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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN 

SERVICESCENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL NATIONAL 

INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

FERNALD WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

THURSDAY MARCH 15, 2018

The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight 

Time, Bradley P. Clawson, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Chair

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Ph.D., Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor

BOB BARTON, SC&A

MILTON GORDEN, SC&A

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

KAREN KENT, ORAU Team

JENNY LIN, HHS

MARK ROLFES, ORAU Team

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team
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Contents

Welcome and Roll Call............................. 4

Recycled Uranium Constituents..................... 9

Thorium Coworker Model........................... 31

Uranium and Radium Poor Raffinate Material....... 55

WG Recommendations and/or Path Forward........... 66

Adjourn.......................................... 72
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 (1:00 p.m.)

3 Welcome and Roll Call

4 MR. KATZ: Why don't we get started 

5 with the preliminaries. I'm assuming that we 

6 have other folks from NIOSH and SC&A on the line 

7 already. This is the Advisory Board on Radiation 

8 and Worker Health, the Fernald Work Group. And 

9 we're dealing with wrapping up some Site Profile 

10 issues.

11 The agenda for today's meeting is 

12 posted on the NIOSH website under the DCAS 

13 program's web page, under the Board section, 

14 schedule of meetings, today's date. And you can 

15 go there and pull up the documents that are 

16 primarily going to be discussed today if you wish 

17 to.

18 I'm going to run through roll call 

19 then. Well, I have my Chair, Brad Clawson. And 

20 none of my Board Members have conflict with 

21 Fernald, so I don't need to, they don't need to 

22 address that.

23 But Brad Clawson's my Chair. He's on 
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1 the line. And Paul Ziemer, one of the Members, 

2 is on the line, Dr. Ziemer. And we should be 

3 joined by Phil Schofield soon. Let me --

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'm on the line.

5 MR. KATZ: Oh, great. Hey, Phil. So, 

6 that's our Work Group Members. And let's go on 

7 to NIOSH ORAU folks. And please address conflict 

8 of interest as well.

9 (Roll call.)

10 MR. KATZ: And before we get actually 

11 rolling, Brad, I think Stu has a note to make 

12 about the agenda based on what materials NIOSH 

13 has ready, more ready.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Thanks, Ted. I 

15 was able to send to the Work Group Members and 

16 SC&A earlier this weeks some responses to SC&A 

17 clarifying questions 2, 3, and 4, Topics 2, 3, 

18 and 4. But not able to send one on Topic 1 yet.

19 Now I think we're prepared, I'm 

20 prepared to talk about Topic #1 for a while. But 

21 I think for the purposes of the agenda it might 

22 work better if we held #1, Item #1 until the end 

23 of the agenda, and start it on Item #2.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Stu, did you send 

2 those out just at the CDC addresses?

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I'm sorry, I only 

4 sent it to the CDC addresses.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: All right. I can't 

6 get into my CDC account because my ID card has 

7 expired. And I haven't been able to get to 

8 Cincinnati to get a new card. So I can't get 

9 into my CDC account.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Hold on, Paul, 

11 and I will -- well, they're at, they're on the 

12 website. They're --

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, they are on the 

14 website. Okay. I'll just look there. That's 

15 fine. No problem.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: They're on the website 

17 for today's meeting.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Great. Okay. That's 

19 good.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay then, Brad.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. I'd like to 

22 welcome everybody today to the Fernald Work 

23 Group. It's been a while since we've met. So, 
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1 from what I took, Bob, it's not going to be with 

2 us today. So, do you want to start off with this? 

3 Or does NIOSH want to start with their side of 

4 it?

5 MR. BARTON: Well, I can certainly 

6 start off. And since Stu wanted to indicate that 

7 the first item, which was the raffinate material, 

8 maybe would be best to leave for the end of the 

9 meeting for discussion, we don't have necessarily 

10 formal responses on that yet.

11 So that would leave us with -- and by 

12 the way, is anyone on Skype that can see the 

13 agenda I threw up there as sort of a test? Does 

14 anyone have Skype open that can verify that the 

15 agenda's up there?

16 MR. KATZ: I have Skype. I have Skype 

17 on. And right now I'm just seeing a black screen.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. I have 

19 it on as well. And I don't see anything on there. 

20 Just a black screen.

21 MR. BARTON: Okay. Let me --

22 MS. ADAMS: It was working earlier.

23 MR. BARTON: Oh, okay. Well anyway, 
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1 let's, what I'm going to do is, I'll throw up the 

2 most recent NIOSH responses to, starting with the 

3 recycled uranium. And we can start there and 

4 move forward.

5 And then we can circle back to the 

6 raffinate issue, which is still sort of being 

7 worked on. So, let me just see if I can get that 

8 up there.

9 MR. KATZ: While you're doing that, 

10 Stu, I don't think I was copied on what you sent 

11 out to the Work Group. Or if I was it went into 

12 some black hole.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. It's what's on 

14 the website is our responses.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: But, I mean, what's on 

17 the website is actually, there were a couple of 

18 typos that were corrected. So but it's --

19 MR. KATZ: Okay. I just need for my 

20 records, at some point, if you would send me the 

21 email.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

23 MR. KATZ: That would be great.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: It was only a couple 

2 of days ago, I know.

3 MR. KATZ: Yes. For some reason it 

4 either fell through a hole or -- because it isn't 

5 anywhere in my email system. But --

6 MR. BARTON: Okay. Does anybody see 

7 anything right now? I actually, I was going off 

8 the Word document. I can pull it off the website 

9 instead. But, Stu, are there any real, besides 

10 a couple of typos, are there --

11 MR. HINNEFELD: There's no difference 

12 between what I sent and what's on the website.

13 MR. BARTON: Okay.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: There, and Bob, I can 

15 see the --

16 MR. KATZ: Yes.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: -- document now on 

18 Skype.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes. It's up on Skype.

20 Recycled Uranium Constituents

21 MR. BARTON: All right. Great. So 

22 we're going to start with the recycled uranium 

23 issue. And just to give sort of a brief back 
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1 story on this.

2 Essentially we're looking at, or were 

3 looking at two periods. There's 1961 to 1972, 

4 and then 1973 on. Today what we're talking about 

5 is that former period from '61 to '72.

6 This issue, the discussions on this 

7 issue obviously go back a long way. I think a 

8 lot of it was sort of already wrapped up in 2011 

9 when a set of default contaminant concentrations 

10 for plutonium, neptunium, and technetium were 

11 agreed on.

12 And for that period in the earlier one 

13 they were originally 100 parts per billion 

14 plutonium, 3,500 parts per billion neptunium, and 

15 9,000 parts per billion technetium.

16 Since that time, from way back in 

17 2011, the internal TBD for Fernald was revised. 

18 And what we noticed in there is that the default 

19 levels for that time period had gone down pretty 

20 significantly.

21 Plutonium went from 100 parts per 

22 billion down to ten. Neptunium dropped by pretty 

23 much an order of magnitude. And the technetium 
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1 dropped by about one-third.

2 So this, the change was discussed this 

3 past July, in 2017. And NIOSH had stated that, 

4 you know, originally they kept the original 100 

5 parts per billion plutonium as sort of an 

6 administrative decision. Because that's how dose 

7 reconstructions had been performed to date.

8 However, during that period they took 

9 another look at recycled uranium operations, and 

10 the available data in that earlier period, and 

11 found that the, you know, vast majority of 

12 recycled lots that were received prior to 1973 

13 were actually much less than ten parts per 

14 billion. And so ten parts per billion was 

15 considered a bounding value.

16 I'd also note that during those July 

17 discussions NIOSH also acknowledged that some of 

18 the processes that concentrate the contaminants 

19 in RU were still going on in that earlier period, 

20 in particular the magnesium fluoride metal 

21 reduction process but felt that those operations 

22 would be in short duration, you know, not over a 

23 full year. So if you applied the default for a 
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1 full year, it would cover any sort of short-term 

2 operation that might have potentially higher 

3 defaults.

