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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

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75th MEETING

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WEDNESDAY

FEBRUARY 23, 2011

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 The meeting convened at 8:25 a.m., 

Eastern Standard Time, in the Marriott Hotel & 

Suites, Two Tenth Street, Augusta, GA, James 

M. Melius, Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member

RICHARD LEMEN, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member
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PRESENT: (continued)

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official
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REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS:

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

BARRIE, TERRIE*

BELL, BARBARA

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH

CRUZ, RUBEN, CDC

EVASKOVICH, ANDREW

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

GARDNER, DEMETRIA, MASO

HAND, DONNA

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

KINMAN, JOSH, DCAS

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

LEWIS, MARK, ATL

LIN, JENNY, HHS

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

McKENNEY, CHRIS

NETON, JIM, DCAS

PORTER, DIANE, DCAS

PRESLEY, LOUISE

REUTMAN, SUSAN, DCAS

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

THEISSEN-BUGG, JOANN

THURBER, BILL, SC&A*

VLIEGER, FAYE*

WADE, LEW, NIOSH Contractor 

*Participating via telephone
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 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Welcome - Dr. James Melius, Chair ......... 5

 Ted Katz, DFO ................... 5

NIOSH Program Update and Program Evaluation 

Update - Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld, NIOSH ...... 7

 Dr. Lewis Wade, NIOSH ............ 20

DOL Program Update:

Mr. Jeffrey Kotsch, DOL ............. 36

DOE Program Update - Mr. Greg Lewis, DOE .. 61

Break .................................... 102

Use of Coworker Data:

Dr. James Neton NIOSH .............. 102

Chapman Valve SEC Petition WG Report

Dr. John Poston, WG Chair .......... 151

Lunch .................................... 176

Reconstruction of Dose In The Residual 

Contamination Period

Dr. James Neton, NIOSH ............. 177

Dow Chemical SEC Petition:

Dr. John Mauro, SC&A ............... 200

Board Work Session:

Dr. James Melius, Chair ............ 223

Break .................................... 278

Wah Chang SEC Petition:

Dr. James Neton, NIOSH ............. 278

Break .................................... 316

Public Comment ........................... 317

Adjourn .................................. 343
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 8:26 a.m.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good morning, and 

4 welcome to Meeting Number 75 of the Advisory 

5 Board on Radiation and Worker Health. We 

6 should be having a party or something later to 

7 celebrate Number 75.

8 For those of you attending the 

9 last meeting, I know it looks as if we've 

10 shrunk, but it's the - gotten a lot shorter, 

11 but it's just the chairs here.

12 (Off-record comments.)

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The tables are 

14 high, yes. Sort of a laid back Advisory 

15 Board. Leaning back. So I'll turn it over to 

16 Ted to - 

17 MR. KATZ: Thank you. Welcome. 

18 I'm Ted Katz. I'm the Designated Federal 

19 Official of the Advisory Board. Welcome, 

20 Board Members, participants, members of the 

21 public in the room and mostly, I hope, on the 

22 line.
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1 We have a quite full agenda. I'll 

2 just note one thing particularly for public 

3 participants.

4 We have two public comment 

5 sessions. There is one that begins at 6:30 

6 tonight, 6:30 to 7:30 tonight. And a second 

7 public comment session preceded by some 

8 presentations on the Savannah River Site 

9 tomorrow night beginning at 5:30 and going to 

10 7:00 p.m.

11 Let me just for folks on the 

12 phone, let me ask that you mute your phones. 

13 If you don't have a mute button, *6. And 

14 please do not at any point put the call on 

15 hold, but hang up and dial back in if you need 

16 to leave the meeting for some time.

17 Last thing to note is attendance. 

18 Today we have all Board Members but two. Mr. 

19 Griffon will be joining us later this 

20 afternoon, we hope, and Dr. Lockey will be 

21 absent for most of this meeting. He will be 

22 calling in for at least one session tomorrow, 
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1 and the agenda is yours.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 

3 Welcome, and our first presentation will be a 

4 NIOSH program update with Stu Hinnefeld, 

5 followed by Lew Wade.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you, Dr. 

7 Melius, and good morning, everyone.

8 You provided in your package and 

9 on your ScanDisk, the copy of the statistics 

10 that I normally run through on this 

11 presentation.

12 At the last meeting, we discussed 

13 and, I believe, agreed to, that in the 

14 interest of brevity that rather than run 

15 through all those slides, I would just provide 

16 a couple news updates and answer any questions 

17 anyone might have on the statistics that were 

18 provided.

19 So I am intending to proceed that 

20 way unless you would like me to do something 

21 different. And we'll see how this goes this 

22 time and see how you like this.
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1 Program news is relatively brief. 

2 Things are running along pretty much sort of 

3 like an operating manufacturing plant now. We 

4 get the gozintas and the gozoutas and we get 

5 new claims and try to turn out dose 

6 reconstructions.

7 I did have a couple pieces of 

8 news. One is that we have selected a new SEC 

9 Petition Counselor to replace Laurie Breyer, 

10 who left DCAS some weeks ago in order to take 

11 another position within NIOSH.

12 And our new counselor is Josh 

13 Kinman, who is here in the room. Josh, will 

14 you stand up?

15 I think most of you probably have 

16 received correspondence from Josh for a while 

17 now because he's been working for us in a 

18 somewhat different capacity for some time, 

19 engaged in the SEC process.

20 So he's not a newcomer to the SEC 

21 process. He has a pretty good understanding 

22 of the process and has worked quite closely 
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1 for quite a while with LaVon Rutherford and 

2 the rest of the folks working on SECs.

3 And so we are hopeful this will be 

4 a relatively smooth transition. And Josh is 

5 of course getting used to the new role of 

6 being the contact person for petitioners, 

7 which is the additional part. So far that 

8 seems to be going pretty well. And he is of 

9 course fairly busy in that role because 

10 petitioners are pretty interested in how 

11 things go with their petitions.

12 Now, the second piece of 

13 information I want to talk about relates to 

14 one particular site, GE Evendale, which is not 

15 on the agenda for this meeting. And so this 

16 is sort of preliminary information in 

17 describing some things that we'll be providing 

18 to the Board on the O: drive, you know. Some 

19 supporting information, explanatory 

20 information about what's been going on.

21 But just briefly for background 

22 purposes, as you'll recall at the November 
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1 meeting, at the Board's November meeting, 

2 during my presentation, I indicated that we 

3 had asked the Department of Labor about the 

4 possibility of defining the Class somewhat 

5 differently.

6 And I didn't bring the exact 

7 definition that we proposed to them, but it 

8 was along the lines of all workers who worked 

9 at the covered facility at GE Evendale, also 

10 known as Air Force Plant 36 or something like 

11 that. Words to that effect.

12 In their response to us which we 

13 received just before the November meeting, 

14 they replied that they did not believe there 

15 were any records that would allow them to 

16 administer that class.

17 And so they were not in favor of 

18 having a class of that sort, because there 

19 would be no record that would allow the 

20 administration of that class.

21 And they said and in addition 

22 because of some questions about the solidity 
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1 of the evidence for designating this, this 

2 site, we're going to ask the Department of 

3 Energy to look into whether this should really 

4 be a DOE site or not. Now, that was in the 

5 letter they sent to me.

6 Okay. When they subsequently sent 

7 a letter to the Department of Energy, they did 

8 one of the two things they said they were 

9 going to do in their letter to me. One of the 

10 things they said was, we are asking the 

11 Department of Energy - I'm sorry. They didn't 

12 say they couldn't administer the Class.

13 What DOL said was they will ask 

14 the Department of Energy if they have any 

15 records that would allow us to put people in 

16 Air Force Plant 36.

17 And then the second part was, and 

18 also we're going to check this designation 

19 thing.

20 Well, when they sent the letter to 

21 the Department of Energy, all they asked them 

22 was, do you have any records that would 
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1 administer this class, and they didn't ask 

2 about the designation. And so they have 

3 elected not to do that.

4 I did call then and confirm with 

5 Department of Labor that they had elected not 

6 to pursue that question and to leave the 

7 designation question alone.

8 So the designation is going to 

9 stand as it is, which is a DOE facility from 

10 1961 to 1970.

11 Department of Labor, I believe, 

12 has responded by now that there really are no 

13 more records. We don't have anything that 

14 will let you, you know, would put you on Air

15 Force Plant 36. So that's one piece of the 

16 story with GE.

17 The other piece of the story with 

18 GE is also right before the November Board 

19 meeting, if you'll recall, GE had agreed to 

20 provide to us, and we had just received, all 

21 the radiation exposure records that GE holds 

22 for their employees. They gave us the entire 
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1 document.

2 And so we've been analyzing what 

3 we have in terms of exposure records for GE. 

4 And for the years of 1961 to 1970, for the 

5 covered period, we do in fact have individual 

6 exposure cards for some number of people in 

7 each year.

8 And we have sort of - you can 

9 analyze these things in a number of ways, and 

10 this is the way we've elected to analyze it 

11 is, how many individual exposure records do 

12 you have for each of these ten years. And it 

13 ranges from a high of somewhere around 1200 in 

14 1961, the first year - and this is 

15 individuals, you know, people - and then it 

16 drops immediately down to about 200.

17 It's in like the 200 to 300 range 

18 from `62 through `69. And then 1970 it drops 

19 again maybe down to the mid-100s.

20 So that's the - and we have not 

21 looked at the names to see it's the same 200 

22 people. We have not done that. We have not 
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1 done that at all just yet.

2 So these are external exposure 

3 results. The internal exposure data is 

4 limited essentially to three years in the 

5 middle. I think it's `64 through `66. And 

6 those tend to be - well, two of those years 

7 were about 180 data points. Almost all 

8 uranium bioassay.

9 And the third year there were 60 

10 data points. Again, mainly uranium bioassay. 

11 There was some thorium bioassay in there. 

12 And then there were a couple data points from 

13 1970 just kind of stuck out there.

14 Most of the results, this includes 

15 both the internal and external results, do not 

16 put a location with that person. So this 

17 person got this dose. We don't know where 

18 that person worked.

19 In something like seven of the ten 

20 years, the only location listed for a person 

21 who has an exposure record is the health and 

22 safety. So apparently the health and safety 
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1 people recorded their locations, and the other 

2 people didn't.

3 So we are continuing that 

4 analysis. We'll provide what we have. We'll 

5 probably do some additional things. As I go 

6 through these things, more questions always 

7 pop into my mind, which I'm sure pop into your 

8 mind as well.

9 And we'll be providing that 

10 information on the O: drive for the Board's 

11 future consideration. We're not suggesting 

12 any action today, but we want to sort this 

13 out.

14 The internal data is very limited. 

15 I mean, there are like three years when you 

16 have any internal data at all. I think 

17 there's one in vivo count for the entire 

18 covered period. So the internal data is 

19 really quite limited from this.

20 And so it looks, you know, we 

21 don't really see a lot of hope for 

22 reconstructing all the doses for the people. 
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1 And so we're going to have largely the same 

2 question we've had all along about, what do we 

3 do with this site.

4 So we'll be providing additional 

5 information as time goes forward on GE, but my 

6 plan is to put it on the O: drive and inform 

7 the Board when we've added something and put 

8 some explanatory notes on what it is. And 

9 then maybe collect some more questions from 

10 Board Members as additional questions come to 

11 people.

12 Okay. That is the extent of the 

13 news I had intended to cover. Are there 

14 questions about that or about any of the 

15 statistics that were sent to you?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I have one 

17 question on GE.

18 Would you be issuing either a new 

19 Evaluation Report or a supplementary report?

20 It seems that there's been a lot 

21 of information. The old report seems a little 

22 bit out of date.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: I think - yes, I 

2 think we will submit a supplementary report. 

3 I think that we want to make sure we have an 

4 idea of how to go on that.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Before we issue the 

7 report. And I think maybe some feedback from 

8 the Board might be instructive. Rather than 

9 for us to write one in the absence of feedback 

10 from the Board and then hash it out here, it 

11 might be instructive to get feedback from 

12 Board Members, you know, individual Members or 

13 collectively, however you prefer to do it, and 

14 try to develop a position on this.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Well, 

16 another possibility would be a Work Group that 

17 maybe - 

18 MR. HINNEFELD: That would be 

19 certainly true, yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: - we can talk 

21 about later.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just get 

2 concerned as we get to making a decision on 

3 this that there's so much information, it's 

4 all sort of on the O: drive, and it's really 

5 hard for Board Members to sort of pull it 

6 together and remember it all from - 

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean, 

8 things that people, I think, things that were 

9 going through my mind, what would people want 

10 to see. Well, they'd want to see an example 

11 of these records, you know. What's this 

12 record look like that we got for Joe Smith, 

13 you know? That kind of thing.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, putting 

15 it on the O: drive is very helpful. I think 

16 that just having a report beyond that, I 

17 think, sort of pulls it together and it's 

18 useful.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, yes. Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And it may be 

21 that a Work Group - we decided not to do a 

22 Work Group initially thinking we were going to 
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1 get - 

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, we recommended 

3 adding a Class and - 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It sort of got - 

5 so we can talk about that later yet.

6 Josie?

7 MEMBER BEACH: I thought we had 

8 actually asked the 250-day Work Group to look 

9 at it.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, we actually 

11 decided not to ask the 250 - I think I 

12 volunteered one of the Work Groups and we 

13 decided that, well, no, it would be handled by 

14 the next meeting. I think we had one or two 

15 questions then, and one or two questions have 

16 sort of grown exponentially. So we can talk 

17 about that during our Board working time.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, it's like 

19 radiation biology. The more questions you 

20 have - the more answers you get, the more 

21 questions you have.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 
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1 questions for Stu? No?

2 Okay. Go ahead.

3 DR. WADE: Good morning.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good morning.

5 DR. WADE: Always a pleasure to see 

6 the smiling faces of the Advisory Board. And 

7 I must say every time I come here, it lifts my 

8 spirits to chat with you folks.

9 So I bring you warm regards from 

10 Dr. Howard, the director of NIOSH. Before I 

11 make my comments about the program review, Dr. 

12 Howard has asked me to make the announcement 

13 that he has appointed Stu Hinnefeld as the 

14 permanent director of DCAS.

15 John had Stu in that position 

16 acting for a while and was pleased with the 

17 response of the community to Stu. So Stu is 

18 now permanently the director of DCAS.

19 And we would expect him to expend 

20 all of his efforts to pursue good science, but 

21 also to do it kindly, with the needs of 

22 petitioners and claimants in mind as he does 
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1 his job.

2 To the issue of program review, an 

3 update, I will remind you that the ultimate 

4 purpose of this program review is to, again, 

5 help NIOSH do a better job serving the needs 

6 of petitioners and claimants consistent with 

7 its responsibilities under the Act.

8 We've been at this for about a 

9 year now and I think mercifully we're coming 

10 to the end and I'd like to share some of that 

11 with you.

12 I recently took the liberty of 

13 sending you all a brief note. And attached to 

14 that note I put a draft of the introduction to 

15 the Phase 1 of the program review to provide 

16 you with a memory jog as to the details of 

17 that.

18 Let me tell you where we are 

19 briefly, and where we hope to be in the near 

20 future.

21 The program review is to happen in 

22 two phases. The first phase, we call that 
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1 Phase 1, was to be a data-driven attempt to 

2 explore NIOSH's performance under the program.

3 We were doing that in five areas: 

4 the area of dose reconstruction, the area of 

5 timing of NIOSH's work, SEC petitions, quality 

6 of science and customer service.

7 Let me tell you where we are in 

8 each of those phases. In terms of dose 

9 reconstruction and timing, you've had the 

10 first draft of those reports for some time.

11 Those reports are up on the 

12 website. We're receiving comments. We've 

13 received thoughtful comments from Drs. 

14 Richardson, Melius and Ziemer on those 

15 reports.

16 Those reports will be modified 

17 based up on the input we receive and presented 

18 to you in near-final form before the May 

19 meeting.

20 Two things you're seeing 

21 relatively new for the first time, the quality 

22 of science piece that was authored by Drs. 
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1 Daniels and Spitz is now available to you. 

2 It's on your stick, it's on the website, it's 

3 on the table. I would ask you to give that a 

4 bit of a read.

5 And then the customer service 

6 piece offered by Ms. Chang is now available to 

7 you in the same format.

8 I would ask Board Members to look 

9 at those. If you have comments you would like 

10 to share with the authors, please do. They'll 

11 also be on the website. They're on the 

12 website now.

13 Based upon your comments and 

14 comments received on the website, those 

15 reports will be again rewritten and presented 

16 in near-final form prior to the May meeting.

17 The fifth piece is the SEC 

18 petition piece, ably authored by Randy 

19 Rabinowitz.

20 You've seen the first draft of 

21 that. Randy has rewritten that report based 

22 upon your comments, comments received from 
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1 others, and is anxiously awaiting the release 

2 of that to you as its second draft. It's 

3 currently going through a policy review at the 

4 Secretary's level.

5 And once that clears hopefully in 

6 the very near future, we'll see that second 

7 draft. It will be on the website. Again, I 

8 would encourage you to make comment upon that 

9 back to Randy.

10 It's my hope to have all of the 

11 Phase 1 reports modified and to you along with 

12 an introduction and a conclusion section prior 

13 to your May meeting.

14 So you'll have the entire Phase 1 

15 report in your possession, he said naively, 

16 but we have to have goals in life. And that's 

17 our goal.

18 The Phase 1 report ends with 

19 author's observations and conclusions, and I 

20 count - there are about 40 recommendations now 

21 embodied in those reports.

22 Those 40 recommendations, once 
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1 they're finalized based upon your comments and 

2 others' comments, will be the basis of moving 

3 on to Phase 2.

4 In Phase 2, John Howard and NIOSH 

5 leadership will take those recommendations, 

6 evaluate them and decide what recommendations 

7 to implement in terms of improving the 

8 program.

9 I would sincerely hope that, prior 

10 to your May meeting, I will be able to bring 

11 you the first draft of John's Phase 2.

12 The reason I'd like to do that is 

13 I think, once a draft of Phase 2 exists, I 

14 think then the Board really needs to look at 

15 it in earnest and decide what input it wants 

16 to make to the finalization of Phase 2, which 

17 will, again, be the selection of the program 

18 modifications to be made.

19 I'm a little less certain I'll get 

20 you a draft of Phase 2 prior to May, but I'd 

21 really like to see that happen rather than 

22 wait until your next meeting, you know. The 
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1 time unit we're working here are Board 

2 meetings, and I would hate to slip beyond the 

3 May meeting.

4 So if things work right you'll 

5 have a draft final of Phase 1, you'll have the 

6 first draft of Phase 2, which will be John's 

7 thoughts as to program changes he intends to 

8 implement.

9 And I have asked Dr. Melius if 

10 that is available to you, I'd like to spend a 

11 half an hour or so with you at the May meeting 

12 talking about John's thoughts on 

13 recommendations, and then your thoughts on 

14 recommendations so we can get on with the 

15 business of program review, which is really 

16 making a better program to serve the needs of 

17 the people. We're all here to serve the 

18 claimants and petitioners.

19 So that's the status of it. May 

20 be an optimistic view forward, but I do think 

21 we're coming to a point where we can really 

22 begin to look at improvements to the program.
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1 As always, I thank you for your 

2 time and attention, and any comments you would 

3 like to make as individual Board Members would 

4 be welcomed by all authors.

5 Anything you'd like to say as a 

6 Board, always holds great sway with 

7 impressionable people like me.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: A couple of 

9 comments, Lew. First, for those of you 

10 looking for the Phase 1 reports there, you 

11 create your own separate tab on our drives 

12 here. So it is under - they're under 

13 Miscellaneous. So maybe by next time we'll 

14 give you your own tab.

15 Secondly, I would suggest that we 

16 set aside some time at the next Board meeting 

17 not only for talking Phase 2, but also for 

18 comments on Phase 1, should we have them. 

19 Presumably if we get them in time before the 

20 May meeting, the reports, we'll have a chance 

21 to go through them.

22 And I think it would be worthwhile 
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1 for the Board to have some discussion of those 

2 and then talking about the Phase 2 and what 

3 needs to be addressed there. So I think that 

4 would be good. So, Ted, if you can set aside 

5 the time?

6 MR. KATZ: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Third thing I 

8 think I can say on behalf of all the Board 

9 Members, congratulations to Stu. We look 

10 forward to continuing to work with you. Sort 

11 of a seamless transition, I guess, but we 

12 appreciate your efforts and think it's a good 

13 decision on the behalf of NIOSH. So thank 

14 you.

15 And now, questions. Dick Lemen 

16 had a question.

17 MEMBER LEMEN: I just had a 

18 question of clarification.

19 How come the report of Randy 

20 Rabinowitz has to go up through secretarial 

21 review, and the other phases I don't think 

22 went through that same review?
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1 DR. WADE: There are two types of 

2 authors. There are authors who are NIOSH 

3 employees. Their reports have to go through 

4 the NIOSH internal review process.

5 And then there are contractors, 

6 myself, Randy, and Nancy Adams. Those reports 

7 all have to go through the Department to 

8 policy review, and they did.

9 Randy's report has taken a bit 

10 longer, I guess, maybe because it's more 

11 substantive, but we follow the same procedures 

12 for all based upon whether they were contract 

13 authors or NIOSH authors.

14 You've seen Randy's first draft. 

15 I sincerely hope you'll see her second draft 

16 very soon.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other questions?

18 Okay.

19 DR. WADE: Thank you.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask 

22 just a quick question?
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, I'm sorry.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: This is just 

3 kind of a big-picture question.

4 On the one hand, it's titled as a 

5 review of the Radiation Dose Evaluation 

6 Program, and yet the kind of - the stated 

7 purpose under the text kind of lays out that 

8 NIOSH is involved in this and this is a review 

9 of NIOSH's program in support of the EEOICPA.

10 And yet the - is this a review of 

11 the entirety of NIOSH's activities in going 

12 through Division of Compensation Analysis and 

13 Support or is it a review just of the 

14 dosimetry activities within that?

15 DR. WADE: The former. All of 

16 NIOSH's activities under the - 

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So there's lots 

18 of things that NIOSH is doing in support of 

19 the Compensation Program that are not just 

20 dosimetry. And, yet, like the quality of 

21 science thing is solely focused on quality of 

22 science as it applies to dose reconstruction.
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1 I was sort of wondering where 

2 those other sections were.

3 DR. WADE: Could you give me an 

4 example so I'm sure I understand what you - 

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean the 

6 quality of science related to risk assessment, 

7 the use of Monte Carlo methods for deriving 

8 those, the decisions about radiogenicity of 

9 certain cancers, you know. All of those other 

10 things are all part of what goes into making a 

11 decision for a worker about Probability of 

12 Causation or a compensation decision, and none 

13 of those are reviewed.

14 DR. WADE: I think they're all fair 

15 game for review. I guess I would ask you to 

16 comment that you would like to see the review 

17 expanded to consider those, if you would.

18 Again, we didn't put binders on 

19 the people who did the science review. We 

20 asked them to be as broad as they would like 

21 to be, and this is what they've come back 

22 with.
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1 So if you think a broader view 

2 would be in order, then please let us know 

3 that.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. Yes, it 

5 was sort of a scope whether people had been 

6 tasked. Because on the one hand, the reports 

7 that have come back have really been tasked 

8 with - we were asked about the program and 

9 dose evaluation.

10 That's totally fair. That's a 

11 huge effort and maybe that's enough for people 

12 to provoke some.

13 But I didn't know whether at some 

14 place along the line this was supposed to be a 

15 bigger ten-year review of - 

16 DR. WADE: No. And you make me 

17 think, Dr. Richardson, about, you know, how we 

18 got to the point we did.

19 I think we were really interested 

20 in the place where the NIOSH activity met 

21 those people we were intending to serve, the 

22 petitioners and the claimants.
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1 And it could be that that 

2 particular focus made us a bit more limited 

3 than we needed to be. I don't know, but 

4 that's possibly one explanation.

5 But if you think that that would 

6 be a benefit, please, I mean, nothing is out 

7 of bounds here. That stuff gets a bit 

8 esoteric, but if it needs to be done, then by 

9 all means.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can I just 

11 comment?

12 I actually think in the beginning 

13 of the program we did spend a fair amount of 

14 time on some of those issues at least as they 

15 apply to the program. And there's discussion 

16 and development of the regulations and sort of 

17 initial methods.

18 And then I think you're right, 

19 David, we sort of then sort of focused on dose 

20 reconstruction as a relationship to exposure 

21 as sort of our main activity and gotten away.

22 I do think that the Science 
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1 Working Group, Scientific Issues Working Group 

2 at least as I wrote up the charge for that, 

3 was focusing on those other sort of risk4 related issues and also to identify issues 

5 that aren't, you know, scientific issues that 

6 may also need to be addressed.

7 And so that may form the basis for 

8 further review as Lew suggested, and I think 

9 we can talk about that as we go forward at our 

10 meetings and with NIOSH, because I think those 

11 are - I think you raise some very good points 

12 and I think we should be paying attention to 

13 those also.

14 Hopefully through the Work Group, 

15 the Board can start that, and then with our 

16 dialog with NIOSH, we can determine what else 

17 needs to be done.

18 DR. WADE: By all means. I mean, 

19 certainly NIOSH leadership stands ready to 

20 take on that task. If and when the Board 

21 thinks it's appropriate, we would like to do 

22 it in concert with the Board. So what Dr. 
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1 Melius suggests maybe is the right path 

2 forward.

3 It's interesting when you get to a 

4 place and you turn back and look at the places 

5 you didn't get and why you didn't get there.

6 DR. WADE: Also, if you think, it's 

7 probably been seven years since we talked 

8 about IREP at a meeting in terms of a topic 

9 for presentation.

10 It gets talked about in passing or 

11 there's some tweaking that goes on in various 

12 places, but sort of, you know, basic issues 

13 like that we've not gone back to for quite a 

14 while. And I think it would be good if we did 

15 do that. Thanks.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

17 questions for Lew? Wanda, did you - 

18 MEMBER MUNN: No.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 

20 Okay. Thank you, Lew.

21 I would also - I was remiss. I 

22 should also congratulate Josh Kinman on your 
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1 new position. We also hope that LaVon 

2 survives without you. So we'll see how he 

3 does in his presentation later to that, but 

4 good luck. But we look forward to working 

5 with you. It's an important interface for the 

6 Board and for NIOSH.

7 Our next presentation is the 

8 Department of Labor. Jeff, welcome.

9 MR. KOTSCH: Good morning. First 

10 of all, I have to apologize. I'm working 

11 through the back end of a cold and my voice 

12 got a lot worse this morning than it was 

13 yesterday. So apologies for that.

14 This presentation, the front end 

15 of it we've all seen a number of times. It's 

16 like the briefing we get on the airplane 

17 flights, you know. You hear it continuously 

18 and it - but I do it for the few people maybe 

19 in the audience that haven't seen this one 

20 yet, but maybe we'll go a little more quickly 

21 through it.

22 The Act was enacted in October 
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1 2000. Part B was mandatory federal 

2 entitlement, which was given to the Department 

3 of Labor. And Part - the old - what is now 

4 the old Part D, the state workers compensation 

5 assistance, was given to the Department of 

6 Energy.

7 The Act was amended in October 

8 2004. It abolished Part D, created Part E, 

9 which was then transferred to the Department 

10 of Labor. We'll see in a minute that's the 

11 non-cancer side of the program.

12 As of - and I think most of these 

13 slides are February 6th, 141,159 cases had 

14 been filed and over $6.7 billion in total 

15 compensation and medical benefits have been 

16 paid to date.

17 The agencies involved are Labor, 

18 Energy, Health and Human Services and the 

19 Department of Justice primarily for the RECA 

20 portion.

21 And Labor has operations - of 

22 course the main office is in Washington, and 
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1 has district offices in Jacksonville, 

2 Cleveland, Denver and Seattle.

3 As I noted, total compensation to 

4 date is about $6.7 billion. 3.8 billion of 

5 that is Part B. 2.3 billion is Part E and 689 

6 million is for medical expenses. And there 

7 are the percentage breakdowns.

8 At this point, I always remark 

9 that the number of payees is always greater 

10 than the number of cases because cases may 

11 have, if the worker is deceased, may have one 

12 or more survivors.

13 So we've had about 67,000 payees 

14 and about 49,600 Part B and Part E cases. And 

15 there you see it's about 46,000 Part B payees 

16 for about 29,900 cases, and 21,000 Part E 

17 payees in about 19,800 cases. About sixty 

18 percent Part B, forty percent Part E.

19 This is just - the next couple 

20 slides are just tables of the employee 

21 eligibility between the two parts. I'll go 

22 through that fairly quickly.
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1 There are differences such as the 

2 DOE federal employees are not covered under 

3 Part E, nor are the AWE employees or the 

4 beryllium vendors.

5 And beryllium sensitivity is 

6 medical monitoring in Part B, but it is paid 

7 in Part E. And Part E is primarily toxic 

8 exposure and Part B is primarily cancer, 

9 beryllium and silicosis.

10 There's the survivor definitions. 

11 They vary a little bit because of the way the 

12 amendment to the law was written for Part E.

13 And those are the benefits paid 

14 under Part B, 150,000. 50,000 for the RECA. 

15 Impairment is for - under Part E, is 2500 

16 percent of impairment. And wage loss ranges 

17 between 10 to 15,000 per the Act. And there 

18 is that CAP of 400,000.

19 These are just a list of how DOL 

20 verifies employment using the Department of 

21 Energy, ORISE, CPWR, corporate verifiers, 

22 Social Security Administration wage data and 
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1 affidavits.

2 And then this is just a listing of 

3 how we verify toxic exposures, including the 

4 Occupational History Questionnaires, the Site 

5 Exposure Matrices, which I think are 

6 completely - and Greg will probably update us 

7 on this, but I think all the elements, all the 

8 facilities for those are now on the public 

9 website.

10 That database identifies toxic 

11 substances related to labor categories, 

12 processes, buildings and major incidents. 

13 Then there's the DAR request and the claimant 

14 records.

15 Obviously, the dose 

16 reconstructions are conducted by NIOSH. And 

17 the Probability of Causation calculations are 

18 ultimately run by the Department of Labor.

19 SEC Class, Worker Group 

20 designations, the presumption is occupational 

21 radiation causes cancer. There were four 

22 legislated SEC Classes, the three gaseous 
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1 diffusion plants and Amchitka test site in 

2 Alaska. And as of February 15th, 2001, there 

3 have been, by our count, 71 SEC Classes.

4 There are the requirements for 

5 employment. 250 days. 22 specified cancers 

6 which are stated under the law.

7 And a brief statistic on Part B 

8 cases, the left side are the final decisions 

9 that have been approved. That's about - well, 

10 it is 31,786. And then on the right side are 

11 the denied cases totaling 21,820.

12 And then you see the distribution 

13 or the rough breakdown of some of the reasons 

14 why they're denied, including survivor 

15 ineligibility, PoCs, which is the prime one, 

16 being less than fifty percent, and medical 

17 information insufficient to support the claim.

18 These are the Part E's final 

19 decisions. A little over 26,000 approved. 

20 About 20,600 denied.

21 The referral status to NIOSH, 

22 34,000. About 34,100 cases referred to NIOSH 
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1 for dose reconstruction. About 30,900 have 

2 been returned primarily with dose 

3 reconstruction, sometimes without dose 

4 reconstructions, if we pull them - the 

5 Department of Labor pulls them back for a 

6 variety of reasons primarily including SEC 

7 Classes.

8 And we're indicating right now 

9 3220 cases at NIOSH, of which 683 are reworks 

10 or returns.

11 As far as SEC Classes withdrawn 

12 from NIOSH, we're indicating 3268 withdrawn 

13 for SEC Class review. And there's the 

14 breakdown. We've got about 2900 final 

15 decisions issued and 2819 final approvals.

16 The difference there is just that 

17 the fact the district office decides on the 

18 recommended decision, then it has to go to our 

19 Final Adjudication Branch, and they make the 

20 final approval. So there's a little bit of a 

21 lag as far as the numbers there as far as the 

22 approval process - review and approval 
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1 process.

2 Again, 26,866 cases have been 

3 returned by NIOSH that are currently at DOL 

4 with a dose reconstruction.

5 22,606 have a dose reconstruction 

6 and a final decision. And there's the 

7 breakdown. Final denial is about 65 percent. 

8 Final approval is about 35 percent.

9 This is just a listing of the Part 

10 B cancer cases with final decisions to accept. 

11 We've accepted dose-reconstructed cases, 

12 about 7500 for $1.11 billion in compensation.

13 SEC cases, 13,066 for about $1.93 

14 billion in compensation. The combination of 

15 SEC Class and a PoC greater than 50 for 

16 medical is 69.6 million in compensation. So 

17 that totals 20,995, resulting in $3.1 billion

18 in compensation.

19 Just the Part B breakdown monthly 

20 of cases we send to NIOSH running, you know, 

21 probably averaging the low 300s.

22 And not all cases obviously get 
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1 referred to NIOSH, so these are the numbers 

2 that are coming in monthly to the Department 

3 of Labor currently running about, you know, a 

4 little over 400.

5 The difference being, again, ones 

6 that go straight to SEC, ones involving 

7 chronic beryllium or silicosis.

