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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

110th MEETING

+ + + + +

THURSDAY

MARCH 24, 2016

+ + + + +

The meeting convened at 8:30 a.m., 

Eastern Time, in the Hilton Tampa Airport 

Westshore, 2225 N. Lois Avenue, Tampa, Florida, 

James M. Melius, Chairman, presiding.
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PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member*

LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member*

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

CRAWFORD, FRANK, DOL

DARNELL, PETE, DCAS

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FROWISS, AL*

GRIFFON, MARK, DCAS Contractor

HAND, DONNA

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

NETON, JIM, DCAS

ROLFES, MARK, DCAS

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

STIVER, JOHN, SC&A

TAULBEE, TIM, DCAS

WOLZ, GERALD*

WORTHINGTON, PATRICIA, DOE

ZINK, BRIAN*

*Participating via telephone
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Contents 

Contents ......................................... 3

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS ........................ 4

IDAHO NATIONAL LAB SEC PETITION .................. 5

SAVANNAH RIVER SITE UPDATE ...................... 10

BOARD WORK SESSION .............................. 11

LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LAB SEC PETITION .... 59

PETITIONER COMMENT .............................. 84

BOARD WORK SESSION .............................. 88

ADJOURN ......................................... 96
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 (8:30 a.m.)

3 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good 

5 morning, everybody. And for this session we have 

6 three sites to talk about: INL, Savannah River and 

7 then Lawrence Livermore.

8 I think we accomplished all of our Board 

9 work issues yesterday so we'll probably be 

10 adjourning after Lawrence Livermore.

11 So we'll allow Mark to have one slide. 

12 Only kidding. Five minute presentation right now. 

13 A little longer than that, right? Yes.

14 So we'll start in, I guess, Josie, are 

15 you going to lead off on Idaho National Laboratory?

16 MR. KATZ: How about roll call? Let's 

17 do roll call first. Sorry to interrupt. I was 

18 waiting for permission to do roll call. So let's 

19 just run down the list and we'll address conflict 

20 of interest while we're at it.

21 (Roll call)
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1 MR. KATZ: Thank you. Very good. 

2 Okay. And just a note for people that might be 

3 listening in. Please mute your phones, press star 

4 six if you don't have a mute button and *6 again 

5 to take it off of mute.

6 And the materials for today are present 

7 on the NIOSH website under the DCAS section, 

8 scheduled meetings, today's date, and all the 

9 materials are there. You can follow along and 

10 there's also Live Meeting which is, the address is 

11 listed on the agenda which is on the NIOSH website. 

12 Thanks. Go ahead, Josie.

13 IDAHO NATIONAL LAB SEC PETITION 

14 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, good morning. 

15 I'm going to go ahead and do a brief report on Idaho 

16 National Labs. You see the Work Group there. All 

17 right, which one is it? It's got four words, yes, 

18 I'm hitting all of those and --

19 PARTICIPANT: Oh, I'm sorry I've set it 

20 up like that. Now try it.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Now we'll try it. 
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1 Okay, of the Work Group Members, Phil Schofield is 

2 our Chair. Josie Beach, Jim Melius, Dave 

3 Richardson, and Gen Roessler.

4 This gives you an idea of what 

5 activities we've been working on. If you'll note, 

6 November 10th, November 15th, and again on March

7 1st, we've been working on the Class Definition. 

8 We've also, I've got some dates in there for January 

9 25 through the 28th. We did an initial Work Group, 

10 and SC&A onsite and NIOSH, not to leave them out, 

11 onsite data capture with interviews.

12 We also did some follow-up interviews 

13 on the 16th of February, again on the 23rd, 24th 

14 and then again on March 15th and 16th. But again, 

15 our focus has been on our Work Group meetings with 

16 the Class Definition.

17 So just to remind you, the Class 

18 Definition, I know we've read it a couple times. 

19 I'm going to go ahead and do that again.

20 The proposed Class Definition is, all 

21 employees of the Department of Energy, its 
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1 predecessor agencies and their contractors and 

2 subcontractors, who worked at the Idaho National 

3 Lab, INL, in Scoville, Idaho, and A, who were 

4 monitored for external radiation at the Idaho 

5 Chemical Processing Plant, CPP, with at least one 

6 film badge or TLD dosimeter from CPP between 

7 January 1st, 1963, and February 28th, 1970, or B, 

8 who were monitored for external radiation at INL 

9 and with at least one film badge or TLD between 

10 March 1st, 1970 and December 31st, 1974, for a 

11 number of work days aggregating at least 250 work 

12 days, occurring either solely under this 

13 employment or in combination with work days within 

14 the parameters established for one or more other 

15 Classes of employees in the Special Exposure 

16 Cohort.

17 Okay. So the Work Group has a 

18 recommendation. We've been struggling with this 

19 Class Definition for months. Our recommendation 

20 is that we have a consensus within the Work Group 

21 on B, but questions do still remain regarding data 
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1 adequacy and implementation on A, proceeded with 

2 provision B. We want to proceed with provision B 

3 while awaiting final resolution of A. 

4 So just to go back, give you a quick -- most 

5 of you have this so I'm not going to reread it. So 

6 essentially we want to split it into the two parts.

7 And the proposed Class Definition would 

8 be all employees of the Department of Energy, its 

9 predecessor agencies and their contractors and 

10 subcontractors, who worked at the Idaho National 

11 Laboratories, INL, in Scoville, Idaho, and who were 

12 monitored for external radiation at INL with at 

13 least one film badge or TLD dosimeter between March 

14 1st, 1970, and December 31st, 1974, for a number 

15 of work days aggregating at least 250 work days 

16 occurring either solely under this employment or 

17 in combination with work days within the parameters 

18 established for one or more other Classes of 

19 employees in the Special Exposure Cohort.

20 Okay. We'd like to reserve Section A 

21 for employees who were monitored for external 
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1 radiation at Idaho Chemical Processing Plant, CPP, 

2 with at least one film badge or TLD dosimeter from 

3 CPP between January 1st, 1963, and February 28th, 

4 1970.

5 Okay. So we are going to continue 

6 working. Most of you will remember that at our 

7 last conference call these were given to you, the 

8 issues that we have with that first Section A.

9 So I'm going to briefly go over them. 

10 Then I'm going to ask Tim. There's been some new 

11 information since I put together these slides.

12 The first one is the completeness and 

13 adequacy of the recently discovered records, the 

14 INL visitor cards, and temporary film badge 

15 reports.

16 NIOSH reported that it would be 

17 difficult to validate their completeness without 

18 a secondary index or database with which to 

19 compare. It involves extensive research on 

20 NIOSH's part to validate.

21 That was true up until about, what, a 
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1 week ago, Tim?

2 DR. TAULBEE: Last Wednesday.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Last Wednesday. So I'm 

4 going to let Tim come up. He'll let you know where 

5 we're at with that first bullet.

6 SAVANNAH RIVER SITE UPDATE 

7 DR. TAULBEE: Thanks, Josie. As Josie 

8 mentioned earlier, we had a data capture last week 

9 out there on the site with SC&A.

10 And one of the things that I did while 

11 we were out there was look for additional monthly 

12 reports that could provide the secondary resource.

13 The previous group that we had, we only 

14 had monthly reports from 1963 through 1965 that 

15 would break out how many visitors and how many 

16 visitor badges we had. We presented that to the 

17 Work Group on March 1st during the meeting but we 

18 didn't have any data from 1966 through 1970 to do 

19 that verification.

20 But last week, last Wednesday we found 

21 them. And interestingly, in this box of monthly 
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1 reports these addendums, if you will, to those 

2 monthly reports, were stapled to the back of the 

3 folder for each of those months.

4 So that information had been captured, 

5 monthly reports from other sources, but here those 

6 reports that we had been following were available 

7 we just didn't know it until we found that box last 

8 week. And so we captured all of those secondary 

9 sources up through 1974 last week.

10 We haven't received them yet from the 

11 site. They're still undergoing ADC review, but I 

12 do expect to get them within the next week or two.

13 BOARD WORK SESSION 

14 MEMBER BEACH: Thanks, Tim. So those 

15 will be available but still a couple of months down 

16 the road.

17 Okay. Our second issue, bullet number 

18 2, was the reliance on subjective judgements based 

19 on weight of evidence to determine worker location 

20 where definitive location records are lacking.

21 NIOSH indicated that it's difficult to 
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1 prove a negative and that such judgements are 

2 common and supportable for dose reconstructions 

3 but not, in our opinion, the Work Group's, 

4 necessarily for SEC inclusion.

5 The Work Group remains concerned over 

6 such subjective criteria which to date have not 

7 been used in SEC Class Definitions that would be 

8 implemented by DOL.

9 The next question is third bullet, 

10 discrepancies in spelling of worker names on 

11 temporary badge records in the absence of other 

12 identifiers such as a Social Security number or a 

13 badge number. It's not clear whether it would be 

14 feasible to correct or accredit erroneous name 

15 entries so that no badge records are missed.

16 Now these were the three main ones. I 

17 had a whole list of different issues that I jotted 

18 down at our last Work Group meeting. To see that 

19 you could go into our portion of the transcript that 

20 was sent out.

21 Next steps. So the Class Definition is 
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1 the, of course, primary issue. NIOSH and SC&A are 

2 to, also we're doing a, reviewing an additional 30 

3 claims submitted since May.

4 We started with 881. We got down to 18 

5 issues. Those were pretty much cleared up at our 

6 last Work Group meeting.

