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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

KANSAS CITY PLANT WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

MONDAY

OCTOBER 26, 2015

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Josie 

Beach, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

JOSIE BEACH, Chair

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, Member

LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A

PETE DARNELL, DCAS

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

JOSH KINMAN, DCAS

WAYNE KNOX, Petitioner

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOYCE LIPSZTEIN, SC&A

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

PAT MCCLOSKEY, ORAU Team

JIM NETON, DCAS

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team

JOHN STIVER, SC&A
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

WELCOME AND ROLL CALL

TED KATZ ...................................... 4

NEW KCP PERSONNEL

(GREG WOLF AND KAREN NELAND)

- NIOSH ....................................... 7

UPDATED INFORMATION ON Mg-Th OPS - NIOSH ...... 9

NIOSH RESPONSE ON Mg-Th OPERATIONS

SUSPENSION ............................. 16

REVIEW NIOSH'S SAMPLE DRs (H3 and Mg-Th)-

NIOSH/SC&A ................................... 69

PRELIMINARY INFO ON ISSUES 1 AND 9 (DATABASE

VALIDATION - NIOSH ........................... 96

PETITIONER COMMENTS ......................... 116

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

2 (1:00 p.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: So good afternoon, 

4 everybody. This is the Advisory Board on 

5 Radiation and Worker Health, the Kansas City Plant 

6 Work Group.

7 Let's get rolling with the roll call, 

8 not to pun. Since we're speaking about a sight for 

9 Board Members and agency-related staff, please 

10 speak to conflict of interest. And let's get going 

11 with Board Members first, beginning with the Chair.

12 (Roll call.)

13 Okay. Just to note, there is a comment 

14 period for Petitioners, and I have statements from 

15 the two Petitioners to read into the record when 

16 we get to that point.

17 Okay, materials. Now last I looked, 

18 there were no materials posted other than the 

19 agenda. Though, I'm not sure --

20 CHAIR BEACH: That's correct.

21 MR. KATZ: -- if that's still the case, 

22 but I looked this morning and that was the case. 
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1 But if somebody wants to see the agenda, they can 

2 see it there. It's pretty simple.

3 And otherwise, just let me ask everyone 

4 to mute their phones except when you're addressing 

5 the group. Press *6 if you don't have a mute button 

6 and then *6 again to take your phone off of mute.

7 And please, nobody put the phone call 

8 on hold at any point. But hang up and dial back 

9 in if you need to leave for a period. And, Josie, 

10 it's your meeting.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you. We do 

12 have an agenda posted. We'll just systematically 

13 go through it. There are some documents that I 

14 might mention once we get to those topics. The 

15 first couple are some informational pieces with no 

16 memos or White Papers associated with it.

17 And it looks like NIOSH is going to talk 

18 to us about some new personnel at Kansas City Plant 

19 and then some updated information on mag-thorium 

20 ops. So we'll go ahead and let you do that. Pete, 

21 if you're going to do that.

22 MR. DARNELL: Actually, Josie, I've 
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1 asked Pat to do that since, he was responsible.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, Pat. Okay.

3 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Okay, hi. This is Pat 

4 McCloskey.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Good morning, Pat.

6 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Good morning. Really 

7 afternoon for me.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay.

9 MR. MCCLOSKEY: So prior, we did some 

10 interviews two weeks ago on the phone with a few 

11 people we missed when we were doing a site visit 

12 there. And prior to setting that up, I spoke with 

13 Lynn Ayers about, you know, finding out how to get 

14 that set up. And there was some back and forth.

15 And in the end, she said, you know, the 

16 whole key to this was figuring out who the players 

17 were, knowing who to talk to. And so, with that 

18 in mind, I thought, well, maybe we should share with 

19 everyone what we know.

20 So Brent Nasca has been a health 

21 physicist there since '89. Well, actually, no. 

22 He was there in '90. He got there after the 
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1 promethium incident.

2 But he's moved on to sunnier pastures 

3 in Florida. Still with Honeywell. It's not clear 

4 whether or not we'll having remaining access to him 

5 for questions, but he provided us with a lot of 

6 information.

7 His new replacement as a health 

8 physicist there is a guy by the name of Greg Wolf. 

9 We've talked to him on the phone a couple times. 

10 He comes from their IH group. Has been there at 

11 the site for a while. A couple years now. That's 

12 health physics.

13 Some of you might remember their legal 

14 department. They had Alice Lund for a while, and 

15 then it became Stacy Eide. And she's moved on and 

16 now it's Karen Neland is the legal representative 

17 at the site now.

18 And so they're the people that you talk 

19 to to set up a visit. And Karen's been there for 

20 a while and knows the ropes pretty well. She's who 

21 coordinated our last interview two weeks ago.

22 Other than that, Nelson's already hired 
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1 his replacement, Nelson Beard. He's the data 

2 classifier there. Gets us information pretty 

3 quick, but he's hired his replacement and it's not 

4 sure how much longer he'll be around.

5 So that's all I really wanted to share 

6 with you guys about new personnel at the site.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you.

8 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Sure.

9 CHAIR BEACH: And then if you want to 

10 move on to the second item. Unless there's any 

11 questions or comments, of course, on that first? 

12 Hearing none, so do you have some updated 

13 information for us on the mag-thorium ops?

14 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes. Since our July 

15 meeting, we got a memo from SC&A and the Work Group, 

16 questioning the suspension of magnesium thorium 

17 operations at the site.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

19 MR. MCCLOSKEY: And so --

20 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, go ahead.

21 MR. MCCLOSKEY: And so, Pete and Mutty 

22 and I had a phone call. We're trying to do some 
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1 brainstorming to see if there's, you know, what 

2 else we could try to try to pin this down a little 

3 bit better.

4 And so what we thought of, instead of 

5 continuing to ask them for all their magnesium 

6 thorium information, we thought, well, in our 

7 records we have part numbers, descriptions of parts 

8 and materials that are made out of magnesium 

9 thorium, such as coupling rings, spring forgings.

10 And so I wanted to have a classified 

11 call so that I could identify maybe weapons systems 

12 or any special projects that these parts belong to. 

13 And then ask for records on those particular parts 

14 or weapons systems, and start to understand when 

15 magnesium thorium, the material, is moving through 

16 the plant that way.

17 And so it turns out none of the 

18 information was classified. We didn't get into 

19 any classified discussions as part of that, so.

20 But we had some drawings from Sandia. 

21 We give them the exact drawing number, Sandia order 

22 numbers. So from their procurement records, we 
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1 wanted to see if, you know, you could show when part 

2 number 46137, for example, came to the site and was 

3 worked at the site.

4 Then we had some vendor names. 

5 Continental Metals, Ladish, Pacific Division of 

6 Ladish Company. And we even had some purchase 

7 order numbers.

8 And so, at the end of that conversation 

9 which occurred September 16, September 17, sent the 

10 email to Tara. Now that I know none of it was 

11 classified. Tara Burgess, there at the Kansas 

12 City Plant is the Reference Manager. And she did 

13 a key word search for all those items and did not 

14 come back with any information.

15 So what we were hoping to do is make a 

16 site visit before today's meeting and retrieve 

17 whatever additional data we could find and speak 

18 to some of these new people and meet the new health 

19 physicist, but that didn't come to fruition.

20 So I just wanted to share with the Board 

21 our most recent attempt to, I mean with the worker 

22 group there, our most recent attempt to pin down 
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1 these dates for magnesium thorium machine ops.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Did you guys take 

3 any notes from that meeting, by any chance?

4 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes, I have some notes.

5 CHAIR BEACH: That's shareable or I 

6 don't if SC&A would be interested in that or not, 

7 just --

8 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes, I can send them 

9 your way.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anybody have any 

11 questions on that for Pat? Okay. Anybody on mute?

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I was just going 

13 to ask Pat -- this is Joe. Is it still planned to 

14 perhaps follow up on this or is it kind of put aside?

15 MR. MCCLOSKEY: We're going to 

16 continue brainstorming on what we can do to 

17 continue to better understand these limited 

18 operations of magnesium thorium.

19 That list, this list, of key word search 

20 items that we presented to the site in September, 

21 there's no plan that I know of to reformat these 

22 words some other way and resubmit them.
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1 I mean, we have, we're going to talk 

2 about this with the validation of the database and 

3 some of the records. You know, we see some need 

4 to ask for some dosimetry records that are 

5 questionable legibility and so, you know, if we go 

6 back there for that reason, maybe we could poke 

7 around at this some. But, no simple answer, Joe, 

8 nothing in the works at the moment.

9 DR. NETON: You guys put together this 

10 memo, right, in September that was sent out to the 

11 Working Group which pretty much outlined our 

12 current position on this period. Did the Working 

13 Group actually get this and --

14 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. It came out on the 

16 18th, correct?

17 DR. NETON: That's correct.

18 MR. MCCLOSKEY: That's correct.

19 DR. NETON: I think that summarizes 

20 where we currently are, I think, on this issue.

21 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Sure.

22 DR. NETON: I mean, the other avenue 
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1 that they were pursuing was just, as we said sort 

2 of in the memo, that what we would continue to, you 

3 know, research this. If anything changes, we'd be 

4 happy to modify it.

5 But at this point, I think we believe 

6 we're pretty much of the opinion that, you know, 

7 we're going to move forward with this as it is.

8 MR. DARNELL: Right. I don't believe 

9 there's anything else we can think of right now to 

10 search for, the search terms. Especially since 

11 the last set that we had came up empty for results.

12 We've asked Mark Rolfes, who's looked 

13 into different programs and part numbers for all 

14 the different programs that could have had 

15 magnesium thorium in them. He used those as search 

16 terms and nothing came up at Kansas City.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And I'm going to 

18 break in just for a minute. This is Josie. This 

19 is part of our fourth line item discussion and I'm 

20 wondering if it makes more sense to go ahead and 

21 have this discussion now instead of after the 

22 sample dose reconstructions. What do you all 
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1 think about that?

2 MR. DARNELL: Well, it works for me. 

3 It's Pete Darnell.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'd like to kind of 

5 review it right now, Josie, if we could.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So what I had kind 

7 of outlined was there was three or, yes, three 

8 different memos that went out. The earliest one 

9 came from NIOSH, I believe, on July 7th. We got 

10 that just a week before our July 16th, 17th meeting. 

11 So SC&A gave us a real quick shot of what they 

12 thought of that paper.

13 And then, of course, we got the August 

14 14th paper from SC&A. So you guys should all have 

15 that and then the memo came out on the 18th. And 

16 I believe the only item up for discussion is those 

17 years. Let's see, 1963 to 1969 where they -- we 

18 haven't proved there wasn't any mag-thorium 

19 operations going and we haven't proven there was. 

20 So it's a -- everything else I believe was agreed 

21 upon on mag-thorium. Is that correct, Joe? 

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think I think 
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1 that's a pretty good characterization.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So I don't -- I 

3 think we have NIOSH's stance and we have SC&A's 

4 stance. Unless either one of you want to expound 

5 on anything, it's really a Work Group decision and 

6 discussion on what you think about those years that 

7 aren't covered. So, Joe or --

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. Can 

9 you refresh my memory on the years that we're 

10 looking at? It was just a few years, wasn't it?

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. It's lacking 

12 mag-thorium operation data for 1963 to 1969. And 

13 it's not for lack of looking. I know NIOSH has 

14 looked and SC&A has looked.

15 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Josie?

16 CHAIR BEACH: Yes?

17 MR. MCCLOSKEY: The suspension goes

18 through August --

19 CHAIR BEACH: This is Pat? Okay.

20 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes, this is Pat. I'm 

21 sorry.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.
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1 MR. MCCLOSKEY: The suspension goes 

2 through August 27th of 1970. So the suspended 

3 period, we're saying, is from April 1, 1963,

4 through August 27, 1970.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Yes. I took it 

6 to the end of '69, so.

7 MR. MCCLOSKEY: It goes into '70, 

8 though.

9 CHAIR BEACH: And then what was the 

10 date in '70? I'm sorry.

11 MR. MCCLOSKEY: August 27, 1970.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. All right. 

13 Thanks for clearing that up, Pat. So those are the 

14 years we are talking about. I don't know. Joe, 

15 do you have anything, or Pete, to --

16 MR. DARNELL: Right. This is Pete. 

17 As far as I'm concerned, I mean, that's pretty much 

18 where we are with mag-thorium operations. Again, 

19 you've been through the searches that we've 

20 discussed already. With the extra searches that 

21 Pat did for the last classified phone call and --

22 CHAIR BEACH: That's right.
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1 MR. DARNELL: -- we're just not finding 

2 anything further to put the date in there. I would 

3 like to put more dates of work in there. And I 

4 would like to point out, and I know this is a 

5 separate line item in the agenda, but the example 

6 DR also included the suspension of operations from 

7 --

8 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

9 MR. DARNELL: -- the period through 

10 August 27th, '70. And we basically had no comments 

11 from the Work Group on the example DRs. So I think 

12 we should --

13 CHAIR BEACH: So I think everybody was 

14 waiting for this call.

15 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Potentially.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Let me just add 

18 that that's true on the examples, but, you know, 

19 we understand that the Evaluation Report did 

20 conclude that there wasn't any clear evidence of 

21 mag-thorium operations in that period, '63 to 

22 August of '70.
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1 And there were not really evidence, but 

2 there was some indications that perhaps there might 

3 have been some operations and that was the basis 

4 for our wanting to see if there was any evidence 

5 that could be had from the records that we were 

6 looking at on site at Kansas City.

