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1

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON NEVADA TEST SITE

+ + + + +

WEDNESDAY,

DECEMBER 3, 2014

+ + + + +

The Work Group meeting convened in the 

London Room of the Cincinnati Airport Marriott 

Hotel, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, Kentucky at 

9:00 a.m., Bradley P. Clawson, Chairman, 

presiding.

PRESENT:

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Chairman

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member*

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member*

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2

ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

ROBERT BARTON, SC&A*

MARK FISHBURN, ORAU Team*

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

JENNY LIN, HHS*

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A

MARK ROLFES, DCAS

GENE ROLLINS, ORAU Team*

MATT SMITH, ORAU Team*

*Present via telephone

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3

T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

PAGE

Welcome and Roll Call

by Mr. Ted Katz.......................... 4

Work Group Discussion

Review and Resolution of................. 6

NTS Site Profile Issues

Adjourn

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4

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

2 (9:20 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: This is the Advisory Board 

4 of Radiation Worker Health, the Nevada Test Site 

5 Work Group. Welcome, everybody. There are 

6 materials for this meeting and those are, including 

7 an agenda, they're posted on the NIOSH website 

8 under the Board section under meetings, today's 

9 date.

10 So people on the line who want to follow 

11 along with documents that are addressed during this 

12 meeting should be able to find them there if you 

13 want to read along with us. Okay. And then, Phil, 

14 you should be, you should have Live Meeting for you 

15 and, Gen, for you too.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I do.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay, very good. Okay. 

18 Since this is a sites-based meeting, please, 

19 everyone, speak to conflict of interest as well 

20 when we go through roll call and let's get going, 

21 beginning with the Chair.

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5

1 (Roll Call)

2 MR. KATZ: Okay then. Brad, it's your 

3 meeting. Let me just remind folks on the line to 

4 mute your phones when you're not speaking, *6 if 

5 you don't have a mute button and then *6 to unmute. 

6 Thanks.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I would like to 

8 thank everybody --

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, Gen.

11 MEMBER ROESSLER: I couldn't hear Mark 

12 Rolfes very well and I think we're going to be 

13 hearing a lot from him so I would like to ask him 

14 to get a little closer to the mic.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes, thanks for that, Gen. 

16 We'll take of that.

17 MR. ROLFES: Should be okay. Gen, is 

18 that better?

19 MEMBER ROESSLER: That's much better. 

20 Thanks.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay, super. Brad?

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6

1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, I would like 

2 to thank everybody for taking time out of their day 

3 today and starting into this. What we're going to 

4 start off with is we're going to just start working 

5 through the summary of the NTS Site Profile Matrix 

6 Update, which Arjun has updated.

7 And we'll just start with that and it's 

8 in NIOSH's court, or what?

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, NIOSH has 

10 responded to it and we have NIOSH's response.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

12 MR. KATZ: Someone should just review 

13 what was the finding and then the response.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Do you want me 

15 to do that?

16 MR. KATZ: Sure. Yes, that would be 

17 helpful I think for the record, thanks.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure. So went through 

19 item by item. The first item was about 

20 radionuclide lists and we felt that it was resolved 

21 except for the resuspension aspect, which is 

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7

1 another matrix item.

2 On the first item on which there may be 

3 discussion is item number two which is the Site 

4 Profile does not provide adequate guidance for dose 

5 estimation to gonad, skin and gastro-intestinal 

6 tract for early reactor test re-entry personnel and 

7 especially in regard to large hot particle doses 

8 for the skin and GI tract have not been evaluated.

9 Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory 

10 documents and models have not been evaluated though 

11 one document is records. And then the status was 

12 that NIOSH and SC&A agreed that NRDL model could 

13 be used.

14 NIOSH had been partially but not fully 

15 responsive to SC&A comments, which is there had 

16 been discussion, I think in 2006, about the use of 

17 this model and then it was bumped to the post-SEC 

18 discussion that is the Site Profile discussion 

19 which is why our, my remark was that some review 

20 needs, is warranted at this stage. And then NIOSH 

21 responded.

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8

1 MR. ROLFES: Yes, we have a detailed 

2 response here which I'm not directly familiar with 

3 on firsthand, but because of the SEC, the hot 

4 particle dose from internal exposures, any 

5 ingestion or inhalation of hot particles would no 

6 longer be reconstructed because internal doses 

7 without bioassay, we would not be reconstructing 

8 internal doses anymore.

9 As far as external doses I'm going to 

10 see if Gene Rollins might have anything to discuss 

11 on this issue and maybe relay our position, Gene.

12 MR. KATZ: You might be on mute, Gene.

13 MR. ROLLINS: Yes, I am on mute.

14 MR. KATZ: Not anymore. Go ahead.

15 MR. ROLLINS: In the response it says 

16 that it would be appropriate possibly to use this 

17 for an NDRS area for which the model was developed. 

18 But once you get outside of NRDS it would not be 

19 appropriate to use that NRDS model to estimate 

20 external doses.

21 And I think in our response here we said 

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9

1 we would use that if we come upon a case where a 

2 worker has been identified as being in that area 

3 and we have the parameters necessary to be able to 

4 populate the model, that we would use that to 

5 estimate that individual's external dose. But 

6 outside of that it would not be appropriate to use 

7 that.

8 We would use our typical models like 

9 VARSKIN to do those types of contamination 

10 estimates.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Gene, in 2006 there was 

12 discussion that NIOSH thought that the NRDL report 

13 method might be applicable for individuals 

14 involved in drill back and tunnel re-entry and that 

15 NIOSH was going to evaluate whether this model 

16 could be used.

17 Is there an evaluation available? 

18 Presumably, you seem to have evaluated and decided 

19 it wasn't applicable but we haven't seen that 

20 evaluation?

21 MR. ROLLINS: Okay. Well I'm not sure 

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10

1 we ever really put a White Paper on that. If you 

2 go to the comment and response on item three, there 

3 it indicates the types of information that we have 

4 to have in order to use that model. And it involves 

5 the fission density of the use of Phoebus 2A, which 

6 assumes a reactor running for 20 minutes at a power 

7 level of 5,000 megawatts.

8 It's also an infinite field of 

9 radioactive measurement one hour post shut down 

10 three feet above the ground, which would not be 

11 appropriate you said in a drill back situation. 

12 And there again it's also appropriate to coarse 

13 particle greater than 12 micron diameter ground 

14 deposition density of one particle per square 

15 meter.

16 This is information that could possibly 

17 be available for the NRDS areas that were affected 

18 by reactor events. But I do not see how it could 

19 be applied to drill back operations.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So, this is Brad. 

21 So for the external part of this and especially the 

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11

1 hot particles, what is NIOSH suggesting that we're 

2 going to use? How are we going to do this?

3 MR. ROLLINS: Where the information is 

4 available for NRDS re-entries and we have enough 

5 information that we can populate the model, then 

6 we would employ that model to estimate external 

7 dose for the, I guess for gonad, skin and, yes, it's 

8 been a while since I've looked over this. I'm 

9 having to refresh my memory on this.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu Hinnefeld 

11 in response to you. I'm not terribly prepared but 

12 I got this far in preparing for the meeting. I'm 

13 only here because Jim is on vacation.

14 In our response to part two we identify 

15 an exercise that we had done looking at claim 

16 information, sampling of claim information and we 

17 looked at dose claims and found that there were 

18 evidence, there was re-entry evidence is what it 

19 was called. I assume that's some sort of sheet 

20 where the person, it's recorded and we get in their 

21 exposure record that this person re-entered an area 

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12

1 whether it was a drill back or an NRDS test or maybe 

2 it was only an NRDS test.

3 And in that sampling I think it was over 

4 half of the samples, the cases that were sampled 

5 had that sort of evidence that these people did in 

6 fact re-enter this type of area. And the others 

7 were in job categories that it's not surprising 

8 that they didn't re-enter. See it's in the 

9 response.

10 You know, someone was like a fry cook 

11 or something, but they aren't all that obvious. 

12 They were job titles that you would not be 

13 surprised. And so what we had proposed to say that 

14 if we had this re-entry information where they 

15 re-entered into the, you know, the evidence is the 

16 person re-entered then they would receive this 

17 model dose and otherwise they wouldn't.

18 Now recall that the NRDS tests were done 

19 during the SEC period. And so we're only doing 

20 partial dose reconstructions anyway. And we're 

21 only going to reconstruct what we can reconstruct.

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13

1 In this circumstance, with the evidence 

2 we can reconstruct it. Without the evidence, they 

3 either weren't exposed to it or we can't 

4 reconstruct it.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. My main 

6 thing was especially like for skin cancers and so 

7 forth like that, that's why I wasn't understanding 

8 fully in this response what, how we were going to 

9 process through that. But with, and we've got good 

10 enough data to be able to do this because we're all 

11 starting off, again this one has been the back 

12 burner for a long time.

13 And so I just wanted to make sure how 

14 significant the data was on this that we'll be able 

15 to do this partial, external process and you have 

16 a model to be able to do it.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, the NRDS model was 

18 what Gene looked at and said if we know these things 

19 about power level and things like that we can, where 

20 this energy is modeled will be applicable.

21 And the entry information that's in the 

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14

1 individual claim file would tell us whether this 

2 person gets that modeled dose or not. So we feel 

3 like we have enough information to do this.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, and, but part 

5 of what I was not understanding in this is when Gene 

6 was talking this NRDL process you have to have so 

7 much of this information, 5,000 megawatts, da da 

8 da da. If he doesn't have that what are we using 

9 for a model for those people that are re-entries?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: If we can't do it, we 

11 can't do it.

12 MR. KATZ: That's what makes it a 

13 partial dose reconstruction for those people.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well my thing was 

15 the reason we were doing a partial was because the 

16 SEC was put for an internal and part of my thing 

17 that I was questioning is when we originally 

18 started to go into this, I was under the impression 

19 that, we were kind of told, well, we've got this 

20 model and for the external we feel that we were able 

21 to do this.

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15

1 So we kind of bypassed this part of this 

2 because we showed that we could do this hot particle 

3 external. Internal was questionable. And now 

4 it's kind of flopping back to, no, we can't.

5 And that's what was giving me a little 

6 bit of confusion on which way we were going there 

7 because looking at this and I'm just trying to 

8 understand what he just told me there in reading 

9 this response, we're not going to have, out of these 

10 people that are re-entry people and everything else 

11 like this which the big issue was, was a lot of the 

12 hot particles and everything else because of how 

13 soon they re-entered back into the process and the 

14 drill back teams and everything else like that, 

15 we're not going to have any of this 5,000 megawatts 

16 and everything else like that.

17 So that's part of my question is so what 

18 good is it to us?

19 MR. HINNEFELD: It, well it provides us 

20 a way to do dose reconstruction for people that we 

21 have evidence went there and did that. And if we 

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16

1 can't do, you know, we already know we can't do 

2 complete dose reconstructions. That's why 

3 there's an SEC here.

4 And so the rule says we will reconstruct 

5 what we can. And so I'm not exactly sure whether, 

6 if it's an NRDS re-entry if we can just pick a 

7 particular run time and set of parameters and say 

8 any time we have an NRDS entry we will use this set 

9 of parameters and assign a skin dose or gonad, an 

10 external dose based on the NRDS model any time we 

11 have NRDS entry, re-entry.

12 But it won't be applicable for drill 

13 back re-entries and so we can't do anything, you 

14 know, additionally for those beyond what would be 

15 like on, you know, badge readings or whatever we 

16 would do.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think they are two 

18 separate issues. The item two is just about the 

19 NRDS. So maybe we could address, you know, whether 

20 you would use this model generally for workers in 

21 that area and then we could address the other one 

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17

1 which is more complicated.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: I think the 

3 expectation is that we will use the NRDS model for 

4 people who re-entered the NRDS areas. And 

5 apparently the claim file has evidence of re-entry. 

6 And so that's what we are proposing to use.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't have a good 

8 recall of this. But was there an identified set 

9 of workers who worked in NRDS or was it generally 

10 Nevada Test Site workers who worked in NRDS also 

11 worked in other areas during the time of the reactor 

12 tests?

13 MR. ROLFES: I think that would, I 

14 don't think there's a master list of NRDS workers. 

15 I think it would have been in each individual's 

16 claim file you would have to go through to determine 

17 whether or not they in fact entered into NRDS.

18 MEMBER MUNN: I thought it was the 

19 latter.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: But they have the 

21 records of when they entered.

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18

1 MR. HINNEFELD: So apparently we get 

2 into the claim files because that's what this 

3 sampling that we've done here illustrates.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: The thing I didn't 

5 understand in this response is the response is 

6 mainly about what's in Hacker's, Barton Hacker's 

7 book and the references to that and not directly 

8 to the model that we were talking about. So kind 

9 of, I was a little confused by that, why the 

10 response focused only on Hacker's book and the 

11 references to that book.

12 And honestly I don't remember what was 

13 in our Site Profile. I do remember mentioning or 

14 discussing Hacker's book in the references but I 

15 thought that reference was more general for 

16 understanding the Nevada Test Site radiological 

17 condition and not just in relation to this 

18 particular item.

19 So I was confused by the focus on 

20 Hacker. This is in the response to number two.

21 MR. ROLFES: I'm reading from the 

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19

1 response on Page 2 and it says SC&A 2005 also stated 

2 the following. SC&A suggests that NIOSH make a 

3 careful assessment of Barton Hacker's history and 

4 the sources that are cited insofar as they concern 

5 on-site radiation safety practices, so right.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: As I said, I thought 

7 that SC&A reference was generally to the Nevada 

8 Test Site and not just, so I was confused by why 

9 in response to the question about NRDS and hot 

10 particles that basically the response didn't say 

11 much about hot particles.

12 But maybe since you say you have the 

13 records and you're going to apply the model when 

14 you have the records, the actual response on paper 

15 is a moot issue and, but, and there could be some 

16 clarification of that.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: What I said there was 

18 part of the response on paper. I'm just reading 

19 from what we put in the matrix. That's all I know 

20 about this.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: In response to the next 

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20

1 item though. What I was confused about was the 

2 response to two and what you were talking about was 

3 the response to the next matrix, which I 

4 understand. But I was confused by the response to 

5 two and why there was all of the discussion about 

6 Hacker and nothing much about hot particles.

7 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith with 

8 ORAU Team. I don't have any input on the Hacker 

9 write up. But for the group, I'll point out that 

10 on Pages 58 through 60 of the current external NTS 

11 TBD which is Rev 3, gives the outline of the 

12 approach for NRDL and using the NRDL report models.

13 When we have documented hot particle 

14 external exposure we're going to use OTIB-17 along 

15 with VARSKIN to assign any skin dose associated 

16 with a hot particle incident. So those pages cover 

17 approach for photon dose and electron dose. You 

18 know, it basically lays out if we have the 

19 information, we'll use it.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: So in terms of the size 

21 of the hot particles and the radiation dose from 

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21

1 those particles you're going to use the data in the 

2 NRDL documents?

3 MR. SMITH: If it's NRDL in terms of 

4 work site.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

6 MR. SMITH: Or NRDS, however you want 

7 to --

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I was referring to 

9 the NRDL documents that describe the NRDS work. 

10 Yes, okay, so I mean that at least clarifies it for 

11 me for item two. I don't know, you know, I don't 

12 know what's more, maybe something explicit to that 

13 effect regarding re-entry would be helpful, but 

14 it's already part of the record.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Clipping what's in 

16 three and putting in two, you mean?

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: The part about the 

19 review of the dosimetry records, a recent review 

20 reveals that DOE dosimetry records, that?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

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22

1 MR. HINNEFELD: I guess we can clip 

2 that paragraph and --

3 MR. ROLFES: Before we agree to do 

4 anything I just want to see, you know, Matt, could 

5 you tell me the date that the TBD was approved for 

6 NTS that you just referenced, please?

7 MR. SMITH: Certainly. The effective 

8 date on this is November 9 of 2012.

9 MR. ROLFES: Okay. I just wondered if 

10 it was done before or after the SC&A review. I 

11 wasn't sure if our response, clearly we've 

12 documented something in an effort to respond to 

13 SC&A's concern about hot particles in the TBD.

14 So we may have already addressed this 

15 issue in more detail and it could satisfy SC&A's 

16 concern already. Do we need to do anything else 

17 or should we go back to the TBD first and check to 

18 see whether the issue has been resolved there?

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, if we have 

20 agreement here that we've resolved the issue by 

21 checking this, which is I think what we've done, 

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23

1 I'm not sure but it seems to me we've resolved this 

2 issue by saying look if we've got re-entry 

3 information, that these people re-entered NRDS or 

4 L, and we're going to use this NRDS model. If we 

5 have agreement on that and we can satisfy the Work 

6 Group by clipping this paragraph and copying it 

7 into item two, I would say let's do that and call 

8 it done.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: I agree, sure.

10 MR. ROLFES: Works for me.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: You've got to make 

12 sure, we've got to keep, somebody has got to keep 

13 track of what we're going to do.

14 MR. ROLFES: All right. So we'll clip 

15 the response from comment three.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, the part about 

17 the, where we look into the record before we, that 

18 paragraph.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Our matrix update was 

20 done after your external dose.

