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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND WORKER

HEALTH

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON THE PINELLAS PLANT SEC

+ + + + +

THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2009

+ + + + +

 The meeting came to order at

9:30 a.m. in the Zurich Room of the

Cincinnati Airport Marriott Hotel, Hebron,

Kentucky, Phillip Schofield, Chairman,

presiding.

PRESENT: 

 

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Chairman

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member*

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member*

THEODORE M. KATZ, Acting Designated Federal

Official
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IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS:

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor*

SHAHRA ANDERSON, Senator Bill Nelson's 

 Office

JASON BROEHM, CDC

GRADY CALHOUN, NIOSH

PETER DARNELL, NIOSH

LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH

BRIAN GLECKLER, Dade Moeller & Associates

DONNA HAND, Public

EMILY HOWELL, HHS*

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

MICHAEL RAFKY, HHS*

ELYSE THOMAS, ORAU

*Participating via telephone
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 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Opening Remarks

Ted Katz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Roll Call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Reconstruction Doses in Absence of Early

Health Physics Industrial Hygiene

Environmental Records

John Mauro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 9:31 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning, everyone

4 in the room and on the phone. This is Ted

5 Katz. I'm the acting designated federal

6 official for the Advisory Board on Radiation

7 Worker Health. And we are convening the

8 Pinellas Working Group.

9 And as always, we begin with roll

10 call, beginning with board members in the room

11 with the chair.

12 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Phillip

13 Schofield, Chair, board member, no conflict.

14 MR. KATZ: And thank you. Yes,

15 please, everybody address conflict as well.

16 And then on the line, board

17 members?

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Brad Clawson,

19 board member, no conflict.

20 MEMBER PRESLEY: Robert Presley,

21 board member, no conflict.

22 MR. KATZ: Okay. And, Dr. Poston,
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1 are you with us?

2 Okay. And any chance, Mike

3 Gibson, are you with us?

4 Okay. Then NIOSH ORAU Team in the

5 room?

6 MR. CALHOUN: Grady Calhoun, NIOSH

7 OCAS, no conflict.

8 MR. DARNELL: Peter Darnell, NIOSH

9 OCAS, no conflict or bias.

10 MR. GLECKLER: Brian Gleckler,

11 Dade Moeller & Associates in support of NIOSH,

12 no conflict or bias.

13 MS. THOMAS: Elyse Thomas, ORAU

14 Team.

15 MR. KATZ: And then on the phone

16 for NIOSH ORAU Team?

17 You expecting anyone on the phone? 

18 Okay.

19 Okay. And then SC&A in the room?

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

21 conflict.

22 MR. KATZ: And on the line. Any
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1 SC&A staff on the line?

2 Okay. And then other federal

3 employees or contractors on the line?

4 MS. ANDERSON: Shahra Anderson,

5 Senator Bill Nelson's office.

6 MR. KATZ: Could you repeat your

7 first name, please?

8 MS. ANDERSON: It's Shahra

9 Anderson.

10 MR. KATZ: Oh, Shahra? Thank you. 

11 Welcome.

12 MS. ANDERSON: Thank you.

13 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, NIOSH

14 contractor.

15 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS.

16 MR. RAFKY: Michael Rafky, HHS.

17 MR. BROEHM: Jason Broehm, CDC.

18 MR. KATZ: Welcome, all of you.

19 Okay. And then members of the

20 public in the room?

21 MS. HAND: Donna Hand.

22 MR. KATZ: So Donna Hand's here. 
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1 Welcome, Donna.

2 And on the line, other members of

3 the public?

4 If you want, you can identify

5 yourself. You don't have to.

6 PARTICIPANT: That's okay. My

7 name is not important.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. Very good. 

9 Welcome anyway. And then just to let

10 everybody know on the telephone, the usual

11 procedure is to mute your phone except when

12 you are addressing the group. And if you

13 don't have a mute button on your phone, star

14 six on your phone will work as a mute, or it

15 usually does. And then if you mute yourself

16 using star six and you want to address the

17 group, to come off of mute you just press star

18 six again.

19 And also please remember, folks on

20 the phone, do not use your hold button at any

21 time during the call. If you need to leave

22 the call for a bit, just disconnect and call
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1 back in, because your hold button usually is

2 associated with some sort of noise or feedback

3 that interrupts the discussion. So thank you.

4 And, Phil, it's all yours.

5 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Okay. The

6 way we're going to do this, we're just going

7 right down the issues as they're outlined in

8 the matrix. And I don't think it's really

9 going to take us all that long today. I think

10 mostly it should be fairly well in hand.

11 So the first issue is on the

12 reconstruction doses in absence of early

13 health physics industrial hygiene

14 environmental records. 

15 You want to do it?

16 MR. KATZ: John, you want to just

17 sort of get --

18 DR. MAURO: Yes, maybe I can set

19 the table a little bit.

20 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Okay.

21 DR. MAURO: That would be helpful. 

22 The last time we met I guess was
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1 on June 11th, about a year ago, and a lot has

2 been accomplished at that time and since that

3 time.

4 The best way to think about this

5 is, you know, Pinellas issued its -- ORAU

6 issued its site profile in 2005. I think

7 there might have been a 2006. One of the TBDs

8 might have been as recent as 2006.

9 SC&A issued its review of the site

10 profile dated September 16, 2006 and the

11 bottom line is there were 11 primary issues,

12 eight secondary issues. The primary issues

13 are by far the ones that are of concern.

14 There was a work group meeting

15 held on June 11th. Numerous follow-up

16 investigations and white papers have been

17 exchanged. And on June 9th, last week, SC&A

18 issued a PA-cleared version of the complete

19 matrix, which is a beast. It's big. The

20 reason it's big, it's almost like a compendium

21 of the history of the program. So we captured

22 every step along the way. So it's somewhat
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1 burdensome and it's certainly not something

2 we're going to want to go through in detail. 

3 It's unnecessary. But it does represent a

4 convenient record.

5 MR. CALHOUN: Is that the 50-page

6 one?

7 DR. MAURO: Yes, the front of it

8 is dated June 1st, 2009. It's probably about

9 50 pages, yes. That's it right there. Okay?

10 Now, what I would recommend we do,

11 it turns out that out of the 11 findings, for

12 all intents and purposes, nothing new has

13 developed. And therefore, all intents and

14 purposes, SC&A's position is recommend closure

15 on eight out of the eleven. And really it's

16 a matter of the best way to look at it is we

17 agree in principle with the solution and at

18 such time that the site profile is revised,

19 the degree to which those issues have been

20 attended to, and of course it will be up to

21 the work group whether they want to give it

22 one last read, sign off, or sign off on it
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1 now.

2 Because they're relatively brief,

3 one of the things I did that might be helpful

4 to go through all 11, it might be a good idea

5 to sort of march through, a refresher, is we

6 had a conference call with Senator Nelson's

7 office a week ago?

8 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes,

9 somewhere around there.

10 DR. MAURO: Last week, yes. And

11 what I did at the time, this was only

12 distributed to the work group, not to Senator

13 Nelson's offices. I took these 50 pages and

14 I boiled it down to two, and I just handed

15 them out to you. 

16 And, Ms. Hand, do you have a copy

17 of that? 

18 MR. KATZ: Yes.

19 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: And I think

20 what might be a good idea is, we could go into

21 each one quickly, go through it, see where it

22 is and the degree to which we want to dive
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1 deeper into it, revisit it, discuss it

2 further. We certainly can. But it's

3 certainly a good way rather than burden

4 ourselves with the 50-so pages here.

5 So if that's okay with everyone, I

6 could start marching down.

7 One point that Grady and I

8 believe, Peter, you had mentioned, we will be

9 getting to metal tritides, item No. 2. And I

10 understand there are certain ground rules that

11 we have to follow. And I'm looking, I guess

12 to the Q-cleared people in the room who have

13 participated in that ground rule meeting, sort

14 of make sure we stay within boundaries. 

15 MR. DARNELL: We can talk about

16 the material, what was used, but we can't talk

17 about quantities or how it was used.

18 DR. MAURO: Fine.

19 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Or types of

20 specific quantities --

21 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

22 DR. MAURO: And that is going to
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1 be --

2 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: So, in kind

3 of general terms, we have to say in general

4 terms as far as --

5 MR. DARNELL: But I actually have

6 a very general statement to make about it that

7 I think will suffice.

8 DR. MAURO: Well, okay. Well, I'm

9 going to get there quickly.

10 Issue one was something that was

11 resolved quite some time ago. It basically

12 said that when we reviewed the site profile we

13 felt that there may have been a lot of

14 additional records out there in different

15 record centers that could enrich the site

16 profile. And we passed that comment on and we

17 actually looked into some of those records,

18 but you folks did a superb job in going to

19 LANL, Kansas City, Savannah River, Lawrence

20 Livermore, Sandia, and you pulled 604 new

21 files. Loaded them up on the O: drive. We

22 had a chance to look at it. As far as I'm
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1 concerned, you know, we have a very

2 comprehensive site query database. The

3 information there of course is all valuable. 

4 And I think you have been totally responsive

5 to that particular concern.

6 Now what might occur, and this is

7 sort of one of those areas that whether you

8 want to consider them open or closed, I think

9 you were responsive to that issue, the degree

10 to which your next version of the site profile

11 might reflect changes that reflect that 604

12 files. That's something that, you know, the

13 extent to which you may want to see what

14 happens, we'll deal with it at that time. But

15 right now, as far as I'm concerned, that

16 concern has been resolved. 

17 MR. DARNELL: Most of the

18 documentation that we received in the 604

19 files is redundant to what we already have. 

20 And this is just as a first gloss over. We

21 haven't gone in depth yet. But we did note

22 that there was some data for the D&D period in
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1 there. 

2 DR. MAURO: Oh, good.

3 MR. DARNELL: That will definitely

4 go to another issue, but it is something that

5 will be added to the TBD over the course of

6 time when it gets updated.

7 DR. MAURO: Perfect. The second

8 item is, the issue is potential doses from

9 insoluble metal tritides not sufficiently

10 addressed. That goes way back. That was one

11 of our original findings and there's a long

12 story here. This is probably the single most

13 important issue, from my perspective, and I

14 think SC&A's perspective for the following

15 reason: Tritium is the major compound that

16 was dealt with or isotope that was dealt with

17 at Pinellas for a variety of reasons. At the

18 time we reviewed the site profile, there

19 really was no provision, this goes back a few

20 years, for reconstructing doses to people who

21 might have been exposed to either organically22 bound tritium or the various metal tritides. 
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1 And the reason that's an issue,

2 and I guess this is as much for the visitors

3 as it is for the people on the line, the

4 reason for the issue is most facilities that

5 hand tritium deal with tritiated water and

6 there's always, and for the longest period of

7 time there's been comprehensive bioassay

8 samples where you pull a urine sample, you

9 analyze for tritium and you could reconstruct

10 the intake of tritium from that. 

11 Tritides becomes a little bit

12 different because what you're inhaling is not

13 tritiated water anymore. It's some type of

14 metal where the tritium is bound to various

15 degrees. And as a result, it's more like a

16 particle now. So when it's inhaled it has

17 different biokinetics. It resides in the lung

18 quite a bit longer, depending on the nature of

19 the tritide. And as a result, it has the

20 potential to for the same amount inhaled in

21 terms of let's say picocuries. The dose to

22 the lung could be substantially larger. And
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1 even confounding it worse is that because it's

2 retained so well, if you take a urine sample,

3 you may not see anything, but there may have

4 been a substantial intake. So it creates a

5 health physics dose reconstruction challenge.

6 NIOSH did a superb job in issuing

7 OTIB-66. OTIB-66 is a generic complex-wide

8 protocol for reconstructing doses to workers

9 who might have been exposed to organically10 bound tritium or to various forms of tritides,

11 metal tritides. We reviewed that in depth. 

12 We had the best there is, as far as I'm

13 concerned, Joyce Lipsztein, look at it and

14 she's intimately familiar with ICRP protocols

15 for that. And she basically, with some minor

16 commentary on organically-bound tritium, which

17 is subsequently repaired and fixed, which

18 really is only a very marginal issue that has

19 been taken care of -- we find that, per OTIB,

20 technically sound, scientifically valid and a

21 good rock to build your work on. 

22 Now, however, that brings us to
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1 the issue at hand, how do you apply it? 

2 Great. If I know you were working with

3 tritides for a five-year period at some

4 facility and I took monthly urine samples, and

5 I measured it, I could reconstruct your dose

6 using OTIB-66. The problem becomes do we know

7 what you were working with, what form of

8 tritide, when you were working with it, so

9 that we could implement it at your site? And

10 that has become a challenge because the

11 quantify of tritium that moves through any

12 given facility -- many facilities that use

13 tritium and tritides, it's hard to discern who

14 was working with it, how much they were

15 working with. And not only is it hard to

16 discern, this subject is -- we're moving into

17 the world of classified information. That's

18 my understanding. By the way, I don't have a

19 Q clearance, so what I'm describing is

20 something I know from the general

21 understanding of the subject.