7 And we went through quite a bit of 

8 searching, as you pointed out, Josie. And after 

9 several attempts, we could not find any positive 

10 evidence of mag-thorium operations for those 

11 years.

12 And, you know, there might be some 

13 inferences. There might be some operational 

14 suggestions. But there's those that go the other 

15 way, as well. So, you know, I would say it's just 

16 inconclusive.

17 And since we did not establish any, you 

18 know, any evidence, you know, I think the ER stands 

19 as it is. I mean, we haven't been able to find 

20 anything otherwise. So that's kind of where we 

21 are. I mean, certainly a lot of effort went into 

22 it.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right. And I know Joyce 

2 is on the line. Joyce, do you have anything to add 

3 or?

4 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No. I just, I think 

5 the discussion now is which is what is claimant 

6 favorable. There is no indication that 

7 mag-thorium machining was suspended in the period 

8 of time '63 to 1970.

9 Is this claimant favorable to apply the 

10 limits during this period of time or just say there 

11 was no machining during this period of time? So 

12 is a question.

13 I personally think it's claimant 

14 favorable to apply for the whole period, as we don't 

15 have any document indicating that the mag-thorium 

16 machining was suspended during this period of time. 

17 But I think it's a decision of the Work Group.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

19 MR. DARNELL: I think it's -- this is 

20 Pete. And it's interesting that you're, the way 

21 you're characterizing that there's no evidence 

22 that it was suspended. There's no evidence that 
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1 it was operating either. And --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

3 MR. DARNELL: -- claimant favorability 

4 doesn't necessarily mean you add a dose where there 

5 would be no dose. And since we can't claim that 

6 there was operations there, we can't claim that 

7 operations were started, we can't claim that 

8 they're stopped. We just can't claim there was 

9 operations.

10 It's not a claimant favorability-type 

11 decision to add a dose during this period. It's 

12 whether -- what we have to decide is whether it 

13 occurred or whether it didn't. If it occurred, 

14 then we already the bounding dose estimates to do 

15 and we would put that dose on there. If it didn't 

16 occur, it's not claimant favorable just to add 

17 dose.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, we could have 

19 real good discussion about that then. We could go 

20 on for years. This is Brad. We could go on, 

21 because there's, you're right, Pete, there's 

22 nothing to say that it happened and it didn't 
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1 happen. So I guess it comes back to kind of a 

2 stalemate.

3 But also, too, we've done this in many 

4 other cases. But where we're not completely sure, 

5 we always go favorability. What are we looking at 

6 as a dose-wise for a person for this mag-thorium? 

7 It's quite relatively low, isn't it?

8 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No, it's very high.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Is it? What is it?

10 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, it's high. It's 

11 high. I, well, NIOSH has calculated the DR example 

12 and I did it a little bit for SC&A. I did it for 

13 SC&A in a little bit different way of using the 

14 ratio of thorium-232 to U-238.

15 But we are looking at very high doses. 

16 On my way of calculation, which is one, we are 

17 looking at very high doses. For each year of work, 

18 for example, for 20 years committed equivalent dose 

19 to bone surface is about 136 rem per year. Per year 

20 of work. So it's very high doses.

21 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim. I think 

22 there's more evidence supporting that it didn't 
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1 happen than we're acknowledging here.

2 I mean, there is, I think they went 

3 through and did careful evaluation and inventory 

4 of thorium. It wasn't there. There are no 

5 procedures or monitoring data during this period.

6 When thorium was, we know when it was 

7 handled there were pretty good records of that. It 

8 just doesn't seem consistent for me that they would 

9 just all of sudden drop the monitoring program 

10 completely and have no records available for it. 

11 And especially in light of the fact that there was 

12 no thorium inventory.

13 I just think that the weight of the 

14 evidence here more strongly supports the fact that 

15 this didn't occur. It's not a claimant favorable 

16 thing where we just don't know. I think there's 

17 more evidence than not indicating that it didn't 

18 occur. You've really got to look at the whole 

19 picture.

20 DR. MAURO: Jim, this John Mauro. In 

21 your record review, starting August, 1970, do you 

22 see an abrupt change in the records indicating a 
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1 start up again of thorium work?

2 DR. NETON: I have to rely on Pat for 

3 that.

4 DR. MAURO: Because that would be 

5 interesting to see, you know, if all of a sudden 

6 that shows up. If that's when thorium work starts 

7 again. I presume that's what you're saying.

8 MEMBER LOCKEY: Right.

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: But there was no 

10 monitoring for thorium during all this period. I 

11 think we are basing on the inventory for the years. 

12 I think that's how it was based. It appears that's 

13 work off of mag-thorium machining. So --

14 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Joyce --

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: -- it's not like --

16 yes?

17 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Oh, I'm sorry. You 

18 can finish. This is Pat.

19 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No, no. It's okay. 

20 I'm finished.

21 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Oh. I was just going 

22 to say, as far as no records for magnesium thorium 
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1 or -- all of a sudden, I'm hearing a lot of static.

2 CHAIR BEACH: It's your phone.

3 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Okay. I'll see what I 

4 can do to fix that. We did retrieve those medical 

5 records recently, showing at what time someone was 

6 entered into the magnesium thorium program. They 

7 had to have an exam. A physical. And so, we do 

8 have that. But we don't have urinalysis 

9 indicating, like -- those sort of records.

10 As far as the question about did you see 

11 a large numbers of records indicating a 1970 start 

12 up again, we don't see a lot of magnesium thorium 

13 records, period. It's just such a small scale 

14 operation. So we just rely on the ones we've cited 

15 and referenced, suggesting that that's where we see 

16 ops starting again. I hope that answers the 

17 question.

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. I 

19 was going to --

20 DR. NETON: Well, Pat, it start up 

21 again after '70, is that correct?

22 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes, sir.
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1 DR. NETON: Yes. So that's my point 

2 is, you know, prior to 1960 monitoring and after 

3 1970, but nothing in the interim, which kind of 

4 would be suspect. I mean, how would you, with no 

5 inventory, you know, why would you be monitoring 

6 people. It just seems to fit properly.

7 MR. DARNELL: Somebody's breathing 

8 into the phone really heavily. If you could stop 

9 that.

10 MR. KATZ: Well, don't stop breathing. 

11 Just mute your phone.

12 MEMBER LOCKEY: This is Jim Lockey. 

13 Do you know what does the personnel level go to 

14 after August of 1970? It was reduced to two 

15 part-time personnel during the '64 to '70 frame and 

16 then when they restarted, do you know what the 

17 personnel went up to? Does anybody know?

18 MR. MCCLOSKEY: This is Pat. We 

19 recently retrieved those medical records that have 

20 who had, the number of people that had physicals 

21 and were allowed to work in the program. So I don't 

22 have that exact number in front of me, Jim, but I 
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1 think we could pull that together.

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: I mean, was it five, 

3 was it - I'm just trying to get a handle on -- any 

4 idea at all? A number?

5 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Oh, I would guess near 

6 20.

7 ` MEMBER LOCKEY: 20. So --

8 MR. DARNELL: It was enough to be 

9 significant for us to see that the operation had 

10 to have restarted.

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: Had to restart it? 

12 So, okay. So I guess I was trying to follow up on, 

13 if they went down to two part-time people, it 

14 doesn't necessarily mean it was discontinued 

15 completely. But there's certainly a major change 

16 during that time frame. And then when they 

17 restarted it, there was a marked influx of new 

18 personnel into that area.

19 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Correct.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, that's a -- Loretta, 

22 do you have any questions or comments?
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1 MEMBER VALERIO: Can you hear me now?

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, yes.

3 MEMBER VALERIO: Okay. Well, I was 

4 just trying to clarify. The retrieval of these 

5 medical records that Pat's talking about, these are 

6 records that they retrieved recently regarding 

7 people who worked with this operation after 1970, 

8 is that correct?

9 MR. DARNELL: Well, this is Pete. 

10 Actually, no. We collected medical records on 

11 everybody that we could find that could have been 

12 a radiological worker.

13 MEMBER VALERIO: Okay.

14 MR. DARNELL: It included the thorium 

15 workers, but it included people that worked uranium 

16 in Department 20, the old DU operation -- everybody 

17 that we could collect.

18 MEMBER VALERIO: So all labor 

19 categories were included in those records? 

20 Laborers, custodians, all of them?

21 MR. DARNELL: You know, that I can't --

22 I don't have that off the top of my head. Pat, do 
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1 you know?

2 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro again. 

3 You know, I've been reading, you know, the 

4 transcripts and the reports, and I understand 

5 there's a lot of language which are what I would 

6 call weight of evidence. A language regarding the 

7 time period where it would appear that there was 

8 certainly a drop or a stoppage of mag-thorium 

9 operations.

10 What it is, though, was, I was actually 

11 for a step function change, the kind of question 

12 I asked this before. That is, you know, we see 

13 this, this, this and this up to 1963. Then all of 

14 a sudden we don't see that anymore. And then we 

15 can start to see this, this and this starting in 

16 August, 1970.

17 And I didn't, I have to admit, that in 

18 reading the material, that didn't jump out at me. 

19 But certainly I understand the arguments you are 

20 making, the, what you say, the metrics that you 

21 looked at for that window of '63 to '70, and your 

22 arguments.
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1 But it was not within the context of the 

2 other information you had, that sort of bookend, 

3 that time period that shows that, yes, there really 

4 seems to be some type of change here that was 

5 substantive.

6 And therefore, the weight of evidence 

7 is strong, that if the argument that you're making. 

8 I didn't get that takeaway. Not that I, you know, 

9 read it that carefully, but it didn't jump out at 

10 me.

11 MR. DARNELL: John, this is Pete 

12 Darnell again. I think you're correct in stating 

13 it that way. The problem lies not in our doing 

14 searches or the due diligence, it lies in the record 

15 keeping that Kansas City has.

16 In reality, we've given more data on their 

17 records so that they can make their records 

18 retrievable than they had when we went there. We 

19 certainly did not hit every single box of records 

20 that they have on site. But I would not say what 

21 we collected everything that we probably, that you 

22 expect to be available, say, if you were looking 
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1 at any records within the system that Idaho versus 

2 Kansas City.

3 You just can't find all of the type of 

4 information that you're looking for, which is why 

5 we have to rely more so on what did you see, what 

6 don't you see in the dosimetry files that were kept, 

7 because those, the training and dosimetry that were 

8 required for radioactive work was very good at this 

9 site. The remainder of it, it was difficult to 

10 wade through.

11 MR. MCCLOSKEY: And some of the 

12 interviews from former workers corroborate a 

13 suspension, I would say.

14 MR. DARNELL: And that's true, too.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So any other 

16 comments on this or questions for NIOSH or SC&A? 

17 I have to say that for, this is Issue 13, the 

18 mag-thorium issue, we do have agreement on all 

19 areas except for these dates.

20 And I guess I'm -- I was coming, I came 

21 into this meeting thinking we needed we needed 

22 claimant favorability, not realizing that that 
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1 dose would be as high as Joyce had pointed out.

2 I'm uncomfortable with saying there was 

3 nothing going on, but I know we've done due 

4 diligence in looking for evidence and continue to 

5 do that. So I guess I'm asking the Work Group, how 

6 do we move forward with this? Do we close it?

7 DR. NETON: Josie, this is Jim. I 

8 wonder if I might ask a question? So it seems to 

9 me there is agreement that if this were to be added 

10 for dose reconstruction, that we have a method of 

11 bounding this period. Is that correct?

12 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I believe it's in 

13 our next topic.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: I think that's 

15 correct.

16 DR. NETON: That's what I'm saying is, 

17 so if that's true, then is really an SEC issue at 

18 this point? It's a matter of deciding whether the 

19 dose is added, not whether we can reconstruct it 

20 or not. So does that need to be decided before 

21 recommendation and the SEC can move forward?

22 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I guess for me --
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1 DR. NETON: Or has to be decided?

2 CHAIR BEACH: -- if you can't decide on 

3 those years, then that is still an SEC issue. Isn't 

4 that correct?

5 DR. NETON: Well, I mean, we've agreed 

6 that could bound it if were to be added. And so 

7 I guess first question that I asked was could we 

8 bound it and the answer I heard was yes.

9 That being said, essentially it's a 

10 decision of whether the profile would reconstruct 

11 those doses or not. And that doesn't need to be 

12 decided necessarily, at least in my opinion, to 

13 make a recommendation one way or the other on adding 

14 Kansas City as an active part -- to the SEC. I mean 

15 --

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

17 DR. NETON: Am I wrong, or? I don't 

18 know. It seems clear to me.

19 MR. FITZGERALD: I would tend to agree 

20 with that. And actually, I think the notion here 

21 is research, to date, has not uncovered any 

22 positive evidence, but I would say that the notion,
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1 and this is what was in NIOSH's memo, that that 

2 research would continue as possible. And if 

3 anything does, you know, any new information does 

4 come to the fore, that would be reflected, which 

5 I think is reasonable at this point.

6 It is difficult to actually identify 

7 specific information like this at Kansas City and 

8 it's been tried several different ways. But it's 

9 not to say that we might not be able to identify 

10 some information in the future.

