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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON WORKER OUTREACH

+ + + + +

THURSDAY

JUNE 5, 2014

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 1:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight 

Time, Josie Beach, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

JOSIE BEACH, Chair

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

LYNN AYERS, SC&A

MARY ELLIOTT, ATL

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

J.J. JOHNSON, DCAS

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

MARK LEWIS, ATL

VERNON McDOUGALL, ATL

DAN McKEEL

CHRISTOPHER MILES, ORAU Team

DAN STEMPHLEY, ORAU Team

DONALD STEWART, ORAU Team

JOHN STIVER, SC&A
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T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

PAGE

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

Ted Katz

Opening Remarks ........................... 6

Chair, Josie Beach

SC&A Review of NIOSH Responsiveness to Worker 

Comments on LANL ......................... 9

Presenter: Lynn Ayers, SC&A

Discussion of Work Group Accomplishments

and Options for Path Forward ............. 63

Presenter: Josie Beach

(to be presented to ABRWH)

Public Comments ......................... 99

Meeting Adjournment .................... 113
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (1:32 p.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: Advisory Board on 

4 Radiation and Worker Health, Worker Outreach 

5 Work Group, first time we've met in quite a 

6 while. For everybody on the phone the 

7 materials that we're going to be discussing 

8 today, which are, there's an agenda and then 

9 there's just two items.

10 And one is a report related to 

11 outreach on LANL, Los Alamos. And the second 

12 is a draft presentation for a presentation that 

13 will be made to the Board in July about possible 

14 future paths for the Work Group going forward.

15 So anyway those are all up on the 

16 NIOSH website. If you go to the Board section 

17 of the website, to schedule of meetings, and you 

18 click on today's date and today's meeting, 

19 they're posted there, and you can look and 

20 follow along that way for anyone who wants.

21 The other thing I just want to note 
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1 generally before we do roll call, and then you 

2 we don't have to discuss it individually as we 

3 do roll call, but two of the Board Members, Phil 

4 and Loretta, Loretta are you on the line?

5 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes, I am.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay, great. Phil and 

7 Loretta both have conflict with respect to Los 

8 Alamos National Labs. So the first agenda 

9 item, they're on the line to hear because 

10 they'll need to be here for when it's done and 

11 for general information as to what was 

12 discussed there.

13 But they won't be participating in 

14 that agenda item. They'll be recused from 

15 that, so that's just for everyone's general 

16 notice.

17 And for others, so I've covered that 

18 for the Board Members, other parties on the line 

19 should also indicate if they have conflict with 

20 Los Alamos as we go through roll call. But that 

21 takes care of the Board Members.
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1 So with no further ado, let me do the 

2 roll call, I mean we already have, I already 

3 heard we have Wanda.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: The Chair, I mean Wanda, 

6 Josie, the Chair, Loretta and Phil are all on 

7 the line. So we can, just go forward from there 

8 with NIOSH, ORAU team.

9 (Roll call)

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you, 

11 Ted. As Ted pointed out this is a pretty simple 

12 agenda. We are going to have SC&A start with 

13 the LANL slide review, or the report. And then 

14 I'll go into path, the backwards and forwards 

15 Work Group accomplishments over the last few 

16 years.

17 Our last meeting was held in 

18 November of 2012. Some of the highlights from 

19 that meeting, just a quick review here. We 

20 completed the PROC-12 procedure. We chose 

21 LANL as our site. ATL gave us a pretty 
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1 informative presentation during that Work 

2 Group meeting. And then we had Chris review 

3 some ten-year review items.

4 Let's see, you did point out that we 

5 had the presentations on the NIOSH website, we 

6 also have a lot of background information that 

7 was sent out. The full review for the 

8 Responsiveness to Worker Comments was put out 

9 in May. And then the summary document you 

10 should have gotten, that was sent out in April.

11 So anyway, Lynn it's pretty much 

12 your agenda at this point. I know we do have 

13 to get your slides up on the Live Meeting, so, 

14 and have you actually joined Live Meeting yet 

15 Lynn, as a presenter?

16 MS. AYERS: No, actually I have not 

17 used that application previously. I just have 

18 the slides up from the website as I was phoning 

19 in --

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

21 MS. AYERS: -- by phone, as I --
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1 CHAIR BEACH: So we -- Ted, I'm 

2 going to let you walk her through it.

3 MR. KATZ: Well I was just going to 

4 suggest then, I mean it might be just as easy 

5 since everyone has access to the presentation 

6 --

7 MS. AYERS: Right.

8 MR. KATZ: -- if they want to just 

9 follow along independently rather than putting 

10 it up on Live Meeting --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay.

12 MR. KATZ: -- at this point. If 

13 that's not a problem. If it's a problem for 

14 someone then let me know. But otherwise you 

15 can --

16 CHAIR BEACH: So let me ask. Does 

17 everybody have access to Lynn's slides that's 

18 on the phone?

19 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean they're 

20 posted, for one.

21 CHAIR BEACH: They're posted 
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1 that's correct. Okay, all right.

2 MR. KATZ: I mean you have it on 

3 your own computer, you can follow along that way 

4 too. And Lynn just call out the slide as you 

5 go.

6 MS. AYERS: Okay.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, here we go.

8 MS. AYERS: All right shall we give 

9 everybody a minute, or shall we just move 

10 forward?

11 CHAIR BEACH: I would move forward.

12 MS. AYERS: Okay. All right. 

13 Well, first slide is simply the title slide, the 

14 Review of NIOSH Responsiveness to Worker 

15 Comments for the Los Alamos National 

16 Laboratory.

17 As Josie just mentioned, the Rev 0 

18 was issued on May 14th of this year. I sent it 

19 to the Work Group in the not PA-cleared version.

20 We actually just sent a revision to 

21 the Work Group today with two very minor 
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1 corrections on one page and we will be providing 

2 a PA-cleared version after OGC completes their 

3 review. So that's coming.

4 All right, skip to Slide 2. I'm 

5 just mentioning this part here to put it in 

6 context because I think Josie will be covering 

7 it in more detail very shortly. This is the 

8 background of the Work Group Charter. Sort of 

9 the context for the review that we conducted.

10 Mission Statement, the part that's 

11 applicable to this review is to evaluate the 

12 effectiveness of NIOSH activities in obtaining 

13 and making use of information from current and 

14 former workers and their representatives.

15 In more detail that Evaluation 

16 Objective 3, focuses on DCAS giving thorough 

17 consideration to information, incorporating 

18 that into its work products as appropriate, and 

19 adequately communicating the impact of 

20 substantive comments to workers.

21 And it's that last piece of 
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1 communicating that's gone through a little bit 

2 of a change over time, but I'll get to that when 

3 we get there. Still doing some review and 

4 background so that everyone keeps track of 

5 where we've come from to get this review.

6 Two reviews focusing on Objective 

7 3. The first one was a pilot review of inputs 

8 for the Rocky Flats Plant. That review was 

9 done in 2011 to 2012. And this is a follow up 

10 done between 2013 and '14.

11 Next slide, these are just some

12 examples of the kind of things we've considered 

13 in trying to evaluate those three main points, 

14 considering incorporating and communicating.

15 So under documentation practices we 

16 thought about things about the completeness of 

17 records. In regard to Objective 3, that's 

18 pretty much are they putting minutes of 

19 meetings in the Outreach Tracking System?

20 Site expert interviews, are those 

21 all available? Do they have complete 
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1 interview notes? Validation reviews, means 

2 are they sending completed notes from the 

3 interviews back to the participants, the 

4 interviewees to verify that they've been 

5 captured accurately.

6 How's that documented? And then 

7 the documentation of action items and follow up 

8 on the issues that come up, that are provided 

9 by the commenters.

10 The next major step is 

11 consideration and incorporation into technical 

12 documents. Obviously incorporation is fairly 

13 straightforward since you can see if an issue 

14 has been addressed in the final version of the 

15 document that comes out.

16 Consideration is a lot more both 

17 subjective and a little bit difficult for us to 

18 pursue. Some of the evidence we've looked at 

19 comes from the work documents themselves, 

20 transcripts of meetings, the databases, the 

21 Site Research Database, and the SEC viewer and 
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1 Outreach Tracking System.

2 And sometimes data capture. We'll 

3 see an issue come up and say, oh well, we can 

4 see that they gathered from documents on that 

5 topic. And so that's evidence that they 

6 considered the issue that the commenter was 

7 addressing.

8 And then from the Work Group we had 

9 on this matter, was that we were always going 

10 to reflect the most recent NIOSH position on the 

11 issue. Though obviously sometimes that 

12 changes over time as the Work Group discussions 

13 kick around, an SEC goes forward.

14 So we're just going pick the most 

15 recent one that obviously streamlines the 

16 nature of the review. But those things 

17 together combined with sort of a recognized 

18 issue that we've discussed in the past about 

19 sort of a lack of a comprehensive tracking 

20 system which NIOSH is working on.

21 And we're not really identifying, 
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1 did we consider this input from this person? 

2 Or rather we're looking a little bit more 

3 broadly, was the issue that they were concerned 

4 about somehow reflected in NIOSH's, you know, 

5 discussion or the document?

6 And then again because we know our 

7 access is limited, both reviews incorporated an 

8 opportunity to bring NIOSH to get a copy of the 

9 initial evaluation of the individual comments, 

10 and had an opportunity to give their feedback 

11 and input, which helps to address that 

12 limitation in our access, as they have better 

13 access to the individuals and documentation 

14 from what process.

15 The last major element here is 

16 response to commenters. That was a major 

17 component of the Rocky Flats Pilot review. And 

18 the guidance we received from the Work Group was 

19 that we were looking for a direct response to 

20 the individual within six months.

21 And that subsequently when we 
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1 prepared for the LANL review, we did just 

2 determine that was sort of beyond the scope of 

3 the Board's charter and for our contract.

4 Primarily from the standpoint of 

5 that we were judging that response to 

6 commenters falls under more of a quality of 

7 service, rather than a quality of science, so 

8 that was not part of the LANL review.

9 Next slide, the recap of the Rocky 

10 Flats is broad in scope. Venues included the 

11 Advisory Board and Work Group meetings which 

12 again that's sort of a contrast to the LANL 

13 review.

14 Very broad, we had interviews, we 

15 had Board and Work Group meetings. There's 

16 comments submitted to the Docket. Just a wide 

17 variety of different ways that people had 

18 provided input, comments. Obviously the 

19 worker outreach meetings themselves were a 

20 major source.

21 Okay, the cut-off that was 
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1 established by the criteria we were following 

2 was November of 2010. But the bulk of the 

3 comments that were received fell in the range 

4 of 2004 to 2007 which was a very active time 

5 and an SEC review.

6 A total of 549 comments were 

7 initially identified. Got that whittled down 

8 a little bit but then we eventually had to come 

9 up with a statistical sampling plan in order to 

10 sort of constrain the scope of the resources 

11 needed to complete that review. In the end 

12 they selected 101 comments on the variety of 

13 topics.

14 Again the two major frameworks were 

15 consideration of the issues, and communication 

16 with the commenters for this review. 

17 Consideration of the issues was generally 

18 pretty strong. 94 percent of the comments we 

19 judged to have some consideration of the 

20 issues.

