STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes 

MEETING 52 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. I 

DAY ONE 

 

The verbatim transcript of the 52nd 

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held at the Suncoast Hotel and Casino, 

Las Vegas, Nevada, on Jan. 8, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

Jan. 08, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 8 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

MOUND PLANT SEC PETITION 10 

DR. BRANT ULSH, NIOSH 

PETITIONERS 

LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY SEC PETITION 78 

DR. SAMUEL GLOVER, NIOSH 

PETITIONERS 

NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 135 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

PUBLIC COMMENT 167 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 230 

 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

BOARD MEMBERS

CHAIR

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

 

 

MEMBERSHIP

BEACH, Josie 

Nuclear Chemical Operator 

Hanford Reservation 

Richland, Washington 

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 
5

1 LOCKEY, James, M.D. 

2 Professor, Department of Environmental Health 

3 College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

4 MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 

5 Director 

6 New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 

7 Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 

Professor, Texas A&M University 

College Station, Texas 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 

 
6

SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS

AND IDENTIFIED TELEPHONIC PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 

ANSPAUGH, LYNN, SC&A 

BARATCART, CLAUDIO, H&N 

BARKER, KAY 

BARRIE, TERRIE 

BONSIGNORE, ANTOINETTE, LINDE CERAMICS 

BREW, MICHAEL S., PAST EMPLOYER 

BREYER, LAURIE, OCAS 

BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 

CAMERON, BUCK, ATL INT 

CANO, REGINA, DOE 

CHANG, C, NIOSH 

CHEW, MELTON, ORAU 

CLAYTON, DOROTHY 

COOK, PATTY, NTS 

CRAWFORD, FRANK, NIOSH 

DECKER, MARILYN 

ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH 

FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 

FUNK, JOHN R., AVV NEVADA 

GLENN, RAILI, LLNL PETITIONER 

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 

HOMOKI-TITUS, ZEDA, HHS 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

HYATT, SALLY 

JENKINS, SHERMAN, LLNL 

JENSEN, DEB, EKCAP 

JOHNSON, TRACY, DOL 

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 

LAMB, DONNA 

LEWIS, GREG, DOE 

LEWIS, MARK, ATL 

LOCK, JW, SELF 

LONG, CHRISTY A., DOL 

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU 

MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW 

MILLER, JUDY, PET 
7

MORGAN, WALLACE 

OH, KATE, SEN. REID 

OSTROW, STEPHEN, SC&A 

PADILLA, ANNA 

PITTARO, CAROL A. 

RADWANSKI, FRED, SELF 

REEVE, DAVID, DOL 

RIOS, DIANE 

ROBERTS, KIMBERLEY, SAIC 

ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 

ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH OCAS 

ROLLINS, EUGENE, DMA 

ROZNER, KATHLEEN, SEN. REID 

RUSSELL, LARRY, MOUND PETITIONER 

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 

SEPULVEDA, TERI, NTS 

SIECK, BRENDA 

SINGER, EUGENE, DOL 

SMITH, BASIL L, LLNL 

SMITH, BILLY P., MH CHEW AND ASSOCS. 

SNIDER, ANN 

SPECK, BRENDA, NTS 

ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 

VAUGHN, LEE 

WILLIAMS, JOHN, GE HANFORD 

WORTHINGTON, PAT, DOE 

ZACCHERO, MARY JO, ORAU 

ZARITO, FRANK 

ZOITOUR, ABE, SC&A 
8

P R O C E E D I N G S

(1:15 p.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

1 DR. ZIEMER: Welcome, everyone. I'd like to call the 

2 meeting to order. This is the meeting of the 

3 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

4 We're pleased to be here in Las Vegas; pleased 

5 to have the opportunity also during our meeting 

6 to hear from a number of the local folks. In 

7 that connection, there is a sign-up sheet in 

8 the foyer for those who may wish to make public 

9 comment later in the meeting. 

10 Also there is a registration booklet. We ask 

11 you to register your attendance. This includes 

12 Board members, federal staffers, members of the 

13 public. Just -- we would like to have a record 

14 of who's in attendance here. 

15 On the tables in the back of the room there are 

16 copies of the agenda, as well as copies of a 

17 number of documents that will be associated 

18 with our deliberations today and for the next 

19 three days, actually. So please avail 

20 yourselves of those as well. 
9

1 On the agenda we typically will follow along in 

2 the order that's indicated. The stated times 

3 in general are not time-certain times. That 

4 is, if we go longer, we go longer. If we 

5 finish sooner, we go on to the next item. So 

6 we will consider the agenda as a guide, but 

7 flexible as the need arises. 

8 I'm Paul Ziemer, Chair of the Advisory Board. 

9 Dr. Lewis Wade is our Designated Federal 

10 Official. All such federal advisory boards 

11 have a Designated Federal Official who helps 

12 keep us in order and takes care of us in many 

13 different ways. 

14 Lew, we're glad, as always, to have you with 

15 us. You have some opening comments for us. 

16 DR. WADE: Well, first I bring you warm regards 

17 from the Secretary of Health and Human 

18 Services, Mike Leavitt; the Director of Centers 

19 for Disease Control, Dr. Julie Gerberding; and 

20 John Howard, the NIOSH Director. I always, at 

21 every opportunity, thank the Board for its 

22 service. Any of you who have had an 

23 opportunity to watch this Board or its working 

24 groups have to come way with the understanding 

25 that this is as hard a working advisory board 
10

1 as exists in my experience within the federal 

2 government, and I thank them all for their 

3 service. 

4 I believe that tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. we're 

5 expecting a visit from Senator Harry Reid to 

6 come and speak to the Board. Just to let you 

7 know, that doesn't appear on the agenda, but 

8 that is at least the latest information that I 

9 have in terms of the good Senator's visit to 

10 us. 

11 I'd also let you know that I'll be sharing this 

12 chair with Dr. Christine Branche. She will be 

13 taking over the responsibilities from me in the 

14 near future, and you'll see her up here 

15 sometime and me at other times. We're easy to 

16 tell apart. I'm the good-looking one. 

17 So those are my opening comments. Thank you 

18 all for coming. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that may be the reason 

20 you're on your way out, Lew. 

21 MOUND PLANT SEC PETITION

22 The first item on our agenda today is an SEC 

23 petition dealing with the Mound facility in 

24 Ohio. Board members, in your packet -- which 

25 today, for most of you, is an electronic packet 
11

1 -- you should have a letter of support from 

2 Senator Brown in your packet -- Senator Brown 

3 of Ohio. And then you also will have a copy of 

4 the presentation that will be made here by Dr. 

5 Ulsh momentarily. That should be in your 

6 packet as well. 

7 Also you should have received in the mail 

8 earlier, or by FedEx earlier -- a couple of 

9 weeks ago -- the evaluation report from NIOSH 

10 on this petition. If you don't have a copy of 

11 that, there are hard copies on the table in 

12 back and basically Dr. Ulsh will be summarizing 

13 the findings that are given in that evaluation 

14 report by NIOSH. So at this time I'll turn the 

15 podium over to Dr. Ulsh. 

16 Before I do that, I want to check because one 

17 of the Mound petitioners may be on the line and 

18 I want to make sure that -- it -- it would be 

19 Larry Russell, I believe, on behalf of [name 

20 redacted]. Mr. Russell, are you on the line? 

21 MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir, I am on the line. Can 

22 you hear me? 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, very well. And after Dr. 

24 Ulsh gives his presentation we'll be pleased to 

25 have any comments from you as well. 
12

1 MR. RUSSELL: Thank you. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Brant -- 

3 DR. WADE: Before Brant starts, we do have a 

4 conflicted Board member, Mike Gibson. Mike, so 

5 you'll have to join the audience for this 

6 discussion. 

7 The Board has in its own policies that if a 

8 member is conflicted on a particular site, they 

9 don't sit at the table and participate in the 

10 deliberations, discussions, motion-making and 

11 votes surrounding SEC petitions. So Mike is 

12 conflicted and therefore will not be with us at 

13 the table. Thank you. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: However, Mike -- who essentially 

15 becomes a member of the public at this point -- 

16 could make comments as a site expert or member 

17 of the public as well. 

18 DR. WADE: Indeed. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Brant? 

20 DR. ULSH: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I want to 

21 take just a couple of minutes to make sure that 

22 you all can hear me. Yes, in the back? 

23 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

24 DR. ULSH: That's good? Okay. I'm going to 

25 forego the -- 
13

1 DR. WADE: Go over the -- was that a no from 

2 the -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Mr. Russell, can you hear? 

4 MR. RUSSELL: I can hear him. It's a little 

5 bit faint, but I can hear him. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 

7 DR. WADE: Okay, scream out if you lose him. 

8 MR. RUSSELL: Okay. 

9 DR. ULSH: Hold on. Just one second, please. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, just stand by for a moment. 

11 (Pause) 

12 DR. ULSH: Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. 

13 Ziemer. I'm going to forego the podium today 

14 so that I can stand over here and mess up the 

15 computer. We're also privileged to have not 

16 only the petitioner on the line, but as you're 

17 going to find out in a minute, there were two 

18 Mound petitions and one of the petitioners is 

19 actually here in person. And I believe -- are 

20 you going to be speaking after? 

21 UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I'm sorry, I overlooked Judy 

23 Miller. We'll be pleased to hear from you, 

24 Judy, as well. 

25 DR. ULSH: So appreciate the effort to -- of 
14

1 the petitioners to dial in and to come in 

2 person. 

3 As Dr. Ziemer mentioned, I'm going to be 

4 talking today about the Mound site. And for 

5 those of you who have some familiarity with the 

6 DOE complex, Mound is kind of a unique site. 

7 If you think about two loose boxes you could 

8 put DOE facilities into one or the other, in 

9 the first box you might have the production10 type facilities. So if you think about like 

11 maybe a Fernald or a Rocky Flats, they were 

12 primarily focused on production. On the other 

13 hand, in the other box you've got sites that 

14 were more focused on research, places like the 

15 national labs -- Los Alamos, Lawrence 

16 Livermore, those types of facilities where they 

17 focused really on basic research. 

18 Well, Mound is a little bit unique in that they 

19 did both. They had significant production 

20 operations and they also had significant 

21 research activities, so that presents some 

22 unique challenges as we go forward here and 

23 evaluate the Mound SEC petitions. 

24 So just to give you a little bit of an idea 

25 about what they did at Mound, the first major 
15

1 mission that Mound was involved in was the 

2 production and some research involved in 

3 polonium-210, and those were used for 

4 initiators in nuclear weapons. And Mound was 

5 also involved in some research looking at 

6 alternatives to polonium-210. Polonium-210 has 

7 some undesirable characteristics for this job, 

8 and so they were looking for some alternatives, 

9 too. And they considered radium-226 and 

10 actinium-227. 

11 Sounded like I faded out there for a second. 

12 I'm still live? Okay. 

13 In addition, Mound did some research involved 

14 with the civilian nuclear power program, and 

15 those involved various nuclides of -- various 

16 isotopes of uranium, also protactinium-231 and 

17 plutonium-239. 

18 Another big mission at Mound was the 

19 radioisotope thermoelectric generator, and I'm 

20 just going to call that RTG for short, it's 

21 much easier. That program involved first 

22 polonium-210, but later on also plutonium-238. 

23 And finally Mound was involved in some research 

24 and some activities with tritium. 

25 Now this is not meant to be an all-inclusive 
16

1 list. This is simply the major programs at 

2 Mound. There were certainly many smaller 

3 programs. 

4 In terms of the history of the Mound site, the 

5 activities were transferred from the Dayton 

6 Project, and Board members might know that 

7 better as the Monsanto site. And you recall 

8 that we had an 83.14 petition to cover the 

9 Monsanto site. 

10 Those activities were transferred over to 

11 Mound, and that transfer was completed in 1949, 

12 and in February of 1949 the Mound site was 

13 occupied and began operation. 

14 Production continued through 1994. Now this is 

15 a loose date. I don't want to make this a 

16 hard, bright line because the RTG program 

17 continued even after this date. It's just that 

18 in 1994 the primary focus of the site was 

19 shifted from production to D&D, decommissioning 

20 and decontamination, and that happened in '94 

21 and continued up through 2006, loosely. 

22 Now in terms of the SEC process for this site, 

23 we received two petitions, SEC Petition 90 and 

24 Petition 91, and we received both of those 

25 petitions in June of this year. The first 
17

1 qualified in August and the second qualified in 

2 September. Upon qualification these petitions 

3 were merged, and so the initial class 

4 definition that we worked with from these two 

5 merged petitions was all employees who worked 

6 at Mound -- through the petitions it said 1949 

7 to present. We prefer to put a definite end 

8 date on that, and so we used the earlier 

9 qualification date. So 19-- February 1949 

10 through August 17th, 2007. 

11 Now I want to be clear here, this might be a 

12 little confusing. This was the -- the class 

13 definition that we established at the beginning 

14 of the evaluation process. Don't take this as 

15 we're recommending a class for this or -- but 

16 this is what we considered. 

17 Now to give you an idea of some of the other 

18 activities that have been related to the Mound 

19 site in this program, we typically use what are 

20 called Technical Basis Documents, and there are 

21 I think six of them, and together they make up 

22 a site profile. And we use those documents to 

23 tell us -- tell our dose reconstructors how to 

24 do dose reconstructions for people from those 

25 sites. And for the Mound site, the TBDs, the 
18

1 Technical Basis Documents, were issued in 

2 October -- well, between March and October of 

3 2004. And those Technical Basis Documents have 

4 been reviewed by SC&A, the Board's technical 

5 audit contractor, and they issued their draft 

6 review of that TBD in July of 2006. 

7 We also conducted -- we, meaning NIOSH and the 

8 ORAU team, conducted outreach meetings with two 

9 of the unions active at Mound. That would be 

10 PACE and the Dayton Building and Construction 

11 Trades Council. And those meetings occurred in 

12 January of 2005. 

13 In addition, as part of our review of this SEC 

14 petition, we conducted interviews -- at the 

15 time I made this slide it was with 21 former 

16 workers. In the intervening couple of weeks 

17 here, the past couple of weeks, we've 

18 interviewed three or four more, so we're up to 

19 about 25 workers that we have talked to. 

20 Now this slide gives you some of the data that 

21 is available to us to conduct dose 

22 reconstruction and to assist us in our 

23 evaluation of the SEC petition. First and 

24 foremost, as with most other sites, we rely on 

25 dosimetry records. And at Mound we have a 
19

1 couple of electronic databases available to us. 

2 The first is the Mound Environmental Safety and 

3 Health, or MESH, database. We also have access 

4 to the Plutonium Reconstruction, or PURECON, 

5 database. Similarly, we also have Polonium 

6 Reconstruction, that's the PORECON database. 

7 And we also have access to the paper copies of 

8 these records when they used that, in the 

9 earlier years. And I'll be talking a little 

10 bit more about some of these databases later on 

11 in the presentation. As usual, we also have a 

12 variety of technical documentation available to 

13 us, and that has been collected in the ORAU 

14 Site Research database. 

15 And finally, we also have documentation and 

16 information provided to us by the petitioners 

17 in the petitions themselves, as well as the 

18 insights that have been provided to us by the 

19 former workers that we have interviewed. 

20 Okay, in terms of dosimetry, as of about a 

21 month ago we had received approximately 500 

22 cases -- 491 cases -- for dose reconstruction, 

23 and we've completed 348 of them, as of a month 

24 ago. In terms of the dosimetry that's 

25 available for those 500 cases, 420 of those 
20

1 cases have internal monitoring records and 430 

2 of them have external monitoring records. 

3 Okay. So let's talk more about the bases of 

4 the petitions that were submitted. I've listed 

5 here on this slide -- one, two, three -- six 

6 bullets that -- that are the major concerns 

7 that were raised in the petition, the first of 

8 which was a concern that radiation monitoring 

9 of workers and of materials was haphazard. 

10 A concern was also expressed that radioactive 

11 contaminated materials turned up where they 

12 didn't expect it to, in non-controlled -- non13 radiologically-controlled areas. 

14 The next concern was employees in non15 controlled areas prohibited from receiving 

16 monitoring. 

17 And there's some overlap in the next couple of 

18 slides for these three bullets. I'm going to 

19 talk about them and there's some overlap 

20 between them. 

21 The last three concerns expressed were the 

22 control of Mound Laboratory documentation, 

23 destruction of records and the integrity of the 

24 radiation dose records. 

25 So let's just walk through these. The first 
21

1 concern, haphazard monitoring of radioactive 

2 material and of workers. It is certainly true 

3 that, like most other DOE sites that at least -

4 - that operated into the '90s, Mound's 

5 operational history includes periods when the 

6 monitoring -- the bioassay program and the 

7 external monitoring -- was targeted toward 

8 those workers who were judged to have 

9 significant exposure potential. That is true. 

10 And also, through the interviews that we've 

11 conducted with former workers, we've confirmed 

12 that that is the case here at Mound as well, 

13 that -- that people with -- the workers with 

14 the highest exposure potential or significant 

15 exposure potential were targeted for the 

16 monitoring program. 

17 We also talked to several workers who confirmed 

18 that yes, indeed, contaminated items on 

19 occasion did turn up in clean areas. And I had 

20 one RCT talk to me about how this happened, and 

21 -- and the situation that he described was, for 

22 example, complicated pieces of equipment, 

23 equipment that had inaccessible interior 

24 surfaces, they would decontaminate the outside 

25 of the equipment, send it over to the staging 
22

1 facility to get rid of it, and when they 

2 started to pull that equipment apart -- lo and 

3 behold, they discovered contamination that they 

4 didn't expect to be there. So those are the -- 

5 that's one example of the kinds of situations 

6 that we're talking about. And we did find 

7 support for that concern when we talked to the 

8 workers, so we're confident that -- that that 

9 did occur. 

10 In addition, the contractor was fined, under 

11 the Price Anderson Act, for questions related 

12 to bioassay program in the 1990s. And I want 

13 to stress here that of course a regulator-- any 

14 kind of a regulatory compliance violation is, 

15 by definition, a concern. It's -- it's an 

16 important issue. It doesn't necessarily mean 

17 that it impacts our ability to do dose 

18 reconstruction. But in this particular case, 

19 the Price Anderson Act violations that I'm 

20 talking about relate to the bioassay program at 

21 Mound. So at least in the big picture it has 

22 the potential to impact our ability to do dose 

23 reconstruction, and what I propose to the Board 

24 today is that we -- we really need to spend 

25 some more time investigating this particular 
23

1 issue because it does have the potential to be 

2 important to what we do here. So that is going 

3 to be one caveat that I'm going to mention, 

4 that -- that we think this bears further 

5 investigation. 

6 Now the concern was expressed, as I just 

7 mentioned, about the radioactively-contaminated 

8 materials in non-controlled areas, and we did 

9 confirm, through our interviews with workers, 

10 that that was indeed the case. It did happen 

11 on occasion, and not just once or twice, but 

12 periodically. However, we don't see any 

13 evidence that any significant exposures 

14 occurred, in terms of intakes of radioactive 

15 material, resulting in significant doses. And 

16 keep in mind that Mound did have a bioassay 

17 program in place. So we do think that this is 

18 an important issue, but we don't see that it 

19 impacts our ability to do dose reconstruction. 

20 The next concern was that employees in non21 controlled areas were prohibited from receiving 

22 monitoring. This -- this was kind of non23 specific and -- and as I mentioned that 

24 certainly during the '90s only workers who were 

25 expected to receive an annual dose of 100 
24

1 millirem were required to be monitored. So it 

2 is certainly possible -- in fact likely, I 

3 would say -- that -- that people who were not 

4 expected to receive that much dose were not 

5 part of the monitoring program. That is 

6 certainly the case. 

7 But we didn't find any evidence that workers 

8 were inappropriately denied monitoring. And in 

9 fact, in -- in response to that situation I 

10 just described, the Price Anderson Act 

11 violations, towards the later '90s they kind of 

12 went to the other extreme, and anyone who was 

13 concerned about being exposed to anything, if 

14 they requested a bioassay, they were given that 

15 bioassay, even if, you know, they weren't 

16 judged to have exposure potential. That was 

17 kind of a reaction to that situation. So we 

18 didn't really find that workers were 

19 inappropriately denied monitoring. 

20 Now the next issues -- the control of Mound Lab 

21 documentation, Mound would be -- if -- if you 

22 looked at a spectrum of the DOE sites, Mound 

23 would be towards the end of being very, very 

24 cautious, very, very tight with the 

25 documentation. And as an example of that, take 
25

1 logbooks. Any of you who have worked in a 

2 laboratory perhaps -- oh, I keep trying to walk 

3 in front of the slides here. Anyone who has 

4 worked in a laboratory, for instance, or who 

5 was perhaps a supervisor at a DOE site, you 

6 might keep your logbooks. Well, what we find 

7 is that the Mound logbooks were -- were 

8 numbered sequentially, the pages were numbered 

9 sequentially, just like a checkbook. And these 

10 logbooks were born classified. And what I mean 

11 by that is they would order a large inventory 

12 of logbooks, sequentially numbered, and even 

13 empty logbooks, they're classified. So if I'm 

14 a researcher, I go into the -- the supply folks 

15 and I say I need a logbook and they issue it to 

16 me. That's classified, from day one. And when 

17 I fill up that logbook and I go get another 

18 logbook, that one's classified, too. So 

19 certainly there was very tight control of Mound 

20 documentation. 

21 However, the information that we use for dose 

22 reconstruction -- and this last bullet says 

23 bioassay data; it should really say dosimetry 

24 data -- is by -- is, by nature -- it's 

25 unclassified and it is available to NIOSH. 
26

1 That's the -- that's the type of data we 

2 primarily use in dose reconstruction. And it's 

3 also worth mentioning that, should we deem it 

4 important or necessary, we do have access to 

5 classified data and we have protocols 

6 established to handle that type of a situation. 

7 But the bioassay data and the external 

8 dosimetry data is what we primarily rely upon, 

9 and that is available to us. 

10 Okay, the next concern. A lot of interest has 

11 been generated about this particular issue, and 

12 it is the records that were buried at Los 

13 Alamos National Laboratory from Mound. And we 

14 spent a lot of time investigating this, and 

15 here's what we have found out. In 1995, as 

16 part of the consolidation across the DOE 

17 complex, the classified records were collected 

18 into a couple of different locations. And some 

19 of these records -- logbooks, for instance -- 

20 turned up contaminated with radioactive 

21 material. And so in about 1995 Mound shipped 

22 458 cubic feet of records down to Los Alamos. 

23 That -- that absolutely did happen. And before 

24 the records were shipped, though, they were 

25 inventoried at Mound by the records staff. 
27

1 Once they got down to Mound (sic), they sat in 

2 less than idea circumstances in terms of 

3 preserving those records. However, right 

4 around 1995 MJW Corporation was retained to do 

5 a dose reconstruction for -- it's called a pre6 1989 dose reconstruction. And MJW personnel, 

7 dose reconstructors, went down to Los Alamos 

8 and took another look at these records, and 

9 they -- they wound up pulling back I think it 

10 was 43 boxes, because they were doing a quick 

11 scan of -- of this 458 cubic feet, and anything 

12 that might have any potential value for doing a 

13 dose reconstruction, they pulled it back and 

14 sent it back to Mound so that they could take a 

15 closer look at it. 

16 Well, once they got back to Mound and did go 

17 through those logbooks, they found some 

18 bioassay data in terms of -- think of it this 

19 way. If I was a supervisor at Mound and I've 

20 got -- I don't know, let's just say ten workers 

21 under my supervision. Periodically I'm going 

22 to get dosimetry reports on those -- on those 

23 workers, and it says, you know, Joe Worker got 

24 this many rem in this quarter. Okay. Well, if 

25 it's of note, if it's, you know, particularly 
28

1 high dose or particularly interesting dose or -

2 - for any reason, I might write it in my 

3 logbook, Joe's got two rem, got to be careful 

4 so he doesn't exceed limits. There were things 

5 like that in the-- in these logbooks. That's 

6 just an example. 

7 But what MJW found was that all of the bioassay 

8 data that was in these logbooks was al-- 

9 already available in records that had been 

10 microfiched at Mound. So they didn't find 

11 anything that, had they not pulled it back and 

12 had it been buried, that would have impacted 

13 their ability to do a dose reconstruction. 

14 Nevertheless, these logbooks that they pulled 

15 back, they had them scanned. They were part of 

16 the A-basement* consolidation. They scanned 

17 these records and those records were then sent 

18 to Austin for safekeeping, so those are 

19 available. 

20 Once that was done, once they had been scanned, 

21 those records that they had pulled back were 

22 sent to NTS for disposal and they were disposed 

23 of. The records down at Los Alamos were also 

24 disposed of. So while it is certainly true 

25 that records were disposed of, that's not 
29

1 unusual. I mean they -- the DOE disposed of a 

2 lot of records because, quite frankly, they had 

3 guidelines about what they had to retain and 

4 what they didn't, and these were not dosimetry 

5 records so they didn't have to retain them. 

6 So what were they, exactly. Well, they 

7 included production records. They included 

8 industrial X-rays, accounting records and some 

9 laboratory logbooks. Here is the bullet about 

10 MJW retrieving the 43 boxes, and again, the 

11 important point is that they found that the 

12 data that was in those logbooks was already 

13 available in other Mound documentation, so it's 

14 not the primary dosimetry information. 

15 Okay, lastly, the concern was raised about the 

16 integrity of radiation dose records. And what 

17 I can tell you here is that as part of the MJW 

18 dose reconstruction project, they looked at the 

19 PURECON database. That, as you might guess 

20 from the name, contains the plutonium bioassay 

21 data. They looked at 100 percent of that 

22 entire database. They looked at all of them. 

23 And they found about what you would expect in a 

24 database -- error rates in the single-digit 

25 percentages, maybe five percent, I don't 
30

1 remember the exact number, but they corrected 

2 those. So it was pretty typical for, you know, 

3 clerical type errors, and those were corrected. 

4 In addition, MJW created the PORECON database, 

5 and they did that with double-key data entry 

6 and they QA'd that extensively, and that is 

7 very well documented. So we have a lot of 

8 confidence in the integrity of -- of that data. 

9 And in fact, we didn't really identify any 

10 problems with the integrity of the dosimetry 

11 data available at Mound. 

12 So that brings us to the end of the concerns 

13 that were raised in the petition, and we issued 

14 our evaluation report, as Dr. Ziemer mentioned, 

15 in December of last year, just a couple of 

16 weeks ago. 

17 And now I'd like to talk to you, though, about 

18 an issue that wasn't raised explicitly in the 

19 SEC petitions, but it was raised in more than 

20 one -- several -- of the interviews that we 

21 conducted with former workers. And that 

22 involves the operations that were conducted at 

23 Mound from very early, October of 1949, and 

24 spanned the next ten years up to 1959, and that 

25 is the separation of radium-226, actinium-227 
31

1 and thorium-228. The source materials for this 

2 operation were K-65 residues -- Board members, 

3 you might be familiar with that; we've talked 

4 about it in other contexts -- and also 

5 irradiated radium. 

6 Now these operations were conducted in what's 

7 variously known as the old cave. It's also 

8 been called the radium cave. Officially it's 

9 SW-19. And I -- I'm paraphrasing one of the 

10 old-timers that we interviewed. He said that 

11 was just a nasty, nasty operation. And we -- 

12 we like to -- at least the interviews that I'm 

13 involved with, when we talk to the workers I 

14 like my last question to be okay, we've asked 

15 you about a number of issues; is there anything 

16 that we haven't asked you about that you think 

17 would be important in terms of our ability to 

18 do dose reconstruction, something that we 

19 should have asked you about and didn't. And 

20 that's the context in which this came up, the 

21 worker mentioned it. 

22 And so we spent some time evaluating this. And 

23 what we found, for example -- we looked at some 

24 health physics progress reports. I don't 

25 remember if they were monthly, but they were 
32

1 periodic progress reports, and we found 

2 language in there that that indicated to us 

3 that the contamination was not confined to SW4 19, the old cave, but in fact it was spread 

5 throughout R and SW buildings. We also know 

6 that some other buildings were involved in 

7 research to support this project, although I 

8 can't really tell you the extent of that. And 

9 we've seen air data for this. Now I can't 

10 really go into the details about the pedigree 

11 of that air data, but let's just say that it 

12 was sufficient to indicate to me that there was 

13 pretty significant airborne potential. And we 

14 also have a very limited number of bioassay 

15 data for this operation, radium, actinium and 

16 thorium. However, as MJW noted, there are a 

17 lot of problems with interpreting this 

18 bioassay. In some cases it wasn't associated 

19 with a particular worker. In some cases it 

20 didn't have units on it. You had to assume the 

21 age of the material when that wasn't specified. 

