emerging, and how to pursue compensation through asbestos litigation or trust fund claims — including through an asbestos cancer lawyer in St. Louis or elsewhere in Missouri.

Kansas-based workers may have legal claims under Kansas law. Workers who also labored at facilities in Missouri or Illinois — particularly along the Mississippi River industrial corridor connecting Kansas City east through St. Louis and into the Metro East — may have additional legal options worth exploring. Missouri courts and trust fund recoveries have historically produced substantial compensation for workers with documented multi-state industrial employment histories.

General Equipment at CML&P Generating Facility No. 2

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 Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) 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 KDHE 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 ›

⚠️ Critical Filing Deadline

Kansas law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease victims 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal injury lawsuit (K.S.A. § 60-513). For wrongful death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (K.S.A. § 60-1903). Miss either deadline by a single day and the right to file is permanently gone. No exceptions, no extensions.

About the two deadlines: Kansas keeps the personal-injury clock (K.S.A. § 60-513) and the wrongful-death clock (K.S.A. § 60-1903) 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 Kansas 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

Kansas'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 Kansas. 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. Kansas'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 Kansas →

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.