Document omZvBvYzVjbJvjQ2NpB09nBLE

vented tube from each engine blows air at very high pressure and forces gravel away from the engine intake. Other operating problems include temperatures that are S0F to 60F be low zero, 60-mph winds, snd total dark ness in December and January in the High Arctic. Engines on airstrip equip ment such as trucks and snowplows are not turned off from Dec. 1 to Mar. 15. Though the regionals, too, face fuel problems, all are predicting revenue in creases this year. They see their big gest growth potential in scheduled pas senger service, although no one is scoffing at the big bucks to be made in hauling drilling equipment-and beer- to oil teams in the Arctic or to the offagain, on-again $6-billion James Bay hydroelectric project in northwestern PWA ships cattle to the Orient and oil-drilling equipment to the Arctic Quebec. Nordair flies there from Mon treal, and. Quebecair operates cargo- only service. Cattle plane. In the eyes of many indus try observers. Pacific Western is the best run of the regionals. Its fleet con sists of seven Boeing 737s, with three more on order, plus two 727s, two long- range 707s, five Convair 640s, four Her cules jet-prop freighters, and a few fly ing boats, fwa's operations range from its scheduled passenger services to shipping cattle to the Orient and ex tensive relief work in such places as Ni geria and Bangladesh. Scheduled pas senger services account for roughly 65% of pWA's revenues, charters for about 10%, and cargo services for the remaining 25%. Its cattle plane is typical of pwa's willingness to provide specialized ser vices to meet special needs. A conven tional Boeing 707-320C, the plane can be equipped with either 13 stalls hold ing about 85 1,000-lb. cattle or double tiers of pens that will* accommodate a great many more smaller animals. Donald N. Watson, pwa president, says that the plane has carried as many as 700 cattle from Toronto to Athens. The real keys to profits for pwa and the other regionals, however, have been jets and charters. The jets boosted available seat-miles on routes with good load factors, and the char ters gave the carriers the capability to use their aircraft more economically. Keith Miller, executive vice-presi dent of Eastern Provincial Airways, estimates the seat-mile cost on a 109- passenger 737 at 2.2c a mi., compared with 5.5c for each mile on the 41-seat Handley Page Heralds the 737s are re placing. The break-even load factor on the jets is 42%, vs. about 80% on the prop planes. "The stimulation of a 737 is very substan tial," Miller says. TECHNOLOGY Industry's latest cancer scare i | The deaths of five workers in ten years seem linked to working on the plastic Federal officials met last week with plastics industry executives in Cleve land and Washington to try to deter mine whether the industry has un knowingly been exposing some of its 6,500 blue-collar workers to fumes that can lead to a rare form of liver cancer known as angiosarcoma. The focus was on 28 of the 42 plants in the U. S. that make v..in~vj-l-c--h-l-o--r-id- e--or u--s--e--i-t--to--n-r-o-d--u--c-epolyvinyl chloride resin (pvc), one of the most common plastics. The hearings grew out of the deaths of four workers over the last six years at a B. F. Goodrich Chemical Co. plant in Louisville, Ky. They could ultimately bring coetly new rules for the PVC industry, whose resins are used in such items as pipe, floor tile, phonograph records, and latex wall paints. "Improvements in work practices will probably require a 100% increase in the work force," says Walter B. Connolly, Jr., labor counsel for Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., which operates pvc plants in Pottstown, Pa., and Perryville, Md. In any case, the current PVC hullabaloo is certain to spark new demands by organized labor for closer examination of the possible long-range ef- fects on workers of oth^r industrial chemicals. "The cancer took 15 to 20 years to develop," says one federal epi demiologist. Other chemicals could have similar "latency" periods, he says, so there could be more eruptions in the years ahead. "I hope we're not seeing the beginning of a health collapse." The vinyl chloride case is not the chemical industry's first encounter with OSHA over carcinogenic. Last Uay the agency invoked emergency standards for 14 chemicals (bw- May 19, 1973). Final rules for these mate rials went into effect last week, though both industry and