Great Lakes Steel, Zug Island
The Detroit Iron Works brought ironmaking to Zug Island in 1901 with the commissioning of a blast furnace built in 1902. In 1904 the works was purchased by the M.A. Hanna Company of Cleveland, Ohio which built a second blast furnace in 1909. At this time Zug Island’s two furnaces were reportedly the largest of their kind in the world, producing pig iron for foundry companies. The plant expanded and became part of the Great Lakes Steel Corporation in late 1931, becoming a key component of a fully integrated steel mill and a division of the larger National Steel Corporation. A third blast furnace was added in early 1938 while the existing furnaces were rebuilt and enlarged.
When National Steel became insolvent in 2003 most of the island’s facilities were purchased, along with the rest of now what is called the Great Lakes Works, by United States Steel. The island was home to the mill’s ironmaking facilities (the rest of the mill’s facilities, primarily steelmaking and processing, are located at the main plant a couple miles south in the city of Ecorse) which includes 3 blast furnaces (“A” “B” and “D”) and raw materials storage areas. Ships supply ore at docks along the north (1 Dock) and east (3 Dock) shores of the island and large coal/ore/coke storage fields are located along the south and west (B Area) shores. Number 5 Coke Battery located there, once an integral part of the mill, is now independently owned and operated by EES Coke LLC a DTE Energy company, which obtained it during the National Steel bankruptcy.
Iron produced at Zug Island is transported in hot metal cars via rail to steelmaking at the main plant. During the industry’s peak, thousands of workers were employed on the island with a large percentage of the downriver community supported by the local steel producer. Today a few hundred people work on the island with hourly workers at U.S. Steel represented by the United Steelworkers Local 1299. In the fall of 2008 U S Steel halted its production due to the economic downturn but restarted its production in the fall of 2009.
Steelmaking equipment, massive and complex, requires the skills of many people such as millwrights, pipefitters, carpenters, welders, and various craftsmen who perform necessary maintenance and repair work. Others behind the steelmaking scenes who contribute greatly to steel production are those employed in the Service Division and Energy and Utilities Division.
Asbestos on Zug Island, Michigan
Industrialists built blast furnaces for steel production on the island in 1902, 1909, and 1938. These steel mills changed hands several times, and were one time owned by Hannah Furnace Company and then National Steel. They are currently called the Great Lakes Works and are owned by United States Steel. Today, Zug Island is one of only a handful of locations remaining in the United States that produce coke, an ingredient used in the creation of steel.
The island is home to the mills ironmaking facilities which includes g4 blast furnaces and raw materials storage areas. Zug Island has a history of manufacturing in fields known for using asbestos-containing materials, placing workers at a high risk category for asbestos exposure. Malignant mesothelioma may result when workers and loved ones have been exposed to asbestos.
There are numerous departments and occupations that experienced heavy asbestos exposure, highly active areas at Zug Island were the Boilerhouse/Powerhouse 1 and 2, Blast Furnaces, Coke Ovens and Byproducts area.
Boilerhouse/Powerhouse No. 1
This is the oldest boilerhouse at Great Lakes Steel. Seven boilers are currently in operation. Three of the boilers were built in 1936 and were manufactured by CE.
Boilerhouse/Powerhouse No. 2
There are four boilers currently in operation. All are CE boilers that were built in the 1951. Asbestos was used throughout, including covered steam pipes, block insulation, and boiler jackets.
Boilerhouse/Powerhouse Job Classifications and Descriptions:
- Boiler Operator: Inspects and operates boilers.
- Water Tender: works under the direction of boiler operator, monitors the high-pressure steam equipment.
- Boiler Cleaner: Assists in cleaning inside and outside of steam boilers and auxiliary equipment.
- Laborers: Helped in clean-up work after tradesmen.
- Mechanical Repairmen: Responsible for multi trade work including turbine repair, pipefitting, and mechanic work.
