STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTING 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

WORK GROUP MEETING 

NEVADA TEST SITE 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

 

Following is the verbatim transcript of the 

Nevada Test Site Working Group Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held 

in the Suncoast Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, 

on Jan. 7, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

Jan. 7, 2008 

OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS 6 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 

INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR 12 

MR. ROBERT PRESLEY 

ADDRESS BY MR. FUNK 13 

RECAP OF ISSUES 20 

ITEM 11 21 

ITEM 20 85 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 139 

 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 

or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

 -- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 

without reference available. 

-- “^” / (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies 

speaker failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

 P A R T I C I P A N T S 

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

BOARD MEMBERS

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

 

 

MEMBERSHIP

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 
5

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS 

ATOMIC VETERAN VICTIMS OF AMERICA: 

FUNK, JOHN 

HHS: 

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ 

HOWELL, EMILY 

NIOSH: 

ADAMS, NANCY 

CHANG, CHIA-CHIA 

ELLIOTT, LARRY 

NETON, JIM 

ROLFES, MARK 

ORAU: 

CHEW, MEL 

HOFF, JENNIFER 

RICH, BRYCE 

ROLLINS, GENE 

SMITH, BILLY 

SMITH, CHERYL 

ZACCHARO, MARY JO 

SC&A: 

ANSPAUGH, LYNN 

DEMERS, KATHY 

FITZGERALD, JOE 

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN 

MAURO, JOHN 

OSTROW, STEVE 

ZLOTNICKI, JOE 
6

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

2 (7:05 p.m.) 

3 (Note to reader: No audio-visual support was 

4 supplied for this meeting unfortunately. Please 

5 understand the following is the best effort of the 

6 court reporter, given the extremely difficult audio 

7 circumstances. The ^ symbol designates speech lost 

8 due to inaudibility.) 

9 OPENING REMARKS AND INTRODUCTIONS

10 DR. WADE: This is a meeting of the work 

11 group of the Advisory Board. This is the work 

12 group that focuses on the Nevada Test Site 

13 site profile. That work group is chaired by 

14 Mr. Presley, members Clawson, Munn and 

15 Schofield and Roessler. All but Roessler are 

16 in the room. 

17 And, Gen, I understand you’re on the 

18 telephone with us. 

19 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): I’m on the 

20 phone. 

21 DR. WADE: Good. Well, we wish you well and 

22 hope you can hear us. If at any point you 

23 have difficulty, please just holler out, and 

24 we’ll try and reposition the microphones and 

25 encourage the low talkers to speak more 
7

1 forcefully. 

2 I guess we’ll go around and do our 

3 introductions here in this room. Again, 

4 Nevada Test Site site profile. So I would ask 

5 members of the NIOSH/ORAU team or the SC&A 

6 team to identify whether or not they have any 

7 conflicts relative to this site, and we’ll 

8 start in this room. 

9 Again, my name is Lew Wade. I work 

10 for NIOSH and serve the Advisory Board. 

11 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, member of the Board. 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A, no 

13 conflicts. 

14 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A, no conflict. 

15 DR. OSTROW: Steve Ostrow, SC&A, no 

16 conflict. 

17 MR. SCHOFIELD: Phillip Schofield, member of 

18 the Board, no conflicts. 

19 MR. CLAWSON: Brad Clawson, member of the 

20 Advisory Board, no conflicts. 

21 MR. ROLLINS: Gene Rollins, ORAU team, no 

22 conflict. 

23 MR. CHEW: Mel Chew, ^, no conflict. 

24 MR. ROLFES: Mark Rolfes, NIOSH health 

25 physicist, no conflicts. 
8

1 MR. PRESLEY: Robert Presley, member of the 

2 Board, chairman of the working group, no 

3 conflicts. 

4 DR. WADE: Okay, we’re going to start, 

5 please shout out -- 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: Larry Elliott from NIOSH, no 

7 conflicts. 

8 MS. CHANG: Chia-Chia Chang, NIOSH, no 

9 conflict. 

10 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Liz Homoki-Titus, HHS, no 

11 conflicts. 

12 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS, no 

13 conflicts. 

14 DR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH, no conflicts. 

15 MR. SMITH: Billy Smith, O-R-A-U team, 

16 conflicted. 

17 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, contractor from 

18 NIOSH, no conflict. 

19 MR. RICH: Bryce Rich, O-R-A-U team, 

20 conflicted. 

21 MS. DEMERS: Kathy Robertson-DeMers, SC&A, 

22 no conflict. 

23 DR. WADE: Please introduce yourselves, 

24 please. 

25 MR. FUNK: John Funk, Atomic Veteran Victims 
9

1 of America, no conflict. 

2 DR. ANSPAUGH: I’m Lynn Anspaugh, a 

3 consultant to SC&A, conflicted. 

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald, SC&A, no 

5 conflict. 

6 MS. ZACCHARO: Mary Jo Zaccharo, ORAU team, 

7 no conflicts. 

8 DR. WADE: Before I ask for other 

9 introductions on the phone, are there any 

10 other Board members other than Gen Roessler 

11 who are contacted by telephone? 

12 (no response) 

13 DR. WADE: Any other Board members? 

14 (no response) 

15 DR. WADE: Okay, so we don’t have a quorum 

16 of the Board which is good. We can continue 

17 with our work group deliberations. 

18 Let me now ask other members of the 

19 NIOSH/ORAU team who are on the telephone to 

20 identify themselves. Other members -- 

21 MS. SMITH (by Telephone): Cheryl Smith, 

22 ORAU team, no conflict. 

23 DR. WADE: NIOSH/ORAU? 

24 (no response) 

25 DR. WADE: One last time, NIOSH/ORAU? 
10

1 MS. HOFF (by Telephone): Jennifer Hoff, 

2 ORAU team, no conflicts. 

3 DR. WADE: NIOSH/ORAU? 

4 (no response) 

5 DR. WADE: SC&A team? SC&A? 

6 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Joe 

7 Zlotnicki, SC&A team, no conflicts. 

8 DR. WADE: SC&A team members? 

9 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): By the way, 

10 while I’m on -- this is Joe Zlotnicki -- I 

11 probably could only hear one-third of the 

12 people who were named, calling out in the 

13 room. Normally on the conference calls I can 

14 hear everyone. 

15 DR. WADE: Okay, now our configuration here 

16 has certain people at the table, most of the 

17 people away from the table. 

18 Phillip, could you speak a bit? 

19 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, can you hear me from 

20 here? 

21 DR. WADE: Could you hear Phillip Schofield? 

22 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): I could hear 

23 someone was talking, but I couldn’t hear what 

24 was said. 

25 MR. PRESLEY: Could you hear this? Sir? 
11

1 (no response) 

2 DR. WADE: Let’s look at those microphones. 

3 I think the microphones are off. 

4 Can you hear me through this 

5 microphone now? 

6 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): I can, yes. 

7 DR. WADE: We’re just going to have to speak 

8 up. I would ask all of us to speak up. If 

9 need be, we’ll move the microphones. 

10 Let me ask other, any other federal 

11 employees who are on the call participating as 

12 part of their employment? 

13 (no response) 

14 DR. WADE: Other federal employees on the 

15 call? 

16 (no response) 

17 DR. WADE: Are there any workers or 

18 petitioners, claimants, members of Congress or 

19 their representatives on the call who would 

20 like to be identified? 

21 (no response) 

22 DR. WADE: Anyone at all on the call who 

23 would like to be identified? 

24 (no response) 

25 DR. WADE: We’re going to begin. Again, I 
12

1 would ask those of you on the telephone if 

2 you’re not speaking directly or involved 

3 directly, please mute your instrument so we 

4 don’t have any background noise. We will try 

5 and speak up. If anybody out there is 

6 severely limited, just call out, and we’ll try 

7 and do the best we can. I would ask everyone 

8 around the table though to try and use volume 

9 so that those on the telephone can hear us. 

10 Robert, please. 

11 INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR

12 MR. PRESLEY: Gen? Gen Roessler? 

13 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): Yes. 

14 MR. PRESLEY: Can you hear us? 

15 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): I can hear 

16 you. I can hear most everybody. Some of the 

17 backgrounds, the people sitting away from the 

18 table are difficult to hear. 

19 MR. PRESLEY: Okay, I just wanted to make 

20 sure you could. You feeling all right? 

21 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): I’m feeling 

22 okay. 

23 MR. PRESLEY: Good. We miss you. 

24 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): Thank you. 

25 MR. PRESLEY: What I would like to do is I’m 
13

1 going to start out. John Funk has asked to 

2 talk to us, and I’ve told him that he has ten 

3 minutes. It’s been an awful long day for a 

4 lot of us. And so I’m going to let John speak 

5 first. And when he’s through then we’re going 

6 to go through the items on the matrix that are 

7 open. We have two items that are open. And 

8 hopefully, we can come to some conclusions 

9 after we go through these matrix items. Is 

10 that agreeable with the working group? 

11 John? 

12 ADDRESS BY MR. FUNK

13 MR. FUNK: Mr. Presley, members of the work 

14 group and the Nevada Test Site profile, thank 

15 you for the opportunity to present the 

16 material to you. I worked for several years 

17 at the NTS during the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s and 

18 have taken great interest in your work. And 

19 I’ve spent a great deal of time reviewing the 

20 site profile or the technical base document 

21 for the NTS. 

22 In November I submitted to Mr. Elliott 

23 more than 50 comments on the site profile 

24 document. I received a response in the form 

of the matrix on December the 17th 25 with an 
14

1 invitation to participate in the December the 

19th 2 phone conference. I understand that 

3 members of your group received copies of that 

4 matrix. I regret that I was not able to 

5 participate in this conference call due to 

6 prior commitments, doctors’ appointments. 

7 With rare exceptions my comments were 

8 summarily dismissed by an unidentified health 

9 physicist recruited by Mr. Elliott. Now I 

10 don’t have hundreds of millions of dollars at 

11 my disposal to pursue these issues. I can’t 

12 afford to hire a health physicist to help me. 

13 I’m a retired carpenter, but I do have one 

14 compelling advantage. I worked at the Nevada 

15 Test Site, and I know what went on there from 

16 personal experience. 

17 I don’t have to depend on random 

18 conversations from other persons although I 

19 have consulted with many other persons. I 

20 know that you don’t have time for a lengthy 

21 discussion on this issue raised by me, but I 

22 would like to make a few comments. I will 

23 limit myself to the first two issues I raised 

24 and to some important new information that’s 

25 recently come to my attention. 
15

1 The first issue in my set one was 

2 concerned with job titles which I do not think 

3 was an accurate reflection of the positions 

4 accurately in use at the NTS during the period 

5 of my work. The NIOSH response was that the 

6 list which was given to O-R-A-U-T T-K-B, ^ 

7 revision that was compiled from the RECO 

8 position description received from Martha 

9 DeMarre. Excuse me, was compiled from the 

10 RECO position description received from Martha 

11 DeMarre. 

12 However, I invite you to examine my 

13 Attachment 5 which is a part of O-R-A-U-T 

14 document. Here it states that the RECO job 

15 titles, indices and position descriptions were 

16 from 1992 to ’93 for the crafts. This is an 

17 example of very serious and common problem 

18 situations. And 1992 to 1993 cannot be 

19 assumed to be the same as they were in ’63 to 

20 ’92 period of interest to us. 

21 Issue two is similar in that I know 

22 that collinary (ph) administrative workers did 

23 work in a testing area. And I’ve personally 

24 seen them in the tunnels. The NIOSH response 

25 implied that I’m too stupid to know the 
16

1 difference between controlled areas and 

2 radiological areas. Then the response goes on 

3 to say the radiological areas are posted with 

4 radiological conditions and requirements 

5 necessary to enter the area. 

6 Notice the use of the verb “are”. 

7 Once again the unidentified health physicist 

8 does not seem to know that, or not concerned 

9 with current conditions. My attachment, the 

10 health physicist in 1996 shows clearly the 

11 scientific basis for posting requirements -- 

12 excuse me, I got ahead of myself. 

13 Radiological areas are posted with 

14 radiological, between controlled radiological 

15 areas. Then the response goes on to say that 

16 radiological areas are posted with the 

17 radiological conditions and the requirements 

18 necessary to enter the area. 

19 Notice the use of the verb “are”. 

20 Once again the unidentified health physicist 

21 did not seem to know that we are not concerned 

22 with current conditions. My Attachment 2 is a 

23 paper published in Health Physics in 1996 that 

24 shows the scientific basis for ^ had not yet 

25 been established for the Nevada Test Site. I 
17

1 personally witnessed the presence of collinary 

2 (ph) and administrative workers in areas that 

3 were radiological areas in any sense of the 

4 words. 

5 I won’t challenge your patience with 

6 additional comments on this issue I’ve 

7 previously raised. I only used those two as 

8 they were the first ones on the list. Now I 

9 would briefly like to turn to other areas of 

10 importance regarding the competence of the 

11 site profile. 

12 Mr. Rollins has said on numerous 

13 occasions that air samples were taken at the 

14 NTS starting only in 1971. My Attachment 3 is 

15 an environmental monitoring report from July 

16 1964 through June 1965. Page three is a map 

17 of the areas where air and other samples were 

18 taken during that time period. Air samples 

19 were clearly being taken at the NTS more than 

20 seven years prior to that indicated by Mr. 

21 Rollins. 

22 Although the data was not nicely 

23 tabulated in the early annual reports, the 

24 data are available on microfiche. You can 

25 note from the map that the few areas of 
18

1 offsite were included with one labeled 51 

2 where all types of samples were collected. 

3 More information is given on page A-2 where it 

4 is shown that a lot of attention has been 

5 given by RECO to personnel through Area 51. 

6 Further information about Area 51 is 

7 given in my Attachment 4 which is abstracted 

8 from publication for sale at the Atomic 

9 Testing Museum. This area is not included in 

10 the site profile although personnel from the 

11 Nevada Test Site worked there. These areas 

12 and facilities are not included in the site 

13 profile. 

14 Area 51, Attachment 3 and 4, Barrie 

15 Reactor Experiment BRN in Area 4 in 1962. 

16 Attachment 5, High Energy Neutron Radiation 

17 Experiment, HENRE, in Area 25. Attachment 5, 

18 Plutonium Disbursement Experiments, both 

19 onsite, offsite, resulting clean-up 

20 operations. Attachment 6, Super Kookala. 

21 Attachment 7, Other Offsite Locations, 

22 Attachment 7. Tweezer Facility, Attachment 4, 

23 items two, three and five would have been 

24 sources of high energy and thermoneutron 

25 exposure. Item two is particularly troubling 
19

1 because the BRN activities were in Area 4 in 

2 1962 when there was no monitoring for 

3 thermonuclear exposure. The BRN tower would 

4 have been a few miles of significant 

5 occupation activity. The possible exposure 

6 conditions in Area 51 and the Tweezer Facility 

7 have not been made available to the general 

8 public. 

9 In conclusion, I think there are 

10 serious flaws in the site profile document. 

11 Personnel from NIOSH has consistently failed 

12 to make corrections even though this process 

13 has been ongoing since 2001. We deserve a 

14 timely accurate site profile. So far we have 

15 had neither. It is time to say enough is 

16 enough. NIOSH is evidently unwilling to 

17 devote the necessary resources to this 

18 important site which is clearly the most 

19 complicated one in the complex. 

20 Thank you. 

21 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you, John. And all the 

22 Board members and interested parties have 

23 John’s attachments. And we will look at them, 

24 go through them. I appreciate your input, and 

25 we’ll go from there. 
20

1 Thank you, sir, appreciate it very 

2 much. 

3 RECAP OF ISSUES

 When we last met in December 17th 4 , is 

5 that right? Nineteenth, we had two open 

6 issues. What I would like to do is, those 

7 issues being 11 and 20. I’m going to go back 

8 and just state each one of these concerns, 

9 what we did and -- 

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: What matrix are you working 

11 on? 

12 MR. PRESLEY: The one that we had. The same 

13 one we used last time. My notes are all on 

14 that one, and that’s the last thing we had, 

15 12/17/07, final document. 

16 Item one, we marked that closed, and 

17 it is being revised. 

18 Item two, we marked closed, and there 

19 is some verbiage being added to that item. 

20 Item three, we closed that item. We 

21 are waiting for a TBD 5.01 to be finished up. 

22 Is that correct? 

23 MR. ROLFES: I believe we’re going to 

24 incorporate a reference into the document to 

25 describe some of the tunnel re-entry survey 
21

1 procedures and access controls. 

2 MR. PRESLEY: Okay, items two and three then 

3 are marked closed. 

4 Item four, we changed the wording on 

5 that particular item, the last item on that. 

6 We changed the wording, and I’ve marked it 

7 closed. 

8 Items five, seven, 15 and 23, we 

9 marked closed. 

10 Items eight, nine and ten were marked 

11 closed. 

12 ITEM 11

13 Now we come up to item 11, and NIOSH 

14 has sent out a, I mean SC&A, ya’ll -- bear 

15 with me tonight. It’s been a long day. SC&A 

16 sent out their comment list. We asked them at 

17 our meeting to comment, and I’m going to ask 

18 Arjun if he would go through his comments. 

19 And then we will go back and do our questions 

20 after Arjun has a chance to go through this. 

