This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Savannah River Site Work 

Group, has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally 

identifiable information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been 

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Savannah River Site Work Group for accuracy at this 

time. The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to 

change. 

1 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

SAVANNAH RIVER SITE WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

FRIDAY

AUGUST 12, 2011

+ + + + +

 The Work Group convened via 

teleconference at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight 

Time, Mark Griffon, Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

MARK GRIFFON, Chairman

BRAD CLAWSON, Member

JIM LOCKEY, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

DAVID ANDERSON

TERRIE BARRIE

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

JENNY LIN, HHS

MARK MAHAFFEY, ORAU Team

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A

JIM NETON, DCAS

TIM TAULBEE, DCAS
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Savannah River Site Work 

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

2 8:34 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Then there's an agenda 

4 for the meeting, which is posted at the 

5 website at the under the Board section. 

6 And, Mark, it's your agenda.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thanks, Ted. I 

8 actually should look at the agenda. I was just 

9 going to say I believe we have one major focus 

10 on the agenda. I just want to make what I say 

11 agrees with what's posted. Yes, it should. 

12 Okay. 

13 The one main item I think is the 

14 discussion of the NIOSH SEC Petition ER 

15 Addendum, which everyone should have received. 

16 Every Board Member I mean should have received 

17 yesterday. Jim and -- Brad, I know you have 

18 it. Jim, did you receive that?

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes, I have it.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Okay. 

21 And then the other part which I've talked to 
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1 Tim Taulbee, and Tim can correct me if I'm 

2 wrong, but I think since our last Work Group 

3 meeting a lot of effort and focus has been on 

4 the thorium issues. So the second part is 

5 more of just a status update. I didn't want to 

6 go through the entire matrix item-by-item. If 

7 Tim can just give us maybe a brief update on 

8 where he stands on some of the major actions. 

9 And then the last section might be to discuss 

10 out of the thorium issue discuss what the Work 

11 Group if we want to bring a recommendation to 

12 the August Board meeting.

13 And by the way for those on the 

14 phone, I expect this whole thing to take maybe 

15 a couple of hours. So if you're planning your 

16 day, I don't think this is going to be 

17 certainly a full day, but I expect we can get 

18 through this in a couple of hours.

19 So I would just let NIOSH and I 

20 assume Tim Taulbee will start off the 

21 presentation of the Addendum to the ER.
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1 MR. KATZ: Would everybody please 

2 identify yourselves when you speak so that the 

3 Court Reporter knows who is speaking in each 

4 instance because he may not recognize some of 

5 your voices.

6 And lastly, let me just ask 

7 everyone on the phone except when you're 

8 speaking to the group, would you please mute 

9 your phones? There's some background noise 

10 now. And if you don't have a mute button, 

11 press *6 to mute your phone and press *6 again 

12 when you want to come off of mute. But, 

13 please, everyone mute your phone.

14 Thank you.

15 And, Tim, it's all you.

16 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thank you, 

17 Ted, and thank you, Mark.

18 Yes. Yes. My plans here for 

19 going over this ER Addendum, and this is 

20 actually the second addendum to this petition 

21 regarding thorium, is to kind of give a little 
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1 bit of an overview of where we're at to remind 

2 everybody. And then we'll talk about new 

3 information that we've captured and analyzed 

4 over the past since the last Work Group 

5 meeting. And hopefully this will build an 

6 explanation as to how we came to recommend 

7 this particular Class.

8 So to kind of back up, back in 

9 January SC&A provided review comments on our 

10 first addendum. And one of the most, in my 

11 opinion, the most significant finding was 

12 Finding #3 about us not evaluating thorium 

13 exposures in other areas besides the 300 Area.

14 So we agree that this was an area 

15 that we had not addressed sufficiently. And 

16 so at that time we began to go back to the 

17 site and look at other information to try and 

18 characterize what other thorium work was going 

19 on. Our perception at that time was that the 

20 level of thorium work in other areas such as 

21 the 773 Area, the TNX Area, separations were 
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1 all kind of low-level type of activities as 

2 far as not much thorium work going on, just 

3 some minor research. And so that was our 

4 original opinion.

5 That changed when we did our first 

6 data capture, our first data review in March 

7 of this year, March 2011, when we went through 

8 the classified vaults with SC&A, particularly 

9 Kathy Demers and Abe Zeitoun. And what we 

10 found there was the inventory reports which 

11 catalogued where thorium was on-site through 

12 the basically history of this project of 

13 making uranium-233. And from those inventory 

14 reports it became clear that there was a much

15 larger source term in 773A and the TNX Area 

16 than we had anticipated, much larger.

17 And so in addition to those 

18 monthly reports we reviewed or those inventory 

19 reports, we reviewed the Monthly Technical 

20 Reports. And I reported on this at the May 

21 Board meeting discussing, giving a little bit 
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1 of a preamble of what was to come. But there 

2 was a couple of things that we still needed to 

3 track down and follow up on, and that was the 

4 health physics logbooks for these two 

5 particular areas of concern, 773A and the CMX, 

6 TNX Area.

7 During this time we also conducted 

8 multiple interviews, especially after we saw 

9 those inventory reports that were indicating 

10 significant quantities, and by "significant" I 

11 mean tons of material in 773A. And so we 

12 conducted additional interviews to gather more 

13 information, more insight, as to what was 

14 going on during this time period.

15 So that kind of gives background 

16 as to where we were and what we started to 

17 look at. What we found from the interviews 

18 was that those people were saying it was 

19 generally small quantities of thorium that was 

20 being worked with in these labs, and this 

21 coincided with the reports that we were 
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1 seeing, both from the Savannah River Site and 

2 other areas. But when we questioned people 

3 specifically about the fabrication lab or the 

4 metallurgical lab which is in the back part of 

5 the 773 building, that was where people kind 

6 of backed off of the low small quantities type 

7 of discussion. They're indicating well, there 

8 could have been more back there because the 

9 capability in that back lab, metallurgical 

10 lab, was such that they could make an entire 

11 fuel assembly basically from scratch.

12 So from our research what we've 

13 come to conclude is that the bulk of that 

14 material was in that back laboratory in Area 

15 773. And I don't know if you have your ER 

16 open in front of you, but if you were to turn 

17 to page 20, there's a really nice picture 

18 which shows 773A lab and it shows where the 

19 caves are, the high level caves section 1B, 

20 1C. And what I'm talking here is that section 

21 2 of part 3. That's the metallurgical lab 
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1 where a few -- actually several tons of 

2 thorium were handled. This is where they did 

3 some research on the metallurgy of the 

4 thorium, and this is the area that we had come 

5 to the conclusion that we don't feel we can 

6 estimate dose for.

7 We know that there was research 

8 going on there in the metal fabrication lab, 

9 and actually throughout 773A. I'll turn your 

10 attention to page 36. And this is a better 

11 layout of that whole building. And one of the 

12 things I want to point out to the Work Group 

13 here is the grayed areas, these are rooms 

14 where we identified the thorium work was going 

15 on from the health physics logbooks. Within 

16 the health physics logbooks there would be 

17 entries and discussion about taking smears for 

18 thorium. I believe there's a couple instances 

19 of air samples. But mostly it was discussing 

20 when spills happened and they would give the 

21 room number and they went and they did smears 
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1 for that particular purpose.

2 And so you can see that in 

3 addition to that back metallurgical lab which 

4 had extensive thorium, even in section E and 

5 section C there were small labs that were 

6 doing work, doing research, which was 

7 consistent with what most of the people we 

8 were interviewing were discussing. That 

9 doesn't mean there weren't any exposures in 

10 there, even though -- because they're small 

11 quantities. Some of the spills were 

12 significant that we looked at.

13 This research based upon our 

14 limited review of the health physics logbooks, 

15 went on literally from 1953 into 1957, early 

16 1957. At that point it really appeared to 

17 stop There wasn't hardly any mention of 

18 thorium in the logbooks at all after that time 

19 period. And this was consistent with an order 

20 that came down from DOE, or AEC at the time, 

21 that the thorium research or the thorium 
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1 activities to make U-233 were really curtailed 

2 at that time period.

3 Savannah River had built a thorium 

4 processing building down in the TNX Area. The 

5 construction was completed at the end of 1956, 

6 but the building never went hot. And, in 

7 fact, it got turned into another type of 

8 facility. It never had thorium enter that 

9 particular building because the project was 

10 basically cancelled. And this is consistent 

11 with what we see from the health physics 

12 logbooks, so we've got a lot of consistency 

13 going on there.

14 The interesting part is when the 

15 further research appeared to stop, within a 

16 year or two there was a lot research to begin 

17 on neptunium. And what we found from the 

18 monthly reports, and we reviewed these in 

19 March, was that although they weren't doing 

20 work with thorium, they were using thorium as 

21 a stand-in for the neptunium research. So it 
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1 wasn't research for U-233 anymore, they were 

2 doing research for neptunium but using thorium 

3 as a stand-in chemical, I guess due to their 

4 similar chemical properties.

5 And so that continued on, and then 

6 by the mid-1960s the thorium research for U7 233 became prevalent again and this is with 

8 thorium oxide. And we see the same push that 

9 happened over in the 300 Area of making large 

10 quantities of thorium slugs, more radiation,

11 there was a second major campaign to produce 

12 uranium-233.

13 So one of the things that we found 

14 when we were doing this evaluation of 773A and 

15 the work from the health physics logbooks is 

16 that they really had an active radiological 

17 protection program. There were routine 

18 surveys in the corridors, most indicated no 

19 contamination detected, but there were clearly 

20 documented spills and incidents with thorium. 

21 And one of the things that struck me from 
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1 looking at some of these incidents was one 

2 spill indicated 37 counts per minute as the 

3 highest smearable contamination from that 

4 particular spill, which is pretty low. And so 

5 anything that was even low-level spills were 

6 considered, you know, incidents and health 

7 physics responded to them. And there were 

8 other spills that indicated several thousand 

9 counts per minute. So they weren't all small, 

10 some of them were larger. So clearly there 

11 was some potential for exposure in these labs 

12 that they were doing this work in.

13 One of the other things that 

14 struck me from the health physics logbooks was 

15 that the researchers, their conduct of 

16 operations and I'll call it sometimes was less 

17 than formal. And this is where there would be 

18 discussions between -- within the logbooks by 

19 the radiation control technicians concerning 

20 people doing things that they weren't supposed 

21 to be doing or outside the scope of the 
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1 special work permit and they would be caught, 

2 effectively, and they would be written up in 

3 this logbook and reported to the supervisors.

4 And so rad control was actually, 

5 you know, really trying to control the areas 

6 there. But like any other radiological 

7 facility, things are going to happen.

8 Usually those types of incidents 

9 aren't a big deal from a dose reconstruction 

10 standpoint because we have bioassay or air 

11 sampling data and we can still then estimate 

12 the dose. The problem with the thorium is 

13 that the bioassay data has a very low 

14 sensitivity, and this is why we had never 

15 proposed to use it. And if you'll recall from 

16 the bioassay data, we only have data from 

17 1956, and this comprises data for 175 workers. 