21 MR. ROLFES: Right. I see that in 

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24

1 December.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I do remember 

3 looking at that.

4 MEMBER MUNN: So I want to be very clear 

5 before we say we're done with this that the 

6 statement under the status section of number two 

7 that says NIOSH has been partially but not fully 

8 responsive to SC&A comments is now resolved. I 

9 wanted to verify this.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, with the 

11 agreement that we have I think. I don't know, 

12 Brad, you have the final word on this obviously or 

13 the committee does, Work Group does. But I agree 

14 with Stu that if the records are there, I don't see 

15 what more could be done in a partial dose 

16 reconstruction.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I agree. I'm just, 

18 you know, I guess part of the thing is it's a little 

19 bit confusing because two and three are kind of one 

20 and the same but not really and then we get into 

21 four that we've got ingestion of nonrespirable hot 

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25

1 particles which I think was taking care of the SEC, 

2 right, because that's an internal issue.

3 I'm just trying to draw lines to all 

4 these different ones that are tied into this one 

5 process there. So, okay, yes, I agree with that. 

6 We can, we would be able to close that when we do 

7 that and we've got a process through so we would 

8 be able to take care of two and three.

9 (Simultaneous speaking.)

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Two is only about the 

11 workers in the reactor area.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: And the suggestion, so 

14 the suggestion we had made in our Site Profile 

15 Review which we had discussed subsequently was, can 

16 you apply that same model if there were hot 

17 particles in other areas?

18 So I think we agreed in the past that 

19 there were hot particles in other areas and that 

20 NIOSH would investigate whether the NRDL model 

21 could apply there. And what I'm, so that's, I 

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26

1 think there's some --

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: This is where I'm 

3 getting confused, so.

4 MR. KATZ: So before we move on let's 

5 just check with Gen and Phil and make sure they're 

6 on board too.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: You're talking about 

8 with closing number two?

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, closing number two. 

10 Gen, Phil?

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I don't have a 

12 problem with that.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay. Gen, are you still 

14 there?

15 MEMBER MUNN: Are you on mute?

16 MEMBER ROESSLER: I was on mute.

17 MEMBER MUNN: I hope you didn't say 

18 anything really --

19 MEMBER MUNN: I'm okay with that one.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, good. Thank you. 

21 Two is closed.

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27

1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So now we'll go on 

2 to the issue of hot particles and issue number 

3 three.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: So the issue number 

5 three was, can we apply that same, are there hot 

6 particles in other areas from atmospheric testing 

7 and from the venting of the atmospheric tests in 

8 the post atmospheric testing period like 

9 Baneberry, can you apply that model to those hot 

10 particle exposure issues?

11 So there are two issues here. Were 

12 there hot particles and can you apply the model? 

13 I think previously in our 2006 discussion I think 

14 NIOSH agreed that there were hot particles and 

15 that, I'm just reading from this NIOSH response.

16 NIOSH agrees that live particle 

17 ingestion and skin deposition could be important 

18 for individuals in underground testing. I'm 

19 reading from the NIOSH response of July 2006.

20 The TBD will be revised to include 

21 information assessing any potential for large hot 

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28

1 particles in NTS processes and work areas and 

2 external dose reconstruction guidance appropriate 

3 to the TBD that will allow the dose reconstructor 

4 to adequately account for NTS doses due to large 

5 hot particles.

6 So the internal dose of course has been 

7 resolved by the SEC. And so what remains is the 

8 question of large hot particles. And as I read 

9 your response, well, maybe read your response and 

10 then we can discuss it.

11 MR. ROLFES: If we have data available 

12 outside of the NRDS that would indicate a hot 

13 particle exposure, we would assign the dose from 

14 hot particle exposure to the skin, any external 

15 dose that is or any other organ affected.

16 However, if there is no information 

17 available that comes back to the ability to 

18 reconstruct and we would only be able to 

19 reconstruct an external dose when we have 

20 information.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: The hot particle 

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29

1 external dose.

2 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Presumably, these 

4 people were badged or --

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: The thing that is 

6 giving me a little bit of pause is that the SEC was 

7 only about internal doses. So the idea that you 

8 can reconstruct external doses is still, people who 

9 have skin cancers presumably get an external dose 

10 reconstruction.

11 So this seems very germane. I and 

12 maybe, I mean there's a question of whether it 

13 should go beyond the people who have records of hot 

14 particle deposition outside of the NRDS and whether 

15 some kind of model should be created because that's 

16 what, that's how I read what NIOSH was saying 

17 earlier on.

18 So the characterization of the hot 

19 particle environment outside of NRDS may be 

20 important. And for those workers who were 

21 involved in the kind of activities where they could 

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30

1 have had potential for exposure could be assigned 

2 a coworker exposure or, you know, something like 

3 that not strictly if they have a record of hot 

4 particles because hot particles as you know goes 

5 beyond the badge question. Hot particle exposure 

6 is not necessarily recorded by the badge.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: I guess, our view is 

8 that in an SEC Class, an SE period, our obligation 

9 is to reconstruct what we can reconstruct. And 

10 we're not really in, we don't really, or we're not 

11 really in a position to invent, essentially invent 

12 doses which is what we would be doing.

13 I mean a hot particle situation is kind 

14 of a tough coworker situation to describe, you 

15 know, because, you know, who is the coworker that 

16 has the hot particle, it's the other guy with the 

17 hot particle and how do you identify those people?

18 So absent some evidence that, and this 

19 would be I guess maybe Matt or Gene can correct me 

20 if I'm wrong, but since the claim files have 

21 re-entry information and as I understood it, survey 

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31

1 information, that theoretically the hot particles 

2 would, you know, an indication of hot particle or 

3 survey would be on the survey result from the 

4 re-entry information.

5 And so that would be the evidence that 

6 we would require in order to do a hot particle and 

7 that's what Matt was saying a while ago. Use 

8 VARSKIN and the methods described in order to do 

9 those.

10 And I, you know, despite the fact that 

11 the SEC was, says well the conclusion is we can't 

12 reconstruct internal dose, I don't think that puts 

13 us in the position of essentially inventing hot 

14 particle doses for people when there's no evidence 

15 of it.

16 I think we need to be able to, we should 

17 reconstruct what we can reconstruct and that's what 

18 we'll do. When there's evidence of it, we'll 

19 reconstruct it because absent that, you know, 

20 you're just making things up. You're just 

21 inventing it.

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32

1 You know, we move away and we get into 

2 a SEC partial dose reconstruction, you kind of move 

3 away from the bounding dose as being an 

4 alternative. You know, that's not really the 

5 alternative you have. You reconstruct what you 

6 can reconstruct.

7 So the bounding, a bounding approach is 

8 not really the alternative in the SEC partial dose 

9 reconstruction.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Let's, sorry --

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, go ahead.

12 MR. SMITH: The main thing I'll add and 

13 this is Matt Smith with ORAU Team is the process 

14 that Stu just described is written up, again. It's 

15 towards the bottom of Page 58, again, in the current 

16 TBD revision addressing, you know, gamma dose from 

17 hot particles.

18 Again, if we have a documented hot 

19 particle exposure, we'll use VARSKIN, we'll use 

20 OTIB-17 methods which have been discussed in other 

21 work groups. And then it's discussed again in 

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33

1 terms of electron exposure at the very top of Page 

2 60.

3 And the subtopic is underlined as Hot 

4 Particles. It's meant to address situations 

5 outside of the NRDS.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, you know, I have 

7 this page in front of me. And so there's a problem 

8 in concluding that NTS sampling data does not 

9 indicate hot particles outside of NRDS but then in 

10 the next sentence saying that measurement of hot 

11 particles was not conducted at NTS.

12 So if it was not conducted the answer 

13 has to be we really don't know, not that the 

14 available information indicates that wasn't a 

15 problem. So that's kind of a starting point, I 

16 think.

17 And my second observation from what Stu 

18 said is I don't think, you know, we're, I'm 

19 suggesting that doses be invented, you know; that 

20 would be wrong. We don't want to be inventing 

21 numbers. However, many of the numbers that are 

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34

1 used in dose reconstruction are a construct that's 

2 not directly related to the worker.

3 We use environmental information for 

4 example and apply it generally to workers. We use 

5 for coworker models. We even use source term data 

6 which is, you know, a fair remove from the 

7 individual worker.

8 And so what I think maybe should be 

9 considered, if the Work Group is so inclined, is 

10 I think previously we agreed that this could be an 

11 issue. And some evaluation of whether hot 

12 particles were an issue other than in NRDS and I 

13 think previously we thought that could be an issue.

14 And I don't see an evaluation that 

15 somehow you can say, I can't, these two sentences 

16 in the Site Profile don't, one doesn't follow from 

17 the other. You say there are no measurements then 

18 perhaps you can go into the individual records, 

19 some of which may indicate hot particle exposure 

20 and then construct from there others who did the 

21 same work.

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35

1 It's not applying an invented number to 

2 everybody. It's applying others who did, applying 

3 it to others who did the same work and the same tests 

4 perhaps. But I don't, in my opinion at least 

5 there's not a detailed enough discussion to support 

6 the conclusion that it can't be done or shouldn't 

7 be done or it would be inventing a number.

8 I don't know that's inventing more of 

9 a number than we do in other areas of dose 

10 reconstruction.

11 MR. ROLLINS: This is Gene Rollins over 

12 at ORAU Team. I would like to make a comment here. 

13 I want to make sure everybody understands this.

14 The NRDL model was developed to control 

15 exposures upon re-entry. And these hot particles 

16 that they were talking about were basically on the 

17 ground. What Matt is talking about with VARSKIN, 

18 et cetera is when we had hot particle on the skin. 

19 Two separate and distinct exposure scenarios.

20 I'm not sure everybody understands 

21 that. But I wanted to make it clear that's what 

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36

1 the NRDL model was, is hot particles on the ground 

2 in an infinite plane.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: My memory of that and 

4 may be wrong, is that's not all it was. I thought 

5 the NRDL documents also discussed direct 

6 deposition on the skin and the doses that were a 

7 result from it. But my memory may be --

8 MR. ROLLINS: That's not my 

9 recollection. We were concerned about doses to 

10 the gonad and they wanted to have a model so they 

11 could predict what it could be upon re-entry.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Obviously, you know, I 

13 have to go and verify this. But my memory is there 

14 was certainly an issue of dose from hot particle 

15 deposition on the ground. But to my memory there 

16 was also an issue of direct hot particle deposition 

17 on the skin of the workers in NRDS, but obviously 

18 subject to verification.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that clearly needs 

20 to be checked. Those of us who have no access or 

21 no background at all in that particular document, 

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37

1 in that particular study have no way of knowing.

2 MEMBER ROESSLER: If Wanda is talking 

3 would you get closer to the mic?

4 MEMBER MUNN: I'm sorry. I wasn't 

5 really saying anything of any great consequence. 

6 I was just saying that those of who don't have any 

7 personal experience with the study that we're 

8 talking about, with the database, can't possibly 

9 make any judgment about whether or not it's a plane 

10 or whether or not it's skin deposition.

11 And clearly, as Arjun has already said, 

12 that needs to be verified before we could make any 

13 judgment one way or the other.

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: I agree with that. 

15 That was, I think, important to say.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well I'm going to 

17 mention something here that the part to me, because 

18 I want us to all take a step back in time before 

19 the SEC. And the picture that was painted to us 

20 of what could be and could not be done and one of 

21 our big issues was hot particles, re-entry, 

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38

1 reactors that were out there, the blasts and 

2 everything that could be done. And we had a 

3 picture that was painted for us of everything that 

4 we could do because we had no SEC at that time. Now 

5 all of a sudden we have an SEC and kind of what I'm 

6 hearing if I'm hearing correctly is now we can't 

7 do any of this stuff.

8 And that's a little bit frustrating to 

9 me because we spent all this time before this and 

10 my biggest issue is because one of the biggest ones 

11 at Nevada Test Site was a lot of hot particles, not 

12 just from the reactors but especially the re-entry 

13 teams going back into blast areas, a lot of the 

14 stuff that they were bringing out, a lot of the 

15 people going into it and so forth like that.

16 And if I remember right we had a lot of 

17 data of them going back into it but not -- some of 

18 the dosimetry was there. It was a little bit 

19 vague. And my bottom line is, with this is if I'm 

20 looking at the people that are not going to be taken 

21 care of by the SEC, I need to make sure this Site 

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39

1 Profile gives them the best that we can.

2 And I understand that NIOSH has told us, 

3 you know, the SEC has taken out the internal part 

4 of it. You know, we're going to be doing partials 

5 anyway. But I want to be able to, because at Nevada 

6 Test Site, hot particles was a fairly big one if 

7 I am correct.

8 And I'm looking at this NRDL and then 

9 the VARSKIN and I'm going to be right honest, I 

10 don't understand where we're going from on this. 

11 And the NRDL is for only hot particles on the 

12 ground. The VARSKIN is for skin.

13 And I guess, Arjun, you being our 

14 contractor, I guess my question to you is, is this 

15 right? Is this, because to me it looks like to me 

16 we're lacking an awful lot here.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: I'd like to make a 

18 comment first before we go on with this, okay. I 

19 think it's unfair to compare our propositions today 

20 to our propositions eight years ago.

21 First of all we have eight years of 

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40

1 advice from the Advisory Board and their contractor 

2 about what's acceptable and what's not. And based 

3 on that advice, we now look at things differently 

4 than we did eight years ago.

5 And so based on that advice, we made 

6 different recommendations. And I thought that was 

7 really unfair to kind of sort of say well we've 

8 changed our minds since 2006 and say that somehow 

9 that makes this not a good proposal. I think that 

10 was unfair.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Well, no, 

12 wait a minute. That's very true. So now you know 

13 how I feel an awful lot of the time because I get 

14 this continuously. So my whole thing that I want 

15 to make sure is that okay, then we can't do this.

16 Then we have a problem here we're going 

17 to have to work out. I need to be able to know how 

18 they're going to be able to do this, how this is 

19 going to be taken care of so we've got an issue here 

20 that isn't going to be resolved on this, I guess.

21 We can continue on. I want to make sure 

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41

1 that the work force gets what they can to it and 

2 by no means was I trying to jab you or anything else. 

3 It's just, okay, so we forget everything from eight 

4 years ago and start on to a new process here.

5 I, going into this and after an SEC is 

6 issued it is a totally, everything flip flops in 

7 every one of these sites because at the beginning 

8 of this we're looking at what we can't do. Now 

9 after the SEC we're looking at what can we do. And 

10 that's what I'm trying to get to at this point.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: And I apologize if --

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, no, Stu. It's 

13 frustrating on both sides and I don't take it 

14 personally. And I did not mean it personally.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: And this is a 

16 frustrating program. And I want to make sure that 

17 people who get partial dose reconstructions get the 

18 best deal we can get. I understand, you know, we 

19 all agree on that.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I've never 

21 questioned that.

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42

1 MR. HINNEFELD: The thing that flips, 

2 you know, and partly, you're right, once there's 

3 an SEC the logic reverses because until there's an 

4 SEC a bounding approach is under feasible 

5 conditions is a sufficiently accurate dose 

6 reconstruction. That's what the regulation says.

7 Now once you have an SEC I really 

8 question whether a bounding dose for these partials 

9 is really what is expected of the regulation. The 

10 regulation says we'll reconstruct what we can. 

11 And to Arjun's point, there might be something we 

12 can do to say that well you don't actually need the 

13 hard survey data.

14 There might be something you can do. I 

15 don't know. To be honest, I'm not very familiar 

16 with what really information is available to us 

17 about surveys and were there any hot particle 

18 identifications and things like that.

19 So I think that it does get, the logic 

20 does get changed a little bit at least in my mind 

21 when you have an SEC Class.

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43

1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I've got one 

2 question for clarification here. Looking at the 

3 two studies there, I'm kind of concerned how you 

4 would readdress the resuspension of some of these 

5 large particles given the dusty environment and 

6 everything they have.

7 Now you have the potential of what was 

8 on the ground being airborne again landing on skin 

9 or somebody, maybe his mask isn't on properly, 

10 they're breathing this in. Is that much of a 

11 factor or not? I'm asking, this is a question.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, Phil, certainly 

13 for the internal and for the breathing in that would 

14 be an internal exposure which is SEC and we can't 

15 reconstruct it. So that clearly is off the table 

16 from the SEC.

17 With respect to your other question if 

18 this dust can be resuspended and placed on, you 

19 know, become a skin contamination issue, I guess 

20 that's part of the broader question. I had really 

21 hoped that we could kind of resolve some things 

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44

1 today.

2 But let's kind of be clear when we leave 

3 this what it is we need to resolve because it's not,

4 you know, what are the things that have to be taken? 

5 Because we can go write something and then you can 

6 look at it and say, we can keep arguing back and 

7 forth which we've done, you know, we've done as a, 

8 kind of been our careers really.

9 But we could, let's try to figure out 

10 what it would take to answer the question and what 

11 are the questions and what will it take to answer 

12 the questions. So now we have, on the hot particle 

13 issue not NRDL, we say okay, there were atmospheric 

14 tests. There were underground tests, re-entries, 

15 there were accidental releases from the 

16 underground tests.