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: We had a team of people look 

22 at this actually, and I’m going to give you a 

23 little summary and then turn it over to Joe 

24 Zlotnicki who put all the comments together. 

25 He’s on the phone. He’s the man who could not 
22

1 hear very well. 

2 Joe, can you hear me? 

3 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Yes, I can. 

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: The main, just to restate 

5 the issue for those who don’t have a matrix in 

6 front of them, but comment 11 is about 

7 correction factors for external environmental 

8 dose using geometry of origin relative to 

9 badge and angular dependence of the dose 

10 conversion factor. And the comment was that 

11 correction factors need to be developed. 

12 And NIOSH has a lengthy response which 

13 I won’t read, but we felt that the response 

14 would be satisfactory conditional on three 

15 factors which we analyzed and examined and 

16 thought in a couple of cases some things 

17 needed to be done. And the three factors 

18 were: the photon energy distributions were 

19 above the levels where there could have been 

20 substantial missed dose. So that was one 

21 issue that we examined. 

22 The exposure settings were such that 

23 the annual incidence of photons did not defer 

24 much from normal. So that was another 

25 assumption that was imbedded in the NIOSH 
23

1 analysis. And job types can be reconstructed 

2 and appropriate adjustment factors can be 

3 applied. So we felt that NIOSH’s response has 

4 these three assumptions imbedded in it, and if 

5 they were correct, then the analysis would be 

6 okay. 

7 Joe, do you want to go through our 

8 analysis on each of those factors based on our 

9 paper? 

10 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): I can do 

11 that, yes. 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Why don’t you go ahead. 

13 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): I’m sorry, 

14 can you hear me? 

15 MR. PRESLEY: It’s good. 

16 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Arjun, can 

17 you hear me? 

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 

19 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): So the first 

20 one was energy distributions, and so not to 

21 waste any time, we said we felt that was a 

22 reasonable assumption. Any missed dose could 

23 be accounted for by the over-response of the 

24 film to low energy photons. And therefore, we 

25 felt that that was reasonable and claimant 
24

1 favorable. 

2 For angle of incidence there are two 

3 things going on in parallel here. One is what 

4 happens when a badge is exposed from an angle 

5 and not from straight in front of the person 

6 or of the badge. And the second is what 

7 happens when the organ in the body is exposed 

8 from the side and not the front. 

9 Basically, in general, if you’re 

10 exposed from the side or the rear, most of the 

11 organ dose conversion factors are more 

12 favorable than if you’re exposed from the 

13 front. In other words your body is slightly 

14 better shielded, if you will, from the side to 

15 the rear than from the front in terms of 

16 critical organs. 

17 However, with a badge a lot of 

18 different things are going on including the 

19 fact with film that if low energy photons 

20 manage to reach film emulsion, they can cause 

21 a very large over-indication of exposure. On 

22 the other hand if the badge is shielded by 

23 itself or by the person, for example if 

24 they’re being exposed from the side or the 

25 rear, the badge may completely miss the 
25

1 radiation, the photon radiation and the beta 

2 radiation. 

3 So we have a problem in the assumption 

4 that the over-response of the film emulsion to 

5 low energy photons will compensate the under6 response because the badge is partially or 

7 fully shielded from the source of radiation 

8 dependent on angle. And I think the summary 

9 would be that it might be fair to say that 

10 these two effects cancel out, but we don’t see 

11 any evidence to suggest that it actually does. 

12 And so what we basically suggest is 

13 that either some existing material is dug up 

14 that already has done these tests for this 

15 particular film emulsion and badge holder or 

16 calculations are performed that simulates 

17 being irradiated, for example, from the walls 

18 and floors and ceilings of a tunnel, a 

19 contaminated tunnel, or actually performing 

20 the measurements using either an old badge 

21 that’s still lying around in a museum 

22 somewhere or recreating it from the available 

23 data. 

24 So in summary, the angular exposure, 

25 for example in the tunnel or working outdoors 
26

1 with a large contaminated field of radiation 

2 in literally a field or a rocky area with 

3 contamination all over the ground, it is very 

4 hard to predict how the badge is going to 

5 respond to those range of angular exposures 

6 and to the range of energies that we’re seeing 

7 and to make the assumption that they’re all 

8 going to cancel out. As a health physicist I 

9 have a sense that that might be true, but I 

10 don’t have enough data to back that up. 

11 Arjun, do you want me to carry on on 

12 job types as well? 

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: The one thing I would add to 

14 that is that up to 1966 NIOSH is going to 

15 calculate or proposing to calculate the beta 

16 doses from beta/gamma ratios. So whenever the 

17 gamma dose is underestimated, you get an 

18 amplified effect when you’re using the ratios 

19 on the beta dose. So this problem will carry 

20 over into the beta dose estimation of 1966 if 

21 it is a problem. 

22 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Right. And 

23 then for job types, I think the petitioner a 

24 little earlier discussed this issue. We had 

25 mentioned it as well. Everything we’ve seen 
27

1 suggests that dividing up jobs in those early 

2 years by job category and then defining the 

3 radiation exposure based on the name of a job 

4 seems to be too broad a brush to do that with. 

5 And there’s nothing to indicate that that’s 

6 sensible, and the things we’ve heard 

7 contradict that that’s a sensible approach as 

8 to whether or not people would have been 

9 exposed. Particularly in this area we’re 

10 talking about environmental external 

11 radiation. 

12 One other issue, there’s a claim 

13 within the comment that environmental doses 

14 were low in the response from NIOSH. Quote, 

15 “given the low environmental external exposure 

16 rates at NTS...” There are two concerns 

17 there. One is what is low. There’s no 

18 definition of what low is. And the second is 

19 what’s the validation that whatever that range 

20 or number is that it always was low. There 

21 are certainly many documented cases of 

22 environmental external exposure rates being 

23 high during incidents and accidents and 

24 unforeseen releases for example. 

25 And the final comment in the document 
28

1 of any significance in our response was the 

2 need for a greater use of site experts who 

3 were onsite at the time or the various times 

4 where these events went on. 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: And just one other thing 

6 that -- There’s a fair amount of detail. It’s 

7 a six-page document with comments on there or 

8 five pages of comments on one issue. But we 

9 did feel that a review of job types or 

10 geometry of organ exposure badge is necessary 

11 and was not fully addressed in the way NIOSH 

12 has responded. 

13 MR. ROLFES: We did evaluate different dose 

14 conversion factors for environmentally 

15 contaminated areas at Nevada Test Site. And 

16 the results of our calculations indicated that 

17 the dose conversion factors which we were 

18 using are not significantly different from 

19 those that were calculated. And we felt that 

20 what we had done already is claimant favorable 

21 and to make any changes would not have any 

22 significant impact. 

23 Furthermore, because of the low dose 

24 rates from environmental contaminated areas, 

25 it’s unlikely that a positive dose would even 
29

1 be registered on the dosimeter because of the 

2 low dose rates. For such a case when NIOSH 

3 receives a non-positive dosimeter result, we 

4 would assign a missed dose to that to give 

5 credit for any potential exposures from 

6 environmental contaminates. 

7 We do have the results of calculations 

8 which we ^. I think we did provide those 

9 initially. I don’t recall the date. We do 

10 have a discussion of this issue within the 

11 site profile. It’s in Section 6.4.1.6. It’s 

12 titled “Correction Factors for External 

13 Environmental Dose”. And it does describe the 

14 assessment that was conducted for three 

15 distinct exposure geometries. 

16 The first was exposure to ground 

17 surface contamination from an infinite plane 

18 surface which was characteristic of fresh 

19 radium product fallout. The second scenario 

20 was exposure to soil contaminated to an 

21 infinite depth characteristic of fallout that 

22 had been in place for several days to weeks 

23 and had been weathered in. The third was 

24 submersion in ^ infinite cloud characteristic 

25 of airborne radioactivity as might be 
30

1 encountered in a release following an 

2 underground test. Additional details of the 

3 scenarios can be found in the site profile. 

4 So we believe that we have adequately 

5 addressed this previously, and it might just 

6 be a matter of wrapping up loose ends with 

7 SC&A, provide data that was used in the 

8 analysis. 

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Let me just give you an 

10 example of what, the kind of thing that Joe 

11 and I are talking about is I was reading 

12 testimony last night of a tunnel worker. 

13 There was an instance where the radiation of 

14 several rad per hour on the, at least as I 

15 read the testimony, on the floor of the tunnel 

16 while they were doing some work there. And 

17 that’s the kind of problem we’re talking about 

18 here because if you have radiation coming from 

19 below, the angle of incidence is not normal. 

20 We’ve got certain badges that are, 

21 certain organs that are more exposed than what 

22 the badges register and for certain organs 

23 that would be less exposed. And we went 

24 through this at Mallinckrodt, and I think 

25 actually NIOSH did an excellent set of 
31

1 calculations there. And I don’t remember 

2 everything from having reviewed the site 

3 profile some time back, but I didn’t see any 

4 parallel effort that NIOSH made comparable to 

5 what was done over there. 

6 And I don’t think that environmental 

7 doses of the type that I’m talking about are 

8 always low. I think that is an assumption 

9 that has to be documented. We didn’t find 

10 that that was generally correct. 

11 MR. ROLFES: I think the issue that you’re 

12 referring to would be covered by this scenario 

13 number one, exposure to ground surface 

14 contamination in an infinite plane surface 

15 characteristic of fresh fallout. 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: But it’s not an infinite 

17 planar surface. It’s a very small surface. 

18 MR. ROLFES: One single small hot spot is 

19 what you’re referring to. That’s, I don’t 

20 know if there’s anybody else that might be 

21 able to help to see what our basis for the 

22 calculations were. How that might impact -- 

23 MR. CHEW: I think your speculation of 

24 scenarios -- 

25 DR. MAKHIJANI: They’re not my speculations. 
32

1 Sorry, I take exception to that. I’m quoting 

2 only, I’m quoting written testimony, and I 

3 believe this actually be distributed to the 

4 Board at the prior Board meeting in Las Vegas. 

5 So this should be available testimony of a 

6 worker who has passed away. So I can’t say 

7 any more because of Privacy reasons, but I 

8 think the Board has this document. Or if not, 

9 probably could be given by this person to the 

10 Board. So there’s no speculation on this. 

11 I’m just citing what a very experienced worker 

12 wrote about their own experience ^ experienced 

13 workers in this business. 

14 MR. ROLFES: It’s just a very small, defined 

15 area that was a high dose area where an 

16 individual would have had to have been in 

17 proximity to it for a long period of time to 

18 have accumulated any significant dose. If it 

19 was a much larger area, I would certainly see 

20 that the general background or general dose 

21 rate in that area would be much higher and an 

22 individual would likely receive much more 

23 exposure from a larger contaminated area. I 

24 would have to take a look at specifics in such 

25 a case in order to make any kind of detailed 
33

1 assessment of it. 

2 DR. MAURO: I’m trying to visualize it. I 

3 was reading between your section and your 

4 response. And the way I understand this is 

5 you have, when you calibrate the film, and 

6 it’s got -- I think it was in the early ‘60s, 

7 I guess right after, the early ‘60s -- a 

8 single LN film, and it had a certain amount of 

9 lead shielding over it, you get a flat 

10 response. So that if you have low energy, you 

11 wouldn’t overrespond. 

12 And you calibrated it ^ where the 

13 source was perpendicular to the film. So now 

14 you know this amount of ^ is associated with 

15 this number of rad per hour or millirads per 

16 hour as theoretically determined ^ exact ^. 

17 And then you’ve got a film badge, that has 

18 been calibrated ^, ^ as calibrated in this 

19 method which is where the film is known to the 

20 ^ user. 

21 And now you have this film badge 

22 sitting on a person. And what I understand 

23 that you’ve done is said, okay, now the film 

24 badge is on the person, and he’s working in an 

25 area. Now your calculations say that the area 
34

1 is an infinite plane. And therefore, I guess, 

2 you’d run some Monte Carlo simulations or some 

3 type of simulations of what the energy 

4 distribution would be striking the face of 

5 that film badge on the person’s lapel coming 

6 from before which is close by, and then coming 

7 from every distance. And you’re getting, now, 

8 in theory, you would know the response of that 

9 film badge. 

10 And we’re saying, of course, that’s 

11 different than what actually was calibrated 

12 and you’ve still got correction factors. Now 

13 as I understand it, you’re saying that 

14 whatever the reading is, let’s say it’s R per 

15 hour or MR per hour or millirem per hour, 

16 whatever it is calibrated at, you’re saying 

17 that you’re going to -- and that would have 

18 been organ dose. Let’s say it’s a lung dose 

19 or a dose to a new organ. You’re using, your 

20 calibration factor is one. 

21 In other words you’re going to assume 

22 there is no, in other words the effect would 

23 be whatever reading it is, whether you’re 

24 getting MR per hour. Let’s say it’s the ten 

25 millimeter depth dose that you’re reading. 
35

1 You’re saying that the organ dose, whatever 

2 the reading is, let’s say the ten millirem, 

3 that’s the dose you’re assigning to the new 

4 organ. Am I correct that that’s, or do you 

5 have an adjustment factor to go from the 

6 reading on the badge internally, ^ adjustment? 

7 MR. ROLLINS: There would be another 

8 adjustment factor. 

9 DR. MAURO: Okay, so but then I guess I’m 

10 having a little problem understanding this. 

11 If it was calibrated one, okay, and then 

12 you’re applying your adjustment factor to go 

13 from what it was calibrated at to some 

14 internal organ using some correction factor to 

15 some depth dose, but now we’re really saying 

16 that’s not the exposure setting the person’s 

17 in. 

18 Now there’s a wide variety of exposure 

19 settings, some in which there are quite a bit 

20 of the exposure, especially if most of it is 

21 coming from the ground near where he is, and 

22 it’s striking at some angle. And the energy 

23 could be relatively low perhaps shielded ^ the 

24 effective thickness of the lead that that film 

25 badge has experienced is no longer the 
36

1 thickness that’s normal, it’s the thickness 

2 coming this way. 

3 So we have all these confounding 

4 variables. Now I guess my question to you is 

5 when you ran the calculations, did you factor 

6 all of this in, the energy distribution and 

7 angles and the thickness? 

8 MR. ROLFES: Sure. 

9 DR. MAURO: If you did, maybe -- 

10 MR. ROLFES: Well, here, I’ll take you 

11 through how we would do a dose reconstruction. 

12 We would take information, reported dose from 

13 an individual’s badge. The first dose 

14 conversion factors that we would use would 

15 come from our external implementation 

16 guidelines. It’s a NIOSH project document 

17 which has a range of dose conversion factors. 

18 Typically, for an overestimate, we would use 

19 the highest document to dose conversion factor 

20 of that range. 

21 DR. MAURO: You’re not using Appendix B 

22 anymore. You’re using the AP all the time. 

23 MR. ROLFES: We typically would use the 

24 highest dose conversion factor for ^. 

25 DR. MAURO: Because I know there was a 
37

1 problem with Appendix B. I know you were 

2 reworking that so for the time being until 

3 that’s fixed you go with AP all the time. 

4 MR. ROLFES: And then, additionally, we 

5 would also look at any additional information 

6 within the site profile as well for Nevada 

7 Test Site. And any additional correction 

8 factors that need to applied would also be 

9 applied on top of our basic dose conversion 

10 factors from the implementation guidelines. 

11 DR. MAURO: So I have one MR, let’s say I 

12 have a change-out period. I get 100 millirem 

13 over the course of the month. And that would 

14 be, let’s say you’re ^ ten millimeter depth 

15 dose, essentially a whole body dose. You get 

16 that report back, it’s a 100 millirem in that 

17 period. Then you have an adjustment factor to 

18 AP. 

19 Let’s say it’s a dose to the lung. 

20 You have some, you look up the geometry in 

21 Appendix B of OCAS IG-01, and let’s say it’s 

22 0.7. That’s probably what it is. And so now 

23 you’ve got instead of 100 millirem, you’ve got 

24 70. But beside that there are more adjustment 

25 factors that we’re saying have to do with the 
38

1 fact that the radiation wasn’t normal. It was 

2 something else. You don’t know what it was. 

3 For this particular worker for all we know he 

4 could have been inside a tunnel where a large 

5 fraction may have been far from normal. 

6 I guess all I’m asking is do you have 

7 a sense, are you confident that that’s 

8 accommodated in your adjustment factors? The 

9 fact that it might be far from normal for some 

10 protracted period of time, especially if he 

11 spent most of his time in the tunnels for a 

12 given year or a given assignment at the site. 

13 And you’re saying that you feel confident that 

14 -- 

15 MR. ROLFES: I’m confident that the dose 

16 that we assign in a dose reconstruction is 

17 typically, even when we do a best estimate 

18 claim, it’s typically a dose that is higher 

19 than what the individual actually received 

20 through the organ of concern. 

21 MR. ROLLINS: If I may, this issue I 

22 remember, the impression that I had and the 

23 discussions that I had with Richard Griffon 

24 who did the work, was that you were interested 

25 in people that -- when you say environmental, 
39

1 I have this picture of somebody walking across 

2 the desert floor. When they’re in a tunnel, I 

3 don’t necessarily consider that environmental. 

