1 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL 

+ + + + + 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL 

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION 

AND WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

WORKER OUTREACH WORK GROUP 

+ + + + + 

THURSDAY,

NOVEMBER 8, 2012 

+ + + + + 

The Worker Outreach Work Group met

in the Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport

Marriott, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron,

Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m., Josie Beach, Chair,

presiding. 

PRESENT: 

JOSIE BEACH, Chair

WANDA MUNN, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member 

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2 

ALSO PRESENT: 

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

LYNN AYERS, SC&A

TERRIE BARRIE* 

WILFRED CAMERON, ATL*

MARY ELLIOTT, ATL

CHRIS ELLISON, DCAS

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

J.J. JOHNSON, DCAS

MARK LEWIS, ATL

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A*

VERNON MCDOUGALL, ATL

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOHN STIVER, SC&A*

DAVE SUNDIN, DCAS 

*Participating via teleconference 

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3 

T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Page 

OCAS-PR-012 Procedure Review 

Changes - NIOSH.............................6 

PROC-010 Discussion - SC&A/NIOSH 

Review NIOSH's Responses for Rocky Flats 

...........71 

Pilot Study Findings and

Recommendations - NIOSH....................79 

Recommendations, and WG Discussion -

SC&A/NIOSH/WG.............................122 

Choose Next Site for Review, 

ATL Outreach Activities - ATL.............153 

Ten-year Review Implementation - NIOSH....183 

Statement Recommendations and WG 

Discussion - WG...........................190 

Adjourn 

WG Implementation Plan Including Mission 

Next Steps for Worker Outreach - All......221 

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4 

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

2 
 (9:06 a.m.) 

3 
 MR. KATZ: This is the Advisory 

4 
 Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Worker 

5 
 Outreach Work Group. The agenda for today's 

6 
 meeting is posted on the NIOSH website under 

7 
 the meetings section, under today's date, and 

8 
 let's do roll call. We are speaking about 

9 
 Rocky Flats today and we may be speaking about 

10 
 some other sites, but we don't know which; Los 

11 Alamos is one. 

12 
 So if anyone has conflicts with 

13 
 either Rocky Flats or Los Alamos, I don't what 

14 other sites we'll be talking about --

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, we might be 

16 
 running through a variety of sites, but --

17 Brookhaven. I don't know. 

18 
 MR. KATZ: Okay. And if people 

19 
 have conflicts at that point with the site 

20 
 we're talking about, you just need to note 

21 
 your conflict when we get to talking about 

22 
 that site. So let's begin with the Board 

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5 

1 
 Members, with the Chair. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you. As 

3 
 Ted said, the agenda is posted. I didn't put 

4 
 times down, but I did want to go over a couple 

5 
 of key things. Breaks, I'm going to try and 

6 
 shoot for the first break this morning at 

7 
 10:30 to 10:45 and then lunch from 12:00 to 

8 
 1:00. 

9 
 I did have here, under Number 5, 

10 
 Worker/Worker Representatives Comment Session, 

11 
 and we'll either do that right before lunch or 

12 
 right after lunch, depending on where we end 

13 
 up time-wise, for those of you that want to 

14 plan for that. 

15 
 The first item is, we're going to 

16 
 talk about OCAS PR-12, the procedure, and 

17 
 under that first item there's actually three 

18 
 documents. We have the procedure that J.J. 

19 
 sent out on 11/1; should be the final 

20 
 procedure. We also have the updated matrix 

21 
 that was sent out in October. It's Revision 

22 5, if you're looking for that. 

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6 

1 
 And then Stu sent out a NIOSH 

2 
 position on worker outreach selected sites. 

3 
 That follows along with our matrix. That was 

4 
 sent out October 19, 2012. So we'll get 

5 
 started with those three under that first 

6 
 item. And, J.J., I'm going to give it to you 

7 
 for the procedure if you want to get started 

8 
 with that. 

9 
 I didn't know if we should go 

10 
 through the matrix or the procedure, but the 

11 
 procedure, I think, is probably the closest to 

12 being done. 

13 
 MR. JOHNSON: Well, it's done, 

14 
 based on the responses for comment that were 

15 
 provided in the last worker outreach meeting. 

16 
 And the only thing I can say is that I've 

17 
 gone through and incorporated the expectations 

18 
 in the matrix that was provided, sent out, 

19 
 shows that, at least I believe, most, if not 

20 
 all of them, have been updated in the 

21 procedure. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

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7 

1 
 MR. JOHNSON: And the procedure is 

2 
 in a state ready to go. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I agree with 

4 
 that. I just wanted to make sure, since it 

5 
 says draft, that everybody agrees and didn't 

6 
 find anything in the re-review reading of it. 

7 
 MEMBER MUNN: No. I certainly 

8 
 didn't and, J.J., thank you for the format 

9 
 that you provided. It made it very easy to 

10 
 figure out the updates that you had provided, 

11 and that's --

12 
 MR. JOHNSON: I listened to your 

13 advice. 

14 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I like that as 

16 
 well. So if there's nothing else on the 

17 procedure, I guess it's ready to post, right? 

18 
 MR. JOHNSON: The only difference 

19 
 you'll see is, the broad print will be regular 

20 print. 

21 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So when can we 

22 
 expect this to be posted and out on the drive? 

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8 

1 
 MR. JOHNSON: I would say, I would 

2 
 have to give it to Stu for his review, or Jim, 

3 
 and then based upon their signatures on that, 

4 
 it'll be out there. I would say within a 

5 
 month; likely less. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Can you let us know 

7 
 when that happens so we don't have to keep 

8 
 looking? 

9 
 MR. JOHNSON: I will. I'll shoot 

10 you an email. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Awesome. Okay. 

12 
 MR. KATZ: So does the Work Group, 

13 
 then, want to just provide a closeout missive 

14 
 to the Procedures Subcommittee on this? This 

15 
 procedure has been reviewed and we completed 

16 review. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: Do we do that before 

18 
 or after we hear from Jim and Stu? 

19 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, if it's 

20 essentially done, I think you could do it. 

21 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So I just need 

22 to send Wanda an email. Wanda? 

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9 

1 
 MEMBER MUNN: Email. Yes. That's 

2 
 all I need is just an email. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: A paper record. 

5 
 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. A record. 

6 
 MR. KATZ: Electronic record. 

7 
 MR. SUNDIN: This is not really a 

8 
 substantive issue with respect to the main 

9 
 point here, but Chris brought it to my 

10 
 attention yesterday that on Page 4, talking 

11 
 about focus group, you talk about 10 to 12 

12 
 individuals. We're probably going to 

13 downgrade that to nine. 

14 MR. KATZ: Nine, right. 

15 
 MR. SUNDIN: For obvious reasons, 

16 
 and there may be a stray typo or two that we 

17 
 would clean up, but I wanted to let you know 

18 that that was something --

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So this is 

20 just going to go straight to nine? 

21 MR. SUNDIN: Nine or less. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Nine or less. Okay. 

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10 

1 
 MR. KATZ: That's a Paperwork 

2 
 Reduction Act-related matter. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Okay. I'm 

4 
 just going to put that item down. All right. 

5 
 So the other part of this is the matrix, if 

6 
 everybody has that in front of them, I thought 

7 
 we would just go through it. There's several 

8 
 that are in progress that I think are ready to 

9 
 close, but we just need to have agreement on 

10 that. 

11 
 And then any that we aren't in 

12 
 agreement on, we can decide what we're going 

13 
 to do with those. So the first one -- is 

14 
 everybody at that point, F1, Page2? I don't 

15 
 think I need to reread this to everybody. I 

16 
 went through it and verified what was closed, 

17 
 what actions had been taken care of, and so my 

18 
 reading of this is, everything we asked NIOSH 

19 
 to do, SC&A's comments, were completed, most 

20 
 of them as of updated September 2011, so I'd 

21 put ready to close on that one. 

22 
 MS. AYERS: Which number are you 

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11 

1 
 on? 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: F1, it's, "The 

3 
 procedure does not provide direction for 

4 
 tracking, trending, evaluating, or responding 

5 
 to worker input." 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: September 12th is 

7 
 the update, so that's pretty current. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. So we closed 

9 
 out, or finished up, a lot of work in August 

10 
 at our last meeting. And step by step, I 

11 
 believe they're all completed, unless somebody 

12 
 sees something different, I'm going to call 

13 that closed. 

14 MEMBER MUNN: It looks good to me. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: What do you think, 

16 Phil? 

17 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I think it looks 

18 good. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So F1 is now 

20 
 closed based on the fact that everything has 

21 
 been completed. And that mostly goes back to 

22 the procedure PR-12 being completed. 

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12 

1 
 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Ready to move 

3 
 on to F2? "The procedure does not specify 

4 
 criteria for identifying action items or 

5 
 evaluating the adequacy and timeliness of 

6 
 response resolutions." If you go through, 

7 
 there was three action items listed and all 

8 
 three have been completed as of September 2012 

9 
 as well, so I viewed that as ready to close. 

10 Any discussions; comments? 

11 
 MEMBER MUNN: No. The transfer is 

12 done. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So hearing 

14 
 nothing, I'm going to say that one is also 

15 
 closed. Any problem with how we're doing 

16 this? 

17 
 MR. KATZ: No. This is perfect. 

18 Good. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right. So 

20 
 F3 looks like we'll have a little bit of 

21 
 discussion here. "The majority of expected 

22 
 documentation is not available in OTIS-4 

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13 

1 
 meetings conducted within the effective period 

2 
 of PR-12." Recommended actions, Number 1 was 

3 
 completed back in December of 2010. 

4 
 Under NIOSH, there was two 

5 
 recommendations, the second one was completed 

6 
 with Appendix F and the first one is the one, 

7 
 "Re-evaluating the meeting minutes from 

8 
 meetings conducted since the implementation of 

9 
 PR-12 based on the new action items criteria 

10 
 determining if there is additional action 

11 items." 

12 
 That one is still in progress, so, 

13 
 J.J., I guess we're going to look to you for 

14 that. 

15 
 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. What we did is 

16 
 we went through and looked back at what 

17 
 meetings were out there that the minutes 

18 
 supported outreach and of those minutes, they 

19 
 were returned to the people who -- the HPs in 

20 
 DCAS. They were requested to review the 

21 
 minutes, determine if there were any 

22 
 additional action items that may have been 

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14 

1 
 overlooked in the initial taking of the 

2 
 minutes. 

3 
 Their responses came back negative, 

4 
 that they found no additional action items, 

5 
 and that's where we are. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: So does that cover 

7 
 all of them? 

8 
 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: A hundred percent? 

10 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

12 MEMBER MUNN: Sounds closed to me. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: It sounds closed to 

14 me too. 

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

16 
 CHAIR BEACH: Do we need to look at 

17 
 those or is the Work Group satisfied with 

18 that? 

19 
 MEMBER MUNN: I'm personally 

20 satisfied with the work that's been done. 

21 
 CHAIR BEACH: So then once that's 

22 
 done, J.J., the minutes get posted on the web 

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15 

1 
 site, is that correct; once they're reviewed 

2 
 and -- is that the process? 

3 
 MR. JOHNSON: Right. Our process 

4 
 for posting minutes is that, once the minutes 

5 
 are completed, they go through, generally, an 

6 
 initial redaction, and then they go through 

7 
 DOE for their review. When we get them back, 

8 
 then we take those minutes and post them on 

9 
 the web after another final redaction, and 

10 that's kind of like a draft. 

11 
 Once we put them out there, and if 

12 
 we get any comments back within 60 days, we 

13 
 update those, then we take the minutes and 

14 
 update them as necessary, and then they become 

15 
 the final minutes, and they are replaced 

16 and/or not changed on the web. 

17 
 MEMBER MUNN: How do you make the 

18 
 decision about the comments that come back; 

19 
 whether they're substantial enough to merit --

20 
 MR. KATZ: Someone on the line is 

21 
 not muted and they're dialing their phone at 

22 
 the same time they're listening. Hello? 

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16 

1 
 Somebody's on the line and dialing their phone 

2 
 while they're listening. Can you please --

3 
 somebody listening on the phone is not on mute 

4 
 and we can hear your doings, including your 

5 
 dialing of your phone. Can you please put 

6 
 your phone on mute? Press *6 if you don't 

7 
 have a mute button; whoever that might be. 

8 
 Why don't we try carrying on? 

9 
 Sorry. 

10 MR. JOHNSON: If the comments back 

11 
 are strictly editorial, I don't think I return 

12 them. 

13 
 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I was concerned 

14 with content. 

15 
 MR. JOHNSON: If there's a content, 

16 
 then based upon my judgment, I'll determine 

17 
 whether it goes back and if it's a significant 

18 
 change, then it will go back. There'd be no 

19 question about that. 

20 
 MEMBER MUNN: All right. Good. 

21 But you're essentially the arbiter. 

22 MR. JOHNSON: Yes, I do that too. 

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17 

1 
 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. Good. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Comments? 

3 
 Phil, what do you think? Okay. Then I'm 

4 
 going to call this one closed. This won't be 

5 
 the last look we have at those notes, so we'll 

6 
 have other places to look at those. So the 

7 
 next one is F4. This one's also going to have 

8 
 some discussion. 

9 
 "The procedure fails to consider 

10 
 other venues of worker outreach. The multiple 

11 
 venues are not subjected to equivalent 

12 
 standards for documentation of the particular 

13 
 concern. Is the two-track system for 

14 
 obtaining and documenting worker input that 

15 
 appears to give site expert interviews, 

16 
 records, more weight than worker input 

17 obtained through outreach meetings?" 

18 
 This one is in progress. There's 

19 
 several paragraphs to review on this. It 

20 
 breaks down to, on Page 9, the Work Group 

21 
 recommended actions. NIOSH was to look at the 

22 
 feasibility for capturing and tracking 

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18 

1 
 information in the OTIS drive for any type of 

2 
 meeting or correspondence deemed potentially 

3 
 important, grouped to dose reconstruction, for 

4 
 example, there may be added fields in OTIS to 

5 
 accommodate this application through a 

6 
 separate tracking system. 

7 
 So if you look under the Work Group 

8 
 recommendations and actions, this is still in 

9 
 progress. The Work Group agreed it's 

10 
 important goal to give attention to worker 

11 
 input by virtue of significance, regardless of 

12 
 the source. J.J., I'm going to put this one 

13 on you because I guess this is a tough one. 

14 
 MR. JOHNSON: Well, in past 

15 
 meetings, we've indicated that the outreach 

16 
 tracking system will not handle the additional 

17 
 venues as noted here. And additional venues 

18 
 might be emails, might be a docket, might be 

19 
 letters, might be other forms of 

20 
 communication, and with that, NIOSH is looking 

21 
 at another system, but if you will, I'd like 

22 
 to pass that on to Chris because she's kind of 

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19 

1 
 I think, focusing and supporting that effort. 

2 
 MS. ELLISON: Right. You know, 

3 
 part of the struggle and challenge with this 

4 
 is, we can receive comments from individuals 

5 
 so many ways and, you know, like J.J. said, 

6 
 through email, and really, the most proper way 

7 
 for people to submit comments is through the 

8 
 docket, and we try to encourage people to do 

9 
 that because there's a formal process for 

10 that. 

11 
 So, you know, we have the comments 

12 
 that we receive and, you know, comments that 

13 
 are made to us at meetings, we have letters 

14 
 and emails, phone calls, there's a wide 

15 
 variety of ways for that information to get to 

16 
 us. And we have met and discussed how to best 

17 
 capture that. And we've sort of determined 

18 
 that we need another system, like J.J. said, 

19 to do that. 

20 
 And so, right now, they've 

21 
 concentrated on probably the easiest target 

22 
 area, which is letters. So they're working on 

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20 

1 
 a system to capture comments from letters at 

2 
 the current time. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Can you expand on 

4 
 what kind of progress you've made on that, 

5 
 because I know you're looking at putting them 

6 
 into a system and creating a system for that? 

7 
 MS. ELLISON: Right. And they're 

8 
 working on that system right now, and I 

9 
 haven't seen any draft of it. We have our 

10 technical team that's working on that. 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

12 
 MS. ELLISON: You know, the long13 
 range goal, what I would like to see happen 

14 
 with these comments is not so much -- I'd like 

15 
 to see the system set up so that whatever 

16 
 venue you're getting that information from, we 

17 
 can pull out the comment and pull out the 

18 
 NIOSH response, and then have the system put 

19 
 those two together so that we can post that 

20 
 stuff out on the web site to help get more 

21 
 information out there, so that people know 

22 
 what comments we're receiving and how we're 

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21 

1 
 responding to those comments. 

2 
 So that's another long-range goal 

3 
 of this system, which is, again, kind of 

4 
 making it a little bit more complex. But I 

5 
 know they're working on the basic structure 

6 
 and kind of looking at the letters, and to see 

7 
 what categories, and how it's going to be laid 

8 
 out. So they're still in that framework 

9 
 portion of that system; that database. 

10 
 MR. KATZ: So you may understand 

11 
 this, but I don't. A clarifying question: is 

12 
 this tracking system intended, in part -- I 

13 
 mean, I heard you just say, in part, it's 

14 
 intended so that you can let the world know 

15 
 how you're responding to, but it seems like 

16 
 the most important part of this is ensuring 

17 
 that input that comes in gets addressed and 

18 considered. 

19 MS. ELLISON: Right. 

20 
 MR. KATZ: And is that part of the 

21 intent of the system? 

22 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes. That's all part 

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22 

1 
 of the framework. And I think, right now, the 

2 
 challenge is trying to figure out what all we 

3 
 need to capture and how that's going to work 

4 
 in this framework, this database. 

5 
 MR. KATZ: But so then this would 

6 
 be a system that the relevant HP would access 

7 
 or be notified through to know that they have 

8 
 a comment on, say, Rocky Flats --

9 
 MS. ELLISON: Right. 

10 
 MR. KATZ: -- that they should 

11 
 consider that came in by email, or letter, or 

12 what have you. That's the idea? 

13 MS. ELLISON: Right. 

14 MR. KATZ: Okay. 

15 
 MS. ELLISON: Again, another one of 

16 
 those framework bells-and-whistle things that 

17 we have to figure out. 

18 MR. KATZ: Sure. 

19 
 MS. ELLISON: You know, who's going 

20 
 to input the information and how's it going to 

21 notify people who need to respond to it? 

22 
 MR. KATZ: Right. So that's what 

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23 

1 
 you're setting up. 

2 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes. 

3 
 MR. KATZ: No, I understand. 

4 
 MS. ELLISON: There's a lot to 

5 
 think about and consider. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So really, this is 

7 
 sort of a conceptual stage. You're looking at 

8 
 the possibility of, maybe, letters or 

9 
 correspondence being the first test bed. 

10 MS. ELLISON: Right. Exactly. 

11 
 MR. FITZGERALD: But you haven't, 

12 
 as you've just said, defined the framework or 

13 
 figured out the bells and whistles, you call 

14 
 them, figured out that framework of the 

15 system. 

16 
 MS. ELLISON: You know, we've 

17 
 provided that information to the technical 

18 
 team. I've not seen anything come back from 

19 them yet. 

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

21 
 MR. KATZ: So they're developing 

22 the software for it. 

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1 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. Okay. 

3 
 MEMBER MUNN: And you're thinking 

4 
 in terms of site-specific data gathering, 

5 
 right, or not? I mean, I'm thinking, where 

6 
 does it go? 

7 
 MS. ELLISON: And I'm sure it will 

8 
 cover a wide range of information and 

9 
 comments. Some of it could be site-specific, 

10 
 some of those comments could be program-wide. 

11 
 And then those site-specific comments will 

12 
 get farmed out to the appropriate people to 

13 respond to those comments. 

14 
 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I'm just 

15 
 thinking about where it's going to be. If I 

16 
 were a seeker of great truth, where would I 

17 
 come to the web site to look for some comment 

18 
 I've made about us? 

19 MS. ELLISON: Right. Well, you 

20 
 know, I haven't thought about all of that, but 

21 
 if it's a site-specific comment, we have the 

22 
 individual site pages which will carve out a 

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1 
 spot on those individual site pages for those 

2 
 comments to be displayed. 

3 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. My guess is, this 

4 
 system is going to be an internal system. 

5 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes, it is. 

6 
 MR. KATZ: That's not going to be 

7 
 available to the public. 

8 
 MS. ELLISON: No. 

9 
 MEMBER MUNN: No. 

10 
 MR. KATZ: That's going to be a way 

11 to make that there are responses to comments. 

12 
 MS. ELLISON: It's a form for us to 

13 track everything. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: And then it'll feed 

15 
 whatever you post out on the web for the 

16 public. 

17 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. 

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Is there any sense 

19 
 of the time frame for the framework? You 

20 
 know, I know that right now you have ideas and 

21 considerations for the design group. 

22 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes. Unfortunately, 

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1 
 I have not been given the time frame from our 

2 
 technical team yet. 

3 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. So they 

4 
 have the notions, but they haven't come back 

5 
 to you. 

6 
 MS. ELLISON: Right. 

7 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

8 
 MEMBER MUNN: Sounds like this one 

9 
 will have to continue in progress. 

10 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And how is this 

11 
 going to be different from what's out there 

12 
 already? I know we went from WISPR to the 

13 
 OTS, that can't be used to track these 

14 
 different forms of worker comments? I mean, 

15 are you reinventing --

16 
 MR. JOHNSON: It can be used, to 

17 
 some degree, as a platform to review what 

18 
 might be able to be used for these other 

19 
 venues, meaning the OTS tracking system, but 

20 
 again, the OTS tracking system was 

21 
 specifically developed with its intention of 

22 
 looking at issues associated with outreach 

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27 

1 
 meetings. And there, in part, is, you know, 

2 
 the route where it separates it from other 

3 
 communications, other venues, that may have 

4 
 some input into NIOSH. 

5 
 MS. ELLISON: And when we get to 

6 
 it, part of the beauty of having our technical 

7 
 team work on this, you know, they developed 

8 
 the OTS, and so hopefully, we're hoping that 

9 
 this new system that they're working on will 

10 
 be able to pull stuff from other places. You 

11 
 know, so I think once that framework, and 

12 
 we've got it all down of how this is going to 

13 work, it will pull from other places. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Sounds like 

15 
 it's going to be interesting to see the plan 

16 
 or to see it in action. Okay. Well, we'll --

17 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Will these 

18 
 comments be posted to the public or just 

19 posted on the hard drive? 

20 
 MS. ELLISON: My hope and desire is 

21 
 that we can get them out on the public site. 

22 
 Just, you know, strip out all of the details, 

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28 

1 
 we don't want the commenter's name, you know, 

2 
 we just want the comment and the NIOSH 

3 
 response. 

4 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. 

5 
 MEMBER MUNN: So somewhere in that 

6 
 you'll have a basket for things that don't 

7 
 fall naturally into other categories. 

8 
 MS. ELLISON: Right. We'll have to 

9 
 see what that is and where the best place is 

10 
 to put that out there. I think it might 

11 require its own individual page. 

12 MEMBER MUNN: Very possibly. 

13 MS. ELLISON: Right. 

14 
 MEMBER MUNN: Probably, I would 

15 think. 

16 
 MS. ELLISON: Right. That would be 

17 the easiest solution. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: And so just to put 

19 
 you on the spot a little bit more, so you're 

20 
 talking about letters first and then you're 

21 
 going to go -- have you thought about further 

22 
 

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29 

1 
 MS. ELLISON: The next one? 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

3 
 MS. ELLISON: My guess, no. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: That's fair. 

5 
 MS. ELLISON: You know, I'm trying 

6 
 to think, it might be best -- I would think 

7 
 our next ploy would be to use something that 

8 
 we can pull from, whether it be the telephone 

9 
 calls or maybe we could pull from NOCTS or, 

10 
 you know, worker outreach comments where we 

11 
 could pull from another system, you know, to 

12 
 be the next piece; would be my guess. I'm 

13 
 pretty much leaving that up to the technical 

14 team. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. Okay. All 

16 
 right. So the second recommendations under 

17 
 this -- what are we on, F4? "To develop a 

18 
 proposal for resolving the dual-track system 

19 
 for site expert interviews and worker outreach 

20 
 meetings." I'm not going to read the whole 

21 
 paragraph, but the answer, the recommended 

22 
 answer was, "Appendix E provides guidance 

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30 

1 
 regarding the identification, tracking, 

2 
 resolution, and consideration of impact of 

3 
 action ideas from worker outreach meetings. 

