UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL 


+ + + + + 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL 


SAFETY AND HEALTH 


+ + + + + 


ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND 


 WORKER HEALTH 


+ + + + + 


 84th MEETING 


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TUESDAY 


JUNE 19, 2012 


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The meeting convened at 8:30 


a.m., Mountain Daylight Time, in the 


Courtyard Marriott, 3347 Cerrillos Road, 


Santa Fe, New Mexico, James M. Melius, 


Chairman, presiding. 


PRESENT: 


JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman 


HENRY ANDERSON, Member 


JOSIE BEACH, Member 


BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member 


R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member* 


MARK GRIFFON, Member 


DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member 


JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member 


WANDA I. MUNN, Member 


JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member 


GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member 


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PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member 


PRESENT: (Continued) 


LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member 


PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member 


TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official 


REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT 


PARTICIPANTS 


ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor 


ANIGSTEIN, BOB, SC&A 


ARENDS, JONI 


BAROS, JOSE 


BAROS, LEROY 


BEAUMONT, HOLLY 


BEAVERS, DANIEL 


CATECHIS, JENNIFER, Rep. Lujan 3rd District 


of 


 New Mexico 


CRUZ, RUBEN, CDC 


EVASKOVICH, ANDREW 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


FROWISS, ALBERT* 


FUENTES, JERRY 


GLOVER, SAM, DCAS 


HANKS, LINDA 


HAYES, SAMMIE 


HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS 


JACQUEZ-ORTIZ, MICHELE 


JOHNSON, KAREN* 


JOHNSON, MARY* 


KINMAN, JOSH 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LEWIS, GREG, DOE 


LIN, JENNY, HHS 


LUJAN, BEN, US Congressman, 3rd District of 


 New Mexico* 


MACE, CARI 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MARTINEZ, CIRILIO JAKE 


MCFEE, MATT, ORAU 


MERRITT, MAUREEN* 


MONTOYA, REBECCA 


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NETON, JIM, DCAS 


ORTIZ, RALPH 


RAEL, LOIS 


REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT 


PARTICIPANTS: (Continued) 


RUIZ, HARRIET 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS 


STIVER, JOHN, SC&A 


TONGATE, BUTCH 


TRIPLETT, TINA* 


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 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 


Page 


Welcome and Introduction 


by Dr. James Melius, Chair 5 


NIOSH Program Update 


by Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld, NIOSH 7 


DOL Program Update 


by Mr. Jeffrey Kotsch, DOL 28 


DOE Program Update 


by Mr. Greg Lewis, DOE 39 


NIOSH 10-Year Program Review 


Implementation 


by Dr. James Melius, Chair 64 


Winchester Engineering and Analytical 


Center SEC Petition 


by Mr. LaVon Rutherford, 95 


Board Work Session 


by Dr. James Melius, Chair 115 


Weldon Spring Plant (Weldon Spring, MO) 


SEC Petition 


by Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld, NIOSH 168 


Board Work Session 


by Dr. James Melius, Chair 204 


Hanford SEC Petition, 1972-1983 


by Dr. Sam Glover, NIOSH 222 


Los Alamos National Laboratory SEC 


Petition Update 


by Mr. Mark Griffon, WG Chair 248 


Public Comment 
 287 


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


(8:30 a.m.) 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If everyone 


would get seated here, we'll get started. 


Welcome and I'm Jim Melius, the Chair of the 


Advisory Board. And I'll turn it over for 


Ted for roll call. 


MR. KATZ: Yes, welcome 


everybody. This Advisory Board on Radiation 


and Worker Health, I'm Ted Katz. I'm the 


Designated Federal Official of the Advisory 


Board and I wish to welcome on behalf of 


Secretary of HHS, Sebelius and the Director 


of NIOSH, John Howard. 


Let me for folks on the phone and 


in the room, in the room all the materials 


that are being discussed today are on the 


back table. For folks on the phone, all of 


the materials, all the presentations today 


you should find on the NIOSH website under 


the meetings section. You'll find today's 


date under the meeting session and if you 


click on that all of the presentations 


should be attached at that link. 


Let me just ask too while I have 


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your attention, folks on the phone please 


mute your phones, except for those Board 


Members and others who would be addressing 


this group when they're ready to address it. 


Otherwise mute your phones. If you don't 


have a mute button, for people on the phone, 


press * and then 6. That will mute your 


phone. And to unmute your phone you press * 


and 6 again. 


And also for everyone on the 


phone please at no point put the call on 


hold, but hang up and dial back in if you 


need to leave the call for a period. Thank 


you for that. We'll run through, let me 


just for everyone in the room whose going to 


be using these mics, it's very important 


that you speak close to the mic so that 


people on the phone can hear you. So please 


remember that. Let's do roll call for the 


Board. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And why don't 


we, people around the table here, why don't 


we introduce ourselves. And since we have 


our two new Members here, what I thought 


would be helpful if everyone can sort of 


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give a, when you introduce yourself give a 


brief, you know, who you are, you know, born 


in a log cabin kind of intro. Just to help 


them understand whose who and so forth. And 


we can start with Wanda. 


 (Roll Call.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, let's get 


started. We've got a busy agenda and we'll, 


some people need to leave and so forth. So 


we'll be sort of hopping around a little bit 


in between the, some of the SEC 


presentations and so forth. And so we'll 


get going here in a second. And I thought 


we'd start hopping on maybe LaVon could get 


it. We've got to keep them awake here. 


We'll start with an update from NIOSH from 


Stu Hinnefeld, Stu? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you, Dr. 


Melius. Assuming my computer starts up 


we'll be okay. Thank you all. I'm, for 


those in the room who don't know me, I'm Stu 


Hinnefeld. I'm the director of the Division 


of Compensation Analysis and Support for 


NIOSH. It's the division of NIOSH that has 


responsibilities in the energy employee's 


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program. 


I'm here today to present some 


news updates. My presentation has not only 


the slides I'm going to cover, but also 


several slides of statistics having to do 


with a program, where we are in the program 


in terms of number of claims and stuff. 


That's all in the handout in the back and 


it's posted on our website. 


And I believe the Board Members 


all received that. I'll just go through a 


few news items and then if anyone has any 


questions on that or on any of the 


information in the rest of the presentation, 


I'll try to answer what I can. 


In terms of program news, I 


wanted to mention a couple of staff changes 


that effect some of the activities of the 


Board because some of our, two of our health 


physicists who were engaged in certain sites 


and were sort of our key spokesmen on 


certain sites, have left our organization 


and gone to work elsewhere. One was Chris 


Crawford who was our, one of our primary 


spokesmen on the Linde site. 