22 Now, on May 27th, a special
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1 meeting was held of the Mound work group where

2 this was the first time this issue entered the

3 pipeline and to be dealt with in a serious

4 manner. And the strategy that discussed and

5 is being implemented as speak is the work

6 group, NIOSH, the SC&A crew. Basically the

7 strategy is, NIOSH feels they're in a position

8 to identify those workers who might have

9 handled the most recalcitrant, I'll use that

10 word -- the form of tritide that is the most

11 insoluble, and those that dealt with lesser

12 soluble versions. So the idea being is if you

13 could sort of perform a triage. Which workers

14 we're going to assume are being exposed to

15 this stuff and which ones we assume are

16 exposed to some other form. And the bottom

17 line is they identified 12 workers that they

18 said we're going to assume those 12 workers,

19 and I'm believe I'm free to say this, because

20 I got the information, is at hafnium tritide. 

21 Hafnium tritide is the form of tritium that is

22 the most insoluble. And if you assume that,
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1 you're making the most conservative

2 assumption. So that if you have bioassay data

3 from the worker, you're going to say I'm going

4 to assume that bioassay data is the result of

5 inhaling hafnium tritide. You are assigning

6 the highest possible dose that that person's

7 respiratory tract could have experienced. 

8 Now, if the dose is something

9 other than the respiratory tract, you always

10 assume it's tritiated water, because that

11 gives you the highest dose to organs other

12 than the respiratory tract. 

13 That strategy was, and as for

14 Mound, was found to be during the work group

15 meeting, reasonable. SC&A found it to be

16 reasonable and appropriate. I believe the

17 other members of the work group found it

18 appropriate. So the idea being each site will

19 be dealt with from that perspective. 

20 Now, my understanding is when we

21 discussed this matter in our conference call

22 with the representatives from Senator Nelson's
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1 office is as it turns out there were no forms

2 of tritium that were handled at Pinellas that

3 would fall into the category of the most

4 recalcitrant form or insoluble form like a

5 hafnium. And on that basis I'm not quite sure

6 what you're doing and I think that you're

7 still deciding what you're going to do, but in

8 my opinion it's tractable. That is, you will

9 come up with we're going to assume everyone --

10 MR. DARNELL: Well let me say I

11 can tell you --

12 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry. I'm

13 talking too much.

14 MR. DARNELL: -- what we're

15 probably going to do. Mostly likely, and this

16 research is still being done, so I may have to

17 back off a little bit from the conference

18 call, there was no hafnium-type tritide there. 

19 But the three that are listed in the research

20 database are class M, so it's a little bit

21 less recalcitrant for the workforce. But

22 Pinellas was different from Mound in the case
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1 that the tritide contamination from the

2 neutron tubes was a bit more spread out. In

3 other words, more of the workforce could be

4 exposed to it.

5 Most likely we will be going to

6 the path that anybody that had tritium

7 exposure would be calculated for exposure to

8 tritides. We just don't know which one of the

9 tritides yet we will be using as the worst

10 actor.

11 DR. MAURO: Now, I've been

12 thinking about this since the May 27 meeting

13 and saying, okay, I think to a certain degree

14 this does bring us into what I call the world

15 of classified concerns.

16 MR. DARNELL: Right.

17 DR. MAURO: That is, at some point

18 in the process someone has to sit down and say

19 what you just said is reasonable and how

20 you're going to implement it seems to be

21 reasonable because you have information that

22 says just what you said. We know that there
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1 were no hafnium-like and this other form. The

2 M form does in fact capture the clearance in

3 the biokinetics for just about all of the

4 possible -- and I understand there are a lot

5 of different forms. There may have been

6 dozens of different possible forms. And that

7 the M version that's modeled in OTIB-66 is

8 reasonably bounding for all those various

9 forms. Someone needs to be able to say that

10 and I think it has to be said behind a cone of

11 silence.

12 MR. DARNELL: There are two, or

13 actually three cleared personnel that are

14 working on this issue for OCAS.

15 MR. KATZ: Generally you don't

16 name who is cleared, but --

17 DR. MAURO: That's okay. Well, I

18 have to say, that's the extent of my

19 understanding and my -- SC&A's, when I say my

20 -- SC&A's perspective on this is this issue is

21 well in hand. It's moving in a direction that

22 seems to be tractable. It's in a direction
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1 that is compatible and consistent what's being

2 on other sites. And in general, I think there

3 is a favorable outlook that this is going to

4 be resolved.

5 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: This issue

6 will be addressed in the latter part of this

7 month in Germantown.

8 DR. MAURO: Okay.

9 MR. KATZ: So just to clarify

10 that, in Germantown there's going to be a

11 meeting to sort of verify information related

12 to Mound. And you're saying that you will

13 also take care of Pinellas at the same time?

14 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes, the same

15 classification problem would be dealt with at

16 that time.

17 MR. KATZ: Thanks. 

18 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: And there

19 will be a more generic terminology coming out

20 of it.

21 MR. KATZ: Thanks.

22 DR. MAURO: And that was one of
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1 the three out of the eleven that was what I

2 consider to be still in the hopper. But as I

3 said, it sounds like it's moving along.

4 The third item has to do with

5 plutonium-238, plutonium-239, bioassays. And

6 in our original review, we had a number of

7 comments, and we actually issued a white paper

8 that said we're having trouble with your

9 minimum detectable concentrations for

10 plutonium. A lot of variability. We saw some

11 problems. 

12 However, since then, and this is a

13 relatively recent development, you folks have

14 issued a white paper and we've discussed this

15 matter during the previous meeting, and it

16 might be a good idea to give the summary of

17 what the latest position is on that matter. 

18 MR. DARNELL: Basically, NIOSH and

19 our contractors went through the bioassay data

20 itself person-by-person for the Pinellas site

21 that had plutonium bioassay. Most of the

22 bioassay dealt with pre-employment samples. 
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1 In other words, sampling that's done before

2 you start working with plutonium. There were

3 a couple that had bioassay samples after they

4 started working with the program, none of

5 which were positive. I'm trying to keep up

6 with what I'm reading. 

7 Because there was no real need for

8 a bioassay program at Pinellas, they didn't

9 follow up with those workers. They didn't

10 keep on doing a bioassay program. The

11 downside of that was that they actually didn't

12 do the bioassay to the level of expectation

13 that we have in today's world with the

14 bioassay. So the quality of the bioassay data

15 that Pinellas presented was kind of

16 questionable, limited amount. Some of the

17 things didn't jibe with how the rules and

18 regulations are set up now. And NIOSH

19 basically agrees with SC&A that the quality of

20 bioassay data is questionable in that it's

21 limited. 

22 But in looking at the program and
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1 looking at what plutonium is used for at

2 Pinellas, it was for radio thermoelectric

3 generators, I think it's called. RTGs. And

4 they were batteries, triple encapsulated. 

5 Which means plutonium was inside three

6 different encapsulates. There was no record

7 of any gross contamination. Phil has provided

8 us with the information that they didn't send

9 out contaminated RTGs in general in the DOE

10 complex. We have some indication that a very,

11 very lower level of contaminants found on a

12 battery here and a battery there. Those were

13 decontaminated inside the fume hoods at the

14 facility. 

15 Brian has provided some

16 calculations, if we need to see them, to tell

17 how many -- at the contaminations levels

18 discovered how many sources would have to be

19 handled at that contamination level to get to

20 1 millirem, and was on the order or 11,000.

21 MR. CALHOUN: That's per day?

22 MR. DARNELL: Per day. So there
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1 really is from a health physics perspective,

2 no loose contamination exposure for plutonium

3 at Pinellas. So what we proposed to do in our

4 white paper is in the event that there is at

5 some future time a claim that the documented

6 plutonium contamination; in other words,

7 whoever handled it, we would perform dose

8 calculations for that worker at that time. 

9 What we're basically going to do

10 is use the best MDA available. Either if it's

11 Pinellas data and it works out to be good,

12 we'll use that. If not, we may use another

13 programs MDA to calculate those.

14 DR. MAURO: If you're confronted

15 with that circumstance?

16 MR. DARNELL: If we're confronted

17 with that circumstance.

18 It would be episodic in nature. 

19 It's not going to be a chronic dose. The

20 basic changes to the TBD that's going to come

21 out of this is the plutonium section will

22 probably disappear to be replaced with this
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1 description of how we're actually going to

2 handle the plutonium.

3 DR. MAURO: SC&A's position is

4 that is satisfactory to us and we certainly

5 wait to see the revised section. But in

6 principle, like I said before, it sounds like

7 the problem has gone away.

8 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Correct me if

9 I'm wrong here, but I do believe in one of the

10 documents they said any that were -- I don't

11 remember the numbers now, were certain DP and

12 were returned to the supplier. 

13 MR. DARNELL: That never actually

14 happened at Pinellas. 

15 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Right.

16 MR. DARNELL: There was a --

17 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: But that was

18 part of their procedure, that anything at that

19 level --

20 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: The

22 procedure, the SOP required that that be
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1 returned to a vendor.

2 MR. GLECKLER: But they did find

3 some that were below that value. And what

4 they would do is -- that was upon the

5 receiving inspection, so they would perform

6 the receiving inspection in a hood, you know,

7 to survey them for contamination. And if they

8 found contamination, if it's below the 200 D

9 per M, they would decon it before they

10 released it to the plant and then it was

11 handled within glove boxes by the workers

12 after that.

13 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes, that is

14 standard protocol everywhere for the RTGs. 

15 DR. MAURO: If we're ready to move

16 on, No. 4. No. 4 is an old one that has been

17 since -- you know, it's not one of the active

18 ones, one of the three that I mentioned. 

19 The issue on No. 4 was when we

20 reviewed the records, the film badge records

21 of the workers, we found that in the early

22 years there was only a relatively small
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1 fraction of workers that were badged. Now

2 that in itself is not necessarily a problem as

3 long as it was done within an overarching

4 health physics program where you pick those

5 workers to be badged for good reason and let

6 other workers out for good reason, as opposed

7 to what we call sort of random sampling of

8 people where, you know, sometimes we call it

9 cohort sampling. 

10 We've had this problem in the past

11 where NIOSH's position was, well, the people

12 who were badged, they were badged because

13 they're the ones that have a potential for

14 greater than 25 percent of the radiation

15 protection standards, and everyone else

16 didn't. And we would say no, no, no. We

17 looked into the literature. This is not here

18 though. But whereupon the -- no, the way in

19 which they were sampling is they did that, but

20 there was some concern that they would just

21 pick -- well, we could take a carpenter, an

22 electrician, a guy who worked in this
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1 building. In other words, almost like cohorts

2 so that we had representatives of different

3 groups captured in the sampling program. And

4 each person sort of was dealt with as if you

5 were representative of that work group or that

6 time period. 

7 And that sort of creates a little

8 bit of a difficulty because it means that were

9 the people that were sampled -- not sampled,

10 were the people that were monitored in those

11 days truly representative of those workers are

12 at the highest potential for exposure? And

13 that's the reason we have raised this issue

14 here and why we have raised the issue in the

15 past elsewhere. 

16 However, in this case, you folks

17 responded back with a considerable amount of

18 documentation in the records that demonstrate

19 to our satisfaction that, no, this was not

20 cohort sampling. This was very much by

21 design, under deliberate control of the health

22 physics community at the time, that the people
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1 that were monitored were in fact the ones that

2 had the potential for exposure and it was not

3 cohort sampling or badging. So my

4 understanding is that this type of explanation

5 is going to be provided or has been provided,

6 or will be provided in the next version of

7 TBD.

8 MR. DARNELL: The next version.

9 DR. MAURO: But in principle we

10 are convinced that this issue has been

11 resolved.

12 No. 5. 

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Hey, John. This

14 is Brad.

15 DR. MAURO: Yes?

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: I've got a

17 question for you.

18 DR. MAURO: Sure.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: You were just

20 saying that as soon as this new TBD comes out

21 and everything else like that. So have we

22 actually laid hands on this information and
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1 reviewed it?

2 DR. MAURO: Yes, and only in terms

3 of material that was provided to us in

4 response to these issues. That is, we've

5 received white papers. We have material that

6 we incorporated into the big matrix that we're

7 not working from. We have a very large

8 matrix. 

9 When we opened up this discussion,

10 I made reference that I'm working from a very

11 abbreviated matrix. But we do have a very

12 large matrix that's --

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right, which I'm

14 looking at and stuff like that. I just wanted

15 to make sure, because it sounded like to me,

16 and this may have been my misconception, that

17 you were satisfied with it, but we really

18 hadn't seen it yet.

19 DR. MAURO: No, we actually have

20 the quotes. In other words, in the matrix

21 itself for this particular issue, there's

22 quite a bit of discussion with quotes from the
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1 original records that go way back, Pinellas,

2 that says that yes, this was not cohort

3 sampling. This was deliberate selection of

4 workers who clearly had a potential for

5 exposure above some level. I forget whether

6 it's 25 percent or 10 percent.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Twenty-five

8 percent. Any indication persons who had a

9 potential of 25 percent. 20.10(1) Code of

10 Federal Regulations.

11 DR. MAURO: Yes. Right. And

12 given that I guess objective of the design of

13 the sampling program, what this tells me is

14 that means that the workers that -- that

15 doesn't mean there aren't other workers. 

16 Understand. That doesn't mean there aren't

17 other workers who might have experienced

18 elevated exposures, but they were not part of

19 the badging program. What it does mean is if

20 the badging program was designed to accomplish

21 that and it was done in a deliberative way,

22 that means the population of data that you
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1 have represents the workers that are the high2 end workers. And from there you could

3 construct a distribution of exposures that

4 could be used for a coworker model. And then

5 at that point, you could assign whatever the

6 judgment is made. I mean, here's where we

7 come in. Okay. Now I'm about to reconstruct

8 the dose to the worker who wasn't badged back

9 in, whatever date it is. You're going to have

10 to assign a dose.