18 Early indications from the health physics 

19 logbooks early prior to 1956, I believe it was 

20 around 1954, 1955 time frame, was that they 

21 were beginning to compile a list of all the 
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1 workers who ever worked with thorium. So

2 which kind of explains a little bit of why it 

3 is that thorium bioassay logbook only 

4 indicates 773A as people who were monitored. 

5 And it appears that the health physics control 

6 group there started compiling a list of these 

7 people. 

8 Now the problem is we don't know 

9 if this a complete list. The list that they 

10 were talking about we have never been able to 

11 find to identify that, yes, these are the only 

12 people that worked with thorium in 773A or, 

13 you know, any other information about it. It's 

14 just that we have the thorium bioassay logbook 

15 and then we have the sanitation in the health 

16 physics logbook indicating that they were 

17 compiling a list of workers who worked with 

18 thorium to do follow-up bioassay, by the way. 

19 That was specifically stated.

20 So it appears that they followed 

21 through in 1956 as the program was being 
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1 curtailed that they followed through with 

2 monitoring workers there. But, again, we don't 

3 have a way of confirming it.

4 Other data within 773A is air 

5 sampling data. Now in the other areas around 

6 Savannah River, particularly the 300 Area, the 

7 100 Areas, the 200 Areas we have air sample 

8 logsheets that are numerically -- that are 

9 numbered. And so starting with a particular 

10 day in 1955 you'll see an air sample logsheet, 

11 and the next day and the next page will be 

12 either one the same day or another day; and 

13 they go in sequence. We've not been able to 

14 find that for 773A nor for TNX. And my best 

15 estimate as to why we can't find it is these 

16 were two different divisions. 

17 773A and TNX were operated by the 

18 Savannah River Site Technical Division, not 

19 the Production Division. And so there was 

20 basically three divisions, The Technical 

21 Division, the Production Division and the 
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1 Construction Division.

2 So we haven't been able to find 

3 any of the data or a significant amount of the 

4 data, especially air sampling data from this 

5 time period. There's some interfacings in the 

6 logbooks, but nothing that I would consider 

7 complete. Plainly, they were doing air 

8 sampling in those buildings. There was 

9 annotations about checking all of the air 

10 sampling data, and no abnormals; that type of 

11 entry. But one of the things from our 

12 interviews that we=ve conducted is we found 

13 that the air sampling in these laboratories 

14 was not breathing zone representative. Unlike 

15 the 300 Area where we talked to a person, 

16 talked to the rad tech who took the samples 

17 and indicated the position of the sampler at 

18 nose height, where the workers were working 

19 when he took his ten-minute or five-minute 

20 sample, the laboratories that we were looking 

21 at people were all indicating that the air 
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1 samplers were on the ceilings or on the walls, 

2 so they're really not breathing zone 

3 representative even if we're able to find 

4 them.

5 There was some smear data within 

6 these health physics logbooks. Most of it 

7 indicates no contamination detected unless 

8 there is a spill. But the way these logbooks 

9 are filed, we only looked at a small sampling 

10 of them. The logbooks are actually filed by 

11 individual radiological control technician's 

12 name. So once they filled up a logbook, they 

13 filed it off and it went off to the Records 

14 Center and it was filed as their logbook, even 

15 though they weren't the only technician making 

16 entries in there. So it wasn't that every 

17 technician had their own logbook, it was kind 

18 of whoever started that particular log, it's 

19 filed under that person's name, which makes it 

20 very difficult to find at this time.

21 As I indicated, you know it's 
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1 clearly that they were doing checks of the 

2 labs, but it's not clear where these routine 

3 samples within the labs were taken. Sometimes 

4 in the logbooks they would indicate the 

5 samples were taken at the edge of the hoods, 

6 other times they indicate -- or they don't 

7 indicate where the location was.

8 So even if we had all of the smear 

9 data and all the air sampling data, I'm still 

10 not sure we could actually develop an exposure 

11 model that would be reasonable for this 

12 particular population.

13 So the final thing that we could 

14 do for dose reconstruction would be something 

15 like a source term model. The problem with 

16 that for 773A was we were looking at different 

17 chemical forms and different physical forms in 

18 every laboratory and within the laboratories. 

19 Mostly the material back in the metallurgical 

20 lab, that's a lot better in that it was just 

21 metal. But in the laboratories they were 
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1 actually doing some dissolving of irradiated 

2 thorium and taking it from a metal slug all 

3 the way into a solution and then extraction. 

4 And when I say "a section of the metal slug," 

5 I=m meaning a very small section, I'm taking 

6 like an 8 milliliter out of it.

7 So small quantities quite highly 

8 radioactive due to the irradiation component 

9 of that, but trying to do a source term model 

10 for this particular facility I think would 

11 just be virtually impossible. We don't have 

12 enough information to try and track down where 

13 all the material was all of the time, all of 

14 the different chemical and physical forms and 

15 how it was handled within the lab.

16 So without having bioassay data, 

17 air sample data, smear data and not really 

18 being able to model the source term, we're 

19 pretty much left with designating an SEC for 

20 this building for thorium. And so that's how 

21 we came to the conclusion to include 773A into 
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1 the -- or recommend to you all to include it 

2 in the SEC.

3 Let me pause here for a second. 

4 Does anybody have any questions at this point?

5 (No response.)

6 DR. TAULBEE: Is anybody still 

7 there?

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, we're here.

9 We're just trying to stay on mute. 

10 I don't have any questions.

11 This is Brad.

12 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thanks, Brad. 

13 I just wanted to make sure I didn't get 

14 disconnected and I'm just talking to myself.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: No.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: No, I heard. I 

17 don't have any questions either.

18 Jim Lockey.

19 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thanks, Jim.

20 Okay. Let me move on to the TNX 

21 Building or the semi-works. And this is 
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1 really CMX and TNX, but I'm going to focus on 

2 TNX and let me explain why.

3 The CMX/TNX Area was a semi-works 

4 plant is what it's called there. Other people 

5 might call it a pilot plant. This is an area 

6 where Savannah River went from the benchtop 

7 scaling in those laboratories of 773A into 

8 semi-production. And this is where they would 

9 scale up from a beaker to, you know, a 100 

10 gallon tank, or something along those lines. 

11 And so when we started looking at what 

12 operations were going on there, the CMX 

13 facility supported reactor research and 

14 reactor development and the TNX supported 

15 separations. 

16 So CMX basically handled mostly 

17 canned slugs of thorium, and from that 

18 standpoint they were doing thermodynamic 

19 testing on the slugs themselves; they would 

20 heat up the water and see how they would 

21 respond in a reactor. Even though they didn't 
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1 have a reactor down there, they were just 

2 doing heat-transfer types of tests; fuel flow, 

3 thermodynamics, heat-transfer. And it was 

4 mostly with encapsulated thorium.

5 TNX, on the other hand, were 

6 chemical separation semi-works. And this was 

7 dissolving chemical extraction, taking whole 

8 non-irradiated thorium slug and dissolving 

9 them down and trying to add things, catalysts 

10 to improve the dissolving -- accelerate at the 

11 time of that particular step. And so 

12 everything was scaled up from the lab and they 

13 were doing this down there at TNX.

14 In reality, you can't separate CMX 

15 from TNX workers. There is a picture of the 

16 CMX/TNX facility. Let me flip to that here. I 

17 believe it=s page -- page 21 of the ER. And 

18 you can see, these two buildings are right 

19 next to each other. So going into this area 

20 is where you would be badged. So in reality, I 

21 can=t separate out who worked in CMX, who 
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1 worked in TNX, but TNX is really the area that 

2 would cause us concern from an unencapsulated 

3 thorium exposure standpoint, which is why 

4 we're recommending it.

5 The internal monitoring is similar 

6 to 773A. Again, no bioassay for this area. 

7 We also don't have any air sample data for 

8 this area. 

9 The health physics logbooks, we 

10 did find a one for this particular area. We 

11 could probably locate more, although the one 

12 logbook again was much like 773A. It didn't 

13 give locations of where the surveys were 

14 conducted. It didn't give -- most of the time 

15 there was no smearable contamination detected 

16 unless something happened, and then there'd be 

17 some wipes and discussion of smears.

18 And the source term to try and 

19 estimate dose is similar to 773A but not quite 

20 as complex. And by the time you got down to 

21 the semi-works plant, they had a pretty good 
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1 idea of which of, you know the two to three 

2 methods would be best. And so they really 

3 didn't have the dozen or so different 

4 operations for dissolving thorium that were 

5 going up in the 773A Area. So it was less 

6 complex, but still you got similar issues. 

7 Within one process line, the whole purpose was 

8 to take an irradiated slug and dissolve it 

9 down into a solution and separate out the 

10 uranium-233. So that was their whole goal.

11 So in dealing with the semi-works 

12 TNX area we didn't feel like we could estimate 

13 the dose for this area, and so we wanted to 

14 include this in the SEC as well.

15 Another area that we looked at and 

16 followed up was the burial grounds. And this 

17 is something that the health physics logbooks 

18 really helped illuminate. Now we found back 

19 when were doing the research from the 300 Area 

20 and Addendum 1 and Report 46 that material 

21 leaving from the 300 Area to the burial 
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1 grounds was surveyed. They would take smears 

2 on this and then they would send it out to the 

3 burial grounds. A significant portion of the 

4 logbook entries for 773A and TNX were just 

5 that. It was sending material, leaving the 

6 building, some going to the burial grounds, 

7 some going to other areas, going to the 300 

8 Area or the TNX area. And so whenever 

9 material was moving between these regulated 

10 areas, between these radiation control areas 

11 effectively, it was surveyed. And so we don't 

12 really feel that there's any potential for 

13 internal contamination there at the burial 

14 grounds due to thorium.

15 The other interesting component of 

16 this was the high level cave waste when it was 

17 leaving 773A to go to the burial grounds 

18 before it was surveyed it was encapsulated in 

19 concrete and then sent to the burial ground. 

20 And this was due to these were irradiated 

21 plugs, and so they had a high gamma component 
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1 and so they wanted to reduce the dose rates, 

2 so they encapsulated them in concrete and then 

3 sent them out. So, again, we don't really 

4 feel that there's a potential for exposure 

5 here at the burial grounds.

6 The 200H separations is the next 

7 one that I want to discuss. And this is, the 

8 only thing that's important to remember with 

9 this particular process was the product was 

10 uranium-233, not thorium. And by the way, for 

11 the 200 separations, now I'm talking 1964 to 

12 1972 time frame.

13 During this time period the 

14 product was U-233. Coming out of the reactors 

15 these slugs have a rather high dose rate. And 

16 what I'm talking is in the r per hour type of 

17 range. So these were transported in shielded 

18 casks. They were taken from the shielded 

19 casks by an overhead crane and lifted and put 

20 into the large canyon cells for dissolving. 

21 So there's really a minimal potential for 
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1 exposure on the front end here.

2 At that point in the canyons, and 

3 Brad and Mark when we toured those canyons you 

4 remember seeing from the crane view those 

5 remote cameras that would move from one cell 

6 to the next cell all the way through the hot 

7 canyon side into the warm canyon side the 

8 product would. And then the final uranium 

9 solution that would be coming out of this 

10 would go up the B line. And at that point 

11 during the first campaign the thorium and the 

12 mixed fission products were pumped directly 

13 out to the waste tanks as high level waste.