labor are suing for judicial review. The prospect of new, petrochemical versions of such health time bombs, as "black lung" and mercury poisoning, makes plastic industry leaders shudder. And indeed, new data presented at the standing-room-only OSHA hearing by Italian researcher Cesare Maltoni. of Bologna's Institute of Cancer, leave' little doubt that vinyl chloride is carcinogenic-at least to rats. He exposed__ 67 rats to air containing 250 parts per million of vinyl chloride off and on for 52 weekday the end" of ~127 weeks,_ Maltoni reported, two had contracted angiosarcoma and nine contracted other forms of cancer. Many chernicaT industry executives had TTowngradedthe importance of earlier animal test results because the dosages were mag- < 1 f . ' r A solvent that crippled chemical workers Last August, Thomas F. Meade, 22, was stricken with a nerve disease after two years of work at Columbus Coated Fabrics Co., a subsidiary of Borden, Inc., in Columbus, Ohio, that makes vi nyl-coated fabrics for luggage and wall coverings. The disease, diagnosed as peripheral neuropathy, left Meade crippled, and today he wears leg braces. He is the most severely af fected of some 130 workers at the plant who have suffered symptoms of the dis ease. The lesser symptoms include weakness and loss of coordination. When the symptoms became wide spread last summer, state health offi cials tested the nerve responses of theplant's 1,124 employees and told 200 of them to stay home for two months. Many others stayed' home, too, out of fear. By December, most employees had returned, and many who had showed neuropathic symptoms .ap peared well again. Meanwhile, Ohio health officials had zeroed in on an ink solvent, methyl butyl ketone, used in applying decora tive patterns, as the most likely culprit. While continuing to monitor the plant's air, they banned the use of mbk. The plant's managers have switched to a substitute, improved ventilation, is sued respirators to print shop workers, and moved lunch areas away from work areas. ' But Corwin Smith, president of Lo cal 487 of the Textile Workers Union of America, which represents the plant's workers, is not satisfied. He says that 26 members are still out with the dis ease, that eight of them are severely crippled, and that three workers whose condition improved are now sick again. On Feb. 9, the local struck the plant as negotiations collapsed on a new con tract; one of the union demands was a "proper work environment." Says Smith: "People here don^t know whether they will be crippled in the fu ture or not." *** Mnya 1T 032143 give, to tne order to 5,000 to 30,000 ppm limit recommended since 1972 by nors, Jr., general manager of the Plas ppm- . , the American Conference of Govern tics Div. of Diamond Shamrock Chem The bombshell. The cancer crisis hit the ment Industrial Hygienists. In 1970, ical Co., which also observes that limit, vinyl industry just a month ago. Not Italian researcher Dr. P. L. Viola re- "there are not enough fumes in the air ing an unusual number of liver ail ported that rats exposed to heavy doses to smell." Where concentrations are ments among the Louisville plant of vinyl chloride developed malignant higher, he says, "we have ordered our workers, B, F. Goodrich physicians ran tumors. Several European chemical men to wear gas masks." blood tests last fall on the 271 workers companies banded together to support Vinyl fumes arise partly from leaks in the plant's pvc facility and found 55 research by Maltoni, and in the U. S., in pipes and valves. But another likely with apparent liver abnormalities. The the Manufacturing Chemists Assn, be source is the polymerization vessels, company reviewed medical and insur gan to discuss an industry-wide re when they are opened for cleaning and ance records and by Jan. 16 had discov search program. A year ago, the MCA maintenance. NlOSH officials are con ered three deaths since 1971 that were set up an animal test program that will centrating now on the polymerization attributable to angiosarcoma. Federal not be completed until late 1975. The process, but they plan to extend their - health officials estimate the annual association also contracted with Taber- studies eventually to monomer produc death toll in the U. S. from this rare shaw-Cooper Associates, of Berkeley, tion, as well as pvc fabrication and form of cancer at only even consumer use of pvc about 20. On Jan. 29 fur products. ther review by