7 We're going to actually start with 15. 

8 The 30 aren't all quite available yet. So instead 

9 of waiting for all 30 of the new claims to come 

10 through and be ready, we're going to have SC&A start 

11 with 15. NIOSH is going to start with the 15 and 

12 just keep rolling on those reviews to see how it 

13 all works out.

14 We also have temporary badge reports 

15 that need to be indexed. Tim can probably explain 

16 it better but they're very small cards. I know 

17 we've talked about it. To index those is going to 

18 take at least six to nine months.

19 And then SC&A is going to submit a draft 

20 proposal on how to validate and verify all those 

21 index cards that we're talking about. We're 
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1 looking at April 2016 for that.

2 So all these steps will take 

3 considerable amount of time to complete, several 

4 months for these documents to be cleared and 

5 uploaded into the SRDBs. 

6 Ongoing review, INL is continuing. 

7 We're continuing with our data capture and 

8 interviews. SC&A is going to continue reviewing 

9 all INL early years, the burial grounds, CPP, 

10 central facilities.

11 And a traditional, just so you know, the 

12 traditional Evaluation Report is still ongoing 

13 while the SEC Class is being worked.

14 So that's all moving forward. And I 

15 leave you with questions. And I know Joe's here, 

16 John, Tim, if there's anything that I can't answer. 

17 Yes? And oh, yes, other Work Group Members, please. 

18 Push the button.

19 MEMBER ROESSLER: The button.

20 MEMBER BEACH: There you go.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is on. I just 
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1 want to point out that those last few slides that 

2 Josie presented have to do with that reserve 

3 portion of the original petition.

4 Those are things that are going to take 

5 a good bit of time to do and that would be the A 

6 part of the petition.

7 What we're proposing today is the part 

8 of the petition that has Part B. These comments 

9 don't impact that. The Work Group felt that if we 

10 could go with Part B, which we all agreed on was 

11 ready to go, we could then get this moving. People 

12 who are waiting and waiting for these results could 

13 then be funded. And then it will take, you know, 

14 some amount of time to go with the other portion.

15 So what, I guess we maybe could have 

16 questions, but eventually I want introduce a motion 

17 that we accept this new Class Definition.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The motion actually 

19 is the Work Group report which Josie just made, so.

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any other 
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1 questions? Yes, David?

2 (Off mic question)

3 MR. KATZ: Dave, you're mic's not on. 

4 Jim, why don't you just share your mic with Dave.

5 MR. LOCKEY: Yes.

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Thank you. Thank 

7 you. Roughly how many months would you estimate 

8 it will be until the second group becomes 

9 validated? You can't give a hard number but if you 

10 -- roughly?

11 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I put the next step 

12 slide back up. We are interested in the temporary 

13 badge reports because we want to verify that we 

14 aren't missing anybody in that Class Definition. 

15 And it looks like six to nine months.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

17 MEMBER BEACH: There's a lot of them.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: So it would be 

19 roughly by the end of the year?

20 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. Not only do we 

21 want them in the SRDB but we also want SC&A to be 
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1 able validate that. So yes, it's a while.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Thanks.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Can I just add 

4 I think it's -- this is a confusing situation. The 

5 fact that it's new information that keeps coming 

6 up. But remember, the first Class Definition 

7 requires badging within one area of CPP.

8 MEMBER BEACH: CPP.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The definition we're 

10 proposing requires badging within the site, 

11 basically. Anywhere on the site for during that 

12 time period. It is possible, though I think less 

13 likely that some of the people that would be badged 

14 and would then be eligible for the second one would 

15 have a -- might have a temporary badge.

16 And so to some extent the 

17 implementation of this definition may depend on 

18 that data.

19 MEMBER BEACH: That first part.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, the first part 

21 and, well, getting all these temporary badges 
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1 entered and keyed. But we think that's probably 

2 sort of a small part of it unless it's, you know, 

3 less important than it is for the CPP portion. 

4 Until we see it, it's hard to tell. But it may not 

5 even be that important for the CPP. We know that 

6 to some extent it will, but to what extent there 

7 were people there.

8 So we felt comfortable, I think, there 

9 may be, I think, we've asked NIOSH to communicate 

10 with DOL that they need to be careful on turning 

11 down people during the time they weren't badged 

12 simply until all this data gets entered.

13 I'm not sure if the monthly reports are 

14 going to take care of that and I think they'll help. 

15 But you still don't know if they're --

16 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What's complete and 

18 so forth until we've looked at it, so it --

19 MEMBER BEACH: Well, and I didn't 

20 really speak to the implementation part on the DOL 

21 side but that's one of our concerns.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Huge concern.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. But and I 

4 would add though that our understanding is that 

5 NIOSH and DOL and DOE have worked out the system 

6 so that it should be good access in terms of being 

7 able to locate people.

8 On the temporary badge one is where 

9 we're most concerned, is, was it the one person had 

10 eight different names or six different names 

11 entered?

12 MEMBER BEACH: Several different, yes, 

13 spellings.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, with the 

15 spellings of their name.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And first name mixed 

18 up with last, I mean, it was bad. And it's just 

19 nature of a sort of a casual sign in kind of system. 

20 But as I said, for this part I think we're 

21 comfortable going ahead, but it's not without some 
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1 complications.

2 And I think we asked for dates on the 

3 site. And it seems every time Tim and SC&A go out 

4 and visit the site they find something new, so you 

5 never know.

6 MEMBER BEACH: Correct. SC&A, 

7 anything to add or -- and you don't have to, just,

8 okay, well. Do we need a second or -- okay.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Question here.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Paul. Go 

11 ahead.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Paul Ziemer. My 

13 question really, my main concern is the 

14 implementation history. So DOL now is going to 

15 have access to film badge data or TLD data? I mean, 

16 ordinarily they don't need that for an SEC. So 

17 they will have access to the monitoring data then, 

18 is that what you're saying?

19 DR. TAULBEE: This is Tim Taulbee. I 

20 think I can answer this. What will basically be 

21 happening is that when DOL requests employment 
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1 verification, at that time they will look for the 

2 badging information during that particular 

3 interval for SEC Class eligibility. So DOL won't 

4 be looking but DOE will be.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: And DOE will confirm 

6 eligibility on that basis then?

7 DR. TAULBEE: That's my understanding, 

8 yes.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I gather you've 

10 determined they're comfortable with it or 

11 semi-comfortable.

12 DR. TAULBEE: The feedback we've 

13 gotten from DOL is that this Part B Class, they are 

14 comfortable with.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: They are more 

17 comfortable than we are probably, but at least some 

18 days, but.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. I don't know if 

20 that's good or not.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I think we'll 
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1 find out. I mean it -- a lot of this what we, how 

2 we go forward just like depends on this temporary 

3 badge situation. And until it gets entered and, 

4 you know, I think we're glad they found them, but 

5 it's a lot of work and until that can be looked at 

6 and verified it's going to be some uncertainty with 

7 this.

8 PARTICIPANT: There's still a lot of 

9 people that --

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we'll get, 

11 obviously. Any other questions on the -- okay. 

12 We have a motion which, from the Work Group which 

13 is up there. No further comments? I don't know, 

14 are the petitioners on the line?

15 MR. KATZ: They're not.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: They're not. Okay.

17 MR. KATZ: At least they didn't want to 

18 make comments.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Yes. Then 

20 go ahead, Ted and do roll call.

21 MR. KATZ: Yes. So, Dr. Anderson?
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

3 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson's recused. Dr. 

5 Field?

6 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Kotelchuck?

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen is absent. I'll 

10 collect his vote. Dr. Lockey?

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston is absent. I'll

17 collect his vote. Dr. Richardson?

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?
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1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Ms. Valerio?

3 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: And the majority has it and 

7 the motion passes.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And if you'll bear 

9 with me. The Advisory Board on Radiation Worker 

10 Health, the Board, has evaluated Special Exposure 

11 Cohort, SEC Petition 00219, concerning workers at 

12 the Idaho National Laboratory, INL, in Scoville, 

13 Idaho, under the statutory requirements 

14 established by the Energy Employees Occupational 

15 Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 and 

16 incorporated into 42CFR, Section 8313.

17 The Board respectfully recommends that 

18 SEC status be afforded to accorded to, quotes, all 

19 employees at the Department of Energy and 

20 predecessor agencies and their contractors and 

21 subcontractors who worked at the Idaho National 
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1 Laboratory, INL, in Scoville, Idaho, and were 

2 monitored for external radiation at INL (e.g., at 

3 least one film badge or TLD dosimeter) during the 

4 period from March 1st, 1970 through December 31st, 

5 1974, for a number of work days aggregating at least 

6 250 work days occurring either solely under this 

7 employment or in combination with work days within 

8 the parameters established for one or more other 

9 Classes of employees in the Special Exposure 

10 Cohort.

11 This recommendation is based on the 

12 following factors. Workers at this facility 

13 during the time period in question were involved 

14 in operations related to nuclear weapons 

15 production.

16 NIOSH's review of available monitoring 

17 data as well as available process and source term 

18 information for this facility found that NIOSH 

19 lacked the sufficient information to allow it to 

20 estimate with sufficient accuracy the potential 

21 internal doses which employees at this facility may 
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1 have been subjected. The Board concurs with this 

2 determination.

3 NIOSH also determined that health may 

4 have been endangered for these INL employees during 

5 the time period in question. The Board also 

6 concurs with this determination.

