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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

ROCKY FLATS WORKING GROUP

+ + + + +

WEDNESDAY

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 10:00 a.m., Mark Griffon, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

MARK GRIFFON, Chairman

DAVE KOTELCHUCK, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

LARA HUGHES, DCAS

JENNY LIN, HHS

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A

JAMES NETON, DCAS

LAVON RUTHERFORD, DCAS

DAN STEMPFLEY, ORAU

JOHN STIVER, SC&A
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T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

PAGE

Welcome and Roll Call/Introductions 3

Work Group Discussion

Summary of October onsite visit

at Denver Records Center 5

Status of NIOSH review of

documents at LANL 14

Status of ongoing NIOSH review

of tritium and thorium issues 19

Status of ongoing SC&A review

of Np-237 issues 23

Petitioner comments 31

Next Steps 33

Adjourn 34
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (9:59 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. Good morning, 

4 everyone. This is the Advisory Board on 

5 Radiation and Worker Health, Rocky Flats Work 

6 Group. We're about to get started.

7 First, have a roll call, beginning 

8 with Board Members. And we're speaking about 

9 Rocky Flats, so please speak to conflict of 

10 interest as well. Starting with the Chair, we 

11 have Mark.

12 (Roll Call.)

13 MR. KATZ: There is an agenda for 

14 this meeting, but it is not yet posted. But 

15 it's just in general, it's just an update. 

16 Mark will tell you more about it. It's an 

17 update of where activities stand right now. 

18 And there are no other documents posted for 

19 this meeting.

20 So please, everyone who's on the 

21 line who's not speaking, mute your phones at 

22 this point. Press *6 to mute your phones if 
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1 you don't have a mute button. And then 

2 pressing *6 again will take you off of mute. 

3 Thank you. And, Mark, it's your meeting.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank you, Ted. 

5 Yes, and I apologize. I was very late in 

6 getting an agenda together. But it really, 

7 really is just an update meeting. And part of 

8 the reason we moved this to a phone call was 

9 that things are still in progress.

10 So it wasn't really -- we didn't 

11 think it'd be fruitful to have a meeting in 

12 Cincinnati. But it is at least worthwhile in 

13 updating everyone on some activities that have 

14 been going on.

15 And basically the meeting is a 

16 summary of the October on-site visit to the 

17 Denver Records Center, establishing NIOSH's 

18 review of the documents located at LANL, the 

19 status of ongoing NIOSH review of tritium and 

20 thorium, SC&A's review of neptunium issues. 

21 And then we'll have a chance for comments.

22 And we'll mention, you know, our 
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1 path forward, next steps. So with that, I'll 

2 start with the summary of the on-site visit. 

3 And I don't know if LaVon or Joe, or who wants 

4 to start this.

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, Mark, I can 

6 start it. That's fine. And then Joe can jump 

7 in, however you want to do it then.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Fine, that's 

9 fine.

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: That works for 

11 me. I'll do a little, kind of get everybody 

12 back to, up to speed. We presented the 

13 Evaluation Report at the September Advisory 

14 Board Meeting in Denver.

15 Again, the Evaluation Report 

16 concluded dose reconstruction was feasible. 

17 So no SEC class was recommended. The Board 

18 turned the petition over to the Work Group. 

19 And the contractor, the Board contractor, 

20 SC&A, conducted additional research before 

21 providing a recommendation on the petition.

22 Also, during the Advisory Board 
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1 meeting, a number of former employees spoke 

2 about potential exposures to tritium, other 

3 radionuclides, and prompted additional actions 

4 by NIOSH, the Work Group, and the Board's 

5 technical contractor.

6 NIOSH, we conducted a classified 

7 data capture at Los Alamos in November. 

8 Documents were sent from Rocky to LANL. 

9 During the decommissioning of the Rocky Flats 

10 plant, the search focused on documents that 

11 supported the potential for tritium exposure 

12 during the 1960s and early 1970s, prior to the 

13 1973 incident.

14 Additionally, the search included 

15 documents associated with neptunium and 

16 thorium activities. The status of that data 

17 capture is that documents are still being 

18 reviewed by DOE to release to Germantown for 

19 further NIOSH and Advisory Board review.