4 I consider that workplace exposure. 

5 So, and then you mentioned the 

6 Mallinckrodt which I haven’t read that 

7 document. It’s my understanding that was a 

8 small source that people were working on top 

9 of as opposed to a point source or a common 

10 source ^ such as a pipe-fitter who’s working 

11 on hot pipes. And when we get in those 

12 situations, we do case-by-case geometry factor 

13 adjustments. And I’ve done one myself where 

14 this man was working on pipes. And we had 

15 provisions that would then how we do dose 

16 reconstructions to make those adjustments 

17 where we understand what the geometry of 

18 exposure was, and that would be totally 

19 appropriate. But for somebody standing on top 

20 of a small source that was reading two R per 

21 hour at chest level, and we can document that, 

22 and he’s got testicular cancer, then clearly 

23 some type of geometry adjustment needs to be 

24 made. 

25 DR. MAURO: One of our concerns that goes to 
40

1 ^ our response ^ three areas we broke this up 

2 into: the energy distribution, the angle of 

3 incidence and also understanding the job 

4 responsibilities. I think the first area is 

5 sort of well developed and it’s almost like 

6 conventional standard to understand the energy 

7 distribution. And once you understand the 

8 energy distribution and the shielding, I think 

9 you can make a demonstration if the energy is 

10 normal ^, you’ve got the situation under 

11 control. 

12 This confounding between the second 

13 and the third, not really fully understanding 

14 what the setting was that this person has, our 

15 experience is going to look at this. We 

16 really don’t know what the person is doing 

17 especially in the early years when he could 

18 have had multiple responsibilities. So one of 

19 our concerns is -- 

20 MR. ROLLINS: Or do we even know where the 

21 radiation source is coming from? 

22 DR. MAURO: Exactly. 

23 MR. ROLLINS: Is it coming from the walls, 

24 the ceiling or only the floor? 

25 DR. MAURO: So what I’m thinking is if I was 
41

1 doing the dose reconstruction, and I have some 

2 records of a worker, and I’m not quite sure 

3 all the various things he’s done, he may have 

4 a job title, but there may have been a lot of 

5 different things where his setting in regard 

6 to energy distribution ^. 

7 MR. ROLLINS: All isotropic. 

8 DR. MAURO: It’s isotropic. Now what I’m 

9 hearing is that you believe that urinalysis 

10 shows that you covered ^. I thought you were 

11 going to be using a multiplier of one. In 

12 other words not get that 0.7 here. I thought 

13 you were going to go to the one. That really 

14 covers a lot of ills. You said you’re not 

15 doing that. 

16 MR. ROLFES: We typically use, when we 

17 complete a dose reconstruction for an 

18 overestimated claim, we typically default to a 

19 dose conversion factor of one. 

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: But not in a best estimate. 

21 MR. ROLFES: For a best estimate we would 

22 consider the details of the workplace and use 

23 actual dose conversion factors for, and we 

24 typically would use, still we would use the 

25 highest documented range of dose conversion 
42

1 factors for that given of organ and energy 

2 distribution. 

3 DR. MAURO: I walk away with you saying -- 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: And type of dose because 

5 you’ve got environmental dose. 

6 MR. ROLFES: Yes. 

7 DR. MAURO: So when you’re talking 

8 environmental, you’re not talking inside the 

9 ^, you’re talking ^. 

10 MR. ROLLINS: That was not my thought when 

11 this issue first arose. What you’re alluding 

12 to is the workplace exposure to high levels of 

13 radiation which I don’t consider that 

14 environmental. I mean, it’s probably just 

15 semantics. 

16 DR. MAURO: ^. 

17 MR. ROLLINS: It’s semantics. 

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think Gene might be right 

19 about that. 

20 DR. MAURO: Because I could envision if it’s 

21 an infinite plane instead of this ^. ^ what 

22 the angle of incidence would be, and then make 

23 a judgment given that setting and 

24 understanding that the shielding, you probably 

25 got a handle on it. And I’m not saying that, 
43

1 you know, it’s not, my guess is that you’ve 

2 got a handle on it. And, of course, you have 

3 to make assumptions that would give the 

4 benefit of the doubt, but I think it’s 

5 tractable. 

6 What I’m getting at is now whether or 

7 not ^, I would be the first to admit that, 

8 yes, if you have a handle on ^ surface 

9 roughness, where you have some sense of the 

10 age of the fallout so you have a good sense of 

11 the energy distribution that we’re dealing 

12 with and also understand how the film badge 

13 was designed and calibrated, you’ve got a 

14 tractable problem. Of course, that all of a 

15 sudden becomes a research project. 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: But Lynn had actually raised 

17 some issues along the lines earlier so maybe 

18 we might defer to him on that. 

19 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I would like to make a 

20 few comments. The nature, of course, there 

21 are no infinite planes, and we use that as 

22 approximation because it makes the calculation 

23 so much easier, but in reality it does make a 

24 difference. 

25 And if you’ve been to the Nevada Test 
44

1 Site, and you’ve seen the desert pavement, you 

2 know that that’s not an infinite plane. And 

3 there is certainly is some change in the 

4 angular distribution and also energy 

5 distribution. It makes some difference for 

6 gamma. It makes a great deal of difference 

7 for beta, of course, because there’s a great 

8 deal of shielding. And I think Mr. Griffith 

9 did note that in his write up where he 

10 suggested that perhaps Beck’s calculations 

11 with an exponentially distributed source were 

12 more appropriate. 

13 And I might also comment that there 

14 are no infinite depth distributions in nature 

15 either, that the rainfall out at Nevada Test 

16 Site is pretty sparse. And we’ve done some 

17 measurements looking at the distribution of 

18 activity with depth over 30 or 40 years 

19 afterwards, and it’s still all very much up at 

20 the surface, within the first few centimeters 

21 or so. 

22 So I think this is a serious 

23 computational problem that hasn’t been solved 

24 exactly, and it’s probably a case where you 

25 need to make some kind of a bounding 
45

1 calculation for your purposes. But I think 

2 it’s a serious issue to assume that everything 

3 is AP geometry. 

4 I believe there are two situations 

5 where we had high exposures at the Test Site. 

6 One was people going into a very widely 

7 disbursed field to retrieve samples in which 

8 case the exposure would have been isotropic. 

9 And then in the tunnels, and I don’t know 

10 whether it’s occupational or environmental or 

11 what it is, but the main tunnel did get 

12 contaminated. 

13 And I’m sure Billy can tell you much 

14 better than I can. But those tunnels did get 

15 contaminated because they were used for many 

16 different shots, and sometimes the events took 

17 place and those tunnels did get contaminated. 

18 And so you had a very complex exposure 

19 situation where AP geometry, I would guess, 

20 would not be appropriate at all. 

21 DR. NETON: I think we could focus the issue 

22 on ^. I mean we have occupational exposure 

23 and environmental. I think there’s a big 

24 difference here in how we approach both of 

25 those -- 
46

1 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Excuse me. I 

2 can’t hear anything being said at the moment. 

3 DR. NETON: I would like to focus this on 

4 the two issues we’re talking about. One is 

5 environmental, and one is occupational. The 

6 environmental exposures I believe are, as Mark 

7 has characterized, fairly low. 

8 Now we could argue about what’s low, 

9 but you speak about these imperfections and 

10 assumptions that are made that don’t, maybe 

11 are not exact, but I think there’s a, levels 

12 are still fairly low and it’s a tractable 

13 problem, I think. We can make some modifying 

14 assumptions and bound it pretty well. 

15 When you start getting into the, what 

16 I consider the true occupational high-source 

17 exposures as tunnels and as hot spots as Arjun 

18 mentioned, I think that we would model those 

19 specifically for the different exposure 

20 scenarios that exist. That’s a very different 

21 issue. You can come up with all kinds of 

22 different models to account for that which we 

23 have in the past as Arjun alluded to, with 

24 Mallinckrodt, with surfaces and hot spots and 

25 gloveboxes and all those sort of things. 
47

1 So I think we need to separate those 

2 two issues and not ram in between them because 

3 they’re two very different problems to be 

4 addressed with different solutions. 

5 DR. MAURO: It wasn’t until this 

6 conversation that I was aware that we were 

7 talking environmental. We didn’t have a 

8 distinction between a simple setting of 

9 uniform ^, but surface rock^ was certainly in 

10 play there. It sounds like you folks have 

11 taken that into consideration given your 

12 energy distribution ^. You didn’t go through 

13 the calculations to see if you come up with 

14 the same correction values. But you don’t 

15 have correction values on the ^. Right now 

16 whatever the ^ factor is in ^ or AP, that’s 

17 it. 

18 MR. ROLFES: In the implementation 

19 guidelines there’s a range of dose conversion 

20 factors which will incorporate and there were 

21 incidents. 

22 MR. CLAWSON: This is Brad. I heard you 

23 mention when you were dealing with 

24 environmental and ^ throughout the site and 

25 such like that that you were looking at their 
48

1 job titles. I want to clarify on that because 

2 this has been a very difficult issue for me 

3 personally to be able to get a hold of because 

4 in the earlier years so many people did so 

5 much different things. And as they recall a 

6 lot of it dropped off into the one. That’s 

7 far more to make sure we’re looking at this in 

8 the right way. 

9 MR. ROLFES: That would not typically be the 

10 first piece of information we would look at. 

11 The first piece of information for a dose 

12 reconstruction would be the individual’s 

13 dosimetry records. Then we might consider, 

14 well, what did this individual do? We’ll 

15 typically take a look at the dosimetry data 

16 that we receive from the, for this specific 

17 individual ^. And we would use that ^ first. 

18 If there were periods, for example, when we 

19 need additional information. We would take a 

20 look into the individual’s job titles, the 

21 areas that he worked in, went into. But job 

22 titles alone would not necessarily be used as 

23 the first piece of information. It would be 

24 the dosimetry records. 

25 MR. CLAWSON: The reason I brought this up 
49

1 is because we’ve heard many times ^ . 

2 MR. ROLFES: Yes, and the dosimetry, the 

3 dosimeters would have been with those 

4 individuals across the Nevada Site. So it’s 

5 that information that was captured by their 

6 dosimeter that we would use as the very first 

7 piece of information in reconstructing the 

8 dose. 

9 DR. MAURO: One quick question. I’d have to 

10 go back to emphasizing ^ I wasn’t aware the -- 

11 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Excuse me. 

12 I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on, but 

13 really, it’s very hard to hear anything being 

14 said at the moment. 

15 DR. MAURO: Joe, can you hear me? This is 

16 John. 

17 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Yes, I can, 

18 but a couple of people speaking lately, I 

19 cannot hear anything. 

20 DR. MAURO: ^. Right now what I’m hearing 

21 is that built into OCAS IG-001 beside the 

22 adjustment factor in Appendix B for AP 

23 geometry to go from some leaving on your film 

24 badge to some organ dose. There’s also 

25 adjustment factors in there and take into 
50

1 consideration the angle of incidence. And 

2 from what ^, in our response we provided some 

3 tables, tables that came from Hine and 

4 Brownell. Now, there were some pretty big 

5 adjustment factors. If all the exposure was 

6 at a ^ and was a low energy, we’d really be 

7 off. But we realize that’s not going to be 

8 the case all the time. 

9 So built into your methodology for 

10 infinite, or effectively infinite plane, what 

11 kind of adjustment factor are we talking 

12 about, a factor of two? In other words after 

13 you come up with your ^ dose, you multiply by 

14 0.7 and get the organ dose. Now you want to 

15 throw in another factor and take into 

16 consideration, wait a minute, it wasn’t 

17 normal; it was off normal. You’re saying that 

18 there is an adjustment factor. ^. 

19 MR. ROLFES: Once again I think you’re 

20 confusing occupational exposure with 

21 environmental exposure. 

22 DR. MAURO: I’m talking about ^. Now, in 

23 the environment we’re not normal where to a 

24 large extent ^. 

25 MR. ROLFES: If you take a look at more than 
51

1 one million dosimeters that were processed at 

2 the Nevada Test Site, I believe more than 99 

3 percent of them had no recorded dose on them 

4 indicating that the external exposures from 

5 environmental contamination for 99 percent of 

6 those dosimeters and people who wore them were 

7 zero. 

8 DR. MAURO: I can argue that’s because the 

9 energy distribution is very low, and it was at 

10 an angle. And that’s why you see an awful lot 

11 of -- I’m not trying to be a wise guy. I’m 

12 saying that there is an analysis that could be 

13 done. And if you did it, great. 

14 The analysis being given this mix of 

15 radionuclides and there is a distribution of 

16 mixes for different age radionuclides sitting 

17 on an effectively infinite plane with surface 

18 roughness, and given that in, let’s say, a 

19 number of different places, you could 

20 demonstrate what you would expect the missed 

21 dose might be. And you may have done the 

22 calculations and they show that really it’s 

23 not very much. If ^. 

24 MR. ROLFES: Rather than do the 

25 calculations, we’re already incorporating a 
52

1 claimant favorable missed dose for every non2 positive dosimeter in the cycle. So we’re 

3 already assigning if the individual wore a 

4 badge onsite and didn’t receive any recorded 

5 dose, we’re already -- 

6 DR. MAURO: You give him points. 

7 MR. ROLFES: -- we’re already assigning half 

8 of the limit of detection for each non9 positive -- 

10 DR. MAURO: So you’re saying that we 

11 received no positive reading on this change12 out. We’ve already given this person 20 

13 millirem and that would be to the badge and 

14 then, of course, the adjustment factor. Now, 

15 of course, built into that is the assumption 

16 that if there was some angle of incidence, it 

17 doesn’t really matter. You see, I’m concerned 

18 -- 

19 MR. ROLFES: We’re taking a result of zero, 

20 and we’d be multiplying the correction factor 

21 times zero essentially. Instead of doing that 

22 -- 

23 DR. MAURO: I’ll tell you. If I were doing 

24 this calculation, I would say, I would start 

25 off with the mix, ^ age for the fallout, and 
53

1 say is it possible for me to miss a dose 

2 that’s significant. And what I’m hearing is 

3 it’s unrealistic. We could make an argument 

4 that says, listen, we didn’t see anything so 

5 therefore, there isn’t going to be much out 

6 there. From looking at some of these 

7 calculations, low energy and high end ^ 

8 incidents, you could have a pretty high 

9 exposure and miss it. And if I’m wrong, I’m 

10 wrong. 

11 MR. ROLFES: But not from an environmental 

12 exposure. 

13 MR. CLAWSON: ^ workplace ^ environmental ^. 

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: We’re not doing these 

15 correction factors for workers’ exposures, are 

16 we? 

17 MR. ROLFES: That wasn’t the issue. 

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, no, that wasn’t the 

19 issue, but this, since it has come up, I’m 

20 just asking ^ information. 

21 MR. ROLFES: It certainly can be done, and 

22 based on information for specific tests as 

23 documented in the Rad Safe reports for various 

24 events, we can apply those on a case-by-case 

25 basis. And we do that, in fact, in dose 
54

1 reconstruction. 

2 MR. CLAWSON: ^. 

3 MR. ROLFES: It’s dependent on the time 

4 period and the radiation exposure potential 

5 for the worker. 

6 MR. CHEW: ^. 

7 MR. ROLFES: Yeah, exactly. And for 

8 example, if an individual did go into a 

9 radiation area and received a significant ^ as 

10 indicated by his ^ process. 

11 MR. CLAWSON: Well, I was just trying to get 

12 a feeling for environmental if a person had 

13 their ^ values showed up zero ^. 

14 MR. ROLFES: Yeah, exactly. 

15 MR. SCHOFIELD: It seems like sometime back 

16 you were, you mentioned that personnel who 

17 worked for Los Alamos National Labs, their 

18 dosimetry was kept separate. Was that a 

19 misunderstanding on my part? 

20 MR. ROLFES: Everybody that entered Nevada 

21 Test Site received a Nevada Test Site badge. 

22 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, that’s what I was just 

23 going to ask. If they did have separate, 

24 how’d their data compare with those people who 

25 had a Nevada Test Site badge? 
55

1 MR. PRESLEY: We used to take our badges up 

2 when we entered, put the badge on the wall or 

3 whatever. They knew you were onsite when you 

4 picked up your badge. 

5 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay. 

6 MR. FUNK: ^All the DoD people got their own 

7 badge. 

8 MR. PRESLEY: DoD, I’m sorry. You’re right. 

9 Yeah, DoD, the Department of Defense did. 

10 They had their own badge. 

11 MR. FUNK: Some of the DOE ^ maybe GE and 

12 Rockwell. 

13 MR. ROLFES: That’s a good point. There are 

14 some individuals as well from -- 

15 MR. FUNK: ^. 

16 MR. ROLFES: Sure, there are some 

17 occurrences where they also would have 

18 received a Nevada Test Site badge however. So 

19 it is possible that when we would receive a 

20 claim for dose reconstruction -- 

21 MR. FUNK: ^ J-Core^. 

22 MR. ROLFES: -- we might receive a dosimetry 

23 response from another laboratory, for example, 

24 from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 

25 Typically, some of the people that entered 
56

1 Nevada Test Site to work on tests were 

2 monitored both by Oak Ridge National 

3 Laboratory as well as by Nevada Test Site. 

4 DR. MAURO: But you know it’s, I think it’s 

5 a simple question of what you’re effectively 

6 saying is here we have a worker that has zeros 

7 every month for a year and then we’ll assign 

8 240 millirem. You’re saying that that sounds 

9 pretty good. Is it possible though that he 

10 could have gotten more than 240 millirem 

11 because of the energy distribution ^? And 

12 you’re saying no. 