4 
 NIOSH has indicated that PR-12 will not 

5 
 address a broad range of venues from which 

6 
 input can be received. SC&A has already 

7 
 identified an alternate proposal from NIOSH to 

8 
 address this concern. So same thing? 

9 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I was going 

10 
 to say. If we were to look at the venues that 

11 
 you're talking about, I think that would go a 

12 
 long ways to making sure it's a broader input, 

13 which is what this is all about. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. That's what I 

15 
 thought too. I just wanted to make sure it 

16 
 was on --

17 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So I think the 

18 
 original finding was that, with the site 

19 
 activity, you tend to get the site experts by 

20 
 way of Site Profile and SEC evaluations much 

21 
 more direct, and the worker input came from 

22 
 all kinds of different venues, most of them 

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31 

1 
 not handled quite the same way, so I think 

2 
 this would help. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Hopefully. It would 

4 
 be nice to eliminate that dual track. Okay. 

5 
 So in progress and we wait to hear, hopefully, 

6 
 from Chris how that's progressing. Do you 

7 
 have any idea at all? Did they give you any 

8 
 kind of sense of time; months, weeks, days? 

9 
 MS. ELLISON: No. 

10 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. It's a big job 

11 
 after listening to Wanda's Procedures Work 

12 Group create that system. 

13 MEMBER MUNN: It's long. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: It's long. Yes, but 

15 
 to do it right, the end result is worth it. 

16 
 Okay. So F5, "The procedure does not describe 

17 
 process for assuring that worker feedback is 

18 
 accurately and completely documented." That 

19 
 is in progress. There were two items 

20 
 associated with that and the first one, as of 

21 
 September, they've both been completed. Let 

22 me look at this. 

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32 

1 
 Okay. So this one is -- the second 

2 
 part of this, Chris, kind of goes back to you. 

3 
 Updated on September 12th, "The revised 

4 
 procedure includes additional announcement 

5 
 that meeting minutes will be posted to the 

6 
 NIOSH web for their validation," you talked 

7 
 about that, J.J., "for 60 days." 

8 
 So I guess that is, sorry, that is 

9 
 completed. So as far as I'm concerned, it's 

10 
 ready to close if the Work Group agrees with 

11 that. 

12 
 MEMBER MUNN: It appears to be 

13 
 done. I don't know what further action we 

14 could anticipate. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: No. Okay. That gets 

16 
 us through to the observations. Observation 1 

17 
 is closed, 2 is closed, 3 is in progress. 

18 
 Observation 3, "There is no provision for 

19 
 soliciting comments from workers who are 

20 
 unable to physically attend the meetings." 

21 
 And I believe that has been completed based on 

22 the latest procedure. 

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33 

1 
 There is a statement incorporated 

2 
 in the procedure PR-12 that addresses that 

3 
 issue. So I believe that one is closed too, 

4 
 unless anybody has anything else or comments 

5 
 on that. 

6 
 MEMBER MUNN: In any case, it was 

7 
 an observation rather than a finding. So it 

8 
 appears to have been addressed adequately. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Correct. Okay. So 

10 
 Observation 4 is closed, 5 is closed at the 

11 
 last meeting, and that takes us to outstanding 

12 
 97 findings. That is in progress, except for, 

13 
 if you look, the last item, Number 3, "Provide 

14 
 updates for sites where meetings have been 

15 
 conducted since June 2011." Response is 

16 pending. 

17 
 And that takes us to our October 

18 
 19th position paper that Stu sent out. So did 

19 
 everybody get a chance to review this? I 

20 
 thought it was very helpful. And I guess, 

21 
 J.J., we're going to give it to you to discuss 

22 
 and talk about, you know, the NIOSH paper 

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34 

1 
 here. 

2 
 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: That's okay? 

4 
 MR. JOHNSON: Generally, you know, 

5 
 the first page is just kind of like an 

6 
 overview of where NIOSH is with regards to the 

7 
 program and supporting activities. And the 

8 
 next couple of pages go through and breakdown 

9 
 the -- let's see, are we talking about the 

10 facilities that did not have outreach? 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, that was what 

12 
 that was for. And this just, basically, 

13 
 justified the Category 1, 2, and 3. I thought 

14 it was well done. 

15 
 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. What was done 

16 
 is an evaluation of the facilities based upon 

17 
 where they exist right now with regards to 

18 
 SECs or, perhaps, issues that might be still 

19 
 within the appropriate site Working Groups. 

20 
 And so it was broken down in Category 1, 2, 

21 
 and Category 1 was broken down into two 

22 
 groups; sites for which SEC status has been 

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35 

1 
 granted and work was completed except for 

2 
 occasional dose reconstructions; and B, sites 

3 
 for which the Board has considered but not 

4 
 recommended SEC status for which work is 

5 
 complete except for the occasional dose 

6 
 reconstructions. 

7 
 And NIOSH's position is that worker 

8 
 outreach is not warranted in these two 

9 
 categories. Category 2, sites where SECs have 

10 
 been granted as a portion of the operational 

11 
 period and a recommendation has not been 

12 
 reached for the remainder of the operational 

13 
 period, and sites where there have been a Site 

14 
 Profile review, findings have not yet been 

15 resolved. 

16 
 NIOSH's position on this is that 

17 
 Categories 2A and 2B, the need for worker 

18 
 outreach will be determined by the finding, 

19 
 resolution, and process under the auspices of 

20 
 the respective Work Groups. Meaning, based 

21 
 upon their review and need, outreach will be 

22 
 initiated and that will be based on staff and 

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36 

1 
 availability of personnel at that time. 

2 
 And then we have the last group, 

3 
 which is the remaining sites. NIOSH will 

4 
 consider pursuing worker outreach activities 

5 
 and outreach resources are available, keeping 

6 
 in mind other project priorities. And again, 

7 
 the ability to identify a target population 

8 
 and some judgment of the likelihood of 

9 
 obtaining helpful information will also 

10 
 influence to see about where to conduct 

11 outreach activities. And that's it. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

13 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So I guess my only 

14 
 comment would be, I thought this was a very 

15 
 helpful matrix, or listing, with an 

16 
 understandable rationale. Is this something 

17 
 that could be posted on, you know, the DCAS 

18 
 web site, in case there's any questions about 

19 
 how, you know, worker outreaches actually 

20 begin? 

21 CHAIR BEACH: That's a good idea. 

22 
 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean, that's the 

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37 

1 
 first time I think I've seen this kind of 

2 
 thinking, but I think it makes sense. 

3 
 MR. JOHNSON: I would have to talk 

4 
 with Stu to validate the appropriateness of 

5 
 putting this on the web. Not that it's 

6 
 inappropriate --

7 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I understand 

8 
 what you're saying. 

9 
 MR. JOHNSON: I would certainly 

10 like to get Stu's --

11 
 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess my thought 

12 
 was that if somebody was expecting, you know, 

13 
 maybe an outreach effort or something, and, 

14 
 you know, was wondering why, you know, another 

15 
 site, maybe, had the attention that they did 

16 
 not. I mean, this would at least buy some 

17 
 perspective and, you know, be helpful from 

18 that standpoint. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and it would 

20 
 seem to me that the last page, that is going 

21 
 to be an ever-changing list as well, as 

22 
 different sites are added to that, 

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38 

1 
 potentially. 

2 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Correct. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: So that would be a 

4 
 nice way of keeping track of that as well. 

5 
 MR. FITZGERALD: This sort of 

6 
 answers the question. You have a finite 

7 
 amount of resources. You can't do everything, 

8 
 but it does provide a perspective that it was 

9 
 well-thought-out as something you can do and, 

10 
 you know, why these are priorities the way 

11 
 they are. And I guess I hadn't seen that in 

12 
 this form before and I thought it was pretty 

13 helpful. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: The one thought I had 

15 
 about this in terms of, just for clarity's 

16 
 sake, is that, this is sort of a 

17 
 prioritization scheme and it doesn't foreclose 

18 
 the possibility that, in some of these 

19 
 categories, generally, you wouldn't do an 

20 
 outreach, but you may have a reason to do one, 

21 
 for example, if their SEC is already done and 

22 
 so on, but you're doing a lot of dose 

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39 

1 
 reconstructions and there's some questions as 

2 
 to whether you know everything you should 

3 
 know, that might be a good reason to do an 

4 
 outreach even though, for example, it might be 

5 
 listed under Category 1. 

6 
 So anyway, my point is just, I 

7 
 think, rather than it be quite black and white 

8 
 foreclosed, that we wouldn't do them in 

9 
 Category 1, for example, but that those would 

10 not be a priority. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and possibly, 

12 
 it says NIOSH's position is that, "Worker 

13 
 outreach is not warranted in Category 1 and 

14 
 2.", may be an explanation of why it would be 

15 in order if --

16 
 MR. KATZ: Or not generally 

17 warranted, or whatever. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. If it's going 

19 to be posted, that would be --

20 MR. KATZ: Yes. I just mean --

21 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I agree with 

22 that. 

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40 

1 
 MR. KATZ: -- I don't imagine you 

2 
 would foreclose the possibility of doing an 

3 
 outreach in some of those circumstances, had 

4 
 you enough dose reconstructions, and questions 

5 
 arose about whether you know everything you 

6 
 need to know, right, for one of those 

7 
 facilities. 

8 
 MR. JOHNSON: Well, the question 

9 
 would warrant too, where would this be posted 

10 
 on the web? I mean, you know, I'm not certain 

11 that there's a spot that it could be --

12 
 MR. KATZ: Yes, unless you created 

13 a web page related to --

14 MS. ELLISON: Right. 

15 
 MR. KATZ: -- you know, current 

16 
 outreach activities to let the public know 

17 where you're doing outreach. 

18 
 MS. ELLISON: Right, or it could be 

19 
 posted under the technical documents page as a 

20 little piece on the development of them. 

21 MR. KATZ: Right. 

22 
 MS. ELLISON: I mean, there's a 

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41 

1 
 couple places we could parse it into. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

3 
 MS. ELLISON: And I would see it 

4 
 maybe not being a PDF, but actual text and 

5 
 working it on there. 

6 
 MR. KATZ: Sure. 

7 
 MS. AYERS: One observation was 

8 
 that this wasn't really meant to be, like, an 

9 
 ongoing policy, so to speak. I mean, it was a 

10 
 response to a specific paper and a list 

11 
 generated from SC&A on this PROC-97 issue, 

12 
 which is sort of finite. And I don't know if 

13 
 the SC&A paper, is it posted somewhere, like 

14 under this Work Group? 

15 CHAIR BEACH: That June paper? 

16 
 MS. AYERS: No, it was a December 

17 
 2010 --

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think all 

19 
 the paper did was just pose the question about 

20 
 wanting to know if there was an underlying 

21 
 rationale for how resources and priorities are 

22 done. I think this answers the question. 

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42 

1 
 MS. AYERS: Right. Well, it just 

2 
 seemed like they were tied together. I 

3 
 thought if the one was out there anywhere, 

4 
 then it would make sense to put the answer in 

5 
 the same place as the --

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: I don't know if it 

7 
 is. That's a good question. 

8 
 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean, we post 

9 
 SC&A White Papers now, but I don't know if 

10 
 that one would get posted. That's more like a 

11 
 memo or something, right, than actually, a 

12 formal White Paper. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: I went looking for it 

14 and didn't find it. 

15 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

16 
 MEMBER MUNN: It was --

17 
 MR. KATZ: Go ahead. Sorry, Wanda. 

18 
 MEMBER MUNN: Pretty much an 

19 internal inquiry. 

20 MR. KATZ: Right. 

21 
 MEMBER MUNN: And there's a note of 

22 
 caution, things of this type, I'm reading 

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43 

1 
 category here, responses of this type, have a 

2 
 tendency to be, you know, aimed at a specific 

3 
 audience, namely, us, for a specific purpose, 

4 
 namely, this one, and sometimes when placed in 

5 
 broad distribution have a tendency to raise 

6 
 more questions and concerns than they actually 

7 
 answer. 

8 
 So perhaps it would be wise for us 

9 
 at this juncture to wait, as J.J. has 

10 indicated, and have him check --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, of course. 

12 
 MEMBER MUNN: -- with others, 

13 
 because it's not crystal clear that this is 

14 
 serving the purpose that we attempt to serve 

15 
 when we're talking in terms of outreach and 

16 
 providing the kinds of information that people 

17 need. 

18 
 MR. KATZ: Right. It's Stu's 

19 
 discussion, of course, it's just Joe made, I 

20 
 thought, a good suggestion that there may be a 

21 
 public that would be actually interested in 

22 this information, in which case --

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44 

1 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And I kind of 

2 
 agree with you. I think this was written as a 

3 
 response, and that was your point, and I think 

4 
 you were raising the same kind of comments 

5 
 that, you probably want to recast it for a 

6 
 broader audience. If it was going to be on a 

7 
 public web site, you'd probably write it a bit 

8 
 differently. 

9 
 But I think the information that's 

10 
 delivered is kind of helpful because I think, 

11 
 in general, you're trying to figure out, you 

12 
 know, I'm at a certain site, or, you know, I 

13 
 understand this site got a visit from ATL, am 

14 
 I going to get a visit? You know, it just 

15 
 sort of answers the question how those 

16 
 decisions are made and whether or not that 

17 
 expectation -- you know, it might be some 

18 
 feedback as to, you know, maybe we'd like to 

19 
 have some outreach consideration that you 

20 apply. 

21 
 You know, it just sort of promotes 

22 
 that, but I agree, I think you have to write 

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45 

1 
 it carefully and make sure it's not going to 

2 
 pose more problems. 

3 
 MEMBER MUNN: Well, the other thing 

4 
 is, this is a slice in time. This is a 

5 
 response to here and now. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

7 
 MEMBER MUNN: And as Josie pointed 

8 
 out, it would be a nice way to have this 

9 
 hanging somewhere and continually providing us 

10 
 with the information we'd like to have at a 

11 
 glance, but what that also would require is 

12 
 the staff and the time to maintain a running 

13 
 information stream for this kind of thing 

14 
 because these things could change on an almost 

15 weekly basis. 

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

17 
 MEMBER MUNN: So there are negative 

18 aspects to the consideration. 

19 
 MR. SUNDIN: Well, how about if we 

20 
 bring the issue back to Stu and say, the Work 

21 
 Group found it very helpful and there were 

22 some additional suggestions. 

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46 

1 
 CHAIR BEACH: And appreciated it, 

2 
 don't forget that part, because this has been 

3 
 hanging out there a long time --

4 
 MR. KATZ: Right. That's all 

5 
 that's being said, I think. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: -- to have an answer. 

7 
 Okay. So that closes out that finding from 

8 
 97. J. J., you're probably happy about that. 

9 
 Finally off the table. Been hanging on to 

10 that for a little while. 

11 
 MR. JOHNSON: I'm happy for little 

12 things, yes. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: That is a little 

14 
 thing. Okay. So I'm just going to go back 

15 
 through the actions that came out of this. 

16 
 The first one is for me to email Wanda stating 

17 
 that the procedure has been reviewed and is 

18 
 satisfactory to the Work Group, and we closed 

19 
 that. Then I have NIOSH to provide an update 

20 
 on open items prior to next -- about two 

21 
 weeks, at least, before the next Work Group 

22 meeting, would be helpful to us. 

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47 

1 
 And, you know, I went back through 

2 
 here and the only one that I found that was 

3 
 open was F4, the two-track, that system, which 

4 
 a lot of that falls on Chris' domain there. 

5 
 Did I miss anything? Is there anything else? 

6 
 Everything else is closed. 

7 
 And then the second action item is 

8 
 to talk to Stu about the potential of posting 

9 
 this list on the web site at some point or 

10 some way. 

11 MR. KATZ: With amendments. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: With amendments, 

13 
 possible amendments, yes. If nothing else, if 

14 
 it's posted as a Work Group paper, is it on 

15 there now? On the web site? 

16 
 MR. KATZ: No. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: Because it was a 

18 White Paper, basically. 

19 
 MR. KATZ: I don't think it is on 

20 
 the web site. I mean, some of these, they're 

21 
 White Papers, and they're sort of memos, and 

22 
 then they'll post something that's not even 

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1 
 quite a memo. I'm not sure. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: So even if it didn't 

3 
 get posted in its own actual place on the web 

4 
 site, if it was put in as a White Paper, at 

5 
 least people could go back and reference this 

6 
 matrix if they were interested in what the 

7 
 findings were and how they were resolved. 

8 
 That would satisfy part of that, so just a 

9 
 thought. 

10 MR. KATZ: So, Wanda, you may want 

11 
 to report out at the next Board meeting, since 

12 
 this Work Group really closed out the 

13 
 procedure, rather than, Wanda, it would make 

14 
 more sense for you to report out to the Board. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: You said Wanda, are 

16 
 you --

17 MR. KATZ: I meant you. I looked 

18 at you and said Wanda. Josie. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: We're 

20 interchangeable. 

21 
 MR. KATZ: You are. You're both 

22 from Memphis. 

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1 
 CHAIR BEACH: I know. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: You know, all you DOE 

3 
 eople are alike. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: I know we are. We 

5 
 all glow on our own. That's what they tell 

6 
 us. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: Anyway, I would try to 

8 
 just sort of get a tradition of reporting back 

9 
 to the full Board when we close out Procedures 

10 and Site Profiles and so on. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Right. And so 

12 
 hopefully this will be posted on the web by 

13 
 then. J.J. indicated maybe a month to get the 

14 
 signatures and whatnot, so it'd be nice to be 

15 
 able to say, yes, it's out and it's been --

16 yes. Sorry. 

17 
 MS. AYERS: I actually had a 

18 
 question. I'm sorry. I didn't catch it when 

19 
 you were zipping through the observations, but 

20 
 on Observation 3 there is one point of 

21 
 discussion, it would be covered under an 

22 
 action item. It had to do with posting 

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50 

1 
 informal presentations on the web site. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, you're right. 

3 
 MS. AYERS: And there were some new 

4 
 restrictions because they were informal and 

5 
 they didn't have a formal Member review 

6 
 process. 

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: Which number are you 

8 
 

9 
 MS. AYERS: This is Observation 3, 

10 
 Item 2. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Item 2. Okay. 

12 
 MS. AYERS: Action 2. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: I guess there's two 

14 
 parts to that, isn't there? Okay. Does 

15 
 everybody know where she's at? You know, when 

16 
 I was looking through this --

17 
 MEMBER MUNN: You're on Page 14? 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, Page 14, so 

19 
 NIOSH investigation of feasibility of posting 

20 
 outreach meetings, presentations, is in 

21 
 progress and that, we talked about with Chris 

22 
 at the ten-year review, parts of that there, 

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1 
 last week, or the last meeting, and I know 

2 
 we're going to cover that, possibly, later. 

3 
 Do you remember that? I know --

4 
 MS. ELLISON: That one, I think, 

5 
 fell under the issue of continuing to post 

6 
 things in a timely manner. And I think we had 

7 
 discussed that, but we do post presentations, 

8 
 but any product from SC&A does not get posted 

9 
 unless I'm sent it saying that it's PA10 cleared. 

11 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And this is a 

12 
 different issue. This is one that, I think, 

13 
 Stu raised, either it was agency-wide or 

14 
 government-wide, restriction of posting 

15 
 anything that wasn't from a formal source. In 

16 
 other words, if you wanted to post slides from 

17 
 somebody's presentation at a meeting, that 

18 
 would not be considered a formal source that 

19 should be on the web site for an agency. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

21 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think that's 

22 the way it was left. 

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52 

1 
 MS. ELLISON: Because we have been 

2 
 asking those individuals and those individuals 

3 
 that do that at public meetings now know that 

4 
 if they submit it to the docket, it will get 

5 
 posted that way. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. So I think 

7 
 there was a clarification, I think, the Work 

8 
 Group was asking for. And at the time, I 

9 
 think Stu was just raising that as a 

10 
 restriction that needed to be addressed and 

11 
 that's the way it was left from the last time. 

12 
 So has that been settled? As long as you 

13 
 submit it to the docket, that's the avenue 

14 that --

15 
 MS. ELLISON: People, individuals 

16 
 from the public, yes, they are encouraged to 

17 
 submit those items to the docket. And when I 

18 
 say the docket, each individual will recreate 

19 
 the individual site pages on the site page for 

20 
 Bethlehem Steel, GSI, whatever the site is, 

21 
 when that page first gets developed, we send a 

22 
 request to the NIOSH docket office saying we 

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53 

1 
 need a docket number for this page. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: That's a separate issue. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: So that's a separate 

4 
 issue. This one goes back to checking into 

5 
 posting the presentations from worker outreach 

6 
 meetings on the NIOSH web site. 

7 
 MS. AYERS: These are the DCAS 

8 
 presentations. 

9 
 MR. KATZ: These are NIOSH 

10 presentations. 

11 
 MS. ELLISON: Oh, his meetings. 

12 They've not been provided to me? 

13 
 MEMBER MUNN: If they were not 

14 
 numbered documents, it was our understanding 

15 that they are not expected --

16 
 MS. ELLISON: I do know I 

17 
 questioned their review and clearance process 

18 and I think that's --

19 
 MEMBER MUNN: That's the issue. I 

20 
 think the real issue is whether the material 

21 
 is cleared. 

22 MS. ELLISON: Right. Exactly. 

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54 

1 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So right now, for 

2 
 example, it doesn't sound like those 

3 
 presentations are posted. 

4 
 MS. ELLISON: They are not. I can 

5 
 tell you right now, they are not there. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: They're not there. 

7 
 MR. SUNDIN: What sort of 

8 
 presentations are we talking about? 

9 
 MS. ELLISON: If we go out to do a 

10 worker outreach --

11 
 MR. SUNDIN: I mean, what is it? 

12 Is it a slideshow? 

13 
 MR. JOHNSON: Yes, it could be a 

14 
 handout talking about the specific site that 

15 
 they're working with. And focusing on the 

16 
 history, as well as looking forward, as the 

17 
 needs of the SEC petition came up for 

18 evaluation. 

19 
 MR. SUNDIN: But these are being 

20 
 uploaded out into the public forum. I have a 

21 
 hard time understanding why it could not be 

22 
 posted on the web site. You know, if there's 

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55 

1 
 a review process, they would take care of 

2 
 that. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: These are common 

4 
 documents, aren't they? I mean, you don't 

5 
 recreate them for every single meeting. Don't 

6 
 you use the same ones? 

7 
 MR. KATZ: They could be meeting8 
 specific. 

9 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think the 

10 
 underlying thought when the Work Group 

11 
 discussed this was the fact that, you know, 

12 
 for those workers who did not make that 

13 meeting --

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Couldn't make the 

15 meeting. 

16 
 MR. FITZGERALD: -- it would be a 

17 way to at least have access to the material. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

19 
 MS. AYERS: The discussion is there 

20 
 in the minutes. 

21 MR. JOHNSON: What we're looking at 

22 
 is see how we can get these early on in the 

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56 

1 
 process so that they can be reviewed, they can 

2 
 be reviewed by DOE also, prior to their 

3 
 presentation. We haven't tested it, but we're 

4 
 looking to see if we could possibly make this 

5 
 happen because, like a thunderstorm, SEC 

6 
 meetings come up and they go, you know, and 

7 
 within that short time frame, or long time 

8 
 frame, if we plan ahead, we're going to work 

9 
 with it. 

10 If we can't plan ahead, then we may 

11 
 not provide any presentations or presentations 

12 
 may not necessarily be able to go through the 

13 proper channels for review and approval. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So we're going 

15 
 to leave that one open. Can you still look to 

16 
 being able to do that? It's still an open 

17 item or --

18 
 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. We have the 

19 
 external review, which would be done by DOE, 

20 
 we have the internal review, which would be 

21 
 done by NIOSH. And so they're two separate, 

22 
 hopefully parallel, activities so they can be 

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57 

1 
 done in a timely manner for the expected 

2 
 meeting. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: So the ambition is to do 

5 
 it when you can. 

6 
 MR. JOHNSON: Yes. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: When the timing works 

8 
 out, to do it and get it posted as well. 

9 
 MR. JOHNSON: Right. 

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Good. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: So I'm hearing that 

12 
 that's the expectation and that's the answer, 

13 
 does that satisfy this or do we need to 

14 actually see it in play? 

15 
 MEMBER MUNN: It seems to me it 

16 
 needs to be resolved --

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

18 
 MEMBER MUNN: -- with some 

19 
 definition as to what the parameters are going 

20 
 to be; what can go and what can't. And at 

21 
 least a response from NIOSH as to where 

22 
 they're going to go with it in the future. 