17 In all these situations theoretically 

18 you have a potential to have an external 

19 contamination with, for lack of a better term, you 

20 have a skin contamination hot particle or whatever, 

21 a skin contamination. And is there some evidence 

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45

1 that is available that would make us believe that 

2 they seem to find those when they happened.

3 I mean were there surveys when people 

4 did these re-entries, were they personally 

5 surveyed? Is there a way to identify when they 

6 happened, is a job title good enough? What job 

7 title had a skin contamination during such and such 

8 a test?

9 I mean are we going to go to that level. 

10 I mean we also have to make sure that whatever we 

11 decide is a feasible approach is actually feasible 

12 given the information we have in claims. And so 

13 I'd like to maybe before we go on, and I'm not sure 

14 I'm the one to really appraise this, but what is 

15 it that we should answer?

16 What are the questions we should answer

17 about skin, I'm just going to call it skin 

18 contaminations and what can we do for skin 

19 contaminations? What are the questions that we 

20 need to, that need to be answered? I don't know.

21 MEMBER MUNN: It appears to me that the 

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46

1 question that keeps coming up over and over again 

2 is the question of hot particles as though the hot 

3 particles were some deep mystery and we were a part 

4 of a script writing group here who was going to try 

5 to identify what the most horrifying thing is that 

6 could possibly happen.

7 Hot particles are not that much of a 

8 mystery. They've certainly been known for a long, 

9 long time and they have been the focus of an 

10 enormous amount of interest not just here but in 

11 the profession as a whole.

12 The assumption that something other 

13 than skin cancers might be a result of something 

14 like hot particles is something that probably needs 

15 to be clarified in this venue because the question 

16 continues to arise with respect to what the overall 

17 external exposure is, not just what the hot 

18 particle exposure might have been.

19 So it seems to me, Stu, in answer to your 

20 question and I certainly agree with it, I would like 

21 for us to go away with a very clear understanding 

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47

1 about what it is that we are going to try to answer. 

2 And I guess I would pose this question to Arjun.

3 Are we looking for the best effort that 

4 can be made with respect to total external exposure 

5 or are we really focused now on the hot particle 

6 issue because they really are different things?

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Wanda, the hot 

8 particle skin exposure obviously is a subset of the 

9 whole --

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- external exposure 

12 question. The reason it becomes important is when 

13 you have hot particle deposition on the skin that 

14 particular area gets a dose that could be very high 

15 that would not be reflected in the badge.

16 So normally with external exposure you 

17 have good badge records and you go the badge records 

18 and that suffices to tell you what the cumulative 

19 external dose was and to feed it into, you know, 

20 I mean the, that’s my best understanding. So the 

21 interest in hot particles is not because it's some 

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48

1 mysterious issue.

2 In this particular context where skin 

3 cancer is one of the common cancers but not in the 

4 SEC cancer list, so how you resolve that could 

5 become important for many people. And that's the 

6 reason to think about it more carefully.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And I want us to 

8 think about when we got into this issue because 

9 going back to the Nevada Test Site, Nevada Test Site 

10 was an interesting one from the aspect of not just 

11 the reactors that were there because, you know, 

12 we've seen the deposition of people washing off the 

13 trailers after a reactor test of all the hot 

14 particles and this is where it gets onto the ground.

15 But also two of them off of their skin 

16 and so forth like that, which was a common practice 

17 back there. And the re-entry teams that went into 

18 it come to find out that, you know, they had, a lot 

19 of them had protective clothing and so forth like 

20 that.

21 But the hot particle was kind of an 

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49

1 issue from their standpoint. And this is like all 

2 of these sites, each one of them has their own 

3 little nuance that is there. And part of the issue 

4 with this hot particle was the ingestion part is 

5 out of the picture, but the TLD that they were 

6 wearing wouldn't be capturing this.

7 And I just, this has been one of the 

8 things that's been kind of an interesting one to 

9 be able to look at. And the drill back people and 

10 when we're talking about that we're not just 

11 talking the drill back into the shot. We're 

12 talking about in the caves and so forth coming back 

13 into these.

14 And as they would come out a lot of those 

15 were deconned down but they had hot particles that 

16 had been on them. And this is just how, you know, 

17 how can we even address this? This is --

18 MEMBER MUNN: Well my question here 

19 still we go back to my original question. What are 

20 we trying to determine here? I mean there are a 

21 couple of things I want to clarify.

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50

1 First of all, are we trying to identify 

2 whether hot particles may be of interest to other 

3 external exposure other than skin? Is that an 

4 issue here or are we focusing on skin exposure as 

5 a result of hot particles?

6 This to me is really and truly salient 

7 because if the claims that we have are not skin 

8 cancers then the hot particle issue, in my mind, 

9 becomes moot. Now I'm not a health physicist. I 

10 could be incorrect about that.

11 But that's to me is one of the things 

12 that need to be defined here. Are we specifically

13 looking for the result of hot particles being 

14 anything other than skin doses? If it is than we 

15 have something else to look at.

16 If not then to me it reduces the number 

17 of cases. It reduces the issue to cases that are 

18 involved with skin cancer only.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well I think we're 

20 dealing with the effect of hot particles on 

21 external doses because the internal dose issue has 

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51

1 been resolved.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Originally when it was 

4 raised there was, in my mind, a pretty big issue 

5 of what hot particles do when they're ingested in 

6 the GI tract. You normally don't breathe in large 

7 particles, they get stuck somewhere before they 

8 reach your lung.

9 But now that issue has gone away because 

10 there's an SEC. And I think the cancers that would 

11 be covered by that are mostly in the SEC. So the 

12 focus is basically on skin doses.

13 So I might kind of make an attempt to 

14 move the issue along for your consideration, that 

15 I think the first thing is to characterize whether 

16 there was a hot particle issue outside NRDS more 

17 carefully and where. So Brad just brought up, you 

18 know, this decontamination question.

19 There were cloud sampling aircraft. 

20 They were decontaminated. I mean I've seen 

21 pictures of decontamination procedures where 

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52

1 personnel were just hosing down these planes 

2 without any protective --

3 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that's common.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. So in those 

5 situations you may well have had deposition of hot 

6 particles. So I would suggest that to move the 

7 issue along it may be useful to look at some generic 

8 activities where there was this potential and 

9 whether there's any documentation of that 

10 potential.

11 And if you don't have documentation of 

12 that potential then I think we would be stuck and 

13 possibly say that we can't do this. But if there 

14 is documentation then possibly we could think of 

15 applying the NRDL model and as I look at our Site 

16 Profile Review that we did back in 2005, the NRDL 

17 model used the available data to calculate the 

18 probability that a hot particle would actually be 

19 deposited on the skin.

20 It was a pretty sophisticated affair. 

21 We didn't look at their statistical model but we 

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53

1 did note that they calculated the probability of 

2 finding a particle in the GI tract or on the skin. 

3 GI tract is moot, but on the skin is not moot.

4 That probability was small, but not 

5 zero. So they, while they were not talking about 

6 directly surveying people's skin they were talking 

7 about skin doses from direct deposition of hot 

8 particles in the NRDL model. So my memory wasn't 

9 as faulty as I thought it might be.

10 MEMBER MUNN: That's always 

11 reassuring.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: It is very reassuring.

13 MR. ROLLINS: This is Gene Rollins, 

14 ORAU Team. While you've been talking I just went 

15 and reviewed that model, the 1968 report. And I 

16 just sent the abstract of that to Mark for his 

17 review.

18 I wanted to say that resuspension, i.e. 

19 deposition on the skin and deposition to the GI 

20 tract were considered to be virtually small 

21 effects. And all of the doses were calculated 

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54

1 based on vertical density, size of the particle for 

2 particles and infinite plane.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you, Gene.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have to review the 

5 document. But that's not what our review said. 

6 They actually calculated, doses are estimated 

7 using a statistical approach by calculating, 

8 combining the probability of finding a particle on 

9 the GI tract or on the skin (small) and dose for 

10 particle (large).

11 So I think we would need to read the full 

12 document or amend, if this is wrong then we would 

13 have to go back and fix our old Site Profile Review, 

14 which is possible. It's possible there's an error 

15 there.

16 But the main point I think for this 

17 discussion is I think the starting point would be 

18 to characterize the possibility that there are hot 

19 particles and certain groups of workers that were 

20 not in NRDS and then the next step from that would 

21 be could you use this particular model which was 

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55

1 actually talking about probabilities of skin 

2 deposition and apply it to certain groups of 

3 workers.

4 That, I think, that could be a way to 

5 move forward and address this issue, at least a 

6 starting point for discussion you may find it 

7 useful.

8 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark. I just 

9 wanted to point out that I think it was 99 percent 

10 of the recorded external doses from the dosimetry 

11 program at the Nevada Test Site showed that 

12 individuals received no dose above the minimum 

13 detectable amount on their badges over the entire 

14 operational history.

15 People that would have potentially been 

16 exposed to hot particles were ones that weren't 

17 going to have zero dose on their badge. They would 

18 have had significant doses likely because the 

19 chance of them encountering a single hot particle 

20 and never receiving any kind of measurable external 

21 dose is just essentially nil.

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56

1 So there are instances back in the 1950s 

2 where individuals that were removing cascade 

3 impactor filters from aircraft received some 

4 significant extremity doses on the order of, you 

5 know, maybe 30 rem from beta dose. Those 

6 individuals, yes, they could potentially have had 

7 a hot particle on their hand or something.

8 But to, I just wanted to make sure that 

9 we're pointing out that, you know, with an 

10 individual that has no recorded external dose the 

11 likelihood of them being exposed to a hot particle 

12 is very, very low. And to apply a model to everyone 

13 who has, you know, essentially a zero recorded dose 

14 from a hot particle is not an accurate approach in 

15 a dose reconstruction.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: I think where we would 

17 go probably is if there is evidence of, you know, 

18 can we find some evidence that would allow us to 

19 make a model, just model a hot particle for a 

20 selected piece of the population. You know, for 

21 the appropriate piece of the population. I think 

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57

1 that's kind of where the task is.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: I would think so. I 

3 mean that's what I was suggesting.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: I want to try and 

5 resolve this and so I want to try to go off and do 

6 the tasks we need to resolve this. And I am 

7 absolutely sensitive of the fact that I don't want 

8 to cheat anybody out of anything because a non-SEC 

9 cancer case is difficult.

10 You can only do a partial and so I 

11 understand that. So I think it's all going to come 

12 down to what kind of information we can find.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, and, Stu, just for 

14 the record my allusion to the earlier discussions 

15 wasn't about, you know, God knows I've changed my 

16 mind about things. So if you don't change your 

17 mind it means you're not learning anything.

18 MEMBER MUNN: There's some famous 

19 adage about that I believe.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: It doesn't mean you 

21 change your mind about everything if you've learned 

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58

1 enough in some areas. But, you know, so I was 

2 bringing it up simply because I thought that the 

3 responses in the matrix did not correspond to what 

4 I thought NIOSH was going to do which is to look 

5 into a certain issue, not that NIOSH had a different 

6 position now than before.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Which is fine.

8 MEMBER MUNN: So we're clear on where 

9 we're going to go here?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Well we know what we're 

11 going to start out. We're going to try and find 

12 information about, you know, is there information 

13 about skin contamination surveys, you know, things 

14 like that in populations where the skin 

15 contamination is likely.

16 You know, likely re-entry into NRDL, 

17 drill back into underground tests, you know, 

18 populations that were, you know, re-entries or 

19 mostly re-entries in I think above ground tests a 

20 lot of those people were military. That's who is 

21 usually marching into the above ground tests.

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59

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Other than the health 

2 --

3 MR. HINNEFELD: There were maybe some 

4 health physics monitors.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: This is where some 

6 of this came up from because we had some of the 

7 Nevada Test Site people that were with that, that 

8 had certain tests that they were retrieving and so 

9 forth. And this is partially where part of the hot 

10 particle stuff came up because of what was on those 

11 that they cleaned up.

12 And, Mark, you're absolutely right that 

13 this isn't, this is not and I want to make this, 

14 this isn't for the whole site. This is kind of the 

15 select group of people that are going into these 

16 situations.

17 And that's what we were looking at on 

18 this. So --

19 MEMBER MUNN: So we know where we're 

20 going for next time on this issue.

21 MR. KATZ: Can I just ask for 

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60

1 clarification? Is it a two part question? One, 

2 whether they had exposure potential, but two 

3 whether even if they did does the model, can the 

4 model be applied to them?

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. It is 

6 essentially a two part question. I mean 

7 theoretically this is going to be a relatively 

8 small proportion. I mean because at some point 

9 everybody who went past Mercury got a badge, right?

10 And so there are a lot of people who 

11 really you wouldn't expect to have any exposure. 

12 So you've got a lot of essentially non detectable 

13 badge readings.

14 But there would be a cadre of people who 

15 participated in events like a drill back or 

16 something that you would expect them to have some 

17 exposure and their badge should show some exposure.

18 And then we'll have to decide how much, 

19 you know, we'll have to conclude based on the 

20 information we have in the claim files which I'm 

21 really not very familiar with, what could we, you 

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61

1 know, what kind of judgments can we make?

2 You know, what population can we 

3 identify that may fit into this and then what 

4 information is available about contamination 

5 surveys and skin contamination that would allow us 

6 to do some sort of probability assessment.

7 And part of this might be a careful look 

8 at the NRDL entire paper to see what it, if in fact 

9 it does say there's a certain probability that this 

10 material that was on the ground can be resuspended 

11 and placing onto people's clothing or what in some 

12 of these decontamination activities is there 

13 monitoring data or some things like that.

14 And then once you can, if you can get 

15 enough data to decide that you can, there's an 

16 estimate here and even though Joe Smith doesn't 

17 have a documented skin contamination we have 

18 evidence that he did something, he was in one of 

19 these situations we can say based on being in that 

20 situation and the information we have from other 

21 people or other sources in that situation we will 

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62

1 do something.

2 And it might be a probability. It 

3 might be kind of probabilistic. I mean it might 

4 have a distribution about it that, you know, that 

5 is strictly probabilistic. I mean we could think 

6 about something like that.

7 But it will, but remember we're going 

8 to reconstruct what we can reconstruct. And 

9 there's got to be some reason to reconstruct this 

10 for this population.

11 MR. KATZ: And the other thing is it has 

12 to pass muster by the same metrics that the Board 

13 and NIOSH decides that doses are feasible to 

14 reconstruct. We can't all of a sudden go by a 

15 different metric to whether this is feasible.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: We can't come in here 

17 with a technique that was not, you know, that 

18 wouldn't present an SEC for instance.

19 MR. KATZ: Right.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: You know, they would 

21 say that's not a suitable technique.

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63

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I agree with the 

2 construct that you have made.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: So I don't know what 

4 we, how much information we have. I don't know 

5 what we're going to find. And to be honest I don't 

6 know what kind of a schedule I can put on this 

7 because, you know, there is a lot stuff in the 

8 project that we're working on. I have no idea.

9 MEMBER MUNN: We deal with the reality 

10 we have.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you know how many 

12 skin cancer cases we have?

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Well I don't know 

14 specifically, but skin cancer is a common cancer. 

15 Now there are three actual skin cancer models. And 

16 realistically it only basal cell carcinoma has a 

17 risk factor that is particularly beneficial to the 

18 claimant.

19 Melanoma is kind of in the middle. But 

20 squamous cell has almost no risk factor.

21 MEMBER MUNN: It's common. Everybody 

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64

1 has it anyway.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, well basal cell is 

3 really normal.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: You know, a lot of 

6 people get it. And I mean --

7 MEMBER MUNN: It's a question of 

8 whether there are excess cancers more than anything 

9 else that really is of interest.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: For whatever reason, 

11 you know, the causal, you know, the causal factor 

12 for basal cell is relatively high.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it is.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: And so again, you're 

15 more likely to be compensated with a basal cell in 

16 our program for basal cell than for the other two 

17 types.

18 MEMBER MUNN: But it's almost 

19 universal. Actually there are very few people 

20 over the age of 65 that don't have one or more 

21 things, either basal cell or otherwise.

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65

1 MR. HINNEFELD: I think I'm aging 

2 badly. Could we take a break?

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. So let's take a ten 

4 minute break.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Ten would be plenty.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, 22 we'll 

7 restart.

8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

9 went off the record at 10:27 a.m. and resumed at 

10 10:40 a.m.) 

11 MR. KATZ: We can get started again, 

12 Brad, if you want.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Well let's 

14 recap on this because I just want to make sure kind 

15 of where we're at with this. For item two and item 

16 three, Stu is going to look into, well it's kind 

17 of a three part.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Two was resolved.

19 MR. KATZ: Two is resolved.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Two is resolved. 

21 Okay. It's just for three. Okay, that's going to 

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66

1 help us here and it's kind of a two part. We're 

2 going to see what we can do and kind of a little 

3 bit of, you know, whether it's feasible to be able 

4 to do.