8 We usually like to list the top 

9 four worksites generating Part B cases. The 

10 list is Hanford, Y-12. This time Bethlehem 

11 Steel was bumped up because of the Class 

12 designation. That's been a few months ago 

13 now. And K-25.

14 And then these individual slides 

15 just show the monthly trends, I think, for the 

16 last year or so.

17 And you can look through those, 

18 you know. You're running probably in the 30s 

19 and the 40s. Bethlehem Steel showed the bump 

20 because of the SEC Class designation. And 

21 then K-25 has always been kind of high or 

22 relatively higher.
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1 On the left side of this is 

2 percentage of new AWE cases and Part B DOE 

3 cases. Left side is the new AWEs, and the 

4 right side is the new DOE cases.

5 And it runs about - I think it's 

6 running about, I don't know, 30 percent AWE, 

7 70 percent DOE cases that we see from those 

8 kinds of facilities during a month.

9 And then the last few slides, and 

10 I'm not going to go through all of these, 

11 again we list data for the primary sites that 

12 either are under discussion at the meeting or 

13 that are local sites to the meeting.

14 So we have Chapman Valve, Dow 

15 Chemical, Grand Junction, Linde Ceramics, 

16 Bliss & Laughlin, Fernald, Norton. Savannah 

17 River site we've seen 12,296 cases. We've 

18 issued 4344 final decisions. That's Part B. 

19 And of those, 1539 were approvals. Part E 

20 approvals were 2,046. And total compensation 

21 and medical bill payment was $426.2 million. 

22 Again, that's dated as of the 14th of 
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1 February. And then Vitro is there.

2 And this is just a pie chart for 

3 the distribution of the Part B cases that have 

4 been filed and how they get dispositioned. 

5 NIOSH, RECA, SEC cases and other, again, which 

6 is the silicosis, the chronic beryllium and 

7 those categories. And I think that should be 

8 it.

9 Any questions?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is kind of a 

12 general question.

13 If a claimant filed a claim under 

14 Part E, how come would they get received back 

15 from the Department of Labor a letter saying 

16 that they're waiting for NIOSH to do their 

17 dose reconstruction?

18 MR. KOTSCH: For Part E, that's 

19 probably if - it's for a non-cancer?

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

21 MR. KOTSCH: Then, unfortunately, 

22 that's an error.
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1 Usually when a claim comes in as a 

2 Part E, it automatically will also be 

3 dispositioned as a Part E. But it shouldn't 

4 work that way if it's just a Part E, you know. 

5 They shouldn't go in and revert to the Part B 

6 portion, which would be a referral denial.

7 So that's just - I don't know. If 

8 you have specific information, we can talk 

9 offline, but that shouldn't - I don't think 

10 that should be happening.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, because I've 

12 seen this several times.

13 There was another one in your 

14 slides where people are compensated under Part 

15 E and there was DOE federal employees.

16 We've seen at several sites, 

17 especially I believe it was with firemen or 

18 whatever that - like, they were federal 

19 employees for four years. And then it 

20 switched over to DOE.

21 And there seems to be a disconnect 

22 on if they're actually being classified as 
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1 federal employees or DOE employees.

2 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, and that one I 

3 don't know. Again, those things are looked at 

4 on a case-by-case basis by the district 

5 offices. I don't know how they, you know, 

6 we'd have to look at the specific data to see 

7 how they're reviewing that individual.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I'll talk 

9 with you offline on that.

10 MR. KOTSCH: Sure. I appreciate 

11 it.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jeff, I have one 

13 question on your last slide, the pie chart 

14 there and just on the SEC cases. You have SEC 

15 cases never sent to NIOSH. So those are after 

16 an SEC's been approved.

17 But then you have SEC cases 

18 referred to NIOSH, and those would be cases 

19 that were referred before an SEC was approved.

20 MR. KOTSCH: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But does it 

22 include - which category do you have cases 
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1 that are non-SEC cancer? So are those under 

2 sort of the NIOSH referrals?

3 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, they would be 

4 under there.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I'm just 

6 trying to understand the numbers. Okay. 

7 Thanks.

8 Any other questions for - yes, 

9 David then Paul.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I was 

11 interested in the slide that's related to the 

12 means of verifying toxic exposures and the 

13 description that there's site exposure 

14 matrices that have been developed for that.

15 I'm wondering if there's things 

16 that this Board could learn from the process 

17 that you've undertaken in order to handle 

18 those situations, because they're very much 

19 the situations that we encounter.

20 I mean, I know a little bit about 

21 trying to reconstruct non-radiological 

22 exposures for workers at DOE sites and it's 
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1 extremely complicated.

2 If we have gaps in dosimetry 

3 records, the gaps in industrial hygiene 

4 records are, you know, orders of magnitude 

5 worse.

6 And so I'm wondering what process 

7 you've used in order to develop fair, timely 

8 methods for making these decisions about 

9 whether claimants have had these toxic 

10 exposures, what the process is for review and 

11 evaluation of these matrices that have been 

12 constructed.

13 Because, you know, we have 

14 comparable situations in some places where the 

15 kind of objective monitoring information is 

16 really lacking.

17 You sort of describe a process 

18 which we wished we could do, but we don't, of 

19 identifying workers with potential exposures 

20 based on labor categories, buildings, 

21 incidents.

22 We don't do any of that because 
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1 we've been told we can't place workers 

2 reliably into those categories.

3 So I'm wondering if we could learn 

4 something about how those SEMs are used and 

5 whether there's something more missing.

6 MR. KOTSCH: This slide probably 

7 gives that particular system more credit than 

8 it deserves.

9 The SEM is a fairly qualitative 

10 process unlike the NIOSH process, which is 

11 actually comparatively very quantitative.

12 We don't do any dose 

13 reconstruction on the Part E side. It's more 

14 of a qualitative assessment as far as based on 

15 things like work title - and I don't do the 

16 Part E side that much, you know, work title, 

17 facilities, where they're at in particular 

18 buildings, what kind of operations they're 

19 doing, and then what potentially they could 

20 have been exposed to.

21 And then our industrial hygienists 

22 just try to make some correlations to exposure 
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1 and things like that.

2 We can talk more offline or I can 

3 even put you in touch with some of our people 

4 if you're interested in some of that.

5 Because, like I said, I don't 

6 really deal with a lot of that, especially the 

7 SEM portion.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, I think 

9 that sounds very reasonable and I sometimes 

10 feel like we need to go in that direction.

11 Frankly, I mean, I'd be more 

12 comfortable making a qualitative judgment that 

13 somebody was exposed, than assigning a 

14 quantitative score.

15 MR. KOTSCH: I mean, our industrial 

16 hygienists are thrilled if they ever see any 

17 kind of monitoring data - 

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

19 MR. KOTSCH: - that's to be 

20 submitted with the case. It's very, very 

21 limited, you know.

22 Like recently we've been doing 
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1 some noise exposure assessments and, I mean, 

2 reviews for noise exposure and solvents and - 

3 well, for the more recent years, we actually 

4 tend to see some noise surveys and things like 

5 that, which is useful.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Starting in 

7 1980.

8 MR. KOTSCH: Right.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And then you've 

10 got to figure out what happened in 1950.

11 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, it's not - it's 

12 been the last couple decades kind of things, 

13 but we can talk more if you'd like to.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON Thank you, sir.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just add 

16 that those matrices, I believe a number of 

17 them are now, if not most of them, are now 

18 available through the - 

19 MR. KOTSCH: I think all the 

20 facilities - yes, all the facilities are now 

21 up. They had a few that were hanging out at 

22 the end there.
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1 MR. LEWIS: Yes, this Greg. As of 

2 December 30th, they're all up.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. The last 

4 two years or year or whatever it's been, the 

5 DOL's made those available after review by DOE 

6 for issues.

7 If you want to look at one of 

8 those - 

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I have 

10 looked at them. And I think, I mean, the 

11 other thing that's interesting to me is that 

12 they're - I guess I would say they're highly 

13 synthetic and dynamic in the information 

14 that's going into them. It's not as though 

15 there was an expert who constructed the 

16 matrix.

17 I think that they're taking 

18 information provided by the claimants about 

19 their recollection of agents they worked with, 

20 and using that to inform or revise the 

21 matrices, which is something which, you know, 

22 NIOSH has been criticized about.
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1 And, you know, it's a really

2 different model for developing this - 

3 MR. KOTSCH: Well, the claimant 

4 information is definitely included in the 

5 assessment, but the - and, again, I'm not real 

6 familiar with SEM, but the data came initially 

7 from the Department of Energy, you know, that 

8 populates that as far as the chemicals and 

9 things like that.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think much of 

11 it came from the medical surveillance program.

12 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, there were a 

13 number of inputs.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That was one of 

15 the inputs. There's other inputs from other 

16 reports and so forth.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But I just 

18 found it interesting.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul, sorry.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Mine is a follow-up 

21 question on that pie chart also.

22 On the SEC cases returned - or 
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1 sent to NIOSH, I guess most are ones that had 

2 been there originally before an SEC claim - or 

3 before an SEC existed, SEC Class, and then 

4 they went back.

5 Now, did you also indicate, then, 

6 that those who didn't have the specified 

7 cancer are in that part of the pie chart as 

8 well?

9 MR. KOTSCH: No, they shouldn't be 

10 in there. They should be in the NIOSH piece.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: They're in the 

12 NIOSH piece.

13 And what about those who if you 

14 have an SEC Class where they don't meet 

15 another requirement such as the 250 day?

16 MR. KOTSCH: Then they'd be in the 

17 NIOSH piece.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: They're in the 

19 NIOSH piece also. Okay.

20 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, if you don't meet 

21 - if you don't meet the criteria for the Class 

22 regardless of whether it's a cancer or 
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1 employment for even a facility, the time 

2 portion of facility, because obviously some 

3 facilities have pieces that are SEC and non4 SEC.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

6 MR. KOTSCH: Some of them have 

7 multiple SECs.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other - Phil, 

10 yes. Sorry.

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, I've got 

12 two questions. You were talking about the 

13 requirements.

14 What if you have a claimant who 

15 has like 230 days in the SEC period, and 

16 continues to work maybe ten, 20 years after 

17 that point?

18 How is that handled?

19 MR. KOTSCH: Well, his time - his 

20 employment during the SEC period is what's 

21 counted. Even if his time after the SEC 

22 period is - well, basically all that time 
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1 would be considered in the dose 

2 reconstruction, but he wouldn't have - he 

3 wouldn't be eligible for the SEC Class, 

4 because he doesn't meet the 250-day 

5 requirement.

6 Now, we'll often try to look at 

7 the number of days employment within the Class 

8 and see if we can extend it or add days, you 

9 know, things like that to try to get it up to 

10 250 days.

11 But failing that, you have to have 

12 the 250 days to be considered in the Class. 

13 And if you don't have that, then that time 

14 just goes into NIOSH's larger dose 

15 reconstruction.

16 And of course during that period, 

17 more than likely - well, it will be a partial 

18 dose reconstruction. So there will be some 

19 pieces of that dose during the SEC period 

20 that, you know, the claimant will not, you 

21 know, get credit for during the dose 

22 reconstruction, you know, by virtue of the 
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1 definition.

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: The second 

3 question is when you were talking about Part 

4 E, I realize we don't deal with this, but the 

5 - you take anybody who had an occupation who 

6 spent a lot of time in different labs, 

7 different facilities and were exposed to who 

8 knows what all, I mean, directly they didn't 

9 work with it, any of those chemicals, per se, 

10 but they spent a great deal of time around 

11 facilities where there was a lot of different 

12 chemicals in use.

13 For a Part E claimant, how would 

14 you recommend they document any of this?

15 MR. KOTSCH: Well, as, you know, 

16 obviously the more information they can 

17 provide as to what facilities they worked in, 

18 the period - the durations, what kind of 

19 activities they did in those facilities, that 

20 all helps to feed into the - primarily the 

21 industrial hygienist, but it may also be a 

22 toxicologist, their review of, you know, 
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1 potential exposure.

2 Most people don't - are unable to 

3 provide, you know, actual monitoring data and 

4 we wouldn't normally expect that.

5 But, you know, if you have it, 

6 like I said, occasionally we do find 

7 information that either claimants provide or 

8 the facility has for a little bit of IH 

9 monitoring, which is fantastic.

10 But, like I said, most of the time 

11 we don't have that information. So all we can 

12 depend on is, you know, the list of chemicals 

13 that we know to be or we think were in that 

14 building.

15 The claimant certainly can add 

16 what he thinks, he or she thinks they were 

17 exposed to, what activities they did, you 

18 know, while they were employed, things like 

19 that.

20 Whatever they can do to fill out 

21 the definition of what they did is always 

22 useful, but that's about the, you know, I 
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1 don't - there's probably something I'm 

2 missing, but that's primarily it.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

4 questions?

5 (No response.)

6 Okay. Thank you.

7 MR. KOTSCH: Thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 

9 much, Jeff.

10 Our next speaker is Greg Lewis 

11 from the Department of Energy.

12 MR. LEWIS: All right. Thank you, 

13 Dr. Melius. And, again, I'm Greg Lewis. I'm 

14 the acting director of the Office of Former 

15 Worker Screening Programs at DOE, and our 

16 office is responsible for supporting the 

17 EEOICPA program.

18 So our core mandate at DOE is to 

19 work on behalf of program claimants to ensure 

20 that all available worker and facility records 

21 are provided to DOL, NIOSH and the Advisory 

22 Board.
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1 So essentially our role under this 

2 program is to provide the records that allow 

3 DOL to adjudicate claims and NIOSH to 

4 reconstruct dose.

5 As part of that, we have three 

6 primary responsibilities. First is to respond 

7 to requests for individual information. So 

8 for NIOSH or DOL they will need to - DOL will 

9 need to verify employment. NIOSH will need to 

10 gather dose information on a specific 

11 individual. And all of our sites will receive 

12 those requests and respond back typically 

13 within 60 days.

14 The second responsibility is to 

15 provide support for large-scale records 

16 research projects, including the DOL SEM that 

17 we just talked about, NIOSH Site Profiles, the 

18 SEC research that NIOSH conducts, things like 

19 that.

20 And then our third responsibility, 

21 which is smaller than the other two, but just 

22 as important, is to conduct research on 
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1 facility designations or covered facilities.

2 So if someone believes that a 

3 facility should be covered for additional 

4 years or is covered for years that it 

5 shouldn't be, we'll go through our records and 

6 try to determine, you know, or respond to 

7 NIOSH or DOL.

8 While the Office of Former Worker 

9 Screening Programs in DOE headquarters funds 

10 and coordinates the efforts to respond to DOL 

11 and NIOSH, the bulk of the work is actually 

12 done by our sites.

13 And every one of our sites has a 

14 designated EEOICPA point of contact. And 

15 these POCs are really the engine that makes, 

16 you know, our program run over at DOE.

17 They coordinate all of the 

18 research activities with NIOSH, the Advisory 

19 Board and the contractors. They set up site 

20 visits and tours. They arrange for the 

21 research groups to review records. They set 

22 up interviewees or locate former workers on 
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1 occasion to come in and do interviews with the 

2 researchers.

3 And then in addition, these 

4 EEOICPA POCs will manage the effort to respond 

5 to these individual requests.

6 For the individual records, we, as 

7 I mentioned before, we do three different 

8 types of requests. Employment verifications 

9 come in from the Department of Labor, NIOSH 

10 will send us dose reconstruction requests, and 

11 DOL will send us what we call DARs, document 

12 acquisition requests, which are essentially 

13 requests for any additional exposure, non-rad 

14 and non-employment information, but any other 

15 exposures. So industrial hygiene, medical 

16 records, incident and accident records, 

17 training records, things like that.

18 The total number of requests 

19 completed in 2010 - FY2010. So from October 

20 of `09 to October of 2010, we did about 17,000 

21 records requests.

22 Now, our numbers are never going 
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1 to actually match up quite with what DOL and 

2 NIOSH has because we count one request at a 

3 site as one request.

4 So typically many of these 

5 individuals might have worked at two to three 

6 sites. They might have visited other sites. 

7 So we'll get a request, say, for a Los Alamos 

8 employee who was working for an extended 

9 period of time in Nevada for a test shot or 

10 Amchitka, the Pacific Proving Grounds, things 

11 like that, you know. We'll get a request 

12 there and we count that as a request, because 

13 we still have to go pull the records.

14 These individual records requests 

15 are often very complicated. As I just said, 

16 claimants could have worked at multiple sites 

17 for multiple contractors or subcontractors 

18 within the site. They could have retired and 

19 come back as a subcontractor. They could have

20 been in different jobs or divisions.

21 So we may have to go to many 

22 different locations just to pull records on 
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1 one individual.

2 Often, the records packages we 

3 provide back to DOL and NIOSH are hundreds of 

4 pages long. And, you know, on occasion we've 

5 had a cubic foot of records, which is about 

6 one standard records box or more on a single 

7 individual.

8 You know, for a typical request at 

9 each site, we will have to go to many 

10 different departments. As I mentioned before, 

11 the medical department, industrial hygiene, 

12 radiological controls, human resources, we go 

13 for incident and accident reports, things like 

14 that.

15 So we often have to tie in five, 

16 six and seven different divisions within a 

17 site all need to respond within the required 

18 60 days before we can get it back to NIOSH or 

19 DOL. And as an example, one DOE site, and 

20 this is not the highest, it's probably about 

21 average, routinely checks about 40 different 

22 sources for responsive records.
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1 That would be up to 40 different 

2 sources for one individual, including hard 

3 copy paper records, microfilm, microfiche, 

4 multiple databases both containing electronic 

5 images, as well as databases that just contain 

6 a finding aid that leads them to a hard copy 

7 record.

8 So the second major responsibility 

9 the DOE has under EEOICPA, is to support 

10 large-scale research projects.

11 These projects are driven by the 

12 needs of Department of Labor and NIOSH, again, 

13 with the SEM, and then the Site Profile work 

14 or Site Profile follow-up and SEC research 

15 projects.

16 These projects can take years 

17 depending on the complexity and, you know, the 

18 size of the project. And they can cost 

19 hundreds of thousands of dollars to support.

20 So we do need to keep on our toes 

21 to make sure that the right resources are in 

22 the right places to support these projects 
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1 when the need arises.

2 One of the complications we run 

3 into with these projects is that, due to the 

4 nature of the work DOE conducted, historically 

5 many of their records that are requested need 

6 to be reviewed for classification. So far for 

7 each of these projects, you know, millions of 

8 pages can be reviewed. It can be a very time9 consuming and costly process. It does slow 

10 down the overall process, but we do our best 

11 to get these documents reviewed and in the 

12 hands of the requester in a reasonable time 

13 frame.

14 And often we're supporting four to 

15 five projects at once. In fact, many times 

16 more so, although they are in various stages, 

17 some are just starting, some are in the thick 

18 of it and some are completing. So it is tough 

19 to balance the workload among our sites.

20 Currently, these are a few 

21 examples of the projects we're supporting for 

22 NIOSH or for the Board: Hanford, Savannah 
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1 River, Pantex, Brookhaven, Sandia and SLAC, 

2 Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

3 But, again, these are some of the 

4 examples. We are currently supporting a few 

5 additional ones as well.

6 Just to talk about a few of them, 

7 Sandia seems to be right in the thick of the 

8 research that we're spending a lot of time and 

9 effort to support that right now.

10 There's been four site visits 

11 since August for records review, data capture 

12 and worker and former worker interviews.

13 We're also supporting inquiries 

14 into Ross Aviation and the Clarksville Medina 

15 facility, which because of the work that those 

16 facilities did, many of their records ended up 

17 at Sandia. So even though it's not directly a 

18 Sandia project, Sandia is in the position of 

19 supporting those three projects as well.

20 Thus far there's been about ten 

21 square feet or cubic feet of records requested 

22 by NIOSH. And those are currently undergoing 
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1 classification review. We hope to get them in 

2 the hands of the requesters within the next 

3 couple months.

4 As I mentioned before, one of the 

5 problems that we run into quite often with 

6 these projects, especially at the NNSA 

7 facilities and the weapons lab like Sandia, is 

8 we struggle with classification reviews.

9 For our project at Hanford, which, 

10 you know, was on the previous slide, we ended 

11 up bringing back subcontractors and former 

12 classification reviewers to enable us to 

13 review the documents in the required time 

14 frame.

15 At Sandia, it hasn't been quite as 

16 easy in that they've had some retirees 

17 recently. And those retirees are not willing 

18 to come back as subcontractors or are 

19 uninterested or unreachable.

20 So they had to in terms of 

21 manpower to support their existing mission, as 

22 well as this surge of requests for classified 
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1 material, they were really struggling to do it 

2 in a timely manner.

3 So at headquarters we worked 

4 within, you know, our network of contractors 

5 and throughout our facility to find a 

6 contractor that we believe we could bring in 

7 for this project and handle this surge 

8 capacity, I guess.

9 So we're in the final stages of 

10 arranging for this contract. And when we've 

11 set it up, the records that are requested at 

12 Sandia will be sent offsite to this contractor 

13 who is located in the Denver area.

14 They have up to 20 classification 

15 reviewers that are knowledgeable about the 

16 site. They will be brought in for a week or 

17 two weeks at a time after a visit to hopefully 

18 get these documents right back to the 

19 researchers.

20 So we're excited about that. We 

21 believe it will be useful at Sandia. And we 

22 also think in the future if there's additional 
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1 sites where we want to do the same process, we 

2 won't have to reinvent the wheel. We'll be 

3 able to call on this contractor to come in and 

4 assist us when needed.

5 At Pantex, we're currently - we 

6 believe the bulk of the research has been 

7 completed or at least on our end, the support 

8 that we need to provide. Although, there are 

9 still issues here and there that we're 

10 provided information back.

11 Currently, we're scheduling a 

12 meeting at Department of Energy headquarters 

13 in Germantown where Members of the Advisory 

14 Board, their contractor, NIOSH and their 

15 contractor can come in, review all of the 

16 classified documents requested under this 

17 project and, you know, I think, you know, 

18 discuss the issues they need to discuss while 

19 we'll be able to support them with the 

20 classification staff that can, you know, help 

21 answer their questions and guide them as far 

22 as what information they can and can't put 
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1 into reports.

2 And at Savannah River, we've 

3 supported, I'd say, close to here, but I think 

4 it's actually been probably over ten different 

5 data-capture visits during the last year.

6 And, you know, we continue to 

7 support data-capture efforts. Although, we 

8 believe they're becoming more targeted as you 

9 focus on specific issues that they need to 

10 resolve for the research. So we'll continue 

11 to support that as needed.

12 And, again, at headquarters, we 

13 also have a role supporting document reviews. 

14 Not the documents requested at the sites. 

15 But as the Board and NIOSH prepare their 

16 reports and drafts and White Papers and things 

17 like that, we at headquarters review those as 

18 interim and draft reports, as well as the 

19 final reports.

20 We, about two years ago in 2008, 

21 we determined that there was a need for this 

22 review capability.
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1 We worked with both NIOSH, the 

2 Board and DOL to come up with a DOE EEOICPA 

3 security plan, which we believe has been 

4 working very well and governs how we operate 

5 with these document reviews.

6 You know, again, the plan, we 

7 believe, has been working pretty effectively. 

8 However, recently we have run into some 

9 concerns, questions over official-use-only 

10 information, which, you know, in our original 

11 plan we had concentrated primarily on 

12 classified information, because that was the 

13 big concern at the time. And we probably 

14 weren't as specific as we needed to be with 

15 official use only.

16 So we're currently reviewing our 

17 procedures and regulations regarding OUO and 

18 hope to amend our security plan in the next 

19 couple months to reflect that.

20 So we'll be working closely with 

21 NIOSH and the Board to make sure that 

22 everyone's on board with what we're proposing.
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1 Now, for the headquarters document 

2 review since the last Board meeting in 

3 November, there have been approximately 97 

4 documents submitted to DOE for classification 

5 review.

6 Our headquarters group has been 

7 turning those documents around in about eight 

8 working days. Although, in certain cases 

9 where there's been a request for an expedited 

10 review, we've returned them in one or two days 

11 as needed.

12 And this is just a general slide 

13 on SEC support. That's obviously probably the 

14 largest single type of project that we support 

15 here, is the SEC reports, now that the DOL SEM 

16 is mostly completed.

17 We have our subject matter experts 

18 on site, contribute to Working Group and 

19 conference calls held by the Board and by 

20 NIOSH, and we also have facilitated secured 

21 meetings and conference calls when necessary 

22 where classified discussions can take place. 
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1 As I just mentioned, we're in the process of 

2 doing that for Pantex right now.

3 And then the third major role that 

4 the DOE has to support EEOICPA is facility 

5 research. We research and maintain the 

6 Covered Facilities Database which is on our 

7 website. The link is down at the second 

8 bullet there.

9 And there are over 300 facilities 

10 currently covered under EEOICPA. That 

11 includes AWEs, Atomic Weapons Employers, DOE 

12 facilities and beryllium factories.

13 And this slide, our Office of 

14 Legacy Management helps us with their 

15 research. They have staff who have been 

16 involved in DOE records work for 20 years, 20 

17 and 30 years each. So they have extensive 

18 experience.

19 Jeff Tack is our primary 

20 researcher and I know many of you have worked 

21 with him. He has extensive experience in the 

22 DOE world. And he has some capable staff to 
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1 help him when needed, as well.

2 I'm going to talk about a couple 

3 of initiatives we're working on right now at 

4 DOE. We always have an ongoing effort to 

5 identify additional records collections useful 

6 for EEOICPA.

7 From time to time the - many of 

8 these DOE sites have been operating since the 

9 `40s and `50s. And while in general they have 

10 excellent records management programs, there 

11 are certainly some collections that have been 

12 mislabeled that we don't realize exactly 

13 what's contained in them or don't understand 

14 the importance to EEOICPA.

15 So from time to time we will 

16 locate a collection or we'll open a box that 

17 is labeled as something and we'll realize that 

18 it's something else, and that those records 

19 would be very valuable to either DOL or NIOSH 

20 under the program.

21 So when we do find that, we have 

22 the funds set aside to support an effort to 
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1 either digitize the records or just index the 

2 records, you know, take some step so we make 

3 sure that we can then use those records 

4 effectively for EEOICPA claims and these 

5 large-scale research projects.

6 When we identify and index 

7 collections like this, we'll work with NIOSH 

8 and DOL to make sure that all past claims, we 

9 run those names through so if there's any 

10 additional records, those claims can be 

11 reopened. I know that has happened in the 

12 past.

13 So that's an effort that we're 

14 always working on here at headquarters. 

15 There's usually, you know, a few collections 

16 every year that we find out at these sites and 

17 we do everything we can to make sure that 

18 they're used effectively.

19 Another initiative we are working 

20 on currently is a secure web-based file 

21 transfer system. We don't anticipate this 

22 having much impact on how the program 
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1 operates, but we believe that it's going to 

2 allow DOE, DOL and NIOSH to transfer documents 

3 and information between the various agencies 

4 quickly and securely.

5 It will be encrypted. There's a 

6 lot of personally identifiable information, 

7 PII information within these claims. And it's 

8 extremely important that the government 

9 protect those records and make sure people's 

10 information aren't lost or compromised.

11 So we believe that this secure 

12 file transfer system would make sure that 

13 those - that information is as secure as 

14 possible, and it would also allow for the 

15 transfer of information, probably saving about 

16 a week in terms of each records request.

17 If it's a 60-day time frame, we 

18 anticipate saving five or more days just by 

19 going to this electronic file transfer system.

20 We've recently renewed our 

21 Memorandum of Understanding with both Health 

22 and Human Services and DOL. Really, we were 
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1 operating under the previous MOU. It had 

2 become somewhat outdated and I think all 

3 agencies had changed their processes or how 

4 they actually had been working in the field. 

5 And so we just wanted to make sure that the 

6 MOUs were updated to reflect how we're 

7 operating these days. Those are both posted 

8 on our website if anyone is interested.

9 And I know there were some 

10 questions during Jeff's presentation, DOL's 

11 presentation, about the DOL SEM database.

12 The database was originally 

13 completed in 2008. And in 2009, I believe in 

14 late 2009, DOL requested that DOE review the 

15 database for classification and OUO and 

16 unclassified nuclear controlled information - 

17 controlled nuclear information, excuse me.

18 And so they could release that 

19 database to the public. So we've been doing 

20 that over the last year, and here's the steps 

21 of release.

22 I think we released the first 
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1 batch on April 30th, forty-eight sites, as 

2 well as all of the mines, mills and ore-buying 

3 stations. And then as you can see leading up 

4 until December 30th of last year, we released 

5 the last six sites.

6 So at this point, all sites have 

7 been reviewed and are released to the public. 

8 They're on DOL's website. And no rest for 

9 the weary, we've almost immediately within a 

10 month after completing the initial review, we 

11 started a second review. During the 

12 last two years as we were working on our 

13 review, each of our sites were evaluating 

14 material that was already contained in DOL's 

15 database. DOL was working with our DOE sites 

16 to collect additional information to fill in 

17 gaps. Claimants and members of the public 

18 were able to review the sites that had been 

19 posted and were submitting additional 

20 information where they knew there were gaps or 

21 the SEM didn't accurately reflect the 

22 activities that took place at the site.
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1 So right now we're already 

2 starting to work with DOL to review that 

3 additional information. We won't be reviewing 

4 the whole database again. We'll just be 

5 reviewing for each site, those chemicals, 

6 locations, and job categories and things like 

7 that that have been added. We will be 

8 reviewing, and those will be updated to the 

9 website.

10 We're not exactly sure what the 

11 time frame for that is going to be, whether 

12 it's going to be a phase release like last 

13 time or because this is a smaller scope, we'll 

14 be able to do it all at once.

15 But hopefully by the next Board 

16 meeting, I'll be able to update you on that. 

17 And if not, the sites may actually be released 

18 by the next Board meeting although I certainly 

19 can't promise that.

20 One of the initiatives that we've 

21 had over the last couple years, and I know 

22 this slide has been in previous presentations, 
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1 is our outreach. Our headquarters group 

2 initiated what we called a Joint Outreach Task 

3 Group, which includes representatives from 

4 DOE, DOL, NIOSH, the DOE Former Worker 

5 Screening Programs, and the Ombudsman's Office 

6 from both DOL and NIOSH.

7 The goal of this Working Group is 

8 to coordinate our outreach activities. 

9 Essentially, each of these groups are 

10 attempting to reach the same population 

11 although with a slightly different message and 

12 focus. So we thought that by combining some 

13 of the outreach efforts of these groups, it 

14 would both make us more efficient and broaden 

15 the reach of each of those groups on their 

16 own. So we've had 19 town hall meetings last 

17 year, and we have some more information on the 

18 Joint Outreach Task Group on our website.

19 And the last thing I'm going to 

20 talk about is the Former Worker Medical 

21 Screening Programs. Again, it's somewhat 

22 complementary in nature to the EEOICPA. We 
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1 have these former worker screening programs 

2 that are set up to cover every site in the DOE 

3 complex. And for both production workers and 

4 construction workers they offer free medical 

5 screening programs to any former worker that's 

6 interested.

7 They are very knowledgeable. Each 

8 of these groups that it covers, the sites are 

9 very knowledgeable about what type of 

10 activities took place at the site, what kind 

11 of hazards were there. And so they will 

12 tailor the screening specifically to the 

13 individual, the years they worked, and the 

14 things that they might have been exposed to.

15 And then, you know, once they get 

16 results if they believe that there's a need, 

17 they will refer them, you know, either to 

18 additional care or then on to the compensation 

19 program as well. So we feel like it fits 

20 right into the mission of EEOICPA, and we 

21 hopefully provide EEOICPA with quite a few 

22 referrals.
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1 The local screening programs for 

2 Savannah River site for production workers, 

3 the principal investigators are Donna Cragle, 

4 John McInerney, and Lee Newman. And for 

5 construction workers, the principal 

6 investigator is Knut Ringen. And the contact 

7 information is provided right there.

8 And if for anyone at this meeting 

9 who, you know, is out there in the crowd or 

10 anyone on the Board or on the staff meets 

11 anyone, there's information on the back table. 

12 This presentation has its contact 

13 information, and the contact information is on 

14 the DOE Former Worker Screening Program 

15 website as well.

16 So with that, are there any 

17 questions?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions for 

19 Greg? Useful update. Yes, Dave.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Quick question. 

21 You described this kind of costly and 

22 intensive process of declassifying documents 
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1 about each site and providing that information 

2 to NIOSH. When it's provided to NIOSH, is it 

3 provided with any caveats, or is NIOSH free to 

4 use that information and dispose of it as they 

5 like?

6 MR. LEWIS: I'm not sure exactly 

7 what I said. I may have misspoke if I said 

8 "declassify." We review them. Some of them 

9 are - if they are no longer classified, we 

10 declassify them. If they're still classified, 

11 we obviously just mark them appropriately.

12 So we will provide them - and this 

13 is something that we cover in our security 

14 plan, one of the things that was causing a lot 

15 of confusion back when we realized that we 

16 needed it, is we usually - we attempt to 

17 provide all of these records stamped and 

18 marked as they are and how they should be 

19 used.

