1 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL 

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND 

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

WORK GROUP ON MOUND 

+ + + + + 

TUESDAY 

JULY 27, 2010 

+ + + + + 

The Work Group convened in the 

Frankfurt Room of the Cincinnati Airport

Marriott, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron,

Kentucky, at 9:30 a.m., Josie Beach, Chair,

presiding.

PRESENT: 

JOSIE BEACH, Chair

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member 

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2 

ALSO PRESENT: 

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor*

ISAF AL-NABULSI, DOE*

ROBERT ANIGSTEIN, SC&A*

ROBERT BISTLINE, SC&A*

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A

MEL CHEW, ORAU Team*

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

EMILY HOWELL, HHS

KARIN JESSEN, ORAU Team*

JEFFREY KOTSCH, DOL*

JENNY LIN, HHS

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

ROBERT MORRIS* 

JAMES NETON, DCAS

BRANT ULSH, DCAS 

*Participating via telephone 

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3

 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Welcome 4 

Neutron Dose Reconstruction -

SC&A/NIOSH 12 

Stable Tritium Compounds - SC&A/NIOSH 142 

Radon Post 1980 - SC&A/NIOSH 313 

High-Fired PU-238 - SC&A/NIOSH 316 

Adequacy/Completeness of Internal Dose

and Roadmap Integrated Issues 325 

D&D - NIOSH/SC&A 293 

Adjournment 365 

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4

1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 (9:30 a.m.) 

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning, everyone in 

4 the room and on the line. This is the 

5 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

6 This is the Mound Working Group, 

7 and we're just getting started with roll call. 

8 I'm Ted Katz. I'm the Designated Federal 

9 Official of the Advisory Board, and we'll 

10 begin with Board members in the room. 

11 Chair. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Josie Beach. No 

13 conflicts with Mound. 

14 MR. KATZ: Yes, thank you. Everyone 

15 address whether you have a conflict situation. 

16 MEMBER PRESLEY: Robert Presley, no 

17 conflict with Mound. 

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Brad Clawson, Work 

19 Group Member, no conflict with Mound. 

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Phillip 

21 Schofield, Work Group Member, no conflict with 

22 Mound. 

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5 

1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Paul Ziemer, Work 

2 Group Member, no conflict with Mound. 

3 MR. KATZ: And do we have any Board 

4 members on the line? 

5 (No response.) 

6 Okay. Then, NIOSH ORAU Team in the 

7 room. 

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld, 

9 Interim Director, no conflict with Mound. 

10 DR. ULSH: Brant Ulsh, no conflict 

11 with Mound. 

12 DR. NETON: Jim Neton. I have no 

13 conflict with Mound. 

14 MR. KATZ: NIOSH ORAU Team on the 

15 line? 

16 MS. JESSEN: Karin Jessen, ORAU 

17 Team, no conflict with Mound. 

18 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. Who is that 

19 again? 

20 MS. JESSEN: Karin Jessen. 

21 MR. KATZ: Thank you. 

22 MS. JESSEN: You're welcome. 

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6 

1 DR. CHEW: Hi, I'm Mel Chew, no 

2 conflicts with Mound, ORAU Team. 

3 CHAIR BEACH: Hi, Mel. 

4 DR. CHEW: Good morning. 

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. Welcome, all of 

6 you. And SC&A in the room. 

7 DR. MAURO: SC&A, John Mauro, no 

8 conflict. 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald, no 

10 conflict with Mound. 

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Ron Buchanan, SC&A, 

12 no conflict with Mound. 

13 MR. KATZ: And SC&A on the line. 

14 DR. BISTLINE: Bob Bistline. SC&A. 

15 No conflict. 

16 MR. KATZ: Very good. Federal 

17 officials or contractors to the feds, HHS, 

18 DOL, DOE in the room: right now we do not have 

19 attendance yet. 

20 On the line? 

21 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, Department 

22 of Labor. 

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7 

1 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, NIOSH 

2 contractor. 

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. That was Jeff 

4 Kotsch and Nancy --

5 MR. KOTSCH: I'm sorry, yes. Jeff 

6 Kotsch, Department of Labor. 

7 MR. KATZ: And Nancy Adams that's a 

8 contractor to NIOSH. 

9 Others? 

10 DR. AL-NABULSI: Isaf Al-Nabulsi, 

11 DOE. 

12 MR. KATZ: Welcome. 

13 DR. AL-NABULSI: Thanks. 

14 MR. KATZ: Very good. And now any 

15 members of the public on the line. There are 

16 none in the room. 

17 Great. Okay. We'll acknowledge 

18 others as they join us because I'm sure OGC, 

19 at least, will join us. 

20 So do you want to get things 

21 rolling on the agenda? 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. The agenda is 

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8 

1 posted online for anyone that doesn't have it 

2 in front of them. We are going to start this 

3 morning with neutron dose reconstructions. I 

4 did not put times down purposefully because I 

5 do not know how long the discussions will 

6 take. And the end time today is, I'm 

7 assuming, 4:00 to 4:30. 

8 We're going to then go into stable 

9 tritium compounds, discuss radon, 

10 adequacy/completeness of internal dose, the 

11 high-fired Pu-238. We're going to talk about 

12 the roadmap and D&D issues. 

13 At the end of this, we will 

14 hopefully make recommendations amongst the 

15 Work Group to take to the Board for our next 

16 meeting in Idaho in August. 

17 Ted, I'll turn it back over to you. 

18 MR. KATZ: Sure, and Emily Howell 

19 has joined us in the room for OGC HHS. 

20 So I just want to make a disclosure 

21 at the head of this meeting. SC&A is rolling 

22 out but doesn't -- hasn't had any place in the 

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9 

1 past, an attribution policy for its documents 

2 such that all authors involved in any given 

3 document are identified in its document, as 

4 well as the review chain for clearing the 

5 document are identified. 

6 So that's coming, but it doesn't 

7 exist in a consistent way currently or it 

8 hasn't in the past. So we have two documents 

9 that I think -- I believe just two documents 

10 that we're dealing with today. 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Three. Two on 

12 neutrons and one on completeness and adequacy 

13 of internal --

14 MR. KATZ: Well, let me finish and 

15 then you can correct me if I'm wrong. 

16 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. 

17 MR. KATZ: I think there are two 

18 documents that are being discussed today where 

19 we have -- I should make a disclosure because 

20 we have a person who is a primary or a leading 

21 author for it who has a conflict. And that is 

22 the adequacy/completeness of internal dose. I 

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10 

1 believe that document or however it's titled, 

2 Adequacy of Data. And a very brief piece on 

3 tritium, stable tritium. Joe authored that, 

4 but that was investigated by Kathy and Joe 

5 substantially, too. 

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

7 MR. KATZ: So, Kathy Roberston8 DeMers, just again for disclosure, she worked 

9 at Mound and she, thus, is a potential 

10 claimant down the road or a potential 

11 beneficiary if there's an SEC Class to be 

12 added to Mound down the road. 

13 And so going forward, people, since 

14 February we've had a policy. We've sort of --

15 well, continuing this program. This program 

16 has worked with tightening its policies for 

17 conflict of interest and appearance of bias. 

18 And we've been doing a lot of work 

19 over the past year and we rolled out a policy 

20 in February that sort of canvasses and sort of 

21 equalizes things across the landscape here 

22 with Board members and contractors and NIOSH 

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11 

1 employees to the extent that can be equalized 

2 in terms of how conflicts of interest and 

3 appearances of biases are addressed. 

4 And SC&A is busily implementing --

5 developing and implementing a new conflict of 

6 interest plan which will end up on the web 

7 when it's completed. Steve Ostrow is leading 

8 that effort and getting its ducks in a row to 

9 implement it at the same time as they're 

10 developing the plan that will be published. 

11 And there will be new disclosure statements 

12 and so on. That will all appear on the web. 

13 But so, I just wanted to say at the 

14 outset of this, since we're discussing two 

15 documents for which, under the new policy 

16 Kathy DeMers would be found to have an 

17 appearance of bias issue, that she was the 

18 author of those. 

19 And I don't know any of these other 

20 documents -- is she a primary on any of these 

21 other documents that are being discussed 

22 today? 

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12 

1 MR. FITZGERALD: No, the only 

2 correction I would make is I'm the primary on 

3 the tritides piece. 

4 MR. KATZ: Right. 

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

6 MR. KATZ: Right. Okay. And that's 

7 it. Thank you. 

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, Joe, if you 

10 would like to get us started on neutrons? 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. This is Joe 

12 Fitzgerald, SC&A. We're going through on the 

13 topic of neutron dose reconstructibility, and 

14 I was reflecting on the history. We've had, I 

15 think, a pretty vigorous and productive 

16 discussion on this. It's covered a lot of 

17 time, but it's been, I think, a pretty good 

18 discussion on the aspects of the ER that dealt 

19 with neutron dosimetry. 

20 As far as background, I'm going to 

21 turn to Ron in a bit to give a little bit 

22 because every time we have these meetings that 

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13 

1 are six months, eight months apart, the thread 

2 gets a little weak. So I think it's useful 

3 just to make sure we're on the same page as 

4 far as what we would see as the history of 

5 this thing. 

6 We identified in the past issues 

7 related to the coworker approach in terms of 

8 applying derived N/P ratios. That was one 

9 issue and certainly also mentioned some 

10 concern over the use of the categorical dose 

11 rather than the actual dose felt at the NTA. 

12 And this is the early period: 51 to 60. 

13 So there was a number of issues. 

14 Some of which we felt were, as John would say, 

15 tractable and the discussion was centered on 

16 that. The most recent development, the one 

17 that perhaps we were particularly concerned 

18 about was the proposal, the proposed 

19 application of the MCNP model, the Monte Carlo 

20 model for addressing the low-energy neutrons 

21 being at issue. And that was introduced in 

22 the December 2009 -- I think I got the date 

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14 

1 right -- White Paper that the Work Group 

2 received. 

3 And this was just before the 

4 January 5th and 6th Work Group meeting. And I 

5 remember because we were quickly and busily 

6 looking at this over the holidays, but we 

7 didn't really get a chance to spend much time 

8 with it except just to ask clarifying 

9 questions. And as this group will remember, 

10 we had a pretty detailed discussion with the 

11 help and facilitation of two former Mound 

12 workers at the last Work Group meeting which, 

13 you know, we were looking at the configuration 

14 that they could recall in some of these plant 

15 locations. 

16 We were asking questions about the 

17 shielding involved. I think there was some 

18 question of shielding. And that was helpful 

19 because I think they shed some light on what 

20 shielding would have been used back in that 

21 time, which has some real significance for 

22 what the attenuation might be. 

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15 

1 And the way that was left, I think, 

2 was to go back and examine the MCNP 

3 application, the use of this new approach, 

4 this new tool and the implications of applying 

5 that new tool relative to things like the 

6 attenuation afforded by this shielding, the 

7 thickness of the material in the gloveboxes 

8 and some of the other issues, and this was a 

9 large part of what we examined. 

10 It is a bit of a detour because 

11 this was an issue we had not seen coming in 

12 terms of the MCNP application and these 

13 implications. But I think over the last 

14 several months both NIOSH and SC&A had looked 

15 at that and are bringing that back to the Work 

16 Group. And this is the thrust of the several 

17 White Papers that have come out: was to look 

18 at this particular issue and to examine it 

19 since it is a relatively new proposal that has 

20 come before. 

21 And as I recall, this is the first 

22 time, and, Jim, you can correct me, but that 

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16 

1 MCNP -- used in this application. So it was 

2 something we wanted to take a look at, and I 

3 think the Work Group wanted NIOSH to come back 

4 with something as well. 

5 So we had done that and we do have 

6 some questions which we'll get into, but again 

7 I think Ron's been sort of our go-to person 

8 for neutrons. So I wanted to go ahead and 

9 have him walk through a little bit of this 

10 history, then where we came out relative to 

11 these analyses. 

12 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Thank you, 

13 Joe. 

14 Mr. Ron Buchanan with SC&A. And 

15 what I'd like to do, we've all done a lot of 

16 things since January 5th, so I wanted to go 

17 back through how this progressed the last 

18 couple of years and why it is an issue. 

19 Recently in TBD-6, it was decided 

20 to apply some correction factors for the 

21 lower-energy threshold cutoff and for fading 

22 for angular response. 

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17 

1 And later on then when these came 

2 in to question, then the MCNP tool was used to 

3 further qualify the amount of dose lost 

4 between -- below the threshold. And again I'd 

5 like to go back over some very basic 

6 interactions of the neutrons with the 

7 dosimeters so we can understand why this is an 

8 issue. 

9 NTA film was used at most sites in 

10 the 50s, 60s and 70s. At Mound it was used --

11 we're talking about the period from 49 through 

12 77, NTA film, which is an emulsion. 

13 The neutron interacts with the 

14 hydrogen, creates a recoil proton, creates 

15 tracks in the emulsion, and then someone has 

16 to look at that through a microscope and count 

17 the number of tracks and relate that to the 

18 dose. And I go into that level of detail 

19 because this is different than photon film. 

20 Most gamma and X-ray films, you read the 

21 density automatically through a densitometer 

22 and it's a fairly simple process. 

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1 Neutron detection is always more 

2 complicated. NTA film is more complicated; 

3 it's prone to errors and also calibration 

4 factors. 

5 And so NTA film starts to decrease 

6 its response as the energy of the neutron 

7 decreases because it doesn't create as many 

8 tracks. The reader has to see at least three 

9 dots in the track to be able to identify it as 

10 a dot and not some background. 

11 And so the problem at Mound is that 

12 if the worker is exposed to low-energy 

13 neutrons, then some of these neutrons will 

14 create minimum tracks, say three dots or less 

15 and so some of that information is lost to the 

16 reader. And so if you're calibrating with a 

17 higher-energy neutron source and using that 

18 calibration factor and you're reading film 

19 that's exposed to a lower-energy neutron 

20 source, you'll not read all the dose. You 

21 won't record all the dose and so this is where 

22 you need a correction factor to compensate. 

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19 

1 Say, for example, the person was 

2 exposed to a hundred millirems and the reader 

3 only reads 75 millirems because some of the 

4 dots were too short to register. And so you 

5 would need to correct it by 1.3, one over .75, 

6 to get back to the hundred millirem. 

7 Now the problem is you have to know 

8 what the energy spectrum is out in the field 

9 where the worker is actually working to attain 

10 this correction factor. And so originally in 

11 the TBD-6, it was set at 1.14 from the 

12 Savannah River data. We questioned that and 

13 some other factors, and so NIOSH went back and 

14 used the MCNP tool, which is simply a 

15 scientific program. 

16 It's like your -- a very 

17 complicated calculator. Okay. You put 

18 parameters in and those calculations follows 

19 each neutron, says how many below the 

20 threshold, and that's what NIOSH used then to 

21 make the adjustment factor. You must realize 

22 that MCNP is a tool. It's a computer program 

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20 

1 and what it depends on is what you put into 

2 it. Do you put in the right parameters, you 

3 know, garbage in/garbage out or correct 

4 information in/correct information out. 

5 And so what we wanted to look at 

6 was what parameters NIOSH was putting into the 

7 program, and were these realistic for the 

8 Mound site? And so the debate came out, like 

9 Joe referred to, in the January 5th meeting as 

10 what was the parameters that were put in and 

11 was it realistic. 

12 Well, some of the former workers 

13 said you can have up to 12 inches of 

14 moderation. Now shielding is good in any 

15 case. However, as you moderate the neutrons, 

16 they decrease in energy, and so you lose more 

17 and more of them falling below the readable 

18 threshold. And so in that case it's 

19 detrimental because you lose more and more of 

20 the information. And so you have to make an 

21 increased adjustment factor for that. 

22 And so what we wanted to see was we 

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21 

1 -- SC&A ran their own simulation to look at 

2 how many would fall below the threshold as 

3 compared to what NIOSH presented and did we 

4 agree. 

5 Number one, did we agree that the 

6 neutron energies did not fall off to the point 

7 where you couldn't detect them? I mean, you 

8 could envision a situation where the neutrons 

9 would fall below the threshold, all of them or 

10 90 percent of them, and you couldn't detect 

11 them. And so you don't have that information 

12 to correct. 

13 Well we did these simulations using 

14 our own equations and such and we found out 

15 our number one thing we wanted to look at was, 

16 did they all fall below the detectable 

17 threshold. And, no, they didn't. Even if you 

18 went out to 12 inches of water, you still --

19 the neutron spectrum flattened out and you 

20 still had an array of neutrons, some higher-, 

21 medium-, and low-energy that were detectable. 

22 And so this was one of the basic 

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22 

1 questions we wanted to answer. And using our 

2 model -- our simulations, we found out that 

3 that about eight to ten inches of water was 

4 the most claimant-favorable position to use. 

5 Since we didn't know what all the 

6 gloveboxes consisted of and stuff and we said 

7 the maximum 12 inches, we ran it from zero to 

8 12 inches. We found eight to ten inches of 

9 water maximized the correction factor and 

10 would be claimant-favorable without -- and be 

11 plausible. And so we ran those simulations to 

12 check on that. 

13 Also, we ran the simulations to see 

14 how they compared with NIOSH's model presented 

15 in their December of 09 paper. And what we 

16 found was we actually, to put it simply, NIOSH 

17 looked at using the Monte Carlo technique to 

18 look at the number of neutrons that fell below 

19 a half MeV and say that 25 percent fell below 

20 a half MeV. 

21 So you do a correction factor of 

22 one over .75, 1.3, times the recorded dose. A 

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1 fairly simplistic point of view. Now what we 

2 did, we went back and we got to looking at the 

3 Mound data and the -- Meyer's log book and his 

4 report, and found out that Mound used a lot of 

5 different conversion factors during their 

6 history. 

7 Back in the 50s, 60s and into the 

8 70s, neutrons were kind of a new area that 

9 people were working in, and they weren't sure 

10 what the conversion factor from flux to dose 

11 was. In other words, how many particles per 

12 centimeter squared per second created one 

13 millirem of dose? 

14 Sometimes they used 50, they were 

15 going to use 27 and a half, sometimes they 

16 used 70. So it varied over a wide factor 

17 through the years at Mound, but it was 

18 recorded. 

19 And so what we did with our 

20 simulations, we used the Lehman document to go 

21 back to the very basics, the primary principle 

22 of neutron interactions in the emulsion and 

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1 determine how many tracks would be created 

2 that were recognizable in the emulsion, and 

3 then calculated what the correction factor 

4 would be from that -- folding in. 

5 What we did, we backed out, we --

6 Mound -- flux-to-dose conversion factor which 

7 changed periodically. We knew when it 

8 changed. Backed that out and in so that that 

9 wouldn't influence the dose on a superficial 

10 basis that we would have the raw data, so to 

11 speak, without the correction factor that 

12 Mound had used, implied. 

13 And so going from first principle, 

14 we derived that, like I say, eight to ten 

15 inches was the most claimant-favorable 

16 thickness moderator to use. The neutron flux 

17 flattened out so it was usable. And that the 

18 observer position -- now when you talk about 

19 tools and modeling, the MCNP is a tool, a 

20 complicated calculator. The modeling comes in 

21 when you put in parameters. Okay. What 

22 parameters you put in. 

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25 

1 Okay. The problem came up was, at 

2 Mound they had no real specific neutron 

3 energy. And so we had to say -- measured in 

4 the field that was really documented that we 

5 could use as benchmarks. And so what we have 

6 to use is what we think a maximum thickness 

7 would be for the person that would be exposed 

8 to the maximum low-energy neutrons that 

9 wouldn't be registered, et cetera. 

10 And NIOSH set up what they 

11 considered a maximum exposure potential, which 

12 was a concrete silo with a source in the 

13 middle with zero to six inches, we extend it 

14 up to 12 inches, of water moderator of 

15 polyethylene, and then count the scattering 

16 the low-energy neutrons created. So that's 

17 the modeling we did and the parameters you put 

18 into the MCNP. 

19 And so what we found out was that 

20 it appears to us that the MCNP can be used as 

21 a tool, a complicated calculator, to take 

22 these parameters and calculate the amount of 

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1 correction factor that should be applied from 

2 first principles, not necessarily just how 

3 many fell below the half MeV, because we came 

4 out with factors that differed from NIOSH. 

5 Some were lower correction factors; some were 

6 much higher. 

7 And we really don't know exactly 

8 why, other than we backed out the dose 

9 conversion factors and started off with the 

10 raw data, so to speak. We used up to 12 

11 inches of water rather than stopping at six, 

12 and several other details which we can get 

13 into more, if it's necessary. 

14 But we did reach two conclusions. 

15 Number one is that it looks like it's a usable 

16 tool. Number two, we don't agree with the 

17 correction factors provided. So far we think 

18 they missed too much of a dose. Another 

19 reason is that, really, the decrease in 

20 sensitivity in NTA film is not a step 

21 function. 

22 You don't really have a threshold 

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1 at .5 or .7, .8. It varies across, depending 

2 on who you talk to, but .5 is a little low. 

3 But even if you assume that, it isn't a step 

4 function. 

5 Any time your exposure field is 

6 lower, is more moderated than your calibration 

7 source -- which Mound used an unmoderated 

8 calibration source -- then you're going to 

9 lose some neutrons. And it's a rapid decrease 

10 from your calibration source down to where you 

11 can't read anything at all about .4, .5. 

12 And so we actually used the slope 

13 of the curve as opposed to a threshold. And 

14 so that could explain some of the difference, 

15 too. So we came up with the fact that it is 

16 usable. However, I think first principles 

17 need to be used rather than just a cutoff 

18 point. 

19 Now this did lead to another 

20 situation we found, was that fading is 

21 important in NTA film both for if you use a 

22 correction factor or you use a cycling method. 

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1 And let me go a little bit into 

2 fading because it's somewhat connected to what 

3 I just talked about, is that as the neutron 

4 energy decreases, you create smaller tracks. 

5 And so if you have a high-energy source, say a 

6 4 MeV or even a 2 MeV neutron source, bare 

7 source and you expose the film to it and you 

8 create six to eight dots per track and some of 

9 them - half of them fade away, you still got 

10 three left and so you count that. 

11 With high-energy Pu-Be or Po-Be 

12 sources around 4 to 5 MeV, you can expose them 

13 and within a week or two read them, and you 

14 have a small amount of track fading. However, 

15 if you expose an NTA film to lower-energy 

16 neutrons, say plutonium fluoride which Mound 

17 started using then in 63/64 time frame, then 

18 you start getting more fading. And Mound 

19 recognized that, and they did three papers. 

20 One was an undated, unsigned two21 page letter memo -- it wasn't a report -- that 

22 saw nine percent fading. Another one was a 

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1 published Mound Publication 1490: 33 and 56 

2 percent fading at one week and two weeks 

3 respectively. Another one saw 16 and 30 

4 percent fading or something like that. 

5 Now the problem is none of these 

6 matched the workers' fields because the 

7 workers' fields was moderated. And these were 

8 done without moderation other than the last 

9 one I spoke of and it was moderated higher 

10 energy source. So it brought it back down to 

11 about 50 fluoride energy range. 

12 So we're looking at the fading 

13 studies done at 1.3 MeV average energy, and 

14 we're looking at the worker, what little, 

15 scarce information we have at Mound, around .8 

16 MeV was some of the average energies measured 

17 out in the field, .75, .9. 

18 So your fading is going to go away 

19 faster on your low-energy neutrons and that's 

20 just a known fact. And so our concern at this 

21 point is that in the TBD, they recommend on 

22 Page 30, they recommend 33 and 56 percent 

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1 fading, 33 percent for one week, 56 percent 

2 for two weeks. 

3 And this was taken from an 

4 unmoderated PuF source which would be slightly 

5 higher in energy than you have out in the 

6 field. And then in the ER they recommend a 

7 nine percent fading factor taken from the 

8 unnamed, unpublished report. 

9 And so we find that fading -- doing 

10 this MCNP analysis and looking at the fading 

11 documents at Mound, we did not find where --

12 that it was documented where they did a fading 

13 study using the appropriate moderated source 

14 either for a correction factor to go back and 

15 multiply it by, or when they started cycling. 

16 Now when they recognized this they 

17 decided, well, we need to do our calibration 

18 in the same sequence that the worker is 

19 exposed. In other words, if we're on a two20 week cycle and we expose a calibration film, 

21 one every day to a little bit of radiation for 

22 two weeks assuming the worker is even exposed 

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1 through those two weeks, then our calibration 

2 fading will match that to the worker, and 

3 that's a good idea. That's halfway home. 

4 But the other part we didn't 

5 incorporate was when they used the calibration 

6 source, they didn't use a moderated source. 

7 They used a bare source, which would have 

8 higher-energy neutrons. 

9 The worker was out there, say his 

10 film badge went a week or two weeks, and he 

11 was exposed to lower-energy neutrons in many 

12 cases. So he would have a greater percent of 

13 fading. 

14 And so the fading studies done at 

15 Mound, like I say, was halfway there, but they 

16 didn't use moderated. So the worker would 

17 have a lower reported dose than he should have 

18 even after he corrected for the cycle or a 

19 calibration factor. 

20 So, as far as the recorded NTA data 

21 that the dose reconstructor is going to use 

22 when he does -- dose-reconstructs a claim, he 

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1 will be using the data that's recorded which 

2 everybody admits is low. However, the 

3 correction factor for the number, the amount 

4 of dose lost below the threshold, and that's 

5 lost because it wasn't readable because of 

6 fading, will be lower than what the ER reports 

7 its correction factors will correct for. 

8 And so that is where we're at on 

9 that. That's the two issues we have with MCNP 

10 is that we feel that it needs to be run more 

11 realistically, and that the fading factor 

12 needs to be addressed. 

13 We don't feel that it has been 

14 sufficiently addressed. It's kind of been on 

15 the table but not really addressed, and we 

16 felt it is headed in the wrong direction going 

17 from the TBD to the ER. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: So, NIOSH, do you want 

19 to jump in? 

20 I know, John, you had --

21 DR. MAURO: The only -- I guess in 

22 listening to the issues, it seems to me that 

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1 the -- when we first began this, the main 

2 concern was that, you know, we have more than 

3 two inches of shielding, could have as many as 

4 12. 

5 I guess I walk away after talking 

6 to Joe and Ron about, well, this really made 

7 me concerned, you know. That has to be looked 

8 at and whether or not we had a tractable 

9 situation. And the reality is we do have a 

10 tractable situation. 

11 That is, yes, you could add 12 

12 inches and there are ways to accommodate that. 

13 It's not that when you have 12 inches all of 

14 a sudden you can't detect anything. You're 

15 going to get a reading on your film badge that 

16 - and you can derive adjustment factors to 

17 account for the fact that you've attenuated 

18 the film. 

19 So the way I look at it is that 

20 part of the problem appears to be a tractable 

21 problem. The problem, of course, is that we 

22 feel that the adjustment factors that you 

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1 folks derived and the method you used needs to 

2 be looked at again because we've actually come 

3 up with adjustment factors that are somewhat 

4 different. As Ron pointed out, in some cases 

5 our adjustment factor is lower, but in some 

6 cases they are quite a bit higher, but I think 

7 it's tractable. 

8 The part of the problem that Ron 

9 just described that we don't know how to 

10 approach it is the business of fading. What 

11 factors do you apply? 

12 Right now I believe you are 

13 recommending a nine percent fading factor per 

14 week, I believe it is. Based on -- as Ron 

15 described, we don't think that number is 

16 necessarily the correct number. It could be 

17 higher, and it could be substantially higher 

18 because that nine percent was based on looking 

19 at fading from a naked source with a 

20 relatively higher energy distribution than an 

21 attenuated source. 

22 Now it's possible that there's some 

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1 literature out there that would give insight 

2 into, okay, what's the fading factor per week, 

3 the percent per week loss or an attenuated 

4 neutron spectrum that's closer to the 

5 attenuated spectrum that we now know based on 

6 our calculations. 

7 So I mean -- so I see that we have 

8 what I would call part of the problem is 

9 certainly tractable, but right now with the 

10 other part we're not sure. And that's the 

11 fading part. 

12 With regard to modeling, I know 

13 that modeling is of great importance to the 

14 Work Group and to the Board. And I know it 

15 was extensively discussed regarding Blockson, 

16 and they were concerns. Some folks liked the 

17 model, some folks didn't like the model. 

18 I just wanted to point out that in 

19 this case that we call MCNP a model, but it's 

20 important to recognize it's a physics model. 

21 Which means that it's sort of like gravity or 

22 a point-kernel. In other words if you know 

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1 the initial conditions and you correctly 

2 design the initial conditions, define the 

3 initial conditions, the physics of it are 

4 straightforward. 

5 The questions you could ask: are 

6 the cross-sections proper. Well, these are 

7 well established. The MCNP cross-sections, 

8 neutron interaction, well researched, well 

9 documented, well tested. So if you define 

10 your initial conditions correctly, you are 

11 very confident that the outcome of your 

12 calculation is going to be correct. 

13 One of the issues that was raised 

14 originally was, well, we have to use at least 

15 some information that's site-specific. And so 

16 this is required by Part 83. 

17 And so the way I see it is that, 

18 well, some of the site-specific information we 

19 have is we know something about the neutron 

20 sources. And we also have information 

21 regarding the actual readout on the NTA film. 

22 So that's site-specific. 

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1 One of the questions that came up 

2 that we specifically looked at, but we really 

3 didn't look at the geometry and the kind of 

4 glovebox and could that have a bearing on the 

5 outcome, an initial condition, and it turns 

6 out it doesn't. It really doesn't matter what 

7 kind of glovebox you have. 

8 What does matter is the thickness 

9 of the shielding, of course the original naked 

10 source, and what the outcome of your film 

11 badge reading is, but it doesn't really matter 

12 what glovebox you use. Another thing that 

13 mattered is we assumed when we looked at the 

14 problem, one of our concerns was, is the 

15 source in front of the person or is it 

16 possible that there's another glovebox behind 

17 the guy. 

18 For example, I'm working on a 

19 glovebox standing here and working. Okay. 

20 Here's my neutron source. And here's some 

21 shielding between me and my film badge, right? 

22 And we model that using MCNP, a 

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1 physics problem. And the thing that's 

2 important is we know what the energy spectrum 

3 is at the source, we know how thick, how many 

4 feet of water. Okay. And then we've got our 

5 reading, and it's a physics problem now. 

6 And the fact that it's in this box, 

7 how the box is shaped and what it's made out 

8 of really doesn't change anything. But what 

9 does change something is if there's another 

10 guy over here working in this neutron source 

11 right back to back. Okay. Then what happens 

12 is all bets are off. 

13 But based on the information we 

14 have, and, Joe, you could confirm this when we 

15 were speaking, and you folks were interviewing 

16 a lot of folks, we really only have AP, 

17 anterior posterior, exposure geometry. We 

18 don't have a significant source of neutrons 

19 coming from behind the person. 

20 So when we looked at the problem, 

21 our initial conditions, we basically said here 

22 we have the source and there's a concrete 

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1 room, we have certain dimensions, it was 

2 concrete because you get scatter and it's all 

3 built into the calculation, but we do not 

4 assume that there is another neutron source 

5 behind the guy coming in through him from the 

6 back. And if that's the case, if there's 

7 reason to believe that that in fact exists, 

8 well, then we have a problem. 

9 But right now given the initial 

10 conditions and our understanding of them, we 

11 feel that you have a tractable problem. And 

12 the only part of the adjustment factors that 

13 we don't know what the answers are, and I 

14 guess we look to NIOSH to look into this 

15 matter, is the fading question. Because the 

16 fading is going to be greater for an 

17 attenuated source than an unattenuated source. 

18 But we do feel strongly that MCNP 

19 is a very useful, powerful tool as long as you 

20 have the initial conditions well defined. 

21 Thank you. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: And just so I 

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1 understand, and then the moderator, how many 

2 inches you use, that's important also? 

3 DR. MAURO: Yes, what we found out -

4 - in fact, we have a table that you haven't 

5 seen this. What happens is the -- let's say I 

6 -- we have a naked source, and I know what the 

7 dose is to me from the naked source. And 

8 let's say that's one. The dose is one. All 

9 right. 

10 Now as you increase the amount of 

11 water attenuating it, what happens is you have 

12 to multiply that. Because you're starting to 

13 attenuate a source, you have to apply an 

14 adjustment factor. You're going to start to 

15 lose the tracks. You're going to start losing 

16 tracks and you're going to -- if you don't 

17 take into consideration the attenuation. 

18 And you hear people say, well, it 

19 flattens out. Well, what does it -- the 

20 adjustment flattens out. Well, what happens 

21 is if you add one inch, you have to multiply 

22 whatever dose you're reading by a factor: 1.1. 

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1 You have to say, well, it's reading 

2 one, let's say. But because you have an inch 

3 -- that would be for the naked source. But if 

4 you put an inch in of water, you might have to 

5 multiply that by 1.1. If you put two inches, 

6 you might have to multiply by 1.15. 

7 And what we did is we looked at as 

8 you added more and more inches of water, 

9 shielding, you have to have an adjustment 

10 factor that gets higher and higher. Well, it 

11 turns out that it does flatten out. When you 

12 reach around -- depending on the distance, 

13 there are other variables, but it does flatten 

14 out. 

15 That is once you reach eight, nine 

16 inches, the multiplier may go up as high as 

17 1.3, maybe 1.4. And then when you add more 

18 inches, it doesn't change. You have to go to 

19 11 inches, you go to 12 inches, it's 1.4, 1.4. 

20 It doesn't change. 

21 So the multiplier flattens out and 

22 that's a very important finding because that 

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1 makes this a tractable problem. And so that 

2 was, I would say, the single most important 

3 finding that concern -- initial concern at the 

4 meeting. Does it flatten out? 

5 Or the real concern was let's say 

6 you had 12 inches and you're getting -- and 

7 all the neutrons that are coming off the naked 

8 source are all below .4 MeV. 

9 Now here's a guy standing there, 

10 he's getting hit with a flux of .4 MeV 

11 neutrons, but the film badge is not reading 

12 anything. That was the problem. That's an 

13 impossible situation, but that didn't happen. 

14 Reality is we still get plenty of 

15 neutrons that you can count and you could 

16 predict what the adjustment factor is and it 

17 does flatten out. Now where it flattens out 

18 is -- it depends, but we're finding out even, 

19 you know, maybe under all circumstances at 

20 around eight inches, it flattens out. 

21 So you can put an upper bound on 

22 what the adjustment factor is to account for 

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1 the amount of shielding there is. So I mean 

2 we come away from this thinking that a large 

3 portion of the concerns we have, have been 

4 alleviated in terms of, I think we have a 

5 tractable situation, except one. And that is 

6 the adjustment factor for this fading issue. 

7 And I think that -- is there any 

8 more to the story that you think -- or is that 

9 really what it boils down to? 

10 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think that 

11 captures it. And the question, you know, the 

12 one question in January was applying the MCNP 

13 as a whole in terms of, you know, a more 

14 generalized tool, model and whether that 83 --

15 the regs, but I think that again we felt 

16 better going through the analysis and doing 

17 that. 

18 We have other issues on the 

19 coworker model, but I think I want to hold 

20 those because I think we're focused -- pardon 

21 me? 

22 CHAIR BEACH: And I was going to say 

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44 

1 if anybody had any questions on the first two 

2 issues that Ron brought up and then --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think we 

4 should keep on those issues and then --

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

6 MR. FITZGERALD: -- go to NIOSH 

7 and, you know, I think that's pretty much a 

8 thumbnail sketch of where we came out. 

9 CHAIR BEACH: Any other questions on 

10 those first two? 

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: I just wanted to 

12 clarify because the issue of the possibility 

13 of another bank of gloveboxes behind, we 

14 discussed that at pretty much length the last 

15 time. 

