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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON ROCKY FLATS

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

JULY 14, 2015

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened via telephone 

at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, DAVID KOTELCHUCK, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Chairman

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

ALSO PRESENT:
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TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

TERRIE BARRIE

JIM BOGARD, ORAU Team

LIZ BRACKETT, ORAU Team

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A

ZAIDA BURGOS, NIOSH

NANCY CHALMERS, ORAU Team

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

JOYCE LIPSZTEIN, SC&A

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

JIM NETON, DCAS

JUDY PADILLA

ROBERT ROTHE

LAVON RUTHERFORD, DCAS

CHARLES SAUNDERS

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team

DAN STEMPFLEY, ORAU Team
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CONTENTS

Description Page

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

Data Falsification Issue.......................6 

Critical Mass Laboratory ..................... 39 

Tritium Exposures ............................ 84 

Neptunium Exposures ......................... 115 

Work Group Discussion/Recommendations ....... 125 

Petitioner Comments ........................ 131 
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (10:02 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: Welcome, everyone on the line. 

4 This is the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

5 Health, the Rocky Flats Work Group. There is an 

6 agenda posted on the NIOSH website under the 

7 meetings page, scheduled meetings, July, today's 

8 date. And there you will see the agenda for this 

9 meeting and, presently, four different papers. 

10 They're all posted there so you could read them as 

11 they get discussed. There should be two more 

12 papers being added there. Maybe they were on and 

13 they fell off. I'm not sure.

14 But, anyway, let's do roll call now. And 

15 for all of Agency-related people, including the 

16 Board, please speak to conflict of interest since 

17 we're speaking of a specific site. And let's get 

18 started with the Chair and the Board Members that 

19 are on the line.

20 (Roll call.)

21 MR. KATZ: Let me ask everyone on the 

22 line. We have quite a few people on this call. 

23 Please mute your phones except when you're 
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1 addressing the Work Group. If you don't have a 

2 mute button on your phone, just press *6. That'll

3 mute your phone for the call. And then you press 

4 *6 again to take your phone off of mute. But please 

5 keep your phone on mute as it'll improve the audio 

6 quality for everyone else and eliminate all the 

7 background noises.

8 And, also, please no one put this call on 

9 hold at any point, but hang up and dial back in if 

10 you need to leave the call for some time, because 

11 putting the call on hold will add noise for everyone 

12 else on the line. So, thanks for that.

13 And, Dr. Kotelchuck, it's your agenda.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Very good. Okay. 

15 Welcome, folks. And just to also alert you on my 

16 phone, if for any reason you hear me fading out, 

17 please alert me and I will change my phone 

18 connection such that it will work better.

19 MR. KATZ: And, folks, identify 

20 yourselves for the court reporter when you speak, 

21 too, please.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. The first 

23 item on the agenda is the data falsification, the 
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1 first White Paper from LaVon Rutherford. LaVon, 

2 would you like to begin?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I will. First 

4 thing I want to -- I just got indication that, of 

5 the documents that are on the website, all of them 

6 are listed on there and links to them. I see the 

7 Critical Mass Laboratory, that White Paper, 

8 revision to the tritium paper and the data

9 falsification paper. So I'm not sure what's being 

10 missed but they all appear to be there. So I'll 

11 start there.

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Good.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. First --

14 MEMBER MUNN: Oh, Bomber [Mr. 

15 Rutherford]?

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes?

17 MEMBER MUNN: Perhaps it's only my phone, 

18 but you're very faint.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Very faint? Okay. 

20 Let me see if I can make --

21 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes, you are.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: Alright. Is that 

23 better?
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1 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes, it is.

2 MEMBER MUNN: A little, yes.

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: And as we do this, 

4 let's put on the Live Meeting with the White Paper 

5 on data falsification.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. I didn't 

7 actually add those White Papers to there.

8 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: White Papers were sent 

10 to all the Work Group members and to the --

11 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Didn't put it on the 

13 Live Meeting.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. I expected 

15 it to be here, but that's okay. Do go ahead then.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. First, I'd like 

17 to apologize to the petitioners and Work Group and 

18 SC&A for the reports coming out late. There's a 

19 number of reasons for that. I won't go into that. 

20 I realize it makes it very difficult for the 

21 petitioners to prepare, especially considering 

22 those documents were only released from ADC review 

23 late last week, at least one of those documents. 
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1 So I know that made it very difficult.

2 Let's see. Again, for all interested 

3 parties, the White Papers, all the White Papers are 

4 available on our website now. The first White 

5 Paper we will be discussing is a paper titled, 

6 "Evaluation of Petitioner Concerns About Data 

7 Falsification and Data Validation in Rocky Flats 

8 Plant Building 123 Based on Worker Allegations and 

9 Issues Relating to the FBI Raid."

10 This is Revision 3. We'll not go into a lot of 

11 detail on information provided in previous 

12 revisions. 

13 The first thing I want to address is a 

14 statement in the report that was brought up to me, 

15 and it's on Page 12. If you look at the report and 

16 you look at the third bullet -- or the last bullet 

17 at the bottom, there's a statement in the report 

18 that says, "Although Rockwell did plead guilty as 

19 a company to five felony charges and five 

20 misdemeanors and was assessed a fine, it appears 

21 that the decision to settle was based on the 

22 company's desire to close the long, drawn-out 

23 litigation."
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1 That statement, when I had seen that, I 

2 thought that was a quote out of one of the papers. 

3 And after further review, it doesn't appear that 

4 was a quote. I think that that statement -- you 

5 know, documents did imply this. However, this 

6 statement has no value in the report and is not a 

7 factor in our determination that dose 

8 reconstructions are feasible.

9 This statement also follows on Page 29, 

10 as well, or a similar statement to that. We do plan 

11 to revise this report and remove that statement 

12 because the statement adds no value.

13 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yeah. Agreed.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Alright. This 

15 is a relatively long report. It started out, you 

16 know, as a fairly short report. But after numerous 

17 data captures, interviews and so on, it grew. So 

18 we added a table of contents to this document.

19 Our initial revision was issued in June 

20 of 2013 and it responded to potential data 

21 falsification based on a document they provided to 

22 NIOSH and the Work Group, which was an interview 

23 conducted by the FBI and EPA.
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1 The interviewee identified a number of 

2 concerns with respect to sample analysis at 

3 Building 123. We reviewed these issues and 

4 responded to the issues. The conclusion from our 

5 review at that time was that nothing identified by 

6 the interviewee would affect our ability to 

7 reconstruct dose.

8 That was Rev 0/Rev 1. It went to Rev 1 

9 because we made a short, quick change after it had 

10 gone to Rev 0. And so there was nothing 

11 substantial changed between Rev 0 and Rev 1. Rev 

12 2 was issued on October 10th of 2013 after 

13 additional data captures and interviews. All the 

14 previous revisions of the Rev 2 are covered in 

15 Section 1 of the report. Section 2 and 3 were added 

16 in this revision with a concluding section in 

17 Section 4.

18 After the 2013 decision to add a Class, 

19 we continued our investigation of the post-'83 

20 period, focusing on before the 1989 raid. During 

21 subsequent Work Group meetings and through emails 

22 from the petitioner, additional questions were 
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1 identified which required additional review, not 

2 so much with that original interview but more with 

3 respect to the FBI raid and whether other 

4 information from the raid may support a data 

5 falsification/data destruction issue.

6 So additional data captures and 

7 interviews were completed in December of 2013. I 

8 want to go over a couple of the key interviews that 

9 were conducted. One interview provided 

10 information on personal involvement and shredding 

11 of documents. And they indicated that direction 

12 came from Rocky Flats management.

13 If you look at Page 13 and 14, that initial 

14 interview is discussed at the bottom of that page. 

15 Again, the individual interviewed indicated that 

16 documents had been destroyed at the direction of 

17 Rocky Flats management. They indicated that they 

18 felt some of these documents included monitoring 

19 data and incident reports.

20 And then you will look on Page 14 of that. 

21 We took a look at the -- after the interview, we 

22 did get some sample documents from that interview 
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1 and we looked at how those documents may affect our 

2 ability to reconstruct dose. And you'll see our 

3 response at the bottom of Page 14, the first bullet.

4 It says, "While the documents being 

5 destroyed could have been some kind of field 

6 surveys, it does not appear that those surveys have 

7 an impact on NIOSH's ability to bound or 

8 reconstruct dose for the Class, as long as the 

9 personal monitoring data exist. Based on a review 

10 of some of the files that were provided as examples

11 of documents, you know, that were shredded, "NIOSH 

12 found that records did exist in the associated 

13 personnel files in NOCTS." 

14 So some of the records may have been 

15 destroyed, but [in] the records that were provided 

16 to us, we did find examples in NOCTS and we had no 

17 indication of actual personal monitoring records 

18 being destroyed.

19 Another key interview that was conducted, 

20 and there were roughly 13 interviews, I believe, 

21 that were conducted over a period of time. There 

22 were actually a significant number of people that 
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1 were contacted. Some of those people chose not to 

2 respond. Either they just didn't want to 

3 participate or for other reasons.

4 The second interview that was conducted 

5 -- another interview that was conducted that I 

6 thought was pretty important to discuss is the 

7 classified interview that was conducted out at 

8 Idaho Falls with a former employee. This second 

9 interview, there were a few items that were 

10 identified. Again, you can look at Page 15. That 

11 goes through that discussion of that second 

12 interview.

13 The individual relayed information they 

14 felt was pertinent to our ability to reconstruct 

15 radiation dose, some concerns with penciling in 

16 bioassay and personal monitoring data and 

17 misplaced or lost bioassay samples, as well as 

18 contamination incidents.

19 We reviewed all of the information. We 

20 had no real indication, from our review, that 

21 actual personal monitoring data in the form of, you 

22 know, external badge readings or internal bioassay 
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1 samples had been penciled in. However, we believe 

2 that it could have been penciling in of survey 

3 information such as direct-reading dosimeters and, 

4 you know, pocket ion chambers and items like that. 

5 There was no indication that any of the personal 

6 monitoring data, dosimetry data had been penciled 

7 in.

8 Another issue was concerns with bioassay 

9 issues, that there were possible variations in 

10 bioassay results. We looked at this. The concern 

11 did not raise any issues that invalidate the use 

12 of personal monitoring data. We do make 

13 adjustments in personal and bioassay data, you 

14 know, based on the techniques that were used, 

15 correction factors and so on. So we had no 

16 indication that that issue would possibly affect 

17 our dose reconstruction process.

18 And another incident with personal 

19 contamination problems and other contamination 

20 incidents. Contamination incident and survey 

21 data are used to supplement personal monitoring 

22 data in the performance of dose reconstruction. 
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1 Personal monitoring data are, again, considered 

2 our primary source of data. We would only look at 

3 contamination incidents and only for the 

4 information involved to look at if there's 

5 potential exposure scenarios that we may need to 

6 address further. So, again, we did not feel that 

7 this issue impacts the dose reconstruction 

8 process. The interview also touched on other 

9 issues, such as tritium bubblers and the 

10 Criticality Lab, which are addressed in other 

11 reports.

12 A third interview that I feel is very 

13 important because it provides the meat of a lot of 

14 the review is the interview that was conducted with 

15 the FBI agent-in-charge. The FBI -- again, there 

16 was a raid that occurred in 1989. We interviewed 

17 this FBI agent who was in charge of this raid.

18 MR. KATZ: Could I ask, while he's 

19 pausing, some people have not muted their phones 

20 and I hear truck noises and so on in the background, 

21 or traffic noises, and it's making it difficult. 

22 It's probably making it difficult for the court 
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1 reporter, too. Could you all mute your phones, 

2 please? Thanks.

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Shall do.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Again, so we 

5 interviewed the FBI agent. And the FBI agent 

6 discussed the raid and provided a number of 

7 documents associated with the raid. A significant 

8 number of documents were stamped indicating they 

9 were not for public release.

10 We were concerned with this, and after our 

11 General Counsel reviewed the documents, a 

12 determination was made that we should ask for 

13 formal release from agencies involved, which was 

14 the FBI and EPA. This took a significant amount 

15 of time before these documents were released for 

16 use. And so that significantly delayed this 

17 paper.

18 The FBI agent also provided additional 

19 names of people to interview. We interviewed a 

20 number of these people, and attempted to interview 

21 all of them. And after our review of the documents 

22 provided and our interview notes, we concluded, as 
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1 you can see if you look at Page 22 of the report, 

2 at the top, again, the information provided by the 

3 agent, including the interview information and 

4 associated documents, support the idea that the 

5 basis of the raid was for environment issues:

6 "While some information collected and 

7 assessed at the time of the raid does cross over 

8 into occupational radiological issues, nothing was 

9 discovered that supports a data falsification or 

10 destruction issue that would impact the ability to 

11 reconstruct dose for the Rocky Flats Plant worker 

12 Class being assessed." 

13 The review of the flyover, there was an 

14 indication from the agent that there was a flyover 

15 looking at a potential criticality that may have 

16 occurred at Rocky Flats. He indicated that there 

17 may have been support for the raid -- okay. I 

18 apologize. Again, as I mentioned, there was a 

19 flyover and there was a survey that was conducted 

20 and indication that a criticality event may have 

21 occurred.

22 We reviewed information as well as 
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1 follow-up assessments that were performed and 

2 everything concluded that there was no potential 

3 criticality that occurred at Rocky Flats for that 

4 period.

5 Okay. So after that, if you look at 

6 Section 2.3 of the report, it's "Review of 

7 Petitioner-Identified Technical Safety Appraisal 

8 Issues." During our review and during our, you 

9 know, follow-up on this evaluation, the petitioner 

10 brought up a number of additional items that we 

11 continued to look at. One of them was this general 

12 accounting report.

13 (Telephonic interference.)

14 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. Somebody's not 

15 muted. Can you mute your phone? Someone from the 

16 public, I think. Press *6 to mute your phone so 

17 that it doesn't interrupt this call. Thank you.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: Alright. So Section 

19 2.3 of the report is "Review of 

20 Petitioner-Identified Technical Safety Appraisal 

21 Issues." A GAO report was referenced, which also 

22 referenced a Technical Safety Appraisal. That 
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1 Technical Safety Appraisal was reviewed for issues 

2 identified by the petitioner.

3 If you look at the three bullets at the 

4 bottom of Page 22, one of the issues, "radiation 

5 monitoring is adversely affected by poor quality 

6 instrumentation, inadequate calibration 

7 techniques, and improper use of equipment. The 

8 Radiological Health Quality Assurance Program is 

9 ineffective as evidenced by some of the preceding 

10 concerns."

11 The second issue is, "During the past few 

12 weeks, several SAAMs were turned off without 

13 notifying either radiation monitoring or the 

14 instrument technician. These instruments were 

15 operational when turned back on. There is no 

16 electronic method to automatically display their 

17 operational status in the monitoring office."

18 And the third issue being, "The health 

19 physics instruments used for personal protection 

20 do not all conform to appropriate performance 

21 requirements of applicable standards." 

