STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

WORKING GROUP MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

NEVADA TEST SITE

 

The verbatim transcript of the Working 

Group Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 

23, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

June 23, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 6 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO 

INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR 12 

ENVIRONMENTAL OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE 12 

INTERNAL DOSE SITE PROFILE 76 

FUTURE ACTIONS 108 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 117 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D. 

Principal Associate Director 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

MEMBERSHIP

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 
5

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 

ANIGSTEIN, ROBERT, SC&A 

ANSPAUGH, LYNN, SC&A 

BEACH, JOSIE, ABRWH 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON 

CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, NIOSH 

CHEW, MEL, ORAU 

FUNKE, JOHN, PETITIONER 

GLENN, REINI, PETITIONER 

HOFF, JENNIFER, ORAU 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MCGOLERICK, ROBERT, HHS 

OH, KATHERINE, SEN. REID 

RICH, BRYCE, ORAU 

ROGERS, KEITH, LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL 

ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 

ROLLINS, GENE, ORAU 

SMITH, BILLY, ORAU 

WHITE, PETER, PETITIONER 
6

P R O C E E D I N G S

1 (10:00 a.m.) 

2 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

3 DR. BRANCHE: Excuse me, we're going to start 

4 now -- hello, hello, hello, could you please 

5 un-mute the phone? 

6 UNIDENTIFIED: Hello, hello? 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah, that little microphone 

8 thing. 

9 Good morning. I'm Dr. Christine Branche. I 

10 have the pleasure of being the Designated 

11 Federal Official for the Advisory Board on 

12 Radiation and Worker Health, and we are about 

13 to begin the Nevada Test Site workgroup 

14 meeting. It is Monday, June 23rd. 

15 Would someone who's on the phone please tell me 

16 that you can hear me? 

17 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, I can hear you. 

18 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you so much. Mr. Green, 

19 are you ready? 

20 THE COURT REPORTER: Yes. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Presley, are you ready? 

22 MR. PRESLEY: Yes, ma'am. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: Would all members of the working 
7

1 group -- Board members who are part of the 

2 working group please announce your names? 

3 MR. PRESLEY: Robert Presley, chair. 

4 DR. ROESSLER: Gen Roessler. 

5 MR. CLAWSON: Brad Clawson, no conflict. 

6 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, no conflict. 

7 MR. SCHOFIELD: Phillip Schofield, no conflict. 

8 DR. ROESSLER: I have no conflict -- Gen 

9 Roessler. 

10 MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley, I have no 

11 conflict. 

12 DR. BRANCHE: All Board members have been 

13 cleared for their conflict on this, but go 

14 ahead. 

15 Any other? 

16 UNIDENTIFIED: Josie. 

17 MS. BEACH: Josie Beach, no conflicts. 

18 DR. BRANCHE: Let me go over that number again. 

19 I've got Claws-- excuse me, Presley, Munn, 

20 Schofield, Roessler -- whose name didn't I call 

21 -- Clawson -- is that it in the room? 

22 Okay, then we do not have a quorum. We can 

23 proceed. 

24 Would NIOSH staff who are in the room please 

25 announce your -- sorry, are there any Board 
8

1 members participating by phone? 

2 (No response) 

3 Thank you. Would NIOSH staff who are in the 

4 room please announce your names and please 

5 state if you have a conflict with Nevada Test 

6 Site. 

7 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes, NIOSH health 

8 physicist. I have no conflicts. 

9 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, no conflict. 

10 MS. CHANG: Chia-Chia Chang, no conflict. 

11 DR. BRANCHE: Any NIOSH staff participating by 

12 phone, would you please announce your names and 

13 state whether or not you have a conflict for 

14 Nevada Test Site? 

15 (No response) 

16 Thank you. ORAU staff who are in the room 

17 please announce your names and state if you 

18 have a conflict with Nevada Test Site. 

19 MR. CHEW: Mel Chew, ORAU -- ORAU staff, no 

20 conflict. 

21 MR. SMITH: Billy Smith, ORAU staff, 

22 conflicted. 

23 MR. ROLLINS: Gene Rollins, ORAU staff, no 

24 conflict. 

25 DR. BRANCHE: ORAU staff participating by 
9

1 phone, would you please announce your names and 

2 state whether or not you have a conflict? 

3 MS. HOFF: Jennifer Hoff, ORAU team, no 

4 conflict. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. SC&A staff in the 

6 room, please announce your names and state 

7 whether or not you have a conflict. 

8 (No response) 

9 SC&A staff participating by phone please 

10 announce your names and state whether or not 

11 you have a conflict. 

12 DR. ANSPAUGH: This is Lynn Anspaugh. I have a 

13 conflict. 

14 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you, Dr. Anspaugh, for 

15 announcing your name. 

16 Other federal agency staff in the room, would 

17 you please announce your name, state whether or 

18 not you have a conflict. 

19 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS, no conflict. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: HHS staff participating by -- I'm 

21 sorry. 

22 MR. MCGOLERICK: Robert McGolerick, HHS, no 

23 conflict. 

24 DR. BRANCHE: Sorry. Any other federal agency 

25 staff participating by phone, would you please 
10

1 announce your names and state whether or not 

2 you have a conflict? 

3 MR. BROEHM: Jason Broehm, CDC Washington 

4 office, no conflict. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: SC&A staff in the room, would you 

6 please announce your names and state whether or 

7 not you have a conflict for Nevada Test Site? 

8 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A, no conflict. 

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A, no 

10 conflict. 

11 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. Are there any 

12 petitioners or their representatives who would 

13 like to announce their names? 

14 MS. GLENN: Reini Glenn. 

15 MR. FUNKE: John Funke. 

16 MR. WHITE: Peter White. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Any workers or their -- thank 

18 you. Any workers or their representatives who 

19 -- would you please state your names? 

20 UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) -- 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Any -- I'm sorry -- I'm sorry, 

22 sir, would you please announce that again? 

23 MR. WHITE: Peter White. 

24 DR. BRANCHE: Are there any members of Congress 

25 or their representatives, would you please 
11

1 announce your names? 

2 MS. OH: Katherine Oh in Senator Reid's office. 

3 DR. BRANCHE: Would you please say that again, 

4 please, for the record? 

5 MS. OH: Katherine Oh, Senator Reid's office. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you, Ms. Oh. Are there any 

7 others participating by phone who would like to 

8 announce their names? 

9 MR. ROGERS: Keith Rogers, Las Vegas Review 

10 Journal. 

11 MR. RICH: This is Bryce Rich with ORAU team. 

12 I came on just a bit late. I'm conflicted. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you for announcing your 

14 name. 

15 Before we formally begin I would ask that 

16 everyone participating by phone mute your 

17 lines. It is important for the quality of the 

18 participation for the phone participants that 

19 every single person participating by phone mute 

20 your lines. If you do not have a mute button, 

21 then please use the star-6 to mute your phones. 

22 We would value your interaction and when you 

23 are ready to speak please use that same star-6 

24 to un-mute your phones when you are ready to 

25 speak. Again, it is important that everyone 
12

1 participating by phone mute your lines because, 

2 if you do not, then other people participating 

3 can't hear the infor-- the discussion. 

4 As well, for phone participants, if you must go 

5 away from the call, please do not put this call 

6 on hold. That's -- that subjects all of us to 

7 whatever music or sound your hold function has 

8 for us. And I thank you for your cooperation 

9 and your observance of phone etiquette, and 

10 we'll get started. 

11 MR. PRESLEY: Just had somebody else enter the 

12 room. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Would you please announce your 

14 names and tell us if you have a conflict? 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Robert Anigstein, no conflict. 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Presley, you are welcome to 

17 begin. 

18 INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR

19 MR. PRESLEY: All righty. Good morning, I 

20 thank everybody for being here. At this time I 

21 want to open any issues that we have had that 

22 are still on the table in the past for 

23 discussion. John, I think you had one. 

24 ENVIRONMENTAL OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE

25 DR. MAURO: Yes, over the past week I read 
13

1 through the new Chapter 4 in the TBD, the one 

2 dealing with environmental occupational 

3 exposure, and -- and -- and I'd like to first 

4 say that it does contain all of the new 

5 strategies that were discussed in the white 

6 papers before, so it's a -- it's basically a 

7 rewrite. And I reviewed it carefully and then 

8 I checked some numbers just to see if -- you 

9 know, if things seemed to ring true. And -- 

10 and I did come up with one issue, but it's a 

11 fundamental issue, that I wanted to leave with 

12 the working group. In fact, over the weekend, 

13 given that -- I didn't just want to drop new 

14 information. I did call Jim Neton and Robert 

15 Presley just to brief them about what my 

16 concern is. I'm not s-- now -- so what -- 

17 concern goes like this, and correct me if I 

18 misunderstood anything that's in Chapter 4. 

19 The fundamental strategy for doing inhalation 

20 doses from airborne particulate radioactivity 

21 post-1963 is to take advantage of the enormous 

22 amount of air sampling data that was collected 

23 beginning in 1971. And my understanding was 

24 continuous air samples collected in many 

25 locations and -- for pluton-- I'm particularly 
14

1 talking about plutonium-239 right now, 'cause 

2 that's the hook and I like that as your hook. 

3 Now I looked at the numbers and I see that from 

4 site to site -- Area 1, Area 3, 5 -- you know, 

5 all the different areas -- the -- the level of 

6 plutonium in the air is on the order of -- just 

7 a rule of thumb -- about ten to the minus four, 

8 I think it was picocuries per cubic meter. I 

9 got it wri-- in fact, if you give me a second 

10 we can see how I -- yeah, three times ten to 

11 the minus four, five times ten -- anyhow, and -

12 - and it's area to area, year to -- by year, 

13 and you -- these are air samples, continuous 

14 air samples, as I understand. So you've got a 

15 really good handle starting in '71 of what the 

16 airborne dust loading -- so the way I look at 

17 it is, you know, for -- for reconstructing 

18 inhalation doses from plutonium. 

19 And then on top of that you say okay, what 

20 we're going to do is we're going to use the 

21 plutonium as a hook for the other isotopes by 

22 prorating, 'cause you know what the mixes are, 

23 and that's a good idea and that works. 

24 And so -- and so my first impressions, and this 

25 -- by the -- this is the first time even the 
15

1 SC&A people are hearing this because I really 

2 did this over the weekend, and not everyone -- 

3 that's the way it is. You know, there may be 

4 some disagreement. And remember now, it's very 

5 important to realize we're talking about 

6 environmental occupational exposures. These 

7 are areas where people are working and -- and 

8 these are not radiation control areas now. 

9 These aren't areas where -- there's a fence. 

10 There's a contr-- access control. This is just 

11 the area -- and there are people out there 

12 working. So -- so -- so I want to make sure we 

13 make a distinction in this wa-- the reason -- 

14 between people who are under some type of 

15 radiation control and people who are working 

16 outdoors doing their jobs and just breathing in 

17 resuspended dust that's blowing all over the 

18 place and it's just out there. 

19 And I say okay, my first perspective is, 

20 starting in '71 it looks like you've got a lot 

21 of data and you've got the wherewithal to 

22 factor in other radionuclides that are in -- in 

23 the air. But then I said let me go back to -- 

24 okay, now how are we going to go back to '63? 

25 And here's where I start to run into some 
16

1 problems. I say okay, let me go back and look 

2 at the activity that's on the ground, say, in 

3 becquerels per meter squared, of plutonium-239. 

4 And there's -- I forget the fella's name, 

5 starts with an M, McCaldwell -- there is a -- 

6 an author, one of your -- what's his name? 

7 UNIDENTIFIED: McArthur. 

8 DR. MAURO: McArthur, McArthur has lots of 

9 reports and we -- we've seen these before where 

10 you have becquerels per miter squared on the 

11 ground, and -- and certain assumptions could be 

12 made to convert that into becquerels per gram. 

13 And in fact you've done that in the past by 

14 assuming what they call a relaxation link over 

15 some two and a half centimeters -- in other 

16 words, some reasonable assumptions, that are 

17 probably accurate within a factor of two or 

18 three, of what the picocuries per gram of 

19 plutonium-239 is in the soil in all the 

20 different areas in 1963. 

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: McArthur dates from the '80s, 

22 John. 

23 DR. MAURO: Okay. Whe-- when you look -- the 

24 really reason I felt that you could -- 

25 DR. MAKHIJANI: If I remember it correctly. 
17

1 DR. MAURO: Yeah. But the plutonium numbers 

2 seem to be very rob-- the -- the -- in other 

3 words, when you look at the air sampling data, 

4 they're almost like -- they don't change that 

5 much from '71, '72, '73, '74, '75, so -- in 

6 those later years, so -- and that's coming from 

7 resuspension. I mean you have your tables -- I 

8 have them in front of me, in fact, and -- you 

9 know, they vary from ten to the minus four to 

10 ten to the minus five, that's about it, no 

11 matter where you look, no matter what area you 

12 look in. So it's almost like the dust 

13 loadings, starting in '71, are all in the range 

14 of ten to the minus four to ten to the minus 

15 five. 

16 I say okay, so this -- this tells me that at 

17 least in those years, what I call the later 

18 years, you've got a pretty good handle on the 

19 airborne dust loading. Now -- and I said what 

20 do I do -- how do -- how do I get a handle on 

21 '63? Now -- 1963 -- the approach, as I 

22 understand it, that NIOSH used -- say listen, 

23 we realize that if you go backwards in time 

24 from '71, when you do have air sampling data, 

25 to '63, which is the time period that starts 
18

1 our area of interest, you've got to bring the 

2 numbers up a little bit because we know that 

3 the availability for resuspension declines as a 

4 function of time, is the -- the Ans-- the Lynn 

5 Anspaugh curve. All right? And you'll -- but 

6 you basically have done, as I understand it, is 

7 say well, we're going to take the airborne 

8 concentration that we observe in 1971 and 

9 multiply it by three -- 3.12, to be exact -- 

10 and that's the concentration we're going to 

11 assume is in the air of plutonium-239 in 1963. 

12 Okay, I say -- then I say to myself, and this 

13 is where, if you're following this so far, 

14 where I ran into a problem. I said okay, now I 

15 have -- I have activity on the grou-- on the -- 

16 in the soil of one times ten to the fourth 

17 becquerels per meter squared measured in the 

18 later years. I'm going to say, just for the 

19 sake of argument, let's assume that's pretty 

20 con-- that doesn't change that much. Okay? 

21 That -- and that activity is distributed over a 

22 given area and has a certain vertical profile. 

23 Okay? And I realize that is a crude 

24 assumption, but we're talking about less than 

25 an order of magnitude crude assumption, 
19

1 (unintelligible) factors of two or three, 

2 you're never going to get better than that. 

