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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 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON WORKER OUTREACH

+ + + + +

THURSDAY

DECEMBER 16, 2010

+ + + + +

 The Work Group convened in the 

Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport 

Marriott, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, 

Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m., Michael H. Gibson, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Chairman*

JOSIE BEACH, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

LYNN AYERS, SC&A*

TERRIE BARRIE, ANWAG*

BUCK CAMERON, ATL*

MARY ELLIOTT, ATL*

CHRIS ELLISON, DCAS*

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A 

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS*

EMILY HOWELL, HHS*

J.J. JOHNSON, DCAS*

MARK LEWIS, ATL*

JENNY LIN, HHS

VERNON MCDOUGALL, ATL

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A*

KATHY ROBERTSON-DEMERS, SC&A

*Participating via telephone
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Call to order 5 

Roll call 5 

Draft Objective 3 Evaluation Plan 8 

 Kathy Robertson-DeMers 9 

 Discussion 12

Follow-up Review of the Outreach 111

Tracking System, the Status of

Finding 3

 Kathy Robertson-DeMers 112

 Discussion 120

Issues Matrix for OCAS PROC-12 145

and ORAU PROC-97

 

 Kathy Robertson-DeMers 145

 Finding 1 145

 J.J. Johnson 147

 Discussion 151

 Finding 2 175

 J.J. Johnson 175, 186

 Discussion 178, 187

 Finding 3 188

 Discussion 188
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

 Finding 4 188

 J.J. Johnson 188

 Discussion 190

 Finding 5 220

 J.J. Johnson 220

 Stu Hinnefeld 220

Observation 1 223

 J.J. Johnson 223

Observation 2 225

 J.J. Johnson 225

Observation 3 227

 J.J. Johnson 227

Observation 4 242

 J.J. Johnson 242

Observation 5 244

 J.J. Johnson 244

Worker Comments 255

 Terrie Barrie (read by Ted Katz) 256

 ANWAG

PROC-97 260

 Kathy Robertson-DeMers 260

Future Meetings 269
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 9:01 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: This is the Advisory 

4 Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Worker 

5 Outreach Workgroup.

6 My name is Ted Katz. I'm the 

7 Designated Federal Official to the Advisory 

8 Board.

9 And beginning roll call, with 

10 Board Members in the room. Oh, actually, 

11 let's begin with on the phone with our Chair.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, Ted, this 

13 is Mike. I'm here.

14 MR. KATZ: And in the room?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach, Board 

16 Member.

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Phil Schofield, 

18 Board Member.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Wanda Munn, Board 

20 Member.

21 MR. KATZ: Very good. And are 

22 there any other Board Members on the phone?
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1 (No response.)

2 No? Okay. And NIOSH-ORAU Team 

3 did not make it in with the exception of Vern 

4 McDougall.

5 MR. McDOUGALL: Vern McDougall, 

6 ATL.

7 MR. KATZ: ATL, actually.

8 But on the line?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld, 

10 DCAS.

11 MS. ELLISON: This is Chris 

12 Ellison, DCAS.

13 MR. JOHNSON: J.J. Johnson, DCAS.

14 MR. LEWIS: Mark Lewis, ATL.

15 MS. ELLIOTT: Mary Elliott, ATL.

16 MR. CAMERON: Buck Cameron, ATL.

17 MR. KATZ: Was that Buck?

18 MR. CAMERON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Welcome all of you.

20 SC&A team in the room?

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald, 

22 SC&A.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Kathy 

2 Robertson-DeMers, SC&A.

3 MR. KATZ: SC&A team on the line?

4 And there are no members of the 

5 public in the room.

6 Any members of the public on the 

7 line?

8 MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie Barrie 

9 with ANWAG.

10 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Terrie.

11 MS. BARRIE: Good morning.

12 MR. KATZ: You are constant 

13 company for us. Thank you.

14 Any others? Oh, oh, sorry. And 

15 also, HHS or other federal officials or 

16 contractors to the fed in the room?

17 MS. LIN: Jenny Lin, HHS.

18 MR. KATZ: And on the line?

19 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS.

20 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Emily.

21 Okay, we're all set to go.

22 Just let me remind everyone on the 
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1 phone to mute your phones except when you're 

2 speaking.

3 And, Mike, you're on.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Sorry the 

5 weather didn't cooperate for everyone to be 

6 here today, but I hope everyone's got the 

7 agenda and the documents that could be passed 

8 out that were PA-cleared that we're going to 

9 be discussing today.

10 We will first go over the Draft 

11 Objective 3 of the Implementation Plan. Then, 

12 we'll do some discussion of the matrices, 

13 issues on the matrices, for OCAS PROC-12 and 

14 97, and follow up the review of the Outreach 

15 Tracking System, secondly, then, the review of 

16 the matrices, and then we will have time for 

17 some worker comments before we adjourn. And 

18 maybe everyone can get home before they get 

19 snowed in.

20 So, let's start out with the Draft 

21 Objective 3 Evaluation Plan.

22 Kathy or Joe, if you want to go 
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1 ahead and start that? Then, we could get in 

2 some discussion about that with DCAS.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. This 

4 is Kathy Robertson-DeMers.

5 You were provided with two 

6 documents related to a plan which we were 

7 asked to put together in the October 20th 

8 Working Group meeting for evaluating the Rocky 

9 Flats worker comments.

10 The first part of that is actually 

11 the plan, and the second part is an example 

12 which was put together so that you could see 

13 how this plan would be implemented. And 

14 hopefully, everybody has a copy of those two 

15 documents.

16 The plan was centered around 

17 evaluating Objective 3, which is in the 

18 Mission Statement and Implementation Plan for 

19 this Working Group. And Rocky Flats was 

20 chosen as the pilot site for this type of 

21 evaluation.

22 The plan includes, basically, just 
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1 to kind of break it down, the documents which 

2 will be reviewed in the collection of the 

3 worker comments, the documents which will be 

4 reviewed as evidence for NIOSH resolving those 

5 comments, the documents to be reviewed as 

6 evidence that NIOSH gave a response to the 

7 commenters or that some feedback was provided.

8 And, then, it also provides a 

9 brief procedure on a consideration of worker 

10 input, the collection of NIOSH responses to 

11 this input, the determination of the comment 

12 resolution process, and the feedback to the 

13 workers. So, there's a brief procedure in 

14 there on how we expect to do that.

15 This is a pilot review. So, we 

16 anticipate that as we go through the process, 

17 this procedure or plan may change. And 

18 hopefully, by the end we will have a pretty 

19 good procedure, if we decide to do this for 

20 other sites.

21 The end product that we hope to 

22 get out of this plan is a series of forms like 
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1 the example that I provided and also a White 

2 Paper summarizing the outcome of all of the 

3 comments that are reviewed and any findings or 

4 observations that we identify generically 

5 during the process.

6 What we anticipate happening 

7 through the process is that SC&A will put 

8 together forms similar to the form that was 

9 given to the Working Group for each comment. 

10 We believe that we may aggregate some comments 

11 that are identical or similar from workers.

12 And once we have compiled all of 

13 these forms, we would like to give NIOSH an 

14 opportunity to provide additional information 

15 for feedback on observations, comments, how 

16 they may have gotten back to the worker.

17 And we also suggest that maybe we 

18 involve the Working Group members, once NIOSH 

19 has provided that feedback, kind of in a 

20 similar way as what is done with the dose 

21 reconstruction process, where they get 

22 involved in review of dose reconstructions 
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1 with both NIOSH and SC&A, but that is a 

2 suggestion.

3 And really, that's kind of the 

4 plan in a nutshell. If there's any questions, 

5 I can answer them.

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Do any of 

7 the Work Group Members or DCAS have any 

8 questions on what Kathy has at least outlined 

9 thus far?

10 MEMBER MUNN: No. The outline is 

11 very thorough, as Kathy's work always is.

12 It's not clear to me how this 

13 data, which is likely to be voluminous by the 

14 time it's over with, is actually going to be 

15 used. I understand, I think it's obvious what 

16 the purpose of our efforts are here. But once 

17 we have this data, what is going to be done 

18 with it?

19 Sometimes I think we get carried 

20 away with putting together information without 

21 a very clear picture of precisely what value 

22 this has. And I understand that, from the 
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1 viewpoint of many, the concern here is that 

2 workers' comments have not been responded to 

3 or have not had the attention of the people 

4 who are doing dose reconstruction. But once 

5 we have accumulated this data, we will, then, 

6 be in a position to be able to say, yes, see, 

7 these comments were treated as though they 

8 weren't heard or it appears that in most cases 

9 these comments were at least heard.

10 Then, do we go a step further and 

11 were they acted on or were they not acted on? 

12 And if so, what do we do? What's the action 

13 item at the end of this effort, is really the 

14 question, I guess.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

16 Kathy.

17 I can see a couple of ways that 

18 this can be used. First of all, it can be 

19 used to improve the outreach procedure 

20 process-wise.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Which is flawed now 

22 how?
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, 

2 there's not a lot of information on feedback 

3 to the workers and resolution of comments in 

4 PR-12, for example. If you go back and look 

5 at ORAU PROC-97, there was a very detailed 

6 process for how they read over the meeting 

7 minutes, responded to the comments, or didn't 

8 respond and didn't need to.

9 And, then, there was an interface 

10 between the technical document preparation 

11 procedures, such as the Site Profile 

12 development procedure and the outreach system 

13 procedure. There was a lot of feedback where 

14 the comments from the workers were fed into 

15 that technical document preparation process, 

16 and those technical documents were improved as 

17 a result. A lot of that description of that 

18 process is absent from the new procedure.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. So, it is at 

20 least your feeling, Kathy, that one of our 

21 purposes here is to try to improve 12?

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's one. 
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1 Also, you know, it's to improve the entire 

2 outreach process in getting back to the 

3 workers about their comments, improving that 

4 interaction between the workforce and NIOSH.

5 MR. KATZ: Can I add something? I 

6 mean the objective that we adopted here is, I 

7 mean I think those are important, improving 

8 the procedure as it is on paper and feedback 

9 to workers, but central to this was a concern 

10 about whether substantive information being 

11 provided is actually getting to the document 

12 owners and being incorporated where it needs 

13 to.

14 And if the evaluation shows that a 

15 lot of substantive input that DCAS ordinarily 

16 would have taken into consideration, would 

17 have considered, isn't actually getting there, 

18 if they find that, then, I mean that's an 

19 important finding for DCAS to think, how is it 

20 that this information is coming in one door, 

21 but not getting to the people that it needs to 

22 or not getting the consideration it needs to 
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1 improve procedures.

2 So, if people have opined as to 

3 whether that is happening well or not, this 

4 isn't intended to empirically look at whether 

5 that's happening. And if it's not happening, 

6 one would hope that this evaluation 

7 illuminates where the breakdowns are 

8 occurring.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, and I 

10 was getting to the other item I was going to 

11 say, which is it's going to improve the 

12 technical work products.

13 MEMBER MUNN: It's the level of 

14 detail, I think, that concerns me here more 

15 than anything else.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Hi. This is 

17 Arjun. Sorry, I got on a couple of minutes 

18 late. Am I interrupting anyone?

19 MR. KATZ: No, no. Jump in.

20 MEMBER MUNN: You're right on 

21 time.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you.
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1 I think one of the things that we 

2 might look at regarding the outcomes is when 

3 NIOSH uses the worker interview materials or 

4 materials gathered during outreach, they could 

5 be better referenced in the technical 

6 documents themselves. I think that's one part 

7 of the outcome.

8 Maybe, you know, in this example, 

9 they may have used it in a lot of places, but 

10 they are not referenced. So, it becomes more 

11 difficult for people who have made comments to 

12 know whether they have been used.

13 At least I think it might be a 

14 minor item in terms of improvement, but it 

15 might have a major result in showing people 

16 how their work was used or input was used.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: This is Joe.

18 I would like to, I guess, respond 

19 to Wanda's comment because I think it is a 

20 good comment. I mean, how do you scope 

21 something like this, particularly if it is a 

22 prototype?
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1 I think this is a difficult one 

2 because we certainly haven't done it before. 

3 We don't have a precedent.

4 And to some extent, I think you do 

5 err to define a slightly broader scope. You 

6 know, you're guessing a little broader because 

7 you are going to try to test this thing. It's 

8 very possible that some of the comparisons you 

9 are doing in terms of the information you 

10 collect, the documents you look at, may bear 

11 out in this empirical test to be not as 

12 worthwhile. You know, this is part of the 

13 process. This is a shakedown.

14 We're trying to figure out what's 

15 the appropriate level of review, scope of 

16 review, the dynamic of what is termed 

17 significant. You know, in that definition it 

18 says we're going to look at these significant 

19 items. Well, the level of significance is 

20 something, I think, when we get into this, we 

21 are going to be able to know firsthand.

22 You know, a lot of this has been 
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1 abstract. I mean we are writing a procedure. 

2 We are dealing with issues that come up and 

3 we are trying to figure out, okay, certainly 

4 it makes sense to find a way to assess how 

5 much better we're getting.

6 But to do that, I think you almost 

7 have to come up with a reasonable tool, and we 

8 don't know what that reasonable tool might be 

9 at this point. But we are going to try to 

10 figure that out, using this as a prototype, 

11 going back to Rocky and going through the 

12 documents, figuring out what got adopted, and 

13 all that.

14 And you may be very well right. 

15 We may sweep in too much, and the conclusion 

16 is we need to downscope this. Maybe there's 

17 more significant items. Or we might have 

18 guessed pretty much right. And a lot of these 

19 look very reasonable. This is the scope that 

20 we should be looking at.

21 But this will be very important 

22 going forward, which I think is what Kathy was 
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1 explaining, that as we go forward with 

2 PROC-12, we want some confidence that the 

3 scope of what is being collected makes sense. 

4 We can answer your question after doing this 

5 prototype and saying, yes, we're really sure 

6 that everything on this list is significant, 

7 should be looked at, should be compared, and 

8 we would do so in the future as well.

9 So, this is, I think, a very 

10 important milestone to go ahead and validate 

11 this thing on the ground and make sure that 

12 the scope is right, the procedures are right, 

13 and the level of significance that we come to 

14 is correct. And even the process, you know, 

15 this process of doing the comparisons, having 

16 NIOSH take a look at these comparisons, and 

17 then engaging the Work Group in sort of this 

18 collaborative assessment, see if that really 

19 works well.

20 And I have some questions about 

21 time cycle. Can this be done in a tight 

22 enough timeframe that makes sense. And that's 
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1 similar to your question. Is that going to be 

2 manageable?

3 And I think we're going to bear 

4 that out. We're going to find out for sure. 

5 I think this is a good stab, but, as we were 

6 saying earlier, it is a work-in-progress, 

7 that, you know, it will be adapted as we go. 

8 And if we find out, as you're pointing out, 

9 quite plausibly, that maybe this is just 

10 turning out to be too much, we will downscope 

11 it in the process.

12 We don't have to wait. We will 

13 come back to the Work Group and say we started 

14 out this way, but Wanda was right; it just was 

15 a mountain of data; we just can't get through 

16 it in a reasonable amount of time.

17 I think timing is another issue. 

18 This has to be done so that it's actually a 

19 real-time feedback, not something that takes a 

20 year.

21 MEMBER MUNN: When one looks at 

22 the detail here, and does even an amateur 
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1 evaluation of the amount of time and effort 

2 that is going to be involved, especially given 

3 the size of this particular project, and given 

4 the number of individuals involved, the number 

5 of records involved, one can't help but be 

6 daunted by the concept of trying to get their 

7 arms around that much information. That's a 

8 staggering amount of information which, 

9 clearly, has been gone over more than one time 

10 by more than one set of eyes before.

11 And it would seem reasonable for 

12 this group to go out of its way to try to work 

13 with what is before us now in a very focused 

14 manner to try to distill the essence of what 

15 we want from this, instead of the shotgun 

16 effect, which this clearly is broad enough to 

17 be interpreted as a shotgun effect, even 

18 though it is also clear that a great deal of 

19 thought has gone into how this should be done.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: But I want to 

21 comment. Certainly, it was not a shotgun 

22 approach.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Well, what I meant 

2 is I think we have some --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: It certainly is 

4 broad. It certainly is broad, yes.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, about as broad 

6 as one could get. I personally couldn't think 

7 of anything else, as I was reading through 

8 this, that could have been factored into it.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Here's the 

10 dilemma, I think, this program, given the 

11 interfaces it has with workers, I mean it has 

12 so many dimensions where we interact with 

13 workers on an SEC or a Site Profile, I mean 

14 starting from the outreaches in the beginning 

15 to the Site Profiles, the outreaches on the 

16 SEC, to comments that come in with the 

17 petition, that come in before and after.

18 And when you actually start 

19 looking at these streams of information and 

20 where perhaps in the past there has been some 

21 criticism that some of these paths have been 

22 ignored, neglected, maybe not paid attention, 
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1 you know, certain pathways were given more 

2 attention perhaps because they were more 

3 formal, that is the difficulty I think we are 

4 in. The question is, are we paying attention 

5 to the meaningful inputs that are being 

6 provided, regardless of whether they come in 

7 sort of at this level or at that level in

8 terms of comments from individual workers?

9 And if it were just simply to 

10 docket, I think this would be a very simple 

11 exercise because that's a very formalized 

12 process. But I think what we're hearing in 

13 comments that we have received on the question 

14 of outreach is that a lot of workers who 

15 provide more individual comments or provide 

16 maybe oral comments at Board meetings, or who 

17 knows what, they don't feel those comments 

18 register in the system.

19 And that is kind of what I have 

20 heard the worker kind of grapple with: how do 

21 you kind of account for all these various 

22 inputs? They all vary from the very formal to 
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1 what I would consider pretty informal. How do 

2 you account for them? And that's a difficult 

3 process because you have such a variety.

4 I think that is reflected in the 

5 elements we have here, that, yes, there is a 

6 large variety of streams of information that 

7 come in. I would hesitate -- and that's why 

8 we didn't do it, but certainly the Work Group 

9 can examine this -- we would hesitate to 

10 truncate the list a priori upfront because I 

11 think that is what some of the workers have 

12 said in the past, that you seem to have in 

13 advance decided what streams of information 

14 are important to the Board and to NIOSH and 

15 which ones aren't perhaps, even if it is 

16 inadvertent.

17 And that is what I think we are 

18 trying to deal with. Are we, in fact, paying 

19 attention to all the key -- and I guess the 

20 keyword is "key" --

21 MEMBER MUNN: Key.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Levels of inputs 
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1 and making sure that we're not ignoring some 

2 of the key streams. And some of the workers I 

3 think have brought that up.

4 I think this Work Group can look 

5 at this list, but, again, I think we were 

6 hesitant to decide amongst ourselves within 

7 SC&A what were important inputs from workers 

8 and which were not important inputs. Because 

9 I think all the inputs are important. We just 

10 have to figure out what is a manageable way --

11 and I think the key is manageable way -- to 

12 look at it and decide whether or not that 

13 information is being registered within NIOSH.

14 I think the emphasis on 

15 manageable, I mean there is a lot of 

16 information. But how do you manage that in a 

17 way that it gets done in a timely manner and 

18 we come up with a way that we can take forward 

19 that uses a tool. If it's cumbersome -- and I 

20 think this is where you're going -- if it's 

21 cumbersome and it's so much information that 

22 you lose the forest for the trees, then it is 
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1 a useless tool and it doesn't do anybody any 

2 good.

3 So, there is a balance point of 

4 making sure that we don't ignore anything. On 

5 the other hand, if it's not a manageable tool, 

6 forget it; it's not going to work.

7 And that's kind of what we're 

8 trying to do, is come up with a process, come 

9 up with the elements that are inclusive, but 

10 manageable. And this is a prototype to test 

11 that. If the test is cumbersome, we are the 

12 first ones to come back and say, you know, 

13 we've cut this thing down, and here's how we 

14 did it. And you can judge that editing in a 

15 way that you either agree or disagree that 

16 this would be a way to go.

17 But we will propose tailoring if 

18 it turns to be an unmanageable process, but 

19 right now we think it is manageable.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

21 Let me comment here. You know, I 

22 like the broad approach that SC&A has come up 
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1 with, and I also agree with Wanda there's a 

2 lot of work to be done.

3 I wonder if, would it be workable 

4 to perhaps get the opinion of a set of workers 

5 or worker advocates from Rocky about a given 

6 point of time or a given process, you know, 

7 building-wise or something? And let's apply 

8 this broad approach to an area that they think 

9 or a time period they think that their input 

10 was not included throughout the whole EEOICPA 

11 process?

12 Maybe that would be a first step, 

13 and then we could determine if we need to take 

14 this broad approach back through the rest of 

15 Rocky or if we can tailor it down and use a 

16 more tailored-down version at Rocky and other 

17 sites. Does that make sense to anyone?

18 MEMBER MUNN: In some ways it does 

19 and in other ways it simply adds another layer 

20 of complication to what I'm concerned about 

21 here.

22 What Joe said contains a number of 
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1 important words, "key" and "manageable" being 

2 high among them.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: I did put them in 

4 quotation marks.

5 (Laughter.)

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. It's highly 

7 unlikely that, no matter what we do here, if 

8 there is among a large group of people a 

9 perception that their commentary is not being 

10 utilized, it remains unlikely that, no matter 

11 how much work we do here, we're going to 

12 change perceptions that have been well13 polished by this time.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun.

15 One sort of comment is I think it 

16 would be difficult to narrow things down, 

17 Mike, because you have to go through the 

18 transcripts and the comments. You have to go 

19 through the materials anyway. And I think 

20 Wanda is right in that it would kind of add a 

21 layer.

22 And my second comment is, you 
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1 know, the list looks formidable, and to some 

2 extent it is, but I think at Rocky Flats there 

3 was so much discussion of the key points like 

4 the Super S. There was a lot of repetition of 

5 the main things. I think all parties did 

6 incorporate those points.

7 Now there are many points that may 

8 not have been incorporated, but the bulk of 

9 the commentary was on a few things. I think 

10 that the list is long, but the work may not be 

11 as much as we think. I could be proven wrong 

12 about this. It is just a guess from trying to 

13 remember the discussions of a few years ago.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and, you 

15 know, another option, I know we're talking 

16 about options because I think we appreciate 

17 what Wanda is saying on scope, is the feedback 

18 to this Work Group. You know, this is not 

19 sort of we'll see you in four months when this 

20 thing is done, but to feed back exactly how 

21 this is progressing in terms of scope.

22 And if it turns out the progress 
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1 over a month or so isn't sufficient to justify 

2 the scope, then, we should come back to the 

3 Work Group. We should come back to the Work 

4 Group anyway with a progress report, but, 

5 basically, report back on the scoping issue 

6 and the resource loading issue.

7 When I say "manageable", this 

8 thing has to be a real-time tool. It can't be 

9 a one-year effort because we'll never get 

10 enough of them done to give you feedback 

11 anyway.

12 So, I think it's an important 

13 point. This thing has to both be inclusive, 

14 but manageable in a way that makes it a tool. 

15 If it doesn't accomplish that, then we have 

16 failed.

17 So, I think we're very, very 

18 acutely aware that we have to demonstrate 

19 that, and we owe the Work Group, I think, some 

20 feedback. And this has to be a little bit 

21 empirical. I guess I come back to that 

22 because it does look formidable on paper. I 
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1 think once we are comparing the documents that 

2 we're talking about, it is not going to be as 

3 formidable, but I can't prove that to you 

4 until we actually start going through this. I 

5 think we need an answer to that.

6 MR. KATZ: Can I just also raise a 

7 comment, part comment, part question, about 

8 the scoping issue? Not about doing Rocky 

9 Flats in particular, but in general about 

10 this, because something Joe said made me think 

11 that people have different ideas about this.

12 But doing a program evaluation 

13 like this, it's not a continual program 

14 evaluation. You're not going to evaluate 

15 every site, and so on, out into the future. 

16 What you want to know is how well is a process 

17 working and what improvements might help it.

18 So, I mean, you periodically dip 

19 into the program and take a look and see how 

20 the program is working. So, I mean, right 

21 now, we have chosen to start with a pilot 

22 effort to learn how to do this as well as to 
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1 look at a site, with Rocky Flats. And down 

2 the road we may choose some other different 

3 kind of site, different kind of circumstance, 

4 or whatever.

5 But I certainly didn't envision 

6 that there would be any kind of ongoing 

7 process at every site of looking at this, 

8 because really you're doing a program 

9 evaluation. You want to know how well a 

10 process is working and how to improve it, but 

11 you're not going to expend the kind of 

12 resources it would take to be monitoring this, 

13 as it goes on into the future, currently and 

14 into the future, at every site or anything 

15 even close to that.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: The importance of 

17 what we're doing here actually goes well 

18 beyond this prototype by judging the 

19 significance of some of this input stream, and 

20 looking at how you determine effectiveness. 

21 And this is what you are kind of doing. 

22 You're trying to come up with a means to 
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1 monitor effectiveness. That alone I think is 

2 a very important effort. If we can do that 

3 with NIOSH, come up with an agreement that 

4 this is a gauge -- it won't be perfect -- it's 

5 a gauge of effectiveness of whether or not 

6 things are being addressed, that's something 

7 that NIOSH and ORAU can take into the program 

8 going forward.

9 And I think what Ted is saying is 

10 very important. You know, there's no way any 

11 of this is going to be inculcated by external 

12 means.

13 All we are doing is trying to 

14 develop a tool and doing some sampling. I 

15 would imagine over time the Work Group might 

16 reach in and do some sampling in the future, 

17 but it is not going to be anything continual.

18 What these tools would be valuable 

19 for will be to NIOSH and to ORAU in terms of 

20 self-assessment, looking at how well things 

21 are going. Maybe this will turn up 

22 vulnerabilities to both the PROC-12 procedure 
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1 -- maybe we didn't really consider certain 

2 things that we weren't quite aware were big 

3 issues collaboratively.