- Pipefitters: maintains steamlines and worked with turbine repairmen on big jobs.
- Turbine Repairmen: Maintained boilers and turbines – covered turbines, pumps, drums, and feed pump heads. Also removed boiler jackets and helped pipefitters tear-out and recover lines.
Coke Ovens
Coal is converted to coke at the Coke Ovens. There are five coke oven batteries at Zug Island. Built around 1929/1930, the No. 1 Coke Plant houses the No. 1 and No. 2 coke oven batteries. There are at least 70 ovens for each battery – over 140 ovens. No. 2 Coke plant was built in the 1950s and houses the No. 3 and No. 4 coke oven batteries. There are 78 or 79 ovens at each battery. The most recent coke oven battery, No. 5, was built between 1968-1970, when asbestos was highly used.
Coke Oven Job Classifications:
- Patcher: Patches worn brick on the coke ovens with refractory mortar, sprays the ovens with fireproofing spray.
- Heater: Controls and maintains proper oven temperature; inspects and maintains ovens-instructs patchers and heater helpers in patching walls.
- Heater Helper: Assists heater and patcher in maintenance and operation of ovens.
- Pipefitter: Maintains pipes, covers steam pipes and pipes in danger of freezing.
- Bricklayer: Maintenance of worn coke oven linings; rebrick when necessary.
- There are 15 or more miscellaneous production jobs at the coke ovens including: pusher, quench car operator, larry car operator, door cleaner, door operator, tar chaser, wharfman, spellman etc. There are detailed descriptions of these jobs.
Blast Furnaces
There are four A-D blast furnaces at Zug Island. Iron ore pellets, scrap, and limestone are melted into iron-ore at the blast furnaces. The iron-ore is transferred by hot metal cars to the open-hearth furnaces in Ecorse, where it is converted to steel. The four blast furnaces produce over 11,000 tons of molten iron ore daily.
Blast Furnaces Job Classifications:
- Keeper: Taps iron from furnace; maintains tap hole troughs, and runners.
- Keeper Helper: Assists in tapping iron from furnace, assists keeper.
- Laborer: Clean-up work.
- Larryman: operates larry car of ore, limestone, and scrap to charge the furnace.
- Stove Tender: Adjusts and regulates heating and changing of blast furnace stoves.
- Pipefitter: Maintains pipelines.
- Bricklayer: Maintains furnace lining, hot metal cars, troughs, and runners.
Byproducts
The byproducts process is to extract all usable products from the coal. Some of the products removed are ammonia sulphate, benzene, tar, light oil, pitch, ammonia liquor, sulfuric acid etc. Pipes run throughout the area because of this process.
Byproducts Job Classifications:
Byproducts Operator: controls byproducts operation, monitors gauges, temperatures, pressure, and recovery equipment.
- Byproducts Helper: assists operator, maintains equipment.
- Pipefitter: Maintains pipes.
- Exhauster Engineer: operates turbo exhausters and air compressors.
- Saturator man: operates equipment for recovery of ammonia sulphate. Monitors pressure, temperature, and flow levels.
- Saturator man Helper: assists Saturator man in equipment operation and maintenance.
- Sinter Plant: The sinter plant recycles iron particles from the blast furnaces. There are pipes in the building – mainly water and gas, some of these pipes were covered.
In addition to the Zug Island Plant, there were numerous departments and occupations that experienced heavy asbestos exposure, at Great Lakes Steel’s Main Plant. Asbestos exposures at Great Lakes Steel came from a number of sources including: asbestos containing blankets, brick insulation, brakes, clothing, electrical products, fireproofing, gaskets, granite, hot tops, furnace cement, insulating cement, pipecovering, refractory insulation and sideboards.
Other Occupations Exposed to Asbestos
- Maintenance Foreman and Supervisors: They schedule and supervise the maintenance and repair of the buildings and equipment.