7 Based on these considerations and the 

8 discussions of March 23rd and 24th, 2016 Board 

9 meeting in Tampa, Florida, the Board recommends 

10 that this Class be added to the SEC.

11 Enclosed is the documentation from the 

12 Board meeting where this SEC Class was discussed. 

13 This documentation includes copies of the 

14 petition, the NIOSH review thereof, and related 

15 materials.

16 If any of these items are unavailable 

17 at this time, they will follow shortly.

18 Okay. Comments, questions? Okay.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Savannah River. 

20 Stu, I'm going to need your help.

21 DR. TAULBEE: Thank you, Dr. Melius. 
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1 I want to give an update, or actually I was asked 

2 to give an update on the Savannah River site SEC.

3 And in particular, what I'm going to 

4 focus on here in this presentation is the coworker 

5 models which is the main thing, the main activity 

6 that our team has been working on.

7 And this is regarding SEC-103. You may 

8 recall that a few years ago we, the ORAU Team, 

9 produced a coworker model and it's ORAUT-OTIB-81.

10 And this is a multi-radionuclide 

11 coworker model. There are eight radionuclides or 

12 combinations of radionuclides that we have in this 

13 particular model.

14 One of the things that changed during 

15 our deliberations about this coworker model was 

16 that the Work Group asked that NIOSH develop a 

17 coworker implementation guide. And this was 

18 something that Jim Neton developed and he presented 

19 here to the Board last summer and there's been much 

20 discussion about it.

21 Well, as I recall, the Board here wanted 
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1 to see some examples of the coworker models 

2 implementing, or using this implementation guide.

3 So we went back to the data here within 

4 this coworker model and started to apply all of the 

5 concepts and criteria that were in the 

6 implementation guide to demonstrate to the Board.

7 And so we started with number one and 

8 number five here that I bolded here, tritium and 

9 the exotic radionuclides, because those databases 

10 were the most complete at the time. And when I say 

11 complete, what we did for two, three, four, the 

12 plutonium uranium mixed fission products, is we 

13 used claimant data only. We didn't use the full 

14 set of data that was available.

15 And where we began to come into problems 

16 is with coworker strata. The Coworker 

17 Implementation Guide indicates that known 

18 differences and monitoring a work type should be 

19 stratified. And so by just using the claimant pool 

20 we didn't have the sufficient construction trades 

21 worker data for those other ones. We have to code 
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1 more data in order to do those.

2 But the americium, curium, 

3 californium, and thorium model, we had coded all 

4 of the data and we had sufficient construction 

5 trades as well as operations worker so we could 

6 develop the two models. The same with the tritium 

7 because of the large numbers of workers were 

8 monitored.

9 What we found when we went back to do 

10 that strata is that because these two models --

11 these two reports, Report 55 and Report 50, were 

12 done about a year and a half to two years apart.

13 The actual criteria we used to define 

14 a construction trades worker was slightly 

15 different between the two. So we needed to get 

16 these two definitions back to the same so that we 

17 would be, you know, able to present to you the exact 

18 same criteria of what we use to define.

19 And this had to do with some payroll 

20 numbers of roll four workers and roll five workers 

21 as well as there were certain, what I call roll two 
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1 workers, that were basically millwrights and did 

2 maintenance there within the facilities.

3 And we learned that from interviews 

4 that we had conducted out at the Savannah River 

5 site. So this is one of the major steps that we 

6 had to do with those two.

7 The next thing that we went to look at 

8 was these databases and how complete, or complete's 

9 not the right word here. How accurately the data 

10 was transcribed from hard copy into an electronic 

11 form.

12 And it requires, the Coworker 

13 Implementation Guide requires us to evaluate the 

14 dataset that we're going to be using in the model.

15 Well, late last, or last fall DCAS 

16 established an acceptable transcription error 

17 rate. And what we set that at was less than one 

18 percent error on critical fields.

19 These would be the analytical results 

20 that we would use to develop the actual intake 

21 model, and less than five percent error on all 
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1 critical and non-critical fields combined. This 

2 would be analytical results, their name, their 

3 payroll ID, the sample dates, sample type.

4 Because we're using the Time-weighted 

5 one person one statistic, these other criteria are 

6 not quite as important as that actual analytical 

7 result.

8 And so the overall team developed the 

9 sampling plan to evaluate the error rates within 

10 these parameters. And so we applied it to both the 

11 americium and the tritium datasets that we had.

12 So for the americium, we had 37,461 

13 analytical results, or critical fields. And so we 

14 sampled 2,866 critical fields and compared to the 

15 hard copy for transcription errors.

16 And we found 38 critical field errors, 

17 or 1.33 percent. Since we established one percent 

18 as a proved criteria, this dataset failed.

19 Now because we're using the sampling of 

20 only 2866, there's a 95th percent confidence 

21 interval about that point estimate. And the 
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1 confidence interval was 0.96 to 1.79.

2 So it was fairly tight but it still 

3 failed. It didn't meet our one percent criteria 

4 for a critical field.

5 Within that same dataset there were 

6 about 229,000 non-critical fields. We sampled 

7 16,000 fields because at the time we were doing kind 

8 of cluster sampling, if you will.

9 In that, we sampled all of the 

10 non-critical fields off of that same 2866 fields. 

11 We've since not done that anymore. We've done a 

12 true random sampling.

13 But in the non-critical fields we had 

14 152 non-critical field errors, or an error rate of 

15 0.93 percent, which passed because this was the one 

16 that we required the dataset to be -- have an error 

17 rate of less than five percent.

18 So because of the critical field the 

19 section failed. We did a hundred percent line by 

20 line comparison of the analytical results to the 

21 original hard copy records and then we resampled.
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1 And you'll see that the number of 

2 analytical results increased. This was because 

3 some of the data coders had inadvertently taken 

4 individual samples and coded them as if they were 

5 recounts of the same sample. So we actually had 

6 more samples when they corrected this error that 

7 was originally found within that dataset.

8 So again we sampled 2864 critical 

9 fields, compared hard copy records and we found 

10 seven critical field errors, or 0.24 percent, with 

11 a confidence interval of 0.11 to 0.49. So in this 

12 case the americium, curium, californium, thorium 

13 dataset passed.

14 And I will say that all of this work, 

15 the initial discovery of the failure occurred late 

16 December. The hundred percent line by line 

17 verification took place in January and early 

18 February. And then the resampling was here at the 

19 end of February and validated.

20 So with regards to the tritium dataset 

21 we had 260,000 analytical results or critical 
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1 fields. We sampled 31 critical fields. We found 

2 nine critical field errors of 0.29 percent and so 

3 this dataset passed. Or at least that component 

4 of the dataset passed.

5 We had 780,000 non-critical field data 

6 points. And here's where we got to drop the 

7 sampling from that initial one. We stopped doing 

8 cluster and started true random on the non-critical 

9 fields. And we could go down to 624 because 

10 remember, we're looking for that less than five

11 percent so it's much less stringent than that one 

12 percent on the critical fields.

13 We found three non-critical field 

14 errors, or 0.48 percent. So the whole tritium 

15 dataset passed.

16 So our current status is the exotic 

17 radionuclides, americium, curium, californium, 

18 thorium dataset has passed the QA check and the 

19 model using time-weighted one person one statistic 

20 is being developed.

21 The tritium dataset is actually 
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1 trailing the americium dataset, thank you. Pardon 

2 me. And the reason is that one of the indicators 

3 to identify the strata, for the tritium dataset we 

4 pulled in a lot of other datasets with work 

5 occupational information, work history type of 

6 information.

7 And one of those datasets failed the QA 

8 check and that was the mixed fission products. So 

9 as a result we've got to do a subsequent QA check 

10 of the strata component that was used in the tritium 

11 dataset independently of the other non-critical 

12 fields and that's just so that we get the strata 

13 right.

14 We anticipate delivering these two 

15 completed models to the SEC's Issues Work Group in 

16 July before the Advisory Board meeting in August.

17 And so that's our current status with 

18 the coworker models. As you can see we've been 

19 working on them. We did run into some difficulty 

20 and we've corrected that situation and are moving 

21 forward again. So with that I'll be happy to 
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1 answer any questions.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions for the 

3 Board? Brad? 

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I think I 

5 passed Tim my mic. So Tim, I'll be honest. If 

6 somebody was to look at all these stratas and 

7 everything else that you're looking at, you kind 

8 of have to make it fit.

9 And my thing is, is how long is it going 

10 to be before we have an approved coworker model? 

11 Because time is a big thing especially on Savannah 

12 River.

13 We have -- we're at this a couple of 

14 three years now. What time frame are we looking 

15 at before we'll be able to have something that we 

16 can give to SC&A to be able to start reviewing?

17 DR. TAULBEE: Well, as I indicated here 

18 in the last slide, these first two models will be 

19 ready to be given to SC&A in the SEC Issues Work 

20 Group so they can review our implementation of this 

21 coworker model.
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1 The only difference from, you know, 

2 here's all eight of them. And these are the 

3 methods that we're using, number one and number 

4 five. So these are examples of how we're 

5 implementing the coworker model.

6 The other work will be continuing along 

7 there but SC&A can start looking at number one and 

8 five by the time we get to July, I believe. I 

9 believe we'll have that ready.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Appreciate 

11 it.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Are there other 

13 questions?