21 It wasn't necessarily complete, 
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1 that would include whole and partial, and 

2 basically that was addressed or considered in 

3 some way. In 85 percent of the cases which is 

4 still pretty strong, we felt that it was 

5 adequate or complete.

6 And there were 15 percent, that 15 

7 percent is sort of a combination of those that 

8 were not considered, as well as those that were 

9 sort of partial or incomplete. Or perhaps, you 

10 know, maybe our interpretation was simply that 

11 they missed an element of the commenters' 

12 concern.

13 There's an error here on this slide. 

14 I'm sure everybody will be seeing, this is to 

15 see if you guys are awake. That radon should 

16 be tritium. I got confused with some stuff and 

17 we were all worn out there.

18 But, yes there was an issue with 

19 tritium that had been brought up in some of the 

20 comments. And really those comments have been 

21 sort of among that population that was sort of 
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1 partially addressed and that became the basis 

2 for a later SEC Petition and Class I believe.

3 The next major issue was the 

4 communication with the commenters. About 50 

5 percent of the comments received a direct 

6 response in six months. That varied a lot by 

7 the venue in which they were presented.

8 Obviously in a case like the public 

9 comments to the Advisory Board meetings, the 

10 structure of that venue does not allow for a 

11 direct, immediate response and at the time 

12 frame we were dealing with, there was not a 

13 mechanism in place to capture and track those.

14 Others may not have received 

15 response for other reasons. Several were in 

16 the petition, so they were actually addressed 

17 very thoroughly at a later time and in the 

18 Evaluation Report. But that was not within the 

19 six months' time frame that we had for the 

20 review.

21 Couple other issues. Site expert 
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1 review of interview notes was not well 

2 documented. That was the only parameter for an 

3 interview that we were looking for in terms of 

4 feedback to the commenter, was that they had an 

5 opportunity to review those notes. Again 

6 we're looking back at the 2004 to 2007 time 

7 frame.

8 And just generally where there was 

9 a lack of response, discussion, rationale, and 

10 closure that could contribute to an appearance 

11 of NIOSH being dismissive, regardless of what 

12 NIOSH actually did in terms of consideration 

13 and/or the correctness of their position on the 

14 issue. That was the summary of Rocky Flats.

15 Winding up from that and in the 

16 transitional period, these were some of the, 

17 I'm sorry -- next slide. We're now on Slide 5. 

18 We were recognizing the retrospective sort of 

19 limitations of that review and wanting to focus 

20 on how DCAS is currently managing these issues.

21 Some of the recommendations at the 
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1 end of that review focused on that, trying to 

2 move forward. What are the current 

3 expectations, practices, and procedures? How 

4 does NIOSH manage self-evaluation and 

5 continual improvement? What system do they 

6 have now for tracking and following up on 

7 comments?

8 How do they communicate 

9 expectations to the staff? Solicitation of 

10 worker feedback and directed to the outreach, 

11 or to the Work Group. We suggested that they 

12 would consider a follow up review of any more 

13 recent experience to gauge the effectiveness of 

14 improvements that happened over time.

15 Next slide, so NIOSH did have an 

16 opportunity to respond to those suggestions. 

17 And these next couple slides come out of that 

18 response. I wanted to acknowledge their 

19 responses.

20 So at first they basically took the 

21 venues where they had acknowledged some, you 
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1 know, room for improvement in the Rocky Flats 

2 data set. And addressed how those are being 

3 handled currently. This was in November 2012, 

4 that's the most recent Work Group meeting.

5 Public comments at Advisory Board 

6 meetings, a process has been developed to 

7 tabulate those comments and provide 

8 information to the Board.

9 SEC Petition, NIOSH has took the 

10 position that those, that information and 

11 issues submitted in the petition, are addressed 

12 in the Evaluation Report. Don't expect a 

13 direct response to individuals.

14 And then the follow up on those 

15 issues is going to be determined by the 

16 Evaluation Report and the subsequent Work Group 

17 discussion activities that occur.

18 Work Group meetings, similar to the 

19 SEC Petition issues, those comments are being 

20 addressed through the Work Group discussions. 

21 NIOSH facilitates access to that information 
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1 quite well by posting transcripts on the 

2 website.

3 And more recently beginning to post 

4 White Papers and other discussion items in 

5 advance so that people can follow along in real 

6 time.

7 Next slide, NIOSH response 

8 continued. This was that clarification of 

9 current expectations and practices. There was 

10 some really good information here that we had 

11 that they presented to us about their 

12 management expectation for responsiveness and 

13 receipt of comments.

14 Responding to correspondence as 

15 soon as possible, using the same method as it 

16 came in. ATL was being tasked to review 

17 transcripts of Advisory Board meetings. 

18 They're identifying lists of public comments.

19 DCAS prepares responses as 

20 appropriate, forwards those comments and 

21 responses to the Board. And comments that are 
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1 related to a specific Subcommittee or Work 

2 Group are forwarded to those Chairs.

3 In the Work Group discussion it 

4 seems to be that everyone is fairly satisfied 

5 that that is being an effective way to track and 

6 handle and ensure responsiveness to those 

7 comments received.

8 When DCAS staff members attend 

9 activities where they may encounter claimants, 

10 advocates, or members of the public, their use 

11 of kind of internal practices that are being 

12 conducted to support follow up.

13 For the one obviously the best goal 

14 is to provide an immediate response. If a 

15 question is addressed to the satisfaction of 

16 the individual then that wouldn't have to be 

17 documented further. Generally it's already 

18 being captured in the minutes depending on the 

19 type of venue that they're at. So that, it's 

20 closed and resolved and they can move on.

21 Number two, they would encourage 
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1 the individual to send a question by mail or 

2 email. That is because there is an existing 

3 tracking system there. And also it sort of 

4 assures that it's in the words, of the commenter 

5 and not being misinterpreted by staff.

6 Number three, DCAS carry, staff 

7 carry note cards that they can use to document 

8 comments, questions, and contact information 

9 to facilitate responses. They're planning to 

10 have a new computer application for tracking 

11 comments and questions. And those could be 

12 used as data entry sources.

13 Minutes are also entered into the 

14 Site Research Database and are procedurally 

15 required to be considered during subsequent 

16 revisions to the technical documents.

17 And again those are all addressing 

18 different things that have come up, both in the 

19 procedural review and in the Rocky Flats Review 

20 about how do we keep sight of these things, how 

21 do we make sure they're being followed and not 
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1 falling through the cracks?

2 Next slide, other responses and 

3 developments. Sort of beyond the Objective 3 

4 reviews, but a procedure for formal Worker 

5 Outreach Program, Revision 1, was presented at 

6 the Work Group meeting in November and issued 

7 in December of 2012.

8 And DCAS described an intent to 

9 develop a more comprehensive comment tracking 

10 application to give them a method for managing 

11 comments and responses.

12 Next slide, and we get to the follow 

13 up review. So, again starting with the scope 

14 and the time frame. Our primary objective was 

15 to try to assess the impact of changes over time 

16 because we realized that Rocky Flats input had 

17 happened a long time ago.

18 The Work Group helped us select a 

19 site with recent SEC activity. A nice thing in 

20 this case was that they then revised the 

21 Evaluation Report, and also two Site Profile 
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1 TBDs were evaluated during the time that the 

2 report was in progress.

3 And they gave us really good access 

4 to the most current NIOSH position on a lot of 

5 these issues. That was a real advantage that 

6 we didn't have with Rocky.

7 Frustrating in some ways too as we 

8 were looking at comments that had been made in 

9 the petition process and yet the ER had been 

10 issued at the beginning of that process.

11 And so it did not reflect at all any 

12 of the decisions or changes in positions that 

13 had happened over that time. And that was a 

14 great thing for the Los Alamos that we had those 

15 updated documents.

16 It was decided that SC&A would not 

17 review comments from the Advisory Board and 

18 Work Group meetings. Sort of explained in a 

19 previous slide, because those are now being 

20 subject to an effective tracking process.

21 And we narrowed down the topics a 
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1 little bit. Focused primarily on issues that 

2 would affect dose reconstruction and SEC 

3 evaluations. More technical issues and less 

4 layman's experience with a project, sort of 

5 comments.

6 The cutoff that was established was 

7 August 2012 when the Work Group advised in its 

8 determination on the recommendations, but the 

9 actual bulk of the comments was actually, that 

10 was reviewed, occurred again sort of back in the 

11 past between 2005 and 2008.

12 With the more narrow structure and 

13 the nature of the review, there was a smaller 

14 number of comments identified, so we were able 

15 to review all of them without any sort of 

16 statistical selection process.

17 Elements of this review included 

18 the documentation practices, consideration and 

19 investigation of the issues, incorporation 

20 into technical documents. We did not evaluate 

21 feedback to commenters as that was judged to be 
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1 a quality of service issue.

2 Next slide, so results in terms of 

3 documentation practices. This had been an 

4 issue that, stemming out of the review of the 

5 procedure. Worker outreach new meetings, how 

6 complete was that in the OTS system?

7 Initially when we scoped the 

8 review, there were minutes available for 12 of 

9 15 worker outreach meeting sessions. The 

10 three missing sessions were an artifact of in 

11 transition that had happened when ATL was 

12 transitioned from a subcontract position under 

13 ORAU to a direct contract under OCAS. And I 

14 believe that was 2007.

15 I found that the remaining sessions 

16 have subsequently been added and that was not 

17 considered to be a systemic sort of issue.

18 And expert interviews, how thorough 

19 was that documentation? They actually found 

20 very few interviews on the SRDB or the SEC 

21 Viewer database. There were only eight in this 
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1 entire time range between 2008 and 2012.

2 And so the question there is did 

3 they really not interview very many people, or 

4 do we have incomplete documentation? And we 

5 made some effort to try to distinguish that, but

6 we didn't really get a conclusive reading on 

7 that.

8 We did find that the interviews 

9 that were available were predominantly focused 

10 on dosimetry data gathering. There was only 

11 one discussion that was actually with an 

12 individual regarding facility operations. 

13 That occurred during the review of the SEC-109 

14 Petition.

15 There were some indicators, 

16 primarily I was looking at comments in the Work 

17 Group meetings that kind of thing, where they 

18 might be talking about their data capture and 

19 what they've done. There was some quotes that 

20 indicated that additional interviews, more 

21 general sorts of interviews had been done.
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1 But there wasn't enough detail in 

2 those comments to go look for, you know, hey do 

3 you have the interview of this person or this 

4 type of person even? So the completeness was 

5 sort of an unanswered question from this 

6 review. Oops, I moved forward in my own slides 

7 too quickly.

8 Action items, that was an issue from 

9 our review of the procedure and procedure 

10 related documentation. Again, SC&A had been 

11 somewhat concerned that there was a very low 

12 number of action items recorded in the Outreach 

13 Tracking System, which -- that seems to be 

14 procedurally is a main means of tracking follow 

15 up on issues that come up in these outreach 

16 meetings. That was, that's the nature of the 

17 issue that we were looking at there.

18 The LANL outreach meetings that 

19 were held, all occurring in 2005 and 2008, the 

20 current procedure or even the previous 

21 procedure, OCAS-PR-012, was issued in 2009 and 
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1 has recently been revised in 2012.