20 So if there's, say, an official21 use-only document, that could be used by NIOSH 

22 and all of the contractors and those working 
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1 on the program to write the reports and do all 

2 the things that they need to do, but that 

3 document couldn't be, say, posted on the 

4 website. I mean, it can be on the behind-the5 firewall NIOSH Site Research Database, but it 

6 can't be, say, posted out for the public.

7 And the same thing for classified 

8 information. You know, we've arranged for 

9 certain secure locations where NIOSH or their 

10 contractors or the Board or SC&A can use these 

11 classified documents and work on them in a 

12 secure space and create a document that's then 

13 reviewed by our classification folks. And 

14 hopefully that document is unclassified or we 

15 can change a few words that allows it to be 

16 released to the public.

17 So we try to mark documents as 

18 they are, and we do make sure that NIOSH and 

19 the contractors understand what the 

20 requirements are for those different types of 

21 documents.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because one of 
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1 the things that I've been impressed by is the 

2 level of engagement and interest and resources 

3 put by claimants into understanding the Site 

4 Profiles and critiquing them and digging up 

5 new information that helps to kind of change 

6 interpretation or perspective on kind of

7 exposures that happen at a site.

8 And so it raises the question of 

9 how much of this information that - you're 

10 putting a huge amount of effort to go through 

11 and review millions of pages of documents and 

12 stamp them accordingly, and are we sharing 

13 them as appropriate? Are those getting out?

14 So that's a question. I don't 

15 know. How is NIOSH ensuring that as much 

16 information as possible is available to the 

17 claimants to review and scour themselves?

18 MR. LEWIS: I mean, I'm not exactly 

19 sure how to answer that question. I know the 

20 - 

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, it's 

22 not really a question for you. I guess it's 
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1 actually for NIOSH.

2 MR. LEWIS: Yes, typically it's 

3 driven by NIOSH. We will review documents for 

4 public release if necessary if requested. But 

5 if not requested for public release, we 

6 typically won't review them for public release 

7 because there's a number of additional steps. 

8 We may have to go to legal or general counsel 

9 or go to the different programs.

10 So if we try to review it to the 

11 level that's needed to get the work done and 

12 not more, you know, from an efficiency 

13 standpoint both with cost and turnaround for 

14 getting you back the documents.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right. Because 

16 I've seen some correspondence, I mean, where 

17 it sounds like claimants are doing FOIA 

18 requests to various agencies, which may 

19 suggest that maybe they're reduplicating 

20 efforts if the FOIA and something from you, 

21 which NIOSH has done.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: If I could offer - 
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1 this is Stu Hinnefeld. If I could offer, I 

2 think what Greg just said is kind of the key 

3 issue here. He says they review them to the 

4 extent necessary for the program use and not 

5 further. So the fact that a document has been 

6 released to us by the Department of Energy 

7 does not mean it's okay to be made public; is

8 that correct?

9 MR. LEWIS: Yes, unless we mark it.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. And so we 

11 are not in a position then to just carte 

12 blanche make available to the public the 

13 documents that the Department of Energy has 

14 provided to us.

15 So in the event of a - and, quite 

16 frankly, we don't know which document - when 

17 we get a document, we don't know if it's okay 

18 to release it to the public or not in all 

19 cases. Because over the course of history of 

20 the program, not everything has been stamped 

21 when it's been sent to us.

22 So of our holdings, we don't know 
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1 for any particular document, whether it's free 

2 to be released to the public or not. So when 

3 we get a FOIA for documents for a particular 

4 site, and we have documents we have received 

5 from the Department of Energy, we ask the 

6 Department of Energy, are these releasable?

7 So that FOIA essentially we send 

8 to them for their judgment on whether these 

9 documents are publically releasable or not. 

10 For that reason, then, we have not carte 

11 blanche made these generally available to the 

12 public.

13 MR. LEWIS: And just to address the 

14 other part of what you said, we do often get 

15 FOIAs. There is some extent of redundancy in 

16 terms of we may get a request from DOL or 

17 NIOSH for information related to a particular 

18 individual and that individual may FOIA their 

19 own records. And so we're kind of sending it 

20 two different directions. It's not too much 

21 redundancy on our part because, you know, with 

22 electronic records and things like that once 
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1 we've scanned it and made it available to one 

2 group, usually it's typically pretty easy to 

3 turn around to the other, but it's - there is 

4 a bit of administrative work required.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, Greg, this 

7 will be unusual because usually I'm beating on 

8 you because we haven't had a tour of Pantex, 

9 but I know the Work Group for Pantex would 

10 like to thank DOE for the marvelous job that 

11 they did do on that, and the information that 

12 we received was so valuable. And the people 

13 at Pantex were marvelous. And we know what 

14 work it took to be able to put that on, and I 

15 just want to personally tell you thank you.

16 But also, too, on the OUO, I would 

17 like to make sure that as being the Work Group 

18 Chair for the security groups for our Working 

19 Group, I would like to be kept apprised of 

20 that because this is an issue that is somewhat 

21 building up. Do we have any kind of a time 

22 frame that we'd be looking at to be able to 
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1 address these things or - 

2 MR. LEWIS: You know, I can't give 

3 you a specific time frame. I know Michael 

4 Lohr who is our security liaison at 

5 headquarters is working on gathering all of 

6 the regulations, manuals, documents, things 

7 like that at headquarters that mention OUO and 

8 have some OUO guidance. So he's drafting, I 

9 think, a new section for the security plan 

10 right now.

11 Now obviously we wouldn't put that 

12 into place until we've met with the various 

13 groups to make sure that that meets their 

14 understanding and that that's going to meet 

15 their needs as far as the program goes. I 

16 would hope to be following up with you within 

17 a few weeks to schedule a meeting at least.

18 And one of the suggestions has 

19 been that we're, I believe, going to hold a 

20 meeting on Pantex at DOE headquarters in 

21 Germantown or there's some plan to do so. 

22 There's been a request. And that may be a 
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1 good time to also discuss this OUO issue. So, 

2 you know, depending on when you guys decide to 

3 set up that meeting, we might be able to 

4 combine the two.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: I appreciate that. 

6 I'd just like to be kept in the loop on that, 

7 and you do. And I'd like to compliment you on 

8 trying to get the records back to us in a 

9 timely manner. I know there's a few that kind 

10 of get into some problem areas, but I'd like 

11 to thank you for the - what you've been able 

12 to accomplish for us. Thanks.

13 MR. LEWIS: Appreciate that, Brad. 

14 We do our best.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: There is an 

17 underlying concern, I think, Dr. Richardson, 

18 that comes out from the questions you raise. 

19 And that is can decisions on a claim be made 

20 based on classified information that's not 

21 available to a claimant. And this is a 

22 concern that this Board has had discussions on 
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1 probably before you were part of us. And it's 

2 an ongoing concern, of course.

3 And I think we've all been sort of 

4 committed to the idea that the decisions that 

5 we make on individual compensation, both - we 

6 don't make those decisions for the 

7 individuals. But the material on which that 

8 is based, whatever the decision is, has to be 

9 material that's available to that individual, 

10 as well as available to the Board as we review 

11 how decisions are made.

12 So this is one of the dilemmas, 

13 but I think what we're searching for here is a 

14 way to extract from the classified material 

15 the pertinent information that can be made 

16 publically available on which decisions both 

17 individually and system-wide are made. But I 

18 think we'll always have that sort of tension 

19 between what can be made public and the basis 

20 for which we even evaluate the scientific - 

21 sort of the scientific basis for site-wide, as 

22 well as individual decisions.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Thank you. 

2 That's much clearer and more thoughtful kind 

3 of engagement with the process - or with the 

4 problem. But and I also - I agree with that, 

5 and I think - there are - different claimants 

6 have kind of different ways of engaging with 

7 NIOSH and the other agencies that are 

8 involved. And some of them really do seem to 

9 want to go through that information and look 

10 at the detailed records and evaluate that.

11 And it sort of seems unsatisfying 

12 to me to say that NIOSH has huge troves of 

13 information right now which have been 

14 reviewed, and yet despite the fact that 

15 they've been reviewed, NIOSH feels unclear 

16 about the status of those records. I had 

17 taken your statement to be that there was sort 

18 of a triage going on and some documents were 

19 marked for public release or declassified, and 

20 others were not.

21 And if that's the case, then it 

22 may at some point be useful to try and - it's 
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1 sort of late. There's huge amounts of 

2 information, and somebody has to do it. But 

3 as you're going forward if information can be 

4 declassified and available, I think that's - 

5 it helps with the spirit of transparency of 

6 this process.

7 MR. LEWIS: Yes, and I would say, 

8 you know, we are doing that to the extent 

9 possible now. I think the problem with, I 

10 guess, the Site Research Database is that

11 NIOSH has been collecting documents for ten 

12 years or even - I guess more under some of the 

13 previous programs, a lot of those, it hasn't 

14 always been consistent how things are marked.

15 And even in the past, you know, as 

16 recently as a few years ago before we 

17 implemented the security plan, different sites 

18 would do it in different ways. One site might 

19 say, well, you know, we're not going to 

20 actually stamp these "OUO" because, you know, 

21 in the interest of time we're going to give 

22 them to you with the understanding that you'll 
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1 treat them as OUO, you know.

2 And, again, a lot of it was trying 

3 to get the job done and to get the information 

4 quickly. And there was a rush on time, a push 

5 on getting information out. But because of 

6 some of the confusion that caused us in the 

7 past, that's why we evaluated how we were 

8 doing things and realized that we probably 

9 need to have a more standardized approach 

10 across the board. And that's why we put in 

11 that security plan.

12 So, you know, just to go back 

13 through all of those documents, I mean, it's 

14 possible. It could be done, but it would 

15 require significant resources and time.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So right now 

17 DOE does something which is fantastic of 

18 maintaining these DOE reading rooms which are 

19 also huge repositories of information that's 

20 been reviewed and declassified. And they have 

21 turf, right, reading rooms related to specific 

22 sites?
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1 MR. LEWIS: Yes.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Is there a 

3 possibility of DOE kind of beginning to 

4 provide some seed money to the reading rooms 

5 to engage with you on a process of these 

6 declassification decisions and pulling the 

7 information for those sites that have been 

8 declassified through this process and getting 

9 those into the reading rooms? Because that's 

10 a great public archive source. I mean, that's 

11 where many people would go to try and find 

12 detailed information about the history of a 

13 site.

14 MR. LEWIS: I mean, that's 

15 definitely a good suggestion. I'd be glad to 

16 talk about it with you, you know, offline or 

17 with the Board or possibly my management.

18 I do think, you know, for some of 

19 these projects, and I believe Hanford is one, 

20 there were quite a few documents ended up 

21 being reviewed to the publically releasable 

22 level. And I don't know if they were placed 
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1 in the reading room or how they were made 

2 available, but that's, you know, a good 

3 suggestion for those documents either to put 

4 them on the site's online library or public 

5 reading room.

6 And I know another one of our 

7 sites, the Office of Science and Technical 

8 Information, which is basically a DOE report 

9 library, anything that's requested by the 

10 Board or the contractors, you know, on behalf 

11 of EEOICPA, if it's reviewed and found to be 

12 publically releasable, they will then kind of 

13 consistently add that to their online library.

14 So I know because of our program, 

15 many, many documents have been put up on their 

16 publically available online library. But in 

17 general, that would be a good suggestion.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul, a final 

19 comment?

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Just a follow-up 

21 also, Dr. Richardson, and that is beyond the 

22 individual cases, we also have the SEC case 
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1 where decisions have to be made as to whether 

2 there should be an SEC Class. And that's 

3 often based on either their availability or 

4 the absence of records. And the real struggle 

5 would be, for example, if only the cleared 

6 Board Members had access to records on which 

7 such a decision were to be made.

8 We struggled with this a bit some 

9 years back, I think, originally with the Iowa 

10 case where a lot of the information was 

11 classified. And at least conceptually, you 

12 could have such a case again where certain 

13 records upon which an SEC decision might have 

14 to be made were classified records. And I'll 

15 just say rhetorically, what do you do in a 

16 case like that? So that's one of the issues, 

17 too.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks. I know 

19 we'll be coming back to this issue. And, 

20 again, when DOE revises its security plan for 

21 the program, we'll be discussing it here as 

22 well as the Work Group.
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1 Time for our break. Let's take 

2 that. Just a couple follow-up issues. Even 

3 though Stu did give a brief presentation at 

4 our request and so forth, if you have 

5 questions about the data that were on his 

6 slides or something, we can come back with 

7 that at one of the Board working times.

8 So I don't want to feel - you 

9 know, let Stu off the hook entirely on that 

10 stuff so do that. And we'll come back here at 

11 10:15. Thank you.

12 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

13 matter went off the record at 9:57 a.m. and 

14 went back on the record at 10:21 a.m.)

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Our first 

16 presentation after the break here is Jim 

17 Neton's going to be updating us on use of 

18 coworker data, as well as OTIB-70, and I'm not 

19 sure what order you're going in, Jim, so the 

20 floor is yours though.

21 DR. NETON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. 

22 Melius. Good morning. In lieu of my usual 
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1 science update presentation, which I kind of 

2 provided an update at the Board's 

3 teleconference a few weeks ago, I was asked to 

4 provide a presentation on a couple key aspects 

5 of how we do dose reconstructions that might 

6 be useful for the Board in their deliberations 

7 during particularly SEC petitions.

8 The first of these is the use of 

9 coworker data in dose reconstruction. And the 

10 second piece that I'll talk about is the dose 

11 reconstruction during residual radioactivity 

12 periods at Atomic Weapons Employers, which of 

13 course is the only place that we do dose 

14 reconstructions during residual activity 

15 periods.

16 Before I get started on that, 

17 though, I would like to take an opportunity to 

18 introduce our newest staff epidemiologist who 

19 is here to meet the Board, at least to the see 

20 the Board and the proceedings this time. And 

21 that's Dr. Susan Reutman who's sitting in the 

22 back of the room.
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1 She has joined us, I don't know, 

2 six to eight months ago. I have forgotten the 

3 time now, but she's slowly learning the arcane 

4 science behind the dose reconstruction 

5 process. Her background is heavily embedded 

6 in epidemiology, and she's picking up some of 

7 the science of dose reconstruction and doing a 

8 good job at it, I might add.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Welcome on 

10 behalf of the Board.

11 DR. NETON: Okay. To get to the 

12 issue at hand, let's start with coworker data 

13 in dose reconstruction. There are a number of 

14 Technical Information Bulletins on this. I 

15 think I counted four when I went through the 

16 literature. There's TIB-19 and TIB-20 are the 

17 key ones that deal with dose reconstruction - 

18 coworker models for internal dosimetry and 

19 coworker models for external dosimetry.

20 The main reason for why we would 

21 need a coworker model, of course, is because a 

22 worker could have been unmonitored and 
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1 potentially exposed. And we have to remember 

2 back in the days, and this principally applies 

3 before 1990-ish, that the monitoring programs 

4 in particular for internal dosimetry programs, 

5 were there really just to demonstrate 

6 compliance with sort of a set limit, you know.

7 The internal exposure limits were 

8 such that, you know, if you were less than a 

9 hundred percent of the value, you were good to 

10 go. So the monitoring programs were based 

11 around that and not necessarily there to be 

12 able to establish what the actual dose to the 

13 person was. And, frankly, in the earlier 

14 years, the models were so inexact they really 

15 couldn't come up with very good doses, in my 

16 opinion.

17 So that's the main reason that we 

18 will have coworker data - models. But in some 

19 cases, the worker may have been monitored, but 

20 the data was lost or destroyed. Occasionally, 

21 we'll get people who might have been chemical 

22 operators and such and could have been, likely 
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1 been in the monitoring program like all his 

2 coworkers, but the data just for some reason 

3 aren't there.

4 And a minor reason for coworker 

5 data would be that the monitoring methods were 

6 not reliable. That's not a very big player 

7 here. I can think of only really one example 

8 maybe of where we've had neutron badging that 

9 was using the old nuclear track film and very 

10 insensitive to low-energy neutrons. And 

11 concomitant with that or very close in time 

12 frame with that, they had used another more 

13 superior technology such as albedo 

14 thermoluminescent dosimeters and may be able 

15 to establish some sort of a scale coworker 

16 based on that.

17 And the final reason is available 

18 data might be insufficient to complete a dose 

19 reconstruction - a sparsely-monitored worker, 

20 I mean, he might have a couple of samples, 

21 bioassay samples in one year, nothing for five 

22 years and something subsequent. So a coworker 
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1 model would be needed.

2 The source of the coworker data 

3 obviously from the database, is maintained by 

4 the DOE. And that's not really DOE, but the 

5 DOE sites that collected the data from all 

6 their routine monitoring programs and incident 

7 sampling programs.

8 But there are some other developed 

9 databases out there that rely on the DOE 

10 databases, and those are the Center for 

11 Epidemiologic Research at ORAU that took the 

12 original DOE data and developed it to some 

13 extent. Kind of coordinated it and developed, 

14 you know, improved upon it a little bit so it 

15 was easier to understand.

16 And you also have the CEDR data, 

17 the Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resource, 

18 which is available, as well as the claimant 

19 data which there's a TIB out there, I believe 

20 it's TIB-75, that actually when data are not 

21 available from the DOE sites, can you actually 

22 use the claimant data itself to establish 
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1 coworker distributions? And we think the 

2 answer to that is yes.

3 So what is the general approach of 

4 how we would do a coworker evaluation? Well 

5 first we look at the data for the monitored 

6 population that we have. We get the whole DOE 

7 data set and conduct a data pedigree review. 

8 That is, take a look at the data whether it's 

9 a database, electronic database itself, or in 

10 some rare instances the log books, log sheets 

11 themselves, and look at the data to see if 

12 they're complete.

13 One of the first steps is be sure 

14 to take a look at the claimant data that we 

15 have and look at the database that we have and 

16 say, does this make sense? Is there sort of a 

17 one-to-one correspondence between what DOE is 

18 sending us as individual dose records and 

19 what's in the electronic database? If that 

20 matches up, it gives us a little better feel.

21 We also have to try and get a 

22 sense of do we have the complete data set, are 
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1 there gaps, missing data points, what are the 

2 detection limits, that sort of thing.

3 Then we have to establish the 

4 monitored population as representative of the 

5 workforce. I mean, you know, typically in the 

6 internal dosimetry monitoring programs the 

7 workers with the highest potential exposures 

8 were monitored, but that might have not always 

9 been the case.

10 Particularly in the very early 

11 years such at Oak Ridge in the 1940s, it was 

12 pretty well understood that these cohort - 

13 there were cohorts that were monitored as 

14 opposed to the highest workers where they 

15 would take one member of the work crew and 

16 monitor them. So you need to take all that 

17 into account when you're developing these 

18 models.

19 And lastly you need to determine 

20 if the measurement method's reliable? I mean, 

21 can it really measure what it purported to do? 

22 I made the mention of neutron dosimeters were 
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1 insensitive to low-energy neutrons. You have 

2 a lot of thorium bioassay. Thorium, 

3 particularly in the very early years, the 

4 detection limit for thorium measurements when 

5 they use these fluorometric or calorimetric 

6 technique was so high that it really if you 

7 used a coworker model based on that, it - 

8 ended up in some very implausibly high doses. 

9 So that wouldn't make a valid coworker model.

10 So these are some of the general 

11 considerations that go into developing a 

12 model. So the approach to the evaluation is 

13 review the data to determine if statistical 

14 distribution can be generated. And by and 

15 large, you know, based on review of the 

16 literature and our own experience with 

17 occupational exposure data, they fit fairly 

18 well to log-normal distributions.

19 One needs to group the data as 

20 appropriate. You either group them by, you 

21 know, year of exposure - for example, coworker 

22 model for internal would be for 1956, `57, 
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1 `58. However, the data are very sparse. We 

2 will go up to a three-year grouping as long as 

3 you can determine that the technology of the 

4 work processes hasn't changed substantially.

5 One also needs to take into 

6 account work stoppages, changes in processes, 

7 that sort of thing. So a lot of background 

8 information needs to go into this before it 

9 can be used.

10 And then finally we generate 

11 summary statistics and evaluate the fit of the 

12 data to log-normal. And that guidance would 

13 be published in either a TIB or a Site 

14 Profile.

15 Now one thing I should mention is 

16 that these coworker models that we're 

17 developing are very different than one might 

18 think of when you're thinking of a traditional 

19 epidemiologic job exposure matrix. That tries 

20 to attempt - it attempts to correlate a 

21 worker's job description with exposure.

22 And we tried that in the very 
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1 early days of this program. And, in fact, 

2 what happens is you really don't know with any 

3 degree of certainty where people work in time 

4 and space over their entire career. It's just 

5 very difficult. Even though we've gone back 

6 and obtained human resources, you know, 

7 descriptors, people come back and say, well, 

8 no, he was temporarily on loan over this 

9 department for five years.

10 So we have adopted, in general, a 

11 one-size-fits-all model. And I'll show you 

12 what I mean by that. This is an example of 

13 coworker distribution for - this is the 

14 Savannah River site out of the HPAREH database 

15 for 1975.

16 I should point out this is raw 

17 data, not - we always add for external 

18 coworker missed dose on top of this. So this 

19 is raw data without the missed dose component 

20 added.

21 What you see there is it fits 

22 reasonably well to a log-normal distribution, 
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1 except for at the upper end of the tail where 

2 it curves away. And this is very typical of 

3 what you see for external exposures because as 

4 workers get closer and closer to the detection 

5 - I mean the regulatory or administrative 

6 limit, they start pulling them out of the 

7 workplace. So you have this sort of curvature 

8 in the upper end of the distribution.

9 This is a z-score plot. And a z10 score is nothing more than a normal standard 

11 deviate or think of it as numbers of standard 

12 deviation. So a z-score of zero would be the 

13 median value, and a z-score of one would be 

14 that value is one standard deviation above the 

15 median and so forth.

16 So you can see in this particular 

17 case that the median value is somewhere around 

18 a hundred millirem. And if you went out to 

19 the 95th percentile, it's somewhere in the 

20 order of one rem.

21 In the internal coworker model 

22 realm, the same concept applies except we just 
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1 take the raw bioassay data and generate the z2 score plot and estimate what the intake would 

3 have - what the uranium in urine would be for 

4 that distribution. So in this particular 

5 case, this is a 1953 plot for an AW - not an 

6 AWE. I don't remember where this came from. 

7 But nonetheless, the median value here is 

8 somewhere around ten dpm per day being 

9 excreted in the urine by all the workers 

10 monitored in 1953. And the 95th percentile is 

11 127 dpm per day based on this fit.

12 Now there's a little more work 

13 done with this because obviously the urinary 

14 excretion doesn't really tell the whole story 

15 for an internal exposure. One needs to 

16 convert that intake - or the excretion into 

17 some sort of an intake. And what we do in the 

18 terms of internal dose coworker models is to 

19 estimate what a person could have been 

20 excreting.

21 Let's say we use ten dpm per day. 

22 What would have been their intake on a 
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1 chronic exposure basis over the duration of 

2 their employment that would give them an 

3 excretion level of ten dpm per day? So you're 

4 assuming a chronic exposure scenario in this 

5 particular situation.

6 This tends to result in, I think, 

7 claimant-favorable overestimates of intakes 

8 because, first of all, most exposures were 

9 probably not chronic to that extent. And 

10 secondly, the likelihood of a person excreting 

11 that level every day of their employment is 

12 also pretty low.

13 So what would we take these 

14 developed distributions - how would we apply 

15 them to a dose reconstruction? Well, we need 

16 to sort of tie the job category that person 

17 was working or what we know best based on the 

18 claimant interviews or the survivor interviews 

19 or the files that we receive, what was the 

20 person engaged in, to our best assessment, 

21 during the course of their work?

22 And there are three categories 
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1 laid out here that I've taken from TIB-14. 

2 And these are certainly not meant to be all3 inclusive. They're just provided as examples 

4 of what types of categories we might use in a 

5 dose reconstruction. In reality, these are 

6 done on a case-by-case basis.

7 So with little potential for 

8 internal exposure, you would have job 

9 categories such as administrators, cafeteria 

10 workers, clerks, draftsmen, et cetera. A 

11 little more potential for exposure, 

12 intermittent-type exposure, might be 

13 essentially the building trades-type folks, 

14 bricklayers, carpenters, electricians. We 

15 throw firefighters in there.

16 So you get the sense here that 

17 these people would have had some potential for 

18 exposure, but not as high as the upper 

19 category, which is probable potential for 

20 exposure, which would be people working daily 

21 with loose radioactive materials that had the 

22 potential for generating airborne. That would 
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1 include chemical operators, machinists, 

2 millwrights, production workers, et cetera, 

3 what you see on the graph.

4 And in reality, what this comports 

5 to is little potential for exposure would 

6 likely end up receiving an ambient 

7 environmental dose, that is, what is the 

8 environmental levels that were measured at the 

9 site. Some potential exposures would catalog 

10 into using the 50th percentile of the 

11 distribution. And probable potential would 

12 more than likely result in the assignment of 

13 the 95th percentile of the distribution. And 

14 I guess I sort of just talked about that.

15 Now I will say that in the 

16 internal dosimetry realm, we will assign a 

17 GSD, geometric standard deviation, about the 

18 50th percentile when it's used, which is equal 

19 to the GSD of the distribution that was 

20 generated or with a minimum value of three, I 

21 believe is what we applied.

22 The idea behind that is that the 
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1 internal dosimetry is unique in the sense 

2 that, you know, you're not measuring it like 

3 you're measuring a film badge and you have 

4 some sort of normal 20 - plus or minus 20 

5 percent distribution about it. You also have 

6 some biokinetic issues going on there.

7 And when you assign the GSD of the 

8 distribution, it's our opinion that that 

9 incorporates the sampling distribution, but 

10 that distribution also reflects the overall 

11 biokinetic variability embedded in that 

12 sampling regime. And as I mentioned earlier, 

13 each situation is evaluated on a site and 

14 case-specific basis.

15 These data are taken and then 

16 generated into this TIB, as I mentioned, and 

17 there are a number of TIBs out there that have 

18 coworker models in them for Fernald, Rocky 

19 Flats. I know Savannah River has one under 

20 construction.

21 Most of the big sites, most of the 

22 big DOE sites have coworker models. And those 
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1 who are on those Working Groups know very well 

2 how this goes.

3 Okay. I can take questions there, 

4 or I can go through and finish up.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Why don't we take 

6 questions now on coworker, and then we'll move 

7 on.

8 DR. NETON: Okay.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody have any 

10 questions or - 

11 MEMBER PRESLEY: I do.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Bob then 

13 David.

14 MEMBER PRESLEY: Slide 8.

15 DR. NETON: Which one is that, Bob?

16 MEMBER PRESLEY: That's the one 

17 examples of job categories.

18 DR. NETON: I knew that was going 

19 to get me in trouble.

20 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes, it did.

21 Low potential for internal 

22 exposure, you've got the word "dispatcher." 
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1 Speaking from experience at Y-12, our 

2 dispatchers breathed the same air that the 

3 machinists did. All of our dispatching groups 

4 at Y-12 were out on the shop floor. Every one 

5 of them.

6 DR. NETON: Okay. That's good - 

7 MEMBER PRESLEY: So you need to 

8 take a look at that. A lot of times that 

9 dispatcher came personally in contact with 

10 materials that were being chem etched, vibro 

11 etched, the dust and things like that. And a 

12 lot of that was done at an area where there 

13 was not a whole lot of walk-in hoods and stuff 

14 like that.

15 So in that particular slide right 

16 there at Y-12, I do know that the dispatchers 

17 got about the same amount of exposure that a 

18 lot of machinists did.

19 DR. NETON: I appreciate that, Bob. 

20 We'll take a close look at that. And I did 

21 say at the beginning these are examples. It's 

22 on a case-by-case basis.
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1 For example, if the coworker - or 

2 if the claimant - the CATI interview, you 

3 know, indicated something different than what 

4 we're using here or if the data were there and 

5 they were monitored, we certainly wouldn't, 

6 you know, use a coworker model if they had 

7 some kind of monitoring.

8 Do you know if the dispatchers 

9 were monitored at all then?

10 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes, sir.

11 DR. NETON: Well, see, then they 

12 would be monitored.

13 MEMBER PRESLEY: Every one of them 

14 had a badge.

15 DR. NETON: Well, but for internal 

16 as well, do you think?

17 MEMBER PRESLEY: A lot of them were 

18 on the - 

19 DR. NETON: In those cases, then, 

20 we would have the data and would obviously use 

21 the data to do the dose reconstruction, but 

22 it's a good point. If someone is a dispatcher 
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1 and they somehow - the data are missing, we 

2 would need to know that. Thank you.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, David.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: One question 

5 was you talked about a worker that was 

6 unmonitored. Do you mean a worker year? So 

7 you're dealing with missing data for any year 

8 over the history of employment for which a 

9 worker is missing information, or is this a 

10 process that's applied to only when someone 

11 has no monitoring information?

12 DR. NETON: No, I mean, if a person 

13 were sparsely monitored, you know, very 

14 sparsely monitored, we would apply something 

15 like this as well.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well, what 

17 about not very sparsely monitored? They 

18 worked for 25 years, and they have 24 years of 

19 dosimetry data.

20 DR. NETON: Okay. Yes, there are 

21 other techniques that are outlined in our 

22 documents that would do the nearby techniques 
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1 or try to fill in the gaps based on the 

2 person's own monitoring history. But, 

3 frankly, I don't know if that's used very 

4 often, but it is an option.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because it 

6 would seem in those situations, it would be a 

7 better option.

8 DR. NETON: Yes, I agree with you.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dick.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: How do you - say you 

11 have ten workers in one department, and two of 

12 those workers don't have any monitoring. And 

13 how do you assure that the monitoring has been 

14 done on worst-case scenarios if the two are 

15 outliers that don't really fit into that 

16 normal pattern? It seems to me that that 

17 could really underestimate their exposure.

18 DR. NETON: Well, we have to have 

19 some evidence that those two people were true 

20 - they did something different or, you know, 

21 there was a reason why they, you know, based 

22 on the CATI interviews or looking, I don't 
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1 know, at the job descriptions and what they 

2 were doing. I don't know.

3 It's unlikely, in my opinion, that 

4 there were eight out of ten workers that were 

5 monitored, and the two that weren't - 

6 MEMBER LEMEN: What if there was 

7 one that - 

8 DR. NETON: - had higher exposure 

9 than the eight that were monitored.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: What if there was 

11 one monitored, and nine weren't monitored?

12 DR. NETON: Then we wouldn't have a 

13 very good evidence for a coworker model in 

14 that situation. That all goes under the very 

15 up-front work which is trying to establish 

16 were the workers who were exposed properly 

17 monitored to begin with?

18 And, in fact, our experience has 

19 been almost invariably at these sites for the 

20 internal dosimetry perspective, the workers 

21 with the highest potential for exposures were 

22 indeed the ones that were monitored.
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1 It seems incongruous to me that 

2 someone would go and set up a monitoring 

3 program, monitor eight workers and then say, 

4 well, these two very highly-exposed workers 

5 I'm going to not monitor them.

6 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, we see that in 

7 OSHA enforcement where workers are actually - 

8 the lower-exposure workers are monitored by 

9 management and that's - a lot of citations 

10 come out of that. So I think that's an 

11 assumption you can't make.

12 DR. NETON: Well, I would say that 

13 that's very different than the experience that 

14 I have seen at all these sites that I have 

15 looked at. If you look at the job categories, 

16 the titles of the people, the chemical 

17 operators, the machinists, the people that are 

18 really in there working with the particulate 

19 radiation that has a potential for being 

20 airborne, invariably they have the most 

21 monitoring data, and not the people who were 

22 the security guards, the people who sort of 
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1 walked intermittently throughout those 

2 processes.

3 MEMBER LEMEN: Also, since I've 

4 been sitting on the Board and listening, it 

5 appears to me that when you do the interviews, 

6 you really don't do a great number of people 

7 when you do the interviews. So how are you 

8 assuring yourself that you've really got a 

9 good sample to make that determination?

10 DR. NETON: I'm not sure of the 

11 question. A good sample of what?

12 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, listening to 

13 these site visits, you may interview five 

14 percent or ten percent. Unless I'm listening 

15 wrong or hearing wrong, a lot of these you 

16 don't have over 50 percent of the people that 

17 you've interviewed.

18 So how do you know that you've 

19 interviewed, say, the electrician who has 

20 worked next to a chemical operator fixing a 

21 machinery that the chemical operator works, 

22 and that electrician while he's doing that, is 
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1 exposed to, say, equal amount or higher 

2 amount?

3 It just seems to me that your 

4 interviews are lacking in general for catching 

5 those type of things. Maybe I'm wrong, but - 

6 DR. NETON: No, I don't know. I 

7 guess this comes down to how much evidence 

8 does one need to develop this. I mean, 

9 nothing is a hundred percent.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: But then you might 

11 be - 

12 DR. NETON: So if there's a one 

13 percent or one in a thousand chance we've 

14 missed it, okay. I mean, there's nothing we 

15 can do about that.

16 We have monitoring data for these 

17 workers. If workers - if chemical operators 

18 were being monitored and the electrician was 

19 next to him, typically we'll find that 

20 electricians were also monitored on the same 

21 job.

