STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes 

MEETING FIFTY-EIGHT 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. I 

DAY ONE 

ABRWH BOARD MEETING

 

The verbatim transcript of the 

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 

Redondo Beach, California, on Sept. 2, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

Sept. 2, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 7 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO 

PANTEX PLANT SEC PETITION 13 

MR. MARK ROLFES, NIOSH 

PETITIONERS 

NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 51 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR UPDATE 82 

MR. JEFFREY L. KOTSCH, DOL 

CONNECTICUT AIRCRAFT NUCLEAR ENGINE 

LABORATORY SEC PETITION 96 

DR. SAMUEL GLOVER, NIOSH 

PETITIONERS 

PUBLIC COMMENT 129 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 161 

 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

CHAIR

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D. 

Principal Associate Director 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

BOARD MEMBERS

BEACH, Josie 

Nuclear Chemical Operator 

Hanford Reservation 

Richland, Washington 

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 
5

1 LOCKEY, James, M.D. (not present) 

2 Professor, Department of Environmental Health 

3 College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

4 MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 

5 Director 

6 New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 

7 Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 

Professor, Texas A&M University 

College Station, Texas 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 
6

AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS

 ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 

 BERONJA, GREG, SC&A 

 BLAZE, D’LANIE, AERO SPACE ORG. 

 BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 

 BROEHM, JASON, CDC 

 CANO, REGINA, DOE 

 CHEW, MELTON H., ORAUT 

 DEGARMO, DENISE, SIUE/DOW 

 DURST, KELLEY, NIOSH 

 ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 

 ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH/OCAS 

 FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 

 FUNKE, JOHN 

 FUORTES, LAR 

 GLOVER, SAM, NIOSH 

 HANSON, JOHN, SIUE/DOW 

 HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 

 HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

 KATZ, TED, NIOSH 

 KLEA, BONNIE, PETITIONER 

 KOTSCH, JEFF, U.S. DOL 

 LEWIS, GREG, DOE 

 MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 

 MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

 MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU 

 NETON, JIM, NIOSH 

 NORTHOP, MR. AND MRS. T.E., SELF 

 PORTER, DIANE, NIOSH 

 PRESLEY, LOUISE S., SPOUSE 

 RAFKY, MICHAEL, HHS 

 ROBERTS, KIMBERLY, SAIC 

 ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 

 ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 

 SIEBERT, SCOTT, ORAUT 

 VOLSCH, JOE, SIUE/DOW 

 WORTHINGTON, PAT, DOE 

 ZACCHERO, MARY JO, ORAU 
7

P R O C E E D I N G S

(1:00 p.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO

1 DR. BRANCHE: If someone on the line could 

2 please let me know that you can hear me. 

3 UNIDENTIFIED: We can hear you. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Great, thank you. 

5 UNIDENTIFIED: Can hear you. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: Good afternoon. Would someone 

7 participating by phone please let me know that 

8 you can still hear me? 

9 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, I can hear you. 

10 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you so much. We are now 

11 opening the meeting for the Advisory Board on 

12 Radiation and Worker Health, meeting number 58. 

13 I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Ziemer, and 

14 then I'll (electronic interference) to him. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I'll officially call 

16 the meeting to order. Thank you all for your 

17 participation. Just for the record, one of the 

18 Board members, Dr. Lockey, will not be able to 

19 be with us today. Dr. Poston will be joining 

20 us very shortly. His plane is just arriving 
8

1 about now at the airport so he'll be here 

2 shortly. Dr. Melius is here but is currently 

3 on a conference call, will be back with us 

4 shortly as well, but we do have a quorum so we 

5 will proceed. 

6 There are copies of today's agenda, as well as 

7 related documents and papers, on the table in 

8 the rear of this room. If you have not already 

9 done so, please avail yourselves of those 

10 documents. 

11 Also we ask that everyone -- Board members, 

12 federal employees, other guests -- please 

13 register your attendance with us today in the 

14 booklet that's at the entryway. Also members 

15 of the public who wish to make public comment 

16 during our public comment period, which is 

17 later this afternoon, please sign up in the 

18 booklet out there in the foyer as well. 

19 We're pleased to be here in the Los Angeles 

20 area and specifically in Redondo Beach. There 

21 are facilities in this area that are of 

22 interest to the Board and to the program, so 

23 we're glad to have the opportunity for 

24 individuals and claimants from this area to 

25 participate in the activities of the Board this 
9

1 week. 

2 Now I'm going to ask our Designated Federal 

3 Official, who is really phasing out as 

4 Designated Federal Official and who is Acting 

5 Director of NIOSH now, Dr. Christine Branche, 

6 to say a few words for us. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Good afternoon. Again, this is 

8 meeting 58 and I -- I do have the pleasure of 

9 being the Designated Federal Official for this 

10 Advisory Board, and we are making a transi-- a 

11 temp-- appears to be a temporary transition 

12 while the Director of NIOSH position will soon 

13 be posted and -- a search and posting of the 

14 position will soon be underway. I am the 

15 Acting Director of NIOSH and Mr. Ted Katz, 

16 seated to my right, we're transitioning him 

17 very quickly into the position as the Acting 

18 Designated Federal Official. But this 

19 afternoon I will -- I will do it. Ted and I 

20 will share responsibilities tomorrow, and then 

21 he'll be here on Thursday. 

22 Now, for those of you participating by phone, 

23 we are so happy to be able to provide this 

24 opportunity for you, but we do ask that you 

25 mute your phones. You can do that by using the 
10

1 star-6 feature if you do not have a mute 

2 button. It is critical that everyone 

3 participating by phone use -- use the mute 

4 feature so that everyone participating by phone 

5 can hear the goings on here in the Board 

6 meeting. And then if the Board members and the 

7 members of the public who are here this 

8 afternoon, if you do -- if you could please use 

9 your mike when you are ready to speak. Those 

10 of you by phone participating, when you are 

11 ready to speak, upon Dr. Ziemer's signal please 

12 use the star-6 or the mute button to unmute 

13 your line. Again, it is ver-- it is critical 

14 for everyone participating by phone to mute 

15 your lines. 

16 For those of you here in the room, the 

17 emergency exits are directly in the back of the 

18 room and straight out to the parking lot. If 

19 for some reason fire or other emergency 

20 prevents your exit, there is one here behind 

21 the Board table, and then you would exit to the 

22 left through this exit behind us if that -- if 

23 that should become a necessity. 

24 There is a redaction policy that we have for 

25 our Board transcripts. If you're here in the 
11

1 room and -- or by phone and you wish to make a 

2 comment, you give your name -- if you give your 

3 own name, then there'll be no attempt to redact 

4 your name. But NIOSH will take responsible 

5 steps to assure that individuals making public 

6 comment are aware of the redaction policy. You 

7 would provide your own name and it would appear 

8 in the transcript of the meeting posted on the 

9 public web -- web site. We are reading this 

10 statement about our redaction policy at the 

11 beginning of this meeting as our first step of 

12 making you aware of the policy. Printed copies 

13 of our redaction policy are also available at 

14 the table in the back of the room. The 

15 redaction policy was posted with the Federal 

16 Register announcement for this meeting, and it 

17 is also available separately on the NIOSH web 

18 site. 

19 If you are an individual making a statement 

20 that reveals personal information -- for 

21 example, medical information -- about yourself, 

22 that information will not usually be redacted 

23 when the transcript is posted on our public web 

24 site. The NIOSH Freedom of Information Act 

25 coordinator will, however, review all such 
12

1 revelations in accordance with the Freedom of 

2 Information Act and the Federal Advisory 

3 Committee Act and, if deemed appropriate, will 

4 redact such information. 

5 All disclosures of information concerning third 

6 parties will be redacted. 

7 If there's someone here in the room or someone 

8 by phone who would like to make a statement and 

9 would not like to share your own individual 

10 name, if you could please notify me or Mr. Katz 

11 before you come to the microphone or before you 

12 say your information by phone, we will then 

13 entertain any -- any wish to not have your name 

14 put in the public record. 

15 Again I ask that everyone participating by 

16 phone please mute your line by either pressing 

17 the mute button or using star-6. 

18 I will discuss, at a later time on the agenda, 

19 some of the transition issues for Mr. -- Mr. 

20 Katz to me -- from me to Mr. Katz, rather. But 

21 other than that, Dr. Ziemer, thank you very 

22 much. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Going to proceed 

24 now with the agenda. I should point out that 

25 we will in general follow the agenda, but the 
13

1 times are always estimated or approximated 

2 based on how much time we think might be 

3 required for a given topic. However, if we get 

4 ahead, or if we get behind, we may have to 

5 adjust accordingly. 

6 PANTEX PLANT SEC PETITION

7 Our first topic this afternoon is an SEC 

8 petition for workers at the Pantex Plant, which 

9 is in Amarillo, Texas. The actual petition, 

10 which will be described in a moment by NIOSH, 

11 was qualified late last year, in November of 

12 '07. The evaluation report, which is required 

13 under law once a petition is -- is confirmed or 

14 qualified. That particular evaluation report 

15 was submitted to the Board and to the public 

16 earlier -- I was going to say this month but it 

17 now is last month. It was early in August, so 

18 it's been just a little under a month ago and 

19 the Board has had just a -- two or three weeks 

20 to begin to familiarize itself with the content 

21 of the evaluation report. 

22 We're going to hear first from Mark Rolfes, who 

23 is a staff member for NIOSH and is responsible 

24 overall for this particular document, together 

25 with some others who have assisted in its 
14

1 development. Then we will have an opportunity 

2 to hear as well from the petitioners, some of 

3 whom may be on the line today, and we will find 

4 out at that point who is on the line. 

5 But let me ask first if there are petitioners 

6 on the line. I want to make sure they hear 

7 this presentation. 

8 DR. FUORTES: Hi, this is Lar Fuortes. I'm on 

9 the line. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

11 DR. BRANCHE: If you could please mute your 

12 phone until it is time for you to speak -- 

13 everyone, if you could please mute your phones. 

14 Thank you. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Fuortes, are there any others 

16 that you know of, of the petitioners' group, 

17 that will be on the line today? 

18 DR. FUORTES: I had hoped so, but I have not 

19 heard confirmation. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: We'll check -- well, let me ask 

21 now, are there others -- others of the 

22 petitioners on the line now? 

23 (No responses) 

24 I will check again later after Mr. Rolfes' 

25 presentation as well. Thank you very much. 
15

1 Let us proceed. Welcome, Mark. 

2 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

3 Thank you, Dr. Branche. Ladies and gentlemen, 

4 members of the Advisory Board, I am Mark 

5 Rolfes. I am a health physicist with the 

6 National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

7 Health, Office of Compensation Analysis and 

8 Support. I'm here today to present to you the 

9 NIOSH findings of the Pantex Plant Special 

10 Exposure Cohort petition evaluation report. 

11 The Pantex Plant was built in 1942 to load 

12 conventional bombs for World War II efforts. 

13 An Atomic Energy Commission contract was 

14 awarded in 1951 to fabricate high explosives 

15 for nuclear weapon mechanical assemblies. 

16 Pantex was managed and operated by Proctor and 

17 Gamble Defense Corporation until October of 

18 1956, then by Mason Hanger-Silas Mason Company. 

19 Mason Hanger-Silas Mason was jointed by 

20 Battelle in October of 1991. 

21 From 1957 -- excuse me, from 1951 through 1957 

22 Pantex focused on the assembly of non-nuclear 

23 components for In-Flight Insertable weapons. 

24 All In-Flight Insertable mechanical assemblies 

25 were retired by 1966. 
16

1 Prior to 1957 only depleted uranium -- depleted 

2 uranium was the only nuclear component present 

3 at Pantex. 

4 Beginning in 1957 tritium reservoirs were 

5 received from the Savannah River Site, and 

6 sealed plutonium pits began arriving from the 

7 Rocky Flats Plant in 1958. 

8 Gravel Gerties were constructed in 1958 to 

9 allow the final assembly of high explosives 

10 with fissile materials. Fissile materials were 

11 encapsulated in sealed pits. 

12 Pantex's site missions included the fabrication 

13 of high explosives. These were non-nuclear 

14 components. In the early days, from 1951 

15 through 1962, the fabrication involved the 

16 melting, casting and machining to final shape. 

17 Beginning in 1961, high explosives were pressed 

18 with a hydrostatic press and then machined. 

19 The second site mission was to assemble nuclear 

20 weapons. 

21 The third mission was to develop high 

22 explosives, non-nuclear components. 

23 The fourth site mission was the surveillance 

24 testing and evaluation of both nuclear and non25 nuclear components, and Pantex was also 
17

1 responsible for conducting retrofits, 

2 modifications and retirements of nuclear 

3 weapons. 

4 NIOSH received the Pantex SEC petition on 

5 September 8th, 2006. NIOSH issued a proposed 

6 finding indicating that the petition would not 

7 qualify for evaluation on February 5th, 2007. 

8 An administrative review was requested on 

9 February 20th, 2007 and additional information 

10 was provided to NIOSH on February 22nd, 2007. 

11 The SEC petition was revised on March 7th, 

12 2007. 

13 NIOSH issued a proposed finding on August 24th, 

14 2007 indicating that the SEC petition did not 

15 qualify for evaluation. An administrative 

16 review was requested on October 10th, 2007 and 

17 as a result of the administrative review 

18 findings, the Pantex petition qualified for 

19 evaluation on November 20th, 2007 due to doubt 

20 about the adequacy of monitoring data at 

21 Pantex. 

22 A Federal Register notice was then posted on 

23 December 17th, 2007 and NIOSH issued its 

24 evaluation report on August 8th, 2008. 

25 The petition for Pantex was submitted to NIOSH 
18

1 on behalf of a class of employees. The 

2 petitioner-proposed class definition was all 

3 employees who worked in all facilities at the 

4 Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas from January 

5 1st, 1951 through December 31st, 1991. 

6 NIOSH slightly modified the class and evaluated 

7 the following: All employees who worked in any 

8 facility or location at the Pantex Plant in 

9 Amarillo, Texas from January 1st, 1951 through 

10 December 31st, 1991. 

11 As part of the evaluation, NIOSH had access to 

12 various sources of information. These included 

13 the personnel dosimetry records in the 

14 Historical Exposure Records System, and the 

15 Dosimetry Records Management System at Pantex. 

16 NIOSH had the Oak Ridge Associated University 

17 team Technical Information Bulletins, 

18 procedures and the Pantex Plant Technical Basis 

19 Documents. NIOSH had access to the Pantex 

20 Plant health protection surveys, safety 

21 standards and operating procedures. 

22 Furthermore, NIOSH has several documents in the 

23 site research database. NIOSH conducted 

24 interviews with current and former Pantex 

25 employees. NIOSH has access to personnel 
19

1 dosimetry and information contained within case 

2 files in the NIOSH/OCAS Claims Tracking System, 

3 and also has documentation provided to NIOSH by 

4 the petitioners. 

5 Within the NIOSH/OCAS Claims Tracking System, 

6 as of August 1st, 2008, Pantex has -- excuse 

7 me, NIOSH has received 380 Pantex claims from 

8 the Department of Labor which require a dose 

9 reconstruction; 357 of those 380 claims met the 

10 class definition criteria for this SEC 

11 petition. Of the 380 claims that NIOSH has 

12 received -- I apologize. Of the 357 claims 

13 that met the class definition, 244 dose 

14 reconstructions have been completed. Of those 

15 357 claims that met the class definition, 157 

16 contained internal dosimetry data, 

17 approximately 44 percent. 240 of the 357 

18 claims had external dosimetry data. That's 

19 approximately 67 percent. 

20 The petition bases and concerns were 

21 unmonitored workers, and also concerns about 

22 the effectiveness of the health protection and 

23 industrial health programs. 

24 There was a petition concern that few workers 

25 were monitored for external exposure in the 
20

1 early years; and until 1979 the majority of the 

2 Pantex workforce was unmonitored. 

3 NIOSH, in its evaluation, found that radiation 

4 monitoring levels were consistent with exposure 

5 potential. Pantex issued dosimeters to 

6 employees who were likely to receive ten 

7 percent of the permissible radiation dose. 

8 From 1952 through 1957 few workers were 

9 monitored due to the absence of fissile 

10 materials on site. Industrial radiography and 

11 medical X-rays were the only significant 

12 sources of potential radiation exposure. 

13 From 1958 through 1991 the number of monitored 

14 workers increased with the increasing potential 

15 for exposure. Monitoring variations were due 

16 to weapon production rates, the presence of 

17 fissile materials, and quantities of 

18 radioactive materials on site. 

19 There was a petition concern that workers' 

20 histories and the Tiger Team report questioned 

21 the efficacy of the health physics and 

22 industrial hygiene programs. 

23 In its evaluation NIOSH found that the Tiger 

24 Team reported deficiencies in health physics 

25 support staffing levels, questioned the quality 
21

1 assurance of records, and the implementation of 

2 DOE 5480.11 requirements. There was no 

3 indication radiation exposures were 

4 unmonitored, or that they were unsuitable for 

5 bounding doses to Pantex workers. 

6 NIOSH also identified an issue that pre-1993 

7 neutron doses were potentially underestimated. 

8 NIOSH's position is that neutron doses recorded 

9 since 1994 are reliable, suitable, and also 

10 claimant favorable for bounding earlier neutron 

11 doses. 

12 Pre-1994 neutron dose reconstruction utilizes a 

13 neutron-to-photon ratio methodology. 

14 NIOSH also has access to workplace surveys and 

15 intrinsic radiation measurements. 

16 To illustrate how we would complete a dose 

17 reconstruction for a Pantex claim, we have put 

18 a small sample dose reconstruction together. 

19 For an individual who was employed at Pantex 

20 from 1980 through 1986 -- they were employed as 

21 a maintenance mechanic from 1980 through 1981, 

22 and then a production technician from 1982 

23 through 1986. This individual was a male born 

24 in 1929 who was diagnosed with a basal cell 

25 carcinoma on the skin of his nose with an ICD-9 
22

1 code of 173.3. The year of diagnosis was 1996, 

2 and for the determination of a probability of 

3 causation in IREP, we require ethnicity for 

4 skin cancers. This individual was white, non5 Hispanic. 

6 For the years of 1980 to 1981 the individual 

7 was an unmonitored maintenance mechanic. From 

8 1982 through 1986 the individual was monitored 

9 for external exposures as a production 

10 technician. As a PT the individual performed 

11 weapon assembly, disassembly and inspections in 

12 Zone 12. His monitoring data indicated that he 

13 had received a recorded photon dose of 4.81 rem 

14 and a recorded electron dose of 3.15 rem. No 

15 internal monitoring data were provided. 

16 NIOSH made several claimant-favorable 

17 assumptions to complete this dose 

18 reconstruction. These included the assignment 

19 of unmonitored photon, electron and neutron 

20 doses for the years of 1980 to 1981. NIOSH 

21 also applied 100 percent anterior to posterior 

22 radiation exposure geometry. NIOSH assumed 

23 that all photons that the individual was 

24 exposed to were 100 percent 30 to 250 keV, and 

25 that all neutrons were 100 keV to 2 MeV. 
23

1 Furthermore, all electrons were assumed to be 

2 greater than 50 -- 15 keV in energy. An organ 

3 dose conversion factor of unity was applied, 

4 and ICRP 60 neutron weighting factors of 1.1 -- 

5 1.91, excuse me, were applied. NIOSH also 

6 assigned intakes of tritium, uranium, plutonium 

7 and thorium. 

8 The external exposures assigned by NIOSH for 

9 the unmonitored period from 1980 to 1981 

10 included unmonitored and missed photon doses of 

11 480 millirem; 123 millirem was based on 

12 coworker recorded photon dose, 360 millirem was 

13 based on coworker missed photon dose. 