22 And so there's just a lot of problems that we 

23 felt would not allow us to put a sufficient 

24 upper bound -- sufficiently accurate upper 

25 bound on the internal doses from this 
33

1 particular operation. 

2 And therefore we concluded that reconstruction 

3 of internal doses from these three 

4 radionuclides -- radium-226, actinium-227 and 

5 thorium-228 -- is not feasible. And the period 

6 that that covers is from the time the material 

7 arrived on site until the completion of D&D of 

8 the old cave. And we know the month that that 

9 happened. We know that it arrived on site in 

10 October of '49 and we know that D&D was 

11 completed in February of '59 -- don't know the 

12 exact date, so we're taking the broadest scope 

13 here and just saying October 1st, '49 through 

14 February 28th, '59. 

15 We have concluded, however, that reconstruction 

16 of internal doses is feasible from 1959 

17 forward, and I've -- I've put here 1990, with 

18 that weird symbol that means sort of about 

19 1990, and that's because of that caveat that I 

20 mentioned early -- earlier, the concerns that 

21 we have about the situation that led to the 

22 Price Anderson Act violations, and those were 

23 related specifically to the bioassay program. 

24 And I'm not prepared to stand here today that -

25 - one way or the other, that yes, we can do 
34

1 dose reconstruction, or no, those issues are 

2 not important. What I propose to you -- we 

3 have the documentation in hand, it's about 

4 2,200 pages, and we are speedily reviewing that 

5 now. What I propose to you is that we report 

6 back -- I come back and report to you, Board 

7 members, on what we find as we work through 

8 that material. 

9 We did find -- we did conclude that 

10 reconstruction of external doses is feasible 

11 for all years. 

12 Okay, Board members will recognize this slide, 

13 I think it's in every SEC petition, it's the 

14 standard two-pronged test. For those of you 

15 who are not as familiar with it, we have -- in 

16 terms of deciding whether or not to recommend 

17 an SEC class, there's what we call a two18 pronged test. And the first prong, the first 

19 question that we have to answer, is is it 

20 feasible to estimate the level of radiation 

21 doses that a class could have received with 

22 sufficient accuracy. Well -- and then if the 

23 answer to that question is no, it's not 

24 feasible, then we have to proceed to the second 

25 question, and that is is there a reasonable 
35

1 likelihood that health was endangered. 

2 So our evaluation of the SEC petition for 

3 Mound, through that two-pronged test, we 

4 recommend -- NIOSH recommends addition of an 

5 SEC class at Mound that consists of all workers 

6 on site -- because again, we can't really say 

7 who might have been walking through R and SW 

8 buildings, whether or not they were monitored, 

9 so we don't really think it's feasible to try 

10 to limit this class more specifically than just 

11 everyone who worked on site during the time 

12 period of October 1st, 1949 through February 

13 28th, 1959. 

14 And so, to summarize, you see the first row 

15 there on this last slide, the table, we do 

16 recommend a class from '49 to '59 for internal 

17 doses from those three radionuclides that we 

18 talked about. Feasibility, no; we've concluded 

19 that it is not feasible to bound doses for 

20 these folks. And yes, we've concluded there is 

21 a reasonable probability that their health was 

22 endangered from that operation. 

23 However, from '49 forward we are not propo-- we 

24 -- we have concluded that we can do internal 

25 doses from all other radionuclides, with the 
36

1 possible exception -- an issue that we want to 

2 investigate further, and that's related to the 

3 D&D program, about 1990 into the D&-- into the 

4 later years. It might be 1980s, late '80s -- 

5 again, it's not a bright line when they started 

6 doing D&D, but it certainly ramped up in the 

7 early 90s. 

8 And finally, we've concluded that we can do 

9 external for all years. 

10 So I believe that is my last slide -- yes, it 

11 is. I would be happy to entertain any 

12 questions. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: So Brant, is it true then that 

14 your recommendation is basically saying that 

15 this open issue on the Price Anderson issue 

16 does not affect your recommendation on the 

17 early years at all -- 

18 DR. ULSH: Oh, no, no. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- so that part, from '49 to '59, 

20 on -- on the internal dose from radium, 

21 actinium and thorium, still stands, and the 

22 1949 to about '90 period, depending on the 

23 outcome of that -- 

24 DR. ULSH: Right. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- you're saying you can 
37

1 reconstruct doses -- 

2 DR. ULSH: Correct. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: -- except the -- that part is 

4 fuzzy. 

5 DR. ULSH: Yeah, the end date -- the 1990 year 

6 there is very approximate. I think that the 

7 Price Anderson Act violations dealt with 

8 incidents that occurred in -- 1992, does that 

9 sound right? I'm -- I'm looking at the back of 

10 the room to the conflicted Board member. Right 

11 around there, right around 1992-ish, but it 

12 wasn't only that -- okay, let me go into a 

13 little bit more detail perhaps. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the -- 

15 DR. ULSH: Or not. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- the only -- the point of my 

17 question is if the Board wished to take action 

18 on the early period -- 

19 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- then we would expect at some 

21 point there would be a later action that would 

22 clarify this other issue and we could determine 

23 what to do at some other time on the later time 

24 period. 

25 DR. ULSH: That's exactly what I'm 
38

1 recommending, yes. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I see, okay. Josie I think 

3 has a question. 

4 MS. BEACH: Yeah, I have two questions 

5 actually. The first one is on the actin-- 

6 actinium-227. In 1964 190 milligrams of 

7 actinium was processed in the new cave. Does -

8 - does NIOSH have the bio data for that time 

9 frame? 

10 DR. ULSH: You know, Josie, I would have to go 

11 back and look and see. I know that I've got a 

12 spreadsheet back at the office that tells me 

13 the bioassay data for all of those things. You 

14 said 1964 in the new cave? 

15 MS. BEACH: That's correct. 

16 DR. ULSH: Yeah. The -- I would have to check 

17 into that a little bit more and get back to you 

18 with more details on that. I can tell you that 

19 the new cave contained a hot cell, and I talked 

20 to a couple of the guys who were working in the 

21 hot cell, and what that typically is and what 

22 it was in the new cave is the facility where -- 

23 you put the material inside, and it's shielded 

24 by several inches of -- of leaded glass to 

25 shield you from the external doses, and it's 
39

1 got remote manipulators. And I specifically 

2 asked one of the guys -- one of the former 

3 workers, I said okay, when I think of a hot 

4 cell I think of a totally isolated environment; 

5 is that what we're talking about here? And he 

6 said oh, yeah, yeah, that's what we're talking 

7 about. So if they -- I still have to -- my 

8 answer to you is I've got to check into that 

9 and get back some more details for you, but 

10 keep in mind that it was inside a hot cell, 

11 so... 

12 MS. BEACH: And then my second question is, in 

13 your evaluation report on Table 6.64, PURECON -

14 - Pu records summary, 19 -- let me see, the 

15 year 1965 had 300 -- or 3,632 records, 1966 

16 only had 11, and then it jumps back up to 3,718 

17 in 1967, and then again in 1991 there was only 

18 one record. I was just wondering why that was. 

19 DR. ULSH: Good question. I'm going to have to 

20 give you the same answer there. I'll check 

21 into that and get back to you. 

22 MS. BEACH: Thank you. 

23 DR. ULSH: Sure. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Is that on Table 6-6? 

25 MS. BEACH: 6-4. 
40

1 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, 6-4. 

2 MS. BEACH: Page 39. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Ask an easier question first. 

5 DR. ULSH: That would be good. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: On the cutoff, the February 28th, 

7 '58, whatev-- '59 -- 

8 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: -- the cutoff when the cave was 

10 deconned, you mentioned in your presentation 

11 that the contam-- the R and SW building -- 

12 entire building had some contamination. I -- I 

13 believe they probably D&D'd the cave itself, 

14 but not the rest of the building, and yet 

15 you're, you know, excluding the time from -- 

16 you know, you're cutting it off at that point. 

17 What -- you know, how do you -- 

18 DR. ULSH: Right. Well, first of all, it 

19 wasn't the entire building. It was several 

20 areas of the building, so I wouldn't want to 

21 speculate on what -- where there might not be 

22 radiation. As I understand it, though, they 

23 did do D&D -- they did clean up -- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: All the various areas? 

25 DR. ULSH: Yeah. I would have to give you more 
41

1 details, though, about, you know, what types of 

2 sampling -- 

3 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

4 DR. ULSH: -- and characterization plans, that 

5 was -- that's a bit more detailed that we went 

6 into here. 

7 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Brad Clawson. 

9 MR. CLAWSON: I'm trying to understand, after 

10 1959 what makes it so that now you think that 

11 you can do the internal dose. What -- what has 

12 changed in the process? 

13 DR. ULSH: Well, the -- the cutoff date, Brad, 

14 was the end of that particular project that we 

15 found problematic, the radium, actinium, 

16 thorium separations. That ended with the D&D 

17 of the old cave, and that was completed in 

18 February of '59. So they really weren't doing 

19 much, with the possible exception of what Josie 

20 just asked about, with this particular material 

21 after that. And we have bioassay data for the 

22 other programs -- you know, the polonium, the 

23 plutonium, thorium -- we have bioassay data for 

24 that that we think is sufficient to do dose 

25 reconstruction. 
42

1 MR. CLAWSON: So up to 1959, that -- that 

2 incorporated the decon of the facility -- 

3 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

4 MR. CLAWSON: -- and the hot cell that they 

5 were working on and -- 

6 DR. ULSH: Well, now Josie mentioned the new 

7 cave. Don't confuse that -- 

8 MR. CLAWSON: In -- 

9 DR. ULSH: -- with the old cave. 

10 MR. CLAWSON: In 64. 

11 DR. ULSH: Yeah. Those are two separate 

12 facilities. There's the old cave, the radium 

13 cave, where they did this radium, actinium, 

14 thorium separation. Then they D&D'd that and 

15 they actually abandoned that facility and they 

16 established the new cave, and the new cave is 

17 where they had the hot cell, and that's -- they 

18 did some operations in there throughout the 

19 later years, into the '60s and '70s, so those 

20 are two separate places. They've very close 

21 together, but they're separate rooms -- 

22 separate... 

23 MR. CLAWSON: So when you're saying that it's 

24 deconned, that facility is done away with or 

25 was just cleaned up, it was just -- and still 
43

1 sat there? 

2 DR. ULSH: Well, it was cleaned up, but keep in 

3 mind, Brad, this is the '50s, so -- 

4 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 

5 DR. ULSH: -- their standards were a bit 

6 different than the standards we might think of 

7 when we D&D today. 

8 MR. CLAWSON: Well -- 

9 DR. ULSH: But the -- there were no operations 

10 going on in the old cave after that date -- 

11 MR. CLAWSON: I understand that, and -- and 

12 dealing with thorium, so forth and everything 

13 else like that, I guess kind of what I'm 

14 wondering about is down the road in the -- the 

15 D&D era when they got back into that facility, 

16 were they -- were they monitoring for these 

17 things better? See, the point I'm trying to 

18 get is when they get in there and they start to 

19 decon this and they've got what we call legacy 

20 problems in there, we're digging up memories. 

21 Okay? 

22 DR. ULSH: Right. 

23 MR. CLAWSON: And -- and are we going to be 

24 able to monitor the people later on in their 

25 date for this? 
44

1 DR. ULSH: Well, in fact you raise a very good 

2 question, and this is what I was going to go 

3 into a little bit more detail on. I mentioned 

4 to you the Price Anderson Act violations in the 

5 '90s related to the bioassay during the D&D era 

6 -- well, actually -- and Mark, now that I think 

7 about it, this relates a little bit to your 

8 question, perhaps -- a situation was brought to 

9 our attention by a former worker that we 

10 interviewed and discussed with several others 

11 about a particular job that was done in the R 

12 building. The R corridor 5, I believe, they 

13 were D&D-ing it and they ran into -- 

14 unexpectedly, I guess -- actinium. And as I 

15 understand it, this is one of the incidents 

16 that led to the Price Anderson Act violation, 

17 although it wasn't the only one. They took 

18 bioassay samples on those folks, but they 

19 didn't analyze them promptly. And so that kind 

20 of piques my interest in terms of ability to do 

21 a dose reconstruction. It -- it -- I would say 

22 that that fits your description of a legacy 

23 problem, yeah, absolutely. I think that's the 

24 nature of the concerns that led to the Price 

25 Anderson Act violations in the '90s, and I 
45

1 think that certainly warrants further -- 

2 further scrutiny. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments or 

4 questions from the Board? Okay. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: I got -- this is changing the 

6 topic a little bit, but on -- on page 13, 

7 Brant, I think -- I think this -- well, I'll 

8 ask if it was a typo, but you -- you mentioned 

9 on your slide on page 13, I don't know if you 

10 can find it, under 10 CFR 835 -- it started off 

11 with a discussion of 835, monitoring would have 

12 been required for potential exposures, 

13 something like that. In the statement it said 

14 NIOSH found no evidence that workers were 

15 inappropriately denied external monitoring. I 

16 think you said denied any -- denied external or 

17 internal. Right? 

18 DR. ULSH: You know, actually, Mark, I did that 

19 -- that's not a typo. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. I just wasn't sure. 

21 DR. ULSH: We didn't find the workers were 

22 denied external monitoring, but this -- 

23 MR. GRIFFON: How about -- 

24 DR. ULSH: -- caveat that we're talking about -

25 - 
46

1 MR. GRIFFON: -- how about internal -- okay, 

2 okay. 

3 DR. ULSH: -- this caveat that we're talking 

4 about here, did they appropriately monitor the 

5 D&D workers for the materials they might have 

6 been exposed to, I've got some concerns. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. Now there were 

8 actually originally two petitions, you 

9 remember, petition -- 

10 DR. ULSH: Yes, 90 and -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: -- 00090 and 00091. 

12 DR. ULSH: Right. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: [name redacted] is one of the 

14 petitioners for 00090 and Judy Miller is the 

15 lead petitioner for 00091, and we have [name 

16 redacted] on the phone, Larry -- or is it -- 

17 yeah, I think it -- it's Larry who -- Russell, 

18 and Larry, did you have a statement -- and let 

19 me tell -- tell you that -- Larry, your 

20 communication to the Board dated December 29th 

21 has been distributed to the Board members. I 

22 believe everybody got that. But did you have 

23 some additional comments? 

24 MR. RUSSELL: Yes, I'd like to make some brief 

25 comments about this. 
47

1 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Proceed. 

2 MR. RUSSELL: Again, my name is Larry Russell. 

3 I'm the [identifying information redacted], who 

4 did file SEC 00090 petition, which was merged 

5 with 91. I want to let the Board know we were 

6 not able to attend this meeting of the Board 

7 due to the location and the shortness of 

8 notice, which we weren't really informed of the 

9 meeting until December 21st, '07. 

10 This petition was filed regarding her 

11 employment at the Mound Lab. [name redacted] 

12 was there from 19-- September 1965 through 

13 April 2001. In 2005 [identifying information 

14 redacted]. In a letter that we received dated 

15 December 15th, 2007 from the U.S. Department of 

16 Labor, District Cleveland Office, they have 

17 recommended acceptance of her claim for 

18 [identifying information redacted], and we're 

19 still awaiting word of how they're going to 

20 proceed on that. It's our understanding right 

21 now that no decisions has been made in regard 

22 to [identifying information redacted]. 

23 We have some concerns about the SEC petition 

24 evaluation report which was dated December 

25 21st. One I think that I heard a lot was 
48

1 availability of employee health records, which 

2 you know included X-rays, TLD readings, et 

3 cetera. We would like to stress, though, that 

4 the monitoring procedures of each of the 

5 operating contractors varied dramatically, and 

6 there were at least six different contractors 

7 that [name redacted] worked under the time she 

8 was at Mound. Many workers that worked there 

9 asked to be monitored but, depending on the 

10 contractor and where they worked, they were not 

11 allowed to be monitored, which I find alarming. 

12 When someone thinks they need to be monitored 

13 and it's done -- and I'm sure it was done for 

14 budgets -- reasons, we have a concern about the 

15 MORE records system. A lot of people we talked 

16 to said it was flawed by backlog and a lot of 

17 records never really got inputted (sic). It 

18 was designed poorly and most supervisors 

19 considered it pretty worthless. And I'm again 

20 quoting the people we've talked to. 

21 I'm concerned, and [name redacted] is, about 

22 the SEC report relying on interviews, but I did 

23 hear today that there has been a big attempt to 

24 go back and look at, you know, written 

25 documentation, specific documents, and I'm glad 
49

1 that they do have some kind of database to -- 

2 that they can look at some of these records. 

3 But again I think the key thing is what about 

4 the records who were not -- for the employees 

5 who were not monitored during this process. 

6 I also want to let you know that -- and you may 

7 be aware of this -- anyone who retired from the 

8 Mound, as part of their retirement, can 

9 purchase health insurance benefits, which [name 

10 redacted] did. But the health insurance policy 

11 has a lifetime benefit of $250,000. 

12 [identifying information redacted]. We're 

13 asking that the Board not accept the petition 

14 evaluation report and ask for more detailed 

15 information. I think it's essential the Board 

16 have factual data. Interviews with former 

17 Mound people I think are good, and I think that 

18 effort is commendable that it was done, but 

19 we're going to -- we're asking that the Board 

20 table this issue and seek more information 

21 before any final determination is made. And I 

22 would -- on behalf of [name redacted], I would 

23 like to thank you for the opportunity to 

24 provide this input to you on this important 

25 issue for not only her, but all Mound workers. 
50

1 Thank you. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much, Mr. 

3 Russell. 

4 Now we'll hear from Judy Miller. Judy, we'd be 

5 pleased to have your comments at this time. 

6 MS. MILLER: Can I do this? Hello, my name is 

7 Judy Miller and I am the daughter of Mary Ann 

8 Miller, who worked at Mound from 1956 to 1983. 

9 She couldn't be with us here today. She passed 

10 away on December the 25th of '05, which was 

11 quite unexpected. 

12 But I would like to introduce you to my mom and 

13 show you brief little snippets of her life and 

14 her friends and her loved ones, and [name 

15 redacted] has been kind enough to help me 

16 technically, so if you would, please, just sort 

17 of -- this is my mom and -- and this was just a 

18 little bit of our lives together. 

19 (Whereupon, a slide show was presented.) 

20 Thank you for allowing me to share that with 

21 you. I would like to just tell her story, if I 

22 may. 

23 I was born in 1949, and I moved to Miamisburg, 

24 Ohio and we lived south of the Mound Plant next 

25 to the river. And Mom went to work at the 
51

1 Mound in 1956 and I went to Our Lady of Good 

2 Hope in 1956. She was a very conscientious 

3 worker and she received numerous awards for her 

4 attendance, and she was an excellent mother and 

5 she was a wonderful friend. 

6 She became ill in the '60s, and her attendance 

7 of course started falling off and she had 

8 various forms of different illnesses. In 1970 

9 she was diagnosed with leukemia. They didn't 

10 give a specific type, but they just diagnosed 

11 her with leukemia. She was also diagnosed with 

12 COPD, which resulted in her retirement, her 

13 disability retirement in 1983. She -- the 

14 leukemia maintained itself and she developed 

15 numerous illnesses and infections and in and 

16 out of the hospital for the rest of her life. 

17 She worked in B building, in the Lab. She 

18 worked with [name redacted], who is also one of 

19 the petitioners, and she was there in the -- 

20 [name redacted], who is also a petitioner, also 

21 worked at the Mound. [name redacted] has been 

22 diagnosed with breast cancer and has been 

23 hopefully successfully treated. 

24 My mother filed the EEOICP when it came into 

25 law. She was denied. And at that point that's 
52

1 when I became involved and I began helping her 

2 with it. At that time her illness was really 

3 starting to take its toll so I helped her with 

4 it and we managed to get a specific diagnosis 

5 of the leukemia, which is CML. And as I 

6 understand now, that is -- the only reason that 

7 you would have CML with the mutation of your 

8 chromosomes is because of radiation exposure. 

9 She was awarded her claim under the E portion 

10 of EEOICPA. She was granted a minimum of -- a 

11 minimum amount, because it wasn't a whole body 

12 impairment. She received $165,000, which of 

13 course she did know that she received, and for 

14 that I am very grateful. 

15 The CML was denied again, and we appealed it 

16 again, and I can't even begin to tell you how 

17 many times. However, she -- that was -- that 

18 was one of the causes of her death on Christmas 

19 Day. She was 91 pounds. She was covered with 

20 sores that would not heal. And as you can see, 

21 she was a very beautiful woman, very full of 

22 life. Although her illness did incapacitate 

23 her in different ways, she still managed to -- 

24 to show us a wonderful life and to do the best 

25 she could. And I am imploring you to recommend 
53

1 that the Mound become a Special Exposure Cohort 

2 because I feel very passionately that the Mound 

3 contributed to her death. And in fact, one of 

4 these days may contribute to mine. 

5 As I stated, I lived south of the Mound Plant 

6 in what was a little neighborhood called Komen* 

7 Plat. And I have a water analysis from that 

8 area which was done in 1991, and we had wells 

9 for our water. And there was traces of 

10 plutonium-238, and I have a hard time with 

11 this, titrinium (sic), but there was also a 

12 measurable amount in the water. We lived there 

13 until 1959. 

14 My father passed away with lung cancer. [name 

15 redacted] has had numerous illnesses that were 

16 -- have been unable to be diagnosed. The 

17 doctors just don't know. I have my own set of 

18 illnesses. And my friend [name redacted], who 

19 was kind enough to come here with me, he -- his 

20 family has also -- his parents didn't work 

21 there, but they lived down the hill from Mound 

22 and he has lost two very close family members 

23 with illnesses that were not ordinary. 

24 And there's numerous people in Miamisburg that 

25 have been affected by the Mound. I know that 
54

1 it was a -- it was a wonderful place to work. 

2 When my mother and my aunts were there they 

3 were very grateful to have that type of 

4 position and were very proud to be there. But 

5 the fact that it did cause their illness -- she 

6 was a perfectly healthy, 26-year-old woman when 

7 she went there, and all of her medical records 

8 point to that. The Mound was in a very close 

9 proximity to all of the residents. I feel that 

10 they have destroyed my town. I no longer want 

11 to go back there, for my own health and for my 

12 own children's health. And I would again plead 

13 with the Advisory Board to rectify this 

14 atrocity, and I -- that's what I believe that 

15 it is. It was so incomprehensible that our 

16 government could put that many people at risk 

17 and not seemingly care for the damage that it 

18 was done to the families and to the lives -- 

19 not only to the workers, but to the residents 

20 and the people who lived there and loved the 

21 town. 

22 I'll -- I will close with the fact that I think 

23 that NIOSH may have a very valuable piece in 

24 this puzzle. However, I don't believe that 

25 they have all of the information, nor do I 
55

1 believe that they can complete the dose 

2 reconstructions that would be favorable to the 

3 claimants. And I would passionately plead with 

4 the Advisory Board to recommend that the entire 

5 facility give some relief to the workers and to 

6 the survivors of that plant. 

7 That's pretty much all I have to say, and thank 

8 you for allowing me to speak on behalf of my 

9 mom. And just one bright note, we do have a 

10 new family member and she was born a few months 

11 after my mother died, and she was named after 

12 my mom, so we have [name redacted] to take 

13 Mom's place. So again, thank you for your 

14 time. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. I 

16 mentioned earlier we have a letter from Senator 

17 Brown, and we're going to have that letter read 

18 into the record. So Jason, if you'll come now 

19 and, for the record, read the letter from 

20 Senator Brown of Ohio. 

21 MR. BROEHM: Yes, I'll do that. It's a letter 

22 from Senator Sherrod Brown, United States 

23 Senator from Ohio. Dear Dr. Ziemer, I write to 

24 express my support for the Special Exposure 

25 Cohort status number 0090 petition filed for 
56

1 the former employees and their survivors of the 

2 Mound Plant. 

3 Workers at the Mound Plant in Miamisburg, Ohio 

4 were involved with top secret defense research 

5 that produced nuclear materials and technology. 

6 The work often required handling poisonous and 

7 radioactive materials, and as a result workers 

8 were sometimes unknowingly exposed to dangerous 

9 levels of toxins. The Energy Employees 

10 Compensation Program was created to compensate 

11 Energy workers and their survivors for the 

12 illnesses that resulted from these exposures. 

13 In September the Senate's Health, Education, 

14 Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing on 

15 the effectiveness of the EEOICP. Throughout 

16 the hearing both claimants and program 

17 administrators noted how the lack of available 

18 information prevents full and accurate dose 

19 reconstructions. This testimony was further 

20 substantiated by a GAO report released shortly 

21 after this hearing which cited "unavailable or 

22 incomplete radiation monitoring records" as a 

23 reason for the increased program costs. 

24 Individual claimants are experiencing this same 

25 lack of information, but do not have the 
57

1 federal resources at their disposal to overcome 

2 the obstacle. 

3 The lack of available information is 

4 particularly troublesome because it is the 

5 claimants' responsibility to demonstrate 

6 exposure levels and prove the relationship 

7 between exposure and illness. The inability of 

8 claimants to reconstruct exposure levels 

9 because of incomplete, in accurate and 

10 sometimes classified information, coupled with 

11 the obligation of claimants to adequately meet 

12 the burden of proof, creates an unjust system 

13 that defies the true purpose of the EEOICP. 

14 It is my understanding that NIOSH is submitting 

15 an SEC Petition Evaluation Report recommending 

16 that SEC status be granted only to employees 

17 that worked at Mound for a specific period of 

18 time. I encourage the Advisory Board to extend 

19 SEC status to all Mound workers, from 1949 to 

20 present. The current administration of the 

21 EEOICP does not allow for fair adjudication of 

22 Mound dose reconstructions and granting SEC 

23 status to all Mound workers will better adhere 

24 to the true intentions of EEOICP. 

25 I encourage the Advisory Board to make a prompt 
58

1 decision in favor of granting full SEC status 

2 to all of Mound's workers, past and present. I 

3 think the Board for its attention to this 

4 matter and its serious consideration of SEC 

5 Petition Number 0090. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Just earlier 

7 today we were -- a letter was delivered to the 

8 Board, a letter dated January 8th, from a 

9 former Mound employee who I believe lives in 

10 this area now. That is [name redacted]. He's 

11 a retired engineer with 57 years experience. 

12 Board members, we made copies of this and 

13 distributed that so you -- you should have that 

14 in your file as well. I don't know that we 

15 need to read that into the record, but -- he 

16 didn't ask that it be read but that it be made 

17 available to the Board members so we have done 

18 that as well. And basically he is also 

19 speaking for approval of the SEC petition. 

20 Okay, Board members, this recommendation from 

21 NIOSH now is open for discussion. Dr. Melius. 

22 DR. MELIUS: Refresh my memory, but I don't 

23 believe we have a working group on Mound. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: We do not have a working group on 

25 Mound. 
59

1 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and I believe we have a site 

2 profile review, though, done by SC&A some time 

3 ago? 

4 DR. ZIEMER: We do have a site profile review, 

5 that's correct. 

6 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, so I mean certainly re-- re7 - regardless of our actions on this particular 

8 petition today, I would certainly think that 

9 it's in order that we need to get a -- a group 

10 together that can follow up on the SEC and deal 

11 with the site profile, also, so -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: There appear to be some open 

13 issues on at least some of the time frames. 

14 And I might add as an observation that, should 

15 the Board decide to recommend approval of -- of 

16 this action that NIOSH has recommended, that 

17 does not preclude later actions on other parts 

18 of the workgroup there at NIOSH. I think one 

19 of the petitioners -- I think the -- Mr. 

20 Russell I think it was that recommended that we 

21 take no action at this time. I might point out 

22 that taking action as NIOSH has recommended 

23 would actually put at least part of the working 

24 group into an SEC class. It would not preclude 

25 action on other parts of that later. Did you 
60

1 have additional quest-- okay. Other comments 

2 or questions? Yes, Josie. 