13 MR. ROLFES: Correct, in all probability 

14 that’s very ^. 

15 DR. MAURO: And you feel that way because 

16 you’ve done the analysis or, to me, I think 

17 it’s a tractable question that you feel 

18 confident. Right now I have to say I do not 

19 have an intuitive feeling that that’s the 

20 case. But it may very well be the case. 

21 MR. ROLFES: I have no indication that an 

22 individual or any individuals would have 

23 received -- no, I certainly feel that what we 

24 are assigning is claimant favorable. And 

25 that’s just based on records that I’ve seen 
57

1 and survey data from the site. I don’t have 

2 all of that with me. We can certainly 

3 describe that, but the entire site was set up 

4 with a system of monitors and radiation levels 

5 on the site were monitored continuously. 

6 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): John, can I 

7 jump in a bit because I think, I’m inclined to 

8 agree that it would be hard to imagine that a 

9 badge gets zero when someone’s walking around, 

10 whether it’s in a tunnel or outdoors and 

11 consistently manages to get a significant dose 

12 that shows up as zero. I think that would be 

13 hard to believe that that happening. 

14 I’m more concerned about a different 

15 problem, and that is a few people that I think 

16 sometimes there’s a tendency to say, look, we 

17 had a million badges. Most people got 

18 nothing. I’m not worried about most people. 

19 I’m worried about anyone because they’re all 

20 individuals. And even if only one percent had 

21 a dose, I worry that we might grossly 

22 underreport that dose because the badge didn’t 

23 respond correctly to the radiation that was 

24 coming from the ground or the ceiling or 

25 wherever. 
58

1 And that is not being addressed by 

2 saying, well, we’re giving 20 millirem to give 

3 the claimant the benefit of the doubt. I’m 

4 talking about the person whose badge reported 

5 300 millirem but should really have been 

6 6,000. And that’s being thrown out in this 

7 discussion. 

8 MR. ROLFES: Once again that’s a separate 

9 issue. We’re referring to environmental 

10 exposures, not occupational exposures in high 

11 radiation areas. 

12 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Are you 

13 suggesting that over the 30 or 40 years no one 

14 ever got 300 millirem on a badge from an 

15 environmental exposure that wasn’t part of 

16 their occupation? I mean, surely, I mean, we 

17 know Baneberry event where people got many 

18 hundreds of millirem. I mean, there must have 

19 been events where people got exposure to their 

20 badge that wasn’t directly attributable to 

21 their job per se. In other words they just 

22 happened upon contamination or whatever. 

23 Surely that happened. 

24 MR. ROLFES: An incident such as that would 

25 be considered an occupational exposure rather 
59

1 than an environmental. 

2 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Well, again, 

3 I think -- 

4 MR. ROLFES: -- in environmental we’re 

5 referring to just the ambient background that 

6 existed continuously on the site. 

7 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Well, I’m 

8 sorry. I mean, I’m not being glib here, but 

9 where does environmental exposure stop and an 

10 incident or an event start? There has to be a 

11 continuum there. 

12 MR. ROLFES: Baneberry was an exceptional 

13 incident that was not characteristic of the 

14 normal background at the site. It was an 

15 incident, and it would be treated as such. It 

16 is an exception to the norm. 

17 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Well, I 

18 agree. That’s a documented event, and I’m 

19 just suggesting there are other events some of 

20 which were documented and some presumably were 

21 missed. I’m only suggesting if someone had a 

22 dose on their badge, we can’t assume because 

23 it said 300 millirem or whatever other number 

24 it was that that was indeed the dose when it 

25 was perhaps an isotropic exposure to the 
60

1 badge. That’s all I’m saying. 

2 MR. CLAWSON: One question ^. I know that 

3 my -- 

4 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): I’m sorry. I 

5 can’t hear the response. 

6 MR. CLAWSON: This is Brad. One of the 

7 things that bothers me is that like our site, 

8 they take off, they have a correction factor 

9 for our badges. They take off ^. And they 

10 take off of our badge each month, and they say 

11 ^. Do we know if this was done ^. They took 

12 ^. 

13 MR. ROLFES: Well, right now everyone in 

14 this room and everyone in the world is being 

15 exposed to radiation. There’s a natural, you 

16 know, a naturally occurring amount of 

17 radiation. 

18 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 

19 MR. ROLLINS: What we have been able to 

20 document was the control badges kept in low 

21 background areas, no one can ever remember a 

22 case where the control badges showed up with 

23 any significant dose on them so there was 

24 nothing to subtract. In other words there was 

25 no measurable means. That’s all I’m saying. 
61

1 MR. SMITH: This is Billy, Billy Smith. The 

2 dosimetry process when we process dosimeters 

3 every month, we had in the batch two controls 

4 and five standards. The controls were 

5 dosimeters that were kept in a low background 

6 cave. The five standards were dosimeters that 

7 were exposed to ranges of radiation from about 

8 30 MR to about 1,000 MR in a controlled 

9 atmosphere. The standards were controlled by 

10 exposing them at the calibration facility to 

11 ranges of 30 MR to 1,000 MR. 

12 So we had five badges over that range. 

13 And the two controls we put in the cave, they 

14 represented the background exposure. So when 

15 the batch was processed, all of the badges in 

16 that particular batch were processed with the 

17 two controls and five standards. 

18 So any optical density that was 

19 measured on any badge that had a dose on it, 

20 you would then relate that to whatever 

21 background dose that you may have had from the 

22 two controls. We also took the five standards 

23 to make sure that we knew what the calibration 

24 was for that particular badge. So you knew 

25 what the response would be for badges in that 
62

1 particular batch in terms of ^. 

2 DR. ANSPAUGH: Could you describe this cave 

3 and exactly where it was located? Was it in 

4 Mercury? 

5 MR. SMITH: Yes. 

6 DR. ANSPAUGH: Was it made out of lead or 

7 something like that? 

8 MR. SMITH: Yes. 

9 MR. SCHOFIELD: Because environmental dose, 

10 you’re assuming the largely short-lived 

11 isotopes have already decayed out and you’re 

12 calculating environmental dose. 

13 MS. MUNN: You’re not calculating the 

14 environmental dose. They’re taking it from 

15 the badge readings. 

16 MR. SCHOFIELD: Right, but they’re going to 

17 assume that any environmental dose they get, 

18 those will not be a factor in -- 

19 MS. MUNN: Well, you don’t have to assume if 

20 you have a badge reading. 

21 MR. ROLFES: ^ record any dose that the 

22 individual no matter what ^ exposed the badge 

23 it would be documented within that badge. So, 

24 yes, it would be measured. Any short-lived 

25 fission products or long-lived fission 
63

1 products would be measured by the badge. 

2 MR. SCHOFIELD: And they would all ^. 

3 MS. MUNN: Are we okay with environmental? 

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: There’s still some residual 

5 discomfort with this idea that John has 

6 raised, you know, that we need some idea of a 

7 little bit of a review of the rates of 

8 environmental dose ^. Well, the point was 

9 also raised by Joe that you don’t have 

10 environmental ^ in those cases where you ^ 

11 where you’re missing a significant dose 

12 because of the ^ been exposed. But for most 

13 of the issue I think, for most of the cases ^. 

14 I’m not the expert on the subject. I should 

15 let the people who -- but that’s what I’m 

16 hearing. 

17 MS. MUNN: I’m still concerned about the 

18 definitions here and whether, when Joe’s 

19 talking about his concerns, whether we were 

20 very clear about environmental as opposed to 

21 occupational. 

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don’t know that we sorted 

23 out, is there a definition somewhere that 

24 NIOSH -- you do different chapters on 

25 occupational and environmental. Normally, 
64

1 environmental is just stack emissions and 

2 things like that. I don’t know in this case 

3 whether it would be different. 

4 MR. ROLLINS: This is Gene Rollins. I did 

5 the chapter four for NTS, and I also did a 

6 similar chapter for Savannah River Site. And 

7 what I tried to capture in that chapter was 

8 what I would consider ambient background 

9 that’s unaffected by the activities, the 

10 ongoing activities, at the facility. That’s 

11 how I would define it, and that’s how I tried 

12 to define it in my chapter. 

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, how do you cover 

14 previous tests? I mean, this is Nevada Test 

15 Site -- 

16 MR. ROLLINS: That’s what I would be 

17 measuring. That would be residual in the 

18 soil. And presumably the ionization chambers 

19 measurements out there would capture that. 

20 And there were a lot of ionization chamber 

21 measurements out there. And that’s what I 

22 tried to capture in the document. And there 

23 is a section in there that actually shows 

24 those measurements. 

25 DR. MAURO: Well, I’m sorry. So you’re 
65

1 saying the revision, one of the ways you have 

2 to validate that approach is you have an 

3 ionization chamber, which is ^. So and you’re 

4 saying that when you make that reading you get 

5 a certain MR per hour -- 

6 MR. ROLLINS: That might go up. 

7 DR. MAURO: -- that might go up ^, and then 

8 when you link that back to what the film 

9 badges were reading, there’s parity. 

10 MR. ROLLINS: For your information, the 

11 measurements in chapter four in ’77 through 

12 ’93, they average about 90,000 millirem per 

13 year, and that’s for 8,600 hours. So if you 

14 relate that to a badge that someone might be 

15 wearing, and if they come off quarterly or 

16 monthly, you’re not going to see it. 

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: ^ and 63 in ‘60s. Do you 

18 have measurements for the ‘60s? 

19 MR. ROLLINS: I could not locate them. Back 

20 in the ‘60s it seemed to me, and Billy, you 

21 can help me out on this. But it seemed to me 

22 they were more interested in measuring the 

23 effects of the weapons testing as opposed to 

24 trying to determine what the ambient 

25 background was. And I read through these 
66

1 reports and tried to find out what their 

2 mindset was. In the early days they wanted to 

3 measure the contamination in the plume, for 

4 example. They wanted to measure the 

5 contamination from the fallout that was the 

6 result of a particular test. Which those are 

7 the areas that people would not be allowed to 

8 go in unless they were monitored and closely 

9 taken care of. What I was trying to capture 

10 in chapter four were the areas where people 

11 could go without radiological control. 

12 DR. MAURO: And you’re seeing exposure rates 

13 in ^ per hour which are lower than the 120 

14 millirems per year you ^. 

15 MR. ROLLINS: Right, typically. 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, but you only have 

17 measurements from ^ and that the problem 

18 events were not in the 70s. It wasn’t in my 

19 mind that they were talking about ’77 to ’92. 

20 MR. ROLLINS: But the areas that were 

21 affected by these incidents were documented. 

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, how well are these 

23 incidents documented in terms of environmental 

24 exposure? I guess we would have to have more 

25 details than I certainly studied. 
67

1 MR. SMITH: This is Billy again. The Test 

2 Site was monitored on a 24 hour/seven day a 

3 week basis by Rand from ionization chambers 

4 that operated 24 hours a day and read their 

5 signal back to a recording device. And those 

6 recordings are documented, and all of the 

7 environmental reports ^. Not only were there 

8 environmental rams out there, but there were 

9 event rams located around the surface of 

10 ground zero on LNS shots, vertical shaft 

11 shots. 

12 There were rams units located in the 

13 tunnels at various distances starting at the 

14 portal all the way back to several hundred 

15 feet within the working point. And these were 

16 telemetered back to the CP at the other 

17 locations that people could look at to 

18 determine whether or not it was safe for 

19 people to go into work. But in terms of the 

20 environmental exposures, the environmental 

21 rams were there and operating seven days a 

22 week/24 hours a day that gave what the 

23 exposure rates were at many, many locations on 

24 the site. And you can count the locations in 

25 the environmental ^. 
68

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Even in the ‘60s? 

2 MR. SMITH: I started in 1966, and they were 

3 there. 

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: I heard you say that you 

5 only got measurements from ’77 on, but now I’m 

6 hearing that you have measurements going back 

7 into the ‘60s which would be more reassuring. 

8 MR. SCHOFIELD: From your opinion do you 

9 feel comfortable, this 120 a year millirem 

10 that they would give a person as environmental 

11 dose? 

12 MR. SMITH: Personally, I would. 

13 MR. SCHOFIELD: That’s what I wanted to 

14 know, thanks. 

15 MR. PRESLEY: Anything else? 

16 (no response) 

17 MR. PRESLEY: Everybody okay? 

18 DR. MAURO: If Joe or Lynn feel -- let’s see 

19 if I can make sure we’re okay. You made a 

20 bulletproof argument that the survey you used 

21 ^ across the board when an area’s which were 

22 close to ^ because I guess we don’t even know 

23 the rem per year, right? So you’re in the 

24 background. 

25 MR. ROLLINS: It varied at locations. 
69

1 DR. MAURO: You were in the realm of 

2 background. And people who were wearing film 

3 badges at that time were getting ^ so you need 

4 to respect that. And that works. Now by 

5 extrapolation let’s say we were in the area 

6 that got less, 200 maybe. You have the 

7 survey, and in general this area, a person was 

8 working here for a year, he would expect ^ 

9 value based on using a hand-held survey 

10 instrument. What I’m hearing you saying is 

11 that a hand-held survey instrument is, you 

12 know, you kept listening and everybody took 

13 some readings ^. And you had people working 

14 there day after day after day. At the end of 

15 the year you say what kind of doses -- 

16 MR. ROLLINS: Keep in mind this was 8,600 

17 hours. This is for 24 ^. 

18 DR. MAURO: Yeah, I’m moving now out of the 

19 background realm ^ not high, you know two, 

20 three hundred millirem a year that were 

21 therefore clearly above background. They 

22 were, in fact, detected with your survey 

23 instruments and coming in at a rate that seems 

24 to be ^ film badge readings. Some workers got 

25 left in that area that you ^ which you should 
70

1 be getting some positive readings ^. But what 

2 should happen is there should be some parity 

3 ^. 

4 And in my mind that would just be, put 

5 this thing to bed once and for all. That is 

6 whatever the angle of incidence ^ 

7 theoretically, we could argue, well, there 

8 could be a problem here, but if you’re telling 

9 me that you’re certain there’s parity between 

10 the survey meter readings and the film badge 

11 readings, that sort of just shows that, no, if 

12 there are differences, they’re not that large. 

13 And that’s what I’m doing ^. If you’re saying 

14 that’s the case, I think then this ^ to bed. 

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Gene, do we have, if you 

16 could just, between you and Billy, I think I 

17 do not understand that you’ve seen the report 

18 that Billy talked about. 

19 MR. ROLLINS: Arjun, but I wrote this 

20 document ^ I used readily available 

21 information -- 

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 

23 MR. ROLLINS: -- this was all presented in 

24 the environmental reports, and the 

25 environmental reports did not have a detailed 
71

1 breakdown of the ionization chamber reading 

2 until starting somewhat later, like about ’77. 

3 There probably are other data out there that 

4 we could pull in, but about the time that we 

5 decided maybe we should go look for that, then 

6 because of this control badge information that 

7 we learned where nothing was ever subtracted 

8 from the badges, we stopped assigning 

9 environmental dose altogether because of this 

10 collective, we felt like it’s collected and 

11 probably accounted for on the personal 

12 dosimeter. 

13 So we did not do any further research 

14 into those earlier years because of that. But 

15 it seems to me that from ’77 on the badge 

16 parity and the ionization chamber parity, 

17 would it be reasonable to assume that that 

18 parity existed also, or would we need to go 

19 back and prove that? 

20 DR. MAURO: ^. I said, well, in theory ^. 

21 In other words realizing that did not come in 

22 ^ time ^. In fact, a factor of two is enough 

23 for me to start ^. And not because of 

24 background. I agree with you. If a guy’s in 

25 a background area, and generally there’s a 
72

1 background area, you’re assigning 120 millirem 

2 to ^. Yeah, that would be claimant favorable. 

3 But if he’s not in a background area, 

4 is it possible that you could be 

5 underestimating his dose by a factor of two 

6 because ^ energy distribution. ^ you folks 

7 are confident that that’s not happening, and 

8 you understand the reasons why I ask that 

9 question, and I haven’t done all the analysis 

10 you folks have done. 

11 If you walk away with that sense, I 

12 guess, are we going to check those, I mean, in 

13 theory, we can go back and run all sorts of 

14 MCNP calculations and different age-rated 

15 radionuclides, different surface rock ^ and 

16 also ^ and then you walk away and say ^. Or 

17 maybe we walk away and say maybe we’re off by 

18 a factor of two. I have a funny feeling I’d 

19 walk away saying we might be off by a factor 

20 of two. That’s only my intuition from looking 

21 at those curves. 

22 MR. ROLLINS: So what I’m hearing from you, 

23 John, is that what we told you from an 

24 environmental point of view, and that is ^ 

25 find an environment that’s not known to be 
73

1 affected by ongoing facility operations. Now 

2 taking into account previous atmospheric tests 

3 did deposit on the desert floor contamination. 

