Document ZJJavL3RaQQ1DeROzKOmNeGeZ

,Richard Fleming Associates Inc. l//355^ 7661 Beryl Road Zionsville, PA 18092 Phone (215) 966-2010 Fax (215) 966-2150 November 16, 1994 Bruce Whitney, Esq. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. 7201 Hamilton Boulevard Allentown, PA 18195-1501 NOVI i 1094 Dear Bruce: Here are the three speeches to which I was referring during my telephone conversation today with Thome Harris, Andy Hanen and Denise Legendre. They include: 1. The Air Products testimony at OSHA hearings in Washington on 28 June, 1974 relative to vinyl chloride, including testimony by John Barr and Dr. Paul Kotin, our medical consultant. 2. A talk to the Society of Plastics Engineers in New York presented in 1975 which discusses how die OSHA hearings came about, the results, and the state of knowledge on vinyl chloride caused cancers at that time. (Oct. - Nov. 1974) 3. A talk entitled, "Who Should Tell The Worker?' which clearly assigns this responsibility to the employer. It also characterizes the nature of the Jimmy Carter administration's OSHA. I'll look forward to learning how I might be of further help to you. Because I was heavily involved in CMA, AJHC and CUT efforts to bring science and reason to the regulatory scene beginning with vinyl chloride, I do feel can be of help to both Air Products and the industry in general in formulating and documenting the basic elements of an effective defense against the complaints described to me. Incidentally, I will be in California at Catalytica, Inc. from November 27 to December 2. My number there is 415-940-6318 (office) or 408-748-8460 (apartment). Office fax there is 415-968-8754. Regards, Richard Fleming RF/ta Enclosures [3] AP00054616 TTIE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR OCCURATIONAL S/vFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION DOCKET OSH-36 1/ /TrH TESTIMONY OF AIR PRODUCTS AND CHEMICALS, INC. AIR PRODUCTS AND CHEMICALS, -NI. 'Five Executive Mall Builcinc 656 E. vSwedesford Road Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087 AP00054617 Testimony of Richard Fleming Greetings -- I. INTRODUCTION I am Richard Fleming, Group Vice President of Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. I am responsible for the Chemical Group of our company headquartered, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Testifying with me today are Mr. John T. Barr, Technical Man ager - Manufacturing and Dr. Paul Kotin, M.D., our consultant on vcm mec3ical matters. Also with me are Dr. A. Ross Adams, General Manager, Plastics Division; Mr. T..-L. Carey, Vice President of Manufacturing? and Mr. Joseph T. SabastianaIli, Attorney. Air Products operates two plants for the production of polyvinyl chloride using the suspension process and located at Pace, Florida and Calvert City, Kentucky. Combined capacity of the two plants is approximately 200 million lbs./year, or aoorcxinatelv 3.5% of the total FVC industrv, Air Products also operates a ?VC compounding facility sr Calvert City, and small PVC plastics fabrication plants at Morristown, ::&v; Jersey, Costa Mesa, California, Durant, Mississippi, and Homestead, Pennsylvania. In addition, we now operate a plant at Calvert City for the production of a different class of polymers, sold as water emulsions, which also uses vinyl chloride as one of several monomers for a portion of its output and we have a second plant of this type under construction at South Brunswick, Mew Jersey. The total AP00054618 number of snployees engaged in all these operations, inciudinc all service support and management is about 500. Air Products is a non-integrated producer of ?VC. We purchase all of our raw materials and are only very slightly integrated forward into fabrication using less than 22 of our PVC production. We are about 10th in capacity among PVC producers, but a relatively., large proportion of our output is in special types of polymers. Our PVC plants have been operating since 1957 and 1959, each coming to Air Products as part of acquisitions of larger businesses, the Florida plant in 19 69 and the Kentucky plant in 19.71. Air Products has participated in industry studies of health hazards of VCM and will continue to do so. Our own medical examination program, which will be discussed later by Dr. Kotin, has covered approximately 480 present employees. Tvs have also studied the mortality experience of all employees who have worked in these plants. We have found no cases of anaicsarcc.ni Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. is deeply concerned about the Question of appropriate protection of the health of its e.Toloyees and of all those involved in the VC.'-PVC industry. We are participating fully in whatever activities we can recognize as worthwhile in developing facts that permit deter mination as to what that health protection means in practical terms. We believe in establishing and observing soundly conceived regulations designed to assure safe working conditions. / 2- AP00054619 Vie are also very concerned tnat unwisely conceived and unnecessari restrictive regulations not be promulgated. Such regulations work to the disadvantage of all concerned, worker, conoany, consumer, and the economy as a whole. II. OBJECTIVES OF TESTIMONY Thus our purposes here today are as follows: (a) To present for the public record a resume of our study of the health of 'our own employee population and to offer the conclusions our medical consultants have reached from these studies at the present time. This is meant as a contribution to the national study of employes health in the VCM-PVC industry that is so urgently needed to guide the formulation of safe oractice s . (b) To offer some o* ers*oectives on w hat we conside s o me key is s ues relative to arriving at a ppropriate reg ulations (c) To provide testimony on what we believe is feasible and workable and why, in the way o f regulated occupational e y.mo sure . (d) To offer some detailed comments on the propos regulation for the consideration of those who will write the final one. These will not be presented orally at this meeting in the interests of time, but will be a part of our written submission- AP00054620 EI I I . 