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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL 

+ + + + + 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL 

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND 

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

63rd MEETING 

+ + + + + 

MONDAY, JULY 27, 2009 

+ + + + + 

 The meeting convened, at 1:30 p.m., 

in the West Chester III Ballroom at the 

Cincinnati Marriott North at Union Centre, 

6189 Muhlhauser Road, West Chester, Ohio, Paul 

L. Ziemer, Chairman, presiding. 

PRESENT: 

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Chairman 

JOSIE M. BEACH, Member 

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member 

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member 

MARK GRIFFON, Member 

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member 

JAMES MALCOLM MELIUS, Member 

WANDA I. MUNN, Member 

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member 

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member 

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member 
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PRESENT: (Continued) 

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member 

THEODORE M. KATZ, Acting Designated Federal 

 Official 

REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS: 

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor 

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE 

ALLEN, KELLY, US DOL 

ASHCRAFT, DANA, Mound Worker 

BEATTY, EVERETT "RAY", Fernald Medical 

BOHLEN, ANNE, Radar Screen Productions 

BRADFORD, SHANNON, NIOSH 

BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC 

BUELOW, HELEN, NIOSH 

CALLAWAY, ALLEN "MOOCH", Fernald Medical 

CHILDS, MICHAEL 

DECKER, RONALD 

DECKER, ROBERT 

DECKER, RICHARD 

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 

ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH 

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 

GIBSON, PAIGE, Mound/WHPP 

GILBERTSON, TRACEY, NIOSH 

HANSON, JOHN, SIUE/Dow Madison 

HERBERT, NICHOLE, NIOSH 

HINNEFELD, STU, NIOSH 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

JERISON, DEB, DEB 

KOTSCH, JEFF, US DOL 

LEWIS, GREG, DOE 

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MEDORA, RIASP 

NETON, JIM, NIOSH 

PARKER, ERIC 

PRESLEY, LOUISE 

RAFKY, MICHAEL, HHS 

RAMADEI, CATHY, CDC/MASO 
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ROBERTS, WANDA 

SHARFI, MUTTY, ORAU Team 

SHEEHAN, WARREN 

SIEBERT, SCOTT, ORAU Team 

STREET, GINGER 

TABOR, ROBERT, Fernald (Retired) 

ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 

WADE, LEW, NIOSH 

WORTHINGTON, PAT, DOE 

ZACCHERO, MARY JO, ORAU Team 

ZIEMER, MARILYN 
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Page

Call to Order and Welcome 7 

 Chairman Paul Ziemer 

Preliminary Comments 10 

 Ted Katz 

NIOSH Program Update 13 

 Larry Elliott, NIOSH 

DOL Program Update 46 

 Jeffrey L. Kotsch, DOL 

Mound Work Group 67 

 Josie Beach, WG Chair 

Business Items 92 

 Transcript Reviews 92 

 Future Meeting Dates 102 

DOE Update 115 

 Glenn Podonsky, DOE 122 

 Pat Worthington, DOE 135 
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S (CONTINUED) 

Public Comments 169 

 Matt Ferry 174 

 Representing Congressman Higgins 

 of New York 

 John Hanson 179 

 On behalf of the Dow Madison site 

 Dan McKeel 185 

 Petitioner for Dow Madison site 
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 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

1:45 p.m. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Good afternoon, 

everyone. 

 This is the meeting of the Advisory 

Board on Radiation and Worker Health, meeting 

in the Cincinnati area, more specifically, 

here in West Chester, Ohio. We are pleased to 

be here. 

 We have met in Cincinnati, our work 

groups, very often, and the Board has met here 

previously, notably, during a snowstorm. We 

are happy that there's no snowstorms today in 

the Cincinnati area. 

 The Board met earlier today in 

closed session to have its annual training on 

conflict of interest. We all now feel fairly 

well-trained. It is probably fortunate that 

it was closed session, so that none of you had 

to attend it. But, in any event, just for the 

record, the full Board was here for that 

training, annual training, as required by the 
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federal agencies that we are involved with. 

 We have a registration booklet in 

the foyer. If you have not already done so, 

we ask that you register your attendance with 

us today. This is everyone, Board members, 

federal staff members, consultants, members of 

the public. 

 Also, if any of you are interested 

in participating in the public comments 

session this evening, which begins at 7:00 

p.m., there is a sign-up registration there, 

so that we have some idea of the numbers of 

individuals who wish to address the assembly 

during the public comments session. So, if 

you are interested in doing that, please sign 

up at your convenience before we have the 

break later in the afternoon. 

 On the table in the rear of the 

room, there are many documents. There are 

copies of today's agenda, as well as handouts 

and documents relating to the items on our 

agenda. 
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 In general, the Board will follow 

the agenda as it is given, although not all of 

the items are what we could call time-certain. 

 That is, we may get ahead of schedule or we 

may get behind schedule. Certainly, today we 

will simply move through the items as they 

come up. 

 Tomorrow's session, where we have 

specific SEC petitions that we are dealing 

with, we will typically consider those timecertain because we may have petitioners on the 

phone that wish to participate, and the times 

become more critical for those folks in terms 

of when they plan to be on the phone lines. 

 But, otherwise, unless something 

occurs that causes us to skip around, we will 

follow the agenda as it is given. Now what 

would cause us to skip around would be that 

the Chairman senses that we are so far ahead 

of schedule that we can do some of our 

Wednesday work earlier. Well, we will try to 

do that. But, other than that, we will 
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proceed as indicated. 

 Again, we are pleased to be in the 

Cincinnati area, not only because there are 

facilities of interest in this area, in Ohio, 

but also OSHA, or NIOSH rather, has principal 

offices here. Many of the staff members are 

located here locally as well. 

 Our Designated Federal Official is 

Mr. Theodore Katz, known as Ted. 

 Ted, you have some preliminary 

comments for us? 

 MR. KATZ: Yes. Thank you. 

 Well, first of all, just a welcome 

to everybody, to the Board members, the 

participants, staff, and the public. Welcome 

on behalf of Secretary Sebelius and the Acting 

Director of NIOSH, Christine Branche, who is 

here today. This Board advises the Secretary 

and NIOSH. So we are glad you all are here 

and able to participate. 

 Just a few logistical things to 

cover: one, in terms of your own safety, exit 
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from here, were there a fire or an emergency, 

there are exits. Go out the door straight to 

the right, and then right again or straight to 

the left, and then left again. There are 

emergency exits as well as, of course, 

straight through the lobby to the front doors. 

 So to let you know that. 

 Another logistical thing for the 

people who are participating by telephone, 

please mute your phones while you are 

listening, except when you are addressing the 

forum here. You can mute your phone, if you 

don't have a mute button, using *6, and then, 

again, to unmute your phone, if you were to 

want to address the group, you would hit *6 

again. If you need to leave the call for some 

time, please just hang up; don't use your hold 

button for that. Just hang up and then dial 

back in. 

 So that is a couple of logistical 

things. I also want to let people know we 

have with us for the Board -- I believe all 
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three days she will be here -- Anne Bohlen, 

who is a private filmmaker, very accomplished 

and recognized. She is doing a work on the 

nuclear facilities in Ohio, a documentary. So 

I just want to let everybody know she's 

filming, will be filming. She's not doing 

this on behalf of the agency or the 

government. This is her private enterprise, 

but, of course, she is welcome to do this and 

we are glad to have her with us. 

 I believe that covers the 

waterfront. Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, Ted. 

You didn't mention whether or not, after Ms. 

Bohlen's film is highly recognized and 

awarded, whether there will be residuals for 

the Board members or not, but our training 

this morning tells us that we can't accept 

anything. 

 Mr. Clawson has a comment. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just wanted, as 

you spoke earlier about our ethics training 
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that we had, and as Christine Branche brought 

out, I just want to make sure that the record 

showed that she was going to look into some of 

the issues that we have, and so forth, and 

would be reporting back to us. I just felt 

that the report -- 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. For the 

record, there were some questions on 

procedures and policies that arose. I don't 

believe we will discuss them now, but, just 

for the record, Dr. Branche did commit to 

looking into some of the issues and will 

report back to the Board at an appropriate 

time on the policies that relate to the 

Board's conflict-of-interest policies. 

 Now let us proceed with the agenda 

items. The first one this afternoon is our 

NIOSH update. Larry Elliott is here to bring 

us that update. 

 Welcome, Larry. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Good afternoon, 

ladies and gentlemen of the Board and members 
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of the public, staff. Welcome to the 

Cincinnati area. We are certainly glad to 

have you here. It's going to be nice for 

staff to be able to sleep in their own beds 

tonight here in Cincinnati. So we take note 

of that and show our appreciation of you 

holding a meeting here in Cincinnati. 

 Generally, as you know, I start off 

with a couple of news briefs about the program 

before I get into my presentation with slides. 

 Today, I would like to begin with 

an update on the Ruttenber database. As you 

know, this is a database that was developed 

for the Rocky Flats plant, a mortality study 

that was conducted by Dr. Ruttenber and his 

study team. 

 We have completed an evaluation of 

the Ruttenber database for its impact on Rocky 

Flats Special Exposure Cohort eligibility. 

This report outlines and confirms our original 

understanding from conversations with Dr. 

Ruttenber that the source of the dosimetry 
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data that was used in the NDRP and the source 

of the Ruttenber studies are the same, and 

that the dosimetry data NIOSH uses in its work 

under EEOICPA is as complete as possible and 

as complete as the Ruttenber dataset. The 

report is available on our website under the 

SEC documents for the Rocky Flats plant. 

 The second news brief I would like 

to bring your attention to is that Dade 

Moeller & Associates, which is one of the 

teaming partner companies for the Oak Ridge 

Associated Universities team, which recently 

won our dose reconstruction technical support 

contract, recently began work as a mission 

support contractor for the Department of 

Energy at the Hanford site. 

 Last September, well in advance of 

the award to Dade Moeller & Associates by the 

Department of Energy, ORAU took action to 

ensure that it was in compliance with the 

NIOSH policy on Conflict or Bias, as well as 

the ORAU team's Conflict or Bias 
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Implementation Plan. 

 These actions included declaring a 

corporate conflict for the Hanford site for 

all Dade Moeller staff and updating all of the 

Conflict or Bias Disclosure Forms for each 

individual Dade Moeller staff. 

 There was also an effort to 

reassign all dose reconstructions that were 

currently underway by Dade Moeller staff for 

Hanford claimants. Those reassignments were 

then given to other ORAU team partners to work 

since Dade Moeller had declared a conflict. 

 There was also one individual 

document owner that had to be replaced since 

they were a Dade Moeller associate working on 

a document for Hanford. So it was conflicted 

and had to be replaced with a non-conflicted 

key document owner. 

 All of this information is 

available on our website. If you have 

interest in that, you should check that out. 

If there are concerns about the Policy on 
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Conflict or Bias and how it is being applied, 

I encourage you as an individual to seek out 

the NIOSH Conflict or Bias Officer that is 

listed on the website. 

 Seven years ago, an office was 

established at NIOSH to perform dose 

reconstructions and conduct other technical 

activities to assist the energy workers and 

their survivors, and also to support the 

Secretary of Health and Human Services under 

this compensation program that we all know now 

as EEOICPA. 

 Developing the infrastructure for 

the program required promulgating rules. 

These are major rules, rules on Probability of 

Causation and dose reconstruction methodology, 

as well as how to process petitions under the 

Special Exposure Cohort. 

 We were also heavily involved seven 

years ago in hiring staff and contractors and 

developing knowledge and also developing a 

myriad of technical procedures that had to be 
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established for use in this program. 

 During that time, thousands of 

claims were being sent to NIOSH. Claims were 

eligible to be received July 31st of 2001, and 

in late October, NIOSH started receiving boxes 

of claims. 

 As you know, by the time NIOSH was 

able to begin performing dose reconstructions, 

there was a backlog of thousands of claims, 

representing thousands of workers or their 

survivors who were waiting for an answer. 

 Since that time, NIOSH has provided 

an answer for a vast majority of claims. More 

than 80 percent of the 30,000 claims that 

require radiation dose reconstruction have 

been provided an answer through the Department 

of Labor. Of the 4,610 claims that you see on 

this site that are currently remaining at 

NIOSH, these are active claims. These 

represent about 14 percent of the claims that 

have been sent to NIOSH. 

 We have 548 cases that are 
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currently administratively closed. Our work 

is done unless the claimant comes forward with 

a signed OCAS-1 form indicating they have no 

further information to provide, or if they 

provide new information that has bearing upon 

the claim, then we would reopen that 

administratively-closed claim. 

 This pie chart presents the case 

status as of June 30th, 2009. You can see 

here that the majority is in blue, as being 

completed. Those that have been pulled from 

our caseload by the Department of Labor for 

various reasons are shown in gray. They 

represent about 3 percent of the claims 

totally sent to us. 

 There are 8 percent that have been 

pulled in this -- I think that looks like a 

maroon-colored bar or color to me -- that have 

been SEC pulled, pulled from our claim 

population because they are perhaps eligible 

for the Special Exposure Cohort class that 

they fit into, and the Department of Labor is 
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determining that eligibility. 

 I mentioned earlier the one 

category of administratively-closed claims. 

They are about 2 percent, leaving us the 

active claims, and then, of that, we have 

pended 921 claims. I will speak about those 

in more detail in a moment. 

 If we look at the active cases, 

4,610 remaining at NIOSH, there are 1,779 that 

are currently in the dose reconstruction 

process. Four hundred and forty initial draft 

dose reconstruction reports have been mailed 

to the claimants, and we are in return of the 

OCAS-1. There are 2,391 cases that are in 

development to begin the dose reconstruction 

process. As I said, 921 cases of this active 

caseload are pending. 

 We take note of how old claims are. 

 In this situation of our active caseload, we 

have 2,603 cases, and 56 percent are older 

than one year. 

 Of the 921 pended cases at NIOSH, 
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you will see here the top six categories are: 

 TBD revisions in process. There 

are 774 claims pended because of some change 

in the Technical Basis Document. I would note 

here that Hanford represents around 600 of 

those claims pended because of Technical Basis 

Document questions. 

 There is an additional 55 claims 

that are awaiting DOE data requests, and 39 

that are tied up in SEC recommendations and 

considerations, 23 that we are awaiting the 

identification of a new survivor in order to 

process the claim. We have 18 that are pended 

because of issues that were discussed during 

the closeout interview, and those issues are 

under investigation. We have 13 that are 

pended because of SEC petitioner status. 

 From the beginning, NIOSH's core 

values have been an integral part of the 

development of NIOSH's activities under the 

compensation program. In particular, our core 

values of quality of science, transparency, 
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and accountability are at the heart of our 

actions, decisions, and communications. 

 First and foremost, we strive at 

NIOSH to bring the best available science, 

transparency, and accountability to the dose 

reconstruction of radiation doses for cancerrelated claims. 

 It is important to note that 

Congress recognized the potential for a lack 

of monitoring records for workers eligible for 

this compensation program, and they specified 

that methods for radiation dose reconstruction 

should be established by regulation. 

 Specifically, the law required the 

promulgation of a rule to establish scientific 

methods for arriving at reasonable estimates 

of radiation dose for those individuals who 

were not monitored for radiation, for those 

individuals who were monitored inadequately, 

and for those individuals who were monitored 

but the records were missing or are 

incomplete. 
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 In the process of establishing this 

rule, both the general public and more than 30 

stakeholder organizations were asked for 

input, and NIOSH reviewed over 200 pages of 

their comments. In addition, NIOSH was 

adamant that each claimant would have the 

opportunity to be interviewed prior to the 

dose reconstruction process beginning and 

again when the draft dose reconstruction was 

prepared. 

 These interviews are an opportunity 

for claimants both to provide information and 

to ask questions about the process. There 

have been close to 100,000 interviews with 

claimants that have been conducted. 

 Although radiation dose 

reconstruction efforts have been ongoing in 

the United States for several decades, this 

type of radiation dose reconstruction for a 

compensation program was and still is 

unfamiliar to many people. Each dose 

reconstruction is individual and each has its 
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own unique characteristics and complexities. 

 NIOSH has painstakingly pored over 

thousands of boxes and tens of thousands of 

individual documents to acquire the records 

and the data needed to provide claimants with 

an answer for their claims. We have also 

integrated the information provided by 

claimants, site experts, and subject matter 

experts, as well as from outreach meetings. 

In fact, NIOSH's efforts have made more 

information on the facilities and the 

operations at those facilities available to 

energy employees and to the general public 

than ever before. 

 Because the dose reconstructions in 

this program are individual and complex, and 

because of the potential for a lack of 

monitoring records, the dose reconstruction 

methods used by NIOSH have consistently given 

benefit of the doubt to the claimant whenever 

there is a question or uncertainty about the 

amount of radiation exposure that the claimant 
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or the worker may have received. That is, 

when there are two equally-plausible exposure 

scenarios, NIOSH selects a scenario that 

provides the higher dose to the organ or the 

tissue that developed the cancer. 