4 But it’s not to such a degree that it 

5 has to be, have radiological control, 

6 radiation work permits to go work in those 

7 areas because it was basically unmeasurable 

8 other than by heroic activity. So that’s how 

9 I define environmental. And you’re okay with 

10 how we’re handling environmental? 

11 DR. MAURO: Yes, when you’re basically a 

12 backup. ^ just a zero. If he only worked in 

13 an area that wasn’t contaminated and you’re 

14 assigning him this 20 millirem ^ change-over, 

15 of course that’s ^. 

16 I’m more concerned about the person 

17 that’s in the -- now see, there’s the 

18 environmental dose -- in any area that he 

19 works for a protracted period of time where 

20 there’s always residual activity, you know, 

21 chronic exposure, which is above maybe 200 

22 millirem. That scenario, you say that doesn’t 

23 occur. 

24 But let’s say the person is in the 

25 environment where’s he’s getting, and his 
74

1 badge is reading ^ 300 millirem. That’s what 

2 his badge read. I could see based on the 

3 geometry of exposure and uncertainties 

4 regarding the geometry exposure, and 

5 uncertainties about the energy distribution 

6 that he might have been exposed to, that you 

7 might have underestimated his dose by a factor 

8 of two. 

9 MR. ROLLINS: Which may be 100 millirem, 200 

10 millirem? 

11 DR. MAURO: Two hundred millirem. So in 

12 other words there are two, three hundred 

13 millirem ^. Is that important? 

14 MR. CHEW: It’s also assuming ^ where the 

15 angle of incidence has been described for this 

16 issue here. ^ saying that he’s either 

17 standing up or-- 

18 DR. MAURO: But it’s not normal. I mean, 

19 see, normal is -- 

20 MR. CHEW: He isn’t doing that. He’s also 

21 sitting down. He could be laying down. That 

22 neutralizes that ^ angle of incidence ^. 

23 MR. ROLFES: The individual would be 

24 continuously moving in the radiation 

25 environment and not standing still so ^ only 
75

1 be exposed from one angle is not realistic. 

2 DR. MAURO: I would agree with that, but I’m 

3 saying remember the calibration is always 

4 normal. Once you’re off normal, you’ve got a 

5 problem. 

6 MR. ROLLINS: Well, John, we had agreed -- 

7 DR. MAURO: How big it is I don’t know. It 

8 depends on the energy distribution and how far 

9 from normal you are. 

10 MR. ROLLINS: And the size of the source. 

11 DR. MAURO: Well, that affects the 

12 normality. 

13 MR. ROLLINS: Right, so if we’re in a 

14 slightly elevated background area, is that 

15 likely to be a, not infinite, but a large 

16 source or a highly concentrated source? And 

17 if it’s highly concentrated, how long will you 

18 be able to stand on top of it as opposed to 

19 standing over here or standing over there? 

20 DR. MAURO: I’d be the first to admit that 

21 ^. I guess what I’m saying for all intents 

22 and purposes the badge experience is something 

23 that’s awful close to normal. 

24 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): Can you 

25 repeat that, John. I’m sorry. Again, I’m 
76

1 having a hard time hearing anything here. 

2 DR. MAURO: I’m sorry. Joe, what I’m 

3 hearing is for all intents and purposes, the 

4 angle of incidence in an environmental setting 

5 is not that far from normal. It’s not until 

6 you’re really well off normal where you stop 

7 and get some serious need for adjustment 

8 factors, and, of course, when the energy is 

9 low. 

10 What I’m hearing is that for all 

11 intents and purposes the nature of the photons 

12 impinging on the face of the detector it 

13 really is not that far off from normal so the 

14 calibration works. If everyone agrees with 

15 that, in fact, it’s probably not all that 

16 unreasonable -- 

17 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): I don’t know 

18 how it can be, environmental dose can be 

19 normal. I mean, only a small component is 

20 going to be normal. 

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mr. Presley, I don’t think 

22 there are big differences here if we separate 

23 the occupational dose as Jim Neton was 

24 suggesting from the environmental dose and 

25 maybe in principle there doesn’t seem to be a 
77

1 huge issue. 

2 We could sort this out on a small 

3 technical team basis so that we don’t have any 

4 loose ends hanging there, and this doesn’t 

5 resurface. It might be good because in a very 

6 big group, I’m uncomfortable, this is a very 

7 detailed technical discussion that has a lot 

8 of numbers underlying it. And I’m very 

9 uncomfortable in settling such complex issues 

10 in a big group discussion like this. 

11 MR. CHEW: Gene, do you agree with that? 

12 DR. MAURO: I think that’s where we are. 

13 We’re in the TBD. I mean, we’re not talking 

14 the SEC section. We’re talking TBD. 

15 MR. CLAWSON: ^ agree with Arjun. The 

16 Nevada Test Site is a very unique site in the 

17 sense of ^ environment and everything that’s 

18 going on out there. I agree -- 

19 DR. WADE: Mark, are you comfortable with a 

20 technical call then to try and resolve this 

21 issue? 

22 MR. ROLFES: I guess so, yes. 

23 DR. MAKHIJANI: Maybe we might present it a 

24 little bit more sharply than what we have 

25 done. 
78

1 MS. MUNN: That would be my request. Could 

2 you please define exactly what it is you’re 

3 going to resolve here because we started off 

4 with one set of what I thought was issues, and 

5 we’ve now evolved into what I believe is a 

6 different single point to be clarified. So if 

7 someone would be good enough to state very 

8 clearly what it is that this technical team 

9 was going to resolve, it would be helpful for 

10 many of us. 

11 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, yes. This issue, 

12 number 11 on the matrix has been marked closed 

13 on more than one occasion, and it keeps coming 

14 back. 

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: I mean, there’ve been 

16 various definitions of closed here. So I’m 

17 not sure what closed means. We’ve never 

18 responded until now to your, the paragraph 

19 that you wrote in the matrix so far as I’m 

20 aware. This is the first time we’ve actually 

21 presented you with our view of your response. 

22 MS. MUNN: May I articulate what I think 

23 we’re asking you to resolve? I think you’re 

24 being asked to resolve the angle of incidence 

25 issue for badges in occupational settings. Is 
79

1 that correct? In environmental settings, not 

2 occupational settings. 

3 MR. ROLLINS: What you said I think is 

4 correct. But then we have to define what is 

5 environmental and what is occupational. 

6 MS. MUNN: So you have two issues in front 

7 of you. One, defining the line between the 

8 two, and two, the angle of incidence issue 

9 with respect to environmental exposures, 

10 right? Is that what we’re being asked to 

11 develop? 

12 MR. ROLLINS: I think that’s right. 

13 MR. ROLFES: Within the site profile we do 

14 have documents, I’d like to reiterate, that we 

15 do have a section in there, 6.4.1.6, which 

16 incorporate correction factors for an external 

17 environmental dose. Did complete calculations 

18 in 2006 that showed correction factors for 

19 external exposure environmental radiation 

20 based on the Nevada Test Site. 

21 MR. ZLOTNICKI (by Telephone): But am I 

22 correct in thinking those are for idealized 

23 doses and don’t take account of the dosimeter, 

24 just saying if the organ is exposed from the 

25 ground or the ceiling or whatever, what would 
80

1 the correction factor be compared with an 

2 idealized measured dose AP? I don’t think 

3 those correction factors that deal with 

4 specific dosimeters and their response to 

5 isotropic or any other form of angular 

6 exposure. 

7 MR. ROLLINS: Are your comments couched, 

8 based on your review of ^ 2006? 

9 MS. MUNN: Did I just hear occupational 

10 exposure creeping in here again instead of 

11 environmental? 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Part of the confusion that 

13 arose and the reason I didn’t actually 

14 initially respond to this when we presented 

15 you with a larger document is this is labeled 

16 occupational environmental dose. But the 

17 section was written up in the 

18 occupational/external dose chapter six of the 

19 TBD. And so there are two different things 

20 that got mixed up in the original NIOSH 

21 document, and that is the source of a lot of 

22 this confusion. 

23 Initially, we actually did not respond 

24 to this particular item because it was labeled 

25 environmental dose, and that we reviewed that 
81

1 as part of your chapter four and that had not 

2 been authorized. But then it was pointed out 

3 that it had been written up in chapter six, so 

4 we were asked to respond to it. And so that’s 

5 how it got responded separately from 

6 everything else that had to do with external 

7 dose because of the mix up of terminology in 

8 the NIOSH document initially. 

9 MR. PRESLEY: What I have, your ^ states 

10 correction factors for external environmental 

11 dose due to geometry of organ-related relative 

12 to badge of angular dependency. 

13 DR. NETON: I think that’s the issue is 

14 environmental dose and how adequately a badge 

15 on the interior torso reflects the exposure to 

16 the various organs from environmental 

17 deposition of radioactive materials. 

18 DR. MAURO: And in our opinion it’s a very 

19 tractable question and so it does not bear on 

20 SEC issues. It bears solely on ^ a factor of 

21 two -- 

22 DR. NETON: What type of correction, if any, 

23 is applicable, and we need to have this 

24 technical discussion to document what type of 

25 correction factor may be involved. 
82

1 DR. MAURO: I think it’s as simple as that. 

2 Right now I’m sitting here saying if I were 

3 doing this, would I need another factor of two 

4 here to account for this or are we okay the 

5 way we are. 

6 DR. NETON: I also think though some of the 

7 discussion that Gene Rollins brought up 

8 relevant to bring to the table which is what 

9 were the ambient exposures at the site as 

10 measured by these ionization chambers. I 

11 mean, it’s sort of a story to flesh out here. 

12 DR. MAURO: Yes, yes. 

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: And what Mr. Smith brought 

14 up I think is very relevant also. 

15 DR. NETON: I think we’re not prepared to 

16 address all those issues at this table. So I 

17 think a phone call does make a lot of sense. 

18 MR. PRESLEY: Now, as I see it then the 

19 issue for the site profile is closed. I think 

20 we’ve beat that to death. And you all are 

21 going to go back with NIOSH/SC&A and talk 

22 about this technical point about correction 

23 factors for environmental external dose. Is 

24 that correct? Did I say that correctly? 

25 DR. MAURO: Well, it is a site profile. 
83

1 MR. PRESLEY: This is a site profile. The 

2 problem we’ve got with item 11 here is closed. 

3 What I just stated is as far as the site 

4 profile, this item’s closed. 

5 DR. WADE: What you’re saying is closed with 

6 regard to an SEC issue but not a site profile 

7 issue. 

8 DR. MAURO: It is open as a site profile 

9 issue. 

10 MR. PRESLEY: Still has to work on as a TBD. 

11 DR. MAURO: Yes, ^ site profile TBD. 

12 MR. CLAWSON: And also, too, my guess ^ when 

13 we talk about actions closed, we’ve got a lot 

14 of them on here that, okay, NIOSH has said 

15 they’re going to do this, so we’ll close it, 

16 but still SC&A has responded to us of how it 

17 was implemented in the TBD ^. 

18 So that’s what I’m unclear on saying 

19 it’s closed is because to me until it is 

20 closed is until our contractor says, yes, ^ 

21 implemented. We’ve come to an agreement on 

22 this, then it’s closed. And that’s what I’m 

23 getting confused on ^ being stated as closed. 

24 We need to make sure ^ the site profile the 

25 way that it should be and it was implemented 
84

1 properly. To me that’s when it’s closed. 

2 DR. WADE: And that’s an issue for the work 

3 group. And there’s a continuum here where you 

4 have an intellectual discussion. One side 

5 says I think this. The other side says I 

6 think that. They come to closure. They say 

7 we all agree with this. Now we’re going to 

8 put that into the site profile. NIOSH goes 

9 ahead and does that. 

10 The work group could decide that it 

11 wants its contractor to verify that. The work 

12 group could decide that it’s comfortable that 

13 that’s been done. The work group could decide 

14 that it’s made the judgment that that’s been 

15 done. It would vary all over the place 

16 depending upon the magnitude of the issue. 

17 That’s for the work group to decide. 

18 MR. PRESLEY: Let’s take a ten-minute 

19 comfort break. We’ll be back here at five 

20 minutes to nine. 

21 DR. WADE: We’re going to just mute the 

22 phone for ten minutes. 

23 (Whereupon, the working group took a break 

24 from 8:45 p.m. until 8:55 p.m.) 

25 DR. WADE: We’re back into session. Robert, 
85

1 what’s issue number two? 

2 MR. PRESLEY: Number two? 

3 DR. WADE: You said we had two, two open 

4 issues. We beat one near to death. 

5 MR. PRESLEY: Beat it to death. 

6 Twelve we’ve resolved. 

7 Thirteen we’ve resolved. 

8 Fourteen we’ve resolved. 

9 Sixteen’s added to another issue. I 

10 mean 15. 

11 Sixteen we resolved. 

12 Seventeen resolved. 

13 Eighteen has been resolved. 

14 Nineteen has been resolved. 

15 ITEM 20

16 And we’re up to item 20. Now I’ve got 

17 this marked closed, and then we reopened it. 

18 And we need to talk about this for January the 

7th 19 . It has to do with internal non-use of the 

20 badges. 

21 You want to kick this off? 

22 MR. ROLFES: At the last working group 

23 meeting there were some, we believe that we 

24 had closed the -- 

25 MR. CHEW: ^ John at the meeting? 
86

1 MR. ROLFES: Yeah, and we might want to ^ 

2 about tomorrow. 

3 MR. CHEW: Yeah, John, ^ . 

4 MR. ROLFES: At the ^ meeting we had agreed 

5 that this had been addressed, and we had 

6 provided several different methodologies to 

7 assign claimant favorable doses to individuals 

8 who potentially were not monitored at the 

9 Nevada Test Site. What we have now, we have 

10 opened this issue back up because of 

11 additional information. 

12 We’ve received affidavits which Dr. 

13 Mauro has alluded to and briefly summarized. 

14 We did actually pull those affidavits up and 

15 looked at some of the data within the 

16 affidavits and also within the dosimetry 

17 records for the affiants. And we’d like to 

18 respond to this issue in a little bit more 

19 detail. 

20 Quite a bit of time and effort was put 

21 into this on a very short notice. So anyway, 

22 I’d like to have Mel go ahead and ^. 

23 MR. CHEW: Thank you, Mark. 

24 I think I’m going to start and 

25 recognize that it’s probably midnight for many 
87

1 of you folks who came in from back east. 

2 Wanda, this is to our advantage this time 

3 because we’re coming from the same time here. 

4 MS. MUNN: I’m really sorry. 

5 MR. CHEW: And I apologize, so let me try to 

6 keep it, ^ as I can so I will recognize the 

7 time ^. 

8 I think I want to start by saying 

9 there was a very important discussion at the 

end of the December 19th 10 meeting here. And 

11 actually I’m going to quote from Dr. Mauro 

12 here. Actually, one of the most important or 

13 issues ^ with the SEC. I recognize clearly 

14 this is not an SEC discussion at this time, 

15 but it is appropriate. And some of the 

16 discussions I’m going to have also will bear 

17 on some of the discussions we had earlier 

18 today. 

19 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): Lew, this is 

20 Gen. Could he move closer to the microphone? 

21 DR. WADE: We are working on that right now. 

22 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): Thank you. 

23 MR. ROLFES: We’ll get that taken care of 

24 here. 

25 MR. CHEW: Hi, Gen, can you hear me now? 
88

1 This is Mel. 

2 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): Oh, good, very 

3 much better. 

4 MR. CHEW: Well thank you for allowing us to 

5 address this, what I consider an important 

6 issue here. I’m going to separate this 

7 discussion into three parts. The first part’s 

8 going to take a little longer because it shows 

9 some of how we went down to explore one of the 

10 issues that were brought up. And the second 

11 one, and then that’s the first issue is the 

12 affidavit from we will call Attachment Worker 

13 Number 12. As part of the SEC petition there 

14 was also an affidavit. 

15 And secondly, is there evidence of a 

16 systemic pattern of people not wearing badges 

17 in a radiologically controlled area. This is 

18 probably ^. And thirdly, I’m just going to 

19 probably talk about ^ brought up by some of 

20 the other affidavits. 

21 First, I would like to quote from ^. 

22 I gave you a little bit of warning, John, of a 

comment on December 19th 23 during a working group 

24 conference call. Is that one worker -- and I 

25 have to look again. John, you probably ^ 
89

1 again. This may be another way to get a hook 

2 on this claim that he routinely left his badge 

3 behind but did wear the pocket ionization 

4 chamber, and then he was, in fact, he talked 

5 about a particular circumstance where his 

6 pocket ionization chamber read very high. I 

7 think it was five rem. I think that’s what 

8 you said. And he left his badge behind. 

9 So this seems to be one of the things 

10 I would want to do, of course as you well 

11 know, to see if there’s any way to track this 

12 issue. And so here’s what we were able to 

13 determine after a careful review of the 

14 records for that ^. From here on with respect 

15 to Attachment number Affidavit Number 12, I’m 

16 going to refer him hereafter as worker number 

17 12. 