20 Approximately one third of the 

21 documents have been released. And the rest 

22 are still being reviewed. And I know that Joe 
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1 got a chance to get over and look at the one 

2 third, or the documents that have been 

3 released to Germantown. And he has gotten 

4 over, and at least got a glance at those.

5 And then, as Mark may have 

6 mentioned, I'm not sure, in November, a number 

7 of us, including Mark, Joe Fitzgerald, myself, 

8 and a couple of ORAU team members, we 

9 conducted classified interviews with former 

10 employees at the Denver Federal Records 

11 Center.

12 The interviews were set up to 

13 allow production workers, managers, health and 

14 safety personnel, other employees, to speak 

15 freely, without the concern of saying 

16 something that should not be said in a public 

17 forum. Our focus again was to identify 

18 potential for tritium exposure during the 

19 '60s, 1960s and early '70s, prior to the 1973 

20 incident.

21 Additionally, interviewees were 

22 asked questions concerning neptunium and 
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1 certain thorium operations known as thorium 

2 strikes. The interviews were, we completed 

3 those interviews.

4 The interviews were typed up, and 

5 we basically consolidated each interview from 

6 each interviewer's perspective into one 

7 document, and sent them to DOE for review. 

8 They released those.

9 However, we could not release 

10 those out to the Work Group and the rest until 

11 they had been reviewed by each of the 

12 interviewees to ensure that what was written 

13 accurately reflected what was said.

14 And then from those classified 

15 interviews, I don't want to say too much about 

16 what we learned from the classified interviews 

17 because, again, they have not been approved, 

18 basically, by the interviewees, as that was 

19 what they said.

20 However, I think it's safe to say 

21 that we did get a better understanding of 

22 potential tritium exposure scenarios 
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1 associated with production and shipping and 

2 receiving. Specific information given by an 

3 individual of a production scenario where 

4 tritium could be released, as well as specific 

5 information about actions taken post-1973 

6 incident, where we had indication of shipping 

7 containers being contaminated with tritium.

8 So we did get additional 

9 information from those interviews. Again, 

10 those will be, we hope to have those approved 

11 by the interviewees and released here very 

12 soon. Additionally, to clarify, or also to --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: LaVon.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, go ahead.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This is Mark. 

16 I just wondered, one question on your write17 ups of the interviews. These were kind of, 

18 you know, jointly conducted interviews with 

19 SC&A, you know, with Joe.

20 I was in the room but, you know, 

21 at least SC&A and NIOSH were doing the 

22 questioning. Do you incorporate, or did SC&A 
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1 review these in any way? Or are they going to 

2 do it separate? I mean, I --

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, what 

4 Joe did --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I would like to 

6 have a consistent narrative of what, you know, 

7 what the --

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I totally 

9 agree with what you're saying, Mark. And in 

10 fact, I can forward on to you guys what we 

11 have right now.

12 But what we did was, we did 

13 incorporate Joe's. Joe sent his consolidated 

14 notes to us from each interview, and we 

15 incorporated those into our consolidated 

16 notes, which everything was pretty consistent

17 And in fact, the, you know, there 

18 was nothing from the finalized document that 

19 was inconsistent with what Joe wrote. But 

20 I'll forward this --

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Very good. 

22 That's good. That's good. Okay.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I'll forward 

2 those on to you guys. I just didn't want to 

3 release them totally until actually we, each 

4 interviewee had had a chance to review and 

5 make sure that what was said was correct.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I agree.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: But certainly you 

8 two, since you are involved in them, there's 

9 no problem with getting them to you to take a 

10 look at.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Any --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sorry to 

14 interrupt. I just thought I'd ask.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, no, that's 

16 good.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Question from 

18 Dave Kotelchuck. When you say you're going to 

19 release the documents. I'm on the committee, 

20 but I'm not, but I don't have security 

21 clearance. I'm the Member of the committee, I 

22 think, without security clearance.
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1 And I wondered, when you say you 

2 would release them, to whom would they be 

3 released? Would they be released to me as a 

4 committee Member? Would they be released to 

5 the public? I'm not sure the nature of what a 

6 release would be in a classified interview.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, actually 

8 thanks, Dave. The classified interviews have 

9 been reviewed by DOE and, you know, any 

10 information that would have been considered 

11 classified has been redacted from those 

12 interviews, and so they can be released to the 

13 Work Group.

14 In addition to the classified 

15 release, in order to release them to the 

16 public, we will have to have a PII and 

17 redaction done as well.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Thank 

19 you.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: But again, I will 

21 get them to Mark and Joe as quickly as we can. 