14 DR. TAULBEE: What Jim was just talking 

15 to me about, sorry, was we are already stratifying 

16 all of these models, okay. That was one of the 

17 things with the implementation guide.

18 There was one of the things we didn't 

19 do before on OTIB-81. It was not stratified. 

20 We're doing that now. And so the tritium and the 

21 exotic radionuclides we're doing now, so we'll be 
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1 at construction trades and we'll also be in 

2 operations.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Jim, I just 

4 had one other question. You said to the SEC worker 

5 but you're meaning the Savannah River worker or are 

6 you sending it to the SEC worker?

7 DR. TAULBEE: That's unclear to me to 

8 be quite honest. I imagine, I guess, it goes to 

9 both.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Both, both.

11 DR. TAULBEE: Okay.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: They go to both.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

14 DR. TAULBEE: The coworker model as a 

15 whole came out under the SEC. The Draft 

16 Implementation Guide went to the SEC Issues Work 

17 Group. That was why. And they're the ones who 

18 asked for the examples. But we'll send it to both, 

19 no problem.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I would add, I 

21 talked to Stu yesterday. I am concerned that all 
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1 this work on the coworker models is going to take 

2 a long time.

3 It's not that anybody's at fault but 

4 it's just a lot of effort involved here and even 

5 aside from the glitches and data entry, it takes 

6 time and effort.

7 And so I asked Stu if he could sort of 

8 start looking at ways of evaluating some of these 

9 datasets a little bit earlier, rather than having 

10 to go through the whole data entry process and so 

11 forth.

12 I mean, so like, so one of the obvious 

13 ones is, do you stratify, you know, by construction 

14 versus production or some other parameter.

15 And is there going to be enough actual 

16 data to us over the time periods involved, density 

17 of the data to be able to support a reasonable 

18 coworker model?

19 Because if we have to go down the line 

20 all the time to the full coworker model to then 

21 judge it, so a site like Savannah River and probably 
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1 a site like INL, we're going to be, you know, we're 

2 talking many, many years.

3 And I'm not sure that's appropriate, 

4 given we have SEC requests and so forth and all of 

5 that.

6 I'd much rather see the effort going 

7 into coworker models that can be supported and will 

8 be supported, not that we'll be -- we'll have to 

9 reject.

10 So I think that would help move us 

11 along. We thought we originally would be SEC Work 

12 Group when we were going to sort of test the 

13 criteria with some models so this could be done more 

14 quickly.

15 But unfortunately we're at a point 

16 where we -- either models had already been done and 

17 the other having to go back didn't make sense. 

18 Tried to go forward but going forward takes time.

19 I think as we also talked, we're also 

20 at some sites now. Again, Savannah River and INL, 

21 where there's a lot of data. And in some ways 
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1 that's good but in other ways, because it justifies 

2 and supports a coworker model, at the same it makes 

3 it a lot of work.

4 DR. TAULBEE: It is.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we'll see how they 

6 look through this. But we want to keep Savannah 

7 River in, I mean, obviously all these SEC sites 

8 moving along, so, with that, any other questions, 

9 follow-up? Yes, David?

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Thanks. I think I 

11 just need to get up to speed a little bit. So one 

12 question just to follow-up off after Dr. Melius's 

13 question about kind of the periods and completeness 

14 of the data.

15 So for a model for americium, for 

16 example.

17 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Is that based on in 

19 vivo counting? Is that where the --

20 DR. TAULBEE: No, these are 

21 urinalysis. This is a trivalent urinalysis. 
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1 What they did was a separation of the urine. And 

2 they would extract off the uranium and neptunium 

3 and then the plutonium and then gross alpha count 

4 the remainder that came through.

5 And the remainder that came through was 

6 americium, curium, californium and thorium.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So those are 

8 looked at as an aggregate, it's not -- even though 

9 it's cloning an americium model it's for something 

10 which is --

11 DR. TAULBEE: Right. That's correct.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

13 DR. TAULBEE: And what we apply from a 

14 dose reconstruction standpoint, is we look at all 

15 those radionuclides in the organ of interest and 

16 whichever one results in the higher dose to that 

17 organ, that's the radionuclide that we assume and 

18 apply during dose reconstruction.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And when you were 

20 talking about evaluating transcription error, is 

21 this off of the sites database, electronic database 
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1 of bioassay data?

2 DR. TAULBEE: No. These are the 

3 original log books where they would take a batch 

4 of urinalysis, of urine samples and so they were 

5 hand entered into the datasets.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: By whom though?

7 DR. TAULBEE: By the site, the site had 

8 --

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: By the site.

10 DR. TAULBEE: The site had entered the 

11 data into the log books.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: That's what I, 

13 right.

14 DR. TAULBEE: And then we transcribed 

15 them into this dataset, an electronic dataset that 

16 we have done.

17 And that's what you're seeing here with 

18 our error evaluation, was we went back and sampled 

19 these particular data points within the electronic 

20 dataset and said, go back and look at the original 

21 hard copy record and does that match.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But am I --

2 DR. TAULBEE: So did we get the 

3 transcription correct.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Am I 

5 misremembering, doesn't the site have an 

6 electronic repository of bioassay results?

7 DR. TAULBEE: It only goes back to 

8 1989. There is some that goes back prior to that 

9 but in this time period that we're looking at, is 

10 really going from the 1960s up through the 19, well, 

11 up through 1989.

12 1989 is when we started using the site's 

13 electronic data but at this time period we're using 

14 the original log books.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. So you were 

16 evaluating the key punching that you had contracted 

17 with the --

18 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

20 DR. TAULBEE: And that's the, there's 

21 actually, there's two, for every one of these 
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1 analytical results that we've got here that's 

2 actually double because there's a reported value 

3 and then there's an actual result that's reported.

4 And if you recall the individual 

5 bioassay cards that would say sometimes less than 

6 0.1 or something like that or DPM per sample, we 

7 have the original log books, so if it's less than 

8 0.1, say it's 0.05, we can enter that 0.05.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

10 DR. TAULBEE: And so they had both the 

11 analytical, the reported result that went on the 

12 cards as less than 0.1, as well as the original data 

13 point of 0.005 or something like that. And so we 

14 have both of them. So in total we have about 17,000 

15 americium, curium, californium bioassay samples.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. I swear I 

17 thought that there was a, at least a date of intake 

18 and some quantitative expression for the SRS prior 

19 to 1989, but maybe --

20 DR. TAULBEE: There is a, Tom LaBone 

21 had developed back when he worked there at the site, 
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1 people with known intakes. He did develop a 

2 database for that purpose.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

4 DR. TAULBEE: As well as there's 

5 another system that they use to keep track of who 

6 was chelated and so forth. And we tapped those in 

7 order to take out the chelation samples because 

8 it's really not an accurate representation of the 

9 coworker. But these numbers are all where that 

10 data's been removed.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And the tritium, 

12 similarly you re-key punched the tritium data or 

13 did you use the site's electronic data?

14 DR. TAULBEE: I believe we repunched 

15 but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. I have 

16 to get clarification on that.

17 But the tritium in this particular 

18 case, there's many more than 260,000 tritium 

19 bioassay at the Savannah River site. This dataset 

20 came from claimant data that had been provided to 

21 us so we went through each of the, you know -- when 
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1 we did the dose reconstruction, we go through and 

2 they enter all of those bioassay for each of the 

3 claimants and that was the dataset that we used for 

4 tritium.

5 And because we have so many workers and 

6 so many samples we didn't feel like we needed to 

7 go back and try and get all tritium across the site. 

8 We felt that the, using OTIB-75 that the NOCTS 

9 claimant pool was sufficiently large for tritium 

10 and as you see, 260,000 tritium bioassays is quite 

11 significant.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, it's a lot of 

13 urine samples.

14 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It raises some other 

16 questions about the source of your sample.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: I was wondering about 

18 the neptunium report. Where are we at on that?

19 DR. TAULBEE: The neptunium report 

20 just hit my desk for review last week or maybe it 

21 was the week before. It did finally clear from ADC 
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1 review out of Savannah River. We did get all of 

2 those issues cleared up.

3 And so I have it to review and I expect 

4 that in the next month or so we'll be able to provide 

5 that to the Work Group.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: To the Work Group. 

7 Tim, you know, I'm going to be honest. Bringing 

8 it over from Mark, me and stuff like that, we have 

9 been through several evolutions with construction 

10 trades versus operations and none of those have 

11 really panned out.

12 So when we're talking about this 

13 coworker model, is it going to be for everyone or 

14 are we going to try to separate out again 

15 construction from operations?

16 DR. TAULBEE: What I indicated here on 

17 the second slide here, the third slide, is that we 

18 are separating them. We are breaking out 

19 construction trades. They will have their own 

20 model and operations will have their own model. So 

21 we are actually separating all of these 
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1 radionuclides between construction trades and 

2 non-construction trades.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and that's -- I 

4 thought the last go around we had on this we didn't. 

5 We were having quite a bit of problem separating 

6 construction from operations. We didn't have a 

7 clear cut way. Has that improved? Is this what 

8 I'm hearing or?

9 DR. TAULBEE: Because, yes. We had --

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: We went a couple ways. 

11 We went the paycheck route, we went indicators, but 

12 we come to find out that a lot of the construction 

13 trades in the midst of things would come to Savannah 

14 River and we really didn't have a foolproof way of 

15 separating them.