3 MS. BEACH: I just have one question on the '49 

4 to '59 time frame. Who would be involved in 

5 that class? Would it -- which group of 

6 individuals? 

7 DR. WADE: Brant is coming. 

8 DR. ULSH: Josie, that would certainly be, you 

9 know, the Board's prerogative to -- to 

10 recommend as they see fit. But the NIOSH 

11 recommendation is that that include everyone on 

12 site during those two time periods. 

13 MS. BEACH: Thank you. 

14 DR. ULSH: Presuming they meet the other 

15 requirements of the SEC -- you know, 250 days 

16 and -- and all that. 

17 DR. MELIUS: And what? What I'm trying to get 

18 -- I'm just trying to pin down what is the 

19 exact definition that you're recommending. Is 

20 it what's in the report? 

21 DR. ULSH: Yes, it's what's in the report. 

22 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay, okay. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: As I understood the report, you 

24 could not exclude anyone on the site during 

25 that time period from having been exposed in 
61

1 those facilities. Was that not correct? As I 

2 understood what you -- 

3 DR. ULSH: Sorry, Dr. Ziemer, could you repeat 

4 that? 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Even though there were specific 

6 individuals who were involved in this radium, 

7 actinium, thorium work, as I understood the -- 

8 the evaluation, you were not able to exclude 

9 other workers from having access to those areas 

10 and therefore they -- all workers become 

11 eligible -- 

12 DR. ULSH: That's correct. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- if they were on the site during 

14 that period. Is that correct? 

15 DR. ULSH: That -- that's what we're 

16 recommending. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

18 DR. ULSH: It has been pointed out to me just 

19 now that our definition doesn't say anything 

20 about the 250-day requirement or -- so we might 

21 have to adjust that so that it's in the 

22 standard format, you know, the 250 days and -- 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think the -- the issue of 

24 -- of health endangerment included the 250 days 

25 by -- in your discussion, at least, it was -- 
62

1 DR. WADE: Yeah, I think it's -- it'd be better 

2 if you gave us those words precisely. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: It may not have been there in that 

4 definition, but it is in your discussion in 

5 health endangerment. It is -- it is discussed 

6 in the report -- 

7 DR. ULSH: Okay. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: -- that that's your standard 

9 measure if -- if you're -- 

10 DR. ULSH: Correct. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: -- unable to reconstruct dose, the 

12 presence for 250 days -- 

13 DR. WADE: I think it would serve the Board for 

14 you to give the Board precise wording of what 

15 you -- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Wanda Munn. 

17 MS. MUNN: Just puzzling a little bit over the 

18 categories that a -- a category that is not 

19 specifically called out here, which is '49 

20 through '59, it -- it appears, just from an 

21 observation here, that the second item on the 

22 summary, the '49 through 1990, internal from 

23 all others, would -- really should say 1959 

24 through 1990, as is the case from the last item 

25 as well since -- if I understood what just was 
63

1 said -- everybody on site from '49 through '59 

2 -- we can't identify whether they were exposed 

3 -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, but keep in mind this goes to 

5 the question of the non-compensable cancers 

6 under the SEC, the question of can you 

7 reconstruct other doses in the '49 to '59 time 

8 period, and NIOSH is saying yes, we can do 

9 others so that if a person has one of the other 

10 cancers that's not compensable under the SEC -- 

11 'cause the SEC does not include all the cancers 

12 -- then they could go back for a dose 

13 reconstruction -- a partial dose reconstruction 

14 for the other nuclides. 

15 MS. MUNN: But that's the confusion in my mind. 

16 How can they exclude the potential of radium, 

17 actinium and thorium from the exposure that 

18 those individuals would have received? 

19 DR. WADE: I think NIOSH is saying that it 

20 cannot reconstruct dose for those exposures. 

21 MS. MUNN: Exactly. And since we cannot 

22 identify who were involved in those exposures, 

23 then it's diffi-- I'm trying to understand how 

24 anyone then, SEC or -- SEC-covered cancers or 

25 not, can be appropriately viewed from '49 
64

1 through '59 if you can't say they were or were 

2 not exposed to these three. 

3 DR. WADE: The word "appropriate" we need to 

4 talk about. NIOSH is saying that it cannot 

5 reconstruct dose for those exposures from '49 

6 to '59. It is saying it can reconstruct 

7 internal dose for other exposures. The concern 

8 now are those individuals potentially 

9 disenfranchised by the SEC who have non-covered 

10 cancers. NIOSH would like to attempt a partial 

11 dose reconstruction, which would include 

12 external dose and internal dose from those 

13 radionuclides for which NIOSH could reconstruct 

14 internal dose, in the hopes of reaching a 

15 compensation decision. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: And I think we have the same 

17 dilemma in every SEC, Wanda, because in essence 

18 if someone has a non-compensable cancer under 

19 the SEC -- has one of the other cancers and 

20 comes for dose reconstruction, you have no way 

21 of giving them credit for exposures to these 

22 three nuclides. They -- they don't, in 

23 essence, get credit for that because we can't 

24 reconstruct dose. So the question then is 

25 well, did they get enough dose from other 
65

1 things to be compensable now. And I hope all -

2 - all petitioners realize that there's a trade3 off between the SECs. On the SECs not as many 

4 cancers are covered, so this is an attempt to 

5 keep the door open, for those whose cancers 

6 aren't covered under an SEC, to have an 

7 alternate sort of backup that says yes, we can 

8 still reconstruct other doses so we will try to 

9 do that for you if you have a -- one of the 

10 other cancers that's not on -- on the -- on the 

11 list. But I think we have the same situation 

12 for every SEC, as I -- and maybe -- maybe Larry 

13 or Jim Neton can -- 

14 MS. MUNN: Well, I -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: -- clarify. Did I explain that 

16 correctly? 

17 MS. MUNN: I believe what is really underneath 

18 those words is an individual whose probability 

19 of causation can be shown to be more than 50 

20 percent, without taking into account the 

21 radium, actinium and thorium -- 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Exactly, that's correct. 

23 MS. MUNN: -- would in fact -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 

25 MS. MUNN: -- be covered -- 
66

1 DR. ZIEMER: Exactly. 

2 MS. MUNN: -- it could be done. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: They're still eligible for 

4 compensation under dose reconstruction if they 

5 -- 

6 MS. MUNN: Just wanted to clarify that. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

8 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments? 

10 (No responses) 

11 Board members, if -- we have a couple of paths 

12 forward, one of which would be a recommendation 

13 to accept the NIOSH recommendation to declare 

14 this subset, as I'll call it, a class and -- 

15 and to also -- and I think Jim's question 

16 suggested this -- and to also establish a 

17 workgroup and ask that workgroup to work with 

18 NIOSH and our contractor to deal with the open 

19 issues that remain, and any other related 

20 issues. 

21 Keep in mind, Board members only got this 

22 document in the last two weeks, and this is a 

23 fairly extensive review and there's an 

24 extensive amount of backup material. I have 

25 read through it, but I must tell you that if -- 
67

1 if one wants to dig into Mound, there's a lot 

2 of material there that we need to look at. And 

3 it would seem to the Chair it would be 

4 appropriate to, in a sense, keep the door open 

5 and allow us to look at this report in more 

6 detail. You may wish to even delay action on 

7 the -- on the subset, but if you're -- if 

8 you're comfortable with that part of it today, 

9 if you think NIOSH has made the case that they 

10 can't reconstruct dose -- I think the Board 

11 always has to look at both sides of this; do we 

12 accept outright that they really can't do it, 

13 have they -- you know, have they dug into all 

14 the records and can they really not do that, 

15 that's the other side of the question, so -- 

16 okay. 

17 Jim, you have another comment, and -- 

18 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- then Josie. 

20 DR. MELIUS: -- one -- number one, I mean I'm 

21 satisfied that they can't do it. And given -- 

22 you -- and I'm -- I am a little bit 

23 uncomfortable with the fact that we -- we 

24 haven't had a workgroup established and we just 

25 got this report and it is a large facility and 
68

1 -- and fairly complicated and a lot of issues 

2 to go over. However, given that, you know, 

3 this is a -- I think a relatively 

4 straightforward class definition, we're not 

5 worried about trying to figure out which 

6 buildings and -- and things like that as much, 

7 I -- I'm comfortable with going ahead with, you 

8 know, granting the class for the -- that one 

9 early group and then, as you said, Dr. Ziemer, 

10 let's establish a workgroup and -- and pursue 

11 the -- the other issues within the report and 

12 on -- on the site. 

13 DR. WADE: Would it be the Board's pleasure to 

14 wait for a clarification on the wording from 

15 NIOSH, or to vote based upon what it has now? 

16 DR. MELIUS: What I was going to propose was 

17 sort of a sense of the Board that we go ahead. 

18 We'll get a definition and then I can draft up 

19 a letter and -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Let me hold off and see if there's 

21 -- 

22 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: -- additional comments here and 

24 then we'll op-- we'll ask for a specific 

25 motion. Josie? 
69

1 MS. BEACH: I just have -- from my question for 

2 Brant earlier, the actinium in 1964, I guess I 

3 want it clarified, would -- could -- could 

4 there have been exposure during that time 

5 period, and I wanted that answered first. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Before we act on this. 

7 MS. BEACH: If it feels like there's an issue 

8 there. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I guess my question would be 

10 even if there were, would that affect this 

11 early period? I mean the early period is -- 

12 MS. BEACH: I guess I was thinking maybe that 

13 should extend it, but possib-- you're probably 

14 right. That's isolated -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: It could always be extended. 

16 MS. BEACH: But it's just isolated for '64, so 

17 you're -- you're probably right, it wouldn't. 

18 DR. WADE: I think the workgroup could look 

19 into whether it should be extended or not. 

20 MS. BEACH: Okay. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Mr. Presley. 

22 MR. PRESLEY: I have -- well, Wanda had hers up 

23 before I did -- 

24 MS. MUNN: No, go ahead, Bob. 

25 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 
70

1 Jim 100 percent. I don't think that -- that 

2 holding off on this -- voting on this SEC -- 

3 portion of this SEC (unintelligible) will hurt 

4 one thing and it might get some of these cases 

5 adjudicated down the road, so I would like to 

6 see this Board vote on the petition, or the 

7 part -- part of the petition. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? 

9 MS. MUNN: I'm prepared to make a motion that 

10 we go forward with the recommendation for the 

11 years 1949 through '59 as SEC for the entire 

12 site. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I'll recognize that as a 

14 motion, with the caveat that I will ask for a 

15 follow-up motion after the voting is completed 

16 for the next steps on the rest of the petition. 

17 And the other caveat will be that -- that the 

18 motion, if it is passed, will be put in formal, 

19 structured wording that will be of the type 

20 that we forward to the Secretary of Health and 

21 Human Services and -- and that that formal 

22 wording will be available to the Board on Fri-- 

23 I think Thursday, perhaps. I think everybody's 

24 going to be gone Friday. 

25 DR. WADE: Oh, I'm sorry, we -- I'm missing a 
71

1 day -- it's the last day of the meeting. 

2 DR. MELIUS: I guess then we'll still be here, 

3 we'll -- 

4 DR. WADE: Thursday, sorry. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

6 MS. MUNN: That language of course to 

7 incorporate -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

9 MS. MUNN: -- the necessary caveats that were 

10 mentioned -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so we have the motion and 

12 the second. Is there further discussion? 

13 The motion then would be to accept NIOSH's 

14 recommendation that the early group -- seconded 

15 by Presley -- the early group, '49 to '59, as 

16 described in the NIOSH evaluation report, be 

17 granted Special Exposure Cohort status, or be 

18 named as a class in the Special Exposure Cohort 

19 -- and this -- and again I point out that this 

20 does not preclude later action on the rest of 

21 the time period, so -- but that is the motion 

22 right at the moment. Is there discussion on 

23 that? 

24 And again, that includes basically all 

25 buildings and all workers, even though it looks 
72

1 restricted for those three nuclides, the actual 

2 definition includes all buildings, all workers 

3 at that site for that time period. 

4 MR. PRESLEY: Put that in the motion. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: That will be in there. And there 

6 will also be the 250-day requirement as well. 

7 Board members, are you ready to vote or... 

8 DR. ROESSLER: Paul, this is Gen Roessler. 

9 MR. PRESLEY: That's Gen. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler, are you on the line? 

11 DR. ROESSLER: I'm on the line, I just wanted 

12 to let you know I'm here and I would like to 

13 vote when the time comes. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we certainly want you to 

15 vote, Dr. Roessler. Also the courtesy -- Mr. 

16 Russell, if you're still on the line, you had 

17 recommended that we not take any action. You 

18 understand that this action would not preclude 

19 action on the rest of the petition but would 

20 give the early group a kind of head start, as 

21 it were, in being recognized as part of the 

22 SEC. 

23 MR. RUSSELL: Yes, I'm in favor of that very 

24 much. I didn't mean to not -- prevent that 

25 from going through 'cause I think that should 
73

1 go through. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

3 MR. RUSSELL: Thank you. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments or questions? 

5 (No responses) 

6 If not, we'll take a roll call vote. 

7 DR. WADE: Brad Clawson? 

8 MR. CLAWSON: Yes. 

9 DR. WADE: Wanda Munn? 

10 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

11 DR. WADE: Jim Melius? 

12 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

13 DR. WADE: John Poston? 

14 DR. POSTON: Yes. 

15 DR. WADE: James Lockey? 

16 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 

17 DR. WADE: Phillip Schofield? 

18 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

19 DR. WADE: Josie Beach? 

20 MS. BEACH: Yes. 

21 DR. WADE: Robert Presley? 

22 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

23 DR. WADE: Mark Griffon? 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

25 DR. WADE: Gen Roessler? 
74

1 (No responses) 

2 Gen Roessler? 

3 (No responses) 

4 Gen, can you hear me? 

5 (No responses) 

6 UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 

7 DR. WADE: Okay. Gen, can you hear me? 

8 DR. ROESSLER: I can barely hear you. Is that 

9 Lew? 

10 DR. WADE: Yes, would you like -- we're voting. 

11 We're doing a roll call on the motion that 

12 would recommend adding a class, '49 to '59, of 

13 all workers at Mound. Would you like to have 

14 your vote recorded? 

15 DR. ROESSLER: Yes, I -- I vote for the motion. 

16 DR. WADE: Okay. Dr. Ziemer, would you like 

17 your vote -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

19 DR. WADE: -- recorded? So my count is that 

20 vote is 11 to zero in favor, one member not at 

21 the table. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. The motion 

23 carries. We will have the formal wording 

24 available for the Board on Thursday. That will 

25 be the wording that goes to the Secretary. The 
75

1 Chair will ask Dr. Melius, who has the -- the 

2 template for SECs in his computer, if he would 

3 mind preparing that for us. 

4 DR. MELIUS: Wanda tried to steal it but -- 

5 MS. MUNN: Yes, I tried. 

6 DR. MELIUS: -- I got it back. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

8 DR. WADE: Dr. Melius is -- has another motion. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, a follow-up motion. 

10 DR. MELIUS: Yes, I'd also move that the Board 

11 establish a workgroup to oversee the review of 

12 the -- this petition evaluation, as well as try 

13 to resolve issues related to the site profile 

14 review, and that we also enable SC&A to work on 

15 issues related to the Mound S-- SEC evaluation 

16 report. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, you've heard the motion. Is 

18 there a second? 

19 MS. BEACH: I second. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. Discussion? I want 

21 to ask Lew a question. That motion appears to 

22 include a tasking for the contractor. Can we 

23 include that in this motion or -- 

24 DR. WADE: Yes, we can, it -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- do we have to do that 
76

1 separately. 

2 DR. WADE: No, I think we can include it, and 

3 the contract for this year has open space -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

5 DR. WADE: -- for additional SEC -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

7 DR. WADE: -- reviews. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Did you have a comment, 

9 Josie, on this? No. Okay. 

10 MS. BEACH: I'd like to volunteer for -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's the next step. The 

12 Board would like to get the names of 

13 individuals who want to be considered for this 

14 workgroup. Okay, Josie Beach -- we may -- if 

15 we get too many, I'll make the final selection, 

16 but I want to see who's interested. Okay, Phil 

17 Schofield is interested, Josie is interested, 

18 Robert Presley is interested. 

19 MR. GRIFFON: I was waiting to see who else -- 

20 I'm interested, but I was waiting to see -- 

21 DR. WADE: Brad. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Brad Clawson is interested. 

23 You're -- you're interested? 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Mark is interested -- we have a 
77

1 lot of interested people. 

2 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I'm -- only if -- 

3 MR. GRIFFON: I'd be willing to let people who 

4 are not on -- 

5 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

6 MR. CLAWSON: No, I -- I'd be interested in 

7 letting Josie Beach chair. 

8 MS. BEACH: Why is that, Brad? 

9 DR. WADE: 'Cause it's not him. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay -- 

11 DR. MELIUS: How about Gen? She's not here. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: We have -- we have five 

13 individuals who've volunteered. The Chair will 

14 announce a final committee Thursday and the 

15 Chair -- I need to mull this over a bit. 

16 MR. CLAWSON: I've got a candy bar on Josie's -

17 - 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that's what I was looking 

19 for. Thank you. We have -- we have 

20 individuals, and the motion -- 

21 DR. WADE: Has yet to be voted on. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: -- has yet to be voted on. That 

23 was a side comment that, if the motion passes, 

24 we have a plethora of volunteers. Actually the 

25 Chair was interested, too, but I'd like to get 
78

1 others to do the work when possible. 

2 All those who favor this motion, say aye. 

3 (Affirmative responses) 

4 Gen Roessler? 

5 DR. ROESSLER: Aye. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Any opposed? 

7 (No responses) 

8 Any abstentions? 

9 (No responses) 

10 The motion carries. 

11 DR. WADE: It carries by a vote of 11 to zero, 

12 with one member not at the table. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 

14 LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY SEC PETITION

15 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're doing great. We have 

16 another SEC petition that may be less complex. 

17 It's the Lawrence Livermore petition. Dr. 

18 Glover is -- is Dr. Glover going to make the 

19 presentation? 

20 DR. WADE: Dr. Glover is approaching the 

21 podium. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Sam Glover is going to make the 

23 presentation. Do we have any petitioners -- 

24 DR. WADE: We have a conflicted member who is -

25 - 
79

1 DR. ZIEMER: Conflicted member -- 

2 DR. WADE: -- Dr. Poston is -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: -- Dr. Poston. 

4 DR. WADE: -- leaving the table and -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: We'll trade Poston for Gibson, 

6 Gibson back to the table. Do we have any 

7 others conflicted? 

8 (No responses) 

9 Okay, for Lawrence Livermore, the petitioner 

10 will be available I understand by -- by phone. 

11 It's Raili Glenn -- is it Raili? 

12 DR. WADE: Yes. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Raili Glenn, are you on the line? 

14 MS. GLENN: Yes, I am. 

15 DR. WADE: Did you -- could you repeat yes, 

16 please? 

17 MS. GLENN: Yes, I am on the line. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, very good. Thank you. Raili, 

19 after this presentation you'll have the 

20 opportunity to comment if you so wish. 

21 MS. GLENN: Yes, I'd like to. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Glover, you may 

23 proceed. 

24 DR. GLOVER: Thank you very much. Can you hear 

25 me now? 
80

1 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

2 DR. GLOVER: Yes? All right. So I'm going to 

3 present the Lawrence Livermore National 

4 Laboratory Special Exposure Cohort petition. I 

5 apologize, I left off the 0092 since... 

6 Unlike the petition by Dr. Ulsh, this is an 

7 83.14. It is generated by -- submitted by an 

8 EEOICPA claimant whose dose reconstruction 

9 could not be completed by NIOSH due to lack of 

10 sufficient dosimetry information. This 

11 claimant was employed at Livermore during the 

12 DOE operational period as an experimental 

13 physicist and is -- NIOSH's determination that 

14 it -- NIOSH's determination that it is unable 

15 to complete a dose reconstruction under these 

16 circumstances is reason to -- for an SEC 

17 class... 

18 I will say any problems associated with this I 

19 will blame on Brant for breaking the computer 

20 ahead of me, so this is... 

21 So a little bit of background, learn some 

22 things associated with this. Lawrence 

23 Livermore was actually a Navy base from 1942 to 

24 1950, at which time -- in 1950 it was occupied 

25 by the Department of Energy, still is part of a 
81

1 -- the Navy base. In 1951 the property was 

2 actually given to the Department of Energy, and 

3 so you see that our period starts before the 

4 official date of -- what the -- Livermore is 

5 des-- has -- typically described as being 

6 Lawrence Livermore. It was previously known as 

7 the University of California Radiation 

8 Laboratory at Livermore, and later as the 

9 Lawrence Livermore -- the Lawrence Radiation 

10 Laboratory at Livermore. 

11 It consists of two sites -- sorry about the -- 

12 the decision of the scale, but you have the 

13 main laboratory site, which is located in 

14 Livermore, California; and we also have the 

15 Explosives Test Site locat-- no -- located near 

16 Tracey, California, previously known as Site 

17 300. And I don't have a laser pointer so I -- 

18 I can't talk with my hands. 

19 All right. Radiological operations in -- the 

20 well-storied events were it was a -- the sister 

21 lab of a -- of Los Alamos, with its original 

22 mission to develop thermonuclear weapons. 

23 Since 1957 diversified activities included 

24 nuclear propulsion, fusion research, atomic 

25 vapor laser isotope separation -- the AVLIS 
82

1 program, and charged particle beam and laser 

2 research. 

3 Of course when you develop nuclear weapons 

4 where -- at the Nevada Test Site, it requires 

5 extensive testing to validate your codes and 

6 your understanding of those. Lawrence 

7 Livermore conducted numerous tests at the 

8 Pacific Proving Grounds, Nevada Test Site and 

9 Amchitka, Alaska. This graph kind of provide 

10 you some kind of ability to look at the above11 ground and underground tests. Associated with 

12 this type of testing is the chemistry 

13 associated with those tests. They come back to 

14 the facility to be evaluated. 

15 Other testing included off-site -- on-site 

16 nuclear weapons testing with non-fissile 

17 materials. That would be using -- at the Site 

18 300. These occurred during periods of 

19 moratorium, and also in support of research 

20 activities. These mock tests included depleted 

21 uranium, thorium, and also other radioactive 

22 materials. Since 1969 only natural uranium, 

23 depleted uranium and natural thorium were 

24 allowed for testing with high explosives. 

25 Weapons test materials, these are known as shot 
83

1 samples, returned from the test sites for 

2 analysis. Wide range of debris was collected 

3 and analyzed. It was handled at many of the 

4 facilities at the site. These highly 

5 radioactive samples contained weapon-induced 

6 fission and activation products associated with 

7 the weapon itself, and also the surrounding 

8 ground materials and other -- we'll call them 

9 thermometer materials that you may put into a -

10 - a weapon to evaluate its nuclear explosion 

11 properties, plutonium, uranium and higher order 

12 actinides. 

13 Other radiological activities with activation 

14 products and mixed fission products include a 

15 reactor facility from 1957 to 1980. They had a 

16 pool-type reactor, the main Livermore site. 

17 '57 Livermore initiated nuclear propulsion 

18 work, which is reactor based. They linear 

19 accelerators and cyclotrons, they had fuel 

20 testing, biomedical research, and also of 

21 course the waste disposal associated with all 

22 those activities. 

23 Sorry for the very busy table, but the 

24 buildings known to be involved with fission and 

25 activation products -- processes include an 
84

1 extensive list here. We have a number -- I'm 

2 not going to read them, of course. You have 

3 the chemistry, nuclear and radiochemical 

4 chemistry analysis tests, accelerator studies, 

5 beam studies, biomedical studies, waste 

6 operations, linear accelerators, radiographs, 

7 the Plowshare program at the 300 areas -- an 

8 extensive list of facilities at which 

9 radiological operations occurred. 

10 We'll say that the predominant documented 

11 radionuclides over this time frame was 

12 plutonium, uranium, tritium. Fission and 

13 activation products were at the site in the 

14 shot samples, fuel fabrication, weapons 

15 research, reactor, accelerator and cyclotron 

16 activities, and extensive research in a variety 

17 of applications. 

18 The in vitro monitoring data that they support 

19 -- or -- dose reconstruction with, for in vitro

20 they have a database known as MAPPER, 

21 maintaining and preparing executive reports 

22 database. For uranium there are over 16,000 

23 results from 1958 to 1996; plutonium, around 

24 7,700 results beginning in 1957 through 1996; 

25 other transuranics, we have 312 results from 
85

1 '64 to '96. There were over 5,000 gross alpha 

2 results from 1956 to 1996. For gross 

3 beta/gamma we do have over 4,000 results, and 

4 only 325 before 1974. 

5 The in vivo data is not contained in 

6 Livermore's MAPPER database. We did actually 

7 go and retrieve all the logbooks associated 

8 with the whole body counter. Approximately 50 

9 to 200 in vivo counts were performed each year, 

10 beginning in 1965. However, the whole body 

11 counter was primarily in a state of research 

12 activities prior to 1974. 

13 We did obtain workplace air data back all the 

14 way to 1953 for many of the buildings, 

15 including Site 300. Most of these results were 

16 total or net alpha and beta activity. Some re17 - some results included the actual element that 

18 was analyzed. There was some mixed fission 

19 product air monitor-- fixed -- fission product 

20 air monitoring data from '59 to '67, and there 

21 was also air mon-- environmental data. 

22 However, these results cannot really be tied to 

23 the breathing zone type samples we need to look 

24 at worker exposures. 

25 Starting in 1961 the environmental data -- 
86

1 Livermore had a air monitoring data at two site 

2 perimeter stations and nine stations beyond the 

3 site boundary. In 1971 Livermore established a 

4 network of permanent outdoor stations to 

5 evaluate the radiological levels from 

6 plutonium-239, 240, uranium-235 and 238, and 

7 also gross alpha and beta. 

8 As of July 23rd, 2007 NIOSH had access to 200 

9 and -- 617 claimants; 88 percent of those had 

10 external data, 53 percent of those cases had 

11 internal data. However, only -- less than five 

12 percent of those included data for fission 

13 products. 

14 We have developed models for coworker, using 

15 the MAPPER bioassay data. Uranium, starting in 

16 '58 -- I did miss -- there's a plutonium 

17 dataset -- mixed fission products beginning in 

18 1974. These can be used to reconstruct dose 

19 during those time periods for all Livermore 

20 workers at all Livermore locations. 

21 So with that, NIOSH proposes that for the 

22 feasibility of internal dose reconstruction, 

23 based on the minimal bioassay data for the 

24 period prior to 1973, mixed fission and 

25 activation products, NIOSH has concluded that 
87

1 dose reconstruction is not feasible for workers 

2 who would -- who were or should have been 

3 monitored for mixed fission and activation 

4 products from 1950 through 1973. 

5 Obviously the health endangerment determination 

6 is required. The evidence reviewed in this 

7 evaluation indicates that some workers in the 

8 class may have accumulated chronic radiation 

9 exposures through unmonitored exposure to 

10 fission products. Lawrence Livermore National 

11 Lab generated or processed unknown quantities 

12 of mixed fission products during the proposed 

13 class period as part of the work associated -- 

14 conducted for the Department of Energy. 

15 Consequently, NIOSH is specifying that health 

16 may have been endangered for those workers 

17 covered by this evaluation who were employed 

18 for a number of work days aggregating at least 

19 250 work days within the parameters established 

20 for this class, or in combination with work 

21 days within the parameters established for one 

22 or more other classes of employees in the SEC. 

23 Feasibility of external dose reconstruction -- 

24 I do want to mention -- versus an 83.13, which 

25 Dr. Ulsh -- before this is an 83.14. We don't 
88

1 try to say everything we possibly can do. It's 

2 a little more limited to what we can't do. 

3 However, when we look at the external doses, we 

4 do find that they're extensive and sufficient 

5 for external dose reconstruction. 

6 So our recommendation for the period January 1, 

7 1950 through December 31st, 1973, NIOSH finds 

8 that radiation doses cannot be reconstructed 

9 for compensation purposes. 