5 And one thing I wanted to make sure of 

6 too, Stu, on this. This is, I'm not looking at this 

7 as over the entire site. This is just a select 

8 people really.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And I just want to 

11 make sure of that. So as we go into this we'll 

12 just, this will be NIOSH's. NIOSH will see what 

13 they can do and go forward from there. With that 

14 we'll --

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Number four.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Number four. And, 

17 Arjun, this one to me is really not, it refers back 

18 to two and three but because of the SEC this --

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: I agree. It really 

20 should have said resolved because of the SEC. And 

21 I think in the next revision it should say that.

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67

1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So with everybody's 

2 concurrence could I say that number four is closed?

3 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. For the reason 

4 it's covered by the SEC.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think so.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So for issue five, 

7 Arjun, I'll --

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Issue five is so 

9 tangled and has such long, long history. But my 

10 best summary of this whole thing is because we went 

11 through many iterations and many White Papers, and 

12 my best summary and my best memory, correct me if 

13 I'm wrong and others remember differently, is that 

14 where SC&A had left it is that a mass loading 

15 approach would be claimant-favorable and would be 

16 adopted.

17 And we went back and forth I think 

18 between NIOSH and SC&A about what model should be 

19 adopted. But I think that issue was not finally 

20 fully resolved as to what approach NIOSH was going 

21 to take and whether SC&A was agreed with it.

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68

1 I think where we left it was that SC&A 

2 thought a mass loading approach should be adopted 

3 and NIOSH said, no, maybe some other method. But 

4 I don't recall all the back and forth I must say. 

5 I'm sorry about that.

6 MR. ROLFES: Well I guess it comes back 

7 to, you know, defining an environmental exposure 

8 versus an operational internal exposure. And 

9 we've developed a mass loading model that I believe 

10 results in five micrograms of soil per cubic meter 

11 from an environmental aspect.

12 With a radionuclide inventory that was 

13 based upon, I believe it was the Hicks data if 

14 that's, if I recall correctly, Gene.

15 MR. ROLLINS: Mark, this is Gene 

16 Rollins, ORAU Team.

17 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

18 MR. ROLLINS: Let me refresh 

19 everybody's memory on this. I had to go back and 

20 do this all over again myself because it's just been 

21 so long. We did try a mass loading model using some 

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69

1 suggested mass loading values and the doses came 

2 out to be extremely high and not reasonable.

3 So we went back and the model that's 

4 currently in the environmental TBD is really not 

5 based on resuspension at all. It's based on the 

6 highest plutonium air samples taken over the 20 

7 years or so that we have data. And that happened 

8 to come from Area 7 in 1972.

9 So it's not really a resuspension model 

10 at all now. To get potentially higher atmospheric 

11 or to look into what potentially higher loading 

12 could have been we used Anspaugh's model to get the 

13 early resuspension. And that is discussed in the 

14 TBD and it does make a small difference for some 

15 organs. And that's been tabulated and that's now 

16 in the TBD.

17 But these are typically organs that are 

18 covered under the SEC so we don't typically have 

19 to calculate these doses because they're already 

20 being compensated. But and I don't want anybody 

21 to think that the model that we're currently using 

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70

1 is based on resuspension or mass loading because 

2 neither of those ideas are true.

3 They are actually based on actual 

4 atmospheric measurements.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Of plutonium?

6 MR. ROLLINS: Right.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Of plutonium from 1972.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: And how do you, do you 

9 use the Hicks Table to relate the plutonium to 

10 everything else or Hicks Table to fix the problem?

11 MR. ROLLINS: No, we used the McArthur 

12 data, the soil data.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, right.

14 MR. ROLLINS: Averaged over the entire 

15 site to get the other radionuclides. Now we did 

16 use the Hicks data to estimate increased doses due 

17 to early resuspension which occurred after 

18 atmospheric testing had stopped. And that's 

19 explained in the, we looked at 173 short-lived 

20 radionuclides, short and long-lived radionuclides 

21 over a period of ten years.

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71

1 And I developed modification factors. 

2 And that's discussed in detail in the appendix now 

3 to the environmental TBD.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Were the mass loading 

5 doses so high that we would think they were 

6 implausible or mainly a judgment that --

7 MR. ROLLINS: That was, I discussed 

8 this with my counterparts at NIOSH. And we all 

9 came to the conclusion that the doses were just not 

10 reasonable.

11 We would have seen, in the bioassays 

12 that were taken and there were quite a few bioassays 

13 taken out there, this type of loading would have 

14 shown up.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Okay. So I 

16 must say that, you know, my memory that John Mauro 

17 and Lynn Anspaugh and you were in the middle of all 

18 those White Papers and discussions. May I request 

19 that we bump this a little bit after so I can call 

20 John Mauro and see if he can be on the call?

21 I should have done that earlier. I 

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72

1 apologize. But I don't feel that my memory is

2 adequate enough to represent everyone.

3 MR. ROLLINS: Well I had to go back and 

4 actually read the transcripts. And the last 

5 discussion that we had was between John Mauro and 

6 myself.

7 And I had explained the model that we 

8 were using and how we had used the highest 

9 concentration ever measured in an atmosphere out 

10 there and how we had, when we did the other 

11 radionuclides we used the highest ratio of 

12 concentration anywhere on the site.

13 And we were, as I was going through all 

14 of these limiting, bounding conditions that I had 

15 put into these calculations, John suggested that 

16 I may be overly conservative.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is that on the record, 

18 Gene, somewhere?

19 MR. ROLLINS: It's on, in the 

20 transcript.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's in the 

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73

1 transcript? Okay.

2 MR. ROLLINS: Yes. In fact I had to go 

3 back and dig all this out. But he said we should 

4 get together and you and I should discuss where we 

5 could remove some of this conservatism and get a 

6 more reasonable estimate of what the resuspension 

7 might have been.

8 And that was the last we ever did with 

9 it because the SEC came out and we ceased discussing 

10 it.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: And are there, the 

12 non-SEC cancers for which this would be relevant 

13 would be throat and I don't have that list in my 

14 head.

15 MR. ROLLINS: Larynx.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Larynx.

17 MR. ROLLINS: Yes. In fact I was --

18 MR. HINNEFELD: It would be, well the, 

19 there are some ET1 organs, tongue, mouth 

20 theoretically. I mean there would be some things 

21 like that.

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74

1 MEMBER MUNN: Like what?

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Tongue, mouth, you 

3 know. ET1 is a very --

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, everything above 

5 the shoulders.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, everything is 

7 essentially before the larynx.

8 MR. ROLLINS: I actually calculated 

9 potential doses to those organs so that you could 

10 get an idea of the magnitude of the doses. And that 

11 shows up as Table A-10 and Attachment A to the 

12 environmental TBD. And this basically assumes 30 

13 years of exposure.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: A-10, environmental 

15 TBD. I have the wrong one open.

16 MR. ROLLINS: And I also did the same 

17 thing for the ingestion pathways.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Arjun made what seemed to 

19 me to be a reasonable request when he asked if we 

20 could postpone this a little bit so that he and John 

21 Mauro could have an opportunity to take a look at 

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75

1 it for just a few more minutes.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Table A what, Gene?

3 MR. ROLLINS: A-10.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: A-10. This table is 

5 so long I can't find the beginning of it.

6 MR. ROLLINS: It originally was a 

7 stand-alone report and they asked me to incorporate 

8 it as an appendix.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Oh my.

10 MR. KATZ: We're getting there.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: We're getting there. 

12 One more. Yes, here we go. Did you compare, so 

13 there's a short list of cancers did you compare the 

14 effect of using a mass loading model for those, like 

15 the above shoulder organs that are part of the 

16 non-SEC list compared to the model that you are 

17 using?

18 MR. ROLLINS: I did that comparison but 

19 I did not document it.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

21 MR. ROLLINS: Because the doses were 

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76

1 just extraordinary.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Extraordinarily high?

3 MR. ROLLINS: Correct.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So it does make 

5 a difference?

6 MR. ROLLINS: Yes, it does. And if we 

7 really had that kind of mass loading and those kind 

8 of concentrations then we would have seen it in the 

9 bioassay because the people would have been showing 

10 up positive.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Let me call John Mauro 

12 at lunch time and confer with him. And, Gene, 

13 could you tell me which transcript that you looked 

14 at just so I could --

15 MR. ROLLINS: I tell you what over 

16 lunch I'll go back and try to find it again.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, okay. Thank you 

18 very much.

19 MR. ROLLINS: I've got it all on my 

20 computer. So I think I can locate it.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, this while I was 

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77

1 the task manager this was one discussion that I had 

2 left to John Mauro and you and Lynn so it's not in 

3 my brain, not enough memory to draw from.

4 MR. ROLLINS: It's been a long time.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: It was the longest, it 

6 was the thing on which we had the most discussion 

7 I think.

8 MR. KATZ: So we could, if you can 

9 forward to me the transcript reference if you find 

10 it at lunch I'll forward it on to Arjun.

11 MR. ROLLINS: And who is speaking 

12 please?

13 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. This is Ted 

14 Katz.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Or you could send it to 

16 Mark also.

17 MR. ROLLINS: I tell you what I can do. 

18 I can send it to Mark --

19 MR. KATZ: Yes, that's fine.

20 MR. ROLLINS: -- and let him distribute 

21 it.

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78

1 MR. KATZ: Okay.

2 MR. ROLLINS: Is that okay?

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, that will work, thanks.

4 MR. ROLLINS: I've just confirmed that 

5 I've got his e-mail and it's correct.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Good.

7 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Gene.

8 MR. ROLLINS: All right.

9 MEMBER MUNN: So we'll go back to 

10 number five after lunch.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Actually, five is 

12 tied to an awful lot of other ones.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: It is tied to an awful 

14 lot of other ones.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it is. But there 

16 are others --

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's why I wanted to

18 be cautious here because I know it's tied to other 

19 ones. And I don't want to --

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Before we continue 

21 I want to just make sure that I understand the, this 

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79

1 part of it. This is a mass loading. This is an 

2 environmental dose?

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: That we would use 

5 for the site, not just for everybody.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: As I understand it. 

7 Environmental dose is applied to everybody, right?

8 MR. ROLFES: That would be correct, 

9 yes.

10 MR. ROLLINS: That's correct. That's 

11 what we're currently doing. And also I need to 

12 make the distinction once again that these are not 

13 doses that would be expected from operations. 

14 These are doses that would be expected from ambient 

15 conditions.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: This would be just 

17 for the normal person out there out on the site?

18 MR. ROLLINS: Correct. Maybe 

19 different from one area to the next, but not 

20 performing work.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, that's what I 

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80

1 was wanting to make sure because in reading this 

2 I was kind of getting the impression that it was 

3 going to go to everybody. But, you know, then we 

4 started talking about after the atmospheric 

5 testing and there wasn't anything in '67.

6 And I'm sitting there going, I didn't 

7 understand fully what this was. But for my 

8 clarification this would be given to everybody 

9 that's driving across the site as ambient dose?

10 MR. ROLLINS: Yes, in our current dose 

11 reconstruction guidelines we give this dose to 

12 everybody.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. That's all I 

14 was just wanting to clarify for myself because 

15 reading through a lot of these responses it kind 

16 of went every different direction on there. So, 

17 okay, well we'll table this one or however we want 

18 to put this until a little bit later.

19 And when we go into the next issue the, 

20 is number six which is tied to that.

21 MR. ROLFES: Brad, sorry to interrupt 

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81

1 you but I think I found a location, Gene, where we 

2 discussed this issue in the transcripts. It was 

3 back in 2009. There is some discussion, let's see 

4 I've got the Working Group transcripts from April 

5 23, 2009.

6 MR. ROLLINS: Okay. I'm pulling that 

7 up right now.

8 MR. ROLFES: And I believe Dr. Mauro 

9 had begun speaking about the environmental 

10 exposure approach on Page 17.

11 MR. ROLLINS: Okay.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Are past meetings 

13 under announcements?

14 MR. KATZ: Past, just go to the meeting 

15 date and it should be an attachment to that page, 

16 the transcript under schedule of meetings 2009.

17 MR. ROLFES: Which e-mail, I can e-mail 

18 you a link, Arjun, if you like.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: April what?

20 MR. KATZ: 23rd.

21 MR. ROLFES: And then we can come back 

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82

1 to it I guess after you talk to John Mauro.

2 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Mark.

3 MR. ROLFES: No problem.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: So I think six is 

6 related to five.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: It is.

8 MR. KATZ: So is there anything outside 

9 of the issues of five covered in six?

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, because it's 

11 related to how NIOSH is approaching five.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, because this 

13 comes down to the different people and so forth.

14 MR. KATZ: So that's after lunch too?

15 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes. And also 

16 issue seven.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Seven also NIOSH not 

18 using resuspension models so we can't do seven.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right. So that's 

20 there. So we're up to eight. I'll let you handle 

21 this, Arjun.

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83

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Issue eight is 

2 use of 1967 external dose data for '63 to '66 is 

3 not claimant-favorable. NIOSH pointed out that 

4 badging was required for all workers after 1957.

5 And while we didn't sign off 

6 definitively my comment was that no further review 

7 appears to be needed and of course that's pending 

8 the Work Group's agreement with that. But I didn't 

9 think that we, there was more review needed since 

10 people were being badged and we didn't have to back 

11 extrapolate from '67.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So number eight is 

13 --

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think number eight 

15 should be marked as resolved.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Wanda, any 

17 --

18 MEMBER MUNN: No, I think we're good.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Phil and Gen, do you 

20 have any problems with closing number eight.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: I'm off mute now. 

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84

1 No, I'm fine on that one.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Good.

3 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Same here.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Sounds 

5 good.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I think the same 

7 applies to nine which was external environmental 

8 dose so which would be captured by the universal 

9 badging.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Close.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. So we'll 

12 close nine.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay, brings us to 

15 ten.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So this issue 

17 was how NIOSH was handling the badge doses that were 

18 recorded and whether background doses were being 

19 subtracted. Is that it? No, excuse me, sorry.

20 SC&A's preliminary conclusion that 

21 NIOSH values may reflect subtraction of badge MDL. 

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85

1 NIOSH clarification on how values were derived as 

2 needed. So NIOSH response maybe.

3 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I think this might 

4 have been when we had our original coworker table 

5 which essentially had, based upon the recorded 

6 values for NTS workers they were by and large zero. 

7 That was our initial approach to assign a coworker 

8 external dose.

9 And that has since been revised using 

10 the missed dose approach, the number of badge 

11 exchanges times the limit of detection divided by 

12 two to calculate a missed dose which would be 

13 assigned as a coworker dose instead.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, so that's the 

15 general approach that you're taking now?

16 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Which I think is the 

18 normal way you proceed at other sites?

19 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

20 MEMBER MUNN: That's been generally 

21 accepted.

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86

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think so.

2 MEMBER MUNN: I think so too.

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. So number 

4 ten can be --

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: With that 

6 clarification I think, with the NIOSH statement 

7 that's there I think my suggestion would be that 

8 we're good with it.

9 MR. KATZ: Gen and Phil?

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: If Arjun is happy, 

11 I'm happy.

12 MR. KATZ: That's beautiful.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: What about me, Gen?

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well I know you are 

15 happy.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: You heard her.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I know who matters 

18 here. Okay. So issue ten is closed with a caveat 

19 of NIOSH's response in Table 4-11.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that's the thing 

21 that clarifies what happened and I find acceptable.

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87

1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right. And I just 

2 wanted to make sure of that. Okay. And we're on 

3 to 11.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is that reflected in 

5 the TBD in that way?

6 MR. ROLFES: I'm going to ask Matt 

7 Smith if he's available on the phone. Matt, is the 

8 current TBD, the external TBD does that already 

9 incorporate the 50th and 95th percentile missed 

10 dose values?

11 MR. SMITH: I'm trying to catch up with 

12 you on that one. Let me, I'll weigh in as soon as 

13 I get it in front of me here. Go ahead and 

14 continue. I'll interject later.

15 MR. KATZ: That's fine. Thanks.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Eleven, correction 

17 factors for external environmental dose due to 

18 geometry of organ relative to badge need to be 

19 developed. NIOSH has provided a table of photon 

20 energy spectra to be used.

21 NIOSH concluded that external dose 

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88

1 conversion factors would not make a material 

2 difference. Then our, my comment in the update was 

3 NIOSH's photon energy grouping appeared to need 

4 review. Correction factors for skin dose may be 

5 much greater than one.

6 SC&A's preliminary view is that some 

7 aspects of NIOSH's conclusions of external 

8 environmental dose correction factors need review 

9 to assure they are claimant-favorable.

10 MR. ROLFES: All right. Gene, are you 

11 familiar with this issue?

12 MR. ROLLINS: Could you say again, 

13 Mark, please?

14 MR. ROLFES: Gene, I just wondered if 

15 you were familiar with this issue? Arjun has said 

16 that he believes that skin dose correction factors 

17 could be much greater than one. And I'm not sure, 

18 Arjun, if maybe you could explain that.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: I looked at 6.4.2.1 in 

20 the most recent TBD. I have it open in front of 

21 me. And the beta to gamma ratios appear to me to 

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89

1 be low. One I think is your median value.

