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 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

 + + + + +

 64th MEETING

 + + + + +

 TUESDAY

 SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

 + + + + +

 The meeting convened by

teleconference at 11:00 a.m., Paul L. Ziemer,

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Chairman

JOSIE M. BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member

MARK GRIFFON, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

 

THEODORE M. KATZ, Acting Designated Federal 

 Official 
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ALSO PRESENT:

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

KOTSCH, JEFFREY, DOL

LAUFER, LARA, GAO

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH OCAS

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

NETON, JIM, NIOSH OCAS

OSTROW, STEVE, SC&A

ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHRYN, SC&A

RUBINS, SUZANNE, GAO

 
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 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Roll Call

 Ted Katz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Welcome

 Paul Ziemer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Votes and Status of Board Recommendations on

Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, Baker-Perkins,

Co., and Norton, SEC Petition

 Ted Katz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Status of DOL Consideration of OCAS Review of

Ruttenber Data

 Jeff Kotsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Coordinating OCAS and SC&A/Board Data Captures

Bradley Clawson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) Petition Status

Updates - Update on Petitions Planned for

Presentation at October Board Meeting 

LaVon Rutherford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Updates from Work Groups and Subcommittees

Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee

 Mark Griffon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Procedures Review Subcommittee

 Wanda Munn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Linde Work Group

 Genevieve Roessler. . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Board Work Group Transcript Review Policy

Paul Ziemer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Suggestions for Blockson Chemical Company

Radon Model Validation

Mark Griffon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Future Plans/Suggestion for October Board

Meeting Agenda Items. . . . . . . . . . . . .125
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 11:02 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Welcome, everybody. 

4 This is the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

5 Worker Health conference call. And as usual, 

6 we're going to begin with roll call, beginning 

7 with Board members and with the Chair. To 

8 make things easy, let me just run down the 

9 list and, people, let me know if you're here.

10 Dr. Ziemer is here.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: All right. Then, Mr. 

13 Schofield?

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Here.

15 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

16 (No response.)

17 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley?

18 MEMBER PRESLEY: Here.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston?

20 (No response.)

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. Ms. Munn?

22 MEMBER MUNN: Here.
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1 MR. KATZ: And, Jim Melius, I'll 

2 let you know, he has a press conference that 

3 was scheduled very recently that's going to 

4 maybe keep him away for the whole meeting.

5 Dr. Lockey?

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: But he will join 

7 us if we're still in session.

8 MR. KATZ: That's right: when he's 

9 through.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: When he's 

11 through.

12 MR. KATZ: But he thinks he may 

13 not be through until 12:30, 1:00 or later. 

14 And I'm not sure what the length of this 

15 meeting will be.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. Okay.

17 MR. KATZ: And, you know, he has 

18 an agenda item, but I think he's communicated 

19 with Mark so that Mark can carry some of that 

20 water at least.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey?
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1 (No response.)

2 MR. KATZ: Actually, you know, I 

3 think I recall that Dr. Lockey can't make 

4 this.

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: So Mr. Griffon? Mark?

7 (No response.)

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. I know he's 

9 intending to attend.

10 Mr. Gibson?

11 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes. I'm here, 

12 Ted.

13 MR. KATZ: And, Mr. Clawson?

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'm here.

15 MR. KATZ: And, Ms. Beach, you 

16 still with us?

17 MEMBER BEACH: I'm here.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. Let me just 

19 check back through the folks that didn't 

20 respond.

21 Dr. Roessler?

22 MEMBER ROESSLER: I just tuned in.
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1 MR. KATZ: Great. Welcome.

2 Dr. Poston?

3 (No response.)

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. I have no notice 

5 from Dr. Poston, I don't think.

6 Again, Dr. Lockey probably not to 

7 be with us. 

8 Mr. Griffon?

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I'm here, 

10 Ted, now.

11 MR. KATZ: Oh, great. Okay. 

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So we have a 

13 quorum.

14 MR. KATZ: We have a quorum. And 

15 then let me just also check and see for other 

16 federal attendants, first OCAS and ORAU team.

17 DR. NETON: Jim Neton.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford 

19 with OCAS.

20 MR. KATZ: Welcome. More with 

21 OCAS?

22 (No response.)
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1 MR. KATZ: How about the ORAU 

2 team?

3 (No response.)

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. How about SC&A?

5 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A. 

6 Good morning, everyone.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Good morning, 

8 John.

9 MR. KATZ: Good morning, John.

10 DR. OSTROW: Steve Ostrow, SC&A.

11 MR. KATZ: Good morning, Steve.

12 DR. OSTROW: Good morning.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Kathy 

14 Robertson- DeMers, SC&A.

15 MR. KATZ: Hi, Kathy.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald, 

17 SC&A.

18 MR. KATZ: All right, then. How 

19 about members of the public or staff of 

20 congressional offices?

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Who want to be 

22 identified.
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1 MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie 

2 Barrie, with ANWAG.

3 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Terrie.

4 MS. BARRIE: Good morning.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. And finally, 

6 other federal employees and contractors.

7 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS.

8 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, NIOSH 

9 contractor.

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

11 DOE.

12 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, 

13 Department of Labor.

14 MS. RUBINS: Suzanne Rubins, 

15 R-U-B-I-N-S, U.S. GAO.

16 MS. LAUFER: Lara Laufer, GAO.

17 MR. KATZ: Great. Welcome. 

18 Welcome, all of you. And then let me just 

19 remind everyone on the line to please mute 

20 your phones except when you're addressing the 

21 group. And if you don't have a mute button, 

22 the *6 will work. And then to come back, to 
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1 be able to speak again, you just press *6 

2 again. And if you have to leave this call at 

3 any time, please don't put it on hold. Just 

4 hang up and call back in, because the hold 

5 will interrupt the call for everyone else. 

6 And, Dr. Ziemer, it's yours.

7 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hey, Ted?

8 MR. KATZ: Yes?

9 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is Bob 

10 Presley. Has anybody else got a bad 

11 connection besides me?

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Bob, this is 

13 Brad. It's coming in clear to me and --

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, I'm real 

15 clear.

16 MEMBER PRESLEY: I'm going to hang 

17 up and try again, because I can't hardly hear 

18 anybody.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay, Bob.

20 MEMBER PRESLEY: All righty.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. I think 

22 we can proceed, however, and Bob will join us 
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1 here in just a second, but we still have a 

2 quorum.

3 So let me officially call the 

4 meeting to order and welcome everybody. 

5 Appreciate your taking time to participate in 

6 the meeting today.

7 The agenda for today's meeting has 

8 been posted on the website, and Board members 

9 should have also received copies of the agenda 

10 by email. 

11 Any Board members who don't have 

12 copies of the agenda?

13 (No response.)

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Very good. Then 

15 I'm going to proceed down through the agenda 

16 with one exception in terms of order. You'll 

17 notice -- and the agenda doesn't have numbers, 

18 but bullet points -- the Blockson item, which 

19 is the fourth bullet point. I'm going to 

20 defer that to the end of the agenda in order 

21 to provide a possibility for Dr. Melius to 

22 participate, if in fact, he's able to join us 
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1 by the time his meeting is over, or before our 

2 meeting is over, whichever occurs. 

3 And, Mark, were you asking a 

4 question there? Or somebody --

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, it wasn't me.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh, okay.

7 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hey, Paul, this 

8 is Bob Presley.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh, Bob is back.

10 MEMBER PRESLEY: I'm on. I can 

11 hear now. 

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: You're back on. 

13 Thank you.

14 So with that exception to the 

15 order, we'll just proceed through the agenda 

16 as given.

17 I want to point out for all the 

18 participants that are on the conference calls 

19 of this type, we mainly are doing updates and 

20 gathering information that we wanted to have 

21 prior to our face-to-face meeting. In 

22 general, we do not conduct actions that have 
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1 significance, such as voting on SECs or that 

2 sort of thing on conference calls. So 

3 primarily what we will do today will be 

4 updates on particular items and informational 

5 items. I do have one sort of what I might 

6 classify as not a major action item. That has 

7 to do with the transcript review policy where 

8 I may ask for a motion to approve the policy, 

9 but otherwise we're talking about 

10 informational items primarily.

11 So with that, let's proceed on the 

12 agenda. The first item we have is the update 

13 on the voting for the SECs for Lake Ontario 

14 Ordnance Works, Baker-Perkins and Norton. All 

15 three of those were action items at our last 

16 meeting. All three of those items were 

17 recommended for SEC class by the Board by 

18 majority vote. However, at the time of the 

19 Board meeting we did not have all of the votes 

20 recorded. 

21 So, Ted, if you'll give us an 

22 update.
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1 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

2 I need to slightly amend what you said, 

3 though. But Lake Ontario --

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh, right. They 

5 were not all recommended for SEC. We took 

6 action on all three.

7 MR. KATZ: Exactly.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right.

9 MR. KATZ: Exactly. And Dr. 

10 Melius had to miss the second day of the Board 

11 meeting, so I had collected votes from Dr. 

12 Melius on all three action items. And on 

13 August 24th he voted with the Board on Lake 

14 Ontario Ordnance Works, and that was for the 

15 addition of that class. And he also at that 

16 time abstained from the Norton SEC vote of the 

17 Board, which was for the addition of a class 

18 at Norton. And on August 28th he voted in 

19 support of the Board's position that doses can 

20 be reconstructed at Baker-Perkins for the 

21 five- day period that was evaluated by OCAS.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. And that 
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1 action was to not recommend the class.

2 MR. KATZ: Exactly. 

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So that was the 

4 correction in my original statement.

5 MR. KATZ: Not add a class for 

6 Baker- Perkins.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: But, so all of 

8 those votes now are officially on the record. 

9 The letters have been prepared as required 

10 and transmitted to the Secretary. So those 

11 actions are complete as far as the Board's 

12 work is concerned at the moment.

13 Are there any questions on those 

14 actions?

15 (No response.)

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: If not, we will 

17 proceed. The next item is the status of 

18 Department of Labor considerations of the OCAS 

19 review of the Ruttenber data. The Ruttenber 

20 data, you recall, is the data that was 

21 utilized, and there was some question on the 

22 utilization for the Rocky Flats SEC Petition. 
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1 I should point out that in the time since our 

2 meeting, you should have received a 

3 transmission from Dr. Ulsh at OCAS that the 

4 Ruttenber file information is on the O: drive 

5 and that they have provided details on the 

6 screening and analysis that OCAS did for the 

7 claimants for whom the Ruttenber study 

8 assigned neutron dose prior to '67. 

9 So, I think at this point, I'll 

10 ask Jeff Kotsch of DOL to give any remarks he 

11 can relative to the Ruttenber information.

12 MR. KOTSCH: Okay. Good morning. 

13 This is Jeff Kotsch. This will be very 

14 brief.

15 DOL has completed a preliminary 

16 review of both the NIOSH report and the 

17 Ruttenber database and are discussing what 

18 additional steps to take, if any, with NIOSH 

19 based on results of that review. Hopefully, 

20 we'll have some determination prior to the 

21 October Board meeting.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So, 
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1 basically simply reporting that you hope to 

2 have something specific by the time we meet 

3 face- to-face.

4 Let me ask the Chair of the Rocky 

5 Flats Work Group, Mark Griffon. Mark, do you 

6 have any additional comments or questions at 

7 this time, or any of the Board members --

8 well, let me let Mark first ask and then open 

9 it up here.

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: This is Mark 

11 Griffon. I guess there's nowhere to question 

12 there. It seems like any question I would ask 

13 of Jeff may be premature since they say 

14 they're still finishing their analysis.

15 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: So, but we really 

17 do look forward to that, because we would like 

18 to know if that's going to change your all's 

19 approach in defining the cohort. So I guess I 

20 have no questions to ask, really.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Other Board 

22 members, any questions or comments?
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1 (No response.)

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I gather there 

3 are none.

4 Jeff, thank you for that report, 

5 brief though it was.

6 MR. KOTSCH: More later, then.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

8 you.

9 Then let's move on to the next 

10 item. And this item, it's called the 

11 Coordination of OCAS and SC&A Board Data 

12 Captures. This item has arisen as a result of 

13 some questions asked by Board Member Brad 

14 Clawson, and I'll let Brad sort of detail the 

15 concerns. But let me, as a preliminary thing, 

16 indicate that Brad had indicated to Ted Katz 

17 and to me that the data captured by OCAS, 

18 which is available to the Board on the O: 

19 drive, is very difficult to identify in terms 

20 of document identities, that in many cases you 

21 can only determine what the documents are by 

22 actually opening them. So you can't simply 
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1 apparently scan the list of documents as they 

2 appear on the O: drive files and determine 

3 what documents are really there. There's some 

4 additional concerns about the ability to 

5 coordinate our document searches, since DOE 

6 apparently doesn't keep a log, as it were, of 

7 what documents have been retrieved by OCAS, 

8 and OCAS simply refers one to the O: drive. 

