Document 5XgKgzojjBNQMvB7Kw2qngD8

* * r KPEfcAKECK FOB RECORD ETj Xee B. Grant, K.2. DATE* Kovesber 29, 15$ SUBJSC7: Medical Stiff Visit to fort Allegany, Ceteber 25 - 2*, 1965 1. This is really five plants Is one. The following la a breakdown of each oT these operations. .. ..in--.................. ..... Pleat po.B0ne is a glass block pisst. When in operatioa this is s 2&-tpra-^-Ki^,^,'^'<iAy^U'Weftk operation and there ere 90 employees. Jack Binder is the s\$>eriotendeni and his assistant is lien Tomer. This plant, bevever, is usually shut down 6 to 6 aerrths each fear* It will not now start again until March 1, 1966. FItot Ks. Two is the foam glass plant. It is a 2l-hour-a-day, ?-daya-veek operatiou and "there ar125 employees in this plant. Mr. H, 1. Weaver, nicknamed "Bucks*," is the plant manager. Plant So. fire is a fabricating plant for the foam glass. This Is a one-shift, fivc-cay-a-veek operation in which there are 35 employees. tfred DeVries is the manager. Ke also is the manager of Plant*Kor Biai?hich Is a areafosm plant with 10 employees. plant Ko. Sight is a <toibest&s plant with 10 employees, This is a tvo-shift> five-day peril''* tiofu Mr. C* W. Delaway, j&ckjyutied "Cheeky," la the plant manager. During the time that_?luit :u>. One is not making the glass block they usually have an off season glass brick decorating operation which consists of spraying a lead pigment glass on the glass brick which is then fired into the brick. ? Plant $0^ 6 started ip Just about a year ago. Shortly sites' Its start up, an Industrial hygiene survey was conducted in June to evaluate the employees* exposure to asbestos and silica dust. This survey was done by the State of Pennsylvania. * number of the employees in this plant, namely, the conveyerloader, building operator and some of the aaw operators were exposed to asbestos dust exceeding the IX? of five million particles per cubic foot of air. In addition to the 0 regular employees In this departsvnt, there are about 6 service department employees who apend all of thdr time In the asbestos department. Others exposed to asbestos are unloaders who about once very U or 5 months spend 1 to 5 days unloading burlap bags containing asbestos fro* box ears. These onloaders are usually from the work gang and are not the same people used each tine. The ingredients are scrap, DX and BX-H which are two fores of asbestos (Incidentally, this asbestos comes from Africa and is tsosife type. It has e relatively high specific gravity end It is not shredded as such as the asbestos in the textile industry is shredded, both of which increase its settling rate front the air* t&calite ^ade 165 Is a diatomaceous earth that is supplied by Orest lakes Carbon Corporation and is shipped from California. About 2 to 3 bags of this arterial are used per eight-hour shift as a filler material. These ingredients are chopped up and mixed and pneumatically conveyed to a building machine where they are laid down on a corTveyer. They are then sprayed with a liquid solution of sodium silicate which is about 8$C water and Z0% silicate. This material is received from or Philadelphia Quart*. The ratio of fiber to sodium silicate and water is about Isl for the larger pipe and it is 1 to lest than 1 for the Medical Staff Visit Port Allegan- asaller diwt*r pipe, The material is then rolls* on a steel drua, smoothed, clay coated, the steel drum is removed tod the pipe is then put unto a con veyer which carries it threugft s drying oven, the ie*vratures ti which begin at 250 and then to 350 and then to k$0 in three efferent peris of the drying oven. The day I visited the plant, it was a relatively cold day outside and all the windows end doors were-.closed. There was no make-up air for the ventila ting system and therefore *?<riterating at a such reduced capacity and there was a ncticably heavy concentration of asbestos dust particularly around the loading machine and the building machines although there was 9one noted in the saw areas as veil. Only pre-essjoyment X-rays have been done on any of the ea^loyees in this area. 2* The Port Allegany Plant was started up in 153? as a glass block plant. In 19i.2, toaa glass was added - in 1555, fabrication of foam glass was added - in 1561, the urethane foam was added - In 1961, unibestos was added. U. Vrethane Foam department. Shortly after the start up of this operation, the Industrial Hygi^s^yoLndaition did a survey of this area and generally found conditions well-<ontroiled with no significant exposure to TDI. in the operation, a prepolyttet prepared ty the ohase Chemical Company consisting of a polyali resin and 322 are combined with a premix which is node up on site and consists of polyall resins and *0.1* silicones asid a catalyst and other materials. When these materials are combined, there is a levining effect and a hardening effect which produces the bun. This is all done under what appeared to be adequate exhaust ventilation, however, the exhaust fines are ventilated to the outside and are not scrubbed out. There here been a number of people who have bean sensitised by the T22 including the plant manager, Hr. Larry Griffith. Therefore, it is doubtful whether the controls are entirely adequate. Further fabrication of the bun takes place in a tenporary like loose plastic hood area where the buns are cut with hot steel vires of various sites* Pecently, in addition to the eatfisust ventilation of this temporary like hood, they have also placed local exhaust ventilation on each of the cutting eras where the vires are attached. This 9etas to be Quite effective in fume capture. 