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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON SEC ISSUES

+ + + + +

FRIDAY

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

+ + + + +

 The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 1:00 p.m., James M. Melius, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

JOSIE BEACH, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

SAM GLOVER, DCAS

EMILY HOWELL, HHS

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

DAN McKEEL, Co-Petitioner

JAMES NETON, DCAS

MATT PICKETT, Office of Congressman John 

Shimkus

LaVON RUTHERFORD, DCAS

WILLIAM THURBER, SC&A
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome/participants roll call 4

Review of Dow Madison Issues 10

Revised SC&A Dow Surrogate 12

Data Report

Board questions and comments 19

Questions and comments 26

from petitioners

Work Group Recommendations to Board 64
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 (1:01 p.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: So let's begin with a 

4 roll call, beginning with the Chair.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Jim Melius, 

6 no conflicts.

7 MR. KATZ: And to be clear, we're 

8 discussing Dow today, Dow Madison, so that's, 

9 when people say no conflict, that's what 

10 they're referring to.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Paul Ziemer, Board 

12 Member, no conflict.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach, Board 

14 Member, no conflicts.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. That does it for 

16 -- are there any other Board Members on? 

17 Okay. The NIOSH ORAU team.

18 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton, 

19 NIOSH, no conflict.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford, 

21 NIOSH, no conflict.

22 DR. GLOVER: Sam Glover, NIOSH, no 
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1 conflict.

2 MR. KATZ: SC&A team.

3 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A, no 

4 conflict.

5 MR. THURBER: Bill Thurber, SC&A, 

6 no conflicts.

7 MR. KATZ: Is that all you're 

8 expecting, John, just Bill?

9 DR. MAURO: Yes, that's it.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay, great. Federal 

11 officials or contractors to the feds, HHS, or 

12 other departments?

13 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS.

14 MS. LIN: Jenny Lin, HHS.

15 MR. PICKETT: Matt Pickett, Office 

16 of Congressman John Shimkus.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. Say that again? 

18 Sorry?

19 MR. PICKETT: Matt Pickett with the 

20 Office of Congressman John Shimkus.

21 MR. KATZ: Thank you. Welcome. 

22 Now members of the public? Do we have Dr. 
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1 McKeel on the line? Can anybody hear me right 

2 now?

3 DR. MAURO: Yes, I can.

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. I was just 

5 starting to be worried that I was 

6 disconnected. So Dr. McKeel is not on the 

7 line? Okay, Jim. Maybe -- maybe I'll get 

8 someone to try to -- is Nancy Adams on the 

9 line by any chance? 

10 Okay. Could one of the NIOSH, the 

11 DCAS folks, while we get started, perhaps get 

12 someone to give a call to Dan McKeel just 

13 because I'm sure he planned to attend.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, Ted, this is 

15 LaVon. I'll shoot a couple emails out for 

16 people to make contact with Dr. McKeel.

17 MR. KATZ: Thank you very much, 

18 LaVon. Okay. Well, let me just say, for 

19 everyone on the line, please mute your phones. 

20 If you don't have a mute button, use *6 and 

21 then *6 to come off of mute if you want to 

22 speak to the group.
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1 DR. MCKEEL: Ted? Ted?

2 MR. KATZ: Yes?

3 DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. I 

4 just wanted -- I just signed on, and I'm the 

5 co-petitioner for Dow.

6 MR. KATZ: Oh, okay, great.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We had sent out a 

8 search party for you, Dan, but --

9 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. Sorry I was 

10 late.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's okay. 

12 We're just --

13 MR. KATZ: Glad you're here.

14 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, thank you.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay, so it's your 

16 agenda, Dr. Melius.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. This is Jim 

18 Melius. I had a conference call earlier this 

19 week where they had sent out two different 

20 numbers, and so half of us were on one call 

21 and half on another, so I'm sensitive to 

22 making sure we have communicated that to you, 
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1 Dan.

2 Yes, today we're going to be 

3 talking in this Work Group about the Dow 

4 Madison site, and just to review briefly, 

5 because this has had a long history, and the 

6 Advisory Board actually approved a 

7 recommendation of NIOSH, a Special Exposure 

8 Cohort for Dow Madison back in May of 2007 is 

9 when we sent the letter to the Secretary, and 

10 that basically covered the operational period, 

11 and we left the so-called residual period up 

12 for, you know, further evaluation during that 

13 time, and then since that time there's been 

14 some additional sort of operations, covered 

15 operations that were found at the site and 

16 lots of, I think, concern making sure that we 

17 had as, you know, complete information as 

18 possible about the site.

19 So that's taken up some of the 

20 time, and then we were also making sure that 

21 we had all the information available and 

22 reviewed, and most recently that's been to 
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1 make sure that the use of surrogate data at 

2 the site, meaning data from other operations, 

3 other different DOE sites that was being used 

4 in dose reconstruction for the residual period 

5 at Dow, making sure that we had a review of 

6 that information by our contractor, SC&A, 

7 using the surrogate data review criteria that 

8 the Board had recently finalized.

9 So our focus today is to talk 

10 about the Dow site, the residual period site, 

11 and to talk about the sort of our review and 

12 go over where we stand with the dose 

13 reconstruction approach proposed by NIOSH for 

14 that -- for that site.

15 So what I think, to move forward 

16 best, I will -- I'm going to ask SC&A to --

17 John Mauro or however you want to handle it, 

18 John, to sort of review really most of which 

19 is contained in the October 2010 report from 

20 SC&A, which is sort of an updated review of 

21 the use of various dose reconstruction methods 

22 being used for Dow Madison residual period, as 
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1 well as the use of surrogate data at that 

2 site. So, John, I'll turn it over to you.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay. Thank you. Yes, 

4 as you said, we had prepared our report on the 

5 subject, and I'll give you the bottom line, 

6 and then the specifics will be described to 

7 you by Bill Thurber, who did all the heavy 

8 lifting. Our review found that favorably with 

9 respect to the use of surrogate data in this 

10 particular application. 

11 However, we did find one what I 

12 consider to be problem that I would consider 

13 more of a Site Profile issue, but, of course, 

14 that's something that the Work Group can judge 

15 after Bill describes the results of his 

16 comparison of the approach used for the 

17 residual period against the various surrogate 

18 data criteria. Bill, you got the -- you got 

19 the mic.

20 MR. THURBER: Okay, fine. Let me 

21 -- let me just go back a step. Back in 

22 February, the SEC Issues Group asked us 
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1 basically to do two things. One was to 

2 summarize the status of our findings on 

3 Appendix C of TBD-6001, which is -- TBD-6000, 

4 I'm sorry -- which is the Dow Appendix, and 

5 that's important because one of NIOSH's 

6 conclusions or their primary conclusion 

7 regarding the ability to reconstruct doses 

8 during the residual period relies on that 

9 document.

10 So we prepared a paper back in 

11 March where we discussed the extent to which 

12 our findings from our review of Appendix C 

13 were resolved, and basically we concluded that 

14 our findings were resolved at that time, and 

15 to the extent that they weren't, they 

16 certainly did not constitute issues that would 

17 affect the SEC.

18 So we issued a second paper in 

19 March where we discussed the use of surrogate 

20 data in developing the doses for the residual 

21 period, and so we issued a second White Paper 

22 in March which discussed that topic. 
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1 Subsequent to that, we were asked by the Work 

2 Group Chairman to look at the extent to -- the 

3 extent to which the use of surrogate data met 

4 the recently approved surrogate data criteria, 

5 which were developed by the Board.

6 So in October, we issued what we 

7 called Revision 1 to our surrogate data paper, 

8 and in that we provided a separate, 

9 freestanding Appendix, which described how we 

10 took each of the five surrogate data criteria 

11 and examined them against the manner in which 

12 or the extent to which surrogate data was 

13 actually used to reconstruct the doses during 

14 the residual period. 

15 This involved both internal and 

16 external uranium doses and internal and 

17 external thorium doses and thoron. So, as I 

18 say, we stacked each of those possible 

19 exposure pathways up against the surrogate 

20 data criteria, and I should digress for a 

21 second. 

22 Internal thorium exposure during 
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1 the residual period was primarily based not on 

2 surrogate data but on actual measurements that 

3 were then extrapolated through the residual 

4 period, and the same is true for thoron. So 

5 in looking at the other components of the 

6 possible exposure sources during the residual 

7 period, as John indicated, we concluded that 

8 the surrogate data criteria were met.