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X O 'G 0u W X to G `O Q) id q 1-1 0 ro XH Rq 01 to QJ p ,G iqj to 4J H G `M , 01 0 q q H tr G < eq 0X H X B 0 rH (0 0 G -P q H C -X q aj q p o 10 3 r* 3 u TJ oG c Q H IH r4 I <y i was almost, exclusively 'among reactor cleaners wiio came frequent physical contact with VCM, precautions were taken to limit or eliminate this and the incidence of AOL declined markedly. These and other plant and operational changes resulted in lower exposure of operating personnel generally to VCM concentrations. IV. EXPOSURE EXPERIENCE Industry conducted toxicolpgy studies, exemplified by those extensively reported by Dow, showed that lower exposure levels were necessary to avoid the possibility of toxicological effects.of chronic^exposure. . Specific standards of 500 pom T'vA and then a 500 ppm ceiling were set by ACGIH and later by OSHA and met by industry. The actual levels of VCM in plant atmospheres to which workers were actually exposed is not a matter of record. The need for such information was not understood and the instrumentation to readily measure it was not available for most of the period of historical operation." Attempts now to reconstruct historical exposure levels are admittedly crude but they are nonetheless instructive. The lover explosive limit for VCM in air at ambient conditions is 3.6%, i.e. 36,001 ppm. In the phase 1 period'this was the absolute upper limit of concern to plant operators. Even with a safety factor of 10, levels of 3,600 ppm would have been tolerated if no -5- AP00054622 other problems were found or expected. it is reasonable tc expect that such levels were encountered at times in early operations by some individuals. It is very difficult to reconstruct the pattern or frequency of early peak levels of exposure in any reliable way. It has seemed more realistic, and perhaps more pertinent, to attempt estimates of the average, long term continuing exposure to which an individual was subjected. Thus TWA data have been used to characterize the cumulative long term dosage thought to have been experienced by workers in PVC plants. The Chemical Industry A-ssociation of the UK has recently stated their estimates of the average TWA exposure of workers in UK plants. These estimates show the following variation over time: Average TWA 1945 - 1955 / 1955 - 1960 1000 ppm 4 00-5 00' ppm 1360 - 1970 300-400 ppm mid 1973 now 150 50 ppm ppm Since the technology and equipment used in UK operations, and the economic and safety considerations concerning VCM loss control were not appreciably different from those prevailing in the U.S. or other parts of the world, one could reasonably expect similar estimates to characterize operations in this country. In fact, it is our judgement that these figures are reasonable estimates of v/hat prevailed, on average, in -6- AP00054623 this country. Cur estimates for our own plants are about the same as this table- Note that these are averace figures so that some plants must have been higher at least part of the time. Furthermore, it seems clear that within those plants some individuals probably had even higher exposures. V, CURRENT SITUATION ;. The recent liver cancer findings are the legacy of this type of exposure. Each case found to date has involved an individual who has worked through periods of high level exposure by any current day measure, and all have worked for some time in jobs where the highest individual exposures have been encountered. Thus far the extensive search of the human experience for angiosarcoma among workers in VCM-PVC has turned up 19 cases since 1961. Of these, 13 are in the U.S., found among the employees of 15 VCM plants and 36 PVC plants. Of the 13 cases, 7 have occurred at one-PVC plant, 3 at another. A U.S. total of 4 PVC-VCM plants have had known cases. There are thus ^7 plant populations who have no record of angiosarcoma although they have lived through periods of exposure well above levels rvo one -would tolerate in the light of current information. There, is a considerable body of animal exposure data to show decreasing hazards with decreasing exposure levels of VCM. Moreover, the human experience in its plants reported by Dov; at the February hearing has shown no incidence of angiosarcoma among its -7- AP00054624 workers from long tern average exposures of betwesr. 100 pc- and 200 ppm/TWA. Air Products own health studies snow one case of ADL and no other health problems related to exposure ir. our operations to date. Although exposure levels in fabricating plants have oeneraliv been very low, exposures in a few jobs in these Plants have historically probably been of the order of 15-25 TWA. Until the recent announcement of'the GE wire coating case, and the case of the accountant at a vinyl sheet producing plant there were no reported angiosarcoma cases amona fabrication plant employees. As we heard in yesterday's testimony/- any relation ship between these cases and exposure to VCh* remains conjectural at this time. Careful study of the very larae body of human experience already available in the histcry of PVC fabrication operations is clearly warranted and can shed important light on the hazards of relatively low level exposure. Exposure levels in VCJ1 plants are generally considerably 'lower than in PVC plants because of the continuous process technology of the monomer operations and the aenerally outdoor construction of these plants. Only one angiosarcoma case has been found among VCM workers and this man. is reported to have worked on very high exposure tasks related to sampling and catalyst tube cleaning. lie also worked in PVC for the final year of his working life. All of these considerations lead to the idea of a relatively safe but readily measurable level of VCM in a work environment. 