2 So we sort of again, we're not 

3 reviewing material that pre-dates the formal 

4 guidance that we currently have.

5 One action item was recorded from 

6 the 15 outreach sessions. And several NIOSH 

7 responses, you know, during the discussion 

8 seemed to indicate interest in further follow 

9 up on the topics. But they weren't recorded as 

10 action items in the current procedure at the 

11 time if, database at the time, which was WISPR, 

12 Worker Input to Site Profile Reviews were the 

13 current Outreach Tracking System. And we 

14 didn't find follow up. So that appeared to be 

15 an indicator that we weren't able to find that 

16 there was follow up that was lacking, 

17 associated with the presence or absence of a 

18 tracking mechanism.

19 Next slide, consideration of 

20 technical information. Again this was pretty 

21 strong in Rocky, the pilot review and it has 
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1 continued to be pretty positive. Especially 

2 given the limitations of our review looking at 

3 documents to find clues to consideration.

4 Eighty-six were incorporated into

5 technical documents to some degree. We kind of 

6 used some terminology in order to get some sort 

7 of a quantitative results out of a relatively 

8 qualitative process.

9 So yes kind of meant that the issue 

10 was reflected in technical documents but it had 

11 the same breadth of scope that it was given.

12 General would mean, you know, 

13 person gave a relatively narrow scoped issue or 

14 comment or concern. It was addressed in a more 

15 general fashion.

16 Partial might mean there were some 

17 elements of the comment or issue that were 

18 addressed and some that weren't.

19 Fourteen percent were not 

20 incorporated and again we don't necessarily 

21 believe that every comment warrants 
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1 incorporation into a technical document, so 

2 that's not necessarily meaningful in itself, 

3 though I did sort of a sub-analysis of those 14 

4 percent.

5 And in terms of NIOSH, our 

6 conclusions of NIOSH's overall responsiveness, 

7 five percent were felt to be responsive. Only 

8 three percent not responsive and six percent 

9 uncertain or inconclusive.

10 An example of a responsive was an 

11 issue regarding exposure. An individual's 

12 operating screening X-ray equipment. And 

13 NIOSH's response to those individual comments, 

14 gave us some really good feedback of how those 

15 are assessed or the likelihood of the exposure 

16 related to that.

17 Again showing consideration even 

18 though the issue itself wasn't exclusively 

19 covered in the document.

20 An unresponsive example was issues 

21 regarding dosimeters worn underneath lead
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1 aprons. That has been addressed in some other 

2 Site Profiles, but they were sort of a missed 

3 opportunity to follow up on the worker's input 

4 to address that for LANL.

5 It's not something that can't be 

6 done, but it just had not been done. There may 

7 be further follow up in the future.

8 The last one, support service 

9 worker issues that were not directly addressed 

10 in Evaluation Report for SEC-109.

11 There was one kind of confusing, in 

12 the first read though of the ER because the 

13 issues were reflected in the description of the 

14 workers concerns at the beginning of the 

15 report, but they never came back to them.

16 And I finally figured out that the 

17 reason was that had really not been a primary 

18 basis. It had been a concern that was 

19 addressed by the workers, but the primary basis 

20 was these other, you know, internal exposure 

21 sources.
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1 And so it doesn't really get covered 

2 in any detail in the wrap up of the evaluation. 

3 However, obviously the concerns were addressed 

4 more generally, and obviously the workers were 

5 included in the recommended Class because the 

6 LANL SEC covered the entire population.

7 Moving on, investigation and 

8 technical issues. Eighty two percent of the 

9 cases we found there was positive evidence that 

10 the issue was investigated, either in the same 

11 scope or a more general scope than the comment 

12 that was given.

13 Six percent we felt were partially 

14 investigated, so some aspects were, some 

15 aspects weren't. Four percent, this is only 

16 three comments we're talking about here, were 

17 not investigated.

18 Two had an adequate rationale, so 

19 even there that wasn't a major problem. And 

20 one was a missed opportunity I believe, related 

21 to the dosimeter under the lead apron issue.
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1 Then eight percent we had really not 

2 enough evidence to make a determination as to 

3 whether they had or hadn't investigated the 

4 issue, those were uncertain or inconclusive.

5 Next slide, continuing the 

6 consideration of technical information. This 

7 was NIOSH's opportunity to provide input to the 

8 process.

9 For 50 of the 78 comments they 

10 concurred with the SC&A observation. So there 

11 really wasn't a dispute, we're just, they 

12 agreed with the review or the comments.

13 So in only 28 of the cases were they 

14 in a position to provide additional input. 

15 Eighteen of those comments, those responses we 

16 felt were responsive to our observation. They 

17 either provided new information, provided an 

18 explanation, or a rationale for the position 

19 that they had.

20 Six of the cases were partially 

21 responsive. That included some with aspects 
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1 that weren't addressed, but some that were, 

2 they implied an investigation but we didn't 

3 have information. So basically it was a 

4 comment like, there was some concerns about 

5 fraud or data destruction, were some of the 

6 examples.

7 On the response, NIOSH has not found 

8 evidence of this at the site. So that implies 

9 that they did investigate but it didn't tell us 

10 any detail about the nature of that 

11 investigation.

12 How thoroughly they looked, what 

13 they looked for? You need that to really 

14 assess it. That's all under that partially 

15 responsive category.

16 And four of the 28 were considered 

17 non-responsive where they didn't provide any 

18 additional information or attempt, or explain 

19 that had attempted to obtain it.

20 And some of those were fairly minor 

21 issues that are unlikely to have an impact on 
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1 dose reconstruction. But there may be 

2 explanations, but that's just the data.

3 So overall responsiveness, 90 

4 percent of the comments were addressed to some 

5 extent, either yes, general or partial. 

6 Fifteen percent have some negative 

7 observations, partial, no, or uncertain.

8 And less than three percent were 

9 really assessed as non-responsive. Again sort 

10 of no systemic evidence of significant problems 

11 in that area of the issues. The general issues 

12 being presented by the commenters being 

13 eventually considered and addressed.

14 Next slide, lessons learned. This 

15 is primarily a matter of the type of review, the 

16 nature of the reviews that have been conducted 

17 for Objective 3.

18 These comprehensive reviews 

19 dealing with a single site of an entire frame 

20 of activities, has given us a good appreciation 

21 of process, the variety of inputs that come in 
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1 and the challenges in addressing those inputs, 

2 and for us to review and try to make a judgment 

3 on responsiveness.

4 They have had to identify 

5 big-picture strengths and weaknesses and give 

6 it a practical application of the procedure 

7 review findings. Because you can review a 

8 procedure and say this procedure looks good or 

9 not good, or detailed, or comprehensive or not. 

10 But in practice when they carry it out, that 

11 implementation was valuable.

12 On the down side, these reviews have 

13 been cumbersome and resource-intensive 

14 digging through records from a long time ago. 

15 And even when we give NIOSH an opportunity for 

16 feedback, they're looking back a long way and 

17 trying to say well, did we or didn't we, or is 

18 there something we can show that would 

19 demonstrate the consideration we gave to that 

20 issue?

21 The retrospective approach 
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1 complicates the review. It can either result 

2 either way. In a positive direction, it forces 

3 us to look more generally at you know, did they 

4 ever consider that issue? You know before, 

5 after, since, at any time have they considered 

6 that issue? So that's sort of in NIOSH's 

7 favor.

8 Negative, obviously if we don't 

9 find something written then we're going to have 

10 to call it inconclusive or negative, when it may 

11 be much more of a documentation issue or a 

12 currently available data issue, than an actual, 

13 related to whether or not they've considered 

14 the concern.

15 So, then also because of the nature 

16 of the time frame of the comments that were 

17 available for review, we were really unable to 

18 assess the impact of all the changes that have 

19 been made since 2009 largely.

20 So that leaves us with some 

21 unresolved questions. What is the current 
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1 status of comment documentation and follow up? 

2 There's been recent guidance added to 

3 procedures, particularly in regard to action 

4 items. You know the question is what impact 

5 does that have?

6 One would expect it to be positive. 

7 But, and the current status of documentation of 

8 site expert interviews, also a question. And 

9 that would conclude that aspect of the 

10 presentation.

11 And I know that afterwards we'll

12 sort of spring Board off that into moving 

13 forward into the future. Any questions?

14 CHAIR BEACH: First of all, Lynn, 

15 this is Josie, thank you. That was a very 

16 comprehensive report and it was also good to 

17 have the Rocky Flats recap at the start of your 

18 report. Overall, it seems to be very positive.

19 Wanda, too, thank you for putting 

20 those slides up on the screen for us. Good 

21 practice there for you.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, and I'm glad 

2 that it worked. One never knows.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Any comments Wanda, 

4 from you?

5 MEMBER MUNN: No. I'm impressed 

6 with the amount of work that's gone into this. 

7 This is such an amorphous topic to try to deal 

8 with, that there's such a wide variety of 

9 sources of information and types of information 

10 that had to be coordinated.

11 I think it's really impressive that 

12 SC&A has done the job they've done on this. And 

13 Lynn particularly, you get kudos for this.

14 I realize how difficult it is when 

15 we're dealing with human actions and 

16 interactions to try to identify how it ought to 

17 be handled, and how you can deal with the 

18 information that comes out of it.

19 But I think you've done as good a job 

20 as could be done with the type of miscellaneous 

21 material that we've had to deal with. Thank 
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1 you, very much.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, thanks Wanda. 

3 I couldn't have said that better. Lynn does 

4 anything jump out from what you've learned from 

5 the Rocky Flats review to the LANL review? Any 

6 surprises or --

7 MS. AYERS: I think the biggest 

8 surprise for me was when it got down to do some 

9 analysis and really it hit me the impact of that 

10 time frame. You know sort of the whole point 

11 of selecting Rocky was that it had such recent 

12 activity but --

13 CHAIR BEACH: For LANL, yes. I 

14 agree.

15 MS. AYERS: Isn't that funny?

16 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, and it was back 

17 years back further than we thought it would be.

18 MS. AYERS: Right and I think that 

19 happened because we did determine that the 

20 Advisory Board stuff and the Work Group stuff 

21 was being handled adequately now.
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1 It doesn't need to be studied, we 

2 had to get a sense of it. But that's where 

3 really the bulk of the interaction. I look 

4 back at the Rocky data, of the different venues, 

5 and like 41 percent of the Rocky Flats comments 

6 had come from Work Group meetings and Board 

7 meetings.

8 So and certainly the more newer ones 

9 had, because the outreach meetings tended to be 

10 conducted at the time when they rolled out a 

11 Site Profile. And that's a generalization 

12 definitely.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

14 MS. AYERS: That tended to be the 

15 pattern. We complete the Site Profile, and we 

16 roll it out and we want to go present it to the 

17 workers, and give them an opportunity to get 

18 some feedback and learn about the process. So 

19 that was, that just occurred pretty far back. 

20 And in terms of --

21 (Simultaneous speaking)
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1 MS. AYERS: -- to work with NIOSH 

2 program, yes.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Right. NIOSH or 

4 SC&A, any other, or ATL, any other comments, 

5 questions?

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this is Stu. 

7 I guess I'll speak first from our side. I don't 

8 know that I have any particular comments.