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58 

1 
 Right now --

2 
 MR. KATZ: I think we just had 

3 
 J.J.'s response, though. I mean, their 

4 
 ambition is to do it when they have enough 

5 
 time to clear the material and to post it in 

6 
 advance of the meeting. 

7 
 MEMBER MUNN: And that's fine. It 

8 
 needs to go in the matrix saying that. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

10 
 MS. AYERS: So if it's not there in 

11 
 advance of the meeting, is the conclusion that 

12 
 it has no value after the meeting is over or 

13 would it be of value --

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: I still think it 

15 would be of value, yes. 

16 
 MEMBER MUNN: Well, as Joe 

17 
 mentioned, the concern was for people who 

18 
 couldn't make the meeting, and that's a 

19 relatively discrete group. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

21 
 MR. LEWIS: Are you talking about -

22 
 - this is Mark Lewis here. These meetings, 

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59 

1 
 you know, I'm in charge. Vern and I and Mary, 

2 
 you know, we go out and try to get information 

3 
 if it's an SEC meeting, you know? And lots of 

4 
 times we do use like overhead or handouts 

5 
 because there's questions that you are asking 

6 
 about the SEC. Now, if it's a Site Profile 

7 
 meeting and we're going to do a rollout, 

8 
 different story. 

9 
 But if there was some questions 

10 
 that you're wanting to know about an SEC and 

11 
 some ladies or gentlemen can't make the 

12 
 meeting, you know, I understand that being, 

13 
 definitely, a good document for them to have, 

14 
 you know, out because we kind of use that 

15 
 either as a presentation or handouts on what 

16 
 material, what kind of conditions, for a 

17 certain period of time. 

18 
 But once that is done and it's 

19 
 over, and the SEC is either granted or not 

20 
 granted, what then? Is it on the web site or 

21 
 if it's posted or not? You know, I mean, 

22 
 there's some factors here, like J.J. 

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60 

1 
 mentioned, thunderstorms come and they go like 

2 
 SECs, and there's a period of time here when, 

3 
 you know, we need to have a meeting, you know, 

4 
 I just wanted to mention it from a point of, 

5 
 you know, someone who's going to help 

6 
 facilitate the meeting that, we don't want to 

7 
 get ourselves painted in a corner here. 

8 
 MR. KATZ: So they're only useful 

9 
 for the time while you're gathering 

10 
 information that deals with the SEC. That's 

11 
 absolutely correct. You know, once the SEC is 

12 
 decided, these SECs don't get decided that 

13 quickly, but --

14 
 MS. AYERS: So you wouldn't, maybe, 

15 
 go back to 2004 and post presentations that 

16 
 are --

17 MR. KATZ: No. There's no point to 

18 
 be retrospective, but for where there's a live 

19 
 SEC, and you're going out and collecting 

20 
 information, I understand what's being said, 

21 
 it's useful to have that posted then, and then 

22 
 others could contact you that didn't even know 

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61 

1 
 about the meeting if they have information 

2 
 pertinent to the questions that you were 

3 
 asking at the meeting. 

4 
 Just a good stimulus for those 

5 
 folks and point of information. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that 

7 
 Dave's comment was pertinent earlier where, 

8 
 you know, if this is being disseminated at a 

9 
 public meeting, it had some degree of 

10 
 clearance, internally, already anyway, so the 

11 
 question is a mechanical one; can you, you 

12 know, post it either during or after? 

13 MS. ELLISON: I'm confused. 

14 
 MEMBER MUNN: No, it doesn't really 

15 
 have to have had clearance. You know, it 

16 
 depends on the circumstances of that 

17 
 particular meeting. It seems to me that 

18 
 you're only going to be able to do this on a 

19 
 situational basis anyhow, on a meeting by 

20 
 meeting. You have to make a professional 

21 judgment from one meeting to the next. 

22 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Wanda, I'm just 

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62 

1 
 commenting that before something is, you know, 

2 
 presented or handed out, I would assume, Mark, 

3 
 that, you know, NIOSH gives you the go-ahead, 

4 
 right? 

5 
 MR. LEWIS: Yes. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So that checkpoint 

7 
 is covered. 

8 
 MR. LEWIS: Does it make a 

9 
 difference? Is the thing triggered when we 

10 
 see a PowerPoint presentation? Is that when 

11 
 it's triggered, like, a presentation is put on 

12 here or you know what I'm saying? 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, it's whatever 

14 
 you're going to present at your meeting and 

15 
 somebody that would like to be at your 

16 
 meeting, but can't be there, then they can go 

17 
 to the web site, look it up, and see what 

18 
 you're presenting and then make comments if 

19 they wish to. 

20 
 MS. LIN: Wait, hold on. I think 

21 Chris has a point here. 

22 
 MS. AYERS: Give her an opening 

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63 

1 
 here. 

2 
 MS. ELLISON: What's confusing me 

3 
 is, the worker outreach meetings that we 

4 
 conduct that ATL does for us, these are 

5 
 invited meetings. They are not open to the 

6 
 public. Therefore, if we put this stuff --

7 
 and the meeting announcement that this worker 

8 
 outreach meeting is occurring does not get put 

9 
 on the web site because it is a public 

10 meeting, but it's not to the public. 

11 
 A lot of times that meeting 

12 
 announcement does not get put on the web site 

13 
 until those minutes are ready and put up 

14 there. 

15 MR. KATZ: Right. 

16 
 MS. ELLISON: So I agree we need to 

17 
 give this information to people who can't 

18 
 attend the meetings. I don't think the web 

19 
 site is the way to do it. I'm sitting over 

20 here going, I'm confused where this is going. 

21 
 MS. AYERS: Well, don't the minutes 

22 go to the web site? 

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64 

1 
 MS. ELLISON: They do after the 

2 
 meeting. 

3 
 MR. LEWIS: After they're redacted 

4 
 and everything. 

5 
 MS. ELLISON: And if we want to put 

6 
 those discussion papers up there then, that's 

7 
 the proper time, I would think, but I don't 

8 
 see it happening ahead of time. I'm just 

9 
 afraid if we put them up there ahead of time, 

10 
 you guys are going to get swamped with people 

11 
 who aren't true invitees, intended people, for 

12 that meeting. 

13 
 MR. LEWIS: If I knew somebody 

14 
 wasn't going to be at the meeting, we could 

15 
 mail that copy to them, things like that, or 

16 
 hand-deliver it to them, or whatever, get it 

17 to them. 

18 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes. 

19 
 MR. LEWIS: But I certainly would 

20 
 hate to have it posted because then I'd have 

21 
 so many -- it's a focus group, invited number 

22 
 of people, especially like we did out at Rocky 

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65 

1 
 Flats last time, and we still have trouble 

2 
 controlling who showed up. You know, we want 

3 
 people who are knowledgeable. 

4 
 MS. ELLISON: You have an intent. 

5 
 MR. LEWIS: Yes. And that's where 

6 
 my point was. I was kind of worried about 

7 
 that, and how it would be posted, and how, you 

8 
 know, when it's posted. 

9 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes. And I was 

10 
 hearing the discussion thinking, I don't 

11 understand how it would work. 

12 
 MR. KATZ: So it almost sounds like 

13 
 it would be better, if you're going to do 

14 
 this, to post it after the meeting has 

15 occurred. 

16 MS. ELLISON: Exactly. 

17 
 MR. KATZ: And then you'd have no 

18 
 issue of -- but, I mean, still while you're 

19 
 collecting information, and then you'd have no 

20 
 issue about people wanting to come to a 

21 
 meeting because it's already occurred, but 

22 
 yet, you still have the opportunity to collect 

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66 

1 
 information from people who didn't know about 

2 
 the meeting who might actually be well3 
 situated to answer some of the lines of 

4 
 inquiry that are posted. 

5 
 MS. ELLISON: And then, honestly, 

6 
 on each one of the individual site pages we 

7 
 have a little section called comments on NIOSH 

8 
 documents and it directs them how to submit 

9 
 comments to the docket, so that we would post 

10 
 these presentations and people see it 

11 
 afterwards, and would like to provide a 

12 
 comment, there's the means for them to do that 

13 through the docket. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: That seems like an 

15 
 excellent approach, actually. That seems like 

16 an excellent approach. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: So that would be true 

18 
 of a focus meeting, but there's different 

19 
 worker outreach meetings that aren't focused 

20 
 where you have the number of, you know, 

21 
 specially invited folks, right? There's 

22 
 presentations that you do at other worker 

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1 
 outreach venues besides a focus Work Group or 

2 
 a focus --

3 
 MR. LEWIS: Lately, it's been 

4 
 mostly SEC meetings. Earlier on we had the 

5 
 Site Profile meetings, but lately, it's been 

6 
 an SEC. Isn't that right, Vern? That's what 

7 
 we've been doing? 

8 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes, we haven't had 

9 
 a large meeting for quite some time. 

10 
 MR. JOHNSON: Actually, it should 

11 
 make no difference. If a person has the 

12 
 minutes and you have a presentation, once the 

13 
 minutes are approved, the presentations 

14 associated with it are set in order --

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

16 MR. JOHNSON: -- by Mike. 

17 
 MS. LIN: But you still have the 

18 
 problem with posting these informal 

19 
 presentations on the CDC web site. You still 

20 
 have to get special permission for them. So 

21 
 it's not just a done deal that, once you go 

22 
 through the internal clearance process, they 

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1 
 can go on the web. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Correct. And that's 

3 
 what we had the discussion, in August, that 

4 
 same discussion -- was it August? Our last 

5 
 meeting -- and we were supposed to hear back 

6 
 from NIOSH on that, maybe the process, or the 

7 
 lack of a process, so I guess we'll leave that 

8 
 open and NIOSH to provide a response on that 

9 
 now that we've kind of discussed the issue. 

10 
 MS. LIN: You want to think about 

11 
 more information doesn't necessarily mean it's 

12 
 a better educational tool. I mean, a lot of 

13 
 time when you go to these worker outreach 

14 
 meetings and the information became stale on 

15 
 the web site, I'm not sure how that serves the 

16 public. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I think this 

18 
 started off, really, as just wanting to have 

19 
 that information to the workers that weren't 

20 available to be at the meeting. 

21 MS. LIN: Sure. 

22 
 CHAIR BEACH: And if it turns out 

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69 

1 
 that there's not a venue for that, then we 

2 
 need to know that so we can close this out as 

3 
 well, but some of the ideas that were brought 

4 
 up today seem like they are good thoughts or 

5 
 possible avenues. 

6 
 MR. LEWIS: Well, then I can go 

7 
 ahead and mention Simonds Saw. We did Simonds 

8 
 Saw. I had a list of concerns that was up to 

9 
 the SEC for NIOSH. I had a few addresses and, 

10 
 of course, I went out and talked to a few 

11 
 folks, but I gave them a copy of the concerns 

12 
 that NIOSH had and some questions that they 

13 
 wanted to know more about during the SEC 

14 period. 

15 
 Some folks couldn't make it, but I 

16 
 went to their homes, gave it to them, a lot of 

17 
 them I called, I mentioned the questions to 

18 
 them over the phone, but I, preferably, would 

19 
 like to see them face to face. The ones that 

20 
 didn't feel like coming, I talked to on the 

21 
 phone. But there was a lot of folks that gave 

22 
 us comments at the SEC, that meeting for 

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70 

1 
 Simonds Saw, that weren't there and were aware 

2 
 of the input that they could give, you know? 

3 
 So we kind of do that now. So just 

4 
 because it's not written down, you know, 

5 
 somewhere, that's what we do, the same way 

6 
 that Joslyn, I was up there, you know, the 

7 
 questions that we had, gave the concerns to 

8 
 the people who were the workers at the covered 

9 
 period in time. I just made sure I talked to 

10 
 the covered period workers, you know, and gave 

11 
 them the list of topics that can get input on 

12 this. 

13 
 You know, and the same we had at 

14 
 Rocky Flats, we do use that, but just because 

15 
 it's not formally there or posted, doesn't 

16 mean it's not happening. 

17 
 MR. KATZ: And so the whole point 

18 
 of this discussion is just, this is another 

19 
 tool for reaching out to people that, as you 

20 
 said, you may not even know exist, who have 

21 
 information. It's just another way of getting 

22 
 that information out there so that you might 

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1 
 get a response that's useful. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: And we haven't heard 

3 
 your presentation, so that'll probably be part 

4 
 of it. Okay. Lynn, thank you for bringing 

5 
 that back up to attention. The other action 

6 
 item I put down was SC&A to update the matrix 

7 
 for us before the next meeting. So as always, 

8 
 we keep that updated. 

9 
 The next item, if we're ready to 

10 
 move on if there's nothing more from the first 

11 
 item. The break's in about 15 minutes, but I 

12 
 think this one won't take too long, the PROC13 
 010 discussion. And I don't know who wants to 

14 
 take the lead on that. I know SC&A brought 

15 
 that to the attention of NIOSH and then NIOSH 

16 looked at it at the last meeting. 

17 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, let me just 

18 
 give a little background. We mentioned this 

19 
 at the last meeting that in the course of just 

20 
 doing our work at different sites, it became 

21 
 pretty obvious that the process that was laid 

22 
 out for interviewing workers was taking some 

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1 
 undue time at some sites because of a loop in 

2 
 terms of redacting the interview notes. 

3 
 We actually submitted changes, went 

4 
 back through another cycle of review, and at 

5 
 some sites, that cost six to eight months, 

6 
 depending on the site, which was a heck of a 

7 
 long time when you're talking about interview 

8 
 information. So as far as process-wise, what 

9 
 we're proposing is that there's some ways, and 

10 
 this is based on experience, where we think we 

11 
 can at least eliminate one of the loops that 

12 
 might require a classification review at the 

13 site. 

14 
 And that information, we laid out 

15 
 in this memo that we sent after the last 

16 
 meeting. And I think we have a response, 

17 
 actually an editing, a redline strike, but a 

18 
 useful editing of the memo that laid this all 

19 
 out, by NIOSH. So with that as an 

20 
 introduction, I don't know if anybody wants to 

21 
 -- and a lot of this, I think, is just making 

22 
 it a lot more policy-based, meaning, how it 

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73 

1 
 would work between the agencies, which we're 

2 
 not cognizant about, so I think this improved 

3 
 the process that were proposing and kind of 

4 
 put it in the context of what would work 

5 
 between NIOSH and DOE. 

6 
 And I really didn't have any 

7 
 problems with the edits, but -- I don't know 

8 
 who wants to talk about it? 

9 
 MR. JOHNSON: Stu looked at it and 

10 
 he provided some comments back. Another thing 

11 
 I'd like to present is the fact that we need 

12 
 to have DOE look at this document because of a 

13 
 couple things; one, for the additional efforts 

14 
 put on their part to review questions that 

15 
 might be presented that are associated with 

16 the clearance of the questions. 

17 
 And the other part is, having those 

18 
 questions and getting them to a potential 

19 
 interviewee and having them complete 

20 
 something, now you may have some sensitive 

21 
 material, in an uncontrolled area, associated 

22 with those questions prior to the meeting. 

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74 

1 
 And even though it does well2 
 prepare an individual, it may well put some 

3 
 information out there at risk. 

4 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I certainly 

5 
 think those are issues. Josie, I think what 

6 
 J.J. or Stu also are recommending is that, the 

7 
 Work Group may want to engage DOE, someone 

8 
 like Greg Lewis or Fred Lewis, in this 

9 
 drafting using this edit, so I think the edits 

10 
 are good, and maybe asking for any comments on 

11 that side. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

13 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, I think the 

14 
 easiest thing is for DCAS to shoot this over 

15 
 because it comes under the security plan, 

16 basically. 

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

18 
 MR. KATZ: And if you're wanting to 

19 
 amend that security plan, that's something 

20 that DOE then needs to --

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

22 
 MR. JOHNSON: Is that what we could 

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75 

1 
 do, Dave? 

2 
 MR. SUNDIN: Sure. 

3 
 MR. FITZGERALD: You know, like he 

4 
 said, we think the changes are helpful so, you 

5 
 know, whatever DOE responds. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: So the action would 

7 
 be for J.J. to send the initial SC&A request 

8 
 and Stu's edits to Greg to review that 

9 
 procedure? Would that be --

10 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, I think they 

11 
 would just send the modified proposal as Stu 

12 modified it, since Joe thinks it's fine. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: Send that modified 

15 proposal to Greg Lewis --

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, to review. 

17 
 MR. KATZ: -- and say, can we amend 

18 PROC-010 and explain why. 

19 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and just as a 

20 
 further response to what J.J. was commenting 

21 
 on, it is balancing. I mean, you know, you 

22 
 might make it more efficient in one part of 

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76 

1 
 the process, but create maybe other issues in 

2 
 other parts of the process. And, you know, 

3 
 there is, right now, a loop that, at some 

4 
 sites, requires their classifiers spend 

5 
 another cycle of time looking at our 

6 
 interviews. 

7 
 So we're trying to eliminate that 

8 
 step, but if it creates, you know, more 

9 
 sensitivities up front with the interviewee, I 

10 
 think is your point, that's something that DOE 

11 
 might say, on balance, that's not going to 

12 
 help the situation. You know, you might make 

13 
 it more efficient here, but you might add to 

14 
 the burden or the sensitivity, so I understand 

15 
 what you're saying there. I think that's 

16 
 something DOE would have to advise NIOSH and 

17 the Work Group. 

18 
 MS. AYERS: It seems like the 

19 
 biggest concern out of the whole proposal is 

20 
 the question of whether or not it's 

21 
 appropriate to solicit written responses from 

22 
 the site experts prior to the visit. You 

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77 

1 
 know, that's probably the most problematic 

2 
 part of it. 

3 
 And actually, after reading some of 

4 
 the ten-year review sort of discussions about 

5 
 the perceived burdens on claimants and 

6 
 petitioners that, you know, there may be some 

7 
 issues related to that, even, from, you know, 

8 
 asking somebody to provide a written response 

9 
 or something. 

10 So maybe it would be better to just 

11 
 try to gather what information we can and 

12 
 provide that to the interviewers in advance, 

13 
 just from the regular recruiting process, 

14 
 rather than asking people to -- well, anyway. 

15 
 Just saying there's room for adaptation on 

16 the proposal. 

17 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And, you know, 

18 
 again, Greg and his staff may actually have a 

19 counter-proposal --

20 MS. AYERS: Suggestions. Sure. 

21 
 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you know, to 

22 
 meet the objective of maybe more efficiency or 

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78 

1 
 maybe some other tweaks to the PROC-010 

2 
 process. It's been there for quite a while 

3 
 now, that, you know, maybe this is a useful 

4 
 thing to think about, but maybe the 

5 
 particulars have to be resolved. It's not as 

6 
 easy as just changing stuff. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: This is, I think, 

8 
 anyway, good timing for DOE to consider, too, 

9 
 how well this PROC-010 works. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

11 
 MR. KATZ: It's just been in effect 

12 for a few years now. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So that's an 

14 
 action item for NIOSH to send this modified 

15 
 version of PROC-010 to DOE, Greg Lewis in 

16 
 particular, for a review. And I guess that's 

17 
 back on NIOSH to report back to the Work Group 

18 on the outcome of that. 

19 
 Okay. I think it's a good time to 

20 
 take our morning break. It's 10:20, so about 

21 15 minutes? That work for everyone? 

22 
 MR. KATZ: Okay. So folks on the 

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79 

1 
 phone, at about 10:35 we'll start back up 

2 
 again. I'm just putting the phone on mute. 

3 
 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

4 
 matter went off the record at 10:20 a.m. and 

5 
 resumed at 10:39 a.m.) 

6 
 MR. KATZ: Worker Outreach Work 

7 
 Group meeting, we're back from a brief break. 

8 
 Josie. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So we are 

10 
 ready to look at NIOSH's response to the pilot 

11 
 review of Rocky Flats. There is a, I guess 

12 
 it's a memo that was posted on November 2nd, 

13 
 so everybody, hopefully, at this Work Group 

14 
 meeting should have that available to them. 

15 
 And, J.J., I guess I'm just going to ask you 

16 
 if you'd go through this, pretty much, step17 by-step and --

18 
 MR. JOHNSON: Sure. I could do 

19 
 that. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: That would be great. 

21 
 MR. JOHNSON: Do you want me to 

22 read this? 

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80 

1 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, maybe just give 

2 
 us the overall thought behind it and then 

3 
 definitely go through each one of the answers 

4 
 to the six --

5 
 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, five, 

7 
 technically, and six for the Work Group. 

8 
 MR. JOHNSON: Basically, the 

9 
 thought process was to go back and look at 

10 
 each of the NIOSH responses. We looked at 

11 
 NIOSH will attempt or try to improve and with 

12 
 regards to that, found those responses and 

13 
 then there was another search done within the 

14 responses for the word "do better." 

15 
 And in that, the categories were 

16 
 identified as public comments at Board 

17 
 meetings, eight occurrences; information 

18 
 submitted with an SEC petition, one 

19 
 occurrence; public, or petition, or a comment 

20 
 that Rocky Flats Working Group made, one 

21 
 occurrence; and comments originally from a 

22 
 June 2004 outreach meeting from Top Hat, one 

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81 

1 
 occurrence. 

2 
 NIOSH's position is that, for 

3 
 public comments made at Board meetings, a 

4 
 process has been developed for tabulating 

5 
 those comments, developing responses when 

6 
 appropriate, and referring comments to the 

7 
 appropriate Working Group when the comment 

8 
 could relate to the activities of the Working 

9 
 Group. The resulting document it provided to 

10 
 the Board for its further use, as it deems 

11 appropriate. 

12 
 Information submitted with an SEC 

13 
 petition is addressed in the Evaluation Report 

14 
 for those petitions and subsequent Board 

15 
 discussion of the petition. And NIOSH's view, 

16 
 there should be no expectation of direct 

17 
 feedback to individuals who provide 

18 
 information with petitions. The manner in 

19 
 which that information is addressed is 

20 
 determined by the Evaluation Report and its 

21 discussion. 

22 
 And similarly, public or petitioner 

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82 

1 
 comments made at Working Group meetings are 

2 
 disposed by the Work Group discussion. 

3 
 Individuals who participate in the Work Group 

4 
 discussion can follow Work Group discussions 

5 
 to learn how the information they provide was 

6 
 treated. 

7 
 NIOSH takes a number of steps, some 

8 
 of which are recent improvements, to make it 

9 
 easier for interested parties to follow Work 

10 
 Group discussions. The longstanding practice 

11 
 of placing Work Group transcripts on the web 

12 
 site serves this effort, as does the recent 

13 
 enhancement of making White Papers and other 

14 
 discussion items available on the web site in 

15 advance of Work Group meetings. 

16 
 Based on the information, NIOSH 

17 
 views the fact that there's only one instance 

18 
 of the 101 comments that were reviewed in the 

19 
 pilot review that were improvements in the 

20 
 responsiveness and is warranted, but a 

21 
 specific process improvement has not been 

22 made. 

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83 

1 
 NIOSH has also considered the 

2 
 specific recommendations made in Section 3 of 

3 
 the report of the pilot review. And I guess 

4 
 I'd like to go over those right now. 

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. But J.J., 

6 
 before you do that, is there any comments on 

7 
 that first section; the first four or five 

8 
 paragraphs that J.J. went over? That's kind 

9 
 of more of a background of what we're doing 

10 than anything. Okay. I just wanted to --

11 
 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. 

12 
 Recommendations: clarify with DCAS management 

13 
 what are current expectations regarding worker 

14 
 outreach limitations and to what extent 

15 
 current practices or procedures would mitigate 

16 
 the concerns identified by SC&A pilot review 

17 
 of Rocky Flats worker outreach. In its 

18 
 individual response it says, SC&A comment: 

19 
 evaluations, "DCAS acknowledges the need to 

20 
 improve responsiveness in some cases, 

21 
 questions remain as to how this will be 

22 
 accomplished, and what constitutes the 

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84 

1 
 baseline internal policy, or defines staff 

2 
 expectations that will guide such 

3 
 improvements?" 

4 
 "DCAS management's expectations 

5 
 with respect to the worker outreach are: DCAS 

6 
 will respond to correspondence that requires a 

7 
 response as soon as possible. Regardless of 

8 
 the method of communication, email, 

9 
 conventional mail, et cetera, responses will 

10 
 use the same method of communication as the 

11 
 original correspondence. DCAS tasks ATL to 

12 
 review the Advisory Board meeting transcripts 

13 to identify and list public comments." 

14 
 "DCAS prepares responses to these 

15 
 comments when appropriate and forwards the 

16 
 list of comments and responses to the Board. 

