Document KGXr3qqkzaq2oEEJ5ONpRn8RK

THI DOW CHEMICAL COMPAN MIDLAND DIVISION July 30, 1969 ST0000284 INTRODUCTORY k SUMMARY REMARKS M. T. Badley ; DEPOSITION Introduction: I lh iso. Many of you gentlemen have waited sane time for this get-to-gether. I'm sure the following presentations by Dr. Ducommun, from our Medical Dept., Roy DeGesero, from Environmental Research, Roy Anderson, from Organ1 c Chemicals Mtnce. and Larry Warren, now Supt. of Construction in CCP, will be of vital Interest to you. There are several reasons for this interest on your part mainly however, a request by the coverers on "How Does the Handling of Asbestos Content Insulation Affect Me?" Other interests certainly will be, "What are the Solutions?" and "How Should We Implement the Solutions''" Solutions to a problem sometimes cause other problems -- a couple in which the production people here have a stake, such as technology and costs. This, obviously. Is a matter of concern to them. These fellows, that I named before, are going to present the problem to ypu -- the solutions, with time for questions. I'm sure you -- especially the coverers -- will be listening carefully. I'm hopeful that by the end of these presentations and Question It Answer Period, all of your 98<;000[US I would now like to Introduce OB. DUOOWWN from our Hodlrtal 6aeDApt. aacm . g _ Mr. Degesero & Dr. Ducommun have presented the technical aspects to us with several recommendations - .you might now be asking yourselves "NOW WHAT DO WE DO?" n. LARRY WARREN will now discuss PERSONAL PROTECTION With us. SUMMARY: l\> lW4 As you can see, the past 55 presentation!, quest lone unti -iniwm, affects ALL of us. Those of us. In management have a moral and legal obligation to see that you have a safe environment in which to work. To continue .our efforts to give you a safe place to work we are obviously going * -UA to eliminate any insulating material containing asbestos x ASAP. Starting August 11, in specific areas, until adeq substitutions are acquired, approved respiratory equipment ist be worn. rik you for your attention. )l i vjtm, /yyuA fax ; . <. v JJLU : ' %. - : '/.is*;. J. OSS LOCAL TOT^ATiqp '. I , . !'" > ''s1 2. use awwved .. * < '. * 3. nrua dbu^atop katee^e C!pv^w aseestos j. i > .> i 'v.. *' ST0000286 < ST0000287 S-iLrt ftA.O 1. WE HAVE A KNOWN HEALTH,' PROBLEM. 0 2. THE SOLUTIONS MAY NOT BE POPULAR. 3. WE HAVE A CHOKE BETWEEN PROTECTING EMPLOYEE- HEALTH OR - OCCASIONAL DISCOMFORT. WE ARE GOING TO' PROTECT YOUR HEALTH : ( Good day* Gentlemen. My name la Roy DeGeaero. Supervision requested n Midland pipe coverers' ^i^tirfcKltaTdifaarm^ used here in Midland. These dusts contained asbestos and fiberglaa. I shall present the results of the study, conducted from January to April, 1969, then turn the meeting over to members of Medical and management. Before discussing what the exposures are, I'd like to define a term you'll hear several times today. That term at ^Ki^Tyou do, and rfbwftarlb^nfvnu do It, and jfflfl&fliMJbf a certain dust you fellows are exposed to at these times. We learned how often and how long pipe coverers perform the several most common Jobs of pipe covering by talking to you men, your supervision, looking at the time study and from personal observations. We decided on this basis where to sample the air containing dusts caused by pipe covering. The sampling gave us a concentration number of millions of particles of dust per oubic foot -- an expression of how much dust is .in the air you men breathe. ST0000288 (SHOW SLIM I) ST 0000289 2 This table is a list of the Bust common operations pipe coverer's perform: removing old covers, nixing adhesives and so forth. Next to the operations are the % Day or estimated average time spent by a pipe coverer performing these operations. Then next to that are the mean concentrations in rappcf measured for each operation with each material listed, and the range of concentrations. Finally, we seera column with the fractional products of time x concentration, for each material in each operation. When this column of fractions is totaled, we have arrived at a time-weighted exposure, and can then discuss the significance of this number. For men working indoors, the time-weighted average exposure to asbestos containing dusts was 4.9 mppcf in the 8-hour day. The time-weighted exposure to fiberglas (dust) was 0.5 mppcf. (SHOW SLIDE II) This table represents the time-weighted exposures to asbestos containing dusts for men working outdoors. That number is 4.2 mppcf and'reflects the fact that some air movement outdoors tends to dilute the dust. The time-weighted exposure C to fiberglas dust was 0.4 mppcf. 3 After obtaining a tine-weighted exposure, we then relate this exposure number to the best current information available on the health experience with asbestos and flberglas. A group of advisors called the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists has gathered up as much sound data as is available from laboratory research and field experience on the health problems associated with insulating materials, and the ACGIH expresses this information in numbers called the Threshold Limit Values; asbestos has one TLV, and flberglas has another, different TLV. The Threshold Limit Value describes a ^ average concentration of dust to which men can be repeatedly exposed for 8 hours with no adverse effect on health. This average number can be exceeded for brief periods of time, provided such excesses are balanced by equally long periods of time when exposures are below the average Threshold Limit Value. For asbestos, the present TLV is 5 million ppcf, based on knowledge accumulated 30 years ago. Present experience with health problems in ST0000290 4 Insulators and others working with asbestos has suggested that the Threshold Limit Valut be lowered by 1971 from 5 mppcf to <2 rappcf, m light pf very subtle health problems. . < - . ' j .