18 His employment records show that 

19 worker number 12 started working at the Test 

20 Site on 11/1963, which was a good period 

21 because this is the time and the period where 

22 the badge and the film dosimetry was ^ 

23 separate badge. It was not an attached badge 

24 ^. It was then returned on 5/20/69, worked 

25 until 8/15/1978, a good nine years. He 
90

1 returned in 1979 and worked until, he came in 

2 1/30/1979, end of January, and worked until 

3 the end of April ’79. But then he again 

4 returned in late ’79 and more or less worked 

5 continuously until 4/30/2004. I just wanted 

6 to give you this person’s ^. 

7 On one of the telephone interviews, a 

CATI dated May the 26th 8 , 2004, he indicated 

9 that after working in E-Tunnel -- and this is 

10 where I pick this up with John -- after about 

11 ten minutes on 4/5/75, his estimated exposure 

12 was 5,000 millirem. This is what he stated in 

13 his CATI. On affidavit just about two years 

14 after, well, actually, almost two and a half 

years after, it was January 31st 15 , 2007, worker 

16 number 12 made the following statement: 

17 “In 1969 to 1974 I was mining in a 

18 tunnel. One time in 1968 in N or E tunnel we 

19 were sent in as a re-entry worker in order to 

20 wash down after a test.” ^ a very good memory 

21 ^. “We were supposed to read our dosimeters 

22 ourselves and get out when we reached a 

23 maximum of 5,000 MR on the pocket dosimeter.” 

24 If I remember correctly, our maximum for 

25 quarter of the year was 5,001. I think I got 
91

1 that in some record. ^ I understand you 

2 understand that. He ^. “I reached 5,000 MR 

3 in about five minutes while working in that 

4 tunnel. NIOSH has only my dose for the whole 

5 year of 0.5375.” That’s after ^. 

6 Continuing, worker number 12, as a 

subsequent affidavit dated February the 5th 7 , he 

8 describes pretty much the same thing again. 

9 He described how he and his coworker did not 

10 wear film badges that they were issued when 

11 they were on the job site. Because management 

12 discouraged dirty or misplaced badges. He 

13 further explained that when badges were worn, 

14 they were either placed in a pocket or ^. 

15 He described one incident again -- 

16 this incident was in E Tunnel -- in which 

17 workers were sent into the tunnel after a shot 

18 to wash out or wash down and were instructed 

19 to get out of the tunnel when the badge 

20 reached 5,000 MR. ^. It’s important. ^ for 

21 this time period we reviewed to see the 

22 information available to them. 

23 I want to describe one thing to start 

24 talking about the wearing of dosimeters in 

25 access and egresses in radiologically 
92

1 controlled areas, especially tunnels at the 

2 Nevada Test Site. And I think it’s an 

3 important point. I’m going to show a picture 

4 of a RAD-controlled point. I brought some 

5 pictures, and Wanda, I think you always said 

6 you always like pictures. 

7 MS. MUNN: I always like that, yeah. 

8 MR. CHEW: Where this is a, it’s actually a 

9 picture of a RAD-control point in a tunnel, in 

10 a tunnel. So you can see this, I’m just going 

11 to hold it up. This happens to be the 

12 radiation technician here, and he, she, it 

13 turns out this lady, is now logging in or 

14 logging out, for instance, the location of 

15 these people in the tunnel. This is an 

16 important point. 

17 It is important to note that these are 

18 in what you would call radiologically19 controlled areas -- that’s a real good term -- 

20 which is a radiation area. There’s a control 

21 access point where an individual signs an 

22 access registry and given the pocket 

23 dosimeter, a pocket dosimeter or an ion 

24 chamber. I happen to have brought some ion 

25 chambers, so we remember what they looked 
93

1 like. One is a 200 MR pocket ion chamber, and 

2 one is 1 R, ionization chamber. I’ll come 

3 back to why these are important. 

4 These pix dosimeters were worn at the 

5 same time and pocket dosimeters were used, 

6 pocket dosimeters are self-reading, meaning 

7 that the individuals could look in the scale 

8 of the dosimetry at the time. Here’s what 

9 happened. Let me describe it to you ^. 

10 A person comes up. He is now going 

11 into the tunnel. What is there is that in 

12 order for him to acquire an access, they have 

13 to go pass through an access-control log. 

14 This is what that lady is holding in her hand. 

15 They have to pass this particular log. What 

16 is in the log here? Well, I’m going to read 

17 this information from the badge and from this 

18 daily log that he has. He’s given a daily 

19 log. You’re coming in. He will know how much 

20 radiation you have received up to that 

21 particular day. So I’m going to -- 

22 DR. MAURO: Of course, up to the day based 

23 on his film badge. 

24 MR. CHEW: On his film badge, not his pocket 

25 dosimeter, his film badge. The last time they 
94

1 processed the film badge. 

2 The Radiation Safety staff validates 

3 the badge and reports the dose from the daily 

4 log for that particular log. In other words 

5 this is what you have right now we know. As 

6 you can see the employee number is there, and 

7 in some places their social security number. 

8 These are Privacy information. I can pass it 

9 around, but I’d like to get it back. 

10 And this one shows the name of the 

11 person, exactly what organization he belonged 

12 to, when the time he entered, what his daily 

13 log showed at that time. So we would have had 

14 your information and the date that you walked 

15 in the door of all previous ^ for the quarter 

16 and for the year. Then obviously, you have 

17 time in. 

18 You hand him his dosimeter. Upon 

19 exit, upon exit if the pocket dosimeter reads 

20 a positive indication which is high enough to 

21 trigger the need for developing the film 

22 badge, then the personal dosimeter is actually 

23 pulled. It’s changed. It’s actually still 

24 logged, actually was logged in. I can show 

25 you some files where they said we pulled that 
95

1 particular badge. 

2 DR. MAURO: At that time. 

3 MR. CHEW: At that time. 

4 And so because we have actually quite 

5 a bit of records of people showing that they 

6 had their badges even pulled, either daily or 

7 even every other day, and we can see why, 

8 because of the exposure levels. 

9 I will probably describe the tests 

10 that we’re talking about because I think we 

11 were able to hone in on ^. The Radiation 

12 Safety staff provides the daily update of the 

13 film badge quarterly and annual dose for date, 

14 allowing them to also maintain an estimate 

15 because when they have the daily log when he 

16 reads this pocket dosimeter, he will now says, 

17 okay, I will add that on to his new estimate. 

18 It’s only an estimate until the film’s record 

19 is pulled and then actually processed and 

20 recorded. 

21 DR. MAURO: And this is 1966? 

22 MR. CHEW: Well, I’ll show you back, this is 

23 one that happened to be 1968. We have them 

24 all the way back to 1962. 

25 MR. CLAWSON: ‘Sixty-one. 
96

1 MR. CHEW: ‘Sixty-one. Thanks, Brad. 

2 And I’ll show you that particular ^. 

3 The Radiological Safety staff also maintains a 

4 logbook of activities in the Control Area for 

5 the duration of operations occurring ^ air 

6 sampling as we talked about, there’s direct 

7 survey samples; here’s the instrument. And we 

8 can talk about that angle of ^ I can do that 

9 because I can tell you the kind of instrument 

10 you had. And they look at the ^ radiation. 

11 The personal dosimeter provides the 

12 official record for an exposure. And if the 

13 dosimeter was lost or the person didn’t come 

14 out with it. Remember now we have this 

15 situation in this particular time period 

16 before the badge was actually attached -- and 

17 I’m going to show a badge from probably the 

18 1960s, prior to 1966. And I’m going to focus 

19 in on ’62 because we have already deemed ^ ’62 

20 is an SEC period even though we’re not 

21 discussing SEC I’m going to use it as a sample 

22 here. 

23 If the badge is reported lost or 

24 misplaced, an investigation of the incident to 

25 determine any possible exposure to an 
97

1 individual, work assignments, work 

2 environments were reviewed. Cohort 

3 dosimetries are also reviewed, and the 

4 individual was assigned a dose based on the 

5 investigation. 

6 What I’d like to do is show, as I 

7 said, show this particular ^, and you can pass 

8 it around. I’d like to get this back, please. 

9 And basically again, it shows where the -- 

10 Bryce has just warned me about some of the 

11 Privacy information here. I can pass this 

12 journal. This one has ^. This one happens to 

13 be in 1970. We’ll use this one as an example 

14 of that. 

15 DR. WADE: Yeah, just so we’re sure, so 

16 you’re passing out something that now contains 

17 no individual identifiers? 

18 MR. CHEW: That’s correct. 

19 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Can we have a look first? 

20 DR. WADE: Okay, can we have the lawyers 

21 take a look? 

22 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Yeah, this can go to 

23 Board members and staff. It can’t go to 

24 anybody else. 

25 DR. WADE: Okay. So Board members, SC&A, 
98

1 NIOSH/ORAU can look at it but not the general 

2 public. 

3 MR. CHEW: Pass this one around, please. 

4 DR. WADE: Mel, we had a question. What 

5 year what this picture taken? 

6 MR. CHEW: Billy, I asked, I was gonna ask 

7 you if you can pull down the year for that 

8 one, but I didn’t remember. Do you remember 

9 what year that was? 

10 MR. SMITH: Not exactly. It would have been 

11 probably in the area of the ‘80s. 

12 DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. 

13 MS. MUNN: I was going to say in the late 

14 ‘70s or early ‘80s because the hat says DOE. 

15 MR. FUNK: I would mention that that was a 

16 detection station. During the early years, 

17 he’s talking about the ‘60s. He’s showing a 

18 picture of the ‘80s. 

19 MR. CHEW: I was using as an example -- 

20 MR. FUNK: This did not take place when you 

21 were talking about. 

22 MR. CHEW: Oh, okay, I did not -- 

23 MR. FUNK: You’re insinuating that they had 

24 that kind of state-of-the-art detection at 

25 that time period when that picture was taken 
99

1 in the ‘80s, and you’re talking about the 

2 ‘70s. 

3 MR. ROLFES: This is ^ of an access control 

4 point. 

5 MR. FUNK: Yeah, you don’t necessarily know 

6 they had one. ^ you don’t have a picture of 

7 it. You’ve got a picture of the 1980s access 

8 control point but not a 1970. The DOE didn’t 

9 even exist until 1974. That’s a DOE hat -- 

10 MR. ROLFES: It’s just to show a picture of 

11 the access control points. 

12 MR. CHEW: I have access records I will show 

13 you of the earlier years you’re talking about. 

14 MR. FUNK: All right, let’s see all this 

15 stuff you haven’t got. 

16 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: He can’t see anything 

17 unless it’s been Privacy Act redacted. 

18 MR. FUNK: You shouldn’t bring up pictures 

19 from the 1980s when you’re talking about the 

20 1970s. 

21 MR. CHEW: I fully respect what you’re 

22 saying. I think this was just to show an 

23 example of a tunnel of how a person was now 

24 going through an access controlled area. 

25 MR. FUNK: Yeah, but you were talking at the 
100

1 time about the 1960s and ‘70s and you’re 

2 showing a picture from the ‘80s, and you don’t 

3 do that. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, now, wasn’t there 

5 radiological control areas designated in the 

6 1960s? 

7 MR. CHEW: Yes, there was. 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: And those radiological control 

9 areas are access points. That’s only ^ an 

10 example, a picture, of an access point. 

11 MR. CHEW: Correct. 

12 MR. FUNK: There not always were access 

13 points because I had some, I was at a lot of 

14 places there was no access point. 

15 MR. CHEW: And we will address this, what 

16 you said, too. And you are actually correct. 

17 MR. FUNK: Despite the ^ a lot of ^ . 

18 MR. CHEW: Let’s get back to -- 

19 DR. MAURO: Do you know what would be very 

20 helpful? 

21 MR. CHEW: Yes, sir. 

22 DR. MAURO: ^ described as ^. Now I’m 

23 looking at ^. I don’t know ^ columns are. 

24 MR. CHEW: And I can’t read the headings of 

25 the columns. There’s one that’s going around 
101

1 that’s a little clearer. 

2 DR. MAURO: Oh, this is much better. 

3 MR. CHEW: I was trying to test your 

4 eyesight there, John. 

5 I think right now, Gen, that John is -

6 – Billy is sitting next to John to explain 

7 from each ^ but you can see that. 

8 Let’s go back to what triggered this 

9 thing was an affidavit from worker number 12. 

His CATI again on May 26th 10 , he says after 

11 working in E Tunnel for about ten minutes his 

12 estimated exposure was 5,000 MR, and it turns 

13 out that it was put down on his CATI, 4/5/75. 

14 So immediately we went to that location ^. It 

15 turns out that, yes, there was an event on 

16 that day. The event was ^ and located in 

17 Tunnel U-12E. And ^ was sort of like N or E 

18 Tunnel, that’s very good. 

19 Because of the high radiation in the 

20 tunnel after this event, there was no entry 

21 for anyone on that day. Matter of fact a 

22 review of all the access logs indicated that 

23 there was no indication that worker 12 ever 

24 participated in the ^ event because we were 

25 able to find all the access logs. 
102

1 Well, ^ says, well, let’s see where he 

2 was. Let’s see where we can review and track 

3 this issue. I’m going to show you when we 

4 asked the Record Center to pull. 

5 Unfortunately, because of the Defense ^ 

6 Agency’s foresight or hindsight, now, they 

7 actually pulled every person they find that 

8 person’s name showed up in a log, a logbook. 

9 They put it into a database format. So I was 

10 able to go down, and I can now show you this 

11 for this particular gentleman here exactly 

12 which event that he made his first entry. 

13 And it turns out the event was Hudson 

14 Moon, and it was 5/26/1970. I can understand. 

15 This was 34 years ago. He missed it by a year 

16 because the first time he said ’68, and he 

17 said it went through ^ 4/5/75. And we walked 

18 down that path, and we found nothing, and we 

19 came back ^. So his entry was in U-12E on 

September the 28th 20 , and the event was 5/26/70. 

21 Now why after such a long time? Well, 

22 it turns out that there was a strike at the 

23 Test Site, and also Hudson Moon had a 

24 considerable amount of contamination due to a 

25 lack of containment of the over ^ that 
103

1 happened ^ at the tunnel. This happens to be 

2 a very well documented report by DMA, and 

3 that’s one of the additional information we 

4 can find talking about specific events, 

5 radiation surveys and re-entry into the 

6 tunnel. 

7 So we had him going in on 9/28 on 

8 swing shift. And how do we know that? 

9 Because we knew when he came through the main 

10 gate because he was then issued a new 

11 dosimeter. Remember now, every person’s film 

12 dosimeter is color-coded and his badge was 

13 color-coded. And so when Security people in 

14 addition to the Rad Safe people we know that 

15 he was not wearing the right color-code for 

16 the month. They immediately initiated a 

17 change. Bryce, do you want to make a comment? 

18 MR. RICH: ^. 

19 MR. CHEW: Sure, I’m going to talk about 

20 this ^. 

21 So, John, I want to make sure that I 

22 didn’t ^ anything ^. I want to make sure I 

23 didn’t violate anything ^ show you ^. 

24 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: You can always give it to 

25 staff, and you can always give it to ^. 
104

1 MR. CHEW: That’s all I ^. 

2 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Yeah, you just can’t give 

3 it to members of the public. 

4 MR. CHEW: John, these are the number of 

5 times that he actually subsequently ^ 26 

6 entries into U-12E. And I’m going to home in 

7 on the specific day where he thought that he 

8 was potentially ^. It is ^ to that level of 

9 detail. But I just want to show you that he 

10 came in the swing shift and day shift. This 

11 happens to be the database I told you about. 

12 He also went back in again called ^ 

13 which is U-12T, and that was ^ he went back 

14 into ^ that was executed in 1974. He went 

15 back on also into ^. He got actually a very 

16 small exposure from one of the entries for ^. 

17 But the one that we need to focus on is Hudson 

18 Moon. I’m going to track this, take this one 

19 around. This is a log of all his entries into 

20 the tunnel ^. 

21 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: ^ 

22 MR. CHEW: No, sir. Those are the name of 

23 the events and then the ^ over there. You can 

24 see on the Hudson Moon he made 26 entries. 

25 MS. MUNN: And it’s ^. 
105

1 MR. CHEW: It’s on the record. 

2 MR. RICH: This list is generated by 

3 querying the database. ^. 

4 MR. CHEW: Yes, and what shift he was. 

5 MR. RICH: ^ 

6 MR. CHEW: We can go down to the next level 

7 of detail. Now we can go down to the next 

8 level of detail. Here is the access log of 

9 28th which is the first day on that one. And 

here’s the log date for the 29th 10 . I can go on 

11 and on. But the ^ important point is the one 

12 I’m going to pull up and show you -- 

13 DR. MAURO: We’re waiting for the punch 

14 line. 

15 MR. CHEW: It’s coming. You said this is an 

16 important issue, John. 

17 DR. MAURO: Absolutely. 

18 MR. CHEW: We want to give it its due 

19 process. 

20 Let me show you there’s one for 

October the 6th 21 , and his name is second from 

22 the bottom. You can see that there’s a pic 

23 data that he received. And the third one I 

24 highlighted, John, on the left-hand side, and 

25 here’s the one for 10/6. 
106

1 Gen, John is looking at a specific 

2 access log for the gentleman we’re talking 

3 about, a daily access log. And this was in 

4 1970. 

5 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): Are you 

6 talking to me? I can visualize -- 

7 MR. CHEW: I was just talking to you. 

8 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): Okay, thanks. 