4 And this position was echoed in the 

5 matrix update, which was issued in October of 

6 2017. And basically that said that, well, you 

7 know, we take a look at what RU data we have, 

8 which is from a DOE Ohio Field Office report from 

9 2000 and that 95 percent appear to be less than 

10 one parts per billion. Not even ten, but less 

11 than one parts per billion. And the remaining 

12 data points were still mostly less than ten parts 

13 per billion.

14 So we looked at that response and came 

15 up with these clarifying questions, which are 

16 posted on the website. And it essentially boiled 

17 down to three things.

18 First, we at SC&A, we couldn't figure 

19 out how the date of these lot samples, which are 

20 in Appendix C of the DOE report I referenced, 

21 were determined. There's no obvious date.

22 And so we didn't know if there was any 

23 back extrapolation going on. And it really 
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1 wasn't obvious to us. So that's why we asked 

2 NIOSH to clarify it for us. And they did. And I 

3 would like to thank them for that.

4 And essentially they pointed us to how 

5 to decode each of these data points based on what 

6 is termed a lot number, which are pretty complex. 

7 They're essentially a sequence of alphanumeric 

8 characters, 15 characters in total, separated by 

9 dashes. And it turns out the last three in that 

10 lot number represent the date.

11 And even that's a little confusing, 

12 because they started the whole process in January 

13 of 1962, which they designated as 001, 

14 essentially the first month that was considered 

15 for the study.

16 So then it follows that February 1962 

17 is 002, and so on, up through the period of 

18 interest. So December of '72 ends up being around 

19 132. So that was the date schematic on how you 

20 decode those.

21 So that information was provided in 

22 NIOSH's response earlier this week. And so once 

23 we got that, now we have the timeframe data. We 
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1 know it's not being back extrapolated.

2 So the other two questions, and I'll 

3 get back to the issue of being able to date these 

4 samples in a moment. But the other two questions 

5 we had was whether NIOSH was really just looking 

6 at a certain subgroup, and specifically Subgroup 

7 6A in this pre-1973 period.

8 And the reason we questioned that is 

9 that it appeared in a 2011 NIOSH White Paper that 

10 they were considering Subgroup 6A to be the most 

11 representative group for that prior period. 

12 Based on the response I believe we're moving away 

13 from that 2011 NIOSH White Paper. So that's kind 

14 of been addressed.

15 And we also had questions about how 

16 you really come analytically to the conclusion 

17 that any sort of concentrating mechanisms, such 

18 as the mag fluoride process, how do we really 

19 know what duration they were?

20 And how do we sort of put a number on 

21 that out of historical information, the 

22 analytical basis, to convince ourselves that that 

23 sort of concentrating mechanism is not as 
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1 important, just because of the low concentrations 

2 we're starting with, and the default of ten parts 

3 per billion that was chosen?

4 And the response essentially boils 

5 down to the fact that as a, the qualitative look 

6 at the data prior to 1973, the numbers were so 

7 low, as I stated, 95 percent were essentially 

8 less than one part per billion. That all these 

9 other issues, such as the concentrated power of, 

10 these concentrated values in the duration of 

11 those activities is rendered moot.

12 So that's really the crux of this 

13 issue at this point, in my mind, is that, you 

14 know, maybe if these concentrations are so low 

15 prior to 1973, a lot of these other issues related 

16 to what individual workers could have been 

17 exposed to are covered and if the assigned 

18 default value is bounding.

19 So once we understood how to sort of 

20 convert the database values of RU constituents, 

21 that's, again, plutonium, neptunium, and 

22 technetium, we were able to extract the data from 

23 the recycled uranium electronic database.
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1 It's an Excel file. And it's titled 

2 Fernald Recycled Uranium Raw Data Validated. You 

3 can find that in the usual Fernald location in 

4 the Advisory Board's document review.

5 So we pulled, based on that 

6 information we pulled out the 1961 to '72 data. 

7 And actually, the first sample, as I said before, 

8 is actually January 1962. The proposed defaults 

9 do apply to the earlier year.

10 And so what we did in the past couple 

11 of days, since we understood how to decode that 

12 data is we did our own scoping analysis to see if 

13 we sort of came out in the same place NIOSH did 

14 about these values being really low to the point 

15 that any concerns over concentrating mechanisms 

16 or duration of exposure to maybe a few higher 

17 concentration batches is averaged out and/or 

18 bounded.

19 And I'd like to throw a caveat. This 

20 is a very preliminary look at this data set. 

21 Again, this is only after the last few days. But 

22 it's to illustrate really where SC&A might still 

23 have a few concerns with the new defaults.
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1 And I again caution, because of the 

2 timeframe, this has not undergone our usual QA, 

3 internal review steps, peer review, all of that 

4 sort of stuff to, well, to frankly make sure that 

5 I didn't make any mistakes.

6 So let me throw up a quick table 

7 there. Again, this is not an official document 

8 by any means. But it does sort of illustrate the 

9 scoping analysis that we did. So give me one 

10 moment here.

11 Okay. So does everybody see just a 

12 Word file with a table called Table 1 Overview of 

13 RU Data?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Bob, this is Stu. I 

15 don't think I see anything.

16 MR. BARTON: Okay.

17 MR. KATZ: Black screen.

18 MR. BARTON: Black screen again. 

19 Okay. Let me try this again.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes. I got a question 

21 though. I thought we talked about this. I 

22 thought we'd already come to an agreement on this 

23 parts per billion. I thought that was taken back 
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1 years ago.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, Brad, we 

3 discussed that. I mean, at the time of that 

4 discussion the, it was already the guidance to do 

5 dose reconstructions at 100 parts per billion 

6 throughout the entire timeframe of recycled 

7 uranium.

8 And so we were resolving an issue of, 

9 well, what about '73 and later or '76 and later, 

10 whatever. I think it's '73 and later, where stuff 

11 started coming in from Paducah that was higher in 

12 transuranics and essentially, in my words, 

13 crapped up the whole enriched stream.

14 So we said, well, if we're going to, 

15 you know, since we're digging back into this, 

16 let's take a more realistic shot at what they 

17 were at the various times. So I mean, it's part 

18 of the evolution of the discussion as far as I'm 

19 concerned.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Oh, okay. Well, I 

21 thought we'd already come to this, because --

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it's one point 

23 we said --
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1 CHAIR CLAWSON: I was actually having 

2 a hard time with the five parts because I was 

3 going more towards ten. So I thought we had come 

4 to this agreement. But we'll, you know, this 

5 will, we'll take a look at it and see what we've 

6 got.

7 Because I was, if I remember right I 

8 was seeing a lot higher than that. So I just 

9 wondered where we went from on it. So we'll keep 

10 going on. I'll get clarified, and we'll go from 

11 there.

12 MR. BARTON: This is Bob. Has the 

13 table appeared on Skype yet?

14 MR. KATZ: Yes.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. The table's 

16 there, yes.

17 MR. BARTON: Okay. I apologize again. 

18 This is only really thrown together in the last 

19 couple of days. But essentially what we did is 

20 we looked at a few basic metrics. And just for 

21 the sake of discussion I'd like to concentrate on 

22 plutonium.

23 Because, again, this is, it used to be 
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1 100 parts per billion. Now the proposed default 

2 is ten parts per billion. So it's kind of easier 

3 to keep in mind that way.

4 But as you can see, we looked at a few 

5 basic metrics. We fit the data to a log-normal. 

6 We looked at some simple things, like the 

7 arithmetic averages, median values, rank order, 

8 that sort of thing.

9 So if you look, the log-normal fit for 

10 plutonium, the GM is pretty low. It's less than 

11 one part per billion. But if we look a little 

12 lower here, you see how significantly high the 

13 geometric standard deviation is when you try to 

14 fit it to a log-normal, so high that when you go 

15 to calculate the 95th percentile, you're actually 

16 up over the 100 parts per billion.