14 After that first campaign, 

15 Savannah River decided to start trying to 

16 recover that thorium, and so they added a 

17 hold-up tank for the thorium nitrate. And so 

18 they went through the whole process. The 

19 uranium goes up to the B line, the mixed 

20 fission products go out to the waste tanks, 

21 and the thorium went into a hold-up tank there 
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1 at the end of the canyon.

2 From that hold-up tank it was 

3 transferred to railroad cars. It was pumped 

4 directly into the railroad cars. We found 

5 that these railroad cars were equipped with 

6 filtrate -- filters to prevent particulate 

7 contamination during the filling, and also for 

8 thermal expansion. This material was stored 

9 in these railroad cars for actually several 

10 months, and I believe over a year in one case 

11 before being sent to Fernald. So it was 

12 stored there on-site in the railroad cars.

13 Now due to the high photon dose 

14 rates from this material, and I'm not talking 

15 r per hour now, it's back down to the mr, but 

16 it is still significant. These railroad cars 

17 were roped off and they were inspected via 

18 binoculars for leaks. So people weren't going 

19 up to them, they weren't lingering around them 

20 during the time period. They were kind of 

21 isolated until they got clearance that Fernald 
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1 could handle them, and they were then sent to 

2 Fernald.

3 So because of this particular wet 

4 process operation, the filters on the railroad 

5 cars, Savannah River roping these railroad 

6 cars off, inspecting with binoculars, we 

7 really don't feel that there's a significant 

8 potential for internal exposure from this 

9 process either.

10 So this pretty much left us then 

11 with a proposed Class for the 773A and the TNX 

12 Area. And before I go into the Class 

13 Definition, I will pause here and see if 

14 anybody has any questions.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Hey, Tim. This is 

16 Brad.

17 Now you're telling me that they 

18 roped off these railroad cars and just looked 

19 at them with binoculars, period. I kind of 

20 have a little bit of a hard time with that, 

21 because per a lot of your inspection criteria, 
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1 you know you've got to be able to check it for 

2 so many things. It's like my casks right now. 

3 I have to physically go out there and look for 

4 any cracks or degradations that could create 

5 something. I have a question on that because 

6 it sounds real good to me, but I just -- I 

7 really have a hard time with that.

8 So I just want you to keep that in 

9 the back of your mind. I'll let you continue 

10 on because things may clear up. But I do have 

11 a little bit of a question there.

12 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. I thank you 

13 for that, Brad.

14 This is what we found from the 

15 reports where they talked about isolating 

16 these such that people wouldn't be around them 

17 and they were trying to minimize the exposure 

18 to the people doing the inspection, and so 

19 this was a method to try and do that.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

21 DR. TAULBEE: So, that's just the 
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1 information we have. But thank you for that. 

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I understand 

3 that. You know, because in the back of your 

4 mind you've got to look at something. They put 

5 a lot of this in because they were worried. 

6 Something triggered it to make this a big 

7 problem. So I just -- you know, I just wanted 

8 to keep that in the back of your mind, and 

9 we'll continue on.

10 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Yes. By the 

11 way, the big problem here really was the 

12 photon does rate, so that was why they were 

13 doing it, at least that's what the 

14 documentation says was the dose rate. 

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. 

16 May I ask a question?

17 DR. TAULBEE: Sure.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: I mean, you 

19 determined that there was no significant 

20 exposure potential at these railroad cars. 

21 But how did you extrapolate that to the 
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1 reprocessing plant in general?

2 DR. TAULBEE: And this is where I 

3 hope that Mark and Brad can help me out. If 

4 you look at how the canyons are designed, 

5 people don't go where thismaterial was being 

6 dissolved. It's moved from one cell to the 

7 other all remotely, the different extractions, 

8 dissolve them down, the columns were set for 

9 chemical separation. These were remote.

10 Due to the extreme high dose rate 

11 from the fission products that are within 

12 these particular slugs, and in this case 

13 protactinium that was causing a very high dose 

14 rate that was causing lots of problems for 

15 them. And so there really wasn't any 

16 potential during that dissolving process. You 

17 know, once the process was done, they flushed 

18 the systems. And if they were doing a 

19 modification of one then they=re flushed 

20 first, then they=re pulled out, and I just 

21 don=t see where there's any major -- or 
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1 potential here for an internal exposure during 

2 these campaigns.

3 So that's how I came to that 

4 conclusion. Is people aren=t standing next to 

5 these next tanks or being able to get to these 

6 tanks and then after they got material in 

7 them, the dose rate is so high that people 

8 aren't working on them. They're done by remote 

9 from a crane overhead lifting this entire 

10 pallet down into the cell. And I think Brad 

11 and Mark, you remember standing out there 

12 outside of the canyon area seeing those 

13 pallets that have all the piping and tubes and 

14 tanks and so forth. 

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Tim, this is 

17 Mark.

18 Yes, I do remember that, and I 

19 think generally you know that's an accurate 

20 description. I would question, you know if 

21 there was a path for exposure. The only parts 
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1 of it that I don't know enough about to really 

2 speak to or historically, would be whether 

3 there were opportunities for exposure through 

4 maintenance and things like that where in 

5 between runs, you know, did parts of the 

6 system get contaminated, did workers have to 

7 go in there? You know, that part I wouldn't 

8 know. The general processing I think you 

9 accurately describe though. 

10 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. I think --

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: At least from 

12 my understanding, yes.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. 

14 Yes, I know that reprocessing is done by 

15 remote control. But the implication of what 

16 you just said, Tim, is that generally in 

17 reprocessing operations there's no internal 

18 exposure potential to uranium/plutonium 

19 fission products. And I don't think that the 

20 actual monitoring records would sustain that.

21 There is internal exposure 
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1 potential documented by internal exposures to 

2 reprocessing workers in the 200 Area. There's 

3 also internal exposure documented to tank farm 

4 workers.

5 So, you know while filling 

6 railroad cars is not the same as tank farm 

7 work, there are considerable similarities.

8 And I'm just raising a question as 

9 to how you did this extrapolation. And 

10 basically I'm hearing that you say the 

11 position is there's no exposure potentials for 

12 internal -- there's no internal exposure 

13 potential in the reprocessing process 

14 altogether. So, I just want to clarify that; 

15 that's all.

16 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thank you.

17 And let me explain that --

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This is Mark.

19 I guess I should say if I said no, 

20 I didn't mean to say no. I think lower. I 

21 would tend to think from the -- of what they 
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1 did, I would guess that it was a lower 

2 potential. But, you know, no I wouldn't go so 

3 far as saying no potential.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: And that can be 

5 verified by comparing canyon --

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- exposure 

8 potential with other areas --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. 

10 Absolutely. Yes.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- we have data.

12 DR. TAULBEE: Let me explain just 

13 a little bit further here. You're absolutely 

14 right, Arjun. In the 200 Area there were 

15 plutonium exposures and uranium exposures. 

16 But if you think of the process that was going 

17 on for making plutonium, the irradiated slugs, 

18 the uranium irradiated slugs came into the 

19 canyon. They were dissolved down. And the 

20 plutonium nitrate them went up to the B line 

21 for further separation. That area is where 
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reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Savannah River Site Work Group for accuracy at this 

time. The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to 

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39 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 the plutonium intakes would be occurring; 

2 where the plutonium nitrate was then taken 

3 back into metal, you know it was taken to 

4 plutonium fluoride. The neutron, there's 

5 neutron exposures then. And that's where 

6 those plutonium exposures would be occurring. 

7 The uranium exposures within that 

8 area would be when the uranium went down the A 

9 line for recycling, basically to extract out 

10 the uranium again and recycle it and reuse it.

11 So both of those two when you're 

12 talking about exposures for internal, those 

13 were the two main pathways for alpha emitters 

14 within the 200 Area.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

16 DR. TAULBEE: In the tank farm 

17 area, you're talking mixed fission products. 

18 Well, the same -- this particular process, the 

19 mixed fission products would then go to the 

20 tank farm areas and its mixed fission 

21 products. In this particular case with the 
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1 thorium, the thorium didn't go down an A line 

2 for extraction back into thorium metal and is 

3 pumped directly to a rail car. The uranium 

4 that was separated from the thorium actually 

5 went to the B line down the same path that the 

6 plutonium would be. So from a uranium-233 

7 standpoint, yes, I would agree that there was 

8 a potential for internal exposures to U-233 

9 from that process. But for the thorium, it 

10 was just in this hold-up tank and then pumped 

11 to the railroad cars.

12 And I also agree with what Mark 

13 said a few minutes ago. You know the 

14 potential for exposure was lower, I agree. I 

15 misspoke if I said there was no potential. I 

16 apologize for that. I would say that the 

17 potential was very low here such that any 

18 doses that we had from uranium metal work over 

19 in the 300 Area where there's grinding and 

20 welding and so forth on these slugs, I feel 

21 that the doses would be bounded because this 
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1 is a wet process and it was only limited 

2 exposure during that pumping operation and 

3 then it was stored there in the railroad cars. 

4 This is why we haven't included this in the 

5 SEC.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. Now in our 

7 review of your Report 46 we did point out that 

8 recycled thorium was handled in the 313M Area. 

9 Where did that come from?

10 DR. TAULBEE: Well, that would 

11 probably be coming back from Fernald after it 

12 would go to Fernald, be turned back into metal 

13 -- in this case, this time period actually it 

14 would come back as thorium oxide.

15 But remember, in the 300 Area we

16 have lots of uranium bioassay. And I mean a 

17 lot of data. A lot of bioassay for uranium. 

18 And so --

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm not talking 

20 about uranium. I'm talking about recycled 

21 thorium.
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1 DR. TAULBEE: Right. But recycled 

2 thorium, the contaminate would be uranium.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, no. I'm 

4 talking about exposure to thorium, not the 

5 exposure -- there would also be exposure to 

6 fission products as well as U-233. So it's 

7 not just -- there would be mixed -- there'd be 

8 exposure to uranium-232, there's neutron 

9 exposure potential. There are lots of 

10 complications with recycled thorium. 

11 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. I'd have to 

12 see more from that standpoint from you on 

13 that. We do have what the assay was of the 

14 thorium that came out that was sent back to 

15 Fernald. So we do have the U-233 content and 

16 I believe, again, the component measurement as 

17 well for that. So we do have data on the 

18 recycled thorium that was sent to Fernald. So 

19 that was turned back into a thorium powder and 

20 was sent to Savannah River for, you know the 

21 whole recycle path. We do have data on it.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm just raising 

2 questions. Because, you know I've only 

3 briefly looked at your report, of course.

4 DR. TAULBEE: Right. I understand. 

5 And I apologize for this not getting to you 

6 all sooner. I really hoped that it would. 