11 Now as along as you have a

12 distribution of data, of real data, that you

13 feel bounds the upper end of the distribution,

14 then it becomes a judgment of the dose

15 reconstructor to select whether you want to

16 work for that particular worker that was

17 unbadged, whether you feel it's appropriate to

18 assign the full distribution, the upward 95th

19 percentile, or some percentile in accordance

20 with OTIB-60, I think it is. 

21 So the wherewithal exists. That's

22 what I'm getting at. The wherewithal exists. 
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1 The data exists. That will allow NIOSH to

2 build a coworker model, assign doses to those

3 workers, those 75 percent of the workers that

4 were -- you know, whatever the percentage was,

5 that wasn't badged and is a way to assign

6 doses to them that are scientifically sound

7 and claimant favorable. 

8 We have had problems in the past

9 where the data set upon which the coworker

10 model was based was in question that doesn't

11 really capture the high end. For example, we

12 have claims made at other sites where the film

13 badges were left behind. And the reasons

14 being, because as they approached the high end

15 exposures, they were directed to leave film

16 badges behind. This is something that came up

17 about a test site. 

18 Now what that does is that

19 undermines the integrity of your distribution

20 for your -- you don't know if you caught the

21 upper end of the tail. A tremendous amount of

22 work went into that; I don't want to go into
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1 it, on Nevada Test Site, but I bring it up

2 only because it's when the distribution of

3 data that you have is in question in terms of

4 being able to capture the upper end of the

5 distribution is when you run into trouble. We

6 do not see that here. 

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. So do we

8 have coworker model for this yet?

9 MR. GLECKLER: Yes, it's actually

10 in the TBD already we used for the un11 monitored workers. We have a 95th percentile

12 dose of 100 millirem that we assigned.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Well, one

14 of the reasons why, and this pertains to

15 Pinellas, is because one of our dose

16 reconstructions that we did we went into the

17 -- one of them was a Pinellas worker, was a

18 receiving clerk. And they didn't really have

19 all this information. And they deemed because

20 of her job that she wouldn't have received

21 this. But I just want to make sure we got a

22 model that we can work with, because actually
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1 she's the one that received and shipped all

2 these RTGs and everything that came into the

3 plant and so forth. So I just wanted to make

4 sure that we've got a good coworker model to

5 be able to look at.

6 MR. DARNELL: Yes, we have

7 evidence from the workforce that these RTGs

8 were handled by hand. There was no special

9 precautions taken. No gloves were worn

10 between the worker's hand and picking up an

11 RTG source, which tells us that the RTG

12 sources themselves were extremely small. They

13 generate a lot of heat as they get larger. So

14 knowing that, we know that the exposure

15 potential is extremely small for these.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes, Brad, I think you

18 bring up a question that's in my mind very

19 important. That is, though the machinery

20 exists in the site profile for reconstructing

21 doses, when you actually -- and let's say we

22 find favorably that, yes, basically they've
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1 got a sound approach, what you're saying is

2 now we have a real case where it's

3 implemented, and it may not always be

4 implemented correctly. Now the way SC&A

5 catches that is, you know, we've been

6 reviewing one to two-and-a-half percent of the

7 cases. And we do find cases where the actual

8 implementation of the guidelines, the OTIBs,

9 the site profiles do not follow, you know, are

10 not being followed. And that would be a

11 finding, and that's dealt with. 

12 So, you know, it's a real concern

13 because, you know, there could be cases, other

14 cases, that we're not reviewing where perhaps

15 there has been -- the implementation of the

16 protocols have not been right on target. But

17 at least, you know, we're sampling a portion

18 of it to see the degree to which that occurs.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, right. And

20 what we saw in this dose reconstruction was

21 the reconstructor said due to her duties as a

22 quality assurance manager and shipping and
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1 receiving clerk she would not have received --

2 been around any of these doses or anything

3 else, which I highly disagreed with.

4 MS. HOWELL: Brad, if I could just

5 interrupt you for a minute. I think we're

6 getting a little too specific about individual

7 claimants here. We need to be a little bit

8 more broad in our conversation.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. That could

10 cover a whole lot of people. But how about a

11 Pinellas worker that received -- well, Emily,

12 you tell me how you'd want me to explain her.

13 MS. HOWELL: Well, I'm just not

14 sure that we need to go into, you know,

15 specific details about individual cases in

16 order to address the concerns that you are

17 having. But I'm not sure, you know, how to --

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'm looking to

19 you for direction, because part of the problem

20 is it was said because of these positions that

21 she would not have received this, which was

22 totally wrong.
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1 MR. DARNELL: Okay. This is Pete

2 Darnell with OCAS. Next week, if you will

3 call me through the OCAS 800 line, I'll be

4 glad to discuss any claim in detail with you.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, no, this

6 was done through the -- I have no problem with

7 that. But the issue that we got into was how

8 this model was going to actually work, because

9 we've already seen signs of it that people

10 were cut out of this because they felt that

11 their job tasks would not have been around

12 some of this stuff, which was wrong. And so

13 that was the point that I was trying to get

14 to, is that I want to make sure as we're

15 singling out these people and looking at it we

16 really have a clear understanding of what

17 their job tasks were.

18 MR. GLECKLER: One thing I can

19 provide is a little bit of background. People

20 assigned to the RTG facility were required to

21 be monitored. So if they were ones receiving

22 the RTG sources, they would have been assigned
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1 to that facility. They would have been

2 required to be monitored and dosimeters would

3 have been assigned. So un-monitored doses

4 would not be an issue for those workers. 

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Well, all

6 I'm telling you is what we've seen so far. 

7 But we're working that on the other end of the

8 dose reconstruction, because it was a finding

9 and we'll just go on from there. But I just

10 want to make that we keep that in the back of

11 our mind.

12 DR. MAURO: Brad, this is John. 

13 I'm going to go out on a limb a little bit

14 here, because I've raised this issue before,

15 but not in this context. You know, when we do

16 our Task 4 dose reconstructions, we look at

17 some sampling. And that's a relatively small

18 fraction of the total DRs. We are now moving

19 into a realm where we're looking at more and

20 more of what we're calling the best estimates. 

21 And I've made an observation, and I mentioned

22 this at the last dose reconstruction
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1 subcommittee meeting. It seems to me that

2 when a dose reconstruction is performed and

3 it's a best estimate, and it falls in the area

4 of 45 to 50 percent POC, that's where the

5 action is. Usually if it's up -- a bounding

6 or minimizing, or bounding or upper end value,

7 which is either denied or -- we have reviewed

8 so many of those and, you know, though we may

9 find some disparities in whether or not they

10 follow their procedures exactly, it doesn't

11 make a different. It happened in one case

12 with OTIB-4. 

13 But by and large, you know, when a

14 maximizing or minimizing approach is used, or

15 when the dose reconstruction is realistic and

16 it comes in very low, well below -- I'll say

17 below 40 percent or 45, it turns out that any

18 errors that were made really don't create a

19 circumstance, in my opinion, where the

20 potential for reversal exists. 

21 I made a recommendation, and I'm

22 going to do it again, if the designated
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1 federal official and project office doesn't

2 mind, I think that there aren't that many best

3 estimates that fall within 45 to 50 percent. 

4 There aren't that many best estimates as it

5 is, never mind between 45 and 50 percent. It

6 would be a good idea to review them all,

7 because those are the places where if there

8 have been errors made that are of some

9 significance that's where the reverses could

10 occur. And that's a pitch I've been making,

11 but I'd like to make it again.

12 MR. KATZ: Well, let me just speak

13 to that, for a minute, point of view. The

14 process here is that, I mean, that is in the

15 domain of the dose reconstruction work

16 subcommittee and it's absolutely valid for you

17 to raise it and make a pitch for that. I

18 think that was discussed to some extent in the

19 last subcommittee meeting.

20 DR. MAURO: And set aside.

21 MR. KATZ: And set aside. But

22 that is the place to come to resolution about
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1 how to go forward.

2 MR. DARNELL: One point I'd like

3 to just make sure everything's correct. The

4 band is between 45 and 52 percent that a best

5 estimate is found. It's not 45 and 50.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay.

7 DR. MAURO: Well, once it's

8 compensated, well, certainly that could be

9 looked at. But see, my main concern is I am

10 catching now, I review all the AWE dose

11 reconstruction, and I've been seeing 49.6,

12 49.2 and I'm reverse -- and as far as I'm

13 concerned, I found enough underestimate that

14 could be a reversal. I'm saying, may

15 goodness, this is important. And of course

16 you haven't seen it yet, but this is the last

17 round. 

18 Now, I think that when -- this is

19 quick and we'll move on, but when we met with

20 the dose reconstruction subcommittee and we

21 discussed this possibility, I think there was

22 the belief that there were an awful lot of
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1 those, and I think there weren't. And I did

2 not have the presence of mind at the time of

3 the meeting to pose the question, well, how

4 many are there? Right now there are 25,000

5 adjudicated dose reconstructions. Out of that

6 how many have been denied, are best estimates

7 and fall within the band of 45 to 50 percent? 

8 I think that's something we could find out. 

9 And if it turns out it's a handful, I think

10 we'd be doing a great service by reviewing

11 them all. Okay. See, that part of the story

12 I didn't say during the BRE.

13 MR. KATZ: That sounds perfectly

14 reasonable to me. 

15 DR. MAURO: Yes. Okay.

16 MR. KATZ: It's Mark Griffon and

17 subcommittee.

18 DR. MAURO: Well, no, I think they

19 were under the impression that there were

20 thousands of them that were in --

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: John, at that

22 time, and we're a little bit off, we need to
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1 get back to where we're at with Pinellas, 

2 but --

3 DR. MAURO: Okay.

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Brad, this is Larry

5 Elliott. If I could speak here, each board

6 presentation that I give on the status of the

7 program, there's one slide that is a bar graph

8 that contains the breakdown of probability of

9 causation on the claims that have been

10 completed, as we understand them, and there's

11 a bar of 40 to 49 percent, I believe. But we

12 can provide the 45 to 49.9. And it's not

13 thousands. It's on the order of hundreds,

14 perhaps; I don't know the exact number, but we

15 can get that for you.

16 DR. MAURO: We see 40 to 44.9 that

17 are maximizing. And though they're

18 maximizing, they still fall below. We don't

19 think those need to be looked at. We are more

20 interested in the ones that are best

21 estimates. So that's a further parsing down,

22 which could really minimize the number. Okay?
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1 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, there

2 shouldn't be any maximizing in the 45 to 49

3 percent category. Those should be best

4 estimates and those are run also, as you know,

5 through IREP a number of times. We don't just

6 run them through once. There's a statistical

7 procedure to assure that we're getting some

8 precision in that probability estimate. 

9 But yes, we can provide, identify

10 what you're asking for.

11 DR. MAURO: Thank you, Larry. And

12 I have to say, I know I just stepped over my

13 bounds a little bit, but I took advantage of

14 this opportunity given the question that was

15 raised by Brad.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. And we'll

17 take that up in the dose reconstruction.

18 DR. MAURO: Thank you.

19 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you.

20 DR. MAURO: No. 5. We're halfway

21 through. Problems with personnel dosimetry. 

22 Very general term. When we originally
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1 reviewed the site profile, we noticed that

2 there -- going back to the early years, the

3 design and the make of the film badge that was

4 used was not clear in our mind. And as a

5 result we were not really sure of what the

6 lowest low limit of detection would be for

7 that particular design, how it was calibrated. 

8 I guess my understanding is that -- so we were

9 wondering how you're going to deal with a film

10 badge that we don't have a good understanding

11 of what the lower limit of detection should

12 be. 

13 Subsequent to that, you folks have

14 provided a response and you plan to include

15 that material in the TBD, which goes into

16 considerable detail on the design, calibration

17 and lower limit of detection for that vintage

18 film badge. And, you know, we are looking

19 forward to seeing that. But in principle, it

20 sounded like -- and the material you provided

21 sounds like that you have this well in hand. 

22 So, you know, when that material is provided
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1 or the TBD is updated, I think that this is

2 something you'll be -- I believe that, you

3 know, you would be able to get your hands on

4 information like that and come to grips with

5 this matter. And, push comes to shove, if

6 there's some uncertainty, there's no doubt you

7 could place a claimant-favorable LLD on that

8 particular vintage film badge.

9 If there are no other questions, I

10 could move onto No. 6.

11 Six has been dealt with before and

12 it deals with the D&D phase. And as we heard

13 earlier, there is every intention by NIOSH to

14 the next revision of the site profile to

15 include the D&D stage. And of course at that

16 time SC&A could be asked to review the new

17 section dealing with the D&D phase. So, you

18 know, that's where we stand there.

19 Okay. I'll move onto No. 7. 

20 MR. KATZ: Can I just interject?

21 DR. MAURO: Sure.

22 MR. KATZ: Since that's sort of
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1 left open, so is there a sort of status update

2 from you guys about --

3 MR. DARNELL: Just what I said

4 earlier. We've identified some documents that

5 deal with the D&D time period in the way this

6 batch of records that were discovered at the

7 sites and whenever the priorities give ORAU

8 time to do the update, it'll get into the D&D. 

9 Don't have a time on that yet.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Not even a

11 general sense?

12 MR. DARNELL: No.

13 MR. KATZ: Is this something six

14 months out, or is this something --

15 MR. GLECKLER: If Tom Propst

16 manages to look at it.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. Yes. Okay. 