10 The proposed class definition is all employees 

11 of the Department of Energy, its predecessor 

12 agencies and Department of Energy contractors 

13 or subcontractors who were monitored, or should 

14 have been monitored, for internal radia-- 

15 internal exposure to mixed fission and/or 

16 activation prod-- radionuclides while working 

17 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

18 for a number of work days aggregating at least 

19 250 work days from January 1, 1950 through 

20 December 31st, 1973, or in combination with 

21 work days within the parameters established for 

22 one or more other classes of employees in the 

23 SEC. 

24 Additional information regarding the proposed 

25 class -- while NIOSH has access to 
89

1 documentation that describes some of the 

2 activities and radionuclides specific to 

3 certain buildings, NIOSH does not have 

4 sufficient data to document the quantities and 

5 types of most fission products and activation 

6 products. NIOSH also does not have sufficient 

7 information to rule out the use of fission and 

8 activation products in other buildings where 

9 radioactive materials were handled or stored. 

10 However, NIOSH has no indication that exposures 

11 to mixed fission products and activation 

12 products would have been a concern in 

13 administrative areas outside of radiological 

14 areas; e.g., cafeterias, libraries, and office 

15 areas outside of radiologic-- radiological 

16 areas. 

17 Additional information for the Board may be 

18 found at the "Document Review\AB Document 

19 Review\LLNL" directory. So be happy to take 

20 any questions. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Sam, could you clarify then, under 

22 this class definition what is the -- what would 

23 be the status, for example, of cafeteria 

24 workers or workers in the non-radiological 

25 areas? Are you assuming they have or had no 
90

1 access to radiological areas? 

2 DR. GLOVER: For the -- we -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: For the non-radiolo-- 

4 DR. GLOVER: We don't make the determination 

5 where they work. However, if someone only 

6 worked in those facilities, we -- we're not 

7 asking that that be designated as part of the 

8 SEC. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: It wasn't clear to me whether you 

10 have the ability to -- to determine whether or 

11 not they were -- those areas were accessible to 

12 them. Is that -- would that be done on an 

13 individual case basis? For example -- 

14 DR. GLOVER: It -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: I'm trying to determine in my -- 

16 in your description whether this covers 

17 everybody on site or only people assigned to 

18 radiological areas. 

19 DR. GLOVER: We're saying that it -- if it -- 

20 for folks who worked in those areas -- the 

21 Department of Labor has to make the 

22 determination if they can determine -- this is 

23 part of our -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Whether -- whether in fact that's 

25 -- okay. 
91

1 DR. GLOVER: -- this is part of our discussion 

2 with the Department -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

4 DR. GLOVER: -- of Labor. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

6 DR. GLOVER: In the class. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: So they have to -- they have to 

8 determine accessibility to those radiological 

9 areas, so -- 

10 DR. GLOVER: Yes. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I gotcha. Wanda Munn, 

12 question? 

13 MS. MUNN: Well, another clarifying question, 

14 the same lines, Dr. Glover. Can we assume then 

15 that the list of buildings that you showed us 

16 in your presentation is essentially the covered 

17 areas for which this class would be approved? 

18 DR. GLOVER: The -- those facilities were the 

19 facilities that were -- that were -- that had 

20 radiologic-- radioactive materials, so... 

21 MS. MUNN: So they would be the site that would 

22 be covered for this Special Exposure Cohort 

23 that we're proposing. 

24 DR. GLOVER: Yes. 

25 MS. MUNN: Individuals who had -- 
92

1 DR. GLOVER: Essentially. 

2 MS. MUNN: -- access to -- who worked in or had 

3 access to those facilities. Is that the proper 

4 terminology? 

5 DR. GLOVER: I think in our -- in our 

6 evaluation we -- we said that spe-- for places 

7 that are specifically outside of tho-- of a 

8 radiological area, if a cafeteria was outside 

9 and that's the only place a person would have 

10 worked, then they would not necessarily be 

11 included. And so I see how the specific... 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Well, you had a table showing -- 

13 DR. GLOVER: We had a table essentially that -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda I think is asking does that 

15 table encompass this cohort in -- or this class 

16 in terms of the description. In other words -- 

17 DR. GLOVER: Let's go ahead and flip back to 

18 the definition -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- Labor would have to determine 

20 that the person had access to these buildings. 

21 Is that what we're saying? 

22 DR. GLOVER: Essentially, yes. 

23 MR. GRIFFON: Monitored or should have been 

24 monitored. 

25 DR. GLOVER: Right. 
93

1 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius and then Dr. -- Mr. 

3 Clawson -- Larry -- 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think it's more than this 

5 list. Am I correct, it's mo-- Jim and I both 

6 think it's more than this list. It -- it 

7 doesn't -- our evaluation and recommendation 

8 for the class would not include people who 

9 worked in cafeteria or library or were strictly 

10 clerical, but we're not confident that this 

11 list is the total list. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? 

14 DR. ZIEMER: This may not be -- 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: And that's something we're going 

16 to have -- That's something we're going to have 

17 to work out with DOL on, I think. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. It's at least this list, 

19 and if you find that -- 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: It's at least this list, probably 

21 more. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Mel-- or -- yeah, Dr. 

23 Melius and then Mr. Clawson. 

24 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'm -- two areas of 

25 questions. One is -- my understanding from 
94

1 reading your evaluation report is that you -- 

2 you've got a lot of monitoring data for the 

3 site. You don't have a lot for mixed fission 

4 products, but you have a lot in other areas, 

5 but it's a very complicated site in terms of a 

6 lot of different exposures and you're not 

7 really able to sort of reconstruct what people 

8 were doing during various time periods that 

9 they were being monitored or not being 

10 monitored. Is -- is that -- I mean is that the 

11 sense -- I mean that -- that -- the reason this 

12 is an SEC is because it's such a complicated 

13 work environment and you have, you know, some 

14 data but not enough to really be able to fully 

15 characterize that work environment. 

16 DR. GLOVER: It's -- exactly, similar to 

17 Livermore -- to Los Alamos, you have a -- 

18 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah -- 

19 DR. GLOVER: -- very complicated environment, 

20 and I would speak to that -- this class 

21 definition -- I was overly -- we -- I was -- to 

22 caution on the -- the table, that -- that where 

23 we know that they have -- I think we're asking 

24 for a definition that -- if Department of Labor 

25 establishes that the person only worked in a 
95

1 non-radiological area, they could be excluded. 

2 However, we're not trying to say that this is 

3 only the specific areas that's -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton (unintelligible) clarify 

5 -- 

6 DR. NETON: Sam, could you -- could you maybe 

7 switch to that last slide that said additional 

8 information, I think. That -- that tells the 

9 story. 

10 DR. GLOVER: Let's see -- 

11 DR. NETON: Additional information, I think 

12 this sort of tells the -- the first paragraph 

13 speaks to that we don't have sufficient 

14 information to say where these things really 

15 were. So in a sense, the table is the minimum 

16 buildings, but it doesn't preclude other 

17 buildings from being added, nor other people 

18 who entered those other radiological areas. So 

19 in a sense it's kind of open and really is -- 

20 is up to the Department of Labor to 

21 characterize, in some ways, you know, who was 

22 in radiological areas. 

23 The second bullet, though, speaks to we have no 

24 indication that anyone who solely worked in 

25 administrative areas had potential exposure to 
96

1 fission products, so that's sort of to clarify 

2 that we didn't mean everybody on site, but 

3 people who could enter radiological areas. 

4 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- but ju-- just to that 

5 point, I mean really the rationale for the SEC 

6 is that that first paragraph there, the -- 

7 DR. NETON: Yes. 

8 DR. MELIUS: You really just don't know what 

9 people were doing, where they were doing it and 

10 so forth, so -- 

11 DR. NETON: Correct. 

12 DR. MELIUS: -- you really can't utilize the -- 

13 a lot of the exposure monitoring data that you 

14 do have. 

15 DR. NETON: Correct. 

16 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Okay. Then -- then my 

17 question is, what changes in '73? 

18 DR. GLOVER: At that point -- 

19 DR. MELIUS: And -- and I -- and I got your 

20 table of -- for those other people on the 

21 Board, if you -- I think -- believe it's page 

22 19 of the report -- of the evaluation report 

23 where you outlined more of the mixed fission 

24 product bioassay data and you show that it 

25 increases, but I'm not convinced that -- you 
97

1 know, is -- is this sufficient now to do dose 

2 reconstruction? Is -- is there something -- to 

3 me, it doesn't -- given the complexity of the 

4 site and the number of buildings and I think 

5 the number of people, I don't have a good -- 

6 good handle on that yet, wh-- why is -- you 

7 know, why does that change post-'73? 

8 DR. GLOVER: That's -- at that point the whole 

9 body counter becomes more -- more functional, 

10 we certainly have more bioassay data if you 

11 look at the dataset, so it -- I -- do -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: I -- I -- I guess -- 

13 DR. GLOVER: I'll have to go -- 

14 DR. MELIUS: -- I -- I agree you have more, but 

15 do you have enough is the -- I guess is the -- 

16 the -- is it -- is it, you know, sufficient to 

17 be able to do dose reconstruction on such a -- 

18 you know, I mean it certainly doesn't cover 

19 everybody -- 

20 DR. GLOVER: Yeah. 

21 DR. MELIUS: -- I don't believe, and -- and if 

22 activities -- I mean it's complicated, but 

23 activities varied from year to year and so 

24 forth. I mean if there was better, you know, 

25 radiological controls or -- I mean I'm just 
98

1 trying to understand what -- what -- 

2 MR. GRIFFON: It -- it seems like, Sam, you're 

3 saying part of the rationale for that cutoff in 

4 '73 or '74 was introduction of the -- the whole 

5 body counting? 

6 DR. GLOVER: The whole body counting -- 

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

8 DR. GLOVER: -- information, we have about -- 

9 we have more data, we can develop -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: More data -- 

11 DR. GLOVER: -- coworker statistics that we can 

12 actually have a coworker set. 

13 MR. GRIFFON: So it's not only -- 

14 DR. GLOVER: And really it's associated with 

15 the ability to develop a coworker model -- 

16 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause I'm -- 

17 DR. GLOVER: -- if you -- 

18 MR. GRIFFON: -- I'm looking at the table that 

19 Jim was referencing on page 19 of the report, 

20 and it -- it does -- this is the in vitro, not 

21 the in vivo, so there's also in vivo that 

22 kicked in -- 

23 DR. GLOVER: Yeah, that's correct. 

24 MR. GRIFFON: -- in '74 is what you're saying. 

25 DR. GLOVER: They had research activity levels 
99

1 prior to that, that is correct. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Brad, did you have a 

3 question? 

4 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, it partially got spoke on, 

5 and I don't know if this falls under the 

6 Department of Labor -- up there where you call 

7 out office areas outside of radiological areas, 

8 I guess what I'm looking at is more a lot of 

9 the clerical people and so forth that went -- 

10 go into these buildings and stuff, they may be 

11 stationed in these buildings out there, but a 

12 lot of them still go into the radiological 

13 areas to retrieve data, information and so 

14 forth. How are we going to be able to -- how -

15 - how would we cover it all? 

16 DR. GLOVER: For tho-- these would be specific 

17 people who did not go into the radiological 

18 areas. 

19 MR. CLAWSON: Well, yeah, and I -- 

20 DR. GLOVER: This is what we discussed with the 

21 Department of Labor and how they wanted to 

22 administer the class. 

23 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: La-- Labor would have to confirm 

25 on an individual case basis, I assume, that 
100

1 person did not in fact -- 

2 MR. CLAWSON: Well -- well, as I -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: -- have an assignment or wasn't 

4 able to go into those areas. 

5 MR. CLAWSON: And I understand that, and the 

6 thing that I -- and I -- I understand with 

7 Labor in this, but you know, even in the 

8 industry now I have people that are assigned to 

9 -- they're strictly clerical work, but they 

10 come into our radiological areas. They're 

11 retrieving paperwork, they're doing this, and 

12 they're being subject to the sa-- a lot of the 

13 same things that I am and I want to make sure 

14 that those people aren't excluded from this 

15 just because they're -- where they supposedly 

16 work 'cause they do come into those areas. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Another comment, Jim? 

18 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean just to -- to 

19 clarify. I mean there is in vivo data 

20 available prior to '73. Apparently it wasn't 

21 product-specific, so -- so post-- you don't 

22 have a good, you know, section in the report 

23 that I can refer to that sort of says to what 

24 extent -- how did -- what extent did it cover 

25 the people working there post-'73? 
101

1 DR. GLOVER: Post or pre? 

2 DR. MELIUS: Post, post. 

3 DR. GLOVER: Yeah. 

4 DR. MELIUS: And -- and -- again, I -- I just a 

5 concern that, you know, where -- where do we 

6 draw the line and then -- and -- in this, I 

7 mean -- 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: Again, this is an artifact of an 

9 83.14 where -- 

10 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah. 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we -- we can both spend more 

12 time digging to establish if the boundary is 

13 firm or not in the class definition. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Well, you might get a case -- a 

15 later case and find that you can -- 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: We may. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- reconstruction, in which case -

18 - 

19 MR. ELLIOTT: We may, I -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- you would extend the boundary 

21 then. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me go back and answer Brad's 

23 question, though. Those folks who are 

24 stationed, and then by nature of their -- as an 

25 administrative or clerical folk, but by nature 
102

1 of their work go into these areas, these are 

2 radiological control areas. As you know, 

3 they're going to have an access entry point, 

4 like we talked about last night in a workgroup 

5 session. 

6 There's another element here about this site 

7 that I don't think comes out in our evaluation 

8 report, and I think we should consider, and 

9 that is there was a high interest for product 

10 integrity in the work being performed in this 

11 research at this lab. What I mean by that is 

12 they're very careful or very cautious about 

13 these small amounts of isotopic -- different 

14 isotopes, and they wanted to make sure that 

15 they had a mass balance on those, they wanted 

16 to make sure they knew where they were at, 

17 where they had been, you know, what reactions 

18 had taken place with them. So there's a very -

19 - we think a very clear inventory of that. 

20 That doesn't necessarily get to whether or not 

21 a person was a roving worker who got in and out 

22 of these places, so we're trying to craft a 

23 definition here that says these are the 

24 buildings we know of. We're going to probably 

25 add more buildings to that. But if it was just 
103

1 a cafeteria worker, only in the cafeteria, and 

2 we don't believe that that person would have 

3 been in an exposed situation where they were 

4 monitored or should have been monitored. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Phil. 

6 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, I got some problems here. 

7 One, buildings, given the historical -- 

8 MS. MUNN: Mike, Phil. 

9 MR. SCHOFIELD: -- way these things are done, 

10 some of those buildings you could -- the only 

11 thing separating a person working in a 

12 radiological area and non-radiological area was 

13 a few two by four studs and some sheetrock. 

14 And these cases can be shown throughout many of 

15 the facilities, you had labs on one side of the 

16 wall; on the other side of the wall you had 

17 clerical people or whoever working there. 

18 The other thing is I don't see any americium 

19 listed there, and Livermore did do -- deal with 

20 americium. The 300 area in particularly (sic) 

21 I would be surprised if there was not any Pu22 240 ever been used in the 300 area. True have 

23 been small amounts, but knowing some of the 

24 projects that went on, I would have expected 

25 them to have it in the 300 area, and I don't 
104

1 see any data for either one of these two things 

2 where people are being looked at, even post3 '73, from what you presented. 

4 DR. GLOVER: Again, this is a product of an 

5 83.14 versus an 83.13, which I won't try to -- 

6 if it affects it during that time frame where 

7 it was looking primarily at mixed fission and 

8 activation products during that '50 to '73 time 

9 frame, what can't you do and not everything 

10 that you can't do necessarily, so that this -- 

11 this is a self-designated area where we don't 

12 believe we can do dose reconstruction, so we 

13 haven't tried to look at every individual 

14 radionuclide or every individual circumstance. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: You mentioned some of the tests 

16 being done off-site -- for example, Amchitka 

17 and the Test Site and so on. Did -- did these 

18 workers actually go there or did they just send 

19 their samples there for... 

20 DR. GLOVER: Every test site, and I'm sure Mark 

21 or the NTS folks can speak to this extensively, 

22 but there was actually a shot crew, and you 

23 would actually -- they oversaw the shot, they 

24 oversaw the drill-- what they called the drill25 back, the collection of that samples, whether 
105

1 they got good mud or bad mud, and actually -- 

2 so the -- all the parts of that analytical 

3 protocol so they can understand -- you know, 

4 they actually oversaw -- did mi-- nuclear 

5 weapon work, so they saw -- you know, taking 

6 the samples out, the -- the explosion and then 

7 the pull-back of those samples, so they had... 

8 DR. ZIEMER: So if they went to Amchitka, they 

9 might be eligible for SEC status under its 

10 situation. Is that correct? Mr. Presley. 

11 MR. PRESLEY: You had -- you had rad worker 

12 people, you had engineers that were on site for 

13 Livermore, Los Alamos, Sandia, Hanford -- can 

14 you not hear? 

15 MS. MUNN: I can hear well. 

16 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. And these workers would -

17 - would work their regular job, and then when 

18 they were involved in a shot, they would go to 

19 the area where the shot was and they would work 

20 on the shot, and then they would come back. 

21 That's why that when you see some of these -- 

22 the people that paperwork, they will have -- if 

23 you look at the area where they worked, some of 

24 them will have Amchitka and Livermore. They 

25 will have Amchitka and Los Alamos or Sandia. 
106

1 You will have multiple sites on some of the 

2 people that actually worked on the projects. 

3 MR. CLAWSON: And actually, Dr. Ziemer, we saw 

4 that in the dose reconstruction, the -- one of 

5 them that we chose today was Lawrence Livermore 

6 and Amchitka. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: To answer your question, Dr. 

8 Ziemer, yes, if one of these Lawrence Livermore 

9 staff participated in one of these tests at one 

10 of the test sites and they were there during 

11 that class period, they can accumulate time in 

12 those classes. 

13 DR. GLOVER: It would add to their 250-day 

14 requirement. 

15 DR. WADE: Phillip did raise the question early 

16 in his question about sheetrock and two by 

17 fours separating radiological control areas 

18 from non-control areas. Do you have an opinion 

19 or -- 

20 DR. GLOVER: I think what we're trying to say 

21 is radiological buildings, not necessarily if I 

22 -- if I got a guy who works on one side of the 

23 two by four and not the other, we wouldn't say 

24 whether they tried to cross that. Say if they 

25 worked in a radiological building, you were in 
107

1 that area -- in a cafeteria that's not attached 

2 to that -- a facility. If you had -- like at 

3 Mound where they kind of mixed in the middle of 

4 all that where you wouldn't be able to 

5 disassociate it, but in facilities that may be 

6 strictly not attached to a radiological 

7 building, that would be... 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Phil? 

9 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, I hate to bring up the 

10 obvious here, but like was just said, we always 

11 had these problems of ventilation of the 

12 discharge from one facility, and the other 

13 facility right next door to it lot of times is 

14 drawing their air from the same zone that it's 

15 being discharged from the neighboring facility. 

16 Unless you can pinpoint those buildings down, I 

17 think you would have to give credit to anybody 

18 who works in that general area. 

19 DR. GLOVER: I believe there's some discussion 

20 in the report, and I don't have the report -- 

21 Jim Neton's going to speak to the point here. 

22 DR. NETON: Yeah, I -- I think we need to go 

23 back to the definition itself, which is 

24 monitored or should have been monitored, which 

25 we have consistently considered the -- anyone 
108

1 who had the potential to receive more than 100 

2 millirem of exposure, in this case for internal 

3 -- from internal radionuclides, so that's what 

4 would be considered by Department of Labor. 

5 And I know from past experience, they would 

6 entertain affidavits and whatever from -- from 

7 petitioners or claimants to make that 

8 determination. So the issue is -- is -- by 

9 nature it's somewhat of an open issue, but we 

10 have to keep our mind on this 100 millirem 

11 exposure limit, and that's -- that's a pretty 

12 small exposure to have to demonstrate. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments? 

14 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 

16 DR. MELIUS: I'm -- I'm still hung up on the 

17 1973 cutoff and exactly what the rationale for 

18 that is. Is there a -- a work-related -- what 

19 kind of procedures, what kind of activity at 

20 the site that -- that changed in '73? Is it 

21 the -- something about the 83.14 process which 

22 Larry sort of implied? Or is it something 

23 about the nature of the monitoring program? 

24 DR. GLOVER: That's where we felt we could 

25 establish a coworker model. 
109

1 DR. NETON: I think if you look at the 

2 evaluation report, it says something to the 

3 effect that we have almost no bioassay prior to 

4 '73. I mean none. 

5 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

6 DR. NETON: And starting in '72 there was a few 

7 samples, '73 there were more, and at the same 

8 time the whole body counting program kicked in 

9 -- not on a research basis but more on an 

10 operational basis. So we feel with those two 

11 things on line, we could construct a coworker 

12 model of sufficient accuracy to bound the 

13 doses. If the Board's interested in seeing the 

14 details of that coworker model and reviewing 

15 it, I mean that's certainly something we could 

16 provide. 

17 DR. MELIUS: You -- you -- you have not 

18 developed that yet. 

19 DR. NETON: I think it is in place, is it not? 

20 DR. GLOVER: The Livermore coworker model is in 

21 draft. 

22 DR. NETON: In draft form at this point, okay. 

23 But -- so that's something that the Board could 

24 certainly look at and -- under their normal 

25 process of evaluation of our site profile -- 
110

1 MR. GRIFFON: Well, okay, so is it -- 

2 DR. NETON: -- documents and that sort of 

3 thing. 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Can I ask just -- I don't know 

5 that we need to look at it right now, but is 

6 the coworker model a -- a -- based on bioassay 

7 or -- I mean based on in vitro or in vivo or -- 

8 usually you use in vitro for these, but I don't 

9 know -- 

10 DR. NETON: Yeah, I -- 

11 MR. GRIFFON: -- with this case. 

12 DR. NETON: I honestly haven't -- haven't seen 

13 it myself. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

15 DR. NETON: It's in draft form, but I would -- 

16 I suspect that it's based on the bioassay 

17 samples, backed up with the in vivo data, which 

18 we always did -- 

19 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) -- 

20 DR. NETON: -- sort of a sanity check -- 

21 MR. GRIFFON: -- way you do it, but -- 

22 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

23 MR. GRIFFON: -- the only question I would have 

24 there then, going back to the table that Jim 

25 was asking questions about, is -- you know, the 
111

1 -- the number of samples increased, but I also 

2 notice that the number of locations increases 

3 almost proportionately to the number of samples 

4 -- 

5 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: -- so it seems like you -- you 

7 don't have much better statistics in terms of -

8 - you know. 

9 DR. NETON: Well, we're certainly willing to 

10 discuss this -- 

11 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

12 DR. NETON: -- once the model comes out and can 

13 be viewed as part of the Board's normal 

14 deliberations of our -- of our science. I mean 

15 right now we feel strongly that prior to '70 -- 

16 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

17 DR. GLOVER: '73. 

18 DR. NETON: -- '73, we can do these with 

19 sufficient accuracy. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: I guess we can always look at one 

21 period and then discuss -- 

22 DR. NETON: Oh, absolutely, there's always -- 

23 DR. ZIEMER: The door remains open -- 

24 DR. NETON: The door remains open. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- for something beyond '73. 
112

1 DR. NETON: Right. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: It's not precluded -- 

3 DR. NETON: Exactly. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- at a later (unintelligible). 

5 DR. WADE: Where -- where would the coworker 

6 model -- where would that work product be that 

7 would contain the -- the coworker model? 

8 DR. NETON: It -- it could either be part of 

9 the site profile or it could be a stand-alone 

10 document, I'm not sure what it would come up, 

11 but it would either be a TIB or -- 

12 DR. GLOVER: It is a TIB. 

13 DR. NETON: It is a TIB, so it's a Technical 

14 Information Bulletin issued by NIOSH. 

15 DR. WADE: So that would be something that 

16 would typically be reviewed by the bureau as a 

17 -- by the Board as a procedure? 

18 DR. NETON: It would be available to be 

19 reviewed as a procedure by the Board. 

20 DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments? 

22 MR. GRIFFON: Just a -- and -- and I don't 

23 know, I -- I agree with Larry and Jim on -- on 

24 the way they've characterized this -- the 

25 definition. I -- I just think it might be 
113

1 worth discussing a little more as a Board. I 

2 mean my concern with this is that -- something 

3 we're -- we're dealing with right now with 

4 Rocky Flats, and I'll -- I'll report on it in 

5 the workgroup, but -- and I -- and I -- you 

6 know, I -- I was part of that process because I 

7 suggested for Rocky Flats to use the language 

8 "monitored or should have been monitored" be-- 

9 just because we weren't sure of the -- the 

10 breadth of the number of buildings that could 

11 have had neutron exposure in that case. Here -

12 - here, this is the same concern I have with -- 

13 with this definition, that if -- if we have -- 

14 in a lot of cases we're going to be relying on 

15 probably work history cards, and they may have 

16 -- well, I don't know, I guess it's a question, 

17 too, do we have work history information for 

18 the individuals that -- you know, I guess 

19 saying that DOL will make this determination is 

20 one thing. But if you already know there's no 

21 good work history for these people, I think you 

22 have to say these -- you know, we can't just 

23 throw these to DOL. We know we don't have work 

24 records of where these people went and 

25 therefore we should go broader than just 
114

1 monitored or should have been monitored. We 

2 should just say all workers. If you have work 

3 history information, then the question would be 

4 if it says they were -- sort of -- if it's by 

5 building designation, a lot of times -- one 

6 concern we've been grappling with with Rocky 

7 Flats is if they're assigned to one building -- 

8 like maintenance crews could have been assigned 

9 to a maintenance building where there were no 

10 potential exposures to this type of -- you 

11 know, the -- the radionuclides of interest, but 

12 they could have been sent out to other 

13 locations. And how do we -- you know, from -- 

14 even if we went back to interview people, a lot 

15 of the -- a lot of these are survivor claims, 

16 so you can't necessarily get it in your CATI 

17 interview process. 

18 I guess that's the question, is we don't want 

19 to leave this in a -- in dispute mode. Rather, 

20 we'd like to be clean with our definition, as -

21 - as clean as possible. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 

23 DR. NETON: I think if you go back to these two 

24 bullets on this one slide, I think we've -- 

25 we've cast about a broad a net as we can 
115

1 without saying everyone on site. It 

2 essentially says anyone who had the potential 

3 to work in any building that had radiological 

4 material is covered. If you read that first 

5 bullet, that's basically what it says. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

7 DR. NETON: All it has is a proviso in the 

8 second bullet that says for those who could 

9 clearly be defined as not having any potential 

10 exposure to radiological material or less than 

11 100 millirem, they're not. And so I think it's 

12 -- it's very close to that, but I think we do 

13 believe strongly that there are some areas on 

14 site that could have not had -- you know, 

15 certainly a true administration building, 

16 completely separated from the radiological 

17 areas, would not have exposure. And that's why 

18 we put that in there, just to make sure that 

19 that possibility was -- was open so that, you 

20 know, we weren't covering someone in an 

21 administration building that had no -- 

22 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

23 DR. NETON: -- potential for exposure. 

24 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and I don't disagree with 

25 you in theory. I just want to make sure we 
116

1 have the -- the data available to -- to prove 

2 that one way or the oth-- you know, in other 

3 words, we have the job information or the -- 

4 you know, for each individual available to -- 

5 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: -- DOL can make that 

7 determination. It's not -- that -- that would 

8 be my question, you know. I don't agree with 

9 you -- I don't disagree with you theoretically, 

10 you know. 

11 DR. NETON: Yeah, yeah. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're going to take a 15-

13 minute break and, Board members, that'll give 

14 you a chance to mull this over again -- or some 

15 more, after which we can determine whether or 

16 not we have an action to take. So it's 3:25, 

17 let's be back here at 20 till 4:00. 

18 DR. WADE: Okay, for those on the phone, we'll 

19 just mute the line, then we'll open it back up 

20 at -- in 15 minutes. 

21 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:25 p.m. 

22 to 3:40 p.m.) 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're ready to reconvene if 

24 you'll please take your seats. 

25 (Pause) 
117

1 We still have before us the Lawrence Livermore 

2 petition. This -- the Chair would ask if there 

3 are any more comments or questions on the 

4 petition from the Board members. Mr. Clawson? 

