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 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL 

 SAFETY AND HEALTH 

 + + + + + 

 OFFICE OF COMPENSATION ANALYSIS AND SUPPORT 

 + + + + + 

 ADVISORY BOARD WORKGROUP ON BLOCKSON 

 CHEMICAL SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT (SEC) 

 PETITION 

 + + + + + 

 WEDNESDAY, 

 OCTOBER 15, 2008 

 + + + + + 

 The Advisory Board Workgroup 

convened in the Frankfort Room of the 

Cincinnati Airport Marriott at 9:30 a.m., 

Wanda Munn, Working Group Chair, presiding. 

MEMBERS PRESENT: 

WANDA MUNN, Chair 

BRADLEY CLAWSON 

JAMES MELIUS 

GENEVIEVE ROESSLER 
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IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS: 

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor 

BOB ANIGSTEIN, SC&A 

HARRY CHMELYNSKI, SC&A 

LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

LIZ HOMOKI-TITUS, HHS 

EMILY HOWELL, HHS 

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official 

JIM NETON, NIOSH 

CHICK PHILLIPS, SC&A 

KATHY PINCHETTI, Petitioner 

HAROLD RINGER, Public 

JERRY RINGER, Public 

WILLIAM THURBER, SC&A 

TOM TOMES, NIOSH 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Roll Call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 

Radon Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 

Bounding Value Determinations . . . . . . .24 

Suitability of Surrogate Data Use . . . . .96 

Assumptions Used for Maintenance Workers .111 

Data Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 

Continuation of Radon Issues . . . . . . .119 

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

2 (9:37 a.m.) 

3 MR. KATZ: This is Ted Katz, and 

4 I'm the DFO for the Advisory Board on 

5 Radiation and Worker Health, and this is the 

6 Blockson Chemical Workgroup. And sorry we're 

7 a little bit delayed. We had some technical 

8 difficulties. They may crop up again, but 

9 we're going to try to go forward. 

10 So first off, we're just going to 

11 do roll here. We'll start with board members 

12 in the room identifying themselves, please. 

13 CHAIR MUNN: This is Wanda Munn. 

14 I'm Chair of this working group. 

15 MR. CLAWSON: Brad Clawson, working 

16 group member. 

17 DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius, working 

18 group member. 

19 DR. ROESSLER: Gen Roessler, 

20 working group member. 

21 MR. KATZ: And on the phone, Mike 

22 Gibson, are you with us? Okay. Well, Mike 
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1 did inform me that he probably wouldn't be 

2 able to attend. Just checking. Then now 

3 starting with NIOSH ORAU team, if you'd 

4 identify yourself and also address conflict of 

5 interest, please. 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: Larry Elliott, 

7 Director of the Office of Compensation 

8 Analysis and Support at NIOSH. I have no 

9 conflict regarding Blockson. 

10 MR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH Office 

11 of Compensation Analysis and Support. No 

12 conflict. 

13 MR. TOMES: Tom Tomes, NIOSH Office 

14 of Compensation Analysis and Support. I have 

15 no conflict. 

16 MR. KATZ: And on the telephone, 

17 please? 

18 DR. CHMELYNSKI: Harry Chmelynski, 

19 SC&A, contractor support. No conflict. 

20 MR. KATZ: NIOSH on the telephone? 

21 Okay. Then in the room, SC&A? 

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Bob Anigstein, no 
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1 conflict. 

2 MR. KATZ: And on the phone, do we 

3 have another SC&A? 

4 MR. THURBER: Bill Thurber, no 

5 conflict. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: Chick Phillips, no 

7 conflict. 

8 MR. KATZ: And I think that's all 

9 that we're expecting today. Now, going on to 

10 members of Congress or their representatives. 

11 Are there any on the phone with us today? 

12 Okay. And then how about worker 

13 representatives or petitioners from Blockson? 

14 Okay. Other federal employees in the room? 

15 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS, no 

16 conflict. 

17 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, contractor 

18 with NIOSH. 

19 MR. KATZ: And on the telephone? 

20 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: This is Liz 

21 Homoki-Titus with HHS. 

22 MR. KATZ: No conflict, right? And 
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1 then any other members of the public? Okay. 

2 Just a last note then for those of you on by 

3 telephone, please use star 6 or mute, except 

4 when you're addressing us. And if you 

5 disconnect, please fully disconnect. Don't 

6 put us on hold. It interferes with the call. 

7 Thank you. Wanda? 

8 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you, Ted. I 

9 believe everyone has received a copy of my e10 mail sent on the 12th, which gives a very 

11 loose draft. We anticipate approaching our 

12 problems and questions before us today. If 

13 anyone has anything to add to that agenda, we 

14 can do that at any time, this being the first 

15 opportunity. If you have something you feel 

16 that we need to cover that is not indicated on 

17 that brief agenda, please let me know. 

18 Otherwise, we will begin by 

19 following the instructions that were given to 

20 us by the Board at our last meeting in Redondo 

21 Beach, when we presented activities to this 

22 date and made a split recommendation. At that 
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1 time, the Board asked us to do several things. 

2 The first one was to focus on the 

3 radon issue. That's our first item that we 

4 have listed here. We've had several documents 

5 since that time exchanged by e-mail. We were 

6 anticipating John Mauro to be here today to 

7 lead this discussion. John has had to be 

8 called away on a family emergency, and Bob 

9 Anigstein has agreed to step in and do that 

10 presentation for us. We appreciate you being 

11 here, Bob, and we'll leave you to lead off 

12 with our overview on the facts relative to the 

13 radon issues at Blockson Chemical. 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: First, I'd like to 

15 start off with completing my own thinking on 

16 this problem, as I got into it, and so I think 

17 the first order would be a quick primer on 

18 radon. I know many of you here are probably 

19 very familiar with it, but bear with me. 

20 Radon-222 is generated when radium-226 decays. 

21 When radium-226 decays in a mineral matrix, 

22 in any case but I'm focusing on mineral 
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1 matrix, what you have is a very energetic 

2 alpha particle coming off with something in 

3 the order of 4 or 5 MeV. The alpha particle 

4 has an atomic mass of four. Then what is left 

5 behind is the radon-222, which has a mass of 

6 222. So you have a mass ratio now of about 1 

7 to 50 between this past projectile and this 

8 heavy one, it goes in the opposite, and the 

9 effect is very similar to if you fire a heavy10 caliber pistol. The fast-moving bullet comes 

11 out, the gun kicks back, the recoil. Because 

12 there is Newton's law, the momentum starts off 

13 at zero and has to end up at zero, so the 

14 momentum of the particles are equal. 

15 So the radon-222 travels right 

16 through the rock matrix, given enough of an 

17 impetus, typically 20 to 70 nanometers, which 

18 would be roughly 120th of the micron. So 

19 that's many, many, many atomic diameters. But 

20 it is still a very short distance compared to 

21 the structure of the rock. Now, this is 

22 called rock. That's a trade term, but it may 
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1 actually be confusing because we're talking 

2 about particles or about .85 millimeters or 

3 850 microns. 

4 When they mine the rock in Florida, 

5 it goes for a process called beneficiation. 

6 So they prepare it, so before they ship it 

7 they separate it out or they take out the big 

8 pebbles and they use them in road 

9 construction, and they take out the very fine 

10 dust. And what's left is what goes through a 

11 sieve, and that's the .85, it's actually 

12 less than, because that's the maximum that 

13 will go through that sieve. But it's on that 

14 order of magnitude, probably not much smaller. 

15 So that is much, much bigger than 

16 the range of recoil of the radon. The 

17 question is, well, how does radon ever get 

18 out? Because even these little grains are not 

19 really solid. They have what is called 

20 nanopores in them. Nanopores because they're 

21 on that order of magnitude of nanometers. And 

22 so the radon recoil may shoot it out of the 
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1 solid matrix into one of those nanopores. It 

2 may also shoot it, if it's dry, nanopores are 

3 filled with air, will shoot it right through 

4 the nanopore into the opposite side and, 

5 again, embed itself in the matrix. 

6 However, if it's wet, the water 

7 tends to stop it. So, interestingly enough, 

8 you have, and this was measured more 

9 specifically for Florida phosphate ore, you 

10 have an emanation coefficient of about 11 

11 percent for dry, the dry ore, and roughly 30 

12 percent if it's wet. 

13 So the ore comes shipped by a 

14 freight car or a barge up to Blockson, and it 

15 got unloaded in silos. And according to an 

16 EPA report on phosphate mining, phosphate 

17 processing, they keep it wet. It's typically 

18 ten percent moisture. So the pores are, pores 

19 in aggregate material, like in soil, typically 

20 are about 35 percent of the volume. So ten 

21 percent moisture means that the pores are 

22 partially filled but not completely filled 
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1 with water. So you will have an emanation 

2 coefficient that's somewhere between 11 

3 percent and 30 percent while it's sitting in 

4 the silo. 

5 The next step is the calciner. And 

6 it goes from the silos to the calciner oven, 

7 which is outdoors, and it gets heated to 1400 

8 to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. At that 

9 temperature, actually the water mobilizes, and 

10 even if there's air there, the steam, you have 

11 like a steam cleaner. The steam will just dry 

12 the air out and any radon that's accumulated 

13 in either the water or the air in the pore 

14 spaces will be driven out. 

15 So now you are left with the ore 

16 that has no radon, no free radon. It still 

17 has radon in the matrix in those fine grain -- 

18 because, again, it's not a solid. Even the 

19 850 microns is not a solid piece. And under a 

20 microscope, it's composed of little grains, 

21 which are welded together. I'm not a 

22 mineralogist, that's just my understanding. 
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1 And Bill Thurber is on the line, so, Bill, 

2 feel free to correct me if I'm grossly wrong 

3 on anything. 

4 MR. THURBER: Charge on. 

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. Bill Thurber 

6 is the person we turn to in the company for 

7 expertise or research on industrial processes. 

8 Once it's been dried in the calciner, we have 

9 up to 70 percent of the radon that may have 

10 accumulated over time is left in. It could be 

11 less maybe because there may be some, that 30 

12 percent emanation, that's what gets out. Some 

13 may still stay in the nanopores, but that was 

14 measured in equilibrium. So that's an upper 

15 limit and highly unlikely to be more than 70 

16 percent. 

17 The dry ore then goes in through a 

18 screw conveyor, so it's a continuous process. 

19 As it gets baked, it goes into Building 40. 

20 And the dry ore now has an emanation 

21 coefficient of about 11. 

22 Then the first thing that it will 
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1 come through is the grinder. So in the 

2 grinder, it gets ground down about tenfold. 

3 And, again, it has to pass through a sieve, 

4 and now we're talking about 74 microns. It's 

5 still much less than the recoil distance. 

6 It's still three orders of magnitude larger 

7 than the recoil distance. So the emanation 

8 from this ground powder may be a little less. 

9 I don't have specific numbers on the 

10 difference between the bigger particles and 

11 the smaller particles, but it should not be 

12 substantially less. 

13 And then it resides, and this is an 

14 estimate that it resides in building for about 

15 four hours. And at the end of the grinding 

16 process, it gets, by conveyor, up to the 

17 second floor, and it gets dumped into the 

18 sulfuric acid. This is approximately 30 

19 percent sulfuric acid. First of all, they 

20 had, according to one of the workers that we 

21 interviewed, the sulfuric acid comes in at a 

22 higher concentration, gets mixed with water. 
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1 When you mix sulfuric acid with water, it's a 

2 high isotonic reaction. 

3 So now you have the ore being 

4 dissolved in the hot acid. The radium, the 

5 process, there is the ore, I believe it's 

6 calcium phosphate with other things in it. 

7 This gets dissolved, and then the calcium 

8 sulfate precipitates out as radium sulfate. 

9 And so you are left with the phosphoric acid, 

10 so out of sulfuric acid you get phosphoric 

11 acid. 

12 The radon is now liberated. The 

13 rock is completely dissolved. Potentially, 

14 all the radon that was now stored in the 

15 matrix and couldn't get out because it was not 

16 in a nanopore can be liberated into the acid. 

17 And then the big question is -- the sources 

18 of radon in the building are, first, these 

19 four hours that the ore has in the building 

20 and it's building up radon. But since it has 

21 been freed, any free radon goes in. The 

22 build-up is on the order of one percent or two 
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1 percent, three or four percent, of the 

2 equilibrium. But then with an emanation 

3 coefficient of 11 percent, you have 11 percent 

4 of this 4 percent getting out. It's more like 

5 3 percent. So you have a fraction, a third of 

6 a percent, of the equilibrium amount of radon 

7 that could potentially come out if the radium 

8 were just sitting there as a powder, say, is 

9 liberated during those four hours. So it's a 

10 very small amount. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: Someone is trying to 

12 say something. 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: However, once all 

14 of the remaining radium and radon is dissolved 

15 in the sulfuric acid, potentially all of it or 

16 none. There's no literature that I could find 

17 on the solubility of radon in hot sulfuric 

18 acid. We know that radon is somewhat soluble 

19 in water, and, again, even if it was cold 

20 water, under equilibrium conditions, or warm 

21 water, under equilibrium conditions, most of 

22 it would be in the room because what you would 
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1 have is the partition between the radon in the 

2 air and the radon in the water. And it favors 

3 the air on a picocurie per liter basis. So 

4 for every picocurie per liter, I'm just 

5 reporting numbers from the top of my head, but 

6 for every picocurie per liter of radon in the 

7 water you will have about two picocuries per 

8 liter in the air. But that's equilibrium. 

9 Now, you don't get how long it takes with 

10 something else. Here, you probably don't have 

11 equilibrium. Here, it's a continuous process. 

12 So the first thing I did was a 

13 Monte Carlo analysis. So this is the model. 

14 I won't try to go through it in any detail but 

15 just to give you -- I won't explain every 

16 term, but this is, basically, this is the rate 

17 of the ore comes in, the specific activity of 

18 the ore. The specific activity, we based it 

19 on rock in central Florida that was published 

20 activity. That was the more conservative 

21 assumption. Northern Florida has much lower 

22 radium, so we took a central Florida rock, and 
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1 we don't know where the Blockson ore came 

2 from, whether it came from northern Florida or 

3 central Florida. 

4 And this term is simply the amount 

5 that's liberated in the air prior to going 

6 into the acid. The fraction there is about 

7 one-third. 

8 And now here is the most important 

9 and least known factor: the fraction of radon 

10 and sulfuric acid. And in our model, we just 

11 say it could be zero to one. This is the most 

12 important term. And on the denominator, we 

13 have the volume of the building that I'll get 

14 to in a moment; the air exchange rate; and the 

15 decay of the radium. 

16 Now, the air exchange rate is much 

17 faster than decay of the radon, so the lambda 

18 does not have a strong -- But it would always 

19 go to zero. So we did two things. First, we 

20 did a Monte Carlo analysis where every one of 

21 these terms was given a range except, of 

22 course, the decay rate of radon is very well 
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1 known and the processing rate of the ore is 

2 given in the TBD and it was based on 

3 literature, so we treated that as a fixed 

4 number. We didn't have a range for that. 

5 Everything else there was a range, which the 

6 radium is based on measurement, and we have a 

7 published value of the mean and the standard 

8 deviation and normal distribution. The time 

9 of residence of phosphate rock, that's an 

10 industrial estimate by Bill Thurber, and so we 

11 just said four hours is the best guess. It 

12 could be from two to six hours triangular 

13 distribution. And then the emanation 

14 coefficient wasn't dry. Again, based on 

15 measurements, there is a range of distribution 

16 for each one of those. 

17 But then we tested the model by 

18 determining, as you can see, the two most 

19 important factors are the air exchange rate 

20 and the release fraction from the acid. So we 

21 took the median or mean value of each of the 

22 other parameters that could vary and just 
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1 focused on these two and did a range of 

2 numbers. These are deterministic of five by 

3 six, so you have 30 values there, and they go 

4 all the way with a zero release fraction from 

5 the acid, which is the only source of radon is 

6 from the ore, as four hours approximately that 

7 it sits in the building and the highest air 

8 exchange rate, which was 5.5, which you could 

9 have in the summer if, for a while, 

10 everything was overloaded. 