11 MR. DARNELL: One other thing that we 

12 need to remember with -- the Kansas City record 

13 keeping department's very good is the training and 

14 dosimetry requirements to get out a radiological 

15 project for almost every worker that we found to 

16 look to see and verify that had either specific 

17 training, medical monitoring, or dosimetry 

18 requirements to be on that project.

19 And even during this period that we're 

20 discussing of whether or not there were operations, 

21 it would be reflected in those medical records that 

22 we collect on the workers. And then, to that 
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1 point, the dose would be calculated regardless of 

2 whether we make the decision or not during the 

3 operation suspension period.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you, Pete. 

5 Anything else on this?

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. It's not exactly 

7 on the spirit of time, but also on the example of 

8 the DR calculation. Is this the time to speak 

9 about it? Or am I --

10 CHAIR BEACH: We're going to get to 

11 that. I guess we can get to that discussion and 

12 then come back to closing this item or leaving it 

13 open. Does that seem reasonable?

14 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Well, why don't finish 

15 talking about the dose reconstructions and we'll 

16 close both issues at the end of that, since they're 

17 both --

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

19 MR. MCCLOSKEY: -- so closely related.

20 CHAIR BEACH: That's kind of what I was 

21 thinking, too. So yes, Joyce, if you want to go 

22 ahead and start on that. Has everybody seen the 
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1 examples? Have a copy of it? It was sent out on 

2 September 16th and that was from NIOSH and then Ken, 

3 or SC&A sent out a memo on October, in October. So 

4 if you have those two items or two documents. And, 

5 Joyce, go ahead, if you'd like.

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, I have some things 

7 that, to talk about the dose reconstruction, the 

8 way it was done or from which I understood it was 

9 done. It was calculated a dose for someone that 

10 used to work in the period of '61 to '63 and then 

11 '70 to '76, using the limits.

12 And the way it's, well, it is a summary 

13 the way the dose was calculated. So we had to get 

14 how it was calculated. But anyway, it was pointed 

15 out in the documents before from NIOSH that for Type 

16 M thorium then you would use the ratio of .19, 

17 thorium-228 to thorium-232. And it was used 

18 equilibrium. And if you used .19, you get a higher 

19 dose to the bone surface, to all the organs inside 

20 the body.

21 And then if you want to calculate the 

22 longer dose it's better to calculate this Type S 
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1 and then equilibrium. So this was not used in the 

2 DR examples, so I think the way the dose should be 

3 calculated should be the reviewed according to 

4 previous documents, which was agreed in previous 

5 documents. Did you understand me now?

6 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I think 

7 everybody's just digesting.

8 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. So it's just 

9 the way the dose is calculated using Type M or Type 

10 S and the equilibrium ratio of thorium-232 to 

11 thorium-228 and radium-224. And it was agreed 

12 before that if for organs like bone source-based, 

13 it should be used a ratio of .19 and it can even, 

14 just for lung one Type S thorium is used. And this 

15 is not the way the example was done.

16 DR. MAURO: Joyce, this is John Mauro 

17 and I apologize. The magic number, the .19, I have 

18 to admit, I don't recall why we zeroed in on that 

19 as being the appropriate ratio. Could you just 

20 give us a 30-second sound bite on that?

21 DR. LIPSZTEIN: It was agreed because 

22 this was a triple separation thorium. And we both 
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1 agreed, NIOSH and SC&A.

2 DR. MAURO: Okay, thank you.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I guess we're 

4 going to look to NIOSH to respond to Joyce.

5 DR. NETON: Oh, well, this is Jim.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Or Jim.

7 DR. NETON: I've lost my thread on how 

8 we came to that agreement, but I do understand where 

9 the .9 comes from. What you're saying though, what 

10 I hear, is that the intakes themselves are correct. 

11 It's just how we processed it after we assigned an 

12 intake.

13 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

14 DR. NETON: And we, unless Mutty or 

15 someone on the phone can, you know, provide a reason 

16 why we didn't do that, I think we just have to go 

17 back and look at it. I think it's a matter of just 

18 --

19 MR. SHARFI: I think the concept, the 

20 triple separate, was an association with whole body 

21 counts because of the lead and when you are starting 

22 to look at the other peaks in a whole body count 
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1 or a test count. The triple separate became the 

2 more claimant favorable assumption based on when 

3 you're drawing the thorium intake from the later 

4 peaks. I'm not sure if that is true that there was 

5 an agreement for all thorium intakes that are based 

6 on, say, air sampling.

7 DR. NETON: This came up at another 

8 site just recently. All I can say is, Joyce, we 

9 would have to look at that and verify, you know --

10 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Jim?

11 DR. NETON: Yes.

12 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. Look at your 

13 previous documents. We all agreed on that. There 

14 was a lot of those --

15 DR. NETON: You mean separated for this 

16 site?

17 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, yes. It was 

18 NIOSH proposal and we agreed on it.

19 DR. NETON: Okay. Well, we'll look at 

20 it and get through it, but I guess I would say that 

21 this is the mechanics of it, not necessarily 

22 invalid. The numbers may change but the 
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1 methodology would remain the same.

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, I'll say.

3 DR. NETON: At least as far as an intake 

4 assessment goes. And --

5 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

6 DR. NETON: -- we'll take a look at it, 

7 because I'm pretty sure we can't address this on 

8 the fly.

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay, okay. Just look 

10 at the previous documents and you will see that it 

11 was NIOSH proposal.

12 DR. NETON: We provided this in one of 

13 our White Papers, is that what you're --

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, exactly. And we 

15 agreed it was correct.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Joyce, do you have the 

17 date of that document, by any chance? Open or 

18 handy?

19 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Now, no. But I can 

20 understand you.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So --

22 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I have to look.
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1 DR. NETON: Yes.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, that's fine. Yes, 

3 if you can tell us later on in the call, that would 

4 be helpful. And so that one is just for the 

5 mag-thorium dose reconstruction, correct? Okay.

6 So let's back up and NIOSH, this is your 

7 paper. If you want to go ahead and talk to it. And 

8 then, of course, we'll have SC&A talk about their 

9 memo. Does that work for everyone?

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes, that's fine.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

12 MR. DARNELL: All right, Pat -- 

13 Mutty, would you mind going over the paper, please?

14 MR. SHARFI: Sure. Well, in the 

15 example, they are -- do you want me to just focus 

16 on the mag-thorium or the entire example DR?

17 CHAIR BEACH: Well, let's --

18 MR. SHARFI: Because there's the 

19 tritium and the nickel.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Maybe we should just hit 

21 them one at a time. Let's do the mag-thorium and 

22 then decide where we are with that, and then move 
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1 on to the others. If that seems reasonable.

2 MR. SHARFI: Sure. Whatever works for 

3 you. All right, because the mag-thorium that we 

4 discussed before was based on an exposure between 

5 August of '61 to March of '63, and then there was 

6 stop in operations assumed. And the operations 

7 was continued back up in August of 1970 and 

8 continued through the end of '77. That's how the 

9 example DR was done.

10 There was an assumption that, based on 

11 the site, limit engineering controls at Kansas City 

12 Plant of 3E to minus eleven microcuries per 

13 milliliter. That that air sample control at the 

14 site was constantly contained at that level for 

15 2,000 hours a year. And that was assumed for the 

16 operators' exposure.

17 And then the Battelle 6000 kind of 

18 trickled down. The laborers were given half that, 

19 supervisors half the general laborers. And the 

20 administrators were given a tenth of the 

21 supervisors. That's the standard ratio out of 

22 Battelle 6000 for other job categories.
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1 The example DR was really more focused 

2 on the operator. So the intakes were -- both for 

3 inhalation and ingestion were based off that Kansas 

4 City Plant engineering control limit. So an 

5 inhalation intake of 438 dpm per calendar day and 

6 an ingestion rate of 9.1 dpm per calendar day was 

7 assigned for every day during the assumed 

8 operational period, as I mentioned before.

9 As an example, I give the annual intake 

10 rate based off of various years. And the 

11 calculated doses associated with thorium, the lung 

12 doses, almost 300 rem. The liver dose at 26 rem. 

13 Bone surface was dose 1200 rems. Kidney dose about 

14 22 rem. Prostate about three and a half, and the 

15 skin was about three and a half rem associated with 

16 those.

17 And that's, I mean, it's a pretty 

18 straightforward dose assessment. And then we 

19 assumed natural thorium. And this is assumed a 

20 gross alpha intake rate, so that we used natural 

21 thorium as Joyce has pointed about whether or you 

22 should use natural or triple separated. I guess 
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1 that's an issue to discuss later. But this 

2 assessment was done based off natural.

3 And I don't know if there's much more. 

4 And it's a pretty straightforward dose assessment. 

5 Questions? Comments?

6 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks.

7 DR. MAURO: This is John again. I'm 

8 sure you've rehashed this. This has been gone over 

9 before that 3 times ten minus eleven, I believe it 

10 was, microcuries per cc.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

12 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry, say again?

13 CHAIR BEACH: That's correct.

14 MR. SHARFI: Yes, that's correct.

15 DR. MAURO: Now, and again, this goes 

16 back a ways, and in reading over the history of that 

17 number, and there was some discussion regarding, 

18 as you pointed, whether that is the gross alpha, 

19 which includes all of the alpha emitters associated 

20 with thorium and its progeny. Joyce had mentioned 

21 this ratio of .19 for the Thorium-228. And of 

22 course there are these other alpha emitters in the 
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1 decay chain. Just to refresh my memory, when you 

2 say 3 times ten to the minus eleven, are you talking 

3 about gross alpha or is that thorium-232 all by 

4 itself and you're assuming all the progeny are 

5 present at the same level?

6 MR. SHARFI: The gross alpha sample, 

7 and then it's split into the various alpha 

8 emitters.

9 DR. MAURO: And all the alpha emitters 

10 are in equilibrium, so the amount of thorium is much 

11 less, thorium-232? In other words, the amount of 

12 thorium-232 is not 3 times ten to the minus eleven?

13 MR. SHARFI: Correct.

14 DR. MAURO: Okay. I just wanted to make 

15 sure I understood that.

16 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay, one second. I 

17 just found -- there was a response paper called 

18 Internal Exposure to Thorium --

19 MR. SHARFI: Can't hear you.

20 DR. LIPSZTEIN: There was a response 

21 paper from NIOSH from January 9, 2015, that talks 

22 about, on Page 14, it talks about the activity ratio 
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1 of .19. It's saying the three separated thorium 

2 to target subjects chosen intervals between 

3 chemicals and results thorium-228 to thorium-232, 

4 activity ratio of .19.

5 And it explains why this ratio should 

6 be used. Thorium coming from Canada, something 

7 like that. But it's from this paper from NIOSH on 

8 Page 14 from January 9th, 2015.

9 MR. MCCLOSKEY: What's the title of 

10 that?

11 DR. LIPSZTEIN: The Response Paper 

12 Internal Exposures to Thorium and Progeny at KCP 

13 During Mag-thorium Machining, January 9, 2015, 

14 Page 14.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I was just digging 

16 mine out. I have a copy of that here, too. Bear 

17 with us. So, Pete and Jim, are you guys looking 

18 at that, and do you want to comment --

19 MR. DARNELL: I haven't found it, 

20 actually.

21 DR. NETON: Okay, I found it. It does 

22 say in our response that we would use triple 
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1 thorium, triple testing.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, yes. Thanks, 

3 Joyce. Good catch there. So any other comments 

4 on this or Work Group Members, questions, comments? 

5 So pass forward on this would be what, Pete?

6 MR. DARNELL: I guess we need to redo 

7 the example DR using the triple separated.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And that's 

9 something you can do and just send out to the Work 

10 Group?

11 MR. DARNELL: Yes. That won't be sent 

12 until June from the methodology used. I guess what 

13 we need --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

15 MR. DARNELL: Before we go ahead and do 

16 that, I mean, is the Work Group in agreement that 

17 for mag-thorium, the methodology used is okay or 

18 that specific number needs to change?

19 MR. FITZGERALD: Josie, I think Ron 

20 Buchanan's on the phone and he went through, step 

21 by step the DR process itself, which is what Pete's 

22 talking about. Maybe he can --
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: -- say a few words.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I think, yes, we 

4 should definitely hear from Ron.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. This is Ron 

6 Buchanan, SC&A. I did not go back through all the 

7 previous discussion on this White Paper. What I 

8 did is I went through and looked at the methodology 

9 that NIOSH used and how they applied it to the DR. 

10 That was my point of interest when I evaluated this. 

11 But I went through, number one, to see if it was 

12 done correctly. And, number two, if there was any 

13 red flags.

14 And so I looked at their example and 

15 they did include five different organs and the full 

16 time span that we had previously discussed on the 

17 exposure to mag-thorium. And I did not see any 

18 major areas that there was a problem in, any red 

19 flags, or misapplication of the method to the DR, 

20 per se. You know, the mechanics of it.

21 And the doses did come out fairly high. 

22 I think probably a little higher than what most 
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1 people expected. They came out about three rem to 

2 the skin and about 1200 rem to the bone surface. 

3 It's something that does need to be seriously 

4 considered.

5 In my evaluation in the report I sent 

6 out recently, I did not see any real problems with 

7 the method that they used to reconstruct the dose 

8 in these examples. Now I took it that they were 

9 using the right thorium, as Joyce pointed out.