3 Then I say okay, so now I have a handle on the 

4 becquerels per meter squared in the soil in '63 

5 -- 1963. And I have your airborne 

6 concentration that you would predict would be 

7 in the air in 1963, and I -- and I say okay, 

8 what -- then I back out -- what would that 

9 resuspension factor be? In other words, in 

10 effect what I'm solving for is a resuspension 

11 factor, and does it ring true with my 

12 experience -- and it's quite a bit -- with 

13 resuspension factors. And I come up with a 

14 resuspension factor that's on the order of ten 

15 to the minus nine, maybe approaching ten to the 

16 minus eight, per meter. So in effect -- this 

17 is where I ran into a problem. 

18 I came into a problem that says the approach 

19 that's been embraced in the new Chapter 4 

20 effectively adopts a resuspension factor for 

21 the contamination of the plutonium in soil for 

22 1963 that's on the order of ten to the minus 

23 nine to ten to the minus eight. My experience 

24 with resuspension factors outdoors, especially 

25 if there's any type of anthropomorphic activity 
20

1 going on -- like trucks, people walking and 

2 working and digging and whatever it is -- is 

3 closer to ten to the minus five, maybe ten to 

4 the minus six, certainly ten to the minus four 

5 would be conservative. 

6 So I walk away from this saying I would have 

7 come up with air dust loadings that were 

8 several orders of magnitude higher for 1963, 

9 and that -- and when I -- when I run into order 

10 of magnitude disparities, with my experience 

11 and knowledge of a subject, I think that's -- 

12 to me, that's -- we've got to zero in on that. 

13 Everything else that I saw in the write-up were 

14 factors of two and three. And I'm not -- and 

15 I've got to say that we could work with that. 

16 We could always say well, maybe we should be a 

17 little more conservative here or -- but when I 

18 see two, three, four orders of magnitude 

19 possibili-- I'm only saying this is a 

20 possibility -- concern, and it's based solely 

21 on my review of literature dealing with 

22 resuspension factors, I get concerned. And I -

23 - and I called Ji-- and I said -- and I said -- 

24 I called Jim and I called Robert and I 

25 expressed this to say listen, I wa-- I don't 
21

1 want you to hear it for the first time at this 

2 meeting, but -- everyone is, but some haven't. 

3 And I also came up with an idea for a way to 

4 find out whether I'm off base or whether maybe 

5 I'm right, and this is my idea. When the air 

6 samples were collected in '71, '72 -- 1971, '72 

7 and '73 to determine picocuries per cubic meter 

8 of plutonium in the air, I'm pretty sure they 

9 must have weighed -- they took the filter paper 

10 off the fil-- off the air sampler and weighed 

11 it, and they know how many milligrams or 

12 micrograms of dust there is in the air per 

13 cubic meter, and these were continuous samplers 

14 collected over the course of a year at all 

15 these locations, many, many of them, so there's 

16 probably out there a pretty rich database 

17 giving you some realistic estimate of what the 

18 milligrams or micrograms -- I mean the numbers 

19 I'm used to seeing are a low of maybe ten to 20 

20 micrograms in a pretty quiescent area to easily 

21 milligrams per cubic meter. Now someplace in 

22 there is probably where typical time-averaged 

23 dust loadings are for the -- for the Nevada 

24 Test Site at any time. So see, I look at the 

25 dust loading in milligrams or micrograms per 
22

1 cubic meter as a characteristic of the site, 

2 whether we're talking 1960s, 1970s, a 

3 characteristic of the site -- of course not 

4 when they were detonating the above-ground, but 

5 after -- you know, we simply have a site with 

6 this normal wind blowing, anthromorphic --

7 pomorphic activities going on all the time. 

8 There -- there are dust devils, as I 

9 understand, that happen every so often, and you 

10 have this long-term situation where you -- if 

11 you have a long-term air samples, you could 

12 start to get a pretty good feel of what the 

13 long-term dust loading is in micrograms per 

14 cubic meter. 

15 Well, in my mind, if we can get a handle on 

16 that number and its variability and wha-- its 

17 range, maybe it even differs a little bit from 

18 area to area, and we also have becquerels per 

19 meter squared on the ground, I think we go back 

20 and revisit the dust loading approach using 

21 realistic dust loadings. 

22 Now previously we had this conversation, about 

23 six months ago, where the idea was embraced but 

24 one of the assumptions that were made was that 

25 well, we'll assume it's five milligrams per 
23

1 cubic meter all the time to all people 

2 everywhere. And I'd be the first to admit, 

3 that's not real. You're going to come up with 

4 a dose that's off by at least a factor of ten. 

5 So I had -- when -- when you decided to, you 

6 know, walk away from that strategy, I fully 

7 appreciated and understanded (sic) because 

8 that's not plausible. 

9 But what is plausible is something on the order 

10 of -- again, this is -- if you could actually 

11 have the measurements, we're low. It may turn 

12 out the average annual dust loading in the air 

13 is only 20 or 30 micrograms per cubic meter, 

14 and then you've got a rock to stand on. You 

15 say listen, we now it's -- this is the dust 

16 loading and we know the becquerels per meter 

17 squared. We've got a pretty good idea of the 

18 relaxation length over which that plutonium is 

19 distributed, so we have a pretty good idea of 

20 what the upper level of, you know, becquerels 

21 per gram is in the soil in Area 1, in Area 2, 

22 for 1963. We multiply that by a dust loading 

23 and you've got the problem solved. And I think 

24 you're going to come up with exposures which 

25 are several orders of magnitude higher than the 
24

1 numbers you currently have in this report. 

2 So that's what I walked away with from reading 

3 this report, and I put that on the table. 

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'd like to make a couple of 

5 additional comments. First of all, one thing 

6 that they have -- according to this Chapter 4 -

7 - going back into the '60s is gross alpha 

8 measurements. And so I was surprised that they 

9 didn't think to try to determine what fraction 

10 of those gross alphas were plutonium. For 

11 instance, based on -- assuming that they 

12 continued taking gross alphas after they -- at 

13 the same time they were taking plutonium 

14 samples, then it would be relatively 

15 straightforward to say okay, for this level of 

16 plutonium, this is what the gross alpha count 

17 is. And then when we have only gross alphas, 

18 you could prorate those super-- and to get an 

19 estimate of plutonium. 

20 The second point, separate from this, is in 

21 terms of this Arthur data on the inventories of 

22 plutonium on the ground, EG&G did a fly-over 

23 survey in 1982 of -- I happened -- they did 

24 several areas; I happened to look at Area 11, 

25 which is Plutonium Valley -- they call it 
25

1 Plutonium Valley and it's not exactly the same 

2 as Area 11. It's most of Area -- it's part of 

3 Area 11, goes a little bit into Area 3. But 

4 anyway, they came up with inventories that were 

5 ten times higher than -- in the Arthur report 

6 than what is here in Chapter 4, curie 

7 inventories. They came up with something like 

8 240 curies for Area 11, of -- of plutonium, and 

9 this -- and here we have something like 29 

10 curies. So that's a significant difference, 

11 which can't just be dismissed. 

12 They also had a ground -- EG&G had also done a 

13 ground level Fiddler* survey which came up with 

14 lower numbers, but it was a very much smaller 

15 area. So one of the reasons why the two would 

16 not coincide is the fly-over had a very, very 

17 wide angle of view, so it may not localize pro18 - properly. However, for the ar-- for the area 

19 as a whole, it should be fine. 

20 (Unintelligible) the (unintelligible) be better 

21 'cause it does automatically average this out. 

22 So I think that's something that should be 

23 considered. 

24 And the other point, which is in slight 

25 disagreement with -- I mean (unintelligible) 
26

1 consistent with what John said but perhaps -- I 

2 mean any -- okay. I have another point. 

3 MS. MUNN: Your voice is very soft in general -

4 - 

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, I'm sorry. 

6 MS. MUNN: -- and even for those of us at this 

7 end of the table -- 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. 

9 MS. MUNN: -- it's a little difficult for us to 

10 hear. 

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I'm sorry. 

12 MS. MUNN: Project just a little more -- 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay. 

14 MS. MUNN: -- and we will appreciate it. 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Will do. 

16 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: The air sampling data, whether 

18 it's plutonium or whether it's dust, isn't 

19 area-wide. Now what we're concerned with, 

20 we're -- for dose reconstruction is the 

21 breathing zone sample, which of course weren't 

22 taken. But by -- but conceptually, this is 

23 where the person actually is. If this is where 

24 the person is, he's going to be stirring up 

25 dust. He's going to be walking, he's going to 
27

1 be working, he's going to be digging and 

2 whatever else they do -- driving a vehicle. 

3 There's going to be a lot more dust where that 

4 person is than this wide, empty, uninhabited 

5 space over the course of a year. So 

6 immediately there is a bias there which is 

7 claimant-unfavorable in using either the dust 

8 loading approach or the resuspend or the air 

9 sampling approach. 

10 And then finally, in terms of the actual dust 

11 levels, the only thing I would -- I happened to 

12 come across, I only worked on this for a few 

13 days, is a 1993 cost benefit analysis for 

14 cleanup put out by DOE. And there they just 

15 make reference to the fact that, taking four 

16 samples from widely dispersed areas, they said 

17 typical rural dust loadings which would be 

18 applicable to the Nevada Test Site are 20 to 40 

19 micrograms per cubic meter. That's -- it's 

20 just a statement that's in there, but it's -- 

21 it's the only place I've found a number -- an 

22 actual number where dust loadings were referred 

23 to, so that's -- that's it. 

24 DR. MAKHIJANI: If I might -- this is Arjun. 

25 If I might supplement that, Lynn Anspaugh 
28

1 brought up a similar point on a number of 

2 occasions. I believe we actually have 

3 something shows a -- heavy equipment that Lynn 

4 sent around. We haven't printed them out or 

5 anything, it's just part of our review that's 

6 ongoing and -- I don't know -- Lynn, are you on 

7 the phone? I guess he's not -- 

8 DR. BRANCHE: Well, give him a moment to un9 mute. Give him a -- 

10 DR. ANSPAUGH: Yes, I'm here. I just had a 

11 little trouble getting my mute button adjusted. 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so I -- I didn't know 

13 whether you were on the phone because I came a 

14 little late, so I don't need to stand in for 

15 you. 

16 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. I appreciate the comments 

17 that were just made. In fact, I have some very 

18 similar comments that I made from time to time, 

19 and one -- one of my chief problems that I 

20 mentioned several times is where were these 

21 samples located -- air samples -- where were 

22 they located and what was the purpose for 

23 taking them. And I've read a lot of these 

24 reports and -- for example, in 1964 there were 

25 14 samples -- samplers, and I would just like 
29

1 to read to you the location of these samples. 

2 In Area 3, it was the cafeteria; Area 5 is 

3 (unintelligible), another Area 5 is Gate 250; 

4 Area 6 was dispensary; Area 9 was dispensary; 

5 Area 10 was Gate 700; Area 12 was cafeteria; 

6 Area 16 was dispensary; Area 18 was Camp 17 

7 dispensary; Area 20 was dispensary; Area 23, 

8 which is Mercury, was Building 214; Area 25, 

9 which is NRDS, was LASL H-8 facility; Area 27 

10 was dispensary; Area 51 was dispensary. And 

11 then there was a comment made by the people who 

12 were writing these reports that said 

13 specifically results of environmental 

14 surveillance sampling activity values obviously 

15 cannot be used in calculating personnel 

16 exposure doses. 

17 So I think the comment that people who were out 

18 in the field that -- bulldozers and dragging 

19 drill rigs from one location to another cannot 

20 be represented by these stationary air samplers 

21 that are located mainly in -- adjacent to 

22 cafeterias and dispensaries. 

23 And one other thing I wanted to mention was 

24 that it's frequently stated that atmospheric 

25 testing stopped in 1962, and that's not exactly 
30

1 true. We had four plutonium dispersal tests in 

2 1963 that were just beyond the Test Site, but 

3 nevertheless they did have significant 

4 effluents that were detected even off-site, so 

5 there could have been a -- I'm sure there was a 

6 major perturbation of the plutonium levels -- 

7 airborne plutonium levels in 1963. 

8 In addition to that, we had five PLOWSHARE 

9 experiments, which were permitted underneath -- 

10 under the treaty as long as they didn't cross 

11 international boundaries, and so we had five 

12 tests that took place in the Test Site between 

13 '64 and '68 that substantially contaminated the 

14 area. In fact, some of these shots even 

15 contaminated the drinking water supplies. 

16 So I -- I think Chapter 4 is -- is not claimant 

17 favorable by any means. 

18 MR. ROLFES: Okay. This is Mark Rolfes. 

19 Before I address some of these questions and 

20 concerns that SC&A has raised, I would like to 

21 thank everyone that has provided information to 

22 NIOSH so that it can be incorporated into the 

23 site profile. I know that John Funke has 

24 specifically been spending a -- a bit of time 

25 to ensure that we have put together the most 
31

1 complete and scientifically valid site profile 

2 to use for EEOICPA dose reconstructions for 

3 Nevada Test Site. I would like to thank him 

4 and the other people that have made 

5 contributions to our work. 

6 The current approach that we have in our Nevada 

7 Test Site environmental intake chapter does 

8 rely upon air monitoring data which started in 

9 1971 at Nevada Test Site. These were ambient 

10 air samplers that were set up in various areas, 

11 as Lynn Anspaugh has mentioned, in Area 1, 2, 

12 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 -- let me 

13 make sure -- 18 -- excuse me -- 19, 20, 23, 25, 

14 27 and 28. From thousands of air sample 

15 results, in order to be claimant favorable -- 

16 now mind you, we do only have air sampling data 

17 in complete sets beginning in 1971 and 

18 continuing through 2001. From those thousands 

19 of air sample results NIOSH has hand-selected 

20 the single highest plutonium ambient air sample 

21 result to use for reconstructing historical 

22 radiation exposures. We have taken that single 

23 air sample result for plutonium and decay24 corrected it back to 1963, so we've chosen the 

25 single highest air sample result which occurred 
32

1 -- it was documented in 197-- 

2 MR. ROLLINS: Area 9 -- Area 9, 1972. 

3 MR. ROLFES: Okay, thank you, Gene. It was 

4 Area 9, 1972. We have singly -- we have picked 

5 out that single highest sample result, used 

6 that to decay-correct back to 1963, and then 

7 applied a maximum scaling factor to add in 

8 other radionuclides in ratios to the plutonium9 239. So we've taken the highest sample result. 

10 We've applied the highest scaling factor, and 

11 we've also assumed that a worker was exposed to 

12 that concentration for essentially twenty-- is 

13 it 21 -- 

14 MR. ROLLINS: (Off microphone) Forty hours 

15 (unintelligible) -- 

16 MR. ROLFES: -- 40 hours per week -- 

17 MR. ROLLINS: -- (unintelligible) 600 cubic 

18 meters per year. 