11 Again, we have no knowledge of the 

12 air exchange rate there. We don't even have a 

13 consistent information of the way the building 

14 was ventilated. We interviewed three workers, 

15 and we got three different opinions. 

16 So we just went by published literature, 

17 measurements of industrial building, and it 

18 could go as high as 5.5. It could go as low, 

19 the lowest range here, 0.5, just for 

20 convenience, making the table. Actually, it 

21 can go as low, we used 0.1 in the analysis at 

22 the lower end of the range, given a uniform 
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1 distribution, which is probably, again, 

2 unlikely on the low side. 

3 And so we get a huge range. We go 

4 from 0.04 picocuries per liter to 91 

5 picocuries per liter, assuming the lowest of 

6 the air exchange rate and the highest release 

7 fraction. Everything that gets dissolved in 

8 the acid comes out. 

9 Then we did, using this Crystal 

10 Ball, which is an add-on to Excel, we did the 

11 Monte Carlo analysis ran quickly, so did 

12 100,000 events, randomly selecting each of the 

13 parameters. And you see the peak here is at 

14 the very low value, the curve comes up to 3.2. 

15 This is just how Crystal Ball works. How it 

16 chooses these ordinate values, I don't know. 

17 So we have a mode here at a very 

18 low value. Then it goes up to a higher value. 

19 And then here's the distribution. So the 

20 median, which is higher than the mode, is 7.7 

21 picocuries per liter. In 95th percentile, 

22 it's 62. 
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1 So if we want to be very 

2 conservative, highly claimant favorable, and 

3 say, well, if we assign the 95th percentile, 

4 it's highly, highly unlikely that you'll get 

5 higher than that. But even that, even this 

6 distribution has some conservative 

7 assumptions, like all the rock came from 

8 central Florida. So that basically sums up 

9 the model. 

10 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you very much, 

11 Bob. Does anyone have any questions of Bob? 

12 DR. MELIUS: Yes. That's the model 

13 you put in Appendix B? 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

15 DR. MELIUS: Okay. So that's not 

16 changed since then? 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, definitely not. 

18 As exactly we detailed in Appendix B, the 

19 report also briefly refers to a preliminary 

20 investigation that we had done actually prior 

21 to the last workgroup meeting, which was a 

22 scoping calculation with, I would say, non-
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1 mechanistic. We didn't really go into the 

2 details at that time. 

3 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you, that's 

4 helpful. Any other 

5 questions? 

6 MS. PINCHETTI: I had one question. 

7 This is Kathy Pinchetti from California. Why 

8 would it be highly unlikely to attribute more 

9 than 95 percent? Because there's quite a jump 

10 in the value between 61.95 and 651. 

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: That would be, that 

12 one is the extreme upper end, which out of 

13 100,000 trials you get that once, that number. 

14 So when I say highly unlikely, it's because 

15 95 percent seems to be sort of considered to 

16 be a very conservative number. 

17 MR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. 

18 There's also some empirical evidence to 

19 indicate that that would be unlikely based on 

20 four that had been processed similarly at a 

21 facility known as Mallinckrodt where they 

22 processed four that was up to 70 percent 
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1 uranium by weight, as opposed to this ore 

2 which was less than 0.02 percent uranium by 

3 weight. That is 3500 times higher, and it was 

4 unlikely, the measured values of 600 were not 

5 seen at Blockson with any amount, I mean 

6 Mallinckrodt. 

7 As a matter of fact, the average 

8 values were much, much, much lower than that. 

9 So we do have some evidence that in 

10 processing of uranium, I mean of ore of this 

11 type and extracting uranium that the levels 

12 never really reached those high values that 

13 the Monte Carlo calculation predicts. 

14 CHAIR MUNN: Any other comments 

15 with respect to that specific issue? If not, 

16 the next item on our agenda is to review the 

17 bounding value determinations and discuss 

18 whether it is, indeed, the appropriate task. 

19 Jim, would you like to undertake that? 

20 MR. NETON: Sure, I'll start off 

21 the conversation. I think Bob has done a 

22 great job and SC&A, particularly, Bob has done 
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1 a great job modeling the information and, 

2 indeed, has shown that quite a bit is known 

3 about what happened at Blockson in relation to 

4 the entire process and the source term and the 

5 radionuclide content of the materials. So I 

6 think that's a good example there. 

7 I'd just like to get back a little 

8 bit, though, as to what I believe this 

9 analysis was originally intended to do, and 

10 that was we had proposed this 2.33 picocurie 

11 per liter value that was based on some 

12 information we obtained from the Florida 

13 Institute of Phosphate Research. And there 

14 was some general belief among, I think, at 

15 least one or more working group members that 

16 that value was pretty low. It didn't seem to 

17 ring true because you can see value that high 

18 in homes and such. 

19 And so this analysis, my 

20 recollection was to undertake as sort of a 

21 scoping analysis to say does this value make 

22 any sense at all, given that the model rate on 
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1 radon is one of the few source terms that are 

2 using the model, as Bob has demonstrated. And 

3 I think the analysis has demonstrated that. 

4 In general, the predicted value of radon in 

5 the building, at least the 50 percentile, is 

6 not that different than the value that we 

7 proposed. And, in fact, I would argue that, 

8 given the conservatism built in to some of the 

9 parameters that we can talk about later, that 

10 it's very likely that our value is well within 

11 that range. And, in fact, I think someone 

12 yesterday acknowledged that, that our value is 

13 not necessarily inconsistent with what the 

14 model has predicted. I guess I can leave it 

15 at that, and open that for discussion. 

16 MR. CLAWSON: So let me get 

17 something -- now, for Blockson, do we know 

18 where all of the ore came from? 

19 MR. NETON: Bob could probably 

20 answer that better than me, but I do believe 

21 we know the assay of the ore pretty well. 

22 MR. TOMES: Well, it did come from 
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1 Florida. I can't tell you exactly what place 

2 in Florida. There may be some information 

3 that I don't recall. But we do have the 

4 concentration that they typically receive. 

5 MR. CLAWSON: They typically got, 

6 but we don't have anything for sure of exactly 

7 what they had or -- 

8 MR. TOMES: Not in each and every 

9 time, but we do have data on what it was from 

10 estimates. Of course, I don't have data on 

11 each and every shipment they got. 

12 MR. NETON: But I think it's 

13 generally known, generally considered, that 

14 ore coming from Florida would be no more than 

15 0.02 percent uranium by weight. That's sort 

16 of the number I have in my mind. I think 

17 Blockson was actually slightly less than that, 

18 maybe 0.018 percent or something like that. 

19 But it's a fairly low uranium content 

20 material. 

21 MR. CLAWSON: The reason I'm 

22 bringing this up is because even with mining 
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1 before, I know that we always had a general 

2 per ton this is what we've got here. But 

3 there was a lot of times where we got into 

4 way, way higher than what the normal offset 

5 was. And it's kind of interesting to me that 

6 we know the general amount that it was rated 

7 at and so forth, but we don't even know where 

8 it came from basically. 

9 DR. ROESSLER: Brad, you're talking 

10 about uranium mining, not phosphate rock. I 

11 think phosphate rock concentrations are fairly 

12 well defined, or at least there's certainly a 

13 bounding from Florida rock. 

14 MR. NETON: And I think the plant 

15 assayed it at some point, and I believe that 

16 was covered in the technical file somewhere. 

17 MR. TOMES: The research chemist at 

18 Blockson, he found some values that he 

19 published, 0.014 percent and 0.011 percent. 

20 So he did two different documents. 

21 MR. NETON: And I believe the model 

22 that SC&A developed used slightly higher 
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1 values than that. 

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I have it in 

3 becquerel per kilogram. It's 1263 becquerel 

4 per kilogram was the mean. 

5 MR. NETON: Somewhere in your model 

6 you talked about -- 

7 CHAIR MUNN: But in any case . . . 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, that was our 

9 preliminary, they were our preliminary model 

10 that was a very indirect approach to the 

11 concentration. 

12 MR. NETON: Actually, the source 

13 term was 0.014 percent is what it says. 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. That was our 

15 preliminary model. I think in this one I used 

16 the published -- 

17 MR. NETON: You were higher than 

18 0.014 percent? 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Again, I have to 

20 convert from becquerels and milligrams. So if 

21 I remember correctly, it was something like, 

22 oh, 25,000 becquerel per gram. I'll get that 
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1 ready in a moment. 

2 CHAIR MUNN: The salient point is 

3 not, as you know, the content of each batch 

4 that comes in. The salient point is that you 

5 know the maximum that could possibly be, and 

6 it's included in the range of the computation 

7 that's been done, as I read the report. Is 

8 that correct? 

9 MR. NETON: Yes. 

10 MS. PINCHETTI: Can I mention 

11 something? My dad actually says that the rock 

12 came from Texas, so I don't know if that has 

13 anything to do with anything. But I just 

14 thought I'd bring that up. 

15 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. Can you 

16 identify yourself again, please? 

17 MS. PINCHETTI: I'm sorry. This is 

18 Kathy Pinchetti. 

19 MR. KATZ: Pinchetti. Thank you, 

20 Kathy. 

21 MR. NETON: Well, that's the first 

22 time we've ever heard anything of that nature. 
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1 CHAIR MUNN: Your father said it 

2 came from Texas? 

3 MS. PINCHETTI: Yes. My dad, the 

4 petitioner for 58, yes, he says that the rock 

5 came from Texas. 

6 CHAIR MUNN: Now, what was his 

7 relationship to those shipments? I guess I'm 

8 not questioning what he's saying, I'm just -- 

9 this is an entirely new statement. Perhaps 

10 someone else on the Board has heard this, but 

11 I've never heard that before, nor have any of 

12 the workers in any of the Blockson meetings 

13 that I attended personally ever referred to 

14 shipments from Texas. They all said the same 

15 thing, that it came from Florida. And Florida 

16 is the most common source for this particular 

17 type of ore, so this is a real shocker. If 

18 your father has, if he can provide any 

19 additional information, it would certainly be 

20 of real interest. If he has anything concrete 

21 that we could refer to that would give us that 

22 additional information, that would be most 
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1 helpful. 

2 DR. ROESSLER: Even so, I think the 

3 Texas rock is pretty well characterized. I 

4 would guess that it might be lower, but I 

5 think if Chick is on the phone he might have 

6 some information on that. 

7 CHAIR MUNN: Are you there, Chick? 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Yes. That is my 

9 recollection, too, but I can't put my finger 

10 on what I can verify that. But I believe 

11 that's correct. 

12 CHAIR MUNN: That Texas ore would 

13 have, in any case, been lower concentration? 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: That's correct. I'm 

15 looking through some things here, and I may 

16 come up with something in a minute so . . . 

17 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you. Do you 

18 recall ever having seen any evidence of 

19 shipments from any place other than from 

20 Florida? 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Are you speaking to 

22 me? 
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1 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, I am. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: No. This is the 

3 first that I've heard of this. Every 

4 indication is, I think it was June, said that 

5 we have had from the workers' meeting, the 

6 transcripts, etcetera, indicate the ore came 

7 from Florida. 

8 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, I agree. Thank 

9 you. And if you find any additional 

10 information while you're checking your 

11 sources, please interrupt us to let us know. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. I'm looking 

13 now. Thank you. 

14 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you. Any other 

15 comments about -- 

16 MR. RINGER: I have a question. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: Yes. Please identify 

18 yourself. 

19 MR. RINGER: Yes. My name is 

20 Harold Ringer from Joliet, Illinois. 

21 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. Can you say 

22 that again? 
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1 MR. RINGER: Yes. My name is 

2 Harold Ringer. I'm from Joliet, Illinois. 

3 MR. KATZ: Harold Ringer? 

4 MR. RINGER: Right. 

5 MR. KATZ: Thank you. 

6 MR. RINGER: Okay. Could you give 

7 me a mandate when this material was delivered 

8 to Joliet at Blockson? 

9 CHAIR MUNN: The period of years 

10 covered. Just a moment. 

11 MR. TOMES: This is Tom Tomes. 

12 Blockson was already receiving the material 

13 before the AEC became involved with their 

14 contract with Blockson, and the AEC started 

15 their first contract with Blockson in 1951. 

16 MR. RINGER: Okay. 1951. Can you 

17 give me a date on that in 1951? My father 

18 started October of 1950, and his evaluation 

19 wasn't started until about the mid-1951. Is 

20 that supposed to be correct or not? 

21 MR. TOMES: Well, the research 

22 contracted Blockson to develop the process, 
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1 but the contract was signed in March 1951. 

2 MR. RINGER: Okay, thank you. 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I have a number, 

4 and the number we used actually is lower. 

5 It's roughly 0.005 percent. So I was just 

6 using, off the top of my head, the conversion 

7 for the specific activity of uranium. So it's 

8 about one-third, so actually that's a low 

9 number. I think that the 0.014 percent was an 

10 optimistic number. That's what they hoped to 

11 get. They were trying to convince the AEC to 

12 get the contract; so, naturally, like a 

13 contractor does, they tend to highball the 

14 results. From all the literature that I 

15 found, they never actually had an assay. So I 

16 think, if anything, the number we used was on 

17 the low side. 

18 MR. NETON: It had a range on it, 

19 or was that -- 

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, yes. The 

21 range, it was basically based on ten assays. 

22 No, there were ten samples and 13 analyses. I 
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1 guess some samples were analyzed more than 

2 once. And the mean was 1263 becquerel per 

3 gram, the standard deviation was 442, the 

4 range was from 848 to 1980. So it's, roughly, 

5 three, no, roughly twofold range. 

6 MR. NETON: And the assay was done 

7 by? 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Hull and Burnett. 

9 Burnett, I spoke to several times the 

10 professor at the University of -- 

11 MR. NETON: Florida? 

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, Florida State 

13 University, two different universities. And 

14 he's the one who also, I guess Hull was 

15 probably his graduate student. He also did a 

16 study. He pointed out to me the study he did 

17 for the Florida Institute of Phosphate 

18 Research earlier on the emanation coefficient 

19 from various Florida rock. 

20 MR. NETON: I think, in general, I 

21 would say that the SC&A analysis demonstrates 

22 that, given first-term and first principal, 
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1 one can model the potential radon 

2 concentrations in the building. And somewhat, 

3 by definition, that's a founding analysis that 

4 can be done. So that analysis indicates that 

5 if we can bound it then the debate then 

6 becomes what is the real value? Is it the 

7 value that we've used, or is it some value 

8 more central with the distribution that SC&A 

9 proposed? But in my mind, then that becomes a 

10 profile issue. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: But in any case, the 

12 question of whether the bounding value that's 

13 being used is the appropriate value, that is 

14 the question that needs, that was raised at 

15 the last board meeting and one I hope that we 

16 can agree about and come to some conclusion 

17 here in this workgroup meeting before we go 

18 back to the Board. 

19 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, for some 

20 information, I would offer that we feel that 

21 the number we're using is a good scientific 

22 number and is climate favorable. And we think 
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1 that we see that in the outcome of our dose 

2 reconstructions for claimants for this 

3 facility. We have currently 53 that are 

4 greater than 50 percent that are done, and 23 

5 that are less than 50 percent POC. We've 

6 completed 117 dose reconstructions out of 121 

7 total claims. So as DOL works these through 

8 the adjudication process, we expect to see 

9 that, at kind of a POC percentage, continue. 

10 MR. NETON: I have one handout that 

11 I e-mailed to people, but maybe you can pass 

12 these around. This is to just sort of bracket 

13 the issue a little better. I'm a firm 

14 believer in data. I mean, models are fine. I 

15 like the old adage that all models are wrong, 

16 but some are useful. But I think this is a 

17 very useful model that SC&A has put together. 

18 I put on this little handout, you know, what 

19 do we know about radon levels in wet phosphate 

20 process buildings? And the literature are 

21 fairly sparse in this area, and it's hard to 

22 go back before the mid-1970s because, frankly, 
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1 they just didn't make the measurements or 

2 didn't report them. But Bob is right and SC&A 

3 is correct that it's very difficult to come up 

4 with some values. 