22 These were very, you know, damning 
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1 statements that we definitely felt that needed 

2 further review. So we went back into the actual 

3 Technical Safety Appraisal and looked into the 

4 details. And the first issue of the poor quality 

5 instrumentation and inadequate calibration issue, 

6 we looked at that and all of the focus on that was 

7 for field instrumentation. And that field 

8 instrumentation has no bearing on our actual dose 

9 reconstruction approach, and, therefore, would not 

10 affect our ability to reconstruct the dose.

11 And similar with the SAAMs’

12 instrumentation. Although it is critical and 

13 those are bad practices for those to be turned off 

14 and is not something that you would want for your 

15 radiological field program, for them to be turned 

16 off and not turned back on, they do not affect our 

17 ability to reconstruct the dose.

18 The third item is the health physics 

19 instruments for personal protection do not all 

20 conform to appropriate performance standards. 

21 Again, those items are items that would not be used 

22 for actual personal monitoring data, and therefore 
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1 do not affect our ability to reconstruct the dose 

2 for workers. 

3 Section 3 of the report, what we felt was 

4 one of the key items for this -- you know, this data 

5 falsification, data destruction -- because, you 

6 know, some -- a lot of this is subjective in our 

7 view. And so we felt the key item is to actually 

8 go back and look at what personal monitoring data 

9 do we have available? Do we have, you know, 

10 internal/external monitoring data? Do we see gaps 

11 in that data that would possibly indicate a 

12 destruction in records, a destruction of data?

13 Also, looking at the amount of data over 

14 time periods, do we have indications that, you 

15 know, data picked up significantly after the --

16 after the raid, which would possibly indicate that 

17 the raid drove -- the raid and concerns from the 

18 raid changed the radiological monitoring program 

19 approach?

20 And so that was -- we thought that would 

21 be something that was more, not subjective but gave 

22 us a real quantitative look from a technical 
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1 perspective. Can we look at this and see we've got 

2 this information? If we've got this information, 

3 we see no real gaps that we can't account for and 

4 we can follow this through. And, if we have no 

5 clear indication that the monitoring data has been 

6 falsified, then we should be good for dose 

7 reconstruction.

8 So Section 3 looked at that and we looked 

9 at both the external and internal monitoring data. 

10 We provided tables on that data and our conclusion 

11 was that that personal monitoring data is available 

12 and has not been destroyed. And so we have no --

13 and we have no indication that it's been falsified.

14 So, after all the review, the data 

15 captures, the interviews that were conducted 

16 throughout this process and SC&A was involved in 

17 those interviews. The Board was -- some of the 

18 Board Members have been involved in the interviews 

19 through the process. Our conclusion is that none 

20 of the issues associated with data falsification 

21 or destruction or issues associated with the raid, 

22 the FBI raid, would prevent us from completing dose 
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1 reconstructions.

2 That kind of summarizes the report.

3 MR. KATZ: Let me -- this is Ted. Let me 

4 just break in here just to note that Phil Schofield 

5 joined us a little while ago. So he's on the line. 

6 So we have all of our Work Group members on the line.

7 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Welcome, Phil.

8 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Thanks.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Alright. 

10 Questions from Working Group Members? Well, 

11 should we -- actually, we should go to the SC&A 

12 response, should we not?

13 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Next. Okay. Let 

15 us do that. Who will -- who's going to give that 

16 report?

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

18 Buchanan, SC&A, and I'll give that report.

19 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Good.

20 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. I won't go over the 

21 summary because they did a very good job of 

22 summarizing their White Paper, which we received 
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1 at the end of June. And our task was to evaluate 

2 the White Paper from a technical point of view. 

3 And so we sent out a summary report recently and 

4 Section 1 essentially just summarizes what they 

5 talked about and Section 2, also.

6 So I'll go right into Section 3 of our 

7 report on Page 2. What I did is I broke this down 

8 and tried to pull out all -- there's two really 

9 separate items here. It was the interviews and the 

10 articles on paper, NIOSH's 32-page paper. So I 

11 tried -- they were interlaced.

12 And so what I tried to do is go out and 

13 separate those out and do a summary for the reader 

14 so they could see. Really, the core of it is shown 

15 in Table 1 there. On Page 2 are the interviews. 

16 There were about 13 interviews conducted since 

17 about December of 2013, about a year -- last 

18 year-and-a-half.

19 And SC&A sat in on most of those 

20 interviews and got firsthand knowledge of them. 

21 And we went back then and read NIOSH's report and 

22 looked at the references. Now they list about 140 
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1 references in the Site Research Database and we 

2 looked at the pertinent ones that would apply.

3 And so in that table I list the interview 

4 number and the page that NIOSH's report talks about 

5 that interviewee and also the main Site Research 

6 Database reference number. Now there are some 

7 others that go with that but those are the main 

8 interviews. So those of you that want to look at

9 that can follow that out in more detail.

10 Now, we -- like I say, we were on the 

11 interview and also we went back and reviewed what 

12 NIOSH's evaluation was and what we were looking for 

13 was things that would actually, perhaps, impact the 

14 recorded external dose or the bioassay data in our 

15 evaluation. In other words, like just previously 

16 stated, it might be bad practice to turn the air 

17 monitors off or to pencil in data or something but 

18 we want to look and see if it would affect the 

19 ability to do dose reconstruction.

20 And going through these interviews and 

21 the pertinent documents, we found out that, 

22 presently, our conclusion is that there was no 
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1 indication that there was essential individual 

2 personal monitoring data that was altered or 

3 destroyed or that bioassay samples that we could 

4 find would not be useful for the dose 

5 reconstruction process.

6 And I'd like to clarify that we did, on 

7 Interview Number 6 in the table, we did not have 

8 the example of the actual documents sent into NIOSH 

9 from that interviewee. However we did look at the 

10 summary of the documents in the referenced Document 

11 132787 and drew our conclusions from that. And so, 

12 essentially, we found nothing that would indicate 

13 lack of ability to do dose reconstruction.

14 Now that was for the interviews. We did 

15 the same thing for the related articles. You see 

16 Table 2 there on Page 4 lists the main articles as 

17 a separate -- as separated out from the reference 

18 documents used for the interviews.

19 We had about eight documents that were

20 brought forward by the petitioner and NIOSH and we 

21 looked at those and I list there a brief indication 

22 of the contents, the page number in NIOSH's recent 
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1 report and then the Site Research Database 

2 reference number.

3 And, again, we went through these 

4 documents with the same purpose: to look and see 

5 if it would indicate any data falsification, record 

6 destruction or bioassay data procedures that would 

7 hinder dose reconstruction. And we did not, at 

8 this point, identify any.

9 Now, there is one other issue that has not 

10 been brought up and that's in Section 4 of our 

11 report on Page 4. And that is the fact that it 

12 appears that the FBI raid mainly was centered 

13 around environmental issues and not directly 

14 connected to personal monitoring. However I would 

15 like to point out in TBD-4 for Rocky Flats there 

16 are some tables in there that are used for dose 

17 reconstruction that perhaps were drawn from data 

18 that was collected, say, prior to 1989.

19 And so I -- our conclusions concerning 

20 this, TBD-4, is that it should be looked at to see 

21 if there are any environmental-data issues 

22 identified in the raid and that we've been talking 
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1 about recently that would impact the validity of 

2 the data that's contained in TBD-4 that is used 

3 directly for dose reconstruction when a person has 

4 environmental dose assigned.

5 And so that summarizes our evaluation.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Any --

7 LaVon, did you want to respond particularly to the 

8 last item?

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I do. In fact, an 

10 issue that SC&A brought up in a previous 

11 (Telephonic interference) and we I think at that 

12 time even said that that was something that we would 

13 go back and look at because --

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: We're having some 

15 interference.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Are you -- are you 

17 getting -- still getting interference?

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I am but that may 

19 be -- that may be a problem, by the way, on my line. 

20 Anybody else having problems?

21 DR. NETON: This is Jim, Bomber, you're 

22 breaking up. You're just appearing on and off 
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1 periodically.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Well, let me 

3 switch over my -- a section here maybe away from 

4 the monitor. Maybe that will help. Is that 

5 better?

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Again, the 

8 environmental issue was -- TBD issue was brought 

9 up by SC&A in a previous review and we agreed that 

10 the environmental TBD will have to be revised. At 

11 that time, we -- it was also indicated by SC&A that 

12 this was not an SEC issue. It was more of a dose 

13 reconstruction issue and so, at that -- we had 

14 anticipated that we would have to revise that 

15 environmental report and that we would -- or 

16 environmental TBD, recognizing this issue.

17 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. So this 

18 would have to be a follow-up. That is, you will 

19 follow up on that and is that -- that's something 

20 that -- would that have to be sent to the Work Group 

21 or come back to the Work Group again or --

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, you know, in my 
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1 opinion this is a -- and as previously stated, I 

2 think this is a TBD issue that we'll have to 

3 address. But, ultimately, the Work Group will 

4 review the TBDs as well, the final TBDs after 

5 revisions are made with the SC&A -- or with the SEC 

6 and the close-out of all our reports.

7 TBD revisions -- all the TBDs will be 

8 revised and so I'm sure that review will take place.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Any 

10 questions? Comments?

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. This is a 

12 question for LaVon. This is Phil. I -- I've got 

13 just one question. That is, I understand --

14 correct me if I'm wrong -- but my understanding is 

15 they do actually have data sheets or logs of some 

16 -- a lot of the monitors for the stacks and for the 

17 rooms and stuff. Those do exist?

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct.

19 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. That's what I 

20 need clarified. Thanks.

21 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Further?

22 MEMBER MUNN: And this is Wanda. My only 
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1 question is how far along are you with reviewing 

2 that environmental data?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, actually, it was 

4 kind of put on the back burner because we were 

5 trying to work on the SEC issues to close out the 

6 SEC issues on this before we move forward with 

7 revising the TBD.

8 MEMBER MUNN: So, essentially, it --

9 you're ready to go?

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Once we're done 

11 with the -- yes. Close out the issues and we'll 

12 start moving forward with the TBD revisions.

13 MEMBER MUNN: What's your assessment of 

14 how likely that's to be -- going to be, to take very 

15 long?

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Wow. Now, you've --

17 that I cannot answer. You know, one of the 

18 difficulties we face is the ever-moving [fee?] 

19 list. You know, right now we're doing SEC 

20 evaluations on Argonne National Lab, Lawrence 

21 Livermore and a new evaluation on Blockson. All 

22 of these take significant resources.
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1 We have teams working on Savannah River 

2 Site to close out the SEC in Savannah River Site, 

3 Hanford, and open issues with the Idaho National 

4 Lab. We've got co-worker issues that we're 

5 working through the modeling on or finalizing our 

6 implementation guide and moving forward with that.

7 So there is a -- it's -- what I'm basically 

8 saying is there's so many things going on and we've 

9 got to do dose reconstruction, which is our 

10 priority, that it's hard to define exactly or give 

11 you a good estimate on a -- when the TBDs could be 

12 revised.

13 I think what we have to do is, once we 

14 close this out, close these issues out and move 

15 forward. We'll put together a schedule based on our 

16 current resources and priorities and, you know --

17 and we always adjust the priority based on what, 

18 you know, the Board's looking for at the time and 

19 what seems to be the highest priority at the time. 

20 So --

21 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I certainly 

22 understand that and I'm not asking how long is it 
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1 going to take to bring this other rock but, in view 

2 of the fact that this seems to me -- perhaps I'm 

3 looking at it incorrectly but this looks to me to 

4 be one of the very few outstanding questions that 

5 remain for us at Rocky.

6 They've had such a rough time and they've 

7 had such an excellent record with respect to the 

8 care and keeping of the safety of the employees, 

9 I just -- it seems a shame, unless it's going to 

10 be a really rigorous requirement of large amounts 

11 of personnel time, it -- from the outside, it looks 

12 as though that shouldn't be too difficult a thing 

13 to wrap up. That's the only reason for the 

14 question.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: I agree. I don't 

16 anticipate it being a difficult thing to close out 

17 and move forward.

18 MEMBER MUNN: That's just one of those 

19 things which because -- especially because Rocky 

20 has received so much publicity and because there's 

21 been so much interest focused on it, if this is --

22 this is something that's keeping us from reaching 
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1 an endpoint, it might be wise for us to consider. 

2 If we're not going to have a massive commitment of 

3 personnel time, it might be worth taking a look at 

4 that.

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. But I think 

7 that there's agreement -- well, there is agreement

8 between NIOSH, ORAU and SC&A on the fact that this 

9 does not impact the dose reconstruction except for 

10 the possibility that some of the environmental 

11 problems have fed back into our dose 

12 reconstruction. So there's that -- just simply 

13 that one item to go.

14 But the basic conclusion appears -- there 

15 appears to be agreement and there does -- there does 

16 not appear to be disagreement among our Working 

17 Group about that overall conclusion with the 

18 exception of that one point. Is that -- is that 

19 a correct statement?

20 MEMBER MUNN: I believe so.

21 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

22 MEMBER FIELD: I -- this is Bill Field. 
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1 I have one question for LaVon.

2 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Good.

3 MEMBER FIELD: LaVon, on page -- let me 

4 see what page this is here. I guess this is 

5 Page 19. There's a statement, there is a 

6 contention that a flyover -- that the flyover data 

7 indicated the presence of cesium-137 and 

8 strontium-90. Could you just provide a bit more 

9 detail about what -- what's the contention? Was 

10 this reported by several people are, or -- I just 

11 -- contention's kind of a big word. I'm just 

12 wondering if you have more detail?

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Statement made by 

14 the FBI agent and it was -- we were -- we were as 

15 surprised as you sound with that statement. And 

16 there was -- you know, the concern was brought up. 

17 So there was a detailed investigation into the 

18 potential of a criticality event occurring. And 

19 there was no abnormal -- abnormally high fission 

20 product activity in the environment or area that 

21 would indicate that a potential criticality 

22 occurred.
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1 There was a detailed assessment that was 

2 done by the -- and I'm trying to remember who 

3 sanctioned the assessment, if it was Department of 

4 Energy. Dan Stempfley may be able to correct me 

5 or Jim Bogard. But the assessment went in, looked 

6 at the data, reviewed data from different areas and 

7 ultimately, the conclusion was that there was no 

8 criticality event that occurred.

9 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. And then, in 

10 addition to no criticality, there was also no 

11 flyover as far as you know, is that correct?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we have an 

13 indication of one flyover that did occur. We did 

14 not get the second flyover. But the flyover 

15 appeared to focus more on a heat sensor -- sensing, 

16 basically looking for was there -- and this is what 

17 we were told in the interview, that, you know, were 

18 they potentially using the -- were they using the 

19 furnace when the furnace was not supposed to be used 

20 at night. And so it was more of a heat-sensor type 

21 of review.

22 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. So the bulleted 
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1 part where it says, there is a contention that the 

2 flyover data, that's referring to the 1989 flyover 

3 data?

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Correct.