19 MR. ROLFES: Okay. So -- which is roughly -- 

20 we basically have assumed -- 

21 MR. ROLLINS: (Off microphone) A standard -- 

22 standard breathing (unintelligible) 40 (sic) 

23 hours a day -- 

24 MR. ROLFES: Okay. 

25 MR. ROLLINS: -- five days a week. 
33

1 MR. ROLFES: So for the entire year we have 

2 assumed that that individual was exposed to 

3 that air concentration, that single highest 

4 result with the single highest multiplication 

5 factor, scaling factor, for other 

6 radionuclides. We haven't taken any credit for 

7 respiratory protection. And that was our basis 

8 for dose reconstructions. 

9 I'd like to call everyone's attention to the 

10 revision on page -- oops, let me -- on page 75 

11 of the Technical Basis Document we have 

12 compiled a list of the organs for which 

13 internal doses are calculated that had in 

14 excess of one millirem from 30 years of 

15 inhalation and ingestion at this level. And 

16 Table B-1 shows the internal doses resulting 

17 from these ambient intakes at the Nevada Test 

18 Site. If you take a look, for example, the 

19 lower large intestine dose would be one 

20 millirem per year from this level of exposure 

21 for 30 years of exposure. 

22 We do acknowledge that there's uncertainty 

23 associated with the measurements that we have 

24 used. However, we feel that this -- this 

25 approach is claimant favorable and that it's 
34

1 defensible, meaning that we've hand-selected 

2 the single highest ambient air sampling result. 

3 We can look into additional information that 

4 would allow us to refine our dose estimates. 

5 However, the amount of work that would be 

6 necessary would not significantly contribute to 

7 higher internal doses. 

8 I believe -- Gene, do you have any additional 

9 information -- 

10 MR. ROLLINS: Let me make one -- 

11 MR. ROLFES: -- to add to that? 

12 MR. ROLLINS: -- one observation. I -- in 

13 addition to assigning intakes for plutonium14 239, if you go to Table 4.4-6 on Table 23, 

15 we're also assigning intakes of other 

16 radionuclides, and one of those happens to be 

17 cobalt-60. If we -- just as a -- as a thought, 

18 if we increase those intakes shown in this 

19 table by a factor of 100, then those intakes 

20 would be readily seen by whole body counting, 

21 and we have no evidence that any positive 

22 cobalt-60 whole body counts were observed at 

23 NTS. So I don't think it's a factor of 100, 

24 John. It's something lower than that. 

25 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I have a question for -- 
35

1 couple of questions for Mark, just on what you 

2 said. When you say decay-corrected for 

3 plutonium back eight years, what decay 

4 correction? 

5 MR. ROLFES: Not very much. 

6 MR. ROLLINS: (Off microphone) Most of those 

7 decay corrections were (unintelligible) to all 

8 the others here. 

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so for plutonium anyway 

10 there's no decay -- essentially no decay 

11 correction. The -- the other thing is, the 

12 other radionuclide question has been raised -- 

13 and again, this was raised by Lynn but I don't 

14 want it to fall between the cracks -- that 

15 there's a fractionation problem in terms of 

16 relative amounts of various radionuclides. I 

17 don't know whether you use the Hix* Tables -- 

18 MR. ROLLINS: That's been corrected. 

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's been corrected. 

20 MR. ROLLINS: It's been corrected. 

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: I just wanted to -- 

22 MR. ROLLINS: We've enriched the 

23 (unintelligible) field with refractors. 

24 MR. ROLFES: Right. 

25 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so that's been -- is that 
36

1 on the old -- 

2 MR. ROLLINS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, it's in there, okay. I 

4 haven't looked. Thank you. 

5 DR. MAURO: Let me pick up on that 'cause 

6 that's good. I didn't realize -- if I'd read 

7 more carefully -- in effect, I looked at the 

8 table, the -- the central numbers for all these 

9 couple of hundred numbers here, around ten to 

10 the minus four, you picked ten to the minus 

11 three. That's the highest number in the table. 

12 MR. ROLLINS: Yeah. 

13 DR. MAURO: So you're about a factor of ten 

14 higher -- 

15 MR. ROLLINS: Yes. 

16 DR. MAURO: -- right off the bat. Now -- and -

17 - okay, now -- but still -- and -- and that -- 

18 you know, that's good that you're trying to 

19 find a way to accommodate the uncertainties, 

20 accommodate this time variant issue. But in my 

21 mind, you don't have to resort to that. You 

22 could just go back and look at what the dust 

23 loadings are if they're out there. In other 

24 words, every single one of these samples 

25 probably has a microgram per cubic meter, a 
37

1 number that ti-- we'll start to get a sense for 

2 what is the average annual dust loading at the 

3 site -- notwithstanding Lynn's point, by the 

4 way. I wasn't aware that, you know, there was 

5 this concern that perhaps the air samples were 

6 not taken where the people were doing this 

7 mechanical work. I mean that's -- that's a 

8 separate issue. 

9 Right now I'm operating on the premise, given 

10 that the air samples that were collected were 

11 collected at a place where people are and is 

12 generally representative of the dust loadings 

13 that people experienced -- given that, and I'm 

14 not -- now from what Lynn said, that may not 

15 entirely be the case. But if it is, and if you 

16 do actually have information on what the real 

17 dust -- when I say dust loading, milligrams or 

18 micrograms per cubic meter, you don't have to 

19 resort -- it may turn out that that's too 

20 conservative. You see, I'm ready to go to the 

21 point where I say I might be entirely wrong for 

22 the reason you just said, but everything I know 

23 about resuspension factors tells me that ten to 

24 the minus nine, ten to the minus eight, is not 

25 a good number. 
38

1 MR. ROLLINS: May I comment on that? 

2 DR. MAURO: Yeah. 

3 MR. ROLLINS: This is Dr. Anspaugh's own model 

4 based on empirical data from the Nevada Test 

5 Site. And you've seen this curve -- 

6 DR. MAURO: I -- and I -- 

7 MR. ROLLINS: -- and you see what the number 

8 is. 

9 DR. MAURO: And I see why it happened. It 

10 drops three orders of magnitude within the 

11 first hundred days, (unintelligible) -- 

12 MR. ROLLINS: Let me -- let me comment on that. 

13 DR. MAURO: Yeah. 

14 MR. ROLLINS: The last ato-- the last 

15 atmospheric shot was July 17th, 1962. If we're 

16 starting our area of interest in 1963, that's 

17 practically 180 days. We're off the hump -- 

18 DR. MAURO: But I don't buy this -- 

19 MR. ROLLINS: -- according -- according to his 

20 -- to his model. 

21 DR. MAURO: See, I don't necessarily agree that 

22 this curve is -- is applicable to the problem 

23 that we're talking about where we have people 

24 physically -- and we have Lynn on the line. 

25 Lynn, please, you cor-- I mean we -- this is 
39

1 the first time we -- we're engaging this issue, 

2 but -- 

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, we -- we did this before. 

4 DR. MAURO: We -- no -- yeah, and we -- we did, 

5 okay. We did do it before. 

6 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, this -- this -- let me tell 

7 y'all something -- this is Bob Presley. This 

8 discussion started in March of 2007. This 

9 issue was closed in December of 2007, so this 

10 has been discussed before, and a lengthy 

11 discussion. 

12 DR. MAURO: It -- it was closed when it was 

13 five milligrams per cubic meter. Then a -- 

14 then a reversal occurred. 

15 UNIDENTIFIED: Well, let's -- 

16 DR. MAURO: And that's okay -- 

17 UNIDENTIFIED: -- let's -- 

18 DR. MAURO: -- that a reversal occurred, but 

19 now -- so we're really back -- okay, we're 

20 returning to the resuspension factor approach. 

21 And granted, Lynn's curve is here. I'd like to 

22 hear a little bit -- in effect, according to 

23 Lynn's curve, you've got this enormous elbow 

24 that occurs at 180 days, and we -- and -- and 

25 you take -- and it's working very -- serving 
40

1 you very well 'cause your adjustment factor's 

2 only three. 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But -- 

4 DR. MAURO: In fact, if you -- okay, Bob. 

5 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But Lynn just said the testing 

6 did not stop in '62. There were tests in '63 

7 and through '68 that -- that were responsible 

8 for -- they may not have been violations of the 

9 treaty, but responsible for dispersion of the 

10 plutonium, particularly the safety -- the 

11 safety tests, by definition, were not nuclear 

12 bomb tests 'cause they did not have a 

13 detonation. 

14 DR. MAURO: And that -- 

15 MR. SMITH: Those detonations were not on the 

16 Nevada Test Site. 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh. 

18 DR. ANSPAUGH: Those detonations were just off 

19 the Nevada Test Site, but Billy, they were 

20 detected off-site and they certainly were 

21 detected on-site. 

22 MR. SMITH: Lynn, the wind blows generally 

23 northeast, so they couldn't have -- they could 

24 not have been detected on-site. 

25 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, they were. 
41

1 DR. MAURO: Well, see -- wait, wait, see, we're 

2 operating (unintelligible). 

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: The safety -- according to the 

4 DOE report, the safety tests were done in -- in 

5 Plutonium Valley. 

6 MR. SMITH: That's Area 11 on the Nevada Test 

7 Site. 

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: That's right. 

9 MR. SMITH: He's talking about a place that's 

10 off of the Nevada Test Site. 

11 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But the safety tests were -- 

12 DR. ANSPAUGH: No, we're -- we're -- we're con13 - we're confusing the tests in 1955 and those 

14 in 1963. 

15 DR. MAURO: Wait a minute, we -- Lynn, there's 

16 layers of issues that -- I -- in other words, 

17 you're raising issues related -- on one level. 

18 I have a really fundamental issue. My 

19 fundamental issue is that a resuspension factor 

20 of five times ten to the minus nine -- 

21 basically that's what you effectively adopted -

22 - is being applied to the surface 

23 contamination, notwithstanding whether we -- 

24 you know, given that the surface contamination 

25 in becquerels per meter squared is in fact a 
42

1 robust, reliable model, and given the 

2 assumption that you can establish a vertical 

3 profile for that -- which I believe you can -- 

4 I find it very hard to believe that N to the 

5 minus -- five times ten to the minus nine is a 

6 good resuspension factor for this circumstance, 

7 notwithstanding Lynn's curve. So I might right 

8 now be, you know, crashing heads with Lynn. I 

9 don't buy that resuspension factor as applied 

10 to this situation. I think the resuspension 

11 factor is going to be closer to ten to the 

12 minus six. 

13 MR. ROLLINS: Comment. 

14 DR. MAURO: I mean and that's what I'm saying. 

15 MR. ROLLINS: Com-- comment, please. My model 

16 does not assume a resuspension factor. The 

17 only time I bring in resuspension factors is to 

18 account for short-lived fission products, 

19 fission and activation products. My model is 

20 built on empirical air measurements. 

21 DR. MAURO: But -- but your model, in the end, 

22 results in a resuspen-- in other words, yeah -- 

23 MR. ROLLINS: It's an implied resuspen-- 

24 DR. MAURO: It's an imp-- of course, and that's 

25 how I checked the number and I said -- whenever 
43

1 I check a number I say does it ring true, how 

2 do I come at this number, and ask myself does 

3 it ring true for me. 'Cause on face value in 

4 your -- this looks great. But then I said but 

5 I know something about resuspension factors, 

6 and I say does it hold up. And I went back and 

7 I did a calculation and I said my goodness, 

8 they got a resuspension factor that's -- that's 

9 -- well, I didn't work with the 4.3 to the 

10 minus three, by the way. I worked with the 3.7 

11 -- I worked with one of the numbers and just 

12 checked it, and I came up with five times ten 

13 to the minus nine as a resuspension factor. 

14 And at that point I said I've got a problem. 

15 And it wasn't some, you know, deep, penetrating 

16 -- I says that just doesn't sound right to me, 

17 and that's when I immediately wanted to 

18 communicate this concern, this -- to Jim and to 

19 Robert, and I wanted to put it on the table. 

20 So -- and now -- now on top of that, obviously, 

21 we've got other layers and -- see where I'm 

22 starting. I'm starting at giving -- basically 

23 accepting a lot of information. I'm accepting 

24 the becquerels per meter squared number. I'm 

25 accepting the air sampling data as being taken 
44

1 in the right areas and -- and are 

2 representative. Given all that -- I mean 

3 accepting that -- 

4 UNIDENTIFIED: You mean for the sake of 

5 argument. 

6 DR. MAURO: For the sake of argument, I'm 

7 accepting it. For the sake of this discussion, 

8 let's just start at the simplest level, and at 

9 the simplest level I'm saying even accepting 

10 all that or on -- on face value, I have a 

11 problem with the resuspension factor that's 

12 implied in the model. 

13 Now, you know, once we could get by that -- and 

14 maybe we can, and one way to get by that is to 

15 check what the dust loadings actually were, 

16 which I believe the numbers are out there -- 

17 and we may find out, if you pull the records 

18 from when they took those air samples in 

19 '71/'72, that we know what the milligrams or 

20 micrograms per cubic meter is and we may find 

21 out that your approach is right on the button. 

22 Or we may find out that no, you're low by two 

23 orders of magnitude. And we could find that 

24 out. 

25 Now whether or not that data are available, but 
45

1 -- but in my mind, it should be -- that data 

2 should be available because every time I ever 

3 took an air sample I always weighed it. I take 

4 the Wattman filter paper, you know, you -- you 

5 weigh it before, you weigh it after, so it's 

6 got to be in there somewhere. If it's not, 

7 that's the end of my story. But if it is, 

8 you've got a hook on -- on what the dust 

9 loading is. And once you've got a hook on what 

10 the true milligrams per cubic meter are in the 

11 air at this site, you have a very, very strong 

12 platform to stand on, say now we're going to 

13 apply that to what we know to be the activity 

14 in the soil of plutonium-239. 

15 Now we do have some questions and maybe we 

16 don't know what the plutonium is, but that's 

17 now a second -- to me, now we're moving up the 

18 ladder on the -- on -- but the very beginning -

19 - to me, the ground -- the rock you're standing 

20 on is -- is that, you know, you believe you 

21 have an appreciation for what the potential for 

22 resuspension is, and I'm saying I don't think 

23 you do. 

24 MR. CHEW: John, to -- to -- to move a path 

25 forward -- go forward on -- picking up in your 
46

1 discussion here, we have to make some -- 

2 probably some big assumptions here that, number 

3 one, they weighed it. Okay? 

4 DR. MAURO: Yeah, that's -- 

5 MR. CHEW: And then -- and then secondly, if 

6 they didn't weigh it and then we have to either 

7 go find those samples, probably no longer exist 

8 here, and the reweigh them -- right? And so I 

9 just asked Billy -- I said Billy, do you happen 

10 to know the knowledge of the very fact that -- 

11 did they weigh those samples or not? 