9 I wonder if the Work Group has some 

10 expectation about, we have an obligation to 

11 dispose of some of the comment items that are 

12 essentially unaddressed. The handful, 

13 whether they were called, you know, missed 

14 opportunities or so on.

15 And some of the comments about 

16 things that a comment or information we 

17 received from a claimant, petitioner, some 

18 which, from in some fashion through worker 

19 outreach or one of these mechanisms, that 

20 ultimately wasn't addressed because it was 

21 during the SEC period.
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1 Even though for instance maybe it 

2 was an external dose comment and the SEC's about 

3 the internal. And was there something falling 

4 upon us to do that? So it was kind of that 

5 question.

6 I kind of feel obliged to make sure 

7 to go back and check and make sure we haven't 

8 missed out on opportunities in that arena.

9 I think we should recall though that 

10 in an SEC Class, I think there's a different 

11 mindset that you start to bring to dose 

12 reconstruction a little bit, you don't want to 

13 cheat anyone.

14 But the rule, our rule says in 

15 response to questions during the publication of 

16 the SEC rule, the question was, well what will 

17 NIOSH do about those people in an SEC who don't 

18 have SEC cancers?

19 And since you will only have added 

20 the SEC when you've shown that dose 

21 reconstruction isn't feasible. And our 
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1 response was, well we'll do what we can do.

2 So there's a recognition I think at 

3 that time, that there will be some, you know, 

4 some parts of the dose which are not feasible 

5 to reconstruct, which should not be included. 

6 But we will do what we can do. But it doesn't 

7 promise to invent anything.

8 So if we don't have evidence of an 

9 exposure, in particular, you know, we wouldn't 

10 add things just to add it, you know, for a 

11 claimant favorability.

12 So we can go back and look at that. 

13 I also did want to make the comment that I hope 

14 is reassuring, it reassures me a little bit, 

15 about the wearing the dosimeter under the lead 

16 apron issue.

17 In those events where that's 

18 identified, in a, and it's usually through a 

19 CATI, that this was done. Dose reconstructors 

20 are -- we would hope, would take that into 

21 consideration.
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1 And even though there's no comment 

2 in that, about lead aprons in the Site Profile, 

3 remember a dose reconstructor really doesn't 

4 read the Site Profile every time he does a dose 

5 reconstruction.

6 And dose reconstructors know how 

7 dosimeters work, and they say well gee, that 

8 would affect how we deal with this for certain 

9 organs. It would be an, have to have been an 

10 organ that is outside the apron. And they 

11 might say, there are a couple techniques and a 

12 couple of Site Profiles for how to deal with 

13 leaded aprons.

14 And we also have a principal 

15 external dosimetrist that they can contact for 

16 assistance on dealing with that. So our hope 

17 is that when information like that is available 

18 to dose reconstructors, that it's not just 

19 ignored but the dose reconstruction is done 

20 accordingly.

21 Now in the case of the person who 
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1 made a comment about, it's not, he didn't make 

2 the lead apron comment but he made the comment 

3 about unleaded glass in a glove box. What he 

4 called or what was called a drop box, I think, 

5 and higher exposures to certain parts of his 

6 body compared to the dosimeter.

7 I looked at that dose 

8 reconstruction to see did we make allowance for 

9 that? Or what did we do about that comment? 

10 And it turns out his was a successful, or 

11 greater than 50 percent dose reconstruction. 

12 Greater than 50 percent PoC on a partial dose 

13 reconstruction which only used a portion of his 

14 employment.

15 He had a fairly long career at a 

16 facility other than Los Alamos and then 

17 additional work at Los Alamos. And he had 

18 sufficient dose at his, during his other 

19 employment that the dose reconstruction 

20 reached 50 percent.

21 And so none of his dose from Los 
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1 Alamos was even included in his dose 

2 reconstruction. So it's indeterminate in that 

3 case whether the dose reconstructor would have 

4 made that judgment, made a judgment about how 

5 can I, is this affected or not?

6 There's also a question whether the 

7 cancer would have been in the unshielded 

8 portion of the glove box as well. So if that 

9 particular dose reconstruction wasn't 

10 instructive as to the question, well will dose 

11 reconstructors catch on, you know, really do 

12 this right?

13 So anyway I've talked probably more 

14 than I care to. I didn't know if anybody from 

15 ORAU wanted to comment in addition to some of 

16 the items that were raised in the report.

17 We haven't had it all that long and 

18 we're still kind of digesting what's there and 

19 is there stuff that we, you know, for 

20 completeness want to make sure we have done a 

21 complete job even during an SEC period.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right, those are some 

2 good points, Stu. And I don't think we have to 

3 answer to everything at this point because you 

4 haven't had the report very long. But it will 

5 give us some food for process later on and 

6 moving forward with the Work Group. So anybody 

7 else have any other comments, ORAU or?

8 MR. STEMPFLEY: This is Dan 

9 Stempfley. I don't have anything at this 

10 point.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you.

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes Josie, it's 

13 Joe. I guess the one comment I would make is 

14 you know, these, this goes back to something 

15 Wanda said a little earlier. This is a very 

16 qualitative subject.

17 I mean it does have a few hard edges, 

18 but unlike much of what the Board reviews, this 

19 is, this deals with interactions and 

20 transactions.

21 And the performance indicators that 
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1 were selected way back, oh, seems like five or 

2 six years ago now with Rocky, I thought were the 

3 best sampling of indicators which would give 

4 you some idea, even if it's going to be on a 

5 macro level.

6 But those indicators I think depend 

7 on, in a lot of respects, the formality of 

8 tracking systems and the documentation of 

9 results. And you know that system has changed 

10 over the last five or six years and I think to 

11 the better. And I think PR-012 reflects that.

12 But it does have a different level 

13 of tracking and certainly has evolved into a 

14 different level of documentation, for example, 

15 the action levels.

16 So to some extent, these indicators 

17 may be telling us that the system has in fact 

18 changed to some extent and we're seeing less 

19 indicators to count. You know, I don't know if 

20 I'm making it clear, but you know to some extent 

21 we're kind of hostage to the degree of tracking 
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1 and documentation that one can evaluate.

2 And I think one thing and this is 

3 evident in Lynn's last slide, is that you know, 

4 we're seeing, certainly we're seeing less 

5 documentation on interviews perhaps. Perhaps 

6 less action items and certainly a less broad 

7 degree of tracking of these inputs.

8 Not saying that there is a lesser 

9 degree of scrutiny or follow up. Just saying 

10 the systems have shifted as they have matured.

11 So again these snapshots because 

12 they're based on some very uniform indicators 

13 can be affected greatly by the process itself 

14 and how the process has changed over the time 

15 frame, even between Rocky and Los Alamos.

16 So sort of my take away is that, you 

17 know, these indicators certainly at some level 

18 tell you that nothing that we can see from a 

19 major standpoint is being missed or being left 

20 out, not being followed up on.

21 But it's difficult to go much beyond 
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1 that because again these tend to be snapshots 

2 using indicators based on what documentation we 

3 can identify. So there are some limitations.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you, Joe. 

5 Okay, are there any other comments for Lynn's 

6 slides or the Los Alamos report?

7 MEMBER MUNN: Nothing here.

8 DR. McKEEL: Josie, this is Dan 

9 McKeel.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Hi, Dan.

11 DR. McKEEL: I'm wondering, I'm 

12 right in the middle of a major lightning storm 

13 right now and I have one comment to make about 

14 Lynn's presentation. Could I make that now 

15 while we're thinking about it because it's 

16 really kind of different from the rest of my 

17 comments about this?

18 It may be a very simple thing. 

19 There's no PA-cleared report of what her 

20 PowerPoint is about, but my question relates to 

21 her slides Number 11 and 12, further breakdown.
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1 It says 86 percent incorporated to 

2 some degree into technical documents. And 

3 then the investigation of technical issues, 82 

4 percent positive investigation.

5 My question is, in the paper itself, 

6 are those categories of yes, and general, and 

7 partial, are they, are the percentages that are 

8 assigned to them recorded?

9 Because that's the real key data in 

10 this whole study it seems to me. And really it 

11 boils down to the percentage of yes, which is

12 definite direct answers to the questions.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, before Lynn 

14 answers, Dan, I do know that the PA-cleared 

15 document is being worked on at this time. I 

16 don't think Nancy was able to get back to us to 

17 tell us when it would be done, but you should 

18 see that posted shortly.

19 DR. McKEEL: You know, that's okay. 

20 I just wondered. That's so important for today 

21 though, I mean 86 percent sounds terrific.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

2 DR. McKEEL: But it's, let's be 

3 facetious and say if 84 percent of those were 

4 partial answers, that wouldn't be so wonderful. 

5 So my real question is what were the percentages 

6 that were yes?

7 And there, this comes up on both 

8 Slides 11 and 12. The other one on 12 is for 

9 overall responsiveness, that 90 percent of 

10 comments were addressed to some extent. And my 

11 question would be, but to what extent?

12 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you, Dan. 

13 Lynn can you take that on?

14 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. I 

15 don't see how you can answer that, you know, 

16 accurately.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

18 MEMBER MUNN: But Dan you're --

19 DR. McKEEL: Wanda, why can't Lynn 

20 answer the question?

21 MEMBER MUNN: Oh, yes she --
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1 MS. AYERS: Yes, I will. I'm 

2 flipping through pages right now to try to 

3 figure out where the data is.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Well you've got the 

5 report, the Appendix 1 on the April, I don't 

6 know if, that was just where I flipped to as a 

7 quick look.

8 MS. AYERS: Yes. Well the first 

9 one was that consideration, incorporation into 

10 documents. First Dan --

11 DR. McKEEL: Yes.

12 MS. AYERS: I, well actually, I 

13 know I had that. First both yes and general 

14 were sort of, and actually those are defined, 

15 in looking they're, well defined is a little 

16 strong term, but actually we did explain how we 

17 applied those terms.

18 DR. McKEEL: I understand that.

19 MS. AYERS: Right.

20 DR. McKEEL: But there was a 

21 specific percentage --
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1 MS. AYERS: Yes and general, there 

2 was sort of really gray line, blurred line 

3 between them because in some cases one would 

4 actually expect an issue to be dealt with on a 

5 more general level than the individual 

6 commenter who's perhaps describing a personal 

7 experience.

8 You would expect to see that, you 

9 know, reflect more generally --

10 DR. McKEEL: Right. But you had to 

11 classify it as one of the three I would think.

12 MS. AYERS: Right, right. Well 

13 then under the investigation I did separate 

14 them out better. Eighty two was just yes and 

15 general. I separated the partial out.

16 Only six percent were partial from

17 the investigation issue, which is actually 

18 probably more important than the incorporation 

19 into technical documents.

20 Again just the information that's 

21 on those slides, where it said 14 percent were 
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1 not incorporated --

2 DR. McKEEL: Exactly.

3 MS. AYERS: -- into the technical 

4 documents.

5 DR. McKEEL: I see that, but you see 

6 under 14 percent not incorporated, then you 

7 break down --

8 MS. AYERS: That 14 percent.

9 DR. McKEEL: -- the percentage as 

10 being responsive, non-responsive. And I'm 

11 certain --

12 MS. AYERS: Twenty percent.

13 DR. McKEEL: -- to me that's 

14 helpful.