- First Line Supervisors/Managers Production and Operating Workers: They directly supervise and coordinate production and operations employees (Precision Workers, Inspectors, Machine Setters and Operators, Assemblers, Fabricators, and Plant and System Operators.
- Maintenance: Construction and Millwrights, Bricklayers, Turbine Repairmen, Electricians, Insulators, Machinists, Oilers, Painters, Pipefitters, Welders and other trades. They construct, maintain and repair the buildings and equipment throughout the plant.
- Heavy/Mobile Equipment Repair: Industrial Mechanics maintained and repaired Kress Carriers, payloaders, fork trucks, dump trucks, tow motors, hoists and other equipment
- Material Handling: Hi-Lo Operators, Crane Operators, Equipment Operators, Laborers, Sludge Operators and Tractor Operators. They handle and move the raw materials, steel and equipment for the mill.
- Transportation: Railroad Laborers, Switchman and Engineers operated the locomotives for transporting molten steel, Ingot molds, and other materials.
- Receiving and Shipping: They receive and ship materials for the various plants and departments.
Why does it matter that Great Lakes Steel – Zug Island is in our jobsites database?
In order to successfully pursue an asbestos claim, your lawyer needs to be familiar with the jobsites you worked at, including
- the companies that employed you,
- the products they purchased and used, and
- the companies who produced those products,
- depositions, testimony of other asbestos disease victims
- documentation from the Plant and Defendants
After more than 40 years pioneering asbestos litigation, we have a vast knowledgebase covering things such as company diagrams, invoices from asbestos product manufacturers, revealing company memos demonstrating their knowledge of the risks, asbestos product packaging through the years, depositions from leading experts, and medical and scientific literature dating from the late 1800s to the current day.
Great Lakes Steel – Zug Island is one of tens of thousands of jobsites in our database. Being familiar with many different industries, manufacturers, and products means we can efficiently and effectively identify all the asbestos containing products that contributed to your injury. It’s a breadth of knowledge gained from years of experience representing victims of asbestos exposure.
Great Lakes Steel, Zug Island
The Detroit Iron Works brought ironmaking to Zug Island in 1901 with the commissioning of a blast furnace built in 1902. In 1904 the works was purchased by the M.A. Hanna Company of Cleveland, Ohio which built a second blast furnace in 1909. At this time Zug Island’s two furnaces were reportedly the largest of their kind in the world, producing pig iron for foundry companies. The plant expanded and became part of the Great Lakes Steel Corporation in late 1931, becoming a key component of a fully integrated steel mill and a division of the larger National Steel Corporation. A third blast furnace was added in early 1938 while the existing furnaces were rebuilt and enlarged.
When National Steel became insolvent in 2003 most of the island’s facilities were purchased, along with the rest of now what is called the Great Lakes Works, by United States Steel. The island was home to the mill’s ironmaking facilities (the rest of the mill’s facilities, primarily steelmaking and processing, are located at the main plant a couple miles south in the city of Ecorse) which includes 3 blast furnaces (“A” “B” and “D”) and raw materials storage areas. Ships supply ore at docks along the north (1 Dock) and east (3 Dock) shores of the island and large coal/ore/coke storage fields are located along the south and west (B Area) shores. Number 5 Coke Battery located there, once an integral part of the mill, is now independently owned and operated by EES Coke LLC a DTE Energy company, which obtained it during the National Steel bankruptcy.
Iron produced at Zug Island is transported in hot metal cars via rail to steelmaking at the main plant. During the industry’s peak, thousands of workers were employed on the island with a large percentage of the downriver community supported by the local steel producer. Today a few hundred people work on the island with hourly workers at U.S. Steel represented by the United Steelworkers Local 1299. In the fall of 2008 U S Steel halted its production due to the economic downturn but restarted its production in the fall of 2009.
Steelmaking equipment, massive and complex, requires the skills of many people such as millwrights, pipefitters, carpenters, welders, and various craftsmen who perform necessary maintenance and repair work. Others behind the steelmaking scenes who contribute greatly to steel production are those employed in the Service Division and Energy and Utilities Division.