9 In any event, Brad, if you would 

10 take a few minutes and outline the concern and 

11 the sort of problems you've faced. And here, 

12 we're talking about documents particularly 

13 that have been involved in the classified 

14 materials.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, yes, it's 

16 kind of two-fold of what I said. When NIOSH 

17 implemented Proc-10, you know, it served very 

18 good up front. But where I'm seeing a kind of 

19 lack is there's an inconsistency of how things 

20 are portrayed to us, I guess. What I'm kind 

21 of seeing, the on-site coordination still is 

22 inconsistent in access to NIOSH-collected 
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1 documents. And when I say this, I'm not 

2 giving this a blanket statement, because what 

3 I have seen is, from some sites the 

4 information that is portrayed back to us is 

5 very clear of what they've captured, where 

6 it's at in the O: drive, and so forth like 

7 that. And I think it comes back a lot to the 

8 point of contact and so forth. 

9 But what I'm kind of looking for 

10 is then, when we get into the classified 

11 sites, it's even harder to determine what has 

12 been captured, you know, where it's at, how it 

13 is and so forth. You know, when I've raised 

14 questions of, well now, where have we got this 

15 document or so forth, they just say the O: 

16 drive. And to go through the O: drive, you've 

17 got to go through about every file to be able 

18 to find out about it. 

19 So what I'm trying to get to is a 

20 consistency that SC&A or the Board goes onto 

21 one of these sites and we know what has been 

22 captured. It was my understanding in some of 
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1 the phone calls that we had had and also in 

2 Albuquerque -- because I questioned Larry 

3 about this -- this means that the 

4 documentation that you guys have retrieved, 

5 the data retrieval plan, that you will let 

6 SC&A and the Board know what has been 

7 captured. And the comment was yes, this is so 

8 that we will not be duplicating -- having DOE 

9 have to duplicate a lot of this information 

10 and so forth. It was a reduction of that. 

11 And I'm not seeing that yet. 

12 Now as I said earlier, some of the 

13 sites are doing very good on it. But several 

14 of them, we don't know what has been captured. 

15 I'll just give an example, one of them that I 

16 just came from, Savannah River, we don't know 

17 what has been captured or not. There's no 

18 kind of a record of what has already been 

19 taken or anything else like that. And kind of 

20 what I'd like to be able to see is that -- in 

21 our procedure, when we went into our 10 and 11 

22 or 11 and 12, we laid out that SC&A, and I 
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1 might say here too, is SC&A does it. We've 

2 got a few areas that we can improve on, too, 

3 of letting NIOSH know what we have collected 

4 and so forth, because I still see 

5 communications back and forth from some of the 

6 NIOSH POCs, or site people, of what has SC&A 

7 reviewed and where is it at and so forth. 

8 This Proc-10 has improved, but I'd 

9 like to be able to see the communication 

10 improved of what has actually been recovered 

11 from these sites and how is it put on the O: 

12 drive. Because the O: drive, still it's very 

13 vast, but also how it's put into the 

14 documentation. Sometimes it may say bioassay, 

15 but it's got a lot of other stuff with it, or 

16 searching back and forth. And I was just 

17 wondering if there's some way that we can 

18 communicate this a little bit better, because 

19 I thought when we started into these 

20 procedures that it was to save copying and so 

21 forth like that, or duplication. 

22 And one of the areas that I really 
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1 see as a concern to me personally is, 

2 especially with classified sites, I know that 

3 we can't have a data retrieval list or 

4 whatever else like that because these things 

5 are classified. But there should be something 

6 left with the site that lets us know what 

7 documents have already been retrieved. And as 

8 I'm seeing so forth, there isn't anything like 

9 that and I'm just wondering if there's somehow 

10 that we can improve a little bit on this data 

11 capture.

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And, thank you, 

13 Brad, for that, as kind of introductory 

14 remarks to it, and this may not be an issue we 

15 can solve today, but maybe we could get some 

16 comments first of all from NIOSH. I don't 

17 know if that would be LaVon or perhaps LaVon 

18 can start. 

19 And then also from SC&A, and I 

20 don't know if Kathy might want to comment, 

21 Kathy Robertson- DeMers or Joe Fitzgerald. 

22 And then also I think Isaf from 
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1 the DOE group is on the phone. And this may 

2 be not something, Isaf, that you were aware we 

3 were discussing, but you might have some 

4 comments as well. 

5 So could I ask each of those or 

6 someone from those groups to comment, NIOSH, 

7 SC&A and DOE?

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Dr. Ziemer, this 

9 is LaVon Rutherford. I'll start. Jim may 

10 want to add something; I'm not sure. 

11 But I totally agree with you, 

12 Brad. You know, this is something that we 

13 have talked about doing and something that we 

14 committed to doing, was trying to make sure we 

15 weren't duplicating efforts. And I believe 

16 that information is prepared, for the most 

17 part, from ORAU when we do the data captures. 

18 Now, there may be documents and things that 

19 are on the O: drive that have been on the O: 

20 drive for some time that haven't been broke 

21 down and -- you know, into the separate files 

22 that they should be -- but I think for the 
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1 most now they should have a pretty good trail 

2 and a pretty good list of the documents when 

3 we do capture them so we don't duplicate 

4 efforts. So, I'm actually kind of surprised 

5 that's not happening, to be honest.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, LaVon, and 

7 understand I'm not criticizing in any way or 

8 anything else. When this Proc-10 and 11 came 

9 out, this was so that both sides kind of knew 

10 what each other had. When we talked about 

11 this in Albuquerque, one of the comments was, 

12 was that there was going to be like a 

13 data-capture plan when NIOSH or OCAS went into 

14 these sites of everything that they had 

15 captured, and that was going to be portrayed 

16 to the point of contact for the site, you 

17 know, the work group chair and SC&A. And I 

18 can't say that it's all sites, because it kind 

19 of depends on who the point of contact is of 

20 how this gets back to us. Because some sites 

21 I've seen are very good. But I thought that 

22 we were going to kind of have an outline of, 
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1 this is everything we've pulled from this 

2 site. And so, you know, you can find it on 

3 the O: drive here. But some sites, I have not 

4 been seeing that. 

5 And I'm not trying to put a 

6 blanket statement over it, because, LaVon, 

7 some of these sites have been very good with 

8 it and that's kind of what I was looking for. 

9 That's where I see an inconsistency.

10 DR. NETON: Brad, this is Jim 

11 Neton. Larry Elliott, unfortunately, can't 

12 join us today; I'm sure he'd have maybe some 

13 more input on this issue. But it sounds to me 

14 like where you're having some issues are where 

15 there are data captures are going on in real 

16 time. And, you know, it may be. I'm not 

17 making excuses for anyone, but it may be that 

18 these data sets or these captured documents 

19 have not yet been sufficiently digested, you 

20 know, internally by OCAS to give them, you 

21 know, some sort of a structured format that 

22 could be retrievable.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, yes, it's 

2 also so that we know, and all I can talk about 

3 is the sites that I have been involved in. 

4 And I'll bring one of them up, and that is 

5 Savannah River.

6 DR. NETON: Savannah River is very 

7 active in collecting documents at this point, 

8 I'm aware of that.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Oh, okay. Well, 

10 and now I understand what your point is, but 

11 --

12 DR. NETON: I guess let me start 

13 back a little bit, you know, in all of the 

14 documents that we issue that are official 

15 write-ups like the evaluation report or the 

16 site profile, we go to great lengths to 

17 reference the site research database number so 

18 one can actually go right to the database and 

19 look up those documents. But those are 

20 documents that have been retrieved and 

21 assimilated into the system, you know, over 

22 some period of time. 
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1 The new ones -- and Tim Taulbee I 

2 know is the one involved with Savannah River, 

3 is going out capturing documents real time. 

4 We collect them and then they may be just 

5 indexed by some very generic numbers until 

6 such time as we can go through them and make 

7 some sense of them. So part of that I think 

8 is this real-time issue that's maybe driving 

9 this. I don't know.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and that 

11 could be, Jim. All I'm doing is I'm bringing 

12 up that I'm seeing an area where we could 

13 improve a little bit. But also too, as I saw 

14 in our last visit there, we had no idea what 

15 actual documents had been retrieved at all. 

16 As a matter of fact, we went to the point of 

17 asking Savannah River's document control 

18 people if they actually had a list of what had 

19 already been captured, because we were opening 

20 up binders and going through and all of a 

21 sudden we'd come across a tab that OCAS had 

22 copied part of this or whatever else like 
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1 that. And so kind of where I'm seeing is, 

2 it's true when it gets onto the O: drive 

3 that's part of an issue, but at the site we 

4 don't know what has actually been captured as 

5 of yet. And it could be the real time before 

6 they process through it and so forth.

7 DR. NETON: I hear you. I 

8 understand the issue now. And I can bring 

9 that back. And I guess I suggest that maybe 

10 you could work a little closer with the POCs 

11 in maybe defining what the issues are. But 

12 I'll take that from our end to work with the 

13 POCs and make sure that we are following what 

14 we said we were going to do in Proc-10.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Because at 

16 another site, and this is Pantex, I know that 

17 we've requested this information and we 

18 haven't received anything, and we've proceeded 

19 ahead. And what it's actually doing, I think, 

20 sometimes is we're requiring DOE to duplicate 

21 a lot of information, or possibly -- but see, 

22 we don't know and that's where I'm hoping that 
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1 we can get a little bit better communication 

2 with one another so that we're not duplicating 

3 it, we're not putting an added burden onto DOE 

4 or the document retrieval people and so forth 

5 like that. 

6 But when I speak of this, I'm just 

7 speaking from what I have personally seen. 

8 Now SC&A may have other things to be able to 

9 say, but this is what I've personally seen. 

10 And I thought that when we went into these 

11 procedures, we were going to try to stop the 

12 duplication and so forth. And I know that 

13 we've had a great effort for that, but I 

14 believe that we can make a few improvements on 

15 both sides.

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: This is 

17 Kathy Robertson-DeMers. I can kind of tell 

18 you what's going on from our side and where I 

19 haven't been receiving information from NIOSH.

20 Let me define the data as current 

21 data captures, meaning data captures that are 

22 ongoing right now, and then we have data that 
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1 is legacy data from previous reviews. 

2 For the current data captures, at 

3 this point, I develop a data capture plan. 

4 And I took the model actually from the ORAU 

5 Hanford data capture plan. Hanford is a site 

6 where I am receiving the data capture plan, so 

7 I know what their plans are as far as visits 

8 and what they're going to look at, what 

9 keywords they're searching and so on. The 

10 only other site I have received these data 

11 capture plans from is Lawrence Livermore 

12 National Lab. Even if they come after the 

13 fact, they are helpful to me in planning my 

14 visits.

15 When I go to plan a visit and I'm 

16 making my keyword search terms and author 

17 search terms, I will actually go to the NIOSH 

18 POC and ask him or her if they want to add to 

19 that. There's a lot of preliminary 

20 interaction between the POC and DOE and myself 

21 even before a data capture plan is put 

22 together. Before the trip occurs, a data 
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1 capture plan from what we're doing on-site is 

2 sent to Ted and to the NIOSH POC so that NIOSH 

3 knows what we're doing. If the time allows, I 

4 also give NIOSH the opportunity to review this 

5 plan and say, hey, we've already collected 

6 that data so I can take it off my list. 

7 When I am ready to pull records, I 

8 will cross-reference to the O: drive. Now one 

9 of the difficulties in the cross-referencing 

10 is that the DOE document is not always 

11 identical to what name that is given on the O: 

12 drive. So there's still some overlap 

13 occurring because of the inconsistent naming 

14 of documents. 

15 With respect to the legacy 

16 material, we are actually compiling a list of 

17 documentation that we do have in our 

18 possession. This is taking a while because 

19 there is a lot of it. And this will be 

20 provided to NIOSH.

21 With the current data capture 

22 effort we are trying to, first of all, ask DOE 
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1 to, if possible, provide a duplicate copy of 

2 any imaged documents that they might send. If 

3 that doesn't occur, then when I receive it, I 

4 will send it on. 

5 With hard copies, we are trying to 

6 provide hard copy data to one of the ORAU 

7 contractors. Actually the last batch that we 

8 delivered was for Lawrence Berkeley and Sandia 

9 National Lab, Livermore to Art at DMA so that 

10 they can do scanning. If the document is 

11 small enough, I will do the scanning and 

12 forward it to NIOSH. If the documents are 

13 very large, then I tend to give them in hard 

14 copy to NIOSH.

15 With respect to the current sites 

16 that we're working on, NIOSH and ORAU should 

17 have the data that we have. Part of this list 

18 that we're compiling is obviously the legacy 

19 records, and if we have provided the records 

20 to NIOSH, there's a note in the database that 

21 we have provided it. We have to go through 

22 and identify the gaps in what records we have 
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1 and what records we've already given NIOSH and 

2 provide NIOSH with the difference. So this is 

3 not going to be an overnight task.

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, 

5 Kathy. Am I correct, then, in concluding that 

6 you're having a little less difficulty with 

7 this issue than Brad might have encountered?