2 MR. ROLLINS: Okay. Yes, I am 

3 familiar with this issue. We're using a value of 

4 1.04.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

6 MR. ROLLINS: And that is based on 

7 measurements that were taken by dosimetry. We had 

8 like 100 data sets where we had actual shallow dose 

9 and deep dose recorded.

10 So it's not theoretical, it's actually 

11 empirical.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: The, now where is the 

13 decay corrections, and how do you account for the 

14 short-lived beta exposure? So because again we're 

15 focused here on the skin question. And my --

16 MR. ROLLINS: Excuse me, go ahead.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: My recollection of 

18 beta to gamma dose ratios I reviewed the operation 

19 process documents a long time ago not as part of 

20 this job, is that the short-term beta to gamma 

21 ratios that were found in the field after the tests 

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90

1 were quite high, much higher than one.

2 And so I'm wondering, you know, when 

3 skin dose is involved again we're sort of related 

4 to the earlier issue, is it appropriate to use these 

5 average values in the badges for beta to gamma 

6 ratios for skin doses?

7 MR. ROLLINS: The TBD gives the dose 

8 reconstructors the latitude to use higher beta to 

9 gamma ratios. And those ratios are delineated in 

10 the appendix.

11 If they feel like they understand the 

12 exposure scenario well enough they are able to use 

13 higher beta to gamma ratios.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Would that vary by test?

15 MR. ROLLINS: Pardon me.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Would that be varying by 

17 test or by time after test?

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think it would vary 

19 by time --

20 MR. ROLLINS: Time after test.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Time after test, okay.

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91

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think that, I'm not 

2 a true expert in this. But in my opinion the time 

3 after test would be the more important variable 

4 compared to the test. It would vary by test too 

5 because there are different devices.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I couldn't remember 

7 that much variation in the ratios. It didn't list 

8 the data that deeply either.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Where is the table in 

10 the appendix, Gene?

11 MR. ROLLINS: Hang on just a minute and 

12 I'll get it for you.

13 MR. ROLFES: It's been a number of 

14 years since we've discussed these values.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is a major factor 

16 in our discussions today.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: All of a sudden 

18 these memories, these flashbacks are coming into 

19 your head.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: No more pleasant than 

21 it was then.

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92

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm not too unhappy 

2 with my memory.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Mine's shot.

4 MR. ROLLINS: It's in Appendix C, Table 

5 C-1. We have beta to gamma ratios by a test and 

6 by hours and days and years after the detonation.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: All right. Okay, 

8 that's good. Table C-1. Okay. I'm there. I 

9 have it. Right. So these ratios are much higher 

10 in the shorter time periods because you've got 

11 ratios of ten and 15 and 18 and seven and so how 

12 do we, in regard to skin dose I would have thought 

13 that these would be more germane than your average 

14 calculated from the badge reading.

15 MR. ROLLINS: These might be 

16 associated with one particular test re-entry for 

17 example and wouldn't necessarily be reflective of 

18 individuals, you know, entire occupational, you 

19 know --

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. I agree with 

21 that. So I think some way needs to be found to 

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93

1 account for maybe by looking in the records of, you 

2 know, these are like the re-entry workers, the 

3 people who went to collect the instruments.

4 Those kinds of workers I think maybe the 

5 guidance ought to be more explicit as to when this 

6 table should be used. I mean you've got the data 

7 here.

8 MR. ROLLINS: The problem we're 

9 running into is we really made no attempt to measure 

10 shallow dose I think prior to 1966.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Correct. There are no 

12 measurements as I recall prior to '66.

13 MR. ROLLINS: What you're seeing back 

14 here in this appendix is purely theoretical based 

15 on Hicks= study.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. But it does 

17 reflect field measurements that have been made 

18 during the test. Hicks data didn't come out of a 

19 void.

20 MR. ROLLINS: I don't think this is 

21 empirical at all.

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94

1 MR. HINNEFELD: You think he generated 

2 it based on inventories, radionuclide inventories.

3 MR. ROLLINS: Yes, based on 

4 inventories given by Hicks.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So I wonder if 

6 Matt has anything to offer on the kind of 

7 instruction that is given to dose reconstructors 

8 in doing this because, you know, a dose 

9 reconstructor doesn't normally do a dose 

10 reconstruction with a Site Profile open in front 

11 of him.

12 They have some other set of guidance 

13 whether it be a procedure or a tool or something 

14 like that. And I don't know if, Matt, do you have 

15 anything to offer on that on how is this alternative 

16 weighed by a dose reconstructor?

17 MR. SMITH: Sure. First let me jump 

18 back to the previous item. Just real quick on item 

19 ten on Table 6-11, the update described in the 

20 response still needs to be done in the TBD. And 

21 certainly it makes sense looking at it and the date 

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95

1 on this matrix response is just after the revision 

2 was put out.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So thank you.

4 MR. SMITH: That's a clarification on 

5 that. With respect to this next item, some of the 

6 direction is actually given in Table 6-17 of Rev 

7 3 of the TBD.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: What page is it on?

9 MR. SMITH: I'm sorry. It's on Page 59 

10 of 135.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Fifty-nine. Okay. 

12 I'm on Page 59. Yes.

13 MR. SMITH: Here's where we're saying 

14 if there's evidence of exposure during a drill back 

15 or tunnel re-entry values appropriate to the period 

16 after the event in Attachment C, would be the 

17 technique to use. These values are to be applied 

18 to the dosimeter exchange for the drill back or 

19 tunnel re-entry.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: In Appendix C, go back 

21 to that Table C-1 you have an annual average value 

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96

1 that's pretty high. I'm trying to retrieve the 

2 table. On site during the year and the footnote 

3 says average values can be used if a reasonable 

4 approach is required or if the employee is not 

5 directly identified with an event.

6 So these beta-gamma values are quite 

7 high. And so which ones of these values would the 

8 dose reconstructor be using? I mean they are all 

9 over the map. Would they use the one in the last 

10 column, on site during the year or --

11 MR. SMITH: Well you've got the event.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

13 MR. SMITH: So the DR would have to be 

14 looking at the, you know, claimant's file to see 

15 which of them would be the appropriate one to use. 

16 I mean we, this is where they're going to have to 

17 use some judgment and then capture all of their 

18 assumptions in the DR write-up.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: I also note that the 

20 beta/photon ratios in days and even years after are

21 all much greater than one. So I'm wondering how 

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97

1 your distribution came up with a value of 1.04 for 

2 the measured values because these are completely 

3 at variance with what you described in the body of 

4 the TBD in that 6.4.2.1.

5 MR. SMITH: The 1.04 was based on 

6 actual badging information where we had shallow and 

7 deep dose information. That's actually measured.

8 MEMBER MUNN: That's the empirical.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Where did Hicks get his 

10 numbers?

11 MR. ROLLINS: That was all 

12 theoretical.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, it couldn't have 

14 been theoretical in a void. I mean, Hicks tables 

15 are very well recognized and used.

16 MR. ROLLINS: I take that back.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm of the impression 

18 that Hicks tables were a theoretical elaboration 

19 of measurements that were made and models that were 

20 constructed of what happens during nuclear 

21 explosion in terms of fission product generation 

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98

1 and the spectrum of fission products that are 

2 generated.

3 So that's where I think this comes from. 

4 I'm puzzled by the, because it's always been my 

5 impression that beta/gamma ratios in nuclear 

6 testing are much greater than one and maybe this 

7 is where I get my impression.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Well this is Stu. If 

9 I could ask Gene a question. The 1.04 ratio which 

10 comes from measured values, do we have what 

11 measured values? Do we know what we're talking 

12 about in terms of which group of dosimeter readings 

13 did we look at to arrive at that ratio?

14 MR. ROLLINS: Was that a question to 

15 me? I'm sorry.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, 

17 Gene, it was to you.

18 MR. ROLLINS: Could you restate that 

19 please?

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Well you say the 1.04 

21 ratio is based on measured dosimetry values. And 

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99

1 so which dosimeters were those? I mean which, what 

2 years, what people or do we have a description of 

3 what that is? Was it an entire years or several 

4 entire years?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Entire site?

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Do you know?

7 MR. ROLLINS: I'm trying to read right 

8 now. They had some of that information in the TBD.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm just trying to 

10 square that, you know, reconcile that 1.04 with 

11 this Hicks data from the Hicks table. That's all 

12 I'm trying to do. If the Hicks says the ratios are 

13 this why are the measured values 1.04?

14 MEMBER MUNN: Of course the Hicks 

15 values would be very brief in time.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Also he has values for 

17 days and years. And they are all much more than 

18 one.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Big numbers.

20 MR. ROLLINS: I've got to go back to the 

21 main part of the TBD. It might take me a minute 

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100

1 or so to find this. The reason the measured ratios 

2 are so low is due to weathering and self-shielding 

3 that's happening in the environment over time.

4 Especially the positive material will 

5 probably have a much higher measured beta to gamma 

6 ratio than what we actually measured.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: What actually 

8 surprised me and I didn't remember this when I was 

9 first, when we first started talking about this is 

10 the Hicks ratios are large even for times long after 

11 the test.

12 MR. ROLLINS: Right.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Years.

14 MR. ROLLINS: That's taking into 

15 account weathering and self-shielding, over 

16 burdens that sort of thing.

17 MEMBER MUNN: It sounds as though we 

18 may still have an unresolved issue in that regard.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Well I think the, it 

20 was just a matter of curiosity why the badges read 

21 1.04 versus these ratios. That's just kind of a 

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101

1 matter of curiosity.

2 I think the essential ingredient that 

3 we need to be firm on is and it could be that since 

4 we're still resolving the Site Profile issues that 

5 the final guidance to the dose reconstructor hasn't 

6 yet been written, you know, in terms of telling the 

7 dose reconstructor this is what you should do to 

8 do these dose reconstructions.

9 So it could be that it hasn't been 

10 written yet. But that to me is the key question 

11 is that we have the Hicks ratios. We have these 

12 badge measured ratios. And it would be nice if we 

13 had a fairly descriptive set of decisions to make 

14 for a dose reconstructor so that under these 

15 situations they make the same choices.

16 Dose reconstructors for the same case 

17 would make the same decisions. That's ideally 

18 what you would want.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well and that's 

20 what me and Wanda were just talking about a minute 

21 ago. I'm looking at this from the dose 

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102

1 reconstruction of okay, are we going to end up with 

2 the same thing because all of a sudden getting the 

3 dose reconstruction this one used this table when 

4 they should have used this.

5 It's the same thing we get into a lot. 

6 So it's just clear guidance of what the dose 

7 reconstructor would be using.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I think, well no matter 

9 what we find out today I think that's kind of the 

10 question that we're going to have to come back with. 

11 I mean what, you know, we've got all this 

12 information, you know, all these available ratios 

13 out there.

14 How are we going to write instructions 

15 for the dose reconstructor so that we have a 

16 consistent application of a set of rules so that 

17 it's essentially not the luck of the draw?

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: And this particular 

19 issue is very important for skin dose questions.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Skin dose issue and 

21 skin and eyes.

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103

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's really the one 

2 thing where it would make potentially a pretty big 

3 difference.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

5 MEMBER MUNN: But it's also fairly 

6 obvious just not even knowing the details just 

7 looking at the issue that we had before us. It's 

8 fairly obvious that there is some kind of an 

9 artifact, some kind of a process between the raw 

10 data that the Hicks tables show and the information 

11 that's obtainable from the badges.

12 Clearly they're not, one has a bearing 

13 on the other but it's not a direct inference. It's 

14 something that certainly I would like to see a 

15 little more information about than what we have.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I think the key

17 element here is, you know, what are the decision 

18 rules for a dose reconstructor given this wide 

19 range of potential ratios.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Stu, I think it 

21 would be useful also to look at the measurements. 

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104

1 Earlier on you raised that question which badges.

2 And so it might be useful for us to look 

3 at, I mean if the Work Group wants to go there. 

4 That's how I understand Wanda's comment.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it's very 

6 interesting to me how you could have a group of 

7 badges from the same essential time period that are 

8 supposedly covered by the Hicks data and have such 

9 a discontinuity between. It would be interesting 

10 to know why or at least to have some logical, 

11 rational basis for saying why.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: So it would be useful 

13 to see the construction or derivation of that, the 

14 numbers that are in the TBD in that section.

15 MEMBER MUNN: A better understanding, 

16 from my point of view I'm not even crystal clear 

17 on how the Hicks data was developed, exactly how 

18 he made those measurements. I haven't delved into 

19 his report myself. So it would be helpful to have 

20 some idea.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's been awhile. So 

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105

1 I'm not going to hazard an answer now. But maybe 

2 Mark might know.

3 MR. ROLFES: I don't recall which 

4 dosimeters were evaluated. Presumably you would 

5 want ones that actually had recorded dose on them. 

6 And I don't know how he categorized them. I'd have 

7 to take a look back. It's been many years.

8 MR. ROLLINS: The derivation of the 

9 1.04 of ratio is discussed on Page 52, about the 

10 middle of the page. And it talks about they looked 

11 at results of 84 claim files with positive beta and 

12 gamma results between 1966 and 1987. Three 

13 hundred sixty-eight data pairs were identified 

14 from 84 claims.

15 Based on these data a log-normal 

16 distribution was calculated in the 50th percentile 

17 at 1.04 and 95 percentile at 4.59. It gives a GSE 

18 of 2.41.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So this might 

20 have something to do with, you know, the 

21 atmospheric tests ratio and exposures may have been 

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106

1 quite different than in the period we're talking 

2 about. Anyway, I think this is an issue that we 

3 need to, I would recommend needs some further work.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right. But you 

5 guys can't re-review anything until NIOSH --

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well we haven't seen 

7 this data and I guess we would have to go, I don't 

8 know whose court the ball is going to be in. I 

9 think probably NIOSH's court until we see something 

10 from them.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: The, I've lost track of 

13 which comment, which finding number.

14 MR. KATZ: Eleven.

15 MR. ROLFES: And see if we can find a 

16 file of the data that we've analyzed to come up with 

17 the numbers that were presented in the TBD.

18 MR. KATZ: Yes, and then Wanda just 

19 wants it, if we can do that some sort of explanation 

20 of the relationship between Hicks and what we've 

21 done, what we've looked at comparatively.

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107

1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: As to what might explain it. 

3 So some explanation for that would be good and then 

4 Stu mentioned also which would, actually it seems 

5 like it would come afterwards once you understand 

6 all this protocol, how to apply whichever data.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And then --

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, and then you can look 

9 at that.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. There is another 

11 part to 11 that we haven't talked about yet.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay. Part A.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think we talked about 

14 Part B first.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. Part B first.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: But if we're done with 

17 the beta/gamma the photon spectrum issue I think 

18 was not actually addressed in NIOSH's response. 

19 NIOSH addressed just the beta/gamma part of the 

20 issue.

21 MR. SMITH: There is language 

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108

1 addressing energy ranges, you know, no one is 

2 constrained by IREP. It's the language at the end 

3 of the response.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Let me see here. You 

5 are right. Okay.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Is that adequate?

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm not sure. I have 

8 to go back and see where, these photon energy 

9 groupings that we talked about were not related to 

10 the IREP groupings because IREP groupings are 

11 fairly crude. We were talking about photon energy 

12 groupings in relation to correction factors for 

13 skin dose.

14 Now, you know, I have to go back to our 

15 TBD to see where this came, unfortunately there's 

16 no page number reference to our TBD and the comment. 

17 But I will try to bring it up. If you would bear 

18 with me for a minute.

19 MR. KATZ: Sure.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm looking in the 

21 wrong place. Excuse me.

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109

1 MR. ROLFES: Earlier on in the meeting 

2 I had pointed Arjun to the April 23rd transcripts 

3 discussing our original approach, which was the 

4 mass loading approach. There is additional 

5 discussion in the 12/15/2009 transcripts regarding 

6 the revised approach.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry.

8 MR. ROLFES: There's additional 

9 information discussing the revised internal 

10 environmental approach after we changed from the 

11 mass loading approach.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Are we going back?

13 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Can we come back to 

15 that after lunch?

16 MR. ROLFES: We sure can. I just 

17 wanted to point it out.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: There are additional 

19 transcripts.

20 MR. ROLFES: There may be additional 

21 transcripts discussing the issue as well.

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110

1 MEMBER MUNN: Which other one did you 

2 just say?

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well we have lots of 

4 transcripts. That issue went on for a long time. 

5 I think I have found the place.

6 MR. ROLFES: That was 12/15/2009 for 

7 that.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

9 MR. ROLFES: Beginning around Page 32.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So this is 

11 maybe a better explanation for that matrix entry. 

12 I should have just copied this in the matrix. But 

13 let me just read from the Site Profile Review and 

14 I think it might clarify what we're talking about.

15 Due to the special and highly varied 

16 nature of activities at NTS there was potential for 

17 exposure to an exceptionally large array of 

18 radionuclides from various irradiation 

19 geometries. Since these radionuclides have 

20 photon energy spectra that cover all three ranges 

21 of the inputs required for IREP, which is used to 

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111

1 calculate Probability of Causation it appears 

2 crucial for the dose reconstructor that the TBD 

3 should define the photon energy spectrum and 

4 irradiation geometry for each type of worker or 

5 installation.