7 Sorry about that.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This is Mark 

9 Griffon. I did want to say one thing, Tim, 

10 that I think that's probably a general thing 

11 from this call today is that, you know this is 

12 good -- it's definitely worthwhile you going 

13 through this and giving us this background. I 

14 think -- as we get towards the end of this 

15 call we probably want to hone in on your 

16 proposed Class and sort of discuss that. But I 

17 think what we're going to have to say at the 

18 end of the day is that, you know, even if the 

19 Work Group is going to make a motion to bring 

20 to the Advisory Board regarding the proposed 

21 Class, I would also say that SC&A has 
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1 additional comments or questions or needs more 

2 time to consider the other operations and 

3 whether we're ready to say they would be 

4 bounded by the current approach, that sort of 

5 thing. I think that sort of stuff is going to 

6 have to probably wait for more analysis -- you 

7 know, more discussion and work between all of 

8 us. 

9 So anyway, I think that's where we 

10 want -- our goal today would probably be to 

11 flush out the proposed Class, anyway, by the 

12 end of the call.

13 DR. TAULBEE: I fully understand 

14 that, Mark. Would you like for me to go over 

15 the proposed Class and how we came up with 

16 this Definition?

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I didn't mean 

18 to cut you off if you have more on the 

19 operational end, just to go through. Because, 

20 quite frankly, this is a good background 

21 discussion for me and for all of us I think to 
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1 hear. But if you're ready, you know, if you 

2 don't have any more sort of other thorium 

3 operations that you've considered in putting 

4 together this document that you want to go 

5 through then -- I'll leave it up to you, I 

6 guess.

7 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. The only 

8 other area that we covered here within the 

9 report a little bit were the reactor areas. 

10 And I believe I discussed that some at the May 

11 Board meeting where, you know, it was 

12 encapsulated thorium at that point, so --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Why don't you 

14 just through that and then go into the Class, 

15 and that'd be good.

16 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. 

18 DR. TAULBEE: Well with the 

19 reactors, if you recall from the whole process 

20 once the thorium is canned in the 300 Area, it 

21 is then sent to the reactor area for 
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1 irradiation, and so at that point the

2 individual slugs are loaded into full 

3 assemblies -- fuel assemblies. These are then 

4 lifted into the reactor for an extended period 

5 of time. The slugs would be irradiated, 

6 basically creating uranium-233. At the end of 

7 the cycle these fuel assemblies would be 

8 lifted out of the reactor, again remotely, 

9 directly put into a transfer channel that 

10 dropped down into the disassembly pool, that I 

11 think Brad and Mark, you guys might remember 

12 walking around. And at that point those fuel 

13 assemblies were allowed to sit for a number of 

14 days to cool and to allow the short lived 

15 fission products to decay off. And then these 

16 fuel assemblies would be unloaded. Basically 

17 they're under water. The assemblies would be 

18 unloaded, the individual slugs would be put 

19 into a cask. The cask then sealed, lifted 

20 out, put onto a rail car and sent to the 200 

21 Area.
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1 So because we're starting with 

2 sealed thorium slugs and we are ending with 

3 steel canned highly radioactive now thorium 

4 slugs going out of the building, I don't see 

5 any potential for the internal exposure in 

6 this particular area. There were times when 

7 they would take a slug, a few slugs out and 

8 they would do some visual inspection. We 

9 found reports of this. They would do 

10 basically non-destructive testing. They were 

11 very concerned about the warping of these 

12 slugs and how much the dimensional changes 

13 might be due to heat within the reactor. And 

14 so we found quite a few reports on this type 

15 of an operation.

16 And there's no indication of any 

17 of these being -- I shouldn't say no. There 

18 was some slug ruptures, but not significant. I 

19 can only recall one report talking about a 

20 thorium slug rupture and when this occurs, 

21 remember they're coming out from the reactor 
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1 into a water pool under that walkway area that 

2 we walked though and they're kept under water 

3 at that point.

4 So the main hazard when one of 

5 these ruptured was actually the iodine and the 

6 fission products, the gaseous fission products 

7 coming out. That's the major concern. These 

8 are kept under water and some of these gases 

9 come out and will bubble up and cause dose to 

10 people. But it's not due to the thorium at 

11 that point. 

12 So when this occurs, the slugs 

13 will be sent over to the high level caves in 

14 773A for further analysis as to what happened. 

15 So this is why we have not included the 

16 reactor areas within this particular Class 

17 Definition, within this proposal, is we just 

18 don't see a potential for internal exposure 

19 here that is significant.

20 So with that, that pretty much 

21 covers all of the areas. The only other area 
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1 that's out there is the 400 Area, and that's 

2 the heavy water plant, and there's no evidence 

3 that thorium was ever there in any quantity 

4 from those inventory log sheets.

5 These other areas that I've 

6 discussed clearly in the 300 Area, the 773A, 

7 the TNX, the reactors, they all had very 

8 significant quantities of thorium according to 

9 those inventory logs. 

10 So with that, we're looking at how 

11 can we identify who was potentially exposed in 

12 773A and TNX from other workers down-site. 

13 And in particular, you know you got the 400 

14 Area workers that were exposed to tritium. 

15 They were doing heavy water separation and 

16 reprocessing this heavy water coming from the 

17 reactors. So, you know, when somebody=s 

18 bioassay indicates they worked in the 400 

19 Area, their dosimetry records indicate they 

20 worked in the 400 Area, we interviewed them 

21 for dose reconstruction, they indicated they 
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1 worked in the 400 Area. There's really no 

2 potential for exposure to thorium for this 

3 type of a worker.

4 So we started looking at how can 

5 we identify a Class of workers who were 

6 exposed. And we ended up looking at the 

7 external dosimetry data. Within all of these 

8 areas where thorium was worked with, it was 

9 required that people wear a film badge 

10 dosimeter. This is in procedures. It's been 

11 documented or confirmed through interviews 

12 with workers. We've specifically asked them 

13 "Could you have worked in one of these areas 

14 without a film badge?" And the answer came 

15 back no, that people were monitored going into 

16 these areas wearing a film badge. 

17 It kind of plays out from when we 

18 look at the claimant populations for Savannah 

19 River, 80 percent of the claimants that we 

20 have have external monitoring data. So it 

21 bears out that Savannah River was monitoring a 
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1 tremendous number of people for external 

2 radiation. 

3 So from that standpoint we felt 

4 that these regulated areas, 773A and the TNX, 

5 you had to have a film badge to go into them. 

6 Could we use the dosimetry codes? Well, it 

7 turns out we feel we can.

8 At the bottom of the early cards, 

9 early dosimetry cards, this will be 1953 

10 through 1957, at the very bottom of the card 

11 it lists the area where the individual worked. 

12 And it would be A area, G area, TNX, CMX. It 

13 could also indicate T reactor, R reactor, L, 

14 the F area, the H area, D area. And so just 

15 from looking at an individual's card you can 

16 tell where they were monitored.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Tim, this is 

18 Mark Griffon.

19 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, sir.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can I ask a 

21 question? It's hard to interrupt when we 
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1 can't see each other.

2 But just while I'm thinking of it, 

3 the question I have and this does get to the 

4 heart of this Class question I think for most 

5 of us, is you know the determining who had 

6 access and not. But, I mean, you said you 

7 talked to many people and they all agreed that 

8 you had to have film badges to go in. But did 

9 they have to have film badges with that 

10 notation on the bottom for the particular 

11 building? I mean, access control is different 

12 then requiring a film badge to enter certain 

13 areas, isn't it? And can you speak to that a

14 little bit?

15 DR. TAULBEE: Absolutely. You're 

16 absolutely correct. And this is why as you'll 

17 see here in a minute, we've included the G 

18 area for this early time period and why you'll 

19 see for the second time period why we included 

20 that 6B through 6Z series and 12D through 12H 

21 and 12J through 12Z is to account for those 
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1 people who might have been badged from other 

2 areas that could have worked in 773A. So we 

3 have tried to address this directly.

4 Bear with me here and I think I'll 

5 be able to explain this. I hope.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sorry to 

7 interrupt. Okay.

8 DR. TAULBEE: Oh, no problem. No 

9 problem whatsoever.

10 Okay. So with this early time 

11 period we have these dosimetry cards that are 

12 in each individual's file. For people who are 

13 more along the construction trade, there are a 

14 separate type of card that we see where their 

15 dosimetry is also entered on an individual 

16 card. Visitor type of badge information, so 

17 construction trades going into this area will 

18 have one of these little visitor card tablets 

19 that we see. And on there it will indicate 

20 the area that theymay have worked in.

21 So whenever somebody has a 
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1 dosimeter code that is A, G, CMX, or TNX we 

2 consider them to be included in the Class. 

3 And that G area basically covers all of the 

4 central shops workers all during that time 

5 period. So all the construction trades who 

6 might have gone into 773A and conducted 

7 renovations, which by the way the logbooks 

8 bear out. The health physics logbooks clearly 

9 discuss when renovations were going on and, 

10 you know, construction trades workers coming 

11 into the area and then briefing them on the 

12 work that needs to be done. And so health 

13 physics was involved with this. I'm quite 

14 confident that these people were monitored and 

15 that we have those records from looking at 

16 these dosimetry codes within their records.

17 This early time period, and this 

18 is a little bit confusing as to why we went 

19 January 1, 1953 to December 31, 1957 is purely 

20 due to a change in the recording practices at 

21 the site. It doesn't change anything with
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1 exposure potential. It just changes how they 

2 started monitoring or recording the dosimetry 

3 badges. 

4 Prior to 1957 all of the data is 

5 recorded on these individual cards and they're 

6 filed by a person within the dosimetry lab. 

7 So when people file a claim with us, the 

8 dosimetry lab who will issue records there at 

9 Savannah River goes to their stacks, goes to 

10 their microfiche and pulls out an individual 

11 worker's card and they send them to us. And 

12 so we can look at these cards and we can see 

13 all of these different areas where an 

14 individual worked.

15 Starting January 1, 1958 they 

16 started using an IBM system, an electronic 

17 computer system to record their data. At that 

18 time they changed how the dosimetry codes were 

19 being recorded. So instead of just A area, 

20 they started indicating basically more 

21 information within A area. 
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1 I'll ask you all to go to a 

2 certain page. Let=s go to page 41 of the 

3 Evaluation Report. I'll give you all a second 

4 to get there.

5 This is the table that discusses 

6 the early time period that I was just talking 

7 about where we were discussing the different 

8 separations area, the manufacturing area, 

9 heavy water, the technical and semi-works 

10 areas, A Area supports, reactors and central 

11 shops. And what you'll see there in that third 

12 column of Table 7-4 is the area designation 

13 that we find on those dosimetry cards. Then 

14 the other columns you're seeing was 

15 unencapsulated thorium, encapsulated thorium 

16 and then whether we feel that they should be 

17 included in the SEC based upon whether we can 

18 reconstruct doses for those areas.

19 So this covers that early time 

20 period up to 1957 -- up to 1958, rather. If 

21 you flip the page to page 42, you'll see Table 
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1 7-5 has the area codes for the same areas and 

2 you'll see that the HP area codes has changed. 

