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time. That’s good.

Rich, you have another comment?

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, I do. Along with the
percentage on -- on all these sites, I'd also like
to see it done by district, you know, the Denver -
- one out of each one, net maybe three out of the
same district, like Jacksonville.

DR. ZIEMER: Get some national spread on
these is what you're saying.

MR. GRIFFON: Geographic, yeah.

MR. PRESLEY: Geographic spread.

DR. ZIEMER: Good point, yeah.

MR. PRESLEY: Paul, something else you might
want to ask to be put in there is whether a
national lab, production area or a gaseous
diffusion plant.

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. National lab, a
production facility or a gaseous diffusion.

MR. PRESLEY: Gaseous diffusion.

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, very good. We still have
a little time. Maybe if we have the data, we
should go ahead and do some jotting-down now. Do
we have it or not?

DR. MELIUS: Can I make one more -- I hope

it’s a practical suggestion -- possible. But

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but -- open the floor for that. I had already
suggested one that might be a possibility and that
was the number of cases -- DR cases generated by a
site. Jim, Wanda? Wanda’s first.

MS. MUNN: I was very interested in seeing
the figures that dim gave to us earlier today with
respect to the percentage of claims received as
opposed Lo worker population. It seems to me that
those figures may be one of the criteria that we
may want to consider when we're thinking about
which sites we want to look at and which ones we
do not. It appears that it might be wise for us
to look at a couple of the sites with the larger
percentage of claims to worker personnel, and that
we would similarly want to look at a couple of the
very lowest and fill in in between. Those --
those percentages probably tell a story of their
own, and whether the site profiles are a key part
of that story I don’t think we can tell unless we
decide that we want to look at both ends of that
spectrum.

MR. ELLIOTT: Wanda, I think the percentages
you're referring to were in Pete Turcic's
presentation, and those are net -- not clearly

related to the number of cases we have in dose

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say I think we should look at both the number of

workers potentially there -- I think is what Leon
was getting at a little bit -- as well as the
number of claims that have come in so far, ‘cause

that would sort of give us a sense of both what
NIOSH's immediate priorities are, which are going
to -- you know, what's covering the most cases
with the site profiles, as well as down the road.

MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Inaudible)

DR. MELIUS: I thought you said (Off
microphone) (Inaudible).

MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Inaudible)

DR. MELIUS: tf wanted both.

DR. ZIEMER: Tony, you have anolher comment?
Actually there have been -- about a dozen
different criteria have been suggested here, and
there are sites that -- any given site probably
meets a number of those criteria. We would need
to -- we would -- we would need to determine which
of these criteria are the important ones. You
could probably make a case for most any site,
based on one or more of these criteria. But the
whole point is I think that when we're ready to
select sites -- and I’m going to suggest that we

might want to wait till tomorrow to actually do

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enrichment -- how alike are some of these sites
and -- and so forth in terms of some of the issues
that might be encountered there on a site profile.
So I think if we arrayed that -- again, it’s going
to come down to -- I don’t think we can have
completely objective criteria, but I think if we
had that type of information arrayed in front of
us, then we could make a selection. And we may
tier it. You know, these are the first three or
five or whatever and then, you know, defer
choosing some others or delay -- delay some at
some point in time. But I think if we had that it
would be a pretty straightforward process. And [
think we could probably do the same with the AWE
sites or AEC sites, also.

MR. GIBSON: = pretty much agree with Jim's
comments. I just wanted to add that I think it
would be important to look at some of the sites
that had a very diverse operation and had a very
diverse amount of isotopes on site to determine
the adequacy of the site profile.

MR. OWENS: I think it’s important,
particularly in regard to the SEC sites, that we
consider those sites that are not SEC status

currently and the number of workers who have

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reconstruction, but I have a report here that, if
you want to know how many cases we have and how
many we've completed for a given site, I can share
that with you upon your request,

MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Inaudible)

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Jim and then
Michael.

DR. MELIUS: It might be helpful if we had
that information, Larry and -- I mean not right
now or tomorrow morning or whenever we want to
talk about this. Also, with some input from Jim
Neton as to how complete these site profiles are.
I haven’t gone through what’s on --
comprehensively what‘s on the web site, but there
are reserved sections and so forth that -- that we
may want to think about in terms of scheduling
issues that -- that they’re partially done now but
you know that within three months or whatever that
-- that major sections will be completed and may
be more appropriate at that point in time. And I
think if we also had that list arrayed we could
also think about the diversity of processes at
those sites that we -- and just as you know,

for example, do we need to do both Portsmouth and

Paducah er -- or, you know, uranium -- uranium

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that‘s not common among the other sites and I
would like to add that to the list so we'd be sure
to pick up the unusual.