22 Because you guys were involved in those 
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1 interviews ahead of time.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And ultimately, 

3 you will do the PII review, and have them 

4 released to the petitioners, and everyone can 

5 have that?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct. 

7 And we'll get that done, like I said, as soon 

8 as we get, you know, get approval from the 

9 interviewees that, yes, we've captured 

10 everything appropriately.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Very 

12 good.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. So, again, 

14 you know, we did get some information. I 

15 didn't want to go into too much detail on that 

16 from those interviews. But I did want to 

17 point out the specific production scenario we 

18 learned, or we got information on, and the 

19 potential for contamination from shipping 

20 receiving containers, from shipping 

21 containers.

22 And that has driven a lot of our 
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1 extra activities. We also had indication of a 

2 potential bubbler that was in the area during 

3 the '60s time period, prior to the '73 

4 incident.

5 So the classified interviews 

6 provided us information that allowed us to 

7 actually do a more specific search for 

8 additional information at LANL and the Denver 

9 Records Center. The Denver -- we went back, 

10 we sent specific search terms to the Denver 

11 Records Center.

12 And they followed up with a number 

13 of documents, identified a list of documents. 

14 From that we actually had, the ORAU team was 

15 out last week or the week before. I can't 

16 remember. And reviewing those documents, 

17 actually it's been two weeks ago. Reviewing 

18 those documents, identify documents that they 

19 wanted to capture.

20 The Denver Federal Records Center 

21 is working to release those documents now, 

22 that we identified. We also did, we also want 
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1 to do another focused search at LANL. And I 

2 say want to do because we did identify search 

3 terms to them and provided them information.

4 However, as you know, we're still 

5 waiting to get the documents from the November 

6 data capture that we completed. We have been 

7 waiting to get the rest of those documents 

8 released. So release of that November data 

9 capture is our number one priority right now.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: LaVon.

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think you 

13 said that earlier. Is that the one you said 

14 approximately one third of the documents have 

15 been released to Germantown?

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. And 

18 then, so you're -- okay.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, yes. So, 

20 you know, once they've completed that task, 

21 and they can do the specific data search that 

22 we're looking for, we may or may not find 
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1 anything of value there because we did look at 

2 a large portion of the Rocky Flats documents 

3 at LANL.

4 So we may be able to just look at 

5 the document names and such which they provide 

6 based on our search, and come to the 

7 conclusion that we're not going to get what we 

8 need there. So we will get that and make that 

9 determination.

10 The classified interviews also 

11 provided us information about where the 

12 tritium analysis would have been conducted, 

13 which is Building 123. We identified, we got 

14 a number of names of individuals to interview. 

15 We have conducted those interviews.

16 We have a couple of people that 

17 we're still trying to run down that are 

18 associated with that. But we have conducted a 

19 large portion of those interviews.

20 Once they are complete and all the 

21 interviews are typed up and reviewed by the 

22 interviewees, they will be made available to 
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1 the Work Group and SC&A.

2 So, and I'll give you some of our 

3 path forward. And I know I kind of jumped 

4 past everything, but it kind of made it easier 

5 for me to run through it. And then I'll let 

6 Joe --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, you're 

8 hitting many agenda items.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, it just 

10 kind of, in my mind I could kind of get you 

11 where we were going. And then we could jump 

12 back and fill in.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's fine. 

14 Okay.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. So once 

16 the documents have been released by DOE from 

17 LANL, a group -- we will do additional review 

18 of those documents, both SC&A, the Work Group, 

19 and NIOSH.

20 And after the reviews, NIOSH, 

21 after we review the documents and consider the 

22 information from both the documents and the 
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1 interviews, we will determine whether this 

2 (telephonic interference) tritium exposure is 

3 feasible.