5- Class Team. One batch house provides batch for both the foam glass tank which" is tank no. 2 and the glass block tank which is Tank No. 1. The basic batch for the two tanks varies only is the cullet. The glass block uses glass block millet and the foam glass uses f&aa glass scrap. The batch consists of a Hapleton sand, a Barberton soda ash, raterite which is a borajs uteris!, linostone And a methylene cyanide. The batch house is a threeshift operation in which there is an unloads?, batch house operator and two adding aad melting maintenance people. An additional batch house operator Is added when they are on two tanks. A five-gallon pail of levining is added to the foam glass in addition to the normal batch. This consists of sodium nitrate, sodium sulfate and fluorospar. The batch is fed into the tank with a fraser simplex screw type charger. This ia a completely sealed operation as opposed to the usual open feeding in other glass tanks. Tank Ho. 1 which is only weed about half the time is kept in heat between production runs. About 90 tons of fea glass Is made per day * maximum capacity is about 85* SJ 00010 * Medical Staff Tijit Fort Allegany > There are six cellulatlng furnaces. It takes a loaf about an hour to travel through tho furnaces. One batch loader will weed feed two furnaces. The nan&ing of the stripping operation is similar to that at Sedana. The following were notable differences between the Sedalia and Port Allegany operations in stripping. There was no scrubbing box at Fort Allegany which _ . removed excess from glass from the edges of the loaf. SB ^alf of the furnaces did side or horizontal loading of the lehr whereas at Sedalia, all of then used the aide loading operation. The aide loading > furnaces were k, 5 and 6 The air turbulence pattern at fmaces 1 through b were also different than at Sedalia in that the dust was blown sway fro* the operator, whereas at furnaces b, 5 and 6 like at Sedalia, the dust was blown toward the operator. It had been reported that there were raany more foreign bodies in eyes at the Sedalia operation than at the port Allegany operation. In fact, the Fort Allegany operation are not required to wear the side shields on their safety glasses as are the Sedalia operators. This safety glass bit is'apparently related to Ruse Brittingham's interest ia 1F60 in the large number of y# injuries that were occurring in Sedalia. he recorosended something be done so Larry Griffith went to this side shield type glass even though he really didn't believe it was effective. He was the plant manager at Sedalia at that tine. 6, Slfess Brick. This production operation is reminiscent of the optical tank operation at Vorks 6. The molten glass is extruded like tooth paste into these molds which are on a rotating disc. The molds of the two halves of the final glass brick. These molds are then welding together much like in the glassweld operation at Lincoln following which they are put into a lehr and slowly cooled following a heating up to close to melting tejtperatures. After taking then off the lehr, they are sprayed eff with a prime coat which is a hydrolyzed ethyl silicate and then a vinyl coat which is vinyl jwrsol. These coats are to provide a bond layer or an expansion layer between the glass and the mortar used to hold the glass brieks in place such as the mortar used in regular house bricks. The coat is then allowed to air dry and then packed and shipped, hr. Roy Thomson is an employee who is sus pected of having lead poisoning by his personal physician, Ur. Kerman Moush. Ur. >busb is a friend of the plant industrial relations director, so 1 called Ur. Kausfa to discuss his findings. I also talked with Hr. Thompson about his complaints. The eosplaint* and findings seem to be sore closely related to hypertensive cardiovascular disease with the exception of a crarping and soreness of the stomach that Thompson has complained of within the last year. This, of course, could be caused by the pathology of the gastro intestinal tract not related to lead intoxication. No gastro-intestinal studies have been made. Mr. Thompson complained of the dry paint causing his fingers to peel and crack. He said that while he was paint spraying, he kept his bands in rubber gloves and perspired a good deal under this and this caused his hands to be wet a good bit of the time. He had been working on this operation for about 3 years and it was only one year ago that he began to notice this fingernail infection which reserbied very strongly a fungus Infection. In discussion with Ur. Moush about Mr. Thompson, 1 suggested that I would obtain a lead urine ana^ls lh not only Kr. Thompson but also other employees doing the same type of work and if these indicated an exposure, I'd have further industrial hygiene studies done to determine the source of the exposure. SJ 00011 Hpdieal Staff 7iait Port AUUgany -* ?. Port merenr Coronlty Hospital. This luniy adequate hospital vhiclT'wAs" tn&ii about four yearsago* There is a oew part to the hospital which was 4list opened lust this year. They are right aw in the process of getting a new hospital administrator who will replace the nurse hospital administrator that they had had up to the present tiae* She wishes to retire. All Tour doctors who proride sendees to the plant are ser&ers of the staff of this hospital. 8. Fabricating. A similar condition was noted with reference to make-up air for theventilating systems! the fabricating department was noted in the unibestes department. This lack of make-up air significantly reduced the efficiency of local e^au3t.>,s32F%lao noticed that the saw operators and other people working in the fabricating operation were not wearing safety eyewear. One of the things that is fabricated in addition to pipe insulation in this department is the CC acoustics material which is the glass foam with many holes punctured into i. and it is painted. This 00 acoustic material is a sound-absorbing material which is placed on halls to reduce sound reflections. > SJ 00012