10 They had previously agreed in their 

11 White Papers to a different ratio, which would 

12 simply change that number but the rest of the 

13 mechanics would remain. So I see no problems with 

14 the mechanics of applying their dose 

15 reconstruction method to mag-thorium doses for 

16 Kansas City workers.

17 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And also, Ron, should 

18 be a difference when you calculated dose for 

19 internal organs like bone surface or liver. And 

20 then should the Type M should be used and Type S 

21 should be used for lung.

22 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. In the dose 
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1 reconstruction, you use the type that would produce 

2 the largest dose to the organ of interest.

3 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

4 CHAIR BEACH: And was that done?

5 DR. BUCHANAN: I would have to back and 

6 look at that and see which type of solubility. I 

7 can't answer that question right off, but I can --

8 CHAIR BEACH: Mutty, can you answer 

9 that?

10 MR. SHARFI: Yes. I mean, that is our 

11 standard protocol is to get the solubility type 

12 that would give the largest exposure.

13 CHAIR BEACH: And so that was done in 

14 this case then?

15 MR. SHARFI: Yes. If I didn't note 

16 that, then it should have been noted. I might have 

17 --

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

19 MR. SHARFI: -- in the CAD files, but, 

20 I mean, I believe I ran all solubilities for all 

21 cancers. And then I used the one that resulted in 

22 the largest dose.
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1 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro again. 

2 It sounds, what I'm listening to is that there are 

3 two ways of thinking about this. One is that your 

4 3 times ten to the minus eleven is your gross alpha 

5 representing all the progeny present in 

6 equilibrium and in the air.

7 And the other scenario would be -- no, 

8 it's going to be primarily thorium-232 with 

9 thorium-228 at a concentration that's .19 in the 

10 air. And then that gives you your 3 times ten to 

11 the minus eleven. And then, of course, there are 

12 the other alpha emitters.

13 It seems to me that, now I did do the 

14 calculations, that changing that mix of what 

15 constitutes 3 times ten to the minus eleven should 

16 have substantial effect on the doses, not a minor 

17 effect. Or am I incorrect about that?

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, it can have an 

19 effect on the doses. It just wouldn't have an 

20 effect on the methodology.

21 DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. I just wanted to 

22 make sure, because it sounded like that different 
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1 didn't make that much difference and I agree that 

2 it's the mechanics. But I think that the outcome, 

3 in terms of what the dose to lung, the bone and soft 

4 tissue would be, would be substantially different 

5 depending on how you treated the mix.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, that's correct.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

8 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And also the amount of 

9 thorium was two percent. After '70, was three 

10 percent, and --

11 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes.

12 DR. LIPSZTEIN: -- '61, I think.

13 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, Josie, I did go 

14 back and look at the CAD worksheets and the 

15 solubility they used. The assigned dose was the 

16 largest dose organ of the solubility, so I know I 

17 verified that but couldn't put my finger on it.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you. 

19 Good. Okay. So any other questions or comments 

20 for the mag-thorium dose reconstruction?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. I kind 

22 of got a little bit lost there. But bottom line 
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1 is the way NIOSH did it, the way I'm taking it, is 

2 they performed this correctly and that they used 

3 the right organs of interest. Is this correct?

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. That's my

5 understand as well.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

7 CHAIR BEACH: That they, yes. John or 

8 Loretta or Jim, anything on this?

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: No. Brad, you helped 

10 me. You clarified it for me, Brad. That was my 

11 opinion, too.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So what can we 

13 expect or when, Pete, on the -- or maybe I should 

14 just ask maybe on the recalculation of this one?

15 MR. DARNELL: Can we get back to you on 

16 that? This is Pete. We'll get back to you on 

17 that.

18 CHAIR BEACH: But we do know it needs 

19 to be proven, correct?

20 MR. DARNELL: Yes. From what I'm 

21 understanding, the Work Group agrees that the 

22 methodology for the mag-thorium was appropriate. 
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1 The number used was off and needs to be 

2 recalculated.

3 CHAIR BEACH: That's my understanding, 

4 too, unless I hear from --

5 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

6 CHAIR BEACH: -- somebody else on the 

7 Work Group. We heard from Jim and Brad. Loretta?

8 MEMBER VALERIO: I agree. I agree.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And John, are you 

10 still with us?

11 MEMBER POSTON: I am, and I'm fine.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Perfect. So, 

13 yes, I think that would be correct.

14 MR. DARNELL: All right. I'll get 

15 back with you later today or at the latest tomorrow

16 on when the Work Group will receive the 

17 recalculated numbers.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And I'll have 

19 some questions on who this is going to apply to, 

20 but because it's going to, questions on this one 

21 and tritium, I'm going to hold that off until we 

22 get through the tritium discussion.
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1 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Unless you want to take 

3 those individually? Or I guess we should take them 

4 individually, because they are individual. So 

5 refresh us on who these will apply to, because I 

6 know that question is going to come up at the Board 

7 level too.

8 MR. DARNELL: Okay. As far as I 

9 understand it, each one of the workers' categories 

10 from that have either the training, exposure 

11 monitoring, or medical qualifications for doing 

12 the work will have the dose reconstructions applied 

13 to them.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So people that 

15 you can identify who were actually doing the 

16 machining. How about people in the adjoining 

17 areas and workers that worked around this?

18 MR. SHARFI: Are we still talking about 

19 just thorium?

20 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

21 MR. SHARFI: All right. Okay, here 

22 are intake rates for supervisors and admin that 
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1 would get applied.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I did catch that. 

3 Those would be different than the janitors and the 

4 --

5 MR. SHARFI: Right.

6 CHAIR BEACH: -- people that were 

7 working right in the same room --

8 MR. SHARFI: Correct.

9 CHAIR BEACH: -- which was not 

10 supervisors and admin.

11 MR. SHARFI: So the operators and the 

12 laborers directly involved with the operations 

13 would be based on identification associated with 

14 that work. And everybody else would fall into the 

15 supervisor/admin. If you want to call it like an 

16 environmental exposure.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Well --

18 DR. NETON: This is Jim. It's a pretty 

19 broad application. I think, like Mike's saying, 

20 anybody who had a chance to be working in the area 

21 would be provided that dose, other than --

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.
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1 DR. NETON: -- a supervisor or 

2 administrative staff.

3 CHAIR BEACH: And laborers and --

4 DR. NETON: That would be everybody --

5 CHAIR BEACH: -- janitors.

6 DR. NETON: -- that was in those areas.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

8 MR. DARNELL: It's -- it uses the 

9 TBD-6000 model, isn't that right? Correct?

10 DR. NETON: Yes, yes.

11 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Okay.

12 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro again. 

13 Real quick, we've run across this TBD-6000 split 

14 and we're fine with the concept and when we review 

15 TBD-6000. 

16 Where we sometimes, and only rarely, do 

17 we run into a situation on the actual application 

18 to a real case. When they decide that, well, we're 

19 going to make this person a laborer or a supervisor 

20 or an operator, and there's certainly some judgment 

21 involved there.

22 But my experience has been that, and at 
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1 least the DRs that I reviewed, that NIOSH is usually 

2 given the benefit of the doubt and given the high 

3 end fraction to the person. Assuming that he's the 

4 operator, unless there's overwhelming, you know, 

5 information that really the person was not an 

6 operator, so.

7 But I think that you can't really deal 

8 with this as a SEC or as Site Profile type issues. 

9 It's almost on a case by case basis. And the 

10 fundamental concept, as laid out in TBD-6000, has 

11 been found acceptable. It's its actually 

12 implementation during the DR that becomes the 

13 issue.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Right. I agree with 

15 that. I guess my biggest concern on this is the 

16 laborers and the janitors were working on the 

17 machines, cleaning the machines, getting rid of the 

18 waste. And so there's some -- they don't fit in 

19 the supervisor category and I guess that's my 

20 concern.

21 DR. MAURO: That's a great question, 

22 because that sounds like a special circumstance.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Oh --

2 DR. MAURO: Yes.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Well, we had some 

4 interviews that identified that.

5 DR. MAURO: Yes.

6 MR. SHARFI: I think the intent was 

7 they would be assigned a dose of 3 to the minus ten.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I just wanted to 

9 make sure I'm hearing that.

10 MR. SHARFI: Well, the laborers, so 

11 this support personnel, the laborers, the 

12 janitors, whatever, that are rad worker generated, 

13 you know, laborers --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

15 MR. SHARFI: They would get the general 

16 laborer exposure.

17 CHAIR BEACH: So is what again?

18 MR. SHARFI: So this is going to be the 

19 hands-on. So that would be half the operator's 

20 exposure, so.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Joe, do you have any 

22 comments on that for total, really?
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: This was one of the 

2 other issues. If you remember, there was one issue 

3 was the waste handlers. The other issue was D&D. 

4 And this was the very -- this was, in fact, the 

5 question.

6 Because these individuals apparently, 

7 by interviews we found, handled materials. 

8 Directly handled the materials routinely. And I 

9 thought the resolution, correct if I'm wrong, Pete, 

10 was that we would include them if we, you know, as 

11 identified, we would include them and assign the 

12 thorium value as if they were operators. And I 

13 thought that's the way it was left to those --

14 MR. SHARFI: I believe we wrote it up 

15 as we would be giving them the air sample at 1.5 

16 instead of 3.0, which is, in the general laborer 

17 category, of half the operators.

18 MR. DARNELL: Right, right. 

19 Important general -- I remember that conversation. 

20 Actually, I'm sorry, I don't remember that 

21 conversation per se, but I do know that we agreed 

22 on using the TBD-6000 approach. And that's all 
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1 that we're trying to say is that these workers are 

2 assigned per the categories listed out in TBD-6000. 

3 I don't know why we would want to change that 

4 approach for this particular site.

5 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Hey, Pete, can I chime 

6 in here? It's Pat.

7 MR. DARNELL: Sure.

8 MR. MCCLOSKEY: So we documented that 

9 -- SC&A brought that question to us for the D&D. 

10 The lower case D&D workers and for the waste 

11 handlers. And where there was that group that was

12 --

13 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

14 MR. MCCLOSKEY: -- identified as being 

15 illiterate or something like that. And so in our 

16 memo to you guys dated June eleven, 2015, our memo 

17 to the Work Group, we go in and we address, we looked 

18 at the waste handlers and the lower case D&D workers 

19 that took apart machinery.

20 And we had a long discussion there. I 

21 have it in front of me now, if you want to hear parts 

22 of it, about, you know, what interviewee said and 
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1 what the records indicate. And like Mutty just 

2 said a minute ago, we determined they fit into the 

3 laborer Class, which is half of the 3 minus eleven 

4 or 1.5. E minus eleven.

5 And we talk about, you know, we're 

6 giving this to them for a 2000-hour time-weighted 

7 average. And this is that paper where we also go 

8 into the discussion about work that occurred, 

9 surrogate data from Dow Madison where they had some 

10 really aggressive machining and they didn't air 

11 approach air samples near 1.5 minus eleven, so 

12 that's where we landed on this.

13 MR. FITZGERALD: Now, the issue matrix 

14 for both D&D and waste handlers, that both issues, 

15 this indicates that the agreement by the Work Group 

16 was that the coworker model, for example, for D&D 

17 workers. I'm trying to find the one for waste 

18 handlers. But NIOSH will apply the DU coworker 

19 model to all unmonitored rad waste and D&D workers. 

20 I thought that was similar to what was done with 

21 the thorium. I'm looking for that.

22 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Yes. For their 
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1 uranium or DU component of their dose, we were going 

2 to give them the coworker --

3 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

4 MR. MCCLOSKEY: -- for the thorium 

5 component of their dose. It was going to be --

6 CHAIR BEACH: And just to be clear on 

7 that, we haven't seen the coworker models for those 

8 yet. Is that correct? That's coming later?

9 MR. FITZGERALD: That's correct.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

11 MR. MCCLOSKEY: The coworker models 

12 exist in the TBD. What we're doing now is 

13 evaluating the database that the coworker models 

14 were built from. And you're right, we're going to 

15 talk about that soon.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: So just to not leave 

17 this open, the agreement by the Work Group in July 

18 was to apply the uranium coworker model to extend 

19 that to unmonitored waste handlers, as well as D&D 

20 workers. That's the way it was resolved and we 

21 agreed with that.

22 CHAIR BEACH: And that was at the half 
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1 dose or full dose?

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Just applying the 

3 uranium coworker model. There wasn't any 

4 fractional dose assignment.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: And that's right from 

7 Pete. That's right from your issues matrix that 

8 we distributed on July 30th.

9 MR. DARNELL: Yes.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Now that's the Site 

11 Profile one, is that correct?

12 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no. This is the 

13 SEC matrix --

14 (Simultaneous speaking.)

15 CHAIR BEACH: Oh, okay. Got you. 

16 Okay, so are we okay with that then? Anybody out 

17 there?

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. Why 

19 are we handling this one different than we are the 

20 uranium? Why are we handling -- I know that we're 

21 doing it for TBD-6000, but why is the thorium 

22 different?
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1 DR. NETON: Brad, this is Jim. The 

2 thorium was actually an upper bound value based on 

3 the maximum permissible concentration in air. 

4 There is no coworker model per se. It's just a 

5 bounding upper limit. For the operators.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

7 MR. FITZGERALD: And I think just to go 

8 back to the original discussion, when you have 

9 these laborers who were, and custodians that were, 

10 cleaning the machines and hauling away the chips. 

11 They were also supporting the uranium operations 

12 and it was difficult to distinguish. They weren't 

13 supporting the thorium. You know, there's only a 

14 couple machines that are so devoted to thorium. So 

15 they were doing all the machines.