16 And it seems to me as I recall, 

17 that we had a pretty good picture of the 

18 layout from the workers that were here and 

19 then we determined that either the distance or 

20 the -- in fact, there wasn't another bank 

21 behind it. I can't remember which it was, but 

22 --

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45 

1 CHAIR BEACH: Paul, I thought there 

2 was, but the distance was great. 

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: There's two sets of 

4 gloveboxes. 

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, yes. But it's 

6 not like they were right -- the distance was 

7 really great. You know, there's another 

8 important factor that causes the value to fall 

9 off. It's basically an inverse square thing 

10 plus the moderation. 

11 And I think one could calculate 

12 this, but intuitively the contribution from 

13 basically thermal neutrons at that distance 

14 compared to the direct has got to be awfully 

15 small. 

16 DR. MAURO: That's where we came out 

17 also. 

18 MR. FITZGERALD: And that was the 

19 most valuable input, as you said, having the 

20 workers put --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: -- schematics up 

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46 

1 because in one case you had a horseshoe with 

2 the workers on the outside of one building, 

3 and then you had a bank of --

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: If this is --

5 CHAIR BEACH: Just a sec, Bob. 

6 We'll get right to you. 

7 MR. KATZ: Bob, there's a discussion 

8 going on. 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: You had, as you 

10 said, two parallel banks, but they were so far 

11 apart. 

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right, right. 

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Twenty-five feet or 

14 so. 

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Twenty-five feet or 

16 so. So it wouldn't have been an issue. So 

17 that was --

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right, but I didn't 

19 want us to get into that sort of complicating 

20 factor because I think the main issues at 

21 least have been identified here, we can, you 

22 know, debate on what the correction factors 

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1 would be. 

2 And the theoretical models we like 

3 to rely on, but also in a practical situation 

4 those field measurements still are important. 

5 And they don't always agree because you can't 

6 really model the detail of the whole thing, 

7 you know. You have the workers' bodies 

8 moderating and so on. But I think the issue 

9 of how they calibrate is an important one to 

10 think about with the bare source. 

11 As I understand it, the film badges 

12 in those days didn't have a -- a lot of 

13 neutron badges in more recent decades have had 

14 a moderator ahead of the film, but they 

15 weren't doing that at that time, I don't 

16 think. 

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Other than just the 

18 wrapper and the --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, no, I'm talking 

20 about the --

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Cadmium filters? 

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Huh? 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Cadmium filters or 

2 something? 

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, no, not cadmium. 

4 No, no, no, no. 

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Excuse me. This is 

6 Bob Anigstein, SC&A. 

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, Bob may recall, 

8 but -

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: The Mound film badge 

10 had a one-millimeter cadmium filter in front 

11 and behind. 

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's not a 

13 moderator, though. 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, no, no, but they 

15 did filter out -- so, Mound never made any 

16 attempt to count thermal neutrons. 

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: It filtered them 

18 out, but --

19 MR. KATZ: Bob, do you want to just 

20 address because you -- I don't think you were 

21 with us when we began, right? 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, he was. 

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1 MR. KATZ: You want to address 

2 whether you have any conflict of interest with 

3 Mound? 

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No conflict of 

5 interest. 

6 MR. KATZ: Thank you. Just for the 

7 record. 

8 DR. MAURO: Bob, did you have any --

9 I saw that you wanted to add something or --

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, I was just 

11 commenting, somebody, I'm not sure who, maybe 

12 this was Brant Ulsh, mentioned thermal 

13 neutrons. And thermal neutrons don't even 

14 enter into this because Mound deliberately or 

15 at least consciously did not count thermal 

16 neutrons. 

17 And we did not consider thermal 

18 neutrons either, because they were filtered 

19 out by the -- first they used one millimeter 

20 of cadmium. Later they switched to one 

21 millimeter of lead. 

22 That was my only comment other than 

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50 

1 the fact that I think it was -- I think it was 

2 pretty well covered. 

3 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Bob. 

4 Any other questions for Ron? John? 

5 MR. MORRIS: Brant, this is Bob 

6 Morris. Did you want me to jump in at this 

7 point? 

8 DR. ULSH: Well, in just a few 

9 seconds, Bob. I'm going to make a big attempt 

10 at some artwork. 

11 MR. MORRIS: All right. 

12 DR. ULSH: Which, unfortunately, you 

13 guys on the line won't be able to see. 

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Or fortunately. 

15 DR. ULSH: Yes, considering my lack 

16 of artistic ability. 

17 MR. MORRIS: Ted, this is Bob 

18 Morris. I have no conflict at Mound. 

19 MR. KATZ: Thank you for doing that, 

20 Bob. 

21 MR. MORRIS: I notice you didn't ask 

22 our last caller who has now hung up, whether 

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1 she had a conflict or not. 

2 MR. KATZ: I don't think she works 

3 for the Agency. 

4 DR. ULSH: Okay. So, it seems to me 

5 that while we can discuss whether or not we 

6 picked the right parameters for MCNP, I mean 

7 first of all we never had a question about 

8 MCNP whether it was applicable or not, because 

9 it's an industry standard. 

10 I mean pretty much everybody uses 

11 MCNP or some variant thereof. So, we always 

12 had confidence in it. 

13 But as Ron said as with any model, 

14 the validity of your output depends on the 

15 validity of your input, and so I think we 

16 could have further discussions. 

17 John uses the words tractable 

18 issues, I use the words TBD issues, and there 

19 might be some things for us to discuss there 

20 and, Bob, you might want to get into that when 

21 I turn it over to you, but by and large I 

22 guess what we're talking about now is the 

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1 fading issue. And I think Ron did a good job 

2 of queuing up what the issue is here, but 

3 there's one piece of the puzzle that I think 

4 we haven't discussed yet. 

5 And I would refer you back to our 

6 report dated March 18th, 2009, and there are a 

7 series of graphs there. And I'm going to 

8 attempt to reproduce it here, at least one of 

9 the examples, if I have a good marker. 

10 I'm also going to try to remember 

11 to speak into the microphone. But if I 

12 forget, someone please speak up if you can't 

13 hear me, and let me know. 

14 Okay. So, in our report back in 

15 March starting with -- Figure 7-10 is an 

16 example of one of those figures. 

17 And I'm going to draw here in the 

18 room -- this is an approximation of what that 

19 figure shows. And the x-axis is the energy of 

20 the neutrons. And the y-axis is the dose 

21 equivalent weighted spectra. And this is the 

22 piece that I think we're missing, dose 

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1 equivalent. 

2 So, think about in terms of a 

3 neutron source. And this is going to be a 

4 very imperfect analogy because I just thought 

5 of it during the discussion. 

6 If I'm standing in front of a 

7 glovebox with source material inside the 

8 glovebox and it's emitting neutrons, think of 

9 maybe a hose shooting out marbles. Okay? 

10 Again, I admit this is an imperfect analogy. 

11 There's a couple of things that 

12 you're going to be concerned with. How many 

13 marbles are coming out, that's one. Number 

14 two, how fast are they being -- what kind of 

15 energy do they have? How fast are they going 

16 to hit you? 

17 So when we talk about fading, what 

18 we're talking about is the number of marbles. 

19 Are we counting the right number of marbles? 

20 And the problem is, as Ron 

21 mentioned, once these marbles get below a 

22 certain energy, they are not registered on the 

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1 NTA film. 

2 So, you might undercount the number 

3 of marbles that actually would hit a person. 

4 Here's the missing piece, though. 

5 As those marbles lose energy, as they go 

6 through the shield and hit water, as they lose 

7 energy and become not visible or not 

8 detectable on an NTA film, you have to 

9 consider what is the effect on one of those 

10 marbles when they actually impact a person. 

11 And that's the piece that we're not 

12 considering. 

13 So, what I've drawn here is Figure 

14 7-10 from our report. And this is a dose 

15 equivalent. Dose equivalent is a way of 

16 calculating what the actual physical damage is 

17 to a person when hit by, in this case, a 

18 neutron. 

19 And what you see here is that most 

20 of what we see in this spectrum occurs up 

21 around one MeV, easily detectable by an NTA 

22 film. 

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1 And for those in the room when 

2 you're talking about dose equivalent in terms 

3 of dosimetric significance now, you're talking 

4 about the area under the curve. That's what 

5 we're concerned about. 

6 This is -- by the way, this x-axis 

7 is logarithmic scale. So, you've got one 

8 here, 0.1 here, 0.01 here. 

9 So, what I've drawn essentially if 

10 you think in terms of a normal x-y graph, is 

11 starting from the y-axis and going to the 

12 right, pretty much a straight, flat line at 

13 zero and then a hump out here by 1.0. 

14 So, what we're talking about with 

15 fading low-energy neutrons, those that are 

16 undetectable to an NTA film, largely we're 

17 talking about this part of the spectrum and 

18 whether or not we've counted the right number 

19 of marbles. 

20 I would submit to you it's not 

21 zero. I'm not going to say it's zero. But 

22 the impact of undercounting this number of 

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1 marbles even if we grant for argument's sake 

2 that that's the case, is minimal. We're 

3 tilting at windmills here. The impact in 

4 terms of a dose that a person would experience 

5 is almost trivial. 

6 So, you know, we can discuss 

7 whether we should apply a different fading 

8 factor. I think that's something that we can 

9 talk about. But we can't lose sight of the 

10 fact that the real action is up here where the 

11 NTA film adequately detects what a person is 

12 exposed to. 

13 So, Bob, with that I'll turn it 

14 over to you to pick up on that issue or any 

15 other issues that we discussed. 

16 MR. MORRIS: Okay. Thanks. 

17 Yes, we've come a long way since 

18 the original discussions where we were 

19 discussing whether MCNP was valid. The second 

20 conversation was, does it have site-specific 

21 gloveboxes designed into it. 

22 So, now we're to the point where 

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1 we're discussing what's the correct threshold 

2 for the cutoff for NTA sensitivity. 

3 Note that we have already picked a 

4 number at half an MeV, 500 keVs, that has been 

5 already endorsed under one of the NIOSH 

6 documents, Implementation Guide 1, if I recall 

7 correctly. 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is Bob 

9 Anigstein. Can I comment on that? 

10 MR. MORRIS: Can I just talk for a 

11 moment, please? 

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Sure. 

13 MR. MORRIS: Is that okay? 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, fine. 

15 MR. MORRIS: And so now we're at a 

16 point where we've actually accepted a number 

17 in terms of the threshold cutoff to use for 

18 the conversation at least that is based on 

19 guidance that can be reviewed by a procedures 

20 committee or something, some other form if we 

21 choose to. But at any rate, we've got a basis 

22 for choosing what we've chosen. 

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1 We have now gotten to the point 

2 where we're having a conversation about the 

3 location of the person who's getting the dose, 

4 the size and shape of the room that they're 

5 in. 

6 You notice that in many cases we've 

7 taken conservative, claimant-favorable 

8 approaches to these questions. 

9 For example, we put the worker in a 

10 silo of concrete that's fairly tightly 

11 constrained, actually, compared to the real 

12 workplace. 

13 Now, when you put concrete on all 

14 sides of a worker like that, you're going to 

15 increase the amount of scattering, lower the 

16 neutron energy and maximize the amount of low17 energy neutrons in that room, probably, 

18 compared to the reality of the situation. I 

19 think we need to acknowledge that. 

20 DR. ULSH: Actually, Bob --

21 MR. MORRIS: Also when we have 

22 chosen which correction factors to apply, 

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59 

1 we've chosen to use the ones for the observer 

2 location, not for the arm's-length worker 

3 location. 

4 And when you choose that one that's 

5 two-and-a-half meters away from where the 

6 worker is standing or from where the source 

7 is, you actually are going closer to those 

8 concrete walls standing in a softer neutron 

9 spectrum and consequently using the correction 

10 factor that is 10 or 15 percent higher than 

11 the one that the worker who's getting the most 

12 dose would actually see. 

13 So, whether or not we've got these 

14 numbers exactly right in terms of, you know, 

15 have we got a tally that is exactly the one 

16 that Drs. Ulsh and Anigstein would have 

17 chosen, I don't think that's really the issue. 

18 The issue is have we got a 

19 materially different outcome from what they 

20 would predict, or has it failed to be 

21 claimant-favorable, and I haven't heard in 

22 either case that we've got that. 

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60 

1 It certainly was not listed that 

2 way in the findings of the June 29th report of 

3 your review of the topic. 

4 So, my sense is that we can tune 

5 this up. We can leave it alone. In any case, 

6 we've got an approach and a value already on 

7 the table that's going to be good enough to 

8 make these dose estimates. 

9 DR. ULSH: So, I would just add, 

10 Bob, that, you know, you were describing the 

11 scenario that we modeled, a concrete silo and 

12 some other things. 

13 And for people who are listening on 

14 the phone who might have actually been there, 

15 I'm not aware of a situation where someone was 

16 actually working in a concrete silo. 

17 So, someone could make the argument 

18 that, well, this isn't realistic to what I was 

19 exposed to. And I think at least at the 

20 beginning, SC&A raised the same kinds of 

21 objections, in other words, that we had to 

22 model what the exact layout was at Mound. 

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1 And I -- the point that I made 

2 earlier and I'll repeat here, is that you are 

3 absolutely right. These are not realistic 

4 scenarios. They are not designed to be 

5 realistic scenarios. They are designed to be 

6 worst-case type of scenarios. 

7 Worst-case meaning whatever we're 

8 looking at. In this case, the amount of the 

9 neutrons that fall below the NTA threshold. 

10 These scenarios are designed to maximize that. 

11 So, there are some site-specific 

12 parameters that we're using. For instance, 

13 the source terms that actually existed at 

14 Mound, the kind of NTA or the kind of neutron 

15 detection systems that were used at Mound, 

16 that kind of thing, but we don't purport to 

17 show or to assert that these scenarios that 

18 we've modeled are 100 percent accurate for 

19 Mound. They're designed to give you a worst20 case answer. 

21 MR. KATZ: Bob, were you done? 

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, I want to talk 

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62 

1 about this .5 MeV issue. When he said it was 

2 in the guidance, the guidance does not 

3 actually say that. It simply mentions some 

4 reference. It says that it's not detectable 

5 below .5 MeV. 

6 The closest guidance that I was 

7 able to find in NIOSH documentation is OTIB8 51, which is -- technically it's applicable to 

9 Y-12, but the author reviews the literature on 

10 the thresholds: Kerr, et al. Kerr is the 

11 senior author. 

12 And to quote, he says the threshold 

13 energy of 700 keV appears to give a 

14 conservative estimate of the missed dose from 

15 NTA film measurements at most facilities. 

16 He then goes on to cite that there 

17 were some authors suggest higher, 800, 900. 

18 He settles on 700 as a conservative 

19 compromise. 

20 DR. ULSH: Okay. Well, here's the 

21 thing. This has been extensively discussed at 

22 Y-12, as you mentioned, with George Kerr. And 

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63 

1 the threshold, the energy threshold that you 

2 have for NTA film depends a lot on how you 

3 actually count the film. How many grains you 

4 actually count as a track. And that is site5 specific. 

6 So, yes, at some sites it might be 

7 800 because you had a higher threshold for --

8 higher criteria for determining what was a 

9 track. At some sites if you count three 

10 grains as a track, then the threshold is 

11 different. 

12 So, yes, there are some differences 

13 and we could discuss until we're blue in the 

14 face, because I know we already have, under Y15 12, what the exact value of that threshold is. 

16 Everyone agrees that there is a 

17 threshold and it's not a step function. We 

18 all agree to that, too. 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But that's the main 

20 point. I mean when Bob Morris, I believe it 

21 was, said there is so little dose below the 

22 threshold, using his marble analogy, I don't 

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1 quite agree because the -- our analysis which 

2 used a sliding threshold, and we made use of 

3 the curve that was derived by a man named 

4 Lehman at Berkeley Laboratory, at the Lawrence 

5 Berkeley Laboratory. 

6 Actually it stops at .4. At .4, he 

7 says it's zero. And then it starts gradually 

8 increasing. And then there is a maximum in 

9 the levels also. 

10 We actually multiplied each neutron 

11 that hits the badge through the attenuation. 

12 We multiplied the neutron energy by it's 

13 detectability. 

14 And what we found is that the -- as 

15 compared to the bare source which is used for 

16 calibration film, you might have to increase 

17 the factor by as much as 35 percent to account 

18 for the dose. 

19 In other words, if the film reader 

20 at Mound, by simply taking the worker's film 

21 and comparing it to the calibration source 

22 said, okay, we have a one-to-one relationship 

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65 

1 here if there is maybe eight inches of water, 

2 it could be that it -- if he recorded a 

3 hundred millirem, it actually could have been 

4 as high as 135 millirem. 

5 So, I consider that not trivial. 

6 DR. ULSH: Okay, but we're talking 

7 about --

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: And, by the way, the 

9 measure that we used was the ambient dose 

10 equivalent because that's one of the two 

11 measures that is in IG -- OCAS-IG-0001 for 

12 converting the measured dose to organ dose. 

13 Dose equivalent is not used in IG14 0001, and actually it's an obsolete concept 

15 going back to, what, 1971 from the NCRP 38 

16 report and there are big differences. 

17 There are differences, depending on 

18 the energy, as much as plus or minus 30 

19 percent between the ambient dose equivalent 

20 and the old conflict of dose equivalent. 

21 Just wanted to -- that may be a 

22 little pedantic, but I'm going to throw that 

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66 

1 in. 

2 So, we agree that the issue -- that 

3 John Mauro said and as Ron Buchanan said, we 

4 all agree that the issue is tractable. It's 

5 just a matter of debating which is the best 

6 correction factor to use. 

7 I'll just reiterate what I said 

8 before. The fading, we at SC&A having looked 

9 at -- having examined this and having a 

10 dosimetrist from -- a former dosimetrist from 

11 Los Alamos that worked with NTA film and 

12 specializes in neutrons, and we could not come 

13 up with -- find any literature or come up with 

14 an adjustment factor that would take care of 

15 fading of different energies. 

16 The various reports that Ron 

17 Buchanan mentioned that were cited in the 

18 Mound literature seem to be energy dependent. 

19 There was the one report that was 

20 done very carefully and was published, which 

21 was for PuF4, which has an average energy -

22 this is interesting. It has a total average 

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67 

1 energy of 1.3 MeV. 

2 But if you then discard the low3 energy neutrons and weight the neutron 

4 spectrum by its detectability using this 

5 Lehman calculation, it comes out that the 

6 average energy is actually 1.49. 

7 Well, that's the average energy of 

8 the neutron that you actually detect on the 

9 NTA film. 

10 And here we have many measurements 

11 within the plant, and I'm not looking at it 

12 now, but my memory serves that at some time at 

13 least one measurement, I seem to recall, is in 

14 that database referred to as NIOSH. NIOSH 

15 actually wrote about a 50-page report and then 

16 there is about a thousand pages of various 

17 documents interspersed between the pages. 

18 It's a report that we actually wrote. 

19 And I seem to recall .5 something 

20 in one particular location as the measured 

21 actual average neutron spectrum. 

22 So, they go down quite low, and the 

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68 

1 answer is how the fading -- the two reports on 

2 fading where they give details, there is more 

3 fading for the PuF4 source. 

4 The attenuated PuO2 source where 

5 they attempted, deliberately ran an experiment 

6 trying to see, can we account for the energy 

7 dependence of fading, and there was apparently 

8 an error in the report which was never issued 

9 which was in draft form where they say, well, 

10 with the -- I think they said eight inches of 

11 polyethylene, that the average energy is .9 

12 MeV. That's incorrect. 

13 It's actually about 1.8 MeV because 

14 we ran that simulation. We did ten inches of 

15 water. We did the same amount of hydrogen as 

16 eight inches of polyethylene. 

17 He did his calculations, he put 

18 down his result, but he made a misstatement in 

19 his report. 

20 So, actually he had a higher-energy 

21 source. And as one would predict from just 

22 first principles, there was less fading 

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69 

1 because, as Ron pointed out, I believe the 

2 threshold that they used at least in some 

3 cases, I mean the Lehman report is four 

4 grains. 

5 Anything under four grains could be 

6 background. Three grains you can just get 

7 from radiation background. 

8 So, if you have four grains and you 

9 lose one, you no longer have a track. If you 

10 have ten grains, I mean let's say you lose 

11 half the grains. So, if you lose - if you 

12 have four grains, you lose half the grains or 

13 even if you have six grains, you lose half the 

14 grains, you don't have a countable track. 

15 You have ten grains, you lose half 

16 the grains, you're left with five and you have 

17 a countable track. So the higher the energy, 

18 the less the fading. 

19 And there was another report that I 

20 can -- not from Mound; I think it was INL --

21 where they did a polonium-beryllium source 

22 which has over 4 MeV average energy and they 

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1 said, there's really no fading. 

2 There's some -- we did -- we look 

3 at this, we look at that, sometimes it's 

4 higher, sometimes it's lower, we can't really 

5 tell, we admit there's probably some fading, 

6 but the data is such it's so little that they 

7 really can't assign a number to it because 

8 they had high-energy source. They were losing 

9 dots, but not losing numbers of tracks. 

10 So, I'm just amplifying that this -

11 - what my colleagues have said, that this is 

12 an issue. And unless someone comes up with 

13 literature or someone commissions a laboratory 

14 study, which is something that certainly is 

15 doable, I mean the study can be doable, the 

16 commissioning of it may not be. 

17 I don't know how to do this. None 

18 of us know how to do this. 

19 DR. MAURO: This is John. I think 

20 what Bob Morris had mentioned is there are 

21 differences in models, the degree of 

22 conservatism, the assumptions made, certainly 

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71 

1 there's judgment involved in that, and I agree 

2 with all that. 

3 And when we did it and the 

4 judgments we made and the techniques we used, 

5 for example, using a continuous distribution 

6 of the energies that might be attenuated as 

7 opposed to a step function, there's all of 

8 this and I would agree it's all tractable. 

9 And the bottom line is that, you 

10 know, when we look at the problem and talk 

11 about what kind of adjustment factors might be 

12 needed, we actually say that, well, depending 

13 on the circumstances, we might even have an 

14 adjustment factor that's lower than yours. 

15 But if our interest is to make sure 

16 that we're placing a plausible upper bound, 

17 we're saying that, well, our adjustment factor 

18 might be higher than yours by a factor of two 

19 or so, depending on the circumstances. 

20 So, what I'm getting at is I don't 

21 -- I think that we do have some differences of 

22 opinion and methods of approaching this 

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72 

1 problem, levels of granularity to which we did 

2 an analysis, and where we come down is, yes, 

3 we're going to come down with differences in 

4 our adjustment factors where ours might in 

5 some circumstances be twice as high as yours. 

6 And I'm making a very simple 

7 generalization. I don't think that's 

8 important to the SEC. 

9 Okay. What I do believe is 

10 important to SEC, what you just did up on the 

11 blackboard is something very important, 

12 because you're coming at the problem of fading 

13 in a different way that I haven't thought of 

14 and I think it's important. 

15 What you're saying is, yes, there 

16 might be some fading and that would drive the 

17 curve down, but it's not going to change the 

18 dose. 

19 I'd like to hear more 

20 quantitatively if you can demonstrate that, 

21 yes, that -- you're right. We don't have any 

22 studies at least for right now in front of us 

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73 

1 that say this is the -- it's 50 percent per 

2 week for an attenuated spectrum under humid 

3 conditions, you know. We don't have that. 

4 Okay, and if you don't have that, 

5 one could argue, then how are you going to 

6 deal with it. 

7 You just came up with an idea that 

8 is interesting to me. And that is, well, one 

9 way you could deal with it is let's see what 

10 kind of effect it would have on the dose. And 

11 what you're saying is it shifts the 

12 distribution in the way that it drives more 

13 neutrons down to an energy where those 

14 neutrons are not going to contribute to dose. 

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, that's exactly 

16 right. And, in fact, the more important the 

17 fading becomes, the less important the dose is 

18 for that neutron, is another way of looking at 

19 that. 

20 The ones that you lose like the 

21 three trackers that you lose by fading, 

22 weren't very important to start with. The ten 

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74 

1 trackers are. 

2 And so as you move down that curve, 

3 where you will start to lose the count for 

4 tracking, for tallying, the less important 

5 those are in terms of contributing the dose. 

6 This curve also is an expression of 

7 what traditionally was called quality factor. 

8 And that's why fast neutrons, you know, the 

9 one where a millirem of fast neutrons takes 

10 about, what is it, about ten neutrons, for 

11 thermals it takes thousands to deliver the 

12 same dose. 

13 So, losing large numbers down in 

14 this range doesn't mean very much. 

15 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, I'd like to put 

16 a qualifier on that, is that this here, say, 

17 is at your 1.3 MeV bare source. 

18 Now, as you moderate that bare 

19 source, that whole thing shifts downward. 

20 Okay. And so you're going to be -- actually, 

21 this line should come up to .5. That's where 

22 we're talking about. 

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75 

1 And I agree with what you --

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, and so you 

3 worry about this lower quadrant, right? 

4 DR. BUCHANAN: This becomes more 

5 important as this shifts down, because you 

6 have less up here. You have more of your 

7 dumps down here, and we don't know what that 

8 is. 

9 Maybe that's a way to solve the 

10 problem just to show how much of that dose 

11 equivalent is down in this region to a 

12 moderated source compared to an unmoderated 

13 source. 

14 And we're not saying that's not a 

15 solvable problem. We would just like -- we 

16 don't think the fading has been sufficiently 

17 addressed in the ER and we didn't fight going 

18 from a -- before we had 33 and 56 percent one 

19 week, two weeks. And we got down to ninety 

20 percent in the ER. And we've seen that we 

21 flew in the wrong direction especially when 

22 you consider this. 

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76 

1 Is this a solvable problem? Maybe 

2 it is, but we need to -- and maybe you can't 

3 do it in detail, but maybe you can set a limit 

4 and say, okay, this amount of -- this 

5 difference in dose here can't exceed over 25 

6 percent or something and factor that in. 

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'd like to weigh in 

8 on this. 

9 CHAIR BEACH: Just a second. 

10 MR. KATZ: One at a time, please. 

11 DR. MAURO: Yes, Ron was just 

12 speaking, Bob. 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, okay. I 

14 thought he finished. 

15 DR. MAURO: Yes, please, go ahead. 

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. I mean I just 

17 want to comment -- I want to go back to what 

18 Bob Morris said when he said the amount, you 

19 know, that only the low-energy neutrons fade, 

20 I mean at least they fade more. And, 

21 therefore, being low energy, they contribute 

22 less to the dose. 

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77 

1 That would be fine if you had a 

2 worker who was exposed to a range of sources 

3 and much of his exposure, much of his tracks 

4 came from high energy, and some of them came 

5 from low energy and you say, well, that 

6 doesn't count very much to the dose. 

7 What about a worker who's in a 

8 location, and there are such locations at 

9 Mound, or were such locations at Mound, where 

10 the whole spectrum is a low-energy spectrum? 

11 Does that worker -- do we say that 

12 the neutron dose to that worker is simply 

13 unimportant? 

14 Because by taking this 1.3 MeV 

15 spectrum, I actually went back and took the --

16 not just they said -- well, they said 34 

17 percent, but he actually showed the actual 

18 numbers. 

19 So, I did that. I did a curve fit 

20 and I came up with a slightly different number 

21 than what we have currently, and I came up 

22 with about six percent per day. 

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78 

1 And if you integrate that over --

2 and some of the badge periods, at one point 

3 they went to a 28-day, four-week badge cycle. 

4 So, at the end of 28 days from the 

5 first day, you only have 17 percent left. And 

6 if you -- and it saves half of -- and then if 

7 the real fading is twice that because you have 

8 a much lower energy spectrum, it's a 

9 significant difference. 

10 I don't think it can be waved away 

11 by simply saying the fading only affects the 

12 area where there is no dose, so we can just 

13 ignore it. 

14 DR. ULSH: All right. Let me 

15 clarify. 

16 I'm not saying it only occurs at 

17 low doses and so we can just ignore it. I'm 

18 not saying that. 

19 What I'm saying is it's a bigger 

20 issue with lower-energy neutrons. And as Paul 

21 said as they go lower in energy, the 

22 dosimetric significance diminishes. 

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1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: That's true. 

2 DR. ULSH: And, furthermore -- I 

3 don't know, I don't want to speak in absolutes 

4 here. 

5 But since Mound was working 

6 primarily with plutonium fluoride or polonium 

7 beryllium sources, I can't think of a 

8 situation at Mound where a worker would have 

9 been exposed only to low-energy neutrons. 

10 Now, there may be --

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: There are surveys 

12 that show areas where the average energy is as 

13 low as I think .59 -- I'm going by memory now. 

14 So, I'm a little shaky, but I remember a very 

15 low number -- and definitely a whole building 

16 where the average of all the locations is less 

17 than 1 MeV average -- average energy. 

18 So, the workers were exposed. Some 

19 workers were exposed to low energy in the 

20 neutron spectrum. 

21 DR. ULSH: Please understand what 

22 I'm saying. 

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80

1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: And all the 

2 calibration of the badges including when they 

3 started compensating for fading, was based on 

4 the unattenuated, the bare source. 

5 So, there is no question that some 

6 workers are going to get shortchanged by 

7 ignoring the increase fading of the low-energy 

8 neutron spectra. 

9 DR. ULSH: Please understand what 

10 I'm saying. I'm not saying that workers 

11 weren't exposed to low-energy neutrons. They 

12 were. 

13 Because for one thing, especially 

14 in PP Building when they moved operations, the 

15 plutonium operations into PP Building, they 

16 increased the moderator -- or increased the 

17 shielding, which of course would lead you to 

18 low-energy neutrons. But it's not only low19 energy neutrons. 

20 And in fact if we go back to SC&A's 

21 summary at the beginning, you all concluded 

22 based on your own modeling that there weren't 

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81 

1 situations where it was all below the 

2 threshold. You all concluded that. 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm not saying that. 

4 DR. ULSH: No, let me finish. 

5 I understand, but there's not going 

6 to be a situation at Mound or anywhere else --

7 okay, let me back up before I make a mistake. 

8 There's not going to be a situation 

9 at Mound where workers were only exposed to 

10 low-energy neutrons. There will be some high11 energy neutrons there. 

12 Now, maybe most of those marbles 

13 are low-energy neutrons, but not all of them. 

14 But for those marbles where -- and, by the 

15 way, that was my analogy, not Bob Morris'. 

16 So, all blame goes to me on that. 

17 Once those marbles are knocked 

18 below that energy threshold, knocked into the 

19 low-energy region where you can't see them on 

20 an NTA film, the dosimetric significance is 

21 minimal. That's what we're saying. 

22 I'm not saying it's zero. I'm not 

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82 

1 saying we should ignore it. We should talk 

2 about it. I think it's important to decide 

3 whether or not the factor is nine percent or 

4 35 percent or 20 percent or something entirely 

5 different. 

6 We can discuss that, but we've got 

7 to keep in mind the fact that as -- we've got 

8 competing phenomenon going on here. 

9 As the neutrons drop in energy, 

10 they become harder to detect on the film. But 

11 at the same time, they become less and less 

12 dosimetrically important. 

13 MR. MORRIS: Brant, this is Bob. 

14 One thing I would add is that is 

15 exactly the reason that those curves asymptote 

16 at a -- and then turn and actually go flat at 

17 eight inches of water. 

18 DR. ULSH: Yes, exactly. Exactly. 

19 And when we say it's an important 

20 thing to check out and to investigate, I would 

21 refer you back to our March 18th report where 

22 we did exactly that. 

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83 

1 CHAIR BEACH: Is it the same diagram 

2 you're talking about? 

3 DR. ULSH: Yes, it's that one up 

4 there on the Board. 

5 DR. MAURO: But the nine percent per 

6 week fading adjustment factor that you folks 

7 offer up in your ER, are you saying that you 

8 probably need to revisit that in light of the 

9 discussion we just had? 

10 DR. ULSH: Well, John, I would say, 

11 you know, we can talk about that. I mean we 

12 can talk about whether nine percent is the 

13 right number. 

14 But I think you hit the nail on the 

15 head earlier when, yes, let's talk about it, 

16 but it doesn't seem to me that this is an SEC 

17 issue. 

18 Maybe the number is not nine 

19 percent. Maybe it's whatever you guys use. 

20 We can do some modeling. We can have some 

21 more interactions about this. I think maybe 

22 we should. 

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84 

1 CHAIR BEACH: It has the potential 

2 to be an SEC issue. 

3 DR. ULSH: Well, it's not a hundred 

4 percent. I mean you have to consider first of 

5 all how long they wore the badges and how long 

6 until they developed it. Because the longer 

7 the wear time, the higher the fading that you 

8 get. 

9 Now, I'm stepping out on a limb 

10 here, but just going from memory, the people 

11 who were in the highest neutron exposure 

12 fields were the ones that had the most 

13 frequent badge exchange cycles, which would 

14 tend to minimize -- not -- okay. It would 

15 diminish the effect of fading. 

16 I'm not saying it's zero. But the 

17 quicker you change out the badges and develop 

18 them, the less impact fading has. 

19 The problem that you get into is 

20 when someone is issued an NTA badge and they 

21 wear it for six months. And if you make a 

22 worst-case assumption and say they got all of 

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85 

1 their exposure on the first day that they wore 

2 it and it was by and large low-energy 

3 neutrons, that signal could fade before you 

4 actually develop the film. 

5 CHAIR BEACH: It will fade, yes. 

6 DR. ULSH: Absolutely it will fade. 

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Let me comment on 

8 that. The policy at Mound from what I read, 

9 was that the so-called visitor badges were 

10 issued on a quarterly basis. 

11 And the NTA film was not developed 

12 unless -- there were two requirements, one is 

13 the photons had to be above a certain 

14 threshold. I think it was a hundred millirem. 

15 I don't know. It doesn't really say. It just 

16 says significant photon dose. And then, two, 

17 they have to know on which day they were 

18 exposed to neutrons. 

19 So, if they take that badge on June 

20 30th and say this is a three-month badge and 

21 they say, okay, are we going to develop the 

22 NTA film? 

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86 

1 They won't even develop it unless 

2 there was some evidence, oh, yeah, on May 31st 

3 you went into this high-neutron area and 

4 that's where you would have gotten the neutron 

5 dose. And, therefore, we can correct the 

6 fading. Otherwise, they won't even bother 

7 doing the NTA film. And, rightly, because 

8 they won't have any idea what correction to 

9 apply to it. 

10 DR. BUCHANAN: In that case they 

11 would apply the coworker model, I understand. 

12 DR. ULSH: Right. That's not an 

13 unimportant issue. It's just a different 

14 issue than what we're talking about now. 

15 Josie, I don't know if you want to 

16 get into that discussion. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: No, no, no, no. What 

18 I'd like to do is before we get into coworker, 

19 I want to take a break. 

20 But I would like to ask NIOSH if 

21 you would come back with the response to the 

22 Work Group on the fading issue, and then with 

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87 

1 the adjustment factors as a White Paper, 

2 because I know this has come up in several 

3 meetings and it's never really been answered 

4 in writing. 

5 MR. HINNEFELD: So, now just kind of 

6 thanks for doing that, because I was thinking 

7 we should wrap this up and you did exactly 

8 that. 

9 One is that there is -- so, you 

10 want an evaluation back from us on both 

11 issues. Both an evaluation of SC&A's sort of 

12 recalculation of the correction factor. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: The correction factor. 

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Which everybody kind 

15 of agrees that's just a question of what will 

16 the number be. Not can you generate a number, 

17 but what will the number be. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

19 MR. HINNEFELD: But it's still 

20 something we need solved. 

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

22 MR. HINNEFELD: And then the second 

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88 

1 item is the fading issue and is in fact that a 

2 tractable problem, because the discussion here 

3 doesn't convince either side, anybody of 

4 anything. At least doesn't convince me of 

5 anything. 