4 And going forward, it is going to 

5 provide some focus that, okay, here's some 

6 weak points. You know, we are pretty strong 

7 in these areas, but there are certain streams 

8 of inputs from workers in terms of worker 

9 outreach that, for various reasons, don't 

10 quite register in the system. And this is how 

11 you gauge that. This is what you can look at. 

12 This gives you some measuring points.

13 That itself is going to be useful 

14 going forward, not to us per se, but to NIOSH 

15 and ORAU. The Board would only sample on 

16 occasion, and that is going to be a periodic 

17 thing. But that is something that can be used 

18 all the time at all the sites, something that 

19 could be used to self-assess, get away from 

20 trying to externalize this thing, something 

21 that could be done in-house.

22 So, I think some of these 
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1 questions are hard. How do you know on some 

2 of the individual worker inputs that we get --

3 this is sort of like what we heard on the 

4 Advisory Board meetings -- how do you know 

5 you've captured that? How do you know it gets 

6 handed off so it's actually looked into? And 

7 how do you know that the individual who made 

8 the comment gets some feedback?

9 It sounds kind of basic, but when 

10 you start looking at how you gauge that, that 

11 is difficult in some of these worker inputs. 

12 And that is what we are trying to judge in 

13 this process, is actually empirically go into 

14 the material itself, find out how you do it, 

15 and what do you actually look at? Are we 

16 guessing right that this will give it to you 

17 or not? And, then, going back and figuring 

18 out, can you do that on a continuing basis or 

19 is it just going to be unmanageable?

20 MEMBER MUNN: And your keyword 

21 there is judge. At best, no matter what we 

22 do, and no matter how we do it, we cannot 
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1 eliminate individual judgment from this 

2 process.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that's why 

4 we're spreading it around.

5 MEMBER MUNN: I just don't see a 

6 way that can be done. Not only are we going 

7 to have to judge what is and is not important, 

8 we are going to have to judge whether or not 

9 it was considered in the absence of specific 

10 personal notes or rigorous information dealing 

11 with any specific comment.

12 It's difficult to be able to say, 

13 impossible to be able to say, this was 

14 considered; nothing was done with that.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes. Well, 

16 first, I completely agree with you, that when 

17 you're judging significance, that is in the 

18 eye of the beholder.

19 That's one reason I think the one 

20 process thing that I think is most important 

21 for this process is that's a collaborative 

22 judgment. It is not a judgment of Kathy, a 
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1 judgment of SC&A. It is going to have to be a 

2 judgment of this Work Group in conjunction 

3 with NIOSH and with our support.

4 I mean it is going to be 

5 everyone's collective judgment because this is 

6 difficult. And what we're saying is all we 

7 are going to do, I think, upfront is the 

8 homework of just trying to get the pieces of 

9 paper that give you some documentation on 

10 this. We don't want this to be an informal 

11 judgment or a judgment based on what came in. 

12 It's documented in terms of a response and 

13 how it got back to the worker. We're not 

14 going to go further than that.

15 We're going to say the one 

16 judgment that we're going to try to be careful 

17 about, but then try to bring back to this Work 

18 Group and to NIOSH is significance. In other 

19 words, what is the significant input, the key 

20 inputs that we talked about? We need to be 

21 very clear how we judge that.

22 But, then, we're going to bring 
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1 all this factual stuff, factual information, 

2 back to the Work Group, engage the NIOSH staff 

3 and ORAU, and say, okay, here's kind of what 

4 it comes down to. Here's what it comes down 

5 to. We haven't figured how good, bad, or 

6 indifferent, but this is pretty much what we 

7 see.

8 Now the question of judgment, 

9 which is, okay, was this responsive enough or 

10 not, on paper it doesn't look responsive. I 

11 fully expect NIOSH or ORAU to say, well, the 

12 paper doesn't tell you the whole story; here's 

13 the whole story behind how we dealt with that 

14 particular issue. That should get recorded 

15 and be reflected.

16 And that may actually have an 

17 impact on the answer. So, we won't know that 

18 by looking at the paper on the ground. So, it 

19 is going to be a process.

20 And, then, when that is done, this 

21 Work Group -- and this is what Kathy was 

22 referring to; this is like the Task 4 dose 
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1 reconstruction reviews. There's going to have 

2 to be sort of a deliberative discussion about 

3 things like significance, about resolution of 

4 issues, what that means, because it's all 

5 subjective.

6 You are going to have to have a 

7 collaborative discussion. But that discussion 

8 alone, I would add, is going to be very, very 

9 important for this process, because I don't 

10 think there's been a real good discussion 

11 based on actual empirical information. 

12 There's been a general discussion. I think we 

13 all have our own opinions. But there hasn't 

14 been a good discussion based on actual 

15 empirical information, which is what's going 

16 to be collected. And that discussion, I 

17 think, will move this thing forward.

18 And we can decide at that point, 

19 this Work Group can decide what is really 

20 significant and should be keyed on, and what 

21 judgment, what kind of judgment should be 

22 made.
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1 There I think you are going to 

2 have a very vital discussion about what has 

3 been done in the past and what should be done 

4 in the future. The past doesn't necessarily 

5 dictate the future, but it does inform it. 

6 So, I think you are going to learn from this 

7 review what has been done in the past and 

8 whether that was good enough, and, then, how 

9 you want the PROC-12 to read and how you want 

10 the sampling done in the future.

11 So, this is really going to 

12 influence how the judgments are applied into 

13 the future, based on what you see at Rocky. 

14 But we haven't had that opportunity yet. It 

15 hasn't been pinned down on something that is 

16 actually you're comparing an actual record 

17 that's all been subjective.

18 MEMBER MUNN: I don't want to 

19 belabor this, but, Joe, in your professional 

20 opinion, then, if we do not spend our efforts 

21 here today honing this proposal in any 

22 significant way, then what's your expectation 
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1 of the amount of time and resource loading 

2 that is going into this pilot project we are 

3 undertaking?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, first off, 

5 it is the Work Group's prerogative to take 

6 this list and roll it around as you see fit. 

7 I mean we are coming into this thing, as a 

8 starting point, this is what's relevant. 

9 Okay.

10 Now, from a resource loading and 

11 scoping standpoint, to make it a real 

12 tool -- and this is looking to the Contract 

13 Officer because, basically, this is a 

14 prototype. This is like the very first Site 

15 Profile we ever did or the first SEC. It is 

16 sort of flying dead blind.

17 But we are talking several months 

18 as being a working time period, and no more, 

19 because I think, if you are going to do 

20 reviews like this, and knowing that getting 

21 NIOSH together, getting the Work Group 

22 together, that dynamic at the tailend is going 
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1 to take a lot of time, then for this prototype 

2 it could easily be four to five months.

3 But, you know, going back to what 

4 Ted was saying earlier, this is not something 

5 that we are going to do site by site by site. 

6 So, this is a prototype. It is almost like a 

7 baseline for the future program. We are not 

8 going to repeat this. This is certainly 

9 something to test out this review function.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Joe, some of this 

11 is dependent upon NIOSH gathering documents 

12 and getting them to the folks doing the 

13 reviewing. So, depending upon how long that 

14 may takes, it makes a difference, also, 

15 doesn't it?

16 MEMBER MUNN: It's part of 

17 resource loading.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: There are several 

19 steps.

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I see two parts 

21 to this. One part of this is we are, in a 

22 sense, auditors. We are auditing what has 
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1 been done. We are kind of looking at what has 

2 been done and seeing how the process has 

3 worked or is working.

4 The other thing is I see this 

5 process and procedure being useful, 

6 particularly in the future, when we are 

7 developing SEC petitions, the Evaluation 

8 Reports, or Technical Basis Documents. 

9 Because, typically, on any given facility or 

10 site, you have a small number of people that 

11 are labeled as site experts in the interviews. 

12 A lot of times, they are looking at this 

13 whole review as the entire facility. They 

14 don't have the knowledge down on the ground 

15 that a lot of the workers do, what actually 

16 occurred in those buildings, where the flaws 

17 were, where the dangers were.

18 And this is what comes out in this 

19 feedback from the workers and people like 

20 this. This is where it becomes important. 

21 They need to know that what they are saying is 

22 being given the same weight and is also being 
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1 looked at just like the, quote, "site experts" 

2 are. Otherwise, it is a one-sided process, if 

3 we aren't gathering the data from both sides 

4 of the equation.

5 MR. KATZ: Let me just, since Joe 

6 raised the resource question, I mean he has 

7 already talked about it, he and Kathy, a bit. 

8 Then, I would say the same goes for DCAS.

9 I mean, so whatever their charge 

10 is coming out of this meeting, and if they 

11 require three to four months, whatever it 

12 might be upfront, if they get a month into it 

13 and Kathy finds, gee, this is incredibly 

14 laborious, this is not going to go, I would 

15 expect Kathy will let Joe know. "Joe, I'm 

16 spending a zillion hours just doing this first 

17 part."

18 And they would have to rethink, 

19 and they would get in touch with us and say, 

20 "Look, this isn't working. This is an 

21 enormous amount of labor. You know, heads 

22 up." And, then, we would be able to rethink.
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1 And I would say the same goes for 

2 DCAS. I mean DCAS is going to be pulled on to 

3 provide information, to look at these fact 

4 sheets as they are produced and consider 

5 whether there's stuff missing from them, and 

6 so on.

7 The same goes for DCAS. If DCAS 

8 starts into this and finds, holy Moses, you 

9 know, we don't have the resources to do this, 

10 we would want to hear back from DCAS, "Look 

11 this isn't going to work."

12 But I would just encourage 

13 everyone at least in spirit be a little bit 

14 experimental here. That is the whole idea of 

15 a pilot, is, as Joe said earlier, you don't 

16 exactly what's going to work and work best, 

17 but you have to go forward, and you learn 

18 pretty quickly what is or isn't working as you 

19 go.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I am 

21 concerned about resources and I'm concerned 

22 about scoping as well. But I think we can 
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1 work through this in the pilot and figure out 

2 what makes sense. It is a balancing, as I was 

3 saying earlier, between being inclusive and 

4 being manageable. If it is not manageable, 

5 you lose the whole thing anyway. So, we have 

6 to strike that balance, and we owe it to the 

7 Work Group to feed back what the experience 

8 is.

9 And what I drew on the white 

10 board, you know, there are three distinct 

11 timeframes involved, and all of them involve 

12 resources, maybe resources for different 

13 people. But, upfront, there is a not 

14 insignificant tasking I think for DCAS in 

15 terms of providing their documents from the 

16 files, you know, this sort of track record, 

17 documentation that documents how inputs were 

18 handled, because we can't really do a lot of 

19 this review without knowing -- we know what 

20 may have went in, but we certainly don't know 

21 how it was managed. And if there's 

22 documentation, fine.
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1 I'm thinking from my own 

2 government experience you have chron files and 

3 you have certain files that deal with worker 

4 outreach. Anything that came in on a letter 

5 or a comment probably got filed either in your 

6 shop or in DCAS. And we are going to need 

7 that documentation upfront to even do the 

8 second part. So, we can't even start the 

9 second part until we get the documents that 

10 DCAS and the ORAU Team have that shows what 

11 the dispositioning of these kinds of comments 

12 has been.

13 And they may very well raise their 

14 hand at some point. They're going to have to 

15 go through and figure out, do they have these 

16 things in files that are manageable and easily 

17 accessible?

18 Now, if they don't, that actually 

19 is a piece of information that is useful to 

20 the Work Group because maybe there should be. 

21 You know, I'm just saying that this whole 

22 process is a learning process. So, the 
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1 question of whether or not you have your 

2 fingertips on the status of these worker 

3 inputs and what happened to them is by itself, 

4 I think, a prototype test.

5 But, assuming we do get that 

6 documentation, that is when the SC&A review 

7 begins. That is when, actually, this process 

8 will be played out where we compare and all 

9 that business.

10 So, the question is, can that 

11 process be done in, I'm calling it real time, 

12 but that is probably being too optimistic, 

13 something approaching manageable time, you 

14 know, four or five months. So, that the cycle 

15 time on this getting back to the Work Group, 

16 which is the tailend is not going to be in 

17 excess of six months. I mean I think that 

18 would be the killer.

19 The breakpoint to me is, if we 

20 can't get back to the Work Group with this 

21 thing, with the DCAS documentation, with the 

22 SC&A review within six months -- this is the 
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1 prototype, not the future, but the prototype 

2 -- then we have a problem. And we need a 

3 feedback if it looks like we can't get there. 

4 That is either DCAS feeding back they can't 

5 get the documentation or our feeding back that 

6 either our scope or process is not manageable 

7 and is too burdensome.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Too laborious.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: And too 

10 laborious, and we're just not going to get 

11 back to you in a reasonable amount of time. I 

12 would say six months to give you a date to 

13 come back for these deliberations would be the 

14 outpoint. I would like to do better, but that 

15 would be the outpoint, I think as a measuring 

16 point.

17 Because the deliberations 

18 themselves, they might be a one- or two-day, I 

19 can almost imagine a two-day session like Task 

20 4 under dose reconstruction reviews, 

21 where you are going to want to talk about, 

22 well, why do you think that was important and 
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1 why don't you think that response was 

2 adequate? You can see that going back and 

3 forth.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Easily that much 

5 time.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Easily.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: So, you know, 

9 there is that concern over scope as well as 

10 whether it is a manageable process. I think 

11 that is what we are going to have to test out 

12 and do it in a way which we have to adapt. If 

13 we find things aren't working out, I think we 

14 need to come back to the Work Group and Ted 

15 and alert you to that, and then tell you what 

16 we're going to do about it.

17 You know, maybe we're going to 

18 downscope this thing. Maybe there's certain 

19 documents that DCAS is finding difficulty 

20 obtaining. We're going to go forward anyway, 

21 even though that piece is missing, but note 

22 that for the Work Group, that there's a piece 
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1 that is, in our view, relevant that is going 

2 to be missing from this, and this is the 

3 reason.

4 So, I think if you think of a 

5 prototype as we need to have constant 

6 feedback, I think that is probably going to be 

7 the case for this prototype, just to make sure 

8 it is going to happen.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Let's just all be 

10 very aware of the fact -- and I don't want me 

11 to be the only person who is aware of the fact 

12 -- that we said here, and I trust that we mean 

13 here, we're not going to do this with every 

14 site that we come to. This isn't going to be 

15 a continuing program. We're not making a 

16 lifetime work project out of worker outreach. 

17 We're not going to do that.

18 What we're going to do here is 

19 very limited. We are going to do this 

20 extremely thorough pilot program, and we're 

21 going to do it within a reasonable period of 

22 time or else we are going to agree this is too 
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1 obscure; we've gotten too far down in the 

2 weeds, and we're not getting the value of the 

3 time and effort that is going into it.

4 And if we can agree to that, then 

5 there is no point in our spending very much 

6 time looking further at Kathy's document. 

7 There's no question it's thorough. The only 

8 question is --

9 MEMBER BEACH: Wanda, I can see 

10 that we would do the review on Rocky. This is 

11 a site that is already closed. And, then, 

12 maybe taking on one that we are currently 

13 working on, Savannah River, Pantex, something 

14 of that nature. That's kind of my view of 

15 where we would need to go, and it would tell 

16 us everything that we need at that point.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I make 

18 a slight clarification? We don't have to wait 

19 until all the documents are put together by 

20 DCAS to start on this. We have already, 

21 through the process of writing up this plan, 

22 downloaded everything that has been public, 
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1 that is publicly available. We could start 

2 there while we were waiting for some of the 

3 documents that are not publicly available and 

4 not on the SRDB.

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I agree with 

6 you, Wanda, this isn't something we will do 

7 for every facility, every site, but we do need 

8 an idea of how to flesh out this program, so 

9 that they can get something together that is 

10 actually functional, has real function to it, 

11 and at the same time doesn't bog down the 

12 whole system.

13 MEMBER MUNN: And that's going to 

14 be PR-12, right? Didn't I hear that to begin 

15 with?

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, you've got 

17 two things. You've got this being an 

18 empirical, on-the-ground test for PR-12, 

19 meaning that, is there anything that is not 

20 reflected in PR-12 that is glaringly obvious 

21 from going on the ground looking at this past 

22 history of worker input. So, it is a bit of a 
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1 validation on the completeness of PR-12.

2 The other thing it gives you --

3 and I said this before -- it gives you going 

4 forward some tools as well as perhaps some 

5 judgments on significance and what's key, even 

6 what we would call responsive. You know, 

7 responsiveness is in the eyes of the beholder 

8 as well. I think that is something that this 

9 Work Group will get a chance to look at in 

10 real time.

11 But going forward, I think to 

12 answer your question earlier, I think the Work 

13 Group, you all, getting the results of the 

14 prototype, I think would be deciding how best 

15 to use what comes out of that in terms of the 

16 tools and in terms of some of these 

17 definitions and judgments, and what have you.

18 That is going to inform not only 

19 the discussion you have, but, also, inform 

20 whatever you want to do in the future. I 

21 think that question about what you want to do 

22 in the future is up to the Work Group. I 
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1 mean, clearly, you're driving how you want to 

2 go ahead and monitor effectiveness. You are 

3 going to be monitoring how PR-12 is actually 

4 being implemented into the future, and how you 

5 monitor might be informed by what we do at 

6 Rocky.

7 So, I think that is all 

8 information that can be used. How you use it 

9 is something at that tailend step I think you 

10 will be discussing for a couple or two or 

11 three Work Group meetings, figuring out what 

12 you're going to do going forward and how this 

13 is helpful or not. And that's part of the 

14 process.

15 MEMBER MUNN: It's the original 

16 question.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Why are we doing 

19 this?

20 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean I think 

21 the whole idea was to both, in a sense, 

22 validate PR-12, but, also, put on the table 
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1 the actual empirical information that could be 

2 used as a means to come up with the tools.

3 Right now, all we have is PROC-12.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Somehow?

5 MR. FITZGERALD: All we have is 

6 PROC-12, a procedure, but that's just a 

7 procedure. It doesn't tell you how this group 

8 will be monitor how that procedure is 

9 implemented or look at the effectiveness going 

10 into the future. This is going to help.

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike. 

12 Let me make a comment here to what Wanda said.

13 I understand we wouldn't be doing 

14 this for every site, and this is mainly to 

15 make sure that PROC-12 and the process is 

16 treating worker input fairly.

17 Secondly, if through this process 

18 we see something that perhaps was not treated 

19 fairly, and they have to go back and change 

20 some of the Rocky documents, and therefore, do 

21 a program evaluation review, then I can't see 

22 us being limited if we have similar 
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1 circumstances at a different site where 

2 there's longstanding issues that are 

3 unresolved, or whatever else, by certain 

4 members of the Board, that we may not have to 

5 take a look at those site documents also and 

6 see how the worker input may or may not have 

7 been included.

8 MR. KATZ: Well, Mike, I mean I'm 

9 just thinking about that. But I think that 

10 is, then, going beyond the scope of this 

11 Worker Outreach Group. I mean if you are 

12 discussing this being a process to determine 

13 and make changes to NIOSH documents, this is 

14 really not the intent of this Work Group to be 

15 making those kind of judgments or to be 

16 driving that kind of change.

17 I mean, certainly, DCAS may 

18 realize, as you do this work, that some 

19 important input was missed and may make 

20 changes accordingly. But I don't think that 

21 is the objective of this operation. Is that 

22 what you're saying?
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, that's what 

2 I'm saying.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I think that is 

5 part of what this Work Group was charged to 

6 do, is to assure that worker input is and was 

7 used in site documents that were put together.

8 MR. KATZ: Right. All I'm saying 

9 in distinguishing is, to me, this is a 

10 process, ensuring that the process is working 

11 for that, not particularly in relation to 

12 specific sites or any specific site.

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, and we need 

14 to get the process fixed. If it is not 

15 working, we need to get the process fixed.

16 MR. KATZ: Right. Absolutely. 

17 But that is the whole idea of making 

18 recommendations, right?

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Right, but, to 

20 me, then, if there could be similar things 

21 laying out there in the past, we don't just 

22 leave them hanging.
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1 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean, again, if 

2 you are then going to ask the question, so say 

3 you do this evaluation on this site and you 

4 find there are some holes that have resulted 

5 in some information being left on the table, 

6 so to speak, as opposed to being used by the 

7 program, I mean I think it's fair to ask, 

8 then, well, might there be also information 

9 left on the table related to other sites.

10 But I'm not sure that that means, 

11 okay, so now we're going to go through every 

12 other site and see whether -- because, again, 

13 you're trying to improve a process going 

14 forward. You're not trying to -- I mean I 

15 think internally that may be something for 

16 DCAS to consider, well, look, in this case we 

17 left stuff on the table; maybe we need to go 

18 back and look at other places. But I don't 

19 think that it has the Board all of a sudden 

20 operating and examining every site in the past 

21 because they found that there was a problem 

22 with taking worker information into account at 
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1 this site.

2 Again, I would say, you know, you 

3 look at another example in a different 

4 timeframe, whatever, and see how the process 

5 is working then, or what have you. But you're 

6 working to improve a process.

7 This is not does reconstruction 

8 audits here, which the Board has a very 

9 specific charge to do that, the sampling of 

10 dose reconstructions. It doesn't have a 

11 charge of monitoring every sort of process it 

12 operates for every site that NIOSH has worked 

13 on.

14 MS. HOWELL: Ted, this is Emily. 

15 Can I just kind of chime in on what you're 

16 saying there?

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. Sure.

18 MS. HOWELL: I think we have 

19 gotten this draft proposal about how to 

20 proceed from SC&A. I didn't want to kind of 

21 look at that as a final document since it was 

22 being presented to the Work Group today for 
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1 their input. And I assume that there might be 

2 some substantive changes about how you guys 

3 would like to proceed.

4 But we are kind of on the edge of 

5 some legal concerns and some FACA concerns 

6 here. So, I would say that what we would like 

7 to have would be more of a finalized plan 

8 coming out of this meeting. Then, the 

9 Department can have some time to kind of look 

10 over and think about what the implications 

11 are.

12 I think Ted has made some good 

13 points about this distinction between ensuring 

14 that the procedures are in place versus making 

15 retroactive changes to issues that we have 

16 visited in the past.

17 And I'm not saying that it is 

18 definitely a problem, but I'm saying we need 

19 some time to look at it. And I didn't want to 

20 go off of the SC&A documents that we received 

21 because those were a proposal.

22 So, I think one thing, if I could 
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1 ask from the Work Group, would be for you guys 

2 to come to more of an agreement on your plan 

3 of what you would like your path forward to 

4 be. And, then, before proceeding, maybe give 

5 us an opportunity to actually think about it 

6 from the agency and the departmental 

7 perspective.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Ted, this is Stu 

9 Hinnefeld. I would like to offer something 

10 here, if I could.

11 MR. KATZ: Yes. Absolutely.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. First of 

13 all, I think what the Work Group is looking at 

14 here is a program communications process, at 

15 least one side of it. And I'm supportive of 

16 that. I think that program communications and 

17 working to improve program communications is 

18 one of our more important initiatives that we 

19 do need to embark on going forward.

20 You know, the broad approach here, 

21 I guess, doesn't really bother me too much. I 

22 think, though, that as you look at historical 
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1 information, which is what we're going to look 

2 at here, I think there is no doubt going to be 

3 a number of deficiencies identified in the 

4 communication process.

5 So, I think if we kind of 

6 establish that expectation, I think it will be 

7 maybe a little less confrontational for us 

8 going forward. We certainly believe there is 

9 room for improvement in the program's 

10 communication with the claimant and advocate 

11 community, and I think this is a pretty good 

12 step, an important step, to sort of identify 

13 specific deficiencies. That then, gives us a 

14 better opportunity to determine specific 

15 things we should be doing differently or 

16 better.

17 I had a bit of a epiphany. It is 

18 kind of a shame that I had to have an epiphany 

19 about this. And it really happened to me when 

20 I was looking at a survey, the results of a 

21 survey that ANWAG posted. I believe this one 

22 was on their website. I'm not exactly sure. 
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1 It was on the internet somewhere.

2 And it was kind of a nice 

3 PowerPoint Presentation, and it had to do with 

4 the summary of a questionnaire or a survey 

5 they had done of people affected by EEOICPA. 

6 So, it didn't really distinguish between us 

7 and DOL's role. So, from that standpoint, you 

8 couldn't really parse us out of it, although 

9 there were some comments that were clearly 

10 specifically directed to us and there were 

11 some that were clearly specifically directed 

12 to DOL.

13 And the statistics are a little 

14 hard to really interpret very much because the 

15 questions were always about your interactions 

16 with EEOICPA. And so, we at NIOSH will 

17 determine that, well, all these bad responses 

18 would be based on their interactions with DOL, 

19 and DOL will say, well, all those bad 

20 responses were based on interactions with 

21 NIOSH.

22 But I don't think there is any 
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1 other way to do this survey other than that, 

2 because I'm not so sure that we and DOL are 

3 particularly -- well-distinguished on the 

4 population. So, I am not criticizing the 

5 survey at all.

6 But that survey, there is a list 

7 of comments, sort of a summary of the 

8 individual comments. But in another section, 

9 you know, this is after the statistics, and 

10 then there's another section that I think is 

11 suggestions for improvement.

12 And I read through all those 

13 things. It kind of hits you in the face when 

14 you read it as the Director of the Office, is 

15 that what people are saying in that is that we 

16 don't listen to them and they can't understand 

17 us when we talk to them.

18 And so I said, well, that's both 

19 sides of communication. So, we need to work 

20 on this.

21 I have talked to Chris Ellison 

22 just recently about this. So, we are in the 
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1 starting-to-think-about-it stage of what we 

2 can do about this.

3 I think the kind of effort that 

4 the Work Group has laid out here could provide 

5 us with some important evidence. It kind of 

6 forces our hand to go and do these things and 

7 evaluate our historical practices.

8 And to my mind, the intent here is 

9 to figure out what is that we have not been 

10 doing very well that we should be doing better 

11 in the future. So, that is sort of my overall 

12 take on how this is proceeding here.