6 So that's where the relation of this 

7 photon spectrum and the IREP came from. That's 

8 where that matrix item comes from. So I think just 

9 going back to saying the IREP categories, we use 

10 the IREP categories kind side stepping the issue 

11 because the issue was the IREP categories for the 

12 specific situation of the NTS might need some more 

13 clarification for the dose reconstructor to know 

14 how much of the badge reading to put in which block.

15 MR. SMITH: Okay. This is Matt Smith 

16 with the ORAU Team. The response directs us to 

17 Attachment B, of the Site Profile. And you can see 

18 where the author is, he used the radionuclide 

19 inventory from Table 2-2. And again, I'm 

20 refreshing as I go on this as well.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: We're all doing 

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112

1 that.

2 MR. SMITH: But you can see where an 

3 analysis was done, I'm going to guess by, you know, 

4 some of the original authors of the TBD where they 

5 took a look at the radionuclide inventory and then 

6 in Table B-1 provided an approach to getting the 

7 spectra for these various operations into the 

8 proper IREP.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I see that.

10 MR. SMITH: You can see how he's 

11 footnoted it and also in the text of Attachment B 

12 he has described or I should be fair and say he 

13 and/or she has described how that approach was 

14 taken.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, so do the dose 

16 reconstructions actually use this table? 

17 MR. SMITH: I'm going to have to take 

18 another jump and, Gene, maybe you might be already 

19 ahead of me in my --

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Because that might 

21 resolve the issue if they are consistently using 

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113

1 this table and to figure out what to put into IREP 

2 then that would resolve the issue.

3 MR. SMITH: My guess is, yes. I would 

4 have to jump back up into the body of the TBD to 

5 see how it's in turn referring back to Table B-1.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: That may not be so 

7 hard. Let's try.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Take a look and see.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, let's just try to 

10 find the reference of Table B-1. Okay. So 

11 there's no reference to Table B-1 in the body of 

12 the TBD, at least I don't find it.

13 MR. SMITH: While the group continues 

14 I'll, either Gene or I will take a look and see if 

15 there's a link back.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I mean I just did 

17 a word search.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, right. Thanks, 

19 Matt.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, so I think --

21 MR. ROLLINS: We do mention in the body 

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114

1 that additional information for ratios are given 

2 in Appendix C. So we redirect that the dose 

3 reconstructor to Appendix C.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: And that's a 

5 different, that's the beta/gamma ratios. That's 

6 not this problem. This problem is what about the 

7 photon spectrum guidance that you're going to give 

8 for the specific problems.

9 You know, you've got all these work 

10 categories and Table B-1 is actually pretty good. 

11 And also it seemed to me I haven't reviewed all the 

12 numbers but I think it's what you were looking for. 

13 And so I think there should be something specific 

14 for dose reconstructors to use that table.

15 MEMBER MUNN: The question is, is the 

16 direction to it where it needs to be.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: And whether it was 

18 noted earlier that, you know, dose reconstructors 

19 don't always have the TBD in front of them when they 

20 are doing this job. But this table would seem to 

21 be particularly important.

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115

1 MR. ROLLINS: I can tell you in 

2 practice what we do is typically assume 30 to 250 

3 keV and if we get close to a decision level then 

4 we might dissect that a little further. But 

5 typically we'll just use the claimant-favorable 30 

6 to 250.

7 MR. FISHBURN: Gene, this is Mark 

8 Fishburn. Also the workbook has all of these 

9 available to the dose reconstructor if they want 

10 to choose from these.

11 MR. ROLLINS: That's true, yes.

12 MR. FISHBURN: That's always available.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: I would think that 

14 this, I mean is their job specific information in 

15 the workbook because this is a table that gives you 

16 these photon spectra by job, which is important and 

17 interesting?

18 MR. FISHBURN: Yes, the workbook has it 

19 by drill back operations, re-entry, routine tunnel 

20 operations, the same that are listed in Table B-1.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Are in the workbook?

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116

1 MR. FISHBURN: Yes.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: So then, so it's there 

3 and so they presumably are using this when they do 

4 the dose reconstructions?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, although generally 

6 it's 30 to 250.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

8 MR. ROLLINS: If we need a best 

9 estimate we'll go into that much, we'll go down to 

10 that detail.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay, good.

13 MR. SMITH: I'll jump in as well and 

14 point people towards Table 6-13. I don't have 

15 Table B-1 open at the same time. But for drill back 

16 we're at .03, for less than 30 keV .5 for 30 to 250 

17 and .47 for greater than 250. Real quick, does 

18 that match up with Table B-1?

19 It should because the footnote says see 

20 Attachment B for derivation of partition of 

21 fractions.

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117

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I would have to

2 open two windows here.

3 MR. SMITH: Yes, I'm in the same boat. 

4 My quick take on it is that Table 6-13 is echoing 

5 Table B-1. In the body of the TBD it is giving the 

6 DR this information and direction. And it also 

7 discusses the default value of 100 percent, 30 to 

8 250 as Gene brought up.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm going to do a 

10 random check. Employer explosive devices, it's 

11 not the same numbers. No, adjusted photon, no, it 

12 is the same numbers. You're using the adjusted 

13 photon, what is the adjusted photon fraction?

14 Attenuation of low energy photons. 

15 Attenuation by what? So the note A says this, so 

16 you know, my head is focused on skin doses, right. 

17 So for instance that nuclear explosive device 

18 assembly, less than 30 keV is .73 but once adjusted 

19 is .57. So it's being attenuated by something.

20 MEMBER MUNN: Air, dirt, clothing, 

21 what?

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118

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: So the skin dose would 

2 probably be an unattenuated dose, right, maybe? 

3 I'm not sure.

4 MR. SMITH: Many times when we work up 

5 a skin dose we are looking at factors that could 

6 have attenuated.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Like clothing?

8 MR. SMITH: Clothing, shielding.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: So what attenuation 

10 does this reflect, this Table B-1?

11 MEMBER MUNN: I've seen that 

12 discussion about clothing. But I don't remember 

13 whether it was in the NTS context or not.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Wouldn't less than 30 

15 keV produce a higher Probability of Causation?

16 MR. ROLFES: Yes, it typically would 

17 but that's not usually what the nuclear test would 

18 produce.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. But in this 

20 particular case I'm just looking at there are some, 

21 because the default is 30 to 250 there are some 

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119

1 jobs, quite a few jobs, low level waste site, 

2 radiation instrument calibration and this 

3 explosive assembly that have the larger fraction 

4 being in the less than 30 keV.

5 So I think some clarification in regard 

6 to how this table is being used. But I would say 

7 generally the use of this table would resolve the 

8 issue that we raised with this one caveat.

9 MR. SMITH: The discussion is again 

10 that the bottom of Page 111.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Page 111. So it's 

12 attenuation in the environment.

13 MR. SMITH: Right.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I mean, is there 

15 something we can see in regard to that attenuation 

16 factor? Because it might make a difference to some 

17 people.

18 MR. SMITH: Off the top of my head, and 

19 Gene can fill in the blanks, my guess is one of the 

20 original authors wrote this section. I don't have 

21 instant access to their knowledge.

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120

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, it was just a 

2 question. I think we're not far from resolving 

3 this issue if we could see some information on the 

4 attenuation and how it's being applied. I mean, 

5 the fact that it's in the workbook that dose 

6 reconstructors use at least would put me at ease.

7 MEMBER MUNN: So perhaps we can have 

8 that next time?

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Who's doing something 

10 here?

11 MR. SMITH: I'll certainly look into 

12 it.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: We're going to see if 

14 we can find the information that led to that 

15 attenuation?

16 MEMBER MUNN: Thanks, both of you.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is there like a paper 

18 on the derivation of that table where all the 

19 numbers came from that NIOSH might share with us?

20 MR. HINNEFELD: If we have it, we'll 

21 share. I don't know.

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121

1 MEMBER MUNN: That's what we're, one of 

2 the things we'll look to see, how NIOSH --

3 MR. HINNEFELD: That was apparent in a 

4 table you were looking at, was it the B-1 Table?

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, Table B-1.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: I hope Jim is really 

7 enjoying his vacation.

8 (Laughter.)

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Brad, I have no more on 

10 11.

11 MEMBER MUNN: We have our expectation 

12 for 11 for next time.

13 MR. KATZ: So, NIOSH is going to 

14 provide whatever information on the derivation of 

15 Table B-1. But otherwise the issue can be closed 

16 because everything else is sorted out.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. So we've got 

18 that one.

19 MEMBER MUNN: This is talking about 

20 photon energy.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yeah, well, the 

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122

1 photon on that part of it, and I was hearing that 

2 we've got it in there. But how do we get it? I 

3 just want to make sure that we've answered what your 

4 question is.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I went back to 

6 our original Site Profile Review, Brad, to refresh 

7 my own mind as to where all this stuff came from. 

8 And I think Table B-1 is pretty responsive to the 

9 issue that we raised back then.

10 And the only question now is, you know, 

11 how is this attenuation factor derived? Because 

12 it might be important for some people.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. So as soon 

14 as we get that we can close that one. So we'll 

15 continue on to 12. And this is the famous Gravel 

16 Gerties.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think I would 

18 recommend acceptance of NIOSH's response because 

19 it indicates to me, at least confirms --

20 MR. KATZ: Can you just summarize it?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, I'm sorry. The 

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123

1 issue is, the item is that there might have been 

2 radon doses in G-Tunnel. The doses were not 

3 claimant-favorable. NIOSH had addressed that 

4 issue.

5 The one point that was outstanding as 

6 to whether anyone entered the Gravel Gerties after 

7 1992 and if so are the radon doses being 

8 incorporated? Important for some, potentially 

9 important for some non-presumptive cancers.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: Is anybody on the 

11 line?

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

13 MS. LIN: Yes, Dr. Roessler, this is 

14 Jenny, I'm still here.

15 MR. KATZ: Oh, I'm sorry. Something 

16 happened and the phone just muted itself.

17 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. I'm glad that 

18 it wasn't my fault.

19 MR. KATZ: No, thanks for speaking up 

20 because I don't know when that happened. But I 

21 just noticed it when you said that.

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124

1 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay, thanks.

2 MR. KATZ: Thanks.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: So the main question 

4 was did anybody go into the Gravel Gerties after 

5 1992 and what is being done about those doses? And 

6 I infer from what NIOSH has said -- so maybe NIOSH 

7 can provide --

8 MR. ROLFES: Yes, this is Mark. 

9 Places such as the device assembly facility were 

10 still entered after 1992. So we agreed that we 

11 would in fact calculate radon exposures for workers 

12 that were entering into a Gravel Gerties-type 

13 facility.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So that issue 

15 would then be resolved. Presumably you would put 

16 this in the revision of the TBD? Because I don't 

17 think it's there.

18 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I will have to check 

19 and make sure that there's a statement in the TBD. 

20 And if it's not then we will incorporate it.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, just alert that 

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125

1 after 1992.

2 MR. KATZ: Can we close this, Work 

3 Group?

4 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith of ORAU 

5 Team. Sorry, the line dropped and I had to dial 

6 back in. And I'm sorry to go out of sequence again. 

7 But jumping back to number 11, I haven't opened up 

8 the document yet. But the reference cited in that 

9 Attachment B is by Griffith in 2008 and the SRDB 

10 number is 41175.

11 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Then we'll just 

12 take it off NIOSH's table for now and we'll let SC&A 

13 review that.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: SRDB 41175?

15 MR. SMITH: Correct. It's estimation 

16 of fractional photon contribution by NTS work area 

17 and operation.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't know whether 

19 the Work Group wants us to look at it. But we could 

20 if you wanted it.

21 MR. KATZ: Why don't you see whether 

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126

1 that's answering what you were going to follow up 

2 on.

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Actually, after 

4 NIOSH agrees that's what we want to do then we'll 

5 -- then you guys can review that from there.

6 MR. KATZ: All right, Mark. If you 

7 just take a look at that. See if that does answer 

8 the issues.

9 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: So then you would 

11 communicate with us and then we would automatically 

12 go ahead and review that or --

13 MR. KATZ: Yeah, there's no point in 

14 you --

15 (Simultaneous speaking.)

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I want to be clear 

17 that once we hear from you that we don't need 

18 another --

19 MR. KATZ: Yeah, no, we don't need a 

20 meeting for this. We would just have an e-mail.

21 MR. SMITH: And I'll try to take a look 

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127

1 during your lunch hour and report back after your 

2 lunch.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Good.

4 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Matt.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yeah, thanks.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: So item 12, I think, 

7 should be considered resolved with the appropriate 

8 entry into the TBD about Gravel Gerties and radon 

9 doses.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Gen and 

11 Phil, any issues with closing number 12?

12 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, what do you 

13 think, Brad?

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I think that it is 

15 great.

16 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. I agree with 

17 you.

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

19 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yeah, I agree.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Thank you. And 

21 Wanda, you're good too?

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128

1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. On to 

3 Comment 13.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, environmental 

5 doses to I-131 venting need to be taken into account 

6 for non-monitored workers. NIOSH's method for 

7 estimating I-131 exposure due to Baneberry venting 

8 does not appear to be claimant-favorable.

9 And the most recent comment from SC&A 

10 was that development of a method for assigning more 

11 claimant-favorable partial doses for I-131 appears 

12 to be warranted. So then there's a long response, 

13 which Mark can explain.

14 MR. ROLFES: Yes, and, Gene, are you 

15 able to go through our response? I know we had 

16 reevaluated the internal doses from iodine 

17 following Baneberry and wondered if you might be 

18 able to walk us through what we've done.

19 MR. ROLLINS: Well, I don't know what 

20 I have over and above what's written here.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Maybe you could 

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129

1 describe what's written there for the record.

2 MR. KATZ: Yeah, exactly.

3 MR. ROLLINS: We looked at the cohort 

4 group that was identified as being expose to iodine 

5 from the Baneberry event. And the minimum 

6 detectable dose at that time was 1 millirem.

7 MR. ROLFES: Just to add something 

8 also. I mean, this is one of those fine lines 

9 between an operational internal exposure and an 

10 environmental exposure. The people that would 

11 have been directly involved, I would say, would be 

12 an operational exposure and not some, you know, 

13 downwind, you know, exposure scenario.

14 So if we have an individual that was 

15 directly involved and does not have bioassay data 

16 or thyroid counts, we would say that internal doses 

17 for that individual could not be reconstructed 

18 without bioassay data due to the SEC Class that has 

19 been added. So what we're trying to estimate here 

20 is an environmental exposure for individuals that 

21 were not directly involved.

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130

1 And I believe we had changed our 

2 approach since our last meeting. I think we had 

3 gone back and looked at some air sampling data. 

4 But that is what I was not quite sure about, Gene.

5 MR. ROLLINS: We did go back and look 

6 at some air sampling data. But where we did get 

7 positive indications of airborne iodine, it was in 

8 this group of individuals that we identified as 

9 being contaminated and potentially had intakes.

10 We took all those individuals, and if 

11 they were contaminated, then we put them onto a 

12 bioassay program and actually had thyroid counts 

13 and urine samples from these individuals. And 

14 those individuals that showed up positive on the 

15 bioassay were assigned doses based on those 

16 bioassay results.

17 But I don't know how we could postulate 

18 somebody could have been out there that got exposed 

19 and we didn't know about it. I mean, again, we 

20 might be making stuff up if we try to do that. I 

21 don't know how we could do that.

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131

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think, first of all, 

2 a lot of what this refers to is not the occupational 

3 dose. It is the people who were accidentally 

4 exposed in the aftermath of Baneberry.

5 So they weren't necessarily -- some of 

6 them may have been operational workers. But I 

7 think most of them were probably not.

8 MR. ROLLINS: Well, that's this cohort 

9 of 900 individuals.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: So that's what I'm 

11 clarifying, is that these 900 individuals, Mark was 

12 mentioning that, you know, there's a line between 

13 environmental and occupational dose here.

14 I'm just clarifying that really we're 

15 talking about environmental dose here because this 

16 was not in the context of work that these people 

17 were doing. It was in the context of an accidental 

18 exposure because the fallout --

19 MR. ROLLINS: And they attempted to 

20 characterize what their potential exposure could 

21 have been.

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132

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

2 MR. ROLLINS: And they had a pretty 

3 good cohort group of 900 individuals.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

5 MR. ROLLINS: There were only about 17 

6 that had measurable dose.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Which is good.

8 MR. ROLLINS: Yeah, that's good. But 

9 other than that, I don't know how I could 

10 extrapolate that to a dose that we would want to 

11 apply to everyone who happened to be on site during 

12 that time period.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: How many people 

14 actually had bioassay from these 900 individuals?

15 MR. ROLLINS: Sixty-nine had thyroid 

16 counts. If they came up positive on the thyroid 

17 count, then they went and they had a whole body 

18 count and they underwent urine analysis. And it 

19 appears, based on this, that only about 17 of those 

20 had significant dose or anything above what they 

21 could measure on the bioassay program.

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133

1 MEMBER MUNN: Anything measurable, 

2 yeah.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Our response says all 

4 but 17 were assigned doses to their thyroids from 

5 that cohort.

