1 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

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

+ + + + +

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY WORK GROUP

(LANL)

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

AUGUST 15, 2017

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Josie 

Beach, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

JOSIE BEACH, Chair

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member
2 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

BOB BARTON, SC&A

TERRIE BARRIE

ANDREW EVASKOVICH, Petitioner

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

CHRISTOPHER MILES, ORAU

JIM NETON, DCAS

LaVON RUTHERFORD, DCAS

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU

DAN STEMPFLEY, ORAU

JOHN STIVER, SC&A 
3 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

Contents

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

NIOSH Petition Evaluation Addendum................ 7

(1995 - 2005)..................................... 7

SC&A Review of Addendum.......................... 38

Petitioner Comments.............................. 85

Action Items..................................... 85

Adjourn.......................................... 91
4 

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 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 (11:01 a.m.)

3 Welcome and Roll Call 

4 MR. KATZ: Welcome, everyone, to the 

5 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

6 This is the Los Alamos National Lab Work Group. 

7 And our teleconference today deals with the 

8 latter part of the SEC. And possibly, if we have 

9 time, we'll go over and see where we are on Site 

10 Profile issues, but we may not get to that. 

11 The agenda and materials that are 

12 going to be discussed today, including the couple 

13 of presentations, one by LaVon Rutherford, and 

14 one by Joe Fitzgerald, they're all posted on the 

15 NIOSH website. They're under program, the Board, 

16 scheduled meetings, today's date. So, anyone can 

17 go there and see the presentations.

18 You won't see them being presented, 

19 per se. You can just view them as the presenters 

20 do. And you can also see all the background 

21 reading documents that relate to what will be 

22 discussed today.

23 And I'd also ask everyone on the line, 
5 

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 please do not, except if you're speaking to the 

2 group, do not leave your phone open, but mute it. 

3 And to mute it you press *6. *6 will mute it if 

4 you don't have a mute button on your phone. And 

5 *6 again will take you off of mute.

6 And also, please don't put the call on 

7 hold at any point, because that will cause 

8 problems for everyone else. But just hang up and 

9 dial back in if you need to leave for a piece.

10 Okay. Now, let me just go on to roll 

11 call now. And talking about a site, if you'd 

12 speak to conflict of interest. The Board Members 

13 are all on. None of them have conflicts.

14 The Members that we have on are our 

15 Chair, Josie Beach, and Brad Clawson, Member, and 

16 Jim Lockey, Member. And Wanda Munn is on this 

17 Work Group, but she's not attending, she wasn't 

18 expecting to attend today. 

19 (Roll call.)

20 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, again, just to 

21 remind you all, please put your phones on mute. 

22 And at this point I'll turn this over to Chair 

23 Josie Beach. It's your meeting.
6 

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 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Ted. This is 

2 Josie. And just a point of clarification, Ted. 

3 You mentioned there were two slide presentations, 

4 and they were listed on the web. Did NIOSH, did 

5 you prepare a slide presentation?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. It should be 

7 posted on the web -- 

8 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

9 CHAIR BEACH: Because I'm looking at 

10 the web right now. And I checked it earlier, and 

11 it's not there, unless it could be --

12 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I checked. 

13 It's there.

14 MR. KATZ: I saw it there too, Josie.

15 DR. NETON: It's a PDF file. It's not 

16 a PowerPoint presentation.

17 CHAIR BEACH: How many pages is it?

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: Thirty-two, 33 

19 slides.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I got it. All 

21 right. Thank you. And then, and the other thing 

22 we had petitioner comments at the end. And I was 

23 curious, Andrew, did you have anything prepared? 
7 

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 Or were you planning on making any comments this 

2 morning? And if you're not, that's fine.

3 MR. EVASKOVICH: I don't have anything 

4 prepared. But, yes, I had planned to make some 

5 comments.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. That's great. I 

7 just wanted to make sure we get, save time for 

8 that. So, thank you.

9 MR. EVASKOVICH: Thank you.

10 NIOSH Petition Evaluation Addendum 

11 (1995 - 2005) 

12 CHAIR BEACH: We'll go ahead and start 

13 with the NIOSH SEC presentation, take questions, 

14 and then move into, I know Joe's got a review of 

15 the Addendum, and then additional slide 

16 presentation. So, I guess LaVon, if you're ready 

17 I'll turn it over.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. This is LaVon 

19 Rutherford. Let me know if you can't hear me. I 

20 do have the presentation on a computer in front 

21 of me. And sometimes the phone gets a little 

22 interference. So, I just want to make sure 

23 everybody can hear me fine.
8 

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 MR. KATZ: Yes. Your sound, you're 

2 clear as a bell.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Great here.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. This is LaVon 

5 Rutherford. I'm going to talk about the NIOSH 

6 SEC 109 Addendum. I am the Special Exposure 

7 Cohort Health Physics Team Leader for NIOSH.

8 Slide 2, some background information. 

9 SEC-0109 LANL petition was received in April of 

10 2008, and qualified in May of that year. The 

11 Class evaluated was all service support workers 

12 from January 1, 1976 through December 31st, 2005.

13 The Evaluation Report was approved, 

14 Rev. 0 on January 2009. We issued Rev. 1 in 

15 August of 2012. And the Addendum, which 

16 addresses the remaining years, in April of this 

17 year. Next slide. 

18 Previous Board actions. The Board 

19 took actions on adding a Class at LANL. They 

20 added a Class from 1976 all the way through 1995 

21 for all employees. This was actually the second 

22 action taken. Currently there is an SEC Class 

23 all the way through the start of operations at 
9 

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 LANL, to the end of 1995. Next slide.

2 All right. Identified infeasibility 

3 included the inability to bound unmonitored 

4 intakes of exotic alpha emitters, fission 

5 products, activation products, tritiums, 

6 especially -- specifically special tritium 

7 compounds, Sr/Y-90, Th-230, and Th-232.

8 During that we committed to continue 

9 to evaluate these issues for the post-1995 

10 period. But we had indicated that if the site 

11 was in compliance with 10 CFR 835, the issues 

12 would effectively be resolved. So, we set the 

13 end date of December 31st, 1995 for the Class. 

14 Next slide.

15 10 CFR 835 requires internal dosimetry 

16 programs for radiological workers. Under typical 

17 conditions who were likely to receive a 0.1 rem 

18 or 100 millirem CEDE from all occupational 

19 radionuclide intakes in a year.

20 Given this requirement, in the absence 

21 of individual internal dosimetry data, and 

22 assuming compliance, intake would be unlikely to 

23 have resulted in a greater than 0.1 rem CEDE, and 
10 

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 the infeasibility to reconstruct dose would not 

2 exist.

3 So basically, if the individuals were 

4 not monitored they would have received more than 

5 100 millirem. And if they were monitored, we had 

6 monitoring data. And so, there is no 

7 infeasibility. Next slide.

8 Since the issuance of Rev. 1 of the 

9 SEC Evaluation Report, we sought and received 

10 additional information, documents, and 

11 procedures relating to post-1995 use of exotic 

12 radionuclides.

13 And what we found was a sporadic use 

14 after 1995, meaning ultimately there's fewer 

15 bioassay data points, or few bioassay data 

16 points. Next slide.

17 One of the key trips we took out in 

18 doing our investigation and reviews was a 

19 November 2015 trip with DCAS, SC&A and ORAUT. WE 

20 met with the LANL Physics Team, including 

21 Managers, Dosimetrists, and field personnel, to 

22 better understand how they complied with 10 CFR 

23 835, or how they had achieved compliance with 10 
11 

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 CFR 835.

2 We looked at documents, a number of 

3 different types of documents that were captured, 

4 RWPs, respirator use, air sampling, radiation 

5 surveys, HP checklists, routine monitoring 

6 instructions, and external exposure data. Next 

7 slide.

8 LANL also provided us their policy and 

9 procedure documents, background information on 

10 835 implementation, organization charts, non11 routine radionuclides handled by waste 

12 management, and a summary of their dosimetry 

13 monitoring program.

14 LANL also provided information and 

15 documents specific to special tritium compounds. 

16 Next slide.

17 So, the big question is, how do we 

18 assess sites during the 10 CFR 835 era? If you 

19 think about it, if sites assess an operation and 

20 determine that workers are unlikely to receive 

21 100 millirem per year CEDE, dosimetry would not 

22 be required.

23 Therefore, in many cases, especially 
12

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 with the exotics and some of the smaller 

2 projects, we have reduced personal monitoring 

3 data. And this is not just for LANL. This would 

4 be for all sites. Next slide.

5 So, NIOSH management had figured 

6 during the 10 CFR 835 era, if a site has a 

7 Radiation Protection Program approved by DOE, 

8 NIOSH will assume compliance unless documentation 

9 supports otherwise.

10 NIOSH will focus their evaluations 

11 during this period on internal and external 

12 assessments and incident reports associated with 

13 10 CFR 835. Next slide.

14 So, when we were reviewing our 

15 findings, I actually had this same slide in the 

16 previous LANL presentation. What we were looking 

17 for is, from an SEC perspective do the findings 

18 identify unmonitored exposures that may prevent 

19 reconstructing exposures to a defined class of 

20 workers?

21 And then, from a DR perspective, do 

22 the findings identify a programmatic flaw that 

23 would suggest that the unmonitored workers could 
13 

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 have received exposures in excess of 100 millirem 

2 per year? Next slide.

3 Therefore, our evaluation for this 

4 Addendum looked at assessments, focusing on 

5 findings, responses, and corrective actions. And 

6 when I say corrective actions, I think one of 

7 these things that -- and I'll get into it a little 

8 later, is the corrective actions.

9 Did they take corrective actions? If, 

10 first, those that were not monitored, did they 

11 take corrective actions to ensure that they were 

12 monitored? And I'm speaking of individuals that 

13 should have been monitored.

14 And with the Nonconformance Tracking 

15 System for 10 CFR 835 violations, site response 

16 again, and corrective action, as well as the same 

17 thing, that is an Occurrence Reporting System. 