17 
 Comments that are related to ongoing 

18 
 Subcommittee or Work Group discussions are 

19 
 forwarded to the Chairman of the respective 

20 Subcommittees and Work Groups." 

21 
 "When DCAS attends any meeting for 

22 
 claimants, claimant representatives, 

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85 

1 
 advocates, or other members of the public will 

2 
 be present, the expectation for dealing with 

3 
 questions are; try to answer any question you 

4 
 get right there and then, no documentation is 

5 
 required. Encourage the questioner to send 

6 
 their question to DCAS by mail or email. This 

7 
 places the question in an existing tracking 

8 
 system and eliminates the issue of incorrect 

9 
 statement of the question by the DCAS 

10 staffer." 

11 
 "DCAS staff are to travel with a 

12 
 supply of note cards so that the question and 

13 
 contact information, in order to be able to 

14 
 provide a response, upon development of a 

15 
 computer application for tracking comments and 

16 
 questions, the note cards will be used to 

17 enter comments into the application." 

18 
 "Minutes of meetings, when 

19 
 prepared, are entered into the SRDB and are 

20 
 procedurally required to be considered during 

21 
 any subsequent revisions to technical 

22 
 documents. DCAS attendees at these meetings 

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86 

1 
 may either capture comments on note cards 

2 
 during attendance or review the minutes for 

3 
 relevant comments, either way, these comments 

4 
 will be entered into the computer application 

5 
 for tracking comments." 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: So does anybody want 

7 
 ask questions in-between these or wait until 

8 
 J.J. goes through the entire list? What's 

9 
 your thought? 

10 MR. JOHNSON: If there are issues, 

11 
 why don't we just address them, each one, by 

12 their merit, you know, right now? 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I guess for 

14 
 me, on the first one, under 3A, "Try to answer 

15 
 any questions you get right there with no 

16 
 documentation required." I just put a 

17 
 question mark there because -- I guess I'm 

18 
 wondering what that means. You answer the 

19 
 question, but if you don't document it then 

20 
 how do you track if there's something that 

21 needs to be tracked there? 

22 
 MEMBER MUNN: Well, editorial nit. 

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87 

1 
 That needs to be two sentences. A period 

2 
 after "there," then "no documentation is 

3 
 required." If it's a public meeting, 

4 
 especially if it's a Board meeting, then it's 

5 
 going to go into the minutes anyway, and 

6 
 documentation, he means no additional 

7 
 documentation would really be required. 

8 
 If there's not an outstanding issue 

9 
 for the questioner, then it's been addressed. 

10 
 MR. JOHNSON: Someone asks a 

11 
 question, the question is responded to, and 

12 
 the response is sufficient, it's complete and 

13 closed. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And I guess I 

15 
 wonder why some of this doesn't go back to 

16 
 PROC-012, because how you do this is based on 

17 
 the procedure, correct? Doesn't this get 

18 right --

19 
 MR. JOHNSON: This is focusing, in 

20 
 part, on minutes and it addresses that in D, 

21 
 and we review the minutes, and we have our 

22 
 issue tracking system, and outreach tracking 

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88 

1 
 system. This other information, these other 

2 
 applications, are to address other 

3 
 applications like questions that somebody 

4 
 might approach a person at a meeting that are 

5 
 different than the minutes of an outreach 

6 
 meeting. 

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So for A, I 

8 
 understand that part of it, but when you get 

9 
 down to B, which was the question I was going 

10 
 to have there, again, is, the meeting minutes 

11 
 and what you do with it, that's all part of 

12 PROC-012, correct? 

13 MR. JOHNSON: No. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: No? 

15 
 MR. JOHNSON: Meeting minutes are 

16 
 Procedure-012, but when it comes to somebody 

17 asking a question, yes. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

19 
 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. Now, you asked 

20 one question, but it's two full questions. 

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

22 
 MR. JOHNSON: It's addressed in 

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89 

1 
 Procedure-012, yes, but also, if a question 

2 
 came about in another venue other than an 

3 
 outreach meeting, that's what it's addressing. 

4 
 MS. ELLISON: As in a full Board 

5 
 meeting. You know, and if the public is in 

6 
 attendance, they might not come up to us and 

7 
 ask a question. I think some of this is 

8 
 pertaining to, if you're at a full Board 

9 
 meeting, and the public is there, and someone 

10 
 comes up to you with a question, how do we 

11 document that? 

12 
 They're not up to the mic, it's not 

13 
 on the official record, but we're still 

14 
 receiving comments from individuals, and I 

15 
 think that's where Stu -- or where this 

16 writing is coming from. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I guess I'm 

18 
 trying to take it step-by-step because the 

19 
 first response talked about correspondence. 

20 
 The second talked about Advisory Board 

21 meetings and what you're doing. 

22 MS. ELLISON: Right. 

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90 

1 
 CHAIR BEACH: The third -- so, you 

2 
 know, I didn't really have any questions on 

3 
 the third one, so the first answer, I 

4 
 understand the question, but when you get down 

5 
 to C, "DCAS staff are to travel with a supply 

6 
 of note cards so that the questions and 

7 
 contact information," I guess for the tracking 

8 
 purposes. 

9 
 MS. ELLISON: And I think in cases 

10 
 of those note cards, Stu likes for people to 

11 
 travel to the Board meetings with those note 

12 
 cards in case someone comes up to them with 

13 
 some questions, that we have a way to track 

14 
 that, you know, especially if we can't get 

15 
 back to the them or if we can't answer that 

16 
 question on the spot, it's a way for us to 

17 
 track it and get back with them later. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

19 
 MS. ELLISON: Does that help 

20 
 clarify that a little? 

21 
 CHAIR BEACH: So that one, yes, it 

22 
 does help clarify that. 

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91 

1 
 MS. ELLISON: Okay. And, you know, 

2 
 if we do also attend as part of the Joint 

3 
 Outreach Task Group, which is in conjunction 

4 
 with the Department of Labor and the 

5 
 Department of Energy, we do also attend, from 

6 
 time to time, town hall meetings that the 

7 
 Joint Outreach Task Group is holding. 

8 
 So, you know, again, there, we have 

9 
 access to members of the public that may come 

10 
 up to us and ask questions. You know, that's 

11 
 another example of something outside of the 

12 typical worker outreach meeting. 

13 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And, Josie, I know 

14 
 we talked about this at the last meeting a 

15 
 little bit, but in terms of the, I guess, 

16 
 recommendations that were in that report, I 

17 
 really thought these were pretty good, sort 

18 
 of, tactical, you know, here's how we're going 

19 
 to do it, but I think part of the issue that 

20 
 we had on some of the comment responses is, 

21 clearly, things that progressed. 

22 
 And I think that was the message 

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92 

1 
 that Stu gave. You know, we are doing better. 

2 
 And the question that was on the table was, 

3 
 what's the difference in terms of objective or 

4 
 approach between, you know, what was looked at 

5 
 five years ago at Rocky, for example, and 

6 
 where it is now? 

7 
 And, you know, just around this 

8 
 table I think everybody has a different take 

9 
 on what worker outreach is and we had a lot of 

10 
 discussion trying to figure out if my picture 

11 
 is different than your picture, and a lot of 

12 
 it is just simply trying to inform each other. 

13 
 And I think it'd be very helpful just to have 

14 that. 

15 
 You know, because when you talk 

16 
 about these different venues that you're 

17 
 looking to encompass in your tracking, for 

18 
 example, that's a pretty significant change. 

19 
 I mean, a lot of what was found in the review 

20 
 at Rocky was that there was lots of venues of 

21 
 input, information, but only a portion of that 

22 was being captured. 

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93 

1 
 And I think what you are saying in 

2 
 terms of your pursuit to find ways to make 

3 
 sure a lot of that does get captured, I think 

4 
 that's a pretty significant difference and 

5 
 somehow, strategically, I was thinking, 

6 
 strategically, it defined, you know, here's 

7 
 what we're about in terms of what we're after 

8 
 in worker outreach and these all fall down as 

9 
 activities to get there. 

10 
 These are, sort of, the how-tos, 

11 
 you know, but yet, that's sort of getting 

12 
 everybody on the same page as to what worker 

13 
 outreach really means now. And that, in a 

14 
 way, then being able to contrast where we've 

15 
 been in the past. I grant you that Rocky was 

16 
 a long time and how things were done, it's 

17 
 much different now, so the question was, you 

18 know, where is that now defined? 

19 
 I mean, how are you looking at 

20 
 worker outreach? And I think I've gleaned it 

21 
 from what you've said, but I really haven't 

22 
 seen it, sort of, laid out as a, you know, our 

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94 

1 
 activities will focus on making this happen. 

2 
 And what is that this that's going to happen? 

3 
 And I think some of that will be venues, some 

4 
 of it will be a little bit more aggressive. 

5 
 I think the note cards, for 

6 
 example, being prepared to, you know, bring 

7 
 this back. I think all of those are pretty 

8 
 laudable and if there's any way that one could 

9 
 just be able to lay that out, that would be 

10 great. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Thank you. I 

12 
 think that's what I'm asking for is more 

13 
 answer than what we're seeing here, because I 

14 know they're doing it. 

15 
 MS. ELLISON: Well, you're more 

16 definition than explanation. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

18 MS. ELLISON: Okay. 

19 
 MR. FITZGERALD: If nothing else, 

20 
 it'd be nice to be able to say everybody's, 

21 
 sort of, on the same page as to what worker 

22 
 outreach means now and, you know, that might 

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95 

1 
 be a little bit ambitious, but it sounds like 

2 
 a lot of times we're just, you know, at 

3 
 counter purposes in terms of how they're 

4 
 looking at that. 

5 
 And, you know, I think part of it 

6 
 is resources. I think you can do so much, 

7 
 but, you know, the question is there's a 

8 
 prioritization that goes on in terms of what 

9 
 can be done. I think that's part of the 

10 equation as well. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and I'm 

12 
 procedure-oriented too, so I like to see that, 

13 
 if you have a new procedure, is it working? 

14 
 Is it doing what it's supposed to be doing? 

15 
 So I guess I wanted to see something in that 

16 framework also. 

17 
 MR. SUNDIN: Just so I can, sort 

18 
 of, fairly represent the question to Stu, the 

19 
 way this answer starts out now is it, 

20 
 essentially, applies to any meeting where 

21 
 claimants, their reps, advocates, or other 

22 
 members of the public are present, Chris has 

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96 

1 
 sort of alluded to a few examples, I think 

2 
 this applies, really, to every kind of 

3 
 meeting. 

4 
 If you want an iteration of the 

5 
 kinds of meetings where we encounter 

6 
 claimants, I'm not sure --

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: I don't think that's 

8 
 really necessary. 

9 
 MR. SUNDIN: -- or what elements of 

10 this procedure would apply --

11 
 MR. FITZGERALD: I was thinking, 

12 
 you know, typically, when does your strategic 

13 
 planning in terms of, you know, whether the 

14 
 activities make sense in light the way the 

15 
 agency's objectives are changing and what have 

16 
 you. In this particular case, I think the 

17 
 objectives and the approach to worker outreach 

18 
 has obviously shifted in a positive direction. 

19 
 And when we have these 

20 
 conversations of was it really clear, the then 

21 
 versus now, what is the now in terms of the 

22 
 attributes and the objectives that you see is 

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97 

1 
 important to worker outreach, then it makes 

2 
 more sense to see the activities because the 

3 
 activities are, you know, what you're doing 

4 
 that supports that new vision or new 

5 
 objective. 

6 
 MR. SUNDIN: That's a different 

7 
 question than what was on the list before. 

8 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think 

9 
 that's kind of what translates the 

10 
 recommendation was, you know, I think there 

11 
 was some response that said we'll do better, 

12 
 and when we had the conversation with Stu it 

13 
 was sort of, is there any way we can get a fix 

14 
 on, you know, where things are as far as now? 

15 
 You know, and that kind of helps everybody 

16 
 understand what you're thinking is as far as 

17 
 what worker outreach would be at this point in 

18 
 time and some of the attributes that you want 

19 to see in that. 

20 
 And I think the activities 

21 
 themselves make sense, but, you know, I think 

22 
 what's missing is that, sort of, a lead-in 

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98 

1 
 that says, okay, you know, in terms of worker 

2 
 outreach, we are going to be more encompassing 

3 
 on the venues that we want to track and be 

4 
 responsive to. 

5 
 We're going to be perhaps more 

6 
 aggressive in terms of being prepared and 

7 
 having the capabilities to elicit and record 

8 
 inputs from workers. I think of the 3 x 5 

9 
 cards as being sort of prepared to do so, and 

10 
 that's a message from here on out, everybody 

11 
 is a possible conduit of information right 

12 
 now, not just the formal worker outreach 

13 
 meetings, but actually, everybody in the staff 

14 level is a conduit of information. 

15 
 I think that's an important 

16 
 message, but I think all that sort of falls 

17 
 into, this is what it's about now and these 

18 
 activities make it happen. That's the how 

19 part. 

20 
 DR. MAKHIJANI: Josie, this is 

21 Arjun. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Hi, Arjun. 

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99 

1 
 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry to interrupt. 

2 
 I can hear everybody, but I couldn't hear 

3 
 J.J. very well. I joined late. I'm sorry. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So J.J. has 

5 
 taken note of that, I'm sure. Thank you. 

6 
 Okay. Anything else on that first grouping 

7 
 before we move to the second? 

8 
 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. The second 

9 
 recommendation, "Clarify with DCAS management 

10 
 whether any form of self-evaluation of worker 

11 
 outreach progress is conducted currently, and 

12 
 if so, how the status of activities and 

13 
 program enhancements are made available to 

14 
 NIOSH. Is there a culture of continual 

15 
 improvement in DCAS' approach to worker 

16 
 outreach communications that is manifest in 

17 
 its procedures, program direction, and program 

18 
 results that can and is being monitored in 

19 
 terms of NIOSH response that it will do 

20 
 better, how will that be determined and 

21 
 measured?" 

22 "NIOSH does not employ a selfNEAL R. GROSS 

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100 

1 
 evaluation of worker progress. The first part 

2 
 of this document, which is the analysis of 

3 
 NIOSH's try-to-do-better responses, reveals 

4 
 that the majority of the required improvement, 

5 
 listening and responding to public comments, 

6 
 are at Board meetings and have been adopted." 

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: So before we move on, 

8 
 I highlighted that and you say two different 

9 
 things in that paragraph. One, there's no 

10 
 self-evaluation currently being done for, and 

11 
 I'm assuming that's worker outreach, so how 

12 
 worker outreach is handled. But then it does 

13 
 review the public comments at Board meetings 

14 
 has been adopted and is working very nicely 

15 
 for the last, what, year or so we've been 

16 doing that? 

17 
 I guess my question goes back to: 

18 
 everybody self-evaluates at some point and if 

19 
 there's no self-evaluation, how do you gauge 

20 
 progress or how you're doing, I mean, or take 

21 
 credit for some of the things that you are 

22 doing or changing? 

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101 

1 
 MR. JOHNSON: Well, perhaps in some 

2 
 cases, you know, if you don't broadcast the 

3 
 things you're doing, no one knows. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

5 
 MR. JOHNSON: And in the other 

6 
 case, we don't know that we have tools to put 

7 
 in place to self-evaluate how well we're doing 

8 
 or how poorly we're doing. 

9 
 MR. KATZ: I think the tracking 

10 
 system that you're putting in place will be a 

11 
 good tool for that because you'll have, in one 

12 
 place, all of the substantive input that you 

13 
 receive and you'll be able to look at that 

14 
 same system and see that everything is 

15 
 responded to, which is sort of core to 

16 everyone's concern. 

17 
 So I think actually that system you 

18 
 put in place will make it very easy for you to 

19 
 track how well you're doing it, and handling 

20 
 all those, you know, making sure that input 

21 doesn't fall through the cracks. 

22 
 MR. JOHNSON: Right. Exactly as 

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102 

1 
 you look at the overarching turn of outreach. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

3 
 MEMBER MUNN: And as Stu says, the 

4 
 majority of the required improvement has been 

5 
 adopted and is working. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: I guess I'd like to 

7 
 see you take some credit or at least, you 

8 
 know, kind of maybe broadcast what you have 

9 
 changed, or what you are doing, and possibly 

10 
 through this program and the ten-year review, 

11 
 I mean, some of that will come out, but I 

12 
 don't know, it'd be nice to see something. So 

13 
 I have no suggestion there. Deep in thought? 

14 Are you thinking about how to do that? 

15 
 MS. ELLISON: Well, my thought was 

16 
 that those action items, that is part of one 

17 
 of those action items from the ten-year review 

18 
 that we are working on and I would think would 

19 
 eventually be reports from those action items, 

20 
 so I don't think it would come out in these 

21 
 reports. 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the ten-year 

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103 

1 
 review itself was almost an evaluation to 

2 
 gauge, you know, progress and the 

3 
 satisfaction. So that, you know, was one 

4 
 process that gave you that kind of feedback, 

5 
 so the question is, is there going to be an 

6 
 ongoing -- I think that's part of the ten-year 

7 
 review plan to see how those steps that are 

8 
 being taken in response to the ten-year --

9 
 which is what you're saying, I think, how 

10 
 those are being accomplished or that, in fact, 

11 satisfies some of the early concerns. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: I know even my 

13 
 company out at work, sent out surveys for the 

14 
 second time in, I'd say, five years, plant15 
 wide, companywide, surveys of, you know, how 

16 
 are we doing and, I mean, everybody does that 

17 at some point, so I was surprised --

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: It's hard not to 

19 
 get a receipt anymore without being told, why 

20 don't you fill this out. 

21 CHAIR BEACH: That's true. 

22 
 MEMBER MUNN: Are you available for 

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104 

1 
 a survey? 

2 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

3 
 MEMBER MUNN: Please take a few 

4 
 minutes to fill --

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So I don't 

6 
 have anything else for 2, unless anybody else 

7 
 does. 

8 
 MR. JOHNSON: Recommendation 3, "Is 

9 
 there an institutional means or management 

10 
 system by which DCAS tracks or follows on 

11 
 worker comments in an overall integrated 

12 
 fashion? Who is responsible for overseeing 

13 
 the division's responsiveness to such 

14 
 comments, whether received formally or 

15 
 informally, and what actions are taken to 

16 
 ensure responsiveness, timeliness, and 

17 accountability?" 

18 
 "DCAS intends to develop a comment 

19 
 tracking computer application to provide a 

20 
 method for managing comments and responses. 

21 
 Once developed, the communications team lead 

22 
 will likely have the lead role in ensuring 

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105 

1 
 comments are treated appropriately." 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. That's good. 

3 
 So, of course, I wrote down when I read that, 

4 
 the timeline for this, and I know we talked 

5 
 about it, Phil, but that was my first 

6 
 question, and then the second one is, who 

7 
 would have access to that? Would the Work 

8 
 Group, the Board, have access to that? And I 

9 
 know you may not be able to answer that at 

10 this point, but --

11 
 MS. ELLISON: Yes, I can't answer 

12 
 that at this point. I, offhandedly, don't 

13 know why not. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: And then there was a 

15 
 lot of questions and does that pretty much 

16 
 answer all of those questions within that 

17 
 Number 3? So you don't know who will be 

18 
 responsible for -- you mentioned that earlier. 

19 MR. KATZ: Chris. 

20 
 MS. ELLISON: The communications 

21 development team lead. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

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106 

1 
 MR. FITZGERALD: I want to echo 

2 
 though, I think this is a pretty spiffy 

3 
 initiative. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: I do too. 

5 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And this is kind 

6 
 of the substance of this comment because we 

7 
 saw so many venues. If nothing else came out 

8 
 of the pilot, it was just the number of venues 

9 
 that exist for worker input and I think this 

10 
 is pretty responsive to that if you can manage 

11 to come up with the framework to do it. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: I agree. 

13 
 MR. JOHNSON: 4? "How are DCAS 

14 
 staff members oriented to, or trained, for 

15 
 effective worker outreach communications? 

16 
 What guidance is provided to staff by 

17 
 management? Management's expectations for 

18 
 outreach, question 2, are covered periodically 

19 at health physics staff meetings." 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: I guess that's pretty 

21 
 vague and broad, since none of us get to 

22 
 attend those meetings. Do you guys do 

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107 

1 
 something formally or just like, okay, today 

2 
 we're going to do some training, or does ATL -

3 
 - I guess you guys aren't really DCAS staff, 

4 
 but a lot of this goes over to ATL side of the 

5 
 house too. 

6 
 MR. LEWIS: Well, that's our life. 

7 
 You know, I mean, so just every day, you learn 

8 
 something new, and it's hard to track 

9 
 something like that too, you know, but that's, 

10 
 you know, we're always discussing, staff call, 

11 
 we get together and have conference calls and 

12 
 we do a lot of different outreach that we get 

13 
 to, but it's continuous training on that. 

14 You're always learning something new. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: I guess this kind of 

16 
 goes back to you lead from the top down. So 

17 
 if the top are worker-outreach-oriented, then 

18 
 people down below will be as well. And this 

19 
 was mostly trying to get a handle on how 

20 you're trained. 

21 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I think this is 

22 
 a question for people doing the outreach, this 

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108 

1 
 kind of little deviation here, what if you 

2 
 have a person that approaches you willing to 

3 
 give some information, but then he says, "I'm 

4 
 afraid it's classified." How is that 

5 
 reflected in the training to handle that 

6 
 particular situation? 

7 
 MR. LEWIS: Vern's going to answer 

8 
 that one because I know he's done some review. 

9 
 Go ahead, sir. 

10 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: If somebody says 

11 
 they have -- and we also cover this 

12 
 affirmatively at the beginning of any meeting, 

13 
 if somebody indicates that what they would 

14 
 like to say may be classified, then we tell 

15 
 them that we can make arrangements for them to 

16 
 provide that information to a Q-cleared person 

17 in an appropriate setting. 

18 
 And we always admonish people at 

19 
 the beginning of every meeting against saying 

20 
 anything that they even think might be 

21 classified in that open meeting. 

22 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. But so 

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109 

1 
 this is taught in training to all of the 

2 
 people going out in the field. 

3 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Well, yes --

4 
 MR. LEWIS: From our company, 

5 
 basically --

6 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes, you're looking 

7 
 at them plus --

8 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. I'll take 

9 
 that as a yes. 

10 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes, we go through 

11 
 the same contractor training that NIOSH 

12 requires. 

13 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. Because 

14 
 this question has come up recently with some 

15 people. 

16 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: We're constantly 

17 
 aware of it. We had a very clear -- actually, 

18 
 some guest came and admonished everybody at 

19 
 the beginning of the Rocky Flats meeting, but 

20 
 then, still, when the minutes were reviewed, 

21 
 you know, the classifier found something in 

22 there that they wanted to classify. 

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110 

1 
 For years now, we've always had 

2 
 that process, Phil. 

3 
 MR. LEWIS: Well, last time, Phil, 

4 
 we have a classification officer with us, and 

5 
 in the case of Rocky we did too, and like Vern 

6 
 said, we still got something out of it. 

7 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, well, I 

8 
 know the question, comment, came up also that 

9 
 some of these people were wondering how they 

10 
 were being given Q clearances for a day, 

11 basically, is what they've been told. 

12 
 MR. KATZ: They are, right? Joey, 

13 does that. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

15 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: And they were 

16 
 wondering about that process and, you know, 

17 say they haven't had a Q in ten years. 

18 
 MR. KATZ: The basic concept for 

19 
 that is that it's one-way communication, it's 

20 
 from the person who's being interviewed back 

21 
 to NIOSH, DOE. They're not receiving any 

22 
 information, they're only giving information, 

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1 
 that's why they can handle that logistically 

2 
 in a pretty efficient way. Otherwise, it 

3 
 would actually be quite difficult, but that's 

4 
 how they do that. 

5 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. That 

6 
 probably would be good to have spelled out 

7 
 somewhere. I mean, the fact that this is 

8 
 available to people who want to give some kind 

9 
 of information or testimony, they can do it 

10 without violating any kind of federal law. 

11 
 MR. KATZ: Right. And I think 

12 
 DCAS, in a lot of them, goes to significant 

13 
 efforts, as you've just heard, to let people 

14 
 know that they can provide -- if they have 

15 
 classified information and they wish a venue 

16 to provide that, that that'll be established. 

17 
 MR. LEWIS: Are you saying maybe 

18 
 something should be put on the web site about 

19 that? 

20 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, exactly, 

21 
 because this has been kind of a concern that 

22 
 some people have kind of held back. They go, 

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1 
 well, wait a minute. You know, last time when 

2 
 I got my Q it took a year of investigation. 

3 
 Now you're telling me I can come in, they can 

4 
 give me one in one day? 

