Pennsylvania Department of Health, Report of Engineering Survey of the U.S. Asbestos Division at Manheim (1947)

A 19-page report by the Bureau of Industrial Hygiene of the Pennsylvania Department of Health on its engineering survey of the United States Asbestos Division of Raybestos-Manhattan at Manheim, Pennsylvania, made June 9 to 27, 1947, by F. B. Koppenhaver, John C. Cleland and Lawrence Gibbon. It gives five pages of findings and recommendations and 14 tables of asbestos dust and lead counts. Workmen at the twisters were exposed to "fairly high concentrations of asbestos dust" (up to 7.4 million particles per cubic foot), and the Bureau recommended more exhaust ventilation there. It also found lead (litharge) exposures "from potential to hazardous" in the brake lining and rubber departments and recommended respirators, instruction about the lead hazard and no food in those areas.

What it shows

The report calls itself a follow-up to earlier dust surveys of the plant by its insurance carrier, the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America and the Bureau itself, including the Bureau's survey of the textile mill in November 1944 (O. H. Cilley's letter of November 24, 1944). Most asbestos counts were low, but the twisters, one card and the fiberizer take-off ran at 5 million particles or more (see Threshold Limit Value (TLV)), and turning the twister ventilation off and on showed it cut the count by only "a little over a million particles." The survey was made in the same month that the Industrial Hygiene Foundation reported to the Asbestos Textile Institute that the five-million limit might not be safe over a long working life (Hemeon's report of June 18, 1947).

In Johns-Manville's index

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

"Report of Engineering Survey, U.S. Asbestos Division, Manheim, PA." Report gives detailed findings about dust conditions in various departments of the Manheim Plant. Recommendations are given to reduce the dust levels in some departments.

Related documents

• W. C. L. Hemeon, Report of Preliminary Dust Investigation for the Asbestos Textile Institute (1947)
• O. H. Cilley to Sumner Simpson Enclosing the Pennsylvania Survey of the Manheim Textile Mill (1944)
• O. H. Cilley to Sumner Simpson on the Pennsylvania Dust Survey at Manheim (1944)
• A. F. Heinsohn to Sumner Simpson Returning Cilley's Letter and Proposing Another Dust Check (1944)
• John F. McMahon of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation to O. H. Cilley Sending the Manheim Dust Study (1944)

About this copy

This is document 05757-05776 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.