17 And to us this was an indication of 

18 just how variable the observed plutonium 

19 concentrations were in this earlier period. And 

20 they went from lows of about, you know, ten to 

21 the minus four parts per billion, or .0004 parts 

22 per billion. There was even one negative number 

23 in there. All the way up to a maximum of 1,350 
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1 parts per billion. So there's a whole lot of 

2 variation in that.

3 So we looked at some other metrics 

4 here. And, I mean, you can see, if it's a simple 

5 average of the available data prior to 1973, it 

6 comes out to about 15 parts per billion. So, 

7 again, that's higher than the recommended 

8 default. And that's a simple average.

9 If you rank order all of these 

10 plutonium data points, and you look at the 95th 

11 percentile, you're up to around four times the 

12 proposed default, at 38.7 parts per billion.

13 And then finally, if you look at the 

14 last two rows in the table, and this is a simple 

15 count of how many are above ten parts per billion 

16 and how many are below ten parts per billion. 

17 And based on what we're looking at is a little 

18 over one-fifth or, you know, 20 percent were 

19 above that recommended default of ten parts per 

20 billion.

21 And also, what I have here is a simple 

22 rank ordering chart, I don't know if you can all 

23 see that. And, again, this is just a simple rank 
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1 order. This does not fit to anything. This is 

2 just the actual empirical values, rank ordered 

3 from zero up to one.

4 And as you can see, that rank ordered 

5 95th percentile is up here, somewhere around in 

6 here, yes, around 38 parts per billion. And when 

7 you get to ten you're right around the 80th 

8 percentile, just like I just said.

9 So based on SC&A's preliminary 

10 analysis of these data prior to 1973, we're 

11 coming out in a very different place from where 

12 NIOSH was when they took a look at that data.

13 And, again, this is very preliminary. 

14 But once we understood how to translate, 

15 essentially, all of these recycled uranium 

16 constituent data points into the 1962 to 1972 

17 period, and then after 1973, we're just not 

18 coming in, coming out at the same place that NIOSH 

19 has in their response.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, Bob, this is 

21 Stu. I have, of course, just seen this now. But 

22 my initial reaction is that the geometric 

23 standard deviation tells us that this isn't a 
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1 single distribution. This is multiple 

2 distributions because different kinds of 

3 materials are going to have different kinds of 

4 transuranic content.

5 We've even talked, you know, it's been 

6 part of our discussion is that certain things 

7 like mag fluoride, which is very poor in uranium, 

8 tends to have a higher TRU to U ratio than the 

9 material that went in to make the uranium, than 

10 the UF4 that went in to make the uranium.

11 So and associated with that is that I 

12 think by and large, certainly in the case of mag 

13 fluoride, there is very little uranium there. 

14 And so even though the ratio of plutonium to, or 

15 transuranic to uranium is high for that material, 

16 that's not very much transuranic.

17 And when you add it to the total of 

18 the uranium production for a year, or when you 

19 consider all uranium production, even all the 

20 residues that are processed, many of which were 

21 metal chips, what I'm, and it's -- this was the 

22 point of our argument, was not that mag fluoride 

23 was a short duration operation, but that the 
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1 amount of uranium was a very small contributor to 

2 the amount of uranium.

3 So even though that ratio is very 

4 high, that's not very much transuranic. And in 

5 fact, and again, any given person's exposure, 

6 they're exposed probably to many sources of 

7 uranium during the year.

8 And so the overall transuranic to 

9 uranium ratio is what's relevant for dose 

10 reconstruction. So that's the nature of what I 

11 see here, and not, you know -- I know you've done 

12 a lot of work since I sent that response out. I 

13 don't want to diminish this at all. It's well 

14 done. But I think we, the thing to consider here 

15 is what is the uranium content of the materials 

16 with the high ratios?

17 Because I suspect they're pretty low. 

18 I won't swear that for sure, and certain, maybe 

19 not in every case. But I would guess the bulk of 

20 them, the uranium content's pretty low.

21 MR. BARTON: And I understand that. I 

22 mean, they do, they're all certainly mitigating 

23 factors in this. But I guess where we came out 
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1 is the justification for ten parts per billion as 

2 given was that well, not even withstanding all 

3 the points you just made, all of our data, 95 

4 percent is less than one part per billion.

5 And even the rest of it that's not, 

6 it's still less than ten parts per billion. And 

7 what I'm saying is, when we look at it, and we 

8 pull out the data from '62 to '72, that's really 

9 not what we're seeing at all. And so that's why 

10 we're bringing this up. Because if the 

11 justification was that, well, 95 percent of your 

12 data is below one parts per billion, that's not 

13 what we're seeing, again, in this, in our 

14 preliminary look at the data, again, prior to 

15 1973.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Well, I think 

17 that maybe some additional, you know, analysis of 

18 the information, both on your side and ours. The 

19 database you referenced where this data was drawn 

20 from is what, or the spreadsheet?

21 MR. BARTON: Yes, Stu, I'm not sure 

22 who compiled it. But it is your guys' 

23 spreadsheet. And I did check to see that it 
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1 comported with the values that, the hard copy 

2 values that are in the DOE 2000 report.

3 And you can find that, again, AB 

4 document review in the Fernald folder. I can 

5 give you the title of that Excel sheet again. 

6 Let me see here. I have it written down. I

7 thought I had it written down.

8 Well, I mean, you'll see it. It says 

9 recycled uranium raw data validated, essentially. 

10 And there's the validated tab in there. And, 

11 again, I checked it against the original. So I'm 

12 fairly confident that that is the electronic 

13 representation. I believe that if you didn't 

14 necessarily put it together, maybe you got it 

15 from the folks who put that DOE report together.

16 But I agree. I don't think we can go 

17 essentially off this, you know, 10,000 foot view 

18 of things. But at the same time, the rationale 

19 that everything is much less than one parts per 

20 billion, you know, we didn't see that.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

22 MR. BARTON: So I agree, I think 

23 maybe, I mean, certainly from my point of view 
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1 I'd want to really clean up what you're seeing 

2 here, provide more detail than what I'm looking 

3 at, some analytics on it, and obviously 

4 discussion of some of the higher observed samples 

5 and how they actually fit in to what we're trying 

6 to do here would be beneficial to formally 

7 document from our side. And I'm sure on your 

8 side as well, you'd want to take a look at that 

9 same data set.

10 Because I got the impression, just 

11 from the use of the words qualitative. I believe 

12 qualitative was the term chosen in the most 

13 recent response in a quick view of the data in 

14 the October 2017 response. I'm sure you'd want 

15 to take a little closer look at that. But 

16 obviously that, any of that is at the discretion 

17 of the Work Group.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Hey, Bob, the, 

19 you, that database apparently includes enough of 

20 the lot code to include the last three digits, so 

21 you could date them. Is that correct?

22 MR. BARTON: Yes, that is correct.

23 MR. HINNEFELD: Does it include the 
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1 entire lot code?

2 MR. BARTON: Yes.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Well then, 

4 there will be a material type code in that lot 

5 code. So we'll be able to determine what the 

6 materials are for each of these samples.

7 MR. BARTON: Yes, that's my 

8 impression. I think you might even be able to 

9 put them in a specific facility even. I'm not 

10 entirely sure --

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, the facility I 

12 believe was where it was generated.

13 MR. BARTON: Oh, okay.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: If there's a facility, 

15 well, if it came from off-site there's a 

16 designation. And there are a few designations 

17 that designate off-site locations. And then 

18 there's a -- if it was generated in the plant 

19 there's a designation for what was generated in 

20 the plant.

21 MR. BARTON: Yes. I mean, the 

22 database is very extensive. And there are even

23 a lot of comment fields that I didn't quite 
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1 understand, which that was what led me to believe 

2 that you folks had put it together.