22 I can't prove, though, beyond, you 
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1 know, some credible statistic that it didn't 

2 happen once or twice or something in the whole 

3 - 

4 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, when it 

5 happens even once on a compensation program - 

6 DR. NETON: Well, I don't know. Is 

7 that the standard?

8 MEMBER LEMEN: - that person is 

9 going to be penalized.

10 DR. NETON: Right.

11 MEMBER LEMEN: The other thing - 

12 I'll quit arguing with you on that.

13 DR. NETON: Okay.

14 MEMBER LEMEN: The other thing is I 

15 think you really need to reexamine your job 

16 categories because firefighter may be just as 

17 heavily exposed as a waste handler or steam 

18 fitter.

19 DR. NETON: Well, I would agree 

20 with you on certain - but remember these are 

21 intermittent-type exposures. Firefighters are 

22 not every day. We're assigning them chronic 
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1 exposures at the 50th percentile of all 

2 monitored workers for every day of their 

3 career.

4 If they worked there 20 years, 

5 they would receive the 50th percentile urinary 

6 output for their entire job history.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: A reminder, Dick, 

8 Board Members, you need to talk into the 

9 microphone even though Jim's behind you. I 

10 know it's hard. We could have Jim run around 

11 to the other side, but - 

12 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, probably what 

13 I said is not worth recording anyhow.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I have sort of a 

15 follow-up question, different version of that. 

16 I think one of the questions is what level of 

17 detail do you have to go down? How many 

18 levels do you need to go down?

19 Because, you know, even looking at 

20 your example that was up there, those people 

21 can have not only, you know, different levels 

22 of exposure, but there are also different 
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1 distributions to their exposure. Firefighters 

2 would be - intermittent exposure, and whereas 

3 some of the construction workers have much 

4 greater variance to their exposure.

5 And one of the criticisms that I 

6 brought up, and I think others have also, is 

7 you tend to put everybody into one building 

8 and that becomes the distribution for the 

9 coworker model whenever - reality, that's made 

10 up of several different, you know, many 

11 different, you know, distributions depending 

12 on the type of job people had and so forth.

13 And I don't think that's always 

14 been, you know, very well reflected in your 

15 coworker models because it's hard because you 

16 lose, you know, statistical power the further 

17 down because your sample size gets smaller. 

18 There may be only ten carpenters or, whatever, 

19 ten operators in your model. And I think 

20 that's more of a concern.

21 So you're just putting everybody 

22 together and then assigning some, you know, 
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1 level 95th confidence interval, whatever it 

2 is, to that overall distribution. And I think 

3 that's, I think, what worries us more. Much 

4 more than sort of the, you know, what might 

5 happen to an individual, what's happened to 

6 this group of workers when it's included in 

7 that. So what's your response - 

8 DR. NETON: I would submit that for 

9 the internal coworker models, we include a 

10 geometric standard deviation that is sampled. 

11 And that geometric standard deviation is no 

12 less than three or whatever it is calculated 

13 based on that distribution.

14 And the way the IREP program 

15 works, of course, is depict the 99th 

16 percentile of the distribution of all 

17 Probabilities of Causation that are generated. 

18 And so that distribution in itself is 

19 incorporated into the statistical calculation 

20 of the Probability of Causation calculation. 

21 So it allows for us to incorporate that 

22 uncertainty into the IREP calculation.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But have you 

2 tested that? I mean, I think that's the 

3 question and - don't want to jump in because 

4 I'm not even sure you've seen the report, but 

5 I think some of these same questions are 

6 raised by the outside review report that's 

7 just been put on our information.

8 We just received it today. I 

9 don't even know if you've had a chance to look 

10 at it, but it raises a number of these issues 

11 about the coworker model, sort of level of 

12 detail.

13 I just glanced through the 

14 recommendations today. And I think we have to 

15 sort of think about how we're approaching it 

16 because we are doing individual dose 

17 reconstruction. There's data that is helpful 

18 for that, but then we're just sort of losing 

19 it all in this one big coworker model.

20 And while the, you know, 95th 

21 distribution, the IREP model may sort of take 

22 care of that in one way, I'm not sure it takes 
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1 care of it in the way of actually looking at 

2 doing individual, you know, dose 

3 reconstruction.

4 DR. NETON: I have not seen the 

5 final report, but I suspect that we will be 

6 addressing it at some point.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I didn't mean to 

8 surprise you. I just happened to look at it, 

9 and now I can't get back on the drive they 

10 gave me. So I couldn't even tell you what 

11 page it's on.

12 Any other questions? Brad.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim, me and you 

14 have talked many times about, you know, these 

15 categories and so forth. And, you know, I 

16 agree with Mr. Presley on some of the 

17 situations. And I think that we could really 

18 say that each site is going to be a little bit 

19 different when we look at these categories, 

20 the CATI report or whatever you say like that.

21 Because a lot of the issues - and 

22 you've got to understand our standpoint on 
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1 this. Being in the industry, we know when we 

2 call somebody, say, a secretary or something, 

3 a lot of times they're right down there on the 

4 machine floor processing the paperwork for all 

5 these people and so forth.

6 So this is why we have somewhat of 

7 a - or I should say that I have an issue with 

8 putting them into categories like this. And 

9 the reason why is because we've seen at 

10 numerous sites that in the NIOSH response they

11 said that they could not have been exposed to 

12 this because of their job category. Which in 

13 talking with the individual, they were right 

14 in the middle of it.

15 And this is one thing I just want 

16 to caution NIOSH about in their coworker model 

17 is we can't take a lot of credit for job 

18 categories. I agree that the production 

19 workers and so forth like that, those are 

20 right in there. But some of the other - more 

21 questionable ones, I hope that we use the CATI 

22 interviews and make sure that we understand 
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1 what their whole job category was. Because 

2 dispatcher, secretaries, everything else like 

3 that, a lot of those were right on the machine 

4 floor processing the paperwork and taking care 

5 of the process right there.

6 But talking with what Dr. Lemen 

7 said, one of the questions that I have is 

8 because we're starting to see this come up in 

9 the D&D era and we're going to have to make a 

10 coworker model for them is at some of these 

11 sites, not all people were monitored. Maybe 

12 two out of 30 people had dosimetry. And those 

13 people are also the only ones that had any 

14 bioassay. And I'm talking after the `90s. 

15 I'm talking in the D&D period.

16 You may have 30 people, but those 

17 30 people may be split up in 15 or 20 

18 different areas around the site. And I'm just 

19 wondering how you can actually make a coworker 

20 model that way because the two or maybe three 

21 people out of those 30 people are in all 

22 different areas.
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1 DR. NETON: Well, the short answer 

2 is I don't think we could. I mean, if you 

3 only had a couple bioassay samples, it 

4 wouldn't be enough to develop a distribution.

5 But, you know, that - the coworker 

6 is a subset of our hierarchy. Our hierarchy 

7 is use individual monitoring data if it's 

8 available.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right.

10 DR. NETON: Secondly, develop 

11 coworkers based on individual monitoring data. 

12 And then you get down into looking at area - 

13 you know, air sampling programs, external dose 

14 rate surveys, that sort of information. And 

15 that of course would have to be the next level 

16 that we would go to to try to establish what 

17 the conditions were in those work places.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, this may be 

19 for DOE, too, but this is - the whole thing 

20 that comes out of this is in the later years, 

21 the D&D periods, we're seeing at more and more 

22 sites that people weren't monitored the way 
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1 they were during the production periods - 

2 those are justification, I just - 

3 DR. NETON: I'm a little confused 

4 by that. I think my experience has been once 

5 the `90s came around and 10 CFR Part 835 was 

6 instituted where, you know, you were required 

7 to have a monitoring program for anyone that 

8 had a potential to receive 100 millirem dose, 

9 that the monitoring programs increased 

10 dramatically.

11 So I'd be surprised if you saw in 

12 the `90s that there was only one or two people 

13 monitored, unless there was a source term 

14 there that was evaluated that indicated that 

15 the potential for exposure was pretty low 

16 where these people were wearing, you know, 

17 powered air purifying respirators and that 

18 sort of thing.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: The classification 

20 of this, and I can't go into the sites because 

21 some of us are conflicted on these and so 

22 forth like this, but their theory on this was 
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1 that the production period is over and so they 

2 didn't need to monitor everybody.

3 Many of these sites that we're 

4 getting into right now are into this 

5 situation, and we're getting into the - 

6 they're part of the SEC. And we're coming to 

7 find out that numerous ones that they - they 

8 determined that since the production period 

9 was over with that they didn't need to monitor 

10 to that depth.

11 But then you look at it from the 

12 workers' standpoint. They're going in and 

13 ripping out 50 years of history that on the 

14 surface may have looked very clean. When you 

15 start ripping them out, breaking up floors, 

16 you're exposing 50 years of history there, and 

17 we've seen numerous ones come back.

18 And this is somewhat of what Dr. 

19 Lemen was saying of to what point do we do 

20 this? And, you know, it's just an 

21 observation.

22 DR. NETON: Yes.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'm just telling 

2 you what some of my issues with the coworker 

3 models have come out. And I know that the 

4 `90s did become better, but also it's kind of 

5 the pendulum we've swung clear to the other 

6 side sometimes, too.

7 DR. NETON: Right. I appreciate 

8 that, Brad, and I guess we'll have to take it 

9 on a case-by-case basis. I haven't seen the 

10 data that you're talking about.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, David then 

12 Bill, then we need to wrap this part up 

13 because we're running into the SEC.

14 MEMBER FIELD: I guess I had more 

15 of a question in regard to a clarification. 

16 For your job categories, the goal is to have 

17 them site-specific and also building-specific? 

18 I'm just looking at the overarching goal that 

19 you have for developing - 

20 DR. NETON: These job categories 

21 are merely meant as a starting point for 

22 someone to start looking at the data set to 
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1 say what was this person's potential for 

2 exposure. And I don't think anybody, a dose 

3 reconstructor, would take this and say, oh, 

4 it's an administrator, I'm assigning ambient 

5 environmental. You look at the whole package.

6 Were there any monitors in the 

7 place, you know? What does the Site Profile 

8 say about this kind of stuff?

9 MEMBER FIELD: And how much, I 

10 guess, how much focus is there on the CATI 

11 interviews for developing these?

12 DR. NETON: They're all reviewed. 

13 They're definitely all reviewed. They're 

14 certainly an integral part of this.

15 MEMBER FIELD: And then the other 

16 question I had, you were mentioning the 

17 bioassay distribution. So you assume a 

18 chronic intake; is that right?

19 DR. NETON: Yes.

20 MEMBER FIELD: There's always 

21 exceptions to the rule, but couldn't you get 

22 higher exposures if it was episodic and you 
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1 were monitoring after a period of time?

2 DR. NETON: About six years ago we 

3 went through this during the Board 

4 deliberations, and I think we pretty 

5 conclusively demonstrated through some 

6 presentations that, in general, almost in all 

7 cases, a chronic exposure, if you have a 

8 chronic exposure at some level, then any 

9 incidents that would have happened that could 

10 have been higher were averaged out over that 

11 chronic exposure period, it's - in other 

12 words, you could have had a chronic exposure, 

13 a spike, a very brief spike.

14 But, in general, if you're giving 

15 that chronic exposure it integrates it over 

16 time, for picocurie per liter days it comes 

17 out fairly claimant favorable.

18 MEMBER FIELD: And then just one 

19 final question, and maybe I just didn't catch 

20 this, when you have a distribution, say, of 

21 bioassay for uranium, and then you have your 

22 different exposure categories - 
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1 DR. NETON: Right.

2 MEMBER FIELD: - and assuming the 

3 highest one has the highest potential, how do 

4 you break them down? Do you use the same 

5 distribution for the highest exposed 

6 individuals, or do you have a different 

7 distribution for each category?

8 DR. NETON: No, no, no, everyone 

9 would - everyone in the highest-exposed 

10 category, for example, in the slide that I'm 

11 showing here, the uranium bioassay 

12 distribution, they would receive 127 - they 

13 would be assumed to have excreted 127 dpm per 

14 day over their entire work history.

15 And then a back calculation would 

16 be done to see what kind of intake that would 

17 have - what kind of chronic intake scenario 

18 would have had to have been in place for that 

19 person to be excreting that level.

20 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. So how would 

21 you use that then for the lowest-exposed 

22 group?
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1 DR. NETON: I'm sorry. This 

2 distribution - I probably was confusing. This 

3 distribution is only used for the 50th 

4 percentile and the 95th percentile. Ambient 

5 environmental is based on the air sampling 

6 program that had been in place to establish 

7 what the environmental levels were for the 

8 site.

9 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. I guess I'm 

10 just trying to figure out what distribution 

11 you use to go back then and give some sort of 

12 value for the different categories.

13 DR. NETON: Well, there's three. 

14 There would be an ambient environmental based 

15 on the environmental air sampling program if 

16 it existed at the site. And that's not really 

17 a distribution, that's - well, it could be, 

18 but it's based on that. And then there's this 

19 distribution which would be used to have 

20 either the 50th percentile or the 95th 

21 percentile assigned.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask you 
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1 a quick question?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, you can ask 

3 a quick question because we're going to have 

4 to wrap up here and bring Jim back for Part 2.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could you go 

6 back one slide to the external? I was - there 

7 were several funny things to the slide that 

8 made me think about it a little bit.

9 I mean, one is this tail which - 

10 well, you talked about the upper tail. The 

11 lower tail is an artifact of recording 

12 practice.

13 DR. NETON: Right. 

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So they're 

15 recording like five millirem or something - 

16 DR. NETON: Right.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: - for values - 

18 for some values that are above the detection 

19 limit, but not all of them. I think the 

20 detection limit at the time was like ten 

21 millirem maybe for these - or in that 

22 ballpark. So there's some - 
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1 DR. NETON: I think the LOD over 

2 two is what would be recorded here probably.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, actually 

4 not, though. So the Savannah River in 1973 

5 had 20 percent of the badges were returned in 

6 that year - or 18 percent of the badges 

7 returned in that year and - have a blank value 

8 on them. They were below detection limit, and 

9 the practice at the time was to record no 

10 value for those.

11 But in other years and at other 

12 sites, they do different things with what 

13 they're going to indicate as the below14 detection limit. And that really has a big 

15 impact on where the median and 95th percentile 

16 are.

17 So that's completely an artifact 

18 of, well, two things. How many people do you 

19 badge and what's your practice for indicating 

20 below detection on the badges.

21 So here you've got this, like this 

22 line which has got some of the mass for the 
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1 low-exposed people. And it's because there's 

2 some values reported below the detection 

3 limit, but not all of them. Like 20 percent 

4 of the mass is missing.

5 But it means that, like - that the 

6 practice of assigning these scores is partly - 

7 it's kind of an administrative artifact where 

8 you're going to get this 50 percentile. How 

9 are they counting all these people who are 

10 being badged to have really - they're at the 

11 limit of detection of the measurement device?

12 DR. NETON: Well, at the limit of 

13 detection, they would be assigned LOD over two 

14 for every badge that was assigned - that's not 

15 even - I think I pointed out this is not - 

16 this is a raw data plot. I apologize for not 

17 having a fully developed distribution.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So you've 

19 added that 18 percent.

20 DR. NETON: Yes, that's all been 

21 added back in.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And now you've 
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1 got - you're assigning a value that's the 

2 median and the 95th percentile - 

3 DR. NETON: Right.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: - for all the 

5 badged workers in that year.

6 DR. NETON: Right. And it has - it 

7 shifts the distribution. And, in fact, let's 

8 say a person had - 

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So the median 

10 wouldn't look anything like this median.

11 DR. NETON: Right.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And the 95th 

13 doesn't look anything like - 

14 DR. NETON: I apologize. I didn't 

15 have - I thought I could just get away with 

16 showing a general distribution here. But the 

17 idea is that if a person had like quarterly 

18 monitoring and had one badge that was positive 

19 and three that were less than detection limit, 

20 we would add in three times the LOD over two 

21 to that one reported positive as their 

22 potential dose during that year.
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1 So, yes, I apologize for having a 

2 somewhat incomplete picture here.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, I'm 

4 still trying - it's like a different approach 

5 to doing this and it's - I haven't thought 

6 about it, but it's different than how we've 

7 used coworker data at Savannah River and Oak 

8 Ridge and other places where we've assigned 

9 dosimeters to areas and the 95th percentile 

10 then for people who are, let's say, reactor 

11 operators would look very, very different than 

12 this 95th percentile for everybody who's badge 

13 monitored at the site.

14 DR. NETON: Right.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, it's 

16 going to be orders of magnitude different. 

17 And so, you know, I can see your argument for 

18 that there was a difficulty early on in 

19 constructing assignment of dosimeters, but it 

20 has an impact for thinking about how 

21 administrative practices play into the 

22 assignment of low doses, what the median 
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1 means.

2 DR. NETON: Right.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I don't - 

4 DR. NETON: Yes, there's a lot to 

5 it that we probably can't get into in this 

6 brief discussion. But Dr. Melius did point 

7 out that this seems to be - has been raised in 

8 the Quality of Science review, which I'm sure 

9 we'll be taking up in some detail.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Which is also, I 

11 think, at least glancing at it, sort of an 

12 epidemiological approach, I would say, which 

13 would look a little bit different.

14 And what I'm going to suggest, we 

15 have an SEC scheduled with the petitioners on 

16 the line. So we need to break off this 

17 discussion.

18 We will come back probably at our 

19 next Board work session. So around 

20 immediately following our discussion on Dow 

21 we'll have Jim sort of finish up the second 

22 part of the presentation on OTIB-70.
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1 DR. NETON: It might be better if I 

2 do the discussion before the Dow because Dow 

3 was one of my examples for developing these 

4 distributions, but it's your call.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, maybe we can 

6 do that as a lead-in into Dow, and then we'll 

7 hold some questions until a little bit later 

8 so that we don't - because there are some 

9 scheduling issues with some of the people, but 

10 that would make sense.

11 And then on the coworker issue, I 

12 think we'll schedule some time for further 

13 discussion on the next Board meeting. I think 

14 a number of Board Members have concerns about 

15 this and those issues, and I think we really 

16 need to spend some more time talking about 

17 this because it affects a large number of 

18 sites, large parts of the program. So I think 

19 it's worth our while to spend time.

20 Our next issue is the Chapman 

21 Valve SEC Petition, and I'm not exactly sure 

22 how we're going to start this. John, are you 
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1 going to have a few words to say or - 

2 MEMBER POSTON: Yes, I can.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I didn't 

4 know if you were expecting that. I was trying 

5 to - 

6 MEMBER POSTON: Well, I'll try to 

7 keep it short. The Working Group met by 

8 telephone on February the 9th. And the Group 

9 was composed of Dr. Roessler, Mr. Gibson, and 

10 Mr. Clawson. Mark Griffon was not available, 

11 and Brad is the alternate. So he was there.

12 Our purpose was to review or hear

13 about the success or lack thereof of data 

14 recovery which was carried out in December of 

15 2010. There were actually a couple of efforts 

16 where a number of boxes of data or information 

17 was discovered, and it had to be reviewed. 

18 Mark Rolfes reported on what had been found, 

19 which basically was not much that would help 

20 us resolve the issue.

21 So one piece of information I 

22 think that was introduced was that there - at 
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1 the close-out of the Chapman Valve, there were 

2 additional samples taken. The number - I'm 

3 not sure. The number six or seven sticks in 

4 my mind, but we can find it in the transcript 

5 if anybody wants to know the exact number.

6 But these were all analyzed by 

7 alpha spectrometry, which is the best method. 

8 And they were all consistent with natural 

9 uranium.

10 So here we have the same conundrum 

11 that we have always; we have a series of 

12 samples showing natural uranium, and one 

13 showing what we believe is something on the 

14 order of one to two percent enrichment, and we 

15 still have no idea the origin of that sample.

16 So my approach was to let everyone 

17 state their opinions and so forth and have 

18 sort of a discussion, and we may want to have 

19 them restate their positions rather than me 

20 try to summarize it. But basically after 

21 having a discussion, we turned out to be 

22 essentially a hung jury, so to speak.
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1 We had two people on the Committee 

2 who were in favor of granting the SEC and two 

3 people on the Committee who thought that we 

4 should take NIOSH's recommendation that they 

5 can reconstruct doses. So after some 

6 discussion, it was decided by the Work Group 

7 that we would bring it to the Board 

8 essentially as I have stated it. And so that 

9 concludes my report.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. The Board 

11 thanks you. Did anybody have suggestions for 

12 further - the need for further information or 

13 suggestion - I shouldn't say "the need."

14 We obviously need more - would be 

15 nice to have more information, but suggestions 

16 for where there might be additional 

17 information, or has that been exhausted, I 

18 guess - 

19 MEMBER POSTON: Well, I think the 

20 general consensus was that we had exhausted 

21 all avenues. Some of the boxes that were 

22 reviewed that had "Chapman Valve" on it, 
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1 basically had nothing that was helpful.

2 I might point out, and I was 

3 remiss in not doing so, they're in your folder 

4 for this meeting. There are six pieces of 

5 documents. There's a transcript from previous 

6 meetings. There's also data samples and so 

7 forth that were obtained by NIOSH when they 

8 were in their data gathering.

9 But, again, if you review those, 

10 there's very - well, there's essentially no 

11 information that would help us. And so I 

12 think the general consensus of everybody on 

13 the Committee, including the folks from NIOSH 

14 - I won't speak for SC&A, but I think they 

15 would agree we basically have exhausted all 

16 avenues.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. 

18 NIOSH, Stu, do you have anything to add or - 

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't think I 

20 have anything particularly relevant to add. 

21 Some of this latest data search, we searched 

22 on - based on some key words that we thought 
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1 might lead to Chapman Valve, and they didn't.

2 So we just - that was that records 

3 collection at Oak Ridge that we were - the 

4 last one we looked at. We just didn't find 

5 anything down there that was helpful.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So NIOSH's 

7 recommendation would be that this - what is 

8 your conclusion on this mystery sample, 

9 whatever you want to call it?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we've not 

11 really formed an opinion on the mystery 

12 sample. Our presentation and our position so 

13 far is that the work we know that was done for 

14 AEC at Chapman was the machining of natural 

15 uranium rods for loading of a reactor at 

16 Brookhaven National Laboratory.

17 That's what we know happened 

18 there. So based on that we really can't - we 

19 choose not to offer, you know, speculation 

20 about the one sample.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: But of the work 
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1 that we know happened, we're pretty confident 

2 that was natural uranium, and we have 

3 information that will allow us to generate 

4 dose reconstruction.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: John, if you want 

6 to - 

7 MEMBER POSTON: When we interviewed 

8 the folks at Chapman Valve, and I think Arjun 

9 and John can speak to this if they want, we 

10 were told that there were some manifolds that 

11 came into Chapman Valve and were offloaded and 

12 taken to another facility.

13 When we did our data search, we 

14 found no data that indicated there was ever 

15 shipments in to Chapman Valve. Everything 

16 that we found in the data set was all about 

17 new valves being shipped out. So that's the 

18 mystery.

19 We think that if this, you know, 

20 the people were quite clear in their 

21 remembrance of these manifolds. They 

22 described them quite well and so forth. And 
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1 we thought, well, maybe that's the source 

2 because maybe it came from the thermal 

3 diffusion plant or somewhere else in Oak Ridge 

4 where you might have a low-enrichment 

5 facility.

6 The Navy sort of, they were very 

7 cooperative. But at the same time, they 

8 pointed out that they weren't interested in 

9 low-enriched uranium. So they gave us a lot 

10 of help, but not anything that would allow us 

11 to reach a conclusion. 

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, I think 

13 the - I don't know if SC&A, Arjun or John, you 

14 have anything to add, want to add, but it's 

15 sort of - then trying to get this - we have 

16 this one sample. We got this information from 

17 the people at the site.

18 Can someone refresh my memory? 

19 Was the time frame for that within the - sort 

20 of the current scope of where - the covered 

21 period for the site?

22 MEMBER POSTON: It was in the - it 
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1 was the FUSRAP sample that was taken many 

2 years after, as I recall.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, right. 

4 But I meant the recollection from the people 

5 that - Arjun, do you?

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, the one 

7 worker who was very clear in her memory of, 

8 you know, the returning manifolds and so on, 

9 was also very clear that that work stopped 

10 after - immediately after World War II.

11 So in the months that followed 

12 certainly before - now this is from my memory, 

13 which is not as good as hers.

14 (Laughter.)

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: But stopped by 

16 January. Immediately after the war ended in 

17 Japan, and certainly by January 1946. So it 

18 doesn't overlap the period that Stu just 

19 talked about.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: `48, `49.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So it does not. 

22 Does not.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: It does not, no.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. So, 

3 hypothetically, if we wanted to base an SEC, 

4 just again hypothetically, on that 

5 information, it would not be during the 

6 current covered period. I think that's a fair 

7 statement to that.

8 And so if the sample that was 

9 found, the slightly enriched uranium, if it 

10 was related to that source, it would have most 

11 likely come before the covered period. I'm 

12 just trying to frame this in terms of an SEC 

13 decision/recommendation that we have.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that's clear, 

15 but we, you know, we have no knowledge of 

16 where that sample came from, as Dr. Poston has 

17 just said. But if it is connected to the 

18 manifold, then it would have been before. 

19 Exactly right.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, right. 

21 Yes, and our other hypothesis was it was 

22 connected to the Navy. And I think that's 
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1 been at least largely ruled out from their 

2 information and so forth.

3 And, you know, I guess the third 

4 possibility, it comes from some other, you 

5 know, AEC or other process at that site that 

6 we're just not aware of and there's no 

7 records. And nobody, at least in the 

8 information we have, no one has reported 

9 anything to us that would account for that.

10 Is that a fair statement?

11 MEMBER POSTON: Jim did due 

12 diligence by talking to the folks at Oak Ridge 

13 about the sample. And they, as I recall, were 

14 adamant that the result, which was a one or 

15 two percent enrichment, was correct.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

17 MEMBER POSTON: Is that summary - 

18 DR. NETON: I would say "adamant" 

19 might be a little strong, but they certainly 

20 did believe that the number was valid.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, because 

22 originally we had concerns about the validity 
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1 and - 

2 DR. NETON: Right. They still 

3 couldn't establish what technique was used 

4 whether it was alpha spec or mass spectrometry 

5 or even gamma spec. But, in general, they 

6 felt that during that time period it would 

7 have been either alpha spec or mass 

8 spectrometry, which would have been adequate 

9 to establish that degree of enrichment.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul, then Gen.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Dr. Poston, can you 

12 remind us was that sample a soil sample or was 

13 it a smear sample or something else?

14 MEMBER POSTON: My recollection is 

15 it was a soil sample taken at outside - 

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: By the loading 

17 dock.

18 MEMBER POSTON: - by the loading 

19 dock.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: I was just 

21 wondering if Mark Rolfes was on the phone. 

22 This is Stu. 
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1 MEMBER POSTON: Well, now I'm - 

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. It was 

3 either a soil sample - I was under the 

4 impression it was a sweepings. It was a 

5 sample of essentially floor sweepings from a 

6 corner close to the door. That's my 

7 understanding is it was floor sweepings.

8 MEMBER POSTON: We have a bunch of 

9 understandings because Josie just said she 

10 thought it was a smear.

11 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I'm 

12 pretty sure that this was inside the loading 

13 dock, not outside. Just inside the loading 

14 dock.

15 And it was - call it soil, call it 

16 dirt, but there was some contamination that 

17 they identified, I think, with a frisker on 

18 the first basis. And then they sampled it 

19 because the reading was a little bit higher 

20 than normal. And it was a small amount of 

21 dirt, soil, whatever you want to call it.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul, does that 
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1 help - do you have further questions?

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. I mean, you 

3 know, we can make all kinds of speculations 

4 because, you know, I don't think we can 

5 necessarily assume it was from earlier work. 

6 I don't think we can necessarily assume - one 

7 could argue that, you know, a lot of these 

8 FUSRAP people were doing stuff at a lot of 

9 different sites. They may have cross10 contaminated even. So you can think of all 

11 kinds of scenarios.

12 The thing is, in my mind, that if 

13 there was a prevalent amount of work with the 

14 slightly enriched uranium going on there, to 

15 find only a single sample during the cleanup 

16 period seems to me to be a real stretch. That 

17 takes more of a stretch than anything.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But we could also 

19 speculate that the FUSRAP people were, you 

20 know, a little sloppy. I mean, it's - 

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, you'd have to 

22 speculate that they were really good and they 
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1 cleaned up almost everything. And that's the 

2 stretch.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I like that. 

4 Okay. Either way, right?

5 Gen.

6 MEMBER ROESSLER: We're putting a 

7 lot of emphasis on this sample, and I have to 

8 comment again about I just think that there's 

9 a high probability that the sample was 

10 identified incorrectly. If the people at Oak 

11 Ridge can't even remember what technique was 

12 used, I don't know how they can say, yes, it 

13 was right.

14 I've done a lot of sample 

15 counting, and I can't say that I was always a 

16 hundred percent accurate in identifying what 

17 was in the sample. There are a lot of 

18 confounding factors, and I question that that 

19 was really slightly enriched uranium that they 

20 identified in view of the fact that there's 

21 nothing else that supports that anything like 

22 that went on at the site, whatever the year 
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1 might have been.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other - yes, 

3 Brad. Sorry.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: Now you're 

5 starting to see what part of the issue is. 

6 Everybody keeps calling up the one sample. 

7 We've only had two samples until later on.

8 The other problem is is you have 

9 people that were telling us of these manifolds 

10 and stuff going on. Now basically in this 

11 situation, I have to take that NIOSH, I have 

12 to take that the FUSRAP people did these 

13 samples correctly, or if the site did them 

14 correctly, we have a sample that is odd to 

15 this.

16 My issue, also, and I have to fall 

17 back onto my background, is I have product 

18 that comes into my facility that I do not own. 

19 The only thing it shows up on is my 

20 criticalities. That's it. And I own - I 

21 don't own it. And once it leaves, there's no 

22 history of it because it's not my material.
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1 Now we have people telling us of 

2 these manifolds and so forth like that. 

3 That's where part of this - that's where part 

4 of the confusion comes into this, and it's a 

5 difficult one.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just say 

7 in response, Brad, that one can say that the 

8 sample is credible, it's real, that the end 

9 results are, that the recollection of the 

10 people at the site is real.

11 But for us to grant an SEC, I 

12 think there needs to be some connection to a 

13 covered period and a process, you know, that's 

14 recognized at that site, you know, time period 

15 and, you know, at least the recollection we 

16 have, the sample we just don't know. We don't 

17 know when that originated.

18 The recollection of the people at 

19 the site, which, again, sounds credible to me, 

20 but was for an earlier time period before the 

21 covered period. So it would really be a 

22 question of, I think, trying to find 
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1 information that would connect some sort of 

2 activity, covered activity to that earlier 

3 time period.

4 And I think that's what we're 

5 missing. And we've been approaching it, you 

6 know, both from trying to find more 

7 information on what happened at the site, but 

8 - both from, you know, in terms of AWE 

9 activity as well as, you know, possible DoD 

10 activity at the site. And I think DoD has 

11 said they have no records and so forth.

12 Again, there's limitations to 

13 that, but I think we've done at least a better 

14 job of trying to track that back.

15 Any other comments? We have some 

16 petitioners, I believe, on the line that were 

17 at least going to listen in. And I don't know 

18 if they have comments.

19 If you have comments, you're 

20 welcome to make them now. You're not required 

21 to. If you're on mute, *6 should get you out 

22 of mute also, as well as into mute.
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1 Okay. I guess hearing nothing 

2 from them, which is fine, we have further - 

3 yes.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Dr. Melius, I think 

5 we may want to check the phone system because 

6 Mark Rolfes sent us an email that he is on the 

7 line and he was talking, but we couldn't hear 

8 him.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: And so if the 

11 petitioners are trying to say something, it 

12 could be we couldn't hear them.

13 MR. ROLFES: Stu or Dr. Melius?

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

15 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: We can hear you 

17 now, Mark. 

18 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Great. Stu, I 

19 think you had asked a question earlier about 

20 what type of sample was collected during the 

21 FUSRAP remediation. And it was sample M-31 

22 and M-10, which were collected in 1992.
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1 Sample M-31 was the sample that 

2 was located at the intersection of the wall, 

3 floor, and the loading ramp into the building.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Now, Mark, 

5 that's the one that was analyzed as enriched?

6 MR. ROLFES: The sample that was 

7 collected next to the loading ramp was a dust 

8 and debris sample which was enriched to 2.16 

9 percent based upon the information presented 

10 to us in the FUSRAP report. The other sample 

11 that was collected was natural uranium.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

13 MR. ROLFES: And then subsequently 

14 in 1997, there were seven samples that were 

15 verification samples which were all consistent 

16 with natural uranium as well.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: You might ask about 

18 the petitioners.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I am. I 

20 will.

21 Okay. Are the petitioners on the 

22 line and wish to speak? We were having 
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1 technical difficulties with the phone, so 

2 couldn't tell if you wanted to say anything or 

3 not.