3 Instead of it being F Area or just an F there, 

4 the HP code was 1A. 2A was the 200H, 3A was 

5 the 300M, 4A was 400D, 773 was 5A, 777M which 

6 is over in M Area next to the 300 Area so 

7 they're doing those reactivity measurements on 

8 thorium, not doing any other manipulation with 

9 the thorium, that code would be 5D. The CMX, 

10 TNX Area was 5C. The A Area support is 

11 actually goes 6A through 6Z.

12 We excluded 6A from this 

13 particular definition and that's because 6A 

14 designated Building 703. And 703 is that 

15 large white building that's the administration 

16 building that you can see from the road when 

17 you first pull in. This is where all of the 

18 managers and so forth from the entire site 

19 would be located. And they were badged out of 

20 that area because they basically went anywhere 

21 on site. So instead of moving around -- or 
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1 picking up a visitor badge everywhere, I 

2 believe they badged them directly out of that 

3 building. I don't believe that those managers 

4 and so forth would spend a significant amount 

5 of time in any of these areas such that they 

6 would be exposed to thorium for an extended 

7 period, you know, 250 day type of scenario.

8 Other people around the 700 area, 

9 though, could have been. And that's why we 

10 included those 6B through 6Z. Somebody 

11 working over in 723, which we was an add-on to 

12 the metal lab for a short period of time, 

13 could have gone over into the other metal lab 

14 to do some work for, like I said, 250 days 

15 over this 20 year period. And so because 

16 people were badged out of these other 

17 buildings in that 700 Area -- complex area, we 

18 feel that they should be included in the 

19 Class. So that was why we included them.

20 The 7A dosimeter codes are the R 

21 reactor. 8A is the P reactor -- I'm back on 
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1 table 7-5 right now. 9A would be the L 

2 reactor, 10A is the K reactor, and 11A is the 

3 C reactor.

4 And then you got the 12 series. 

5 And these were all the central shops areas. 

6 These are all construction trades workers. 

7 You'll see here that we have excluded 12A, B, 

8 and C, and the primary reason for this is 12A 

9 was the locomotive shop. So these would be 

10 people that worked on the trains that were 

11 hauling materials back and forth.

12 12B was the traffic and 

13 transportation shop. This was where 

14 maintenance was done on all of the vehicles on 

15 site. And then the 12C was traffic and 

16 transportation office. And, again, people who 

17 are handling how traffic and transportation 

18 and how cars are signed out and so forth. We 

19 just don't feel that there's a potential for 

20 exposure to thorium for those people.

21 The other shops in that area, 
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1 however, 12D through 12H, this is including 

2 carpenters, the carpenter shop, the 

3 boilermakers, the pipe fitters, the glazers, 

4 all of the other construction trades workers. 

5 They were separated by dosimetry code by shop 

6 where they were issued their badge out of the 

7 shop. All of them could have gone to 773A, 

8 all of them could have gone to TNX for 

9 extended periods of time doing these 

10 renovations in these areas, and so therefore 

11 we feel they should be included in the SEC.

12 We excluded in particular 12I. And 

13 this was because this was from the temporary 

14 construction area, this was the B Area. And 

15 this is the area where -- it housed the 

16 offices of procurement, payroll, medical, 

17 accounting, timekeeping, and the management 

18 offices for the construction division. So 

19 these weren't workers. Well, they were 

20 workers, but they aren't trades workers per 

21 se. These were the people handling all the 
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1 administration for construction trades, and 

2 they were badged out of that particular area, 

3 out of that designation 12I. And so we=ve 

4 excluded those individuals as well because we 

5 just don't see that people from construction 

6 payroll would have been up in 773A working and 

7 being exposed to thorium during these time 

8 periods.

9 So this Class Definition is unique 

10 due to the thorium being located in two areas 

11 that we are having difficulty and we don't 

12 feel we can estimate the dose and so to 

13 identify workers who were working there we 

14 kind of split it into three categories. The 

15 first category being people who definitely 

16 worked in those buildings, and that would be 

17 from that latter dosimetry code area 5A and 

18 5C, 5A being 773, 5C being the TNX, CMX Area.

19 The second category is people who 

20 may have been exposed to thorium. And that 

21 would include the people in the surrounding 
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1 buildings around 773A that could have gone 

2 into there. They were part of the Technical 

3 Division. They could have worked in there 

4 excluding the managers and including the 

5 construction trades workers who also could 

6 have gone up there and worked and been exposed 

7 to thorium for an extended period of time. 

8 Those are all people we considered may have 

9 been exposed to thorium and we feel they 

10 should be included in the Class.

11 The third category is people who I 

12 consider not having a potential for internal 

13 exposure to thorium, and that would be all the 

14 reactors in the D Area due to how those 

15 materials were handled.

16 Please keep in mind that the 300 

17 Area there was definitely potential for 

18 internal exposure to thorium, however we feel 

19 the uranium bioassay method that we proposed 

20 in Addendum 1 and the air sample in Report 46 

21 would enable us to estimate the doses for 
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1 those people who worked in that 3A dosimeter 

2 designation.

3 And that basically leaves then the 

4 200 Area which I believe you're going to be 

5 looking at and providing us some comments more 

6 on. At this time we feel that the 300 Area 

7 can be for the -- doses that we've got we've 

8 estimated from the 300 Area would bound the 

9 minimal exposures to the 200 Area during that 

10 transfer of thorium from that hold-up tank 

11 into those railroad cars.

12 And this is how we came up with 

13 this Class Definition. And I'll pause there 

14 for questions or clarifications, comments, 

15 whatever.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, Tim, this 

17 is Mark. And those tables are useful 

18 summaries of your approach.

19 One question, I mean it looks --

20 well, a couple of questions, but I'll start 

21 with one on the process side, and I may have 
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1 missed this. You may have said this earlier 

2 in your discussion. But 777M, I'm looking in 

3 your table areas that you determined 

4 unencapsulated thorium existed and yet you're 

5 not proposing to include in the SEC. One of 

6 them, obviously, is 300M you just talked 

7 about. But the 777M can you give me a little 

8 background on that and why the rationale for 

9 not including that? It's probably in your 

10 footnote, but I'm talking as I'm reading some 

11 of this.

12 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. The main 

13 reason here is this is where there was a 

14 series of critical piles where they would do 

15 reactivity measurements on thorium slugs. 

16 Most of the thorium that was over there in 

17 that area was encapsulated. However, not all 

18 of it. Some of it was bare thorium slug, 

19 however they weren't doing anything with them 

20 other then loading them into a critical pile, 

21 taking reactivity measurements and unloading 
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1 them. They weren't doing grinding, glazing, 

2 cutting, welding; anything else with these in 

3 that area. So this is mostly handling 

4 encapsulated thorium, but there were a few 

5 times where we've seen some bare thorium 

6 measurements that they were doing. They're 

7 doing reactivity measurements, taking it up to 

8 critical for a short period of time, not an 

9 extended, high-flux, this is just to measure 

10 the reactivity of the cross-sections of what 

11 was happening with the different slug or the 

12 different fuel geometry, assemblies; that type 

13 of thing.

14 So that was what they were doing 

15 in this area. And so we feel that the 300 

16 Area M, the 300M Area, which is this just to 

17 the east end of that particular area if you 

18 look at it on a map where it's located, we 

19 feel that these people would be bounded by 

20 those uranium exposures from that M Area.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. And then 
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1 I'll start into the one obvious area I think 

2 that some of us have on our mind, which is you 

3 know I think we've stumbled down this path 

4 several times where we've tried to parse out 

5 buildings. And I think, you know we all get a 

6 little nervous when we -- and I'm sure you 

7 guys also, that you are concerned about from 

8 the implementation side when Labor tries to 

9 implement this. And I know you've talked to 

10 them a little bit. But I mean the question of 

11 did the workers go back and forth between 

12 buildings. And I appreciate your approach 

13 with the central shops. That's a good thing I 

14 think. And the A area, some of those things 

15 are taking that into account.

16 There's one thing in this, not 

17 intended to be a sort of -- I mean, the last 

18 meeting and when I was reading this and 

19 thinking of the 300M Area and some of the 

20 approach you were using from that, I went back 

21 to the transcript from the last meeting. 
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1 Because I remembered this, but I just wanted 

2 to refresh my memory.

3 And, you know when we talked about 

4 those bioassay measurements, the logsheets, I 

5 guess. Anyway, I can find the excerpt from the 

6 transcript from last time. But it was 

7 basically you were saying that they -- I think 

8 Joyce pointed out that all these workers that 

9 you're using for the M Area were actually --

10 in their column of where they worked it said 

11 773, Building 773. And then you said, yes, 

12 but based on some of them also indicated M 

13 Area, and in fact we heard through interviews 

14 that people were moving back and forth between 

15 the two areas.

16 So I guess 300M Area jumps out at 

17 me as one that it seems like in the past, at 

18 least, that you've concluded through 

19 interviews and other information that that 

20 these people were in fact moving between these 

21 areas. So I think that might be a problem in 
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1 terms of just which workers belong in this 

2 Class Definition.

3 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. Let me clarify 

4 a little bit. You know, our information at 

5 that time was that it was only small 

6 quantities of thorium being worked with in 

7 773A. So in an effort to try and explain why 

8 all these bioassays for 773A and none for M 

9 Area, we were drawing a conclusion, 

10 incorrectly because the inventory reports have 

11 shown us clearly that there was significant 

12 material in 773A now, that there was movement 

13 between the two buildings.

14 Now the interviews you're talking 

15 about, absolutely they did indicate that they 

16 would go between the buildings, however the 

17 people who we were talking to were the 

18 engineers and researchers type of scenario. 

19 The regular production workers we don't 

20 believe that they were moving back and forth 

21 as being described here because they were in 
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1 different divisions, from what I can see at 

2 this time. This changes from what I had said 

3 back in January, yes. 

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I mean, 

5 I'm just looking at potential pitfalls on 

6 going forward that we're going to have people 

7 claiming that they were in that area all the 

8 time. I mean, we've been through this play 

9 before, you know. 

10 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And, I mean and 

12 those engineers if they worked there 20, 25 

13 years over that course of time, could they 

14 have been in the 773 Area, you know could they 

15 have been in one of the areas that you're 

16 designating for more than the 250? I mean, 

17 how do you sort of make a judgment call on 

18 that, I guess?

19 DR. TAULBEE: Well, from what we 

20 can tell the engineers and so forth were 

21 actually badged out of the 5A dosimeter code 
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1 out of 773A.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, okay. So 

3 they would have been included?

4 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct. So, 

5 yes, they should have been included from that, 

6 or should be included. And as far as the 

7 buildings in the Class Definition of doing 

8 this, this is why the Class Definition is 

9 written the way it is. There's no indication 

10 of building written in there. It is only time 

11 period and the dosimeter codes. And that is 

12 because there are -- the front section of 773A 

13 is all administrative offices. So there could 

14 be secretaries who worked in that front part 

15 of that office, in order to go to the back 

16 area to go into the regulated area, they had 

17 to pick up a dosimeter badge. And there were 

18 visitor badges there. And when they picked 

19 one up and they file a claim, we see that 

20 visitor dosimeter badge. So if they went back 

21 there into those areas, then we would see a 
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1 dosimeter badge from that standpoint. So this 

2 is why we've written the Definition the way --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And what if 

4 they had a visitor dosimeter badge? Then do 

5 you try to parse it out to say well they were 

6 an administrative worker that went back there, 

7 but it was only a visitor badge so they 

8 probably weren't there more then a few days?