6 So, I think there needs to be some 

7 more discussion of that issue in order to 

8 decide whether that's an SEC issue or a Site 

9 Profile issue. 

10 Is that where you're at on this? 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, yes. 

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Perfect. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: Everybody okay with 

14 that? 

15 MR. MORRIS: This is Bob Morris. 

16 I would note that we don't have 

17 anything in writing on fading in terms of the 

18 findings in the June 29th paper. 

19 And so if we could get that data 

20 that you're suggesting we should look at, I'd 

21 like to see it. 

22 We haven't been able to get access 

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89 

1 at least that I've found yet, to the recent 

2 paper, the 2010 paper by Anigstein and Olscher 

3 titled Sensitivity of NTA Film -- The Sources 

4 At Mound Laboratory, which is cited in your 

5 review, but wasn't made available to us. 

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, can I comment? 

7 This is Bob Anigstein again. 

8 We reissued that paper because it 

9 was just one error, one slip-up in one of the 

10 links. 

11 So, that paper was reissued on July 

12 -- I think it came out on July 23rd and it was 

13 transmitted to NIOSH and to the Work Group. 

14 So, everyone -- at least everyone in the room 

15 from the Work Group and from NIOSH should have 

16 a copy of this. 

17 DR. ULSH: Right. 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: And this, the one 

19 that you've cited, the sensitivity of NTA 

20 Film, and that has an analysis -- what I just 

21 cited I was reading from the report -- that 

22 has a section on track fading. 

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90 

1 DR. ULSH: All right. Let me clear 

2 up perhaps some misunderstandings here. 

3 The June 29th paper that Bob 

4 referred to I think we do have. That's -- Bob 

5 Morris has seen that. 

6 MR. MORRIS: Yes. 

7 DR. ULSH: That's another problem is 

8 we've got two Bobs on the phone. 

9 And that's not a problem, but in that June 

10 29th paper that SC&A issued there is a 

11 reference to a document, Anigstein and Olscher 

12 2010, Sensitivity of NTA --

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: NTA Film. That's 

14 the one I was just referring to. That is the 

15 one that discusses the fading issue. 

16 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It was originally 

18 issued in May 24th, but then there was a 

19 revision that came out on July 23rd, I 

20 believe. 

21 DR. ULSH: Okay. That's the one at 

22 least Bob Morris hasn't seen. 

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91 

1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, but it was 

2 transmitted by our production manager, Nancy 

3 Johnson, to the Mound Work Group. And I think 

4 it went to Brant Ulsh and --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Apparently 

6 Bob hasn't seen it, but that can be taken care 

7 of. 

8 DR. ULSH: Okay. So if I got it, I 

9 will forward it to Bob Morris. 

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Right. 

11 DR. ULSH: And that's not an issue 

12 then. 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I mean it's not PA 

14 cleared, but that shouldn't be -- but it has 

15 been DOE reviewed. 

16 MR. FITZGERALD: And as I recall, 

17 it's essentially one table that was really --

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It was one table 

19 with change. 

20 MR. FITZGERALD: The change was 

21 numbers were --

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: There was basically 

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92 

1 a reference to the other table where it said -

2 - I had them aligned and in the final 

3 production it came out to be shaded areas, 

4 which was a little confusing. 

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I did hear 

6 Bob mention that, you know, that should 

7 satisfy your need, Bob, for the fading 

8 discussion that you don't have right now. So, 

9 that should take care of that issue as well. 

10 MR. MORRIS: Okay. 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: All right. So, let's 

13 take a ten-minute break. 

14 Is that enough time? 

15 MR. KATZ: Sure. 

16 DR. ULSH: So, back again at five 

17 past the hour? 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

19 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

20 matter went off the record at 10:54 a.m. and 

21 resumed at 11:06 a.m.) 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Is everybody 

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93 

1 ready? Let's go ahead and start. 

2 MR. KATZ: Okay. We're just 

3 reconvening after a short break. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And before we 

5 leave Mound, we are -- or not Mound, neutron 

6 discussion. We have one more issue under the 

7 coworker issue that I know Ron's ready to 

8 discuss. 

9 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Coworker 

10 issue, we're talking about people with dose of 

11 record, is what we've been talking about so 

12 far. They had NTA film dose of records, how 

13 we'd be able to adjust that. 

14 Now, what about the workers that 

15 did not have NTA film dose of record? Might 

16 have photon dose of record, but no neutron 

17 dose of record either because they weren't 

18 badged for neutrons, weren't anticipating 

19 exposure at that time, or they actually wore a 

20 badge, but it wasn't read because the photon 

21 dose was below a certain level. And so they 

22 didn't go to the trouble of reading the NTA 

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94 

1 film. 

2 As I say, the NTA film was much 

3 more consuming and costly to read than photon 

4 film. Well, this is one way of sorting them 

5 out. 

6 So, in either way the worker does 

7 not have a neutron dose of record and for some 

8 reason they're in dose reconstruction. It is 

9 by today's standard, should have been 

10 monitored, and so how do we assign a neutron 

11 dose? 

12 As standard practices at other 

13 sites, one method is to use a coworker dose. 

14 In other words, look at the neutron exposure 

15 to the people that were badged and read and 

16 have records, and see what their doses were 

17 each year on a yearly basis and assign either 

18 a 50th or a 95th percentile of that dose to 

19 the unmonitored worker. 

20 And so in NIOSH's paper of December 

21 of 2009, they presented a method to limit that 

22 dose. In other words for an SEC, you want to 

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95 

1 write a method that would limit the dose. 

2 And one way was to use N/P method, 

3 which is that you look at all the workers that 

4 had records above a certain point, say 50 

5 millirem. And there's something like 10,000 

6 records for the whole time period. 

7 I went back and looked at some of 

8 those and they are actually there on the MESH 

9 database of recorded NTA film and gamma10 matched pairs. And look at this on a yearly 

11 basis and say what was the N/P values, and 

12 then assign that worker for that year. 

13 For example, let's say the average 

14 N/P value for 1960 was four. And so you -- if 

15 the person got a hundred millirem of gamma 

16 dose, that would -- you would assign them 400 

17 millirem of neutron dose in addition to that, 

18 and this is an acceptable method. 

19 However, this is a -- NIOSH limited 

20 this as a limiting method -- or labeled this 

21 as a limiting method to bound the dose. 

22 Another method that they proposed 

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96 

1 was that -- the way I understand, it would be 

2 more realistic assigning the individual doses 

3 was to use categorical data from 1951 to 1960, 

4 those ten years in which some HP reports 

5 listed categorical information for neutron 

6 dose, which was not specific dose recorded, 

7 but how many badges read in a zero to a 

8 hundred millirem range, how many read in a 

9 hundred to 300, and how many read over 300 

10 millirem, which I'll call categorical data. 

11 And then this information, both the 

12 neutron NTA-recorded data and this categorical 

13 data, was multiplied by the MCNP correction 

14 factor, fading factors and angular 

15 distribution factor which we previously talked 

16 about. So, those factors bear upon the 

17 coworker dose also. And then they provided 

18 tables of the 50th and 95th percentile in 

19 their paper. 

20 Now, SC&A would like to address two 

21 issues. Number one is the validity of the N/P 

22 values which we talked about in January. We 

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97 

1 don't have any further information on that, 

2 which I reiterate that. 

3 And secondly, the fact that the 

4 categorical data, SC&A does not feel this is 

5 necessary or valid data method to use. 

6 And so in our opinion, the 

7 categorical data doesn't really add to the 

8 ability to assign dose. 

9 If we're going to use something, we 

10 have quite a bit of NTA film data. We'll use 

11 it if it's verified. If it's not verified, 

12 then the categorical data isn't any good 

13 either. So, we would like not to use the 

14 categorical data. 

15 The neutron-to-photon ratio data, 

16 the two issues we have there is we think 

17 there's quite a bit of data there. However, 

18 when we look at the spread in the data from 

19 year to year or within a year, there does not 

20 seem to be a good correlation between the 

21 neutron and photon ratios. 

22 And we did not go through and do a 

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98 

1 lot of analysis on it. But in the ER paper, 

2 we have Table 4-4 which lists the medium and -

3 - 50th and 95th percentile distribution for 

4 each year. And we see that there's large 

5 variations in this, which we brought up 

6 before, from one year to another. It might 

7 change by a factor of two or three years. 

8 And then the box and whisker plot 

9 on Page 20 in Figure 4-2, shows a large 

10 variation within the year. 

11 So, we question the applicability 

12 of this N/P data. And we also question why 

13 just -- we haven't looked at it. We just 

14 wonder wouldn't the NTA film data for each 

15 year, just use it as coworker dose as we do 

16 gamma dose. 

17 In other words if you have a 

18 hundred readings, you look at the 50th and 

19 95th percentile of a hundred readings for 

20 1960, and the same thing for `61, and just do 

21 a coworker dose assignment based on the NTA 

22 film rather than trying to use the N/P values 

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99 

1 which seem to fluctuate a lot. 

2 So, maybe there's a valid reason we 

3 don't want to use the NTA data by itself. And 

4 we also would like some assurance that the N/P 

5 values are paired -- I mean are correlated, 

6 the neutron is correlated with the photon 

7 since the information we have doesn't 

8 appear to be very correlated. 

9 So, that's where we stand on the 

10 coworker neutron issue at Mound. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Anybody have any 

12 questions for Ron before NIOSH? 

13 Any other comments? 

14 Okay. 

15 DR. ULSH: Okay. So, this is Brant 

16 Ulsh. 

17 Basically, to go back to the 

18 approach that NIOSH has put on the table and 

19 just kind of summarize where we are, we've 

20 talked about earlier in this discussion, a 

21 situation where people who wore visitor badges 

22 -- now, this is a little bit different than 

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1 what you might be thinking. This does not 

2 refer to visitors to Mound. 

3 So say, for instance, someone came 

4 to Mound from Los Alamos. That's not the 

5 situation we're talking about here. 

6 The visitor badges that we are 

7 describing are, for instance, SM Building. If 

8 a Mound worker was not routinely assigned to 

9 SM Building, say, for instance, I don't know, 

10 a pipefitter, but he got called up to SM 

11 Building to do some work up there, he would, 

12 at least, in the early years, be assigned a 

13 visitor badge. 

14 So, this is a Mound worker who's 

15 not normally assigned to that building. And 

16 the visitor badge would consist of a gamma 

17 film and an NTA film. 

18 So he goes in, he does his work, he 

19 drops his badge when he's done. And as 

20 someone described earlier, I don't recall who, 

21 there was a time period where, if the gamma 

22 badge didn't read above a certain level that I 

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101 

1 don't know off the top of my head, then they 

2 wouldn't bother to read the NTA film. 

3 So, in a situation like this, even 

4 though the worker wore an NTA film, we would 

5 consider that an unmonitored dose because the 

6 film wasn't read. So, he might as well not 

7 have been wearing it. So, that's the 

8 situation we're talking about in the early 

9 years. 

10 And for that time -- well, one more 

11 point to make. Ron described two categories 

12 of people to whom the coworker model might be 

13 applied, the neutron coworker. 

14 The first was people who were not 

15 badged at all, and the second was the category 

16 I just described where people were badged, but 

17 not read. 

18 Now, regarding the first category, 

19 people who were not badged at all, we've 

20 discussed that there were a couple of workers 

21 here at the meeting in January, and then --

22 I'm trying to think -- at least one of them --

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1 I think both of them participated in a 

2 subsequent interview. And, Ron, I know you 

3 weren't involved in that interview. 

4 But during that interview, we 

5 discussed with them what the badging policy 

6 was in terms of who wore badges and who 

7 didn't. And we went into a bunch of different 

8 examples, scenarios. People who took out the 

9 trash. People who moved boxes from here to 

10 there. Would they have been badged? 

11 And I recall very clearly that the 

12 input that we got is, yes, people would have 

13 been badged. 

14 So, I would contend to you that 

15 that first category of people, people who just 

16 simply weren't wearing a badge, I'll never say 

17 it's zero. But by all indications that we 

18 have, people were badged if they had an 

19 exposure potential. 

20 DR. BUCHANAN: For gamma and 

21 neutron, or just gamma? 

22 DR. ULSH: For gamma and neutron. 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 

2 DR. ULSH: That was the specific 

3 topic of that interview was neutrons and 

4 neutron issues. 

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 

6 DR. ULSH: So, that category I think 

7 is going to be fairly -- it's going to be 

8 really small. I won't say zero. But the 

9 other category is a bit problematic, people 

10 who wore badges and the badges weren't read. 

11 So, essentially you're talking about they 

12 essentially weren't monitored. 

13 Now, we've proposed a number of 

14 different approaches based on the data that we 

15 have readily available. 

16 For the early years when we have 

17 the health physics progress reports, and those 

18 run from I think day one, 1949 up through 

19 about 1960. It's been a while since I've 

20 looked at them. And those reports typically 

21 contain the categorical data that Ron 

22 described. 

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1 So, the number of badges read that 

2 fell into the zero to a hundred millirem, for 

3 instance. And then the 100 to, what was it? 

4 300, Ron? 

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, and above 300. 

6 DR. ULSH: Yes, and then above 300. 

7 So, different categories of neutron exposures 

8 there. 

9 The problem is, is we don't have 

10 those reports past 1960, as we've described 

11 before. 

12 I'd sure like to have them, but I'm 

13 ready to conclude that they simply weren't 

14 written after 1960, because we looked really 

15 hard for them and just don't have them. 

16 I don't know. I've never 

17 understood the objection to categorical data. 

18 I understand that it lacks the resolution 

19 that you might have from looking at just the 

20 entire population of NTA films -- and, by the 

21 way, I think that the reason we didn't propose 

22 just looking at the NTA films themselves was 

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1 because prior to some year, I think it's in 

2 the 1970s, what we have readily available in 

3 terms of electronic database, data that is 

4 readily useable for this kind of an 

5 application prior to 1977, what we have is 

6 annual totals. 

7 I don't think that we've got in an 

8 electronic format, the individual cycle-by9 cycle reads. 

10 Now, that's not to say that we 

11 couldn't go grab the neutron dosimetry 

12 logbooks, code all that data and use it, you 

13 know. I'm not saying that. It's just that it 

14 wasn't readily available. 

15 And keep in mind the purpose of all 

16 of these reports that we have written that 

17 we're talking about here and that's simply to 

18 determine whether or not we have an SEC issue, 

19 a completely unboundable neutron exposure, at 

20 worst, we contend that we don't have an SEC 

21 issue here. Because that categorical data 

22 while it lacks resolution, it's perfectly 

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1 adequate for this. 

2 I mean we can establish an upper 

3 bound dose that can be applied to people who 

4 perhaps wore a visitor badge and their neutron 

5 film wasn't read. There's no reason why we 

6 can't do that. 

7 I know that SC&A doesn't like that 

8 data, using that data, but I've never really 

9 understood the basis for that. 

10 Now, in terms of the N/P ratios, 

11 Ron referred to a couple, you know, a table 

12 and a graph from the report that we wrote, and 

13 I think we're in agreement that those values 

14 are variable. We don't deny that. 

15 However, I would contend that that 

16 works in the worker's favor. As in other 

17 situations here in this program, the more 

18 variable the data and you take, you know, an 

19 upper 95th percentile, well, then the higher 

20 the N/P ratio you pick. 

21 Is it going to overestimate its 

22 dose? Sure it is, but why is that a problem? 

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1 I don't understand why that would be an 

2 issue. 

3 Bob Morris, do you have anything 

4 that you want to add on this? 

5 DR. NETON: Before Bob talks, we 

6 talked about this N/P ratio issue several 

7 times where there's a lack of correlation, and 

8 I've never understood the objection there 

9 either. 

10 Because effectively, what we have 

11 is the distribution of the N/P ratio to the 

12 worker. It is what it is and there's no prior 

13 reason to believe that they're correlated. 

14 But as Brant said, we're not using 

15 a point value here. We're using either a 

16 distribution that's applied or the 95th 

17 percentile at worst case. 

18 So, I'm not sure why there's sort 

19 of an up-front impression that the N/P ratios 

20 have to be correlated for them to be useful if 

21 you apply distribution. 

22 Because the distribution is what it 

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108 

1 is, and you can't argue that the 95th 

2 percentile in distribution is the highest N/P 

3 ratio or one of the high-ended N/P ratios that 

4 was observed. That's always been an issue. 

5 I think we talked about it at 

6 several other meetings. It seems to keep 

7 coming up. 

8 DR. ULSH: Bob Morris, do you want 

9 to add anything? 

10 MR. MORRIS: No, I have nothing else 

11 to add, Brant. 

12 DR. ULSH: Okay. 

13 DR. MAURO: We were talking about 

14 this, and we've talked about it before and I 

15 was thinking about this. 

16 So, we have two numbers that are 

17 measured, they're a couple. There is no 

18 apparent correlation for some reason. Often 

19 there is, but in this case there's not. And 

20 whatever the reason is, it is. 

21 Okay. Now, bear with me because 

22 I'm not trying to be a wise guy. 

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1 Let's say I had numbers where I 

2 measured a person's height and measured his --

3 had paired numbers. Height and neutron dose. 

4 Okay. No reason to be correlated -- maybe 

5 there is. I don't know. 

6 But I made a table, and here's the 

7 ratios and I say, well, I'm going to pick the 

8 highest one. There's something about that, 

9 that disturbs me. 

10 DR. NETON: Yes, except for the fact 

11 that those were not measured in the field at 

12 the same time. 

13 DR. MAURO: No, I'm saying if you 

14 did that. 

15 DR. NETON: No, but the height --

16 the height is not a variable that was 

17 observed. 

18 You observed two variables in the 

19 field that were measured simultaneously, and 

20 all we're saying is that the neutron, the 

21 photon ratio, the highest possible one that 

22 you found, which is valid, is a valid worker 

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110 

1 assignment. 

2 The height has nothing to do with 

3 the exposure of the worker at all. 

4 DR. MAURO: Well, we're saying if 

5 they're not correlated. If there's some 

6 reason in this case --

7 DR. NETON: I'm not saying --

8 DR. MAURO: The correlation 

9 coefficient is one, .1 or something some very, 

10 very low. 

11 So in other words, unlike -- see, 

12 intuitively we feel that there should be some 

13 relationship between whatever the neutron 

14 exposure is and what the photon exposure is. 

15 And so you measure -- you pair them up. 

16 DR. NETON: All I'm trying to say, 

17 John, is the upper end bound of that ratio. 

18 These are measurements based on a worker, 

19 right? 

20 I mean, so what is the highest 

21 experienced neutron-to-photon ratio? Let's 

22 say we're going to use the highest value. 

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1 We're not proposing that, but let's say what 

2 is the highest possible scenario that existed 

3 in the planet that this worker had ten 

4 neutrons for every photon measurement? 

5 That's a valid bounding estimate. 

6 DR. MAURO: You measure two 

7 parameters. 

8 DR. NETON: But they're measured 

9 simultaneously. 

10 DR. MAURO: Measured together. 

11 Okay. 

12 DR. NETON: Right. 

13 DR. MAURO: Again, let's say instead 

14 of doing that, when I measure the neutron dose 

15 for that change-out period, I also measure, as 

16 I said at that time period for that person, 

17 his height or his weight. 

18 DR. NETON: But his height has 

19 nothing to do with the exposure of parameters 

20 that we're --

21 DR. MAURO: Well, they're not 

22 related, right. But the two parameters if 

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112 

1 they're not correlated, there's no reason to 

2 believe there's a relationship between neutron 

3 and photon dose. 

4 DR. NETON: Yes, there is. 

5 DR. MAURO: I'm saying is that any 

6 more meaningful than if I was to couple up 

7 some other paired parameter? 

8 DR. NETON: It is because I can 

9 confidently say that no one was exposed to 

10 more neutrons than ten times the photon dose. 

11 So, whatever it was. Because that's the 

12 highest value I observed in the workplace 

13 setting. 

14 I've done an empirical measurement 

15 and I said any time there's photons, the worst 

16 case I've ever seen for neutrons is this. So, 

17 I bounded the worst-case scenario. 

18 Now, we can argue whether it should 

19 be the 95th percentile or you do it by 

20 distribution, but these are empirically 

21 measured numbers -- I mean values. 

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: John, I would 

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113 

1 maintain that they are correlated, but we 

2 don't know the correlation. 

3 DR. NETON: Maybe that's the --

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: I always tell my 

5 students in -- I don't know of any case where 

6 you have neutrons where there's not a gamma 

7 field. They are present at the same time. 

8 You can have a gamma field without neutrons, 

9 but you never have a neutron field without 

10 gammas. 

11 There is a correlation, but it's 

12 not consistent because there are so many 

13 factors that affect it. 

14 There's geometrical factors, 

15 there's --

16 DR. MAURO: Shielding. 

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Shielding factors, 

18 there's all of these things that go on. The 

19 neutron spectrum changes in a different amount 

20 than the gamma and so on, but there is a 

21 correlation in every instance and it's 

22 different. 

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1 You go in a different room, 

2 different sources, it's a different number. 

3 DR. MAURO: Under the circumstances 

4 that this is --

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Unlike height and 

6 neutron dose where there truly is no 

7 relationship, if everybody's geometry and 

8 source was identical in that plant at every 

9 instant, you would probably get the same 

10 ratio, but it isn't. 

11 DR. MAURO: It isn't. 

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: It isn't. At least 

13 this is how I think about it. 

14 DR. MAURO: I see. 

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, you go through 

16 the plant and you measure a whole bunch of 

17 different situations. You get one ratio, 

18 here's another, here's another, and you get a 

19 distribution of ratios. 

20 But that informs you, you know, 

21 what's the lowest, what's the highest. That's 

22 how I think about it. 

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1 Could there be another one that's 

2 even higher that you didn't measure? I think 

3 there could. 

4 But if you do a distribution, you 

5 actually allow for a tail to go on up beyond 

6 what you actually measured. 

7 DR. MAURO: I see what you're 

8 saying. 

9 So, yes, in other words, the fact 

10 that every circumstance --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: We sampled the 

12 workplace of --

13 DR. MAURO: There's an unlimited 

14 number of situations. 

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. An unlimited 

16 number of ratios. 

17 DR. MAURO: Ratios. 

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: We have sampled them 

19 throughout the workplace. And from that we 

20 build the distribution, which is not unlike 

21 what we do in other cases where we've sampled 

22 the workplace. 

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1 That's one way to think about it. 

2 DR. MAURO: What you just explained 

3 to me, I was struggling with this and I had 

4 that silly relation here, but I understand the 

5 difference now the way you just described it. 

6 There is a relationship, but it's 

7 not -- we don't -- we don't -- in any given 

8 circumstance, we don't know what that 

9 relationship is. 

10 But we do know that when we 

11 measured it, we got thousands -- I don't know 

12 how many. Thousands of them. And you know 

13 that it was never really higher than this, 

14 which might represent the worst circumstance 

15 where you've --

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Or at least you have 

17 a picture of the distribution no more than 

18 eight point or two or -- you've got lots of 

19 points and you get a distribution. 

20 DR. MAURO: Right. 

21 DR. ULSH: And there's one more 

22 important point to build on the picture that 

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117 

1 Paul just painted. 

2 What we've got is a sample. So, 

3 we've measured the N/P ratios at certain 

4 points, and that's a sample of what actually 

5 exists in the workplace. 

6 But the point that I would make is 

7 that's not a random sample in any sense of the 

8 word. 

9 In fact, we would have picked the 

10 points that would have been the worst where 

11 the neutron field is the highest. Those are 

12 the points that we would have non-randomly 

13 selected to measure. 

14 So, when we're talking about this 

15 distribution that we've built, we've got a 

16 biased representation high. It's claimant 

17 favorable to do that. 

18 DR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan, 

19 SC&A. 

20 Okay. I think the problem comes in 

21 as when we use this data at the assigned dose, 

22 by definition, we are saying to the worker 

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1 that there is a correlation between your 

2 photon and your neutron dose we're going to 

3 assign by using that method. 

4 Yet, on the other hand, the data 

5 we're using does not correlate it, and so 

6 that's where the rub comes in. We're kind of 

7 talking out of both sides of our mouths. 

8 It's not correlated, but we're 

9 going to use that data. And we're telling the 

10 worker this is correlated, we're going to 

11 assign you this dose. 

12 DR. ULSH: I understand exactly what 

13 you're saying, Ron, and I've been thinking 

14 about it while we've been talking here. 

15 And I think if what we were trying 

16 to do is to provide a best estimate, a most 

17 accurate estimate of the dose, we might have a 

18 problem because there's no - we don't know 

19 what the correlation might be if there is one. 

20 However, that's not what we're trying to do 

21 here. 

22 In terms of an SEC discussion, what 

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1 we're trying to do is put an upper bound on 

2 it. 

3 So, when you take that already 

4 biased population of samples that we have and 

5 we pick some high percentile value, whatever 

6 we choose to pick, what we're saying is we 

7 don't really know what your neutron dose was. 

8 It's somewhere between zero and this upper 

9 limit that we're establishing. That's what 

10 we're saying. 

11 But we're not trying to say we're 

12 going to use the neutrons or the gamma dose 

13 and that is a reliable predictor of the exact 

14 number that your neutron dose was. 

15 I think there we would have a 

16 problem, because there's an unknown 

17 correlation, if any. 

18 DR. NETON: Actually, I think what 

19 we're trying to say is we don't know what your 

20 neutron/photon ratio is. We don't know where 

21 you actually work. So, we're going to assign 

22 you the highest neutron/photon ratio for a 

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120 

1 person who did a job where it was the greatest 

2 or at the higher end of the field. That's all 

3 we're really saying. 

4 DR. ULSH: And keep in mind here, I 

5 mean, the people that we're talking about 

6 assigning this to with maybe some exceptions, 

7 I don't know, but by and large, these are the 

8 people with low exposures, the people whose 

9 badges weren't read because they didn't go in 

10 there five days a week and work and then their 

11 gamma badge exceeded that threshold. These 

12 are the people who went in, did a quick job, 

13 came out. 

14 So, when we're using the most 

15 exposed workers to bound our dose, there's 

16 another claimant favorable factor built in. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: When you say they did 

18 a quick job, you're talking about the workers 

19 that didn't have badges that were assigned to 

20 that building for a job. 

21 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: And it could be a 

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1 quick job or it could be an evolution of a 

2 job, a day, two days. 

3 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: So, you have to kind 

5 of put it in terms of a quick job is not just 

6 always in and out. 

7 DR. ULSH: I agree. 

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: But they were not 

9 permanently assigned in that area. 

10 DR. ULSH: Correct. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: It was a temporary 

13 job. 

14 DR. ULSH: Discrete, generally short 

15 term, which I would define as, you know, I 

16 don't know, a week or less. You might be able 

17 to find one longer. I don't know. But not 

18 guys that worked up there for quarters at a 

19 time. 

20 DR. BUCHANAN: Now, tell me again 

21 why -- I mean, just intuitively I would like -

22 - I guess if I was doing this, I would want to 

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122 

1 look at the NTA data since you have that data, 

2 and compare it to the top dose you assign 

3 using N/P ratios. 

4 Why isn't the NTA data readily 

5 accessible to do a coworker dose model? 

6 DR. ULSH: Okay. This is really 

7 going back into the memory banks here, Ron. 

8 I think it's because prior to --

9 okay. The data that we have readily available 

10 is, for instance, what's in the MESH database. 

11 The problem with the MESH database 

12 in this particular instance, is that prior to 

13 a certain date we don't have cycle-by-cycle 

14 NTA badge reads paired with cycle-by-cycle 

15 gamma badge reads. I think what we've got is 

16 annual totals. 

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. But that 

18 number from each individual worker paired 

19 data, because you had used paired data from 

20 individual workers on an annual basis, so you 

21 had a neutron number and you had a gamma 

22 number. 

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123 

1 I can't -- and I know that it's 

2 probably a simplistic look at it, but it 

3 looked like it would be fairly simple to go 

4 back and take that neutron data and just for 

5 each year do a distribution on it and see how 

6 that compares. 

7 I guess it would be more 

8 comfortable to say, okay, we agree with what 

9 you're saying there if we knew the neutron 

10 data didn't say, hey, this isn't right, you 

11 know. 

12 DR. ULSH: Bob Morris, do you have a 

13 more clear recollection of the data that's 

14 available? 

15 MR. MORRIS: Sure. I've got 

16 something to add here. 

17 If you go back to look at Table 6-1 

18 which lists the categorical data by month or 

19 by year or quarter that's available, you'll 

20 see, for example, that in March of 1954, 

21 second quarter of 1954, there were 225 badges 

22 or films read that were in the range from zero 

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1 to 100 millirem intervals. Nine that were 100 

2 to 300. And zero that were more than 300. 

3 So the point of that is, is that 

4 when you actually take that and you re-image 

5 that in the annualized roll-up of the MESH 

6 data and you would drop, say, you know, how 

7 many by every month, you're dominated in 

8 almost every case by an annual roll-up by the 

9 zeros. And so all you're reporting is the 

10 missed dose for neutrons versus the gamma dose 

11 that was measured. 

12 The missed dose dominates the roll13 up data, and that's why we didn't successfully 

14 find a way to use it. It's not very 

15 informative. 

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

17 Buchanan. 

18 On Table 4-4 we list the N gamma 

19 matched pairs. I assume Column 2 in there, 

20 say 1954, is the -- we have 32 matched pair 

21 that --

22 MR. MORRIS: Let me catch up with 

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1 you. I'm not on that page yet. 

2 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Table 4-4. 

3 DR. ULSH: Page 21. 

4 DR. BUCHANAN: Page 21. 1954 N, we 

5 have 32 matched pairs which we used to do the 

6 N/P value. 

7 Why can't we look at the NTA film 

8 values for neutrons for `54? 

9 You have the same absolute data 

10 there that you used to derive the N/P values 

11 above a certain threshold. Say 50 millirem, I 

12 think. 

13 So, that data ought to be as valid 

14 to create a coworker model as to determine the 

15 N/P value. 

16 DR. ULSH: So, Ron, are you saying -

17 - let me see if I can accurately summarize 

18 what you're getting at. 

19 For the example that you used, 1954 

20 where there are 32, I guess -- I don't know if 

21 those are people or film badges. 

22 DR. BUCHANAN: Matched pairs, the 

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1 way I understood it. 

2 DR. ULSH: Okay. Instead of using 

3 those 32 numbers to generate an N/P ratio, why 

4 don't we use those 32 numbers to generate a 

5 neutron coworker data? 

6 Is that what you're saying? 

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, that's what I'm 

8 saying. 

9 DR. ULSH: Well, Bob, do you see an 

10 issue with that? 

11 MR. MORRIS: Well, I don't -- I mean 

12 we certainly can do our arithmetic, but I --

13 what I said before I think still applies, is 

14 that our data is going to be dominated by 

15 missed dose. 

16 DR. ULSH: So let's say, Ron, for 

17 example, let's say we agree to do this. And 

18 we came back to you and we said that for 30 of 

19 those 32 badges, they were less than the LOD. 

20 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Well, let's 

21 clarify something. 

22 I was thinking, and maybe I'm 

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1 thinking about another site, but I was 

2 thinking that these had to qualify to appear 

3 on Table 4-4. They had to be greater than 50 

4 millirem. 

5 Is that not correct? 

6 MR. MORRIS: I think you're right in 

7 that case, Ron. 

8 DR. BUCHANAN: So, therefore, we do 

9 have data that is at the LOD value or greater. 

10 DR. ULSH: Yes, I see what you're 

11 saying. Yes. 

12 DR. BUCHANAN: And so I guess before 

13 we say, okay, the N over P value is what it is 

14 and it sets the upper limit, I would like to 

15 see that verified by looking at the NTA data 

16 for each year by itself as a coworker model, 

17 and see if they're out of line, you know. 

18 Perhaps we'll find that the NTA 

19 data would provide a lower dose. 

20 DR. NETON: It seems a way to get 

21 past the hurdle that we talked about earlier 

22 though, which is this fading issue, right? 

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1 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, you have to 

2 correct it for all that. 

3 DR. NETON: Right. And we have to -

4 - it would seem that we need to solve the 

5 first -- or convince people that the first 

6 problem is solvable. Otherwise --

7 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

8 DR. MAURO: But I mean after that 

9 first hurdle, the fading hurdles, what we're 

10 really saying is we have a lot of options in 

11 front of us dealing with the problem. 

12 We would have certain preferences 

13 on how to come at it that -- some which we 

14 think are not as strong as other strategies, 

15 but they're all tractable once you solve the 

16 fading problem. 

17 DR. ULSH: So, I think if we can 

18 perhaps just set aside our disagreement on the 

19 suitability of the categorical data, let's 

20 just for the moment say we agree to disagree 

21 on that. 

22 And then what we could do then is 

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1 go back to the data that's reflected in this 

2 Table 4-4, however many film badges there are, 

3 and generate distribution by year, neutron 

4 coworker type data, and then we can bring that 

5 back to you. 

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, you would 

7 actually look at it. 

8 Did you want to have access to it 

9 as well or would you rather have --

10 DR. ULSH: Well, I mean we can --

11 we'll generate it. And then of course it will 

12 go to somebody to review. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: Gotcha. 

14 DR. NETON It's got to be reviewed. 

15 DR. MAURO: The rock we're going to 

16 stand on though is the neutron -- the first 

17 problem -- in other words, to go through this 

18 exercise before we solve the fading problems, 

19 it's sort of a waste of time. 

20 DR. ULSH: Well, yes. 

21 DR. MAURO: That's solved, and then 

22 after that, then it becomes an entire, as far 

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1 as I'm concerned, an SEC issue -- Site Profile 

2 issues on how do you best come at the problem 

3 that's most claimant favorable and 

4 scientifically sound. 

5 But until that first piece is put 

6 in place --

7 DR. ULSH: Right. So if there were, 

8 for instance, the Working Group was not 

9 convinced of the reliability of film badges 

10 and on that basis recommended an SEC, the full 

11 Board agrees and it becomes an SEC, then 

12 there's no point even -- well, actually --

13 DR. MAURO: Well, eventually there 

14 is because for the non-covered cancers. 

15 DR. ULSH: But no, if this doesn't 

16 come back, we can't do it. 

17 DR. MAURO: We could reconstruct any 

18 neutron dose. 

19 DR. BUCHANAN: You can't use NTA 

20 film. 

21 DR. ULSH: All right. Well, Josie, 

22 I don't want to step on your toes here. It 

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1 sounds to me like we need a graded approach 

2 and do fading first. 

3 If we can get past that, then maybe 

4 we do this. 

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Okay. Because 

6 I was going to ask you to rewrite, but we'll 

7 start with the fading. I agree with that. 

8 DR. NETON: I think that makes 

9 sense. 

10 DR. BUCHANAN: That's fine. 

11 DR. NETON: In fact, doesn't our 

12 original model also rely on the fading issue 

13 to be resolved? 

14 Because we've corrected for- it 

15 anyway, so --

16 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

17 CHAIR BEACH: But also to come back 

18 to that in the essence of time would not --

19 wouldn't it be wise to just go ahead and look 

20 at that data so that we're not --

21 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean if they 

22 first address the fading, once you address 

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1 that, if you feel confident in that, then you 

2 just go ahead with addressing the second part, 

3 right? 

4 DR. ULSH: Right. 

5 MR KATZ: I mean you don't want to 

6 wait another Work Group meeting before you 

7 address the second part. 

8 CHAIR BEACH: Right. That's what I 

9 was worried about. 

10 DR. ULSH: Well, let me present 

11 another scenario to you. 

12 We come back to you with a piece on 

13 fading and the stars align, and you all agree 

14 with us fading is no longer an issue, our 

15 issues have been satisfied. 

16 At that point, even though we 

17 haven't done this second analysis that you're 

18 talking about, as John suggested, it's just a 

19 matter of crunching the numbers. 