 The benefit of the doubt I believe 

is evident in the Probability of Causation 

percentages for the 21,418 claims that have 

had a dose reconstruction, as you can see in 

this slide, where 32 percent of the cases had 

a PoC of higher than 50 percent, much higher 

than DOE's original estimate when the program 

was established. 

 When asked by the Office of 

Management and Budget and the Congressional 

Budget Office, they predicted that less than 5 

percent of the nuclear weapons workers with 

cancer would have a Probability of Causation 

of 50 percent or higher. 

 If we look at the distributions of 

PoC that have been returned to the Department 

of Labor for a decision, you will see in this 
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slide that there is a large number of claims 

that fall into the 0 to 10 percent PoC 

category. We work very hard, when a claim 

falls into the 41 to 49 percent, as you know, 

and we make sure that those are our best 

estimate doses. We also run those cases 

multiple times through our IREP scenario to 

make sure that they are statisticallyaccurate. 

 The quality of science and the 

benefit of the doubt that we give claimants 

are a foundation for NIOSH's process for 

changes in the scientific elements that are 

underlying the dose reconstruction process. 

This is all based on scientific progress as 

well as new information that comes to light. 

 This is explicitly outlined in our 

dose reconstruction rule and updates of 

certain scientific elements of the dose 

reconstructions that can be recommended by the 

public at any time. 

 In this reworks slide, for example, 
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what reworks mean to claimants are different 

things, but it is relevant that when new 

information comes to light, that we take 

another look at the claim that was dose 

reconstructed under prior information or prior 

methodology and examine whether or not the new 

information or the new methodology will change 

the outcome of that claim. So our rule 

indicates to us that, when a change occurs or 

new information is presented in the dose for a 

given case that has previously been denied, 

might increase, we conduct what we call a 

Program Evaluation Review and we ask for 

claims that are so effected to be returned for 

rework. 

 In this slide, you see those kinds 

of claims that were sent to us for rework 

because of a technical change or new 

information that brought about perhaps an 

increase in dose to claims, but you will also 

see in this slide claims that were returned to 

NIOSH from the Department of Labor because 
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something changed within the demographics of 

the claim, a new survivor, a new cancer 

perhaps, or something similar in the 

demographics. To date, 9,400 reworks have 

been received by NIOSH, and we have returned 

to the Department of Labor 6,868. 

 In EEOICPA, Congress stipulated 

that the assumptions, the methodology, and the 

data used in dose reconstruction be made 

available to researchers and the general 

public, with exceptions for the protection of 

privacy. NIOSH emphasizes its transparency 

and accountability in making the NIOSH 

processes and methodology as open as possible 

for the claimants, their families, and their 

advocates. 

 One way that NIOSH makes 

information available is through our website. 

 It provides comprehensive information about 

the NIOSH dose reconstructions and other 

activities that support the program. The 

website includes over 100 web pages and over 
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2,500 PDF documents. 

 NIOSH has also designed the dose 

reconstruction and the SEC processes with an 

unusual amount of opportunity for public 

debate and input. Although it is typical in 

the sciences for differences of opinion to be 

debated in public forums, it is not so typical 

in a program such as this, such as a 

compensation program. 

 This leads some people to 

misunderstand the nature of the debate. For 

example, when the Advisory Board or its 

contractor review NIOSH documents or 

methodologies, it is typical for them to raise 

a list of questions. These questions are then 

discussed and debated among NIOSH and its 

contractors and the Advisory Board and its 

contractor, and generally these debates are 

done in a public forum. 

 These debates are not about who is 

right or who is wrong. They are about 

bringing the best-available science from a 
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variety of sources to the processes that this 

program employs and making sure that it is as 

transparent as possible for the claimants, 

their families, and advocates. 

 I grant you, allowing for public 

debate and resolution of differences of 

opinion does add time to the process, and 

scrutinizing thousands of boxes and tens of 

thousands of individual documents to acquire 

the data and the records that are needed to 

support the process is time-consuming. 

Reworking claims when relevant new information 

becomes available adds time to the process, 

sometimes a significant amount of time. 

 We feel that the claimants are owed 

the best-available science as well as an 

exceptional degree of transparency and 

accountability. 

 So why am I spending a lot of time 

talking about time when my slide shows the 

first 10,000 cases that were sent to NIOSH? 

We have tracked the oldest cases by use of 
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tracking number in the past, and you have seen 

the next two or three slides in every Board 

presentation that I have given. This will be 

the last time you see these slides for a while 

because we are going to start tracking on 

time, not on tracking number. 

 We've finally achieved the position 

in this program where the documentation is 

mature, where we have a technical support 

contractor now in place, after a long, 

extended wait to make that award, and we're at 

a point within our active claim population 

that, given our capacity, we can push through 

claims. I will show you some slides in a 

moment that talk about how we have improved 

our timeliness in that regard. 

 But our efforts on the oldest 

claims, the first 10,000 claims, we sent 7,692 

of the first 10,000 back to the Department of 

Labor with a dose reconstruction. There have 

been 175 that have been administrativelyclosed. Again, they could be reopened and 
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processed at the will of the claimant. 

 Four hundred and seventeen cases 

from the first 10,000 have been pulled. Eight 

hundred and ninety-seven have been slated for 

SEC classes, and six are currently, as of June 

30th, this year, a dose reconstruction is in 

the hands of the claimant. 

 So that leaves what is shown in red 

on this slide as the number of DOL return 

cases, those cases that have already had one 

dose reconstruction or more, being returned to 

us for some change, either a technical change 

we've instituted or a change with the 

demographics of the case. Now we're reworking 

717 of those first 10,000. 

 There are 96 cases that still await dose 

reconstruction in the first 10,000, less than 

1 percent. Of the 96 claims waiting dose 

reconstruction, they break out in this 

fashion: fifty-one represent distinct sites. 

 In other words, there are 51 claims of the 96 

that are single distinct sites. Thirty-seven 
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are sitting in a pended status, and the pended 

statuses are listed here for your benefit and 

understanding. It ranges from missing 

survivor to number of SEC cases pended before 

designation to developing a DR methodology for 

non-SEC cases. So you can see how they are 

broken out here. Fifty-nine of these 96 cases 

are in an active status. 

 If we look at the first 5,000 of 

this 10,000, the oldest of the oldest, then 19 

of the cases are below 5,000. Those 19 

represent 16 distinct sites. Nine are in 

pended status and 10 are in an active status, 

as shown. 

 NIOSH continues to receive around 

200, if you look at the blue line here, that's 

the number of cases received from the 

Department of Labor. This slide has been 

changed to show first quarter of each fiscal 

year. So it is full fiscal year, there is 

nothing lost or hidden here. 

 So we received about 200 new claims 
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each month and another 200 reworks. That is 

where you see there is about 450-500 in a 

month. 

 If we look back and analyze on a 

fiscal year basis the time that it has taken 

us to conduct those reconstructions, provide 

an initial draft report to the claimants, the 

time is shown as, in this yellow bar, taking 

more than one year, in the blue bar, 181 to 

365 days to the dose reconstruction. The red 

bar, 61 to 180 days, and less than 60 days for 

that, I think that is green. 

 You can see here that, if we look 

at the yellow as compared to the others, we 

have shortened the time frame to do dose 

reconstruction over the course of time. 

 If we look at those claims that 

have been completed in less than six months or 

those that take more than two years, you can 

see how it is broken out from fiscal year 2005 

to fiscal year 2008. We want to see this 

trend continue. 
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 These are all on our website, by 

the way, the new charts added to our website. 

 The average number of days to 

process dose reconstructions for initial 

referrals, and so, again, here by fiscal year, 

how many days in a fiscal year has it taken to 

produce a dose reconstruction. Back in 2002, 

when we had the huge backlog of claims and 

didn't have the infrastructure developed, you 

see it was taking us over 1,000 days. Now, in 

fiscal year 2008, after a continuous downward 

trend, in FY 2008 we were taking, on average, 

204 days to process an initial dose 

reconstruction. 

 In our efforts to improve 

timeliness, we have also looked for 

opportunities to improve processes in the 

steps involved in dose reconstruction. For 

example, NIOSH requests exposure monitoring 

information from the Department of Energy, DOE 

provides NIOSH with a response to the request 

within 60 days. That response may be the dose 
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information that we're seeking or it may be 

just a status report on where things stand. 

NIOSH closely monitors the number of days 

since a DOE request was sent and stays in 

touch with DOE Operations Offices, where the 

request was sent. 

 So here on this slide, as of June 

30th, 2009, you see that the number of 

outstanding requests were 505 claims and 

outstanding requests that were over 60 days, 

196 claims. I can tell you that, of this 

number, 196, there's 153-some-odd claims that 

are in the Oak Ridge Operations Office. So 

they are tied to one of the Oak Ridge sites or 

perhaps multiple sites. So we monitor this to 

the point where we know what claims are 

affected. 

 The average turnaround time for all 

document reviews that NIOSH produces and has 

to provide to the Department of Energy for a 

review for sensitive information has 

approximately been 10.8 working days. The 
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average turnaround time for all documents that 

we have submitted since January 1st of 2009 is 

approximately 9.8 working days. 

 The agreement that we have with DOE 

is that they will turn these reviews around 

within 10 working days plus transmittal time. 

 So there's a day to transmit at the front end 

and a day to transmit at the rear end, and you 

can see that they are staying pretty well in 

the agreed time to conduct the review. 

 This timeline presents steps in the 

dose reconstruction process. I apologize for 

the busyness of the slide. It is on our 

website. You can get an expanded version. 

But I wanted to show it to you here today 

because, as we look at stages and steps within 

the dose reconstruction process, we note that 

there's certain days associated with certain 

steps. One of those steps is this 60 days to 

request data from the Department of Energy for 

a claim. 

 So we have been talking with the 
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Department of Energy and the Department of 

Labor about how we can consolidate our efforts 

on this step alone and save us some of this 

time for the claimant. What I am talking 

about is when the Department of Labor receives 

a claim, they turn immediately to the 

Department of Energy to verify the employment 

for that claim. 

 At that point in time, we are 

working with DOE and DOL to incorporate our 

request for dose information at the time DOL 

requests employment eligibility information. 

So we think that is a good step that is going 

to help us. For certain sites where this can 

be accommodated, we will reduce the amount of 

time at this step. 

 There are a couple of other steps 

that have time/days associated with them, but 

there's not a lot we can do about them. One 

of those steps would be the number of days 

that is associated with reviewing dose 

reconstruction by the claimant, and they get 
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60 days. We give them 14 days grace upon 

that. So 74 days is really the time in the 

claimant's hands. 

 So we are looking at all of these 

steps, trying to figure out how we can improve 

and do some streamlining. 

 Along these lines, we have taken 

the opportunity, since we have reached a state 

of maturity in the program, our documentation 

is available to us from a majority of the 

sites, we have taken note of the concerns, and 

I share these concerns, that certain 

individual claimants have not had an answer in 

six-plus years. We have many more that are 

older than a year, as you see, in our active 

caseload. 

 So we have established a management 

objective which reinforces the commitment we 

have at NIOSH to produce timely dose 

reconstructions. Within this management 

objective, we are saying that we have a policy 

that is driven to complete initial drafts 
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within one-year time frame. So, by June 1st 

of 2010, we hope to be at a state where we 

have no claim without an initial draft in our 

possession at NIOSH that is over a year old. 

 I will let that sink in a moment. 

How can I say that? Well, we have a 

contractor that is in place now that has shown 

us a capacity to produce 6,000 claims in a 

year. They did that in 2006, before we had 

our problems with awarding a new contract and 

problems with Continuing Resolutions, a 

funding problem. 

 So, if we can do 6,000-plus dose 

reconstructions in a year and we only have 

4,500 in our caseload, and we only get about 

450 every month from DOL, I think you can do 

the math. 

 We are making some strides and some 

progress on the pended claims, the Hanford 

claims that are pended right now. We have 

made a commitment to the Work Group, to the 

Chair of the Work Group, and to the Hanford 
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folks that we are going to release those 

almost 600 Hanford claims that are pended and 

establish a class pre-1972 for the Special 

Exposure Cohort. So that will free up a bunch 

of pended claims and also claims that are in 

our active case population. 

 What happens if we don't achieve 

the goal of June 1st, 2010? Well, we will, 

long before that happens, if we see that we 

are not going to achieve that goal in any one 

given claim, we are going to critically 

evaluate that claim and determine what the 

problem is in processing that claim, and 

document that in a memo that will be in the 

claim file. 

 This is a serious step because that 

memo can be used in adjudicating the claim. 

So we are going to be very diligent about 

trying to achieve the goal, and we are going 

to be very critical about evaluating those 

that may not meet it. I am hopeful that we 

will meet it and we don't have to do any of 
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these memos to the file. 

 Let's talk a little bit about 

Special Exposure Cohort classes. This slide 

hasn't changed from the last meeting, but if 

we were to have this meeting in about five, 

ten days, this slide would change. There 

would be 44 SEC classes that have been added 

since May of 2005. 

 But these 42 that you see here, 22 

have been added through the 83.13 process and 

20 have been added through the 83.14 process. 

 This represents, these 42 classes represent 

workers from 33 sites, and they also represent 

around 2,274 cases. 

 I'm going to talk specifically 

about sites that are local that we want to 

give information to attendees in the audience 

that might be here for that particular site 

that is local to the meeting. 

 The distribution of Probability of 

Causation for Fernald claims is shown in this 

slide. You can see the distribution of those 
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PoCs by 10 percent, increments up to 49, and 

then you show greater than 50. 

 For Mound, there have been 565 

Mound cases referred to NIOSH. Four hundred 

and two, or 71 percent, have been completed 

and submitted to DOL. A hundred and thirtyeight of those had a PoC of greater than 50. 

Two hundred and sixty-four had a PoC of less 

than 50. Forty-nine of the Mound cases have 

been pulled by DOL from the NIOSH active 

caseload, and 114 remain, or 20 percent of the 

Mound cases remain at NIOSH in processing. 

 Here is the Probability of 

Causation in a bar graph, showing the 

distribution of these PoCs for Mound claims. 

 The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion 

Plant statistics are shown here. As of June 

30th, 2009, we have had 1,176 Portsmouth cases 

referred to NIOSH. I will remind everyone 

that this is a site that had a 

congressionally-mandated Special Exposure 

Cohort class. So all 1,176 of these cases 
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were sent to NIOSH for dose reconstruction 

either because they were not a presumptive 

cancer or the person had already perhaps been 

paid under the SEC and had acquired a new 

cancer that was not a presumptive cancer, and 

they are seeking medical benefits for that. 

So we are required to do a dose reconstruction 

for those as well. 

 Nine hundred and twenty-eight of 

these Portsmouth claims have been completed 

and submitted to the Department of Labor. In 

that, we break down 205 had a PoC that was 

found to be compensable and 723 had a 

Probability of Causation less than 50 percent. 

 Six percent, or 77, have been 

pulled by the Department of Labor for 

Portsmouth claims at NIOSH, and 171 Portsmouth 

claims are still active at NIOSH. 

 This slide, again, a bar chart 

presenting the distribution of Probability of 

Causation for the Portsmouth claims that we 

have. 
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questions that you might have. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you very 

much, Larry. We appreciate the more detailed 

presentation that you made this time. 

 I would like to open the floor for 

questions that the Board members may have. 

 Brad Clawson? 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Larry, forgive me 

if this is the wrong time, but one of my 

questions was on these dose reconstructions. 

Numerous claimants have asked me, if they are 

filing under Subpart E, how come do they have 

to have a dose reconstruction before they can 

do Subpart E? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The question is, if 

they are filing a claim for Part E, toxic 

chemical exposure, I assume they have a 

cancer -- 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And DOL is saying we 

need to wait on NIOSH's dose reconstruction 
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for that cancer? 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think DOL would be 

better versed to answer this question, but 

that is essentially what is going on. The 

claim has been referred to us for dose 

reconstruction, and they want that to inform 

the Part E decision. 

 There was radiation. Cancer was 

related. Radiation is considered a toxic. So 

that is what they are after. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Additional 

questions or comments? 

 (No response.) 

 Apparently not. 

 Larry, thank you again. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you very much. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Now we will 

proceed with a follow-up presentation. Jeff 

Kotsch is here from the Department of Labor. 

Jeff also regularly reports to the Board and 
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to the assembly on the claims, both for Part B 

and for Part E of the regulation. 

 So, Jeff, welcome back. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Thank you, and good 

afternoon. 

 Just a little background on the 

Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program Act. Part B became 

effective on July 31st, 2001. I think all the 

dates on the slides are as of July 20th of 

2009. 

 But, for Part B, 66,821 cases or 

99,116 claims have been filed. Again, just a 

note, there are always more claims than cases 

because, for when the employee has passed 

away, there often is more than one survivor. 

So you would have more claims than cases. Of 

those, 30,029 cases have been referred to 

NIOSH for the dose reconstruction. 

 For Part E, which became effective 

on October 28th, 2004, we have had 57,889 

cases or 81,525 claims filed. The Part E 
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program is the former Part D program, which 

was administered initially by the Department 

of Energy. At the point of transition, we 

actually took 25,000 cases from DOE. 