9 Now, obviously, there is a certain 

10 element of subjectivity in this interpretation 

11 and more so for some criteria than others, but 

12 on balance we felt that the criteria were 

13 satisfied, and so we felt that NIOSH could 

14 bound the exposures during the residual period 

15 for both uranium and thorium. I think that 

16 kind of summarizes it.

17 DR. MAURO: Jim, do you want to go 

18 through each one of the criteria?

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'd like to at 

20 least go through them briefly and then also to 

21 the Site Profile issue that you are raising so 

22 that we --
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1 DR. MAURO: Sure. Bill?

2 MR. THURBER: I don't know what the 

3 Site Profile issue is, John.

4 DR. MAURO: Oh, this is this 

5 business with the flux, I believe. Wait a 

6 minute. I might --

7 MR. THURBER: No, no, no, no.

8 DR. MAURO: I got the wrong one.

9 MR. THURBER: Wrong site.

10 DR. MAURO: Wrong site.

11 MR. THURBER: Yes.

12 DR. MAURO: Sorry.

13 MR. THURBER: No issue.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

15 DR. MAURO: I retract that 

16 statement. I'm working on too many sites. I 

17 just crossed wires. My apologies.

18 MR. THURBER: Okay. We will go --

19 we will go through these, then. In terms of 

20 external uranium exposure, well, first of all 

21 -- yes. No, that's all right. In terms of 

22 external uranium exposure, NIOSH took --
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can I just 

2 interrupt a second, Bill?

3 MR. THURBER: Yes.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: For other people 

5 on the phone that have the report, I think if 

6 you go to page eight of their report there's a 

7 Table 2 that sort of -- it titles sort of the 

8 evolution of dose reconstruction approach, and 

9 these are listed there, and there's some 

10 information to at least help you get oriented 

11 with that.

12 MR. THURBER: Yes. 

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I thought 

14 that was a very useful table. Go ahead, Bill.

15 MR. THURBER: Yes. So let's start 

16 with the internal uranium exposure. NIOSH 

17 estimated how much uranium was deposited on 

18 the surface during the final year of the 

19 operating period, namely 1960, and they did 

20 that using data from TBD-6000. 

21 In particular, they used data for 

22 rod straightening of uranium. Rod 
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1 straightening of uranium was the unit 

2 operation that was performed at Dow Madison in 

3 1960, so that's an appropriate choice.

4 They assumed that based on the 

5 dust levels in TBD-6000 for rod straightening 

6 that that amount of uranium that was generated 

7 during a seven-day period was deposited on the 

8 -- on the floor, and the seven-day period was 

9 based on a generous estimate of the amount of 

10 time it actually -- that was actually required 

11 to do the rod straightening operation, so it's 

12 conservative.

13 Then they assumed that the -- that 

14 the uranium was resuspended using a factor of 

15 10 to the minus 6 and that that level of dust 

16 remained throughout the residual period, again 

17 a very conservative assumption. 

18 So that's what was done, and, as I 

19 say, we felt that it was based on comparable 

20 operations, that the assumptions were 

21 sufficiently conservative to be treated as 

22 bounding, and that kind of summarizes it.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer, do 

2 you have any comments since this is an issue 

3 that you're --

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, I'm --

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- TBD-6000.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, the issues on 

7 TBD-6000 have all been basically closed with 

8 the exception of the resuspension factor 

9 issue, which has moved from being a TBD-6000 

10 issue to a site or a system-wide issue, so, 

11 you know, there have been some debates over 

12 time periods as to whether the 10 to the minus 

13 6 is the right resuspension factor. 

14 It's a typical one used in the 

15 profession, and one can argue that there could 

16 be cases where that's not the right number, 

17 but in the absence of definitive information 

18 to the contrary, that typically would be 

19 accepted.

20 Then the other part of it is they 

21 have made some additional assumptions about 

22 the fact that that suspended material 
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1 continues throughout that period, so that adds 

2 many degrees of conservatism, I think, or 

3 makes it very conservative. So those would be 

4 my only comments on that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

6 MR. THURBER: I might -- this is 

7 Bill Thurber again. I might also comment on 

8 the resuspension factor. Indeed, this is --

9 this is a number that SC&A has questioned on 

10 numerous occasions, but as we mentioned -- I 

11 guess it was at the TBD-6001 Work Group 

12 meeting last week -- we are comfortable with 

13 the 10 to the minus 6 number in certain 

14 circumstances, for example, circumstances 

15 where there has been cleanup after the 

16 operation.

17 And in reviewing the records, 

18 specifically the purchase order for the 

19 uranium rod straightening work, which was done 

20 on a purchase order from Mallinckrodt, the 

21 purchase order specifically spelled out 

22 certain funds to be used for cleanup after 
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1 this brief straightening operation, so on that 

2 basis we are comfortable with the use of 10 to 

3 the minus 6 for this particular situation.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other Board 

5 Members have question on that, that particular 

6 issue? I guess I should have said, Josie, do 

7 you have --

8 MEMBER BEACH: No, I don't. 

9 Thanks.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Bill, why 

11 don't you go on to the --

12 MR. THURBER: Okay, the next one 

13 is external uranium, and you'll note in Table 

14 2 that there was an error in the calculation, 

15 and that error was sorted out with NIOSH, and 

16 our discussion that appears after Table 2 in 

17 the document that some of you are looking at 

18 provides a discussion of that point. The 

19 error, as I recall -- let me check here. 

20 I'm pretty sure that the error was 

21 one where the numbers in Appendix C were 

22 overstated, and when they're corrected they 
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1 will be lower than they are now, but the 

2 method for arriving at the external exposure 

3 is -- we felt was appropriate.

4 And, again, what it involves is 

5 taking the hair concentration, allowing that 

6 dust that was generated during the rod 

7 straightening operation to fall on the 

8 surface, and then using micro shield

9 calculations to convert the number of dpm per 

10 square meter to millirem per day.

11 We find that this -- and, in 

12 addition, the further conservative assumption 

13 is made that that surface contamination 

14 remains constant for the whole residual 

15 period, and so we felt that this approach was 

16 suitably bounding for external uranium, as 

17 well.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any of the Board 

19 Members have questions on that? Again, Dr. 

20 Ziemer, I'll assume that's consistent with how 

21 this has been handled by your Committee, your 

22 Work Group.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, okay. Good. 

3 Then go on, Bill.

4 MR. THURBER: Okay. We'll talk 

5 about external, external thorium -- I'm sorry 

6 -- internal thorium next, and, as noted in 

7 Table 2, this uses actual data rather than 

8 surrogate data, but the technique here for the 

9 internal thorium dose is also extended to 

10 external thorium.

11 So let me explain what was done 

12 first. Basically, NIOSH looked at the 

13 available thorium dust concentrations that 

14 were measured during the melting of some of 

15 these magnesium-thorium alloys.

16 They determined the maximum 

17 observed value, which was actually a less-than 

18 value, but they said, "We will, rather than 

19 treat it as a less-than value, we'll assume it 

20 is the highest it can be," if you will, and 

21 they said, "That will be the airborne 

22 concentration at the beginning of the residual 
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1 period."

2 Then they had some information 

3 that was measured -- I believe it was in 2000 

4 -- where one of the cleanup surveys measured 

5 airborne thorium concentrations, and so they 

6 took these two points, and they fitted an 

7 exponential decay function to them, which is 

8 one of the procedures recommended in -- what 

9 is it, TIB-0070, John?

10 DR. MAURO: Yes.

11 MR. THURBER: Okay. So they fitted 

12 an exponential function to it, and they said, 

13 "Okay, this is the way that the thorium 

14 concentration in the air is going to decay 

15 over time, and remember here that we're 

16 talking about thorium that was generated 

17 during the operating period.

18 So that's the way it was done, 

19 and, as I say, it really doesn't use surrogate 

20 data. It uses measured data, but I wanted to 

21 explain that because when we go on and talk 

22 about external thorium, the same exponential 
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1 function is used. So if you'd like, I'll go 

2 on now and talk about the external thorium, 

3 which does use surrogate data.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead.

5 MR. THURBER: Okay. To establish 

6 the external exposure at the beginning of the 

7 residual period, NIOSH selected film badge 

8 data that was collected at the Bay City plant. 