4 Great. Okay. Again, I ask the 

5 Board for any further questions/discussion, 

6 or, if not, want to consider a motion. Since 

7 we really don't have a recommendation from the 

8 Work Group, it would be up to the Board.

9 Paul.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is point of 

11 information. Was Chapman Valve one of the 

12 ones where we had tabled action on the SEC 

13 Petition or Evaluation Report? I'm trying to 

14 remember what the true status of this - did we 

15 have a previous motion on this?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we - 

17 Emily, do you recall? I remember this 

18 question came up last time, and I can't 

19 remember the answer.

20 MS. HOWELL: Yes, the last vote we 

21 had was a tied vote. So we don't have a 

22 tabled motion.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So do people feel 

3 that they've had enough time to look at the 

4 information? I guess particularly the new 

5 Board Members.

6 I hate to postpone this any 

7 longer, but at the same time if you're feeling 

8 uncomfortable with the information, if you 

9 want to look at it over the meeting, we can 

10 put this - do this follow-up tomorrow.

11 MEMBER LEMEN: Go with it.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What?

13 MEMBER LEMEN: Go ahead.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, sorry, Wanda. 

17 You're lost among the laptops. I apologize. 

18 Go ahead, Wanda.

19 MEMBER MUNN: I am happy to make a 

20 motion to support the assertion that we can in 

21 fact do - 

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you speak a 
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1 little louder? I'm not sure it's getting 

2 picked up by the mic. At least I'm having 

3 trouble - 

4 MEMBER MUNN: - do a necessary dose 

5 reconstruction as recommended by NIOSH.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Do we 

7 have a second?

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Second.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: From Paul. Any

10 further discussion?

11 Okay.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Go in reverse 

13 order.

14 (Laughter.)

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We have a 

16 friendly amendment.

17 MR. KATZ: Just this one time, 

18 Henry.

19 I'll note before I start that I 

20 have two Board Members who are absent. And as 

21 is the practice of this Board, we'll collect 

22 those votes when they're ready to vote and 
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1 available.

2 Dr. Ziemer.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Unaccustomed as I 

4 am to going first, I will vote yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler. 

8 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley.

12 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

14 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen.

20 MEMBER LEMEN: No.

21 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson.

22 MEMBER GIBSON: No.
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1 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

2 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: No.

5 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

6 MEMBER BEACH: No.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Anderson.

8 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: The yeas have it. We 

10 have two outstanding votes to collect.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So what's the 

12 tally?

13 MR. KATZ: The tally is we have 

14 ten yeas, four nays, and two votes to collect.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

16 I would just follow up that I 

17 think it would - if NIOSH in your further 

18 work, as well as DOE and DOL, if we can at 

19 least keep this in mind and continue to pursue 

20 it, again, we do have credible evidence that 

21 something was going on at that site.

22 And as we go through new data 
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1 sources or find new boxes of materials or 

2 information, you know, let's try to keep 

3 Chapman Valve in mind because I think it does 

4 behoove us to do that.

5 Yes, Brad.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim, I just wanted 

7 to compliment NIOSH because I was also 

8 involved in reviewing boxes at Hanford that 

9 had to do with Chapman Valve. And also when 

10 they made a data capture back at Oak Ridge, 

11 they had some boxes.

12 And so they have been doing that. 

13 I just wanted to compliment them on keeping 

14 us apprised of that and working towards that.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I would add I 

16 think that - appreciate, I think, NIOSH's 

17 effort. I mean, some of us that were 

18 concerned and, you know, might have voted 

19 differently on this site in the past was - one 

20 of the things that disturbed us was the 

21 follow-up.

22 And I think, again, compliment 
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1 NIOSH on their recent efforts and a little bit 

2 more cooperation/help from the Navy. So I 

3 think that's been very helpful to us.

4 Okay. It's coming up to 11:30, 

5 which is our lunchtime. Ted, do you have any 

6 - okay. Nothing more. Okay. We will take a 

7 break, and we are scheduled to restart at 1:00 

8 p.m. sharp.

9 So we have a number of petitions 

10 to go through this afternoon, plus our ethics 

11 training. So conflict of interest training.

12 So we'll see everybody back here 

13 at one o'clock. Thank you.

14 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

15 matter went off the record at 11:30 a.m. and 

16 resumed at 1:06 p.m.)

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 

2 1:06 p.m.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let's get started 

4 now. We're going to pick up Jim Neton's 

5 presentation, because some of it serves as an 

6 introduction to our discussions on the Dow 

7 Madison SEC Petition.

8 What I will do is ask you to just 

9 do questions related to Dow to this part of 

10 the presentation, and then we'll come back and 

11 maybe ask additional questions later on in the 

12 Board work session that immediately follows 

13 this.

14 So, Jim, go ahead.

15 DR. NETON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. 

16 Melius.

17 Continuing onto the second part of 

18 my presentation, and it shouldn't take long, I 

19 think I only have five or six slides, but I 

20 was going to briefly touch on how NIOSH 

21 reconstructs does during residual 

22 contamination periods.
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1 And specifically, I want to talk 

2 about TIB-70, which is our internal document 

3 that provides a roadmap of how to do that. 

4 So, for covered exposure during a 

5 residual contamination period, only exposures 

6 from AEC-related work are covered, you know.

7 That is if AWE had an AEC contract 

8 and they worked with uranium, for example, 

9 only the uranium work would be covered in the 

10 residual period even though they might have 

11 been working with other radioactive materials 

12 during, for commercial purposes, such as 

13 thorium or other isotopes.

14 That being said, however, though, 

15 commercial sources, and this is actually in 

16 the law, commercial sources that cannot be 

17 reliably distinguished from AEC-related 

18 sources are included.

19 That is if there's this whole sea 

20 of contamination out there and you can't 

21 reliably determine, you know, which part is 

22 AEC and which part is commercial, then we 
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1 would just include both and do the dose 

2 reconstruction that way.

3 Just as another reminder, doses 

4 from radiation-generating devices are not 

5 covered outside the AEC period.

6 Natural background is not covered 

7 unless it has been technologically enhanced. 

8 And most of the time this would be referring 

9 to radon. We don't include radon, natural 

10 background from radon anywhere.

11 But if radon is there due to the 

12 presence of radium that has been enriched for 

13 some purpose - enhanced for some purpose, we 

14 would include that. And, likewise, 

15 occupational medical x-ray exposures are not 

16 covered.

17 So, TIB-70 describes seven 

18 possible scenarios as to what we could do to 

19 reconstruct doses during this period. And the 

20 method of choice, of course, depends upon how 

21 much data is available.

22 It's been used at a number of 
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1 sites in various ways. It certainly has been 

2 used at Dow Chemical. Other sites that we've 

3 used TIB-70 that come to mind are Revere 

4 Copper & Brass, Simonds Saw and Steel, I 

5 think. I'm pretty sure Blockson Chemical.

6 So, here is a table right out of 

7 the document. There are seven scenarios 

8 outlined here for our approach. And they 

9 deal, as you would imagine, based on what's 

10 out there for us to use, there's either - you 

11 can either base it on air sample data or 

12 surface contamination data.

13 So, in the first scenario, the 

14 first line you can see that if you have 

15 operational air sampling data and post16 operational air sampling data, that's the best 

17 of all worlds for us to be able to figure out 

18 what the exposures may have been during the 

19 residual period.

20 And moving down the table you 

21 could see, well, you could have operational 

22 data, but no post-operational air sampling 
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1 data and how would you deal with that?

2 And then when you get into the 

3 realm of only post-operational data, that's 

4 the third category.

5 And then moving further down when 

6 you have surface contamination, the same logic 

7 applies. You could have surface contamination 

8 both post - during operational and post9 operational, or some combination thereof. And 

10 I'm going to go through some examples of how 

11 we do that.

12 This first slide is actually, I 

13 believe it's the Dow Chemical plot, but this 

14 is a situation where we have pre - or 

15 operational. It's not pre-operational. It's 

16 an operational air sample and a post17 operational sample. And you end up connecting 

18 the dots using some sort of an exponential 

19 function.

20 So, right at the end of the 

21 operational period when they're collecting air 

22 samples, we would take an air sample that is 
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1 not necessarily a process air sample, but a 

2 general area air sample would suffice.

3 And with the logic being that it 

4 will certainly be no more than that general 

5 area air sample during the residual period, 

6 that will be our starting point.

7 And then in this particular 

8 example 45 years later, the FUSRAP survey came 

9 along and took some air sample data. I forget 

10 the exact year, but somewhere around 2000.

11 And then one just fits an 

12 exponential function between those two points 

13 to come out with the exponential clearance 

14 rate, and they would apply that to all the 

15 intervening dose reconstructions.

16 Okay. This is where you have an 

17 operational air sample and an air sample 

18 during the FUSRAP era, but let's say you don't 

19 have an air sample data from the FUSRAP 

20 surveys, you just have an operational air 

21 sample.

22 Well, you start with that same 
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1 sample, but now you have to figure out what's 

2 the depletion of this material over time. And 

3 this is one - this is the equation that 

4 generates the half-life for us in this 

5 particular example, you know, where A is the 

6 contaminated area, K is the resuspension 

7 factor which we use one times ten to the minus 

8 six, N is the ventilation rate and R is the 

9 room volume.

10 If you rearrange this, you can 

11 come out with the clearance halftime in days 

12 by the expression on the bottom of 24KnH.

13 If you assume that there is one 

14 air change per hour and a resuspension factor 

15 of five times ten to the minus eight, this 

16 comes out to about one percent per day 

17 clearance.

18 This is the value that is being 

19 used for sites where we do not have any FUSRAP 

20 data.

21 I will say that as you probably 

22 know, this TIB is being reviewed by the 
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1 Procedures Review Group. This is one area 

2 where there is some discussion going on about 

3 this one percent clearance per day.

4 It's debatable whether that's 

5 exactly the number to use, whether we should 

6 use a more site-specific value, but it in fact 

7 is what we've used.

8 Not what we've used at Dow 

9 Chemical. Dow Chemical used the last one, but 

10 this is one that I'll be reporting on Wah 

11 Chang, I think is what we use at Wah Chang 

12 today.

13 So, that's if you only have a 

14 starting air sample and no final air sample. 

15 What happens if only post-operational data are 

16 available?

17 You don't have anything during the 

18 operations period to hang your hat on. Well, 

19 what we do is we end up relying on TBD-6000, 

20 which is you estimate the surface 

21 contamination during the operation period.

22 And how you do that is you pick a 
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1 representative work activity, you allow the 

2 material to settle up to one year of that 

3 activity, and then use the standard settling 

4 velocity that we've adopted, which is .000075 

5 meters per second, that has been vetted 

6 through the review process.

7 And you end up with a predicted or 

8 an estimated surface contamination value. And 

9 then you can resuspend that material into the 

10 air using this one times ten to the minus six 

11 resuspension factor to get some estimate of 

12 what the starting air concentration would be 

13 at the beginning of the residual contamination 

14 period.

15 Very similar now if we have no air 

16 sampling data at all and we only have surface 

17 contamination values, then we can take like 

18 the situation where we have a starting air 

19 concentration and ending air concentration, we 

20 just merely have to take the measured surface 

21 contamination values at the beginning of the 

22 contaminated - at the end of the operations 
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1 period, and then the surface contamination was 

2 measured later on in the residual period, and 

3 generate that same exact exponential function 

4 that we did when we had air sample data.

5 So, that's very similar to what we 

6 did before. In fact, you don't even have to 

7 use the one times ten to the minus six 

8 resuspension factor, because the clearance is 

9 independent of the resuspension factor.

10 If only the operational data like 

11 with the air sampling are available, then we 

12 would use the same default depletion constant 

13 of that one percent per day that I mentioned 

14 earlier.

15 And that's a very brief nutshell 

16 summary of how we go about re-suspending doses 

17 in the residual period.

18 I will point out that the residual 

19 period almost by definition, has no monitoring 

20 data because, especially for AWEs that didn't 

21 process commercial sources of material.

22 I mean, if you were an AWE that 
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1 was a steel mill, the AEC contract is over, 

2 everybody leaves, there is, by definition, 

3 going to be no radiation protection program.

4 So, virtually none of the AWEs, I 

5 can't think of any, that did not do commercial 

6 radioactivity work, had any measurements 

7 during the residual period other than the 

8 FUSRAP survey.

9 So, that's it. Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions for Jim 

11 at least related to Dow?

12 Yes, Josie.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Mine is fairly 

14 related.

15 How many open items are there, and 

16 you said that was within the Procedure Work 

17 Group on TIB-70 now, and of those, how many of 

18 them fall or are related to Dow?

19 DR. NETON: I don't think any are 

20 related to Dow. The one that would be related 

21 to Dow is the one that I talked about where we 

22 had an operational air sample and an air 
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1 sample during a residual period. That's what 

2 we've used at Dow. We've drawn that 

3 exponential function and connect those two 

4 dots.

5 The open items that I'm aware of 

6 is that one percent per day depletion, and 

7 there may be - the one times ten to the minus 

8 six resuspension factor is also under 

9 discussion.

10 It's appropriate, SC&A at least 

11 believes, at this point for sites that have 

12 been cleaned up to some degree, but not for 

13 sites that are - have been left without any 

14 cleanup.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dick.

16 MEMBER LEMEN: I just - maybe I 

17 missed it when you gave the presentation, but 

18 this resuspension factor of one times ten to 

19 the minus six, did you derive that by 

20 following out of the Steward `64 article?

21 Is that where you came up with 

22 that?
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1 DR. NETON: I don't know the exact 

2 citation, but there is some literature to 

3 support that one times ten to the minus six. 

4 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, you've 

5 mentioned this - in one of the slides, you 

6 mention Steward `64. I just wonder if it came 

7 from that paper or - I'd like a reference for 

8 that one times ten to the minus six if you can 

9 provide it.

10 DR. NETON: I can certainly provide 

11 it to you. I don't recall off the top of my 

12 head as to what the basis of that reference 

13 was.

14 MEMBER LEMEN: Okay. Thank you.

15 DR. NETON: John Mauro seems like 

16 he might know better than me at this point.

17 DR. MAURO: Excuse me. When we 

18 were researching the OTIB and discussing it 

19 and we were looking into the ten to the minus 

20 six, there is an NRC, a NUREG, one of the work 

21 products that they put out, discusses the 

22 resuspension factor to use following 
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1 decommissioning.

2 So, that's after you've cleaned up 

3 the site. I forget the number, but I can get 

4 that for you, where they collected data, 

5 actually collected some data, have empirical 

6 data on what the resuspension factor is.

7 So, when the site has been cleaned 

8 up and you remove most of the loose 

9 contamination, a resuspension factor seems to 

10 be a good number.

11 It's when there's still a lot of 

12 heavy contamination, and that's one of the 

13 issues we're discussing in our Work Group, ten 

14 to the minus five, maybe even ten to the minus 

15 four per meter is probably more appropriate 

16 when you have a fairly dirty surface.

17 MEMBER LEMEN: So, you don't think 

18 one number fits all.

19 DR. MAURO: No, not at all. I 

20 think it has - in fact, we just had a Work 

21 Group meeting where we discussed this issue at 

22 length.
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1 In fact, you have to couple the 

2 air - in other words, the rate at which it 

3 declines, for example, at one percent per day, 

4 you have to have a resuspension factor of 

5 about ten to the minus four.

6 In other words, to lose that much 

7 per day, you have to have a higher - you could 

8 have a - 

9 MEMBER LEMEN: No, no.

10 DR. MAURO: Did I just do something 

11 backwards? Wait a minute.

12 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

13 DR. MAURO: There's a coupling 

14 between the resuspension factor and the rate 

15 at which you could lose material and you can't 

16 uncouple the two.

17 I think that's one of our issues.

18 MEMBER LEMEN: Right.

19 DR. MAURO: I may have said it 

20 backwards.

21 MEMBER LEMEN: I think we agree at 

22 this point, though, that the one times seven 
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1 to the minus six resuspension factor is open 

2 for discussion. 

3 DR. MAURO: Yes.

4 MEMBER LEMEN: I think that's - we 

5 agree that it's good for surfaces that have 

6 been cleaned up.

7 There's room for discussion, 

8 though, on how we use it for other sites.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul, you had a 

10 comment?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. I'm almost 

12 certain it's not out of Alice Stewart's 

13 publication. I don't think she would be 

14 discussing that, but my recollection is that 

15 maybe an NRC Reg Guide recommends that.

16 There's a fair amount of 

17 literature on resuspension factors, and Dr. 

18 Mauro is quite right. They span several 

19 orders of magnitude depending a lot on the 

20 environmental situation.

21 Where you have a site that has 

22 been cleaned up, you have removed a lot of the 
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1 loose stuff that would otherwise be suspended. 

2 And that tends to tighten up the range of 

3 resuspension factors, but I think it would be 

4 worthwhile pinning down that literature for 

5 the Board Members.

6 But the ten to the minus six, I 

7 think in the Procedures Work Group we kind of 

8 agreed - we haven't closed it - but with SC&A 

9 that on a clean - a site that's already been 

10 cleaned up, that's probably a pretty good 

11 number.

12 But on a sort of dirty site, you 

13 could have a couple orders of magnitude 

14 different from that.

15 DR. MAURO: One of our work 

16 products for you folks for the procedures 

17 related to the subject, we have an attachment 

18 where I tried my best to review the literature 

19 on resuspension factors both outdoors and 

20 indoors. It's a lot different.

21 And there's a lot of data. You're 

22 absolutely right. A lot of data on 
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1 resuspension factors, and they cover eight 

2 orders of magnitude. That's the spread on 

3 resuspension factors.

4 MEMBER LEMEN: Was this discussed 

5 in Procedures before I got on the Procedures 

6 Review Committee? It must have been.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think it goes 

8 back aways. Wanda might remember, but - 

9 MEMBER LEMEN: Must be before I got 

10 on.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Well, yes, and 

12 currently. We spent a lot of time in January 

13 talking about just exactly this.

14 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes, I remember 

15 that. But, I mean, we don't - we didn't give 

16 as Members of the Procedure Review Committee, 

17 the baseline data that this is based upon.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think we need to 

19 find that reference.

20 DR. NETON: Well, I'd like to point 

21 out that TIB-70 actually goes through a fairly 

22 detailed description of how we arrived at 
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1 these values complete with references.

2 MEMBER LEMEN: Okay. Just as an 

3 aside, you know, Alice Stewart, she was the 

4 one that knew too much, if you've ever read 

5 her biography.

6 MEMBER MUNN: That depends on your 

7 position.

8 MEMBER ROESSLER: This Steward is 

9 spelled differently.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: It's a different 

11 Stewart? Both of them are named Alice?

12 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, I don't 

13 know about this one. It just says Steward, 

14 but it's spelled with a D at the end instead 

15 of a T.

16 I doubt that she would have done - 

17 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, you said 

18 Alice. That's why I thought you were - 

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, I thought you 

20 said Alice Stewart and - 

21 MEMBER LEMEN: I didn't say Alice.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, you did. 
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1 Yes, you did, Dick.

2 MEMBER LEMEN: Well, maybe I made a 

3 mistake. I meant Steward.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, some of us 

5 couldn't believe that, I mean, not the kind of 

6 work you'd connect with Alice Stewart.

7 MEMBER LEMEN: No, if I said Alice 

8 Stewart, it was a faux pas.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: She sort of took 

10 the opposite tack of ignoring exposure, so to 

11 speak. A whole other discussion.

12 MEMBER MUNN: It is a whole other 

13 discussion.

14 I think that SC&A's White Paper on 

15 this is easily available to look for the 

16 Members who are interested in it.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let's move on 

18 please. We do have the Dow thing and we 

19 deserve further discussion on this and some in 

20 the Procedures Work Group.

21 Jim, before you go, I have one 

22 other further quick question, I hope, which 
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1 may be related to Dow also. It's just a 

2 question.

3 This use of this applications 

4 procedure also, I think, assumes that site 

5 activities are sort of static. There may be 

6 production work going on. As you said, 

7 there's no commercial radiation work going on.

8 DR. NETON: Right.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And so, there are 

10 sort of exceptions to this. One is heavy 

11 contamination. We talked about where we'll 

12 have a different approach.

13 Another I think comes up with 

14 Norton where there's - which we'll talk about 

15 later tomorrow where there's ongoing 

16 decontamination activity.

17 DR. NETON: Right.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And then I've 

19 also raised the issue and it's come up in the 

20 Linde Work Group where you have this, you 

21 know, renovation going on within the site.

22 DR. NETON: Correct.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sort of post2 initial decontamination and so forth. And so, 

3 there's also - and I guess one of the 

4 questions I sort of have is, like, what's our 

5 criteria for how much - what's unusual 

6 activity or situations that would make you go 

7 beyond the use of just OTIB-70 in a residual - 

8 DR. NETON: Right.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: - contamination 

10 period. And I don't know if you have any 

11 comments on that or - 

12 DR. NETON: Well, I just - these 

13 are guidelines. They're just seven possible 

14 scenarios.

15 But as you recognize in Linde, 

16 there had been an extensive decontamination 

17 done on the building. But during the 

18 subsequent ten years or so, there were some 

19 remodeling efforts going on to disturb that 

20 contamination.

21 And, in fact, in that particular 

22 scenario, we chose not to use the exponential 
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1 decrease, but to keep the contamination level 

2 constant until that activity was done. And 

3 then we dropped it down with the exponential.

4 So, that's how we chose to deal 

5 with that particular scenario, but it is kind 

6 of on a case-by-case basis. 

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and I think 

8 what we're - and we can discuss this with the 

9 individual cases/situations, but also we need 

10 to try to develop some consistency in how 

11 we're approaching this because these are also 

12 time periods when we often don't have very 

13 much information on activities.

14 DR. NETON: Exactly, by definition.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, it's hard, 

16 but we can talk about that in more detail.

17 Let's move on to Dow. I believe 

18 we may have some petitioners on the line or 

19 listening in. And I think that was a good 

20 introduction to some of the other sites that 

21 we'll be talking about here.

22 So, what I thought we'd do to sort 
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1 of get ourselves oriented back on Dow 

2 Chemicals since the last meeting, is have John 

3 sort of go through a slightly updated 

4 presentation on - that we heard at the last 

5 meeting, but that sort of goes through some of 

6 the issues that had come up, and also 

7 addresses some of the issues that [identifying 

8 information redacted], one of the petitioners, 

9 had raised also.

10 So, John.

11 DR. MAURO: Thank you. Good 

12 afternoon.

13 I brought with me the same set of 

14 slides that Bill Thurber used, I guess, back 

15 in November and we can go through those. 

16 Although, I could use a little help getting 

17 this started, or not. I could just tell my 

18 story.

19 (Off-record comments.)

20 DR. MAURO: Okay. This is the same 

21 set of slides we used originally and I'll try 

22 to go through it quickly.
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1 As you may recall, there are a 

2 number of work products that NIOSH put out, 

3 and this lists them.

4 So, basically this is the array of 

5 source documents that NIOSH had developed over 

6 time. Because as you know, the program, the 

7 work on the subject evolved quite a bit since 

8 2007. And similarly, SC&A has put out a 

9 number of documents.

10 The most recent one that I think 

11 is the most interest here has to do with the 

12 document you put out dealing with surrogate 

13 data and the degree to which the residual 

14 period uses surrogate data.

15 And so, this slide is going to go 

16 through the - well, this presentation will go 

17 through the use of surrogate data at Dow.

18 And in order to follow this, I'd 

19 rather just speak to conceptually first. The 

20 way in which the Dow - Dow has been granted 

21 SEC from 1957 to 1960. And the main reason is 

22 the inability to reconstruct internal doses 
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1 from thorium. Okay. That's the key point.

2 However, NIOSH's position is 

3 during that time period, it's possible to 

4 reconstruct doses from uranium for both 

5 external and internal, and from thorium 

6 external.

7 Now, for the residual period, 

8 which is really the subject of interest here, 

9 the position is that doses could be 

10 reconstructed.

11 And so, the question is, you know, 

12 how is NIOSH planning to do it and how are 

13 they going to use surrogate data in order to 

14 do that?

15 And the best way to come at the 

16 subject is let's first talk a little bit about 

17 uranium. And you need to understand there are 

18 no data for uranium at Dow during the 

19 operations period, `57 to `60, or post-`60. 

20 So, this is a situation where surrogate data, 

21 you know, is going to be used.

22 Now, how do they do it?
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1 Well, the starting point was, 

2 well, what was the dust loading, what might 

3 have been the dust loading during the 

4 operations period?

5 And the way they came at it was 

6 there's a report by Harris and Kingsley, it's 

7 about 50 pages, it's a terrific report, it has 

8 a tremendous amount of data that was gathered 

9 in the mid-1950s through 1958, on uranium10 handling facilities that were actually 

11 operating at that time with the Health and 

12 Safety Laboratory now called the Environmental 

13 Measurements Laboratory.

14 Went out to a number of 

15 facilities. They went to Fernald, 

16 Mallinckrodt, Simonds Saw, Bridgeport Brass, 

17 Sylvania, all these different sites. They 

18 went out there and collected data, air 

19 sampling data, and complied it and it's all 

20 summarized in this report.

21 And this report is the source 

22 document upon which TBD-6000 is based. And we 
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1 did a very detailed review, went on for quite 

2 a bit of time reviewing TBD-6000 and how 

3 faithfully and appropriately they captured the 

4 data in the source document, translated it 

5 into TBD-6000, and now have a tool that, in 

6 theory, can be used to do surrogate data work.

7 And we reviewed not only TBD-6000 

8 carefully, and I think we've resolved all 

9 issues on that, it was quite a bit of review 

10 and Paul could attest to that, he chaired that 

11 Work Group, but now the question becomes, 

12 okay, what did they do though on Dow?

13 Well, what they did was it turns 

14 out at Dow in those three years, `57 to `60, 

15 they did two types of - you need to know about 

16 what happened during operations in order to 

17 understand what they did in the residual 

18 period.

19 During operations, there were two 

20 kinds of uranium activities that took place. 

21 There was extrusion work, and rod 

22 straightening work.
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1 So, that becomes, okay, now we 

2 know the kinds of things that took place and 

3 the duration that it took place, and we have 

4 lots of information in here on those two 

5 subjects, you know. What kind of dust 

6 loadings?

7 Turns out that towards the end of 

8 the operations period, 1959, they were doing 

9 rod straightening work.

10 So, what that means is, okay, 

11 let's go look at Harris and Kingsley or TBD12 6000 and say what kind of dust loadings were 

13 experienced and, you know, because that 

14 represents a surrogate data.

15 It was that data that was used to 

16 say, okay, here's the kinds of dust loadings 

17 you would expect to see during rod 

18 straightening in 1959, the end of the 

19 operations period at Dow.

20 We're going to use that as our 

21 starting point to try to predict what the 

22 exposures to uranium might have been post-
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1 1960, starting in 1961.

2 Took the dust loading. The 

3 numbers are in here. I'm trying to see the 

4 actual numbers. They were fairly high. They 

5 were one of the higher - when we look into the 

6 data here, different kinds of operations, only 

7 rolling operations where you actually roll the 

8 uranium, were higher than rod straightening.

9 So, it was at fairly high dust 

10 loadings for uranium. And then they said, 

11 okay, how do we use that data to predict what 

12 might be during the residual period?

13 They assume that that dust loading 

14 in the air toward the end - in the 1959 time 

15 period, was settling out while they were doing 

16 the straightening at that deposition velocity, 

17 that .00075 meters per second, which turns out 

18 to be the deposition velocity, and we checked 

19 this, for a five micron AMAD particle, that's 

20 the rate at which it would fall.

21 And they allowed it to accumulate 

22 on surfaces for the duration that the rod 
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1 straightening took place, which I think was 

2 only about a week at the end of the process.

3 Because after each one of these 

4 jobs where they did work, they cleaned up. It 

5 was part of the contract with Mallinckrodt.

6 So, basically what NIOSH did was 

7 say, all right, at the end of the operations 

8 period, we could predict how much residual 

9 uranium is on the surface at the end of 

10 operation.

11 Now, what they then said, okay, 

12 let's assume that's the amount that's on 

13 surfaces at the beginning of the residual 

14 period.

15 Now, in reality, there was 

16 cleanup, but credit for cleanup wasn't taken. 

17 So, that was sort of like - and when we get 

18 to the criteria, you know, the five surrogate 

19 data criteria, we'll get to that, but so we'll 

20 just assume, well, there wasn't any cleanup, 

21 here's the activity that's on the surface, 

22 using that approach, and they applied a 
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1 resuspension factor of ten to the minus six to 

2 get it into the air.

3 So, here it is, January 1st, 1961. 

4 This is how they predicted the dust loading, 

5 and also the activity on surfaces.

6 The activity on the surfaces is 

7 used to predict the radiation field external, 

8 because the person is walking around and 

9 that's straightforward. We know the numbers 

10 they use. It's a straight physics 

11 calculation.

12 So, that's your dose rate at time 

13 January 1st - maybe I can put this up.

14 (Off-record comments.)

15 DR. MAURO: Oh, there it is. Okay. 

16 Good. Thank you.

17 All right. For uranium. So, what 

18 happens is, so now they're assuming that that 

19 activity on ground and the activity in the air 

20 from resuspension stays constant for right 

21 through 2006, 2007, whenever the end of the 

22 residual period is.
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1 All right. So, that's the 

2 surrogate data. I mean, that's basically what 

3 they did.

4 In our opinion, not bad. And 

5 because, you know, the reality is they did 

6 clean up at the end.

7 So, in our opinion, that is a use 

8 - that's a different twist, by the way, from 

9 OTIB-70, because OTIB-70 doesn't do that. 

10 This is a special treatment.

11 So, in effect, the person is going 

12 to be experiencing 5.5 dpm per day 

13 continuously for the entire time period. It 

14 has a geometric standard deviation of five. 

15 Pretty big geometric standard deviation.

16 Same thing goes with the external 

17 dose rate from the uranium. So, that's how 

18 uranium is done.

19 Now, to quickly go through the 

20 five criteria, because we're going to do this, 

21 then we'll do thorium, and then I'll be done. 

22 Okay.
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1 All right. The first criteria is 

2 hierarchy of data. Now, for our internal 

3 exposure, you always prefer bioassay data. 

4 They're not using bioassay data, so there's a 

5 problem - not a problem. You would like 

6 bioassay data, but instead they use the 

7 airborne data. Surrogate airborne data, but 

8 they're using it in a way that's pretty 

9 conservative because they didn't take credit 

10 for cleanup. And they didn't take credit for 

11 it declining in time during the time period.

12 So, in our opinion, they don't 

13 have - it's not very high in the hierarchy. 

14 In the hierarchy of data, you have to start 

15 with bioassay, then you go to air sampling and 

16 then you just go to some type of process 

17 knowledge.

18 So, it's not at the highest level, 

19 but they've built into it certain 

20 conservatisms that just sort of offset that.

21 Beside hierarchy of data is 

22 exclusivity of data. That is when you rely 
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1 entirely on surrogate data, you've got to 

2 really vet it well.

3 In other words, you've got to make 

4 sure you're comfortable if you're going to 

5 base it entirely on that.

6 And reality is we vetted it very 

7 well in TBD-6000. We looked really carefully 

8 at Harris and Kingsley and how they took that 

9 data and turned it into TBD-6000. So, we 

10 thought that that meets the exclusivity 

11 requirement.

12 The next one is time. We want to 

13 use data, surrogate data that was collected at 

14 about the same time at the facility that 

15 you're interested in. Well, this is right on 

16 target. `57 to `60 was the time period for 

17 Dow operation, and Harris and Kingsley was 

18 published in 1958.

19 So, the time when the Harris and 

20 Kingsley data were collected is also the time 

21 when Dow Madison was doing its thing.

22 The next one is equivalent in 
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1 terms of operations. Well, you could see that 

2 they actually went right to the rod 

3 straightening.

4 In Harris and Kingsley, you zero 

5 in. You say, well, there's array upon array 

6 of data. They use the rod straightening 

7 operation as a pretty high-end operation, and 

8 they assumed no ventilation.

9 In Harris and Kingsley, you could 

10 go and assume there's ventilation. And that 

11 has about a ten to twenty-fold reduction.

12 Because if there was a hood with 

13 ventilation, it would substantially drop that 

14 dust loading from about 1600 dpm per cubic 

15 meter, the numbers are coming back to me, to 

16 about 300.

17 So, but they didn't use that. So, 

18 it seems to me that they picked the more 

19 conservative assumption to be compatible with 

20 what might have been going on at Dow at the 

21 time.

22 And, finally, plausibility. Okay. 
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1 This is always a tough one. And the reason 

2 why it's tough is that, well, what do we have 

3 here?

4 You have this - everything was 

5 modeled, in my mind, pretty well for the 1957 

6 to 1960 time period. Stuff falls on the 

7 ground, and really it was cleaned up.

8 So, in reality, probably didn't 

9 have that much on the ground, on the surfaces 

10 in 1961. So, that may be an overestimate.

11 In addition, the fact that you 

12 keep it flat the whole time, an overestimate. 

13 But one could argue, well, that's a way to 

14 compensate for exclusivity of data, hierarchy 

15 of data, you know. This is where judgment 

16 comes in. If anything, in my opinion, it's 

17 probably an overestimate.

18 Is it plausible? I'll leave that 

19 to you folks to judge. So, let's move on now 

20 to thorium.