5 MR. CLAWSON: You know, we -- we've put Sam 

6 kind of in a predicament there because we've 

7 kind of been expecting him to answer these 

8 questions of employment and so forth, and I was 

9 wondering if we could get Labor to discuss 

10 anything on that. I know that I saw Jeff here 

11 and I was just wondering. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Jeff, do you have any 

13 comments at this time? You're -- I guess you 

14 heard the previous discussion and know that the 

15 concerns have to do with how one establishes 

16 whether or not the -- the particular claimant 

17 has been in a radiological area or has access 

18 to it and so on. 

19 MR. KOTSCH: Right. One of our concerns would 

20 be always that the definition be as explicit as 

21 possible. We had, as Mark noted, issues with 

22 the Rocky Flats, and we've had issues with some 

23 other site where the definition wasn't always 

24 as explicit as perhaps possible to interpret 

25 the class. Certainly the addition of something 
118

1 about -- and we're not going to def-- you know, 

2 we don't want to direct the -- the definition 

3 of the class, but if -- if there was 

4 clarification regarding whether, you know, you 

5 could have non-radiological or admin types, you 

6 know, were separated out or something like 

7 that. The "monitored or should have been 

8 monitored" is good. It's sometimes difficult 

9 for the Department of Labor to def-- to 

10 actually decide who those people are. 

11 To -- with -- forget -- some -- Brad, did you 

12 have other specific concerns? 

13 MR. CLAWSON: Well, the main thing that I'm 

14 getting into is that -- I know we've seen it at 

15 numerous other sites and so forth like that, 

16 especially with their labor history or so forth 

17 like that, somebody may have worked in a high 

18 radiation area for so many years, and then as 

19 they get older and so forth like that gone to a 

20 non-radiological area. And in -- and on their 

21 -- on their claim and so forth their labor 

22 history shows them as just being there. I give 

23 an example of -- in Idaho where the fella 

24 worked on the jet propulsion systems, he worked 

25 at MTR/ATR, all those reactors. But as he got 
119

1 older and wasn't able to do more as this, he 

2 went into a non-radiological area and his claim 

3 was denied because there was no radiation in 

4 this area, but -- and it was due to his labor 

5 history that they said there, and I have an 

6 issue with that because I think a lot of times 

7 this can happen. And I just want to try to 

8 make sure as we're going into Lawrence 

9 Livermore and so forth that we can either right 

10 it or we can do something to be able to capture 

11 this because there is a lacking with the labor 

12 history of -- you know, they kind of forget 

13 what happened before. And when you start 

14 thinking of not a person that had been there 

15 but let's say their widow or so forth like that 

16 that doesn't have all the history of where he 

17 was at, I really see this as an issue. 

18 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, we -- and we recognize those 

19 things. I mean each case is obviously done on 

20 a -- on a case-specific bas-- you know, case21 by-case and looked at in that case. But again, 

22 like we said, when the definitions are more 

23 specific, that -- it certainly helps us in the 

24 interpretation of that class. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so you do -- do try to 
120

1 establish the full work history, not just take 

2 the final job classification -- 

3 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- and assume that. 

5 MR. KOTSCH: -- (unintelligible). 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Right. I -- I just realized that 

7 I neglected to give time for the petitioner to 

8 speak. Raili Glenn, are you still on the line? 

9 MS. GLENN: Yes, I am. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, thank you for being patient. 

11 Do you have some comments for us? 

12 MS. GLENN: Yes, I do. Am I on now? 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, please proceed. 

14 MS. GLENN: Am I on now? 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

16 MS. GLENN: Yes. Okay. My name is Raili 

17 Glenn, okay? My husband -- I give -- I give 

18 you a little bit background to him. My 

19 husband, David Glenn, supported himself since 

20 he was eight years old. He put himself through 

21 graduate school and he was top of the -- his 

22 class with grade point average four. He always 

23 worked one to two shots while attending school. 

24 No one helped him financially since he was 

25 eight. He did not get any government help, or 
121

1 did he ever ask. His goal was to be physicist. 

2 He wanted to work on the projects that would 

3 benefit our country. 

4 After he graduated with honors at Washington 

5 State University David got job in the Lawrence 

6 Livermore National Laboratory, 1966. He worked 

7 there 25 years. He did lot of experimental 

8 work site 300 and he also did a lot of nuclear 

9 shots in NTS which I will comment more. And I 

10 remember him telling me that lot of 

11 (unintelligible) was done underground and no 

12 one worried about contamination those days. 

13 Whatever was not used or needed anymore was 

14 (unintelligible) and around. 

15 David did test different kinds of chemicals. 

16 Some are classified and some are unclassified. 

17 Site 300 is most contaminated site in country. 

18 Lawrence Livermore Lab found out that there 

19 were -- their ground water was contaminated, 

20 and benzene was found in the drinking water. 

21 Before 1960 Lab site was used for Air Force 

22 base. When the Lab took over, no cleanup was 

23 done at the site and benzene caused bone marrow 

24 cancer. That's what my husband had. 

25 David worked several kinds of -- several kinds 
122

1 -- no, I'm sorry. David worked different kinds 

2 -- different buildings at the site 

3 (unintelligible). I remember him telling me 

4 that there was a radiation leakage while he was 

5 there, but I do not remember location. 

6 David also had tremors. His hands -- hands 

7 were shaking. He had hard time writing or 

8 holding something in his hands steady. He was 

9 examined by neurologist several times to see if 

10 he had Parkinson's Disease, but doctors could 

11 not see any signs of that. Doctor was never 

12 able to find what caused the tremors. Lately 

13 Oak Ridge Institute has done studies that 

14 mercury, plutonium and uranium cause tremors. 

15 It cause the tremors. 

16 He did lots of writing nights and weekends at 

17 home. He never took a vacation when he was 

18 employed by Lab. He was writing his numerous 

19 publications at home. David wanted to leave 

20 more knowledge behind for future generations to 

21 come, more than what he had taken with him. He 

22 definitely left a legacy behind. 

23 David was getting too ill to work so he took 

24 retirement -- the retirement when he was 58 

25 years old and suffering until he's dead, 2005. 
123

1 Lawrence Livermore National Lab has destroyed 

2 all David's X-rays and badges do not show what 

3 he inhaled. X-rays taken in (unintelligible) 

4 Hospital show that his lungs have been 

5 'taminated by radiation. 

6 When he retired 1990 he was only earning less 

7 than $50,000 a year. Lab did not pay 

8 (unintelligible) big salaries. In 1970 he was 

9 only making $16,000 a year. If he was working 

10 in a private company he would have made four 

11 times his wages, but David loved his job and 

12 that was the reason he worked there. His job's 

13 his life and he benefited. He believed 

14 research. 

15 I have calculated his wages total 20 years he 

16 earned while in Lawrence Livermore National 

17 Lab. It totals $780,178, and the medical bills 

18 totaled last 16 years, all the expenses 

19 associated his illness, totaled $177,280. I 

20 came up what he earned by working 25 years and 

21 what he spent last 16 years for his medical 

22 expenses was 25 percent of his earnings. 

23 David's illness did not only harm David, but 

24 also his family. I had to quit working to take 

25 care of him and take him to medical treatment 
124

1 and doctors’ appointment. It happened several 

2 times a week. It had big impact in my life, 

3 financially, physically and emotionally. 

4 I wish that I did not have to testify this to 

5 you, but unfortunately that is not the case 

6 because he is not here to (unintelligible). I 

7 thank you for listening and I hope that you are 

8 looking deeply in my case. This has been in 

9 your books already six years. Do you have any 

10 questions? 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. 

12 Glenn. Let me ask if there are any questions, 

13 Board members? 

14 (No responses) 

15 Apparently not. Thank you very much. 

16 MS. GLENN: Okay, you're welcome. Thank you 

17 for listening. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, any other comments 

19 or questions in general on this petition? Dr. 

20 Melius. 

21 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, just back to that -- that 

22 issue on the definition and Brad's questions. 

23 I think, if I understand the report and the 

24 presentation, I think we're saying that Table 

25 4.2 in the report, and it was in the slide 
125

1 presentation also, the list of buildings and so 

2 forth, we want the -- it would be people 

3 working in those buildings, but not limited to 

4 -- there may be other buildings, so I guess my 

5 question is do -- is -- is that something that 

6 -- in terms of dealing with -- helping 

7 Department of Labor, is it enough to have it in 

8 the report or do we want to somehow reference 

9 that in a -- any sort of recommendation that we 

10 make? It sort of cuts both ways and maybe it's 

11 something that we need to think about, but we -

12 - we always struggle with this issue of the 

13 class definition and I -- I -- I would think -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Well, while they're pondering that 

15 -- 

16 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- let me suggest that if -- if 

18 this Board doesn't have a recommendation for 

19 Friday, we're going to have that issue in the 

20 wording itself anyway. How -- how will we 

21 define that class, just using the words on the 

22 slide or can it be refined further? 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, this is similar to the Los 

24 Alamos class where we had a ver-- a variety of 

25 technical areas, but we weren't confident that 
126

1 they were all-inclusive and so we didn't put 

2 into the definition a listing of those because 

3 we didn't want to ex-- loo-- have it look like 

4 it was inclusive and we would exclude somebody. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) just use the 

6 words "radiological areas" then. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I think that is the best. 

8 And then we have to work with DOL to define, 

9 for them, what we consider to be a radiological 

10 area. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: And once you do that, DOL ends up 

12 in a sense with a list of buildings as a 

13 starter, I suppose. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I -- I think that is the 

15 starting point. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: And if you later find another 

17 area, is there a formal process where that gets 

18 added? 

19 MR. ELLIOTT: We can rec-- if we find it, we 

20 can certainly recommend to DOL that this is an 

21 area that should be included in the class. 

22 They have a technical bulletin process, as 

23 you've seen in the Rocky Flats experience, 

24 where they've added a building or two to the 

25 list that we provided them. 
127

1 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, does that answer the 

2 question, or does that raise more questions for 

3 you? 

4 DR. MELIUS: I -- it -- it -- it -- yeah, I 

5 mean it sort of answers in the sort-- I -- it -

6 - it's -- I'm never quite sure what the right 

7 ap-- approach is (unintelligible). 

8 DR. ZIEMER: We all -- "we" being the Board and 

9 NIOSH and -- and Labor, all want to have the 

10 correct definition and make sure we're not 

11 excluding people that should be included. But 

12 at the same time, not include people who 

13 shouldn't be included, I guess you'd have to 

14 say. 

15 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: So it cuts both ways, but -- so 

17 it's important that we give some care to what 

18 the definition is. 

19 DR. MELIUS: And certainly -- it -- the -- long 

20 as the -- certainly the public record would 

21 show that -- that we were referencing that -- 

22 that table in the report and that was sort of 

23 the basis with -- for the -- you know, defining 

24 the Special Exposure Cohort, but with the 

25 understanding that there may very well be other 
128

1 locations at that site that aren't listed in 

2 that -- that particular table, but that would 

3 be certainly the place to start from. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Now I'd like to ask the Board if 

5 you would like to take action on this 

6 recommendation from NIOSH -- that is, to 

7 recommend to the Secretary that this group be 

8 added to the Special Exposure Cohort, the group 

9 up through '73. And again, that action does 

10 not preclude additions later on, and if the 

11 Board made such a motion the Chair would be 

12 prepared to ask our SEC workgroup which Dr. 

13 Melius chairs to take the responsibility for 

14 looking at the issue of the -- of this SEC 

15 particularly and the models that would be used 

16 in -- in the co-- the cohort models that would 

17 be used. But let me ask if anyone wishes to 

18 make a motion. 

19 MR. GRIFFON: Coworker models. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Coworker model. Does anyone wish 

21 to make a motion on this? 

22 Mr. Schofield. 

23 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah, I'll make the motion to 

24 give -- but like I -- still I would like to 

25 have -- before we can finalize it, that we have 
129

1 a little better definition of how they're going 

2 to make this determination for the buildings 

3 and stuff, so who will be in it and who won't 

4 be in it. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- I think that we just 

6 heard that the definition is going to actually 

7 be somewhat -- shall I use the word fuzzy? 

8 It's going to try to be inclusive -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't think it's fuzzy at all. 

10 It's -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: No, I -- 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: -- all radiological areas -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: All radiological areas. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: -- on the site during those 

15 years. That is not fuzzy. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: That is what we're saying. 

18 What's excluded is those non-radiological 

19 areas. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Actually that gives me a warm 

21 fuzzy feeling, though, Larry. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I'm happy for you. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: But you're quite right -- you're 

24 quite right -- The Chair apologizes for using 

25 that term. It -- it's not precise in terms of 
130

1 specific buildings, so in that sense -- that 

2 was not a good descriptor, however. And it's 

3 very precise, radiological areas. Now 

4 radiological areas, to some health physicists, 

5 may be fuzzy. 

6 Okay, Jim Melius. 

7 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'll -- I'll second Phil's 

8 motion and also maybe offer a suggestion that 

9 maybe the workgroup can sort of monitor what 

10 goes on between NIOSH and DOL, if only for 

11 educational purposes in trying to see if we can 

12 get this process figured out and improved, if 

13 necessary. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. The motion before us then 

15 is to recommend to the Secretary the addition 

16 of this class to the Special Exposure Cohort, 

17 the class as described by the NIOSH evaluation 

18 report. 

19 Any discussion? And again, we would come back 

20 Thursday with the specific wording that would 

21 go to the Secretary. Wanda Munn. 

22 MS. MUNN: You know, with only minor 

23 modification to the wording of the proposed 

24 class as it was shown to us, we can probably 

25 get as -- as specific as we're going to be able 
131

1 to get, just relying on that wording alone. 

2 It's of concern that we continue to be unable 

3 to get precise enough to be able to make a 

4 decision on this without creating more problems 

5 that we're -- than we're solving in our 

6 language. The proposed class is all employees 

7 at the Department of Energy, its predecessor 

8 agencies and contractors and subcontractors who 

9 were monitored or should have been monitored 

10 for external exposure -- at this point if we 

11 said in all radiological areas of the Lawrence 

12 Livermore National Laboratory for a number of 

13 work days, et cetera, et cetera -- it appears 

14 that it would come as close to covering what we 

15 want to cover as we're likely to be able to 

16 get, without a number of additional codicils, 

17 pages of dialogue and specifically excluding 

18 individuals. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- I think in essence that 

20 is the motion. 

21 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that -- can I cover that? I 

22 mean yeah, that is -- is the motion and that's, 

23 you know, I think what we're approving. I 

24 think the issues we've heard the Department of 

25 Labor state that they would -- that in some 
132

1 ways it's easier for them if it's more 

2 specific, building-specific or whatever in -- 

3 in terms of a definition. I think NIOSH has 

4 made the case that in this instance that's not 

5 easy to do because we may not have complete 

6 knowledge of all the places where -- where 

7 people were, and I think we just -- and Phil 

8 and Brad and others have raised concerns about 

9 how this'll be implemented, and I -- I think 

10 what we're trying to say is let's see if the -- 

11 you know, hold to that definition for now, but 

12 let's see if, as we move forward with this, if 

13 there's a better way of doing this. We've had 

14 a unfortunate problem with Rocky Flats and I 

15 think it would help us if we continue to try to 

16 figure out if there's a better way of doing 

17 these class definitions that -- that is -- 

18 makes it easier for Department of Labor to 

19 implement that and captures the intent of 

20 what's in the -- the NIOSH report. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Board members, are you 

22 ready to vote then? Okay, we'll vote by roll 

23 call again on this. 

24 DR. WADE: Brad Clawson? 

25 MR. CLAWSON: Yes. 
133

1 DR. WADE: Wanda Munn? 

2 MS. MUNN: Since I'm not certain still exactly 

3 what we're voting on, I -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we're voting on the motion, 

5 basically as you described it. 

6 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: I'm putting the burden back on 

8 you. 

9 MS. MUNN: If I described it that way, and 

10 that's what I'm voting on, yes. 

11 DR. WADE: Dr. Melius? 

12 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

13 DR. WADE: Dr. Lockey? 

14 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 

15 DR. WADE: Phillip Schofield? 

16 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

17 DR. WADE: Josie Beach. 

18 MS. BEACH: Yes. 

19 DR. WADE: Michael Gibson? 

20 MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

21 DR. WADE: Robert Presley? 

22 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

23 DR. WADE: Mark Griffon? 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

25 DR. WADE: Gen Roessler, are you on the phone? 
134

1 Gen? 

2 DR. ROESSLER: I'm on, I vote yes. 

3 DR. WADE: All right. And Dr. Ziemer, would 

4 you like -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

6 DR. WADE: -- your vote recorded? 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

8 DR. WADE: Okay, so the vote is unanimous, 11-

9 0, with one member away from the table. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. 

11 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Then the Chair does ask the 

13 workgroup on SECs, chaired by Dr. Melius, to 

14 take this issue as a part of their task to 

15 monitor and work with NIOSH -- and our 

16 contractor, if needed -- to look at the open 

17 questions on this particular petition. 

18 Okay, Dr. Poston now is returning to the table, 

19 I think. 

20 NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE

21 Our next item is an update -- a NIOSH update 

22 and Larry Elliott is going to provide that for 

23 us. 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: Good afternoon, ladies and 

25 gentlemen of the Board and members of the 
135

1 public. It's a pleasure to be here in Las 

2 Vegas again to give you another program status 

3 update and talk about a variety of things. 

4 We'll go through a typical set of slides that I 

5 use to present where the program is at, you've 

6 seen many of these, but the numbers constantly 

7 change. I'll try to point out for you critical 

8 changes that -- and trends that we're -- we're 

9 monitoring at this point in time. 

10 As of the end of December of last year, that 

11 would be the end of the first quarter of the 

12 fiscal year '08, 26,108 cases have been 

13 referred to NIOSH for dose reconstruction. 

14 We've completed 75 percent of those, or 19,255. 

15 And if we break that number down further, 

16 17,074 have been returned to the Department of 

17 Labor with a dose reconstruction report for a 

18 decision by DOL. 

19 We've had 670 claims pulled from our dose 

20 reconstruction program by the Department of 

21 Labor, and this happens for a variety of 

22 reasons, as I've told you in the past. In some 

23 cases it may be a claim that was sent to us 

24 that was a Part D, or now Part E, and shouldn't 

25 have been referred to us. In other cases it 
136

1 might have been a chronic lymphocytic leukemia 

2 claim, and that is the only cancer not covered 

3 under this program at this time. But there are 

4 other reasons as well, but 670 have been pulled 

5 from dose reconstruction so we consider our 

6 work to be completed on those. There have been 

7 1,511 claims or cases pulled from dose 

8 reconstruction for SEC class determination by 

9 Department of Labor. 

10 We have 25 percent, or 6,541, of that 26,108 

11 that are still at NIOSH for dose 

12 reconstruction. And in that -- in that number, 

13 6,541, there are actually 851, or 13 percent, 

14 of those claims are -- have a dose 

15 reconstruction in front of the claimants under 

16 their review. So we've completed our work on 

17 13 percent of that 6,541 and we're waiting for 

18 the -- for the claimant to -- or claimants to 

19 provide us an indication that they have no 

20 information to provide and the claim can be 

21 moved on to Department of Labor. 

22 We have one percent, or 312, claims that have 

23 been administratively closed. And this 

24 terminology means that we have completed our 

25 work on the claim and we're awaiting the 
137

1 claimant to indicate to us, in signing what we 

2 call an OCAS-1 form, that they have no further 

3 information to give, and this -- this number 

4 has not changed dramatically over the course of 

5 time. It remains about one percent of our 

6 claims. 

7 Here's a pie graph to show you those similar 

8 numbers -- number completed; number pulled, 

9 pulled again meaning that Department of Labor 

10 has retrieved the claim from us; the number 

11 that have been pulled from us for SEC purposes, 

12 to determine eligibility. Those that are 

13 administratively closed are in red, as you see. 

14 The active claims in this pie chart are shown 

15 in yellow, and we have in green a -- these are 

16 also part of the active claims, but they are 

17 pended for some technical reason. So the 

18 yellow and the green can go back and forth, 

19 changing as -- as technical issues are 

20 identified and we resolve those issues, a claim 

21 can be unpended and become active again. 

22 Of the 17,074 dose reconstruction claims that 

23 we sent back to DOL for final adjudication, we 

24 believe that 32 percent of the cases had a 

25 probability of causation of greater than 50 
138

1 percent or would be found to be compensable by 

2 the Department of Labor. That leaves 68 

3 percent, or 11,600 claims, that had a 

4 probability of causation of less than 50 

5 percent, and we believe the Department of Labor 

6 will recommend a denial in that -- those 

7 instances. 

8 If we look at the distribution of probability 

9 of causations that you -- as are depicted in 

10 this graph -- bar graph slide, and these 

11 numbers total up to that 17,000-some that we've 

12 sent back to DOL, you'll see that -- that the 

13 claims that are non-compensable, those that are 

14 between zero and 49 percent probability of 

15 causation, are trending to be pretty flat-lined 

16 across those distributions. 

17 Of the 6,541 cases remaining at NIOSH for dose 

18 reconstruction, 2,242 cases are currently 

19 assigned and are in some state of progress of 

20 dose reconstruction. They're assigned to a 

21 health physicist and they're moving through 

22 that -- that process. 851 initial draft dose 

23 reconstruction reports are currently in the 

24 hands of the claimants and NIOSH is awaiting 

25 the return of the OCAS-1 form from those 
139

1 claimants so we can move those on to Department 

2 of Labor. 3,448 cases are not assigned 

3 currently to a health physicist for dose 

4 reconstruction. And as I indicated, some of 

5 those are -- more than 1,000 -- are pended for 

6 a variety -- various reasons. 

7 That leaves a bullet here that I need to speak 

8 about particularly. As we look at the oldest 

9 cases in our hands that are of the active 

10 category, 52 percent are noted to be older than 

11 one year. And we take special note of that 

12 'cause we're trying to exert extra effort to 

13 move the oldest cases through the system. 

14 That leads me to this next slide which speaks 

15 about the first 5,000 cases that NIOSH had 

16 received and how much work do we have left in 

17 that category of claims, those being the oldest 

18 claims. I think the -- the key number here is 

19 the bottom number. We have 59 that are still 

20 awaiting a dose reconstruction. And of that 59 

21 -- that number will be reduced, we think, to 44 

22 very quickly as the NUMEC class is adjudicated. 

23 Fourteen of those 59 -- 15 of those 59 cases 

24 are NUMEC claims that we feel will be eligible 

25 in that class. That still leaves us with 44 
140

1 that we need to work very hard on and get an 

2 answer to the claimants on their dose 

3 reconstruction. 

4 I think it's -- there's some important 

5 background here to consider. We have -- in 

6 late October we went to Washington, D.C. and 

7 Dr. Howard was asked to give testimony in front 

8 of the -- Senator Kennedy's health committee, 

9 and in that we were asked about timeliness of 

10 dose reconstruction, how long does it take to 

11 do a dose reconstruction. The background I 

12 want to share with you is that in the early 

13 days of the program we -- we received over 

14 10,000 claims right away, as soon as -- as DOL 

15 could process those claims, we -- it resulted 

16 in a backlog to us. That -- a decision was 

17 made to look at where those claims came from, 

18 which site they represented, and to then make 

19 an extraordinary effort to develop site 

20 profiles or Technical Basis Documents, tools 

21 that could be used to reconstruct doses for the 

22 majority of claims for that given site. We 

23 recognize that these documents, these site 

24 profiles, Technical Information Bulletins, 

25 Technical Basis Documents, have holes in them 
141

1 and in some instances there were sections that 

2 were reserved. But they enabled us to get 

3 started on dose reconstruction as soon as we 

4 possibly could for those claims. The point 

5 here is that we view those old claims as our 

6 legacy claims. 

7 Up until mid-- mid-2006, July of 2006, we 

8 thought we were going to be able to achieve a 

9 point in our processing of claims where we'd 

10 have no claim in our hands over a year old. 

11 That did not come to be. There were a variety 

12 of extenuating circumstances that -- that 

13 prevented that from happening, but we're still 

14 dedicated and we're still concerted in our 

15 efforts to try to work off the oldest claims or 

16 our legacy claims. It's -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, I'm going to interrupt you 

18 a minute. Someone on the phone lines has got 

19 music playing. They may have -- they may have 

20 gone onto a -- a standby mode or something. If 

21 any of you on the phone have music playing, 

22 please mute your phone. Probably the person 

23 who's got it playing is -- okay. 

24 MS. MUNN: Is it -- it is in the phone, it's 

25 not in the speaker system? 
142

1 DR. ZIEMER: No, I -- has it gone away? Okay. 

2 DR. ROESSLER: Paul, this is Gen. It's making 

3 it almost impossible to hear on the phone, but 

4 I think they've left. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: They may have gone on to a -- 

6 DR. ROESSLER: They may have taken a break or 

7 something. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we -- 

9 DR. WADE: Well, what we could do is we could 

10 ask you all to hang up and then we'll re11 establish the call. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Is there a way to do that? Can 

13 everybody hang up, then dial in again? 

14 DR. WADE: Let's wait one minute. Is the music 

15 still there? 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

17 (Pause) 

18 DR. WADE: Okay, I'm told that if you hit zero 

19 and get the operator, then you could ask the 

20 operator to disconnect that line. 

21 (Whereupon, several speakers, off microphone 

22 and unidentifiable, made suggestions on how to 

23 resolve the issue.) 

24 (Pause) 

25 DR. WADE: That's -- work sometimes, sometimes 
143

1 it doesn't. Life is like that, though, you 

2 know. 

3 (Pause) 

4 DR. WADE: I don't hear the music anymore. Is 

5 the music -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: I don't hear it anymore, either. 

7 Is it -- is it gone? Okay. 

8 DR. WADE: Larry? 

9 MS. MUNN: Gen should be able to -- 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Gen, are you still on the line? 

11 (No responses) 

12 Gen Roessler, are you on the line? 

13 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

14 (Unintelligible) 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 

16 DR. WADE: So that's how we can't hear. 

17 (Pause) 

18 DR. WADE: Okay, we got a thumbs-up. Gen, are 

19 you on the line? 

20 DR. ROESSLER: I am on and it -- I -- it 

21 (unintelligible) -- 

22 DR. WADE: Has the music stopped? 

23 DR. ROESSLER: The music stopped. It's the 

24 best sound we've had all day. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Great, okay. 
144

1 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Larry will continue then. 

3 Thanks. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. Well, I was -- I was 

5 trying to address an issue about timeliness and 

6 dose reconstructions, and in that I'm -- and 

7 I'm reporting to you that we have a set of old 

8 cases that we call legacy cases. And our 

9 efforts on those, if we report out an average 

10 time under those cases to complete a dose 

11 reconstruction, we see that taking around 966 

12 days, on average, which is too, too long. And 

13 this is one of the numbers that was reported 

14 out in the health committee meeting. 

15 If we look at the current claims, those that 

16 are defined as coming to us after July of 2006, 

17 then our average time to complete a claim under 

18 dose reconstruction is 159 days, and that's 

19 where we want to be, or less. And so we're 

20 developing goals and objectives right now for 

21 this new fiscal year that we're going to put in 

22 place to address both the legacy and the 

23 current claims, and try to improve timeliness 

24 in both regards. 

25 This next slide shows, in a curve form, the 
145

1 claims that have been sent to us by the 

2 Department of Labor for dose reconstruction, 

3 and that's shown in this -- I don't -- a light 

4 blue line, I guess, that runs this way. And 

5 then the draft dose reconstruction reports that 

6 we have sent out are shown in this green -- 

7 pale green line. And the final dose 

8 reconstruction reports, after we hear back from 

9 the claimant that they have no further 

10 information to provide, is shown in red. 

11 What I want to point out for you here is we are 

12 now in a new phase where we're building another 

13 backlog. We're seeing more claims come in than 

14 we are sending dose reconstructions out. That 

15 is due to a variety of things, one of which is 

16 the funding constraints that we operated on in 

17 the last three quarters of Fiscal Year '07. 

18 And also another thing would be some of the 

19 increase in recruiting of claims that DOL has 

20 done. That's worked against us in that regard, 

21 but we certainly welcome those claims so that 

22 we can work on them. So there's a variety of 

23 factors. We're attentive to this backlog 

24 that's building right now. We're anxiously 

25 awaiting a -- a contract to be awarded for a 
146

1 new contract support, and once that's in place 

2 we feel that we'll be able to get back up to a 

3 capacity that we had realized in 2006. 