9 DR. TAULBEE: I wouldn't do that, 

10 but I don't know how Department of Labor is 

11 going to do this.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I mean, 

13 these are the problems sometimes we get into 

14 with this. I mean, I think overall you lay 

15 out a reasonable argument for this, 

16 notwithstanding other questions that we have 

17 still on the 300M area and your approach that 

18 you're using there and some other areas that 

19 Arjun has raised as where you may have 

20 concluded that there wasn't any significant 

21 chance of internal exposure. But SC&A may --
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1 you know. We still have those issues on the 

2 table, but for these particular areas or for 

3 this Class that you're proposing to add, you 

4 make a reasonable argument, I think, at least 

5 from my opinion. I just worry about these 

6 folks coming forward and having to -- you 

7 know, then you get into a situation of an 

8 individual having to fight Department of Labor 

9 to say "But I was in there all the time. What 

10 do you want? I can get supervisors to give 

11 affidavits that say that I was in there." I 

12 mean, I worry about going down that path is my 

13 point.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun.

15 I have a question about the badge 

16 designations. What were the badge 

17 designations of the construction workers who 

18 were not DuPont employees; subcontractors and 

19 subcontractors of subcontractors? Because we 

20 have very clear sort of interview information 

21 that, you know, they went wherever they were 
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1 asked and they did similar jobs to production 

2 workers sometimes, and then they did 

3 construction worker jobs, you know, 

4 maintenance jobs, new buildings, new 

5 facilities, you know, the works.

6 Did they have the same badge 

7 designations as DuPont workers? I'm not 

8 including DuPont maintenance workers now. I'm 

9 just talking about construction workers who 

10 were not DuPont employees.

11 DR. TAULBEE: It is our 

12 understanding that they would have been 

13 badged, now it would depend upon where they 

14 first reported. If they were reporting down 

15 to, say, the carpenter shop in the central 

16 shops area and then going out with a crew from 

17 there, then they would have been badged down 

18 there from the central shops.

19 (Simultaneous speaking.)

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- that that's 

21 what happened?
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1 DR. TAULBEE: I'm sorry?

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now this is from 

3 memory, Tim, because I haven't looked at these 

4 interviews in a while. But I think that's 

5 what they said happened, and of course apart 

6 from the question that they've said that they 

7 were often working when they didn't have 

8 badges. But leaving that aside for the 

9 moment, I think non-DuPont construction 

10 workers -- I mean, I just don't know whether 

11 they would fall into these badging categories 

12 and whether your SEC would capture them.

13 DR. TAULBEE: Well, I believe the 

14 SEC would capture them because they would go 

15 through one of two paths. Either they would 

16 go down to the central shops and be badged 

17 from the central shops area or they would be 

18 badged up there in the 700 Area. In the 

19 latter years there's a particular badge 

20 designation for -- called the construction 

21 gate where they would be badged from. So one 
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1 of those six series, 6B through 6D would 

2 capture them under that particular 

3 designation. So when they went into the 700 

4 Area and then down in the TNX Area. These 

5 workers would be badged as visitors, but again 

6 whenever they would file a claim with us, 

7 Savannah River sends their dosimetry to us, we 

8 can look through their dosimetry codes and we 

9 can see where it is that they worked.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: And so the claim 

11 is basically that there are no generic 

12 visitors' badges. That visitors' badges are 

13 assigned to particular workers consistently 

14 and not to any other workers so that you could 

15 actually track when a construction worker went 

16 into the 773 Area that they always wore the 

17 same badge?

18 DR. TAULBEE: It is our 

19 understanding that for a continuous project 

20 they would have. However, if once that 

21 project was finished and they went to, say, 
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1 the R reactor, they would get a different 

2 visitor badge issued out of the R reactor. 

3 And so it would have the R reactor 

4 designation. Their name would be associated 

5 within a badge in the 700 area and a badge in 

6 the R area.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Besides their own 

8 badge, so they -- did they not have a badge 

9 that they continuously wore themselves?

10 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct, they 

11 did not have a badge that they continuously 

12 wore themselves unless they were going to be 

13 doing an extended project in that area. And 

14 then we do see a lot of construction trades 

15 workers that are monitored for a period of a 

16 few months, and then they drop off. And when 

17 you look at the dosimetry logs, the largest 

18 group of people that are on determination work 

19 are construction trades workers that are 

20 moving in and out of different areas.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. I'm a little 
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1 -- I'm actually more confused now then I was 

2 before. So are you saying that there were 

3 many construction workers on site who were not 

4 badged unless they were assigned to particular 

5 areas of work?

6 DR. TAULBEE: I'm not sure what 

7 you're asking there.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, if they were 

9 only wearing visitor badges, they went into 

10 700 or 300 or 100 and then they got a badge of 

11 that area that had their name on it and that 

12 would be in their file, then presumably they 

13 didn't have any badges when they were not 

14 assigned to a particular area?

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Perhaps I can 

16 try. This is Mark Griffon. If I'm 

17 understanding Tim correctly you're saying they 

18 would be assigned "visitor badges," but they'd 

19 be area-specific visitor badges, Tim?

20 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: As a person2 specific? So not just area-specific --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. They 

4 hold onto that badge while they're working on 

5 that project in that area. But then if they 

6 went to another area, they would turn in that 

7 badge and get another badge from the other 

8 area.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm not 

10 understanding. What happened to that badge? 

11 Did somebody else wear it after -- before it 

12 was read?

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm assuming it 

14 was read. Yes, I don't know that. Yes. 

15 That's a good question.

16 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, it would be 

17 read. It would be read with that particular 

18 person and then basically -- you know, that 

19 one person that say he wore this badge for a 

20 week in R area, that badge would then be read. 

21 He then went to, say, 700 area, he was issued 
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1 a different badge --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

3 DR. TAULBEE: -- and he wore that 

4 for, say, two weeks, and that badge would be 

5 read.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. And in 

7 between assignments to these areas they had no 

8 badge?

9 DR. TAULBEE: If they were not in 

10 the area that was regulated or a radioactive 

11 material area, that's correct. They would not 

12 have a badge.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Because a 

14 lot of them have said that they were in 

15 radioactive areas that were not properly 

16 marked. And so essentially you're confirming 

17 something that they've said, I just wanted to 

18 clarify that.

19 And so I presume that you've 

20 tracked this kind of visitor badge issue 

21 because it's obviously going to be a very 
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1 central issue, especially for non-DuPont 

2 employees because you know a good level of 

3 confidence that they had individual badges 

4 that were designated as visitor badges that 

5 also carried the name of the person 

6 consistently and were read consistently that 

7 way. I mean, I presume you've researched and 

8 documented that.

9 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. Within the 

10 dosimetry logs or dosimetry records there are 

11 visitor logs as well. And this is almost -- I 

12 wouldn't say exclusively, but the vast 

13 majority of the entries of people in those 

14 visitor logs are construction trades workers. 

15 And when everybody had their badge and --

16 continuing on this R 700 Area example, they 

17 would have an individual card and it would say 

18 that this person was monitored for this week 

19 and in there, and here's the dose. And then 

20 the next line would be the person was 

21 monitored for -- well, externally monitored in 
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1 the 700 Area for this week and it would have 

2 that dose.

3 So these individual cards are 

4 filed by alphabetical name, comprise multiple 

5 dosimeter badges for an individuals who was a 

6 nonstandard DuPont worker who had a payroll 

7 ID. 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: And this kind of 

9 thing extends to the film badge before --

10 we're talking mainly before the TLD era, 

11 right?

12 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct. Yes.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: So you're talking 

14 about somebody goes for two days, does a job, 

15 has a film badge, and it will be read. And 

16 then, of course, it's over for that film 

17 badge, right?

18 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct, yes.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: And that there is 

20 a kind of -- that all of the construction 

21 workers -- so there's another kind of 
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1 question. Did the construction workers always 

2 just use visitor badges? Weren't there 

3 construction workers who were there on site 

4 for years together who were not DuPont 

5 employees who had their own badges, and what

6 were their badge designations?

7 DR. TAULBEE: That is -- well, 

8 yes. The construction -- there's two 

9 different parts here. One for -- within the 

10 dosimetry logs is construction trade workers, 

11 okay? Not all of them were DuPont employees 

12 because they have payroll ID numbers that are 

13 very large. And depending upon the trade 

14 number it kind of goes sequentially but it 

15 jumps up to like 90,000 -- not all of them are 

16 DuPont employees. Many of the DuPont 

17 employees were actually under roll two; these 

18 were mechanics, maintenance type of people. 

19 They were all under what was called the Local 

20 Wage Roll. Construction was different wage 

21 roll.
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1 And so -- was going to be there 

2 for an extended period of time, got their own 

3 badge designation. And these would be out of 

4 that 12 series that you're looking at, and 

5 they could go anywhere with that single badge, 

6 which is why we've included them in the SEC. 

7 So the roll four is not just 

8 DuPont, it also includes some of these other 

9 construction trades workers. What I've been

10 talking about with the visitor ones is people 

11 who only worked at the site for, you know, a 

12 maybe one to two year period and worked 

13 between multiple areas. Those were the ones 

14 who they probably did not issue an individual 

15 badge to and assign an individual number to. 

16 But we do have the dosimetry when they file a 

17 claim we can get their dosimetry back and look 

18 at which areas they worked in.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Probably?

20 DR. TAULBEE: I=m sorry?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Probably?
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1 DR. TAULBEE: What do you mean by 

2 B3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, it=s just a 

4 question. I mean, if they worked for one to 

5 two years, they probably didn't have a badge 

6 but maybe they did and we're not sure or was 

7 there a time limit like three years? If they 

8 worked for three years, they had their own 

9 badge? And if they did, if they were non10 DuPont -- so I'm a little puzzled because I 

11 mean we've got a bunch of interviews with 

12 workers that said that, you know, they could 

13 have been there for a few months and there 

14 were people who came for a few months and then 

15 they were laid off, and they were brought back 

16 and there was construction union hall hiring 

17 and all that. And then there were 

18 construction workers who were on-site for 

19 years who were not DuPont employees and many 

20 of them later became DuPont employees, as you 

21 know. And I'm talking about those 
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1 construction workers who were there on site 

2 for prolonged periods whether they had their 

3 own badges and what those badge designations 

4 were and whether you've captured them.

5 DR. TAULBEE: If they were on-site 

6 for prolonged periods, then they were given a 

7 unique identifying number. And, yes, we have 

8 their dosimetry data, their log -- they are in 

9 those dosimetry logs, okay?

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no. Whether 

11 you=ve captured them in your SEC --

12 DR. TAULBEE: Yes --

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- these badge 

14 designations?

15 DR. TAULBEE: -- they would have 

16 been badged out of that 12 series. Almost all 

17 of the construction trades workers are badged 

18 out of that 12 series.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Including 

20 non-DuPont employees?