5 MEMBER FIELD: Okay.

6 MR. BOGARD: This is Jim Bogard. There 

7 was a review by the State of Colorado and we 

8 interviewed one of the participants in that review 

9 who did an assessment of the flyover data that 

10 claimed to have found the cesium-137 activity. 

11 And he said that there is no indication of a 

12 criticality and that was the conclusion of his 

13 panel.

14 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. Is any of this 

15 published anywhere or are there documents stating 

16 that?

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. All of the 

18 documents that we've received and including that 

19 assessment are in our Site Research Database.

20 MEMBER FIELD: Okay.

21 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Alright. 

22 Further questions, comments? Shall be go on now 
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1 to the report on the Critical Mass Lab?

2 MR. KATZ: So, Dave, this is Ted. That 

3 issue is closed as far as the Work Group's 

4 concerned?

5 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: It's closed except 

6 as I said. It's closed except for that one item 

7 about the -- how the environmental -- any 

8 environmental problems fed back into the 

9 occupational radiation reconstruction.

10 MR. KATZ: Right. So the Work Group's 

11 concurring that that's a TBD issue. So the --

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right. In fact, I 

13 thought I just said that, yes, that we do concur 

14 --

15 MR. KATZ: Okay.

16 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: -- on the basic 

17 agreement that the data falsification has no impact 

18 on our dose reconstruction except for that one item 

19 which will be taken care of later.

20 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Critical 

22 Mass.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Our second 

2 document is the assessment of sealed radioactive 

3 sources and fission and activation products as 

4 radiological exposure sources in the Rocky Flats 

5 plant at the Critical Mass Laboratory. This White 

6 Paper looks at the radioactive materials present 

7 at CML -- and I will refer to the Critical Mass 

8 Laboratory a number of times as the CML -- the 

9 exposure potential and how these exposures can be 

10 reconstructed if necessary.

11 The first section goes through the 

12 history of the CML. And this -- as Dr. Rothe was 

13 on the line and mentioned, a significant amount of 

14 the information that was in this report was 

15 received from Dr. Rothe, and a document that he 

16 authored called A Technical Usable History of the 

17 Critical Mass Laboratory at Rocky Flats, which 

18 provides significant detail into the analyses --

19 the different analyses that occurred, the time 

20 periods, incidents that occurred as, you know, a 

21 number of activities up through pretty much the end 

22 of operations at the Critical Mass Laboratory.
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1 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: LaVon, may I 

2 interrupt?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

4 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: One second. I do 

5 not see -- I'm on the DCAS website. I do not see 

6 that White Paper on the website.

7 MR. KATZ: I looked, too. It's not 

8 there.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Could somebody put 

10 it on while we're speaking or can it be put on the 

11 --

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Live Meeting?

13 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: -- on the Live 

14 Meeting? Thank you.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I can get it put 

16 on the Live Meeting. I'm trying to -- I'm 

17 surprised because I got an email that shows it --

18 shows it being there. But I will put it on the Live 

19 Meeting right now.

20 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Good. 

21 Thank you.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: One moment.
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1 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Sure.

2 DR. ROTHE: This is Dr. Rothe. May I 

3 unmute my phone now, since I think I may have some 

4 things I may want to add?

5 MR. KATZ: Dr. Rothe, why don't you -- if 

6 you would just wait and unmute your phone when it's 

7 time for you to make a comment, that would be great.

8 DR. ROTHE: Okay. You will ask me for 

9 that, right?

10 MR. KATZ: Sure. The Work Group Members 

11 or LaVon or Joe Fitzgerald from SC&A or -- yes.

12 DR. ROTHE: Okay. So I will go back to 

13 mute then.

14 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Dr. Rothe.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: One moment. I'm still 

16 trying to --

17 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right. That's 

18 okay. It always takes a few more moments doing 

19 something live, in real time. No problem.

20 We also could adjust the agenda and go on 

21 to the next item, if you'd like a little extra time.

22 MR. KATZ: LaVon, it's -- if you just 
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1 bring -- if you just bring it up on your screen and 

2 bring up your -- and then share your desktop, 

3 everybody will see it.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Hold on. I was 

5 actually trying to pull it from another area but, 

6 yes, I can do that.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes. That's the quickest 

8 thing to do.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Can you see it now?

10 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes, indeed. 

11 Thank you.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Alright. Let 

13 me -- I have to do one other thing.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Sure.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: I couldn't see my notes 

16 that way. Okay. So, again, the Critical Mass 

17 Laboratory -- I've got it pulled up. If you look 

18 at -- this is the review I just pulled up.

19 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: What I see is the 

20 SC&A comment.

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Hold on. Yes.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Not the original 
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1 NIOSH report.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Maybe you guys 

3 were right and I looked at this wrong and it's --

4 the review's not there. I'll pull it right up and 

5 out of my files.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Sure. Our 

7 Working Group Members certainly had access to it 

8 and looked at it and reviewed it before the meeting.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Sure. I'm really 

10 surprised it was not sent to you. I was gone last 

11 week, as you know, so I --

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I promise you one 

14 more minute I'll have it.

15 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Oh, I know where to 

17 look. I'm in the wrong area. Here's data 

18 falsification. Critical Mass Laboratory. 

19 Finally. Can we see that?

20 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Thank you.

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Alright.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Magic.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Well, you know, 

2 you guys put me on the spot. It made it difficult.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Sorry about that.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: So our second paper, as 

5 we indicated, is an assessment of sealed 

6 radioactive sources and fission and activation 

7 products as radiological exposure sources at the 

8 Rocky Flats plant Critical Mass laboratory, 

9 Building 886. Okay. We issued on June 9, 2015.

10 We were basically -- our review was to 

11 look at the sources at the Critical Mass 

12 Laboratory, you know, the different experiments 

13 that occurred, fission and activation products 

14 that could be generated into fuels and whether 

15 there was a potential that those fission and 

16 activation products created an exposure -- or had 

17 an exposure potential and, if there was, was there 

18 monitoring data or was there a way that we could 

19 assess the exposure potential from the fission and 

20 activation products.

21 The first section is history of the 

22 Critical Mass Laboratory and it goes into some 
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1 discussions. As I mentioned, a significant amount 

2 of the information that we received in this is from 

3 a history report of Critical Mass Laboratory that 

4 goes into the experiments that occurred.

5 They conducted 1600 to 1700 experiments 

6 and, if you look on Page 2, you'll see the different 

7 types of -- or some of the discussion on those 

8 experiments that occurred. If you follow on and 

9 you -- one of the key things to note is that 

10 experiments did not resume after the FBI raid in 

11 1989. And another key thing to note is -- and I'll 

12 get into that a little bit more -- is the types of 

13 analyses that occurred after the 1983 up to the 1989 

14 period.

15 If you look at the following page under 

16 radioactive materials used in the CML, you'll see 

17 a Table 1. You see high-enriched uranium 

18 hemishells and rods, low-enriched uranium oxide, 

19 packet briquettes, plutonium ingots, 

20 high-enriched uranium, uranyl nitrate solution, 

21 plutonium in the form of metal hemishells and 

22 machined plutonium cylinders sealed in double 
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1 containers.

2 As you move on into the report, we 

3 actually look at the sealed radioactive sources in 

4 use at the Critical Mass Laboratory, in addition 

5 to not only the experiments that occurred but 

6 you'll see that you have californium sources, 

7 cobalt-60 sources in Table 2. There was 

8 plutonium-beryllium from a -- most of the 

9 californium for the neutron activation for 

10 providing a neutron source for the analyses.

11 So our big concern, the concern that was 

12 brought up to us about the Critical Mass Laboratory 

13 is do we have a concern with fission and activation 

14 products and -- that was generated from these 

15 low-level criticalities or bringing things to 

16 criticality at the CML that would create a 

17 potential exposure that we have not actually 

18 evaluated.

19 So, if you go down to Page 5, you'll see 

20 a timeline of experiments or actually Table 3. 

21 There's a timeline of experiments that happened at 

22 the Rocky Flats Critical Mass Laboratory. You can 
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1 see a lot of the work that occurred in the early 

2 years. We also give you reference numbers and 

3 stuff that you can look it up, the number of events 

4 that occurred through that period.

5 But, if you go down to the bottom of that 

6 table, you'll notice that after 1983 the only thing 

7 that really -- all the experiments were focused 

8 around uranyl nitrate and uranium solution at that 

9 time period. So this is, in our opinion, the 

10 critical time period. Prior to 1982, it's -- or 

11 '83, it's already an SEC. And so we were focusing 

12 on the time period from the '83 until the end of 

13 operations in -- at roughly '89.

14 Again, Table 4 has a number of experiments 

15 for each different material, physical and chemical 

16 form that occurred. And so, again, the HEU 

17 represents the most likely source of -- in our 

18 opinion, the HEU represents the most likely source 

19 of internal contamination by the fission and 

20 activation products because, one, it was handled 

21 in open tanks -- open tanks and because several 

22 spills occurred requiring cleanup and recovery. 
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1 And that was what was occurring during this 

2 specific time period in 1983 to 1989 as well.

3 If you look at the Page 7, you'll notice 

4 that the top four incidents involving facility 

5 contamination by solid material reported plutonium 

6 metal sealed in a can reacted with water in a can 

7 outside and plutonium pushing up from the can, 

8 another, a can containing compressed low enriched 

9 uranium powder, two almost identical incidents 

10 with uranyl nitrate salts.

11 So, again, we were looking at the 

12 exposure, either an acute or chronic personal 

13 exposure that could be generated by some of these 

14 events that occurred.

15 So what we looked -- what we tried to do 

16 was, taking all these experiments that occurred in 

17 Building 886 and, since there was significant 

18 detail that was provided in that History of the 

19 Critical Mass Laboratory, we looked at coming up 

20 with a model that would identify the activity 

21 concentrations of the fission and activation 

22 products based on the source materials that were 
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1 used in Building 886.

2 We knew we had approximately 1600 

3 criticality experiments that occurred during that 

4 period and we estimated the amount of fissions from 

5 the high-powered experiments and then, using a 

6 code, we simulated a code being ORIGEN-S. We 

7 simulated fission and activation product buildup 

8 in the uranium solution over time.

9 And so -- okay. So, if you look at, 

10 again, on Figure 1, we have a time distribution of 

11 the HEU critical experience over the history of 

12 time. We used that to come up with an average 

13 solution experimental rate in -- for developing our 

14 model. You can see that. And we assume that each 

15 experiment took one hour and was conducted at a 

16 power level of 10 milliwatts.

17 If you look at Table 5 from our model that 

18 we developed, the total activities -- the 

19 activities -- activity dosimetry, important 

20 fission and activation products ten days after the 

21 end of CML operations.

22 So, basically, we developed this looking 
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1 at buildup over time, including decay. And then 

2 we came up with an activity concentration for each 

3 of the activation products that would -- fission 

4 and activation products that would occur.

5 And then, from that we assumed that --

6 came up with the position that these inventories 

7 would have been fairly uniformly distributed 

8 within the total volume of the solution at the CML 

9 and they would be transferred back to the tank farm 

10 for storage. So our exposure potentials were both 

11 from re-suspension of any spills that occurred and 

12 contamination that occurred at the facility as well 

13 as during the decommissioning and demolition of the 

14 facility.

15 So we took a couple different approaches 

16 on this. For the decontamination and 

17 decommissioning of the facility, we actually took 

18 in, if I remember correctly here, we captured a 

19 number of different surveys that occurred for D&D 

20 of the facility. We had a -- we looked at the 

21 different dose rates that were emitted from that. 

22 This is, again, on Page 11. We looked at the 
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1 activity counts or the actual smear surveys that 

2 were done as well for this.

3 Let's see. There it is, Contamination 

4 Levels. I'm going to get down to the final. Hold 

5 on here. So our final thing was to look at -- do 

6 an assessment of the unmonitored radiation dose at 

7 the CML. So, if we go to Table 8, you'll see that 

8 you'll look at the high enriched uranium solution 

9 spills over the history of the CML. So what we did 

10 was we looked at all the different spills that 

11 occurred over the time period.

12 Again, these are what we indicated were 

13 the most likely source of internal contamination 

14 because it was spill material. It was from tanks 

15 that were open tanks and plated out into the surface 

16 or onto the surface. So, as you can see on Table 8, 

17 the recorded amount of high enriched uranium 

18 nitrate solution is under 30 kilograms. Almost 

19 all the spilled fuel was recovered and surfaces 

20 decontaminated.

21 So what we ultimately ended up doing was 

22 we took the contamination area limit of 2,000 dpm 
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1 per 100 square centimeters, which is the -- and we 

2 -- and we took the total floor area of the room 

3 that's approximately 220 meters square and came up 

4 with an amount of 1,980 microcuries of HEU.

5 And, from that we developed bounding 

6 intakes from this. The intake would be based on 

7 a concentration spill fraction, resuspension 

8 factor, breathing rate, intake period and our 

9 combined surface area.

10 And, if you look at Table 6, our intakes 

11 from this, you can see the actual intake 

12 concentration in becquerels on the right and for 

13 each radionuclide in the total inventory. And 

14 Table 6 identifies the intakes of dosimetry --

15 dosimetrically important fission and activation 

16 products, and resuspension of contaminants at the 

17 CML. And that narrows it down to roughly six or 

18 seven items.

19 And then, from that we took the largest 

20 total organ dose and thyroid from the soluble I-131 

21 and you can see that the committed dose in that --

22 from that in sieverts is 3.7 times ten to the minus 
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1 seven and for bone surface and the lungs 4.0 and 

2 lungs for insoluble at 6.1, which is, you know, 

3 basically a negligible -- a negligible dose from 

4 that event or from the prompt resuspension of those 

5 materials.

6 So our summary was that we concluded that 

7 the -- we have external monitoring data from the 

8 individuals. Each individual had external badge 

9 readings. The internal monitoring data, you know, 

10 all -- everyone was -- had bioassay monitoring and 

11 for uranium, plutonium, americium. And the 

12 fission and activation products that were 

13 generated during these routine experiments did not 

14 generate enough activity to create a potential --

15 an exposure that would provide a measurable dose 

16 to the individuals.

17 I want to see if our ORAU team members want 

18 to add anything on that, too, because I got kind 

19 of lost in that process there.

20 MR. BOGARD: This is Jim Bogard. Now, 

21 only clarification back on the Figure 1 that showed 

22 the frequency. Yes. Figure 1 on Page 9, that 
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1 average HEU solution expendable rate is actually 

2 an artifact. We originally did the analysis using 

3 that average rate, but we decided to go back and 

4 try to use the -- an assessment that considered the 

5 experiments in the time period that they occurred. 

6 So the average rate actually wasn't used in the 

7 final analysis. It was the number of experiments 

8 in the particular time period. That's all I wanted 

9 to add.

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes.

11 MEMBER FIELD: LaVon, this is Bill Field. 

12 Do you have like two Table 6s and 7s?

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Hold on.

14 MEMBER FIELD: Because I see them in 

15 both. I see where different tables below are 

16 labeled 6 and 7.

17 MR. BOGARD: Yes. You're right. There 

18 are two -- at least two Table 6s.