DR. ZIEMER: Sites with unusual nuclides or
sources of radiation?

DR. DEHART: Sources of radiation. Specitic
different kinds of isotopes that are unique to a
facility, for example.

MS. MUNN: I was writing down what other
people were saying and thinking about how I might
go about that myself, and I wound up with five
different bullets which I thought perhaps we might
be able to put inte a matrix of some sort to get a
good cross-section. Those five bullets I had were
number of claims or workers; the type of activity,
which would include internal or external dose and
different types of sources; years of operation;
geographic distribution; and SEC sites. If we
were to place those specific -- consider those as
being basic items that we wanted to assure were
included, then we could make some decisions about
how many might fit one or more of those
categories.

DR. ZIEMER: Jim?

DR. MELIUS: I would modify that slightly and

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proc-- you know, this activity that we're underway
now that we'd follow the same process. And if it
gets beyond that, then TI think it almost behooves
us that it has to go to the full Board, under the
current circumstances, And I mean it’s a very
awkward situation because we’re reviewing NIOSH,
NIOSH doesn't want to be in the process of making
decisions about this review, and we've also got
the FACA and procurement thing to balance out,
And I think we just -- you know, err on the side
of being careful, but again, I think -- you know,
this -- most -- clarification, if it takes place,
should take place tomorrow when we talk to the
contractor. And if not, if it’s something
significant, it’s going to have to wait till the
next meeting and hopefully that won't take place.
MR. ELLIOTT: The distinction I'd like to
make here, though, is that what we were doing as I
just described it was under the closed session
type of process. Okay? It wasn’t going to be
done in the public venue anyway. What we’re
talking about now, though, where you're dealing
with a specific task and points of clarification,
questions about how to proceed from your

contractor, I don’t want to be in that situation

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and since Larry has the numbers, Larry have one of
his staff people do -- give us a listing that we
can -- both as a handout and as a power point
tomorrow that would list the sites with some of
these numbers involved and maybe some of these
other characteristics, but more importantly just
the numbers so that we have an array --

DR. ZIEMER: Or at least the ones that they
have readily available -- numbers of case --

DR. MELIUS: Right.

DR. ZIEMER: -- numbers of workers at the
site: =

DR. MELIUS: Right.

DR. ZIEMER: -- percentages of cases
submitted. They'd certainly know which have
Mainly external/internal --

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think we --

DR. ZIEMER: -- which are the broad sites as

far as diversity of operation.

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and long -- and then maybe
status of the site profile. If we don't have a
site profile, it’s hard to review it, so -- that -
- and if we could have that for -- for tomorrow

morning for discussion, I think we can then talk -

- go through some of these other criteria and make

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that 'cause you need to think about this -- but
one would then couch the selection in terms of
some of these criteria. I'm net sure that it’s
worth trying to say one of these criteria is any
more important than the other. They're probably
all important in their own way. But at the point
at which we're ready to make that selection, it
seems to me that with the selection we have a
rationale that couches or expresses why that site
was selected, perhaps in terms of one or more of
these, as opposed to simply saying I like that
site better or I used to work there or whatever it
might be.

DR. ROESSLER: This might be a dangerous
suggestion, but another approach would be, since
we have -- since we could include most of the
sites that are on the list, maybe we should look
at it from the point of view of eliminating a site
because it overlaps with another site or because -
- for some reason. Would it be easier to approach
it that way?

DR. ZIEMER: I don’t know.

DR. MELIUS: I think we might need a little
bit of both and, you know, not to avoid some of

the overlap but -- do that. Can we delegate --

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worked at those particular sites versus the number
of claims that have been filed at those sites. L
think that if we review the procedures based on
that, that might aid the credibility of the
program overall from the standpoint of the under-
represented numbers of workers who have filed in
those areas.

DR. ANDRADE: AcLually I had two suggestions.
This morning, after one of the presentations, I
was sort of surprised at the number of claims
denied from SEC sites, and some explanations were
given. Nevertheless, I think that it would be
interesting to look at one or more of those sites,
especially with the high turn-down rate.

And my other idea, which purely addresses my
health physics curiosity, would be to look at a
site which we're looking at heavy external dose,
and also another site with a fairly healthy amount
of work in which one could potentially have
received or there are records to show that there
were -- that there were significant intakes. I
think -- those would be my suggestions.

DR. DEHART: I don't know all the sites
specifically, but I’m sure there are some sites

that have rather unique energy levels or sources

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we can take care of by tomorrow if NIOSH staff
would be willing to put that list together.

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments?