5 
 You know, they're very 

6 
 uncomfortable because a lot of them -- you 

7 
 know, things they did, information they have, 

8 
 they know at the time they did it it was 

9 
 classified. 

10 MR. LEWIS: And they might want to 

11 
 put something on the docket, but fear of 

12 
 classification keeps them from it. So you're 

13 
 saying, make a comment on there saying, if you 

14 
 want to, but you're worried about 

15 
 classification, this is the route to take; or 

16 something. 

17 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Right. I mean, 

18 
 you know, quite bluntly, a lot of them says, I 

19 
 don't want to go to jail and have to pay a big 

20 
 fine because of, you know, this, and yet, 

21 there's information I would like to give. 

22 
 MR. JOHNSON: Is the purpose of 

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1 
 that one-day Q for them to relieve what they 

2 
 know, the information, and say nothing 

3 
 thereafter about what they said? 

4 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: That's correct. 

5 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. They're just 

6 
 cleared for the time that they're interviewed 

7 
 to convey what they have to say. 

8 
 MR. JOHNSON: So they can release 

9 
 what they have. 

10 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

11 
 MR. JOHNSON: And it's a DOE thing. 

12 
 MR. KATZ: Yes, I don't know what 

13 
 you can say on public web sites and stuff 

14 
 about this kind of material, so I'm not really 

15 
 sure what DCAS can do in terms of -- I mean, I 

16 
 know when they go to meetings, they make these 

17 
 statements. I don't know how much they can 

18 
 put on a web site in this arena. Joe probably 

19 has more of a sense of what --

20 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I was 

21 
 thinking, the only thing would be just, you 

22 
 know, if we had some kind of a worker 

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114 

1 
 outreach-type venue you would say if there's a 

2 
 concern over the classified nature of your 

3 
 work, contact so and so, and that could be 

4 
 handled on a person-by-person basis. 

5 
 MR. KATZ: Oh, yes. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Because I think 

7 
 that's kind of what we do now. 

8 
 MR. KATZ: That's what they do. 

9 
 Right. 

10 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean, we just 

11 sat down with Rocky Flats this week. 

12 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, but that 

13 
 knowledge is not widely out there. I mean, 

14 
 there's not really anything you can go to and 

15 
 say, well, this is how I can go ahead and 

16 
 still give information. They look at site 

17 
 and, you know, just like anybody who's ever 

18 had a Q, those don't happen overnight. 

19 
 MR. KATZ: So, Phil, I mean, I 

20 
 think that's a good point. I think that's 

21 
 just something that has to be looked into. I 

22 
 don't know how much latitude we have for 

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115 

1 
 speaking about these matters, for example, to 

2 
 put information on a public web site about a 

3 
 process or what have you. So, I mean, that's 

4 
 something that you could just -- Grady, or 

5 
 whoever's your lead for these sort of security 

6 
 matters, can follow up with you and see what 

7 
 latitude there is, but there may not be a lot 

8 
 of latitude. 

9 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think a 

10 
 point of contact, but, you know, Phil, you 

11 
 raise a good point. I mean, the people we 

12 
 talked to this week are quite surprised that 

13 
 they could talk freely and they are reassured, 

14 
 not even by us, but the host group there that, 

15 
 you know, they were given this one-day Q, but, 

16 
 you know, we had the need to know, they did 

17 
 not, so we had to be careful it was a one-way 

18 communication. 

19 
 You know, we could not have a 

20 
 conversation and add information that, you 

21 
 know, we know. So it's very careful. It's 

22 
 one-way communications. That's the whole 

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116 

1 
 basis for the clearance. And it's difficult 

2 
 because if you have --

3 
 MR. LEWIS: Yes. You cannot 

4 
 connect, you want to reiterate --

5 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, no, you 

6 
 can't respond and add information that they 

7 
 should know. 

8 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. Okay. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Ready to move 

10 on to 5? 

11 
 MR. JOHNSON: 5, "How does DCAS 

12 
 invite, assess, and respond to worker feedback 

13 
 on the effectiveness of its worker outreach 

14 
 communications program? How does DCAS gauge 

15 
 relative satisfaction with its procedures, 

16 
 programs, and outcomes, and use such feedback 

17 
 for performance improvement? Is there some 

18 
 form of surveying or other means to solicit 

19 feedback?" 

20 
 "DCAS outreach contractor, ATL, 

21 
 provides class evaluation forms to attendees 

22 
 at dose reconstruction and SEC workshops. ATL 

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117 

1 
 and DCAS conduct one two-day workshop per year 

2 
 in Cincinnati and a few one-day workshops per 

3 
 year in the vicinity of the covered 

4 
 facilities. Those class evaluations are 

5 
 reviewed for potential modifications to the 

6 
 workshop." 

7 
 "Other than that, DCAS does not 

8 
 have a process for inviting and responding to 

9 
 worker feedback on the effectiveness of its 

10 worker outreach program." 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Any questions on that 

12 
 one? I had a couple. First one, I'm going to 

13 
 ask this of Mark and Vern, what happens to the 

14 
 evaluations from the workshops? I know you 

15 
 get them, you solicit those at the end, but 

16 what do you do with that information? 

17 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Well, the first 

18 
 thing we do is we provide them to NIOSH so 

19 
 that they have a check on our performance. 

20 
 The next thing that we do is we take those 

21 
 seriously, and if you could look at the 

22 
 agenda, and I think you saw this a little bit, 

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118 

1 
 if you look at how the agenda for these 

2 
 workshops has evolved over time, we actually, 

3 
 in a number of ways, have factored in some of 

4 
 the suggestions that have come up into 

5 
 evolving that workshop. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

7 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay? 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: All right. So do you 

9 
 typically only get about the workshop or do 

10 
 you get other feedback that goes beyond the 

11 workshop? 

12 
 MR. LEWIS: We get thank-you emails 

13 and stuff. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. That's a 

15 feedback loop, though. Yes. 

16 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes, this is just a 

17 
 level 1 evaluation of the training program, so 

18 it's just about the workshop. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, because I know 

20 
 in the classes that I teach, sometimes you 

21 
 get, this was a great class, and then 

22 
 sometimes you get those one or two individuals 

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119 

1 
 that go beyond and then critique the program 

2 
 or offer more stuff, so typically, you don't 

3 
 get that type of --

4 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: We used to get more 

5 
 than we do. I think if you went back and 

6 
 looked at the first couple workshops, you got 

7 
 more of people wanting to take that 

8 
 opportunity to vent, not about the worker 

9 
 outreach program, but about DCAS as a whole. 

10 
 We don't really see that much of that anymore. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And then the 

12 
 other piece of that is, once you get that, 

13 
 NIOSH, is there anything that happens with 

14 that? 

15 
 MR. JOHNSON: Well, we review them 

16 
 and, you know, at times, Vern has come back to 

17 
 us and said, well, you know, it looks like 

18 
 they'd like to have a three-day instead of a 

19 
 two-day because of the amount of material 

20 
 packed into a small package. And sometimes 

21 
 they'll come back and say, we need a little 

22 
 bit more kind of clarification or 

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120 

1 
 understanding in certain packages that are 

2 
 provided. 

3 
 And we'll work with Vern and Vern 

4 
 will work with our team members in order to 

5 
 update those particular training packages. So 

6 
 that's kind of what we get and how we get it, 

7 
 and improve the process. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

9 
 MR. JOHNSON: Sometimes it's just 

10 
 not reasonable to extend something from two 

11 days to three days because of --

12 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. 

13 
 MR. JOHNSON: -- already the time 

14 constraints put in there. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. So then the 

16 
 other part of my question was: how does DCAS 

17 
 know how they are doing and if there's no 

18 
 process in place for worker feedback, how do 

19 
 you know how you're doing? And I guess it 

20 
 goes back to several of these different 

21 topics. 

22 
 MR. JOHNSON: Well, I think when it 

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121 

1 
 comes to feedback, when we have our list of 

2 
 venues addressed, and issues that come in, and 

3 
 questions that come in, we'll probably see a 

4 
 lot of what is good and what issues, you know, 

5 
 people have out there that, perhaps, putting 

6 
 them in one tracking system, we'll be able to 

7 
 better understand that. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I think that's 

9 
 going to be a huge piece of this. All right. 

10 
 Any questions or comments? The last one is, 

11 
 basically, for the Work Group, so I guess for 

12 
 action items, there's really not going to be 

13 
 any action items for this list, other than, 

14 
 maybe, taking some of this back to Stu and 

15 
 maybe give us some more information on each 

16 one of these if it's possible. 

17 
 MR. JOHNSON: I mean, I think the 

18 
 answers that Stu provided are the answers we 

19 have. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

21 
 MR. JOHNSON: You may not like the 

22 
 answers, but that's where we are on some of 

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122 

1 
 these things. And I just would observe that 

2 
 we do have a lot of channels available to 

3 
 people to comment on all kinds of things. 

4 
 It's that we do not have a formal evaluation 

5 
 system which would be a complicated endeavor, 

6 
 but that's not to say that people wouldn't 

7 
 feel, I think, free to comment on our outreach 

8 
 program or any other aspect. 

9 
 But in terms of allocating 

10 
 resources, it's not an area where we've chosen 

11 to invest. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right. So 

13 
 Number 6, the question is, "Given experience 

14 
 gained with the pilot review, take steps to 

15 
 review suggested process improvements 

16 
 identified and to revise the current review 

17 
 plan to incorporate positive changes to 

18 enhance efficiency and -- " what is that? 

19 MEMBER MUNN: Efficacy. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: "Efficacy," thank 

21 
 you, "consider the following," not a word I'm 

22 
 familiar with, "consider a follow-up review of 

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123 

1 
 more recent site-specific worker outreach 

2 
 experiences to gauge institutional 

3 
 improvements in communications and 

4 
 responsiveness over the past four and five 

5 
 years since Rocky's experience." 

6 
 So that brings us to, if we're 

7 
 finished with this, talking about other sites 

8 
 to look at. And I know -- how are we doing on 

9 
 time? We've got plenty of time. Last 

10 
 meeting, SC&A had come up with a list of four 

11 
 sites and then we talked about a couple more. 

12 
 And I know NIOSH was going to look at these 

13 
 sites and then maybe give us some feedback on, 

14 
 you know, if some of this criteria was met at 

15 these sites. 

16 
 And I didn't really pin Stu down on 

17 
 it. So, J.J., I don't know if you guys had 

18 any conversations about that. 

19 
 MR. JOHNSON: The only conversation 

20 
 we had was that NIOSH doesn't really have a 

21 
 good choice for the next choice, and I'll just 

22 leave it there. 

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124 

1 
 MR. KATZ: Can I -- I mean, the one 

2 
 thing that we asked, I think, a piece of 

3 
 information that the Work Group really doesn't 

4 
 have good access on, I mean, people may have a 

5 
 sense because they've been involved in Work 

6 
 Groups, and so on, but they won't, you know, 

7 
 have, certainly, not a quantitative sense. 

8 
 But what we were wanting to know 

9 
 is, which of these sites, for example, was 

10 
 there a lot of engagement so that there would 

11 
 be a lot of action to consider over a period 

12 
 of time; a lot of input so that there'd be 

13 
 real meat to consider in terms of how 

14 responsive was NIOSH to those comments. 

15 
 So that's what, I think, the Work 

16 
 Group wanted to know about these sites, which 

17 
 of these was quite active in terms of 

18 receiving input from workers. 

19 
 MR. JOHNSON: I think your point, 

20 
 you brought that up last time, and I think you 

21 pointed out Fernald. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Fernald and LANL. 

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125 

1 
 MR. KATZ: LANL were a couple that 

2 
 occurred to me that seemed to me, just 

3 
 generally speaking, that there had been quite 

4 
 a bit of input, but as thoughts. 

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, and Area 5, I 

6 
 kind of discounted because we haven't met for 

7 
 a couple of years and it's still an ongoing 

8 
 site. 

9 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

10 
 CHAIR BEACH: Chapman Valve was one 

11 
 of interest, but there again, we didn't know. 

12 
 I mean, there's plenty of claims, but that's 

13 
 a relatively old site also, isn't it? And how 

14 much worker outreach has been done? 

15 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: I can tell you, we 

16 only had that one meeting way back. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

18 
 MR. LEWIS: 2005. 

19 
 MEMBER MUNN: That's had a lot of 

20 activity with Chapman, but --

21 
 CHAIR BEACH: But we're looking at 

22 
 

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126 

1 
 MEMBER MUNN: -- that doesn't mean 

2 
 anything in terms of interaction with the 

3 
 plant population. You're right about Santa 

4 
 Susana. We've not --

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: That's on Phil now, 

6 
 so he's the Chair of that one. Brookhaven 

7 
 might not be a bad choice, although we're 

8 
 still not done with Brookhaven, but that 

9 
 doesn't mean we can't --

10 
 MR. FITZGERALD: There's quite a 

11 bit that has been accomplished. 

12 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, you need an 

13 
 updated product, basically, to be able to work 

14 
 with, either an updated Site Profile, TBD, I 

15 
 mean, because that's what you're looking at to 

16 look for a responsiveness to technical input. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: And we're working on 

18 
 the Site Profile now, so it's not updated, but 

19 
 I don't know if you'll get that on any of 

20 these at this point. Those are usually --

21 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Area 4 is being 

22 worked on right now. 

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127 

1 
 MR. KATZ: Well, I don't know about 

2 
 LANL, for example. LANL, I thought, like, 

3 
 there are some updated -- well, there have 

4 
 been SEC actions for LANL, so I think that's 

5 
 one of the things I suggested as a 

6 
 possibility. We have had some completed SEC 

7 
 actions on LANL and you could look at that. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: As well as 

9 
 Brookhaven. We've had two. 

10 
 MR. KATZ: As well as Brookhaven, 

11 
 but I'm just not so familiar with how much 

12 
 worker input there's been on Brookhaven. 

13 
 MEMBER MUNN: Well, we've certainly 

14 
 had a significant amount on LANL. Everyone's 

15 
 

16 
 MR. KATZ: No, that's what I'm 

17 
 saying. LANL, seems like it was quite active, 

18 
 and Fernald seems like it might have been 

19 
 quite active. I'm not sure if it was as 

20 
 active as LANL. And Brookhaven, also, I'm not 

21 
 sure, time period of action too. It's also 

22 
 starting to become quite dated it seems like. 

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128 

1 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, initial worker 

2 
 outreach meetings were in 2008, so that's 

3 
 rather outdated. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: Okay. So that is in the 

5 
 ballpark. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: LANL, anybody recall 

7 
 worker outreach meetings? 

8 
 MEMBER MUNN: Well, it dates back 

9 
 to dirt and so I --

10 CHAIR BEACH: Recent? 

11 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: LANL's been 

12 pretty darn active over the years. 

13 CHAIR BEACH: Recent? 

14 
 MR. LEWIS: Well, it was last 

15 summer we did -- two years ago? 

16 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Well, let me see if 

17 I can get it. 

18 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: One brief 

19 
 comment. 

20 
 MR. SUNDIN: That was 2010. 

21 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: LANL is probably 

22 
 relatively recent and there was a lot of 

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129 

1 
 worker comment. 

2 
 MR. LEWIS: Does it have to be a 

3 
 DOE site? 

4 
 MR. KATZ: No, it doesn't have to 

5 
 be. 

6 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Just one 

7 
 comment. We've gotten emails that people on 

8 
 the south end of the table here need to speak 

9 
 up. Just having a hard time hearing you. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you. 

11 MR. KATZ: Well, thanks, Phil. 

12 
 MR. LEWIS: I know recently, SC&A 

13 
 was down at W.R. Grace, right? Is that out of 

14 the league? 

15 
 MR. KATZ: No, that's not even 

16 
 workable because that's still in process. You 

17 
 need to have something where a document has 

18 
 been updated or an SEC has been completed. 

19 That's what you're looking for. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, Fernald is 

21 
 still in process. I mean, they did do some 

22 work on an SEC. I'm game for LANL if --

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130 

1 
 MEMBER MUNN: I don't see there's 

2 
 any objection to it. It seems to fulfill all 

3 
 the criteria that we established for sites we 

4 
 wanted to look at. It certainly provides a 

5 
 copious opportunity for the kind of 

6 
 information that we're looking for. I can see 

7 
 no objection to it personally. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: Do we want to just do 

9 
 one site or a couple of sites? 

10 
 MEMBER MUNN: I think one would be 

11 more --

12 
 MR. KATZ: I'd take one bite at a 

13 time. 

14 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: LANL's going to 

15 be a big bite. 

16 
 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. It would be a 

17 very large bite. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I was just 

19 
 wondering, it doesn't really fall into that 

20 
 small site, but I don't think we're going to 

21 be successful on that. 

22 
 MR. KATZ: It doesn't have to be a 

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131 

1 
 small -- I mean, if you have a controlled 

2 
 period or action that you're dealing with. So 

3 
 if you're dealing with one SEC, you sort of 

4 
 select an SEC, the action was completed, and 

5 
 you're looking at the information relevant to 

6 
 that SEC action. 

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

8 
 MR. KATZ: The input relevant to 

9 
 that. So, I mean, that's what contains it; in 

10 effect. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Any other 

12 
 comments or shall we decide on the site; LANL? 

13 
 MEMBER MUNN: Let's do LANL. It's 

14 
 far enough different in its activity and its 

15 
 type of workers than Rocky to be able to 

16 
 create a few new avenues of inquiry. One of 

17 
 the laboratories would be really -- something 

18 
 like Brookhaven would be ideal, but if we 

19 
 don't have the basic material to work with in 

20 
 terms of information about a plethora of 

21 
 worker interactions, then we're not getting 

22 
 the information we look for, so LANL will 

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1 
 provide us with that. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

3 
 MS. AYERS: When was the Site 

4 
 Profile? 

5 
 MR. KATZ: Sorry? 

6 
 MS. AYERS: When was the Site 

7 
 Profile? 

8 
 MR. KATZ: So I think you'd be 

9 
 looking at the latest completed SEC section 

10 
 for input related to that. I don't know about 

11 
 whether there's also an update to a TBD that 

12 
 you could tie into this. You know, you can 

13 
 look at that with a -- Joe can look into that, 

14 
 or you, with DCAS to see if there's one of 

15 
 those actions that you can couple with it, but 

16 
 the one I'm thinking of is the SEC action, 

17 
 because we all know that was completed and 

18 went forward. 

19 
 MEMBER MUNN: And it's recent 

20 
 enough that this Work Group will have an 

21 
 opportunity to, at least intellectually, 

22 
 evaluate the progress that NIOSH has made in 

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1 
 evolving its worker outreach process. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: So if that's the site 

3 
 that's agreed upon --

4 
 MR. KATZ: We can test -- as part 

5 
 of this tasking, I'd like to discuss, and I 

6 
 talked to Josie about this on the phone and I 

7 
 talked to Jim, Dr. Melius, about this too, a 

8 
 little bit about procedure, how to do this, 

9 
 versus what was done at Rocky Flats, because 

10 
 the one issue that I spoke about with Josie 

11 
 and Dr. Melius is really the Board's purview 

12 
 relates most heavily, or more specifically, to 

13 how well are the comments being addressed. 

14 
 So it's sort of the technical side 

15 
 of that because that's all about quality of 

16 
 science, and so on, versus the issue of 

17 
 service, or how well do we get back to people 

18 
 and tell people thank you for your input and 

19 
 this is what we did. That's sort of the 

20 
 service component of this and that was a focus 

21 of Joe and your review of the Rocky Flats. 

22 
 I mean, a lot of time was spent, 

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1 
 sort of, tracking down how well people 

2 
 received feedback on their input, but that's 

3 
 really beyond the Board's normal purview. So 

4 
 I think Jim agrees that, really, it would make 

5 
 much more sense to spend your resources more 

6 
 economically on addressing the question of, 

7 
 what input came in and was it addressed? 

8 
 I mean, that question, which is the 

9 
 core question for the Board, really, and how 

10 
 well is worker input being taken into account? 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: That kind of takes us 

12 
 back to our implementation plan, Number 3, and 

13 
 we are going to look at that later on today. 

14 
 So I don't know if we want to jump into that, 

15 but you bring up a good point. 

16 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. I'm just raising 

17 
 it now because this has to do with tasking 

18 
 SC&A and they need to know what the scope of 

19 their review would be. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And we asked 

21 
 them, the last time we did Rocky, to give us a 

22 
 plan. So we would task them with that same --

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1 
 MR. KATZ: A protocol up front. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: A protocol up front 

3 
 and then a review. 

4 
 MR. FITZGERALD: But I think what 

5 
 you're saying, well, what both of you are 

6 
 saying, are very relevant. And I wasn't 

7 
 directly involved in the implementation plan 

8 
 last time, but it was written to that 

9 
 objective; Objective 3. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

11 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So, you know, if 

12 
 you don't want the objective addressed in its 

13 
 full scope, then that would be useful 

14 information. 

15 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

16 
 DR. MAKHIJANI: Hi. This is Arjun. 

17 May I make a comment? 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

19 
 DR. MAKHIJANI: Ted, just adding 

20 
 one thing to your list of two items is, how 

21 
 well was that input documented, because that 

22 
 has been a difficulty in the past. NIOSH is 

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1 
 documenting things much more thoroughly now, I 

2 
 realize, so to judge what the response was, 

3 
 you need to review the documentation of the 

4 
 input. 

5 
 MR. KATZ: Sure. I mean, I think 

6 
 part of, you know, Arjun or Joe, when you, 

7 
 sort of submit a protocol, an approach, for 

8 
 this next one that, you know, you would cover 

9 
 any kind of fine details like that. 

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure. 

11 MR. KATZ: Sure. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. If you look 

13 
 under Number 3, one of the bullets is, "How is 

14 
 feedback provided to the Work Groups in 

15 
 response to their comments?" I think that's -

16 
 -

17 MR. KATZ: Right. No, we did have 

18 
 that and they did that for Rocky Flats, for 

19 
 sure. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Which is another 

21 
 reason why I wanted us to look at this for 

22 
 that purpose too is to make some suggestions 

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1 
 on how to streamline that. Okay. So we're 

2 
 tasking LANL to SC&A, but we're asking for an 

3 
 implementation plan? 

4 
 MR. KATZ: Yes, a protocol. 

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: Protocol. 

6 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: Do we need another 

8 
 meeting? 

9 
 MR. KATZ: I think it would be fine 

10 
 in terms of process, if you just submit a 

11 
 protocol. We can distribute it to the Members 

12 
 by email. If Members have an issue and we 

13 
 need a Work Group meeting, that's fine, but if 

14 
 we don't, if no one has an issue and it's 

15 
 pretty straightforward, then we can just carry 

16 
 forward and not have to hold up SC&A in 

17 getting started. 

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think 

19 
 there's some process issues that, clearly, you 

20 
 know, it may be a two-step process where we 

21 
 establish what the scope of commentary is, 

22 
 which gets into what we got into with Rocky, 

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138 

1 
 making sure this is bite-sized enough, and 

2 
 sort of practical aspects of whether this is 

3 
 feasible, resource-wise. 

4 
 So I think, you know, there's a 

5 
 little bit of scoping as part of the plan and 

6 
 then a proposal based on that scoping that, 

7 
 you know, addresses the cost efficiency of the 

8 
 process as well as the objectives that the 

9 
 process will accomplish, which gets me back to 

10 
 the original comment that, it would be very 

11 
 helpful for the Work Group to chew on what 

12 
 Ted's suggesting so that we have a pretty good 

13 scope to go forward with. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I think we need 

15 
 to focus, when we get to the implementation 

16 
 plan this afternoon, focus on Item 3, and 

17 
 review that, and maybe make some changes to 

18 
 that today so that we can move forward more 

19 efficiently. I agree with that. 

20 
 MR. KATZ: And the other thing I 

21 
 would just say, Joe, is, whoever takes the 

22 
 lead for this for SC&A in sort of developing 

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1 
 that protocol, I mean, feel free to, sort of, 

2 
 get some front information from DCAS so you 

3 
 know issues of sort of volume of comments, and 

4 
 so on, to help you with that so that you can 

5 
 have as complete a proposal. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. That's an 

7 
 iterative process. That'll impinge on 

8 
 everybody if it turns out to be a monster. I 

9 
 don't think anything approaching what Rocky 

10 
 Flats was, but on the other hand, I've been 

11 
 involved with Los Alamos and I know there's 

12 
 been a fairly healthy amount of exchange, so 

13 
 I'll certainly work with whoever you identify. 

14 
 I'll be the lead in terms of framing this up, 

15 
 but I think that's an important question to 

16 answer for the Work Group is --

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you know, how 

19 
 feasible will it be, from that standpoint, and 

20 
 then, you know, here's the approach, the 

21 process. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

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1 
 MR. KATZ: Right, because that'll 

2 
 help us, for example, if we need to do a 

3 
 sample as opposed to like we did with Rocky 

4 
 Flats versus just follow the comments that 

5 
 came in. 