4 This graphic shows you, in increments of 1,000 

5 claims, from the -- from zero to 1,000 and then 

6 1,001 to 2,000, that kind of a framework, the 

7 status of the claims within those 1,000-case 

8 categories. And here we're showing that in the 

9 purple, those are the SEC cases that would be 

10 found in that representative group of tracking 

11 numbers. The yellow is those that are 

12 administratively closed at this time. The 

13 cases that are pended are in this lime green, 

14 and the cases that are active are in this 

15 yellow or mustard color. And then the cases 

16 that have been pulled are in red, and that 

17 leaves the cases completed in this light green18 gray. So that just gives you a depiction by 

19 increments of 1,000 of our progress in working 

20 through these claims. 

21 I'll talk a moment about our reworks. Reworks 

22 are another process stream of claims, if you 

23 will. This is a set of claims that comes back 

24 to us from the Department of Labor. Typically, 

25 in the past, these claims represented in this 
147

1 grouping in the first quarter -- in the 

2 quarters from 2003 until the second quarter of 

3 2007, represent by and large demographic issues 

4 associated with the claim. A new survivor, new 

5 cancer, additional employment, something has 

6 been found regarding the circumstances of the 

7 claim that requires us to rework that dose 

8 reconstruction. Very few of these represent a 

9 technical change in the dose reconstruction 

10 approach. 

11 What you see here at the end of this graphic 

12 where there's a major increase or substantial 

13 increase in reworks that have been returned to 

14 us, these are the PERs that are coming back to 

15 us and we'll talk about those in a moment. But 

16 primarily this first batch here are super S, 

17 highly insoluble plutonium P-- Program 

18 Evaluation Review cases that we have to look 

19 at. 

20 As you know, we approach the Department of 

21 Energy with requests for individual monitoring 

22 information for each claim, and this slide 

23 depicts the number of outstanding requests as 

24 being 553 as of the end of December, 2007. We 

25 monitor our requests to DOE on an every-30-day 
148

1 basis, follow up with them on where they're at 

2 on pursuing this information, what can they 

3 tell us about that pursuit, are they ready to 

4 close it down, are they ready to provide it to 

5 us. So we report out to you the number of 170 

6 here that are outstanding in excess of 60 days. 

7 And primarily the bulk of these come from -- 

8 from two DOE operations office areas that 

9 represent a number of sites. There's a -- in 

10 this 170 the Oak Ridge operations office has 

11 custody of 124 of those that are over 60 days, 

12 representing different sites -- K-25, X-10, Y13 12. The Mallinckrodt folks are also included 

14 in this, there's a couple of those. And 

15 Paducah and Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion 

16 Plants, so it's not just one site. They're 

17 sprinkled -- those 124 are sprinkled across 

18 those sites. 

19 The second most prevalent operations office 

20 that has custody of outstanding requests more 

21 than 60 days is Chicago Ops Office, and that 

22 represents the Argonne National Lab East and 

23 West, as well as the Lawrence -- Lawrence 

24 Berkeley Laboratory. So there's -- there 24 -- 

25 or 22 claims represented by that Chicago 
149

1 operations office. 

2 We've tried to give you some insight at each 

3 Board meeting on where we stand with our 

4 efforts on developing appendices for Technical 

5 Basis Documents 6000 and 6001. And in your 

6 October Board meeting in Naperville I think the 

7 numbers were considerably higher. We've 

8 learned as we've proceeded through the 

9 development of these appendices that it may be 

10 wiser and more time-efficient if we just treat 

11 the few dose reconstructions that have to be 

12 treated, without spending time to develop a 

13 full-blown Technical Basis Document appendices. 

14 So the numbers that you see here on this slide 

15 have dropped from that slide I presented in 

16 Naperville. 

17 Right now we have 15 site appendices completed. 

18 We have three others that are in review for 

19 TBD-6000. For TBD-6001 the number has dropped 

20 to five, and all five are completed. And we 

21 don't have any others that we envision we'll be 

22 putting forward for review or finalization. 

23 Talked a minute ago -- introduced the -- this 

24 Program Evaluation Review, which is done 

25 whenever we identify a technical change in our 
150

1 dose reconstruction approach that would 

2 increase dose for a claim or set of claims. 

3 And when that happens we write up this Program 

4 Evaluation Review. There are 32 of these. You 

5 can find them on our web site. And right now 

6 those 32 would represent around -- this 13,077 

7 is somewhat an inflated number because many of 

8 these claims might be affected by multiple 

9 PERs. So once we look at a claim, we'll rub it 

10 off against all PERs pertinent to that claim, 

11 and that number is, again, over-inflated. 

12 We're not sure exactly what the total number 

13 is, but we're working through those. 

14 We know to date that the number of claims that 

15 have switched in their compensation decision -- 

16 in other words, because of a Program Evaluation 

17 Review and a change in our technical approach, 

18 we've seen 157 claims move to a compensable 

19 state by DOL based upon a change that we've 

20 initiated. Primarily this 157 is represented -

21 - I believe 154 of them are lymphoma claims, 

22 and the Board is looking at the PER on lymphoma 

23 and how we processed those claims against that 

24 one. The other three, I don't know exactly 

25 what -- one was a Bethlehem Steel, I think. 
151

1 But by and large, we're seeing the PERs result 

2 in no change in decision for the work that 

3 we've done to date; 5,380 claims with no 

4 change, and there's 7,540 that are in the 

5 process of review and evaluation to determine 

6 if a change will occur. 

7 We'll move now to the Special Exposure Cohort 

8 classes, 25 Special Exposure Cohort classes 

9 have been added since May of 2005. Of those, 

10 we break those down into 16, or 59 percent, are 

11 proc-- have been processed through the 83.13 

12 process. This is where a petitioner petitions. 

13 As you've heard today in the Mound, we've had 

14 two petitions from people who felt that they 

15 needed to have a clearer explanation of how we 

16 could do dose reconstruction, or identify for 

17 us where we cannot. 

18 Nine of these 25 classes that have been added 

19 were done so through the 83.14 process. And 

20 that's where NIOSH has determined, through the 

21 normal dose reconstruction process, that we 

22 cannot reconstruct the cla-- the dose for a 

23 given claim and we establish a class around 

24 that claim, as you heard for the Livermore 

25 petition today. 
152

1 These 25 classes represent workers across 19 

2 sites, so some sites have more than one class. 

3 It represents also around 1,500 potential 

4 claims the Department of Labor are determining 

5 eligibility for. 

6 I want to spend a little bit of time in the 

7 next three slides speaking about the quality 

8 assurance and quality control program that has 

9 been instituted at NIOSH in processing these 

10 claims. I don't think we give this enough 

11 conversation time in Board meetings, and we're 

12 trying to do more of this. But essentially, 

13 you know, from day one we've had a very rigid 

14 quality assurance/quality control program. 

15 It's in everybody's job description to work on 

16 improving the content and quality of a given 

17 claim, as well as a dose reconstruction that is 

18 produced in that effort. So we have quality 

19 control processes that are imbedded within the 

20 dose reconstruction approaches, and we have 

21 technical documents that are used to complete 

22 those dose reconstructions. 

23 An example of a quality control process in that 

24 regard would be that there are three 

25 independent reviews that are performed once a 
153

1 draft dose reconstruction is completed by a 

2 health physicist, and that includes a peer 

3 review within the structure. If it's a 

4 contractor who's providing the dose 

5 reconstruction, they have a peer review process 

6 that the draft is put through. And then there 

7 is a technical review of that dose 

8 reconstruction done at NIOSH by NIOSH/OCAS 

9 health physics staff. And then there is an 

10 OCAS approval where the -- the senior 

11 leadership and management of OCAS approve the 

12 final dose reconstruction. So we -- we have 

13 that in place. 

14 There's quality assurance programs in place 

15 that identify, document and correct program 

16 deficiencies. An example of these would be our 

17 evaluation of the individual cases where -- 

18 where we run the cases through an automated 

19 program at night on our computers and they 

20 identify certain typographical errors or issues 

21 that -- that need to be brought to the 

22 attention of our public health advisors. And 

23 corrections or steps are taken to make those 

24 corrections made where we find deficiencies in 

25 the information that is given to us. 
154

1 By the way, our public health advisors are next 

2 door. They are holding interviews. This is 

3 typical to what we do at each meeting, and so 

4 we're seeing quite a few claimants come in to 

5 avail themselves of that opportunity. 

6 There are mechanisms that are in place in our 

7 quality assurance and quality control programs 

8 that ensure that corrective actions are 

9 implemented to correct any problems or any 

10 deficiencies or any reoccurrence of a problem 

11 that -- that we may have experienced. All 

12 findings and all concerns that are identified 

13 in our internal assessments require that there 

14 is a documented corrective action plan in 

15 place, and these can be viewed. 

16 We track and we trend the performance, and the 

17 feedback channels are put in place to let folks 

18 know how they're doing with regard to the 

19 quality of their work. 

20 2007 was a tough year. It was a tough year 

21 because we went through a series of continuing 

22 resolutions which impeded our budget and 

23 funding of our contract support folks. We -- 

24 we have seen our tech-- prime technical support 

25 contractor, ORAU and their teaming partners, go 
155

1 through a very difficult time where lately 

2 we've been working with about an every, you 

3 know, three or four-week time frame to put more 

4 money into their contract to keep momentum 

5 going. We can't infuse the whole contract to 

6 gain capacity, as we would like, because we're 

7 limited under a continuing resolution process 

8 with looking at a daily expenditure rate based 

9 upon a prior year, not recognizing that we have 

10 additional work that needs to be done that we 

11 didn't have the prior year. So this has been 

12 very problematic and I can't say enough about 

13 our contractors and the support they've given 

14 us during the difficult times, but 2007 sure 

15 didn't leave us -- the Fiscal Year 2007 didn't 

16 leave us where we expected to be. We really 

17 thought we would be at a steady state where we 

18 defined steady state as no claim in our 

19 holdings over a year old, and we didn't make 

20 that. So again, we'll set new goals and do 

21 everything we can to try to achieve those 

22 goals. 

23 Let's see, I didn't talk about this, this -- 

24 there's an automated program -- I did mention 

25 that in the other slide. I'll just pass over 
156

1 that. 

2 Let me finish up here with where we're at with 

3 our contract award process. There was a 

4 Request for Proposal -- this goes out in the 

5 (unintelligible) business daily, and people can 

6 look at that and provide proposals against 

7 that. That happened in May -- May of 2007 and 

8 the proposals were all due back in June, by 

9 June 15th, 2007. One might say well, why is it 

10 taking so long? Well, there's an extensive 

11 evaluation process that -- that is ongoing, 

12 still ongoing. We have a technical review 

13 panel at NIOSH that looks at the technical 

14 merits of each proposal, and then a program 

15 grants office has another set of reviews that 

16 have to occur, and that's the final stage and 

17 that's where we're at right now. The program 

18 grants office -- procurement grants office is 

19 working through the last efforts on their 

20 review. 

21 To avoid interruption in service and -- and to 

22 provide continuity of service to the government 

23 and to these claimants, the ORAU contract has 

24 been continuously extended. It originally 

25 expired in September 11th, 2007 and we've -- I 
157

1 don't know how many mod-- we call them contract 

2 mods to extend them, but we must have done six 

3 or eight now since September. And that, again, 

4 goes back to the difficulty we've had in just 

5 maintaining a level of effort, a capacity 

6 level, if you will, of the work that needs to 

7 be done. 

8 I think that concludes my presentation. I'd be 

9 happy to answer questions if you'd like. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Well, thank you very much, Larry. 

11 Dr. Melius has a question. 

12 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- actually a number of 

13 questions. First one is on that slide -- can 

14 you explain the third bullet? I'm just -- 

15 response to review -- is it... 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, part of the process is we -

17 - each of the proposers are enabled to ask 

18 questions about the scope of work, about the -- 

19 the request for proposals. 

20 DR. MELIUS: So -- so it's -- 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: And based on those questions, we 

22 realized -- as well as we were in a -- a 

23 situation at that point in time where we 

24 realized hey, we're going to have more PERs, 

25 we're going to have -- it looks like we're 
158

1 going to have more SEC stuff going on, we've 

2 got legacy cases we want to treat separate from 

3 current cases, and so we revised -- based on 

4 the questions and based upon the circumstances 

5 at the time, we amended the -- the scope -- 

6 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: -- so that all proposers could 

8 bid on the same scope of work. These questions 

9 are traded so that the answers that are given 

10 to the questions are shared with all proposers. 

11 Does -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, so -- 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that help? 

14 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, so it's really to proposers' 

15 questions. I was thinking it was somehow the 

16 reviewers, people reviewing the proposals -- 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, yeah, that happens, too. 

18 The review -- this says the reviewers' 

19 questions, and that -- that happens, too. Our 

20 reviewers come up with a set of questions for a 

21 given proposal that result in oh, well, let's 

22 make it a level playing field for all 

23 proposers, and we'll tell the other proposers 

24 what the -- 

25 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 
159

1 MR. ELLIOTT: -- what the reviewers' question 

2 was, so -- 

3 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: -- there -- there's a two-edged 

5 sword here, and I believe this bullet says it 

6 was the reviewers' questions resulted in 

7 amended proposals. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Right. My second question’s 

9 regards Department of Energy. We've had 

10 problems, particularly at the Hanford site, 

11 because of the continuing resolution in terms 

12 of access to data. Is that now resolved or 

13 being resolved? Can you tell me the status of 

14 that, or is that something I should ask -- 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: We're working with -- 

16 DR. MELIUS: -- DOE tomorrow? 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: We're working with Department of 

18 Energy on those -- those issues of -- they, 

19 too, are feeling the brunt of continuing 

20 resolutions and limited resources to put at a 

21 problem. We've worked with DOE and we've 

22 worked with SC&A to help prioritize the 

23 requests that we have in front of Hanford 

24 folks. I've not had a briefing of late that 

25 says there's not progress there, so I'm hoping 
160

1 we're on the -- we're now going to be in a new 

2 -- you know, we're not going to be under a 

3 continuing resolution. We're going to soon be 

4 under an omnibus where all of the money for a 

5 given year will be allowed to be committed. 

6 DR. MELIUS: As of 4:00 o'clock Friday in a 

7 call with your staff, I don't think people knew 

8 the status and whether it was resolved or not, 

9 so I'd appreciate -- 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: Well -- 

11 DR. MELIUS: -- appreciate knowing whether it's 

12 being resolved or isn't being resolved and what 

13 the timetable for that is then. I mean is -- 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: That may be a better question to 

15 ask DOE right now, I -- 

16 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay. Well -- 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know. 

18 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) about that. 

19 My -- 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: I haven't been told that we -- we 

21 -- we've run into a major obstacle right now. 

22 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, okay. Well -- 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: Nor have I heard from SC&A that 

24 there's a major obstacle. 

25 DR. MELIUS: The -- the -- your staff was going 
161

1 to check and try to figure out -- I -- do that. 

2 My third question is regarding the -- the first 

3 5,000. My -- my recollection, either from the 

4 hearing or possibly from some subsequent 

5 discussions, were that you were going to look 

6 at those initial 59 that are left over -- you 

7 know, from the initial five -- 59 among the 

8 first 5,000, to look at issues related to 

9 whether they were -- I thought they were going 

10 -- actually going to be turned into 83.14s was 

11 the -- 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Nobody made a commitment to that. 

13 We are looking at those 44 with regard to what 

14 can be done to move them through the process. 

15 If there is an 83.14 situation there, that's 

16 the way they'll be processed. If there is a 

17 dose reconstruction approach that's available 

18 to us, that's the way they'll be processed. 

19 DR. MELIUS: So for the record, those go back 

20 what, five years now that those -- 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: Those -- those -- 

22 DR. MELIUS: -- requests -- 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: -- 44 that are still hanging out 

24 there -- 

25 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 
162

1 MR. ELLIOTT: -- yeah, some of them go back -- 

2 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: -- a good ways. They're older 

4 than we want them to be. 

5 DR. MELIUS: Well, yeah. Not a question but a 

6 comment. I mean I -- that really is, I think, 

7 to the point of absurdity now that someone 

8 cannot get a answer to their -- get their pro-- 

9 claim processed in over five years in this 

10 program, and I think it -- 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Duly noted. 

12 DR. MELIUS: -- certainly would call for a re13 look at -- and -- at -- at the whole -- whole 

14 process and -- and why that can't take place. 

15 My final question is regarding the QA/QC 

16 program. I believe that early on in this 

17 Board's lifetime we -- we took a look at your 

18 QA/QC process, I think produced a short report 

19 with some recommendations. At that time it was 

20 in the process of being developed, many of the 

21 procedures, and -- and so forth. And I think -

22 - I mean I share with you that it's an 

23 important part of the process and -- and I 

24 think it would be worthy of some time spent by 

25 this Board in -- in looking at that process 
163

1 again now that it's matured and -- and is -- is 

2 in place because in some ways it's I think a 

3 very important safeguard to -- 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: I agree. 

5 DR. MELIUS: -- what goes on, so I -- I would 

6 certainly put forward that's something to be 

7 considered for, you know, further -- in more 

8 detailed presentation at -- at one of our 

9 upcoming meetings and think it would be you -- 

10 useful and helpful. 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: We can certainly devote a special 

12 presentation on QA/QC. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Let me jump in here just a moment, 

14 Jim, and ask Larry -- are the QA/Q-- is the 

15 QA/QC process enveloped in specific procedures 

16 that, for exam-- 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: They are in some instances, and 

18 those are -- those can be reviewed, if they 

19 haven't been reviewed. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Because if -- if they are, perhaps 

21 Wanda's workgroup might be in a position to 

22 look at those as a starting point. I don't 

23 think we've looked at any QA/QC procedures. 

24 DR. WADE: Perhaps we can start with NIOSH 

25 making a presentation -- 
164

1 MS. MUNN: We haven't. 

2 DR. WADE: -- of the overall process. 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, I think that would be good, 

4 because some procedures that don't speak to QA 

5 have a QA/QC component. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so some may have been 

7 covered indirectly with -- yes. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Since Wanda didn't slap me around 

9 when I mentioned that, I figured I was okay, 

10 but I -- I agree that I'm -- I think starting 

11 with an overview makes sense and -- not 

12 proposing a full-scale review or anything at 

13 this point 'cause -- again, very well some of 

14 it may be covered in procedures, some of it -- 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: We -- we would -- 

16 DR. MELIUS: -- may not even be warranted, but 

17 -- but I think we really should try to 

18 understand where that process is now and -- and 

19 context. I also think it has some implications 

20 for our review of individual dose 

21 reconstructions and what we focus on in -- in 

22 that process also and we ought to -- 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: We'd be -- 

24 DR. MELIUS: -- do that, yeah. 

25 MR. ELLIOTT: -- happy to do that. We'd 
165

1 welcome your review of that. I think we hear a 

2 lot of public comment about letters that are 

3 inaccurate or misplaced and -- and we want to 

4 be able to stand up and say, you know, those 

5 are our letters, we'll take responsibility for 

6 those. If they're not our letters, we're not -

7 - you know, we're going to help work with the 

8 claimant to get the right -- the right party 

9 involved to get the corrections made. 

10 DR. WADE: So I'll pencil that in for the April 

11 meeting. 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Did that complete -- 

14 DR. MELIUS: That was my four, yep. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Then we have Josie. 

16 MS. BEACH: Larry, I just have a question on 

17 the automated program on slide 18. 

18 MR. ELLIOTT: Uh-huh. 

19 MS. BEACH: Can you give me an idea of what 

20 percentage of the potential discrepancies that 

21 catches, and is that a procedure-driven? 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: I -- I'll have to get back to you 

23 on -- with an answer on that question. I don't 

24 have the numbers right here at my disposal, and 

25 I believe yes, there is -- I believe there's a 
166

1 procedure -- 

2 MR. GRIFFON: Do you know -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: We'll follow up -- 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: We'll have to do that. But yeah 

5 -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: -- on this issue. Mark? 

7 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, just -- 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: -- it's -- it's automated, so you 

9 know, I'll have to -- I'll have to get back to 

10 you with an answer. 

11 MS. BEACH: Is -- 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Along the same lines -- I was 

13 going to follow up on that -- you mentioned 55 

14 discrepancies that it -- the automated program 

15 checks for -- 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: The 55 individual things it 

17 checks. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: For example, do you know what -- 

19 I mean can you give me an example of -- 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: Date of birth wrong -- 

21 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: -- name's wrong, you know, is the 

23 cancer and the ICD code compatible. 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

25 MR. ELLIOTT: Those are the kind of automated 
167

1 checks that go on in this system, and that's 

2 something we can certainly make a presentation 

3 on in this -- this overview. 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 

5 MS. BEACH: And one more question, is that part 

6 of your QA system? 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments, questions? 

9 (No responses) 

10 Okay, thank you very much, Larry. We 

11 appreciate the update, as usual. 

12 We will have a 15-minute break, after which we 

13 will have a public comment period from 5:00 to 

14 6:00. 

15 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:43 p.m. 

16 to 5:00 p.m.) 

17 PUBLIC COMMENT

18 DR. WADE: (Reading) Policy on Redaction of Board 

19 Meeting Transcripts 

20 (Public Comment) 

21 1.If a person making a comment gives his or her name, 

22 no attempt will be made to redact that name. 

23 2.NIOSH will take reasonable steps to ensure that 

24 individuals making public comment are aware of 

25 the fact that their comments (including their 
168

1 name, if provided) will appear in a transcript 

2 of the meeting posted on a public web site. 

3 Such reasonable steps include: 

4 a.A statement read at the start of each public 

5 comment period stating that transcripts 

6 will be posted and names of speakers 

7 will not be redacted; 

8 b.A printed copy of the statement mentioned in (a) 

9 above will be displayed on the table 

10 where individuals sign up to make public 

11 comment; 

12 c.A statement such as outlined in (a) above will also 

13 appear with the agenda for a Board 

14 meeting when it is posted on the NIOSH 

15 web site; 

16 d.A statement such as in (a) above will appear in the 

17 Federal Register Notice that announces 

18 Board and Subcommittee meetings. 

19 3.If an individual in making a statement reveals 

20 personal information (e.g., medical 

21 information) about themselves, that information 

22 will not usually be redacted. The NIOSH FOIA 

23 coordinator will, however, review such 

24 revelations in accordance with the Freedom of 

25 Information Act and the Federal Advisory 
169

1 Committee Act and, if deemed appropriate, will 

2 redact such information. 

3 All disclosures of information concerning third 

4 parties will be redacted. 

5 If it comes to the attention of the Designated 

6 Federal Official -- that's me -- that an 

7 individual wishes to share information with the 

8 Board but objects to doing so in a public 

9 forum, I will work with that individual in 

10 accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee 

11 Act to find a way that the Board can hear such 

12 comments. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. With 

14 that, let us begin then with Antoinette 

15 Bonsignore, if I pronounce it -- 

16 DR. WADE: Bonsignor, uh-huh. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- Bonsignor, I think representing 

18 Linde. 

19 MS. BONSIGNORE: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm 

20 Antoinette Bonsignore. I'm representing the 

21 Linde Ceramics facility in Tonawanda, New York. 

22 And I'm here to discuss an issue that -- that 

23 came to light on September 5th of this year 

24 when the Department of Labor issued a bulletin 

25 that has redesignated four of the five MED 
170

1 buildings from the operational period at Linda 

2 in the 1940s. And as a result of this 

3 redesignation, these four buildings have been 

4 redesignated from an AWE facility to a DOE 

5 facility, and as a consequence of that, any of 

6 the workers who worked in those buildings 

7 during the residual radiation time period, 

8 which is from 1954 to the present, are no 

9 longer eligible to pursue claims under the Part 

10 B program, either under the dose reconstruction 

11 program or under a Special Exposure Cohort 

12 petition that was being prepared for the 

13 residual radiation time period. And the only 

14 building that remains defined as an AWE 

15 facility for that residual time period is one 

16 building, Building 14. And as a result, the 

17 workers that I have been representing over the 

18 past three years have been effectively 

19 eliminated from even elig-- eligibility to 

20 submit claims for any radiogenic cancers that 

21 they are pursuing under the Part B program. 

22 And I -- I -- I'm here to express their 

23 unequivocal objection to this redesignation on 

24 a number of points, primarily because, first of 

25 all, the bulletin was issued without any notice 
171

1 to any representatives fro-- from the facility, 

2 any of the work-- none of the workers had been 

3 notified that anything like this was happening, 

4 not wa-- was anyone who was in the middle of 

5 appealing a claim that may be affected by this 

6 redesignation provided any notice. And more 

7 importantly, the bulletin that was posted on 

8 the Department of Labor's web site is a very -- 

9 a very superficial document that does not 

10 provide any -- any explanation as to the 

11 reasoning behind the redesignation, any kind of 

12 legal reasoning, any kind of technical 

13 reasoning in terms of the residual radiation in 

14 those four buildings as opposed to the one 

15 remaining building. And we simply ask the 

16 Board to evaluate this -- this situation in 

17 light of the fact that the Linde claimants 

18 simply are in a state of limbo and have been 

19 blindsided by this decision, and we simply 

20 don't know what exactly NIOSH is going to do in 

21 reaction to this bulletin, whether this 

22 bulletin will be used as a discretionary 

23 document, whether NIOSH is legally required to 

24 adhere to this decision, whether there is any 

25 opportunity or -- or possibility for an appeal 
172

1 of this decision, or whether the decision is 

2 final and there's no -- no opportunity for any 

3 type of appeal from any claimant or from anyone 

4 representing the claimants. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I -- I do want to ask 

6 if any of the NIOSH people can answer that last 

7 question. I -- I think I know the answer to it 

8 and I think the -- I think it is a DOE and DOL 

9 issue. I -- I don't think NIOSH has a sort of 

10 an option or discretion on this, but I don't 

11 know if -- if Larry is here or if legal counsel 

12 from NIOSH is here that could answer that. 

13 DR. WADE: Well, I think -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Liz, I don't know if you heard 

15 that question or not. 

16 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Sorry, I did not hear. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: The question was whether or not 

18 the -- the redesignation of the -- the -- part 

19 of the Linde facilities by Labor and -- and DOE 

20 -- if that decision -- following it is 

21 discretionary on the part of NIOSH. I said I 

22 didn't believe NIOSH has the discretion to 

23 ignore that, that they have to follow that 

24 designation. Is that not correct? 

25 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: That is correct. NIOSH 
173

1 would be bound by Department of 

2 Labor/Department of Energy's decision there 

3 because that is specifically delegated to those 

4 departments. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so it -- it may -- as a 

6 first step, may be very important for -- for 

7 you, in representing those petitioners, to make 

8 that view also known both to -- I mean it sort 

9 of indirectly gets known through this, but I 

10 mean to formally make sure that both Labor and 

11 -- and DOE hear -- I -- I would say directly 

12 from you, as well. 

13 MS. BONSIGNORE: Thank you. And -- and in 

14 light of that, since representatives from NIOSH 

15 are here, what are -- what if any options do we 

16 have in terms of appealing that decision or 

17 having that decision reviewed by any -- anybody 

18 at the Department of Labor or at the Department 

19 of Energy? 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask if any of the Labor 

21 representatives here know the answer to that -- 

22 or Liz, can you address it at all? 

23 Okay, Liz, on behalf of NIOSH -- 

24 MR. CLAWSON: Dr. Ziemer -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh? 
174

1 MR. CLAWSON: -- they're both out in the 

2 hallway and I sent Sam out there -- 

3 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I was going to say I'm not 

4 sure I can give an answer. All I can tell you 

5 is that would be a Department of Labor or 

6 Department of Energy -- that wouldn't be 

7 appropriate for this Board or NIOSH to address. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: We'll -- we'll try to -- to get 

9 you together with -- at least with Jeff from 

10 Labor, and maybe he can give you an answer, so 

11 -- 

12 MS. BONSIGNORE: I -- I woul-- I've -- I would 

13 appreciate that because I've been having -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: 'Cause I -- I don't know myself 

15 and I'm not sure even the NIOSH people know 

16 exactly what the appeal process is. Larry, 

17 were you going to speak to this or... 

18 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, I was out of the room. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: The question was really on the 

20 redesignation of Linde, which is done by DOE 

21 and DOL -- 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Right, that's the AWE to DOE or 

23 DOE to AWE, I -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but -- 

25 DR. WADE: AWE to DOE. 
175

1 DR. ZIEMER: -- does -- does Labor have an 

2 appeal process for that? I said I don't think 

3 we know. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: You'd have to talk to Labor about 

5 this particular decision. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we need to get her together 

7 with Jeff, if he's still around. 