Asbestos on Zug Island, Michigan
Industrialists built blast furnaces for steel production on the island in 1902, 1909, and 1938. These steel mills changed hands several times, and were one time owned by Hannah Furnace Company and then National Steel. They are currently called the Great Lakes Works and are owned by United States Steel. Today, Zug Island is one of only a handful of locations remaining in the United States that produce coke, an ingredient used in the creation of steel.
The island is home to the mills ironmaking facilities which includes g4 blast furnaces and raw materials storage areas. Zug Island has a history of manufacturing in fields known for using asbestos-containing materials, placing workers at a high risk category for asbestos exposure. Malignant mesothelioma may result when workers and loved ones have been exposed to asbestos.
There are numerous departments and occupations that experienced heavy asbestos exposure, highly active areas at Zug Island were the Boilerhouse/Powerhouse 1 and 2, Blast Furnaces, Coke Ovens and Byproducts area.
Boilerhouse/Powerhouse No. 1
This is the oldest boilerhouse at Great Lakes Steel. Seven boilers are currently in operation. Three of the boilers were built in 1936 and were manufactured by CE.
Boilerhouse/Powerhouse No. 2
There are four boilers currently in operation. All are CE boilers that were built in the 1951. Asbestos was used throughout, including covered steam pipes, block insulation, and boiler jackets.
Boilerhouse/Powerhouse Job Classifications and Descriptions:
- Boiler Operator: Inspects and operates boilers.
- Water Tender: works under the direction of boiler operator, monitors the high-pressure steam equipment.
- Boiler Cleaner: Assists in cleaning inside and outside of steam boilers and auxiliary equipment.
- Laborers: Helped in clean-up work after tradesmen.
- Mechanical Repairmen: Responsible for multi trade work including turbine repair, pipefitting, and mechanic work.
- Pipefitters: maintains steamlines and worked with turbine repairmen on big jobs.
- Turbine Repairmen: Maintained boilers and turbines – covered turbines, pumps, drums, and feed pump heads. Also removed boiler jackets and helped pipefitters tear-out and recover lines.
Coke Ovens
Coal is converted to coke at the Coke Ovens. There are five coke oven batteries at Zug Island. Built around 1929/1930, the No. 1 Coke Plant houses the No. 1 and No. 2 coke oven batteries. There are at least 70 ovens for each battery – over 140 ovens. No. 2 Coke plant was built in the 1950s and houses the No. 3 and No. 4 coke oven batteries. There are 78 or 79 ovens at each battery. The most recent coke oven battery, No. 5, was built between 1968-1970, when asbestos was highly used.
Coke Oven Job Classifications:
- Patcher: Patches worn brick on the coke ovens with refractory mortar, sprays the ovens with fireproofing spray.
- Heater: Controls and maintains proper oven temperature; inspects and maintains ovens-instructs patchers and heater helpers in patching walls.
- Heater Helper: Assists heater and patcher in maintenance and operation of ovens.
- Pipefitter: Maintains pipes, covers steam pipes and pipes in danger of freezing.
- Bricklayer: Maintenance of worn coke oven linings; rebrick when necessary.
- There are 15 or more miscellaneous production jobs at the coke ovens including: pusher, quench car operator, larry car operator, door cleaner, door operator, tar chaser, wharfman, spellman etc. There are detailed descriptions of these jobs.
Blast Furnaces
There are four A-D blast furnaces at Zug Island. Iron ore pellets, scrap, and limestone are melted into iron-ore at the blast furnaces. The iron-ore is transferred by hot metal cars to the open-hearth furnaces in Ecorse, where it is converted to steel. The four blast furnaces produce over 11,000 tons of molten iron ore daily.
Blast Furnaces Job Classifications:
- Keeper: Taps iron from furnace; maintains tap hole troughs, and runners.
