W. B. Reitze to H. B. Moreno on Visits to MEISA, Almeria and Asbestos de Mexico (1977)

A cover memo of June 10, 1977, from W. B. Reitze of J-M's Health, Safety and Environment department to H. B. Moreno, copied to Drs. Paul Kotin and W. Paul, with a six-page report on his visits of June 6 to 8 to three Mexican operations: MEISA, the Almeria mine and mill, and Asbestos de Mexico. Reitze called the situation at Asbestos de Mexico "grave," with "some 900 to 1200 employees at considerable risk" and dust control and housekeeping that were "rudimentary" at best. J-M was a 40% minority stockholder, but he wrote that continuing in the venture "without insisting upon a general overall cleanup is immoral, if not criminal," and that after J-M's U.S. experience and a report from the Mexican Social Security Administration that almost a third of the workers had asbestos-related disease, "we cannot plead ignorance."

What it shows

The report describes Asbestos de Mexico as "among the worst I have visited," like J-M's own U.S. plants of "25 or 30 years ago": raw fiber on the floor "to the shoe top level," a 20-by-30-foot pile of broken bags of blue (crocidolite) fiber shoveled by hand, and plant cleanup "accomplished by brooms." At MEISA, braiders worked chrysotile and crocidolite with no dust control, and the required government medical exam included no chest X-rays. At Almeria two tons of fines went up the stack every day. Reitze recommended a "massive educational campaign" and spending to clean up, or else giving up the operation. It is one of several 1977 trip reports in which he applied the lessons of J-M's U.S. plants to its foreign affiliates (Reitze on Brazil).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Reitze memorandum to H.B. Moreno, 6/10/77, describes asbestos and other health risks observed during a tour of J-M's Mexican operations.