 Now the summary for the 

compensation, we've just passed the $5 billion 

mark in total compensation for the program; 

$3.02 billion of that was for Part B, $1.64 

billion was for Part E. The Department has 

paid out $347 million in medical benefits. 

 Now the paid cases under the Act, 

52,920 payees in 39,227 Part B and E cases, as 

of, again, July 20th. Thirty-seven thousand 

three hundred fifty-seven Part B payees in 

24,443 cases, and there have been 15,563 Part 

E payees in 14,784 cases. So Part B is 62 

percent of the payments. 

 Just a quick summary of Part B: 

the principal thing related to NIOSH is, 

obviously, radiation-induced cancers that are 

addressed in this Part. But Part B also 

addresses a beryllium illness, the Special 
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Exposure Cohort, silicosis for the miners in 

Nevada and Alaska, and a supplement for the 

RECA uranium workers. This is the Radiation 

Exposure Compensation Act, Section 5, which is 

administered by the Department of Justice, but 

the Act provides for a supplement of $50,000. 

 As far as eligibility for Part B, 

it includes Department of Energy employees, 

the Department of Energy contractors and 

subcontractors, the Atomic Weapons Employers, 

the AWEs, the beryllium vendors, and certain 

survivors of the deceased workers. 

 We note the ones here because the 

survivor categories are a little bit different 

for Part B versus Part E. By the way, they 

wrote the initial Act and then the amendment 

to the Act. 

 So, for Part B, it's spouse, 

children regardless of age, parents, 

grandchildren, and grandparents. Then there's 

the RECA Section 5 uranium workers. 

 Continuing, presumptive coverage 
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for the 22 specified cancers for the SEC 

sites, the four legislated, the statutory 

sites, the three gaseous diffusion plants, 

Paducah, Portsmouth, K-25, and then the 

Amchitka test site in Alaska. 

 As of July 23rd, 2009, there were 

44 SEC classes added by Health and Human 

Services. 

 The Part B benefits include 

$150,000 lump sum payment. That is the 

initial payment. There's medical benefits for 

the covered conditions, and then there's 

medical treatment and monitoring, but 

monitoring only for the beryllium sensitivity. 

 As far as Part E, a quick summary: 

 again, created in 2004 to replace the old 

Part D program. It is a federal entitlement 

program similar to Part B. Lump sum payments 

up to $250,000, usually on top of a Part B 

payment. If you have a Part B award, it's 

pretty much automatic that you get the initial 

Part E with that. 
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Part E program started, parallel-track these 

things for both Part E and Part B and work 

them simultaneously in the district offices. 

Even though there may be cases at NIOSH for 

Part B, they will continue to work the Part E 

side as much as they can for toxic exposures. 

 If there is, indeed, something that 

merits an award on that side, they will at 

least, if it's like for asbestosis or 

something, they will award that initially, and 

then perhaps, if there is a Part B component 

for the dose reconstruction, they may await 

that for the additional payments. But they 

are not always hinged on another. There is, 

obviously, the radiation component of the Part 

B program, but for the cancers. 

 If there's non-cancer conditions 

for Part E and we can get to an award in, for 

example, asbestosis or something, that will 

proceed that way, again, plus payments for 

medical benefits for the accepted conditions. 
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 For Part E eligibility, there's DOE 

contractors and subcontractors. This Act, 

when it was amended, the Act was amended, for 

Part E it does not include Atomic Weapons 

Employees or the beryllium vendor workers, 

unlike Part B. 

 Certain survivors of deceased 

workers include the spouse, the children if at 

the time of employee's death the child was 

under the age of 18, under the age of 23 and a 

full-time student continuously enrolled in an 

educational institution since age 18, or if at 

any age incapable of self-support. So, again, 

there's some differences mandated by the 

amendment for Part E. 

 Any occupational exposure or any 

toxic exposure, that's the coverage for Part 

E, including Part B disease. So there is dual 

eligibility. 

 Just a graphic of the Part B cases, 

the final decisions. There have been, again, 

on the final approval, 26,149 for the denial 
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side, 19,000 -- well, the denial side, the 

breakdown for the denial side is 19,669. That 

is the total. Five hundred and eighty for 

survivor non-eligible, 13,734 with PoC of less 

than 50 percent, and 5,356 for medical 

information insufficient to support the claim. 

 Concerning referral status to 

NIOSH, DOL has referred 30,000, a little over 

30,000, cases to NIOSH for dose 

reconstruction. Twenty-four thousand five 

hundred and twenty-seven of those have been 

returned by NIOSH and currently are at DOL or 

have been dispositioned. Twenty-one thousand 

three hundred and seventeen have dose 

reconstructions, 3,210 were returned without 

dose reconstructions. It could have been SEC 

classes, things like that. 

 Fifty-five hundred and two cases 

are currently at NIOSH. Thirty-one hundred 

and twenty-five are initial referrals, 2,377 

are reworks or returns to NIOSH. 

 Again, Larry mentioned this; the 
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reworks primarily are driven on the DOL side 

by perhaps changes to the medical conditions, 

like the identification of an additional 

cancer. That is the primary reason for the 

medical things. 

 For the employment, additional 

employment, the identification of additional 

employment perhaps is primarily the driver for 

the employment changes. Then there are some 

miscellaneous categories. 

 New SEC-related cases, 2,922 cases 

have been withdrawn from NIOSH for review. 

Twenty-five hundred and ninety-six final 

decisions have been issued, and 2,517 of those 

are final approvals. There have been 28 

recommended but no final decisions, 55 cases 

are pending -- this is at DOL -- and 243 cases 

have been closed. 

 The way the DOL process works, 

quickly, is that, after it comes in, 

basically, and DOL has identified the medical 

and employment information, if it is a cancer 
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requirement, dose reconstruction, it has gone 

to NIOSH. When it comes back, when the dose 

reconstruction report comes back, the four 

district offices create recommended decisions. 

 Those go to the claimants. They have the 

opportunity at that point, if they are, 

obviously, approved or denied, if they are 

denied, the opportunity to basically submit 

comments or address the issues. 

 It then goes to the Final 

Adjudication Branch, which is a separate 

organization within each of the districts as 

well as the national office. They create the 

final decisions based on the input from the 

claimants. 

 Even after that point, there are 

other options for the claimants, including 

reconsideration at any point. Even after the 

final decision is written, there is always the 

opportunity for reopening of the case, either 

at the district or primarily the national 

office level. 
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reopenings or additional information supplied 

anytime during that process or even after the 

case has been finalized or the decision has 

been finalized. That may require the case to 

go back to NIOSH for a rework, potentially. 

 NIOSH dose reconstruction case 

status, we have had 21,317 cases at DOL with 

dose reconstructions. Nineteen thousand seven 

hundred and eighty-four of the dose 

reconstructed cases have final decisions. 

There have been 6,668 final approvals -- that 

is a PoC greater than 50 -- and 13,116 final 

denials with a PoC of less than 50. 

 Just a summary of the accepted Part 

B cancer cases: the accepted dose 

reconstruction cases, 6,381, which includes 

9,098 payees, for a total compensation of 

$946.7 million. 

 Accepted SEC cases, there have been 

9,665 of those, which includes 15,575 payees, 

for compensation of $1.4 billion. 
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 Cases accepted based on SEC status 

and a PoC of 50 or greater, 287 cases or 36 

payees, for $42.9 million, which totals for 

all accepted SEC and DR cases, 16,333 cases 

for 25,039 payees, or $2.4 billion in 

compensation. 

 This is just a quick summary or a 

graphic on the new Part B cases received 

monthly by DOL. Again, they would be both 

cancers as well as silicosis, beryllium 

disease, things like that, and running 

probably around 300, I guess, on average, 

maybe a little bit more sometimes. 

 Then, monthly, these are the rates 

of the Part B cases sent to NIOSH. Again, 

they are not tracking month to month because 

they take time to process in at Labor. But 

these are the numbers of Part B at the NIOSH 

monthly, includes both initial referrals to 

NIOSH and reworks and returns. So, again, 

those are probably running a load of 300s or 

maybe even mid-300s. 
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 At the last meeting, one or more of 

the Board asked -- and it was an interesting 

question for me because I didn't have the 

answer -- as far as which sites tend to be 

generating the new monthly cases. The review 

indicated that Hanford, Y-12, Savannah River, 

and the Oak Ridge K-25 tend to be the top four 

as far as the DOE sites go. 

 Just quick graphics on those, the 

summaries: this is Hanford, Part B cases for 

the new monthly numbers. They are running 

probably -- it has dropped recently, but 

around 50 probably per month over the last -- 

I think we did the last, what, eight or ten 

months. 

 The same graphic, basically, for Y12, running a little bit lower, probably 

running 25 to 30 a month. 

 Savannah River, again, the same 

graphic, probably running 20 to 25, maybe 30. 

 Then the K-25 site, running a 

little bit lower, I think, probably 20 to 25. 
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 Then the AWE cases are running 

about 8 to 10 percent of the total of all the 

new ones. Obviously, on the next slide, you 

will see it is running, like I said, 8 to 10 

percent, and the DOE ones per month are 

running, obviously, the rest of that, so 90 to 

92. 

 Just some information related to 

sites that are either on the agenda or perhaps 

local to our meeting here today and this week. 

 I noticed, when I was looking -- I have been 

out of the office for a couple of weeks -- but 

I noticed that we didn't have a slide for 

Fernald. So let me give the Fernald numbers 

first. 

 Cases for both Part B and Part E, 

3,265. This is for Fernald. Cases returned 

from NIOSH with the dose reconstruction, 962. 

 Final decisions for Part B, 1,219, of which 

450 were approvals. Part E approvals were 

516, and total compensation -- this is, again, 

for Fernald -- $106.7 million. 
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 Now, on this slide, Mound, we have 

6,802 cases. We are indicating, the 

Department is indicating 407 returned with 

dose reconstructions, resulting in 588 final 

Part B decisions and 213 Part B approvals, 228 

Part E approvals, for total compensation of 

$47.2 million. That's total compensation and 

medical bills paid. 

 Oak Ridge Hospital, 73 cases, 14 

dose reconstructions from NIOSH, 24 Part B 

decisions, 11 Part B approvals, 14 Part E 

approvals, and $2.7 million in total comp and 

medical bills. 

 Baker-Perkins Company, 18 cases. 

This is Part B only. It's an AWE. Nine have 

been returned with dose reconstructions, 11 

Part B finals, 1 part B approval, $150,750 

compensation. 

 Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, 147 

cases, 14 with dose reconstructions, 35 Part B 

approvals -- I'm sorry -- 35 Part B final 

decisions, 5 Part B approvals, 5 Part E 
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approvals, and $1.16 million in compensation. 

 Blockson Chemical, 214 Part E and 

Part B cases, 121 returned with NIOSH dose 

reconstructions, 134 Part B final decisions, 

54 Part B approvals. AWE, so the Part E is 

not applicable and $8.21 million in total 

compensation and medical payments. 

 Fifty-three cases for Part B only 

for the Norton Company. Two dose 

reconstructions were performed by NIOSH. We 

have had 10 Part B final decisions, 3 

approvals in Part B, and $453,750 in 

compensation. 

 And the last is just a pie chart of 

the Part B cases that have been filed. Again, 

ones that have gone to NIOSH for dose 

reconstruction, 35 percent, SEC cases are 7 

percent, SECs never sent to NIOSH, 9, 11 

percent are RECAs, and the rest, the 38, which 

is the remainder, are the silicosis, the 

chronic beryllium disease, primarily those 

categories. 
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 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, Jeff. 

 Let me ask a question about the 

last sets of statistics on the local plants 

here. Where you have indicated the numbers of 

cases and have shown them as Part B plus E, am 

I correct that you are only showing the Part 

E's where there's a radiation component or is 

this all Part E cases? 

 MR. KOTSCH: Well, it would be all, 

but when you have a B and an E, it is a DOE 

facility. When it is only an E, it is an AWE. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: But the E part 

includes all cases, whether or not -- 

 MR. KOTSCH: Yes. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Now, related to 

that, and maybe Larry would answer this, when 

we see the NIOSH statistics -- and you may 

have answered before, but I just don't 

remember -- are we only counting the Part B 

claims, or if it is a Part E with radiation 

dose reconstruction, does that get counted in 
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the statistics you are giving us? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Our statistics show 

Part B claims, and if it is an E claim that is 

not Part B, I'm not sure what happens then. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Then you wouldn't have 

it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I wouldn't have it. 

 MR. KOTSCH: No. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Its cancer-related 

claims come to us. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: You don't 

distinguish then? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We don't distinguish 

between B -- 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: So what we are 

seeing as Part B could include Part E's that 

have a radiation dose reconstruction? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 MR. KOTSCH: But, Paul, primarily, 
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any Part B that has a positive dose 

reconstruction greater than 50 percent becomes 

an automatic Part E, and then there may be 

some additional on top of that. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Other questions, 

Board members? 

 (No response.) 

 Apparently not. 

 Thank you very much, Jim. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Okay, thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We'll go ahead 

and take our break. It's just about five to 

3:00. We'll take our break a little earlier. 

 We will give you just a few minutes longer 

than the 15. I'm not saying how much longer, 

but we will take our break. It won't go 

longer than 3:30. But if the Chair senses 

that we are ready to go earlier than that, we 

will. 

 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 2:53 p.m. and 

resumed at 3:30 p.m.) 
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 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We are ready to 

reconvene now. Thank you very much. 

 Our next report is from our Mound 

Working Group, and the Working Group Chair for 

the Mound Working Group is Josie Beach. She 

has prepared a somewhat detailed report for us 

today. So we are going to give her the 

podium. 

 Board members, you should also have 

a PowerPoint copy in your computer files there 

as well. There's probably also for the public 

copies on the table of this report, I believe. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, there are. 

There's a few available. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Before Ms. Beach 

starts the presentation, while you were out, 

we added some paper to your stack and just 

want to call attention to the fact that Stu 

Hinnefeld has distributed copies of the 

potential cases for the 12th group of dose 

reconstruction reviews from which the Dose 

Reconstruction Subcommittee will be asking 
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some Board input. 

 Mark, I guess when you do your 

report, you will talk a little more about 

this. 

 But I want to make everyone aware 

that there's two packets here. You can make 

sure you have both packets. They are just two 

sorts, I believe, on the same group of cases. 

 So make sure you have those. That will be on 

our agenda during the Board's work group, I 

believe it's Wednesday, yes. 

 The plain brown envelope is your 

reward from the Department of Energy. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: This is the plain 

brown envelope. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: It's below the 

minimal criteria. It's two free booklets for 

all your work done. No, the DOE has prepared 

some things, and perhaps Dr. Worthington will 

say something about that as well during her 

presentation. 

 So let's hear from Ms. Beach now. 
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 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Good 

afternoon. I'm happy to be here to have the 

opportunity to share with you the Mound SEC 

petition review. 

 The Mound Work Group has made 

substantial progress over a spectrum of 

difficult issues. Mound spanned a 50-year 

history that involved an alphabet soup of 

radionuclides over that history. 

 NIOSH's roadmap has helped a great 

deal. Most key issues are coming down to 

fundamental questions on how surrogate data 

should be applied, how models should be used, 

and the place of actual measurements, and 

whether sufficient site information exists to 

support dose reconstruction. This may require 

a Board judgment in the end. 

 The Work Group is now in the end 

game. We will be pushing for closure where we 

can and addressing any remaining information 

gaps over the next couple of months. 

 Okay, this is a brief review of 
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Mound's SEC petition history. Two petitions 

were qualified, one on August 17th, 2007 and 

the other, 091, qualified September of 2007. 

Those were merged. 

 NIOSH issued its evaluation report 

on December 19th of 2007. January 8, 2008, 

the evaluation report was presented at the 

Advisory Board meeting. The Work Group was 

formed. SC&A was authorized to begin its 

review. 

 The Work Group is myself as chair. 

 We have Brad Clawson, Bob Presley, Phil 

Schofield. Paul Ziemer serves as our 

alternate. 

 The Work Group has met four times 

over the past two years, and we have had a 

couple of additional conference calls. 

 February 25th, SC&A identified 21 

potential SEC issues. Some of those have 

since been combined. 

 The next two slides are an overview 

of the Mound SEC issues. The issues were 
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largely derived from SC&A site profile review. 

 Issue 20 and 21 were secondary 

issues from the matrix. Both of these 

required more clarification. 

 This slide represents the five 

issues that have been closed by the Work Group 

to date. 

 Okay. Issue 5 is concentrations of 

plutonium-240, -241, and -242. They addressed 

whether monitoring data for plutonium-239 

would envelope trace isotopes such as 

plutonium-240 and -241. 

 NIOSH was able to demonstrate the 

ratios could be used for other plutonium 

isotopes to enable dose reconstruction. 

 SC&A questioned the use of 

plutonium as a marker for estimating exposure 

to fission and activation products. 

 SC&A agreed that there was a 

question regarding the relative concentrations 

of isotopes, but they did feel this would 

develop into a site profile issue. The Work 
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Group agreed with both NIOSH and SC&A. We 

closed the issue July 14th of 2008. 

 I need to get the hang of switching 

pages and the clicker here. 

