CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATION SAFETY

AND HEALTH ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH

MEETING 149

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022

The meeting convened at 9:00 A.M. EDT

at St. Petersburg Marriott Clearwater, 12600 Roosevelt Boulevard North,

St. Petersburg, Florida 33716

Dr. Henry Anderson, Chair, presiding.

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Members Present:

Henry A. Anderson, Chair

Josie Beach, Member

Victoria Cassano, Member* 

Bradley P. Clawson, Member* 

Arthur Frank, Member* 

David Kotelchuck, Member

James E. Lockey, Member

David Pompa, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member* 

Loretta R. Valerio, Member* 

Paul L. Ziemer, Member 

Registered and/or Public Comment Participants:

Roberts, Rashaun, DFO

Adams, Nancy, NIOSH contractor

Aylers, Delmar

Aylers, Mr.

Barton, Bob, SC&A

Beal, Daisy, public

Behling, Kathy, SC&A* 

Blake, Alice

Briggs, Nicole, SC&A

Calhoun, Grady, DCAS

Cook, Maddie, ORAUT/DCAS

Crawford, Chris, DOL*
 

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Darling, Carzial

Darling, Eurell, public

Darling, William, public

Degarmo, Denise, claimant advocate

Dun, Christine Foley, public 

Ehlers, Cathy

Ehlers, Delmore

Elliots, Wallace

Foley, John, Jr.

Foley, June

Griego-Kelleher, Ms.

Gogliotti, Rose, SC&A

Habighurst, Ashton, HHS

Hand, Donna, claimant advocate

Hinnefeld, Stu

Hughes, Laura

Kelleher, Regina G. DOE

Leuz, Debra

McKill (ph), Daniel, claimant advocate

Minor, Charles

Nelson, Chuck, DCAS

Newkirk-Watson, Vivian, public

Newkirle, Shawnda

Ostrow, Steve, SC&A*

Pasart, Robert, public
 

4 

Powell, Susan, public

Remaley, Robert

Rossard, Marilyn

Rossard, Robert

Rutherford, LaVon, DCAS

Scott, Annie

Scott, Elton, public speaker

Scott, Sherry, public speaker

Talbot, Cathy Ludwig

Taulbee, Tim, DCAS

Thornton, Shirley, public speaker

Tichen, Dudley

Wood, Eliz A.

Ziemer, Marilyn W.

Ziking, Dorothy

*Present via telephone/Zoom
 

5 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Institute for Occupation Safety 

and Health Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health Meeting 149 Thursday, 

December 8, 2022 ................................................................................................................................. 1

Proceedings .......................................................................................................................................... 6

Welcome and Roll Call ................................................................................................................. 6

NIOSH/DCAS Program Update ................................................................................................. 8

DOL Program Update ................................................................................................................. 15

DOE Program Update................................................................................................................. 23

Review of Rocky Flats Technical Basis ................................................................................ 32

Documents: Revisions and Issues.................................................................................... 32

SC&A Presentation: Summary of Seven Document Reviews Approved by the 

Subcommittee for Procedure Reviews................................................................................. 42

Special Exposure Cohort Petition Status Updates ........................................................101

Board Work Session ................................................................................................................. 110

Update on Review of SEC-0256 Pinellas Plant, Pinellas Plant Evaluation Report

.......................................................................................................................................................... 140
 

6 

PROCEEDINGS

(11:00 A.M.) 

Welcome and Roll Call

DR. ROBERTS: I'm Rashaun Roberts, and I'm the designated federal 

official for the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. And I would 

like to welcome you to board meeting 149. All of the materials for the 

meeting today -- 

(Whereupon, there was an interruption in meeting audio.) 

-- public meetings, so you will just need to go to the December tab for 

calendar year 220 -- 2022 to find them. If you're participating by telephone 

only, you can go to the website to access all of the materials, and you can 

follow along with the presentations that are there. And these materials were 

provided to board members and to staff prior to this meeting. 

This is a hybrid meeting so it's a little complicated. We are conducting 

it in person, by telephone, and also by Zoom. On the website there is a 

Zoom link which will enable you to hear and watch the presentations. I'm 

hearing a little bit of feedback. I think that may be me.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It sounded like a little baby, kid. 

DR. ROBERTS: It did. 

Okay. So there's a Zoom link on the website, and that will enable you 

to hear and watch the presentations through Zoom. If you've chosen to 

receive the audio through Zoom, you should be able to speak to the group 

and also hear all the presentations. If you're not speaking, please be sure to 

select and stay on mute by muting the microphone on the -- and that's 

typically on the lower left-hand corner of your screen. 
 

7 

If you've dialed in, you will only be able to hear presentations and to 

speak through the telephone line. If you're not speaking, please, make sure 

that your phone stays muted unless you need to speak. If you don't have a 

mute button on your phone, you'll have to press *6 to mute, and *6 to get 

yourself off mute. And, also, if you're participating by telephone or 

otherwise, we're asking that you, please, identify yourself before your 

comments or questions. 

So with that out of the way, let's go ahead and move into the roll call. 

As the board members and staff register attendance, please, acknowledge 

any sites where you might have any conflicts of interest, if any. And, for 

this meeting, I'm pleased that we're welcoming four new members. So, let's 

go ahead and get started with the roll call, and we'll go in alphabetical order 

starting with Anderson.

(Roll call.) 

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. Great, thank you. So let's go ahead and move 

further into the agenda, just to keep things running smoothly. From a 

technical standpoint, please, periodically check Zoom to make sure that 

you're muted. And also to check your phone and make sure that you're on 

mute unless you're speaking. Again, for Zoom, the mute button is on the 

lower left-hand side of your screen. If you don't have a mute button on your 

telephone, press *6 to mute, *6 to take yourself off mute. 

I do want to let everyone know that there is a public comment period 

at -- on the agenda today at 5:00 p.m. The public comment period will 

conclude promptly at 6:00 p.m. So -- or following the final call for public 

comment, whichever comes first. So if you do plan to comment, please, 
 

8 

plan to do so at 5:00 p.m. Eastern. 

So with that, I will go ahead and turn the floor over to the Board Chair 

Dr. Henry Anderson.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thanks Rashaun. I would like to welcome 

everybody as well. And we saw on -- this morning, the sign-up list for a 

public speaker is quite a number of people. So we typically would ask 

people to limit to 10 minutes, but given the number of people signed up, 

we're going to ask you to try to limit your time to about five minutes so that 

we can accommodate everybody during that one-hour period. So, please, 

respect that others have things to say, and we really want to hear from 

everybody. 

So with that, I want to welcome everybody that we have at the hybrid 

meeting, and we're going to probably in the future also need to do hybrid 

meetings. But hopefully, all of the issues that have come up in similar type 

meetings with the IT information seems to be working well today. So, we're 

ready to get started. 

And with that, I'd like to introduce Mr. Grady Calhoun who is going to 

give us an update on the NIOSH program.

NIOSH/DCAS Program Update

MR. CALHOUN: All right. Good morning, everybody. I hope you-all 

can see my slides. It's pretty awesome to see everybody in person again. 

It's been so long, you know. It's not quite the same as it is when you're on 

the screen. I'm gonna see if I can move this up so it's not in my way. And, 

of course, I can't.
 

9 

CHAIR ANDERSON: We can see you fine, so. 

MR. CALHOUN: There we go. All right. (Indiscernible) down, now go 

right. It's not advancing. There we go. All right. And that's covering my 

title, too. 

But we talked about contracts and staffing and whatnot. We're in the 

hire -- in the process right now of hiring three health physicists due to 

retirement and job changes. So it -- it takes quite a long time to get that 

going through the -- through the federal government, but we are well on our 

way to -- to make that happen, I hope. We're also in the process of hiring 

one administrative officer to -- due to a job change; he changed jobs.

Come on stop. 

Okay. Workshops, town halls, and outreaches. I hope I didn't skip 

any slides there. It looked like it jumped to IT and then came back to this. 

But we have some -- we had -- we had some meetings scheduled. We 

worked together with Department of Labor and Department of Energy to do 

outreach, to -- to talk to people about the program, make sure they know 

about it, make sure they can get signed up, answer any questions that they 

may have. And in the past, prior to COVID, we used to do these in person, 

and that was really much nicer than doing them virtually. 

But we had scheduled some in New Mexico, Arizona, and Tennessee. 

But about two weeks prior to when we were supposed to go, they were 

postponed due to increase in local COVID levels. So, the plan is to still do 

those in person in 2023. So, we look forward to doing that. There are still 

some meetings that are being held virtually. But the ones that we want to 

do out there in -- in New Mexico and Arizona would be much better in 
 

10

person.

MEMBER BEACH: Grade -- Grady. 

MR. CALHOUN: Yes?

MEMBER BEACH: Josie. You did skip three.

MR. CALHOUN: I don't know if I can go back. Let's see.

MEMBER BEACH: It's an important one, or I wouldn't have mentioned 

it.

MR. CALHOUN: Okay. Let's see if I can get it. Slide three. All right. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Just go to the current slide --

MR. CALHOUN: There it is right there. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, current slide.

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah, and we got that pesky thing on the side. All 

right. IT update. As I think, many of you knew, there was -- we had to --

to pause our production due to a potential vulnerability, security 

vulnerability, in our systems back in May of 19 -- or of 2021. It feels like 

1921. But since that time, we've worked on establishing a manual system 

to process our cases, want to make sure everybody knows it was never 

breached. There was never anything that happened, all the data is secure. 

But it's taken a while to get to even the manual system that we have. 

But we do have a manual system now in place for processing both 

dose reconstructions and SEC petitions. And we've gotten back to, what we 

call, a steady state of processing of dose reconstructions. And what that 

means is that we're processing the dose reconstructions, at the same rate 

approximately, as they're coming in. So we're not building up a backlog of 

dose reconstructions that need to be done. 
 

11

We're also able to process the expedited -- terminal expedited cases, 

as we always have. And our goal has always been, at least in the last 

several years, to -- to get all the dose reconstructions completed within five 

months of getting the last piece of data that we need to do the dose 

reconstruction. And we're well over 90 percent of that again at this time, so 

that -- that -- that's good. 

We're still continuing to work on some other data management 

systems to -- to make them work better for both ourselves and the advisory 

board and SC&A. I won't say the advisory board's contractor, because I 

learned that was wrong yesterday. So, anyway, we're working on that. We 

do have a system in place right now, but it's still not what we want. But I 

know that Bob Barton has worked with that system that -- that helps us give 

you more of what you request. So although that is in place, we're still trying 

to get some things done to make that a little bit better. 

Okay, there we go. It's just very sensitive. I talked about that one. 

All right. 

Record requests at the Department of Energy -- did the screen just 

change for you-all, because it changed on my thing. I don't --

MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

MR. CALHOUN: I don't see my presentation.

MEMBER BEACH: Oh, no, it's... 

MR. CALHOUN: It is? Okay. I'm seeing --

MEMBER BEACH: Slide two.

MR. CALHOUN: I'm seeing emails right now. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, I (indiscernible) -- I got your -- 
 

12

MR. CALHOUN: And it's not my email, so --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'm seeing email, too.

MR. CALHOUN: Okay, okay. Let's -- let's see what happened here. 

Oh, my gosh. What the heck. We need to get rid of email altogether here 

from this.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We're looking at (indiscernible).

MR. CALHOUN: Okay. Back to Zoom. Okay. We'll try this. Can 

everybody see the record requests, Department of Energy?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah.

MR. CALHOUN: People outside and --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Cannot see --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No.

MR. CLAWSON: No. This is Brad. I can't -- all I can see is click Zoom 

meeting. It says --

MR. CALHOUN: How about that?

MR. CLAWSON: It says --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No.

MR. CLAWSON: -- Dave Kotelchuck. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, you must already be in Zoom, though, 

if we're watching you on Zoom.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. He -- he -- he just needs to get out 

of his email. 

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. So I --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There you go.

MR. CALHOUN: I don't know if, Nancy, you're accessing email, but --
 

13

MR. KOTELCHUCK: Thank you, very much.

MR. CALHOUN: -- from somewhere else?

MR. KOTELCHUCK: I don't know how that happened. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Let me see if I can help.

MR. KOTELCHUCK: There we go.

MR. KOTELCHUCK: Sorry.

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. I think somebody just, like, accessed email, 

which was really weird. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Are we -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you see?

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you see that on Zoom? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Let's close my email.

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. Were you on your email?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, yeah. 

MR. CALHOUN: I just closed it all in here. I know you're looking for 

display settings -- trying to figure... There they are. Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think we're seeing it much --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What screen are they showing there? 

MR. CALHOUN: In a minute we'll have to ask. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: But it looks --

MR. CALHOUN: Okay. Now are you seeing the record requests?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
 

14

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There we go. 

MR. CALHOUN: Okay. Jeez. All right. So, basically, we have -- let's 

get rid of that. We have 271 total outstanding record requests. That does 

not mean that these are late; that means that we have made record 

requests to the Department of Energy for -- for the dosimetry information 

and any other information that we need for dose reconstruction. So, as you 

can see, there's only eight greater than 180 days, two between 121 and 

180, and 12 between 60 and 120 days old. So, that's where we are with 

that.

Okay. As far as our cases, we've gotten fifty -- 55,350 cases to 

NIOSH from Department of Labor. 53,000 of those have been returned to --

to DOL. There's also been -- there's 1,193 at NIOSH for dose 

reconstruction, and 930 are administratively closed for one reason or 

another. We've got four hundred and -- or 47,768 submitted to DOL with a 

dose reconstruction.

I was trying to move that. Okay.

47,768 DRs sent for final adjudication. And this has been somewhat 

consistent over the years, about 73 percent of those are less than 50 

percent, and 27 percent of those are 50 percent or greater. And that -- that 

-- that's how this has typically run throughout the -- the history of the 

program. 

Active cases there's 1,180 at -- at NIOSH for dose reconstruction. 73 

are in the DR process, 197 are in the hands -- this is as of 11/11 -- 197 are 

in the hands of the claimants right now for their review and ultimately, we'll 
 

15

-- we'll do -- conduct an interview with them and get the OCAS-1 form 

signed. 

And then there's 910 cases in preparation for dose reconstruction, and 

that's just a data gathering process. 

And that's it. Hopefully, I didn't miss any. Any questions on that?

CHAIR ANDERSON: Any questions?

MR. CALHOUN: Okay. I'll get the next one going here, I hope, for 

Department of Labor.

MR. CRAWFORD: All right. Hello, Grady. Can you hear me? This is --

MR. CALHOUN: I can. I can hear you, Chris, but give me just a 

second --

MR. CRAWFORD: Sure.

MR. CALHOUN: -- so I can get this thing shared here. All right. 

Okay. We're gonna go from the beginning. All right. All right. I think I got 

this. I wish I could get rid of this pesky little thing. I just have to keep it --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Keep it at the top.

MR. CALHOUN: -- at the top. All right. Chris, I'm a -- I'll go down to 

the first slide here. I think I will. All right. Does everybody see the slide 

titled "compensation paid"? Okay. 

MR. CLAWSON: This is -- this is Brad. Yes. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. 

MR. CALHOUN: Go ahead, Chris.

MR. CRAWFORD: Okay, thank you, Grady. 

DOL Program Update
 

16

Good morning, everyone. Just launch right in then. On this slide, the 

date on notice are as of October 31st for the DOL presentation. And we do 

have some white discrepancies with NIOSH, as usual. And theirs, I think 

Grady said, are through Nov. 11, which might count for some of it. Well, 

we have 700 and a half -- 7.5 billion, rather, Part B compensation payments 

made, $6 billion in Part E compensation, 8.5 billion dollars in medical bills 

paid, and total compensation of medical bills paid are $22 billion. That's 

with 227,711 cases filed.

Slide, please.

MR. CALHOUN: NIOSH related SEC and DR cases.

MR. CRAWFORD: You have $1.7 billion paid on dose reconstruction 

cases with 16,060 payees. There are -- there's $184 million paid out on 

cases that are both approved SEC cases and have a probability of causations 

of 50 percent or greater with only 1,417 payees.

All right. 

MR. CALHOUN: NIOSH referral case status.

MR. CRAWFORD: We have 56,170 cases referred to NIOSH for dose 

reconstruction, with 54,468 cases returned to DOL from NIOSH. Those 

returned, 47,685 were returned to DOL with a dose reconstruction and 6,783 

were withdrawn from NIOSH with no dose reconstruction. We also show 

1,707 cases currently at NIOSH. 

Slide.

MR. CALHOUN: Part B dose reconstruction and final decision.

MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. This slide, as Grady mentioned earlier, it 

doesn't change very much either in terms of the proportion of approvals and 
 

17

denials. These are 37,640 cases with a dose reconstruction and a final 

decision. Of those cases, 12,858 got final approvals and 24,782 have final 

denials, which works out to 34 percent final approvals, 66 percent final 

denials.

Slide.

MR. CALHOUN: Part B cases filed.

MR. CRAWFORD: The other category is the largest. And that has to 

do with beryllium sensitivity, chronic beryllium disease, chronic silicosis 

cases. NIOSH gets 30 percent of the cases. 13 percent of the cases are 

never sent to NIOSH because they're accepted under the SEC provisions. 12 

percent of the cases are SEC cases, but they're also referred to NIOSH. And 

the remaining 7 percent of cases are RECA cases for uranium miners' 

affiliated work.

Next slide. 

MR. CALHOUN: Part B cases with final decisions.

MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. Very similar to the other slide, with some 

notable difference in a number of approvals. Cases with Part B final 

decisions are 111,079. Part B approvals, 59,737, Part B denials 51,342, 

which leads to 54 percent approvals and 46 percent denials. This shows the 

effect of the SEC approvals of the DR approvals.

Next slide please.

MR. CALHOUN: Top four worksites.

MR. CRAWFORD: Our usual suspects: Nevada test site, Savannah 

River site, Hanford, and Y-12 Plant.

Slide.
 

18

MR. CALHOUN: SEC sites, one of two.

MR. CRAWFORD: I'm going to go back and forth on this, Grady. Do 

Rocky Flats first, and then return to --

MR. CALHOUN: I'm not sure I can do that, Chris, but I'll try.

MR. CRAWFORD: Okay. If we can't, I will -- 

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. I would -- I would say let's not, --

MR. CRAWFORD: Okay.

MR. CALHOUN: -- because I kind of got out of it when I tried to go 

backwards.

MR. CRAWFORD: Ah, okay, No problem. Then I'll be reading two 

columns of numbers. 

In this case -- these are the SEC sites under discussion today, Rocky 

Flats and Pinellas. Their cases filed -- claims are a different number. That 

has to do with the number of the family members, survivors, and so forth. 

But cases are simply related to the employee. You have 9,991 cases from 

Rocky Flats with 13,007 claimants. Pinellas, we have 1,625 cases filed with 

2,087 claimants.

Cases returned by NIOSH with dose reconstruction to date, 2,302 for 

Rocky Flats and 495 from Pinellas. Final decisions have 4,425 -- these are 

Part B decisions -- Rocky Flats and 715 final decisions from Pinellas.

Slide. 

MR. CALHOUN: Slide two of two, yeah. 

MR. CRAWFORD. Yes, thanks, Grady.

Part B approvals are 2,423 for Rocky Flats, 176 for Pinellas. Part E 

approvals, 2,803 for Rocky Flats, 285 for Pinellas. 
 

19

Total compensation and medical bills paid 896,892,849 for Rocky 

Flats, 97,929,159 for Pinellas.

Slide.

MR. CALHOUN: Recent webinars.

MR. CRAWFORD: Right. I'd like to put in parenthetically that we were 

asked about the types of attendees that come to the -- to the meetings. 

And for all of these meetings here, we did not collect that information. I got 

a message from the head of BOTA (ph) that, in the future, we plan to make 

that change asking the team that runs our webinars to -- to request the info, 

which is to say the info regarding what kinds of attendees we have, whether 

they're returnees, ARs, claimants, employees, that sort of thing. 

Then to deal with the slide, we had a customer experience meeting 

October 2022, with 120 attendees. These will all be virtual attendees. Then 

in September, working backwards, we had a claims process and post 

adjudication actions seminar/webinar, 389 attendees. In August we had a 

site exposure matrices webinar with 202 attendees. And then in July, we 

had DEEOIC tools and resources webinar with 214 attendees.

Slide. 

MR. CALHOUN: Recent webinars.

MR. CRAWFORD: Right. This sort of repeats the information I started 

with, but DEEOIC webinars are attended by a variety of internal and external 

stakeholders, including claimants, authorized representatives, medical 

providers, advocacy groups, federal agencies outside of DOL and DEEOIC 

federal and contractor employees. Attendance typically varies depending on 

the topic of the webinar.
 

20

MR. CALHOUN: Events and --

MR. CRAWFORD: Slide.

MR. CALHOUN: -- webinars. I'm there.

MR. CRAWFORD: The -- we're taking a pause during the holiday 

seasons in November, in December. There are no scheduled webinar series 

then. We'll be restarting the virtual webinar series in January 2023. We 

don't have a schedule, but -- but the DEEOIC plans to reschedule several 

outreach events that were canceled in 2022 due to rises in local COVID-19 

community transmission levels. These events will take place in the following 

locations -- events will now take place in 2023 and specific dates have not 

yet been determined. Additional events may be added to this list. 

The places mentioned are Farmington, New Mexico; Shiprock, New 

Mexico; Kayenta, Arizona; Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Slide.

MR. CALHOUN: Events and webinars, two of two.

MR. CRAWFORD: Right. Here you will see -- and this will be on the 

website, where the DLL presentation will be available at NIOSH. This gives 

you a link to a list of upcoming DEEOIC events. 

Next slide.

MR. CALHOUN: Department of Labor's presentation to NIOSH advisory 

board, handout slides.

MR. CRAWFORD: These are repeated every presentation we do, and 

they're, what you might call, boiler plate, so I won't go through them, but 

they will be on the website with this presentation. 

That concludes my presentation. Any questions? 
 

21

MEMBER BEACH: I have -- yeah. 

Member Ziemer: (Indiscernible) -- 

MEMBER BEACH: Sorry, Paul. You want to go? 

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah, Chris, just a second. I'm getting into slide 

six, just a brief explanation. And Grady, you don't need to go back. It's not 

-- it's not terribly --

MR. CALHOUN: I can do it. I -- I -- 

MEMBER BEACH: -- complicated. 

MR. CALHOUN: I -- I -- I figured out how to do it. Where do you want 

to go?

MEMBER BEACH: So the slide six, on the SEC classes referred to 

NIOSH, the 12 percent, can you give us a little background on why those are 

referred to NIOSH where the other ones, the 13 percent were not?

MR. CRAWFORD: Typically, that's because there is a more than one 

cancer in the case, in which case, one may qualify for SEC treatment, but 

the other may not. For instance, the case of a skin cancer would be a 

typical one. That's not covered under the SEC class, but it is covered under 

Part B with a dose reconstruction. 

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So that's -- 

MR. CRAWFORD: A certain percentage of those cases are handled 

under both SEC rules and Part B compensation rules.

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to understand the 

difference. So that will receive a partial dose reconstruction as long -- along 

with the SEC. 

MR. CRAWFORD: That's correct.
 

22

MEMBER BEACH: That's great. Thank you. 

MR. CALHOUN: Yes, Dr. Ziemer?

DR. ZIEMER: This is not so much a question as a comment. In fact, I 

want to thank Greg -- or Chris is how he is called -- for actually following 

through and getting the information on the types of attendees at the 

webinars. That's not so much, I think, for our information as a board, as is 

that it might be helpful to the Department of Labor in knowing who they're 

reaching and whether or not there should be changes or additional things 

done to make sure that all the stakeholders are, in fact, participating in 

these webinars or have the opportunity to. So, I just wanted to thank Chris 

for following up on that. 

MR. CRAWFORD: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

MR. CALHOUN: Any other questions? 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. Let's --

MR. CALHOUN: All right. Let me switch to Department of Energy. 

Hold your hand. Let's see, DOE program update. Let me go to Zoom. 

There DOE... I think that's pretty... What I need to do is move this down...

Let's see. Can everybody see the Department of Energy support slide? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. 

MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 

MR. CALHOUN: This -- and this worked for me. Just put that in there 

and touch it. There we go. I thought it would go. There it goes. Back --

Ms. Griego-Kelleher: Back to -- 

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. It's really sensitive, so just --

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: -- touch that, okay. Thanks, Grady.
 

23

DOE Program Update

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: Good morning, everybody. I'm Regina 

Griego-Kelleher. And so, I just wanted to be here today. I have just -- I 

just wanted to let everybody know I'm back. I am -- now have assumed the 

responsibility of the program manager for EEOICPA. As many of you know, 

and I want to -- and do it -- welcome the new members. And I think, more 

or less, I just wanted to give some, some background on myself, so you can 

understand where I'm coming from. 

I've been with the program since day one, since it was developed. I 

left the department probably about 2008-9 time frame. Did other things, 

and then came back in 2018, to help Dr. Pat Worthington on special 

projects. One of the projects, obviously, was this program, Greg Lewis, 

who's the director, was somewhat understaffed. So they asked me to step 

in for -- for him. 

And since then, within this last six months, they've asked me if I would 

assume the program management position, and I have. So you'll be seeing 

me and hearing from me. But thank you for having me back. Again, I'm 

looking forward to working with everybody. 

But going forward -- and I have to apologize, I'm -- I had another 

presentation developed, but it wasn't 508 compliant, so I might go off script 

a little bit, just based on what I had prepared, but I think it's somewhat 

similar. So, this one's 508 compliant. 

As -- as you all know -- and I'm probably going to be speaking more to 

the new members than the current members. Department of Energy is 

responsible to provide records to -- not only to the Department of Labor and 
 

24

NIOSH, but also in response to claimants' claims. So we provide information 

through a system called SERT, the -- it's a secure electronic records transfer 

system. This system was developed about five or six years ago, and it's 

much more secure than what we used to do was, you know, mail in claim 

information through the mail. This is, more or less, kind of real time. The 

site's -- you know, labor and NIOSH upload their request, and then our sites 

upload their responses for labor and NIOSH. 

We also provide assistance to -- to labor NIOSH and advisory board on 

large-scale research and site characterization projects. Those efforts take 

place, obviously, across various DOE sites. We'll also facilitate, when 

necessary, in working with some of the major contractors. I know recently 

we just worked with BWXT in trying to secure some -- from -- information 

from their -- from their corporate office. 

And then, also, we conduct research in coordination with labor and 

NIOSH, related to the covered facility designations. That's one of the 

mandates that -- that energy has to maintain and update, research the 

covered facility designations. And we have coverage facility database that 

we just recently updated. 

In respect to individual records, as you all know, you know, a lot of 

these claimants worked at various DOE sites, with multiple contractors, 

subcontractors, different jobs, divisions over a career, so sometimes it can 

be very daunting in trying to, you know, find responsive records for these 

claimants. A typical worker records may have to go to different sites or 

departments, various databases. For example, one of our sites have like 40 

different sources that they'd have to routinely research for responsive 
 

25

records. And that could be anywhere from microfiche, microfilm, databases, 

scanned, etc. 

Recently, one of the things though, with -- with the records, you know, 

OMB just recently pushed for all the agencies to move to electronic records. 

So hopefully, this won't be a problem in the future, since a lot of our sites 

are moving towards electronic records. One other thing that we've been 

working on within, I would say June, is third-party redaction efforts. So 

that's something we had to recently send out to the guidance. And this is a 

response to labor, providing claimants and advocates access to their claim 

files. And so we wanted to make sure that there was not any third-party 

information embedded in that -- in -- in those claimant files. 

So currently, this somewhat slows down the process, and we recognize 

that. But our sites now have to go in and redact. And, and when I say 

"redact" it may be that, you know, there's so much of records on rosters, 

you might have a number of names of claimants or employees that were on 

a RAD roster. We want to make sure that information is redacted and is 

only specific to the -- to the individual filing the claim. 

We never had to worry that -- about it initially, because we had a 

routine-use agreement with labor, and we assumed it would be protected 

and it would never be shared outside the public, but this has changed. So 

that's why we're moving to third-party redactions. If we'd done it early on 

in the -- in the program, it would have taken a much longer time for the 

sites to get information to labor. So it was our understanding that we would 

-- we would send it to labor as is even if they had third-party information.

Our timeliness goals. Let's see, for FY-22, we've had about 16,903 
 

26

responses. That's actually been pretty -- about the same as pre COVID. 

The -- you know, people were still filing claims, they were, you know -- we 

were still pretty active. What was challenging, obviously, was just 

responding to requests made by the Department of Labor during COVID. 

We have about 2,500 that are over 60 days with an 84 percent response 

rate. And we're -- our goal has always been to be over 90 percent. In the 

past we have been, but obviously, with COVID, that's caused some delays. 

And then, also with the third-party PPII requirement, that's caused some 

challenges for the sites. 

We are seeing progress though, within the last two months we have 

2,700 total responses, 342 over 60 days with an 88 percent response rate. 

So, we're hoping that response rate will increase.

Total responses since the inception of the program -- I thought that 

this was actually interesting -- was about three hundred -- it's about 

360,000 responses that our sites have provided to labor and NIOSH since 

2001. 

As I mentioned earlier, we have large-scale research projects that are 

driven by labor's and NIOSH's needs. We have about 22 active site assistant 

research projects going on right now. And then with Department of Labor, 

we have five, which are SEM updates for site exposure matrices database 

updates, with two SEM public releases. And this is basically where DOE will 

review the entire database after labor updates the SEM. We will freeze the 

database. Our DOE classification office will review the SEM database and 

then approve it for public release. So it's -- happens about twice a year is 

when this SEM is actually viewed and then publicly released. 
 

27

As I mentioned, you know, we provide -- we're -- we're dedicated to 

providing responses to labor and NIOSH and advisory board, but we have to 

do it in a responsible manner. Our headquarters' office does a lot of the 

reviews for reports and has a pretty good time -- turnaround rate of about 

eight workdays. I know that with COVID and with staffing issues with our 

classification office, we've had some challenges within the last couple 

months, but we're seeing them improve their -- their -- their timeliness. 

And then, also, you know, any kind of responsive records at times, have to -

- has to be reviewed at the site level, too. So sometimes, that can actually 

cause a delay, but those are usually normally just specific records that are 

requested, say, through the SEM research efforts.

As I mentioned, we have our -- responsible for covered facilities' 

database. We do -- we have updated the database. So if you haven't had a 

chance to go look at the database, you know, we -- we -- we've spent some 

time. It was -- it was very dated. 

Now you have an opportunity to search. There's a map view, and then 

there's, obviously, a search field, where you can actually search for the sites 

by state or location, alias. And then what -- the nice thing about it is it gives 

you the ability to transfer it into an Excel file. So in the past, it wasn't that 

easy. Now you can actually export it to Excel and then print it. So that 

makes it a lot easier if you're -- if you're trying to pull a list of particular 

sites together.

In regard to research, again, I'm gonna miss -- mention, you know, 

with respect to the last three years, you know, sites are now adapting to a 

remote -- remote work environment. A lot of our DOE's facilities -- and 
 

28

even at headquarters, has moved to a remote work environment, so 

employees will only come to the site when they have to. So this is going to 

become a bit of a challenge, particularly in the records arena, and we know 

that. So we've been working with the sites to figure out how we can get the 

appropriate resources to the sites to -- to make sure that those records are 

pulled in a timely manner. 

As I mentioned, you know, the sites are also working on the digitizing 

permanent federal records so that agencies may dispose of original source 

records. But there's a standard for those -- for digitizing these records. So 

the sites -- that might cause some delays, with respect to requesting records 

at our sites. 

I know there's an ongoing issue right now, I think, with Boeing, 

because EM is in the process of digitizing all their records. They'd rather 

digitize it and then give it to NIOSH versus NIOSH coming in, and then 

digitizing. It's -- it's -- it's double work, right. So it doesn't make sense for 

them to -- to spend money when they can actually get it done correctly and 

then transferred over to -- to NIOSH. In addition to that, it's just a resource 

issue, since their priority is trying to get the -- the digitized records done on 

time. 

My understanding is OMB -- the deadline was for the end of this year 

to have some -- the records digitized, but I think that might have had to 

have been expanded. I'm not quite sure. 

One of the other challenges, too, as I mentioned, the federal record 

centers is only -- is -- is available by appointment only. The one thing we 

did do is that we did establish an agreement with NARA so that if there --
 

29

our sites request records, it's -- it's -- we mark it differently. They see it's 

expedited, and therefore, they're -- they're responding to our records as 

they come in and it's -- it's --- if they're not -- no longer should be delayed. 