14 NIOSH assigned an unmonitored neutron dose of 

15 738 millirem based on the median neutron to 

16 photon ratio of .8 to one. Furthermore, an 

17 unmonitored electron dose of 123 millirem was 

18 assigned for the years of 1980 to 1981 based on 

19 a one-to-one ratio of the recorded coworker 

20 photon dose. 

21 The external exposures assigned by NIOSH for 

22 the monitored period, from 1982 through 1986, 

23 included the individual's recorded electron 

24 dose of 3.15 rem, his recorded photon dose of 

25 4.81 rem. Also NIOSH calculated a missed 
24

1 photon dose of 285 millirem based on non2 positive dosimetry results. The neutron dose 

3 assigned was based on the 95th percentile 

4 neutron to photon ratio of 1.7 to one, which 

5 was applied to both the missed and recorded 

6 photon dose. 

7 The total neutron dose reconstructed by NIOSH 

8 was 16.543 rem, of which 15.618 rem was based 

9 on recorded photon dose, and 925 millirem was 

10 based on missed photon dose. 

11 The intakes assigned from 1980 through 1986 

12 were inhalation intakes of type S natural 

13 uranium with an intake rate of 19 picocuries 

14 per day, an inhalation intake of type S 

15 plutonium with a rate of 290 picocuries per 

16 year, an inhalation intake of type S thorium 

17 equal to 48 picocuries per year, and we also 

18 assigned ingestion intakes of natural uranium 

19 at a rate of 44 picocuries per day. 

20 The internal dose was calculated to the skin 

21 from 1980 through the date of diagnosis in 

22 1996. The resulting internal dose was less 

23 than one millirem. 

24 Additionally, NIOSH assigned 158 millirem to 

25 the skin based on tritium coworker doses. 
25

1 NIOSH has completed this sample dose 

2 reconstruction. This is an overestimate of the 

3 radiation dose reconstructed to the skin. All 

4 sources of radiation exposure have been 

5 considered, and the assigned dose exceeds that 

6 which was actually received by the claimant. 

7 NIOSH has assigned the recorded photon dose of 

8 4.81 rem, the recorded electron dose of 3.15 

9 rem, a calculated missed and unmonitored photon 

10 dose of 768 millirem, a missed and unmonitored 

11 neutron dose of 17.282 rem, an unmonitored 

12 electron dose of 123 millirem; internal dose 

13 from uranium, plutonium and thorium intakes, 

14 roughly one millirem; an internal dose from 

15 tritium equal to 158 millirem, for a total of 

16 26.292 rem. 

17 I want to make a note that we did consider 

18 medical X-rays but did not include the doses 

19 for medical X-rays were required as a condition 

20 of employment because those doses to the skin 

21 were less than one millirem. 

22 In the Interactive RadioEpidemiological Program 

23 these doses were input specific to this 

24 individual, and a probability of causation was 

25 calculated. The 99th percentile probability of 
26

1 causation was equal to 23.74 percent. 

2 NIOSH has evaluated the petition using 

3 guidelines in 43 CFR 83.13 and has submitted a 

4 summary of its findings in a petition 

5 evaluation report to both the Board and to the 

6 petitioners. NIOSH issued the Pantex Plant SEC 

7 evaluation report on August 8th, 2008. 

8 As part of the evaluation process there is a 

9 two-pronged test which is established by 

10 EEOICPA and incorporated into 42 CFR 83.13 Part 

11 (c)(1) and (c)(3). NIOSH must determine 

12 whether it is feasible to estimate the level of 

13 radiation doses of individual members of a 

14 class with sufficient accuracy. NIOSH must 

15 also determine if there is a reasonable 

16 likelihood that such radiation dose may have 

17 endangered the health of members of the class. 

18 NIOSH found that the available monitoring 

19 records, process descriptions and source term 

20 data are adequate to complete dose 

21 reconstructions with sufficient accuracy for 

22 the evaluated class of employees. Therefore, 

23 under the law, the health endangerment 

24 determination is not required. 

25 In summary, the feasibility findings for the 
27

1 Pantex Plant petition, SEC-00068, for the years 

2 of January 1951 through December 1991, NIOSH 

3 found that reconstruction was feasible for 

4 internal exposures from uranium, tritium, 

5 plutonium, thorium and radon, and that external 

6 dose reconstruction was feasible for exposures 

7 to gamma, beta, neutron and occupationally8 required medical X-rays. 

9 Additional information, documentation and a 

10 sample dose reconstruction are available for 

11 the Advisory Board's review in the share drive 

12 folder "Document Review \ AB Document Review \ 

13 Pantex \ Pantex SEC". 

14 Finally, I would like to thank all former and 

15 current Pantex workers for their contributions 

16 to the security and to the defense of the 

17 United States of America. Thank you. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Mark. We'll 

19 have a brief time for some questions here. Let 

20 me start with perhaps more of a comment, but 

21 I'd like to refer to slide 14, which references 

22 the Tiger Team report, and I would simply like 

23 to point out that the Tiger Team report dates 

24 back to the early '90s, I don't know the exact 

25 date, but your -- you have a comment that says 
28

1 there's no indication that radiation exposures 

2 were unmonitored or unsuitable for bounding 

3 doses to Pantex workers. I'd just like to 

4 point out that at the time of the Tiger Teams, 

5 a question of bounding doses was not an issue 

6 that Tiger Teams looked at, so I would -- I -- 

7 I don't want this to be misleading. The 

8 implication is that therefore you could bound 

9 the doses since they didn't say you couldn't. 

10 I'm simply pointing out Tiger Team reports 

11 typically did not address the issue of bounding 

12 doses. That was not a question that was -- I 

13 mean this is way before this program existed, 

14 so I just simply wanted to point that out. 

15 The statement that the -- there wasn't a 

16 question about the validity of -- of the 

17 monitoring system, I think that is probably 

18 fine, although there was this question on the 

19 quality assurance. But this particular issue 

20 of bounding I don't believe was a Tiger Team 

21 issue in any event. I simply want to make sure 

22 we're clear on that. 

23 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Thank you. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Other -- yes, Dr. Poston. And let 

25 the record show that Dr. Poston has joined the 
29

1 group and -- 

2 DR. POSTON: I apologize for being late, Mr. 

3 Chairman, but yesterday was a holiday 

4 representing and recognizing the work of our 

5 workers in the U.S. and I refused to travel. 

6 Sorry about that. 

7 Mark, just one con-- one clarification. In 

8 your presentation you said you did not evaluate 

9 the medical doses, but on the other hand in 

10 your last slide you showed that they were 

11 feasible. So would you say a little bit about 

12 that? 

13 MR. ROLFES: Sure. 

14 DR. POSTON: Since you didn't evaluate them, 

15 how can you necessarily reach the conclusion 

16 that they were feasible? 

17 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Dr. Poston. Yes, 

18 because of the location of the skin cancer on 

19 the individual's nose, it would have been 

20 outside of the primary beam for a posterior to 

21 anterior geometry for a chest X-ray. And it 

22 was evaluated, I guess, per se, but it wasn't 

23 included in the sample dose reconstruction 

24 because the resulting dose was less than one 

25 millirem. 
30

1 DR. POSTON: Thank you. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Other questions 

3 at this point? 

4 (No responses) 

5 Okay. Let me now as if Dr. Fuortes is ready to 

6 make some comments. Thank you, Mark, very 

7 much. 

8 MR. ROLFES: Thank you. 

9 DR. FUORTES: Thank you very much. I -- I do 

10 have several comments. The -- the first I'd to 

11 -- to address to the Board is really just a 

12 protocol process. I believe that NIOSH was 

13 tasked with actually assisting petitioners and 

14 the history that the -- Mark recounted so well 

15 I think speaks to a failure of that assistance 

16 in that this petition required two 

17 administrative reviews, two denials to 

18 administrative reviews to be accepted to -- to 

19 be reviewed by the Board. I think that's -- 

20 that's rather telling. 

21 There was no information added between that -- 

22 the second denial and the administrative review 

23 stating that this should go before the Board, 

24 so I -- I think that's -- that's rather 

25 telling. There was some resistance on the part 
31

1 of NIOSH to review this petition. I -- I think 

2 that's something the Board should know. 

3 Another thing I'd like the Board to know is 

4 that of information that -- that was presented, 

5 you heard that NIOSH did a series of interviews 

6 of workers and they used worker interviews as 

7 part of getting a gestalt of what -- what 

8 happened 50 years ago because there's not good 

9 written documentation for some of this history. 

10 You should note that NIOSH doesn't require 

11 themselves to get affidavits from workers in 

12 obtaining histories and using them in their 

13 decision-making. Where, as petitioners, we 

14 presented several workers' histories and -- 

15 these were from -- from interviews that I did, 

16 Sara (unintelligible) Ray did and David 

17 (unintelligible) of the union did. Those 

18 histories were not put before the Board because 

19 NIOSH demanded that they be presented in the 

20 form of affidavits, and these workers stated to 

21 us that they were afraid of repercussions 

22 personally or to their families and did not 

23 want their names used. I think that's 

24 something the -- the Board should know about 

25 the process. 
32

1 My major concern -- I hope I made it evident in 

2 the petition -- is paucity of data, the fact 

3 that that small minority of workers in the 

4 early years were monitored I think speaks for 

5 itself. That's both in our petition and in 

6 NIOSH's evaluation. The statement that workers 

7 were selected on the basis of achieving or 

8 being expected to achieve ten percent of a 

9 given level of exposure, I think that's a very 

10 interesting statement. We could find and 

11 nobody at Pantex could find for us a protocol 

12 for how radiation monitoring was done in the 

13 early years and how selection for monitoring 

14 was done, nor could we find any evidence of 

15 badges being -- some quality assurance program 

16 of how badges would be handled, where they 

17 would be stored, quality assurance in terms of 

18 blanks, et cetera. None of this was -- was 

19 made clear to us. 

20 Probably one of the more telling things that 

21 the -- the Board should know about in terms of 

22 worker histories, I got this several times from 

23 -- from several different sources and it was 

24 not stated as a joke, that at times of tritium 

25 leaks they were given chits to -- from the 
33

1 medical office to go home and buy a case of 

2 beer and drink as much as they could to flush 

3 this out of their systems. This was a -- a 

4 story that I thought was apocryphal and 

5 humorous, but I heard it several times from 

6 old-timers now and in confidence that this is 

7 in fact a factual representation of how tritium 

8 leaks were handled in early years. 

9 Another thing I would like to bring up that's 

10 similar to the IAAP plant in Burlington. These 

11 workers were tasked with doing, as Mark 

12 suggested, retrofits, repairs and retirement. 

13 And these exposures I think are poorly 

14 characterized, but from workers' histories 

15 appear to be sort of situations in which people 

16 might have had probably the highest potential 

17 for exposure. 

18 So just to -- to reiterate, I think Mark did a 

19 great job in the presentation. However, I 

20 think his stress was if everything was done the 

21 way we hoped it would have been done, these 

22 workers should have been safe. And I have no 

23 reason to have as much faith as Mark does at 

24 this point. 

25 That -- that's it for me. 
34

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much for 

2 those comments. Let me open it -- well, let me 

3 ask again, are there other petitioners on the 

4 line that have comments? 

5 (No responses) 

6 Apparently not. Okay, Board members, do you 

7 have questions or comments relative to this 

8 particular evaluation report and the associated 

9 petition? 

10 (No responses) 

11 There appear to be no questions or comments. 

12 Let me ask Board -- okay, Phil, thank you. 

13 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, I have just one question. 

14 I'd like to know if they actually have the real 

15 numbers of workers in the early years were 

16 actually monitored, or are they just estimating 

17 at the number. Do they actually have a -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think -- Mark can answer 

19 that, but as -- as I recall from the ER report, 

20 they have actual numbers for the different 

21 groups that -- go ahead. 

22 MR. ROLFES: Correct. 

23 DR. FUORTES: Could -- could I answer that? 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, yeah, we'll get two answers 

25 here. Dr. Fuortes -- 
35

1 MR. ROLFES: Okay, I'll try again here. Yes, 

2 we did -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Hang on a second. 

4 MR. ROLFES: -- have the actual number of 

5 workers that were monitored. That was actually 

6 one of the documents that was also sent in to 

7 us by the petitioners as well, so... 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Fuortes, did you have a 

9 comment on that? 

10 DR. FUORTES: Well, the -- the document that I 

11 have labeled 80508, final SEC 00068, on pages 

12 29 through 31 would be -- the numbers are 29 

13 through -- yeah, 31, but the numbers of workers 

14 monitored for tritium and badge -- and -- and 

15 those are -- are rather telling tables, I 

16 think. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Additional comment, Mark? Did you 

18 -- Phil, did that answer your question? 

19 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah, I think for now it did. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, you've had the -- 

21 the document for perhaps a couple of weeks. 

22 It's -- it's not obvious to the Chair whether 

23 or not you're at a point where you're prepared 

24 to vote on the recommendation, or if you 

25 require additional input, if we need any 
36

1 additional work from our contractor. Josie? 

2 MS. BEACH: I'd like to entertain the idea of 

3 starting a workgroup for this -- for Pantex. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: A workgroup that would address 

5 specifically the SEC petition itself, versus 

6 the site profile. Is that what you -- 

7 MS. BEACH: I believe we need to look at both. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Of course looking at the petition 

9 would require, in part at least, looking at the 

10 site profile. A site profile workgroup might 

11 not be able to focus on all the SEC issues, 

12 however, so -- 

13 MS. BEACH: Is there a way to combine those 

14 two? I know we're -- we're starting to do that 

15 a bit. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, of course, but if we set up 

17 such a workgroup we could -- we could ask it to 

18 focus on this particular petition since that is 

19 the business before us. Brad? 

20 MR. CLAWSON: Well, and I -- I understand what 

21 you're saying there, but also, too, we have -- 

22 we haven't really set up anything to be able to 

23 even look at the site profile. I know that in 

24 the past we've been able to set up and look at 

25 the SEC, but we've also got to address because 
37

1 the claimant and claimants have addressed many 

2 issues that have come out, substantially an 

3 awful lot of them with the site profile that is 

4 being used for reconstructing doses. So in my 

5 mind we've got to -- we've got to look at the -

6 - you know, actually both -- both these things. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? Mark? 

8 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I mean I would speak in 

9 support of Josie's idea to have a workgroup. I 

10 -- we -- we do have SC&A's report on the site 

11 profile (unintelligible) through their findings 

12 a number of them are sort of contradictory to 

13 what we heard today in the evaluation report, 

14 so I think we need to go through specifically -

15 - there's some questions on tritium that the 

16 neutron question certainly leaps out of 

17 (unintelligible). We've seen this at 

18 (unintelligible) sites but we need to examine 

19 it more closely, the whole notion of 

20 extrapolating back from '94 back to '57 or 8 or 

21 whatever that time period is. We need to look 

22 at that more closely, so those two jump out at 

23 me right away. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Phil, another comment? 

25 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah, I've got a question here 
38

1 (unintelligible) just kind of (unintelligible) 

2 about the (unintelligible), how they're -- how 

3 they're going to handle that. How's NIOSH 

4 going to handle the total lack of -- I mean, 

5 you know, if you go to page 29, it says, you 

6 know, there's no records of any 

7 (unintelligible) between 1951 through 1991 

8 evaluation period, which -- that leaves -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Are you talking about the whole 

10 body counts? I think they had some -- there 

11 was some Helgeson* data that was referred to. 

12 Where's Mark? Are you talking about the whole 

13 body counts versus the bioassay? 

14 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Could you clarify on the Helgeson 

16 data, was there some question on its validity? 

17 MR. ROLFES: There -- yes, Dr. Ziemer, there 

18 were approximately -- it was in excess of 200 

19 people that were subject to in vivo 

20 measurements in the Helgeson counter following 

21 a contamination event that occurred in the 

22 early 1990s at Pantex. This was one of the 

23 largest sets of in vivo data that we had for 

24 the individuals that were disassembling a 

25 particular nuclear weapon. 
39

1 Is -- do you have a question regarding that 

2 data or -- 

3 MR. SCHOFIELD: No, not that data, I'm just a 

4 little concerned about the fact that there is 

5 none of this data. You're trying to take that 

6 data and go back and say well, these people 

7 couldn't have had this, or could have had this, 

8 when you've got nothing to show they could or 

9 could not had a level. 

10 MR. ROLFES: Okay. There is a -- a set of 

11 bioassay data for individuals earlier on. 

12 Beginning in 1959 there were personnel that 

13 were subject to urine sampling to look for 

14 either uranium and/or plutonium in urine. 

15 MR. SCHOFIELD: And how often were these urine 

16 samples taken? Yearly, quarterly, every three 

17 years? 

18 MR. ROLFES: At Pantex -- at Pantex you're 

19 normally dealing with sealed components, and 

20 incidents were -- excuse me, bioassays were 

21 incident-driven. So if a high-documented air 

22 sample was measured, that was investigated and 

23 that investigation was conducted to determine 

24 whether bioassay was needed, so -- for example, 

25 back in the 1960s there was an incident where a 
40

1 -- a high air concentration was investigated 

2 and it was determined that it was radon, so 

3 they followed up and did investigate the high 

4 air sample results. 

5 MR. SCHOFIELD: Well, somebody got a snootful 

6 and it was not recorded or it was not -- they 

7 were not aware of that person, it could be 

8 several years down the road before they took a 

9 urine sample from that person. Is that what 

10 you're telling me? 

11 MR. ROLFES: No. No, that's not all the case. 

12 For example, it would have been a couple of 

13 days. For example, another significant 

14 incident that had occurred that was a plutonium 

15 release in November of 1961, and the 

16 individuals were evacuated from the cell where 

17 this incident had occurred because of a high -- 

18 high air monitoring result, I believe. They 

19 also knew that they had basically bent a part 

20 of the pit off and knew that they had an 

21 incident right away. Those individuals were 

22 subject to bioassay within 24 hours, I believe, 

23 and then they were also resampled several times 

24 after that had occurred -- after the initial 

25 occurrence. 
41

1 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Brad Clawson? 

2 MR. CLAWSON: There was also, as you say, 

3 incidents and so forth. One of the things I 

4 find interesting about this plant is also 

5 there's an awful lot of national security stuff 

6 there. There's also an awful lot of things 

7 that came in in the earlier years that wasn't 

8 considered issues. How can I -- 

9 DR. POSTON: Brad, can you speak up? I can't 

10 hear you. 

11 MR. CLAWSON: -- trying to find 

12 (unintelligible) -- 

13 UNIDENTIFIED: Dr. Ziemer, he's not audible. 

14 DR. POSTON: I can't even hear you over here. 

15 MR. CLAWSON: Ca-- hello? One -- one of my 

16 issues are is that we had a lot of items that 

17 were produced earlier and then came back that 

18 were corroding, so forth. You say that they 

19 were in sealed containers, but actually these 

20 were breached, and the -- the process, from 

21 what we understand, was that this was not an 

22 issue, it was to be able to take care of them. 

23 But the monitoring in those early years I -- 

24 there's an awful lot that is still missing 

25 there, and to be able to capture all this -- 
42

1 you know, I -- I guess I go back to what the -- 

2 the petitioner said about yeah, it's great to 

3 be able to look at this at a picture of time 

4 right now of the safety requirements we have 

5 now here and everything else, but back in the 

6 earlier years it was not there. And for you to 

7 be able to back-extrapolate a lot of this, I -- 

8 I'm thinking that there's some missing and I 

9 just -- just seems a little bit like there's 

10 quite a bit missing there. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Of course that's the -- that's the 

12 whole point of bounding is because of that 

13 issue, so that's certainly what they're trying 

14 to do. Let's see what else -- Mark, you have a 

15 comment? 