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: I think 

9 there are some events going on at a lower 

10 level that are occurring.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: I am not 

13 receiving data capture plans for other sites, 

14 other than Hanford and Lawrence Livermore 

15 National Lab.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. And also 

17 the issue of the naming of the files and 

18 matching with the DOE names is also presenting 

19 some difficulty, as I understand it.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

22 you.
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1 Let's see, Joe, did you have any 

2 additional comments? Joe Fitzgerald?

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Really just an 

4 elaboration on Brad's comment on Pantex. I 

5 think we've sort of hit a new wrinkle that we 

6 haven't hit at some other sites, which is, you 

7 know, how to extend the data capture listing 

8 for classified documents. And this is 

9 something I think we're working with Mark 

10 Rolfes and the site to figure out, because, 

11 you know, before we make a request of, you 

12 know, classified documents, of course we would 

13 want to know if they were, you know, retrieved 

14 or redacted by NIOSH. So we're trying to 

15 cross-reference that. But that's a slightly 

16 different issue, but one that we're going to 

17 have to resolve so we don't have a site like 

18 Pantex going after the same documents for us.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Right. 

20 MR. FITZGERALD: So that's just a 

21 new wrinkle and I think we didn't address that 

22 per se in the procedures.
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Let's 

2 see, Isaf, are you on the line?

3 MS. AL-NABULSI: Yes.

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Did you have any 

5 comments from --

6 MS. AL-NABULSI: No.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I'm sorry. Did 

8 you say no?

9 MS. AL-NABULSI: Yes. No. No 

10 comment.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: No comments, 

12 okay. 

13 It appears to me that, at the 

14 moment, we probably aren't in a position to 

15 take any formal action, but simply we've aired 

16 the issue. The parties involved: the Board, 

17 NIOSH, OCAS, ORAU, SC&A and DOE, will need to 

18 be cognizant of the issue as it's been 

19 described and see if we need to formalize 

20 anything further, or it's just a matter of 

21 being more prudent on working with the points 

22 of contact and making an effort to achieve 
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1 better coordination.

2 Brad, I'm wondering if you had any 

3 specific recommendations now, if you would 

4 report back to the Board, for example, maybe 

5 again in October and then we need to monitor 

6 this and at some point, if formal action is 

7 needed or some additional changes in 

8 procedures are needed, we can formalize that.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, what I was 

10 wanting to do, Paul, was I wanted to bring 

11 forth the information that I was seeing and 

12 that I saw some weaknesses. And when I say 

13 weaknesses, I say weaknesses on both sides 

14 that we may be able to improve this data 

15 capture and so forth.

16 But one of the points that I 

17 wanted to bring forth to NIOSH, and also to 

18 OCAS and so forth, was that these data capture 

19 plans are important for us in the sense of 

20 knowing what has already been captured.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I saw 
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1 weakness in that. And I know that the Proc-10 

2 and 11 were kind of mirror images of one 

3 another and so forth like that. But what I 

4 was wanting to bring forth to the Board, and 

5 also to NIOSH and everyone, is that I saw that 

6 there was a weakness there and that we need to 

7 see how we could improve these. And all I was 

8 doing was just bringing forth the information 

9 that I was seeing and just seeing if we could 

10 do something to improve a little bit.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Well, I 

12 think as a first step, the awareness and the 

13 concerns expressed having been aired, that has 

14 sensitized everyone to the issue. Jim Neton 

15 has indicated that NIOSH is in a position here 

16 perhaps to look at this further and see what 

17 steps might be taken in terms of the 

18 coordinating issue. And as I said, Brad, if 

19 you would continue to report back to us in 

20 terms of whether or not the coordination 

21 improves as people become more aware of the 

22 issues or whether or not we need to formalize 
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1 something, that would be good.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: That would be 

3 fine. I just figured on this Board call, this 

4 would be a good opportunity to be able to just 

5 be able to air this and let also NIOSH, so 

6 that they understand that we're seeing this, 

7 and, you know, we can maybe follow up with 

8 this at the full Board meeting and so forth.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: And be able to 

11 address a few of the things even more.

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Very good. Let 

13 me also ask if any of the other Board members 

14 have either questions or comments relating to 

15 this issue.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: This is Phil. 

17 I've had some of the same problems that Brad 

18 has that, when you're doing a document search, 

19 a lot of times it's really difficult to find 

20 all the documents they have, because some of 

21 them are by number rather than by name. So, I 

22 mean, if they can make it a little simpler for 
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1 us when we go on, like, the O: drive or 

2 something to collate the documents we want, 

3 that would really be a great help.

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. So, part 

5 of it's that naming issue, as Kathy indicated 

6 earlier, and then it appears to me that good 

7 coordination with the points of contact is 

8 going to be very, very crucial as well.

9 DR. MAURO: Paul, this is John 

10 Mauro.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, John?

12 DR. MAURO: Yes, I'm listening and 

13 it sounds like we may have, like, a challenge 

14 in terms of -- I'm envisioning going through 

15 this baseline process. And let's say NIOSH 

16 has downloaded 10,000 documents at a site. I 

17 don't know if it's even that large, or 1,000 

18 documents.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Whatever.

20 DR. MAURO: Whatever the documents 

21 are. And SC&A and everyone is, in good 

22 intentions, okay, let's baseline. We'll come 
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1 in and we'll work with the POC at NIOSH. 

2 Let's see what you've got. And the reality is 

3 for a practical matter, checking what you have 

4 is maybe a little naive on my part to think 

5 that we can just go in and see what they've 

6 got and make sure we don't duplicate. Maybe 

7 it can't be done that way; that is, the nature 

8 of the way the bibliographic database is 

9 complied, at least initially, and loaded up 

10 onto an O: drive or wherever it is located. 

11 It's not a very simple matter to see what is 

12 there already so that we don't ask for a 

13 duplicate. Perhaps the solution is simply 

14 when that document is downloaded from DOE 

15 there is some notation in the DOE database 

16 that, yes, this has already been captured. 

17 Maybe that's the only solution, that all we 

18 will ever really know is whether or not this 

19 particular document that we may try to 

20 capture, let's say during our word searches --

21 even if we coordinate our word searches and 

22 our data capture searches, in the end, the 
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1 question is going to be very difficult to 

2 determine whether this particular document has 

3 in fact already been downloaded, cleared and 

4 is now sitting on the O: drive and available 

5 for SC&A to review. So it may just be a 

6 simple matter that mechanistically this is not 

7 easy to do.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thanks 

9 for that comment, John. 

10 And those of us on the Board who 

11 haven't been involved with this particular 

12 process may not have a good feel for it, but 

13 it appears to me from the comments I've heard 

14 that there are cases where you don't know 

15 until you've actually pulled something that 

16 the document or a part of the document has 

17 already been retrieved by another group. 

18 I think what you're suggesting is 

19 that there be some way to flag it in advance 

20 so you don't even have to, for example, 

21 download it or capture it to find out that 

22 it's already been looked at.
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes, that may be just 

2 one way to come at the problem, I'm not sure. 

3 It sounds like this is probably a classic 

4 problem, bibliographic records management, 

5 that many, many -- this a challenge to many 

6 folks.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

8 DR. MAURO: Maybe this problem has 

9 been solved in the past through software.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. Well, I 

11 think those in our group from all of the 

12 different agencies that are involved in this 

13 process, as we proceed, will have a better 

14 idea of what might be done to improve both the 

15 coordination and the capture process and avoid 

16 redundancy and duplication. So, as we proceed 

17 and get feedback on this, then we will be in a 

18 better position, if necessary, to formalize 

19 something.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Paul, this is 

21 Brad again.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, Brad.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: I guess one of

2 the main reasons why I threw this out is 

3 because actually the people out in the field 

4 that are actually doing this, they may have 

5 something in the back of their mind that, you 

6 know, this would make this a lot easier for us 

7 to communicate what we have. And I guess this 

8 is why I wanted to throw this out, is to make 

9 sure that all parties, if there are some areas 

10 that we may be able to improve and so forth 

11 like that, I hope that we'd have the ability 

12 to be able to bring that up.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Right.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: That's one of the 

15 things. Because the people out in the field 

16 are one of the ones that really know what it 

17 is. And I would suggest to any of the other 

18 Board members, this has been very educational 

19 to me. You know, when we ask them for a 

20 document, what it actually takes to get some 

21 of this documentation. Actually, I've been 

22 treated just like any other person. I mean, 
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1 they gave me boxes of files to go through and 

2 it was very educational to me.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Very 

4 good.

5 Any further comments or questions?

6 (No response.)

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you 

8 very much.

9 Let's proceed to the next item, 

10 which is updates on SEC petitions. And LaVon 

11 Rutherford is just going to give us an update, 

12 sort of what's planned, particularly for the 

13 October Board meeting, what's going to be on 

14 the agenda there. I know at our last meeting 

15 the status of some of these evaluation reports 

16 and so on were not finalized. 

17 But, LaVon, are you ready to give 

18 us an update for what's coming down the pike 

19 here?

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Sure, Dr. Ziemer. 

21 Again this is LaVon Rutherford.

22 It's going to be a pretty busy 
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1 Board meeting. We have plans to present eight 

2 evaluation reports at the October Board 

3 meeting. Of those eight, six of those are 

4 83.13 petitions, which is the standard 

5 petition that was submitted by a petitioner. 

6 And then two of them will be 83.14s. Of the 

7 83.13s we have, Brookhaven National Lab will 

8 be presented, United Nuclear, Piqua Organic 

9 Moderated Reactor, Electro Met, Bliss & 

10 Laughlin and University of Rochester. 

11 The United Nuclear; you probably 

12 received a hard copy over the weekend.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: And you'll 

15 receive an electronic version of that. Should 

16 be out today. Electro Met and Bliss & 

17 Laughlin you should have already received as 

18 well. Piqua Organic Moderated Reactor will be 

19 to the Board and to the petitioners within the 

20 next couple of weeks. Brookhaven National Lab 

21 and University of Rochester by the end of the 

22 month will be with the Board.
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1 We have two 83.14s we're working 

2 on. Hanford and Metals and Controls. Metals 

3 and Controls is just finishing DOE review and 

4 should be to the Board this week. And then 

5 Hanford is in its final stages. And I would 

6 expect that report to be to the Board within 

7 the next two weeks or so.

8 Also, just some additional 

9 information. Recently we did qualify a couple 

10 of petitions for Weldon Spring, so that 

11 evaluation process will begin, and Hangar 481 

12 as well. So, that's pretty much it.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Board 

14 members, any questions?

15 (No response.)

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So a 

17 total of eight evaluation reports for our 

18 consideration at the October meeting.

19 And at that point, Board members, 

20 we will have to make a determination as to 

21 which of these we are in a position to act on, 

22 or whether we will need additional information 
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1 and review by work groups or with the help of 

2 our contractor. 

3 So, how far in advance did you say 

4 we would get the evaluation reports on these 

5 six, particularly?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Dr. Ziemer, you 

7 have Bliss & Laughlin.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I have United 

9 Nuclear. I think we have Bliss & Laughlin, 

10 don't we, already?

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, you do. You 

12 should have Electro Met as well, I believe.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. 

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: And then the 

15 other three, the Piqua Organic Moderated 

16 Reactor should be with you within the next 

17 couple weeks.

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: And then the 

20 University of Rochester and Brookhaven 

21 National Lab by the end of the month.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So we'll 
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1 have some lead time to review those. Very 

2 good.

3 Any questions or comments, Board 

4 members?

5 (No response.)

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Updates 

7 from work groups and subcommittees. I've 

8 asked that we only hear from work groups and 

9 subcommittees that have specific actions or 

10 items they need to share with us, not simply 

11 reports such as the work group has not met, or 

12 something like that. 

13 Before we go down the list, Ted, 

14 if you would remind us which work groups have 

15 meetings scheduled between now and our 

16 upcoming full Board meeting. I know there are 

17 at least four, I believe, scheduled.

18 MR. KATZ: Let me check that, Dr. 

19 Ziemer. Let's see, between now and the Board 

20 meeting, we have Worker Outreach on September 

21 29th. We have Oak Ridge Hospital on October 

22 7th. We also have the Procedures Work Group 
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1 on the 6th. Procedures Subcommittee. And 

2 again, I have the Procedures Subcommittee 

3 showing for the 15th. I'm not sure that 

4 that's correct. 

5 MEMBER MUNN: The 15th is the 

6 correct one.

7 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, I have that.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Right. We replaced 

9 --

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, we 

11 replaced, yes.

12 MR. KATZ: And I think, you know, 

13 someone correct me, but I think that's all.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Actually, we 

15 have --

16 MR. KATZ: Oh, and then we have 

17 also --

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We have the 

19 6000/6001 Work Group scheduled for October 

20 14th. And I thought we had Mound scheduled as 

21 well.

22 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. This is 
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1 Josie. We do have a Mound Work Group 

2 scheduled for October 13th as well.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: October 13th is 

4 Mound. October 14th is TBD-6000/6001. 

5 October 15th is Procedures. So those work 

6 group meetings are coming up.

