About Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor Middletown Ohio

The Facility’s History and Operations

The Middletown Works sits in Butler County along the Great Miami River and has operated for well over a century. The facility has passed through multiple corporate owners:

  • Armco Steel (historical ownership)
  • AK Steel (mid-to-late 20th century)
  • Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (following acquisition in March 2020)

At peak employment, the facility supported thousands of workers across multiple operational areas and trades. The Middletown Works is part of a broader Ohio steel industry legacy that includes Republic Steel’s Youngstown operations, Cleveland-Cliffs’ Cleveland operations, and other integrated mills that made Ohio one of the most concentrated asbestos-exposure regions in the country. Ohio unions serving workers at these facilities historically included USW Local 1307 (Lorain), Boilermakers Local 900, and Asbestos Workers Local 3 (Cleveland), among others representing workers across the state’s steel corridor.

Operations at the Complex

The Middletown Works historically ran the full spectrum of integrated steel production:

  • Blast furnace ironmaking
  • Basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking
  • Continuous casting
  • Hot strip and cold rolling mills
  • Galvanizing and coating lines
  • Coke ovens (historically)
  • Power generation and utility systems

Why Asbestos Was Used in Steelmaking

Steelmaking generates sustained extreme heat. Blast furnaces ran above 2,000°F. Basic oxygen furnaces exceeded 2,900°F. Steam systems and boilers operated at extreme temperatures and pressures throughout the plant. Before the industry acknowledged asbestos as a carcinogen, manufacturers marketed asbestos-containing materials as the standard solution for thermal insulation and fireproofing.

The same types of asbestos-containing products that may have been used at the Middletown Works were also reportedly present at other major Ohio steel and manufacturing facilities — including Republic Steel in Youngstown, Cleveland-Cliffs’ Cleveland operations, Goodyear’s Akron facilities, and B.F. Goodrich’s Akron plants — reflecting an industry-wide pattern of ACM use throughout Ohio’s manufacturing sector. Manufacturers including, (headquartered in Toledo, Ohio), and sold asbestos-containing products based on their thermal resistance, tensile strength, chemical resistance, electrical insulating properties, and low cost.

What the manufacturers knew: Industry researchers, physicians, and executives at major asbestos manufacturers knew by the 1930s and 1940s that asbestos fibers caused fatal lung diseases. They suppressed that information and did not warn workers. The continued sale and installation of asbestos-containing materials at facilities like the Middletown Works was a business decision, not an unavoidable consequence of the era. That fact drives asbestos litigation in Ohio today.

Pre-1940s Through 1950s: Construction and Heavy Installation

During original construction and major expansion phases, asbestos-containing materials were reportedly installed throughout the plant as standard industrial practice. Thermal insulation for steam piping, boilers, and high-temperature process equipment was almost universally asbestos-based during this period.

Installing new asbestos-containing insulation releases far more fiber than leaving materials undisturbed. Construction workers — including members of insulators and ironworkers unions serving the Ohio region — who worked during this era may have been among the most heavily exposed.

1960s–1970s: Peak Asbestos Use Despite Known Dangers

The 1960s and 1970s were the highest-volume asbestos years in U.S. industry, even as scientific evidence of harm accumulated. Major manufacturers allegedly continued selling asbestos-containing products directly to integrated steel mills across Ohio:

  • — asbestos-containing insulation and gasket products
  • (Toledo, Ohio) — thermal insulation systems
  • — pipe covering and block insulation
  • — asbestos-containing materials
  • — insulation products
  • gaskets and packing — gasket materials
  • — valve and equipment components containing asbestos-containing materials

These manufacturers may have supplied insulation, gaskets, packing, refractory materials, and other asbestos-containing products to integrated steel mills including the Middletown Works. Workers in maintenance and construction trades — including members of Asbestos Workers Local 3 (Cleveland) and Boilermakers Local 900 — were routinely cutting, fitting, and removing asbestos-containing insulation during major maintenance and capital improvement projects throughout this period. Similar exposure patterns have been documented at Republic Steel in Youngstown and Ford’s Lorain Assembly Plant, where Ohio union members worked with comparable asbestos-containing product lines during the same decades.

1978–1990: Regulatory Pressure and Gradual Transition

After EPA regulatory action and OSHA permissible exposure limits took effect, new asbestos-containing product installation declined. The transition was not clean:

  • Existing asbestos-containing materials remained installed in boilers, furnaces, and pipe systems
  • Maintenance and renovation work on aging asbestos-containing insulation continued to generate exposure
  • Workers who replaced gaskets, removed deteriorated pipe covering, or performed maintenance in affected areas faced ongoing risk through this period

1990s and Beyond: Legacy Materials and Renovation Exposure

Even after new asbestos-containing product installation largely stopped, legacy materials remained in older portions of the facility. Workers involved in renovation, demolition, or equipment replacement during the 1990s and 2000s may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials installed 30 or 40 years earlier. Ohio EPA NESHAP abatement notifications have documented asbestos-containing materials in aging industrial facilities across Butler County and the broader Ohio manufacturing corridor during this period.

General Equipment at Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor Middletown Ohio

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.

Industrial Boilers View crosswalk › Process Piping View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Block Insulation View crosswalk › Valves View crosswalk › Gaskets View crosswalk › Pumps View crosswalk › Heat Exchangers View crosswalk › Cooling Equipment 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 Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) 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 Ohio EPA 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

Ohio law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease victims 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal injury lawsuit (ORC § 2305.10). For wrongful death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (ORC § 2125.02). Miss either deadline by a single day and the right to file is permanently gone. No exceptions, no extensions.

About the two deadlines: Ohio keeps the personal-injury clock (ORC § 2305.10) and the wrongful-death clock (ORC § 2125.02) 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 Ohio 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

Ohio'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 Ohio. 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. Ohio'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 Ohio →

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.