16 DR. TAULBEE: I believe that we do. 

17 We've got the payroll ID numbers which separate out 

18 the construction trades in roll four and then in 

19 addition to that, when they did become DuPont 

20 workers, let's say they went from construction 

21 trades into DuPont, they then went from roll four 
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1 into roll two.

2 What's important for the coworker model 

3 is when the bioassay sample was submitted, what was 

4 their job classification?

5 And so that's what we're looking at 

6 here. It doesn't really matter if they were 

7 construction trades in 1960 and then became DuPont 

8 in 1970.

9 The bioassay sample in, say 1965, 

10 that's construction trades worker and we've got to 

11 tag it as that. Their latter designation would be 

12 DuPont and so people can switch between the two 

13 within the coworker model.

14 When they get into the 1970s and they're 

15 working for DuPont, you know, as an operator, they 

16 will no longer be, that bioassay they left then will 

17 no longer be considered a construction trades 

18 worker bioassay because the work is different.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. And that's why 

20 we were getting into being able to follow these 

21 people through there. Now when you say their 
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1 designation and I'm not meaning construction or 

2 DuPont, their trade, you're talking like a welder 

3 or a operator or are you just separating it into 

4 the two?

5 DR. TAULBEE: Right now we're just 

6 separating into the two but we're retaining the 

7 data to where we could separate pipe fitters from 

8 electricians, et cetera, within the roll four and 

9 actually within roll two as far as their particular 

10 type of trade as well.

11 All we're proposing right now is to do 

12 the two, construction trades and non-construction 

13 trades. And once you look at these, you know, if 

14 there's further stratification we can certainly 

15 look at that.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I just -- I 

17 know that we've had a lot of problems with that and 

18 we've been down that road several times and I just, 

19 I was wanting to better understand. I appreciate 

20 that.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, you can always 
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1 have a meeting of the Work Group, you know, a 

2 conference call to get updated and if that would 

3 be helpful for the Work Group. So that may, and 

4 because it has been a while and I think there's --

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, this one's kind 

6 of interesting because the SEC requested this and 

7 so the Work Group really hasn't -- we haven't got 

8 lined out. And you're right, we probably may need 

9 to sit down with, and just have a -- come up to date 

10 with where we're at because we've got several 

11 outlying issues that need to be addressed.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Also a little more 

13 fair to Tim if we gave a little bit more warning. 

14 Then ORAU could be on the call too and I think it 

15 would be, might be more useful. And I don't think, 

16 you know, that's why things take a lot of time. But 

17 it would be a long meeting but it would be a way 

18 of getting up to date.

19 Any other Board Member questions?

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I have one 

21 more follow-up. Just again, I think I'm catching 
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1 up but so for the exotics, the 38,000 analytical 

2 results that are in the -- that's the data that have 

3 been keyed that are going to be the basis for the 

4 coworker models, is that right?

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

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And those, am I 

7 right that those are analytical results that have 

8 been keyed for people who have filed a claim?

9 DR. TAULBEE: No. With the americium, 

10 curium, californium, there weren't enough of just 

11 claimant data and so we went back and got all of 

12 those log books and keyed them all.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. Yes.

14 DR. TAULBEE: This is the exotic 

15 radionuclide.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

17 DR. TAULBEE: Everybody on the site was 

18 monitored for this particular radionuclide.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right. And very 

20 few people have a confirmed deposition on the site?

21 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, okay. So 

2 that's -- you expanded the pool because I was just 

3 looking back at what I recall and it's 800 confirmed 

4 depositions, maybe for all intakes and of those, 

5 when you're looking at these exotics, it's a small 

6 number with which to make a coworker model.

7 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct, that's 

8 correct. But when you go back to the log books 

9 there's a lot of results.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: A lot of results 

11 and very few confirmed depositions.

12 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any Board Members on 

15 the phone have questions?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: I have none.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Okay, Tim, 

18 don't go away. We're going back to Idaho for a 

19 second.

20 DR. TAULBEE: Okay.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we messed up 
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1 with our Class Definition. But my understanding 

2 is that the way our Class Definition reads now it 

3 indicates that a person has to be badged for 250 

4 days.

5 DR. TAULBEE: No. It should be a 

6 single badge.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, a single badge. 

8 Well, it doesn't say that. It doesn't say that. 

9 That's why I was hesitating when I was reading. I 

10 didn't realize this until I started reading the 

11 letter.

12 DR. TAULBEE: No, it should be, okay.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we have a 

14 correction we worked out.

15 DR. TAULBEE: Okay.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, but I just want 

17 to make sure I was correct in my assumption because 

18 it --

19 DR. TAULBEE: No, it's a single badge.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That my memory 

21 hadn't failed me and so forth. And the Work Group 
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1 has responsibility for this, the letter we all 

2 reviewed and it wasn't until I read the letter into 

3 the, I noticed that, you know, there was something 

4 problematic.

5 So the new definition would read that 

6 all employees at Department of Energy, its 

7 predecessor agencies and their contractors and 

8 subcontractors, who worked at the Idaho National 

9 Laboratory, INL, Scoville, Idaho, removing the 

10 and, who were monitored for external radiation at 

11 INL (e.g., having at least one film badge or TLD 

12 dosimeter) during the period from March 1st, 1970 

13 through December 31st, 1974, and who were employed 

14 for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 

15 work days.

16 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So you have one badge 

18 and at least one badge.

19 DR. TAULBEE: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And 250 work days.

21 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, yes. And the 
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1 reason was, is that anywhere, if you were badged 

2 during that time period you could have gone into 

3 CPP and conducted work.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes. And the 

5 badging --

6 DR. TAULBEE: Some of the badge --

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Some of the badging 

8 record systems don't really have a duration to 

9 them. At least --

10 DR. TAULBEE: They do but during that 

11 time period there were some people that could have 

12 been badged annually.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

14 DR. TAULBEE: And so they only had the 

15 one badge.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right.

17 DR. TAULBEE: So that's why.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Very good. 

19 Okay. So I think we need a motion for the Board 

20 to correct the Class Definition.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, I'll go ahead and 
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1 make that motion.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Good catch.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. If you'll 

5 like, I can reread it again. Except Ted took it 

6 away from me already. But we'll do it. So --

7 (Off the record comment)

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So, (e.g. 

9 comma, having at least having at least one film 

10 badge or TLD dosimeter) during the period from 

11 March 1st, 1970 through December 31st, 1974, and 

12 who were employed for a number of work days 

13 aggregating at least 250 work days, either solely 

14 under this employment or in combination with work 

15 days within the parameters established for one or 

16 more other Classes of employees in the Special 

17 Exposure Cohort.

18 So we've got the time period captured 

19 and we've got the 250 days employed either at INL 

20 or at some other site which sort of complicates it, 

21 but, so.
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1 So can we have a voice vote approving 

2 that change? All in favor say aye?

3 (Chorus of ayes)

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Opposed?

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Aye.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'll take it the aye 

7 was to supporting the motion or were you opposing 

8 the motion?

9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

10 went off the record at 9:28 a.m. and resumed at 

11 10:18 a.m.)

12 LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LAB SEC PETITION 

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So our final agenda 

14 item for this morning is the Lawrence Livermore 

15 National Laboratory SEC Petition.

16 And Mark Rolfes has been waiting very 

17 patiently so appreciate that. Welcome back. We 

18 haven't seen you for a while, so as I understand 

19 right, you've taken over for Sam Glover on this one.

20 MR. ROLFES: That's right.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So he handed it off 
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1 and disappeared to other pastures. Maybe not 

2 greener. So anyway, welcome back, Mark, and go 

3 ahead.

4 MR. ROLFES: Thank you. Good morning, 

5 everyone. Good morning members of the Advisory 

6 Board.

7 My name's Mark Rolfes. I'm a Health 

8 Physicist with the NIOSH Division of Compensation 

9 Analysis and Support. 

10 Today I'm here to present to you the 

11 findings of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

12 Special Exposure Cohort Evaluation.

13 The members of the ORAU Evaluation Team 

14 included Tim Adler, Bob Burns, Roger Halsey, Monica 

15 Harrison-Maples and Michael Kubiak.

16 The Special Exposure Cohort petition 

17 was received on October 7th, 2015, with a 

18 petitioner requested Class Definition of all DOE 

19 or DOE contractor employees who worked in any area 

20 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

21 within the 7000 East Avenue location in Livermore, 
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1 California, or within the site 300 location in 

2 Tracy, California, from January 1st, 1975, through 

3 October 28th, 2014.

4 The petition qualified for evaluation 

5 on January 6th, 2015 and the basis for 

6 qualification was that information available to 

7 NIOSH did not provide evidence that the gross alpha 

8 in vitro bioassay measurements upon which some 

9 coworker analysis were based were capable of 

10 detecting all potential exposure scenarios of 

11 concern.

12 Previous SEC Classes for Livermore have 

13 been added. The first was SEC 92. The Class was 

14 added for January 1st, 1950, through December 31st, 

15 1973, for employees who were monitored for 

16 radiation exposure.

17 The second SEC, 00163, the Class was 

18 expanded to include all employees for January 1st, 

19 1950, through December 31st, 1973, eliminating the 

20 "who were monitored" distinction.

21 There were limited in vitro and in vivo 
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1 bioassay data pre-1974 which were insufficient to 

2 support a sufficiently accurate coworker fission 

3 intake model.