18 Next slide.

19 So, we identified May 1995 LANL 

20 internal assessment of the Radiation Protection 

21 Program. There was one finding associated with 

22 administrative controls for sealed sources. And 

23 there were five observations.
14 

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 One, of those five observations, one 

2 associated with internal dosimetry. Observation

3 4 stated that the Radiation Protection Program 

4 office has not coordinated with support 

5 organizations to implement site-specific 

6 document control and records management programs.

7 Problems were identified with 

8 document control and distribution of updated 

9 procedures. We reviewed this information. And 

10 we determined that this would not affect our 

11 ability, would not cause an infeasibility in dose 

12 reconstruction. Nor would it affect our 100 

13 millirem CEDE for a worker being monitored. Next 

14 slide.

15 We went to the DOE NSSA conducted --

16 DOE NNSA conducted an independent review of the 

17 internal dosimetry program at LANL in July of 

18 2004.

19 The stated performance requirements 

20 for the assessment included evaluation of 

21 compliance with 835.702(a), which is associated 

22 with record keeping of monitoring data.

23 No findings or observations were 
15

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 associated with 835.702(a), but there were three 

2 non-compliances noted in the assessment. None of 

3 the findings in the assessment would likely 

4 affect our ability to perform individual dose 

5 reconstructions. Next slide.

6 We also reviewed the NTS with the 

7 Nonconformance Tracking System for LANL, for 10 

8 CFR 835 violations, site responses, and 

9 corrective actions.

10 We identified 384 reports. Ninety11 one were considered potentially relevant. And of 

12 those 91 two were considered pertinent to 

13 compliance with 10 CFR 835.702(a). And those 

14 were records NC ID:652 and 1377.

15 Records, non-laboratory exposure data 

16 was not included in all employee records for 

17 current year or lifetime dose. In some cases, 

18 when an employee's previous employer provided 

19 does information it was not included in the 

20 employee's current year or lifetime dose. 1377 

21 was basically the same thing. Next slide.

22 The findings for the two NTS reports 

23 would not likely affect our ability to perform 
16

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 individual dose reconstructions. When we request 

2 individuals, individuals that have covered 

3 employment at various sites, we request the 

4 monitoring data on those individuals from each 

5 site.

6 So, this situation would not have 

7 prevented a problem, should not present a problem 

8 for us from the dose reconstruction perspective.

9 SC&A also identified an NTS report 

10 that we overlooked, you know. And I quite 

11 honestly can't give you a good reason at all how 

12 we missed it. Because this is probably the worst 

13 one of them all.

14 The report NC ID:484 -- and we also 

15 did additional review after 484 was identified by 

16 SC&A. And we identified another one, 1219, were 

17 reviewed using the same criteria identified 

18 previously. Okay. Do we have an infeasibility? 

19 And do we potentially have a situation where 

20 unmonitored workers exceeded 100 millirem? Next 

21 slide.

22 NC ID:484, as identified by SC&A, 

23 identified a number of deficiencies, which could 
17

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 affect LANL's ability to ensure personnel with 

2 the potential of receiving a dose great than 100 

3 millirem per year CEDE were monitored 

4 appropriately.

5 The site implemented a number of 

6 corrective actions to the programs to ensure this 

7 would not happen in the future. And those 

8 corrective actions were completed by October of 

9 2000.

10 However, our question was, what about 

11 the individuals that should have been monitored? 

12 What actions did they take during that time 

13 period?

14 So, we have reached out to Los Alamos 

15 for additional information, requested additional 

16 information from LANL as to what the site 

17 concluded concerning the potential exposures to 

18 personnel who were not monitored. We have not 

19 received that information as of yet. Next slide.

20 NC ID: 1219 identified a deficiency 

21 where some workers in TA-55 were not on the 

22 appropriate bioassay programs. Some people were, 

23 some personnel were in a less restrictive 
18

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 bioassay.

2 And so, we had 23 of those 

3 individuals. This was caused by a computer 

4 software error, believe it or not, a problem with 

5 the identification of the individuals. Next 

6 slide.

7 The corrective actions included, 

8 computer problems were corrected and tested, 

9 workers were placed on the appropriate bioassay 

10 program, and line managers were reminded of the 

11 requirements to review dosimetry assignments for 

12 their personnel.

13 NIOSH concluded, although the non14 compliance occurred, the corrective actions 

15 insured no personnel with the potential to 

16 receive the 100 millirem were not monitored, CEDE 

17 were not monitored.

18 And that's been not monitored. Should 

19 have been a correction to the slide there. And 

20 I'll make sure prior to the Board meeting that I 

21 do correct that. Next slide.

22 Occurrence Reporting System. We 

23 reviewed the Occurrence, DOE Occurrence Reporting 
19

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 System for LANL 835 violations, in addition to 

2 the Nonconformance Tracking System.

3 We identified a total, on our initial 

4 review, of 159 reports. Of these 159 reports 64 

5 were deemed potentially relevant. We reviewed 

6 the 64 in detail and found no findings pertinent 

7 to 10 CFR 835. Next slide.

8 After our initial review and put out 

9 the Addendum, we were doing additional searches 

10 for Sandia and other sites, and recognized that 

11 the search parameters of just putting in the site 

12 name would not, it was not all inclusive.

13 And we found that you could actually 

14 put in specific areas, such as TA-55, you could 

15 put in the contractor's name, and actually get 

16 different numbers of reports. So, after each one 

17 in the Addendum we had continued our search in 

18 return for reporting systems.

19 The one thing though that we have 

20 found, that it, from everything that we've 

21 reviewed today, we have not found a 10 CFR 835 

22 violation without the NTS report. Next slide.

23 Dose Reconstruction. So, based on 
20

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 NIOSH's review of LANL's approved Radiation 

2 Program, internal and external assessments that 

3 followed, NTS report findings, and Occurrence 

4 Reporting reports, they concluded intakes for 

5 unmonitored workers with access to controlled 

6 areas were unlikely to have resulted in CEDE of 

7 100 millirem per year.

8 I do want to caveat that. That we do 

9 need to find out the conclusion to that 

10 nonconformance report 484. Find out where that 

11 turns out. Next slide.

12 Methodologies. Bound intakes is, 

13 will, bounding intake quantities corresponding to 

14 100 millirem CEDE may be defined as two percent 

15 of the Stochastic Annual Limit on Intake. So, 

16 you'll hear me say SALI. And that's the 

17 Stochastic Annual Limit on Intake.

18 And unmonitored worker can be assumed 

19 exposed to two percent of SALI per year from 

20 potential radionuclides. So, for purposes of 

21 dose reconstruction the radionuclide and lung 

22 clearance class selected for each year's intake 

23 would the one resulting in the highest dose to 
21

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 the organ of interest. Next slide.

2 Again, that specific two percent SALI 

3 nuclide mixture resulting in the highest dose to 

4 the organ of interest at the time of cancer 

5 diagnosis would be selected.

6 So, as an example we took a White Non7 Hispanic male born in 1965. He started 

8 employment at LANL in January 1, 1996, ended his 

9 employment 12/31/2016, and was diagnosed with 

10 cancer on 12/31/2016.

11 You can see on the next slide some of 

12 the doses, the organs of concern, for example, 

13 bone surface. You'll see a separation in years. 

14 That was due to a change in the, SALI, I believe.

15 And Jim can correct me if I'm wrong, 

16 between 2000, that was required by 10 CFR 835 in 

17 1996 from 2009 and 2010 to 2016. The bone 

18 surface, uranium-234, you can see these are not 

19 insignificant doses that we are applying to the 

20 organ.

21 When you take and convert that, you 

22 see 100 millirem to an intake. And you apply 

23 that intake to an organ, specific organ of 
22

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 concern. You can see that we end up with 22 

2 percent POC.

3 And you can go on down, lung. Lung 

4 actually has changes in the 2010 to 2016 period, 

5 determined, depending on whether it was a never 

6 smoked, former smoker, or the greater than 40 

7 cigarettes per day kind of thing.

8 You can see those doses on that one. 

9 So, that's our example DR I wanted to provide. 

10 And I wanted to show you that these are not, you 

11 know, people here, you know 100 millirem in their 

12 thinking. Okay, wow, that's not much. The action 

13 facing the organ is a little different Next 

14 slide.

15 Special Tritium Compounds. Potential 

16 dosimetric issues associated with STCs including 

17 stable metal tritides and organically bound 

18 tritium were not formally recognized or addressed 

19 by LANL or DOE until the late 1990s.

20 In 1998 LANL issued a Dose Assessment 

21 - Tritium Internal Dosimetry and Bioassay 

22 Programs, which specifically addressed bioassay 

23 for Special Tritium Compounds. The potential for 
23

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 significant exposure to STCs was small. And dose 

2 assessments were rarely deemed necessary. Next 

3 slide.

4 Now, bioassay data specific to STCs 

5 are rare for the entire period of the evaluation. 

6 However, if we had a situation where we needed to 

7 determine if a worker, or we needed to 

8 reconstruct the worker who was unmonitored, we 

9 could try the same method.

10 We can bound unmonitored intakes of 

11 STCs in the same manner as intakes of rare 

12 nuclides for which internal dosimetry data is 

13 lacking by assuming the intakes of an unmonitored 

14 worker did not exceed two percent of the SALI.

15 And that's equivalent to two percent 

16 of the SALI for tritiated water vapor. And we 

17 would use dose reconstruction for intakes of 

18 Special Tritium Compounds using the methodologies 

19 in ORAUT-OTIB-0066. Next slide.

20 Some indication of concerns. I think 

21 this is one of the biggest ones. Preliminary 

22 Notice of Violation was issued on February 16th, 

23 2007 to LANL.
24

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 The PNOV included radiological 

2 protection violations for monitoring. The PNOV 

3 noted that the Office of Independent Oversight 

4 2005 inspection found that LANL failed to 

5 adequately establish personnel and area 

6 monitoring for TA-55 hazards of neptunium and 

7 radionuclides other than uranium, plutonium, 

8 americium, and tritium. Next slide.