 Issue 17 questioned whether 

monitored workers were the most highly 

exposed. NIOSH's position is that, since all 

workers entering radiation-controlled areas 

were required to wear dosimeters, those 

receiving the highest dose were monitored. 

 SC&A questioned whether the cohort 

badging in the early years could rule out 

without any evidence to the contrary. While 

NIOSH was unable to locate a documented 

badging policy, they did look for one. They 

did find documentation exists that indicates 

the badging was required. 

 SC&A interviews with former Mound 

workers corroborated NIOSH's position that all 

workers entering radiation areas were badged. 

 The Work Group tested the badging 

hypothesis by reviewing potential exposure of 
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non-badged workers in ostensibly nonradiological buildings, without confirming any 

such exposures occurred. 

 However, there are some broader 

concerns over the adequacy and completeness of 

bioassays, and those will be covered in a 

later slide. 

 The Work Group did close this issue 

on May 28th of 2009. 

 For combined issues 18 and 19, 

external dose data adequacy, completeness, and 

integrity, Mound utilized a MESH database to 

serve as primary electronic repository for 

radiation exposure records. 

 SC&A analyzed 22 cases for data 

adequacy. In this limited sampling, it was 

found that workers that should have had doses 

recorded had doses recorded for the most part, 

and that there were some gaps, but no long 

periods when a worker should have had a dose 

record but did not. And for data completeness 

and integrity, they found no significant 
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errors in the transfer of that data. 

 In the limited sampling of 22 

cases, SC&A did not find anything that would 

point to a serious problem. The Work Group 

agreed with SC&A's findings and closed both 

issue 18 and 19 on May 27th, 2009. 

 Matrix item 20 covers ambient 

environmental internal radiation dose 

contributors. The evaluation report states 

that Mound did not generally experience 

significant site wide ambient contamination, 

and that there was less concern about the 

potential for internal dose related to ambient 

working conditions. 

 SC&A cited a secondary concern 

regarding the wording of the evaluation report 

in light of history of onsite contamination. 

Clarification was needed regarding how dose 

reconstruction would be handled. 

 The Work Group accepted NIOSH's 

practice of a maximum value being derived from 

Mound's occupational environmental ambient 
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dose and NIOSH's offer to remove the statement 

from the evaluation report that states Mound 

did not experience site wide ambient 

contaminations. The Work Group closed this 

item on May 28th, 2009. 

 So we are moving on now into the 

open items, starting with issue 16. This 

covers shallow dose beta/low-energy photon 

exposures from polonium processing, 

plutonium-238, and other radionuclides. 

 In its evaluation report, NIOSH 

indicates that the design of the T-building 

processing areas controlled beta dose rates to 

a significant extent. The site, therefore, 

did not record beta dose. 

 NIOSH is confident that it can 

bound dose, if necessary, using n/p ratios. 

This is actually beta-to-gamma ratios. This 

was later clarified by NIOSH. 

 SC&A commented that sufficientlyaccurate dose metric methods had not been 

demonstrated for all sources, locations, and 
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time periods. 

 NIOSH recommends assigning shallow 

dose as a function of ratio of photon recorded 

doses for certain workers for certain time 

periods. 

 The proposed approach provides a 

more claimant-favorable approach than that 

outlined in the evaluation report and bridges 

the Mound source terms, locations, and time 

periods that were not addressed specifically. 

 This issue is close to being closed 

with the delivery of requested action items 

from NIOSH during our last work group meeting, 

those being a response to SC&A's White Paper, 

and also, NIOSH needs to extent the approach 

from 1979 until the DOELAP accreditation 

period in 1989. This is to ensure adequate 

shallow dose estimation was being 

accomplished. 

 Issue 2 covers indoor radon-219, 

-220, and -222. This is airborne 

concentrations in the SW and other buildings. 
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 The evaluation report concludes 

that available radon air concentration data 

from 1979 until 2000 can be used to derive the 

WLM values, as provided in table 7-2 of the 

ER. 

 SC&A questioned whether the 

elevated radon levels were limited to the SW 

process areas and whether the very limited 

measurements prior to 1980 provided a valid 

basis to estimate an upper bound dose for 

radon, given the expected variability due to 

location, operations, and weather conditions. 

 A confounding issue is that 

radon-222 was not the sole source of radon 

exposure; -220 and -219 were also present in 

appreciable quantities. 

 NIOSH's latest proposal is to use 

air monitoring data from the occupational 

period in the 1950s to bound doses for later 

exposures. SC&A has questioned whether this 

satisfies the Board's surrogate data criteria. 

 The Board's proposed surrogate data 
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policy is somewhat different from NIOSH's 

surrogate data OTIB. This issue may end up 

before Dr. Melius' group in the end. That's a 

heads-up for you. 

 We have combined matrix issues 1, 

3, 4, 7, and 8. This covers exposure to 

secondary and other radionuclides. 

 Questions have been raised 

regarding potential exposures to radionuclides 

other than the primary Mound source terms, 

plutonium, polonium, and tritium, and whether 

exposures to these secondary sources was 

adequately monitored. 

 Issues involving to what extent 

doses were adequately monitored and recorded 

for various radionuclides, including radium, 

actinium, thorium, americium, cesium, 

neptunium, transuranics, uranium isotopes, and 

fission activation products, are being 

addressed by NIOSH's generated roadmap. 

 That identifies radionuclides by 

location, date, and available monitoring as a 
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means of ascertaining whether all relevant 

exposure source terms have been adequately 

accounted for. The final version of that is 

being reviewed by the Work Group. 

 The bottom line will be whether the 

adequacy and completeness of bioassay 

practices can be established. Some of this 

will end up being settled in response to issue 

11 regarding adequacy of gross alpha 

monitoring. 

 Issue 6, interpretation of tritium 

bioassay data and exposure to stable metal 

tritides. Most of the tritium exposure at 

Mound was assumed to be related to uptake of 

tritiated water, HTO, which was routinely 

monitored. 

 However, questions have been raised 

regarding the exposure to other tritium 

compounds and the evaluation report's position 

that NIOSH can bound doses from stable metal 

tritides. 

 SC&A has provided a White Paper. 
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Technical calls have been held, and NIOSH is 

in the process of preparing a response. 

 This is a generic question at a 

number of DOE sites. The issue is coming down 

to whether the potentially-exposed worker 

populations can be defined as well as a 

bounding approach for dose estimation. 

 Concerns exist over plausibility of 

applying OTIB-066 if the simplifying 

assumption is made that attributes to all 

tritium results in urine due to tritides. 

 Issue 9, evaluation of high-fired 

ceramic plutonium-238 and uranium. Questions 

have been raised regarding the ER's treatment 

of relative insolubility of high-fired 

plutonium-238 at Mound. Agreement has been 

reached through the Work Group process that a 

special solubility type for plutonium-238 did 

exist at Mound and that the phenomenon likely 

can be conceptually described in a bounding 

solubility-based urine excretion model. 

 However, while agreeing that such a 
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model can be developed, SC&A has questioned 

whether it can be shown to bound exposures at 

Mound. This issue seems to be hinging on what 

solubility type will be a bounding one, based 

on reviews of Mound's urinalysis data. It 

does appear that this can be bounded, but it 

is not settled yet. 

 In terms of proof of principle, 

NIOSH has agreed to provide sample dose 

reconstructions to demonstrate how any 

perspective bounding approach would be 

implemented in practice. 

 Issue 10 is the D&D era bioassay. 

This issue was originally deferred in the ER 

to permit further investigation by NIOSH of 

bioassay program-related issues related to 

Price-Anderson enforcement action in the 

1990s. 

 Evidence exists that worker 

exposure to residual contamination from 

sources generated during the life of the 

plant, particularly during D&D activities for 
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which bioassay was not performed or in the 

case of actinium-227, performed adequately. 

 The Work Group requested that SC&A 

highlight its D&D concerns in a memo form for 

NIOSH's response. SC&A has not researched 

this issue, but based on the site profile 

review, has concerns over the use of lapel 

samplers as an indicator for follow-up 

bioassay. 

 The memo was delivered, I believe, 

to DOE on June 17th, and everybody should have 

that already. 

 Issue 11 covers data adequacy of 

internal dose records. In its evaluation 

report, NIOSH found that the available 

monitoring records, process descriptions, and 

source term data available are sufficient to 

complete dose reconstruction for the proposed 

class with the exception of actinium-227, 

thorium-228, and radium-226 from February 1st, 

1949 through August 17th, 2007. Pardon me, 

that should be '59. 
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 SC&A questioned the effectiveness 

and reliability of historic radiochemistry 

methods for interpretation of bioassay data. 

In the 1950s and into the sixties, bioassay 

techniques were pretty primitive. The 

question is, how does NIOSH account for issues 

of reliability of such early techniques such 

as gross alpha analysis? The Work Group has 

requested NIOSH review of SC&A's White Paper 

on the issue. 

 Issue 12 and 13 cover data 

integrity and completeness of internal dose 

records. Again, the first bullet on the last 

slide is the same as this bullet, although it 

does need to say 1959 instead of 1949. 

 So, going to the second bullet, the 

Work Group requested that SC&A validate the 

radionuclide data other than plutonium and 

polonium are sufficiently complete, reliable, 

and available in the databases and individual 

exposure records. 

 SC&A's White Paper was provided 
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April 2nd, 2009, and the Work Group has 

requested NIOSH's review of the SC&A White 

Paper. 

 Some questions remain from SC&A and 

the Work Group regarding whether records 

pertinent to dose reconstruction were buried 

at LANL and NTS. 

 I understand SC&A will be at OSTI 

in August for other reasons and plans to do 

some limited sampling of these records that do 

exist in their holdings. 

 Issue 14 and 15 address neutron 

doses from polonium, plutonium, and other 

radionuclides. 

 Workers were exposed to a wide 

spectrum of neutron energies from different 

sources and operations. NTA film was used for 

neutron dosimetry from 1949 through 1977. 

After 1977, TLDs were used. 

 NTA film had a number of 

limitations, including a 0.5 MeV threshold, 

decreased response below 1 MeV, and also track 
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fading. 

 NIOSH proposed threshold correction 

factors generated by MCNP modeling, and I 

understand that is Monte Carlo Nuclear 

Program. 

 Questions remain regarding the 

application of generalized MCNP models for 

lower energy neutrons and demonstration of a 

valid coworker model. The Work Group has 

requested a memo report from SC&A and a NIOSH 

response. 

 By generalization, we mean that the 

model is based on assumed general parameters 

that reflect Mound operations, but no actual 

parameters measured at the site. It is not 

clear how NIOSH can demonstrate bounding dose 

without inclusion of real limiting parameters. 

 Issue 21 encompasses PAAA concerns 

regarding the 1991 actinium-227 urine samples. 

 The evaluation report indicates that during 

the interview with former Mound workers a 

concern was raised regarding the actinium-227 
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urine bioassay samples collected from 

employees involved in the 1991 R-building 

Corridor 5 D&D job. 

 The root of the concern is that 

these samples were not analyzed for a number 

of years and there were quality assurance 

problems with them, all of which resulted in 

Price-Anderson violations. 

 The Work Group directed both NIOSH 

and SC&A that have evaluated the bioassay 

program implications of specific PAAA issues 

for dose reconstruction. All issues have been 

dispositioned other than those related to 

bioassay adequacy itself. 

 And this issue is close to being 

closed with a few close-out actions requested 

by the Work Group. We have asked NIOSH to 

answer the three questions from SC&A's April 

White Paper. 

 Next steps: 

 So the Work Group is waiting for 

NIOSH's response. I have already mentioned 
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several of them. But, in quick summary, we 

are looking for responses to SC&A White Papers 

on stable metal tritides, high-fired 

plutonium-238, adequacy and completeness of 

internal dose records. 

 Both NIOSH and SC&A are actively 

working the tritides issue. The Work Group is 

to address final radionuclides roadmap. We 

are also going to review plausibility of 

proposed radon dose reconstruction. NIOSH to 

provide analysis of the D&D issues, and the 

Work Group to review plausibility of proposed 

neutron dose reconstructions. 

 Board members, if you want any 

additional information on any of the open 

items, send an email to me. I can send you 

the latest White Papers of any of those. 

 This was just meant to be an 

update, informational, of where the Work Group 

is at this time. 

 Although I didn't tell them I was 

going to do this, any of the Work Group 
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members have anything to add? 

 (No response.) 

 Okay. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you very 

much, Josie, for a very good overview of the 

Working Group's activities over the past year 

or more than the past year. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Two years. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Before you leave 

the podium, we may have time for some 

questions, but let me point out we have I 

think maybe two Board members who are 

conflicted on Fernald. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Mound. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Mound. All those 

Ohio sites look alike, don't they? 

 (Laughter.) 

 On Mound, and under the conflictof-interest rules, they are allowed to listen 

to the reports, and so on. If the discussion 

moves into what we might call actions or 

recommendations to the Work Group or tasking 
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of the contractor, or any of those kinds of 

things, they would have to recuse themselves 

and leave the table. 

 But let me ask our Designated 

Federal Official, are the conflicted members 

allowed to ask questions, if they had 

questions? 

 I am going to open the floor for 

questions, and I think this is questions on 

the report. So it seems to me that they 

could, but let's find out. 

 MR. KATZ: I think it would be 

better if they just refrained from asking 

questions whatsoever. I mean I am not sure 

what the parameters are. I realize you are 

probably thinking, if they are asking 

questions of just clarification for what was 

said, I think that would probably be okay, if 

it is just clarifications. But you wouldn't 

want to ask a leading question of any kind 

that could lead to some sort of action. 

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tread carefully here. 

 In any event, we do want to open 

the floor for questions. 

 I did want to ask for clarity. I 

believe the slide that you presented I think 

was correct. Slide 12, you mentioned adequacy 

of monitoring of various radionuclides. I 

believe cesium was mentioned, but I believe 

you perhaps meant curium. I think the slide 

itself showed curium. So, just for the 

record -- 

 MEMBER BEACH: That was probably my 

mistake. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think it was 

slide 12. I just made a note. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Just for the 

record, I believe the one in question was 

curium rather than cesium. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: And you already 

pointed out the date corrections on those. 
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 Board members, are there questions 

or clarifications? 

 We had asked some of the Work 

Groups, such as the Mound Work Group, to 

periodically give us updates, particularly 

these complex sites where there is a lot of 

issues, and we don't want to wait until sort 

of the very end of the process to keep the 

Board apprised of what the issues are and how 

they are being resolved. 

 Dr. Melius? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. I'm not one 

of the conflicted members. 

 MEMBER BEACH: And I do want to 

point out that both Brant and Joe are 

available for any technical questions. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: No, this is a time 

question. How much longer? 

 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I understand 

that we're shooting for October, but I think 

that we're not going to quite be ready by 

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point when the next Board meeting is, but I 

don't believe we will be ready in October. 

 When is the next one after that? 

 MR. KATZ: The next face-to-face 

Board meeting is February after October. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. We're going 

to hope for February at this time, Dr. Melius. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Other questions? 

 (No response.) 

 If not, thank you very much, Josie. 

 We appreciate the update. 

 MEMBER BEACH: You're welcome. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I am having a 

little sidebar conference here. We have the 

DOE report up next, but one of the individuals 

that is en route to the meeting to participate 

in this is Glenn Podonsky. Perhaps we can 

look ahead for a minute and delay the DOE 

presentation at least a little bit. 

 Okay. Then I think let's look 

ahead at some business items that we can 
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handle, and perhaps delay, since we are ahead 

of schedule here, and give Mr. Podonsky time 

to arrive here to the meeting. 

 So we will just take a brief 

timeout here while we confer. 

 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 3:59 p.m. and 

resumed at 4:00 p.m.) 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Mark was 

volunteering Dr. Neton for the science update, 

but we're not going to do that to you, Jim. 

 I'm looking ahead to the Board 

working time things. Let me introduce an 

item. We may not fully deliberate on it right 

now, but I want the Board members to be 

thinking about it. 

 That is the item called Transcript 

Reviews. Let me introduce sort of what the 

issues are and then get some input. 

 We have transcripts made of the 

full Board meetings as well as transcripts of 

our work groups and our subcommittees. These 
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transcripts, when you realize they are 

verbatim for, in the case of the Board 

meetings, up to three days of talking, they 

are very long. There are a lot of names and a 

lot of terminology which, as people speak, are 

not always clear, sometimes not clear to the 

listeners and sometimes not clear to the court 

reporters. 

 In the interest of accuracy, we 

have a process put in place where we are going 

through the Board transcripts in some greater 

amount of detail than in the past. 

 We have one of the NIOSH staff 

consultants who is going through those and 

looking for various kinds of editorial errors. 

 We know there are not errors in what Board 

members have said, but sometimes there are 

errors in what is recorded. So that is what 

she is doing. 

 Then the Chair has to certify that 

these are accurate copies or accurate 

renditions of what was said. That is even 
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more difficult because I am not allowed to 

remove any dangling participles that might 

have been in your speech, but I can correct 

editorial comments and technical words, and so 

on. 