15 MS. AYERS: Right, and 20 percent 

16 of those 14, right, of those 14 percent we felt 

17 that they were responsive to the issues. So 

18 either there was an explanation, or we 

19 certainly saw evidence of consideration. So 

20 that the incorporation into the technical 

21 document isn't necessarily expected.
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1 DR. McKEEL: Yes.

2 MS. AYERS: I know you understand 

3 this.

4 DR. McKEEL: Yes, I understand it.

5 MS. AYERS: I can't talk and flip 

6 very well.

7 DR. McKEEL: I mean it seems to me 

8 that's a good thing to do. To break them down 

9 like that.

10 MS. AYERS: To break them down. 

11 Yes.

12 DR. McKEEL: Anyway I don't want to 

13 prolong it, I just thought it might be an easier 

14 question to answer. I guess I can see that from 

15 the final report.

16 MS. AYERS: I believe it will be in 

17 there.

18 DR. McKEEL: Okay.

19 MS. AYERS: I'm just not getting to 

20 the right page real quickly when we're still 

21 talking. Let me look at your other slide too. 
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1 Yes, again I --

2 (Simultaneous speaking)

3 DR. McKEEL: That's the next slide 

4 and it's --

5 MS. AYERS: The evaluation 

6 comments?

7 (Simultaneous speaking)

8 DR. McKEEL: Now you've got the, 

9 overall responsiveness that 90 percent of the 

10 comments were addressed to some extent, yes, 

11 general, and partial.

12 MS. AYERS: Well, I can at least 

13 tell you, since we are still in the matter of 

14 doing the PA-cleared revision. I can look at 

15 that more carefully after the conference call.

16 DR. McKEEL: Okay.

17 MS. AYERS: And make sure that 

18 that's reflected in a way that will make sense.

19 DR. McKEEL: Okay. I'm not trying 

20 to --

21 MS. AYERS: Push through another --
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1 DR. McKEEL: -- interfere with your 

2 process, I just wanted --

3 MS. AYERS: No, it's an excellent 

4 question. And it's --

5 DR. McKEEL: I think it would have 

6 strengthened the conclusions enormously. At 

7 least from a statistical point of view, so.

8 MS. AYERS: Right. That's what 

9 the whole thing with the terminology was, was 

10 trying to come up with some quantitative -- okay 

11 there's where it definitely turns.

12 So with the, I did find on the part 

13 where they weren't incorporated into the 

14 technical documents, there were four, now this 

15 is the overall general NIOSH responsiveness, 

16 four were yes, zero were general or partial.

17 Two comments were no, and five were 

18 uncertain. That's that six percent uncertain. 

19 Only three percent of the total that we really 

20 can say were not responsive to the substance of 

21 the issue.
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1 DR. McKEEL: Yes.

2 MS. AYERS: If that helps.

3 DR. McKEEL: Okay.

4 MS. AYERS: So, I'll make sure in 

5 the report that gets publicly available that 

6 there's a place that you can find that if it's 

7 not already there.

8 DR. McKEEL: Okay. I sure 

9 appreciate it.

10 MS. AYERS: Thank you.

11 CHAIR BEACH: All right. Thank 

12 you, Dan and thank you, Lynn. If there's no 

13 further comments or questions I'm going to move 

14 on with my slide presentation. And Wanda if 

15 you'd like some more practice, I'll let you put 

16 that up.

17 MEMBER MUNN: This may be more of an 

18 adventure than you anticipate. We'll see.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Well I think 

20 everybody has it available as Ted pointed out 

21 earlier, so we'll see what we can do here. Okay, 
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1 so as Ted said, this is the presentation that 

2 I will be reporting out in the July 29th, Idaho 

3 Falls Board meeting.

4 First slide just gives us what we're 

5 doing. We're looking backwards and forwards. 

6 Work Group members if you are, turn to Slide 2, 

7 the Work Group history. Worker Outreach Work 

8 Group was formed back in February of 2007 to 

9 review worker outreach program, including 

10 NIOSH and NIOSH's contractors' approach to 

11 organizing meetings.

12 We wanted to look at how outreach 

13 meetings are conducted and the impact of the 

14 information gathered for dose reconstruction, 

15 Site Profiles, SEC petitions, and how 

16 information collected from all sources was 

17 handled.

18 The Work Group initially attended 

19 various DOL and NIOSH outreach meetings. 

20 Those included and held in conjunction with 

21 Argonne East, Texas Chemicals, Blockson, Rocky 
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1 Flats, Pinellas, and we also attended ATL led 

2 Work Group workshops, just to name a few.

3 The first Work Group meeting was 

4 February 1st of 2008. It started with NIOSH 

5 and SC&A each outlining for the Work Group 

6 overviews of their current state of worker 

7 outreach activities.

8 It was very informative. The 

9 worker outreach was defined as a formal program 

10 within a broader context of outreach 

11 activities. We were questioning are there 

12 enough programs? What are they doing? How 

13 are they doing it? What are they 

14 accomplishing?

15 The program was in transition from 

16 ORAU subcontract to direct OCAS-DCAS contract. 

17 And ATL continued on as the program contractor. 

18 Early on the Board, NIOSH, and SC&A made it 

19 clear that we take the participation in this 

20 process very seriously.

21 Next slide, Slide 3. This slide is 
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1 a representation of the common goals and values 

2 for outreach. And this was based on program 

3 concerns consistently expressed during Board, 

4 and Work Group meetings by NIOSH, the Board, and

5 SC&A.

6 Of the first five bullets listed 

7 here, Diversity, Completeness, Verification, 

8 Parity, Communication of impact, it was always, 

9 had been important to seek input from a broad, 

10 representative population.

11 We wanted to make sure worker input 

12 made its way into the system. We also wanted 

13 to capture input from all venues for 

14 consideration. So folks who had their boots on 

15 the ground, to those working in more of an 

16 overseer's role.

17 Verification was important to 

18 provide an opportunity for review of meeting 

19 minutes and interview notes to assure the 

20 authenticity of information recorded.

21 We wanted to give equal value, and 
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1 consideration, and investigate information, 

2 concerns, based on merit and significance, 

3 regardless of the venue or source.

4 And we always wanted to communicate 

5 participation influenced by perceptions. Can 

6 workers see that their input is taken seriously 

7 and has the impact on dose reconstruction and 

8 SEC recommendations?

9 So in doing all that we needed to 

10 use, needed to have effective use of our 

11 resources. Above goals are pursued in context 

12 of a larger program, in balance with other 

13 priorities.

14 And along with parity we wanted to 

15 make sure the same tests applied, whether we're 

16 getting the information from health 

17 physicists, or say a welder, we want to apply 

18 the same test in terms of consistency with other 

19 information.

20 The next slide. And Slide 4, 

21 mission statement and evaluation of 
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1 objectives. Our charter mission statement 

2 which was approved by the Board in 2009, I know 

3 Lynn read a partial, I'll go ahead and the whole 

4 statement, to evaluate the effectiveness of 

5 NIOSH activities in obtaining and making use of 

6 information from current and former workers and 

7 their representatives.

8 Includes monitoring and evaluating 

9 the effectiveness of NIOSH sources of 

10 assistance to assure this information is 

11 available to as many potential EEOICPA 

12 claimants as possible.

13 The implementation plan had four 

14 objectives. The first objective was DCAS 

15 taking appropriate measures to solicit worker 

16 input. Two, is DCAS obtaining and documenting 

17 input from workers? And is DCAS giving 

18 thorough consideration to information received 

19 from workers?

20 And finally four, is DCAS 

21 effectively communicating information to 
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1 workers?

2 We knew early on that the 

3 implementation plan had a number of pieces. 

4 And as a Work Group we decided it was best to 

5 address them one at a time. So in our February 

6 2010 Board meeting the Work Group focused on 

7 Objectives 1, 2, and 3.

8 We deferred to DCAS' internal 

9 ten-year review, quality of service in place of 

10 Objective 4. And then we created, as Lynn 

11 pointed out earlier, the separate effort to log 

12 and track public comments presented to the 

13 Advisory Board.

14 Next slide. And Work Group 

15 activities from 2007 until present. This just 

16 captures where we've been. We, under 

17 Objective 1 and 2 of the implementation plan, 

18 in conjunction with the Procedures 

19 Subcommittee, we looked at ORAU's procedure 

20 0097. That was issued 2005. We reviewed it 

21 along with the WISPR database, NIOSH's early 
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1 vehicle for capturing data.

2 OCAS-PR-012 was issued in 2009. We 

3 reviewed that with an issues matrix, all those 

4 comments for, now DCAS-PR-012 were of course 

5 completed in November of 2012 and that document 

6 was issued December 14, 2012.

7 General principles guiding 

8 assessment, we looked for goals to improve 

9 outreach procedures and work products, our 

10 sampling approach. It was not continual or 

11 comprehensive monitoring of the entire 

12 program.

13 Evaluate consideration of the 

14 issues, not an agreement or disagreement with 

15 NIOSH's position. And under Objective 3, the 

16 site-specific reviews of outreach inputs and 

17 disposition. We spent most of our time there. 

18 We completed the Rocky Flats review and Los 

19 Alamos most recently.

20 So Slide 6. Under lessons learned, 

21 what have we learned?
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1 So while there was initial concern 

2 expressed that the proposed plan may be too 

3 ambitious, much of the initial worker outreach 

4 Work Group agenda has been accomplished. We 

5 understood that this Work Group's purpose and 

6 approach would be unique and would need to be 

7 tested.

8 Site reviews have provided a means 

9 to validate the implementation plan of worker 

10 outreach procedures and management systems.

11 The empirical use of actual 

12 examples has supported collaborative, 

13 productive discussions of issues related to 

14 outreach program implementation.

15 Most issues raised by commenters 

16 are reflected, as least in general sense, in 

17 NIOSH communications and work documents. 

18 However, these large site reviews proved to be 

19 resource intensive and not timely.

20 Retrospective reviews measure what 

21 was, not what is. This blurs the connection 
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1 between review results and current 

2 opportunities for improvement.

3 Under performance, reviews require 

4 documentary evidence and spurs some 

5 defensiveness. Evolution of outreach and 

6 advent of the ten-year review actions have 

7 overtaken the original Work Group 

8 implementation plan.

9 And under Slide 7, revised Work 

10 Group Charter. So this just gives a blanket of 

11 where, what we've achieved, what we'd --

12 changes that have been made.

13 So we talked about the procedure 

14 revision, PROC-012. And the ten-year review 

15 actions, it's still not clear what this Work 

16 Group's role is there completely.

17 Effective tracking system for 

18 Public Comments to the Board. That has been 

19 implemented successfully. Rocky Flats and 

20 LANL, those site reviews are completed.

21 NIOSH's initiative to capture 
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1 comments from multiple venues in a centralized 

2 application. That as we discussed in November 

3 at our last Work Group meeting, is the long 

4 range plan. It's an Outreach Tracking System 

5 and NIOSH could possibly let us know at some 

6 point. Not necessarily today, where they are 

7 with that.

8 The Work Group's initial evaluation 

9 objectives have largely been accomplished like 

10 I said earlier. And in discussing a new path 

11 forward here's some questions to think about.

12 What is the current level of 

13 satisfaction and confidence regarding common 

14 values and goals for outreach?