3 So I think there's a lot of 

4 information there. What information wasn't there 

5 when we first looked at it was a specific date,

6 at least not prior to 1973. But once we knew how 

7 to decode that lot number with the final three 

8 digits, then we were able to actually pull out 

9 that pre-1973 data. And that's what we're 

10 looking at here. At least for the scoping 

11 calculation.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, it sounds like 

14 we've got some work to do then, re-evaluate this, 

15 and go from there. So this is going to be a 

16 response from SC&A to NIOSH. Is that correct? 

17 Or did you need more information, Bob?

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I don't know. 

19 Bob, how do you want to do this? Do you want to 

20 do, you know, give this, what you've done so far, 

21 your normal polish over then, and provide it? 

22 And then we'll work up? I mean, we can get that 

23 database out now and start looking at it from our 
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1 side. And then have us prepare a response to 

2 that? If you want it.

3 MR. BARTON: I think that would be a 

4 good way to go, almost to work it. Not recreating 

5 work.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: I mean, you can send 

7 us what you want. I mean, if you want to send us 

8 this, I mean, we can work from that, and respond 

9 to that. Or if you want to wait and polish it 

10 some and send it over, then we can work from that.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: I'd rather have it 

12 polished and put together and make sure that 

13 we're all on the same page.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, that's up, that's 

16 in your court then, Bob. So --

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: So you're going to 

18 send that out to the Work Group as well?

19 MR. BARTON: Yes, absolutely. This 

20 would be a formal memo, or whatnot, from SC&A to 

21 the Work Group and NIOSH.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: And then we'll get 

23 Stu's response maybe more formalized than we had 
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1 just now?

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, we'll get -- 

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: All depending on --

4 MR. HINNEFELD: We'll put together 

5 what we learned from looking at this.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Because that was 

7 just your initial reaction, having not seen any 

8 of this before, right?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. Yes. I'm 

10 embarrassed to admit I'm not familiar with the 

11 database. And so I'm, so I don't know for sure. 

12 I was just speculating about whether those were 

13 really low uranium materials or not.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, we need to make 

15 sure on this. So we'll leave that up to you, 

16 Bob. And put that through there. I thought we 

17 had this a little bit more put together. But, 

18 okay, let's go on to the next slide. Are you 

19 done with this one?

20 Thorium Coworker Model

21 MR. BARTON: Unless anyone has any 

22 other questions, we can move on to thorium and 

23 the chosen DAC value. All right. Not hearing 
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1 any questions.

2 Now, this one, this is actually, we 

3 didn't have any clarifying questions on it. I 

4 think you're going to find that this is a pretty 

5 easy one, luckily.

6 So really the issue is, we're talking 

7 about the period from 1990 to 1994. And this is 

8 how you're going to assign thorium doses during 

9 that period. And more importantly, thorium doses 

10 to workers who do not have in vivo monitoring, 

11 which would allow for thorium dose reconstruction 

12 in that method.

13 So essentially what we're talking 

14 about is occupational unmonitored dose. And the 

15 plan is to use ten percent of the derived air 

16 concentration and apply that to unmonitored 

17 workers.

18 And more specifically, using Class W, 

19 which stands for weeks, also known as Solubility 

20 Type M, derived air concentration which is five 

21 times ten to the minus 13 microcurie per 

22 milliliter. So ten percent of that is obviously 

23 five times ten to the minus 14.
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1 And, again, this goes to workers who 

2 were not monitored by the IVEC system, which is 

3 the in vivo monitoring system that was in use at 

4 the time.

5 And so we were looking at that 

6 originally. And we questioned whether the site 

7 really always used that Type M or Class W 

8 solubility type when they were setting up their 

9 air sampling program.

10 It would certainly be more 

11 appropriate, and the reason we questioned that is 

12 because if you look at a Type S solubility, or 

13 Class Y, it's actually a little bit higher value, 

14 by a factor of two.

15 So obviously if you have a higher DAC 

16 value and you're assigning a percentage of that 

17 DAC value to the claimant, if you use the higher 

18 DAC value you're going to have a little bit higher 

19 dose.

20 So we said, you know, the assumption 

21 is Type M. Do we have anything to justify that 

22 as being more appropriate than Type S? Because 

23 Type S would certainly be more appropriate if 
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1 there were certain areas of the site that used 

2 that higher DAC to control airborne 

3 concentrations.

4 Or alternately, if no information was 

5 available as to what DAC was used, then you could 

6 say it's favorable to the claimant to use the 

7 higher DAC value to assign dose.

8 So we had originally asked if there 

9 are any references to sort of back up the 

10 assertion that the site strictly used that Type 

11 M derived air concentration value and that it's 

12 actually more scientifically appropriate to use 

13 that value.

14 And so essentially we're asking for a 

15 little backup. And that's the common theme 

16 during today's meeting. And in the October 2017 

17 matrix response NIOSH provided an SRDB reference. 

18 That's Reference 4152, titled Radiological Air 

19 Sampling Program and Air Sampling Philosophy.

20 This particular document is 

21 beneficial because it's dated from early 1989. 

22 And that's the period right before the period 

23 we're talking about, 1990 to 1994. So it's really 
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1 just before the period of interest.

2 So it doesn't have any significant 

3 temporal concerns, say if you were trying to 

4 extrapolate air sampling policies from the '50s 

5 and '60's to the '90s, you know, one could 

6 question that certainly. But this document is 

7 literally right from before the period of 

8 interest that we have.

9 And so Section 5 of the report that 

10 NIOSH provided, and, again, it's a reference. 

11 This is not something written by NIOSH. Section 

12 5 is titled Elemental Isotopic and Chemical Forms 

13 of Radionuclides Found in MPC Plants.

14 And basically it goes by site 

15 location. And it says what, you know, the 

16 chemical forms of any uranium or thorium that's 

17 there. And what should be assumed for the air 

18 sampling program. I mean, this is exactly what 

19 we were looking for.

20 So Section A of that section has the 

21 pilot plant. It talks about the residual thorium 

22 embedded in the floor and inside old processing 

23 tanks.
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1 And it states that while the pilot 

2 plant's not processing anything, and this was in 

3 1989, but any demolition, D&D activities, or just 

4 dust-generating activities should be controlled 

5 to the Class W, which is the proposed DAC to be 

6 used in the NIOSH methodology.

7 Further down in that same Section 5 

8 you have Building 64, which was a repackaging 

9 location for the Building 65 thorium, which we'll 

10 talk about a little bit later when we get into 

11 thoron. And, again, it's Class W. It says right 

12 in there it should be controlled to Class W.

13 And then Section K talks about 

14 Building 65, 67, and 68. And it notes that no 

15 thorium is presently handled, but if handling 

16 occurs the Class W thorium limit applies.

17 So beyond that reference we didn't 

18 find any evidence that the Class Y DAC was being 

19 assumed by the site anywhere during the period of 

20 interest.

21 And I'd also like to note that it's 

22 actually, again, we're talking about the 

23 unmonitored portion of the workforce. Back when 
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1 we reviewed the original thorium methodology 

2 White Paper we did a study of claimants.

3 And we found that, we looked at 

4 roughly 250 different claimants and found that 

5 almost three-quarters of them were monitored in 

6 vivo during that period. So this wouldn't even 

7 apply to them. And the remaining claims that 

8 were not, didn't have in vivo records we looked 

9 at in a little bit more detail.

10 And we had an observation from that 

11 review, and it basically said, it is highly 

12 unlikely that unmonitored workers would have been 

13 continually exposed to airborne thorium levels 

14 above ten percent over DAC for the entire 

15 duration of their employment and during the 

16 period of interest.

