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Monsanto rOM (NAME ft LOCATION) J. M. Harris - Chocolate Bayou Plant DATE June 26, 1972 Use of Asbestos at Chocolate Bayou TO Clint Britt cc- A. W. Adams R. E. Belden H. C. Clark F. H. Dupre C. H. McCornb R. L. Miller - O.M.C Please find attached a copy of the article highlighting the hazards of exposure to asbestos. I would like to request an Engineering study to determine the feasibility of eliminating the use of asbestos at Chocolate Bayou. The most frequent use of this material.in our plant is: 1. Ethylene Furnaces - Weber #48 - contains asbestos used between brick and roof of Ethylene furnaces. Mixed up like mortar and sets up hard. Installed by J. W. Leavesley. 2. Insulation used in the plant 1. Thermo-Bestos .... Contains asbestos 2. .Kaylo ............................... Contains asbestos 3. Mono-block.................Does not contain asbestos 4. Carey-temp ................. Does not contain asbestos The Thermo and Kaylo are used.for hot service (high temperatures) and all fittings no matter if temperature is hot or ambient, due to the crumbling characteristics of the Mono and Carey. It is also used on straight runs sometimes due to the same problem. If there is any assistance our group can furnish, please let me know. JMHilm attachment J. M. Harris C 064007 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Thyridty. June 6,1972 VOL LI I NO. 168 Harry Bailey U on* xnanxYHo-neYv-awAy to find much solace In the new standards. Mr. Bailey isn't an ccbeaton worker. He's a brick- Perilous Particles layer in a Mobil OH Corp. refinery alongside the Delaware River In Paulsboro, N.J. He has been working at the plant for 33 years, ind Tiny Asbestos Fibers every year he has gone to the company medi cal department for a chest X ray. "They never said there was anything wrong Pose a Health Threat with me." says 5t-ycar-old Mr. Bailey, and In deed he 'has thus far developed no outward symptoms. But a few months ago he and IS To Workers and Public other worker* from the refinery went to Mount Sinai for an examination, and every one of them proved to have scarred lungs--a sign of asbestosis. a nonmallgnant lung disease. Long Exposure Can Result (Mobil has refused to release his medical rec ords to the New York doctors, Mr. Bailey says. In Lung Disease, Cancer; The company declines to comment on the mat ter.) Industry Seeks Solutions First Scarring. Then Complications Asbestcsis begins with X-ray evidence of scarring like that found In Mr. Bailey'c lungs. As the disease progresses, the lungs stiffen and `The Bodies Are in the Street' breathing becomes difficult. The heart has to work harder and can become enlarged. Ulti mately. death may be caused by heart stuck By Barry Nf.wman Staff Reporter of Txs Wall Stxket Jouksal NEW YORK--At Joseph Marino's gas sta tion on the fringe on Manhattan's Spanish Har lem. the proven method of cleaning an old brake assembly goes like this: Pull off the wheel, aim an air hose at the exposed parts and blow the dust out. A cloud of brown dust invariably flies right into' the mechanics* faces, says Mr. Marino. / -But it doesn't bother them. "We got masks and or suffocation. The mineral can also cause lung cancer--In fact asbestos can cause cancer just about any place in the body If particles are somehow in gested. The ability of the sharp, tiny particles to penetrate the lung once breathed in has pro duced a high incidence of cancer in the mem brane surrounding the lung, a disease called ' mesothelioma, lit the - general populace. It causes one in 10.000 deaths. Of 632 abctos v-:^rkcr^bging scyaied,,, ' everything." Mr. Marino shrugs. "The guys don't use them. What the hell." What the mechanics don't seem to knowlike thousands of other mechanics--Is that the lUoli'.Vfcfinery, whore Mr. Bailey works, like all hlgh-heat factories In the oil and chemical industries, uses asbestos for insula tion. Mr. Bailey works with insulation workers brown dust Is dsngerous. Brake linings are inside the furnaces,' ripping out. soft brick. made of asbestos. And if a mechanic breathes "There's asbestos and brick dust and a lot of In enough dust from the.worn-out linings it sulphur, too," he says. "We complained about could eventually kill him. the dust and dirt. Nothing Is done to keep it ` The lethal quality of tiny, indestructible as down. The.fans make It worse, and you can't bestos fibers that lodge in the lung-is well wet It because of the heat in the bricks. The known. Widely publicized studies by Or. Irving company bought new respirators, but under the -Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine conditions they clog In IS minutes." lead him to predict that of the roughly 250,0001 asbestos industry workers today, about 93,0Q0i will die unnecessarily of occupational cancer, ii A.icfw'r.cn*tSc'inAulaaorTworAcrs- "In.the next 10 to 15 years we will enter the ts-1 sa\TiyK!3!5J sheets outside the room, or mix bestos cancer era." says Dr. Selikoff. 