Alcoa Rockdale Works Air Samples During Band-Sawing of Marinite (1974)

Report No. 3872-E of the Aluminum Company of America's Rockdale Works laboratory in Texas, to E. B. Parker, dated October 21, 1974. It is marked Plaintiff's Exhibit AL-73. We have blacked out two workers' Social Security numbers.

What it shows

On October 17, 1974, Alcoa took nine air samples, on filter holders worn on the workers' lapels, in Building 44 while three men band-sawed 4-by-8-foot sheets of 2-inch Marinite into strips and smaller pieces and passed them through a bench shaper. The exhaust system and an air jet on the saw blade were running, and "no dust was visible coming from saw"; "the only dust visible came during the handling of the Marinite."

The results ran from 1.0 fibers/cc for the man pushing sheets into the saw to 4.9 and 7.6 for men catching and stacking the cut pieces. Six of the nine samples were at or above 2.0, the limit due to take effect in 1976. A handwritten note in the margin reads "In 1976 we'll be out of compliance."

J-M's 1954 brochure lists 2-inch sheets only for Marinite-23, the amosite grade.

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