13 And, then, also, I wanted to 

14 explain why Chris is on the phone and is going 

15 to be more heavily engaged in this Work Group 

16 going forward. Chris Ellison, by the way, is 

17 the team leader of our Public Health 

18 Communications. So, I wanted to lay that out 

19 there.

20 Now, having said that, though, I 

21 think I want to be a little cautious about the 

22 expectations of PROC-12 and deficiencies in 
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1 procedure 12. That was written for a specific 

2 activity that we call worker outreach, which 

3 is far narrower than what is described in the 

4 Work Group's charter here.

5 So, it was written for that 

6 purpose and with that in mind. So, it is not 

7 going to address everything here. I don't 

8 know that those absences should be necessarily 

9 considered deficiencies in PROC-12.

10 It may be that they are 

11 deficiencies in programmatic guidance. I mean 

12 we haven't written appropriate guidance for 

13 all these other means of communication. So, 

14 there may be that finding.

15 But I would kind of prefer that we 

16 not expect PROC-12 or a single procedure to be 

17 the programmatic guidance for all this 

18 communication effort. I don't know if we can 

19 do that or not because the various 

20 communication techniques are so diverse that 

21 it is pretty hard to proceduralize that many 

22 things in one procedure.
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1 You can have some sort of an 

2 overall general guidance in terms of make sure 

3 you actually capture the comments through all 

4 these things, all these avenues. Make sure 

5 the comments are carefully considered by the 

6 appropriate person and whether they warrant a 

7 change in what we're doing in some fashion, 

8 and providing a response, feedback back to the 

9 commenter, when possible, that we have taken 

10 your comments into consideration in this 

11 fashion. I think those are all important for 

12 all these things, and that could be sort of a 

13 general line out there.

14 But when I'm thinking of a 

15 procedure, which is kind of this is how I do 

16 this process, these are so diverse, I don't 

17 think you can write one to cover all that.

18 So, those are just my comments on 

19 this and kind of establish maybe a DCAS 

20 expectation. We intend, I think this effort 

21 is an important part of our evaluation, of our 

22 effort to improve our communication. So, we 
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1 intend to support this to the extent we can. 

2 Of course, this competes for resources just 

3 like every other thing we do. I can't promise 

4 unlimited resources for it, but we do intend 

5 to support this.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Stu, this is Joe.

7 I think that was a very good 

8 comment on PROC-12, and I think that maybe is 

9 the importance of inviting Chris and your 

10 staff in on sort of the hot wash on the 

11 prototype, just because we are going to end up 

12 wanting to talk about where some of the 

13 shortfalls would be addressable. And what 

14 you're saying is a lot of them won't fall into 

15 the PROC-12 bin necessarily.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. I don't 

17 know if they are going to necessarily be 

18 PROC-12, but that is the important thing. I 

19 think I would be surprised if you went through 

20 this and you didn't find a whole bunch of 

21 deficiencies --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Just based on the 

2 comments we hear about our communications with 

3 people.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: And that's the 

5 other comment I would like to make. 

6 Understanding I was involved with Rocky a few 

7 years ago, so this is going back several 

8 years. We appreciate that we are going to 

9 find gaps, but I think what is most important 

10 is to what extent those gaps are recognized 

11 and somehow accommodated going forward. And 

12 it is with that recognition we are going into 

13 this. So, we realize that, yes, we are going 

14 to find those gaps, and we really want to know 

15 pretty much how they can be addressed.

16 The one thing Emily said earlier, 

17 in terms of process, we are only going to 

18 confine ourselves to looking at the 

19 significant or key inputs that we have 

20 identified and, as Kathy has laid out in this 

21 plan, compare that with where the input may 

22 have been reflected, or should have been 
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1 reflected, and to what extent the worker or 

2 workers were informed of this outcome.

3 And that is pretty much it before 

4 we come back to NIOSH and to the Work Group. 

5 So, if anything, what we are doing is the 

6 homework that would enable the discussion that 

7 happened, and not try to do any judgments as 

8 to whether or not documents should have been 

9 revised or would have been revised, any of 

10 that. We are just simply looking at what was 

11 done factually and try to bring that back as 

12 is.

13 And Wanda is looking at me, and 

14 the only judgment we're making is what we're 

15 considering significant streams of input. And 

16 we're going to be very clear on how we judge 

17 those to be significant and whether the Work 

18 Group will necessarily agree with that or 

19 NIOSH will necessarily agree with that. And 

20 that is part of the prototype.

21 And that is the one place where I 

22 think there is no question we will have to 
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1 decide what is important and what isn't. And 

2 you can tell us if we gauge that right or not.

3 MEMBER MUNN: And a part of the 

4 concern that I am expressing, I'm quite sure, 

5 is semantics. For example, in Kathy's 

6 document under "Procedure," the first word is 

7 "evaluate." Now if that first word were -- it 

8 says, "Procedure. (A) Evaluate the 

9 consideration of worker outreach/input." If 

10 that said "document the consideration of 

11 worker outreach/input and its incorporation", 

12 then one would be very clear about judgment 

13 and what's going on and what isn't going on.

14 But when you say, under 

15 "Procedure. (A) Evaluate", then that tells me 

16 immediately that there is judgment going to be 

17 involved in this. And you specify in item 

18 number seven that it is. "Consider the 

19 substance of the response or lack of response 

20 and determine whether the commenter's concerns 

21 were adequately addressed." That is certainly 

22 a judgment call.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and I was 

2 saying earlier that we recognize the judgment 

3 calls in this, and we will bring that judgment 

4 to NIOSH and to the Work Group. And I fully 

5 expect there to be a healthy exchange with 

6 NIOSH on whether the responsiveness, as we 

7 have seen it -- you know, in some cases it 

8 will be clear that maybe something fell in the 

9 cracks; it just wasn't addressed fully, and 

10 that was an artifact of how things were 

11 handled three or four years ago.

12 MEMBER MUNN: That's the way it 

13 was.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, that's the 

15 way it was. It's going to be better. When 

16 NIOSH and SC&A brings this to the Work Group, 

17 that will be kind of what you will get.

18 In other cases, we will judge 

19 something as not being responsive based on 

20 looking at what went in and what went out. 

21 And some of this, you know, you're familiar 

22 with this. Some of this is, "Well, I was 
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1 standing here and I got radiation on one side, 

2 and I think that's a problem." And the answer 

3 is, no, it isn't. And we're going to say, 

4 "Well, you did respond, but it wasn't 

5 responsive to what seems to be a legitimate 

6 concern, and here's why."

7 And I think that will be a 

8 discussion with NIOSH, and we may or may not 

9 agree. But that will come back to the Work 

10 Group, too.

11 So, some of these aren't going to 

12 be cut and dry. Some of these are going to be 

13 questions of, was the technical response 

14 adequate? You know, was it responsive? And 

15 that's a judgment call. I mean, if it didn't 

16 call for that, we're probably using overly17 skilled people to look at this because it 

18 would be more of an administrative thing, 

19 looking at the paper and just saying A or B, A 

20 or B. There is some judgment on the question 

21 of response.

22 And there is some judgment on the 
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1 significance of the input. Some of these 

2 inputs wouldn't necessarily be perhaps 

3 significant from the standpoint of what we're 

4 talking about here. Some will be.

5 MR. KATZ: It occurred to me that 

6 there is a nuance that is probably important 

7 here in this discussion that you're talking 

8 about down the road about, well, what was the 

9 technical response? I mean I could understand 

10 that perfectly with respect to what you 

11 communicate to the workers.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

13 MR. KATZ: But there's the other 

14 issue of, okay, so they got this input and 

15 here's how they responded to it technically. 

16 They did something or they didn't do 

17 something, made a judgment about it.

18 And I don't think this process is 

19 about debating what's the right technical way 

20 to integrate that.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

22 MR. KATZ: Because this is not a 
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1 TBD review here.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

3 MR. KATZ: We're not debating, is 

4 this technically the best way to do dose 

5 reconstruction, given that input. If you find 

6 that DCAS considered that comment and decided, 

7 well, this doesn't impact dose, so we don't 

8 need to change the TBD, I think you have to 

9 sort of not necessarily respect, just to use 

10 that term -- you have to sort of leave it as 

11 is. Okay, DCAS did consider this information, 

12 and they decided very deliberatively that that 

13 information shouldn't impact dose 

14 reconstruction, and they moved on. Right?

15 I mean this is not going to be a 

16 forum for debating, redebating the technical 

17 issues.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, not 

19 second-guessing. I guess that is a good 

20 point. Responsiveness in terms of answering 

21 the question, and this may be more subtle, but 

22 if someone raises a question -- and I guess 
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1 all of us have been here long enough -- some 

2 answers are more responsive than others. And 

3 the question is whether the responder actually 

4 went through the trouble to both communicate 

5 clearly and also answer the question 

6 completely.

7 Some of that does require some 

8 technical understanding, but I think it is 

9 more in the context of, was it responsive and 

10 clear to the person that is raising the 

11 question?

12 MS. LIN: So, I have two comments. 

13 One is a clarification. I just want to make 

14 sure that the Work Group hears what Emily or 

15 OGC is asking this Work Group to do. As of 

16 now, SC&A's proposal for a evaluation of Rocky 

17 Flats, it still says, "Draft Implementation 

18 Plan."

19 So, we are hoping that the Work 

20 Group can come to a conclusion as to what you 

21 want to do with this Rocky Flats evaluation, 

22 so you give us time, OGC and the Departments, 
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1 to evaluate whether there are other 

2 implications that need to be considered before 

3 this plan is actually taking place. So, 

4 before SC&A does any actual work, you know, 

5 give the agency and OGC some time to evaluate 

6 it.

7 And the second part of that is 

8 that we are talking about how SC&A is 

9 evaluating DCAS's responsiveness to workers' 

10 comments, but my understanding is that when a 

11 site-specific Work Group is evaluating the 

12 technical documents, it does take workers' 

13 comments and other relevant material into 

14 consideration.

15 So, when this Work Group is 

16 evaluating other site-specific Work Groups' 

17 work, you are calling the review process into 

18 question. So, you are calling not only DCAS's 

19 judgment, but SC&A's judgment and also the 

20 Work Group's conclusion on those issues into 

21 question.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I don't 
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1 believe so. I think all we're doing is a 

2 prima facie here is what we see in terms of 

3 what went in as far as process documentation 

4 and what went out. And the judgment that 

5 we're talking about -- and I think Ted made 

6 the point pretty clearly -- is not to second7 guess the technical judgment of the content of 

8 the response, but looking at whether it was 

9 responsive in terms of clearly answering the 

10 question and completely answer the question, 

11 meaning that, if the reviewer or the commenter 

12 raised three questions, but one question was 

13 answered, then I would put down, "Well, it 

14 doesn't look like it's complete," not to 

15 second-guess the answer that was given, but it 

16 looks like it wasn't responsive to what the 

17 worker was asking.

18 But, you know, I would be 

19 concerned about leaving it go at that because 

20 I think, even in that facet of responsiveness, 

21 I would want to hear NIOSH's perspective, 

22 because there may be something that we don't 
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1 know that was considered in answering that, 

2 and that's why they answered it the way they 

3 answered.

4 Sometimes something is classified 

5 and you don't know, and there's an incomplete 

6 answer, but it turns out that they couldn't 

7 answer the question.

8 So, to get back to what you were 

9 saying, we're not going to revisit the 

10 judgments and the decisions that were made in 

11 this process. We're looking at the process. 

12 But that process does -- and you'll see the 

13 word "responsiveness" -- does look at whether 

14 the response was -- and I hate to use 

15 "responsive"; what's another word for 

16 responsive? -- the response was complete and 

17 clear to the commenter or not.

18 MS. LIN: Right. I understand 

19 that part.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

21 MS. LIN: But even evaluating the 

22 process itself, like Wanda said, involves some 
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1 sort of judgment.

2 So, all I'm asking is that at the 

3 outset, when a site-specific Work Group is 

4 looking at sets of workers' comments, those 

5 materials are also being evaluated by SC&A at 

6 that time when they are participating in a 

7 site-specific Work Group.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

9 MS. LIN: And so, the two parties 

10 and the Work Group, then, evaluate whether 

11 certain comments should be incorporated --

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

13 MS. LIN: And certain should not.

14 So, where does this Work Group 

15 find itself fit in, interface with other site16 specific Work Groups?

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I would 

18 just as soon, again, stay on the side of 

19 collecting the facts as we can collect them. 

20 There is a judgment on what's significant 

21 coming in and what's responsive as far as 

22 completeness going out. But try to stick or 
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1 hone as close as we can to looking at the 

2 documents coming in, the documented comments 

3 coming in, the means by which they were 

4 addressed, how it was addressed, and what went 

5 back to the worker, just as it is put here, 

6 one, two, three, and leave it at that.

7 And leave the deliberations to the 

8 Work Group or a collaboration of NIOSH and the 

9 Work Group, and SC&A supporting that Work 

10 Group, as to the implications going forward, 

11 but not get into second-guessing the site. In 

12 other words, not get into that part of the 

13 discussion, that this group would focus on 

14 process. We would focus on process.

15 But it is very helpful to know 

16 that there are some judgment parts that we 

17 have to be very clear on, and one is what 

18 comes in and how that is handled going out. 

19 But stay away from critiquing the technical 

20 judgments that were rendered at the time, 

21 because we were engaged at the time -- this is 

22 your point -- and we were a party in the end 
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1 in supporting the Board for those decisions. 

2 So, the process is going to be most important.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I have one 

4 clarification. I actually went back to 

5 PROC-97 and looked at how they evaluated the 

6 OCAS, HP evaluated the responses that were 

7 provided by the Site Profile team lead. I 

8 liked that criteria and will probably walk 

9 through the evaluation with that criteria.

10 But one of the things that it 

11 says, and I want you to think very broadly 

12 here, is the response must be technically 

13 correct. If the response is you can use film 

14 badges to detect internal dose, which is not 

15 factually accurate, I am going to say 

16 something. I'm looking for big technical 

17 inaccuracies.

18 MR. KATZ: Judging the quality of 

19 the responses I think is fine. I'm hearing 

20 the issue here is more concern, which, again, 

21 in my mind, is not an element of this 

22 evaluation, of reopening the technical 
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1 debates, what's done with the information, 

2 what judgments were made based on the 

3 information. That's not the purpose of this.

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

5 MR. KATZ: It's not your purpose, 

6 I know from what you have said. It wasn't how 

7 I read this document as the purpose.

8 But in response to OGC, most 

9 certainly we can delay so that you can have a 

10 chance to mull this over before we actually 

11 step forward, as long as it's not a long 

12 delay. Absolutely.

13 Let's just wait and let's get a 

14 green light from OGC since they have concerns. 

15 I don't know that they're ready to express 

16 them all this moment, but we will get a green 

17 light from you before we actually move forward 

18 on this.

19 MEMBER BEACH: What's the 

20 timeframe, Jen? If we do not change this 

21 document, maybe we wordsmith it here and 

22 there, but if, basically, it stays as is, can 
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1 you give us an idea of how long it may take 

2 you?

3 MS. LIN: Honestly, I don't know 

4 at this point because there are several issues 

5 at play. This is not just OGC that needs to 

6 render on this, but, you know, there are other 

7 parties to be consulted as well. So, at this 

8 moment, I am not able to give you a timeline. 

9 But we definitely know that this

10 is a priority for the Work Group, and without 

11 moving on this protocol, you can't move on to 

12 other priorities. So, we will definitely keep 

13 that in mind.

14 MR. KATZ: Right, and I'm 

15 committed to working with OGC to move this 

16 forward as quickly as it can be moved forward.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I'm curious 

18 if it's going to require a Work Group call to 

19 maybe change things. Because not knowing what 

20 the scope of what you're looking at, it kind 

21 of makes it difficult to know --

22 MR. KATZ: Yes, and I don't know
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1 myself. So, I couldn't speak to that at all.

2 But I would suggest that the Work 

3 Group decide what it likes, what it wants to 

4 go forward with, and then authorize that. We 

5 authorize that here with the proviso that we 

6 won't actually press the "Go" button until we 

7 get clearance from OGC because we don't want 

8 to cause unintended problems in doing this 

9 work.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, what we 

11 have already covered this morning, some of 

12 these admonitions, I have copied at least four 

13 or five down. We can almost have a section 

14 that deals with clarifications such as what 

15 OGC is asking for, and this notion of real16 time feedback, given the scope and the burden 

17 question, I think would be something worth 

18 process-wise noting.

19 So, there are certainly things 

20 that we could script today and propose to add, 

21 and that way, you would have a more complete 

22 picture of not only the process, but maybe 
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1 some of these clarifications or admonitions.

2 You know, you hate to see this 

3 thing become this monster because it is a 

4 prototype. And clearly, the process is being 

5 defined as we go.

6 But I think some of these 

7 clarifications that you need on the legal side 

8 and on the programmatic side could be put down 

9 and actually maybe agreed by the Work Group 

10 today. And you could take that back, and that 

11 might help on the review.

12 MS. LIN: And I think 

13 clarification of how this Work Group intends 

14 to interact with other site-specific Work 

15 Groups and also with some of the decisions 

16 that the Advisory Board has rendered would be 

17 a good idea.

18 MEMBER MUNN: So, we still have 

19 not beaten to death the semantics question 

20 with respect to Item A under "Procedure."

21 MR. KATZ: Can I ask you to just 

22 to respond to Jenny's point right here first 
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1 before we go on?

2 MEMBER MUNN: Sure.

3 MR. KATZ: I mean it's not clear 

4 to me, I didn't envision, but I'm not the Work 

5 Group, I'm just the helpmate here, but I 

6 didn't envision that the Work Group would 

7 interact with any other Work Groups on this. 

8 So, to answer that question, I don't see why 

9 there would be any reason for it to interact 

10 with any other Work Groups on this.

11 MEMBER BEACH: No. Nor would we 

12 try to change any decisions --

13 MR. KATZ: Right. In terms of 

14 decisions or DCAS dose reconstruction 

15 procedures, what have you, I didn't envision 

16 that this Work Group would be evaluating the 

17 quality of their dose reconstruction or their 

18 SEC decision or any of that.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Absolutely not.

20 MR. KATZ: So, again, I mean 

21 they're looking at, was incoming information 

22 taken into account in some way or another? 
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1 Or, in other words, neglected, left in the 

2 cupboard, on the table, as I said earlier.

3 MEMBER BEACH: It's also not up to 

4 us to direct NIOSH how they would change 

5 anything. We just can make recommendations to 

6 what we find really.

7 MR. KATZ: Right. In terms of how 

8 to do the worker outreach.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Exactly.

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I agree.

11 MR. KATZ: Okay. Well, okay, so 

12 it sounds like at least I'm on the same plane 

13 as the Work Group in terms of what it was 

14 expecting.

15 Sorry.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

17 Let's just say most of the Work 

18 Group.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay, most of the Work 

20 Group. Well, Mike, if you have different 

21 views, by all means, I think it's important to 

22 voice them now, since OGC is trying to get a 
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1 handle on what is being proposed.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I would 

3 recommend that you guys review the example 

4 closely because this is the way I envision it 

5 going. We spent some time trying to figure 

6 out if this was a doable approach.

7 MS. LIN: Sure, and I think, you 

8 know, definitely the Work Group can tell us 

9 what you want to do.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Under "Procedure," 

11 Item A --

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, and I 

13 had an answer for you. Maybe you have a 

14 better word, but part of the steps are 

15 evaluation and part of them are documentation.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. It seems to me 

17 that Item A, and the items that have been 

18 listed there, with the exception of number 

19 seven that I pointed out before --

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, even 

21 number one has some evaluation.

22 MEMBER MUNN: But a minimum amount 
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1 of it. What I am trying to identify is 

2 whether it is the Work Group's sense that that 

3 should be a determination that we're asking 

4 for, a documentation that we're asking for, 

5 not an evaluation. A statistical listing of 

6 the information that we have about what 

7 happened, that's what we're after, as I 

8 understood it. I think that's what we said we 

9 were after.

10 If that's the case, then, what 

11 we're looking for is a documentation of the 

12 worker outreach input and its incorporation 

13 into the technical work documents.

14 And you have given a list of all 

15 of the things there you're going to look at to 

16 get that documentation, and under 7, you said 

17 you're going to consider the substance of it. 

18 Fine.

19 But, then, Item B is evaluating. 

20 And my question is, are you evaluating the 

21 quality or the quantity, or both, of the 

22 feedback? If so, should we not say, evaluate 
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1 the quantity or quality, or both? Should you 

2 say, evaluating the quality and quantity of 

3 the feedback, or are you going to evaluate 

4 only one, or both?

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I could 

6 offer clarity and completeness, but I think 

7 quality is something that Ted mentioned. I 

8 think quality encompasses those two things as 

9 well. The quality of the response might 

10 include the clarity and the completeness of 

11 it.

12 MEMBER MUNN: I strongly suggest 

13 the addition of that word.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm sorry?

15 MEMBER MUNN: The addition of the 

16 word "evaluate quality of the feedback 

17 provided to the commenter" because that's --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you have any 

19 problem with that?

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, yes, 

21 the very first question that we would ask is, 

22 is there feedback?
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Well, yes, 

2 of course.

3 (Laughter.)

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: As long as 

5 that falls under quality, I don't have a 

6 problem with it.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Well, that comes 

8 under Item A. That's the documentation of 

9 what happened.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, it's 

11 interesting, I think you have pointed out 

12 something that I didn't catch before, the 

13 nomenclature issue. It does say "evaluate" 

14 going into A and B, but if you look under A 

15 and B, it is basically review and document.

16 So, the context, we're so much, in 

17 terms of SC&A's role, evaluating, but the 

18 context of this thing, a lot of it is simply 

19 reviewing what the document indicate to us as 

20 what went in, how it was handled, and what 

21 went out. And that is the, quote, 

22 "evaluation", although I would intend that is 
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1 probably less evaluation than we normally do, 

2 and the evaluation is more the judgment that 

3 is exercised, as we were talking earlier, 

4 about the response, the quality of the 

5 response is where, if there is an evaluation, 

6 it is the quality of the response that is the 

7 evaluation, and judgment is exercised there.

8 MEMBER MUNN: In earlier 

9 conversation, you also mentioned several times 

10 whether the response was a direct response to 

11 the question that was asked. In other words, 

12 was the question answered?

13 We have heard several times in 

14 public comment from folks who indicated their 

15 question was answered, but they didn't 

16 understand the response. Now that is a 

17 different issue entirely, because there are 

18 only so many ways you can answer a question. 

19 And if you have answered a question two or 

20 three different ways, and the questioner still 

21 does not understand the response, then you 

22 have been as responsive as it is possible to 
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1 be.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I don't 

3 think -- and I hope I'm not misspeaking -- but 

4 we're not going to go so far as to interview 

5 the commenters to find out whether they 

6 understood the response. If we found the 

7 response to be complete and clear or adequate, 

8 it is sort of one of these things, I think, 

9 where we are just looking at this process.

10 Stu raised a point, though, that 

11 clearly there's a challenge that he has 

12 accepted for NIOSH to try to deal with the 

13 question of clarity. But, to me, that is 

14 outside of looking at this process. You know, 

15 whether the recipient understood a 

16 technically-accurate and complete answer is 

17 something that only that recipient would 

18 probably be able to answer. And I don't think 

19 we can deal with that. We have enough to deal 

20 with --

21 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: In terms of 
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1 process. I don't think we're going to deal 

2 with that question.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Let me 

4 clarify something. We may interview 

5 commenters and NIOSH about whether they 

6 provided a response.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, whether a 

8 response happened, yes, that's different.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, you have that in 

10 there.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: But your 

12 question, I don't see how we can deal with 

13 that issue. Although it is a legitimate 

14 question, it's not part of this process.

15 MEMBER MUNN: I don't, either. I 

16 just wanted to clarify it as a result of the 

17 terminology that we were using earlier.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. Yes, 

19 responsiveness would not include --

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun.

21 I think Kathy's point is very 

22 important, just trying to underline what I 
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1 said earlier in the sense that I think 

2 sometimes comments are taken into account, but 

3 it is not obvious that they have been. So, I 

4 think it would clarify a lot of things and be 

5 important to do that.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: This list of 

7 admonitions is actually getting pretty long. 

8 We might have to come up with another 

9 attachment or something.

10 (Laughter.)

11 MEMBER MUNN: Possibly.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it's sort 

13 of a list of what it isn't, you know. But, 

14 yes, I think just as important because I think 

15 this helps hone this thing to what is relevant 

16 and avoids getting into some of these other 

17 areas.

18 The same question on a legal 

19 issue, avoiding getting out of the 

20 boundaries --

21 MR. KATZ: It might work to just 

22 have in a preamble, or whatever, sort of an 
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1 expectations element.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm beginning to 

3 think that we owe a scoping piece --

4 MR. KATZ: Scope, yes, it relates 

5 to scope.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: For the Work 

7 Group, capturing all this.

8 MEMBER MUNN: It would certainly 

9 be helpful for some of the slower of us.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: No, every point 

11 you have raised is a good point.

12 I guess with the addition of a 

13 preface of that kind that you can look at, and 

14 I think we can capture that relatively 

15 quickly, get it back to -- and understanding, 

16 I guess, the nomenclature issue, yes, it's 

17 evaluation. But if you look at the 

18 subelements, I think it is mostly comparing 

19 documents and looking at process. We do use 

20 the word "evaluate." That's how the 

21 evaluation is being done.

22 Is this something that the Work 
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1 Group, I guess given the preface, could -- you 

2 know, you have the elements here -- live with 

3 prior to OGC taking their look? Because what 

4 we will do is try to get you a preface here. 

5 I'm talking a matter of days because I think 

6 we have a lot of notes, and see if that's 

7 agreeable.

8 Then, I would assume, if you are 

9 in agreement with these elements, to have Ted 

10 provide this on behalf of the Work Group to 

11 counsel for legal review. Mike, does that 

12 sound reasonable?