18 Thanks.

19 MR. DARNELL: I don't have an

20 answer for it, I'm sorry.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thanks.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Hey, this is
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1 Brad. Are we kind of looking at kind of a

2 total rewrite of the TBD? A lot of this stuff

3 I'm hearing is coming -- is going to be

4 installed into the TBD. So is this a total

5 rewrite, or just --

6 MR. DARNELL: Actually, it's going

7 to be an update to the technical basis

8 document. What sounds like a lot of

9 information going in, really isn't all that

10 much. If you look at the expanded matrix that

11 we're not using, there's 59 pages of that

12 document. Not all of that document is taken

13 up with the TBD changes. We're probably

14 looking on the order of maybe 10 or 11 pages

15 having to change. That's a wild guess, by the

16 way.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I'm

18 looking at the expanded TBD on this and there

19 is quite a bit of information. And I was just

20 wondering if this was going to create a total

21 rewrite for the TBD, or if it was just an

22 update. Thank you.
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1 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: There's one

2 thing I'd like to kind of throw out here to

3 put some things in perspective. I should have

4 stated it earlier. In table 6-2 in the un5 redacted one, this is from the AEC annual

6 reports, and you look at it from 1960 through

7 '82. And according to this report there are

8 only two people that were reported with a dose

9 in the one to two rem levels. So that, I

10 think, will have a bearing in the TBD and the

11 amount of dose it assigned to those who

12 weren't monitored.

13 MR. DARNELL: And for Pinellas the

14 highest lifetime dose that was ever monitored

15 on the site is on the order of 3 rem. 

16 Pinellas actually offered kind of a challenge

17 with looking at the dosimetry, because we had,

18 like John was talking about earlier, the high

19 end of the dosimetry. And we had good

20 monitoring records for those folks that had 

21 dose. The challenge came in because we did

22 have a subset of that group that were at zero. 
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1 So you had either zero or dose. And filling

2 in between the middle where you would put your

3 un-monitored worker population, or your

4 coworker, however you want to look at it, was

5 kind of a challenge because you had such a

6 large standard deviation to go with that lower

7 doses. Which is why we came up with the

8 process of assigning 100 millirem to an un9 monitored worker, because that didn't

10 represent the upper 95th percentile of all the

11 doses that were seen. 

12 MR. GLECKLER: Something you might

13 want to be aware of is that a 100 millirem

14 95th percentile dose is based on whole body

15 doses at the facility, which include photon,

16 neutron and tritium dose. And because we

17 couldn't separate them for all the years, it's

18 like we just used the whole body dose. So

19 it's like it's fairly claimant favorable,

20 because it encompasses the internal dose as

21 well.

22 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: So this also
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1 includes the medical X-rays?

2 MR. GLECKLER: Not the medical X3 rays.

4 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: It does not? 

5 Okay. 

6 MR. DARNELL: And there's a

7 separate un-monitored dose for tritium itself. 

8 So basically the tritium component is added

9 twice to the worker.

10 DR. MAURO: Probably a good idea,

11 especially if you're going to be using

12 tritides also. So you get the tritides and

13 you say, but by the way, we'll also assume he

14 also got a whole body dose from tritium. You

15 put the two together and you're covered.

16 MR. DARNELL: Yes, it's very

17 clean.

18 DR. MAURO: No. 7. Go on. When

19 we originally reviewed the site profile, we

20 noticed that there was some mention that

21 nickel-63 and carbon-14 was handled at the

22 facility, but the TBD was silent regarding
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1 nickel. Subsequent to that, NIOSH provided

2 some draft revisions. Actually incorporated

3 into our big matrix there's some test, whether

4 you're going to stay with that or make some

5 revisions to it. But we reviewed that. And

6 you demonstrated that the types of material,

7 the quantities of material, how they were

8 used, is such a matter that it's negligible;

9 less that a millirem per year. So though it's

10 there, the contribution to dose is minuscule

11 and your general cut off is one millirem a

12 year, because that rounds off to zero when you

13 run IMBA. We accept this. We believe that

14 those quantities, that the types characterized

15 by your response are in fact minuscule and do

16 not -- you know, we think this issue is

17 resolved. 

18 I like the material that was

19 provided. It should work its way into the

20 site profile to demonstrate.

21 MR. GLECKLER: One thing, we'll

22 need to change a little bit of the wording,
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1 because as it turned out, it's like some of

2 the references used for the nickel-63 and that

3 were actually the GE X-ray division Milwaukee

4 site documents that we were using. It's like

5 we've since realized that. And it's like, but

6 however what they were using it for is that I

7 think we can make the argument it's applicable

8 to what an L site was doing with that

9 material. So it's like --

10 DR. MAURO: Okay.

11 MR. GLECKLER: And that's kind of

12 what we plan on doing.

13 MR. DARNELL: We're also looking

14 at just leaving the dose consequence in to be

15 over-estimating. Just haven't come up with a

16 decision on how to do that yet.

17 DR. MAURO: As far as I'm

18 concerned, it's tractable and you got your

19 hands on the problem. 

20 Eight. This is one of the items

21 that was open until recently. We believe it's

22 been resolved. When we reviewed the site
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1 profile and the records that were behind it,

2 we came across some records that -- a little

3 ambiguous, but it sure seemed like there was

4 some uranium contamination at the site. 

5 The way the literature read was it

6 looked like these depleted uranium beds were

7 used for storing tritium. It's one of the

8 ways in which tritium is stored in the stable

9 form. And at first we didn't think that this

10 could be an important source because it's just

11 a stable bed with the intention of storing

12 material, not that you're cutting it or doing

13 anything, machining it. But then later we

14 found in some literature that apparently there

15 was some cutting of these beds going on

16 somewhere and that someone reported some 5,000

17 DPM number, which I assume is 5,000 DPM 100

18 centimeters squared, a swipe sample. We

19 weren't quite sure what it was. But we

20 suspect it was a gross out for -- which is a

21 number that is not very high. It's regularly

22 about 186, folks who are familiar with. But
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1 we had to identify it as, wait a minute, we

2 might have missed some uranium. But then

3 subsequently you came back with a very

4 powerful answer and you folks may want to give

5 that answer. 

6 MR. DARNELL: Basically, Brian,

7 from his review of the site research database,

8 he was starting to recognize personnel who

9 were associated with different sites. In

10 reviewing information for GEXM, he recognized

11 names of personnel that were being attributed

12 to being at the Pinellas site. In researching

13 further, he was able to identify the

14 dosimetric records, personnel records and

15 other information in the documentation that

16 SC&A used to look at the potential depleted

17 uranium exposures and determined that those

18 personnel and those records were actually

19 associated with GEXM, or the GE X-ray

20 Milwaukee site. 

21 With that in hand, we went back to

22 SC&A and showed them where this documentation
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1 trail led. And basically, there was no

2 depleted uranium exposure potential at

3 Pinellas. We did find other documentation

4 from Pinellas that discussed the titanium

5 tritium storage beds which were done with

6 glass tubes, which provide no exposure

7 potential other than the tritium. Then later

8 on the site moved to a depleted uranium

9 storage bed inside a stainless steel tubing

10 which provides no exposure to depleted

11 uranium. And that pretty much sealed this

12 issue.

13 DR. MAURO: So those cutting and

14 those measurements that we saw in the

15 literature were not at -- they were in

16 Milwaukee?

17 MR. DARNELL: They were not at

18 Pinellas. They were in Milwaukee.

19 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Now, there

20 were some of the tubes, glass tubes that got

21 broke.

22 MR. GLECKLER: But those didn't
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1 contain uranium metal tritide. 

2 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes.

3 MR. GLECKLER: It was titanium.

4 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: But I mean

5 that --

6 MR. GLECKLER: The generator tubes

7 -- yes, they didn't that.

8 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: That has been

9 a concern of some of the people.

10 MR. GLECKLER: Those were other

11 compounds.

12 MR. DARNELL: Are you talking

13 about the generator tubes, or the --

14 MR. GLECKLER: Yes.

15 MR. DARNELL: Yes, the generator

16 tubes, different compounds. 

17 DR. MAURO: Now these compounds, I

18 guess to get back to the second issues, we're

19 talking about compounds that are captured

20 within the type M?

21 MR. DARNELL: Yes. Do you have

22 that list? 
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1 MR. GLECKLER: What we found, it's

2 like -- it's Sc. Is that scandium?

3 MR. DARNELL: Scandium.

4 MR. GLECKLER: Scandium tritide,

5 erbium tritide, and then titanium tritide,

6 which is what was used for the early beds,

7 that were stored in glass beds.

8 DR. MAURO: So when you folks go

9 behind -- I'm just trying to visualize you

10 all's triage, all the different forms. You've

11 convinced yourself by assigning the type M as

12 modeled in OTIB-66 will bound all the

13 different forms you're seeing here. 

14 MR. DARNELL: I'm saying right now

15 it most like will. We're awaiting that

16 decision.

17 DR. MAURO: And if not, you kick

18 it up to the higher one?

19 MR. DARNELL: We will kick it up

20 to whatever is the worst case and use that for

21 everybody.

22 DR. MAURO: Right. Now those
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1 judgments will be made in combination with

2 representatives from NIOSH, SC&A and the

3 Board.

4 MR. DARNELL: I assume so, yes.

5 MR. MAURO: Okay.

6 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Okay.

7 DR. MAURO: The last one is --

8 well, the last -- 9, 10 and 11, I sort of

9 grouped together on my little handout, all

10 deal with occupational medical X-rays. We

11 often, when we review a site profile, find

12 that the approach that's going to be used to

13 assign doses to workers for medical X-rays,

14 you have two approaches you take. One is

15 site-specific. The way say, listen, we have

16 records, we have information about what was

17 actually going on, how frequent the

18 measurements were. And on that basis, you

19 assign the type and frequency of medical X20 rays. 

21 Then you have OTIB-6, which was

22 prepared by Ron Catherine, which is very often
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1 something you default to, which we reviewed in

2 depth and we find very favorably. The

3 assignments basically go something like this: 

4 For each chest X-ray, it has a look-up table

5 that says here is the dose to every organ for

6 every chest X-ray that you will assume as

7 being your examination. And if it's before a

8 certain date, I believe it was 1970, the look9 up table gives a different dose to every organ

10 because of the nature of the design of the X11 ray equipment and what was done. 

12 And finally, you also have before

13 a certain date, we default to

14 photofluorographic examinations, which give a

15 much higher dose to each organ. 

16 And when I'm reviewing the case

17 and I see that we use OTIB-6, I sign off. 

18 Because as far as I'm concerned, that's a very

19 favorable approach. 

20 But in this case, we found that

21 you weren't doing that. You were doing

22 something more site-specific and it wasn't
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1 apparent to us that it was well-founded. And

2 so the comment came up, you know, you're going

3 to have to defend the specific approach in a

4 better way if you're going to deviate from

5 OTIB-6. And I believe that you have already

6 provided additional material why you believe

7 the approach you're planning to take here

8 makes sense. 

9 I would just caution that. We do

10 have an ongoing dispute on what should be

11 included and what shouldn't be included in the

12 default, the number of X-rays. For example,

13 right now the default approach is when you

14 begin work, and you terminate work, and

15 annually, one of these X-rays, whether it's a

16 lateral X-ray -- depending on the facility and

17 the records, what they say and the time

18 period. Sometimes you assume it's a chest X19 ray; that's the annual X-ray, it's a lateral

20 hip X-ray, or it's a photofluorographic

21 examination. But it's only annual. We have

22 lots of material that says, well, sometimes
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1 you may want to include additional ones. 

2 There are lots of retakes that occur and there

3 are other reasons during respiratory fit

4 tests; I forget the -- we have a whole list in

5 one of our commentaries, where there may be

6 certain X-ray exams that might be being

7 missed. And by the way, our experience is

8 that some sites the X-ray dose contribution to

9 the organs is not insignificant, and this is

10 probably one of them. Because you have so

11 little potential for external exposure here. 

12 So the way in which you treat the medical X13 ray, you may want to take a -- I mean, I

14 understand that you're dealing with it. 

15 MR. DARNELL: Yes, I think that

16 the difference with this site is you are

17 actually able to go back to the source person

18 who did the X-rays, interviewed them, got

19 information not only about the technique but

20 the types of X-rays that were done. And that

21 is part of our response in the expanded matrix

22 --
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes.

2 MR. DARNELL: -- that talks about

3 the interviews that were done.

4 Elyse, am I getting that right?

5 MS. THOMAS: Yes, I think so. 

6 Then let me also add, too, that OTIB-6 is to

7 be used when there's no site-specific data. 

8 And I think for Pinellas we do have the site9 specific data. We have the individual X-ray

10 claim files. And so that was used.

11 DR. MAURO: Right. And you

12 explained that in your response in the matrix. 

13 So anyway, I think you have been fully

14 responsive to our concerns in the matrix, and

15 I guess that's going to make it into the next

16 version of the site profile, while you feel

17 confident with that.

18 And on that basis, you know, our

19 X-ray guys specialize in that have sort of

20 signed -- have signed off.

21 MR. DARNELL: Great.

22 DR. MAURO: And we're done.
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1 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Brad? Bob? 

2 Either one of you got any comments?

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. I

4 was just listening to John when he made his

5 comment that they've signed off on it. I

6 guess I'd kind of wait until I see it in the

7 TBD and how it's implemented.

8 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: That is what

9 we're planning to do, wait and see how these

10 revisions come out and then we will go through

11 and take a look and see if we agree or

12 disagree with them at that point.