16 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I just -- I -- I think a 

17 lot of this is -- the premise of a lot of this 

18 evaluation report is that the program was 

19 running effectively. I think Lars was correct 

20 in that. But I -- I wanted to ask specifically 

21 here if you -- you talk about incident-driven 

22 bioassay. Prior to 1990 there were no bio-- no 

23 workers, according to this Table 6-1, no 

24 workers monitored for uranium, thorium or 

25 plutonium. But then after 1990 when -- I mean 
43

1 part of this is different regulations, too. I 

2 understand that. But after 1990 there's a 

3 number of workers, especially for uranium, you 

4 go up to 431, 239, 90, 138 -- doesn't seem to 

5 be incident-driven at that point. Can -- can 

6 you just explain the difference and -- and 

7 would those -- I mean those seem like they were 

8 looking for more chronic-type exposures and 

9 couldn't they have happened earlier on, even 

10 though the regulations were different? 

11 MR. ROLFES: It was due to changes in the 

12 Department of Energy's monitoring and dose 

13 reporting requirements, which changed over 

14 time. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but -- but the point 

16 being, if -- if everything was sealed and there 

17 was no potential at all for exposure, they 

18 wouldn't have been required in 1990 to monitor 

19 anyone 'cause they wouldn't have been likely to 

20 exceed 100 millirem CEDE for uranium unless 

21 there -- there was a potential. Obviously they 

22 saw a potential. It just started in 1990? 

23 That's my question, I guess. 

24 MR. ROLFES: Oh, okay. There -- there was some 

25 potential for exposure -- for internal 
44

1 exposures. However, it was very, very low. 

2 The potential for internal exposures typically 

3 was greater than for a disassembly than for an 

4 assembly. There was a large focus in the 

5 earlier years to conduct assembly operations 

6 rather than disassembly. And you can see as 

7 the number of disassemblies increased and the 

8 potential for exposure increases, so does the 

9 internal exposure potential as well, so... 

10 MR. GRIFFON: And is that -- is that -- do you 

11 change your approach -- I mean it -- that 

12 doesn't all happen in 1990, obviously. Did -- 

13 did you change your approach to bounding when 

14 disassembly scaled up or -- or -- I'm not sure 

15 I understand exactly how you treat that as far 

16 as a dose reconstruction standpoint. In other 

17 words, you know, is there a higher potential 

18 once disassemblies scaled up and therefore you 

19 give a higher level to unmonitored workers, I -

20 - I haven't read all the detail, either, I want 

21 to say. I'm just kind of asking this as I'm 

22 looking at this table, yeah. 

23 MR. ROLFES: Okay, I understand what you're 

24 asking. For example, a production technician 

25 would have been one of the individuals who 
45

1 would have had the highest potential for 

2 internal exposure. Some of the individuals 

3 that were working at the firing sites, as well, 

4 would have had the highest potential for 

5 internal exposures on the site. For example, 

6 other people -- for example, like guards -- 

7 wouldn't have had typical potential for 

8 internal exposure or external exposure on site. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: So tho-- those high potential 

10 folks, what -- what would the protocol 

11 currently call for as far as assigning internal 

12 dose to say uranium, as an example? 

13 MR. ROLFES: The example -- the sample dose 

14 reconstruction that we had prepared -- 

15 MR. GRIFFON: That has it? Okay. 

16 MR. ROLFES: -- those intakes would have been 

17 the highest intakes for someone who was 

18 unmonitored, and that's described in the 

19 Technical Basis Document for the Pantex Plant. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: And is that just the 40 DAC-hours 

21 per year or... 

22 MR. ROLFES: The 40 DAC-hours was based on the 

23 reporting requirements, I believe, beginning in 

24 late '80s or early '90s. I'd have to take a 

25 look back at the -- 
46

1 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I'll have to look 

2 closer at the numbers, too, but thank you. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Actually the -- things did change 

4 rather abruptly because those dates coincide 

5 with the end of the Cold War and the -- the 

6 memos -- the Presidential memos on weapons 

7 would dictate -- I don't know the contents of 

8 them so I can talk freely, I guess, which 

9 dictate numbers of weapons, we do know that -- 

10 is -- when the Berlin Wall went down and there 

11 was a massive move to disassemble weapons 

12 versus building weapons and weapons were coming 

13 back to Pantex in large numbers, starting in 

14 about '90 or '91, so most of the work after '90 

15 had to be disassembly. There's very little 

16 assembly after that. 

17 MR. GRIFFON: So -- yeah, I -- I don't know, I 

18 know that's a regulatory cutoff, but if it's 

19 also a production kind of cutoff in time, then 

20 that would make sense, yeah. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think it's based on -- 

22 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: -- on the so-called Presidential 

24 memos or memorandum that dictate to the agency 

25 how many weapons that it has to maintain, and 
47

1 those numbers changed drastically once the 

2 Berlin Wall went down and the presumed Cold War 

3 ended. And something similar was happening in 

4 the former Soviet Republics as well. 

5 Other comments? Let -- let me ask if -- is 

6 there a general sentiment that we should have a 

7 workgroup look at this particular site in more 

8 detail and answer some of these questions? 

9 Phil? 

10 MR. SCHOFIELD: (Off microphone) 

11 (Unintelligible) (on microphone) little harder 

12 than it has been so far. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to ask John Mauro to 

14 remind me, did you -- did SC&A develop a matrix 

15 on this already based on your report, or -- 

16 DR. MAURO: We only have the site profile 

17 review. We have not transitioned to an SEC 

18 petition process -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: No, no, just in general on the 

20 site profile, did you develop a matrix already 

21 on that? 

22 DR. MAURO: I am going to look over to Joe 

23 Fitzgerald -- the answer is no. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: So you have the -- you have your 

25 findings but not in matrix form -- 
48

1 DR. MAURO: Correct. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: -- and no -- so this hasn't been 

3 looked at in any detail with (unintelligible) -

4 - 

5 DR. MAURO: And -- and as you know, con-- 

6 converting a -- a site profile to a matrix is 

7 fairly straightforward. And in the process, as 

8 we have done in the past, we would probably 

9 take a -- at least an initial run at 

10 identifying those site profile issues that 

11 might be considered SEC issues -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

13 DR. MAURO: -- if you would like us to do so. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Right. I think what I'd like to 

15 do this morning -- or this afternoon, it's 

16 afternoon here. Actually it's almost evening 

17 in Indiana, the center of the universe. But -- 

18 but I -- I'd like to see if -- if the -- if the 

19 assembly wishes us to examine this further, we 

20 will spell out details of a workgroup during 

21 our working session. But if someone wishes to 

22 make a general motion, I'd be pleased to hear 

23 it at this time. Josie. 

24 MS. BEACH: I'll go ahead and make that motion. 

25 I'd like to make a motion that we assemble a 
49

1 workgroup for looking at the Pantex Plant in 

2 more detail. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Is it -- 

4 MR. CLAWSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

5 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. Discussion? 

6 (No responses) 

7 We do not have a Pantex workgroup, in -- in 

8 part because some of the Pantex things were 

9 delayed for other reasons anyway and we -- 

10 DR. POSTON: Ah, yes. Oh, yes. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and -- 

12 DR. POSTON: Bite your tongue. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Any -- any discussion? Anyone 

14 wish to speak against the motion or for the 

15 motion, or in general? 

16 MR. GRIFFON: I'll speak for the motion, but I 

17 also -- maybe a friendly amendment if -- if 

18 they consider this a friendly amendment, would 

19 be to add that we also task SC&A with reviewing 

20 the evaluation report and the petition itself, 

21 along with their site profile they've already 

22 done. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Well, what I'm suggesting is that 

24 we do our tasking on Thursday -- 

25 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Okay. 
50

1 DR. ZIEMER: -- so let -- let's keep this -- 

2 MR. GRIFFON: Let's leave it at that. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: -- separate -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that's fine. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: -- because we -- we have some 

6 other tasking issues since the -- the fiscal 

7 year has ended and we have some issues relative 

8 to our contractor and how to proceed and go 

9 forward, so we'll have to deal with that 

10 separately -- 

11 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: -- as far as tasking. But the 

13 motion is to have a workgroup to evaluate 

14 further the Pantex site profile and SEC-related 

15 issues -- I think is how I would interpret the 

16 motion, and it's been seconded. Further -- 

17 further comments or discussion? 

18 (No responses) 

19 All in favor, aye? 

20 (Affirmative responses) 

21 Opposed, no? 

22 (No responses) 

23 Abstain? 

24 (No responses) 

25 Motion carries, and during our workgroup (sic) 
51

1 we will -- 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Are you abstaining? 

3 DR. POSTON: I did. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I'm -- I didn't hear that. 

5 DR. POSTON: It was pretty clear. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, sorry, John -- one 

7 abstention. 

8 During the work session Thursday we'll 

9 establish membership and -- and a charge for 

10 this particular workgroup. 

11 NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE

12 Let us proceed now with the program update. 

13 Larry Elliott is going to present that. Larry, 

14 pleased to have you again to update us on the 

15 work of NIOSH. 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Good afternoon, members of the 

17 Board and members of the public. It's very 

18 nice to be here in southern California, much 

19 cooler here than back home in Cincinnati where 

20 it's 95 and the heat index is over 100 today, 

21 so thank you for having your meeting here. 

22 As usual we want to walk you through the 

23 program status as of to date, and I would note 

24 for you that these statistics that are 

25 presented in this presentation are -- show only 
52

1 a month and a half progress since your last 

2 Board meeting, so I would caution you in that 

3 regard that there's some change, and I'll make 

4 note of that for you. In some instances 

5 there's not a lot of change from your previous 

6 presentation in June. 

7 To date, as of July 31st, 2008, as shown in 

8 this slide, 27,656 cases have been referred to 

9 NIOSH for dose reconstruction from the 

10 Department of Labor, and NIOSH has returned 76 

11 percent of those, or 21,128 cases. Now we can 

12 break those down into further subsets -- 18,165 

13 were returned with a dose reconstruction report 

14 to DOL; another 748 cases were retrieved from 

15 NIOSH by DOL, pulled from NIOSH is case status, 

16 and so we no longer have any activity on 748. 

17 There are 2,215 cases that are currently pulled 

18 from the NIOSH population of claims for 

19 determination of class eligibility within 

20 Special Exposure Cohort classes. Twenty-two 

21 percent, or 6,113 cases, remain at NIOSH for 

22 dose reconstruction. And I'd point out that of 

23 those, 11 percent or 683 cases actually have a 

24 dose reconstruction report and we're awaiting 

25 the claimant to provide us with an indication 
53

1 that they have no further information and we 

2 can move it on. 415 cases, or two percent, 

3 have been administratively closed, and I'm sure 

4 the Board knows this but for a reminder to the 

5 public, when we speak of administratively 

6 closed cases, that is a situation where the 

7 claimant or claimants have decided not to 

8 provide us with a indication that they have no 

9 further information and we are waiting that 

10 indication to happen in what we call an OCAS-1 

11 form, so at any point in time any one of these 

12 administratively closed cases can be reopened 

13 if the claimant desires to send us an OCAS-1 

14 form, or they desire to send us additional 

15 information for consideration in the dose 

16 reconstruction. 

17 In this pie chart these -- is a summary of the 

18 case status, and I would particularly note here 

19 for you the ones that -- that we at NIOSH keep 

20 an eye on are those that are active and those 

21 that are pended. Right now that -- that's your 

22 -- the total of the 6,113. But pended means 

23 that there's some issue associated with the 

24 claim that we can't move it forward. We're 

25 working either with DOL to address some issue 
54

1 regarding the demographic information about the 

2 claim, or there's a technical issue that is 

3 awaiting resolution before we can move the 

4 claim on. So we're monitoring those pended 

5 cases, and I can tell you that there's -- this 

6 -- if you look at this pie chart compared to 

7 the one you saw in June, you'll see a decrease 

8 of 494 cases that we've moved on. We've taken 

9 them out of pended and put them into an active 

10 status to move them on forward. 

11 Of the 18,165 dose reconstructions that we've 

12 returned to DOL for adjudication, 34 percent, 

13 or 6,109 have had a probability of causation of 

14 greater than 50 percent, leaving 66 percent, or 

15 12,056 cases which had a probability of 

16 causation of less than 50 percent and were 

17 found to be non-compensable by the Department 

18 of Labor. 

19 In this bar graph we present to you the 

20 breakdown of probability of causation in decile 

21 increments up to the 50 percent bar, and you 

22 can see here that -- how this distribution fol23 - unfolds across these probabilities of 

24 causation. 

25 Of the 6,113 cases that currently remain at 
55

1 NIOSH for dose reconstruction, we have 2,606 

2 that were assigned to a health physicist as of 

3 July 31st; 683 claims, as I noted for you 

4 earlier, had a draft dose reconstruction report 

5 with the claimant and NIOSH is awaiting the 

6 return of the OCAS-1 before we can move it on; 

7 2,824 cases have not been assigned to a health 

8 physicist for dose reconstruction. They were 

9 in some process of development or awaiting 

10 their turn in assignment to dose 

11 reconstruction. 3,849 cases, or 63 percent of 

12 these, are older than one year, another metric 

13 that we monitor very closely. 

14 And speaking of the oldest claims, if we look 

15 at the first 5,000 claims that were sent to 

16 NIOSH for dose reconstruction, we've completed 

17 3,647 dose reconstruction reports and provided 

18 them to the Department of Labor. We have 71 

19 cases that are currently administratively 

20 closed. We have 252 of the first 5,000 that 

21 have been pulled by DOL for some reason so they 

22 were not active in dose reconstruction. 346 

23 cases in the first 5,000 have been pulled for 

24 SEC class determinations. We have four dose 

25 reconstructions -- reports with claimants, and 
56

1 this leaves -- well, we have 647 of the 

2 completed dose reconstructions that came back 

3 to us from DOL because of one of our Program 

4 Evaluation Reviews, or some change to the dose 

5 reconstruction that was required, leaving 33 

6 claims that are still actively -- still active 

7 in our system of the first 5,000 and awaiting 

8 our attention. 

9 I've broken those down. I've taken a -- in a 

10 little bit step forward here and trying to give 

11 you a better sense of what's going on with 

12 these 33 claims. I think I reported on 33 at 

13 the last meeting and I wanted to give you more 

14 insight into what's happening with these oldest 

15 cases that are in our hands. 

16 Nineteen are in a pending status -- that means 

17 that they're pended for some reason -- and as 

18 you see in the first three instances here, 

19 we're waiting DOL to provide some missing 

20 information that's necessary and so DOL is 

21 developing that information. 

22 Eight are non-Special Exposure Cohort cases 

23 that are pending some dose reconstruction 

24 methodology. They come from a unique site and 

25 we haven't a dose reconstruction approach 
57

1 developed at that point. 

2 Five are SEC cases pended before the 

3 designation occurs. They're awaiting the 

4 Secretary's designation to happen, and as soon 

5 as that happens we'll turn those five over to 

6 the Department of Labor. 

7 One is an SEC petitioner instance where we're -

8 - the claim is pended because the -- the SEC 

9 petitioner has asked us to pend the claim 

10 awaiting the conclusion of the Board's 

11 deliberations. 

12 DR. BRANCHE: Excuse me. There's someone who's 

13 participating by phone. We really do need you 

14 -- everyone participating by phone to please 

15 mute your lines. If you do not have a mute 

16 button, then please use star-6. But someone's 

17 using some sort of grinder and we can hear 

18 that, and that is quite an interruption to 

19 everyone, including here in -- in the meeting 

20 room. Thank you. 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. We have two claims, 

22 of the 19 in pending status, that are awaiting 

23 modifications to a Technical Basis Document or 

24 a technical basis approach for dose 

25 reconstruction. 
58

1 Of the 33 claims awaiting dose reconstruction, 

2 a little bit further detail here, 14 are in 

3 active status, and you can see the breakdown 

4 here. Three, there has been no change in the 

5 case status since we first received them. They 

6 represent another unique exposure situation or 

7 site for which we have not yet determined that 

8 we cannot reconstruct the dose, so we're still 

9 evaluating that. 

10 Three were pulled and were then returned to us, 

11 reinstated by DOL, and we are now working those 

12 three. 

13 In four cases the Technical Basis Document has 

14 been resolved and so now we're using that 

15 Technical Basis Document approach to complete 

16 those four. 

17 And in four others that are in active case 

18 status, we have just received new cancer19 related information from the Department of 

20 Labor concerning those -- those cases. 

21 These 33 claims represent 27 distinct sites. 

22 In this -- in this graphic we present to you, 

23 by quarter -- fiscal quarter, the claims that 

24 have been received from the Department of Labor 

25 at NIOSH is shown in blue. Those draft dose 
59

1 reconstruction reports to claimants are shown 

2 in green, and the final dose reconstruction 

3 reports to Department of Labor are shown in 

4 red. On the right-hand side of this graphic 

5 you'll see that there -- the red and the green 

6 line -- or yellow in this room, it looks to me 

7 like -- dips below the blue line about the 

8 third quarter in 2007, and that's to be noted 

9 here because we started again seeing a backlog 

10 develop. 

11 Then you'll see later on, about the second 

12 quarter of 2008, the red and green line move 

13 above the blue line and so we're work-- we're 

14 back to a production rate where we're working 

15 off our backlog again and we're above what DOL 

16 is sending us. So this is just some -- the 

17 trend analysis that we use this graphic for. 

18 If we look at all claims at NIOSH and we place 

19 them in the 1,000 increments as shown in this 

20 bar slide, it'll give you a sense -- if we look 

21 at the colors here of blue being those cases 

22 that are completed, red those cases that have 

23 been pulled from us by Department of Labor, and 

24 then a mustard brown color are the active 

25 cases, green is the SEC cases that have been 
60

1 pulled from that particular 1,000 increment, 

2 yellow are the cases that are pending for some 

3 reason, and cases that are administratively 

4 closed are shown then in purple. 

5 As you know, we -- when we identify a 

6 methodology issue that results in a change in 

7 our technical approaches that might increase 

8 the dose for an individual set of claims or 

9 claim, we conduct a Program Evaluation Review 

10 and this results in what we call reworks where 

11 we've already finished a dose reconstruction 

12 but, because of a change in our methodology 

13 that might increase the dose, we revisit all of 

14 the claims that were found to be non15 compensable by the Department of Labor and 

16 evaluate them against that change. As you see 

17 in this graph, we see a -- a large uptake in 

18 the number of returns late in the third quarter 

19 of 2007. This is primarily due to the number 

20 of PERs that we had in action and basically the 

21 super S Program Evaluation Review being a very 

22 large contributor to the number of reworks that 

23 we had to look at. We've returned 4,833 out of 

24 8,140 reworks that have been sent to us. 

25 Reporting on the status of our interaction with 
61

1 the Department of Energy requesting information 

2 about dose, we have 262 outstanding requests, 

3 and of those 82 are greater than 60 days. As 

4 you know, we follow up every 30 days with our 

5 Department of Energy colleagues to determine 

6 the status of our requests and we push to 

7 understand why they have not found information 

8 or what is the problem in providing 

9 information. And so these are your numbers and 

10 if there is an interest I can provide further 

11 detail about where these 82 or the 262 are 

12 housed in the DOE system. 

13 With regard to technical support and dose 

14 reconstruction activities on the Atomic Weapons 

15 Employer sites, we have generated a -- two 

16 documents, Technical Basis Document 6000 and 

17 Technical Basis Document 6001, and we have 

18 added a number of site-specific appendices that 

19 speak to unique exposure situations at certain 

20 AWEs. We've completed 15 of those and we have 

21 one more of these appendices in review. We 

22 have no other appendices currently in 

23 development. 