19 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

20 MR. BOGARD: And then come back for Table 

21 8.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: I can see we're going to 
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1 have to fix that.

2 MR. BOGARD: So the tables need to be 

3 renumbered.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Yes. Yes. I 

5 see the Table 6 after Table 8. Okay. I don't know 

6 how I missed that one.

7 MR. BOGARD: What's a misplaced table 

8 among friends?

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Any questions --

10 other questions?

11 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: This is -- this is 

12 Dave Kotelchuck. I was off the line for a while, 

13 got cut off and I'm back. Was that Dr. Rothe 

14 speaking just before?

15 MR. KATZ: No, that was LaVon speaking.

16 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I mean LaVon was 

17 giving the report. I thought I heard another 

18 person speaking. Do we want to give the SC&A 

19 response or -- and I gather that Dr. Rothe is on 

20 the line and will be asked to join us at some point. 

21 I'm not quite sure what's the right time.

22 MR. KATZ: Yes. So I think you're asking 
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1 for SC&A to give its response?

2 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

3 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

4 Buchanan again of SC&A. And we reviewed NIOSH's 

5 very detailed White Paper concerning the CML. And 

6 they did a good job of identifying the source terms 

7 and everything. And we looked over those and we 

8 agreed with most of their basis and we set out a 

9 White Paper which outlined it again, summarized it 

10 and then really addressed it.

11 We looked at source terms, which was the 

12 sealed sources, the fission activation products 

13 and the fuels and looked at, of course, the external 

14 dose that was recorded by the dosimeters, internal 

15 doses and -- was what we were concentrating on. 

16 And, of course, the sealed sources, by definition 

17 you wouldn't have any internal. So we were looking 

18 at the fission activation and fuel internal 

19 exposure potentials.

20 And so we addressed it in kind of like 

21 where the rubber hits the road. Okay. They did 

22 a very good job outlining the source terms and 
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1 stuff. We looked at it and said, okay, was this 

2 data available for the workers that were there. 

3 And so I went into the actual database for the 

4 workers and the NOCTS and looked at some of the 

5 claims.

6 Now, this was -- what I did was I took the 

7 book or article on the history of the CML and looked 

8 at some of the people's names in there. And there 

9 were about 25 names in that publication that would 

10 indicate that they could have some potential 

11 uptake: experimenters, technicians, nuclear 

12 engineers, those sort of people that were working 

13 around the material and would be involved in the 

14 daily operation and cleanup.

15 And so I looked at those 25 people and I 

16 looked them all up on the database and four were 

17 claimants, fortunately. And so I looked in detail 

18 at their data and see what was available. In other 

19 words, were we looking at bioassays that would 

20 allow for dose reconstruction regardless of the 

21 source terms as long as the bioassays were 

22 appropriate for the source terms and analyzing what 
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1 NOISH puts forth as the source terms and the other 

2 articles that I've read and looking at the 

3 bioassay data and they -- there was an appropriate 

4 match there.

5 And so what we wanted to look at was the 

6 number and the pattern of the bioassays that were 

7 recorded and will actually be used in the dose 

8 reconstruction. And so I looked at those and, 

9 fortunately, there was data for the operational 

10 period -- and for the people that fit some of these 

11 categories that would be potentially exposed.

12 And so I looked at the pattern and the 

13 number and the types and there were -- there were 

14 urinalysis for uranium and plutonium, there's 

15 whole-body count for fission products. There were

16 several different types of analysis. And so I 

17 looked to see what the pattern was there and I 

18 listed in Table 1 kind of the summary of our 

19 investigation.

20 And what I was looking for was, was there 

21 at least annual bioassays indicating that they 

22 would pick up the doses, the impacts that were 
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1 received and, number two, was there more than one 

2 or two per year because you could have a whole-body 

3 [count] and a urinalysis. That would be two a 

4 year. That would be still considered an annual.

5 And so I looked at those that had three 

6 or greater indicating that, if something happened, 

7 they were they were bioassayed. And so I have the 

8 cases there, A, B, C and D, the four cases, the 

9 number of years they worked at the CML, the number 

10 of bioassays in that -- in the operating period '64 

11 to '82, average bioassays per year and the range 

12 of the number of bioassays per year and the number 

13 of years that had more than three bioassays per 

14 year.

15 As you can see there, there was, 

16 generally, at least an annual bioassay in most 

17 cases. Sometimes if the person started late or 

18 left early in the year, there was -- there was no 

19 response that would fill the bill. But most of the 

20 time there were annual bioassays. And there was 

21 -- and about 30 percent of the time there was about 

22 three or more bioassays in a year. And so -- and 
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1 these were bioassays that would look at the source 

2 terms that were just explained by NIOSH.

3 And so we concluded that they did do 

4 regular bioassays. There was probably -- although 

5 [we] had no direct proof, there was probably some 

6 special bioassays because, unfortunately, Rocky 

7 Flats didn't label a lot of their bioassays as to 

8 whether they were routine or special or 

9 event-driven. So you just have to kind of try to 

10 look at the frequency and see if that's what it 

11 might be.

12 Now, in addition, we said, okay, what if 

13 a person didn't have a -- had an intake and wasn't 

14 -- and didn't have a special bioassay, say, from 

15 a liquid fuel spill or something? So, I used the 

16 IMBA program to run some generic cases where a 

17 person [was] having a plutonium or uranium intake, 

18 say, between annual bioassays and say six months 

19 into it, halfway in between, would we be able to 

20 see it?

21 And what I found out was depends on the 

22 isotope solubility and some, you know, other 
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1 variables. We'd still be at around 50 percent of 

2 the original concentration. Forty-five to 85 

3 percent of the original concentration would be 

4 there to detect then when the next annual bioassay 

5 came up.

6 And so, in summary, we found it most 

7 likely that, in fact, reading a lot of articles 

8 around CML -- Dr. Rothe's history was very helpful 

9 in this -- and some other articles, that CML was 

10 fairly well represented as far as bioassays. And 

11 so we did not find an issue that would indicate that 

12 people that worked there would be missed assigning 

13 dose during the dose reconstruction. So that --

14 that's the summary.

15 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Questions 

16 or was there -- was there something that Dr. Rothe 

17 would comment on or wants to comment on?

18 DR. ROTHE: This is Dr. Rothe. Yes. Do 

19 I -- may I have the time now to -- I have seven major 

20 points that I would like to discuss concerning the 

21 White Paper. And it --

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I guess so. I 
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1 don't know how long that will take but --

2 MS. BARRIE: Dr. Kotelchuck, this is 

3 Terrie.

4 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

5 MS. BARRIE: Charles Saunders and I are 

6 willing to give up our petitioner comments at this 

7 time in order for Dr. Rothe to speak and we'll take 

8 care of our comments at the full Board meeting next 

9 week, if that's okay with you.

10 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well that's very 

11 nice of you. Well, good. Good. Then --

12 DR. ROTHE: I don't think my comments 

13 will take that long anyhow.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Thank you. And I 

15 don't know. I think we may have time for your 

16 comments later anyway, Terrie.

17 MS. BARRIE: Okay.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: But, Dr. Rothe, 

19 please do go ahead.

20 DR. ROTHE: Alright. Thank you very 

21 much. I have, as I said, seven major points. 

22 Point number one, a very important point, there is 
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1 absolutely no way whatsoever that anyone can even 

2 guess at a power level for the super -- slightly 

3 super-delayed critical experiments at the CML.

4 It is not even conceivably possible to 

5 reconstruct a power level from the data that was 

6 collected for every experiment. Therefore, the 10 

7 milliwatts assumed in the White Paper is certainly 

8 wrong, simply wrong.

9 I've given this a lot of thought since 

10 reading the White Paper and have come up with one 

11 possible alternative that would allow you to at 

12 least estimate a possible lower limit on the power 

13 level and that methodology -- I have not done the 

14 calculation myself but there are physicists around 

15 that can do that.

16 My suggestion is that we take credit for 

17 the fact that, at the CML experiments, we never 

18 needed to dissipate heat generated. That is, 

19 there was no thermal -- no significant thermal 

20 expansion due to heat from an experiment.

21 And, therefore, I would like to suggest 

22 that someone calculate the following: consider a 
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1 60-inch-square slab of high concentration uranium 

2 solution that can -- that attained criticality at 

3 12.64 centimeters. I'm recalling this from a 

4 specific experiment that I did early in my career.

5 Then, once you calculate the wattage that 

6 would have increased that height by thermal 

7 expansion by a two times ten to the minus three 

8 centimeters -- that is a few hundredths of a 

9 millimeter -- the nine-hour-long experiment that 

10 is referenced in the White Paper proved the 

11 sensitivity because, in that particular 

12 experiment, a few seconds of the slow pump, which 

13 added solution at the rate of one-third of a gallon 

14 per hour, gives us a very sensitive measure of the 

15 -- of the height increase because you can easily 

16 measure two seconds.

17 And it turns out that two seconds of that 

18 slow pump would increase the solution height five 

19 times ten to the minus four centimeters. Still at 

20 that small change in solution height, a very 

21 significant and noticeable, measurable change in 

22 the positive reactor period. I'm assuming 
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1 everybody knows what a positive reactor period and 

2 a negative reactor period is.

3 About 30 seconds worth of such an addition 

4 would produce a short reactor period but still 

5 within the allowable limits by technical 

6 specifications.

7 One preliminary thermodynamic 

8 calculation, done on the back of an envelope we 

9 might say, suggested that the two-second pump 

10 change in period corresponded to about 4 watts. 

11 But we could pump or -- we could make that small 

12 pump addition -- slow pump addition for 30 seconds. 

13 So that's 15 times longer than the 4 watts. So, 

14 if things are linear, you could assume 15 times 4 

15 -- or 60 watts. That's a little bit larger than 

16 10 milliwatts.

17 Now, if -- when one is doing this 

18 calculation, since you won't have the thermal 

19 expansion of uranium solution, I'm suggesting that 

20 you use the thermal coefficient of thermal 

21 expansion for nitric acid or for water.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Sir, this is hard 
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1 to follow. You're giving a lot of numbers that I 

2 trust are written down or you can write down?

3 DR. ROTHE: Yes. I have written them 

4 down.

5 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Good.

6 DR. ROTHE: And I will forward them 

7 whenever anybody wants them.

8 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Okay.

9 DR. ROTHE: Now, my suggestion is -- in 

10 fact, my -- I very strongly encourage that whatever 

11 wattage you come up with there, somewhere between 

12 10 and 20 watts, probably, to be used in the 

13 ORIGEN-S calculation in order to determine the 

14 impact of radiologic exposure from CML's almost 

15 1,000 or so critical experiments. And we did 

16 attain delayed criticality on every one of these 

17 experiments that I claim went critical.

18 Now, if it turns out that 10 or 20 watts 

19 of power yields the same results as the 

20 10 milliwatts, so be it. If it's the same 

21 conclusion in the White Paper, I won't argue any 

22 further.
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1 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

2 DR. ROTHE: Okay. Point number two, no 

3 experiment -- no experiment ever lasted only an 

4 hour. No critical experiment anyhow lasted over 

5 an hour -- only an hour. If we attain criticality, 

6 at least 20 to 30 minutes would be spent without 

7 making any change in solution height, establishing 

8 a positive reactor period. Then, after that, a 

9 little bit of solution would be drained away, 

10 allowing another 20 to 30 minutes to establish a 

11 negative reactor period such that we could linearly 

12 interpolate the critical height between the 

13 positive period and the negative period.

14 In addition, both of these were preceded 

15 by 45 to 60 minutes approaching criticality where 

16 fission fragments were still being created. To be 

17 on the safe side, when reconstructing dose 

18 exposure, I suggest that you assume at least 

19 two-and-a-half hours. Thus, in summary to this 

20 point, two-and-a-half hours instead of one hour and 

21 10 to 20 watts instead of 10 milliwatts.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.
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1 DR. ROTHE: Now I'm moving on to point 

2 number three.

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

4 DR. ROTHE: The White Paper totally 

5 underestimates the fission fragments built up

6 during our experiments. The radiation monitor 

7 working with us often told us to avoid proximity 

8 to the fissile fuel, be that solid metal or the 

9 solution, after an experiment because of the 

10 elevated radiation levels.

11 Often we were told to stay out of Room 103, 

12 the solution storage room, after a solution 

13 experiment. Sometimes that would be for two or 

14 three days, such as over a weekend. The radiation 

15 monitors wanted the fission fragment inventory to 

16 decay away.

17 Now, you guys probably know this better 

18 than I do but I recall a rule of thumb someone told 

19 me that fission fragment radiation would decay 

20 according to t to the minus 1.4 in days.

21 Okay. Point number four, the age of the 

22 plutonium metal cylinders, we got these metal 
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1 cylinders for experiments in the 1970s sometime and 

2 we returned them to the production stream in 1983. 

3 By that time, the plutonium metal was about 25 years 

4 old and would -- there is a natural process that 

5 inbreeds americium-241 into the plutonium-239. 

6 And that -- and that makes the resultant plutonium 

7 metal cylinders much more hazardous to handle or 

8 deal with.

9 The fifth point I want to mention briefly 

10 is that, of the bullets listed on Page 7 of 24, I 

11 think Bullet Number 1 referring to the January 1983 

12 incident minimizes the -- minimizes the impact of 

13 that particular incident. That's when the 

14 plutonium's solid cylinder got contacted with 

15 water and there's not room for the oxide of 

16 plutonium or sub-oxide of plutonium and the 

17 plutonium metal in the sealed can. So it popped 

18 the lid off the can and put plutonium compound on 

19 the floor of the experiment.

20 The second bullet on Page 7, which deals 

21 with that can that was accidentally pushed off on 

22 the floor and fell, rupturing the can and spilling 
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1 the powder, I think that way overstates the 

2 significance of the -- of this insignificant 

3 incident. The can was even salvaged and used in 

4 subsequent experiments and the small contamination 

5 was easily cleaned up.

6 Now, I have four unrecognized incidents 

7 of greater significance that I think should have 

8 been included as bullet points. One is, when you 

9 don't take -- you don't recognize that the 

10 plutonium hemishells -- that one plutonium 

11 hemishell was found decomposed upon opening its 

12 pressure cooker.

13 When we took the -- took the pressure 

14 cooker off its shelf and rested it on the downdraft 

15 table, opened up the lid, instead of a fairly large 

16 diameter plutonium hemispherical shell, we found 

17 just a pile of powder. So that should be bullet 

18 number four.

19 Bullet number five should be the spill in 

20 May of 1969 wherein there was 60 gallons of uranyl 

21 nitrate solution put on the floor of Room 103. And 

22 I confess to you all that that was totally my fault 
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1 because of an oversight on my part. That should 

2 be bullet number five.

3 Bullet number six should --

4 MEMBER MUNN: How was that responded to 

5 again?

6 DR. ROTHE: -- be the spill in the 

7 trenches of Room 101 in February of 1968. And 

8 bullet number seven should have been the vent 

9 overflow into the exhaust duct system which caused 

10 problems through the early 2000s.