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Could you say 

14 that again?

15 (Laughter.)

16 MR. FITZGERALD: I was just saying 

17 that, you know, given where we have come, I 

18 think it was Ted's suggestion that perhaps we 

19 could embody a number of these admonitions and 

20 clarifications into a preface for the 

21 procedures and turn that around in a matter of 

22 days, while it's still fresh, and get it back 
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1 to the Work Group for consideration.

2 And if everybody is comfortable 

3 with that preface, it sounds like, then, that 

4 plus the current procedures for Rocky, we 

5 would give those to Ted to make those 

6 available to General Counsel for a legal 

7 review, which would be the step before we 

8 could then proceed to go ahead and put this on 

9 the ground.

10 So, in terms of keeping this 

11 moving, we will certainly write up that 

12 preface, circulate it. If there's any 

13 comments, we can deal with those. I know 

14 we're pressed against Christmas. So, we would 

15 try to do that pretty quickly and then get it 

16 to GC. And you can have it for Christmas.

17 (Laughter.)

18 MEMBER BEACH: Would that include 

19 a list of documents that DCAS needs to start 

20 collecting separate from this list here? I'm 

21 sure, from this list, they --

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, I have 
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1 a specific list.

2 MEMBER BEACH: So, you have a 

3 specific list? Would that need to go --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Maybe as an 

5 attachment. I don't know.

6 MR. KATZ: I wonder, Stu or J.J., 

7 or someone, if you want to engage in this now, 

8 but I was just thinking to myself about that 

9 piece of it. It seems like Kathy is going to 

10 need to spend some time sort of on the phone, 

11 or what have you, with J.J. or somebody sort 

12 of working through sort of explaining what it 

13 is that Kathy might need from DCAS.

14 I'm not sure that DCAS can just 

15 read this document and know what they're 

16 supposed to do, right?

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It's 

18 separate from this document. I have compiled 

19 a list.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: She's got a 

21 listing.

22 MR. KATZ: Yes.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm happy 

2 to talk to them, but I can send them the list 

3 of documents --

4 MR. KATZ: Right. I'm just saying 

5 it may take some talk as well other than just 

6 simply sending them a document saying, "This 

7 is what I need." But you may need to actually 

8 work with them a little bit because they may 

9 find that it's easier for them to put this 

10 stuff somewhere and you search through the 

11 materials, or what have you. I don't know 

12 what the procedure would be, but --

13 MEMBER BEACH: My question is, 

14 does that list need to go through legal also 

15 or can that be separate? 

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Or can it 

17 be done in conjunction with the review?

18 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean this is a 

19 step forward in the process. So you wouldn't 

20 even begin that yet until we get a green light 

21 from OGC. But I don't think OGC needs a list 

22 of the documents that you would want to look 
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1 at. I mean I don't know if that has to go 

2 through the OGC review.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, maybe what 

4 we can do is we can forward this listing, Stu 

5 and Chris, and you can take a look at it. And 

6 we would be available at your convenience to 

7 talk on a conference call about what the list 

8 contains and whether or not it's doable or 

9 not, or if there's some questions on it. And 

10 we'll wait for you to let us know once you get 

11 the list.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu.

13 I would agree with that. Just 

14 send us the list, and we'll decide if we need 

15 to ask questions about it.

16 And I'm hopeful that anything we 

17 have we will just put in an easy location on 

18 what you guys view as the O: drive where you 

19 can easily find it. Or we'll direct you to 

20 where it already exists on our system. You 

21 guys have access to some of our database 

22 systems. They might be in there, too.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. That 

2 sounds reasonable, and we'll get that list. 

3 It's already prepared, so that should be 

4 pretty quick.

5 Again, as you were saying, Chris 

6 is going to be your point person for 

7 coordination or - 

8 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu again.

9 Yes, I think, given the breadth 

10 that we're talking about here, I think Chris 

11 will be the person, the coordinator, but you 

12 can certainly include me on any --

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, no, we would 

14 certainly do that. I'm just saying, in terms 

15 of any followup, what have you --

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you would look 

18 to --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I think you would 

20 expect, if it gets involved, I think you 

21 expect it would come from Chris.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: All right, we'll 
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1 do that.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: She just found 

3 that out probably.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. We'll 

6 proceed on that basis.

7 Mike, is that what you would see 

8 happening at this point?

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, that's 

10 fine.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: All right. We'll 

12 go ahead and prepare that preface and 

13 circulate that as soon as we can in the next 

14 couple of days or so.

15 I guess the only other question is 

16 the question you raised earlier, which is, 

17 other than that preface, which, hopefully, 

18 will capture these clarifications and 

19 admonitions, is there anything in the detailed 

20 procedures before --

21 MS. LIN: You forgot abomination.

22 (Laughter.)
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: I didn't say 

2 that.

3 (Laughter.)

4 I haven't said that yet today.

5 Is there anything in the 

6 procedures that -- I mean I think -- have we 

7 hammered you into submission on the procedures 

8 themselves? I know they're very expansive, 

9 but is there agreement on these elements 

10 themselves, the specifics?

11 MEMBER MUNN: There is agreement 

12 that, as a pilot project, we'll try it.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, that's what 

14 we're talking about. This is a pilot.

15 MR. KATZ: Mike, everyone else in 

16 here, all your Board Members are nodding in 

17 the affirmative, if you're with them.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think this 

19 example, we haven't talked about that much, 

20 but I think Kathy took the step of actually 

21 illustrating what an element, one review 

22 comment would look like in reality. I think 
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1 it's pretty succinct and provides the 

2 documentation.

3 If you want to see the proof of 

4 what would be generated, we would have one of 

5 these generated for each major comment.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Or 

7 aggregate.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Or, yes, 

9 aggregate.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Of the same 

11 comment.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Of the same 

13 comment, right. There might be more than one.

14 MEMBER BEACH: It makes sense.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Mike, is this a 

17 good place for a break?

18 MR. KATZ: Mike, can we take a 

19 break?

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, what? About 

22 10 minutes? Is that good for you?
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Come back at 

2 11:00?

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. A few minutes, 

4 okay. Thank you.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

6 matter went off the record at 10:46 a.m. and 

7 resumed at 11:02 a.m.)

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. Mike, are you 

9 back with us?

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, I'm here. 

11 And just for the record, you guys are three 

12 minutes late. So you get a half-hour's 

13 detention at lunchtime.

14 (Laughter.)

15 MR. KATZ: My watch only has us 

16 two minutes late. So that means 20 minutes 

17 detention.

18 Okay, Mike, do you want to --

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We're pretty 

20 much clear on what we're going to do on this 

21 first issue, right? SC&A is going to be 

22 providing us with a short document that kind 
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1 of clarifies the intent in the next few days. 

2 And then we are going to forward that on to 

3 OGC, correct?

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, I'll take care of 

5 getting that to OGC. What I would like is 

6 -- I think Joe will send that to the whole 

7 Work Group and everyone else involved, DCAS 

8 and so on.

9 If you have any particular 

10 concerns about what you see in what Joe 

11 writes, please respond to me because I'll be 

12 the one communicating with OGC. So let me 

13 know if you have any concerns, and we'll deal 

14 with those as we can. I'm out, but I'll deal 

15 with them somehow anyway.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I'll respond to 

17 you and the rest of the Work Group.

18 MR. KATZ: Yes. Yes, right. I'm 

19 just saying I need to know because I'm the one

20 who would be working with OGC.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: There's just a 

22 little bit of reading and review I want to do 
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1 before I just go on the record, you know, 

2 agreeing to something.

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, that's fine. 

4 That's fine. But, in principle, we have, I 

5 think, Mike, you agree with the rest of the 

6 Work Group that this should go forward?

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, absolutely.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It should go 

10 forward.

11 MR. KATZ: Okay.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So is 

13 there anything else on that?

14 (No response.)

15 And if not, we can move on to the 

16 follow-up review of the Outreach Tracking 

17 System, the status of finding three.

18 Kathy or Joe, do you want to start 

19 with that?

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

21 Kathy Robertson-DeMers.

22 The Working Group asked us to 
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1 follow up on the review of finding three which 

2 was related to the completeness of the OTS 

3 system since NIOSH had done substantial 

4 updates to the OTS system back in October.

5 Basically, what we found was that 

6 NIOSH and its contractors had added roughly 

7 200 documents to the OTS or the Outreach 

8 Tracking System. A lot of these documents 

9 were from legacy meetings prior to the 

10 implementation of PR-12.

11 That was primarily done, like I 

12 said, in October of 2010. This included 

13 meeting notifications, sign-in sheets, 

14 presentation files, and file meeting minutes.

15 For the documents that we reviewed 

16 for our April 2010 report, for meetings that 

17 were implemented under PR-12, there were 13 

18 documents that had been added, including 

19 meeting minutes for three of five meetings 

20 that we identified that should have had 

21 meeting minutes. Originally, I believe that 

22 number was six, and NIOSH came back in their 
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1 response and said that one of those was a non2 traditional meeting, kind of an attendance at 

3 a union meeting at the request of the union. 

4 So we took that off the table.

5 Since our review in April 2010, 

6 there have been eight additional meetings, 

7 including four focus groups. At the present 

8 time, we did not identify any meeting minutes 

9 for those focus group. Or I guess this was as 

10 of November 2010. So they did not have any 

11 meeting minutes posted for those focus groups 

12 or requests for reviews by the participants.

13 One of our concerns that we still 

14 have is the procedure lacks clarity and 

15 consistency regarding what documents should be 

16 produced for specific types of meetings. In 

17 June of 2009, if the Working Group remembers, 

18 Larry Elliott provided a couple of documents 

19 to the Working Group. One was a graphic of 

20 the different types of outreach meetings, and 

21 another document was classification of worker 

22 outreach meetings. That supplemental document 
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1 and a third supplemental document described 

2 the different types of meetings and what 

3 documents were likely collected during those 

4 meetings.

5 And we found that the guidance 

6 provided in the procedure, in the guidance --

7 in the document -- the likely documents 

8 outlined in the supplemental documents were 

9 not always equivalent.

10 We also found that in the 

11 supplemental documents that they had provided 

12 likely documents for other venues, such as 

13 workshops, Board meetings, invited forums, and 

14 website and docket.

15 We did identify some 

16 inconsistencies in expectations for the 

17 documentations produced and the implementation 

18 of PR-12. A couple of examples are that there 

19 were four workshops identified, and only one 

20 of those workshops had documentation in OTS. 

21 Now the documentation for workshops is not 

22 clearly defined in OTS, but it is defined in 
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1 the supplemental document provided in June of 

2 2009.

3 Another, I guess you would call 

4 this a symptom of not having prescriptive 

5 instructions in PR-12 about documentations 

6 requested is that I believe it was meeting 

7 113, which was a focus group meeting held at 

8 Mound, and ATL indicated in their response 

9 that they were not present at that meeting. 

10 So it was run by OCAS staff, and OCAS staff is 

11 covered by PR-12, according to the scope of 

12 that procedure.

13 And what happened was that two 

14 pages of notes were posted to the OTS system 

15 for a meeting that workers indicated went on 

16 for hours and hours, and there were no formal 

17 meeting minutes taken. So that particular 

18 staff member did not follow the requirements 

19 for taking meeting minutes in a focus group.

20 What we felt was if the procedure 

21 did a better job of specifying the 

22 requirements for documentations, including 
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1 other venues -- and here when I say other 

2 venues, I don't mean the universe here. In 

3 the supplemental documentation that was 

4 provided June 16th of 2009, NIOSH listed the 

5 major other venues. Those other venues make 

6 up about 62 percent of the meetings that have 

7 been conducted since the implementation of 

8 PR-12.

9 So we felt like there needed to be 

10 a clearer definition of what documentations 

11 should be maintained for each meeting and what 

12 documentations should be uploaded. And the 

13 recommendation, I guess, would be to take the 

14 supplemental documentation that was provided 

15 in June of 2009 and to somehow integrate that 

16 into PR-12. And, then, also, to hold those 

17 individuals that are conducting outreach 

18 meetings accountable to this procedure and 

19 accountable to the collection of all that 

20 documentation that would be required, so that 

21 you don't have another situation like Mound.

22 Now I want to raise something that 
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1 I learned about that Mound meeting that may 

2 allow us to correct that particular problem, 

3 the lack of meeting minutes, which is now not 

4 only not available to the Mound workers, but 

5 it's not available to SC&A, who is trying to 

6 do an evaluation of neutron monitoring. And 

7 that was the focus of that meeting.

8 What I learned from one of the 

9 attendees is that he taped that meeting, and 

10 that tape was provided to Brant Ulsh, 

11 according to him. So if you can access that 

12 tape, you can correct the problem of not 

13 having meeting minutes for that meeting. That 

14 is just kind of a lucky thing that happened.

15 MEMBER MUNN: If it's 

16 intelligible.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

18 The other thing we looked at was 

19 the action items which were available in the 

20 OTS system. Now we're up to 126 meetings 

21 which are included in the OTS system. And at 

22 the time of our review, there were six action 
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1 items loaded into OTS. And at the time of our 

2 follow-up review, there were six action items 

3 loaded in OTS. So there were no additional 

4 action items.

5 However the issue with action 

6 items is kind of being evaluated under 

7 Findings 1 and 2. So I kind of defer that 

8 discussion to the review under Findings 1 and 

9 2 of the matrix.

10 MEMBER MUNN: These are the same 

11 six action items?

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, they 

13 are the same six action items which are 

14 provided in our follow-up report.

15 The one additional thing that I 

16 would recommend or that SC&A would recommend 

17 is that once you formalize the criteria for 

18 determining action items from a meeting, that 

19 you go back and you look at the meeting 

20 minutes from those meetings that were held 

21 under PR-12, particularly the information22 gathering meetings, and you determine whether 
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1 you need to add additional action items, based 

2 upon that criteria.

3 That's kind of where we stand on 

4 things. So the bottom line is you need to 

5 formalize the documents required in the 

6 procedure for the major venues of outreach. 

7 You need to communicate the requirements to 

8 the staff that are responsible for holding 

9 meetings, not so much ATL as the OCAS staff 

10 that may go out independent of ATL, and you 

11 need to hold them accountable for implementing 

12 that procedure. And then, as I said, you need 

13 to re-review the meeting minutes from the 

14 PR-12 era after you have established the 

15 action item criteria.

16 So that's kind of a rundown of the 

17 follow-up review.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu at 

19 DCAS. I think we have encountered here 

20 probably a disconnect in terms of how PR-12 is 

21 reviewed and been viewed certainly by the DCAS 

22 staff. And I would expect that they would 
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1 have not considered this sort of a worker 

2 outreach session in what we normally consider 

3 worker outreach because ATL wasn't involved. 

4 So that does not excuse, though, the need to 

5 provide detailed minutes or detailed notes of 

6 the meeting. So that is, in fact, something 

7 that should have happened.

8 Now I have a couple of questions 

9 about this. Joe, is this one of the Mound 

10 meetings that you were at that was --

11 MR. FITZGERALD: No, this was a 

12 meeting that we found out about after the fact 

13 that Brant held with some 30 or 40 Mound 

14 former workers.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. All right. 

16 So it's something else. All right.

17 I think your point is well-taken, 

18 and we need to do a better job of preparing 

19 notes for those. And it points to the fact 

20 that this guidance needs to be more broad. 

21 Whether it's PR-12 or something else, we need 

22 to get away from in our office calling this a 
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1 worker outreach thing because that means 

2 something different to us. So that is 

3 certainly something we need to rectify.

4 So, J.J., if you'll take a note of 

5 that, we'll talk about that when we get back 

6 and decide how we can do better on that.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think 

8 beyond the process question, though, there is 

9 a real substantive question that might require 

10 some followup, too. Because the input 

11 recorded from those workers is inimical to an 

12 SEC issue on neutrons at Mound. So if there's 

13 a tape that could be transcribed and it's 

14 clear enough, that would be important to 

15 follow up on, just to cross that T.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Do we know anything 

17 about that tape, Stu?

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Sitting here now, 

19 I don't know anything about the tape 

20 recording. If I was told about it, I promptly 

21 forgot it. So I don't know anything about it, 

22 but that will be something we'll find out as 
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1 well.

2 And, again, we tend not to try to 

3 record things from the federal side because 

4 you, then, are faced with the obligation to 

5 transcribe it because you have a federal 

6 record and you need a federal record that can 

7 be FOIAed. And I'm not so sure we're good 

8 enough to redact, if necessary, a recording. 

9 But I will look into that.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Now what did you 

11 just say? If there's a recording, what's the 

12 federal requirement?

13 MR. HINNEFELD: If we receive a 

14 recording, it becomes a federal record, and, 

15 therefore, it is discoverable. It is 

16 available. I think now Jenny or Emily might 

17 be able to help me out on this. My 

18 understanding is if we have a recording, that, 

19 then, is essentially a discoverable or a 

20 FOIAable federal record.

21 In order for it to be FOIAable, it 

22 has to be reviewed for possible redaction 
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1 because there are certain categories of 

2 information that you redact from FOIA 

3 response. And so I'm not so sure where the 

4 technology exists for us to redact a copy of 

5 an electronic recording. So it may be that 

6 the only way we would be able to do that would 

7 be to transcribe it and then redact the 

8 transcription, and that would -- what would be 

9 available to FOIA.

10 MR. KATZ: Or you may have the 

11 option of just not transcribing it verbatim, 

12 but creating detailed minutes.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: I think minutes 

14 would be actually a better way. Detailed 

15 minutes from the recording would be a better 

16 way to go, and that would be a federal record. 

17 Again, if it were FOIAed, it would have to be 

18 reviewed for redaction.

19 MR. KATZ: Right.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: But detailed 

21 minutes is usually simpler than a 

22 transcription.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Well, that presents 

2 a puzzle, doesn't it? One thing is whether --

3 not having the tape and not knowing anything 

4 about it raises an abundance of questions, not 

5 the least of which is how long is it, how good 

6 is it.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Formats.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that 

10 inquiry would determine that. I just think it 

11 kind of raises an interesting question because 

12 it does play a vital part on an SEC decision. 

13 So if it is available, it probably needs to 

14 be transcribed because right now all we have 

15 is Brant's account of the meeting. And he 

16 was, obviously, trying to bolster a particular 

17 point on that issue. So he can't be 

18 considered completely unbiased on the issue. 

19 So it just kind of leaves a gap that might be 

20 answered by whatever could come out of this 

21 transcription, if it's possible. If it's not 

22 possible, then we're no worse off than we are 
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1 now.

2 MEMBER MUNN: True, but, you know, 

3 the question of whether the fact that it was 

4 given to someone in the agency, therefore, 

5 makes it a FOIA document, that bothers me.

6 MR. KATZ: In any event, this is 

7 really a -- this is a program issue. They 

8 have to follow legal rules --

9 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: -- about how to handle 

11 this. And so, Wanda, there's really nothing 

12 for the Work Group to engage in on this.

13 MEMBER MUNN: No.

14 MR. KATZ: I'm sure they'll do 

15 whatever they need to do.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: This information 

17 just happened to come up in this venue, but if 

18 it came up in another venue --

19 MR. KATZ: Yes. Yes, and I would 

20 imagine if that tape, if Brant held onto that 

21 tape, that at a minimum they probably would 

22 want to have detailed minutes from that tape, 
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1 given what Joe just said.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess my 

3 concern over this whole thing is that a focus 

4 group, and that's what this was, was held, and 

5 the documentation was not collected. And 

6 there needs to be some clarification in the 

7 procedure on what's expected for what 

8 meetings.

9 I thought that NIOSH did a good 

10 job at explaining what was expected from each 

11 meeting in the June 2009 memo on 

12 classification of worker outreach meetings.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Stu, what is your 

14 take on the possibility of incorporating that 

15 document somewhere in your standard procedures 

16 or your standard processes?

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I would say 

18 that's probably what we need to shoot for 

19 here, and it will require either some internal 

20 guidance or communication of that to the 

21 staff, I would guess. So I think -- I mean 

22 it's not entirely -- it's not a trivial thing 
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1 to take care of. I'm thinking particularly of 

2 a meeting where this focus group, where you're 

3 having this focus group, and you have a health 

4 physicist in all likelihood there who is 

5 trying to obtain technical information. And I 

6 won't deny that we all hear things the way we 

7 want to hear them. And so the things that 

8 register with us are the things that reinforce 

9 what we think we're going to hear.

10 But when you have someone who is 

11 leading a discussion of that nature, it is a 

12 little difficult for that person to take 

13 detailed notes and write detailed minutes --

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: -- of that 

16 meeting.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Almost impossible 

18 really.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. I mean it is 

20 hard to maintain any kind of flow in that kind 

21 of meeting if the person who is the most 

22 engaged technically in the meeting has to make 
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1 sure he's capturing all this stuff. So you 

2 kind of need a second person. And that may be 

3 just a matter for us to deal with to get a 

4 second person there.

5 I don't have a lot to offer, but I 

6 think that the June of 2009 memo, which I have 

7 a vague recollection of, probably needs to be 

8 placed more in the forefront and either put 

9 out as guidance to the internal staff, so 

10 everybody knows what is expected, or used to 

11 build something else, some sort of procedural 

12 document, so everyone knows what to expect.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Stu, there's also a 

14 flow chart that was given at that same 

15 meeting, which could be very helpful and 

16 useful to incorporate as well with the same 

17 date and the same number on it.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Would this be 

19 included with the transcript of the Working 

20 Group meeting where it was first discussed?

21 MEMBER BEACH: I'm sure it was. I 

22 can forward both of the documents to you, if 
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1 you would like.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: If you would just 

3 send them to me, that would be great.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Actually, I 

5 could send them to you, Ted, if you want to 

6 forward them on. Or do you have copies of the 

7 two documents?

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Actually, 

9 there's three.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Is there three?

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: I'm happy to forward on 

13 anything you send me.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So this is Mike.

15 If NIOSH puts out this -- if DCAS 

16 puts out this formal guidance, or however Stu 

17 described it, now does that resolve the 

18 concern by SC&A? Does that fix our program? 

19 Or is this going to be further discussed in 

20 the issues matrix? I mean I am just trying to 

21 clarify this.

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, the 
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1 other part of this is to put something formal 

2 in the procedure on what documentation is 

3 expected for what type of meeting. And then, 

4 in addition to that, we were recommending that 

5 after the action item criteria was developed 

6 and completed, that they go back to the 

7 meetings held since the implementation of 

8 PR-12 and they look at the meeting minutes for 

9 additional action items.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And does that 

11 sound reasonable to DCAS?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Can you run that 

13 past me one more time? What was the 

14 additional part?

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 

16 Which part didn't you catch?

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I guess my 

18 mind drifted for a minute. What is the 

19 additional expectation besides the detailed 

20 minutes? You say just go back through the 

21 minutes and check for action items that should 

22 come out of those minutes?
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, the 

2 first one that I just talked about was to add 

3 guidance on what documents are required for 

4 what types of meetings. You know, the venues 

5 that are outlined in the supplemental document 

6 from 2009 to add direction to your procedure.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So that 

9 people know what documents are expected for 

10 what types of meeting.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Okay.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And that 

13 was what Wanda was asking is how difficult 

14 would it be to incorporate that into the 

15 procedure, that supplemental guidance?

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I don't think 

17 that's too awful difficult.

18 By the way, this is Stu Hinnefeld. 

19 That's for the reporter.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And then 

22 what we had suggested is once we are settled 
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1 on a criteria for how to determine the action 

2 items, that you go back to those meetings that 

3 were held under PR-12, back through the 

4 minutes and determine if there are any 

5 additional action items based upon that 

6 criteria that need to be added.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I'm not real 

8 sure what the scope, what that kind of scope 

9 would represent. But certainly, if there's 

10 important information from those meetings that 

11 somehow we haven't captured and addressed 

12 appropriately, we want to do that. So I can't 

13 argue with the benefit of doing that.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean, on this 

15 second item, this stems from what seems to be 

16 a small number of actions that came from, 

17 what, 120 meetings? I mean the impetus is 

18 just the notion that it just seems like 

19 there's a paucity of actions, given the number 

20 of meetings that were held.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, and 

22 that, like I said, is the criteria for the 
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1 action items is being addressed under Findings 

2 1 and 2.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu - 

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: But the 

5 concern is that there are six action items for 

6 126 meetings.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. This is 

8 Stu, and I will have to look into that some 

9 more after we get out of here because right 

10 now I don't have anything to add or offer on 

11 that.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Well, you wouldn't 

13 anticipate that there would be a lot of action 

14 from information-giving meetings. And 

15 information-giving meetings that I have 

16 personal knowledge of, which certainly is not 

17 a large number, the questions that are asked 

18 at the meetings are usually answered at the 

19 meetings, normally who to see, how to see, 

20 who, how, when, where, that kind of 

21 information, about that specific site.

22 But one would anticipate that the 
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1 information-gathering meetings would be the 

2 ones that would generate action items.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That and 

4 possibly the information giving/gathering 

5 meetings, which just kind of fell down the 

6 middle of Larry's chart.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, this is Stu. 

8 I think it can certainly happen that we would 

9 hear something in an information-giving 

10 meeting that would require us to go do 

11 something or check on something. But in many 

12 of those -- I just want to make sure we're 

13 clear here -- I mean in many of those 

14 meetings, and the ones I have been at most 

15 recently are the workshops, the dose 

16 reconstruction and SEC workshops, there are 

17 quite frequently questions. It is sort of 

18 analogous to a classroom and you're covering a 

19 particular topic, and people ask questions and 

20 you answer that person's questions.

21 We're not envisioning taking those

22 kind of notes that would indicate that kind of 
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1 interchange, right? I would think we would be 

2 envisioning, if someone asked me a question 

3 and said, "Gee, I'm not so sure we knew that 

4 about that study. We've got to go check," 

5 that would be the kind of note you would take 

6 and have to go research. Then you would want 

7 to keep track of making sure you had 

8 dispositioned it - 

9 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and provide 

11 some feedback. Just so we're clear on that.