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And the other is Brant Ulsh who 


has historically been our main spokesman at 


Rocky Flats and other places as well and 


also Mound, which we're talking about at 


this meeting. Rocky Flats we expect to talk 


about next meeting. We've also had the 


departure of one of our public health 


advisors. Brought that staff down to a 


level of four, but we seem to be able to get 


along with that number of people. 


We used to have almost twice that 


many, but we used to get many times as many 


phone calls as we get now, now that we're 


kind of up to date with claims the phone 


call load in that area has come down and so 


our staff has adjusted downward kind of 


appropriately for the workload. The rest of 


what I have on my presentation is some 


discussion about webpage updates. 


Specifically, with respect to the Advisory 


Board's portion of our website. 


Part of our efforts to improve 


communications to our claimant population 


have involved our website, how the 


information is written and how it's 


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presented. We also have certain 


institutional constraints that are placed on 


us by NIOSH in terms of website 


construction. And so some of our changes 


are made to conform to those institutional 


requirements that come from our 


organization. 


In particular, with respect to 


the Advisory Board site, we used to have on 


very long, very large Advisory Board page 


that you could choose a topic and you would 


jump down that page to that topic. So you 


could navigate it reasonably well. But it 


was all on one page. 


That's, we've, in recent past 


we've divided that into multiple pages that 


navigates very much the same. You still 


have a menu. You pick your, you know, a 


topic here listed off from that menu. And 


instead of jumping down the page it jumps to 


a different page. So anyway, on the slide 


here are the various categories that the 


Advisory page, has, Advisory Board's page 


has been broken into. 


We've also included, in the 


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current work activities of the Advisory 


Board, this was done at Dr. Howard's 


request, to display the items in terms of 


Special Exposure Cohort petitions that are, 


have been presented to the Board and are 


under discussion. Now this is just a screen 


shot. This is not the entire page. This is 


just a screen shot that I can get up. I'm 


not actually online. 


But it will show when products 


are delivered and the Class and things like 


that and the discussion still going on. So 


that's been placed up there. And I believe 


the navigation is clear, although I haven't 


tried it today. But I believe it's fairly 


clear how to get there from our website. 


We've also redesigned the SEC 


section of the individual site pages. One 


of the organizations of our website is you 


can go to covered sites, go to the list of 


covered sites, click on the site you want 


and then it will show you information about 


that site. 


And for sites that have a SEC 


action of some sort, rather they have an SEC 


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Class has been added or whether they have a 


petition that's either been decided or is 


undergoing the discussion process, that 


information is displayed now in tabular 


form. And so, and it contains more 


information on the number of petitions we've 


received, et cetera, et cetera. 


Now this particular redesign is 


not complete for all sites. We're putting 


it together sort of a site at a time. And 


so some of the sites have been redesigned 


this way and some have not. The next screen 


shot relates to Hanford, which is one of the 


sites that was, has been redesigned in this 


fashion. 


And you can see that, when you 


bring that up, if you would click on any of 


these links to the petition number it will 


take you to a table for that petition. And 


see here where you can see all the petitions 


are qualified. And here's an example of the 


table that it will take you to if you click 


on any of those petition numbers. It will 


take you to a table that looks like this. 


It shows the date received, date 


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qualified, a little bit of summary 


information about it. And then there are 


links to the documents associated with that 


petition as well. Okay, that concludes 


actually what I wanted to talk about in 


terms of the news from the redesign. Like I 


said, that redesign is going to continue on. 


Not all the sites have been 


redesigned in that fashion yet. But that's 


what I intended to present. The rest of the 


presentation is statistics, which I 


typically don't slog through up here in my 


presentation. So I'll be glad to answer any 


questions anybody has about any part of 


this. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think, Stu, 


you got to give us time to go through the --


why don't you briefly just, you know, flip 


through the slides. You don't have to 


present the data, but since we're all seeing 


these for the first time it's hard to --


MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- and I'm 


afraid we'll get scattered if not. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Sure. Well we 


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have the overall initial claim information. 


These are the claims that are referred to 


us. We've, just over 37,000 now claims have 


been referred to us by the Department of 


Labor. 


Most of them have been returned 


one way or another. The cases that are 


pulled from DR for SEC, that 3,000 cases, 


those are, I would guess with very few 


exceptions we may have pulled one that for 


some reason after reevaluation by Labor 


didn't get paid. 


But generally those are case, 


those are claims that are compensated via an 


SEC that was added because of the work of 


the Advisory Board. You know, in other 


words, SEC Class did not exist when the 


claim was filed. The Department of Labor 


referred it to us and so we had this claim 


in our possession. The decision was made to 


add a Class to the SEC that effected that 


claim. 


And so we pull those and send 


those back, we call those pulled for SEC. 


So there is an additional 3,000 claims that 


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are compensable in addition to the almost 


9,000 that have been compensable through 


dose reconstruction. 


The number of cases that we 


actually have in front of us to do is around 


900 or maybe a little shy. These dates, 


these data are a few weeks old. The 220 


initial draft dose reconstructions that are 


in the claimant's hands, we kind of subtract 


from that 1,100 number on the previous 


slide, in terms of the ones we have to do. 


That 1,122, so we've actually done 220 of 


them and sent them, the draft to the 


claimant. 


So we're somewhere just right 


around 900 cases that aren't, you know, 


total in our inbox. It's a little different 


than the, I think, 10 or 11,000 we had a few 


years ago in our inbox to do. Our 


statistics in terms of being able to show 


causation through dose reconstruction has 


been pretty steadily around 30 percent for a 


long time. 


For the cases that go through 


dose reconstruction we have about 30 percent 


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success rate in being showed causation. And 


this is our distribution of probabilities of 


causation. 


It's a little, you know, the fact 


that everything above 50 percent is shown in 


one of the bar charts, one of the bars in 


the histogram kind of skews things a little 


bit. But you can see there are a great 


number of claims that have a very, very low 


PoC number and a fairly small number as you 


approach the decision point, relatively 


speaking. 


Submittal versus production rate 


has been relatively steady. There was a 


little influx around the end of the year. 


Claims, we had a little uptick in claims we 


were getting from the Department of Labor. 


I don't that we ever learned why that was. 


Sometimes an addition of a Class 


if it's a large Class or it's a large 


facility, may prompt a bunch of additional 


claims. And not all those claims will 


necessarily be paid through the SEC. 


Anytime one of the SEC cancers get claims so 


we may get an influx because of that. I 


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don't know if we ever really diagnosed why 


we had that influx there around the end of 


the year. 


But it has come back down to the 


levels we have been experiencing for a 


couple years before that. And then we also 


include our status of the first 5,000 


claims. Anything in the first 5,000 or 


10,000 claims, that's not done these things 


are in dose reconstruction and we're 


gathering information. 