8 DR. WADE: I would also suggest that when the 

9 representatives of Labor and Energy speak to 

10 this Board tomorrow, if a Board member would 

11 like to raise the question I think that would 

12 be appropriate. 

13 MS. BONSIGNORE: I -- I -- I won't -- 

14 unfortunately will not be available here 

15 tomorrow. When -- can -- could I get some idea 

16 as to when that discussion would occur before 

17 the Board so I could -- 

18 DR. WADE: It's scheduled right now for between 

19 1:30 and 3:30 tomorrow, Wednesday. 

20 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. And finally, I'd like 

21 to submit a written statement for the record. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

23 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

24 MS. BONSIGNORE: Thank you. Thank you very 

25 much. 
176

1 DR. ZIEMER: Sherman Jenkins, Lawrence 

2 Livermore. Sherman? 

3 MR. JENKINS: My name is Sherman Jenkins and I 

4 was at Lawrence Livermore for 32 years; I'm 

5 retired. I'd just like to point out something 

6 that I found, and that is that -- not just at 

7 Livermore but at a number of sites -- the data 

8 from the monitors -- site monitor, radiation 

9 monitors and the personal de-- dosimeters have, 

10 over apparently many periods of time, been 

11 lost. They've been adjusted. And from the 

12 records that I see from -- on the computer and 

13 from your records, very little in-- information 

14 that would pertain to that or that would 

15 address that. And it seems to me that it's 

16 kind of systemic, and I -- I'm going to be 

17 looking to see if you address it any further. 

18 DR. WADE: Okay. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Dan McKeel, and 

20 Dan represents several groups, but -- Dr. 

21 McKeel, welcome. 

22 DR. MCKEEL: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I can't 

23 get that down. Anyway, good afternoon, I'm Dan 

24 McKeel. I -- tonight I'm representing the 

25 Southern Illinois Nuclear Workers, and my 
177

1 comments tonight focus on the Board's reduc-- 

2 revised redaction policy which was posted on 

3 OCAS on December the 12th and on the status of 

4 General Steel Industries dose reconstructions. 

5 With respect to the redaction policy -- get 

6 this down where you can hear me -- comments 

7 from Board members during the November 27th 

8 conference ca-- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Dan, there's another thing down 

10 lower, you can just -- yeah, get that down -- 

11 there you go. 

12 DR. MCKEEL: Great, all right. Terrific. 

13 Comments from the Board members during the 

14 November 27th conference call indicated 

15 approval of this redaction policy without need 

16 for modifications of it. The policy was posted 

17 on OCAS, as I said, on December the 12th of 

18 last year. In the November meeting the 

19 sentiment was expressed by several Board 

20 members that the revision should satisfy those 

21 objecting to the new policy. Since I was one 

22 of the lead people for this issue, I need to 

23 respond to make our remaining concerns known to 

24 the Board. 

25 First, there is no proposed remedy for those 
178

1 transcripts that have already been redacted. 

2 The April 19th and 30th workgroup and the May 

3 2nd through 4th, 2007 and June 11th through 

4 12th full meeting transcripts were affected. 

5 The fully July 17th through 19th, 2007 Board 

6 meeting transcripts have not yet been posted on 

7 OCAS. The July 17 subcommittee transcript was 

8 redacted. The October 7 to 9 Board transcripts 

9 were posted and have not been redacted. A link 

10 to the November the 27th teleconference meeting 

11 transcript was posted on January (sic) the 

12 24th, was inoperative as of this morning, 

13 January the 8th. Thus it is unclear whether or 

14 not the July full meeting transcripts will or 

15 will not be redacted. I wonder why the July 

16 Board transcripts have been delayed, as I 

17 understood Dr. Ziemer to say they'd all been 

18 received from the court reporter, Ray Green, 

19 during the November 27th meeting. 

20 Second, because the redaction transcripts have 

21 not been restored to their unredacted form, the 

22 public record for the redacted period remains 

23 incomplete and inaccurate. The omission of 

24 participant names, those who make public 

25 comments, and the names of the Dow and Rocky 
179

1 Flats SEC petitioners and workers commenting on 

2 the SEC petitions is a gap in the official 

3 historical record of the ABRWH proceedings. 

4 Personally, I do not want the record left this 

5 way because I believe the original policy was 

6 improper, for reasons our group has previously 

7 communicated to the Board and to the Senate 

8 Health Committee in detail. 

9 Third, the redaction policy posted on OCAS 

10 mentions public comments only, whereas the 

11 redaction process was also applied to the 

12 participant list and to my DOW SEC presentation 

13 on May the 4th, 2007. 

14 Fourth, although I and our advocates group have 

15 repeatedly asked for the sources of the 

16 original redaction policy to be identified, 

17 this has not happened. We continue to believe 

18 this is very important, both for this program 

19 to be perceived as transparent and because 

20 several sources have been identified. One was 

21 the Board itself. Another were staff members 

22 at HHS, CDC and NIOSH. And the third was the 

23 CDC ATSDR FOIA office in Atlanta. This 

24 confusion needs to be clarified as to the 

25 correct attribution of the original redaction 
180

1 policy. 

2 Then I had just a few comments about the G-- 

3 General Steel Industries. The main area of 

4 concern for GSI is the urgency of obtaining the 

5 SC&A review of Appendix BB and their review of 

6 the detailed comments that I made and [name 

7 redacted] made of Appendix BB. It should be 

8 noted that our names were also redacted from 

9 the versions of their Appendix BB critiques 

10 posted on OCAS. I want this redaction reversed 

11 as well. The impact and acceptance of these 

12 concerns are reduced by having our names 

13 omitted. Again, this redaction policy is 

14 contrary to our intentions. The Appendix BB 

15 scientific critiques are a form of public 

16 comment. NIOSH in fact solicits comments from 

17 the public pertinent to its technical documents 

18 on the public docket portion of the OCAS web 

19 site. 

20 We are aware of at least five GSI claims with 

21 POCs in the 48 to 49 percent-plus range. We 

22 urgently need to have released the results of 

23 the review of the GSI Appendix BB that the 

24 Board tasked SC&A to perform. During the SC&A 

25 satellite meeting before the October 9th, 2007 
181

1 NIOSH outreach meeting in Collinsville, 

2 Illinois for GSI workers, a consensus was 

3 worked out that the average GSI work week was 

4 65 hours rather than the 46-hour average that 

5 NIOSH has used in GSI dose reconstructions thus 

6 far. This fact, coupled with the inclusion of 

7 a neutron dose, the added dose from the three 

8 high MeV gamma sources, the fact that not one 

9 but four two-hour Betatron exposures were 

10 required to generate X-ray images of 

11 Mallinckrodt uranium, collectively may well be 

12 sufficient to have many of these borderline 

13 POCs pushed to or over the 50 percent 

14 compensation cutoff limit. 

15 We also look forward to receiving the minutes 

16 of the two October 9th, 2007 Collinsville 

17 meetings for the GSI workers, and we await the 

18 results of the application of PER-24 that 

19 applies to some GSI claims submitted by workers 

20 from the sister Granite City Steel site. 

21 We have not yet gotten an answer whether NIOSH 

22 or SC&A have retrieved and reviewed the 

23 Landauer, Incorporated film badge dosimetry 

24 data on 30 GSI workers, and that data applies 

25 to the year 1963 to 1973. 
182

1 Thank you very much, and I -- I do have a copy 

2 of these remarks for the Chairman. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Dr. McKeel. 

4 Incidentally, we -- we will have on Thursday -- 

5 let me look here -- an -- an update -- I myself 

6 had hoped that we would have a -- the report 

7 from our contractor on GSI, and I know that 

8 SC&A had hoped to finish that report prior to 

9 this meeting. It is -- the draft is very close 

10 to completion. We will get a report on the 

11 status of that tomorrow, and hopefully we will 

12 all have -- 

13 DR. MCKEEL: Well, good. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: -- that draft very soon. 

15 DR. MCKEEL: I didn't realize that that was on 

16 the agenda. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it is, because we -- we have 

18 -- we will have an update on all of our -- 

19 DR. MCKEEL: Good. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- various workgroups and so on, 

21 so -- 

22 DR. MCKEEL: That's great. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: -- I've asked John Mauro -- is 

24 John here in the room? And -- well, it's all 

25 right, Arjun. John has asked the author of 
183

1 that report to be with us by phone to -- on 

2 Thursday to give us a report, at least on the 

3 status of the SC&A review of the GSI program, 

4 so -- 

5 DR. MCKEEL: Tha-- that's excellent. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

7 DR. MCKEEL: Thank you. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Paul? 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Yes? 

10 DR. MELIUS: In our -- I see in our Board 

11 working time on the agenda for Thursday there's 

12 also further discussion of redaction and 

13 transcripts and minutes, so will that be those 

14 -- I mean I'd like to get an answer to some of 

15 these questions that Dan's had, so... 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and -- 

17 DR. WADE: That will be the time. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: -- that would be a good time -- 

19 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- I -- I think the concerns that 

21 were raised are recognized by many on the Board 

22 as well. 

23 DR. MELIUS: Thanks. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. McKeel is a very patient 

25 person and will have to continue to be patient 
184

1 and we'll see what can -- can come of it here. 

2 Patty Cook. 

3 MS. COOK: Good evening, Dr. Zimmer (sic) and 

4 members of the Board. I am Patricia Cook, 

5 claimant [identifying information redacted]. 

6 My mom worked at NRDS for PanAm August 1963 to 

7 December 1970. I would like to comment on a 

8 few more of the experiences I've had with NIOSH 

9 and DOL -- thank you -- which further shows 

10 claimant unfriendliness. 

11 The last time the Board was here in Las Vegas, 

12 after the public comments Larry Elliott sat 

13 right in front of me and turned around to me 

14 and said he would reopen my mom's file. After 

15 six months went by I sent him an e-mail for an 

16 update. This was the response I received. 

17 (Reading) Dear Ms. Cook, my notes from Las 

18 Vegas meeting indicate that I committed to look 

19 into your claim to verify whether the phone 

20 interview was lost and not included in the 

21 record for the claim. This was relative to 

22 your comment that the interviewer was sloppy 

23 and lost the record of the interview, and that 

24 the interviewer had been fired for this. I did 

25 find the interview report included in the claim 
185

1 file. My apologize -- apologies for not 

2 letting you know the outcome of my review. 

3 Also I am sorry if you were confused about a 

4 reopening of the claim. I did not commit to a 

5 reopening. An issue of an interview report not 

6 being in the claim file is not cause to reopen 

7 a claim; thus I would not commit to such. Be 

8 that as it may, I do not see anything in the 

9 claim file that leads me to believe that 

10 something was done improperly in the dose 

11 reconstruction that would merit reopening of 

12 the dose reconstruction. Our work on your 

13 claim provides a scientific basis to say that 

14 your mother's cancer was caused by something 

15 other than radiation exposure she encountered 

16 at the Nevada Test Site. Respectfully, Larry. 

17 I find this very rude and condescending, 

18 telling me that I must be confused. If he 

19 could not have reopened the case, then he sure 

20 did a good job of misrepresentation. I also 

21 asked for a total administration file on disk, 

22 which I believe every claimant should request 

23 from NIOSH. I did receive it. 

24 My mother died of multiple myeloma. I had 

25 given all the doctor's diagnosis way in advance 
186

1 from 2001. Until I received my first DR in May 

2 2005 there was never a question that multiple 

3 myeloma wasn't her primary cancer. I hit the 

4 roof when I saw the primary cancer was deleted 

5 by a person from the Department of Labor. 

6 Because of this wrong diagnosis, I had to start 

7 over with another phone interview after 

8 Department of Labor informed NIOSH that there 

9 was -- indeed was medical evidence that the 

10 primary cancer was myeloma. The second dose 

11 reconstruction was ordered, and they changed 

12 the primary cancer to the myeloma and put the 

13 lung cancer as secondary, like it should have 

14 been from the start. 

15 As I went through the documents on my disk that 

16 I received from NIOSH, I received it this 

17 April, I found two e-mails. The first one was 

18 dated December 2nd, 2003. This is about the 

19 time they started the first dose re-- 

20 reconstruction. This looks like an internal e21 mail. It says (reading) Chris, I sent you an 

22 ANRSD (sic) deleting the multiple myeloma only. 

23 I did not delete the secondary bone cancer. 

24 The bone cancer still stands as the secondary 

25 because there is no identified primary. It is 
187

1 my understanding that we are to report the 

2 secondary cancers when there is no primary. 

3 Thanks, Ann. 

4 Ann writes back (reading) Received ANSRD (sic) 

5 today deleting the secondary cancer. There is 

6 no primary cancer listed. Please advise. 

7 Should the claim be pulled or provide primary 

8 cancer information. Thanks, Chris -- Chris 

9 Negell*. 

10 So the multiple myeloma had been removed back 

11 in 2003. Now all these years I thought it was 

12 still the primary until I received my first 

13 dose reconstruction in 2005. Why did 

14 Department of Labor remove the myeloma in the 

15 first place? From what I understand, 

16 Department of Labor -- their role in the dose 

17 reconstruction process is to plug the numbers 

18 into the IREP model only, not delete primary 

19 cancers. Department of Labor is the reason why 

20 the first DR didn't have its primary -- didn't 

21 have the myeloma as its primary. 

22 Then there is a second e-mail dated August 

23 17th, 2005. This is the time the second dose 

24 reconstruction was started because I said they 

25 had the cancers wrong. This is dated August 
188

1 17th, 2005. (Reading) Stu, I have reviewed 

2 information from the Seattle DO regarding the 

3 DR for Irene Halverson*. Ms. Halverson was 

4 employed at the Nevada Test Site from -- dates 

5 and dates. The DR was performed for secondary 

6 bone cancer with the lung as the assumed 

7 primary cancer site diagnosed 3/19/97 -- oh, 

8 correct that date, February 1997. The 

9 resultant POC was 25.01 percent. Upon further 

10 review of the medical information of the case 

11 file, the DO was determined that the medical 

12 evidence supports the primary cancer for the 

13 metastatic bone cancer is multiple myeloma, 

14 ICD-9 Code 203, not the lung cancer as 

15 previously assumed. We are requesting that 

16 NIOSH rerun the dose reconstruction to reflect 

17 the correct primary cancer, multiple myeloma, 

18 203, diagnosed 2/19. The Seattle DO will 

19 forward an amended NRSD to NIOSH shortly with 

20 the information discussed above accordingly. I 

21 am asking for a rework of this DR. 

22 No coincidence that this is when I told them 

23 that they had made a mistake on the first DR. 

24 And the second DR came back showing that the 

25 multiple myeloma as primary. Now we have a 
189

1 very big problem here. This looks to me like 

2 intentional attempt to change the facts in my 

3 mother's records. I won't accept that either 

4 one of these DRs is accurate. I think it's 

5 more than just sloppy work. It's deliberate 

6 tampering. 

7 Plus this site profiles have many mistakes in 

8 them that are well acknowledged by DOL. Right 

9 here in our local review journal -- God bless 

10 [name redacted] -- not just the Nevada Test 

11 Site, but all of the other sites as well. For 

12 example, the BREN tower was not included in 

13 Area 25 at NRDS. That's huge. My case alone 

14 is enough to cast doubts on NIOSH's ability to 

15 reconstruct accurate dose reconstructions for 

16 all claimants because of flawed data. Thank 

17 you. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. Next, 

19 Teri S-e-p-- 

20 MS. SEPULVIDA: Sepulvida. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: -- Sepulvidz (sic), thank you, 

22 Teri. 

23 MS. SEPULVIDA: Hello. [name redacted] and I 

24 have been attempting to receive compensation on 

25 behalf of our deceased father, Robert 
190

1 Sheltran*. He was a dedicated fireman at the 

2 Test Site from August '85 to December of '89. 

3 Before that he was a retired Captain for the 

4 City of Las Vegas for 20 years. He worked for 

5 REECO with Q clearance. He was a first 

6 responder. He went when and where they called 

7 him, no questions asked. No matter what caught 

8 on fire -- grass, outbuildings, et cetera -- he 

9 was there to respond, as all dedicated firemen 

10 do. 

11 He was diagnosed in August of 1990 with 

12 polycythemia. In February of '91 he was 

13 diagnosed with mouth cancer. Eight months 

14 later, in October of '91, he passed away at the 

15 age of 57. In -- excuse me. In January of '02 

16 [name redacted] and I applied for compensation 

17 through the program. Two years later, in June 

18 of '04, we received our first denial based on a 

19 probability of causation of 33.51 percent. We 

20 of course appealed this decision to DOL. May 

21 of '05 Department of Labor agreed with us and 

22 remanded our case back to NIOSH based on a 

23 revised dose reconstruction software for 

24 polycythemia, and had noted that with this new 

25 revision our probability of causation would be 
191

1 above 50 percent. Two months later NIOSH 

2 denied the remand and strangely recalculated 

3 the probability of causation to 3.06 percent. 

4 We appealed again in September of '05. We were 

5 denied again almost a year later in August of 

6 '06. 

7 At this time we had asked for our case to be 

8 reopened. At this time we attempted to find 

9 more evidence to strengthen our case by 

10 requesting fire incident reports at the Nevada 

11 Test Site through the Freedom of Information 

12 Act. We received a letter from the Department 

13 of Energy regarding our request through Freedom 

14 of Information, stating that the fire incident 

15 reports were missing from 1987 through 1992. 

16 May of 2007 we received our denial to reopen 

17 our case. I've recently checked with the 

18 Department of Energy, and they still do not 

19 have these records. 

20 Coincidentally, my case is being reopened -- or 

21 so they say -- because of the super S plutonium 

22 out there. 

23 But my question to the Board is if I can't have 

24 access to evidence in support of our claim, how 

25 can they have evidence to the contrary? And I 
192

1 do have copies of the letter from DOE for all 

2 the Board members and a copy of an e-mail from 

3 the person at DOE when they were trying to find 

4 them. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. Next 

6 we'll hear from Anne Snyder. Anne? 

7 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

8 (Unintelligible) 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Then Dorothy Clayton. 

10 Dorothy? 

11 MS. CLAYTON: Yes, my -- my name is Dorothy 

12 Clayton, and you may remember that I spoke 

13 before the Board at the last meeting here in 

14 Las Vegas. At that time I presented five years 

15 of employment history, including declassified 

16 records of -- that I had gotten from the DOE on 

17 my husband's employment. My husband was Glenn 

18 Clayton. He worked at the Nevada Test Site for 

19 29 and a half years, and he died with six 

20 different types of cancer. 

21 In October of 1998 Glenn wrote a 10-page work 

22 history which details the -- the -- a portion 

23 of the work that he did in the tunnels where 

24 the nuclear tests were conducted. The words of 

25 a dying Nevada Test Site worker tells how he 
193

1 and his crew and others worked in areas where 

2 the level of radiation was extremely high. 

3 Eight months after he wrote this, on June the 

4 5th, 1999, Glenn died. 

5 If I gave you a copy of this just to read, you 

6 might doubt that his memory was -- was very 

7 good. But several months after Glenn's death I 

8 got 1,370 pages of declassified records from 

9 the DOE and I -- if anyone from the DOE had 

10 taken a close look at those records, I doubt 

11 very much if they would have ended up in my 

12 hands, but they did. So I brought some of the 

13 -- I'd like to read just a couple of things 

14 that -- that Glenn wrote in the work history, 

15 and then show you some declassified radiation 

16 monitor logbook records. They're handwritten, 

17 and they all have been declassified. 

18 But on page 1 of the work history Glenn says 

19 (reading) We had very little success of 

20 containment in the tunnels in the years from 

21 1958 to 1968. During that period of time some 

22 severe radiation problems existed for the 

23 personnel. 

24 Then talking about another one of the -- one of 

25 the tests that he was involved in, he said all 
194

1 of -- all of the ones working in there, they 

2 worked in the very high radiation, and they got 

3 quite a bit of exposure in that area. I won't 

4 go into detail on these shots that he worked 

5 on, but I -- on page 4 he talks about working 

6 in E tunnel. He said they wanted to do some 

7 mining re-entry -- "they" meaning LRL. He said 

8 as we mined back through the Logan area we 

9 encountered seams in stratus that were 

10 exceeding three R, and our only means of 

11 protecting ourself from the radiation was by 

12 trying to put lead shielding over these areas. 

13 In the logbook record, rad safe logbook record, 

14 they report that there was a build-up of 

15 contact reading on the floor of the work area 

16 up to four R and LRL requested lead shielding 

17 be put over the areas. This was the day shift 

18 they were talking about. They -- and the next 

19 notation was (reading) the swing shift were 

20 round up same and bring out when they come. 

21 Just a few lines down it said (reading) the 

22 grave shift arrived and was briefed. 

23 So we're looking at three different shifts here 

24 that worked in high radiation area with no 

25 protection, three crews. 
195

1 Another notation they made up here, they were 

2 informed of persistent rise in thyroid reading 

3 on -- and I won't give the employee's name. 

4 And on the next page they say (reading) there 

5 is still an iodine problem deduced from samples 

6 taken. 

7 These are the rad safe logbooks. After that 

8 Glenn went to B tunnel. (Reading) LRL, in 

9 conjunction with Sandia, had determined they 

10 wanted to create a sphere at the bottom of a 

11 shaft which would be code named -- blank -- and 

12 would be a five KT high-explosive test. One 

13 thing that we encountered was that no one, 

14 including rad safe, knew the amount of radon 

15 thoron radiation. Later I was in the B tunnel 

16 area when the rad safe monitor told us that the 

17 radiation from radon thoron was exceeding 

18 250,000 counts. 

19 After that, LRL made a determination that they 

20 wanted to re-enter the -- another area in B 

21 tunnel. He said (reading) One thing we found 

22 out much later was that the radiation we were 

23 dealing with back in that tunnel, the 

24 experimenters called "boil"*, but it was in 

25 truth tritium, and it was at a very high level. 
196

1 None of us were aware of this and we all got a 

2 good dose of tritium. LRL had a crew taking 

3 three urine samples each week, and they fed us 

4 salt tablets to assist in getting the radiation 

5 out of our system. Sometime after this, rad 

6 safe, in conjunction with the AEC and others, 

7 started giving us each a six-pack of beer to 

8 drink after work. 

9 He did another -- worked at E tunnel again, and 

10 they -- where they had a secondary explosion 

11 that blew out the portal, the rad safe monitor 

12 reported that the water in the drainage pond 

13 just off the dump at E tunnel was reading 72 R. 

14 Shortly after that it was suggested by a rad 

15 safe supervisor that he lose his film badge. 

16 That was a common practice that they did during 

17 that period of time when a worker would get so 

18 much radiation in -- in -- like in a month's 

19 time, they would tell them to lose their badge 

20 or they would lose their job. 

21 In the rad safe notes, someone had called from 

22 the lab, LRL, and said that we should get some 

23 lost film badge cards. Why do you think they 

24 needed more cards? 

25 I wanted to share these records with you 
197

1 because they confirm the radiation hazards that 

2 was present in the tunnels where these men 

3 worked. Tonight in this room there are former 

4 workers here who have cancer who can't get 

5 their claims paid, and yet they were in Glenn's 

6 crew, they worked with him. There are widows 

7 here whose husbands worked right along with my 

8 husband. They were in his crew. Their claims 

9 have been denied. They're being denied mostly 

10 probab-- because they can't get records like 

11 this. After I got these and went to Washington 

12 and lobbied for this program, the DOE stopped 

13 giving out the records. They can -- and the 

14 ones they give out now, like the radiation 

15 exposure history, does not show the radiation 

16 that these men got because I have the tests on 

17 my husband's -- the urine tests, the nasal 

18 swabs -- and they show extreme radiation, which 

19 is not included in the dose reconstruction -- 

20 the -- I'm sorry, in the radiation exposure 

21 history that I was given. 

22 And not only that, the widows -- everyone is 

23 told that -- remember, as the claimant, it is 

24 ultimately your responsibility to submit the 

25 necessary information to substantiate your 
198

1 claim under the EEOICPA. This is from the 

2 Department of Labor. There's no way they can 

3 substantiate their claims. They don't have the 

4 records. They're -- they're not being given 

5 them. 

6 So I respectfully ask the Board to grant 

7 Special Exposure Cohort status to the Nevada 

8 Test Site so these workers, who freely gave 

9 their all -- they gave everything they had to 

10 give -- in order that we could win the Cold 

11 War, and they need to get these claims paid. 

12 Thank you. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. John Funk, 

14 is John ready? 

15 MR. FUNK: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

16 switch with Brenda here. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

18 MR. FUNK: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

19 her spot. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Brenda -- 

21 UNIDENTIFIED: Sieck. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: I got it, okay. Brenda? 

23 MS. SIECK: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. 

24 Can I just hold this? My name is Brenda Sieck 

25 and I'm here to talk about my father tonight, 
199

1 Ronald C. Bain. Here's a picture of him in his 

2 younger days when he was in the Air Force, and 

3 he is on the far right -- big guy -- in a hat. 

4 He served in the Army and the Air Force for our 

5 country. He also worked for the government at 

6 the Nevada Test Site for many, many years. Our 

7 family has had a claim with U.S. Department of 

8 Labor for my daddy's death for almost 30 years 

9 now. This is unacceptable. And the families 

10 want to be done with this and compensated for 

11 losing their loved ones in this room. 

12 My father was an awesome man. He died of 

13 horrific cancer that ate his body away due to 

14 the extreme amounts of radiation that he was 

15 exposed to while working under the tunnels and 

16 various other places at the Test Site. My 

17 family has been through a very long, 

18 frustrating journey with the government trying 

19 to get the information we need. 

20 Over the years we have had many friends die to 

21 cancer from working at the Test Site with my 

22 father. The only friends that are alive that 

23 we know of are [name redacted], who is here in 

24 the room tonight, and [name redacted], who 

25 lives out of town, who both are still suffering 
200

1 severe health issues from working at the Test 

2 Site with my father. 

3 Even though we have documents and go back and 

4 forth with letters, the government still 

5 refuses to acknowledge our men and women who 

6 gave their lives to work at the Test Site. 

7 Excuse me. [name redacted], who lost the great 

8 love of her life, has been filling out forms 

9 for many years -- too many. The claim form 

10 that especially interested me that I was 

11 looking over was claim form number EE-2 for 

12 survivor benefits, asked questions that my 

13 mother could not answer because she did not 

14 know the answer. Questions like number 6 on 

15 page 3 asked did he participate in a urine, 

16 fecal or breath biological radiation monitoring 

17 program. Question number 7 asked do you have 

18 copies of his dosimeter -- if I'm saying that 

19 right -- badge or biological monitoring 

20 records. She did not know. She did not have 

21 access to this. Question 8 asked was he ever 

22 res-- restricted from the workplace or certain 

23 job duties because he had reached a radiation 

24 dose limit. So tell me, how do we get this 

25 information that you're asking for? However, 
201

1 there was one question asked that she did have 

2 an answer for, and it was question number 9. 

3 It asked was he ever involved in an incident 

4 involving radiation exposure or contamination. 

5 [name redacted] wrote down yes. [name 

6 redacted] mentioned being in hot spots all the 

7 time, and that in 1978 he was overdosed with 

8 radiation and had to be decontaminated at the 

9 end of his shift in the Emad in area 400. To 

10 this day we still have not received a response 

11 to this. 

12 There were so many other times when he came 

13 home and took off his clothes outside before 

14 coming into the house in the back yard because 

15 he was exposed and did not to put his clothes 

16 with our family's clothes. 

17 In closing I would just like to say thank you 

18 for listening to me tonight 'cause I'm here be19 - for [name redacted] because she cannot handle 

20 reading the paperwork and being refused anymore 

21 so I'm taking over for her, and she lives with 

22 me now. I just pray that the government does 

23 the right thing and takes care of these 

24 families who have suffered great losses in 

25 their lifetime, and I would like to leave you a 
202

1 copy of an interview with a young man from the 

2 Department of Labor dated January 2005. He had 

3 no knowledge of even what the Test Site was. I 

4 believe his name is [name redacted]. This 

5 gives a lot more information at what went under 

6 the tunnels as my mom had [name redacted] sit 

7 in an interview and that's when we really found 

8 out what happened to my father. Thank you. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Brenda. 