4 The proposed Class for the current SEC 

5 evaluation was all employees of the Department of 

6 Energy, its predecessor agencies and its 

7 contractors and subcontractors who worked in any 

8 area at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

9 in Livermore, California, during the period from 

10 January 1st, 1974, through December 31st, 1989, for 

11 a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work 

12 days, occurring solely under this employment or in 

13 combination with work days within the parameters 

14 established for one or more other Classes of 

15 employees in the SEC.

16 Livermore was a covered facility from 

17 1950 through present. Its original mission was 

18 the development of thermonuclear weapons and the 

19 diverse scientific and engineering research 

20 activities.

21 The current mission is scientific, 
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1 technical, and engineering capabilities with a 

2 special focus on national security.

3 Other past research activities include 

4 the testing of nuclear weapons life cycle, 

5 strategic defense research, arms control and 

6 treaty verification technologies, fusion 

7 research, atomic vapor laser isotope separation, 

8 AVLIS, magnetic fusion, atmospheric sciences, and 

9 commercial nuclear waste.

10 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

11 is comprised of two sites. The 1.5 square mile 

12 main laboratory site, located at 7000 East Avenue 

13 in Livermore, California, and an 11 square mile 

14 explosive test site, also known as Site 300, 

15 located approximately 15 miles southeast of 

16 Livermore near Tracy, California.

17 The main laboratory consists of 

18 approximately 500 buildings and structures, 

19 approximately 50 of which of the operational 

20 buildings contain radiological materials areas.

21 NIOSH conducted onsite personnel 
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1 interviews along with the ORAU team members during 

2 January, February, April and September of 2015.

3 14 crafts and trades workers were 

4 interviewed, including electricians, health and 

5 safety technicians, machinists, maintenance 

6 workers, sheet metal workers, waste management, 

7 technicians and welders.

8 Also interviewed were Lawrence 

9 Livermore National Laboratory program staff, made 

10 up of engineering personnel, local security, 

11 hazardous waste, laser program personnel, nuclear 

12 chemistry, radiation protection, and weapons 

13 control and integration staff.

14 NIOSH and ORAU team conducted a total 

15 of ten week-long site visits between January and 

16 December of 2012 to review documents and select 

17 documents for this SEC evaluation.

18 NIOSH and ORAU staff also reviewed the 

19 materials accountability and control records. On 

20 October 1st, 2015, Lawrence Livermore National 

21 Laboratory released 1,400 documents and these 
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1 documents were reviewed by NIOSH and ORAU team 

2 through mid-December 2015.

3 This shows the number of previous dose 

4 reconstructions received from the Department of 

5 Labor. There were approximately 1,047 claims 

6 submitted for dose reconstruction from the 

7 Department of Labor.

8 The number of claims that were 

9 submitted for Energy Employees who worked during 

10 the period under evaluation from January 1st, 1974, 

11 through December 31st, 1989, was 942.

12 The number of dose reconstructions 

13 completed for Energy Employees who worked during 

14 the period under evaluation, this is the number of 

15 claims that were completed by NIOSH and submitted 

16 to the Department of Labor for final adjudication 

17 and approval, was 628.

18 The number of claims for which internal 

19 dosimetry records were obtained for the period 

20 under evaluation from 1974 through 1989 was 387.

21 And the number of claims for which 
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1 external dosimetry records were obtained for the 

2 period under evaluation was 757.

3 For the purposes of timeliness, NIOSH 

4 narrowed the focus or scope of the current 

5 evaluation to focus on the available data 

6 sufficiency and feasibility and conclusions as 

7 related to Building 251, for the period of January 

8 1st, 1974 through December 31st, 1989.

9 NIOSH will continue to review and 

10 evaluate the entire Lawrence Livermore National 

11 Laboratory site for the period from January 1st 

12 1974, through December 31st, 1995. It will 

13 proceed with issuing another evaluation report.

14 Building 251, the heavy element 

15 facility, was a major facility for supporting the 

16 U.S. Nuclear Testing Program and for basic 

17 research.

18 Building 251 had three main tasks under 

19 the Nuclear Testing Program. The first was the 

20 fabrication of nuclear tracers, the second was 

21 radiochemical analysis of bomb debris, and third 
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1 was the chemical research into transuranic 

2 radionuclides.

3 Building 251 had specialized equipment 

4 for manufacturing tracer sets. Most of the tracer 

5 sets used in the U.S. Nuclear Testing Program were 

6 manufactured in this building.

7 Separations on post-shot samples were 

8 performed in Building 252 after an initial sampling 

9 -- or initial sample processing at Building 151.

10 Building 251, Room 1235, contained the 

11 uranium tracer line, which was used to fabricate 

12 tracer sets containing uranium-233 and 

13 uranium-235.

14 The process included pressing oxide 

15 powders of uranium into pellets and soldering them 

16 into brass containers.

17 Waiting for my slide to change here. 

18 Okay. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

19 uranium-233 operations occurred almost 

20 exclusively in Building 251. Livermore received 

21 U-233 metal and oxide from the Rocky Flats plant 
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1 for use in tracer applications.

2 Inventory documents also implied that 

3 U-233 was received from the Oak Ridge National 

4 Laboratory as well.

5 Tracer sets were fabricated for all 

6 U.S. nuclear testing overseen by Livermore and for 

7 some select sets of tests conducted and overseen 

8 by Los Alamos National Laboratory.

9 Bomb fraction tracer sets were used to 

10 help determine the fission and fusion yields in the 

11 post-shot analysis of nuclear test debris.

12 The tracer capsules were filled with a 

13 radioactive isotope that was not produced in the 

14 explosion. Lawrence Livermore National 

15 Laboratory fabricated these tracer sets in 

16 Building 251.

17 Tracer U-233 exposure entails alpha 

18 emissions as an internal dose concern and gamma 

19 radiation associated with the decay product 

20 impurities.

21 There was a site-wide routine in vitro 
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1 monitoring program which was accomplished through 

2 a combination of four procedures. The first was 

3 gross alpha urinalysis, which was the primary 

4 bioassay for Building 251 employees.

5 The second was a gross beta urinalysis 

6 program, also called mixed fission product 

7 analysis, which was added for Building 251 in 1984.

8 There was a plutonium urinalysis 

9 program which was secondary for Building 251 and 

10 finally a uranium urinalysis program which was 

11 uncommon for employees of Building 251.

12 Though the MAPPER database is no longer 

13 used by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in 

14 vitro data contained within the MAPPER database 

15 span the 1974 through 1989 period of concern.

16 The MAPPER database contains 

17 monitoring data from the early 1960s through about 

18 1995. It is believed to be complete from 

19 approximately the mid-1970s forward.

20 A fully identified version of the 

21 database was provided to NIOSH in 2015. The MAPPER 
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1 database contains over 35,000 records, 

2 approximately 16,100 of these records fall within 

3 the evaluation period of 1974 through 1989.

4 The results in MAPPER are predominately 

5 urinalysis results and there are roughly 350 fecal 

6 samples as well.

7 This table summarized the in vitro 

8 results for Building 251 during the SEC period in 

9 evaluation from 1974 through 1989. You can see the 

10 great majority of the urinalysis results are for 

11 gross alpha and then also for Pu-239, followed by 

12 mixed fission products and beta results.

13 There's very few uranium urinalysis 

14 that were collected in Building 251. There's only 

15 five here.

16 The available in vitro results do not 

17 indicate evidence of a routine in vitro monitoring 

18 program for uranium associated with Building 251. 

19 The MAPPER database reveals only 5 urinalysis for 

20 uranium associated with Building 251 from 1979 

21 through 1989. All five of these results were 
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1 collected in 1980.

2 The urinalyses for uranium were 

3 analyzed using either fluorometric or 

4 phosphorescent measurements. The sample results 

5 therefore are expressed in terms of total uranium 

6 by mass.

7 There was routine in vitro monitoring 

8 for workers in Building 251 during 1974 through 

9 1989 which focused on transuranic materials via 

10 gross alpha and plutonium urinalyses. The gross 

11 alpha procedure was essentially identical to the 

12 Los Alamos National Laboratory americium 

13 urinalysis procedure.

14 In addition to americium and plutonium, 

15 the procedure states that it also carried actinium, 

16 curium, neptunium and thorium, but there's no 

17 mention of uranium.

18 The Lawrence Livermore National 

19 Laboratory gross alpha procedure was a bismuth 

20 phosphate extraction with addition of sulfate to 

21 the solution prior to the bismuth phosphate 
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1 extraction. The sulfates kept the uranium in 

2 solution while allowing the plutonium to form an 

3 insoluble precipitate.

4 NIOSH cannot assume thorium decay 

5 products from U-233 or the U-232 impurities would 

6 have been sufficiently present in the gross alpha 

7 in vitro analysis, given the fact that it could have 

8 been removed during production.

9 Gross beta in vitro analysis, if 

10 performed, are deemed insufficient for U-233, 

11 given the lack of countable electron emissions from 

12 U-233 and U-232 and the fact that the beta emitting 

13 decay products cannot be assumed to have been 

14 present. The plutonium urinalysis procedure was 

15 specific for plutonium.

16 In vivo monitoring at Lawrence 

17 Livermore National Laboratory was accomplished via 

18 whole-body scanning and/or organ counting. 

19 Livermore has no electronic repository for in vivo 

20 monitoring data.

21 The official in vivo records for 
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1 Livermore personnel are in hard copies which are 

2 stored in personnel files.

3 For Building 251 workers, chest and 

4 lung counting was the most likely method of 

5 bioassay, given the wide variety of transuranic 

6 materials which were handled in Building 251.