21 Okay. Thorium, you need to talk 

22 about thorium from - let's move on to thorium. 
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1 Thorium. Everything I'm saying is here in 

2 summary form, but I find it easy just to talk 

3 to you.

4 All right. You've got - what 

5 happened in that 1957 to 1960 time period is 

6 there were some thorium operations going on 

7 that were related to AWE activities, okay, 

8 where they were making widgets for use, I 

9 believe, in the weapons program.

10 Now, if that turns out to be less 

11 than one percent of the - in other words, the 

12 thorium that was moving through in that time 

13 period, the vast majority was commercial. A 

14 very small fraction was related to the weapons 

15 complex. It's important to keep that in mind.

16 Okay. It turns out when you look 

17 at the data on thorium, thoron and all the 

18 other isotopes that were measured at that time 

19 period, there are about 30 or so air samples 

20 collected for the radionuclides and they're 

21 taking - you visualize what the thorium - what 

22 they're doing.
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1 They take a pot of molten 

2 magnesium with some type of protective cover 

3 gas, because you can't allow the magnesium to 

4 interact with the air. You'll get an 

5 explosion.

6 They would lower thorium, called 

7 the master alloy - is Bill Thurber on the 

8 line?

9 MR. THURBER: I am.

10 DR. MAURO: If I go to anything 

11 wrong, please interrupt because this is - Bill 

12 did all the work and I'll just do my best to 

13 tell the story.

14 You would lower the master alloy 

15 into this molten magnesium. Very dangerous 

16 situation. And there's a lot of smoke and 

17 dust there. Sometimes there's an explosive 

18 situation.

19 And they were collecting thorium 

20 air samples to measure for long-lived alphas, 

21 thorium, short-lived radionuclides, that would 

22 be thoron and its progeny, and also beta which 
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1 I think is the radium.

2 So, I sort of grouped it into 

3 categories, and it turns out there's data out 

4 there for many different aspects of this 

5 operation, but not that much data.

6 To the extent that one could argue 

7 that, you know, you really can predict the 

8 thorium internal exposures from that data 

9 because we - they really didn't - their other 

10 activities are sort of cleaning out these 

11 pots, these big pots where it's dry and 

12 generally there will be dust.

13 So, there are a lot of aspects 

14 where one could argue, you know, it's really 

15 hard to put an upper bound on the thorium 

16 exposures during operations because there's 

17 certain special activities. People might have 

18 their head in the pot sanding it. And so, 

19 there's the reason for the AWE designation for 

20 `57 to `60.

21 But then someone could ask, well, 

22 wait a minute. Do we have enough data to try 
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1 to place an upper bound on what might have 

2 been the thorium activity in 1961 after all 

3 that stopped? 

4 Now, remember less than one 

5 percent of the thorium dust you're measuring 

6 is from AWE activities. In fact, one of our 

7 original criticisms was, wait a minute, you 

8 can't use that - well, what they did is they 

9 took the thorium dust load, the highest values 

10 of thorium that they measure during 

11 operations, and they assumed that was the 

12 level of thorium that's in the air on January 

13 1st, 1961, after operations are over, after 

14 they stopped AWE activities, and were going to 

15 assign that to the beginning of the residual 

16 period.

17 Our first criticism of that was, 

18 wait a minute, we know less than one percent 

19 of that thorium has got to be from AWE. 

20 Right? So, why are you using the full amount? 

21 Why not multiply by .01?

22 And it was pointed out to us 
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1 during the Work Group meetings that, well, if 

2 you really can't distinguish what's from what 

3 and, in fact, this - we had a lot of 

4 discussion you're really not sure what 

5 fraction of the airborne dust for thorium is 

6 from commercial versus AWE activities, you 

7 have to assume it's all. So, I say fine.

8 So, now you have a dust loading, 

9 the highest dust loading that they measured 

10 during operations with thorium-232 and thoron, 

11 also, and have said that we're going to assume 

12 that's the airborne dust loading at the 

13 beginning of the AWE period.

14 Now, remember there's no more - in 

15 theory, I know [identifying information 

16 redacted] will probably say that it's possible 

17 there might have been some AWE activity going 

18 on post, and that's just a different subject.

19 Right now we're operating on the 

20 premise that all thorium AWE activities ended 

21 during the covered period right through 1960.

22 So, now we're saying, okay, we 
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1 have our dust loading for thorium and thoron 

2 at January 1st, 1961. And we have our FUSRAP 

3 measurements for thorium-232 measured at some 

4 times much later. Maybe 2000. I'm not sure 

5 exactly of the date, but way out there.

6 And as Jim described exponential 

7 connection, now you've got your time variant 

8 concentration of thorium in the air, and they 

9 assumed that was the same - the thoron went 

10 the same way.

11 So, basically there's your - it's 

12 really not - that's really not surrogate data 

13 in its classic sense, because they used real 

14 data, but it is surrogate from the point of 

15 view of time.

16 They took data from this time and 

17 they used it. So, in a way it's a small S. I 

18 called it the surrogate data, but not in a 

19 classic sense. That's how they did the 

20 internal.

21 Okay. External they did something 

22 different. They had two sources of external 
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1 exposure. One is there were buildings where 

2 the thorium alloy was stored. And they took 

3 radiation measurement readings like up close 

4 to it. That was actually real data during 

5 operations, the thorium operations.

6 They also had data from Bay City, 

7 which were doing very similar operations. 

8 External, but film badge data.

9 And they said, okay, let's look at 

10 these two different sets of information. One 

11 are the surveying instrument - survey 

12 measurements, and the other from - actually 

13 from Dow, and the other was the film badge 

14 data from Bay City.

15 The Bay City data ended up with a 

16 little bit more - not - they were close. So, 

17 they assumed - and I like that. When you get 

18 two different approaches that come into the 

19 same number and they come in close within 

20 about a factor of two, you know you're 

21 starting to feel good about your number.

22 So, in effect, there was a pretty 
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1 good estimate of the external exposure workers 

2 might have experienced during the time they 

3 were doing their thorium operations.

4 Whether it was commercial or 

5 whether it was weapons, it doesn't matter. 

6 There's an exposure rate during the time those 

7 activities were taking place.

8 Well, they assumed that that same 

9 exposure rate - 

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hey, John, could 

11 we try to wrap up?

12 DR. MAURO: I'm almost done. I am 

13 going - yes.

14 Well, they assumed that very same 

15 exposure rate took place on January 1st, 1961, 

16 and they exponentially declined it using the 

17 same slope as they did for the thorium-232.

18 You could almost figure out for 

19 yourself the degree to which that meets the 

20 five criteria for surrogate data. The same 

21 arguments you can make as I described before.

22 That concludes my presentation. 
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1 Thank you.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

3 Any questions for John?

4 Dave, then Bill.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Just a real 

6 quick one.

7 So, you said there's this FUSRAP 

8 data from later in time, you know. For the 

9 uranium, I mean, I know that they started the 

10 surrogate data.

11 Why don't they have a data point 

12 there and do a time decay to that?

13 DR. MAURO: I don't know. That's a 

14 good question. I don't know the answer to 

15 that because normally you would use FUSRAP 

16 data if it was there. Maybe you can help out.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, at the 

18 time when we originally developed that, we did 

19 not have TIB-70 and we felt that was bounding, 

20 and uranium was our only component we were 

21 worried about at that time.

22 So, now we could easily go back 
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1 and use that same removal constant that we 

2 developed for thorium and put it on uranium, 

3 but it's such a small intake anyway.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks, LaVon.

5 Bill. 

6 MEMBER FIELD: Same question.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Same question. 

8 Okay.

9 Anybody else?

10 Okay. Thanks, John. You can sit 

11 down. We have the - we may have petitioners 

12 on the line. [identifying information 

13 redacted] was not - did not believe he could 

14 make it, but said he might try.

15 I don't know if there's anybody 

16 else. If not, Ted will read - has some - a 

17 letter from Dr. McKeel to read into the 

18 record.

19 DR. KATZ: So, this letter is dated 

20 February 11th, 2011. Dear Dr. Melius and 

21 Members of the Advisory Board. I have asked 

22 Ted Katz or Josh Kinman to read this letter 
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1 into the record on February 23rd during the 

2 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Dow SEC Petition session at 

3 the Augusta Board meeting to be my 

4 contribution as the Dow Madison SEC-79 co5 petitioner. Personal considerations dictate 

6 that I cannot be certain I will be available 

7 by phone at the allotted time for the Dow SEC 

8 presentation on February 23rd.

9 I ask again that the Board 

10 carefully consider this and my preceding five 

11 formal presentations to the Board why they 

12 should approve extending Dow Madison 83.14 

13 SEC-79 to cover the residual contamination 

14 period from 1961 to October 2007.

15 I ask especially that the Board 

16 consider carefully my testimony in the 

17 transcripts of the November 12, 2010 SEC 

18 Issues Work Group (McKeel Pages 26 to 69 of 83 

19 devoted to Dow SEC-79) and the November 16th, 

20 2010 Board Santa Fe meeting transcript (McKeel

21 Pages 226 to 243, Dow SEC Petition Pages 184 

22 through 243 and 280 through 290. Note the 
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1 transcript index pagination is incorrect),

2 parenthetically.

3 I have been assured that 

4 unredacted transcripts of all of my remarks 

5 have been made available to all Board Members 

6 as some of them requested at the November 2010 

7 Board meeting.

8 I note the name and identifying 

9 information of Southern Illinois Professor

10 [identifying information redacted], who 

11 presented her findings on Dow to the Board 

12 twice, was redacted (improperly, in my view). 

13 That's why the Board needs access to my 

14 unredacted documents.

15 I have also attached my complete 

16 23-page May 4, 2007 Board presentation as a 

17 PDF file. The filename is, and he gives the 

18 name.

19 The file includes a PowerPoint 

20 portion and text remarks, and was (for the 

21 record) requested by me on May 4th, 2007, to 

22 be posted to the Dow Madison Docket Number 
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1 113. This was not done even through the Board 

2 chair indicated on the record it would be.

3 I have also included a copy of 

4 pages of the Dow SEC-relevant May 4, 2007 

5 Board meeting verbatim transcript that 

6 includes the discussion on Dow SEC-79.

7 Understanding the content of this 

8 material is crucial to making a fully-informed 

9 recommendation on NIOSH's recommendation to 

10 deny extending the SEC-79 to cover the 

11 residual contamination period.

12 This transcript makes abundantly 

13 clear both the scientific arguments preferred

14 by the primary petitioner and co-petitioner.

15 The transcript also documents the 

16 powerful case made by four members of the 

17 Illinois Congressional delegation and the 

18 Board reaction to approve the SEC-79 extension 

19 to the residual period that day.

20 The transcript also illuminates 

21 the legal issue arguments that were part of 

22 the deliberations.
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1 It is important to note that on 

2 May 4th, 2007, both DFO Dr. Lewis Wade (Page 

3 80, Lines 1 through 2) and Chairman Dr. Paul 

4 Ziemer (Page 106, Lines 16 through 18) stated

5 on the record that they found my arguments and 

6 evidence that day to be "very compelling."

7 As a brief summary, the 

8 petitioners maintain that an SEC should be 

9 approved for Dow Madison to cover the uranium 

10 and thorium residual periods for the following 

11 major reasons: One, we strongly disagree with 

12 SC&A that the Board surrogate data criteria 

13 have been fulfilled by NIOSH with respect to 

14 accepting a minute, brief time and job 

15 delimited set of film badge readings to gauge 

16 external exposures.

17 We contend the Bay City, Missouri 

18 highly-selected and non-representative FB data 

19 set is so small and limited it has no 

20 statistical power to define or bound external 

21 doses during the residual period at Dow 

22 Madison. The use of these data by NIOSH and 
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1 the SC&A's endorsement thereof is, in the 

2 petitioner's view, scientifically 

3 indefensible.

4 Two, TIB-70 that is being 

5 discussed at the February 23rd through 5th, 

6 2011 Board meeting, is itself surrogate data 

7 that is not sufficient to assign residual 

8 period doses at Dow Madison.

9 It cannot bound doses during 

10 removal of the tons of magnesium-thorium 

11 sludge or during multiple Madison site owner12 instigated cleanups during the residual 

13 period.

14 There were a number of cleanups of 

15 magnesium alloys and magnesium-thorium sludge 

16 for which NIOSH has not calculated internal 

17 and external exposures during the residual 

18 period.

19 Three, SC&A and Bill Thurber have 

20 identified building numbers at Dow Madison, in 

21 Illinois that do not and never did exist at 

22 that site. His data is obviously surrogate
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1 and refers to another site.

2 The co-petitioner and Dow site 

3 experts and workers have repeatedly challenged 

4 the authenticity of much of the monitoring 

5 data, a small fraction of the whole, that 

6 NIOSH and SC&A claim was obtained at the 

7 Illinois Dow Madison site. SC&A acknowledges 

8 that a large majority of Dow data is 

9 surrogate. (See Item 6.)

10 Four, NIOSH (via DOL) refused on several 

11 occasions to use Section 7384w EEOICPA 

12 subpoena power to inspect the 10,000 Dow 

13 Madison records the SEC-79 co-petitioner and 

14 Robert Stephan were told existed at Dow 

15 Midland, Michigan headquarters.

16 Five, The Dow petitioners 

17 criticize NIOSH for preferentially accepting 

18 testimony from Rocky Flats personnel who deny 

19 that records exist that substantiate the sworn 

20 affidavit testimony of many eyewitness Dow, 

21 Illinois workers that (a) the Madison site 

22 shipped truckloads of HK-31 magnesium-thorium 
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1 alloy plates, the specific alloy used in 

2 nuclear weapons, by truck to Rocky Flats DOE 

3 facility where Dow Chemical was prime 

4 contractor form 1951 to `75, and that (b) in 

5 turn, RF workers came to the Illinois Madison 

6 site and operated the extrusion presses to 

7 process metal the press operators believe was 

8 a form of thorium and/or uranium. The details 

9 of these short runs were deliberately kept 

10 secret from Dow Madison workers.

11 Six, Dow Madison lacks any site 

12 film badge or urine bioassay data for uranium 

13 or thorium for any portion of the covered or 

14 residual contamination periods. No one 

15 disputes this fact.

16 And seven, the co-petitioner's 

17 FOIA for all correspondence between NIOSH and 

18 DOL leading up to the issuance of 83.14's SEC19 79 was delayed for more than a year and was so 

20 heavily redacted that the petitioners believe 

21 this amounted to unwarranted censorship of 

22 contextual material about the Dow residual 
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1 period that the co-petitioner had a right to 

2 have turned over to him in a less-heavily 

3 redacted form of the responsive documents.

4 The level of redaction was extreme 

5 and destroyed the informational content of the 

6 redacted email messages especially, to 

7 understand why the SEC-79 class only covered 

8 1957 to 1960 and not the residual period as 

9 well.

10 Respectfully submitted, Daniel W. 

11 McKeel, Jr. And there are two enclosures.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think all 

13 the material that Dr. McKeel refers to has 

14 been provided to the Board ahead of time. So, 

15 we have that information.

16 And I think some of what he refers 

17 to is the issue of other possible covered 

18 operations at the site. I think DOL has 

19 reviewed that and determined that there's not 

20 enough evidence for that.

21 And I think if new information 

22 becomes available, it would be, you know, 
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1 should be handled appropriately. I think we 

2 did that.

3 So, any Board Members have any 

4 further questions or comments on the - okay.

5 The Work Group, Surrogate Data 

6 Work Group had met and had reviewed this 

7 before the last Board meeting. We did not 

8 have all of our Members there. So, we didn't 

9 do a formal vote on it. So, that is open.

10 I think in general the - I was 

11 satisfied. I believe Paul also. I can't 

12 remember who attended the meeting. So, I 

13 apologize - the Work Group, but that the 

14 methods being proposed were appropriate and we 

15 were comfortable going forward. Remember, 

16 this is coverage just to the residual period 

17 at Dow.

18 I would also add that we have sort 

19 of delayed this consideration for a 

20 considerable amount of time in order for 

21 [identifying information redacted] and the 

22 petitioners to get information.
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1 There was a problem with them 

2 getting information, delays in getting 

3 information. They have requested - part of 

4 the reason for the delay in us considering 

5 this has been to give them adequate time to 

6 obtain information.

7 And, frankly, adequate time for 

8 DOL to consider the information that was 

9 presented to DOL regarding the covered period 

10 and the operations at the facility that should 

11 be considered.

12 So, we already asked if the 

13 petitioners were online. Do you - 

14 (Off-record comments.)

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Board 

16 Members have comments/questions?

17 If not, I guess we would consider 

18 a motion. The active recommendation we have 

19 from NIOSH is that it's basically to turn down 

20 the SEC for this time period based on their 

21 evaluation, including their updated 

22 evaluation.
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1 Wanda.

2 MEMBER MUNN: I move that we accept 

3 the NIOSH recommendation with regard to this 

4 SEC Petition.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do we have a 

6 second to that?

7 MEMBER PRESLEY: I'll second.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bob. Okay.

9 Any further discussion?

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: Just for 

11 clarification, the operational period is 

12 already in the SEC.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, the 

14 operational period is - 

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: So, we couldn't 

16 reconstruct doses for that.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct.

18 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. So, it's 

19 really this is - 

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: This is the 

21 residual period, yes.

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: - a straight 
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1 forward surrogate.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And, in 

3 fact, if I remember right, the original 

4 operational period was an 83.14.

5 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct. Yes.

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And then it was 

9 modified by at least - I think it was - 

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you want to 

12 explain, LaVon?

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: It was originally 

14 an 83.14 and [identifying information 

15 redacted] talked to the Board and talked 

16 through Larry Elliott about including the

17 residual period in our discussion.

18 Originally, we would only for an 

19 83.14, include the period that we would 

20 recommend a Class. However, in this case, we 

21 ended up going back and going ahead and 

22 evaluating our feasibility for reconstructing 
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1 dose for the residual period.

2 So, it's a question and I'm not 

3 sure if - it would be tied to SEC-79, I 

4 believe, but it's an 83.14.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask - 

7 the SEC Petition Evaluation Report isn't in 

8 the package that we have for the Dow right 

9 now. And it's not on the back table either.

10 I'd like to have a chance to read 

11 that once more before - 

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And I don't - 

14 unfortunately, I don't have access to the O: 

15 drive. So, if it could be - 

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It should be on 

17 the website.

18 (Off-record comments.)

19 DR. NETON: If you look at the DCAS 

20 website under SECs and scroll down to Dow 

21 Madison, one of those documents in there will 

22 be the Evaluation Report.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else have 

2 any request for documents?

3 Okay. We will - I want to try to 

4 set a time for this so that we do that. 

5 You'll have access tonight, David?

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So, why 

8 don't we schedule our next consideration at 

9 roughly 10:30, our Board Work Session that's 

10 tomorrow morning. We'll take it up again.

11 (Off-record comments.)

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: If somebody 

13 actually could provide it, it's not obvious on 

14 the website.

15 (Off-record comments.)

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can someone, 

17 maybe LaVon or someone, can you just, you 

18 know, download that document, email it to the 

19 Board so that way people have it and we're not 

20 struggling to - things can be difficult to 

21 find on the website. It's getting better, but 

22 not that.
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1 Actually, Ted reminded me actually 

2 since we had an active motion on being 

3 consideration, I think, David, you should 

4 offer your - offer a motion to table if you 

5 want to postpone.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: That could be 

7 entertaining. I make a motion to table.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Second to that?

9 MEMBER MUNN: Second.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. From 

11 Wanda.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Point of order, I 

13 believe you could specify tabling to a certain 

14 time just to - it's obviously not debatable. 

15 So, I'm not debating the motion. I'm just 

16 suggesting - 

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Fine.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I leave it to 

19 you to make recommendation what time you would 

20 like that to be.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Until 10:30 

22 tomorrow morning.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: 10:30.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The Board work 

3 time.

4 And we had a second to that from 

5 Wanda?

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. All in 

8 favor.

9 (Chorus of ayes.)

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Opposed. Okay. 

11 Tomorrow morning. Very good.

12 We now have a Board work session 

13 today, and to that end we have one piece of 

14 Board correspondence if I can find it here, 

15 that I told the person that we would consider 

16 it during this time period. Because the 

17 person that sent us the letter was from the 

18 West Coast and didn't want to have to get up 

19 at five o'clock on a Friday morning when we 

20 had correspondence listed as one of the 

21 potential items for our thing.

22 That was the letter from the 
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1 Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups 

2 concerning the issue with plutonium oxide, 

3 high-fired plutonium oxide and the issue about 

4 the ICRP.

5 I think people recall that. If 

6 not, I can - it's a relatively short letter 

7 and I can briefly summarize it.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: When was it sent 

9 out?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It was - when did 

11 you send it out?

12 MR. KATZ: In December.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I'll ask Stu 

14 or Jim Neton to be able to respond. I gave 

15 them a heads up last week that we would be 

16 talking about it.

17 Okay. Now, let me just briefly - 

18 and I'll paraphrase this a little bit. A few 

19 months ago, the United States Transuranium and 

20 Uranium Registries released its report titled 

21 "USTUR Case 202: Evaluation of a Proposed 

22 Revision to ICRP HRTM for Refractory Plutonium 
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1 Oxide, Plutonium-fired Aerosol.

2 The USTUR concludes, "It is 

3 necessary to modify both the structure of the 

4 alveolar-interstitial region of the Human 

5 Respiratory Tract Model (HRTM) and the assumed 

6 characteristic rates and the particle 

7 transport to the bronchioles and thoracic 

8 lymph nodes." This means that NIOSH must 

9 revise OTIB-0049.

10 Thousands of claims are affected 

11 by OTIB-0049 and these claims will need to be 

12 reopened once it's revised and updated. 

13 Unfortunately, it's estimated that it will 

14 take ICRP two years to revise its methodology.

15 In the meantime, NIOSH will 

16 continue to use an outdated scientific 

17 procedure to reconstruct dose for workers 

18 exposed to high-fired plutonium oxide and thus 

19 possibly underestimating the dose for exposure 

20 to this material.

21 It's unacceptable that claimants 

22 will need to wait a minimum of two years for 
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1 NIOSH to revise its methodology before they 

2 can come into compliance with ICRP's methods 

3 as mandated by EEOICPA.

4 ANWAG foresees three possible 

5 outcomes. Number one, NIOSH will continue to 

6 reconstruct dose for workers using the current 

7 OTIB-49; number two, NIOSH will put a hold on 

8 reconstructing dose for workers exposed to 

9 high-fired plutonium oxide until ICRP releases 

10 its revision to their procedure and NIOSH then 

11 has an opportunity to revise its model; number 

12 three, NIOSH agrees that it's unable to 

13 reconstruct dose with reasonable accuracy for 

14 all workers who may have been exposed to high15 fired oxide and immediately initiates an 83.14 

16 petition.

17 ANWAG urges the Advisory Board to 

18 discuss this issue during the February 2011 

19 Board meeting. Moreover, we strongly 

20 recommend that NIOSH consider initiating an 

21 83.14 petition for all workers exposed to 

22 high-fired plutonium oxide without delay.
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1 Thank you for your time and 

2 consideration. Signed by Scott Yundt on 

3 behalf of the ANWAG members.

4 So, Jim or Stu, do you want to 

5 respond on the status?

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, this is Stu. 

7 I'll give it a try. And then Jim can correct 

8 anything I say that's wrong.

9 In this instance, we're a little 

10 bit ahead of the game. What the ICRP 

11 announcement is, is that they are going to 

12 consider the existing respiratory models for 

13 this very insoluble class of plutonium, which 

14 their models did not address before. And 

15 that's essentially what we've done in OTIB-49 

16 - is that the number?

17 We identified - or in discussions, 

18 it's not us on our own, it's in discussions 

19 with the Board and SC&A, this issue of very 

20 insoluble plutonium at a number of plutonium 

21 facilities was already identified and raised 

22 and is the basis for OTIB-49.
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1 And, in fact, ICRP asked us for 

2 the data we used in developing our approach, 

3 for them to evaluate as they reconsidered 

4 their respiratory tract model.

5 So, we feel like right now we're 

6 in a pretty good shape and we have done a 

7 bounding estimate, an estimate that will not 

8 underestimate people's doses by using 

9 essentially the most insoluble instance that 

10 we came across of this data, and using that in 

11 OTIB-49.

12 Now, at some point I assume ICRP 

13 will publish a new respiratory model which 

14 will include this component for Super S, which 

15 we think we've addressed.

16 At that time, then, we'll have 

17 something to compare whether it's their 

18 recommendation versus ours, to determine 

19 whether or not we feel like we had suitably 

20 bounded it in view of the ICRP's 

21 recommendation.

22 So, we think that right now we're 
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1 ahead of the game because ICRP is now starting 

2 to use the data that we used when we fashioned 

3 OTIB-49.

4 Now, this letter was addressed to 

5 the Advisory Board and not to us. We have not 

6 fashioned this response back to ANWAG yet.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, what I 

8 would approach, wanted to hear from NIOSH, 

9 wanted to hear from Board Members, at least 

10 the Board would draft a response back saying 

11 this has been discussed, but I didn't want to 

12 draft the response until we had a chance to 

13 discuss it.

14 David.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask as 

16 a follow-up, it sounded like the letter was 

17 raising two issues.

18 There was one about the nature of 

19 the intake in the Super S, and there was the 

20 other about the types of compartments and 

21 compartmental models that are under 

22 consideration.
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1 So, are you saying that you've 

2 used the current ICRP model, but introduced 

3 kind of a Super S category?

4 Because I thought they were - 

5 well, I thought they were raising issues about 

6 transport, for example. The kinetics of these 

7 intakes to things like the lymph nodes and 

8 whether those need to be revised as well.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: I believe that's 

10 what we addressed in OTIB-49.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. So, 

12 you've both modified kind of the compartmental 

13 model as well as the categories.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we modified - 

15 we essentially came up with an approach to 

16 adjust the ICRP model to account for this 

17 different transport that seems to occur in 

18 these very insoluble cases.

19 It's not like we've developed - I 

20 don't think we developed any new compartments 

21 for the lung model or anything like that.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But you're 
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1 saying for Super S, there is the greater 

2 potential it's going to reside, it's going to 

3 move into the lymph nodes. And so you - 

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, there's this 

5 longer residence time and that - those all 

6 contribute to the respiratory tract model and

7 into the thoracic lymph.

8 And so, that's what's addressed by 

9 our TIB-49 approach.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Like I said, we 

12 feel like we've used the data available to 

13 adjust our approach appropriately to bound 

14 these doses.

15 We did not, for instance, write 

16 another model with new components and 

17 different transport things particularly. We 

18 found a modifying factor, you know, in order 

19 to multiply those doses that we think fits 

20 with the empirical data that was provided to 

21 us largely by the TRG Registry, the 

22 Transuranic Registry.
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1 So, that's what we have done 

2 rather than build other compartments and 

3 transport constants.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Sorry. I 

6 got distracted a little bit.

7 Anybody else have questions? 

8 Comments?

9 MEMBER POSTON: I have a comment.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, John.

11 MEMBER POSTON: Well, as many of us 

12 know, this is not a new problem.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

14 MEMBER POSTON: It's been around 

15 for quite a while, but I do want to say I'm 

16 glad to see that NIOSH is ahead of the game 

17 because it - there's no - no one as far as I'm 

18 aware, has made a comparison to see exactly 

19 what changes these new models make in the 

20 ultimate dose that is calculated.

21 Early on when the Human 

22 Respiratory Tract Model was proposed, we made 
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1 a study at Texas A&M and found out there is, 

2 you know, insignificant differences when you 

3 run all the way to dose.

4 So, I'm not sure that this is a 

5 big - use a slang term, this is a big deal, 

6 but I'm glad to see that NIOSH has got their 

7 hands around it.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim or Stu, you 

9 have comments on that? I think you've looked 

10 at that issue.

11 DR. NETON: Yes. Well, Stu is 

12 correct. And what we did was we took the 

13 empirical data that were out there.

14 And in particular, this one case

15 called HAN-1 was the most insoluble case that 

16 we ran across. And we used that data to 

17 establish the clearance time from the lung for 

18 this Super S material, and that's what we're 

19 using.

20 But we didn't develop any 

21 particular models because we felt it wasn't 

22 within our purview to develop ICRP models.
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1 We develop an approach using 

2 empirical data to estimate what the claimant's 

3 dosimetry would be.

4 But it does make a difference in 

5 the long-term dose, because the clearance time 

6 is much longer.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, it certainly 

9 appears to me that ANWAG's conclusions here 

10 are actually incorrect that it appears that 

11 they're saying that ICRP has already made the 

12 change, and we haven't, when, in fact, sort of 

13 the reverse is true as I - 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I mean, the 

15 way I read the letter, I don't think they were 

16 completely aware of what happened with OTIB17 49.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think they were 

20 really saying that, well, if you recognize 

21 this as a problem and you haven't addressed it 

22 yet, then why should we have to, you know, why 
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1 should we wait for two years? What's that?

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think the 

4 response is that it's been addressed. It's 

5 been addressed as well we could without - in 

6 short of modifying the model. And it's now up 

7 to ICRP in their process to look at that data, 

8 look at other data and then make a 

9 determination.

10 But I think in the meanwhile, we 

11 feel that we have a conservative, claimant12 friendly approach for addressing it at least 

13 based on what information we have available to 

14 us now and going forward.

15 I think that's the essence of 

16 that. I mean, I think it's a legitimate 

17 issue, but at least for now we have it 

18 addressed.

19 Any other comments or questions? 

20 I'll draft up a written response we'll be able 

21 to review and talk about.

22 And there's a public comment 
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1 period later. People may want to - from the 

2 group, may want to clarify or add additional 

3 information if we misunderstood, and that will 

4 give them an opportunity to do so, do that.

5 Okay. Thank you. One of the 

6 other issues that I sent out to people on, I 

7 think, Monday or so was a - which I was 

8 supposed to do, was a draft charge to our 

9 Scientific Issues Work Group.

10 I don't know if people have had a 

11 chance to look at that, if you want to talk 

12 about it now, if you prefer to wait. You've 

13 been reminded to - again, it's not a long 

14 response - long charge. And I think it pretty 

15 much flows out of Jim Neton's slides and our 

16 discussions of the last meeting.

17 Why don't I read it, and then we 

18 can postpone - 

19 MEMBER MUNN: Let's do it.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Good.

21 Scientific Issues Work Group, this 

22 Work Group is responsible for reviewing the 
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1 status of a number of risk model issues that 

2 have been identified as important for the 

3 EEOICPA program. These include the possible 

4 incorporation of nuclear worker 

5 epidemiological studies, IREP risk models, 

6 dose and dose rate effectiveness factor 

7 adjustment, adjustment for the interaction 

8 with smoking for certain cancers, grouping of 

9 rare and miscellaneous cancers, age-at10 exposure analysis and interaction between 

11 radiation and other workplace exposures.

12 The Work Group will review the 

13 status of NIOSH's current work on these issues 

14 and report back to the full Board with 

15 recommendations.

16 The Work Group will also report on 

17 any new risk model issues that they believe 

18 that the Board should consider for 

19 recommendation to NIOSH.

20 The list of issues came from - 

21 actually from what Jim Neton presented to us 

22 at the last Board call.
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1 Exception 1 which was brought up 

2 in the discussion, was the issue on smoking 

3 that I think one or two of the Board Members 

4 had raised. I think that, and I think it 

5 would, you know, again provide a focus for it.

6 And then I think if there are 

7 other issues that the group believes are 

8 important and should be addressed, they can 

9 make a recommendation. And we can then 

10 discuss with NIOSH how to go forward on those 

11 issues.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: You want a motion?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I want a motion, 

14 yes, I guess.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Mr. Chairman, I 

16 move that we accept the proposed writing as 

17 the charge to a Work Group on scientific 

18 issues.

19 MEMBER LEMEN: I'll second that.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any further 

21 discussion?

22 All in favor say "aye."
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1 (Chorus of ayes.)

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Opposed. 

3 Abstained.

4 I will, by tomorrow, do 

5 assignments of people to the group. I think 

6 that we are going to make this a - this has 

7 got more than a quorum of Board Members 

8 interested in participating, which is in some 

9 ways good.

10 And so what I'm going to suggest 

11 is that we sort of, you know, push our limit 

12 in terms of numbers on there.

13 So, I will put as many people on 

14 there as possible as participants and as 

15 alternates and so that I think we can cover 

16 everybody pretty much that was interested in 

17 doing it.

18 It's good. I think it's timely 

19 and valuable to do this going forward, but 

20 thank you all for your interest.

21 Usually it's, you know, calling 

22 somebody up and saying, would you mind, you 
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1 know, negotiating. Now, it's the opposite.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim, I don't want 

3 to be on that.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Too late.

5 (Laughter.)

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you.

7 Do you have anything we need to 

8 talk about today? I'm just going to start 

9 doing - 

10 MR. KATZ: Not today.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Not today. Okay.

12 I'd like to start to go through 

13 the - we have until three o'clock, and I would 

14 like to go through Subcommittee and Work Group 

15 reports. At least get started on that.

16 Mark's not here yet. So, the Dose 

17 Reconstruction Subcommittee, we'll put off on 

18 their report until tomorrow.