10 [name redacted]? 

11 (No responses) 

12 Okay, how about Annie Padilla or Padilla -- 

13 looks like Padilla -- P-a-d-i-l-l-a. 

14 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

15 (Unintelligible) 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Denise Brock -- I know 

17 Denise is here. 

18 MS. BROCK: Hello, everybody. 

19 (Pause) 

20 I -- I do have a couple of statements from 

21 claimants they've asked me to read. One lady 

22 was here earlier today but had to leave, and 

23 another lady just could not make the trip and 

24 has asked me to read the statement she has 

25 written, and I'll start with hers first. 
203

1 Presentation statement for Advisory Board 

2 meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada 2008, written by 

3 [name redacted] on behalf of [name redacted], 

4 surviving spouse of [name redacted]. 

5 (Reading) I first learned the existence of the 

6 Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

7 Compensation Program Act of 2000 while talking 

8 to a coworker in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We 

9 were both from Oak Ridge and, like many other 

10 children growing up there, had parents who 

11 worked at the nuclear weapons plants. She told 

12 me about the federal government passing a law 

13 that was supposed to help compensate Energy 

14 workers who had developed catastrophic 

15 illnesses as a result of their employment in 

16 the nuclear plants. I remember thinking, my 

17 God, someone is finally going to recognize the 

18 sacrifices that my father and thousands of 

19 others made working at those facilities. 

20 My father worked at Y-12 nuclear plant on the 

21 Manhattan Project during 1944 through 1946. I 

22 still have the framed certificate they so 

23 graciously presented to him. He left Oak 

24 Ridge, and then returned to Y-12 in 1953. He 

25 was never told of the dangers of working in a 
204

1 uranium enrichment operation and had no idea 

2 what working in such an uncontrolled 

3 environment was doing to his health. 

4 He began having health issues in the early to 

5 mid-1960s, which steadily worsened. My family 

6 watched my father die a long, agonizing death 

7 as his body slowly deteriorated over a 10-year 

8 period. He suffered from cancer, coronary 

9 heart disease, arteriosclerosis and God knows 

10 what other radiological-induced illnesses. He 

11 lost one leg, and then the other, and 

12 ultimately his life when he finally succumbed 

13 to bladder cancer. My father was 67 years old 

14 at the time of his death, and he had the body 

15 of a 90-year-old. 

16 [identifying information redactd]. 

17 In 2001 I filed a claim on behalf of [name 

18 redacted] with the Department of Labor under 

19 the EEOICPA, requesting survivor benefits due 

20 to my dad's employment. For years now we have 

21 provided every piece of documentation requested 

22 of us. We have spent hours and hours talking 

23 with many different people who represented 

24 whichever government agency happened to have 

25 the claim at the time. 
205

1 Finally in February 2006, after five years of 

2 waiting and following the claim as it was 

3 bounced between agencies, we received a 

4 favorable recommendation from the Department of 

5 Labor. We were elated. The notification 

6 advised that this was not the final decision 

7 and that it still needed to go before the Final 

8 Adjudication Branch, or FAB, for their review 

9 and the issuance of the final decision. The 

10 letter advised that if we agreed with the 

11 recommended decision to sign and return the 

12 waiver enclosed and we should hear soon from 

13 FAB. We were sure it was just a matter of a 

14 rubber stamp, but it was not to be. 

15 We anxiously awaited further instructions, only 

16 to receive a remand order eight months later 

17 from the FAB. You can't imagine how 

18 disheartening and emotional it was to read the 

19 Seattle District Office will undertake further 

20 development of the evidence as it deems 

21 necessary. The letter stated we should be 

22 advised of the new recommended decision. 

23 However, another year passed and we heard 

24 nothing. 

25 I contacted the Department of Labor office and 
206

1 was told that they no longer had the claim, 

2 that it had been forwarded back to NIOSH for 

3 further investigation. Six years this has been 

4 going on. I couldn't believe this was 

5 happening all over again. 

6 We contacted NIOSH for help in understanding 

7 what was going on. Interestingly, I ran across 

8 the following while researching the EEOICPA. 

9 Executive Order 13179 providing compensation to 

10 America's nuclear weapons workers, December 

11 7th, 2000 states, and I quote, While the nation 

12 can never fully repay these workers or their 

13 families, they deserve recognition and 

14 compensation for their sacrifices. 

15 Since the administration's historic 

16 announcement in July of 1999 that it intended 

17 to compensate DOE nuclear weapons workers who 

18 suffered occupational illnesses as a result of 

19 the exposure to the unique hazards in building 

20 the nation's nuclear defense, it has been the 

21 policy of this administration to support fair 

22 and timely compensation for these workers and 

23 their survivors. 

24 DOE news, July 27th, 2001 -- Our goal is to 

25 take care of the men and women who were harmed 
207

1 as quickly as possible, said Secretary -- Labor 

2 Secretary Elaine Chao. 

3 My sisters and I lost our father, but my mother 

4 lost her husband, her best friend, the love of 

5 her life. He died way too young. He didn't 

6 get to spend any golden years with my mother, 

7 or be there to guide his children as young 

8 adults or share the laughter and love of his 

9 grandchildren. [identifying information 

10 redacted]. We have been waiting nearly seven 

11 years now for someone to stand up and do the 

12 right thing. We have met all the clinical and 

13 administrative criteria. My father's tenure at 

14 Y-12 certainly was well beyond the 250-day 

15 requirement under the Y-12 Special Exposure 

16 Cohort. My question to the Department of Labor 

17 and NIOSH is, when is this claim going to be 

18 paid? I find it hard to believe that when 

19 Congress passed Executive Order 13179 they 

20 considered seven years to be fair or timely. 

21 This is so wrong. Someone needs to make it 

22 right and it needs to be today. 

23 I would like to just add a statement, if I 

24 could, to this. I've been working with this -- 

25 this lady and her mother for a little while 
208

1 now, and this -- among several cases I've been 

2 running across at the Y-12 site. And NIOSH is 

3 working with the Department of Labor to resolve 

4 these, but these are very disheartening for me. 

5 When you see a worker that has a 90-year-old 

6 surviving spouse, 90 years old, and has had 

7 this claim sitting for over a year, and she had 

8 a recommended decision of approval -- this man 

9 had over 250 days, one of the 22 cancers. But 

10 the problem with it is is that there's a 

11 question of whether or not it was in a 

12 radiological area. If this is the claim I'm 

13 thinking of -- because I have several -- this 

14 man had bioassay, so I really am at a loss here 

15 as to what the problem is. 

16 This is from [name redacted] for [name 

17 redacted], and I'll just go ahead and read -- 

18 she's got a list of things here -- is that all 

19 right for me to do this, and this'll be my last 

20 one. 

21 (Reading) [name redacted] was at the Nevada 

22 Test Site frequently from 1957 through the late 

23 '60s as a bomb assembler and handler. He wore 

24 a film badge for radiation all the time, as 

25 directly related by him. Traveled from 
209

1 Albuquerque to Las Vegas to work at the Nevada 

2 Test Site many weeks from 1957 to 1960. 

3 On Monday morning my mother took him to the 

4 airport until late Friday night when Mom and I 

5 picked him up at the airport. No accounts made 

6 of this. Our family lived in Tonapah from 1960 

7 until '63. We were told unless we had an 

8 affidavit, that wouldn't be accounted for. I 

9 found my school records and all of a sudden 

10 records showed Dad worked at the Tonapah Test 

11 Site. 

12 He told us he -- he told us of going from 

13 Tonapah Test Site to the Nevada Test Site to 

14 set up, monitor, and clean up after the tests. 

15 Again we were told unless we have affidavits, 

16 it would not be accounted for. I found a 

17 gentleman that worked with Dad and gave us an 

18 affidavit upon seeing Dad working at the Nevada 

19 Test Site on several occasions, including the 

20 Sedan test. This was the next test -- to the 

21 largest test and broke out into the atmosphere 

22 12,000 feet, releasing serious radiation, the 

23 worst of all tests. Dad was then instructed to 

24 go to Ground Zero to do work 24 hours after the 

25 blast. How well was he protected at that 
210

1 point? 

2 All of a sudden, times show up on the records 

3 of him working at the Nevada Test Site. 

4 Stories Dad directly related to us, he was 

5 asked on several occasions to take off his 

6 badge when he had too much radiation and 

7 continue to work, even to go to Ground Zero 

8 right after a test. When he knew he received 

9 too much radiation, the lab results from his 

10 badge came back as lab malfunction, or such. 

11 He and others he worked with were getting 

12 really sick from the radiation poisoning and 

13 were told by Sandia nothing was wrong. 

14 Right after our family was moved back to 

15 Albuquerque Dad had to have his thyroid removed 

16 because of growths. That is known to be 

17 directly related to radiation exposure, yet 

18 this is not giving any -- given any recognition 

19 because it wasn't cancerous. Dad had melanomas 

20 and precancerous nodules removed, and died of 

21 pancreatic cancer that spread into the liver 

22 from all the radiation. 

23 You have placed our dad there for a short time, 

24 but he was there and assembling and handling 

25 bombs much longer. We have proof he was there 
211

1 those years, yet the dosimetry records have 

2 mysteriously disappeared for the years of the 

3 greatest radiation. Where are all the dosimetry 

4 records for the 1958 through the 1960s? In our 

5 observation from how we've been treated, the 

6 records from those most radiated were quite 

7 obviously destroyed or hidden until the 

8 family's able to prove their family member was 

9 in the affected areas, and then miraculously 

10 records show up. Each time we find more 

11 evidence, the dose reconstruction records are 

12 copied and pasted, lowering the allotted 

13 amounts previously, pasting in a small amount 

14 of the new exposures, still leaving us under 

15 the 50 percent mark. And allotting 

16 compensation based on dosimetry records is 

17 futile. Those records are altered, not 

18 available, hidden, lost, or destroyed. 

19 I have a Review Journal newspaper article about 

20 a woman working at the Nevada Test Site that 

21 one day came in and asked what happened to the 

22 boxes of old records that had been stored in a 

23 certain room. She was told they were such old 

24 records they weren't needed anymore and were 

25 taken to the dump. Shouldn't people be 
212

1 concerned about the coverups during those 

2 years? 

3 We are frustrated because we have all this 

4 proof and he died of radiation. Also we can't 

5 seem to get help. We would really appreciate 

6 help in this -- with this and for you to 

7 include the years he was working with the 

8 bombs, radiation, and the Sedan Test. Thank 

9 you for your help. [name redacted]. 

10 Thank you. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Denise. Okay, I've got 

12 Dorothy Clayton again, but Dorothy, you already 

13 spoke to us so -- somehow you ended up here 

14 twice. 

15 [name redacted]? 

16 UNIDENTIFIED: That's Brenda. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Brenda, okay. I'm having trouble 

18 reading the -- okay, so Brenda has -- we've 

19 already heard from, so we hear from Mr. Funk. 

20 MR. FUNK: Good afternoon, Dr. Wade, Dr. Zimmer 

21 (sic). Last night I -- Dr. (sic) Presley let 

22 me sit on their working board's meeting and I 

23 had an opportunity to raise some issues about 

24 the Technical Base (sic) Document and the site 

25 profile. And later on I -- today I was talking 
213

1 to Dr. (sic) Presley and I didn't -- I told him 

2 I didn't think that they put much stock in what 

3 I had to say, and his remark to me was well, 

4 the issues I had raised are in the site 

5 profile, and were. And I would like to address 

6 the Board in this part that yes, it is in the 

7 site profile, but it's not in the technical -- 

8 it's not in the tables. The dose reconstructor 

9 -- what -- what use are the tables if you don't 

10 use them? 

11 I think the HENRE experiment should be in the 

12 tables. I think the BREN tower being 

13 mislocated needs to be addressed. I think the 

14 super kugala* needs to be in the tables. And I 

15 would also believe that the tweezers and 

16 there's a couple more out there floating 

17 around, too. I understand some -- maybe Atlas. 

18 And now you just can't mention these -- the 

19 dose reconstruction form says these for the 

20 purpose of dose reconstruction. I hardly see 

21 how you -- just having the name of it in the 

22 document is sufficient for the dose 

23 reconstructor to work with. 

24 Now I'll get off of that for the moment. I'll 

25 go -- go on to another subject. 
214

1 As you've seen that these ladies all come up 

2 here, they all have a common denominator. They 

3 cannot get records. Spouses and wives cannot 

4 get information. I had one lady's a friend of 

5 Dorothy Clayton, she came to one of my meetings 

6 and she said did I know anybody worked with her 

7 husband. And I said I don't know, what was his 

8 name? She told me his name was [name 

9 redacted]. It so happens that [name redacted] 

10 worked in my shop, so not only was I able to 

11 tell her who her husband worked with, I gave 

12 her a photograph of everybody he worked with 

13 and named them all. 

14 Now why should that woman have to wait five 

15 years and only by accident find out who her 

16 husband even worked with? And this is the 

17 problem that these girls have been facing. 

18 Now the other night at that working board 

19 meeting I seen something very peculiar. What 

20 it was, one of the claimants has filed a claim 

21 which was -- admit it'd be colorful, I won't 

22 say any more than that, and NIOSH and the -- 

23 and DOL and whoever else -- and DOE's involved, 

24 too, went over and worked overtime in the 

25 library and they come back with a set of 
215

1 records on this man. They knew every minute he 

2 was on the Test Site. They knew every single 

3 move he'd made, all the way back to 1960. They 

4 didn't have any trouble finding his records. 

5 And what was even worse, when they couldn't 

6 find a record, they fabricated one. 

7 And that was at -- the case with the picture. 

8 They were showing -- here, we have critical -- 

9 we have state of the art radiation detection 

10 stations, look at this. I looked at the 

11 picture. First thing I seen, they was talking 

12 about a 1960s issue. I see DOL on his hat. 

13 DOL didn't exist in 1960. Next thing I seen, I 

14 seen a badge, which was a 1982 badge. So I 

15 asked Dr. Wade to ask their consultants, who 

16 were also -- believe it or not, they're -- the 

17 ones that was your consultants were the ones 

18 that caused most of the problems out there. 

19 Now they're working for you. But he asked him 

20 when the picture was taken; he said 1982. And 

21 I raised the issue, what are you doing with a 

22 1982 picture talking about a 1960 situation? 

23 Now this is one example of what we're talking 

24 about. These -- when they want to find 

25 records, believe me, they can find them. And 
216

1 they trashed that poor man last night and I 

2 hope they're ashamed of themself (sic) for what 

3 they did, because they don't have to take this 

4 one person and make a poster boy out of him and 

5 to paint the entire group that worked Nevada 

6 Test Site with this one incident. And I think 

7 the man should have had a -- an opportunity to 

8 respond, to retract his statements or to 

9 understand the gravity of it without -- and 

10 when I asked one of your consultants back there 

11 why he -- they would do such a thing, he told 

12 me because it was easy. That's his exact 

13 remarks, because it was easy; we knew we could 

14 get this one. 

15 Now this is the kind of people you're hiring 

16 for consultants. That was the Oriental 

17 gentleman, he's from LLL. And like I said, 

18 these are the people that caused the problems 

19 at the Test Site in the first place, and now 

20 you've got them working for you. And I'm going 

21 to find out just exactly why they're working 

22 for you, 'cause every one of them's in conflict 

23 of interest, should not even be involved in 

24 this any way, shape, nor form. Thank you. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Mr. Funk. Now actually 
217

1 I think there is a [name redacted] here because 

2 his name is at least written down separately 

3 from Brenda's -- may not be here, but can you 

4 confirm that that's -- that's this one right 

5 here. I want to, again, give an opportunity if 

6 there is such a person. 

7 DR. WADE: I think that's Brenda. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Well, here's Brenda's right here, 

9 and this -- this is S-p-e-- well, I -- I 

10 suppose you could be down there three times, 

11 Brenda, but it's -- okay. 

12 Michael -- looks like Brewskie. 

13 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

14 (Unintelligible) 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Actually your -- your -- I looked 

16 at your e-mail address. I like that Brewskies 

17 there -- 

18 MR. BREW: Yeah, well, (unintelligible) 'cause 

19 my name is Brew. 

20 Okay, my name is Michael Brew. I worked at the 

21 Nevada Test Site in 1982/83 as an apprentice -- 

22 I think -- yeah, maybe '81, I'm not sure. I 

23 can't remember; it's been several decades. 

24 I also worked out there at the DAF, the Device 

25 Assembly Facility, and then I've also worked 
218

1 out there recently from 2/25 of 2001 to 

2 September of 2004. And I'm not sure -- I -- I 

3 feel this is the -- is the correct forum for 

4 what I have to say because I've been to the 

5 Test Site for a number of years, and I can 

6 concur with some of the things that have been 

7 said up here -- with this lady over here about 

8 the tunnels. 

9 Working on T tunnel myself on the last shot -- 

10 what was it called, Mighty Oak, does anybody 

11 remember -- yeah, it was called Mighty Oak. 

12 Well, it was supposed to be 150 kiloton blast. 

13 Well, they said it hit water and it magnified 

14 it to -- what, 750? -- 750 kiloton, and the 

15 Russians were pissed off. Okay? There was a 

16 big to-do about that. What, it vented the 

17 doors. Right? 

18 Okay. Eight people went on re-entry. Seven of 

19 them are dead of cancer already. I went in a 

20 week later. Okay? Now there's no half-life 

21 that goes a week. Does anybody know of one? 

22 Okay. My radiation badge said zero for the 

23 year. Seven people that went in a week before 

24 me were dead. The dance hall had collapsed all 

25 the mater-- all the -- all the -- all the ma-- 
219

1 the oscilloscopes and the cameras to a two-foot 

2 high section. Do you remember that? Does 

3 anybody here recall that? 

4 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

5 (Unintelligible) 

6 MR. BREW: Okay, you worked on Mighty Oak. 

7 Okay. So -- you remember being pulled out on a 

8 sled through the doors -- and the doors vented. 

9 Okay? The -- mesa collapsed and electrician 

10 was killed, and I forget the name of the rad 

11 safe girl, she -- her ankle was broken when it 

12 collapsed. They were above it at the time, but 

13 it did vent. 

14 When we worked in Area 12 we were bused from 

15 the camp up to the tunnels, and we were told 

16 never to touch any of the materials that you 

17 saw along the road, especially the E tunnel 

18 door that was blasted all the way across from E 

19 tunnel to the other side of the road, and it 

20 was imbedded in the mountain right there. 

21 There was metal, there was wood, there was -- 

22 you name it, there was stuff all over the place 

23 from the -- from when those places vented. 

24 We were told out there that all the radiation 

25 was ground-bound -- I think that's what they 
220

1 called it, ground-bound or something like that, 

2 it was in the dirt and it wouldn't move. But 

3 yet I saw a 1,000-foot dust storm come at us up 

4 into Area 6 -- all right? -- when I was working 

5 there. At no point in time has my badge record 

6 ever said I got anything at all. 

7 I've been to -- is Baneberry or Sedan crater? 

8 Which is the one you can drive up to? 

9 UNIDENTIFIED: Sedan. 

10 MR. BREW: Sedan, and it's what, 120 at the top 

11 -- 120 rems? 

12 UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 

13 MR. BREW: Yeah, it's 120 rems at the top. We 

14 sat there for an hour looking at it. Our 

15 badges showed nothing -- or the report was 

16 nothing, one of the two. 

17 Okay, and here's my final little thing for 

18 this. It's really bothering me. It's about 

19 the reporting. Okay? This is what it's all 

20 about, it's the reporting and that you take the 

21 contractors -- whoever it is, REECO, LLNL, 

22 Bechtel, whoever -- you take their statement, a 

23 report, and say okay, you know, you don't have 

24 cancer from radiation 'cause it says zero, 

25 zero, zero. Oh, okay. 
221

1 Now I -- I have here my 2004 reporting 

2 dosometer (sic) record right here -- right? -- 

3 the full report. Except there's one problem. 

4 I've got my badge that this report covers. Now 

5 can you tell me how in God's world -- in God we 

6 trust -- that a company could issue a report 

7 covering that year and never see the badge? Is 

8 that possible? No. Is it morally correct? 

9 No. I worked at Nevada Test Site because I 

10 believe in America. I didn't work out there to 

11 be dosed and not taken care of. 

12 I'm lucky. For some reason, God has kept me 

13 alive. But I've got the badge -- here it is, 

14 the real McCoy. 

15 I talked to the Inspector General through [name 

16 redacted]. They went out and investigated 

17 this. Do you know what the Inspector General 

18 from Washington, D.C. said about this? Well, 

19 because you have not gotten any radiation from 

20 prior works or whatever, we assume -- quote -- 

21 that you haven't gotten any radiation from, you 

22 know, this period. 

23 Okay. You haven't had a car accident in 15 

24 years? I assume I shouldn't have to wear a 

25 seat belt then. Right? No, wrong. Wrong, 
222

1 yeah? You know what I'm saying? The 

2 assumption is that there's no radiation out 

3 there that I can get involved in. Yes, there 

4 is. There's the Sudan (sic) crater when the 

5 dust blows up out of it all over the Test Site. 

6 They buried Cadillacs and cars and stuff from 

7 when that did -- when that -- when that -- 

8 because it was so -- caused so much radiation. 

9 Those things were unusual. Okay? 

10 I was in Area 5 all the time, working in Area 5 

11 -- okay? They have high level waste out there 

12 and it's in a blue tent sitting on concrete. 

13 But you know, a wind storm come up and 

14 fractured the -- the concrete of the blue tent. 

15 The stuff can't be any closer than three to 

16 five feet or it starts to react. They're 

17 burying low radiation waste out there all the 

18 time -- in the ground. Area 5 is -- that -- is 

19 -- is where the people sat up on the hill and 

20 it goes -- boom -- you see that all the time. 

21 These sitting there, the -- the benches are 

22 still there, and that's where we were working. 

23 But I got no dose. 

24 So what I'm putting forth to you is that when 

25 you're going back for records -- okay? -- 
223

1 'cause here's a record says zero; here's the 

2 badge. That's all I've got to say. If you 

3 want a copy of this, I'll give it to you but I 

4 need the original back. Here's a copy of the 

5 badge that I have. I'm not giving the badge 

6 up. 

7 MS. BEACH: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we can -- we can get copies 

9 of that. Thank you very much and -- 

10 MR. BREW: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

11 it's an emotional thing for me, too, because 

12 I've been to -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

14 MR. BREW: -- several agencies and they've all 

15 done the same thing. They've pushed me all on 

16 -- someplace else and said well, it doesn't 

17 matter. Well, it does matter to the American 

18 worker. Do we have loyalty for us or are we 

19 just a piece of meat -- and that's my bottom 

20 line, or not? We're American citizens and we 

21 should be respected as American citizens 

22 because we're the people the put these things 

23 together, not the corporate. The corporate 

24 just organized it. But we, the little ants, 

25 are the ones that do the work. And we're the 
224

1 ones that need to be compensated and respected 

2 and looked at as citizens that have done 

3 something for this country and made it great. 

4 Without us, there wouldn't be this right now. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: All right, thank you. Thank you. 

6 Lee Vaughn, is Lee here? 

7 (No responses) 

8 Okay. Sometimes people sign these when they 

9 think they're registering just their 

10 attendance, so that may have occurred. 

11 I have, I think, a person by phone who wishes 

12 to speak. [name redacted], are you on the line 

13 from Denver? 

14 (No responses) 

15 Do we have anyone on the line? 

16 MS. BARKER: Dr. Ziemer? 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, [name redacted], are -- is 

18 that you? 

19 MS. BARKER: This is Kay Barker. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, hi, Kay. 

21 MS. BARKER: [name redacted] has asked me to 

22 make a statement for -- 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

24 MS. BARKER: -- (unintelligible), if you don't 

25 mind. 
225

1 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that would be fine, Kay. Go 

2 ahead. 

3 MS. BARKER: Can you hear me well enough, Dr. 

4 Ziemer? 

5 DR. ZIEMER: I can hear you very well, Kay. 

6 Thank you. Proceed. 

7 MS. BARKER: Good evening, Dr. Ziemer and 

8 members of the Board. My name is Kay Barker. 

9 [name redacted] couldn't make the call. She 

10 asked if I could submit our comments instead. 

11 I want to thank you for allowing me to phone in 

12 my public comments tonight on the Rocky Flats 

13 SEC petition. 

14 I would like to talk about the 19 buildings 

15 which the Ruttenber report had neutron exposure 

16 but is missing from the SEC petition. Nine of 

17 those buildings are not even mentioned in the 

18 site profile. If NIOSH can't even get all the 

19 Rocky Flats buildings listed in the site 

20 profile, how can they claim that an accurate 

21 and claimant-friendly dose reconstruction is 

22 performed on the compl-- on the claim. I ask 

23 you, how can these claims be done accurately 

24 and fairly. There is no claimant friendly dose 

25 reconstruction being administered by NIOSH 
226

1 here. 

2 [name redacted] raised the issue that nine 

3 buildings were missing from the Rocky Flats 

4 site profile during the November 26th, 2007 

5 Rocky Flats working group teleconference. I 

6 believe that Brant Ulsh stated it is not 

7 necessary to include all buildings in a site 

8 profile. When was that decided? Did the Board 

9 agree that only the major buildings should be 

10 identified? The nine buildings missing from 

11 the Rocky Flats site profile range from 

12 administrative buildings to plant security to 

13 maintenance and to metal fabrication. NIOSH 

14 doesn't think these workers in these buildings 

15 are worthy of inclusion in the site profile? 

16 How, then, are these workers dose 

17 reconstructed? I assert that it is quite 

18 possible that they are not reconstructed with 

19 reasonable accuracy. How could they be when 

20 the reconstructor doesn't even realize these 

21 buildings existed at Rocky Flats? 

22 The employees not only wore the scrubs and 

23 whites in the hot areas, they also continued to 

24 wear these garments in the cafeteria, human 

25 services, and some even wore them home. The 
227

1 RCs were usually too busy to monitor each 

2 employee as they left the hot area so removing 

3 the contaminated garment wasn't always done. 

4 There is no way to construct dose on employees 

5 who were contaminated in this way. 

6 Not only is Rocky Flats site profile and SEC 

7 petition missing buildings, the same thing has 

8 happened at other sites. DOL -- DOL needed to 

9 issue a bulletin to correct the Los Alamos SEC 

10 because a building was missing. Nevada Test 

11 Site has an important radiological source 

12 missing from their site profile. Now explain 

13 to all the claimants at these three sites how 

14 their dose reconstructions have been accurate. 

15 You can't do an accurate dose reconstruction on 

16 a claimant who was in a building that you don't 

17 have a site profile on. I bet if you checked, 

18 you would find this is happening at all the 

19 other DOE sites as well. Don't worry, the word 

20 is getting out and the claimants at the other 

21 sites are checking onto this, too. I'm sure 

22 you'll be hearing from them soon. 

23 Please don't continue to give all the claimants 

24 the lip service that there is nothing you can 

25 do and that you are bound by rules and 
228

1 regulations set up for you by the President, as 

2 that isn't cutting it anymore. You do have the 

3 authority to overrule your June decision for 

4 Rocky Flats, if nothing else but for the lack 

5 of information given to you by NIOSH. You can 

6 and should correct your mistake of not granting 

7 a full and complete SEC petition to all Rocky 

8 Flats workers. As the verbiage goes, junk in, 

9 junk out, and it is exactly how the dose 

10 reconstructions are being done at all the 

11 sites, including Rocky Flats. 

12 Just think about all the claims that now have 

13 to be remanded back to NIOSH due to missing 

14 buildings in petitions and site profiles. The 

15 NIOSH employees are getting rich at the 

16 claimants' expense and life. 

17 Again, thank you for making this call possible. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Kay, for filling 

19 in for [name redacted] this afternoon. 

20 MS. BARKER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: You bet. That now completes our 

22 public comment session for today. I will alert 

23 you that we do have a public comment session 

24 tomorrow evening at 7:30, and we'd be pleased 

25 to hear from others who may have comments at 
229

1 that time. So we're now recessed until 

2 tomorrow morning when our session begins, and 

3 of course all of you are welcome to the regular 

4 sessions, as well. Thank you very much. 

5 (Whereupon, the day's business was concluded at 

6 6:20 p.m.) 
230

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of Jan. 8, 2008; 

and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 

testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

8th day of February, 2008. 

______________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102