These claims have been returned 


to us in the past, certainly within the past 


year. Usually within the past few months. 


You know, we often get a claim returned back 


to us when the claimant comes down with an 


additional cancer. That's the most common 


reason why we get a claim back. They'll get 


an additional cancer and it will come back 


for us to rework the dose reconstruction. 


Same kind of explanation on the 10,000 


claims. 


I believe DOE's response on 


records requests, I think this might be a 


slight improvement from last slide. It's a 


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fairly steady performance. I mean there is 


not really much of note that raises our 


eyebrows there. And a summary of the 


Special Exposure Cohorts. 


We are up to 204 petitions 


received and we have added 89 Classes. And 


this used to be a pretty even split. The 


83.13's have pulled ahead here in the last 


six months or so, or maybe the last year or 


so. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay so Mark. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes and Stu, on 


that last slide the last bullet says 


represents 48 or 4,081 potential claims. 


First of all I don't think you want to say 


potential claims because on this, I mean 


that, those time periods are always open so. 


MR. HINNEFELD: The reason we say 


that is that by our statistic that's how 


many we found. They may not all get, they 


were all, certainly they were all claims. 


They were certainly all actual claims. They 


may not have actually gotten paid through 


the SEC because of some piece of information 


that was not part of our query when we ran 


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that. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: But I mean in 


the future if someone could always qualify 


for that SEC Class? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Absolutely. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: That's the 


definition right, so? 


MR. HINNEFELD: We would never 


see those claims. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Potential, 


anyway. That's one sort of --


MR. HINNEFELD: The word 


potential is in there is because we can't 


guarantee that number actually went and got 


paid through the SEC. Because there may 


have been something that, some qualifying 


factor that we didn't see in our poll that 


they did not. So some of those may not have 


actually gotten paid, although they look 


like they would have to us. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: I guess the 


second more important question was 4,000 to 


me with 89 SEC Classes that's like an 


average of 45 per response. It seems awful 


small. Some of them are very small. 


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MR. HINNEFELD: Well Bomber might 


be able to speak that better than I, but 


some of these SEC Classes are very small. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: There were only 


a few people. I know, yes. 


MR. HINNEFELD: We have, remember 


a lot of the 83.14's, we've been adding a 


lot of 83.14's because we couldn't, you 


know, we couldn't find their information, 


we've added those. We don't have very many 


claims from a lot of those. And so that's 


why they were researched late and those 


decisions were made fairly recently. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, but I 


think if you look at least the DOL website 


and probably Jeff will present this, but I 


think the amount of claims paid through the, 


at least the money, I think the number of 


claims paid through SEC is about even with 


the numbers paid through direct --


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, and see the 


majority of those we don't see. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, exactly. 


I think that was Mark's point --


MR. HINNEFELD: These are the 


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claims that got to us. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The 4,000 is 


not really representative of --


MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean if you 


look back to, I sort of noticed the same 


thing in it earlier. It's like look at the 


first 5,000 claims that you pulled 400 or 


378 for pulled out for SECs. The first 


10,000 and you're up to 1,001 pulled out for 


SECs. 


So it's, you know, early on there 


weren't many SECs so, you know, they get, 


but what happened also I think if claims 


that were turned down early, rejected 


through, you know, because it didn't meet 


Probability of Causation, DOL would then 


reopen and when the SEC was granted. And 


those again you would never see. 


MR. HINNEFELD: We would not see 


those back and so --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And so that's 


the other part of it, yes. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The other 


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question I have was about the time it takes 


to process claims. Maybe you mentioned it, 


but I didn't see it in the slides. I know 


you had a, I thought you had a target for 


that and I was just --


MR. HINNEFELD: We complete now, 


you know, I won't say this is 100 percent 


because once in a while there's a straggler 


that goes beyond nine months. But we 


complete the claims within nine months of 


when we get them, almost without exception. 


There are a couple categories of claims that 


have been around for a long time that we're 


hoping to be able to resolve actually at 


this meeting. 


A couple of sites that have been 


around for a long time. But for the most 


part, claims are done within nine months. 


And really most of them are done within six 


months of when we get them. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And just out 


of, I have two other questions out of, one's 


just sort of curiosity. The first 5,000 you 


have one claim that you're gathering 


information on. 


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MR. HINNEFELD: Well that's the, 


we have this set of situations or statuses, 


you know, internally we don't call them 


statuses. We put claims into either we are 


collecting the information on the claim, or 


a dose reconstructor is working on it or 


it's, you know, in review. 


And this is one that's been, I'm 


confident this is one that's been reopened 


within the past certain number of years, 


maybe for additional employment or 


something. And so we're back in, it's not 


given, it's not assigned to a dose 


reconstructor yet to do. We have 


information to gather before we could assign 


it to a dose reconstruction. But I'm 


confident that's a reworked case, one that 


was done once and is back. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And then 


my other question is about the DOE request. 


You have 41 requests greater than 60 days. 


Are there any particular sites that, since 


we'll hear from Greg --


MR. HINNEFELD: Well there are 


sites that are problems, but I don't know 


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that I'm entirely current, extremely, you 


know, on which ones are. Because it's not 


the same site all the time, you know. 


Sometimes a particular site will 


get behind and then they'll catch up and it 


will be somebody else. So I'd hate to 


single anybody out here because I don't 


really know who the culprits are now. I 


don't know if Greg knows or not. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I guess it 


would be helpful if when you're reporting, 


since we're together and DOE is here and so 


forth, just to if there are persistent 


offenders or whatever you want to call them 


or persistently slow sites. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well we've had 


some of those but I know at least one has 


been catching up and so I'd hate to call it 


out in case it has caught up. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Or they're 


listening in. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We'll let you 


go this time, but we want names. Anybody 


else have questions? Yes, Brad. 


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MEMBER CLAWSON: Stu, it said 


here that you had 14 SEC's that didn't 


qualify. Correct on that? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I think so, 


there are a certain number. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I guess this is 


more for Dr. Lockey. I thought we had a 


Work Group to be able to review those that 


didn't, you know, kind of went into limbo. 


We had a pile of them that were there. I 


was wondering if we have reviewed any of 


these? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That was a one 


time review. I hate to think how long ago 


but --


MEMBER LOCKEY: Five years ago. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Five, it's more 


like, yes. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: So we're not, I 


want to make sure that we weren't falling 


down on something there. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, we had 


agreed that was a one time thing. That is 


not a charge to the Board. We don't, we're 


not involved in the process. In fact, 


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originally the Board decided, before your 


time, decided we would not be involved in 


that part of the process. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. I just 


wanted to make sure we weren't slipping. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: I wanted to 


clarify that too on there, that's SEC 


Classes denied. That's not qualification, 


so, am I correct on that slide, Stu, if we 


go back? That's SEC Classes denied. So 


that was a determination by the Board and 


HHS. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Thank 


you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 


questions? Okay. Thank you, Stu. Right on 


schedule and Jeff. 