9 MR. CHEW: We’ve got John with a piece of 

10 paper in front of him. 

11 So, John, I think one of the questions 

12 you asked is, gee, I wonder if this is 

13 available. And we said, and I think Billy and 

14 me, we said, yeah, and it’s more than yeah. 

15 Let me describe what’s in here because there 

16 was a Livermore device for the Department of 

17 Defense experiments here in E Tunnel in a 

18 particular ^, a very important experiment 

19 because these experiments were still looking 

20 at vulnerability of critical weapons ^. 

21 A review of the formal Defense Nuclear 

22 Agency report at Hudson Moon operationally 

described that on October 6th 23 -- I pulled this 

24 directly from the report -- a two-by-three 

25 hole post was cut into the test chamber number 
107

1 two. And the chamber was entered by a team 

2 dressed in double anti-C suits, hoods, footies 

3 and gloves wearing a full face mask. It’s in 

4 the report. 

5 The entire chamber was covered with a 

6 deep 12 inches approximately layer of fine 

7 dust ash. Well, we don’t want to get ^ okay? 

8 The first attempt at removing the dust from 

9 the test chamber involved a slurry technique. 

10 Water was added to the dust and the resulting 

11 mixture was pumped out of the test chamber. 

12 This technique was employed ^ that the water 

13 was not sprayed on any of the extremities. 

14 Let me tell you why I’ve given this 

15 amount of detail ^. Because when I first saw 

16 the affidavit in which you said he washed 

17 down, I said they didn’t wash out the tunnel. 

18 That didn’t happen. I said I don’t know ^. 

19 Well, I was wrong. 

20 It turns out that I thought water was 

21 never used in the tunnel to wash down. Worker 

22 number 12 was correct in his affidavit. They 

23 did go and wash down, one of the unique. I ^ 

24 the interview one of the health physicists 

25 who, a radiation supervisor. And I said have 
108

1 you ever washed down a tunnel. He said, oh, 

2 no, not that I remember. Well, in this 

3 particular case he remembered very well. It 

4 was certainly a special case. 

5 So due to the radiation level now in 

6 the test it’s safe to assume as you can see by 

7 the record, and we’re going to give the one 

8 for the ^, he was not only wearing, he is 

9 given two pic pocket dosimeters because when 

10 they go into a test chamber that we already 

11 know that’s high radiation, the surveys will 

12 show that there were high radiation fields in 

13 there already. ^ into the chamber. Typical 

14 Livermore scientists want to get in and get 

15 that stuff right away. But those folks during 

16 that particular entry was given two 

17 dosimeters. One 200 MR dosimeter and one, at 

18 least a one R or five R dosimeter. 

19 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: ^ 

20 MR. CHEW: No question, no, no, question. 

21 And so based on his dosimetric record 

22 and looking at some of the cohort that went in 

23 there -- he didn’t go in by himself -- the 

gentleman received on October 6th 24 , 240 rem and 

25 that was also agrees with what his pic data 
109

1 showed. I can pull that ^. And the same 

2 thing they did on October the 7th. So his pic 

3 reading was, his film reading was 240 on 

October the 6th, 215 on October the 7th 4 . His 

5 pic data on that day was 310 and 300, 

6 respectively. 

7 DR. MAURO: So when he walked in he came 

8 with a history of a quarter of what? 

9 MR. CHEW: He had a small exposure to the 

10 part ^ it’s like 100 millirem prior to that. 

11 But you can see that on that particular, on 

the date entered on the 7th 12 where they put 

13 down. 

14 MR. RICH: He came back onsite on 6/28 and 

15 went directly -- 

16 MR. CHEW: Nine/28. 

17 MR. RICH: Nine/28, yes, 9/28 and went 

18 directly out to the tunnel, a swing shift. He 

19 worked, but he never received any ^. But he 

20 worked continuing days with multiple changes 

21 of personnel ^ on a daily or monthly basis. 

22 ^. 

23 MR. CHEW: Well, John, I think ^ I’m going 

24 to show this is his film dosimetry record ^. 

25 I’m going to pass that to you, John. You can 
110

1 see it and pass it around. This is 1970, and 

2 you look at the first times he had exposure, 

3 that is the date when the film badge was 

4 issued. You see first thing? Look in the 

5 left-hand column there. 

6 DR. MAURO: That’s where I’m looking. 

7 MR. CHEW: No, on the left-hand column where 

8 his doses are, right there. Yeah, there you 

9 go. He walked in the building, 1,000. That’s 

10 what it says, 1,000, right, which is the gate 

11 entry? 

12 DR. MAURO: Yeah. 

13 MR. CHEW: And he was issued the badge on 

14 9/28? 

15 DR. MAURO: Yeah. 

16 MR. CHEW: And he received exceptional 

17 exposures. They pulled his badge. 

18 DR. MAURO: So here was a case where the 

19 pocket dosimeter showed some -- 

20 MR. CHEW: No question, every time. 

21 MR. RICH: Well, he wore the badge from 6/28 

22 ‘til 10/1. And then the pic gave it a 

23 reading, and then that -- 

24 MR. CHEW: You can see those certain dates 

25 there where they pulled. It was like six and 
111

1 seven. They obviously pulled it on the sixth. 

2 DR. MAURO: So what I’m reading here is that 

3 ^ and pulled his badge and read it that day. 

4 I just want to make sure ^. 

5 MR. RICH: Right, right. They pulled the 

6 badge that day and read it ^. 

7 DR. MAURO: They read the exposure that’s on 

8 the badge that day. 

9 MR. RICH: Yes. 

10 DR. MAURO: So in effect what we’re saying 

11 is right now we have ^ that we not only know, 

12 now we have his badge, cumulative exposure 

13 from the badge he wore up to some point in 

14 time. Then he went into a location where he 

15 experienced a relatively high ^, and at that 

16 time they pulled the badge and read it there. 

17 And the reading that came back from that day 

18 was ^. 

19 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. So, John, I’m going to 

20 show you this chart. You can look at this 

21 table. And this actually is part of my second 

22 part of my talk about the reading. But I just 

23 want to point out that this gentleman that was 

24 talked about is right up on top here, okay? 

25 Gen, we’re just showing another chart, 
112

1 one other table to John, about the specific ^ 

2 in relationship to his film badge that the 

3 gentleman that’s in here. 

4 DR. ROESSLER (by Telephone): I think you’re 

5 trying to keep me awake, aren’t you? 

6 DR. WADE: You’ll be the only one, Gen. 

7 MR. CHEW: Gen, I’m going to move along 

8 because everyone else is falling asleep. 

9 John, in summary here worker 12 

10 received his major exposure in Hudson Moon in 

11 support of the ^ experiment. And to clarify, 

12 John, of your comment, there’s really no 

13 evidence for worker 12 is not wearing his film 

14 dosimeter during the time that he was ^. Nor 

15 after careful reading of his affidavit -- I 

16 think you kind of skimmed quickly and combined 

17 a couple of things -- he never said that he 

18 was not wearing his badge. He never did. He 

19 said other things happened, but he never, on 

20 that particular incident, he never said ^. 

21 But I just wanted to say this is how you said, 

22 and I just wanted to clarify ^. 

23 DR. MAURO: There’s no doubt that this what 

24 I just heard is that for this particular 

25 affidavit, this claim, there was some 
113

1 misunderstanding. 

2 MR. CHEW: Yes, there was. And I ^. 

3 Just show one more thing. This is 

4 another control picture of -- I like this one 

5 -- of people reading the pic data. 

6 DR. MAURO: I think that first of all it’s 

7 incredible ^. 

8 MR. CHEW: Yes, it’s available, uh-huh. 

9 DR. MAURO: Now what’s wonderful about this 

10 there is a very serious concern ^ that there 

11 was a widespread practice of not wearing your 

12 badge. ^, well, at least in this one, there 

13 was a misunderstanding. 

14 MS. MUNN: ^ radiological ^. 

15 DR. MAURO: Exactly. That was the real 

16 concern though because those affidavits tell 

17 us a story. 

18 MR. CHEW: Well, I’m going to talk about 

19 this in the next part of the -- 

20 DR. MAURO: Okay, keep going. 

21 MR. CHEW: I’m going to do one more thing 

22 here. As you know the Nevada Test Site badge 

23 went through a little bit of ^ change. Prior 

24 to 1966, since 1965 in fact, clearly the film 

25 dosimeter was on a separate clip, and it was 
114

1 not physically attached to the badge. And so 

2 clearly a person could, for instance, put his 

3 film in one place here and still has the 

4 badge. We recognize that. And so that’s very 

5 important. I’m setting the stage for the next 

6 part of the -- 

7 DR. MAURO: That was ’66, right? 

8 MR. CHEW: That was prior to 1966. 

9 DR. MAURO: Prior to ’66 they were separate. 

10 Post they were -- 

11 MR. CHEW: After ’66 they were -- 

12 DR. MAURO: That’s what I’m saying, yes. 

13 MR. CHEW: I also brought a picture that 

14 Billy was able to find of how that badge was 

15 constructed, of how that film badge was 

16 constructed. I also have brought today for 

17 the badge that people are actually using 

18 today, right, Billy? Okay, it is the same one 

19 today. 

20 And I’m going to open it up, and also 

21 hold the person’s security badge to show it’s 

22 not a simple process to do. There’s a neutron 

23 dosimeter behind there, and that’s a new one 

24 here, and the TLD badge is here. So it’s very 

25 hard, you have to have a special tool to pull 
115

1 it out. You can pry it with a plier to get it 

2 out, but you really have to work at it. 

3 This badge was part of the old badge, 

4 old film badge because they still had that 

5 open window. This will just show you they 

6 went ahead and changed ^ but did not change 

7 the security badge. That open window with 

8 that film now is tucked in here, John, and so, 

9 and then this is put over the packet and you 

10 can see how it was assembled. Actually, I 

11 look at things from right to left and you 

12 look, I’m looking at it from down here. 

13 DR. MAURO: I think as a general, from our 

14 previous discussions ^, once the film badge is 

15 integrated as the security badge, there’s much 

16 less concern -- 

17 MR. CHEW: Yes, there is. 

18 DR. MAURO: -- of this practice. The real 

19 concern was the affidavits that claimed this 

20 was widespread. Now here you’ve demonstrated, 

21 I mean, ^, you shot that issue down. If you 

22 remember one of the things we talked about is 

23 this is one way, this is very important. 

24 MR. CHEW: Absolutely. 

25 DR. MAURO: I mean, I realize ^ but this is 
116

1 the whole ball game here. In other words if 

2 this practice that was ^ as being widespread, 

3 and you can demonstrate over and over and over 

4 again in case upon case that this did not 

5 happen, and you have references to prove it -- 

6 MR. CHEW: John, I’m going to go move on 

7 because it’s getting a little late. 

8 This is what I consider, what I call 

9 issue number two. And the issue number two, 

10 and I’m going to try to sort of summarize, is 

11 there any evidence of workers not wearing a 

12 film badge dosimeter in a radiological13 controlled area. We were asked on December 

19th 14 on a conference call with the working 

15 group to either respond to this question or 

16 propose a methodology to address, to 

17 appropriately address this issue. 

18 DR. MAURO: I was there, right. 

19 MR. CHEW: You only asked for feasibility. 

20 You didn’t -- 

21 DR. MAURO: These are the answers ^ . 

22 MR. CHEW: There was holidays and Christmas 

23 and everything. Well, John, I’d like to 

24 recall and quote you again and apologize at 

25 your suggestion, John, as you always are 
117

1 outstanding in coming up with a process to ^. 

2 I’m going to quote. I’m going to quote. 

3 We’ve known each other too long. 

4 You know there is any way to track, 

5 say, okay, there’s a bunch of ionization -- it 

6 was a very good suggestion by the way, John -- 

7 chamber that will red out. I don’t know if 

8 there are in the records, I mean that this 

9 would be almost like prima facie evidence of 

10 yes or no whether this is going on and if 

11 there is a record of pic readings and if in 

12 the same month, let’s say, -- I’m quoting you 

13 directly -- you find, yeah, this person had a 

14 record in the log somewhere that said their 

15 pocket ionization chamber read whatever number 

16 was in the record and we recognize the pocket 

17 ionization chambers are not nearly as reliable 

18 as film, but when looking at the film record, 

19 and he received for the month a reading of 

20 zero, then this is basically what is being 

21 claimed in some of the SEC affidavits. 

22 This would, you know, if we see I’m 

23 looking at it this way is indirectly I 

24 understand your argument -- when I talk about 

25 Table 1 -- but I believe I have to say after 
118

1 reading the petitions that, my goodness, I 

2 would sure like to find out whether or not for 

3 this particular person’s, and a person’s that 

4 gave particular claims in an affidavit, 

5 whether or not his or her actual dose for that 

6 month, you know, was reported at zero, but his 

7 pic he claimed has recorded at least, you 

8 know, maybe some dose and does any -- and then 

9 you asked the question, does anyone on the 

10 phone know whether pocket ionization chambers 

11 had a written log to maintain. 

12 And Mr. Smith, Billy, says, this is 

13 Billy. And you say, yes. And, this is Billy 

14 Smith. And the answer is yes. There are logs 

15 maintained of any pic readings that people ^ 

16 in an area. And they were recorded on logs, 

17 and these records would be maintained at the 

18 Record Center. 

19 So first of all I’d like to say I want 

20 to thank both Bryce and Billy, and especially 

21 the nuclear testing archive record manager who 

22 spent many, many hours during this particular 

23 holiday at the NTS Record to achieve your ^. 

24 First we had to find access logs. There were 

25 positive pic readings the results that were 
119

1 high enough so ^ the trigger of ^. I mean, a 

2 person comes out with a 30 MR pic, they’re not 

3 going to do anything, right? That’s no good, 

4 huh? But, you know, the levels, ^. His level 

5 seems to be around about 30 MR a month. 

6 DR. MAURO: That was the trigger? 

7 MR. CHEW: Yeah. I think it was not like a 

8 firm 30 RM, but I think the RC radiation 

9 technician monitors, you know, look at that 

10 very carefully especially looking at what 

11 other people are coming out with. ^. Then we 

12 had to retrieve the dosimetry records and to 

13 find to see if any positive film data was 

14 recorded corresponding to about the same time 

15 period. Remember, the time you pulled the 

16 badge and then he has it on for several days. 

17 When it was issued we get issued days. And so 

18 there was a lot of searching. 

19 Well, John, I’ve already showed you 

20 worker number 12, right? And certainly, you 

21 can conclude that he was wearing his badge 

22 especially the time that he was in a 

23 radiological-controlled area. We have about 

24 15 or 20 without radiological data^. Twenty25 five results that clearly there were positive 
120

1 pic readings and there were film dosimetry 

2 readings. And this is where I’m going to 

3 again -- 

4 DR. MAURO: Let me just ask a question. Is 

5 that ^? That is we just went and looked for 

6 positive -- 

7 MR. CHEW: ^ first. 

8 DR. MAURO: And do that first and then say, 

9 okay, let’s -- 

10 MR. CHEW: I have to admit that I ^, too, 

11 John. You have to go to certain events that 

12 they had those things happen. 

13 DR. MAURO: To see positive. 

14 MR. CHEW: Yeah, yeah, to see we had to go, 

15 and fortunately there was a very clear record 

16 of almost every shot and especially in the 

17 tunnels. And a shot in the tunnels then these 

18 particular reports helped. That helped me, 

19 for instance, home in on some ^. 

20 I wouldn’t gone to Hudson Moon 

21 initially first because the data that was 

22 given to us was incorrect or mistaken. So I 

23 have to say, yes, in order to find positive 

24 pic data, we had to go to some events that 

25 clearly that we know that people went in and 
121

1 we see exposures. I’m losing Arjun already, 

2 so I better move along. 

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Because I know the punch 

4 line. 

5 DR. MAURO: So now the story has been told. 

6 I mean, everyone’s hearing the same story is 

7 that you were sort of forced to go to events. 

8 MR. CHEW: Absolutely. 

9 DR. MAURO: Because that’s the only way 

10 you’re going to get a positive reading off the 

11 ^. 

12 MR. CHEW: So it’s not as random as you 

13 would ^. 

14 DR. MAURO: But you did the best you could. 

15 And when you do that there’s always a film 

16 badge reading. ^, and you got 25 out of 25. 

17 MR. CHEW: Twenty-five out of 25. 

18 MR. RICH: Let me add just a little bit. We 

19 were constrained a little bit by a time 

20 period, ’61, ’66 time period. And -- 

21 DR. MAURO: That’s a ^. 

22 MR. RICH: -- well, pushed us into ’70, I 

23 know, but we -- 

24 MR. CHEW: ‘Sixty-two, ’61. 

25 MR. RICH: We looked at the individuals that 
122

1 were the highest exposure group, and so that 

2 pushed us into an area that we would expect to 

3 find high-level tests or pics that would 

4 trigger a subsequent badge collection. 

5 DR. MAURO: ^ when you picked up ’61 -- 

6 MR. CHEW: ‘Sixty-two. 

7 DR. MAURO: -- and ^. So you got part of 

8 the SEC period, and you got part of the -- 

9 MR. CHEW: The badge, separated badge ^. 

10 DR. MAURO: So you had to ^, and you had no 

11 choice but to get into it in a reasonable way 

12 to get handle, go to places where ^. 