5 But if you look up all these 

6 measurements, they are all below and mostly 

7 very much below the value that we're using in 

8 our site profile. There was some concern that 

9 the 2.33 number that we came up with was bias 

10 low because the values were from Florida where 

11 it was a more, at least thought to be, a 

12 potentially more open structure, an open 

13 building with better ventilation. So I went 

14 back and pulled out some values that were 

15 taken in Idaho at various facilities in 1975 

16 by either the EPA or NIOSH had done some work 

17 in 1976 in a western Idaho plant. And all 

18 these values again are fractions of the value 

19 of 2.33 picocuries per liter that we're 

20 ascribing. I might have do a little bit of 

21 conversion. Some of the value reporting and 

22 working levels, if there was 100 percent 
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1 equilibrium of the radon with the progeny in 

2 the air, the working levels would be 

3 equivalent times 100 picocuries per liter. 

4 That's probably not the case, but to give you 

5 some rough comparison values. 

6 These are all very low values. 

7 Admittedly, they were in 1976, not in the 

8 1950s when what we're trying to develop. But 

9 then remember we have these values in 1983 in 

10 Blockson that were taken in that one 

11 industrial hygiene study that's listed here at 

12 the second to the last location on this sheet. 

13 And there's just not very much radon there. 

14 Then the question became, well, okay NIOSH has 

15 2.33 picocuries per liter. We're using it as 

16 an upper bound. We have a measurement in 1983 

17 in the facility that is at least a factor of 

18 five, it's about a factor of five lower than 

19 what we're ascribing. And then the question 

20 came about, well, are there differences in 

21 ventilation? 

22 So then we went on this path of 
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1 interviewing workers and such, and, lo and 

2 behold, there were some differences in 

3 ventilation or some upgrades in ventilation in 

4 the 60s and 70s, that sort of thing. And then 

5 the central question became, well, since radon 

6 concentration is directly proportional to the 

7 ventilation rate essentially, would there have 

8 been a factor of five increase in ventilation 

9 between 1953 and 1983 so that the values would 

10 be lower than what were actually measured? We 

11 see nothing, in my mind, to indicate that 

12 that's the case. 

13 So I still feel that our number of 

14 2.33 picocuries per liter is bounding for 

15 these exposures, given that just not much 

16 radon occurs in these plants during these 

17 processes. One thing I'll mention, as Bob 

18 pointed out very clearly, that the digester 

19 tank, the sulfuric acid digester process, is 

20 probably, except for the ventilation, the most 

21 critical value. How much of that radon gets 

22 out of that tank? 
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1 I would suggest that this is a hot 

2 sulfuric acid tank that was not directly 

3 vented to the facility itself. You could 

4 choke the workers. You can't hot sulfuric 

5 acid vent. So workers did indicate that, even 

6 in the 1950s, there was ventilation over the 

7 top of these tanks. There were improvements 

8 later on but -- 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Now, according to 

10 one worker, again, there were three workers 

11 interviewed, one would not even work in the 

12 building, so you really go down to two. And 

13 one of them said that there was a plastic cone 

14 that he called like an inverted ice cream 

15 cone that was installed over the digester tank 

16 later in the 60s and 70s. And sulfuric acid 

17 is not volatile. It has a very, very low 

18 vapor, particularly if it's mixed with or 

19 diluted with water. So you don't get fumes 

20 from sulfuric acid. 

21 MR. NETON: When it's heated? 

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Pardon? 
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1 MR. NETON: When it's heated? I 

2 beg to differ. 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, I mean, okay, 

4 it's very acrid, so a very small amount would 

5 be. But I think, just based on my experience, 

6 I was a chemist before I was a physicist -- 

7 MR. NETON: So was I, so let's 

8 compare notes. 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: -- and I don't 

10 think 30 percent sulfuric acid would give out 

11 much uranium. That's a purely, you know, it's 

12 not a scientific opinion. 

13 MR. NETON: Well, I would say that 

14 they saw these cones over tanks, but, Tom, you 

15 can help me out here, I believe that they 

16 indicated that they were vented. The cones 

17 actually just created a better capture, you 

18 know, situation for the fumes. 

19 MR. TOMES: They improved the 

20 ventilation by those cones. 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: There was no 

22 forced, that in the 50s there was no forced 
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1 ventilation. Another one said there was. One 

2 said that it was upgraded, and another one 

3 said it was installed later, that earlier 

4 there was no forced ventilation. So, again, 

5 it's a 50/50 proposition who you believe. 

6 MR. NETON: And another thing, I've 

7 been looking through this quite a bit, and 

8 I've gone back to the Mallinckrodt scenario, 

9 which was not a phosphate plant, but they 

10 digested uranium ore, extracted the uranium, 

11 slurried it, a very similar process, had it in 

12 specific digester tanks, sulfuric acid 

13 precipitation, that sort of thing, and ORAU, 

14 in the 1980s, did an analysis of the workers 

15 at Mallinckrodt specifically for radon 

16 exposure. In between like 1946 and 1953, 

17 which were the peak years when there was some 

18 very high levels of uranium-bearing ore coming 

19 through there, the highest worker, by far, 

20 they calculated had an exposure that was no 

21 greater than 15 times what we're assigning for 

22 Blockson Chemical, even given that the radium 
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1 source term was 3500, up to 3500 times 

2 greater. And this was back in the early 40s 

3 or late 40s - early 50s, when the ventilation 

4 was not very good in that plant. So I have 

5 trouble reconciling those two facts. 

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Wasn't some of the 

7 Mallinckrodt, I remember going over the 

8 Mallinckrodt report, wasn't a lot of the 

9 Mallinckrodt ore pre-processed to remove the 

10 radium? 

11 MR. NETON: The Belgian Congo ore 

12 was not. It was 70 percent uranium by weight. 

13 Some of this later stuff was, but Belgian 

14 Congo ore, when it came through there, was 

15 about 70 percent uranium by weight and, 

16 presumably, that was an equilibrium with the 

17 rating. That's where they got in trouble with 

18 this. They had very high concentrations in 

19 some of the storage areas. By and large, the 

20 plant concentrations themselves were of a 

21 value, on average, typical to what the 95th 

22 percentile projection that Blockson come up 
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1 with, which makes me somewhat suspicious. How 

2 can you have uranium ore that's a thousand or 

3 more times higher in radium and had levels 

4 that are matching what the model predicts? 

5 DR. ROESSLER: To me, the number 

6 you came up with really depends on your 

7 equation where you have the F in that. I'm 

8 kind of remembering it now. We really don't 

9 know what F is, but it goes between zero and 

10 one. Now, and then when you say one, there's 

11 where you really come up with that high value, 

12 and, to me, that's really stretching it. 

13 There must be a reasonable number that you can 

14 model. It's not reasonable that it's zero. 

15 It's not reasonable that it's one. You know 

16 that. So I think that by putting that range 

17 in there and then doing your Monte Carlo, it's 

18 just stretched it way out of reason. 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, the problem 

20 with that guidance which I got second hand 

21 while I worked on a study for NRC where they 

22 did, again, tiny radiation doses for purposes 
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1 of clearance of materials from nuclear 

2 facilities, and the rule was that if you don't 

3 know, if lack of better information, if you 

4 have a range and all you know is the range, 

5 you have to give it uniform distribution from 

6 the lowest to the highest round. 

7 DR. ROESSLER: And was that with 

8 regard to F? 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Pardon me? 

10 DR. ROESSLER: That was with regard 

11 to this -- 

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, no, no. I'm 

13 just saying -- 

14 DR. ROESSLER: Just in general? 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: -- general 

16 principle. 

17 DR. ROESSLER: I think what I'm 

18 saying is your range does not make any sense. 

19 It's not reasonable at all. It's just far 

20 out. 

21 CHAIR MUNN: It's too great a 

22 range. 
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1 DR. ROESSLER: Well, I mean, to go 

2 from zero to one is -- 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I mean, basically, 

4 it's a statement of our ignorance. We don't 

5 know. 

6 MR. NETON: Well, the other thing 

7 that's driving this also is the fact that I 

8 think the lower limit of the building 

9 ventilation rate is 0.1 turnover. 

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: We have seen, there 

11 is a -- 

12 MR. NETON: I think that's way, way 

13 low. I mean -- 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Again, I was 

15 referring to a published study -- 

16 MR. NETON: I know you read 

17 Battelle. 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Pardon? 

19 MR. NETON: Yes, go ahead. 

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, by Battelle 

21 where they had a warehouse which had no forced 

22 ventilation. And during working hours they 
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1 said they took two measurements, one in the 

2 morning and one in the afternoon, and they 

3 came up with 0.05 and 0.2. So they just took 

4 the average of that, the mean -- 

5 MR. NETON: The warehouse -- 

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: - the median, the 

7 geometric mean and called it 0.1. 

8 MR. NETON: Yes, I'm not sure how 

9 representative that is. I mean, you've heard 

10 John Mauro spoke to Mort Lippmann, an expert 

11 in industrial hygiene ventilation issues, 

12 stating that one would certainly be a lower 

13 bound for building ventilation for a building 

14 of that type. 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well -- 

16 MR. NETON: And I have to point out 

17 if you move this F value to a reasonable value 

18 and building, the 0.1, which drives the high 

19 value that's been modified a little bit, I 

20 think you're going to end up with a value 

21 that's similar to what we're proposing is 

22 where I'm coming -- 
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1 DR. ROESSLER: Not just a 

2 reasonable value but a reasonably high value. 

3 MR. NETON: Yes, I think so. 

4 DR. ROESSLER: Because one is not 

5 reasonable. 

6 MR. NETON: And I guess that's my 

7 point. We can quibble on the parameters that 

8 SC&A has selected. I don't quibble about the 

9 model. I think the model is done properly. 

10 But if you adjust the parameters, that's where 

11 we're at. We're coming down to what are the 

12 appropriate parameters and how does that 

13 compare to the value that NIOSH has proposed? 

14 And I would still assert that that is not an 

15 SEC issue. That is a matter of where that 

16 fixed value or that distribution of value 

17 lies. I think we have plenty of data in a 

18 number of different facilities to indicate 

19 radon exposures are fairly low. How low they 

20 are is in debate right now. If not, can we 

21 put an upper limit on the radon level in a 

22 facility to process or that have up to 0.02 
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1 percent uranium by weight. I can't imagine we 

2 can't bound it. I think we have. 

3 DR. MELIUS: Can we go back to your 

4 one-page handout? Are these reports on the O: 

5 drive where we can see them? 

6 DR. ROESSLER: I think they are. 

7 DR. MELIUS: I think we've already 

8 talked about the last report. 

9 MR. NETON: I believe they are. 

10 I'd have to go back and check. It's been such 

11 a long time since we've talked about this, but 

12 I believe all of these were used in our -- 

13 certainly, the FIPR report is on there, the 

14 Blockson report is on there. The two NIOSH 

15 reports I'm not certain. 

16 DR. MELIUS: Because I recall at 

17 one point either NIOSH or SC&A were looking 

18 for additional reports from other -- those 

19 are, I think, sort of a geographic question. 

20 Could we get reports from northern -- 

21 MR. NETON: Right. And that's why 

22 -- 
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1 DR. MELIUS: I guess I'm asking two 

2 questions. One is what's here on the O: 

3 drive. Secondly, is what's here the universe 

4 of what was found when you went looking for 

5 these reports? I recall someone saying there 

6 was very few little data, so I'm not surprised 

7 that this is it. I'm just -- 

8 MR. NETON: I believe this is the 

9 universe of reported radon levels in phosphate 

10 plants that we have. 

11 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

12 MR. NETON: I cannot guarantee you 

13 that all of these are on the O: drive. We can 

14 check. 

15 DR. MELIUS: And then the 

16 Mallinckrodt data that you referenced, it's 

17 been a long time since we looked at 

18 Mallinckrodt. 

19 MR. NETON: Well, these are all 

20 right out of Mallinckrodt's profile, so 

21 they're out there. 

22 DR. MELIUS: Okay, okay. I haven't 
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1 looked for -- 

2 MR. NETON: I just excerpted the 

3 pages right out. 

4 DR. MELIUS: Get it off my mind, 

5 right? 

6 MR. NETON: Yes, that ORAU study 

7 they did in `85 as part of an epidemiologic 

8 evaluation. 

9 DR. MELIUS: Investigation. 

10 MR. NETON: It's fairly interesting 

11 to me. They did a time-weighted average using 

12 all the radon value around the plant, and they 

13 couldn't get above 1.5 working level months 

14 per year in any of those workers. And then 

15 there was a couple of job categories, and then 

16 it dropped down precipitously from there. And 

17 we are assigning 0.12 or something of that 

18 nature working level months per year. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: This is Chick 

20 Phillips. I think you were referring, I 

21 looked into the study that's referred to here 

22 as the Pocatello study, the EPA study, and 
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1 tried to verify that those measurements, 

2 particularly those in the grinding building 

3 and the control room, were made in an enclosed 

4 building, and I was never able to verify that. 

5 DR. ROESSLER: Why would they make 

6 them, other than they say the grinder 

7 building. Maybe I misunderstand. Why would 

8 they make them anywhere other than in the 

9 building? 

10 MR. NETON: Well, Chick just said 

11 they might have been open buildings. 

12 DR. ROESSLER: Open. 

13 MR. CLAWSON: Well, you've also got 

14 to understand what this report comes from, 

15 too, and the reason that it's the EPA is 

16 because we have to tear up 350 miles of road, 

17 we have to tear out over 100 homes because 

18 they had taken the rock because it was so 

19 nicely refined and crushed they put it into 

20 asphalt and put it out on the roads, which the 

21 EPA basically came back in and that there was 

22 endangerment to the lives of people and so 
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1 forth, and we had to dig up all these roads 

2 and homes. 

3 DR. MELIUS: Fifty streetlights. 

4 MR. CLAWSON: That's where a lot of 

5 this came into, and they were trying to figure 

6 out what they were actually waiting for. And 

7 I could tell you the name but under privacy 

8 and everything else like that. But we 

9 remember this quite well because one of the 

10 sites we had to tear down part of the 

11 foundation because they had used rock from 

12 Pocatello, and it was a very higher rate of 

13 radon. That's what created the issue. 

14 DR. ROESSLER: What impact does 

15 that have on the numbers do you think? 

16 MR. CLAWSON: Well, basically, I've 

17 been hearing a lot higher numbers than that. 

18 I was hearing numbers, especially in enclosed 

19 buildings and so forth like that, of radon 

20 levels; but I'd have to go back and look at 

21 what we were doing. The reason that this just 

22 sparks to me is because we had began to build 
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1 a facility out there which used a contractor 

2 from Pocatello that used their cement plant, 

3 and we couldn't use some of our radiation, our 

4 CAMs, or anything else like that because there 

5 was too much radon. It was over over-REM-ing 

6 us, and they had come to find out that's kind 

7 of what started the background into it was 

8 that they were using this material and it had, 

9 was putting off radon and so forth. This was 

10 part of that. 

11 DR. ROESSLER: Well, I've never 

12 been to Pocatello in the winter, but I had a 

13 hard time picturing that they would be doing 

14 grinding outdoors. What is -- 

15 MR. CLAWSON: They're open 

16 buildings, meaning the buildings got sides, 

17 the roof has come up, and they've got gaps up 

18 to the top that basically run through there. 

19 And they use the natural convection to be able 

20 to clear out the facility. If you go out 

21 Pocatello headed toward Boise, you'd see all 

22 the facilities along there and what type of 
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1 buildings that they are. They go in a random 

2 start where the cars come in. Now it's a 

3 slurry mix coming, and it starts at one end 

4 and works all the way out to the other end. 

5 They're not heated buildings. A lot of them 

6 aren't heated and so forth like that, only the 

7 objects that need to be kept freezed or 

8 heated. They're just an open building. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: They were doing 

10 highway with phosphate rock? 

11 MR. CLAWSON: Yes, after it had run 

12 through the process. 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: That's the major 

14 use of phosphate rock that pass through the -- 

15 MR. NETON: They built a number of 

16 school foundations out west out of that. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, I remember that. 

18 So we've heard a considerable amount of 

19 discussion about the bounding value 

20 determinations here. The question that the 

21 Board asked us to identify is whether the 

22 bounding value that was being used was the 
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1 appropriate value. It appears that -- is 

2 there any argument over the fact that it's 

3 possible to bound this? There's no 

4 disagreement -- 

5 MR. CLAWSON: I guess my thing is 

6 is, sure, I can throw any number out there. I 

7 can throw a number out there and say, sure, 

8 this is going to bound it, but is it feasible 

9 that that's right or not would be my question. 