Goodrich Since safe limits for vi turned up a 1968 death nyl chloride are unknown, (two more cases, includ niosh is emphasizing safe ing a 1964 death, were work practices rather identified this week). than arbitrary concentra The company's top tion limits. Its recommen management had already dations for the Louisville decided on public disclo plant, for example, in sure. It reported the situ clude such things as over ation to the National In head cleaning, daily show stitute for Occupational ers and clothing changes Safety & Health and to for workers, and ex the Kentucky Labor Dept. panded air monitoring. It also began notifying Pinning it down. Goodrich's employees in all of its vi Louisville plant uses nyl chloride and pvc oper about 50 different chem ations, and it sent a re icals, and there is no proof lease to the press. "We of a direct link between are doing our utmost to vinyl chloride and the .express our real and liver cancer cases. But serious concern," says niosh officials are certain John J. Bell, the com that the link exists, and pany's public affairs direc A B. F. Goodrich safety inspector uses a chemical "sniffer" to check tor, "and yet prevent any whether vinyl chloride fumes are leaking from a polymerizing reactor. the mca's Johnson con cedes that "vinyl chloride undue panic." is the material of primary NlQSH, which had immediately sent Calif., to check the available death suspicion." Only two other carcinogens. I experts to Louisville, held a briefing records of workers at other vinyl, arsenic and thorium-232, are proven early last week in Cleveland to teU plants, "So far," says Kenneth John causes of angiosarcoma, and medical /. management and labor leaders in the son, mca technical director, "the results records on--the-----f--o----u----r-----G-----o---o--dr--ich--workers r industry what it knew about the car haven't been subjected to statistical, showed no exposure to either. cinogenic effects of vinyl chloride. And analysis." Both niosh and industry officials on Friday, many of the same execu To Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, the history hope, though, that the link is peculiar tives showed up in Washington for the shows that "our approach to the prob- to Goodrich's Louisville plant Says . Osha hearing. The federal agency will determine whether the situation war* NIOSH hopes that the niosh Director Marcus M. Key. "We still hold to the possibility that the rants either an emergency standard or cause Is a combination of cause could be a combination of two or at least a start on the regular rule factors at only one plant making process. three things acting together in the manufacturing process." - The attitude of organized labor was lem was, shall I say, leisurely." Seli The Louisville plant is Goodrich's a major concern. Anthony Mazzocchi, koff, director of environmental medi oldest pvc plant and, unlike most legislative director of the Oil, Chemical cine at New York City's Mount Sinai newer plants, is enclosed It also has a & Atomic Workers, who attended the School of Medicine, has been a frequent number of older workers on the line. NlOSH briefing, says: "It's apparent critic of industrial health practices, and Some workers may have been affected we're dealing with a carcinogen. We one chemical executive calls his re by an epidemic of hepatitis that swept want to reduce exposure to zero. But mark, made at the OSHA meeting, the city a few years ago. A number of we have a wait-and-see attitude right "hindsight." other rubber and chemical plants, and now." Belatedly or not, some pvc producers their fumes, are located nearby. And While the fatalities at Louisville have been tightening up their oper the plant is one of the few that uses vi- came as a shock to the industry, vinyl ations. Goodrich, for example, says it nylidene chloride as a copolymerizing chloride has been suspect for a long had already done, or was doing, most of agent. Rudolph Jaeger, a physiologist time. Some 15 years ago Dow Chemical the things niosh recommended after at the Harvard School of Public Health, Co., based on its own studies, adopted visiting the Louisville plant, including told the OSHA meeting that test data an average exposure limit of 50 ppm sticking to a 50-ppm average exposure appear to point to that chemical, too, as for its workers-well below the 200- limit. "At 50 ppm," says Harry Con- a carcinogen. TECHNOLOGY ' BUSINESSWEEK; f*0iuiy 23. 1974 ' 101 <JCC 032144