12 MR. SMITH: No -- 

13 DR. MAURO: They don't weigh -- 

14 MR. SMITH: -- they were not weighed. The 

15 activity was based on the air volume that went 

16 through the air sampler so the activity was 

17 activity per cubic meter of air. 

18 DR. MAURO: But the sam-- once you pulled the 

19 piece of paper -- 

20 DR. ANSPAUGH: I'd like to make a few comments 

21 on that, if I might. I think the resuspension 

22 factor of ten to the minus eight, ten to the 

23 minus nine, is okay for the -- for the 

24 conditions under which those air samplers were 

25 taken, which was nearby a cafeteria or a 
47

1 dispensary. I -- I agree with John that if 

2 we're dealing with a bulldozer operator or a 

3 construction guy or somebody dragging a drill 

4 rig across the desert, that value is not 

5 appropriate and a mass loading approach would 

6 be much better. 

7 I -- I also think Billy's absolutely right that 

8 those filters were not weighed, and in order to 

9 get representative values we probably would 

10 have to go (unintelligible) the material that 

11 was done for the -- the Yucca Repository where 

12 they did make a lot of measurements of mass 

13 loading and so forth in order to build the 

14 predictive models. So there are results 

15 available very close by the Test Site that were 

16 taken at later times on mass loading. 

17 DR. MAURO: (Off microphone) I think 

18 (unintelligible). 

19 MR. CHEW: I'm just trying to -- John, we need 

20 to probably discuss what -- what the 

21 appropriate path forward here to resolve this 

22 issue here because, you know, we -- let's say 

23 example we have -- we -- we cannot find those 

24 samples again to weigh them. That would be -- 

25 that would be another thing that we could -- is 
48

1 that -- what -- and then I'm just listening to 

2 Lynn about finding some representative -- then 

3 that's got to be something that we need to 

4 agree upon, that's got to be representative of 

5 what we're (unintelligible) -- 

6 DR. MAURO: Unfortunately, what I'm hearing is 

7 that -- 

8 MR. CHEW: -- that's not easy. 

9 DR. MAURO: -- even if we were able to get this 

10 mass loading -- 

11 MR. CHEW: Right. 

12 DR. MAURO: -- associated within -- it may not 

13 serve us well because -- 

14 MR. CHEW: Exactly right. 

15 DR. MAURO: And so maybe it is my id-- my idea 

16 of how to come at this thing may not work if in 

17 fact the samples -- the air samples were taken 

18 at locations where -- that were quiescent, when 

19 in fact we're interested in the areas that 

20 weren't quiescent, areas where there is 

21 physical activity going on. 

22 MR. CHEW: Well, I think we need to go back to 

23 the conservatism that Mark has been talking 

24 about, taking the highest samples, assuming 

25 that the people were there continuously here, 
49

1 and there are several factors -- orders of 

2 magnitude built into that, too, as you well 

3 know. 

4 MR. ROLFES: We haven't considered the other 99 

5 percent -- or greater than 99 percent of the 

6 data which indicated lower air concentrations. 

7 DR. MAURO: No, but you're only a factor of ten 

8 -- in other words, you see, I would have been 

9 okay with that. In other words, what I -- we -

10 - in fact, as soon as you said that, I went 

11 right to the -- 

12 MR. ROLFES: Sure. 

13 DR. MAURO: -- and I said -- 

14 MR. ROLFES: Sure, but that would still -- 

15 DR. MAURO: -- that would, yeah. 

16 MR. ROLFES: The other -- the other 

17 conservatisms that are built into that are the 

18 assumption that that individual was exposed for 

19 his entire year of employment in that area -- 

20 DR. MAURO: That's true. That's true. I agree 

21 with that. 

22 MR. ROLLINS: Let me -- 

23 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But wait -- 

24 MR. ROLLINS: -- let me make one more comment. 

25 DR. ANIGSTEIN: -- there's a -- 
50

1 MR. ROLLINS: How many square miles is NTS? 

2 MR. SMITH: 1,350 square miles. 

3 MR. ROLLINS: 1,300 square miles. Now these 

4 source terms are spread rather -- rather well, 

5 from what I can tell, based on these air sample 

6 results. It's spread pretty much over the 

7 1,300 square miles. So at any point in time 

8 most of it's going to be quiescent and the 

9 resuspension's going to be occurring over 

10 quiescent areas. So the -- the site -- that's 

11 the average, but we've chosen the highest. 

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I have -- I have a comment on 

13 that. 

14 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, you -- you've chosen air 

15 sampler that may have been located by a 

16 dispensary or someplace that does not represent 

17 the situation that would be claimant favorable. 

18 MR. ROLLINS: Let me make a comment on that, 

19 and Dr. Anspaugh mentioned in 1964 what the 

20 sampling locations were, but as I understand 

21 it, the air sampling program was in its infancy 

22 in 1964 and they were just coming to the 

23 conclusion that they maybe needed to start 

24 measuring what the actual ambient 

25 concentrations were out there in areas that 
51

1 were not affected by testing. And this is a 

2 quote that came out of the 1971 annual report, 

3 and it says (reading) In 1964 REECo established 

4 an environmental surveillance program at NTS 

5 that was designed to measure radiological 

6 conditions throughout the site, without regard 

7 to nuclear testing. That is, the collected 

8 data was not -- was not to relate to specific 

9 tests, but general conditions of radiation. 

10 The short-term objective of the program was to 

11 minimize casual personnel exposure to radiation 

12 by locating and identifying localized 

13 radiological environmental conditions by type 

14 and quantity of contamination. 

15 In other words, they were concerned that people 

16 might be being exposed to -- to areas that they 

17 didn't -- that they were working in that were 

18 not known to be contaminated. So it seems to 

19 me that they were trying to design a program to 

20 prevent this type of casual exposure. And I 

21 don't think putting air samples inside a 

22 dispensary would -- would accomplish that 

23 objective. 

24 UNIDENTIFIED: I don't think we're -- 

25 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, the -- I -- they were 
52

1 located -- the location is given as dispensary 

2 or cafeteria for more than half of the samples. 

3 MR. ROLFES: That's exactly what ambient 

4 exposures -- that's exactly where you would 

5 want to sample for ambient exposures. These -- 

6 these are not occupational internal exposures 

7 per se. For individuals that were working 

8 directly with radioactive material and were 

9 exposed to airborne radioactive material, those 

10 people were typically participants in a 

11 bioassay program. 

12 DR. ANSPAUGH: We have -- we have serious 

13 questions about that, too. 

14 DR. MAURO: We'll get to that next. 

15 MR. ROLFES: Okay. The air samples that were 

16 set up that we are using, these would be 

17 reflective of essentially background 

18 concentrations that an individual that was not 

19 working in a radiologically-controlled area 

20 would have been exposed to. 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But it's -- but that still 

22 neglects -- 

23 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I -- I -- I certainly 

24 agree with that statement, but what is the 

25 definition of a radiologically-controlled area? 
53

1 It certainly doesn't include everywhere that 

2 these people were out in the field driving 

3 bulldozers. 

4 DR. MAURO: What I'm hearing is maybe Bob -- I 

5 mean Bob pointed this out to me over the 

6 weekend, this alpha -- gross alpha. See, what 

7 we're struggling with right now is we have 

8 these air samples and what do they really mean 

9 and can they serve our purposes, and lots of 

10 questions have come up. One angle of trying to 

11 come to grips with it would be if we can track 

12 down the dust loading. I'm hearing that can't 

13 be done. And even if we can do it, it may not 

14 mean very much if those air samples were taken 

15 in places where people were not working. 

16 Now Bob, you had mentioned that you ac-- saw, 

17 which I wasn't aware of, gross alpha 

18 measurements were collected in 1963 -- 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Right. 

20 DR. MAURO: -- which is the time period we're 

21 interested in. 

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yeah, that's what it says in 

23 the report. 

24 DR. MAURO: And -- right, and any sense of wh-- 

25 why they were taken and where they were taken? 
54

1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yeah, they were taken -- I 

2 don't know where, I'm just getting it out of 

3 Chapter 4, but they were taken for the same 

4 purpose. That was the initial environmental 

5 monitoring and then they went -- got more 

6 refined and started doing radiochemical 

7 analysis of plutonium. So it would certainly 

8 help, but it would still have the same 

9 limitation. It's only as -- in other words, 

10 these are very good results for -- they were 

11 very good measurements of what they were 

12 measuring, and they were measuring the air 

13 concentration in that particular location. And 

14 all of these -- you know, we had this same -- 

15 the same problem looking at things like 

16 Bethlehem Steel. Breathing zone samples are 

17 the only thing that means anything 

18 (unintelligible) that's where the person 

19 actually is. The person stir-- the presence of 

20 the person, regardless of what he's doing, 

21 stirs up dust, particularly in a desert 

22 environment where the soil is very loose. 

23 Walking, driving a bulldozer, driving a truck 

24 stirs up dust. You know when the -- you know, 

25 you can look off in the distance and before you 
55

1 see the truck -- before you realize there's a 

2 truck coming, you see the cloud of dust -- oh, 

3 there must be a truck coming. 

4 DR. MAURO: You see, I think that originally 

5 you -- we were very much in agreement when you 

6 had the five milligram per cubic meter 

7 strategy. But we also agreed right around the 

8 table that that was off the charts high to 

9 assume someone has got five milligrams per 

10 cubic meter eight hours a day, you know, 2,000 

11 hours a year. 

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Maybe not, if he's really 

13 working. If he's really -- if he's working 

14 earth-moving machinery -- 

15 DR. MAURO: But that -- we (unintelligible) 

16 they also put it at the worst place. There was 

17 one -- all these different areas. You had one 

18 area that was by far the worst area so you 

19 assume that area with that activity 

20 (unintelligible) -- 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: In that particular year. It 

22 changes year by year. 

23 Also I had a question about that. You made the 

24 statement that you picked the worst of the 

25 worst, the highest of the highest. That's not 
56

1 according to what this -- looking at Attachment 

2 A; what it says here in the footnote to Table 

3 A-1 is for the site maximum -- values represent 

4 the maximum of the average area concentrations 

5 for '71 through '78 and the maximum of the 

6 maximum for '89 through 2001. So that's only -

7 - that statement was only half correct. 

8 MR. ROLFES: Well, that's correct. I believe 

9 what we've done with those, we've taken -- 

10 these are compilations of air samples that were 

11 collected -- was it -- Billy, was this monthly 

12 air samples that were compiled? 

13 MR. SMITH: Yes. 

14 MR. ROLFES: And we've taken the average of 

15 those monthly results, I believe. 

16 MR. ROLLINS: Monthly or weekly? 

17 (Unintelligible) weekly. 

18 MR. SMITH: Monthly. 

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: In one place it said weekly. 

20 (Whereupon, Mr. Rollins, Mr. Smith and others 

21 conversed among themselves.) 

22 MR. SMITH: I'm not sure relative to the 

23 environmental surveillance program. Some of 

24 the air samples ran for a month, some ran for 

25 shorter periods of time. For instance, if you 
57

1 look at the volume of the air that we pulled 

2 you can estimate the period of time that they 

3 ran, based on the flow rates, but I think it 

4 was monthly -- as I recall. 

5 MR. ROLFES: Okay, what you're referring to is 

6 footnote B on page 51 of the -- 

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Correct. 

8 MR. ROLFES: -- Chapter 4. 

9 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Correct. 

10 MR. ROLFES: And it says values represent the 

11 arithmetic average of the area average 

12 concentrations for years 1971 through 1988, and 

13 the arithmetic average of the area maximum 

14 concentrations for the years of 1989 through -- 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, I'm -- 

16 MR. ROLFES: -- 2001. 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: -- referring to -- I was 

18 referring to footnote C. 

19 MR. ROLFES: Okay, I'll get to that in just a 

20 second. But anyway, that was the footnote 

21 pertaining to the site average. 

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

23 MR. ROLFES: Footnote C pertains to the site 

24 maximum, and footnote C reads (reading) Values 

25 represent the maximum of the average area 
58

1 concentrations for years '71 through '88 and 

2 the maximum of the maximum area concentrations 

3 for the years of 1989 through 2001. 

4 Once again, we've ignored thousands of previous 

5 results which indicated lower exposures. 

6 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But the one that was used for 

7 the early years is really the -- the 1972 site 

8 maximum, which happens to be Area 9, so what -- 

9 so what you took was the average for Area 9 to 

10 characterize 1972. If you look under 1972 

11 column for -- column under 9, so that's the 

12 average. 

13 MR. ROLFES: Okay. 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: And then you took -- so 

15 basically the assumption was that it's the 

16 average concentration in the worst area for 

17 that year. 

18 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Sure, okay. 

19 MR. ROLLINS: Let me ask a question. As I 

20 pointed out a few moments ago, if we increased 

21 these intakes by a factor of a hundred, now we 

22 -- now we're into the range where the cobalt 

23 would be easily detected in whole body 

24 counting. So if we believe that, then we must 

25 understand that we -- we're not off by more 
59

1 than a factor of 100. 

2 DR. MAURO: When were the whole body counts 

3 taken and how many people were 

4 (unintelligible)? 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: They were not -- there were al6 - there are almost no whole body counts before 

7 1967. 

8 MR. ROLLINS: Fine, but there were plenty 

9 afterwards. 

10 UNIDENTIFIED: Sure. 

11 MR. ROLLINS: But when -- if this phenomenon 

12 was going on, it would continue. 

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, no. We're talking 

14 about exposures in 1963 and whether -- if the 

15 exposures were at the level that John was 

16 talking about, the cobalt would have been 

17 detected. We're not talking about the cobalt 

18 exposures in 1972 from the measurement you have 

19 in the site profile. 

20 MR. ROLLINS: I think I can demonstrate to you 

21 that that would still be detectable. 

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: It would be detectable, but it 

23 wouldn't have been detected because there were 

24 no whole body counters so you have no way of 

25 actually calibrating against -- with an actual 
60

1 measurement whether the plutonium result that 

2 you're talking about is correct or John -- John 

3 is talking about is correct because the cobalt 

4 reference of hundred times being detectable by 

5 whole body counting is unverifiable. There's 

6 no measurement to calibrate this assertion. 

7 MR. ROLLINS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

8 whole body counting start at NTS, Bill? 