9 Now, Dow manufactured these magnesium-thorium 

10 alloys both at Bay City and at Madison, and 

11 then they did an appropriate statistical 

12 analysis of the film badge measurements. 

13 They determined the 95th 

14 percentile, and they said that is the initial 

15 exposure that workers would receive in the 

16 residual period, and then that exposure will 

17 decline based on the same exponential function 

18 that they had developed for the internal 

19 thorium exposure. So that was basically the 

20 methodology.

21 Now they also had some direct 

22 exposure measurements made at Madison, which 
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1 conceptually they could have used for 

2 establishing the external exposure at the 

3 beginning of the residual period, and those 

4 measurements, as we describe in the Appendix, 

5 are actually a little lower than the 

6 measurements from the film badges. So the 

7 approach taken was reasonably conservative and 

8 bounding, and we felt it was a reasonable 

9 approach to establishing the external thorium 

10 exposure.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Does anybody have 

12 questions on that procedure? I'll just -- I 

13 mean, I was -- I would say before I read your 

14 report, I was skeptical on -- somewhat 

15 skeptical on that process, but I thought you 

16 did a good job of reviewing it.

17 MR. THURBER: Thank you. Okay, the 

18 final thing is thoron, but we don't have to 

19 talk about that because it uses measured data 

20 in the same way that the internal thorium 

21 exposure was modeled. They had thoron 

22 measurements. 
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1 They determined the 95th 

2 percentile value and said, "That is the thoron 

3 exposure at the beginning of the residual 

4 period, and we will assume that that thoron 

5 exposure decays based on the same function 

6 that was developed for the internal thorium

7 exposure to dust," and, again, we felt that 

8 that was appropriately bounding, an 

9 appropriately bounding approach.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any questions for 

11 Bill on that issue? Okay. Thanks. Thanks, 

12 Bill and John. Now I'd like to see if there 

13 are any comments from petitioner, Dr. McKeel.

14 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, Dr. Melius, I do 

15 have some --

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

17 DR. MCKEEL: -- comments to make. 

18 The first comment -- can you all hear me all 

19 right?

20 DR. MAURO: Yes, I do.

21 DR. MCKEEL: Can you hear me all 

22 right?
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Very well, yes. 

3 This is Ziemer. I can hear you fine.

4 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. The first 

5 comment I want to make is about the 

6 measurements of internal uranium. Bill 

7 Thurber and SC&A seem to think this was an 

8 appropriate analysis, and I don't, and the 

9 reason why is that while it may be appropriate 

10 for the rod straightening portion of what Dow 

11 Madison did for the AEC uranium purchase order 

12 contract, there was another part of the 

13 contract that actually involved more work and 

14 more hours that was not covered at all in his 

15 analysis, and that is the extrusion work in 

16 Building 6, which was actually the subject of 

17 the cleanup by FUSRAP and the Army Corps of 

18 Engineers in 1998 and reported in the year 

19 2000 and the surveys of Building 6 only by Oak 

20 Ridge National Laboratory.

21 So this goes to one of the other 

22 surrogate data criteria, and that is that when 
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1 you're substituting data for -- surrogate data 

2 for real data, you need to have it from 

3 strictly comparable sites. Well, the gamma 

4 phase extrusion was labeled as experimental, 

5 and it was an experimental attempt to 

6 determine the best way to do extrusion on 

7 uranium by Mallinckrodt.

8 And I forwarded to you all the 

9 relevant MCW Technical Report 1460, which lays 

10 out pretty carefully what those gamma phase 

11 extrusion results were, and I would like to 

12 offer that since it was experimental work, 

13 there was no counterpart at any site that was 

14 equivalent to that.

15 So I think by concentrating on 

16 purely the rod straightening, which didn't 

17 take place in the surveyed area at all -- it 

18 didn't take place in Building 6. It took 

19 place at the rolling mill, as I understand it, 

20 so I think this is an error in applying the 

21 surrogate data Board criteria for internal 

22 uranium.
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1 Next I want to turn to general 

2 comments about this paper, and the first thing 

3 I have is a question, I guess, for Dr. Melius. 

4 The White Paper by SC&A mentions that they 

5 were tasked on October 10 to review the SC&A 

6 White Paper and apply the Board's surrogate 

7 data criteria, and my question is to please 

8 tell me what were the circumstances of that 

9 tasking. 

10 Usually that's done at a Work 

11 Group meeting or at a Board meeting, and there 

12 was a Board meeting on October 7 but none on 

13 the 8th that I'm aware of. So could Dr. 

14 Melius tell me how that tasking of SC&A was 

15 actually carried out?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It was done by 

17 the Work Group Chair, and it was done -- which 

18 is myself, and it was done because the -- in 

19 order to make sure that we had applied the new 

20 criteria, the newly adopted surrogate data 

21 criteria, and really we're updating a previous 

22 report, which is why it's called Revision 1. 
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1 I can't remember the exact timing for the 

2 other, the earlier report.

3 MR. THURBER: It was the result of 

4 the --

5 DR. MCKEEL: February.

6 MR. THURBER: -- February Work 

7 Group meeting, I believe, Dr. Melius.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, yes, and 

9 they had done the initial review based on the 

10 February Work Group meeting. We charged them 

11 there, and then between February and October 

12 the Board had adopted, formally adopted the 

13 surrogate data review criteria, so I thought 

14 it made appropriate for them to update their 

15 report.

16 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. Thank you very 

17 much. The second comment is that I understand 

18 that SC&A believes that all criteria were 

19 fulfilled appropriately for surrogate data use 

20 for internal and external uranium, internal 

21 and external thorium, and for thoron, and I 

22 would like to add to my comment about the 
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1 internal uranium that I have concerns about 

2 those conclusions, actually, for all of the 

3 other types of exposure to uranium and 

4 thorium, and particularly today I want to 

5 highlight two of those because I believe they 

6 are really the glaring ones that stand out for 

7 me.

8 This is the fourth time that I 

9 have addressed the Work Group or the Board, 

10 actually, on May the -- I mean, on November 17 

11 it will have been my fourth time, and each 

12 time I brought up the fact that I am not 

13 certain at all that the data that's said to be 

14 direct measurement data at Dow Madison was, in 

15 fact, made at Dow Madison.

16 Instead, I believe there is 

17 evidence that some of that data was collected 

18 at other centers, and I want to give you one 

19 example that includes that. Just to mention 

20 that there were multiple Dow Chemical Company 

21 plants that were covered by their thorium 

22 license, for example, and they were at Bay 
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1 City and Midland, Michigan, and at Freeport, 

2 Texas.

3 So the first thing I want to point 

4 out comes from the SEC Addendum 1 that was 

5 published by NIOSH on August 6, `07, and this 

6 is an example where I believe NIOSH has mixed 

7 up another site with Dow Madison. So I'm 

8 quoting now from page four of six, Section 

9 4.4, which is entitled "Site Locations 

10 Associated with Radiological Operations."

11 It goes on to say, and I quote, 

12 "Additional areas where thorium materials were 

13 handled were identified in the newly provided 

14 documents. Besides Building 6" -- and my 

15 comment is, as an interruption, Building 6 is 

16 a legitimate building that was surveyed by the 

17 Army Corps of Engineers ORNL in 1998. That is 

18 at Dow Madison.

19 "Besides Building 6, other

20 buildings with thorium activities included 

21 thorium fluoride storage in Building 376 and 

22 hardener casting in Building 152." My comment 
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1 is there were no such buildings as 376 and 152 

2 at Dow Madison in Illinois.

3 I showed a detailed building plan 

4 of Dow Madison when I presented to the Board 

5 on May 4, 2007, and it showed buildings and 

6 building numbers and the floor plan, et 

7 cetera, and those buildings were just not 

8 present at the Madison site.

9 Also, about that comment, to my 

10 knowledge there was no thorium chloride stored 

11 at Dow Madison, Illinois, site, and I think 

12 I'm familiar with those documents as probably 

13 anyone, and I've just never seen any mention 

14 of thorium chloride at Dow Madison. The ORNL 

15 survey of 1989 or the Pangea Group, 2003 

16 through 2007, multiple cleanup reports, did 

17 not mention this form of thorium being used at 

18 the Dow Madison, Illinois, site.