11 Even when they were decommissioning the 

12 facility, I got frequently asked about the 

13 disposition of the uranium contamination inside 

14 that buried 10-inch diameter duct. And, of 

15 course, that had never ever been cleaned up. So 

16 whoever was decommissioning that certainly got 

17 some exposure from that.

18 Then bullet point number six -- not bullet 

19 point number six, my sixth comment of the seven is 

20 -- talks about close calls on Page 7. Page 7, I 

21 think, says something like we never had any close 

22 calls towards criticality.
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1 I would like to point out, however, that, 

2 in the Christmas Tree Experiment, one of the arms 

3 fell when it was half full of solution. When that 

4 arm -- what was holding up the arms were two little 

5 blocks of wood, one at the outside and one at the 

6 inside. Only fortuitously did the -- did the 

7 outside block fall allowing the outside of the arm 

8 to fall down with all of the solution in that arm 

9 going to that end.

10 Had the inner block fallen such that the 

11 solution all sloshed towards the -- towards the 

12 other end of that arm with the central column being 

13 full of uranium solution, a prompt criticality 

14 would almost certainly have occurred. But it did 

15 not happen.

16 Finally, any solution spills, so forth, 

17 could have attained prompt criticality if they had 

18 not been detected in time.

19 My final comment concerns the mass of 

20 plutonium shells omitted from the -- from Table 1 

21 of the White Paper. I submit to you that 280 

22 kilograms could be entered on Table 1 without being 
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1 off more than a few kilograms. And this is derived 

2 from my mental record -- recalling that these 

3 plutonium hemishells were about 10 to 12 inches in 

4 diameter and we had enough of those shells to make 

5 -- one-sixth of a centimeter thick, each one --

6 to make two full hemishells or two full hemispheres 

7 such that you put one hemisphere on top of the other 

8 and you would have a full sphere.

9 Obviously, you could never put all of 

10 those 280 kilograms together because you'd have 

11 way, way more than a prompt criticality. Okay.

12 I have a number of other small comments 

13 but I won't take time to talk about them because 

14 they're sort of small criticisms. But I'd be glad 

15 to answer any questions. I'd also be glad to be 

16 instructed how to get all of this information 

17 transmitted to whoever wants it and go from there.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, thank you. 

19 Thank you very much. I don't know. I suspect 

20 LaVon at NIOSH --

21 DR. ROTHE: Who's -- I -- who's talking 

22 right now?
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1 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: This is Dave 

2 Kotelchuck, Chair of the Work Group.

3 DR. ROTHE: Oh, yes.

4 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I suspect that, 

5 when you -- what you have written should go, when 

6 it's written up, should go to LaVon Rutherford at 

7 NIOSH and then he will both look at it and, 

8 obviously, distribute it to SC&A as appropriate.

9 But, LaVon, I don't know -- I have no idea. 

10 I did not know Dr. Rothe would be on the line. So 

11 I don't know if there -- you have any comment that 

12 he's -- have -- did you -- have you previously 

13 interviewed him?

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. We interviewed 

15 Dr. Rothe and, you know, I could respond to some 

16 of these now but I really think what would be 

17 appropriate, because he -- I mean these -- I was 

18 unaware that we were going to get these comments. 

19 And no problem at all because petitioner didn't 

20 have any time and I actually, you know, appreciate 

21 Dr. Rothe's comments on the document.

22 What I'd like to do is get his comments, 
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1 respond to them. I do -- I do believe a number of 

2 these aren't issues because of the time period of 

3 concern. But I -- I'm not going to respond -- I'm 

4 not going to say that formally until I get the 

5 information, go through it, we've had a chance to 

6 respond to it and I -- I'm very interested in seeing 

7 Dr. Rothe's suggested calculations, too, and how 

8 they may affect.

9 I -- you know, just generally looking at 

10 it, I don't think it's going to have much of an 

11 effect because of the significant load exposures 

12 that were previously identified. But until we've 

13 got the numbers, run them, run them through our 

14 code, we're -- I really can't say for sure.

15 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: That's okay.

16 DR. ROTHE: Well, I have to question --

17 it's [an] effect of a thousand from 10 milliwatts 

18 from --

19 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, let's --

20 Dr. Rothe, this is -- this is a meeting of the Work 

21 Group. We have -- we want public input and your 

22 input is, in particular, important since you were 
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1 a leader in that area. But I do think we should 

2 give Mr. Rutherford time to see and digest what 

3 you've said. I trust that after he does that, he 

4 will be in contact with you and, of course, with 

5 the Committee to see what follow-up is appropriate. 

6 And then we will proceed.

7 DR. ROTHE: I think I know, if I may say,

8 one more thing.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

10 DR. ROTHE: I think I know where the 

11 10 milliwatts may have originated.

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Alright.

13 DR. ROTHE: And that was during the 

14 interview, telephone interview that was conducted 

15 of me several months ago I think it was. Someone 

16 said -- somehow, this topic of the power level came 

17 up and I tried to explain. I think I did explain 

18 that the senior experimenters -- there were only 

19 three senior experimenters: Rothe, me, Doug Hunt 

20 and Grover Tuck. The last two are deceased. I'm 

21 the sole remaining senior experimenter and we were 

22 the only ones ever authorized to do experiments at 
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1 the Rocky Flats Lab.

2 But the U.S. Department of Energy told the 

3 Critical Mass Lab, we want you to come up with a 

4 document. And I think I'm referring to what was 

5 later called The Technical Specifications. And 

6 they said we need you to refer to a power level for 

7 your experiments. And the three of us talked. 

8 We're all good scientists, physicists. And we 

9 discussed this and said we don't know how to come 

10 up with a power level.

11 And someone said, well, I'm sure we're 

12 very low power. After all, we're categorized as 

13 a zero-power reactor, which itself is kind of 

14 misleading. But -- and someone said, well, I'm 

15 sure we're not more than a few milliwatts. And, 

16 evidently, the NIOSH people took the few milliwatts 

17 and made it 10 milliwatts. So there -- at least 

18 that's my guess.

19 So now that prompted me to think about 

20 this alternative approach, by looking at the 

21 thermal expansion of the solution. So, anyhow --

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.
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1 DR. ROTHE: That's enough from me.

2 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Well, 

3 thank you.

4 DR. ROTHE: How will I know how to get in 

5 touch with Mr. Rutherford or will he call me?

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Dr. Rothe, I will call 

7 -- contact you and what we'll end up doing is, one, 

8 getting your written notes and then I'm sure we'll 

9 want to have a follow-on interview with you, if 

10 that's possible.

11 DR. ROTHE: Sure. Of course.

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Excellent. Okay.

13 DR. ROTHE: I'm wondering, Mr. Kotel --

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Kotelchuck.

15 DR. ROTHE: -- Kotelchuck, am I needed 

16 for any of the rest of this tritium, neptunium? 

17 Can I leave this conference?

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Oh, by all means. 

19 You are -- you are all -- you and anyone else from 

20 the site is our guest to listen in, ordinarily. 

21 And there is normally a little bit of time for 

22 discussion from the -- from the petitioners toward 
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1 the end. But, no, you are -- you are not needed.

2 DR. ROTHE: That's okay.

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: You are not 

4 needed. If you wish to stay on, you are most 

5 welcome.

6 DR. ROTHE: I don't think I have much to 

7 say as far as tritium or neptunium exposures are 

8 concerned.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Well --

10 DR. ROTHE: Except to say that, of 

11 course, we did create neptunium --

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right. Right.

13 DR. ROTHE: -- in an experiment.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, okay. 

15 Well, thank you very much.

16 DR. ROTHE: I just -- I'm going to drop 

17 out of the meeting altogether.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Very good. 

19 And Terrie Barrie and Mr. Saunders, if you -- there 

20 may well be time for comments when we get toward 

21 the end of the meeting. So --

22 DR. ROTHE: Can you call me back if you 
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1 need to?

2 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Oh, I don't 

3 believe we will need to call you back. 

4 Mr. Rutherford has to -- you have to get him the 

5 written -- your written comments and then he will 

6 go over them and then get back to you.

7 DR. ROTHE: Yes. Okay.

8 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Thanks.

9 DR. ROTHE: Yes.

10 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

11 DR. ROTHE: Okay. I'll say goodbye to 

12 all of you.

13 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Goodbye and thank 

14 you. Alright. Folks, it is now 11:42. We -- I'm 

15 trying to think what might be a short -- normally, 

16 we would take a break at around 12:00, east coast 

17 time, which would be 9:00 for our colleagues on the 

18 west coast. So we have another 15 or 20 minutes.

19 I wonder if there -- I don't -- the tritium 

20 exposures I believe will be a more lengthy 

21 conversation. I'm not sure about the discussion 

22 on the neptunium, if that is -- we could do 
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1 something useful in the remaining 15 minutes or so.

2 MEMBER MUNN: We could get a cup of 

3 coffee.

4 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, we'll -- but 

5 we're going to -- we're going to -- we're going to 

6 break for lunch here. Would people just want to 

7 break for lunch now, at 11:45 a.m. and get back 

8 together at 1:00 p.m. on the east coast [time]? 

9 That would certainly -- we could certainly do that.

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'll go ahead and get 

11 the tritium paper put [it] up on the Live Meeting.

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Very good. 

13 So, good. So it sounds like we should just take 

14 our break, if you will, our mid-day break.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Let me ask our ORAU Team 

16 and Dr. Neton, are you going to be able to support 

17 that?

18 DR. NETON: Yes. This is fine. I need 

19 to get off and call somewhere around 2:00 today.

20 MR. KATZ: So how about if we -- how about 

21 if we restart then at 12:30 or 12:45 instead, try 

22 to move it up a bit?
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1 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

2 DR. NETON: I think that would be better.

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: That would work, 

4 if somebody has to leave. So that's going to give 

5 ourselves 45 minutes --

6 MR. KATZ: Yes. Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: -- for lunch and 

8 break.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes. So let's -- if we could 

10 make it convene at 12:30 I think that would be --

11 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: That sounds 

12 excellent.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay.

14 DR. NETON: LaVon, can we find out if the 

15 ORAU people are there and I'll bring up the Tritium 

16 White Paper to be available then?

17 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Alright.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. We can reorder things 

19 if they're not available then and they're available 

20 a little later, if that works.

21 DR. NETON: I would like to be on, myself.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Got it.
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1 MS. BRACKETT: This is Liz Brackett. I 

2 can be back then. I prefer earlier than later 

3 myself because I have other commitments.

4 MR. KATZ: So, Liz, is 12:30 okay?

5 MS. BRACKETT: Yes. I should be able to 

6 make that.

7 MR. KATZ: Okay.

8 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Great.

9 MR. KATZ: Okay. So why don't we break 

10 now so people can grab their lunches and --

11 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Very good. 

12 Or breakfast, as the case may be.

13 DR. NETON: And we'll reconvene at 12:30. 

14 Is that what I'm hearing?

15 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: 12:30. Yes, 

16 indeed. Alright. Thank you folks very much and 

17 now we'll break.

18 DR. NETON: Alright. Bye.

19 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Bye.

20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

21 went off the record at 11:45 a.m. and resumed at 

22 12:31 p.m.)
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1

2

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. I think we 

4 can begin.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: LaVon, you --

7 would you like to start?

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Sure.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: -- the Tritium 

10 Paper?

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I did put the 

12 Tritium Paper up on Live Meeting. Do you guys have 

13 it?

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

16 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Thank you.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Alright. After the 

18 last Work Group meeting, there was still some 

19 disagreement on how exposures from a 1973 tritium 

20 incident should be handled as well as there were 

21 still questions on the post-1973 and how -- you 

22 know, how much information we had about the 
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1 monitoring program for tritium.

2 We had closed out at the -- at the last 

3 Work Group meeting -- and come to an agreement 

4 that the pre-1973 exposure model that we had 

5 proposed could be used, recognizing that we have 

6 an SEC currently up until 1983.

7 So what we did this revision, if you look 

8 at Page 2 at the bottom, this revision focused on 

9 -- and we revised our best approach for the tritium 

10 dose assignments for 1973 and provide additional 

11 explanation of the reconstruction of organically 

12 bound tritium using uranium bioassay and IMBA. 

13 This is all in [the] appendix -- in Appendix I in 

14 the back -- I believe that's I or 1.

15 And the -- another issue was to close out 

16 the issue of tritium exposure after 1973 by 

17 evaluating the evidence of a robust workplace 

18 monitoring program. And that's in Appendix 3. I 

19 will briefly go over our changes. I'll let SC&A 

20 respond because I think we need to have as much time 

21 as possible to get into the technical discussion 

22 to make sure that Jim Neton and Liz Brackett are 
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1 available.

2 So our approach for 1973 originally took 

3 basically what we thought was the highest exposed 

4 individual. back calculated an intake based on his 

5 exposure and came up with a dose estimate based on 

6 that individual.

7 After looking at it, we revised our 

8 approach for 1973. Basically what we did was we 

9 said, okay, the site took the position that we're 

10 going to do a -- an initial bioassay on individuals 

11 that we believe have the potential to have had 

12 tritium exposure.

13 And they roughly did 200 tritium bioassay 

14 samples with a -- basically, a limit or a set point 

15 to do further evaluation of 10,000 picocuries per 

16 liter. And those 2,000 -- 200 people, you know, 

17 they came out with roughly five individuals that 

18 had exposure and they moved it -- I can't remember 

19 if it was five or not. They moved forward.

20 Our -- as I said before, our previous 

21 approach was to use the high -- basically the 

22 highest dosage we came up with of those individuals 
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1 that had greater than 10,000 picocuries per liter.

2 What we did now is we went back and we said 

3 really the exposure to the entire workforce, at 

4 worst case, would be taking the roughly 200 people 

5 that were monitored using that 10,000 picocuries 

6 per liter limit and coming up with a dose based on 

7 that and we could apply that to everyone over 1973.

8 And the issue of whether -- what's the 

9 right value and when should we choose an intake date 

10 for the other workers is really a dose 

11 reconstruction issue from those single dose 

12 reconstructions. They're not -- it's not an issue 

13 for all the workers for the entire workforce or the 

14 entire Class.

15 That's really addressed by those 200 

16 individuals that were monitored with the 10,000 

17 picocuries per liter. So that's what we did and 

18 we came up with an intake or a dose to be used for 

19 1973 and I believe that was 49 millirems, if I 

20 remember correctly. And so that's how we handled 

21 that.

22 Additionally, we went back at the 
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1 monitoring program in Appendix 3 and we looked more 

2 at how much actual data do we have during the period 

3 of concern. We looked back at that and we found 

4 a number of locations that had routine tritium 

5 samples taken, which indicated a routine 

6 monitoring program did exist.

7 And we kind of analyzed that data and drew 

8 our conclusion that, one, from that data, there are 

9 very low concentrations. The highest 

10 concentration was around 7,000 picocuries and I 

11 can't remember exactly but all of the 

12 concentrations were low and there was a routine 

13 monitoring program. And, basically, we came to 

14 the same conclusion that we did before that any, 

15 you know, individual that had personal monitoring 

16 data post-1973, we'll use that data to evaluate 

17 their tritium exposure. But no other dose would 

18 be assigned.