20 Maybe we'll have some discussions 

21 on our numbers a little higher than yours, but 

22 could we agree that that's most likely a TBDNEAL R. GROSS 

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1 type issue and though it needs to be done for 

2 the purpose of an SEC decision, you guys would 

3 be able to make an informed decision on that 

4 part of it? 

5 DR. MAURO: I would agree with that. 

6 Now, if Mark was here, he would say 

7 I approve in principle. And in my mind, I 

8 agree. 

9 You solve that fading problem, and 

10 then it becomes a matter of what I call a 

11 classic Site Profile issue that needs to be 

12 resolved. 

13 DR. NETON: Right. 

14 DR. MAURO: The degree to which the 

15 Work Group wants that issue resolved before 

16 they make a recommendation to the full Board, 

17 that's the Work Group's call. 

18 DR. NETON: I also think we should 

19 consider in fact, though, this N/P ratio 

20 thing. 

21 I think we're in agreement that 

22 there's not an absolute requirement that we 

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1 correlate. That kind of goes away. 

2 I think a lot of the --

3 DR. MAURO: I have to say, I listen 

4 to it from the way you both describe it to me, 

5 and I have to say I'm inclined to agree. 

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Unless -- one 

7 reservation there is that if we come back with 

8 NTA data and it shows a completely different 

9 picture, and then we still have an issue to 

10 resolve, I don't think it will, but it could. 

11 DR. MAURO: I mean what happens 

12 then? 

13 So, what you're saying is that you 

14 have two different ways to come at the topic. 

15 One is dealing with the validated, verified, 

16 corrected NTA films and building a coworker 

17 model on that basis. 

18 And then from there, theoretically, 

19 you could address all issues just from the N 

20 from that. 

21 In other words, you don't have to 

22 go to your categorical data. You don't have 

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135 

1 to go to your neutron/photon issue. In 

2 theory, you can go straight to there. 

3 Ron points out, all right, let's 

4 say the question then becomes, well, let's 

5 take a look and compare the difference that 

6 you would come up with. 

7 And if I were to use the 

8 neutron/photon approach as opposed to let's 

9 say some other strategy, one might be more --

10 now we're, you know, which is the one that is 

11 really more claimant favorable. 

12 In light of everything, all 

13 considered, all factors considered, which 

14 approach do you think is in the best interest 

15 of the Work Group to try to reconstruct his 

16 dose, his neutron dose? 

17 But I would say that question is a 

18 Site Profile issue. 

19 DR. NETON: Right. I mean you could 

20 evaluate both. And both are options on the 

21 table. We could evaluate both and pick one 

22 which makes the most technical sense or the 

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136 

1 most claimant favorable. 

2 DR. MAURO: The best that will work 

3 for the claimant, yes. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: What does the rest of 

5 the Work Group think? 

6 Just get to the fading first and --

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think you have to. 

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, the fading 

10 issue's got to be taken care of before --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Makes sense. 

12 Are we ready to move on or are 

13 there any other lingering issues for neutrons? 

14 MR. FITZGERALD: This is a two-part 

15 action, just to clarify, that the fading 

16 analysis provided for the Work Group to 

17 examine or SC&A examine. And then, if that's a 

18 meeting, but certainly maybe a call or 

19 something so we have a juncture where we can 

20 move forward. 

21 I mean this is not going to be 

22 staged for each Work Group meeting. 

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1 DR. MAURO: When I mentioned that 

2 before I said, listen, before we move on to 

3 the second phase --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

5 DR. MAURO: Certainly the first 

6 phase -- now, whether or not you want to, you 

7 know, you want to schedule Work Groups, but I 

8 mean to me that's the sequence --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

10 DR. MAURO: Moving through that 

11 process, you know, but let's get that first. 

12 Then the sooner we can see your 

13 fading issue White Paper and that you feel 

14 comfortable that you've got your handle on it, 

15 you know, I think then we're standing on very 

16 solid ground and you may want to move 

17 immediately forward for evaluating. 

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I was going to 

19 say from a process standpoint the Work Group 

20 may want to consider a technical call or 

21 something just to --

22 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Keep the momentum 

2 going. 

3 DR. MAURO: Yes, you don't want to -

4 -

5 MR. FITZGERALD: The only concern 

6 would be a two-part thing and --

7 MR. KATZ: Yes, except that, if the 

8 Work Group is -- it's more in the technical 

9 call, if the Work Group is going to actually 

10 make a judgment about the fading piece. Then 

11 that's actually what --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: That's a Work Group 

13 meeting. 

14 MR. KATZ: That's a Work Group 

15 meeting, but -- so -- that's why I said if 

16 DCAS is confident in their fading White Paper, 

17 I mean they could go ahead and knock the other 

18 thing off too before you have a Work Group 

19 meeting. 

20 MR. HINNEFELD: I think that should 

21 be our planned position here because there 

22 could be scheduling difficulties in getting a 

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139 

1 Work Group together in a timely fashion. 

2 And if we are comfortable with the 

3 fading, then we can proceed on with the 

4 analysis and talk about here this coworker 

5 part without -- and if the Working group then 

6 later on decides that, you know, this fading 

7 thing isn't convincing and that falls apart, 

8 well, so we spent some effort, but whatever. 

9 I mean it's timely for the 

10 claimant. It's more timely for the claimant 

11 to keep the work going. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, everybody 

13 clear there? 

14 The next issue on the table is 

15 tritium compounds. 

16 MR. KATZ: Josie, it's ten to 12:00. 

17 What's your ballpark? What do you want to --

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, now that we 

19 got the easy one out of the way. 

20 MR. FITZGERALD: That wasn't 

21 supposed to go all morning. Yes, that's a 

22 consideration. This could take an hour, hour 

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140 

1 and a half. 

2 CHAIR BEACH: That's a good point. 

3 MR. KATZ: Want to have an early 

4 lunch and then take it on all at once? 

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, let's do that. 

6 Let's do that. 

7 MR. KATZ: Some blood sugar. 

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Let's take 

9 lunch then. 

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, it's ten to 

11 12:00. So, certainly by 1:00, right, we --

12 CHAIR BEACH: 10 to 1:00. 

13 MR. KATZ: 10 to 1:00? 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

15 MR. KATZ: We'll reconvene, for 

16 folks on the phone. Thank you. 

17 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

18 matter went off the record at 11:47 a.m. and 

19 resumed at 12:55 p.m.) 

20 

21 

22 

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1 


2 


3 


4 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 

5 12:55 p.m. 

6 MR. KATZ: So, good afternoon. 

7 We're reconvening after a lunch break. This 

8 is Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

9 Health, the Mound Work Group. 

10 Do we need to check about anybody 

11 in particular on the phone? 

12 CHAIR BEACH: No. 

13 MR. KATZ: No. Okay. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: I don't believe so. 

15 Okay. So, right now we have two 

16 papers on the table. One that was produced by 

17 SC&A, April 15th. It was just after 

18 interviews that we did in April. And then 

19 NIOSH's paper that's dated in July 2010. 

20 And, Joe, do you want to kick off 

21 the topic of stable tritium compounds? 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Just a little 

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142 

1 history. 

2 At the last meeting -- actually, a 

3 couple of different meetings, SC&A expressed 

4 some concerns over the NIOSH approach that was 

5 arrived at over the last -- I guess it's been 

6 eight, nine, ten months where it was proposed, 

7 claimed, whatever, that the operations at 

8 Mound that handle the -- and I'm going to talk 

9 hafnium tritide because I think there has been 

10 some confusion in the past. 

11 We want to make sure that we're 

12 focused on hafnium as the insoluble -- the 

13 more insoluble compound that has figured in a 

14 lot of our discussions. 

15 And for hafnium tritide I think the 

16 position that we had some concern over was 

17 that this compound was handled in a discrete, 

18 controlled operation wherein, you know, there 

19 was a potential for exposure to ten workers 

20 that, in fact, could be identified by name. 

21 And the exposure potential of -- meaningful 

22 exposure potential is limited to those ten. 

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1 And we expressed concern I think 

2 going in when we first heard that, that in 

3 terms of the basis for that very, you know, 

4 again, it was very defined and the assessment 

5 was that those were the workers that would, in 

6 fact, have the hafnium tritide figure in their 

7 dose reconstruction. 

8 I'm not going to go through the 

9 entire history of some of the questions 

10 regarding how you dose assess with the 

11 insoluble tritide. We could do that, but I 

12 think we've spent a lot of time doing this. I 

13 want to focus in on that issue. 

14 Because we thought, at that time 

15 and discussed it with the Work Group that, you 

16 know, this is an issue we should be able to 

17 get to ground truth, get to the facts because 

18 really the operational information surrounding 

19 the handling of hafnium tritide should be 

20 available. 

21 Now, I would add, that should be 

22 available in the classified information that 

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144 

1 would be available through interviews and 

2 through documentation from the site because of 

3 the nature of these operations. 

4 So, I think what we proposed at one 

5 or two meetings was that there would be a 

6 concerted effort to try to validate some very 

7 specific questions; the exposure potential 

8 that might have existed from operations, the 

9 operations themselves that took place at 

10 Mound, historically, and in fact the workers 

11 who may have been, you know, potentially 

12 exposed to hafnium tritide in operations, and 

13 to conduct the interviews and look at the 

14 documentation and, just again, let the chips 

15 fall where they may rather than sort of have 

16 this question of can you or can't you apply it 

17 to these ten named individuals and this very 

18 discrete operation. 

19 And from there we scheduled -- and 

20 this was done actually in collaboration with 

21 the Work Group and NIOSH so that sort of 

22 everybody who had a clearance could be 

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145 

1 involved. And we scheduled a series of on2 site records reviews at OSTI where a lot of 

3 documentation in fact resided. 

4 Made two trips to OSTI. I think, 

5 Brant, I think you did a separate trip. So, 

6 there might have been a series of trips. 

7 Scheduled interviews over a couple 

8 days with individuals that were associated 

9 with the tritium program. And had a couple of 

10 secure meetings amongst ourselves in Livermore 

11 and Germantown. 

12 And we spent, again, considerable 

13 time pouring over the available records at 

14 OSTI. We looked at -- interviewed these 

15 former Mound workers and tried to glean from 

16 them descriptions of the operations and what 

17 they could tell us in terms of these exposure 

18 potentials, and discussed all that in these 

19 meetings. 

20 As I recall, at least three of the 

21 Work Group members were present for both the 

22 interviews and these discussions. That was 

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146 

1 Josie, Brad and Phil. And I think again Brant 

2 was with us and myself and Kathy Robertson3 DeMers. 

4 And essentially, the objective was 

5 to get us all on the same page. I mean I 

6 think the objective was to clarify the 

7 operational experience and to really get a 

8 handle on what these exposure potentials were 

9 and if, in fact, the individuals exposed were 

10 these ten individuals that were postulated by 

11 the NIOSH position. 

12 And we finished this in April. And 

13 I drafted the summary that I submitted to the 

14 Work Group essentially defining pretty much 

15 what I thought this review had left us, had 

16 that cleared by DOE. And of course we, this 

17 past Friday, received the critique of that 

18 position from NIOSH. 

19 Now, we hadn't had a lot of time 

20 with the response, but I'm just saying that we 

21 do now have the response. 

22 I'm going to just basically say, 

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1 based on what we reviewed, collectively 

2 reviewed in terms of the classified database, 

3 that we frankly feel that our concerns were 

4 validated, that we do have concerns that there 

5 were in fact more individuals exposed to 

6 hafnium tritide than the ten that were cited 

7 in the NIOSH position. 

8 And that the individuals aren't 

9 necessarily nameable. And that we take 

10 exception to the premise that in fact this was 

11 a discrete operation that one could confine 

12 the issue to. 

13 And that's pretty much what I can 

14 say about it. I think the rest of it I would 

15 defer, but certainly in this case the Work 

16 Group members were present for all this data 

17 capture and all the discussions that ensued 

18 afterwards. 

19 So in a way, they were witness and 

20 party to what was found. So, I don't see this 

21 as so much trying to inform or provide an 

22 analysis as to just walk this thing down as 

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148 

1 far as what we did. 

2 But again I think the Work Group is 

3 in a perfectly good position to judge what was 

4 found in that classified review. And I'm 

5 going to leave it at that. 

6 MR. KATZ: But, Joe, you have two 

7 Board Members who weren't participants in any 

8 of that discovery. 

9 So, it would probably be helpful 

10 for them to hear rather than relying on the 

11 other three Board Members. 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Well, I think 

13 that's the reason I wrote up the position 

14 paper the week after we finished, was to 

15 capture what I felt could be said and have 

16 that cleared by DOE and distributed to the 

17 entire Work Group. 

18 Obviously it wasn't so much for the 

19 people that were there with me, but for the 

20 rest of the Work Group, as well as the Board 

21 Members to see. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and correct me 

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1 if I'm wrong. The unclassified notes are 

2 available. 

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: So, those were 

5 available to --

6 MR. KATZ: Yes, Joe's two-page 

7 write-up is --

8 CHAIR BEACH: And that's available. 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: But I mean just the 

11 raw notes, the unclassified version with the 

12 whole --

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, the redacted 

14 version of what we got from the interviews 

15 themselves of course are available. 

16 So, you know, there's information 

17 available to be reviewed on a -- available to 

18 uncleared personnel and to the rest of the 

19 Work Group. 

20 So, I think that was all we could 

21 do, but, you know, knowing the nature of this 

22 beast, knowing that some of this information, 

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1 the details, which are very important to 

2 solving this question, are in fact classified. 

3 I think we took the special 

4 approach of saying we really need to have as 

5 many cleared members of the Work Group 

6 firsthand present to hear the feedback from 

7 the interviewees, to look at the documents 

8 firsthand, and to be party to the discussions 

9 that Brant and I had because I think a lot of 

10 this becomes more difficult in an open forum. 

11 So, I think there was a reason to 

12 do it the way we did. Didn't have everybody, 

13 but I think we took some effort to translate 

14 what we could into some form that could be 

15 reviewed as well. 

16 That's what I think what you were 

17 saying is. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Any questions on 

20 that? 

21 CHAIR BEACH: Brant, what do you --

22 DR. ULSH: Well, Joe gave you a 

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1 pretty good summary of the process involved. 

2 For us, the process, I mean one of 

3 the first -- one of the early events was our 

4 interviews with former Mound workers about 

5 this topic. About the topic of special 

6 tritium compounds and specifically hafnium 

7 tritide, because hafnium tritide does present 

8 some challenges that you don't see with other 

9 tritium compounds. 

10 And if you're used to working with 

11 tritium and know the issues that are attended 

12 with that, you may want to set that aside 

13 because hafnium tritide or particulate tritide 

14 is a different beast. 

15 Tritium gas tends to be very 

16 mobile. It tends to get everywhere. 

17 Particulate tritium is different than that. 

18 It is not as -- I mean when we called these 

19 stable tritium compounds, we were kind of 

20 talking about this before how that's kind of 

21 an oxymoron. 

22 By "stable," what we mean here is 

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1 that the compounds don't break down as readily 

2 and they're not as mobile readily as you might 

3 be used to thinking of in terms of the tritium 

4 gas operation. 

5 So, that presents some challenges 

6 to normal tritium programs where it's very 

7 easy to detect. 

8 When you're relying on urinalysis 

9 to detect tritium intakes, normally tritium 

10 gas is very readily detectable in urinalysis. 

11 The problem with hafnium tritide is 

12 that it tends to be more stable relative to 

13 other tritium compounds. And so it stays in 

14 the lungs and doesn't come out as readily in 

15 the urine. 

16 Now, we've always contended that 

17 it's not zero, but the amount that you see 

18 coming out in the urine is much less. So, the 

19 dose that you could miss is much higher 

20 relative than what we might see with other 

21 tritium compounds. 

22 So, we started by interviewing some 

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1 former Mound workers. Three of them. One of 

2 whom was involved, specifically, in reviewing 

3 the urinalysis data that was available for the 

4 workers involved in this program and trying to 

5 identify which workers might have been 

6 exposed. And for those workers, estimating 

7 the dose that they might have received from 

8 those intakes. 

9 And they identified three workers 

10 that were actually exposed based on that 

11 urinalysis data. And the highest dose that 

12 they estimated for any of them was three rem. 

13 Now, you know, that's a big dose 

14 for tritium, but it's not in the realm of 

15 implausibly large doses. 

16 We asked those three workers about 

17 a number of topics. And to be clear, the 

18 position that this was a small, discrete, 

19 well-contained operation did not come from 

20 NIOSH. It came from the workers that we 

21 interviewed who had direct knowledge of this 

22 program. 

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1 And the list of ten or so workers 

2 who were involved in the program came from 

3 those worker interviewees, the people that we 

4 talked to. 

5 Now, Joe mentioned that we recently 

6 had another round of interviews. And for the 

7 record, just to be clear, what we're talking 

8 about here, we had a round of interviews here 

9 in Cincinnati with three of the Work Group 

10 members, the three previously mentioned 

11 present, and this was a different set of 

12 workers. 

13 And these turned out to be the 

14 workers who were directly involved hands-on in 

15 producing the material and doing what they did 

16 with it. 

17 These workers added to our list. 

18 They gave us a few more names that weren't on 

19 our original list of ten. So, there are more 

20 than that and they gave us a few additional 

21 names. 

22 We also talked to them about the 

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1 exposure potential to other people. And, I 

2 don't know, maybe we differ here, but what I 

3 heard them say was here are the people who 

4 were directly involved, the principals and 

5 their support staff. Their technicians that 

6 worked directly alongside them were in a 

7 different category in terms of exposure 

8 potential than anyone else. 

9 They had a realistic exposure 

10 potential, but to imply that the exposure 

11 potential to other workers who were not 

12 directly involved here is completely 

13 inaccurate. 

14 This is not everybody on site. 

15 It's not even everybody in the buildings where 

16 this operation took place. It was limited 

17 very specifically. 

18 And we've actually seen documentary 

19 evidence down at OSTI that supports what the 

20 workers told us that this was limited to --

21 primary operations were limited to a couple of 

22 rooms. 

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1 And then of course there were some 

2 other activities that happened like, for 

3 instance, NMR operations where you go and 

4 analyze some samples. But those were always 

5 doubly contained and they didn't have an 

6 exposure potential. 

7 So, yes, you'll see the presence of 

8 this material perhaps in other places, but 

9 you've got to really examine whether or not 

10 there's an exposure potential. 

11 So, we came away from the 

12 interviews and from the documentary evidence 

13 largely supporting what the workers had 

14 originally told us, although, granted, with a 

15 few more names of people to be included on 

16 this list. 

17 We have also prepared a document, 

18 OTIB-0066, which tells the dose reconstructor 

19 how to reconstruct doses from this compound. 

20 SC&A reviewed that document, and by 

21 and large came out with the conclusion that it 

22 was an appropriate and claimant favorable way 

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1 to do it, you do need some site-specific 

2 information in order to make this work, and we 

3 agree with that. 

4 But then SC&A's review of this 

5 topic specifically related to Mound, that is 

6 hafnium tritide specifically related to Mound, 

7 came to by and large, what I at least 

8 interpret as the opposite conclusion. 

9 So, I was a little confused by 

10 that, but I come away from this whole thing 

11 looking at the weight of the evidence, the 

12 interviews that were conducted, the 

13 documentary evidence, largely in the same 

14 place that I came into it. 

15 This was a very small, very well16 controlled operation dealing with a material 

17 that was considered very precious. 

18 In other words, you aren't going to 

19 spread it all around, because each microgram 

20 is very valuable. 

21 And this was done in limited access 

22 areas. People were not just wandering through 

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158 

1 getting a snootful. It was very well 

2 controlled. And if you didn't have a reason 

3 to go into these rooms, it was security 

4 padlocked. You could not go in. 

5 And I think the thing that we've 

6 also kind of lost sight of is that we're not 

7 talking about a typical situation where we 

8 would have some concerns where there's not 

9 monitoring. There was extensive monitoring. 

10 Urinalysis, as with the other 

11 tritium workers, they gave urinalysis once or 

12 even twice a week for the workers involved in 

13 these operations. 

14 In addition, there was air 

15 monitoring, there was swipe data. They worked 

16 in bubble suits whenever containment was going 

17 to be breached. 

18 We're not talking about the typical 

19 little exotic operation where, you know, you 

20 may not have bioassay. That's not the case 

21 here. 

22 So, I come away from it unconvinced 

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159 

1 that what the workers told us was wrong. I 

2 come away from it convinced that what they 

3 told us was right. I have not seen anything 

4 that would contradict it. 

5 So, I guess we just have to agree 

6 to disagree on that point. 

7 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well, I strongly 

8 disagree with you because you may have two 

9 workers there, but you got all these port 

10 people, painters, welders, pipefitters, 

11 tinners, housecleaning come in, in any 

12 facility. 

13 Just because you have a CAM alarm 

14 over here and maybe it goes off at 5,000 DPM, 

15 you have particulate matter that has escaped 

16 over here. It can be a million DPM. 

17 Big freakin' deal. That doesn't 

18 tell me how much particulate matter has gotten 

19 out and gotten where. 

20 The other thing is when those 

21 crafts come in, particulate matter gets 

22 scattered around. You know that stuff got 

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160 

1 into oil. You know it got into the hoses and 

2 the vac pump. You know it got there. It's 

3 going to because it's the nature of the beast. 

4 You go in and start cleaning that 

5 up, every bolt, every nut, every pipefitting, 

6 every penetration, every place that thing 

7 bolted to the wall, to the floor, to each 

8 other has that potential and you will find in 

9 almost any facility, you are going to find 

10 some contamination under there. 

11 So, when you go in and clean an 

12 area, I can go through and clean up the floor, 

13 have the, you know, find a few big spots. Big 

14 deal. 

15 But now when I go in there and D&D, 

16 I'm taking every nut, every fitting, 

17 everything apart. Now, you've got all this 

18 stuff that's been hidden in there for years, 

19 weeks, days, months, whatever it is, is now 

20 being brought forth and it's going to be in 

21 there. 

22 That stuff's not going to be all 

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161 

1 nice and confined to that box. There's going 

2 to be excursions. It's going to combine with 

3 other things. So, it's not the only compound 

4 that you need to worry about there. 

5 And those supporting crafts, I 

6 would be extremely shocked if they had a small 

7 crew that was just dedicated to that. Usually 

8 it's not. All the fitters, all the tinners 

9 who were cleared, they would go in and out of 

10 there as they were needed. 

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Phil, you said at 

12 one point talking about a CAM going off over 

13 here or something if particulate material got 

14 out. 

15 What's the indication of if 

16 particulate material was released? 

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well, a lot of 

18 times when you have those, you'll have a CAM 

19 alarm go off in one part -- now, this comes 

20 from experience -- many times. 

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: But you're not 

22 talking about this facility. 

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1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I am talking 

2 about this facility. I'm talking about 

3 basically any facility. 

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: But your experience 

5 is not at this facility. 

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: No, but what I'm 

7 saying --

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Your experience is 

9 at the facility where you worked, and you're 

10 extrapolating that experience to this 

11 facility. 

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: What I'm saying 

13 though is that you can have particulate matter 

14 that doesn't necessarily become as much 

15 airborne, doesn't spread as much. You can 

16 have some of it becomes airborne, and some of 

17 it may not become airborne. 

18 And that's why a lot of times you 

19 can wind up -- these people can wind up with 

20 it on their gloves, down on their feet, 

21 somewhere where, yes, a CAM alarm does go off. 

22 So, an amount of it's going to get airborne. 

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163 

1 But in that particular area where 

2 they're working whether they've had a torn 

3 glove, they've had a hose failure, whatever it 

4 is, would allow more particulate matter in 

5 that particular -- that's why -- you've been 

6 over there. You have hot spots. 

7 MR. HINNEFELD: So, your point then 

8 is that the CAM monitoring location is not 

9 representative of the work location where 

10 somebody might be. 

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Exactly. 

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. That's your 

13 point. 

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: That's my point. 

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. I still 

16 haven't heard the evidence for this material 

17 getting out. 

18 I suppose you mean getting out of a 

19 glovebox. The particulate material getting 

20 out. 

21 I mean there was testimony, if I'm 

22 not mistaken -- I wasn't at these meetings 

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164 

1 because my clearance wasn't there yet. I 

2 didn't have my clearance yet and Brant has 

3 subsequently briefed me since I got my 

4 clearance. 

5 There was discussion about the 

6 amount of material; was there not? 

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, let me 

8 respond to that because that was, you know, 

9 there's two elements to this that are very 

10 important. 

11 One is what you're raising. Is 

12 there an exposure potential for this to get 

13 out of the glovebox? 

14 And, you know, the other issue is 

15 are workers beyond the ten operators that 

16 would have received, you know, the potential 

17 for exposure, meaningful exposure. 

18 The first issue, we spent some time 

19 on the interviews, and it's all in the 

20 unredacted and redacted notes, but we honed in 

21 on that and specifically asked, okay, what's 

22 the history of tritium releases from the 

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165 

1 glovebox within the so-called controlled 

2 environment? 

3 If we think back to the early days 

4 in the tritium operations, well, you know, 

5 gloves, skin puncture, you know, you tend to 

6 have tritium releases, tritium alarms. That's 

7 not an infrequent thing. 

8 And so we asked the same question. 

9 What's the history of tritium releases from 

10 these gloveboxes in this particular facility? 

11 And the answer is, yes, we've had 

12 those. I mean, you know, whether it was once 

13 every so often, you know, it's just something 

14 that happened. 

15 And my question very specifically 

16 is you have hafnium tritide in that box, you 

17 know, the alarm is seeing the gases 

18 triggering for sure, but is it reasonable to 

19 expect that you would have any hafnium tritide 

20 leaking out as well? 

21 Now, that wouldn't be picked up, 

22 obviously, by the monitor, but it would, you 

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166 

1 know, there certainly is the potential for 

2 that to get out, and the answer was yes. 

3 Now, it wouldn't be considerable, 

4 but, yes, there's an undefinable amount. I 

5 think the answer was going to be pretty small 

6 that would in fact be potentially out there 

7 from that leak because it's being handled in 

8 the box. 

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Did he say that a 

10 small amount probably got out or did he say 

11 there was a small probability that some got 

12 out? 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: I can't recall the 

14 exact words, but it's in the notes. 

15 But in terms of exposure pathways, 

16 I think that is the essential question 

17 whether, you know, if in fact you're having 

18 leakage from a glovebox, could one postulate 

19 that you're also having hafnium tritide get 

20 out as well? 

21 And I think that was the --

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me ask 

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167 

1 this question then, Joe. 

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't know how 

4 much of this is classified. But if you have a 

5 glovebox with both tritium gas and the stable 

6 stuff in there, you can be sure the tritium 

7 gas is going to get out without any leaks in 

8 the gloves. It will penetrate. 

9 I mean tritium always does. That's 

10 why you double glove on the tritium gas 

11 glovebox and it's always coming out. 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, my question 

14 really is was -- and are you allowed to say 

15 it? Were there actual breaches, accidental 

16 breaches in the gloves? 

17 Because the tritide is not going to 

18 get through a rubber glove like tritium gas. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. No, this 

20 isn't a permanent build issue. These are just 

21 normal events where you have breaches whether 

22 it's in the gloves or the attachment of the 

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168 

1 glove to the glovebox. 

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Or moving things in 

3 and out. 

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Just the kind of 

5 normal thing you would have in a tritium 

6 facility. This was a very secure room and a 

7 very secure glovebox. 

8 Nonetheless, you do have breaches. 

9 On occasion the alarm would go off. 

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, but that alarm 

11 was seeing --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: The tritium gas. 

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Tritium gas. 

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. It wasn't 

15 able to see --

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I'm wondering 

17 whether you would have that without a breach. 

18 That's what I'm saying. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, we 

20 couched in the way could you have these 

21 releases? And the answer is yes, we did. And 

22 the alarms went off. 

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169 

1 Now, you know, the question that we 

2 were trying to hone in on and the question I 

3 think we're talking about here, is what is the 

4 potential that hafnium --

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: There might have 

6 been breaches. 

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Was able to get out 

8 as well as the tritium. 

9 Now, they weren't monitoring -- or 

10 the capability wasn't there technologically to 

11 monitor for tritide. So, this was one of 

12 these could you in fact have hafnium tritide 

13 being released through these breaches? 

14 And they, you know, were --

15 MR. HINNEFELD: So, he either said, 

16 yes, a small amount probably got out or he 

17 said there's a small probability that any --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I'll have to 

19 go back. We got the notes on that. 

20 DR. ULSH: My recollection is he 

21 said that there was a very small probability. 

22 When we asked about whether or not 

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1 when CAM alarms go off, was it a gas or was it 

2 the particulate, the guy that we were talking 

3 to kind of -- I asked that question and he 

4 kind of looked at me like I was crazy. 

5 He said so you're asking how much 

6 dust could have gotten out of a tritium-tight 

7 glovebox? 

8 It was very clear that he was 

9 saying that anything that would have gotten 

10 out would have been the tritium gas. It's far 

11 more mobile. 

12 So, I mean of course you can't say 

13 that the probability is zero. I mean a 

14 scientist is never going to say the 

15 probability is zero. But they were clearly 

16 trying to indicate that when you're working 

17 with this material, it's always accompanied by 

18 tritium gas. And that's what you're going to 

19 see. 

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, Phil is 

21 certainly quite right that particulates get 

22 out. And I've seen this firsthand. It 

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171 

1 doesn't take very much mass --

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: No. 

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: To cover every 

4 square inch of a room, floor, ceilings, every 

5 surface in every nook and cranny. 

6 I don't know how much mass we're 

7 talking about here. Even with a specific 

8 activity some of this stuff is -- could come 

9 into play. 

10 I mean I suppose if you -- and you 

11 probably did some of this in some classified 

12 stuff if you're talking about the masses. 

13 But I guess my comfort level is 

14 related to the issue of were there actual 

15 known incidents of breaches versus the alarm 

16 going off which would not in my mind be so 

17 surprising if there's tritium gas there. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: There was one improper 

19 pass out of a glovebox. 

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. So that --

21 CHAIR BEACH: The container wasn't 

22 decontaminated. It was on the floor, tracked 

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172 

1 through the building. So, yes, that was --

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. So, there 

3 were incidents. 

4 DR. ULSH: There were two known 

5 incidents. 

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. 

7 DR. ULSH: One was the one Josie 

8 just mentioned where a storage tree got 

9 knocked into and it led to the situation that 

10 Josie just described. 

11 Another involved a person who was 

12 manufacturing this material and got an uptake. 

13 And I really don't want to go into too much 

14 more detail, but those are the two known 

15 incidents that happened. 

16 The people who were involved in 

17 those incidents are on this list. So, when 

18 these incidents happened, we have the people 

19 and we are going to treat them as if they 

20 could have been exposed to hafnium tritide. 

21 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Do you have the 

22 list of people who cleaned up in there? 

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1 DR. ULSH: If you recall back in the 

2 interviews, we asked specifically the round 

3 that we did in Cincinnati, we talked about 

4 exactly those people, Phil. 

5 We talked about the people that 

6 came in, did the trash. We talked about the 

7 support people, the technicians. Not the 

8 principals, not the guy who was actually 

9 making the material, but the people that were 

10 there with them. 

11 And they clearly said that the 

12 exposure potential for the principals and 

13 their technicians, their support staff, was up 

14 here. The exposure potential for anyone else 

15 including the trash pickers or whatever, was 

16 much lower. 

17 They didn't say zero. They'll 

18 never say zero, but clearly in a separate 

19 class. 

20 Now, anyone that goes in here is 

21 going to be monitored for tritium bioassay. 

22 DR. BISTLINE: This is Bistline 

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1 speaking, and I would like to push this 

2 further. 

3 And that is that the issue -- the 

4 discussion just focused strictly on hafnium 

5 tritide, and there are other tritides that 

6 were handled. 

7 And I am very concerned about the 

8 diffusion and reactivity that we learned in 

9 the meeting at Savannah River from scientists 

10 that have handled these materials, that 

11 diffusion of hydrogen through tritium through 

12 the various media does occur as Dr. Ziemer has 

13 pointed out. And in the process, there is 

14 also some reactivity occurring. 

15 And so anywhere you had tritium, 

16 it's not just one glovebox which this hafnium 

17 tritide was handled, but there are other 

18 locations where tritium was handled throughout 

19 the site. 

20 And in these locations, there is 

21 the potential for tritides being formed, 

22 either organic tritides or metallic tritides, 

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1 which will persist for years to come. 

2 And D&D may very well be involved, 

3 and so workers -- and you know from your 

4 discussions and so forth that bioassays are 

5 not good for tritide forms, most of the 

6 tritide forms. 

7 DR. ULSH: All right. A couple of 

8 issues there that I'd like to address. 

9 First of all, when Joe teed this up 

10 at the beginning, he specifically 

11 differentiated between hafniun tritide and 

12 other tritides, and I think for very good 

13 reason. 

14 The reason is that hafnium tritide 

15 is the least soluble tritide that we know 

16 about. 

17 Now, we're not saying in any way 

18 that there may be other tritides present at 

19 Mound through the processes that you just 

20 mentioned and also through the fact that they 

21 made these compounds to use. 

22 So, for instance, there was uranium 

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1 tritide, there was lithium tritide, there were 

2 other tritides. We know that and we're not 

3 saying that they weren't present there. 

4 What we're saying is that hafnium 

5 tritide is the worst case from the perspective 

6 of detecting it in a urinalysis because it's 

7 the least soluble tritide that we know about. 

8 So, yes, Bob, I'm not saying that 

9 all these things that you just talked about 

10 don't lead to the formation of tritides, but 

11 those compounds are much more soluble than 

12 hafnium tritide. 

13 They're less soluble than tritiated 

14 water for sure, and our position has been that 

15 for hafnium tritide we know the workers 

16 involved. 

17 For these other intermediate 

18 solubility compounds from either what they 

19 produced or the processes that you described, 

20 those are more soluble than hafnium tritide 

21 and don't present the same challenges that 

22 hafnium tritide do. 

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1 DR. BISTLINE: Well, there are a 

2 number of tritides that are equally as 

3 insoluble as hafnium or very close to it, 

4 we've learned from other sites. 

5 And the concern I have is it just 

6 doesn't stop with just Mound. We're talking 

7 about other sites, DOE sites, a number of them 

8 where tritides were handled in fairly 

9 significant amounts. 

10 And talking with these people from 

11 these sites, we find out that there are other 

12 insoluble tritides that are equally or nearly 

13 equally as insoluble as hafnium. 

14 DR. ULSH: Well, this is -- I don't 

15 want to go into other sites. I've got my 

16 hands full with just this one. I'll let other 

17 people fight those battles. 

18 For the record, Brad agrees, I 

19 think. And there are certainly some other 

20 compounds that are to some degree or other 

21 insoluble, but I would represent that hafnium 

22 tritide is the worst one that we know about 

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1 that specifically comes into play at Mound. 

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, can I turn 

3 this back around? 

4 I do have the notes. This is one 

5 of our interviewees responding to this 

6 question, exposed potential. 

7 It is very difficult to prove --

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: You can show these? 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, this is 

10 cleared. 

11 (Laughter.) 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: I think I would get 

13 shot first. 

14 It is very difficult to prove a 

15 negative. The likelihood of exposure is low. 

16 And one in ten to the minus x, for example. 

17 So, he didn't attach a number, but 

18 relatively low. 

19 Contamination in your face does not 

20 lead to cancer. This would likely not happen 

21 undetected. 

22 What I went on to say is, but you 

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1 have a potential pathway of exposure to the 

2 workers with tritium alarms, you have a 

3 potential situation of exposures in particular 

4 rooms. However, I also add that it is -- is 

5 it remote? I said probably. 

6 Now, the issue I think -- and this 

7 is a difficult issue. If you're not 

8 monitoring for something, you know, and you're 

9 monitoring for tritium, the issue is what's 

10 the exposure pathway? What's the probable 

11 exposure pathway? 