MR. KOTSCH: Good morning. I'm 


Jeff Kotsch with Department of Labor. I'm 


the senior health physicist and the 


supervisor of the medical and health science 


units there. And I should note that Stu's 


loss of Chris Crawford was our gain because 


he's our new health physicist. So at least 


he's still in the family. 


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Just a quick overview of the 


Energy Employees Occupational Illness 


Compensation Program Act enacted in October 


2000. There were two parts back then Part B 


which still exists obviously, which is 


primarily what we discuss here. And Part D, 


which was the State Worker's Comp. 


Assistance portion which was administered by 


DOE. 


In October 2004, the Congress 


abolished the Part D and created the Part E 


which is now with us and which is 


essentially the toxic exposure portion of 


our program. We've had about 154,000 cases 


filed and have paid out about over $8.1 


billion in total compensation to date. 


And at the bottom, you know, 


there are, the Department of Labor obviously 


based in Washington, but we have four, for 


this program, we have four district offices, 


Jacksonville, Denver, Cleveland and Seattle. 


We've referred about 37,500 cases to NIOSH 


for dose reconstruction. And NIOSH has 


returned about 35,500 cases. 


See the breakdown there is about 


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30,000 have had dose reconstructions and 


about 5,500 came back without dose 


reconstructions for various reasons, 


primarily probably involving the fact that 


we pulled the cases for SEC Classes or we 


didn't have sufficient information to 


continue the case. 


And we're showing, and our 


statistics always vary a little bit with 


NIOSH's, we're showing a little over 2,000 


cases currently at NIOSH. And the breakdown 


there, a little over 1,100 for initial 


referrals and 917 for reworks or returns. 


Again, as Stu mentioned, the reworks 


primarily are because of new cancers of the 


employees still alive. Or the second major 


cause is new employment. 


There are some minor issues 


sometimes that result that are a rework, but 


those are probably 90 percent of the reasons 


that things go back. And unfortunately, 


sometimes they go back and go back. And 


we've had some cases I think reworked four 


or five times probably. 


It's just an overview in a pie 


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chart of the roughly 3,000 cases that have 


been returned by NIOSH with a dose 


reconstruction and a breakdown of the final 


approvals and final denials. 35 percent 


final approval, 65 of denial. And this 


slide is the Part B cancer cases which have 


had final decisions to accept, about 80 to 


169 cases have been accepted with dose 


reconstructions. 


You see a number there of 11,000, 


over 11,600 payees again. The payees are 


the claimants, that number is always larger 


than the number of cases because there may 


have been a survivor situation. There's 


usually more than one survivor. For those 


cases we've paid about $1.2 billion in 


compensation. 


For the accepted SEC cases, which 


are about 16,300 and you see there are 


26,700 plus payees that's been total 


compensation of 2.38 billion. And then as 


you go down cases accepted for both SEC and 


PoCs, PoC rated 50 for the medical benefits. 


You see the numbers there. 690 roughly 


payees and $83.8 million in compensation and 


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the bottom line totals at the bottom, $3.6 


billion in compensation for over 25,000 


cases. 


And just a line chart of the 


final decisions for the covered applications 


for the Part B cases. And on the right side 


a bit of the breakdown. Primarily the green 


are the 16,000 roughly cases with a PoC less 


than 50 percent. The next reason the 


medical information insufficient to support 


the claim, that's a little less than 6,000. 


There are occasions when we don't 


have, when the survivor information is 


insufficient to provide eligibility for the 


program. This slide is data we were unable 


to with our system, we had a problem, to 


update the facility. So these were for the 


first quarter of fiscal year 2012. At the 


next meeting we'll definitely get an update. 


But these were the four sites 


that were showing the highest number of new 


cases, Part B cases, Sandia National Lab, 


Hanford, Y-12, Savannah River. The bottom 


three are usually the, in the top four 


anyway. 


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Just a little bit about SEC 


outreach. During fiscal year 2012 we've had 


six town hall meetings and traveling 


resource centers with regard to the new SEC 


Classes. Sandia National Lab had one in 


this past November as did GE Evendale. And 


the Y-12 plant had one, we had one down in 


the Oak Ridge area January of this year. 


There was one at Pantex, near the Pantex 


plant in March of this year. And Savannah 


River Site and Linde Ceramics had their 


meetings in April. 


We get asked sometimes, you know, 


in the cases with the smaller SECs, the 


primary mechanism to get the word out is 


through press releases. But you'll see some 


other information, some other mechanisms 


too. 


This slide is on the outreach to, 


for covered facilities that have 50 claims 


or less. The people involved in our 


outreach, they went through an exercise 


where they tried to identify covered 


facilities where there were less than 50 


claims. Obviously the majority of those are 


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AWE sites, they're relatively small and 


scattered around. 


In that effort, they've 


concentrated an effort to notify individuals 


who've worked at these facilities for 


potential benefits, including press 


releases, reaching out to Unions, local 


government and other key stakeholders. And, 


you know, utilizing our local resource 


center staff as best we can. Because they 


are usually familiar with the community, the 


workers out there. 


And I think Greg will probably 


talk about this too, so I'll just briefly go 


over it. The existence of the Joint 


Outreach Task Group, which is comprised of 


Labor and NIOSH, DOE, our Ombudsman, NIOSH's 


Ombudsman and representatives from the DOE 


Former Worker Medical Screening Program. 


They have monthly conference calls and they 


do have an upcoming Task Group meeting, town 


hall meeting, with regard to the Brookhaven 


SEC up in Upton, New York on July 17th. 


And the next two slides are just 


summaries. I'm not going to through most of 


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them. We summarized the information, the 


compensation information, the case 


information for either sites that are on the 


agenda for this meeting or local sites. So 


in this case you'll see a number of the 


sites, Winchester, Weldon Spring, Hanford, 


Clarksville, LANL which is a local facility 


where we've had 6,734 cases. 


A little over 2,000 final 


decisions for Part B. 1,244 Part B 


approvals. 1,332 Part E approvals and total 


compensation including a bill paid, a 


medical paid of over $305 million. Then 


other facilities, Mound Titanium Alloys, 


Medina, Linde Ceramics and Sandia Labs, 


which is another local one at a little over 


1,900 cases. 632 Part final B decisions. 


345 Part B approvals. 361 Part E approvals. 


And total compensation, including medical 


bill paid $76 million, almost $77 million. 