9 NIOSH reviewed LANL's responses and 

10 corrective actions. We also looked at the NTS 

11 reports related to LANL on that. We also looked 

12 back to LANL, this was actually during some of 

13 our discussions in November and follow on, in 

14 November of 2015.

15 And we asked LANL for information on 

16 the potential neptunium exposure. LANL indicated 

17 the 100 gram quantities fell below their 

18 monitoring threshold, as documented in their 

19 Internal Dosimetry Technical Basis Document.

20 Subsequently, we did not require, 

21 their threshold was a higher level, based on 

22 their studies, and would not, not exceeding their 

23 threshold did not exceed the 100 millirem CEDE. 
25 

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 Next slide.

2 So, after reviewing all available 

3 information NIOSH finds that the unmonitored 

4 workers involved in these operations were 

5 unlikely to have received intakes that would have 

6 resulted in 100 millirem CEDE.

7 Therefore, the methodology described 

8 earlier for bounding intakes for the unmonitored 

9 workers is appropriate for workers involved with 

10 the neptunium operations identified in this PNOV. 

11 Next slide.

12 So, for the period of January 1, 1996 

13 through December 31st, 2005 we find that it, 

14 NIOSH has, finds that it has access to sufficient 

15 information to estimate the maximum radiation 

16 dose for every type of cancer for which radiation 

17 doses are reconstructed, and could have been 

18 incurred in plausible circumstances by any member 

19 of the Class, or estimate radiation doses for 

20 members of the Class more precisely than an 

21 estimate of maximum dose. Next slide.

22 And this is a slide that we provide 

23 that shows the summary. Dose reconstruction is 
26 

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 feasible, all internal and external from January 

2 1, 1996 to December 31st, 2005. And finally, the 

3 last slide, questions. Okay.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So first, Board 

5 Members, do you have any questions for LaVon? 

6 Hearing none --

7 MR. KATZ: Just --

8 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, go ahead.

9 MR. KATZ: I'm curious. Someone might 

10 be on mute.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I was just going 

12 to ask that before --

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon. Can 

14 you hear me?

15 MR. KATZ: Yes. Yes. There you go.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. Can you, 

17 just for, a couple of clarifications. When you 

18 go back to Slide 13.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: One of the dates where 

21 the petition seems to be failing, did you see 

22 that? I heard one 2002.

23 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. The first one 
27

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 on 13, it was a May 1995 LANL internal assessment 

2 that was done. That was, I'm hoping I got this, 

3 the right slide. And then the second one was 

4 that DOE NNSA was an independent review in 2004.

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: Is that when the 

6 deficiency is identified, or was it before that?

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. It was 

8 identified during that, those different 

9 assessments.

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay. So, it was 

11 identified in '95 and 2004?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right.

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: And one other 

14 question. For those people that weren't 

15 monitored, what was the range of exposure?

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, I don't --

17 Yes. I don't recall offhand. Chris Miles, Chris 

18 Miles with ORAU. He's done a lot of the technical 

19 work. He may have looked at that in the, I think 

20 you're talking about the situation where, I'm 

21 assuming you're talking about the situation where 

22 23 of the 93 workers, that was actually in an NTS 

23 report, NC ID, oh shoot, let me find it, 1219.
28

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 There were 23 of the 93, were not on 

2 the appropriate bioassay. I'm assuming that's 

3 what you're talking about. All the other 

4 situations -- but first of all, I'll point out 

5 that the internal and the external assessments 

6 that we have reviewed, there has been no 

7 indication provided to us that individuals did 

8 not, exceeded the 100 millirem CEDE.

9 Now, that is without talking about the 

10 NC ID: 484, that SC&A brought up, and we 

11 overlooked. That one I still have, we still have 

12 a little more homework to do on that.

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: So, for those people 

14 monitored, none exceeded the 100 millirems --

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I do not, 

16 again, I don't recall the actual values that were 

17 given. I don't know, again, if, and Chris, or 

18 Jim, or anybody else has anything.

19 MR. MILES: Yes. This is Chris here. 

20 I don't think that report discussed the doses for 

21 anybody. It was just an assessment of whether 

22 they were likely to receive 100 millirem or more 

23 I think.
29

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 They were just assessing the 

2 appropriateness of the programs that they were 

3 on. And they found that 23 of the people, I think 

4 they looked at 99 people.

5 There were 23 of them that were on 

6 less conservative programs than they should have 

7 been. So, I don't think that report talks about 

8 any specific intakes to anybody.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I didn't recall 

10 reading any either. So --

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: And LaVon, you don't 

12 have the intake data, or what?

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: We have, I mean, we 

14 have the intake data. We have bioassay data, a 

15 spreadsheet from LANL. But we don't have the 

16 specific data for these 93 individuals. We'd 

17 have to go back and actually do some additional 

18 research on that to see if we could identify those 

19 93, and see what those values were.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Oh, okay.

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Attempt to find some 

22 additional information.

23 CHAIR BEACH: So, LaVon, this is 
30

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 Josie. You said you have a spreadsheet on some 

2 bioassay data for LANL? Is that correct?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

4 CHAIR BEACH: And what years does that 

5 cover?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Oh, gee. Chris, I 

7 can't remember the start year. Do you remember 

8 the starting year?

9 MR. MILES: I think that spreadsheet 

10 has all the data that we have, I believe.

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

12 MR. MILES: For all years, I believe.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Correct.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I noticed in the 

15 Evaluation Report, when you're mentioning how 

16 many dose reconstructions you've done, how many 

17 internal and external, it looks like half you 

18 didn't find any internal dosimetry for them.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Well, if you 

20 look at that, 51 percent of the personnel, these 

21 are all claimants. This isn't just workers that 

22 are inside radiological areas. These are all 

23 claimants.
31

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 And you've got 51 percent. That's a 

2 high number. That's not a low number, you know, 

3 that's a pretty good number, 51 percent of those 

4 people have internal monitoring data.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And I didn't 

6 notice, it's not very specific in the DR, what 

7 data you do have, what, for this time period, the 

8 '96 to '95, the monitoring data.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: You mean the '96 to 

10 2005 monitoring data.

11 CHAIR BEACH: I'm sorry, 2005. Yes, 

12 exactly.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Well, we have 

14 a lot of internal bioassay data, both for 

15 plutonium and americium. We have a lot of data, 

16 actually we have a considerable amount of data 

17 for fission, which isn't in activation products.

18 Most of the activation products were 

19 for only accelerator use. And all this data that 

20 we have, you know, there's quite a bit of data 

21 through that period.

22 We also, when we were in there in 

23 March, we received 2015, and actually during 
32

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 other data captures, we looked at air sampling, 

2 we received air sampling data. We've looked at, 

3 we got contamination survey. We looked at their 

4 HP checklist. We reviewed their routine survey 

5 program.

6 Their field monitoring program, you 

7 know, is really quite extensive. It's, during 

8 that, today, I mean, and from what other records 

9 I've seen. They have a daily, weekly, monthly, 

10 annual frequency on different types of surveys.

11 They have a lot of fixed air sampling. 

12 They have, you know, they do a number, you know, 

13 they also do isotopic analysis on actually a 

14 percentage of their air samples that come out of 

15 specific areas.

16 DR. NETON: LaVon, this is Jim. We 

17 also, we have a unique situation in the sense 

18 that we do have some coworker models that we've 

19 already developed for Los Alamos.

20 And we developed coworker models, say 

21 for plutonium, through 2008. And actually, I 

22 think what you would find is that the exposures 

23 are less than what we're probably proposing for 
33

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 the 100 millirem CEDE exposures, the 50th 

2 percentile, at least.

3 So, in general, the exposures were 

4 pretty low. I'm looking at the median excretion 

5 for type S plutonium between '94 and 2008. It's 

6 .71 picocuries per day. Very low exposures.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Any other 

8 questions.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Josie, this is Brad. 

10 I just, I wanted to go back to this 51 percent 

11 that you were talking about, LaVon.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: You're telling me 

14 that 51 percent of the people had bioassay?

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. So 49 do not?

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct. But 

18 again, remember that also includes your 

19 administrative staff. And in any situation where 

20 an individual was not likely to receive 100 

21 millirem per year CEDE, the sites were not 

22 required to monitor for them. And --

23 MEMBER CLAWSON: But --
34

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 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: I understand that. 

3 I've lived through that one. And I've watched it 

4 bounce around. That's why I found this 

5 interesting. But, then going back to what Dr. 

6 Lockey was talking about, these 91 people. Now, 

7 this was an audit that they came in.

8 And they come to find out that a 

9 certain percentage of the people were not on the 

10 correct bioassay program, or being monitored for 

11 the right isotopes. Is that correct?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, wait a minute. 

13 This, the 93 that we're talking about was a 

14 nonconformance that was identified by LANL itself 

15 I believe. That was not identified externally. 

16 This was a specific -- of the, you know, large 

17 number of NTS reports that we had. So, this was 

18 one example that was identified by them.

19 And it was, there were 23 individuals 

20 that were not monitored at the appropriate level 

21 that they should have been monitored. And they 

22 took corrective actions to fix that.

23 The other reports, 484 was the one 
35 

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 that SC&A identified. And it was nonconformance 

2 compliance, the 484. That was one done 

3 externally by a number of groups. And I can't 

4 remember who all was involved in that.

5 And it did identify individuals that, 

6 or situations with, that they felt the personnel 

7 could have received more than 100 millirem CEDE. 

8 And that's the one that we have asked the site 

9 for additional information on.

10 It's also the one that we do have 

11 information the site took corrective actions to 

12 fix that situation from that point it was 

13 identified. They took the corrective actions 

14 and, so it wouldn't happen in the future.

15 What we looked for, what we were 

16 asking for is, okay, what did you do about the 

17 individuals that potentially could have been 

18 exposed? Did you monitor them. What was done? 