12 And there were incidents, the two 

13 that I think we certainly agree were recorded 

14 for tritides getting out and being tracked 

15 around and workers being exposed, that did 

16 occur. 

17 And what I was trying to get at is 

18 on a more routine basis, not the sort of major 

19 incidences, but more routine basis you did 

20 have these tritium alarms in the tritide 

21 handling areas with the gloveboxes. 

22 And as he was pointing out, well, 

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1 they weren't, you know, it wasn't being -- the 

2 particulates weren't being detectable --

3 detected, but, you know, what's the 

4 probability of those tritides getting out 

5 along with the tritium? 

6 His answer was a low probability. 

7 I guess that was what you're looking for. But 

8 certainly not zero and certainly the exposure 

9 potential would have existed. 

10 Now, the question of how much would 

11 have been out, how much would have been 

12 available for exposure, that's not answerable. 

13 That's also what he was saying. That's sort 

14 of his proving a negative standpoint. 

15 But our issue was, okay, if you 

16 have an exposure potential as acknowledged in 

17 the -- I think in Brant's piece of, you know, 

18 you got ten workers, the operators themselves, 

19 who were acknowledged as having exposure 

20 potential, my concern from the very beginning 

21 is that we all know that in a typical DOE 

22 operation the operators themselves are just 

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1 sort of the tip. There's sort of a hierarchy. 

2 You have a diverse support staff. 

3 You have the people that go in and change the 

4 filters. You have the people that maintain 

5 the gloveboxes that go in and, you know, the 

6 rad techs. You have the people that do the 

7 maintenance, I mean the electricians, I mean 

8 all the people that keep things running. 

9 And my concern all along was what 

10 about those people? 

11 I mean are we saying that the 

12 exposure potential of those individuals going 

13 into this operating area was essentially 

14 negligible, that there was no exposure 

15 potential for those workers that were 

16 routinely having access to this area or not? 

17 And we spent a lot of time talking 

18 about that both in the interviews, as well as 

19 amongst ourselves saying that we just had 

20 difficulty buying into the proposition that it 

21 was just these ten workers. 

22 And the reason that number came up 

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182 

1 was a -- and I think Brant was acknowledging 

2 this, was the interview with the sort of 

3 manager or the key principal people involved. 

4 And if you ask operators who, you 

5 know, who are the people that are potentially 

6 exposed, they're more -- and this is again 

7 just based on my experience, they're likely to 

8 name their colleagues. These are the people 

9 that are operating and would be potentially 

10 exposed. 

11 I think the notion of identifying 

12 all these support folks probably wouldn't come 

13 to their mind. They wouldn't think of the 

14 maintenance guy that comes in and fixes the 

15 glovebox or maintains the glovebox. That's 

16 not something that would come directly to the 

17 mind. 

18 So, I think the number ten 

19 represents a sincere estimation on the part of 

20 the operating manager or staff as to, you 

21 know, who counted in terms of exposure 

22 potential. 

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1 But I think out reservation is that 

2 that is not the complete worker cohort that 

3 would have been implicated in any exposure 

4 potential in the facility. 

5 The other thing I might want to add 

6 is -- and this is something that went back, I 

7 think, a little further back. I'm concerned, 

8 and have been concerned, that the discrete 

9 operation that Brant has referred to, it 

10 wasn't the extent of hafnium tritide handling. 

11 I identified in an earlier piece 

12 that you have recycle operations, QA 

13 operations, you know, Mound was involved. And 

14 Brant and I both spent a lot of time looking 

15 at documentation on those operations. 

16 So, I think the cohort of workers 

17 involved are not just the workers that were 

18 associated with this one discrete unit that 

19 has been referred to, but there was other 

20 units of activity that involve workers that we 

21 just don't know who those workers were and nor 

22 do we have a good fix on exposure potential. 

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1 And again I think that's an 

2 uncertainty that sort of begs the question as 

3 to we're trying to draw a line around a very 

4 defined set of operations and a very defined 

5 set of workers. 

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Joe, are you 

7 referring to other Work Groups outside the 

8 support people? 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I'm referring 

10 to other activities besides the one discrete 

11 operation that has figured in the --

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: That would be using 

13 hafnium? 

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, that would be 

15 handling hafnium. That's as far as I can go. 

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: All right. But if 

17 that were the case, why wouldn't we know who 

18 those were? 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: That's my question. 

20 It's difficult, you know, again it's --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: An operation 

22 somewhere else in the facility? 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, to 

2 specifically give you an example is we looked 

3 at QA activities, we looked at recycling 

4 operations and certainly they have figured at 

5 Mound historically. And the question is, who 

6 are those workers and what were the potentials 

7 there? 

8 And we did spend time looking at 

9 those, but again it just becomes difficult to 

10 identify those. 

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, do we know 

12 something about the movement? 

13 Somebody orders this stuff, it 

14 comes into the facility and there's some -- it 

15 goes somewhere. 

16 Do we know anything about --

17 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

18 MR. FITZGERALD: We may know too 

19 much and that's why we're hesitating, Paul. 

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'll ask the 

21 question. If it's not answerable here --

22 DR. ULSH: I can enter the picture. 

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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: But it does make it 

2 a little tough. And this generically is a 

3 problem we'll face probably in places like 

4 Pantex where not all Board Members are privy 

5 to all the information and they have to make a 

6 decision on something. 

7 DR. ULSH: I can help. I think I 

8 can help. 

9 This material in terms of the 

10 program that we've been talking about was 

11 manufactured at Mound. So, it didn't come 

12 from somewhere else. It was manufactured at 

13 Mound by the people that we've been talking 

14 about. 

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: By these people. 

16 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

17 Now, there was -- we did spend some 

18 time talking about QA work. And specifically 

19 in our Livermore meeting, we talked about what 

20 was involved with that. 

21 And my position was we walked 

22 through exactly what happened and examined the 

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187 

1 exposure potential. And for reasons that I 

2 presented at that time, I don't feel that 

3 there was a real exposure potential from those 

4 activities. 

5 Now, quite separate from those 

6 first two things, they also operated -- Mound 

7 also operated a tritium recovery facility 

8 where they ran compounds -- tritium-bearing 

9 compounds through this facility to reclaim 

10 tritium. 

11 And Joe and I -- the whole -- well, 

12 not the whole, but one of the main purposes 

13 for one of our trips down to OSTI was to get 

14 some more details on this system. And we did 

15 find information on an instance when this 

16 material was run through the tritium recovery 

17 facility. 

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Where somebody 

19 handled it then. 

20 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

21 Now, the thing is the guy who was 

22 in charge of that tritium recovery facility is 

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188 

1 the same guy who was involved earlier in the 

2 hafnium tritide production operations. 

3 He then moved on over to the 

4 tritium recovery facility. So, he's on the 

5 list. 

6 And for that one instance that we 

7 know about when this material ran through the 

8 tritium recovery facility, there are no 

9 incident reports that we're aware of, he was 

10 not aware of any incident related to that. 

11 Keep in mind what they do in a 

12 tritium recovery facility. You take, let's 

13 say, a can of hafnium tritide. The first 

14 thing you do is heat it up to drive off the 

15 tritium. 

16 And at that point you've got 

17 tritium gas, far more mobile, it might set off 

18 the CAM if it got out, but it's not hafnium 

19 tritide anymore. It's not particulate 

20 tritium. 

21 So, I think we know what was done 

22 with hafnium tritide at Mound. 

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1 DR. NETON: I'd like to just say 

2 something. Maybe muddy the waters here. 

3 (Laughter.) 

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: We need somebody to 

5 do that. 

6 DR. NETON: I just got an 

7 observation and it may or may not be of 

8 relevance, but it's something that strikes me 

9 of importance. 

10 And the fact is that Mound now has 

11 an SEC Class, had it through 1980, based on 

12 radon exposure in the very same building, I 

13 believe, where the operation occurred. 

14 And in fact the same people will be 

15 called, because the Class Definition is 

16 defined as anyone who left a single tritium 

17 sample up through 1980. 

18 So, all the workers that we've just 

19 been talking about through 1980 are 

20 essentially members of that Class. 

21 So, you know, does that have any 

22 bearing on this discussion only to the extent 

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1 that if one comes to the conclusion now that 

2 tritide exposures cannot be reconstructed. 

3 They no longer have any recourse for 

4 reconstruction, partial dose reconstruction. 

5 Again, it may or may not be of 

6 relevance, but it may help bracket the 

7 discussion somewhat because, again, all the 

8 workers through 1980 at least are covered. 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: We're talking post 

10 1980. 

11 DR. NETON: Wait a minute. I 

12 thought these activities that we were talking 

13 about occurred prior to 1980. 

14 DR. ULSH: An important thing to 

15 keep in mind here is that the period of active 

16 work with this compound is entirely 

17 encompassed by the Class that Jim just 

18 mentioned. 

19 Now, I want to mention what I'm not 

20 saying here. I'm not saying that there was no 

21 hafnium tritide on site at Mound after 1980. 

22 I'm not saying that at all. 

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191 

1 They did have archive samples, for 

2 example. But the period of active work, the 

3 program that involved this material was 

4 concluded by 1980. 

5 DR. NETON: This includes like the 

6 glovebox operations where the CAMs went off 

7 and the incidents occurred? 

8 DR. ULSH: Well, that system 

9 certainly operated beyond 1980, but not with 

10 hafnium tritide. 

11 DR. NETON: Right. That's what I'm 

12 saying. 

13 So, a lot of the issues that we've 

14 been discussing about the worker testimony and 

15 what happened and such really is prior to the 

16 existence of this Class. It's included in the 

17 Class that's already been defined. 

18 And I'm not saying that there 

19 aren't issues after 1980, but it seems like 

20 one might want to focus the discussion more on 

21 workers that aren't covered than the ones that 

22 already are. 

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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: Let me clarify 

2 something, Brant. This is Brad talking. 

3 That facility where the hafnium 

4 tritides were worked with continued on past 

5 1980. 

6 DR. ULSH: Now, wait a minute. 

7 Are you talking about the tritium 

8 recovery facility or are you talking about the 

9 production operations? 

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, I'm talking 

11 about the production operations. 

12 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: And was it all 

14 cleaned out and everything was all good, 

15 everything was wonderful? 

16 Because we never found that out and 

17 that tritium was in everything that they had 

18 in that. 

19 As we found at Mound, they would 

20 start into a process, they would work it, they 

21 would walk away from it, people would come in 

22 with another project and it would resurrect, 

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193 

1 to say, the dead from the past. 

2 Because we have seen it in the D&D 

3 era and everything else where they've given it 

4 a clean bill of health and start tearing it 

5 apart, and all these old processes would come 

6 back to life because there is still residual 

7 there. 

8 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I would venture 

9 to say that there is -- in all probability, 

10 there is build-up anyplace you had a 

11 penetration for a glovebox, the window sills, 

12 the gloves, whatever seals they were using in 

13 there. There were penetrations for electrical 

14 penetrations, any mechanical penetrations. 

15 And then what I do know, you're 

16 going to have some back pumps there in the 

17 system. Those I can guarantee are going to be 

18 -- somebody had to take care of those. 

19 Somebody had to maintain those. 

20 And you have build-up where those 

21 seals are, you have build-up in those pumps, 

22 you have build-ups in those hoses, and most 

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1 materials have an account balance. 

2 You got XY, you know, so much 

3 coming in one end, and then you have so much 

4 final product go out the other end. 

5 I would venture to guess there was 

6 some material that didn't make it from A to B. 

7 Now, whether that's extreme minute quality, I 

8 don't know. I don't know how well their 

9 operation was done. 

10 DR. ULSH: I can address first of 

11 all Brad's points, and then yours, Phil. 

12 Brad, I think your question dealt 

13 with once the activities in this program were 

14 concluded and they moved on, were these same 

15 facilities, did they continue to be used? 

16 And the answer is yes because it is 

17 -- they moved on to other compounds. So, yes, 

18 they did. However, let me just say that 

19 purity was important. 

20 You couldn't tolerate a lot of 

21 contamination here. And certainly they 

22 cleaned up, decontaminated and moved on. 

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195 

1 And then their next product, you 

2 can't tolerate contamination with hafnium 

3 tritide. That's just not the nature of what 

4 they were doing. 

5 Now, we also asked specifically, I 

6 asked during the first round of interviews 

7 that we conducted with the workers, and then I 

8 can't recall if the interviews that we 

9 conducted in Cincinnati also dealt with D&D, 

10 because I think you mentioned that as well. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, we did. 

12 DR. ULSH: We specifically asked 

13 about the potential for D&D workers to be 

14 exposed when they years later went in and 

15 demolished this building. 

16 And the response that we got was 

17 keep in mind this is particulate tritium and 

18 these systems were exhausted with a hundred 

19 cubic feet per second, I think is the number 

20 that he used. If it was respirable, it was 

21 sucked out the pipe and gone. 

22 Now, if it's non-respirable, gets 

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1 caught in a bend in a pipe, we don't have a 

2 problem. It's non-respirable. 

3 Furthermore, they elaborated that 

4 D&D from this operation was a little bit 

5 different than what might be typical, go in 

6 with the bulldozer and knock down the 

7 building. 

8 Because of security concerns, they 

9 had to D&D the equipment that was used in this 

10 operation, and that was performed by 

11 laboratory personnel before it was ever turned 

12 over to D&D workers, to make sure that this 

13 compound wasn't present not so much from a 

14 dosimetric hazard standpoint, but from a 

15 security standpoint. 

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: When you say 

17 "laboratory personnel," who are you saying? 

18 DR. ULSH: I'm saying --

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: These ten people? 

20 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. If you 

22 remember right, on the interview we asked them 

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1 so you're telling us that you're the only ones 

2 that really got involved? Yes. 

3 Then we asked who took care of your 

4 instrumentation? Well, that was the 

5 instrument tech. 

6 Who changed out your glass? Oh, 

7 well, these people did. 

8 Well, who changed out all of this? 

9 Well, there's other people, but they 

10 couldn't, you know, it wasn't a part of it. 

11 He was focused on those ten, but he 

12 forgets that's just the tip of the iceberg and 

13 the rest of it that is sitting underneath the 

14 water is the one we're worried about. 

15 The support personnel that came in 

16 and did this, the union people that were in 

17 there had it very cut and dry and he made it 

18 very clear why he was upset, because they did 

19 come in and they had certain things that they 

20 had to be able to do. He couldn't have total 

21 control. 

22 There were people there that did 

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1 these jobs and I don't think that they were --

2 this went well past `80, some of the pumps and 

3 everything else that were still in there. 

4 Mound had a tendency to when they 

5 got done, they walked away. And, granted, the 

6 gas part of it and everything else like that 

7 was gone, but residual in all the pumps, in 

8 the oil, in the drip tubes and everything was 

9 there. He did not say when all that was taken 

10 care of. 

11 DR. ULSH: Okay. Going back to the 

12 first round of interviews that we did, this 

13 was early on in the process, not around when 

14 you guys were there, the first three workers 

15 that NIOSH ORAU interviewed, we specifically 

16 asked the worker who was in charge of D&D here 

17 about this. 

18 He's the one that told me about, 

19 you know, I asked specifically about what 

20 about --

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: These are the ones 

22 at the Mound facility? 

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1 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: I was there. 

3 DR. ULSH: No, no, no, no, no. We 

4 interviewed them downtown at the FBI Building 

5 the same place that we had the later round of 

6 interviews, but you guys weren't there at that 

7 point. 

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. 

9 DR. ULSH: Okay. He also said that 

10 they crawled around up there and took swipes. 

11 They took swipes looking for this material 

12 and they just didn't find it. 

13 Now, you have to understand here 

14 that this material was only one small part of 

15 the tritides program at Mound. I mean the 

16 amount of material was very -- so, I think 

17 there will be enormous amounts of dilution 

18 involved even if there is anything left. 

19 I'm not saying that you didn't have 

20 these categories of workers go in that Phil 

21 described earlier and you just mentioned. I'm 

22 not saying that. 

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1 What they said was any time they 

2 had an activity that would involve a breach in 

3 containment, they put the material away, 

4 everyone was dressed out in bubble suits, they 

5 had monitoring going. 

6 These were not people just 

7 wandering through that you wouldn't think of 

8 that might have been exposed. They were very 

9 well aware that they had an issue here and 

10 that they needed to take appropriate 

11 monitoring procedures. 

12 So, I guess what we're left with, I 

13 mean keep in mind that the topic of support 

14 workers, the topic of D&D workers was 

15 specifically brought up in the interviews when 

16 we were talking to the former workers. 

17 I think we're pretty close to 

18 agreement with what the workers actually told 

19 us. 

20 They didn't say the exposure 

21 potential is zero. They said it was very, 

22 very low. 

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1 Now, we might each have our own 

2 interpretations of what that means. I suspect 

3 that we do. So, I guess it comes down to do 

4 you believe what those workers told us or 

5 don't you believe it. 

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, you know, 

7 it's this question of how low is low, you 

8 know. We're not operating with any numbers, 

9 any measurements. 

10 What we're operating with is 

11 certainly the ten operators are -- figure in 

12 those that would be afforded dose 

13 reconstruction with hafnium tritide as a 

14 component. 

15 And I think what we're saying is 

16 that the support workers that would have been 

17 potentially exposed, it's not clear that the 

18 low exposures that we would attribute to the 

19 operators from tritides is that much different 

20 than the low exposures we would attribute to 

21 the support workers that would have been in 

22 and around changing the filters, supporting 

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1 the glovebox operations. 

2 Now, I think the interviewee was 

3 quite correct in the sense that it's kind of 

4 hard to prove a negative. And I mean the 

5 thing that overshadows everything is of course 

6 there were no measurements on the tritides. 

7 So, you were doing it sort of 

8 secondhand from the standpoint of what we 

9 would surmise as the potential. 

10 DR. ULSH: Well, that's not really 

11 true. They took swipes. 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm just saying for 

13 the exposure potential for the support 

14 workers, we don't have swipes to what they 

15 might have been exposed to. 

16 What we're trying to do is surmise 

17 would they have been exposed potentially to 

18 levels that would be commensurate with the 

19 operators. 

20 And all we can say is that, you 

21 know, it was small, but it wasn't zero, and 

22 it's not clear to what extent they were 

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1 different from the operators. 

2 I don't think the operators were 

3 exposed to considerable amount of tritides 

4 either. However, I don't think we can 

5 discount the support workers as being that 

6 much radically different than the operators. 

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me raise 

8 an additional question, and I think Phil is 

9 quite right. 

10 I would imagine that you would find 

11 traces of the tritides in all the 

12 penetrations, in the oils, in the greases and 

13 all of that. 

14 My question is what's the potential 

15 during cleanup of that becoming airborne, 

16 because otherwise it's of no consequence. 

17 Some of it, the tritium will be 

18 released as gas. That's almost a no never 

19 mind. I'm pretty sure if it's in the -- they 

20 have floor pumps and diffusion pumps and so 

21 on. 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: And that pretty well 

2 -- the particulate stuff would be pretty well 

3 trapped there and it's not an external issue. 

4 So, how do they get that? How do 

5 they inhale that, would be my question. Maybe 

6 change the --

7 MR. KATZ: Excuse me. There's 

8 someone on the line that should mute their 

9 phone if they even intend to be on this line. 

10 This is a conference call, Advisory Board on 

11 Radiation and Worker Health. 

12 So, if you intend to be on this 

13 line, please mute your phone. You can use *6 

14 to mute your phone if you don't have an actual 

15 mute button. Thank you. 

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, I'm trying to 

17 get a feel for whether any of those cleanup 

18 operations -- and I think you'd have to grant 

19 that there must be -- the tritide must be 

20 present at some level in most of this stuff, 

21 but does it have the potential of really 

22 becoming airborne during those cleanup 

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1 operations? 

2 CHAIR BEACH: It has the potential 

3 during D&D. 

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's what I'm 

5 asking. 

6 CHAIR BEACH: Cutting up the 

7 gloveboxes or the ventilation --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and most 

9 instructive were the -- they didn't routinely 

10 monitor. They did some swipes occasionally, 

11 but didn't routinely monitor for it. 

12 But the two instances where, you 

13 know, not only was it released, but it was 

14 tracked around --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, but I'm talking 

16 about the later during the cleanup. 

17 MR. FITZGERALD: You mean D&D? 

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, because you're 

19 talking about after `80, and that pushes it 

20 into the D&D here now. 

21 CHAIR BEACH: `80 through D&D. 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

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1 CHAIR BEACH: From 1980 on. 

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Well, in any 

3 event -

4 MR. FITZGERALD: But, yes, when we 

5 got into the D&D phase, I think we had similar 

6 questions. 

7 We were saying okay, and we were 

8 talking about the operators being asked to 

9 essentially D&D their own facility whether for 

10 security reasons or otherwise. 

11 And our question was, you know, we 

12 were trying to imagine these operators doing 

13 that and were there techs and were people 

14 actually supporting these folks as they, you 

15 know, cleaned out this operation? 

16 It would seem to be the case. 

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I guess it 

18 would depend also on how they did the D&D. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: When we pulled 

21 tritium gloveboxes, we usually got rid of the 

22 whole unit and cut it up. 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: I mean you sort of 

3 said that's not what I'm going to do. 

4 So, what is the potential for 

5 airborne? 

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, what is the 

7 potential? And that's what we're kind of 

8 focused on. 

9 And the other thing is, you know, 

10 we touched lightly on the recovery recycle 

11 facility, but you have a D&D involved in that 

12 too. 

13 And we asked that question and the 

14 response was, you know, that would be a fairly 

15 substantial D&D for that operation as well. 

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I think on the 

17 recovery, they ought to be able to get a 

18 hundred percent of the tritium back on a 

19 recovery operation. 

20 I mean are you saying there's 

21 residual --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, no, in terms of 

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1 any residual tritide in the, you know, the 

2 recovery itself I think I would agree with 

3 Brant. We spent some time on this looking at 

4 the machinery and the off-gas system. 

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 

6 MR. FITZGERALD: The only 

7 opportunity is at the very front end when 

8 you're doing transfer box, but that's in a 

9 sealed can. 

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: The sealed can is 

12 opened. 

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. 

14 MR. FITZGERALD: So, there isn't a 

15 whole lot of potential there, but certainly 

16 you have the D&D of that particular facility 

17 as well. And that, you know, that wasn't 

18 covered other than --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: But there the 

20 tritides ought to be all gone in that, right? 

21 Or are you saying that they might not be? 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we were 

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1 trying to eliminate that one and the response 

2 if I can find it again -- I just saw it. 

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Or maybe outside of 

4 the machine where they do the heating. Is 

5 that the only --

6 DR. ULSH: Well, again, I mean we 

7 were only able to find indications that 

8 hafnium tritide went through that system on 

9 one occasion. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: Except there was a 

11 report that they got back from -- and that was 

12 from `77 to `84 and it went through that same 

13 recovery. That was reported at one of the 

14 interviews. It's noted in here. 

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, the comment 

16 was -- this is relating to the recycle 

17 facilities. There may have been a significant 

18 cleanup effort involved with that. This was 

19 from the worker. 

20 DR. NETON: What time frame was 

21 that? 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: It doesn't say a 

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1 specific time frame. Just that the cleanup 

2 for that particular facility -- and it's right 

3 here. Actually, it's R-108. The number is 

4 right here. 

5 It could have been a significant 

6 cleanup. And he was very much one of these 

7 folks that was associated with that operation 

8 going way back. 

9 So, I'm just saying that it gets a 

10 little more complex and it's tied to the 

11 activity that took place where it was handled. 

12 So, D&D is one component. And 

13 certainly for the operation that Brant's 

14 referring to, the operators were the ones that 

15 did the initial cleanup. 

16 But again we ask the question, you 

17 know, were these the specific people, were 

18 there other people that supported those 

19 people? I think that was the question. 

20 DR. NETON: It seemed that there 

21 would be surveys during the cleanup operation. 

22 It sounds to me like if there's activities 

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1 now after 1980, we're talking about dose 

2 received from residual contamination of 

3 hafnium tritide. That's what we're talking 

4 about now. It's not operations where they're 

5 working with the material at this point. 

6 And if they clean this up, I would 

7 suspect that there must have been surveys 

8 during the cleanup of the operation. I can't 

9 imagine --

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Letting them know 

11 you cleaned up and --

12 DR. NETON: Well, yes, yes. 

13 Exactly. The cleaning it up, you must have 

14 some kind of surveys to get some sort of 

15 levels. 

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: You would have 

17 to. 

18 DR. ULSH: We haven't proposed using 

19 swipe data for estimating doses to tritides. 

20 But certainly during D&D and during 

21 operations, Mound had an active program to 

22 monitor for contamination by using swipes. It 

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1 certainly did. 

2 We haven't focused on trying to 

3 capture that data because we're not proposing 

4 to use it for dose estimation. But, yes, 

5 you're right, Jim, I mean they -- an active 

6 program. 

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: They did. But also 

8 in later years, too, not all people were 

9 badged. 

10 The other thing with the swipe 

11 program is, is in DOE facilities and a lot 

12 like with Mound, paint and other things are 

13 wonderful things. 

14 When you start to break that apart, 

15 you resurrect the past. And this is what they 

16 also found in Mound. And they had several 

17 issues where it had been dedicated that it's 

18 cleaned, and then they opened it up and 

19 resurrected the past. 

20 That's part of the issue that is 

21 there. 

22 DR. NETON: I suppose one can 

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1 concoct any kind of scenario one wants. 

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and I know --

3 DR. NETON: There's contamination 

4 survey data and the facility is -- well, we 

5 have to look at what they did. 

6 But I mean if they surveyed it and 

7 the removable contamination is within a 

8 certain level, I mean it's a matter of getting 

9 it airborne like Dr. Ziemer was talking about. 

10 And once it's there, it sticks. 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: The only cautionary 

12 note on that of course is in the late `90s --

13 this is actually for contemporary defense 

14 boards sort of intervened and there was a --

15 you may recall some of this. There was a real 

16 concern over the dosimetry and the monitoring 

17 and the -- basically a whole new standard was 

18 developed for the air monitoring, sampling, 

19 whatever. 

20 And so the historic data has to be 

21 seen in that light that reliability --

22 DR. NETON: One would have to wonder 

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1 what techniques were used. 

2 DR. ULSH: Yes, and I need to speak 

3 to that too because it's been brought up 

4 before, you know, selected quotes from some of 

5 these defense board documents that say that 

6 urinalysis is inadequate or --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no. I'm not 

8 even going there. I'm just saying that in 

9 terms of these techniques like swipes and air 

10 samplings, the cautionary note is just be 

11 aware that, you know, again historically they 

12 were seen as limited and open to question. 

13 DR. ULSH: Yes, but the context in 

14 which these techniques are limited is based on 

15 the reporting limit that came into force in 

16 the 1990s, I believe, where they had to be 

17 able to detect a dose of a hundred millirem. 

18 And certainly using urinalysis for 

19 a situation where you might be exposed to 

20 hafnium tritide, the missed dose for that is 

21 higher than a hundred millirem per year. So, 

22 they couldn't meet the reporting limit. 

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1 That posed a problem to them and 

2 they had to figure out a strategy to deal with 

3 it. 

4 That's why it came up in the late 

5 `90s when they were talking about getting 

6 really hot and heavy into the D&D at Mound, 

7 because they didn't have a way to detect doses 

8 that small from this material if it was there. 

9 DR. NETON: I think, Joe, and also 

10 Brant, I think there was some concern about 

11 the measurement techniques that were used to 

12 see tritides. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, separate from 

14 the first one. 

15 DR. NETON: You're getting into the 

16 issue of self-absorption of tritium particle 

17 within the matrix of essentially a metal 

18 compound, but there's been some recent 

19 research done on that in the last five to 

20 seven years. 

21 I think Strong put out an excellent 

22 paper on that where they did a Monte Carlo 

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216 

1 simulation model. And for all intents and 

2 purposes, I think it demonstrates the 

3 ventilation counters are quite capable of 

4 seeing the tritides or the tritium compounds 

5 very readily. 

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think that 

7 my only point is if you go back to the survey 

8 data, I think you have to be aware of the 

9 history of some of these questions that were 

10 raised by --

11 DR. NETON: Well, that certainly 

12 goes without saying. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Sure. Sure. And 

14 then particularly in this case where it was 

15 really being scrutinized. 

16 I want to go back because, you 

17 know, really this whole thing started with 

18 again hafnium tritide and the proposition that 

19 we were talking about a discrete facility with 

20 ten nameable workers that would have been 

21 potentially exposed. 

22 And we spent considerable time 

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217 

1 trying to interrogate sort of that proposition 

2 because we were concerned about the ability to 

3 draw such a firm line around these ten 

4 individuals for this very, quote, discrete 

5 facility. 

6 And I, you know, this is a little 

7 bit hamstrung by the information that we have 

8 looked at and we're trying to be careful about 

9 it, but I am just not convinced that these ten 

10 individuals were the only individuals that 

11 were potentially exposed to hafnium tritide 

12 during the historic Mound operation involving 

13 inhaling hafnium tritide. 

14 And I, you know, there is some 

15 equivocal information involved only because 

16 there wasn't any direct monitoring. 

17 But in terms of talking with the 

18 workers, in terms of looking at the 

19 documentation, I think the basis for making 

20 that very, very firm claim is weak. And 

21 that's basically where I'm coming from. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: And let me ask back in 

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1 April, I think April 12th, there were some 

2 emails going back and forth on some tritium 

3 swipe data that NIOSH was going to look at 

4 with Cheryl Kirkwood. 

5 Whatever happened with that? 

6 DR. ULSH: We captured it. 

7 CHAIR BEACH: Anything interesting 

8 or --

9 DR. ULSH: I'm trying to think of 

10 the chain of events that led me to request it 

11 or I would have captured that data. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: It was after our 

13 worker interviews, I know. 

14 DR. ULSH: Yes. And I know and I 

15 got an email from Joe, because Joe had the 

16 same concern like, hey, why are we getting 

17 this data? 

18 I think the reason that I requested 

19 it, if I can recall correctly, was that some 

20 skepticism about the utility of bioassay data 

21 to detect hafnium tritide intakes continued to 

22 be expressed by the Working Group and SC&A. 

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1 And, therefore, I considered it 

2 prudent to go back and capture that swipe data 

3 just in case we should have any --

4 CHAIR BEACH: Tritium survey on 

5 swipe data. 

6 DR. ULSH: Well, yes. I mean --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, there was 

8 also boxes being transferred to Morgantown. I 

9 think there was some urgency of capturing 

10 stuff before it got shipped or something. 

11 Timing wise I think that was kind 

12 of imperative as well. 

13 DR. ULSH: I'm going to be 

14 completely transparent about this. I only 

15 grabbed it because I thought there was a 

16 remote possibility that the Working Group is 

17 going to opine that urinalysis data is no 

18 good, throw it out, and I didn't want to be 

19 standing there empty handed. 

20 So, we've got that data, we 

21 captured it, but again we haven't proposed to 

22 use it for dose reconstruction. I just wanted 

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1 to have it. 

2 So to be honest with you, I haven't 

3 done a detailed analysis of it. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I just 

5 remembered that that had happened. 

6 DR. MAURO: What I heard is that it 

7 seemed to me that the bulk of the matter is it 

8 sounds like that the people that are known to 

9 have handled this material may not be the 

10 people that had the highest exposures, that I 

11 know of. 

12 In other words, you named these ten 

13 people and maybe there's a handful of other 

14 people that were associated with the 

15 operations and maybe the maintenance, but then 

16 --

17 DR. ULSH: No, I don't think --

18 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

19 DR. MAURO: I'm listening to --

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Not that they 

21 weren't the highest, but there were other non22 trivially exposed people. 

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1 DR. MAURO: Right, but --

2 MR. HINNEFELD: That's the argument. 

3 I haven't heard anything about these guys not 

4 being the highest. 

5 DR. MAURO: Okay. Good. Well, I 

6 want to make sure I got that right. 

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Is that right? 

8 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

9 MR. KATZ: One at a time. 

10 MR. HINNEFELD: But the argument 

11 pulls either way. If there are other non12 trivially exposed people, the argument is the 

13 same. It's not that, you know, and I don't 

14 know that you would ever talk us out of the 

15 fact that the people named -- especially the 

16 ones if they were involved in the incidents, I 

17 don't know if you'd ever talk us out of the 

18 fact that we believe those were the most 

19 highly exposed. 

20 But the question here that we have 

21 is have you correctly identified all the 

22 people who are exposed to the extent that you 

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222 

1 need to worry about it? 

2 That's what the discussion has been 

3 about. 

4 DR. MAURO: My question goes to what 

5 Phil was saying before. There is a model that 

6 we're building. We have facts that come back 

7 from the interviews. Okay. And what's 

8 happening is it's almost as if we all agree 

9 that there were some undefined number of 

10 people that experienced some level of 

11 exposure. 

12 And the -- so, now I think that 

13 defining who those people are, I don't think 

14 we can. Stay with me for a minute. 

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: John, let me correct 

16 something. I don't think we've agreed to 

17 that. 

18 DR. MAURO: We haven't? 

19 CHAIR BEACH: No. 

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: I've said that I 

21 would like to know if there's a potential for 

22 inhalation. 

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223 

1 I agree that there could have been 

2 contamination in other areas and that people 

3 had the potential for exposure. 

4 But, in fact, do we know that the 

5 tritium was in a form where they could have 

6 actually inhaled it? 

7 Was there something about the 

8 cleanup operations like were they sawing up 

9 gloveboxes and generating aerosol --

10 DR. MAURO: Well, I think that's the 

11 question I was raising. 

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. 

13 DR. MAURO: Because I --

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: I haven't agreed 

15 that --

16 DR. MAURO: Maybe I'm not posing my 

17 -- I didn't word my wording right. 

18 Phil explains that there's a lot of 

19 activities that go on during D&D, during 

20 maintenance --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. 

22 DR. MAURO: Of these facilities 

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224 

1 where perhaps those people because of the 

2 nature of the things that they are doing, 

3 actually have a greater potential for inhaling 

4 tritium than, let's say, people who are 

5 working under very controlled conditions with 

6 the glovebox. 

7 I don't know. I guess that's my 

8 question because, you know, if you know -- if 

9 you could say with a degree of certainty that 

10 the people that we know about that were 

11 exposed either during an incident or during 

12 operations, it's clear and unambiguous that of 

13 all the people that might have come in contact 

14 with potential airborne sources of tritide, 

15 hafnium tritide, these are the people that 

16 clearly had the greatest potential for 

17 exposure. 

18 Now, what I heard --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: If I can interrupt, 

20 we sort of agree on one thing. 

21 I think I would agree that 

22 potential for exposure may be higher because 

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225 

1 of what they're doing versus someone working 

2 in a glovebox. 

3 What is very different is the 

4 source-term. The glovebox person has the mass 

5 of the material. The other person has some 

6 amount, granted certainly not the -- it may be 

7 a millionth of it and still be, you know, 

8 worth considering. 

9 So, the potential for inhalation is 

10 one thing, but the source-term involved has to 

11 be considered too. 

12 DR. MAURO: I agree with that, yes. 

13 See, I just wanted to get a sense 

14 whether or not the people that were in the 

15 controlled circumstance and the people that 

16 were involved perhaps in the cleanup of the 

17 spill, which may very well be wearing bubble 

18 suits, I don't know, I don't know the details 

19 of it, you know, and a lot of whom that you 

20 could actually name, which may extend beyond 

21 the ten or 11 people that we know about, then 

22 there's this other cadre of people that down 

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1 the road somewhere involved in 

2 decontamination/decommissioning may have 

3 opened up, re-mediated, whatever they had to 

4 do, decommissioned the facility, they're at 

5 play also to a certain degree. 

6 Now, if one could argue they're at 

7 play, but their potential for exposure to 

8 airborne hafnium tritide is really much, much, 

9 much less than any of these other people that 

10 we know about. 