10 CHAIR MUNN: And that's the 

11 question we're trying to determine here. 

12 That's what I'm asking. We have the data 

13 that's been set before us with respect to the 

14 ore itself, what the product was, what the 

15 possible exposure could have been. Is there 

16 any valid reason to believe that the value 

17 that's been chosen as the bounding value for 

18 determination in the claimant cases is not an 

19 appropriate value? 

20 DR. MELIUS: What number are you 

21 referring to? You're referring to a NIOSH 

22 number? 
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1 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, the number that's 

2 being used to bound -- 

3 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Based on the -- 

4 CHAIR MUNN: -- for dose 

5 reconstruction. 

6 DR. MELIUS: Yes, I think there's 

7 valid reasons. The valid reasons are 

8 contained in this report, the SC&A report. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: And they are? Let's 

10 enumerate them for the record. Those reasons 

11 are? 

12 DR. ROESSLER: Are you looking at 

13 Bob's report that came just a couple of days 

14 ago? Is that what you're -- 

15 DR. MELIUS: I don't have a report 

16 from Bob that came a couple of days ago. 

17 DR. ROESSLER: I'm wondering what 

18 report you're looking at. Can you -- 

19 DR. MELIUS: The SC&A report we got 

20 in August, I believe. 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: You didn't send 

22 anything else. 
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1 DR. ROESSLER: I'm looking for it. 

2 I can't find it. Is it on the web site? 

3 CHAIR MUNN: Evaluation of radon 

4 levels in Building 40 at Blockson Chemical. 

5 DR. MELIUS: Yes, so August -- 

6 CHAIR MUNN: Dated August 12th. 

7 DR. MELIUS: -- 12th was the 

8 Privacy Act cleared one. 

9 MR. NETON: What Bob presented. 

10 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. That's a 

12 considerable text and explanation. 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: The block diagram I 

14 don't have but everything else was listed from 

15 the report. 

16 CHAIR MUNN: Including the Monte 

17 Carlo analysis? 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

19 CHAIR MUNN: And the modeling of 

20 the facility? 

21 DR. MELIUS: Appendix B has the 

22 Monte Carlo analysis. 
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1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

2 DR. MELIUS: That's what I asked 

3 earlier. 

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It had the details 

5 all along the front part. 

6 CHAIR MUNN: Have you found it, 

7 Gen? 

8 DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: Fairly comprehensive 

10 report. 

11 DR. ROESSLER: So what are your 

12 recommendations, Jim, based on that report 

13 then? 

14 DR. MELIUS: What I'm trying to do 

15 is learn what information is available. Jim 

16 has presented some new information. We've 

17 heard, at least from my first time, I have a 

18 clear understanding of what SC&A is 

19 approaching. There's a disagreement between 

20 SC&A and NIOSH on the implications of SC&A's 

21 modeling let's call it, and Jim has presented 

22 saying, well, he would rather rely on 
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1 available sampling data from various sites, 

2 which is a legitimate argument. And he's 

3 presented some without a lot of detail, but 

4 there's not much time, and that's why I wanted 

5 to look at the reports. 

6 And I think you have raised some 

7 issues about the SC&A model, as has Jim, as to 

8 whether the parameters in there are 

9 appropriate, at least the range of parameters. 

10 That's fair to do and legitimate, and I think 

11 we need to look over that. I'm not sure 

12 changing the range of parameters changes the 

13 basic distribution that much. It will change 

14 the tails of it, the 95th percentile, but how 

15 much of an impact it would have on what their 

16 overall argument is I don't know. But I -- 

17 DR. ROESSLER: But you agree, I 

18 would assume from saying that, that this can 

19 be bounded? 

20 DR. MELIUS: No. I mean, there are 

21 ways of bounding it, are they appropriate ways 

22 for this program? 
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1 DR. ROESSLER: So how do we get to 

2 that point? 

3 DR. MELIUS: Well, I don't know if 

4 we can. 

5 DR. ROESSLER: What do you -- 

6 DR. MELIUS: Without data, how do 

7 we get to that point? 

8 DR. ROESSLER: Well, I've presented 

9 a lot of data, some of which I think is not 

10 appropriate. It certainly is way, way, I 

11 don't think the word is even conservative. 

12 But it certainly includes the extreme upper 

13 bounds. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Yes, but listen. I 

15 think any place in this program we can come up 

16 with extreme upper bounds for anything. So 

17 the question is are those, you know, 

18 justifiable upper bounds? 

19 DR. ROESSLER: Exactly. 

20 DR. MELIUS: I think that's what 

21 we're struggling with in the absence of data, 

22 primary data from the site. 
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1 CHAIR MUNN: Would it be of any 

2 value to us to take a short period of time to 

3 review the material that we have in front of 

4 us right here? Or are we asking the wrong 

5 questions in order to try to find an answer to 

6 is this an appropriate value? It's difficult 

7 to know how to proceed in the face of 

8 information that we have that we've had for 

9 quite some time. We've attempted to come to 

10 some conclusions with the data presented. 

11 Given what we know about the low quantities of 

12 exposure that are possible from this type of 

13 ore and from this type of process, it's 

14 difficult to see a path forward beyond what 

15 we've done. 

16 We have accumulated a significant 

17 body of information and have very well18 qualified individuals providing that 

19 information to us. So if nothing more can be 

20 presented in the way of material, if we cannot 

21 get other expressions of what an appropriate 

22 value would be in limited exposure situations 
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1 like this, proceeding is difficult. Is it the 

2 feel of the folks who are here that, looking 

3 at this material a little bit, will bring us 

4 any additional clarification or any change in 

5 position or not? 

6 DR. MELIUS: Well, my understanding 

7 was that Jim presented this table or 

8 circulated this table last week as new 

9 information or an expression of maybe old 

10 information in this setting, which I think 

11 that's legitimate and I'd like to take a look 

12 at those reports. It's not something I was 

13 aware of earlier, at least not all of them. 

14 And I -- 

15 MR. CLAWSON: I believe somebody is 

16 trying to talk. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: No, I think they're 

18 talking behind, I think they have not muted 

19 their phone and their conversation is coming 

20 through to us. 

21 DR. MELIUS: And I think that 

22 either Larry or Jim presented, which I didn't 
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1 see from the last meeting but maybe I missed 

2 it, I mean I missed the meeting, but I didn't 

3 see in the transcripts. So I understand 

4 NIOSH's position is that you're sticking with 

5 your original radon report recommendation? 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: We feel it's 

7 sufficiently accurate. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Okay. I missed that 

9 last time. And last time, I was confused, I 

10 think, about the SC&A report. It was arguing 

11 with itself. I mean, I couldn't -- I mean, 

12 it's sort of playing NIOSH and SC&A, and I 

13 couldn't tell what the bottom line was. 

14 MR. NETON: Yes, and I really 

15 thought, as I said earlier, the SC&A report 

16 was, I believe, initiated as a reasonableness 

17 check on the number that we were using. And, 

18 in fact, they've come out with a distribution 

19 which includes our value. Admittedly, it's at 

20 the 15th or 17th percentile their 

21 distribution, but then we're left at the 

22 situation now where we believe that model has 
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1 some ultra-conservatism built into it that if 

2 we adjusted the parameters to reflect reality 

3 a little better, our number is right in there. 

4 I think, to some extent, SC&A has provided 

5 some validation to our model, if we can agree 

6 to adjust the parameters to where we think 

7 they are. 

8 That's the best case. The worst 

9 case is they've demonstrated that the bounding 

10 values can be generated, given the knowledge 

11 that we have of the site: the source term, the 

12 release rates of radon, that sort of thing. 

13 If there's anything that can be done with a 

14 source term model, radon is probably the 

15 poster child for that because of its noble gas 

16 qualities. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: Chick, are you still 

18 on the line? 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: I am. 

20 CHAIR MUNN: Do you have any 

21 comment or anything to add to this current 

22 discussion? 
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1 MR. PHILLIPS: I think what we have 

2 done is to do exactly what I believe Jim said, 

3 and that is that we have attempted to look at 

4 the situation and, you know, do a scoping 

5 analysis of what it potentially could have 

6 been. And, of course, when you do that, if 

7 you consider the full range of potential 

8 values, in particular Bob earlier referred to 

9 two of those values that have a great impact 

10 on which we have no way of really evaluating, 

11 and that is the release fraction from the ore 

12 during the digesting process and then, in 

13 fact, what the effective ventilation rate is 

14 in the area of those digesters, not just the 

15 building but those digesters. And that was 

16 referred to earlier about the ventilation 

17 specifically for those. 

18 So in the absence of that, just 

19 putting in the full range of values, you see 

20 the potential. That is, if you believe in the 

21 model, and I think the model is good, you see 

22 what the full range of values you can get and 
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1 then you try to temper those against what the 

2 measurements that were made, including one 

3 that was made in that building itself. And so 

4 then you have to make a decision as to which 

5 one, you know, how reasonable are those full 

6 range of values. You know, I haven't added 

7 anything to the conversation, but I think 

8 that's where we are. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: Well, Chick, let me 

10 ask you one more thing. It's our 

11 understanding from everything that the workers 

12 have told us that this building was a very low 

13 habitation rate building. There were very few 

14 workers in there at any given time and that 

15 the workers who were there did not have an 

16 assigned job that they stayed with all day 

17 long, that they moved about from one to the 

18 other job either during the day or during the 

19 week or during their period of employment. So 

20 it's not one of those cases where we can 

21 identify a worker as having been in a specific 

22 area of the building for the preponderance of 
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1 the time worked. They instead had many areas 

2 in the building that they routinely went 

3 through. 

4 Now, given that and what you have 

5 just said with respect to the difference 

6 between SC&A's approach to doing these 

7 bounding calculations and the NIOSH approach 

8 to the bounding calculations, I'd like to ask 

9 one other thing. It's been stated here today 

10 that there's a difference that is perceived as 

11 significant between the SC&A's position with 

12 regard to these bounding values and to the 

13 NIOSH position regarding bounding values. Is 

14 that perception accurate? And if so, can we 

15 resolve that here today? 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm not sure exactly 

17 what -- is the question is there a difference 

18 between the proposed bounding value that NIOSH 

19 has presented and the scoping analysis that 

20 SC&A did? Is that the question? 

21 CHAIR MUNN: Essentially, what is 

22 the current position between SC&A and their 
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1 bounding value calculations and NIOSH's 

2 position with respect to bounding 

3 calculations? Is there a significant 

4 difference, and if there is can we resolve 

5 that here today? 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: I can't answer the 

7 last part of whether that can be resolved 

8 today, but I think my summary would be the 

9 same as -- was it Jim giving the summary? I 

10 can't tell from here. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, it was. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: The value, the 

13 bounding value proposed is included in our 

14 scoping analysis. It's a question of, you 

15 know, how you view the wide range of values 

16 that you can generate when you include all the 

17 possibilities. Again, I have to say that you 

18 have to temper that against the measurements 

19 that have been made, which they have 

20 summarized, which NIOSH has summarized in the 

21 table, and remember that at least one of those 

22 values was made in the building in question. 
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1 CHAIR MUNN: I guess perhaps I 

2 should ask Jim the same question. Do you 

3 perceive there to be a significant difference 

4 between your view of how to proceed with 

5 bounding values and SC&A? Because it's been 

6 stated here that there's a difference, and if 

7 there is a difference and that is creating 

8 concern for Board members, then it behooves us 

9 to try to resolve that difference. When 

10 listening to you, what you are saying sounds 

11 reasonable to me. When listening to SC&A, it 

12 sounds reasonable to me and it sounds to me as 

13 though there is really not that much 

14 difference between the two positions. But as 

15 long as there's a perception there's a 

16 difference, we need to either clear up that 

17 perception or try to resolve this one way or 

18 the other. 

19 MR. NETON: I hate to do this, but 

20 I think I'm going to have to answer your 

21 question with another question. 

22 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. 
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1 MR. NETON: And the question I have 

2 is does SC&A believe that the model that they 

3 developed represents a plausibly bounding 

4 scenario for radon exposure at Blockson 

5 Chemical? I think it says so in this document 

6 somewhere. 

7 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, it does. 

8 MR. NETON: And if they agree to 

9 that, then we both have bounding values. Ours 

10 is lower than what they would bound, and I'm 

11 not sure whether they're suggesting that the 

12 95th percentile is plausibly bounding or 

13 whether some triangular distribution with the 

14 50th percentile and the 5th and 95th as the 

15 end point. I'm not sure; but, nonetheless, if 

16 they say that they can plausibly bound these 

17 values, then we've got a starting point here. 

18 We believe that our plausibly bounding value 

19 is a little lower than what their central 

20 estimate is. 

21 So to that extent, we're not that 

22 far off. We just have to figure out where 
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1 that value lies within the universe of values 

2 that SC&A has calculated. Nonetheless, 

3 agreeing that their model contains a plausible 

4 value somewhere in there that might need to be 

5 refined given our uncomfort with some of the 

6 parameter selections, the range of parameter 

7 selection. 

8 I don't know if that answers you or 

9 not, but you see where I'm going with this. I 

10 think that they believe that this is a 

11 plausible value. I've heard Dr. Melius though 

12 say he's not convinced that the SC&A model is 

13 plausibly bounding, and I think Brad expressed 

14 some discomfort with that. And so unless that 

15 can be agreed to no matter what we argue here, 

16 it's not going to go anywhere because then 

17 we're just going to be refining a model that 

18 no one has agreed to is useful for plausibly 

19 bounding these things. 

20 CHAIR MUNN: That's true. And what 

21 I was hearing, I think, perhaps I misheard, 

22 Dr. Melius and what Mr. Clawson were saying. 
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1 But I thought I heard the concern is that 

2 there is a difference between the positions of 

3 NIOSH and SC&A with respect to whether the 

4 bounding value is the appropriate value. Did 

5 I mishear that? Is that the question? Or is 

6 the issue that a bounding value is not going 

7 to be accepted under any terms, given the 

8 information we have now? 

9 MR. CLAWSON: Let's turn this 

10 question around, Wanda. What you're telling 

11 me is that all the information that we have in 

12 here is exact and correct and that we have all 

13 the information to be able to do this process, 

14 that we've got everything that we're going to 

15 be able to do on this, bound everything? 

16 There's still, in my eyes, there's still, and 

17 this is my personal opinion and I'm not 

18 speaking for Dr. Melius or anybody else, there 

19 is enough -- this information, I guess I would 

20 say, you know, we've got a lot of facts, we 

21 have a few sample here, and we can arrange a 

22 few numbers around and we can come to a 
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1 bounding built on any site, any place, that is 

2 is, within this law, is it feasible? 

3 I still have, my personal opinion 

4 is I still have a lot of mistrust from the 

5 information. I think there's still, you know, 

6 we've got NIOSH on one side and SC&A on the 

7 other saying, well, you know, we're not quite 

8 here. I put myself into the position of the 

9 petitioner. These people really can't even 

10 agree on a dose. I still have a hard time 

11 with the issue. I still have a hard time with 

12 the information that we've got. I think that 

13 there's still a lot of voids in it. There's a 

14 lot of dark area, and I'd just, I take myself 

15 into account because I'm sitting there working 

16 in a nuclear facility right now with state-of17 the-art equipment and everything else like 

18 this, and they cannot even take and run our 

19 radon. We have a radon in flux, if we lose 

20 any kind of ventilation we have to evacuate 

21 our building. And we have a hard time 

22 monitoring this stuff, and I just, I really 
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1 have an uncertainty for it. Maybe a lot of it 

2 is just my personal thing there. It's still 

3 got a lot of gaps. 

4 CHAIR MUNN: We are never going to 

5 have perfect information on any site we go to 

6 ever. No one has ever anticipated that we 

7 would have perfect information. We will 

8 always have people who will feel that there 

9 are gaps in information that is the best 

10 information available anywhere in the world. 

11 This isn't one of those places, and we have 

12 never said that it was. 

13 MR. CLAWSON: So aren't we supposed 

14 to err on the side of the claimant? 