And then behind that is just, in 


the handout, is general information on, you 


know, elements of the program. Are there 


any questions? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions for 


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Jeff? Jeff, do you have any idea on what 


the turnout's been at some of those outreach 


meetings? 


MR. KOTSCH: I didn't go, Stu 


might help me or LaVon, because I know the 


one was pretty good recently. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: The one at 


Pantex there were 150, I believe 150 people 


there, at the morning session. And there 


were roughly 75 at the second session. So 


they were pretty well attended, both of 


those sessions. Savannah River as well. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MR. KOTSCH: So overall those 


have been, seem to have been productive 


endeavors. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm particularly 


interested in what the GE and Cincinnati 


turnout was. You know, we struggled with 


who should be in that SEC. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I was actually at 


that. I went to that one. There were, we 


scheduled two sessions. There were maybe 30 


to 50 at one session and nobody showed up 


for the other one. One person came, was 


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interested in the status of her claim. 


Labor just helped her and we didn't even 


have a second meeting. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Stu, do you have 


any feel for those who attended whether or 


not they were actually involved in the 


nuclear work at GE? 


MR. HINNEFELD: It was a mix I 


believe. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Even 30 to 50 


is still pretty good for a scattered, yes, 


scattered around, anybody know at Linde? 


That was another one that was --


MR. KOTSCH: Yes, I'm just trying 


to, I mean I've heard the reports. What's 


that? 


Yes, I don't know that there was 


much. I mean I think we did do a traveling 


resource. But I'd have to check, I'm not 


sure of that number. I don't think you guys 


did, but I just can't recall the level of 


interest. I can check though. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It would 


actually be helpful when you're reporting on 


these if you can at least give us some 


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ballpark numbers and so forth. Because I 


think we're trying to understand what the 


impact is and how the word gets out. 


Because there's some sort of disparities 


between the sites and it's sort of hard to 


understand. 


MR. KOTSCH: Well that's easy 


enough to do. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, sure, 


appreciate that. Any other questions for, 


okay. Moving along, Greg. 


MR. LEWIS: All right. Good 


morning everyone. I'm Greg Lewis and I'm 


with the Department of Energy Office of 


Health Safety and Security. And I'm here to 


talk to you about the Department of Energy's 


role supporting both NIOSH and DOL in the 


EEOICPA program. 


DOE's core mandate is to work on 


behalf of the program claimants to ensure 


that all available worker and facility 


records and data are provided to DOL, NIOSH 


and the Advisory Board. So as most of you 


know, our basic role in the program is to 


provide records and information. 


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We have three main 


responsibilities to, you know, as far as 


providing records and information. We 


respond to individual requests for 


information, those are employment 


verification and, you know, requests for 


exposure records in DOL and NIOSH. We also 


provide support and assistance for large 


scale records research projects such as the 


SEC evaluation projects or Site Profile 


reviews. 


And then our third 


responsibility, which is somewhat smaller 


but equally important, is to conduct 


research in coordination with the Department 


of Labor and NIOSH on covered facility 


destination issues. And before I talk about 


those three responsibilities I just want to 


talk about our EEOICPA site point of 


contacts. 


We actually have one here with us 


today. Philippa Griego is from our federal 


point of contact from the Los Alamos 


National Lab. Our site POCs coordinate all 


of the research activity with NIOSH and DOE. 


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They set up visits, records reviews, tours. 


They'll call back the right records from 


federal records centers, things like that. 


They'll help identify relevant 


workers that are either on site or that are 


retired so NIOSH or DOL can interview those 


workers as subject matter experts. And they 


manage the site response to the records 


request from DOL and NIOSH, which is, you 


know, we do about 16,000 records requests a 


year which I'll show later on. 


So there's quite a few out of the 


sites. And as you saw, you know, those top 


few, top four sites receive quite a bit of, 


quite a number of requests from them. So as 


far as individual records requests, we do 


about 6,000 employment verifications for 


DOL. About 4,500 dose reconstruction 


requests from NIOSH. 


And about 5,500, what we call, 


document acquisition requests, DARs, which 


those are basically requests from DOL for 


all of the exposure information related to 


an individual. So it would be medical 


information, radiological monitoring 


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records, incident accident reports, human 


resource records, things like that. 


And I guess now would be a good 


time, I know there were some questions 


earlier about the number that Stu showed in 


his presentation about number of claims over 


60 days. I don't have an exact breakdown, 


but my guess probably one of the sites, 


which is a local site that we struggle with 


recently, has been Sandia National Lab. 


I think you also saw in Jeff's 


presentation that they were the top site in 


terms of the most requests recently. And I 


think he alluded to this, but the numbers 


two, three and four on that list I think Y12, Hanford and Savannah River I believe are 


usually the top three. They're always up in 


the top four. Sandia there is the 


exception. 


Sandia has had a tremendous 


number of new requests. I think primarily 


due to the SEC or even at least due to all 


of the attention given the SEC they might 


not all be SEC claims. But just because of, 


you know, media attention and outreach 


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events, things like that when SECs come 


through, often there's a huge boost in 


claims. So, you know, that alone oftentimes 


our sites will start to fall behind a bit 


when there's an SEC and a huge volume of 


claims. 


And it's been compounded in 


Sandia due to some staffing issues and the 


fact that there, some portions of their 


radiological records are not organized in 


the fashion that makes them easy to get to. 


We had attempted to address that before by 


creating the database. 


We're still working together with 


NIOSH, but the bottom line is they're mostly 


handwritten information and the records that 


we have I think are many times copies of 


copies of copies. And so when we try to 


enter that into some kind of index, it's a 


tremendous data entry project and given the 


difficulty reading some of the records it 


was hard to do that in a manner that enabled 


us to search. 


So we are still working on that 


at Sandia. We're working through these 


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claims. We're trying to get back current. 


But I do think that's probably the site that 


is responsible for the largest part of those 


claims. 


And as I mentioned before, we do 


about 16,000 records requests per year. 


That number is going to be different than 


probably both what NIOSH and DOL shows. The 


primary reason is because people may have 


worked at multiple sites. Especially 


somewhere like Oak Ridge a lot of the people 


moved around. 


So even though it may be one 


claim, we may have to go to K-25, the Oak 


Ridge National Lab and Y-12. So we count 


that as three separate requests because 


three sites are having to do the full workup 


to find records. 


And in addition, our records 


responses can be hundreds of pages long, 


even thousands of pages long in, you know, 


in certain cases. It's not a situation 


where our sites go to one comprehensive 


database and pull a single file. We often 


have to go to, you know, four or five site 


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departments, pull extensive records from 


multiple different types of, you know, types 


of media including microfilm, microfiche, 


databases, scanned records, hard copy 


records, things like that. 