19 And that's pretty much our addition. 

20 Jim, do you want to add anything to that? Liz?

21 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I don't really 

22 have anything to add. I think SC&A might comment 
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1 and then we can discuss it from there.

2 MS. BRACKETT: I don't have anything 

3 either.

4 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. SC&A?

5 MR. KATZ: John Mauro?

6 DR. MAURO: Yes, I'm here. Joe, would 

7 you like me to --

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, just go ahead. We 

9 had broken this thing up into the three periods and 

10 Joyce, John and I had tackled each period. But 

11 I've asked John to sort of just keep it smooth just 

12 to choreograph all three periods. And then the 

13 rest of us can jump in as needed.

14 DR. MAURO: Yes. I'd be glad to do that 

15 and certainly, Joyce and Joe, help me out a bit. 

16 First, let me say that I believe that the changes 

17 that were made, the new way of approaching the 

18 problems, some of these problems since the March 

19 meeting are a real improvement and also a 

20 clarification. So I'm optimistic that we're going 

21 to be able to receive closure on these matters. 

22 And let me -- and I'll explain why.
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1 First, let's begin with the 1973 dose, the 

2 one that is associated with that April 1973 

3 incident, a very special circumstance. And I 

4 think that the new strategy adopted by NIOSH where 

5 -- basically, what's going on now -- so we've got 

6 all these people that were -- may or may not have 

7 been exposed to this incident in April of '73.

8 And then we have all this data, 200 -- I 

9 remember I saw in the literature it was more like 

10 250 urine samples collected several months later 

11 in September/October. And virtually all of them 

12 show that the concentrations we're seeing in urine 

13 are less than 10,000 picocuries per liter.

14 And, up until that point, we really 

15 ignored that. We were focusing in on these five 

16 or so individuals where the values were above. And 

17 so the light dawned. I think it dawned on all of 

18 us during the meeting in March that, you know, let's 

19 not -- and there was a lot of quibbling over what 

20 did it really mean, each of those five individuals 

21 and when do they have their intake and was the data, 

22 you know, reliable and to the point where we said, 
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1 hold the presses, maybe they're not -- maybe we 

2 shouldn't be looking over there.

3 Let's go look at those other individuals, 

4 the large numbers that have less -- that had less 

5 than 10,000 picocuries per liter. And I think that 

6 was a great move. And we completely agree with 

7 that change of looking at the problem, which brings 

8 us to the second half.

9 Well, there's really three elements to 

10 it. Okay. Let's agree that we're going to try to 

11 base our reconstruction of the 1973 doses from the 

12 April event on these 200/250 people. And then we 

13 have to say, oh, well, what dates are we going to 

14 use? And I have to agree that NIOSH has picked very 

15 claimant-favorable dates: early April to 

16 mid-October.

17 In other words, the acute intakes occur 

18 in I guess it's mid or early April and the bioassay 

19 samples that were taken, were taken in October, 

20 even though some of them were taken in September. 

21 So, on those two levels, very favorable.

22 The last one is the one that takes a little 
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1 touch and that has to do with, okay, now you're 

2 going to try to back calculate what the intake was 

3 in April of two people -- where 200/250 people were 

4 -- got urine samples collected sometime in October 

5 and they all came in under 10,000 picocuries per 

6 liter. Okay. That's just great.

7 Now, how do we go backwards in time? And 

8 herein lies where we've always had some difficulty. 

9 And, in this particular -- the new paper, NIOSH has 

10 come up with a new way of doing that, something that 

11 is creative. But I have to say we're troubled by 

12 it.

13 And we find that it would be more 

14 acceptable -- this is -- here's where the -- where 

15 we need to talk a little bit. We find that it would 

16 be more acceptable to use the classic 

17 two-compartment model, 97 percent/three percent, 

18 you know, ten day/40 day half-life model. We 

19 realize and we all acknowledge that that model was 

20 really good for up to 100 days and now we're -- but 

21 extending it to 180 days is preferable to going to 

22 this new construct really which has, in our 
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1 opinion, very little pedigree.

2 It's a new construct while the original, 

3 what I call the 93 -- 97 percent/three percent 

4 classic tritium model has a rich pedigree. And now 

5 there's another element that goes in the soup now 

6 and the other element is that the -- there is --

7 clearly gives precedent prior to this meeting and 

8 during this meeting that you have to balance in the 

9 kind of doses we're talking about, the magnitude.

10 And Dr. Kotelchuck -- I actually quoted 

11 him in the write up about these. You know, you have 

12 to moderate your judgments when -- depending on the 

13 circumstances we're dealing with. And we all know 

14 we're dealing with doses in the millirem range, in 

15 the tens of millirem range.

16 So, taken together, our takeaway is, one, 

17 we really like the 10,000 picocurie per liter 

18 approach with the 200/250 people. We really like 

19 the dates you picked for doing the back 

20 calculation. The only place we're a little 

21 troubled by is the construct for the new model based 

22 on OBT and we find it more acceptable. You know, 
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1 we don't especially like it but we would find it 

2 more acceptable, especially given these context, 

3 to go with the classic 97 percent/three percent 

4 approach.

5 And so -- and, by the way, the difference 

6 is, when you do it that way, the -- go back to the 

7 classic model, we get I think 94 millirem. While 

8 you folks, using your construct of the model, you 

9 get 49 millirem. I have to say that I think, in 

10 terms of defensibility of the four tiers, I think 

11 the 94 sits on a more solid ground than the 49 that 

12 you would get.

13 And I also say, at the same time, the two 

14 numbers are so close and so small that it should 

15 not stop our ability to achieve consensus and 

16 agreement and closure on this issue. And I think 

17 it's probably a good idea for us to talk about that 

18 before we move on to the other two segments -- time 

19 periods.

20 DR. NETON: John, this is Jim. I think 

21 we're more in agreement than you might think here. 

22 Let me -- let me just speak one second, Joyce. I 
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1 think you might --

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. Okay.

3 DR. NETON: We did not have a new model. 

4 I mean we -- Tom LaBone attempted -- I think he 

5 applied the --

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

7 DR. NETON: -- the two-compartment 

8 model. It's the 10 day and the 40 day compartment, 

9 so the three percent and 97 percent, 97 percent for 

10 ten-day and three percent for the 40 day. The only 

11 difference in those two models is the fraction of 

12 the organically bound tritium, the soft-tissue 

13 component that is excreted in urine.

14 I don't -- I didn't look at Tom's model 

15 in detail but I think what's happened is he has 

16 chosen to -- they did excrete 100 percent of that 

17 soft-tissue compartment directly in the urine, 

18 when really it -- I agree with you. It should be 

19 50 percent. So, if you make that modification, in 

20 effect, you have the same two models. There's no 

21 difference at that point. With the exception of 

22 the bladder component, it really doesn't make any 
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1 difference at 180 --

2 (Simultaneous speaking.)

3 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Jim?

4 DR. NETON: Yes.

5 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Jim, that's exactly what 

6 I was going to say. The only difference is because 

7 when the modification on the -- on OBT model and 

8 IMBA, the difference is on the excretion rate 

9 because, if it goes 100 percent from compartment 

10 two, the compartment of the organic tritium --

11 DR. NETON: Yes. And then I --

12 DR. LIPSZTEIN: -- that's 50 percent. 

13 And, because after that the -- it's more 

14 claimant-favorable both to use the 60 or 55 percent 

15 as MCNP-161, for example, uses 55 percent from both 

16 compartments. And then you get a higher dose 

17 because you get less excretion. So --

18 DR. NETON: Yes. It took me a bit to 

19 realize that but --

20 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

21 DR. NETON: -- what happens is not all the 

22 tritium is excreted in urine. You've got other 
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1 modes that you don't normally think about like 

2 sweat --

3 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Oh, yes.

4 DR. NETON: -- through feet, through the 

5 breath, that sort of thing. So, if we modify that 

6 second compartment for it to be 50 percent, I think 

7 we're on the same page here.

8 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. Yes, exactly.

9 DR. NETON: In my mind, that issue is 

10 resolved.

11 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

12 DR. NETON: It took me a while, but I 

13 think I'm there.

14 DR. MAURO: I love it. That's where we 

15 come out also. I think this is very good news 

16 because we've been struggling with this for a long 

17 time, as you know.

18 DR. NETON: Yes. And I really think it's 

19 an oversight, that compartment, because you can't 

20 be 100 percent. It's not consistent to be a -- for 

21 organically-bound tritium to enter the transfer 

22 compartment and be 100 percent excreted in urine 
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1 while the inorganic component only goes 50 percent.

2 So I think it's just a tweak and we're 

3 there. And, of course, this 90 millirem or 

4 whatever it ends up being will have a GSD included 

5 on it to account for the uncertainty in the models 

6 themselves.

7 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

8 DR. NETON: So the upper bound of that 

9 will be somewhere around, I don't know, a factor 

10 of six higher at the 95th percentile. So I think 

11 that we're good. I think that -- I think that's 

12 where we're going to end up here.

13 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And, actually, I -- even 

14 just for opinion as already did the -- what would 

15 be the dose if we used the new -- newest model that 

16 we don't want to use, you might see the difference 

17 is not so big. So the uncertainty factor of three, 

18 it's okay.

19 DR. NETON: Yes, I agree.

20 DR. MAURO: I think we can put that one 

21 to bed.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Very good.
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1 DR. MAURO: I mean we will respond and put 

2 that in writing that, you know, the -- I need to 

3 talk to Tom LaBone as well. Tom developed the 

4 model and I -- at least -- I agree with this and 

5 I think -- I don't see any reason why we wouldn't. 

6 But we'll put that response in writing and that 

7 should close out that issue.

8 By the way, I believe that that is a Site 

9 Profile issue anyway because 1973 where this model 

10 is only applied is already an SEC. So it would be 

11 a matter of whether the dose was zero, 45, 90, 

12 whatever. So it is a Site Profile issue. So I 

13 think -- I don't think the Working Group has to wait 

14 for this to be dispositioned to move forward with 

15 their -- the final analysis of the SEC.

16 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right. Does 

17 anybody in the Working Group have any concerns 

18 about this particular item? It seems to me there's 

19 agreement and --

20 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. I don't 

21 dare have any disagreement about it. I've already 

22 -- I made this -- I've made the statement in the 
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1 past that tritium is such a soft-beta emitter, it's 

2 hard to imagine in ordinary circumstances that it 

3 would create any serious dose reconstruction 

4 problem for our part.

5 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Dose-effective problem for 

7 any of the recipients. And that's gotten me in 

8 trouble but I hope to state on the record here.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Indeed, 

10 you have said that before. So unless there are 

11 some other comments or concerns, let's continue on 

12 with the other parts of the tritium report.

13 DR. MAURO: Okay. This is John Mauro 

14 again. I'll pick it up and the next thing I'll take 

15 on is the -- and briefly go through the 1973 period.

16 As you all know, NIOSH has elected to use 

17 less than 1 millirem, or effectively 0 millirem per 

18 year of the tritium exposures post-1973. Of 

19 course, there are incidents like the 1974 -- April 

20 -- the November 1974 incident. They deal those on 

21 a case-by-case basis. So it's important to think 

22 in terms of, well, what are we going to assign to 
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1 everyone else as sort of like the chronic exposure 

2 of post-1973. And NIOSH has adopted 0 millirem per 

3 year. Less than one is effectively zero.

4 And the only issues that SC&A raised 

5 during the March meeting was, well, you know, 

6 that's based on two sources of data. And this is 

7 another interesting observation. One is that all 

8 the bubbler -- the model I had in my head was that, 

9 gee, the bubblers were not necessarily, you know 

10 -- this is part -- you basically have two sets of 

11 data. You have bubbler data -- well, three: 

12 bubbler data, swipe data and bioassay data 

13 collected post-1973.

14 And, if you recall, I had mentioned that, 

15 well, I'm a little concerned about the bubbler 

16 data. Maybe the people weren't really aware the 

17 bubbler data was being collected. Well, it turns 

18 out I was wrong. After the response provided very 

19 nicely in the June -- the July 1st White Paper that 

20 we just received, it was pointed out that, no, there 

21 were bubblers located in the hoods. There were 

22 bubblers located beneath the downdraft tables or 
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1 in association with the downdraft tables.

2 And, not only that, something I didn't 

3 know is that there are several rooms in -- over and 

4 above that that had bubblers, rooms where there was 

5 a potential for elevated concentrations of 

6 tritium. So, in effect, the coverage of the 

7 bubblers was a lot better than I thought it was. 

8 So now we have a lot better set -- well, an 

9 understanding that the bubbler data set was a lot 

10 broader than we originally thought -- I originally 

11 thought.

12 And the second thing that I think is 

13 important is that -- and, actually, to look at the 

14 75 urine samples that were collected, part of this 

15 1-in-10, we called it, bioassay samples, my concern 

16 was that, when you go closer -- you maybe can 

17 remember my mentioning this at the last meeting --

18 when you take a closer look at it, you say, well, 

19 you know, you've got 75 -- you basically have 75 

20 samples.

21 But they really are single samples taken 

22 from individuals per -- one sample per year per 
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1 person. And we -- knowing tritium and how clearly 

2 -- how quickly it clears, that was a little 

3 troubling to me because it wasn't very good 

4 coverage. And, if you were really building a real 

5 tritium program for if they really have tritium 

6 problems, you know, you'd sample more often than 

7 once a year per person.

8 But then this came up during the meeting. 

9 I think Dr. Kotelchuck suggested they had mentioned 

10 this or it emerged during the conversation during 

11 the March meetings. Well, take a look. Look at 

12 it this way. They grabbed 75 samples, different

13 people's, and none of them showed a spike.

14 Well, when you look at it that way, 

15 collectively, you say to yourself, what are the 

16 chances that it could have been a spike and we 

17 missed them all? So, now, all of a sudden we're 

18 building a weight of evidence that says, you know, 

19 between the bubblers, which are a lot -- which our 

20 understanding now is they were a lot better -- more 

21 coverage. And this came out subsequent to the 

22 meeting in March.
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1 And thinking about that -- those 75 urine 

2 samples in a different way, we come down saying 

3 that, from a weighted evidence perspective, we 

4 accept that less than 1 millirem per year as being 

5 the chronic exposure post-1973. Good. And, you 

6 know, if anyone else wants to weigh in, this --

7 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: This is the time.

8 DR. MAURO: -- on whether I told the story 

9 the right way or you're comfortable with that --

10 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, I'm 

11 certainly comfortable with it and it is much 

12 clearer now than it was -- it was appropriate, the 

13 less than 1 millirem, which comes out to calling 

14 it zero. Any other comments from Working Group 

15 Members?

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. This is Phil. 

17 I've just got one question. Do we have identified 

18 all those who had samples taken for tritium? Is 

19 there a specific group of people that were targeted 

20 because maybe they handled site returns or 

21 something coming in?