19 My conclusion is that other Dow 

20 sites, either Bay City, Midland, Michigan, 

21 Freeport, Texas, or another site were being 

22 mixed up with Dow Madison site by both NIOSH 
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1 and ORAU in that report and by SC&A and Bill 

2 Thurber, who mentioned buildings -- building 

3 numbers that were not present at Dow Madison.

4 When Chick Phillips conducted a 

5 worker outreach meeting at East Alton with the 

6 Dow workers, and those odd numbers came up 

7 during a recitation by Chick Phillips from Mr. 

8 Thurber's questions, and all the workers at 

9 that time said there were no such building 

10 numbers at Dow Madison, so that point was well 

11 -- and seven, and I'm surprised that that's 

12 not cleared up, actually, by now.

13 Example two is, to me, looking at 

14 all the use of surrogate data, the most 

15 egregious violation of the spirit and intent 

16 of surrogate data criteria by the Board, 

17 actually, and by NIOSH. 

18 I need to comment that NIOSH's own 

19 surrogate data criteria in OCAS-IG-004 have 

20 not been applied to Dow Madison to my 

21 knowledge in a strict form, and I think they 

22 should be. Anyhow, the document I'm referring 
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1 to now is from Dow Chemical Company, and it's 

2 their TDCC-362, and it's summarized in the 

3 Addendum 1 to the Dow ER that I was just 

4 mentioning. 

5 This is a report dated 6/26/57 by 

6 L. Silverstein, who was located at Dow Midland 

7 headquarters but was supposed to be the 

8 Radiation Safety Officer for Dow Madison. The 

9 men who worked at Dow Madison actually never 

10 heard of L. Silverstein at all, so his 

11 interactions must have been very long-distance 

12 and very remote from what they did on a day13 to-day basis.

14 Anyway, it's a letter to H. Price 

15 of the AEC, and Mr. Silverstein is requesting 

16 an exemption for labeling areas that contain 

17 magnesium alloys that contained up to four 

18 percent thorium where they were stored and 

19 fabricated. Importantly, this is the 

20 document, the source document that included 

21 the film badge data from HK-31 casting jobs 

22 that referred to the Bay City work.
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1 SC&A notes as their comment to 

2 this document that this included personnel 

3 film badge data for a 13-day period for 27 

4 people, 20 specific jobs, and I'm quoting. 

5 "Note. This list is from Bay City. It is the 

6 same as the list in TDCC-00055."

7 So my comment is that if you agree 

8 with those facts that it was for 13 days, and 

9 there were 27 badge readings from 20 job 

10 descriptions, then those 13 days would 

11 represent only .01 percent of the days in the 

12 37-year thorium residual period of 1961 to 

13 2007, or those 13 days could represent about 

14 .9 percent of the days in the operational 

15 period of 1957 to 1960.

16 Assuming that Bay City, like Dow 

17 Madison, had 3,000 workers at their peak, the 

18 film badge readings from 20 of them, then only 

19 .7 percent of the peak annual workforce was 

20 monitored and even less when job turnover is 

21 considered, so Bay City is not otherwise 

22 justified by NIOSH, and, in fact, the 
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1 stringent criteria, stringent comparison 

2 criteria, is not met on that basis, either.

3 Here is what NIOSH concluded about 

4 the Bay City film badge data, and that appears 

5 in the Addendum 1 from August `07 to the ER 

6 report on Dow SEC-79. On page five and six, 

7 NIOSH lists many of the job descriptions that 

8 were described at Bay City, and they said Bay 

9 City, which was another facility operated by 

10 Dow.

11 The list of jobs, and I'm quoting 

12 from NIOSH now, "The list of jobs is fairly 

13 descriptive and specific and probably similar 

14 to those which would have been performed 

15 during thorium operations at the Madison site, 

16 but it is not known how complete or how 

17 representative of the Madison site this list 

18 is, and therefore it is still not possible to 

19 use job descriptions to define the proposed 

20 class.

21 "Yet in spite of any justification 

22 at Bay City other than that no evidence had 
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1 surfaced that Bay City was not similar to Dow 

2 Madison, Bill Thurber and SC&A concluded that 

3 the stringent justification criteria for 

4 surrogate data for sites such as Dow that 

5 lacked any personnel monitoring was 

6 appropriate and therefore was satisfied."

7 My contention is that no 

8 professional statistician would accept such 

9 limited time period data, that is, less than 

10 .01 percent for the operational period, .9 

11 percent for the residual period, and number of 

12 workers, 0.7 percent of them, such limited 

13 sampling of film badge data from Dow Bay City 

14 as being in any way representative of the 

15 time periods or the workforce, and, therefore, 

16 it couldn't satisfy the Board's stringent 

17 justification criteria.

18 Anyway, I feel very strongly about 

19 that. I hope that the scientists and careful 

20 evaluators of data in the Board will also 

21 agree with me, and I hope this just egregious 

22 misuse of surrogate data is not allowed.
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1 Final comment is that the 

2 overriding issue that is evident from the 

3 wealth of Dow and successor owner worker 

4 affidavits is that there was very poor 

5 enforcement of safety regulations at Dow 

6 Madison. This was a very unsafe workplace.

7 There were no film badge data 

8 collected for all the years that Dow was in 

9 operation, even though it said that 

10 Spectrulite, you know, that era from 1986 to 

11 the end of the residual period, 2007, that 

12 badges were issued. However, no badge data 

13 has ever emerged.

14 Also, I went to the Illinois EPA 

15 with a representative from Congressman 

16 Shimkus's office as observer and observed 

17 there that Dow Madison never reported for 20 

18 years that it emitted both thorium and 

19 beryllium from its stacks, and we do know, for 

20 instance, that in 1963 Dow Madison began 

21 producing an aluminum-beryllium alloy called 

22 Lockalloy that was licensed from Lockheed 
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1 Martin.

2 Then, on October 5 of this year, 

3 2010, the current owner, Magnesium Elektron, 

4 experienced a tremendous explosion and fire 

5 that blew out windows of the former Dow 

6 castings building. The adjacent elementary 

7 school was closed, and now Illinois EPA is 

8 instituting a lawsuit against Magnesium 

9 Elektron as a result of the mishap.

10 There are at least five pages of 

11 Google News reports of this dramatic event, 

12 and I think I cite it just to show that that 

13 site, the Dow Madison site in Madison and 

14 Venice, Illinois, has had very unsafe 

15 conditions that characterize the Madison site 

16 for the past 60 years.

17 So I hope you will bear my lone 

18 voice, dissenting remarks about the use of 

19 surrogate data and, in fact, will decide that 

20 they were not appropriate and lead to the 

21 conclusion that now NIOSH's recommendation to 

22 deny the SEC for the residual period should be 
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1 overturned, and the SEC for that period should 

2 be approved. So I thank you for the chance to 

3 address, and I hope that this information will 

4 be helpful.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks, 

6 Dan. Does either Bill Thurber, John Mauro, or 

7 NIOSH staff have any comments or responses?

8 MR. THURBER: I'd make a couple 

9 comments. Dr. McKeel mentioned the fact that 

10 the residual period was based upon rod 

11 straightening rather than the extrusion data.

12 DR. MCKEEL: No, I didn't say that, 

13 Bill. I said that -- I said that the 

14 operational period involved both rod 

15 straightening and extrusion.

16 MR. THURBER: That's true, and the 

17 basis for establishing the uranium 

18 concentrations at the beginning of the 

19 residual period was based upon extrusion work 

20 -- I'm sorry, was based upon rod straightening 

21 work.

22 DR. MCKEEL: And that's what I 
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1 think is not appropriate.

2 MR. THURBER: Well, and I would 

3 point out two things. One, the work closest 

4 in time chronologically to the residual period 

5 was the rod straightening work, and, secondly, 

6 and I believe it's discussed in our last 

7 report, the dust levels were higher for rod 

8 straightening than they were for extrusion, so 

9 it is bounding.

10 DR. MCKEEL: Bill, I have --

11 MR. THURBER: That is one comment I 

12 would make.

13 DR. MCKEEL: I have to say this. 

14 The area where rod straightening took place at 

15 Dow Madison was not assayed for either uranium 

16 or thorium when ORNL and the Army Corps of 

17 Engineers visited there and did its cleanup in 

18 1998. They only looked at Building 6, and 

19 that was not where the rod straightening was 

20 done. 

21 Building 6 was devoted to 

22 extrusion work. They had nine extrusion 
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1 presses, including one of the largest ones in 

2 the world that they brought over from Germany, 

3 and that's not where the rod straightening 

4 took place.