7 Using Lawrence Livermore National 

8 Laboratories in vivo data to assign potential doses 

9 from the intakes of U-233 and U-232 would be highly 

10 uncertain, given that gamma emitting decay 

11 products cannot be assumed to have been present.

12 In vivo monitoring results were found 

13 for seven Livermore employees associated with 

14 Building 251 from 1974 through 1995. Though there 

15 were some whole-body counts, most of the monitoring 

16 was for lung scans as would be expected in a 

17 transuranic facility.

18 NOCTS in vivo monitoring found only two 

19 workers associated with Building 251 from 1974 

20 through 1989. There were seven lung counts, 14 

21 whole-body counts and one liver count.
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1 NIOSH has no evidence of a 

2 comprehensive Lawrence Livermore National 

3 Laboratory repository for air monitoring data. 

4 NIOSH has very few results from within the 1974 

5 through 1989 evaluation time and or from Building 

6 251.

7 The 1980 DOE review of Building 251 

8 operations noted excessive failure rates for the 

9 continuous air monitors used in various 

10 laboratories in Building 251 and recommended that 

11 Livermore vigorously pursue improving the air 

12 monitoring in the building.

13 A 1990 DOE Tiger Team assessment noted 

14 air monitors and air samplers did not appear to be 

15 strategically placed with respect to capturing 

16 representative samples for workers.

17 It was further noted that breathing 

18 zone monitors were not used at Livermore and 

19 continuous air monitor placement appeared to 

20 emphasize general room area monitoring, rather 

21 than representative work place monitoring.
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1 Building 251 was surrounded by security 

2 fencing with access control by a controlled access 

3 by individual number booth, a CAIN booth.

4 NIOSH's first reference of CAIN booths 

5 is in March of 1980. 1980 log books indicate 

6 construction workers, electricians and site 

7 visitors were routinely present in the building 

8 during that time.

9 The machinist interviews indicate 

10 access controls were less stringent during the 

11 1970s and it was more common for them to work in 

12 different facilities across the site.

13 Researchers and support staff 

14 routinely went back and forth between Building 151 

15 and Building 251, as staff were needed.

16 A 1980 log book entry for Building 251 

17 indicates that the north door of Building 251 was 

18 wedged open while construction was going on in the 

19 building, and visitors to Building 151 were going 

20 over to Building 251 without wearing dosimeters.

21 NIOSH data capture and interview 
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1 efforts have been unable to locate comprehensive 

2 historical access control records for the site for 

3 Building 251.

4 Information currently available to 

5 NIOSH contains insufficient access control 

6 information or records for Building 251 and 

7 insufficient general site worker movement data to 

8 accurately assess whether an Energy Employee or 

9 Class of employees did or did not potentially enter 

10 Building 251 during the period from 1974 through 

11 1989.

12 NIOSH has determined that it has 

13 insufficient information to verify that the 

14 routine in vitro bioassay program for Building 251 

15 workers, either via combinations of analyses for 

16 gross alpha in urine, gross beta in urine and 

17 plutonium in urine, was adequately sensitive for 

18 the detection of U-233 intakes during the period 

19 of 1974 through 1989.

20 Similarly, NIOSH has determined that 

21 photon-emitting decay products and contaminants 
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1 cannot be assumed to have been sufficiently present 

2 in the U-233 source term to verify that the routine 

3 and in vivo bioassay program for Building 251 

4 workers was capable of detecting U-233 intakes 

5 during the period of 1974 through 1989.

6 Information available to NIOSH from 

7 multiple site inspections performed from 1980 to 

8 1991 indicate deficiencies in Livermore's 

9 implementation of the air monitoring program in 

10 Building 251.

11 NIOSH has determined that the available 

12 air monitoring data from Building 251 may not be 

13 adequately representative of the worker breathing 

14 zones and are consequently not considered 

15 sufficient for Building 251 dose reconstruction 

16 during the period of 1974 through 1989.

17 Therefore, it is not feasible to 

18 estimate with sufficient accuracy the U-233 

19 internal doses for Livermore workers in Building 

20 251 during the period from January 1st, 1974, 

21 through December 31st, 1989.
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1 Information currently available to 

2 NIOSH contains insufficient access control records 

3 for Building 251 and insufficient generals type 

4 worker data that would allow for NIOSH to 

5 accurately assess whether a Class of employees did 

6 or did not potentially enter Building 251 during 

7 the period under evaluation.

8 NIOSH therefore recommends the 

9 extension of the recommended Class to include all 

10 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers 

11 during the period from January 1st, 1974, through 

12 December 31st, 1989.

13 NIOSH finds that it is feasible to 

14 reconstruct occupational medical dose for Lawrence 

15 Livermore National Laboratory employees with 

16 sufficient accuracy during the period from January 

17 1st, 1974, through December 31st, 1989.

18 Consistent with the findings of NIOSH's 

19 2010 evaluation of Lawrence Livermore National 

20 Laboratory Special Exposure Cohort Petition 00163, 

21 NIOSH finds the external dose for photon data and 
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1 neutron exposures can likely be reconstructed for 

2 all members of the evaluated Class for the period 

3 from January 1st, 1974, through December 31st, 

4 1989.

5 NIOSH will continue to perform a full 

6 evaluation of external exposures during the period 

7 from 1974 through 1995.

8 For the purposes of timeliness, NIOSH 

9 is issuing this report covering available data 

10 sufficiency and feasibility conclusions to date, 

11 but will continue to review and evaluate internal 

12 and external exposures other than U-233 during the 

13 period from 1974 through 1989, and all internal and 

14 external exposures during the period of 1990 

15 through 1995.

16 The evidence reviewed in this 

17 evaluation indicates that some workers in the Class 

18 have accumulated chronic radiation exposures 

19 through intakes of radionuclides, and direct 

20 exposure to radioactive materials, without 

21 exposure during a discreet incident likely to have 
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1 involved levels of exposure similarly high to those 

2 occurring during nuclear criticality incidents.

3 Consequently, NIOSH is specifying that 

4 health may have been endangered for those workers 

5 covered by this evaluation who were employed for 

6 a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work 

7 days within the parameters established for this 

8 Class or in combination with work days within the 

9 parameters established for one or more other 

10 Classes of employees in the SEC.

11 The proposed Class once again is all 

12 employees of the Department of Energy, its 

13 predecessor agencies, and its contractors and 

14 subcontractors who worked in any area at the 

15 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 

16 Livermore, California, during the period from 

17 January 1st, 1974, through December 31st, 1989, for 

18 a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work 

19 days, occurring either solely under this 

20 employment or in combination with work days within 

21 the parameters established for one or more other 
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1 Classes of the employees in the Special Exposure 

2 Cohort.

3 And at this time, if there are any 

4 questions?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 

6 Mark. It's a very good presentation of a 

7 complicated site, so.

8 MR. ROLFES: Thank you.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. The, just for 

10 the sake of people on the phone, and so forth, I 

11 want to indicate first we'll hear Board questions 

12 about the report and about the presentation from 

13 Mark.

14 Then we'll give an opportunity for the 

15 petitioners to speak if they wish to make comments 

16 and so forth.

17 And then we'll come back and decide on 

18 how we will handle this and what actions the Board 

19 will take on this particular recommendation from 

20 NIOSH and on this report. So start with questions.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, Mark. Looking 
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1 at, and I'm sorry you didn't have any numbers on 

2 your slides there, you only had so many fecal 

3 samples. Was there something that triggered, I 

4 think you had 12 or 13.

5 MR. ROLFES: There were 354 fecal 

6 samples collected from Building 251 staff. I'm 

7 not sure what would have prompted that but it 

8 probably would likely be an incident.

9 I wouldn't expect that they were 

10 routinely collecting samples, fecal samples, 

11 unless there was an elevated air monitoring result 

12 or, you know. Yes, and Stu indicated also, like 

13 a wound, contaminated wound puncture of the skin, 

14 so.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Thanks.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other questions? 

17 Josie, I'm sorry.

18 MEMBER BEACH: No, that's okay. I was 

19 just wondering the cutoff date of, I actually have 

20 two questions, the first cutoff date of '89. It 

21 seemed like they still had some issues with 
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1 sampling and air monitoring. Why the '89 instead 

2 of moving it up into early '90s?

3 MR. ROLFES: The operations using 

4 uranium-233 were drastically reduced in that year 

5 or the year before and so that was the basis to use 

6 1989 as the cutoff date because of the inventory 

7 and operations involving U-233 declining, so.

8 MEMBER BEACH: And no chance of 

9 residual?

10 MR. ROLFES: That is something that 

11 we're going to continue evaluating after '89, 

12 correct.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. And then the '95 

14 cutoff. I know the petitioners asked for 2014. 

15 Why only up to '95?

16 MR. ROLFES: I believe 1995, I would 

17 have to check back. I believe Building 251 closed 

18 right around that time period and I believe that 

19 was the basis for using 1995.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Thanks.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other Board Member 
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1 questions? Board Members on the phone with 

2 questions? Paul?

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Ziemer. I had no 

4 questions.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We have an 

6 opportunity for the petitioners if they wish to 

7 speak. And I believe at least one of the 

8 petitioners has submitted written comments which 

9 have been circulated to the Board Members.

10 But if petitioners wish to speak at this 

11 point?

12 MR. FROWISS: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead. Can you 

14 identify yourself?