19 Those types of things. So we could ensure that 

20 the proper, the appropriate monitoring had 

21 occurred.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I, that's the 

23 part that I didn't see, that they had a corrective 
36 

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 action. I'm sorry.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just, because 

4 usually when you have a report like that there's 

5 corrective actions and what they did to be able 

6 to get in there. So, okay.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I appreciate 

9 it. Thank you.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And, Brad, this is 

11 Josie. I think you'll hear more about that from 

12 Joe. Because he's got that in his write up as 

13 well.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Yes. I was 

16 just trying to get a better handle on that. 

17 Because, yes, usually when they have something 

18 like that there's a lot of different outcomes. 

19 So, thank you.

20 CHAIR BEACH: And any other Board 

21 Members, questions? Joe --

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: LaVon --

23 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, go ahead.
37

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 MEMBER LOCKEY: LaVon, Jim Lockey. 

2 One more question. When you did the basic 

3 construction on the hypothetical person, under 

4 there it sort of, it's striking to me that 100 

5 millirem is a POC is 31 percent for lung cancer. 

6 I mean, it might be an awfully small dose but it 

7 has a high impact.

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right.

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: Am I reading that 

10 correctly?

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: You are reading it

12 correctly. Jim, you can jump in and --

13 DR. NETON: Well, yes. This is Jim. 

14 You have to remember that 100 millirem is what's 

15 called a Committed Effective Dose Equivalent. 

16 And so, that number represents the weighted 

17 summation of the doses to all the organs, based 

18 on some weighting factors.

19 And so, the doses themselves to 

20 individual organs are much higher than 100 

21 millirem in many cases. For example, the 

22 weighting for the lung is .12. So, it's going to 

23 be ten times whatever the rem dose, you know. 
38

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 So, it's a slightly complicated terminology.

2 But these effective doses, you know, 

3 it's a 50 year committed dose from receiving 100 

4 millirem in that one year. And we do that for 

5 every year.

6 In the case of the example I think it 

7 was a 20 year work history. In each case the 

8 person received a 100 millirem CEDE for each of 

9 every 20 years that they worked.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Joe, for SC&A are there 

11 any questions? Do you have NIOSH's presentation, 

12 before you jump into yours?

13 MR. FITZGERALD: No. I think we 

14 encountered some of the same issues. And I think 

15 I can raise considerations as part of that.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Is there any 

17 other questions before I turn it over to SC&A? 

18 LaVon, thank you. And, Joe, you're up.

19 SC&A Review of Addendum

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Good morning. I'm 

21 not going to repeat some of the background 

22 information that LaVon presented pretty well. 

23 So, in terms of the petition history and the 
39

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 Addendum, that's all been pretty well covered.

2 I'm going to jump to, and I'm using my 

3 slides. I think everybody should have a copy of 

4 those. They're not very lengthy. But I think 

5 they highlight the review that we did.

6 And this Addendum certainly is an 

7 interesting one. It's different than a lot of 

8 the more technical reviews that we've done. But 

9 it does have a lot of precedent for all the sites 

10 that would be covered under EEOICPA.

11 Clearly, I think as LaVon points out, 

12 this presumption of compliance based on 835 would 

13 apply across all of these sites that would be 

14 under SEC considerations. So, certainly the 

15 precedent is set, and the implications of doing 

16 so are pretty important. So, it goes well beyond 

17 Los Alamos.

18 And as such, you know, I think I made 

19 this point in the, in my review, that effectively 

20 it's a fundamental policy question that's founded 

21 on a number of considerations, some of which are 

22 dosimetric.

23 But as such, we wanted to, as is 
40

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 SC&A's role, stick to providing, you know, the 

2 considerations that might be important for the 

3 Work Group and the Board to weigh, in terms of 

4 this discussion, because of the implications of 

5 making this decision.

6 So, in terms of lines of inquiry, the 

7 first thing we wanted to do is look at the 

8 presumption of compliance, the question of 

9 assuming the various and sundry dosimetric 

10 issues.

11 The monitoring, record keeping issues 

12 would be resolved by January 1st of '96, by virtue 

13 of 835 being enacted. We want to provide some 

14 perspective on that as, certainly as a starting 

15 point.

16 And beyond that, if one were to decide 

17 that particular date, that milestone is in fact 

18 the watershed that is being, certainly is being 

19 discussed, then how would you actually determine 

20 whether or not that was reasonably being 

21 implemented or not?

22 So, those lines of inquiry, you know, 

23 the basis for choosing January 1st of '96, and 
41 

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 assuming compliance resolved all these issues, 

2 and then going further. And if that is the case, 

3 how would you actually, what metrics would you 

4 provide to make that determination?

5 And of course, NIOSH did so in terms 

6 of looking at oversight findings that we just 

7 discussed. And whether or not that was that 

8 adequate.

9 So, based off of the first one, in 

10 terms of the presumption of compliance. And, you 

11 know, and my issue, it sounds philosophical, but 

12 actually it has its roots in sort of how DOE 

13 enacted 835, and how these radiation protection 

14 practices were in fact carried out, implemented, 

15 and enforced during the '90s.

16 This is certainly, as was pointed out 

17 in the ER, was a time of a lot of upgrades, a lot 

18 of, you know, policy changes.

19 And certainly the question is, you 

20 know, is there a point where one could in fact 

21 assume or presume that, you know, your 

22 fundamental monitoring and recordkeeping 

23 practices were such that you could obviate the 
42 

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 need to actually evaluate some of these dose 

2 reconstruction issues that we've been weighing, 

3 certainly in the years prior to '95?

4 And my concern, and I think it's 

5 expressed in here, is that I think program 

6 compliance, which is what 835 in terms of 

7 implementation starting in '96 required, and the 

8 process that led to that, is not the same as 

9 actually implementing these requirements in 

10 practice.

11 And that distinction, I think we went 

12 through some pains to at least illuminate that a 

13 little bit. Certainly, the program, the RPP, 

14 Radiation Protection Program, was required to 

15 have the key elements, including dosimetry, 

16 internal dosimetry, external dosimetry, in place, 

17 and procedures that would implement that in the 

18 workplace, and what have you.

19 And that was certainly validated in 

20 '95 into '96; that in fact those programs were in 

21 place. But clearly you had situations where the 

22 interpretation, as far as whether the procedures 

23 did so, and whether or not the actual practices 
43

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 were being implemented.

2 In other words, we talk about a 

3 provision in 835 that requires that you have, 

4 say, radiation work permitting systems, and 

5 bioassays, adjusted bioassays, participation, 

6 enrollment, all those criteria. You might in 

7 fact have procedures that called for that. But, 

8 as we have outlined, at least -- we'll probably 

9 get into this tomorrow with Savannah River -- but 

10 the actual implementation, whether or not the 

11 management and the contractor holds workers 

12 accountable, whether in fact you get

13 participation, whether you in fact enroll workers 

14 in these programs, and whether the monitoring 

15 actually takes place, is something that is not 

16 validated, essentially, on January 1st of '96.

17 You validate the program, you validate 

18 the fact there's procedures. But in terms of 

19 actually verifying whether or not these 

20 enrollments and participations are taking place, 

21 that doesn't happen necessarily.

22 The process wasn't designed to, in 

23 fact, go to that level of detail in terms of 
44 

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 implementation. The contractor certainly had to 

2 validate that they had come into compliance. 

3 But, again, compliance is not equivalent to 

4 implementation. Implementation requires the 

5 necessary sampling and verification at the ground 

6 level. And there wasn't time.

7 I mean, this was something that was 

8 moving pretty fast. They had to put teams 

9 together, and they had to validate and meet the 

10 deadline. So the level of validation we're 

11 talking about did not happen, certainly, 

12 necessarily, by that date.

13 So, anyway, I think our major point is 

14 that a lot of the work that certainly NIOSH has 

15 done, and that we have done looking at the 

16 adequacy and completeness of records, of the data 

17 itself, if something that doesn't necessarily 

18 happen by way of this process. This is a 

19 compliance and enforcement process. What we're 

20 talking about is the accuracy at the ground level 

21 of whether or not the participation in bioassay 

22 programs, whether the completeness of the 

23 recordkeeping, and whether or not the monitoring 
45 

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 had actually taken place.

2 And that's something you really don't 

3 find from a top-down level. That's something you 

4 actually have to do from the bottom up. 

5 And that's one, still staying on the 

6 same slide, that's one shortcoming of on relying 

7 on things like ORPS and oversight findings and 

8 notices of violation to pick up. Because, almost 

9 by definition, they're not designed to verify 

10 whether or not the procedures that you have in 

11 place, and whether or not the actual management 

12 is supporting a particular practice.

13 That comes from, I think, the level of 

14 self-assessment that is evident, frankly, in what 

15 Los Alamos did in 1999, which I'll get to in a 

16 minute. But that's something you really 

17 essentially have to go down and actually sample 

18 and survey. And that's something that a typical 

19 regulatory oversight program doesn't do.

20 And I guess the other thing I would 

21 cite is that, you know, certainly '96 is a 

22 milestone. But so was '89, '92, I would say '98, 

23 and 2002. I mean, the program at the DOE sites, 
46 

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 in terms of radiation protection, was very much 

2 a evolutionary program. It wasn't any single 

3 time that these programs, in particular the 

4 dosimetry programs, rose to a level, uniform 

5 level of functionality. It was something that 

6 took time.

7 I mean, the policies and the 

8 regulations ratcheted up expectations, ratcheted 

9 up accountability. But a lot of these programs 

10 were very much embedded in the ways the 

11 contractor practiced them. They weren't turned 

12 around overnight by a piece of paper. It took a

13 great deal of time and effort, as well as the 

14 different upgrades in the policy and programs, to 

15 bring the departmental programs up to a level of 

16 uniform implementation.

17 And as I said in the evaluation, one 

18 could argue that, you know -- and different sites

19 had different levels of progress -- but in terms 

20 of uniform level of performance or functionality 

21 in dosimetry, that really did not happen until 

22 you coupled the dosimetry standard with the 

23 DOELAP Accreditation Program and actually had 
47 

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 some very firm deadlines.

2 I know for internal dosimetry it was 

3 January 1st of 2002 where the sites had to have, 

4 not only on paper, a program that satisfied the 

5 requirements of 835, but they had to withstand 

6 the evaluation of independent outside reviewers 

7 that the actual practices, the functionality of 

8 the program, satisfied that internal dosimetry 

9 standards.