15 How to apply lessons learned and 

16 address remaining opportunities to work with 

17 NIOSH to strengthen worker outreach?

18 So the next slide, are just some 

19 ideas moving forward. I don't want to like 

20 overshadow other people's ideas so would you --

21 I guess my question is to the other Work Group 
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1 members, do you, have you had some time to think 

2 about ideas? Shall I run through these that I 

3 have listed? What's your thoughts?

4 MEMBER MUNN: It would probably be 

5 a good idea to go through them, Josie. I don't 

6 know about the other Work Group members, but 

7 yes, I've had an opportunity to see it and think 

8 about it a little bit --

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

10 MEMBER MUNN: -- I'm not sure 

11 whether I have much to add, but perhaps it's 

12 worthwhile for the record to run through the 

13 ideas that you had listed.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so Slide 8, 

15 some ideas. First one, move away from 

16 comprehensive, site-specific reviews toward 

17 more real-time observational ones in 

18 conjunction with NIOSH outreach activities.

19 Here's some examples for what we can 

20 provide some feedback on, based on our 

21 participation, so SEC outreach meetings, DOL 
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1 and NIOSH informational meetings, interviews 

2 and focus groups. So that's the first idea.

3 The second one is to select specific 

4 issues for focused Work Group follow up and 

5 review. So we've got worker-raised concerns 

6 regarding NIOSH responsiveness. Referrals 

7 specifically made by the full Board or Work 

8 Groups. And then worker outreach selected 

9 based on Work Group meeting discussions. So 

10 those are three ideas there.

11 Continue to follow progress and 

12 provide input as NIOSH develops a new 

13 application responsiveness to remaining matrix 

14 items, issues from PROC-012 review.

15 Number four, would be define clear 

16 roles to facilitate collaborative 

17 consideration of process being achieved on the 

18 ten-year review, quality of service issues 

19 related to communications with workers, 

20 claimants, and petitioners.

21 And the last idea is to solicit 
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1 regular feedback from workers at Board meetings 

2 on how communications are handled and whether 

3 comments or issues are being addressed in a 

4 timely manner?

5 So with that, go ahead and open it 

6 up for discussion, comments, thoughts.

7 MR. KATZ: Josie, this is Ted.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Hi, Ted.

9 MR. KATZ: Hey, I thought just, it 

10 just occurred to me when I was thinking through 

11 these again as you were presenting them that 

12 there's something else that's going on already 

13 right now, which probably deserves some 

14 recognition in this thinking about these.

15 And that is, and it's been going on 

16 for quite a long time, we've had this process 

17 and Joe can speak to it more than I can because 

18 he attends, you know, most of it where as I've 

19 only attended sporadically some of it.

20 But, you know, NIOSH, DCAS staff, 

21 ORAU staff, and SC&A staff have, you know, for 
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1 years now, quite a few years now, coordinated 

2 closely and conducted together quite a lot of 

3 the interview process that gets done to 

4 interview site experts and workers at sites.

5 And so they do those together and 

6 that in and of itself is I think sort of a very 

7 good opportunity. I think probably some of 

8 this already occurs, I don't know.

9 But just for feedback, direct 

10 feedback, sort of as you can give direct 

11 feedback in a public meeting even when you have 

12 the answer, but between parties about their 

13 processes, and interviewing, soliciting 

14 information and accounting for that.

15 And I just thought I'd raise that. 

16 That's sort of another, it's an activity that's 

17 ongoing that relates pretty well to this whole 

18 issue of how you solicit information from 

19 workers as well as other groups and take it into 

20 consideration.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, that's a good 
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1 point Ted, from our most recent Kansas City 

2 collaboration there and the INL one coming up 

3 this month. Good point. Joe, any comments on 

4 that?

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I think this 

6 is an evolution of the process. I think 

7 there's been a whole lot more integration 

8 between the worker inputs that NIOSH and SC&A 

9 have been working on for the last several years 

10 actually, pre-dating KCP.

11 Yes, and I think that actually 

12 provides a real time, ongoing ability to see how 

13 each, you know, each camp is doing. But it's 

14 so collaborative that I think it becomes a joint 

15 process to elevate these issues and get them 

16 addressed.

17 I think, yes, I think that's been a 

18 key feature that probably hasn't gotten as much 

19 visibility over the last, I would say, three or 

20 four years now.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Or recognition.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, because it's 

2 sort of a collaborative part of the SEC Site 

3 Profile process. But I would agree that, that 

4 has done a lot to kind of open things up and to 

5 provide a means to almost, I wouldn't even say 

6 accountability, but just to encourage an 

7 elevation of issues if they're important 

8 enough, and get them addressed.

9 MEMBER MUNN: And quite often those 

10 activities occur outside the view of the Board 

11 Members themselves. So if -- but this is not 

12 the kind of continual collaboration that all of 

13 us as Board Members would be aware of in every 

14 case. It's good for us to note, take note of 

15 that I think.

16 CHAIR BEACH: And Wanda just for a 

17 little bit on that comment, I think the Board 

18 Members are being told more and more often when 

19 those interviews are taking place.

20 And then the Work Group members at 

21 that particular site do have those options to 
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1 join in those discussions a lot of times.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but we don't see 

3 the overall picture. And --

4 CHAIR BEACH: The results.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, we don't see 

8 what happens there but it's very clear that a 

9 great deal of that kind of effort has gone on 

10 increasingly, I think, over the years. And 

11 that's certainly to the benefit of the worker 

12 population.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, Phil or Loretta 

14 any comments or suggestions?

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Can you hear me 

16 now?

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Thank you. You 

19 know when we went out to Pinellas to do those 

20 interviews, there was an SC&A, NIOSH, and I was 

21 the only Board Member available to go at that 
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1 time.

2 But we went out there with the idea 

3 of collaboration between all of us and you know, 

4 trying to reach the same goal, get the same, you 

5 know, kind of information, feed off each other. 

6 That's what we all, what's important to you? 

7 Or somebody would come up and say, you know, 

8 maybe we should pursue that a little more.

9 And it actually turned into an 

10 exceptionally good trip in that respect. That 

11 we were able all to work together and I think 

12 it was very productive by going in there with 

13 the idea of the, that we're all going to work 

14 together as a team to get information. And you 

15 know, I was quite pleased the way everything 

16 turned out.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I agree after 

18 being involved in Kansas City. I think we are 

19 on the right track with those types of meetings 

20 and collaboration between SC&A, NIOSH, and the 

21 Board.
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1 So, ideas on the Work Group Charter, 

2 mission, I know I sent everybody out the latest 

3 draft for the mission implementation plan.

4 I don't plan on talking about it 

5 today, but it is something we discussed at our 

6 last Work Group meeting extensively to change 

7 that and to update it. So that kind of goes hand 

8 in hand with moving forward for this Work Group.

9 MEMBER MUNN: It does and it 

10 probably would behoove us as a Work Group to get 

11 very serious about what our real actual 

12 anticipation might be of any future activities 

13 and how much future activity there really 

14 should be.

15 I don't think we've ever had a real 

16 discussion about whether we're ever going to 

17 try to build in a sunset clause to our 

18 activities or not. Or whether we're going to 

19 continue to update and revise our anticipation 

20 of our purpose and our goals.

21 It's probably worthwhile for us to 
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1 at least just spend a little time individually 

2 and as a group thinking about that. Whether 

3 it's meaningful for us and for the 

4 organization, and especially for the 

5 claimants, for us to continue to function as, 

6 for a specific reasoning.

7 And I think sometimes it's hard for 

8 us to be realistic about what our real reasons 

9 are. I would hope that we would reach a point 

10 in our activities where unless some unusual 

11 circumstance arises, our primary concerns 

12 would be to essentially fall into Bullet 3, 

13 there on the ideas page.

14 To check to see that the process 

15 that's been setup and essentially agreed to as 

16 being functional, is being followed in the 

17 appropriate way, as kind of a QA function.

18 But undoubtedly somebody needs to 

19 do it, and perhaps this Work Group is the best 

20 one to do that. But beyond that, it might be 

21 beneficial for us to spend some thought time 
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1 with what we really -- what really is needed 

2 from a worker outreach group at this point in 

3 the program's development. It has changed 

4 radically over the last decade.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, and Wanda, while 

6 I agree with that in general, that's where we're 

7 at right now. The large site reviews to me are 

8 just so cumbersome to us as a Work Group when 

9 you get a document that's 216 pages. And so 

10 anyway that's why these ideas are, we need to 

11 kick them around on future --

12 MEMBER MUNN: Future meetings.

13 CHAIR BEACH: -- what we're going 

14 to do, so, Loretta, anything on what your 

15 thoughts are? How about the presentation in 

16 general to go before the full Board, is it too 

17 big? Lacking? Does it need something else to 

18 express where we are and -- Joe, any comments 

19 from SC&A?

20 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I think that 

21 sums it up pretty well. And I do think this is 
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1 a juncture to make, sort of gives us some 

2 thought because again I think you've had a 

3 pretty good experience on doing the vertical 

4 assessments.

5 But I think the notion of, does the 

6 review fit, or does the process fit where things 

7 are right now? I think is a very legitimate 

8 one, particularly with worker outreach.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

10 MEMBER VALERIO: Josie, this is 

11 Loretta.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Hi, Loretta.

13 MEMBER VALERIO: Can you hear me 

14 now?

15 CHAIR BEACH: I sure can.

16 MEMBER VALERIO: My mute button 

17 wasn't working well. I apologize.

18 CHAIR BEACH: No, that's okay.

19 MEMBER VALERIO: So I think that 

20 this presentation, both of these presentations 

21 by Lynn and by yourself helped me as the newer 
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1 member of the Work Group to understand, you 

2 know, what the scope or the purpose of the Work 

3 Group itself is.

4 I understand that with these larger 

5 sites, the work is very cumbersome for all 

6 parties involved. And I think that maybe next 

7 week when we meet in Cincinnati, maybe give us 

8 a few more days to just kind of come up with some 

9 additional ideas. And maybe we can put those 

10 on the table next week when we meet as well.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Well, next week we're 

12 meeting for Kansas City.

13 MEMBER VALERIO: Kansas City.

14 CHAIR BEACH: But I imagine we can 

15 kick around some ideas between now and the Board 

16 meeting and then schedule a Work Group meeting 

17 for after the Board meeting as a moving forward 

18 point.

19 MEMBER VALERIO: And yes, and I 

20 understand next week is specifically about 

21 Kansas City and I was very, very thankful that 
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1 SC&A and NIOSH, and you know, other members were 

2 there to kind of help guide me through the 

3 process of reviewing records, since that was my 

4 first actual outreach activity.

5 But maybe, yes, I think maybe 

6 another Work Group meeting where we can have 

7 more definitive plans on what the next step that 

8 this Work Group needs to move towards.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so we do have 

10 the presentation, and we do have some ideas, and 

11 I guess I would just ask the Work Group members 

12 to address or look at these five ideas and kind 

13 of take some time to decide, you know, where 

14 you're at, with where we should be. So that 

15 when we do get together we can define our role.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, Josie.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: I really should 

19 add one more comment.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

21 MR. FITZGERALD: I'd be 
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1 particularly interested in hearing what Stu and 

2 his staff would provide and some perspective 

3 on, you know, we keep saying, you know if 

4 things have evolved, have changed here, where 

5 they are now?