And so, you know, one site 


routinely checks about 40 different 


individual sources for records. That might 


be on the high end, but typically all of our 


sites go to, you know, 15 to 20 different 


sources for records, especially if the 


individual worked at a site for 20 or 30 


years, which many of the employees did. 


So our second major 


responsibility under EEOICPA is to support 


the large scale records research projects. 


Those can also be difficult because they're 


driven by the needs of DOL and NIOSH. We 


have to make sure we have the right funding 


in place to support the request. And it's 


also difficult to determine the full scope 


of the project until either DOL or NIOSH 


gets in there and starts to gather 


information. 


We also have to review many of 


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the records collected for these large scale 


research projects through our classification 


office, depending on the site and depending 


on the subject matter. So we've reviewed 


millions of pages so far and, you know, we 


have a security plan that we've put in place 


that governs how and when we do those 


reviews. 


We try to make those as timely as 


possible. I have a slide on that later. 


But we occasionally run into trouble with 


timeliness given the other demands and the 


other things going through the review 


process. But we do the best we can to make 


sure to get those back in a timely fashion. 


Currently these are not all the 


projects that we're working on, but 


currently we've been supporting data capture 


efforts at, you know, the following eight 


sites on here. I know there's a meeting, I 


believe next week down in Pantex to review 


Medina and Clarksville records and I'm sure 


Pantex as well. And both Los Alamos and 


Sandia the local sites have been supporting 


data capture efforts recently as well. 


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And then this, back to the 


document reviews. The link on the screen 


there is to the DOE EEOICPA security plan. 


I believe the Board also has a security plan 


as well as NIOSH that governs, you know, how 


and when we do the reviews and interviews 


and you know, the precautions taken to make 


sure that, you know, sensitive information 


is talked about and reviewed in an 


appropriate location. 


Since the, since February of 


2012, since the last Board meeting DOE 


headquarters has reviewed 52 documents for 


classification review. The average 


turnaround for those reviews has been eight 


working days. And in certain cases we've 


gotten them back in two days. Now I know 


sometimes at the sites it's a little bit 


more difficult. 


At headquarters we have more 


direct control and we have a good 


relationship with our review staff there. 


But at the sites there's competing 


priorities, there's different projects and 


so we do the best we can to make sure that 


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those reviews are conducted in a timely 


manner, although on occasion we do struggle 


on that, really work with the site to try to 


find a solution to get the records back in a 


timely manner. 


And then our third major 


responsibility under EEOICPA is to research 


and maintain the cover facility database. 


That's over 300 cover facilities under the 


program both DOE facilities, AWEs and 


beryllium vendors. The full listing of 


sites is on that website. It's searchable 


by state, by facility, or by key word. 


And we also work closely with the 


Department of Labor and NIOSH. All three 


agencies coordinate, especially given that 


NIOSH and DOL are often out on site in these 


large research projects. That's when they 


may come across information that might 


suggest a site has been inaccurately 


characterized or may need to add a year or 


take off a year. 


And they'll provide those records 


to us. And we'll all work together to make 


sure that the right decision is made. So we 


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always have ongoing initiatives to improve 


our records collections. Mostly those are 


indexing projects. 


On occasion we will scan and 


digitize records, but primarily the indexing 


projects are what we find are the most 


useful to make a record easier for us to 


locate in a more timely manner. Again, many 


times with these hard copy records if 


they're not indexed in a manner that allows 


us to search than we'll have to be going 


through large volumes of records for each 


individual. If we can make sure that 


they're alphabetized or even alphabetized by 


year, something like that it allows us to 


get to the right record and saves us time 


and also cuts down on cost. 


And the major initiative that 


we're working on right now that hopefully by 


the next Board meeting should be fully 


rolled out and fully implemented is the 


Secure Electronic Records Transfer system or 


the SERT as we're calling it. For us at DOE 


this is probably the biggest change to how 


we do business since the Part D transfer to 


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Part E back in 2004. 


Because of the tremendous volume 


of records reviewed, again 16,000 per year, 


getting sent back and forth to DOL and NIOSH 


we have tremendous concerns about PII, 


Personally Identifiable Information. A lot 


of these records have a person's medical 


records, they have social security numbers, 


date of birth, all of those things that, you 


know, in this day and age are, can be used, 


you know, for fraud and things like that. 


So, you know, we have to be very 


concerned that we're protecting that 


appropriately. So we believe this, the SERT 


will both protect the information while 


allowing it to go back and forth quickly. 


Right now we're doing, you know, encrypted 


thumb drives through FedEx. So there's, you 


know, two to three days at least on each end 


plus time in each mail room, you know, at 


DOE and DOL or NIOSH. 


And so, you know, we're expecting 


this to cut out probably five to ten days on 


the record process just getting the SERT up 


and running. It will also improve 


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transparency. You know, right now 


oftentimes the numbers between DOL, NIOSH 


and DOE don't quite match because we may be, 


you know, tracking slightly differently. 


This system all three agencies are going to 


be on it. 


When DOL initiates a claim to DOE 


we'll see it immediately. You know, there's 


no we didn't see it, we didn't get it. 


There will be none of that. And the same 


thing going back. So I mean it will all be 


right there in the system. When it's 


initiated the clock starts and when, you 


know, when we upload the response the clock 


stops. So we'll, everyone will be able to 


see exactly, you know, the progress. 


I also wanted to talk a little 


bit more than usual about the Former Worker 


Medical Screening Program. At the last 


Board meeting I had the chance to talk to a 


Board Member. And we got talking about the 


Former Worker Program. You know, it turns 


out some of the things that I was telling 


him, he wasn't aware of. 


He thought that it might be a 


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good idea just to go into a little bit more 


detail both for those in the audience, but 


also for those on the Board because I do 


know that you interact with, you know, many 


workers in your day to day work especially 


on these SECs. So I just want you to keep 


the Former Worker Medical Screening Program 


in mind and refer folks if you think they 


might be able to benefit from it. 


The Former Worker Program was 


established by law in 1993 and the first 


programs were initiated in 1996. We now 


serve all former federal contractor and 


subcontractor workers from all DOE sites. 


Our mission is to identify and notify former 


workers at risk for occupational disease, so 


outreach. We do outreach and, you know, as 


Jeff said we partner with DOL and NIOSH in 


the Joint Outreach Task Force. 


And actually one of the things 


that I'd like to talk about there when 


you're, you know, you're asking about 


attendance for some of these meetings, the 


meetings that the Former Worker Program 


attendants participates in both Joint 


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Outreach Task Group meetings and sometimes 


the SEC, you know, the SEC meeting that's 


held by a site. 