5 So there is no -- there is no --

6 and I will assert this strongly, and somebody 

7 has to cite specifics to contradict this. 

8 There was no assay of dust that accumulated

9 from rod straightening at Dow Madison. 

10 Now, maybe Harrison-Kingsley cited 

11 it for other AWE sites, but as was noted in 

12 your report but not mentioned today, much of 

13 the data, in fact, almost all of the data in 

14 TBD-6000, is, in fact, surrogate data, so, 

15 actually, the basis for calculating doses at 

16 many AWE sites is largely based on surrogate 

17 data.

18 MR. THURBER: And as we --

19 DR. MCKEEL: I didn't mean to 

20 interrupt.

21 MR. THURBER: As we mentioned in 

22 our report, TBD-6000 has been thoroughly 
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1 reviewed, and, therefore, it is a good source.

2 DR. MCKEEL: Well, I would say that 

3 TBD-6000 is still under review. It was 

4 written in 2005. It's not been revised, and, 

5 in my opinion, saying that things are resolved 

6 when the resuspension issue has simply been 

7 punted to another Work Group is really 

8 ridiculous. That does not resolve --

9 MR. THURBER: I think that 

10 misstates the position that I made earlier in 

11 the conversation today where I pointed out 

12 that, given the circumstances we're talking 

13 about, we felt that in this particular 

environment under these conditions, the 10-6 14 

15 was a reasonable resuspension factor.

16 That doesn't say that it's taken -

17 - that it's still not a matter for 

18 consideration by one of the Work Groups, but 

19 it does say that for this particular 

20 application, in our technical judgment it is a 

21 reasonable factor to use.

22 DR. MCKEEL: I understand what 
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1 you're saying.

2 MR. THURBER: Okay.

3 DR. MCKEEL: And you certainly have 

4 a right to make that judgment. I'm saying 

5 that as the co-petitioner I disagree with that 

6 assessment, and I think we'll have to leave it 

7 there until the full Board meeting.

8 MR. THURBER: A couple other things 

9 I would also mention. We noted wherever we 

10 could find information in all of our 

11 documents, information that we believed did 

12 not come from Dow Madison. That fact appears 

13 in several of our documents, so, you know, to 

14 suggest that that was swept under the table is 

15 totally incorrect.

16 DR. MCKEEL: No, what I -- what I 

17 gave you was a --

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. McKeel, 

19 please let Bill finish his --

20 DR. MCKEEL: I'm sorry.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're not -- this 

22 isn't --
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1 MR. THURBER: The other point I 

2 would make is that, to the best of my 

3 knowledge, you know, regardless of the fact 

4 that some data might have been generated at 

5 Bay City, there is no evidence that any of 

6 this kind of work was done at other facilities 

7 than Madison or Bay City.

8 But, to the best of my knowledge, 

9 with the exception of the film badge data, 

10 which we've discussed and said it comes from 

11 Bay City, with the exception of that, the 

12 other information that was used, to the best 

13 of my knowledge, comes from Dow Madison.

14 DR. MCKEEL: Well, then I have the 

15 final question to ask you, which is really the 

16 big point I was trying not make. Do you and 

17 SC&A consider that this minuscule sample 

18 represented by the film badge data from Bay 

19 City, 27 readings, 13 days out of a workforce 

20 of 3,000, do you think that is in any way 

21 statistically representative enough to 

22 characterize and bound the entire 37-year 
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1 residual period at Dow Madison?

2 MR. THURBER: A couple points I 

3 would make. First of all, the film badge data 

4 is supported by a number of direct radiation 

5 readings at Dow Madison, which show that the 

6 film badge data is conservative and therefore 

7 appropriate for bounding as compared to the 

8 direct readings.

9 The source of the exposure will 

10 have been gone by the time the residual period 

11 begins. The source of the exposures is 

12 essentially the large mass of magnesium13 thorium alloys that were being produced, and 

14 so the source will have been gone.

15 DR. MCKEEL: I would like to make 

16 this comment. This is Dan McKeel again, for 

17 the court reporter. I do not see any mention 

18 in this document and certainly not in any of 

19 the NIOSH documents who seem to be -- that 

20 took into consideration that the Army Corps of 

21 Engineers did not clean up the thorium that 

22 was in Building 6, the only place they looked 
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1 for it.

2 Then, in the year 2003, a private 

3 environmental remediation company named the 

4 Pangea Group, which operates out of St. Louis, 

5 Missouri, came in and conducted a long cleanup 

6 period of all the thorium at Dow Madison, and 

7 they produced a number of reports, lengthy, 

8 detailed, comprehensive reports, of every 

9 building at Dow Madison beginning in 2003 and 

10 concluding with a final report in 2007.

11 When I addressed the Board on May 

12 4, 2007, I showed two tables from the 2005 

13 Pangea report, and it showed masses of thorium 

14 metal all over that plant, and I will assert 

15 for the record that there is no way that 

16 anybody alive can distinguish the AEC thorium 

17 metals from the commercial military thorium 

18 metals.

19 And it was clear from reading 

20 those reports and listening to the men that, 

21 in fact, some of that residual thorium metal 

22 that was lying around in storage, on the 
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1 docks, in the buildings, all over the place, 

2 was, in fact, left over from the operational 

3 period.

4 There is a huge discrepancy at Dow 

5 Madison where the workers testified, 11 of 

6 them, in affidavits, that Dow Madison shipped 

7 large quantities of thorium alloy magnesium 

8 plates to Rocky Flats. That's never been 

9 resolved. 

10 Those records have never been 

11 found, but on the other hand, remember that 

12 the records showing that Dow Madison was an 

13 AWE site for thorium were not found in 2005, 

14 in 2006, in 2007, and were only revealed and 

15 made DOE certify Dow Madison as a thorium AWE 

16 site on January 8, 2008, in a letter from DOE 

17 to the Department of Labor.

18 So, I would like to assert that 

19 there is no way that anybody can say with any 

20 degree of confidence that all the thorium 

21 metal produced during the AEC operational 

22 period was gone from that plant, and, in fact, 
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1 I think a complete reading of the affidavits 

2 and the Pangea reports, which show that, in 

3 fact, that probably isn't the case, that some 

4 of that was there.

5 Then the Act itself specifies 

6 that, during the residual period, if you can't 

7 physically separate the waste streams due to 

8 AEC operations and those due to 

9 commercial/military operations, then they all 

10 have to be considered together, and I'm saying 

11 there is no way that anyone alive, from any 

12 record I have ever seen, could separate those 

13 thorium waste streams.

14 So I'm saying that, regardless of 

15 what one's opinion is and regardless of what 

16 one's personal intuition tells them, that 

17 based on the strict interpretation of the Act 

18 and on any report that I've ever seen and any 

19 testimony I've ever seen from any worker, you 

20 have to assume that there was a mixed waste 

21 stream for thorium and that some of that 

22 material that was present until 2007 might 
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1 still have been due to AEC operations. So I'm 

2 going to stress that to the full Board, and I 

3 think those facts need to be considered.

4 MR. THURBER: I might make one more 

5 comment if I could. This is Bill Thurber 

6 again.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, go ahead, 

8 Bill.

9 MR. THURBER: In point of fact, 

10 when you take the thorium concentration at the 

11 end of the operating period, that thorium 

12 concentration reflects both magnesium-thorium 

13 alloys that were produced for commercial 

14 applications, and it reflects magnesium15 thorium alloys that were produced and sold to 

16 Mallinckrodt, as was identified by DOE and 

17 DOL.

18 By the same token, the thorium 

19 concentration that was measured during the 

20 cleanup surveys around 2000 also contains 

21 thorium that was produced conceptually under 

22 the commercial program during the operating 
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1 period. 

2 It contains thorium that was 

3 produced for AWE applications during the 

4 operating period, and it includes thorium that 

5 was produced after that fact, so I think that 

6 they are not being separated out and that the 

7 measurements -- that no attempt is being made 

8 to say, "Well, this is AWE stuff, and this is 

9 not." 

10 The second point I would make is 

11 this, that I know Dr. McKeel has stated on 

12 numerous occasions that magnesium-thorium 

13 alloys were shipped to Rocky Flats, and, 

14 indeed, there is worker testimony to that 

15 effect. 