4 And we think that we can get this 

5 done relatively quickly. If LANL -- and it's 

6 all dependent on LANL releasing the documents 

7 that they currently have. If LANL releases 

8 the documents by early March, we think we can 

9 make our decision on the information 

10 available, whether it changes our position, 

11 sometime in April.

12 That will, and we will either 

13 document this, and this is solely for the 

14 tritium exposure portion of it. We'll either 

15 document this -- if it changes our position we 

16 will document it and either a -- depending on 

17 what's appropriate based on General Counsel's 

18 recommendation, either an 83.14 recommending a 

19 Class, or an addendum, whichever's 

20 appropriate.

21 Or if we determine that it hasn't 

22 changed our position we may provide a White 
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1 Paper of what we've reviewed, what information 

2 we found, and provide that to the Work Group.

3 And thorium is kind of, the 

4 thorium strikes is a little bit behind 

5 schedule compared to the tritium. If you 

6 remember, the thorium-strikes issue was not an 

7 issue that was brought up or evaluated in the 

8 petition initially. So it was identified by 

9 SC&A in some of their review.

10 It was also identified, actually, 

11 by some of the public during the public 

12 sessions, some additional discussion. So we 

13 have captured that issue as an issue that we 

14 need to do further work on. We have done a 

15 considerable portion of that work already with 

16 the data captures I mentioned earlier. We're 

17 looking for additional information.

18 We have identified that we, you 

19 know, we do believe that there may have been 

20 more thorium strikes than what were previously 

21 identified. We are looking for additional 

22 information on those.
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1 We're looking at personal, any 

2 personnel monitoring data that exists. We're

3 also going to look at our current, or the dose 

4 reconstruction approach that was previously 

5 identified, and determine if it's still 

6 bounding based on what we've learned.

7 We do, you know, based on our 

8 current schedule we believe that we can have 

9 that issue to the Work Group in the form of a 

10 White Paper in May of this year. We have 

11 moved along relatively quickly.

12 We do have interviews that we are 

13 currently trying to set up associated with the 

14 thorium strikes. And as we get closer on 

15 those, I'll get that information to Joe and 

16 the rest of the Work Group, in case they want 

17 to sit in on those.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So, LaVon, just 

19 to be clear, you said probably get a White 

20 Paper to the Work Group by May for the thorium 

21 strikes?

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. And the 

2 tritium is on a faster --

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. The 

4 tritium's actually a little, we're a little 

5 farther along --

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- you know. 

8 Alright. I would think that both of those 

9 issues, if we could get the information to the 

10 Work Group, you know, April, May time frame. 

11 Have time to review it and have a Work Group 

12 meeting in June associated with those, in 

13 preparation for the July Board Meeting.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: That was my 

16 initial thought.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. And you 

18 just hit the next steps item on the agenda.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well see, I 

20 didn't have that in front of me. You thought 

21 I did, but no.

22 Another issue that we are 
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1 following up on was an issue brought up by 

2 Terrie, the petitioner, the co-petitioner. 

3 It's an issue associated with potential 

4 problems with the analysis conducted in 

5 Building 123. We have the documents that 

6 Terry had forwarded to SC&A.

7 We have taken those documents and 

8 we're currently defining tasks associated with 

9 resolving that issue, and we do not have a 

10 schedule for completing that at this time, but 

11 we are tasking that out.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Very good.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. Okay, 

14 now we can jump back to wherever you want to 

15 jump back to.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well why don't 

17 I ask just if you go back to the first item on 

18 the agenda, and let Joe maybe just weigh in. 

19 You don't have to repeat everything LaVon 

20 said. But if there's anything to add.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Not as much as I 

22 would have had with this summary. Just 
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1 process-wise, I want to clarify how SC&A plays 

2 in all this, you know.

3 When the ER was issued and we got 

4 the tasking, we spent some time going through 

5 the various data captures and the information 

6 that NIOSH had collected in support of this 

7 most recent ER. So that was the baseline that 

8 we spent some time in the fall doing.

9 For this particular visit we went 

10 out early, I went out early to actually do an 

11 independent, additional document review, above 

12 and beyond what NIOSH had done for the ER, 

13 focusing specifically on some of these issues 

14 such as thorium strikes, neptunium, issues 

15 that weren't as much center stage on the ER.