13 DR. MAURO: Yes, Brad, I'm sorry I

14 used the word signed off. We basically said

15 the material that was provided seems to be

16 responsive to our concerns. And certainly

17 when it finally makes its way into the TBD, at

18 that point in time, you know, it's the work

19 group's decision on what to do next.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Fine. I just

21 wanted to clear that up, John. I appreciate

22 that.
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1 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Well, if

2 there's no other comments at this time, 

3 then --

4 MR. KATZ: Well, can I ask. I

5 mean, Donna took the trouble to come in, so,

6 Donna, we don't normally have public comment

7 sessions, but you took the trouble to come

8 here. And if you have questions about the

9 discussion today, you can certainly, you know,

10 ask the questions if you need clarifications

11 about what's been discussed. 

12 MS. HAND: Well, I need some

13 clarification, yes. And thank you very much.

14 Let's go back to the medical X15 rays. All right. Even in the technical basis

16 document and in the report on the site profile

17 it says, do not only look at their medical

18 records, but you must look at the X-ray file

19 envelope in order -- for their X-rays. This

20 is not being done. Also, that same nurse that

21 he's talking about, the source and everything,

22 said that she took two X-rays every year. She
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1 didn't just take one. She took a minimum of

2 two X-rays every year. Again, that's not

3 being done. So this is being very selective. 

4 The report does show

5 photofluorography up to 1960. The nurse does

6 not remember taking photofluorography. But

7 however, you have already determined that

8 photofluorography was there. Therefore, that

9 bulletin is required to be used for the

10 workers that were done before 1960. This is

11 not being done. 

12 MR. GLECKLER: Regarding the PFG

13 X-rays from; and I might be touching on stuff

14 that OCAS knows more of, basically from what

15 I understand is like, I think it was someone

16 at OCAS that like reviewed some of the actual

17 films, because the films for the workers are

18 available. And they have written X-ray

19 medical records with the X-ray records and

20 they have the films. And some of those

21 original films were reviewed. And something

22 to be aware with the Pinellas plant workers is
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1 a lot of them were allowed to use the on-site

2 doctor as their personal physician. So you

3 see a lot of medical exposures and sometimes

4 those exposures are taken at the local

5 hospital versus at the Pinellas plant. 

6 One of the things that was

7 observed in a review of those films is they

8 found one PFG film amongst the ones that were

9 reviewed. And the only reason why we assume

10 that there was PFG X-rays performed at the

11 Pinellas plant and not -- whereas on the film

12 you probably could not tell where that film

13 was taken at, and we haven't been able to

14 track down, you know, who did that or where

15 that record is. But in order to go look at

16 the paper record, because odds are the paper

17 record -- I'd be willing to bet money, it

18 would have a header saying that it came from

19 one from the local hospitals instead of the

20 Pinellas plant. 

21 MS. HAND: Excuse me, but the

22 thing is you have already determined that.
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1 You have already issued a bulletin. And to be

2 claimant friendly underneath this program, you

3 are required, and Larry Elliott even stated in

4 the very first working group committee, you

5 are to use that. 

6 MR. GLECKLER: Yes.

7 MS. HAND: That technical basis

8 for all workers before 1960.

9 MR. GLECKLER: That is correct.

10 MS. HAND: Also, the doctor that

11 was used on site and the X-rays that were used

12 on site was for injuries on site. There was

13 a doctor that was called in that read them,

14 which is Dr. Rush. As far as the X-ray films,

15 they did a program to where they got money

16 back for the silver combination out of the X17 ray films and they were destroyed, they were

18 shredded and the chemicals were taken out of

19 the actual X-ray films. That's why they were

20 required to go by the X-ray file envelope, not

21 the films, because the films were destroyed.

22 The uranium, according to the
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1 baseline report --

2 MR. DARNELL: Can we address one

3 topic at a time, please?

4 MS. HAND: Okay.

5 MR. DARNELL: According to the

6 technical basis document that talks about the

7 envelope, the information that is found in

8 Section 3.1 under examination frequencies;

9 I'll read it directly from it, the medical X10 ray files contain information about the actual

11 type of X-ray acquired. Number of views, type

12 of view and frequency. This information is

13 quoted on the outside of the storage envelope

14 for the X-ray films. The dose reconstructor

15 should refer to the claimant's medical records

16 for the most accurate information on the

17 actual X-rays performed, number of views and

18 so on. It doesn't say to go to the envelope,

19 but it says to go to the medical records.

20 MS. HAND: But again, if the

21 medical X-rays are not actually put on the

22 physical examination that they had every year,
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1 but they had a physical examination every

2 year, you would assume that they would also

3 have an X-ray every year.

4 MR. GLECKLER: We'd go purely off

5 the medical records. 

6 MS. HAND: People have testified

7 that they did.

8 MR. GLECKLER: The vast majority

9 of the workers did not get an annual X-ray. 

10 But when we don't have medical records

11 available, because there was no identifiable

12 frequency for those workers' X-rays, it's like

13 when we have no medical records available, we

14 take the claimant-favorable approach and

15 assume an annual chest X-ray was performed. 

16 And so they get all that dose even though it's

17 more likely than not that they didn't receive

18 that many X-rays. And that's just a very

19 claimant-favorable approach that we take on

20 that.

21 MS. HAND: And that's what I was

22 stating, is that, you know, every year. 
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1 Because even in the earlier, it wasn't until

2 the late '80s that they started doing every

3 three years or every five years. But before

4 then it was every year, and specifically the

5 ones that were involved with a lot of the

6 tritium. 

7 The uranium was in the glass as

8 well. The ceramics was a lead ceramic, but

9 the uranium was in the glass. And even the

10 baseline report which was used as a reference

11 for the technical basis document stated that

12 uranium was there in four different forms.

13 MR. DARNELL: Okay. What glass

14 are we talking about?

15 MS. HAND: The glass that's in the

16 tritium.

17 MR. DARNELL: Okay. What era,

18 which glass? 

19 MR. GLECKLER: There are several

20 documents with uranium in the glass, but I

21 don't know of any information that indicates

22 that's ever been considered a radioactive
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1 hazard.

2 MS. HAND: It has uranium glass,

3 and this is by DOE themselves in their own

4 report, in the baseline report that was used

5 in the technical basis document as a reference

6 item. It states in there uranium glass.

7 MR. GLECKLER: Sometimes they'll

8 dope it, I believe, for optical properties or,

9 you know --

10 MS. HAND: The health physics

11 report, the history of the plant also says

12 there was plutonium beryllium. And this is a

13 history of health physics also from DOE. The

14 plutonium RTGs when they first got started was

15 in 1975, but it was inside building 100. Then

16 it was moved to 400. 

17 MR. DARNELL: Okay. Natural

18 uranium glass, specific activity, 6.7 times 10

19 to the minus seven curies per gram. The glass

20 itself had one times 10 to the minus eight

21 curies per gram. The tritium component of

22 that was 10,000 curies per gram. There is no
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1 exposure potential from the natural uranium at

2 those levels in the glass.

3 PARTICIPANT: That would be stuck

4 in the glass.

5 MS. HAND: That's what I'm saying. 

6 No, but the glass broke. 

7 MR. CALHOUN: It's not contained

8 within glass capsules. You're talking uranium

9 glass. It's entrained in the glass. 

10 MS. HAND: And you would not have

11 any exposure when you're cut on that glass?

12 MR. CALHOUN: Very, very little. 

13 It's a tiny amount of glass.

14 DR. MAURO: Give it to me in pica

15 curies per gram. I'm sorry, I don't think you

16 mean what you gave me.

17 MR. DARNELL: Six-point-seven. 

18 The natural uranium-specific activity was 6.7

19 times 10 to the minus seven curies per gram. 

20 The glass itself contained one times ten to

21 the minus eight curies per gram.

22 What you would have to do is
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1 actually have glass imbedded in the wound and

2 stay in the wound for there to be an exposure

3 potential. And the exposure potential would

4 be extremely small because of the activity

5 levels in the glass. 

6 MS. HAND: Underneath this law,

7 underneath this program, that is all required. 

8 Was there potential of exposure there? You

9 are required to characterize the occupational

10 environment. That was required and that's 

11 the --

12 MR. DARNELL: That's not part of

13 the occupational environment.

14 MS. HAND: Uranium inside of glass

15 that's in a wound, and you got cut on, is not

16 part of the occupational environment?

17 MR. DARNELL: No.

18 MR. GLECKLER: You can find

19 thorium in glass in antique stores.

20 MS. HAND: That's broken?

21 MR. DARNELL: If we have a record

22 that shows that there was uranium found in a
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1 wound, we'd definitely calculate a dose for

2 that.

3 MS. HAND: Congress has already

4 made the findings these records were altered. 

5 You would never find a record of that because

6 they were not going to address it. The health

7 physicist's dosimetry records at that time

8 even said unless a person has 15 percent more

9 than the highest recorded radiation, they're

10 not going to address it into a wound. 

11 MR. DARNELL: I don't understand

12 what you're talking about.

13 MS. HAND: I'm talking about the

14 wound bulletin that was issued that says for

15 plutonium, and it can be used for other

16 radioactive nuclides. I'm talking about when

17 people are cut --

18 MR. DARNELL: Could you please

19 provide us with that in writing, because I

20 can't address anything you're talking about

21 without knowing the source document.

22 MS. HAND: I shall do that.
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1 MR. GLECKLER: Would a dose

2 calculation help or a hypothetical scenario

3 with someone either in handling X amount of

4 glass, you know, or having an injection-type,

5 you know, wound scenario involving glass to

6 show how much dose can be had from that, or

7 how little dose actually? Would that help

8 matters?

9 MR. CALHOUN: Uranium is not going

10 to get out of the glass.

11 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Have you guys

12 looked at possible medical records, look in

13 there and see what their protocol was for a

14 wound if you were in a contaminated area,

15 because most facilities, I know, if you

16 received a wound in a contaminated area, or

17 potentially contaminated area, they would also

18 monitor the wound to see if there was any

19 contamination. And then it would be treated

20 at that point. Either it would be cleaned up

21 or it would be excised by carving it out.

22 MR. DARNELL: I'm looking at the
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1 material safety data sheet from Corning for

2 the borosilicate glass which contains uranium. 

3 The health information section talks about the

4 glass in dust form only. As an insoluble form

5 of uranium, uranium oxide has a low order of

6 toxicity. Boron poisoning can cause

7 depression of circulation, vomiting, diarrhea

8 and so on. And then it goes on to talk about

9 silicates and the other things.

10 Basically, the MSDS is telling you

11 you've got to have a powder form before you

12 get to any health consequence from exposure to

13 this. From a health physics perspective,

14 having uranium suspended in a glass matrix is

15 not an exposure potential, not until you get

16 to a dust.

17 MS. HAND: Again, I disagree. 

18 According to this law you are supposed to

19 characterize the occupational environment, and

20 that means all the radiation. The EPA reports

21 at this facility has documented that krypton

22 is in the environment on the outside. It was
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1 monitored on the outside, but yet this is not

2 done. There's no environmental doses at all.

3 MR. DARNELL: Before we move onto

4 the next radionuclide one thing I think you

5 need to understand is that in characterizing

6 the radiological exposure concerns at any

7 site, that characterization also includes

8 excluding items that are of not exposure

9 potential. Because you don't see an exposure

10 placed on an isotope doesn't mean that it

11 wasn't characterized. What it means is it

12 didn't make it. There is no exposure

13 potential from the uranium. I just wanted to

14 make sure you understood that difference.

15 MS. HAND: Yes, but that should be

16 addressed in the technical basis document

17 then, to explain to these people that, yes,

18 you were exposed to these radioactive

19 isotopes, however the potential was so low.

20 MR. DARNELL: There is no exposure

21 potential. There is no need to put it in --

22 MS. HAND: Then that should be
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1 addressed in the technical basis document

2 because the people should be informed about

3 this in clear, convincing and transparent

4 terms.

5 MR. DARNELL: You are very much

6 entitled to your opinion.

7 MR. KATZ: Do you have another

8 technical point, Donna?

9 MS. HAND: The Pinellas plant is a

10 very unusual plant. This was an open

11 laboratory process quality control production

12 line. Whenever the product was made or

13 assembled at each stage, they had quality

14 assurance. This was a warehouse-type facility

15 where the wall didn't go out. They were not

16 sealed. You know, so everybody was exposed to

17 everything in those rooms. And at each stage

18 they had separate laboratories and they had a

19 laboratory quality assurance person at each

20 stage of the product line. We have neutron

21 generators. There is no neutron dose attract

22 to any of these people. We also had, you
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1 know, many neutrons and accelerated. There's

2 nothing there. They also had industrial X-ray

3 machines and radioactive producing machines. 

4 There's no doses attributed there.

5 MR. GLECKLER: As far as the un6 monitored workers go, it's kind of going back

7 to the 100 millirem dose which was calculated

8 as representing the 95th percentile dose. So

9 for 95 percent of the monitored workers at the

10 Pinellas plant we see less than 100 millirem

11 of dose. And it worked out also, it's like

12 about 78 percent of them received less than a

13 total annual dose of 20 millirem, which is

14 about the equivalent of the LOD value of a

15 dosimeter. It should also be noted that those

16 are whole body doses again and they do include

17 photon, neutron and tritium dose. However,

18 for assigning those doses in IREP, it's like

19 we have to pick what type of radiation type

20 and what energy category to assign those as. 

21 And we've got, you know, for photon, neutron

22 and tritium, which is an electron-type dose,
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1 and, you know, we can either assign it with

2 those three energy types. Well, it's been

3 determined to be most claimant favorable to

4 assign it as 100 percent 30-250 KB photons. 

5 And since we cannot separate the photon part

6 of that dose from the neutron part of that

7 dose, from the tritium part of that dose. And

8 so we've gone through and figured out which

9 way is the most claimant favorable way to

10 assign it and it's been determined to be 100

11 percent, 30 to 250 KB photons versus any other

12 neutrons. 