6 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: But they more than 

8 anybody obviously would have a good, intimate 

9 feel for, you know, where PR-012, you know 

10 implementing the procedure that was put in 

11 place a couple years ago. Where the ten-year 

12 plan stands. And you know, there's a number of 

13 moving parts on this whole question of worker 

14 outreach. It's kind of a complex management 

15 system.

16 I'd just be interested, what would, 

17 you know, from their vantage point, what would 

18 complement, not duplicate, not burden, but 

19 complement what they do in a way which would add 

20 value?

21 Provide feedback from the Board and 
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1 do so in a way which I think they would find 

2 effective and efficient. I think at this 

3 stage, I think that would be a good piece of 

4 feedback the Work Group would benefit from.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, this Stu. 

7 I'll try a couple things. I think what several 

8 of you have commented about from the, just how 

9 things are working now in terms of outreach and 

10 seeking worker comments at these various SEC 

11 and Site Profile review investigations, I think 

12 is reflective of a change we made, oh, a couple 

13 years ago in the utilization of our Site 

14 Profile, or our worker outreach contractor to 

15 make them a routine part of an SEC Evaluation 

16 process.

17 You know, where early on we, a lot 

18 of site, or worker outreach work was associated 

19 with Site Profile preparation. You know 

20 either when we were preparing, or when we had 

21 something out, a Site Profile published. We 
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1 want to present it and so you would go to the 

2 affected parties, you know, worker groups of 

3 the affected areas, and collect comments.

4 And that's when we were more in that 

5 sort of comment collection phase with various 

6 databases. But I think for the last I guess 

7 it's a couple years or so, the predominant focus 

8 of outreach has been sort of integrated into our 

9 work processes, particularly in terms of SEC 

10 Evaluation reports.

11 So we're not just going out to site 

12 management anymore and getting records and 

13 statements from their management and their 

14 health and safety staff.

15 We're now, during the Evaluation 

16 Report, seeking a broad range of workers in the 

17 interview process as we perform -- as we do 

18 Evaluation Reports and then continue, you know, 

19 in reviews of Evaluation Reports with the 

20 Board.

21 And so I think you, some of the 
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1 comments you made sort of reflect that 

2 alteration. So in that sense Board Members 

3 although sometimes yes, sometimes no, to 

4 whether they're Worker Outreach Work Group 

5 members are sort of involved in, right in what 

6 we are now, what we consider a big part of our 

7 worker outreach process which is 

8 identification of people to interview during 

9 evaluations and Site Profile review, you know, 

10 finding resolutions.

11 And so to the extent that you feel 

12 like it's necessary, you know, it would seem 

13 like there's sort of direct 

14 involvement/oversight and opportunities for 

15 direct and current feedback from Board, you 

16 know, from Board Members and Board Members' 

17 contractor as we work sort of collegially to 

18 gather this information.

19 So I think that's, I don't know if 

20 there is more to do there than to continue to 

21 do what we're doing.
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1 One of the things you asked about 

2 was ten-year review and how that wraps into 

3 this? And the quality of service items from 

4 ten-year review, I think a lot of those we are, 

5 have accomplished and are accomplishing.

6 But I think when it comes to that, 

7 that's not something you're ever really done 

8 with, you know. And I think we are continually 

9 examining our communications with, how we 

10 communicate with people and seeing if we can't 

11 communicate more clearly and more completely.

12 Some things that have come out of 

13 that is our current process of putting White 

14 Papers and so on that are going to be discussed 

15 at Work Group meetings, and getting those on the 

16 web so they're available as long as they're 

17 PA-cleared so they're available for the public 

18 to participate and follow the discussion. And 

19 things like that.

20 But that's not something that, you 

21 know we're never done trying to improve our 
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1 quality of service to our clients. And so 

2 there seemed to be like there was a third 

3 category Josie mentioned. I can't really 

4 think of for sure. I don't know of a --

5 CHAIR BEACH: Well.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: -- I haven't 

7 envisioned a structure that the Work Group can 

8 adopt. Probably because I haven't thought 

9 about it very much and even if I did think about, 

10 I don't know if I could.

11 But I don't know if I can think of

12 a structure or a formality that the Work Group 

13 could adopt that puts them in a position to view 

14 our various efforts in this area, to kind of 

15 provide continuing feedback or correction, or 

16 point to areas of opportunity for instance of 

17 -- other than where we are already.

18 But from our standpoint, I guess the 

19 key feedback, or the assistance that to us would 

20 be, maybe identification of those areas of 

21 interest or areas of opportunity for improving 
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1 our communication and our service, and our 

2 listening, or not only our speaking, and how 

3 well we communicate to people, but how well we 

4 listen to people.

5 And continuing you know, maybe some 

6 continuing suggestions for opportunities or 

7 improvement in that area, but I don't know how 

8 to structure a system to kind of formalize that.

9 Since the Board and SC&A are 

10 participating in much of our, you know, many of 

11 our outreach activities now that might be, I 

12 mean it kind of might be built in, that sort of 

13 search for opportunities for improvement might 

14 be built into the process we're using.

15 So I'm afraid I wasn't very helpful 

16 but in my view the outreach efforts today are 

17 far different than they were six and seven years 

18 ago when so many of these documented comments 

19 in the site, in the tracking databases were 

20 generated.

21 And the system is much different now 
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1 and it seems like the opportunities for Board 

2 and SC&A sort of correction, or direction, or 

3 assistance are sort of built in. So I don't 

4 know how anybody else feels about that.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, the other one 

6 Stu, was the Outreach Tracking System but --

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I guess the 

8 Outreach Tracking System has not reached the 

9 area of maturity that I would have thought by 

10 now. We've had other priorities and personnel 

11 issues -- losses in the TST, and so it's not at 

12 a point where I would have thought it might be 

13 by now.

14 But we do have a variety of systems 

15 where we do capture comments. And we didn't 

16 really want to duplicate those.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: I do know that we 

19 make an effort to make sure that things we don't 

20 answer when we're at meetings get answered.

21 Now from personal experience I was 
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1 at some public meetings in Denver in February 

2 that had to do, it was a joint outreach task 

3 group meeting, but it was mainly sponsored by 

4 the Department of Labor because they were 

5 announcing or presenting information about the 

6 most recent edition of an SEC Class at Rocky 

7 Flats which was effective sort of in the 

8 beginning of this year I think.

9 And there were some people who came

10 up to me after the meeting, and said they felt 

11 like they had information that might be 

12 relevant to the continuing discussion of the 

13 additional years. Because we're still 

14 discussing additional years that might be added 

15 to the SEC at Rocky Flats.

16 And from that, you know, I said, I 

17 took their contact information and our SEC team 

18 got a hold of them and they were some of the 

19 people who were talked to and interviewed 

20 afterwards.

21 So you know, that doesn't show up in 
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1 a database anywhere. But that's why there was 

2 three people that showed up on the interview 

3 list and why we have now documented the 

4 interviews with them in SRDB.

5 So to a certain extent we work like 

6 that, and if the database were up and running 

7 then I probably should have entered, made all 

8 that entries in the database, but it wasn't up 

9 and running so we just went ahead and did it.

10 So you know, whenever we, so we, I 

11 think those opportunities occur whether it 

12 happens every time we go out to a public meeting 

13 or not is open to question, but certainly we're 

14 subject to get questions like that when we go 

15 out to public meetings.

16 I think we do try to get answers back 

17 to individuals who go, try to get pretty 

18 conscientious about getting back to people in

19 one fashion or another.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thank you, Stu. 

21 Appreciate your input.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Josie, may I make a 

2 suggestion?

3 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Might I suggest that 

5 the Board Members and any other interested 

6 parties who want to do so, might take time to 

7 do a one-pager or less than one-pager to send 

8 to you, giving you that individual's or that 

9 organization's vision of what this Work Group 

10 is currently and what it should be in the 

11 future?

12 That might give you, it might help 

13 refine this, your ideas that were given in your 

14 slide presentation and force all of us to think 

15 in a very focused manner on what we are and what 

16 we need to continue to be in the future.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, Wanda, I think 

18 that's a good suggestion. However, let's, I 

19 think let's start with the Work Group Members 

20 at this point. Maybe between now and the July 

21 Board meeting, if you could do that, that would 
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1 be helpful.

2 MEMBER MUNN: I certainly would 

3 like to do that and I hope Phil and Loretta feel 

4 similarly.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, because I think, 

6 you know, as it has been pointed out numerous 

7 times today, from where we started when this 

8 Work Group was formed back in 2007, there has, 

9 there's been a lot of changes, a lot of 

10 improvements.

11 I still think we have a role, just 

12 I think it needs to be defined, so --

13 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, many of those 

14 changes and improvements are a result of some 

15 the activities that we've been involved in as 

16 a Work Group, so --

17 CHAIR BEACH: I agree.

18 MEMBER MUNN: -- that's a 

19 salubrious effect.

20 CHAIR BEACH: I agree. Okay, so 

21 any other comments, suggestions on my 
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1 presentation or Lynn's before we move it to the 

2 public comments?

3 (No audible response)

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, hearing none, 

5 are there any other workers, advocates, that 

6 would like to make comments?

7 (No audible response)

8 CHAIR BEACH: Dan, I thought you 

9 had another comment but I'm not sure. Are you 

10 still with us?

11 DR. McKEEL: Can you hear me now?

12 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, we sure can.

13 DR. McKEEL: All right. Yes, I do 

14 have a, this is a comment that I prepared before 

15 this meeting. And by the way connected with 

16 Wanda's excellent suggestion just now, I will 

17 put this in an email to you as soon as we're 

18 through here today.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you.

20 DR. McKEEL: All right. Anyway I 

21 want to say good afternoon. I'm Dan McKeel, 
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1 I'm a 75 year old MD, physician, pathologist, 

2 was a tenured faculty member at Washington U's 

3 School of Medicine in St. Louis 31 years. 

4 Retired from that job in 2005.

5 I certainly appreciate the 

6 opportunity to express my views to you today as 

7 an SEC petitioner, co-petitioner at three AWE 

8 sites, General Steel Industries, and Dow in 

9 Illinois, and the Texas City Chemicals site in 

10 Texas.

11 And as you know, two of those sites

12 have been awarded SECs. So I've been through 

13 that process as well. GSI was denied its SEC 

14 in December 2012 after four years of 

15 deliberations by a close nine to eight split 

16 vote. And I then filed an administrative 

17 review appeal for GSI which has been underway 

18 at HHS since April the 17th, 2013.

19 It's appropriate about feedback to 

20 the public and SEC petitioners in particular 

21 that after lengthy negotiations with the HHS 
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1 Assistant Secretary who's handling that 

2 matter, I finally found out that it took until 

3 January the 24th to get the complete GSI record 

4 to HHS.

5 And that review panel did not start 

6 meeting until last month, in May of 2014. So 

7 I would anticipate that this administrative 

8 review will take a little longer than two years 

9 to process. And I'll leave it up to you all to 

10 see whether that's timely or not. I don't 

11 think it is.

12 Since 2003 I've contributed 81 

13 White Papers on the SEC rule, the NIOSH ten-year 

14 review, and several other NIOSH dockets, 

15 including 53 papers to the GSI Docket 140.