'This] cement In a- wheelbarrow, "anybody can get is one of the great disasters of our time." . . I Hazards for Others. Too The asbestos Industry is well aware of the problem and is taking action to combat it. though critics say the steps aren't as drastic as ,'the situation demands. But asbestos Industry workers aren't the only ones who might (all the dust.'.' Company Disagrees Mobil disagrees with the description of working conditions. In response to a query, the company issued this statement: "We have no problems at the Paulsboro refinery concerning the use of materials containing asbestos. We use very little of such material, and what we prey, to the-lung cancers and other diseases do use is used under zlrlctty controlled condi ' caused by the mineral's Irritating fibers. It's tions. Recently the Occupational Safety and likely that millions of workers in other indus Health Administration carried out an extensive tries using asbestos fibers could be affected, as and thorough inspection of the entire Paulsboro well as ordinary people who have come Into refinery.. No violations were found In the contact with asbestos in the atmosphere. plant's handling of asbestos materials." Perhaps the most tragic fact is that for . Mr. Bailey's union, the Oil. Chemical and those who have already been sufficiently ex Atomic Worker*, la protesting that Inspection. posed. changes in procedures and standards of asbestos use--including a new set announced ^yesterday by the Department of Labor--arc ^meaningless. R e'-rs is mn I after the firs' t-./nn ........... "IT n...w will inuciu '..V.ci'.'l eiiect. but not for decides. Steven Weeks, a union health and safety spe cialist. eays little attention was paid to health violations. And he complafr-s that after a week of accompanying the inspectors, the company Inexplicably "had me kicked out of the plant." Mobil declines comment on Mr. Wodka'a Charge. C 004008 / Perilous Particles: Tiny Fibers Of Asbestos Pose a Health Threat Oil refineries are by no means "Die 'only; Afraid of a Checkup ' places where asbestos turns up. The versatile Among construction workers outside the as substance is a fireproof binder and insulator in bestos trades--virtually all of whom are ex thousands of products, including such things at posed to asbestos whether they work with It di plastics. 6hlr.gles, paper and pipes. In most of rectly or not--concern remains relatively low. these, the asbestos is harmless to users. But, Jacob Kov&k. business manager of the Asbes depending on how lt'a added to the products, tos Workers Union local In New York, says he asbestos can pose a threat to workers In the has tried without success, for Instance, to in factories where the products are made. duce a group of plasterers to have checkups. Until six months ago, for instance, asbestos "Some of these people don't want to face a free was being used as an antileak ingredient In X ray because they're afraid of what they Preslorte antifreeze, made by Union Carbide might heer," saya Mr. Novak, a 43-year vet Ccrp. At a Carteret, N.J,, plant, run for Union eran orthe asbestos trades, who had a noruna- Carbide by General American Transportation, lignant tumor removed from a lung last winter. the asbestos would arrive In paper sacks. Anxiety In the demolition Industry also Workers would cut the bags open with knives seems minimal. "We don't have a dust prob and feed the powdery white asbestos into tanks lem In demolition," says Leonard Kapy. vice of antifreeze, says James Irving, a fire and president of Wrecking Corp. of America, one of safety engineer who has worked in the plant tor 22 years. 'They'd wear face masks, but no protective clothing," Mr. Irving says, "and the blowers In the room where they worked would send the dust out to where others were working. Then they'd pile up the bags outside the building and a crew would pick them up and throw them onto the truck, raising a big cloud of dust." the largest demolition companies in the coun try. "Some people think you can take down a building without dust," he says with a laugh. As for asbestos. Mr. Kapy Un't-worried: "I know fellas who have laid asbestos pipe for years, and there's nothing wrong with them." When working in cioacd quarters, he says, his men use drop cloths and fans, but they don't Asbestos was removed from the Prestone formula late last year. Mr. Irving says the change took place after the Oil, Chemical and wear respirators because "they're too hot and they don't work." Nevertheless, the federal Environmental Atomic workers made an issue of it. Union Protection Agency is preparing regulations ex Carbide denies that. The decision, says Herbert pected <b be announced this summer that J. Hannlgan, the company's technical manager would attempt to Impose controls on air pollu of auto products, was based on marketing con tion from demolition operations. These could siderations and "had nothing to do with Include requirements (or