16 What never seems to get stated, 

17 though, is the fact that there were a number 

18 of interviews conducted with senior people at 

19 Rocky Flats who should have known if they were 

20 getting magnesium-thorium alloys, and the only 

21 thing that they could come up with was that it 

22 was used for some pendants in a conveyor belt. 
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1 So, you know, there are two sides to that 

2 question, and I think both sides need to be 

3 kept in mind.

4 DR. MCKEEL: I agree with that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks. 

6 NIOSH staff, do you have anything to add?

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

8 Rutherford. I don't have anything to add. I 

9 think Bill has addressed the questions very 

10 well.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

12 DR. MCKEEL: May I please ask LaVon 

13 if he would answer the same question? Does he 

14 consider that film badge data from --

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: The 13?

16 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, for 13 days, from 

17 20 workers and 27 readings, is representative 

18 enough?

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think the 

20 approach, the 13 days of operation plus 

21 looking at a source term model in comparison 

22 and the numbers being relatively close in that 
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1 manner, so I think that it is a good approach.

2 DR. MCKEEL: And you think that a 

3 statistician would agree with that?

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: I don't think that 

5 a statistician would necessarily agree that 

6 the actual number of samples compared, but 

7 you're looking at from an external exposure 

8 perspective, the source material, as Bill had 

9 mentioned, mostly would have been gone for the 

10 residual period.

11 DR. MCKEEL: Well, I respectfully 

12 disagree, so I'll let it rest at that.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Board 

14 Members, Paul and Josie, do you have any other 

15 comments?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. 

17 Yes, I did have -- this is more of a question. 

18 I'm trying to clarify and understand fully 

19 the concerns that Dr. McKeel raised, and, Dr. 

20 McKeel, was your concern about the actual 

21 contamination values that were used, that they 

22 were apparently based on the rod straightening 
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1 work as opposed to the extrusion work or vice 

2 versa?

3 DR. MCKEEL: Yes. Yes, I was 

4 concerned about that. It seems to me that 

5 saying that the extrusion work took place 

6 before the rod straightening work and, 

7 therefore, the rod straightening work was most 

8 proximate to the beginning of the residual 

9 period would be a very valid way to look at 

10 things if, if we were dealing with 

11 radioisotopes that had a half-life on the 

12 order of a few years.

13 However, in the case of thorium, 

14 you know, we have a 14.5 billion year half15 life, and in the case of uranium-238 we have a 

16 4.5 billion year half-life, so just like the 

17 age of the universe, three years is nothing 

18 when you consider that. 

19 There is not enough decay going on 

20 in three years out of 4.5 billion or 14.5 

21 billion to diminish the amount of 

22 radioactivity from either the thorium or the 
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1 uranium, assuming that they were the only 

2 radionuclides found, which they weren't, as a 

3 matter of fact. 

4 There was an elevation found 

5 during the cleanup period in 1998 of radium6 226, which was explained away as indigenous to 

7 that part of the country, which I think is an 

8 explanation that the Department of Energy has 

9 used many times, and I'm not sure that that's 

10 really a true characterization, but, anyway --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me follow 

12 up --

13 DR. MCKEEL: I don't think it makes 

14 any difference.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me follow 

16 up, then. It was my understanding that, in 

17 general, that rod straightening work led to 

18 higher contamination levels than extrusion and 

19 were used --

20 DR. MCKEEL: Can you cite any 

21 examples that would show that?

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: We don't know that, 
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1 in fact, or --

2 DR. MCKEEL: Well, as a matter of 

3 fact, what the men, if you read their 

4 testimony or look at the videos that we 

5 supplied to everybody of their testimony and 

6 the men talking, the people who worked on the 

7 extrusion presses stressed several things.

8 One, it was a very dusty 

9 operation. As I've pointed out many times, 

10 there were no vacuum hoods associated with 

11 those extrusion presses, and at many DOE sites 

12 the extrusion presses for metals such as 

13 uranium and thorium did have vacuum hoods. 

14 They should have had vacuum hoods to protect 

15 the workers.

16 So I understand that the bounding 

17 doses are said to be consistent with an 

18 extrusion press that is not covered, but, 

19 again, this was a very dusty environment, and 

20 the workers, not me, have pointed this out in 

21 the extrusion.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, could I ask 
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1 SC&A or, Bill Thurber, could you clarify your 

2 understanding of the relative contamination 

3 levels from those operations and the values 

4 that were used?

5 MR. THURBER: Yes. We quoted some 

6 numbers in our write-up, Dr. Ziemer, that 

7 showed that the extrusion exposures were lower 

8 than the rod straightening exposures and that 

9 those extrusion exposures that were selected 

10 from TBD-6000 were the highest of several 

11 different job descriptions that were involved 

12 in the extrusion.

13 Now, to say that the environment 

14 in the extrusion room was dusty, that's as 

15 much a comment on the fact that you're 

16 extruding magnesium alloys, and it really has 

17 nothing to do -- it does not necessarily have 

18 anything to do with the fact that for a few 

19 weekends or 28 weekends -- I forget the number 

20 -- you were extruding uranium.

21 I think -- so to say that the 

22 environment -- you know, the environment in 
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1 most metal working shops and particularly at 

2 that point in time, whether it's a steel mill 

3 or whatever, would be characterized as very 

4 dusty, and that's an accurate 

5 characterization, but that characterization 

6 has nothing to do with whether you're 

7 extruding uranium or some other product, but 

8 the point that you asked -- let me go back to 

9 -- is indeed the extrusion exposures were 

10 lower than the rod straightening exposures.

11 DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. 

12 I'd like to comment that that's data, again, 

13 from other sites, and there is no 

14 justification by NIOSH or by you that except 

15 in a very general way that extrusion processes 

16 should be similar, but that's not what the 

17 surrogate data criteria that the Board finally 

18 adopted say.

19 They say that in the case of a 

20 place that has no personal monitoring data, 

21 you know, that you should apply very stringent 

22 criteria to show that those surrogate sites 
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1 have similar operations, and I can tell you 

2 that, again, listening to the men at Dow 

3 Madison on many occasions who operated those 

4 extrusion presses, they said that they could 

5 easily identify thorium and uranium when they 

6 were run, not just by the fact that they had 

7 to use special blocks and so forth to make 

8 sure that the run went all right, but those 

9 metals were very hard and very brittle, and 

10 they often broke up and disintegrated.

11 So that was a factor that was not 

12 present, for example, in extruding very soft 

13 aluminum, which they also did a huge amount 

14 of, and so I just think that everybody has to 

15 remember there weren't any data from the 

16 extrusion operations at Dow Madison, and, at 

17 least from what I understand, some of their 

18 extrusion presses were huge machines that were 

19 not equaled in other places. They were well 

20 known for that.

21 I also will comment, maybe that's 

22 one reason why they got this experimental 
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1 gamma phase extrusion work, you know, beyond 

2 the fact that they were in close proximity to 

3 Weldon Spring and to the Mallinckrodt 

4 Destrehan plants, so, anyway.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

6 DR. MCKEEL: Anyway, to answer Dr. 

7 Ziemer's question, yes, I'm concerned that 

8 there is no -- there is nothing except 

9 surrogate data to make that point.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. To follow up, 

11 though, of course, we're talking about the 

12 period here not when the extrusions were being 

13 done but the later period where you have a 

14 starting source term and some resuspension and 

15 that sort of thing, but that was the starting 

16 point.

17 Then the other part, and maybe, 

18 Bill, you could clarify on the exponential 

19 decay, what were we talking about here? I 

20 mean, obviously decaying the thorium per se, 

21 doesn't make any difference. What were we 

22 talking about there?
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1 MR. THURBER: I'm sorry, Paul. I 

2 don't quite understand your question.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think the 

4 approach talked about a starting source term 

5 at the beginning of the residual period, and 

6 then you had an ending thing.

7 MR. THURBER: Oh.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: I guess you just 

9 made an exponential function between the two.

10 MR. THURBER: Yes.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: It sounded like, I 

12 think, Dan McKeel perhaps is understanding 

13 that you were taking the decay based on half14 lives.

15 MR. THURBER: No, no, no.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't know if 

17 that was the case at all.