However, obviously, there's some -- sometimes people want to enter their 

record centers, and that's appointment only. And I mentioned that also for 

NIOSH and SC&A, so they understand that it is by appointment only, but you 

are able to access those facilities. 

And then, the last thing I want to mention is our medical screening 

program. I know Dr. Frank is very familiar with that, and I'm -- I'm grateful 

that you're here. I think he'll be a wealth of knowledge to the advisory 

board. But Dr. Frank worked with the DOE -- the screening program for a 

number of years. And so, I know he just recently left. But -- but that's a 

great resource for our claimants. 

As you know, our investigators or our -- our principal investigators at 

these sites are very familiar with the operations. So that's a benefit to these 

employees is when they go through screening, they're able to get a --

somebody who's very well in depth to the hazards at the site, and then --

then they'll be able to provide that information to labor to support their 

claim. 

And, I guess, that's it. If you have any questions, you know, feel free 

to ask. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, I have one question. Has the NIOSH 

IT security new activities going on, has that impacted your program?

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: No, it has not. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay, good. 
 

30

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I was going to say, all the records you 

haven't transferred are going to really be -- 

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: I think what's -- yeah, it -- it's a completely 

different system -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. 

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: --- so, you know, it -- yeah, we're fine. I 

think what's -- what's impacted NIOSH, unfortunately, and DOE is this thirdparty PPII guidance. So that has slowed down the process a bit, but our 

sites are -- sites are starting to get into the swing of things.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Good, thank you. Go ahead.

MEMBER ZIEMER: Gina, I think last time when Greg Lewis talked to 

us, he indicated that on some sites, maybe just a few, or maybe just one, 

the COVID impact had basically shut down their archival activities, and 

particularly, with respect to access to classified documents. And there are 

some of our work groups that have been waiting to get classified documents. 

It -- it's not clear to me at this point, how that stands with respect to the 

digitizing of everything and access to those kinds of documents. Could you 

clarify that?

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: I'm not familiar with that. This is the first 

I've heard about classified records, but I'll go back and ask. I know, our 

sites, you know, have been challenged, but I didn't realize there was an 

issue with the classified records. So that'll -- 

MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, unless I misunderstood that. And maybe 
 

31

NIOSH can clarify that, too. Do we know how the accesses are to the 

classified documents at some of those sites?

MR. CALHOUN: I think that, in general, we've not been able to go visit 

sites in person. I don't think it was specific declassified documents, but we 

can't go to the sites in person to -- to -- to do data capture or whatnot. And 

but, we are -- have -- we do have a couple plans here shortly. I think that's 

been the primary issue. All right. 

MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, we -- Lawrence Livermore -- this is 

LaVon Rutherford. Lawrence Livermore, we were having trouble getting into 

Lawrence Livermore, which would have been to look at classified documents. 

But they did allow access, and we couldn't get travel approved -- travel 

approved for us because it was too late in the year. But ORAUT did get into 

the site and did get access to that. And -- and we are doing one at Los 

Alamos here in January. 

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: And I will say, I think with accessing records, 

we just have to -- we're trying to be creative. I mean, for an example, I 

know that SC&A was looking to gain access to our NEMS (ph) database and 

a number of other systems, the ORBS (ph) database, and I'm finding that 

are -- the departments or the organizations are willing to work with SC&A, 

but it's -- has to be Teams oriented. So if folks are willing to get on Teams, 

work with a staff member, they'll go into a system, pull the information with 

you. So, there are ways around it. It might not be the typical way of going 

onsite, but we are trying to find workarounds. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Greatly appreciated. 

MS. GRIEGO-KELLEHER: Any other questions? Thank you. It's good 
 

32

to be back.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. 

MR. CALHOUN: All right. I'm gonna switch to the Rocky Flats 

presentation here, -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes, please. 

MR. CALHOUN: -- which is a PDF, so it might be a completely different 

world for us here. So, we'll see. Oh, no, that's Pinellas. Let's see Rocky 

Flats. There it is. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Thank you, -- 

MR. CALHOUN: Hold on. I'm not done yet. So that's -- what do I 

need to do? Go down, slide show. Current slide. Can everybody see the 

review of the Rocky Flats plant technical basis document? Okay. 

(Whereupon, Mr. Calhoun speaks with Mr. Kotelchuck off the record.) 

Review of Rocky Flats Technical Basis

Documents: Revisions and Issues

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Thank you. Can you all hear me? 

Okay. I'll put this back here. Okay. 

So this is a review of Rocky Flats plant technical basis documents, 

revisions, and issues. And go the next. We had a meeting on October 4, 

'22nd, and though the entire group, Rocky Flats Plant work group, was 

there, Bill Field, myself, Loretta Valerio, and Paul Ziemer. I should say that, 

with great sadness, the Rocky Flats work group of the Advisory Board 

Radiation and Worker Health observes the passing of board and working 

group member Bill Field. We acknowledge his many important contributions 
 

33

over the years to this working group, and to the board, and we'll be 

discussing it later in this meeting as well. 

So, background: At our March 23, 2017, meeting, the advisory board 

decided it had sufficient available to do individual deuce -- dose 

reconstructions, with sufficient accuracy for RFP claimants exposed after 

1/1/84. And thus, the board decided to extend the status -- not to extend 

the status of the special -- of the existing special exposure cohort 192 

beyond 12/31 -- and by the way, that's a typo. It should be 1983. And I'll 

send that change in. 

So, at our October meeting, we considered the updates and changes 

to the technical basis documents, the TBDs that make up the Rocky Flats 

site profile that it will -- we, essentially, learned much information as we 

were reviewing the possible SEC for that plant. And now, if -- as we will do 

dose reconstructions for folks who sent -- who are claimants for -- after that 

date -- for exposure after that date, we will -- the -- the -- we will be doing 

individual dose reconstructions and this will help us do it. 

Okay. The -- and I'm -- I don't want to get into the weeds of all of the 

discussions that we went through, the technical discussions. I'd be here for 

several hours repeating the meeting that we had, but I'm trying to 

summarize what we did. So I'm going to talk about, essentially, the topics 

that we discussed, without getting into the details. Unless you want -- and -

- and if I can answer without getting into the details of what precisely we 

were talking about. 

So, we have five Rocky Flats Plant technical basis documents that had 

been -- have been revised as of January 2021. First, the site description 
 

34

called TBD-2 occupational medical dose; TBD-3, occupational environmental 

dose; TBD-4, occupational internal dose and occupational external dose. So 

SC&A reviewed the five revised RFP TBDs, and -- and the review was to 

determine previous site and -- issues identified by SC&A's original 2005 site 

pro -- pro -- profile review had been resolved by the revised TBDs, the RFP 

working group and proceedings, and NIOSH. 

SC&A also performed a general review of the five revised TBDs. SC&A 

provided the RFP working group with a review report on December 23, 2021. 

And NIOSH issued a response paper in July of 2022, July of this year. And 

we were -- we are discussing that. 

And, by the way, while I'm talking about SC&A's role, I do want to 

thank Bob Barton, for -- who -- from SC&A for his help in preparing this --

the slides for this show. 

Okay. So SC&A presented its review on October 4 -- at the October 

4th meeting, and we all discussed it. The working group, NIOSH, SC&A 

discussed the results of the review and the current status of the findings and 

any new findings or issues that were presented, and the following slides give 

an outline of what we did. 

The SC&A issues for TBD-2 site description was resolved by revised 

TBDs. SC&A finds that all the previous TBD-2 issues, the site description 

issues, have been addressed in our -- in rev -- revision 2. Revision 2 is 

more comprehensive in scope and depth and includes more details on slight 

-- site closure and decommissioning. And that was SC&A's observation one. 

And, by the way, for the new members of the board, when we talk 

about issues that come up, we make a distinction between findings and 
 

35

observations. Where the SC&A says there is a finding, it means there is the 

possibility of an error, either there isn't --- in their judgment, there is an 

error or there might be an error. And the -- so those are really important to 

resolve. Observations are, essentially, issues that there is a typographical 

error in a table or there is a mine -- or it would be nice if there was a little 

more explanation in the TBDs about what to do and why we're doing 

something. So, observations don't have to be resolved. They're not --

they're not an issue that there's a potential error. They are simply an issue 

that it would be nice if we did something a little more or there may be a 

minor error, a minor type of typographical error. 

Okay. So, SC&A recommended closure in finding eight, which was 

about inadequate information about recycled uranium based on updated 

treatment of the issue in the TBD-5. So, we discussed and closed the 

finding, and TBD-2 will be revised to address the recommendation and 

future TBD revisions. SC&A concurred with NIOSH, the board agreed, and 

we resolved this. Pardon me.

Now TBD-3, occupational medical dose. TBD-3, finding five was about 

radiation exposure from occupationally necessitated medical X-rays. So 

SC&A finds all the remaining issues for finding five have been addressed and 

resolved and recommended closure. The working group discussed and --

and agreed, and we closed the findings. 

Their observations, SC&A identified some incorrect tables listed on 

page two. And when I say "incorrect tables," I should rather have said more 

precisely, some -- some errors in the labeling of the table or a particular 

entry was incomplete -- was what was left out, not that the table as a whole 
 

36

was, if you will, in error. NIOSH plans to address these errors in future TBD 

revisions, SC&A concurs, and we resolved this. 

Oops. Okay. Finding nine, environmental dose -- finding nine for 

TBD-4 was about inadequacies in addressing potential environmental 

exposures from routine and ambient airborne releases and resuspension of 

contaminated soil. So, the -- SC&A finds that rev. 3 of TBD resolves finding 

nine. NIOSH has provided a better justification of its basis in available site 

monitoring data and has added more specific information and guidance 

about the contribution of resuspension of soil contaminants for occupational 

environmental exposures. SC&A recommended closure, and NIOSH agreed, 

and we resolved this.

Findings one and two for occupational internal dose. This is now, after 

all, a major category in the dose reconstruction. A very important one, 

finding one, TBD-5, finding one was that NIOSH has suggested use of a 

urine bioassay minimum detectable amount, MDA, values appeared low. 

SC&A finds that TBD-5 resolves this issue, recommended closure. The 

working group agreed.

Finding two was that the TBD lacks definitive direction in some 

instances, and SC&A finds that TBD-5, rev. 3 resolves this issue. And so, 

there was agreement, and we passed on.

Finding seven for TBD-5 was that TBD-5 should include 

recommendations for ingestion intakes in direct reference to the appropriate 

ingestion-intake-related document. NIOSH's response was the TBDs are 

designed to contain site specific guidance on internal dose reconstruction in 

this area. There is no site-specific scenario identified for this finding that 
 

37

would warrant TBD to issue a particular site-specific guidance. Therefore, no 

changes in TBD-5 are recommended and SC&A accept NIOSH's clarification. 

And that is to say that basically, TBD-5 covers this, doesn't need a special 

statement for (indiscernible), and so, the working group -- with agreement, 

the working group discussed and closed this issue.

Whoopsie. The screen is acting up a little bit. There we go. So TBD-5 

observation a -- a -- a less -- a press -- a pressing issue than the findings or 

potential issue with the findings. SC&A finds that Table B-11 lacks units for 

the minimum -- minimum -- minimum dose. MDA, minimum dose --

minimum dose allowed values for Americium-241. It appears that it should 

see -- it should specify the unit of nanocuries. NIOSH plans to edit TBD-5 to 

add units for MDA values. I mean, that's, again, observation, a minor thing. 

They didn't -- they did not talk about units. They didn't label the units. And 

so, we resolved this. Okay. 

Occupational external dose now. The finding three was concerned with 

the interpretation of NTA film data for workers who are not included in the 

non -- neutron dose reconstruction project. The -- this was addressed in the 

finding by use of neutron-to-photon ratios, coupled with use of available 

coexposure data. Since we didn't have monitoring, we used neutron-tophoton ratios. SC&A recommended closure, NIOSH agreed, resolved. 

TBD-6 for finding four was concerned with the treatment of personal 

dosimeter placement and angular dependence, that is to say, the direction in 

which the worker was standing and the radiation was coming, and whether -

- whether that was a problem. And TBD-6 addresses the finding by analysis 

of the angular dependent -- dependence of the monitoring device. We --
 

38

closure recommended, and we resolved it. 

And so, TBD finding 10 was concerned with hand and wrist doses. For 

people -- particularly for people who work in -- in glove boxes, and TBD-6 

addressed -- 

(Whereupon, the audio for Mr. Kotelchuck was lost.)

MR. CLAWSON: We just -- this is Brad. We just lost -- we can't hear 

on Zoom anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We just lost audio. 

MR. KOTELCHUCK: Ahh.

MR. CLAWSON: There -- there -- there we can hear you. 

MR. KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Well, I, maybe, was allowing myself to 

stand a little too far back from the microphone. So, I'm close --

MR. CLAWSON: Okay.

MR. KOTELCHUCK: -- to the microphone and maybe that helps 

resolve it. All right, good. 

Well, this is a long list. But the point is, particularly for our new -- our 

new board members, I mean, these are the kinds of details you have to go 

over if you're going to do individual dose reconstructions -- or not just go 

over, we've always gone over all these issues for the dose reconstructions, 

but we -- we now know so much more than we did years ago. Because we 

looked into the SEC that we can say we can do a better job, and this is --

this is the best job that we can do in assessing individual dose -- individual 

dose reconstructions. We're -- we're nearing the end. 

Finding 11 for TBD-6 was concerned with potentially significant doses 

from industrial X-ray and neutron generators used for research and 
 

39

development and nondestructive work. TBD-6 addresses the issues; there 

was agreement; SC&A recommended closure; NIOSH agreed and resolved. 

Now, observations on neutron dose factors. SC&A observed that 

NIOSH needs to clarify the reason for the changes in neutron dose multiplier 

factors listed in Table 6-16 of TBD-7 rev. 3, compared to Table 6-14 of rev. 

0, and NIOSH responded that these multiplier factors were updated based 

on guidance from the OTIB from ORAUT, which was issued after TBD-6 rev. 

in 2004. SC&A concurs, right, and, obviously, we have closure, and that is 

resolved. In other words, you know, we're looking -- there's the -- SC&A 

realized there's a different table being used now, why and what's the basis 

for the new table, and of course, it's updated information. And okay. 

Now, observation on neutron limit of detection values. SC&A observes 

that -- this is an observation that the reason for recommending a limit of 

detection value of 226 rem. and Table 6-18 and 6-19 needs clarification. 

NIOSH will correct the LOD values for 62 and 63 in future revisions. SC&A 

concurred; resolved. 

Conclusions. All differences between SC&A review findings and NIOSH 

responses resolved and approved by the Rocky Flats land working group. All 

SC&A observations discussed and NIOSH differences resolved and approved 

by the Rocky Flats working group. And so, we really have now updated the 

TBDs or the dose reconstructions that will be coming, and we will move 

ahead in the future. 

So, are there any questions? 

MEMBER BEACH: Dave, could I ask a question? This is --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Sure.
 

40

MEMBER BEACH: -- Joe -- Josie Beach. Are these all closed or are 

some of these still in abeyance waiting for the final documents to be 

completed? How did --

Member Kotelchuck: No. I mean, these are closed. And I mean, 

there -- there will -- there will be -- the documents will be technically -- will 

be updated based on this discussion. So there are no -- no -- there are no 

outstanding issues that I remember that we have in abeyance. Certainly, 

none that were discussed in that issue. Yes.

MEMBER BEACH: So, there's no back checking of --

MEMBER KOTTLECHUCK: No, --

MEMBER BEACH: -- the documents?

MEMBER KOTTLECHUCK: -- no. Unless there's some from a previous 

era. I don't think so. 

Paul?

MEMBER ZIEMER: On a sort of definitional basis, I -- I think, in the 

board document tracing, those items which have been resolved and closed 

by the work group, but yet remain to show up in a future document, I think 

we actually have been calling those in abeyance in the documents. So, they 

are closed, as far as the work group's activities are concerned, and --

MEMBER KOTTLECHUCK: Excellent, thank you. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- and -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: They continue to be tracked. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: They will be -- 

MEMBER KOTTLECHUCK: -- (indiscernible) --

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- make sure that actually occurs. So I think -- 
 

41

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- they do show up, as you're suggesting, in 

abeyance. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Very good. And I appreciate that. And very 

good. Okay. Further questions, comments? New board members, any 

questions, or -- but give you a sense of what we do when we're updating the 

TBDs for a particular site.

MEMBER BEACH: Can I just ask one more?

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Of course.

MEMBER BEACH: Josie again. So is SC&A, that -- this might be a Bob 

Barton question. I know we don't have the board's tracking system 

anymore, or it's not as useful now. And in, like my subcommittee, for 

example, Kathy's been keeping a tracking -- running tracking. So, Bob, are 

you doing that for this, as well?

MR. BARTON: Yes, when we're made aware that the TBDs have 

actually been updated with the agreed upon changes. I mean, basically, 

they've all been closed for the work group. We just have to see it through 

till completion, and we will pay attention to that when they're revised, and 

just go in and make sure that those agreed upon changes are, in fact, 

included in the revision. 

MEMBER BEACH: Thank you. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Further? Okay. Thank you. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. We've reached break time. Should we 

break a little early? The answer to that is yes. Okay. So we're going to 

break until 10:45 when Josie will give us a review of the procedures reviews 
 

42

that you've done. 

DR. ROBERTS: So, break until 10:45.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Break until 10:45.

(Whereupon, a break was taken from 10:19 a.m. until 10:47 a.m.)

DR. ROBERTS: I'm just gonna go around and take a quick attendance 

of board members. 

(Roll call.)

DR. ROBERTS: Thank you. And I'd just like to remind people that if 

you're having a question or comment, to please identify yourself before. 

And thanks. Over to you, Andy.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. I think we're ready. Kathleen's gonna 

present? 

SC&A Presentation: Summary of Seven Document Reviews Approved by the 

Subcommittee for Procedure Reviews

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah. Yeah, so I'm gonna just say a couple of 

things, and then turn it over to Kathy. Is someone going to do our slides 

here? Was -- Bob, are you, or do you want me to?

MR. BARTON: (Indiscernible.)

MS. BEHLING: Josie, I'm going to do the slides. 

MEMBER BEACH: Oh, perfect. Okay. So I did want to say that we --

we are finalizing seven documents this meeting. You -- we've been doing 

this for the last couple of meetings. We have quite a backlog. We have two 

other members of the subcommittee, Paul Ziemer, I wanted to recognize, 

and Loretta Valerio. 
 

43

I do want to ask one question of our chair. As we go through the 

documents, Kathy will stop in between and ask questions. Shall we vote on 

each one at that point, or shall we wait until the very end to finalize? 

Rashaun said it was up to you, Henry. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: I don't particularly care. 

MEMBER BEACH: Don't care, okay. So, Kathy, any preference for 

you --

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- can just do it right afterwards. We'll just do an 

all in favor, all --

MEMBER BEACH: At the very end.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- won't do a name vote.

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So no name vote. We'll just all in favor at 

the end, but we'll take questions in between. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah.

MEMBER BEACH: And, I think, Kathy, if you're ready, I'll go ahead 

and turn the floor to you.

MS. BEHLING: Okay, very good. I'm Kathy Behling. Introduced 

myself yesterday. And I think my strongest attribute for the program is my 

longevity, which just been -- I'm getting old here. But, anyway, I'm the 

messenger today. And, but, along -- I, along with a relatively small, but 

very talented group of SC&A professionals, perform these reviews of the 

technical guidance documents. 

I also want to mention that I feel very privileged to work closely with 

the subcommittee on procedures review. Josie just mentioned the 

members. They're all very active members in other work groups and they're 
 

44

committed board members. And Josie's always kind enough to give me 

some latitude in preparing these somewhat overzealous presentations. 

However, I just want to mention up front that to give you a perspective of 

the magnitude of the documents that are in place to perform the dose 

reconstruction program, I decided to count them. And there are currently 

55, we call them OTIBs, because they’re ORAUT technical information 

bulletins, and 13 DCAS TIBs. There are five implemented -- implementation 

guides. There are a total of 34 procedures, and there are 67 reports. That 

totals to 174 guidance documents. So the task in front of us and the 

subcommittee is quite daunting. So forgive me for attempting to capitalize 

on my 90 minutes by preparing a 90-slide presentation. 

My apologies, Dr. Kotelchuck. 

He mentioned before that it's a little overwhelming, but --

MEMBER BEACH: Kathy, can I ask you, did you count how many 

documents that the subcommittee has closed out that we -- we need final 

close out from the board, what -- how many are left? 

MS. BEHLING: Yeah. I did not Josie. And I think one of the things I 

want to mention is not only are there a -- a hundred and thirty -- a hundred 

and forty -- 174 documents, as we discussed yesterday, and you will see 

today, these documents are also often revised. And so, we need to go back. 

So I did not do that to calculate how many have actually been reviewed by 

the subcommittee at this point in time. And my apologies on that.

MEMBER BEACH: No, don't apologize. It's -- it's a huge task. Thank 

you.
 

45

MS. BEHLING: Okay. So today we hope to discuss seven documents 

that have been reviewed and approved by the subcommittee. As shown on 

this slide, we'll cover one OTIB, two procedures, and four PERs. We'll start 

with OTIB-14, and this is the technical information bulletin for assigning 

environmental internal doses to employees not exposed to airborne 

radioactivity in the workplace or radionuclides -- I'm sorry -- in the 

workplace. This was actually issued in June of 2004. And it provides 

guidance to the dose reconstructors as to when to assign environmental 

internal dose rather than workplace exposure as the method for assigning 

these doses. 

And this is usually -- it's primarily used when it can be determined that 

the energy employee, or the EE, likely was only exposed to inhalation of 

airborne radionuclides from ambient environmental doses from site 

operations. So, SC&A reviewed OTIBs 14. We submitted our review in June 

of 2006. And we identified one finding, and that finding was discussed at 

the September and November 2007 subcommittee meetings and resolved in 

April of 2012. 

And our findings stated that care must be taken when assigning 

environmental internal dose to construction trade workers due to the diverse 

nature of their exposure. And NIOSH initially agreed, but they responded 

that there's more detailed guidance in OTIB-52. And OTIB-52 -- OTIB-52 is 

our OTIB form -- it's called parameters for considering when processing 

claims for the construction trade workers. 

And based on this, it prompted the subcommittee to transfer the 

finding to the review of OTIB-52. And I'll just pause here for a minute to --
 

46

and you briefly touched on this during the Rocky Flats presentation. We 

maintain a board review system, BRS system. We don't have access to that 

right now, but as Josie mentioned, I am keeping a running table and tab of 

everything that is being resolved and discussed during our meetings so that 

we can, when we get access to that system again, we're able to quickly 

update it. 

And what the subcommittee does is they -- we have different 

categories of the findings. When SC&A first reviews the report, we -- we 

give our presentation and we open up that finding, and when we get it, gets 

entered into the BRS, it's in an open status. Thereafter, we can put it into in 

progress, in abeyance, as you previously discussed, that is when perhaps 

NIOSH indicates that they're going to change a procedure. And so, we put it 

in abeyance until that happens, and then the subcommittee closes that 

issue, that finding or observation. 

We also transfer findings, like we did in this case, and -- or they're 

closed. So I just wanted to make mention for the new board members how 

we deal with and -- and keep track of -- and track all of these findings. 

So as a follow up to finding one for OTIB-14, when the sign -- when 

the assigning was discussed again in 2012 under the OTIB-52, NIOSH stated 

that unmonitored construction trade workers are not assigned environmental 

internal dose because they're considered more a highly exposed group of 

workers. And so, OTIB-52 specifically requires that the internal dose for the 

unmonitored construction trade workers be assigned using a 50th percentile 

coexposure value. So OTIB-14 doesn't really apply to construction trade 

workers. And the subcommittee agreed with that and closed the finding. So 
 

47

that ends our discussion on OTIB-14. It was a rather simple one. 

Now did I understand you -- do we want discussions now? Do -- and 

we want to wait to vote on these. In the past, we voted for each one, but it 

almost sounded to me like we are going to wait till the end. Am I correct?

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Yeah. I think we should have discussion 

after each one and then we'll vote at the end. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Are there any questions that people have -- have 

it -- it's pretty simple to start. No questions.

MEMBER BEACH: No questions. I think if -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: All in favor of adopting closure?

MEMBER BEACH: I thought we were gonna do that at the end or 

you're gonna do it at the end of each one? 

CHAIR ANDERSON: I thought we're going to do each one. 

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So all in favor of closing officially, that was --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes, yes. And so, we're just going to do a voice 

vote.

(Voice vote taken.)

CHAIR ANDERSON: We could hear you online, so I think we got 

everybody. It's unanimous. Thank you. Okay. Next. 

MEMBER BEACH: Thanks, Andy. 

We're ready, Kathy.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay. Thank you. Next procedure is ORAUT-PROC-2. 

And, obviously, based on the -- the number of this procedure, it was the 
 

48

second procedure published, and so, early on in the program. And it 

discusses the use of the integrated modules for bioassay analysis, or IMBA 

software. It was issued in August of 2003, and it provides guidance to the 

dose reconstructors on running IMBA and the associated file creation process 

and the required documentation that should be included in the EE's files. 

SC&A's review was submitted in January 2005, and there were three 

findings. And the findings were discussed and resolved at the July 2006 

subcommittee meeting. 

Finding one: The procedure could provide more clear description of 

the various functional buttons. And NIOSH responded by stating that they 

did not feel that it was warranted to make a procedure change based on this 

comment. And they indicated that, you know, with a brief experience and 

training, the dose reconstructors are able to operate IMBA with ease in a 

brief period of time. So the subcommittee agreed and closed this finding. 

I think I'm -- went too far there. Okay. I'm going the wrong way. 

There we go. Sorry about that. All right. 

Finding two: SC&A felt that there was insufficient guidance regarding 

evaluating the results of the bioassay calculations. For example, how to 

modify the fit data. And NIOSH, again, didn't feel that this warranted a 

procedure revision, and they stated that this procedure was actually 

designed to give general-use guidance. It was not for provider -- to provide 

the necessary tools and experience to reconstruct internal dose. 

And I will mention that in 2007, NIOSH did publish OTIB-660. And 

that's the internal dose reconstruction OTIB, and that contains more details 

regarding IMBA specific parameters to be used, and the assignment of 
 

49

intake data. So based on NIOSH's response, the subcommittee agreed, and 

they closed finding two. 

Finding three: Again, we felt that the procedure lacks appropriate 

guidance for making decisions requiring professional judgment, such as 

modifying bioassay inputs to establish a better fit. And I will take the time 

right now to say one of the things that we all in this program try to focus on 

is to minimize professional judgment. Obviously, that's for consistency 

purposes. It's not always -- it's not always something that can be done, 

especially in internal dosimetry, but we do try to minimize them. 

NIOSH response was the same as for finding two. And, namely, the 

intent of this procedure is for general use for IMBA and not for any level of 

detail. So, again, the subcommittee agreed and closed finding three. 

And that ends our discussion on PROC-2. Any questions?

MEMBER BEACH: Thank you, Kathy. Paul, has one. Go ahead.

MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't recall when we started using observations 

versus findings. These findings go back to 2004. And for example, finding 

two, I think, if that were to appear today, would be an observation, -- 

MEMBER BEACH: Agreed.

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- right? 

MS. BEHLING: Yes. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: There are many of these that are sort of minor like 

that, but in those -- at that time, we called them all findings.

MS. BEHLING: That's correct.

MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

MEMBER BEACH: Funny, I thought the same thing when she was 
 

50

going through the slides. But, Kathy, do you remember, has it been five or 

six years since we went -- changed our findings/observations?

MS. BEHLING: It's at least -- at least five or six years. I don't have 

an exact number, but it's at least that long. 

MEMBER BEACH: Right. Okay. And we won't get more into that 

unless somebody has a question on how we changed that. Any other 

questions on this?

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I -- Dave Kotelchuck. I don't have a question, 

just a comment that I think that when -- when eventually, were -- the work 

of the different groups are evaluated by senior people in CDC and NIOSH, 

that they -- where a lot of -- where -- where there were, in the past, lots of 

findings, which suggested that there might have been errors -- right? That's 

a finding said I think it's possible there's an error of consequence. And, you 

know, it was decided that -- and we understood that NIOSH felt like it was 

being -- it was suggested that they were not doing perhaps a good job. 

When, in fact, many of the issues that were raised were minor. And so, we 

said fine, we'll establish, you know, the concept of observations. And you’re 

right, it was five or six years ago. But that --it helps -- it helps evaluate the 

work of the -- of the various groups, and particularly NIOSH, DCAS. 

MS. BEHLING: And I think it all -- 

MEMBER ZIEMER: And, again, Ziemer here. I just wanted to make 

sure on the record that we recognize that, and also, at least for future 

people looking at this. And I might also point out, in case it's not clear for 

the new board members why we're approving documents that go back 18 

years. And this is a situation where work groups approved things, and in 
 

51

those days, we didn't always bring them back to the full board to look at. 

But we recognized that, at some point, we should have been doing that. 

And we're doing it now. And we're going back and picking up actions that 

occurred sometimes multiple years ago.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, yes. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: And doing it on a gradual --

MEMBER BEACH: I have a --

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- basis, rather than do it at -- take a whole 

couple of days to go through them all.

MEMBER BEACH: Well, and it's for clarity of what we did and how we 

did it and tracking. So if there -- is there any more questions?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. I have a question. On these --

DR. ROBERTS: Who's speaking?

MEMBER CASSANO: I'm sorry. This is Tori Cassano, I'm a new board 

member. I have a question. On these minor inadequacies, let's call them, 

or what you now call observations, do you have any idea of when the 

directive is being revised for another reason, or updated for another reason, 

if they take any of these observations into account and sort of, include them 

in -- in -- in the -- in the revision? What I'm trying to say is, obviously, these 

aren't worth going through the trouble of revising a document, but if they 

are going to revise it for another reason, do they -- do you have any idea 

whether they look at these observations and try to include the solution for 

that?

MEMBER BEACH: Yes. That is correct. That is the reason we go 

through this, and we keep things in abeyance, as we talked about earlier, so 
 

52

that SC&A can go back and look and make sure that the original observation 

or finding was -- was corrected. 

MEMBER CASSANO: Okay, thank you. 

MEMBER BEACH: If we agree, yes.

MS. BEHLING: And this is Kathy. In some cases, and I think we'll see 

that as an example today, NIOSH will make comments to us that if this 

procedure changes, we will consider making this change or modification. 

They don't always do that. I'm not sure. They can better answer if they 

keep a listing of those types of issues, but I think they do in some instances. 

I don't know if NIOSH wants to speak to that?

MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I want to comment again. If the 

work group believes that it should be done in a future document, we do 

track. If it's -- if we don't believe that it's necessary, then we don't track it 

with the optional for NIOSH.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: David. Further comment to Tori's -- just as a 

-- as a logical follow up to what your concerns are. When we make a 

change, let's say in -- in the procedure in which we're doing dose 

reconstruction, NIOSH goes back and makes sure that all the people who 

would -- for whom they had done dose reconstruction at that site, that their 

-- the -- the evaluation is done again. They check and see, you know, if 

TBD-3 was revised. They go back and check all the people who had TBD-3 

was involved. And -- and in -- with those changes, and check, make sure 

that the people we -- we -- we had already taken care of, if you will, are --

were properly -- are properly evaluated under the current system update. 

So, we really, we try to be very careful with that so nobody gets overlooked, 
 

53

nobody gets a shortchange because we did an older procedure on them 

when we actually have a better procedure.

MEMBER CASSANO: Thank you. 

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Henry, can we turn it in -- unless there's no 

other comments, we'll turn it over to Henry for the vote, and it's for ORAUTPROC-002.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah, ORAUT-PROC-0002, and the 

recommendation is to close it out -- recommendation by the committee to 

the board. All in favor, say aye. 

(Voice vote taken.)

CHAIR ANDERSON: No nays, so it passes without (indiscernible).

MEMBER BEACH: All right, Kathy, moving on.

MS. BEHLING: Okay. I now will move on to the ORAUT-PROC-77 

procedure. This is an administrative procedure for dose reconstructors to 

track and -- for error tracking and reporting. It was issued back in 2005, 

and it provides a process for documenting and tracking any errors found in 

the dose reconstruction reports or comments received by ORAUT. SC&A 

reviewed this PROC back in 2006. We identified three findings, and the 

findings were discussed, and resolved at the August 2008 subcommittee on 

procedure review meeting. 