11 So we have the people we know 

12 about, and then we have the people we don't 

13 know about. 

14 And I guess in the end, the most 

15 important question is, is the people that we 

16 don't know about, is it reasonable to assume 

17 that they may have gotten exposures that were 

18 even greater than the people we know about? 

19 And I think this is a judgment call 

20 almost because that's where the rubber meets 

21 the road, you know. 

22 If you could say with a degree of 

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1 certainty that the people we know about 

2 clearly and unambiguously had the potential 

3 and actually experienced the exposures that 

4 were clearly higher than those that we don't 

5 know about because of the nature of -- I don't 

6 know. You guys know from your interviews. 

7 Then you could actually say, well, 

8 all the people we don't know about, it 

9 couldn't have been higher than these guys. We 

10 have urine samples. We're going to assume 

11 that the urine samples that we have from those 

12 people that we know about, we measure these 

13 many becquerels per liter, and we know using 

14 OTIB-0066 we can convert that to an intake and 

15 reconstruct the dose. 

16 And we can -- as a result of that. 

17 And we could also say that whatever that dose 

18 is to the lung, we know the lung is a limiting 

19 organ, that no one is going to have a higher 

20 dose than that, including the people that we 

21 don't know about. 

22 Now, I think that that's where the 

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1 judgment is going to have to be made by the 

2 Work Group and then of course eventually by 

3 the full Board. 

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Do we have urine 

5 samples on these later cleanup people? 

6 DR. ULSH: If they were involved in 

7 D&D in tritium facilities, they were on 

8 tritium urinalysis program. 

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: After `80? 

10 DR. ULSH: Yes, even more after `80. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Well, there is a D&D 

12 paper on that, but we haven't actually had 

13 time to discuss it. 

14 DR. ULSH: Well, yes. It addresses 

15 D&D in general, but --

16 CHAIR BEACH: It says greater than 

17 90 percent urinalysis report. I don't know if 

18 I agree with it, but --

19 DR. ULSH: Now, with regard to --

20 I'm losing track of who's raising the points. 

21 We specifically asked in our first 

22 round of interviews for the three workers that 

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1 we talked about, who got the highest exposure 

2 to hafnium tritide? 

3 And it was -- right away they said 

4 it was that guy who was involved in that first 

5 incident early on in the program who was the 

6 guy that was making the material, one of the 

7 first production runs, I guess, and he got a 

8 snootful of hafnium tritide. That guy is the 

9 guy that got the highest exposure. So --

10 DR. MAURO: Was he a three rem guy? 

11 You mentioned three rem before. 

12 DR. ULSH: I think so, yes. I think 

13 that's the highest guy. 

14 So, John, you're adding an element 

15 here that I don't think we've discussed up to 

16 this point. And that is what is the exposure 

17 potential for, like, D&D workers or other 

18 workers relative to the operators. 

19 I can only speak for me, but I 

20 haven't heard anyone making the argument that 

21 they might have an even higher exposure than 

22 the operators. 

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230 

1 I think what the argument has been 

2 is that while it may not have been higher than 

3 the operators, it may still be high enough 

4 that we should consider it in dose 

5 reconstruction. 

6 Now, I don't endorse that point of 

7 view, but that's what I have heard anyway. 

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, you know, the 

9 first question I think we were grappling with 

10 on D&D was, you know, could you even identify 

11 it. 

12 I think the -- on the discrete 

13 facility you were referring to, you know, the 

14 fact that the operators did the first pass was 

15 somewhat comforting because you know who they 

16 were. 

17 But, you know, I think our question 

18 was, was it exclusively them? And there was a 

19 little ambiguity about that. 

20 The other question was, you know, 

21 in D&Ding the -- and I just mentioned this --

22 the recycling facility, who did that? I don't 

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231 

1 think that would probably be operators. 

2 So, you know, there's just those 

3 kinds of questions and I don't know if we know 

4 what the potential was for D&D workers. 

5 That's one reason we didn't really grapple 

6 with that so much because if the operators 

7 cleaned up the facility to that extent, then 

8 the D&Ding of that facility probably would 

9 have been -- it would have been negligible. 

10 There wouldn't be much left to be exposed to. 

11 DR. ULSH: Okay. Well, for the 

12 production-type facilities, we were told that 

13 the people who were directly involved in the 

14 production operations were responsible --

15 CHAIR BEACH: He said he hadn't 

16 cleared --

17 DR. ULSH: We're okay. Believe me, 

18 I'm not going to say anything I'm not supposed 

19 to. 

20 The people who were involved in the 

21 production were in charge of cleaning up their 

22 own mess, is the way it was put. And they 

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232 

1 were in charge of cleaning up the facilities 

2 and equipment down to clean standards, is the 

3 way it was described. 

4 So, they took swipes, looked for 

5 contamination. If they found it, they 

6 continued to clean it up until that situation 

7 no longer existed, and then it was released 

8 for general D&D. 

9 Now, with regard to the tritium 

10 recovery system, I would almost venture to say 

11 that that's not even relevant because this 

12 material didn't go through the tritium 

13 recovery facility with the exception of one 

14 instance that we know about. 

15 And again I bring up the fact that 

16 the whole purpose of this facility was thermal 

17 decomposition of tritium-bearing compounds. 

18 In other words, you heat it up until the 

19 tritium comes off. 

20 So, yes, there might have been when 

21 the tritium was dissociated, it's driven off, 

22 might it have resulted in some fixed 

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233 

1 contamination? Sure, but that's not a hafnium 

2 tritide problem. 

3 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think the --

4 excuse me for jumping in here. 

5 I think the issue there is more the 

6 D&D side. I think we spent a great deal of 

7 time looking at the operation and I think 

8 coming to a conclusion that the way it was 

9 handled was pretty tight that there would not 

10 have been any clear opportunity unless you had 

11 a big breach in the off-gassing. 

12 But in the D&D phase of that thing 

13 we did raise that specifically. And the one 

14 interviewee who had a lot of knowledge of it 

15 said, yes, you know, you would definitely be 

16 looking at a cleanup of that operation. 

17 And I think it's probably from the 

18 standpoint of not only the residual from the 

19 one campaign that we were talking about, but 

20 also the fact that Mound received, and we 

21 heard this as well, returns from other sites. 

22 And I won't go any further than 

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234 

1 that, but that does present a question about 

2 how much, how often and what was left in the 

3 recycling operation after it was all done. 

4 And clearly there's no account that 

5 they had operators do an initial cleanup. It 

6 might have happened, but --

7 DR. ULSH: No, I'm not saying that. 

8 MR. FITZGERALD: The D&D of that 

9 particular operation would have been, in my 

10 view, probably as significant as the D&D in 

11 the production operation. I mean I think --

12 DR. ULSH: As a hafnium tritide 

13 issue? 

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Huh? 

15 DR. ULSH: As a hafnium tritide 

16 issue? 

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Hafnium and 

18 related, you know. The question we asked, 

19 were there equally insoluble type of compounds 

20 coming from other sites that would have been 

21 recycled? 

22 The answer was, yes, there were 

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235 

1 others. And I don't want to go any further 

2 than that, but I'm just saying that 

3 complicates the situation of saying that 

4 wasn't one campaign. That was a central 

5 recycling operation for the complex. 

6 DR. ULSH: Right. I agree. 

7 MR. FITZGERALD: So, you know, what 

8 went through over time was more than, you 

9 know, was not only the hafnium, but other 

10 compounds that clearly could have had 

11 characteristics similar to or approaching 

12 hafnium. 

13 So, I think we've got to be careful 

14 in just focusing on one campaign. That's one 

15 reason we did ask those questions. 

16 DR. BISTLINE: This is Bistline 

17 speaking, and I just want to throw one little 

18 tidbit in. 

19 And that is one has to be very 

20 careful in going too far with the issue of 

21 heating up this material and driving off the 

22 tritium. 

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1 The worst tritium release that we 

2 had at the Rocky Flats was exactly that very 

3 thing there was heated up and the tritium 

4 supposedly was driven off by the people at 

5 Livermore and then shipped to Rocky Flats as 

6 being a clean piece of material, and it 

7 wasn't. 

8 That doesn't drive -- just heating 

9 it up doesn't drive off all the tritium 

10 usually. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Bob. 

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Let me ask you 

13 something quick, Brant, or maybe Joe or one of 

14 you could answer. I've got to be careful how 

15 I word this. 

16 You have X amount coming in and you 

17 have X amount minus one at the other end. If 

18 we have an idea of that hold-up in that 

19 process, it seems like we should be able to 

20 get a rough number. 

21 MR. FITZGERALD: You mean materials 

22 balance? 

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237 

1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, the material 

2 balance. 

3 Did you see any numbers like that? 

4 No? 

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Even if we did, we 

6 couldn't --

7 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: That I know, but 

8 it would just give you a rough idea to think 

9 in your mind, you know. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: So, I'd like to wrap 

11 this up unless there's just some burning 

12 questions or issues that --

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I was walking on 

14 eggshells. 

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Not with a ten-foot 

16 pole. 

17 (Laughter.) 

18 DR. MAURO: Is it plausible that 

19 there are other people that you don't know 

20 about that might have been exposed to hafnium 

21 tritide? 

22 I'm not saying how much. Is it 

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238 

1 plausible that there might be other people of 

2 the nature that Phil asked about that might be 

3 exposed to hafnium tritide? 

4 I think the answer has to be yes, 

5 from what I'm listening to. 

6 DR. ULSH: Well, if you don't put 

7 any conditions on it. 

8 DR. MAURO: I'm not putting -- I'm 

9 just saying that -- and now my second question 

10 is, is it plausible that those people could 

11 have experienced hafnium tritide intakes that 

12 were greater than the ones that you do know 

13 about? 

14 I mean that's the essence of where 

15 we're headed with this thing. And that's 

16 going to be a judgment call. 

17 And I guess your judgment is -- I'm 

18 almost going to sort of say that I could see 

19 where you're going. 

20 Where you're going is that perhaps 

21 it is plausible that there are other people of 

22 the nature that might have been exposed who 

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239 

1 you don't -- no one knows. 

2 And the second -- but the other one 

3 I'm pretty sure you argue, however, their 

4 potential for inhaling hafnium tritide was 

5 much lower than the potential for the people 

6 you do know about. 

7 Would that be a true statement of 

8 your position? 

9 DR. ULSH: Pretty close. I would go 

10 a little bit further in some respects. 

11 You asked first of all is it 

12 plausible that someone could have been exposed 

13 to hafnium tritide other than the ones that --

14 I'll editorial it -- other than the ones that 

15 we've named. 

16 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

17 DR. ULSH: Is it plausible? Yes. 

18 I would guarantee it. 

19 If I go to the Mound site today, 

20 there is a non-zero probability that I will 

21 encounter an atom of hafnium tritide. So, 

22 sure. 

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240 

1 The problem is you have to consider 

2 whether or not if plausible, that they were 

3 exposed to hafnium tritide of dosimetric 

4 significance. 

5 And my answer is emphatically it's 

6 not plausible. 

7 MR. FITZGERALD: And that's where we 

8 disagree, because I think the position that we 

9 would take and what we have reviewed is that 

10 these were not negligible exposure potentials. 

11 DR. ULSH: You're right. We 

12 disagree. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we disagree. 

14 And that's just central. And that doesn't 

15 have anything to do with how much, which is 

16 what Stu's point was. 

17 We just don't agree that there was 

18 no non-negligible -- is that two negatives --

19 non-negligible exposures beyond the ten. 

20 Based on what we have gleaned from the 

21 interviews and the document reviews, that 

22 there are more than ten. 

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1 In fact, we started collecting 

2 names during the interviews, of individuals 

3 who clearly were in the facility and rad techs 

4 and what have you that clearly would have been 

5 doing a lot of operational-type activities in 

6 addition to the maintenance people. 

7 So, you know, the question is, is 

8 it ten? No, we believe it's not just ten. 

9 DR. ULSH: Well, I agree with you 

10 there. We were provided a couple of 

11 additional names. 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: But, you know, we 

13 could have kept going. The question that we 

14 were grappling with was, okay, the ten are 

15 clearly the ones involved and everybody agrees 

16 they were the operators. 

17 What about Joe Schmo the rad tech? 

18 And then we went through an exercise with the 

19 operator saying, yes, okay. Yes, that guy 

20 supported me, that person supported me. They 

21 were in the room, they were rad techs. Okay. 

22 So, we started collecting those names. 

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1 Then we started talking about, 

2 okay, what's the other folks that were, you 

3 know, and the list got longer and longer. 

4 So, you know, the point is where do 

5 you draw the line as to where it became 

6 trivial? 

7 And I'm not sure you can draw a 

8 line very easily as to what worker who was in 

9 that room would have had a trivial exposure 

10 potential. 

11 DR. NETON: What about contamination 

12 after 1980 though. It seems to me that the 

13 source-term had been put away by then. That's 

14 what I've heard. 

15 So, now we're speculating that 

16 there were massive amounts, potentially large 

17 amounts of contamination left that exposed a 

18 large amount of --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, but, Jim, let 

20 me just stop you there. I agree. There's 

21 sort of -- recent events have bifurcated this 

22 issue to --

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1 DR. NETON: But that's what we --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: I know. I know, 

3 but we --

4 DR. NETON: Well, let's not go back 

5 to the operations --

6 MR. FITZGERALD: No, but the premise 

7 that was put on the table at the last Work 

8 Group meeting was this discrete operation 

9 involved ten workers of --

10 DR. NETON: What I'm suggesting 

11 though is that's no longer really a central 

12 issue. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, but I'm just 

14 saying that for now --

15 DR. NETON: Unless you want to make 

16 a Class for an SEC prior to 1980 for tritides, 

17 and you're certainly welcome to do that. 

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Now, you know, it's 

19 a two-part issue. We can agree really on that 

20 potential, but now we have the second part 

21 which is, okay, you know, with the assumption, 

22 and we didn't hear anything different that 

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1 there weren't any active handling operations, 

2 that doesn't deal with recycling, that's just 

3 on the production side, but no production-type 

4 activities after 1980. 

5 We still have recycling, which we 

6 looked at and felt was pretty tight. And then 

7 we get to the cleanup on both recycling and on 

8 the front end and saying who are those workers 

9 and was the potential there not trivial. 

10 DR. NETON: Well, we have surveys 

11 for that. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Possibly. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Possibly. 

14 DR. NETON: Brant said there were 

15 surveys taken for the D&D operation. That's 

16 my point. 

17 MR. FITZGERALD: For tritides? 

18 DR. NETON: Yes. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

20 DR. NETON: It's going to be a 

21 combination, but --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think 

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245 

1 that's certainly in question whether or not 

2 the surveys were done, were they positive or 

3 not, negative, you know. 

4 DR. NETON: Well, that's my position 

5 here though is that one needs to determine --

6 was there significant residual contamination 

7 left over from operations that could have 

8 contaminated the operators and all these 

9 ancillary support personnel that was 

10 significant to worry about dose impact. 

11 That's where we are. And I don't 

12 know if anybody knows the answer to that right 

13 now. Everything is speculation that I've 

14 heard. 

15 There could have been massive 

16 amounts of contamination in this containment 

17 during operation. When they went in to clean 

18 it up, exposed a lot of people presumably in 

19 bubble suits at that point. I don't know. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: The only thing I heard 

21 on bubble suits was when they changed the oil. 

22 That was reported, and I went to look for it 

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246 

1 and didn't see it. 

2 DR. NETON: And this is late enough 

3 in the game that in that time frame one would 

4 suspect that there's probably RWPs that cover 

5 this operation. 

6 I mean I think the answer is that 

7 the focus has changed to this D&D operation 

8 now in my opinion. 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think that 

10 NIOSH is prepared to put that position on the 

11 table that, you know, we'll agree to disagree. 

12 But in its essence it's made moot 

13 by the actions of the Board on the previous 

14 SEC. 

15 DR. NETON: Well, I'm not sure of 

16 that. I mean one has to evaluate all the 

17 merits of an SEC or now --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I --

19 DR. NETON: That's why I put it up 

20 front that it's sort of --

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

22 DR. NETON: Up to the Working Group 

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247 

1 to make a decision whether they want to pursue 

2 that. 

3 MR. FITZGERALD: What I'm hearing is 

4 that we agree on the first part. We agree to 

5 disagree on the negligibility of the exposures 

6 outside of the ten. 

7 So, rather than beating this to 

8 death, I think we agree to disagree based on 

9 what we've reviewed as to what that estimate 

10 is. 

11 Now, on that note --

12 DR. NETON: Is it fruitful to keep -

13 -

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. And the 

15 Work Group Members were party to all this 

16 discussion. So, I'm not sure it does warrant 

17 much more discussion. They were there and 

18 they can make their own judgments based on 

19 what they heard firsthand, you know. We've 

20 kind of said everything. 

21 The second part, we don't have the 

22 survey data in our hands to validate on the 

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1 D&D side. As Brant said, we didn't really 

2 look at D&D in that context. 

3 DR. ULSH: It's in the SRDB. The 

4 swipe data from R and SW Building is in the 

5 SRDB. I have not picked it up and looked at 

6 it in any systematic way. 

7 MR. FITZGERALD: In the context of 

8 this --

9 DR. ULSH: Right. 

10 DR. NETON: And here's the -- well, 

11 I don't know that SC&A made an issue out of 

12 D&D other than to mention it and say it's a 

13 possibility, but I've seen no convincing 

14 evidence on my part that the D&D operators 

15 were significantly at risk for --

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think we 

17 did. We broached the issue of more operations 

18 that were implicated with hafnium tritide 

19 beyond the discrete one that was identified in 

20 the White Paper, and we included D&D as one of 

21 those. 

22 And we've had a dialogue, we 

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249 

1 brought that up in interviews, we were focused 

2 on D&D. And the feedback we got was, I think 

3 as Brant -- we had mentioned that, yes, the 

4 operators were told -- I'm not sure I have the 

5 date on that, Brant, whether the operators 

6 cleaned up right after the end of that 

7 campaign or whether they did it right before 

8 D&D started, you know. It's unclear. 

9 But, you know, I think, yes, we did 

10 spend a lot of time trying to at least unpack 

11 the implications on D&D. And at one point, 

12 one individual down at the recycling facility 

13 acknowledged that, yes, that would have been a 

14 cleanup issue. 

15 And given the history, it's 

16 understandable it would have been a cleanup 

17 issue. 

18 So, that's about where we are on 

19 the D&D. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: So, let's take a poll 

21 amongst the Working Group. 

22 First of all we were looking at 

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1 whether meaningful exposure pathways existed 

2 for hafnium tritide exposure, whether the 

3 small cohort of workers are involved and can 

4 be named. 

5 Okay. So, we talked about that and 

6 whether exposures in the 1980s could have 

7 occurred. 

8 I believe that these have all been 

9 proven based on our interviews. Then you add 

10 the other end of it, the diffusion issue, 

11 reactivity, the recycle operations. 

12 I think that during our worker 

13 interviews held last April, it became obvious 

14 to me at least that NIOSH is unable to know 

15 who may have been exposed -- excuse me -- who 

16 may have had exposure potential over time to 

17 the hafnium tritides. 

18 And of course this has been 

19 mentioned several times today that it's 

20 already gone beyond the original ten that was 

21 mentioned. 

22 And again three out of the five 

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1 Work Group Members were present during those 

2 discussions for the classified discussions on 

3 the 6th and 7th, and should be able to draw 

4 their own conclusions. 

5 Cleared Members have all had the 

6 opportunity to examine firsthand the 

7 classified site information based on existing 

8 evidence. 

9 There has existed a probable 

10 exposure potential for workers to highly 

11 insoluble metal tritides at Mound, and it 

12 remains infeasible for NIOSH to estimate doses 

13 with sufficient accuracy due to the lack of 

14 monitoring data. 

15 Now, this is the first I've heard -

16 - I knew that Brant was going to go in and 

17 look for swipe data, but never did hear any 

18 more about that. 

19 So, originally when I wrote this 

20 yesterday, I was including reliable air 

21 sampling data, and it hasn't been proven that 

22 there is reliable sampling air data today. 

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1 And to identify -- they are not 

2 able to identify these workers who may have 

3 had potential exposures. 

4 So, I guess I'm going to ask the 

5 Work Group if we were to bring this up for 

6 recommendation, I would recommend an SEC from 

7 1980 through D&D. 

8 What do you guys think? 

9 Where are we at? 

10 So, Brad? 

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: I feel the same 

12 thing. That's what I've been trying to say. 

13 We've got too many loose ends. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, yes, we 

15 should bring that up as a recommendation to 

16 the full Board in August. 

17 Bob? 

18 MEMBER PRESLEY: No. 

19 CHAIR BEACH: No. Okay. 

20 Phil? 

21 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Paul, what do you say? 

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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I'm an 

2 alternate on this so I don't know if I get a 

3 vote on that. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: You do. 

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm not prepared to 

6 recommend an SEC based on what we've heard. 

7 I agree with partially the idea 

8 that there might have been some exposures, but 

9 there's -- we haven't -- I mean part of this 

10 has just arisen today and --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I agree. 

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think it's 

13 immature for us to make a recommendation based 

14 on what we've heard. 

15 We don't really know what those 

16 smears and air samples look like. We do know 

17 as I understand it, that we have urinalysis 

18 for all of these people so that if there were 

19 exposures, doses could be reconstructed. 

20 Am I right that we have the urine 

21 samples for all these people? 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Even if we don't go 

2 there. 

3 MR. FITZGERALD: But again we have 

4 to know -- we have to peg the workers, D&D 

5 workers, I'm just saying, to the operation 

6 they were working. You wouldn't at all 

7 discriminate the tritium, right? 

8 CHAIR BEACH: All the workers. 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I don't know. 

11 I mean do we know who did D&D? 

12 DR. ULSH: The people who worked --

13 okay. 

14 The people who worked --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: After `80. 

16 DR. ULSH: The people who worked D&D 

17 in the R and SW Buildings were -- tritium was 

18 included in the bioassay program that they 

19 were supposed to be on. 

20 Does that answer your question? 

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I think that 

22 tells me we can reconstruct dose if they had 

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1 tritium uptakes. 

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, how would you 

3 know who was exposed to hafnium potentially 

4 though? 

5 CHAIR BEACH: That's the problem. 

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, it's just an 

7 issue of bounding it. I guess you would --

8 DR. NETON: Well, this was a 

9 previous issue that you end up with very large 

10 tritium excretions. And if you use a Type S 

11 model for that, you end up with some fairly 

12 large lung dose and you have to swipe all 

13 workers. 

14 And the question is, is that 

15 reasonable to do? 

16 DR. MAURO: When I asked this 

17 question about these other people that we 

18 don't know who they are, and I said is it 

19 plausible that they could have experienced 

20 exposures higher than the people that we do 

21 know had some exposure, that in my mind got to 

22 the heart of the issue because what this means 

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256 

1 is, if somehow we could convince ourselves 

2 that these other people though they might have 

3 the potential for exposure, it's inconceivable 

4 that it could have been greater than the 

5 exposures experienced by the people that we do 

6 know had a real potential for exposure. 

7 Now, how does that help us? 

8 Let's say we get to that point 

9 somehow where everyone agrees, yes, there are 

10 other people, we don't know who they are, that 

11 have the potential for exposure. 

12 And we could identify a whole bunch 

13 of scenarios under which theoretically that 

14 could have occurred at some time and some 

15 place. We still know who they are. 

16 What we can say based on, let's 

17 say, the swipe samples or whatever the weight 

18 of the data are, that the potentials are 

19 unlikely to be greater, you know, than the 

20 people that we know were exposed. 

21 Now, what I just heard is the 

22 highest exposure that has occurred in any 

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257 

1 given year was about three rem. All right. 

2 So, I'm looking at -- I'm playing this out in 

3 my mind right now, so stay with me. 

4 So, what you're saying now is if 

5 you would buy that second part that is it's 

6 really not plausible that all these other 

7 people -- well, then you assign all those 

8 other people the highest dose because it is 

9 plausible and you've bound for it. 

10 If you can't say that -- you see 

11 what I'm getting at is if you can't say that, 

12 that is wait, no, no, no, the nature of the 

13 operations and the cleanup that Phil was 

14 talking about are such that we really can't 

15 say with a degree of certainty that those 

16 exposures were less than or had a potential to 

17 be less than the people that we do know. 

18 If we can't say that, then where 

19 you are is where Jim is. That means we have 

20 no choice but to assign everybody in the plant 

21 assuming that every tritium analysis in the 

22 urine collected was due to the inhalation of 

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258 

1 hafnium tritide, which of course is completely 

2 implausible. 

3 But if you can say it, and I'm just 

4 trying to be helpful here, but if you can say 

5 the weight of the evidence is clear, it's 

6 inconceivable that these other people who 

7 might have been exposed that we don't know who 

8 they are, could never have inhaled amounts 

9 that were comparable to these other people, 

10 you've bounded it. 

11 It can't be higher than that. 

12 You've bounded it and then what are you going 

13 to do? 

14 You're going to give everybody else 

15 in the plant that dose. I mean there is no --

16 MR. FITZGERALD: This is getting 

17 back to a thought earlier this morning where 

18 we were talking about the empirical basis for 

19 N/P ratio. 

20 You're saying the empirical highest 

21 potential was this individual --

22 DR. MAURO: If that's true. I'm not 

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1 saying it is. 

2 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean I'm saying 

3 if that's the postulation, then empirically 

4 that would be overbound. 

5 DR. MAURO: Yes, that's what I'm 

6 putting on the table, yes, as a possible way 

7 of wrestling this --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: But then you still 

9 have the problem -- I'll go back to, you know, 

10 who are those --

11 DR. MAURO: Everybody. 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Who would be --

13 DR. MAURO: Everybody. 

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Potentially 

15 exposed? 

16 DR. MAURO: Everybody. Everybody in 

17 the plant is going to get that dose from 

18 hafnium tritide. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Is that plausible? 

20 DR. MAURO: Well, I don't know. 

21 (Laughter.) 

22 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

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1 DR. MAURO: Well, no, no. I'm 

2 sorry. I'm trying to --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm just trying to 

4 figure out --

5 DR. MAURO: I will say everybody in 

6 the plant --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

8 DR. MAURO: That possibly --

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

10 DR. MAURO: Could have been involved 

11 in an operation, and that may turn out to be 

12 everybody in the plant. I don't know if 

13 that's true. 

14 Certainly that would be -- I mean 

15 right now we don't know who these other people 

16 are. 

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I'll 

18 disagree. You either can define them tightly 

19 or you end up sort of taking everybody. 

20 I mean it's difficult to go in 

21 between. So --

22 DR. MAURO: I mean there may be a 

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261 

1 boundary to place and say of course these 

2 people, they weren't exposed to any tritium at 

3 all or there's no way inconceivable that they 

4 could have been exposed to hafnium tritide. 

5 Well, okay, then they're ruled out. 

6 But if anybody you could say that conceivably 

7 might have been exposed, but one thing for 

8 sure if they were, it wasn't greater than the 

9 guys we know about, well, here's your 

10 boundary. 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes. You 

12 only have the two choices. 

13 Either you draw the lines around 

14 the workers that were potentially exposed, 

15 assign them hafnium tritide, or you have to go 

16 the other route. 

17 DR. MAURO: Yes. And you see why 

18 what happens when you -

19 CHAIR BEACH: And so --

20 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry. 

21 CHAIR BEACH: Excuse me. Is there 

22 more work that can be done on the swipe 

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262 

1 samples? 

2 Is there more work that can be 

3 done, Brant, I'll ask NIOSH's -

4 DR. NETON: Before Brant speaks, 

5 which swipe samples are you referring to? 

6 CHAIR BEACH: The tritium. 

7 DR. NETON: Right, but I'd still 

8 like to have this delineation because you're 

9 talking about after 1980. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: 1980 to --

11 DR. NETON: So, really we're talking 

12 about the swipes from the D&D operation. 

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, no, there was 

14 the time period before D&D. 

15 DR. NETON: Before 1980? 

16 MR. HINNEFELD: From 1980 until D&D 

17 started. I mean D&D didn't start in 1980, did 

18 it? 

19 CHAIR BEACH: Well, it started 

20 different times. 

21 DR. NETON: I guess it's not clear 

22 to me after -- what happened after 1980 with -

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1 - I thought that the hafnium tritide source 

2 had essentially been put to bed and then 

3 you've got this room that was used for hafnium 

4 tritide. 

5 And at some point there must be 

6 smears inside that room after active operation 

7 stopped. That's I guess what I'm referring 

8 to. Maybe I wasn't clear. So, somewhere 

9 there must be smears. 

10 I don't know how widespread the 

11 extent of the contamination inside that room 

12 really was. 

13 We're speculating, well, they 

14 worked with large amounts of hafnium tritide. 

15 So, clearly there must have been widespread 

16 amounts of contamination in there. 

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Are we allowed to 

18 know the size of the source-term activity wise 

19 or is that classified? 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Classified. 

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: See, this is a real 

22 problem. 

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1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, it is. 

2 MR. ZIEMER: Here's the deal. 

3 There's all kinds of experience that shows 

4 sort of the upper limit of what a person can 

5 inhale based on the size of the source-term. 

6 I've had firsthand experience with it. 

7 And it's where the million-to-one 

8 or the ten to the --

9 DR. ULSH: Ten to the minus six. 

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Every kind of 

11 incident which shows that a person --

12 DR. ULSH: The magic numbers. 

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Cannot take in more 

14 than about ten to minus six of a source-term 

15 that's dispersed right in their face. 

16 Now, if the source-term has been 

17 removed and you have some -- and it's your 

18 magic number. Maybe it's some amount that's 

19 left and it's a little bit and you postulate, 

20 you can bound. You can say there's no way if 

21 somebody is -- and that's already dispersed in 

22 the system. 

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265 

1 So, you could bound it. But if 

2 we're not allowed to know the source-term, 

3 then I think half of our Board Members are at 

4 a disadvantage. 

5 DR. NETON: But I think, Paul, if 

6 you know if you have surveys and smears, you 

7 know what the resuspendable source-term is if 

8 the source has been removed. 

9 I have a 10,000 DPM --

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. And that 

11 will help if we have the urine samples. 

12 DR. NETON: A millionth of that or 

13 ten to the minus four of that becomes airborne 

14 --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. 

16 DR. NETON: You can come up with a 

17 plausible upper bound scenario for exposure to 

18 anyone who entered that room. 

19 You could assume they inhaled that 

20 24/7. I mean --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I mean you may 

22 have to take into consideration Phil's point 

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266 

1 that that air sample may not represent the 

2 whole room, but --

3 DR. NETON: No, I'm speaking once 

4 the active hafnium --

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. Yes. 

6 DR. NETON: Now, any smears that you 

7 have even if it's a combination of other 

8 materials, you smear it, you can then have a 

9 contamination source-term that can be used to 

10 generate an airborne --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. 

12 DR. NETON: Given even very invasive 

13 activities like grinding, cutting, welding --

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. 

15 DR. NETON: And come up with an 

16 inhalation source-term that I believe would be 

17 credible and probably --

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Do we have these 

19 -- excuse me. Do we have these rad surveys? 

20 I mean is there a daily, weekly report? 

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't know. I 

22 just heard about them. 

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267 

1 DR. ULSH: All I can tell you, Phil, 

2 is that we captured several boxes of survey 

3 data from the buildings in question. 

4 I have not gone in and examined 

5 them in any systematic way, so I can't tell 

6 you if it was daily, weekly or whatever. I 

7 don't know until I look at it. 

8 DR. NETON: But I think we're 

9 talking specifically though about the 

10 operation, the glovebox operation that was --

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Once that 

12 suspended -- and here's my ignorance. I'm 

13 sorry, but it seems like we could take a 

14 sample of those smears after they suspended 

15 using it, and that would give us an idea of 

16 quantities -- or at least potential quantities 

17 that are still left behind. 

18 DR. NETON: That was my point, you 

19 know. Until we know that, we don't, you know. 

20 DR. ULSH: So, if I could get some 

21 clarity on exactly what the Work Group is 

22 requesting that we do? 

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1 CHAIR BEACH: Well, there's two 

2 paths. One, we make a recommendation to the 

3 full Board in August or two, we determine if 

4 there's more work that needs to be done and we 

5 agree to whatever that work is. 

6 And that's kind of where we're at, 

7 I believe. 

8 DR. ULSH: Well, I agree. And I 

9 would ask you to consider before you decide 

10 which option to take, if I come back to you 

11 with the information that you're requesting, 

12 the smear data and say here's what the level 

13 is, here's the contamination levels, what are 

14 we going to do with that? 

15 I mean is that going to convince 

16 you that --

17 DR. MAURO: What has to be done is 

18 to show that it's inconceivable that with that 

19 level of contamination his exposures could be 

20 higher than the people that were involved in 

21 exposures. 

22 See, to me that is your boundary. 

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269 

1 MEMBER ZIEMER: If you use it as Jim 

2 described it, it's not bound or --

3 DR. NETON: Yes, it's not different 

4 than a contamination model that we do for many 

5 sites. 

6 We have a service contamination 

7 level and we generate an inhalation source8 term based on that and certain --

9 DR. ULSH: But is the Working Group 

10 going to accept that approach, is what I'm 

11 asking? 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it seems like 

13 you're going to come up with tritium, you 

14 know, smear measurements in a particular, say, 

15 R-108 for the recycle and for this particular 

16 two-room lab. And those values will be looked 

17 at. You will do a calibration of how much of 

18 that tritium would have been in the air and 

19 then what -- but I still don't quite see to 

20 what extent you're going to know that the 

21 tritide, you know, the tritide --

22 DR. NETON: Well, take an example 

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1 20,000 DPM of a hundred square centimeters. 

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

3 DR. NETON: And probably almost all 

4 tritium as HTO. 

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

6 DR. NETON: But if you take a 

7 resuspension factor, ten to the minus fifth or 

8 something, you still are only generating into 

9 the air 10, 20, 30 DPM per cubic feet. 

10 You generate a fairly low air 

11 concentration that can give you a bounding 

12 estimate of what the tritium -- tritide 

13 exposures could have been even assuming that 

14 all that sort of contamination was related to 

15 pure tritides. 

16 And we do this all the time for --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Jim, I'm just 

18 trying to -- I don't disagree with that, but 

19 I'm trying to figure out if it's been done to 

20 come up with an apportionment for the tritide. 

21 DR. NETON: Well, not apportionment. 

22 We're assuming it's all a hundred percent --

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: A hundred percent 

2 tritide. 

3 DR. NETON Because you can't 

4 possibly get all of that in the air 

5 instantaneously. So, you can assume very 

6 conservatively that only -- pick your number, 

7 ten to the minus six, ten to the minus fifth, 

8 of that becomes airborne, and you're left with 

9 very low potential levels of inhalation. Very 

10 low. 

11 I mean it exists because of what 

12 Dr. Ziemer said. Not much gets airborne even 

13 if they are doing mechanical things with it 

14 not even entailing the entire contaminated 

15 source-term. 

16 And that source-term is much, much 

17 lower than what they're working with when the 

18 source was in active operation. 

19 DR. MAURO: So, let's say you have 

20 an abundant amount of swipe data. Okay. 

21 That's collected before, during, after any 

22 kind of D&D operation, maintenance operation 

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272 

1 at all different locations throughout the 

2 facility as part of the health physics 

3 coverage. 

4 DR. NETON: Well, I'm not saying 

5 throughout the facility. I'm specifically 

6 thinking about the hafnium area where --

7 DR. MAURO: Okay. Okay. 

8 DR. NETON: Where hafnium work was 

9 performed. 

10 DR. MAURO: Okay. And let's say we 

11 have that data and everyone agrees, yes, you 

12 do have a lot of data, swipe samples in the 

13 areas that conceivably could have been 

14 contaminated with residual levels of hafnium. 