wetting down the health." work areas or the removal of all asbestos be Asbestos also can pose hazards to the ulti fore a building is toppled. The technical prob mate consumers of certain products. Bits of as lem of measuring dust levels, however, "could bestos used in filters for beverage making have toss out the demolition regulation entirely," been found In wine and beer, for instance, and says James Krowder, an engineer with the could be dangerous if swallowed. The use of EPA's hazardous pollutants branch. such filters In beverage making seems to have Setting a standard (or asbestos concentra been curtailed, but knowledge of the hazard ap- tions at work sites has been similarly difficult pears to have had little effect elsewhere, even;for the fledgling Occupation Safety and Health in medical circles. Asbestos, aays a aoon-to-bc-i Administration, a year-old Department of published study, is being used in some hospi- (Labor unit. The reason: nobody knows how tal as a filter for Intravenously-fed liquids, much asbestos is dangerous. The asbestos In giving the particles an entry Into the.blood dustry, led by Johns-Manville Corp.. the larg- stream: eat In the field, has fought for a standard allow-.. The'uae of asbestos in fireproof textiles is lnf- fIve Mbestos nbers p<!r cuhic centimeter of common. Once in a while, asbestos fiber even alr ln the fact0rle3. But the doclori at Mount finds Its way Into ordinary fabrics Dr. William Slnai and eIsewherc thal lhe only NlchoUon. an associate of pr. Sellkoff at Mount Ieve, ot Mbeit0i pollution would be zero. Sinai, has a girl a charcoal-colored winter coat A pau-.Y#.** n#ia with red trim hanging in one of his laborato- >.. , ,, ,, a riea. It's one of more than 200,000 imported , TM y"terday T" " coats made with 8% asbestos fiber sold two a 'l**' , ,raUm years ago. Some of them are presumably itlUI*0TMen`r*,1,on the w8rk area of 10 fiber* per being worn. "Give that coat a shake." says Dr. cubl= centimenter at any time. In X9T, the new NlchoUon. "and you get`dust leveU as high as."^UUo" ,or * more stringent two-fiber In an asbestos factory." limit, with the four-year delay intended to give Asbestos workers In the construction Indus- the lndu3lry * chance to control the problem, try are perhaps the most sensitive of all work-' ^"he industry says even a two-fiber limit ere to the asbestos hazard. It was the construe-cou*d hurt it economically. J. B. Jobe. Johns- tion Industry, which uses two-thirds of all as- Manville's executive vice president, said at bestos products, that was the target of the first hearings in March that it would be "socially lr- wave of amlasbeatoa publicity mure than four, responsible" to adopt such stringent regula- The company operates the 1orgeat asbestos '"factory In the countryat Manville. N.Jt, where. nT^lCrTais re being1ue- according to a recent Mount Sinai study, 40% vEopSSTtnough there's some question being of the workers die of asbestos-related cancer. raUed about their safety, too. Corrective steps being taken already, Johns- C 004009 I Manvllle maintains. are adequate to deal with the problem without causing a cutback In the plant's' production, the lifeblood of the New Jersey town of 15.000. At leant one asbestos fac tory. run by a PPG Industries and Corning Glass Works joint venture In Tyler. Texas, closed last February because of ''profitability and concern over safety.'' a spokesman says. inXri c.wu *^r*r^uUi crwTuIe the cost oi plant or smelter might run Into the hundreds of millions, the cost of cleaning up an asbestos operation would be closer to a 10th of that magnitude, accord ing to doctors, engineers and union officials. Some of the staples of such an operation, al ready In use In many plants, are compara tively Inexpensive closed plastic bags for mix- .lng cement, vacuum attachments on power saws, drop cloths, dust-suppressant chemicals and battery-powered respirators that blow fll- . tered air Into the user'a face to ease discom fort. The new Labor Department standards do. Indeed, call for many of these work-practice rules. But while they are unquestionably a. needed step toward strict controls. Dr. Selikoff, says, he also says he remains pessimistic.. "The potential for surveillance is remote," he i says, because of the small, underfinanced | staffs of federal and state Inspectors. A survey ; recently completed at Mount Sinai of 9,430 as-; / bestos workers around the country, for In-; ` stance, showed that In 1970 and 1971 there was ; only one dust count taken in asbestos plants for ; every 20,000 man-days worked. ! And while he says he appreciates the asbes-; toe Industry's expressed Interest in solving the problem. Dr. Selikoff is hard-pressed to ex-: plain the continuing apathy among many work-1 ere and managers. "This Isn't just another j scare," he saya. "Some people want to see the ( bodies In the street before they become con cerned. Unfortunately, in this esse, the bodies !. are In the street." c 004010