Finding one: We asked how does this procedure fit into the overall 

ORAUT quality assurance program? And NIOSH responded by stating that 

the procedure is one part of the quality management system for the ORAUT 

dose reconstruction project and is actually modeled on requirements for the 

quality management system under the International Organization for 
 

54

Standardization. And as the subcommittee felt that NIOSH's response was 

adequate, and they closed the finding. 

Finding two: Just made mentioned that the user would benefit from a 

flowchart in this, what I'll call, step-by-step procedure, and NIOSH agreed, 

and indicated that they would consider adding a flowchart the next time the 

procedure was revised, or during the next biennial review. So in this case,

the subcommittee did agree with that response, and they closed the finding. 

Finding three: The reference to financial incentive is not appropriate 

for a quality assurance procedure is our finding. And this finding was 

referring to Section 4.5 of the procedure, where it's stated that the claims 

processing support group manager ensures the return of the revised dose 

reconstruction report to NIOSH in a timely manner in accordance with the 

applicable cost-plus award fee goals. And NIOSH responded that the

financial incentive was -- was not the driver, it was rather -- the award of 

the goal is a measure -- is -- is measurable expectation based on provisions 

under EEIOCPA, which benefits the energy employee. So NIOSH indicated 

that they, again, will consider revising this statement if the procedure is 

revised. And based on that response, the subcommittee closed the finding. 

And that's -- yeah. That's it for PROC-77. We're moving right along.

MEMBER BEACH: Thanks, Kathy. Any questions or comments? 

Paul? Paul, go ahead.

MEMBER ZIEMER: Could you back the slide up? One thing in that last 

slide. So this is one where it says NIOSH will consider modifying the task --

the text. 

MEMBER BEACH: Correct.
 

55

MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm not sure whether that -- whether they agreed 

to that, but if the work group agrees to that, in this case, let's say we're --

yeah, they're going to revise this -- the other thing that happened in 2008, 

we didn't have the board tracking system, I don't think then. 

MEMBER BEACH: No.

MEMBER ZIEMER: If -- if we had that at the time, we probably would 

have put it in abeyance. 

MEMBER BEACH: Abeyance, right. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: So, we -- 

MEMBER BEACH: And -- and that --

MEMBER ZIEMER: But we did close it. That's what we did.

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah. And that goes with finding two as well. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

MEMBER BEACH: -- the close (indiscernible) --

MS. BEHLING: Yeah.

MEMBER ZIEMER: This is reflecting what we did, asking for the board 

to -- to --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The question now --

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- approve what we did, --

MEMBER BEACH: Right.

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- but we wouldn't do it that way. 

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah. So -- so now moving forward, this goes into 

the tracking document that Kathy is maintaining at this time, so that we will 

be able to go back and look to see if those considerations were --
 

56

MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

MEMBER BEACH: -- put in place.

MEMBER ZIEMER: We still track it. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Absolutely. Absolutely.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- made the decision in the past, and we're --

we're saying that was fine in the past and we're -- 

MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. I just want to make sure everybody's 

aware. So this -- if we were doing it now, it should -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. It -- 

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- we shouldn't approve closing it. It's in 

abeyance. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Right.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Right.

MEMBER BEACH: And -- and they are recognizing that these are very 

old procedures, and we are trying to bring them up to date and to the full 

board because some of them are -- are procedures and things -- how we 

handle things are different. But we are still tracking everything. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And the other for this is, do we have a 

sense of how frequently this procedure is used?

MS. BEHLING: I believe NIOSH needs to answer that --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah.

MS. BEHLING: -- and I will make -- one additional comment is based 

on what I'm seeing in the control documents, this procedure has not been 

revised. It's -- it's -- it still exists in its rev. 0 format.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Just for the new board members, this is 
 

57

precisely -- this is called finding two that's on your screen, the benefit from 

a flowchart keyed to text selection. This would now be called an 

observation. This is a clear observation. Nobody is suggesting anything is 

wrong, but it would be nice and helpful, and that --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It would improve it. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. And that is the essence of observation. 

But, as Paul said, we didn't have that distinction in the past. We do now.

MS. BEHLING: Correct.

CHAIR ANDERSON: We're probably confusing you more than --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Some.

CHAIR ANDERSON: So, with that, we're going to approve what the 

committee did, and it's gonna be put into the system to be tracked. So,

with that --

MEMBER BEACH: And -- and this -- this closed out.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes, this closed out. 

MEMBER BEACH: For ORAUT-5.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes.

MEMBER BEACH: ORAUT-7, rather. Yes.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. All in favor, aye. 

(Voice vote taken.)

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you.

MS. BEHLING: Okay. Now we're ready, we'll move on to our program 

evaluation reports. And you've heard a little bit about this from Bob Barton 

yesterday. This -- this first one we'll talk about is OCAS-PER-003, which is 

the evaluation of the effect of adding ingestion intakes to the Bethlehem 
 

58

Steel cases. 

And just a little bit about the PER process, when NIOSH makes 

changes to any documents -- and I'm -- I apologize if I'm repeating myself, 

but I do want to make mention of it. 

The -- NIOSH typically, in most cases, will if there if there are any -- if 

any dose reconstructions would be impacted that it would increase the dose 

based on that change, they issue a PER. And so, that's what this whole 

program evaluation report process is about, is ensuring that any previously 

adjudicated cases that were under 50 percent POC, if they may be impacted 

by this change, they are reevaluated. So in this case, we're looking at -- at 

Bethlehem Steel cases, and the fact that they added ingestion intakes. That 

prompted NIOSH to have to go back and review the impact of those 

changes. 

So, this PER was issued in January of 2005. And rev. 1 added uranium 

through the ingestion pathway. And the ingestion intakes are calculated 

using a fixed percentage of the inhalation intakes. And these -- this will 

increase dose -- this dose will increase -- will vary for each of the organs. 

So SC&A review -- submitted our review of PER-3 in October of 2007. 

And this was actually one of the first PERs that SC&A reviewed. We 

identified four findings, and those findings were discussed at the December 

2008, and again, May 2016 subcommittee meetings. SC&A's protocol -- and 

I'll get into this a little bit more. You'll hear too much of it, I'm afraid --

prior to June of 2007 -- again, this was under the old way of doing things --

did not require, what we call, subtasks for case reviews. And I'll discuss that 

in a little bit more detail as we move through. So, but, in June of 2007, 
 

59

SC&A was asked to prepare or develop a separate protocol for reviewing 

PERs, and thereafter, we have now four different subtasks, as you were 

briefly instructed on yesterday. 

Okay. So finding one of our -- the PER -- the PER title -- and again, 

remember this is our first PER that SC&A reviewed -- and the PER title is 

misleading because it does not solely deal with ingestion. It also requires 

the calculation of POC and includes updated -- updated occupational medical 

dose. And NIOSH responded -- and something that we're all fully aware of 

now -- that when a case is reworked for any reason, any current guidelines 

are used. So, for this case, the medical doses had been revised in OTIB-6 

most likely, and that's our occupational medical OTIB, and the change was 

reflected in this rework. And so, SC&A agreed with that response, and the 

subcommittee closed the finding. 

Finding two, the PER does not specify which inhalation -- inhalation 

intakes were used to determine the annual percent increase from inhalation. 

The TBD actually lists both high-sided and low-sided estimates for 

inhalation. And so, that was our question. And NIOSH responded that they 

used the high-sided -- high-side inhalation estimates for calculating the 

ingestion intakes. And that response satisfied both SC&A and the 

subcommittee, and the finding was closed.

Finding three: the PER lacks a clear explanation of methods used to 

produce a more precise POC, and if that information was included in the 

IREP user's guide, it should be referenced. We also stated a better 

explanation of the average value should be added. NIOSH agreed that the 

IREP user's guide should be referenced. And, therefore, in this case, the 
 

60

subcommittee did change the finding status to in abeyance until the TBD is 

revised. 

Now the follow up for finding three at the May two thousand six --

2016 subcommittee meeting, NIOSH questioned the need for introducing 

this reference into the TBD and -- and going through their lengthy process of 

-- of making a TBD change. And at that point, since the process of 

calculating a POD -- a POC is standard proto -- protocol that we became 

aware of, and that the dose reconstructs -- yeah, dose reconstructors are 

very familiar with it, SC&A agreed that adding the IREP user guide reference 

would have -- would not have any significant impact on the TBD, and the 

subcommittee agreed and closed the finding. 

And finding four: SC&A discussed finding four which states that 

absorption type S appears to be most claimant favorable for all organs, 

except the respiratory tract, the extrathoracic one. And at the December 

2008 meeting, NIOSH was not prepared to respond. Therefore, in this case, 

the subcommittee kept the finding open so it would show in BRS -- in the 

BRS as open. Today we might put that in progress. I think at that time it 

was -- remained open. 

And then the follow up to finding four, it was subsequently addressed 

at the May 2006 subcommittee meeting. And, at that point, NIOSH had 

reviewed all the reevaluated cases associated with this PER, and they 

determined that there were no cases that involved ET1. And although SC&A 

did not have access to the complete list of the reworked cases, we accepted 

NIOSH's response, and the subcommittee closed the finding. 

And that is my presentation on PER-003. Any questions?
 

61

CHAIR ANDERSON: Any questions or comments? 

MEMBER POMPA: Josie, I have a question. This is David Pompa. 

There was a comment earlier as how was the fixed percentage of inhalation 

intake for uranium determined?

MEMBER BEACH: That on --

MEMBER POMPA: I think we, 001, talked about a percentage rate -- a 

percentage of inhalation intake.

MEMBER BEACH: Yes. Did -- did you catch that, Kathy?

MS. BEHLING: Yes.

MEMBER POMPA: How was that determined? How did you come up 

with the percentage or...?

MS. BEHLING: That's NIOSH's determination. 

MEMBER BEACH: That -- I was gonna say that. Yes. Tim's coming to 

the mic.

DR. TAULBEE: Can you repeat that question, please, to start?

MEMBER POMPA: You want me to? 

DR. TAULBEE: There was a comment about fixed percentage of 

inhalation for uranium, how was that determined. It just says fixed 

percentage. 

DR. TAULBEE: Okay. I'm trying to find that here on the slide. 

MEMBER POMPA: I think just prior on 001. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Which are we... 

MS. BEHLING: Okay. 

DR. TAULBEE: Kathy, can you -- is this from PER-3?

MS. BEHLING: Yeah, we're -- yeah. If you go down to bullet, maybe, 
 

62

five, ingestion intakes will be assessed based on a fixed percentage of the 

inhalation intake. That's how you determine what that ingestion intake was 

going to be in that -- that was in the Bethlehem Steel TBD is what we're 

referring to.

DR. TAULBEE: Okay. I'm actually going to have to get back to you on 

this one. Let me go look that up, and we'll get back to you, sir.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Tim, if I may, based on the dose -- dose 

reconstruction reviews subcommittee, inhalation rate is usually determined 

by the nature of the type of work that the claimant does, whether it's heavy 

work, moderately light, light, or very light. So the inhalation rates are really 

determined by the estimate of what kind of job the person was doing for the 

period of time that they seek a claim.

DR. TAULBEE: Right. I believe this question, though, is with the 

ingestion rate, which is pulling off of that inhalation rate that you just talked 

about, Dr. Kotelchuck. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. No, the ingestion rate, I don't know.

DR. TAULBEE: And but --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- but inhalation rate, I thought was the issue.

MEMBER BEACH: No; it's ingestion.

DR. TAULBEE: And so, what I want to check is -- OTIB-9 is what we 

currently use, from that standpoint, but I --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

DR. TAULBEE: -- want to go check the Battelle TBD, to see if that 

same methodology is in there. So give me a few minutes and we'll get back 

to you, sir.
 

63

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Thanks, Tim and David. Any other 

questions? We'll go ahead and hold the vote on this one if -- if that seems 

reasonable. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah.

MEMBER BEACH: And if there's no other questions, we can move on 

and come back to that.

MS. BEHLING: And I -- I will -- just to make another comment. And 

it's something I'll discuss in more detail when we get to other PERs. One of 

the things -- and certainly your questions should be answered -- one of the 

things that we do in this process is we also make sure that we -- SC&A is 

always tasked with going back and reviewing all the technical documents 

that were associated with this PER, and that led to the issuance of this PER. 

So I could pretty safely say that SC&A -- in fact, I -- SC&A reviewed 

Bethlehem Steel over and over. I mean, we had a lot of reviews on all the 

changes that were made on the Bethlehem Steel site. So just to reassure 

you that that -- those technical documents are looked at. If they're not 

looked at previously to the issuance of the PER, during the PER process that 

we have in place now, that does happen. So just wanted to make mention 

of that.

MEMBER BEACH: Thank -- thank you. Good clarification.

MS. BEHLING: And so, we're going to move on. I'm sorry. 

MEMBER BEACH: Yes, yes. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay. All right. 

MEMBER CLAWSON: Did you vote?

MEMBER BEACH: We're -- we're going to come back and vote after 
 

64

NIOSH gets a chance.

MS. BEHLING: Okay. All right. And this -- bear with me because this 

one's going to go on for a little while. We're -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.)

MS. BEHLING: Okay. We're -- we're -- what -- we're going to discuss 

two PERs. Did you -- was there a question? I'm sorry. 

MEMBER BEACH: No. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay. We're gonna discuss two PERs that are 

associated with the Huntington Pilot Plant, which, as you can see here, is 

also referred to as the Reduction Pilot Plant. And those are PER-25 and PER33. And SC&A reviewed these PERs in one report. We were tasked to put 

these two PERs together and issue a report as one report, and that was in 

July of 2013. And, again, the blue underlined wording here will take you to 

a link to that, a full -- a full report.

Okay. A busy slide here, but this is -- is providing a history of the 

Huntington TBD -- I'm -- yeah, TBD, and the associated PERs. The original 

TBD was issued in October of 2003. And it was issued as an Oak Ridge 

Associated University Team document, and that was a ORAUT-TKBS-4. And 

that was revised in January of 2004. This revision prompted PER-25 in 

September of 2007, which evaluated the addition of electron dose that was 

added to that technical basis document. Then in August 2008, the TBD was 

rewritten as an OCAS. It used to be the Office of Compensation, Analysis, 

and Support. Now it's the division, but then it was the -- an OCAS 

document. 

And this revision intakes for total uranium, Plutonium-239 and 
 

65

Neptunium-237 were added. That revision prompted the issuance of PER33. Then in 2013, the TBD was again revised to add intakes of Americium241, Thorium-230, and tech-99. And that prompted an increase in dose, 

and so PER-66 was issued. 

Now, SC&A's reviews of these -- of these documents are listed on this 

slide. The initial -- initially, we performed a review of the ORAUT TBD rev. 

1, and we did that as part of our eight set of dose reconstruction audits. 

And this was actually done under the subcommittee four dose reconstruction 

reviews. 

And during that review, that -- this was atypical. Back then, the sub -

- the board wanted us to take a better look at some of these TBD documents 

as part of the dose reconstruction process, and we did that as an 

attachment. It was considered an advanced review. We only did that in --

in a few cases, Huntington and Bridgeport Brass, a few of those cases we --

we did that type of thing, then we started reviewing these independently.

But as a result of that review, we did identify 12 findings. And 

thereafter SC&A was tasked to perform a focused review of the then OCAS 

TBD to determine if the findings that were identified in their eight-set review 

were actually addressed. Then certainly, thereafter, in June of 2013, we 

were tasked to perform a full review, not just focused, but a full review, of 

the OCAS-TKBD -- BS, technical basis, 0004. And today our discussions are 

focused, you know, on the two thousand and -- or two thousand -- or 2013 

review of PER-25 and 33 because at our August full-board meeting we 

discussed PER-66, and that was -- that was approved during -- during your 

last full board meeting. 
 

66

Okay. A little history of the Huntington Pilot Plant. And as I 

mentioned, it's also known as the Reduction Pilot Plant. The covered periods 

are 1951 through 1963, and again, 1978 through 1979. And their function 

was to supply nickel powder that was used to make gaseous diffusion 

barriers for Paducah and Portsmouth. And the feed materials were nickel 

out -- oxide and barrier scrap that was contaminated with uranium and 

associated radionuclides from the uranium enrichment process. 

So, we finally get to PER-25, which is the Huntington Pilot Plant 

revision. It was issued in September of 2007, and it determines the impact 

of changes to the ORAUT-TKBS-0004, revision 1. And the revision added 

external electron dose and therefore it impacted just adjudicated cases with 

specific cancers associated with the skin, the breast, and the testes. 

And PER-33 -- again, here's the title of the Reduction Pilot Plant -- was 

issued in December of 2011. And this determines the impact of changes 

introduced in the OCAS TBD. And that revision increased operator inhalation 

intakes from 3.8 pCi/day to 44 pCi/day. However, the revision also made 

changes to other exposure pathways, and those changes actually decreased 

doses in this revision. 

So here's where our new protocols came into play. And we have four 

subtasks. And subtask one is the assessment of NIOSH's evaluation of the 

issues prompting the PER, and their potential impact on dose reconstruction. 

And under this subtask, SC&A reviewed two technical changes to -- to 

applicable divisions -- yeah, revisions of the TBD. And we were able to 

confirm that the electron doses were added in the ORAUT TBD as addressed 

under PER-25. And we also verified that the operator inhalation intakes in --
 

67

increased, as described in PER-33. So, we had no findings under our 

subtask one review. 

Subtask two. This is where we assess NIOSH's specific methods for 

corrective action. And here's what I was mentioning earlier, and here's 

where SC&A reviews the technical guidance that -- leading up to the 

issuance of the PER. And in this case, SC&A, as you previously saw, had 

already reviewed all the TBDs. Therefore, under subtask two in that case, 

we simply summarized those reviews, and we confirm that the correction act 

-- corrective actions stated in the PERs properly addressed the TBD 

revisions. So we did them, and we were able -- then, therefore, we had no 

findings under subtask two. 

Subtask three. We evaluate the PER stated approach for identifying 

the number of dose reconstructions requiring a reevaluation of dose. And 

for PER-25, NIOSH identified only one case for the target organs that -- only 

one case that was adjudicated with a POC of less than 50 percent. And 

SC&A, at that time, searched NOCTS, and we were able to verify that -- that 

only one case was impacted. SC&A confirmed that NIOSH did rework this 

case, so we had no findings under subtask three for PER-25. 

Now on to PER-33. Here, NIOSH identified 32 cases with POCs of left -

-less than 50 percent prior to the TBD revision and employment between the 

covered periods. So NIOSH reworked -- rework of these cases: 12 cases 

resulted in a higher POC, the POC decreased for 20 cases, however, none of 

the reworks resulted in a POC of greater than 50 percent. Again, SC&A used 

NOCTS to verify that there were 32 cases impacted. We did verify that 

NIOSH reevaluated all of those cases and there were no findings under our 
 

68

subtask three for PER-33.

Now subtask four, here's where we recommend conducting an audit of 

a sample set of dose recon -- yeah, dose reconstructions affected by the 

PER. And for PER-25 it was pretty simple. There was one case that was reevaluated, and so we logically recommended that we review that case. 

Under PER-33. We -- yeah, SC&A recommended selecting cases based on 

the criteria that was internal dose assigned during the covered period. And 

shallow dose was assigned to the hands and forearm for equipment 

operators or maintenance workers also during the covered employment per -

- or the covered period for this site. 

SC&A -- what happens thereafter is we -- we write up a subtask four 

report. And we submitted this subtask four report for PER-25 in December 

of 2013. And that report was PA cleared and is available on the NIOSH 

website, however, highly redacted. So we presented our findings of the one 

impact -- impacted case at the February 2014 subcommittee on procedural 

reviews meeting. 

A review typically only focuses on -- we were asked to only focus on 

doses that are addressed in the PER. We sometimes do have some latitude 

there if it's a best estimate case or as we're going through the case if we see 

something that is -- there are significant differences between the -- the 

original and the revised, we do have some latitude to go ahead and look at 

that if we feel that the -- the advisory board would be interested in seeing or 

be asking the question as to why that was. So in this case, we only 

reviewed though the calculated shower dose, and SC&A had one finding. 

So for the new board members, I -- I'll just make mention that when 
 

69

we discuss these case reviews, we must be cautious about the amount of 

details that we provide due to privacy concerns, obviously. In this case, as I 

mentioned, the PA-cleared report is available online. 

So, but, for a brief -- just a brief background of what I can say, the 

EE, the energy employee in this case, obviously worked at Huntington Pilot 

Plant for numerous years during the covered period. There were no records 

of external or internal monitoring. And the EE was classified as a production 

worker, and that -- there were only a very -- several -- there were only 

several classifications as -- of workers, so it doesn't identify anyone in 

particular, and was diagnosed with a qualifying cancer during -- during the 

employment period. 

Okay. Here I provide -- since I -- I can't state the -- the assigned 

doses, this slide provides just a percentage of the differences between the 

reworked D -- DR and the original DR. And, as shown, all the dose 

categories, except internal, increased, resulting in an increase in the POC. 

And I have to make a correction here. I had -- I -- it was -- it's actually -- it 

did not make an increase in the POC, the POC decreased. And I apologize. I 

made a mistake on this slide, okay, pretty much.

Okay. Four. The original dose reconstruction was performed in --

back in 2003 under the ORAUT technical basis document. There was no --

there were no shallow doses assigned because the TBD didn't recommend it 

at that time. And for the rework of this dose reconstruction, it was reworked 

not only for the addition of the shallow dose, as addressed in PER-25, but 

also because the employment dates changed. The rework also assumed that 

the EE was a production worker. However, NIOSH did not assign the shallow 
 

70

dose in this case. And so, that, obviously, became our first finding. This 

worker had potential for a shallow dose, and we felt he -- it -- the case was 

pulled for PER review, but it was not -- a shallow dose was not assigned. 

And NIOSH agreed, but they also stated that correcting this error would not 

impact the compensability decision. So, therefore, no -- they felt that no 

further action was necessary. And the subcommittee agreed and they 

closed the finding. 

Now for PER-33, we reviewed two cases. Our subtasks full report was 

submitted in January of 2014, and we presented our findings to the 

subcommittee in February two thousand and -- at the 2014 meeting. The 

case reviews evaluated shallow dose of the hand and forearm as well as 

internal dose, and we had no findings. 

Again, a little background of case one. Employee worked there for 

several years, worked throughout the site. There were no records, 

monitoring records, for internal or external dose, and the cancer was 

diagnosed numerous years after the employment termination. 

Here's our comparison table. As you can see, external photon and 

electron doses decreased while occupational medical and internal dose 

increased, and this resulted in a decrease in the total dose and POC because 

the external photon and electron doses dominated the dose -- the dose for 

this particular case.

The -- and for case one, the original was performed in 2004, and it 

was done as an overestimating approach to calculating dose. And internal 

dose was calculated using the intake values from the ORAUT TBD Table 5. 

Doses were calculated using our chronic annual dose workbook, and the 
 

71

result -- and resulted in assigning a dose of -- a very modest dose of less 

than 10 millirem. 

For the shallow dose to the hand and forearm, it was assigned based 

on guidance in the ORAUT TBD. I have -- I have OCAS there -- that's 

incorrect. It was also the ORAUT TBD that was in place at is -- it was 

assigned .85 rem based on that, the ORAUT TBD, and these doses were 

entered into IREP as electrons greater than 15 keV. That was what was 

done for the original.

For the rework. for case one, the doses were calculated using 

production worker inhalation and ingestion values from Table 5 of the OCAS 

TBD. Again, CADW was used to calculate the internal dose for total 

uranium, Plutonium-239, and Neptunium-237. And NIOSH -- as specified in 

the TBD, NIOSH could -- compared absorption types from Table 5, and 

selected one -- the one that produced the higher dose. And this resulted in 

a total internal dose of a little bit greater than -- or less than 100 millirem. 

For the shallow dose, the annual shallow dose had been reduced significantly 

in the OCAS TBD and was based on values in Table 6. And this shallow dose 

represents a significant decrease, like I said, from the shallow dose in the 

original TBD. 

So SC&A's review, we concurred that the EE should be classified as 

actually a nonoperative worker, not production worker. We verified that 

NIOSH selected credit -- correct inhalation and ingestion values, and we 

confirmed that the selected solubility typed in produced the higher -- the 

higher dose. We were also able to verify that all values were appropriately 

entered into CADW. And we confirm that the correct shallow dose values 
 

72

were assigned and correctly entered into IREP. Therefore, we had no 

findings with the rework of case one.

Okay. On to case two. Again, the EE worked for many consecutive 

years at the Huntington Pilot Plant, and worked throughout the -- the plant. 

There were no monitoring records and the EE was diagnosed with a 

qualifying cancer during the employment period. Table -- again, soon as 

you go to that -- although occupation -- or although external and 

occupational medical doses decreased, the internal dose significantly 

increased, resulting in the total dose and POC to increase. And this increase 

was due to the addition of the various radionuclides, the uranium, 

plutonium, and neptunium, which was the reason for the issuance of PER-33. 

Now, for the original for case two, again, performed in 2003 as an 

overestimate, values were again taken from the ORAUT TBD Table 5, CADW 

used again, and this resulted in a dose of greater than 2 rem. For the 

rework, they used production worker inhalation and ingestion intake values, 

again, from the OCAS TBD. Doses were calculated for the added 

radionuclides using CADW and the Table 5 recommended solubility types 

were compared again and the higher used. And this resulted in a -- the 

assignment of greater than 18 rem for the total internal dose. And SC&A's 

conclusions, again, as with case one, we agreed with all of NIOSH's 

assumptions, and we were able to confirm the appropriate values were used 

to assess the internal dose, and so we had no findings with the rework of 

case two. 

And my apologies, but this was a long one it was two PERs put 

together. And when we go through the process of looking at case reviews, 
 

73

these can get a little bit lengthy. So thank you for bearing with me here.

MEMBER BEACH: No, Kathy. We appreciate your explanation on all of 

them also. Any questions on PER-25 or 33 and the process?

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: No. It's good -- good to see that the reworks 

worked out to really confirm that they -- they --

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Anyone -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: This is a very complex interrelationship with 

various -- I think there was plenty opportunity for whoever was doing it to 

make a mistake.

MEMBER BEACH: Correct. 

And, Kathy, you did a great job explaining the increases and why. 

So, anybody online have any comments or questions?

MEMBER CLAWSON: Josie, this is Brad, I don't.

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Thanks, Brad. We'll move to a vote. For 

PER-0025 and 00 -- or 033. 

Andy, that's --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. All -- all in favor of accepting it?

(Voice vote taken.) 

CHAIR ANDERSON: No opposed, I guess.

MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Let's move back to slide 20. I think, Tim, 

were you able to find that information? 

We'll go back to slide 20, Kathy, if you don't mind, and answer that 

question.

DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

MEMBER BEACH: Hopefully.
 

74

DR. TAULBEE: To answer your question shortly. Let me get to where 

it was quickly. Several things have happened since PER-3 that I want to 

briefly mention here. Number one is this is our third PER, and this was done 

in 2005-2006 type of time frame. In 2010 we made Bethlehem Steel an 

SEC, so this goes back to prior, you know, from that standpoint, and --

MEMBER BEACH: Sure.

DR. TAULBEE: -- the GPD had -- was updated in 2010. So what we --

what I was able to quickly get to is the 2010 version. 

MEMBER BEACH: Thank you. 

DR. TAULBEE: So but to answer your question of what it is that the 

TBD does, from this standpoint, is that we looked at the air concentration 

rates, along with surface contamination rates, and came up with a fractional 

rate of ingestion, based upon that surface contamination. I'm sorry, we 

came up with a ratio between the air concentration and the surface 

contamination to determine what that fractional rate was, based upon a 

distribution within RES RAT where we use the highest end, the highest 

value. And that's what the TBD is currently talking about, is that we look at 

the air concentration, and we apply a factor to estimate what that ingestion 

rate is. 

If you look at some of the methodology in OTIB-9 now, we would just 

use that surface contamination data. 

Does that answer your question, sir? Okay, thank you. 

MEMBER BEACH: Thank you. And thanks for the question. 

And it is, as we described, complex, and these do go back quite a 

ways. So, appreciate the questions. 
 

75

And thanks, Tim, for digging that out. 

So, can we go ahead and take a vote on -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yep. All in favor of accepting this --

MEMBER BEACH: PER-0003.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- OCAS-PER-0003?

(Voice vote taken.)

MEMBER BEACH: Okay, Kathy. You had a brief break. Now it's time 

for PER-038.

MS. BEHLING: Okay. You-all will be happy to know this is the last 

one. 

MEMBER BEACH: A long one.

MS. BEHLING: It a long one, so bear with me. Okay. This is DCAS 

now, PER-38. And it was issued in July of 2012 to assess the impact of 

changes to the Hooker Electrochemical TBD. And the TBD guidance was 

initially provided in the Battelle TBD-6001 Appendix AA. And in 2011, 

NIOSH published a standalone TBD which became DCAS-TKBS-0009. 

During this transition, NIOSH revised uranium intakes, which increased 

dose to nonoperators for the operational years, and this shallow dose intakes 

increased for all job categories during the residual period. The DCAS-TBD 

was revised in June of 2011 to correct errors in Tables 2, 3, and 6. And the 

corrections caused the external dose to operators to decrease during the 

operational years.

So SC&A's subtasks one through three review was submitted in May of 

2013, and we had no findings. Our report was discussed with the 

subcommittee at the November 2013 meeting. And our subtask four report 
 

76

was submitted October 2014, and we had no findings. The case review 

report was presented to the subcommittee at the November 2014 meeting. 

So, again, subtask one which is assessing NIOSH evaluation of the 

issues, prompting the PER and their potential impact on DRs, SC&A 

compared the changes and the applicable revisions of the TBD, and we were 

able to confirm that the uranium intakes and shallow-dose rates increased 

for the stated job categories and time frames, and that there were no doses 

or intakes that increased in the rev. 1 -- the rev. 1 TBD. So we had no 

findings under subtask one.

And subtask two, here's where we --

(Whereupon, there was an interruption when a board member speaks 

with an individual unmuted from the audio.)

MS. BEHLING: -- corrective actions. And under this subtask, we 

reviewed the applicable guidance documents, and SC&A did review the 

Battelle-TBD-6001 Appendix A in September 2010, and that is available 

online. And we reviewed the DCAS-TBD in March of 2013. And, again, that 

is available in a PA-cleared version. 

There were six findings identified as a result of the DCAS TBD review. 

And these findings were actually resolved under the purview of the uranium 

refining atomic weapons employers’ work group that was specifically 

assigned to them. And as part of the subtask two, SC&A did confirm that 

PER-38's corrective action -- corrective actions were properly addressed in 

the modifications of rev. 0 and rev. 1, so we had no findings under subtask 

two. 

And I will make mention also, typically -- David Allen (ph), I think, 
 

77

confirmed this before he left -- all of the PERs are typically reviewed under 

the procedure subcommittee, even if the technical documents are reviewed 

elsewhere. It's usually the procedure subcommittee that reviews the PER.

Okay. Subtask three, this is where we evaluate the approach for 

identifying the number of post reconstructions that were -- needed 

reevaluation. And NIOSH identified two populations of potentially affected 

cases. Both populations included cases with POCs of less than 50 percent, 

and the previous DR was approved prior to April 4, 2011 -- ‘11, which 

represents the issue -- issue date of the TBD rev. 0.

Population one also included EEs with employment during the residual 

period, and they were diagnosed with a qualifying -- not -- nonqualifying 

cancer, as I've listed there -- and apologize -- that is impacted by shallow 

dose. And this resulted in them identifying 14 findings. And for population 

two, it -- the -- it also included cases where the EE worked during the 

operational period. So NIOSH is -- NIOSH identified a total of 53 cases that 

potentially needed to be reworked. However, 33 of the cases were 

eliminated, because the Es -- the EEs in those cases were assigned to the 

operator category. The remaining 20 cases will be reevaluated by NIOSH. 

The rework of these cases resulted in nine cases that were less than 45 

percent POCs, and one case that fell between 45 and 50 percent POC.

SC&A agrees with NIOSH's selection criteria, and we determined that 

these criteria will encompass the -- the universe of potentially affected 

cases. We verified that none of the reworks exceeded 50 percent; and, 

therefore, we had no findings under the subtasks three review.

(Whereupon, there was an interruption when a board member speaks 
 

78

with an individual when unmuted from meeting audio.) 

DR. ROBERTS: Hi. It appears that someone's not on mute. Maybe, 

Brad? Is that you? Maybe you just want to go on mute?

MEMBER CLAWSON: No, I'm on mute. I just tapped on mute just to 

make sure. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay.