16 So the conclusion, I think, of that 

17 discussion back in the summer was it would make more 

18 sense to assign them the uranium coworker dose and 

19 leave it at that. And I thought, I think the Work 

20 Group was comfortable with his, you know, go ahead 

21 and having the laborers, anyone that could be 

22 identified as doing that kind of work, handled that 
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1 way.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: All right.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Any other 

4 discussion on that? Hearing none, shall we move 

5 on to the tritium?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: You know what? I do 

7 have one more thing to say. I'm kind of with John 

8 on this. The thing that does bother me about this 

9 how we're going to implement the TBD-6000. I have 

10 no problems with TBD-6000, but it's going to be done 

11 on a case by case scenario.

12 The one part that worries me is when 

13 somebody's been like a laborer or an operator or 

14 something like that, and then go into management 

15 and become a supervisor. Sometimes we don't get 

16 -- there's a crossover that -- it's the 

17 implementation of TBD-6000 that's got me nervous.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. And I believe 

19 we've agreed to using TBD-6000, so it becomes this 

20 Site Profile issue that will be up for discussion 

21 when we close out all the SEC issues. Is that 

22 correct?
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Well ---

3 MR. DARNELL: Brad, to answer some of 

4 your concern, generally, when we do a dose 

5 reconstruction, if the worker was categorized, 

6 say, as a laborer and then went to QA, you know, 

7 then went into management, then went back to 

8 something else, if he falls into different dose 

9 worker categories, he gets dosed assigned for those 

10 periods he was that worker category.

11 So, if for ten years he was a laborer 

12 and ten years he was a manager, ten years he gets 

13 laborer dose, ten years he gets manager dose.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I realize that, 

15 Pete. But you know what? I've looked at the 

16 records, same as you have. And it's really hard 

17 to follow that. And you know, if you don't have 

18 a CATI report where exactly he was at, you're kind 

19 of guessing a little bit. And that's my only 

20 thing.

21 And so, you're right, Josie. We'll 

22 take care of this on the Site Profile issue and look 
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1 into it and make sure. And I'll see it on the dose 

2 reconstruction side.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Brad. Anything 

4 else on that thorium before we go on to the tritium 

5 does reconstruction sample?

6 All right, hearing none, Mutty are you 

7 going to go ahead and do this one also?

8 MR SHARFI: I can.

9 CHAIR BEACH: I mean, I'm not saying 

10 you have to. I'm just assumed you were.

11 MR. SHARFI: No, I'm all right. Don't 

12 worry about it.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

14 MR. SHARFI: I will add that on the 

15 medical records that we did get from them. Those 

16 medical cards do have a detailed history of their 

17 work history as they've changed over time.

18 So those are actually a very good thing 

19 that the site did keep on their medical history 

20 cards about department, when they started and 

21 stopped, and what their title was throughout their 

22 history of the work at the site.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you for 

2 that.

3 MR. SHARFI: So, the tritium is broken 

4 up into two parts. There is the high-low switch 

5 plates they did and the manufacturing of the 

6 tritium monitors.

7 I'll start with the high-low switch 

8 plates. These, this occurred between 1963 and 

9 1968. The site was using a tritiated phosphor to 

10 create the production of these luminous dials.

11 The form of the tritium that they were 

12 using was an organic compound called tung oil, also 

13 known as China Wood oil. It's an organic that 

14 they've used to incorporate this phosphorus, 

15 tritide to, attached to these switch plates.

16 Basically, we did a analysis assuming 

17 that the switch plates had a, based on some, I 

18 believe, some swipes that they did over these 

19 surveys, about the leaching of the tritium off 

20 these plates.

21 As I said, the contamination on the 

22 surface of the entire plate would have been 
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1 absorbed through the skin and taken in as intake. 

2 Based on the procurement records, we assumed 

3 there's at least 500 of these plates were ordered 

4 by KCP.

5 So, we calculate basically a total 

6 intake of organically bound tritium absorbed 

7 through the skin based on a surface contamination 

8 and a production rate. And, so this gave us an 

9 exposure of about 1.8 millirem per year throughout 

10 the entire period, just the assigned all workers.

11 I don't know if you need more detail 

12 into the derivation of the intake, of the --

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thanks, Mutty. 

14 And, Ron, did you want to go ahead and talk about 

15 new, you looked at the way this was done also.

16 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. This is Ron 

17 Buchanan, SC&A. I looked at this and considered 

18 did they use the method they said they was going 

19 to. And, did the method make sense.

20 And, this is again, you know, 

21 subjective, what, how many plates came to, how many 

22 they could do in a day and such. I feel that 
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1 overall it was claimant favorable. They used the 

2 95th, they did actually have some slight 

3 measurements, so did have that to base it on.

4 And, they used the 95th percentile, 

5 considered both sides contaminated. And, 

6 arrived at a dose of about one or two rem a year, 

7 and from tritium.

8 And so, I did not find any red flags or 

9 problems with this issue. It's a small dose, but 

10 it's probably claimant favorable. And, I didn't 

11 have any issues with it.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you, Ron. 

13 Any Work Group comments or questions for either Ron 

14 or at NIOSH?

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. I don't 

16 have any questions.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Jim.

18 MEMBER POSTON: None for me.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thanks John.

20 MEMBER VALERIO: This is Loretta. 

21 None for me. Not on the tritium.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you. 
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1 Brad, anything?

2 Okay. Brad will be back. So, I do 

3 have one question.

4 MALE: Sure.

5 CHAIR BEACH: I know in your paper, 

6 Mutty, it says chemistry technicians. And, I 

7 guess my question is, who were the chemistry 

8 technicians? Are you going to be able to identify 

9 them?

10 MR. SHARFI: This is thinking 

11 everybody. It's such a small dose.

12 CHAIR BEACH: It's going to everybody. 

13 Okay. Well, there, that clears that up.

14 MR. SHARFI: Yes. But, in both these 

15 tritium cases, there's such a small dose, it's 

16 easier just to roll it in as an environmental 

17 exposure and give it to everybody, than it is to 

18 first off, trying to figure out who --

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Good. That's 

20 satisfies my questions then. Anybody else?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Hey, Josie. This is 

22 Brad. I'm back. I just had to step out and take 
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1 care of something real quick.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Yes. Well, 

3 someone told us, your assistant. So, these, this 

4 tritium doses will go to everybody. Any questions 

5 on it?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: No.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, Mutty, if you 

8 want to take the second part of this?

9 MR. SHARFI: Sure. The manufacturing 

10 of tritium monitors. I can't think, primarily 

11 used to manufacture these instruments back in, 

12 starting in '59 and, ran, the campaign ran through 

13 about the mid-1970s. So, we said 1975.

14 Basically, the main exposure would have 

15 been from, they were creating these small bottles 

16 of standardized solutions in order to basically 

17 test these kits. So, you got a 400 ml solution that 

18 was 250 microcuries per liter that came with each 

19 one of these instruments.

20 So, basically we looked at a volume 

21 scenario assuming that the 400 bottle was spilled 

22 over the course -- The total volume of 400 ml was 
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1 spilled over a course of a year and was absorbed 

2 in by a worker.

3 This is, we assumed would be claimant 

4 favorable because obviously, this material from, 

5 was under procurement they, you know, they're 

6 literally treating, or this was a production 

7 material. So, it's not like you would attempt to 

8 lose an entire source term while working.

9 This was also a, also done in a hood. 

10 So, there was a ventilation system. There's a 

11 likelihood that the entire spill would have been 

12 absorbed through the skin is unlikely, all 400 mls.

13 So, if you assume all 400 mls based on 

14 a concentrations of the tritium in the solutions, 

15 you get an intake rate of about 2 E to the 8th dpm 

16 of treated water.

17 Assumed on an annual basis, they were 

18 actually, each worker was getting 400 mls of 

19 exposure every year from 1959 to 1975. Results in 

20 a dose of about six millirem per year. And, 

21 obviously, if they spilt that much, they would have 

22 had no inventory.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

2 MR. SHARFI: So, this was a bounding 

3 scenario for any worker, like I said, we'd give this 

4 to any, given so small, it's just, it's easier just 

5 to apply to every single worker on the workforce 

6 through that time.

7 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you. Ron, 

8 anything on this for you?

9 DR. BUCHANAN: No. I went over the 

10 scenario and the assumptions, and if you worked 

11 with tritium, you know you wouldn't lose 400 mls 

12 a year and absorb it all.

13 So, this here, this is a binding 

14 situation that assigned a dose. It's a small dose 

15 and it's probably over a factor of a hundred or so. 

16 So, I don't see any issues with it.

17 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you Ron. 

18 Any Work Group discussion or questions? Comments? 

19 Okay. Hearing none, shall we go ahead and move on 

20 to the nickel-63?

21 MR. SHARFI: Sure. Nickel-63 was used 

22 at a time for manufacturing tritium in air and urine 
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1 monitoring. Instrumentation designed by Sandia, 

2 used a plated, they did a plating of nickel-63 on 

3 the small aluminum metal coupon for the calibration 

4 standard.

5 So, an analysis was done involving the 

6 micro-error falling of the nickel that could have 

7 occurred. That the amount of material was 

8 uniformly distributed into a five by five meter 

9 room with a, you know, a three meter ceiling.

10 We assumed a volume, a 75 cubic meter 

11 volume of area that could have been exposed, and 

12 assumed in that a standard breathing rate, you get 

13 a, an air concentration of about 8 E to the minus 

14 eleven microcuries per ml airborne, while they 

15 would have been doing this activity.

16 And so, if you assume that during a 

17 60-minute plating operation, a worker would have 

18 inhaled about .1 nanocuries or about four 

19 becquerels of exposure. And, given the assumption 

20 of this may have occurred maybe 100 times a year, 

21 you get a, an exposure that's much less than one 

22 millirem.
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1 So, for the nickel we've determined 

2 that really no, no the dose was considered 

3 negligible and no dose would be assigned.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Yes. And I 

5 believe we agreed to that in our Work Group, one 

6 of our Work Group meetings. Is that correct?

7 MR. SHARFI: Yes. I think we've 

8 presented this before.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. You sure have. 

10 Any other questions or comments on this?

11 DR. BUCHANAN: I just had one. This is 

12 Ron Buchanan. Do you know what years this took 

13 place? I couldn't find any reference to years. 

14 Not that it really matters, but not -- it wasn't 

15 any reference to years this was done. Do you know 

16 when that was done?

17 MR. SHARFI: I do not off the top of my 

18 head.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Was this a long 

20 thing? Or, do you know if it was just a once, you 

21 know, a short campaign or have any idea on that?

22 MR. SHARFI: Pat, do you remember, I 
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1 mean we --

2 MR. MCCLOSKEY: I think we're saying it 

3 mirrors the manufacturing of the tritium monitors 

4 --

5 MR. SHARFI: I believe, yes.

6 MR. MCCLOSKEY: -- from 59 to 75, Ron.

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Well, I, kind 

8 of, thought that, but I didn't see it down and 

9 printed.

10 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Part of that 

11 operation.

12 DR. BUCHANAN: I reviewed this and 

13 again, it's pretty subjective, but I don't find 

14 that it amounts to hardly any dose.

15 So, you know, however, you set up this 

16 scenario, I don't think you'd come out with 

17 anything that would be significant regards to how 

18 you set up the boiling off of the fumes and all that. 

19 So, I didn't have any issue with it.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you Ron. 

21 Work Group Members, any comments or questions?

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Brad. No comments.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thanks. Okay. 

2 So, where that leaves us is with one action item 

3 for the dose reconstruction for mag-thorium. The 

4 method is good. We all agreed to that.

5 But, we need to -- NIOSH needs to redo

6 the numbers, that's a 0.19 activity ratio. And, 

7 you'll get back to us on that. Is that correct?

8 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Correct.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And then we need 

10 to go back --

11 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And also the 

12 percentage of thorium from '61 to '63.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Say that again, 

14 Joyce, please.

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: The percentage of 

16 thorium in the mag-thorium was three percent from 

17 '61 to '63, and then two percent from '70 on.

18 CHAIR BEACH: All right.

19 DR. LIPSZTEIN: So, it has to be 

20 different.

21 MR. SHARFI: Well, that would be a mass 

22 based given the results are in gross alpha. The 
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1 percent mass is irrelevant to the exposure.

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Oh, okay. Yes. It's 

3 right.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I thought that was 

5 covered.

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. Yes. Yes. 

7 That's right. That's right.

8 DR. MAURO: This is --

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: That's right.

10 DR. MAURO: I have a question, I don't 

11 think we discussed. Again, it is probably is this 

12 Site Profile type issue is, for the time period from 

13 1963 to 1970, where our course is on discussion on 

14 to, you know, the weight of the evidence, that there 

15 really was nothing going on at that time by way of 

16 thorium.

17 I'm assuming, then, that if you go that 

18 route, the exposures to thorium would be like 

19 residual exposures, as opposed to operational 

20 exposures.

21 And, have we discussed that at all, the 

22 approach that -- give that the thorium doses for 
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1 operations are so high, I presume even the thorium 

2 exposures for the residual period are not going to 

3 be insignificant. They're not going to be one 

4 millirem per year. And, I did not look at your 

5 example calculation.