13 MR. CHEW: Sure, ^ would make sense. 

14 DR. MAURO: And there are two aspects to 

15 that ^. One is that strictly ^ what we’re 

16 trying to do because you’re looking for the 

17 people that might have gotten high exposures 

18 ^. But also at the same time it happens to be 

19 a situation that was under a lot of scrutiny. 

20 In other words ^ the situation, right? ^. So 

21 it’s almost like, I’m trying to figure out how 

22 the ^. One aspect really argues in your 

23 favor, namely that if it was going to happen 

24 anywhere, it would happen here because this is 

25 where the high doses were. Unfortunately, one 
123

1 downside is, well, it’s also the place where 

2 everybody was really paying attention. 

3 MR. ROLLINS: A comment on that is any area 

4 that someone would have known that the 

5 radiation levels were going to be 

6 significantly elevated would have been close 

7 to ^. 

8 DR. MAURO: There’s nothing we can do about 

9 that. 

10 MR. ROLLINS: What I’m saying is that these 

11 were unusual situations and in any, I believe, 

12 any situation where a worker would have been 

13 alerted to the fact that he may need to leave 

14 his badge behind would be closely monitored. 

15 DR. MAURO: I have to say that this is very, 

16 very compelling. What it means to me is that 

17 it looks dangerous when you say ^. 

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Don’t say it. 

19 MR. CHEW: No, let him say it, Arjun, that’s 

20 okay. 

21 DR. MAURO: Because I do this all the time 

22 and, you know, ^. I’ll say it this way. You 

23 just made the case that you looked at 25 

24 badges as random as you can do, you need the 

25 exposures that are relatively high where you 
124

1 would get a positive ^. And in each one of 

2 those cases, you had a consistent reading from 

3 a film badge that was providing, at least from 

4 your perspective, evidence that is unlikely in 

5 those 25 circumstances where the person left 

6 his badge behind ^. That’s the story you’re 

7 telling. 

8 And in order to extrapolate from that 

9 and accept it at face value, one would 

10 conclude that if there was such a practice, it 

11 sure wasn’t very widespread. I mean, I’m not 

12 a statistician, but 25 out of 25, the 

13 probability ^ what the chances are randomly 

14 hitting 25 and none of them, now I’m not going 

15 to make a statistical statement, but I guess 

16 I’ll stop here. I think you did exactly the 

17 thing as best you could that SC&A asked to be 

18 done. And I guess I should stop right there. 

19 MR. CHEW: And maybe I should, too. 

20 MR. RICH: Let me just add one more thing. 

21 If we limit ourselves just to the tunnel, 

22 there were some major experiments, surface 

23 line-of-sight shots ^, the silos. 

24 MR. CHEW: We could get into a more detailed 

25 discussion because we analyzed every one of 
125

1 them and not only tracked it to the event and 

2 things that happened. And one person actually 

3 was very hot in this exposure, actually 

4 approaching the annual limit, and that was all 

5 there. And then remember we talked about ^. 

6 DR. MAURO: If I ^ that worker, some of 

7 those workers there believe that in fact they 

8 did reach^. They really believe that. If I 

9 heard the story, I’d have to say I don’t know 

10 what I would think. I mean an intellectually 

11 honest person, I’ve got to tell you all these 

12 years I believed ^. ^ we showed this thing to 

13 us I would have to say I must be mistaken. 

14 That’s what I would say. 

15 MR. CHEW: I’m going to probably close with 

16 item number three. This is a little bit of 

17 expansion of, the first one was a specific 

18 individual we talked about to show you the 

19 depth of track-ability. The second one was 

20 what we talked about with pic. 

21 The third one is really what I 

22 consider the common themes among the many 

23 other ^. They say there were situations that 

24 they recall when they were not wearing their 

25 badge and could not wear their badge, either 
126

1 the film badge or the security or both. I’ll 

2 just say we recognize there’s a policy, and 

3 I’ll just read you the policy and then I’ll go 

4 on to that. 

5 During the years of ’57 to ’93 it’s 

6 the policy at the Test Site that all 

7 individuals who enter the Test Site had to 

8 wear a current personal dosimeter. Prior to 

9 ’87 the dosimeter used was a film badge and 

10 was exchanged on a monthly basis -- to answer 

11 your question on that -- each one had a 

12 different color and was validated at the 

13 entrance gate at the NTS by the security force 

14 contractor. 

15 In 1987 the dosimeter was changed from 

16 film to a thermoluminescence dosimeter, TLD as 

17 we all know, which was exchanged on a 

18 quarterly basis. Each of the calendar 

19 quarters had a different color identifier like 

20 the badge I showed, and was also validated at 

21 the entrance gate at the NTS by the security 

22 force contractor. 

23 We can certainly envision that there 

24 are certain working, there are working 

25 conditions or situations where it’s necessary 
127

1 to protect the badge from damage. ^ put it in 

2 my pocket. I can put it in a plastic bag. I 

3 put it away because I was welding. Examples 

4 of this is probably welding, wet environment, 

5 even chemical or even radioactive 

6 contamination if ^. In these cases the badge 

7 was intended to be enclosed in a plastic cover 

8 or put into a pocket. 

9 DR. MAURO: I was never concerned about 

10 that. 

11 MR. CHEW: Because many of the workers lived 

12 at the Test Site and the base Test Site like 

13 Mercury, Area 12 -- I did myself -- base camp 

14 or any more remote sites, you can envision 

15 certain situations where individuals may not 

16 have either his film badge or his security 

17 badge on his person here. 

18 Some of these examples were ^ of his 

19 living quarters, participating in sports, 

20 individual recreation activities, undergoing 

21 medical examination. Generally, however, 

22 security credentials were worn to the mess 

23 hall, to the theater or while attending other 

24 off-hours site activities. 

25 The fundamental question is was 
128

1 individuals ever in a radiological situation 

2 or condition when he was not being monitored 

3 by either, either personal dosimeter badge or 

4 other active or passive radiological programs, 

5 activities in place at the time. That’s the 

6 fundamental question. 

7 DR. MAURO: I would say the argument you’re 

8 making are problematic arguments. The other 

9 argument ^ data for 25 people ^ possibly get 

10 to make your case, and I think that’s ^. I 

11 guess I would love to hear what some of these 

12 folks who wrote the affidavits ^. In other 

13 words, Jim, it’s hard to talk, what I’m 

14 getting at is ^ to believe that this is going 

15 on. Well, obviously they were wrong. 

16 DR. NETON: You’ve got to be careful. I 

17 don’t think you want them ^ they’re being 

18 confronted. 

19 DR. MAURO: No, I’m not confronting. I 

20 guess what I’m saying is unfortunately -- 

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: You know, I think they’re 

22 big issues, and a lot of people have made 

23 statements. A lot of NIOSH and Mel’s group 

24 has done a lot of work, and I think that we 

25 should take a considered look at this work. 
129

1 If we’re charged with looking at this as an 

2 SEC issue, I know Mr. Presley ^, this is not 

3 the forum for it, but it has, this particular 

4 thing has gotten mixed up with the SEC issue 

5 because it was brought up, the SEC affidavits 

6 are being considered. 

7 I think somebody responsible for the 

8 looking at that, I want to talk with the 

9 people who wrote the affidavits and it’s part 

10 of our jobs to do interviews with petitioners. 

11 And we have really not seriously begun that 

12 process. So the conclusory (sic) talk in an 

13 early stage makes me very uncomfortable. I 

14 can certainly hear what is going on, but 

15 conclusory talk, I have to say that I haven’t 

16 had a chance to look at it. I haven’t even 

17 read the whole petition completely. That 

18 summary, I’m certainly aware of what’s in 

19 these -- you know, we’ve just begun our work. 

20 And in regard to the TBD issue it’s 

21 kind of different. When we’re talking about 

22 SEC I think we should be cautious. 

23 MR. ROLFES: We did address this as a site 

24 profile issue. 

25 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I agree. 
130

1 MR. ROLFES: And also it was brought up as 

2 an SEC issue by Dr. Mauro at the last meeting. 

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, and I’m not saying that 

4 you gave us. It has gone over in that 

5 direction and that’s the only reason, and I 

6 think maybe we should carry this over. And I 

7 would suggest for Mr. Presley maybe at this 

8 stage, we could close it out as a site profile 

9 issue and carry it over and do investigation 

10 for the SEC. I’d be okay with that. 

11 DR. MAURO: I also want to say that there’s 

12 no doubt in my mind that you folks ^. 

13 MR. CLAWSON: There is one thing I would 

14 like to get though. Where did they come up 

15 with these names? Is it just something 

16 playing on the radio? 

17 MR. PRESLEY: Sometime you said -- 

18 MR. CHEW: I happen to be part of the 

19 Livermore group that actually, how do you 

20 decide the names. One time they said let’s 

21 name it after all the rivers of Maine. Okay. 

22 Narraguagus happens to be a river in Maine. 

23 You know why I remember that is because I was 

24 involved with that ^. But many of the 

25 PLOWSHARE events, Dr. Gary Higgins -- do you 
131

1 remember him, Lynn? He liked the things that 

2 moved or changed so he named it after things 

3 that carry people, ^, Chariot, Buggy, 

4 Cabriolet. 

5 MR. PRESLEY: Those towns in Texas. One 

6 year they were cheeses. One year they were 

7 wines. 

8 MR. CHEW: All of the DOD shots were always 

9 two names. 

10 MR. PRESLEY: Two names. 

11 MR. CHEW: Like Diesel Train, Hudson Moon, 

12 Mighty Oak. 

13 MR. CLAWSON: Well, I was thinking dining 

14 car Cadillac, it’s time to eat or something. 

15 DR. WADE: Okay, where are we? 

16 MR. CHEW: I just want to make one more 

17 thing ^. And this is maybe address a 

18 fundamental question. I recognize you would 

19 like to, ^ to a separate discussion. But in 

20 addition to the pocket dosimeter assigned to 

21 the individual, there were many other levels 

22 of monitoring exists. Can we talk a bit about 

23 that? 

24 They exist to assess the potential 

25 exposures ^ no matter where they are. We have 
132

1 continuous monitoring in both control areas, 

2 general site, radiological and radiological 

3 control areas. In the general site areas 

4 there were environmental air samplers. There 

5 was environmental dosimeters. There were 

6 periodic radiological surveys of the areas 

7 including at the housing area, the office, 

8 work office and cafeterias, the operational 

9 work areas. I didn’t put this together. The 

10 person at the Archive Center did that. 

11 Doses for the individuals can be 

12 assessed using the same methodology for the 

13 lost badge, use a coworker dosimeter and 

14 monitoring data for each location cited. It 

15 was normal procedure for the worker if there’s 

16 any reason for their dosimeter was either lost 

17 of not returned. And also locations are sited 

18 within a radiological control area, access ^. 

19 DR. MAURO: As the Board’s contractor I 

20 think that where we are, you are responding to 

21 the direction given by ^ ^ but taking it on 

22 face value ^. So I want to just ^. I don’t 

23 think there is a working group right now for 

24 Nevada Test Site SEC. 

25 MR. CHEW: That’s correct. There isn’t. 
133

1 DR. WADE: That will come up later this 

2 week. 

3 DR. MAURO: Would it be fair to say that 

4 this should be one of the first items on the 

5 agenda by the Nevada Test Site SEC working 

6 group as to what should be done next? Because 

7 there really is -- 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: The Board ^ that. 

9 DR. WADE: The Board will -- 

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- ^. 

11 DR. MAURO: There’s nothing for us to do. 

12 That’s what I’m saying is my understanding of 

13 it now is I think you’ve provided the 

14 information. Whether or not the working group 

15 would like us to look at that material, 

16 certainly we could do that. Or if the working 

17 group feels that you ^, you certainly provided 

18 your case. So there really is nothing ^ but 

19 there’s really nothing more for me to say. 

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I already suggested we 

21 close it as a site profile issue and move the 

22 ^ of some of the affidavits that needs to be 

23 carefully considered, and we have a head start 

24 on your response. 

25 MR. ROLFES: It has to be carefully 
134

1 considered -- 

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: As an SEC issue. We can 

3 stop discussing it here. 

4 MR. PRESLEY: Is that in the form of a 

5 motion? 

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: I am not authorized to make 

7 a motion. It’s a suggestion. 

8 MR. PRESLEY: I’m going to mark 20 closed. 

9 There’s a good statement in here that says, in 

10 conclusion, the analysis of the data clearly 

11 demonstrates that there was no systematic 

12 pattern for NTS personnel to remove their 

13 dosimeter in order to continue working in 

14 radiation areas. And I took out the word 

15 reason because there was definitely reason, 

16 but I feel like that there was more 

17 monitoring. Maybe somebody did take their 

18 badge off. There was more monitoring went on 

19 than what they knew. 

20 So I’d like to mark this one closed if 

21 that’s the consensus of the working group, and 

22 I’ve looked at all of the other items that we 

23 had, the comments back in the back. They are 

24 all marked closed. The only thing that we 

25 still have open is 11, and that is going to be 
135

1 discussed and cussed with SC&A and HHS. 

2 What I’d like for everybody to do is 

3 let’s look at a time when we can meet before 

March the 4th 4 , a face-to-face in Cincinnati, 

5 and I think it’s going to take a face-to-face 

6 in Cincinnati all day long to probably iron 

7 this thing out. Y’all don’t think so? 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don’t think so, no. 

9 MR. ROLFES: A call might do this. 

10 MR. PRESLEY: A call might do this? Okay, 

11 let’s let you all do your work, and if you 

12 think it can be done with a call, we’ll do it 

13 with a call. But at this point there is no 

14 conclusion for the working group that I see on 

15 the acceptance to the site profile. 

16 DR. WADE: What will happen is that NIOSH 

17 and SC&A will arrange for a call. They’ll 

18 notify the working group members that can sit 

19 in if you like. John will keep detailed 

20 minutes of the discussion and provide that 

21 summary. Then the work group can look at that 

22 work product and decide if it needs to engage 

23 or not. 

24 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have a question about 

25 that. 
136

1 MR. PRESLEY: Has all of the information 

2 that Mel had, has everything been picked up 

3 from -- 

4 MR. CHEW: Yes, I need to have those picked 

5 up. 

6 MR. PRESLEY: We need all the information 

7 Mel had picked up, the Privacy Act 

8 information, so please -- 

9 MR. CHEW: I think I have it. 

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now, there are, just for the 

11 record, I think we have not received the 

12 revisions to the internal dose, and we have 

13 not -- there are a number of issues that NIOSH 

14 has responded, but we have not, and the 

15 working group ^ them up. There are many 

16 issues in the NIOSH response and no 

17 examination of that by SC&A because we haven’t 

18 seen the detail of that. 

19 DR. WADE: I think before the work group can 

20 conclude its work, it needs to look at where 

21 things are in that continuum and decide if it 

22 wants to instruct its contractor to see if, 

23 indeed, the remedy was engendered as planned 

24 or if the work group wants to make that 

25 judgment. 
137

1 MR. PRESLEY: Do you have any idea ^? 

2 MR. ROLFES: Those documents should be 

3 approved. I know we’ve received a couple of 

4 revisions at NIOSH for a final review and 

5 approval. We did have some internal comments 

6 on one of the documents, and I believe we’ll 

7 reserve any comments at this time. 

8 MR. PRESLEY: Meet as soon as possible. 

9 MR. ROLFES: We’re doing our best, but we 

10 continue to receive information, and we want 

11 to make sure that it’s included. 

12 MS. MUNN: Is it possible that we might have 

13 a resolution from the technical team ^ the 

Board call on February the 20th 14 ? Is that 

15 possible? 

16 MR. ROLFES: We’ll do our best to, we always 

17 strive to meet goals, and we’ll do our best to 

18 shoot for that. If not all of those documents 

19 are approved by that time, I certainly hope 

20 that the majority of them will be. 

21 MS. MUNN: I was asking more about -- 

22 DR. WADE: The one open issue. 

23 MS. MUNN: -- our outstanding item, whether 

24 your technical group could -- 

25 MR. ROLFES: I believe most of the 
138

1 calculations have been completed for issue 11 

2 for the external geometric correction factors 

3 from environmental contamination. I think we 

4 can possibly address that ^. Would you agree 

5 with that, Gene? 

6 MR. ROLLINS: Well, we have to have a 

7 meeting of the minds about where the problem 

8 is. 

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Have we seen those 

10 calculations? 

11 MR. ROLLINS: It was written in 2006. 

12 MR. ROLFES: Yeah, I sent them back in 2006. 

13 DR. WADE: So you guys are going to schedule 

14 a call so we can sharpen that issue or resolve 

15 that issue. And then the work group will hear 

of that hopefully before February 20th 16 , but 

17 we’ll see. 

18 MR. PRESLEY: Anybody have anything for the 

19 good of the working group? 

20 (no response) 

21 MR. PRESLEY: Let’s close this meeting. 

22 DR. WADE: Thank you all. 

23 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you all very much. 

24 (Whereupon, the work group meeting adjourned 

25 at 10:00 p.m.) 
139

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of Jan. 7, 2008; 

and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 

testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

8th day of April, 2008. 

______________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102