16 So that was very helpful for the 

17 interviews that came later in the week because 

18 that was the basis for some of the questions 

19 that we were able to ask.

20 I thought it was a pretty 

21 effective give-and-take on the interviews. I 

22 think we clarified quite a bit on tritium, as 
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1 well the thorium strikes.

2 A little additional information on 

3 neptunium. This is an issue that has arisen 

4 at some of the other DOE sites over the last 

5 several years, particularly on the classified 

6 side. And we had spent a great deal of time 

7 trying to follow that up.

8 And I wanted to use that as a 

9 starting point for looking at whether there 

10 was any similar implications for Rocky Flats, 

11 since this information more or less arose over 

12 the last couple, two or three years.

13 And that was the context of my 

14 reviewing that issue in particular at Rocky, 

15 and of course, certainly, Terrie knows there 

16 was other comments on neptunium as well. So 

17 certainly we wanted to spend some time on 

18 that.

19 As far as path forward, I did get 

20 a chance, as LaVon mentioned, to begin 

21 reviewing the Los Alamos classified documents 

22 that were forwarded to DOE in Germantown, 
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1 since I'm pretty close to Germantown here. 

2 And that certainly will be something we'll 

3 spend time looking at, now that we are seeing 

4 the documents show up.

5 But I think pretty much what we're 

6 trying to do is see if there's any new 

7 information, information that wasn't 

8 considered before that would make a 

9 difference.

10 And as LaVon was pointing out, 

11 that's primarily the context of what we're 

12 doing as well. But doing it on an independent 

13 basis, and providing that information back to 

14 the Work Group. So without, you know, 

15 covering his, some of the same topics, that's 

16 pretty much where we are from our standpoint.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And the one, I 

18 guess the one concern that I would have is if, 

19 on the timings, LaVon, that you proposed, the 

20 one concern I'd have is these documents from 

21 LANL. And then you just get a, you're 

22 expecting some to come from Rocky, I assume. 
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1 They'll also go to Germantown. You know, the 

2 timing of getting those documents there and 

3 having time enough to review those and, you 

4 know, develop your White Paper, and have SC&A 

5 an opportunity to review those. Do you think 

6 that timing is going to work?

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, you know, I 

8 hope so.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You know, I was 

10 --

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: I was optimistic 

12 --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: If you can 

14 predict.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, exactly. 

16 You know, I was optimistic when I talked to 

17 you and Ted and Joe at the December meeting 

18 that we'd have enough information, or have all 

19 the information now, that we would have been 

20 able to be, you know, to accomplish more for 

21 this Work Group session.

22 So I, you know, I think that we 
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1 will have the information. I definitely 

2 believe that the tritium issue, we will at 

3 least have reviewed all of the documents and 

4 developed enough information there to provide 

5 the Work Group something on that issue.

6 And I believe if everything goes 

7 accordingly, again that, like you said, it's 

8 really dependent on the release of the 

9 documents. That's going to push the schedule.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I mean, do you 

11 have any indication from LANL about the 

12 balance of the records, or --

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: I never did --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- just kind of 

15 wait and see?

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, Greg Lewis 

17 has provided them the funding. At least when 

18 I talked to Greg last week, he'd provided them 

19 the funding to complete the task. But, you 

20 know, I just, I can't be for sure.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, okay. 

22 All right. And I think we kind of hit on the 
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1 main topics. Anything to add from NIOSH or 

2 SC&A on the update?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, I will 

4 add another item that we are looking at, is 

5 that based on what we learned on the exposure 

6 scenario from the classified interviews and 

7 the shipping container information, we are 

8 doing some additional work to compare what 

9 potential exposures, the potential exposure 

10 generated from those scenarios and how they 

11 compare to what we've already identified as 

12 our bounding analysis, so.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Very good. 

14 Okay, anything to add, Joe?

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, no. I think 

16 --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think the 

18 proposed path forward is --

19 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that path 

20 forward is pretty much where we're on. 