19 Do you have the famous list? And 

20 I guess we start with Mark and Wanda. So, 

21 Mark's not here. So, it's Wanda's Procedures 

22 Subcommittee. And to be fair to her and fair 
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1 to the other Board Members, Wanda did send 

2 out, I believe, over the weekend or last 

3 couple of days some new summaries of the 

4 procedures review that they're been working on 

5 for our review.

6 And I don't know if people have 

7 had a chance to look at those to give 

8 feedback, so we can postpone Wanda if people 

9 would like more time to look at those.

10 I don't think it's always fair to 

11 Wanda to make her go first, but she's always 

12 very willing.

13 Are you ready, Wanda?

14 MEMBER MUNN: I don't mind doing 

15 that. Although, I had not prepared my 

16 presentation. I thought this was going to be 

17 on Friday.

18 Nevertheless, my first statement 

19 is to apologize to you for the format of the 

20 material that you received from me most 

21 recently.

22 I sent you copies of the four two-
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1 page reports which we labored over 

2 extensively. What I'm talking about is the 

3 summaries of the procedure reviews that we 

4 have done to date.

5 You may recall, I hope, from 

6 earlier Board meetings, that you had already 

7 approved our pilot effort in that regard, and 

8 the wording for the prologue to accompany what 

9 we hope to be a website for these two-page 

10 summaries that anyone can access on our NIOSH 

11 website, our OCAS website in time.

12 But the format that you received 

13 it in was edit format. I am sorry. I didn't 

14 know that it had been uploaded in edit format. 

15 I hope you are all familiar with Word and can 

16 very quickly move that to final so that you 

17 can read it without all the ugly red marks on 

18 it.

19 We have spent what may almost be a 

20 disproportionate amount of Procedures time for 

21 the last couple of meetings dealing with these 

22 to make sure that we get them right, because 
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1 SC&A is going to be producing them at a pretty 

2 good clip for us.

3 And it was our desire to make sure 

4 that everyone was very clear about what these 

5 types of small two-page reports were actually 

6 going to do and how easy they were to read.

7 We've talked about it before. If 

8 you have any questions about what our kind of 

9 rules of thumb are if it's not already clear 

10 to you, please let me know.

11 Otherwise, we have also been 

12 working very hard on getting our database to 

13 be up and slick as we want it to be.

14 It's been operating for us for 

15 quite some time. And as you know, we tried 

16 very hard to get completely paperless with 

17 what we are doing in Procedures simply because 

18 there is so much infinite detail.

19 We address each and every one of 

20 the findings that's before us. And when we 

21 have as many as, in some cases, 17 to 20 

22 findings on one procedure, then it can be 
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1 quite tedious.

2 But we do, in fact, have had just 

3 this last week and a half - just last week, 

4 I'm sorry, I'm not sure which day, our 

5 database folks met with all of the necessary 

6 principals in information technology and have 

7 worked out the real desires that we have for 

8 what we need to see on that database to make 

9 it smooth.

10 So far as I know, I have not 

11 attempted to utilize the database since that 

12 time. Don't know whether it's actually had 

13 the benefit of that meeting yet or not, but we 

14 do plan to meet next month. And we're hoping 

15 by that time, that we will have the kind of 

16 capability that we've been almost there, but 

17 not quite achieving in the past.

18 We continue to have an extensive 

19 list of active procedures. Most of our 

20 procedures have now been addressed at least 

21 once by all of the parties involved.

22 We can, if you so wish, provide 
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1 you with a summary of where we are with 

2 respect to open items, items in progress, et 

3 cetera. But all in all, I think we're making 

4 better progress than we were for a while.

5 We just received from SC&A, 

6 another 12 summaries of procedure reviews. 

7 We've discussed at our last meeting that the 

8 process we followed up to this point, has been 

9 too time consuming and too tedious.

10 We're going to have to change the 

11 way we're doing it, but it is our hope that 

12 these new 12 procedures that we have will be 

13 much closer to the format and to the language 

14 that we've now established very clearly. And, 

15 therefore, will not take the amount of 

16 concentrated effort that the preceding group 

17 has.

18 If you have any questions or if 

19 any other Member of the Subcommittee has 

20 comments, I'll be - this is a good time to 

21 chime in.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I have - it's 
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1 actually not a question for you, Wanda, but 

2 for Ted that I think it came up at our last 

3 meeting, was trying to get a better way of 

4 organizing and accessing some of the documents 

5 related to the Procedures Work Group reviews, 

6 as well as to the SEC and Site Profile reviews 

7 where there are like White Papers that are 

8 done or reviews that aren't easily - easy to 

9 find or access off the O: drive. In some 

10 cases, documents that probably should be 

11 available to petitioners also.

12 And I don't know if you're making 

13 progress on that or where that stands to that 

14 and - 

15 MR. KATZ: I'm not surprised.

16 MEMBER MUNN: No, that's - this is 

17 in complete concert with what the meeting with 

18 the information technology folks were about is 

19 easier access for everybody to all of the 

20 information with the exception of some of the 

21 in-house-only papers, but most of them will be 

22 available.
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1 MR. KATZ: Right. So, there's two 

2 parts to this equation. There's the setting 

3 up things on the NIOSH website to accommodate 

4 these other documents that aren't on the 

5 public website - well, there's two pieces, 

6 actually.

7 There's the public website and 

8 there's the Board, availability to the Board, 

9 because some of these things aren't public 

10 documents.

11 And then the other side of it is 

12 getting all the materials that haven't been PA 

13 cleared, PA cleared, because major documents 

14 like TBD reviews and so on, I mean, we've had 

15 a practice of clearing those SC&A reviews.

16 But when it comes to these White 

17 Papers and so on, those generally get cleared 

18 if a member of the public wants to see them as 

19 opposed to automatically doing that. And 

20 that's just because of workload. It's a 

21 workload problem otherwise.

22 So, at this point, SC&A's staff 
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1 are cleaning up covering PA clearances for 

2 sort of the more major documents that should 

3 be PA cleared that can then be put on the 

4 website.

5 We haven't gone into looking at 

6 the White Paper question as to which White 

7 Papers and how to do that in a manageable 

8 fashion, because there's a lot of White Papers 

9 associated with Work Groups. So, that's where 

10 that part stands.

11 And then in relation to setting up 

12 the website, I've had conversations with DCAS 

13 about this and I think they've made some 

14 progress in terms of the internal O: drive, if 

15 you want to call it that, materials for these.

16 I haven't touched base with them 

17 recently. So, I can't tell you where we are 

18 exactly with continuing that with the O: 

19 drive, and then also how do we fill in on the 

20 public website with the materials that are PA 

21 cleared and can be put up there.

22 So, I haven't touched base with 
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1 them. Frankly, it's just been - I've had a 

2 lot of things to deal with and haven't thought 

3 about it, but I'll get to it right after this 

4 meeting.

5 MEMBER MUNN: But the real 

6 technical meeting that took place last week 

7 was supposed to resolve about 90 percent of 

8 what you're saying here, but we in Procedures 

9 will not know that until we meet again next 

10 month.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and I'm just 

12 urging whoever is involved in this, I won't 

13 name names, but that we sort of keep this 

14 moving along because it - one is when we try 

15 to go back and discuss procedure reviews and 

16 so forth, it's just very hard for even Board 

17 Members to get to find some of the documents 

18 and so forth.

19 And then there appears to be an 

20 increasing use of White Papers or background 

21 papers. And I think the Linde Work Group has 

22 done a very good job, for example, making 
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1 those available to petitioners and so forth, 

2 but they're not as readily available to people 

3 sort of outside the process who are then as, 

4 i.e., Board Members trying to look in to get 

5 ready for a vote.

6 And then I notice on Chapman, we 

7 had a few sort of background reports that were 

8 presented to the Work Group that were useful. 

9 But, again, it's sort of not clear where all 

10 this is going, you know, these documents go 

11 and so forth.

12 And so, I just think we need to 

13 sort of keep after the issue. That's all.

14 MEMBER MUNN: One final thing. It 

15 was our expectation as a Subcommittee, that 

16 the Board would have an opportunity to approve 

17 the four documents and prologue that I sent 

18 out for review so that they can be PA cleared 

19 and can be put up on a website.

20 But in light of the fact that 

21 people may not have had an opportunity to look 

22 at my incorrectly formatted uploads, you may 
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1 want to postpone that until our Friday 

2 meeting.

3 If everyone has had an opportunity 

4 to look at it and is willing to do so, I will 

5 put that before you now. Otherwise, I'll 

6 postpone it.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Without being 

8 presumptuous or judging my fellow Board 

9 Members, I say we put it off until Friday.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Very good.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'll confess I 

12 haven't looked at them.

13 MEMBER ANDERSON: All you got to do 

14 is get rid of the track changes.

15 (Laughter.)

16 MEMBER MUNN: That's all you have 

17 to do.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. So, 

19 we'll come back to this Friday if everyone can 

20 please look at those between now and Friday.

21 We'll try to go through a couple 

22 Work Groups. We have worked for a while. And 
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1 since Ted didn't give us a break, I will give 

2 us a break.

3 So, let's plan on breaking it like 

4 ten of 3:00 for ten minutes. Because then 

5 we'll come back in and we have a petition 

6 schedule.

7 So, we'll try to go to about ten 

8 of 3:00, take a ten-minute break and then come 

9 back.

10 For those of you that - the Work 

11 Group chairs as we sort of go through the list 

12 here, those that - can you also, please, you 

13 know, reference also any sort of deliverables 

14 that are outstanding and so forth?

15 We got an updated list from Ted. 

16 It's not completely up to date, because I know 

17 there's been some Work Group meetings since 

18 that time. And there's little delays in NIOSH 

19 putting it together. It's not easy to do.

20 So, if you could please sort of, 

21 you know, highlight things that are maybe 

22 problematic or update whatever as you're 
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1 giving your reports, and we'll start with 

2 Josie and Brookhaven.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So, 

4 Brookhaven held its last Work Group meeting on 

5 January 21st.

6 We have two outstanding or two 

7 SEC-related issues. One is internal data, and 

8 the other is the neutron monitoring issue. 

9 The next Work Group meeting is scheduled for 

10 May 3rd.

11 I just got an email or the Work 

12 Group just got an email from Grady today, and 

13 he has responded to responses for three of the 

14 items within the internal data. So, that is 

15 available.

16 And I looked on the O: drive. 

17 There's one line from him that I believe it 

18 was April - correct me if I'm wrong - 11th. 

19 We should see the rest of the action items by 

20 mid-April. So, in time for our May meeting.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. I 

22 think the Chapman Work Group we will end 
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1 without objection, I hope.

2 Okay. DOE Security Work Group may 

3 get revived. We'll have to come up with a new 

4 name for it, but do that.

5 Fernald, Brad.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Our last meeting 

7 was the beginning of this month. We've got 

8 several issues that we're giving in a 

9 presentation tomorrow before the Board. We'll 

10 go into more detail on that.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hanford, Arjun, 

12 remind me.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: We have the task of 

14 reviewing the balance of the SEC period, and 

15 that review is underway. We should have an 

16 internal draft of that completed in about two 

17 or three weeks.

18 And then a report to the Work 

19 Group probably through DOE review and so on by 

20 mid-April.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, those of you 

22 on the Hanford group, we will try to schedule 
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1 a meeting - plan on scheduling a meeting 

2 towards the end of April in preparation for 

3 our May meeting, but something in that time 

4 frame.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Brad.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Also being on the 

8 Hanford Work Group just to make sure that the 

9 rest of the Hanford Work Group was aware that 

10 SC&A and NIOSH did some data capture just last 

11 month at Hanford and we're processing that 

12 information at this time.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and thanks 

14 to NIOSH, I mean, Sam Glover has, I think, 

15 done a very good job of sort of coordinating 

16 with us on issues and so forth.

17 Phil, Idaho.

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Hopefully by 

19 mid-May there will be enough information. 

20 Pete says he's got some just about done. So 

21 it fits very well on the priority list for 

22 NIOSH, it may be June before it gets released.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Stu or Jim, do 

2 you have comments on - it's not an SEC, but 

3 it's a big site and it's a lot of work to do.

4 I'm worried that it gets postponed 

5 and that's - 

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Certainly we're 

7 interested in the Board's input in priorities. 

8 We don't tend to set these, you know. But 

9 the fact that since there is no SEC Petition 

10 Act open at this site, has essentially moved 

11 it down. There are so many open SEC sites.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And this one got 

13 delayed probably because of the combination 

14 with Argonne West and so forth.

15 Phil, you're on again. K-25.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Hopefully we'll 

17 have a meeting. We did Paducah the other day 

18 and hopefully we will be able to cover the 

19 stuff we did then and K-25 in May.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Questions?

21 Okay. Lawrence Berkeley, Paul.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: The Lawrence 
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1 Berkeley group has not met yet. We have other 

2 priorities that have pushed this aside.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, again, 

4 Lawrence Berkeley is sort of a Site Profile - 

5 issues in trying to clean up some of the Site 

6 Profiles. We have already done an SEC on 

7 those.

8 Linde, Gen, I think we'll hear - 

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: We'll talk 

10 tomorrow.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Tomorrow, yes, 

12 but we'll spend a few minutes on that.

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Mark's not 

15 here. So, we'll come back to LANL.

16 Josie, Mound.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Mound last 

18 met in July. July 27th of 2010. At this 

19 time, we have four SEC issues remaining. The 

20 first one is neutron issue. There's three 

21 components of that. I won't go into all those 

22 details, but NIOSH has promised a paper due on 
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1 March 18th, for the neutron issue.

2 We've got tritium issue. The 

3 paper is due from NIOSH on April 4th. The 

4 third is adequacy and completeness of internal 

5 data. NIOSH has promised that paper to us by 

6 April 4th. And we have the D&D issue. The 

7 paper for that is due on March 25th.

8 So, it looks like we should be 

9 able to plan a meeting. I'm thinking the end 

10 of April, mid part of May, depending on the 

11 bulk of that.

12 And it sounds like the Work Group, 

13 I talked to Stu earlier, we need to revisit 

14 some radon SEC issues. So, we'll be probably 

15 taking that up in our next Work Group meeting 

16 also.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you want to 

18 describe that a little bit so the other Board 

19 Members - 

20 MEMBER BEACH: On the radon, 

21 there's a question of - and, Stu, correct me 

22 if - in fact, you're getting up. Go for it.
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1 (Laughter.)

2 MEMBER BEACH: Between the 

3 buildings R and SW and the way the Class was 

4 initiated.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. Well, R and 

6 SW buildings are essentially attached. It's 

7 sort of like one building with two 

8 designations.

9 And the radon issue at Mound was 

10 found in one room in the SW building. And of 

11 course there's no way to really say it was 

12 confined to that one room or who was in that 

13 one room.

14 And so, at the time of the 

15 designation, it was our understanding that 

16 everyone in the R and SW buildings were on the 

17 tritium bioassay program. And, therefore, by 

18 defining the Class as people on the tritium 

19 bioassay program, you have encompassed that 

20 group as well. You've probably got some 

21 others as well.

22 So, in the meantime, we have 
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1 learned that only a portion of the R building 

2 required participation in the tritium bioassay 

3 program, not the entire R building.

4 Now, during the discussion of 

5 this issue with the Work Group, the question 

6 came up about, well, you found the radon 

7 exposure in this one building in SW, and it 

8 was largely by accident - we didn't find it. 

9 Mound found it largely by accident because a 

10 person working in that building happened to 

11 have an in vivo count. And that's how they 

12 found out they had an issue.

13 But, you know, what we know about 

14 the aerial extent of radon, could it have 

15 leaked not only into that room, not only into 

16 that one little area of SW, but elsewhere 

17 through other avenues into the R building and 

18 so on?

19 And as that discussion came up for 

20 the Work Group, we said, well, it really 

21 doesn't matter because everybody in R and SW 

22 is going to be in the Class anyway.
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1 Well, since we've now found out 

2 that not everybody in R was in the tritium 

3 bioassay program and there is not in the 

4 Class, that question of the extent, the aerial 

5 extent of the radon exposure now becomes 

6 relevant again. And so, we think that's the 

7 issue that has to go back.

8 MEMBER BEACH: Thank you.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I just add 

10 there's been confusion at sort of DOL and sort 

11 of implementing this and it - I think we 

12 recognize that at the time we did the Class, 

13 it was a difficult Class Definition to 

14 implement.

15 And so, hopefully with the Work 

16 Group and with DOL we'll be able to - NIOSH 

17 will be able to get it addressed and so forth.

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Jim, I need to 

19 make one correction. My caffeine is getting 

20 low. That was December 1st, the meeting. The 

21 Paducah meeting was.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.
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1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. Not 

2 enough caffeine in me.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Well, 

4 speaking of caffeine since it's almost ten of, 

5 why don't we take a break. Come back 

6 promptly at three o'clock. We'll start with 

7 the Wah Chang petition.

8 (Whereupon, the proceedings went 

9 off the record at 2:48 p.m. and went back on 

10 the record at 3:02 p.m.)

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. If 

12 everyone - get everyone's attention. We'll 

13 get started and the first item - next item up 

14 on our agenda is the Wah Chang SEC Petition 

15 and Jim Neton's going to present the 

16 Evaluation Report. Jim.

17 DR. NETON: Okay. I'm here to talk 

18 about an SEC Petition Evaluation Report for 

19 Wah Chang.

20 A little background. AEC 

21 operations at Wah Chang started in 1956. 

22 Although, these operations are not covered. I 
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1 don't want to confuse you, but they did a lot 

2 of work - Wah Chang did a lot of work for the 

3 AEC in the metals business, rare earths and 

4 such, such as zirconium, hafnium, niobium, 

5 that sort of thing.

6 And so, those operations were not 

7 covered, but we'll get into some covered 

8 operations later.

9 The second bullet here does say 

10 they produced zirconium and other metals for 

11 defense and nuclear technology applications. 

12 In 1967, Wah Chang was purchased 

13 by Teledyne and became known as Teledyne Wah 

14 Chang TWCA.

15 And in `71, Wah Chang was 

16 contracted by Union Carbide Y-12 to melt 

17 depleted uranium metal. And that is the basis 

18 of why it's a covered facility under this 

19 program.

20 The contract called for the 

21 melting of up to 50,000 pounds of depleted 

22 uranium.
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1 And as I said, based on that 

2 contract with Union Carbide, the facility is 

3 covered under EEOICPA between January 1st, 

4 1971, and December 31st, 1972. It's a two5 year period.

6 There is a residual contamination 

7 period that extends through October 31st, 

8 2009.

9 Petition overview. Petition was 

10 received as an 83.13 on June 9th, 2010. Was 

11 qualified August 16th that same year. And the 

12 Evaluation Report was approved and issued back 

13 in December at the end of last year.

14 Petitioner proposed that the Class 

15 be all employees who worked in all buildings 

16 at the Wah Chang facility from January `71 

17 through January of `79. Specifically January 

18 11th of `79.

19 The NIOSH-evaluated Class was all 

20 employees who worked in any building at the 

21 facility for the operational period from 

22 January 1st, `71, through December 31st, `72, 
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1 and the residual period from January 1st, `73, 

2 through October 31st, 2009.

3 The basis for the petition was 

4 that petitioner presented an affidavit that 

5 there was no internal monitoring data at Wah 

6 Chang. And, in fact, through some pretty 

7 extensive searches of the internet and our own 

8 databases and such, we found almost no 

9 information, which I'll talk about in a little 

10 bit. There's some minimal bioassay data and a 

11 few air samples.

12 Just a brief description of some 

13 of the sources that were surveyed and reviewed 

14 for this Evaluation Report. Battelle-TBD15 6000, which is the Site Profile for AWEs that 

16 worked with uranium, was used in this 

17 evaluation.

18 We also looked through the ORAU 

19 Team Technical Bulletins and Procedures. The 

20 Site Research Database, there's something on 

21 the order of a couple hundred documents 

22 related to Wah Chang. Unfortunately, none of 
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1 which really were very particularly 

2 informative about the processes and the 

3 monitoring programs that occurred there.

4 We did conduct interviews with 

5 four former Wah Chang employees, and two State 

6 of Oregon workers who were, you know, they had 

7 - Wah Chang had a license with the State to 

8 process some of the radioactive materials, and 

9 we interviewed a couple of those folks. And 

10 we also reviewed the case files in the Claims 

11 Tracking System.

12 There aren't many cases in our 

13 possession from Wah Chang. You can see on 

14 this slide that there are only five that we 

15 received thus far. And all five of those meet 

16 the Class Definition.

17 We have completed dose 

18 reconstructions for four of those cases thus 

19 far. And none of those cases had any internal 

20 or external dosimetry associated with them.

21 So, what were the potential 

22 exposures during the contract period? 
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1 Remember, that was the 1971 and `72 period 

2 when they melted - Wah Chang melted depleted 

3 uranium for Y-12.

4 There was uranium, thorium and 

5 various progeny present during commercial 

6 metal extraction processes.

7 As I mentioned, Wah Chang was in 

8 the business of making commercial metals that 

9 were used in what I consider somewhat exotic 

10 applications in the defense and the space 

11 business.

12 As a starting product, they used 

13 zircon sand and this ore called euxenite ore, 

14 that contained natural uranium and thorium 

15 series elements.

16 So, these ores were - although 

17 they were being used for their non-radioactive 

18 components, they were naturally radioactive as 

19 mined from the ground.

20 Over a 30-year period, Wah Chang 

21 processed over 200 million kilograms of this 

22 zircon sand. So, it was a fairly large 
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1 operation.

2 I didn't mention, but I think 

3 there was somewhere on the order of about 36 

4 buildings that encompassed Wah Chang 

5 operations, and somewhere in the vicinity of 

6 400 to 450 employees, just to give you a 

7 general idea about the size of the facility.

8 Euxenite ore is interesting 

9 because it sort of has the periodic table of 

10 the rare earth elements in it and it's also 

11 fairly radioactive.

12 Some of the only survey data we 

13 were able to find from the facility had some 

14 survey readings of barrels of this ore that 

15 read as high as 35 mR per hour, which is not 

16 insignificant for a natural product.

17 Unfortunately, the processing 

18 specifics and the actual, you know, production 

19 quantities are unknown to us as far as how 

20 much the throughput was at times.

21 And as you can imagine when 

22 they're processing these ores, there becomes 
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1 at some point a concentrate. When they 

2 extract out the desired material, the metals, 

3 you were left with concentrates that have 

4 presumably varying degrees of enrichment of 

5 these natural radioactive products that we 

6 have no way of ascertaining their dose rates 

7 or their potential internal exposure values.

8 So, at the same time, though, in 

9 1971 and `72, as an ongoing operation, the 

10 depleted uranium metal from Union Carbide was 

11 processed.

12 This material was processed in one 

13 building called the S-6 facility. And the 

14 metal was melted in a fairly exotic, at least 

15 in my mind, operation called an electron beam 

16 furnace.

17 The furnace was operated under a 

18 vacuum and they would melt the metal with a 

19 high current electron beam. It would drip 

20 into these copper crucibles and they would 

21 remold it for processing back to Y-12.

22 And in this process, presumably, 
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1 the depleted uranium was purified to some 

2 extent.

3 Because it was operated under a 

4 vacuum, we don't believe that there was very 

5 much potential for exposure during this 

6 particular process.

7 So, in 1971 and `72 you had two 

8 concurrent operations going on. You had the 

9 melting of depleted uranium for Y-12, and you 

10 had this background, these other 35 or 37 

11 buildings processing zircon sand, euxenite ore 

12 and making metals like zirconium and hafnium 

13 and niobium.

14 Which, interestingly, I learned - 

15 it's amazing what you learn on this job. It 

16 was also called columbium in the metals 

17 processing business.

18 Never officially adopted on the 

19 periodic table, but it's - if you do a 

20 literature search on it, you'll find a lot of 

21 references to columbium which is also - which 

22 is equivalent to niobium, just as an aside.
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1 Okay. So, the potential radiation 

2 exposures during the contract period then 

3 would be obviously to the photon and beta 

4 exposures from the uranium and thorium 

5 containing residues, and also photon beta 

6 exposures from the depleted uranium during the 

7 melting.

8 Presumably, there's also some 

9 alpha exposures there during the zirconium 

10 process as well.

11 So, the potential radiation 

12 exposures during the residual period then is 

13 only the radiation associated with the 

14 depleted uranium melting operations are 

15 covered.

16 All the slag and all the residue 

17 from the zirconium and hafnium processes are 

18 not considered in the residual period. So, we 

19 only have to worry about the melting that 

20 occurred in this S-6 building.

21 We have encountered documents that 

22 indicate the electron beam furnace was 
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1 disassembled and decontaminated after uranium 

2 operations. That being said, though, in 1977 

3 there was a report that indicated that even 

4 though the area had been cleaned, there was - 

5 approximately five pounds of depleted uranium 

6 metal was estimated to remain in the 

7 inaccessible area of the furnace.

8 That is they tried to clean the 

9 furnace out. They couldn't. And they 

10 estimate there was about five pounds left in 

11 there, which, to our knowledge, no one ever 

12 entered to try to go back in and clean it up. 

13 So, it was pretty much a non-exposure source 

14 term, at least in our opinion.

15 So, based on this, what are our 

16 approaches to dose reconstruction?

17 We propose that we can use TBD18 6000 to estimate the internal/external 

19 exposures to uranium melted in the beam 

20 furnace during the operational period. That 

21 TBD covers melting operations dealing with 

22 metals.
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1 And we did have some air samples 

2 taken during the uranium melting operations - 

3 well, let me stop there.

4 The TBD-6000 would be used - even 

5 though we don't believe that there was much 

6 exposure outside the furnace because it 

7 operated under a vacuum, we would still use 

8 the TBD-6000 to estimate what the exposures 

9 were of the workers that were in the S-6 

10 building.

11 There were some air samples taken 

12 during the uranium melting operations. 

13 Unfortunately, we can't use those to quantify 

14 exposures because they don't really tell us 

15 much about where they were taken and why and 

16 sort of, you know, were they process air 

17 samples, general area samples, that sort of 

18 thing.

19 So, we didn't believe they were 

20 particularly useful for dose reconstruction 

21 purposes during the covered period.

22 But during the residual period as 
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1 I mentioned earlier, we could use those 

2 samples as a starting point to bound uranium 

3 intakes during the residual period, and that's 

4 what we intend to do.

5 But our main conclusion, though, 

6 is that the internal and external exposures 

7 associated with the uranium and thorium 

8 residues from the commercial operations can't 

9 be estimated.

10 I mentioned that we just - we 

11 don't have any real process information or 

12 feel for what the levels of exposures were on 

13 these operations. And so, we can't bound it.

14 The two-prong test is presented 

15 here, and I won't go over it again, but I 

16 think you all know what that is.

17 And so, our feasibility dose 

18 reconstruction is that the process and source 

19 term information provide insufficient 

20 information to estimate doses associated with 

21 zirconium extraction and other non-AEC 

22 processes with sufficient accuracy for workers 
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1 at Wah Chang.

2 The summary slide is that during 

3 the covered period, that is January `71 

4 through December `72, dose reconstruction is 

5 feasible for the uranium operations.

6 This slide is a little bit 

7 misleading. When I say "uranium operations," 

8 I'm talking about the depleted uranium 

9 operations conducted for Y-12.

10 We cannot reconstruct dose for 

11 thorium from the commercial operations, nor 

12 can we reconstruct dose from the uranium from 

13 the commercial operations. That should be 

14 made clearer on this slide.

15 We do believe we can reconstruct 

16 the external dose from uranium from the DU 

17 operations, but we cannot reconstruct external 

18 dose from the commercial operations.

19 And neutron exposures are not 

20 applicable. And we would use a standard TIB-9 

21 approach to reconstruction of occupational 

22 medical x-ray exposures here.
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1 As far as the residual period goes 

2 from January `73 through October 2009, we 

3 believe that we could reconstruct - remember, 

4 we only have to reconstruct the dose 

5 associated with the depleted uranium 

6 operations.

7 And we believe we can use TBD-6000 

8 approaches to reconstruct that dose. And 

9 likewise we would use a model based on the 

10 five pounds of uranium that were there to 

11 estimate the doses associated with exposure to 

12 the uranium beta-gamma component.

13 So, as far as health endangerment, 

14 the evidence reviewed indicates that some 

15 workers may have accumulated chronic exposures 

16 during that work. And we are specifying that 

17 health may have been endangered for those 

18 workers who were employed for a number of work 

19 days aggregating at least 250 days.

20 And the proposed Class here is all 

21 - and this should say Atomic Weapons 

22 Employees, there's a little phrase left out 
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1 there - who worked in any building at the Wah 

2 Chang facility in Albany, Oregon for the 

3 operational period from January 1st, `71, 

4 through December `72 and for a number of work 

5 days aggregating 250 days. And it can be 

6 aggregated with other employment or in 

7 combination with other work days.

8 And this final slide is our 

9 recommendation for the Class. That's it.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Questions 

11 for Jim?

12 Yes, Josie.

13 MEMBER BEACH: This is a bit of a 

14 complicated site with the different 

15 activities.

16 In the Evaluation Report, it 

17 talked about deconning it down, and then did 

18 they disband the furnace or - 

19 DR. NETON: Yes, I think the 

20 furnace was inactive after that period. I 

21 recall vaguely they mentioned something about 

22 being not locked away in a closet, but put 
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1 aside. It was not used for other operations, 

2 to my knowledge.

3 MEMBER BEACH: It said the material 

4 was disposed of, they believed, at Hanford. 

5 And I was wondering if they shipped the 

6 furnace and everything.

7 DR. NETON: No, I don't think the 

8 furnace was shipped.

9 MEMBER BEACH: It's not very clear.

10 DR. NETON: At least to our 

11 understanding, the furnace remained there, but 

12 it had this - potentially up to five pounds of 

13 depleted uranium inside the inaccessible areas 

14 of the furnace.

15 MEMBER BEACH: So, the waste that 

16 they - the smeared and decon, that went

17 offsite.

18 DR. NETON: Correct.

19 MEMBER BEACH: And was that done 

20 initially? Because I know this says as of 

21 March of 1977, but then it said it was done 

22 within two months. So, I was just curious.
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1 DR. NETON: No, no. I think it was 

2 done right after the operation was over.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Thanks.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, my question 

5 is somewhat related.

6 To what extent were operations 

7 confined to that one area?

8 DR. NETON: To my knowledge - well, 

9 to our knowledge, all the operations occurred 

10 in this S-6 building. And there was probably, 

11 worker interviews indicated, maybe seven to 

12 ten people working in that area. But as 

13 usual, we don't know who entered the building 

14 at what times and where.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So, you 

16 evaluated personnel records and other 

17 information to establish that?

18 DR. NETON: Well, we're not adding 

19 the Class because of the depleted uranium 

20 operations though. We're adding the Class 

21 because of all these commercial activities 

22 that occurred in the other 36 or 40 buildings. 
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1 That's the basis for the Class.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

3 DR. NETON: You know, they 

4 processed this 200 million pounds of ore over 

5 30 years and it had up to 35 mR per hour dose 

6 rates, that sort of thing.

7 We have no way of establishing an 

8 upper bound for those intakes or external 

9 exposures.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Dr. Neton, in your 

12 records search, you didn't specifically 

13 mention it, so I will ask, did you seek to get 

14 records directly from Teledyne on this 

15 facility?

16 DR. NETON: I don't know the answer 

17 to that. I may have to phone a friend.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: I notice you have 

19 the usual databases, but what about Teledyne 

20 itself, is what I'm asking.

21 DR. NETON: LaVon, do you recall? 

22 I don't know that we went to Teledyne or not.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: I don't recall. 

2 I'm sure the database covered in the matrix in 

3 the back will say it.

4 DR. NETON: Yes, there's a matrix 

5 in the back that gives you places that we - 

6 the sites that we solicited for information.

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, the primary 

8 site was contacted for documentation, 

9 Teledyne, and we received no documents from 

10 them.

11 It's in the first page of the data 

12 capture matrix in the back on Page 45.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Yes, I 

14 see it now. Thanks.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It was sort of 

16 hidden. 

17 Other questions?

18 Can you just clarify that last 

19 statement to me? I just want to make sure 

20 it's clear on the record for the - because 

21 your reconstruction feasibility and 

22 infeasibility is based on uranium and thorium.
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1 DR. NETON: Right. It's based on 

2 the uranium and thorium associated with the 

3 commercial operations to manufacture metals 

4 for the Department of Defense and other 

5 agencies, not for the AEC contract.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, because 

7 you feel you could do the AEC contract.

8 DR. NETON: Right.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

10 DR. NETON: We feel we can 

11 reconstruct the uranium from the melting 

12 operations of the depleted uranium in the 

13 electron beam furnace, which is the only 

14 covered activity at this site.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: However, it's not 

16 feasible to distinguish the workers or the 

17 exposures that might have occurred from the 

18 commercial and the AEC-related - 

19 DR. NETON: Well, it's not - it's 

20 not - we can't distinguish who worked with 

21 this or the ores themselves. I mean, these 

22 were commercial activities that were ongoing.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

2 Hinnefeld.

3 A key aspect here is that the law 

4 requires us to reconstruct all exposures at 

5 the site during the covered period for an AWE.