7 Now, let's go back and pick up, 

8 first of all, subcommittee reports. Do we 

9 have anything to report from the Dose 

10 Reconstruction Subcommittee, Mark?

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, a brief 

12 report for the Dose Reconstruction 

13 Subcommittee. We just had a meeting last 

14 week, I think. It was last week, and we 

15 continued our regular work. One thing we did 

16 was the --

17 MEMBER MUNN: Mark, this is Wanda. 

18 I'm not hearing you because there's some kind 

19 of a --

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: There's some 

21 kind of an echo.

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I was 
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1 getting some kind of an echo, too, so took it 

2 off speaker. Is that better?

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, that's 

4 better. Yes.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. Yes, the 

6 Board had authorized the Subcommittee to 

7 complete the case selection for the twelfth 

8 set of cases, if you recall the last Board 

9 meeting.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: And we did do 

12 that. We actually picked 48 cases with the 

13 hope that there will be approximately 42, I 

14 think is the number that John needed to 

15 complete the contract obligation, anyway, for 

16 the year. And 48 we selected on the 

17 assumption usually this happens that some 

18 cases are either in appeal or under PER review 

19 or something. We lose a few after this final 

20 cut. We did identify those and NIOSH has 

21 those and is checking on those right now for 

22 availability for SC&A, and SC&A should get 
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1 those cases in the very near future.

2 The only other update I have is, 

3 at the last full Board meeting we had 

4 discussed the First 100 Cases Report which we 

5 submitted to the Secretary. And I guess we, 

6 in our discussions at the full Board, we had 

7 asked the subcommittee if the subcommittee 

8 could explore the summary findings more and 

9 generate some recommendation out of those 

10 summary findings. In other words, what kinds 

11 of deficiencies are we finding. Also, on the, 

12 you know, sort of the more positive side, you 

13 know, what has NIOSH done since these findings 

14 to improve the process, improve the program? 

15 So we started a discussion of that. We're 

16 going to internally circulate a draft before 

17 the next Subcommittee meeting and we would 

18 hope to have that to the full Board, not at 

19 the October meeting, but probably at the next 

20 full Board meeting for discussion by the full 

21 Board.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, Mark, this 
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1 is Ziemer. I want to ask a question on that. 

2 We did submit to the Secretary a report on 

3 the first 100 cases.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So you're 

6 talking about an additional sort of summary 

7 statement that would summarize or make some 

8 conclusions based on that report?

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. I guess the 

10 discussion at the Board, if you recall, Paul, 

11 was that, you know, this was fine, but we 

12 still had some -- you know, what's the bottom 

13 line.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. The 

15 bottom line relative to the idea of, what can 

16 we say about the scientific validity and so on 

17 of the dose reconstruction process.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: Exactly. So we 

19 started to explore that a little more. And 

20 Larry was at the meeting and had some good 

21 input from NIOSH's perspective on that. And 

22 so we have some points that I'm going to take 
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1 an initial draft at.

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Very good.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: And then bring 

4 them back to the Subcommittee and we're 

5 working on that.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Very good.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Any questions 

9 for Mark, Board members? Comments?

10 (No response.)

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. How about 

12 the Procedures Review Subcommittee? Wanda, 

13 did you have anything to report?

14 MEMBER MUNN: I don't have 

15 anything concrete to report. 

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

17 MEMBER MUNN: We're continuing our 

18 actions with respect to the outstanding issues 

19 that we have. The one thing that we do have 

20 coming up, which all the Board members will be 

21 privy to, is our expectation that we will 

22 produce a second report to the Secretary with 
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1 regard to the progress that we have made and 

2 what our observations are with respect to how 

3 the findings and the various procedures should 

4 be handled. That is happening behind the 

5 scenes and we'll have a draft circulating 

6 among the Subcommittee members prior to the 

7 next Board meeting. We hope to be able to 

8 provide, at least a preliminary draft for 

9 Board review prior to that time.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Very good. And 

11 I'll just remind the Board that the Procedures 

12 Subcommittee did submit a report to the 

13 Secretary about one year ago.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And this was 

16 more of a status report on what the Procedures 

17 Subcommittee was doing. Because at that point 

18 they did not have enough information to reach 

19 conclusions on the extent to which the 

20 procedures -- what shall I say, procedure 

21 support, and properly provide a basis for the 

22 scientific validity of dose reconstructions 
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1 and related activities. So, hopefully this 

2 second report will be one where more specific 

3 conclusions can be reached.

4 MEMBER MUNN: We anticipate more 

5 concrete information in this one.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Not a great deal of 

8 it, but better specifics on numerical data. 

9 We've also had quite an issue with the 

10 change-over, the improvement of the electronic 

11 systems and the change from one mode of 

12 operation to another. And so it made it 

13 difficult for those of us who operate with 

14 this particular database all the time. 

15 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right.

16 MEMBER MUNN: That seems to be 

17 pretty well smoothed out now.

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. We also 

19 have the new, I guess I'll just call it the 

20 new subcommittee, which is Mike Gibson's. Are 

21 we officially in subcommittee status, Mike, on 

22 your worker outreach group?
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1 MR. KATZ: Paul, just to remind 

2 you, it is not a subcommittee yet.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: That's right. 

4 We're still in process working on --

5 MR. KATZ: Well, we're not even in 

6 the process of turning it into a subcommittee 

7 at this point, because really it hasn't gone 

8 through --

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: That's right. 

10 We had finished the charge. I think we agreed 

11 we would operate for while as a work group 

12 until we --

13 MR. KATZ: Right.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. So let's 

15 move on. Any work groups that have items that 

16 they need to report? Speak up if you're a 

17 work group chair and want me to report an 

18 anything.

19 MEMBER ROESSLER: Paul, this is 

20 Gen.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Gen 

22 Roessler.
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1 MEMBER ROESSLER: We have made 

2 progress with the Linde Work Group, and I'd 

3 like to make a brief report.

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

5 MEMBER ROESSLER: We held the 

6 first meeting of our reestablished work group 

7 last week on September 2nd. Our 

8 responsibility now is to review the SEC 

9 petition and things associated with it. 

10 This petition, just to remind 

11 everyone, covers the Linde residual period, 

12 which is January 1st, 1954 through July 31st, 

13 2008. 

14 At our meeting last week we were 

15 fortunate to have [identifying information 

16 redacted], the petitioner's representative, 

17 present at our meeting, and I think that was 

18 very productive.

19 We also had a very productive 

20 meeting. We have three action items for OCAS 

21 NIOSH to complete. They are associated with 

22 handling bounding on radon exposures at Linde, 
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1 some inhalation exposures of uranium, radium 

2 and thorium. And the third item is giving 

3 more attention to exposures during the 

4 renovation period. 

5 They expect that they'll have this 

6 completed so that the work group can meet 

7 again. We're trying to set up a meeting time 

8 for sometime in hopefully early November or 

9 sometime in November. So that's where we are 

10 on that.

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

12 you.

13 Other work groups?

14 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hey, Paul, this 

15 is Bob Presley from NTS.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, Bob? Okay.

17 MEMBER PRESLEY: We got in some 

18 new data about a month ago. OCAS is going 

19 through it, and we expect a very good report 

20 at our next face-to-face meeting in October.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So you'll 

22 be reporting on that in October?
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1 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hopefully. 

2 Hopefully.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

4 you.

5 Others?

6 (No response.)

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I will take it 

8 by the silence that none of the other work 

9 groups have specific items to report today.

10 Okay. Then we'll move on to the 

11 next item on the agenda, which is Board work 

12 group transcript review policy. And I might 

13 edit that agenda item a little bit and call it 

14 Board subcommittee and work group transcript 

15 review policy. And you may recall at the last 

16 meeting we talked briefly about a procedure 

17 for reviewing the technical content and 

18 quality of transcripts. 

19 Sometimes transcripts, although 

20 they pretty accurately reflect what is said, 

21 sometimes the transcriber understands 

22 particularly technical terms to be different 
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1 words than are actually spoken, and sometimes 

2 there are simply edits that are needed in 

3 terms of perhaps symbols of elements or 

4 whatever it may be. So in addition to the 

5 Privacy Act review that has been done by NIOSH 

6 and CDC, we have seen a need for review of the 

7 technical content of the transcripts prior to 

8 posting them on the site as well, on the 

9 website. 

10 As far as the full Board 

11 transcripts are concerned, I have been doing 

12 those reviews and then recommending 

13 corrections as needed and then certifying 

14 those as being approved for putting on the 

15 website.

16 I think we need something similar 

17 for the subcommittee and work group 

18 transcripts, a review process to make sure 

19 that the information technically is correct or 

20 if there are other edits needed. What I'm 

21 suggesting is that we formalize the process, 

22 if the Board is in agreement, and actually I 
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1 think we can formalize it just so there's 

2 concurrence for both the full Board 

3 transcripts as well as the subcommittee and 

4 work group transcripts. 

5 And here is what I'm proposing, 

6 and I'll ask someone then make a motion.

7 MR. KATZ: Paul?

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes?

9 MR. KATZ: Can I give a little bit 

10 more information for you?

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh, yes. Yes, 

12 please do, Ted.

13 MR. KATZ: A couple things that 

14 might affect your proposed motion.

15 But one, the subcommittees are 

16 treated as the full Board transcripts are 

17 already. So, for example, Mark Griffon 

18 reviews the Dose Reconstruction transcripts, 

19 and Wanda receives the Procedures 

20 Subcommittee. So that's already actually 

21 handled the same way as the Board is, and it 

22 has to be by law. The work group is a 
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1 different situation. Those transcripts aren't 

2 even required by law to exist whatsoever. So 

3 there's no requirement in terms of their 

4 review by the chair. 

5 But the one other thing I would 

6 just note for your consideration is my concern 

7 about work group transcripts, about putting 

8 them through a review process, technical 

9 review process before they're posted for the 

10 work groups, is the work groups, you know, 

11 meet more often in general than the full Board 

12 and so on, and there's a timeliness issue. 

13 The work group members can get a draft 

14 transcript prior, but for the public, 

15 particularly those members of the public that 

16 are involved with a specific work group, 

17 there's a timeliness issue. And I would say 

18 that there is the technical matters to review 

19 about, you know, correct spelling and 

20 technical terms, but there's also other sort 

21 of types of errors that are sort of 

22 challenging to review, too, including sort of 
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1 correct attribution of statements to 

2 individuals and so on. But it's quite a bit 

3 of work to review these. 

4 And I guess my pitch would be, I 

5 like very much the idea of the work groups 

6 taking a role in ensuring the quality of the 

7 content of these transcripts, but I'm a bit 

8 concerned about them doing that in advance of 

9 posting these. I guess I would argue for 

10 posting these and then posting, you know, a 

11 final version after they've been through such 

12 a review.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, thank you, 

14 Ted, for that comment because we can certainly 

15 have a policy that allows early posting of the 

16 transcript. I think it still has to go 

17 through Privacy Act review before going on the 

18 website. That would be required by law in any 

19 event, right?

20 MR. KATZ: That's correct.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: But what you're 

22 suggesting, and I think this can certainly be 
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1 part of the policy, would be to allow posting 

2 of the unedited version on the website, and I 

3 would suggest if that were done, that it be so 

4 indicated that it has not been reviewed for 

5 technical accuracy at that point. And then 

6 once the chair has been able to review for 

7 technical accuracy, then the appropriate 

8 changes can be made and a final version could 

9 be posted. 

10 On technical accuracy, for 

11 example, I know there has been recent Board 

12 meeting minutes that talked about radon-226 

13 decaying. And clearly whoever the speaker 

14 was, was saying radium-226, but the 

15 transcriber heard it as radon-226. They sound 

16 similar. But, you know, there is no 

17 radon-226. So that kind of technical 

18 correction has to be made sometimes in the 

19 transcript so that what would appear as an 

20 unedited version might have those kind of 

21 technical errors and that would have to be 

22 understood by whoever is reading them from the 
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1 website that those kind of errors have not 

2 been addressed.

3 In any event, with that in mind, 

4 and the gist of it would be that we would 

5 agree that for work group transcripts, 

6 following the PA review by NIOSH OCAS, or 

7 NIOSH CDC I guess we would say, that the chair 

8 of the work group would be responsible for 

9 reviewing the transcript for technical 

10 accuracy and would make editorial corrections 

11 as appropriate. That would be the policy that 

12 I would recommend. And we might add to that 

13 that, until such corrections are made, the 

14 unedited transcript may be posted on the 

15 website and identified as not being reviewed 

16 for technical accuracy. 

17 But let me suggest that if the 

18 Board is willing to do that by phone, that we 

19 have a motion to that effect and then we can 

20 discuss it. This would be for work group 

21 transcripts.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Paul, this is 
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1 Brad. I kind of liked the first one when you 

2 said it was just the chair. I thought you 

3 were going to take it all over. But I think 

4 this would be a very good --

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: No, no. I don't 

6 think I want to review transcripts for 

7 meetings that I didn't attend.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, I 

9 understand that.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: I guess as a work 

12 group chair for one of them, I understand why 

13 we need to do this, and I'm in full agreement 

14 with it. But I'm wondering if also along with 

15 this, because just as what you said, the 

16 radium and radon, I'm sorry, but I probably 

17 would not pick that up.