21 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 

2 MR. MAHAFFEY: Tim, Mark Mahaffey.

3 We have hundreds of records of 

4 visitors, call ups and non-DuPont construction 

5 workers with badges as short as one day and 

6 over multiple months, and also bioassay data. 

7 And, you know, the HP techs we interviewed 

8 said that no one went into the rad controlled 

9 area without a film badge.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, yes. I'm not 

11 talking about whether they went without a film 

12 badge or not because we're parsing this by 

13 film badge designations and not whether they 

14 were badged or not. I mean, if the SEC were --

15 you know all workers who were badged, that 

16 would be a different argument.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Tim?

18 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad 

20 speaking.

21 I hope you understand. I mean, 
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1 you've talked several times on this. Savannah 

2 River is a very unique site from the 

3 standpoint of the operations personnel being 

4 DuPont employees plus a large majority of the 

5 contractors being DuPont employees. Then we 

6 switch over to the subcontractors of 

7 subcontractors being classified as 

8 construction trades, too. And this is kind of 

9 where I know where Arjun is going because me 

10 and him have looked into many of these things 

11 and heard many of these interviews as well; at 

12 one time I was a DuPont employee and then I 

13 wasn't. I was working for Rust, or somebody 

14 like this, and so forth. That's kind of where 

15 our worry comes into this. 

16 You know as well as I do the 

17 uniqueness of Savannah River. And when we 

18 talked to especially the construction trades, 

19 I understand what you're saying if they're in 

20 the central shops and stuff, if they weren't--

21 hadn't been there for several years, or 
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1 whatever, part of the pool to say then they 

2 didn't have a film badge. And when they went 

3 out to different sites, like the R or any of 

4 the other areas, then they would get a new 

5 film badge.

6 And I was surprised but I was also 

7 delighted to hear that when they went out, 

8 that these film badges were reading and that 

9 you've actually found where at one week they 

10 were at this place and they were one week at 

11 the other place. Because this was one of the 

12 questions of, you know, did they just take 

13 this film badge and go from one site to the 

14 other or did they have designators in it. And 

15 a lot of times they couldn't tell us that they 

16 did or they didn't. And this is why it was 

17 good to see that you'd found this in the 

18 radiological reports and so forth, which I'm 

19 sure that Arjun's going to look into it and 

20 stuff like that.

21 But I want you to understand we're 
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1 not criticizing what you've done or we're not 

2 trying to nitpick at it. The thing is that 

3 from my standpoint is it seems like we've been 

4 down this road again. And we just want to 

5 make sure that we have our questions answered 

6 to make sure that we've covered all of our 

7 bases. And as Mark said earlier, we just got 

8 this the other day so there might be a lot of 

9 questions that you have that you can answer 

10 for us and it'll give us a better, easy 

11 feeling on it. Because, you know, it's 

12 looking pretty good.

13 I just want you to understand when 

14 we say these things, it isn't criticizing the 

15 work that you've done and stuff like that. 

16 Actually, my personal opinion is that you've 

17 done a very good job. We just want to make 

18 sure that we're implementing it in the right 

19 way. Because with Savannah River, especially 

20 the construction trades, it's a whole 

21 different ball game then any other site. It's 
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1 unique in its own way. And I just want you to 

2 understand that.

3 DR. TAULBEE: Thank you very much 

4 for that, Brad.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Tim, this is 

6 Mark Griffon. I think at this point, I mean I 

7 just wanted to think path forward. And I 

8 agree with Brad=s sentiments.

9 You know, at least my feeling is I 

10 appreciate the intent of this Class being 

11 added. There still might be some questions 

12 about, you know, trying to do it this way as 

13 opposed to the all worker approach, which we 

14 often end up at. 

15 But I think what I'd like to do is 

16 there is time on the agenda in the upcoming 

17 Board meeting at the end of August here at 

18 Hanford for Savannah River. I think it even 

19 says, Tim, you were going to present, and I 

20 think I had a little time, or whatever. 

21 I don't know that today we 
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1 necessarily have to come up with a Work Group 

2 motion to bring to the Board. What I'd rather 

3 propose is that, you know, well Tim will 

4 summarize, but I can also say that from our 

5 standpoint we heard this and, you know, that -

6 - just sort of outline what the Work Group's 

7 still doing. And my intent right now would be 

8 to present that I support the addition of this 

9 Class, but that we have some remaining 

10 questions about the who part of the Class, 

11 whether NIOSH can adequately identify these 

12 workers for the reasons we've just discussed 

13 for a while. And then, you know offer it for 

14 discussion to the full Board.

15 And maybe the other thing I would 

16 ask is that we -- I don't know if this 

17 document has been offered; if it's on the 

18 website and/or if it's been sent to the 

19 petitioners. Because I think they might be 

20 able to comment during that time period on 

21 these very issues whether they believe, you 
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1 know, on the badging questions and things like 

2 that. We might get some useful public 

3 comments that would be helpful to sort out 

4 this question.

5 So that would be my proposal right 

6 now is to sort of bring this back in to 

7 Hanford. And then if the Board, if everyone 

8 sort of feels comfortable at a certain point, 

9 we might want to make a motion during the 

10 Board meeting to add the two, accept this 

11 Class Definition and add the Class. But I 

12 don't know that we have to have a Work Group 

13 motion today.

14 How do other -- Brad or Jim, how 

15 do you feel about that?

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: I agree with you 

17 on this, Mark.

18 I'm going to be right honest. 

19 Part of my apprehension is having tried to 

20 single this out, and Tim has done a very good 

21 job of expressing why he feels that this would 
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1 be the best and so forth, I would just like a 

2 little bit of time to be able to look at it. 

3 The way it looks, it looks good to me at this 

4 time. And I think that we could do something 

5 at the Board and go from there. But also--

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And the other--

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: -- time to look at 

8 it.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And this is 

10 Mark again.

11 The other thing I plan to say in 

12 my portion of the presentation is that -- and 

13 this is just with regards to thorium. I hope 

14 that after we finish this discussion in a few 

15 minutes, Tim will update us on other areas 

16 that the Work Group is still working on.

17 But that, you know, we're not --

18 the SC&A and the Work Group are certainly, 

19 even if we support and make a motion to add 

20 this Class, it doesn't mean that we support 

21 everything in Addendum 2. We have some 
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1 questions about other areas, and we have to 

2 research those further. You know, this is new 

3 to all of us so we want to still consider, 

4 like, 300M Area and the other model that's out 

5 there and those issues. So I'll also bring 

6 that up. 

7 But I think that probably is the 

8 best thing to do now would be just to bring 

9 this issue back to the Board and discuss it 

10 there.

11 Jim, do you have any thoughts on 

12 that?

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes. I agree with 

14 that. I'd like some additional time to look at 

15 the report I got yesterday.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

17 MEMBER LOCKEY: And so I agree. I 

18 concur with what you're both saying.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, and I 

20 don=t know -- Arjun, I think as far as -- I 

21 don't think we have to get a separate tasking, 
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1 but I would think by the nature of SC&A being 

2 tasked in the Work Group that I would ask that 

3 you continue working on looking at this 

4 report, also SC&A look at this report and 

5 certainly compare it to your last thorium 

6 report and continue on those issues, 

7 especially with regard to other areas where 

8 you believe -- and the question of the 300M 

9 area, the current model that's out there, et 

10 cetera. I think that's still a task for SC&A. 

11 Is that -- do you agree with that? Arjun? 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Am I off mute?

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, you're on 

14 now, yes.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry. I didn't 

16 remember I was on mute.

17 Yes, the two reports that we wrote 

18 covered the period up to 1972, which is the 

19 same period now or '71 something, that this ER 

20 Addendum 2 covers. So maybe for the moment we 

21 would restrict ourselves to that.
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1 As you know I sent a note to the 

2 Work Group and to Tim when he sent an email 

3 around about the period after 1972, which 

4 they're researching, which we had a fair 

5 amount of information about that too. What 

6 I'll do for the moment until the Board meeting 

7 is to look at this in some more detail. 

8 Obviously, there are a lot of comparisons to 

9 be done to see whether we want to revise 

10 anything we said before or modify it, or stand 

11 by it, or -- you know. I have to consult with 

12 Joyce, obviously.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sure. Sure. 

14 That's fine.

15 And you know I would expect that 

16 you could -- I mean some of these issues are 

17 for review not necessarily for the upcoming 

18 Board meeting but for the next Work Group 

19 meeting after the Board meeting. You know, 

20 sometime in the future. But at least you'll, 

21 hopefully, have a little time to look a little 
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1 more at this report before the Board meeting 

2 also so that during our presentation if we 

3 need to call on you, I'm sure you'll be ready 

4 to help us out.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. I'll 

6 certainly be more ready then I am today having 

7 glanced at this --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think we can 

9 all say that. Yes, yes.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: But what I propose 

11 for the longer -- until the next Work Group 

12 meeting for this particular topic is maybe we 

13 can make a table that shows the various 

14 positions with comments, or write a memorandum 

15 or something like that. I mean, I can send you 

16 an email about what format I think might work 

17 best without going into another long drawn out 

18 report.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. That 

20 sounds good. Yes. Okay. All right.

21 And, Tim, if there's nothing more 
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1 on thorium, do you have anything else to add? 

2 Otherwise, I would just ask you -- and I 

3 understand based on our earlier discussions 

4 that this has taken a lot of your team's 

5 efforts in the last several months. And 

6 that's why I didn't want to go through the 

7 entire matrix at this meeting today. But I 

8 thought if there's any -- you know, some of

9 the main actions you might just give us a 

10 little update on other actions that are 

11 proceeding, other coworker models. You know, 

12 the exotic radionuclides, some of that stuff, 

13 whether it's -- you know, just give us maybe a 

14 little status report on some of those issues 

15 if you can today. That would be great.

16 DR. TAULBEE: Sure. Before I do 

17 that, though, I do appreciate you recognizing 

18 that the team has been working very hard on 

19 this, and so we haven't made a tremendous 

20 amount of progress on the other issues. They 

21 are still going on kind of in the background. 
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1 But, again, the team Mike Mahaffey is the 

2 ORAU lead on this site for us. And pulling 

3 this report together in this relatively short 

4 time period has taken a tremendous effort. 

5 And I really thank Mike for doing that and 

6 pulling this together pretty quickly.

7 With regard to the other issues, 

8 the main one that has been worked on is the 

9 exotic radionuclides, the coworker model 

10 associated with that. We had gone back, and 

11 I'm not sure if I reported this during the May 

12 or the February Board meetings, but we had 

13 coded or began coding all of the americium 

14 data, americium, curium and californium data 

15 from the logbooks, and that effort has been 

16 completed. And so the data is being cleaned 

17 up at this time and being checked and 

18 verified. And at that point we will begin the 

19 coworker model development. And this is a 

20 case where we are comparing the construction 

21 trades workers to non-construction trades 
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1 workers. And we've developed the methodology 

2 to do this.