6 
 MR. SUNDIN: I think some of this 

7 
 will probably fall out when we decide what the 

8 
 document change that we want to sort of track, 

9 
 or what changed with respect to LANL, that 

10 seems relevant to gauge worker input. 

11 
 MR. FITZGERALD: As I recall, I 

12 
 think they were holding the TBDs because the 

13 
 SECs were coming out in phases, so it wouldn't 

14 
 make any sense to revise the TBD while that 

15 was in progress. 

16 
 MR. KATZ: So it may just be the 

17 SEC. 

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: It may just be the 

19 SEC. 

20 
 MR. SUNDIN: Well, there's 

21 
 certainly been a Board meeting recently out 

22 
 there that you had a lot of comments to look 

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141 

1 
 at there. 

2 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. And it's a 

3 
 rich field, as far as the document, that it'll 

4 
 reflect, you know, the issues received. It 

5 
 may very well be the SEC-associated documents, 

6 
 which, thankfully, I know about, so it won't 

7 
 be too hard. 

8 
 MS. AYERS: So there'll be NIOSH9 
 generated documents related to the SEC --

10 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, there's been 

11 
 various White Papers and, you know, products 

12 that reflect inputs. 

13 
 MR. KATZ: There's the ER and then 

14 the amendment to the ER --

15 MS. AYERS: Okay. 

16 
 MR. KATZ: -- are the final 

17 products. 

18 
 MS. AYERS: That was my confusion, 

19 
 because I know with Rocky, with the SEC 

20 
 process, the ER was at the very beginning and 

21 
 so, obviously, it didn't respond to the 

22 
 comments because they came after it came out. 

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1 
 So knowing that there's other --

2 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Now, that raises 

3 
 the other question about, I don't want to 

4 
 muddy the waters too much, but whereas we were 

5 
 using, you know, formal documents, TBDs, and 

6 
 what have you, for Rocky, given the state of 

7 
 affairs at Los Alamos, these would clearly be 

8 
 these intermediary documents, the SEC-related 

9 
 documents, which aren't quite the same thing. 

10 They're not issued to the documents. 

11 
 They're, sort of, Work Group12 
 related White Papers and materials that were 

13 exchanged. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: And then the ER was 

15 
 amended though, right? Wasn't it? Am I not 

16 
 remembering correctly? I thought the ER was 

17 amended at the end of the process. 

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, at the end 

19 
 of the process when the SEC decision was made, 

20 then it was amended at that point. 

21 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. So it runs all the 

22 
 way to that point because that's the final, 

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1 
 sort of, adjudication of issues by NIOSH. 

2 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. Yes, but 

3 
 it's, without getting into it, a summary thing 

4 
 that basically says, you know, that it wraps 

5 
 the issues, but it doesn't get into --

6 
 MR. KATZ: Fine details. 

7 
 MR. FITZGERALD: -- these finer 

8 
 details as a TBD might. So I'm just saying, 

9 
 we'll look at that and come back to the Work 

10 
 Group and if that proves to be, you know, an 

11 
 issue, then we'll bring it back to you and you 

12 
 can, you know, talk it over, but, you know, 

13 this will be a different beast. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

15 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And we want to 

16 
 make sure we look at, you know, for example, 

17 
 on what makes it an effective feedback tool 

18 
 for the Work Group, and for NIOSH, you know, 

19 
 so we'll look at that part first; the 

20 
 feasibility, the value, and then are there any 

21 
 issues that we should bring back? We'll do 

22 
 this iteratively with NIOSH and, you know, 

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1 
 certainly do it in realtime so that we're not 

2 
 waiting for the next Work Group meeting, but 

3 
 we'll try to come to some conclusions and pass 

4 
 those on to the Work Group so you can actually 

5 
 have that in advance. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: Sounds good. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: So kind of a two-step 

9 
 tasking then; you deliver the protocol, the 

10 
 scope, feasibility, and then you would be 

11 
 tasked to move forward or not, as the case may 

12 be. 

13 
 MS. LIN: Josie, I would just ask 

14 
 that, I probably need to check the timeline 

15 
 for the Secretary's action on this SEC, the 

16 
 latest one, that covered 1976 to 1995. I'm 

17 
 assuming that's the SEC that you guys want to 

18 
 focus on. So let me just check on the 

19 
 timeline because I don't want the Work Group, 

20 
 or the Board, to act on the presumption that 

21 this SEC petition will be decimated. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

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145 

1 
 MR. KATZ: Sure. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Any backup sites? I 

3 
 guess, hearing that, maybe we should have a 

4 
 second one. 

5 
 MR. KATZ: Well, I don't think 

6 
 it'll be an issue. 

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I just don't 

8 
 want to have this conversation again if --

9 
 MR. KATZ: Formally we can't, 

10 right, presume. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Right. But would 

12 
 there be a backup in case just so we could 

13 just keep moving forward if --

14 
 MS. LIN: Well, I mean, I could 

15 tell you the timeline, like, tomorrow --

16 CHAIR BEACH: Tomorrow. Oh, okay. 

17 
 MS. LIN: -- so I don't think 

18 
 that's going to hold up the process too much. 

19 
 And so you still have to come up with the 

20 protocols so --

21 
 MR. FITZGERALD: I don't think this 

22 
 will be a problem. It'll take us a while to 

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146 

1 
 frame this up. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. I'm expecting at 

3 
 least a month of thinking, and talking, and so 

4 
 on. 

5 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Just doing 

6 
 the research and contacting, you know, DCAS 

7 
 and trying to get some of these things nailed 

8 
 down. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you, and 

10 
 before we leave that, I want to go back to 

11 
 ATL, you guys conduct a two-day workshop once 

12 
 a year and then several one-day workshops. 

13 
 It's been about three or four years since we 

14 attended one of your two-day workshops. 

15 MR. LEWIS: Come on down. 

16 
 CHAIR BEACH: Do you have one 

17 scheduled for --

18 
 MR. LEWIS: Next year. We'll have 

19 one, probably, next fall right, Vern? 

20 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: You just missed it. 

21 It was in September. 

22 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. We weren't 

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147 

1 
 ready for it then. So I guess we don't have 

2 
 to discuss it now, but I'm thinking that, as a 

3 
 Work Group, we should probably go. 

4 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: You're welcome. If 

5 
 some of you want to come, you know, with 

6 
 NIOSH's set-up course, to one of the local 

7 
 workshops. Actually, we're probably going to 

8 
 go out to New Mexico in the spring. We were 

9 
 thinking about doing it about this time of 

10 
 year. 

11 
 MR. KATZ: It used to be that the 

12 
 Board go, I haven't seen them in a while, but 

13 
 we used to get these notices to say that 

14 
 there's an outreach meeting activity. We get 

15 
 these notices so that any Board Member could 

16 
 go attend. That's sort of the easiest way to 

17 
 handle this and then --

18 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: They should be 

19 
 auto-generated out of the --

20 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. I mean, it used to 

21 
 come, regularly, through to all of the Board. 

22 
 They just get a little quick notice. 

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1 
 MS. ELLIOTT: It has to be 

2 
 scheduled and there hasn't been anything 

3 
 that's now labeled. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: Okay. 

5 
 MS. ELLIOTT: We put the meetings 

6 
 in the OTS and then I generate the email to 

7 
 all of you to notify you of the meetings. 

8 
 MR. KATZ: Okay. 

9 
 MS. ELLIOTT: Really, we haven't 

10 had --

11 MR. KATZ: You haven't had them. 

12 
 MS. ELLIOTT: Not since July. I 

13 think I sent the last one out in July. 

14 
 MEMBER MUNN: It's around here 

15 somewhere, right? 

16 
 MS. ELLIOTT: Fort Wayne is the 

17 last one. 

18 
 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. It's not that 

19 far away. 

20 
 MR. KATZ: Okay. So for Work Group 

21 
 Members, if you want to coordinate and go 

22 
 together to one, then we should just 

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149 

1 
 communicate when we get one of these notices. 

2 
 Otherwise, I mean, you're always, all the 

3 
 Board Members, welcome to attend any of these 

4 
 functions when they see the notices. 

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: So what I wanted to 

6 
 do is put that on Number 9, for next steps for 

7 
 worker outreach, I would like to see Work 

8 
 Group Members go, but I would also like to 

9 
 kind of do an audit of it as well, and I don't 

10 
 know if that's something we could task or not. 

11 We did that in the past and had --

12 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: So like an informal 

14 
 or just -- because that's part of one of our 

15 
 tasks in the implementation plan, is to look 

16 at that information. 

17 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, we can get into 

18 
 this discussion later, but this, again, moves 

19 
 into the territory of service versus quality 

20 
 of science. So tasking and evaluation of how 

21 
 well we're educating people is beyond the 

22 scope of the Board. 

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150 

1 
 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, it is. Okay. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. So, I mean, it was 

3 
 within the scope of the ten-year review, and, 

4 
 you know, the ten-year review was shared, 

5 
 certainly, with the Board for their input, but 

6 
 it's sort of, you know, if Stu wants the Board 

7 
 to do an evaluation like that, it can invite 

8 
 the Board too and we can consider that, but 

9 
 it's beyond the charter of the Board. 

10 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Well, I know 

11 
 we had done that early on and maybe we were 

12 
 out of bounds at that point and didn't realize 

13 it. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: Well, there were a 

15 
 number of meetings where we had sent someone 

16 
 to go and attend, and watch and see what 

17 happens at the meetings. Yes. 

18 
 MEMBER MUNN: But essentially, it's 

19 a suggestion for it. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. 

21 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. So bottom-line is, 

22 
 the contract really doesn't cover it and I'm 

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151 

1 
 not going to task SC&A with sending people to 

2 
 observe and evaluate a worker outreach meeting 

3 
 to see how well they're educating folks. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So that 

5 
 answers that, then the rest of us, as Work 

6 
 Group Members, are, of course, invited; 

7 
 welcome. 

8 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Perfect. 

10 
 MR. LEWIS: If NIOSH doesn't care, 

11 we sure don't care. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

13 
 MR. KATZ: You'd welcome their 

14 attendance. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So we do have 

16 
 a few minutes and are we finished with this 

17 
 topic or any other questions on the sites for 

18 
 review? I did put on the agenda that we would 

19 
 either have worker representatives or 

20 
 advocates have a chance to comment and we do 

21 
 have 15 minutes before lunch, so if there's 

22 
 anybody on the phone that would like to make a 

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152 

1 
 comment; questions? 

2 
 If you're on mute, we will give you 

3 
 a couple of minutes. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. They're still 

5 
 alive. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: So hearing none, I 

7 
 will ask again after lunch --

8 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: -- prior to ATL's 

10 
 presentation. And it is now, oh, I don't 

11 
 know, a quarter to 12:00, so let's go to lunch 

12 and be back at 1:00? Does that work? 

13 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: 1 o'clock? 

15 
 MR. KATZ: So 1 o'clock for folks 

16 
 on the line. Thanks. 

17 
 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

18 
 went off the record at 11:48 a.m. and went 

19 back on the record at 1:18 p.m.) 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So we're at 

21 the ATL presentation. 

22 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay. It seems 

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1 
 like years ago, Mike had tasked us to take a 

2 
 few minutes to explain how we do what we do. 

3 
 And then events kind of got away from us. We 

4 
 never got back to it. This, I hope, will give 

5 
 you just a little bit better perspective on 

6 
 what we're doing when we're not actually 

7 
 sitting in a meeting, okay? 

8 
 There's a little bit more to it 

9 
 than meets the eye. 

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. We always love 

11 the mystery, Vern. 

12 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay. First, let 

13 
 me say something about the knowledge base. 

14 
 And I think like a contractor, okay? I think 

15 
 like a support contractor. If I was pitching 

16 
 a proposal, this is kind of the way I would 

17 lay it out. 

18 
 The first thing that we know is, we 

19 
 know what the organizations are at every DOE 

20 
 site. And it can be a little obscure 

21 
 sometimes. For example, at Idaho, you know, 

22 
 pretty much everybody knows about the 

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154 

1 
 Steelworkers local, but there's also a 

2 
 Teamsters local up there, and there's actually 

3 
 a local of the Amalgamated Transit Union for, 

4 
 basically, historical reasons. 

5 
 What was the one outside of LA? 

6 
 MR. LEWIS: Santa Susana? 

7 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Santa Susana, 

8 
 that's a UAW local; United Autoworkers local. 

9 
 And we first approached them years ago. The 

10 
 first thing they did after, I think it was 

11 
 Mark, approached them was, they called the 

12 
 international. But we also had a relationship 

13 
 with the international and those folks said, 

14 
 yes, it's okay to talk to them. They're 

15 
 acceptable people. They're upstanding people. 

16 
 And that's personal connections. 

17 
 It really is important because there's a lot 

18 
 of cultural issues. We understand the 

19 
 complexities of the organization structures, 

20 
 with the metal trades councils and such, and 

21 
 in some cases, building trades councils in 

22 
 some locations doing what a metal trades 

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155 

1 
 council would do at another site. 

2 
 And we basically came to this, I 

3 
 think, with a level of trust when we started 

4 
 this, a reservoir of trust, and we've built 

5 
 that by our actions over a number of years. 

6 
 We know, basically, the people who are going 

7 
 to be interested, or concerned, about this in 

8 
 pretty much all of the national labor 

9 
 organizations. 

10 And, Wanda, I want to note, we 

11 
 don't know the ANS chapters. We know where 

12 
 they are, but a lot of the people that we're 

13 
 reaching, the ANS-type people, are the people 

14 
 that NIOSH tends to find on their own; the 

15 
 site experts. We're dealing, largely, with a 

16 different group of people. 

17 
 And with the AWE sites, it's 

18 
 helpful to have a knowledge of labor history 

19 
 and to know how different industries were 

20 
 organized, in different parts of the country 

21 
 were organized, and it helps you get an idea 

22 
 of where to look for the labor organizations 

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156 

1 
 when you're looking for organizations that 

2 
 would have existed 30 or 40 years ago. Barry? 

3 
 MR. LEWIS: I may want to bring up 

4 
 a point there, but a lot of those folks here 

5 
 with the trust, and knowing the key people, a 

6 
 lot of folks, when I was working in the 

7 
 steelworkers, I trained at those sites. So 

8 
 I've known them prior to this law coming in in 

9 
 a lot of cases, and, Josie, you know that 

10 don't you? 

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

12 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Guess we'll pause 

13 for minute here. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: Okay. This is Ted with 

15 
 the Worker Outreach Work Group meeting. We 

16 
 just had to replace our phone equipment, but 

17 
 you haven't missed much. ATL has just begun 

18 
 discussing how they do their work. Okay. 

19 Carry on. 

20 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay. Thank you, 

21 
 Ted. Okay. The skills that are essential for 

22 
 this task, first, worker training. And Buck, 

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157 

1 
 and Mark, and I all have at least a decade or 

2 
 two of experience in worker training in 

3 
 occupational health and safety. Buck has 

4 
 published in some of the theory of interactive 

5 
 training; participatory training. 

6 
 Mark just said he did this for many 

7 
 years before he came to this work. I've run 

8 
 safety and health training programs in a 

9 
 number of large unions. But I want to say 

10 
 here that, a lot of what we deal with with 

11 
 people is kind of an ongoing, informal, in 

12 
 addition to the workshop-type training, it's 

13 
 mentoring, it is teaching people, if you're 

14 
 trying to get people involved, especially 

15 
 people who are not part of an active 

16 
 Department of Energy site where they have, for 

17 
 example, Rad Worker II training, and all that. 

18 
 There's a lot of information that 

19 
 they need to kind of absorb before they can 

20 
 really begin to participate and provide useful 

21 
 input. I'll give you an example, when NIOSH 

22 
 asked us to approach the folks at Evendale, 

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158 

1 
 okay, there was nobody at Evendale, either in 

2 
 the active unions or in the retiree 

3 
 organizations, who knew what a health 

4 
 physicist was, okay? 

5 
 So we're starting from a very low 

6 
 level of familiarity with what a lot of us 

7 
 here take for granted. And it takes a bit to 

8 
 bring them along. It takes a bit just to 

9 
 reach the point where they really understand 

10 
 why it's important for them to have the input. 

11 
 So this is part of what we're doing, pretty 

12 much, every day. 

13 
 We've got a request in for travel 

14 
 now for Mark to go to Metropolis. New 

15 
 leadership there. We don't think they know 

16 
 much about radiation. We know they don't know 

17 
 much about the Energy Employees Occupational 

18 
 Illness Compensation Program. To have the 

19 
 ability to really participate at any level at 

20 all, takes a bit of mentoring. 

21 
 Organizing, and I want to talk 

22 
 about Mark in this case, because he has the 

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159 

1 
 organizing skills. Some of you who may have 

2 
 seen this at Joslyn, we've done this at Texas 

3 
 City, and I can't think of the other sites. 

4 
 MR. LEWIS: Simonds Saw. 

5 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: And Mark used to be 

6 
 a union organizer. When you're dealing with 

7 
 that much of an organization, with these old 

8 
 folks, it actually requires, sometimes, 

9 
 personal house calls. Actually going out to 

10 
 people's houses. Some of those folks at Texas 

11 City didn't even have telephones. 

12 MR. LEWIS: That's right. 

13 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: But if NIOSH says 

14 
 they want to talk to those folks that worked 

15 
 there back then, you know, we go out and 

16 
 Mark's basically teaching them almost one 

17 
 person at a time; explaining to them what this 

18 
 program is and why their input is being 

19 sought. 

20 
 And then research, I don't think I 

21 
 need to say too much about research, but that 

22 
 goes back. The researchy stuff that we do is 

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160 

1 
 really more on the AWE side when we're trying 

2 
 to figure out a group; how we can locate a 

3 
 group of former workers. Mary? Stop me 

4 
 anytime. 

5 
 I want to talk about constraints 

6 
 because I think we sometimes forget, and when 

7 
 we're working with the health physicists, if 

8 
 you ask a question and you don't get an answer 

9 
 right away, it's not that the people that 

10 
 we're asking are sitting at desks like we are, 

11 
 in front of computers, and they're reading 

12 
 email, and they don't have anything else more 

13 important to do than to get back to us. 

14 
 Union folks are often busy with 

15 
 other issues. I'll use an example of Mark's 

16 
 old local. The president of that local down 

17 
 at Portsmouth is one of the smartest people I 

18 
 know in the labor movement about radiation and 

19 
 about this program. And he had a couple 

20 
 issues. They've had a couple issues down 

21 
 there that he has articulated. He went up to 

22 
 NIOSH and met with Jim Neton and some others 

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161 

1 
 on slow cookers. 

2 
 And they got some other issues 

3 
 about the eligibility, but in the last several 

4 
 months, he's been busy trying to negotiate a 

5 
 new contract, and also lobbying because -- I 

6 
 don't think it was a new contract, well, it 

7 
 was a new contract --

8 
 MR. LEWIS: Yes, new contract. 

9 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: -- but then they 

10 
 also had issues about people coming over from 

11 
 

12 
 MR. LEWIS: Covered side to non13 
 covered side. 

14 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Right. What was 

15 
 the other company? 

16 
 MR. LEWIS: Bechtel Jacobs? 

17 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: No. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: USEC. 

19 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: USEC. He was 

20 
 consumed, for quite a while, with working out 

21 
 the rights and the benefits for people who had 

22 
 been assigned over from the DOE side to USEC 

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162 

1 
 and then were coming back, okay? That's a 

2 
 squeaky wheel. That's the bread and butter of 

3 
 that local union right now. And we have to 

4 
 understand we have to take a back seat. 

5 
 When he gets some of his big 

6 
 immediate problems solved, yes, he'll come 

7 
 back to our issues, but if NIOSH asks the 

8 
 question and the union doesn't get back for 

9 
 weeks or months, sometimes there's a reason. 

10 
 AWE site workers, as I said with 

11 
 Evendale, one of the things that we did for 

12 
 the Evendale people, for example, was, before 

13 
 one of our workshops, we put on a one-day 

14 
 version of Rad Worker II. We didn't dress 

15 
 them out, but what we gave them was what DOE 

16 
 calls the academic core of Rad Worker II, 

17 
 which basically teaches them the basic 

18 principles of radiation, okay? 

19 
 Why, for internal dose, an alpha 

20 
 emitter is worse than a gamma emitter, okay? 

21 
 Why it's different for external, just a few 

22 
 basic things so they could kind of understand 

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163 

1 
 more about the process. And coming back to 

2 
 the final point in this slide, all of the 

3 
 stakeholders that we deal with are, basically, 

4 
 volunteers, okay? 

5 
 Union folks, when you go down to 

6 
 W.R. Grace and you're going to have a meeting 

7 
 with the union folks, or if we're trying to 

8 
 get some information out of what is now 

9 
 Nuclear Fuel Services folks down there, 

10 
 understand that they only do this after they 

11 work a full eight-hour shift, okay? 

12 
 Then, as volunteer, I don't have to 

13 
 tell Josie, that's when they start to do this 

14 
 work. There are very few full-time union 

15 
 safety and health people in this arena. So 

16 
 these are all people who are doing it nights 

17 
 and weekends, and we have to take all of this 

18 
 into consideration when we're dealing with 

19 folks. Mary? Okay. So what did we do? 

20 
 First thing we do is we maintain 

21 
 these relationships. We maintain the 

22 
 communications. We've got a number of ways 

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164 

1 
 that we do that. We have conference calls 

2 
 with folks, probably the conference calls are 

3 
 about every two months. Mark and Buck, 

4 
 basically, do something that amounts to 

5 
 salesmanship. 

6 
 They will call folks periodically 

7 
 just to check in and see if there's anything 

8 
 we can help them with. We have to stay in 

9 
 touch. You kind of have to maintain that 

10 relationship. 

11 
 MR. LEWIS: Because if we don't, 

12 
 the leaders will change on us. We won't even 

13 
 know because, you know, some people are 

14 
 elected yearly, some two years, we have to 

15 stay with it. 

16 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: And we try and flow 

17 
 the information in both directions. And this 

18 
 may go back to what Chris and Josie, and all 

19 
 you, were talking about this morning with, how 

20 
 do you capture this information? You know, 

21 
 the news we flow down to the union folks tends 

22 to be breaking news, okay? 

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165 

1 
 One of the things that we do is, 

2 
 when you all have a meeting and you decide 

3 
 certain things about the Special Exposure 

4 
 Cohorts, we make sure we flow that information 

5 
 down to all of the stakeholders who we know 

6 
 about who may have an interest in it. 

7 
 In fact, I don't know if I got a 

8 
 different slide on that, but once we know what 

9 
 you're going to be talking about at a Board 

10 
 meeting, we let every local union whose ox 

11 
 could be gored by that topic know, not only 

12 
 that you're going to talk about it, know when 

13 
 you're scheduled to talk about it, and if and 

14 
 when there are materials posted that pertain 

15 
 to that, we get those out to them so they can 

16 look at those in advance, okay? 

17 
 And sometimes we broker the 

18 
 information. We broker questions coming back. 

19 
 MR. LEWIS: When we get the NIOSH 

20 
 updates and we see something on there that 

21 
 pertains to somebody, we get a hold of them at 

22 the same time too. 

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166 

1 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: National 

2 
 organizations, we deal with the metal trades 

3 
 department of the AFL-CIO. We deal with the 

4 
 safety and health departments of the 

5 
 international unions that represent the 

6 
 workers at these sites. We deal with national 

7 
 building trades and the CPWR, the Center for, 

8 
 whatever CPWR is called today. Well, they 

9 
 don't call it that anymore, it's the Center 

10 for Construction and Research and --

11 MS. ELLIOTT: Training. 

12 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Something like 

13 that. 

14 
 MS. ELLIOTT: Research and training 

15 I think. 

16 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay, Mary. Our 

17 
 process at AWE sites, and J.J. just asked us 

18 
 about a couple AWE sites a couple weeks ago, 

19 
 about what the local organizations are. Okay. 

20 
 So the first thing we do, we use our skills 

21 
 to identify what we think are the local 

22 
 organizations and then we use our networks and 

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167 

1 
 our connections to identify the key people. 