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, I think 

19 the chair always has the option of checking 

20 with others for technical accuracy on 

21 particular things. For example, on one of the 

22 recent Board meetings, I think it might have 
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1 even been the Blockson discussion on the radon 

2 model, we asked Mark and Jim Neton to review 

3 that discussion that they had to make sure 

4 that it had been captured correctly.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and I guess 

6 this is the only thing that I'd be saying is, 

7 you know, I'd like to be able to have the 

8 ability to be able to call, you know, like 

9 LaVon or somebody like that, because some of 

10 these questions would be above my head. 

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, and that's 

12 fine. And the other part of it is that, as 

13 Ted mentioned, when I say technical accuracy, 

14 part of that also is attribution; who really 

15 said that? I've seen some where it's clear 

16 that the attribution was to the wrong person, 

17 somehow in the flow of the conversation either 

18 the wrong person was identified, because the 

19 transcribers sometimes have to recognize 

20 voices and that doesn't always occur. 

21 MEMBER BEACH: Paul, this is 

22 Josie. I'd like to go ahead and make that 
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1 motion.

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. The 

3 motion is, approve a policy that gives the 

4 work group chair the responsibility for 

5 reviewing the transcript for technical 

6 accuracy and making appropriate editorial 

7 changes. And I think with the understanding 

8 that the unedited version may go on the 

9 website as soon as available after PA 

10 clearance with an appropriate notation that it 

11 has not been reviewed for technical accuracy.

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'd second that, 

13 Paul. This is Brad.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. 

15 Discussion on that?

16 As a practical matter, and maybe, 

17 Ted, you can help us out there, for example, 

18 currently if I have a list of corrections to 

19 make, I typically transmit them to Nancy 

20 Adams, who's serving as kind of a coordinator 

21 for the Board transcripts. 

22 But, Nancy, are you handling the 
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1 work group transcripts as well?

2 MR. KATZ: Paul, this is Ted. 

3 Yes, I mean, Nancy is helping me out with sort 

4 of spot- checking a number of work groups, but 

5 not all, not comprehensively for work group 

6 transcripts, as well as the Board and 

7 subcommittees. But really, she's taking on a 

8 handful to help me with this quality assurance 

9 effort.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, all I'm 

11 asking is who does the person communicate 

12 with? With you, Ted?

13 MR. KATZ: Anyway, I would be the 

14 one to receive --

15 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

16 MR. KATZ: I would like to receive 

17 them from the work group chairs. I would be 

18 the one who would send them the transcript at 

19 the point it's ready to be sent to them, and 

20 then I would receive their changes.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So as 

22 part of the motion, as a friendly amendment, 
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1 we could indicate that the recommended changes 

2 should be transmitted by the chairs to the 

3 designated federal official who will assure 

4 that the corrections are made or otherwise 

5 resolved. Sometimes what I think should be 

6 correct is actually incorrect, and sometimes 

7 it's a matter of resolving either what was 

8 said or what transpired, who really said what.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Hey, Paul, this 

10 is Brad. I was just wondering, will these 

11 transcripts come to us in a paper form or 

12 electronically?

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I've always 

14 gotten them electronically.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I was just 

16 wondering so that we could be able to put in 

17 little comments and so forth like that and 

18 then send them back to Ted.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, I think 

20 they're available both in PDF, where you can't 

21 make a correction, and Word files. Is that 

22 correct, Ted?
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1 MR. KATZ: That's correct. But I 

2 would be sending them to you as Word files.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So you could 

4 insert.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I just 

6 wanted to make sure how we could make that 

7 more clear for Ted and so forth. 

8 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is Bob 

9 Presley.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, Bob?

11 MEMBER PRESLEY: Are these things 

12 going to be checked for classification before 

13 we release them, or --

14 MR. KATZ: Bob, this is Ted again. 

15 The transcripts don't include classified 

16 information because it's only discussions that 

17 we've had publicly already.

18 MEMBER PRESLEY: Okay.

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Currently our 

20 transcripts don't go to DOE, do they?

21 MR. KATZ: No, they do not.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Any of them. 
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1 Because they've all been at public meetings.

2 MR. KATZ: Right, and a lot of 

3 care is taken to be certain that there's no 

4 discussion in public of matters that are 

5 sensitive. 

6 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. It's 

7 easy to see the wisdom in the suggestion. My 

8 concern from the outset has been that, unlike 

9 so many popular television characters, my 

10 memory function is not always as sharp as I 

11 would like it to be. Trying to recall some of 

12 the exactness creates a problem for an 

13 individual who does not, for example, have the 

14 tape itself to listen to. 

15 I can understand how, especially 

16 when in work groups we sometimes have a 

17 tendency to talk over each other, and the 

18 transcriber would have such a hard time trying 

19 to sort out the voices and what's being said. 

20 I'm always surprised that it comes out as 

21 well as it does, actually. But there are 

22 times clearly when even people who were there 
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1 cannot be absolutely certain exactly what was 

2 being said at a precise time. 

3 I guess it would be a comfort 

4 factor for me; I don't know about other work 

5 group chairs, but if we have the kind of 

6 disclaimer which makes it clear that we --

7 certainly prior to the time the chair looks at 

8 it, it would be very helpful for that release 

9 on the web to carry a fairly strong disclaimer 

10 that it has not been yet -- what is the 

11 appropriate word: certified, authorized, 

12 reviewed by the chair?

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh, yes. Yes, 

14 that would be part of it. 

15 As we are proceeding here, I'm 

16 thinking that we might be better served, since 

17 this is sounding a little more complex, to 

18 actually defer the action on this, which won't 

19 cause us a problem, until our face-to-face 

20 when you can have in writing exactly what the 

21 motion is. And you may have some further time 

22 to think about the details. I would point 
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1 out, because I've reviewed a lot of 

2 transcripts, and the reporters do a remarkable 

3 job when there's multiple people talking of 

4 putting that all together. And in fact, the 

5 transcript sometimes reflects the kind of 

6 confusion that occurs when multiple people 

7 talk because you have all these partial 

8 comments and sentences sort of superimposed on 

9 each other. 

10 Also, on a transcript, I'd never 

11 try to edit it for grammatical correctness. 

12 We don't always talk in full sentences and 

13 with proper grammar. So that's not the kind 

14 of editorial, I -- you know, it's okay if 

15 there's a dangling participle because that's 

16 what was there.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, and as a 

18 matter of fact --

19 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So I'm not 

20 talking about putting the transcripts in a 

21 form that are proper grammar and that sort of 

22 thing. We're only talking about things like 
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1 correct attribution. You know, if it says 

2 Wanda said this and it's very clear that it 

3 was Jim Melius, we need to correct that. If 

4 there's something in the technical content; I 

5 mentioned the radon-226 when it should have 

6 been radium, those are fine. And I would not 

7 claim as the reader that I have caught 

8 everything, but at least I have gone through 

9 it, and if I have a particular question, I can 

10 call somebody and say, was that you that said 

11 this. I thought it was so-and-so. Or, as 

12 Brad has suggested, if there's some fairly 

13 complex thing and you have some reason to 

14 think that it wasn't captured correctly -- and 

15 I think unless you have reason to think 

16 there's something wrong with it, you would 

17 accept it, Brad, you know, even though it's --

18 because all of us have --

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: I was just making 

20 the comment that, you know, I would not have 

21 caught something like that because it's not 

22 something that I deal with or anything else 
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1 like that.

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: No, but for 

3 example you know in the discussion of the 

4 classified stuff, I had this question. I was 

5 looking at the transcripts and it said Brad 

6 was talking about sigma something and I said 

7 that doesn't make any sense to me and I raised 

8 it. I think you must have been talking about 

9 something else. That's the wrong term. And 

10 they checked with you, right? Do you remember 

11 that?

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, they did.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And see, and 

14 there was a term I wasn't familiar with and we 

15 got it. And it was sigma, something used in 

16 --

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: So is Wanda 

18 wanting to have an old-age disclaimer on this?

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: No, no. I think 

21 you're okay, Wanda. In fact, the transcripts 

22 will remind you of what did happen.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: Because I was 

2 going to say I need that, too.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: You know, I think 

5 in the review of this -- this is Brad again, I 

6 think the basis of what -- the gist that 

7 you're wanting to do is, to the best of our 

8 ability and knowledge that these things are 

9 correct. 

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Right. Right.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: We're not going 

12 to catch everything.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: You can't 

14 guarantee that every minor thing in there is 

15 absolutely right, but at least you've looked 

16 at it. And if there's something that's 

17 glaringly incorrect, you've at least reviewed 

18 it. And we have had occasions where outside 

19 members of the public have seen things in the 

20 transcripts and they've said, what's this. It 

21 doesn't make sense. And we found that the 

22 transcript actually was in error. So we do 
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1 need to have sort of this quality control 

2 process.

3 But let me ask Board members, 

4 shall we go ahead and defer this to the 

5 October meeting and have some formal words 

6 before you for action?

7 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is Bob 

8 Presley. I think we ought to.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Then let me just 

10 ask for a motion to defer to the October 

11 meeting.

12 MEMBER PRESLEY: I'll make the 

13 motion.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: I second it. 

15 This is Brad.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. And 

17 basically, this is equivalent to a motion to 

18 table. Are there any Board members opposed?

19 (No response.)

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Any abstaining?

21 (No response.)

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Then I'm going 
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1 to take it that all those remainders are ayes 

2 and the motion to defer carries. Okay?

3 MR. KATZ: Very good. Dr. Ziemer?

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: This is Ted. I just 

6 want myself to be clear on this. So since 

7 this motion is deferred until October, no 

8 action needs to be taken in terms of sending 

9 these transcripts to work group chairs prior 

10 to that. But I would offer up that if we've 

11 had some work group meetings and will have 

12 some more, if there's a general feeling that 

13 people would like to sort of start getting a 

14 handle on this, of course we can do this 

15 without an official motion.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Oh, yes. I just 

17 want to formalize the policy, but I think, 

18 work group chairs, you certainly want the 

19 transcripts of your work group to be correct 

20 in that regard. And you may want to go back 

21 and if you want to review older ones, I think 

22 that would be good. We don't necessarily need 
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1 to go all the way back to the day one on all 

2 previous transcripts.

3 MR. KATZ: Well, Dr. Ziemer, and I 

4 was really just suggesting that they would 

5 send the current ones for the recent meetings 

6 to those chairs.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think it would 

8 be useful to do this, if nobody objects.

9 MS. ADAMS: Dr. Ziemer, this is 

10 Nancy Adams. The other issue is if somebody 

11 finds something in the transcript in that 

12 they're really having trouble with, we can go 

13 back to the transcriber and have them 

14 re-listen to that part of the transcript to 

15 clarify any questions that they may have as 

16 well.

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. Yes. And 

18 we've done that certainly on occasion already, 

19 too, and can do that on any of these work 

20 group meetings. Yes, thank you, Nancy. Good 

21 point.

22 Okay. Ted, put this on the agenda 
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1 for the October meeting and formalize the 

2 policy at that point. 

3 MR. KATZ: I'll do so. And I'll 

4 also be then sending the transcripts for 

5 everything that we received since, you know, 

6 maybe a month ago to the work group chairs.

7 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you.

8 Now let me ask if Dr. Melius, by 

9 chance, is on the line yet.

10 (No response.)

11 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. 

12 Apparently not, but I think we're ready to 

13 deal with the Blockson Chemical Radon Model 

14 Validation issue.

15 Board members, you may recall that 

16 there were questions raised I think primarily 

17 by Mark Griffon on stratification of radon; 

18 that is, the possibility that radon levels in 

19 different parts of the facility might have 

20 varied more than the model would predict. And 

21 so we were talking about how one would go 

22 about validating the model. We asked SC&A to 
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1 give some thought as well to how one might 

2 approach validation, not a task to do 

3 validation, but to give us some ideas of how 

4 one might go about that. And I think Mark has 

5 had a chance to think about this further, too.

6 So, Mark, let's start with you on 

7 the Blockson Radon Model Validation. Do you 

8 have some initial comments? And then I think 

9 I will ask John Mauro also to report for SC&A 

10 on some ideas that they have had.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, this is Mark 

12 Griffon. And I was actually this morning just 

13 going over some of John's recommendations, so 

14 it would be good to hear from John as well.

15 I mean, at this point I was 

16 thinking of looking at a couple thing from our 

17 last Board meeting to now. One was, you know, 

18 possibilities for validation. 

19 And one notion I was thinking of 

20 was the other phosphate facilities during this 

21 time period. And, you know, the thing I 

22 haven't evaluated is the efficacy of a lot of 
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1 these options, but I'm just throwing some of 

2 these out here as possibilities, other 

3 phosphate facilities that would in fact have 

4 radon measurement data so that you could test 

5 the model sort of. And that's the sticking 

6 point, I think, is that if they existed, NIOSH 

7 likely would have already brought those 

8 forward. So I don't know that those 

9 facilities exist that would allow us that.