15 CHAIR MUNN: What we're supposed to 

16 do is do the best science possible and to make 

17 sure that what we do is reasonable. That's 

18 our responsibility here. And the argument 

19 that there's a difference between what is 

20 happening, what SC&A's position is and NIOSH's 

21 position is a bit questionable because what 

22 I'm hearing and what SC&A has said from the 
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1 outset is we're good to go here. Their 

2 expectations incorporate that they are larger 

3 than, they expand further than, but they 

4 incorporate the values that have been 

5 determined by NIOSH. 

6 Now, we're not going to have every 

7 question that is raised answered. It's 

8 impossible. But we do know a great deal about 

9 radon, about how it behaves. We know a 

10 considerable amount of information about this 

11 ore. And even though we do not have absolute 

12 numbers to say this is what happens everyday 

13 in this plant, we never have that anywhere, 

14 we, nevertheless, have valid information that 

15 any reasonable person would accept as it 

16 couldn't have been larger than that. Given 

17 the circumstances that we know to be real, it 

18 couldn't have been greater than that. 

19 Let me read verbatim what the 

20 evaluation of radon levels at Building 40 at 

21 Blockson Chemical, which was provided by SC&A 

22 following our first concerns that were raised 
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1 in the working group about this. "The results 

2 indicate that the default value of 2.33 

3 picocuries per liter selected by NIOSH in 

4 OTIB-0043 falls within the range of values 

5 that may, in fact, be an appropriate value, 

6 especially if only a small fraction of the 

7 radon in the ore entered Building 40 escapes 

8 from the ore during the grinding and digesting 

9 process and enters the Building 40 atmosphere. 

10 However, given the large uncertainties in 

11 radon release fractions from the ore during 

12 crushing and digesting and the uncertainty in 

13 the air exchange rate for Building 40, a 

14 higher default value may be needed. For 

15 example, the result of this analysis indicates 

16 that one can be 95 percent confident that the 

17 average airborne radon concentration in 

18 Building 40 during the qualified period was 

19 less than 42 picocuries per liter." 

20 That does not seem to be any great 

21 disagreement with what NIOSH has proposed. 

22 NIOSH is proposing a default value that is 
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1 larger than this 95 percent confidence level. 

2 MR. CLAWSON: I think you are 

3 misinterpreting that. 

4 CHAIR MUNN: We can be 95 percent 

5 confident that the average airborne radon 

6 concentration was less than 62 picocuries per 

7 liter. 

8 MR. CLAWSON: And then there's one 

9 right here, concentrations in Building 40, for 

10 instance. And, you know, something I really 

11 love is the caveats that's in a lot of this 

12 because I've just been listening, should not 

13 have been, could may have been, you know, and 

14 I guess that brings in a little bit, but I'll 

15 just continue, "For instance, it's quite 

16 unlikely that the average concentration would 

17 have exceeded 62 picocuries, 95 percent value 

18 of the probable analysis." 

19 You know, you're right, Wanda, 

20 we'll never have all the information. We're 

21 trying to reconstruct everything from many, 

22 many years ago. And as you well know and as I 
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1 know, I want to make sure that this is as 

2 claimant favorable as possible, especially 

3 using, in my eyes, as little data as we do 

4 have. Now, we can construct data and we can 

5 try to put a bounding dose on it and so forth. 

6 I just want to make sure that we do the best 

7 job that we can for the claimants and that we 

8 have done all that we can to, under the 

9 information that we actually have, is valid 

10 and correct. And I know that we're trying and 

11 we've got some wonderful people working on 

12 that, and I respect what Jim has said and I 

13 respect what SC&A has done. And I just want 

14 to make sure that when we vote on this that it 

15 is the best that we have and that we have got 

16 the information because we're trying to -- 

17 Larry can attest to this because I was at the 

18 first meeting when they talked about how they 

19 were going to do this. I have an individual 

20 at work that I go into with a problem, and his 

21 first question for me is how do you want the 

22 outcome? And the reason for that is because 
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1 he can make the numbers talk to whatever he 

2 wants or what I want to get to the bottom 

3 line. And I want to make sure in my mind that 

4 we have got everything and that it is credible 

5 and that it has covered it. 

6 CHAIR MUNN: And, Brad, what do you 

7 think the desired outcome is for the people 

8 who are sitting around this table? 

9 MR. CLAWSON: I don't know. I 

10 guess that's what you'll have to look at 

11 inside yourself. What I'm looking at is do we 

12 feel comfortable with this? And granted I -- 

13 CHAIR MUNN: Is there a question in 

14 your mind that the people sitting around this 

15 table do not want the best, most accurate 

16 information and calculation that we can get 

17 for each one of these claimants? 

18 MR. CLAWSON: No, I never said 

19 that. I'm just -- 

20 CHAIR MUNN: I just wanted to make 

21 sure you didn't doubt it. 

22 MR. CLAWSON: Well, and that's a 
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1 good point. Well taken. 

2 CHAIR MUNN: Because that's exactly 

3 what these people are trying to do. If we 

4 didn't care about this then, believe me, as 

5 chair of this group, I would not have you back 

6 here again for the about fifth time going over 

7 these same issues. Every person here wants to 

8 see that the best job that can possibly be 

9 done is done for these claimants and that the 

10 best science that we can get comes out of it 

11 because it's really important not only to the 

12 clients but to us and to the entire nation, 

13 not to mention the nuclear technology as a 

14 whole. What we do here matters, and it 

15 matters greatly, not just for the claimants. 

16 For us to do anything other than the best job 

17 we can is shortchanging them, as well as us, 

18 and no one here wants to do that. I don't see 

19 a single face at this table who would be 

20 willing to do that. That's not what we're 

21 here to do. 

22 So we have to be able to resolve 
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1 issues that have minor differences in them 

2 based on the much, much improved knowledge of 

3 dose reconstruction and of dose measurement 

4 and of potential exposure that we know now 

5 that we did not know 50 years ago. We've 

6 learned an enormous amount about this science 

7 in the last 50 years, and we must apply the 

8 knowledge that we have now to situations that 

9 occurred 50 years ago. That's what we're 

10 having to do with Blockson. 

11 DR. ROESSLER: I'd like to address 

12 Brad's presentation on how he feels this is so 

13 uncertain, and I think if you go back, and Bob 

14 did a very nice presentation with his 

15 equation. And if you look at that equation 

16 and understand what goes into it, some of the 

17 terms are absolute numbers; there's no 

18 question about it. The others that he put 

19 into it I think he took the whole bound, the 

20 absolute whole bound. There's no question 

21 about what those numbers are. So he's gone 

22 back and he has shown by going to the source 
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1 term and putting in numbers that, you know, 

2 are the upper bound that he comes up with 

3 something like SC&A has agreed that's in the 

4 range that NIOSH does. I think that when 

5 you're saying these things are so uncertain 

6 that's a real misrepresentation of what's been 

7 done. 

8 MR. CLAWSON: You see, that's part 

9 of the reason why this Board has been locked 

10 together the way it has and the different 

11 aspects of it is so that we cover everything 

12 we do. And I agree. I agree that they have 

13 gone into a lot of in-depth study, and I still 

14 have a hard time with it. Maybe we never will 

15 come to a conclusion that will make me happy. 

16 I don't know. 

17 MS. PINCHETTI: This is Kathy 

18 Pinchetti again, and I just wanted to note 

19 that in the August SC&A report, even on the 

20 first page where it starts going into the 

21 review, it says, "Nevertheless, we found it 

22 difficult to conclude that the radon 
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1 measurements made in `83 can be considered 

2 representative or bounding of the radon 

3 concentrations present during the 

4 qualification period." So throughout the 

5 whole report, it kind of contradicts itself 

6 back and forth. You know, it's kind of like 

7 thinking out loud, like how is it that Florida 

8 information or information, you know, from 

9 `83, which was 30 years after the petition 

10 date that we're looking at, is even 

11 applicable. So I need to agree that there is 

12 a lot of question and there's a lot of 

13 unanswered things, so we can come up with any 

14 sort of data and postulate, well, maybe this 

15 and maybe that, but that doesn't make it so. 

16 CHAIR MUNN: Well, we have to be 

17 aware of the fact that the results that we 

18 have here are not all postulated from the 1983 

19 data. There's a considerable amount of other 

20 information that went into that. It was a 

21 single item that they were inferring, as Brad 

22 has inferred, has uncertainty involved with 
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1 it. 

2 MS. PINCHETTI: It looks like the 

3 focus is on Building 40, and there's no 

4 bioassay information out of Building 40 at 

5 all. I mean, we went from Building 55 to 

6 Building 40. The only urine analyses were 

7 from the guys in Building 55. There's nothing 

8 from Building 40. 

9 MR. NETON: This is an old 

10 question. This is Jim Neton. The Building 55 

11 is the covered facility at Blockson Chemical, 

12 and there's a parenthetical that says "and 

13 other associated activities," which we believe 

14 to interpret to mean the addition of the 

15 oxidizer in the process to enhance the uranium 

16 recovery and a few other issues like that, a 

17 few other pieces like that. But by and large, 

18 Building 40 where, you know, that process was 

19 there before, during, and after the AEC 

20 commissioned Blockson to pull off uranium 

21 product. Those are part and parcel to the 

22 fact that they're there, whether or not the 
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1 agency ever commissioned Blockson to make the 

2 uranium or not. 

3 It's the radon that we're worried 

4 about because that was where the oxidizer was 

5 added and a person could have been exposed to 

6 radon. You raise a good point that right now 

7 we are assigning concomitant exposure to 

8 Building 55 to the person who was drumming the 

9 uranium and all this radon on top of it. I 

10 mean, that's somewhat claimant favorable from 

11 that perspective because the radon value that 

12 we're calculating are the maximum values that 

13 would have occurred in Building 40. In fact, 

14 Building 55 was removed from those prophecies 

15 and there was no real radium source term in 

16 Building 55. So, in fact, the levels that the 

17 operators at Building 55 experienced would be 

18 substantially lower than any value that we're 

19 calculating here, in my opinion. 

20 CHAIR MUNN: So we are at a point 

21 where the bounding value that is expressed by 

22 NIOSH is within the bounding value that the 
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1 contractor agreed would, in fact, cover all 

2 cases from the Blockson site. Is it the 

3 appropriate value? That's the question we 

4 started with. It's the question we still have 

5 before us. It's the question that we have to 

6 report back to the Board. 

7 DR. MELIUS: Which is the 

8 appropriate value? The NIOSH value or the -- 

9 I mean, one's a range and the other is a 

10 value, I guess. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: Yes. And the question 

12 is are we using the range, or are we using the 

13 defined value? 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: We're using a defined 

15 value, and I think that's what the Board is 

16 charged with looking at. That's being 

17 reviewed here -- 

18 CHAIR MUNN: That was my 

19 interpretation -- 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: -- to have another 

21 point of comparison in the modeling range 

22 that's been provided. The question goes to is 
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1 the NIOSH value an appropriate value? 

2 MR. NETON: I'd certainly be 

3 interested in hearing the opinion of the 

4 working group as to whether or not they feel 

5 that the SC&A value range is more appropriate 

6 and why. I'd be interested in discussing 

7 that. 

8 DR. ROESSLER: Let me ask a 

9 question. Let's assume that we said, okay, 

10 the SC&A value is the appropriate value. 

11 Let's say we agreed on that. If we did that, 

12 would that then close the issue for some of 

13 our workgroup members? 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: What value? 62 

15 picocuries or -- 

16 DR. ROESSLER: Well, let's just say 

17 -- 

18 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think you 

19 have to specify the value because it could be 

20 our value. 

21 DR. ROESSLER: Yes. Okay. Let me 

22 just say if we said, and I don't agree with 
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1 it, but let's just say that we picked 62.2 or 

2 whatever the number is, would that then answer 

3 the questions for our other workgroup members? 

4 We still get back to the question of do you 

5 think we can bound? 

6 DR. MELIUS: Can we come up with a 

7 plausible bound. 

8 DR. ROESSLER: Yes, yes. 

9 DR. MELIUS: Which is where I think 

10 Larry is coming from; is that correct? 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we feel -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: The plausible bound is 

13 2.33. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, we feel that 

15 that has been proven in the modeling effort 

16 that SC&A has done. And if you would remove 

17 those extreme points of range in the two 

18 variables it's even going to tighten it down 

19 toward where we're at. I mean, out of a 

20 thousand runs in the Monte Carlo simulation 

21 run, they had a high 100,000, they had run 

22 high extreme value of 560 something -- 
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1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Six hundred. 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: Six hundred; I'm 

3 sorry. And if you take that one out, it's 

4 certainly going to draw it down. 

5 CHAIR MUNN: Take the nothing out. 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: Take the nothing out. 

7 MR. NETON: I personally think if 

8 you take 62 it gets into the realm of 

9 implausibility as a fixed value, as a constant 

10 for all workers. Although, I would suggest 

11 that the Board, if the working group was 

12 willing to entertain this distribution, I 

13 mean, it's possible to entertain distribution 

14 and look at the, you know, is their number, 

15 seven picocuries per liter, the 50th 

16 percentile? And the upper bound would be, you 

17 know -- implausible, but if it's got some 

18 credibility, the 62 could have been there at 

19 some time, there's some credibility it could 

20 have been as low as whatever the 5th 

21 percentile was, so you end up with this 

22 triangular distribution of values that 
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1 essentially the SC&A model would predict. If 

2 we were going to use any model at all, it 

3 would not be a fixed upper 95th percentile 

4 using the -- 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: Extreme range. 

6 MR. NETON: -- extreme ranges 

7 because then you end up way out of there. In 

8 my mind, it becomes implausible when you 

9 compare it to other facilities, like 

10 Mallinckrodt and such. 

11 DR. ROESSLER: And then we're not 

12 consistent. 

13 MR. NETON: Right. But if one 

14 starts to talk about distributions and a 

15 central value, which maybe, you know, it's 

16 seven under the current constraints of their 

17 model, that's a debatable issue. But the 

18 Board, the working group has to come to grips, 

19 I think, with is this approach even valid? 

20 I'm hearing discomfort that that approach is 

21 not even an a tenable upward bound for any of 

22 this. And if that's true, then we may as well 
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1 -- 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: You're at 

3 loggerheads. 

4 MR. NETON: There's nothing to do. 

5 We're at a stalemate. 

6 DR. ROESSLER: I think a couple of 

7 the workgroup members are not accepting the 

8 SC&A report. I don't think there's any 

9 consistency in it really in their wording, and 

10 I think that we need to hear from you do you 

11 accept the report or not? Maybe that's where 

12 we start our discussion. 

13 DR. MELIUS: Accept the report for 

14 what? As an upward bound, as a plausible 

15 upward bound -- 

16 DR. ROESSLER: But do you accept 

17 that much? 

18 DR. MELIUS: -- or as a piece of 

19 information? The answer is no as a plausible 

20 upward bound. Do I accept it as a modeling 

21 information that's useful in trying to 

22 understand what exposures might have been at 
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1 Blockson in that building? Yes. It's a 

2 useful piece of information, just as the 

3 information from Florida may be or from 

4 Pocatello, wherever. 

5 DR. ROESSLER: I'm not sure -- 

6 DR. MELIUS: Is it adequate to do 

7 or sufficient for dose reconstruction 

8 purposes? I'm not sure. 

9 DR. ROESSLER: So we're at 

10 loggerheads regardless. I think, you know, we 

11 might as well get to the point. You haven't 

12 given us anything to really focus on that we 

13 can do because no matter what we do I think 

14 you're still at loggerheads. Is that the 

15 bottom line? 

16 DR. MELIUS: It may be, but I think 

17 Jim has given us some new information, Jim 

18 Neton, today, which we'll look at, which I'll 

19 look at, and we've heard more from SC&A. I 

20 understand what they did better now, which I 

21 couldn't understand from the transcripts. 

22 CHAIR MUNN: So are we going to 
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1 have an opportunity to -- if we take a longer 

2 than one-hour lunch break, is that an adequate 

3 amount of time for any additional absorption 

4 of information here, or is it not? The real 

5 question being can we resolve any of this 

6 today on this specific issue? Can any one 

7 begin to feel that if 2.33 is not the right 

8 value is some 50 percent figure a right value? 

9 Is there any possibility that today we can 

10 address this question and come to any further 

11 point of agreement than we have right now? 