 Then we also have the redaction 

process, which is also now in place, as well 

as the DOE security type of review. So there 

are different levels of review, all of which 

are taking more time for the transcripts, 

amidst the pressure from various constituents 

to have those transcripts out there rapidly. 

But we are trying to keep these things timely. 

 So I think we're okay on the Board 

transcripts in that regard, unless some other 

Board members wish to be in the loop as well 

and have additional input, but I'm not 

volunteering you for that. 

 However, there is a separate set of 

transcripts that does not get quite that level 

of review, particularly technical review. 

Those are the transcripts of the work groups 
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and of the subcommittees. 

 When this question came up recently 

by a member of the public who was concerned 

about the technical accuracy and transcription 

of those minutes or those deliberations, I 

suggested that perhaps the Chairs of the work 

groups and the subcommittees would have to 

take on that responsibility. I, as the Chair 

of the Board, do not want to review work group 

minutes, particularly work groups where I was 

not in attendance, and certify their accuracy. 

 Actually, we don't have to certify those, but 

we do want them to be accurate, I believe is 

the case, or does somebody certify those work 

group minutes? 

 MR. KATZ: Let me just make a 

clarification. That is, there is a difference 

between subcommittees and work groups. The 

subcommittees, actually, are under the same 

requirement as the full Board. So we have two 

subcommittees and those chairs review those 

transcripts, just as does the Chair for the 
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Board. 

 But the work groups, you are 

correct, that's a completely different 

situation. It's completely voluntary, the 

whole operation, in effect, transcripts and 

all. At this point, we don't have work group 

chairs reviewing these. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Anyway, what I 

would like to have you consider, work group 

chairs, is whether or not you shouldn't review 

your work group transcripts before they go on 

the website. 

 I'm talking about reviewing them 

mainly for technical accuracy because we have 

found in a number of cases that there were 

words that were not technically correct in 

those transcripts. Sometimes it is because 

what was said by the speaker is not always 

clear to the transcriber. Sometimes it may be 

a technical term that is not familiar. I have 

seen cases where I didn't know what was going 

on myself because, I hate to admit it, but I 
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don't know everything, either. So I didn't 

know what Brad was talking about one time -- 

well, at least one time. 

 (Laughter.) 

 In fair amount, I didn't know the 

security jargon that he was using. So these 

have to be reviewed to make sure that they are 

correct. 

 Anyway, work group chairs, give me 

your feedback. Are you willing to review your 

work group transcripts before they go online? 

 I don't think we are sort of legally required 

to certify these as being accurate, and they 

are, in a sense, accurate in terms of what the 

transcriber heard, but there is this technical 

accuracy issue. 

 Okay, Josie? 

 MEMBER BEACH: I actually think 

that it makes more sense to have the work 

group chairs review those than to have or ask 

you to burden yourself with reviewing those. 

So I am for the work group chairs doing that. 
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 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Dr. Melius? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Can the work group 

chair appoint another member of the work 

group? 

 (Laughter.) 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Actually, I 

believe that would be fine. I think the issue 

is, will somebody review those transcripts for 

accuracy from a technical point of view or 

identify if the word is supposed to be 

betatron, it doesn't come out megatron, or 

something like that, you know? 

 MEMBER BEACH: Paul, I guess my 

next question would be, what kind of a timely 

manner would that have to be completed in? 

 MR. KATZ: Well, with all of these, 

we try to get these out as soon as possible. 

Some of the work groups meet more frequently 

certainly than the full Board. So sometimes 

it is more pressure to get these done, but 

there's no legal requirement in terms of 

timeliness for the work group transcripts. 
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 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: But, as a 

practical matter, often the petitioners are 

interested in those proceedings in terms of 

understanding what went on in the work group, 

particularly at meetings where they have not 

had the capability of being present or even 

sometimes participating by phone. 

 So, to some extent, the absence of 

the proceedings may be seen as a handicap for 

petitioners in terms of their knowledge of 

what the work group has done or is doing. 

 Any other input on that? 

 Yes, Wanda Munn. 

 MEMBER MUNN: This is not a simple 

task you're asking about. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I just want to 

point out that, except for those that have 

two-day subcommittee meetings or work group 

meetings, it's not as bad as a three-day Board 

meeting. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Well, that's true, 

but, by the same token, for those who are 
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chairing more than one work group, we are not 

just asking somebody to just take a look at 

something, give their thumbs-up, and put it on 

the web. 

 In past years, the amount of time 

that lapsed between the meeting itself and the 

production of the transcripts was significant 

enough that it created a real problem, I 

think, in even considering this. We no longer 

have that serious an issue. 

 But it would seem that we might 

want to think seriously about how formal we 

wanted to be in this kind of review. If you 

are fortunate enough to be able to have the 

transcript of your work group meeting prior to 

the actual beginning of the next work group, 

then that is very helpful for the Chair from a 

variety of positions, not the least of which 

is there's no better way to check your open 

action items than to be able to review your 

meetings from the past, your minutes of the 

past meeting. 
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 If that is not able to be done, 

however, then I guess my concern is very much 

the same focus as I suspect the basis of 

Josie's question was, the time element 

involved. If we are talking about doing this 

in a manner that our members can manage to 

work into their already-overcrowded schedules, 

then possibly. So, from my perspective, it 

would be a serious mistake to try to place a 

very restrictive time element on individuals 

we are asking to review these. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I believe, Ted, 

you said for the subcommittees there is a 

legal requirement for certification. So that 

burden I guess is already falling on the 

Chairs of our two subcommittees. So that is 

kind of a done deal, as are the main minutes, 

which fall on me to certify. So it is mainly 

the work groups that we are talking about 

here. 

 We don't have to come to final 

decision on this, but perhaps I will defer any 
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formalization of a policy until our work time 

Wednesday, but I at least wanted the work 

group chairs, which is most of you are 

chairing at least one work group, if not more, 

as Wanda mentioned, that perhaps we formalize 

the policy of who is going to do this. 

 I don't think we have to specify 

the time, although we could have a goal. I 

think we have a goal on our regular minutes in 

terms of the time to get them out and onto the 

website. I don't recall -- what? -- it is 45 

days, which is a push to meet really, 

particularly with the Privacy Act reviews as 

well as the security reviews, plus the 

editorial stuff. It is a push to get it out. 

 Any other comments or words of 

insight? 

 (No response.) 

 Okay. Ted, do we have time to look 

at future meetings dates now? Am I catching 

you off guard? We can do that now. Let's do 

that. 
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 MR. KATZ: So, for future meetings, 

one thing I wanted to confirm, we talked about 

for our February face-to-face meeting in 

Redondo Beach, which is relevant for Santa 

Susana in terms of proximity. That is 

available to us. I mean we have checked with 

the hotel there, and that is a possibility. 

 The only question I just wanted to 

raise was whether we are settled on that being 

the right location. At some point, it seems 

like there are a number of sites in northern 

California. I don't know whether the Board 

wants to consider for that or for a different 

upcoming meeting revisiting northern 

California. I know the Board has been out 

there, it seems like it was quite some time 

ago, unless I missed -- I am not aware of a 

meeting that happened in between. 

 So that is just a question I want 

to raise before we finalize and go forward 

with committing to Redondo for February, if we 

are going to do that. 
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 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Dr. Melius? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: My recollection on 

northern California, I agree we haven't been 

there in a while, but there wasn't a lot of 

interest when we were out there. It is hard 

to get a location, a good location there, but 

there may be more now. It is just hard to 

gauge, or hard to gauge at any of these sites, 

actually. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, we 

certainly know there's a lot of interest on 

the Santa Susana issue. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Right. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Where are we 

timing-wise in terms of being ready to address 

that at that meeting? Is everything falling 

into place in terms of all the tasking and the 

reviews? Is that you, Mike? So we're okay 

time wise there? 

 MEMBER GIBSON: Should be close, 

yes. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. Okay. This 
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is February 9th through 11th in -- what's the 

airport? The closest is Los Angeles. Okay, 

so I think we keep that, it sounds like. 

 MR. KATZ: So the next meeting of 

interest is a face-to-face meeting May 19th 

through 21st. We haven't talked about 

location for that. 

 Since our next face-to-face meeting 

is October, we don't have to deal with it. 

There's going to also be a teleconference of 

the Board scheduled in between now and then, 

but if there are ideas about that at this 

point, it would be good to hear them. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We also need to 

be thinking about a meeting somewhere along 

the line in Washington, D.C. I don't know how 

much we are concerned about tying that in with 

a bearable weather pattern, but May is not too 

bad in terms of heat and humidity. But, in my 

mind, we are overdue for a meeting in the 

nation's capital, where we may have the 

interest of a variety of folks. 
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 MEMBER MUNN: That is probably 

true. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Or other 

suggestions? We don't have to make the 

decision now, but we want to get some ideas on 

the table. Any of the work groups that 

believe that it's critical to meet in a 

certain area related to your site, you can 

also suggest. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: I don't want to 

suggest it for February, but May in the 

Buffalo area. We've got Linde and -- 

 MR. KATZ: February in Buffalo? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: I said May. May. 

 (Laughter.) 

 We would have time to review the 

transcript before we got out of there. 

 (Laughter.) 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Let the record 

show he does not mean February. 

 (Laughter.) 

 Any others? 
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 MEMBER MUNN: Where are we likely 

to be with LANL by that time? 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: LANL? I think it 

is premature, would be my impression on LANL. 

 Joe, do you agree? 

 Let the record show that Joe 

Fitzgerald from SC&A says we will not be 

ready. SC&A thinks they will be ready, but I 

don't sense that we will be ready. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: I was just here 

last week and did a round of interviews. I 

think that might be a little tight. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I believe so. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: I would think, at 

the earliest it would be the meeting after 

that. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. Thank you. 

 Okay, we have a couple of 

suggestions for May. We don't have to come to 

closure now. 

 Any others? 

 (No response.) 
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 Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: Just to note, I was just 

reminded that, if it were to be in the D.C. 

area, that's a very difficult area, actually, 

to do without doing it far in advance. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: And May is a 

particularly -- 

 MR. KATZ: And May is a busy time 

there. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think one of 

the problems with May is we're still getting 

into high school tours and student tours and 

things of that sort, although many of them are 

more into the April area. But I'm not sure 

there's any good time in D.C. as far as 

competing with other things. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: And if we go into 

suburban areas where you can get cheaper 

accommodations, you sort of defeat the purpose 

of doing a meeting there. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Late November is 
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always fun. 

 (Laughter.) 

 MR. KATZ: Moving on, then I have 

teleconference dates to set, too. I will just 

note that we had talked at a previous Board 

meeting about the summer meeting for that 

year, next year, possibly going to INL, since 

that's one of the few times in the year when 

you can get there and back. 

 (Laughter.) 

 So I'm keeping that as tentatively 

sort of penciled in as a possibility. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I think that 

would be a good idea. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: We can rent snow 

mobiles in Buffalo in May. 

 (Laughter.) 

 MR. KATZ: And go straight there. 

 But we need to schedule a 

conference call, one in July, and I've just 

put a question mark -- around the week of the 

15th is about the right timing, but I don't 
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know whether that week works or one adjacent 

in either direction. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Let's ask if 

there's any conflicts the week of July 15th 

that would preclude members from participating 

in a phone conference call. Any bad days 

during that week that are known? 

 MEMBER MUNN: During July 15th? 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: The week of July 

15th. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Let's check the 

Health Physics Society meeting. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: The Health 

Physics Society meeting. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: The Health 

Physics meeting is June 27th through July -- 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We're okay then, 

July 15th, for that meeting. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Where is it? 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Salt Lake City. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. So, Ted, 

let's pick out a date for that tentatively and 
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get it on people's calendars. 

 MR. KATZ: How about Wednesday? 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Wednesday, the 

what? What is it? Who has the calendar out? 

 MEMBER MUNN: The 14th. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: The 14th? This 

is July 14th. 

 MR. KATZ: Bastille Day. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Ted, you've also 

asked about an October conference call 

meeting? 

 MR. KATZ: Right, and then the 

right timing is about the week of the 7th in 

October. So are there any days that week that 

don't work for any members already? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: What week is that 

again? 

 MR. KATZ: The week of October 7th. 

 MEMBER MUNN: What, 2010? 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: The week of 

October 7, any bad dates? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Well, the 7th is a 
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 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes. So I guess, 

Ted, that would be the week surrounding that 

Thursday. 

 (Laughter.) 

 Plus or minus a few days from the 

7th. So anything that week. You were 

probably thinking of doing it on the 7th. 

 MEMBER MUNN: What is that, a call 

or a face-to-face? 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: That would be a 

conference call. So there would be a July 

conference call, a face-to-face in August, and 

a conference call Board meeting in October 

during the week of the 7th. 

 MEMBER LOCKEY: The 20th? 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: That is a pretty 

big plus or minus on the 7th. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: The 6th is a 

Wednesday. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: It is not good for 

me. 
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 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Wednesday, 

the 6th, is bad. How about Thursday? 

 MEMBER MUNN: What about the 7th? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: The 7th is perfect. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Seven being a 

perfect number, we will -- let's go with the 

7th, unless anyone else has a conflict. 

 Okay. I think we are booked 

through 2010, right? Thank you. 

 MEMBER BEACH: So, Ted, for those 

of us still working, can we get that out in 

email form, so we can forward them on to the 

appropriate people, my boss? Thanks. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, thank you 

very much. 

 Now I'm going to ask Dr. 

Worthington -- is she still here or did she go 

out? 

 Okay, we are just going to take a 

five-minute, quick break here and see where we 

are on the DOE presentation. This is not a 

regular break. Do not go far. 
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 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 4:25 p.m. and 

resumed at 4:33 p.m.) 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. We are 

ready to proceed, if you would all take your 

seats. 

 We have been regularly including 

what we call Department of Energy update in 

our meetings. We are pleased not only to have 

Dr. Worthington here, who has been our regular 

updater, as it were, but also Glenn Podonsky, 

who has been with us before. We welcome him, 

and I think we are going to hear from Mr. 

Podonsky as well. 

 Who is going first, though, Pat? 

Are you going first? 

 She is giving way to her boss. 

 So, Glenn, we welcome you. 

 Glenn Podonsky has been with the 

Department of Energy for many years. 

Currently, he is responsible for a large 

portion of what used to be Environment, 
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Safety, and Health, and includes the portfolio 

of providing support for the EEOICPA program. 

 So, Glenn, we are pleased to have 

you with us today. 

 MR. PODONSKY: Well, thank you, 

and good afternoon, Dr. Ziemer and members of 

the Board, representatives from the Department 

of Labor and NIOSH, and those of you in the 

audience. 

 As Dr. Ziemer said, I am Glenn 

Podonsky, the head of the HSS organization. I 

haven't addressed this Board since December of 

'07 in Denver. That was shortly after HSS was 

created. 

 Some of you may or may not know 

this, but the creation of HSS was very 

controversial. It was controversial because 

it was foreseen as undermining the focus of 

safety over security. Some of our most ardent 

critics were the labor unions, the national 

labor unions. We are very pleased that three 

years after we have stood up our strongest 
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supporter now are the labor unions. 

 The reason I bring this up here to 

this Committee is because we have been able to 

sustain the focus on the EEOICPA program and 

the Former Worker Program. We have been able 

to sustain consistency with the budget during 

a time that our budgets are being slashed. 

 I am sure other agencies are 

experiencing something like this, but right 

now in the Department of Energy I have a 

current commitment from our Secretary, 

Secretary Chu, who has only been onboard now 

for six months. But, nevertheless, there is a 

lot of focus on reduction of budgets, 

operating budgets. 

 So the reason I share with you our 

excitement about HSS's being supported by the 

unions and now both sides of the aisle on 

Capitol Hill is because of this consistency 

and sustainability for what we consider to be 

very important. That is the EEOICPA program 

and the Former Worker Program. 
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 We feel very passionate, 

 

 as 

I'm sure the members of the Board do, about 

making sure that the government does the right 

thing. We feel that the Department of Energy, 

especially in its partnership with NIOSH and 

Labor, we need to make sure that we provide 

all the records that we can find. We need to 

make sure that the workers today have a sense 

that, if we are taking care of the former 

workers, then the corporation of DOE is 

standing behind them. 

 I share that with you because in 

the three years since I have been managing HSS 

we have seen commitments made within the 

Department of Energy and not followed through. 

 We find that is atrocious. 

 We feel that, under Pat 

Worthington's leadership in my organization 

and her staff, she has been working very 

closely with NIOSH and the Department of 
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Labor. It is a very solid relationship. We 

understand what our role is supposed to be. 

 Recently, we also worked out, in 

close coordination with NIOSH and DOL, as well 

as this Board and its contractor, in terms of 

security plans. This was very important for 

us to make sure that the plans would be viable 

to provide all the information while still 

protecting national security. 

 The most important part of it was 

the goal of establishing the protocol for 

handling the documents in a way that would 

provide NIOSH, this Board, your contractors a 

clear path to consistent access for all the 

information. We wanted to make sure that that 

was done, so that when people leave, there is 

still this protocol that exists, and that it 

is not just ad hoc. 