12 My experience in the workshops is 

13 pretty much everything you hear is a question 

14 that you, then, answer. But it's not out of 

15 the realm of possibility that there would be 

16 something else that you would need to follow 

17 up on. Essentially what you're looking for is 

18 stuff you need to follow up on after the 

19 meeting, right?

20 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: So I guess what I 

22 heard was sort of an agreement on the first 
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1 item, which was to perhaps consider adding 

2 guidance to the June 2009 --

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: From that.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: From that. And 

5 the second thing to me is maybe a validation 

6 that with the new criteria from PR-12, whether 

7 or not the 6 out of 126 -- and I think Wanda 

8 raises a point that it's not 126, you know, 

9 they're not all the same type of meetings, but 

10 whether that number would vary because your 

11 criteria have changed. I think that would be 

12 obvious by looking at some of the meetings 

13 where you are soliciting input. If it doesn't 

14 change anything, I think that's your answer.

15 But I think the notion that there 

16 were just six sort of begs the question 

17 whether the new PROC-12 criteria would involve 

18 perhaps more from the minutes than just the 

19 six.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Let me make 

21 a couple of clarifications here. Two of those 

22 action items were from the period after PR-12 
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1 was put into use. What we're asking is that 

2 you go back since PR-12 was implemented, and 

3 that count, I believe, is 26 of those 126 

4 meetings.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: So it's really 

6 four out of 26?

7 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, it is 

8 four out of 100, which is the legacy items, 

9 and two out of 26, which are the PR-12 items.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. This is 

11 Mike.

12 So that sounds -- there's two 

13 subquestions here that we need to get an 

14 answer to and get resolution on then, right? 

15 That's the four meetings out of the 100 and 

16 then the two out of the 26?

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Whether those 

18 numbers still stand with the new criteria.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, and 

20 I'm going to leave it up to you. What I 

21 recommended is that they go back and look at 

22 the meetings that have been done since the 
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1 implementation of PR-12, which is 26. That 

2 leaves you with 100 meetings that were done 

3 prior to that, prior to the implementation of 

4 PR-12.

5 MR. KATZ: And I think what Stu 

6 said was that he would look into the question 

7 for scope concerns, et cetera, in terms of how 

8 much work that would be, I guess, and other 

9 matters. Right? Is that what you said, Stu?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Sorry, my 

11 fingers are not nimble enough for BlackBerrys.

12 Yes, that's what I said. I think 

13 that we are obliged to do something here with 

14 the 26 and see if, in fact, we have captured 

15 actions appropriately out of that. See, I 

16 don't know what 26 meetings there are. I mean 

17 there may be some that we would consider of 

18 less value than others. For instance, if we

19 did an SEC outreach meeting someplace, and 

20 subsequently an SEC Class was added for the 

21 entire coverage period of that, of that site, 

22 I don't know that we want to go back to that 
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1 meeting. I don't know we're going to find 

2 anything that is going to change very much. 

3 So, I mean, there may be some priorities of 

4 things here, but I think we need to start by 

5 looking at all 26.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, yes - 

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike. 

8 So just as far as process, what I'm trying to 

9 get clear here, are we going to get an action 

10 on this particular thing? We're discussing in 

11 this section of this meeting, and are we going 

12 to rehash this in the next session when we 

13 discuss the findings in the matrix? Or should 

14 we expect a response from DCAS in that matrix? 

15 I mean, are we going to discuss this twice? 

16 Or is there something different here that I'm 

17 misunderstanding?

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I 

19 believe under finding three we have the only 

20 action item. You know, that was to do a 

21 followup review, and the discussion of the 

22 criteria for the action items is going to fall 
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1 under Findings 1 and 2.

2 The followup, you know, that I'm 

3 recommending here is really, once you have 

4 resolved, once everybody has agreed on the 

5 action item criteria, then, in order to 

6 satisfy finding three, we're suggesting that 

7 they go back with the agreed-upon criteria and 

8 evaluate the meeting minutes for these 26 

9 meetings.

10 MR. KATZ: Right, and Stu just 

11 agreed that they would look into that. So I 

12 guess that's in progress.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Does that 

14 answer your question?

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Yes. All 

16 right.

17 MEMBER MUNN: It's in progress.

18 MR. KATZ: So it's in progress, 

19 and at the next meeting we can get an update 

20 on where they are, whether they have completed 

21 that, or whether there's more work to be done 

22 in looking at those 26.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I did want 

2 to say one thing. They did a great job at 

3 uploading a lot of documents to OTS, 

4 especially the older meetings. I just kind of 

5 wanted to let them know.

6 MR. McDOUGALL: Thank you for 

7 that. And, by the way, we have continued. So 

8 it's better today than it was when you looked 

9 at it.

10 MR. KATZ: It's still in progress.

11 MR. McDOUGALL: It is still in 

12 progress.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Now, one clarifying 

14 question for you. Now who is updating the --

15 how is the matrix getting updated?

16 MR. KATZ: Kathy is keeping the 

17 matrix.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

19 MR. KATZ: So she'll update it, 

20 right?

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

22 MR. KATZ: Correct. Right.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: So, Mike, is that 

3 sufficient for, I guess, the second item on 

4 OTS?

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, I think so. 

6 Do the rest of you all agree? Wanda?

7 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Josie? Phil?

9 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So, if 

11 nothing else, I don't know what you guys want 

12 to do for lunch, but do you want to go ahead 

13 and get started on the issues matrix, and 

14 then, whenever you guys get ready for lunch, 

15 just let me know and we'll break for lunch?

16 MR. FITZGERALD: It sounds like 

17 we're going to be breaking sooner than later.

18 MEMBER MUNN: You don't ever want 

19 to ask when I'm in a meeting if we're ready 

20 for lunch. It's the wrong question.

21 MR. KATZ: Time is a constant. So 

22 whether we take the break now or later, it is 
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1 up to everyone here as to how much your 

2 stomach is growling.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Anytime.

4 MR. KATZ: What's your wish?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Lunch.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. Wanda would like 

7 to break now. Is that okay with you, Mike?

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, that's 

9 fine. I'm just going to grab a sandwich and 

10 shovel the driveway again.

11 (Laughter.)

12 MR. KATZ: Can we try to do it, 

13 say, within the hour at least, at longest? So 

14 we would be back here starting again at 

15 quarter of 1:00 by my watch, unless my watch 

16 is not right.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Yes, quarter of 1:00

19 Thank you, everyone on the line.

20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

21 matter went off the record at 11:43 a.m. and 

22 resumed at 12:46 p.m.)

23 
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 

2 12:46 p.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay, we have 

4 reconvened here, at least in the room, after 

5 lunch break.

6 Let me just check and see. Mike, 

7 do we have you back on?

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, I'm here, 

9 Ted.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. You will note 

11 that we are only a minute late.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Not by my clock.

13 (Laughter.)

14 MR. KATZ: Do we have the folks 

15 from DCAS, too, on the line?

16 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

17 Hinnefeld. I'm here.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. Great.

19 MS. ELLISON: This is Chris 

20 Ellison. I'm here.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. Great.

22 MR. JOHNSON: J.J. Johnson.
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1 MR. KATZ: Wonderful.

2 And how about Arjun, is he back on 

3 the line, too?

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I am back on 

5 the line.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. Great. All 

7 right.

8 So, Mike, you can get the ball 

9 rolling again.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. I guess 

11 we're ready to move into the issues matrix for 

12 OCAS PROC-12 and ORAU PROC-97, if SC&A wants 

13 to go ahead.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you just want 

15 to walk through the items one by one pretty 

16 much?

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, I think 

18 that would be best.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, let 

21 me kind of explain things.

22 This is revision one of the issues 
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1 matrix. And the difference is that we went 

2 and took NIOSH's initial response and put it 

3 into the matrix so that everything was in one 

4 place. We also added the action items that 

5 were assigned at the last meeting for both 

6 SC&A and NIOSH. So that is kind of the 

7 difference between this version and the 

8 previous version.

9 MR. KATZ: So, Mike, I think what 

10 we need to do is to go to the items that are 

11 in progress, right, and see if there's any 

12 more progress to record? Does that make 

13 sense? We don't need to run through items 

14 that --

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Not really.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, the items 

17 that are in progress or still open to see if 

18 DCAS has any kind of update for them.

19 MR. KATZ: Exactly.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So the 

21 first finding in progress is finding one. 

22 SC&A didn't have any action items out of this 
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1 finding. So I will defer the floor to DCAS.

2 Did you guys catch that?

3 MR. JOHNSON: Yes, I'm going to go 

4 through my list. This is J.J. Johnson. And 

5 I'll indicate what I have put into the 

6 procedure based upon what I transmitted the 

7 day after we had our last Working Group 

8 meeting.

9 MR. KATZ: Okay, but, J.J., do you 

10 want to do this -- let's do this issue by 

11 issue so that Kathy can keep the issues matrix 

12 abreast of progress?

13 MR. FITZGERALD: So it would be 

14 finding number one.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, 

16 finding one.

17 MR. KATZ: So, yes, finding number 

18 one.

19 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. I mean I'll 

20 go right from finding one to recommended 

21 actions.

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.
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1 MR. JOHNSON: So that's on the 

2 bottom of page 4 - 

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, page 4.

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

6 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. "Add guidance 

7 in OCAS procedure 12 to identify the types of 

8 events for which meeting minutes will be 

9 taken."

10 I have sent out to the folks a 

11 matrix as well as an updated procedure. So if 

12 you go to the general section, it's addressed 

13 in 5.0 as to what outreach means that I 

14 identified in this procedure, which ones will 

15 have meeting minutes.

16 Does everybody have that updated 

17 procedure?

18 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I do.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, we got 

20 it. This is Kathy. I got your copy 

21 yesterday, and Joe, John, and Arjun just got 

22 it this morning. I forwarded it to them.
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1 MR. KATZ: So is anyone ready to 

2 sort of compare that and see if this --

3 they've addressed the meeting types that you 

4 would expect them to address?

5 MEMBER BEACH: You know, I think 

6 maybe it would be better if he just goes 

7 through them and then we need to maybe digest 

8 it and then get back at a different day 

9 because there's quite a few of them.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: J.J. has 

11 made quite a few changes, and we haven't even 

12 had the chance to digest them.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: To consider them.

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. Well, then, 

16 maybe our best -- what will work here -- is 

17 this true for all of J.J.'s changes? You're 

18 talking about throughout for the matrix?

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: So, maybe, then, what 

21 will work here is just for you, J.J., if you 

22 want to summarize changes you have made, that 
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1 would give folks here an opportunity that 

2 maybe they even haven't read this closely to 

3 hear it, and if they have any questions, 

4 clarifications, whatever, on the spot, they 

5 can ask them now. And otherwise, we will plan 

6 to take up these changes at the next meeting, 

7 if that makes sense, Mike.

8 MEMBER BEACH: I think most of us 

9 got them late last night. I know I did.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, it sure 

11 does.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay. So would you 

13 mind doing that, J.J.? Just sort of walk 

14 people through what the changes are. And that 

15 way, if they need clarifications or what have 

16 you, they can ask now, and that will put us a 

17 step forward to dealing with these changes at 

18 the next meeting.

19 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. Sure, I'll try 

20 to attempt that.

21 MR. KATZ: Thank you, J.J.

22 MR. JOHNSON: In the focus group, 
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1 I indicated that minutes are typically taken, 

2 but notes will be taken for smaller groups or 

3 one-on-one or if classified/sensitive material 

4 is to be discussed.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. Is 

6 that --

7 MR. JOHNSON: So if we have our 

8 contractor that supports us was taking and 

9 developing minutes, we'll have minutes. If 

10 they aren't asked to support the meeting, we 

11 will be taking notes.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. Can 

13 you clarify that a little bit? One-on-ones 

14 are usually site expert interviews? Or are 

15 you talking about when someone cannot attend a 

16 meeting?

17 MR. JOHNSON: Either. Either/or.

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. I'm 

19 a little bit confused because there is a 

20 documentation process for a site expert 

21 interview. It's called a documented 

22 communication. Or there's really not a 
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1 procedure for it, but that's what is done by 

2 NIOSH.

3 MR. JOHNSON: And that procedure 

4 is referenced in this procedure also, yes. 

5 And that's why the wording is set the way it 

6 is because it's in correspondence with 

7 procedure 10.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I thought 

9 procedure 10 was about the review process for 

10 DOE.

11 MR. JOHNSON: You might be right.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That is 

13 what it says, data access and interview 

14 procedures.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes, the Board has the 

16 same procedure.

17 MR. JOHNSON: Procedure 11 is 

18 declassification or review of classified --

19 review of documents.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right, and 

21 then --

22 MR. JOHNSON: So procedure 10, 
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1 data access and interview procedures.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'll have 

3 to go back and look at it, but I thought that 

4 was mainly the process for getting it through 

5 DOE.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. I 

7 just want to say real briefly I think we might 

8 run into a semantics difficulty here because 

9 we say in some cases we're going to take notes 

10 of the meeting, in other cases we're going to 

11 have minutes.

12 From our standpoint, what ATL 

13 prepares at the outreach meetings that they 

14 arrange and they support, we refer to those as 

15 minutes.

16 I think the important question 

17 here, the important issue, though, is to have 

18 a complete record of the discussion. Whether 

19 you call it a note or minutes may not be 

20 terribly relevant. I don't know what other 

21 people's opinions are on that.

22 It seems like the issue is 
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1 recording the relevant information from the 

2 meeting, and the name of what you call that 

3 may be kind of splitting hairs a little bit.

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, you 

5 know, what we had discussed this morning in 

6 follow-up action --

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I know that 

8 was an instance where the notes maybe didn't 

9 convey the entirety of the discussion. I know 

10 that was an instance. That's something for us 

11 to deal with internally to make sure we have 

12 enough resources in the meeting that there's 

13 somebody who is taking, you know, making a 

14 record of the meeting.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I 

16 guess what I was talking about is if you 

17 integrated the material from your supplemental 

18 material provided into your procedure, you 

19 know, that is going to define where your 

20 meeting minutes are taken.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That was 
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1 kind of why I was asking, are you talking 

2 about site expert interviews here or --

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, a site 

4 expert interview would be -- you know, one-on5 ones should be probably recorded the way a 

6 site expert interview is recorded. Whether 

7 you call it a documented communication or 

8 something like that --

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. 

11 Stu, I have a question about the documented 

12 communication.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. When the 

15 summary of those communications is prepared, 

16 does the interviewee get to review the 

17 summary?

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it's my 

19 understanding that they do, but I won't swear 

20 that that has happened every time.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. A lot of 

22 the communication documentation is very, very 
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1 brief. Maybe there are brief interchanges, 

2 you know, for a specific point or whether 

3 there was a longer communication, and the 

4 interviewer was looking only for one piece of 

5 information and wrote only that. Sometimes I 

6 wonder about that.

7 And that's the origin of my 

8 question is does the interviewee see the 

9 draft?

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

11 Kathy. In some of the later documented 

12 communications, you will see a statement on 

13 the bottom. There is a particular person at 

14 ORAU that's good about doing this. The 

15 interview was passed through the interviewee 

16 and documented per their comments, something 

17 to that effect. Most of them, you do not see 

18 that statement. So it's kind of unclear 

19 whether they have been sent back through the 

20 interviewee or not.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we'll sort 

22 that out. I can't speak terribly 
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1 knowledgeably about that here today, but that 

2 should be part of our guidance going forward, 

3 I think.

4 MR. KATZ: Are we okay on that 

5 one?

6 MEMBER BEACH: The only concern I 

7 really have is in the general, and I was 

8 looking down to see if it was answered 

9 further. In the second-to-the-last and the 

10 last paragraph, it says, "Minutes are 

11 typically taken, but notes will be taken for 

12 smaller groups."

13 So minutes typically taken doesn't 

14 really direct somebody to take those notes. 

15 It is a very soft sentence, I guess. And I 

16 was hoping that maybe it was -- because when 

17 you look down further, it says, "Minutes of 

18 the meeting will be taken." So I have a 

19 concern with that, but it may be addressed 

20 later on.

21 MR. KATZ: Right.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. If I 
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1 can offer, again, I think, again, this is a 

2 question of the semantics of what are meeting 

3 notes and what are meeting minutes. And to 

4 me, the key issue is that, regardless of what

5 you call them, and what makes you call 

6 something "minutes," it would seem to me that 

7 the important thing is to take care to collect 

8 the information, to prepare an account of what 

9 was discussed. Whether you call it notes or 

10 minutes is not particularly relevant.

11 And because of that, I think this 

12 procedure kind of draws a dividing line that, 

13 if ATL prepares it, we're going to call it 

14 minutes. And in some of these, they will 

15 support some Work Groups -- or some of these 

16 focus groups, and they don't support all of 

17 them. So that's probably where that came 

18 from.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: But you've moved 

21 away from that nomenclature where minutes 

22 refer to the ATL traditional transcription, 
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1 and now minutes are something else? I guess 

2 I'm a little confused as to exactly where we 

3 are now.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes. I mean that last 

5 quote makes a distinction between minutes --

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: -- and notes, 

8 irrespective of ATL's involvement. So it just 

9 sort of begs the question. I guess whoever is 

10 doing this at least -- someone seems to have a 

11 distinction in mind other than just the 

12 author.

13 MR. JOHNSON: This is J.J. 

14 Johnson. The expectation of this statement, 

15 instead of saying that minutes are always 

16 taken or minutes are taken, minutes are 

17 typically taken if ATL is there to support us 

18 for that aspect.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay.

20 MR. JOHNSON: The term "notes" is 

21 used if ATL is not there, and we are 

22 interviewing and taking notes but without 
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1 ATL's support.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: And ATL support 

3 is an actual -- what do you call it, recorder 

4 or what? I'm just trying to figure out, do 

5 they just take notes but more detailed notes?

6 MR. JOHNSON: Both, electronic and 

7 notes.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: They're hand 

9 notes?

10 MR. McDOUGALL: Well, basically, 

11 what we do is we do two things. We record the 

12 session, and we take notes. Okay? So the 

13 notes help in making sense out of the 

14 recording. And, then, we basically produce, 

15 from those, we produce a document that then 

16 goes through the review process. And that 

17 becomes --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: And it's fair to 

19 say that the ATL minutes are sort of a 

20 validated set of notes versus maybe an 

21 unvalidated set of notes? I'm just trying to 

22 get some feel for what the difference is.
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1 This sounds like, you know, you're 

2 taking notes. There are notes being taken 

3 over here, but your notes are called minutes. 

4 And I'm just saying, well, it sounds like you 

5 have the recording, but what's the recording 

6 used for?

7 MR. McDOUGALL: Well, the 

8 recording is to provide more detailed 

9 information than the person's --

10 MR. FITZGERALD: To make the notes 

11 more comprehensive?

12 MR. McDOUGALL: Yes, to make --

13 MR. FITZGERALD: So, the 

14 comprehensiveness?

15 MR. McDOUGALL: To make the 

16 ultimate document richer.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

18 MR. McDOUGALL: Okay?

19 MR. KATZ: Go ahead.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. I 

21 was just going to say that one key distinction 

22 of when ATL supports a meeting and generates 
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1 the notes, there is a person there who that is 

2 that person's job to do that. Now it won't 

3 always be the case from a meeting or a 

4 discussion, certainly a one-on-one, where when 

5 ATL is not there, you won't necessarily have a 

6 person there for purposes of generating the 

7 notes of the meeting. We haven't done it up 

8 until now. I think we may think about that 

9 going forward, particularly if we are going to 

10 have a meeting of some size.

11 But that is clearly what happens 

12 now and why meeting minutes are, I would 

13 guess, in most cases, if not all cases, 

14 somewhat more comprehensive than any meeting 

15 notes. It is because ATL has a person there 

16 whose job it is to ultimately prepare the 

17 minutes of the meeting. And I mean there's 

18 logistics and things as well, but during the 

19 meeting their job is to record, so they can 

20 write the minutes.

21 And we haven't done that in every 

22 case for other meetings where ATL has not 
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1 provided the support. But it is something 

2 that we will think about going forward, 

3 particularly for meetings of some size.

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

5 Kathy. I'm a little bit disturbed at the 

6 tieback to whether ATL is there or whether ATL 

7 is not there. If it is a defined meeting, in 

8 accordance with PROC-12, like the Mound 

9 meeting, for example, that was an SEC focus 

10 group, then the procedure should direct them 

11 to take meeting notes. It should be tied to 

12 the worker outreach meeting type rather than 

13 whether ATL is there.

14 MR. KATZ: Right, but, Kathy, I 

15 mean that's what Stu is saying. Stu is saying 

16 that they are going to look at how they do 

17 this going forward in terms of it doesn't 

18 matter whether it's ATL or DCAS being 

19 sufficiently detailed to capture a full 

20 account of the meeting's proceedings.

21 MEMBER MUNN: The key is almost 

22 always whether there is a person there who is 
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1 available to take meeting notes.

2 MR. KATZ: Sure. Sure.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Because, as we 

4 pointed out earlier, it's almost impossible to 

5 run a meeting and take good notes at the same 

6 time.

7 MR. KATZ: Of course.

8 MR. JOHNSON: This is J.J. Johnson 

9 again.

10 If you notice the wording, it 

11 says, "worker outreach focus group" and "SEC 

12 worker outreach focus group." The terminology 

13 "minutes are typically taken" is in both of 

14 them. And for smaller groups, notes will be 

15 taken.

16 So the term "minutes typically 

17 taken" and for the notes are both referenced 

18 to specific types of meetings.

19 MS. AYERS: This is Lynn Ayers 

20 from SC&A Salient.

21 And I just had an observation that 

22 could resolve the concern about the soft 
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1 language. Stu's earlier statements that the 

2 relevant issue, the key concern here is that 

3 we capture all of the relevant issues, 

4 information, to convey the entirety of the 

5 discussion. If you preceded this sentence 

6 with some statement there of the primary 

7 concern, whether you call it minutes or notes, 

8 that this is the purpose of what should be 

9 accomplished at the meeting, then you could 

10 follow it up with some distinction between 

11 what might happen in different settings.

12 But it seems like both should be 

13 there. That way, it doesn't sound like it's 

14 optional to take a record. I think that was 

15 the earlier concern.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well, what's 

17 the definition of a small group versus large 

18 group or one you want to take minutes and one 

19 you want to take notes?

20 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean, really, 

21 if they're taking detailed notes, minutes, 

22 whatever you want to call them, it doesn't 
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1 really matter. None of this really matters as 

2 long as there is the full proceedings 

3 adequately detailed, it doesn't matter whether 

4 they call them notes or minutes.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: I think the thing 

6 that Stu pointed out is probably the valid 

7 thing, which is maybe a reconsideration of 

8 when a dedicated notetaker a la what ATL has 

9 done in the past may be warranted. And that 

10 is a judgment call, I guess, depending on the 

11 type of meeting.

12 I think you used the example of 

13 the Mound focus. In that case, it shouldn't 

14 be optional; you should seek out a dedicated 

15 notetaker. Whether you call it minutes or 

16 notes, it is really a question of someone 

17 being dedicated to the task and providing a 

18 comprehensive set of minutes.

19 And that's the distinction I see. 

20 I think he already acknowledged that. Am I 

21 right, Stu?

22 MR. KATZ: Yes.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, that would be 

2 my position on this. Let's not kill ourselves 

3 about minutes and the requirements, when are 

4 you going to call them minutes and things like 

5 that. Let's figure out a process to use so 

6 that we get a good account of the meeting, no 

7 matter what it is.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike. 

9 Yes, I agree with you, Stu, but I think that 

10 when we figure that out, it needs to be 

11 spelled out in this procedure so that each 

12 staff member, when they pick up this 

13 procedure, and they're getting ready to have a 

14 meeting, they don't have a doubt in their mind 

15 somewhere down the line.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I understand 

17 that, and we'll include some more, whether 

18 it's in this -- this procedure is probably a 

19 good place for it or something like this 

20 procedure. So that people who are doing these 

21 sort of, we call them -- we call all these 

22 things where they're information-gathering 
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1 meetings, we call them all part of our data 

2 capture or information capture and research or 

3 site research.

4 And so we have to make sure that 

5 people are aware that when they are having a 

6 meeting for site research purposes, that they 

7 need to make sure that they have the 

8 wherewithal, either being another person or 

9 whatever, to gather a complete record of 

10 what's discussed, just as part of the 

11 planning.

12 But I hate to be too specific 

13 about the requirements because there can be a 

14 wide variety of reasons why it is going to be 

15 complicated or easy to record the account. 

16 You know, one thing is if you have a lot of 

17 people, it is probably going to be complicated 

18 for one person to record it. Another thing is 

19 if you have a broad-ranging discussion, even 

20 with a few people, it would probably be 

21 difficult for one person. But if you have a 

22 narrow, sort of a narrow-scoped meeting, even 
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1 if you have quite a few people there, one 

2 person might be able to gather that, to be 

3 able to conduct the meeting and generate the 

4 notes maybe. I don't know that I would 

5 promise that.

6 But I hate to be too specific in 

7 requirements here because we are going to be 

8 using these requirements to apply, I think, to 

9 quite a lot of different things. So I would 

10 rather not be too terribly specific and really 

11 get too wrapped around the axle on specific 

12 language.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. 

14 Could I just make a suggestion that might be 

15 helpful? We might preface all of this kind of 

16 by saying that an accurate account of the 

17 meeting shall be prepared and then indicate 

18 whether the account is prepared by tape 

19 recording and preparing minutes afterwards, 

20 which seems to me a distinction between what 

21 you're calling minutes and notes, or whether 

22 the notes are made on the spot and then 
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1 verified afterwards with the interviewee, you 

2 know, you can indicate the flexibility in 

3 that, if it is prefaced by saying that there 

4 shall be an account, an accurate account of 

5 the meeting, of the substance of what went on, 

6 the substantive points that were raised.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I'm okay with 

8 that.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: And that would 

10 follow because if you did have a larger 

11 meeting, it would be very untenable to try to 

12 do that with one person. It just would be 

13 difficult to do it. So you almost need a 

14 dedicated notetaker.