DR. ROBERTS: Yeah, okay. I think we're good. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay. Thank you. And then moving on to subtask 

four, here, initially, SC&A recommended that the case reviews be deferred 

until the TBD findings were resolved. The six findings that were initially 

identified -- but ultimately, the advisory board and the subcommittee 

selected three cases for our review. So SC&A submitted our review of those 

three cases in October of 2014. And the review evaluated the rework of 

external and internal dose in this particular case. 

In these cases, we determined that NIOSH documented their 

recalculated doses and resulting POCs in a one -- usually one- or two-page 

Word file. And this was the first time that SC&A had encountered this 

approach for reworking these cases, because typically, they did a full -- a full 

report. So we did report that back to the subcommittee, and to the DFO, 

and it was determined that we shouldn't just use the data that they 

provided, and NIOSH said that -- that they -- the internal evaluation method 

for these cases, since it didn't result in a POC of greater than 50 percent, 

they concluded that there was no formal dose reconstruction revision 

needed, and -- and it didn't need to be submitted to the DOL. So that was 

accepted. 
 

79

I'm sure they -- it was an efficiency approach. Why do another dose 

reconstruction if you don't have to. So we just took the data that was listed 

in their one- to two-page report, and we based our assumptions -- and we 

did our review based on that data. And we always had access to Dave Allen 

(ph) and NIOSH if we had questions along the way. 

So, the background for case one, again, the EE worked during the 

operational period and a portion of the residual period, and worked 

throughout the site, and there were no internal or external monitoring 

records found. And the D -- the EE was diagnosed with qualifying cancer 

after termination of employment. 

Okay. Here's our table of comparison of doses. And external doses 

decreased, however, the internal dose represented the higher dose. So the 

77 percent increase also resulted in an increase in the total dose and POC. 

Okay. The original dose reconstruction for case one was completed in 

2008. And, again, used overestimating approach to estimate dose. The EE 

was assumed to be nonoperator job classification. And then, therefore, 

external doses were based on that job category, and take -- and data was 

taken from Table AA.3 of the Battelle TB -- TBD -- yeah, TBD. 

External doses were multiplied by the appropriate exposure to organ 

dose conversion factor from the implementation guide 001, which is the 

external dose implementation guideline. These doses were entered into 

IREP as 100 percent 30 to 250 keV photons. And this resulted in the 

assignment of approximately 2 rem of external dose.

For the rework, NIOSH assumed that the EE was an operator, and this 

was done as a claimant-favorable assumption. Dose values from handling 
 

80

source material and contamination were taken from Table 5 of the DCAS 

TBD for the operational period. External doses for the residual period were 

extracted from Table 6, and the rework also applied the exposure to organ 

DCS from IG-001 and assigned doses as 100 percent 30-250 keV photons. 

Due to a significant reduction in the external dose rates of red -- in rev. one 

of the TBD, this resulted in only a total dose assignment of less than 100 

millirem. 

Okay. For internal dose for the original, there were no bio -- bioassay 

records, but the original DR assumed that the EE directly was involved in 

uranium operations and source material was inhaled and ingested. And the 

internal intake values for a nonoperator are what was considered in that TBD 

plant floor low were taken from Table AA.1. Doses were calculated using 

IMBA and assuming claimant favorable type-S solubility and the reas -- this 

resulted in the assignment of nearly 8 rem. 

Now, for the rework, the inhalation and ingestion values were taken 

from the DCAS TBD for operational and residual periods. Again, the -- this 

TBD was revised, and the comparison of solubility types M and S was 

performed using IMBA, and it was determined that type S resulted in a 

higher dose. Annual photon -- Alpha doses -- I'm sorry -- and were entered 

into IREP as constant values, and this resulted in an interval dose of greater 

than 14 rem. 

So SC&A's assessment of internal and external dose, we were again 

able to confirm that the appropriate operational and residual intake values 

were used. The only thing we did note is that there was some deviation 

from the TBD guidance where contamination dose distribution was supposed 
 

81

to be entered as 80.3 percent less than --

MEMBER BEACH: Kathy?

MS. BEHLING: Yes?

MEMBER BEACH: Hi, sorry. It sounds like we missed a little bit of 

what you were saying on this one.

MS. BEHLING: Okay. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now? 

MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay. Should I just restart this slide? 

MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay. I'm sorry. Again, for SC&A's assessment of the 

internal and external doses, we were able to confirm that the appropriate 

operational and residual intake values were used. The only thing we noted 

is that the TBD specifies that the contamination dose distribution be entered 

into IREP as 80.3 percent less than 30 keV, 12.3 percent 30 to 250 keV, and 

7.5 percent as less than 250 keV. However, the rework just assumed 100 

percent 30 to 250 keV, and that is really, actually, a claimant-favorable 

assumption. And, as I said, this is at a time when NIOSH was recalculating 

these doses using a more abbreviated and claimant-favorable approach to 

attempt to determine whether this case was going to go over 50 percent or 

not, and then alleviate them from having to do a full-dose reconstruction. 

So, for internal dose, SC&A verified that the correct inhalation and 

ingestion values were used. We confirmed that type-S solubility produced 

the higher dose and that the annual doses were entered into IREP 
 

82

appropriately. So using the recalculated doses, SC&A reran IREP, and we 

confirmed that NIOSH's PO -- POC value was appropriate, and we had no 

findings with a rework of case one. 

Okay. And on to case two. And I won't elaborate a lot on these cases 

because there's so much that is very similar. You can see here, the 

individual worked, again, during operational and -- and portions of the 

residual period. They -- this individual was in a non -- a nonoperator role. 

There were no monitoring records, and they were diagnosed -- diagnosed 

with the qualifying cancer numerous years after employment termination. 

And here's our comparison table. Again, the rework resulted in very 

large increase in the internal dose that impacted the total dose and POC. 

Again, original post reconstruction used claimant-favorable assumptions and 

did -- did consider that the EE was a -- in a nonoperator job classification. 

All other assumptions were the same as in case one. And this resulted in a 

dose of less than 100 millirem. 

For the rework, again, a job category of operator laborer was assumed 

for claimant-favorable reasons. All the assumptions were the same as for 

case one, so I won't elaborate. And that -- this resulted in a total external 

dose of less than 10 millirem. 

For internal dose, there were no bioassay records and NIOSH, again, 

used all the same values and assumptions as in case one in the original that 

was pulled out of the Battelle-TBD-6001 Appendix AA, and this resulted in an 

internal dose of less than 1 rem. 

Again, as you can see on this slide, all case two assumptions were the 

same as case one, and this resulted, again, in an internal dose of greater 
 

83

than 13 rem. SC&A was able to confirm that all the values that were used 

were correct and that the assumptions were claimant favorable. Once again, 

we noted the contamination dose distributions as being different than the 

TBD but still claimant favorable. And so, we had no findings with the 

calculations for this case number two. 

Case number three, our last case, this EE briefly worked during the 

operation period and through the entire residual period. Again, worked 

throughout the -- the plant but had no monitoring records and had a 

qualifying cancer diagnosed numerous years after termination. This 

individual had -- was diagnosed with two cancers, as you can see on the --

this table. Although cancer two internal dose increased several fold, the 

doses were modest and did not really impact the POC. 

Okay. Again, the original DR used claimant favorable assumptions. 

The EE was classified as an operator. And the dose values in DCS were 

consistent with cases one and two, and that resulted in a dose of greater 

than 3 rem for cancer one and greater than 3 rem for cancer two. 

The rework -- the rework for this case used the same parameters as 

for cases one and two. Operational doses were prorated in this case with 

part -- partial years of exposure. Cancer one also had an electra -- an 

electron component associated with it. And for cancer one, the photon 

doses were less than 100 millirem, and the electron doses were greater than 

1 rem. For cancer two, the external doses for less than 100 millirem. 

Okay. Again, for the internal dose, all the same parameters and 

intake values were used. The doses were calculated based on -- in this 

particular case, on type-M solubility, and that resulted in an internal dose of 
 

84

less than 100 millirem. 

And for the rework, intake values were taken from the appropriate 

tables in the DCAS TBD. There were three intake regimes used to calculate 

the dose. There was an operational inhalation, operational ingestion, and a 

residual inhalation intakes. They compared types M and S solubility with M 

resulting in the higher dose. The alpha doses were entered as constants into 

IREP, and this resulted in internal dose less than 100 millirem for cancer one 

and nearly 2 rem for cancer two. 

Okay. And lastly, SC&A was able to confirm that appropriate operator 

and residual dose values were taken from the Table 5 of the revised TBD. 

SC&A’s calculations matched NIOSH -- NIOSH's assigned dose. And, again, 

we just note that there was a difference in the dose distributions assigned by 

the rework, as opposed to what was specified in the TBD, but this was 

claimant favorable.

And SC&A's conclusion about the internal dose, again, we were able to 

confirm the appropriate values were used. We recalculated the doses, and 

we were able to match NIOSH’s calculations. And we've -- even though the 

IREP doses were entered -- different than what was specified in the TBD, 

they were claimant favorable. And so, we reran IREP and we confirm 

NIOSH's POC values. So we had no findings with the rework of case three. 

Finally, we are through PER-038, which was for Hooker 

Electrochemical.

MEMBER BEACH: Thanks. Just a quick comment for me. Having the 

procedures embedded into your slides was very helpful for questions I had, I 

was able to go back. And I really do appreciate the extra effort that you put 
 

85

into that. Thank you. 

Other questions, comments?

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Dave Kotelchuck. Kathy, if you go back to 

slide 74, there was a typo about the 7.5 percent -- the 7.5 percent was 

above 250 keV. It was just a typo.

MS. BEHLING: Okay. And which slide? I'm sorry, I didn't --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, I was told that it was slide 74. I can't 

see -- 

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah, it's 74.

MS. BEHLING: Okay. And where did I make a mistake?

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Noted TBD the distribution 80 percent less 

than 30, 12 percent 30 to 250, and 74-5 -- 7.5 percent above 250. Of 

course, it was a -- it was a -- it was -- the sign is should be -- 

MS. BEHLING: Oh, oh, oh, --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: (Indiscernible) --

MEMBER BEACH: (Indiscernible) --

MS. BEHLING: Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Yes. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And this is minimal, however, -- 

MS. BEHLING: You are -- you -- you are correct. I didn't --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah. And but more substantially, I'm 

concerned that there was a decimal point missing in a couple of slides down 

where you did the review when you gave us the percentages increase. 

There was one POC that you listed -- I think was around 76 or something --

10-10 percent increase. I think there -- 
 

86

MEMBER CLAWSON: A thousand.

MEMBER BEACH: It's 1,000.

MEMBER CLAWSON: It was.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: 1,000 percent increase. That's -- I -- I just 

sort of did a little bit of the arithmetic, and I don't think -- I think there's a 

decimal point off here.

MS. BEHLING: Actually, it has to do with the -- and I can't say too 

much. It -- it has to do with the -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, I --

MS. BEHLING: -- the original dose being extremely low and the 

rework being much, much higher. And --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. And I --

MEMBER CLAWSON: (Indiscernible) -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- respect that. And I asked no more 

questions, but I do ask you just to check the arithmetic on that -- 

MS. BEHLING: I will do that, thank you.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- with the actual POC because I --

MS. BEHLING: Okay. And I will get that --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- work out and making -- making an 

assumption of a very small original POC.

MS. BEHLING: Yes. I will do that and get back to you.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I think it's a decimal point, honestly. But we'll 

see. 

MS. BEHLING: Okay.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Thanks.
 

87

MEMBER BEACH: Any other questions, comments on this?

MEMBER POMPA: Josie, this is David -- 

MEMBER BEACH: David, --

MEMBER POMPA: -- Pompa. There was a comment that was made, 

there was no internal or external monitoring available, no data. Are we, as a 

board, concerned that there isn't any, or is it not our business that they 

didn't take care of that?

MEMBER BEACH: We're -- we're always concerned if there's no dose 

or records available, which are -- is there a specific slide you're referring to 

or...?

MEMBER POMPA: Well, it was mentioned several times, --

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah. 

MEMBER POMPA: You know, so -- 

MS. BEHLING: This --

MEMBER ZIEMER: Well -- this is Ziemer -- keep in mind that there are 

also cases where there's no personal monitoring data. However, NIOSH has 

methodologies for determining or assessing dose based on other factors 

such as monitoring -- area monitoring data or source term data, air -- air 

monitoring, surface monitoring, and so on. 

MEMBER POMPA: Yeah.

MEMBER ZIEMER: So, we often have cases such as this.

MEMBER POMPA: Well, let me --

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- particularly for individuals who were -- for 

example one of these --

MEMBER POMPA: Yeah.
 

88

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- is a clerical worker. They aren't monitored.

MEMBER POMPA: Let me refine my question. Is it our business to ask 

them why and to take corrective actions to avoid not having that data in the 

future?

MEMBER BEACH: We do that or we do discuss that early on. 

And I think, Kathy, you were gonna say something here?

MS. BEHLING: I know --

MEMBER BEACH: I thought I -- 

MS. BEHLING: -- I was -- I'm sorry. I was just bringing up slides to 

show that, yes, there is -- I think all of these cases, in all of these particular 

cases for the Hooker Electrochemical, there were no external or internal 

monitoring. That's the things that we review when we go in and look at the 

TBDs. How are we assessing the internal and external doses when there are 

no monitoring records.

MEMBER BEACH: It's a good question. I can't answer it. NIOSH 

probably can give you an overview. But this does come up, which is why we 

have all the procedures and coworker models.

And Tim's coming up to the mic, so.

DR. TAULBEE: Yes, thank you. This one is another rather interesting 

case here of where reviewing a PER that is old for a site, that the PER --

where the TBD was updated, the PER was issued, and then an SEC was 

designated afterwards. And in this particular case, the SEC was designated 

because at the original TBD we were using surrogate data, and under the 

review -- the board reviewed that TBD and agreed that we could do dose 

reconstruction. 
 

89

And then, upon appeal to the secretary, a separate panel that was 

discussed yesterday, reviewed the basis for this or that -- or why we felt we 

could do dose reconstruction and why you-all agreed with us. And they felt 

that surrogate data was not appropriate from that standpoint, and the 

secretary designated a class in this particular case. So, what you're looking 

at right now is all the PER that was done previously to this designation of an 

SEC class. And that was in September of 2015. 

The TBD, we revised again in 2016, and then we issued a new PER, 

PER-081, for this exact site to address those changes to the TBD, looked at 

all of the cases. And then, in April of 2018, SC&A reviewed PER-81. And 

then last December, the board closed PER-81 associated with this site.

MEMBER FRANK: This is Arthur Frank. I -- I think what David is really 

asking, if I understand it, is since this seems to be a recurring problem 

where there are instances where there's no monitoring data, when that is 

seen in the review that this board does, is there any comment back to the 

site or to the installation where this data wasn't collected, that they really 

ought to have been collecting this data, or is that not part of our purview?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's really -- 

MEMBER ZIEMER: Let me answer that in part, and, Tim, you can add 

to it. Many of these sites don't exist anymore. We're talking about sites 

that worked decades ago for the -- in -- in the weapons program, that don't 

exist, or sites that -- where the information is not available, and even --

even our national labs, some of the early days, the data is not what it would 

be today, and they, of course, have since corrected it. 
 

90

But, Tim, go ahead.

DR. TAULBEE: I was going to say exactly that. Many of these sites 

don't exist anymore, so there's nobody to go back to and, you know, 

recommend, you know, you should increase your monitoring gear from that 

standpoint. And if you think of over the time, monitoring has increased 

tremendously across the standards for who gets monitored and who doesn't. 

But there are times, you know, where there could be an opportunity where a 

-- a site may not be monitoring folks and -- and I don't know the board has 

ever weighed in on making a recommendation back to a site. But we 

haven't gotten to that situation yet, of a site that's still existing and still in 

operation, I guess I should say, that I'm aware of.

MEMBER BEACH: We might -- we might -- we may have some in the 

future. But yeah. These -- this is a tough one. And those are great 

questions, and we appreciate the questions. Like I said, we are going 

through a backlog. A lot of these are before I was even involved in 

procedures of trying to go ahead and cross our T's dot our I's and make sure 

we have a tracking and a system and what was done and how it was done. 

And so, that's the result of this -- what you're seeing today and the large 

volume. It's a lot of information. And appreciate the questions that --

hopefully that your questions were answered.

MEMBER FRANK: Well, what it is, what it seems, is that the board 

hasn't taken a view. I mean, I could hypothetically think of a situation of a 

currently functioning site that, let's say, somebody who is maybe labeled as 

a clerical worker who might not get a badge, who has to go out to the work 

sites and -- and see workers out there, even though they’re labeled clerical, 
 

91

who gets exposure, but they've never been badged, and, you know, that 

may be a situation that still comes up. And the question, I think, that David 

was asking, and what I'm asking now, as well, is -- does this board, for 

those sites that are still operating, if we see such a situation where 

somebody has had exposure but was not badged, that we make a 

recommendation that they increase the badging of the people who may be 

exposed.

MEMBER BEACH: Can -- Paul, if you go back on to slide 70, that was 

one of the cases here. The original was a nonclerical, but they went back,

and it was an operator. So, they made that correction in this presentation, 

also. 

And, Paul, what?

MR. ZIEMER: Well, we can make that correction in terms of how we 

evaluate it. This board is not authorized and does not have the 

responsibility of telling DOE labs how they should operate, nor do we set 

radiation standards, nor do we determine risk values, or organ doses. Those 

are done by agencies that have that responsibility. So I would say for us to 

go back and say that a certain laboratory should do certain operations, that 

might be something DOE would have to take care of, in terms of -- and --

and there are federal regulations for -- for non-DOE labs, and there are --

like 10 CFR 835 for the DOE labs. Those set the standards on what they 

have to do on monitoring and that sort of thing. That's -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah. Make -- 

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- that's outside of our purview.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah. May I -- may I talk about the glass 
 

92

being half full, not half empty? And we -- we -- our responsibility is to the 

claimants, that the government has said that people who worked in these 

jobs who got cancer with radiation exposure, they -- there should be some 

compensation. They set up a system. So, affirmatively, our responsibility, 

our key one, is fairness and equity for the claimants. Once the claims have 

been made and we've assessed them, we -- there -- there's no -- there's no 

particular function in saying going forward. 

What -- what is a function is that if you look back at our SECs, many 

of our SECs cover periods up to the '70s and '80s. This is just my personal 

observation, that before the '70s and '80s, before we knew enough how to 

proceed, and what's responsible in terms of checking out people's health and 

an exposure, we gave SECs because they -- they weren't collecting the data.

By the '70s, it seems to me, we are big -- we are all understanding the

-- look, we have to do a better job. And people started doing measurements 

and started giving people badges and things of that sort. And so, things 

improved. And, in fact, by the mid '80s, and by the '90s, we don't get as 

many SECs because people know -- people who are the responsible 

industrial hygienists and radio -- radioactivity of monitors, those folks, aren't 

doing the job that they were asked. 

So -- so it is being taken care of, if you will. But, in a sense, there's 

no -- once we decide on a claimant, there's no going forward to -- to make -

- make advice. I assume people there at the site, if the site is functioning, 

read the -- read our reports and read and understand why people are or are 

not getting their claims...

MEMBER FRANK: And I appreciate the glass sort of half full and the 
 

93

system has been self-correcting to a large extent, it seems, over the years 

where things have --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah.

MEMBER FRANK: -- improved, and badging has gotten better. But, 

you know, we are an advisory board. You know, we don't make the 

determination of the regulations; DOE may do that, NIOSH, others, may --

may actually do the regulations, but, you know, everybody is a potential 

future claimant that might come to this board. And with that in mind, 

preventive measures, such as, if we see something that is, as this board 

thinks inappropriate in terms of noncollection of data -- and it may not have 

-- it -- it may truly not exist at this point. But I would hope that if we saw 

that, that we would make some comment.

MEMBER BEACH: (Indiscernible.) 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And certainly, NRC exists.

MEMBER BEACH: Of course. Good conversation -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- forward.

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah. So let's go back to PER-038. We've agreed 

that all subtasks have been completed, NI -- SC&A has reviewed and 

agreed, so are we ready to vote on this or do we have more discussion 

on...? 

CHAIR ANDERSON: I think we can. I mean, I think one -- one of the 

issues, as you get to review individual cases and things, there's a lot goes 

into it. So, yes, they may not have been monitored, but the question is, 

when we do these dose reconstruction estimates, that question is would they 

possibly have had exposure sufficient to reach a 50 percent probability? So 
 

94

that --

(Whereupon, a board member has a discussion with an individual while 

not muted from the meeting audio.)

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- a lot of these are reworked really down in a --

in a low exposure, because that's what the estimate is likely. And now, 

would we like to have them monitored, some people monitored -- and again, 

you look at the age of the individuals, a lot of these might currently be 

working, but they've worked for the past 40 years, as well. 

So it's -- it's -- this is some -- just to see when issues have been 

identified, have they then been corrected in -- in the estimates going 

forward. And, again, early on, the estimates were done worst case. And 

you'll see, some of these when they came in, the pressure was to try to 

make a determination. You could either say well, based on the information 

we have, they were -- would never have gotten enough exposure. Now, we 

argue about is that an appropriate -- appropriate assessment that they could 

not have. 

And then part of it is listening to the workers, to say well, was there a 

special event? And, again, on some of these sites, they haven't been able to 

read -- they may have had testing done, but they have been unable to 

recover any documents. So the workers may say, oh, yeah, we are tested, 

but nowhere is -- is there any records. And then, again, some of the 

laboratories were suspect. So, we've had to eliminate those. 

So, but again, if we don't have any data, you can either say well, let's 

go -- I mean, for some of these sites, they start looking, and then oh, they 

identify there're 70 or 15 boxes of records. And then we have -- then 
 

95

NIOSH has to go try and recover those and see what those -- would those 

have exposures in them. And you can't -- I mean, the board's sense for the 

workers is you can't chase these kinds of things forever. You have to pick a 

point and say well, we have to move on and make a decision on this. And 

that may well be an SEC kind of an issue. 

So it's -- it's okay -- you're kind of coming in, and some of these 

issues that, you know, are complicated because of the -- 2008, I mean, 

that's a long time ago when some of these were looked at, so. But it's good 

that you raise the issues and -- and look forward to more discussion. I 

mean, we've -- we've had some of these discussions earlier in the -- this one 

is as -- you know, NIOSH made their -- on Hooker they made the 

determination they could do the dose reconstructions. 

And the case they made of why they could to the board at the time, 

board said yeah, that -- that sounds reasonable. And then it was 

challenged, and a whole new group took a look at it and said how could you 

poss -- I mean, sort of, this kind of a thing -- how could you possibly say 

you can do dose reconstruction when there were -- there was no data. 

And then they made that determination that the system has that built 

in, you can challenge our decision to either endorse what NIOSH did or at 

times we've disagreed, and said we don't think the data are strong enough

to be able to do -- so that's partially what we spend a lot of time on, and 

especially subgroup meetings, is going over these kinds of things and 

coming back to the whole board to see how do we weigh that because we 

are making an independent decision. 

So with that confusing comment, we appreciate your viewpoint, and I 
 

96

will look forward to further discussion.

MEMBER BEACH: And we're looking to add members to the 

subcommittees, -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah.

MEMBER BEACH: -- so if you're interested, let -- let Rashaun know. 

Any other comments out there?

MEMBER VALERIO: This is Loretta. I had reached out to Kathy, and 

she responded very quickly. When I was reading through the slides, I -- I 

had a little bit of confusion. 

And if Kathy doesn't mind going back to slide 75, or starting at 75, I 

guess.

Okay. So for case two, it states that the employee worked in a 

nonoperator role. 

So, Kathy, if you would, go on to the next couple of slides.

(Whereupon, a cell phone sounds.)

MEMBER VALERIO: Sorry, that was my phone. And, again, here on 

the second bullet, it says, you know, it was assumed that the employee's job 

category was a nonoperator. So, we'll go forward to the next slide. So on 

the first bullet here, it -- it kind of switched a little bit on me. And I was 

confused, being a fairly new member to this committee. It says that the 

employee's job category was an operator laborer. So, were they operator or 

nonoperator? That's the first question. 

And then if we go on to the next slide. The third bullet says they use 

the internal intake values for a clerical worker. So my question was, and --

and I had to go back and read this a couple of times and get clarification 
 

97

from Kathy -- one, were they an operator or nonoperator? That's the first 

question. The second question was if they used the internal intake values 

for a clerical worker versus the internal intake value for a -- for an operator, 

how would that effect the overall POC?

MS. BEHLING: Okay. To answer your first question, and I apologize if 

I didn't explain this more clearly during the presentation. This individual is a 

nonoperator. They are classified as a clerical worker. The reason that 

NIOSH on the rework assumed the individual was in the operator laborer 

category -- and one of the other things I'll make mention of, between the 

Battelle TBD and the DCAS TBD, these job categories changed. They 

changed from -- they used to say plant floor high, plant floor low, that type 

of thing, but there was only like four -- three or four job categories. The 

reason that NIOSH reworked the case using the operator dose is because it 

was more claimant favorable. 

They wanted to ensure when they went through their internal rework 

process that they used claimant-favorable assumptions to determine will this 

case change -- will the compensation decision change on this particular 

case? So, in order for them to avoid having to do a complete rework -- and if 

that had happened, if they would have found that the POC was even 

between 45 and 50, I think they would have gone back and done a complete 

rework. But based on what they did internally, using claimant-favorable 

assumptions, they were able to determine that that POC would not change. 

So, I hope that -- 

Yes? Okay.

MEMBER CASSANO: I have a follow-up question to that then. If they 
 

98

were considered a claim -- an operator laborer, why would they use the 

internal dose for a clerical worker who is obviously a nonoperator?

MS. BEHLING: What I'm showing here on this slide is the internal 

dose -- this was for the original dose reconstruction. They did go in and look 

at the type of worker this was and classify that worker appropriately, but 

when the rework was done, they -- they, again, used information and data. 

So what I'm showing here is -- this was the original, and the rework 

assumed that this -- this particular worker would have been exposed to 

higher levels. Does that make sense?

MEMBER CASSANO: Okay. It looked -- it was -- because of the 

chronology, it looked like -- because that slide came afterwards -- 

MS. BEHLING: Right.

MEMBER CASSANO: -- it looked like right now they were determined 

to be an operator. You were still using clerical worker internal intake.

MS. BEHLING: Yeah. I apologize for not going into more detail there. 

The original assumed the appropriate job classification. The rework 

assumed a more claimant-favorable higher dose, higher intake position or 

category, just in order to assure themselves that the POC was not going to 

go over 50 percent. And had that happened, they would have done a fulldose reconstruction report and submitted it to -- to DOL. 

MEMBER CASSANO: Thank you.

MEMBER BEACH: Loretta, does that answer for you, too?

MEMBER VALERIO: That does and that's basically -- when Kathy 

responded to me, and she explained. So, I thank you, Kathy, for that, but I 

do see where there could be a little bit of confusion the way that it's 
 

99

documented in the slide. But, thank you, Kathy, for responding to me and 

for clarifying that. I do appreciate --

MS. BEHLING: Okay, thank you. I -- I, again, I apologize, if I wasn't 

as clear as I should have been. You know, there's so many slides to go 

through, and so, I may have gone a little bit faster than I should have. But 

I'll -- I'll try to be more mindful of that next time.

MEMBER BEACH: No. It was a lot of -- and great clarification. Any 

other comments, questions?

CHAIR ANDERSON: So, we're going to approve to the review and the 

closeout of PER-030 -- no, -- 

MEMBER BEACH: 038.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- 038. Right. 

MEMBER BEACH: Right.

CHAIR ANDERSON: So the one thing you almost need to say is you 

had to be there with the discussion because the committee goes over this a 

lot and now we get kind of inundated with it. So it is interesting to sit in and 

listen to, which you certainly can, if you want. So, with that, we'll vote. All 

in favor say aye.

(Voice vote taken.)

CHAIR ANDERSON: Good. Okay. I didn't hear any nays. So, we're 

now -- we've adopted this and we're going to now go to lunch. 

MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 

And thank you again, Kathy. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: We're going to -- 

MEMBER BEACH: -- a lot of -- 
 

100

(Whereupon, multiple attendees began discussions while unmuted on 

audio.) 

CHAIR ANDERSON: And we're gonna do -- we don't have -- we don't 

need the full hour and a half for board work session.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: So, have we finished with Kathy's report? 

MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes. That was the last -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Don't we have to have one vote on the 

record?

MEMBER ZIEMER: We voted -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: We just did. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: We voted. We voted unanimously -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Each one -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- each one, okay. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah. We don't need to combine them and vote 

again. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. We don't need them on the record in 

person for this. Okay.

CHAIR ANDERSON: If we combine them, then somebody may have a 

problem with one of them --

MEMBER ZIEMER: Yeah.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- and it just churns. So that's why I like to -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Sure, sure, sure.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- do one at a time moving forward. Yeah. Okay. 

So now we're going to come back around two o'clock.
 

101

MEMBER ZIEMER: (Indiscernible.)

DR. ROBERTS: How about we do about 2:15 for the roll call for board 

members --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay.

DR. ROBERTS: --- just to give you the full time back, and we will take 

that time from the board work session.

(Whereupon, a lunch break was taken from 12:47 p.m. until 2:15 

p.m.)

DR. ROBERTS: I'm going to start with attendance. 

(Roll call.)

DR. ROBERTS: Okay, great. So we're gonna get started with the rest 

of the agenda, and I'd just like to remind people that if you're not speaking, 

just make sure you're on mute, either on Zoom or on the telephone. Also, 

you want to identify yourself before asking questions or making comments 

and please speak one person at a time. Thank you. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: It's now, Chuck. Go ahead. 

Special Exposure Cohort Petition Status Updates

MR. NELSON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I'll go ahead and get 

started here. Can you hear me out there in telephone land and computer 

land? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, we can.

MR. NELSON: Okay, great. Thank you. My name is Charles Nelson. 

I'll be doing the SEC update on the DCAS-SEC team lead. We do this update 
 

102

at every advisory board meeting to update the petitioners, general public, 

and advisory board, just where we are with our SEC petitions. So we'll let 

you know how many we have in qualification, if they qualified, how many 

are under evaluation, or how many are currently with the advisory board, 

and any potential NIOSH-initiated SEC petitions, which we talked about 

yesterday, was there any 314s. 

Okay. Petitions received to date: We have received a total of 260 

petitions. We have no petitions in qualific -- in the qualification process. 

Thus far, we have qualified 153 petitions for evaluation. There are no new 

evaluations in progress. And right now, we have ten reports with the 

advisory board. We'll talk about those here briefly shortly. And there was 

107 petitions, thus far, but that did -- that did not qualify for evaluation. 

Okay. The first step. A petition under evaluation is Lawrence 

Livermore National Lab. It's from 1990 to 1995. This was a reserve period, 

so I -- I think we had some updates on this on the last teleconference 

meeting, but it's SEC petition 221 and the NIOSH team was able to perform 

an onsite data capture in September 2022. LaVon discussed it earlier. We 

were talking about classified documents, and we were able to get onsite, 

select some documents for retrieval. And currently, they're with the 

classification office at Lawrence Livermore. So those should be hopefully 

(indiscernible) sometime soon.

The next (indiscernible) the 10 SEC petitions that are with the advisory 

board. So the evaluation reports have been presented. They were 

submitted to the advisory board, and there's been, for many of these, a lot 

of work done. And so, the update for those are as follows: We had a 
 

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Hanford SEC-57. We closed all the SEC issues except those related to 

ongoing coexposure monitoring efforts. So the details on all of these, you 

know, if the workgroup members want to discuss them further in the 

advisory -- advisory board work session, then please, feel free to do so, but 

these are overviews. 

The next one is Savannah River site SEC-103. And we're working on 

resolving issues by SC&A and the workgroup. There were five issues related 

to report 92, and I've seen some email traffic going -- trying to get a work 

group meeting set up for mid to late March. So that's just a projection at 

this point, I believe. Nothing set in stone that I know of.

Rashaun. 

DR. ROBERTS: It was scheduled -- 

MR. NELSON: It was?

DR. ROBERTS: -- the March 22nd.

MR. NELSON: Okay. So that was prior to my presentation being 

completed. And I -- like I said, I saw lots of traffic. So, March 22nd. Okay.

Next one under advisory board review is Los Alamos National Lab, 

that's SEC-109. Again, we're working with SC&A and the work group. 