13 And there's only a couple

14 exceptions to that, and that's for a couple of

15 the leukemia cancers, to where it's more

16 claimant favorable to give it as neutron dose. 

17 However, I'm not positive on this, but I don't

18 think any Pinellas claims currently have those

19 leukemia cancers that's associated with them. 

20 And that's been a long time since I've even

21 looked, so that could have changed for the new

22 claims as well. 
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1 MR. DARNELL: This section that

2 the technical basis document addresses those

3 workers that were walking around during

4 testing or walking through the labs, or in

5 anywhere associated with the work that was

6 going on that handled radioactive materials is

7 found on the bottom of page 26 and top of page

8 27 of tech basis document 6, which is the

9 external dose technical basis document. And

10 basically it talks about the dose records from

11 '83 to '93, and '57 to '79. It talks about

12 what the maximum doses that personnel were

13 receiving. And in both cases the dose was

14 right around 500 millirem, half a rem per

15 year, for the highest exposed individuals. 

16 In looking at that, we came up

17 with the 95th percentile dose, which was 100

18 millirem. That's assigned. There is no other

19 case for it. It's just assigned to the

20 workers that had a potential for exposure.

21 MS. HAND: Then I did a Freedom of

22 Information Act and I requested what was the
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1 highest. They sent me not only the technical

2 basis, but they sent me a documentation that

3 says the highest external doses. In the early

4 years they were 1.7, 100 millirems. So 1.7

5 grams was in the highest.

6 MR. GLECKLER: That was the

7 highest dose for that year.

8 MS. HAND: You know, and further

9 up. But, however, those people, they were

10 exposed in order to be claimant friendly and

11 receive the highest. They then took the 95th

12 percentile and did the average and put that in

13 for the people's doses, when the method says

14 the highest dose to be used for the same

15 person, when a person is in there. Again, X16 raying the product, it's not medical X-rays,

17 but X-raying the product, these people did

18 this. The dosimetry badges were worn on a

19 little necklace thing or on their belt. When

20 they would sit at the lab and work and do

21 their product and everything, that was

22 underneath the table. And then the 2005
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1 technical basis document had mentioned that

2 the 100 millirems was for the tritium. It

3 didn't mention that that was for the other

4 stuff. That was for the tritium. The 2005

5 technical basis document and information in

6 that, some of that was depleted or turned

7 around in the 2006. 

8 MR. DARNELL: I just want to show

9 you something about the statistics used to

10 come up with the doses. This is actually a

11 curve we used yesterday for something else,

12 but it works very well for this. 

13 What you're looking at is, this is

14 does on this axis--excuse me-- personnel that

15 get the dose on this axis, and this is the

16 dose as it increases over time. And this is

17 what we're talking about, is life time dose to

18 that worker. Okay. Or you can look at it as

19 annual dose to that worker, making their life

20 time very short. All right? The vast

21 majority of the monitored workers stayed at

22 zero or very much less than 100 millirem,
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1 which is right here. We have most of our data

2 on the higher dosed personnel. In other

3 words, the people that were monitored and

4 received the dose, that's where our data is. 

5 Okay. We have a whole bunch of workers at

6 Pinellas that were un-monitored because they

7 didn't need to be monitored according to the

8 regulations and requirements for the dates and

9 times over the life of the Pinellas site.

10 So when you take a look at this,

11 the highest range doses treated statistically,

12 put it on the appropriate curve, what you come

13 up with is that 95 percent of the people at

14 the Pinellas site that were monitored fell

15 less than these higher doses, which we placed

16 at 500 millirem according to the technical

17 basis document.

18 So what we did to be claimant

19 favorable was assign this 100 millirem to

20 everybody. And like Brian's pointed out, the

21 doses that we have indicate tritium, neutron

22 and photon dose together. So when you take a
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1 worker that was un-monitored, you give him 100

2 millirem a year, you're giving him both

3 internal and external dose. And then on top

4 of it, in the internal technical basis

5 document you give him internal dose again. So

6 we're giving people dose for every year that

7 they worked at the site, when in reality, if

8 you look at the dosimetric records, you'll

9 have a dose in one month, you have a dose six

10 months later. You may not have a dose until

11 two years later after that for the personnel

12 that got the doses. So now we're saying we

13 give it to them every year. So you have a

14 highly episodic dose, you have a highly skewed

15 dose to the high end and then you turn around

16 and give everybody the benefit of that doubt. 

17 There is no way at all in looking at this that

18 you can say these workers are not being

19 treated fairly and don't have a claimant20 favorable dose.

21 MS. HAND: The health physicist

22 report and history that was given by DOE, and
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1 also by the actual manager that worked there,

2 stated that in the early years they did not do

3 the doses to the tritium because they had a

4 lot to learn about it, the badges. You have

5 two memorandums, which is on the technical

6 basis, that even the badges that were used

7 were incorrect. DOE lab has stated that those

8 Mound badges that were given to them also were

9 falsified and, you know, you cannot use those

10 as accuracy data. The badges were --

11 MR. DARNELL: External badges do

12 not measure tritium dose.

13 MS. HAND: The badges were chosen

14 as per the health physicist going to the

15 supervisors and saying which ones had the

16 highest dose reconstruction? Without having

17 the supervisors any training on how to

18 determine anything--they just said you choose

19 your workers. This is how it was done in the

20 early years, all the way up into the 1980s. 

21 It was the supervisors that had to choose

22 which ones wore the badges and which did not. 
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1 And not the health physicist saying, okay, we

2 know for sure you're going to be exposed to

3 this. This came from not only the workers

4 itself, but also the health physicist report.

5 MR. DARNELL: Okay. I actually

6 see no problem with that. The supervisors

7 would know which workers were assigned to the

8 jobs that got dosed. As long as they were

9 informed of the requirement, and you didn't

10 say the were not informed or it was withheld,

11 there is no --

12 MS. HAND: It was --

13 MR. DARNELL: Excuse me.

14 MS. HAND: And, yes, but

15 supervisors were not trained to determine

16 which one had the highest dose. They were

17 just told just pick a couple of people, and

18 that was it. It was a random choice. The

19 supervisors were constantly told, "But don't

20 worry about it. Nobody had a high dose. 

21 There's nothing there to worry about because

22 the dose is so low." So they said, well, how
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1 could we choose then, because you keep on

2 telling us we're safe.

3 MR. GLECKLER: Is this for a

4 specific time period, or throughout the

5 history of the site?

6 MS. HAND: Through the earlier

7 years, yes. All the way up into the '80s.

8 MR. DARNELL: The only way that we

9 could take any --

10 MS. HAND: Right. You also have

11 documentation in your report, in your

12 technical basis document, as well as the

13 Freedom of Information Act, as well as the

14 health physicist report, that the activity

15 logs are missing. The health physicist

16 activity logs are completely gone, in the

17 1970s all the way up until 1982. 

18 MR. GLECKLER: We don't have those

19 for a lot of sites. 

20 MS. HAND: So therefore you should

21 use the source, correct, to determine the

22 radiation?
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1 MR. CALHOUN: We use the

2 dosimetry.

3 MS. HAND: No, you can't use the

4 dosimetry because the dosimetry is inadequate. 

5 The records are gone. 

6 MR. CALHOUN: The technical basis

7 document was generated by a bunch of very

8 knowledgeable health physicists. It's just

9 received a review by a group of individuals

10 that are independent of OCAS who are very

11 critical of ORAU. And they found that to be

12 acceptable, our approaches. I think that this

13 document has been reviewed very thoroughly by

14 technical people and found to be appropriate. 

15 So digging a whole lot more into this isn't

16 going to be much of a benefit.

17 MS. HAND: My response to that is

18 that the technical people that you were giving

19 to, did you give them the information that you

20 obtained from the workers? Whenever you met

21 down there, did you give them information that

22 you have obtained from DOE regarding how the
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1 process was? Did you give them the

2 information stating that we have questions

3 about the badges? We have questions about the

4 accuracy of those badges. We also have

5 questions about the activity logs of the

6 health physicist being completely missing.

7 MR. CALHOUN: We have access to

8 all records that you do.

9 MS. HAND: So therefore you

10 informed those same people that reviewed it

11 and they still said that the badges were

12 adequate?

13 MR. CALHOUN: We have a bunch of

14 documentation about the health physics

15 program, the dosimetry that was documented, 

16 the practices, the programs that were in

17 place. And all of that was taken into

18 consideration, not only by OCAS as we

19 developed the technical basis document, and

20 ORAU, but also by SC&A when the reviewed the

21 technical basis document.

22 MS. HAND: I still contend that the
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1 information--how can you do a dose

2 reconstruction on badges that are inadequate,

3 even by their own memorandums from Dr. John

4 Holliday who did it, and also from DOE lab,

5 whenever the DOE lab says you can't use those

6 Mound badges anymore and that's where you got

7 your information from? You know, so how can

8 you say that? And then also, if you've got

9 the health physics activity is missing,

10 therefore any incidents, any corrections in

11 badges, any error monitoring and everything is

12 completely gone. So then how can you

13 determine during that time frame what the

14 radiation or potential characterizing of the

15 radiation could be?

16 MR. CALHOUN: The Pinellas site

17 was a very low-dose site relative to the DOE

18 sites.

19 MS. HAND: That is not the issue. 

20 MR. CALHOUN: That is the issue.

21 MS. HAND: The issue is the

22 workers should have equal protection
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1 underneath the law.

2 MR. CALHOUN: They do.

3 MS. HAND: And to their own site.

4 MR. CALHOUN: And we're giving

5 them very --

6 MS. HAND: And due process. They

7 should not be compared to other sites. This

8 should be the radiation to the worker at that

9 specific site during that location.

10 MR. CALHOUN: That's what we do.

11 MR. KATZ: Can we separate these

12 issues a little bit? The question that Donna

13 is raising about their health physicist saying

14 that their badges are inadequate, is this

15 documentation that OCAS reviewed about the

16 badges?

17 MR. GLECKLER: I don't recall ever

18 seeing anything on that. And I've been

19 reviewed most of the SRDB documents.

20 MR. KATZ: So do you have some

21 documents about the inadequacy of the badges

22 that you can provide to OCAS?
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1 MS. HAND: Yes, I do.

2 MR. KATZ: Okay. Well, I think

3 that would move this forward then. That would

4 be great.

5 MS. HAND: In fact, I'd do it in a

6 Freedom of Information Act because I want a

7 copy of the memorandum that's in the technical

8 basis document that states that John Holliday

9 wrote a memorandum stating that. It's in the

10 technical basis document, but yet they say

11 they don't have it. If you look underneath

12 the badges, it has -- in fact there's two

13 memorandums, as well as a DOE lab report. And

14 that's all in the technical basis document.

15 MR. KATZ: So, it sounds like then

16 if OCAS has these documents, then you could

17 just send a note citing the --

18 MR. DARNELL: Do you have the

19 title of the document that you say is in the

20 technical basis document?

21 MS. HAND: It's in the external. 

22 If you look at the dosimetry --
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1 MR. DARNELL: Do you have the

2 title of the document that you that it's

3 listed in?

4 MS. HAND: Not with me.

5 MR. CALHOUN: Do you have a FOIA

6 request in process right now?

7 MS. HAND: I have several in

8 process right now.

9 MR. CALHOUN: To us at OCAS?

10 MS. HAND: Yes.

11 MR. CALHOUN: Okay. Well, I'm

12 sure that's being worked on.

13 MS. HAND: Again, on the badges of

14 the doses of personnel only 25 percent of the

15 Pinellas workers were badged. Again, was that

16 25 percent of different workers, or was that

17 25 percent of badges? You know, was the

18 information given to them in a batch, or do

19 they have individual and they have determined

20 25 percent different people were badged --

21 MR. CALHOUN: Brian, do you hear

22 that?
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1 MS. HAND: -- rather than a batch?

2 MR. GLECKLER: No. What's that?

3 MR. CALHOUN: She's asked a

4 question about the statistics of people being

5 badged.

6 MS. HAND: Was that 25 percent

7 different people being badged, or was that a

8 batch, you know, of 25 percent?

9 DR. MAURO: Yes, we reviewed that

10 issue and we were concerned, especially in the

11 early years. Only about 25 percent of the

12 workers were badged. Now, in response to

13 that, and we talked about this a little

14 earlier, NIOSH provided, in the matrix, which

15 is publicly available--you should be able to

16 get a copy-- provided numerous quotes from the

17 literature that says there was by design only

18 a small fraction of the workers were in fact

19 badged. And the rationale being that they

20 only badged workers who had the potential to

21 be exposed to 25 percent of the radiation

22 protection standards, which were probably five
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1 rem per year at the time. So the idea being,

2 at least initially, only a small -- so there

3 were numerous folks from the Radiation

4 Protection Program. On that basis, we believe

5 there's a paper trail that demonstrates that

6 in fact was the case, that that's what was

7 done.

8 Now, what you're indicating, and

9 I'd be very interested in, is that, see, we're

10 saying that if you have that data and it's

11 clean, it hasn't been tampered with, it hasn't

12 been in any way deleted, you could build --

13 only though it's only 25 percent of the

14 workers who were badged, you could build a

15 curve like this that says that this is the way

16 those people were exposed. Most people had

17 very little. A small number of people had

18 fairly large. And we could probably place an

19 upper bound on what the upper end dose was for

20 people. People who were badged, then of

21 course you have a record. 