6 MR. ROLLINS: Oh, I'm sorry. 

7 Sixty-nine of the 900.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Our response also says 

9 there were 145 that underwent decontamination and 

10 submitted bioassay samples. So according to the 

11 response, if this is written correctly, 214 of the 

12 900 were bioassayed in some fashion, right? If the 

13 response means what it says.

14 MR. ROLLINS: Yeah, and that's 

15 correct. I'm just trying to refresh my memory.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Two hundred fourteen 

17 of them had bioassay in some fashion. And so we'll 

18 have either a dose calculated from the bioassay or 

19 a missed dose from the bioassay or whether it was 

20 in a thyroid count or a urine sample.

21 So in terms of working with the 900, and 

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134

1 so, Arjun, your question is the other 900 who were 

2 just out there, you know, maybe -- I think they were 

3 like under construction groups and stuff out there 

4 during Baneberry that had to be evacuated. Your 

5 question is, what about those guys and what do we 

6 know about potential exposures there?

7 That's your question. And my question 

8 is, do we know who they are? So if we could figure 

9 out what the dose would be to somebody who is not 

10 in the monitored part, who are part of the 900 but 

11 not monitored, do we know who those 655 people are?

12 MEMBER MUNN: Well, and --

13 MR. ROLLINS: I think that information 

14 is available.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

16 MEMBER MUNN: And is it even feasible 

17 to assume that it would be an internal exposure 

18 problem if you have no badge reading that's 

19 discernible? It would seem you would have some 

20 kind of a discernible reading.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Most of the internal 

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135

1 exposure is dealt with by the SEC. There's these 

2 few cancers and, again, skin dose. And in 

3 Baneberry I think you have that sort of skin 

4 particle deposition issue that we have discussed 

5 in the past that I think maybe ought to be reviewed.

6 MR. ROLFES: I would sort of disagree 

7 with that, because you're going to have a gas or 

8 a vapor, really, for iodine rather than a particle. 

9 I wouldn't expect there to be really, you know, hot 

10 particles essentially settling on someone's skin.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: No condensation?

12 MR. ROLFES: Condensation?

13 MR. HINNEFELD: That the iodine might 

14 condense a little.

15 MR. ROLFES: I guess it's possible. 

16 But it's a pretty low moisture environment that's 

17 --

18 MEMBER MUNN: Yeah, it's not likely to 

19 condense in Nevada.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: So, I mean, it's also 

21 feasible that the evacuation was successful and 

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136

1 people were evacuated without being exposed. 

2 That's also possible.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, my memory of what 

4 happened in that incident is -- I'll bring this up 

5 with John Mauro again, this Baneberry thing on our 

6 side was handled by John and Lynn and not by me. 

7 So let me bring it up with him at lunch. And if 

8 we could kind of pick this up after lunch, I would 

9 appreciate it.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, you know, 

11 speaking of that, we're pretty close to it.

12 MEMBER MUNN: We are, like five minutes 

13 of.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So why don't we do 

15 that then and we'll pick up after lunch.

16 MR. KATZ: Then this is probably a good 

17 time to break. Is this a good time to break for 

18 folks on the phone too? And we'll pick up --

19 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Sure.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay. We'll pick up at one 

21 our time. Is that good for everybody, an hour? 

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137

1 Okay. Thanks everyone and speak to you after 

2 lunch.

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

4 went off the record at 11:55 a.m. and resumed at 

5 1:07 p.m.)

6 MR. KATZ: So, Brad, do you want to 

7 resume?

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yeah, I guess we'll 

9 pick up where we left off on this. And I believe 

10 it was Comment 13, which was I-131. And I think 

11 at the end of that we had concluded that we needed 

12 to reevaluate or --

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, can we go back to 

14 Item 5 and just kind of settle that? Because there 

15 are a lot of items related to Item 5.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Sure.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: So I talked to John 

18 Mauro during the lunch break. Brad was also there 

19 in part of the conversation. Wanda and Ted were also 

20 there.

21 John basically said that it went 

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138

1 through a lot of iterations and SC&A went back and 

2 forth, NIOSH went back and forth, and eventually 

3 we had suggested this mass-loading model. As was 

4 discussed earlier, NIOSH found the doses were 

5 coming unreasonably high.

6 I don't remember the exact words that 

7 were used. But they came up with this other method. 

8 John said that he -- so unfortunately he's not 

9 available right now. He's preparing for a big 2 

10 o'clock meeting. But he conveyed the message to me, 

11 and also Brad, that basically he may have agreed 

12 with a piece of it or all of it and he’s not sure.

13 He thinks that he wants the chance to 

14 review the issues before we sign off it and consult 

15 with Lynn Anspaugh. Because as you all recall, a 

16 lot of it went back and forth between Lynn Anspaugh 

17 and Gene Rollins. And we would like a chance to 

18 look at it and maybe send you a memorandum on the 

19 question as to whether we agree that it should be 

20 closed or what's outstanding exactly.

21 It was my impression when I updated the 

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139

1 matrix that there were outstanding issues on this 

2 mass-loading question. And I must say I didn't 

3 review all the transcripts when updating the 

4 matrix. So I may have missed something.

5 So I think I would rather leave it to 

6 John and Lynn to get back to you. John said that 

7 it would require only modest effort to get this done 

8 but he wanted to revisit it, if the Work Group 

9 approves.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

11 MR. KATZ: That's fine. Just make 

12 sure that John looks at the transcript so he knows 

13 what he's said before.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I told him that. 

15 I told him, I gave him the date. I have the date, 

16 you know, I have the transcript.

17 MR. KATZ: There are two days, or at 

18 least two days.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: April 23rd.

20 MR. KATZ: No, not just that. There 

21 was also -- Mark referenced the December one.

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140

1 MEMBER MUNN: December of '09.

2 MR. KATZ: 12/15/2009.

3 MR. ROLFES: Starting around Page 30.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: 12/15/2009. Okay. 

5 I'll bookmark that.

6 MR. KATZ: Just so we don't re-track.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, yeah, I'll 

8 bookmark both of those. Okay. So those are the 

9 last two meetings where it would be.

10 MR. ROLLINS: You might also want to go 

11 back and look at the June 23, 2008, meeting. There 

12 was some discussion of mass-loading, Page 39. And 

13 Page 75 is where John, you know, agreed to help us 

14 out to find a solution.

15 MR. KATZ: Thanks, thanks.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't even recall 

17 being present in those meetings, but I may have 

18 been.

19 MEMBER MUNN: How soon we forget.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So thank you 

21 for that, for giving us the elbow room. 

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141

1 On Baneberry, I guess there was this 

2 question of what happened to the -- what we're doing 

3 about the individuals who were not monitored. Is 

4 there a NIOSH proposal for that?

5 MR. ROLFES: In the TBD -- this is Mark 

6 Rolfes -- we did put in a short description of the 

7 air sampling data available to us. I think it was 

8 at Area 12 Camp. And had estimated the thyroid 

9 doses from those air concentrations and two hours 

10 of exposure. And the resulting doses were less 

11 than a millirem.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. That's what you 

13 say here. Okay.

14 MR. ROLFES: And I can point the page 

15 out, if you like. I think I still have that up. 

16 That's Page 38 of 116 in Nevada Test Site Internal 

17 TBD.

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: But Baneberry was 

19 just one of them that breached like that. That was 

20 just the most famous one. This is Brad.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that's where the 

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142

1 environmental dose would have been most in question 

2 because there were a large number of workers who 

3 were involved in that incident that were not 

4 occupational doses. For occupational doses, you 

5 don't have the -- occupational doses are not on the 

6 table for internal calculation.

7 So, I'm not 100 percent sure about all 

8 of the ventings and environmental doses related to 

9 the venting as we sit here. Can we make this --

10 I don't -- it's my impression as we sit here that 

11 there's not an issue. But can we put that in the 

12 memorandum that we're going to send you?

13 MR. ROLFES: That's fine with me. 

14 Sure.

15 MEMBER MUNN: I think we've done that.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: So SC&A is going to 

17 send you an evaluation and let us know if there's 

18 still an issue there. Is that where we're at?

19 MEMBER MUNN: That's what I thought, 

20 yeah. Did we get that correct, Arjun?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

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143

1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Fifteen is related to 

3 --

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Fourteen is on the 

5 previous page.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Fourteen is closed. 

7 There are no internal monitoring data until late 

8 '55 or 1956. But this issue relates to the SEC and 

9 can be closed. 

10 Fifteen is related to resuspension and 

11 what we were just talking about.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: That goes back to 

13 the Issue 3, I believe.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, 16 was calculating 

15 internal doses from external doses using the 

16 Defense Threat Reduction Agency methods. And 

17 that's internal dose, so I believe it's closed. At 

18 least that's what -- right?

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yeah. Correct.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Ingestion doses need 

21 to be better evaluated. The only part of this, I 

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144

1 think, that openly relates to the resuspension 

2 models, or whatever approach we're going to use for 

3 that piece of environmental dose. The rest, the 

4 occupational part of this would be covered by the 

5 SEC.

6 But there's a piece of it that relates 

7 to the environmental dose that would belong and 

8 what we would do about Item 5. Item 18 recommended 

9 use of TIB-2 for post-1971 tunnel re-entry workers.

10 MEMBER MUNN: That's already closed.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's resolved by the 

12 SEC. So, closed. 

13 Nineteen, I think we covered under 11. 

14 It relates to beta dose data and the beta-gamma 

15 ratios for the period for which there are no beta 

16 dose data.

17 And we agreed in principle on the use 

18 of beta-gamma ratios. And the specifics of that 

19 guidance that would go into the TBD we discussed 

20 earlier. And I think it's still an outstanding 

21 issue.

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145

1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Item 20, intentional 

3 non-use of badges. We talked and investigated 

4 this extensively. I believe it can be closed. 

5 But, you know, obviously this is a judgment call 

6 for the Work Group to make.

7 MEMBER MUNN: But we had debated that 

8 and agreed to it in the past.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: We debated this a lot. 

10 And fairly --

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: This one, the 

12 Nevada Test Site was a very in-depth research.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: It was an in-depth 

14 review. We didn't find anything big. You know, 

15 obviously there are different memories and 

16 different perceptions and different, you know, 

17 statements. And I think it was difficult to carry 

18 it farther from where we left it.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, if I remember 

20 right, we had even done a random search through the 

21 whole process and everything else like that. My 

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146

1 personal opinion is that this one can be closed. 

2 Any other Board Members?

3 MEMBER MUNN: Agreed.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

5 MR. KATZ: I think you may have closed 

6 it previously.

7 MEMBER MUNN: I believe we did.

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I thought we had.

9 MEMBER MUNN: And with SC&A's 

10 concurrence, that ought to do it.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, when I looked at 

12 it when I updated the matrix I thought it was very 

13 difficult to take it farther and we should close 

14 it. 

15 Twenty-one, TBD does not contain 

16 information about external dosimetry.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Extremity.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Extremity dosimetry. 

19 And in specific reference to bomb assembly workers 

20 and NIOSH has a response for that.

21 MR. ROLFES: When we have extremity 

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147

1 dosimetry available we can use that to ratio doses 

2 to the extremities. If there's a skin cancer on 

3 the hands, for example, or if we need to make 

4 geometrical correction factors or if it's in the 

5 lower torso, for example. We also have technical

6 guidance documents for correction factors, the 

7 organs of the lower torso, as well.

8 So on a case-by-case basis we could 

9 evaluate the differences in dose to the organs of 

10 the lower torso or to the extremities using 

11 guidance documents, or individual dosimetry data 

12 for individuals who were doing hands-on weapons 

13 assembly work.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, I don't think 

15 this guidance is in the Nevada Test Site TBD.

16 MR. ROLFES: These are general 

17 guidance documents, like the TBD or -- excuse me,

18 the Technical Bulletin for Geometrical Correction 

19 Factors Associated with Glove Box Workers. I 

20 think it's TIB-10, Technical Information 

21 Bulletin-10. That might be correct. But it's a 

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148

1 generic document for geometry primarily.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that's where, 

3 you know, in relation to this bomb assembly, you 

4 make reference to other bomb assembly sites and not 

5 to a more generic approach. Wouldn't it be 

6 worthwhile to have a more specific approach given 

7 that the work was so different than normal glove 

8 box work?

9 MR. ROLFES: Well, such work was 

10 typically done by employees from Pantex or the 

11 National Laboratories, and they were typically 

12 monitored by those facilities or by those 

13 laboratories at NTS, in addition to being monitored 

14 by NTS. 

15 I could see where an individual would 

16 have had extremity dose monitoring routinely for 

17 doing assembly work. But we would know based upon 

18 an individual's job title that they were, in fact, 

19 you know, an assembly -- person involved in the 

20 assembly of a device for testing based upon 

21 information from the telephone interview and in the 

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149

1 claim file.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, that wasn't -- my 

3 question was, shouldn't there be guidance that's 

4 specific to assembly work in the Nevada Test Site 

5 Site Profile rather than guidance that is general 

6 in regard to extremity doses?

7 MR. ROLFES: Well, there's not a lot of 

8 individuals that were directly involved in 

9 assembly work, and especially not Nevada Test Site 

10 employees. So it's more of an individual from a 

11 place like Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence 

12 Livermore National Laboratories, Los Alamos 

13 National Laboratories or Pantex.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: But it's always been 

15 very difficult for us to say there's not a lot of 

16 workers, and that's kind of been a vague area. We 

17 have specific information and why not put that 

18 specific information in the TBD?

19 MR. ROLFES: What specific information 

20 would you like to see?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: The specific 

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150

1 information from assembly workers’ extremity doses 

2 rather than more generic guidance about extremity 

3 doses. At least it's a question in my mind. It's 

4 for the Work Group.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Well, and I have a 

6 question about your question. What do you 

7 perceive as being the major difference between 

8 assembly at NTS and assembly anywhere else? 

9 The devices were varying types, but 

10 nevertheless they were assembled in a fairly 

11 precise sequence and a precise manner. What would 

12 make NTS different than other assembly sites?

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I wasn't saying 

14 that. In fact, I was saying that instead of having 

15 a more generic guidance about extremity doses from 

16 assembly sites, non-assembly sites, glove box 

17 work, why not make the guidance specific to 

18 assembly work? Not just NTS assembly work but, 

19 perhaps, Pantex, Iowa, whatever information is 

20 available about assembly work, should be provided 

21 in this guidance?

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151

1 At least that's what it seems to me. 

2 That's up to the Work Group.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Well, perhaps it would be 

4 instructive for us to have a better feel for what's 

5 in the OTIB. You know, it seems to be a question 

6 as to whether or not the defining document is 

7 instructive enough.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: The OTIB we're talking 

9 about here is the glove box. I mean there's a glove 

10 box OTIB which is a geometry correction. And 

11 that's really for organs of the lower torso. I 

12 mean, that's really what it describes. And that's 

13 what we say here. 

14 And then there's a geometry -- it 

15 started out as like a Mallinckrodt and it ended up 

16 a general geometry adjustment for certain 

17 geometries that you would encounter in a uranium 

18 processing facility.

19 But, again, that's like lower torso 

20 organs compared to a badge. I'm not exactly sure 

21 what we have on extremities. The question here is 

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152

1 extremities.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, it is.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: And so, Arjun, you said 

4 we have data about assemblers.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: You have data from --

6 I presume you have data from Pantex about 

7 assemblers.

8 MR. ROLFES: Sure, but --

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: I haven't been 

10 involved in Pantex, so I don't know.

11 MR. ROLFES: What a deployable nuclear 

12 weapon looks like versus how a test device might 

13 look is completely different. So there's going to 

14 be a lot more intricate work at a place like Pantex 

15 involving, you know, a lot more hands-on work with 

16 weapon components versus at a site like NTS where, 

17 you know, they're going to have parts sent and you 

18 know it's going to be a last minute, onsite assembly 

19 of one test device, for example, versus, you know, 

20 hundreds or thousands day-in and day-out at Pantex.

21 So it's a little bit different 

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153

1 situation. We're going to have a limited exposure 

2 potential during this final assembly phase right 

3 prior to a test.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So your point 

5 is at Pantex an assembler spends his entire year 

6 in this environment, in this geometry.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Yeah, complex devices.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: And anybody 

9 particularly involved in assembling at NTS would 

10 assemble at most a few devices per year, and most 

11 of his annual exposure would not be in that 

12 geometry, correct?

13 So the issue, then, if we had an 

14 assembler's geometry adjustment, if we can develop 

15 that from Pantex, then you have the following 

16 question of what fraction of an assembler's 

17 external dose in a year did he receive during the 

18 assembly process? Because that would be the part 

19 where you would want to make the adjustment.

20 So essentially it's a two part 

21 question. If we had -- okay, I hate to give 

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154

1 ourselves a big assignment here. Because all this 

2 assembly would have occurred during the SEC period. 

3 I don't want to cheat anybody. And cancers on the 

4 hands are actually fairly rare.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: There's actually a 

6 third part. And as Mark has already said, and 

7 correct me if I'm wrong, Arjun, but most of these 

8 people that assembled these were either from 

9 Pantex, Livermore or whatever and they were being 

10 badged by both sides, weren't they?