12 DR. MELIUS: The answer to that is 

13 no on the bigger question. If others would 

14 find it useful for NIOSH and SC&A to try to 

15 agree on a more reasonable or what NIOSH would 

16 feel would be more reasonable parameters for 

17 the model and what the information from that 

18 model would be useful in some way, I have no 

19 objections to that. 

20 CHAIR MUNN: What do you feel would 

21 be more reasonable? 

22 DR. MELIUS: Nothing. I don't have 
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1 any feelings about reasonable. 

2 CHAIR MUNN: Rather than proceed 

3 with this issue right now, I would suggest 

4 that we take a ten-minute break and come back 

5 for about 45 minutes after that before we go 

6 to lunch and move on to the other items that 

7 are on our list. If we can address any one of 

8 those and at least remove those items from the 

9 list, that would be helpful. For the moment, 

10 we are setting aside focusing on the radon 

11 issue. We will get back to it after lunch. 

12 For the moment, let's take a comfort break and 

13 be back in no more than 15 minutes, preferably 

14 ten if we're all back. 

15 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

16 went off the record at 11:28 a.m. 

17 and resumed at 11:42 a.m.) 

18 MR. KATZ: We can go, and I don't 

19 think I need to make any comments in advance. 

20 CHAIR MUNN: No, I don't think so. 

21 MR. KATZ: Restart. 

22 CHAIR MUNN: We're back in session 
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1 here, and we're going to move down our list of 

2 issues that the full Board had asked us to 

3 address, the next one being revisiting the 

4 suitability of surrogate data use. There had 

5 been some expressions of concern with regard 

6 to the use of data from anywhere else. I'm 

7 not sure who to ask to address that to begin 

8 with. If there's some specificity to those 

9 concerned, this might be a good time to hear 

10 those. Jim, Brad, do either of you have 

11 specifics relative to surrogate data use that 

12 you wanted to reiterate for us to use as a 

13 starting point for the discussion? 

14 DR. MELIUS: I mean, I think we've 

15 been, before we've been talking about using 

16 surrogate data, using the Florida phosphate 

17 data, and I think that's what we're talking 

18 about, is that appropriate or not. And I 

19 think we said earlier the justifications for 

20 that are, one, the SC&A model, and number two 

21 is the limited data from Blockson and then the 

22 data from the other sites that Jim has talked 
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1 about and presented in that table. I don't 

2 think at this point there's anything further 

3 that can be said about that. 

4 CHAIR MUNN: Jim, do you have any -

5 - 

6 MR. NETON: I was just prepared to 

7 say a few comments about how this fares in 

8 light of the IG-004, which is NIOSH's document 

9 on the issue of surrogate data. I think the 

10 approach that we've adopted fulfills the 

11 guideline that they've been written in there, 

12 which is that we need to know something about 

13 the source term. We have a lot of information 

14 about the source term that Bob has used in his 

15 calculations. If we're going to have _____ 

16 facilities with similar processes, these are 

17 all wet phosphate facilities, a couple from 

18 the north, the south admittedly. So it's a 

19 similar chemical process. 

20 The only thing that right now is 

21 clear cut in our mind but the temporal 

22 considerations have to be considered, and we 
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1 fully admit that there is a disconnect between 

2 the earliest data in 1976 and the data that 

3 we're trying to reconstruct in the 50s. But 

4 we believe that the factor of five 

5 conservatism built into that value more than 

6 makes up for the differences in the 

7 ventilation rate during that time period. So 

8 at this point -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: It's not necessarily 

10 a disconnect. We've just not shown a 

11 connection to the `76 data and the 1950 era 

12 circumstances. 

13 MR. NETON: Well, the disconnect in 

14 my mind is that we don't have measurements 

15 other than at Blockson in 1950. I mean, it 

16 would be nice if we had 1950 measurements at 

17 all these other facilities, and we don't, you 

18 know, with similar ventilation rates. But we 

19 have a measurement in 1950 or in 1983 that we 

20 can go back and use scale based on the 

21 plausible ranges in ventilation rates. And 

22 couple that with the fact that we believe the 
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1 estimated model has clearly shown that our 

2 value was in the realm of possibility. It's 

3 not a 1 percentile or 0.1 percentile. It's in 

4 the mix, especially if you re-analyze the 

5 range of values that we use in that model. I 

6 was prepared, so I threw it out there. 

7 DR. MELIUS: I want to attack you 

8 on the if we change the model, it will be 

9 fine. 

10 CHAIR MUNN: Jim, I wanted to ask 

11 you -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: Who refined -- I'm 

13 sorry. Go ahead. 

14 CHAIR MUNN: No, I'm sorry. I 

15 didn't mean to interrupt you. 

16 DR. MELIUS: No, no, go ahead. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: In view of the fact 

18 that you and _____ have been putting together 

19 some thoughts with respect to guidelines in 

20 this regard, is what's transpiring here going 

21 to fit reasonably with -- we know those 

22 haven't gone before the Board yet. They're 
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1 not approved, but you've been working on them 

2 and we have material to deal with. Do you see 

3 any major conflict in what you've been doing 

4 with surrogate data issue and what we have 

5 here at Blockson? 

6 DR. MELIUS: I think the issues are 

7 the same as what Jim brought up. I don't 

8 think that the draft guidelines, I think it's 

9 too early to say whether they support or don't 

10 support this approach. I think it's an issue 

11 of application. 

12 CHAIR MUNN: But you don't see any 

13 glaring difference between what's being 

14 proposed and what we -- 

15 DR. MELIUS: I think that the, to 

16 say this correctly, that the parameters Jim 

17 talks about, temporal time period, nature of 

18 the data, how robust the data is, I don't 

19 think are different. What the conclusion 

20 would be are how those are applied, I think. 

21 We just don't know yet. I don't want to 

22 speculate -- 
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1 CHAIR MUNN: No, understand. 

2 DR. MELIUS: -- one way or the 

3 other. 

4 CHAIR MUNN: I wouldn't want you 

5 to. I just wanted to make sure there was no, 

6 in your mind, any obvious difference between 

7 this approach, the items that have been under 

8 consideration -- 

9 DR. MELIUS: I don't think there's 

10 any other factor that's being considered. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: That's really -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: Fair? 

13 CHAIR MUNN: -- the real question. 

14 Good. Glad to hear that. So far as we know 

15 now, the surrogate data used suitability is 

16 something we're going to revisit when we go 

17 back and talk about the radon issue, right? 

18 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 

19 CHAIR MUNN: All right. Provide 

20 specifics of the coworker model for uranium 

21 exposure. That's a part of the information 

22 that was just sent to us last week to take 
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1 another look at. Jim? 

2 MR. NETON: Actually, it was SC&A 

3 that had been tasked with generating this 

4 evaluation of our coworker model, and I 

5 believe John Mauro sent an e-mail that 

6 summarized that opinion on that model. I'm 

7 sure if John were here he would be happy to 

8 talk about it. But by and large, my take on 

9 what he wrote was that we use the generated 

10 95th percentile distribution of chronic 

11 exposures for the monitor of workers at the 

12 facility and we generate distribution of 

13 chronic exposure models for all the workers 

14 that were monitored, the 10 or 12, I forget. 

15 Tom could probably fill this in better. And 

16 we pick the 95th percentile of the 

17 distribution of chronic exposure models, 

18 which, in fact, is higher than the highest 

19 exposed person by a smidge, not a lot, but 

20 it's about 75. 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I think 82 versus 

22 about 75. 
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1 MR. NETON: Right, yes. So my 

2 sense from John's e-mail, and maybe Bob could 

3 comment, is that SC&A, at least to my 

4 knowledge, has no real argument with the way 

5 we reconstructed internal dosage at Blockson 

6 Chemical. 

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

8 CHAIR MUNN: You want to weigh in 

9 on that, Bob? 

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, I want to 

11 weigh in. No, we agree and also answer, Dr. 

12 Melius asked the question about did we 

13 inventory, I saw the e-mail, basically did we 

14 independently try to verify the dosage based 

15 on urinalysis, and we did it in a reverse 

16 manner, and that is John Mauro took the 82 

17 picocuries per day and says, well, _____ the 

18 chronic long-term exposure of a worker that he 

19 always had 82 picocuries per day, what would 

20 his urine be? And assuming, here's the 

21 caveat, assuming the type-M where we do have 

22 some question about, but if, hypothetically, 
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1 we were to agree with this type-M designation, 

2 then it turns out that the urine of that 82 

3 picocuries per day worker, if I remember 

4 correctly, would be something like 0.008 

5 picocuries per liter, which is higher than the 

6 highest thousand that was actually measured. 

7 So that was one thing. 

8 So, yes, we believe that the 

9 derived values are consistent with the 

10 urinalysis provided. However, we leave in 

11 abeyance the issue of whether it is all M or 

12 whether some could be type-S. If some of it 

13 is type-S, it would change the picture 

14 significantly. 

15 MR. NETON: But I think that if the 

16 model values themselves, that's part of the 

17 question, at least in my opinion Dr. Melius 

18 trying to get at, this had more to do with if 

19 you have sampling on the right worker. Is 

20 there a population out there that were not 

21 monitored that could have been higher than the 

22 population that we've modeled? I think -- 
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1 DR. MELIUS: That's one question. 

2 MR. NETON: That's one question. 

3 And Tom Tomes has put together this little 

4 table that we just passed around, which I 

5 think is somewhat instructive. If you'll 

6 notice, there are ten different sampling dates 

7 on the top column here. Those are the dates 

8 at which samples were collected on workers and 

9 sent to the HASL Laboratory, now Environmental 

10 Measurements Laboratory, for analysis, and you 

11 see an interesting pattern here that there are 

12 anywhere from ten or so workers that were 

13 sampled during every one of these monitoring 

14 periods. Now, why is that important? Well, 

15 we've been told by workers that there were 

16 about ten people working on the project, no 

17 more than 20 but 10 or 12 workers that worked 

18 in Building 55. 

19 MR. TOMES: Well, different shifts. 

20 Yes, total. 

21 MR. NETON: A total of 10 or 12, 

22 and so what you see here is a pattern of, 
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1 well, as one worker dropped off and maybe went 

2 somewhere else, they added some additional 

3 workers. So there's a nice clear pattern 

4 here, established pattern, of monitoring what 

5 we believe to be the workers in Building 55. 

6 If not all of them, certainly almost all of 

7 them. There may have been some ancillary 

8 maintenance staff and such that entered the 

9 building that were not sampled here, but we 

10 believe that these samples cover the people 

11 who were involved in the drumming of the 

12 uranium material itself. They were actually 

13 involved in the physical process of working, 

14 handling the materials. 

15 So in our opinion, we've captured 

16 the right population to model. And, in fact, 

17 by taking, what Tom has done is developed a 

18 chronic exposure model for each of the 

19 workers. In other words, he has consistent 

20 samples throughout a long period of time and 

21 took each of those chronic exposures that he 

22 developed and then picked the 95th percentile 
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1 of all those chronic exposures on those 

2 workers. So in my opinion and in OCAS' 

3 opinion, this was the appropriate way to do 

4 the analysis. I've had some discussions in 

5 the past with John Mauro on this, and I think 

6 he's in agreement that this is an appropriate 

7 manner to handle these data. 

8 CHAIR MUNN: Tom, do you have 

9 anything to add? 

10 MR. TOMES: That pretty much 

11 describes what we did. 

12 CHAIR MUNN: So the specifics of 

13 the coworker model for uranium exposure are on 

14 the table for discussion. Does anyone find 

15 them inadequate, inaccurate? And where are we 

16 with the type-M question? 

17 MR. NETON: I can answer the type-M 

18 question. That was decided to be a site 

19 profile issue many, many, many months ago. 

20 DR. MELIUS: I had another 

21 question. There's one worker who had 

22 consistently high values, and I was curious 
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1 about if we knew anything about that person's 

2 job assignment. 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: We looked into that 

4 interpretive and some of the other 

5 information, and, no, there were only job 

6 assignments for five of those 25 workers, and 

7 none of those were at the high end. 

8 MR. NETON: Well, I think we have 

9 some claimant data that might supplement that; 

10 I don't know. 

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. 

12 MR. TOMES: I am not sure exactly 

13 which worker that you're referring to that had 

14 higher results, but we do have data on one 

15 person who was not the highest person, but who 

16 was near that at the upper end who actually 

17 drummed material. The highest coworker, I do 

18 not have any data on that. 

19 MR. NETON: But that one is a 

20 claimant, right, Tom? It's a case that we 

21 have for reconstruction. 

22 MR. TOMES: Well, one of them is, 
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1 and then there's another one. One of those 

2 persons is, yes. Then there was another one 

3 who was identified in a worker meeting and 

4 what his job is. He was also near the upper 

5 end of that distribution, and both those 

6 workers handled the ground material at some 

7 point in time in Building 55 on a routine 

8 basis. 

9 DR. MELIUS: I don't want to ask 

10 too many more questions because of privacy -- 

11 oh, you're in the room? 

12 CHAIR MUNN: Well, yes. I just 

13 wanted to make sure that your question was 

14 specifically addressed because you had asked 

15 about the highest one. 

16 DR. MELIUS: I believe he did. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: You think he did that? 

18 Okay, okay. I didn't want to -- 

19 DR. MELIUS: And I'd seen the 

20 calculation that was referred to in the last 

21 meeting, and I understand that. And I 

22 actually think this is a very helpful way of 
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1 portraying it. I think it's useful, so thank 

2 you. 

3 CHAIR MUNN: Do we feel that 

4 there's anything other, any other topic that 

5 needs to be covered with respect to the 

6 specifics of the coworker model for the 

7 uranium? Everyone is accepting what we have 

8 here as being adequate and appropriate. 

9 Next issue was a concern that we've 

10 also heard expressed in many sites with 

11 respect to what assumptions are used for 

12 maintenance workers. 

13 MR. NETON: Tom, I think -- 

14 MR. TOMES: I believe I can answer 

15 that. Our site profile, given the intake that 

16 we've assigned -- and also the doses are 

17 similar, we assumed that they were exposed at 

18 that high level. 

19 CHAIR MUNN: Acceptable response? 

20 MR. CLAWSON: You've got the -- 

21 what's the high level? 

22 MR. TOMES: The intake rate is two 
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1 picocuries per day. 

2 MR. NETON: We make no 

3 differentiation between a maintenance worker 

4 and a -- we don't know most of the time where 

5 these workers were or even if you have 

6 identified a person who claims they were a 

7 maintenance worker at a certain point may have 

8 been a chemical operator another period of 

9 time, but we don't know. So all workers that 

10 could have worked in the plant are given the 

11 same exposure, one size fits all. 

12 CHAIR MUNN: We've had many 

13 expressions from the workers about the 

14 flexibility of their job descriptions and how 

15 they changed from one to the other over short 

16 periods of time and over long periods of time. 

17 MR. NETON: This is not 

18 inconsistent with what we've done at other 

19 sites where we would select the 95th 

20 percentile of the unmonitored worker who could 

21 have been working in the plant. We received a 

22 95th percentile for coworker modeling. It's 
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1 very similar to what we've done elsewhere. 

2 CHAIR MUNN: Any problem with that 

3 response? Acceptable? The final item on the 

4 list was concern with respect to data quality. 

5 I'm not sure exactly what can be said about 

6 that or what reassurance people can be given, 

7 but since it was presented as a showstopper at 

8 the Board meeting it would behoove us to try 

9 to address it here in such a way that we can 

10 reassure the Board that it has been adequately 

11 covered and that we've given new consideration 

12 to their concern. Does anyone want to speak 

13 with respect to data quality and what the 

14 concern of the Board was? 

15 DR. MELIUS: I don't recall that. 

16 MR. NETON: I don't recall what the 

17 issue was, to be honest with you. 

18 DR. MELIUS: I mean, I raised the 

19 issue about the uranium sampling earlier that 

20 John Mauro may have misunderstood, so SC&A did 

21 a report on sort of laboratory quality issues 

22 and so forth, which really wasn't -- the issue 
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1 I was raising was more about this job title, 

2 who was, you know, monitoring sample kind of 

3 thing. So I don't think there was ever a 

4 question about that. I'm just trying to 

5 remember back to the Board meeting and what we 

6 said. 