- Keeper Helper: Assists in tapping iron from furnace, assists keeper.
- Laborer: Clean-up work.
- Larryman: operates larry car of ore, limestone, and scrap to charge the furnace.
- Stove Tender: Adjusts and regulates heating and changing of blast furnace stoves.
- Pipefitter: Maintains pipelines.
- Bricklayer: Maintains furnace lining, hot metal cars, troughs, and runners.
Byproducts
The byproducts process is to extract all usable products from the coal. Some of the products removed are ammonia sulphate, benzene, tar, light oil, pitch, ammonia liquor, sulfuric acid etc. Pipes run throughout the area because of this process.
Byproducts Job Classifications:
Byproducts Operator: controls byproducts operation, monitors gauges, temperatures, pressure, and recovery equipment.
- Byproducts Helper: assists operator, maintains equipment.
- Pipefitter: Maintains pipes.
- Exhauster Engineer: operates turbo exhausters and air compressors.
- Saturator man: operates equipment for recovery of ammonia sulphate. Monitors pressure, temperature, and flow levels.
- Saturator man Helper: assists Saturator man in equipment operation and maintenance.
- Sinter Plant: The sinter plant recycles iron particles from the blast furnaces. There are pipes in the building – mainly water and gas, some of these pipes were covered.
In addition to the Zug Island Plant, there were numerous departments and occupations that experienced heavy asbestos exposure, at Great Lakes Steel’s Main Plant. Asbestos exposures at Great Lakes Steel came from a number of sources including: asbestos containing blankets, brick insulation, brakes, clothing, electrical products, fireproofing, gaskets, granite, hot tops, furnace cement, insulating cement, pipecovering, refractory insulation and sideboards.
Other Occupations Exposed to Asbestos
- Maintenance Foreman and Supervisors: They schedule and supervise the maintenance and repair of the buildings and equipment.
- First Line Supervisors/Managers Production and Operating Workers: They directly supervise and coordinate production and operations employees (Precision Workers, Inspectors, Machine Setters and Operators, Assemblers, Fabricators, and Plant and System Operators.
- Maintenance: Construction and Millwrights, Bricklayers, Turbine Repairmen, Electricians, Insulators, Machinists, Oilers, Painters, Pipefitters, Welders and other trades. They construct, maintain and repair the buildings and equipment throughout the plant.
- Heavy/Mobile Equipment Repair: Industrial Mechanics maintained and repaired Kress Carriers, payloaders, fork trucks, dump trucks, tow motors, hoists and other equipment
- Material Handling: Hi-Lo Operators, Crane Operators, Equipment Operators, Laborers, Sludge Operators and Tractor Operators. They handle and move the raw materials, steel and equipment for the mill.
- Transportation: Railroad Laborers, Switchman and Engineers operated the locomotives for transporting molten steel, Ingot molds, and other materials.
- Receiving and Shipping: They receive and ship materials for the various plants and departments.
Why does it matter that Great Lakes Steel – Zug Island is in our jobsites database?
In order to successfully pursue an asbestos claim, your lawyer needs to be familiar with the jobsites you worked at, including
- the companies that employed you,
- the products they purchased and used, and
- the companies who produced those products,
- depositions, testimony of other asbestos disease victims
- documentation from the Plant and Defendants
After more than 40 years pioneering asbestos litigation, we have a vast knowledgebase covering things such as company diagrams, invoices from asbestos product manufacturers, revealing company memos demonstrating their knowledge of the risks, asbestos product packaging through the years, depositions from leading experts, and medical and scientific literature dating from the late 1800s to the current day.
Great Lakes Steel – Zug Island is one of tens of thousands of jobsites in our database. Being familiar with many different industries, manufacturers, and products means we can efficiently and effectively identify all the asbestos containing products that contributed to your injury. It’s a breadth of knowledge gained from years of experience representing victims of asbestos exposure.