15 DR. NETON: Correct. 

16 DR. MAURO: And the very fact that 

17 it's swiped, means a certain -- it's not 

18 tritium gas. I mean it's --

19 DR. NETON: Well, could be HTO. 

20 DR. MAURO: It could be HTO or it 

21 could be one of the lesser solubles or it 

22 could be --

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1 DR. NETON: Could be anything. 

2 DR. MAURO: And now you've got a 

3 number and -- okay. Now, I'm just trying --

4 all right. 

5 Now, the simple question is not try 

6 to quantify, because trying to quantify what 

7 the inhalation dose is under those 

8 circumstances is a tough one, you know. 

9 But what you might be able to do is 

10 to say that under any of those circumstances 

11 could a setting like that give rise to doses 

12 greater than this value. It just is not 

13 conceivable. 

14 And that value is less than the 

15 highest value that we know of. 

16 DR. NETON: Well, one could easily -

17 - I have to be careful. 

18 It wouldn't be very difficult to 

19 demonstrate that the three rem that you talked 

20 about earlier -- how much of that material 

21 would have to become airborne in order to 

22 generate a three rem? 

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1 DR. MAURO: See, I'm looking for a 

2 plausible upper bound. But if it turns out 

3 that the process we go through shows that, 

4 geez, it's possible that these people could 

5 have been exposed, could have experienced 

6 hafnium tritide exposures that are well above 

7 the exposures experienced by others, I think 

8 is a problem. 

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, it would be 

10 useful to know that. 

11 DR. NETON: I'm not sure why you 

12 feel it's difficult to convert surface 

13 contamination levels into some airborne value. 

14 We do it all the time. 

15 There are certain resuspension 

16 factors that are used per square meter and you 

17 get per cubic meter values out of that. 

18 And I think what you end up showing 

19 is, you know, resuspension factors that are 

20 very level, as we know they are, especially 

21 for particulate like that it's very difficult. 

22 I mean if it's a million DPM for a 

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1 hundred square centimeters, I'll withdraw 

2 everything I just said. 

3 But if I suspect that it's spotty, 

4 20,000, 50,000 DPM per a hundred square 

5 centimeter value, it would be hard to get much 

6 internal dose beyond this three rem for sure. 

7 And I think that's where the focus 

8 has shifted since the operation stage before 

9 1980 to the -- sort of what I consider to be a 

10 residual contamination phase. 

11 DR. MAURO: Okay. So you --

12 DR. NETON: See, I think that's a 

13 fairly boundable problem. That's my opinion. 

14 DR. MAURO: So, the key to whether 

15 or not we've got a potential SEC problem here 

16 is if you've got lots of good data on swipe 

17 samples that were collected under a broad 

18 range of circumstances that you feel confident 

19 catches, I don't know if that data exists or 

20 doesn't. And I mean that's the arguments 

21 being made here. 

22 I mean what I'm hearing is if I've 

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1 got all that data, that swipe data, and you 

2 who know the site and the nature of the D&D 

3 operations, the recycling, you folks know 

4 behind closed doors what those operations are 

5 and you look at all the data and say, wow, we 

6 have data -- here's the data, swipe samples 

7 collected, at that point a case has to be made 

8 that we could place an upper bound on what the 

9 exposures might have been to -- the highest 

10 exposures could have been for people involved. 

11 We don't know who those people are, 

12 but the people involved in working in those 

13 capacities. We don't know who they are, and 

14 there's your upper bound. 

15 That's the argument that you're 

16 making, and that's what I'm hearing is being 

17 proposed. 

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I know, Josie, 

19 you're wanting to close this and I think we 

20 should. 

21 I would hope, I would propose you 

22 are in favor of recommending SEC would at 

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1 least allow a look at this before final 

2 recommendation. 

3 CHAIR BEACH: Well, Paul, I think 

4 it's important that we do look at it. We've 

5 had much discussion today on it and I don't 

6 think anybody would be comfortable --

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: But it's kind of a 

8 new --

9 DR. MAURO: This is new. 

10 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

11 CHAIR BEACH: I don't think anybody 

12 here would be completely comfortable if we 

13 didn't explore this. So, I agree. I 

14 personally do. 

15 MR. KATZ: May I just add something, 

16 too, because it's been pointed to a couple of 

17 times in the conversation. It makes me 

18 uncomfortable every time it gets pointed to. 

19 Several Board Members have been 

20 behind the screen, if you want to just call it 

21 that, and have other knowledge, and obviously 

22 staff members have been behind the screen and 

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1 have other knowledge, but the Board as a whole 

2 has to rely on what's on the record. 

3 And really what you know yourself 

4 personally doesn't help the rest of the Board. 

5 It has to rely on reviewing what's been said 

6 in the Work Group and what gets said in front 

7 of the Board. 

8 So, I'm just a little uncomfortable 

9 when people reflect back, well, you can make 

10 your judgments based on what you know behind 

11 the screen. But, yes, you individually can, 

12 Josie, but the Board can't. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: But you have to rely 

14 on that if your -- if you have a disagreement 

15 with NIOSH, I don't agree with what NIOSH 

16 heard in the interview, then how else do you 

17 disseminate that except by what you heard and 

18 what you believe. 

19 MR. KATZ: What I'm just saying is 

20 that that's fine for you personally, Josie, to 

21 rely on what you know behind the screen, but 

22 it doesn't help the rest of the Board, because 

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1 the rest of the Board is limited to the 

2 knowledge, the information that's been 

3 disseminated in the Work Group physically and 

4 in front of the Board. 

5 And so I mean, for example, when 

6 you sort of read your sort of like a motion as 

7 to recommend forward, you went through that 

8 very quickly and I'm not sure who well 

9 understood all of what you said quickly before 

10 you went before recommendation, but that's the 

11 sort of information that the Board is going to 

12 be limited to when they make judgments, not 

13 your specialized knowledge or Joe's or Brant's 

14 or --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, the ability 

16 for us to translate this into a form that the 

17 Board --

18 MR. KATZ: Right. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean so far we 

20 haven't identified a showstopper where it's 

21 crucial and it's behind the screen. 

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I think, for 

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1 example, if we didn't have the monitoring data 

2 and we could only do bounding with source-term 

3 information, then I -- then we're at the place 

4 where we were on Ames. 

5 And, remember, Larry had guaranteed 

6 we'd never in the future have to make a 

7 decision based on lack of classified 

8 information or something to that effect. 

9 MR. HINNEFELD: He did what? 

10 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: We would make our 

12 decision based on what the -- we would only 

13 make our decisions based on what could openly 

14 be discussed. 

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: But I think like 

16 you and everybody else here, you know, 

17 whichever part of the table they're sitting on 

18 brings forth their experience, their knowledge 

19 so that -- well, you know, I mean given your 

20 background you guys know things that are so 

21 far above me I can't even see that point, but 

22 on the other hand I bring stuff, you know, 

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1 from working in the trenches and this is how 

2 we learn from each other. 

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's right. 

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: And this is also 

5 why the Board was set up the way that it was. 

6 There's four people from here, four people 

7 from that. Now, it's a little bit more. 

8 And I would also -- and this really 

9 comes down to Ted and everybody else. This is 

10 just warm up for the one that I plan. 

11 MR. KATZ: That's absolutely true. 

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I'll tell you 

13 what from day 1, and I've said it, because it 

14 makes me real nervous, because there is very, 

15 very little that I --

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's going to be a 

17 problem. 

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, it's going 

19 to be a huge problem. 

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: But I guess, Josie, 

21 I guess I'm looking at what our path forward 

22 here is. Because if we're going to the point 

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1 where Brant says, you know, with the swipes 

2 and everything else like that, there's a 

3 little bit more to it than that, and that's to 

4 also see what came into that plant. 

5 Because you know as well as I do 

6 that we've had other players that have come 

7 into the game between the 1980s and `90s that 

8 is going to be -- that's going to play into 

9 it. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: I think that's a 

11 really good thought. 

12 Should we go ahead and take a 

13 break? 

14 MR. KATZ: Sure. 

15 CHAIR BEACH: I think everybody 

16 really needs one. We'll definitely come back 

17 onto this topic. 

18 MR. KATZ: A ten-minute break or --

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, ten minutes. 

20 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, about five 

21 after 3:00. 

22 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

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1 matter went off the record at 2:54 p.m. and 

2 resumed at 3:08 p.m.) 

3 MR. KATZ: Ready to go back on. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. 

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. We're reconvening. 

6 This is the Mound Work Group after a short 

7 break. 

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And so at this 

9 point we have decided that we are going to ask 

10 NIOSH to do a little bit more work on swipe 

11 data for the tritide issue. And I think we 

12 can probably leave it at that and reconvene at 

13 the next Work Group meeting once we have 

14 determined what swipe data is available and 

15 how robust it is. 

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, Josie, this 

17 is Brad again. I want to kind of make sure 

18 where NIOSH is going with this. 

19 We're going into something else, 

20 too, because we have seen we have had other 

21 items come into NIOSH and the same issue. 

22 When you've got a recycling 

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1 facility, other people want to be able to use 

2 it too and we've seen this one from Pinellas. 

3 I want to make sure that we have 

4 looked at what has come into that. And I 

5 guess also I would like to be able to -- Brant 

6 has said that the bioassay data is --

7 everybody was sampled for tritium and 

8 everything else like that. And from our 

9 interviews during that era, they weren't. 

10 So, I just want to make sure that 

11 bioassays also there, too. And I'm speaking 

12 in later, later years. 

13 I know after the project shut down, 

14 I just wanted to make sure that we all know 

15 which way they're going with it and what we're 

16 going to look at. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: So, you're talking 

18 bioassay from 1980s on through D&D? 

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

21 DR. ULSH: So, what exactly is it 

22 you want? 

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1 What information do you want us to 

2 bring you? 

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, this is what 

4 I want to be able to find. You've made the 

5 comment that the bioassay, that everybody was 

6 sampled for tritium. 

7 Is this correct or --

8 DR. ULSH: Well, no. Not everybody 

9 on site. 

10 What I've said is that for people 

11 who are working in areas where -- depending on 

12 the time period you're talking about. 

13 At least for part of the time 

14 period if you had an exposure potential of 

15 greater than 100 millirem per year, you were 

16 required to be monitored. 

17 So, for people who were working in 

18 areas where there was tritium present that 

19 could have presented a hundred millirem per 

20 year, you were required to be on a bioassay 

21 program. That's what I'm saying. 

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. And what I'm 

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1 saying is because we're looking clear into the 

2 D&D period, that we need to understand if 

3 these people that were going into these areas 

4 if that was still standing, if that was still 

5 a requirement. 

6 Because after the process, there's 

7 an interesting belief that once the process 

8 stopped, everything has gone away. 

9 And I beg to differ on that. I 

10 believe that you still have the residual parts 

11 and you still have items there. 

12 Because what year was it that we 

13 did the recycling? 

14 Because the drums went out there 

15 and they sat for a long time. And then they 

16 built the recycling process. 

17 DR. ULSH: What recycling? 

18 Are we talking about the tritium 

19 recycling facility? 

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Tritium. Right. 

21 DR. ULSH: It operated for decades. 

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Well, I just 

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1 want to make sure because we -- also having a 

2 tritium recycling facility, we already know 

3 that there has been other product coming from 

4 other areas. 

5 I just want to make sure that the 

6 bioassay is sound enough that it's going to 

7 cover these eras and be able to tear these 

8 facilities down. 

9 DR. ULSH: So, if we were to 

10 investigate and ask the appropriate people, 

11 the people who were involved with this tritium 

12 recycling facility, were you required to be on 

13 tritium bioassay, and they'll either say yes 

14 we were, or they'll say no we weren't, and I 

15 brought that information back to you, is that 

16 what you're looking for? 

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Are they the only 

18 ones that went in there? 

19 Because, yes, that individual says 

20 that he was -- they were the only ones that 

21 dealt with tritium until we started pulling 

22 the string of, well, who did this, who did 

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1 this. Well, that would have been these 

2 people, that would have been these people. 

3 And this is where we came out with 

4 that there's a lot more people than just these 

5 few. 

6 And I want to make sure that we're 

7 covered on this because we're saying that the 

8 bioassay is going to cover these people in 

9 these areas and so forth. 

10 Especially the tritium recovery and 

11 the other facilities where we had it. I just 

12 want to make sure that the bioassay supports 

13 what you're saying. 

14 DR. ULSH: And I just want to make 

15 sure I bring you the information that it 

16 reflects. 

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. 

18 DR. ULSH: And to do that I need to 

19 understand pretty explicitly what it is you're 

20 asking for. 

21 So, for instance, we know the 

22 tritium recycling facility was in the R and SW 

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1 Building. 

2 So, if we brought you information 

3 about whether people who worked in R and SW 

4 Building were on tritium bioassay, is that --

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Or we ask clear up 

6 through the D&D of those facilities. 

7 DR. ULSH: Okay. 

8 CHAIR BEACH: So, I think there's 

9 two parts to this. The first part is pre10 1980. The Work Group probably would recommend 

11 an SEC for tritides. But because of the radon 

12 issue, it became a moot point. 

13 So, the second part of this is 

14 looking at post-1980 through to the end of 

15 D&D. And some of it in my mind is being a 

16 little bit clouded because we do have a D&D 

17 report that we haven't really even spent any 

18 time on. 

19 And I guess, Brant, I think what 

20 we're going to be looking for is anything 

21 that's available; bioassay or swipes that were 

22 mentioned earlier. 

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1 And I think we probably should 

2 limit it to a small room as we talked about 

3 earlier, the most likely areas, and then move 

4 out from there depending on questions that 

5 come up within the Working Group. 

6 DR. ULSH: Okay. I will analyze the 

7 collection of swipe data that we have 

8 currently available to see -- and I know what 

9 rooms we're talking about. See what data we 

10 have for those particular rooms and --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Locations and swipes 

12 for --

13 DR. ULSH: Yes, I'll characterize 

14 it, what we've got, and then report that back 

15 to the Working group. 

16 In terms of -- well, you haven't 

17 gotten to the bioassay yet. I'll wait for 

18 your request there. 

19 So, yes, that's what I`ll do. I'll 

20 characterize what we've got in terms of swipe 

21 data and then we'll see where we go from 

22 there. 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: I would think there 

2 would be some scoping outside of this meeting 

3 before that would be finalized, obviously, by 

4 going back and forth, just to make sure that 

5 it's explicit enough. 

6 DR. ULSH: Oh, and do you want me 

7 to address the bioassay part? 

8 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. 

9 DR. ULSH: I mean basically what I 

10 plan to do is look and see what documentation 

11 is available, look and see what communications 

12 we have with workers who worked in R and SW 

13 Building with regard to bioassay that was 

14 required and was actually performed for people 

15 who work in that building all the way up 

16 through D&D period. 

17 I think that's what you're asking 

18 for, right? 

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. 

20 DR. ULSH: Now, I mean I could 

21 probably give you information about there are 

22 this many thousand tritium bioassay samples in 

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1 MESH, but I don't know if that's what you're 

2 looking for and I don't know if I could 

3 specifically limit it down to those particular 

4 buildings. So, I wasn't thinking of going 

5 there unless you want it. 

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, we've just 

7 got to be able to make sure because at the 

8 very end there everybody was pretty well 

9 everywhere. And I just want to make sure that 

10 we have sufficient information to be able to 

11 cover where they're at. 

12 I know that it may not be possible, 

13 but it would be interesting to find out, when 

14 the tritium was processed, where it went to. 

15 DR. ULSH: You mean the recycling? 

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: No, the actual 

17 glovebox and so forth. 

18 DR. ULSH: Skeptical, but we could 

19 try. 

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, just because 

21 -- anyway, that would be interesting to see 

22 where it went because they had some incidents 

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1 that came out of that. 

2 MR. KATZ: Emily, can I ask you a 

3 question? 

4 CHAIR BEACH: For those on the 

5 phone, we are just taking a few-minute break 

6 while our Federal Official and lawyer stepped 

7 out of the room. 

8 So, we're still online. 

9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

10 matter went off the record at 3:18 p.m. and 

11 resumed at 3:19 p.m.) 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Any other 

13 tritide-related issues before we move on? 

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: I guess something 

15 that I would ask is Paul not being involved in 

16 a lot of these, is there something more that 

17 we could do to be able to assist to be able to 

18 help you or understand the problems that are 

19 facing us? 

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I've raised my 

21 questions as they've come and I understand 

22 that not everything can be divulged, but I 

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1 think we have to think of the bigger picture 

2 as to how these kind of things are going to 

3 impact -- it's not going to be just me because 

4 approximately half the Board Members are 

5 currently uncleared. They're somewhere in 

6 various stages of getting cleared. 

7 But even if that occurs, we 

8 understand that the claimants have also a 

9 right to the information on which a decision 

10 was based whether it's an SEC or an individual 

11 dose reconstruction. 

12 So, we have to be able to work 

13 around the classified information and gather 

14 what's needed in a forum that allows us to 

15 make a decision. 

16 And I think that's what the bottom 

17 line is going to be. 

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. I 

19 understand. 

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: And you've all been 

21 very helpful as far as this is concerned as 

22 far as you're able to go. 

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1 And if this works out better than 

2 what's been proposed, I think we're fine 

3 because we don't need to get source-term 

4 information. 

5 I think to the extent that we're 

6 able to -- we need to be able to get in and to 

7 see some of these things, but the bottom line 

8 is we need to get the basic unclassified 

9 information that is usable to make informed 

10 decisions on SECs or dose reconstructions. 

11 And I think in most cases, we'll be 

12 able to do that and work our way around these 

13 things. At least I'm hopeful that's the case 

14 because --

15 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and I think it's 

16 beneficial having you in the position of not 

17 seeing all the documents because it does give 

18 us other ideas and other avenues to move 

19 forward. 

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: It helps us to be 

21 able to look at it because many times when we 

22 discuss this in detail, you know, how do we 

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1 bring this forth to them, what questions do 

2 you think that they're going to have on this. 

3 This is why I was asking if there's 

4 anything more that we can do because this is 

5 kind of a test to see how we can do it. 

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, let's move 

7 on to radon. It's the next topic. 

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Let me jump 

9 in on that one. 

10 One thing that is figured with the 

11 radon issue is just a lack of a lot of data. 

12 I think from the very get-go there's been a 

13 couple of data points and that was the 

14 eventual premise behind our concern that there 

15 just wasn't enough data. 

16 And I think we did have a meeting 

17 of minds and that resulted in the SEC 

18 recommendation being voted in and everything. 

19 And what we're talking about now is 

20 really what's the posture beyond the current 

21 SEC which ends in `80. And I'm -- I was going 

22 to say conflicted, but that sound -- that's 

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1 kind of a loaded word. 

2 I have mixed feelings. Thank you. 

3 Mixed feelings on this issue because on one 

4 hand we have a couple of clear data points 

5 which is the -- a little background. There 

6 was some radon measurements taken because of 

7 an acknowledged increased radon escalation in 

8 this room, SW 19. 

9 And that led to monitoring that was 

10 done and a validation that, yes, we've had a 

11 source that was coming in primarily with 

12 negative pressure or whatever it was coming 

13 in. 

14 And a mitigating action being taken 

15 which is to vent an underlying tunnel to vent 

16 the radon isotopes, and there were several 

17 isotopes, to the atmosphere. 

18 And the individual involved did 

19 some measurements after that was done and saw 

20 levels approaching background, if not 

21 background. So, you know, the determination 

22 was that was a successful mitigation. 

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1 The next documented measurement was 

2 in 1990, I believe. And again this was a memo 

3 by the same individual who was asked back 

4 because the operators or the people that were 

5 in charge of the area noted that levels were, 

6 quote, approaching D-A-C, DAC levels in SW 19 

7 and asked him to come back and take additional 

8 measurements. 

9 Now, as documented in the memo of 

10 that time period, 1990, his measurements 

11 showed levels -- very low levels, you know, 

12 sort of a commensurate background, and that's 

13 what we have essentially. 

14 I haven't seen anything much beyond 

15 that, but what gives me the mixed feelings is 

16 that way back when we did the Site Profile 

17 review, we interviewed rad techs that operated 

18 in the SW/R complex and they told us that --

19 and this is in our Site Profile review report, 

20 that they would monitor with their monitors, 

21 the cracks and fissures in R Building and 

22 would see, you know, I think in their words, 

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1 their cameras would peg out and then attribute 

2 that to the inhalation of radon coming in from 

3 the foundations. And that time frame was the 

4 mid-`80s. `85, `86, whatever. 

5 And that coupled with the fact that 

6 the genesis of having this individual come 

7 back in 1990 to do SW 19 was an observation of 

8 levels approaching a DAC level, it gives me 

9 mixed feelings. Because in a way, yes, the 

10 mitigation based on those measurements that 

11 were done by this one individual, as it turned 

12 out, seemed to verify that, you know, the 

13 mitigation was working. 

14 On the other hand, you have this --

15 now I'll call it anecdotal, because in a sense 

16 we got this from people that knew what they 

17 were doing, rad techs or whatever, but 

18 obviously levels were -- or inhalation in 

19 level -- increased levels were being seen in 

20 those buildings. 

21 Now, I'm not aware of any 

22 additional information. And I went through 

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1 the pains of locating the individual who did 

2 these measurements. And I invited Brant to 

3 join Josie and I and just frankly talking with 

4 him, just saying what do you remember? 

5 Well, he did not recall much of 

6 anything up to 1990. So, unfortunately didn't 

7 learn much more about the genesis of why he 

8 was brought back, what was the background. 

9 All we have is a piece of paper 

10 that says the levels that were monitored were 

11 low. 

12 So, that's kind of where we are. 

13 Those are the facts. I mean, you know, just 

14 trying to resolve the question of having sort 

15 of these contradictory pieces of information, 

16 I don't think that was successful. 

17 So, I guess part of my report for 

18 the Work Group and you were part of this 

19 discussion, is that what is documented, what 

20 is actually in writing in terms of measured 

21 levels is what this individual monitored in 

22 1980 and in 1990, and I respect that. 

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1 And we did talk to him and he felt 

2 that in general the mitigation was successful. 

3 And I think we've got to take that at face 

4 value since he was the one that was involved. 

5 We do have this additional 

6 information that was gleaned independent of 

7 that from the rad techs in R Building and, you 

8 know, and also the memo itself in 1990 

9 acknowledged that the reason that he came back 

10 was this increasing level of radon that was 

11 being seen. 

12 So, it certainly leaves me with the 

13 mixed feeling that, yes, I guess, you know, 

14 what we say, the weight of evidence, the 

15 weight of evidence just should go with what's 

16 been recorded in lieu of having any better 

17 information. 

18 And I think, Jim, you have stated 

19 in the past, well, this is 83.14. That if 

20 better information or additional information 

21 comes to the floor, it doesn't preclude you 

22 revisiting. 

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1 I guess that's kind of where I'm at 

2 that really we haven't been able to find 

3 anything better. It is what it is in terms of 

4 the data available. 

5 There is some contradiction, but 

6 again what's written down and what's measured 

7 is what this individual did and that's what we 

8 have. That would be my perspective. 

9 DR. NETON: Can I ask a couple 

10 questions? 

11 I'm not that familiar with the 

12 radon -- the measurements that were made that 

13 led them to believe that there was excess 

14 radon, but were they actual radon 

15 measurements, or were they just like beta16 gamma survey meters that picked up excess --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: The --

18 DR. NETON: See, I would be 

19 surprised if they were radon measurements. If 

20 they were doing that, then why would they call 

21 Jenkins in? 

22 And it wouldn't surprise me that 

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1 you would have extra beta-gamma activity in 

2 cracks where the radon had been sealed to 

3 enter the building. 

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and I guess in 

5 my observation, it wasn't very clear. 

6 DR. NETON: Right. 

7 MR. FITZGERALD: We had this two8 page memo and it just acknowledged that was 

9 the reason he was called in. Didn't go into a 

10 lot of details and background. 

11 And we were actually talking to him 

12 because that was exactly what I wanted to 

13 know, you know. What did they use, how did 

14 they use it and is there any explanation for 

15 why your measurements differed from theirs? 

16 And he just couldn't remember. 

17 So, it sort of leaves you with okay 

18 --

19 DR. NETON: It wouldn't surprise me 

20 if beta-gamma survey measurement would show a 

21 lot of activity with no radon. It's almost an 

22 indication that it's being held up and the 

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1 sealing is actually working. 

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

3 DR. NETON: So, I'm not sure those 

4 two pieces of --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Short of knowing 

6 more about what led to their calling him back, 

7 all I can say is that this is all we know and 

8 it's not enough in my mind to go any further. 

9 But if anything else surfaces --

10 and we beat this one. We haven't found any --

11 there was surprisingly little amount of 

12 documentation on these kinds of measurements 

13 and we have essentially just these two time 

14 frames. 

15 But it bothers me that we did talk 

16 to rad techs and got this kind of feedback 

17 from the `80s. 

18 And knowing how sometimes you're 

19 operating a plant in negative pressure, you 

20 know, the question is, is the negative 

21 pressure defeating this vent that's way over 

22 here? 

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1 I don't know. And there's no way of 

2 knowing that clearly, so I just wanted to sort 

3 of this is what I think where we were left. 

4 And it's not the best place, but it's the best 

5 we could do at this stage. 

6 CHAIR BEACH: Well, being that it is 

7 an 83.14 and can be reopened if any other 

8 documentation comes to life, I would almost 

9 think that as a Work Group we don't really 

10 have much choice except to close the radon 

11 issue at this point, the post-1980. 

12 I was really hoping that the 

13 interview we had would -- he clearly did not 

14 remember anything and really he wasn't very 

15 clear that the venting worked, but he didn't 

16 remember it not working. So, I'm --

17 MR. FITZGERALD: And to be fair, 

18 that is 20, 30 years. I mean --

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

20 MR. FITZGERALD: It was a challenge, 

21 but that's the best we could do. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: So, what do you say, 

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1 Work Group? 

2 Close it, leave it open, is there 

3 more work that needs to be done? 

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: I don't know much 

5 more that we can, because we have very little 

6 data on the radon issue anyway, you know. 

7 This was, I believe, two samples or whatever 

8 else like that. 

9 The only part that worries me about 

10 it, I feel that we can close or whatever, but 

11 you said it was an 84 --

12 CHAIR BEACH: 83.14. 

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: 83.14. The only 

14 thing is, is when we usually pull away from 

15 these unless something comes up, you know, 

16 that pops up, I realize that we can bring that 

17 back up, but, you know, we kind of stop 

18 looking too. That's my issue. 

19 MR. FITZGERALD: And it appears 

20 that, you know, these sort of very specific 

21 measurements that were done before the early -

22 - the early `90s they started doing baselines 

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307 

1 of radon across the complex, and Mound was 

2 included. 

3 But before then it was, you know, 

4 it was driven by concern for vents and there 

5 just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of data 

6 points. 

7 DR. ULSH: Well, all right. I've 

8 been biting my tongue because I don't want to 

9 disagree, specific disagreement, because I 

10 think our conclusions are going to be the 

11 same, but we do have a few more things than 

12 we've been discussing. 

13 In 1980, we have the measurements 

14 that were taken immediately after the 

15 installation of the turbine, the stack. And 

16 those showed reduction in radon levels. We 

17 have that. 

18 MR. FITZGERALD: We said that. 

19 DR. ULSH: The person that we 

20 interviewed is a well-known expert on radon 

21 certainly at Mound, and really was involved in 

22 the efforts to characterize radon across the 

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1 complex. 

2 And what he said in his interview 

3 when we asked specifically about this 

4 situation was, Joe is right, he didn't recall 

5 the 1990 measurements, but he said I truly 

6 believe that SW 19 was down to background 

7 after 1980 and continued to be so. 

8 And he periodically sampled from 

9 the stack for purposes of mishaps, and he is 

10 comfortable that the system was functioning 

11 and the situation at SW 19 was solid. That's 

12 what he said. 

13 We also have where he described 

14 periodic situations particularly in the month 

15 of August where they would see increases in 

16 radon due to whatever the weather conditions 

17 were at the time. 

18 And he said it was kind of weird 

19 because we saw it pretty much every year. 

20 They knew when August came, they were going to 

21 be seeing that. 

22 DR. MAURO: Where? 

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1 In the same room? 

2 DR. ULSH: Oh, no, no, no. Just in 

3 general. 

4 DR. MAURO: The whole facility. 

5 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

6 DR. MAURO: And what levels are we 

7 talking about where he sees these changes? 

8 DR. ULSH: He wasn't specific. 

9 Although, he did talk about in the same 

10 context, he talked about workers that were 

11 counted. 

12 And when they came into work, they 

13 were counted in the morning and they showed a 

14 high level. And when they were counted after 

15 lunch, no more high levels. 

16 And so they characterized that as, 

17 okay, they were getting it at home and 

18 bringing it with them to work. 

19 So, there was some natural 

20 fluctuation there, but clearly this is a guy 

21 who had an interest in this topic and he just 

22 was not aware of a continuing radon problem. 

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310 

1 And, furthermore, I'm not aware of 

2 another radon source in that building other 

3 than what we're talking about here, the 

4 tunnel, that was clearly re-mediated. 

5 So, I guess I would agree with Joe 

6 that it's not an ironclad case, but there is a 

7 reasonable weight of the evidence here, I 

8 think. 

9 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we're on 

10 the same page rather than --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And I did forget 

12 your data points from the presentation at the 

13 last Work Group meeting where you did show a 

14 few samples. So, I neglected that. 

15 So, do you want to leave this open, 

16 close it? 

17 I think that NIOSH, you correct me 

18 if I'm wrong, you have an obligation that if 

19 new information comes in, you go back in and 

20 look at what it effects. 

21 DR. ULSH: Absolutely. Yes, 

22 absolutely. If anything comes to light that 

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311 

1 we're aware of -- I mean that we see, we will 

2 certainly --

3 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Right. 

4 DR. ULSH: And that's the whole 

5 purpose of an 83.14. 

6 MR. KATZ: Yes, with a new 83.14 is 

7 what you're talking about? 

8 DR. ULSH: Right. Yes. 

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

10 MR. KATZ: Do you understand that, 

11 Josie? 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

13 MR. KATZ: That would be a new 

14 83.14, right? 

15 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Okay. 

16 So, all in favor of closing the 

17 radon post-1980, Brad? 

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

19 CHAIR BEACH: Paul, Phil? 

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

21 CHAIR BEACH: Paul? 

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 

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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Then we'll 

2 consider that closed based on previous 

3 information. 

4 MR. KATZ: We got through that issue 

5 in blazing speed. 

6 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Now, we're going 

7 to go ahead and just -- we're going to juggle. 

8 I know Brant needs to leave at 4:30 today, so 

9 there's a couple of things we should be able 

10 to close quickly also. 

11 Let's move down to high-fired Pu12 238. And that should be a relatively, should 

13 be a relatively simple discussion. 

14 I know that, Jim, you were going to 

15 look at some information from our last meeting 

16 on the modeling. I believe that was the 

17 issue, was the modeling. 

18 MR. FITZGERALD: I believe it was 

19 competing models for Mound's bioassay. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

21 DR. NETON: Yes, I don't -- I mean 

22 we did have an internal discussion about the 

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313 

1 models. And where we ended up with, we 

2 believe that the models that we have are 

3 adequate in our reconstruction. However, you 

4 know, there may be tweaks that could be 

5 involved in looking at additional cases if 

6 need be. 

7 But it's a Site Profile issue in 

8 our opinion, not an SEC. We have sufficient 

9 data to -- we developed a model for doing 

10 sufficiently accurate. I believe SC&A's 

11 position is that we have not examined the 

12 universe of all possible models. 

13 We're saying we could do that, we 

14 don't think we need to, but at any rate that 

15 would be a Site Profile issue. 

16 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't think we 

17 were proposing the universe. I think we had a 

18 specific -- we called it J or K. I can't 

19 remember which is which, but one was -- we 

20 felt was more conservative. 

21 And I don't disagree that we're 

22 into TBD space, but I think the loose end was 

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314 

1 that I think NIOSH was going to examine the 

2 two and come back with some feedback to the 

3 Work Group. 

4 I mean that was, you know, nothing 

5 any more than that. 

6 DR. ULSH: Well, I think that 

7 perhaps a could provide a little bit more 

8 information. 

9 What we're talking about here for 

10 plutonium-239 at Rocky Flats when this came 

11 up, we were talking about high-fired 

12 plutonium. And basically this is plutonium 

13 that has been exposed to high temperatures and 

14 that would make it refractory. In other 

15 words, insoluble. 

16 So, it's got some parallels to the 

17 tritide issue. Although, I don't want to go 

18 there. 

19 So, that's plutonium-239. And what 

20 we're talking about here is the analogous 

21 position or the analogous issue with 

22 plutonium-238. 

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1 There were processes at Mound that 

2 would certainly subject plutonium-238 to high 

3 temperatures and make it high-fired. 

4 So, you know, the question 

5 naturally came up would this lead to similar 

6 problems? 

7 Now, even though they're both 

8 plutonium, there's a big difference between 

9 plutonium-238 and plutonium-239. 

10 Mainly, the specific activity is 

11 much, much higher for plutonium-238. So, it 

12 tends to break down by itself just due to the 

13 faster radioactive decay. And that leads to 

14 some differences between high-fired plutonium15 238 and high-fired plutonium-239. 

16 Now at Mound, the processes that 

17 would have lead to high-fired plutonium-238 by 

18 and large were the plutonium microsphere 

19 project that they used for the space program 

20 where they were generating power sources for 

21 the space program. 

22 And what you have there is 

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1 plutonium-238 microspheres dropped through a 

2 plasma torch which of course high fires it, 

3 and could have led to the formation of high4 fired plutonium-238. 

5 Now, what I would bring to your 

6 attention is that certainly the people who 

7 were involved in the plutonium microsphere 

8 project/program producing these microspheres, 

9 would have been on a plutonium bioassay 

10 program. I hope that we can all agree on 

11 that. 

12 So, the people that were actually 

13 making these things, I would say by and large 

14 there's going to be a wealth of plutonium 

15 bioassay data. 

16 We have looked at a number of cases 

17 and we don't see anything that indicates to us 

18 the kind of behavior that was observed down at 

19 Los Alamos, which is kind of the genesis of 

20 this issue. 

21 However, I think we can say that if 

22 we came across a claimant where their bioassay 

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1 data indicated that kind of behavior, sure, I 

2 think we could consider that for that. 

3 I hope that that's sufficient for 

4 us to come to an agreement on this, but --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think 

6 that's a reasonable approach if that can be 

7 affirmed as something, you know, a commitment 

8 to look at. It's Type L? 

9 CHAIR BEACH: Well, Type L versus 

10 Type J. 

11 MR. FITZGERALD: That would be in 

12 the arsenal of a dose reconstructor if they 

13 saw something that did not track with the 

14 usual model. 

15 DR. NETON: I think there's been 

16 some confusion of how we approach dose 

17 reconstructions. 

18 I mean if the bioassay data were 

19 there, we would not ignore it and just blindly 

20 apply this more soluble form. 

21 We would be obliged to use bioassay 

22 data for dose reconstruction. So, we would do 

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1 that. 

2 What we really were talking about 

3 earlier was what the default would be if we 

4 didn't know. 

5 For those cases where they have an 

6 occasional routine bioassay sample, you know, 

7 our dose reconstructors need to have some 

8 default to hang their hat on and that's where 

9 we would use it. 

10 Certainly not if there was evidence 

11 to the contrary. We wouldn't use that 

12 default. 

13 DR. ULSH: And that was kind of my 

14 purpose on bringing up this point about the 

15 workers who were involved in the microsphere 

16 program are going to be workers for whom, in 

17 general, there is a wealth of bioassay data. 

18 And if they exhibited this kind of 

19 behavior, Type -- what did we call it? Type 

20 L? 

21 CHAIR BEACH: Type L versus Type J, 

22 yes. 