6 I assume that in your example 

7 calculation, you included exposures to thorium 

8 during the residual period. Or, was the thorium 

9 operations not weapons related. I guess, I need 

10 just to understand the big picture during the 

11 residual period '63 to '70 if that's the route you 

12 go. But there was no --

13 CHAIR BEACH: That's a good question. 

14 I'm not sure we discussed it.

15 MR. SHARFI: There was no residual. I 

16 mean, the assumption was that because of the 

17 cleaning operations after each operation that 

18 there was no residual thorium after the operations.

19 DR. MAURO: Okay. Though, that's 

20 important, because I didn't hear that. So, in 

21 April of 1963, when according to your scenario, 

22 when thorium operations, mag-thorium operations 
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1 ceased, there was a cleanup that took place such 

2 that there was not very much residual.

3 The only thing I would say to that is, 

4 in the past when we encountered, I'll call it a 

5 residual period, whether it's the true residual 

6 period at the end of operations, or window, kind 

7 of, period where there was no operations.

8 You would go to the approach where you'd 

9 make some estimate of what might have been on 

10 surfaces. And, then you use the ten to the -6 

11 resuspension factor and a rate of decline of .00067 

12 per day. And, not just shut it down completely.

13 Other words, you would assign some, 

14 what I would call cleaned up area residual scenario 

15 as opposed to assigning nothing. And, I don't know 

16 whether that's been discussed by the Work Group 

17 yet.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. That's 

19 a very good point, because there we get back to the 

20 situation that we have no clear-cut date that shows 

21 when we stopped, when we didn't. So, when, if 

22 there wasn't any operations going on, there's got 
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1 to be a residual.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Correct me if I'm 

3 wrong, I think we covered that in our D&D 

4 discussion. 

5 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, we also 

6 interviewed at least one, if not two workers who 

7 were involved in the D&D that took place in D20 in 

8 the mid 60s. If you remember the one guy we talked 

9 to, I think it was he worked there until barely '65, 

10 and he was cleaning up those operations, so there 

11 was a cleanup.

12 And, also a continual cleanup with 

13 equipment being taken apart.

14 MR. SHARFI: Every time, yes. To make 

15 sure the equipment was perfectly between runs.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: So, you had, you know, 

17 you had interim cleanup and you had some periodic 

18 room cleanups. So, I guess that would have to be 

19 considered if you're talking about residual. I 

20 don't think there was a traditional residual period 

21 after the early 60s.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. That's a good 
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1 point.

2 MR. DARNELL: One other thing that we 

3 need to remember, this site is a little different 

4 with their shutdown that's occurred and the survey 

5 that's currently ongoing at the old Bendix 

6 facility.

7 If thorium or uranium were spread 

8 around a lot and would have been in areas to cause 

9 this residual contamination, it would be detected 

10 now also. Just ---

11 CHAIR BEACH: Well.

12 MR. DARNELL: Part of the half-life of 

13 the material and we're seeing one or two spots where 

14 the acceptable contamination to be based on the 

15 operations, but no indication that there was a 

16 general spread.

17 So, we would get this resuspension of 

18 radioactive materials from the workers working in 

19 their general work area. It just didn't spread 

20 around to do that.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I think --

22 MR. DARNELL: That's precludes the 
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1 cleanup being effective in preventing a suspension 

2 period.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Pete, I think this goes 

4 more into the actual cleaning of the machines. I 

5 know that during our interviews, they talked about 

6 it taking days to clean those machines out so that 

7 they could break them down. So, and if that 

8 occurred during that time period that they're not 

9 covered, how would you cover them if it comes up 

10 that they were part of that work?

11 MR. SHARFI: The days, just the days 

12 after they stopped the work, or are you talking 

13 about like the seven years in between?

14 CHAIR BEACH: Well, I, Joe just said we 

15 had interviews that, in '65 they were talking about 

16 cleaning up the machines. And we did talk to a few 

17 people that took --

18 MR. SHARFI: I believe that the 

19 individuals Joe was referring to, they worked 

20 through '65, not that they were doing --

21 MR. FITZGERALD: No. They were, they 

22 were actually the individual, we have to pull his 
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1 interview, but he was doing room cleanups. He 

2 actually cleaned a crane that was used in that D20 

3 operation. Now, he didn't do equipment cleanup. 

4 That was done by the laborers.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Laborers.

6 MR. FITZGERALD: I think we certainly 

7 found that out.

8 MR. SHARFI: Correct.

9 DR. MAURO: This is John again. The 

10 only reason I bring this up is that the standard 

11 procedure that has been applied across the board 

12 for the shutdown time periods, whether it's in 

13 between operations or at the end of operations, is 

14 to go at OTIB-70.

15 And, when there was cleanup, you still 

16 go at OTIB-70, but you use lower resuspension 

17 factors, that sort of thing. It sounds like that, 

18 in this particular instance, there's good reason 

19 and sounds like you're giving your reasons, why 

20 OTIB-70 does not apply.

21 That is, as opposed to many other sites 

22 that we work where it did apply. So, if that's the 
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1 case, in other words, if we, the outcome of these 

2 deliberations are, yes, we are going to treat'63 

3 to '70 as a non-operational activity and assign 

4 zero to mag-thorium resuspension dose or residual 

5 dose, I think a case has to be made why that's the 

6 case since you're procedures do require, as a 

7 matter of standard operating procedure, to use 

8 OTIB-70.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And, I guess for 

10 me, this is Josie again, this is part, this will 

11 be part of a Site Profile discussion. Is that 

12 correct?

13 It's a good point, John, I'm not saying 

14 it's not, but for what we're doing today, I think 

15 that's something we need to keep in mind when we 

16 start discussing Site Profile issues. Is that, am 

17 I missing something or is that correct?

18 DR. NETON: This is Jim. Josie, I 

19 think you got it right. As John has pointed out, 

20 that there are methods to do residual contamination 

21 modeling for -- to '70.

22 It could be done, but I think the first 
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1 issue to decide whether or not this period belongs 

2 as a residual or does it belong a regular exposure 

3 period.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. That just brings 

5 up more food for thought there.

6 DR. MAURO: I hate to bring this up, but 

7 is I have not heard an SEC issue arise during this 

8 conversation.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Then, no, this, the Board 

10 asked us to do sample dose reconstruction. So, 

11 this is why we're focusing on sample dose 

12 reconstruction. They're not SEC issues at this 

13 point other than we haven't closed out 13 yet --

14 DR. MAURO: Okay.

15 CHAIR BEACH: -- which was, is an SEC 

16 item.

17 DR. MAURO: Okay.

18 CHAIR BEACH: So, this would go back 

19 into Issue 13. If we haven't covered it, then we 

20 may want to let that linger open until we, we're 

21 assured that, that is covered. Is that correct?

22 DR. NETON: Which one is Issue 13, 
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1 Josie?

2 CHAIR BEACH: Thirteen is the 

3 mag-thorium, and it is the one that has the dates 

4 that aren't covered, the '63 to '70.

5 DR. NETON: See, I don't know that, 

6 that's an SEC issue as far as I'm concerned. I 

7 mean, it's either --

8 CHAIR BEACH: Well --

9 DR. NETON: --we either include it or 

10 we don't include it. I think either way. Well, 

11 if we include it, the method is there for bounding 

12 the dosage. It's just a decision needs to be made 

13 one way or the other.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Right. Yes. So, this 

15 was just something new that I don't know if we've 

16 addressed or thought about it if there was any 

17 cleanup being done during that time period. So --

18 DR. NETON: Well, again, if we decide 

19 that operations didn't continue in that period, 

20 and, you know, it could be discussed as a Site 

21 Profile issue as to how much dose if any were added 

22 --
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

2 DR. NETON: -- during the residual 

3 period.

4 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

5 DR. NETON: The worst case scenario 

6 would be, you take three times ten to the minus 

7 eleven and drop it down for 30 days per --

8 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

9 DR. NETON: -- the requirements and 

10 calculate the surface concentration and estimate 

11 a resuspension factor.

12 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

13 DR. NETON: And, find that dose. 

14 That's pretty straightforward.

15 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. It is. It sounds 

16 reasonable to me. So, any other comments or 

17 questions and we can wrap up these two discussions?

18 So, on the dose methodology we already 

19 said NIOSH has got an action there. As far as, 

20 let's go back to the mag-thorium issue. Is the 

21 Work Group comfortable closing 13?

22 Keeping in mind that if any additional 
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1 information for that time period that we've been 

2 discussing comes up, that of course we'll address 

3 that. Is there any other discussion on that, or 

4 shall we close it? Brad?

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just, I think it's 

6 something we need to address, but I think NIOSH is 

7 already shown that, you know, they've got the 

8 ability to be able to bound it and so forth like 

9 that.

10 We just, I don't want to see this 

11 dropped. But, I think, I don't think it's a SEC 

12 issue. I think it's more of a Site Profile.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Then we'll take 

14 it up there. Loretta? Close or?

15 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes. I would say 

16 close it.

17 CHAIR BEACH: John? Jim?

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: I'm okay.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thanks Jim. 

20 John are you still with us? We might have lost 

21 John. I agree that it should be closed. So, at 

22 this time, Item 13 is closed.
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1 We have one action for the sample dose 

2 reconstruction. Before we leave that though, 

3 Pete, we do, we are going to report out to the Board. 

4 And, this was one of the Board, Board's requests 

5 during our Work Group time was that NIOSH do these 

6 DRs.

7 Are you going to do a presentation on 

8 what you guys have done here for dose 

9 reconstructions when they're complete of course?

10 MR. DARNELL: What I was planning on 

11 doing based on the outcome of this meeting was a 

12 full presentation for the Board with our 

13 recommendation whether or not there was an SEC for 

14 Kansas City. And, I could definitely include an 

15 overview of the example DRs.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Yes. I think 

17 that you probably should. That would be a good 

18 idea. Okay. So, we are moving on. Does anybody 

19 need a comfort break? We've been at it a little 

20 over an hour.

21 MR. DARNELL: I just want to ask one 

22 thing to make sure I have it captured.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. DARNELL: What's coming out of this 

3 Site Profile issue will be residual mag-thorium 

4 monitoring. Issue 13's closed. We're redoing 

5 the example DR for 0.19 activity ratio. Is there 

6 another thing that was being moved to Site Profile?

7 CHAIR BEACH: No. I think this was all 

8 we had talked about.

9 MR. DARNELL: Okay. Then, I'm happy 

10 with a break if you guys want to take one, or.

11 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Well, we've got 

12 --

13 MR. DARNELL: Or not.

14 CHAIR BEACH: We've got another 

15 probably 15 to 30 minutes to go I would say. So, 

16 Ted, shall we take a five or ten minute break.

17 MR. KATZ: If, does anyone want a 

18 comfort break?

19 CHAIR BEACH: Pete just said he would 

20 like one.

21 MR. KATZ: Oh. Okay. Then, let's, by 

22 all means.
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1 MR. DARNELL: No. I said, I'm okay 

2 with not having one.

3 MR. KATZ: Oh. Okay. Then if no one 

4 is asking for one, then let's just, let's plow 

5 through.

6 CHAIR BEACH: Let's move through. So, 

7 the next issue is the preliminary issue on 

8 information on Issues 1 and 9. And, Pete, that's 

9 yours to tell us what's happening there, or Pat.

10 MR. DARNELL: Yes. Actually, I'm 

11 going to turn it over to Pat after, and let you know 

12 that we fully plan on having the final on this done 

13 at least a week if not longer before the Board 

14 meeting. But, now we're shooting for a week before 

15 the Board meeting.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Are we going need 

17 to have some discussion on it before?

18 MR. DARNELL: Well, I'm, based on my 

19 initial views of this and talking to Jim Neton about 

20 it. It's nothing really good. I'll let Pat cover 

21 that. I don't think that we'll need a lot of 

22 discussion if any at all.
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1 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

2 MR. DARNELL: But, after -- if it's 

3 none, we can decide then. How's that?

4 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. That sounds 

5 great. Thanks.

6 MR. DARNELL: Okay.

7 MR. MCCLOSKEY: Okay. This is Pat 

8 McCloskey. At the July Work Group meeting, NIOSH 

9 described the plan for validating the database and 

10 showed a copy of the template that would be used 

11 to compile the data. That's when they held up that 

12 spreadsheet.

13 We described our plan to extract the raw 

14 data from the DOE supplied dose records in NOCTS 

15 and compare them to the database previously used 

16 for coworker model and the Site Profile.

17 The NOCTS files that we have for Kansas 

18 City Plant contain 223 claims with external 

19 dosimetry records, and 95 claims with internal 

20 dosimetry records. We also said that our plan was 

21 to compare 100 percent of those NOCTS dosimetry 

22 records contained within the 318 claims to the 
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1 17,810 database records.

2 Then, at that July meeting, the Work 

3 Group stated that they agreed that, that would be 

4 an appropriate means by which the electronic 

5 database could be validated through comparison 

6 sampling.

7 So, here's how the data entry 

8 performance went. Entry of the external data from 

9 the claimant data located in NOCTS was completed 

10 by five data entry staff. Their work began on 

11 August 24th, 2015 and was completed by September 

12 30th.

13 The data was identified as being within 

14 the same time period used from coworker model --

15 that's January 1, 1950, through December 31, 2010. 

16 That data was entered into a spreadsheet and single 

17 tasked with periodic stops in data entry in order 

18 to peer review the data that had been entered up 

19 to that point

20 The data entered by one person was peer 

21 reviewed by another data entry staff member so that 

22 the same person was not reviewing his or her own 
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1 work. And, that amounted to 100 percent review of 

2 all that data entered into that spreadsheet.