2 
 An example, J.J. asked us about a 

3 
 couple locations recently where they had been 

4 
 rolling uranium, okay, steel pipes where they 

5 
 had been rolled in uranium. So we figured out 

6 
 that these were both steelworkers locals, one 

7 
 has been defunct since the 1960s, one is 

8 
 actually still in operating health, okay? 

9 
 We've worked with the steelworkers, 

10 
 steelworkers have an organization called SOAR, 

11 
 which is Steelworkers Organization of Active 

12 
 Retirees, that has chapters in a number of 

13 
 areas around the country. So we've reached 

14 
 through that organization, so we're ready, if 

15 
 NIOSH pulls the trigger on this, to start 

16 working at the local level. 

17 
 And again, we have to explain all 

18 
 this. We have to teach. There's an awful lot 

19 
 of teaching that goes on daily on this, 

20 
 because this is not something that's in a lot 

21 
 of people's -- when there was oil, chemical, 

22 
 and atomic workers union, and even when there 

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168 

1 
 was PACE at the beginning of this, there were 

2 
 people in the national organization who were 

3 
 more attuned to this because the Department of 

4 
 Energy was a bigger part of that 

5 
 organization's life. 

6 
 Now, with the steelworkers, the 

7 
 safety and health people at the national level 

8 
 all come out of the industrial side, okay? So 

9 
 there's more of an education process that's 

10 
 involved and forget it when you start dealing 

11 
 with the Teamsters and some of the other 

12 
 internationals that we deal with. Okay. 

13 
 Everything works better when you have an 

14 organization. 

15 MR. KATZ: Even the phone. 

16 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: And one, it doesn't 

17 
 have to be a union, okay? Unions are the most 

18 
 convenient. For the non-health physics 

19 
 people, the unions are the most convenient. 

20 
 But we have found retiree organizations, just 

21 
 sometimes informal retiree clubs. That's, 

22 
 basically, what Mark found up at Joslyn, was 

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169 

1 
 just a bunch of guys who get together once a 

2 
 month for breakfast, okay, and we work with 

3 
 them. 

4 
 Down in Pinellas, we found -- and 

5 
 that's primarily a professional employees 

6 
 group down there, but we found some folks that 

7 
 got together twice a year for a dinner dance. 

8 
 And we went and we sat in the living room of 

9 
 the people who ran this and they got on the 

10 
 phone with another guy, who maintained a 

11 
 mailing list on some old 1990s technology 

12 spreadsheet, and he gave us the mailing list. 

13 
 So we had an organization to work 

14 
 with and we had a place. We had the worker 

15 
 outreach meetings at the same place that they 

16 danced so they could find it. 

17 
 MR. LEWIS: And then subsequent 

18 
 meetings there, not just us, so other people 

19 do that. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: So before you move 

21 
 on, let's say SC&A is going into a place and 

22 
 they're going to do some document review, do 

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170 

1 
 you have a contact number where, like, let's 

2 
 say Lynn is doing that, heading to Kansas City 

3 
 looking for retirees, would you share that 

4 
 information if you had contacts? 

5 
 MR. LEWIS: Yes. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: I don't know if 

7 
 that's viable, but it sounds like --

8 
 MS. AYERS: I've been thinking the 

9 
 same thing for the last 15 minutes. 

10 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay. At the 

11 
 Kansas City plant, about 90 percent of the 

12 
 hourly workers are organized by the machinists 

13 union. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

15 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay? So the first 

16 
 stop is with the leadership of the machinists 

17 union. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

19 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: And the thing is, 

20 
 yes, and then you tell them what you need and 

21 then they can help you reach out. 

22 
 CHAIR BEACH: So I understand all 

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171 

1 
 that, so what I'm asking then is, if someone 

2 
 like Lynn, if she's organizing something, 

3 
 could she contact you, Vern, or Mark to say --

4 
 MS. LIN: And I think it should go 

5 
 to DFO and also to NIOSH. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: That's my question. 

7 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay. Well, the 

8 
 protocol, and J.J., or David, will tell us 

9 
 what the protocol is, but yes, there's always 

10 
 an issue of a contractor contacting another 

11 
 contractor, but certainly, you know, whatever 

12 the proper channel is, certainly --

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: That's what I was 

14 asking. 

15 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: -- we share the 

16 
 information we know. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. 

18 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: There's a group 

19 called the JOTC, Joint --

20 MR. LEWIS: Outreach Task Group. 

21 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: -- Outreach Task 

22 
 Group, okay, that is Department of Labor, 

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172 

1 
 NIOSH participates, Chris participates, 

2 
 Department of Energy participates, and NIOSH 

3 
 got us involved. Without having an 

4 
 organization, okay, folks think that they can 

5 
 just do a mailing or put an ad in the 

6 
 newspaper and get a group, and people will 

7 
 respond. 

8 
 And sometimes the JOTG has held 

9 
 outreach meetings where there were more feds 

10 
 than there were people in the audience, okay? 

11 
 There's another way to do that, but yes, if 

12 
 you want to go to Kansas City, you should talk 

13 
 to the machinists and the guards, and the 

14 
 guards union has office space right in the 

15 machinists' hall. 

16 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I wasn't just 

17 talking about Kansas City, there's --

18 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Well, yes, but as 

19 an example. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Is there a protocol, 

21 
 which Jenny said, getting with NIOSH --

22 anyway. 

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173 

1 
 MR. LEWIS: I know, recently, can 

2 
 we mention W.R. Grace where we was asked to 

3 
 help -- you guys found them anyway, didn't 

4 
 you, Joe? 

5 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, yes. Ron 

6 
 Buchanan had the question of, you know, what 

7 
 would be the entry point? And I think that 

8 
 was coordinated through NIOSH and then through 

9 
 you all, so that's how that worked. 

10 
 MR. SUNDIN: I mean, just to 

11 
 clarify my understanding, is the contractor 

12 
 always the contact there at the government 

13 
 side, the contractor's technical 

14 
 representative, in this case it would be Ted 

15 
 for SC&A, and then he would contact his 

16 
 counterpart for the COTR for ATL and say, hey, 

17 
 this is what's happening, so it just keeps 

18 everybody sort of --

19 MR. LEWIS: That's how we do it. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Makes sense. 

21 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay. Every site 

22 
 is different. History influences how people 

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174 

1 
 respond to this outreach. You folks see it 

2 
 when you go around the country. The approach 

3 
 of people at a place like Los Alamos or Rocky, 

4 
 is very different from the response at a place 

5 
 like Brookhaven or Savannah River. I think it 

6 
 has a lot to do with people's historic, over 

7 
 the last several decades, relationship with 

8 
 the Department of Energy contractor and how 

9 
 that has influenced their outlook, okay. 

10 
 I have, on both coasts, contacted 

11 
 organizations to start to explain this 

12 
 process, and the union people told me, we 

13 
 don't have a problem. If we had a problem, 

14 
 management would have told us, okay? That's 

15 
 not what you hear at Rocky or some of the 

16 other sites. 

17 
 So there's a big cultural 

18 
 difference at these sites in terms of how 

19 
 people respond to this program. And in terms 

20 
 of organizations, if you go into a site like 

21 
 Oak Ridge, and we deal with the unions in Oak 

22 
 Ridge, the Knoxville unions, the Oak Ridge 

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1 
 sites are an important part of their business, 

2 
 okay. 

3 
 You got to Santa Susana, it's the 

4 
 LA building trades. It's not as important. 

5 
 You even go into Las Vegas today and the test 

6 
 site is not as important. Well, now it may 

7 
 be, but before the housing bust, the test site 

8 
 just wasn't as much of a focus because they 

9 
 were building like crazy, so the test site 

10 
 wasn't as much of a focus of that union's 

11 activity as it once had been. 

12 
 So these are all the things that 

13 
 you have to kind of appreciate as you do this 

14 
 outreach work. Oh, and we have one more. 

15 
 This is the part that you see. This is the 

16 
 part that you folks see and this is really 

17 
 what, primarily, Mark and Mary do. I want to 

18 say something about the venue. 

19 
 We were, at one point, questioned 

20 
 or criticized because we were using union 

21 
 halls for meetings and there was an inference 

22 
 that we were doing it just in order to save 

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176 

1 
 NIOSH money. But in fact, we try and do a 

2 
 venue that is comfortable, familiar and 

3 
 convenient for the folks, and that's usually a 

4 
 union hall. 

5 
 It's usually handicapped-accessible 

6 
 because they're usually one-story buildings. 

7 
 What happens if you don't do it that way, Mark 

8 
 had a meeting set up for the Joslyn workers at 

9 
 the place where they had breakfast, okay? We 

10 
 knew they'd be able to find it. Two weeks 

11 
 before the meeting, that restaurant went out 

12 of business. 

13 
 MR. LEWIS: The manager calling me 

14 
 up says they had a power loss and they didn't 

15 
 want to redo the contract, or the lease of the 

16 building, and just closed it up. 

17 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: But we moved it to 

18 
 a hotel, maybe a mile away, and some of the 

19 
 folks didn't find it. All right? Our 

20 
 attendance suffered because we didn't have it 

21 
 in the place they were used to going. We are 

22 
 respectful of people's sensitivities, or the 

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177 

1 
 local sensitivities, and local issues. We 

2 
 always try and look at these through the eyes 

3 
 of the participants. 

4 
 MR. LEWIS: And that part of 

5 
 respect there with Joslyn, I just mentioned 

6 
 it, that a guy come to my mind. He had all 

7 
 kinds of information. He worked in the 

8 
 covered period. I knew his name. He would 

9 
 not give me his phone number. Says he don't 

10 
 give his phone number out. I didn't get it. 

11 
 I didn't get off nobody, so I respected his 

12 
 wishes, but at the same time, his story never 

13 
 got told, but I heard it that one day, but, 

14 you know, that was it. 

15 
 He just said, no, won't give out my 

16 
 phone number. I said, okay, sir. Thank you, 

17 
 and shook his hand, and got along fine, but he 

18 wouldn't give me his phone number. 

19 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Okay. And finally, 

20 
 we run it as a meeting, okay? It's not just a 

21 
 bunch of people sitting around. It's a 

22 
 meeting that has a beginning, a middle, and an 

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178 

1 
 end. We know what we have to do to start it. 

2 
 The health physicists develop an agenda, they 

3 
 develop a set of questions that they want to 

4 
 get answers to, and in a setting like that, 

5 
 sometimes it takes a referee, because you can 

6 
 get two, three people -- at Nuclear Metals, we 

7 
 have five or six people who wanted to talk at 

8 
 once. 

9 
 So you've got to have somebody 

10 
 referee the meeting, just as you would a 

11 
 meeting of any organization, a homeowners 

12 
 association, or anything else, okay? That's 

13 what I got. 

14 
 MR. FITZGERALD: In terms of lines 

15 
 of inquiry, are you saying that health 

16 
 physicists would identify certain issues that 

17 they would like raised? 

18 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes. 

19 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you do the 

20 raising for them? 

21 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: Generally not, and 

22 
 Mark can speak to Rocky, I wasn't there, but 

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179 

1 
 the health physicists who -- at Nuclear 

2 
 Metals, Ed from ORAU came in with -- he had a 

3 
 set of questions, okay? And he actually 

4 
 passed it out so people could follow along. 

5 
 And we went through question by question. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: He set it up and 

7 
 organized it, but if there's technical issues 

8 
 to be raised, you have somebody to do that 

9 
 part of it. 

10 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes. There's, 

11 
 typically, two health physicists, at least, 

12 
 but typically, somebody from NIOSH and 

13 
 somebody from ORAU, and they'll ask the 

14 
 questions in their terms and they're listening 

15 for the answer. 

16 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. That's kind 

17 
 of important just knowing what they're after. 

18 Okay. 

19 
 MR. JOHNSON: And many times also, 

20 
 questions will be developed and Vern will look 

21 
 at them and make them more to the level of the 

22 folks that we're working with. 

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1 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Exactly. If you 

2 
 can't understand them. 

3 
 MR. MCDOUGALL: But J.J. makes a 

4 
 good point, it's a question of culture, it's a 

5 
 question of vocabulary, okay? And again, 

6 
 especially when you're dealing with AWE folks, 

7 
 the jargon of health physics is, you know, you 

8 
 know exactly what you're saying; they don't. 

9 
 They don't know what a health physicist is 

10 necessarily. 

11 
 Actually, the Nuclear Metals people 

12 
 hadn't seen -- they didn't see a health 

13 physicist for the first ten or more years. 

14 
 MR. LEWIS: It's just more or less, 

15 
 being a good moderator, knowing that your body 

16 
 language, also, is just as powerful as your 

17 
 words, being courteous to people, making sure 

18 
 you know the local politics. Sometimes, like 

19 
 we had at Rocky, there was one lady they 

20 
 didn't want on the site, you know, in the 

21 
 interview there, that showed up, but kind of 

22 
 got to know what, you got to know, not kind 

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181 

1 
 of, who's welcome for the host that hosts the 

2 
 meeting; who they want there and who they 

3 
 don't; who they perceive as, you know, their 

4 
 allies or not allies. 

5 
 You know, they don't want someone 

6 
 that they think is working against the good of 

7 
 their people coming into their own place 

8 
 saying something, you know? So that's kind of 

9 
 the, just, background work. You need to know 

10 
 that. That's important too, otherwise, it 

11 
 leaves a bad taste in their mouth, that if you 

12 
 make the people you're trying to help mad, you 

13 know? 

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

15 
 MR. LEWIS: But Mary always --

16 
 that's when she mentions about things being 

17 
 recorded at the beginning of the meeting, as 

18 
 Vern alluded to, you know like that. There's 

19 
 a lot to do for the meeting itself. You know, 

20 
 setting everything up is one thing, but the 

21 
 bread and butter is the meeting and getting 

22 the information to and from the people. 

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182 

1 
 And I like doing them. I'll tell 

2 
 you, I like it. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, thank you. A 

4 
 long-awaited presentation. It is good to know 

5 
 what you're doing behind the scenes. I think 

6 
 it was helpful for me. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. I thought that was 

8 
 very enlightening. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Very much so. 

10 
 All right. Anything else on that? All right. 

11 
 So then the next -- actually, do we have 

12 
 phones. 

13 
 MR. KATZ: We're offline. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, we are offline. 

15 
 MR. KATZ: This one died as well. 

16 
 CHAIR BEACH: I suspected that. 

17 
 MR. KATZ: Unceremonious death. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So Chris, we 

19 
 had you on the list for an update on ten-year 

20 
 

21 
 MS. ELLISON: On the action items? 

22 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And you want to 

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183 

1 
 do a real quick background and then where 

2 
 you're at, where you're going? 

3 
 MS. ELLISON: Sure. I can do that. 

4 
 You know, part of the ten-year review, one of 

5 
 the pieces that they looked at was the quality 

6 
 of service that is provided under the program 

7 
 and from the report that was generated, they 

8 
 developed a set of action items. 

9 
 And for the quality of service, 

10 
 there were four action items, and so that's 

11 
 what we'll discuss here a little bit. 

12 
 Progress, or what we've completed, under those 

13 action items. 

14 
 The first one, I think we pretty 

15 
 much discussed at length this morning, that 

16 
 was the issues related to the customer17 
 supplied information, so I'm not going to go 

18 
 back over that because it was the same thing 

19 
 that was discussed at length this morning 

20 there. 

21 
 The next action item was issues 

22 
 related to the understandability and quality 

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184 

1 
 of information. And the action was that DCAS 

2 
 will continue ongoing efforts to evaluate and 

3 
 improve the understandability and quality of 

4 
 DCAS communication vehicles. 

5 
 And that was pretty much completed 

6 
 at this time, in that, we've reviewed the 

7 
 letters and the fact sheets. We've made 

8 
 updates to some of those items. One of the 

9 
 items that is on the long-range target is the 

10 
 dose reconstruction report, but from the 

11 
 beginning of the program until now, it's 

12 
 important to note that ORAU has made 

13 modifications to the report. 

14 
 If you look at a dose 

15 
 reconstruction report that was done as far 

16 
 back, maybe, as three or four years ago and 

17 
 compare that to one completed in the beginning 

18 
 of the program, and one now, you can see a 

19 
 progression of how they have taken it upon 

20 
 themselves to change, but there are plans and 

21 
 hopes to look at that dose reconstruction 

22 
 report and see where we can update and make it 

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185 

1 
 a little bit more understandable, a little bit 

2 
 more easy to understand, user-friendly. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: That's important. 

4 
 MS. ELLISON: That is on the long5 
 range target out there. The next action item 

6 
 or issue relates to the access of information. 

7 
 And this one is pretty much an ongoing effort 

8 
 because in it, it does say the DFO and staff 

9 
 will continue efforts to see that the Board 

10 
 and Work Group products are posted to the Web 

11 site as soon as practical. 

12 
 And, you know, we have always 

13 
 maintained that we will try to get it up there 

14 
 as soon as possible, hopefully, within a 24-

15 
 hour period of receiving it. It is important 

16 
 to note that we do have a 2:30 deadline for 

17 
 when we can send stuff, even though we in DCAS 

18 
 do the work to update the web pages, we still 

19 
 have to send those files forward to the NIOSH 

20 Web team, who then will post it. 

21 
 And then CDC server only sweeps and 

22 
 picks up those updates every two hours. So 

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186 

1 
 it's not like we can update the page and get 

2 
 it up there immediately. And I know sometimes 

3 
 we get crunched with things sent to us kind of 

4 
 at the last minute and we didn't get it up 

5 
 there as soon as we can, but there are those 

6 
 processes that we have to go through. 

7 
 I just want to kind of get that out 

8 
 there so people are aware of some of that. 

9 
 Some recent activity on the website, we're 

10 
 still trying, I believe last time I had 

11 
 mentioned that we had redone the Board page, 

12 
 and that's pretty well taken care of. And we 

13 
 are also revamping the SEC sections on the 

14 
 individual site pages, and we're still trying 

15 to get to some of those. 

16 
 Something new that has hit our 

17 
 target -- oh, and we also have been putting up 

18 
 a lot of the past White Papers and things. So 

19 
 we're catching up on those and SC&A is well20 
 aware that we can only post 508-compliant 

21 
 documents, and so very good about just sending 

22 us those, which is great. 

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1 
 And one of the new things that has 

2 
 hit recently that will be a target for the 

3 
 website, that will take some time to do is, 

4 
 HHS has mandated that by April of 2013, every 

5 
 web page, every file, must be 100 percent 508 

6 
 compliant. So right now, we're going to have 

7 
 to shift some of our efforts into ensuring 

8 
 that the web pages are compliant, and more 

9 
 importantly, the PDFs. 

10 
 So that probably hit within the 

11 
 past week. So I think that's about all I have 

12 
 on that. I should have asked if there were 

13 
 any questions so far? And if not, moving on 

14 
 to the fourth one, which is issues related to 

15 
 the perceived burden on claimants and 

16 
 petitioners. And at current time, this one I 

17 
 see as being completed. We've updated the 

18 
 CATI information on the web and the letters 

19 that go to them. 

20 
 And also, we've updated SEC letters 

21 
 and provided more information. And I know, 

22 
 from talking with Josh Kinman, our SEC 

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188 

1 
 petition counselor, he has received some 

2 
 comments back from a couple of the petitioners 

3 
 thanking him for the letters because they do 

4 
 provide people with so much information, that 

5 
 they're easy to understand, so we've gotten a 

6 
 little bit of feedback from a couple of 

7 
 petitioners at least. 

8 
 And I know one of them came early 

9 
 on when we had first changed the letter, so 

10 
 this person had received a couple of the 

11 
 standard letters, the old letters, and then 

12 
 the next letter was one of the new ones, and 

13 
 had commented that, hey, this is great 

14 
 information. And, you know, we'll always 

15 
 continue going through the process that we've 

16 
 done in the past, and that is, you know, if we 

17 
 receive a call from someone about the 

18 
 information, they're not understanding things 

19 
 in the letter, they're not understanding 

20 
 things on the web, you know, we have calls, we 

21 
 have email addresses, and we watch those 

22 
 emails addresses, you know, for comments, and 

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189 

1 
 we do take them under consideration, and we'll 

2 
 consider that in the future. 

3 
 However, at the current time, that 

4 
 action item is pretty much complete. That's 

5 
 really about all I have. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Questions, 

7 
 anybody? I guess, from our standpoint, we 

8 
 just continue to hear updates at our meetings. 

9 
 MS. ELLISON: Right. You know, 

10 primarily it'll be the web items. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: So that first item 

12 and then this --

13 
 MS. ELLISON: Oh, yes. I forgot 

14 
 about the first item, because I didn't talk 

15 about it. 

16 
 CHAIR BEACH: And then the second, 

17 
 where you're still updating some of the new --

18 MS. ELLISON: Yes. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Any comments, 

20 
 issues? Okay. Thank you, Chris. So the next 

21 
 one is getting into the review of the 

22 
 implementation plan and the mission statement. 

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190 

1 
 One thing on that, we sent out the 

2 
 presentation that Mike did, I don't know, a 

3 
 year ago. When was this? February of 2009. 

4 
 So the presentation, basically, 

5 
 just went through the entire mission statement 

6 
 and implementation plan, but then on the back 

7 
 there was a couple of pages, future plans, 

8 
 ongoing tasks, recommended actions, I don't 

9 
 know if anybody had a chance to look at all of 

10 that in preparation for this meeting. 

11 
 The ongoing tasks, we've completed 

12 
 most of that work. The one thing I did want 

13 
 to point out on the recommended actions. 

14 
 There was a couple of bullets. The first one 

15 
 has been completed. The second one, because 

16 
 of the continuous nature of activities 

17 
 stipulated in this implementation plan, the 

18 
 Worker Outreach Work Group requests, that the 

19 
 Group function be elevated to a Subcommittee 

20 level. 

21 
 And I just wanted to have a brief 

22 
 discussion on that and see what people's 

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191 

1 
 thoughts were. I don't see that happening, 

2 
 but since it was, as an action, I thought 

3 
 maybe we should put that to rest or whatever. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. You can put it to 

5 
 rest. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I assumed we 

7 
 would, but I always just --

8 
 MR. KATZ: Well, this was a desire 

9 
 of Mike's. I'm not sure what his interest in 

10 it was. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, we had talked 

12 about it early on. 

13 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. He felt like 

15 
 there would be enough to continue it, but, 

16 
 yes, I don't see that. But if I'm going to 

17 
 report out, I wanted to kind of clarify some 

18 of that. 

19 
 MR. KATZ: Sure. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: And the 

21 
 implementation plan, too, if we make changes, 

22 
 this was approved and voted on by the full 

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192 

1 
 Board, so I'm assuming we'd have to do that 

2 
 again if we decide to make any changes? I 

3 
 guess I'm asking for that. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: Yes, but I don't think 

5 
 you necessarily need the Board's approval to 

6 
 change your plans. I mean, the Board gave you 

7 
 a broad charter and you came back and gave 

8 
 them a lot of detail, which is sort of 

9 
 unusual. Most Work Groups don't go back to 

10 
 the Board and lay out how they're doing their 

11 
 work like this Work Group has, but you're 

12 
 certainly welcome to update them on your 

13 plans. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

15 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, I think it's a 

16 
 good thing to keep the Board up to date on 

17 what your focus is. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Well, I kind of 

19 
 inherited some of this, so I guess I was part 

20 
 of the decision-making, but I guess I'm 

21 
 looking for some direction from this Work 

22 
 Group of what our direction should be or are 

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193 

1 
 there any future thoughts that anyone might 

2 
 have? Wanda, Phil? 

3 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Go ahead, Wanda. 

4 
 MEMBER MUNN: An observation, I 

5 
 suppose, there was an original concern about 

6 
 the level of effectiveness of worker outreach 

7 
 from all aspects of the Board and NIOSH 

8 
 activity. I think a fairly good job has been 

9 
 done of not only looking at that, but also 

10 
 documenting. Where we've been, where we 

11 
 wanted to go, and most of the actions that 

12 
 we've specified as being desirable have, in 

13 fact, been undertaken and are in process. 

14 
 It seems that we have not 

15 
 identified any major concern with worker 

16 
 outreach that hasn't been addressed in some 

17 
 way. I agree with Ted that the second bullet 

18 
 can be put to rest, that does not appear to 

19 
 rise to the level of need that an ongoing 

20 process would require. 

21 
 If we have other aspects of this 

22 
 process that are identified as perceived 

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194 

1 
 shortcomings, then we certainly can address 

2 
 those at a future date. It's easy enough that 

3 
 we constitute the organizational group here. 