10 The other possibility is along 

11 those lines, and this may be a little more of 

12 a stretch, and I think that to some extent 

13 NIOSH has used this in their arguments for 

14 sort of an upper bound, was whether they could 

15 use the Mallinckrodt facility in any way -- in 

16 two regards. One is to look at the 

17 measurement data, but also the secondary would 

18 be, okay, let's use a similar approach that we 

19 did for this model being proposed for 

20 Blockson. Let's use this model and test it at 

21 the Blockson facility. 

22 Now there's obviously a lot of, 
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1 you know, potential heartache there. Because, 

2 you know, I'm not sure that the data needed to 

3 model that from source term up exists. I know 

4 they have a fair amount of radon measurement 

5 data, but I'm not sure on the other end that 

6 it would be something that could be achieved, 

7 or whether it would, you know, entail such 

8 uncertainty that, you know, it would really be 

9 a good tool to validate. For example, one 

10 thing I'm concerned about there is, you know, 

11 I know that over the years Mallinckrodt had 

12 several different sources of uranium coming 

13 into the plant and so then obviously you have 

14 a different source term changing over time. 

15 And I'm not sure all that is cleanly defined.

16 But it was during the same time 

17 period, so I guess you could argue that 

18 similar work practices, similar sorts of 

19 ventilation may have existed. And that would 

20 be really the usefulness of that site, maybe 

21 that they have real measurement data to 

22 compare against the model, whereas we don't 
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1 have that at most of these other sites we're 

2 talking about. So that's one thing that I was 

3 kicking around.

4 The other items that I have, and 

5 these aren't necessarily, what was the title 

6 of this session, you know, suggestions for 

7 ways to validate, but rather just the ongoing 

8 concerns, I guess. 

9 The second item I had was concerns 

10 about the source term definition for Blockson. 

11 And I went back to the site profile and 

12 looked up some of this. In the last Board 

13 meeting I mentioned the fact that I thought 

14 some of the original numbers such as the 6,000 

15 tons per week had come from one memo, an AEC 

16 memo, or a Blockson to AEC maybe, I forget. 

17 And it actually is confirmed that this was a 

18 memo that was written and it was a 

19 pre-operational memo also which notes the 

20 6,000 tons of phosphate rock per week. And 

21 then I think it says out of that they would 

22 expect or anticipate about 50,000 pounds. I'm 
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1 forgetting. Anyway, they were projecting some 

2 output or amount of product from that amount 

3 of phosphate rock coming into the plant, and 

4 that number was noted. So they had some sort 

5 of uranium recovery efficiency established. 

6 And in the site profile, they also have 

7 several reports indicating in later years 

8 where they actually have production numbers 

9 for the uranium, for the output or the 

10 product. But nowhere do they mention the 

11 input. So you're left to assume that this 

12 efficiency was achieved, the original 

13 projected efficiency or recovery rate was 

14 achieved. And, you know, there's some numbers 

15 that sort of lead you to believe that was the 

16 case, but there are some gaps. They also note 

17 that from, I think it was from 1955 through 

18 '62, they don't have any uranium production 

19 numbers. So that's one part of my concern 

20 about the source term.

21 The other part, I guess, would be 

22 these all look like uranium product numbers 
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1 for the AEC, these AEC reports. It's not 

2 clear to me. I thought that during this time 

3 period they were also doing commercial work. 

4 And if both were going on at the same time 

5 during the covered period, I believe we have 

6 to account for that exposure. And that would 

7 potentially be, you know, more throughput 

8 coming into the system. And that was not very 

9 clear to me reading the site profile. Maybe 

10 I'm missing something, or maybe it's not in 

11 there, but someone knows the answer to that, 

12 as to whether there was other production going 

13 on there within the building that would have 

14 added to the amount processed per week, or per 

15 year, or whatever.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Excuse me, Mark, I 

17 don't mean to interrupt you. This is Wanda. 

18 I just wanted to be very clear what you mean 

19 when you say "production." We know of course 

20 that Blockson was fully engaged in its 

21 commercial activities to produce a product 

22 that was not uranium. When you say 
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1 "production figures," are you inferring that 

2 Blockson was also involved in producing 

3 uranium for the commercial market? Is that 

4 your inference?

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, I was 

6 inferring that any phosphate rock that they're 

7 processing you would end up getting residual 

8 radon exposures from.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Ah, yes. Okay.

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: So, right.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: So even if it 

13 wasn't for the uranium.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Just wanted to 

15 verify that.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, yes, yes. 

17 All right. And I wasn't clear, you know, 

18 again this 6,000 tons per week, I was assuming 

19 it was only for the AEC operations and if 

20 there was other stuff going on, it would have 

21 to be accounted for, I would think.

22 And then the last thing, and this 
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1 maybe perhaps overlaps with John's option 3 in 

2 the SC&A paper that John sent out to us. But, 

3 you know, I was noting, and I thought I 

4 mentioned in the last Board meeting, although 

5 I didn't recall finding it in the transcripts, 

6 so I must not have mentioned it. 

7 But the question of the gradients 

8 and, you know, I know at some meeting along 

9 the line I've mentioned my concern about the 

10 instantaneous mixing, the uniform 

11 instantaneous mixing and, you know, I would 

12 like to point people back to the original data 

13 that we've looked at all the time and one is 

14 this Florida study, the FIPR reference. And I 

15 think it's useful to notice, you know, if you 

16 really believe this was uniform instantaneous 

17 mixing, you would expect your results to be 

18 the same, or at least very close, you know, 

19 wherever you measure within the building.

20 And in fact, that's not the case. 

21 You have variations of, I believe, up to a 

22 factor of 10 or 20 in measurements throughout 
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1 these different plants, or throughout one 

2 plant. And then I was having a little trouble 

3 looking at these numbers because I think in 

4 some cases they are reporting averages and in 

5 some cases it was multiple years, so I wasn't 

6 sure if I was comparing, you know, 

7 measurements taken on the same day. So that 

8 made it a little difficult to make this 

9 conclusion, but at least it appears to me 

10 that, you know, there's quite a bit of 

11 variation from these studies, albeit all these 

12 levels, as Jim Neton has pointed out many 

13 times, you know, most of these levels are far 

14 lower than the proposed model. But I was 

15 looking at it from the terms of variation of 

16 values.

17 Other interesting things to note 

18 in that are that a lot of time the highest 

19 levels will appear in the most unlikely 

20 places, like the auto repair -- I forget what 

21 exactly that area it was called, but, you 

22 know, it wasn't at the digester tank or 
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1 something like that. So I guess that that's 

2 my last point about the gradients.

3 And then, you know, so I guess the 

4 only thing I'd throw out in terms of 

5 validation was that first idea, to either 

6 similar phosphates plants during the time 

7 period, which I don't think exists with 

8 measurement data anyway. And then the 

9 possibility of Mallinckrodt or other 

10 facilities that do have radon measurement data 

11 that you could then use as a model and compare 

12 measurement data versus model predictions. 

13 And I guess I'll leave it there for now.

14 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. 

15 Before I spoke, Jim, maybe our NIOSH folks are 

16 going to address that. I believe we've had 

17 quite a discussion about the fact that we 

18 don't have any data from other plants that are 

19 similar in their type of operation. I thought 

20 we had discussed that fairly lengthily, but 

21 perhaps I'm incorrect. I'll leave that to Jim 

22 and others to address, but I believe we've 
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1 looked at that. Have we not?

2 DR. NETON: Are you asking me, 

3 Wanda? This is Jim.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. Yes, I am 

5 asking you.

6 DR. NETON: Yes, we've gone to 

7 great lengths to try to find some measurements 

8 from the 1950s. And Mark's correct, outside 

9 of Mallinckrodt, which was technically not a 

10 phosphate production plant, but did some of 

11 the processing, we don't have any data. He 

12 had provided a number of measurements. The 

13 earliest measurements we can find are in the 

14 1970s, '80s and we continue to compile 

15 measurements at existing facilities where the 

16 values are typically a factor of five to an 

17 order of magnitude lower than the 95th 

18 percentile we're proposing. That's where we 

19 are with that. 

20 Related to the source term, I 

21 think there is some additional data that's not 

22 in the site profile we have. Pretty much, at 
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1 least in our opinion, believe the conclusion 

2 that the production rate was probably less 

3 than 6,000 tons per week based on the uranium 

4 production rates. We've got some better data 

5 on that that we can provide if necessary.

6 Related to Mark's comment on 

7 additional commercial work, I don't think that 

8 there was any additional commercial work. In 

9 fact, all of the phosphate processing was 

10 commercial work. It was merely the uranium 

11 that was sort of siphoned off in the other 

12 building, building 15, or whatever, as they 

13 produced commercial product. So I'm not aware 

14 of any additional commercial phosphate that 

15 was at the plant that was not covered, that 

16 was not used to make uranium.

17 And then the comment on gradients. 

18 We've kind of been down that path before. I 

19 still, I guess, believe that the main driver 

20 outside of the source term -- the main driver 

21 in the radon concentrations is the building 

22 ventilation rates, of which we have a range of 
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1 values. The lower range of values tends to 

2 drive the 95th percentile value, so I would 

3 submit that there may be higher concentrations 

4 in pockets in that building, but those would 

5 be encompassed by the range of ventilation 

6 rates that we chose in the model. I guess 

7 that's about all I can say right now.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thanks, Jim. 

9 And this is Ziemer again. Let me add one 

10 comment. 

11 Mark, I don't believe that 

12 instantaneous mixing, which a model may 

13 assume, implies that there's uniform 

14 concentrations throughout a location. You 

15 could still have gradients. It's just simply 

16 sort of a smoothing process for the model, 

17 even if there is a gradient. But that's just 

18 a side comment. There are other issues on 

19 that smoothing process in terms of people 

20 moving around and so on. But I think we need 

21 to hear from John Mauro.

22 John, are you prepared to give us 
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1 some comments on the idea of validating the 

2 model that we were talking about before, and 

3 also stratification?

4 DR. MAURO: Yes, I'd be glad to. 

5 At the request of the Board, I did prepare 

6 some thoughts, really a think piece dated 

7 August 19th. You should have all received a 

8 copy of it. It identifies five strategies, 

9 strategies 1 through 5, for trying to come at 

10 this question of stratification, which I 

11 believe it's 1 through 4 strategies, and then 

12 strategy No. 5 is model validation, which is 

13 really a different subject.

14 I'd like to preface this. It's 

15 very easy to lose sight of what we're doing. 

16 We're trying to figure out the average annual 

17 concentration that people might have 

18 experienced inside this building over the 

19 course of a year. There's absolutely no doubt 

20 from time-to-time and from 

21 location-to-location one would expect a 

22 considerable variability in the concentration 
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1 of radon in the building in a given location 

2 and a given point in time. The question we're 

3 trying to ask ourselves is what do we believe 

4 to be a claimant-favorable estimate of what 

5 the average annual concentration is or was in 

6 that building. And of course we both came up 

7 with our models and our assumptions.

8 Now, the challenge here was, is it 

9 possible that there could have been locations 

10 within the building where the average 

11 concentration over the course of a year could 

12 have been substantially higher than the upper 

13 95th percentile average concentration that we 

14 calculated for the overall building? Turns 

15 out that NIOSH came up with one number, which 

16 was about -- for the 95th percentile of that 

17 estimate, SC&A earlier came up with its own. 

18 Because we used different distributions, it 

19 differed by a factor of two.

20 So the question then becomes how 

21 do we determine, you know, that stratification 

22 could not have resulted in a given location in 
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1 the building where the average annual 

2 concentration at that location could have been 

3 substantially higher than the values that we 

4 both independently derived, and ways of coming 

5 at the problem. And I'm not going to go into 

6 each one of these five areas, but there are 

7 ways in which one could sort of create what I 

8 would call a weight of evidence. That is, if 

9 you were to run down any -- one of them 

10 actually is done, mainly. What is the 

11 variability of the average annual 

12 concentration of radon in residences? And we 

13 know that the average annual concentration 

14 does vary in a residence by about a factor of 

15 two to three, depending on what level in the 

16 home you look at. So, for example, in your 

17 home, if you take a radon measurement in your 

18 basement, over the course of a year you'll get 

19 the concentration. If you take it on the 

20 first floor or second floor over the course of 

21 a year, the concentration will probably be two 

22 or three times higher. 
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1 How useful is that information?

2 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Lower on the 

3 upper floors.

4 DR. MAURO: On the upper floors. 

5 I'm sorry. On the upper floors. And you'll 

6 see that you get factors of two or three 

7 differences. 

8 Now how applicable that is to our 

9 situation, one could say, well, in one respect 

10 you would expect a lesser degree, because 

11 there are floors separating the source of the 

12 radon in the basement and then of course then 

13 you have the ceiling of the basement and the 

14 ceiling of the first floor, et cetera, and 

15 you've sort of isolated the source, namely the 

16 basement. You know, that's the source of all 

17 the radon in homes for all intents and 

18 purposes. But anyway, that was one strategy 

19 that in effect is done. You know, we know 

20 it's about a factor of two or three, that 

21 being the difference in the average annual.