10 So, you know, to me, when we talk 

11 about a presumption of compliance, or a 

12 presumption of anything, you're talking about an 

13 understanding that in general your programs are 

14 going to satisfy the expectations of the 

15 requirements and of the programs, with rare 

16 exceptions, I guess you might say.

17 And I don't think that happened on 

18 January 1st of 1995. I think you are talking 

19 about a progression that perhaps somewhere in the 

20 late '90s up to the accreditation milestone of 

21 2002 across the DOE that you had programs that 

22 certainly could be certified as being fully 

23 functional against those requirements.
48

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 Anyway, beyond this question of 

2 presumption, I just basically wanted to walk this 

3 thing down. I think, again, NIOSH did a pretty 

4 thorough job of walking down the implementation 

5 or compliance against the various reviews that 

6 you could apply against it.

7 There's nothing particularly magical. 

8 I think I identified three areas of interest. 

9 The first of whether or not there was a thorough 

10 and valid review process. The second is whether 

11 or not there was any evidence of nonconformances.

12 And the third one was basically, quite apart from 

13 nonconformances, was there any clear inadequacies 

14 from a technical or program standpoint that would 

15 stand as exceptions to this?

16 And on the first issue, as I indicated 

17 in the review -- and this goes into a lot more 

18 detail there -- the process that followed by Los 

19 Alamos is very much similar to the process 

20 followed by all the DOE sites. You know, they 

21 had to validate by about mid-1995 to their 

22 headquarters program offices and field offices 

23 that the RPP, the Radiation Protection Program, 
49

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 satisfied the basic elements of 835, and 

2 withstand some validation that the procedures at 

3 the ground level were likewise in conformance.

4 But I wanted to point out that it's 

5 not quite the holy grail in terms of the 

6 validation that we would like to think happened 

7 by January 1st of '96. That really was a speeding 

8 process. Certainly, the process of trying to get 

9 everybody to have a RPP defined, to have that RPP 

10 reviewed -- I know for Los Alamos, for example, 

11 on the RPP they had to satisfy any outstanding 

12 nonconformances that came out of the Rad Con 

13 Manual from a few years earlier.

14 So there was a number of loose ends 

15 that had to be resolved before that was done. 

16 And that process did end up being accepted. And 

17 they were approved by late '95.

18 But I wanted to point out in our 

19 review that there wasn't really any acceptance 

20 criteria that the sites could use. I mean, there 

21 was implementation guides that were under 

22 development by DOE. Those weren't available in 

23 time for the process to use. They came out late 
50

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 in '95.

2 And also that, quite apart from any 

3 uniform acceptance criteria, the sites were given 

4 quite the latitude as to what extent that their 

5 existing programs met 835. And I provided some 

6 excerpts from the RCC, the Radiological 

7 Coordinating Committee, that DOE made use of. 

8 This was the committee that oversaw the 

9 implementation of 835 DOE-wide.

10 And I think that kind of gives one a 

11 perspective of the discussions and the concerns 

12 that were expressed at that very time, that, you 

13 know, it was one that was driven by the sites. 

14 And to some extent there was concerns that the 

15 sites had too much latitude as far as 

16 interpreting how that would be applied.

17 I just throw that in because I think, 

18 while there was a deliberate process in place, it 

19 was one that certainly a lot of leeway was built 

20 into it.

21 The second issue I want to just touch 

22 on, and I think LaVon mentioned this already, is 

23 that looking at the various noncompliance 
51

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 tracking systems, ORPS, oversight reviews. I 

2 mean, I looked at the Defense Board 

3 recommendation, and a number of the incident 

4 reports. You know, there's a lot of, lot of 

5 oversight reviews. But I think the one that's 

6 most telling is the one that we cited, the 484. 

7 And this one I think has a lot of 

8 implications. First off, it's 1999. This is 

9 several years after implementation. I don't know 

10 if anyone picked up on the parties that were 

11 involved in the review, but I think that's 

12 likewise telling.

13 You know, Los Alamos, one of the 

14 premier laboratories in the country, in terms of 

15 having the need for a self-assessed internal dose 

16 evaluation, reached out to MJW and Savannah River 

17 to be the outside reviewers of this program.

18 That, you know, one could say it's a 

19 little bit of a head scratcher, because you would 

20 think a lab like Los Alamos would reach out to 

21 Livermore or Sandia, or Mound -- not Mound, but 

22 maybe Brookhaven, or somebody, you know. But 

23 Savannah River and MJW, specifically. And, 
52

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 again, we didn't have time to run this down to 

2 ground, because of the timeframe. But it should 

3 be pointed out that MJW, with its knowledge of 

4 the Mound non-compliances on bioassay in 1997, 

5 and Savannah River having gone through its major 

6 Notice of Violation in 1998. 

7 You know, again, somewhat 

8 circumstantial. But nonetheless, clearly Los 

9 Alamos reached to those two sites, and people 

10 that would be knowledgeable about this issues of 

11 job specific bioassays at those two sites, to 

12 review its own program to get ahead of the curve, 

13 you know, under Price-Anderson.

14 If you suspect or know that you have 

15 a fairly serious noncompliance programmatic gap, 

16 something that would indicate that you are 

17 falling quite short of the regulations, you're 

18 obliged to do a self-assessment and self-report 

19 as soon as possible. Otherwise the enforcement 

20 mechanism provides for greater penalties, or 

21 certainly greater consequences.

22 And this particular case, what the MJW 

23 and SRS folks, as well as some of the Los Alamos 
53

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 folks, found were issues that were very similar 

2 to what were found at Savannah River as well as 

3 Mound in the previous year or two.

4 And in those cases they found issues, 

5 fundamental issues with, you know, lack of 

6 participation in job-specific bioassay programs. 

7 Now, they did a very limited sample in this case. 

8 But they found in one RWP -- and I won't use the 

9 exact numbers, since they were redacted -- but, 

10 you know, 40 percent, on that RWP, did not 

11 participate in job-specific bioassay.

12 That's pretty close to the kind of 

13 nonparticipation rates that were found in 

14 samplings at the other two sites. So, certainly 

15 that's an issue.

16 Certainly, the other item, you know, 

17 Johnson Controls is the major site subcontractor, 

18 one that would employ the CTWs at Los Alamos, was 

19 enrolling all workers potentially exposed to 

20 nuclides into the appropriate bioassay programs.

21 Now, in the report, or in the memo, I 

22 kind of put an asterisk in all of this because 

23 the findings were, again, I think very qualified. 
54

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 They were very careful to say some workers were 

2 not complying with their RWP, some workers were 

3 not completing their checklists, and Johnson 

4 Controls was not enrolling all workers who were 

5 potentially exposed.

6 And, you know, they almost had to do 

7 that. Because, again, this had enforcement 

8 implications under Price-Anderson. And one 

9 cannot overstate, if you've only done a limited 

10 sampling, this was a limited sampling, you can't 

11 overstate the basis of your findings, because 

12 they would carry the weight of regulatory 

13 enforcement.

14 So, in this case, I think the team 

15 spent three days looking at a limited number of 

16 RWPs, and checklists, and what have you. And 

17 that was the basis for these findings.

18 But I think, you know, as we're 

19 looking at some considerations, we don't know the 

20 scope of this. I understand that NIOSH is 

21 exploring this with Los Alamos, trying to find 

22 out. But we may never know the scope, in the 

23 sense that the review team probably just did a 
55

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 limited, very limited sample over the few days 

2 they had.

3 But this raises some questions. And 

4 the same questions that we're raising, I think, 

5 as Savannah River. If you, you know, have a 

6 problem with your bioassay participation and your 

7 program enrollment, it's very clear that you have 

8 a question that rides on the completeness and 

9 accuracy of your database.

10 And the scale and scope of that 

11 incompleteness or inaccuracy is something that 

12 you're not going to be able to know without doing 

13 a fair amount of leg work. And this is something 

14 that a presumption of compliance will not get 

15 you. And that's the concern I would have.

16 And these corrective actions, I mean, 

17 that were indicated, you know, and the scale --

18 and you're talking about a post-835 corrective 

19 action program. It's pretty broad. I mean, it's 

20 very similar to what Mound and Savannah River had 

21 to go through in terms of reordering their 

22 bioassay program as well.

23 Now, again, establishing a web-based 
56

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 Dosimetry participation verification program to 

2 ensure better management of worker bioassay 

3 participation, the development of LANL-wide 

4 dosimetry enrollment criteria. If you don't have 

5 adequate enrollment criteria, I would contend 

6 that, you know, you really don't know where you 

7 are in terms of the scope of the program. 

8 So, certainly that raises some 

9 implications as to, you know, what was the 

10 existing program before that, and whether or not 

11 that was adequate. And I can go -- you know, 

12 it's in the report. But revising the checklist 

13 procedure, the bioassay enrollment procedure, the 

14 bioassay kit procedure, radiological dose 

15 assessment process, the special internal 

16 dosimetry and bioassay process, terminations. 

17 It's essentially almost the entire program.

18 So, yes, it does raise a question. So 

19 do the violations that were highlighted at the 

20 other sites. So, this goes back to the question 

21 of presumption, you know. The presumption 

22 certainly carries weight if one can show it 

23 applies more so than not.
57 

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 But, you know, I just would suggest 

2 that just looking at the few sites that come to 

3 mind, all of them have shown some pretty 

4 fundamental issues on the bioassay programs, in 

5 that '97 to '99 timeframe.

6 So, it's pretty clear that even though 

7 835 was enacted, the actual implementation lagged 

8 quite a bit behind that. And I think that's 

9 something that we have to keep in mind.

10 The other issue I want to raise is 

11 just, and this has, certainly has implications 

12 for the Work Group. Because the Work Group has 

13 a number of outstanding SEC related issues that 

14 were carried over from the last SEC period.

15 And the question, I went ahead and put 

16 this in my memo of last, I guess it's April or 

17 May is, you know, these are questions about how 

18 one monitors the mixed activation products, the 

19 mixed fission products, and exotics.