18 MR. THURBER: It was an exponential 

19 function.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

21 MR. THURBER: This was -- recall 

22 that for uranium that the residual 
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1 contamination was assumed to remain constant 

2 throughout --

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

4 MR. THURBER: -- the entire 

5 residual period.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

7 MR. THURBER: A very conservative 

8 bounding assumption.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

10 MR. THURBER: In the case --

11 DR. MCKEEL: Do you consider that 

12 plausible, as well, that it would remain the 

13 same? 

14 MR. THURBER: Obviously, as we have 

15 discussed before, plausibility is subjective. 

16 I felt that this was reasonably plausible, 

17 since there was evidence that there was still 

18 uranium around when the cleanup was done 

19 toward the end of the residual period, so I 

20 felt that under the circumstances that that 

21 was plausible, but to finish --

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: You're saying in 
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1 the worst case the source term was still 

2 there.

3 MR. THURBER: Yes, right, and so 

4 that was the basis for the judgment. Now, to 

5 finish up, to try and finish answering your 

6 question, Paul, they started out with a -- for 

7 the thorium they had an estimate of so many 

8 picocuries per cubic meter.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

10 MR. THURBER: And then they had an 

11 estimate during the cleanup of why picocuries 

12 per cubic meter, and they drew an exponential 

13 function between X and Y.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. You can fit 

15 a function to that.

16 MR. THURBER: Yes.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: I got the idea from 

18 what Dr. McKeel was saying that he was 

19 understanding you to mean that you were 

20 calculating the decay of thorium and uranium, 

21 and I didn't think that was the case.

22 MR. THURBER: No, absolutely not.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: I wanted to make 

2 sure that that --

3 MR. THURBER: Absolutely not.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: That is not what is 

5 being done.

6 MR. THURBER: No. No.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

9 questions from Board Members? Do the Board 

10 Members want to make a recommendation to the -

11 - or do the Work Group Members want to make a 

12 recommendation to the Board regarding this 

13 site at our meeting next week or for our 

14 meeting next week?

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Dr. Melius, are you 

16 asking whether we want to recommend a motion 

17 either to agree or to disagree with the NIOSH 

18 recommendation, or do you believe the Board is 

19 ready for the action at this point?

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. I think, 

21 yes, essentially it's the NIOSH recommendation 

22 that's contained in the -- it's really 
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1 Appendix C of TBD-6000, I think, really. I 

2 have some sort of procedural questions for 

3 NIOSH to come up how we present it, but, Jim, 

4 is it fair to say that that's your 

5 recommendation? 

6 I question that only if -- or 

7 would it be one of the appendices to the 

8 original Evaluation Report? Your approach has 

9 sort of evolved over time, because there have 

10 been some changes in what's covered for the 

11 residual period. Maybe LaVon? I don't know 

12 who is the right person to --

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, this is 

14 LaVon Rutherford. I will say that if we 

15 remember that the original Dow petition was 

16 actually an 8314, and we only considered the 

17 residual period at the request of the Board 

18 and Dr. McKeel. We only added that on as a 

19 secondary part of our evaluation, so it is 

20 kind of unique.

21 DR. MCKEEL: May I --

22 MEMBER BEACH: LaVon, let me ask a 
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1 question. This is Josie. So that is part of 

2 the original 0079-8314, correct?

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, it is, 

4 actually, the addendums that were added on to 

5 that, yes, and they do address the residual 

6 period.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Right. 

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Then there is 

9 further information in Appendix C --

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- that makes 

12 this out of the ordinary, I guess, is the way 

13 to put it.

14 DR. MCKEEL: Dr. Melius?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes?

16 DR. MCKEEL: May I please mention 

17 just a correction of what was just said? Your 

18 motion number two, which was unanimously 

19 passed by the Board on May 4, 2007, to 

20 investigate the residual period was not just 

21 my suggestion. 

22 If one goes back and reads that 
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1 transcript, they will see that there was heavy 

2 input from Robert Stephan, who is the Southern 

3 Illinois Representative of then-Senator Barack 

4 Obama, and there was also read into a record 

5 that day a letter from Senator Dick Durbin of 

6 Illinois.

7 So the two Senators from Illinois 

8 strongly urged that Dow be given an SEC to 

9 cover the residual period on that day, on May 

10 4, 2007, and I am firmly convinced that -- I 

11 was there and presented to the Board, and I 

12 heard the Board and saw the Board react, and I 

13 am firmly convinced that the one thing that 

14 was missing was that we could not prove -- we 

15 made the assertion that Dow should be an AWE 

16 site for thorium based on the Rocky Flats 

17 worker testimony.

18 We did not know about the 

19 Livermore documents that were later used by 

20 DOE to declare it an AWE site for thorium, and 

21 I would comment that those Livermore 

22 documents, which were partly classified, have 
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1 never been released.

2 So, you know, that was the 

3 background to it. It certainly was not just 

4 me, and it was the current President of the 

5 United States and the number two Senator from 

6 Illinois, who has also been the second 

7 highest-ranking Democrat in the Congress of 

8 the United States.

9 So that was the weight of who was 

10 behind all that. We've had letters from 

11 Congressman John Shimkus and his terrific 

12 staff that worked on this SEC for six years 

13 and noted to the Board on the -- in May of 

14 2007, that they had workers who came to the 

15 Board and addressed the Board and talked to 

16 the Board who had dose reconstructions pending 

17 from 2001.

18 So this is a very long period, and 

19 if this Work Group should vote to support 

20 NIOSH's recommendation, I will be extremely 

21 disappointed, and it will encourage me to 

22 argue even harder before the full Board that 
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1 this has been a misuse of surrogate data, and 

2 it's been a misuse of the scientific method 

3 and the provisions for the Board, for NIOSH, 

4 for SC&A, for everybody to combine forces to 

5 make a speedy judgment on this matter, which 

6 should have been decided back in May of 2007. 

7 So, with that I'll stop commenting.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, though 

9 I would hardly call it speedy, but that's 

10 okay. It depends on your definition. So, 

11 back to my original question, does the Work 

12 Group want to make a recommendation 

13 essentially in support of or against the NIOSH 

14 recommendation?

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Are there three of 

16 us on the Work Group?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: There are three 

18 of us on the line now, yes. There's two 

19 people missing.

20 MEMBER BEACH: There's five on the 

21 Work Group.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, who is 
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1 missing?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Gen and Mark 

3 Griffon.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I think to 

5 some extent that causes a little bit of 

6 concern in terms of making a recommendation at 

7 this point. I think -- I mean, I'll express 

8 my personal position on it. I come down 

9 alongside of what our contractor has 

10 presented. 

11 I think I understand -- I do 

12 understand Dr. McKeel's concerns, and I fully 

13 agree that they should be raised to the full 

14 Board. I think one of the issues that we sort 

15 of are developing as we go is how we use the 

16 surrogate data criteria, and there are 

17 different views amongst the Board Members on 

18 that particular issue.

19 I think it needs a full hearing by 

20 the Board, and I'm not sure that just the 

21 three of us are in a position to make a 

22 recommendation, since two of our members are 
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1 not with us today. But I guess in a sense all

2 three of us would have to agree to go in a 

3 particular direction, anyway, for that to 

4 occur, but I'm quite comfortable if we're not 

5 ready to do that but to fully air the issues 

6 and let the Board hear the concerns both ways.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Which I think

8 would take place regardless.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: In any event, yes.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I agree with you, 

11 Dr. Ziemer, that with two Members absent it 

12 does make some difference, and it's as much, I 

13 guess, the third alternative, agree to 

14 disagree, or is there further analysis that 

15 either of you believe is necessary before next 

16 week, or should we delay and not present next 

17 week, you know, something to that effect? I 

18 guess I'm --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, even if we're 

20 not ready to take final action, I think -- I 

21 think we need to air the issues. It would 

22 seem to me it would be worth doing at this 
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1 point. I mean, I don't see anything further 

2 that we need the contractor to do. 

3 A lot of this, I think, does 

4 revolve around our understanding of sort of 

5 what I would call the appropriate use of 

6 surrogate data and whether or not one believes 

7 that the information that has been used fairly 

8 or appropriately represents the situation at 

9 Dow Madison, and, as I say, I think there will 

10 be differing opinions on that. 