They've been looking over some reports 101 and 102. They were assigned 

to do a (indiscernible) work group meeting in 2022. And recently, here --

well, a couple of months ago, in September of 2022, we sent over a report 

103, which was a review of potential exposures to exotic radionuclides using 

the radiation work permits. And so, that is over for review at the advisory 

board. 

Next up would be Idaho National Lab, that's SEC-218. Again, working 
 

104

with SC&A (indiscernible) work group to resolve issues. And, again, I guess 

that would be next week there's a data capture trip to INL, so that'll be for 

both I -- INL and ANL West. 

So up next, INL West. Again, we're working with SC&A, NIOSH, and 

again, that data capture is going to encompass both of those sites. 

Okay. Area IV Santa Susana, which is SEC-235. We've been working 

with the record center EMCBC, and they've been digitizing records and 

providing them to us, and it's quite a numerous amount of records. So 

we're going through each of those to try to resolve any remaining work 

group issues. 

Metals and troll -- Metals and Controls is SEC-236. It's with the work 

group. SC&A completed a review of the proposed NIOSH dose 

reconstruction report. And we responded to issues that SC&A had, and then 

we received another paper from SC&A where they had recent things they 

wanted to discuss. So we're working on a response to their report. And we 

expect that to go to the work group here in January of 2023, so next month. 

De Soto Avenue is SEC-246. And, again, it's similar to SSFL. We're 

working with the record center there in Cincinnati, EMCBC, and they've been 

digitizing the records and sending us -- those to us. And as we get them, 

we're going through them and trying to resolve the outstanding issues. 

Y-12 is SEC-250. Addendum to the evaluation report was presented in 

August 2021 advisory board meeting, and SC&A was assigned to perform a 

review of that evaluation report. 

And then lastly, not least, we have SEC-256. NIOSH discussed the 

evaluation report at the December 2021 advisory board meeting. SC&A was 
 

105

assigned to perform a review of that evaluation report, and they're going to 

give us an update this afternoon on where they are with their review. 

The next slides are just the individual sites that are awaiting action. 

So on the left side, you'll see the name of the site, the SEC number, and the 

date, the time period that's outstanding. So first up is Hanford for '84 to 

'90. That's prime contractors, Savannah River, there's two of them there. 

One of them was for the prime contractors outstanding time frame, the '72 

to 2007, and the second one is for subcontractors for 1990 to 2007.

Next up we have the Los Alamos SEC-109, and the period standard is 

'96 to 2005. Idaho National Lab is '49 to '70. Argonne National Lab West is 

'58 to '79. We have Santa Susana is '91 to '93. Again, Metals and Controls 

is '68 to '97, that's a residual period. Then DeSoto Avenue, SEC-246, '65 to 

'95, and Y-12, SEC-250, is '79 to '94, and Pinellas is '57 to 1990. 

Finally, we have West Valley Demonstration Project. There was an 

SEC issued after '69. We have a ton of data between '66 and '68 that we're 

going through to see if there's any potential SEC's or even feasibility. So 

that's currently in our house, we're working it. And that's all I have. Are 

there any questions? 

Dr. Ziemer? 

MEMBER ZIEMER: Chuck, could you go back to the Metals and Control 

slide? 

MR. NELSON: Yes. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: So, did SC&A raise some additional issues on 

Metals and Controls? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Want me to address it?
 

106

MR. NELSON: You can since you're intimately familiar.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, we had -- we've had a number of back 

and forths between us and SC&A we've been in. And in, I think, February of 

this year, we had a work group meeting -- I think it was February. And we 

were in agreement on our dose reconstruction approach at that time; 

however, the -- there was another review done by SC&A at -- shortly 

thereafter. They identified some issues that we needed to look back into. 

And so, we're preparing a response to that.

MEMBER ZIEMER: So, these are additional issues that SC&A has 

raised? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It is a -- basically, it is an independent 

assessment that was done by an SC&A team member that reviewed -- went 

back and reviewed and -- and identified some potential issues that they felt 

that had not been addressed.

MEMBER ZIEMER: Bob, do you want to -- I'm sorry; can you explain 

what you mean by an independent review?

MR. BARTON: Yes. Dr. Ziemer, the first review really focused on the 

DR methods and whether they were appropriate with the data we had at the 

request of the work group. After that, they wanted us to take a specific look 

at power practices at other sites to make sure that were remaining 

consistent with this review, in consideration of other residual period reviews. 

So, they're essentially companion reviews. The second one was at the 

request of the work group.

MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm trying to understand the wording “independent 

review.” This is separate from SC&A's review? 
 

107

MR. BARTON: It is still SC&A, but it -- it was performed by someone 

who wasn't on the original review. So independent, within SC&A, I guess, 

would be the wording. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: So, is this review completed?

MR. BARTON: Yes. And it --

MEMBER ZIEMER: And SC&A endorsed it? 

MR. BARTON: Yes. It is -- it is an SC&A work product.

MEMBER ZIEMER: It's SC&A --

MR. BARTON: Yes.

MEMBER ZIEMER: I gotcha. I wasn't understanding.

MEMBER BEACH: It's -- it's in the work group's hands; however, 

NIOSH is reviewing, and it's in internal review right now. 

MEMBER POMPA: Was it -- David Pompa. Was it -- did you -- did 

other SC&A people review it? 

MR. BARTON: No. We were asked to keep it separate.

MEMBER POMPA: It's a separate review?

MR. BARTON: From a different angle, I would say. Instead of looking 

necessarily directly at the data and the dose reconstruction methods, we 

were looking at past precedent for SEC decisions made by the board, and 

then looking at other sites that were somewhat similar to Metals and 

Controls and how decisions made by that work group fit in this past decision 

made by the board.

MEMBER POMPA: Why -- why wasn't the original SC&A group -- why 

didn't they do this review?

MR. BARTON: We touched on it, but nearly enough in -- 
 

108

MEMBER POMPA: That's not --

MR. BARTON: -- not nearly enough in the original review. And so --

MEMBER POMPA: No. But why didn't the work group come back and 

ask you originally, the SC&A, to do the review?

MR. BARTON: Well, I think -- I think that is what happened.

MEMBER BEACH: It -- we did. We asked for someone --

MEMBER POMPA: (Indiscernible) was the original member of the 

group that did this initial review prior to that. 

MR. BARTON: No, not part of the secondary part. The really, 

companion documents one really looks more at the technical aspects, one 

looks more at the policy and past precedent.

MR. POMPA: That's it.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, SC&A, as a consulting group, decides 

who does the review for SC&A. We've always worked with SC&A, and we 

continue to work. The fact that they're two different individuals -- two 

different folks that are working on it, is their decision and choice.

MEMBER BEACH: The work group asked for the additional review.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right.

MEMBER BEACH: We requested it as a work group.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Of some -- somebody independent of the 

group -- 

(Whereupon, multiple unidentified speakers respond at once, all of 

whom were indiscernible.) 

MEMBER BEACH: Within SC&A we asked for a more overview, if you 

will, to look at what was being done.
 

109

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And -- Dave. And SC&A decided, as they 

should, in their internal discussions about who should do it. And given that 

there was some different emphasis, they apparently chose that, you know, 

another -- another member of SC&A would do it. But that's not -- that was 

not our request. Our request was simply please -- please do a second 

review on these issues. 

MEMBER BEACH: And the SEC -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: The word independent is -- I -- I think is -- led 

to --

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- mis -- misunderstanding. No, no. We work

with our consultants. 

MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And happy to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Any other questions? 

DR. ROBERTS: Before we resume, I just wanted to reiterate that 

people should identify themselves before their question or comment. 

MEMBER CLAWSON: And, Rashaun -- this is Brad -- just let you know, 

I'm -- I'm on. 

DR. ROBERTS: Okay, great. Thank you, Brad.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Actually, with two Daves on the board now, 

I've got to say -- two Daves on the board -- need to state (indiscernible). 

CHAIR ANDERSON: So, shall we do -- we're in work session, and we'll 

move on to the work -- board work session. Any (indiscernible) issues we 
 

110

need to deal with, or should I start with our letters? 

Board Work Session

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Member introduction.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Oh, yeah. Okay. So we're gonna go through the 

(indiscernible) giving us background -- (indiscernible) folks on the 

(indiscernible).

MEMBER FRANK: Okay. So my name is Arthur Frank. My background 

is (indiscernible) physician trained in internal medicine and occupational 

medicine. I've been primarily doing occupational medicine since the mid1970s. I've been an academic at 24 universities over my career. 

(Indiscernible) spent the last 20 years at Drexel University where I'm a 

professor of public health and a professor of medicine, and even a professor 

of civil architectural and environmental engineering. 

My connection with the kinds of activities that this board looks after is 

that, beginning about 2002, I began work at the Pantex site in 

(indiscernible) area, where we first looked at some workers and their health 

issues related to a lung cancer study. And then, beginning in about 2003, 

we were funded by the Department of Energy. And for the next years 

through 2020, I was the PI of the Pantex former worker subcritical 

surveillance program and continue to work with that program as a new 

advisor having transferred that to colleagues in Texas that I've worked with 

over these two decades. 

Thank you for the opportunity of sharing my background. And I look 

forward to being here and contributing to this important board.
 

111

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. David.

MEMBER POMPA: My name is David Pompa. Thank you for the 

invitation. And I -- sometimes I thought -- with all the paperwork, I thought 

maybe I shouldn't have joined, but we got that behind us. But I've been 

involved -- I worked at the Pantex site where Dr. Frank was talking about in 

Amarillo, Texas. It's the final assembly and disassembly of nuclear 

weapons, nuclear bombs. And I worked on that for 23 years. 

And the last 17-18 years I was in safety, but I wasn't -- and I also got 

involved with the program in 2000. The EEOICP program, I've been 

involved in that since the beginning, and also got involved with Frank. We 

did some cancer research. I was involved there for several years, you know, 

and also with the Pantex former workers program. We initiated that, and it's 

still going. It's a benefit for our workers. 

But I also -- going back to the work that I did. I did a lot of hands-on 

work with nuclear bombs, assembly and disassembly, and was exposed to, 

of course, radiation, and other chemicals. We had an incident in 1989, in 

May 1989, that changed the process. A Tiger Team comes in. They find 

113-115 findings. We were working with a lot of chemicals that were 

carcinogens. And that changed, of course, the way we did things. Working 

on nuclear weapons also changed after the 1989 incident. 

But, thank you. And I'm glad I'm here.

CHAIR ANDERSON: So, let's go to the Zoom folks.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Who do you want? 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I didn't know who you wanted first. 
 

112

MEMBER CASSANO: Hi. I am Dr. Victoria Cassano. I am a retired 

Navy occupational physician undersea medical officer, which includes 

radiation health. After I'm -- after I retired from the Navy, my first 

retirement, I went -- well, I went to the Department of Veterans Affairs 

where I was the director of radiation and physical exposures, as well as the 

acting director of the environmental health, and strategic health care group. 

And, in that capacity, I was the VA representative to the veterans advisory 

board on dose reconstruction. 

While in the Navy, I oversaw several radiation health programs, 

including (indiscernible) Star and the demolition of the Windsor K -- the K 

(indiscernible) Windsor, Connecticut site. What else do I have here? And 

then, just recently, I was on the other board, the DOL board on toxic 

substances and worker health. And I left that board because it was 

complicating the other piece of (indiscernible) of my life. 

And thanks to a couple of friends, [identifying 

information redacted] (ph) and -- and -- and [identifying 

information redacted] (ph), they gave Dr. Anderson my -- my contact 

information. And he is a very good arm twister, so here I am. And I'm 

looking forward to -- to -- to working with the board, and making -- making 

some progress in how we take care of these people. So, thank you. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Great. Thank you. It wasn't too hard of an arm 

twist. 

MEMBER CASSANO: Well, after [identifying 

information redacted] arm (indiscernible) -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- (indiscernible) identified what kind of person 
 

113

we needed. And they got their heads together and came up with you, so.

MEMBER CASSANO: With me, thanks. No, I -- I -- I'm happy I'm 

here. I really am.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Good. Well, -- 

MEMBER CASSANO: And I'm sorry I couldn't make it down in person. 

I was planning to until I woke up Tuesday morning sick as a dog and called 

Rashaun and said I couldn't get on a plane, there's just no way. So I am 

here by Zoom, and hopefully, next time, I will be there in person.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. Thank you. 

Next is Nicole --

DR. ROBERTS: Nicole Martinez, -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- Martinez --

DR. ROBERTS: -- I believe.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah. Okay. I -- 

DR. ROBERTS: (Indiscernible) for her, but I don't think -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I don't think she's on.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. So that's the new folks. And, as you 

know, we have a couple of vacancies again, and we're now going through a 

new recruitment process. The recruitment period is closed. And so, there's 

a goodly number of applicants that came in that will now go through the 

review process. And, probably, next year this time we'll have -- have a full 

complement to -- to the board. 

So let's see, do we want to go through work group reports? 

Subcommittees?

MEMBER BEACH: Mine's done, so you can go ahead, Dave. 
 

114

Subcommittee?

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: The -- can I pass until I can (indiscernible) our 

next meeting? I'll pass for a moment, if I may.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. Brad, take it away.

MEMBER CLAWSON: (Indiscernible) --

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- three committees. 

MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I just want to talk about Savannah River 

when we think of next places to go. I know we got to go down there. I'll 

put a plug in for that. I also talked about -- to Ziemer about this and 

Rashaun and (indiscernible). When we first -- when we first started coming 

in here, we had -- we had the -- we had to have the S -- SEC work group 

meeting with the Savannah River work group, and that was because we 

were evaluating how we're going to implement the coworker model, and so 

forth like that. 

And it's made things, I think, a little bit harder. And I would really -- I 

talked to Paul about this, and I believe he's in agreement with me, from now 

on, we'll just meet at the Savannah River work group because with the SEC, 

and stuff that's gone in, it's kind of a little bit of a different issue there. 

We are trying to set up a meeting for -- in March, I believe, March 

22nd after the Savannah River work group. We should have information 

from NIOSH and SC&A to be able to get that to us and be able to review it. 

But, from now on, I'd really like to just meet -- not that I (indiscernible) and 

Paul and everybody, but it makes it a bit harder to set things up. So, I 

would like to start meeting the Savannah River just work group. 

Paul, do -- anything you'd like to say on that?
 

115

MEMBER ZIEMER: No. I totally agree with Brad. But I don't think, at 

its present time, the two groups need to be moving together. And in my last 

email to Brad-- and I wasn't sure if you read this yet, Brad -- I put it on the 

chat line to read your email -- but, in any event, unless this board thinks 

that we should continue having the two groups meeting together, I don't -- I 

don't think it's necessary. Our oversight group has things, other than this --

the things that involved our work to -- to address.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right.

MEMBER ZIEMER: Plus, setting up a meeting time for many more 

people is difficult, as Brad mentioned. It makes it more difficult to match 

schedules when you have a larger group like that. So I -- I think from my 

point of view, the Savannah River site work group should continue as one 

group, if that's agreeable with the board. I don't think the board needs to 

take action unless you want us to continue that. We were doing that for a 

specific purpose before. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. There were some specific issues that 

our work group was dealing with. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: But, at the same time, and so we --

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- involved with too. If you're in agreement, I 

think that we should proceed on that basis. I don't know if it takes formal 

action. If it does, I'll make a motion. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: I mean, the only thing would be, do we have -- I 

don't remember all -- Brad, who are all the people you have on your 
 

116

committee?

MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, that's kind of changed --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Well, like I say, I don't know. And I want to be 

sure that we have enough, and have enough of the proper, you know, 

breakdown of who's on it. And, I guess, that would be more up to 

Rashaun -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There's a --

MEMBER CLAWSON: Let's see, I have Lockey on there. I thought I 

had Dave Richardson, too. That's the one (indiscernible). But we'll look at 

that and we may make some assignments and stuff to be able to help us 

through that. 

But I guess it kind of got a little bit difficult too because we have two 

different groups looking at the issues that we were trying to work through 

differently. And it was kind of hard separating between the SEC issues and 

what the Savannah River issue because we were kind of looking at them a 

little bit different. I -- I do -- I do have to say, I appreciate that they were 

involved with us, because, as usual, Dr. Ziemer always brings an interesting 

side into things. But (indiscernible) and Rashaun, and we'll check everything 

out and be able to make sure we're good on that, and we'll go from there. 

While I do have (indiscernible) not anything more on that issue, I'll 

give it -- a report on -- on Pantex that I'm responsible for. There's still no 

motion -- movement on that. 

Nevada test site, I don't have any update. I talked with Mark Rolfe 

first. He said they're still working -- all the SEC issues are taken care of. 

We're just getting the site profile buttoned up and done with, on the Nevada 
 

117

test site. 

I thank Lori for the information she's got me for Argonne East, which 

we're working on. And Laura is -- we're trying to get a date from NIOSH on 

where things are at with Argonne East. And when we should be expecting it, 

she's saying sometime next year. So we're still pushing forward on that, but 

-- but with a lot of the changes that we've had, we're going to have to look 

at what our real needs consist of because we've lost some very valuable 

asset -- assets. So we may want to take time and evaluate that down the 

road here.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Well, I think -- I think -- Rashaun and I have 

talked, and I think your meeting in March -- hopefully, by then, will be able 

to identify adding someone. And it's just you and Lockey that are left. And 

so, we'll try to get some new people or other board members to -- to join 

you, as well, if we can get that going. But, hopefully, your issues are ones 

that if we put one of the new folks on it -- it's if -- if we get everybody on 

board by then. And then I'll have to see. If not, we may ask another one of 

the board members to -- to join you on that because we really want to have 

at least three people --

MEMBER CLAWSON: Yeah, especially -- especially with having Lockey 

on my -- my team, because you know how he is. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Not touché, but --

CHAIR ANDERSON: From my perspective, we're also trying to get 

more of the physicians involved, when (indiscernible) only have two, it was 

hard to have that. So you have -- at least you have that perspective there. 

But (indiscernible) of the other, engineer side of it, we may be able to add to 
 

118

it. But we'll keep -- we'll let you know if we're going to have somebody else 

that we think we'd recommend to add to yours. And, hopefully, they'll be 

able to get up to speed there and sit in on your meeting.

MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and -- and I appreciate that. And for the 

new people that's coming in, these -- these are very, very complicated sites. 

And Savannah River is a very complex site, not -- not until you really start 

diving into it, do you really understand the magnitude of what it is. But 

(indiscernible) know that there is an awful lot of wonderful people on this 

board that always will help you try to understand the methodology in order -

- going. And NIOSH has always been great to be able to reach out and help 

you understand what -- where we're going with things that we're doing. And 

SC&A, who works with us, has been a great benefit and process in going into 

this because they really are complex. But I look forward to working with all 

of you, and I'm sure we'll be able to have our times on board together in the 

future. Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) a date for the next meeting 

to begin. So -- 

MEMBER CLAWSON: Yeah. That's -- that's what I -- yeah. That's 

what I wanted to make sure of. I don't want to -- I don't want to miss that 

date because we -- we want to process through. So if nothing else, I -- I do 

need to have at least three members on there. 

So, keep that in mind, Henry.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah. You may end up with me. I don't know. 

But we'll get you a -- we'll get you a third, hopefully, that will be able to 

stick with it. And -- 
 

119

MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Perhaps, (indiscernible) new folks as a 

fourth, not necessarily a -- well, you know, and -- 

And, Henry, this is another thing, too. And I will be right honest. I've 

been -- this a lot of times. I want the new board members to understand, 

too. Whenever we have work groups like this, and we want to better 

understand some of these processes that are going on, I've called in and I've 

listened to a lot of the work groups, and what -- what they're dealing with 

and stuff like that. I don't have much input or anything like that. I'm just 

more there listening. But it helps you understand what -- what the actual 

root of the issue is and what we're trying to complete. And there's always 

the transcripts that you can go to and read on these issues and -- and how 

you've worked through it. And we'll try to help you understand how -- how 

we get a lot of these questions answered. And we're always here to be able 

to help too. So, I'll leave it at that, Henry. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Dave Kotelchuck: So I need to make sure to 

check, to make sure that we didn't have any -- any scheduled meeting for 

dose reconstruction review subcommittee. Rose and I had been talking, 

we're basically going to start the next period with going over the blinds 

cases because that's something that can be done more quickly than going 

over the -- the next full set of 30 cases. And I -- SC&A is working on them. 

Rose may have something to -- if she wants to update a little bit -- 

MS. GOGLIOTTI: No. We don't have any. We currently don't have 

any sets that we're working on. In October we finished set 31, which was a 

nonblind set. We elected to hold off on doing the one-on-ones for that until 
 

120

the new board members came online. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right, okay. Oh, okay. I thought you were 

working on the blinds and that we might go through the blinds first.

MS. GOGLIOTTI: No. We decided to hold off on doing the blinds, if 

you remember -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. 

MS. GOGLIOTTI: -- because we are still waiting on some of the tools 

and -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Ah, I see.

MS. GOGLIOTTI: -- know what will be in there and what we need until 

we actually get into the cases.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Ah, very good. Okay. So we're -- we're held 

-- we're -- we're in abeyance, if you will, for a while until we have enough 

material to read about. Dave Richardson who just -- who was on the 

subcommittee, just recently left the board. And I hope we'll get another 

person appointed soon of the new people who came in or however --

however the chair wishes to handle it. 

And the Rocky Flats Plant working group is -- we gave our report 

today. And the -- there's nothing new with Ames, and I think that's it for 

our committee, for the committees that I'm on and chairing. So, there we 

are, that's -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. 

MEMBER BEACH: I -- I have some reports. So I'm -- three I'll 

mention that we're waiting -- awaiting NIOSH. So Blockson has a TBD 

outstanding issues; Brookhaven, same, TBD issues awaiting NIOSH 
 

121

response; and then Mound, it's the external TBD issue that remains, and 

we're waiting for that. It keeps getting pushed back. I think these are all 

pretty low priorities right now, but wanted them to be mentioned. 

LANL, I had a report written out. Chuck handled most of that. The 

only thing I'm going to add is LaVon had sent me a report, they are working 

with SC&A to get the documents on to the virtual volumes so that they can 

be available to review. So those are targeted -- targeted or should be 

available now. I've seen several emails go back and forth on it. 

And NIOSH is also working with the LANL site to develop more precise 

dose estimate for the LANS (ph) workers using a whole-body count data and 

has requested additional data support. So, and they are working on -- on 

plans -- plant facility -- or LANS facility site tour, and the data capture in 

early January. I think they've invited board members and SC&A to join, if 

they're available. And I think LaVon's heard from a couple, at least, board 

members at this point. 

And then for Metals and Control, we do have an overview document 

that we -- the work group asked for an analysis of the pertinent SEC issues 

that are on the table. None of them have been closed out. Our last meeting 

was over a year ago, and we only got through about half of that meeting, or 

even less than that because of a time constraint issue. So that is an internal 

document with NIOSH. Once that is released to the work group -- I heard --

I know you heard it was coming out in early January. The work group will 

meet -- so I'm hoping to have a LANL and a M&C work group meeting in mid 

to late February time frame. Oh, I have --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. I can say (indiscernible) your AWE group, 
 

122

again, we're looking for a new member there that Bill Field was that 

(indiscernible) -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's correct. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- so there's now two of us left.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: So we're going to be looking to get another 

member or more on that. There's -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- there's nothing really pressing at this point, 

we're waiting for a number of things. But it's nothing with a real hard 

deadline. It's more getting caught up with (indiscernible) some of the issues 

that were already there. 

And the other is the special exposure cohort. Really, I think, NIOSH is 

putting together a document on issues that were identified on the last 

meetings and we're -- we're waiting. When we get that, I think that'll be the 

next time that that group will -- will get together. I don't recall whether we 

have any other (indiscernible) issues. And that's Genny -- Gen Roessler or 

Josie Hall, and I, I think, are on that. 

MS. ROESSLER: Henry, this is --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah.

MS. ROESSLER: -- Gen. Yes, I can report on OR&L or, I guess, I 

can -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay, great. Go ahead.

MS. ROESSLER: Okay. To help out with the new members, I'd like to 

recommend we use acronyms as little as possible and say things out. So 
 

123

this is Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the X10 facility. And I've gotten a 

report from Laura Hughes, who's the NIOSH group leader on OR&L. And I'd 

just like to read what she has to say because NIOSH is -- is working on this 

diligently. 

(Reading): As many of you know, the last work group meeting was in 

June of 2021. We still have some things before we can meet again. NIOSH 

is looking on -- at the findings that we have from our last meeting. Three of 

the seven findings remain open for NIOSH to address. And then of the six 

observations, four were closed, and two remain from NIOSH to advance. 

NIOSH is working on addressing the remaining issues by developing a 

coexposure approach for the exotic radionuclides. And if the new members 

would like, we can tell you all about what they are. And revising the dose 

reconstruction approach presented for (indiscernible). The iodine approach 

has been removed from ORAUT, which is the Oak Ridge Associated 

Universities Team report 90 and will be moved to the coexposure effort. It's 

being worked on by doing additional data collection and review. Report 90 is 

(indiscernible) in the final stages of being revised for clarification of various 

issues raised by SC&A. The report is undergoing some revision of the 

references used to make its (indiscernible) more clear, which as Dr. Hughes 

mentions, is a very time consuming effort. 

This is not much of a change since the last update; however, she 

reassures us that we're working hard. And we hope to get back to work 

group to get to work on it. So that's it for that one, Henry.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. Thank you. Others? We're going to be 

talking next about analysis. Again, we -- we established that, but we're 
 

124

going to be waiting for the SC&A review of the NIOSH document before too 

long. Again, we'll be adding somebody there. Again, Bill Field was the 

fourth member of that group, so we'll look for a replacement on the 

scientists’ side for that one.

We have any other -- we don't have any other meetings?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, no. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. So we've got -- want to talk about public 

comments?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Here I am. 

DR. ROBERTS: Yes, just for the information for new board members. 

And there's -- typically, NIOSH records the public comments that we 

received in the public -- full public meeting that we've had for the next 

(indiscernible) meeting. So these are public comments that were submitted 

for our August (indiscernible). And what happens is that NIOSH compiles 

those comments and also responds to them. And then, here for the board 

work session, they simply provide a quick summary (indiscernible). I have 

provided the (indiscernible) along with NIOSH's responses. Hopefully you've 

had a chance to take a look at them. 

But there -- there were a few comments back in August, it was a 

general comment about us making -- for the board making the commitment 

to have the next (indiscernible) in Florida to visit Pinellas, and also to -- to 

hold the meeting here. And so, obviously, we're fulfilling that commitment 

by being here today. 

There were also a few comments specific to Pinellas about -- questions 

about how -- why certain things weren't factored into those calculations and 
 

125

things of that nature. And it sounds like for a lot of these -- these have 

been issues that have been discussed before by the previous Pinellas Plant 

work group or some of these issues are covered in documents that are 

available on the DCAS website. So that's basically the summer -- summary 

and general overview of the comments that were made back in August.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you. So I got a listing here of the 

upcoming dates for meetings. Next, will be our call in February. April 19th 

and 20th is still planning for face-to-face meeting. Probably need to choose

a place, and the question is are there any of the sites that we're going to be 

(indiscernible) or do we have more -- 

DR. ROBERTS: Mmm.

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- together? I don't know.

DR. ROBERTS: Right. That's something that we would talk about a 

little more in the next -- we're getting closer to the -- the April date. So we 

have these dates set through August of 2023. Typically, we like to schedule 

meetings about a year out, which means that we need to identify dates for 

October and December of next year. So I don't know if people have access 

to their calendars, but we can quickly identify something for a teleconference 

in October and then a full meeting in December.

So, this year, I believe our teleconference was somewhere around the 

20th or so. We could, you know, go for that timing again. We could do 

earlier in the month or later. It just depends. Is there one end week that 

we should avoid for the teleconference?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: If possible (indiscernible) 5th and 6th?

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. 
 

126

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.)

DR. ROBERTS: What about the week of the 9th?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's a good date. Yeah. 

DR. ROBERTS: Does anyone have an issue?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Is there a typical day it's usually held? 

DR. ROBERTS: We like to keep it to Wednesday, Thursday. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You talking about December? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, October -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- guys speak into your microphones, 

because we can't -- can't hear you back here. 

DR. ROBERTS: Sorry, we're -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- about a -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- our meeting -- meeting in April. 

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. Yes, we're just scheduling meetings out for a 

year, and we're trying to identify the dates for our October teleconference 

and next year's full board meeting. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: So how about October 12th then? 

DR. ROBERTS: Sure.

CHAIR ANDERSON: That's a Thursday. 

DR. ROBERTS: Will that work for people?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sure. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: And it'll be a typical morning, what, ten o'clock? 

DR. ROBERTS: Yes, typically -- 
 

127

CHAIR ANDERSON: (Indiscernible) yeah.

DR. ROBERTS: 11:00 Eastern --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Eastern.

DR. ROBERTS: -- is the start --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah.

DR. ROBERTS: -- time. A teleconference doesn't typically run very 

long. You know, the teleconferences probably are wrapped up within an 

hour or two. So October 12th at 11:00 Eastern is what we've tentatively got 

for next year.

Moving on to December of 2023. So, obviously, we've met the 8th 

this year. We could certainly go with that timing roughly again. 

Wednesday, it's the 6th or Thursday is the 7th. Are people available around 

that time frame?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, the follow -- following would be 

better. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Which would -- 

MEMBER BEACH: That's good for me. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Second week in December.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- the 11th.

DR. ROBERTS: Second week -- 

MEMBER CASSANO: No. I -- I can't make the week of the 11th. It's 

not good for me. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay.
 

128

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. What about -- so the whole week of the 4th 

would be out for people?

MEMBER BEACH: No, I'm fine that week.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, I'm okay.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.)

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Are there any other dates -- dates of --

MEMBER CLAWSON: That -- that won't work for me.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We can't hear you.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) the 4th through the 8th, 

probably like the 6th -- 5, 6, or 7.

MEMBER CLAWSON: No.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No.

DR. ROBERTS: And so, then we're getting out to the week of the 

18th, which --

MEMBER CASSANO: Oh, no, no.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What about the week after Thanksgiving, 

the last week in November?

DR. ROBERTS: Typically, we've done December, but perhaps 

considering that it's -- it sounds like it's difficult to find a date in December.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: 29-30th of November?

DR. ROBERTS: 29-30th of November?

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yep.

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That won't work for me. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.)
 

129

DR. ROBERTS: Okay.

MEMBER BEACH: So, Jim, are you gone the whole week of the 4th, 

5th, 6th, that week?

Member Lockey: Thursday and Friday would be okay.

MEMBER BEACH: So, the 7th.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: (Indiscernible) week.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) --

DR. ROBERTS: -- December 7th --

MEMBER BEACH: (Indiscernible) -- 

DR. ROBERTS: -- and 8th; --

MEMBER BEACH: Yeah.

DR. ROBERTS: -- would that work?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Works for me. We also need input from 

NIOSH, I think, on this. Right?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That would work for me. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The 7th and 8th? 

DR. ROBERTS: Uh-huh.

MR. CALHOUN: We're all listening. This is Grady Calhoun, by the way 

-- are talking about having the board -- the meeting actually on a Friday, the 

8th?

DR. ROBERTS: More so, the (indiscernible).

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. So 6th and 7th or 7th and 8th? I mean, I -- I --

we can travel on a Saturday if we need to, but we usually don't. Do you 

guys want to travel on a Saturday? 

DR. ROBERTS: Would the 6th and 7th work?
 

130

MEMBER BEACH: Yes. Yeah. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'll just have to rearrange my schedule. 

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. 

DR. ROBERTS: All right. So tentatively --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The 6th and 7th?

DR. ROBERTS: -- we will mark off the 6th and 7th.

MR. CALHOUN: -- the 6th and 7th. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: You can travel on the 8th.

MR. CALHOUN: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I just wasn't sure you 

knew you were planning it for Friday, because I don't think we've ever done 

that before. Well, all right. 

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. So tentatively, December 6th and 7th, 2023, 

for next year's meeting. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And face-to-face.

DR. ROBERTS: Yes, face-to-face.

MEMBER CASSANO: Could you repeat what the dates are before that 

for those new people that -- like me that may not know what they are. 

DR. ROBERTS: Sure. And they are available on the -- there's an 

annotated version of the -- of the agenda sent. But our -- the next meeting 

that we have is scheduled for February 15th of next year. That's a 

teleconference starting at 11:00 a.m. Eastern that day. Then the next faceto-face meeting is April 19th and 20th of next year. And, again, the location 

will be determined as we get a little bit closer to that date. Then there is a 
 

131

teleconference scheduled for June 14th, and then another face-to-face 

schedule for August 16th and 17th.