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1 DR. ULSH: Okay. Whichever one it 

2 is that's insoluble. 

3 CHAIR BEACH: J. 

4 DR. ULSH: If they exhibited that 

5 kind of behavior, well, sure, we would use the 

6 bioassay data that's there and model it that 

7 way. 

8 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and I guess what 

9 the Work Group asked for and what you agreed 

10 to was to bring to the worker what approach, 

11 to look at both of them, and then to bring to 

12 us the approach that you would actually take 

13 for dose reconstruction. 

14 So, that was the discussion that 

15 had gone -- I mean we had just gotten to that 

16 small point. 

17 And to close it out after several 

18 Work Groups, that was the end point to be able 

19 to bring that to closure. 

20 DR. ULSH: How about this? 

21 We can, you know, at the conclusion 

22 of this process there's going to be a pretty 

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1 large edit to the Mound TBD, Mound Site 

2 Profile, and it's going to incorporate all of 

3 the results from this process. 

4 We could modify the internal TBD to 

5 talk about this issue that the microsphere 

6 program generated high-temperature plutonium 

7 particles. 

8 If a worker was involved in that 

9 and had bioassay data that suggested this more 

10 refractory form, that should be considered. 

11 That could be the approach that we 

12 would take for this issue. 

13 DR. MAURO: I have just one 

14 question. 

15 The dose reconstructions that you 

16 have done and the data that you haven't done, 

17 is the retention function behaving in a way 

18 that you weren't expecting to see. 

19 In other words, does it look like 

20 your L or does it look like your J? 

21 DR. ULSH: Well, there was some 

22 discussion about that. 

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1 DR. NETON: Nothing looked like J, -

2 I don't think. 

3 MR. FITZGERALD: There were a couple 

4 of instances that Joyce raised and --

5 DR. NETON: I think there were 

6 slightly --

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

8 DR. NETON: There were some cases 

9 with slightly longer half-lives in the L model 

10 that we developed, but nothing in my opinion 

11 that resembled a very long build-up time that 

12 you see with Type J at Los Alamos. 

13 And I'm recalling now that I 

14 committed to look at the difference between 

15 those two and we had done some calculations 

16 and the Type J model relies on such a large 

17 extra dose that I don't think it's really 

18 appropriate to be used. 

19 Additional dose it's at is not 

20 appropriate to be used at Mound based on the 

21 data that we see. 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, unless the 

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1 bioassay --

2 DR. NETON: Unless the bioassay, but 

3 we have not seen anything remotely resembling 

4 a Type J in my opinion at Mound. 

5 In fact, that Type J material was 

6 generated under some very specific 

7 experimental conditions at Los Alamos. Maybe 

8 it was radioactive testing or something of 

9 that nature. 

10 MR. FITZGERALD: So, I think that 

11 the proposal may be sort of a footnote that 

12 it's available in a TBD. 

13 DR. NETON: Yes, we certainly make 

14 the dose reconstructors aware of the fact that 

15 there may be other instances out there, be 

16 careful when you're reviewing the bioassay 

17 data not to blindly apply the default. 

18 And again most of the time this 

19 would be where people had no positive 

20 bioassay. I mean you have to have some 

21 default. 

22 For those who have positive 

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1 bioassays, usually there is a fairly rigorous 

2 follow-up with multiple samples where one 

3 could establish the clearest pattern. 

4 That's what we would use, the 

5 person's own individual clearance. 

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anything else? 

7 Then I would propose we close this 

8 based on the discussion and the revision of 

9 the TBD to make both available to fit the 

10 circumstance. 

11 Brad, do you agree with closing? 

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: Bob, Phil? 

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

15 CHAIR BEACH: Paul? 

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, we have 

18 closed Issue 9. The next one is 

19 adequacy/completeness of internal dose. I'm 

20 actually going to tie that with the roadmap. 

21 I had first thought I was going to 

22 close the roadmap issue, but realized that 

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1 there were four papers written for data 

2 adequacy and completion. 

3 So, there's actually four still on 

4 the table. Some of the questions have been 

5 answered and some of them have not. 

6 The first three papers were -- the 

7 answer was the roadmap for one, three, seven 

8 and eight, I believe. 

9 So, I've decided I'm not going to 

10 close that until we have a written response 

11 from NIOSH and making sure that all four 

12 papers have all been -- all the issues have 

13 been answered completely. 

14 And with that, I'm going to turn it 

15 over to SC&A. 

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, with a 

17 clarifying comment that, you know, going back 

18 to January 5th and 6th when we sort of waded 

19 into all those papers and we made it clear 

20 that we needed a way to expedite or facilitate 

21 some agreement, and that's where the charge 

22 from the Work Group came to SC&A to actually 

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1 identify. 

2 And we were talking about the 

3 presence of these nuclides based on the King 

4 report and other sources at Mound. 

5 And I think Brant's response was 

6 that doesn't connote necessarily exposure 

7 potential. We went back and forth on that. 

8 I think finally we just said, well, 

9 what we can do to move this thing forward is 

10 why don't we identify what we would say would 

11 be the nuclides from which exposure potential 

12 based on the operational information, 

13 whatever, was significant enough that we would 

14 identify that to NIOSH. 

15 And I think the Work Group wanted 

16 NIOSH to then respond as to why this would not 

17 in fact be exposures to which bioassay would 

18 be warranted or which we don't see any 

19 evidence of actual bioassays being conducted. 

20 And I think that doesn't supplant 

21 some of the other issues that were raised in 

22 this paper, but I think it was trying to get 

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1 to the heart of the question which is quite 

2 apart from the presence necessarily -- the 

3 roadmap was focused on the presence of the --

4 potential presence of these nuclides, but I 

5 think it was made clear it did not necessarily 

6 mean there was an exposure pathway. 

7 And what the Work Group wanted us 

8 to do was, okay, let's get beyond the King 

9 report and the roadmap and let's talk about 

10 which nuclides would exemplify the potential 

11 that we're talking about and to provide that 

12 to NIOSH so they could respond as to why these 

13 were not in fact valid examples of exposure 

14 potential historically at Mound. 

15 And that's where it was left. I 

16 think that White Paper was generated -- and 

17 I'm trying to recall. Maybe early May finally 

18 it got out at DOE and got to the Work Group 

19 and NIOSH sometime in May. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: June. 

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Was it June? 

22 CHAIR BEACH: It was June. 

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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, okay. So, 

2 early June. 

3 So, I'm not telling you that you 

4 necessarily have had it long, but certainly 

5 that's what the genesis of our identifying 

6 those sources to you are. So, that's where it 

7 stands right now. 

8 Bob Bistline is on the phone to --

9 if there's any clarifying questions or 

10 whatever. But again we have not seen a 

11 response, so we're pretty much where we were 

12 in terms of putting this paper out. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and I did ask 

14 Bob Bistline to kind of go through the first 

15 three papers that were out -- I believe 2009, 

16 April of 2009 they came out -- to kind of give 

17 us an idea of what still remained unanswered. 

18 And, Bob, I don't know if you're 

19 ready to do that yet. Bob, are you on the 

20 phone? Bistline? 

21 DR. BISTLINE: Yes, I am here. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, great. Glad to 

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1 hear it. 

2 DR. BISTLINE: Yes, I could try to 

3 go through it some, but I guess the first 

4 thing would be to look at the -- some of the 

5 issues that were brought up in those papers. 

6 The one paper was the internal 

7 dosimetry -- Mound internal dosimetry data 

8 adequacy, and the other one was completeness, 

9 Mound dosimetry completeness, and the other 

10 was the Q&A that was produced back in April of 

11 2009. 

12 And some of the major issues that I 

13 think need to be brought up that never have 

14 really been addressed to our satisfaction have 

15 to do with things such as the polonium low 

16 recovery that the issue is dealt with in the 

17 adequacy paper rather extensively. I think 

18 it's Pages 8 through 10 or 11. 

19 And it has to do with the fact that 

20 the polonium recovery in bioassay was ten 

21 percent or less. And the issue was -- it gets 

22 into that ten percent -- having been a DOE 

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1 program manager over internal dosimetry if I 

2 had a bioassay -- saw bioassays coming in at 

3 ten percent, even 25 percent, I would have 

4 said that the program was pretty broken. 

5 And I think that's pretty well 

6 reiterated by the MARLAP statement, Multi7 Agency Radiological Laboratory Analytical 

8 Protocol Manual of 2004 where it says low 

9 yield, a very low yield usually indicates a 

10 procedural failure caused by incomplete or 

11 unsuccessful chemical separation, matrix 

12 interference, missing reagents or the 

13 inclusion of a key element in the sample 

14 processing. And a low recovery of the direct 

15 plating method indicates a failure in this 

16 process. 

17 It was not appropriate for 

18 metabolized polonium, and this goes back to 

19 some animal studies that were done where it 

20 was recommended that because of the 

21 uncertainties they found with the primates, 

22 that recovery was ten percent or less. 

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1 So, our question has to do with the 

2 efficiency here of polonium recovery. And we 

3 don't feel that this has been fully answered. 

4 Another issue is on other nuclides, 

5 dealing with other nuclides. And this was 

6 discussed fairly lengthy in the QA paper of 

7 2009 along about Pages 15 and 16 where the MWJ 

8 report indicated possible problems with 

9 completeness of data and with quality or 

10 usefulness of the data entered in the other 

11 radionuclides. 

12 This deals with things such as 

13 cesium-137 bioassays until -- there were no 

14 cesium-137 bioassays until 1993, but there was 

15 work being done in 1968-1969 time frame. 

16 And cobalt-60, NIOSH keeps 

17 referring to them as trace quantities, but you 

18 have to -- with cobalt-60, for instance, there 

19 was research and production. And it shows up 

20 in soils later on and is brought out in the 

21 adequacy and completeness paper that was 

22 published in June, the fact that cobalt-60 was 

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1 found in soil. So, this raises a very serious 

2 issue with regard to other radionuclides. 

3 There's the issue of radium, 

4 actinium -- radium, thorium and actinium also 

5 as a third issue that the data adequacy paper 

6 addresses. 

7 And this gets into the fact that 

8 there's a real question about equilibrium with 

9 the -- using the radium extraction and 

10 differential counting process that was used 

11 for -- to measure the radium daughters of 

12 thorium. 

13 And the fact that there is question 

14 as to whether the equilibrium was established 

15 and whether all of the alpha emitters were 

16 captured with the same efficiency. And we do 

17 not feel that this has been adequately 

18 addressed as yet. 

19 And this brings up another issue, 

20 and that is that there were 238 samples of Pu21 238 during the SEC time frame. And 48 samples 

22 during 1960 to 1967, which is after that. 

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1 So, you're still -- there were more 

2 samples actually for Pu-232 during the time of 

3 the SEC than there were during the time of 

4 1960 to `67, which was after that and wasn't 

5 included in the SEC. 

6 And the same is true for thorium7 230. During the SEC there were 180 samples, 

8 and there are no samples during 1960 to 1970 

9 when thorium-230 shows up in production 

10 processes. 

11 So, these are some highlights of 

12 some of the issues. We get into the issue of 

13 inconsistency. We have a real problem with 

14 the inconsistency that's shown here. 

15 The Dayton labs, MCC, were granted 

16 an SEC for their polonium process. And yet 

17 during the -- this was transferred over to --

18 this process was transferred over to Mound and 

19 used basically identical processing. And yet 

20 there's no -- there's push not to treat it in 

21 the same manner as it was treated at the 

22 Dayton labs. 

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1 Then I also have noted here that 

2 the protactinium-231 and thorium-232, that in 

3 1956 through -- 1956 through 1959 there were 

4 bioassays. And in 1970 -- but there was also 

5 processing and the use of this Pa-231 during 

6 1970 to 1979, and there is no bioassay data 

7 from 1959 through 1993 although there was 

8 indication that it was being used at the site. 

9 And thorium-232, over 117 leaky drums outside 

10 the Building 21 as late as 1973. 

11 So, these are all issues that I see 

12 as concerns on our part and I -- just a second 

13 here. Let me get my paperwork in order. 

14 From our perspective, SC&A's 

15 perspective technical review involves a 

16 critical investigation of the programs 

17 effective based on available documentation. 

18 And we feel that the treatment of 

19 the King report is something that these 

20 materials were not just episodic. 

21 SC&A sees that there is no reason 

22 to waste further time and resources searching 

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334 

1 for documentation to substantiate this, that 

2 episodic use could certainly explain 

3 fluctuations in the number of bioassay samples 

4 for particular radionuclide from month to 

5 month or year to year or even decades without 

6 specific bioassay data, but there's available 

7 evidence indicating active use of these 

8 isotopes was taking place. 

9 So, I think that kind of covers the 

10 majority of the issues that are brought up. 

11 And sort of in summary, we feel that the 

12 dosimetric significance in terms of the 

13 compensation program is not defined by the 

14 Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

15 Compensation Act or the associated rules. 

16 There is no de minimis dose 

17 specified. And the dosimetric significance 

18 was therefore determined based on the 

19 requirements of bioassay sampling at 100 

20 millirem CED that the radionuclides defined as 

21 the nuclides of dosimetric significance during 

22 the pre-1989 dose assessment project at Mound 

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335 

1 and the sensitivity of Probability of 

2 Causation codes. 

3 Clearly, alpha emitters emitting 

4 radionuclides such as radium-226, actinium5 227, thorium-228, thorium-230, Pa-231, 

6 thorium-232, uranium-233, uranium-234, 235, 

7 238, americium-241, curium-244 are of 

8 dosimetric significance in compensation. 

9 And so we feel that this -- the 

10 lack of monitoring information and a way in 

11 which the proposed method of trying to treat 

12 these by issues such as gross alpha, which has 

13 -- we feel has real limitations and as 

14 described in the paper, has real concerns. 

15 And there are examples in the June 

16 paper. And I'm not going to get into all 

17 those examples that are cited in our June 

18 paper, but there are examples of potential 

19 exposures that occurred. And these examples 

20 are engineering controls, work practice 

21 controls, safety filter and explosions and 

22 fires broken into four sections. 

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1 And these I might just point out 

2 that one of the questions -- statements by 

3 NIOSH has been that these -- many of these 

4 were episodic, they were small samples, they 

5 were encapsulated samples or they were sealed 

6 sources. 

7 A couple of these examples actually 

8 point out that there were encapsulation 

9 sources and sealed sources that actually 

10 leaked and there were exposures to individuals 

11 even with those. 

12 And so we feel that there really 

13 needs to be a closer look at consideration of 

14 these possible exposure potentials that 

15 existed and were examples of accidents 

16 occurring -- took place that haven't -- that 

17 were being questioned on the part of SC&A's 

18 considerations. 

19 So anyway, I think that kind of 

20 covers it at this point. 

21 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Bob. 

22 Hurry up. 

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1 DR. ULSH: My turn? 

2 CHAIR BEACH: You have --

3 DR. ULSH: All right. Yes, it might 

4 take me 20 minutes. 

5 To go back and kind of give you a 

6 history of this whole issue, data adequacy, 

7 data completeness, data integrity, Bob 

8 mentioned that there were three papers issued. 

9 I believe that those are the 

10 original three SC&A papers that were issued on 

11 those topics. 

12 We've responded to each of those 

13 papers. We have written response to each of 

14 those three. 

15 In fact, by my count we are now in 

16 the eighth iteration on this issue depending 

17 on how you count an iteration. That's how I 

18 count it. 

19 And then after we responded to 

20 those three, SC&A issued a report this past --

21 I guess it was released in June. That's the 

22 date that Joe gave. That sounds right to me. 

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338 

1 And so I came today prepared to 

2 talk about that June paper since that's the 

3 latest one. We've already responded to the 

4 earlier ones, although it sounds like we may 

5 need to do that again if there are outstanding 

6 issues. 

7 So if you look at this June report, 

8 Joe mentioned in his discussion and it's also 

9 mentioned explicitly in SC&A's June report, 

10 that the Working Group tasked SC&A to come up 

11 with examples of situations -- and I think 

12 that this was specifically tied towards the 

13 issue of these exotic radionuclides where 

14 there were scenarios where SC&A felt that 

15 there was an exposure potential, but then that 

16 there was no bioassay to correspond to that 

17 situation. 

18 That's the way I read it. That's 

19 the way it even says it in the report. So, I 

20 think there's a couple of problems here with 

21 this report. And I'm only going to, in the 

22 interest of time, have time to talk about a 

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339 

1 few of them today. 

2 The fundamental problem is the 

3 continuing interpretation of the King report. 

4 And Bob mentioned it. 

5 We have said before and we'll say 

6 it again, it doesn't reflect the episodic 

7 nature of the programs that occurred at 

8 Mound. It was made for D&D. It was made to 

9 give people during D&D, an idea of what to 

10 include in their RWPs. When they say you must 

11 sample for these radionuclides, here's the 

12 universe that you must sample for. 

13 Yes, it does show what 

14 radionuclides were present in these rooms, but 

15 it doesn't in and of itself establish an 

16 actual exposure potential. You have to 

17 consider what was actually done in these 

18 programs. 

19 And let me give you an example that 

20 Bob already talked about, and that's the 

21 Cotter concentrate program where they were 

22 trying to isolate protactinium and ionium from 

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1 what was called Cotter concentrate. 

2 And based on the King report and 

3 the roadmap, SC&A lists a gap in bioassay from 

4 1970 through `79. 

5 So, I guess what you're saying is 

6 there should be some bioassay for each year or 

7 each period there in 1970 to `79. 

8 Now, we interviewed the principal 

9 that was involved in this Cotter concentrate 

10 program. And he states that they only did 

11 work with this material in the mid-1970s. The 

12 mid-1970s, not 1970. The material came on 

13 site and sat in drums until the mid-1970s. 

14 So, from 1970 up through when they 

15 started working with this material, I wouldn't 

16 expect bioassay, but it's listed as a gap in 

17 SC&A's report. And I present this only as one 

18 example. 

19 Now, given the way things have 

20 moved today where we have some follow-up 

21 items, I came in thinking that we've got to 

22 wrap up everything by the August Board 

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341 

1 meeting, but it sounds like we need to prepare 

2 a written response to this report. 

3 So, we will do that. We will talk 

4 about this example and many others in here, 

5 but that's just one example to show you what 

6 I'm talking about. 

7 Now, in terms of specific examples 

8 that were cited in SC&A's June report, I'd 

9 like to walk through a couple of them and 

10 point out a few things just as examples again. 

11 On Page 13 of their report they 

12 talk about a document authored by someone -- I 

13 can't really correctly pronounce his name, but 

14 that's in SC&A's report. 

15 And they talk about on October 

16 17th, 1977, safety was notified by engineering 

17 of their discovery that an exhaust duct from 

18 two fume hoods located in E-107 was tied into 

19 the building's general re-circulating room air 

20 system. This could be a risk of potential 

21 exposure to building occupants. 

22 There's a little bit more here in 

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1 the quote. I would refer you to SC&A's report 

2 to get the complete part, but now let me point 

3 out something that SC&A did not mention in 

4 their report. 

5 There were no radioactive materials 

6 in E-107. So, I fail to see how this is an 

7 example of an unmonitored exposure potential. 

8 Similarly, if you go down to 

9 another example on the same page, they --

10 CHAIR BEACH: Are you on Page 14? 

11 DR. ULSH: I am on Page 13. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: 13. Okay. 

13 DR. ULSH: They also talk about a 

14 reference from a report authored by someone 

15 named Butz in 1963. 

16 And I pulled up this incident 

17 report and here's what I found that's not 

18 mentioned in SC&A's report: No property 

19 damage, lost time or personnel exposure 

20 resulted from the incident. 

21 So, again I would ask how is this 

22 an example of an unmonitored exposure 

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1 potential? 

2 Let's see. So, I guess I'm a 

3 little confused by that. Now, on Page 14 they 

4 mention a Bigler report from 1960. And the 

5 quote that SC&A gives, it was obvious from 

6 this investigation that the facilities for 

7 performing the work done in R-149 are 

8 inadequate. Contamination levels have been 

9 high in this lab at various times since this 

10 program began. 

11 Then they give a little bit more. 

12 And I pulled up the incident report, and 

13 here's the part that was not quoted: The 

14 incident did not result in any injuries, 

15 radiation exposures to personnel or loss of 

16 equipment. 

17 This is in the very documents that 

18 SC&A is citing in support to show examples of 

19 unmonitored exposure potential. 

20 Madding and Carfagno on the same 

21 page, Page 14, they talk about a dry box 

22 incident and they give a quote: There's a 

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1 striking similarity between this incident and 

2 the one that occurred in R-127, 149, and they 

3 give a date. I refer you to them for the 

4 quote. 

5 Here's the part that was not 

6 quoted: No significant personnel exposure and 

7 no injury occurred. 

8 So, again, how is this an example 

9 of an unmonitored exposure? It's not. 

10 Now, when we go back and write our 

11 response to this, we're going to pull up every 

12 citation and we are going to pull out and 

13 determine whether or not this was an example 

14 of an unmonitored exposure potential. 

15 I've already started this. I 

16 pulled out all the incident reports and I 

17 looked at a list of personnel involved. 

18 And so I asked someone to go into 

19 the MESH database and determine whether or not 

20 bioassay is present. 

21 The first thing to note is that 

22 almost all of them -- again, this is a very 

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1 quick first pass. 

2 Almost all of them involved 

3 plutonium-238. They do not involve these 

4 exotic radionuclides. That's one thing. 

5 The next thing to note is that in 

6 almost all of them there were bioassay data 

7 within days of the incident in question. 

8 So, again I would ask how is this 

9 an example of an unmonitored exposure 

10 potential? It's not. 

11 So, this is just a preview of how 

12 we're going to respond to this report. There 

13 are a number of programs that are listed later 

14 in SC&A's report. Bob mentioned a few of 

15 them. 

16 This is just going off the fly from 

17 what Bob was talking about, because again I 

18 wasn't coming here with the idea of responding 

19 to those earlier reports because we already 

20 have. 

21 But just off the top of my head, 

22 you know, Bob mentioned some problems with 

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346 

1 radium, actinium and thorium. That was the 

2 basis for the SEC being designated 1950 to 

3 `59. 

4 Now, early on the Working Group had 

5 a question about was there an exposure 

6 potential to these radionuclides after that? 

7 And we have already covered this, 

8 too, but, yes, in the early years of the 

9 1960s, I don't remember the exact year, maybe 

10 `62, `63, I don't remember exactly, they 

11 opened up a capsule of this material. And I 

12 can't remember exactly what they did with it, 

13 but we interviewed the guy who did it. 

14 It was done inside a hot cell. 

15 There was no exposure potential. It was a 

16 completely isolated environment. So, this 

17 radium, actinium, thorium question has already 

18 been covered. 

19 Bob also mentioned inconsistency 

20 between Monsanto Chemical Company where he 

21 designated a polonium SEC and Mound Lab where 

22 we didn't. 

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1 Well, again I would say we've 

2 already got an SEC from 1950 to `59. You're 

3 arguing that we should take polonium doses 

4 away from the non-presumptive cancers? 

5 That doesn't make any sense. 

6 That's not claimant favorable to do that. 

7 Furthermore, the processes, the polonium 

8 processes were not identical between Monsanto 

9 Chemical and Mound Lab. 

10 The very reason that they designed 

11 the T Building -- I think it was the T 

12 Building -- the way that they did, was because 

13 at Monsanto they had a problem with beta and 

14 gamma activity among the activation products 

15 in the cans around the business slugs that 

16 they used to generate this polonium. 

17 Therefore, they made this a remote 

18 operation and made it contained. So, right 

19 there is a significant difference. 

20 Let's see. I guess that's really 

21 all I have right now to get ahead of the 

22 Working Group because I know we're going to be 

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1 tasked to write a response here. 

2 You've seen the way we do this. 

3 We're going to go through and we're going to 

4 pull this report in and we're going to address 

5 it point by point by point, but here's a 

6 preview of what we're finding. These are not 

7 examples of unmonitored exposure potentials. 

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I want to make sure 

9 that we're clear on everything here because 

10 Bob started by saying several items from the 

11 first three reports have not been addressed 

12 satisfactorily even though we've responded. 

13 So, is there a comprehensive list 

14 of those things other than what Bob gave on 

15 the phone today? 

16 CHAIR BEACH: So, let's go with the 

17 latest report, the June report, 2010, answer 

18 those questions, and we'll see where we are 

19 with the rest. 

20 MR. HINNEFELD: So, we owe a 

21 response on the June report. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

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1 MR. HINNEFELD: But my question 

2 still stands, is that in addition to the June 

3 report Bob said there are these other issues 

4 from these earlier reports that we don't feel 

5 have been answered satisfactorily. 

6 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Do we have that in 

8 writing? 

9 CHAIR BEACH: No. And what I was 

10 going to say is I think SC&A owes that to 

11 NIOSH, what's still outstanding. 

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: But I think the June 

14 report may take care of most of it, but it may 

15 not. 

16 MR. HINNEFELD: If they're lacking 

17 on the June report, then we'll respond to the 

18 June report. 

19 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

20 MR. HINNEFELD: And if there's 

21 anything that's outstanding that's not 

22 referenced in the June report, then we would 

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1 need that --

2 MR. FITZGERALD: We need to 

3 highlight those. So, I think there's a bit of 

4 a parsing. 

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. That would 

6 help. That would help if you'd write that. 

7 MR. KATZ: Bob, do you have any -- I 

8 don't want to cut you off. 

9 Do you have any reaction to Brant's 

10 comments? 

11 Bob, you might be on mute. 

12 MR. FITZGERALD: He just melted into 

13 his chair. 

14 MR. KATZ: Bob, are you still with 

15 us? Bob Bistline? 

16 DR. BISTLINE: Is it on now? 

17 MR. KATZ: Oh, yes. There you are. 

18 Thank you. 

19 DR. BISTLINE: Oh, okay. I just 

20 turned it off, I guess. Okay. 

21 Yes, I think that most of the 

22 issues that I brought up in the earlier 

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1 reports are also reiterated at one point or 

2 another in the June report. 

3 And so I think that if they cover 

4 the June report, why that will probably take 

5 care of most of the issues. Although, there's 

6 more explanation in some of the earlier 

7 reports of those issues. 

8 One of the things that I would 

9 point out is the quote from the King report as 

10 to what the reason for -- and, Brant, you're 

11 right, you know, it was done for purposes of 

12 D&D, but it does state, and it stated in this 

13 report, all dates represent the duration of 

14 actual usage of radioisotopes in their 

15 respective projects. 

16 And it's clearly understood that 

17 residual amounts of these probably still exist 

18 in floors, walls and ceilings and should be 

19 considered up to present in every case for 

20 decontamination work. 

21 So, you know, that's true. It was 

22 mainly done for that, but it does state 

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1 categorically that all dates represent the 

2 duration of actual usage. 

3 DR. ULSH: So, for example, I assume 

4 the King report was Building 21 as the storage 

5 location for the Cotter concentrate that came 

6 on site I guess in about 1970. And they had 

7 it there through about 1979. 

8 DR. BISTLINE: Right. 

9 DR. ULSH: So, was it there? Yes. 

10 But again if the drums are sitting 

11 there from 1970 up through the mid-1970s, and 

12 in the mid-1970s they took, I think they said, 

13 like maybe three drums out of the 1,000 to see 

14 if they could work with it, there is no need 

15 for bioassay from 1970 up until the date that 

16 they took that drum and cracked it open and 

17 started working with it. 

18 And if you're expecting to find 

19 based on the King report the period of active 

20 usage, 1970 to `79, and you're expecting to 

21 find bioassay in the first part of the `70s, 

22 you're misinterpreting the King report. 

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1 You have to establish that there is 

2 an exposure potential. And that's just one 

3 example, by the way. 

4 DR. BISTLINE: Okay. Well, I can 

5 buy that point on that one particular issue. 

6 MR. FITZGERALD: The only thing I 

7 would add is that when you go through and go 

8 through item by item, which is what was 

9 intended by the Work Group, I would be careful 

10 about, you know, the exposure was significant. 

11 I think I heard you say that. 

12 I think the question we posed on 

13 this thing, was posed by the Work Group is, is 

14 there nuclides for which there's an exposure 

15 potential. And whether or not the resultant 

16 exposure was significant or not is less 

17 important as to whether it was an exposure 

18 pathway which is manifest either in the event 

19 that occurred or other instances that 

20 suggested that, you know, even though it shows 

21 up in the King report, here's an instance. 

22 This is what we challenged, I 

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1 think, Bob with doing, is there an exposure 

2 potential by virtue of the exposure that 

3 occurred by an event, you know. 

4 I'm just trying to shed some light 

5 on the fact that there was an avenue by which 

6 exposure took place. 

7 I heard you say something, you 

8 know, you came up with a quote from the report 

9 and was a -- sort of a qualifying statement 

10 that however the exposure wasn't significant. 

11 I think what we're after is that 

12 the fact there was in fact exposure quite 

13 apart from how significant it was. 

14 And I think when you go back and 

15 start itemizing this thing --

16 MR. HINNEFELD: I think just before 

17 we carry this much further, I think that it's 

18 a fact, Brant, that we need to be cautious 

19 about a site report, an incident report that 

20 includes what essentially is a boilerplate 

21 statement. No personal injuries, no property 

22 damage, no significant exposure. 

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1 Because quite likely that was a 

2 criterion that the site said, okay, we want to 

3 know if there was property damage, we want to 

4 know if there were personal injuries, we want 

5 to know if there was significant exposure, and 

6 they may define that in some fashion that's 

7 absent to us. 

8 And so I think we need to be 

9 cautious about relying on that statement in an 

10 incident report. 

11 DR. ULSH: I think we need to --

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So, that's 

13 the only statement I want to make, and then 

14 we'll address the rest of it in our response. 

15 DR. BISTLINE: This is Bistline. 

16 And, again, what you guys are 

17 saying was something that I was also going to 

18 bring forward. And that is that, Brant, you 

19 were saying that there was no exposure, but 

20 the point of those examples was whether there 

21 was exposure potential and with these examples 

22 that were given. 

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1 So, it's not necessarily that they 

2 didn't have exposure, but that the potential 

3 was brought out by these examples. 

4 DR. ULSH: Okay. First of all I 

5 will posit that there were incidents. We have 

6 never said otherwise. There were hundreds if 

7 not thousands of incidents, but these are 

8 being presented as examples of situations 

9 where there was an unmonitored exposure 

10 potential. 

11 Not only was it -- they don't fit 

12 the bill on at least two counts. Number one, 

13 they don't involve exotic radionuclides. And 

14 in some cases, don't involve nuclides at all. 

15 Number two, they're not unmonitored. 

16 They've said right in the report in 

17 many cases, we sent them for urinalysis, we 

18 verified that in MESH or they took nasal 

19 swabs. 

20 So, just the fact that incidents 

21 happen is not sufficient to demonstrate that 

22 there was an unmonitored exposure potential. 

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1 And as Stu said, we will address 

2 this in more detail in our written response. 

3 DR. MAURO: You'll be in a position 

4 to be quantitative. If someone makes a claim 

5 that there was not a significant exposure, you 

6 have the information available to you to say 

7 what does that mean and why did they come to 

8 that conclusion and that you agree that, yes, 

9 based on these data where there is a bioassay 

10 sample and there is a swab, swipe samples or 

11 whatever, air samples, that would be, you 

12 know, that would put the nail in. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Let's just wait for 

14 the written response. 

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, and that was 

16 going to be my suggestion. Also, I want to 

17 just touch briefly on D&D. 

18 So, D&D has been one of those that 

19 we haven't spent a lot of time, Work Group 

20 time on. 

21 The last meeting on January 6, we 

22 asked NIOSH to give us a report. And that 

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358 

1 report was delivered on April 2010. 

2 But to be fair, I don't think 

3 anyone has really had a chance to review this. 

4 And what I would like is to ask SC&A to look 

5 at this report and give the Work Group a 

6 recommendation on what's the path forward for 

7 D&D. 

8 We've already touched briefly on 

9 tritium samples bioassay during the D&D time 

10 frame. And I'm not expecting it at this 

11 meeting, but I think that we do owe this paper 

12 and a future report on D&D and what the Work 

13 Group should do. 

14 I'll just point out on Page 5 NIOSH 

15 recommends that we close this issue. I don't 

16 feel comfortable with that until I have 

17 something from SC&A giving us an idea of if we 

18 have anything on the D&D issue and the time 

19 frame. 

20 So, that's my recommendation unless 

21 there are other comments. That's our last 

22 item. 

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1 MR. KATZ: Do you want to talk about 

2 what your plans are as to whether you want to 

3 present anything at the upcoming Board 

4 meeting? 

5 CHAIR BEACH: Well, right now the 

6 only thing that we can report on is -- I mean 

7 I can give a report now --

8 MR. KATZ: A status report. 

9 CHAIR BEACH: A status report. And 

10 then radon we close, but we don't really --

11 MR. KATZ: So then, for example, we 

12 like to keep the petitioners informed. We 

13 should let them know this is not queuing up 

14 for a vote at this Board meeting on Mound. 

15 And we should let them know that so that 

16 they're not expecting something different. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Correct. 

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. And then we 

19 probably don't need quite as much time. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: We have an hour. 

21 MR. KATZ: We have set aside at 

22 least an hour, and you may not even need all 

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1 of that to report out. 

2 CHAIR BEACH: Probably not. 

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Do you feel like 

4 Brant's presence is needed to do the status 

5 report? 

6 Brant is making some rather heroic 

7 travel arrangements to get there for this on 

8 Thursday. 

9 MR. KATZ: That's a good point. 

10 I was going to say, Josie, if 

11 you're comfortable reporting out and --

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Jim and I were here. 

13 MR. KATZ: Jim and you, I think that 

14 will cover it and you're off the hook. 

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

16 MR. KATZ: And in fact we might even 

17 be able to move -- well --

18 CHAIR BEACH: However you want to do 

19 this, Ted. 

20 MR. KATZ: I don't know whether to 

21 move Mound or not at this late date. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Well, you had 

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1 mentioned that based on --

2 MR. KATZ: It depends on what 

3 happens with --

4 CHAIR BEACH: So, I think we should 

5 go ahead and close then unless there's any 

6 other --

7 MR. KATZ: So, are we adjourned? 

8 MS. HOWELL: I just was wondering if 

9 we have any idea about timeline for future 

10 meetings. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Future meetings. 

12 MR. KATZ: Thank you. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: We've got -- I can 

14 just go quickly through we have action items 

15 for NIOSH on --

16 MR. KATZ: And SC&A. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: Well, to start with on 

18 neutrons -- actually, without going back all 

19 through these, that just depends on where 

20 NIOSH is and how long --

21 MR. HINNEFELD: I think we're hard 

22 pressed to make some type of estimate. I 

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1 think we're hard pressed to make one today. 

2 MR. KATZ: Yes. What I was going to 

3 suggest is at the Board meeting we're going to 

4 be talking about scheduling things. And maybe 

5 if NIOSH can give some thought to these Mound 

6 issues and SC&A for their next deliverables to 

7 be ready at the August Board meeting to 

8 discuss where they might be ready, then when 

9 we have a Mound discussion and we could also 

10 talk about scheduling the next -- because 

11 we'll have time to schedule Work Group 

12 meetings at the August 3rd meeting. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And I'll be out 

14 from September 6 to October 9. I'll be gone. 

15 So, it won't be during that time. 

16 MR. KATZ: So probably after, right? 

17 CHAIR BEACH: After I --

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: My calendar, too, is 

19 pretty much shot. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: So is Paul's. 

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: When do we have to 

22 have our travel and stuff in by then? 

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1 MR. KATZ: Well, that's the other 

2 thing. First of all, we're adjourned, I 

3 think. 

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, thank you 

6 everyone that's hung in with us on the phone. 

7 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

8 matter went off the record at 4:30 p.m.) 

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