 If you all will indulge me before 

Pat makes a more formal presentation, one more 

issue I would like to talk about, and that is 

the area of concern for workers' fear for 
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reprisal. In my opinion, as the head of HSS, 

this is totally unacceptable for the workers 

to have this fear. It is unacceptable. 

 I am meeting with the new three 

Under Secretaries next week and I am meeting 

with the Deputy Secretary next week on a 

couple of matters. I assure you, I assure all 

of you in this room, I am making it a priority 

to make sure that they understand the 

importance of these interviews with the 

workers. 

 These workers are formerly of their 

organizations, their predecessor organizations 

that they are managers of now, and they need 

to understand and their managers in the field 

need to understand that these workers cannot 

feel that they are not safe to talk freely. 

 It has to be, and I'm taking it to 

the highest level. If I could see Secretary 

Chu this next week, I would see him, too, but 

right now I'm just seeing the three Unders and 

the Deputy. 
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 But I want to make sure that they 

understand from our perspective how vitally 

important it is not to have a continued 

chilled atmosphere in the Department of Energy 

where people feel uncomfortable coming forward 

and sharing the knowledge. 

 It is very important that we get 

that knowledge that they have because all the 

records are not where we thought they would 

be. No matter what amount of money we are 

spending to find the records and make sure 

that we are putting everything together at the 

request of what NIOSH, your contractor, as 

well as Labor needs, we just think that it is 

vitally important that the current 

Administration, which is a new Administration, 

that they understand the importance of this 

program. 

 So I was going to turn it over to 

Pat Worthington to cover more detail, but I 

would like to just close by saying, from my 

perspective as the head of HSS, in the three 
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years that we have been stood up, I very much 

appreciate the work of this Committee, the 

work of NIOSH, the partnership we have with 

the Labor Department. We think it is a 

vitally-important program. 

 I've testified to OMB on this case, 

and my assurance to you all is that, even at 

the time of reductions in budgets, we are 

going to stay stable. We have eliminated 

other programs to maintain this one because we 

think it's that important that the workers, 

the former workers and the current workers, 

understand that. 

 I'm not the spokesperson for the 

Department of Energy. I'm simply speaking on 

behalf of what HSS has been stood up for, and 

I think part of it is getting our humanity 

back and making sure people trust the 

government and trust the Department to do what 

it said it was going to do. That is what we 

have been doing for, hopefully, now three 

years. 
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 So, if there's no questions for me 

-- or do you want to have questions? 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Well, thank you, 

Glenn. 

 I think, Board members, if you have 

a question for Glenn, please share it. 

 We certainly appreciate your taking 

time. We know your schedule is very busy, but 

we appreciate your taking the time to come 

here and showing that at the high level that 

you are in the Department of Energy that there 

is that level of support. We do appreciate 

that. So thank you so much. 

 MR. PODONSKY: Well, thank you. 

Thank you for allowing me to address the 

group. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Brad Clawson has 

a question for you though. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: I appreciate and I 

am very happy to hear what you have said about 

that because, as a Board member, and also as a 

DOE employee, and so forth, it has bothered me 
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to go to a couple of the sites and see the 

frustration that people have. 

 One of the things, and I've got to 

give Greg and Pat and all those a lot of 

credit to, is that we are trying to work 

through to this, but sometimes up-top a lot of 

people have expectations. I just want to make 

sure that at the sites that they really 

understand how important this is, too, because 

sometimes in the chain of command things get 

lost. 

 I would like to give credit to Greg 

and to Pat and those because they have been 

working with these issues. But it is out 

there, and it is sad when people don't want to 

say things on a public record because they are 

scared. To me, that does bother me. We are 

trying to work through this, but it makes me 

feel good to know that we do have your 

support, and so forth, like that. 

 MR. PODONSKY: Thank you for that 

statement. If I can, I would like to 
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piggyback on that and tell you, when I talk to 

the three Unders, let me tell you what that 

means. 

 That means that I would be talking 

to them about their particular sites. If Pat 

and Greg have any specific examples, you know, 

we have to be careful not to have it turn into 

the new Under Secretary being upset because of 

some event that they are not well aware of at 

their site. But what I want to impress upon 

them is the importance of their communication 

to their site managers, that this is a program 

that they support. 

 The new Administration, the Obama 

Administration, is talking about openness in 

government. Part of that openness is creating 

an atmosphere where people feel that they can 

come forward and talk openly. 

 We have had other issues in the 

past. Back in the 1994 period, when the 

Clintons were in office, and we had the Human 

Radiation Experiments Program, my office went 
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out and found the records for that. I will 

tell you, there was a great struggle just 

getting those records, and it was something 

that was supported by the White House, by the 

Administration, and by the Department of 

Energy from the Secretary's level, but it 

didn't reach all the way out there. 

 We are hoping to use our experience 

in that period of time to also share with 

today's leadership how important this is. It 

is important for them for another reason. 

They are trying to establish a new agency. 

They are trying to reset the Department of 

Energy and change the way it is structured and 

managed. That is what Secretary Chu has 

talked about in very public forums. 

 Part of what that is, is not just 

refocusing the Department on science, which is 

what this is about, but refocusing on making 

sure the workers feel involved. So when I say 

I am going to talk to them, I'm not going to 

be magically just lecturing them, giving them 
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a sense of what they should be doing, but a 

sense of how important this program is. 

 What we have found, each successive 

Administration, every transition we go 

through, and I've been through about eight of 

them, is that there is a lot of these type of 

programs that just kind of get lost because 

the new political team comes on and they have 

different agendas and they have different 

priorities. 

 We don't want that to happen here. 

 We don't want to lose the consistency that 

has been the mainstay under the leadership of 

this panel, as well as the partnership with 

NIOSH and DOL. 

 So, when we bring it to the Under 

Secretaries, it is more than that. It is 

really bringing back to them the understanding 

that these are their workers, their company's 

responsibility, and DOE, as a corporation, has 

this obligation. Aside from what the law 

says, they have an obligation. So we are just 
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trying to bring that to it. 

 So I appreciate your comment. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: And if I could 

kind of piggyback onto that comment, when we 

go to the site, one of the things that I guess 

really surprised me, a lot of these sites we 

are doing have been destroyed for many years, 

but we have working sites as they are now 

somewhat. A lot of them have had a lot of 

parts and D&D and stuff like that. 

 But one of the things that 

surprised me was at one of the sites, and so 

forth, like that, to go into the lunch room, 

and so forth like that, and they were curious 

what we were doing there. When they found 

out, they said they were surprised because 

they didn't think people were listening to 

them. 

 So the point I'm trying to get to 

is, also, it is important for us, because for 

me to walk into and read a 100- or 350-page 

site profile and stuff, I really don't get a 
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concept for what people did there. 

 I know at numerous sites we are in 

the process of getting tours to be able to 

better help us understand, so that we can help 

the process through. 

 So I guess my request is to you, as 

you're speaking to them, that we're not an 

enemy of them. We are trying to actually help 

DOE build their accreditation, and so forth 

like that. By us coming into these sites, 

actually builds, I guess, a better respect 

that we are actually taking what the workers 

said and investigating and looking into these 

things. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, Brad. 

 And let's hear from Dr. Melius as 

well. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. Thanks for 

what you said here today, and I think for the 

efforts put into this program and supporting 

this program. 

 I think that sort of setting an 
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atmosphere at the sites where this program is 

seen as valuable and something that should be 

supported can be very helpful. 

 I had also made a specific request, 

and I don't know if Pat was going to address 

it later on. But, with the new security 

arrangements and procedures in place for this 

program, I think you sort of highlighted the 

security issue more, and people are more aware 

of it. That's fine, but the issue of people 

being afraid about retaliation comes up. 

 Remember, many of these are former 

workers who haven't worked in the sites for 

many years. So it is their memories of what 

has happened 20 years ago and what they heard 

about, and so forth. So there is a lot of 

fear and concern about what would happen if 

they cooperate with interviews, what happens 

if the people doing the classification reviews 

need to get back to them to clarify what they 

were talking about, or some particular 

technical issue. 
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 I think it would be very helpful if 

there could be some statement, whether it 

comes from the site or from DOE headquarters, 

a piece of paper they could have that they 

would then understand that they should not 

fear retaliation. As long as they follow the 

procedures in terms of how the information is 

conveyed and that it is then reviewed, that 

there should be no fear on their part for any 

retaliation from the site. 

 I think having that piece of paper 

would be helpful, particularly for the former 

workers, but even for current workers, because 

there's always going to be certain individuals 

that may be suspicious or concerned about what 

might happen to them. 

 So, if something in writing could 

be done, either from headquarters or at the 

sites, whatever is most feasible, I think it 

would be very helpful for that part of the 

program, and to make sure that we have 

everyone participating. At the same time, we 
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can also provide the proper security 

protection. 

 MR. PODONSKY: We will take a look 

at that, but I will just say, I have been with 

the Department a short 25 years, and I don't 

have any faith in any piece of paper that is 

signed off by anybody, simply because it is a 

piece of paper. 

 I have worked for a number of 

Secretaries that have signed out papers, and 

the folks down at the sites have not taken it 

to heart. So, on one level, I don't disagree 

with having some sort of documentation, but on 

another level it's, how do you get across a 

change of attitude where the contractors and 

the feds onsite understand that this is 

supported at the highest levels? It's not the 

piece of paper I'm concerned about, only 

because I've seen, without naming names, I've 

seen Secretaries sign out paper that people 

have ignored. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Well, always 
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hopeful, but I think, remember, these 

interviews are often being conducted by people 

from outside and strangers. So, if some 

stranger comes up to you and says, "I want to 

interview you. I want you to tell me all 

about your work, past work environment. I 

know some of this may be classified, but this 

will be reviewed, but don't worry, nothing 

will happen to you," am I going to trust that 

person? 

 Does this indicate, then, that, 

well, this program really does have the 

support and there's something in writing to 

that effect that they can take back with them? 

 You're right, it can be undone, but I think 

at least it would be helpful. 

 MR. PODONSKY: That is a helpful 

suggestion. Thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: In that regard, 

and I haven't had a chance to read what was 

distributed to us, I know you have some new 

documents which I guess are intended for the 
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 MR. PODONSKY: Yes, it is intended 

to inform as vast a population as we can. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I don't know if 

these may contain at least hints of that, at 

least show some support from the top for the 

program. 

 But, as Glenn has indicated, what 

the workers have to see is the reality in 

action, and that is all the way down the chain 

that there is not only no retaliation, but 

there is encouragement for them to 

participate. This has to not just be at the 

secretarial level. It's got to be down in the 

trenches. We all know how that goes, in not 

just this area, but many related areas. 

 Phil Schofield. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I would like to 

thank Greg and Dr. Worthington for everything 

they have done. But I think it is going to 

take some education at these facilities 

because I can say, from the documents I had to 
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sign, the training I had about nondisclosures, about not talking, and people I 

grew up with whose parents had gone through 

the same thing, and a lot of them, if you ask 

them, "What do your parents do?" or even my 

kids at one point, "Nothing." That was as 

much as you told your children, "Nothing." 

 I worked there at the lab and that 

is as far as it went. A lot of these people, 

and I know a lot of my own coworkers, some of 

them who still to this day will not -- their 

wives don't know what they did all those 

years, they really don't. They have taken 

that oath, and they will take it to the grave 

with them because, as far as they are 

concerned, that paper they signed is until 

they die, that is in force. 

 So that the culture has changed and 

that there are certain things they can talk 

about needs to be brought to these facilities. 

 I appreciate what you are doing. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you. 
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 Any further comments or questions 

for Mr. Podonsky? 

 (No response.) 

 Again, Glenn, we thank you very 

much for -- 

 MR. PODONSKY: Thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: -- not only your 

presentation, but for being with us here in 

this meeting today. 

 MR. PODONSKY: Thanks for all the 

work that you all are doing with our partners 

as well. Thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: I guess we will 

hear from Dr. Worthington as well. Thank you. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Good afternoon 

again. It is always a pleasure to come and 

brief the Board and talk about the various 

things that we are doing at the Department of 

Energy, and also to get some feedback, some 

questions, and some comments from you. 

 I typically start off the meeting 

saying that I am here on behalf of Mr. 
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Podonsky to talk about these efforts. So I am 

pleased that Glenn is here today as well, and 

he has talked about his commitment and what he 

has charged us with. So I guess it is my job 

for the next few minutes to talk about what we 

are doing, what are the things that we are 

doing, and to provide you with some stats on 

those areas. 

 What we have done today is that we 

have sort of stepped back and we revisited the 

presentation that we have been doing for the 

last six months. We kind of updated it just a 

little bit to focus it on the DOE roles and 

responsibilities, and then to align that with 

the stats. 

 We just want to remind ourselves, 

and to remind everybody, that we work on 

behalf of the program claimants, and that we 

want to make sure, as Glenn has indicated, 

that we are making all the information that is 

available to the right organizations, so that 

decisions can be made. 
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 We have a number of things that we 

try to do. We try to do them well, to make 

sure that the information gets to the right 

sources. 

 Part of it is responding to DOL and 

NIOSH requests. It is very critical that 

employment verification, exposure rates, that 

information, records, that that is being done. 

 So that is a major part of what we do. 

 We provide support and assistance 

to the various organizations, to the Board, on 

large-scale things. So there are individual 

things. There are large-scale activities that 

we provide data on. We conduct research on 

the covered facilities. We try to provide 

some insights and to answer some questions in 

that regard. 

 I will talk a little about the 

booklets that you have in front of you. We 

have had some recent initiatives, and some of 

the things that I have heard in response to 

Glenn's comments are related to that. 
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 We wanted to make sure that people 

are aware of this program and they are aware 

of the roles and responsibilities of DOE, so 

that they come forward and that, collectively, 

we can work through and make the program 

better. 

 So we have what we called an 

aggressive outreach to make people just more 

aware. We think that if workers are more 

aware, they are more aware of their rights and 

more aware of the program, that they certainly 

will come forward with valuable information. 

It is not just about current workers, it is 

also about former workers as well, and that we 

provide information and resources on programs, 

and that we offer these services across the 

board, where it is appropriate to do so, and 

that we interface with these other 

organizations that Glenn has talked about 

today in terms of the various agencies. 

 We stepped back and we wanted to 

look at the services that we are offering 
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within our organization and to figure out how 

we could, one, highlight those services, make 

people more aware of those services, and to in 

some cases fine-tune those activities that we 

are doing to make them more responsive. 

Again, it is about making people aware of the 

program. 

 We provided for you today a copy of 

two of the pamphlets. One was sent out early, 

and I will talk a little bit about that one. 

 The idea, again, was to just 

refocus and to revisit the roles and 

responsibilities for the Department of Energy. 

 I will digress just a little bit, 

that we actually have several people from our 

organization actually out at Oak Ridge. We 

have talked about Oak Ridge today being a 

major hub for getting information from the 

various organizations, getting the documents. 

 We have people there today meeting with the 

feds and the contractors there, talking about 

sort of the Former Worker Program and how we 
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can do better with that, and also ideas and 

information about the EEOICPA program. So we 

recognize the need, that we need to get the 

word out and make people more aware of those 

activities. 

 The Former Worker Medical Screening 

Program, why are we talking about that? I 

will talk about it a little bit more as we go 

along through this presentation today. 

 But, again, it is not just about 

the current workers, it is about the former 

workers, and it is about, what are the things 

that we are seeing when we are doing the 

medical screenings? They are telling us that 

there are some adverse health effects. So 

that information we are feeding into the 

EEOICPA program, as appropriate, when we need 

to do that, but we also use it to have a 

better current program, so that we don't get 

in the same situation that we are in with some 

of the things that we are seeing today. 

 The third item is on the Worker 
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Safety and Health Program. It is Rule 851. 

It was a rule that was developed to sort of 

bring the non-nuclear hazards and work 

activities on par with the nuclear ones. So 

what we have tried to do with that one is to, 

again, we heard from current workers, "I don't 

know if I really understand 851. What are my 

rights? What does it mean to me? What are 

the kinds of things that I should be doing?" 

 So we wanted to have sort of an 

awareness pamphlet that people could use for 

training. We've gotten feedback from the 

unions that that kind of information is 

helpful to them. 

 So, again, these were the three 

tools that we were using: 

 How do we deliver the right 

documents, and so forth, on the EEOICPA 

program? How do we look at the Former Worker 

Screening Program and leverage that and 

connect it to the other program as needed? 

And then are we doing the right thing for the 
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current workers? So that is what the 851 

piece is about. 

 These are snapshots of the 

pamphlets that I made available to you. The 

first one is on the EEOICPA program, "Outreach 

and Awareness". Again, it is about making 

people aware of the program. Where do you go? 

 What does it do? And in doing so, hopefully, 

how we can get it better. 

 The Former Worker Program, that is 

also in your packet there. Then we have the 

851, which dealt with the current workers. 

 Again, we hand-carried those 

because sometimes, with mailroom activities, 

it is kind of a Pony Express. So we wanted to 

make sure that, even though they were sent out 

a week ago, that they were made available to 

you right now. 

