W. B. Reitze on Environmental Control Progress at Asbestos de Mexico (1980)

A six-page Johns-Manville memo of November 6, 1980, from W. B. Reitze of J-M's Health, Safety and Environment department to Asbestos de Mexico (ADM), with copies to Dr. Paul Kotin, H. B. Moreno and the company's managers, on a November 4 meeting and plant tour to check ADM's environmental improvement plan. Reitze found progress at the Barrientos plant: more workers wore respirators, housekeeping was better, and ADM said it had stopped selling empty asbestos bags and using asbestos waste to soak up oil on the floors. He then went through the nineteen points of his July 10 memo to Ramiro Canizo of ADM, plant by plant.

What it shows

The respirator program had "a long way to go," Reitze wrote: none of the maintenance workers repairing the regrind unit wore respirators "even though they were handling asbestos fiber and clouds of dust were emanating from the workplace," and workers at the chrysotile and "blue" (crocidolite) feed stations had none either, with the air systems shut down. Other points covered the use of plant sludge to surface storage yards and roads, a crocidolite feed station at Villa Hermosa, and dust collectors at Querétaro and Hermosillo. On under-age workers, ADM now assured him none had ever been employed, and that earlier impressions "perhaps were due to small sized men, not young boys." Reitze closed: "There are still employees at possible risk from asbestos-related disease, and this risk must be reduced immediately." Earlier papers in the thread include Reitze's memo of November 1978, H. B. Moreno's memo of January 1979, Monroe Harris's letter of July 1980, and G. Earl Parker's memo.