9 MR. ROLFES: It was roughly 1966 and it was 

10 operated by PanAmerican. We had spoken with a 

11 health physicist regarding -- 

12 DR. MAURO: So 13 years later -- 

13 MR. ROLLINS: '66? 

14 MR. ROLFES: '66. 

15 MR. ROLLINS: '66, right. 

16 DR. MAURO: Oh, '66? 

17 MR. ROLFES: '66. 

18 DR. MAURO: Okay. 

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: We've -- we've -- we've taken 

20 your Table 7-1 in the evaluation report in 

21 which there are 100 cases and compiled the data 

22 for 53 of the hundred, every -- every alternate 

23 one plus three test compilations, just to get 

24 the tables in order, and there are a couple of 

25 measurements before the mid-'70s -- and I don't 
61

1 have the exact number in front of me. We're -- 

2 we're still compiling all this data and 

3 proofing it. But there are very, very few 

4 whole body counts before the mid-'70s and, as 

5 Billy said, you know, it started in '66 so it's 

6 moot before 1963 anyway. 

7 DR. MAURO: I would -- I would agree that if 

8 there was widespread whole body counting 

9 looking for cobalt-60 in 1966, and you see 

10 nobody with a body burden that's substantially 

11 higher -- in other words -- in other words by a 

12 couple of orders of magnitude -- yeah, that 

13 means my -- my -- 

14 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 

15 DR. MAURO: -- my intuition -- 

16 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 

17 DR. MAURO: -- and experience that these 

18 resuspension factors could be at least a 

19 hundred, probably more of a thousand times 

20 higher, would be disproved. 

21 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 

22 DR. MAURO: Now -- but -- so I'm not -- I'm 

23 going to -- I -- I mean my reaction to this, 

24 and this is, you know, a real time discussion -

25 - 
62

1 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 

2 DR. MAURO: -- my reaction to this is that 

3 heck, you show up and you show me a large 

4 number, a large fraction of the workers that 

5 were out there running around out in the field, 

6 doing all the things that they do, and you have 

7 a significant fraction of those workers had a 

8 whole body count looking for cobalt-60, and 

9 you're not seeing any cobalt-60 when you would 

10 have seen it if it was at the levels that we're 

11 talking about -- that I'm talking about, you've 

12 just -- you just shot -- you just blew -- you 

13 know, just -- just shot down my argument. I 

14 mean and I'm -- I'm fine with that. 

15 MR. CHEW: No, we didn't -- we're not shooting 

16 down your ar-- we're refining it. 

17 DR. MAURO: No, no, no, I'm okay with that. 

18 I'm okay with that. I mean to me -- see, when 

19 I see something that just doesn't ring true, I 

20 say geez, it doesn't ring true and it's 

21 bothering me. But if you could show me why 

22 it's true because you come at it from that 

23 angle, I -- I walk away immediately. I say 

24 you're right, I'm wrong. But right now I don't 

25 have that. 
63

1 Now I've got to tell you, we've been looking at 

2 the -- the inte-- the bioassay and whole body -

3 - in other words, the internal dosimetry 

4 issues, gathering a lot of data -- yeah, we'll 

5 get to that, and it's pretty sparse, and I'm 

6 going to -- I -- I'll stick my neck out a 

7 little -- okay. 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) 

9 (Unintelligible) get to it (unintelligible). 

10 DR. MAURO: Okay, I won't leap yet, but I would 

11 agree with the argument you just made if that -

12 - that record exists. 

13 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Now what about -- does the 

14 cobalt necessarily stay with the plutonium in 

15 the soil? 

16 DR. MAURO: My sense is yeah. In other words, 

17 they're going to be -- they're going to be -- 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: It doesn't migrate -- 

19 DR. MAURO: They're -- they're both -- 

20 DR. ANIGSTEIN: -- to different -- 

21 DR. MAURO: -- relatively refractory. 

22 DR. ANSPAUGH: I think you have to be careful 

23 about generalizing about cobalt-60 because 

24 there were some shots that were deliberately 

25 loaded with cobalt-60 and there a large amount 
64

1 around, whereas other shots had almost none. 

2 MR. ROLFES: What's your source for that, Dr. 

3 Anspaugh? 

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: What's my source for what? 

5 MR. ROLFES: For -- for the loading of a device 

6 with cobalt-60. 

7 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, for ex-- for example, the 

8 Sedan event was loaded with, I don't know, 

9 maybe a hundred cobalt-60 sources of -- a curie 

10 or so, because they were going to do some 

11 diagnostics on the -- the bay surge* and the 

12 throw out* and all that stuff, and it just so 

13 happened that of approximately a hundred 

14 sources that were contained there, they never 

15 could find more than one or two of them. 

16 MR. CHEW: You're right, Lynn, they did do that 

17 in Sedan. 

18 MR. ROLFES: Thank you. 

19 MR. CHEW: But -- but that doesn't keep us from 

20 going path forward. I'm just trying to figure 

21 out how we're going to resolve this thing here, 

22 John, because the arguments -- talking about 

23 conservativism, several factors of ten, and 

24 even using -- people spending the entire time 

25 there is probably another factor of ten, so -- 
65

1 DR. MAURO: Well, not exactly. Remember, we're 

2 talking about -- we're talking about this wide 

3 area, a big area -- we're not talking about 

4 controlled areas. People -- I don't know how 

5 many people are working out there, and you've 

6 got numbers that -- it could be -- for example, 

7 let's just look at Area number 9. You've got 

8 numbers that range -- there are several places 

9 where they're on the order of ten to the minus 

10 three, in Area 9 -- number 9, as a function of 

11 time. You've got a lot of areas in number 9 -- 

12 in Area number 9 that are on the order of ten 

13 to the minus four, and a couple that are on the 

14 order of ten to the minus five. So as a 

15 function of time, it's highly variable by -- I 

16 would say we're talking one to two orders of 

17 magnitude, just in that one area. Right off 

18 the bat, that alone belies Lynn's curve. Now 

19 it was Lynn's curve that predict-- you know, 

20 it's -- you know, you saw the li-- how it 

21 curves. It's a flat line. Well, obviously 

22 it's not. I mean it's all over the place. 

23 It's a couple of orders of magnitude -- that's 

24 just in one area. And then when you go between 

25 areas, I see more or less the -- a variability 
66

1 that goes from ten to the minus four to ten to 

2 the minus five, and a couple of places ten to 

3 the minus three. So in a funny sort of way, in 

4 looking at this table, Table -- very important 

5 table, Table 7-2, what we have is your 

6 estimates of airborne activity, which shows 

7 that, whether you within group or cross group, 

8 the dust loadings spread from ten to the minus 

9 three to ten to the minus five. I don't care 

10 whether you're going within group as a function 

11 of time or across group. And you went ahead 

12 and picked a ten to the minus three number, 

13 something that certainly errs on the side -- 

14 and I would say in general that would do it for 

15 me, except that I know that a resuspension 

16 factor of ten to the minus nine is not -- it 

17 could be off by three, maybe four, orders of 

18 magnitude if in fact there are people working 

19 in an area disturbing the soil, even moderately 

20 -- even moderately. We -- I've seen 

21 resuspension factors on the order of ten to the 

22 minus two in areas that are heavily disturbed. 

23 MR. ROLLINS: Episodic events. 

24 DR. MAURO: They're very much episodic -- 

25 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, they are. 
67

1 DR. MAURO: -- that's correct, and I agree with 

2 that. But what I'm saying is that -- so it's 

3 no-- I would not have even brought this up if I 

4 -- we were not talking about many orders of 

5 magnitude concern, which could be put -- on -- 

6 and I'm looking for a way to put this to bed, 

7 and I thought I might have found it by the dust 

8 loading approach, but what I'm hearing is 

9 that's not going to do it. 

10 UNIDENTIFIED: Well, we've driven down this -- 

11 DR. ANSPAUGH: I -- I'm not so sure about that, 

12 John, and you know, obviously there's no 

13 perfect solution to this problem because we 

14 don't have the data we'd really like to have. 

15 However, I -- I think the present calculational 

16 method is -- we can argue on several bases that 

17 it's not claimant favorable, and I believe that 

18 we would -- most of us would feel more 

19 comfortable with the mass loading approach in 

20 terms of it being claimant favorable, although 

21 that's not perfect, either. But I think it's 

22 much more claimant favorable than what we've 

23 got right now. 

24 DR. MAURO: Yeah, I would say if there's a way 

25 to place a plausible upper bound on the chronic 
68

1 dust loading over the course of a protracted 

2 period of time, in milligrams or micrograms per 

3 cubic meter -- originally when you picked the 

4 five milligrams per cubic meter, my sense was 

5 that's pretty high. I mean I -- I don't see 

6 that often. I see that as a transient 

7 situation, although Bob might argue -- others 

8 might argue that well, people are working in an 

9 area, that's what you get. I don't -- 

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: There would have been 

11 measurements various places, like unloading 

12 trucks full of soil or gravel on the surface 

13 and other places that close to five is not 

14 uncommon. 

15 DR. MAURO: While that activity is going on, 

16 yeah. 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yeah, while -- yeah, while the 

18 activity's going on. Usually I haven't seen 

19 anything higher than five, but three to five is 

20 no-- you know, measured data is not uncommon. 

21 DR. ANSPAUGH: Those -- those data have been 

22 reviewed extensively by the Yucca Mountain 

23 people and there are nice summaries of that 

24 data available, so we can use it. 

25 DR. MAKHIJANI: We -- wha-- I'd just like to 
69

1 just point out some order of magnitude things. 

2 If we're talking about the difference between 

3 ten to the minus nine and ten to the minus 

4 three or ten to the minus two, we've got six 

5 orders of magnitude. And it doesn't -- it 

6 doesn't help to say you're assuming somebody's 

7 present for 2,000 hours a year because that's 

8 three orders of magnitude -- still got another 

9 three orders of magnitude. That's one issue. 

10 The other issue that I'm a little concerned 

11 about is there's a difference between what Lynn 

12 was saying and what John was saying. Lynn was 

13 saying we can find a more claimant favorable 

14 approach, and that may be okay but -- in the 

15 TBD context. But also we're dealing 

16 simultaneously with a Special Exposure Cohort 

17 petition. And if there is no solution, then 

18 that is a solution. And I just -- I just want 

19 to say that this -- if -- if there -- I don't 

20 have a position on this 'cause I'm not 

21 reviewing it, you know. Joh-- John, you're the 

22 point person for this, so it's not my call. 

23 But if there isn't a scientifically valid way 

24 to put an upper bound on this based on the 

25 available measurements, and if a back 
70

1 extrapolation from '72 backwards, for instance, 

2 is not -- not a sensible way to do it, I'd be 

3 interested in seeing what the monthly 

4 variations were if this -- if 1972 was an 

5 average for the -- for the whole year, it would 

6 be interesting to see if, on the same spot, the 

7 monthly variation was a factor of two, factor 

8 of five, or two orders of magnitude. That 

9 would make quite a lot of difference, and I 

10 presume that we have -- we have the raw data 

11 for that. 

12 DR. MAURO: Well, we actually have the annual -

13 - 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well, the annu-- the annual 

15 variation is tenfold -- 

16 (Whereupon, Drs. Mauro, Anigstein, Makhijani 

17 and others spoke simultaneously.) 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But the annual variation is 

19 tenfold and it doesn't -- and it's not steady. 

20 UNIDENTIFIED: Sorry? 

21 DR. ANIGSTEIN: The annual variation for a 

22 given area varies by a factor of ten over these 

23 years in the 1970s. 

24 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, what I'm talking about -- 

25 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, I know you're talking about 
71

1 monthly. 

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- on what you said is if, for 

3 any year in a particular spot, the number is an 

4 average for that spot and that year, it would 

5 be instructive to see what the monthly 

6 measurement variation was for that spot and 

7 that year because it -- it may show you under 

8 different weather conditions -- 

9 DR. MAURO: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- which might -- which might 

11 be buried in the annual average, what the 

12 resuspension in the absence of -- in the 

13 absence of equipment and worker disturbance 

14 was. That's -- that's all I'm saying. So 

15 there are -- so there are multiple -- 

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Why would monthly be better 

17 than annual? 

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, al-- all I'm saying -- I'm 

19 not saying one's better than the other. All 

20 I'm saying is putting the monthly data on the 

21 table allows you to see how the resuspension 

22 varies within the year, even though the 

23 measurement in itself is a monthly average. If 

24 we're talking about episodic exposures, and we 

25 would be talking about episodic exposures, you 
72

1 may be talking about somebody that is exposed 

2 for a few hours a month so a few tens of hours 

3 a year they may be dragging heavy equipment. I 

4 wouldn't go anywhere near a thousand hours, or 

5 2,000 hours, but if you're talking many orders 

6 of magnitude, then -- then none of the other 

7 adjustments make any difference because you 

8 can't get there from here. And then the 

9 question is do we have a scientifically 

10 sensible way of going from an average 

11 measurement for a year for one spot, even if 

12 it's maximum, backwards. I would suggest at 

13 least that we look at the monthly variations 

14 for the spot that you've picked to see what 

15 those variations are. It won't solve the 

16 problem, but there is -- I just want to say but 

17 there is a solution, we can't solve the 

18 problem. 

19 MR. PRESLEY: Y'all excuse me but we need to 

20 take about a five-minute break. We will be 

21 back in here at 20 minutes after. One thing 

22 (electronic interference) that I am going to 

23 remind you all of that we have to be out of 

24 this room by 12:00 o'clock and that gives us 

25 approximately 40 minutes -- would somebody 
73

1 please mute their telephone? 

2 DR. BRANCHE: All right, I'm going to cut the 

3 line and dial back in, so we're going to close 

4 off and come back in -- fortunately someone -- 

5 no, we're going to start all over again. 

6 MR. PRESLEY: Everybody's got five minutes. 

7 We're going to start -- 

8 DR. BRANCHE: At 11:20? 

9 MR. PRESLEY: -- at 11:20. 

10 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:15 a.m. 

11 to 11:20 a.m.) 

12 DR. BRANCHE: We've dialed back in. Can 

13 someone who's participating by phone please let 

14 me know that you can hear me? 

15 UNIDENTIFIED: We can hear you. 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you very much. I'm going 

17 to ask again that everyone participating by 

18 phone please mute your phones until you're 

19 ready to speak. If you do not have a mute 

20 button, then please dial star-6 and then you 

21 would use that same -- same star-6 to unmute 

22 your line. Again I stress how important it is 

23 that everyone participating by phone mute your 

24 phones so that everyone can hear. Believe me, 

25 even the slightest click of your mouse or your 
74

1 keyboard interrupts the sound for the people 

2 participating by phone. 

3 And again, please do not put us on hold. Thank 

4 you. 

5 MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley, chairman. 

6 At this time I'm going to call a halt to the 

7 discussions that we have had. 

8 John, I have one question. I would like to 

9 know what it will take to satisfy SC&A on this 

10 issue, so think about that where that we can 

11 come up, we need -- this -- this is a question 

12 that we've beat to death. We need to come up 

13 with some type of a answer and move on. 

14 Arjun, I understand that you have another 

15 problem that we need to discuss? 