MEMBER CASSANO: Thank you. 

DR. ROBERTS: Sure.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay, problem?

MEMBER ZIEMER: So, this is sort of a location question, although we 

do want to wait until we're closer, as you say, but I wanted to sort of get 

some ideas. We talked about different places last time and may be coming 

up in terms of when we're getting close to closure on some issues. Jim, 

yesterday I wasn't paying that much attention to your report because I'm --

I'm conflicted on Oak Ridge, but I am still interested in Oak Ridge as a 

possible location. Are we at a point where there's something critical or 

important that -- saying that we should meet in Oak Ridge, either -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, hold on one second. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: -- October --

MEMBER BEACH: I didn't know you just kind of shut off your attention 

because you have a conflict, but -- you know, I'm kidding.

MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm using that as an excuse for not remembering 

what your time line was. 

MEMBER BEACH: I think the good thing about -- we're talking about 

April, aren't we? In Oak Ridge, that would be a nice time of the year there. 

But I can't really say -- and I don't know if Dr. Hughes is on the line or on 

the Zoom launch and can give us some idea whether NIOSH would be at the 

point where we would find that to be productive to meet there. 

DR. HUGHES: This is Laura. I'm here. Can you hear me? 
 

132

MEMBER BEACH: Yes. So I don't see that we would have anything to 

-- the work group at that time, at this point. So we're still working on a path 

forward with iodine, and that includes data capture. So that's a somewhat 

drawn out process at the moment. So I -- I would be very reluctant to 

promise anything.

MEMBER BEACH: Just because we'd have to have your report and 

have a work group meeting first before we would want to schedule 

something. So, I think the answer to that, Paul, is probably not. 

MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Maybe August? 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Does NIOSH have any suggestions for sites that 

you think would be good ones to...?

MEMBER CLAWSON: Savannah River would be a good one. This is 

Brad. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah.

(Whereupon, multiple attendees began speaking at once making all 

comments indiscernible.)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Savannah River is a great place to go in the 

spring, for sure. I don't know whether the work group would be done from 

that standpoint. It kind of depends upon how the responses come back. I 

mean, we're going to be providing responses to the work group by the end 

of the month. SC&A is going to be reviewing those, and we're gonna have a 

meeting in March. But I don't know that that meeting will resolve or if 

there's going to be some more follow up from that. But it will be an 

opportunity for the board, could get input from workers down there. So, it's 
 

133

something to consider.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Is that for April?

MEMBER BEACH: No. We're asking for -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- April? 

MEMBER CLAWSON: Idaho's really nice in April, too. Part of the snow 

is gone by then. This is Brad. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: We'll come to you in August.

MEMBER BEACH: And Metals and Control will be maybe in the middle 

of that also for Adelberg (ph). So that might be a thought. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: You mean, they're -- okay. You mean there 

are -- I mean, there are issues, and it may be of value to have people who 

are from the site be there, input, because there are differences of opinion, 

you know, within the working group and within (indiscernible).

CHAIR ANDERSON: Well, we have options. We just haven't resolved 

anything immediately. We don't probably need to. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Hey, Henry, while we're -- can I just take a 

minute here? I've got a question on the dose three reconstruction because --

and correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought last meeting that we held, we --

because SC&A doesn't have any nonblinds worked on, and I thought we'd 

asked NIOSH -- and we were going to try to get a list put together. And we 

kind of laid out a criteria for it to be able to get these nonblinds in the 

process and working. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's what we were just saying. I mean, the 

issue right now is people are waiting on cases from NIOSH. And, 

apparently, people can't go ahead -- SC&A can't go ahead with the blinds at 
 

134

this point. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, but I'm talking -- Dave, I'm talking 

about nonblinds. I'm talking the dose reconstruction --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Nonblinds --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- (indiscernible) -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. I believe the nonblinds we've already 

selected.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Because we have --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- in the process. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We got to 32. And so, what we're not 

waiting on is putting together --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There are -- there --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Because we were hoping to include the new 

board members, at least to sit in, because that's a good way to -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: (Indiscernible). 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- to the cases there.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right, right. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- done much more -- to get much more --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm just -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- so --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- curious, Brad, did you perhaps miss that? 

We -- we did submit cases. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, go ahead, Bob. You look like you 

have something --
 

135

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah. Okay. Yes. Sorry.

MR. BARTON: If I might, there's a couple different things at play here. 

We just delivered the 31st set, and that's what we're talking about setting 

up the one-on-one calls with the new board members. And normally after 

we do a full set of 30, we get another set of blinds. But as Rose pointed out, 

we're still waiting on certain tools to be made available to be able to do the 

blind cases. So one option to keep moving forward would -- instead of doing 

a blind set after the normal set of 30 is to do another set of 30 just to keep 

things in process and moving.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Because I -- Dave, what one of the things 

was -- was, you know, we've been playing catch up for years to be able to 

get all of these -- the backlog that we had of these. And I just didn't want 

to fall behind in it. And I did not -- I didn't realize -- I put the names in 

there, but I hadn't seen anything yet. So that's kind of what I was waiting 

for.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're -- we worked hard 

to get up to date, and we are. The pandemic entered, which slowed all 

things down.

MEMBER CLAWSON: And that's all I wanted to do is just make sure 

that we keep going there, and I just --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: (Indiscernible.)

MEMBER CLAWSON: -- we had made our choices and I just -- just 

hadn't heard anything. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. Let's see. We've got two letters from the 

board, and as well as NIOSH, related to individuals that I'd like to read in. 
 

136

This is a tribute to (indiscernible), and here's the letter. I'll (indiscernible) 

read it into the -- a tribute to him. 

(Reading): Members of the advisory board on radiation and worker 

health board wish to pay tribute to Mr. William "Bill" Field, who died at the 

age of 68 from refractory mantle cell lymphoma on November 4, 2022. He 

was appointed to the board by President Barack Obama in 2009. His lifelong 

interest in the health effects of radiation began with his determination to 

measure the level of radioactive iodine released into the environment from 

Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant nuclear accident in 1979. 

Bill worked as a health physicist for the University of California, 

Berkeley, until he suffered disabling encephalopathy from an accidental 

work-related exposure to multiple neurotoxins. Following the accident in 

1986, Bill devoted himself to raising his twins as he convalesced. Through 

Iowa Vocational Rehab, Bill started taking graduate classes at the University 

of Iowa in 1989, and completed his Ph.D. in preventive medicine and 

environmental medicine in 1994. 

Bill joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 1998. After his 

retirement in July -- January 2022, Bill continued research on radon-related 

health effects as professor of clinical reproductive sciences, Columbia 

University, New York. 

Bill was recognized internationally for his expertise in radon and 

radiation health effects. He served on other national and world health 

organization boards during his career. He established the occupational 

epidemiology training program at the University of Iowa College of Public 

Health. He worked with professional organizations to improve radon testing 
 

137

and to educate the public on health risks of radon. 

Above all, he was a compassionate mentor who delighted in guiding 

his students towards independent careers in public health. The board 

greatly benefitted from and will long remember Bill's integrity, human 

kindness, and warm-spoke of manner, his sharing of work groups, and his 

good company during meetings. Bill made significant contributions to the 

ongoing work of the board during his 12 years of service. 

This tribute is hereby adopted this 8th day of December 2022 at 149th 

meeting of the advisory board on radiation worker health in St. Petersburg, 

Florida. We circulated this to everybody. And so, we didn't get a lot of 

changes, but if anybody wants to say anything further, now is the time. We 

will send this along to his family as well. Any other issues anyone want to 

say about Bill? 

Okay. Next is an expression of gratitude for Dr. David B. Richardson's 

service on the NIOSH advisory board for radiation worker health. The 

director of the National Institute for Occupational -- Occupational Safety and 

Health. On behalf of the members of the advisory board on radiation worker 

health wishes to express gratitude to Dr. David Richardson who resigned in 

November 2022. Dr. Richardson was appointed to the board under 

President Barack Obama in 2009. 

Prior to serving on the board, Dr. Richardson was an associate 

professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 

where he led a team managing disease through the (indiscernible) electronic 

data within the research and innovation solutions (indiscernible) Innovation 

Lab. He led a number of studies of workers at the U.S. Department of 
 

138

Energy facilities located -- focused on occupational health and radiation 

exposure issues. Previously, he spent time working at the World Health 

Organization's International Agency for Research on cancer in Lyon, France 

and at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan. 

He received his bachelor of arts degree in political science from Duke 

University and a doctorate of philosophy and epidemiology from the 

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has more than 165 peerreviewed published journal articles and authored several book chapters. Dr. 

Richardson provided valuable input to the board's dose reconstruction 

deliberation using his knowledge and epidemiology research experience and 

made significant contributions to ongoing work of the board during his years 

of membership. Dr. Richardson took a new position as professor of 

environmental and occupational health, the program in public health at the 

University of California, Irvine, where his research investigates occupational 

and environmental causes of disease with a particular focus on ionizing 

radiation -- and in all its future endeavors.

The board wishes Dr. Richardson well in his new position and in all his 

future endeavors. This expression of gratitude for Dr. Richardson's service 

to the board is hereby adopted -- adopted this 8th day December 2022 at 

the 149th meeting of the advisory board on radiation and worker health in 

St. Petersburg, Florida. 

Those are our two letters. Okay. 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, that explains why --

CHAIR ANDERSON: (Indiscernible) --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- academics for --
 

139

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah, he was --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- Irvine.

CHAIR ANDERSON: (Indiscernible.) Moving family and --

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yeah. 

MEMBER BEACH: Henry?

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes.

Member Roessler: Yeah, this is Gen. Going back to Dr. Fields, I -- I 

would suggest you start it by saying Dr. Fields is (indiscernible). 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah, you're right. Okay, so -- 

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Thank you Chair and staff for those 

things. That takes time and focus (indiscernible) obituaries. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- he didn't go.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- and how that must have affected his life.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah. He had a hard go of it early on.

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: He really did.

CHAIR ANDERSON: (Indiscernible.)

MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Absolutely, he wouldn't.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. So now we're done until 5:00.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, nobody said we're done until 5:00.

(Whereupon, several attendees spoke simultaneously making all 

discussion indiscernible.)

DR. ROBERTS: So we -- we have scheduled for a break between 3:30 

and 3:45. So if you could come back at 3:45, I can start with the roll call 

again.

(Whereupon, a break was taken from 3:27 p.m. until 3:45 p.m.)
 

140

DR. ROBERTS: So I'm going to go ahead and take a quick 

attendance starting with board members. 

(Roll call.)

DR. ROBERTS: We do have a quorum, so I think we can go ahead. 

Member Valerio: Rashaun, I'm sorry. This is Loretta, I'm back in.

DR. ROBERTS: Thank you. 

Update on Review of SEC-0256 Pinellas Plant, Pinellas Plant Evaluation 

Report

CHAIR ANDERSON: Steve Ostrow is on the -- on the phone or on the 

Teams. 

So, Steve, we'll let you take it off. (Indiscernible) podium here. 

DR. OSTROW: Okay. Thank you. This is Steve Ostrow. I'm the --

the team leader for SC&A on the Pinellas (indiscernible) -- produced. So,

let's see. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Steve, we can't understand you.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We can't either.

(Whereupon, multiple attendees had a discussion simultaneously which 

was indiscernible.)

DR. OSTROW: The slides which are (indiscernible) the page now. 

Hold on a second and see if I can fix this. Can you guys see the slide?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.

DR. OSTROW: Good. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
 

141

DR. OSTROW: It's still not moving. (Indiscernible.) Oh, here we go. 

Okay, got it. All right. 

So (indiscernible) is a snapshot as of about a month ago of an ongoing 

review of the October 13th NIOSH SEC evaluation report. And some 

qualifications, since the review is ongoing right now, it's a work in progress. 

So, it might disappoint some people. The presentation was delayed because 

we can't reach any conclusions at this stage. We will -- we will have 

conclusions when we produce an actual written report and submit it to the 

board, but at this stage, it's a progress report. 

And it is -- as Grady Calhoun had mentioned earlier this morning, that 

SC&A's working with NIOSH and ORAUT to -- to go over some of the 

limitations that we've had with accessing data that we need. NIOSH and 

ORAUT are cooperating with us very much, and we're making progress 

because of that. 

A little of the background I'll go through quickly for people not familiar 

with Pinellas. (Indiscernible) Pinellas. (Indiscernible) actually near Pinellas. 

It's -- it used to be located on 100-acre site in Clearwater, which is part of 

the Tampa area. As it used to be, it finished operation a few years ago, and 

it's been -- the site's cleared and released for general use. It was originally 

constructed in 1956 as part of the -- the nuclear weapons program and was 

operated through 1994 by General Electric. 

And the original charter was to manufacture neutron generators, which 

were used as triggers in nuclear weapons. After about 10 years of 

operation, they expanded to include other specialized electronic equipment. 

The nuclear weapons program, General Electric, was one of the experts at 
 

142

that time in nuclear instrumentation and electronics in general. 

At peak operations, about 2,000 people were employed at the site. 

The plant shut down in 1994. They did decontamination/decommissioning 

through 1997. And then after (indiscernible) remediation activities that 

lasted until 2009. And at that point, it was cleared --

(Whereupon, an attendee speaks unmuted from the meeting audio.)

DR. OSTROW: -- for commercial purpose right now. 

(Indiscernible) the advisory board (indiscernible). Well, it began 

when NIOSH ordered the worker outreach in 2004, which was 18 years ago, 

and work group meetings in 2008. The current special exposure cohort SEC 

petition was submitted (indiscernible) in December 2019.

And with the consultation with the -- with NIOSH, the petitioners 

(indiscernible) petition twice on May 20, 2020, and August 17th. NIOSH 

subsequently qualified the last petition for evaluation and modified the class 

definition and (indiscernible). In short, it covered all (indiscernible) at the 

site from 1957 when employment began through December 1, 1990. 

(Indiscernible) included (indiscernible) closure date of 1990. (Indiscernible) 

the petitioners originally wrote that they (indiscernible) see what happened. 

So NIOSH qualified it under the basis that there might not be enough 

dosimetry information available to reconstruct the doses. So the -- a little 

bit of history (indiscernible) report 1990, and I just mention the -- most 

people (indiscernible) 1990 DOE went through major, major Tiger Team 

operation with very extensive reviews of the sites at the nuclear weapons 

complex. And specifically, here, Pinellas was (indiscernible). And the Tiger 

Team report documented that some -- some dosimetry bioassay samples 
 

143

may not be available for the period before 1990. 

The Tiger Team report, as you'll see a bit later, divided the time period 

before and after. So the Tiger Team report said that there were deficiencies 

before 1990 (indiscernible) improved tremendously after 1990 apparently. 

So (indiscernible) and adequately and promptly addressed the bioassay 

compliance issues. In the Tiger Team report it's (indiscernible) period 

December 31, 1990. And SC&A is currently reviewing that to see what the 

basis is (indiscernible) and it looked like things like bioassay results, which 

personnel were monitored, and which weren't monitored, and NIOSH is 

(indiscernible) missing records or workers who weren't monitored couldn't be 

assigned doses. But that's typical for any plant that we look at that. The 

evaluation report itself -- and this is available on the public NIOSH website, 

if anybody wants to read it, if anybody -- it's -- it's not -- it's a cleared 

report. 

So they issued the report, as I mentioned, about a year ago. And 

(indiscernible) the report, NIOSH concludes that it has sufficient information 

to estimate the maximum radiation dose, blah, blah blah, therefore, NIOSH 

does not recommend adding the NIOSH-evaluated class to the SEC. So, the 

(indiscernible) report concludes that NIOSH has enough information to 

reconstruct doses and that the SEC -- the SEC should not be approved. The 

board had a meeting on December 8, 2021, one year ago -- it's exactly one 

year ago, actually -- the board tasked SC&A to assess the evaluation for it. 

And we've been chugging along since then. 

What's our review objectives? This is for the SEC that we looked at, 

and we provide this information to the board. The board determines 
 

144

whether doses can be constructed with sufficient accuracy. And they also 

provide a technical evaluation of all the scenarios, data assumptions, and all 

(indiscernible) other information given the reference (indiscernible) ER to 

reconstructing doses. So (indiscernible) a little technical review. And the --

the right-hand column shows to the extent currently feasible SC&A's 

assessing NIOSH (indiscernible) currently feasible is that we have the 

various workarounds with NIOSH and ORAUT to get the data that we need. 

So, one of the important things that we're doing, (indiscernible) we'll 

see near the end of the presentation, does NIOSH recognize, address, and 

resolve the, the petitioner concerns. The petition -- petitioners have a lot of 

concerns that we want to (indiscernible) these concerns. Did they leave any 

concerns out? Does NIOSH have access to sufficient data, particularly 

bioassay data, and does NIOSH adequately identify and model all significant 

and internal and external sources of radiation, including from radiation 

incidents. We spent a good amount of time and effort on the issue of 

radiation incidents and whether they were addressed in addition -- this 

would be in addition to the normal operation.

Okay. I want to mention technical basis document. As you probably 

know, the -- there's a sort of technical basis documents that cover the --

NIOSH's approach for different things like internal dose, external dose, 

environmental dose, etc., for this plant. And the original technical basis 

documents, called TBDs, were out about 2005 to 2016 (indiscernible). We 

went ahead and reviewed it, submitted an assessment to the board in 2006. 

That's a long time ago. We identified 11 primary and eight secondary 

issues.
 

145

(Indiscernible) SC&A reports, NIOSH reports, back and forth, NIOSH 

revised the TBDs beginning in 2011. So the current set of TBDs were 

revised, some of them revised more than once. The -- we had the work 

group meetings, and so forth. And the final status -- status and issues 

resolution process was reported at the August 2016 board meeting. And, at 

that time -- this is from the transcript -- SC&A Pinellas work group 

(indiscernible) the primary and secondary issues raised in SC&A's site profile 

review had been adequately addressed and resolved. 

So why is this important to the program here? Because TBDs are very 

important source documents for all information that -- that is associated 

with the Pinellas SEC, all the background information, plus it gives the 

methodology that the dose constructors use in order to reconstruct doses. 

So the conclusion was that the basis of the review -- of how the dose 

reconstructions are done in general are good. The board agreed and SC&A 

agreed. 

So that's the background stuff. Now this -- just to -- and the question 

is now, what -- where are the sources of radiation in Pinellas, and we 

characterized it different ways. You have radioactive materials versus 

radiation generators. Then you have the materials that are always 

radioactive and giving off radiation, radiation generators you have to switch 

on and off. When they're switched off, they're not radio -- they don't give 

off any radiation. And you can also characterize the sources are either 

potentially dispersible, you know, gas, power, or something that could get 

into the environment versus nondispersible radioisotopes. It's something 

that's encapsulated and that you can -- there's no reasonable way it can 
 

146

open up. That's nondispersible. So it makes it a little bit easier to look at 

the different sources to just -- its characterization. 

And the next four slides I'll just discuss these briefly, different sources. 

Okay. The -- the radioactive materials have -- these are -- this 

(indiscernible) Pinellas now -- have accelerated to neutron generators, which 

contain tritium targets. Neutron generators relied on D-T, deuterium 

tritium, fusion reactions to produce neutrons. You have a D-T reaction, you 

get 14.1 MeV neutrons and 3.5 MeV alpha particles. So these D-T reactions 

of deuterium tritium are a source of low-energy neutrons.

The second thing, RTGs, which are radioisotope-powered 

thermoelectric generators, which contain plutonium dioxide as the heat 

source. When you have Plutonium-38, for example, when it undergoes 

radioactive decay, alpha decay, it produces a great amount of heat. And 

this heat can be used to generate electricity from a thermoelectric 

generator. So that's a source of radioactive materials. 

There -- there are lesser ones also. The plant used in the various 

borosilicate glass, which contains naturally -- naturally it contains uranium, 

and you have borosilicate glass, and it's somewhat radioactive. The leaktesting systems which contain Krypton-85 which is radioactive, tritiumstorage systems, you don't usually -- when you have a lot of tritium, tritium 

can escape easily from tubing, etc., etc., so they very often -- you, like, 

have it tied up on metal beds that absorb the tritium, and the bedding 

releases the tritium then when you heat up the beds. So, at some point, 

they used uranium beds, which apparently absorb tritium readily. And just 

for general radioactive log check sources, analytical standards for lab 
 

147

analysis, these are low-level radiation sources that are just used in radiation 

labs. So, these are the sources, potential sources, of exposure by 

radioactive material. 

Radiation generators, as I mentioned, these are only generating 

radiation when they're turned on. When they're turned off, they won't 

generate radiation. And you have neutron generators that -- they're 

deuterium reactions, or D-D -- D-D and D-T reactions produce neutrons. 

They also produce secondary radiation. As neutrons they produce 

(indiscernible) these energy -- the -- also cause gamma rays and other 

radiation. They somewhat used also ion accelerators for ion implantation 

work. It wasn't a major thing and occupational extra exposures that the --

the workers had medical X-ray periodically. 

We have a characterization of dispersible. What's dispersible here? 

And these are different isotopes. Now, tritium, which is heavy hydrogen, it's 

ordinary hydrogen is one proton by itself. Tritium is one proton and two 

neutrons. It decays by beta decay, which is -- beta decay emits electrons or 

positron and this 5.7 kilo-electron-volts on the average, which is really low 

energy. And tritium occurred in forms in the plant; you had titrated water, 

which, instead of H20, you had -- it's (indiscernible) -- you had T2O or -- or 

the tritium replaced the protium with very high hydrogen; tritium gas; and 

organically bound tritium which is the -- sorry -- where the tritium is bound 

up in the organic compound and (indiscernible) metal tritides -- and we talk 

a little more about metal tritides later because that's a little bit of an issue 

that was raised. 

The other sources of dispersible radio -- radioisotopes potentially --
 

148

okay, hang on one second. Let me turn off my phone here. Okay, sorry 

(indiscernible).

All right. So Carbon-14, which is used in small amounts, they use it as 

a tracer in some solvents. Krypton-85, which is also a beta emitter. It's a 

noble gas, and as a noble gas, it doesn't react chemically with anything. So 

it's not seen as a major significant hazard in the plant. And, finally, 

potentially nondispersible radioisotopes plutonium, Plutonium-238 and 239 

somewhat, and they were used for the RTGs, they emit alpha particles, beta 

particles, photons, neutrons through spontaneous fission. And uranium --

the three different isotopes and (indiscernible) uranium also emit alpha, 

beta, X-rays, neutrons, etc., plus they're -- as they decay, the decayed 

products, they also emit radiation. And finally, Nickle-63, which is a beta 

emitter which is used in krytrons, which are -- they're little -- they're gasfilled glass tubes and that were used in nuclear weapons as very high-speed 

switches. 

External exposures. You have to look at external exposures of neutron 

and internal exposures. You have neutron generator production area, the 

RTG production area, and the chem lab to -- to a much lesser extent with an 

ion implantation accelerator. So, these are potential photon exposure sites. 

External exposures, tritium -- and as I mentioned before, tritium has a really 

low energy beta particle and very a short range, so it's not seen as an 

external exposure hazard, and that's generally agreed upon, not just for this 

site.

Krypton-85 is a potential hazard because it has enough energy to 

cause skin -- skin damage and potentially some of the gas might have 
 

149

escaped from the leak detectors. And Carbon-14 in very small amounts, but 

it's also looked at. For external exposures you had neutrons in secondary 

radiation from the neutron generators with the RTG heat sources with the 

decaying plutonium. That goes with what petitioners identified because 

when NIOSH took (indiscernible) in the ER and SC&A is looking into all of 

this, the -- at the petitioner-identified sources, and it covered tritium, 

uranium, plutonium, Carbon-14, Krypton-85, Strontium-90, he mentioned, 

Cobalt-60 and thallium. 

Okay. Switching a little bit. Internal dosimetry monitoring data. 

Where -- where do we get the data from? The tritium urine bioassays, and 

apparently, especially before 1990, the -- it's common with a lot of the DOE 

plants, they only did tritium -- they only did urine bioassays when they 

thought there was an actual potential for somebody to be exposed to 

tritium. If somebody is in an office somewhere, they might not have been 

monitored, had bioassays. They only did bioassays usually for people who 

potentially could be exposed. 

Plutonium bioassays were done for the RTG project workers. They 

also had data area air monitoring and smear surveys where the health 

physics people went through the areas that had potential for tritium and 

plutonium, and they would test, do a smear sample and take it to the lab 

and test it. So tritium, the -- the ER asserts tritium is the only source of 

internal exposure risk, that the other isotopes aren't really a hazard. And 

the ER references an internal dosimetry TBD, which I mentioned before, 

which gives the method to reconstruct the internal doses from -- from the 

different types of tritium from the bioassays. 
 

150

And just going a little bit into the TBD, going into the weeds a little bit, 

NIOSH, when they do dose reconstruction, they count the exposures to both 

100 percent tritium gas and 100 percent organically bound tritium and select 

the one that's the most claimant favorable. Although the workers probably 

had limited exposure to insoluble tritium compounds like the metal tritides, 

NIOSH assesses all workers monitored for soluble tritium as though they 

were exposed to insoluble tritium at the same time. So that sentence should 

probably be reversed: That they assumed if you -- if someone's exposed to 

soluble tritium, they also assume they've been exposed to insoluble tritium. 

That's going to be claim -- claimant favorable, which, of course, we're 

looking at. 

The -- over the years, potential tritium exposures and how you 

determine dose has been the subject of lots of discussions since we've 

reviewed the first Pinellas TBDs in 2016. And those reviewed generated two 

primary and one secondary issue related to the tritium, that's what we called 

it back in 2006. So, two important, and one not so important issues. After 

lots of discussions, papers, and reviews, they closed all issues out of 2006 --

as of 2016, except for issue two, which is we recommended that potential 

doses from insoluble metal tritides are not significantly -- sufficiently 

addressed.

After going back and forth, we ended up -- and the -- and the work 

group accepted NIOSH's revised methods for handling that. And it's right 

now in -- put in abeyance, that issues, pending NIOSH revising the internal 

dosimetry TBD. So, basically, we accepted their methods, but it hasn't 

actually appeared in the document yet. 
 

151

So, as I -- as I promised earlier, a little bit about metal tritides. The 

metal tritides, also known as stable metal tritides, it's an example of special 

tritium compounds which are treated in one of the OTIBs, OTIB-66, which is 

calculations of dose from intake of special tritium compounds, was revised in 

2020. And I'm not going to go through all the nitty-gritty of this. But the --

it is revised. SC&A, actually me, went ahead and reviewed the revised OTIB. 

We found that it was good, recommended to the board that it was good. 

This was part of the process that Kathy Behling had mentioned this morning 

when we reviewed OTIBs.

And just a mention that currently, since the -- the current dose TBD, 

which was revision 3 was issued in 2016, and that the -- that was our 

(indiscernible) soon after OTIB-66 revision one, neither one currently reflect 

its guidance, but (indiscernible) concerned about because NIOSH uses 

whatever the latest revision of OTIBs are when they do a dose 

reconstruction. So, the takeaway from the review of the current method 

related to metal tritides, and we had the work group, Pinellas work group, 

agree with it. 

And just a little information, background information, this is from the 

OTIB: That stable is used to indicate that tritium is not easily separated 

through natural matrix, which is bound, so this -- this means that the 

material is mostly retained in the (indiscernible) resulting in much -- so what 

happens is that if -- if the better matrix contains the tritides is strongly 

retained in the lungs, then most of it's actually excluded in the urine. So,

what happens if you do an analysis? (Indiscernible) just because tritides are 

not excreted. So that's the basic issue with metal tritides, but there's ways 
 

152

to address that. This OTIB does that.

As I mentioned, you did a focused review of OTIB-66 revision one last 

year. We had a meeting, work group meeting, November 3, 2021, and all 

conditions were closed with the OTIB, and our current review will consider 

the absence of OTIB-66 revision one methodology significantly affects the 

dose reconstruction. Although, as I said before, normal NIOSH procedure is 

that they use whatever the latest guidance happens to be. So they're 

certainly going to use the latest revised guidance in the OTIB. So that was 

tritium. 

Uranium internal dose potential. So I mentioned, depleted uranium 

was used in the tritium storage bed, which was a real topic of issue in the 

original SC&A TBD review. And we were concerned about the potential for 

missed depleted -- depleted uranium intakes from inhalation of loose 

material -- depleted uranium from cutting and machining of the beds. 

NIOSH subsequently investigated and (indiscernible) review that such 

activities were not done at Pinellas, they were done at a GE plant in 

Milwaukee. So, this is not an issue for Pinellas.

The borosilicate glass just normally retains about one-and-a-half 

percent of natural occurring uranium oxide, and as operations, the glass is 

chemically cut and etched. The site health physicists evaluated exposure 

risk and determined that the minimal external and no internal hazards were 

-- were present. We were looking into that also. 

Plutonium. This was an issue that we've been discussing also since 

2006. And after a lot of looking at it we finally (indiscernible) update 2016 

of the issues expose -- the resolution matrix that the RTGs were received at 
 

153

Pinellas triply encapsulated with stainless steel, and they did not open then 

at Pinellas. So the only chance of exposure was from surface contamination. 

They were never opened up. With the health physics reports the 

(indiscernible) slides of the capsules and the results are that the -- the 

contamination levels are quite low. So because of this (indiscernible) issue 

resolved and no further consideration necessary unless new information 

becomes available. 

Carbon-14 internal exposure potential, and this (indiscernible) NIOSH 

(indiscernible) looked at it. The Florida Department of Health & 

Rehabilitative Services (indiscernible) information about how many 

(indiscernible) -- how much (indiscernible) Carbon-14 were released in the 

plant stacks. It was discussed at the general 2019 work group meeting. 

And at that meeting it was determined that the quantity of the material 

released was determined to be negligible and can contribute less than 1 

millirem per year dose. Just in perspective, that minimum exposure to 

people out in the air get a lot more exposure than 1 millirem per year, so 

this is a very low number. 

Krypton-85 -- we're just going through the list now of the isotopes 

that the petitioners identified. And this, again, the State of Florida gave 

information about how much Krypton-85 noble gas went up the stacks. And 

it's (indiscernible) that since it's a noble gas, it doesn't react chemically 

within the body when it's breathed in, then it's soon breathed out. And it's 

breathed in and out and doesn't bind to anything in the body. So, the ER 

concludes that since only a very small amounts of beta decay might take 

place in the lungs since it's in and out, the ER states that Krypton-85 is not a 
 

154

significant internal exposure hazard, and we're re-reviewing that 

assumption.

Strontium-90, Cobalt-60, and Thallium-204. The petition requests 

that Pinellas be added to the SEC partly based on the claim of incomplete 

radiological characterization of Strontium-90, Cobalt-60, and Thallium-204, 

and beryllium. Just note, right off the bat, that beryllium is not radio -- is 

not a radionuclide, it's an element, and it's not a radiological hazard. It's an 

internal hazard from silicosis, but it's not a radiological hazard, so it's not 

even considered here. 

The -- our preliminary review found that these three radio --

radionuclides in the Pinellas inventory did not present a sufficient internal 

exposure risk that should be monitored by the plant and -- for several 

reasons. All Cobalt-60 and Thallium-204 sources were sealed and not loose, 

unless there was leakage, which we're looking into. As I mentioned fairly 

early in this presentation, we're looking at all the incident reports to see 

whether there was any leakage of this into the atmosphere. Strontium-90 

was present in both sealed and unsealed forms, however, the unsealed 

sources were very small. (Indiscernible) nuclides could potentially be used 

in RTGs, we haven't to date found any evidence that this was the case at 

Pinellas. Of course, if we discover some something, then we'll look at it.

We are doing -- we're also looking at radiation monitoring data. That's 

important. And a preliminary review, when you look at the two time 

periods, the SEC period from 2000 -- 1957 to 1990 and post SEC period 

from 1991 to 1997, the break point, 1990 is the targeting report where the -

- the -- the health physics reports were read, and so forth, show that the 
 

155

previous SEC period they improved tremendously the health physics at the 

plant radiation monitoring. 

So, we're looking at currently to acquire five Pinellas cases that we 

previously reviewed by the subcommittee work group, to identify any issues 

with the DRs that were identified, those reviews, and to evaluate the 

relevance to the feasibility dose reconstruction to the SEC period. So, we're 

working with NIOSH. These were cases that were -- for Pinellas that we 

reviewed already and that -- we want to see them to see if they show any 

light on the data that's available isn't for actual people. 