20 And the question is, if in fact the 

21 monitoring information and data were inadequate 

22 up through the end of '95, what has changed in 

23 '96 that would ameliorate those kinds of issues?
58 

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 And if one can't be confident that the 

2 enactment of the actual regulation on January 1st 

3 did that, then I think all those issues certainly 

4 are standing to be resolved.

5 And I guess the only, the last thing 

6 I have on my list, and, LaVon, I don't think you 

7 mentioned it. We did talk about this, which was 

8 on neptunium, that was certainly an issue that 

9 was raised, I believe by the petitioner, and 

10 addressed in the ER Addendum.

11 And as we say in the report, we don't 

12 think it's a settled issue. We did take a look 

13 at NIMS, the inventory system that DOE operates. 

14 And we still think there's a question about other 

15 source terms, and perhaps other operations that 

16 need to be addressed on that.

17 Finally, this last page, just 

18 considerations for the Work Group. Again, I 

19 think the good, to me this is kind of a policy 

20 question, and something that the Work Group has 

21 to wrestle with. But we wanted to provide some 

22 considerations for your review.

23 But I think the presumption of 
59

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 compliance represents a significant precedent. 

2 And really the issue is, should presumed 

3 compliance preempt a deliberative review of 

4 program implementation if in fact one can point 

5 to enough examples where implementation certainly 

6 lagged the compliance?

7 And the significant compliances for at 

8 least three sites, including Los Alamos, 

9 regarding respective bioassay programs, 

10 illustrate this.

11 And if one wanted to look for 

12 milestones on that continuum I discussed a little 

13 earlier, one could certainly look at the 

14 functionality of the bioassay program that's 

15 represented by the accreditation standards that 

16 were put in place in '98, and then implemented by 

17 January 1st of 2002. That's probably a better 

18 lower common -- lowest common denominator as far 

19 as practice than something earlier.

20 And finally, as I just discussed, the 

21 continuity and coherency of the technical 

22 evaluation is important. I mean, we spent a lot 

23 of time in the Work Group, and I think you can 
60

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 remember this.

2 It was about three years' worth of 

3 discussion on some of the established bioassay 

4 deficiencies, the air monitoring gaps that were 

5 apparent before '96. And, you know, what's 

6 happened to those?

7 I mean, are those in fact mitigated by 

8 the rule coming out? And is it different? Is 

9 there a difference on the technical level?

10 That's it. I mean, I think there's a 

11 more detailed discussion. You have the report. 

12 But that's kind of where we're at right now.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you, Joe. 

14 Questions for Joe from Board Members? Anybody on 

15 mute or -- I think you've stunned everyone, Joe.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Josie, this is Brad, 

17 I'm good.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Brad. Jim, 

19 anything for Joe?

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Joe, Jim Lockey.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes?

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: In your presentation 

23 you used the term "substantive implications for 
61

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 dose reconstruction." Can you further define 

2 that use of the term for me, what do you mean by 

3 that?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, you know, the 

5 rule covers everything from what your signage 

6 should be in the workplace to, you know, what 

7 your records should look like.

8 I think what I was talking about was 

9 the portions of 835 most relevant to the dose 

10 reconstruction that NIOSH is charged with and I 

11 think NIOSH did a good job in its ER identifying 

12 some of those provisions, one of which was the 

13 100 millirem a year CEDE where everybody, you 

14 know, with that potential would be monitored, and 

15 when I call it "substantive" I'm talking about 

16 those aspects.

17 And when I talked about the non18 compliance 484, in particular I think we were 

19 highlighting that there were a number of findings 

20 that went right to that particular issue, that 

21 these were substantive findings of non22 conformance with portions of 835 that go directly 

23 to who gets monitored and the 100 millirem a year.
62

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 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay. And then one 

2 other question. When, was it 835, that was the 

3 January 1996, correct?

4 MR. FITZGERALD: That was enacted --

5 yes, that was enacted or implemented January 1st.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: Was there any lead7 up, did the DOE sites have any lead-up that that 

8 was coming down the pike, this is just for my 

9 edification, and preparation time, or how did 

10 that come about?

11 MR. FITZGERALD: First off, a lot of 

12 the provisions, and I think even NIOSH would 

13 agree, they had this in their ER, a lot of the 

14 provisions were carried forward from DOE Order 

15 5480.11, which was implemented in '89.

16 So we're not talking that, talking 

17 about the specific technical provisions being 

18 dramatically different, there were some upgrades.

19 But fundamentally it brought forward 

20 a lot of the provisions that were already in place 

21 in 1989, including the 100 millirem a year. Now 

22 the sites were directly involved in the 

23 development process of 835, there was a lot of 
63 

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 coordination going on.

2 I mentioned this RCC, that was chaired 

3 by one of the field offices, I think it was 

4 Albuquerque, and all the field offices and 

5 headquarters programs were a part of that. This 

6 was all HPs, so every step of the way there was 

7 knowledge of what 835 would have in it.

8 When the rule was approved, which was 

9 about, I think it was some time in '94, about 18 

10 months ahead of the deadline, it had in it some 

11 timeframe for reviewing individual programs, 

12 looking for needs for exemptions, and certainly 

13 marshaling a process that, you know, starting 

14 with self-assessments by the contractor and then 

15 followed by external review by the DOE Program 

16 folks.

17 You know, that all led to this 

18 deadline of having this thing become effective 

19 and enforceable under Price-Anderson. That was 

20 the key, became enforceable under Price-Anderson 

21 on January 1st.

22 Now I might add that, you know, 

23 whereas the for-profit contractors, like, you 
64 

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 know, DuPont at Savannah River, EG&G at Mound, 

2 were liable for civil penalties.

3 Los Alamos was not. The non-profit 

4 contractors were exempt from actual monetary 

5 penalties, so they could be cited, but there 

6 would be no actual monetary penalties. So --

7 but that, again, took place on January 1st.

8 MEMBER LOCKEY: Thanks.

9 CHAIR BEACH: And, Jim -- or sorry, 

10 Joe, this is Josie, is there anything moving 

11 forward for the Work Group?

12 I know in your report you mentioned 

13 that traditional validation and verification 

14 sampling for adequacy and completeness is 

15 something that we do at all sites, is that 

16 something we could do in this case?

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the first thing 

18 I would say is that it's up to the Work Group. 

19 Clearly, NIOSH is following up on that 484 Notice 

20 of Violation to get more information, background 

21 information on, you know, what corrective actions 

22 they took and who may have been missed.

23 But we're talking about trying to do 
65 

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 a completeness survey of something 20 years ago 

2 at a site and, you know, you would have to, I 

3 think -- I'm speaking from firsthand knowledge 

4 having just done that at Savannah River, you 

5 would have to locate the, you know, RWPs where 

6 you had exposure potentials, you know, that would 

7 be 100 CEDE, 100 millirem CEDE, and then you would 

8 have to look at whether or not, you know, the 

9 workers who were on those RWPs were in fact 

10 monitored.

11 But, yes, I mean it's possible. I'm 

12 just saying it certainly would not be easy at 

13 all, but that would be about the only way you 

14 could verify, you know, what I think the outside 

15 review team could not verify given the three days 

16 they had.

17 It was a 3-day review. I mean I can't 

18 imagine, they probably only had an opportunity to 

19 look at very few pieces of paper, checklists and 

20 RWPs, in terms of those findings, but it was a 

21 knowledgeable group. 

22 I think it was the same group as I was 

23 saying earlier that dealt with the violations at 
66 

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 Savannah River, were knowledgeable about the 

2 violations at Mound, that's why I think they were 

3 handpicked by Los Alamos to come in and actually 

4 scrutinize their bioassay program.

5 So it was very clearly with something 

6 in mind to address an internal concern over the 

7 accuracy of the job-specific bioassay program and 

8 the enrollment program that Johnson Controls was 

9 implementing.

10 So there were some, you know, there 

11 was certainly some knowledge ahead of time, which 

12 is something maybe NIOSH can also check on, which 

13 is, you know, clearly there was some concern by 

14 the lab over the program that led to the 

15 invitation to bring in these specific outside 

16 players to actually take a look and see whether 

17 or not these issues existed at Los Alamos as well.

18 DR. NETON: Josie, this is Jim. I 

19 think we'd like to explore this a little further 

20 before the Work Group would start changing 

21 direction and going down to verifying this in a 

22 traditional way that we have done.

23 We are set to present this to the full 
67 

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 Board next week and I think I'd like to have a 

2 little more discussion on this that might help 

3 elucidate some of the points that Joe has made, 

4 or at least to mention counterpoints.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. No, Jim, I agree 

6 with you. I didn't want to make any assignments 

7 or anything, I was just curious just for more 

8 reflection on --

9 DR. NETON: Right. And if I could I 

10 have a couple comments maybe on Joe's, nothing -

11 - 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. No, please, I was 

13 going to ask you next. Go for it.

14 DR. NETON: Okay, if everyone else is 

15 done on the Board asking questions. Yes, I think 

16 this is -- Joe is spot on that this is a 

17 precedent-setting approach that NIOSH is putting 

18 forward, and we recognize that.

19 We feel a little bit different than 

20 Joe, obviously, that the 835 era does represent 

21 a paradigm shift in the DOE operations, and Joe 

22 just pointed out pretty well that these earlier 

23 precursors, like 5480.11 and the Rad Control 
68 

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 Manual, were really contractual obligations by 

2 the contractor where on January 1, 1996, it 

3 became a legal requirement, it was the law, and 

4 it was subject to criminal and civil penalties 

5 under Price-Anderson enforcement, as Joe said.

6 And even though Los Alamos being non7 profit I don't think we're subject to -- he's 

8 right, subject to civil penalties and certainly 

9 subject to criminal penalties.

10 And if I remember correctly when I 

11 worked at Argonne even though -- they couldn't

12 dock your award fee based on non-compliances. 

13 They couldn't force you to pay a fine.

14 So I think there is a lot more legal 

15 teeth behind this than those other, essentially 

16 were guidelines and contractual obligations.