24 Site profiles for Atomic Weapons Employers that 

25 refined uranium is couched in -- and thorium is 
62

1 couched in TBD -- or Technical Basis Document -

2 - 6000, and there are six site-specific 

3 appendices that have been completed for TBD4 6001. 

5 I mentioned Program Evaluation Reviews earlier. 

6 There have been 32 Program Evaluation Reviews 

7 issued. These affect approximately 14,000 

8 claims. We have conducted a large number of 

9 these reviews and we've seen 249 claims change 

10 from a non-compensability status to a 

11 compensable status based upon a change in 

12 methodology and our re-review of the dose 

13 reconstruction. We've seen 7,943 claims 

14 withstand the review but not experience a 

15 change in compensability, and there are 6,025 

16 claims awaiting evaluation in our -- from these 

17 Program Evaluation Reports. 

18 I'd note for you and for the audience that 

19 these numbers are inflated because in many 

20 instances there are double counts that go on. 

21 A claim may be affected by more than one 

22 Program Evaluation Review, and so that will 

23 increase or inflate the numbers that you see 

24 here. 

25 Special Exposure Cohort classes, there have 
63

1 been 33 classes added since May of 2005. 

2 Nineteen, or 58 percent, have been added 

3 through the 83.13 process and 14, or 42 

4 percent, have been added through the 83.14 

5 process. This represents classes of workers 

6 from 27 sites, and it also represents 2,215 

7 potential claimants -- or claims, excuse me. 

8 My last comment is not based upon a slide in 

9 your presentation but I'm sure there's interest 

10 in knowing where we stand at NIOSH with regards 

11 to our technical support contract on dose 

12 reconstructions and Special Exposure Cohort 

13 evaluations. And all I can tell you at this 

14 point in time is that we have now entered our 

15 eleventh contract modification to extend the 

16 contract, awaiting the award of the new 

17 procurement. I can say that the award must be 

18 made in accordance with the stated evaluation 

19 criteria that can be found in Section M of the 

20 RFP, and that award will be made to the 

21 responsible offeror who is submitting the 

22 proposal that is the best value for the 

23 government. And so I would offer that as where 

24 things stand right now. They're in a 

25 negotiating process to determine what is the 
64

1 best value for the government. 

2 I also know that the Board is facing some 

3 decisions with regard to what other things it 

4 can place before its technical support 

5 contractor for review. Just this past week we 

6 issued a new implementation guide on surrogate 

7 data, IG-004, so that's certainly -- I would 

8 offer as one important procedural document for 

9 you to examine. You also have IG -- 

10 Implementation Guide -- 003 that has not been 

11 reviewed or evaluated as of yet. There are 

12 several other new Technical Basis Documents and 

13 perhaps a procedure or two that have not 

14 completely gone through the process that are 

15 just new, and so if the Board is interested we 

16 can certainly provide a list of these new 

17 documents. 

18 Additionally we have tasked Stu Hinnefeld and 

19 our IT support team with pulling together the 

20 available pool of dose reconstructions, and you 

21 have another set to sample from, so I'm happy 

22 to answer any questions, if there are any. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Larry. With 

24 respect to the issue of the -- your contractor 

25 and the workload and so on, I'm curious -- as I 
65

1 look, for example, at slide six where you 

2 indicate that 2,600 or so cases are currently 

3 assigned to health physicists for dose 

4 reconstruction, under the current sort of 

5 situation, how many health physicists are 

6 actually available to do those 2,600 -- roughly 

7 -- dose reconstructions? Is it different -- 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: That's an -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- than it was when things were 

10 operating -- 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, yes, it's much different than 

12 it was when we were in our heyday and -- our 

13 high water mark was 2006. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: I mean like is this one person 

15 who's going to be working for -- 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: No -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- 20 years or -- 

18 MR. ELLIOTT: -- no -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- ten or a hundred? Give a -- 

20 can you roughly tell us -- 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: I would say we're bef-- in 2006 

22 there were -- when you ask about health 

23 physicists working on the program and you ask 

24 about health physicists strictly working on 

25 dose reconstructions, two different -- two 
66

1 different numbers -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and I take it you're wanting 

4 the last -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm -- I wonder -- 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: -- how many actually -- 

7 DR. ZIEMER: -- when you say 2,600 cases have 

8 been assigned to health physicists, you know, 

9 how big a group is that? I'm trying to get a 

10 feel for -- does one person have hundreds of 

11 cases to do or just a few or what? 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: One -- I -- I don't have an 

13 answer for that right -- right now. I'd 

14 hesitate to give you an answer off the top of 

15 my head. I can say it's probably in the ball 

16 park of a hundred or so health physicists who 

17 are engaged -- that includes staff on -- you 

18 know, OCAS staff as well as our contract staff. 

19 Other health physicists -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: It becomes a pretty heavy workload 

21 then -- 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, other health physicists are 

23 engaged in evaluating SEC -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 

25 MR. ELLIOTT: -- petitions, others are engaged 
67

1 in developing technical basis approaches, so it 

2 fluctuates. We see health physicists move from 

3 task to task, too, depending upon their -- the 

4 needs and availability of their efforts, so -- 

5 but I -- I'll try to get you an answer. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: I was trying to get a feel for 

7 what the turnaround time -- it certainly has 

8 got to be longer now than it would have been 

9 otherwise, I would guess. 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, there's a different 

11 question. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: They're more efficient now, too, 

13 perhaps. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Turn-- turnaround time -- we are 

15 more efficient, and we have se-- where we have 

16 a Technical Basis Document established, where 

17 we -- our approach, our reconstruction approach 

18 is established, we're seeing claims go through 

19 those kinds -- from those sites go through dose 

20 reconstruction in 120 days or less. Where we 

21 don't is the problem. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: You know, those are the claims 

24 that I'm most focused on and I have staff that 

25 are focused on what can we do to move those 
68

1 claims through the system that we don't have a 

2 current approach developed for. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Josie Beach, comments? 

4 MS. BEACH: Yeah. Larry, I was wondering if 

5 you could tell me, if I want to go out and look 

6 at that new document, IG-004 -- 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

8 MS. BEACH: -- where would I find it? 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, you would have received -- 

10 you did receive last week a web site update 

11 announcement, and in that web site update it'll 

12 tell you the URL where you go to. But in this 

13 instance you can go to dose reconstruction 

14 document -- dose reconstruction, on the right15 hand tool bar, hit that, and you can find all 

16 of the -- it'll have TBDs, Implementation 

17 Guides, or you can search by site. This is a -

18 - a document that's used across any site where 

19 surrogate data is used, so it would not be a 

20 site-specific document. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius. 

22 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

23 (on microphone) starting with the -- the 

24 contract, just to follow up on -- on Paul's 

25 question, to the extent that you can answer 
69

1 this. Is what's contemplated in the new 

2 contract, when -- when it is awarded, would 

3 that increase productivity -- 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, yes. 

5 DR. MELIUS: -- in terms of -- 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

7 DR. MELIUS: Okay. So -- so we're still in 

8 sort of a slowdown -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: We -- 

10 DR. MELIUS: -- or is that a way of 

11 (unintelligible) -- 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we are hobbled right now. 

13 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: We are hobbled in our ability to 

15 achieve a high rate of production because we're 

16 under a contract modification to extend for 

17 like six weeks at a time. 

18 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

19 MR. ELLIOTT: And our technical support 

20 contract team is made up of subcontractors and 

21 -- 

22 DR. MELIUS: Right. 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: -- once they buy time from them, 

24 that time's committed, but you know -- 

25 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 
70

1 MR. ELLIOTT: -- they're limited on how much 

2 time they can buy. 

3 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: The other problem that we have is 

5 -- is, you know, when this -- we started seeing 

6 a backlog occur in that one slide that I 

7 pointed out -- 

8 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: -- to you with the -- with the 

10 bar -- the line graph, continuing resolutions 

11 kill us -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: -- because we're only allowed to 

14 spend at a daily rate. 

15 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: And so, you know, even though we 

17 have more work to do, we can't infuse more 

18 money to get the work done under a continuing 

19 resolution, so we're ha-- we're going to face 

20 that at the -- perhaps at the start of this new 

21 fiscal year, plus we're not seeing a contract 

22 award. So both of these are -- are the main 

23 dynamics that I point to that cause us to be 

24 hobbled in our efforts to -- to get back to a 

25 production rate that would -- you know, we 
71

1 would all be more satisfied with. 

2 DR. MELIUS: And can I assume that that 

3 hobbling also would apply to SEC reviews and 

4 other parts of the pro-- site profile -- 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, there's only -- 

6 DR. MELIUS: -- TBD -- 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, we're limited in -- 

8 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we're limited in the resources 

10 we have and we try to spread them as best we 

11 can to -- to address the priority issues. 

12 DR. MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: So yes. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Your -- your -- I have a number of 

15 other questions, mostly clarification. Your 

16 last slide on the SEC exposure cohort classes 

17 represents 2215 potential claims. What does 

18 2215 refer to? Is that cases that are -- 

19 MR. ELLIOTT: Cases, actual cases. 

20 DR. MELIUS: That have been sent from DOL to -- 

21 to NIOSH? 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

23 DR. MELIUS: So it's not all SEC -- not all the 

24 cases have been covered by an SEC because those 

25 would be handled directly by -- 
72

1 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 

2 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: We don't -- these are only cases 

4 that come away from our claim population at 

5 NIOSH. 

6 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: That's all they are. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it ju-- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: Sorry. 

10 DR. MELIUS: -- it seemed low and I -- that's 

11 what I thought it was and -- 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, it's higher than that -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- SEC -- 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Pardon me? 

15 DR. ZIEMER: It would not cover all SEC 

16 claimants. 

17 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- no, no. 

18 MR. ELLIOTT: No, we -- those cla-- these are 

19 claims that NIOSH had in its possession when a 

20 class was established. There are other claims 

21 that may come to Department of Labor after a 

22 class has been established that NIOSH never 

23 sees. 

24 DR. MELIUS: Some questions on the first 5,000. 

25 What does it mean when it says that an employer 
73

1 is missing or questionable, particularly 

2 missing? I find -- I find it hard to believe 

3 an employer would be missing, but -- 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Department of Labor is 

5 responsible for developing the demographics 

6 about a claim, those things that are essential 

7 to process the claim. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: And in this instance, the -- in 

10 one instance the employer -- they don't -- they 

11 don't know who the person worked for. 

12 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: So it's a survivor situation. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: They know their parent worked at 

16 a facility, but they're not sure which one. 

17 And in the other one, the employer's 

18 questionable -- all we can say is that DOL is 

19 still determining whether or not employment is 

20 eligible. 

21 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. Okay, that sort of 

22 clarifies that. One of the things that I think 

23 would be helpful as I look at your 11th slide, 

24 the cases completed by NIOSH tracking number -- 

25 is that -- cases by tracking number, is to 
74

1 start -- I mean I think you -- there seems to 

2 be a significant number of pending cases in the 

3 first -- you know, 5,000 to 10,000 -- 5,001 to 

4 10,000 and so forth, and it'd be helpful I 

5 think to know how those broke down by the 

6 categories that you just provided, how many of 

7 those are reworks, how many are cases that 

8 haven't been gotten to and -- and so forth 

9 'cause I -- I think it's -- 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: So you're interested in the -- 

11 let's say the first 10,000 pended cases -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, pended case of -- 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: -- what are they pended for. 

14 DR. MELIUS: -- what is the breakdown by the -- 

15 the slides that you presented here. I was just 

16 asking about the employer missing, et -- et 

17 cetera. I also think it would be useful to 

18 understand this -- and this goes back to the 

19 question I asked a couple of meetings ago -- 

20 was on the reworks, to have some idea what -- 

21 what's the delay on them 'cause the way you 

22 present it now it's number in, number out. 

23 It's not clear how long those stay in -- in 

24 NIOSH. Understand that when they -- 

25 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 
75

1 DR. MELIUS: -- go into your -- 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: You would like to know how long 

3 the rework -- average rework takes. 

4 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, how long -- of those reworks 

5 that haven't been returned, how many are older 

6 than a year or something like that, if any. I 

7 have no -- 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: I can provide that -- 

9 DR. MELIUS: -- no idea. 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I can't do it today, but -- 

11 DR. MELIUS: I'm not asking for it today. 

12 Finally, my understanding -- I believe this 

13 came up at the last meeting that I was not able 

14 to attend -- was the issue of -- my 

15 understanding is that the interview has been 

16 changed, the basic claimant -- the CATI 

17 interview has been -- is that -- my 

18 understanding correct that that's been modified 

19 in some way? 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: We are -- we are submitting to 

21 the Office of Management and Budget our package 

22 for approval to utilize this questionnaire 

23 instrument a-- this'll be the -- I believe this 

24 is the third issuance or request for approval 

25 that we've gone into. 
76

1 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh, okay. As I -- as I 

2 recall, the -- the Board early on had pointed 

3 out a number of significant concerns about the 

4 interview and were told that that could not be 

5 changed because it couldn't go back up to OMB, 

6 that you were -- basically thought that would 

7 be too time-- time-consuming and not a use -- 

8 good use of resources, so I was a lit-- little 

9 surprised to see that it had been modified more 

10 than once and, far as I know, it's the first 

11 the Board had heard about this. And -- and -- 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, OMB -- OMB approval is only 

13 for a specified amount of time. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Right. 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: Each time it expires, we have to 

16 -- in advance of the expiration we submit a 

17 package for approval and we have -- in this 

18 package we have made some changes that address 

19 some of the issues that -- that have been 

20 brought out in the Board deliberation. 

21 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. Well, it would have been 

22 helpful for the Board to be involved in that. 

23 In fact, I would question whether or not you're 

24 obligated to invite -- to involve the Board in 

25 that, I -- 
77

1 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't believe we're obligated 

2 to invite the Board to be -- 

3 DR. MELIUS: Well, I think any -- 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: -- involved in that. 

5 DR. MELIUS: -- significant change in -- 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: We've heard the Board -- 

7 DR. MELIUS: -- those procedure -- 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we've addre-- we've addressed 

9 the issues that we felt were paramount and 

10 pertinent to address at this point in time. 

11 There will be a public review comment, as there 

12 has been in the past -- 

13 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: -- on each of these OMB packages 

15 and -- and as we have done with rule-making, 

16 that is the opportunity for the Board to opine 

17 about -- or individual members of the Board to 

18 opine about the package itself. 

19 DR. MELIUS: Well -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: I might insert here that the 

21 procedures review workgroup is -- in its 

22 processes, and Wanda can comment on this 

23 further, has -- the issue of the CATI has come 

24 up a number of times and the fact that the old 

25 interview was expiring, so I know the 
78

1 workgroup's aware of that and the fact that 

2 when -- when NIOSH has its proposed new 

3 interview, the Board in fact will have the 

4 opportunity, as we did on the -- as we did on 

5 the Part 8123s -- 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: On the rule-making. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: -- on the rule-making, to comment 

8 on what is being proposed. Wanda, you may have 

9 some additional comments on that. 

10 MS. MUNN: I was just going to comment that the 

11 procedures workgroup has indeed spent an 

12 extensive amount of time with the procedures 

13 that control what happens in the CATI 

14 interview, and it's been discussed for a matter 

15 of months. More than one item has been brought 

16 to the attention of both the workgroup and 

17 NIOSH. We've had considerable input from 

18 claimants with respect to their concerns and 

19 NIOSH has accepted all of the information that 

20 the workgroup discussions have provided. 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: We'll certainly notify the Board 

22 and the procedures workgroup when the package 

23 is going forward and public comment opportunity 

24 exists. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Mr. Presley. 
79

1 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) Larry 

2 (unintelligible) 249 (unintelligible) claims 

3 that have increased to more than 50 percent 

4 (unintelligible) the majority of those 

5 (unintelligible) that have to do with the super 

6 S rework or do you know? I know that was a 

7 biggie for y'all. 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: I can give you the specifics on 

9 that, Mr. Presley -- indulge me for a moment 

10 till I find my notes. 

11 (Pause) 

12 For a while we were reporting to you there were 

13 157 that had changed POC from less than 50 to 

14 greater than 50, and those 157 -- 154 were 

15 lymphoma and three were Bethlehem Steel. And 

16 now you're -- you're correct that we've 

17 achieved 249 instances where the claim changed 

18 to compensability, and so the difference is 

19 that 77 are super S-related, five are related 

20 to the Paducah Program Evaluation Review that 

21 was conducted; one is a LANL-related issue, 

22 eight are related to Blockson, one is a Rocky 

23 Flats. So that's the breakdown of the 249. 

24 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 
80

1 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

2 (on microphone) on the -- the CATI question. 

3 Is thi-- this change you're putting forward, is 

4 this the first change to tha-- I've been 

5 confused about this a little in the past, 

6 answers I've gotten. Is this the first change 

7 to the -- the phone questionnaire, phone 

8 interview -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: This -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: -- form, or have you done -- is 

11 this revision -- 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: This is the -- 

13 MR. GRIFFON: -- two or three or -- 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I think it's -- I said third, 

15 but this may be the second. I have to check my 

16 -- my notes. It's the second or the third 

17 package we've submitted to OMB for approval. I 

18 believe that this -- this current modification 

19 addresses the input from the procedures 

20 workgroup that we've had. I don't believe the 

21 prior one did. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't believe there's -- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause we -- we -- we didn't -- 

25 MR. ELLIOTT: -- been a change prior -- 
81

1 MR. GRIFFON: -- see that middle step one, 

2 either, and I guess -- at one point I thought 

3 there was a different questionnaire in some of 

4 the claims files that I was looking at, and Stu 

5 said that no, in fact -- he agreed with me, and 

6 the next meeting he -- he changed his response, 

7 so I was just -- wanted to get a clarification 

8 on that. 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: I'll have to get back to you on 

10 that. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions? Robert, do you 

13 have an additional question? 

14 Okay, thank you very much, Larry, appreciate 

15 the input, as always. 

16 We're a little ahead of schedule, but I think 

17 we'll go ahead and take our break now, so let's 

18 break till 3:00 o'clock, then we'll resume. 

19 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 2:36 p.m. 

20 to 3:00 p.m.) 

21 DR. ZIEMER: We will resume if you'd please 

22 take your places. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: I have one announcement, and that 

24 is that the hotel has been willing to -- has 

25 stated a willingness to provide lunch with two 
82

1 salads, a pasta or a chicken entree, brownies, 

2 cookies and tea for a flat rate of $14 tomorrow 

3 and Thursday. If you think that that's 

4 something that may be appealing to you, at 

5 least somewhat generally, would you please let 

6 me know by a show of hands? 

7 Okay. All right. Thank you very much. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Since we're a little bit ahead of 

9 schedule and I want to keep -- I want to keep 

10 the SEC petition parts of the agenda pretty 

11 much on time schedule in case there are phone 

12 petitioners present, so we've asked that the 

13 Department of Labor presentation, which is on 

14 the schedule for tomorrow morning, be moved up. 

15 This is the second meeting in a row we've done 

16 this on you, Jeff. Maybe you'll be prep-- 

17 really prepared for moving up, but we're -- 

18 we're pleased that you're willing to do that. 

19 So here's Jeff to give us the update from the 

20 Department of Labor. 

21 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR UPDATE

22 MR. KOTSCH: Good afternoon. It may be better 

23 that I'm not -- or that I haven't looked at 

24 this thing recently, so... 

25 This will be the update for the Energy 
83

1 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 

2 Program Act for -- through September 2008. 

3 Actually a lot of this data -- well, it varies. 

4 It's at the bottom, like this chart is -- is as 

5 of August 24th, 2008. Now some of this is 

6 repetitious for the people that come to all 

7 these meetings, as well as the Board members, 

8 but for those of you who aren't, hopefully it's 

9 of -- of some use to you. 