(No responses)

Now the other item I was suggesting we
proceed with is the issue of selection of sites
for the initial group of reviews. Now there are a
number of large sites, and if you looked at the --
our suggestion of -- or our -- our statement of
work was that we would do ten or 12 DOE sites and
several -- I think it was up to four of the AWEs.
The ten to 12 DOE sites -- I think intuitively
most of us said well, that's the ten big sites or
something like that, but it may not be all of the
sites on the list. I forget how many were on that
list that we had -- 15? So there needs to be some
kind of reason for not doing some of these, at
least during the first year. We may eventually do
more later, but I think it would be useful if we
could identify some objective criteria on which to
make the decision so that we’re not doing it just
based on our warm fuzzy feeling about some
particular sites. And I wonder if any of you have
suggested criteria that might be used for that

purpose, I will suggest some if no one else does,

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there’s the one -- that one power point slide in
Jim Neton’s that listed all the sites for the site
profiles and the documents and the stars and so
forth. If you could blow that up, you know, into
a -- so it’s printed out in a single page, that
would be a pretty good list to work off of and
then we can write in the numbers tomorrow.

DR. ZIEMER: Is that do able, Jim, or...

DR. MELIUS: And that also has some idea of
what the status is of the -- that presents the
status of the site profiles.

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) (Inaudible)

DR. ZIEMER: We have a little tiny thing we
can barely read. Yeah, that -- that’s -- Jim, is
slide five of your presentation I think is the one
you‘re referring to. Right?

MR. GRIFFON: Can you -- can you read down
the number of claims now, by site, or is that --
why don’t -- let's just do it now and get the
numbers down.

DR. ZIEMER: What is it you're going to read?

MR. ELLIOTT: I’m going to read for Fernald
and for all subsequent sites on the slide that Jim
had of site profiles for the top 15 DOEs -- sites,

the numher of claims that we have current --

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either the Chair or the NIOSH staff person, if
it's Jim or Larry, has to make a judgment as to
the significance of what's being asked and whether
or net the answer can be given without Board
input. And as you say, hopefully we’ll make
whatever clarifications are needed at the session
tomorrow afternoon when the folks are here with
us.

Okay. Other comments before we move on?
Tony, yeah.

DR. ANDRADE: I think it‘d be very helpful to
have, as Jim suggested, a list of those activities
~- general activities, items -- administrative
type actions that we should be able to delegate to
other offices within NIOSH without any further
Board action -- for example, the approval of
invoices -- and/or such that we can begin
@iscussion on when the Board should be looking at
-- and I’m not sure if these timetables exist;
I’ve forgotten, as well -- as to when products are
due. And based on those products, whether or not
the Board should approve the work. But not until
we have that list in front of us can we start to
intelligently make decisions about those sorts of

things. Now I'm sure there are simple things that

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where I'm crafting a response and getting
somebody's reaction to it. I think that response
needs to be crafted by somebody this Board
designates.

DR. MELIUS: And when that comes up, I think
-- and if we have to formalize this, we should
is that we'd say you go -- you go to the Chair.
For this particular activity, you'd go to the
Chair. But I think in terms of the public
transparency of that process, that we would then
expect Paul to report back at the conference call,
lock, during this process the -- you know, I was,
you know, asked these questions, This is what I
told them, And then the Board knows, the public
knows and -- and I think, you know, we're within,
you know, the spirit and -- and probably the
actual, you know, regulations regarding the --
this process.

DR. ZIEMER: It may be, for example, that
there are very simple clarifications needed that
have nothing to do with policy or actually how
things are going to proceed, but something needs
clarification -- something as simple as do I
provide this in Word or WordPerfect? That doesn’t

very simple. So there's a sense in which

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an initial selection and --

DR. ZIEMER: Is it feasible to at least get

that for the 15 sites on the chart -- or the two
groups of... I think much of that you already
have.

MR. ELLIOTT: it’s very feasible. I could
just read it to you right now and you could write
it down. The feasibility comes into play ae to
what we have scheduled for this evening and rest
time for staff to get threugh the night, I guess.
But we certainly have, in Jim Neton’s
presentation, this one slide that shows you the
top 15. I can present to you the number of claims
that we have in our hands for those 15 and how
many we have worked through.

DR. MELIUS: Well, whatever is feasible to
do, if you could get that organized, either into a
quick briefing and we’ll write it down tomorrow
morning, or into an overhead and handout, that’s -
- that’s fine, also. But I think just so we’re
all working trom the same numbers and the same
list of sites, then I think we can go from there
and -- I'm not trying to kecp you up too late.

DR. ZIEMER: We can do that in our work

session tomorrow and just all do it at the same

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