 Now a little bit about the specific 

DOE activities, the things that we are doing, 

and some idea about the numbers. While I will 

give you some specific numbers on what we are 
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seeing today, and looking back last year as 

well, sometimes the numbers themselves don't 

tell the story because sometimes the 

complexity associated with the research and 

delivering the documents may be more difficult 

for one or two versus a number of individual 

employment verifications. 

 Employment verifications, we have 

done about 6,500 this year. We have, again, 

tried to be very aggressive and very creative 

in terms of how we can verify employment. In 

some cases, for example, at Hanford, they even 

look at public housing records. They look at 

where people live, various kinds of documents. 

 The people at Hanford would have only been in 

those programs and had that housing if, in 

fact, they were working on the DOE programs. 

 So we are using every method 

possible, and we are trying to provide what we 

view as somewhat of a personal touch in terms 

of doing this. There are systematic things 

you look at, but did we think about other 
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rocks we could overturn? 

 You have heard today a little bit 

about sort of timing. When do we get back to 

people when we have completed our searches, or 

whatever it is? Sometimes some of them may 

take longer because we don't want to come back 

with a no if it really isn't a no, that maybe 

it is difficult, and we have to really be 

aggressive and turn over everything to be able 

to do those records. 

 In terms of the dose records for 

NIOSH, about 4,000 a year. Then the document 

acquisition requests are about 7,500 a year, 

is what we are doing. 

 This is just a comparison between 

2008 and 2009. Again, it is on fiscal year, 

so it looks similar. Again, our view is that 

the data searches are becoming more difficult. 

Even if the numbers are the same, the 

resources going into it sometimes are quite 

extensive, but we are learning more. We are 

learning from that, and we are factoring that 
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into how we do the others. 

 In terms of the DOE support for SEC 

activities, these are things that cost us more 

bucks, and there are things that we have to be 

more aggressive, and that we are working with 

the various sites on. 

 Here is a listing of the ones that 

we are working on now. Some of them, 

certainly, are bigger activities than others, 

but it is quite a big part of what we do. 

 Here are some examples, and I think 

we have gone through some of them in the past, 

things that we are doing at Hanford, for 

example. Over 2,800 keywords searches, and I 

will talk about that, just for maybe 60 

seconds. 

 Keyword searches, I mean that is 

very critical because you need some structured 

approach in terms of being able to look for 

documents. What are the words you use at this 

site for these kinds of things, or whatever it 

is? 
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 So a lot of time and effort goes 

into the keyword searching methodology and 

approach, but they are revised as appropriate 

when we need to do that. 

 Approximately a million pages 

produced for review, boxes and documents. I 

mean that is extensive, we think. 

 For example, since we are talking 

about Hanford, I will talk about the 

individuals there. We have people that are 

very knowledgeable. Many of them worked on 

the site, and they are familiar with things, 

but quite a lot that we go through in terms of 

reviewing of documents and making sure that we 

can make things available. 

 We have talked about security plans 

today and the fact that we think that we are 

better in terms of the fact that we have 

worked with you on how to put together the 

plan that will be useful. But we continue to 

have to do classification reviews at the 

various sites for various documents. So we 
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work on that, and also the Privacy Act-type 

information. 

 Continuing with Hanford, we 

typically do about one visit a month for NIOSH 

Advisory Board contractors, getting them out 

to the sites. 

 We have heard about, I think just a 

few minutes ago, the need to actually get out 

on the ground and walk the spaces. There is 

one thing to do a keyword search. There is 

another thing to have sort of a visual on what 

is it I'm looking for, what kinds of 

activities went on there, and to be able to 

walk the spaces. I think it certainly helps 

everybody. It makes the job easier and more 

credible if we are able to do that. 

 So we want to continue to 

facilitate those onsite visits and tours. We 

think that they are good for everybody. 

 In terms of being able to do the 

job the best you can in the right environment, 

we try to work with the various organizations 
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to have work space that is appropriate for the 

types of documents and the types of activities 

that you have there. So we work across the 

DOE complex to do that. 

 These were just examples of Hanford 

again in terms of the tours. I think they are 

outstanding. 

 Specific employees made available 

for interviews by request, we want to 

certainly work with the different 

organizations to make sure that we are able to 

set up an interview schedule and that we work 

that schedule. It is critical because there 

are things that workers know. You have to put 

all the information together. You have to 

look at the facilities. What do they look 

like? The data that you are generating, but 

also the insights from the workers. 

 So anything that we can do to help 

facilitate the interviews, making sure that we 

provide a space where, if there is a belief 

that there may be classified discussions, that 
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they are in an environment that they can do 

that. I think we are hearing more that in 

some cases you want the interviews to be 

offsite and away from the regular DOE 

facility. We will work with you on how to 

make that happen. 

 In the case where there is a need 

or a perception that there may be classified 

discussions, we have to be maybe more creative 

in how we do that and we meet the 

requirements. But, certainly, I think we have 

a long history in Glenn's organization of 

doing investigations and reviews. There have 

been cases where people don't want to do it on 

site. So we have to work with you and be able 

to find the right environment, so we can get 

the workers there. 

 As Glenn indicated in terms of 

working from the top all the way down to the 

bottom of the DOE organization and making sure 

that workers are comfortable, whether they are 

current or former, that they are comfortable 
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in being able to come forth and provide 

information. So what can we do to kind of 

make it happen? So that is one of the things 

that we will be championing, to try to work on 

that. 

 Savannah River is another site 

where we have a big SEC activity going on. We 

have hosted, I believe, at least 12 NIOSH site 

visits. We expect to complete records 

search/data capture efforts during the visit 

the week of July 27th, which is right now as 

we speak. Greg, there should be people there 

that are working on that activity. 

 We have hosted a visit for the 

Advisory Board whenever that is needed. We 

will try to work through that. Some sites 

there is a longer lead time. So I think Greg 

has been working hard with you on that, but 

let us know what you think you need. 

 As of July 1st, for Savannah River, 

we had, as you see the stats there, quite a 

bit of effort going on at that site. 
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 We have security reviews of nearly 

all the documents that were identified to 

date. So we continue to work through that. 

 Again, we do conduct document 

reviews of classified documents, in this case, 

129 at Savannah River, you know, almost 4,000 

pages. 

 The SEC at Mound, I think we have 

talked about that in your report today. So 

just a few updates from that: 

 We facilitate meetings of NIOSH and 

the Board and contractors as needed. 

Classified experts will be made available, 

have been made available to review notes and 

things on the spot. We want to, to the extent 

we can, eliminate any long delays in terms of 

getting information back to you. Also, we 

will continue to respond to periodic NIOSH 

data requests. 

 On facility research, again, it is 

DOE's responsibility to maintain that database 

of about 350 facilities. We continue to work 
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on that. 

 A little bit about support that we 

have. Again, you see Isaf and Greg, who is 

actually the Program Manager. You see Gina, 

who is the Office Director. We have an 

additional person that recently came onboard 

from the Former Worker Program working with 

us. 

 But we also try to bring in 

whatever resources we think that are needed. 

In some cases, these are complicated, complex 

documents, some of them very old documents, 

and we utilize experts from the Legacy 

Management organization. They certainly have 

a lot of experience in record retrieval and 

those kinds of activities. So we continue, 

and we have people that are dedicated to our 

program. They certainly belong to Legacy 

Management, but they are dedicated and provide 

support to us. I think they have been 

involved in calls and other things. So I 

think some of you are aware of them. 
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 Facilities research, I have listed 

four facilities here. We have a number of 

activities that are ongoing. They are at 

various stages of maturity in terms of where 

we are in terms of data collection and working 

with either NIOSH or DOL on those efforts. 

 The DOE initiatives, again, what we 

want to do, and Glenn has charged us to do it, 

and he is continuously reminding us, 

communicate, communicate, communicate 

effectively with the different people that you 

have to interface with. 

 So we try to hold regular 

conference calls with NIOSH. NIOSH has been 

very busy. We have been working with them to 

provide information and support, understand 

any concerns that they may have and try to 

address those. 

 We want to make, again, our subject 

matter experts available to the Board, working 

groups, to answer questions on calls, if 

needed. 
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 We serve as sort of the facilitator 

for secured meetings between NIOSH and the 

Board, where discussions can take place on key 

activities in a classified setting, if 

appropriate. 

 In terms of data ownership, in 

terms of trying to retrieve data and working 

with contractors to get what we need, we have 

been trying to do things, and I think Glenn 

mentioned earlier in terms of a security plan 

that the development of the security plan was 

to institutionalize the process, so that if 

you changed staff or you changed people, the 

process is there and we have already worked 

through it. 

 We are trying to do the same thing 

with kind of records. So we are working with 

the CIO's office to make sure that there are 

certain things in procurement activities, or 

whatever, that would ensure that DOE has a 

right for these records, and here are the 

things that we are expecting the contractors 
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to do. So we will continue to kind of work 

through that. I think we have made a lot of 

progress, I think, in the last year in that 

area. 

 The bullet here or the second 

bullet here on this slide is about the Los 

Alamos Medical Center records. Here was a 

situation where, when the hospital was 

privatized and no longer part of DOE activity, 

that those records, critical worker records, 

remained there at the hospital and they were 

in sort of a deteriorating situation. 

 We have been working aggressively 

with the Medical Center. I am happy to say 

that we are very close to completing a major 

phase of that project. We expect, I believe, 

by the end of the summer that we will have 

cleaned up all the records, packaged them, and 

have them characterized in such a way that 

they will be easy to retrieve. 

 So this has been a major 

accomplishment for us, and we have had, I 
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think, good support. We have had 

congressional involvement and the people from 

NNSA are very supportive of this activity. 

 So we hope at the next Board 

meeting that we can declare a victory and have 

even more positive information on where we 

stand with those medical records. 

 This slide is labeled "outreach." 

Probably maybe a different topic might be more 

appropriate. It really is focused on that top 

bullet there. 

 We have designated within the DOE 

complex what we call EEOICPA site points of 

contact. Those individuals have a lot of 

responsibility for making sure that we reach 

out to people and that there is continuity and 

that there is consistency in how the program 

is being carried out, and people know where to 

go in order to get information at key sites. 

 We hold regular or Greg holds 

regular calls with these individuals, making 

sure that we are sharing lessons learned and 
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that we are helping people resolve problems. 

 They attend local public meetings. 

 They set up site visits and tours, and we 

have talked about that already, how important 

it is to be able to do that. They work with 

any of the agencies that we need, whether it 

is DOL or NIOSH, to facilitate interviews of 

current and former workers. So they play a 

major role, provide site experts. In some 

cases, you are looking for the experts at the 

site that understand those operations and 

those activities, and you want to have them to 

work with you. 

 So we are expanding our outreach 

program now sort of beyond these points of 

contact at the site to coordinate a Former 

Worker Program, so that we can come together 

and collectively utilize resources more 

effectively, and be able to reach more people, 

make them aware of the program, and see what 

kind of changes and improvements we can make 

in it as well. 
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 We have talked about the sites 

things and the site POCs. In headquarters, we 

are working with the agencies, DOL, NIOSH, and 

the Ombudsman Office, and the DOL Former 

Worker Medical Screening Program individuals 

to see how collectively from that level we can 

work to get more information out to 

individuals and to figure out how we can 

better retrieve records. 

 A little bit about the Former 

Worker Medical Screening Program. I mentioned 

it several times. We think that it is a very 

unique program, a unique opportunity for DOE 

to reach back to the former workers and say, 

"Come in after you no longer work at the 

Department, that we will screen you for 

adverse health effects to some hazards that 

you could have been exposed to only because 

you were working in the DOE complex," and that 

the exams are set up and designed in such a 

way that you are able to look for those kinds 

of things. 
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 So we are pleased about the 

program, and that we serve all former workers 

from all DOE sites and locations close to 

their residences. So, in some cases, we have 

a dedicated clinic located in a DOE area. And 

when we don't have the dedicated clinic, we 

send people to Comprehensive Health Services. 

 They have a network of clinics all over the 

country, so that people can go a short 

distance and actually get these screenings. 

 The Former Worker Medical Screening 

Program, there are local screening programs 

for five sites in Ohio, and I think we have a 

number of people that are here today from the 

Former Worker Program. 

 Are some of you here? If you could 

stand up? Here are the individuals from the 

Former Worker Program here in Ohio. They are 

around. They have cards and other things, if 

you want to talk to them some after the 

meeting. 

 But, again, we believe this is an 
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excellent program and that it is one that DOE 

is looking back and looking to see how we can 

look at those workers from the past. 

 I was a little bit fast there. I 

want to catch us up a little bit and allow 

plenty of time for questions and comments. 

I'm ready to answer any questions or to 

revisit any of the things that I may have 

rushed through in the presentation. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, thank you 

very much, Pat. We appreciate that overview 

and additional detail as well. 

 Let's go ahead and open the floor 

for questions or comments from the Board. Any 

issues that Pat has raised that you want to 

ask about? 

 Mr. Presley? 

 Use the microphone there, Robert. 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Can you explain to 

the Board the working relationship between 

DOE, NNSA, and OSTI on how you all get records 

and things like that in Oak Ridge? The 
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question has been asked. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Right. I am 

going to sort of give some general comments. 

Then Greg will come up and give some 

additional specific information. 

 But Oak Ridge, as I mentioned 

before, is our biggest operation in terms of 

information when you're coming in, looking for 

records. You are going to look for K-25; you 

are going to look for Oak Ridge National 

Laboratory, Y-12. So there are a large number 

of many of the environmental programs that are 

going on there, the EM programs that are going 

on. They will come through the Oak Ridge 

Operations Office for the actual search of 

those records. 

 I don't know if you want to add 

anything else. 

 I know that, as Greg is coming up, 

you might want to elaborate a little bit, but 

I know earlier today there were some 

statistics regarding some outstanding things 
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from Oak Ridge. I think just recently, maybe 

within the last week or so, maybe 100 or more 

of those that were listed there actually were 

completed by Oak Ridge. But it is the largest 

center that we go to in terms of retrieving 

records. 

 MR. LEWIS: Yes, and I would agree 

with what Dr. Worthington said. Approximately 

35 percent of our claims, somewhere around 

there, have to do with Oak Ridge when you 

count all five sites, including NNSA, EM, and 

the various groups. Even though they are 

different agencies within DOE that are 

involved down there or different groups, we 

handle it all through one office. 

 That is primarily because we have 

found your typical Oak Ridge employee has 

worked at about three of the sites because 

they traded around so much and would move from 

one to the other, depending on workloads. We 

found that it was more efficient to run it 

through one office, and because of the volume 
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of claims, it works out better. So we have 

one point of contact down there for all issues 

related to K-25, Paducah, Portsmouth, Y-12, 

and the National Lab. So they all run through 

one office. 

 OSTI is a little bit different 

because it is more of a library, a holding 

area for records. Even though it is a covered 

facility, there are not so many claims from 

OSTI, but we do utilize them significantly for 

large-scale records research projects and the 

SECs. Because they are a repository for 

records, we will go there for many different 

facilities or we will facilitate access for 

NIOSH and DOL for many different facilities at 

OSTI. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: This week we have 

a team from our office that are there meeting 

on the Former Worker Program with some 

interface on the EEOICPA program. We have 

pulled together those coordinators from all of 

those. Whether EM, NNSA, or science, we have 
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pulled them all together for discussion. 

 As Greg said, typically, there is 

one organization -- I believe it is EM; Steve 

McCracken's group I believe is the group -- 

that may have maybe overall coordination, if 

we need to do that. But, again, we go to Oak 

Ridge for records, whether it is NNSA, 

Science, EM. Because, as Greg indicated, they 

do move around quite a bit there. So that 

centralized approach I think is probably more 

effective. 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Robert, did you 

have a follow-up to that or that answered it? 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Very good. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Yes, thank you. 

 Josie Beach? 

 MEMBER BEACH: I believe Greg said 

he might mention this, but I wanted to 

compliment DOE on a meeting that we held 

recently for Mound. It was a secure meeting, 

and we were able to do it through video 
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conferencing. Some of us were at Hanford, 

some in Germantown, and then Y-12. That was 

wonderful, and I hope to see more of those 

meetings in the future. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: It worked like a 

million dollars. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Thank you. We 

got some good feedback on that, and Greg is 

looking into it for others. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you. We 

appreciate that. 

 Brad Clawson? 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Pat, so many times 

we sometimes focus on all the negative that is 

going on. I would like to take the 

opportunity to tell you how much we appreciate 

what you and your staff has done. It has made 

it a lot easier for us to have a point of 

contact that we can go to that assists us in a 

lot of this stuff. 

 As I have watched the program 

progress, and so forth, I would just like to 
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tell you and your group how much we appreciate 

what you have done for us. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: We certainly 

appreciate the feedback on the positive, but 

we take every negative comment and turn it 

over to see if we can make some improvements 

in the program. So some of the things that 

you see that we are feeding back, it is 

because we have been listening. So please 

give us those as well. We certainly 

appreciate them. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: The Board members 

are not usually very hesitant to do that, when 

necessary. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: I know. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: But, nonetheless, 

we do appreciate it. In the past year or two, 

or three now, particularly since Glenn has 

gotten involved in your staff, we have seen a 

remarkable improvement in retrieving those 

records and supporting the program. So we 

certainly thank you. 
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 Any other comments, Board members? 