15 MR. JOHNSON: This is J.J. Johnson 

16 again. How about if I work with Stu, and 

17 we'll come up with some appropriate wording 

18 for those two areas?

19 MEMBER MUNN: Sounds good.

20 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. Further on, 

21 worker outreach and townhall meeting, minutes 

22 of the meeting will be taken. SEC outreach 
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1 meetings, minutes of the meeting are not 

2 taken. When we're invited to other meetings 

3 like Department of Energy, minutes are not 

4 taken. And workshops, minutes are not taken.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

6 Kathy DeMers. I don't have a problem with 

7 minutes not being taken, say, for 

8 presentations at these meetings, but when a 

9 worker speaks up and makes a comment, even 

10 during those types of meetings, they should be 

11 captured.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, this is Stu. 

13 I think I kind of agree with that. I think 

14 that there are things that are said, or there 

15 can be things that are said at those meetings, 

16 whether it be a dose reconstruction workshop 

17 or one of the DOL-sponsored or joint-outreach18 sponsored meetings, that may require follow19 up.

20 And the same question we asked, 

21 you know, the same comment I made this 

22 morning, sometimes in those meetings people 
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1 ask questions that can be answered on the 

2 spot. And I'm not proposing that we make a 

3 record of that. But if they comment about a 

4 situation that was encountered that they knew 

5 about that the attendee doesn't, isn't really 

6 familiar with, or it could be new information, 

7 I think it is incumbent on the attendee to 

8 make that note and investigate that. And that 

9 should probably be captured as we capture this 

10 feedback. So that would apply.

11 Now just so everybody knows, these 

12 DOL meetings that we go to are generally the 

13 public meetings they have when a new Class is 

14 added, okay? When a new SEC Class is added, 

15 DOL goes and has public meetings in the 

16 vicinity to describe the process and how it is 

17 going to be administered.

18 I think part of that is sort of it 

19 might be part, kind of outreach to advertise 

20 it, so everybody there knows it. It is 

21 explained to the claimants who are already in 

22 the system what steps are going to happen on 
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1 theirs. We attend those only to answer 

2 questions. We have no presentation role or 

3 anything like that.

4 The other kind of meeting I talked 

5 about, the joint outreach, there's a Joint 

6 Outreach Work Group with people from the DOE 

7 program, you know, EEOICPA office. The 

8 workers' monitoring programs participate in 

9 that. The DOL participates, either through a 

10 resource center, although now the programmatic 

11 office in Washington is being more involved. 

12 And we go to those. And the DOL Ombudsman is 

13 one of the main players.

14 We go to those, again, mainly to 

15 answer questions. I would treat those the 

16 same as a workshop or DOE meeting. It is 

17 that, if somebody asks a question, you may 

18 answer it on spot. Done. If somebody raises 

19 an issue or asks a question that you can't 

20 answer right away, that attendee has to record 

21 that in some fashion and bring it back.

22 Now that will be different than 
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1 writing comprehensive notes of a meeting. 

2 Because comprehensive notes of a DOL meetings 

3 or of those joint outreach meetings are a 

4 description of the DOL EEOICPA process, and 

5 the difference between B and E, and so on.

6 So those would be just simply 

7 exception things, things that came up that we 

8 maybe didn't know about or at least the 

9 attendee didn't know about and has to go 

10 investigate further.

11 Is everybody okay with that?

12 MR. KATZ: Yes. There are heads 

13 nodding in the room silently. Thank you, Stu.

14 J.J., do you want to carry on?

15 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. For the second 

16 one, I've placed references in the procedure 

17 under Section 3, as promised.

18 MR. KATZ: All is good here, J.J. 

19 Carry on.

20 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. Well, then, 

21 we go to finding two.

22 MR. KATZ: Oh, wait.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I say 

2 something?

3 MR. KATZ: Kathy has something to 

4 say.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And maybe 

6 you'll address this in your response to 

7 finding two, but I still have a concern about 

8 how the current procedure doesn't discuss how 

9 comments provided by workers are evaluated and 

10 then, subsequently, if necessary, integrated 

11 into technical work documents or how the 

12 comments are resolved with the individual --

13 MR. JOHNSON: I think if you were 

14 to look at the last page of the procedure, you 

15 will see an attachment there which addresses 

16 -- it's Appendix E. And that discusses action 

17 items.

18 And it says, "Action items are 

19 documented and tracked in the action item 

20 screen. Consideration for processing an 

21 effective action item takes into account 

22 several things, including a specified end 
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1 date, response review, and how the action item 

2 has been closed out."

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

4 maybe we need to go through finding two, and I 

5 might get an answer to this question or I 

6 might not.

7 MR. KATZ: Okay. So are you 

8 saying carry on?

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Carry on, J.J.

11 MR. JOHNSON: All right. I guess 

12 we're on page 6 now. It says, "Additional 

13 guidance will be incorporated into the OCAS 

14 procedure to address action items, final 

15 disposition, determination. The response will 

16 address commitment date, review for technical 

17 adequacy, designation of whether a technical 

18 document requires an update, identification of 

19 how the action item was closed out."

20 That continues on to the bottom of 

21 that particular new appendix, and it says, 

22 "Through coordination of the DCAS HP and the 
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1 ORAU subject matter expert, an owner is 

2 identified and assigned to resolve/address the 

3 issue. In conjunction with identifying an 

4 owner, a date of completion is entered into 

5 the system which has been agreed to based on 

6 work schedule, level of effort, and timely 

7 need for responsiveness.

8 "Along with the above information, 

9 action item current status and action item 

10 resolution details are inputted. Action item 

11 current status addresses the current state of 

12 response. It may address roadblocks, 

13 progress, completion, et cetera, while the 

14 action item resolution details -- addresses 

15 the issue as to what was done to resolve the 

16 issue and what, if any, impact it may have had 

17 on the technical document.

18 "Once the action item resolution 

19 is completed, it is reviewed by the DCAS HP 

20 for completeness and technical adequacy, notes 

21 date of resolution, and includes in the action 

22 item closure type, what it influenced, a 
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1 technical basis update, feedback to the EE, et 

2 cetera."

3 Comments?

4 MEMBER BEACH: It takes a while to 

5 digest that.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes. Yes, 

7 I think it's going to take time to digest 

8 that. But I did have a related --

9 MR. JOHNSON: It addresses each of 

10 those bullets.

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I do have a 

12 related comment, and maybe this goes back to 

13 finding one, you know, you had mentioned in 

14 your response that you guys were capable of 

15 tracking and trending items in the OTS system, 

16 right?

17 MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: One of my 

19 concerns is if there's six action items for 

20 126 meetings, how are you going to track 

21 comments and determine whether you're having 

22 recurrences, whether you have to reevaluate 
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1 the answer that you have given previously 

2 because people keep coming back and asking the 

3 same question.

4 MR. JOHNSON: Anything that is put 

5 into the action item tracking screen, I can go 

6 and talk with our PST people and they can 

7 initiate an ad hoc report for me.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess my 

9 concern is there are not very many action 

10 items to track or trend or to do anything 

11 with.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, there's a 

13 couple of things here. One is we have already 

14 said that as part of our discussion with 

15 number three this morning, it is that we are 

16 going to go back and take a second look at 

17 that and make sure that we have done a 

18 faithful job of capturing action items from 

19 those 26 meetings since PR-12 was implemented. 

20 So we are going to look at that to make sure 

21 that we are doing that. I think part of that 

22 is the thing that maybe has run into other 
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1 people's minds, as the procedure as written it 

2 essentially provides autonomy to the health 

3 physicist and the ORAU Team.

4 And one of your items was review 

5 technical adequacy. So there may be some sort 

6 of supervisory or team leader review that 

7 might be called for there. So I think maybe 

8 J.J. and I will take a look at that, if that's 

9 what we're looking at. Right now, I would 

10 like to get away from the fact that there are 

11 only six action items in the database other 

12 than to say that, you know, we're going to go 

13 back and check those 26 meetings and make sure 

14 that we have been playing straight with that.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, can I 

16 ask a simple question?

17 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't know, 

18 Kathy. I don't know that you ever have asked 

19 a simple question.

20 (Laughter.)

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Is there 

22 data that is available, say, from the WISPR 
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1 database?

2 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm sorry, 

3 somebody coughed, and I missed the first part 

4 of the question.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Is there 

6 data already available, say from the WISPR 

7 database, that can be inserted into the OTS 

8 database?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: I guess I'm not 

10 really knowledgeable enough to talk about 

11 that. I guess I kind of worry about looking 

12 back too far in the past. So far, we have 

13 committed to looking at PR-12.

14 We're looking at PR-12 and the 26 

15 meetings since PR-12, and that's a big chunk 

16 of work. So I'm a little hesitant about how 

17 far back we have to go. I would like to keep 

18 our current efforts a little more current and 

19 at least get a feel for how we have been 

20 doing.

21 I mean, if we start looking 

22 through the information that we are gathering 
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1 now and we conclude to ourselves, you know, we 

2 have not been paying this enough attention, we 

3 have not really been dealing with worker 

4 comments sufficiently, and we have sufficient 

5 evidence of it by what we're doing, we may 

6 need to go back farther and make sure that we 

7 haven't left things out there and behaved as 

8 if we were ignorant of them, even though we 

9 have been told about them. So we may need to 

10 do that later, but I would like to wait for a 

11 while on that before we go back any farther 

12 and put older things yet into the database.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess 

14 what I'm asking you is not really going back 

15 and reevaluating it. It is, more or less, 

16 taking what's already out there and copying it 

17 into OTS.

18 MS. ELLIOTT: This is Mary 

19 Elliott. I may be able to shed some light 

20 very briefly on this and the four items that 

21 do pertain to things that were in WISPR that 

22 were put into OTS. If I might, Stu?
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, go ahead.

2 MS. ELLIOTT: There were four 

3 meetings while ATL was still with ORAU. So 

4 these are legacy meetings that had WISPR 

5 responses back and forth. There were issues 

6 raised in the meetings that affected the TBDs, 

7 and the WISPR database documented that.

8 I knew for a fact about these 

9 meetings because we wrote letters to the 

10 unions to enumerate the changes in the TBDs. 

11 And for those meetings, I went back and took 

12 entries from WISPR and entered those into 

13 action items as legacy. And those are where 

14 four of those came from. For example, for 

15 Hanford and Idaho. So those have been 

16 addressed by putting what was in WISPR into 

17 the site action items. Does that help?

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, it helps. I 

19 think I just need, I guess we need to spend a 

20 little more time with the database, OTS, and 

21 maybe get more knowledgeable about exactly 

22 what it's telling us and how we are looking at 
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1 minutes to develop action items before I 

2 really say much more here.

3 MS. ELLIOTT: Kathy, did that help 

4 you at all, my statement?

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, and I 

6 actually, you know, have looked at WISPR 

7 quite a bit, and I don't remember off the top 

8 of my head how many of the action items were, 

9 for example, for Rocky Flats. Maybe one, 

10 maybe two.

11 But just as an example, WISPR had 

12 at least a dozen comments in it which actually 

13 resulted in a technical document change. And 

14 it would be nice to have that information in 

15 OTS, if it was convertible.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. If that's 

17 the specific information we are looking for, 

18 then, I think we'll take that and see what we 

19 can do. I don't know if it is or not. I am 

20 woefully ignorant of both. So I don't know 

21 if it is convertible or not.

22 MR. KATZ: Okay. J.J.?
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1 MR. JOHNSON: Yes, I'm writing 

2 myself a note.

3 MR. KATZ: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm 

4 sorry. No, I wasn't rushing you.

5 MR. JOHNSON: You couldn't hear 

6 the pen scratch here?

7 (Laughter.)

8 MR. KATZ: No. I was just 

9 indicating the green light; that's all.

10 MR. JOHNSON: Okay.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: Are you taking 

12 minutes or notes?

13 (Laughter.)

14 MR. JOHNSON: Notes.

15 MR. KATZ: For the record, Joe is 

16 taking neither.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: That's right.

18 (Laughter.)

19 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. The second 

20 action was, "Additional guidance will be 

21 incorporated into the OCAS procedure 12 to 

22 address judgment for identifying action 
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1 levels." I have also placed at -- or "action 

2 items," I'm sorry.

3 That is part of Appendix E. That 

4 is the first part, Identification of Action 

5 Items. "Action items are identified by the 

6 DCAS HP and may be coordinated in-house with 

7 ORAU or in combination. Based on professional 

8 judgment, action items are identified and 

9 tracked due to their specific nature.

10 "At a minimum, one should be 

11 sensitive to discussions and action items 

12 initiated in which it has been pointed out 

13 that the Site Profile or technical document is 

14 incorrect or inadequate, new information which 

15 has not been considered before has been 

16 identified that may have an impact on the 

17 technical document, and a follow-up is needed 

18 to address a question not immediately or 

19 completely addressed, a request or a possible

20 need to look for additional information. This 

21 guidance is not intended to be comprehensive, 

22 but an awareness for likely sources of action 
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1 items."

2 Comments?

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Kathy's taking 

4 notes now.

5 (Laughter.)

6 MR. KATZ: I think folks are just 

7 reading and thinking for a second.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: We're reading 

9 this off the screen, so it's a little bit 

10 cumbersome.

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is one 

12 of those things where I think I need to give 

13 it some thought, you know.

14 MR. KATZ: Okay. We'll have 

15 another meeting. So by all means.

16 But, Wanda, or anyone else have 

17 any comments? Mike, on the phone, too, before 

18 we pass --

19 MEMBER MUNN: No.

20 MR. KATZ: -- go forward?

21 Okay, J.J., everybody said go 

22 forward.
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1 MR. JOHNSON: All right. I guess

2 we'll follow on to finding three, and perhaps 

3 Vern can support that.

4 MR. McDOUGALL: Well, I don't have 

5 a copy.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, the 

7 only action item was ours, and we discussed 

8 that this morning.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Oh, yes. Okay. Right. 

11 So moving on.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Four.

13 MR. JOHNSON: Recommended action 

14 in procedure 12. "Include additional wording 

15 at the end of the statement addressing the 

16 recording of the meetings stating that copies 

17 of the recording will not be available for 

18 public distribution."

19 That is in the procedure. And 

20 that's in the procedure on page 16, top of the 

21 page.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, we see it.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Keep going, 

2 J.J.

3 MR. JOHNSON: Okay.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, item two.

5 MR. JOHNSON: Item two. Item two 

6 is addressed in section five, I believe.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: You said section 

8 five?

9 MR. JOHNSON: I believe so. Let 

10 me check. It's the second paragraph. It's in 

11 red.

12 "Draft minutes are developed and 

13 directed to the DCAS/DOE liaison for DOE 

14 review. Upon return from DOE, the minutes go 

15 through Privacy Act redaction process, if not 

16 already completed."

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, some 

18 of our concerns under finding four have been 

19 addressed. Some of them I need to go back and 

20 look at what you have done with other findings 

21 to see if they're also addressed.

22 I know that one of our concerns 
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1 was site expert interviews, how they are 

2 documented, how that worker input is put into 

3 and considered for technical work documents. 

4 And that's not really addressed by the 

5 recommended actions.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: But the specific 

7 items one and two seem to be. I mean I think 

8 you're talking about maybe the context of 

9 what's in the --

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: -- overall 

12 findings.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: So, J.J., one and 

15 two are fine as you have inserted the new 

16 language. I think Kathy was just saying that 

17 there is embedded in four some issues that 

18 overlap into the other areas.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Is that 

20 three? Okay.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Finding four.

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Finding 
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1 three and four - 

2 MR. JOHNSON: Well, you know, in a 

3 sense, that is addressed in the general 

4 section, section five, where we talk about the 

5 worker outreach focus group meetings and/or 

6 SEC worker outreach focus group meetings. It 

7 does not specify, it does not state technical 

8 expert or expert in any way or form.

9 But it says, "but notes will be 

10 taken for smaller groups or one-on-one, and if 

11 classified, sensitive material is discussed." 

12 So that should lightly address that area.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. If 

14 one of the OCAS HPs goes out -- and I'm going 

15 to make up a name -- interviews Mickey Mouse, 

16 and it goes into a documented communication, 

17 which it usually does, I don't see what the 

18 process is to consider those comments, develop 

19 action items, and put it into OTS.

20 MR. JOHNSON: I would consider it 

21 no different than having been there and 

22 developing action items from a large group 
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1 meeting. The process would be the same. And 

2 therefore, Appendix E would be in effect.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Perhaps a 

4 solution to this problem would be to add site 

5 expert interviews as one venue of worker 

6 outreach. Right now, it's not defined as 

7 that, but we believe it is worker outreach, 

8 and we believe that those comments should be 

9 considered equally to those provided in ATL 

10 meetings.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. I 

12 guess I had never really thought of what I 

13 think of as a site expert interview as 

14 outreach, but it is certainly part of our 

15 program communications. I mean everything 

16 we're talking about here is program 

17 communication.

18 Well, we will look at that. I 

19 mean those things are captured right now, and 

20 they are put in SRDB, the Site Research 

21 Database. So whether we prepare them or 

22 whether you guys prepare them, that's where 
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1 they end up.

2 So I guess I will go have to check 

3 with some folks, and particularly the PST guys 

4 about having it appear both places. If the 

5 Work Group feels there's value in that, we'll 

6 go find out what that would involve.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I think you 

8 have a point, Stu. It's hard to see that as 

9 worker outreach. That's a part of the 

10 standard process for putting together any 

11 documentation. I guess it depends on how one 

12 defines -- if you define any interaction with 

13 any worker as being worker outreach, then 

14 you're getting into a real sticky wicket.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess 

16 what we don't want to see -- and, Arjun, if 

17 you're on the phone, you can help me out -- is 

18 a two-track system.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Is a what system?

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: A two-track 

21 system where you've got comments from site 

22 experts over here and comments from the 
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1 general workforce over here.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Well, you see, 

3 there's a real problem when you start slicing 

4 and dicing people like that. I think our 

5 entire process here has spent an awful lot of 

6 time identifying a worker as somebody who is 

7 on the floor all the time and who gets dirty, 

8 and anybody who doesn't do that is somehow not 

9 a worker. You know, we've been through this a 

10 gazillion times.

11 And a site expert could just as 

12 easily be the guy on the floor with the dirty 

13 feet as it is the guy in a top office who 

14 happens to know what's going on at that site 

15 or is supposed to know and sometimes doesn't. 

16 A site expert does not put somebody in a 

17 category other than this is a person who has 

18 spent a lot of time on this site and has 

19 knowledge of what's going on.

20 So these are people that are 

21 interviewed in the normal process of putting 

22 together the documentation for this program 
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1 and for doing dose reconstructions.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Perhaps I 

3 used the wrong terminology here. We've got 

4 meetings conducted by ATL, and that stuff is 

5 getting put into OTS.

6 Then we've got -- and I'll just 

7 talk from my own experience -- then we've got 

8 interviews where we go to the site and we talk 

9 to Joe Smith. Okay? And that's documented 

10 over here in an entirely separate way.

11 And what we're asking is that this 

12 stuff be brought together into OTS because Joe 

13 Smith, you know, may have valuable information 

14 that results in an action item that should be 

15 followed through on.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, this is 

17 Arjun.

18 We have discussed this off and on 

19 for quite a while with NIOSH. And there has 

20 been in the past a kind of two-track system

21 where somebody preparing a technical document 

22 who is a health physicist often, or 
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1 equivalent, would pick up the phone and talk 

2 to his counterpart at the site and get 

3 information and use it. Whereas, people on 

4 the floor were treated differently.

5 I think where we are now, if we 

6 can have a consolidated system of identifying 

7 the issues and making sure that the record is 

8 substantively complete, then that two-track 

9 concern would go away. And I think it would 

10 also alleviate similar concerns that workers 

11 might have that they are not being listened 

12 to.

13 So I am kind of heartened by Stu's 

14 earlier statement, and the response to what I 

15 said, you know, sometimes the notes seem to be 

16 brief, and maybe the conversation was brief or 

17 not. And if we have a sufficiently 

18 verifiable, not bureaucratic process of making 

19 sure we have captured the comments, and they 

20 can all be found in one tracking system with 

21 action items, I think this concern would go 

22 away. And it seems to me we are on that 
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1 track, but maybe we don't have the procedure 

2 down fully yet.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, this is Stu. 

4 I am sensitive to the concern that the person 

5 preparing the Site Profile goes, talks to the 

6 health and safety management or people at the 

7 site, or whatever. And because that was done 

8 at the TBD author's volition, that could be 

9 valued more highly by the author than 

10 information received from other venues, 

11 whether it be outreach meeting, focus groups 

12 or other individual interviews.

13 So, I'm sensitive to that, and I 

14 want to make sure we do something about that. 

15 But, I mean, I think, candidly, putting them 

16 all in the same place does not necessarily 

17 depict that.

18 It has to do with a circumspect 

19 look at all the information that is being 

20 received, rather than saying, as an author, "I 

21 had this task to do. I went out and found 

22 this guy to talk to, these people to talk to. 
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1 I've got my product together, and I wrote it 

2 down."

3 That's what we have to avoid in 

4 the process and in order not to value people, 

5 in fact, more heavily than people that we 

6 didn't know to contact or didn't contact or 

7 who provided their input through other 

8 avenues.

9 So, that is devilishly difficult, 

10 which doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. But 

11 I'm not so sure that putting things in one 

12 place fixes that.

13 It may enable evaluation of the 

14 situation to a certain extent. Then, a 

15 reviewer, whether it be us, like a management 

16 review on our side or a Board reviewer or the 

17 Board's contractor, that may enable them to 

18 say, "Well, I have these various inputs in 

19 these various forums, and I can find them all 

20 easily because they're all together," and the 

21 Site Profile reads just like what this guy 

22 said right here, even though a number of these 
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1 other things that were said by other people 

2 would call that into question. So, it would 

3 enable that.

4 So, I'm just talking to myself. 

5 I'm sort of thinking out loud here. Like I 

6 said at the start, I've got no particular 

7 problem with putting site expert interviews 

8 from all sources in OSA myself. I just want 

9 to check with some people at the ranch to see, 

10 when I say we're going to do that, what am I 

11 saying we're actually going to do and how much 

12 work will we find.

13 But the key element here is that 

14 evaluation of all these sources and making 

15 sure that we are not overvaluing the people 

16 that we knew to go contact.

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

18 Stu, were you done?

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I'm here.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Oh, okay. I 

21 mean, were you done? I didn't mean to cut you 

22 off.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: I was done. I had 

2 already talked too much.

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: No, you hadn't. 

4 And I just wanted to say that I completely 

5 agree. And it is pleasant to hear someone in 

6 DCAS that has that belief. If DCAS can find 

7 some way to get that paradigm shift out there 

8 without us parsing every word of every 

9 procedure that we're going through, I would be 

10 totally supportive of that.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, this is 

12 Arjun.

13 Yes, I agree with both Mike and 

14 Stu. I think there are two different kinds of 

15 issues. One is documentation, and is it there 

16 where somebody that is preparing a technical 

17 document can find it? Is it convenient? Is 

18 it reasonably substantively accurate and 

19 complete?

20 And, then, there's a sort of an 

21 internal culture question. We all may value 

22 what our peers may say more, and we may not 
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1 think to call workers or, you know, even to 

2 look. And that is kind of an internal culture 

3 question.

4 I think if you look at the 

5 Bethlehem Steel record, with which I was very 

6 involved from the very beginning, the very 

7 difficult questions of creating that matrix 

8 were ultimately resolved by a combination of 

9 talking to on-the-floor workers and then 

10 looking at literature, highly technical 

11 literature, on these specialized topics like 

12 cobalt. And we were able to come up with some 

13 numbers that I thought were pretty good.

14 So, I think there is an internal 

15 maybe communication training function that 

16 goes beyond what's on the page because I agree 

17 with Mike; you can't just fix that by just 

18 what's on a page in a procedure.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I think the record 

20 should show that Mike, I think, said something 

21 nice about DCAS.

22 (Laughter.)
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: And me too.

2 MEMBER MUNN: So, please clarify 

3 what's being proposed here. Are we proposing 

4 that, at least for some section of work that 

5 has been done in the far distant past, there 

6 has been a combing of the records in order to 

7 try to identify comments that have been made 

8 across the board by site experts, by workers 

9 who are not site experts but are workers? 

10 What are we proposing in terms of --

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

12 I know, Wanda, I'm not calming any 

13 of the waters of the past, in my opinion.

14 I am just saying, from here 

15 forward, if the leadership of DCAS can shift 

16 that paradigm and get that out there, just as 

17 Stu described it -- you know, he described it 

18 brilliantly -- then I don't know that we need 

19 to worry about every word of every procedure.

20 If there's things in the past that 

21 we still need to review, see if the procedures 

22 are currently adequate to reflect that change 
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1 in value -- well, I don't want to call it 

2 "value" -- the change in philosophy, or 

3 whatever, I'm just saying, could we as a Work 

4 Group, and as SC&A and DCAS, think of some 

5 different way to kind of move forward other 

6 than completely worrying about every word of 

7 every procedure?

8 I'm not saying that there's still 

9 not a lot of other stuff that needs the change 

10 that we have discussed.

11 MEMBER MUNN: No, that's what I'm 

12 trying to clarify. Precisely what is the 

13 proposal? Is the proposal before us that 

14 every person who is interviewed in the future 

15 about anything, that such an interview be 

16 considered worker outreach, and that any 

17 questions raised by that person be factored 

18 into our database? Is that the proposition?

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I was not making 

20 any proposition, Wanda.