21 Tritium, the thorium strikes and neptunium are 

22 some of the other issues that have been 
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1 mentioned by LaVon. Building 123, laboratory 

2 analyses, that kind of thing. I think we 

3 pretty much have that scope right now.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The other thing 

5 I would urge as we're moving forward and 

6 getting close to setting a Work Group meeting, 

7 maybe in June. But as we, as these products 

8 get produced as these White Papers or, you 

9 know, these summaries of the interviews. You 

10 know, to the extent possible let's make them 

11 available to the public, you know, and to the 

12 petitioners, so they have lead time before, 

13 you know --

14 And I assume the next meeting 

15 would be a face to face meeting in Cincinnati. 

16 But, you know, we want to give lead time so 

17 people have a chance to look at these before 

18 the meeting.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I agree. 

20 And we'll do that. I will also make sure to 

21 keep you updated, Mark and Ted, you know, as 

22 the next weeks, as this progresses.
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1 If it looks like, you know, how 

2 much the schedule, if the schedule's slipping 

3 because of, you know, the documents aren't 

4 arriving, I will keep you informed on that. 

5 And try to keep also, either myself or Josh 

6 Kinman will contact Terrie and keep her 

7 updated as well.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Very good. And 

9 I'll also make sure that we, you know, have 

10 enough lead time. If we set a Work Group date 

11 we'll make sure we make that date known well 

12 in advance and actually put an agenda up this 

13 time in advance. And make materials available 

14 that will be discussed at the meeting in 

15 advance as well.

16 So if there's nothing else, I 

17 think, you know, I'd like to hear if there's 

18 any comments from the petitioners at this 

19 point.

20 MS. BARRIE: Hi, Mark, this is 

21 Terrie.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Hi, Terrie.
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1 MS. BARRIE: Thanks for allowing 

2 me to comment. Although I wish that things 

3 would be moving quicker, I really appreciate 

4 this update. And in particular, following up 

5 on the analysis of the lab in Building 123.

6 I think that is one of the most 

7 important issues that needs to be resolved 

8 because if the data that NIOSH is basing their 

9 methodology on is faulty, falsified or, you 

10 know, not up to scientific standards, then it 

11 doesn't really matter what kind of equations 

12 they come up with, because it's based on 

13 faulty data. So that is one of the most 

14 important issues to resolve, is what I think.

15 And just to clarify something. 

16 The petition did include the thorium strikes 

17 as one of the issues to qualify or to have the 

18 SEC approved. But other than that, I 

19 appreciate, you know, trying to get me and the 

20 petitioners the documents in a timely matter 

21 because, you know, it does take us a lot 

22 longer, since we don't have all the science 
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1 behind us, to review these and understand 

2 them. And also for scheduling the next face 

3 to face Work Group so I can make arrangements 

4 to attend that.

5 But I appreciate everyone's hard 

6 work on this. And hopefully LANL will release 

7 the rest of the documents in a timely manner 

8 so we can move forward.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank you, 

10 Terrie. And I appreciate your, I mean, your 

11 statement about the data is spot on. And I 

12 think NIOSH is definitely taking up that task 

13 to look into the Building 123 data. So, you 

14 know, we're certainly adding that on to what 

15 we need to look at.

16 MS. BARRIE: Okay, great.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thank you.

18 MS. BARRIE: Thank you.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Any other 

20 comments?

21 (No response.)

22 Okay, I think, you know, this is 
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1 useful to just have a quick update. And, you 

2 know, I hope we can stay on schedule to, as 

3 LaVon proposed, to have a Work Group meeting 

4 sometime in June.

5 And I'll schedule this with LaVon 

6 and others to actually, as it gets closer, to 

7 actually set a date. And, you know, we'll go 

8 from there. But I think that's appropriate to 

9 have it before the July Board Meeting. So 

10 that sounds like a plan. And anyone else from 

11 the Work Group have any comments?

12 MEMBER MUNN: No. Just hopefully 

13 well before the July meeting, I would hope.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Agreed, Wanda.

15 MEMBER MUNN: More than a couple 

16 of weeks.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Okay.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: This has been 

19 helpful.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. Well 

21 thank you, everyone. I know this was a pretty 

22 short meeting. But I think it was worthwhile 
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1 just to get an update on where things stand, 

2 and our next steps forward. So thanks, 

3 everyone. And we'll talk soon. Thank you, 

4 and meeting adjourned.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

6 matter went off the record at 10:32 a.m.)

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