17 Secondly, I think Joe trying to tie, 

18 or suggesting to tie compliance with DOELAP is 

19 maybe not correct, because DOELAP was really not 

20 a dosimetry standard at all. It was a 

21 measurement, performance standard tied to ANSI 

22 13.30.

23 It had nothing to do with the 100 
69 

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 millirem monitoring requirement at all. It had 

2 to do with how well you could measure an analyte 

3 in an bioassay sample. So I don't think that 

4 really is a good way to go.

5 And, third, I think -- I agree that 

6 the implementation of 835 is probably -- there is 

7 a lot of nuances in 835 and implementation guides 

8 weren't in place, but we're not talking about 

9 overall compliance with 100 percent of 10 CFR 

10 835, we're really talking about is there a 

11 program in place to ensure that a 100 millirem 

12 CEDE monitoring requirement was in place.

13 It's a very narrow subset of 835, 

14 albeit a very important subset, and we'd be happy 

15 to discuss some of the bioassay deficiencies that 

16 Joe has pointed out in some of these audits and 

17 such, but we'd like to couch that in terms of did 

18 that really prevent, does that really mean that 

19 using the -- assigning 2 percent of the 

20 occupational exposure limit for workers is not 

21 bounding on the category of workers who were not 

22 monitored.

23 That's really what we want to get to, 
70

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 is can we bound unmonitored workers by assigning 

2 2 percent of the occupational exposure limit, and 

3 I still believe that we have a pretty good case 

4 to make here although I also agree that some 

5 discussion needs to take place. That's all I 

6 had.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: Jim, what was the 

8 first point again? You were -- I was trying to 

9 catch up with the --

10 DR. NETON: Well, 835 was not just a 

11 contractual obligation, it became a law at that 

12 point subject to civil and criminal penalties.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I guess my only 

14 comment, and I think I mentioned this in the 

15 report is, and you are certainly aware of this 

16 from your experience at Fernald and other 

17 locations, is that, yes, there certainly was a 

18 series of policy milestones and upgrades, Tiger 

19 Teams, everything.

20 The 90s was a pretty active period. 

21 But the reason why it took time was you had very 

22 much an embedded safety culture at the various 

23 sites, some more so than others, where the 
71 

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 program, not to mention the Rad Protection 

2 Program, felt strongly that they had a fully, not 

3 only compliant, but a very world-class operation 

4 and it didn't become apparent until you had 

5 external reviews, you had the enforcement program 

6 in place for a years and whatnot before even these 

7 programs became cognizant that, yes, from an 

8 implementation standpoint, yes, we might have a 

9 very solid program with excellent procedures, 

10 excellent expertise, in terms of the health 

11 physicists managing those programs, but you know 

12 what, it turns out that the CTWs are not 

13 participating in the bioassay program.

14 It turns out that even though the RWP 

15 required the urinalyses to be left behind they 

16 were not.

17 So there is issues that, you know, 

18 certainly go beyond whether or not it was, quote, 

19 "a legal" requirement and I think there was good 

20 faith implementation and good faith compliance 

21 against 835 but you had some very deep-seated 

22 cultural issues as far as the programs that are 

23 in place.
72 

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 These programs are in place for 30, 40 

2 years. In fact, some of these labs essentially 

3 invented the health physics program as we know it 

4 and some of the people that were in charge of 

5 those programs were the leaders in the field.

6 So, you know, it's a tough issue and 

7 I think it did take time even with the passage of 

8 835 before the program came, before these 

9 programs came up to a level of uniform 

10 conformance with expectations.

11 And I think even with 835 I think the 

12 Department understood that it was a very 

13 important means to leverage this but it wasn't 

14 going to happen overnight either.

15 So the only caution I would throw out 

16 on that is that when we talk about presumption of 

17 compliance on January 1, 1996, I think we have to 

18 qualify that by saying, yes, these programs did 

19 not magically have that capability and capacity 

20 to implement even the essential parts of the 

21 programs.

22 We talked about the 100 millirem, 

23 that's a difficult, you know, that's a difficult 
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 provision of 835 to evaluate or to oversee. I 

2 mean that's an expectation, you know, that these 

3 programs had the capability and the knowledge and 

4 the procedures to actually weigh who would get 

5 bioassayed and to implement that effectively.

6 And I think some programs did, some 

7 programs took time, and it took DOELAP to 

8 actually force the issue in the end on some other 

9 programs.

10 So it wasn't a uniform process and 

11 certainly I think one has to be cautious about 

12 assuming January 1st was the -- you know, 

13 everything, you know, was transformed at that 

14 point in time.

15 As far as the DOELAP standard, yes, 

16 you know, certainly that was something that was 

17 connected to 835 with the amendment in '98, but 

18 that was I think the first time that the 

19 functionality of the dosimetry programs was 

20 actually put in place, within the confines of 835 

21 with some of the --

22 DR. NETON: But it had nothing to do 

23 with dosimetry, Joe.
74 

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 (Simultaneous speaking.)

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, but I think 

3 that's -- by making it attendant to 835 as opposed 

4 to a separate program.

5 DR. NETON: Well, I understand. But 

6 you could be 100 percent DOELAP compliant and not 

7 be compliant with the 100 millirem monitoring 

8 requirement. You could be DOELAP accredited and 

9 you've not brought about your ability to monitor 

10 workers with 100 millirem CEDE.

11 (Simultaneous speaking.)

12 MR. FITZGERALD: -- I think it would 

13 certainly make it much more likely that you 

14 wouldn't have 80 percent of your job-specific 

15 bioassays not being collected and how that --

16 DR. NETON: I don't agree with that, 

17 Joe.

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 DR. NETON: I've run two DOELAP

20 programs, Joe.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: -- review and 

22 actually demonstrate that.

23 DR. NETON: No. I've run two DOELAP 
75 

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 programs and they're not connected at all.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, we'll leave 

3 that for further review, but I'm just saying that 

4 I think that was certainly a very strong aspect 

5 of the '98 amendment and certainly in the 2002 

6 enactment.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thank you. NIOSH, 

8 LaVon, any other questions for Joe, and any Board 

9 Members, anything else?

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Josie, this is Brad, 

11 I just want to mention something. You know, we've 

12 been talking about 835 being implemented and 

13 everything else like that, and there is another 

14 program the Department of Energy uses, which is 

15 Lessons Learned.

16 I want us to use a little bit of 

17 lessons learned in almost every one of these 

18 sites that we have dealt with already, and, yes, 

19 it was implemented January 1, 1996, but it was 

20 not put into place at many, many of these sites 

21 until way, way later and we have been in a 

22 continuous fight with this over the years.

23 You know, you can take examples of --
76 

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 well, I don't want to call each one of the sites 

2 out and stuff like that, but they were being fined 

3 in 2003, 2004, for not abiding by this.

4 I don't really see how we could -- we 

5 can use this as a marker to be able to start 

6 saying in there, but to be able to say January 1, 

7 1996, everybody went, wonderful, they were still 

8 trying to figure out -- each one of these sites 

9 is so unique they were trying to figure out how 

10 to implement it into their own programs and be 

11 able to get it to work because the 835 

12 implementation was to try to get everybody on the 

13 same page to be able to be doing the same programs 

14 the same way.

15 And I really have a hard time saying 

16 that we can use that date because I haven't seen 

17 it work at any of our sites yet.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Yes, I agree with 

19 that, too, Brad. So that's -- we've got our work 

20 cut out for us determining exactly what that date 

21 may be. So --

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: Josie?

23 CHAIR BEACH: Yes?
77 

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 MEMBER LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. I 

2 want to follow-up with what Brad just said. What 

3 I still don't -- what's not quite clear to me 

4 about 835 is, were the civil and criminal 

5 penalties in place as of January 1, 1996? If that 

6 is indeed the case it seems to me that there had 

7 to be a lead time for these various facilities to 

8 make changes and implement the program before 

9 that date.

10 I mean it's just hard for me to 

11 believe that there would be a rule issued that as 

12 of this date there are civil and criminal 

13 penalties without a one or two or three year lead 

14 time for facilities to reach that.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Jim, this is LaVon. 

16 I want to point out that there was a lead time. 

17 The sites were to be in compliance by January 1, 

18 1996. At Fernald we were working on that 

19 compliance two years ahead of that time.

20 We also were implementing, you know, 

21 5480.11, a DOE Rad Con Manual, all of those things 

22 in sequence up to that point. We knew 10 CFR 835 

23 was coming.
78 

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 So I can at least speak from a Fernald 

2 perspective, there was definitely an 

3 implementation that occurred two years prior to 

4 the actual finalization of the rule on January 1, 

5 1996.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I would add to 

7 that, and I think I said it earlier, Jim, that, 

8 you know, it was understood from the enforcement 

9 program policy that, you know, they would 

10 mitigate the penalty and the level of violation 

11 for sites if they, in fact, self-identified any 

12 non-conformance that came up and self-corrected 

13 them in a timely manner.

14 I mean there was a heavy qualifying 

15 factor on that that, you know, you find it before 

16 we find it and it will be less consequential to 

17 you, and I think these sites understood that and 

18 that's one reason that you see I think a lot of 

19 these self-assessments in the several years after 

20 enactment that led to some identifications.

21 Now there was Notices of Violations 

22 written anyway because some of these were so 

23 significant that it was hard not to be some 
79 

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 penalization under Price-Anderson, but I think 

2 there was that period of time where self3 identification and corrective action was being 

4 looked for.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I know --

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: That's really helpful. 

7 Those comments are helpful.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, and I know NIOSH 

9 has more work on the 484 and that was issued in 

10 1999, so I know there is more work to be done 

11 here and we'll look forward to seeing that.

12 Any other comments, questions, 

13 clarifications before I move to the petitioners' 

14 comments?

15 (No response.)

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. If the petitioner 

17 on the line, Andrew, and I don't know if, Terrie, 

18 you have any comments, but, Andrew, if you have 

19 any comments you are welcome to make them at this 

20 time.