 Okay, Phil, I missed you there. Go 

ahead. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: No. I just 

forgot to put it down. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 Okay, thank you again for your 

comments and your insight into the things that 

are going on from the DOE perspective. We 

appreciate your presence here with us again. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And again, thank 

you for the opportunity. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: We are going to 

recess now until seven o'clock, at which time 

we will have the public comment session. 

 Before we do that, I asked Nancy 

Adams to provide me with some information, 

which she has provided me, because we wanted 

to thank particularly Leroy Turner and Lynette 

-- is it Hartkee? Hartle, okay. I can 

"Hartle" say that. 

 And Tom Neely and Tom James, who 
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are the IT people who have been helping us 

with our new computers that we are devoting 

now to our Board work because of new 

requirements, well, basically, new security 

requirements. Tom and Leroy have been here 

today and helping us fix problems that we have 

had, and maybe fix problems that we didn't 

know we had, but had, nevertheless. So we do 

appreciate them. 

 Are they here still? Yes. 

 Thanks, guys. We appreciate the 

work that you have done for the Board. 

 Now the proof is in the pudding. A 

lot of us don't have our computers back yet. 

So we are thanking you in advance, in 

anticipation of the good work that you are 

going to continue as you get us squared away 

and ready for the future of IT and this Board. 

 So, again, we do thank you for your 

efforts and for helping us get revamped and 

underway with the various procedures and 

requirements. 
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 I may need to say some more things 

about this, but, Nancy, you will have to 

prompt me later, if I left anything out. At 

least my heart is in the right place, if not 

all the words. 

 We will recess until seven o'clock, 

at which time we will have our public comment 

session. 

 If you do wish to make public 

comment and have not already signed up to do 

so, please sign up on the registration sheet 

in the foyer. 

 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 5:24 p.m. and 

resumed at 7:04 p.m.) 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Good evening, 

everyone. 

 This is the public comment session 

of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health, meeting in the Cincinnati area today 

and for the next two days. 

 We will have some members of the 
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public on the telephone lines who will make 

comment. 

 Before we get to the actual 

comments, let me make a few comments myself, 

and then Ted Katz, our Designated Federal 

Official, is going to fill us in on some of 

the ground rules of a public comment session. 

 But, for the members of the public, 

I just want to remind you, or maybe you hadn't 

heard it before, but this Board is an 

independent Board. We are not part of NIOSH 

or Department of Labor or Department of 

Energy. So we are here as an independent 

group to get feedback from the public about 

the compensation program. 

 Now we are not an appeals board on 

individual claims, nor are we the group that 

does the dose reconstructions. If you are 

speaking in public and have issues relating to 

your personal claim, this Board will not be 

able to deal with that individually, and 

particularly not here at this meeting, 
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although in certain cases we can point you in 

the right direction in terms of who you need 

to speak to. 

 Mr. Katz will talk to you about the 

ground rules of what you should anticipate in 

terms of what will appear in the public 

record. Certainly, we welcome your relaying 

of experiences that you may have had in terms 

of your own claim or other aspects of the 

program, but I just want to make you aware 

that we are mainly here to listen. This is 

not a question-and-answer period, but mainly 

the Board will simply listen to what you have 

to say and your comments will be on the public 

record as well. 

 Now let me ask Mr. Katz to talk to 

us about mainly what is the so-called 

Redaction Policy relating to these 

proceedings. 

 MR. KATZ: Thank you Dr. Ziemer. 

 So this is pretty simple. But, as 

you may have noticed, and for the folks on the 
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phone, of course, you can't, but the entire 

session of the Board all day each day, 

including the public comment session, is 

transcribed verbatim. So everything that is 

said is taken down, and all of that is posted 

after it goes through some review processes, 

it is all posted on the NIOSH website. 

 So what you need to know as a 

public commenter is, if you come up and make a 

presentation, your information that you 

present will all be part of that transcript 

and available to the public, including your 

name, if you give us your name, and any 

personal information you give about yourself, 

generally speaking. It would all be posted 

and available to the public. 

 If you do speak about a third 

party, another individual, that person's 

identifying information, generally speaking, 

would not be made available to the public. So 

their name and other identifying information 

about a person you talk about would be 
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redacted, blacked-out in the transcript, to 

protect their privacy. 

 The only other points really to 

make are, if you want to see the full policy 

for how we go about this with the redaction, 

it is on the NIOSH website and it is also in 

this room at the back, on the back table, with 

the other documents. 

 Should there be someone who wants 

to address the Board or communicate something 

with the Board, but not want to do that in 

this sort of public forum, then they should 

get in touch with me to see about what kind of 

arrangements could be made. 

 Thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, Mr. 

Katz. 

 We are going to begin this evening 

with a statement from Representative Higgins 

of New York, and I believe on the line is Matt 

Ferry from Representative Higgins' staff. 

 Matt, are you on the line? 
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 MR. FERRY: Yes, I am, sir. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, Matt, if 

you would proceed with the statement from 

Congressman Higgins, we would appreciate it. 

 MR. FERRY: Thank you. 

 Again, I am calling on behalf of 

Congressman Brian Higgins from Buffalo, New 

York, in regards to the Bethlehem Steel 

Claimant Action Group Special Exposure Cohort 

Petition. 

 On June 4th, 2009, Congressman 

Higgins, along with Senator Schumer, Senator 

Gillibrand, Congresswoman Slaughter, 

Congressman Massa, and Congressman Lee, sent a 

letter to the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health in regard to that petition. I 

would like to read that into the record right 

now word for word. 

 "Dear Dr. Ziemer: 

 "We write you today to request that 

the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health hold one of its upcoming meetings in 
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Buffalo, New York, to discuss problems with 

use of surrogate data and the dose 

reconstruction processes for claimants at the 

Bethlehem Steel site, and the merits of the 

Bethlehem Steel Claimants Action Group Special 

Exposure Cohort Application before the Board. 

 "As you may know, we recently 

introduced legislation, H.R. 2114 and S.916, 

the Ed Walker Memorial Act for Improvements to 

the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program. This legislation echoes 

the application of the Bethlehem Steel 

Claimants Action Group for Designation as a 

Special Exposure Cohort. 

 "It is our contention that these 

workers should be classified into a Special 

Exposure Cohort because of the extreme paucity 

of data to actually assess the causation link 

between the ailments suffered by the nuclear 

workers and the exposure to them. 

 "The Bethlehem Steel claimants and 

their families have been dealing with the 
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results of this extremely harmful exposure to 

radioactive particles for decades. Now they 

have been dealing with the frustrating and 

convoluted processes related to the 

implementation of the EEOICPA for nearly 10 

years. 

 "In order to assure that the 

federal government treats these families with 

fairness, we urge the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health to come to Buffalo 

and hear firsthand the difficulties families 

have had with processes as they exist and 

understand arguments for why the Bethlehem 

Steel Claimants Action Group Special Exposure 

Cohort's petition is meritorious. 

 "Sincerely, Charles Schumer, 

Kirsten Gillibrand, Brian Higgins, Louise 

Slaughter, Eric Massa, and Chris Lee." 

 Thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, Matt. 

 Did you have any additional comments? 

 MR. FERRY: Well, yes. In addition 
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to that, as you may probably know, there are 

several other petitions from the area, 

including the Linde Ceramics petition as well 

as the Jones Steel and Laughlin Steel 

petitions as well. 

 So at such point where, should the 

Advisory Board choose to come to Buffalo, 

hopefully, this year or possibly next year, 

there are many things that you will be able to 

discuss. So we would welcome you to both 

discuss the Bethlehem Steel issue as well as 

all the other claims that exist. 

 So we would certainly appreciate 

any follow-up from the Advisory Board 

forthcoming, and we look forward to hearing 

from you, and would be more than happy to be 

helpful to you as you move forward. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, thank you 

very much, Matt. Let me officially 

acknowledge the fact that I have received a 

copy of the letter in the past two or three 

weeks. I forget the exact date. I think it 
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was distributed to the Board, but I'm not 

absolutely certain. It was? Okay. So the 

Board members do have copies. 

 During our working session this 

week, we will at least discuss -- we will 

respond to the letter formally. The Chair 

responds to these letters, but only with the 

concurrence of the Board. So we will have 

some sort of response officially to your 

letter, hopefully, later this week, and that 

will be transmitted to all of the signatories 

of the letter. Again, we will keep you 

informed in terms of progress in that regard. 

 MR. FERRY: Well, your 

responsiveness is greatly appreciated. I 

would say that, on behalf of all six offices 

that submitted this letter, this is a fight 

that we have been waging for quite some time, 

often with other members of Congress who have 

since moved away from federal office. But it 

is something that we will likely continue to 

wage moving forward. 
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 So we appreciate your working with 

us on this. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you 

very much for participating this evening in 

this public comment period. 

 MR. FERRY: Thank you for having 

me. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Next we will hear 

from John Hanson. John is here with us, and 

he is here on behalf of the Dow Madison site, 

actually, which is in Illinois. 

 John, welcome. 

 I think most of us have met John 

before. 

 John also has provided a handout 

which has been distributed to all the Board 

members. This is a letter and some 

attachments which come from John and from 

[identifying information redacted]. 

 So, John, the floor is yours. 

 MR. HANSON: Yes, thank you, Dr. 

Ziemer. 
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 Good evening. [identifying 

information redacted], who has addressed this 

Board in the past, was unable to attend due to 

her new duties as [identifying information 

redacted] Department and sends her welcome. 

She has asked that I address the Board in her 

stead. I would like to read the following 

into the public record: 

 A letter to Rachel Leiton, 

Department of Labor, dated July 24th, 2009: 

 "Dear Ms. Leiton: 

 "As you know, in September 2008, we 

requested that the Department of Labor 

consider extending the covered AWE time frame 

under the Energy Employees Occupational 

Illness Compensation Program Act for the Dow 

Madison facility in Madison, Illinois, based 

upon information indicating that: 

 "One, Dow Madison was contracted by 

the AEC to develop the alloy that was to 

become HK31A, that HK31A was present at 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as well 
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as Sandia National Laboratory, and, three, 

that the Department of Energy reported that 

`several other weapons parts were made from 

thorium in the time frame 1962 through 1969.' 

 "In March 2009, your office denied 

our request for expanding the covered period, 

stating that there is `only evidence that 

magnesium-thorium alloys could have been used 

in the production of an atomic weapon and no 

evidence that, if such alloys were used in 

atomic weapons, that they originated from Dow 

Madison.' 

 "You further suggested that we 

provide you with `evidence of a singular and 

compelling nature that shows Dow Madison was 

the sole manufacturer and distributor of 

magnesium-thorium alloys used in an atomic 

weapon.' 

 "Consideration might be given by 

the Department of Labor to change the current 

years of coverage. At this time, we would 

like to submit recently-uncovered materials 
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which do confirm that Dow Madison was the lone 

facility to produce HK31A under the auspices 

of its parent company, Dow Midland, of the 

specificity used in atomic weapons parts, and 

that was present at Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory as well as Sandia National 

Laboratory." 

 And if you will please reference 

the attachments. 

10 "In the Norman Woldman, Engineering 

Alloys, Fifth and Sixth Editions, Dow Madison 

is clearly identified as the sole producer of 

the following alloys: HK31A O-temper with 

30,000 to 33,000 tensile strength in pounds 

per square inch, a yield strength of 18,000 to 

20,000 pounds per square inch. These are 6 

percent greater tensile strength than 

T6-temper and 36 percent greater yield 

strength than T6-temper, as well as HK31A 

H24-temper with 34,000 to 39,000 tensile 

strength in pounds per square inch, a yield 

strength of 24,000 to 31,000 pounds per square 

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inch, 24 percent greater tensile strength than 

T6-temper and 96 percent greater yield 

strength than T6-temper. 

 "And finally, the HK31A extrusion 

in T5-temper with 37,000 to 44,000 tensile 

strength in pounds per square inch, a yield 

strength of 26,000 to 38,000 pounds per square 

inch, which is 37 percent greater tensile 

strength than the T6-temper and 129 percent 

greater yield strength than T6-temper. 

 "The temper strengths mentioned 

here, particularly the T5-temper that I 

previously mentioned, are consistent with the 

HK31A used in atomic weapons at this time 

because of their ability to withstand 

excessive heat, stress, and strain. While 

there were other manufacturers of HK31A at the 

time, they produced only the T6-temper with 

the 27,000 to 32,000 tensile strength in 

pounds per square inch and a yield strength of 

13,000 to 15,000 pounds per square inch, and 

as such, were basically commercial producers 
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or involved in the aerospace industry. 

 "Therefore, based on this new 

evidence, we would like to request the 

extension of the covered AWE time frame under 

the EEOICPA legislation for the Dow Madison 

facility in Madison, Illinois, to 1972." 

 Signed, "Sincerely, [identifying 

information redacted], Southern Illinois 

University, Edwardsville, and John Hanson, 

Research Assistant to [identifying information 

redacted]." 

 Thank you. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, John. 

 I would like to ask you one 

question. Do you know if this material has 

been supplied to the petitioner for Dow 

Madison or not? 

 MR. HANSON: To my knowledge, no, 

sir. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 Now, on the sign-up sheet outside 

the door, John Hanson was the only one who 
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signed the sheet. So I want to ask now if 

there are others in the assembly here who did 

wish to make public comment, but who 

overlooked signing up or weren't sure whether 

you wanted to speak or not. We will certainly 

open the door for you if you do wish to make 

comment. Otherwise, I am going to go back to 

the phone lines. 

 (No response.) 

 Okay. I will provide another 

opportunity in a few minutes. 

 I would like to ask if there are 

others on the phone lines who wish to make 

public comment. 

 DR. McKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. I 

would like to make a short comment, please, 

Dr. Ziemer. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Okay. Yes, Dan 

McKeel I believe is the petitioner for the Dow 

Madison site as well as another site. 

 Go ahead, Dan. 

 DR. McKEEL: Good evening to the 
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Board members. I would just like to comment 

on your question to Mr. Hanson. 

 That is, I did write, I have 

written [identifying information redacted] 

several times asking her to please share her 

new information with me, as petitioner on the 

Dow Madison extension of the SEC. The most 

recent one was an email I sent to her 

yesterday in that regard. So I am hoping that 

she will decide to do that because it puts me 

in a very awkward position not knowing this 

information and not being able to help and 

support the effort, which, of course, I hope 

proves to be successful. 

 I think the other comment that I 

want to make, shifting gears, relates to Larry 

Elliott's, Director of OCAS, presentation to 

the Board today. In that, he gave a news 

update about the recently-published report 

that NIOSH made about comparing the Ruttenber 

Rocky Flats dataset with the dataset that 

NIOSH had collected on Rocky Flats that had to 
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do with neutron exposures. 

 Mr. Elliott, as I understood, his 

comment was that, basically, the report showed 

that there were no significant differences 

between the two datasets and that they were 

basically the same. I just wanted to comment 

that many of us maybe listened to and 

participated in the July the 20th, 2009, Rocky 

Flats Work Group session. In that session, 

there was attention called to two basic huge 

differences between the two datasets. 

 Again, those datasets were aimed at 

identifying people who had neutron exposures 

at Rocky Flats and might be included in the 

awarded SEC class for that facility. You 

please excuse me if these weren't the exact 

numbers, but I believe there were 4,163 people 

identified in the Ruttenber dataset that they 

said were exposed to neutrons that were not in 

the NIOSH dataset. And in turn, Brant Ulsh 

commented that there were 468 people, or 486 

-- I can't remember -- people in the NIOSH 
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dataset that were not found in the Ruttenber 

dataset. 

 SC&A's Arjun Makhijani commented 

that that 4,163 people were potentially 

eligible to be included in the SEC dataset, 

and I believe that is where it ended with the 

Work Group, that obviously more work was to be 

done to reconcile those really large 

discrepancies. 

 So, in light of that happening just 

four days ago, I must say I was very surprised 

to hear Mr. Elliott's characterization of that 

report. I just thought that should be noted 

for the public record. 

 Thank you very much. 

 CHAIRMAN ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan. 

I might mention -- and of course, Mark Griffon 

is here, the Chair of that work group, and he 

is aware of your comments as well, as is Dr. 

Makhijani, I believe. At least he is here at 

the meeting. Yes, he is here in the assembly. 

 I believe, Mark, when you report 
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out for the Work Group later this week, you 

may address this issue further. 

 So thank you, Dan, for those 

comments. 

 Is there anyone else on the line 

who wishes to address the assembly? 

 (No response.) 

 Apparently not. 

 Let me again give opportunity to 

anyone here in the room with us tonight that 

wishes to make public comment. 

 (No response.) 

 A very quiet group tonight, and I'm 

not aware of any other folks that have called 

in to ask specifically, not for today. We 

will have some others on the line at the other 

public comment period. 

 If not, then we are going to 

recess. We will reconvene tomorrow morning at 

what, at 8:30? Nine o'clock. You shouldn't 

have told me, I would have been here really 

early. 
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 Thank you. We will see you all 

tomorrow. 

 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 7:24 p.m.)