21 This is Mike again.

22 MEMBER MUNN: No, no. I think it 
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1 was SC&A's proposition. That is my question.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I am not as 

3 steeped in PR-12 history as some of you, but 

4 just listening to this thing, I think what Stu 

5 is pointing out is that the taxonomy of OTS, 

6 meaning what bins need to be filled, and 

7 whether you should have only one bin, and 

8 that's a OTS as a bin, may not be as important 

9 as the behavioral changes that you are looking 

10 for throughout the staff; in other words, the 

11 practice of looking in different places to 

12 make sure you have a broad input to your 

13 documents, not just simply go to OTS and think 

14 you're done, but look at some of these other 

15 interviews, and what have you, and come up 

16 with a more comprehensive base for your Site 

17 Profile, whatever.

18 I think, Stu, you were going to 

19 kind of go back to the fort to kind of check 

20 and find out whether that makes sense as far 

21 as the way you're organized and how documents 

22 such as TBDs are put together? In other 
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1 words, would it benefit from having these 

2 things in one place? Or, really, it's more 

3 important to make sure that people look 

4 broader when they are putting these documents 

5 together. And maybe it is the behavioral 

6 shift that is more important than trying to 

7 top-down driving to the procedure, which, you 

8 know, procedures by themselves don't make 

9 things change.

10 MEMBER MUNN: No, they don't.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Well, no 

12 matter what you do, whether you change the 

13 procedure or not, what you are aiming to do is 

14 change behaviors.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: So, I think that 

17 what I would proposed happen was that I would 

18 find out from just broader discussions within 

19 the office, and maybe with our contractor, 

20 with ORAU, kind of some thought process about 

21 this is what I want to accomplish; what work 

22 practices will be helpful for that? You know, 
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1 this is what I want to accomplish. I want to 

2 make sure that technical document authors have 

3 available to them, and routinely consult, all 

4 the information relevant, rather than 

5 overvalue the people they know to call.

6 And so, that, to me, is a little 

7 bit different than saying we're going to put 

8 -- and if it is simply a matter of putting 

9 site expert interviews in OSA, I suspect 

10 that's fairly simple. But there's more to 

11 behavioral change than that.

12 What I was proposing to do is for 

13 DCAS to come back with some sort of proposal 

14 and some things that might be done. I mean 

15 this started from the comment -- I mean the 

16 comment that hit home with me was the two 

17 tracks, the dual tracks for interviews; you 

18 know, some interviews seem to be valued more 

19 highly than others. They're put here and 

20 they're given a certain value, and, then, this 

21 other information is stuck over here in the 

22 OSA database, which may have less primacy than 
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1 these technical document authors. So, it is 

2 sort of considered second-tier. And that's 

3 what we want to avoid.

4 So, I don't know that putting them 

5 all in one place solves that, but it may be a 

6 way that would help. So, I am just proposing 

7 to go sort out some things along that line 

8 with staff, just to try to get past this

9 valuing, if it is going on, valuing one piece 

10 of information more than other pieces.

11 MR. FITZGERALD: It sounds like 

12 you are just, you know, from a behavioral base 

13 standpoint, you are just trying to figure out 

14 what path gets you there. And if it turns out 

15 that consolidating in OTS facilitates it, then 

16 that's probably one part of the answer. But 

17 it is helpful to know from the practitioners 

18 what's going to make the difference.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Yes, that's 

20 it. That's kind of what I want to do. I want 

21 to have some conversations internally about 

22 how that might work.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I make 

2 a suggestion?

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes. Of course.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Probably 

6 shortly, you will get the list of documents 

7 that I would like to see for the Rocky Flats 

8 review. Now keep in mind that, if they were 

9 available on the O: drive or the website, I've 

10 already pulled them down.

11 But, as you go through this 

12 evaluation, if you would kindly consider all 

13 that data and where you have to go to get it, 

14 and so on and so forth, it might inform your 

15 review.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. I think 

17 that's a good point. We will take that into 

18 consideration when we get the list.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: It might give 

20 them something tangible to use as a guide --

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: As to how easy is 
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1 it, would it be to compile this, if that were 

2 the task.

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

4 Along with that comment by SC&A, 

5 maybe another thing to consider is where a 

6 person's input was used by someone who created 

7 -- who has helped an author of a document, 

8 then that person is referenced, you know, in 

9 that document. Perhaps those with differing 

10 recollections of things concerning that issue 

11 or that building or that time period, if their 

12 comments were also referenced, just to show 

13 that all things have been considered -- does 

14 that make any sense to anyone?

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, sort of. How 

16 to reference them might be a problem.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Do you mean 

18 like annotations.

19 MEMBER MUNN: But it does make 

20 sense.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Do you mean 

22 annotations at the end of the document?
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Correct.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Similar to 

3 what they do for --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: TBDs.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The site

6 experts?

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Like site expert 

8 attributions in Site Profiles.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: If there was a 

10 site expert or take stable tritiated 

11 particulates, whatever, you know. If that is 

12 used, if someone's opinion was used for a Site 

13 Profile or a dose reconstruction in the 

14 procedures or in any DCAS document, and there 

15 was people that also gave comments, gave 

16 information, not comments, I'm sorry, gave 

17 information that differed than that which was 

18 used, then at least acknowledge that and that 

19 it was considered, and some way to 

20 substantiate that.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So, what 

22 you're saying is not just reference the 
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1 interviews that were used, but acknowledge 

2 information that, for some reason, was not 

3 considered significant and say this issue was 

4 raised, however, and essentially why it 

5 wasn't?

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Correct.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I mean that 

9 would almost automatically force you guys to 

10 track all this stuff, right, all the way 

11 through the process?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I understand 

13 the comment. And again, I hate to speak too 

14 definitively on these meetings because, when I 

15 say things in these meetings, I oftentimes 

16 don't understand the entire consequence of 

17 what I'm saying.

18 (Laughter.)

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike 

20 again.

21 Stu, I just was saying that was 

22 just another suggestion just to consider.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Well, yes, 

2 we will look at that, too.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, that 

4 comment does resonate on a couple of reviews 

5 that we are working on where an issue rides on 

6 actually interviews. And if you have 

7 contradictory interview inputs, and all you do 

8 have is the interviews, and everyone is 

9 searching for something harder, but in the 

10 meantime you have interviews, it almost would 

11 necessitate at least acknowledging that you 

12 have conflicting interviews that provide this 

13 information.

14 And I can think of two or three 

15 specific examples at SEC sites right now where 

16 we do have contradictory interviews. And 

17 somehow, when we get into a process of 

18 resolving that, that needs to be acknowledged 

19 and that information given some emphasis both 

20 ways.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And this is Mike 

22 again.
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1 At least to my way of thinking, 

2 and a roundabout way of thinking, that could 

3 almost help drive this paradigm shift that Stu 

4 is basically talking about throughout the 

5 organization, if they knew they had to 

6 reference that and they knew they would have 

7 to defend themselves, or not defend 

8 themselves. They would have to justify their 

9 professional judgment.

10 MR. KATZ: You know, Mike, I was 

11 just thinking, I mean the key here, I think, 

12 if there were to be such a practice, would be, 

13 I mean, you would really have to pick and 

14 choose. It would really be, I think, the 

15 controversial, sort of like Joe was 

16 explaining, controversial situations where it 

17 is really a loaded situation with thoughts on 

18 both sides of the fence versus I would think 

19 it would be very hard for DCAS to annotate 

20 their documents for every sort of comment that 

21 might be differing from what they did sort of 

22 in general circumstances. They would end up 
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1 having to do an awful lot of annotation to 

2 capture all of that, all situations.

3 But I think in the most 

4 controversial circumstances that this might 

5 have a lot of value, also, just for sort of 

6 strengthening the report, the report out, and 

7 giving a sort of very clear understanding of 

8 how they got where they got to.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

10 Yes, I wasn't talking about every 

11 comment that's made justifying it. But I'm 

12 just talking about this whole outreach program 

13 we're trying to figure out how to move forward 

14 on. It may help roll back into this process 

15 just where we have meetings that there were 

16 several people that had a differing opinion or 

17 this whole thing we're trying to track.

18 I wasn't talking about the things 

19 we have laughed and joked about, that, you 

20 know, someone makes this comment and you 

21 explain to them, "Well, no, that's not true 

22 scientifically." I wasn't trying to get down 
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1 that far in the weeds at all.

2 MR. KATZ: I wasn't suggesting you 

3 were, Mike. I just was trying to make the 

4 point that I think it's pretty select 

5 circumstances that would even be feasible to 

6 annotate in DCAS documents. That's all I'm 

7 saying.

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think just 

9 to further that point a little, we had a 

10 useful discussion on something similar to this 

11 in terms of exposure in Santa Fe. When you 

12 move away from hard data and you rely on 

13 history and operational information, as well 

14 as interviews of people who are in those 

15 operations, then you have to, I think, take 

16 stock of what's being said, and if you have 

17 differing opinions from workers from the same 

18 era, that should set off a red flag in the 

19 sense that who's saying these, you know, who's 

20 making these statements? Are we getting a set 

21 of statements from people of a later era 

22 versus an earlier era, people from health 
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1 physics versus workers on the floor? I think 

2 that's where it becomes particularly important 

3 to know what you've got.

4 And I think what you're pointing 

5 out is you need to capture as much of that as 

6 you can because that may tell you whether 

7 you're getting a complete story or not. Or 

8 you're just simply getting a commentary from 

9 one segment of the workforce or a certain 

10 timeframe.

11 I'm finding in a lot of our 

12 discussions end up, who is the source of the 

13 comment, and then deciding whether that source 

14 is the complete picture or not. I think what 

15 you're arguing for is as complete a picture as 

16 possible.

17 MEMBER MUNN: But you have to keep 

18 in mind the fact that, if over 200 years of 

19 recorded law enforcement data has any bearing 

20 on anything, if you have more than two 

21 witnesses to any event, then you are going to 

22 have at least three or more versions of what 
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1 that event was.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

4 that's why, wherever possible, at least when

5 we get comments, we try to substantiate those 

6 comments with documentation. And if we can't, 

7 we can't.

8 MEMBER MUNN: You really need 

9 data.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Ultimately, 

11 that's the best answer, but when you don't 

12 have it, that's where it becomes more 

13 important to weigh what commentary you're 

14 getting from the interviews.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

16 I guess I know I'm getting us a 

17 little further off path, but I didn't mean to. 

18 But, you know, I just heard a comment you 

19 have to have data. I guess that gets back to 

20 my point where, if someone with DCAS or ORAU 

21 knew someone, and what we're trying to prevent 

22 is them just calling someone they may have 
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1 used to work with and using them as a site 

2 expert. That's not really getting data, 

3 either. That's using a friendship as opposed 

4 to this dual track that Kathy brought up 

5 earlier, not taking the same consideration to 

6 comments of, as Wanda put it, those people who 

7 got their feet dirty.

8 You know, you have to use data, I 

9 guess, but the data has to be good.

10 MR. KATZ: I think everybody 

11 agrees with that, Mike.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So, if you have 

13 a number of people who have a different 

14 recollection of what the current data, that 

15 perhaps in one situation this site expert 

16 said, then that forces DCAS for that 

17 particular issue to look deeper and not just 

18 say, "Well, yes, this former rad protection 

19 manager said this and that this data is good, 

20 so we're going to use it."

21 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think Stu 

22 has said the right things in terms of that 
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1 issue because we spent a lot of time looking 

2 at commentary from health physics managers at 

3 a site historically and collecting a quite 

4 different picture from the workforce on the 

5 floor. And sometimes we spend a lot of time 

6 at Work Group meetings trying to reconcile one 

7 set of comments versus another set of comments 

8 when maybe the issue is that everybody needs 

9 to look at this from the standpoint of whether 

10 we have a complete set of perspectives.

11 I think Stu has pointed out that, 

12 yes, that's been a problem and something that 

13 needs to reconcile with the staff, that 

14 they're looking at both sources, that there is 

15 not a dual track.

16 So, as far as an action, I think 

17 the one that Stu mentioned, is that 

18 reasonable?

19 MEMBER MUNN: It certainly sounds 

20 like it.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay, J.J.

22 MR. JOHNSON: All right. I think 
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1 we're done with 4 then. On to 5?

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

3 MR. JOHNSON: I think maybe I'll 

4 let Stu talk to that one. He has talked a 

5 little bit earlier with regard to Chris' 

6 coming onboard and looking and attempting to 

7 capture a lot of input information.

8 With that, Stu, would you like to 

9 discuss that?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I'm here. 

11 I'm a real novice at mute. So, I'm playing 

12 with that quite a bit.

13 I think not being as familiar with 

14 everything as I should be probably, but this 

15 talks about capturing and tracking information 

16 from other kinds of media and correspondence. 

17 Again, this gets to what I spoke about 

18 earlier. The Work Group is talking about 

19 program communications, which is far broader 

20 than what we have historically considered 

21 outreach in DCAS. We think that program 

22 communication is the fundamental issue and is 
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1 one of the key initiatives we need to improve 

2 as we move forward.

3 So, it is probably a little 

4 premature for me to offer very much about this 

5 other than to say I hesitate to say we're 

6 going to do something in procedure 12 that's 

7 going to deal with this. To me, this is 

8 something broader, like one of my first 

9 comments. So, I don't know where this will 

10 end up.

11 But it is part of the effort that 

12 we will be taking on, and I can only say I 

13 don't expect a quick result, but I do expect 

14 us to start relatively quickly to start doing 

15 some things better, and we can have a more 

16 consolidated picture, I think, sometime later.

17 So, I guess I have nothing more to 

18 offer than that.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Am I'm hearing that 

20 you're going to do what we already have a note 

21 from the previous meeting is going to happen? 

22 You're going to look at the feasibility of 
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1 doing what's been suggested, essentially, 

2 right?

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, we are going 

6 to look at this suggestion in light of what we 

7 need to accomplish, then, through the program.

8 MEMBER MUNN: And how you can do 

9 it?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. Fine.

12 MR. KATZ: Everyone here seems 

13 content. Mike, are you okay?

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay, J.J.

16 MR. JOHNSON: This is observation 

17 one. Recommended action: in procedure 12, 

18 add a discussion to include an announcement at 

19 the beginning of an outreach meeting not to 

20 discuss classified, sensitive information. If 

21 there is a need to discuss classified, 

22 sensitive information, a separate interview 
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1 can be arranged."

2 That, again, is procedure page 16, 

3 I believe, indicating that it will be 

4 discussed that the purpose of the meeting is 

5 not to discuss sensitive or classified 

6 material. If such discussion is necessary, a 

7 separate meeting will be arranged in 

8 coordination with DOE in a secure location at 

9 a later date.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

11 SC&A, does that address what your 

12 concern was?

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes. I 

14 just trying to say I'm okay with that.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay.

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Looks good.

17 MEMBER BEACH: So, does that close 

18 this or we --

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it 

20 was in abeyance, and there's a second item.

21 MR. KATZ: What does it mean 

22 "advance," by the way?
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Abeyance.

2 MR. KATZ: Oh, abeyance. Yes, I 

3 was wondering. I thought it was in advance, 

4 and I thought maybe it was sort of a global 

5 replacement from a different word. Okay.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's what 

7 I heard.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. Got it.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: Number two on 

10 that one, J.J.?

11 MR. JOHNSON: Well, that statement 

12 covers both of them right there.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: It also points to 

14 the process --

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The second 

16 paragraph.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: That you would 

18 refer to.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Plus, 

20 didn't you add the procedures in your 

21 references, too?

22 MR. JOHNSON: Right. Yes. It is.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that's 

2 enough.

3 MR. KATZ: So, is that another one 

4 to close?

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Close it. Okay.

6 MR. KATZ: Mike, is that good for 

7 you, closing it?

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, I think so.

9 MR. KATZ: Okay, J.J.

10 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. Observation 

11 two.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: That refers back 

13 to one.

14 MEMBER BEACH: I was just 

15 wondering if there was a reason that 

16 documentation is listed twice, the same 

17 procedure, in that third bullet.

18 MEMBER MUNN: The third bullet 

19 where?

20 MEMBER BEACH: On page 16, down at 

21 the bottom, where it starts with the last 

22 paragraph. It kind of repeats it, but I 
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1 wasn't sure if it was necessary. I guess it 

2 talks about OTS in the second sentence. I'm 

3 fine.

4 MR. JOHNSON: I think that 

5 particular one may address observation two 

6 here, where we are talking about, "Procedure 

7 does not provide an opportunity for workers to 

8 discuss potentially classified information, 

9 and special interviews with former workers or 

10 current workers, as noted above, are conducted 

11 and documented in accordance wit Section 5.2 

12 of OCAS procedure 10, Data Access and 

13 Interview Procedures. Documentation is noted 

14 in Section 5.2.2." 

15 MR. FITZGERALD: The last bullet 

16 is responsive to observation two.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I got it, the 

18 2.2. Okay. Thank you.

19 MR. JOHNSON: "Entered into OTS 

20 for prospective facility and meeting." Okay?

21 MEMBER BEACH: Is that one now 

22 closed?
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: That should take 

2 care of observation two.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

4 MR. KATZ: Okay, J.J.

5 MR. JOHNSON: All right. 

6 Observation three. "In OCAS procedure 12, it 

7 address the interviews associated with a 

8 specific outreach meeting will be collated 

9 with the minutes of the group meeting for 

10 continuity and usability."

11 That's partially addressed in the 

12 statement I just made where documentation as 

13 noted in Section 5.2.2 is to be entered into 

14 OTS for respective facility and meetings.

15 So, that one also addresses this 

16 particular issue when it comes to collating 

17 the comments for a particular site and 

18 meeting, period.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Are you 

20 looking somewhere specific in the procedure?

21 MEMBER BEACH: Page 16, the last 

22 paragraph.
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1 MR. JOHNSON: The last paragraph 

2 of page 16. So, you know, it addresses 

3 collating to make sure that the information 

4 from a group meeting or an individual meeting 

5 is associated with that particular facility, 

6 as well as addressing of opportunities for 

7 workers to discuss potentially classified 

8 information.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: So, essentially, 

10 that paragraph does double duty.

11 MR. JOHNSON: It does.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: It speaks to the 

13 classification issue and also speaks to 

14 special interviews that are done separately 

15 from the group?

16 MR. JOHNSON: Correct.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I ask a 

18 question? There's no mention of getting 

19 presentation material out to these special 

20 interviewees. You know the stuff that, for 

21 example, when you go and you present a Site 

22 Profile to a group of people, you usually give 
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1 a presentation.

2 MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And people

4 who cannot make it to the meeting, obviously, 

5 will not have access to that presentation. Is 

6 there something in here on providing them with 

7 that information, so that they can provide you 

8 with valuable comments?

9 MR. JOHNSON: Let's see.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Can I offer 

11 something here? This is Stu.

12 I'm trying to envision how this is 

13 going to work. I would be somewhat surprised 

14 if for these meetings that we're talking 

15 about, at least the way I envision this to 

16 happen, that we would be told by someone, 

17 "Hey, I want to be there, but I can't make 

18 it." I think it would be more likely, if 

19 we're organizing this through a union 

20 organization, or however it's being organized 

21 locally, they would notify sort of their local 

22 person, the person they knew and say, you 
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1 know, "I really would like to make that 

2 meeting, but I can't."

3 And if we wanted to make our 

4 presentation available to them, the easiest 

5 way to do it would be to make it available to 

6 the people, you know, the local organizing 

7 people. I am only thinking of union groups. 

8 I know there might be other groups who do it 

9 as well. I mean we could leave it with them.

10 And, you know, people may say that 

11 and, then, decide later on, you know, I am not 

12 going to do it anyway. Yes, I don't want to 

13 leave a big expectation about this because I 

14 don't want to exclude anybody who wants to 

15 participate, but, you know, a mention of 

16 interest at sometime does not always translate 

17 into that. So, I am trying not to be too 

18 prescriptive here, but I think it might be 

19 possible to leave the presentation with the 

20 local officials who organized the meeting.

21 I mean, am I wrong on any of this 

22 stuff?
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, the 

2 overall issue of this observation was that you 

3 have workers who are unable to physically 

4 attend the meeting. How are you going to give 

5 them an opportunity to comment?

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, yes, I know. 

7 I know what it is, and how will we know who 

8 they are? We may not even know who they are.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Most 

10 likely, through the union organization you're 

11 organizing with.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Then, we 

13 would leave the presentation with them and 

14 have the union tell their guy, "Okay, we've 

15 got the presentation. If you want to see it 

16 and want to submit any comments," they can 

17 send them on.

18 I mean we can open a pathway like 

19 that and puts words in there like it. But 

20 I've just got to believe this isn't going to 

21 be a very regular occurrence.

22 MR. McDOUGALL: Can I try to 
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1 clarify a little bit about how these meetings 

2 work? And maybe that will help.

3 When we reach out to a group, 

4 whether it's a union group or another group, 

5 they generally select -- it isn't like you're 

6 going into a union with 400 members and all 

7 400 members are invited to the meeting. They 

8 usually select the people who have (a) the

9 interest and (b) something to offer. And it 

10 is a meeting like any other business meeting 

11 you would go to. It's not universal 

12 information.

13 So, if somebody doesn't show up or 

14 if there's somebody who somehow wasn't 

15 included in the meeting, it is pretty rare 

16 that they are so crucial to the process that 

17 we go out and seek out that person or that we 

18 even know that there's somebody who they would 

19 have liked to have there that wasn't there. 

20 The expertise isn't exactly that unique.

21 So, no, and I don't think this has 

22 happened. And Mark can jump in if he wants, 
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1 but we have been doing this for about seven 

2 years, and I could probably say with 

3 confidence that we can count on the fingers of 

4 one hand the number of times when we reached 

5 out to somebody outside of that group meeting. 

6 So, it is not that big a deal.

7 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think at 

8 one point you guys had mentioned that there's 

9 always the website and the docket where people 

10 can provide comments. Is it possible, is 

11 there any reason why you couldn't post the 

12 presentation to the website?

13 MR. LEWIS: This is Mark Lewis. 

14 Can you guys hear me okay?

15 MR. KATZ: Yes.

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

17 MR. LEWIS: Okay. We do leave --

18 and Mary can jump in here, too -- but when we 

19 have meetings, we lots of times, well, most of 

20 the time, we leave copies of the NIOSH CD with 

21 how to get information into NIOSH, you know, 

22 to DCAS. And we leave ample copies of the 
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1 Site Profile about every time at that sort of 

2 meeting, or even if it is an SEC, we leave the 

3 profiles there, as long as the local resource 

4 center's number, you know how they can file 

5 claims, and if we put ourselves in the 

6 people's shoes and we think they would want.

7 And as far as going to special 

8 needs with some people, I have been to a lot 

9 of folks' homes and dropped off the Site 

10 Profile and had a union person with me, you 

11 know, come out and introduce me to them, you 

12 know, if they couldn't make it, or whatever. 

13 And like Vern said, that happens lots of times 

14 and they come back with us, but it's very 

15 rare. It has probably happened less than five 

16 times or so.

17 But lots of times, you get 

18 information with the SEC more than the Site 

19 Profile, when you're looking, when that 

20 pertains to an SEC.

21 MR. JOHNSON: This is J.J. Johnson 

22 again.
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1 On page 7 of the procedure, I've 

2 added 6.2.6, "Support efforts where 

3 individuals would like to participate in an 

4 outreach meeting but are unable to for some 

5 reason. This may include establishing 

6 teleconference capabilities at the scheduled 

7 meeting, providing phone interview 

8 arrangement, directing individuals to the 

9 NIOSH website for their feedback, or directing 

10 individuals to the DCAS HP."

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess I 

12 don't have a problem with how you resolved 

13 collating the meeting minutes from these 

14 individual encounters into the sum total for 

15 that site. I don't have a problem with that.

16 The question is just how to make 

17 the presentation material available. And 

18 that's why I asked if it's possible to post 

19 that to the website.

20 MEMBER MUNN: Some of those 

21 presentations are pretty repetitious, aren't 

22 they?
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1 MR. McDOUGALL: The PowerPoints?

2 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

3 MR. McDOUGALL: Yes, they all have 

4 a certain family resemblance.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it's an 

6 information-giving medium certainly.

7 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, the 

8 benefit of the presentation is that it 

9 actually gives you an overview of the Site 

10 Profile without having to go through --

11 MEMBER MUNN: The Site Profile.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The Site 

13 Profile itself, which a lot of workers might 

14 not understand.

15 MR. McDOUGALL: Well, it's 

16 certainly possible, if Stu wants to do it.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. Well, maybe this 

18 is --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu.

20 We'll do a check. Your suggestion 

21 is to put the presentations that we make at 

22 these meetings on our website?
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: I think these 

3 meetings probably appear on our website. So, 

4 it would be there, I guess. I'll find out. 

5 We will see if we can do it.

6 MS. ELLISON: Stu, this is Chris.

7 It's possible to do, yes.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

9 MR. McDOUGALL: Kathy, I don't 

10 think in seven years anybody has ever asked 

11 for it.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, if 

13 it's a simple thing to do --

14 MEMBER MUNN: But, on the other 

15 hand, if it isn't wanted or needed --

16 MEMBER BEACH: So, I want to go 

17 back to that.

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Maybe we 

19 need to check with the workers.

20 MEMBER BEACH: The special 

21 interviews, we talked about that documentation 

22 as noted. I'm on page 16, the last paragraph, 
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1 where it says, "Documentation as noted in 

2 Section 5.2.2 of the PR-10," that last 

3 sentence is just leaving me hanging. So, I 

4 went back over to 10 and looked at that, 

5 5.2.2. And I don't know if that really 

6 captures what we want it to capture.

7 Basically, that's telling you to 

8 use OCAS Form 005 to document the 

9 communication in the SRDB database. So, at 

10 this point, Kathy, I'm not sure that that 

11 really answers that concern.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, 

13 really what answers that concern is Section 

14 6.2.6, which was on page 7.

15 MEMBER BEACH: No, I'm talking 

16 about the concern prior to that. I'm not 

17 talking about the materials. The 

18 documentation of the interviews previously, 

19 the individual interviews that we were talking 

20 about prior to that.

21 MEMBER MUNN: On the previous 

22 observation.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: You mean 

2 the Site Profile interviews from the previous 

3 finding?