16 MR. ROLFES: I did want to -- before we leave 

17 that, I just wanted to point out that this is 

18 an occupational ambient source of exp-- 

19 MR. ROLLINS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

20 MR. ROLFES: Okay, excuse me, an ambient source 

21 of exposures for individuals that worked at 

22 Nevada Test Site. This is typically not going 

23 to affect compensation decision for a claim. 

24 This level of dose is very small in comparison 

25 to that which we would assign to an individual 
75

1 who worked in a radiologically controlled area 

2 and was directly handling radioactive 

3 materials. That would be considered 

4 occupational internal exposures. That would be 

5 the larger source of internal exposures that an 

6 individual would likely receive at the Nevada 

7 Test Site. 

8 DR. MAURO: And Robert, if it's acceptable to 

9 you, I'd very much like to work with Mark and 

10 Gene and others to pursue this together as 

11 strategies for, you know, finding a way to lock 

12 this thing up. The cobalt-60 might be the 

13 answer. The answer may be, no matter what 

14 assumption we use, the doses are going to be 

15 less than a millirem a year, I don't know. So 

16 -- but I'd be happy to do that and we could try 

17 to do that quickly. 

18 MR. PRESLEY: I would appreciate that, very 

19 quickly. 

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: You might want to do a 

21 technical call, which is -- which is properly 

22 summarized -- 

23 DR. MAURO: Oh, absolutely. 

24 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- (unintelligible) working 

25 group. 
76

1 DR. MAURO: And -- and if anyone on the working 

2 group wants to sit in on any of these technical 

3 calls, I certainly will announce it or -- Gene 

4 -- or -- 

5 MR. PRESLEY: Would like to do that -- 

6 DR. MAURO: -- Mark would do that. 

7 MR. PRESLEY: -- and I would like to have the -

8 - the announcement for the call more than a few 

9 hours, please. If we set the call up, we need 

10 to give everybody a chance to kind of adjust 

11 their schedules. Arjun? 

12 INTERNAL DOSE SITE PROFILE

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, Mr. Presley, I don't have 

14 a problem, I was just following up on the 

15 direction that we got last time in May when we 

16 met, I believe it was a Board call, and NIOSH 

17 had said that they would publish new versions 

18 of their site profiles, and we got a direction 

19 to take a look at them. So whatever I'm saying 

20 is -- is not -- you know, not a carry-over from 

21 some previous working group meeting but 

22 essentially a new internal dose site profile 

23 was published and I was tasked with beginning 

24 to review that. 

25 As you know, we've also been simultaneously 
77

1 looking at the SEC evaluation report and the 

2 internal dosations associated with Table 7-1. 

3 We have a pretty careful review of the data in 

4 Table 7-1 of the evaluation report because 

5 there it just said that these are the workers 

6 for whom we have sufficient workers. Looking 

7 at -- we had some issues -- we have not 

8 finished our evaluation or review of the new 

9 TBD -- it's a complete rewrite of a pretty 

10 difficult area of inquiry at NTS for all the 

11 periods -- but I can give you some preliminary 

12 -- preliminary comments. In looking at the 

13 internal dose data from -- and maybe John will 

14 pass that summary around. This is not even a 

15 complete summary. This is something we've put 

16 together. What I'm handing out is -- is fairly 

17 preliminary. We are looking at -- we've 

18 looked, as I mentioned, at 53 of the hundred 

19 cases. We've compiled all of the internal dose 

20 data available for those 53 workers. And we 

21 looked specially at plutonium and iodine data 

22 to examine adequacy and completeness issues for 

23 dose reconstruction. And this is a preliminary 

24 set of comments that I'm making. Obviously you 

25 can see there are a lot of blank -- blank 
78

1 columns, we haven't finished our compilation, 

2 but just based on the 53 out of a hundred, the 

3 -- the data for plutonium for 1963-'67 are -- 

4 are quite sparse. Of the 53 workers, I think 

5 50 or 51 workers actually worked in that 

6 period. 

7 DR. MAURO: Say -- say, Arjun? 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Out of -- out of 53 workers 

9 that -- for whom we compiled the data for -- 

10 from Table 7-1, 51 actually worked in the '63-

11 '67 period, and out -- out of 51, only six had 

12 any plutonium bioassay data in that period, and 

13 so it's less than 12 percent -- less than one 

14 in eight workers had any plutonium bioassay 

15 data. The -- the total number of workers 

16 indicate -- last time we discussed what might a 

17 routine sampling be, and I believe Billy Smith 

18 said that that would mean at least an annual -- 

19 annual sampling for -- for plutonium, if I 

20 remember it correctly, those who were part of 

21 the routine sampling program. And in the '63 

22 to '67 we did not find any worker who had an 

23 annual plutonium. There were -- there were 

24 other bioassay results; I'm just focusing on 

25 plutonium. 
79

1 The iodine data were even more sparse. I think 

2 only -- don't know where my result went here -- 

3 only two workers had any iodine data in the '63 

4 to '67 period. So we found that period to be 

5 prelim-- on a preliminary basis -- now this is 

6 not sorted by occupation. As -- as we noted by 

7 NIOSH, most of the results -- most of the 

8 results are for rad-safe health physics type of 

9 personnel, and these are said to be 

10 representative of the group with the highest 

11 exposure potential. 

12 Did I get that right, Mark? 

13 MR. ROLFES: Yes, correct. Yeah. Uh-huh. 

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: And -- so we're trying to find 

15 how that statement can be validated and 

16 (unintelligible) little bit of our time because 

17 the results for other categories of workers are 

18 very sparse. And that's why you see a lot of 

19 effort being put into actually compiling the 

20 data for other categories of workers, so we can 

21 actually make some comparisons. That work is 

22 not complete. In fact, that work is more or 

23 less at the beginning. And I -- we've designed 

24 a program so we're able to make some reliable 

25 statements about that. 
80

1 So that's -- that's sort of one set of issues. 

2 The other -- the other issue that there was a 

3 reference in the site profile, the new site 

4 profile document, version one, to a REECo 

5 document from 1993 that said that this was the 

6 protocol for sampling from 1970 onward. I 

7 can't -- you know, I haven't had time to review 

8 -- it's a -- it's a pretty complex document. I 

9 haven't read every word of it, but I tried to 

10 go through it and, from what I could tell, the 

11 REECo document really states this -- states the 

12 protocol as of the date of that document, '90 -

13 - early '90s. So-- for some things you can 

14 discover that it -- the measurement protocols 

15 or equipment go back to the early '80s and it's 

16 stated in the document. 

17 Now for the -- for the minimum detectable 

18 amounts, NIOSH actually has extensive 

19 documentation as to what they were, going quite 

20 far back. And I found that the TBD has quite 

21 extensive reference-- I haven't checked all of 

22 them, but I presume that those references would 

23 check out. But for who was monitored and what 

24 the monitoring protocol was, I -- I could not 

25 validate that it went back to 1970. So this -- 
81

1 this is obviously a concern in that -- in that 

2 the TBD appears to rely on an idea of a certain 

3 monitoring protocol that's extended backward to 

4 1970 that at least I was not -- on a 

5 preliminary review -- able to validate. 

6 That's very important because in 1993 even only 

7 300 out of 12,000 workers were in a routine 

8 bioassay program. And our initial review of 

9 the early periods indicates very sparse routine 

10 coverage of plutonium -- other radionuclides 

11 are more common -- and we have to look at what 

12 that might mean for dose reconstruction 

13 ability. 

14 So that's our second significant issue that 

15 arose directly out of our review of -- of -- 

16 now I've already mentioned iodine. Let me -- 

17 Lynn -- Lynn had some comments that he made. 

18 Do you want to go through your comments, Lynn, 

19 or should I go through them? 

20 (No response) 

21 Is Lynn on? 

22 DR. BRANCHE: Give him time to unmute. 

23 DR. ANSPAUGH: Hello? 

24 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, we can hear you. 

25 DR. MAKHIJANI: Would you please go through 
82

1 your comments 'cause I read them rather -- I 

2 got -- only got them last night and I read them 

3 rather rapidly, so I -- I'd prefer if -- if you 

4 went through your comments rather than me 

5 trying to represent -- 

6 DR. ANSPAUGH: (Unintelligible) 

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- a quick reading. 

8 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. Now this is related to 

9 iodine -- potential iodine exposure in 

10 Baneberry, and if I understand the TBD 

11 correctly, on page 52 the comment was made that 

12 Baneberry was the most significant venting and 

13 you used that to make your bounding calculation 

14 on the concentration for iodine dose estimates. 

15 Correct? 

16 MR. ROLLINS: That's what it said. 

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. And again, as I 

18 understand it, you used one measurement of an 

19 air concentration at Camp 12 which was taken on 

20 December 24th, 1970, and then you decay21 corrected that back to December 18th, but the 

22 critical assumption was made that the 

23 concentration, except for radioactive decay, on 

24 December 24th was the same as it was on 

25 December 18th. And this is not a -- a 
83

1 reasonable assumption because Baneberry was a 

2 very prompt, massive event, and it had stopped 

3 venting in 24 hours, according to the REECo 

4 report on the subject. So assuming that a 

5 concentration six days later represents what 

6 was there on December 18th is not a reasonable 

7 assumption. 

8 And it goes on -- on page 38 there's a comment 

9 that this leads to a dose of less than one 

10 millirem to the thyroid, and that is supposed 

11 to be a bounding calculation. But the actual 

12 data from the Baneberry event where people -- 

13 900 people were evacuated and they all had 

14 their thyroids screened and the actual 

15 calculated thyroid dose based on the screening 

16 was 3,730 millirem, not the one millirem that 

17 was assumed for the bounding calculation. 

18 And then there were other situations where 

19 there were some very high values of thyroid 

20 doses that -- for example, in Uba the dose was 

21 593,000 millirem and there was another 

22 situation on the Merlin event where there was a 

23 dose of about 30,000 millirem, and also the 

24 Wishbone event, which -- and maybe Bryce Rich 

25 is on the phone, but he -- he was very much 
84

1 involved in that, which again was a dose of 

2 about 9,000 millirem. So if I have understood 

3 what your bounding calculation was intended to 

4 be, then I -- I don't think it's a bounding 

5 calculation at all but it's a very serious 

6 underestimate of some of the doses that were 

7 observed, even following the Baneberry event 

8 itself. 

9 MR. ROLFES: Dr. Anspaugh, this is Mark Rolfes, 

10 and we certainly do acknowledge that there were 

11 other exposures that exceeded what we've put in 

12 our ambient environmental exposure Technical 

13 Basis Document. 

14 MR. ROLLINS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

15 Chapter 5. 

16 MR. ROLFES: Oh, this is Chapter 5, okay, thank 

17 you. The cases that you have mentioned where 

18 there were larger iodine exposures, we're 

19 certainly aware of that, and those individuals 

20 participated in the bioassay program. That's 

21 how we know that there were such large 

22 exposures, because those individuals did have 

23 thyroid scans and participated in a urinalysis 

24 program to screen for gamma emitters and 

25 fission products. Yes, there were, for 
85

1 example, the Uba event where they had drilled 

2 back into -- into some contamination and there 

3 was a radioiodine release. The DOE response 

4 files that I've received for the people that 

5 were involved in that event did indicate that 

6 there were in fact large thyroid exposures. 

7 That information is typically contained within 

8 an individual's DOE response file which NIOSH 

9 receives for every claimant, and that would be 

10 the most important piece of information, rather 

11 than the information in the Technical Basis 

12 Document. The information that's contained 

13 within an individual's DOE dosimetry response 

14 would be the most important piece of 

15 information for us to reconstruct that 

16 individual's dose. 

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, you are using that as the 

18 bounding calculation and your bounding 

19 calculation was a factor of 4,000 off just for 

20 the Baneberry people themselves. 

21 MR. ROLLINS: Comment -- comment on that. It 

22 was meant to be a bounding calculation for 

23 someone who was unaware that they had been 

24 exposed. 

25 DR. ANSPAUGH: Right. 
86

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. I mentioned earlier in 

2 our discussion that -- you know, we -- we took 

3 our cues in the more general investigation of 

4 internal dose from Table 7-1 of the evaluation 

5 report where the internal dose data was said to 

6 be sufficient to calculate internal dose and 

7 there was a relationship between external dose 

8 potential and internal dose potential -- there 

9 are a number of statements that are made over 

10 there. When we actually compiled more than 

11 half of the cases in the Table -- we're going 

12 to do all of them, but so far we've compiled, 

13 more or less randomly, you know, choosing every 

14 alternate one and then three more than that. 

15 As I said, for 1963-'67 we found only two 

16 workers who had any iodine monitoring at all. 

17 I think -- we did not find very extensive 

18 evidence that people were checked -- people's 

19 thyroids were checked or screened on exit from 

20 tunnel areas, independent of job 

21 classification. So how -- so leaving aside the 

22 people who, during the Uba incident and the 

23 Baneberry incident -- which I agree are 

24 documented and you can find these doses, so 

25 obviously -- 
87

1 MR. ROLFES: Correct. 

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- we know what the doses were 

3 -- 

4 MR. ROLFES: Sure. 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- I have no argument with 

6 that. 

7 MR. ROLFES: Of course. 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't -- I don't have a 

9 problem with what you've just said. But for 

10 more general -- for -- for a more general case, 

11 we are -- at the present time, as I said, we 

12 haven't finished our data compilation. I'm 

13 only giving you a preliminary look, just to 

14 report where we are in what turned out to be a 

15 more complex investigation than imagined, that 

16 in terms of plutonium and iodine, specially for 

17 the earlier period just after the SEC has 

18 already been declared, up to the end of '62, 

19 we're having a hard time finding a significant 

20 amount of data for either iodine or plutonium 

21 monitoring. And -- and that's just -- it's 

22 just a -- in term-- in the spirit of what Mr. 

23 Presley asked me to do, I'm just putting the 

24 issue on the table before having concluded. 

25 The other -- the other issue that I mentioned 
88

1 in regard to whole body counting, which we 

2 already discussed, there -- the whole body 

3 counting really seems to have gotten underway 

4 in the mid-'70s in terms of more frequent 

5 counting. Out -- off these 53 workers that 

6 we've looked at, there were only two workers 

7 who had any whole body counting information, 

8 only two counts in -- in the earlier period 

9 before the mid-'70s, and so it's not of much 

10 help in terms of determining who should have 

11 been monitored further or -- as an indication 

12 of where you might go with bioassay samples. 

13 That gives you kind -- kind of an idea of -- of 

14 -- of the state of our investigation. 

15 DR. MAURO: Arjun, I -- I'd like to go over 

16 this table that was circulated. 

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure. 