22 But the other strategies are one 
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1 more of exploring other ways of coming at the 

2 problem. And the question becomes, you know, 

3 let's say NIOSH or the Board would like to run 

4 down some of these others, and, you know, 

5 where do they come out? We've seen that 

6 average annual concentrations, and if you run 

7 down each strategy, you know, vary by a factor 

8 of two, a factor of three, I don't know the 

9 answer to this, but at least, you know, the 

10 sense I'm getting is before moving forward a 

11 little bit more confidence, you know, on the 

12 stratification issue, you know, how big a 

13 difference could there be? Could it be 

14 substantial? That's stratification. That was 

15 strategies 1 through 4. And, you know, you 

16 could certainly read them and you could get an 

17 idea of how they would work. They're all very 

18 different, by the way, in how they would work. 

19 And so in that regard they could 

20 be useful because if you actually went down 

21 each one and they all came up with about the 

22 same answer, that is, well, we're seeing, you 
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1 know, average annual variability’s within 

2 buildings, different parts of buildings that 

3 vary by a factor of two, three, four and they 

4 all sort of came around to the same place, it 

5 creates a weight of evidence. But it's not 

6 going to be proof. It's just going to be 

7 another source of -- a basis upon which a 

8 decision could be made.

9 And finally, we have the subject I 

10 call strategy 5, which is called model 

11 validation. This is new information that we 

12 were able to obtain from one of our associates 

13 who's involved in validating these models, not 

14 for the purpose of radon, but for the purpose 

15 of Homeland Security. That is, you know, can 

16 we predict the behavior of some aerosol inside 

17 in a structure mainly from a Homeland Security 

18 point of view. So there are models. And in 

19 the email I sent you'll see two links that you 

20 could go to and find out a little bit more 

21 about some of the advanced work that's being 

22 done I think under the auspices of Homeland 
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1 Security looking into modeling the behavior of 

2 aerosols within buildings and, you know, how 

3 they come at the problem. So that would be 

4 more along the lines of model validation and 

5 what other people are doing in the federal 

6 government to try to come to grips with 

7 understanding how aerosols behave. 

8 So all SC&A really did was try our 

9 best to come up with some creative strategies 

10 for helping to achieve closure to this 

11 problem.

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

13 you, John, for those comments. I'll ask for 

14 feedback here in a moment. I just wanted to 

15 point out in your August 19th paper called, 

16 "Strategies for Validating the Blockson Radon 

17 Model," in the middle of paragraph 2 you say, 

18 "In a related matter the Board expressed 

19 concern that stratification was not explicitly 

20 taken into consideration in the model." I 

21 don't believe the Board took any official 

22 action on work stratification. It might be 
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1 more correct to say that some members of the 

2 Board expressed concern.

3 DR. MAURO: My apologies. You're 

4 absolutely right.

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I don't think we 

6 have an official position on stratification, 

7 just that the concern was expressed. I wanted 

8 to make sure that this doesn't say more than 

9 actually occurred.

10 DR. MAURO: Yes, I'd be glad to 

11 edit this and reissue it, or is this 

12 sufficient --

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, I just 

14 wanted to make sure everybody understands 

15 that. I think you did not identify this as an 

16 official SC&A deliverable. It's just a think 

17 piece for us to think about this issue.

18 DR. MAURO: And that's correct, 

19 Paul.

20 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Now, let's get 

21 other comments or questions from Board 

22 members, if any. 
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Paul, this is 

2 Mark.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, Mark?

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: I had the mute 

5 button on when you called for comments. 

6 I guess at this point all I would 

7 maybe recommend is there any way that we could 

8 -- I don't know if NIOSH has looked at SC&A's 

9 thoughts, and I'm not sure that the 

10 Mallinckrodt is even a good, you know, 

11 candidate, but you know, this idea that I 

12 brought up today and whether they could 

13 consider these, you know, SC&A options 1 

14 through 5 is it, John, or whatever?

15 DR. MAURO: That's correct. 

16 Strategies 1 through 5. 

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, strategies 1 

18 through 5. And, I mean, I would like to mull 

19 those over a little more as well. And I 

20 think, you know, I'm not ready to go much 

21 farther with the discussion today. But maybe 

22 in the October meeting we can --
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, I think we 

2 agreed we weren't going to take official 

3 action on the Blockson matter today. This was 

4 simply going to be input that would give us 

5 some ideas to think about prior to our 

6 face-to-face meeting. So what you have here 

7 is some ideas from our contractor as to how we 

8 might think about both model validation and 

9 stratification. And this gives both Board 

10 members and also NIOSH, if they wish, some 

11 opportunities to give thought to what has been 

12 suggested, as well as your comments, Mark. 

13 And then come to the Board meeting in October 

14 prepared hopefully to try to bring closure on 

15 the radon issue and then in turn to come to 

16 closure on the Blockson issue, on the 

17 petition.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, yes. And I 

19 was just going to say, you know, I'm not sure 

20 whether NIOSH had had an opportunity to 

21 consider any of these strategies and whether 

22 any of them make sense. I looked at a few and 
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1 had some reservations about a few of them, but 

2 some others seem to have more promise. And I 

3 don't know if Jim or others at NIOSH have an 

4 opinion on that now or whether we can, you 

5 know, maybe ask for them to consider that and 

6 maybe give us a report, you know, at the 

7 October meeting. 

8 MEMBER MUNN: Mark, this is Wanda. 

9 Could you clarify for us why you feel that 

10 Mallinckrodt is a valid surrogate for 

11 potential exploration in regard to this radon 

12 exposure?

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

14 MEMBER MUNN: It's not clear to me 

15 from what you've said why you would feel that 

16 that, in my mind, unrelated --

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, I know --

18 MEMBER MUNN: -- facility would 

19 have any bearing on what transpired at this 

20 phosphate plant.

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, and that's 

22 exactly why I hesitated to even bring it up. 
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1 It is not, and I never used the word 

2 "surrogate" --

3 MEMBER MUNN: No, that was my 

4 word.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- and shouldn't 

6 have. If I implied that, I misspoke.

7 MEMBER MUNN: All I was saying is 

8 that this is one example where you have a 

9 fairly robust set of monitoring data and 

10 potentially -- and this is a big if, you know, 

11 you have source term information and you could 

12 compare actual measured data with what this 

13 model that was created for the Blockson site, 

14 you know, you could put in your parameters for 

15 Mallinckrodt using the same Monte Carlo 

16 modeling approach and see what you got and 

17 compare it with the actual results that you 

18 have over time. So that was the only 

19 usefulness, utility it would have, I guess, 

20 not as a surrogate model. And we've heard Jim 

21 argue this many times, and I don't disagree 

22 with this, the ore used there, you know, had 
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1 much greater radium content and therefore much 

2 higher radon levels. So it would at least 

3 say, okay, we took this model and it does 

4 work, you know, reasonably well at 

5 Mallinckrodt and, you know, therefore we 

6 expect it would also work. So the reason was 

7 more to test this model rather than to use it 

8 as a surrogate.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: One concern, 

10 Mark -- this is Ziemer again. One concern I 

11 would have about doing that is that unless we 

12 agreed in advance that it was sort of a 

13 reasonable, and I'll use the word "surrogate" 

14 here -- if you found that they did agree, then 

15 it seems to me if I was NIOSH, I'd say, well, 

16 that sort of bolsters our case. But if you 

17 found that they don't agree, the main thing 

18 that's going to happen is they're going to 

19 point out why it isn't a good surrogate, why 

20 the source terms, not in terms of a model, but 

21 how it's generated and how it's distributed 

22 and so on, why it's not a good surrogate. 
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, we already 

2 know that it's not. I mean, I would argue I 

3 know it's not a good surrogate set of data.

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: But I mean, I can 

6 think of several concerns about using this 

7 approach. I'm just throwing it out there as a 

8 possibility.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, but once 

10 you get the answer --

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: But one thing is 

12 that if you have, you know, so much 

13 uncertainty on your source term and your other 

14 parameters that you're entering into this --

15 you know, but the one thing I guess I'd be 

16 most concerned about was the source term 

17 because arguably we have a fair amount of 

18 uncertainty in the Blockson model, you know, 

19 the existing model that we're assessing. The 

20 one sort of constant or the one, you know, 

21 pretty hard piece of data, at least that NIOSH 

22 has presented, is the source term information.
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, would you 

2 be interested in the degree of variation of 

3 radon levels at particular locations for given 

4 source terms? In other words, how it varies 

5 in time and space per unit source term or --

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, I guess I 

7 would look -- honestly, Paul, I haven't 

8 thought this completely through, but I would 

9 consider it in terms of, you know, we're 

10 saying, or NIOSH is saying, that this current 

11 approach, the 95th percentile will bound, you 

12 know, all workers for, you know, all these 

13 years. And we do see some variation in 

14 sampling throughout the plant. We have 

15 variation in Mallinckrodt, too, but if this 

16 model also -- you know, the one used at 

17 Mallinckrodt ends up being a -- you know, the 

18 95th ends up bounding all potential workers in 

19 that sort of situation, then I would say that 

20 it correctly predicts, you know, or is 

21 consistent with the measured data, that data 

22 that we have.
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1 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: So that's sort of 

3 the utility.

4 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: Is it a correct 

6 predictor or actual concentrations, actual 

7 exposure levels in the plant, not to be a 

8 surrogate set of data.

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

10 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. 

11 I'd like to -- if you don't mind, I think the 

12 big question is it's not the absolute value. 

13 Whether you work with data collected from 

14 Florida phosphate buildings, you work with 

15 data on radon measurements in any other 

16 buildings, including Mallinckrodt, it's not 

17 the absolute value that is of great interest 

18 here. It is the variability of the average 

19 annual value in different locations in the 

20 same building. See, in the end the real 

21 question is, does radon or any other aerosol 

22 behave in a way where the average annual 
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1 concentration in one location in the building 

2 is going to be substantially different than 

3 the average annual concentration in another 

4 location in that building, especially if the 

5 buildings don't have any, you know, partitions 

6 that are isolating one part of the building 

7 from the other where, you know, the source is 

8 isolated from one location. 

9 So in my mind the big question is, 

10 is the variability in the average annual 

11 concentration large or small in a given 

12 structure, not the absolute values themselves. 

13 And that was really one of the themes that 

14 rang true, the strategies we identified, not 

15 to try to find an absolute value of what the 

16 upper bound or average annual value would be, 

17 but more along the lines of how variable is 

18 the average annual value within a given 

19 building.

20 MEMBER GRIFFON: And, John, along 

21 those lines, just to go back to my 

22 Mallinckrodt, you know, case here, I mean, 
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1 that's sort of what I was considering, too, 

2 not the absolute values, because I believe 

3 that the Mallinckrodt values, you know, it's a 

4 much more concentrated or with regard to 

5 radium and higher radon levels than we would 

6 expect at any of these phosphate facilities. 

7 But you have a lot more data. So you can look 

8 at that variability a little better. And you 

9 can test it because what I've heard anyway is 

10 that, you know, yes, there is some 

11 variability, there are some gradients in the 

12 Blockson plant. You know, we don't doubt 

13 that. However, using the 95th on this model 

14 would account for that, would cover that. And 

15 that's I think what I was thinking when I 

16 mentioned this is that that could be tested in 

17 the case of Mallinckrodt possibly. I think 

18 there's a lot of potential pitfalls with 

19 regard to defining the source term, as I said. 

20 But, you know, that may be a test case where 

21 you have a -- it's one of the few places where 

22 we have a lot of measurement data that seemed 
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1 to be -- that we could possibly use for 

2 validation purposes. That's all I was saying.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Even if one 

4 validated the model, however, you still have 

5 the issue of stratification that you expressed 

6 concern with. It's hard to imagine how a 

7 structure like Mallinckrodt could be in any 

8 way relative to the kind of structure, and 

9 lack of structure in many cases, that existed 

10 at the Blockson plant. Would resolving the 

11 source term and 95th percentile issue -- in 

12 other words, would validating the model in 

13 your mind eliminate your stratification 

14 concerns? Or are we still talking about two 

15 different concerns?

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I don't --

17 no, no, no. You know, the Mallinckrodt 

18 facility, I think you're probably right, is 

19 not just one open, you know -- in my mind, I 

20 don't remember what the Mallinckrodt facility 

21 looked like, but I'm guessing that it was not 

22 this real big high bay facility such as 
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1 Blockson, you know?

2 MEMBER MUNN: It was not much --

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: And it might have 

4 been multiple rooms. So, you know, NIOSH may 

5 look at this quickly and say, you know what, 

6 it's not a good test case and here's the 

7 reason. That's all I was saying. But at 

8 least consider this or other places where you 

9 have a reasonable set of radon data and a 

10 reasonable understanding of the source term. 

11 I was trying to say, you know, it may --

12 forsake of looking at the model and 

13 considering whether it adequately addressed 

14 variations or gradients, you know, within real 

15 life data, we may be able to look outside the 

16 phosphate, you know what I mean? That's all I 

17 was saying, that there may be other possible 

18 sources of data that can be considered. Not 

19 to be surrogate measures, but rather just to 

20 test. And if they did find that right set, 

21 and maybe Mallinckrodt's not the right set, 

22 but then I think that would satisfy my concern 
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1 about the gradients, you know, that we know 

2 they exist, but clearly this Monte Carlo 

3 approach in this model by using the 95th will 

4 bound those. You know, so I would say yes, 

5 that would address both concerns.