This -- this is the pre (indiscernible) period and the -- (indiscernible) 

before, the ER finds that Pinellas did not tear -- did not monitor potential 

exposed personnel and they did not find indications of lack of monitoring for 

the class under evaluation. So NIOSH concludes it has sufficient data to 

perform those reconstructions. 

Okay. So this is one of the things that we were looking at, is the 

potential exposed personnel. As I -- I had earlier mentioned (indiscernible) 

as this common practice at most of these sites, they didn't monitor people 

who couldn't have been exposed. So, the question is, do they monitor all 

the people who actually were exposed, could have been exposed, and are 

the records available, and so forth. And (indiscernible) methods that NIOSH 

used for either missing data or unmonitored workers that should have been 

monitored, so this is an issue that we're looking at.

The ER stated that NIOSH examined many types of in vitro urinalysis 

record sources, and they actually found -- they looked in 2020 and found 

over 20,000 tritium bioassay results that target the individuals. So just on 
 

156

the face of it, there's a lot of tritium bioassay results. Is it for everybody? Is 

it for every year? That's what's being looked at -- going to be issues we're 

looking at. 

The (indiscernible) during SC&A for the -- the SEC period and I just 

wanted to mention that (indiscernible) reviewed the list of 2,500 documents 

that are available for Pinellas on NIOSH's computer system that we have 

access to. It's their Edge Computing platform. And just mentioned just 

recently, (indiscernible) in the last couple of weeks, there's more coming. 

NIOSH just conducted a large data retrieval at the Morgantown data 

repository and had -- came back with boxes and boxes and boxes of 

additional Pinellas documents that they're in the process of reviewing, 

scanning, and putting it into the database. So, it's an ongoing process. 

SC&A will review the documents, any applicable documents, once we have 

access to them, which should be fairly soon, I assume.

For the post (indiscernible) period, which was the ER period, the -- it's 

post ER period, the -- we looked at this (indiscernible). Although the SEC 

petition requested the evaluated period extend through 1997, NIOSH ended 

it in 1990. And NIOSH had several reasons: That the plant rapidly and 

effectively responded to the Tiger Team findings, including -- including 

improving its radiation monitoring program. This is getting into the details a 

little bit. If anyone wants to look, Tables 6 point -- dash 2 and dash 4 of the 

ER summarize internal monitoring data for tritium is (indiscernible) years '86 

to '95 and external monitoring data for '85 to ' 95. (Indiscernible) 

important. The -- the ER site -- and you can look at the data that there is 

no trend towards higher aggregate doses after the increased monitoring that 
 

157

occurred after 1990, which -- which gives you the idea that if they're doing a 

lot more monitoring and the aggregate doses don't go up, then maybe the 

monitoring that was done before didn't exclude everybody that should have 

been monitored. Because now you're monitoring more frequently and a lot 

more people and it's not going up. 

(Whereupon, Ms. Cassano speaks with an individual while not muted 

on the meeting audio.)

DR. OSTROW: The -- another reason that they (indiscernible) in 1990 

that the 1990 annual ALARA report for ionizing radiation they were finalizing 

shows that the bioassay program participation increased to almost the target 

of 80 percent supports that Pinellas greatly improved its monitoring program 

post 1990. 

Okay. We're currently reviewing the ER's arguments for terminating 

the SEC evaluation period in 1990 -- 

(Whereupon, Dr. Cassano speaks to an individual while unmuted from 

the meeting audio.) 

DR. OSTROW: -- basis or not and so far, we haven't found indications 

there are issues with exposure records that would prevent DR feasibility for 

that time period. So, we continue to evaluate. There's a lot of records we 

haven't seen yet. 

We're reviewing the transition year of 1990, and this is some details of 

the Tiger -- from the Tiger Team report and the ER. The -- when you look at 

the 1991 annual ALARA program report for ionizing radiation, the increase in 

tritium doses for 1991, which is -- seemed like an anomaly was due to an 

incident and recovery operations that influenced tritium doses for only that 
 

158

year, so it wasn't systemic. The -- so the -- the data just has one peak in it, 

but the -- it is a -- due to an incident not a systemic dose. It's just maybe a 

flavor of what we're actually looking at. 

Petitioner concerns. This is very important. And we want to make 

sure that the ER address any valid petitioner concerns. So section 7.4 of the 

ER summarizes nine issues that NIOSH identified as petitioner concerns. 

Those overlap in the concerns. NIOSH characterized it, or singled them out 

to nine primary issues, and they give a detailed response to each. 

(Whereupon, an attendee speaks unmuted from the meeting audio.)

DR. OSTROW: -- people can read it. I'm not going to go through it. 

But so, SC&A is evaluating the -- the petition and other petition -- petitioner 

submissions. (Indiscernible) NIOSH, the petition was submitted, the 

petitioners, until recently, have submitted additional material.

So, what have we identified to date. Okay. The nine issues that are 

explicitly addressed in the ER. Additionally, we identified several others --

issues that are partially covered in the ER, but they might not have been 

identified as the line issues that are in that section 7.4. So we want to see 

whether those issues that are identified in section 7.4 are addressed 

elsewhere in ER. So, to date -- this is preliminary -- we have not found any 

petitioner issues not adequately addressed in the ER. And the following 

slides just list some issues briefly. And I'm not going to read them -- all of 

them because it's -- it'll take too long. People who are interested, they can 

go to (indiscernible).

These are the issues (indiscernible) in the ER, and we covered some of 

this already, that not all the workers were monitored for the radionuclides, 
 

159

only a small fraction of the workers were monitored for radioactive 

exposures. And some of these were answered already. The answer to 

number two partially, is that they didn't all have to -- workers who didn't 

have a potential for being exposed. Incidents we're -- we're spending a lot 

of time looking at incident reports. Employees falsely identifying urine 

samples, that's an issue. The rest of the nine of them are -- a lot of these 

issues are taken right out of the Tiger Team. I guess that's that.

We identified more issues that -- we're looking into the (indiscernible), 

whether addressed somewhere, and whether they're important. And it has 

to do with things like (indiscernible) comprehensive radiological surveys. 

Building 100 is the main building where a lot of the radioactive work was 

done, insufficient environmental monitoring, and so forth, and so on. 

Oh. (Indiscernible) dose reconstructors constructions only reflect one 

work process, not the full range of work processes for those workers 

because the -- as we've been reading the different reports, the work 

processes are broken down, and they're -- they're complex, you know, step 

one, step two, step three. And this will take into account some missing 

dosimetry records, inconsistent monitoring dosimetry records, and so forth. 

These are just some of the issues that we're looking at. 

Finally, path forward. As we said, we're still -- we're working on this. 

We'll continue evaluating available material that we have. There's a lot of 

material. Evaluating new data. And, as I mentioned earlier, NIOSH 

completed data retrieval at Morgantown record center. They just completed 

it last month, in October, and there are 110 boxes of relevant or potentialrelevant material. NIOSH is currently working diligently at scanning the 
 

160

material, sorting the material, characterizing it, and the process of putting it 

into the computer so that NIOSH can look at it and SC -- SC&A will also have 

access to it. So as that becomes available, we'll keep going.

We're looking at the five previous dose reconstruction cases that were 

done. We’re gonna look at data completeness concerns for potential gaps in 

records. This is something that's an interesting topic. We'd like to find out 

the annual tritium inventories in the plant, how much tritium they have on 

hand, and device production records. So how many neutron generators 

RTGs were produced per year and see if there's any correlation to dosimetry 

records. Like, if they doubled the number of neutron generators that were 

produced in one year, did the dose also go up by a factor of two? We'd like 

to know that information. 

We're continuing to utilize ORAUT search capabilities. They've been 

very cooperative to locate relevant documents. They're doing targeted 

document keyword searches for us and eventually available are several 

systems, acronyms, NOCTS -- I don't remember what it stands for -- it's 

basically the petitioner -- the claimant records board review system, BRS, 

and the CATI system, which are interview reports to see if there are any 

additional SEC issues. And we'll do that when it's available.

Okay. So last -- there is the last slide. I tend to speak fast, typical 

New Yorker. So we've finished a little bit early, I think, right? I'll take any 

questions.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.

MEMBER BEACH: Hi, Steve. Josie Beach here. Steve, do you recall, 

did SC&A do interviews, I think, back six years ago or so? Are you aware of 
 

161

those? 

DR. OSTROW: No. I haven't seen the interviews. I wasn't working on 

this -- personally on this, six years ago. So, I don't know. Any -- my 

teammates --

Bob Barton, do you have any idea if they did interviews?

MEMBER BEACH: I think it was, maybe, in Kathy Abe’s (ph) era. 

DR. OSTROW: Okay. I -- 

MR. BARTON: This is -- this is Bob Barton. I -- I am not aware. Like 

I said, we do have access to a significant portion of the documents that were 

on the SRDB. And typically, those would be marked, there is a documented 

communication. I don't believe we've actually seen any of those listed 

there. So, I'm not sure if they might be held somewhere else. But I'm not 

aware of those interview summaries at this time. But we can certainly look 

into it. 

MEMBER BEACH: Great.

DR. OSTROW: (Indiscernible) interviews. 

MR. BARTON: And that was one of the fastest paths forward is to also 

look at the CATI ports because those are often very helpful with claimant 

statements that are made as part of the dose reconstruction process.

MEMBER BEACH: Right. And sometimes SC&A's reports aren't in that, 

but I know it was part of his path forward. And the other question, in the 

same venue is, are there plans for any future interviews? SC&A planning any 

moving forward?

MR. BARTON: Not at this time. I think as we're performing these 

targeted keyword searches, and really kind of start to really dig down, what 
 

162

we want to really look at, we can have more targeted idea of what people 

want to talk to, about some of these issues. As Steve's presentation 

indicated, a lot of these were sort of adjudicated way back, you know, 2016. 

But it actually started back in 2006. However, when new information comes 

to light, we'll certainly want to follow that up with talking with the 

appropriate people who were at the site, but as of now there are no 

interviews (indiscernible).

DR. CASSANO: Hi. Tori Cassano here. I have a question. Going back 

to the krypton issue. Do you know how NIOSH made the assumption that 

krypton would be immediately exhaled after it was inhaled? Because my 

thoughts are that krypton is heavier gas than air, and some of the literature 

actually indicates that it does get deposited at the bottom of lung and that --

and that's how it acts as an asphyxiant. So I'm wondering -- I know you 

said you were going to investigate that assumption, but I'm wondering if you 

know how they came to that assumption.

DR. OSTROW: I don't know offhand how they came to that 

assumption. It's something we will look at though. There's (indiscernible) 

models. We have to look into that or find out from NIOSH how they -- what 

they assumed.

DR. CASSANO: Okay. Well, thanks, because -- thanks for looking at 

that. Appreciate it.

DR. OSTROW: Any other questions or comments? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) this site, do you have any 

sense of -- I know you've run into difficulties with access to documents, and 

things like that. So, it's hard to give us an idea on when we can expect a 
 

163

report from you that we could then have our identified subgroup go over it 

and then NIOSH respond. You've identified quite a number of issues here 

that you're still looking into that we can then move forward with more 

determination, review of all the materials, and the various opinions that will 

be presented by you, as well as those in the ER by NIOSH?

MR. BARTON: Well, certainly a lot of moving parts here. But I think 

now that we have this new avenue to essentially use ORAUT to do these 

targeted keyword searches, I think things will move a lot faster. The other 

things that are up in the air that we really don't have timing on are things 

like the NOCTS and the CATI reports, which we really don't know when those 

might become available. But perhaps we can work something out where we 

can get that through the same avenue as the document requests. But that 

is certainly something we usually like to include in our SEC reviews. 

Depending on projected schedule on those items, we may elect to simply cut 

it off here and see where we're at as far as an SEC determination, while 

perhaps keeping certain parts of it open, depending on where the work 

group comes out on it. I think --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- just a couple months ago NIOSH just 

discovered like a hundred-plus boxes of more stuff, and we don't have 

access to the detail of what's in it (indiscernible) that NIOSH knows at this 

stage either, the detail of what's in it.

MR. BARTON: You certainly don't want to just continue to carry it and 

say -- 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No.

MR. BARTON: -- ad nauseam just waiting for certain modules --
 

164

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) discipline what we have and 

insufficient or NIOSH has just made some determinations, but we have to be 

sure that it is backed up by records and your documentation that you're 

searching for. So, I know you can't give us a -- go ahead. 

MEMBER BEACH: So, my question went back to what Steve just was 

talking about the -- the new documents. Can you give us an idea, NIOSH 

possibly, of where those are and what process they're in? Have you dug into 

the boxes? Are they handy? close? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Hi, yes. So we conducted a data capture in 

May and also October. We have received from OTC review about 14,000 

pages, 195 documents from our May data capture. Those are currently with 

ORAUT going through review before we put those in the SRDB, which I've let 

Steve -- he will be notified as soon as those are available. 

MEMBER BEACH: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Go ahead (indiscernible).

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I just -- I just also want to make sure that 

people knew that Phil has left the -- the board and Poston (ph) has then left 

the board. I am now the new work group chair. I would like to be kept in 

the loop with that as this information comes out. And we'll -- we'll slowly 

push forward. I just wanted people to realize that we are re-establishing the 

Pantex work group and that I am now the chair of it. Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's correct. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Other -- other questions? 

DR. OSTROW. Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot. 
 

165

CHAIR ANDERSON: I do have -- we are planning to have the public 

comment was targeted to begin at 5:00 and at six o'clock. Looking at the 

list of the number of people who've signed up, we'd really like to give 

everybody an opportunity to speak. It doesn't look to be like we'll be able to 

get everybody through in an hour if we wait until then. We also have 

another conflict issue that -- while it's nice sunny weather here, the airlines 

are already in touch with several of us and our schedules have been changed 

for flights home tonight. So, we're -- two of us, at least, have to leave here 

by 6:30. So if the public could -- we could begin the session a little early. 

I notice there's quite a number of the individuals here. We could begin 

right now if some of you would like to start speaking. It looks to me like the 

list is 15. Prior to today's meeting, we had one person sign up. So we were 

very thrilled actually, to see so many of you willing to come out and come 

here and -- and speak to us. But unfortunately, the way that scheduling 

was done, we didn't allow enough time and that then impinged upon the 

flights, planning the government travel, which is not the simplest thing to 

do. 

So two of us will be leaving here about 6:30. The remainder -- others 

have already made plans to -- well, you're leaving early, too -- are gonna be 

here and are also hopefully going to be able to stay attached, even though 

they're spread out from West Coast to the north of the East Coast. So I 

would ask if -- if you want to start now, we certainly can. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay. Well, let's get going then. Thank you.

MEMBER CLAWSON: And let's -- let's -- this is Brad. Let's make sure 
 

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that we start with the Pinellas --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes.

MEMBER CLAWSON: -- people. We've got a lot of other people that 

are talking, too, but I'd like the Pinellas first. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Most of those that signed up are Pinellas, and 

they don't say which they are, but I -- I think they are. And so, we'll start 

with Denise Degarmo. I saw you there, so --

DR. DEGARMO: I'm hobbling. I just had total knee reconstruction 

surgery. So, anyway, I'm Dr. Denise Degarmo. I have spoken to a whole 

lot. It's really good to see you face to face. And we really appreciate the 

fact that you did come down here. The claimants have been struggling with 

this issue for a long time. They've lost hope. They've lost faith in the 

process. So, to have you here is a really nice step to maybe re-establish 

some communication between not only the petitioners but the claimants and 

yourself. So greatly appreciate it and thank you. 

As you know, I have had several major challenges in trying to access 

information, data, and so forth. But there is a tiny glimmer of hope that I 

did want to share with you. As I'm sure you know, or maybe you don't 

know, on August 15, 2020, I was pretty frustrated, so I contacted the 

secretaries of Department of Energy, Department of Labor, and HHS, and 

conveyed some of my concerns about, especially data coming from the 

Department of Energy and NIOSH that was used in the petition evaluation 

report. I cc'd Dr. Howard because I tend to work with transparency, so I 

wanted you all to be aware of what I was doing. 

And much to my surprise, secretary Granholm responded the day after 
 

167

the receipt of this letter and appointed [identifying 

information redacted], who's one of her FOIA officers, to begin to work 

with me in getting access to all of the reference material in the PER. He has 

gone on to assign contractor [identifying information redacted] to 

collect and clear the documents. And as of November 16, 2022, Ms. 

Vasquez told me that she was now working on the first partial of the FOIA 

documents and would be in touch and keep me informed. While I don't have 

anything yet, I feel like we're moving forward, and that will provide the 

petitioners and claimants better access to truly evaluate what was being 

done, how it was achieved, and what data is being used. So, we're pretty 

pleased about that. 

The second issue I'm working with the DOE on is that there is quite a 

few missing employee files. And when I say missing -- I brought this up to 

the board before, but to refresh your memory -- one of my claimants 

received her federal employment file from the Veterans Administration with 

a letter stating that they had quite a few of the Pinellas employees' files and 

had tried to return them to GE, to Lockheed Martin, Morgantown, anybody 

who would take them. And nobody took them, and that they were in the 

process of trying to track down these folks to return all their -- their 

employee files to them. They were concerned that especially the dosimetry 

that was available, and that wasn't very much, and the medical records, 

pretty important, and should be in the hands of those who needed it. 

Mr. Morris turned, I guess, the assignment over to -- to Greg Lewis, 

who called me on the phone, said that he would be working on this, trying to 

track down what the situation was, what the story was. I contacted him two 
 

168

weeks ago; he has not returned my question. I emailed him. So I have no 

idea where we are in the process of finding these files. So, what I intend to 

do is go back to Mr. Morris and remind him that we're still in need of these 

files. 

As a point that I think that you should know about that of the -- and I 

have a small (indiscernible). I don't work with a lot of folks, but of the folks 

that I do work with, over a third of them have absolutely no files on record 

with the DOE or DOL, which raises concerns about if there is something that 

they were exposed to or if they had dosimetry, we don't have it. The other 

thing of interest I think that you should know is out of that third, all of them 

are African-Americans except two individuals. So I find that a little 

suspicious as to why this happened to a large segment of the Pinellas 

employees. 

I also am still working on getting -- I still would like to see the 

extension of the SEC through 1997. But I'm -- also contacted the secretary 

of the Department of Labor and provided him with evidence regarding the 

temporary plant, the 1956 through 1957 temporary plant. It is my 

understanding that Rachel Pond refused to identify that as a covered facility 

because she said there was no evidence that there was any radiologic 

material at that temporary facility. In the Department of Energy 1987 

environmental summary preliminary report two radiological materials were 

identified. So, I'm concerned. Well, I haven't heard from her either as to 

what the process is going to be about this, and I intend to follow up. But 

how are we missing some of these very important pieces of information and 

claimants are not able to take advantage of the dose -- doses they may 
 

169

have received from that facility, and I find that quite bothersome. 

Additionally, this has been a very fruitful trip to Pinellas, and I have 

received lots of evidence that I will be sharing with you once I go through it. 

A lot of it has to do with exposures, monitoring, and so forth. But I was 

alerted to the fact that there were approximately 30 to 35 General Electric 

X-ray Milwaukee folks, so were actually transferred into Pinellas into --

although there're only a couple of those folks still living, they were not 

aware that their dosimetry from Milwaukee, if there was any, was used in 

their dose reconstructions. So, something I need to follow up on. 

Also, you know, we hear over and over and over again, that most of 

the materials that they recovered by the SC&A were triply encapsulated, and 

therefore, the likelihood of exposure is pretty small. However, some of the 

information that I received during this trip reveals some very interesting 

information about contamination or strontium that was disposed of in the 

sanitary drains and has made its way into -- and I have that data. I just 

have to get it organized. And there are strontium and uranium in tritium 

readings in some of the local rivers, Boca Ciega for one, and Long Bayou. 

The only thing I also came across -- and I wish I had it with me -- was 

a 1994 article that was in the "Tampa Bay Times" where the DOE went to 

the press and said, you know, sorry to inform you -- I'm ad-libbing -- I'm --

you know, I should be very correct. I'm sorry -- we wanted to let you know 

that we had several barrels of radioactive waste buried on the property. And 

oh, by the way, we have a plutonium leak. So, we want to let people know 

that they're in no danger. It's not a big deal. We'll take care of it. So, we 

have some of that kind of information about seepage and leakage and --
 

170

that isn't being accounted for. 

I gave Mr. Calhoun today a historical record report labeled GEPP970044070 that provides almost 15 pages of incidents that when I have 

tried to cross-reference, cannot necessarily be tied to any of the -- the 

information on hand about incidents. So I wanted to see if you would crossreference those to help us understand the incidents that occurred. And 

these occurred between 1957 and 1985. If you would like, I can send those 

and make those available to you, as well, or I'm sure Mr. Calhoun will do the 

same. 

I keep going back to the Tiger Team report, and I'm very glad that 

that has come up in the SC&A evaluation. Because in a lot of the documents 

that we're getting from microfilm or the health physicists' records, we keep 

getting a repeat of incomplete documentation of dose assessments. That 

seems to be contrary to this notion we can do it. 

I understand that there is surrogate data you can use, and all the -- I 

understand that the process to replicate these doses might be possible. But 

when we're dealing with language in evidence that suggests that these items 

are flawed to begin with, how can we guarantee that what people were 

exposed to is actually what is being shown in the dose reconstruction. I -- I 

cannot wrap my head around it. It just seems to be an inconsistency. 

There's also, you know, this -- statements about no formal 

documentation of investigations and personal exposure anomalies. That 

seems to be a huge problem. 

And thank you, Mr. Clawson, I was kind of wondering what the deal 

was with the work group, and who would be leading that up, and I 
 

171

appreciate you identifying that. But, overall, -- interviews -- Ms. Beach, Dr. 

Beach -- there were interviews done in 2006. They're referenced throughout 

various materials. They interviewed a whole lot of folks, I think, a year ago 

or two years ago. You need to listen to these folks. I've now worked with 

them -- not as long as, you know, some people, but the more that I talk to 

them, and the more that I hear about what they experienced, doesn't seem 

to reflect anything that we are hearing in the formal documents, the DOE 

and the NIOSH and folks. We need to pay better attention to what they 

have to say to us. Because if you look hard enough, you can find the 

evidence to support what they're saying. 

They're tired. I've worked hard, I will continue to work. These people 

mean something. They've waited a long time. In some cases, the plant has 

really not been explored. I think that early on, it was just, you know, kind 

of a throwaway plant. They didn't do anything important there, the people 

didn't give them exposure. You know, the bottom line is we have a whole 

lot of sick people who have many of the 22 cancers associated with the 

special exposure cohort. If they have it and we recognize that there is this 

relationship; what's the problem?

I found the document written in 1957 by the Atomic Energy 

Commission about knowing back then there were going to be problems, 

(indiscernible) that there were going to be certain illnesses associated with 

this work and that these -- all of these facilities needed to keep track 

somewhere in their records of how many of these illnesses were showing up. 

I don't know that we've come as far as I would like to see us. I think 

tonight you see a lot of people; I hope you will take the time to listen to 
 

172

them all. They are important. They have a story to tell. And I think we all 

could learn a lot from them. And that's the whole reason I invited you 

down. They can tell the story of Pinellas much better than an outsider like 

me. Thank you. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. Since we've been 

corresponding and getting material from you, we gave you a little more time 

than usual, but you really have the data and we really appreciate all the --

all that you've done for them. 

DR. DEGARMO: Thank you. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes. So next, Mr. Delmar Aylers (ph). So we'd 

like to keep comments just as concise as you can in five minutes. If you 

have anything in writing, it doesn't have to be fancy, please leave it with us 

and we can add it to the record. So --

MEMBER BEACH: I'd like to make a suggestion. Just -- sorry. Maybe 

tell who's going to be next --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Okay.

MEMBER BEACH: -- so that that person can be getting ready and --

CHAIR ANDERSON: -- (indiscernible) Kathy. 

MR. AYLERS: Hello. I am Delmar Aylers. I received my degree in 

physics in 1963, and my first job was at the Pinellas Plant. I worked here 

until the plant closed in 1997, and I worked in my job -- principally, I was a 

process developer engineer. I worked in many different locations in the 

plant, and I was familiar with mainly tritium -- tritium exposures and also 

leach field gas, (indiscernible) 85. (Indiscernible) exhaust the area. 

In the early years I was there, most of the beds were in glass, encased 
 

173

in glass and the tubes were in glass. So glass accidents did happen, and 

breakages are -- exist for some of them but not for all of them. One of my 

other tasks was in (indiscernible) where Krypton-85 was pressurized into 

neutron tubes, and then the neutron tubes were put on a Geiger counter to 

see if any tritium was left in there, which -- Krypton-85 was left in there, 

which would show that they were leak checked or field leaks checked.

One of my products -- I, myself, did do work in several -- one of the 

times I was sitting in there, in the chair in there, and the count was at a 

certain level. But I had to do a real count on it, but I was outside. When I 

came back, the code was considerably higher. Turned out that the trip --

Krypton-85 bed was behind me and another metal room, it might not be 

near those exposure was going through -- through the counter.

As you know, there was a lot of testing done on neutron tubes and 

neutron generators. And particularly interested after explosive devices came 

into existence where the --these pouches were actually blown apart, the 

neutron generators. The analyses were done in the laboratory area. We 

had a gas lab, we had a chem lab, and we had other labs that handled these 

parts. And when you've blown up, they're not especially in good condition 

for your exposure. I'm sure that exposure was relevant and did occur in 

those areas.

There are other examples, but I won't go into them. But there are a 

number of big concerns about possible tritium exposure. Thank you.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. Right on time. Good job. 

It's a --it's a (indiscernible) -- Aylers (ph), okay.

MR. AYLERS: Yes. We met in the plant 55 years ago and got married.
 

174

CHAIR ANDERSON: Congratulations. Yeah.

MR. AYLERS (PH): My uterine cancer was very hard on my family. We

have a severely handicapped child that needed me. My 80-year-old mother 

had just moved in with us when I was diagnosed. She took care of me and 

kept the house running during that time. I was only 18 when I started at 

GE. I had absolutely no idea what we were making there or the toxic 

substances being used out there. We were never told about it or had -- or 

any of the incidents that happened. We were never told. Everything was 

kept secret. 

Because of my cancer I was out of work for eight months and ended 

up with some neuropathy in my feet. Steps are still hard for me to do. I 

have been working on this claim for 10 years now. Dr. Denise has worked 

very hard for us but has hit roadblocks due to the lack of information she 

needed. So many times we have been frustrated and let down. NIOSH and 

DCAS have not done their job for our plant. I had a urine test and beryllium 

was found. That should show that it was in the air. We have all suffered 

enough. And I hope you can find it in your hearts to approve this SEC 

petition today. Thank you for your time and consideration. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you. I just want to let everybody know 

that this is all being transcribed. So we really don't want to have you give 

us necessarily personal information. So, if -- if you want to, can, but this 

will go into a public record. So, we prefer -- or after the fact, we can take 

out any identifiers, if you wish. So, we really don't want to have spreading 

around the names of people with certain illnesses. Strange things happen at 

times. We like to keep our public record as nonpublic but take advantage of 
 

175

the information provided. So, appreciate it. 

Okay. Next is Shirley Thornton. And then after that is Elton Scott. 

And then after that is William Darling (ph).

MS. THORNTON: Good afternoon to everyone. Board, I've -- I just 

appreciate you so much. Nobody can tell my story the way I want you-all to 

hear my story. I'm gonna be very brief. I want you to always remember 

me telling you this. Shirley Thornton said time is not on my side. Time is 

not on Shirley's side.

I started at the plant 25 years ago, I was in human resources. And 

my job -- I had to go throughout the entire plant because I was the 

suggestion manager -- suggestions, when employees made suggestions. It 

took me into every part of the plant. I had no idea that it was so toxic in 

that building. But from 1978 until right now, this moment, I am only in -- in 

face only, I am only Shirley Thornton. 

My whole life is not the same. I can't stand up to do what I enjoy 

doing unless -- I'm a gospel singer. I can't do that. I have to sit down 

because I was diagnosed with beryllium disease. I can't walk from here to 

the restroom without help. I can't cook my own meals. I have to have 

someone come in or go out and bring my meals to me. There have been 

times I couldn't even wash my whole body. I still can't take a shower by 

myself. My whole life has changed. 

I'm just Shirley Thornton in name only. And I want you-all to know 

that I am so grateful to God that I'm still alive. But I want you to know that 

time is precious. And time is not on my side. I've had two strokes, I've had 

breast cancer, I've got beryllium disease. Come on, you got to work with 
 

176

me. You got to work with us. You got to remember: I heard Shirley 

Thornton say time is not on her side. It's not on our side. 

I heard a coworker, dear friend of mine, how many times does he fall 

down, can't get up. The balance -- my balance is off. His balance is off. 

Please listen to us today. And whatever you do, take it to heart that we 

need you to expedite whatever you do in a qualitative way. Expedite this 

process. We've been patient. We've been praying. Time is not on our side. 

Only God knows the days, the hours, the minutes that we have on this 

earth. 

But the one thing I want you all to take back with you today: I can do 

something to help somebody. If I do this through this process, you can truly 

say in the presence of God, that if I have helped one somebody, then all of 

this has not been in vain. And I just want to say thank you from the bottom 

of my heart. My children thank you. I wish so much that on Sunday 

mornings I was able to go up into the choir stand and sing out to God. 

That's my God-given gift. I can't do that without Eurell (ph), he's like my 

son, he helps me to sit down, to stand up, because my balance is off. 

Diabetic I am. All of these things. 

I'm still alive and I thank you. I thank God for each of you. But I 

want you to listen to our hearts because we need you to do a qualitative 

expeditious -- speed the process up but come back to us and help us 

because we can't do this without you. And I say thank you. Thank you.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank --

MS. THORNTON: God bless each of you. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you for coming out. Next is Elton Scott. 
 

177

We need to have you use the microphone so we can record it. We can hear 

you otherwise, but the court reporter can't take it down.

MR. SCOTT: Well, good evening. Thank everybody for coming out 

(indiscernible) hear what we got to say. I started out in the plant in '76 in 

the machine shop where we made all the components and parts for the 

neutron generator. I also worked in the final machine shop where we cut 

open the final product to put testing -- you know, you had to take 

everything off so you can see inside. So, for that, I began into maintenance. 

I got into machine repair. Once I got in machine repair, I worked 

everywhere in the plant. I mean, anything that was in the plant 

(indiscernible) where we slammed the product against the wall to check it, 

worked in where we blew them up, worked in the area where they built the 

thermal batteries, anywhere in the plant.

I worked all of the chemical plating and stuff. I worked all that 

equipment. And in that time, I lost partners. Since then, I've lost family 

members, and whole lot of friends and coworkers. It just that -- the thing 

that I think in my mind is that all the spots that did what we did to --

continuous effort for the goodness of the country that have already got this 

SEC cohort. I don't understand why it was so easy for them to get it, and 

it's so hard for us to get it. It seem like to me if one got it, everybody 

should have got it. That's just me. That's just me. 

But again, it's just (indiscernible) it always seem like the only people 

that were getting anything out of it was surviving family members. You only 

get paid when somebody pass. We've had all kinds of meetings. We've had 

politicians and everything come to these different meetings and promise us 
 

178

they're going to help, but here we are still. 

I was here for the original meeting 20 years ago (indiscernible) when 

they told us this is available to you, no problems when you get it. You don't 

need to get a lawyer. We should have got a class action suit right then and 

everybody should've signed up. But, like I say, once again, here we are. 

My thing is, I'm glad you guys are here to hear us. Hopefully, some 

good will come of it. Like I said, I've been through a lot of meetings and 

nothing yet. I've had the cancers. Matter of fact, I've had two cancers, but 

I'm still here by the grace of God. Anyway --

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you. 

MR. SCOTT: -- thank you guys for coming.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. So William Darling and 

then Daisy Beale (ph) or Sherry Scott? (Indiscernible.) 

MR. DARLING: Good evening. I'm William Darling. I'm so emotional 

right now. I think I can get through this. Just been through so much. My 

goal here today is to inform you on how my work at the Pinellas Plant has 

impacted my life.

My Pinellas Plant work history demonstrates that I worked in most 

areas in the plant. There's not much that I wasn't exposed to, such as the 

radioactive spills I had to clean up without the proper attire, cleaning walls 

in highly contaminated areas without the proper training or the proper attire, 

and at the time when I was into tool room, working in tool rooms, I had to 

handle contaminated parts and tools. 