18 DR. MAURO: Everyone sh-- 

19 DR. ROESSLER: First could I ask a question? 

20 DR. MAURO: Sure. 

21 DR. ROESSLER: On that table, where do I find 

22 Table 7-1? I was -- I'm on the internet on the 

23 CDC/NIOSH -- no, where in there do I find that 

24 table so I can look at the table from which you 

25 derived this data? 
89

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Roessler, it's in the 

2 evaluation report for the second SEC petition, 

3 which is dated September 25, 2007 -- and I'll 

4 give you a page number, if I remember it's 

5 page -- 

6 MS. MUNN: Page 34 -- 33, 34. 

7 DR. ROESSLER: Okay, that'll help. 

8 DR. MAURO: The reason they -- 

9 DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 

10 DR. MAURO: Yeah, and I think I -- that's -- 

11 that's -- 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: It starts on page 36, the -- 

13 the table. 

14 DR. MAURO: That table is very funda-- our 

15 understanding is that's fundamental to being 

16 able to do dose -- internal dose 

17 reconstructions post-1962. And our mandate was 

18 let's take a look at the data, let's see what 

19 kind of bioassay data are out there. And it's 

20 -- it's really not an interpretation of data, 

21 let's just get the facts correct, and since 

22 there's -- so -- so that's what we're doing. 

23 Now the table I handed out captures perhaps 

24 hundreds of pages of database in one page, and 

25 let me explain what you're looking at so you 
90

1 can understand what it is we're doing. What 

2 you're looking at is -- there's a column that 

3 says cases from Table 7-1. What we did here is 

4 say okay, we went in -- and Table 7-1 

5 effectively has 100 workers who had the highest 

6 external exposure, and those 100 workers are 

7 the workers that are -- the data represent the 

8 workers whose bioassay data are being used as a 

9 core* model for all workers between '63 and I 

10 guess '67 and beyond. All right? 

11 So our first question is okay, let's take a 

12 look at that data and what is -- what -- and 

13 now how robust, how rich is it, what does it 

14 cover, and we -- and for each worker we have 

15 pages upon pages of his records in our database 

16 and I -- the author of the-- this work, two of 

17 the folks who work for SC&A, have -- I asked 

18 them to -- could you please summarize this vast 

19 amount of information on one page, which was 

20 quite a -- an achievement. The first column 

21 you're looking at basically says listen, row 

22 number one, there are 100 claimants in Table 7-

23 1. Row number two said to date SC&A has 

24 captured, downloaded and put into a relational 

25 database all the bioassay data for 53 of those 
91

1 100 randomly -- 

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Near-- 

3 DR. MAURO: -- selected -- 

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- nearly all. 

5 DR. MAURO: Near-- 

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) A couple of 

7 cases that were (unintelligible) are not 

8 totally (unintelligible). 

9 DR. MAURO: Okay, so -- 

10 MR. CHEW: Yeah, I get... 

11 DR. MAURO: -- that's where we -- so you get an 

12 idea on where we are on that. 

13 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 

14 DR. MAURO: Then we go on -- then we say okay, 

15 the number of bio-- you can see column after 

16 column -- basically this is sort of a way to 

17 summarize the data that we're capturing and 

18 putting in place, without any interpretation, 

19 just a way to reveal to the working group and 

20 the Board what's out there. So -- and you 

21 march down and you'll see, out of the ca-- 

22 twen-- 53, we looked at the number that have 

23 whole body counts, the number that have whole 

24 body counts between '63 and '67 -- an important 

25 time period, as we know -- the number of 
92

1 plutonium analyses. Well, out of the 53 we see 

2 there was six. We -- then underneath that, we 

3 have the highest result in microcuries per cc. 

4 The highest number we saw, 6.13 minus seven 

5 microcuries per cc -- and so on down the row. 

6 So what we've done here in a -- very much a 

7 summary form is try to capture the essence of 

8 what kind of information we have in that Table 

9 7-1. 

10 Now one of the criticisms -- or not criticisms, 

11 one of the concerns SC&A has, and I think the 

12 working group had, was how do we know that 

13 those 100 workers who were selected based on 

14 the highest external exposure do in fact 

15 capture the workers that had the highest 

16 internal exposure. 

17 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 

18 DR. MAURO: So we came up with a strategy -- in 

19 fact, I think it was Dr. Lockey who came up 

20 with the strategy; he recommended it and then 

21 we followed up; I believe it was part of the 

22 discussion in one of the work meetings -- why 

23 don't you go and sample according to different 

24 categories of workers, because Table 7-1 

25 doesn't really make an effort to look at 
93

1 miners, radiation safety personnel, laborers. 

2 It goes in and just grabs the workers who have 

3 the highest external exposure -- okay? And 

4 it's possible that there is a limited 

5 relationship -- maybe it is a very weak 

6 relationship, we don't know -- between external 

7 exposure and internal exposure, we don't know. 

8 And so on -- on -- so it's important to find 

9 that out because if it turns out that that 

10 presumption -- high external also means high 

11 internal -- 

12 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 

13 DR. MAURO: -- if that presumption turns out to 

14 be not entirely correct, we've got a problem. 

15 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 

16 DR. MAURO: That means the population of 

17 workers would not necessarily represent your 

18 bounding set and therefore it's going to be 

19 difficult to use them as your coworker model. 

20 So in order to test that, we went in -- now 

21 there are 1,500 claimants in the database for 

22 '60 -- post-'63 -- I think '63 to '67, or post23 '6-- I'm not sure exactly the time period. And 

24 we said okay -- and it turns out you can go 

25 into the database and sort and say download -- 
94

1 very quickly, download for me all the miners, 

2 all the workers that claim they are miners and 

3 we -- and you say -- and we got a whole bunch 

4 of those. Then we went in and randomly 

5 selected 20 miners, and that's what the second 

6 column is. 

7 These are -- and now we're into SC&A's work. 

8 SC&A went in and said well, let's go grab 20 

9 miners and create the same -- and -- same 

10 record -- 

11 MR. CHEW: Uh-huh. 

12 DR. MAURO: -- database, and summarize it in 

13 this column. And one of the things it tells 

14 you right off the bat -- I mean one of the 

15 interesting things -- it gives you an idea of 

16 how many miners were -- what percentage of the 

17 miners that we sampled were bioassayed, what 

18 percent were bioassayed for plutonium, and also 

19 what the result is. And you can see -- and -- 

20 well, first interesting observation -- all 

21 preliminary, by the way; all preliminary, and 

22 this is just -- let the data speak to you. In 

23 other words, we're not saying it, the data's 

24 saying it. All right? It says okay, we're 

25 looking at the highest miner that we saw, at 
95

1 least in that -- in the sample of four cases 

2 that we grabbed out of the 20 'cause only four 

3 out of the 20 miners had bioassay data -- was 

4 orders -- the concentration was lower. 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Be -- be -- be careful. The 

6 one -- the one doesn't have a volume unit 

7 attached to it and -- and this -- and the other 

8 does, and -- 

9 DR. MAURO: Oh, no, I'm looking at miners, not 

10 radiation safety. 

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, but you're comparing the 

12 miners to the radiation safety -- 

13 DR. MAURO: No, no, I'm not, I'm comparing the 

14 miners -- see, to me, I think it's important -- 

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- or you're comparing the 

16 miners -- 

17 DR. MAURO: -- miners -- see, to me, the way I 

18 look at it is -- 

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- between the other -- 

20 DR. MAURO: -- there's a lot of things that 

21 this data could sh-- to tell us, that's why I 

22 think it's important and I think we have to 

23 finish it. One is -- one question is well, 

24 listen, if we picked those 100 -- if you, 

25 NIOSH, picked those 100 in Table 7-1, what 
96

1 confidence do we have that, for plutonium, 

2 we've got the -- we've got the big hitters? 

3 Well, take -- you look -- right off the bat we 

4 say well, let's take a look at the -- let's do 

5 another sample of miners. Well, so far our 

6 miner sample -- by the way, none of this has 

7 been QC'd; this is right hot off the press over 

8 the weekend, produced over the weekend. Well, 

9 to the extent that -- you know, it's -- we've 

10 got -- we've captured the data reliably and 

11 faithfully. It says that well, at least in the 

12 sample that we looked at in miners, it sure 

13 looks like the miners' plutonium concentration 

14 was well below. The highest -- the highest 

15 miner plutonium concentration was well below 

16 the highest concentration of the workers in 

17 Table 7-1. 

18 But when you -- now we -- we go over to the 

19 next column called radiation safety, we did the 

20 same thing. We went into the 1,500. We 

21 sampled 20 out of the 1,500 and we sampled 20 

22 workers who were radiation sa-- designated as 

23 either radiation safety, radiation monitor or 

24 health physicist, and we compiled all their 

25 data and summarized it here. 
97

1 And here -- again, just for the sake of 

2 discussion -- it looks like that the highest 

3 plutonium concentration -- that's in 

4 microcuries, now -- not -- it's not microcuries 

5 per cc. I'm not quite sure what that means 

6 right now. 

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Is that just a misprint, do you 

8 think? 

9 MR. CHEW: I don't think the cc -- you know, is 

10 in either the miner or the case, it's just 

11 microcuries. 

12 DR. MAURO: Okay, here -- so -- but -- but I 

13 think the impor-- 

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: So -- so what -- what would -- 

15 excuse me, what would that be, just the entire 

16 sample? 

17 DR. MAURO: I don't know. In fact, I won't 

18 even speculate right now. There's no need to 

19 do that. You see, what we -- 

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) 

21 (Unintelligible) 

22 DR. MAURO: We will eventually. We will 

23 eventually. 

24 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) 

25 (Unintelligible) to hand this out because -- 
98

1 DR. MAURO: No, no -- no, Arjun, I think it's 

2 important because we want the working group to 

3 understand what we're doing. 

4 MR. CHEW: I know where you're going. 

5 DR. MAURO: You know what we're doing. See, I 

6 -- we're doing -- now, we -- we're -- we're in7 - we're going to be finishing up this table, 

8 laborer, so in the end -- everyone -- now -- 

9 and after we QC and check it and everything, 

10 we're all going to sit around a table, we're 

11 going to look at this data and tell -- ask 

12 ourselves what does this tell us, because in 

13 the end this is it. This -- this table's going 

14 to say, one, do we really have a robust set of 

15 data for internal dosimetry to reconstruct not 

16 only the workers who have data, but to build a 

17 coworker model. Second -- out of the Table 7-

18 1. Second, does the workers from Table 7-1, do 

19 they appear to be the bounding ones. Right now 

20 I'd say, you know, we really can't tell yet 

21 but, you know, at least, you know, if you -- if 

22 you start to compare the tritium -- for 

23 example, you know, there might -- they may be 

24 okay, that's what I'm getting at. Table 7-1, 

25 when you start to compare the other categories 
99

1 -- what -- remember what we asked ourselves, do 

2 we feel confident that the workers in Table 7-1 

3 do in fact capture the high end workers. And 

4 by -- by looking at these other categories, 

5 sorting the data from a different direction, by 

6 worker category, it'll start to give us what I 

7 call the weight of evidence. You start to get 

8 comfortable. And every-- in other words, if 

9 every one of the mi-- all the miners, radiation 

10 safety, laborers -- if all their plutonium 

11 concentrations for everyone that we were able 

12 to capture are lower than the highest one for 

13 the one that's from the Table 7-1, you know, 

14 you start to get a warm and fuzzy feeling, not 

15 bad. 

16 Now -- now that doesn't mean you've got 

17 yourself a really good database, but it means 

18 that when you picked that Table 7-1 workers, 

19 it's looking pretty good. 

20 If we see there's a -- one of the -- let's say 

21 one of the -- the welders, we didn't get to the 

22 welders yet, but we find out the highest welder 

23 is two orders of magnitude higher in some 

24 category than the highest 7-1, we've got a 

25 problem. We've got to talk about it. 
100

1 So that's what we're doing what we're doing. 

2 And I think in the end we -- it'll be in front 

3 of everybody to look at. And of course behind 

4 this is hundreds of pages and -- and then we 

5 can do any sorts you can imagine on it. We -- 

6 we just sorted this way for the purpose of this 

7 meeting so that everyone can have a good idea 

8 of what it is we're doing and why we're doing 

9 it, and that's all I wanted to communicate 

10 right now. 

11 MR. CHEW: (Unintelligible) 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: One -- one other comment, and I 

13 presented some of the data earlier, I think the 

14 data need to be divided into periods because, 

15 at least from the first 53 that we've compiled 

16 from Table 7-1, it seemed there's a dif-- 

17 significant difference in the period as to how 

18 much plutonium monitoring went on. I'm not so 

19 sure whether the different -- about iodine 

20 monitoring, but in plutonium monitoring it does 

21 appear to be a difference. And so we will 

22 probably have to parse this (unintelligible) -- 

23 MR. CHEW: John, I -- I'd like to -- I'd like 

24 to speak to what you were discus-- I'd 

25 appreciate it. I just want to correct the 
101

1 first thing technically, then I'll talk about 

2 the whole program and set you -- how we got 

3 this started here, and -- and by the way, it 

4 cannot be three times six times ten to the 

5 minus 11 microcuries 'cause that's two orders 

6 of magnitude below the limit of sensitivity 

7 'cause you -- look -- think about it. At -- at 

8 five times ten to the minus seven, that's about 

9 a tenth of a picocurie. Okay? And that's 

10 about a -- less than a dpm. You can't count 

11 that low. 

12 DR. MAURO: Per cc. 

13 MR. CHEW: Yeah. 

14 DR. MAURO: Per cc, but the samples are 

15 (unintelligible) liter. 

16 MR. CHEW: Well -- yeah, but for -- for a full 

17 liter, exactly right (unintelligible) -- 

18 (Whereupon, Dr. Mauro and Mr. Chew spoke 

19 simultaneously.) 

20 DR. MAURO: So you've got to multiply by 1,000. 

21 MR. CHEW: By 1,000, right, right, and so we've 

22 got to, you know, compare equals. 

23 Well, let's start to think about the -- where 

24 the program started from. When -- when we 

25 first -- looking I says where can we find -- in 
102

1 the lack of going back to individual records 

2 and polling to do a full coworker study, we 

3 actually went to -- says let's go look at NOCTS 

4 and see what's there. All right? And so we 

5 said there's probably a fairly good assumption, 

6 and I'm sure we can argue about this, that, you 

7 know, Nevada Test Site different than plutonium 

8 facilities like Rocky Flats -- Nevada Test 

9 Site, people were exposured -- exposure to 

10 probably the highest gamma exposures probably 

11 equates to potentially internal exposure, 

12 'cause that's the kind of activity that went on 

13 at the Test Site. Obviously Lynn will say 

14 there's a couple of safety things, shots, that 

15 may be an exception there, but we started with 

16 that particular premise. All right? 

17 Now we look at the program at that particular 

18 time, there was clearly -- you can see -- Billy 

19 can assert to this -- that the -- the people 

20 who were monitored for bioassay -- they was 

21 trying to get a -- represent sev-- 

22 representation of who was po-- potentially the 

23 highest exposure because there was -- as you 

24 said, there was many people at the Test Site. 