3 As you might be aware, this is a 

4 rather difficult task compared to the tritium 

5 in that there's significant missed dose -- or 

6 not missed dose, a below-detection result 

7 associated with these particular radionuclides 

8 because of the way they were handled in glove 

9 boxes and fume hoods and so forth. So we have 

10 a lot of data and a lot of it is below11 detection limit. So we have developed methods 

12 on how to do that, and therefore doing a 

13 stratification comparison and the methodology 

14 is developed, not just for Savannah River but 

15 kind of complex-wide. Fernald, for example, 

16 is another one where we might use this 

17 particular type of methodology.

18 So we've ended up making progress 

19 on that. The data, like I said, has been coded 

20 and so we're getting ready to start that 

21 particular analysis.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Tim, you said 

2 that was for americium and californium?

3 DR. TAULBEE: Americium, curium, 

4 californium.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Curium and 

6 californium? Okay. 

7 DR. TAULBEE: And so, like I said, 

8 that effort is going to be first. These are 

9 actually coming in serial. There's some here 

10 we can work in parallel, we have been. But 

11 due to resource limitations when it gets down 

12 to the actual analysis part they do go in 

13 series. So this is where we're at with this 

14 one, the exotic -- 

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Do you have any 

16 idea on timing on this? As you're giving 

17 updates if you have any ideas on times?

18 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. Let me see. 

19 Give me just a second here to pull up our 

20 project plan of when we expect that this would 

21 be completed. It looks like the first draft 
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1 to us is going to be -- sorry. It looks like 

2 it's in November is when we will get the first 

3 draft of this. So I don't think it would be 

4 available by the December Board meeting, but 

5 shortly thereafter the final approved coworker 

6 model comparing construction trades workers to 

7 non-construction trade workers should be 

8 available.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

10 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. And the next 

11 one is neptunium, and then after that we'll go 

12 on to the next fission products and then the 

13 cobalt-60.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Am I still on?

15 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, you are.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I get 

17 confused with the *6.

18 Is there any sense, Tim, of --

19 because I'm just thinking here, you know, in 

20 terms of prioritizing. Assuming we accept the 

21 Class for these thorium areas anyway, a Class 
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1 related to thorium work, then that goes from 

2 '52 to '73, am I right on the dates there?

3 I guess my question would be is 

4 there anyway that if the -- for instance, I'm 

5 just giving an example, if the curium work was 

6 also in one of the areas covered by this SEC 

7 and the workers, the external monitored 

8 people, it would have been the same folks, 

9 then we might be able to de-prioritize those 

10 because they would already have been added to 

11 the SEC. Do you understand what I'm saying? 

12 Is there any way that you can look at that and 

13 prioritize, you know, assuming we add this 

14 Class?

15 DR. TAULBEE: Yes and no.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I knew that 

17 would be a clean answer.

18 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, clearly most --

19 the bulk of the americium, curium, californium 

20 work was done in 773A. So up through 1972, 

21 yes, that would be something that could, I 
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1 guess, be de-prioritized within that time 

2 period.

3 But really at that point it 

4 doesn't really buy us a whole lot. The time 

5 periods for this particular work that we're 

6 looking at really goes up into -- I think the 

7 dates here are 1963 through 1989. So post-'72 

8 there's still a significant fraction of work 

9 that's going on in those labs dealing with 

10 americium, curium, californium. So the 

11 addition of the '63 to '72 time period, once 

12 the data=s been coded, which is really the 

13 longest time period. And we are -- there are 

14 two parts to this.

15 The first part is coding the 

16 bioassay data. The second part is going 

17 through the work history cards to identify 

18 what that person's job title was when they 

19 left that bioassay sample. That latter part 

20 is what is taking the bulk of the time.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Understood.
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1 DR. TAULBEE: So once we get past 

2 that step the actual analysis goes fairly 

3 quickly. There's a lot of internal review 

4 that has to be done to check numbers, but the 

5 bulk of the time period is actually -- I 

6 wouldn't say -- it's post '72, '63 to '89 

7 covers a very large time period.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

9 DR. TAULBEE: So it's really not

10 adding that much work. So I guess --

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. And I 

12 would just say you don't have to give me 

13 necessarily the details on each one of these, 

14 but as you're doing your project planning, I'm 

15 sure you probably already thought of this, but 

16 you know if some of the ones are cleaner, in 

17 other words they are totally encapsulated by 

18 that SEC time frame, maybe put those at the 

19 end of your work to do, or whatever. If 

20 there's any way to be more efficient with our 

21 process, then keep that in mind, I guess is 
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1 what I would say.

2 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

4 DR. TAULBEE: Just to follow-on to 

5 that, I=m going to look at the cobalt-60 

6 dates, but I think the cobalt-60 might be 

7 completely encompassed by this Class. So I'll 

8 look at that.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

10 DR. TAULBEE: And the other one, 

11 polonium, which I think SC&A has a task right 

12 now, that would be completely encompassed by 

13 this Class. So that might be one that you 

14 might want to de-prioritize as well.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's what I'm 

16 looking for. Okay. Thank you.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: May I ask a 

18 question, Mark?

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sure, yes.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: The exotics, I 

21 only heard Tim mention the californium, 
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1 americium. Actually, I think we kind of 

2 decided -- this memory may not be serving me 

3 well, but that we were going to restrict the 

4 term "exotics" to other radionuclides than 

5 these specific ones and neptunium that are 

6 called out in the matrix. I mean, we've been 

7 using the term in different ways in different 

8 SECs. But there are a whole bunch of other 

9 radionuclides under exotics, and I'm wondering 

10 whether --

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I think 

12 your memory is correct that we decided to--

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- which is a 

14 separate category. And we've written a report 

15 about that. And, you know there's a table 

16 with what they are. I mean, I guess we agree 

17 there may not be 150, but you know there are 

18 dozens of them.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, right. 

20 And I think that's right. We did -- the ones 

21 we called out -- I think we've been saving 
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1 that longer list for it to be called 

2 "exotics," and these other ones we specified. 

3 I think you're right. So we should try to 

4 stick to that when we're discussing it, I 

5 guess, yes.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. I was just 

7 wondering about the status of what we have 

8 been calling exotics before.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. Yes. 

10 Go ahead, Tim, do you have 

11 anything on that, other --

12 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. We do have a 

13 report that is under development to address 

14 these other exotics, if you will. In fact,

15 I'll try and limit exotics to this other 

16 category, and this is responding to Arjun's 

17 report. We do have a report that's in draft 

18 and undergoing review currently. And it looks 

19 like the timeline for this one would be, 

20 again, the end of October first of November 

21 that we would be providing that to the Work 
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1 Group here.

2 One of the things that just struck 

3 me as I was talking about this one is that 

4 that would be another area where we could 

5 possibly eliminate some of these exotics if a 

6 Class were designated. Because a lot of this 

7 research took place in the 1960s in the 773A 

8 laboratory. So --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. 

10 DR. TAULBEE: So some of these 

11 might go away -- or not go away, but from an 

12 issues standpoint here.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. All 

14 right. 

15 And then, I'm sorry, I might have 

16 sidetracked your process there, but I think of 

17 the ones that were listed, I didn't hear 

18 neptunium. Did you report on that?

19 DR. TAULBEE: Neptunium is one 

20 that we will follow right after the americium, 

21 curium, californium. That's next in line.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. All 

2 right. 

3 DR. TAULBEE: Then we will move to 

4 the mixed fission products, and again I got to 

5 look at the cobalt-60 and see if that time 

6 period is already encompassed by this proposed 

7 SEC.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And what about 

9 neptunium timeline, where is that solved, do 

10 you know offhand?

11 DR. TAULBEE: The neptunium 

12 actually continues on into the latter time 

13 periods.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. All 

15 right. 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, this is 

17 Arjun.

18 So far as SC&A is concerned, give 

19 me a little direction. For the moment I'll 

20 just focus on thorium and we have some -- a 

21 couple of to-do items that are in other areas 
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1 --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Tim just 

3 mentioned polonium was something that you were 

4 tasked with.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. I was 

6 thinking it might be better to wait --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- until this 

9 matter is clarified --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. If this is 

11 going to be covered, it may not be a priority, 

12 right.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think polonium 

14 and tritium are responding to NIOSH's tritium 

15 report.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think sort of we 

18 were talking past each other a little bit in 

19 that tritium report. But I've been kind of --

20 knowing that this was coming, I kind of 

21 thought that we shouldn't be wasting effort 
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1 and to see what the outcome of this particular 

2 revision was going to be. So I'm looking for 

3 a little direction here as to whether you want 

4 me to focus on any other thing or just thorium 

5 for the moment?

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think just 

7 thorium for the moment.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

10 Tim, any other updates of 

11 significance? You don't have to go through the 

12 whole -- every matrix item, you know.

13 DR. TAULBEE: Again, just as 

14 priority issues, the americium, curium, 

15 californium, followed by neptunium, mixed 

16 fission products, cobalt-60 and then that 

17 exotic radionuclide report; those are our 

18 priorities right now that we are focused.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. All 

20 right. That sounds good. And I think we'll do 

21 what we just discussed at the upcoming Board 
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1 meeting. Tim, you're going to probably 

2 present similar to what you presented this 

3 morning to the full Board, right? An overview 

4 of the Addendum and then I'll just sort of 

5 give a very brief status that the Work Group 

6 discussed this as well and where we stand on 

7 it, or if it doesn't come up in your 

8 presentation, I'll at least raise the question 

9 of the concern about trying to designating 

10 workers by the badge number and that we 

11 discussed it a bit and, you know, it seems 

12 like you have a good basis for it. But also, 

13 we've seen pitfalls on this before. And let 

14 the full Board sort of discuss that I think is 

15 the best way to go with this.

16 And then, hopefully, we'll get a 

17 motion to move on this Class out of the next 

18 Board meeting. Because I think the Savannah 

19 River petitioners would appreciate that as 

20 well.

21 So that's really all I have. Does 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Savannah River Site Work 

Group, has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally 

identifiable information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been 

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Savannah River Site Work Group for accuracy at this 

time. The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to 

change. 

114 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 anybody else have anything else to add?

2 I know we had a couple of folks 

3 from the public, and I think one representing 

4 the petitioner, if there's any comments at 

5 this point? Okay. All right.

6 Tim, anything else? Ted, anything 

7 else to add?

8 MR. KATZ: No, Mark. This is 

9 Ted. Sounds all good.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, we were 

11 very efficient, and I think we're good to 

12 adjourn.

13 If Jim and Brad, do you have 

14 anything else to add before we adjourn?

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad. I 

16 just wanted to comment that Jim agreed with me 

17 today. I thought that was a milestone right 

18 there.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let the record 

20 say that B- state that.

21 (Laughter.)
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Savannah River Site Work 

Group, has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally 

identifiable information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been 

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Savannah River Site Work Group for accuracy at this 

time. The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to 

change. 

115 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

1 Okay. All right. Very good.

2 Well, everybody have a good 

3 weekend and if we don't talk before then, 

4 we'll see each other soon in Hanford.

5 Meeting adjourned.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

7 matter went off the record at 10:27 a.m.)

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This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Savannah River Site Work 

Group, has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally 

identifiable information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been 

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Savannah River Site Work Group for accuracy at this 

time. The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to 

change. 

116 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

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