8- - AP00054625 We therefore support the proposal for a 25 T'\A exposure level effective October 5, 197 4- As we will show later, v/e believe that this level is also feasibly attainable, though a difficult and expensive one to continuously meet 100% of the time, as we would hope to do under such a regulation. Lower levels, proposed for later achievement, are much more difficult and much more speculative as to achievement at this time in our view. This too will be elaborated on by Mr. Barr. VI. EFFECT OF S- TANDARD ON OPERA- TIONS Any level of exposure that is required by a nev standard that is below current achievement confronts a producer with essentially three alternatives: 1) Since he does not meet the standard, he can shut down and abandon the business. The economic conse quences of this on the producer and his employees are apparent. The effect or. his customers depends upon what .alternative sources of material they can find. S?I test imony covers this in some detail. 2) He may make changes, involving capital expenditure or otherwise, to bring his operations into compliance. Depending on the severity cf the standard this will take more and more fundamental and expensive changes anc thus longer and longer times, and may reduce output although not stop it entirely. 3) He may decide to replace his current plant with a new one designed to meet the new standard. This route, of course, requires the most in time and capital money. AP00054626 of future achievable VCJi levels m plant, air and how likelv it is that excursions in these levels will unpredictably occur from time to time. Replacement of older ecruinment with newer typesr designed with minimum leakage in mind, depends upon availability and aeliverability of such replacements. Delivery of even an exhaust fan takes months in the current high capital spending environment. Major equipment takes many more months. Although we at Air Products are not at all satisfied with our ability to guarantee conformance with the current emergency standard, we support the 25 TWA proposal for October 5, 1974. We need the delivery of new eciuionent to meet this level but have some confidence that we can meet it. The concept of a ceiling level, and how it is to be measured and administered recruires clarification in the proposed standard, and Mr. Barr will cover this in our more detailed comments to follow. - 11 - AP00054628 Alternative 3 requires some comment. For any producer of PVC other than one who also produces VCM this is not currently a realistic alternative. Air Products for some time has been attempting to develop an assured source of supply for enough VCM to build a new, modern PVC plant. We are naturally reluctant to do this without such a source. Two years of contact and/or negotiation with every conceivable supplier has yielded nothing of substance. We can forsce no change in this situation for some time, at least until substantial new VCM capacity is announced for merchant sales and is nearing production, go such plant, which takes three years to build, is now in prospect. Under these circumstances, should any significant cart of the industry be forced to shut down by unrealistic regulation, greatly increased concentration of the industry- will surely result. VII. VENTILATION CONSIDERATION 7-uiv estimate of achieveable levels in the plant atmosphere is of course dependent on the degree of.plant ventilation per missible as well as on the degree to which VCM is released. Virtually all of the testimony presented in this hearing v:ill be based on the basic presumption that very extensive use of strong ventilation is acceptable. This is so because no practical technology exists for the removal of VCM from large volumes of Diant air. It seems clear from current information - 12 - AP00054629 that this presents no real problems but it must be recognized that unrealistic actions in the way of external environmental regulation can negate practicality just as easily as unsound in-plant regulations. VIII. FABRICATION SITUATION Consideration of fabricating operations as potentially regulated ones must also be given. There are sufficient data now becoming available to warrant a judgment' that if resins containing not more than 0.05% by weight of uncombined VCM are shipped from the polymer plants that there is no need to regulate warehouses, shipping facilities or fabrication operations. Data to support this will be offerred by Mr. Barr. There are two possible places in fabrication operations that should have some elementary precautions in effect, however. Such precautions seem to be already adequately covered by existing OSEA requirements. At the point where the PVC container is first opened, the contained air, although quite small in volume, and in absolute VCM content, may be high in VCM concentration. In an impervious container such as a tank car or a silo the concentration will usually be above the corresponding ppm of free VCM in the resin. In a porous container, like a paper bag, the concentration in the contained air will "be very noticeably lower. In either case, this air should be exhausted outside of the work area by - 13 - AP00054630 appropriate ventiliation means. In a similar way, cases evolving from the first heating and exposure of the molten resin should be similarly vented. With these simple precautions the atmos phere in the fabricating work space may be expected to be at levels not exceeding 2 ppm and probably very much lower. TWA1s for such plants might be expected to average 1 or less for the employees involved. We therefore recommend that fabrication facilities processing resins of less than 0.05% uncombined VCM be considered non-regulated areas within the meaning of the proposed standard. I would now like to introduce John T. Barr, Technical Manager for Chemical Group manufacturing. - 14 - J AP00054631