17 So given all that, we have site 

18 documentation that says Class W was to be used in 

19 the air sampling program and the fact that we're 

20 talking about sort of a small portion of the 

21 potentially exposed workforce, because really 

22 thorium doses would be reconstructed using in 

23 vivo records if the claimants had them.
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1 So for that one-quarter of the 

2 population that didn't have in vivo during this 

3 period, we feel like the ten percent Class W DAC 

4 is appropriate. And, you know, unless the Work 

5 Group has any outstanding questions or comments, 

6 we simply recommend that this issue be closed.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Do any of the Board 

8 Members have any questions on this?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I 

10 agree with that recommendation based on what was 

11 just covered here.

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Then we'll 

13 close that issue. Back to you, Bob.

14 MR. BARTON: Okay. I just realized I 

15 hadn't put anything up on Skype. So the next 

16 issue is going to be the parameter selection for 

17 thoron. So let me just throw up the NIOSH 

18 response here again. We'll get rolling on that 

19 one.

20 Okay. So you should all see, again, 

21 it's a Word file with SC&A's clarifying questions 

22 under thoron. And then a response that is 

23 provided in red. So as soon as that's up I will 
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1 get started.

2 MR. KATZ: It's up.

3 MR. BARTON: All right. Great. Okay. 

4 So, again, this is discussion of the parameters 

5 for thoron exposure model. And this was part of 

6 their thorium dose reconstruction methods. That 

7 methodology is now part of the TBD. It's 

8 contained in an appendix. It used to be a --

9 (Telephonic interference)

10 MR. BARTON: And this issue stemmed 

11 from a finding that we didn't feel there was 

12 necessarily a firm technical basis for them to 

13 support some of these various parameters chosen 

14 to model thoron exposures.

15 Not that we necessarily thought they 

16 were wrong parameters. But anytime you are 

17 trying to model something without really having 

18 direct measurements necessarily that can be used, 

19 you know, you try to tailor your parameters to 

20 the specifics of the situation. And then, in 

21 cases of ambiguity you maybe err on the side of 

22 caution.

23 Anyway, this was discussed last during 
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1 the July 2017 meeting. And NIOSH essentially 

2 came out of that with three, I guess you call 

3 them action items.

4 One is to take a look specifically at 

5 Building 65, that is, you know, model, try to 

6 model Building 65 specifically, rather than a 

7 more site-wide type model. Because there's 

8 reason to believe that that specific location was 

9 likely the bad actor as far as thorium exposures, 

10 and by extension thoron exposures.

11 So that was one thing. The other was 

12 to discuss the release fraction, which, or 

13 emanation fraction I think it's often referred 

14 to, which is basically, you know, you have this 

15 mass of thorium in a barrel. How much thoron is 

16 actually escaping into the breathable air for 

17 exposure?

18 And then the third thing that NIOSH 

19 was to look into was to sort of justify the chosen 

20 occupancy time. At the time it was generally 

21 three months out of the year to be in these 

22 buildings, exposed to thoron. Or at that time, 

23 I believe it was after 1990, that went from three 
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1 months down to one month.

2 So in the October 2017 matrix update, 

3 as a result of those July discussions we gained 

4 lots more information, including a model of 

5 Building 65, which we just discussed. And also 

6 example calculations and a discussion of the 

7 various parameters, including the release 

8 fraction and the occupancy time.

9 And so based on that response, we 

10 really had three, again, three clarifying 

11 questions. The first had to do with this release 

12 fraction.

13 And now the release fraction generally 

14 ranges from ten to the minus three to ten to the 

15 minus four. The suggested model took the lower 

16 end of that range. And so we originally 

17 questioned that because if you have a range of 

18 values and you're not quite sure, I mean, should 

19 you really be taking the lower end? And I really 

20 don't want to belabor this particular assumption 

21 because these, again, these selections are 

22 reasonable.

23 And in the response NIOSH basically 
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1 pointed out that if you use that lower end, the 

2 ten to the minus four release fraction, among the 

3 other selected assumptions, such as the amount of 

4 thorium that would be present, the available air 

5 space for it to emanate into, all those things, 

6 you actually end up with an air concentration 

7 that is very similar to a measured. So that's an 

8 empirical air concentration in Building 65.

9 And I'll kind of scroll down here so 

10 you can see where that -- that's this top formula 

11 here, as you can see, right here is your release 

12 fraction, the one times ten to the minus four.

13 And you follow that through, and you 

14 end up with 300 picocurie per liter in one of the 

15 higher measurements that was seen in Building 65. 

16 And, again, it was limited data. But one of the 

17 higher measurements I believe was 267 picocurie 

18 per liter.

19 So when you use that chosen release 

20 fraction, even if it's sort of on the lower end 

21 of the spectrum, you end up right around the range 

22 of what we have in some limited empirical 

23 measurements.
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1 And I'd also point out that if you 

2 look at this formula, which I hope all, those of 

3 you on Skype can see. If you start to use the 

4 high, if you use the higher end release fraction, 

5 well, now your estimate of air concentration is 

6 3,000 picocurie per liter instead of 300.

7 And, again, that's compared to our 

8 empirical measurement, which was 267. So, you 

9 know, a factor of ten on top of that. Or even if 

10 you sort of split the baby and use the midway 

11 point, you'd end up, you know, around 1,500 

12 picocurie per liter, which is a pretty high 

13 estimate.

14 And I don't think we really have any 

15 evidence or empirical measurements among the data 

16 we do have to indicate that it ever, ever really 

17 got that high. So essentially our issue was that 

18 the selection of the release fraction wasn't all 

19 that justified.

20 But I think in NIOSH's analysis where 

21 they compared an empirical measurement found in 

22 Building 65 to a model of what Building 65 could 

23 have been, and you end up in the same general 
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1 area as far as air concentration, to me that's a 

2 pretty good piece of evidence.

3 And so we really don't have, SC&A 

4 doesn't really have an issue with the chosen 

5 release fraction in that it's a reasonable 

6 assumption, which we said at the outset. And it 

7 does comport with the limited empirical data that 

8 we do have.

9 So that was the first parameter that 

10 we really wanted to discuss today. I don't know 

11 if there are any questions on that particular 

12 one. Or we can move on to the occupancy factor, 

13 if the Board would like.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: I didn't have any 

15 questions. This is Brad.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. I'm okay with 

17 that. Sounds good.

18 MR. BARTON: Okay, great. All right. 

19 So --

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I don't have any 

21 questions.

22 MR. BARTON: Oh, sorry, Phil. Great. 

23 Did I forget anybody? Okay. Okay, great. Well, 
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1 moving on to the occupancy factor. And I'll 

2 scroll back up here to where that is sort of dealt 

3 with.

4 So this was SC&A Clarifying Question 

5 6. Occupancy factor is, again, it's basically a 

6 measure of how long would someone have been 

7 exposed to these thoron concentrations inside 

8 these buildings, which are essentially storage 

9 buildings. And NIOSH selected 25 percent of the 

10 year, or three months.

11 Also part of our question was, well, 

12 you said three months for this time period, and 

13 then one month later. So based on NIOSH's 

14 response it appears that three months is going to 

15 be the default for the entire period.

16 And that the one month which had 

17 appeared in an earlier version is no longer on 

18 the table. And I think that was from 1990 to 

19 2006.

20 So if I'm not misinterpreting that, 

21 and, NIOSH, please stop me if I am, that answered 

22 part of our question as to whether it was assumed 

23 to be three months or one month. It appears to 
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1 us that the assumption is going to be three months 

2 across the board. If that is correct, I will 

3 keep rambling.

4 MR. KATZ: Keep rambling, Bob.

5 MR. BARTON: All right. I will do.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: What, is NIOSH in 

7 agreement with this? Or are we --

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm trying to 

9 reconstruct our thought process on this. I don't 

10 know if Mutty can help out on this or not.

11 MR. BARTON: Well, if you read from 

12 the response it says, at the end of the NIOSH 

13 response it says, the one month of exposure per 

14 year from 1990 to 2006 assumption does not apply 

15 to the three month value in NIOSH 2017B, excuse 

16 me, is more conservative.