6 So, these other commercial 

7 exposures would have to be reconstructed 

8 during the operational period, and that's what 

9 we can't reconstruct.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And the site is 

11 designated as being the entire facility, not 

12 just - 

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, it's 

14 designated as Wah Chang. It's not a specific 

15 building.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just wanted to 

17 get that on the record.

18 DR. NETOn: Right. That's a key 

19 point.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

21 DR. NETON: It's not just the S-6 

22 building, it's the entire site is a designated 
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1 - is a covered facility.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right.

3 Any other - 

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I'm sorry. 

5 Could you clarify one more time the law 

6 requires you to reconstruct all radiation - 

7 DR. NETON: All dose exposure.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: It's different 

9 than when we were - because before we had this 

10 issue of could you distinguish the component 

11 of dose.

12 DR. NETON: No, that's in the 

13 residual period.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's for the 

15 residual period.

16 DR. NETON: If it's within a 

17 covered period, we are required to reconstruct 

18 all radiation exposure at the covered 

19 facility, period.

20 Whether it's from commercial 

21 operations, from radiography sources that are 

22 unrelated to AEC, doesn't matter. We'll 
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1 reconstruct everything that we can identify 

2 during the covered period.

3 This would not be the first site 

4 to be added this way, by the way. There's a 

5 number of other ones that have been brought in 

6 this way.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. No more 

8 questions for Jim. I don't believe that the 

9 petitioners wanted to speak, but I just wanted 

10 to offer the opportunity if they're on the 

11 line, to say something if they wish to 

12 comment. They're not required to.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask - 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sure.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Again, this is 

16 further for my clarification.

17 For the residual period, you're 

18 proposing to use TBD-6000?

19 DR. NETON: Correct.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: How does that - 

21 or help me know, sir, how it relates to an 

22 electron beam furnace.
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1 DR. NETON: There's not an electron 

2 beam furnace in TBD-6000, but there is 

3 something to do with processing of ores, I 

4 mean, of the uranium.

5 I'm not sure exactly which process 

6 in TBD-6000 we've selected now. Caught me off 

7 guard.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, because it 

9 sort of seemed to me - 

10 DR. NETON: Yes, and I don't recall 

11 it - I don't know if it was the melting of 

12 ore. We have to go back and check the 

13 Evaluation Report, but we did believe that the 

14 furnace itself was fairly self-contained.

15 I mean, the - also, I left out a 

16 pretty important point is there were some 

17 bioassay samples taken for that melting 

18 operation. They were handwritten, you know, 

19 but there were ten people that were monitored 

20 listed as before, and ten samples listed as 

21 after.

22 And my recollection is that the 
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1 after samples were all lower than the before 

2 samples. And I believe that they were less 

3 than value, something less than a micro - I 

4 forget what the value was, but - so, we do 

5 have some bioassay samples, but we've opted to 

6 use the TBD-6000 approach.

7 And I don't recall which operation 

8 we would use to do that, but these would be 

9 only applied to non-presumptive cancers for 

10 those who don't qualify for the Class.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, I don't think - 

13 I was going to make the comment that Jim just 

14 ended with.

15 The TBD-6000 only comes into play 

16 if someone had a non - 

17 DR. NETON: Non-presumptive cancer.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: - presumptive 

19 cancer.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any further 

21 questions or comments?

22 If not, the Chair would entertain 
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1 a motion.

2 MEMBER PRESLEY: So moved.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Whew. That's 

4 faster than a sound wave.

5 Do I have a second to that?

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Seconded.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 

8 further discussion? The so-move is to accept 

9 the NIOSH Evaluation Report and add the Class 

10 to the SEC.

11 No further discussion, then, Ted, 

12 do you want to - 

13 (Off-record comments.)

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Just a point of 

15 information. I think the motion as it stands, 

16 adds the Class for the active period and 

17 denies the Class for - there's two parts to 

18 it, I believe, if we accept the - I just want 

19 to make sure everybody is aware of that.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right. That's 

21 where I got confused about TBD-6000, because I 

22 thought that they had said before the residual 
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1 period from 1972 through `79, they were 

2 proposing that they could use TBD-6000.

3 DR. NETON: Oh, I'm sorry. I 

4 misunderstood your question then. I thought 

5 you were talking about the covered period 

6 where we would use TBD-6000.

7 After the covered period, we were 

8 going to use the air - there was some air 

9 sample data that was taken during the covered 

10 period that we couldn't use for a covered 

11 period, because we didn't know exactly, you 

12 know, how well it was representative of the 

13 workers, but we felt that it was sufficient to 

14 use for bounding the starting point of the 

15 residual period.

16 So, we would use - I think there 

17 was like five air samples that were taken 

18 during the covered period. And we used one of 

19 those to establish the starting point for air 

20 concentrations in the residual period.

21 Sorry. I was - it was TIB-70 

22 approach.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Just to - go 

2 ahead, LaVon.

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'm sorry. I want 

4 to clarify one other thing too.

5 The reason that air sampling 

6 didn't work for the operational period was it 

7 didn't address the other commercial activities 

8 that were going on, on the site. That's why 

9 we didn't use it during - 

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I got you.

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If we get much 

13 more clarification here, we'll be totally 

14 confused. But just to clarify on the motion, 

15 I think we ought to be specific in our motions 

16 because we have not always included the entire 

17 Evaluation Report in our motions in terms of 

18 accepting everything there.

19 We, I think, most commonly have 

20 just concentrated on the part of the 

21 Evaluation Report that recommends a Class be 

22 added to the SEC.
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1 Sometimes we've gone on and - for 

2 example, there may be Site Profile issues that 

3 may not be SEC. You might accept the SEC for 

4 the period that's not recommended in the 

5 report.

6 So, it's in some cases, we've not 

7 - really don't have all the adequate 

8 information to be able to address. And even 

9 NIOSH may be uncertain about it particularly 

10 during the SEC period, as to what will be 

11 available and not.

12 We know for the most part it's 

13 not, but they may use whatever information may 

14 be available.

15 That's not always explicit in the 

16 reports, and we have to be a little bit 

17 careful about accepting a full report. At 

18 least we are specifying what we're doing when 

19 we're doing that.

20 Henry.

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I mean, 

22 could they re-file for the residual period?
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1 I mean, the way it is now, the 

2 proposed Class doesn't include the residual 

3 period. It may have been evaluated, but it 

4 isn't - 

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It includes part 

6 of the residual period. And I think NIOSH has 

7 the prerogative of doing the entire period. 

8 They modified the proposed Class Definition,

9 petitioner's definition by adding the entire 

10 residual period to do their evaluation.

11 I don't think that ever precludes 

12 that an outside petitioner for, you know, 

13 either re-petitioning or a new petitioner 

14 petitioning for consideration based on new 

15 information.

16 So, I don't think we're precluding 

17 anything by what we do. I think they would 

18 have to present new information that - and so, 

19 I think the only risk we run is that in this 

20 case it's they filed through January 11th, 

21 `79.

22 I'm not sure why that date was 
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1 picked. Do you know, LaVon, or anybody?

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, the 

3 petitioner associated with - the claim 

4 associated with that petitioner. So, they 

5 filed for that.

6 However, when we qualified the 

7 petition, we qualified it based on the basis, 

8 you know, the basis provided by the 

9 petitioner. And our qualification will extend 

10 to however long we feel that that basis is 

11 supported until the evaluation is complete.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. So, it's 

13 a little bit difficult to decide. I think at 

14 the same time they speak in favor of sort of 

15 doing the full time period and so forth, I 

16 don't think we - I think we ought to try and 

17 avoid not having reached a conclusion on some 

18 of these periods, which we've tended to do in 

19 the past.

20 We sort of leave some of these 

21 issues, you know, hanging out there and 

22 unresolved.
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1 And in the cases of a large site, 

2 I think that's probably appropriate because 

3 those often are fairly complicated Site 

4 Profile issues and so forth.

5 On the other hand, if Board 

6 Members feel they haven't had a chance to 

7 review all of the issues for the residual 

8 period in this case or SEC issues or Site 

9 Profile issues, then I think they should say 

10 so as we're considering this motion.

11 But I think we'll accept Paul's 

12 comments as a friendly amendment to Bob's 

13 original motion, which would be to accept the 

14 full Evaluation Report. So, I think that's 

15 what's on the table with a second.

16 So, anybody have further comments?

17 Okay. Ted, now go ahead.

18 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Before 

20 accepting the full Evaluation Report, Section 

21 5.2.2.3, which is about neutrons, is missing. 

22 So, if we're going to accept it, I would just 
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1 wonder if there is a draft of this that does 

2 have - so, it's Page 23. It says neutrons 

3 were not, and then it ends without the text. 

4 It's like an orphan sentence out there.

5 MEMBER BEACH: I think my copy has 

6 the full definition if anybody wants to use 

7 it.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. I accept 

9 Josie's copy.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Did you want to look 

11 at it?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, Dr. 

13 Richardson, I'm not sure why that sentence is 

14 left out. It's obvious that we were intending 

15 to - what the statement is intended to say, 

16 that there is - we're not expected to be a 

17 source of exposure for the covered period or 

18 residual period.

19 We'll get the corrected - if the 

20 actual final report does not have that, the 

21 report will be corrected and we'll get that to 

22 the Board.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Josie took it. 

2 She has it.

3 MEMBER BEACH: I think it's in 

4 there, unless I'm missing something.

5 (Off-record comments.)

6 DR. NETON: I think what happens 

7 sometimes is when these are converted to PDF 

8 files, some funny things happen and we don't 

9 proofread every word.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Don't say that, 

11 Jim. Unless you can specify what funny things 

12 happen, that makes us nervous.

13 DR. NETON: Well, I do know when I 

14 got my copy of the PDF, one of the tables was 

15 half truncated. And they went back and remade 

16 it and the table came out.

17 So, I don't know why that occurs, 

18 but it's a fact of the PDF process, in my 

19 opinion.

20 MS. HOWELL: Could you restate the 

21 motion before you vote on it, please?

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: I believe the 

2 motion is to accept the NIOSH recommendation 

3 for an SEC Class for the - I'm saying "active 

4 period," but that's not the right terminology 

5 for the - 

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Operational.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Operational period 

8 and to deny an SEC Class for the residual 

9 period, I believe, is what the effect is.

10 MEMBER PRESLEY: That's correct.

11 MEMBER LEMEN: The operational 

12 period being January 1, `71, through December 

13 31st, `72.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. And we will 

15 get the exact wording, I think, tomorrow 

16 morning.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Tomorrow there 

18 will be a letter, yes.

19 MEMBER LEMEN: Can you give the 

20 dates on the second one?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The second one is 

22 from January 1st, 1973, through October 31st, 
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1 2009.

2 MEMBER LEMEN: Thank you.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is everybody 

4 ready for a vote? Okay.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. And for the 

6 record before I get started, we have two Board 

7 Members who are absent for this. I'll collect 

8 their votes after.

9 Dr. Anderson.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

16 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson.

18 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen.

20 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

4 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley.

6 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: So, it's unanimous among 

16 attendees. 14 in favor. Two votes to 

17 collect. The motion passes.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We're now 

19 scheduled for a - after a short break, a 

20 closed Board session on conflict of interest 

21 issues.

22 So, I guess I'll ask everybody to 
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1 leave, except for Board Members and the people 

2 involved. I see Chris is here.

3 And others who will be staying in 

4 the room, I'm not sure who's allowed. We're 

5 originally scheduled for four o'clock. Do you 

6 want to take the full time period or how do 

7 you feel?

8 Because we will then be coming 

9 back at, I believe, 6:30 this evening for the 

10 public comment session.

11 If we want to break for 15 

12 minutes, say start five minutes early - ten 

13 minutes. Okay. We'll try to start at ten of 

14 4:00, 3:50.

15 For those of you who did not know 

16 that - well, two of our Board Members seem to 

17 have discovered the cookies and brownies 

18 outside.

19 (Whereupon, the proceedings went 

20 off the record at 3:39 p.m. for a closed 

21 session and went back on the record at 6:32 

22 p.m.)
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. If we get 

2 seated, we'll get started. Board Members can 

3 - and we have two people signed up, and then 

4 we've got a few more people, I believe, on the 

5 phone.

6 So, those of you on the phone we 

7 should be able to get to, I believe. And, 

8 Ted, do you want to give the intro?

9 MR. KATZ: Yes. Thank you.

10 So, welcome everyone who's come 

11 for the public session. Let me just note what 

12 the ground rules are about transcripts and the 

13 existence of transcripts for anyone who might 

14 not know.

15 All of the Board sessions are 

16 transcribed verbatim. So, people who are 

17 giving public comments, all of your comments 

18 will be captured in those transcripts.

19 Those transcripts are then posted 

20 on the NIOSH website where they're available 

21 to the public. So, everything you say will be 

22 available verbatim to anyone who would like to 
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1 read it in the public.

2 And the exception to that is if 

3 you talk about another person, information 

4 divulged about another person will be kept 

5 private. So, that will be redacted from the 

6 transcript to protect that person's privacy.

7 That's sort of the thumbnail of 

8 what the rules are. The rules are also - 

9 should be on the back table. And they're also 

10 on the NIOSH website. Under the Board's 

11 section of the NIOSH website, it will give you 

12 a full explanation of what's called the 

13 redaction policy for the transcripts. And 

14 that covers it.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And the 

16 first person signed up is someone we've heard 

17 from before. Donna Hand.

18 Do you want to introduce yourself 

19 and - 

20 MS. HAND: Thank you again. Thank 

21 you for the time to be able to voice some 

22 concerns that the claimants have.
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1 My name is Donna Hand. I first 

2 became a worker advocate for Pinellas Plant. 

3 I also authorize/represent some of the 

4 claimants.

5 Now, I am also in Savannah River, 

6 Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Rocky Flats and Nevada 

7 Test Site.

8 So, I have pretty well expanded my 

9 sites to where I know about this program from 

10 when you do the initial interview all the way 

11 to the closing interview, dose reconstruction, 

12 goes over to Department of Labor, Probability 

13 of Causation, requesting a review, the whole 

14 bit.

15 Having said that, we need to 

16 address some very much concerns that go across 

17 the board. Particularly, the radiation dose 

18 for the workers.

19 They were told that they were 

20 getting the radiation dose of a coworker for 

21 the unmonitored workers. However, I have been 

22 finding out that the unmonitored dose is going 
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1 to be the coworker dose of other workers such 

2 as the janitors. All janitors get a hundred 

3 millirem.

4 It doesn't matter if they're in a 

5 radiation area where you get 550 millirems. 

6 You're still going to get a hundred millirem.

7 It doesn't matter if a Technical 

8 Basis Document shows that the missed dose is 

9 240 millirems. You're still going to get a 

10 hundred millirem.

11 This hundred millirem is going to 

12 be at a constant distribution. A hundred 

13 millirem at a constant distribution that's not 

14 of the 95th percentile or 99th percentile, 

15 there's a lot of uncertainties there.

16 And the IREP program has at the 

17 very bottom of the left-hand corner, 

18 uncertainty distribution. In there, it shows 

19 log-normal 11.

20 If you manually put these numbers 

21 in, it will tell you that this uncertainty 

22 distribution log-normal 11 has no effect on 
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1 the calculation.

2 So, therefore, you did not include 

3 the uncertainty, because your constant wasn't 

4 at the worst-case application or assumption, 

5 the 95h percentile, and then your program 

6 didn't include it as well. So, these workers 

7 are being deprived of the uncertainty.

8 If you go back and you have a 

9 rework, a rework is whenever these cases are 

10 sent back for some reason. Sometimes it's 

11 employment, sometimes it's a new illness.

12 Again, there's no additional facts 

13 given about these sites. But, yet, every 

14 single one of these reworks are reduced 

15 because they're told they're taking the 50th 

16 percentile now.

17 Again, you're taking the 50 

18 percentile. What about the uncertainty? 

19 You're required through the federal 

20 regulations to include the uncertainty. 

21 That's not it.

22 Specifically at Pinellas Plant, 
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1 you're talking about internal dose. The 

2 internal dose, the only thing that they will 

3 capture is the tritium.

4 You forget that there is krypton, 

5 cobalt, nickel, uranium and radioactive6 generating devices. These people were cut on 

7 these radioactive-generating devices.

8 I had one worker, he tested the 

9 tubes. Every unit, he would test three of 

10 them in Building 200. He only gets a hundred 

11 millirem a year.

12 He's actually physically testing 

13 these tubes. 50 units a week, if not more, 

14 three per unit, but he only gets a hundred 

15 millirems.

16 It doesn't seem scientifically 

17 valid, and it definitely isn't reasonable. 

18 His internal dose is a hundred from the 

19 tritium.

20 They just now started doing the 

21 metal tritides. Pinellas Plant has four metal 

22 tritides.
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1 The tritium doses are there. They 

2 said they can do it, but it only comes out to

3 be one millirem.

4 I have a case where a claimant, he 

5 actually sanded the tubes. He's sitting down 

6 at a desk, he sands the tubes, he checks them 

7 for leaks, and then he has to clean it with 

8 solvents, sands it again, puts a number on it, 

9 does the whole bit. 

10 He had tongue cancer, lip cancer 

11 thyroid cancer. He only got a hundred 

12 millirems a year. It doesn't make sense, 

13 again, when the dosimetry dose says we missed 

14 240.

15 You have pictures in front of you. 

16 That claimant had laryngeal cancer. He 

17 actually worked in the vacuum area with the 

18 tube and the exhaust with 1018, which is 

19 designated by your Technical Basis Document as 

20 being radioactive materials unconfined. He 

21 only got a hundred millirems per year external 

22 dose.
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1 As you can see by the picture, he 

2 got cuts and wounds while he was working 

3 there. He also when he opened it, where did 

4 it go to and what protection did he have?

5 The cuts and wounds is not 

6 considered in the internal dose because there 

7 wasn't a health physicist that did a report. 

8 So, therefore, we're not going to consider 

9 this.

10 I heard today that during the 

11 covered time period, all radiation dose is 

12 supposed to be considered. You had issued a 

13 Technical Basis Guideline for wounds. 

14 However, your contractors and subcontractors 

15 are not using this.

16 These are some issues that are 

17 going across the board at every single site. 

18 These workers are not having the law applied 

19 to them. They're having whatever the 

20 professional judgment of the dose 

21 reconstruction person thinks it is.

22 The RTGs which was done at 
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1 Pinellas and also at Kansas City, the only 

2 information they have on that one is what they 

3 learned over the internet. They did not talk 

4 to the workers that actually worked with the 

5 RTGs.

6 Pinellas Plant had two. One was 

7 warm, you could touch it. And you had to 

8 physically touch it to make sure it was still 

9 active. The other one was so hot that they 

10 had to wear asbestos gloves to touch it.

11 But yet because they're 

12 encapsulated, according to NIOSH, there's no 

13 radiation dose. So, don't worry about it.

14 We know that they leaked because 

15 they had to reopen some of these and then 

16 encapsulate them again. This is not accounted 

17 for.

18 The Pinellas Plant documentation 

19 also says there was a temporary plant started 

20 in September of 1956. Site Profile agrees 

21 there was. But whenever you do a dose 

22 reconstruction, we're only going to begin in 
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1 1957. We're not getting add those sources 

2 there.

3 You have here you submitted a list 

4 of Special Exposure Cohorts. Pinellas Plant 

5 filed a petition for a Special Exposure Cohort 

6 the end of 2008, beginning of 2009.

7 We were told at that time, that 

8 they could do the uranium dose. We were told 

9 that they could do the metal tritide dose. 

10 So, therefore, we didn't qualify. So, they 

11 would not evaluate it. That's as far as it 

12 got.

13 There seems to be a disparity 

14 whenever Oak Ridge does an evaluation 

15 determining if you qualify, and then they do 

16 an evaluation if you do qualify. That needs 

17 to be straightened out. If they qualify 

18 underneath the statute, then you do the 

19 evaluation.

20 You also have here where Pinellas 

21 Plant is going to have their Technical Basis 

22 Document revision done. It's supposed to come 
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1 out on March the 25th.

2 When was the last time that a 

3 Working Group meeting met? I went to one of 

4 those Work Group meetings. They were talking 

5 about uranium and he kept on saying the glass 

6 - it was just in glass.

7 No, uranium was so much there, it 

8 was of considerable concern for the EPA in 

9 1997. Now, in 1997, it was a concern for 

10 environmental protection. What about the dose 

11 to the workers?

12 Krypton was found outside the 

13 facility in the air monitors. How much was 

14 inside? Zero krypton dose.

15 Again, we need to define to the 

16 people in layman terms what coworker data is, 

17 because there seems to be a confusion between 

18 the Oak Ridge people that are taking the 

19 close-out interview, the Oak Ridge calculators 

20 that are calculating radiation dose, and what 

21 NIOSH has told everybody that coworker data 

22 is. It's a large discrepancy, it's ambiguous 
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1 and it's definitely arbitrary.

2 Also, because they're a janitor or 

3 they're a secretary does not mean that they 

4 did not receive more dose than what you're 

5 saying.

6 I have a secretary. She worked in 

7 the classified area called Heather, which is 

8 still classified today. That's all I can tell 

9 you.

10 However, the wall that her back 

11 was against documented 40 millirems per month 

12 coming through that wall. They had to move 

13 the badges. But they're saying that because 

14 that's backscatter, we're not going to include 

15 that in the dose.

16 Now, this person for years, had 

17 her desk right there by where it's coming 

18 through the wall. I do not know if you know 

19 too much about Pinellas Plant, but it's a 

20 warehouse.

21 They had cubicles. And so, 

22 there's only two or three rooms that were 
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1 sealed. And even those were not sealed 

2 completely.

3 So, because they had tritium dust 

4 up above 108, they would come up there and 

5 vacuum.

6 The decontamination, the 

7 decommissioning period, you still haven't got 

8 documentation from that. The radiation dose 

9 Site Profile ends at 1992. This facility 

10 lasted until 1997. There's not information 

11 there.

12 There's a lot of discrepancies 

13 between this site, Pinellas Plant, and other 

14 sites. When you look, okay, we've got this, 

15 this, this, this and this. Pinellas Plant, 

16 no, we don't. You didn't address that.

17 It should be standard if we're 

18 going to address the co-monitored here, we get 

19 co-monitored here. We know for each site what 

20 the co-monitored is, where we're basing our 

21 data. Do we have air samples?

22 You do not say, okay, yes or no. 
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1 Each site should say do we have air samples? 

2 Yes. Do we not have air samples? No.

3 So, then we know what data we're 

4 using and it makes it very simple for 

5 everybody.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you wrap up 

7 soon?

8 MS. HAND: Yes.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You've been over 

10 ten minutes.

11 MS. HAND: Overall is that from the 

12 closeout interview whenever they're asked is 

13 there anything else and we tell them, yes, 

14 there is because you did not address it, they 

15 were denied and we had to go over to 

16 Department of Labor.

17 Department of Labor we say, okay, 

18 we want a review. They're saying, no, you 

19 don't get a review. A review according to the 

20 regulation, goes back to NIOSH and the 

21 independent party. We're denied that.

22 So, when you guys do the dose 
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1 reconstruction, there is no way for us to have 

2 a due process to question that dose reprocess. 

3 Thank you.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

5 Next person signed up is a Chris 

6 McKenney, I believe.

7 MR. McKENNEY: Good evening ladies 

8 and gentlemen of the Board. My name is Chris 

9 McKenney. I'm presently an employee at the 

10 Savannah River site.

11 My father was also an employee 

12 there. He had 30 years plus employment. He's 

13 deceased now. He throughout his career, 

14 worked at the Argonne Lab at Chicago with the 

15 Chicago projects. He worked at New York 

16 Shipyard where reactors were built. And he 

17 also came to Savannah River and established 

18 the reactors there.

19 He, unfortunately, passed away 

20 having two primary cancers. We filed an 

21 Energy Employees Compensation claim. And even 

22 with two primary cancers, both metastatic 
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1 eventually, his case was denied. He had a PoC 

2 of 47 percent.

3 I'm here today to ask you to 

4 consider an SEC for the Savannah River Site as 

5 it appears to be the only major site in the 

6 DOE templates that doesn't have one at this 

7 time.

8 The site here never unionized the 

9 operating personnel. That was the first to - 

10 I think most of the other sites did have 

11 unions for the operating personnel, but we 

12 have never done that.

13 The dose reconstructions that we 

14 were given from NIOSH through ORAU and Oak 

15 Ridge don't, in my opinion, reflect the true 

16 conditions with regards especially to an 

17 incident at the K reactor in the `70s where a 

18 source rod melted down in the process room.

19 Pretty much the whole site in the 

20 mitigation of that accident was nearly burned 

21 out for the year, and his records show no 

22 increase over the previous years or subsequent 
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1 years.

2 It seems presently that the SRS 

3 cases as far as NIOSH acceptance and denials, 

4 are 70 percent denied and 30 percent approved. 

5 That's the lowest rate of any site in the 

6 complex.

7 I'm here purely to ask that you 

8 consider an SEC for this site as I think it 

9 would level the playing field for the workers 

10 past and present. Thank you.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 

12 much. I'm not sure, but we will be providing 

13 an update. There's the SEC Petition valuation 

14 for the site, and there will be an update on 

15 that tomorrow afternoon just before the public 

16 comment period.

17 It's listed on the agenda. So, 

18 you're obviously welcome to come back for that 

19 if that would be helpful.

20 Okay. We have some people on the 

21 phone we want to get to. I know Terrie 

22 Barrie, I believe, wanted to make a comment.
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1 Terrie, are you on?

2 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Doctor, I am.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

4 MS. BARRIE: And thank you for 

5 allowing the people who can't travel to the 

6 nice, warm Georgia, to call in our comments.

7 I'll be brief. I wanted to just 

8 mention that I'm very happy with the progress 

9 of the ten-year reviews that Dr. Howard 

10 initiated last year. It's pretty much on 

11 target and I appreciate all the hard work for 

12 the people who were involved with it.

13 I have read through the report. 

14 And I haven't studied them, but I've read 

15 them. And I notice that both the reports 

16 address the issue of whether NIOSH considers 

17 workers' testimony.

18 And, you know, from the times that 

19 I've listened to public comments and the 

20 Advisory Board Meetings, this is a real 

21 important issue.

22 These workers may not have worked 
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1 in the dosimetry program, but they were the 

2 hands-on people and, to me, their 

3 recollections need to be seriously considered.

4 This is particularly important 

5 throughout these blast plants. I understand 

6 that SC&A is performing an audit on whether 

7 public comment for the Rocky Flats plant were 

8 included into the NIOSH TBDs and Technical 

9 Bulletins. And I'm looking forward to that 

10 report.

11 But I also want to raise that I 

12 have also in the past year or so, raised some 

13 serious concern - what I think are serious 

14 concerns about some of the Site Profile 

15 information.

16 And I, as a matter of fact, like 

17 last year I mentioned that Building 440 and 

18 460 may have had radiation exposure. And I 

19 have not been answered on that issue.

20 And recently I went, you know, to 

21 the Board and to NIOSH and mentioned a couple 

22 of other issues that I garnered from the 
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1 emails I had FOIAed.

2 And I get the impression that, you 

3 know, because Rocky Flats has already had an 

4 SEC Petition approved for a very small number 

5 of years, that no one is going to worry about 

6 these issues.

7 And I would just like to be 

8 assured that the issues that I have raised, 

9 you know, with the thorium and the tritium, 

10 that they will be addressed and in a short 

11 amount of time.

12 I think a year for Building 440 

13 and 460, I've been quite patient with, and I 

14 would like to see these issues resolved.

15 Thank you for your time and for 

16 allowing me again to call in.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

18 Terrie, and we'll follow up. Sometimes when 

19 comments come in to the Board and to NIOSH, I 

20 think we may make the assumption that the 

21 other party is responding and doing that. And 

22 we'll make sure we coordinate and get back to 
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1 you.

2 And I think we also need to, you 

3 know, reconstitute our Rocky Flats Work Group 

4 because there are a number of Site Profile 

5 issues in addition to the ones that you raised 

6 that I think we need to follow up on.

7 So, we will also get that going 

8 again very shortly.

9 MS. BARRIE: Thank you. I 

10 appreciate that, Doctor.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I may have the 

12 pronunciation wrong, but there's also a Faye 

13 Vlieger or something like that?

14 MS. VLIEGER: My name is Faye 

15 Vlieger. I'm a member of ANWAG and also a 

16 member of the Advisory Committee for Cold War 

17 Patriots.

18 I am also an authorized 

19 representative for claimants here in the 

20 northwest for the Hanford site, and some of 

21 the sites in California.

22 The reason I'm - and I thank you 
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1 so much for taking my call. As I sit here in 

2 Washington State, I only dream of Georgia.

3 Earlier today the session came 

4 about that the Board - pardon me. During 

5 earlier discussion, Dr. Hinnefeld stated that 

6 NIOSH was already ahead of their game with the 

7 model on OTIB-49 and that they've already 

8 submitted data from the ICRP which apparently 

9 makes NIOSH's model more claimant-friendly 

10 than an ICRP. However, the ICRP needs to - 

11 stated that NIOSH needs to revise their model.

12 Wouldn't NIOSH still need to 

13 revise their method if the Transuranium 

14 Working Group had said that they looked at 

15 NIOSH's model and said that it needed to be 

16 changed because of the other findings?

17 Again, what it looks like to me is 

18 that NIOSH may say that they have incorporated 

19 - that they are more forward thinking and it 

20 incorporated this in it, but they couldn't 

21 have incorporated it if the report didn't 

22 exist when they did their incorporation.
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1 So, if this is truly the case that 

2 they have incorporated it, there needs to be 

3 some paper trail to prove it. Otherwise, we 

4 have that recommendation left out there from 

5 the Transuranium Working Group that the model 

6 needs to be updated and changed.

7 And we previously - ANWAG sent a 

8 letter dated October 10th, 2011, addressing 

9 these issues. And we didn't receive a 

10 response from it. And we're just wondering 

11 about our recommendations in that letter from 

12 October 10th, 2011, to this same topic.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Who was the 

14 letter to?

15 MS. VLIEGER: Just a second. I can

16 read to you the docket. 194. Docket Number 

17 194.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, that went to 

19 NIOSH then?

20 MS. VLIEGER: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. That's why 

22 I ask because the letter you sent to the Board 
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1 was the January - I believe January 11th. And 

2 that's why - 

3 MS. VLIEGER: Yes, that's the new 

4 letter.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

6 MS. VLIEGER: And then just a 

7 moment to let you know that when the Board 

8 meets in August and we discuss the Hanford 

9 SEC, I am very concerned that while we're 

10 going through our decommission and remediation 

11 of the various buildings at Hanford, that the 

12 Board and NIOSH are taking into consideration 

13 these findings and samples under Building 324 

14 right now where they found ten times the human 

15 lethal dose within working range under a 

16 building that was supposed to have drain and 

17 drain field systems.

18 They found soil contamination. 

19 Therefore, there was a ruptured pipe in a well 

20 that nobody knew about and it was draining 

21 into the soil.

22 I want to make sure that these are 
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1 considered during the SEC Petition, because 

2 nobody wanted to assume they're vulnerable to 

3 waste.

4 People up against walls in the 

5 basement, the HVAC workers and the planners 

6 and all the people that would go into the 

7 basement in 324, they weren't monitored, 

8 because they were told there was no need to be 

9 monitored.

10 The glove boxes were upstairs and 

11 isolated and supposedly draining and draining 

12 situations where there could not possibly be a 

13 leak into the wall or into the soil, but they 

14 were never monitored.

15 So, I just want to make sure that 

16 the remediation findings for the Hanford site 

17 are being considered by NIOSH in a real-time 

18 method.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I can just 

20 add to that that the Work Group on the Hanford 

21 SEC will be reconvening. We're waiting for a 

22 report from SC&A and we expect to get it, I 
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1 think, towards middle of April sometime.

2 And so, we will be meeting again 

3 and we'll update and we'll let the people 

4 involved, including the petitioners, know 

5 about that meeting and provide further 

6 information to you.

7 MS. VLIEGER: Do you know if any of 

8 the realtime information and realtime assays 

9 from this stuff that they're digging up - 

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I couldn't 

11 understand that.

12 MR. KATZ: She asked do we know if 

13 NIOSH is taking - 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Everybody is 

15 talking. I'm having trouble understanding - 

16 MR. KATZ: She's asked do we know 

17 if NIOSH is taking into account this realtime 

18 information that's coming in related to this, 

19 for example, contamination that she just 

20 described.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I don't 

22 think we can answer that on the phone or 
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1 directly, but we will follow up with you and 

2 try to get more details.

3 MS. VLIEGER: Okay. I know that 

4 the union has been in contact with the Board 

5 Members trying to get an answer to this 

6 question, too.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you.

8 MS. VLIEGER: And that concludes my 

9 statements. And, once again, thank you so 

10 much for letting me do this over the phone.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you.

12 Anybody else in the audience here 

13 wish to make public comments? We don't have 

14 anybody else signed up, but - okay.

15 And then does anybody else on the 

16 phone wish to make public comments?

17 There is another public comment 

18 session tomorrow evening. I don't hear 

19 anybody. Then, we'll close the session and we 

20 reconvene tomorrow morning at 8:15. Thank 

21 you.

22 (Whereupon, the meeting was 
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1 adjourned at 6:58 p.m.)

2 

3