3 After completion of the data entry or 

4 external dosimetry data, another step was taken to 

5 insert uranium in urine, or U in U results from the 

6 identified claimants.

7 Two data entry staff were tasked with 

8 inserting the in-vitro analysis data into the 

9 spreadsheet. And, during this effort another peer 

10 review was conducted to identify and correct 

11 discrepancies or errors.

12 There were several different formats 

13 for the staff to decipher while entering the data. 

14 And, in the end, they compiled 5,878 lines of data 

15 onto a spreadsheet, with each line containing 

16 between one and seven individual records.

17 So, here's our results. On October 1, 

18 2015, two officers, myself and another began 

19 compiling and comparing the NOCTS data to the 

20 database data used in the Site Profile's coworker 

21 model. It's the information printed the 

22 spreadsheet and it would be deep dose, neutron 
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1 dose, shallow dose and U in U data.

2 And, we completed our preliminary work 

3 on that on October 19th. That's why you're not 

4 seeing this in a written form right now. It's been 

5 that recent. There were 1,653 annual totals that 

6 were compared between the sum of NOCTS raw records 

7 and the database annual totals. Of those, 1,598 

8 or 97 percent were determined to agree.

9 Of the 55 entries with some level of 

10 disagreement, approximately 15 were because the 

11 NOCTS records could not be easily read and 

12 requesting a cleaner copy from Kansas City Plant 

13 would most likely resolve the discrepancy.

14 Also, approximately 15 discrepancies 

15 are associated with the database or NOCTS 

16 soliciting an actual zero value, and the other 

17 having no record value. In other words, it was 

18 blank. The remaining 26 discrepancies are still 

19 under review to determine the source of the 

20 discrepancy.

21 The data that were not considered in the 

22 Site Profile's coworker, that's eye dose and 
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1 extremity dose, were added to the previous data I 

2 just mentioned about, just mentioned. That would 

3 be added to the deep, the neutron, the shallow and 

4 U in U data. And, we performed an analysis of that 

5 looking for the level of agreement.

6 And, of the 1,805 annual totals that 

7 were compared 1,714, or 95 percent were determined 

8 to agree. And, we haven't analyzed those 

9 discrepancies yet.

10 Then we analyzed internal data 

11 separately. We found there to be a 179 annual 

12 totals, and 157 or 88 percent were determined to 

13 agree. Of those, now there appears to between two 

14 disagreements. I think they would be better 

15 classified as yet to be verified.

16 And, so as you heard me say before, from 

17 the external dose comparison approximately 15 were 

18 because of the NOCTS records could not be easily 

19 read.

20 The lion's share of those discrepancies 

21 were for internal monitoring. So, they 

22 contributed to the error rate up, when they were 
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1 all added together. But, when you pulled it out 

2 by itself, they had a larger effect.

3 And, what we're seeing is that prior to 

4 1963, and maybe even earlier -- we're going to get 

5 that date pinned down. The practice was that you 

6 had these four inch by six inch index cards where 

7 they wrote their doses on those index cards went 

8 inside an envelope.

9 And, the internal records were always 

10 were always written on the envelopes themselves, 

11 handwritten on there. And, that was the practice 

12 for the first few years. And, those are where we 

13 had the problems with legibility.

14 This is something that, you know, that 

15 Ron Buchanan brought up a while ago on a different 

16 issue. Something that we looked at when we visited 

17 the site.

18 And, so, you know, the legibility's

19 never a question with the database. Right. 

20 That's electronic file, that you can always read 

21 that. And, you'll see a zero there for a certain 

22 person for a certain time period.
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1 And, then you go to the NOCTS record and 

2 you can imagine there's something there, but you 

3 can't in good faith call it a number. So, at the 

4 moment, we're calling it a disagreement. We think 

5 if we are able to get more copies from the site that 

6 those disagreements will become agreements.

7 Initially, maybe in 2006 or so, the 

8 site, when we wouldn't have a claim, would Xerox 

9 something black and white, send it to us, we would 

10 scan it in to NOCTS. And, there are examples in 

11 NOCTS now that you can see that are just hard to 

12 read.

13 But, since then, more recently, we've

14 received information from the site in the form of 

15 digital. We've gotten flash drives from them. 

16 And so now, they're in color. They're no longer 

17 black and white. You can see the yellow card 

18 clearly.

19 So, we're pretty confident that 

20 although there are some disagreements at the moment 

21 for internal, that those will become agreements.

22 So, another note, when we were doing 
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1 this comparison of internal records, it was 

2 identified that the U in U values recorded in the 

3 database are the sum of the individual urinalysis 

4 results collected throughout a given year.

5 So, if a person had, he contributed 

6 three or four urine samples throughout the year, 

7 the only value you'll see in the database is the 

8 annual total.

9 This approach may lead to a high bias 

10 or more claimant, claimant favorable in the file 

11 numbers that were presented in the Site Profile 

12 coworker model. So, that's what we have. We're 

13 in our early stages of our review on this. So, 

14 we'll try to get that in writing, like Pete said, 

15 in the next couple weeks.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thanks. So, and 

17 when you distribute that will you have source, 

18 sources available for review? Source numbers and 

19 --

20 MR. MCCLOSKEY: You mean like NOCTS 

21 files you can go to and look at --

22 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.
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1 MR. MCCLOSKEY: -- or --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

3 MR. MCCLOSKEY: -- like spreadsheet. 

4 Yes. Sure.

5 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. Okay. Thanks 

6 Pat. Any questions for Pat? I'm assuming, Joe, 

7 Ron will be reviewing this?

8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I suspect so. 

9 When, I guess my question was when you're in the 

10 review process. When would the Work Group see a 

11 written product? I suspect some a couple weeks 

12 before the Work Group, or the Board meeting.

13 CHAIR BEACH: He said a week.

14 MR. FITZGERALD: A week before the 

15 Board meeting.

16 MR. MCCLOSKEY: So, the Board 

17 meeting's November 18th. Here we are at the 26th.

18 MR. FITZGERALD: So, about, somewhere 

19 about that time frame then?

20 MR. MCCLOSKEY: As fast as we can get 

21 it.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: All right.
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1 DR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron. We'll 

2 need that, you know, sent to me as soon as possible 

3 because that doesn't leave much time to go through 

4 a lot of data. As soon as you get it out, I don't 

5 want it sitting on somebodies desk a week before 

6 I see it.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes. This is Ted. I 

8 wonder, I know this is all complicated logistics 

9 as to getting things clear, but if it's possible, 

10 if you work out a way that you can even in 

11 increments, as you get things done, sort of, ship 

12 them out for Ron at least, put eyes on even before 

13 you have the whole publishable thing ready.

14 If that's possible, that would be 

15 great. I'm not pressing you on that, I'm just, 

16 just a thought.

17 MR. DARNELL: Again, let me get back to 

18 you on that.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes. I'm not, like I said 

20 --

21 MR. DARNELL: I don't want an answer on 

22 if that's even possible. I'd like to talk with Pat 
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1 and Ron.

2 MR. KATZ: Great.

3 MR. DARNELL: See about that tomorrow. 

4 I'll either get back with you later today or 

5 tomorrow.

6 MR. KATZ: Yes. Thank you. Thanks 

7 Pete.

8 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, just knowing 

9 that if that comes too late and we're not able to 

10 review it, that may hold up formal discuss, or 

11 recommendation to the Board potentially.

12 MR. DARNELL: I understand.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, anything 

14 else, Work Group Members, on Issues 1 or 9? That 

15 actually concludes our work. We do have some 

16 official --

17 MR. KATZ: Josie. I'm sorry, it's 

18 Ted.

19 CHAIR BEACH: It's not -- Ted, I'll get 

20 back to you.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay.

22 CHAIR BEACH: I'm not going to forget 
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1 that you need to read those in.

2 MR. KATZ: That's not what I was going 

3 to address. I was going to address your point 

4 about recommendations.

5 Just, if you, if the Work Group's going 

6 to make a recommendation to the Board, it's either 

7 going to formulate it now or it's going to do, it 

8 would have to, sort of, do it in sort of 

9 consultative form during the Board meeting at the 

10 front end of the session.

11 But, there's no other way for the Work 

12 Group to come up with a recommendation unless you 

13 think --

14 CHAIR BEACH: Oh. That's true.

15 MR. KATZ: It's very hard to schedule 

16 a Work Group meeting for the last moment, but we 

17 could try that too, but.

18 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. That's a good 

19 point.

20 MR. KATZ: So, I mean, one suggestion 

21 I would have is you just make a contingent 

22 recommendation pending a positive outcome with 
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1 this data check, validation check.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

3 MR. KATZ: And then, you know, 

4 obviously we've done this sort of thing before. I 

5 mean, you can present at the Board meeting and 

6 whatever, however that comes out, you can address 

7 that as part of it. But, I mean, that's probably 

8 the easiest thing to do.

9 MR. DARNELL: There is one thing I'd 

10 like to point out, you know, if it's sent with the 

11 database validation, all we're trying to do is see 

12 whether the database is valid for coworker model. 

13 Coworker model is actually a Site Profile issue.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I agree with that.

15 MR. DARNELL: I think --

16 DR. NETON: You know, Pat was not 

17 exuberant as I would be about this preliminary 

18 result. I mean, you know, of the first, in the 

19 External Dosimetry Database, there was 97 percent 

20 agreement of the annual, compared to the annual 

21 totals. That's pretty good.

22 I mean that, and the ones that weren't 
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1 in agreement were typically very small, you know, 

2 either zeros or non-detects, that sort of thing. 

3 There was some legibility issues on a few.

4 But I think what we're looking at here 

5 is the sampling we have that is sent up by the site 

6 of the original record here in this database, 

7 pretty faithfully. So, I'm very encouraged by 

8 this. I think that the database is pretty solid.

9 I don't see any indication of big chunks 

10 of data missing. Even in the internal where there 

11 was 88 percent agreement, it really is a kind of 

12 a legibility issue of what we currently have in 

13 house. So, I would say that I'm very favorably 

14 impressed with this initial analysis that they've 

15 done. Just my concern.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thanks, Jim. 

17 And, I guess, I tend to agree that 1 and 9 are both 

18 Site Profile issues unless Joe, you have any other 

19 concerns there. Just --

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the reason that 

21 they're even on the SEC issues matrix is the 

22 validation verifications. The standard step that 
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1 the Work Group looks for, I think --

2 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

3 MR. FITZGERALD: -- in terms of the 

4 validity of the data to begin with. And, as a 

5 matter of course, and for Kansas City, at least, 

6 that had not been done. So, you know from the 

7 standpoint of SOP as far as the Work Groups are 

8 concerned, we typically look for this at the very 

9 beginning.

10 And, it is a, I don't want to call it 

11 a prerequisite, but it's certainly, the validity 

12 of the data itself is something that's central to 

13 the SEC review.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Right.

15 MR. FITZGERALD: I mean, if the data's 

16 not valid, I would think that alone would be a 

17 question on the SEC side.

18 MR. DARNELL: Well, let me ask you 

19 this, Joe. What do you need to be able to make the 

20 call that the V&V is adequate? Do you need the 

21 entire report? Will a summary do?

22 And, the reason why I'm asking is my 
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1 goal is I'd like to have this presented and done 

2 in November. And, I know it, but pushing up 

3 against a real uphill climb here.

4 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. I think, to 

5 answer your question, you know, we're two things 

6 really. The process itself, which is the process 

7 you're going through to be able to advise the Work 

8 Group that we felt the process is consistent with 

9 what's been done in the past. And, that certainly 

10 the review was sound.

11 The second thing, of course, is what Jim 

12 was referring to is the results of that process, 

13 and whether the results bespeak a degree of 

14 validity, which, you know, bolsters the legitimacy 

15 of the dose reconstruction process. So ---

16 MR. DARNELL: Correct.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: I think, to go back to 

18 what Ted was talking about, if we can have enough 

19 for Ron to both understand the process that was 

20 undertaken and to have a sense of what results were 

21 achieved, we can certainly convey that to the Work 

22 Group in time for the meeting and put them in a 
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1 better position to sign off on this.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I -- anything from 

3 you, Pete, on that?

4 MR. DARNELL: Yes. Right now, based 

5 in our, or on the talks that I've had previously 

6 with Pat and Mutty, there is no way we're going to 

7 get done with that far enough that, that the answer 

8 both of those questions for Joe before the November 

9 meeting.

10 MR. KATZ: Well, this is Ted.

11 MR. DARNELL: Unless, I mean --

12 MR. KATZ: I think what can be done is 

13 you get done what you can. Do what you can do. I 

14 think the Work Group can report out and again, I 

15 can, they can report out sort of a contingent 

16 recommendation.

17 And, raise this issue of this is the 

18 status of this work which you will have presented 

19 on, Pete, in your presentation, and the Board can 

20 consider that and decide whether it's comfortable 

21 going forward before it sees the results, the final 

22 results of that or not.
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1 I mean, I really don't think the Work 

2 Group needs to struggle with this time limit here. 

3 Just, as long as the Board gets the full facts of 

4 where that stands and how that was done, and 

5 certainly Ron can review the procedure being 

6 applied. I mean, I think that's okay and then the 

7 Board will do what it will do depending on their 

8 level of comfort.