>* V . w. The TLV number represents good practice and Is used by most governmental agencies In maintaining healthy work environments. As you can see, the time-weighted' exposures 1 we have measured for asbestos containing dusts ajr above this proposed TLV of 2 mppcf. The time-weighted exposures for flberglas containing dusts are below the TLV for flberglas dusts. That TLV is 15 mppcf. The Environmental Research Laboratory has proposed to management, three ways of lowering pipe coverer's exposures to asbestos containing dusts to within the 1971 limit. They arej (l) Use local ventilation (on the Job air movers) to pull dusts away from the man's breathing zone, or T000029I co 5 (2) Use approved respiratory protection whenever men remove, cut, or apply. Aircell, Kaylo, High-Temp ox Thornobastga-, or when they mix Webers and Armentite. (3) Replace present Insulating materials containing asbestos with materials which do not present the health problems of currently used materials containing asbestos. STO000292 ST 0000293 Warren Portion of the Insulation Talks After all of the explanation and facts concerning the hazards of asbestos I can imagine a lot of you are wondering "where do we go from here?" / For years and years, asbestos and insulation value have been almost synonvmcus. The higher the asbestos content the easier it was to sell. Most of us were aware of the health problem, covering asbestos, but it seemed rather insignificant as it didn't seem to be affecting us much. Then there were a couple articles in our local paper concerning the affects of asbestos on the respiratory system. These were brought to my attention and I in turn brought it to the attention of the Medical Department k Invirpmental Research. We decided that each of the covercrs should have a chest x-ray and at the same time we should have an inviromental research study to find out exactly what our exposure is. We were very pleased to find that none of our coverers had asbestosis. But when the inviromental research findings were told to us we recognized that wc do have the potential for -2 The Doctor and Roy Degcsro have explained the causes of the problem and'the affect on the body* !' here ft 1 S> *Ty to tell you we expect to eliminate the problem. If you will remember Roy gave us? three (3) things he thought we could do that would lower the parts per million of asbestos dust to a acceptable level* Local ventialtion. You and 1 know this is not an acceptable method as it would be 2. Use Bureau of Mines approved respiratory protection (show example). This is an acceptable method in most cases if we follow the chart I will now show on the screen. If you will notice the removing of aircell, Kaylo, high temp, and mag oxide have all been checked. All of you men who are in the trade I'm sure have seen the reason for this. Also checked is the applying of kaylo and aircell. It was found the applying of either of these insulations caused the parts per million of dust in the breating area to to to S.7 which is above the limit. This was almost 35t of your work day. The mixing of asbestos shorts or plus one is also checked for appar nt reasons. You will notice that Fibriglas is not checked in any catagory. The reason foT this has been pretty well covered by Roy & Dr. Ducommon. I will only say that I've heard * 1 6 2 0 0 ( 1 0 1 <; 3- S6200001S many controversal words said about fibriglas, but never have I heard or read any thing by a reliable source, that said it was dedtrimental to your health. In fact I i i" have with me a pamplet put* out by the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America from which I would like to read you a few excerpts. ' ',f Jt I would say that under same circumstances that it is some what uncomfortable. According to most people who have studied its use, a person using Fibriglas insulation should wear loose fitting clothing, no tight belts or cuffs and they should keep clean. Talking about cleanliness brings up another point that bears mentioning and that is that shower time for men using fibriglas is not and I repeal riot, automatic or mandatory for health reasons. A supervisor will grant shower time-if he feels the condtions warrent it. 3, Replace our present asbestos containing insulation with materials that don't cause a health problem. We have all of our resources on the lookout for replacements now. Ray Anderson will cover this subject further later on. These were Roys recommendations and starting August 4- *) as n^uch as possible with non asbestos Fir\brglas foam glas, cermic foam I polyurethane, etc. b) When using insulation containing asbestos, a bureau of nines approved as per the chart. We will pass out a wallet site copy of the chart as you leave. c) Bfli for mo/$ ST 0000296 If we do these three things there is no doubt in. y wind that we will be below the 2 M.P.P.O.F. limit that will go into affect soon. Gentlemen, we have a problem; it isn't going away by itself. We feel we recognize the problem and we have the solution. You have heard the plans. We expect and insist that we get your full cooperation to implement these plans. I'm sure some of you men are sitting there thinking about possible additional casts, and of the possible corrosion i some instances where a perfect weather barrier is not achieved. We know we have had some of these problems in -5- By working together we know that all the problems can be worked out. Our Bain objective today is to make the job safe for you men. The economics are important, but not of prime importance at this particular time. Thank you for your attention, now here is Roy Anderson to talk about possible substitutes. Remember August 11th is the day that we must wear respiratory protection when working with asbestos type insulation. The card is your quide. Thanks again Here's Roy. ST0000297 Kodak Carousel 80 slide tray it ST0000283 i.Oi.1 Ko (^2. SftWil*. ^t',o<kijtcT -OATI. !*.n >./