25 And at that time, I think -- Billy, please 
103

1 correct me if I'm wrong -- but the radiation 

2 safety, the health physicists who were there 

3 pretty much for all the shots were -- were 

4 probably a good representation because you well 

5 know the majority of the Test Site did things 

6 to pre-- prepare for the shots and not 

7 necessarily were participating in the events. 

8 Okay? And so the health physicists 

9 (unintelligible) representation. 

10 We also did look at the first 100, as you said 

11 in the -- and that's where you first -- your 

12 starting point, and then that's probably why -- 

13 and these are only in NOCTS. Okay? These are 

14 only in the people who are claimants. But they 

15 are also the top highest exposed people, too. 

16 Okay? And -- 

17 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

18 MR. CHEW: -- and -- and out of that particular 

19 -- 

20 DR. MAURO: Highest external expos-- right. 

21 MR. CHEW: External exposure, correct. And so 

22 -- so that -- the reason probably why you would 

23 not see as many of the other categories in 

24 those highest exposure that did bioassay, 

25 because that's not how the program was set up 
104

1 to monitor who for bioassay. Now Billy, maybe 

2 you want to speak to that, huh? 

3 (Unintelligible) saying this correctly here? 

4 MR. SMITH: Yes. 

5 MR. CHEW: Okay. And so -- 

6 DR. MAURO: But that would argue for your 

7 approach -- 

8 MR. CHEW: Right. 

9 DR. MAURO: -- you see -- you know, when we 

10 fini-- see, when we finish fleshing this table 

11 out and we -- and we may very well find that 

12 the num-- the laborers, the wiremen -- you look 

13 at the actual bioassay numbers for that, and we 

14 could look at the highest value 

15 (unintelligible) distribution -- 

16 MR. CHEW: And there'd be only a very few, 

17 that's what I'm saying -- 

18 DR. MAURO: Only a few -- 

19 MR. CHEW: -- exactly right. 

20 DR. MAURO: -- and the highest ones, if they 

21 continue to consistently come in lower than 

22 let's say your Table 7-1, I would say that -- 

23 that starts to give weight to your approach. 

24 MR. CHEW: Now for the people who were in the 

25 other categories who were bioassayed, they were 
105

1 probably due to or most likely is due to an 

2 episodic event. Okay? We know that they got -

3 - potentially was involved with some exposures, 

4 that's why they did that. Right? But in order 

5 to do what you (unintelligible) say to -- to 

6 represented as a coworker -- right? -- then the 

7 health physicists and the radiation people are 

8 probably truly representative 'cause they were 

9 the highest exposure and they were the ones who 

10 were monitored, and that's basically how the 

11 program was set up. I think we -- we need to 

12 go back to think about how and why the program 

13 was set up that way, because of the limited 

14 bioassay that was -- that was done. 

15 DR. MAURO: Well, would -- would this table 

16 show us that, demonstrate it? I mean in effect 

17 what I'm hearing is the premise that you're 

18 working on, which may be well-founded, should 

19 reveal itself in this table. In other words, 

20 we will find that the highest exposures, the 

21 most thoroughly monitored -- bioassay monitored 

22 -- would be the radiation safety people and 

23 they -- and the numbers we get for them would 

24 be comparable to the ones in Table 7-1 in terms 

25 of the bioassay, and we should also be able to 
106

1 use this very same information to draw 

2 correlations between external exposure and 

3 internal. And for example, I could see a plot 

4 of external exposure versus plutonium levels in 

5 bio-- in -- in urine. Other words, it -- so it 

6 -- what I'm getting at is ultimately -- lots of 

7 statements made, presumptions made, perhaps on 

8 very good grounds, that are in the evaluation 

9 report and site profile, this table will 

10 basically either tend to support those 

11 conclusions and say yes, it looks like all 

12 those generalizations or judgments that were 

13 made were well-founded, or there's going to be 

14 sufficient disparity revealed by tables like 

15 this that will say hmm, maybe some of those 

16 assumptions don't exactly ring true, and it 

17 should come out from here. 

18 Now if -- if you don't believe this database 

19 generation -- by the way, I'd like to point 

20 out, just so you know, 'cause there's a budget 

21 involved here. It takes about four hours per 

22 case. We're doing 120 cases, so what's that, 

23 480, so we're investing 480 work hours to do 

24 this. 

25 MR. CHEW: And we did the same thing, too, by 
107

1 picking the top 100 and not just -- 

2 DR. MAURO: And I was very favorably impressed. 

3 I was surprised that they were able to do that 

4 in four hours. So in my mind, for relatively 

5 modest cost, we're going to get to the bottom 

6 of this thing. And when we're done I think 

7 we're going to be able to say something very 

8 insightful about the power of the Table 7-1 or 

9 its limitations and be able to present it to 

10 the Board and the Board's going to make its own 

11 judgments. The table will speak for itself. 

12 DR. BRANCHE: To the Board or to the workgroup? 

13 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 

14 DR. BRANCHE: To the Board or to the workgroup? 

15 MR. PRESLEY: To the workgroup. 

16 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry, the workgroup. Of 

17 course I mean the workgr-- I -- the workgr-- 

18 other words, I'm trying to get to the place 

19 where the data speaks to the workgroup, and 

20 each member of the workgroup could look at it 

21 and we could all sit around and look at the 

22 data and discuss it and understand it, and you 

23 could lend your insight into why this number's 

24 here and this number's there, so -- so rather 

25 than us making judgments and speculating like 
108

1 we just did before -- one of the problems with 

2 the conversation we just had is a lot of 

3 speculation -- worried about this, worried 

4 about the suspension factor, all the -- but 

5 this is not that. This is (unintelligible) -- 

6 MR. PRESLEY: John -- 

7 DR. MAURO: -- data, this should answer 

8 questions for us. 

9 FUTURE ACTIONS

10 MR. PRESLEY: -- excuse me. It's 12:00 

11 o'clock. We have to break. It's obvious to 

12 the chair we are not -- I repeat, not -- going 

13 to be able to come up with any kind of a 

14 decision that I had hoped to do and give to the 

15 Board this time. What I would like to ask -- 

16 and Christine, correct me if I'm wrong -- I 

17 would like to ask SC&A and NIOSH to discuss 

18 their concerns and findings and make sure that 

19 everything is taken care of. At this time I am 

20 not going to ask for a scheduled meeting. I 

21 want to give both sides time to think about 

22 what they're going to do. Let's get -- let 

23 them get together, iron out the situations, 

24 problems, issues, whatever you want to call 

25 them. But the next time that we get back to 
109

1 work as a working group, I would more -- and I 

2 want to bring all the issues to the table and 

3 let's make a decision on this. We have people 

4 that are not being paid, they're not being 

5 compensated, they're dying. I want to get this 

6 issue taken care of so these people can get 

7 their due. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: Point of order, Bob. There was a 

9 discussion about a technical call. Who from 

10 your workgroup do you want to participate in 

11 that call -- 

12 MR. PRESLEY: I want -- 

13 DR. BRANCHE: -- as they schedule it? 

14 MR. PRESLEY: I want the whole workgroup 

15 notified about that -- 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Okay. 

17 MR. PRESLEY: -- so that the workgro-- anybody 

18 on the workgroup can be on that technical call 

19 if they want to be on it. And agr-- and again, 

20 I ask you to please not call at 9:00 o'clock in 

21 the morning and expect somebody to be on an 

22 11:00 o'clock technical call that day. We all 

23 have very, very busy schedules. So when you 

24 schedule these, give us two or three days to 

25 correct our schedules. 
110

1 DR. BRANCHE: Who from -- who from NIOSH and 

2 who from SC&A will essentially handle the 

3 scheduling of this technical call? Mark, I 

4 presume. 

5 MR. ROLFES: I -- I would be the NIOSH point of 

6 contact to coordinate with whoever from SC&A. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Looks like John. 

8 DR. MAURO: Just call me and I'll make sure our 

9 folks are available. 

10 MR. ROLFES: I would like S-- I think it would 

11 be appropriate for SC&A to do the scheduling. 

12 I think that that would be the easiest thing to 

13 do, so... 

14 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, this is a point of 

16 information. I think -- I think it might be 

17 useful -- we also have Joyce Lipsztein working 

18 on this because she is our -- 

19 DR. BRANCHE: You -- okay, you all can dis-- 

20 sounds like Mr. Presley -- giving you pres-- 

21 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, this is (unintelligible) -- 

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: (Off microphone) I 

23 (unintelligible) the -- I (unintelligible) the 

24 schedule so it might be a few weeks before we 

25 can actually get to the point of having a 
111

1 substantive (unintelligible) -- 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Well, I think Mr. Presley's 

3 simply asking that you give sufficient notice -

4 - 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: -- and ample dates. 

7 MR. PRESLEY: That's why I have not scheduled a 

8 meeting. I want everything to be completed. 

9 Now, does any Board member have a comment? 

10 Wanda? 

11 MS. MUNN: Just -- just a question, and I was 

12 going to bring up the issue of what time frame 

13 we're actually discussing here. You've just 

14 said a few weeks. A few weeks, to me, can mean 

15 anything from two to nine, and I'd like very 

16 much to be able to put a tighter frame on that. 

17 If we're talking about 480 hours of work, I 

18 assume it's distributed among a variety of 

19 people, so what are we thinking in terms of 

20 completion of this table? 

21 DR. MAURO: This table in particular, I would 

22 say we're a month away from completing the 

23 table. Okay? But, once the table is 

24 completed, it goes to Joyce 'cause Joyce is 

25 going to say well, what is -- what 
112

1 (unintelligible) -- we have this data here, 

2 what can we do with it? Can we reconstruct 

3 doses? So -- so -- I would -- we -- but that 

4 doesn't mean we can't -- once the table's 

5 completed doesn't mean we can't talk. So 

6 between now and a month from now I'd like to be 

7 able to engage Mark with our folks in -- in 

8 working the table, but actual -- 

9 DR. BRANCHE: Okay -- 

10 DR. MAURO: -- (unintelligible) table to 

11 database (unintelligible) -- 

12 DR. BRANCHE: Okay -- 

13 DR. MAURO: -- is going to take a month. We're 

14 not done yet. We just -- we're -- in effect, 

15 now we've got the dataset in front of us. Now 

16 we have to -- 

17 MR. PRESLEY: Hey, John -- 

18 DR. MAURO: -- interpret that data. 

19 MR. PRESLEY: -- the table and all that we're 

20 talking about is SEC stuff and not site -- 

21 DR. MAURO: Yes, we are. 

22 MR. PRESLEY: -- profile. Okay? 

23 DR. MAURO: Yes, we are. 

24 MR. PRESLEY: So let's don't get these two 

25 mixed up. We are trying to get the site 
113

1 profile completed and recommended to the Board. 

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mr. Presley, I'd like some 

3 clarity on -- on that because I -- I -- I must 

4 admit I'm a -- I'm a little confused, because 

5 in -- in the TBD there's a dose reconstruction 

6 method put forward, and if there's a finding 

7 that the dose reconstruction method put forward 

8 does-- doesn't have sufficient information to 

9 be able to do a good dose reconstruction, it's 

10 -- automatically overlaps with the SEC issue 

11 because it can't be resolved within the 

12 framework of the TBD and -- which is why we're 

13 actually proceeding with the two documents in -

14 - in parallel because -- or almost overlapping 

15 because that's the only way that we see these 

16 reviews can be efficiently done in terms of the 

17 claims that NIOSH has already put on the table 

18 about how internal dose calculations are to be 

19 pursued. So I'm quite confused about that. 

20 MR. ROLFES: What confused me, Arjun, was that 

21 I felt we were going to have a discussion to 

22 address the environmental exposures. I thought 

23 that was -- 

24 DR. MAURO: We did. 

25 MR. ROLFES: -- the whole purpose of our call, 
114

1 to address the site profile issue. This is a 

2 separate issue. This is now the SEC issue, so 

3 -- 

4 DR. MAURO: I think we need to talk about both. 

5 Other words -- 

6 MR. ROLFES: Okay. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: There are two -- there are two 

8 issues. 

9 MR. PRESLEY: Yes, there are two issues. 

10 DR. MAURO: I think we need to talk -- there's 

11 a third -- we didn't even talk about -- I hate 

12 to do this to you, but there's still the badges 

13 left behind. 

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that's an SE-- 

15 DR. MAURO: That's -- 

16 MR. ROLFES: Once again, that's -- 

17 DR. MAURO: -- purely an SEC issue. 

18 MR. ROLFES: -- an SEC issue. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: But it -- 

20 DR. MAURO: I understand you don't -- we don't 

21 engage that issue in the -- within this 

22 particular framework that we're talking about 

23 now, just the two issues, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 

24 -- basically, environmental dose and internal 

25 dose using -- basically using Table 7-1 -- even 
115

1 those 7-1 is in the ER, it is certainly an 

2 internal dose reconstruction issue. 

3 DR. BRANCHE: All right, gentlemen, we do have 

4 another point of business. We do need to -- 

5 MR. PRESLEY: Brad -- 

6 DR. MAURO: Mark, we'll talk. 

7 MR. PRESLEY: -- Brad, do you have anything? 

8 MR. CLAWSON: No, we -- 

9 MR. PRESLEY: Phil, do you agree with what 

10 we're doing? 

11 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah, let's get -- 

12 MR. PRESLEY: Gen? 

13 MR. SCHOFIELD: -- some discussion -- 

14 MR. PRESLEY: Do you have a problem? Is 

15 everything all right? 

16 DR. ROESSLER: I don't understand what we're 

17 doing, but I think we need to -- 

18 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 

19 DR. ROESSLER: -- pick a time where these 

20 people get together and -- and -- 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Is there someone who's going to 

22 outline what the technical call's going to be 

23 about and send it out to the workgroup? 

24 MR. CHEW: Yeah, I was going to say, what's the 

25 bottom line? 
116

1 DR. MAURO: I would be happy to put together a 

2 draft of my perspective on the path forward -- 

3 MR. PRESLEY: Do that. 

4 DR. MAURO: -- and I'll work with Mark on that, 

5 making sure we both agree on what the path 

6 forward is and get it off to the workgroup. 

7 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, that -- that sounds -- 

9 MR. PRESLEY: Let's call an end to this 

10 meeting. 

11 MR. CHEW: What are we trying to achieve? 

12 DR. MAURO: That's all (unintelligible) 

13 framework of what we're trying -- 

14 DR. BRANCHE: We're going to close this call. 

15 The meeting's adjourned. 

16 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 12:07 

17 p.m.) 

18 

19 
117

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of June 23, 

2008; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

10th day of Aug., 2008. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102