22 And people who weren't badged,
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1 here's where a judgment comes in. People who

2 weren't badged, the presumption would be if

3 they weren't badged based on that policy, it's

4 likely they were probably not people that had

5 a potential for upper bound. But if there's

6 some question regarding that in the person's

7 record, for whatever reason, and this is when

8 you now are doing it case-by-case, here's

9 where the judgment comes in and here's what we

10 were talking about earlier. In principle, if

11 you have a robust curve that isn't undermined

12 because of poor practices, destruction of

13 records, deliberate falsification of records,

14 taking records and not wearing the badge

15 because you're concerned you're approaching a

16 limit, there were a whole bunch of reasons why

17 this could be corrupted. Okay. We do not

18 have any evidence that that occurred. There's

19 nothing that we have that says we can't

20 believe this curve. We believe that this

21 curve, based on everything that we reviewed,

22 is a fair representation of the distribution
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1 of exposure experienced by the workers. 

2 Then if you accept that -- okay. 

3 Now, and we have.

4 MS. HAND: Okay.

5 DR. MAURO: That doesn't mean --

6 you know, based on what we've reviewed.

7 MS. HAND: Okay.

8 DR. MAURO: If there's additional

9 information that we haven't seen, I think

10 everyone would welcome taking a look at that

11 information that possibly could affect this.

12 And then we have to factor that in. But right

13 now, from the information we have, we're

14 saying I think we can hang our hat on that. 

15 And then we're looking to a NIOSH dose

16 reconstructor to use that information

17 intelligently when they apply it to particular

18 cases. We have a real worker. Are we going

19 to apply it down here, are we going to apply

20 it over here? Or maybe there will be cases

21 where you decide you want to give this guy the

22 upper end for whatever reason. And it's at
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1 that stage where, of course, that it leaves

2 the site profile world and goes into the dose

3 reconstruction audit world.

4 MS. HAND: Correct.

5 DR. MAURO: So, I mean, right now

6 you have made mention of a number of issues

7 that I think certainly provide us with that

8 information, because you may have information

9 we haven't looked at. And I think that may

10 affect the credibility of the distribution. 

11 I'd love to look at it.

12 MR. KATZ: Let me just add to

13 that. Yes, I mean, OCAS could be the

14 receiving -- SC&A will receive whatever new

15 information we get. But just to make another

16 point, the door is always open for new

17 information. I mean, so even after the TBD

18 comes out, if the Board says this site profile

19 looks great and we're happy with it, should it

20 come to that, the door is still open always

21 for new information. And the new information

22 can always change everybody's understanding of
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1 what they already know. So, yes, just to make

2 that clear.

3 MR. CALHOUN: A point of

4 clarification is that the film badges or the

5 TLDs don't detect tritium. I don't know if

6 you said that on accident before.

7 MS. HAND: No, I did not.

8 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, okay. They

9 don't detect tritium.

10 MS. HAND: No.

11 MR. CALHOUN: Okay.

12 MS. HAND: I know. In fact, the

13 badges only detected I think anything above an

14 MAB? Everything that didn't go down to low. 

15 They didn't go very low at all. They were all

16 high ranges. So even the low ranges would

17 have never been detected to begin with.

18 MR. DARNELL: Actually, that's

19 incorrect. The badges do go down to a certain

20 cutoff point, which we call the minimum

21 detectable level. We actually add dose to

22 workers that were monitored to cover between
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1 zero rem and whatever the minimum detectible

2 level was. That does change over time with

3 the site, and that's accounted for in the

4 technical basis document.

5 DR. MAURO: I could help out a

6 little bit. Well, whenever you have a film

7 badge --

8 MS. HAND: Yes.

9 DR. MAURO: -- it's calibrated for

10 the energy distribution that you expect to

11 experience.

12 MS. HAND: Right.

13 DR. MAURO: And that was one of

14 our concerns, especially during the early

15 years. We weren't quite sure that there was

16 appreciation of the characteristics and the

17 performance, and the calibration methods used

18 for a particular film badge that we used. 

19 Now, when you think about a film badge, think

20 about two things. It's seeing a certain flux.

21 MS. HAND: Yes.

22 DR. MAURO: And you have to get
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1 some minimum amount of photons striking that

2 before you see anything. That currently is

3 about 10 millirem per change out. So if I was

4 wearing a film badge for a month and I

5 experienced less than 10 millirem, you

6 wouldn't see anything on that. Now if you go

7 back to the older days, they weren't as

8 sensitive. You'd have to get 40 millirem. 

9 Now if I wore it for a year, you know -- so

10 think of it like this: If it's less than 10

11 millirem per change out, it's going to read

12 less than detectable level.

13 MS. HAND: Yes.

14 DR. MAURO: That's one question. 

15 That's the amount of energy that's impinging

16 on it. Now the energy itself is the energy of

17 these little photons that are hitting it, they

18 could go from very, very low to very, very

19 high.

20 MS. HAND: Yes.

21 DR. MAURO: Usually in the keV,

22 kilo electron volts, to the MeV range.
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1 MS. HAND: Yes.

2 DR. MAURO: Now, this was a

3 question we posed because we were concerned. 

4 If you don't calibrate your film badge for the

5 energy distribution you're dealing with, and

6 so that when you see a certain degree of

7 blackening you could relate that blackening on

8 the film badge to the energy. Now, that

9 blackening is not only affected by the number

10 of photons that are hitting it. It's also

11 affected by the energy of each photon.

12 MS. HAND: Yes.

13 DR. MAURO: Well, we looked into

14 that and we have certain concerns in the early

15 days, whether or not they had a good handle on

16 it. We looked at that issue and we walk away

17 thinking they do have a good handle on it. 

18 So, I mean, that's what we've done.

19 Now, any additional information

20 that says no, we want to see it.

21 MS. HAND: Okay.

22 DR. MAURO: I'm sure you want to
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1 see it. 

2 MS. HAND: That's my only concern,

3 because the people have told NIOSH, have told

4 OCAS, has told the Department of Labor, has

5 explained everything about the radiation doses

6 that were there and that they were told to,

7 you know, put it in a badge or say you've lost

8 it. So, you know, the badges are not

9 adequate. You cannot use the badges to

10 extrapolate or to determine a dose that's with

11 accuracy.

12 DR. MAURO: See, I'd like to hear

13 more. See, we didn't find that. No, we

14 didn't find that. But if you have something

15 that we have to look at, we want to -- because

16 that could happen. I mean, there are

17 circumstances where that could happen.

18 MS. HAND: Right. Because they

19 said that the Albedo dosimetry -- okay?

20 DR. MAURO: Okay. That's a

21 neutron dosimeter.

22 MS. HAND: Right. That it was
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1 just worn loosely on their lab coat. And so

2 they're moving back and forth. They would,

3 you know, go behind something. They would

4 turn. So therefore, it would not, you know,

5 get the actual doses. They were told to also

6 put them in their desk where, oh, yes, I got

7 to turn this in now and put it in the desk

8 drawer. The gentleman that told me that he

9 was the process engineer, his badge was worn

10 on his belt. Well, when he would work on the

11 product itself, which was in the tritium room,

12 which was 108 and 109, he would, you know, be

13 sitting at the lab itself in the base working

14 here with the stuff. His badge was underneath

15 the table. 

16 The gentleman that actually

17 detonated and tested the triggers, he was

18 given no neutron doses at all. He actually

19 tested the triggers. He had to do three of

20 them per group of unit. If those three did

21 not prove, then he had to go ahead and do

22 more. You know, so that's why I'm saying that
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1 -- and he was not monitored. 

2 DR. MAURO: I don't think I'm

3 leaving the scope of my obligations to the

4 Board by saying this. Our mandate when we

5 review a site profile is to interview workers,

6 interview experts, including folks like

7 yourself, and gather up and document

8 everything we found out. Now, I was not the

9 one to do the interview work. Others have. 

10 Unfortunately, the person that was leading

11 this up is in the hospital right now. 

12 Right now you're putting on the

13 record what I would consider is material that

14 is equivalent to an interview.

15 MS. HAND: Correct.

16 DR. MAURO: And one of the

17 obligations we have at SC&A is to take into

18 consideration all the information that's put

19 on the record by people that we interview. 

20 You are effectively putting on the record what

21 I consider to be valuable information related

22 to an interview. And when we review a site
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1 profile, we have an obligation to take into

2 consideration all that information. And I

3 also believe we have an obligation to make

4 sure that the concerns you have expressed are

5 communicated or answered, your questions are

6 answered either in reports that really go to

7 the Board, but should demonstrate that we

8 listened, you know, to what you have to say

9 and here's where we come out. 

10 I cannot speak right now off the

11 top of my head to issues related to the

12 credibility of the film badge records, whether

13 they're albedo film badge records. Right now

14 I could say that what we did review and why we

15 came out where we came out. You've raised a

16 couple of questions that, you know, I'm

17 uncomfortable trying to respond to right off

18 the top of my head.

19 MS. HAND: Okay. 

20 DR. MAURO: I'd sure like to see

21 them. Because right now, I think we've

22 crossed a few boundaries. We've talked
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1 neutron dosimetry and we talked photon

2 dosimetry. We also talked uranium contained

3 in glass material at a level that I can't tell

4 intuitively whether 10 to the fourth pica

5 curies per gram of uranium in glass is it's

6 just a no, never mind, though maybe it could

7 be something. I just don't know. 

8 So, you know, I respect everything

9 that you're bringing up. Again, I think it

10 should be documented, it should be tracked and

11 we should have a response to it. That's what

12 I believe we have an obligation to do. And I

13 feel I have an obligation to the work group

14 and the Board to say that we looked into the

15 issues you raised and have a recommendation or

16 a finding related to these matters. Because

17 a lot of the things you've brought up are not

18 explicitly addressed in our work.

19 MS. HAND: I agree. Thank you so

20 much.

21 And that's all that the workers

22 and, you know, as an a advocate of the
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1 workers, is all that we're requesting, is that

2 you do attribute the doses at the Pinellas

3 plant to the workers that they should receive. 

4 The way that their work process was, the way

5 that they did their work product, we have

6 documentation from two security guards that

7 came up to Ohio. They went through the

8 "Christmas tree light." They were the only

9 two out of 14 that lit up and they were both

10 from Pinellas plant. You know, so security

11 workers even got doses that were not

12 addressed. But yet because, you know, you're

13 saying, well, because they're not work process

14 they wouldn't have had any doses.

15 DR. MAURO: Right.

16 MS. HAND: We had maintenance

17 workers that got only 100 millirem when they

18 were on top of 108 cleaning up the tritium

19 dust that had been accumulated up there. You

20 know, so how can they only have 100 millirem

21 when they actually had to physically clean up

22 the dust and vacuum it, you know, every so
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1 often, you know, in the upstairs? 

2 We have a gentleman that was a

3 welder that cut down the HEPA stack that had

4 radiation to it. They only gave him 100

5 millirem.

6 MR. KATZ: I think it would be

7 great, Donna, if you would in a letter just

8 sort of lay out all these, including all these

9 incidents that have been reported to you and

10 spoken to people about, and send that in so

11 that it's on paper, you know, dated and on

12 record. And then we'll certainly be certain

13 that SC&A, as well as OCAS -- I mean, we'll

14 send it into OCAS. SC&A and will get it and

15 then they can look at those one-by-one and see

16 what's there.

17 MS. HAND: Well, is the protocol

18 okay if I send it to both equally?

19 MR. KATZ: Absolutely. 

20 MS. HAND: Send it to Phil?

21 MR. KATZ: You can send it to all

22 of us. You're absolutely welcome to do that.
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1 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Some of the

2 information you've sent me, I have sent on to

3 other people who are in better --

4 MS. HAND: Thank you.

5 MR. KATZ: If you send it to Phil,

6 I'll make sure it gets to the right places.

7 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: -- more

8 knowledgeable than I am about the health

9 physics.

10 MS. HAND: Right.

11 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: That's not my

12 area of expertise, I'll tell you.

13 MS. HAND: And the thing is, is

14 that I know that they have a Pinellas

15 template. And that Pinellas template, they

16 only address the tritium at .9-something. 

17 They do not address the neutrons at all. This

18 was neutrons generating plant. They had EBs. 

19 You know, they actually did the testing of the

20 neutron triggers. And to say that it was

21 included, no, there was also neutrons that was

22 not included into their doses. Otherwise, why
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1 in the earlier years did they monitor

2 plutonium and they monitored neutron? In the

3 technical basis document it even stipulates

4 the missed neutron doses, but yet and their

5 dose reconstruction people, underneath their

6 professional judgment, they do not apply this

7 to the workers. 

8 MR. GLECKLER: I tried to explain

9 that with the unmonitored doses on that site.

10 MR. CALHOUN: I think the best

11 course of action is really just to get the

12 documents and look at the technical documents

13 and respond to those.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: Hey, Phil, this

15 is Brad.

16 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes, Brad?

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: You know, it

18 seems like a lot of this would have been

19 captured in a worker outreach. Have they had

20 that down to Pinellas? I think they did in

21 the earlier years, but I was just wondering.

22 MR. DARNELL: We actually had
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1 outreach meetings through last year. We

2 haven't have any this year. But I was at

3 Pinellas outreach meetings several times,

4 including a day-long session to basically go

5 through the technical basis document in

6 relation to three different types of dose

7 reconstruction so that the interested

8 personnel could understand exactly how the

9 dose reconstruction was done. That meeting

10 was also attended by staffers from Senator

11 Nelson's office.

12 DR. MAURO: Well, SC&A, Kathy

13 Demers and Abe Zwiten visited the site, spent

14 a few days interviewing and took notes. The

15 degree to which they captured the material

16 you're telling me, but perhaps not. And, you

17 know, I think it's important and I'd have to

18 talk to them. Unfortunately, they're not on

19 the line. It may turn out that they do have

20 some insight into the issues you're raising

21 and that has been discussed. I don't know.