21 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yes, I am here. This 

22 is Andrew Evaskovich. Basically I just have some 

23 questions. I am inferring that they are relying 
80 

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 on TA-55 data for the exotic radionuclides and 

2 there are other areas.

3 Back in November at the meeting I 

4 raised the issue of spallation product from the 

5 accelerator. I haven't really seen anything, you 

6 know, replying to that, and I believe I 

7 submitted, you know, other documentation before 

8 that about the spallation product.

9 Also, I have a question about 

10 neptunium, was it only at TA-55 or were there 

11 other areas and the weight amount, you know, is 

12 100 grams the maximum or were there higher 

13 amounts?

14 I have heard that more work needs to 

15 be done so I am hoping that the Work Group 

16 recommends to the Board that the evaluations 

17 continue until all the issues are settled.

18 Another issue I think that is still up 

19 in the air, I think Joe has it in his response, 

20 was the catalog for the in vivo measurements, 

21 they're very limited or non-existent so they 

22 didn't have the ability to determine if somebody 

23 was exposed to an exotic as opposed to, you know, 
81 

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 a common.

2 And there is more work that I need to 

3 do as far as presenting so I am going to try to 

4 prepare a paper in the next week for the meeting 

5 and also provide additional comments during the 

6 meeting, but I am just asking that the Work Group 

7 recommend that work proceed on this, to recommend 

8 to the Board that work proceed on this because 

9 it's not settled.

10 And that's pretty much what I have to 

11 say today.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thank you, Andrew.

13 DR. NETON: Josie, this is Jim. I'd 

14 like to comment maybe on that in vivo question 

15 that Andrew raised.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, please.

17 DR. NETON: Yes, I am surprised, in 

18 SC&A's report that they suggested or stated I 

19 think that they used Phoswich detectors only to 

20 measure fission activation products and that 

21 certainly doesn't seem to be true based on my 

22 review of the SRDB, Site Research Database.

23 There was a 1983 report put out, SRDB 
82 

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 133601, that is a very detailed technical 

2 discussion of their in vivo measurement 

3 arrangements in that era, and, yes, they did use 

4 Phoswich detectors but they also had a lithium5 drifted germanium detector underneath the body on 

6 a stretcher to measure whole body fission 

7 activation products, as well as a germanium 

8 detector positioned over the liver, and that 

9 seemed to have been in place for quite some time.

10 We went back and looked at the in vivo 

11 monitoring data from 1978 to '95 and there was at 

12 least 3,600 reported measurements of fission 

13 activation products and the geometry line is 

14 "GeLi detector, whole body."

15 So I am not sure where Joe got his 

16 information on Phoswich detectors being used for 

17 fission products, but I don't think it's true.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, these were 

19 quotes from staff interviews from a 2010 report 

20 that has already been issued and it's in the 

21 references to this report.

22 DR. NETON: Well, I can tell you 

23 [identifying information redacted] put out a 1983 
83 

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 report with a very technical discussion of what 

2 they did and it certainly, and, again, the 

3 results that we had in the database indicated it 

4 was a germanium detector measurement, so --

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Well, again, 

6 we haven't had this discussion because, and I 

7 don't think the Work Group has met, but the 2010 

8 report that was issued by SC&A, that these are 

9 basically the dosimetry staff interviews that 

10 were done with the Los Alamos staff, so, you know, 

11 that's something we can certainly have further 

12 discussions on.

13 DR. NETON: Sure.

14 MR. EVASKOVICH: I seem to recall that 

15 there was a Tiger Team finding about the Phoswich 

16 detectors as opposed to the germanium detectors, 

17 also. I'll have to find that information.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, this is going 

19 back, well, 2010, it's going back seven years, so 

20 it's a little fuzzy at the moment, but I -- and 

21 this is just one illustration.

22 There is a number of I think these 

23 monitoring and record keeping issues that -- and 
84 

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 there are monitoring issues that the Work Group 

2 highlighted certainly in the last SEC period of 

3 review and these are still outstanding, you know, 

4 in some regards for post-'95.

5 So, you know, that was just an 

6 example, but there is a number of issues, and 

7 these are highlighted in the Site Profile memo 

8 that was sent a few months ago that as far as 

9 loose ends from previous Work Group discussions 

10 these were certainly issues that were to be 

11 addressed in the post-'95 era.

12 Now they've been preempted, because, 

13 again, I think the policy of a presumption of 

14 compliance would certainly negate, presumably 

15 negate all of these issues, but, you know, these 

16 are certainly issues that were outstanding 

17 before.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thanks.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: And the other thing 

20 I was going to mention, on neptunium we did have 

21 a conclusion for that particular issue that other 

22 sources, other operations that might involve 

23 neptunium as one of the exotics needed to be more 
85 

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 fully addressed and the inventory used as a basis 

2 for looking at that, so I think that remains an 

3 outstanding issue.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, I agree. So any 

5 other comments, petitioner comments?

6 Petitioner Comments 

7 MR. EVASKOVICH: No, not at this time. 

8 Thank you.

9 Action Items 

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And so action 

11 items moving forward, what I see is I know SC&A's 

12 memorandum came out in July, typically NIOSH will 

13 give us a White Paper answering or questioning 

14 SC&A's paper.

15 So, NIOSH, are you planning to do a 

16 paper for that?

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Josie, this is 

18 LaVon Rutherford. We'll do that.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So that's one 

20 action forward. And I know, LaVon, you talked 

21 about in your site presentation some of the 

22 petitioner concerns that you addressed, can we 

23 look through, I know we haven't had a meeting 
86 

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 since 2012, but I don't know if NIOSH can do it 

2 or SC&A, go through petitioner questions and just 

3 make sure we haven't missed anything for a

4 following Work Group meeting, is that something 

5 that someone can tackle?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: I don't mind doing 

7 that. I mean I think it's part of our 

8 responsibility anyway, so I don't mind taking 

9 care of that. This is LaVon Rutherford.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And, LaVon, I 

11 know I looked through some of Andrew's reports 

12 from the past, so I guess just -- there are 

13 several out there, just make sure we haven't 

14 missed anything that needs to be addressed.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

16 CHAIR BEACH: And then moving forward, 

17 is there anything else? I know we do have the 

18 Site Profile report from SC&A. I don't think we 

19 are ready to tackle that yet, is that correct?

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, like I said 

21 earlier, it's moot until one --

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

23 CHAIR BEACH: Right, right.
87 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: -- references this 

2 presumption of compliance question.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So that paper 

4 we'll just keep on hold until we are finished 

5 with the SEC question. Anything else I am 

6 missing, actions items that we need to address 

7 moving forward?

8 (No response.)

9 CHAIR BEACH: I know you're going to 

10 report out both SC&A and NIOSH at the Board 

11 meeting. Unless we are overruled I suspect the 

12 Work Group will have more Work Group meetings 

13 after the Board meeting to work out some of these 

14 issues. Anything else?

15 MR. KATZ: Josie, this is Ted. Yes, 

16 just a question really. One of the reasons we 

17 are having this meeting in Los Alamos is because 

18 you wanted the opportunity to solicit input from 

19 the public that might be germane to following up 

20 on these matters that we are tackling right now.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

22 MR. KATZ: So I guess my question is 

23 just whether Joe, anyone, could display as part 
88 

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 of his presentation any questions that might be 

2 germane as to, for example if you are looking for 

3 certain kinds of expertise from the public that 

4 would be helpful for the path forward or what 

5 have you, but anyway it's an opportunity, that's 

6 why we're holding this meeting in Los Alamos.

7 So I would just hate to lose the 

8 opportunity just because we didn't give it full 

9 consideration -- so I don't know whether Joe or 

10 anyone had thoughts immediately, but anyway this 

11 is an opportunity, you have the public, they're 

12 going to be listening attentively to this session 

13 and if you're looking for certain people or what 

14 have you for that kind of expertise for some of 

15 the questions that are on the table this is a 

16 good -- this is why we're going there, so. That's 

17 it.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes.

20 CHAIR BEACH: I guess I don't know how 

21 to move forward with that to get the right people 

22 in attendance to get some questions answered, so 

23 --
89 

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 MR. KATZ: Right. Well, you never 

2 know who's in attendance, it's just a matter, 

3 again, of whether --

4 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

5 MEMBER: We've done this at other 

6 places where we have actually put things on the 

7 table as, well, these are some of the questions 

8 that are facing us and that leads people to either 

9 come or read the transcripts or what have you. 

10 You might find somebody that actually knows 

11 something about what you want to know.

12 But, again, I don't really expect 

13 anyone necessarily to be able to answer this 

14 question now, but you might want to think about 

15 that since, that's the point.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Right, that makes 

17 perfect sense. Thank you. Okay, so any other 

18 comments, any other sort of path forward, 

19 anything I might have overlooked that needs to be 

20 done? Anything the Board Members on the phone 

21 call today need from either NIOSH or SC&A to help 

22 you with your thought process on this?

23 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. Not at 
90 

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 this time, Josie.

2 CHAIR BEACH: And, Jim?

3 DR. NETON: Same for me. Same for me, 

4 Josie.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Ted, I am going to turn 

6 it back over to you. I think we are done for 

7 today unless --

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, I think we can adjourn 

9 and after the discussion at the Board meeting we 

10 can figure out what is a -- and I think the DCAS 

11 folks will have to look into what kind of 

12 timeframe they are working on and then you can 

13 look into scheduling Work Group meetings as may 

14 be needed.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And can we get 

16 the transcript for this as soon as it's 

17 available, also, or --

18 MR. KATZ: Yes. There is no way that's 

19 going to happen before the Board meeting, for 

20 example, or what have you.

21 CHAIR BEACH: No. Yes, I know.

22 MR. KATZ: But, yes, it should be 

23 ready in a reasonable time. This wasn't a very 
91 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

22 

21 

20 

19 

18 

17 

16 

15 

13 

14 

12 

11 

10 

9 

8 

1 long meeting, so it shouldn't take that long.

2 Adjourn 

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Everyone, thank 

4 you for your attendance and your work. We'll see 

5 you next week.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

7 record at 12:43 p.m.)