22 DR. MAURO: The post 19 -- this is John. 
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1 For post-1973, the 75 measurements of urine were 

2 people -- really it was more like a random sample 

3 where what they were doing is everyone that was on 

4 the plutonium bioassay program, every time their 

5 urine sample was collected for plutonium, one out 

6 of ten of those individuals had a urine sample 

7 taken. So it was really a random process.

8 And -- but -- and, as I said before, I was 

9 concerned that that ended up being one per -- one 

10 sample per year per person. But, when you take it 

11 collectively, as far as identifying those 75 

12 people, I haven't checked. I suspect sure. I 

13 suspect -- I don't know, Jim, were the folks there, 

14 in terms of really identifying who they were and 

15 what they were doing, is that kind of information 

16 available?

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think what they were 

18 looking at, specifically, was they took the people 

19 that were monitored for plutonium, as you'd 

20 mentioned --

21 DR. MAURO: Right.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- and they did the 
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1 random sampling of those.

2 DR. MAURO: Yes.

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: But I think on top of 

4 that is, as you had mentioned, the weight of the 

5 evidence of the additional bubblers that were used 

6 that -- and specific locations where they had the 

7 high probability of potential tritium release. 

8 And so it's not so much the bioassay samples. I 

9 mean it is in the fact that they were all alone and 

10 really didn't see anything. But it's also the 

11 program was looking at the actual concentration in 

12 the areas where you would suspect it.

13 DR. MAURO: Right. Right. That's sort 

14 of my -- how I walk away from it. It's a weight 

15 of evidence. You pile all of that together and 

16 you've got a pretty good story.

17 MEMBER MUNN: I'm pleased to hear 

18 additional information about the bubblers. 

19 That's helpful and thanks for whoever tracked that 

20 down.

21 DR. MAURO: With regard to the bubblers, 

22 there's always a fly in the ointment. One of the 
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1 questions we raised at that time during the meeting 

2 that I do not believe was addressed in the -- not 

3 necessarily a critical issue but something that 

4 would be nice to achieve closure on is bubbler 

5 efficiency.

6 You may recall that I asked that question 

7 during the March meeting and, in the July 1st report 

8 that came out recently, there really wasn't any 

9 discussion of that matter. And if there is some 

10 -- if there is some material in the record on that 

11 subject, I think that would be helpful but I don't 

12 see that as a show stopper.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I'm not sure if we 

14 found anything or not. Jim Bogard, did you see 

15 anything on that?

16 DR. MAURO: Well there was -- well, just 

17 -- you know, this type of sampler is widely used 

18 for a long time. My guess is there's literature 

19 on it and, you know, where there's a collection of 

20 information on how efficient these bubblers are of 

21 this particular make or model or how they used it 

22 to bubble the amount of water and the airflow 
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1 frequency. So it may not -- there may not be data 

2 I would say specific to these bubblers at that time 

3 but there may be information about these bubblers 

4 in general.

5 MR. BOGARD: This is Jim Bogard. There 

6 probably is. I know at least that there was a study 

7 comparing use of water to ethylene glycol in these 

8 bubblers and there may be some efficiency 

9 information from that study at least and there may 

10 be others as well.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Do we feel that's necessary 

12 for us to proceed?

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon. I don't 

14 think it's necessary. I think John had mentioned 

15 that he doesn't feel it's a show stopper but I 

16 believe that we can -- we can work on providing that 

17 information.

18 DR. MAURO: That's basically how I see 

19 it, also. Yes. I agree.

20 MR. KATZ: Dave, this is Ted. Dave, are 

21 you still on the line?

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I am. I have to --
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1 I like being on the line most of the time but there 

2 are so many trucks in the background that I was on 

3 mute.

4 MR. KATZ: Okay.

5 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: And, actually, I 

6 spoke a few times forgetting that I was on mute. 

7 So I've already -- I've already called. I don't 

8 say that we have agreement and the Working Group 

9 has agreement unless I hear concerns. And I don't.

10 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro.

11 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

12 DR. MAURO: There's one other minor item 

13 that I think is worth mentioning.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

15 DR. MAURO: When you look at the 

16 post-1973 data, you do notice that there are some 

17 numbers where there are acute values, where they 

18 have some large values. I see a 1978 value here, 

19 for example. And this was discussed during the 

20 meeting in March.

21 But it would be worthwhile, I think.

22 There could be a little bit of confusion here and 
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1 I want to try to avoid confusion. And maybe it 

2 would be good to get this on the record. Under 

3 those circumstances where you do have observed 

4 elevated levels, such as the -- I think Bob Barton 

5 brought it up at the last meeting -- a 1978 

6 situation that arose where there was an elevated 

7 level, those are dealt with on a case-by-case 

8 basis.

9 And, if you -- and for those individuals, 

10 you would assign a dose that's appropriate because 

11 they caught it.

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

13 DR. MAURO: But all the others that --

14 where you don't have the data, you've got to go with 

15 that zero. And they swabbed -- I think that it may 

16 not be immediately apparent that those occasional 

17 spikes really are special circumstances and they 

18 are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, like the 

19 August '74 one or the other one, of course.

20 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

21 DR. MAURO: Yes.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: And there is 
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1 sufficient data. There's an -- even though data 

2 was not collected on tritium before '73, we know 

3 enough about those incidents to make some 

4 reasonable estimates of exposure.

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think what John's 

6 referring to is post-'73 --

7 DR. MAURO: Yes, this is post-'73 

8 incident.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Oh, right. Okay. 

10 Okay.

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: And I think -- I think, 

12 as you mentioned, John, I think that those are 

13 samples that were taken on individuals clearly that 

14 they had suspected had a potential tritium exposure 

15 because, as you know, after 1975, there was no 

16 routine monitoring program other than for special 

17 circumstances --

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- pre and post-job and 

20 when incidents occurred. So, yes, I agree with 

21 you. I think those were samples for individuals 

22 that -- where they --
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1 (Telephonic interference.)

2 DR. MAURO: Is everyone there? It went 

3 --

4 MR. KATZ: So I think David said this 

5 issue is closed.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Well, we lost our speaker.

7 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I did.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes. So moving on I guess.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I would like to 

10 move on, yes, to the neptunium.

11 DR. MAURO: We still have -- but, see, we 

12 have a pre-'73, right? Did we do that?

13 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. I thought we 

14 did that before.

15 DR. MAURO: Okay. I mean I'm getting 

16 old. Okay. We've got it all covered. Okay.

17 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Yes, pre and 

18 post now. And we discussed neptunium at our last 

19 meeting. Am I on, folks?

20 MR. KATZ: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. We 

22 discussed neptunium at our last meeting. I'm not 
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1 sure, LaVon, whether we need to go over the White 

2 Paper from before or whether we should just respond 

3 to the Rocky Flats -- excuse me -- to the SC&A.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: I would think we would 

5 just respond to the SC&A.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: There were some 

8 clarifications I (telephonic interference) at the 

9 Work Group meeting. But I think with the --

10 MEMBER MUNN: LaVon's phone is cutting 

11 out on my phone. Am I the only one?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Oh, my phone's cutting 

13 out again?

14 Is that any better?

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it's fine but you were 

16 just being dropped -- large portions of what you 

17 were saying.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'll try it again.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Hopefully, this will 

21 work. What I said was that I would think that we 

22 could go straight to SC&A's response. There was 
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1 some additional items brought up by the petitioner 

2 during the Work Group meeting in a response. We 

3 can follow-up on those as well. So --

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. That's fine. 

5 This is Joe Fitzgerald and I did brief out orally 

6 at the last Work Group meeting. The paper that you 

7 now have was in draft at that point but we held it 

8 pending I think NIOSH's addressing the comments 

9 that LaVon was just referring to that we received 

10 from the petitioner.

11 So we didn't want to really submit the 

12 final paper until we at least had, you know, those 

13 answers and were able to review what they were --

14 what the responses were to the petitioner. So 

15 that's the reason this went out May 29th. 

16 Actually, it had been prepared a few months before 

17 that.

18 At any rate, I won't give too much more 

19 background. This addresses the post-'83 time 

20 period of neptunium at Rocky Flats. Of course, the 

21 SEC covers neptunium up to '83. And we looked at 

22 the White Paper from the standpoint of the 
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1 assumption and the research showing that it was 

2 essentially one operation post-'83 that handled 

3 and processed neptunium. In this case, a 

4 separations process to separate plutonium from 

5 neptunium.

6 And look at some of the basic premises 

7 behind the conclusion by NIOSH that you didn't have 

8 the same conditions post-'83 that you had before 

9 '83, which was the exposure pathway to pure 

10 neptunium, that potential. Even though you did 

11 have neptunium at Rocky, it wasn't in the form where 

12 you would have that exposure to the pure form.

13 So I'm going to go to -- and you have the 

14 paper in front of you but -- since we did cover the 

15 summary on that pretty well. We pretty much came 

16 down to five basic questions that we felt needed 

17 to be addressed by NIOSH and we assessed what we 

18 saw as their analysis or response to those 

19 questions.

20 And the first key question was, was there 

21 only one single neptunium operation after December 

22 31 of '83? And we pretty much attended the 
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1 interviews held in Denver as well as collected 

2 documents for the SRDB. So we were involved in 

3 that process for about two years, from about 2012 

4 to 2014. So we were doing this in conjunction with 

5 NIOSH.

6 And there were a number of interviews and 

7 a fair amount of documentation that was retrieved 

8 that described the various operations. And we 

9 were unable to establish another operation beyond 

10 the separations one. We did have a lot of 

11 interviews where individuals would point to D&D 

12 where neptunium was present. But this was 

13 neptunium present in conjunction with plutonium.

14 Obviously, there were pure forms on site 

15 that were inventory and there was actually some 

16 documentation in NMSS that the neptunium was on 

17 site in pure form. But, again, this was in 

18 metallic form, held in inventory, not being 

19 processed or fabricated. So -- and, again, no 

20 evidence of an exposure pathway there.

21 And, also, of course, in waste management 

22 activities where D&D proceeded and wastes were 
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1 accumulating and these wastes were packaged and 

2 shipped out. But, again, no evidence that this was 

3 neptunium in pure form.

4 The one operation where you did have a 

5 fair amount of neptunium present was in this one 

6 separations operation. But therein, again, you 

7 did have plutonium present, which was the defining 

8 difference because, as we'll cover a little later, 

9 the presence of Pu in conjunction with neptunium 

10 enabled one to actually, through the monitoring of 

11 plutonium, bound exposures to neptunium. And 

12 that's another key to the premise behind the NIOSH 

13 analysis.

14 So, on the first one, after interviewing 

15 a number of former workers, after looking through 

16 the SRDB documentation, we agree that the one 

17 operation that involved the separations process 

18 was the one operation of any note after '83.

19 In one of the petitioner comments, there 

20 were some legitimate questions raised about the 

21 time frame of that particular operation, whether 

22 it was 12 months, 18 months, even longer and some 
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1 concern over the ambiguity of that.

2 We looked into that issue in some detail 

3 and found that it is a little ambiguous as far as 

4 the official termination of the operation because 

5 apparently the management wanted to write a final 

6 assessment report and the dates seem to differ 

7 depending on if you, you know, were using the dates 

8 for the actual processing itself or the official 

9 end of the program, which was the management report 

10 at the termination of the project, which was almost 

11 two years after the actual initiation.

12 So there were a number of dates and we 

13 covered that in a footnote that you'll see on the 

14 first page. So, certainly, there were a number of 

15 dates that were flying around but I guess there was 

16 an explanation of why you saw those dates.

17 The second question that we wanted to pose 

18 was what kind of -- you know, is there routine 

19 exposure potential that would be associated with 

20 this one operation or any other operations? And 

21 we interviewed a number of workers and it was noted 

22 that the operation -- the separations operation --
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1 was essentially a closed operation, meaning that 

2 it was a glove-boxed operation with entry ports 

3 that were sealed entry ports.

4 Liquids were piped in that, in terms of 

5 withdrawing items, they were backed out of the 

6 glove box and you had full radiological controls 

7 including out air monitors and rad tech coverage. 

8 So this, unlike the earlier operations and unlike 

9 the production operations that we're familiar with 

10 at Rocky, this operation was a -- was a fairly 

11 closed operation. There was no evidence of 

12 routine exposures.

13 We did identify one instant that involved 

14 a tank where there was a leak. But, then again, 

15 it was identified early on and there was no evidence 

16 of anyone being exposed by that leak. And we 

17 didn't find any other evidence of non-routine

18 exposures or even routine exposures from this 

19 operation. So that was one thing that we wanted 

20 to establish.

21 The third item which I mentioned a little 

22 earlier is this whole question of was neptunium 
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1 always in combination with plutonium after '83 such 

2 that you would have a means to bound neptunium by 

3 plutonium bioassay?

4 That's the central question because the 

5 premise behind I think the NIOSH assessment was, 

6 after '83, you did have neptunium in quantities at 

7 the site, but it was always present with the 

8 plutonium, which enabled, you know, monitoring and 

9 ultimately dose reconstruction.

10 Again, we looked at D&D operations. We 

11 looked at waste management operations and this one 

12 single operation. In all cases, you did have a 

13 fraction. And this makes some sense because 

14 you're handling -- particularly in D&D and waste 

15 management, you're handling a lot of piping, glove 

16 boxes that may have handled neptunium but also 

17 handled Pu. So the monitoring would have been 

18 tagged with Pu in all those cases.

19 The only pure forms, again, of neptunium 

20 post-'83 that we were able to establish by virtue 

21 of inventory were the metals that were held on site 

22 as inventory from previous production through the 
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1 '80s, actually into the early '90s. But, again, 

2 they were held in inventory and were shipped out 

3 as needed to other sites that were using neptunium 

4 source.

5 So the fourth item that we've looked at, 

6 or question, as you can read down on Page 5, were 

7 all the workers having exposure potential from this 

8 one operation, again, the separations operation 

9 bioassays and would those results have encompassed 

10 any intake of the neptunium?

11 And this operation took place in Building 

12 771 and was '85 to '87. And all the workers that 

13 were involved in the operation were bioassayed for 

14 Pu. And, again, given the specific activity 

15 differences, that would have definitely covered 

16 neptunium and would have bound neptunium when we're 

17 tagging for plutonium.

18 The only, I guess, only asterisk or 

19 parenthetical question is whether the office 

20 workers in 771 were also bioassayed as well. I 

21 couldn't get a clean answer on that, even though 

22 they were in the building but they weren't a part 
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1 of the operations. But that was a relatively minor 

2 question. But that -- again, we've looked at the 

3 scope of coverage and the coverage was there.

4 Number five, that question we wanted to 

5 look at whether there were any post-'83 incidents 

6 where you might have had the exposure potential to 

7 neptunium. And the only one that we could find 

8 outside of what might have been some potential 

9 exposure on D&D and waste management was this 

10 plutonium nitrate tank leak out of the separations 

11 operation. And, again, there was no reported 

12 worker exposures associated with that. So nothing 

13 from the incident standpoint.