15 PETITIONER COMMENT 

16 MR. FROWISS: Yes. Thank you, Dr. 

17 Melius. This is Albert Frowiss, Sr., P.O. Box 909, 

18 Rancho Santa Fe, California, 92067.

19 And I can be reached at area 

20 858-756-1494 or by email at frowiss@frowiss.org or 

21 my frowiss.org website.
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1 For the past eight years I've been an 

2 advocate and authorized rep for 2,500 EEOICP cases, 

3 mostly Part B, but many Part E cases.

4 Of the 12 billion paid out since the 

5 program inception I have, since late 2008, enabled 

6 about 500 million of that share to my clients.

7 This is the first rodeo for me at being 

8 a petitioner and I appreciate all the fast action 

9 by your staff.

10 There is a correction I'd make to the 

11 third slide, about where it says the petitioner 

12 filed on October the 7th, 2015. It was actually 

13 October the 7th of 2014.

14 Well, I began this quest for a new SEC 

15 at a time when one of my cancer claimants was the 

16 [identifying information redacted]. It seems 

17 fortuitous timing and a chance that we came 

18 together.

19 Some of the members of his own family 

20 have been my clients, including his [identifying 

21 information redacted]. And they were mostly 
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1 struck down by cancer, as has been my client.

2 Before he passed he orchestrated my 

3 contact with [identifying information redacted], 

4 who also became my claimant and my co-petitioner 

5 on this SEC and he's helped me immensely on this.

6 So on behalf of my co-petitioner, along

7 with a couple of hundred other patiently waiting 

8 claimants, I appreciate your quick speed in getting 

9 this to this stage today.

10 Of course I'd hoped that we'd be able 

11 to cover the period through at least 1994, which 

12 is the, you know, Sandia Lab facility across the 

13 street covers to '94.

14 And I noted that your air monitoring 

15 indicated insufficiencies through 1991, so I was 

16 puzzled probably by the same question that Josie 

17 had commented about.

18 Any event, I do urge that you approve 

19 the SEC as written today for the 1974 to '89 period 

20 and then just roughly follow-up with the balance 

21 of the studies through 1995.
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1 I know you've got a lot of projects, big 

2 and small, like Savannah River Site, and I and my 

3 clients patiently or impatiently await progress on 

4 that as well.

5 So in summary, just want to thank you, 

6 the Board and staff, and hope that you make the 

7 motion to approve today and possibly give us a heads 

8 up on approximate target completion date for the 

9 study through 1995. Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Mr. 

11 Frowiss. Does [identifying information redacted]

12 wish to speak?

13 MR. FROWISS: I don't think he's on the 

14 line but I can --

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. [Identifying 

16 information redacted], if you're on the line and 

17 wish to say something you can, you're not required 

18 to, so. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any further 

19 comments or questions from Board Members?

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, Dave 

21 Richardson.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Just for 

3 clarification, you described the site as having 500 

4 buildings and structures, 50 of them waste 

5 materials.

6 And I'm just trying to get a sense of 

7 Building 251 which is what you focused on today, 

8 the size of that building and maybe the number of 

9 workers that were typically within it relative to 

10 the size of the site.

11 MR. ROLFES: From my recollection 

12 there were several different additions to the heavy 

13 elements facility over time. Each, I believe, was 

14 considered, you know, a separate add-on.

15 As far as the full time staff in there, 

16 there were very few people that were in there full 

17 time. I believe there was one custodian in the 

18 building who had an office there. However, the 

19 majority of the building was laboratories that were 

20 used on an as needed basis.

21 BOARD WORK SESSION
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, David. Does 

2 that? Okay, thanks. Thank you, Mark. Any other 

3 questions? If not, I would entertain an action 

4 from the Board.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Move to accept.

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Second.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So moving to approve 

8 the NIOSH recommendation and to add the Class to 

9 that -- let's say we get the slide. Can we get the 

10 slide back up with the definition?

11 Thank you. Okay. So this is the Class 

12 that's been proposed by NIOSH. And then no further 

13 questions, I'll ask Ted to do a roll call.

14 MR. KATZ: Very good. Dr. Anderson?

15 DR. ANDERSON: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

17 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

21 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Dr. Kotelchuck?

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: And I'll have to collect an 

4 absentee vote from Dr. Lemen. Dr. Lockey? Oh, 

5 that's right, Dr. Lockey's absent. I have to 

6 collect his. Dr. Melius?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

9 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Posen's absent but 

11 he's also recused so no matter there. Dr. 

12 Richardson?

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

15 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: And Mr. Schofield's 

17 recused. Ms. Valerio?

18 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: So the majority has it. The 
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1 motion passes and I'll collect the absentee votes 

2 later on.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. If you'll 

4 bear with me again. We have the right definition 

5 so we're set.

6 The Advisory Board on Radiation Worker 

7 Health, the Board has evaluated Special Exposure 

8 Cohort Petition 00221, concerning workers of the 

9 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 

10 Livermore, California, under statutory 

11 requirements established by the Energy Employees 

12 Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 

13 2000, incorporated to 42 CFR Section 8313.

14 The Board respectfully recommends that 

15 SEC status be accorded to, quote, all employees at 

16 the Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies 

17 and their contractors and subcontractors who 

18 worked in any area at the Lawrence Livermore 

19 National Laboratory in Livermore, California, 

20 during the period from January 1st, 1974, through 

21 December 31st, 1989, for a number of work days 
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1 aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring 

2 either solely under this employment or in 

3 combination with work days within the parameters 

4 established for one or more other Classes of 

5 employees in the Special Exposure Cohort. Close 

6 quotes.

7 This recommendation is based on the 

8 following factors. Workers at the facility, this 

9 facility, during the time period in question were 

10 involved in operations related to nuclear weapons 

11 production.

12 NIOSH's review of available monitoring 

13 data as well as available process and source term 

14 information for this facility found that NIOSH 

15 lacked the sufficient information to allow it to 

16 estimate with sufficient accuracy, the potential 

17 internal doses from exposure to uranium-233 which 

18 employees working at this facility may have been 

19 subjected. The Board concurs with this 

20 determination.

21 NIOSH also determined that health may 
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1 have been endangered for these Lawrence Livermore 

2 National Laboratory employees during the time 

3 period in question. The Board also concurs with 

4 this determination.

5 Based on these considerations and the 

6 discussion at the March 23rd and 24th, 2016 Board 

7 meeting in Tampa, Florida, the Board recommends 

8 that this Class be added to the SEC.

9 Enclosed is the documentation from the 

10 Board meeting for this SEC Class was discussed. 

11 Documentation includes copies of the petition, the 

12 NIOSH review thereof and related materials. If 

13 any of these items are unavailable at this time they 

14 will follow shortly.

15 So, fine on that. Mark, I have some, 

16 I guess one or two questions for you. I'm trying 

17 to get a timetable for going forward and sort of 

18 what we need to do as a Board at this point in time. 

19 So it would be helpful or I might put Stu on the 

20 spot.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Oh, well. You 
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1 know, some things you got to do yourself. This, 

2 there's -- we don't have a really firm schedule to 

3 complete this. Our resources who do this work are 

4 also involved in Hanford and other facilities as 

5 well.

6 And so we've not scheduled out the 

7 remainder. Certainly we know that we've done this 

8 much investigation, let's wrap this. You know, 

9 let's try to wrap this up. But we haven't got a 

10 schedule to be relied on yet.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So not even a 

12 ballpark?

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Probably not. I 

14 wouldn't expect anything before the end of the 

15 year, for sure. I mean, we could -- if the question 

16 is forming a Lawrence Livermore Work Group, you 

17 know, we can get information available to the Work 

18 Group to get them familiar with, you know, what we 

19 know and what we've had.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I think there 

21 are two questions there. One is forming a Work 
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1 Group and then I think at the same is it worthwhile 

2 having SC&A starting to become, you know, familiar 

3 with both this report and --

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Oh.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- and Livermore and 

6 I think that would also --

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Sure. Well, all the 

8 information we have used and that we have obtained 

9 so far is in SRDB.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: And so if they were 

12 tasked then they would have information they can 

13 be looking at.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. 

15 So if Board members concur that if we would, one 

16 is we need, would form a Work Group to cover the 

17 site and while that's being formed and set up we 

18 would have SC&A becoming familiar with the site 

19 including this report, with the prospect that 

20 before there's another report it's going to take 

21 a period time.
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1 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. Joe 

2 Fitzgerald. I just want to comment that I think 

3 I attended all but one site visit with Sam Glover 

4 at Livermore so I can say, very familiar with, you 

5 know, most of the interviews, all the documents, 

6 and, you know. We're pretty much up to speed on 

7 Livermore.

8 ADJOURN

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Great, and that and 

10 so forth. So then what I will ask, and I'll 

11 circulate a note since we're missing some Board 

12 members, that we could form a Work Group there at 

13 that site. I think given the nature of the site 

14 I think security clearance is going to be probably 

15 a requirement for that Work Group. At least 

16 predominantly, so in terms of being able to get 

17 anything done and move forward.

18 So if that's reasonable with the group, 

19 so, okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you again, 

20 Mark and Stu. Anything else? No? You're 

21 smiling so there can't be anything else.
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1 So that concludes our meeting for 

2 Number 110 and stay tuned in a couple months for 

3 Meeting 111.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, thank you, everyone for 

5 a great meeting. Take care.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

7 went off the record at 10:57 a.m.)

8 

9