L. E. Inguagiato to the Marrero Floor Tile Task Team on an Industrial Hygiene Survey (1962)

A three-page confidential memo of July 5, 1962, from L. E. Inguagiato at J-M's Marrero, Louisiana plant to five supervisors appointed as a task team "to survey the entire Floor Tile Plant and recommend corrective action for the control of hygienic and nuisance dust." The team was to follow J-M's Manual of Standard Practices IH-96 and, for each problem, record the men involved, employee complaints, dust counts, whether respirators were used or recommended, and the cost of corrections. Inguagiato wrote that "in the past we have felt that we operated a reasonably clean plant," but that "the standards for cleanliness have been increased."

What it shows

The memo lists the dust sources the team was to look for, including compressed air used to clean equipment and to blow dust off workers' clothing, leaking dust collectors, fans blowing raw materials about, and broken bags of raw materials. Inguagiato said the program should have "No. 1 priority" and be treated "the same as a cost reduction project involving many, many dollars of definite savings." It is one of several 1962 surveys showing J-M plants measuring dust against tighter internal standards (compare the Parkersburg survey of November 1962).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

L.E. Inguagiato (Marrero) memorandum, 7/5/62, regarding Marrero's Floor Tile Department Industrial Hygiene Task Team. Memorandum sets forth the Task Team approach to dust control according to Standard Practices IH-96, and states that in the past, they have operated "a reasonably clean plant," but the standards have now been tightened. This program should be given top priority like "a cost reduction project involving many, many dollars of definite savings."