Dr. Albert S. Gray of the Connecticut Department of Health to Raybestos-Manhattan on the Stratford Plant Survey (1940)

A one-page letter of April 8, 1940, from Dr. Albert S. Gray, director of the Bureau of Occupational Diseases of the Connecticut State Department of Health, to Raybestos-Manhattan at Stratford, for the attention of R. B. Davis, general manager, after a survey of several plant operations. Gray asked for ventilation of the hood over the feed hopper on the trim pulverizer, where "considerable asbestos dust is dispersed to the working area" when too much trim is fed in, and for attention to the two bagging stations, and asked for sketches of the planned dust control at the roto-can mixer and the mixing and weighing station. He also called the plant "one of the cleanest and best maintained manufacturing establishments in this state." Attached are the state's Regulations 280 and 281, which require employers to notify the department of new exhaust systems and list threshold limits for toxic materials.

What it shows

The state's inspectors found asbestos dust escaping at specific machines in a plant they otherwise praised, and Raybestos-Manhattan answered point by point (W. E. Casey's plan of May 3, 1940). The attached Regulation 281 set a numerical limit only for dust of nearly pure quartz (5 million particles per cubic foot) and said dusts of other kinds would be kept below limits "stipulated depending on the nature of the dust": the code as of July 1, 1938 set no figure for asbestos (see Threshold Limit Value (TLV)).

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's attorneys indexed the Sumner Simpson Papers. Their index describes this document as follows:

Informs plant one of cleanest and best maintained manufacturing facilities in state. Gives following recommendations to lower dust levels: apply ventilation to hood on trim pulverizer; work on ventilation systems at bagging stations; and attempt to improve dust control at mixing and weighing station. Attaches regulations 280 and 281 of Occupational Environment Sanitary Code--State of Connecticut. These regulations discuss the threshold limits of toxic materials.

Related documents

• W. E. Casey to R. B. Davis on Answering Dr. Gray's Dust Survey (1940)
• Dr. Albert S. Gray to R. B. Davis on Visiting the Stratford Plant in February (1940)

About this copy

This is document 04420-04422 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.