22 The first thing I'm going to do
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1 when I get back to the office is talk to them. 

2 Because I don't think we have -- whether our

3 interview notes -- let me see. Hold on a

4 second. Give me one second. Sometimes the

5 interview notes don't --

6 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hey, Phil, this

7 is Bob Presley, while John's looking for his

8 notes.

9 DR. MAURO: Yes, they're here. 

10 You know what would be very helpful to us? I

11 can't give you a work group, but we have an

12 attachment that's called attachment 2. It's

13 on the web; it's cleared, and it has a summary

14 of interview notes that reflects SC&A's

15 interview along with the other's that -- I'm

16 going to read this again, of course. But we

17 may have missed something that might be very

18 important. We're receptive to that.

19 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: There is

20 another point that I'd like to make, and this

21 is not an uncommon thing in a number of

22 facilities about people being told their
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1 badges behind and stuff. And I'm not denying

2 that it went on. We know of some facilities,

3 I truly believe some facilities, that they

4 were told to do this, but that is a negative. 

5 And it is very hard to prove that negative. 

6 Who did, who didn't, how much dose they

7 missed. And that is one of the most difficult

8 things when you have the claimants, the people

9 saying, well, this went on and then you have

10 to go back and try and figure out which of

11 these people were. So it is a difficult

12 problem for the health physicist and for the

13 Board to deal with in trying to determine how

14 much dosage was missed, how many people this

15 affected. You know, I mean, it's a difficult

16 problem. It really is. And I wish that

17 anybody knew a real good way of handling this.

18 MR. KATZ: Bob? Were you trying

19 to get a word in Bob Presley?

20 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes. I think we

21 ought to wait and let's see what these papers

22 say. I'm real interested in seeing what the
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1 lady's brought up versus the interviews. So

2 we ought to go ahead and wait and let's see

3 what this stuff is.

4 MS. HAND: I also know that the

5 REMS database that you can get on line for the

6 Pinellas plant. If you go to Pinellas plant

7 -- or Lockheed only goes to 1990 and then

8 again in 1994. There's two. But that's a

9 batch of data. And in there, they even had

10 one that goes '08. So this is during the last

11 years and during the decontamination years. 

12 And then go to the REMS data everything and

13 they showed that. And they show that the

14 majority of it is within the 30 to 250 range

15 during that time and everything. But whenever

16 you try to get the REMS data of years before

17 that, it is not there. And these would be the

18 batch doses. Again, according to the

19 guidelines that established that if NIOSH

20 cannot find, you know, documentation to refute

21 what the claimant has been saying, then the

22 error is on the side of the claimant. And the
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1 information that we give when we do the OCAS

2 closeout interview is being ignored by NIOSH. 

3 They are ignoring all of the claimant

4 information. They're saying, well, you did

5 not consider this. I actually did this. 

6 For example, the guy that did the

7 actual cutting down of the stack. He informed

8 them, I cut down the stack and you're telling

9 me I don't have it? And he had myelodysplasia

10 syndrome, which is a leukemia. He didn't make

11 it.

12 MR. KATZ: Donna, you're also

13 welcome to provide information about

14 individual cases from people who told you

15 about their individual dose reconstructions

16 and so on. I mean, another role that John

17 mentioned at one point in this meeting is they

18 also review a sample of individual dose

19 reconstructions. They're not going to review

20 the ones necessarily that you raise, because

21 they review random samples of these. But the

22 issues that you raise, if there's issues there
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1 that need to be looked at, that's something

2 else. It's really better not to be raising

3 individual issues --

4 MS. HAND: Correct.

5 MR. KATZ: -- on the telephone,

6 because these people all have a right to their

7 privacy.

8 MS. HAND: Correct. I understand

9 that very much. So, thank you for your time. 

10 Thank you for allowing me to speak.

11 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Donna, for

12 coming.

13 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Well, I guess

14 we'll see what these documents tell us and at

15 that point --

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Phil?

17 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: I think now John

19 says that he's going to look into it and so

20 forth. I just want to make sure because they

21 are working on this. We don't have to task

22 them with anything more, but I'd just like to
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1 kind of echo what Mr. Presley had said that we

2 look into this documentation and also the

3 interview notes and so forth.

4 MR. KATZ: Brad, this is already

5 within the scope of what they've already been

6 tasked with.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I just

8 wanted to make sure.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes. Thank you.

10 DR. MAURO: I'd like, yes, to make

11 sure that I understand what our action item

12 is. My understanding right now is that

13 there's one action I'm going to take right

14 away, and that is to talk to folks that

15 prepared attachment 2 to our review of the

16 site profile. I took notes on everything you

17 described, as best I could, talking about the

18 extent to which that's captured or was

19 discussed. I'll review it. So that's not

20 very extensive. And I could actually get back

21 to the work group about, you know, the degree

22 to which SC&A has explored some of these
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1 issues as part of our interview process. And

2 that will be the end of it, and that's going

3 to relatively quick and minor, the level of

4 that.

5 When you do deliver your material,

6 I'm assuming that what shows up to everyone

7 involved, we have the green light to take a

8 look at it within the context of the issues

9 that were raised. So those are my two action

10 items. 

11 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is Bob

12 Presley. SC&A and NIOSH is also going to get

13 a copy of this, aren't they?

14 MR. KATZ: Bob, the working group

15 will, too.

16 MEMBER PRESLEY: Thank you.

17 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: You got

18 anything else to add, Brad?

19 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes. No, not at

20 that time. Can't get my phone off mute. 

21 Sorry.

22 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Okay. Then I
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1 think that's -- Go ahead.

2 MR. KATZ: Yes?

3 PARTICIPANT: I have a question. 

4 I'm a public caller. I had a question

5 regarding item No. 8. 

6 MR. KATZ: Yes, item No. 8. You

7 mean potential for miss-dose completed in

8 uranium?

9 PARTICIPANT: And of uranium

10 contamination, uranium beds used to store

11 tritium?

12 MR. KATZ: Yes. Yes, go on with

13 your question.

14 PARTICIPANT: Okay. I wanted to

15 know, you said something about 5,000 DPM is

16 suspect. Is that what you said?

17 DR. MAURO: Oh, yes. This is John

18 Mauro from SC&A. We came across some records

19 that were handwritten and it appeared that

20 from looking it the number was 5,000. And we

21 tried to figure out what we were looking at. 

22 And our best guess is DPM are 100 centimeters
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1 squared. It's very common, when a person

2 takes a sample of a surface that's

3 contaminated with radioactivity, they'll take

4 a little piece of cloth or paper and smear it,

5 which would pick up the contamination on the

6 surface. And they count the amount of

7 radioactivity that's on that smear, or piece

8 of paper. It's standard procedure to look for

9 surface contamination. 

10 We don't know what those numbers

11 were, but the context in which we read the

12 handwritten document seemed to indicate that

13 it might have been 5,000 DPM or 100

14 centimeters squared of surface area of

15 possibly uranium. And when we saw that, we

16 said, gee, we feel like we have an obligation

17 to bring that to the attention of NIOSH and

18 the work group. And then we also had some

19 information that it looks like perhaps these

20 uranium beds that were used to store tritium

21 might have been cut. So you put those two

22 things together, you say, maybe there was some
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1 potential for the generation of uranium

2 particulate material that sort of settled out

3 on some surfaces. 

4 Subsequent to that, we found out

5 that that particular document that we saw was

6 not applicable to Pinellas, but to a guess a

7 pilot plant for Pinellas that was located in

8 Milwaukee. That resolved our issue. 

9 PARTICIPANT: Okay. Now you

10 mentioned a product called scandium and erbium

11 in this report?

12 MR. DARNELL: Those were our

13 potential tritides for the site.

14 PARTICIPANT: Okay. And you found

15 none of those potential tritides at Pinellas

16 plant?

17 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: No, those

18 were found at Pinellas.

19 PARTICIPANT: Okay. All right. 

20 So you did find scandium and erbium at the

21 Pinellas plant, but that was not part of that

22 item?
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1 MR. DARNELL: No, they are in the

2 literature for the Pinellas plant. We did not

3 go out and physically verify that this

4 material was there.

5 PARTICIPANT: Okay. All right. 

6 Well, I am very aware that erbium was at the

7 plant. I know that for a fact. But I don't

8 know if you knew that, but I just wanted to

9 bring that up. That's what geared my mind to

10 thinking in terms of that.

11 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: It is one of

12 the ones that is listed for Pinellas.

13 PARTICIPANT: Okay. It was used? 

14 I mean, you know that it was in the Pinellas

15 plant, correct?

16 MR. KATZ: Right. Right. You're

17 just supporting the documentation that they

18 reviewed in preparing their materials. Thank

19 you.

20 PARTICIPANT: All right. Well, I

21 just wanted to make sure that you knew that. 

22 Okay. Thank you.
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1 MR. KATZ: Thank you very much.

2 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: There is at

3 least in the documentation one plutonium

4 beryllium source, if I remember right.

5 MR. DARNELL: Yes, there is.

6 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: So, I mean,

7 that's documented that they used a source for

8 calibration for instrumentation. That is also

9 in the documentation.

10 PARTICIPATION: Yes, they also cut

11 that, too, at the plant. I mean, they used it

12 in the machine shop quite extensively. I

13 mean, it's very expensive to purchase, but it

14 was quite extensive use to touch those tubes.

15 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: They cut

16 their sources, the plutonium or beryllium?

17 PARTICIPANT: They used erbium in

18 the machine shop.

19 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Oh, okay. 

20 Okay. I'm sorry. I misunderstood you.

21 PARTICIPANT: I'm sorry I wasn't

22 clear on that.
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1 MS. HAND: I would like to know

2 the date of that smear for that Milwaukee

3 thing, because Milwaukee was moved down into

4 Pinellas plant and it was inside the plant. 

5 What was the date of the smear?

6 DR. MAURO: I'm going to pass the

7 baton to these folks.

8 MR. DARNELL: It was early in the

9 plant operations.

10 MS. HAND: But that's what I'm

11 saying, it's not a separate site. Milwaukee

12 was moved to Pinellas plant. They worked

13 inside the plant. So what was the date of the

14 smear that you got?

15 MR. DARNELL: Originally it was a

16 separate site.

17 MS. HAND: No, originally it was

18 in Milwaukee. Then move down in the '60s to

19 Pinellas plant. 

20 MR. DARNELL: Exactly.

21 MS. HAND: So that's what I'm

22 saying. Was the date of the smear earlier
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1 before the 1960s, before they moved down to

2 Pinellas plant? Because that was the

3 Milwaukee group.

4 MR. GLECKLER: It was around 1966,

5 I believe, when all the activities at the

6 Milwaukee site finally transferred to the

7 Pinellas plant and none of the neutron

8 generator work was being done in Milwaukee. 

9 Whereas Milwaukee did other stuff, I believe,

10 other than just that. 

11 MR. KATZ: So the record that they

12 were referencing is a record from the earlier

13 period from Milwaukee when there were

14 operations in Milwaukee.

15 MS. HAND: When it was there. So

16 we've got the actual date on that, because we

17 want to make sure --

18 MR. KATZ: They have the records

19 that would confirm --

20 MS. HAND: Okay. I would like to

21 get a copy of that date, please.

22 MR. DARNELL: You need to submit a
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1 FOIA request for --

2 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: They have the

3 document numbers of that record.

4 MR. GLECKLER: Yes, it's easy for

5 us to look up.

6 MR. DARNELL: We can get it

7 easily. We just don't have it here.

8 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes. No, I

9 don't have a copy of it either here. I do

10 have a list of some of those documentations

11 from Milwaukee. There have been document

12 numbers.

13 MR. DARNELL: If you have the

14 document number, would you let Donna have

15 that, or Ms. Hand have that so she can get 

16 her --

17 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: 

18 Unfortunately, she won't be able to access

19 those documents.

20 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, but she can

21 make the request that way.

22 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Right. She
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1 can make the request. But I mean they're not

2 on the open -- they aren't --

3 MR. GLECKLER: Refer to those

4 numbers that you -- just a list of the ones in

5 the TBD that had been identified, or was that

6 particular one that she's inquiring about

7 wasn't one of the TBD documents?

8 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: These are

9 some that were used in the TBD and they were

10 in reply about some of the MILFWOG documents. 

11 And that's a list of the numbers of some of

12 those documents.

13 MR. CALHOUN: Oh, so you don't

14 know for sure which one --

15 MR. GLECKLER: Yes, that's just

16 the ones that were in the TBD. It's probably

17 not the one she's looking for.

18 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

19 MS. HAND: That he was talking

20 about. That's what I'm saying.

21 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Yes, those

22 may have some information for her. That's,
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1 you know, without having the documents right

2 in front of us.

3 MR. DARNELL: This will actually

4 lead her astray compared to the document she's

5 looking for.

6 MS. HAND: Correct.

7 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: Oh, okay.

8 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

9 CHAIRMAN SCHOFIELD: That's the

10 only copy I had of some of the documents from

11 Milwaukee with me.

12 I think we're done.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay. We are now

14 adjourned. Thank you, everyone, for

15 attending, including everyone on the phone,

16 board members and others, members of the

17 public, and Congressional staff members.

18 (Whereupon, the above-entitled

19 matter was concluded at 11:36 a.m.)

20

21