10 And the other caveat -- not caveat, but when we 

11 talk about cases and claims, there's a case for 

12 every employee but there may be more claims 

13 because there were cert-- certain cases have 

14 survivors, in which case there may be one or 

15 more survivors, so that's why the number of 

16 claims will always be greater than the number 

17 of cases. 

18 Part B became effective in July 31st, 2001, and 

19 this is the part of the program that we deal 

20 with here. It has to do with cancer -- cancer 

21 claims, claims for silicosis, claims for 

22 beryllium disease. We've had 63,145 cases for 

23 92,457 claims, and 41,534 of these are cancer 

24 cases, and 27,705 have been referred to NIOSH. 

25 Again, the numbers are a little different from 
84

1 Larry's numbers, just because of the time we 

2 take the snapshot. 

3 The Part E portion of our program became 

4 effective on October 28th, 2004. This is the 

5 part of the program that we took over from the 

6 Department of Energy, the old D program. 

7 Basically it has to do with exposure to toxic 

8 chemicals. There we had 53,467 cases, 74,561 

9 claims. And at the time of -- when -- that it 

10 became effective with the Department of Labor, 

11 we received over 25,000 cases from the 

12 Department of Energy. 

13 In terms of compensation, we've had $4 billion 

14 total compensation, a billion of that just in 

15 the past -- or will be in almost -- in the past 

16 year. $2.59 billion was Part B payments, $2 

17 billion for cancer claims; $292 (sic) for RECA, 

18 the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which 

19 is the uranium mining, milling and ore 

20 transporting. $1.24 billion have been paid as 

21 far as Part E, these are the toxic chemical 

22 claims; and $245 million in medical benefits 

23 paid for claims on both sides. 

24 Quickly, the claims categories for Part B are 

25 cancer, chronic beryllium disease, beryllium 
85

1 sensitivity, chronic silicosis and the -- the 

2 RECA Section 5 portion of the Department of 

3 Justice program. 

4 Again, this is just who -- the eligibility, 

5 current and former employees of -- this one's 

6 part B benefits -- Department of Energy, its 

7 contractors and subcontractors; Atomic Weapons 

8 Employers, AWEs; beryllium vendors; uranium 

9 miners, millers and ore transporters who worked 

10 at facilities covered by Section 5 of RECA; and 

11 certain family members of deceased workers. 

12 The Part B cancer case status shows 41,534 

13 cases having 64,144 claims. Of those, 34,071 

14 have had final decisions, which is about 83 

15 percent; 1,804 have recommended but no final 

16 decisions; 3,901 are at NIOSH and 1,758 are 

17 pending an initial decision. That is, they're 

18 in the process of development at the Department 

19 of Labor. Again, the recommended decisions 

20 come out of our district offices; the finals 

21 come out of our -- what we call the Final 

22 Adjudication Branches, the FAB groups, at -- at 

23 which point the -- the claimants have the 

24 opportunity to ob-- object or discuss the -- 

25 the recommended decision with the -- the FAB 
86

1 group. 

2 Claims filed for cancer under Part B, any 

3 potentially -- potentially any cancer is 

4 covered under Part B if it's determined that 

5 the covered employee was a member of the SEC, 

6 was diagnosed with a specified cancer, or it is 

7 determined through a dose reconstruction 

8 conducted by NIOSH that the covered employee's 

9 cancer was at least as likely as not, 50 

10 percent or greater, caused by radiation 

11 exposure. 

12 This chart is just the breakdown on the final 

13 decisions for Part B. On the left side, 13,786 

14 final decisions to approve. On the -- on the 

15 right side, 20,285 total cases to deny. The 

16 bars to the right of that give the breakdown of 

17 -- of the reasons, about 3,500 for non-covered 

18 employment, about 12,200 with probability of 

19 causations less than 50 percent, a little over 

20 3,100 for insufficient medical evidence, a 

21 little less than 1,100 for non-covered 

22 conditions -- which would in the past have been 

23 like Part E issues, but now could slide over to 

24 the Part E side -- and 387 for ineligible 

25 survivors. 
87

1 Again, for the SEC, the Special Exposure 

2 Cohorts, the employment criteria are the three 

3 gaseous diffusion plants, certain nuclear tests 

4 -- some of those were part of the initial 

5 statue -- and then the new SEC designations. 

6 Specified cancers are part of that, the 22; 

7 causation presumed, no dose reconstructions; 

8 and then HHS recommends SEC designations and if 

9 Congress does not object within 30 days, then 

10 the facility becomes an SEC. That's just a -- 

11 background on -- on the SECs. 

12 As far as new SEC-related cases, 2,189 have 

13 been withdrawn from NIOSH for review. That's -

14 - I'm sorry, 1,688 of those have final 

15 decisions. That's about 92 percent. 158 have 

16 recommended but no finals -- decisions; 271 

17 cases are currently pending and 80 cases were 

18 closed. So anyway, 92 percent, like I said, of 

19 the -- of the SEC-related cases have -- now 

20 have final decisions. 

21 As far as NIOSH referral case status, we're 

22 showing 27,705 have been referred to NIOSH as 

23 of August 24th; 20,664 have been returned from 

24 NIOSH -- again, the number there is a little 

25 over 18,000 with dose reconstructions, 23 being 
88

1 reworked for return to NIOSH, and 2,588 

2 withdrawn from NIOSH with no dose 

3 reconstruction. 

4 And we're showing 7,041 cases currently at 

5 NIOSH. Of those, 3,915 are initial or original 

6 referrals to NIOSH; 3,126 are -- are reworks or 

7 returns. 

8 Slide is the NIOSH dose reconstruction case 

9 status. We're showing 18,053 cases with dose 

10 reconstructions; 15, 414 dose reconstruction 

11 case-- dose reconstructed cases with final 

12 decisions, that's about 85 percent of the 

13 total; 2,264 dose reconstructed cases with a 

14 recommended but no final decision; and then 375 

15 dose reconstructed cases pending a recommended 

16 decision by NIOSH -- by DOL. So those are ones 

17 that we have back -- we have a dose 

18 reconstruction back. They're -- the districts 

19 are just in the process of writing up the 

20 recommended decision. 

21 The NIOSH case-related compensation, that 

22 money's paid on cases that have been -- that 

23 have dose reconstructions. As of August 20th 

24 we're showing $1 billion in compensation. 

25 That's 10,780 payees in 7,065 cases. $841 
89

1 million of that was on dose reconstructed cases 

2 to 7,960 payees which involves 5,630 cases. 

3 And $230 -- I'm sorry, $213 million was added 

4 on SEC cases. That's payments made to 282 

5 (sic) people -- or payees in 1,435 cases. 

6 So total paid cases for both Part B and E is a 

7 little under 32,000 cases; 2100 and -- 21,000 

8 and about 200 have been Part B cases, of which 

9 13,538 were cancer case payees; 5,849 are RECA 

10 case payees, and 1,811 were other Part B, which 

11 is primarily silicosis. 10,728 cases were Part 

12 E-related. 

13 Just a little bit of the -- Larry talks about 

14 the -- you know, or has that one graph with the 

15 -- the cases that we transmit and the cases 

16 that are sent back. These are through -- April 

17 through July of this year. New Part B cases 

18 received by DOL -- that is, incoming to us, 

19 which could be more -- and would be more than 

20 just cases that go to NIOSH -- ranges from 398 

21 in April, 379 May, 357 in June and 409 in July. 

22 For Part B cases sent to DOL (sic) in April, I 

23 think that was still part of the -- it may be 

24 some of the rework PER cases. April 2008 we 

25 were showing 503 cases forwarded, in May it was 
90

1 364, then 318 in June and 328 in July. So 

2 right in -- we -- as far as cases to DOL, at 

3 least for like say the last three months, we're 

4 running a little over 300 per month. 

5 As we always try to do on -- give a little 

6 information on cases that are either up for SEC 

7 discussion at the Board meeting or somehow 

8 related to some discussions here -- Pantex 

9 Plant, Part B and E claims -- I'm sorry, Part B 

10 and E cases, 1,125. We're showing 254 NIOSH 

11 dose reconstructions, 443 final decisions for 

12 B, of which 146 were approvals. We had 134 

13 Part E approvals. And so total compensation as 

14 of August 24th for -- for both Parts B and E 

15 for Pantex being $21 million. 

16 For the Connecticut Aircraft -- I forget the 

17 acronym -- Nuclear -- CANEL, what -- we're 

18 showing 53 Part B and E cases, four NIOSH dose 

19 reconstructions; five final decisions in Part 

20 B, three -- three of which were approvals. We 

21 had three Part E approvals and that comes out 

22 to a total compensation for both B and E of 

23 $722,500. 

24 For Santa Susana Field Lab we show both Part B 

25 and E cases of 740, 143 dose reconstructions 
91

1 from NIOSH, 175 Part B decisions; 47 approvals 

2 for Part B, 53 for Part E, for total 

3 compensation for B and E of $11 million. 

4 And I think that's it. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jeff. So -- so it 

6 looks like, at least currently, you had about 

7 400 new cases a month that seem to be coming in 

8 to you. Could you remind us, how would that 

9 compare to, for example, a year ago or two 

10 years ago? Is this going down or is it keeping 

11 pretty level? 

12 MR. KOTSCH: I think it's -- I -- I think it's 

13 pretty level. It might be a little -- little 

14 higher, but it's -- that -- but that would be 

15 slightly. It's been pretty static for the last 

16 -- well, for the last couple years, probably. 

17 It -- it fluctuates a little bit, depending on 

18 when we do outreach meetings and, you know, we 

19 might get a little more activity as a result of 

20 that. But other than that, it's -- that -- 

21 that's a -- not quite a baseline, but it 

22 certainly seems to be a continuing level for 

23 right now. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: So we're talking here about 5,000 

25 cases a year. Have -- have you or NIOSH 
92

1 projected what -- sort of what the endpoint -- 

2 when or where the endpoint will be in terms of 

3 what you think are eligible cases that are out 

4 there? 

5 MR. KOTSCH: I -- I mean I -- we don't know. 

6 We've often discussed, you know, if there is a 

7 -- if there is an endpoint. We don't perceive 

8 one right now because for the surviving -- I 

9 mean for the -- the employees that are still 

10 alive -- in fact, the ones that are still 

11 working -- there's a cancer incidence rate 

12 obviously out there that will -- at least as 

13 far as Part B -- will continue to contribute to 

14 that -- you know, if -- if they -- if they 

15 apply for -- for the -- for the program, which 

16 will continue to feed that -- you know, that -- 

17 that pipeline, basically. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I was trying to get a feel 

19 for how many of these result simply from going 

20 out and making workers aware of the program 

21 versus simply new cancers appearing on the 

22 scene and therefore people applying. 

23 MR. KOTSCH: And I don't -- I don't know how 

24 that would break down. I know -- I know we 

25 have always been a little surprised by the -- 
93

1 the -- I guess the lack of -- Hanford -- we 

2 would -- we expected more Hanford cases to be 

3 submitted early on, and maybe even continuing, 

4 and I -- and we may, with -- with the new 

5 Hanford SECs for the 200 and 300 areas, maybe 

6 that'll promote, you know, more -- more claims. 

7 I don't know. But you know, there are cases 

8 there where we -- where we don't see -- where 

9 we expect more and then there's -- you know, 

10 and then we do see, like I said, some response 

11 to -- to the outreach meetings. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: See if there's questions here -- 

13 Dr. Melius. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Yes, one brief question. I 

15 believe you covered in your slides my -- is it 

16 a rumor that Mr. Turcic is retiring? 

17 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, he got tired of coming to 

18 these meetings. 

19 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that -- that was my next 

20 question. 

21 MR. KOTSCH: We had both -- both our Deputy 

22 Director, Roberta Moser -- in fact, she retired 

23 last Friday, and then Pete Turcic will be 

24 retiring effectively at the end of September, 

25 though he's not really much in the office 
94

1 anymore. And Rachel Whithon*, who was our old 

2 -- previous policy branch chief, she's the -- 

3 now the new Director and the Department's in 

4 the -- in the process of looking for -- I mean 

5 interviewing for the Deputy Director. 

6 DR. MELIUS: So invite her to the meetings. 

7 MR. KOTSCH: Excuse me? 

8 DR. MELIUS: Invite her? 

9 MR. KOTSCH: I invited Pete. In fact Pete 

10 thought about coming and then -- but he's -- 

11 he's going to a couple other meetings right 

12 now, so... 

13 DR. MELIUS: Tell him we'll try the Hawaii site 

14 and -- 

15 MR. KOTSCH: He may actually show up sometime 

16 if we're local, I don't know. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions for Jeff? 

18 UNIDENTIFIED: Dr. Ziemer, may I ask a question 

19 of the gentleman there from DOL? 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Who is speaking? 

21 MR. FUNKE: This is John Funke in Las Vegas. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, John. I'll allow it, but 

23 normally we would wait till the public comment, 

24 but go ahead and ask your question. 

25 MR. FUNKE: Well, I've got a question to ask 
95

1 because it affects me directly. I was approved 

2 for Part E two months ago and I've been waiting 

3 to get a doctor's evaluation. And I talked to 

4 the ombudsman the other day when he was in town 

5 and he said he -- well, he talked to DOL. They 

6 said that they'd sent my medical card to me and 

7 it must have got lost in the mail. However, I 

8 contacted Kentucky where the cards are issued 

9 from and they never even heard of me. Now this 

10 has been two months since DOL in Seattle has 

11 approved me for Part E, and yet Kentucky, the 

12 place that issues the medical cards, still 

13 doesn't even know I exist. Could he explain 

14 that? 

15 MR. KOTSCH: Well, Mr. Funke, I -- I'll have to 

16 check on that. I mean I -- I have no specific 

17 knowledge -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: We'll ask Jeff to -- 

19 MR. KOTSCH: I am aware that you were -- you -- 

20 I mean -- I mean just standing here, I would 

21 think you should have gotten your card by now, 

22 but I'll have to check on that. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: We'll have -- have Jeff check this 

24 off line and get back to you then, Mr. Funke. 

25 Thank you. 
96

1 MR. FUNKE: Yeah, he can call me at [Personal 

2 Identifier), that's area code [Personal 

3 Identifier]. 

4 MR. KOTSCH: I'll -- Mr. Funke, I'll probably 

5 have John Vance get back to you 'cause -- you 

6 know John, right? 

7 MR. FUNKE: Yes, I would appreciate -- I've had 

8 a call in for him for the last 30 days. 

9 MR. KOTSCH: In to John? 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay, thank you. Let's 

11 take care of that part off line. 

12 MR. FUNKE: Thanks. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments, Board members? 

14 (No responses) 

15 Very good. Thank you again, Jeff. We always 

16 appreciate your updates. 

17 CONNECTICUT AIRCRAFT NUCLEAR ENGINE LABORATORY SEC 

18 PETITION

19 Now although we're a little ahead of schedule, 

20 I think we will proceed with the Connecticut 

21 Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory SEC 

22 petition. Sam Glover is going to make the 

23 presentation on behalf of NIOSH. 

24 Let me ask at this point if any of the 

25 petitioners are on the line at this moment? 
97

1 (No responses) 

2 I'll check again after Mr. Glover's 

3 presentation. Yes -- and it's Dr. Glover. 

4 Sam, proceed. 

5 DR. GLOVER: I've got to find the presentation. 

6 Just one second. 

7 (Pause) 

8 All right, very good. So I'm going to present 

9 the Special Exposure Cohort petition for the 

10 Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory. 

11 As we're aware, NIOSH evaluated this petition 

12 in accordance with 42 CFR 83.14. This petition 

13 was submitted by a claimant whose dose 

14 reconstruction could not be completed by NIOSH 

15 due to lack of sufficient dosimetry-related 

16 information. 

17 The claimant was employed at CANEL from 1958 

18 through the end of the covered period in 1965. 

19 NIOSH's determination that it is unable to 

20 complete a dose reconstruction for any EEOICPA 

21 claimant is a qualified basis for submitting an 

22 SEC -- for -- an SEC petition. 

23 As a brief -- we saw -- have seen some 

24 different numbers. As of August 13th, 2008 in 

25 our system we had 25 claims listed as having 
98

1 CANEL employment during the covered operations 

2 period. 

3 Some background about the facility. From 1958 

4 through 1965 CANEL was classified as a 

5 Department of Energy facility. The site was 

6 constructed by Pratt & Whitney for Department 

7 of Energy work on developing nuclear reactor 

8 technology for aircraft propulsion. This 

9 differed from the GE work which was a direct 

10 cycle and had a direct ejection. This had -- 

11 was an indirect cycle. Later work also 

12 included development of a reactor-based System 

13 for Nuclear Auxiliary Power, also known as the 

14 SNAP-50 program. 

15 The facility is located in Middletown, 

16 Connecticut. It's approximately five miles 

17 from the Pratt & Whitney East Hartford 

18 facility. 

19 The facility is approximately 1,100 acres, 

20 approximately 34 buildings -- 34 buildings. 

21 Radiological work was conducted in 22 of these 

22 34 buildings. Facilities included a Building 

23 140, which is a Nuclear Materials Research and 

24 Development Laboratory, a Fuels Element 

25 Laboratory, a Nuclear Physics Laboratory, and a 
99

1 Hot Laboratory, in addition to the other 18 

2 facilities that conducted nuclear work. They 

3 conducted design, engineering, and research on 

4 diverse radiological programs including high5 temperature materials and reactor technology, 

6 including indirect cycle of heat transfer for -

7 - for a nuclear engine. Basically how to build 

8 a bigger, better radiator. The SNAP-50 program 

9 from 1962 to '65; Critical Assembly Fuel 

10 Element Exchange, also the CAFEE program, for 

11 fabrication and analysis of components from '61 

12 to '65. The work included work with natural, 

13 depleted, and enriched uranium; fission and 

14 activation products; as well as plutonium. 

15 Our efforts to capture doc-- materials assoc-- 

16 documents associated with CANEL included the 

17 Nuclear Regulatory Commission; at the 

18 Department of Energy facilities including 

19 OpenNet; multiple visits to OSTI, the Office of 

20 Scientific and Technological Information. 

21 There were approximately 9,000 different 

22 documents at that location, but most of those 

23 were associated with specific technical pieces 

24 of information not related to dose. Also the 

25 Oak Ridge Operations Office. 
100

1 We went to the National Archive and Records 

2 Administration, NARA, facilities in Atlanta. 

3 No bioassay or external dose records have been 

4 provided by the DOE for any of the 25 

5 claimants. 

6 Information related to the -- to the radiation 

7 exposures during the DOE period, internal 

8 source of exposure included plutonium, uranium, 

9 fission and activation products. 

10 There was significant res-- ur-- significant 

11 uranium research conducted on the site, 

12 including -- for uranium, including materials 

13 such as metals, the oxides, nitrides, carbides 

14 and nitrates. They had both enriched, 

15 depleted, and natural, and uranium-233. 

16 Fission and activation products were generated 

17 and handled at the site. 

18 External sources of exposure include beta and 

19 photon sources, primarily from the uranium and 

20 fission/activation products, and some possible 

21 exposure to neutrons. 

22 Available monitoring information for internal 

23 dose, no data have been provided by DOE. None 

24 of the 25 claims have bioassay data. However, 

25 we did locate 20 uranium urinalysis records for 
101

1 individuals with CANEL employment. Again, none 

2 of these were claimants. All the results were 

3 reported as 0.00 milligrams per liter. There 

4 was no information regarding the type of 

5 bioassay that was employed. 

6 There was a 1961 AEC annual summary report for 

7 CANEL which stated that none of the employees 

8 had measured body depositions for U-238 or 

9 fission products during 1960. 

10 External monitoring data, no personal data has 

11 -- has been identified for CANEL. The AEC 

12 annual summaries for whole body exposure 

13 provides some results. We'll look at that on 

14 the next slide. And also no data have been 

15 provided by medi-- for medical X-rays. 