16 Almost all of them, including the 

17 GSI administrative review are posted on the 

18 DCAS website.

19 The organization I co-founded, the 

20 Southern Illinois Nuclear Energy Workers, or 

21 SINEW. And that's S-I-N-E-W, the acronym, has 
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1 participated in the larger national debate 

2 about EEOICPA 2000, along with ANWAG, the 

3 United Weapons Workers and other 

4 organizations.

5 We have worked with workers to 

6 submit numerous affidavits to NIOSH and the 

7 Board. We've discovered in January 2007 that 

8 NIOSH had film badges at Landauer, and we 

9 contributed major new information to NIOSH and 

10 the Board through participating in the FOIA 

11 process.

12 Ironically, exactly six years 

13 previously to the Board vote on the GSI SEC, on 

14 December 12th, 2006 at its 42nd meeting in 

15 Naperville, Illinois, then Illinois Senator 

16 Barack Obama, before he became our 44th 

17 president of the United States, addressed this 

18 Board.

19 And you can see his remarks starting 

20 on Page 125 of that transcript. And he 

21 acknowledged the help he received from SINEW 
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1 understanding GSI and their site.

2 He expressed frustration at the 

3 slow pace of NIOSH in performing dose 

4 reconstructions, noting that only two claims at 

5 Dow had been paid.

6 I have always viewed this worker 

7 outreach group as being central to the mission 

8 of the Board task, according to its original 

9 charter. I think many people in the advocacy 

10 camp share my hopes and aspirations for this 

11 Work Group.

12 I do agree with recent transcripts 

13 of this Work Group which document a gradual 

14 erosion of that original mission. And I 

15 applaud today's effort to look forward towards 

16 the future.

17 I have read both of the discussion 

18 presentations for today's outreach Work Group 

19 meeting. And kind of in response to all of this 

20 I offer the following few comments that I hope 

21 will be constructive ones.
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1 First and foremost I challenge the 

2 accuracy of the overall analysis that NIOSH 

3 addressed worker concerns 90 percent of the 

4 time in a general way or in a significant way.

5 The important question would be or 

6 should have been, how often has NIOSH addressed 

7 worker site expert or SEC petitioner concerns 

8 in direct and specific ways?

9 Two, the emphasis on worker 

10 outreach has become way too narrow focusing 

11 only on the largest DOE sites. Witness today's 

12 discussion papers that deal almost exclusively 

13 and retrospectively with LANL and Rocky Flats.

14 I agree that what is needed for the 

15 future is real time analysis and much broader 

16 sampling. For example, NIOSH and the Board 

17 could answer questions from the public directly 

18 during Board public comment sessions.

19 NIOSH and the Board could state 

20 specific actions they would take to answer the 

21 questions definitively both in real time and in 
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1 writing, I would say within seven days of the 

2 meeting.

3 The way things are now, and I'm not 

4 being facetious, the person receiving the 

5 answers is such or ever forthcoming, often has 

6 lost track of what the original question was, 

7 or when and where it was asked.

8 In the future the Work Group should 

9 expand its outreach to include many more sites 

10 that include AWE sites which form a large 

11 majority of all covered EEOICPA sites.

12 Three, I suggest that the outreach 

13 communications data from AWE sites will be far 

14 different from those of large DOE facilities. 

15 Outreach from large DOE sites with designated 

16 points of contact are not representative of the 

17 situation at AWE sites.

18 To my knowledge, no one at DOL or DOE 

19 has ever attempted to construct or make use of 

20 a list of designated contact people at AWE 

21 sites. And frankly I wonder why this has not 
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1 happened?

2 Fifth, while joint task force 

3 outreach meetings by DOL, NIOSH, and DOE have 

4 greatly intensified in recent years. DOL and 

5 NIOSH worker outreach meetings to explain the 

6 DR process and SEC processes at AWE sites has 

7 practically ceased.

8 SINEW on May the 12th, 2014 held an 

9 outreach informational meeting for GSI and Dow 

10 workers at Granite City, Illinois. DOL was 

11 invited but they were unable to attend. NIOSH 

12 was invited and they were also not able to 

13 attend.

14 The Paducah Resource Center did 

15 furnish some brochures. But importantly at 

16 that meeting, we identified eight new people 

17 who wished to file Part B claims. And new 

18 claims from GSI and Dow have been practically 

19 stagnant for the last year.

20 So I believe that holding those AWE 

21 site meetings would be very productive about 
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1 expanding the population of people who file 

2 claims.

3 Six, to document the accuracy of my 

4 preceding two observations in items four and 

5 five, this work and the Board could task SC&A 

6 to compile a master list of worker outreach 

7 informational meetings held by NIOSH, DOL, and 

8 DOE from 2000 to 2014.

9 This list should not include worker 

10 meetings held to discuss or address Site 

11 Profile issues or SEC issues, I view them as 

12 separate processes. The AWE and DOE sites 

13 should be listed separately.

14 Seven, my personal experiences over 

15 the past 11 years with matters that are central 

16 to this Work Group, may be summarized very 

17 briefly as follows.

18 A, almost none of my many public 

19 comments has been addressed by NIOSH by a letter 

20 or email directly to me stating the writer was 

21 addressing a Dan McKeel public comment.
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1 There was a specific set of Dan 

2 McKeel public comments, that NIOSH claimed to 

3 have addressed directly with me, that Board 

4 Chairman Melius reviewed at a subsequent ABRWH 

5 Board working session.

6 That assertion was completely 

7 false. I wasn't contacted by NIOSH. At the 

8 time I wrote this comment, I did not have that 

9 specific transcript available. But I can 

10 locate it.

11 B, a significant proportion of my 

12 many informational contributions to the Board 

13 at various Work Groups and to NIOSH, have never 

14 been acknowledged much less acted upon.

15 I believe professional and common 

16 courtesy requires the recipients of good faith 

17 input from the public, and from petitioners, 

18 and site experts should acknowledge receipt of 

19 the same in writing and promptly, right away as 

20 soon as practical.

21 C, NIOSH often does not follow 
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1 through and interview workers who make public 

2 comments and file affidavits that directly 

3 affect Site Profile, site specific dose 

4 reconstructions, and site specific SECs.

5 Two recent examples relate to the 

6 Dow SEC 79 covered period and worker public 

7 comment and SEC Board discussion input from 

8 multiple Rocky Flats and Kansas City plant 

9 workers at each site concerning Dow-Madison 

10 HK31 thorium alloy use at those two plants.

11 Nor have the Work Groups 

12 considering these two sites taken action that 

13 I am aware of. The Outreach Work Group should 

14 try to document or refute this allegation.

15 D, NIOSH errs in not giving eye 

16 witness worker affidavits sufficient weight in 

17 decision making about key technical documents, 

18 such as Site Profiles, TIBs, TDBs, SEC 

19 Evaluation Reports, et cetera.

20 An older example of 

21 underutilization of sworn affidavit 
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1 information by NIOSH is six GSI worker 

2 affidavits which established that an 80-curie 

3 cobalt-60 non-destructive testing gamma source 

4 was used during the AEC contract periods, 

5 1964-66 at GSI.

6 Another example is that no less than 

7 14 sworn Dow worker affidavits are on the 

8 published record attesting to HK31A thorium 

9 alloy plate shipments to Rocky Flats DOE site, 

10 that are now backed up by new, that is 2013 and 

11 '14, Rocky Flats and Kansas City Plant worker 

12 testimonies. See item C above.

13 SINEW has submitted other evidence 

14 that Dow HK31 alloy plates most likely were used 

15 in the Rocky Flats transport modification 

16 center located in building 440. And the Kansas 

17 City plant information was that Dow HK31 was 

18 used in the model shop and in area 20E.

19 HHS, the Office of General Counsel, 

20 the CDC/ATSDR FOIA Office and NIOSH are all 

21 highly inconsistent in the way they redact 
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1 written worker input to the Board and its Work 

2 Groups.

3 They have refused to honor Dow and 

4 GSI worker Privacy Act waivers submitted by a 

5 well-qualified, experienced, pro bono Illinois 

6 law firm who helps SINEW.

7 They redact deceased person private 

8 information even though such individuals are 

9 not covered by the Privacy Act, by 5 US Code 

10 552a. The names of SEC petitioners are omitted 

11 from the SEC petition posting on the DCAS 

12 website, but are printed when the same person 

13 addresses the Board during an SEC presentation.

14 And names and other identifying 

15 data are usually but not always omitted from 

16 NIOSH group worker interviews on the 

17 participant page and from lists of candidate 

18 cases for DR Subcommittee interviews that are 

19 handed out to the public in the past.

20 Such occurrences ought to be 

21 investigated and analyzed as part of the 
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1 quality control assessments of the Outreach 

2 Work Group's activities. I will end at this 

3 point. Most of my additional concerns were 

4 expressed in my six different sets of comments 

5 on the NIOSH ten-year review. And I thank you 

6 for giving me an audience today.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Thank you, Dan. And 

8 you said you will be sending that to me?

9 DR. McKEEL: Yes, I will.

10 CHAIR BEACH: I appreciate that.

11 DR. McKEEL: All right.

12 CHAIR BEACH: And that'll give us 

13 the time to look at those individually and 

14 hopefully get back to you on as many as we're 

15 capable along with NIOSH.

16 DR. McKEEL: Josie, I'm not 

17 actually asking for a response. This is input 

18 I want your --

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

20 DR. McKEEL: -- your Work Group to 

21 have.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay.

2 DR. McKEEL: And use for whatever 

3 purpose. It might be useful.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, that, thanks 

5 for that clarification, Dan.

6 DR. McKEEL: Thank you.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Any other worker, 

8 workers, worker advocates wishing to make 

9 comments?

10 I know I had heard from [identifying 

11 information redacted] earlier that she was 

12 going to try and make the call, so -- okay, 

13 hearing none, it's been an interesting, 

14 productive Work Group meeting. Any other 

15 comments before we move to adjourn?

16 (No audible response)

17 CHAIR BEACH: Ted, anything that we 

18 need to think about for moving forward? I 

19 think it's too early to plan another Work Group 

20 meeting, but --

21 MR. KATZ: You know --
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1 CHAIR BEACH: -- certainly we 

2 should be thinking about it after our July 

3 meeting.

4 MR. KATZ: Right. And the only 

5 other thing I was going to say is I think I would 

6 hold off on doing much with the charter until 

7 you get to hear from the rest of the Board. 

8 That's probably what you're planning anyway?

9 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Exactly.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, but no. I just 

11 want to thank everyone for a productive meeting 

12 today, so great job.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay and Wanda thank 

14 you for mastering Live Meeting, finally.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Well I'm not sure 

16 there was much mastering, but --

17 CHAIR BEACH: Well, you got the 

18 slides up.

19 MEMBER MUNN: That's true.

20 CHAIR BEACH: That's pretty good. 

21 Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, NIOSH and SC&A, 
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1 ATL for joining us. And I'll see some of you 

2 in Cincinnati next week.

3 MEMBER VALERIO: We'll see you on 

4 Tuesday.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, sounds great, 

6 thank you, all.

7 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

8 matter went off the record at 3:33 p.m.)