Product Description
Improved Machinery Company (IMPCO), based in Nashua, New Hampshire, was a mid-century U.S. supplier of pulp-refining, pulp-washing, and stock-preparation equipment to kraft and sulfite mills. Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that IMPCO refiners and pulp-washer drums used chrysotile braided asbestos packing in the shaft stuffing boxes to seal the high-temperature, high-consistency stock service, and that vacuum-drainer decks in the pulp-washer line were fitted with asbestos-cement drainer covers that plaintiffs allegedly cut, drilled, and broke to service the drainer internals.
According to publicly filed allegations, this asbestos configuration was carried forward across IMPCO’s refiner and washer product lines from the 1950s through the early 1980s and appeared in kraft and sulfite mills across the U.S. Northeast, Southeast, and Pacific Northwest.
Workers Exposed
Publicly filed asbestos complaints have allegedly identified the following trades as exposed to IMPCO refiner and pulp-washer materials:
- Refiner operators aligning plates and running-in shaft packing
- Pulp-washer tenders monitoring drainer decks and washer drums
- Paper mill millwrights repacking refiner and washer shaft stuffing boxes
- Pulp mill mechanics cutting, drilling, and replacing asbestos-cement drainer covers
- Pulp mill maintenance electricians pulling motor leads on refiner drives
- Insulators wrapping refiner casings and adjacent hot lines