7 MR. NETON: Yes. I think Dr. 

8 Melius is right. The data analysis was done 

9 by the Health and Safety Laboratory, which 

10 we've accepted as sort of a de facto quality 

11 laboratory for other sites. So I don't think 

12 there's any question related to -- unless this 

13 refers to the radon data, which we have almost 

14 none, so I guess that's -- 

15 DR. MELIUS: Yes. I mean, I think 

16 there was an issue about the radon, the 

17 methodology and so forth for the radon data 

18 collected at Blockson. 

19 MR. NETON: Yes. 

20 DR. MELIUS: And I don't remember 

21 how that was addressed. I remember it being 

22 raised. 
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1 MR. PHILLIPS: This is Chick 

2 Phillips. You did address that in your 

3 earlier report, the draft report, white paper, 

4 on the radon measurements at Blockson. 

5 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: How it got 

7 incorporated in this last one I'm trying to 

8 remember. 

9 MR. NETON: I think it is in there, 

10 Chick. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

12 CHAIR MUNN: Do we need to 

13 resurrect that white paper, or are we content 

14 with where we are relative to data quality? 

15 MR. NETON: You know, I thought 

16 that, I agree with Dr. Melius. I thought it 

17 was more related to the quality of the 

18 samplings of the distribution of employees or 

19 something to that effect. That was my -- 

20 DR. MELIUS: That was the issue 

21 that I had raised earlier. And as I said, 

22 John misunderstood me and sort of went back to 
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1 sort of laboratory quality issues. There was 

2 one report on that. But then the only other 

3 issue I remember coming up about, sort of, 

4 data quality was more sort of methodology and 

5 so forth with those radon samples. That may 

6 have just been when they were first presented 

7 no one knew where -- I don't recall. 

8 DR. MELIUS: I think it was. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: If that's the case, 

10 then we're still talking radon, and we'll just 

11 address that when we get back from lunch. 

12 DR. MELIUS: There's a June 5th 

13 draft report from Chick Phillips. I have 

14 additional information on radon exposures at 

15 Blockson, radon measurement in Building 40, 

16 and it's 1983, which summarizes, I guess, data 

17 Chick took from the Olin report or -- 

18 MR. NETON: Correct, yes. That has 

19 been incorporated into the current August 

20 report on pages 9, 10, and 11. 

21 CHAIR MUNN: Good. 

22 MR. NETON: It's essentially the 
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1 analysis of the one sample that Chick went 

2 back and re-resurrected what that really meant 

3 in terms of working levels, and there's a nice 

4 table in there. I think that's in there. 

5 CHAIR MUNN: So can we truthfully 

6 say that the workgroup has looked at that 

7 particular bullet and do not find it to be a 

8 cause for concern? 

9 MR. CLAWSON: I'm just trying to go 

10 back in my short memory. Do we know who did 

11 the bioassays? 

12 MR. NETON: The Health and Safety 

13 Laboratory. 

14 MR. CLAWSON: Health and Safety. 

15 CHAIR MUNN: And I think that may 

16 have been one of the things that was troubling 

17 someone. 

18 MR. CLAWSON: Well, if you 

19 remember, it's right after some information 

20 came out about one of the people that had done 

21 a lot of the bioassay programs had a problem. 

22 CHAIR MUNN: Apparently not. That 
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1 is the last of the issues that I have. It 

2 appears that the only outstanding thing that 

3 we have, correct me if I'm wrong, our issue 

4 with respect to radon distribution is our big 

5 outstanding concern here, the one we're going 

6 to take a little extra time over our lunch 

7 hour to think about. We'll come back here. 

8 It's now, by my watch, 10 minutes after 12. 

9 We will come back here at 1:30 and we will 

10 address this one more time and see if we can 

11 come to a conclusion on what any path forward 

12 might be, if there is, in fact, a path 

13 forward. So we are adjourned until 1:30 

14 Eastern time. We'll be back online then. 

15 MR. KATZ: Thank you, everybody on 

16 the phone. 

17 (Whereupon, the above18 entitled matter went 

19 off the record at 12:08 

20 p.m. and resumed at 1:30 

21 p.m.) 

22 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you all. We've 
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1 taken a longer than usual lunch with, 

2 hopefully, an opportunity to think a little 

3 bit about one outstanding issue that we have 

4 left. Of those that were pointed out to us by 

5 the Board that they wanted us to continue some 

6 concerns with, the only one still outstanding 

7 is the initial focus on the radon issue and 

8 whether or not the bounding value can be 

9 determined to the agreement of all the major 

10 parties involved. We have some additional 

11 information and have had a considerable amount 

12 of discussion here about it and seem to be at 

13 a junction where we either have to take some 

14 other path than what we've taken or we have to 

15 throw up our hands, and I'm not quite willing 

16 to throw up our hands yet. 

17 We have agreed that the 

18 distribution that has been presented by the 

19 contractor is a reasonable statistical 

20 distribution, and now the primary concern that 

21 we have is how to narrow that to an 

22 appropriate value that can be accepted as 
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1 being reasonable. If anyone has any 

2 suggestion with respect to how to proceed, I 

3 would like to see one more effort for SC&A and 

4 NIOSH technical folks to sit down and see if 

5 the range of distribution that has been 

6 suggested can be discussed and can be agreed 

7 to be narrowed to the point where we can bring 

8 a new suggestion back to the Board and to our 

9 other working group members. 

10 Does anyone have any suggestion 

11 with how to proceed with that possibility? 

12 MR. KATZ: Before we go on, just 

13 let me, as a matter of record, I should have 

14 noted that Dr. Melius is not attending at this 

15 point. 

16 CHAIR MUNN: That's correct. Dr. 

17 Melius has left us over the lunch hour. We're 

18 sorry about that, but we'll continue on. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: Wanda, this is 

20 Chick. 

21 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, Chick? 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: I was going to throw 
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1 something out before I got sent off on the 

2 telephone. I don't know if this will help 

3 direct the issue or confuse it even more, but 

4 let me take a shot at it. We did have, as I 

5 said before and as is pointed out in the table 

6 that NIOSH provided, actually three 

7 managements that have reasonable belief that 

8 those were made in Building 40, the building 

9 in question. 

10 MR. KATZ: Chick, are you speaking 

11 through the speaker phone, because actually, 

12 your voice is not very clear at all? 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay, let me try 

14 something real quick. Is that much better? 

15 (Chorus of much better) 

16 Okay. We did have a management, 

17 actually three managements, one that gave us a 

18 positive value in Building 40. I'm going to 

19 be referring here to the August SC&A report, 

20 if everybody has that before them, the August 

21 12th -- 

22 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, we do. 
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1 MR. PHILLIPS: -- Blockson analysis 

2 revised draft. 

3 CHAIR MUNN: That's what we've been 

4 working from. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay, all right. 

6 And we went through the steps to determine the 

7 working level value and radon value for that, 

8 which appears to be made in the 40 filtration 

9 area, which is close to the digester area. 

10 And that comes out to be a little less than, 

11 and let's just say it's one picocurie per 

12 liter. The question is -- this measurement 

13 was made in 1983. What conditions changed in 

14 Building 40 or potentially changed in Building 

15 40 between the covered period in the 60s and 

16 the measurement that was made in 1983? 

17 CHAIR MUNN: You may recall we 

18 pursued that at some length. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: We did. And, in 

20 fact, we went back and did some additional, 

21 we, with NIOSH, went back and did some 

22 additional worker interviews to try to 
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1 determine what changes could have been made, 

2 particularly in the ventilation rate. Because 

3 if you look at table four in the report that I 

4 referred to and you look at the values that 

5 affect the radon concentration in the 

6 building, to the best of our knowledge the 

7 process did not change between the two periods 

8 that we're talking about, between the 60s and 

9 `83. 

10 CHAIR MUNN: We were repeatedly 

11 assured by the workers that the process did 

12 not change. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: That's correct. The 

14 one thing that could have changed and, in 

15 fact, one of the workers that we interviewed 

16 indicated that he thought ventilation had been 

17 added above the digester tanks. And the one 

18 value in here, then, that could have changed, 

19 if you look at all of it, assuming that the 

20 process itself did not change significantly, 

21 that could have affected the value is really 

22 the ventilation rate. 
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1 So going back and looking at that, 

2 if, indeed, the value was one picocurie per 

3 liter at the time the measurement was made, it 

4 could be ventilation rate had changed by a 

5 factor of two to reach the bounding value as 

6 originally proposed by NIOSH, the 2.33. And 

7 one would say, yes, that that's certainly a 

8 possibility. 

9 Moving down to table five, which is 

10 the percentile table coming from our Monte 

11 Carlo analysis, look at the 50 percent value, 

12 the ventilation rate would have had to change 

13 by a factor of seven to reach it. Is that 

14 reasonable? Possibly. To reach the 95 

15 percentile value, it would have had to have 

16 changed by a factor of 60. Is that 

17 reasonable? 

18 So I don't know if this narrows the 

19 scope. Again, we have no reason to discount 

20 those values that were measured in 1983. 

21 CHAIR MUNN: Some thought that that 

22 narrowed the scope. We have one member of our 
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1 working group who's not with us today who was 

2 very concerned over the ventilation issue and 

3 expressed great concern over what the size of 

4 the fan or fans might have been, what its 

5 rotational speed was, et cetera. And, of 

6 course, we don't have access to any of that 

7 information at all. We only know that a fan 

8 was installed but that it did not noticeably 

9 affect the amount of particulate and other 

10 residue that was in the building where the 

11 people were working. They indicated, if I 

12 remember correctly, that there was some 

13 improvement. They noticed an improvement, but 

14 it wasn't an enormous improvement. 

15 So I appreciate your suggestion. I 

16 think it can certainly be taken into 

17 consideration and mentioned again when we 

18 present this to the Board and would be perhaps 

19 helpful if I had some, just thoughts and notes 

20 on what you just recorded, for our transcript 

21 here, for my own purposes. I'd like to be 

22 able to incorporate those same kinds of 
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1 thoughts in any presentation that I make to 

2 the Board next time. 

3 But in the meantime, we're faced 

4 with this very real question regarding the 

5 radon concentration and that, of course, being 

6 a factor that will obviously become a part of 

7 what we'll be doing here. Perhaps we can get 

8 some thoughts from our NIOSH colleagues. Jim? 

9 MR. NETON: Yes, Wanda, this is 

10 Jim. I think we're more than willing to sit 

11 down, if it's the working group's desire, with 

12 SC&A to discuss on a detailed technical level 

13 the parameters associated with the model they 

14 developed and have a free exchange of our 

15 ideas as to what we believe to be bounding and 

16 not bounding and that sort of thing. And we'd 

17 be more than happy to sit down and do that and 

18 possibly bring in some of the discussion 

19 points that Chick just raised. You know, I'm 

20 a firm believer in looking at the real data 

21 that we have and see that that sort of rang 

22 true, and we have not had that opportunity 
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1 yet. We've had an exchange here at the 

2 working group level, but maybe that a more in3 the-weeds, technical discussion might be in 

4 order for us to sort of iron out our 

5 differences. 

6 CHAIR MUNN: Bob, are you and Chick 

7 going to be able to commit to doing that to 

8 some degree in the immediate future? Will you 

9 be able to work with your NIOSH counterparts 

10 to review this again? 

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Sure. 

12 CHAIR MUNN: Chick? 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Sure. I think 

14 that's a good suggestion. 

15 MR. CLAWSON: I would kind of like 

16 to, you know, I guess a lot of, maybe, my 

17 concerns may be addressed. I'd like to be 

18 able to have the ability to be able to listen 

19 to that because maybe that will give me the 

20 satisfaction that I need or whatever like that 

21 because, you know, airflow, to me, that's how 

22 we control it at where I work. That's how we 
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1 control it is airflow. So it is an issue, and 

2 I'd just like to be a part of it. 

3 MR. NETON: I think the way these 

4 technical calls usually work is that we post 

5 the time that's available for SC&A and NIOSH 

6 to convene, but we also would invite any 

7 working group member to participate more than 

8 likely be a phone teleconference, to listen in 

9 and participate. 

10 DR. ROESSLER: So we actually can 

11 participate and not just listen in? 

12 MR. NETON: Yes, yes. I think the 

13 main idea, though, is it would be SC&A and 

14 NIOSH getting down into some real detailed 

15 technical discussions, but if the working 

16 group had any issues to bring to the table 

17 they could certainly participate. And then 

18 typically what happens is there wouldn't be a 

19 transcription of that discussion made, but 

20 there would be a detailed minutes of that 

21 discussion and any outcomes that resulted from 

22 that meeting. 
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1 DR. ROESSLER: I think what you're 

2 proposing is you look at the model, which I 

3 think of as the equation that Bob presented 

4 this morning, you look at certain things of 

5 which there's been maybe not the kind of data 

6 that we need to satisfy people who question 

7 it. So one of them would be the, let me look 

8 at this, the exchange rate of air, and the 

9 other one I would recommend really looking at 

10 and I believe there must be something on it is 

11 that release fraction. There has to be better 

12 information than zero to one. 

13 MR. NETON: There's not a lot out 

14 there, but I'm a firm believer, again, in 

15 taking the data that we have for contemporary 

16 monitoring and seeing, sort of, a sanity check 

17 on the release fraction. I know Bob doesn't 

18 necessarily buy that. 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It would take, I 

20 mean, I'm referring to what Gen said, this is, 

21 again, an idea off the top of my head. This 

22 would be a very dandy experiment for some -- 
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1 DR. ROESSLER: That's what I'm 

2 thinking. 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: -- in the 

4 laboratory. Throw in some powdered -- 

5 DR. ROESSLER: Or two academics. 

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: To throw in some 

7 powdered phosphate. It doesn't have to be the 

8 size of that, you know, just a small -- 

9 DR. ROESSLER: Maybe somebody has 

10 done it already. 

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I can't imagine 

12 why. I just can't imagine why anyone would. 

13 MR. NETON: Well, there are some 

14 similar experiments that were done. I mean, I 

15 did manage to find a couple of similar 

16 experiments about release like this. It 

17 wasn't exactly sulfuric acid, though. But we 

18 can dig in a little bit more. I mean, I have 

19 not spent a tremendous amount of time 

20 critically evaluating this model. I think if 

21 we spent a little more time and maybe 

22 consulted a few experts that I have in mind 
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1 that I have not spoken with yet to get some 

2 other opinions and then convene with SC&A and 

3 throw all those ideas on the table and, you 

4 know, let it take us where it takes us. I 

5 mean, it may be at the end of the day that 

6 there is more uncertainty than we've 

7 acknowledged, and then it needs to move a 

8 little bit. But I think I'd rather have a 

9 technical discussion before we make that 

10 decision. 

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. I mean, 

12 again, if there was, I would say, for 

13 instance, the Florida State, William Burnett's 

14 group, that something, they had done it in 

15 water, so it shouldn't be that hard for them 

16 to do it -- but they do it equilibrium. They 

17 said they were going to give it six weeks, so 

18 we know with equilibrium it's going to come 

19 out. The question is, this is not a question 

20 of the equilibrium, something that chemists 

21 can, you know, know how to do. Kinetics is 

22 something much harder. 
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1 CHAIR MUNN: An entirely different 

2 thing. 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

4 CHAIR MUNN: Can we then agree that 

5 NIOSH and SC&A will set up -- 

6 MR. KATZ: Well, I just wanted to 

7 clarify just a question for Brad. I just 

8 wanted to understand, I mean, Brad, are you 

9 saying that, given that they go through this 

10 work with you on the phone, does this have the 

11 potential to resolve -- 

12 MR. CLAWSON: Yes, it does. 

13 There's just a lot of questions. 

14 MR. KATZ: Okay. Just to be clear. 

15 MR. CLAWSON: Maybe I'm looking too 

16 simplistic or whatever like that, but there's 

17 a lot of things that don't come out in this 

18 paper that may address what I've been 

19 concerned, so forth like that. That's why 

20 it's beneficial for me to be able to listen to 

21 these because maybe some of the unanswered 

22 questions I have, questions have been 
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1 addressed already. 