16 This slide summarizes those four or five annual 

17 reports. You see approximately how many 

18 unmonitored workers are listed, how many 

19 monitored workers -- somewhere between 132 to 

20 258 -- and this is the breakdown of the 

21 distribution of doses that were in this -- in 

22 the AEC annual reports. 

23 Workplace monitoring data, no data have been 

24 identified during the DOE operations period. 

25 In a 1966 survey some surface contamination and 
102

1 air concentration measurements were taken 

2 during the closeout surveys. However, this 

3 data would be unsuitable for -- for bounding 

4 doses during the SEC period. 

5 Feasibility of dose reconstruction, NIOSH has 

6 obtained bioassay results for only a handful of 

7 individuals in the very beginning of the 

8 program. Based on the diverse scope of source 

9 terms, coupled with a lack of operations data, 

10 NIOSH has determined that neither internal nor 

11 ex-- external doses can be reconstructed. Lack 

12 of information regarding source term location 

13 and usage leads NIOSH to include all employees 

14 at the CANEL facility in the SEC class 

15 definition. 

16 NIOSH has determined that medical doses can be 

17 con-- can be reconstructed using standard 

18 assumptions. 

19 Based on this, a health endangerment 

20 determination is required. 

21 Evidence reviewed in this evaluation indicates 

22 that some workers in the class may have 

23 accumulated chronic radiation exposures through 

24 intakes of radionuclides and direct exposure to 

25 radioactive materials. Consequently, NIOSH is 
103

1 specifying that health may have been endangered 

2 for those workers covered by this evaluation 

3 who were employed for a number of work days 

4 aggregating at least 250 work days within the 

5 parameters established for this class, or in 

6 combination with work days within the 

7 parameters established for one or more other 

8 classes of employees in the SEC. 

9 Proposed class is all employees of the DOE, its 

10 predecessor agencies and DOE contractors or 

11 subcontractors who worked at the Connecticut 

12 Aircraft Nuclear Engine Labora-- Engineering -- 

13 Engine Laboratory in Middletown, Connecticut 

14 from January 1, 1958 through December 31st, 

15 1965 for a number of work days aggregating at 

16 least 250 work days incurring (sic) either 

17 solely under this employment or in combination 

18 with work days within parameters established 

19 for one or more other classes in the SEC. 

20 The recommendation is the period, again, from 

21 January 1958 we find that the feasibility is no 

22 and health endangerment for this class is yes. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And for clarity, 

24 feasibility is no for both external and 

25 internal, but is yes for medical. Is that my 
104

1 understanding? 

2 DR. GLOVER: For an 83.14 we typically don't 

3 always say what we can do, but that's -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

5 DR. GLOVER: -- yes. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: And also, as you've described this 

7 class, it would be anyone who worked anywhere 

8 on the site, not just the buildings that you 

9 identified. Is that correct? 

10 DR. GLOVER: Lack of really understanding where 

11 they worked prohibits our trying to define that 

12 class more narrowly. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. So if -- if they can 

14 show that they worked at the facility anywhere, 

15 they're covered by this. Is that correct? 

16 DR. GLOVER: Yes, sir. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Not just the -- the rad buildings. 

18 DR. GLOVER: That's correct. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So there's nothing in the 

20 record for the non-rad workers to show that 

21 they could not be present in a rad building or 

22 would be restricted from it in some way or 

23 another, I think is what you're telling us. 

24 The records are insufficient -- 

25 DR. GLOVER: The -- 
105

1 DR. ZIEMER: -- for example, the receptionist 

2 at the front desk, there's no way of knowing 

3 that that receptionist couldn't have gone to 

4 the radioisotope -- whatever, calibration 

5 facility or whatever. 

6 DR. GLOVER: Of the hundreds or maybe thousands 

7 of documents we looked at at OSTI and other 

8 places, there's very little information 

9 concerning their control of the facilities. 

10 Obviously no records have been provided 

11 regarding the actual radiation exposures these 

12 people received, so we -- we really can't put 

13 people in places and -- and try to say that 

14 they couldn't have been -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify 

16 that that's really what we're saying when we -- 

17 if we approve this. 

18 Dr. Melius. 

19 DR. MELIUS: Also for clarification purposes, I 

20 sent an e-mail asking about whether they had 

21 actually interviewed or talked to anybody from 

22 the -- the site 'cause -- get some of the 

23 questions you just asked, Dr. Ziemer, 'cause I 

24 think in these cases where we're stating that 

25 we don't have enough information about the site 
106

1 that, given the significant number of workers 

2 at the site, the time period involved, that 

3 that may have been a source of information that 

4 would be useful in some of these 

5 determinations, so maybe, Sam, if you could 

6 clarify that, I... 

7 DR. GLOVER: I believe, as you said, we 

8 appreciate your e-mail and your input on that. 

9 But based on the type of information that we 

10 received, the lack of bioassay data that was 

11 clearly missing or destroyed, external 

12 dosimetry data is also missing, we felt that 

13 additional interviews -- we -- we looked for 

14 the technical information to try to find the 

15 actual data, and it was missing. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: On the -- and I think maybe you're 

17 thinking along the same lines -- for example, 

18 devil's advocate here, and that is, for 

19 example, if there were worker affidavits that 

20 said there's no way we could get into these 

21 restricted areas if we were cafeteria workers 

22 or something like that, would be helpful. But 

23 -- but maybe we don't even have a way of 

24 identifying who those folks would be anyway. 

25 I'm just asking the question because it seems 
107

1 to me that we have to be cautious on the other 

2 side, just as we are where you say you can 

3 reconstruct dose. Here's a case where you say 

4 you can't, and we want to say are you sure you 

5 can't, just like we say are you sure you can. 

6 Michael. 

7 MR. GIBSON: Sam, you guys recommend the class 

8 ending December of '65. Was the 

9 decontamination activities completed then or -- 

10 looks like they may have went on in through 

11 July of '66 or something like that. 

12 DR. GLOVER: We have recommended the entire 

13 period for the DOE covered period. There 

14 certainly do-- there are some -- it did go into 

15 '66, at which time the di-- there's some 

16 discussions in the report about there are still 

17 some contaminated facilities. All the other 

18 facilities other than two buildings were 

19 cleaned up to DOE speci-- specifications at the 

20 time. It did in-- it did go into '66, but that 

21 is the covered period. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: That's the legally covered period 

23 under the law right now. 

24 DR. GLOVER: That's correct. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 
108

1 MR. GIBSON: So you -- are you saying all but 

2 two buildings were cleaned up by December of 

3 '65, or those activities went on into '66? 

4 DR. GLOVER: All right, let me refresh the 

5 report, but I believe that they -- we specified 

6 that activity was still cleaning these up in 

7 '66. But under the legal definition that we 

8 have right now, this is the covered period that 

9 we -- that we're working with. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: If you got a claim from someone 

11 who was working after this period on the 

12 cleanup and -- and could not reconstruct dose, 

13 what would happen? 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: We would not get a claim with 

15 employment past the covered period. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, it wouldn't come to you, yeah. 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: The -- the answer to this 

18 question, this issue, is we will consult with 

19 DOE and DOL about the cleanup activities post20 December 31st, '65. It'll be up to them to 

21 make the covered facility designation change. 

22 So what we're proposing is based upon the 

23 covered facility designation that exists now, 

24 and we're saying cover the whole time period as 

25 a class. If there is a -- a change in the 
109

1 covered facility designation, we'll be back 

2 here before you to attend to that -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: -- (unintelligible). 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions? Dr. Roessler, 

6 then Dr. Melius. 

7 DR. ROESSLER: Part of my question has been 

8 answered I think, that the plant was closed in 

9 '65. Did they continue the -- these efforts 

10 after that point at this plant or was it 

11 totally closed? 

12 DR. GLOVER: No, it continued for many years 

13 after that, the facility. 

14 DR. ROESSLER: Okay. Now the -- my main 

15 question is this seems like kind of a unique 

16 facility. Are there -- were there others in 

17 the country doing the same sort of thing? 

18 DR. GLOVER: There was a twin program, GE and 

19 this program. GE had that direct rocket engine 

20 where they were -- basically a direct injection 

21 model. It was heating that directly and 

22 shooting the fission products directly out the 

23 back, and that was tested in Idaho. This was 

24 an indirect cycle where we're basically trying 

25 to heat -- there were -- these two -- these two 
110

1 -- 

2 DR. ROESSLER: Companion programs. 

3 DR. GLOVER: Exactly. 

4 DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 

5 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

6 (Unintelligible) 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, John. Use the mike and 

8 we'll get your com-- 

9 DR. POSTON: Sam -- Sam, I think there were a 

10 couple more. There was one at the Test Site 

11 and one in Idaho. Both of those were -- they 

12 may have pre-dated those programs, but I know 

13 the one at the Test Site was in the early '60s 

14 'cause I was there. 

15 DR. GLOVER: And they -- they -- these people 

16 actually tested at those places. I know that 

17 they -- they didn't actually run the actual 

18 tests -- 

19 DR. POSTON: Oh, yes, they did. 

20 DR. GLOVER: -- at the facility, so they -- I 

21 meant at CANEL. They went to -- 

22 DR. POSTON: I witnessed them. 

23 DR. GLOVER: No, they went to where you're 

24 talking about. 

25 DR. POSTON: Idaho, yeah. 
111

1 DR. GLOVER: Idaho and the -- the -- yes. 

2 DR. POSTON: And at the Test Site. 

3 DR. GLOVER: Right. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius, additional comment? 

5 DR. MELIUS: Well, no, an additional question -

6 - two questions. Fir-- first, back to my 

7 earlier question about interviewing and talking 

8 to people that worked on the site, I -- I sort 

9 of got a different answer when I e-mailed LaVon 

10 on it, who said that they -- you had, and you 

11 sort of told me you hadn't. And I'm trying to 

12 -- to clarify that 'cause as Dr. Ziemer pointed 

13 out, I think it's important that we -- we 

14 clarify and make sure that we've made a -- you 

15 know, a full effort to try to, you know, see 

16 what could be learned about the facility, 

17 particularly where we -- we know that, you 

18 know, exposures may have been restricted to 

19 certain parts of the facility, the issues of, 

20 you know, how -- what -- what the radiation 

21 control program and so forth was. And given 

22 that it's a large number of workers at this 

23 facility, in the thousands -- I don't remember 

24 exact number of claims that you -- you have 

25 there that -- seems to me there should be a 
112

1 pool of people to talk to, the -- suspect many 

2 of the workers in the -- either continued to 

3 work there -- I don't know if it -- was it 

4 still open or -- or is -- I know Pratt & 

5 Whitney is certainly still operating within the 

6 East Hartford -- Hart-- Hartford area has a 

7 large facility there. People may have gone 

8 there. Was a -- should have been a unionized 

9 facility, the main facility is -- there. But -

10 - so I guess I'm trying to -- in your data 

11 collection efforts did you interview and talk 

12 to people or not in terms of the people that 

13 had worked there in order to get -- get 

14 additional information? 

15 DR. GLOVER: I believe our response was that we 

16 had -- through the CATIs and those, we -- we 

17 had discussed it with those individuals, but we 

18 hadn't done an extensive additional data 

19 collection because we -- the -- we felt that 

20 very little would be added to the source term 

21 or the lack of bioassay and external dosimetry 

22 information that was missing. 

23 DR. MELIUS: Okay. I'll -- 

24 DR. GLOVER: So I -- I'm -- I will revalidate -

25 - verify our response, but that was -- 
113

1 DR. MELIUS: Could -- could you? That'd be 

2 helpful, and I'll -- I can try to revalidate 

3 it, too, but I can't access my e-mail right now 

4 so I can't. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton has a comment. 

6 DR. NETON: Yeah, this is Jim Neton. I just 

7 might add a little bit to this. There's also 

8 the practical issue of identifying where these 

9 workers may have been located, given the fact 

10 that somewhere around 50 percent of our -- our 

11 claimants are survivors, and very often they 

12 know nothing about where these people went. 

13 And it's impractical for the Department of 

14 Labor to try to go back and establish an exact, 

15 you know, exposure pattern by building -- 

16 building by building. 

17 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean I would agree with 

18 that, Jim, and I understand. I just think sort 

19 of there's a -- the issue is what effort was 

20 made and -- and to what extent is that -- that 

21 documented. And then my second question goes 

22 back to -- to Larry's comment, too. We know 

23 that the cleanup period extended through '66. 

24 Has -- has this issue been brought up with DOL 

25 or DOE regarding the covered period as part of 
114

1 your -- I mean you -- you're saying -- 

2 basically advising us to just defer, that can 

3 be taken up later. I'm just trying to get a 

4 sense of if you brought it up with them so far 

5 or is this the first time this would be brought 

6 to their attention. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: No, we've been in correspondence 

8 with DOL about this, and DOE, so... We're 

9 waiting -- we're waiting to see what happens, 

10 what -- what determination they make. 

11 DR. MELIUS: So -- so you sent -- sent them 

12 information or... 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: We provide -- we provide 

14 Department of Energy and Department of Labor 

15 information when we find it that -- that 

16 counters the facility designation that is 

17 listed on the DOE web site. So every time we 

18 see that, there -- there's an exchange. 

19 DR. MELIUS: So could Department of Energy or 

20 Department of Labor clarify for us what the 

21 status of that follow-up is? Thanks, Larry. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Either Jeff or Pat Worthington 

23 here? I guess the -- the question is, were -- 

24 is that being actively pursued, I suppose is 

25 the question, or -- 
115

1 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, as far as DOL, I -- I know 

2 that's -- I don't know what the status of the -

3 - that review is, but I know it's in the house. 

4 I know we've received it from, you know, the -- 

5 Larry's submittal and it's being reviewed. 

6 DR. MELIUS: Would it be possible to check on 

7 that status while we're here, just -- 

8 MR. KOTSCH: I can try. 

9 DR. MELIUS: They're closed today or some 

10 (unintelligible). 

11 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I'll try. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Wor-- Dr. Worthington, you 

13 have an additional comment? 

14 DR. WORTHINGTON: We actually don-- don't have 

15 an update at this time, but when we do we will 

16 get back to the Board and give you the 

17 information from DOE. Thank you. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Other 

19 comments? Michael, an additional comment? 

20 MR. GIBSON: And also if we could ask DOE or 

21 DOL why these decontamination activities are 

22 sometimes covered right in with the initial 

23 process or why sometimes it has to go back and 

24 be reconsidered. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know if either DOE or DOL 
116

1 can answer that. My guess is that at the time 

2 of -- the designation was made, they probably 

3 thought it had been completed at this date, and 

4 now we find it really wasn't or something, but 

5 I don't know -- Jeff, are you able to enlighten 

6 us on that? Did you hear the question? I -- I 

7 think Michael was asking, you know, why -- why 

8 was the determination made to cut off in 

9 December '65 when the work went beyond that. 

10 MR. KOTSCH: As far as CANEL, I -- I can 

11 specifically answer that. I mean in -- in 

12 essence, when these things came in initially, 

13 they -- I think they were reviewed, but -- and 

14 some were probably -- and some of the residual 

15 periods were probably addressed and some not. 

16 I can't answer specifically for any -- like for 

17 CANEL or not. But you're right, I mean it's -- 

18 there seems to be a disconnect. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it appears on the surface 

20 that when the original designation was made 

21 they probably thought that the work had been 

22 completed -- 

23 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I think that was -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: -- at that time. 

25 MR. KOTSCH: -- probably the case. 
117

1 DR. ZIEMER: And -- I mean that would seem to 

2 be the obvious -- although who knows, I guess. 

3 MR. KOTSCH: I mean we still -- information is 

4 still brought forward -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

6 MR. KOTSCH: -- both for and against, you know, 

7 certain sites to either de-list or extend or 

8 add. So you know, there is still information 

9 coming out. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Well, and we've had this question 

11 before as to whether to take action or wait 

12 till the -- you know, the -- the final 

13 designation of the period is -- is done. I 

14 think NIOSH is requesting that we go ahead and 

15 approve this. If the designation changes, it's 

16 rather easy to add an-- another period on. 

17 Mark, do you have a comment? 

18 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, a little off the track of 

19 the current line of questioning, but I -- this 

20 is sort of the -- the devil's advocate type of 

21 question. I'm looking at your Table 5-1 and 

22 you have reports from 1960, '61, '62, '64, '65 

23 -- AEC reports, and -- and I know that, you 

24 know, it's a small fraction of workers 

25 monitored or -- you know, ten, 15 percent of 
118

1 the workers, but I'm just wondering what -- 

2 whether these reports had any other information 

3 about -- I mean it -- it appeared to me they've 

4 got five annual reports from the AEC when they 

5 only operated -- you know, we're talking about 

6 seven years, so the -- you know, they -- they 

7 did have someone looking over their shoulder, 

8 monitoring at least for external. I know 

9 there's no bioassay, but I'm -- I'm just 

10 curious -- I'm -- I'm looking for consistency, 

11 really, in -- in how we make these decisions, 

12 and -- and how did you conclude that they 

13 didn't have a good rad control program where 

14 people that were monitored could have likely 

15 had, you know, doses over ten percent of 

16 guideline values or things like that? 

17 DR. GLOVER: It comes down to we really can't 

18 find the documentation that's available. And 

19 they clearly had a dosimetry program. None of 

20 those results are available for the 

21 individuals. These provide just -- it's a 

22 table that's provided, this is how many people 

23 were monitored for that site, and that's it. 

24 It has no individual breakdowns other than this 

25 information which we've compiled together. All 
119

1 the sites and the DOE would have provided this 

2 at one time, so it's a fairly lengthy report of 

3 external doses, but all the details -- I mean 

4 we've spent a lot of time. I spent a lot of 

5 time down at OSTI trying to pull these 

6 different threads to find the -- the details of 

7 the radiological programs and they simply, as 

8 best as we can tell, no longer exist. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: And the-- these AEC reports are 

10 really just external dosimetry reports, they 

11 weren't -- they didn't have any program 

12 overview information or any-- 

13 DR. GLOVER: It was just a table, yes. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: Thanks. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Well, again, a similar type of 

16 question. One could argue that perhaps you 

17 could use that to -- to get a -- an upper 

18 estimate on at least external dose for those 

19 years, or to -- to bracket external dose, based 

20 -- even though you don't know the individual 

21 doses. I mean le-- couldn't one make that 

22 argument? Why -- why couldn't I take the DOE 

23 tables of the monitored people and use that to 

24 -- 

25 DR. GLOVER: Sort of a coworker approach. 
120

1 DR. ZIEMER: Well, sure. 

2 DR. GLOVER: I -- I guess we would certainly -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: I'm -- 

4 DR. GLOVER: -- could take that under advi-- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm not necessarily saying you 

6 should do that, but I -- I think, again, as we 

7 look at these and -- and say prove to us you 

8 can't do it -- if someone came in with a non9 SEC cancer, couldn't you use that to put an 

10 upper limit on external? Well, that may -- I 

11 don't know, I'm -- I'm posing that as a 

12 question. 

13 DR. GLOVER: I strongly believe the internal 

14 dose drives this situation -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Drives this -- 

16 DR. GLOVER: -- because of the internal -- you 

17 know, the uranium and the grinding and -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

19 DR. GLOVER: -- the things that were going on 

20 with that. We certainly could take under 

21 advisement. That would be -- Jim Neton would 

22 have to respond to that. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Well, as I look at that, there's 

24 some people with -- what's in that table, there 

25 were some that had -- 
121

1 MR. GRIFFON: Two to three rem category. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: -- three rem per year, and if one 

3 of those is the same person for five years, 

4 you're into the 15 rem value or something or 

5 other. Anyway -- okay, Wanda. 