9 I don't think this should, sort of, hang 

10 anything up here. And, it may hang up the Board 

11 at the end of the day, but it may not. But, we'll 

12 see.

13 CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

14 MR. KATZ: So, and just, Josie, before 

15 we wrap, let's just, so whatever assistance you 

16 need. I don't know if you have a plan yet. You 

17 see heard -- Pete will give a full, fairly full 

18 presentation on I mean, following up on the 

19 presentation he made, you know, way back when, but, 

20 sort of, concluding the NIOSH side of that.

21 Then you're welcome to, you know, use 

22 Joe or whomever from SC&A and do a joint 
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1 presentation or however you want to handle that.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. I typically do 

3 slides and send them to Joe and he reviews them.

4 MR. KATZ: Oh.

5 CHAIR BEACH: And, so, Joe, we could do 

6 that. Probably, I'll do that again.

7 MR. DARNELL: So, Josie, should I plan 

8 on a full presentation or --

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I'd say --

10 MR. DARNELL: -- have it be --

11 CHAIR BEACH: I would say yes because 

12 even if we don't come to a vote the next meeting, 

13 I mean, they will have all the information and it 

14 would be simply another report out from the Work 

15 Group on our conclusions and then we could vote at 

16 the next teleconference if ---

17 MR. KATZ: Right. And it, it just 

18 depends on how the Board is feeling about this. 

19 The Board may be comfortable going forward in this 

20 circumstance. Who knows. So, it's --

21 CHAIR BEACH: So, yes I would say 

22 prepare for a presentation.
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1 MR. DARNELL: Okey-doke.

2 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anything else? 

3 Any other comments or concerns for Work Group 

4 Members on where we're at? Thanks for your 

5 thoughts there Ted, that's helpful.

6 MR. KATZ: Sure.

7 CHAIR BEACH: So, we're on to 

8 petitioners concerns. And, are any of the 

9 petitioners on the line? I don't expect either 

10 Maurice or Wayne, but essentially you may have 

11 joined.

12 MR. KINMAN: Josie, this is Josh. 

13 They both told me that they probably would not be 

14 on. Mr. Knox could be on. I'm not sure, Maurice 

15 told me no.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Yes. I knew Maurice was 

17 not going to be, but I wasn't sure about Wayne, so.

18 MR. KINMAN: They just joined before 

19 the --

20 MR. KNOX: I was listening in.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Did you want to 

22 ask questions or speak, or did you have anything 
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1 or did you just want your statement --

2 MR. KNOX: I'm still --

3 CHAIR BEACH: I'm sorry?

4 MR. KNOX: I'm still at the same point. 

5 It looks like you're looking at a lot of data and 

6 you're not looking at the reality of what happened. 

7 I was there. I lived in that world.

8 There was misrepresentation of data. 

9 We covered a lot of things up. But, you're just 

10 looking at what we said, did, which is a lie. And 

11 you will not allow me to stand in and say wait, this 

12 is really what happened. And, how many people 

13 actually were there? How many people got exposed?

14 I got exposed. I got contaminated. I 

15 cannot tell you what my radiation dose was and I 

16 was with Wayne all of the time. No one can.

17 And it's upsetting to me that I'm not 

18 allowed inject reality into this. The solution is 

19 a combination of available data and reality. But, 

20 reality was the dominant player in terms of the 

21 radiation exposure.

22 There are two major areas that concerns 
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1 me. One is the inclusion of all, all of the people 

2 who supported Kansas City operations in the SEC. 

3 That were GSA workers that physically went in that 

4 place and did work. They tracked contamination 

5 back to the other side. But, they're not included.

6 And the other thing is that, and keep 

7 in mind I worked there, we did not change things 

8 magically in 1993. It was still business as usual. 

9 I wasn't radiation sick. I was project manager and 

10 an operational healthcare assistant manager --

11 know what happened to me and the other workers. 

12 But, you will not allow me to inject reality in your 

13 discussions. I'm through.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Thank you, Wayne.

15 MR. KATZ: I have a Maurice's 

16 statement. Do you want me to read that, Josie?

17 CHAIR BEACH: Well, let me finish. I 

18 got one more part to this and then I'll have you 

19 --

20 MR. KATZ: Okay. Sorry.

21 CHAIR BEACH: Ted, if you don't mind. 

22 So, on July 16th, the Work Group Members are aware 
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1 that we had a date set aside for the petitioners 

2 to come in and address the Board.

3 We did have one work product that was 

4 asked for us to provide. Mr. Knox asked for five 

5 different items. The only one that we could 

6 actually come up with and do and we got that out 

7 on September 30th was the time line of the 

8 radiography used at KCP and the procedures that 

9 were in place.

10 So, Ron spent some time, he created that 

11 document and that went out to the Work Group again 

12 on September 30th. So, we did that.

13 The other thing I want to point out is 

14 we had the conference calls on September 12th. 

15 That was because one of our petitioners asked us 

16 about a couple incidents and he wanted us to 

17 question a couple more workers. So, we went out 

18 and tried to find the three that he asked us to 

19 interview.

20 One of them we were unable to contact. 

21 The other two we got and then we had someone that 

22 we had missed on the earlier discussion. So, we 
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1 interviewed three people. And, that was a direct 

2 result of petitioners' concerns and requests.

3 So, I just want to bring you up to date 

4 on some of the things that we have done and tried 

5 to do to come to terms with incidents and 

6 petitioners' concerns.

7 So, Ted, I'll let, unless anybody has 

8 any other comments on that or questions, then Ted 

9 can -- and, you all have Maurice's email and 

10 Wayne's.

11 MR. KATZ: Right. This is Ted. 

12 Assume since Wayne spoke, he doesn't want me to read 

13 his, but I'm happy to read his comment if he wants 

14 to as well. But, let me start with Maurice's 

15 anyway.

16 MR. KNOX: I have no objection to you 

17 reading it.

18 MR. KATZ: Excuse me?

19 MR. KNOX: Because, it is what I mean.

20 MR. KATZ: I cannot hear you. Excuse 

21 me?

22 CHAIR BEACH: He said he has no 
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1 objection.

2 MR. KNOX: I have no objection.

3 MR. KATZ: That's fine. That's fine. 

4 I'll read it. That's what I just was saying. I'm 

5 happy to read it if Wayne wants to. I didn't know 

6 whether he --

7 MR. KNOX: I have no objection --

8 MR. KATZ: -- if he wanted to with his 

9 oral comment. But, that's fine. Let me start 

10 with Maurice's since it came first.

11 So we received this on Friday, October 

12 23rd, from Maurice. My comment to the Work Group, 

13 please read to the Work Group.

14 I want the request to be decided one way 

15 or the other. But, I will not dignify this process 

16 with my attendance any longer. My attention is on 

17 the decision and at this point receiving records 

18 generated from my personal exposure incidents.

19 This Work Group has not been able to 

20 find out any information or locate a person 

21 involved in an incident of approximately just 16 

22 years ago. How does this Work Group think it can 
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1 reconstruct over 60 years of exposure? Strange, 

2 I would say. Scientific, I don't think so.

3 All of our government agencies could 

4 not find [identifying information redacted]. 

5 What a shame. I found her. Pete Darnell of the 

6 Work Group has fabricated information of evidence 

7 at the Work Group meetings, contradicted himself 

8 many times and no one has questioned him at the Work 

9 Group meetings.

10 These games I won't play, shall I say, 

11 any longer. There are other exposure incidents I 

12 have questioned that have not been discussed, 

13 reference [identifying information redacted]

14 (phonetic), [identifying information redacted]

15 (phonetic), [identifying information redacted]

16 (phonetic), [identifying information redacted]

17 (phonetic), [identifying information redacted]

18 (phonetic) and myself. I'm waiting the decision. 

19 That's it. Maurice Copeland.

20 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Ted before you go 

21 on, I'll just go --- I did ask Maurice to share 

22 [identifying information redacted] contact 
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1 information and he declined to share that with us.

2 We were going to set up a conference 

3 call with her last week. So, we were unable to do 

4 that. And, we did contact and talk to [identifying 

5 information redacted] and [identifying 

6 information redacted]. Neither of them 

7 remembered the incident in question.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thanks, Josie.

9 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: So, then let me just work my 

11 way forward. So, Wayne, Mr. Knox has sent these 

12 comments, which I'll read now, from Monday of this 

13 week.

14 As a principal petitioner and author of 

15 SEC 210, I'm in complete agreement with 

16 [identifying information redacted]. I consider 

17 the actions of the Work Group and Advisory Board 

18 in general to be incompetent and not worthy of 

19 advising anyone much less the President on an 

20 actual or operational radiation exposures and 

21 practices.

22 They, including NIOSH officials, 
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1 clearly and knowing misrepresent obvious technical 

2 facts in violation of laws, regulations and our 

3 humanity.

4 NIOSH's and the Board's principal 

5 objective appear to be to protect the corporate 

6 liability associated with the criminal exposure of 

7 workers and second-hand exposures to family 

8 members and surrounding communities.

9 We, the nuclear workers, were perceived 

10 to have been fighting for our national security. 

11 But, rather we are now fighting for our lives. We 

12 are suffering and dying, yet criminally denied 

13 authorized medical care for increased corporate 

14 profits in developing patentable technology in the 

15 application of radiation and nuclear materials.

16 It was not all about the bomb for 

17 national security. All of these profitable 

18 corporate ventures were supported by the use of 

19 free public facilities and equipment and an 

20 uninformed group of disposable workers.

21 It was done under the cover of national 

22 security with a hold harmless indemnification 
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1 placed in the corporate back pocket by our 

2 conservatively installed career civil servants.

3 The complicit civil servants, now and 

4 then, attempt to hide behind self-regulatory 

5 authority, FOIA and the self-disclaimers of the 

6 actions of the offending contractors.

7 As a special graduate student, I had 

8 one-on-one studies directly under the father of 

9 health physics, [identifying information 

10 redacted], and as an operational health physicist 

11 working directly under [identifying information 

12 redacted] arguably, the father of operational 

13 health physics.

14 Both stated to me in different contexts 

15 and perspectives, quote there is no safe level of 

16 radiation exposure unquote. The question is, how 

17 much is the risk and how much can we minimize it. 

18 Prevention was not an option, if we wanted to 

19 explore the use of radiation and radioactive 

20 materials for the betterment of mankind.

21 We, nuclear workers, I knowingly and 

22 others without knowledge or consent, were placed 
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1 at risk for an indecipherable combination of 

2 national security, national interests and 

3 corporate profits.

4 When the risk prevailed and allowances 

5 are authorized by Congress under EEOICPA and 

6 supported by the Clinton Executive Order 13179, we 

7 expect and demand quote compassionate, fair and 

8 timely unquote treatment as directed.

9 This must be done without regard to sex, 

10 race, religion, worker class, political 

11 affliction, lifestyle preferences or shared 

12 government corporate liability. Wayne Knox. 

13 That concludes Wayne's statement.

14 CHAIR BEACH: Thanks, Ted. Okay. 

15 Any other comments or other Work Group Members? 

16 And, I have a question for Ted, then. Can I go 

17 ahead and ask SC&A to update the matrix? I know 

18 it's very minor.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes. Absolutely. I mean 

20 it's nice to button it up. Right?

21 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And, then the 

22 other thing, Pete sent out a Site Profile matrix 
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1 on 8-20-15. There is a Site matrix third version, 

2 original matrix that SC&A did.

3 Is it too early to ask SC&A to 

4 incorporate Pete's matrix into the one that was 

5 created in, I can't remember what the date is now?

6 MR. KATZ: I think that will be good 

7 just so that when we have the next meeting, we'll 

8 add it to TBD issues. We're fresh up to date with 

9 that.

10 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Joe, you okay 

11 with that?

12 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. It's fine. I 

13 will consolidate and update the original matrix. 

14 It'll look a lot like Pete's from about a month or 

15 two ago, but.

16 CHAIR BEACH: Sure.

17 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you want a separate 

18 Site Profile matrix or do you want to still use the 

19 same one?

20 CHAIR BEACH: No. Let's do a separate 

21 one.

22 MR. FITZGERALD: Separate, separate 
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1 one. Okay. So, we'll have a second one that'll 

2 be exclusively Site Profile.

3 CHAIR BEACH: That'd be great. And, 

4 then, so let's be clear. The action is just for 

5 NIOSH on the dose reconstruction for the thorium 

6 method. SC&A to update the matrix and the Site 

7 Profile, to update the Site Profile matrix.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes. And you may want, Joe, 

9 to just hang on before producing that Site Profile. 

10 Hang on and wait for this latest piece from --

11 CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: -- NIOSH on the data 

13 validation.

14 CHAIR BEACH: So, update it but don't 

15 distribute it until the latest is done.

16 MR. FITZGERALD: All right.

17 CHAIR BEACH: That seem reasonable?

18 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

19 CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Did I miss 

20 anything or we all set? Thank you --

21 MR. DARNELL: Thanks all.

22 CHAIR BEACH: Oh. Go ahead Brad.
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1 MR. KATZ: That was just Pete saying 

2 thanks.

3 CHAIR BEACH: Oh. Okay. Sorry. I 

4 spoke over you. So, I guess we can close this 

5 meeting. Thank you everyone.

6 MR. KATZ: Thank you everybody.

7 (Whereas the above-entitled matter 

8 went off the record at 3:13 p.m.)

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