Our Former Worker Programs have 


worked with our DOE sites over the last ten 


years, but particularly over the last three 


to try to obtain as many worker rosters as 


possible. And so we oftentimes have the 


most comprehensive list of former workers at 


a site between DOL and NIOSH. And we will 


use that list to mail in advance of these 


Joint Outreach Task Group meetings and the 


SEC meetings. 


So we'd like to think that some 


of the well attended meetings recently have 


at least partially been because of the list 


that we bring to the table. And I know 


we're hopeful the Brookhaven meeting July 


17th was mentioned, and I know in the past 


it has been difficult to get a large number 


of Brookhaven workers out to a meeting. 


And we have a roster that we 


obtained recently from a site with, I 


believe, it's over 5,000 names. So we're 


going to be mailing to, I think, over 5,000 


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people in advance of this meeting. So we're 


hopeful that, you know, if we can't get a 


well attended meeting with that list with 


that list, than I don't know what to do, so. 


The second thing, so obviously we 


do outreach to identify the workers. We 


offer medical screening and over 68,000 


individuals have received a screening. And 


over 17,000 have come back for a 


rescreening. Then third, we provide 


information assistance about medical follow 


up. 


So, you know, if the results are 


abnormal in any way, we'll make sure to 


refer the person to either their personal 


physician or a specialist. If they don't 


have one or aren't sure where to go, we'll 


do our best to help guide them in the right 


direction. 


And then we also work with them 


to refer them to the compensation program, 


if necessary including writing a results 


letter that we hope is helpful to DOL when 


they adjudicate. And sending the person 


over to the research center or an 


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appropriate place to apply for the program 


if they so choose. 


And then the fourth thing, is to 


use the findings to, as a feedback loop to 


the extent possible of the current sites to 


help improve current worker, you know, 


safety and health. So we work through third 


party providers. I won't talk too much 


about this, but we have two national 


projects and five regional projects. 


They're not directly DOE 


programs. They're cooperative agreement 


holders funded through universities and 


unions. So we don't have direct control. 


They conduct the screenings independently, 


although we are very involved. 


The organizations that administer 


the Former Worker Program are the CPWR, the 


Center for Construction Research and 


Training from Drexel University, Johns 


Hopkins University, Oak Ridge Associated 


Universities, the Queens College of the City 


University of New York system, the United 


Steel Workers and the University of Iowa. 


And just skip forward, the local 


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program for both New Mexico sites, Los 


Alamos and Sandia, is run through Johns 


Hopkins University and the principal 


investigator is Brian Schwartz. And the 


information is listed there. 


And then just to talk a little 


bit about, you know, what they do, there's a 


comprehensive physical examination that they 


do for everyone that comes through the door. 


They tailor it to the worker based on a 


occupational history questionnaire that we 


give them. So depending on where they 


worked and what they say they did we may 


give them a different battery of tests. 


Some of the tests that we'll do 


are a basic physical, a chest x-ray, 


spirometry, blood chemistry, urinalysis, 


audiometry and, you know, other tests based 


on exposure like the BeLPT, which is the 


beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test, so. 


You know, so our program benefits the 


workers by hopefully resulting in the 


identification of conditions at an early 


stage when going for more successful 


treatment. 


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That of course depends on, you 


know, when they come to us. But hopefully 


we identify it as early as possible. And 


then we also include some additional, you 


know, we'll identify some additional non-


occupational health conditions like high 


blood pressure, diabetes or elevated 


cholesterol. 


Those are just things while we're 


conducting the tests we see those anyway. 


So we felt it was at little or no additional 


cost and we provide an added benefit to 


these workers. So we do that while we're 


doing it. And then of course as I said, the 


medical results can be useful for the 


compensation program. 


We have screened workers in all 


50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico. We'll 


screen workers close to their house. If 


there's not a local program set up for them, 


we have local programs that are around 


specific sites as I mentioned for Los Alamos 


and Sandia, Johns Hopkins does the 


screenings. 


But if someone worked at Los 


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Alamos or Sandia and has retired to Florida, 


we can screen them there through our 


national supplemental screening program that 


works through a network of clinics 


nationwide. And we can usually with very 


few exceptions screen individuals within 50 


miles of their home. 


And I have brochures that I'm 


going to pass out to the Board Members and 


then I'll leave a few extra copies on the 


table in back. And the brochure gives some 


basic information about the program. It's 


also available on our website at the link 


you see there. 


And then we have our Former 


Worker annual, Former Worker Program annual 


report, which is a big, thick report that we 


put out every year. That's also on our 


website. I didn't bring copies of that 


because obviously it's too heavy, so. But 


you can find it online and it has a wealth 


of information and stats from each of the 


sites, extensive information about each of 


the programs and more than you'd probably 


every want to know about the Former Worker 


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Program. 


So I encourage you to take a look 


at the annual report. And so with that does 


anyone have any questions? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions, 


Greg, yes, Henry. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: What are the 


criteria for the rescreening exams? 


MR. LEWIS: Typically we'll do 


the rescreening three years after the 


initial screening. And, I want to be 


careful answering that question, because the 


different programs have some different 


requirements for the rescreening. And we 


also say three years, but if someone has a 


specific concern about something, you know, 


we might be very willing to do a rescreening 


earlier than three years if there's a 


specific concern. We'd handle that on a 


case by case basis. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Because I was 


wondering if this was just the beryllium 


program or the rest --


MR. LEWIS: No, it's everyone is 


potentially eligible for a rescreening. 


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MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay. Thank 


you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other 


questions? Yes, Brad. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I just wanted to 


question that eight day turnaround. I think 


we're a little bit shy on that. I'd like to 


compliment DOE on what they have set up, 


especially in Germantown, to be able to 


utilize that as a storage facility for our 


classified information. 


But I would suggest that if these 


sites are overwhelmed with it or whatever, 


that they get in touch with you and we ship 


what they can't do to Germantown. 


MR. LEWIS: Well and we've done 


that in the past and it is a last resort. 


But I'll also say that the Germantown group 


is also, you know, extremely busy. I mean, 


they're not necessarily just sitting around 


waiting for work. So we will do that. 


But they have told me in no 


uncertain terms that is a last resort. And 


that if at all possible it should be done at 


the sites. But again, you and I know, I 


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mean we have sent things to Germantown in 


the past. And we'll do so in the future. 


You know, it's particularly tough 


for classification officers because unlike, 


you know, processing claims I mean there is 


certainly some training involved in getting 


someone up to speed processing a claim, you 


know, for sending the records back. But 


with a classification officer the amount of 


training that they go through takes years to 


get them up to speed to sign off on the 


final review. 


And so if there's a bigger volume 


of work it's very difficult to hire 


additional workers. And on occasion, 


especially for these SECs, we've brought 


back retirees that are willing to work on a 


part-time basis because retirees, you know, 


retired classification officers or 


declassifiers are really the only place 


where we can find that level of expertise 


without a very sensitive training program. 