11 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: My question to this 

13 is, because where we get a hand-off at two different 

14 sites, how would the dose reconstructor be able to 

15 utilize this information? What would guide him to 

16 be able to do this to -- because you're right that 

17 most of the weapons were assembled by the Pantex 

18 people. They weren't the NTS people.

19 They were the lab people that were doing this. 

20 But you're getting into this one now 

21 where what site is really responsible for it, 

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155

1 aren't you? But you're going to be double-badged 

2 from the Nevada Test Site and also from, say, 

3 Lawrence Livermore.

4 I'm trying to figure out what we're 

5 trying to gain from this, Arjun, as far as --

6 MEMBER MUNN: The claimant would 

7 certainly have a badge reading that would be 

8 extensive from whatever their normal routine 

9 employment was. And their claim would probably 

10 not be an NTS claim. It would more than likely be 

11 one from their basic coverage.

12 But it would certainly cover any 

13 exposure that they would have had, and certainly 

14 any assay would catch any exposure that they had.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm not saying that 

16 what you're doing is unacceptable. And it says 

17 here I guess a check would be useful whether there 

18 are still no extremity cancer claims, because last 

19 time we looked there were none. And so it's kind 

20 of -- sort of a moot question. But if the records 

21 of the assembly workers are mainly in Livermore and 

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156

1 Los Alamos, Pantex, you know, I guess --

2 MEMBER MUNN: Well, can we put it to 

3 bed? What could we do to put it to bed? Would a 

4 simple one more check to make sure that, as Stu 

5 pointed out, they're extremely rare, you know, 

6 hand, extremity.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Perhaps we could do 

8 that, if there are no --

9 MR. HINNEFELD: We can certainly query 

10 the database, yeah. We can certainly query the 

11 database.

12 MEMBER MUNN: If there are no claims 

13 then it is a moot question.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: There's probably an 

15 ICD-9 code for the skin cancers. Usually a location 

16 on the body is one of the sub-numbers for ICD-9 

17 codes, usually. So we should be able to query the 

18 claim database.

19 MEMBER MUNN: From my perspective, 

20 that would be helpful for our information for next 

21 time.

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157

1 MR. HINNEFELD: It is relatively -- I 

2 mean, skin cancer is common. But skin cancer on 

3 the extremities, in our experience, is pretty 

4 uncommon.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Not likely.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: As of 2007, there were 

7 no such claims. Just would be good to update it.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I mean, we can check. 

9 And then beyond that we still have the question of 

10 that geometry for an assembler at the Nevada Test 

11 Site is a relatively unusual geometry for their 

12 work. And it's just -- well, I don't want to cheat 

13 anybody, like I said.

14 Depending upon what their other duties 

15 are, if they got exposure during the entire year 

16 and then only had geometry -- of course, on the 

17 other hand, if they were there the whole year and 

18 that really the only exposure was when assembling 

19 the weapon, then all of their angles should get it.

20 It's a complicated thing to sort out. 

21 And having enough information about a claim to sort 

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158

1 it out might be problematic too.

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: This is -- if all of 

3 us remember going back --

4 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't remember.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: That's true because 

6 Jim's been in here a lot of that. Part of the 

7 process that came into this was these were people 

8 that came from the labs, who came to Nevada Test 

9 Site, so this dose was at Nevada Test Site. This 

10 was part of their assembly. This is the process 

11 that they went into this. So this is why it -- you 

12 know, because my question, I remember a while back 

13 is, well, why wouldn't that just be a part of 

14 Lawrence Livermore or Pantex or whoever we're going 

15 to put into. And it was because it was at Nevada 

16 Test Site. This is where it was at. So this is 

17 where it is at. And one of the questions was 

18 cross-references to make sure that information got 

19 back to their site, which we did quite an in-depth 

20 check on, and their data from Pantex was sent back 

21 to Livermore. But it still stayed separate. It 

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159

1 was, you know, two different areas.

2 But on their personal dose, it was 

3 there. So I think to be able -- you know, if we 

4 were to take and look at this extremity dose, the 

5 skin cancer part of that, I think basically we would 

6 just bring this to bed and be able to get rid of 

7 it because it was -- it's kind of convoluted 

8 problem. And then you throw in coming from a 

9 different site and so forth.

10 Do you agree with that or would this 

11 satisfy it, if we were to check the skin cancer part 

12 of this for the extremities?

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think so.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Wanda, does that --

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. So that's 

17 what we'll do to put that one to bed.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So that was 21. 

19 No neutron dose data until 1966, partial data until 

20 '79. TBD asserted that atmospheric neutron doses 

21 were -- neutron doses during the atmospheric 

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160

1 testing period were negligible. We thought that 

2 should be checked as to whether it was right. 

3 So the remaining outstanding item 

4 regarding the neutron doses was what specific 

5 neutron/photon ratio to use. And NIOSH has 

6 proposed something.

7 MR. ROLFES: Yeah. The issue that was 

8 still outstanding was the neutron dose 

9 reconstruction method for people involved in 

10 device assembly, once again, at the Nevada Test 

11 Site. And we had proposed to use the n/p ratios 

12 for device assembly workers from Pantex, apply 

13 those to people that were doing device assembly at 

14 the Nevada Test Site.

15 And the current status of the neutron 

16 dose reconstruction approach for Pantex is in the 

17 final phases of being completed now. So we will 

18 update the TBD to incorporate, you know, any 

19 information from the Pantex coworker neutron 

20 approach into the NTS TBD as soon as it's finalized.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Isn't this kind of 

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161

1 an overarching issue, one of them that we've got 

2 because of this neutron/photon?

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it occurs a 

4 number of places. It does occur in a lot of sites. 

5 But we don't really consider it overarching because 

6 the solution tends to be site-specific.

7 MEMBER MUNN: It's different in each 

8 site.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, because you have 

10 to resolve it individually in each site, except in 

11 an instance where the weapons at Pantex were 

12 theoretically the same weapons at Nevada Test Site, 

13 and so theoretically the ratio is to be the same. 

14 And so as Mark said, the Pantex Work Group has been 

15 struggling, you know, we’re trying to finish this 

16 issue.

17 And in both cases, in Pantex and at 

18 Nevada Test Site, we're talking about external 

19 doses in the SEC period, during the SEC for 

20 internal. And so we're trying to get a method for 

21 doing the neutron doses in that fashion, in those 

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162

1 years.

2 So, to me, there's a lot of merit to 

3 saying, look, the devices likely were the same as 

4 at Pantex. We're going to use the same ratio, 

5 assuming we can come up -- you know, I think we'll 

6 come up with an acceptable ratio for the Pantex 

7 workers.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I agree with his 

9 response. My only question was, what you’ve been 

10 addressing, I haven't been involved in our Pantex 

11 work, so I don't know what the status of that is.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: We're finalizing.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: So once that is signed 

14 off, I would be comfortable, if the Pantex Work 

15 Group signs off on it. You're involved in that 

16 right, Brad?

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yeah, I am. That's 

18 why I was trying to remember. I knew that we had 

19 issues with it and we were still coming to closure 

20 with it. And when you called that out that's why 

21 I was questioning if it was kind of overarching.

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163

1 MR. HINNEFELD: Brad, you're in too 

2 many work groups. How can you have not have all 

3 these things run together?

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yeah, I'm sitting 

5 here --

6 MR. HINNEFELD: I can't keep them 

7 straight. That's for sure.

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: It's there. But 

9 that's why I was wondering if it was an overarching 

10 issue. But you're correct. We are, because I've 

11 got the Pantex matrix sitting right there. So for 

12 this one we'll just -- it could be contingent on 

13 what we come up with for Pantex.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. I'm

15 comfortable, once the Pantex issue is resolved, 

16 with using the same approach here. I mean I don't 

17 see why -- I don't see a problem with that.

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. I just 

19 wanted to make sure, because when it called out that 

20 I knew that we were still working on that with 

21 Pantex. So --

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164

1 MR. KATZ: So when it's closed at 

2 Pantex, effectively it will be closed here?

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right.

4 MEMBER MUNN: That's great. Can we 

5 have a note in the matrix to that effect?

6 MR. KATZ: Of course.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Pending the 

8 evaluation of Pantex, okay.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Nearing the end 

10 here.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Twenty-three goes 

12 back --

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Twenty-three goes back 

14 to 5 involving resuspension. Twenty-four is about 

15 high-fired oxides and internal doses. That is 

16 closed because of the SEC. 

17 Twenty-five is NIOSH documentation of 

18 expert interviews is inadequate. That is now part 

19 of the Worker Outreach Review so is no longer being 

20 reviewed by this Work Group. And the landscape has 

21 radically changed in that regard, you know, there's 

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165

1 been a lot of review of worker expert interview 

2 documentation. I'm just saying that for the 

3 record so there's no misunderstanding.

4 And 26, a number of issues relating to 

5 the waste handling, decommissioning. This is a 

6 new matrix issue as a placeholder for Work Group 

7 discussion. It’s post-1992 site activities. And 

8 we did not discuss these, you know, while we were 

9 doing the SEC work. We kind of punted on that. 

10 And we need some guidance as to where to go from 

11 here. That's the last item.

12 MEMBER MUNN: But we don't have any 

13 indication about what those issues are?

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I should have --

15 I'm sorry, I should have been more alert about that 

16 last issue and given you a short list. Can we 

17 recess for five minutes and I'll get a short list?

18 MEMBER MUNN: I just wanted to comment 

19 about 25 before we went away there. It's true that 

20 things have changed radically. I'm not aware that 

21 Worker Outreach is actively reviewing this any 

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166

1 further. We spent quite a bit of time with it in 

2 years past.

3 But I think recommendations have been 

4 made and NIOSH has made a number of changes. I 

5 haven't checked my own notes, but so far as I know, 

6 this is not outstanding in Worker Outreach.

7 So my question is, I guess I need to 

8 check with the Chair to make sure that's the case. 

9 But can this be resolved completely then and closed 

10 by having a statement concerning with respect to 

11 some of the interview documentation approaches 

12 that are now being used, if that's acceptable?

13 MR. KATZ: I thought that Arjun was 

14 saying that it was closed anyway because it was 

15 transferred to Worker Outreach.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Well, it would be much 

17 more comfortable for some of us if it said it's 

18 closed.

19 MR. KATZ: I thought 25, weren't you 

20 saying 25 is closed here?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Twenty-five is closed 

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167

1 for this Work Group.

2 MR. KATZ: Yeah, yeah.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: And whatever is going 

4 to be addressed will be in Worker Outreach.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Okay, yeah. I thought 

6 that we were done because I thought the recommended 

7 changes had already occurred. But --

8 MR. KATZ: Yeah, so it is closed.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. Well, then, are 

10 we taking a few minutes while Arjun does his 

11 homework?

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm sorry.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Does his office work.

14 (Coughing.)

15 MR. KATZ: Phil, I'm going to have to 

16 reach through the phone and pat you on the back.

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Sorry, I thought I 

18 had it on mute.

19 MR. KATZ: No, it's okay.

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: At least I came by 

21 my coughs cheap, no cigarettes.

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168

1 MR. KATZ: I don't know about cheap. 

2 No cigarettes, but I don't know about cheap.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: So we had several 

4 issues that I think we punted from our original Site 

5 Profile issue in relation to waste handling. One 

6 related to extremity doses which we have just 

7 covered only in relation to bomb assembly.

8 That is sort of a different issue for 

9 extremity doses for waste handling or at least we 

10 had raised it. There was a question as to whether 

11 waste handling had been adequately covered in the 

12 TBD in terms of the types of work and the periods 

13 in the areas, whether there was adequate guidance 

14 for all the types of waste handling that were done.

15 There was a question of neutron doses 

16 when waste handlers were dealing with orphan 

17 sources. That was the list that I could come up 

18 with in my brief review. And I think, to my memory, 

19 we did not cover these issues earlier during SEC 

20 period.

21 MR. ROLFES: That's correct. We'll 

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169

1 take a look into that. I don't know if you have 

2 anything written other than what you just relayed.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, this is, I was just 

4 relaying from our original Site Profile Review of 

5 2005. I, that's why I kind of just entered this 

6 as a placeholder. I did not see that the most 

7 recent versions had addressed the issues that we 

8 had raised in regard to waste handling.

9 Now again, this is from my review of a 

10 little over two years ago so there may be a little 

11 gap in the memory there. But that's the best that 

12 I can come up with.

13 MR. ROLFES: Yes, we haven't really 

14 discussed the more recent era of waste handling 

15 activities. But, you know, most of what I'm aware 

16 of being sent to NTS were rather large containers, 

17 barrels that wouldn't really directly be handled 

18 by individuals, but might have been handled by 

19 forklifts and cranes and such.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: It also, there would be 

21 a, some of these questions would relate to the SEC 

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170

1 period also in terms of the, like the neutron. The 

2 neutron/photon doses from Pantex. I have a note 

3 in here about orphan doses, orphan sources.

4 Mission at NTS with respect to orphan 

5 sources concentrates on neutron-emitting sources. 

6 So LANL, this is post '92. LANL is collecting 

7 sources as part of their orphan source recovery 

8 program.

9 I think all of that was post-Cold War 

10 to my memory. But anyway there are a number of 

11 places where waste handling comes up. Some of it 

12 is pre '92 and some of it is post '92.

13 MR. ROLFES: Okay. So it's mostly the 

14 waste handling activities and more from an external 

15 dose issue?

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Because Nevada Test 

18 Site became one of the depositories basically I 

19 know that we shipped a lot of fuel down to them, 

20 actual fuel cases.

21 MEMBER MUNN: So this is another one of 

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171

1 those cases where we need to be sure we know what 

2 we're asking. You have listed in your original 

3 document all of the issues that you would like to 

4 see addressed.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well we haven't 

6 reviewed it recently, yes. But we listed a number 

7 of issues and --

8 MEMBER MUNN: And we don't have a 

9 response yet essentially?

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: I believe so. That is 

11 correct.

12 MEMBER MUNN: So we'll, so I guess we 

13 need to ask for a response.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Which document has a 

15 list of these issues?

16 MR. KATZ: 2005.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't know that they 

18 are all listed in one place. What I just did was 

19 I did a search for the term waste handling. But 

20 if you go through it we did review the waste 

21 handling question to some extent and raise some 

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172

1 questions about dose reconstruction for those 

2 workers.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: And it may be, you 

5 know, that the responses may be straightforward.

6 MEMBER MUNN: But you also say, or 

7 during the SEC review.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, well the external 

9 doses are relevant throughout the period post and 

10 pre SEC.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Is that going to be 

12 obvious to NIOSH when they start looking at this? 

13 I'm trying to define it to make sure we know and 

14 NIOSH knows exactly what they're expected to 

15 respond to.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well the matrix item 

17 that I put as a placeholder said activities post 

18 1992, site activities.

19 MEMBER MUNN: In your 2005 and SEC 

20 review. And that's why I'm asking the question 

21 where to go and get this.

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173

1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think in relation to 

2 the discussion we've been having today some of the 

3 items originally raised in our Site Profile Review 

4 might be relevant to external doses for waste 

5 handling workers in the SEC period as well. So it 

6 would be good to cover them, if not covered already. 

7 That's the end of the list.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So we have 

9 things to look for in 2005 would be waste handling 

10 sources like the source program, was that mentioned 

11 in there?

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. And so we can 

14 word search the document for things like waste 

15 handling, sources and by those we should be able 

16 to find the various places where this is --

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: The 2005 review.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: That's where I'm 

19 looking. Okay.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: What year was it 

21 that they stopped the aboveground or the, all the 

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174

1 testing at Nevada Test Site, their detonations, 

2 their nuclear testing?

3 MR. ROLFES: 1992.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: 1992, that's why 

5 we're using that as --

6 MR. HINNEFELD: That was the ending 

7 point for the SEC was the end of the testing.

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. And that's 

9 when they kind of took on a new mission of a --

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, they did 

11 eventually. When they stopped they were thinking 

12 they were going to restart, I think originally, I 

13 think some people thought they would be testing 

14 again.

15 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: We've sure shipped 

16 a lot of stuff to them for burial down there. 

17 They've become a large burial ground.

18 MR. ROLFES: Little bit of thorium.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: What was that?

20 MR. ROLFES: A little bit of thorium 

21 from Fernald.

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175

1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: A few train cars, I 

2 believe.

3 MR. ROLFES: Send them anyplace we can 

4 get it.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Well that's not much 

6 actually when you get right down to it. That's not 

7 much in terms of waste products that's not much.

8 MR. KATZ: So are we finished?

9 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

10 MR. KATZ: Thank you, everyone. Good 

11 work. I don't think we're ready to figure out when 

12 we're going to meet again, right, because I think 

13 --

14 MR. HINNEFELD: It's again --

15 MR. KATZ: Look at the homework 

16 schedule and all that.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Lots of sites and a 

18 finite number of people.

19 MR. KATZ: So thank you, everyone on 

20 the line, much thanks. I think this was very 

21 productive today and have a good rest of the day.

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176

1 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

2 went off the record at 1:49 p.m.)

3

4

5

6

7

8

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