6 MS. MUNN: But in the absence of any knowledge 

7 of what the -- the monitoring program was, 

8 that's -- that's a basic factor in -- in 

9 previous discussions with respect to bounding 

10 dose, there was some information relative to 

11 who the people were who were monitored -- 

12 usually the anticipated highest number. But if 

13 we don't know that this site, not only do we 

14 not know that, we don't know -- we don't know 

15 why they were monitored, we don't know what the 

16 results of anything else might have been. It 

17 appears to be futile to attempt to try to pull 

18 that string any further. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- I just like to think 

20 about these things at -- typically you would 

21 monitor the people you expected to get exposed, 

22 and here are the results. And so at least for 

23 bounding purposes, one might say well, there's 

24 a -- there's a dataset that, in sort of a 

25 coworker sense, might be used. 
122

1 MS. MUNN: Yes, typically. But there's -- is 

2 there any way we know that this is a typical 

3 process? We don't. 

4 DR. NETON: Yeah, I guess I would just agree 

5 with what Wanda's saying. I know you're 

6 playing devil's advocate, Dr. Ziemer, but you 

7 know, without the existence of some sort of 

8 thread as to how the program was -- was 

9 positioned and who they intended to monitor -- 

10 we've gone through this many times and argued 

11 the other side with the Board, that we don't 

12 really know what happened and therefore, even 

13 though we have a -- some type of distribution, 

14 it's -- the workforce was not representatively 

15 monitored, so -- in this case we have no 

16 information to indicate, you know, who was 

17 monitored. And in fact it's -- it's just as 

18 bad to come up with a coworker model that you 

19 can't defend then and then provide people 

20 potentially lower doses than were received, and 

21 then you're really open for criticism on the 

22 other side of the coin. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, I'm -- I'm trying to 

24 force you to defend your recommendation, 

25 actually. Another comment? 
123

1 MR. LEWIS: Yeah, this is Greg Lewis from the 

2 Department of Energy. I just want to clarify a 

3 little bit. In addition to Oak Ridge and OSTI 

4 where they did find some small amount of 

5 records, we internally queried a number of our 

6 sites, including Legacy Management and ten or 

7 15 other sites, and you know, didn't find 

8 anything responsive on CANEL, so... 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Josie? 

10 MS. BEACH: Well, I was just reviewing the CD 

11 that I was sent originally with this site, and 

12 there are a couple of letters on here. I'm not 

13 going to state names, but -- that indicate 

14 interviews by DOL and that state that there was 

15 no bioassay program available, so -- so some of 

16 that document -- is documented. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Any further comments or questions? 

18 It would be in order to have a motion of some 

19 sort relative to this recommendation. 

20 Wanda Munn. 

21 MS. MUNN: I would move that Connecticut 

22 Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory Special 

23 Exposure Cohort petition be accepted as 

24 presented. 

25 MR. CLAWSON: I second it. 
124

1 MR. SCHOFIELD: Second. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded by Brad or Phil or both. 

3 Is there discussion on this motion? 

4 (No responses) 

5 I'm going to -- before we vote I'm going to ask 

6 if -- if there are petitioners on the line for 

7 the Connecticut facility. 

8 (No responses) 

9 Apparently not. Michael, do you have a comment 

10 on this motion? 

11 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I just want to make sure 

12 that we -- we do have on the record and a 

13 commitment by DOE and DOL to determine this -- 

14 this additional time period for the cleanup so 

15 it doesn't fall through cracks. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: I think we've heard that that will 

17 be followed up. It will not be part of this 

18 motion, however. Motion will deal only with 

19 the legal definition of the covered period. If 

20 this motion passes I will ask that we return to 

21 it Thursday with formal wording in the form 

22 that it would go to the Secretary, which is our 

23 standard sort of boilerplate for SEC petitions, 

24 and I'll ask Dr. Melius if he'd be willing to 

25 provide that wording since he has sort of the 
125

1 template in his laptop -- 

2 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: -- if that's agreeable, should 

4 this motion pass. 

5 DR. MELIUS: And -- and I would also, just to 

6 follow up on Mike's comment, I would have 

7 concerns about voting for this motion 

8 personally until we have, one, on record what 

9 the exact efforts were that were made by NIOSH 

10 in terms of follow-up and talking to workers so 

11 we get that on -- on the record for this in 

12 terms of the effort made. And secondly, some 

13 response from Department of Labor on what's 

14 happen-- what is the status of their follow-up 

15 on CANEL, I -- or CANEL, however we're 

16 pronouncing it -- so that we can -- can have 

17 that for our -- before our Thursday vote and so 

18 we can take that into consideration -- which -- 

19 I can take that into consideration. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Are you asking to table the motion 

21 for now or -- 

22 DR. MELIUS: I think so, yeah. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: You're not sure what you're -- 

24 DR. MELIUS: Well, I'd -- I mean I will still 

25 write the letter. 
126

1 DR. ZIEMER: No, no, I -- 

2 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) what to do 

3 procedurally. I think in the past we have -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- 

5 DR. MELIUS: -- sort of taken a general sense 

6 of the Board and then -- 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I don't -- 

8 DR. MELIUS: -- do the formal motion on 

9 Thursday. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Well, this would be the motion. 

11 All we would do Thursday is make sure we had 

12 the -- the wording correctly. So if members of 

13 the Board wish to delay or if -- if you are -- 

14 what word should I use -- sympathetic with the 

15 issues that Dr. Melius has raised, the -- the 

16 Chair would certainly be willing to entertain a 

17 motion to postpone -- would be a motion to 

18 postpone until Thursday, or if the others of 

19 you are ready to vote, we can go ahead and 

20 vote. In the absence of a motion to postpone 

21 or to table, we'll proceed. 

22 MR. GIBSON: I move that we postpone. 

23 DR. MELIUS: I'll second that. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: You're moving to postpone 

25 specifically till Thursday? 
127

1 DR. MELIUS: Till Thursday. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

3 MS. MUNN: And what? 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we -- okay, the question is 

5 can we verify that Department of Labor and 

6 perhaps DOE will be able to verify or at least 

7 confirm -- I don't -- I don't know that they 

8 will have the answer -- you're not asking for 

9 the answer -- 

10 DR. MELIUS: No, I wanted an -- an update -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: -- just a commitment -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: -- by -- what the status is. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- and the status report on that. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Right. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: So that's all that's being asked 

16 for. 

17 DR. MELIUS: That's all I'm -- being asked -- 

18 and secondly, I want on record what NIOSH's 

19 efforts were in terms of following up and 

20 interviewing workers which -- got a partial e21 mail which I still can't access from -- from 

22 Lavon, who's not here, about -- and I'd like to 

23 make sure that's on the record in terms of the 

24 effort that was made. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll -- 
128

1 DR. MELIUS: And that can be -- also be done by 

2 Thursday. I hope I can get access to my e-mail 

3 by Thursday. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We will vote immediately on 

5 the motion to postpone, which I'm interpreting 

6 as being a tabling motion, therefore we'll vote 

7 immediately on it. 

8 Those who favor postponing till Thursday, say 

9 aye. 

10 (Affirmative responses) 

11 Any opposed? 

12 (Negative responses) 

13 Okay, we'll take a roll call vote. 

14 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Beach? 

15 MS. BEACH: Aye. 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Clawson? 

17 MR. CLAWSON: Aye. 

18 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Gibson? 

19 MR. GIBSON: Aye. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Griffon? 

21 MR. GRIFFON: Aye. 

22 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Melius? 

23 DR. MELIUS: Aye. 

24 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Munn? 

25 MS. MUNN: No. 
129

1 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Presley? 

2 MR. PRESLEY: No. 

3 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Poston? 

4 DR. POSTON: No. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Roessler? 

6 DR. ROESSLER: Yes, aye. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Schofield? 

8 MR. SCHOFIELD: Aye. 

9 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Ziemer. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Aye. I think the ayes have it; 

11 it's postponed till Thursday to get clarity, 

12 make sure everybody's okay with that. 

13 The Chair -- the sense of the Chair is that -- 

14 that the Board members are generally in favor 

15 of the original motion so that I would ask that 

16 we be prepared with the formal wording. If I 

17 sense this wrong, then your labor will be in 

18 vain, but be ready for the -- 

19 DR. MELIUS: May surprise you with -- no. Read 

20 it carefully. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Sam Glover, thank you for your 

22 presentation and for helping us through this. 

23 We will return to this matter on -- on Thursday 

24 during our work session. 
130

1 PUBLIC COMMENT

2 Now we have a public comment period scheduled 

3 for 5:00 o'clock, which is an hour from now. I 

4 want to find out, if I could have -- just pause 

5 briefly. The last I saw there were three names 

6 on the list of people wishing to make public 

7 comment, and I'm going to -- going to ask, if 

8 those folks are here, if they'd be willing to 

9 proceed rather than wait for an hour. 

10 MS. KLEA: Bonnie Klea. I say let's proceed. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Who else was on the list? 

12 MS. BLAZE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Are you willing to proceed? And 

14 who is the third one? 

15 Denise? Denise De -- was she here in person? 

16 DR. BRANCHE: She's right here. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you're Denise, okay. Bonnie 

18 we got. D'Lanie? 

19 MS. BLAZE: That's me. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so you're willing to 

21 proceed? 

22 MS. BLAZE: Sure. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then we'll just take you in 

24 order then. D'Lanie, you're -- you're up 

25 first. D'Lanie Blaze. 
131

1 Hold on a second. 

2 MS. BLAZE: This is my first time commenting -- 

3 DR. BRANCHE: One second -- 

4 MS. BLAZE: -- so I'm nervous. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: -- one second. I just want to 

6 make certain -- because we are starting the 

7 public comment period, I want to make certain 

8 that everybody understands the ground rules, 

9 please. 

10 MS. BLAZE: Okay. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we have to read this into 

12 the record. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Please understand that a person 

14 making a comment -- when you give your own 

15 name, there'll be no attempt to redact your 

16 name from the transcript. Including reading 

17 this statement during this public comment 

18 period, NIOSH is making all steps -- reasonable 

19 steps to ensure that individuals making public 

20 comment are aware of the fact that their 

21 comments, including their name, if provided, 

22 will appear in a transcript of the meeting 

23 posted on a public web site. A printed copy of 

24 the statement is available on our table in the 

25 back. The redaction policy was part of our 
132

1 Federal Register announcement, and there is a 

2 statement of our redaction policy on our NIOSH 

3 web site. 

4 An individual making a statement, if you reveal 

5 personal information such as medical 

6 information about yourself, that information 

7 will not usually be redacted. The NIOSH 

8 Freedom of Information Act coordinator will, 

9 however, review such revelations in accordance 

10 with the Freedom of Information Act and the 

11 Federal Advisory Committee Act and, if deemed 

12 appropriate, will redact such information. All 

13 disclosures of information concerning third 

14 parties will be redacted. 

15 Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. That goes for all of 

16 you who wish to -- stated a wish to speak 

17 today. Thank you very much. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, and now we'll hear from 

19 Ms. Blaze. 

20 MS. BLAZE: I'm D'Lanie Blaze. I founded the 

21 aerospace.org and -- am -- am I on the mike 

22 enough? 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

24 MS. BLAZE: Can you hear me? Okay. We're 

25 currently addressing our desire to see chronic 
133

1 lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, added to the list 

2 of specified cancers immediately. And also 

3 we're addressing the issues of Santa Susana 

4 Field Laboratory and the inclusion of every 

5 employee at Santa Susana Field Lab under the 

6 Energy Employee Occupational Illness 

7 Compensation Program Act of 2000 after lots of 

8 site-wide contamination at the hands of the 

9 Department of Energy continues to surface even 

10 today. 

11 Today I'd like to talk about the addition of 

12 CLL, which the World Health Organization, the 

13 Revised European-American Lymphoma 

14 Classification Scheme, the Veterans 

15 Administration and renowned researchers, 

16 scientists and medical professionals nationwide 

17 have acknowledged and reclassified to be 

18 analogous with small lymphocytic lymphoma, 

19 which is on the list of specified cancers. It 

20 is a known consequence of radiation exposure. 

21 The science has been sufficient to motivate a 

22 timely reclassification to CLL by the 

23 aforementioned organizations and entities. 

24 However, NIOSH and EEOICPA are lagging behind 

25 the rest of the world with respect to making 
134

1 the reclassification. 

2 The report entitled Ionizing Radiation and CLL, 

3 which was published in the Environmental Health 

4 Perspectives, Volume 113, Number 1, January 

5 2005, authored by Dr. David Richardson from the 

6 Department of Epidemiology, University of North 

7 Carolina at Chapel Hill, validates the 

8 reclassification of CLL by all of the entities 

9 that I mentioned. And even he says this is a 

10 problem of logical consistency. For a 

11 specialist in the field, all he does is study 

12 CLL, and for him to say that this is a problem 

13 of logical consistency for SLL to be 

14 acknowledged and CLL to be denied, that has got 

15 to raise our -- our red flags. We need to be 

16 listening to what the specialists have to say. 

17 The Japanese atomic bomb survivor lifespan 

18 study has served as a primary study for the 

19 carcinogenic effects of ionizing radiation, and 

20 it is now known that it provided very inept 

21 results with respect to CLL in that, according 

22 to Finch and Linet in 1992, and -- and others, 

23 Asian Pacific Islander populations are up to 80 

24 percent less likely to develop CLL. With 

25 problems of missed diagnosis, a long latency 
135

1 period, there were unreasonable exposure lag 

2 assumptions with respect to the nuclear cohorts 

3 that were examined, and further, many of the 

4 studies reviewed were mortality studies and CLL 

5 is often a non-fatal illness. 

6 In the report CLL, an Overview of Etiology, and 

7 in light of recent development in 

8 classification and pathogenesis from the 

9 British Journal of Hematology in 2007 by Martha 

10 S. Linet, Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the 

11 National Cancer Institute, she substantiates 

12 the reclassification of CLL by the World Health 

13 Organization, the Revised European-American 

14 Lymphoma Classification Scheme, along with the 

15 major reclassification scheme for all lymphoid 

16 and myeloid disorders. CLL has been grouped 

17 with SLL and it is based on identical cytology, 

18 histopathology, immunophenotype and 

19 cytogenetics. Additionally she reminds us all 

20 that leukemia has been a known consequence of 

21 radiation for over 100 years. 

22 I have submitted over probably 500 pages of 

23 recent scientific evidence linking Chronic 

24 Lymphocytic Leukemia to radiation exposure and 

25 validating its reclassification. I have the 
136

1 information on my web site, which is, again, 

2 the aerospace.org, and I'm asking the panel to 

3 include this illness on the list of specified 

4 cancers without further delay. This is a 

5 national outcry. 

6 Thank you. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Ms. Blaze, 

8 for that input. Let's go on now to Bonnie 

9 Klea. 

10 MS. KLEA: Can I bring my map up front? 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. She's a petitioner. 

12 MS. KLEA: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Klea, I just have a quick 

14 question. Is that the on-- I'm speaking to 

15 you. I'm speaking to you. Is that the only 

16 visual that you have? Do you have any handouts 

17 that are -- of this -- of this information? 

18 I'm just asking. 

19 MS. KLEA: No. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Okay. Thank you. 

21 MS. KLEA: No, I'm not that prepared. 

22 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

23 MS. KLEA: I mean I'm prepared. 

24 DR. BRANCHE: I don't doubt that you're 

25 prepared. I'm just asking. 
137

1 MS. KLEA: I'll get you anything you want. 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

3 MS. KLEA: I'm Bonnie Klea, and I'm a 

4 petitioner for the Santa Susana Field Lab, 

5 petition number 93. I don't know if many of 

6 you know it, but the Santa Susana Field Lab is 

7 a sister to the Rocky Flats facility. We 

8 trained many of the workers for Rocky Flats and 

9 for the Hanford facility, and we also -- also 

10 shared environmental crimes. We've both had 

11 FBI raids. We both went to the grand jury. We 

12 sent the manager to Rocky Flats when they had 

13 their FBI raid. We were very closely 

14 connected. They were both run by the Rockwell 

15 Company. And at the time when they were in 

16 operation they were competing with GE and 

17 Westinghouse, so it was -- it was very common 

18 for them to run their reactors until they 

19 failed, and then they wrote procedure and -- 

20 let's see. 

21 We had ten experimental reactors, and you 

22 probably heard of the biggest reactor right 

23 here would have been the sodium experiment -- 

24 the sodium reactor experiment. In the early 

25 days the SRE piped all their liquid discharge 
138

1 into holding ponds behind the facility and -- 

2 and this is all on a cliff, everything's on a 

3 cliff. Well, those failed, the -- the concrete 

4 basins failed and cracked. So then they 

5 rerouted the liquid waste along the roads and 

6 the -- the gutters and put them in holding 

7 ponds in other areas. Areas 2 had several 

8 holding ponds, as well as the Silvernale 

9 facility. Now -- let's see. 

10 Up here on the Los Angeles side, this would 

11 have been -- the San Fernando Valley -- we had 

12 a reservoir that was built in 1919 and it 

13 served millions of people in the San Fernando 

14 Valley. And guess what? It drained from the 

15 Burro Flats area. There was a fault called the 

16 Burro Flats fault that drained all the water 

17 off of this facility directly into the drinking 

18 water reservoir, and then I just -- we just 

19 found a 1956 report that the -- the company was 

20 going to save money by building a pit 15 by 

21 five feet and discharging 1,000 gallons per day 

22 into that pit. And they found a real nice area 

23 right by a large fault, and they thought that 

24 fault was sealed and it wouldn't drain. So 

25 therefore, ten years after the operation, the 
139

1 Department of Water and Power built a -- a 

2 tunnel draining all the runoff from the 

3 facility over to the Los Angeles River, and 

4 they drained the reservoir and that reservoir 

5 was never refilled. And we have data at this 

6 time that shows that the rads in the drinking 

7 water was six times the -- the water that they 

8 were piping in. 

9 So the whole facility actually drained into the 

10 San Fernando Valley. We have three canyons 

11 over here on the -- on the eastern side, and 

12 then we have the city of Simi Valley over here 

13 on the north. They have contaminants in their 

14 drinking water. Also Area IV drained into the 

15 Brandeis-Bardin Children's Camp and they -- the 

16 company had to purchase back a buffer zone. So 

17 on every side of the hill -- and this is 1,000 

18 feet above the valley floor -- we have 

19 migration of contamination. 

20 In this grassy area here they dropped field* 

21 slugs to see how far they would penetrate into 

22 the ground, and at this time they're still 

23 trying to find missing field slugs. 

24 We had -- we had the largest hot lab in the 

25 country. Waste from all companies was trucked 
140

1 up here into that hot lab. 

2 We also had a plutonium fabrication facility, 

3 and I've just met two workers who worked there 

4 in the early '60s and they said they had a 

5 large accident in that -- in that facility and 

6 everyone who worked there had to have their 

7 houses tested, and the -- the negative pressure 

8 went to positive, it blew out all the 

9 gloveboxes. 

10 We had SNAP-8 ER. In 1964 it was run to a 

11 maximum power. The operators got an award for 

12 that, but it lost 80 percent of the cladding. 

13 And you may know that the sodium reactor 

14 experiment lost 13 fuel rods to total melting. 

15 We call that a meltdown. We also had SNAP-8 DR 

16 and it -- I think it was 1965, it lost 70 of 

17 their fuel rods to cladding failure. So the -- 

18 the work there was totally experimental. 

19 And one thing I want to point out is they used 

20 to send a bus from Area IV into the rocket 

21 testing site. This was Area I where they did 

22 rocket testing. And they used to pick up the 

23 workers to help support the work in Area IV. 