17 So I read that to say the one month 

18 is not on the table anymore and that the three 

19 month value that was in the issues matrix from 

20 October is what we're talking about.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: I believe that is, I 

22 believe that's right.

23 MR. BARTON: Okay. The other part of 
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1 the question is about --

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me interrupt 

3 a minute. Just a clarifying point. This is 

4 Ziemer. Is the occupancy factor based on a 40 

5 hour work week in this case? Or were we using a 

6 different figure for Fernald? I just couldn't 

7 remember.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: It's essentially 25 

9 percent of the year, or 25 percent of any given 

10 week, because these were storage locations.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Yes. Got 

12 you. Okay. So that's a continuous then?

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. We felt like 

14 that would be a bounding estimate how long --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: -- anyone might be in 

17 a storage facility that was used strictly for 

18 storage.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Got it. Thanks.

20 MR. BARTON: And that was generally 

21 the other part of our clarifying question. 

22 Essentially, do we have anything to hang our hat 

23 on, on that 25 percent, that would indicate it's 
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1 an accurate estimate.

2 And I agree, we here at SC&A, it 

3 certainly seems reasonable for a storage 

4 facility. And it's not just my opinion over here. 

5 We had Milton Gorden who's on the phone look at 

6 this, and also Joyce, who had the original 

7 finding about these thoron parameters. And they 

8 all pretty much agreed the 25 percent is fine, 

9 especially if we're forced to make, you know, 

10 sort of an educated guess.

11 So I guess absent other information, 

12 like if there's no documentation that we can find 

13 that suggested a particular rotation of workers 

14 to storage facilities, or any evidence of a 

15 permanent storage facility position, or something 

16 like a, you know, like a daily weighted exposure, 

17 which will often give you information such as, 

18 you know, spent three hours a day in the storage 

19 facility.

20 Absent any information such as that, 

21 and absent any indication that would couldn't 

22 maybe fine tune that estimate, then SC&A is fine 

23 with going with this three months per year for 
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1 the entire period in which we're assigning 

2 thoron.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Bob, I'm 

4 certainly not aware of any document that might 

5 exist that would have recorded that. Certainly 

6 the daily weighted exposure averages were done, 

7 those all stopped about 1970. So for later years 

8 they certainly wouldn't be available.

9 And recall, these are not storage 

10 locations where people go and get materials from 

11 to process periodically and take them to the 

12 process area. These, the thorium just sat there, 

13 you know, from roughly 1980 through the time they 

14 remediated the buildings.

15 There was almost no call for thorium, 

16 except once in a while they'd go retrieve some of 

17 the better stuff and ship it to, you know, in 

18 small quantities to a customer. And then people 

19 may go in for inspection of drums and things like 

20 that.

21 But it wasn't like this was stored 

22 process material that people were going and 

23 getting and periodically using. It was just 
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1 sitting there. And, you know, dormant. So I 

2 thought that, you know, we thought the 25 percent 

3 certainly, just intuitively seemed pretty 

4 bounding.

5 MR. BARTON: Yes. And over here at 

6 SC&A we agree with that. Again, this is sort of 

7 a due diligence question to see if maybe there 

8 was some sort of documentation that would put a 

9 harder number behind it.

10 But absent the existence of that sort 

11 of information, then we find the three months out 

12 of a year to be perfectly reasonable. Is there 

13 any questions on the occupancy factor?

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: No. That sounds good 

15 to me.

16 MR. BARTON: All right. Our final 

17 question on this thoron issue was, we were a 

18 little confused about what the actual intended 

19 thoron assignment was going to end up being. 

20 Because we saw a couple of different estimates of 

21 it.

22 There was the original White Paper, 

23 which morphed into an appendix in the TBD. And 
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1 we have the October estimate, and now we have 

2 this most recent one. And it looks like really 

3 the methodology put here looks like it's going to 

4 be the, sort of the final say.

5 And I'm going to scroll down to this 

6 equation. Because the other part of this 

7 question was, we thought we had found an error. 

8 And we had our suspicions on where the 

9 discrepancies were.

10 Because when we were sort of plugging 

11 all these parameters in, we were coming out at a 

12 different spot than NIOSH was. And once we saw 

13 this response on Monday it's, I, we think it's 

14 pretty clear where the discrepancy's coming out 

15 on.

16 And if you can see, it's the second 

17 formula here. But it's this term here, the .25. 

18 And that's the occupancy factor, .25. And really 

19 what it should be, since you have a given working 

20 level, which I believe it's 1.6 working levels.

21 To get from working levels to working 

22 level months, you simply apply the working level 

23 by the number of months. In this case what it's 
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1 actually multiplying by is, it's saying instead 

2 of three months per year, it's essentially saying 

3 the occupancy is a quarter of a month per year.

4 And, again, it's that third term in 

5 this equation. So that shouldn't be point --

6 even though it's a quarter of a year, that term 

7 there should be .25, or it should be three months 

8 out of the year, and not .25.

9 And I think where that confusion 

10 stemmed from is that occupancy factor kind of 

11 means a little bit different thing when you're 

12 talking about radon and thoron working levels, 

13 than it does in other sort of health physics 

14 problems.

15 For example, if you had an annual dose 

16 estimate for someone, say it's 1 rem, and they 

17 only were in that area for three months, well 

18 then, yes, you would take that annual dose 

19 estimate and multiply it by .25 to get what the 

20 exposure would have been during that three month 

21 period.

22 But here what we have, I think of more 

23 akin to being an exposure rate, not as a total 
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1 exposure. So once we have a working level, which 

2 is essentially alpha energy in the air, to get 

3 from working levels to the final result, which is 

4 working level months, you multiply it by the 

5 number of months.

6 So, again, it appears that this 

7 estimate is off by about a factor of 12. Well, 

8 not about a factor of 12, exactly a factor of 12.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. I agree with 

10 Bob's discussion there. So --

11 MR. BARTON: So, I mean, we discussed, 

12 you know, the occupancy factor and the emanation 

13 fraction. And, really, the other parameters 

14 seemed reasonable to us.

15 So if that error, just in converting 

16 working levels to working level months gets 

17 fixed, SC&A really doesn't have any other issues 

18 related to thoron.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: But I just want to 

20 make clear here, we are, we are discussing that

21 we're taking that 2.5 out, and the factor is 

22 becoming three months, correct?

23 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. It's a 0.25. 
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1 It's a 0.25. And that becomes a three.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. All right. 

3 That's pretty straightforward. That correction 

4 needs to be made.

5 MR. BARTON: Okay. And that's really 

6 all the discussion I had for thorium or thoron on 

7 this.

8 MR. KATZ: So the Work Group can close 

9 that, right, Brad, and Paul, and Phil?

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes. When that gets 

11 changed to three, then --

12 MR. KATZ: You can close it now. You 

13 don't need to, that will get changed.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

15 MR. BARTON: So I guess the proper 

16 term would be in abeyance until that --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Actually I guess 

18 we got to write something that actually has the 

19 correct number.

20 MR. KATZ: Right. That's all. But, 

21 yes.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. I have no 

23 problems with that.
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1 Uranium and Radium Poor Raffinate Material

2 MR. BARTON: All right. Well, that 

3 concludes the thorium discussion. So now I guess 

4 we would be circling back to uranium and radium 

5 poor raffinates. I can give a brief background 

6 on it, if it's helpful to the Work Group. Or, 

7 Stu, I don't know if you want to give an update. 

8 Or both.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, why don't you 

10 give your issue in your words, Bob? And then 

11 I'll tell you what I've been struggling with all 

12 week.

13 MR. BARTON: Okay. I don't have, we 

14 don't really have anything to put up on Skype for 

15 this particular issue because it was still being 

16 worked on. But I guess what we're really talking 

17 about here, again, it's raffinate material.

18 And it's specifically raffinate 

19 material that is poor in uranium and radium. In 

20 other words, those things have been sort of 

21 stripped out.