14 Finally, we wanted to just validate the 

15 fact that if, one, we're going to rely on bioassays 

16 to account for neptunium intakes, were there any 

17 technical issues or concerns associated with that 

18 assumption or conclusion. And we reviewed the 

19 relevant document from the SRDB and went back to 

20 an old document, the Rad Health Handbook, and a 

21 number of other things.

22 And really, even though the resulting 
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1 neptunium dose is about equal to plutonium on the 

2 basis of B per M per intake, it would be almost a 

3 hundred times -- a hundred times less on a per mass 

4 basis. So you're -- you're really counting all the 

5 alpha in terms of plutonium. And that's going to 

6 be very much bounding of any neptunium that would 

7 be involved. So the premise behind using Pu to 

8 bound any neptunium intakes is sound.

9 So, again, our conclusion, and this sort 

10 of echoes what we said back in March, we went ahead 

11 and, frankly, scrubbed down the notion of the 

12 single operation, the presence of Pu with 

13 neptunium, and any incidents that might have been 

14 at the site just to verify or validate that --

15 post-'83 that we were comfortable that there was 

16 a means to dose reconstruct any potential neptunium

17 exposures and whether there was any neptunium 

18 exposures that would have been prominent. And, in 

19 both cases, we did not see any issues with that 

20 approach.

21 And, finally, we held up the paper wanting 

22 to see NIOSH's most recent responses to the 
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1 petitioner questions that were mentioned at the 

2 last Work Group meeting. We reviewed the piece 

3 that NIOSH put together. It was an email response 

4 to those questions. These questions and answers 

5 are attached to the report. You have already seen 

6 these probably but, just to be complete, we wanted 

7 to go ahead and attach those. And we did review 

8 all the responses and concur with NIOSH's position 

9 on those questions.

10 And that's -- that's pretty much it. Any 

11 questions?

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Any questions, 

13 anybody? That was a very nice report, really clear 

14 and, basically, put into writing what you more or 

15 less indicated at the last Working Group meeting.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think I was 

17 reading from my earlier draft.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Right. 

19 Okay. Very good. Any comments, folks?

20 MEMBER MUNN: Good report, Joe. Thank 

21 you.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Okay. 
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1 Hearing none, I think we can say that the Working 

2 Group is in agreement that this is now resolved. 

3 And we finished our basic reports. We have 

4 basically the issues remaining on the table -- for 

5 data falsification, the folks are going to look at 

6 the TBD-4 revisions, which should not be a serious 

7 problem. It's just a matter of doing it and 

8 checking out the impact of the environmental -- any 

9 environmental faults on the dose reconstruction.

10 And then, on the Critical Mass Lab, Mr. 

11 Rutherford is going to take a look at Dr. Rothe's 

12 comments. He will submit them and then will go 

13 over them and I think that is it in terms of where 

14 we stand now, for the Working Group. So we have 

15 two, probably one small and one probably small item 

16 to continue on. Not clear whether we will need 

17 another meeting but let's leave that for a while.

18 I think that's where we are. We're 

19 moving along but not quite finished. And, of 

20 course, we do want to hear the petitioner's 

21 comments if they want to make some now. But, 

22 first, in terms of the summary of where we're at, 
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1 is that correct, folks?

2 MR. KATZ: Well, Dave, can I just -- this 

3 is Ted. I just need clarification I guess for my 

4 understanding. The first issue is a TBD issue, so 

5 it's really not in the way of your closing out and 

6 coming up with recommendation on the SEC, right? 

7 The TBD issue, the environmental dose, that's not 

8 a question of whether dose can be reconstructed. 

9 It's just a question of what your actual 

10 measurements are going to be, right?

11 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right. In that 

12 sense, there's no -- there's no basic issue there.

13 MR. KATZ: Right. Right.

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. So, in a 

15 way, one could say that this will not need to come 

16 back to the Work Group.

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. So my question that I'm 

18 not clear about but the Work Group needs to be clear 

19 about is the critical mass. Is that -- is that an 

20 SEC issue still until it's resolved this new 

21 information, or is that a TBD issue? I don't know.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I don't know 
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1 either because we really -- there was so much that 

2 was gone over and was very hard to -- for me at 

3 least, to put my -- to wrap my mind around it all. 

4 I think that may be -- let's wait until LaVon gets 

5 the material, reviews it and emails the members of 

6 the Work Group as to what he thinks needs to be done 

7 on that. I think it may not require -- we may end 

8 up just closing it without having to have another 

9 meeting.

10 MR. KATZ: Well, okay. So that -- I mean 

11 that makes sense. I think it makes sense that it's 

12 a little bit murky as to what the import of that 

13 is. But then I'm just trying to help you out here 

14 with respect to the Board meeting coming up. I'm 

15 not sure that that'll get resolved before -- in time 

16 for the Work Group to consider it and close that 

17 out. So --

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: I doubt it.

19 MR. KATZ: Alright. So I'm just trying 

20 to understand. So it sounds like the Work Group 

21 will be ready -- I mean it will be ready to give 

22 a -- an update on everything but, with that matter 
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1 outstanding, I'm not sure whether the Work Group 

2 will be ready to give a recommendation. Is that 

3 -- is that your feeling, the rest of you, the Work 

4 Group?

5 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, with respect 

6 to --

7 MR. KATZ: The SEC Petition.

8 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. I guess not, 

9 if there's still an issue outstanding.

10 MR. KATZ: Don't know the importance of

11 that for -- unless you can get clarity about that 

12 in this meeting. And I don't think the Work Group 

13 -- I mean the Work Group can correct me on this. 

14 I don't think the Work Group will be ready to give 

15 a recommendation because you won't know what 

16 consequence that might have.

17 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: That is correct. 

18 I think we've read it but I think that, because in 

19 terms of the agenda that we laid out, everything 

20 has been done except for now new input --

21 MR. KATZ: Right.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: -- from another 
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1 person but one who has some authoritative 

2 information. But I think it's not impossible that 

3 we'll be able to make a recommendation.

4 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean we don't have 

5 another Work Group meeting. I mean that --

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: No. We won't have 

7 another Work Group meeting before the end of July.

8 MR. KATZ: Right. So, unless -- I mean 

9 staff or other Work Group Members, unless you have 

10 thoughts about this, I'm just -- I need to know this 

11 to be able to prepare for the Board meeting --

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

13 MR. KATZ: -- for you all. So --

14 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right. What do 

15 others think? I mean I don't -- I don't see that 

16 we'll be able to make a recommendation -- a final 

17 recommendation on the SEC.

18 MEMBER FIELD: This is -- this is Bill. 

19 I agree. I think, with the information presented, 

20 I don't even know how much is applicable to the 

21 period of the consideration. So I think we have 

22 to wait for LaVon to get the information and then 
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1 get a response. But it would be nice to go next 

2 week but I don't think it's possible.

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Yes.

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I agree with that. 

5 This is Phil.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Okay.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Alright. So 

9 there's agreement on that. But we're pretty 

10 close. We're pretty close to closure and 

11 certainly the meeting after this next one I'm 

12 certain that we'll be able to make a final 

13 recommendation. I'm confident, not certain. 

14 Nobody's certain. I'm confident that we'll be 

15 able to make a permanent -- a final recommendation.

16 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thanks.

17 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: We do have a little 

18 -- we have some more time. Particularly, we really 

19 talked about Item 6 now. We've just finished 

20 concluding Item 6. Is there any -- and 7. Is 

21 there any petitioner comment, Ms. Barrie or Mr. 

22 Saunders, that you wish to make now? It's not 
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1 necessary and you will certainly have time at the 

2 July Board meeting to do that but, if there is 

3 something you would like to say now, we certainly 

4 have time for that.

5 MS. BARRIE: Okay. This is Terrie 

6 Barrie. I really appreciate it. I won't keep you 

7 long because I'm quite thankful that you took the 

8 time to listen to Dr. Rothe. But I do have a few 

9 things that I want to mention.

10 Number one is I am so thankful that you 

11 did not make a decision today or a recommendation 

12 because there is a lot of issues from the 

13 interviewees for the various papers. At least I 

14 thought there would be, who have issues with the 

15 interpretation done by NIOSH, especially on the 

16 data falsification paper.

17 The other thing I want to mention is, in 

18 one of the papers -- and I am so confused about what 

19 papers I have read. I'm not organized at all. I 

20 just jotted down notes. NIOSH, in one of its 

21 papers, noted that they finally located Building 

22 123 procedure manuals. And, fortunately, one of 
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1 the advocates that I work with also obtained a 

2 manual for Building 123.

3 And, on Page 10 of that, it says that 123 

4 monitored environmental water samples for 

5 beryllium-7, which is the radioactive isotope of 

6 beryllium. And I don't think that workers were 

7 monitored for that kind of exposure.

8 The other thing is we recently -- another 

9 advocate recently --

10 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: And you're talking 

11 about the post-'83 period -- the post-'82 period?

12 MS. BARRIE: I believe so. Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

14 MS. BARRIE: Yes. Like I said, you know, 

15 all of this information came in to me. I will be 

16 more organized next week when I make public 

17 comments.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

19 MS. BARRIE: Yes. So that's one issue. 

20 Another advocate recently found a soil sample. 

21 It's a government assured soil sample, that shows 

22 some kind of really -- strontium and cesium 
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1 reading and he is still working on comparing that 

2 to background to see if that's an issue. So I'm, 

3 again, thankful that this is not being closed out.

4 And, for neptunium, I'm confused and I 

5 don't expect an answer right now. But the ten-year 

6 review identified the need for the Board to be 

7 consistent with SEC decisions and I still don't 

8 grasp the -- why plutonium is used for post-1983 

9 when it couldn't be used for pre-1983. And I don't 

10 think -- and I don't have the time right now to do 

11 -- research this thoroughly yet. But I don't --

12 there's a discussion for Savannah River on 

13 neptunium exposure and I don't understand why 

14 they're not using plutonium exposure for that.

15 And, because you've been so patient with 

16 me, I'm going to end it with that. But I'll have 

17 a lot more detailed discussion for next week.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. And the 

19 data falsification paper, the NIOSH draft paper, 

20 when was it released to you? We were able to see 

21 earlier drafts before it was -- so we have had a 

22 chance, the Working Group, to look it over and 
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1 evaluate it well, I think, by this meeting. But 

2 I don't when it was released for public 

3 consumption.

4 MS. BARRIE: I don't know exactly but I 

5 want to say it was about a week ago.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

7 MS. BARRIE: Yes. And then -- because I 

8 did get some feedback from people.

9 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes. Well, if 

10 that's the case, certainly, if you're happy that 

11 we did not make a decision because you believe there 

12 are issues about data falsification paper that 

13 should be considered by the Board, I do trust that 

14 you will present those at the Idaho meeting.

15 MS. BARRIE: I most definitely will.

16 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes, because 

17 that's important and we are really moving towards 

18 a final decision on that.

19 MS. BARRIE: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Just not so much 

21 for your sake but for other -- everybody's sake, 

22 Board Members and others, I regret that I will not 
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1 be able to be present at the Idaho Falls meeting 

2 but I will be on the phone and participating and 

3 reporting.

4 MS. BARRIE: And I'll have a written 

5 summary also and I'll make sure everybody gets it.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Very good. 

7 Mr. Saunders, anything?

8 MS. BARRIE: He was having trouble with 

9 his cable today --

10 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

11 MS. BARRIE: -- so I'm not sure if he's 

12 still on.

13 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, then, I 

14 think, folks, we have completed our task for today. 

15 Is there -- are there any things left undone that 

16 could be done right now?

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: I've got one quick 

18 question.

19 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Sure.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: I know we discussed 

21 we're not moving forward. There's no 

22 recommendation. So, under that agenda item, what 
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1 do you expect for that portion of the meeting, Ted 

2 and Dr. Kotelchuck?

3 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Well, that -- I 

4 mean I -- certainly, we have made progress closing 

5 the items and are in agreement on all the items now 

6 with one exception and that will be resolved soon. 

7 Obviously, if people are going to raise issues 

8 about the data falsification paper, that -- those 

9 issues will be brought up and will be responded to.

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. I agree. I agree 

11 with that. I was just trying to figure out whether 

12 we were putting together a presentation, what we 

13 were going to do for that portion of the --

14 MR. KATZ: This is Ted. Right. We 

15 thought we would -- we might be ready and we're not 

16 quite ready. So I mean there are two ways to go. 

17 I think what I would -- and I'm open to everyone's 

18 input on this but I think what makes sense is to 

19 hold on and make a full presentation when all the 

20 issues have been resolved or the Work Group has come 

21 to conclusion on all the issues I'd say --

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.
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1 MR. KATZ: -- rather than making a 90 

2 percent presentation at this meeting and then 

3 holding off on a piece for November. Does that 

4 make sense?

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: It makes sense to me.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: It does to me -- to 

7 me as well.

8 MR. KATZ: So I think what we would do 

9 then is just, Dave --

10 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: -- would give an update to the 

12 Board, a more -- a very summary update to the Board 

13 during the Work Group presentations but we wouldn't 

14 have a Rocky Flats session at this meeting --

15 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

16 MR. KATZ: -- given that we're not quite 

17 ready.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

19 MR. KATZ: So there would be no -- there 

20 would be no proper session with a presentation by 

21 NIOSH and SC&A and the petitioner's session. And, 

22 Terrie and others from Rocky Flats who have 
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1 comments would certainly be welcome to comment 

2 during the public comment session. We would 

3 expect that for sure. But we wouldn't have a 

4 separate Rocky Flats session for that.

5 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right.

6 MR. KATZ: And is that -- is that clear 

7 for you, Terrie?

8 MS. BARRIE: Yes and that's what I was 

9 planning on.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Very good.

11 MS. BARRIE: Thank you.

12 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Good. Good. 

13 Remind me, Ted, of course I have it written down 

14 somewhere but what is the date of the November 

15 meeting?

16 MR. KATZ: Oh, it's Thursday and Friday 

17 the 23rd and 4th, I believe, if my dates -- hold 

18 on a second. I need to look at a calendar to --

19 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes. It's the 23rd and the 

21 24th.

22 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Good.
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1 MR. KATZ: And, typically, the -- since 

2 you're with me on the phone, we try to get a lot 

3 of the Work Group work done the first day. So we'll 

4 probably get a lot of that done on the 23rd, the 

5 Work Group updates, in other words.

6 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Right. Right. 

7 Okay. Very good. Alright, folks. We've had a 

8 productive session and we've accomplished a lot and 

9 we're well on our way. And it's 1:30 east coast 

10 time, so folks have plenty of time to do other 

11 important things this afternoon. Okay.

12 MR. KATZ: Thank you, everybody.

13 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Thank you. Bye 

14 bye, folks.

15 MS. BARRIE: Thank you.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Thank you.

17 MR. KATZ: Bye.

18 CHAIRMAN KOTELCHUCK: Bye.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Bye bye.

20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

21 went off the record at 1:30 p.m.)

22
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NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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

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