4 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

5 MEMBER MUNN: The previous 

6 observation.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. To me, that 

8 just doesn't take care of it.

9 MR. JOHNSON: What leaves it 

10 hanging?

11 MEMBER BEACH: Well, it's 

12 basically the answer is go over to PROC-10, 

13 5.2. And to me, that doesn't really address 

14 what we're trying to get at for this procedure 

15 12.

16 MR. JOHNSON: Well, I consider it 

17 in this procedure a special interview with 

18 former or current workers. The process is to 

19 be done in accordance with PROC-10 and 

20 documented on the form. It's put in the SRDB, 

21 and in accordance with trying to collate those 

22 interviews, it's going into the OTS system as 
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1 well.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm just 

4 confused --

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's 

6 fine.

7 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: About where 

8 you are.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, I'll talk to 

10 you about it.

11 MR. JOHNSON: Bottom of page 16.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Because the 

13 way I read this sentence is this is concerning 

14 classified interviews.

15 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, one-on-one 

16 interviews.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Classified. 

18 That was the meaning of the subject of 1 and 

19 2.

20 MEMBER BEACH: The observation 

21 two. 

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 
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1 Section 6.2.6 addresses observation three.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Well, maybe 

3 we're fine. We'll move on.

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Or at least 

5 number one.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, back to this 

7 one, DCAS is going to consider this, about 

8 putting them on the website. So, are we done 

9 with this observation? Okay.

10 So, J.J., you can move to the 

11 next.

12 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. What am I on 

13 now?

14 MEMBER MUNN: Four, disclosure of 

15 conflict.

16 MR. JOHNSON: Disclosure, yes. 

17 That's incorporated into the procedure, page 

18 13. No, that's not it.

19 MEMBER MUNN: I saw it somewhere.

20 MR. JOHNSON: Yes, page 13, I'm 

21 sorry, under OCS focus group meeting outreach, 

22 SEC, it says that "The facilitator makes the 
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1 announcement addressing recording of the 

2 meeting, addresses discussion of classified, 

3 sensitive material, and requests that each 

4 NIOSH and support personnel, including the OCS 

5 team facilitator, state whether they are 

6 conflicted or not."

7 And the note there, "If the OCS 

8 facilitator is not present, this will be 

9 addressed by the DCAS HP."

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. Is 

11 there any reason for disclosing conflict of 

12 interest at other meetings?

13 MR. JOHNSON: Not that I'm aware 

14 of.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess I'm 

16 asking the Working Group.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Why? What other 

18 meetings?

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, they 

20 probably won't have an opportunity for 

21 townhall meetings. It is really a question, 

22 if the answer is no --
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1 MEMBER MUNN: It doesn't seem 

2 pertinent to me in this kind of venue.

3 MR. JOHNSON: I've also addressed 

4 it under worker outreach townhall meeting, 

5 bottom of page 2. It addresses discussion of 

6 classified, sensitive material. It requests 

7 that "Each NIOSH and support personnel, 

8 including the OCS team facilitator, state 

9 whether they are conflicted or not."

10 MEMBER MUNN: So, you've got it 

11 everywhere?

12 MR. JOHNSON: Yes, ma'am, I 

13 believe I do.

14 (Laughter.)

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. That 

16 was my question. I'm fine.

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

18 So, Kathy, what are you saying? 

19 Do you think it's lacking somewhere? And if 

20 you do, where?

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, 

22 that's what J.J. was just pointing out, is 
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1 that it was under townhall meetings, for 

2 examples. It wasn't just under the focus 

3 groups.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So, we're 

5 okay with that then?

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay, J.J.

9 MR. JOHNSON: On to five, then.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Are we 

11 going to close that one out?

12 MR. KATZ: Yes.

13 MR. JOHNSON: Under observation 

14 five, a reference of another procedure that no 

15 longer exists in another ORAU procedure. I've 

16 emailed the folks over there, and they have 

17 indicated to me that their next update they'll 

18 make that correction.

19 I can send you a copy of that 

20 email from that individual, if you would like.

21 (Laughter.)

22 MEMBER MUNN: That would be nice.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, that 

2 would be nice because we will have a complete 

3 record.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Send it to Wanda, 

5 please.

6 (Laughter.)

7 MEMBER MUNN: So, we're tracking 

8 the other part?

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes. Is 

10 that one closed?

11 MEMBER MUNN: Well, it's still, 

12 under the protocol that we established in 

13 procedures, it would still be in abeyance 

14 until that actually occurs, but we don't 

15 necessarily have to follow that same protocol 

16 in this Work Group.

17 MR. KATZ: Actually, what we have 

18 talked about here is, if everybody is in 

19 agreement with it, it's beyond concept and 

20 everybody knows exactly what is wanted, then 

21 we close it.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, we have 
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1 resolved the issue that we were worried about, 

2 yes.

3 MR. KATZ: In abeyance is only 

4 when an issue is not completely resolved.

5 MEMBER MUNN: So, from the work --

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

7 Did we actually agree to that?

8 MR. KATZ: Yes.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Or did we --

10 MR. KATZ: Yes. What we said is, 

11 if it's unclear what the change would actually 

12 be, then we would leave it in abeyance. But 

13 if everybody is perfectly clear on what the 

14 change would be, then we would close it.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. I was 

16 under the impression that we agreed, but until 

17 we have seen it done -- that's fine. Never 

18 mind. Go ahead.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it 

21 would be nice to see how they changed it 

22 because it's more than just going in and 
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1 cutting and pasting a procedure number.

2 MR. KATZ: Okay. All I'm saying 

3 is I don't know whether you have uncertainties 

4 about what is going to be produced. If you 

5 do, then leave it in abeyance. But if you 

6 understand what they are going to do, and you 

7 agree with it, then we would close it. You 

8 could still see the final product later.

9 So, that's the question. If the 

10 Work Group Members have uncertainty about what 

11 this is going to actually be, then we leave it 

12 in abeyance. But if you are confident that 

13 this is solving the problem, then you close 

14 it.

15 MEMBER MUNN: And in this case, it 

16 is not a question of changing one thing for 

17 another, it is simply you will no longer 

18 reference a procedure that is no longer in 

19 use. And they said, yes, they'll do that; 

20 they'll take it out.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it's 

22 more than just taking out a single word. It's 
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1 taking out direction and --

2 MR. KATZ: Right, but it sounds 

3 like it's clear what needs to be done, unless 

4 Work Group Members are not clear.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Do you 

6 intend to modify the content where it tells 

7 them to take into consideration the worker 

8 outreach comments or are you just going to 

9 take it all out? Do you know?

10 MEMBER BEACH: That's for J.J., 

11 right?

12 MR. KATZ: Yes, that was a 

13 question for J.J.

14 MR. JOHNSON: Oh. Well, when I 

15 sent the email, my understanding was that the 

16 procedure referenced another procedure. So, 

17 my email states that "SC&A looked at the 

18 worker outreach program recently, and in doing 

19 so, noted that procedure 31 still references 

20 procedure 97, a procedure believed no longer 

21 in use. During the next review and update of 

22 procedure 31, please change as appropriate."
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1 So, I would assume that "please 

2 change as appropriate" means the reference and 

3 any other associated wording that might have 

4 leaped from 31 to 97.

5 MR. FITZGERALD: And with the 

6 addendum in this paragraph that "Any other 

7 procedures, plans, or policies that likewise 

8 reference 97 should be updated." So, 31 

9 certainly is the key one.

10 It's the last sentence in the 

11 position statement.

12 So, assuming 97 is referenced in 

13 places that might go beyond 31, that would 

14 just be sort of an addendum to your comment 

15 that would need to be made to the powers that 

16 be.

17 MR. JOHNSON: Well, I've already 

18 sent them an email. I can reemphasize if they

19 would scan the rest of their procedures to 

20 make sure that it's not a reference.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: It is sort sounds 

22 like SOP when a new procedure supplants, you 
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1 go across the board and make sure the old 

2 procedure has been taken out.

3 MR. JOHNSON: I have sent this 

4 email to Wanda and to Kathy, so they should 

5 have it.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Thanks, J.J.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I guess I 

9 would defer to you, Mike.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, this is 

11 Mike.

12 You know, again, I am going to 

13 have to go back and re-review some things. 

14 But if this Work Group has agreed that, when 

15 something is agreed upon, that's closed and 

16 not in abeyance until we see it, then I will 

17 say this issue is closed.

18 But I will state for the record 

19 that one item that this Work Group will talk 

20 about on the next meeting is any item that is 

21 agreed upon is not closed until we see it done 

22 in the future.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Well, Mike, I don't 

2 think that's what we agreed on. That was what 

3 the Procedures Work Group does. We didn't 

4 do --

5 MR. KATZ: What I stated is what 

6 we discussed at the last Work Group meeting 

7 very clearly and agreed upon. But you can 

8 change it, you can change how you do it. It 

9 really doesn't matter to me. But we did 

10 discuss this at the last Work Group meeting. 

11 You can look at the transcript and see that 

12 discussion. And you can change the procedure 

13 any way you want.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And I understand 

15 that's the way that Procedures does it, and 

16 it's not --

17 MR. KATZ: No, it's not, Mike, 

18 it's the way the Procedures Work Group does 

19 it, actually. It's just the way this Work 

20 Group decided to do it. But, again, like I 

21 said, you can change that.

22 Procedures actually leaves 
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1 everything open until they see the written 

2 word on everything. And when we discussed 

3 this, it seemed to me really quite unnecessary 

4 for that sort of --

5 MEMBER MUNN: It's too much.

6 MR. KATZ: Nitpicking sort of last 

7 step, because it just leaves it sort of 

8 looking like there's more business to do than 

9 needs to be done, and we want to move on with 

10 things.

11 But I personally have no care 

12 about this.

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Right, and I 

14 understand what you're saying, Ted. But I 

15 guess what I'm trying to avoid in the future 

16 is just this 15-minute discussion on, is this 

17 closed, and if it's closed, okay, how is it 

18 going to be referenced in the future, and 

19 everyone is undecided and we're talking about 

20 it 20 minutes later.

21 So, in the future, let's just, at 

22 the next meeting, we will just have something 
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1 on the agenda that the Work Group will discuss 

2 how we handle issues in the future. That's 

3 all I'm saying.

4 MR. KATZ: Sure. Okay, J.J.

5 MR. JOHNSON: I think I'm done.

6 MR. KATZ: Oh, J.J. is done. 

7 That's good.

8 MEMBER BEACH: Is it time for a 

9 break?

10 MR. KATZ: Well --

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I don't 

12 know. Wanda, do you think we can get through 

13 the PROC-97 stuff --

14 MEMBER MUNN: PROC-97 has only one 

15 item on it, actually.

16 MR. KATZ: We also have worker 

17 comments.

18 I will need to leave at about no 

19 later than 3:20 or so. So, if we could just 

20 use that as benchmark, and I don't think we 

21 have that much more time we need, but --

22 MEMBER MUNN: We'd better soldier 
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1 on.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: What we usually 

3 do is -- and I didn't put it time-specific in 

4 the agenda -- but about three o'clock is 

5 worker comment time. So, if you guys want to 

6 take maybe a 10-minute break, we will see if 

7 there are worker comments at three o'clock. 

8 And, then, if you have to leave at 3:20, 

9 that's fine, Ted. If there's not worker 

10 comments, then maybe we can attend to this

11 PROC-97 stuff.

12 Sound good?

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, it sounds good, 

14 and it sounds like we don't have that much to 

15 do on PROC-97.

16 MEMBER MUNN: No.

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So, take 

18 a 10-minute break then.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thanks. Yes.

20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

21 matter went off the record at 2:51 p.m. and 

22 resumed at 3:01 p.m.)
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, Mike, are 

2 you on?

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: I have a comment from 

5 Terrie that I need to read, but let's see if 

6 there's anybody live.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes. Are there 

8 any claimants or worker advocates on the line 

9 that would like to make comments? If so, 

10 please identify yourself and go ahead. If 

11 there's anyone on the line, please identify 

12 yourself and go ahead.

13 (No response.)

14 Okay. If not, Ted, I guess you 

15 can go ahead and read Terrie's comments.

16 MR. KATZ: Okay. Let me just 

17 scroll down.

18 Okay. So, she had to leave. So, 

19 she sent me her comment and asked that I read 

20 it into the record.

21 "I wish to thank the Work Group 

22 for their commitment to ensure that there is a 
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1 transparent dialog between NIOSH and the 

2 workers.

3 "I would like to offer a few 

4 personal observations from the morning's 

5 discussion on the RF" -- that means Rocky 

6 Flats -- "pilot program.

7 "I wish to allay one of Wanda's 

8 concerns. Her concern is that, despite this 

9 audit, it will still be difficult to change 

10 individual perceptions that the workers' 

11 comments are not being ignored. I disagree.

12 "One of the things the claimants 

13 and advocates rely upon is the independent and 

14 unbiased review of SC&A, at the direction of 

15 the Board, of NIOSH's work products. And I 

16 believe that if SC&A finds that NIOSH has 

17 incorporated the issues or evidence presented 

18 by the Rocky Flats workers or advocates into 

19 their technical documents for dose 

20 reconstructions, that finding will be accepted 

21 by the stakeholders.

22 "If, however, the comments and 
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1 evidence made by the workers were ignored, 

2 this needs to be known. I understand that it 

3 may not be this Work Group's responsibility to 

4 inform or make recommendations to the Rocky 

5 Flats Work Group when SC&A issues their 

6 findings. I personally do not see why this 

7 Work Group couldn't share information in the 

8 same manner as the Work Group for Procedures 

9 or Dose Reconstruction does.

10 "However, if SC&A does find 

11 deficiencies, then it will be the workers and 

12 the advocates who will need to press on and 

13 ask NIOSH and/or the Board's Rocky Flats Work 

14 Group to revisit present technical documents.

15 "With Stu's comments today about 

16 reading the ANWAG EECAP survey, I am a bit 

17 more optimistic that NIOSH will be amenable to 

18 taking another look at Rocky.

19 "I am concerned about OGC's 

20 request to delay the start of the audit until 

21 they review it for legal ramifications. If 

22 there are such issues, will OGC prevent the 
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1 audit? Is that within their responsibility? 

2 Or are they infringing on the Board's 

3 authority? I'm curious, has OGC ever stepped 

4 in when a Work Group directed SC&A to look 

5 into something?

6 "I would hope that the main 

7 concern for everyone involved is to find the 

8 truth, fix what's broken, and ensure that all 

9 comments and evidence is considered when 

10 developing technical documents and debating 

11 SEC petitions. I trust OGC's review of the 

12 procedure is quick, so that the audit can 

13 proceed.

14 "Again, I thank everyone for their 

15 concern and hard work to make sure that the 

16 workers' voice is being heard. Safe travels 

17 home and happy holidays, Terrie Barrie."

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Thanks, 

19 Ted, for reading that into the minutes --

20 MR. KATZ: Sure.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And into the 

22 record.
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1 And thanks to Terrie for providing 

2 those comments.

3 We'll ask one more time, is there 

4 anyone on the line that would like to make 

5 comments, a worker or worker advocate?

6 (No response.)

7 Okay. If not, we still have a few 

8 minutes left, if you want to get back to the 

9 findings from PROC-97. I think we're down to 

10 the last couple of pages here, the last issue 

11 here.

12 SC&A, do you want to speak to it 

13 or --

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it's 

15 my understanding from Wanda that the 

16 Procedures Subcommittee has closed out all but 

17 finding PROC-0097-4.

18 MEMBER MUNN: That is the one that 

19 was transferred to the Work Group.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And that's 

21 on page 22.

22 And this kind of gets back to a 
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1 discussion that we had at the last Work Group. 

2 The procedure did not explicitly require 

3 worker outreach meetings for all sites where 

4 Site Profiles were being prepared.

5 (Voice on phone line.)

6 MR. KATZ: Jenny, Jenny, your 

7 phone is not on mute. Jenny, your phone is 

8 not on mute.

9 MS. LIN: Sorry about that.

10 MR. KATZ: It's okay.

11 Okay. Sorry.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And we kind 

13 of had a discussion about this at the last 

14 meeting. And what we recommend is that a 

15 review of those Site Profiles where there was 

16 no worker outreach that was conducted be 

17 reevaluated to determine whether the Site 

18 Profile would benefit from information 

19 gathered in meetings.

20 One of the bullets in the original 

21 proposal that we gave for objective three was 

22 to go back and look at which sites had no 
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1 worker outreach which benefitted the 

2 development of the Site Profile.

3 So, that's kind of the gist of 

4 this finding. And it really wasn't covered 

5 under the PR-12 review because PROC-97 was 

6 focused on the development of Site Profiles 

7 and conducting two meetings associated with 

8 the development of those two profiles.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So, DCAS, 

10 is there any response to this that you have 

11 prepared today or?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. I'm 

13 thinking.

14 I wonder about, you know, 

15 potentially all of our Site Profiles have been 

16 reviewed by SC&A in the site profiling. Do we 

17 feel like by having some sort of worker -- if 

18 we went back and made some judgment about 

19 whether they would benefit, do we think that 

20 would, coming from this new view, from that 

21 kind of a review, do you think that would find 

22 anything that we needed to investigate beyond 
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1 SC&A?

2 Because when SC&A does the Site 

3 Profile review, they normally do a fair amount 

4 of expert interviews. And you get the kind of 

5 information from those things, from those 

6 interviews, that you get at Site Profile 

7 meetings, worker outreach meetings.

8 So, I just wonder if we're going 

9 to gain anything by doing it. I'm a little 

10 hesitant to go down this road and take on this 

11 task, but there is really, as far as I know, 

12 no indication that there's anything lacking, a 

13 deficiency to fix here.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Stu, could I suggest 

15 that you simply put that comment in writing 

16 and submit it to us? It seems like a logical 

17 response from NIOSH. And, then, at our next 

18 meeting, we can deliberate whether or not that 

19 meets the needs of the Work Group. Perhaps 

20 that would be the most direct way to resolve 

21 it.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: I could certainly 
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1 do that.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And, then, this 

3 is Mike.

4 I would also suggest that, if SC&A 

5 has any examples from interviews that they 

6 have conducted where there has not been Site 

7 Profiles, if they provide that then, and then 

8 we can discuss it.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, I can 

10 give you two examples off the top of my head 

11 at Sandia National Lab - 

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Let's prepare it 

13 for the next meeting.

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. 

15 Okay.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: So, prepare some 

17 examples as well as maybe illustrate some 

18 information that may not be being tapped?

19 MEMBER BEACH: And, then, moving 

20 forward, are Site Profile reviews being done 

21 without worker interviews for future sites? 

22 I'm wondering if that's still occurring.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: You know, yes, I 

2 was checking to see if I was on mute. This is 

3 Stu.

4 And I don't think we're doing any 

5 new Site Profiles. I don't think we've done 

6 any for a while. There are revisions 

7 underway. Quite likely, those are due to or 

8 as a result of SC&A reviews of those Site 

9 Profiles. But I don't know that we're doing 

10 -- I don't think we're writing any new Site 

11 Profiles.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

13 Would it be appropriate to, for 

14 DCAS, when they're considering that, to think 

15 about their SEC Evaluation Reports, and if it 

16 may be advisable to get some information from 

17 workers more than they are, or is that just 

18 filling more --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean I 

20 think we do, when we are on SEC Evaluation 

21 Reports, I think we do SEC outreach meetings 

22 although I won't swear we do that every time.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Let's just leave 

2 it at this finding. I don't want to add more 

3 to the mix. I just want to -- okay, I'm 

4 sorry.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. I'll draft 

6 up a response and send it back, and we can 

7 talk about it. But there are more than likely 

8 a couple of Site Profiles that have not had an 

9 SC&A review. I guess by identifying those 

10 specific ones, then they give some insight. 

11 You know, I heard Kathy say Sandia, and we 

12 know that Sandia has its issues, and there's, 

13 in fact, an SEC petition at Sandia right now 

14 that we're trying to do an Evaluation Report 

15 on that is reviewing some things. 

16 So, well, I will just send my 

17 response and you guys can decide. We may be 

18 able to talk about this more some other time.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I guess 

20 what complicates this, it sounds like this 

21 almost purely retrospect, given the fact that 

22 you have gone through all the Site Profiles, 
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1 and we have reviewed probably 30 or 40 of them 

2 and have done worker interviews almost on all 

3 of them. So, the question is the value added 

4 for the ones that clearly lacked, whether 

5 Sandia or a couple of others, lacked the 

6 interviews that we, in fact, have done since. 

7 So, I guess that is a value judgment by DCAS 

8 and the Work Group. I mean it's not going to 

9 add value at this stage.

10 Going forward, maybe it is a 

11 little different issue if there's SECs coming, 

12 such as Sandia. But, you know, we will cross 

13 that bridge --

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

15 Kathy.

16 I needed to make a clarification. 

17 That was Sandia National Lab, Livermore, not 

18 Albuquerque.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: They're both in 

20 that.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, SC&A's part 

22 of this is to provide, think about it, and 
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1 provide a few more examples other than what 

2 you just mentioned. You don't have to do an 

3 exhaustive list.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. This is 

5 Mike.

6 Is there anything else on that 

7 issue? Other than the actions we have 

8 committed to going forward?

9 MEMBER MUNN: I don't believe so.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Would 

12 anyone have an objection if I kind of change 

13 the format and put PROC-97-4 in the format of 

14 the OCAS PR-12 findings and get rid of the 

15 others?

16 MEMBER MUNN: No. As a matter of 

17 fact, it seems a reasonable thing to do.

18 MR. KATZ: We only have this one, 

19 right?

20 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: That sounds good. 

22 Mike?
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So, does 

2 that complete our agenda on the issues matrix?

3 MEMBER MUNN: It completes 

4 everything I have that you sent.

5 MR. KATZ: I believe it completes 

6 the whole agenda.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Do we 

8 have time to talk about the next meeting and 

9 how long it's going to take to get some of 

10 these actions together, so we can try to make 

11 some more progress here in the near future?

12 MEMBER MUNN: Sure. We can do 

13 that in three minutes.

14 MR. KATZ: That's about what I 

15 have, three minutes.

16 MEMBER MUNN: We've got to do in 

17 three minutes.

18 MR. KATZ: But I guess --

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: But, Ted, you 

20 still have detention.

21 (Laughter.)

22 MR. KATZ: Yes, that's true. I'm 
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1 always in detention.

2 Folks at DCAS, I don't know if you 

3 have any kind of immediate response for how 

4 long before it makes sense to have the next 

5 meeting. I mean the next meeting relies both 

6 on DCAS actions and SC&A actions because I 

7 think the most substantive thing I had will be 

8 -- I mean there will be the continued work of 

9 DCAS on these actions that are in progress, 

10 and, then, there will also be the SC&A 

11 enterprise that they're getting started.

12 So, unless we have immediate sort 

13 of thoughts from DCAS about their time and 

14 SC&A, I would just suggest we can by virtual 

15 means get some feedback on this timing for our 

16 next meeting from SC&A and DCAS. And, then, 

17 we will go ahead. Mike, I'll work with you to 

18 schedule it.

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I would love to 

20 have another meeting before the February 

21 Advisory Board meeting.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it would be a 
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1 good idea if we could.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I would like to 

3 have some progress to report at that meeting.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Give you a good 

5 report.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: We can certainly 

7 on the Rocky piece try to -- the two actions 

8 we have are almost real-time, and that can be 

9 put in the hands of GC and expedite that. 

10 Then, that would be --

11 MR. KATZ: Yes, I'm just 

12 concerned. We have Christmas coming up, and 

13 that's sort of --

14 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm just saying 

15 it would put you in January sometime.

16 MR. KATZ: But that already puts 

17 you in January --

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

19 MR. KATZ: And, then, the Board 

20 meeting is in February. And for you to get a 

21 lot of substantive work done --

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, no, not the 
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1 work. I'm just saying to have the milestone. 

2 I think what Mike is saying, to go to the 

3 full Board with some milestones and progress, 

4 and one progress would be just simply the 

5 implementation of the pilot.

6 MR. KATZ: Oh, yes, but that 

7 doesn't require another meeting. That will 

8 get in here.

9 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I don't think 

10 so.

11 MR. KATZ: Right.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that was, 

13 to me --

14 MR. KATZ: But Mike is saying he 

15 would like to have another meeting, which 

16 would mean getting progress on both SC&A work 

17 and DCAS work, and really we are only talking 

18 about progress during January and a bit of 

19 February.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Well, our Augusta 

22 meeting isn't until almost the fourth week of 
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1 February.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: The 23rd, yes.

3 MEMBER MUNN: The third week, 

4 depending on how you look at it.

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I'm sorry. I 

6 just meant the 23rd. I'm sorry, Wanda.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. That's 

8 correct, the 23rd, 24th, and 25th.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

10 MEMBER MUNN: There is one Work 

11 Group meeting already scheduled February 11th 

12 here in Cincinnati. So, that is still a week 

13 and a half before the meeting.

14 MR. KATZ: But my point is I'm not 

15 sure -- we need to give SC&A and DCAS a chance 

16 to think about how much time they have to make 

17 progress.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Because there's no

20 point in scheduling a meeting if they can't 

21 get real work done.

22 MEMBER MUNN: No, that's true, but 
273 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 I thought that would give the entire month of 

2 January and --

3 MR. KATZ: Yes. It just doesn't 

4 seem to me like it's that much. But let's 

5 hear from those parties as to whether that's 

6 -- before we bother even trying to pencil in 

7 the date.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This is Mike.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Let's have SC&A 

11 and DCAS just submit kind of an email and path 

12 forward to Ted and the Work Group.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And, then, we'll 

15 set a meeting after that.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes. Yes. Thank you. 

17 That is exactly what I was trying to get at.

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay?

19 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So, is there 

21 anything else from anyone?

22 (No response.)
274 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 If not, Ted, get on your plane. 

2 This meeting is adjourned.

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

4 matter went off the record at 3:19 p.m.)

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