22 Now the TBD currently covers three 

23 exposure scenarios for raffinates, such as the K-
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1 65 drum operations, which run from '52 to '56, 

2 processing pitchblende ores, '54 to '58, and 

3 handling yellowcake material up until about 1961.

4 So those three scenarios, to 

5 reconstruct those doses you've either a radon 

6 breath analysis. Essentially we have radon 

7 breath measurements, which you can use to 

8 calculate essentially a radium intake. And then 

9 use that to back calculate to the other 

10 constituents in the raffinate. So that's one 

11 way. And that is used for one of the scenarios.

12 And then the other is we have lots of 

13 uranium urinalysis at Fernald, I mean, over 

14 400,000 data points. So what you do is you simply 

15 take a uranium urinalysis result, and you use 

16 some assumed raffinate contamination ratios. And 

17 then you are able to add in those intakes to the 

18 contaminates and the raffinate that weren't 

19 monitored.

20 The problem is, or potential issue is, 

21 at the back end of two, three, you might have 

22 raffinate material that had that uranium and 

23 radium material stripped out.
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1 So now if you use a ratio to uranium, 

2 well, the uranium's not there. And you're going 

3 to get pretty unrealistically high intakes of the 

4 other raffinate constituents. And really, the 

5 main concern here is thorium-230.

6 And if there's no radium, or little 

7 radium, obviously there's no radon either. So 

8 you can't really use any sort of breath 

9 measurements.

10 This was really first discussed in 

11 December of 2014. And at that meeting one 

12 potential avenue for assigning doses to this 

13 material was, it was discussed, or I guess a more 

14 accurate term would be spitballed.

15 I think it was more in the guise of, 

16 well, this could potentially be one possibility 

17 to assign dose. But NIOSH wanted to take a closer 

18 look at the data they had, et cetera.

19 So during the July meeting this past 

20 year, NIOSH stated that they don't believe any 

21 exposure potential existed. But essentially, 

22 even if it did exist, that those exposures would 

23 really not be reconstructable.
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1 And since what we're talking about 

2 falls into the current SEC period, it could 

3 essentially be swept up in the thorium-232 SEC.

4 So at that time SC&A's position was 

5 basically, okay, well, we have our answer. Or I 

6 guess really two potential answers. But the 

7 evidence supporting those answers hadn't been, 

8 really been documented.

9 So it's sort of like, you know, back 

10 at school. Even if you know the right answer you 

11 have to show your work kind of thing, or you get 

12 docked.

13 So in the matrix update NIOSH 

14 reiterated that position that there was either 

15 little to no dose, or if it was, it was not 

16 reconstructable. But, again, the case really had 

17 not been fleshed out yet. And so that's 

18 essentially where we're at currently.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Thanks, Bob. 

20 And to deal with, to look at this, I tried to 

21 look at, well, what do we know about air 

22 monitoring that was done? Because as Bob pointed 

23 out in his clarifying question about Number 1, 
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1 his Clarifying Question Number 1, he cited some

2 SRDB references. Well, look, you've got air 

3 samples corrected at the hot raffinate building 

4 and the combined raffinate building and, in some 

5 cases, daily weighted exposures calculated for 

6 various people who worked there, et cetera.

7 So well what about that? Is that a 

8 method that can be used? And so I've spent the 

9 week relearning, if I ever knew, some of the 

10 history of the refinery and also kind of crudely 

11 compiling the air sampling data that is collected 

12 from the raffinate locations.

13 There were two areas called raffinate 

14 where you can find air sampling from. One was 

15 called hot raffinate. And the other was called 

16 combined raffinate.

17 Now I've seen several, I've seen 

18 references in some of the Fernald documentation 

19 about something called a cold raffinate system. 

20 But I don't think I've seen any air samples that 

21 specifically said cold raffinate. You know, I 

22 think, I'm not even sure exactly what would have 

23 gone, and what would be considered cold 
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1 raffinate.

2 But the combined raffinate I believe 

3 would be where the output of the hot raffinate 

4 system, meaning the material where the radium has 

5 been filtered out, whatever liquid is left, where 

6 that was sent to combined raffinate. And so 

7 probably what you would have in combined 

8 raffinate would be material without radium, and 

9 probably without uranium as well.

10 So I think, as I looked through this, 

11 it seemed to me like the hot raffinate air samples 

12 probably aren't particularly relevant because, at 

13 least during ore processing, which would be from 

14 1954 through 1958, there would be radium in the 

15 hot raffinate.

16 And so you really couldn't draw a 

17 conclusion that those air samples are going to be 

18 informative of what the thorium-232 is, which is 

19 what we're interested in here. We have another 

20 method for doing radium.

21 And so looking at the combined 

22 raffinate air samples during the ore period, '54 

23 through '58, you do in fact see concentrations 
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1 that are typically around, oh, somewhere around 

2 0.2 times what was called the maximum allowable 

3 concentration, which was 70 dpm per cubic meter.

4 So you're talking about airborne 

5 concentrations on the order of 15, you know, ten 

6 to 20 or ten to 30, for the most part, dpm per 

7 cubic meter, kind of centering around 15, just 

8 looking at it, eyeballing it.

9 But once the uranium, once the ores 

10 stopped running in 1958, and in '59 as I 

11 understand it they switched to ore concentrates, 

12 which would have been pre-processed at the mill, 

13 then they are in the cold raffinate or the 

14 combined raffinate area. The air sampling 

15 results are all uniformly 0.1 times the maximum 

16 acceptable, times the max, maximum allowable 

17 concentration.

18 And which is, by the way, there, I 

19 never saw a number reported as zero. Zero point 

20 one was the lowest number I saw reported.

21 Now interesting and related to that, 

22 you know, so you've got this 0.1 MAC result from 

23 combined raffinate when they were running ore 
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1 concentrate. Also, there are some similar air 

2 studies done from '65 through '67 in a combined 

3 raffinate area. Excuse me.

4 And those are, during that period 

5 according to some documents that we have about 

6 the history of Fernald operations, and I think a 

7 site expert interview, one of those two documents 

8 says that when the refinery restarted in 1966, 

9 and that would be fiscal 1966, it ran only 

10 residues, which means materials that are 

11 reclaimed from elsewhere in the process.

12 So the refinery started in '54. It 

13 ran ore for '54 through '58. Apparently from '59 

14 to '62 it ran ore concentrates. And then it shut 

15 down in fiscal, at the end of fiscal 1962. So, 

16 July 1st, 1962 the refinery shut down. And all 

17 the refining work was moved to Weldon Spring.

18 Well, Weldon Spring closed in, roughly 

19 1966. So they reopened the refinery at Fernald 

20 in 1966. And there is in fact a break in the air 

21 monitoring data, at least that we have. We don't 

22 have -- we have data for '62. We don't have any 

23 for '63 or '64.
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1 We have data for '65. And these data 

2 are reported on a calendar year basis. So that's 

3 probably the last half of '65, which would be 

4 fiscal '66 and then data in '67 and '68. And in 

5 the combined raffinate those samples are also 

6 0.1, the same as they were when the plant was 

7 running for concentrates.

8 Now for the, when the refinery is 

9 running residues, this is, you know, reclaiming 

10 uranium from products within the plant, there 

11 should not be any thorium-230 there. You know, 

12 that uranium was purified in order to get to the 

13 rest of the plant.

14 There's not enough time for any 

15 thorium-230 to grow in. So there wouldn't have 

16 been any thorium-230 in the material going 

17 through combined raffinate in the '60s, and '66 

18 and '67, et cetera. But still, you get the same 

19 airborne sample result that you get when you're 

20 running ore concentrates.

21 So that makes me wonder whether in 

22 fact we even know what we're seeing on those 

23 filters and can we really draw the conclusion 
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1 it's thorium-230 for the years 1959 through 1962.