11 But part of the reason for 

12 proceeding, even though we haven't agreed on -

13 - we have agreed on criteria, but when the 

14 rubber hits the road, it's actually the issue 

15 of applying that and our understandings of 

16 what is the fair use. I understand we 

17 wouldn't necessarily all agree on that.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, I would 

19 chime in there that I think it's also -- some 

20 of it is the difference between evaluating the 

21 use of surrogate data or any other dose 

22 reconstruction method for the residual period, 
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1 as opposed to an operational period, and I 

2 think that we've already made a finding -- I 

3 believe it was unanimous, I don't remember --

4 for the operational period that this was a 

5 Special Exposure Cohort. We agreed with NIOSH 

6 on the 8314.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're talking 

9 about a residual period, which I think has 

10 some different --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Different --

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's a different 

13 situation in terms of dose reconstruction in 

14 terms of developing, you know, bounding doses 

15 and so forth, because in some ways it's less 

16 complicated. There are fewer factors involved, 

17 I guess, and I think that, you know, many of 

18 the points that were raised in the original 

19 report, as well as Dr. McKeel has raised 

20 today, are much more critical or relevant for 

21 dealing or would be evaluated differently 

22 during an operational period than during a 
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1 residual period.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. 

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Josie, do 

4 you have any comments?

5 MEMBER BEACH: No. I do agree that 

6 we probably should go ahead and move forward 

7 with a full Board discussion.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. Why 

9 don't -- I guess my next question would be for 

10 that discussion. My first question is to 

11 NIOSH. For that presentation next week, 

12 would, LaVon, would you or Jim Neton be making 

13 a presentation?

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we hadn't 

15 planned a presentation. I'm sure that we 

16 could probably put something together. Would 

17 we be expecting -- I mean, would your -- will 

18 Bill with SC&A be putting a presentation based 

19 on their review of the surrogate data?

20 MR. THURBER: Yes. I just think 

21 it's more appropriate that they follow you.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.
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1 MR. THURBER: And I, you know, 

2 confess that I hadn't thought about this until 

3 I was going through all the reports in detail 

4 and going back to the beginning and realizing, 

5 you know, sort of the history of this, and 

6 it's a little, as I said, a little out of the 

7 ordinary in terms of how we approached it, and 

8 so --

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, this is 

10 Ziemer again. I also want to point out, and 

11 this will be particularly true for the newer 

12 Board Members who don't have the benefit of 

13 the history of all of this, that it may be 

14 somewhat presumptuous to ask them to come to a 

15 position on this in this brief period of time 

16 if we hit them with this even with the full 

17 presentations, so I'm wondering if we wouldn't 

18 be wise to get the material out there but 

19 allow them some time to digest this.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What I was -- I 

21 was going to follow up with that, Dr. Ziemer, 

22 and suggest that they -- we'll make them aware 
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1 of the reports, but I think there are sort of 

2 key reports to this, and certainly I think by 

3 far the most useful report is the, you know, 

4 Revision 1 that we discussed today from SC&A.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: And also, again, I 

6 think very important that all of our Board 

7 Members understand the petitioner's issues, as 

8 well.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. No, I agree, 

10 and that's why I think getting it out there --

11 we'll take action or we won't. It's really 

12 up to the Board to decide.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But I was 

15 planning on this afternoon sort of, depending 

16 on what happens in our call here, to send out 

17 information to the Board Members just saying: 

18 This will be on the agenda. These are the 

19 documents, and I'll work with Ted on this, 

20 and, you know, this is the -- these are the 

21 key documents to read, I think, in terms of 

22 understanding where we are with this now.
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1 DR. MCKEEL: Dr. Melius?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

3 DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. I 

4 would certainly ask for the new Board Members 

5 in particular, and maybe to refresh all the 

6 others who really haven't heard about Dow 

7 Madison over the past couple of years, I 

8 certainly wish the transcript could be 

9 mentioned to them of May 4, 2007, and, 

10 actually, there were two more presentations 

11 that I made to the Board about the residual 

12 period. You know, they're on Docket 113 for 

13 Dow. 

14 They're also just posted on the 

15 Dow page, on the web page, but I'm not sure 

16 many or any of those people have had a chance 

17 to read those. I mean, they're available for 

18 everybody, but they are redacted on the web 

19 site, and, you know, the original comments 

20 submitted to the Board would be more -- or to 

21 NIOSH would be more useful. 

22 So I just ask that you at least 
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1 call their attention to the rather voluminous 

2 input that I've had, which takes different 

3 positions sometimes on some of the things that 

4 the Board and SC&A and NIOSH have concluded.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks. 

6 Any other comments from Board Members? So, 

7 just some of the logistics here, so, LaVon, 

8 you'll see that somebody from NIOSH makes a 

9 presentation?

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I imagine 

11 it'll be me.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think on -- this 

13 is Ziemer. I think on NIOSH's part you will 

14 basically be repeating what you presented 

15 before, in a sense, but that'll help kick it 

16 off for the new Board Members.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I actually think 

18 it'll be a bit more than that, because it's 

19 not what was presented the first time, but --

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. It's been 

21 revised, right.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's really the 
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1 evolution of this, and the residual period has 

2 actually changed over time.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So it's a little 

5 bit more complicated, so it's not like you can 

6 go back to just one document at the beginning, 

7 which we can usually do, and have everything. 

8 It's spread over a few documents.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And then if SC&A 

11 could then, you know, briefly present, and I 

12 think it's the, you know, this Revision 1 

13 document that we talked about today.

14 DR. MAURO: Are you looking for a 

15 slide presentation with slides being made 

16 available to Zaida beforehand?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm looking for 

18 at least a slide presentation.

19 DR. MAURO: Okay.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm not going to 

21 -- I'm not sure what Zaida's deadline is.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Dr. Melius, this is 
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1 Ziemer again. I'm wondering if we could treat 

2 this like we do other SEC petitions where we 

3 would allow the petitioner to speak at that 

4 time when we're -- rather than during the 

5 public comment?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I'm sorry, 

7 that's actually already scheduled, I believe.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Very 

9 good.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it's in the 

11 -- at least, it's in the annotated agenda.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's the --

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, you're right. 

15 You're right.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- the petitioner 

17 cheat sheet, which I get before each meeting.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. 

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: I wanted to point 

20 out that the agenda has Dow on from 1:00 to 

21 2:00, and if I'm presenting kind of how we got 

22 here to this point and our approach for dose 
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1 reconstruction, and then Bill Thurber is 

2 presenting and then Dr. McKeel, that's going 

3 to be tough to get it into --

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We'll figure it 

5 out.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay, and I know 

7 Simons is on the agenda at 2:00.

8 COURT REPORTER: This is the court 

9 reporter. Who just spoke, please?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That was LaVon.

11 COURT REPORTER: Thank you.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: I apologize.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Ziemer again, one 

14 final comment. I don't know that we 

15 necessarily have to have a conclusive 

16 discussion after we hear the presentations, 

17 because if we agree that this would come up 

18 again at the next meeting, say, for a vote, 

19 then we would have additional time for 

20 thorough discussions, as well. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, but even 

22 within the same Board Meeting, in the past 
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1 we've concluded, you know, presentations and 

2 then come back and done discussion at a later 

3 point in time in the meeting because of --

4 mainly because of the issue of trying to 

5 schedule petitioners --

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- to be on the -

8 - be on the calls.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we'll work 

11 around it.

12 MR. KATZ: This is Ted. Could I 

13 ask a couple things while we're on this topic? 

14 We do have -- we have a good bit of working 

15 time also for discussions, but I would just 

16 ask for both DCAS and SC&A, Bill -- Bomber and 

17 Bill, with respect to your presentations, 

18 given that Zaida -- 

19 You know, the train has left the 

20 station, probably, as far as Zaida is 

21 concerned. Would you please email your 

22 presentations to Zaida and myself and also 
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1 bring on, you know, bring on a memory device 

2 copies of it, too, just to be safe, to be sure 

3 that we have your presentations there for the 

4 meeting?

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay, yes.

6 MR. KATZ: And you're welcome to, 

7 for that matter -- I mean, you can email your 

8 presentations to the rest of the Board 

9 Members, or if you send them to me, I'll 

10 forward them to the rest of the Board Members, 

11 too. I just want to make certain that, you 

12 know, everybody has the materials there, and, 

13 you know, it's late Friday. It's not late 

14 yet, but we're getting there. Thanks.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Anybody 

16 else? Okay, if not, thank everybody who 

17 participated in the call, and I guess a number 

18 of you we will see in Santa Fe next week.

19 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

20 was adjourned at 2:39 p.m.)

21 

22