6 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Further 

7 comments or questions?

8 Jim Neton, do you have any 

9 comments at this point?

10 DR. NETON: Well, no, I've been 

11 listening very attentively to the discussion, 

12 and I really don't have any input at this 

13 point other than, you know, if I hear 

14 something definitive that the Board would like 

15 us to do that would help resolve this issue, 

16 we'd be happy to consider it.

17 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think the only 

18 thing we really have before us today are the 

19 ideas brought up by SC&A, and we can get some 

20 feedback from the Board. I suspect there 

21 would be some desire on the Board members' 

22 part to at least have NIOSH's sort of reaction 
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1 to those as to whether you feel any of those 

2 are worth pursuing, or to the contrary.

3 Board members, any other --

4 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda again. 

5 We have had this information from SC&A, this 

6 commentary on validating the model and the 

7 stratification issues. We've had it for 

8 several weeks now. I haven't heard anyone ask 

9 NIOSH specifically whether they've had 

10 adequate opportunity to review those and 

11 whether they have any comment. I'd like to 

12 know if they have already.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, number 

14 one, I don't think at this point -- it's not 

15 an official -- John described it as a thought 

16 piece. It's not an official deliverable from 

17 SC&A. And I don't believe that NIOSH would 

18 automatically respond to that. Would you, 

19 Jim?

20 DR. NETON: No, that's correct. I 

21 mean, we certainly have gone through it and 

22 thought about some of it, but we're not 
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1 automatically going to respond to what John 

2 termed as a thought paper, I guess. Again, 

3 we'd be happy to hear what the Board's 

4 opinions are on these and would adopt or 

5 consider any approaches that might be 

6 beneficial.

7 MEMBER MUNN: All right. Thank 

8 you, Jim. I didn't anticipate any formal 

9 response. I had just thought perhaps you 

10 might have some thoughts.

11 DR. NETON: You know, I could 

12 comment briefly. You know, I have some of the

13 concerns that Mark raised about some of the 

14 issues, and they're all related to 

15 stratification. So, I mean, I don't know that 

16 any of these -- my general thought is that all 

17 of these approaches in themselves require 

18 certain assumptions. They're also subject to 

19 certain validation requirements. And so I 

20 don't know if we're going to go down sort of 

21 this infinite regression pathway where, you 

22 know, we produce an analysis that has certain 
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1 inherent assumptions again that says well that 

2 supports our model. Well, how valid are those 

3 assumptions? You know, you keep kind of going 

4 on and on down this path. So I'm not sure 

5 that this would provide the weight of the 

6 evidence that the Board is looking for.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you, Jim.

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Other comments 

9 from other Board members?

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean, other 

11 than I would ask if before the next meeting if 

12 Jim could possibly give some thought to the 

13 Mallinckrodt or other data sets, you know, 

14 that I just discussed, whether the utility of 

15 using that - - those to sort of test the 

16 model. 

17 And then, Jim, I would also take 

18 you up on your offer. If you can provide; I'm 

19 sure they're in the site research database, 

20 but those other references regarding the 

21 source term. You mentioned that there was 

22 other references.
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1 DR. NETON: Right, Tom Tomes I 

2 don't think is on the call, but he's since 

3 found a number of other documents on that.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. If you can 

5 just, you know -

6 DR. NETON: Yes, we could 

7 certainly do that.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, that would 

9 be great. 

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So the 

11 action will be, number one, that NIOSH will 

12 provide the additional documentation, provide 

13 that to Mark particularly to look at and maybe 

14 copy the rest of us on that information as 

15 well. And I haven't heard from the Board any 

16 sort of overwhelming desire to have NIOSH 

17 respond to the SC&A ideas.

18 Board members, would you like 

19 NIOSH to at least give a preliminary critique 

20 of whether they believe any of these things 

21 are worth following up? Not that they would 

22 actually do it, but they obviously have looked 
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1 at them. Do you want them to give their 

2 thoughts on these at the October meeting?

3 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. My 

4 initial thought is it should not be necessary 

5 as long as we're meeting the desires that Mark 

6 has expressed and that Dr. Melius has 

7 expressed in the past. If their desires for 

8 further instruction and further examination 

9 have been met then there does not appear to be 

10 any reason to request specific response to all 

11 of these issues. I would request that the 

12 information would be sent to at least the work 

13 group members at the same time, even though 

14 the work group has not been functioning in 

15 recent months.

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. And I 

17 suggest that we send it to the whole Board 

18 because the issue has moved up from the work 

19 group level to the Board level in any event. 

20 MEMBER MUNN: Correct.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So, we're 

22 considering this as a full Board at this 
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1 point. So I think it's appropriate that only 

2 the work group be informed but others as well.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: Paul, this is 

4 Mark.

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, Mark?

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: I have a slightly 

7 different view on that than Wanda, especially 

8 option 3. My concern is that I may have -

9 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: You're talking 

10 about strategy 3?

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: I'm sorry, 

12 strategy 3, yes. See, that one to me sort of 

13 possibly dovetails with the whole notion of 

14 Mallinckrodt data, really looking at the 

15 variability and how the model accounts for 

16 that variation. But I think it was actually 

17 slightly different than that. And I must say 

18 that, you know, a couple of the strategies I 

19 felt, as Jim just said, that, you know, we 

20 would be going down a possible path to 

21 recreate some of those theoretical thought 

22 pieces there that we'd almost be questioning, 
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1 whether, you know, our assumptions on those 

2 were erroneous. But option 3 stood out a 

3 little to me that it might have some merit. 

4 But I would like to maybe have NIOSH at least 

5 -- I don't know that I'm looking -- you know, 

6 my thought is I don't need a written 

7 assessment of these strategies, but rather 

8 just, you know, maybe be prepared to give us a 

9 quick response on the strategies laid out by 

10 SC&A and maybe pay particular attention to 

11 number 3. That would be my hope.

12 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Other Board 

13 members?

14 (No response.)

15 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I mean, at this 

16 point I think I certainly would support Mark 

17 in that. 

18 Jim Neton, if NIOSH is able to 

19 give a -- we're not asking in-depth studies, 

20 but give their sort of reaction to these 

21 ideas, and particularly focus on the third 

22 strategy as to whether that is something that 
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1 would be of any help or doable.

2 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim. I 

3 have to admit of all the strategies, three was 

4 something which I think we kind of 

5 communicated a little differently to the Board 

6 in previous discussions. And that was the 

7 fact that, you know, we don't have -- clearly 

8 strategy 3 calls for finding data that was 

9 contemporary. We don't have that. But we 

10 have a lot of data that was taken in phosphate 

11 plants at a later date, and we do have 

12 distributions available. And on top of that, 

13 I think it's as important to look not only at 

14 the variability but the relative magnitude of 

15 the values. If one consistently sees values 

16 that are approaching an order of magnitude 

17 lower than what we're assigning at Blockson, 

18 even though it's in a different time frame, 

19 one has to wonder then could the ventilation 

20 rates, which is driving most of this, have 

21 been more than an order of magnitude greater 

22 to account for those differences? That's sort 
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1 of where I feel a weight of the evidence 

2 argument starts to make sense. 

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: And, Jim, maybe 

5 if you could -- yes, I mean --

6 DR. NETON: I'd be happy to put 

7 something together like that.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: That would be 

9 good.

10 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think that 

11 would be helpful.

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- interested in 

13 looking at that both ways.

14 DR. NETON: That I think we've 

15 already tried to communicate. Maybe it's not 

16 been, you know, succinct in a single document, 

17 but that sort of argument. In addition to the 

18 fact that Mallinckrodt may not be a good 

19 surrogate, but given the source term was maybe 

20 1,000 times more concentrated radium, you 

21 know, I think that the model would probably 

22 over predict the radon concentration in 
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1 Mallinckrodt by a considerable margin. You 

2 know, that's something I think that we talked 

3 about.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, and that 

5 would be supportive, right.

6 DR. NETON: ORAU, and I had 

7 mentioned this before, had done a study where 

8 they took and did a time-weighted -- I know 

9 there's a lot of objection to time weighted 

10 studies, but at a time-weighted average 

11 exposure to workers at Mallinckrodt between --

12 the very early years, up to 1956, I believe, 

13 and the values were not that different than 

14 the 95th percentile we're using at Blockson. 

15 That, again, to me is sort of a weight of the 

16 evidence argument that says, you know, this is 

17 a source term much more concentrated and these 

18 workers are not receiving time weight 

19 exposures approaching -- or very close to, it 

20 may be a factor of two, but in the same 

21 ballpark, let's say, as what we're assigning 

22 it at Blockson.
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1 So we could put some of that 

2 together, you know, maybe in one place.

3 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim.

4 Board members, is that agreeable? 

5 Any objections to that as a pass forward? We 

6 have two things that NIOSH would do. One is 

7 to provide those references that you referred 

8 to earlier. And then the other would be to 

9 look more closely at strategy 3 and whether or 

10 not that can be utilized for addressing the 

11 issue of -- well, mainly the stratification 

12 issue, but to some extent has some validation 

13 implications as well.

14 Is that agreeable with everyone?

15 (No response.)

16 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I hear no 

17 objections.

18 Mark, does that --

19 MEMBER GRIFFON: That sounds fine.

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Sounds 

21 reasonable.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. We'll 
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1 proceed on that basis then and have a report. 

2 And, Ted, if you'll put this on 

3 the agenda for the October meeting as well.

4 MR. KATZ: Absolutely, Dr. Ziemer.

5 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Can I ask one 

7 more thing before we get off the topic?

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: You bet.

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: This is to Jim 

10 Neton really. If I have questions on the 

11 actual crystal ball model, is there anyone I 

12 can turn to at NIOSH, or should I go through 

13 you, Jim? I'll certainly cc everyone, but --

14 DR. NETON: You can start with me.

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay.

16 DR. NETON: I should be able to 

17 answer it. If I can't, I'll track down who 

18 can.

19 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. Okay. All 

20 right. Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. I think 

22 we're set on that then. Are we?
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1 Ted, you have some final issues 

2 with respect to agenda?

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, just 

4 one, I think, which is I just would like to 

5 try to confirm, although we're missing a

6 couple of Board members, but I know it from 

7 one at least, who is interested for the 

8 Brookhaven, to actually see the facility since 

9 we have that SEC coming up and so on. And let 

10 me just run through, to make this quick, the 

11 people I think have said yes, but I could be 

12 wrong on one of these. And then just open it 

13 up for someone to correct me on the people I 

14 think have said yes, and also to add in for 

15 others that may want to do it but haven't said 

16 so.

17 So I believe I have Gen Roessler, 

18 Josie Beach, Phil Schofield, Bob, Brad, Wanda 

19 and Mark have said yes, I think. Is that 

20 correct?

21 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is Bob 

22 Presley --
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, Ted, I can't 

2 do it.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. Not Mark. 

4 Sorry. That's right.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: That's right, not 

6 Mark.

7 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hey Ted?

8 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, and this is 

9 Ziemer. I indicated to you I have visited 

10 Brookhaven a number of times in the past, so I 

11 probably won't go.

12 MR. KATZ: Right.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. 

14 That is correct for me.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. Mike, are you 

16 with us on this call?

17 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes, I'm here.

18 MR. KATZ: This tour which would 

19 probably be the Monday afternoon before the 

20 Board meeting, is this something you're 

21 thinking you might attend or -

22 MEMBER GIBSON: I don't think I'll 
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1 be available.

2 MR. KATZ: Okay. Okay. And I 

3 have no other takers then, I believe.

4 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hey, Ted?

5 MR. KATZ: Yes?

6 MEMBER PRESLEY: You might ask the 

7 staff.

8 MR. KATZ: No, no, no. That's a 

9 separate thing. I just wanted to get the 

10 Board here on this call, but absolutely I've 

11 opened it. The option is there for the staff 

12 to attend, too. And I've already heard from 

13 SC&A. I haven't yet heard from OCAS.

14 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. And, Ted, 

15 any other information needed for the Board 

16 meeting agenda for October?

17 MR. KATZ: I think we're good, but 

18 I will certainly be sending out a draft so 

19 that you can see what's there and can comment, 

20 if necessary. And I'll be doing that fairly 

21 soon.

22 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you 
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1 very much.

2 MEMBER PRESLEY: There's no 

3 problem with us coming in early on our rooms, 

4 right?

5 MR. KATZ: There will not be. 

6 There may be a problem right this moment, but 

7 that will certainly be an option. Otherwise, 

8 it of course wouldn't work for particularly 

9 folks coming from parts west.

10 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes, because I'm 

11 coming in on Sunday.

12 MR. KATZ: Right.

13 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank 

14 you. I believe that concludes our agenda for 

15 today. Does anyone else have any additional 

16 items they want to raise to us?

17 (No response.)

18 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: If not, then I 

19 will declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you 

20 all very much.

21 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

22 matter went off the record at 1:22 p.m.) 
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