4 
 But I don't see any new concerns 

5 
 that have not been identified. I think that's 

6 
 the big question; do we have outstanding 

7 
 concerns that haven't been identified? I 

8 
 personally don't see any. I'm content with 

9 
 the course that we've taken here and with the 

10 
 items that we have documented and have moved 

11 forward on. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

13 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: And I feel that, 

14 
 basically, as far as what ATL, NIOSH, and 

15 
 everybody is doing is pretty good. You know, 

16 
 really, the biggest thing is the lack of 

17 
 ability to go back and look at the comments to 

18 
 see if those things have actually been 

19 addressed in some way. 

20 
 And it seems like to me, that's all 

21 
 come together and it's coming together real 

22 
 well, that that can be researched very easily 

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195 

1 
 if somebody wants to know or has a need to 

2 
 know, but I think it's pretty well set in 

3 
 order. We'll need some monitoring every now 

4 
 and then to make sure we're still there. 

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So should we 

6 
 get into the mission -- well, the mission 

7 
 statement, I don't know if anyone had a chance 

8 
 to look at it. I did and didn't see that it 

9 
 really needed to be updated or modified, but 

10 
 that was just my thought. And what about the 

11 
 actual steps? Did anybody have a chance to go 

12 
 through it and make any judgments or thoughts? 

13 
 I know we did say we were going to 

14 
 focus on the Objective 3. So I guess, let's 

15 
 just start there. Evaluation Objective 3, 

16 
 determine whether that OCAS, but we know that 

17 
 it's now DCAS, is giving thorough 

18 
 consideration to information received from 

19 
 workers through the worker outreach efforts, 

20 
 incorporating consideration of that material 

21 
 into the work products as appropriate and 

22 
 adequately communicating the impact of the 

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196 

1 
 substance, comments to workers. 

2 
 After the Rocky Flat pilot review, 

3 
 I guess, Ted, I want a little more information 

4 
 on the bullet we were talking about, and I 

5 
 think it was -- is it the second to the last 

6 
 bullet, how is feedback provided to the 

7 
 workers in response to their comments? 

8 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. And it also is in 

9 
 that paragraph that you just read, and 

10 
 communicating feedback to the workers on it, 

11 
 and that's, again, those are both elements 

12 
 that are really service elements as opposed to 

13 
 elements of evaluating quality of science and 

14 so on. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: So what's changed 

16 
 from when we developed this, then, on that 

17 aspect? 

18 
 MR. KATZ: So, I mean, we just 

19 
 didn't really focus on this, but it's beyond 

20 
 the scope, really, of the Board, and it's 

21 
 beyond the scope of the SC&A contract as an 

22 
 issue, I mean, because SC&A's contract really 

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197 

1 
 parrots the Board's charter. And it's not a 

2 
 priority to -- it's a priority for DCAS to be 

3 
 concerned about the quality of the service and 

4 
 education for workers, but that's just not the 

5 
 Board's business. 

6 
 And as I said, I mean, I think at 

7 
 any point, DCAS can ask the Board for its 

8 
 feedback, input on that matter, but it's not 

9 
 something for the Board to take on its own 

10 initiative to evaluate. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So that means 

12 we would need to rewrite the objective? 

13 
 MR. KATZ: So it's just shaving off 

14 
 that last element. I mean, it's not spending 

15 
 the resources to look at the feedback, 

16 
 timeliness, effectiveness of feedback, however 

17 
 that's worded in the paragraph and in the 

18 
 bullet. I mean, that's the only piece. That 

19 can just come out. 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. We've got 

21 
 determining whether DCAS is giving thorough 

22 
 consideration to information received from 

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198 

1 
 workers. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: Right and that's 

3 
 important. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: That's okay. Through 

5 
 the worker outreach efforts, so that's 

6 
 important. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. All that's good. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: Incorporating 

9 
 consideration of that material into the work 

10 products. 

11 
 MR. KATZ: Right. And that's all 

12 
 exactly on target in terms of what the Board's 

13 charge is. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So then the 

15 
 part, as appropriate and adequately 

16 
 communicating the impact of the substance, so 

17 that's the section we're talking about. 

18 
 MR. KATZ: Right. It's 

19 
 communicating the impact back to workers. I 

20 
 mean, again, it's not like that's irrelevant 

21 
 for DCAS whatsoever, because I think it's very 

22 
 important for them. It just doesn't fall 

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199 

1 
 under the Board's charge. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I'm waiting 

3 
 for my wordsmither to chime in here, but she's 

4 
 being silent. Okay. So then if we put a 

5 
 period after work products, does that cover 

6 
 it? 

7 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So then we get 

9 
 to examine the process by which DCAS and its 

10 contractors evaluate worker input. 

11 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: First bullet, how 

13 
 does DCAS catalog and consider worker input 

14 
 for inclusion into the technical documents, 

15 
 such as Site Profiles, SEC Evaluation Reports. 

16 That one's okay? 

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: So maybe we just go 

19 through the ones that aren't okay. 

20 
 MS. LIN: Josie, why don't we go 

21 through each one. 

22 
 MR. KATZ: I don't have it in front 

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200 

1 
 of me. 

2 
 MS. AYERS: Yes, I don't think I 

3 
 do. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: You want to? Okay. 

5 
 MS. LIN: Yes. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: So the first one's 

7 
 okay. The second one, what criteria are used 

8 
 to identify comments that deserve 

9 
 consideration for a response or action by 

10 NIOSH. 

11 MR. KATZ: Yes. That's good. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Third bullet. 

13 
 Are the appropriate personnel evaluating the 

14 comments received. 

15 MR. KATZ: That's still good. 

16 CHAIR BEACH: Still good? 

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Were follow-up 

19 
 discussions held with participants providing 

20 substantive comments when necessary? 

21 
 MR. KATZ: That's following up on 

22 
 information they've provided. It's still 

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201 

1 
 probably good. Yes, I have to say, for 

2 
 example, that one that we just mentioned, are 

3 
 the appropriate personnel considering the 

4 
 comments, isn't something that we've looked 

5 
 at. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, that's why I 

7 
 kept hesitating a little bit. 

8 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. And, I mean, I 

9 
 don't know about Joe's opinion, but at the end 

10 
 of the day, it's really more an issue of -- I 

11 
 mean, they're not going to go dog down who 

12 
 actually considered the particular comments, 

13 
 they're going to dog down were the comments 

14 
 considered taken into account? I mean, 

15 
 regardless of who did it, I mean, so I'm not 

16 sure that they're going to --

17 
 MR. FITZGERALD: I was thinking 

18 
 that this really spoke to whether some of 

19 
 these issues where the health physicists 

20 
 actually had a chance to decide if the comment 

21 
 was substantive or not, or whether it was just 

22 not getting to the technical staff. 

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1 
 MR. KATZ: Right. No, and then 

2 
 that came up in a discussion as a question. 

3 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And it has come 

4 
 up. Yes, I think that's what that means. 

5 
 MR. KATZ: Right. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And that has come 

7 
 up. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: So does it need to be 

9 
 worded different? 

10 
 MR. KATZ: All I was saying about 

11 
 that is, I don't think we've really made an 

12 
 effort to sleuth out that issue as to whether 

13 
 the information is getting to the health 

14 
 physicist. But given all that's transpired 

15 
 since then, it doesn't seem like that's sort 

16 
 of a front-burner concern. 

17 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, as it turns 

18 
 out, it hasn't been. I guess it was a 

19 
 question going in and after having spent all 

20 
 that time with Rocky, I would say we haven't 

21 
 found any instances where, you know, a 

22 
 technical issue wasn't getting to a technical 

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203 

1 
 person. I guess that was the original --

2 
 MR. KATZ: Right. That was exactly 

3 
 the issue up front, so I'm not sure that it's 

4 
 something that we need to worry about in terms 

5 
 of our sleuthing, because, really, we're just 

6 
 more interested in, were the comments taken 

7 
 into account, regardless of --

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: So it's okay the way 

9 
 it stands? 

10 MR. KATZ: So it could be dropped 

11 
 out. It's not really being used, is what I'm 

12 saying. It wasn't used and isn't being used. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And I was 

14 hearing a little bit of --

15 
 MS. AYERS: I think the PR-012, 

16 
 sort of, process kind of addressed it, 

17 
 because, like, from the perspective Joe was 

18 
 saying, is it getting to the technical staff 

19 
 and that Appendix E, you know, describing how 

20 
 the HPs are the ones that are going to -- then 

21 
 it's going to get on to the SRDB and they're 

22 
 going to need to review it. So I think it 

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204 

1 
 hasn't been ignored. I think it was dealt 

2 
 with through that process. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. So early on, it 

4 
 was more of an issue then. Okay. So we can, 

5 
 what do you think, Wanda, take it out? Phil? 

6 
 MEMBER MUNN: I think it can go 

7 
 out, actually. 

8 
 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Take it out. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

10 
 MEMBER MUNN: But it doesn't seem 

11 to gain us anything. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: All right. So the 

13 
 next bullet is, were follow-up discussions 

14 
 held with participants providing substantive 

15 
 comments when, and I say that incorrectly, 

16 
 necessary. And we said that was okay? 

17 
 Because we're asking -- well, that's kind of 

18 part of that isn't it? 

19 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, I think what's 

20 
 intended, I don't know how much we've done it, 

21 
 but I think what's intended is, if you get 

22 
 some comments that are substantive, and it's 

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205 

1 
 not enough, did someone follow back with that 

2 
 person to get the whole story, or whatever, 

3 
 right? 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

5 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, that's sort of 

6 
 the idea I think. 

7 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think that 

8 
 one, in particular, is an important one 

9 
 because some of these issues, at face value, 

10 
 almost necessitate some kind of follow-up just 

11 to understand exactly what the problem is. 

12 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

13 
 MR. FITZGERALD: In some cases, 

14 
 that was done very well. In most cases, it 

15 
 was done very well, but a lot of these 

16 
 questions can't be answered that quickly the 

17 first time around. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And the next 

19 
 bullet, what processes or procedures are in 

20 
 place to ensure that NIOSH is following up on 

21 the response action items. 

22 
 MR. KATZ: Well, that's still good. 

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206 

1 
 CHAIR BEACH: It's still good. And 

2 
 the next bullet, how is feedback provided to 

3 
 the workers in response to their comments. 

4 
 MR. KATZ: And that's the part that 

5 
 can drop off. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And next 

7 
 bullet is, did DCAS conduct research to 

8 
 evaluate substantive comments, you guys 

9 
 understand what I'm saying, by participants 

10 
 and assess their impact on NIOSH documents, 

11 processes, and procedures. 

12 MR. KATZ: Yes, and that's good. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: That one's good. 

14 
 Okay. And then we talk about, conduct a 

15 
 systematic review or worker outreach databases 

16 
 at a point in time in relationship to the 

17 
 impact on technical documents. Select a 

18 
 sample of Site Profiles, SEC Evaluation 

19 
 Reports where worker outreach meetings have 

20 
 been done to document whether and how worker 

21 
 input has been considered and include and 

22 evaluate if exclusions were appropriate. 

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207 

1 
 MR. KATZ: And that's ongoing. 

2 
 We're still doing it. And I think that's sort 

3 
 of the heart of, you know, what this Work 

4 
 Group is doing. 

5 
 MS. LIN: And maybe the Work Group 

6 
 would consider at what point do you have a 

7 
 certain comfort level that you can consider 

8 
 your mission fulfilled. 

9 
 MR. KATZ: Exactly. 

10 CHAIR BEACH: At some point. 

11 
 MR. KATZ: Right. So you're going 

12 
 to do the LANL, and after LANL, you may want 

13 
 to re-evaluate, how much more do we need to 

14 know --

15 CHAIR BEACH: Right,. 

16 
 MR. KATZ: -- as to, is the system 

17 working? Are the trains running --

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

19 
 MR. KATZ: -- or not? 

20 
 CHAIR BEACH: Absolutely. Okay. 

21 
 So next bullet is, were the action items in 

22 
 OTS or responses in WISPR and the predecessor 

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208 

1 
 databases appropriate to the comments 

2 
 received. That is ongoing. Everything's been 

3 
 transferred from WISPR into OTS, right? 

4 
 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, we've been told 

5 
 that's true. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Last meeting, so I 

7 
 guess my question is, can we drop WISPRs off 

8 
 of here or do we just leave it and move on? 

9 
 MR. KATZ: I mean, I think the only 

10 
 thing that remains on that front is 

11 development of this new tracking database. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: Which is future. 

13 That's in the future. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. You want to stick 

15 
 with that issue, the new tracking, you know, 

16 
 sort of, meta-tracking database that's being 

17 developed, tracking system. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: So do we want to add 

19 
 that then? 

20 
 MR. KATZ: Yes, I mean, I think 

21 
 that sort of replaces what you've already 

22 completed. 

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209 

1 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I want to keep 

2 
 the, were the actions in OTIS, because I think 

3 
 we still want to look at that so that anything 

4 
 new, is it being placed in there, and then how 

5 
 would we write it for the --

6 
 MR. KATZ: We don't have a name 

7 
 yet, do we? 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: No, we don't. 

9 
 MR. KATZ: We don't have a name for 

10 the new tracking system for --

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Future tracking 

12 system --

13 MR. KATZ: -- worker comments. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

15 
 MS. AYERS: The integrated tracking 

16 system. 

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So next bullet 

19 
 is, were recurrent issues appropriately 

20 
 responded to. That one's Dave's. Were 

21 
 comments applicable to the DOL portion of the 

22 process forwarded to DOL for consideration? 

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210 

1 
 MEMBER MUNN: We've discussed that 

2 
 many times and I thought that we had reached 

3 
 the conclusion that it's neither our purview 

4 
 to tell DOL what to do or to point out their 

5 
 shortcomings. I thought we had reached that 

6 
 agreement, perhaps I'm incorrect. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean, I think 

8 
 what many Work Groups have learned is that, I 

9 
 mean, DCAS does a pretty good job of sending 

10 
 up to DOL and DOE issues as they find them 

11 
 that are germane to -- for example, you know, 

12 
 site definition, you know, period of time, 

13 
 that coverage, and all that. They seem to, 

14 essentially, be a pretty solid system. 

15 
 CHAIR BEACH: So did we have any 

16 
 issues with that, Joe or Lynn, for Rocky or 

17 was it just a non -- this last bullet on DOL? 

18 
 MR. FITZGERALD: There were only a 

19 
 couple of issues which did not deal with the 

20 
 rad portion and I think we actually cited that 

21 
 as saying that I think the issue there was 

22 
 simply -- you know, it was one of these, it's 

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211 

1 
 not us; was sort of the response. Well, we 

2 
 thought maybe it would be helpful to, you 

3 
 know, have it conveyed to -- but this is five 

4 
 years ago. 

5 
 And, you know, again, I think the 

6 
 recognition is, I think, the Board meetings 

7 
 that I've been at, that happens very quickly 

8 
 now because you have the DOL rep sitting right 

9 
 there. 

10 MEMBER MUNN: Right. He's part of 

11 the response. 

12 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So I think, in the 

13 
 beginning, five years ago, it was a legitimate 

14 
 question raised, but I think it's sort of moot 

15 
 now. I think it's happening, sort of like 

16 
 that one other issue we struck. It's 

17 
 happening and I don't think it's a front18 burner issue anymore. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So what do you 

20 
 say, drop it, everybody, or leave it? It 

21 doesn't matter. 

22 
 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I don't see 

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212 

1 
 that it serves a purpose for us. 

2 
 CHAIR BEACH: I think it's an 

3 
 automatic that it's going to happen. 

4 
 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. Current 

5 
 framework of process. 

6 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So that is 

7 
 Objective 3. How about any additions that we 

8 
 want to make to 3 based on the last pilot? Is 

9 
 there anything that -- and, Joe, maybe you can 

10 give us any ideas? 

11 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the context 

12 
 of Objective 3, you know, I think there's 

13 
 enough there. I mean, it's really the 

14 
 manifest reflection of input in the written 

15 
 documents. And I think, you know, we're 

16 
 familiar with that. That's the main course of 

17 this review. So I think that's enough. 

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

19 
 MR. FITZGERALD: The rest of it's 

20 
 really, you know, how do you get there, you 

21 
 know, process-wise? And I think, there again, 

22 
 we have some experience in that. So I think 

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213 

1 
 we have enough in that objective. A lot of 

2 
 these bullets are really just, sort of, 

3 
 guideposts, things that I think the Work Group 

4 
 thought at the time would be bases to touch in 

5 
 doing the review. 

6 
 But, you know, now that we've been 

7 
 there, we know what bases are important and 

8 
 which ones are less important, so I think 

9 
 that's what you're doing. You're whittling it 

10 down a little bit. 

11 
 MEMBER MUNN: They were items to 

12 look at. 

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Right. 

14 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So what's your 

15 
 thoughts on the rest of this? Start with 

16 
 Objective 1, go through it, or are we good 

17 
 with what we have? And then, Ted, do I need 

18 
 to type this up again or can I have SC&A do it 

19 
 for the changes? Is that something I'll need 

20 to do? 

21 
 MR. KATZ: No, you don't need to do 

22 
 it. SC&A can do that, or I can do that, 

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214 

1 
 anybody, but we can get that done. If SC&A is 

2 
 willing to whittle that down, yes. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: So I can make the 

4 
 changes and send it. Okay. Because, you 

5 
 know, it's DCAS instead of OCAS and those all 

6 
 need to be changed. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: So is there anything 

8 
 left to do under Item 1? 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, the issuance of 

10 PROC-012, I think, took care of --

11 
 MR. KATZ: That's all taken care 

12 of. 

13 
 CHAIR BEACH: -- most of 1. I 

14 
 guess we should go through and check. So 

15 
 determine whether DCAS is taking appropriate 

16 
 measures to solicit worker input into Site 

17 
 Profiles, SEC petitions, evaluations, and 

18 
 other technical documents. How about if you 

19 
 just review, instead of me reading every one 

20 
 of these, just see if there's anything that we 

21 
 still have left to do? Because I think most 

22 
 of these bullets are now covered under PROCNEAL R. GROSS 

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215 

1 
 012. 

2 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

3 
 MR. FITZGERALD: If I can offer, I 

4 
 think, you know, 1 and 2, this was directed to 

5 
 the policy, primarily --

6 
 MR. KATZ: Right. 

7 
 MR. FITZGERALD: -- and now with 

8 
 the policy work pretty much in hand, a lot of 

9 
 this wording is suggesting implementation, 

10 
 which, you know, if you're going to go to 

11 
 worker outreach meetings, for example, or 

12 
 you're going to see what comes out of the 

13 development of this tracking system --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Sure. 

15 
 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you're really 

16 
 looking at how things actually are 

17 
 implemented. So you're moving from, really, 

18 
 looking at the policy side to the 

19 
 implementation side, so that's 1 and 2 become. 

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

21 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And it sounds like 

22 
 you're already equipping yourselves to look at 

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216 

1 
 the outcomes. You know, as things get 

2 
 implemented, you're going to be going to 

3 
 meetings, looking at the tracking system, 

4 
 doing things like that, which, now that PR-012 

5 
 is pretty well set, it's more, how is PR-012 

6 
 being implemented and how is the tracking 

7 
 system being done. 

8 
 I mean, it's all looking at results 

9 
 rather than policy. 

10 MEMBER MUNN: Is it working well? 

11 Yes. It's set up now. 

12 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, some of this 

13 
 deals in, 1, deals with the OTS scheduling and 

14 
 notification system; is it adequate? And I 

15 
 guess, just the ongoing review of sites like 

16 
 LANL will take us into the OTS at some point 

17 there. 

18 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. I think Objective 

19 
 3 ends up being, you know, the game. I mean, 

20 
 I think 1 and 2 you sort of put to bed and as, 

21 
 sort of Joe was saying, on a policy level and 

22 
 it's execution comes out under 3. So I think 

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217 

1 
 3 is really what's left of -- I haven't read 4 

2 
 yet. 

3 
 And 4, too, you've looked at a lot 

4 
 of the communication vehicles. I mean, I'm 

5 
 sure this Work Group would be kept abreast as 

6 
 major changes are made, but you've looked at 

7 
 the most recent improvements. 

8 
 CHAIR BEACH: Well, 4 really gets 

9 
 us just into the ten-year review; a lot of 

10 what's happening there, doesn't it? 

11 
 MR. KATZ: I was just thinking, for 

12 
 example, they had shared with you improvements 

13 in the letters to claimants and --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

15 
 MR. KATZ: And the rest of it is, 

16 yes, quality of service. 

17 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Which I know I 

18 
 Xed out the last three bullets just because --

19 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. So I think 3 is 

20 
 the game. I mean, this could be whittled down 

21 to Objective 3. 

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

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218 

1 
 MR. KATZ: And you could report out 

2 
 on what you've accomplished on the other 

3 
 objectives. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Looks like I 

5 
 have some work to do. 

6 
 MR. KATZ: Well, I think it'll be 

7 
 easy once Joe culls down this plan to its 

8 
 remaining element. 

9 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Okay. 

10 
 MR. KATZ: Are you good? Oh, were 

11 you wondering about --

12 
 MS. AYERS: No. I just wasn't 

13 following what you were saying there. 

14 
 MR. KATZ: Oh, I was just saying, 

15 
 once these four objectives are pulled down to 

16 
 one, which is Objective 3, I mean, you'll 

17 have, sort of, the story. 

18 
 CHAIR BEACH: So you're talking 

19 about the scope and the --

20 
 MR. KATZ: So 1, 2, and 4 are, 

21 basically, you guys have knocked that off --

22 CHAIR BEACH: Right. 

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219 

1 
 MR. KATZ: -- to the extent you 

2 
 will, and your work will be focused on 3, and 

3 
 you can, I think, let the Board know that and 

4 
 the current plan with LANL. 

5 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

6 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And it might just 

7 
 be, sort of, an overview of implementation. 

8 
 You know, LANL is certainly one facet, but, 

9 
 you know, just even talking about things like 

10 
 the tracking system is another facet, it's 

11 
 slightly different, but those are all facets 

12 
 to look at the implementation and how 

13 effective that is. 

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. 

15 
 MR. FITZGERALD: So you could 

16 
 certainly couch it in the context of looking 

17 at implementation as opposed to --

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

19 
 MR. KATZ: Well, did we already 

20 
 report out on Rocky Flats, what we learned 

21 from Rocky Flats? 

22 CHAIR BEACH: No. 

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220 

1 
 MR. KATZ: So that would be a piece 

2 
 of the report too. 

3 
 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. That's a piece 

4 
 of that. We were waiting for NIOSH's piece of 

5 
 it. 

6 
 MR. KATZ: Yes. That's right. 

7 
 CHAIR BEACH: And I don't think 

8 
 we're getting anything else on Rocky Flats, is 

9 
 that what I'm hearing? 

10 MR. FITZGERALD: I think so. 

11 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right. So 

12 
 we have future plans. So other than what 

13 
 we've discussed today, is there any other 

14 
 future plans that -- next steps for worker 

15 
 outreach? I don't think we can actually set 

16 up meeting right now. 

17 
 MR. KATZ: Until we hear back from 

18 Joe on new protocol for the next. 

19 
 CHAIR BEACH: And so we'll do that 

20 
 via email. We probably won't even need a 

21 
 phone call for that, will we, do you think, to 

22 move forward on the second part of --

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221 

1 
 MR. KATZ: No. We may not even 

2 
 need the phone call. If there are issues, it 

3 
 just depends on, after Joe's done his digging, 

4 
 what the issues are. If Joe thinks there are 

5 
 real issues to discuss, we'll set up a 

6 
 teleconference. 

7 
 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think if 

8 
 you decide if it's something that would 

9 
 benefit from a call versus written comments or 

10 
 it might be written comments would be 

11 sufficient. 

12 MR. KATZ: Right. 

13 
 MR. FITZGERALD: And red-line mark 

14 
 it. That kind of thing. We'll see how it 

15 goes. 

16 MR. KATZ: Great. 

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. 

18 
 MS. LIN: I was just coming to the 

19 distribution of --

20 
 MR. KATZ: No. 

21 
 CHAIR BEACH: In the future? Okay. 

22 
 All right. Well, I don't have anything else. 

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222 

1 
 I think we've got a future mapped out. 

2 
 MEMBER MUNN: Pretty well 

3 
 identified, I think. 

4 
 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Well, then I 

5 
 will call this meeting adjourned, if there's 

6 
 no disagreement. 

7 
 MR. KATZ: Thank you. 

8 
 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

9 
 matter went off the record at 2:33 p.m.) 

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