Later on, I was promoted to a computer programmer, whereas I 

worked upstairs in the computer room. And believe it or not, the entire 
 

179

flooring was contaminated with asbestos -- asbestos. We had to remove the 

tile, contaminated tile at that, and all of the exposure I got from that, not to 

even mention the computer room walls upstairs were contaminated also with 

asbestos. The ceiling -- but here's the -- here's the tough part. We were in 

there working while the asbestos being removed. We had no protective 

clothing. We had no mask. Nothing. Total exposure.

And just reflecting back, the workers in the area removing the darn 

stuff had all kind of protective clothing on, white jackets, the masks, the full 

gear. Unbelievable. Not only that, some of my other job-related duties took 

me to areas where we had spills, where actually -- well, let me backtrack a 

little bit.

Actually, the spills that I had to clean is when I was on the janitorial 

(indiscernible), and we had to clean the contamination and we didn't have 

proper clothing to do it. I'm getting off schedule and I know other people 

want to come up, so let me finish up now. 

Now, some of the good things that have happened to me since I got all 

of this exposure. I have COPD. Just last week I was admitted to the 

hospital. I couldn't breathe. How many of you know how it feel to be under 

water and you come up for air and there's a structure there and you can't 

come up. That's how I feel when my COPD is acting up. And when that 

happens, my oxygen doesn't work. These chemicals don't work. And all of 

the other machines I have at the house don't work. I have to go to the 

hospital. 

I went into the hospital. They took care of the situation. And now I'm 

good to go. In other words, I'm good until the next crisis. And I never 
 

180

know when it's gonna happen. 

So, listen, we're not (indiscernible) to GE or Martin -- GE at the time, 

as a young man, 24. I was there for, what, 25 years. But I had the 

assurance that the company was going to take care of me, but I was wrong. 

I was exposed and then now we have to go through all of these channels to 

be true taken care. So, I just don't understand it. 

So, listen, there are people who are worse off than I am, and I realize 

that. And I'm hoping that the board, all of you, are listening to all of us and 

that you will make it right. We need it. We're not getting any younger. My 

goodness, I started at 24 and I'm 70-plus now, and I have all these things 

going on in my body. So, listen, I'm glad that you're listening to us, but 

please, take care of us. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. Appreciate your 

comments. 

MR. DARLING: Yes.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Next is Daisy Beale (ph) and then Sherry Scott. 

MS. SCOTT: Good afternoon. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Good afternoon.

MS. SCOTT: I'm so glad that you-all came to hear us. And I feel like 

Shirley Thornton when she said time is not on our side. My husband passed 

away six years ago (indiscernible) answer, and I don't want this to happen 

to me to leave my loved ones behind. There are so many ailments that has 

happened because of my employment with Pinellas Plant, and I want to start

with those. 

Those conditions include (indiscernible) doses, breast cancer, type-two 
 

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diabetes, neuropathy, stage-three kidney disease, thyroid trouble, and the 

list goes on and on. Being employed with the Pinellas Plant started back in 

1968. And when I started, I thought I was going to a plant that made 

refrigerators and washing machines and dryers and all of that. Little did I 

know what they really did.

I started as a secretary. And in that -- and that position allowed me to 

go through many areas of the plant. I worked as a production and inventory 

secretary across the hall -- directly across the hall from area eight where my 

husband worked as a physicist. 

I worked as a secretary in equipment engineering in areas 150, 103, 

106, and 104, and it required me to travel to these areas and other areas for 

the equipment engineering person's machine shop supervisor. And that was 

some bad stuff in machine shop, and also in the tool room. I worked as a 

calibration secretary, I'm not sure of that area. And then I worked as a 

product engineering secretary that required that I go through all areas of the 

plant.

And then I worked as a research -- online researcher in the technical 

information center, which required the same. And lastly, I worked in 

purchasing. And there was radioactive material directly across from me in 

the hallway to be shipped to Savannah River. All of these areas included 

tritium, mercury, depleted uranium, and you name it. And they think that 

because we were secretaries, oh, we didn't get these diseases. Oh, yes, we 

did, because we had to travel from area to area and work with the product 

engineers. And I plead with you before -- before I leave this world, before I 

leave my only great grand, I plead, I beg that you not linger. Pinellas Plant 
 

182

took my husband, but I plead with you all not let me leave without some 

satisfaction. I thank you. I thank you for coming. I thank you for Denise 

who's been so great. Thank you so much. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. Appreciate your 

comments. 

Next to Sherry Scott then Robert Pasart (ph).

MS. SCOTT: Hey, good afternoon. I started working in the Pinellas 

Plant in 1979, and I ended my work there in 1995. I was thinking about, 

you know, just writing something down and I -- I decided to write The Good, 

the Bad and the Ugly. I think it might be a movie named after that. But, 

anyway, I -- I like to start off with when I started working there, it did 

supply my necessities to help take care of the family. So that's the good, 

okay. 

And when I worked there, I worked as an inspector all -- most all the 

time that I spent in the Pinellas Plant just inspecting parts. And I used to 

kind of ask questions about the areas that I worked in, and the only thing 

they would tell us, everything is confidential. And I really want to know 

some of the con -- confidential things, but it was not allowed to be explained 

to us what we was -- what we was handling and what we was working with. 

So, as an inspector, so most of the product that I handled, I thought was, 

you know, you had been -- been in the oven and, you know, and just passed 

down and maybe it wasn't no harm, but I found out just being in the plant it 

was very harmful to all of us. And I've seeing many young people that 

worked there have passed on, but some of us still is alive and that's a --

that's from the grace of God, and I thank him for that. 
 

183

And the bad, I would say that just being an inspector and just handling 

parts and being in the environment -- because I just think that the 

environment of working in the plant have took -- have took control of a lot 

of our lives and it cause harm to the body. My mother is 89 years old, and 

her health is much better than mine, you know. So, I'm grateful for that. 

But some of the things -- I've had a lot of surgeries. And just to start out 

with some of the things, I'm not gonna name everything that -- that was 

taken out of this body, but I'm still alive. Oh, gallbladder -- and in one year 

I had three surgeries right behind one another in one year, and that was a 

lot of surgeries. I had a cysts removed off of my eye lids, and I have 

nodules in different areas of my body, thyroid, breast, lungs, so it's just so, 

so much have happened to us, diabetes, and I look at my mom and my dad 

history that there's no diabetes in -- in -- in their lives. He didn't have 

diabetes, but he's deceased. My mom, like I said, is 89 years old. She don't 

have no trace of diabetes, arthritis. I had knee replacement. 

And then also, the ugly, I would say our children. What will happen to 

our children? You know, I had -- we had -- well, it was my husband came up 

and spoke, but we had a little boy at the time going to the new school on the 

-- on the plant site. And I'm just wondering about them, you know. What 

would happen to them. When they see some of these things that -- that will 

come in their lives, and then they may wonder where did this stuff come 

from, you know, why do I have this? 

And -- and what else I -- I just want to say that people call me all the 

time that worked in the plant, so, you know, that I just talked to a doctor 

not long ago that worked out there and she said I had -- I had to have a 
 

184

kidney removed because of kidney cancer. And I was wondering where that 

come from. And then I let her know, you probably -- it probably, when you 

work there, you -- it may have -- you may have gone through some of that -

- some of that stuff that was in the plant. 

You couldn't see it, but we worked around it. So, it was in the 

atmosphere and even in the water. As we look at other places that's going 

through the same -- similar things that we're going through. It also could 

be in the water. We drink the water from the plant, you know. So I'd just 

like to say the good, the bad and the ugly.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. And I want you to all 

know we really appreciate of all of the various groups that we've come and 

spoken with, you're the first group that really has adhered pretty closely to 

the time lines, and you've managed to give us the kind of information we 

need in a short period of time. So that is greatly appreciated. 

So next up is Robert Pasart (ph). Now, that's a challenge to the rest 

of you to keep the time. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Would this be easier?

MR. PASART (PH): Yeah, that'd be better. Thank you. Yeah, my name 

is Robert Pasart (ph), and I had 34 years in the plant, and I had nine suits --

nine different supervisory areas. I was -- we are (indiscernible) -- they 

would come in with the satellite. They had three cars with 12 people in 

there with machine guns. We got eight sources into 400 building, that was 

400, and there it was also (indiscernible) and neutron generators --

(Whereupon, the speaker's audio was lost.)

MR. PASART (PH): I was (indiscernible) job and right across the hall, 
 

185

they would receive beryllium. And I looked at that, and I could -- I could 

see it was in the air. And that's why a lot of these people got beryllium and 

they were also used in the furnaces down there in area 104. So that's why a 

lot of people got beryllium because it just permeated throughout the plant. 

Not only that, 83 drums of chemicals were buried on the back 40. And 

then there was 83 drums of (indiscernible) buried down the back 40. We 

had 40 -- 83 -- let's see, what was it -- radioactive drums. We had a 

HAZMAT in there. He was supposed to take every one of the radioactive 

parts and put them (indiscernible) drums. Lo and behold, he died of 

cancer. He was 280 pounds. 

I went up to see him. He was 150 pounds. He could -- he would open 

his eyes. He did -- he knew it was me. And he said, “Dave, all I want to do 

is live long enough to see my daughter's wedding.” That was so sad. That's 

all I've got.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. 

Next is your Eurell (ph) Darling.

MR. DARLING: That's me just (indiscernible).

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yeah. And then Christine Foley (ph). 

MR. DARLING: I'm Eurell (ph) Darling. I'm the one that talk a lot, but 

I'm gonna try to hold it down. I have two words for you-all: Analysis and 

reality. This is reality. What you see right here is reality. All of the people -

- I don't know anyone that worked at the plant that does not have some 

type of illness. If you look at me, I don't look like what I've been through. I 

had cancer, I got -- I did diabetes, I've had six surgeries this year, trying to 

find out why do I have lymph nodes all through my body.
 

186

But analysis keeps saying we had nothing going on in the plant, 

nothing going on in the plant; everything is good. A list right here that I 

want to share with you-all, and I want you guys to take it with you. There 

are 600 names on this list that are dead from GE. Think back all your life, 

think of 600 people that you know that have died at your plant where you 

worked. I worked 23 years in the sheriff's department. I can't think of 600-

and-some people that we even buried or had to go to service for any of 

those people. 

There is something really, really wrong with this analysis that 

everybody keep coming up with and -- and -- and saying that there is no 

size or traces of radiation at GE. I worked into (indiscernible) exhaust with 

that young lady's husband, [identifying information redacted]. 

One of the best engineers in the plant. He died. I watched him die. I 

watched this man go from almost 200-some pounds to nothing. He was one 

of the greatest leaders you could ever get in a community. Matter of fact, I 

worked and serviced the community that he was -- was over. I was the 

deputy there. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a serious, serious problem. I worked 

in tube exhaust, and in tube exhaust -- I will tell you this, and I'm not trying 

to make this a black and white issue -- but the majority of the people that 

worked in tube exhaust was black. The majority of the records that are 

missing are black. We worked in exhaust tube exhaust. There's 35 names 

on the list, 35. There's only six of us left on that list. 

It scares me to death every time they say somebody have died at GE 

because the first thing I want to know, was it in tube exhaust? Because 
 

187

that's where I worked, including all over the plant because I was an escort 

and had one of the highest clearances there that -- that they'd give you, 

that DOE would give you. Had one of the highest clearances, so they send 

me anywhere and everywhere and gopher me out to all different places to 

work. 

But ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to hold you much longer. I 

appreciate you guys coming, but you guys gotta think about analysis and 

reality. Reality is that we got over 635 people who have died from that 

plant so far. Three just in the last month, and all three I'm talking about 

right now is all black. Have a nice day. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you. 

Christine Foley (ph) and then Susan Powell then Vivian Newkirk. 

MS. FOLEY (PH): Hello. My -- my dad, and my mom's husband 

[identifying information redacted] worked at GE from 1961 till 1992. 

He was one of the most dedicated employees out there. He hardly ever took 

vacation. And he not only worked at GE, but he was sent to Los Alamos, 

Sandia, Livermore, (indiscernible). He was exposed to a lot of toxic 

radioactive materials. And in 2012 he got diagnosed with cancer, many 

cancers, and they told him he had three to six months to live. 

[identifying information redacted] sat him down, my mom, my 

brother over here in a room and said, we want to know -- we know where 

you worked. We want to know what you were exposed to out there, and he 

wouldn't tell them. And they said, you need to tell us what you were 

exposed to. They knew. He was so disfigured. He was the most handsome 

Irish man, but he looked like a monster when he died. He went from 158 
 

188

pounds to 85 pounds. His teeth fell out. His spine was (indiscernible), 

everything disintegrated.

We begged him to get a feeding tube, and he said I'm ready to go. 

But we weren't ready, and he agreed to get it, but it -- it didn't -- we did get 

six years extra. Other than the three to six months they said, but it was a 

miserable six-and-a-half years. But he was grateful for every day. He wrote 

in a journal every day. You know, he was happy to wake up and happy to 

go to bed, and that's -- that's our story. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: He was an excellent employee.

MS. FOLEY (PH): He made my mom and I promise on the way to 

Moffitt don't you two ever sue. He didn't believe in suing, but he did apply 

for the compensation. And he was so sick, he couldn't finish the paperwork 

and got denied. But it -- it -- it's just heartbreaking. And I know a lot of 

these people are in the same situation. 

Thank you. Thank you.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you.

MS. FOLEY: I have some pictures.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Is there Susan Powell? Vivian Newkirk or Susan 

Powell? Okay, fine. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible.) 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Oh, no, sad. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Good evening. I was employed at the 

Pinellas Plant for 25 years. I started on June 5, 1972, and I worked through 

September 22, 1997. I worked in seven different positions while I was 

employed there. The first position that I held was an assembler/operator 
 

189

and where our team (indiscernible) leads and solder components to circuit 

boards. And occasionally I did some smaller tasks in resin casting 

(indiscernible) area. 

And after working in those areas, I worked six other positions. I 

worked as a flexor writer (ph) operator, a design definition clerk, a technical 

publication compiler, and a design console aide in the drafting department 

and also a facilities design aide in the facilities drafting department. 

And when I was working in the design control aide department and the 

facilities design aide, I had to deliver drawing prints all over the building --

throughout building 100 to engineers, other staff to sign off -- to review and 

sign off on those drawings. And whenever they would finish reviewing and 

sign off -- and most times I went back to pick them up, so I was up the 

hallways and all over the 100 there almost daily. And I believe, you know, 

while I was up and down those halls, I was exposed to toxic substances. 

And then on July 8, 2019, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I 

clearly remember the day. Earlier that day I had visited with my husband 

who was in rehab recovering from emergency brain surgery because of 

subdural hematoma. At that time, I had no idea it will be the beginning of a 

long, challenging journey for myself and my family. Over the next few 

weeks, I endured many tests and examination. Waiting on the result --

results was very stressful, but I learned -- I leaned on my faith to stay 

positive and stay the course. 

After the medical tests I had to have surgery to remove the cancer in 

my right breast, and then surgery to -- to place a port in my chest for 

chemotherapy treatments. After the surgery, I was not able to take care of 
 

190

my husband. So my daughter took a leave of absence from her job to take 

care of him while I was recovering from my surgeries. And then after I had 

my surgeries, I had to have chemotherapy. 

I was told that I was at high risk for the cancer to return. So, two 

types of strong chemotherapy drugs were recommended. I endured 16 

treatments of chemotherapy over five months. During that time most of my 

hair fell out, my fingernails and toenails turned black, I had painful mouth 

sores, and my white blood cell count went dangerously low. When I ended 

chemo treatments, I developed chemo-induced neuropathy in my hands and 

feet, which is one of the many side effects to certain types of chemotherapy 

drugs. I'm still suffering from it and learning to live with this condition. And 

after the chemotherapy treatments, I had to have radiation. After I 

completed this -- my -- I had six weeks of radiation every day, except for 

Sun -- Saturday and Sundays for six weeks. And then COVID hit, and that 

added another layer of stress to the situation that I already had. 

But, you know, I had an amazing team of doctors and nurses who took 

good care of me and helped me through the most challenging time of my 

life. I'm still on medication for the treatment of my type of breast cancer 

and its side effects that are affecting the quality of my life. It causes brittle 

bones and joint pains, so I have to take care of not to injure myself in the --

in my, my normal day-to-day routine. I will be on this medication for five 

years. I do believe the cancer was caused by being exposed to toxic 

substances when I was employed at the plant. Thank you.

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you very much. Appreciate you taking the 

time to come out and share with us. 
 

191

Okay, next is Wallace Elliot. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Good evening to the advisory board and to my GE 

associates. My name is Wallace Elliot. I worked at the plant from November 

1972 to around November of 1994. I'd like to just to give you a brief 

summary of some of the places I worked. And I think by giving this 

summary, you'll know that I was exposed and many others to very toxic 

substances and radiation during my tenure there. 

When I started in 1972, I started as a janitor. And in 1972, if you can 

remember the Arab oil embargo was imminent. And at the plant we had a 

massive layoff around that time. And, therefore, those of us that worked in 

the janitorial department had to manufacture work in order to stay 

employed. And so, as a janitor, we were asked to go up in the loft of the 

entire building of 100 and -- and clean up all of the radioactive dust that 

were in the loft. And in this -- on the ceilings of all of the 100 building, 

especially the manufacturing building. 

And so, we did that without any protective equipment, no masks, no 

gowns, or anything of that sort. And therefore, that happened for at least 

two years for us to maintain employment. So after that, I was moved or 

promoted to a couple of process operator jobs and inspection jobs and so 

forth. I did -- I worked in the ceramic machine shop for a couple of years, 

and I know that I was exposed to a lot of ceramic dust coming off of the 

pellets and so forth that we made. There were exposure to many types of 

chemicals, such as trichloroethylene, and there were alcohol and ammonia 

associated with those -- those tasks. And I do believe that my exposure 

there caused some of my current problems of today. 
 

192

Also, after working there for a while, I was promoted to the RTG area. 

And as you already know, that was one of our areas that contained the 

plutonium. And my job there was to open the cans that contain the cans 

that contains the pellets of the isotope. And this went on for about 10 

years. And I worked in that area and I'm sure that I was exposed to much 

radiation coming off of those pellets. And my job was to open those cans 

and put it all in the glove box of an argon atmosphere and to assemble the 

RTG battery for the RTG unit. 

After leaving that post, I went to building 100 again. And there in 

building 100, as all of my associates know, that in area aid, there were these 

tritium beds and I worked in there for about two or three years, and I know 

I was exposed to much of that. There were protective equipment, but I 

don't think that it provided the protection that we needed. 

And as a result of all of that, since I left GE, I have been diagnosed 

with beryllium disease. I've been diagnosed with heart problems. I've been 

diagnosed with ulcers, skin ulcers. There are various other ailments that 

I've had, diabetes. And I do believe that it is a result of the much exposure 

that I had working at GE. 

So, I'm appealing to all of you that you will take into consideration all 

that had been said here. And certainly, I do believe that all of us at GE and 

those families that have suffered should be compensated to some degree for 

-- for their work and exposure to those unprotected areas and that 

unprotected environment. Thank you. 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Thank you. We've -- we've heard this 

afternoon/evening a number of you mentioned the issue of beryllium disease 
 

193

and asbestosis. You need to know that this program that -- that we're 

overseeing is for the radiation issues. I think I see Donna shaking her head 

and so I would say speak to her, because another part of the program 

provides compensation for those particular nonradiation diseases. So, if you 

have those, hopefully, you can get directed so that you get -- file the 

paperwork and the medical work in order to participate in that part of the 

program. But thank you for coming and sharing today with us. 

The last person that signed up here, and then we have one that sent in 

a written statement is Donna Hand

MS. HAND: Thank you very much. I've already passed out a -- 

CHAIR ANDERSON: Yes, (indiscernible).

MS. HAND: -- okay. So we'll make it kind of, make it real quick. 

Okay. The board has statutory duties, and these statutory duties include to 

make sure that they’re scientifically valid and the quality of the dose 

estimation and the reconstruction efforts, that's a statutory duty that the 

board has. The board also has the -- to -- that the facility -- the people who 

are likely were exposed, just likely exposed to radiation and a facility that is 

not feasible to estimate sufficient accuracy the radiation dose they received, 

the board shall be based on exposure assessments -- just based -- based on 

the statutory duty, the advisory board must be assured that the data from 

the Pinellas Plant is sufficient and accurate addressing the maximum dose 

received at the facility. The advisory board must be assured that the 

guidelines and the methods that are in the regulations and -- are followed. 

The (indiscernible) used the default values, but the default values do not 

satisfy sufficiently accurate. According to CFR 83.9 (c) (2), (3), and (4), it 
 

194

requires a -- expert testimony or a government agency report. 

[identifying information redacted], a professor of physics from 

the University of Notre Dame is internationally -- don't -- known, wrote a 

report and a letter stating that the tritium is specifically the middle tritides 

dose in the Pinellas Plant cannot be reconstructed in his -- working with his 

(indiscernible) and his studies, you cannot do the middle tritide dose. You 

cannot go back and do it because there's no data. The SC&A continues 

upward reports on the metal tritide issue. They renamed three of the five. 

Pinellas Plant had five different metal tritides. One of those is classified --

even still classified today. 

I quote: There is no internal documentation indicating that there were 

adequate means of detecting exposures or monitoring. No guidance is 

provided. The practice of destructive testing of neutron generators and the 

methodology of performing the testing make it impossible to exposure --

make it possible that the workers were exposed to the metal tritides. 

Then when you go back to the data on summary reports, in some of 

the meetings, DCAS says oh, yeah, we've got the reports, we've got the 

data. SC&A said well, show it to us. They looked at it. Monthly reports. 

1962, 12 total; one complete, 9,943 smears taken, zero reported. There 

was about 15 years none reported at all. So again, the data is not accurate. 

The data is not sufficient. So yeah, you can use default values, but the data 

quality is not there. 

Even Oak Ridge in their TKBS296 listed radionuclides that was in the 

work -- workplace radiation fields. They also listed radiation generating 

devices. The radiation generation devices have never been calculated to any 
 

195

of these workers, even welders. X-rays, where they look and see if the 

welding was done, none of it has been attributed to...

The RTGs -- according to DCAS, RTGs was encapsulated so they never 

got any radiation. All the dose reconstructions that I've seen, zero radiation. 

When I got the work records from a claimant, he had a plutonium bioassay 

in there because he was exposed to plutonium. When I did research right 

here, it says, in OCAS's own technical basis document RTG neutron dose 340 

millirem, but yet, there's no doses there. You didn't give my guy any doses 

in the RTG, then how come they got 20 or 40 millirem in data? That doesn't 

make sense. 

The Pinellas Plant baseline environmental report, that's 1997 baseline 

report, which comes from DOE itself. That's the closeout report and it lists 

every single area and the chemicals and the processes in that area. Tritium 

was found all over the place. Uranium was found all over the place and 

other radionuclides. It also listed 28 radionuclides that were known to be at 

Pinellas. Five of them were over the curie limit. They were not addressed. 

This is actual data from DOE. So (indiscernible).

You also have (indiscernible) badges. Well, in 1997, the missed dose 

was 240 millirems, or, you know -- it's in here. I'll give you exhibits -- but 

yet Peter Darnell (ph) in 2016 says, we don't have anything on DND, period, 

so we -- we're not going to give him anything but 100 millirem. Wait a 

minute, you've got actual data showing, you know, actual measurements, 

but you're only going to give them 100 because you don't have any records? 

You went to S&L (ph) and there was no records there and you're not going 

to spend any more time? We just found out you've gotten the records. Do 
 

196

we have to wait and make sure that you don't have any more time on that 

too? That's not efficient, that's not consistent and that's not timely. 

The internal procedure says that the director of DCAS can go ahead 

and say we're not going to wait any more time. We're gonna go ahead and 

get the SC -- SEC petition, and then if we find that documentation, we'll just 

work -- reverse the process. But we're not even given that chance. In 

2016, the general counsel for this board informed you, you tell NIOSH that 

they can do the dose reconstruction or not; they don't tell you. I also want 

to inform you that in 1991 DOE stated that the Pinellas --

(Whereupon, audio to the meeting room was lost; whereupon, a break 

was taken from approximately 6:02 p.m. until approximately 6:19 p.m. 

while attempting to restore audio.)

DR. ROBERTS: Okay -- 

(Whereupon, multiple speakers began speaking simultaneously, none 

of whom were discernible.)

DR. ROBERTS: -- if you're on Zoom and you can hear me, if you could 

just let me know, please. Okay -- 

(Whereupon, multiple speakers began speaking simultaneously, none 

of whom were discernible.)

DR. ROBERTS: -- few more minutes to go. Sorry for the delay. The 

audio briefly went out on Zoom, and we have to ensure that the court 

reporter can hear everything, as well as everybody who's participating 

virtually. So I believe that there was someone who wanted to comment. So 

now that we have the audio back if we could have you step up. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you so much. I just -- I just had 
 

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one thing I wanted to clarify. When I was -- when I was --

DR. ROBERTS: I'm sorry, if you could, state your name again, please.

MR. DARLING (PH): Eurell (ph) Darling. I worked at the plant. When 

I was at the plant, when we tested positive in -- in tube exhausts, they will 

send us down -- [identifying information redacted], and he would go 

over the exams with us and tell us you've been exposed. And most of the 

time they would do this on a Friday. And they will say you've been exposed, 

you need to go home, drink as much as beer you can, and then come back 

on Monday. I just wanted to make sure that was on the record because that 

was said to a majority of us, go home and drink as much beer as you can, 

come back on Monday. 

I'm a Christian. I've always been a Christian. I've always been an 

athlete. I've never drank, I never smoked, never did drugs. But that's what 

they would tell us, go home and drink as much beer as you can, and come 

back on Monday. And then you'd go back to work. 

DR. ROBERTS: Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to make a comment either on 

Zoom, on the telephone, or also in the room? 

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. Hearing none, there was a public comment that 

was submitted to me and I was -- it -- the person requested that I read it 

into the record. So if you would bear with me, I will go ahead and do that. 

The public comment was submitted by Daniel W. McKill (ph), Jr., M.D. The 

public comment is dated today. Dr. McKill was unable to be here to make 

the comment himself, but I will start.

(Reading): Dear Dr. Roberts and advisory board members, I am 
 

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Daniel McKill, Jr., M.D., a retired M.D. faculty physician and the longtime 

Dow Madison, Illinois site SEC 057 co-petitioner. In 2005 I cofounded the 

Southern Illinois -- Illinois Nuclear Energy Workers, or SINEW, organization. 

For many years my colleague and ANWAG leader Terrie Barrie and I brought 

major amounts of new information about the uses at Rocky Flats facility, RFP 

from now on, in Colorado of magnesium thorium, or Mag-Thor HK31 metal 

alloy, that was manufactured at Dow Madison Plant and shipped in truckload 

quantities to RFP. 

Dow Chemical owned the Dow Madison Plant and was lead contractor 

at RFP from 1951 to 1975. The two Dow facilities in Illinois and Colorado 

were staffed therefore, by Dow Chemical employees. In 2011 we submitted 

to NIOSH in this board affidavits from 14 Dow Illinois workers as part of the 

83.14 Dow SEC-57. The affiants provided sworn notarized information that 

Mag-Thor HK31 was shipped from the Madison, Illinois Plant to RFP in 

Colorado. They also attested that Mag-Thor scrapes from RFP Colorado were 

returned and remelted at Dow Madison. The advisory board and SEC issues 

and RFP work groups, SC&A and ORAUT discussed these Dow Illinois 

affidavits at length. However, the RFP work group considered the use of 

Mag-Thor HK31 at RFP in Colorado was not proven or sufficiently 

substantiated and considered. 

Most of these early 2007 to 2017 points were covered in Dr. 

Kotelchuck's RFP work slide presentation at this meeting -- at this meeting 

earlier today. In January 2008 Glenn Podonsky of the Department of Energy 

HHS division declared Dow Madison in Illinois to be a thorium -- thorium 

AWE, or Atomic Worker Employee, site from 1957 to '60, the years covered 
 

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by SEC-00057. 

The stipulation stemmed from review of classified atomic weapons 

drawings held at the LLNL Laboratory. The Podonsky letter stated that MagThor HK31 was used up until 1969. However, DOE was unable to prove the 

Dow Madison, Illinois Plant was the exclusive source of this particular HK31 

alloy metal. 

Beginning in 1970 -- sorry; beginning in 2017 ANWAG-SINEW led by 

Terrie Barrie and Dan McKill (ph), M.D., assembled and gave to the board 

and RFP work group a truly massive amount of new information about the 

presence and specific uses of Mag-Thor HK31 at Rocky Flats DOE facility 

located at Golden, Colorado that is directly relevant to SEC-192. 

I would note this new petitioner information was not even mentioned 

in today's RFP work group's slide show. I checked at ten o'clock p.m. 

December 7, 2022, and noted that neither the minutes nor the transcript of 

the ten -- October 4, 2022, Rocky plants work -- Flats work group had been 

posted on the cdc.gov website. I regard this 60-day delay to be both 

concerning and nontransparent. The claimants and RFP and Dow-Illinois 

SEC workers need to know what actions the board, NIOSH, DOL, and their 

subcontractors have taken regarding the truly new information on RFP MagThor I am bringing again to your attention. 

Mrs. Barrie and I, as Dow Illinois and RFP site SEC co-petitioners, have 

conveyed to the board and RFP work groups a very substantial, 

overwhelming evidence that Mag-Thor HK31 was used at RFP and in what 

specific ways it was used. Fourteen of these men were identified by name 

except for one who reported anonymously to Mrs. Barrie through a third 
 

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party. The lead interview that yielded these names was a February 11, 

2017, recorded conference call by Dr. McKill, Terrie Barrie, and a third 

claimant representative. We invited the implementing agencies and their 

subcontractors to interview all of these knowledgeable 15-named Rocky 

Flats based workers. 

The board and RFP work groups have -- have all of these RFP worker 

names. We are aware that perhaps three or four secure unpublished 

interviews of several RFP workers by ORAUT/SC&A who were asked about 

RFP Mag-Thor use. These persons' names are unknown to the RFP and Dow 

Illinois SEC co-petitioners. The experience of ANWAG and SINEW was 

obviously quite different as we identified 15 RFP workers who witnessed RFP 

presence, storage, and uses as specific machine parts of R -- HK31 from 

Dow Madison site -- sister site. 

The 11 main new findings about -- about RFP Mag-Thor in the TEA 

5.24 -- 5.2.4 online encyclopedia are attached as page four of this email. 

I'm asking the DFO to please read pages one through three of my remarks 

into the ABRWH meeting 149 public comment record on December 8, 2022. 

I also ask that all board members, NIOSH, DOL, SC&A, and ORAUT get 

copies of pages one through four from the DFO. My main reason for 

addressing the board today is to ask why the abundant new RFP Mag-Thor 

information since 2017, all of which was forwarded to the full board, NIOSH, 

and SC&A has not been addressed. Why has the RFP work group refused to 

consider facts we believe prove beyond a matter of -- of doubt that large 

quantities of Dow Illinois Mag-Thor HK31 was used at RFP. Historical RFP 

and LLNL classified documents suggest Dow HK31 used possibly in nuclear 
 

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weapons parts made at RFP Colorado, such as pits. The TEA, or Thorium 

Energy Alliance, online encyclopedia October 7, 2022, download section 

5.2.4, magnesium thorium allies on pages -- alloys on pages one through 

three shows that HK31 was used to -- machine brackets and hardware to 

attach shielding to Union Carbide ATM X series 50 and 600 (indiscernible) 

railcars and semi-trucks and that carriage plates were specifically reinforced 

with Mag-Thor in the building for 440 mod. center. The bibliography for this 

section references a technical paper coauthored by T. Barrie and D.W. 

McKill (ph), and there's a citation of the PDF.

SINEW corresponded twice with the TEA encyclopedia editor to 

attempt to learn the original sources of the new highly specific Dow MagThor uses. This effort was not successful and still needs to be pursued. To 

be truly claimant favorable, this important new 2017 and later RFP and Dow 

Illinois Mag-Thor information must be vigorously pursued by all the agencies 

and ABRWH entities and work groups which indicated they would do so. 

Thank you.

And that ends that comment. Okay. And I -- I'm asking one 

additional time, per final comment, before we adjourn. 

Okay. Well, seeing none, Dr. Anderson, unfortunately, had to leave a 

little early so that he could catch his plane. Do you want to make a motion 

to adjourn?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So, moved.

MEMBER BEACH: I'll second it.

DR. ROBERTS: Okay. Any objections? 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. 
 

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DR. ROBERTS: All right. Thank you so much. 

(Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 6:29 p.m. EST.)