Pittsburgh Corning Corporation plant at Port Allegany, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh Corning Corporation made UNIBESTOS pipe insulation at Port Allegany, Pennsylvania: in November 1963, a Pittsburgh Corning piece in Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, announced that UNIBESTOS had "joined the Pittsburgh Corning Corporation family" and that the company was "building a new plant for its manufacture at Port Allegany, Pennsylvania."³ The same piece described the product as "sectional pipe insulation" made of "long-fibered amosite asbestos," which Pittsburgh Corning imported from the Republic of South Africa.³ By October 1964, a Navy list of qualified products gave two plants for UNIBESTOS: Tyler, Texas, and Port Allegany.²

What the sources say about UNIBESTOS describes the product in general, not Port Allegany's output in particular: in sworn answers given in two lawsuits in 1969 and 1971, Pittsburgh Corning said that "since August, 1962," it had made UNIBESTOS insulation of amosite asbestos fiber.^4,5 An insurance company's 1981 list, compiled from other companies' answers in lawsuits, gives UNIBESTOS as pipe covering made from 1962 to 1972, with a figure of 65 percent asbestos.⁶

In sworn answers in 1984, Pittsburgh Corning said that "the decision to close this Defendant's asbestos thermal insulation plants was made in the latter half of 1971" and that it "permanently ceased production of UNIBESTOS on approximately February 1, 1972."¹

Location

Pictures of products made here

Labels, packages, photographs and catalog pages from our library of products documents say were made at this plant. Each picture has its own page and library number.

• Product photograph: UNIBESTOS (Pittsburgh Corning)Unibestos (Pittsburg Corning)Product photograph · ACL Doc 15188

Asbestos products made here

The products documents say were made at this plant, with the years a document gives for the product here. Each product's page has what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Unibestos (Pittsburg Corning)^2,3

Asbestos claims

If you or a family member worked at this plant, lived with someone who did, or worked with its products, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, a claim may be paid by the Pittsburgh Corning Corporation Asbestos PI Settlement Trust. Free case review.

What each document says

Every statement about this plant in the documents, in each document's own words.

Pittsburgh Corning's Responses to Plaintiffs' Master Interrogatories in the Sparrows Point Steel Plant Asbestos Cases (1984)

• Asbestos use ended: “permanently ceased production of UNIBESTOS on approximately February 1, 1972” (Pittsburgh Corning Corporation), p. 8¹

Other names

Documents call this plant “Port Allegany, Pa.”, “Port Allegany, Pennsylvania”.

See also

• Pittsburgh Corning Corporation: the company's history, documents, people, products and plants
• Asbestos exposure sites in Pennsylvania

References

1. Pittsburgh Corning's Responses to Plaintiffs' Master Interrogatories in the Sparrows Point Steel Plant Asbestos Cases (June 6, 1984), p. 8.
2. Military Qualified Products List (1951–1995) (October 7, 1964), p. 88.
3. Asbestos Magazine, 1963, November 1963 (November 1, 1963), p. 11.
4. The Potter v. Fibreboard Case File (1969-1972), Answers to plaintiff's interrogatories (December 24, 1969), p. 1.
5. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File (1969-1972), Supplemental answers to interrogatories (January 29, 1971), p. 1.
6. The Travelers Insurance Company's Product Information Booklet for Its Asbestos Seminar (1980–1981) (April 30, 1981), p. 9.