2 Then we go back to the four years 

3 where theoretically there might be some thorium4 230 there. And it occurs to me that I think we 

5 want to do a comparison to what intake would we 

6 develop from this air data we have from '54 

7 through '57 for combined raffinate and how would 

8 that be compared to the addition that we're going 

9 to have to the uranium doses because we're 

10 considering uranium results to be related to 

11 feeding pitchblende ores.

12 So, in other words, it could very well 

13 be that a dose reconstruction using the 

14 assumption that the person was feeding 

15 pitchblende ores would give them a larger intake 

16 than the thorium-230 airborne samples. See what 

17 I'm saying? We still have to work that out.

18 So we're going to have to meet, we 

19 need to provide some more information about this, 

20 and do our actual thought process, and build this 

21 out. But that's kind of where I'm starting from. 

22 So does anybody, can you kind of follow along the 

23 logic there?
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1 MR. BARTON: This is Bob. Absolutely. 

2 I think this is exactly the type of looking deeper 

3 into it. And I would really, really feel 

4 comfortable if the argument was, well, listen, 

5 even if we apply a methodology to these low, low 

6 0.1 MAC samples it would never, essentially never 

7 be used because it's always going to be bounded 

8 by another method that's in place.

9 So I think that is worth pursuing and, 

10 you know, fully getting your head around it, and 

11 formally writing it up. And then we'll have 

12 something concrete to either move forward or 

13 close it out. That's at least my thoughts on it.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, it makes sense 

15 to clarify that issue. That's a very interesting 

16 information, I think needs, take a look at that.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: I really enjoyed the 

18 --

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: That's fine with me.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. I really enjoyed 

21 the walk down, it's not really memory lane. I 

22 don't remember 1962, at least not, I don't 

23 remember Fernald in 1962. But it was kind of 
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1 interesting to read about it, for sure.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well --

3 MR. BARTON: So I guess the path 

4 forward would be, that would be in NIOSH's court, 

5 with you and your team, Stu. And --

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

7 MR. KATZ: Right.

8 MR. BARTON: Okay. So I guess to sum 

9 up, for uranium radium poor raffinates we'll be 

10 seeing something formally written up from NIOSH. 

11 For recycled uranium both NIOSH and SC&A have 

12 action items to pursue on that issue.

13 And with regard to thorium the two 

14 issues were the chosen DAC solubility and thoron 

15 parameter selection, which I believe we closed 

16 both of those out.

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Is there 

18 anything else we need to discuss?

19 WG Recommendations and/or Path Forward

20 MR. KATZ: Sure. Yes. Thanks, Brad. 

21 So there's very little left.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

23 MR. KATZ: Oh, go ahead. Paul first.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh. I was trying to 

2 remember for, do we have Fernald on the agenda 

3 for April? Or are we going to get a status 

4 report?

5 MR. KATZ: That's what I was about to 

6 address. So we do have Fernald on the agenda, 

7 but it doesn't need to stay there. And although 

8 there's very little left to wrap up the Site 

9 Profile review, it seems like we might as well 

10 button it up first, right. And there's no, it 

11 doesn't make much sense to give an update when 

12 there's so little left to finish, right.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: That's correct.

14 MR. KATZ: So I would suggest, Brad, 

15 and Paul, and Phil, that we just take that off 

16 the agenda for the April Board Meeting. We can 

17 have some, we can report out from site pro --

18 some procedure reviews, instead of Fernald. And 

19 then expect to have Fernald on the agenda for the 

20 August meeting, if that makes sense to all of 

21 you.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, that's fine with 

23 me.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. That makes sense 

2 to me, yes.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: So, Ted, this is --

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: It does to me.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: What you're saying 

6 then, Ted, is there won't be a presentation with 

7 PowerPoints and stuff like that. But when we go 

8 around the list of activities by the various Work 

9 Groups, Brad could say, well, we met --

10 MR. KATZ: Oh, yes. Of course.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, okay.

12 MR. KATZ: Absolutely. I mean, Brad 

13 can report out just in the very summary way that 

14 he does about where the Work Group is and that 

15 this will be coming up for everybody in August.

16 And then once we do wrap up these last 

17 couple items, we can produce, or SC&A can produce 

18 a cleaned-up final matrix for the Site Profile 

19 review that covers it comprehensively. And that 

20 could be presented, and that would be, then we'll 

21 be done with Fernald, for the Site Profile 

22 review.

23 MR. BARTON: This is Bob. One 
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1 question I had was, we've been kind of operating 

2 off sort of the old method of these paper 

3 matrices. And I know we really want to be 

4 migrating all these things to the BRS.

5 Is that something that should be 

6 SC&A's purview? Is that in NIOSH's court? Or do 

7 we want to hold off until everything's done and 

8 then we can --

9 MR. KATZ: Well, I think so, I think, 

10 Brad, I mean, given how far down the road we are 

11 now, I think what makes sense is just when you 

12 produce your final matrix that will be dropped 

13 into the BRS without -- there's no point at this 

14 point having back and forth, and not filling out 

15 the BRS really. But that can be dropped in the 

16 BRS just so that the BRS is complete. But I don't 

17 think there's anything to do with the BRS until 

18 we have that final matrix with everything 

19 complete. Does that make sense?

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

21 MR. BARTON: Oh, it certainly makes 

22 sense to me.

23 MR. KATZ: Yes. Okay, good. All right 
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1 then. Brad, anything else for the good of the 

2 order?

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: No. I don't see 

4 anything at this time. So what, are we kind of 

5 looking at a timeframe for that?

6 (Simultaneous speaking.)

7 MR. KATZ: Go ahead, Stu.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I was going to hem and 

9 haw. I guess I'll hem and haw first. But I think 

10 I'll say the same thing I always say on those 

11 questions, Brad, is that we have to fit it in to 

12 everything else the project is doing as well. 

13 And we'll have to consult with, the contractor 

14 will have to evaluate its resources and how 

15 they're being utilized. And so --

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I guess --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: It looks like 

18 something could easily resolve before August. 

19 But in terms of picking a date, I think I'm a 

20 little hard-pressed to pick a date.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I just want to 

22 make sure that we have time to be able to review 

23 this and get to it. I understand the resources 
71

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 are there. But it sure would be nice to be able 

2 to bring this one to closure.

3 So whatever we can do I would 

4 appreciate it. But I'd also like some time to be 

5 able to have SC&A review everything that comes 

6 in. Maybe it can even, if we need a technical 

7 call, or whatever like that. But I would like to 

8 wrap it up when we can.

9 MR. BARTON: Yes.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, absolutely. 

11 Absolutely.

12 MR. BARTON: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Well, when, Stu, when you 

14 have an estimate if you could just pop an email 

15 over. And --

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I will.

17 MR. KATZ: I'm assuming, Bob, your 

18 follow-up from this is not, won't take that long 

19 because you've done most of the work that you 

20 really need to do.

21 MR. BARTON: Yes, I would imagine it 

22 can be wrapped up fairly quickly. I don't think 

23 we'll looking as in depth at it as Stu's team 
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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 will be with the materials and whatnot. But, 

2 yes, I think --

3 MR. KATZ: Right.

4 MR. BARTON: -- be a little bit 

5 quicker over on our side.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, Brad, I think we 

8 both recognize that we want to get our, we each 

9 have a product to develop. We want to get it out 

10 to the Work Group and to, we want to get it to 

11 SC&A.

12 They want to get theirs to us well in 

13 advance so that we can digest what each other is 

14 saying and come knowledgeably to a Board Meeting. 

15 Well, you know, and get that out of the way well 

16 before the, or to a Work Group Meeting, get that 

17 out of the way before the August Board Meeting. 

18 We recognize all that.

19 Adjourn 

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. And I 

21 appreciate that. So with that being said, I think 

22 that unless there's anything else pressing that 

23 needs to come before the Board, I think we're 
73 

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 adjourned.

2 MR. KATZ: Thanks, all of you.

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

4 went off the record at 2:13 p.m.)

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