24 Now one thing I will be working on will be to 

25 include all the workers at this facility. So 
141

1 many of the workers worked here. They may have 

2 a few days on record with DOE, but they don't 

3 have all their days. And now those workers are 

4 sick. 

5 On the western San Fernando Valley that borders 

6 close to the Santa Sus-- Santa Susana Field 

7 Lab, we've had a very high rate of bladder 

8 cancer since the '70s. We've had three major 

9 studies that have shown bladder cancer of 50 

10 percent, and now it's up to 55 percent, with 

11 melanomas at 85 percent. And I'm finding many 

12 of the workers also have bladder cancer. My -- 

13 the latest worker who was diagnosed was two 

14 years ago, and he operated SNAP-8 ER, so these 

15 are long latency cancers, but many more bladder 

16 cancers than any of the other 22, and that's 

17 what I had. I had bladder cancer also and I 

18 consider myself the canary in the mine. I was 

19 a woman, I was only 20, and we know that women 

20 are more at risk. I had no other job. This 

21 was the only place I ever worked, and when I 

22 was diagnosed with cancer, the first thing my 

23 doctors asked me was where did I work. 

24 Over here at the -- the so-- they old -- they 

25 call it the former sodium burn pit. It was off 
142

1 on this site, not on the map, but there were 

2 three large ponds and this pit operated daily 

3 for 20 years. They had a radioactive burial 

4 site there. They had three liquid ponds there 

5 where they cleaned parts and then the workers 

6 thought it'd be really funny to throw the 

7 sodium in there and it would explode, and that 

8 -- those pits in that old burn facility is 

9 found to contain strontium, plutonium and 

10 cesium. 

11 So they closed that in around 1974, and then 

12 they built their new burn pit over here in Area 

13 I and they trucked the waste from Area IV over 

14 to Area I. And currently the EPA is in the 

15 process of testing for rads in that burn pit. 

16 It's totally covered up to -- to prevent 

17 migration. 

18 We also are the site in southern California of 

19 the Santa Ana winds. They blow from the north, 

20 which would be over here. They blow northeast, 

21 so anything that was burned over here in the 

22 sodium burn pits would have contaminated the 

23 workers from the whole site and the San 

24 Fernando Valley, hurricane -- hurricane-force 

25 winds from the Santa Anas. 
143

1 The workers, especially the secretaries -- I 

2 was a secretary -- we didn't spend a lot of 

3 time in our offices. Our offices really didn't 

4 have what we needed. We had to go outside and 

5 walk maybe down the road, across the street to 

6 the ditto lab where they had the ditto 

7 machines, and many of you older workers will 

8 remember that. We had another building that 

9 was a photo lab. We had another building that 

10 was a supply room. Another building, we'd go 

11 pick up mail every day. So I had no respect -- 

12 no restrictions. I had a Q clearance and the 

13 Atomic Energy Commission gave me a car. Every 

14 week I'd go out to all the outlying buildings 

15 and I'd deliver the paychecks and -- I had no 

16 restrictions whatsoever. I was not even given 

17 any instructions on what they were doing there 

18 or safety practices at all. 

19 Now I did mention that all the water was 

20 drained from Area IV, went into holding ponds 

21 in Area II, and we had on-site drinking wells 

22 that they used for us and they'd pump 

23 groundwater, and -- and they didn't test it, 

24 they didn't test it for rads so we don't know 

25 what was in our drinking water. 
144

1 We carpooled. Carpooling was encouraged. Now 

2 in the early days the workers wore the same 

3 clothes to work as they wore home, and I've 

4 heard stories from many workers they were told 

5 -- when they got home -- to bury their clothes; 

6 have their wife wash them in a separate load, 

7 not with the family laundry. So we were 

8 carpooling, and who knows what the workers had 

9 on their clothes. 

10 We had a reclaimed water system. When the 

11 water was drained from Area IV, storm water 

12 runoff, it was put in holding ponds. We had 

13 holding tanks up here for the reclaimed water 

14 system, and all the rocket test stands used 

15 that reclaimed water to cool down the rocket 

16 engines after they had done a test firing. The 

17 reclaimed water was also used for site-wide 

18 irrigation, so there's another potential 

19 pathway of airborne contamination. 

20 Also we have workers who have told me that they 

21 were under lifetime secrecy. I have a 90-year22 old plutonium fuel rod specialist who made the 

23 fuel rods, and they had a large accident in 

24 1958. It wasn't at this site but it was at the 

25 VanOwen site, and I've been unable to do a FOIA 
145

1 request and get any documentation, so I have 

2 about 150 of the fuel workers working with 

3 plutonium that are under lifetime secrecy, so I 

4 don't know if other sites have had this 

5 problem, so we are unable to really get 

6 accurate records. But the whole -- the whole 

7 site is under federal mandate at this time to 

8 produce records, and we've received from the 

9 Boeing Company 40 stories high estimated of new 

10 records. And like I say, I have a old 1956 

11 report which is pretty interesting about 

12 dumping the liquid radioactive waste directly 

13 into the ground. They knew it would take a 

14 while before it would get to the groundwater, 

15 and they thought that the rock in that area 

16 would saturate and hold it, but that's not true 

17 because ten years later the reservoir was 

18 drained and never ever used again. 

19 Thank you very much. Does anyone have any 

20 questions? 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Bonnie, for sharing 

22 that information with the Board. We -- 

23 MS. KLEA: Thank you. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: -- appreciate that. 

25 DR. BRANCHE: I need to ask her something. 
146

1 DR. ZIEMER: A comment here. 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Klea? 

3 MS. KLEA: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Klea? I'm speaking to you. 

5 MS. KLEA: Yes? 

6 DR. BRANCHE: I just wanted to let you know 

7 that if you did have that information and if 

8 you have it in a form electronically that you 

9 would want it sent to the Board, if you were to 

10 send it to me I can make certain that they each 

11 get individual copies if you would prefer. 

12 MS. KLEA: I've already suggested that the 

13 Board should get it directly from Boeing. 

14 Boeing has submitted it to the EPA, and we 

15 can't -- we can only read it if we go over to 

16 the office in the Chatsworth area and sit and 

17 read it. It's actually prohibited from taking 

18 out, even though we've gotten copies of some 

19 things. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

21 MS. KLEA: So if there's something specific, 

22 I'll get it. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: It was just a -- no, please, no 

24 pressure on you. It's just that it's a visual 

25 and if -- if -- but you've given us 
147

1 information. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: No, she -- I think she's just 

3 talking about this diagram. Right? 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah, I was just talking about 

5 the diagram. 

6 MS. KLEA: Oh, really? 

7 DR. ZIEMER: If there were copies of that you 

8 were -- yeah. 

9 MS. KLEA: Okay, I'm -- I'm borrowing this from 

10 another activist, but you'd like to have that? 

11 DR. BRANCHE: I'm simply offering you the 

12 opportunity if you would like to get copies of 

13 that to the Board -- 

14 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: -- then I'm happy to work with 

16 you. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: But it's not -- it's not -- 

18 DR. BRANCHE: It's not required. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- no. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: It's not required, I'm just 

21 offering that opportunity to you. I can talk 

22 to you afterwards to see how you might want to 

23 facilitate that. 

24 MS. KLEA: Okay, does anyone have any idea how 

25 I would -- 
148

1 DR. BRANCHE: We -- we can talk about it off 

2 line. 

3 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you very much. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Then we'll hear from Denise DeGarm 

6 (sic). Denise is here on behalf of Dow 

7 Madison, I believe -- yeah. 

8 DR. DEGARMO: I am here on behalf of Dow 

9 Madison. I saw you all in St. Louis so it's 

10 kind of fun to be here in California, out of 

11 St. Louis, but as you know, the Dow Madison 

12 site has an SEC for 1957 through 1960. We're 

13 covered under a residual period. There's been 

14 quite a bit of discussion about the use of dose 

15 reconstruction to evaluate those individuals 

16 under the residual period. So what I'd like to 

17 do -- I don't know if you want me -- you have 

18 copies of this, do you want me to read it into 

19 the record or -- they're coming right now. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Is it just a page? 

21 DR. DEGARMO: It's a page and a half, at -- 

22 DR. ZIEMER: I would suggest you go ahead and 

23 read it into the record. 

24 DR. DEGARMO: Okay, I'd be happy to. On August 

25 21st, as you know, there was a discussion by 
149

1 the S-- SC&A about dose reconstruction. My 

2 letter begins (reading) It is with great 

3 interest that I listened to the SC&A's 

4 discussion of the Interactive 

5 RadioEpidemiological Program on August 21st, 

6 2008. I believe the initial findings regarding 

7 the use of IREP to reconstruct exposures for 

8 the workers at Dow Chemical in Madison, 

9 Illinois to be quite insightful, especially in 

10 terms of problems associated with the use of 

11 this model. 

12 As SC&A stated, Dow Madison was not originally 

13 constructed to perform work for the Atomic 

14 Energy Commission. Therefore, appropriate 

15 measures to protect workers from radiological 

16 hazards were not part of the original 

17 blueprints. Rather they were afterthoughts, 

18 which left workers to perform their jobs 

19 without the benefit of protective equipment 

20 throughout the AEC period. While there is the 

21 existence of some radiological readings, there 

22 are too few of them. Basically most of these 

23 are air readings that were taken throughout the 

24 plant. Therefore, information about exposure 

25 rates is inadequate to capture the actual 
150

1 radiation workers were exposed to on a daily 

2 basis. 

3 After an extensive evaluation of the IREP model 

4 I would like to take this opportunity to point 

5 out additional problems associated with its 

6 use. First, dose estimates -- dose estimates 

7 used in the model are problematic because of 

8 Dow's failure to monitor workers on a 

9 consistent basis, or monitor the particular 

10 isotopes of concern. Furthermore, the 

11 retrieval of applicable records has been 

12 difficult, if not impossible. Records such as 

13 bad read-- badge readings and internal 

14 dosimetry cannot be found for the Dow workers. 

15 In some case the workers lack access to 

16 adequate medical records because the company 

17 kept none. External readings cannot adequately 

18 replace medical records in establishing the 

19 probability of exposure. Without bioassay or 

20 badge external dosimetry, how can anyone be 

21 expected to have confidence in the dose 

22 estimated -- estimates generated for the use in 

23 IREP. 

24 Secondly, the decision to compensate former 

25 atomic weapons workers is not made from the 
151

1 injury sustained by the worker, but from 

2 epidemiological evidence that is largely 

3 statistical. There are several statistical 

4 problems inherent in the IREP model. First, 

5 the use of a 99 percent confidence interval 

6 increases the probability of a type two error. 

7 Type two errors occur when one concludes that 

8 there is nothing there when there actually is. 

9 In computing the overall risk to an individual 

10 employee, IREP uses aggregate data -- level 

11 data to impute the levels of radiation exposure 

12 down to an individual employee. This is the 

13 ecological fallacy at its finest. Since the 

14 model does not even attempt to remedy this 

15 situation, the results are questionable at 

16 best. 

17 There are other statistical assumptions made, 

18 such as the constant level of radiological 

19 exposure. We all know that the level of 

20 exposure varies considerably. I would suspect 

21 that the standard deviation as a result of this 

22 would be so high that no one could be concluded 

23 to have cancer caused by radiation exposure. 

24 The correction factor in the model is not based 

25 on theory but rather on the belief that it 
152

1 represents a higher risk. If not grounded in 

2 theory, then how can we be sure that it does 

3 what NIOSH says it does? 

4 IREP's dose estimates are predicated upon the 

5 use of thorium with less than three percent 

6 purity. The Atomic Energy Commission licenses 

7 would refute this claim. According to license 

8 number C-2782, for instance, Dow Madison worked 

9 with thorium sintered pellets with 90 percent -

10 - 97 percent thorium, and thorium fluoride with 

11 71 percent thorium. 

12 Finally, the model does not account for those 

13 who received early detection of their cancer. 

14 It appears as if the workers are being punished 

15 for having their cancers detected early on, and 

16 detecting cancer early provides the best chance 

17 of surviving this disease. 

18 In addition to these problems with the model, a 

19 couple of other considerations should be 

20 mentioned. In many cases researchers have been 

21 denied access to relevant health and 

22 environmental data, which limits the ability 

23 for an external and independent review of 

24 methods and findings. Furthermore, the ability 

25 of community organizations to independently 
153

1 evaluate how cited sources of information have 

2 been analyzed is not readily available. 

3 Also there seems to be a communication gap 

4 between workers and NIOSH. Many of the former 

5 atomic weapons employees have little formal 

6 education. Their ability to understand the 

7 complexities involved with the EEOICPA is 

8 limited at best. Furthermore, their lack of 

9 education makes effective communication with 

10 officials quite difficult. Therefore I cannot 

11 help but wonder if they are fully aware of 

12 their rights, such as requesting copies of all 

13 the documents used during their dose 

14 reconstructions. 

15 As you move forward in your determination 

16 regarding the use of IREP to reconstruct 

17 radiological dose estimates for Dow Madison, I 

18 hope you will take these comments into 

19 consideration. 

20 Thank you. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: And thank you very much for those 

22 comments. Let me ask, is there anyone else in 

23 the assembly, members of the public that have 

24 comments that didn't have an opportunity to 

25 sign up for that? 
154

1 MR. FUNKE: Dr. Zimmer (sic)? 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, is there anyone on the phone 

3 that wishes to make comment? 

4 MR. FUNKE: Yes, this is John Funke. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mr. Funke, you may proceed. 

6 MR. FUNKE: Dr. Zimmer (sic), I turned over an 

7 18-page report to Larry Elliott to turn over to 

8 all of you. I hope you have it by now. This 

9 report -- 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we do. 

11 MR. FUNKE: -- is Nevada Test Site sample 

12 stations, and during the last working Board 

13 meeting in -- that I listened in on, this 

14 subject came up and was pretty much left open. 

15 When the discussion was over there was no 

16 resolution on anything. And I am very familiar 

17 with these stations and I'm very familiar with 

18 the Test Site as I worked in just about every 

19 part of -- of the Test Site out there. And I 

20 did a lot of research on this. In fact, I 

21 worked about two weeks -- relationship to the 

22 locations of the sample stations, the purpose 

23 they were put there for in the first place, the 

24 year -- the date that they were installed, the 

25 elevations of the test site and the distances 
155

1 between the sample stations and how they relate 

2 to workplace air quality. I'd like to point 

3 out that these sample stations never were 

4 intended for the purpose they're being used 

5 right now. They were installed for complex air 

6 quality for environmental. They do not give 

7 data that would re-- reflect what workers would 

8 have been exposed to in the workplace. And 

9 they are not set up in such a way where one 

10 will correlate the other or support the other's 

11 information. They vary in elevations between 

12 three to four hundred feet each. There are 

13 substantial miles of distances between them. 

14 Two of them are temporary, which are set up in 

15 Area 19 and 20, and there is no power, which 

16 you need power to run these sample stations. 

17 There is portable power up there, but it only 

18 runs when people need it. They turn it on to 

19 run a few electrical tools and they turn it off 

20 when they don't need it. They don't leave it 

21 running all night, and it doesn't run, you 

22 know, all day long in the work period. And 

23 most important of all, in the two areas we're 

24 talking about, 19 and 20, by the time the 

25 complex was set up where there was 24-hour 
156

1 power, by that time there would have been a 

2 substantial amount of snow on the ground so you 

3 wouldn't really got samples of -- of the air 

4 quality that people would have been going 

5 through while the work was going on there. 

6 And as to the other ones, they were located -- 

7 easy accessible and where a power supply was 

8 next to a dispensary or a cafeteria, and they 

9 would have been sufficient for air quality 

10 monitoring for environmental purposes in a 

11 complex, but they would not been substan-- they 

12 would not been satisfactory to do -- just a 

13 second -- to do studies of -- of the -- the 

14 exposures that the workers would have been 

15 exposed to. 

16 So I -- I would like you to -- to read this 

17 report and I would like to have an opportunity 

18 to address the working Board at the next 

19 meeting, if possible, and I would also like to 

20 ask you to charge Sanford and Cohen to go ahead 

21 and take a look at this document as well 

22 because John Murrow (sic) was litigating this 

23 matter. Maybe some of the information I have 

24 in there would help him. I think I've covered 

25 just about everything there is in this report 
157

1 with the exception of one thing. I did not put 

2 down the date when it was installed. It was 

3 installed in 1971, and it was only there for 21 

4 years of the 40-- wait a minute, 54 years the 

5 testing was done, so there was 30-something 

6 years in there when this wasn't even used, so I 

7 don't see how they can use this as 

8 environmental intake. 

9 And that's pretty much it. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. 

11 Funke, for that input on the Nevada Test Site, 

12 and the Board does have your com-- your 

13 document, as well as the workgroup itself. 

14 Let me now ask if any other members of the 

15 public on the phone that wish to address the 

16 Board? 

17 (No responses) 

18 Apparently not. Then we are ready to recess 

19 for the day. We're going to continue our 

20 deliberations tomorrow morning at 8:30. Thank 

21 you all very much. 

22 MS. KLEA: I have a question. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, a question. 

24 MS. KLEA: I have elected officials that I 

25 think are planning to call in during your 
158

1 comment -- 

2 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

3 MS. KLEA: -- period -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 

5 MS. KLEA: -- and if they're not on the line 

6 now, then they don't (unintelligible). 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Then -- then -- okay, do we know 

8 of any that are -- we will stay here and -- 

9 we'll take a break then and see if we can touch 

10 base with them. 

11 MS. KLEA: (Off microphone) Most people who 

12 have the agenda are waiting for that 5:00 

13 o'clock (unintelligible) -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Right, we'll need to accommodate 

15 them, so let's take a break and then we'll -- 

16 we'll return at 5:00 to get those additional 

17 comments. 

18 DR. BRANCHE: So we'll put the -- we'll put the 

19 phone on mute until 5:00 p.m. Thank you. 

20 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:30 p.m. 

21 to 5:00 p.m.) 

22 DR. ZIEMER: We are reconvening the Advisory 

23 Board for purposes of public comment. In 

24 particular we want to receive public comment 

25 from individuals who are on the phone lines who 
159

1 did not have an opportunity earlier where we 

2 had some public comment just prior to this from 

3 the floor here. Are there any members of the 

4 public on the line who wish to make public 

5 comment? 

6 (No responses) 

7 Again I'll ask, are there any members of the 

8 public on the telephone lines who wish to make 

9 public comment at this time? 

10 (No responses) 

11 So far there appear to be none that wish to 

12 make comment at this time. I'll wait just a 

13 moment. 

14 MS. MUNN: Perhaps we should wait a couple of 

15 minutes -- perhaps. I don't quite have 5:00 

16 yet. My cell phone is saying 5:00 o'clock 

17 right now. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: We'll wait just another moment in 

19 case others come on the line. 

20 (Pause) 

21 While we're waiting, I -- I would like to point 

22 out that we do have a fixed time public comment 

23 period scheduled for tomorrow evening at 7:30, 

24 so that will be another opportunity for folks, 

25 both here locally as well as on the phone 
160

1 lines, to make public comment to the Board. 

2 Let me -- let me check again. Is there anyone 

3 on the phone who wishes to make public comment 

4 at this time? 

5 (No responses) 

6 It appears that there are not. I think in the 

7 absence of any -- anyone on the phone line, I 

8 will declare that we are in recess until 

9 tomorrow morning at 8:30. Thank you very much. 

10 (Whereupon, the first day's business was 

11 adjourned at 5:02 p.m.) 

12 
161

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of Sept. 2, 

2008; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

4th day of Oct., 2008. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102 
162

I hereby certify that to the best of my 

knowledge, the Transcript of the September 2, 

2008 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health Meeting held at Redondo Beach, CA, is 

accurate and complete. 

______________________ 

October 11, 2008 

Paul L. Ziemer, Ph.D. 

Chair, Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health