2 CHAIR MUNN: I found it enormously 

3 valuable in the past, even not -- 

4 MR. CLAWSON: So have I. I -- 

5 CHAIR MUNN: -- not being involved 

6 at all, just listening. It's been very 

7 helpful to hear the technical discussions that 

8 go on leading up to the presentation that we 

9 worked with. So -- 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: I applaud your 

11 dedication and your interest, Brad, and your 

12 open-mindedness to enter into this kind of a 

13 technical give and take, and I'd hope that 

14 from that, you know, we're going to talk about 

15 what we think is plausible in that regard on 

16 the ranges that we talked about earlier here, 

17 and maybe that will help either give you a 

18 sense of comfort or bring more questions to 

19 light that we need to answer. So I do 

20 appreciate your interest to be involved -- 

21 MR. CLAWSON: And I hope that I 

22 never offend anybody by questioning, and I 
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1 guess a lot of times there are a lot of, I 

2 mean this is way over my head. It's out 

3 there. These guys are in the scientific end, 

4 and I'm down in the trenches where it's going 

5 on, and I hope I never have offended anybody 

6 by that. But I've always gone from the 

7 standpoint of I've got to get a grasp on it, 

8 and maybe that's a personal flaw or whatever 

9 else like that, but I want to be able to make 

10 sure that when I put my name on something I 

11 really feel good about it and so forth. And 

12 when these papers come to us, there's a lot of 

13 questions in here, the airflow and so forth, 

14 and I would appreciate to be a part of just 

15 listening a little more. 

16 MR. RINGER: I have a question. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: Yes? 

18 MR. RINGER: Yes, my name is Harold 

19 Ringer again calling from Joliet, Illinois. 

20 CHAIR MUNN: Yes? 

21 MR. RINGER: Do you know what date 

22 was the -- are you sure about this date when 
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1 all this material was delivered in March of 

2 1951? Do you have any confirmation on that? 

3 CHAIR MUNN: We are sure of the 

4 dates that our concerns cover. We are sure, 

5 we're working only with the material contract 

6 that was negotiated between this employer and 

7 what the predecessor of the Department of 

8 Energy, that is to say the AEC during that 

9 period of time, and during that period of time 

10 is the only period in which we have any 

11 concern for Blockson Chemical. 

12 MR. RINGER: I mean, do you have 

13 any written documentation on that or no? 

14 CHAIR MUNN: We do have 

15 documentation with respect to the period 

16 that's covered, yes. 

17 MR. RINGER: Okay. But I mean as 

18 far as the delivery of the material? 

19 CHAIR MUNN: As far as the delivery 

20 of the material? 

21 MR. RINGER: Right. 

22 MR. TOMES: This is Tom Tomes from 
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1 NIOSH. We're a little confused, I believe, on 

2 what you mean by the delivery of the material. 

3 But what we have documentation on is some 

4 government documents to sign a contract with 

5 Blockson to extract uranium from phosphate 

6 rock that was already being processed at the 

7 facility. Blockson was already processing 

8 this phosphate rock through Building 40, which 

9 we've been discussing, and the contract with 

10 the government was initiated initially in 1951 

11 and was subject to divert some of that product 

12 to Building 55 and extract the uranium from 

13 it. So there was not a unique date associated 

14 with delivery of product to Blockson before 

15 this work. 

16 MR. RINGER: Okay. Now, as far as 

17 the ventilation at Building 55, would you say 

18 there was like a piece of plastic on top of 

19 the roof or what? 

20 CHAIR MUNN: No. 

21 MR. NETON: It was actually 

22 Building 40 is the building that we were 
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1 talking about, and I think the piece of 

2 plastic you heard us talk about was plastic 

3 cones that were put over the top of the 

4 digester tanks in the 1960s or possibly 70s. 

5 MR. RINGER: Okay. 

6 MR. NETON: And that was to help 

7 capture the exhaust or not exhaust but the 

8 emissions from the tank. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: And this was a period 

10 of time well after the close of the period 

11 that we are concerned with here. 

12 MR. RINGER: Okay. Now, is there 

13 going to be another future meeting with you 

14 people or what? 

15 CHAIR MUNN: I beg your pardon? 

16 MR. RINGER: Is there going to be 

17 another meeting come up or not? 

18 CHAIR MUNN: There will be one more 

19 meeting of this workgroup. We will not be 

20 able to define when that will be until we have 

21 the results of the technical discussion that 

22 will go on between our contractor and NIOSH 
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1 between now and that time. 

2 MR. RINGER: Okay. 

3 CHAIR MUNN: I'm currently hoping 

4 that this meeting will occur no later than 

5 shortly before the Board's full meeting in 

6 December. 

7 MR. RINGER: Okay, very good. 

8 Thank you. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: But there's no way, 

10 that depends entirely upon the schedule of the 

11 principals involved. We can't second guess 

12 that right now. 

13 MR. RINGER: Okay. Thank you very 

14 much. 

15 CHAIR MUNN: You bet. 

16 MR. JERRY RINGER: Excuse me. 

17 Could I have a possible question answered 

18 here? 

19 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. Who is this 

20 speaking now? 

21 MR. JERRY RINGER: My name is Jerry 

22 Ringer. I'm calling from Phoenix, Arizona. 
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1 MR. KATZ: Yes. And you are 

2 related to the petitioner? 

3 MR. JERRY RINGER: Yes, I am. 

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you. 

5 MR. JERRY RINGER: You're welcome. 

6 My question is the property that Blockson 

7 Chemical Company is on right now, is this 

8 property, right now is this occupied or being 

9 used at any time now? 

10 CHAIR MUNN: I certainly can't 

11 speak to that. It has no bearing on our 

12 activities, so I can't speak to it. Tom, do 

13 you know? 

14 MR. TOMES: I know it's fenced off, 

15 and I can't say definitively. The plant has 

16 been closed for, I think in 1991, somewhere in 

17 that. Don't quote me on that, but it closed 

18 sometime in the 90s. 

19 MR. JERRY RINGER: Right. But I 

20 guess what I was referring to is that since 

21 all this, the chemicals and everything that 

22 was going into the ground and the water issue 
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1 out there, I guess I had this question of if 

2 this property is not being used there must be 

3 a reason for that. 

4 CHAIR MUNN: No. The reason for it 

5 could range from anything from financial 

6 catastrophe to the fact that some owner died 

7 and decided to close it down. But Bob 

8 Anigstein is trying to tell us something. 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Two things. One is 

10 based on the latest photographs from Google 

11 Earth a good portion of the building have been 

12 demolished, others are standing. And a good 

13 reason why the plant would not be operating is 

14 that it made phosphate, high sodium phosphate 

15 which went into Tide detergent. Now, as of 

16 some decades ago, all detergents no longer use 

17 phosphates because of the environmental 

18 problem, so that would have certainly put them 

19 out of business. 

20 MR. JERRY RINGER: Right. So it 

21 was actually the manufacturing of whatever 

22 chemicals was there is may be the reason why 
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1 this property is empty at this time, if it is? 

2 CHAIR MUNN: The original purpose 

3 of the plant had nothing to do with what we 

4 are concerned with here, and their business 

5 prior to that time and after that time is -- 

6 MR. JERRY RINGER: No, I'm not 

7 saying that. What I'm concerned with is that 

8 with the contamination of uranium and other 

9 chemicals that were used at Blockson Chemical 

10 Company at that time, has there been any 

11 regard to, you know, if that chemical or 

12 whatever else is still in that ground? 

13 CHAIR MUNN: We can't address that 

14 for you. The only thing I could tell you is 

15 that the quantity of uranium that was handled 

16 there was extremely small indeed and would be 

17 very surprised if it ever constituted any 

18 hazard for either the workers or individuals 

19 offsite. 

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes, there was a 

21 FUSRAP survey done back in somewhere around 

22 1990, and they did clear the site. Whatever 
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1 they found was cleared. I forget whether 

2 clean up or whether it was -- but, I mean, the 

3 site was declared clean of -- 

4 MR. JERRY RINGER: Okay. So it 

5 actually had to be cleared, it actually had to 

6 be cleaned and cleared? 

7 CHAIR MUNN: It has been. 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It was clear. 

9 Whether there was any cleaning involved, I'm 

10 not sure. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: We don't know. 

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: They may have 

13 simply found it to be acceptable. 

14 MR. NETON: We need to be careful. 

15 I think the FUSRAP people were only looking 

16 for evidence of contamination relative to the 

17 DOE, AEC activity. 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Right. 

19 MR. NETON: The fact that there may 

20 be commercial residue of radioactivity there 

21 from processing phosphate ore was not under 

22 FUSRAP's purview. 
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1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. 

2 MR. NETON: So there may still be 

3 contamination there related to, radioactive 

4 contamination due to commercial activities at 

5 the site that are unrelated to the AEC 

6 activity. Now, our site profile does cover 

7 some residual radioactivity through 1996, 

8 indicating that at least part of the exposure 

9 to the workers after the AEC period is covered 

10 because of the AEC activities for 1996. They 

11 must have, in 1996, cleared the site for other 

12 activity or maybe that's when the buildings 

13 were torn down. I'm not sure. 

14 CHAIR MUNN: And if you're 

15 interested in that, you can find that document 

16 on the web site -- 

17 MR. JERRY RINGER: Okay. 

18 CHAIR MUNN: -- for this 

19 organization. 

20 MR. JERRY RINGER: Okay. 

21 CHAIR MUNN: All right? 

22 MR. JERRY RINGER: My concern was, 
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1 I guess my concern was if there was radiation 

2 or -- my phone may die here and I may have to 

3 call back. But my concern was if there's 

4 still radiation from Blockson Chemical Company 

5 in that soil after this many years, my concern 

6 would be the amount of it that was there in 

7 the 50s and those years that we're interested 

8 in. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: I understand. 

10 MR. JERRY RINGER: I mean, if 

11 there's still that type of something in the 

12 soil or in the ground or possibly getting into 

13 the water, underwater streams or whatever 

14 that's in there, and it's still there. I 

15 mean, if it's still there after this many 

16 years, it had to be fairly potent I would 

17 think in the early 50s. 

18 CHAIR MUNN: Well, we can't address 

19 that for you, but it's not necessarily true. 

20 You know, all of your soil is radioactive 

21 wherever you live. It's just a matter of 

22 degree. 
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1 MR. JERRY RINGER: I understand, 

2 but I would think that more -- 

3 CHAIR MUNN: We just simply can't 

4 address it for you because we don't have data, 

5 and it's outside our purview. But thank you 

6 for your interest. 

7 Now, we're back to the issue of 

8 whether it's possible for us to even begin to 

9 establish times for you folks to get together, 

10 or are you going to have to do that offline? 

11 MR. NETON: I would like to talk 

12 about our schedules a little bit. Nothing is 

13 certainly going to happen until sometime in 

14 November. Early to mid November is about as 

15 early as I can envision getting together. 

16 CHAIR MUNN: I wouldn't anticipate 

17 anything earlier than that either. I would 

18 hope we'd have an opportunity to do something 

19 well in advance of the Savannah meeting since 

20 it's -- I'm sorry. I'm determined to put that 

21 next meeting in Savannah. It is going to be 

22 in Augusta. Everyone please disregard my 
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1 preference for Savannah. If we can have that 

2 call in perhaps at that time, after we've had 

3 that call, and -- 

4 MR. JERRY RINGER: I'm sorry. I 

5 don't mean to interrupt. My phone died, so I 

6 switched to another phone here. So I'm not 

7 sure what was said after that, but that was my 

8 main, I guess one of my main questions. 

9 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Jerry. 

10 CHAIR MUNN: If we can use as our 

11 goal, that December Board meeting, for us to 

12 have some additional information, something 

13 new to bring to the table, it would be most 

14 appreciated. 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: And where is the 

16 Board meeting? 

17 MR. NETON: Augusta. 

18 CHAIR MUNN: Augusta, Georgia. 

19 MR. KATZ: So now that we've 

20 established that, Wanda, I think you'll be 

21 pressed to get a workgroup meeting in before 

22 the Board meeting in Augusta, but maybe you 
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1 can have a phone call meeting, but you're 

2 running up against -- 

3 CHAIR MUNN: I know I am. I know I 

4 am. 

5 MR. KATZ: -- a difficult -- 

6 CHAIR MUNN: And I learned 

7 yesterday that Mark was not going to have a 

8 subcommittee meeting on the morning of 

9 Tuesday. 

10 MR. KATZ: Correct. 

11 CHAIR MUNN: So there's always a 

12 possibility that we might be able to do that. 

13 Any workgroup meeting that we had would, by 

14 necessity, be very brief, and that may be the 

15 only possible time. We may utilize that time 

16 if it comes down to that. But in any case, 

17 we'll certainly have to have some 

18 recommendations to take to the Board, more 

19 information. 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: That presumes Mark is 

21 not going to have a subcommittee meeting 

22 Tuesday morning, but it presumes the Board 
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1 meeting won't start Tuesday morning and it 

2 very well could. 

3 CHAIR MUNN: Yes. 

4 MR. KATZ: We have a pretty heavy 

5 agenda, I think. 

6 CHAIR MUNN: We may not be able to 

7 do it, but we'll do the best we can when we 

8 find out what your schedule is going to be. 

9 Then we'll try to work from there. 

10 MR. CLAWSON: Also, too, Wanda, you 

11 know, we have said the data and this OTIB is a 

12 new one out that has not been reviewed. If 

13 any way possible, if they could, and I believe 

14 Dr. Melius is over that one, isn't he? The 

15 surrogate data? 

16 CHAIR MUNN: That's what I was 

17 talking to him about this morning when he 

18 pointed out they're not to that point yet, but 

19 he has sent the material out. Everyone has 

20 it. 

21 MR. NETON: I know for a fact Dr. 

22 Melius is attempting to schedule a meeting of 
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1 the surrogate data workgroup before the next 

2 Board meeting sometime in November or early 

3 December. 

4 MR. CLAWSON: I know what we talked 

5 about it at the last Board meeting and so 

6 forth like that, and there was a mis7 communication there and now it's out. 

8 MR. NETON: And also I think, it's 

9 my understanding that SC&A has been tasked 

10 with reviewing that document at the last Board 

11 meeting. 

12 MR. CLAWSON: That was my 

13 understanding, too. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: IG-004? This is 

15 Implementation Guide 004, which addresses how 

16 we go about using surrogate data. 

17 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, it's been 

18 announced. All right. I will rely upon NIOSH 

19 to get back to me with your schedule for the 

20 technical conference call. 

21 MR. NETON: Bob, do you want me to 

22 work through you, or should I contact John to 
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1 schedule this? How do you want us -- 

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, it doesn't 

3 matter, but, I mean, I will, you know, John 

4 needs to be in the loop, so probably both of 

5 us. He's going to want to be on the call. 

6 MR. NETON: Okay. I'll just make 

7 sure you -- 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

9 CHAIR MUNN: I'm fairly sure John 

10 will be back by early next week. 

11 MR. NETON: Just one more question. 

12 Is it my correct understanding that we have 

13 no further issues related to uranium and the 

14 uranium bioassay and dose reconstruction of 

15 that source term? 

16 CHAIR MUNN: If I heard correctly, 

17 I asked that question at the end of each one 

18 of the items that we addressed here today, and 

19 I got no indication from anyone that there 

20 were unresolved issues with any other item 

21 other than this one. 

22 MR. KATZ: We actually had an 
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1 affirmative statement that this was decided 

2 and resolved. 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: You asked 

4 specifically do you accept the NIOSH 

5 explanation? 

6 CHAIR MUNN: Yes. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: On that one, as well 

8 as the maintenance worker assumptions? 

9 CHAIR MUNN: Yes. 

10 MR. KATZ: As well as the data 

11 quality concern. 

12 CHAIR MUNN: Correct. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: As well as data 

14 quality. 

15 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, I asked that for 

16 each of them, so this is our only outstanding 

17 issue in terms of agreement from the present 

18 Board members. That being the case, I will 

19 rely on you gentlemen to notify us of when 

20 that call is going to take place, and we'll 

21 try to plan accordingly. Does anyone else 

22 have any issues that they wish to address 
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1 before we adjourn? If not, we will adjourn 

2 this meeting, and I will see you somewhere in 

3 Georgia. 

4 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

5 was concluded at 2:05 p.m.) 

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12