But we're trying. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: And I understand 


that. But when we have some that are held 


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up for two months because somebody took 


vacation, that, you know, we've got a lot of 


people out there. I do appreciate and you 


guys have made a marvelous effort and you 


have turned around some incredibly fast for 


us. I just, I think there's always room 


that we can improve, I just appreciate it. 


MR. LEWIS: Absolutely in certain 


sites more than others, we are certainly 


trying with those sites. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, you 


occasionally go on vacation. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Mentally. 

CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, physically 

too. Any other questions? We have maybe 

some site specific questions coming up as we 


start talking, some of the updates. We've 


got you warmed up at breakfast, forewarned 


at least the two sites I know about I have 


questions about so. 


Okay. Thank you. Thank you for 


the update on the medical program also, the 


predecessor to this program in many ways. 


Okay the next item on our agenda is the 10­

year, which is really just an update from 


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any of the Work Groups in NIOSH on their 


progress on the various support going on, on 


the 10-year review. I think most of it's 


been assigned out to Work Groups. 


I know, I can give you a brief 


update which actually is I think the same as 


I gave at the last Board call. The SEC 


Evaluation Work Group has sort of been 


tasked with looking at the sufficient 


accuracy issue. And we're currently waiting 


for a NIOSH report which should be ready 


soon. 


LaVon, I see you shaking your 


head, so are you going to update us on that? 


Either Ted or, did Ted get this up, we got 


one report from either Ted or Jenny that 


some of the past transcripts and so forth. 


You look blank so it must have been from 


Jenny or somebody sent us that. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, we're 


actually working on a matrix that actually 


identifies the decisions that were made in 


the past SEC evaluations that will 


hopefully, once we go through all those 


decisions, the Board can look or the Work 


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Group can look. And we can all possibly 


develop some criteria for the sufficient 


accuracy based on what we've done in the 


past up to this point. 


We've got a couple of the sites 


done as a test. It's going through our 


review now. And then we're going to work 


through the, and it would probably be a good 


idea, I think, to get the Work Group 


involved early in this looking at the matrix 


that we've started with to see if we're all 


on the same page. So that would be what we 


would supply to use in here. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And our plan 


would be as soon as you have that matrix 


ready then we'll schedule a meeting of the 


Work Group and start discussions on that and 


decide, so. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And that will 


be? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: That initial 


report portion of it would be ready probably 


next month. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


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MR. RUTHERFORD: We're reviewing 


it right now. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I know 


we're targeted around the date of this 


meeting. Any other Work Groups have updates 


or questions? 


MEMBER BEACH: Jim, I don't 


really have an update. But worker outreach 


was tasked with the timeliness issue. And I 


know that, I'm hoping that the Worker 


Outreach Work Group will meet again late 


summer, maybe August time frame. We're 


waiting for other work which I'll report on 


later. And we will ask NIOSH to kind of get 


started on that, so. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One thing you 


might want to consider, because I know you 


have been waiting for quite some time on the 


other issue, is maybe doing a quick Work 


Group conference call. That's what we did 


on the SEC evaluation and just, I think it 


helped at least to get coordinated. 


Even in a one hour call 


especially if things drag on and so forth. 


So we can coordinate and plan what --


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MEMBER BEACH: I will check with 


Stu or Jim on that. I believe NIOSH, it's 


going to be in their court to start with. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, but I mean 


we had like a 45 minute if that conference 


call and it did help to get everybody 


coordinated on that. It's a little different 


than our, how we usually, usually we're 


dealing with waiting for reports to review 


and we've got the process. This process is 


a little bit different. Anybody else have 


reports? Yes, Paul. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Can you remind us 


or maybe NIOSH remind us, what issues are 


actually being addressed and whose doing it? 


I know in general we like to say all the 


issues raised in the report are being 


addressed. But there, even there is a 


priority on what's sort of in the immediate 


future. 


And while we're pondering that, 


is it safe to assume that the new Board 


Members have been provided with the 10-year 


review? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think they've 


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been provided, I assume they were provided 


with the 10-year review. 


 (Simultaneous speaking.) 


MEMBER ZIEMER: No, this is a 10­

year review of the NIOSH program which was 


done, yes, after ten years. 


MR. KATZ: I will take care of 


that after this meeting. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. The new 


password is when was the 10-year review. No 


wonder your keys don't work. By the way I 


was sitting here, I got an email --


MEMBER ZIEMER: I would have 


known the answer but. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I got an email 


from Dell offering to sell me a computer. 


They must have known. I thought I saw it, 


had it on my computer. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Maybe Stu can, I 


know a lot of these are in NIOSH's lap. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I have a few 


notes that I think can point to some of 


these. If you recall from the 10-year 


review there were a series of 


recommendations just concerning dose 


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reconstruction, which was largely about dose 


reconstruction quality and then also about 


consideration of the continuing to use 


overestimating efficiency approach. 


That is being worked with the 


Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee. There are 


some, some of the quality, dose 


reconstruction quality considerations are 


being discussed on that Subcommittee. And 


we have gathered some information on the 


cost impact of doing away with efficiency 


measures. And it is quite substantial. 


Now our analysis actually was 


doing away with efficiency measures 


altogether when really all we were supposed 


to be looking at was do away with 


overestimates. Because no one really 


complains about an underestimate because 


someone always, you know, it's a compensable 


claim. 


So it might be the cost impact 


may not be quite as severe as what our 


analysis shows, but it is a really 


significant impact in terms of cost and 


schedule. Meaning, you know, we only have 


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so much money to spend per year and so what 


it means is things are going to slow down if 


it costs more to do per dose reconstruction. 


So it was a fairly significant thing there. 


And there are some other quality tasks --


MEMBER GRIFFON: Stu, I think at 


the last Subcommittee meeting, I think you 


missed that one. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I missed that, I 


was trying to travel. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: But we just 


asked for that because we discussed that. 


We asked for them to bring a report back on 


it. A written, you know, sort of a write up 


that we could look at and discuss a little 


more in depth. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. The quality 


of service, at least one of those I think is 


what Josie was talking about. It was 


referring to Worker Outreach Work Group, 


having to do with the quality of our 


communication vehicles. And then there's 


also a part of this is also how well do we 


respond to claimant comments. 


And that's a big part of what a 


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Work Group, Worker Outreach Work Group is 


addressing. And that's the product that we 


owe them. I would think we would have that 


out probably within a couple or three weeks 


from the end of this meeting to that Work 


Group the product that has to do with that. 


It was a pilot view of comments 


that were made related to Rocky Flats Site. 


And we hope to have that out before too long 


to the Work Group. 


There was a timeliness issue 


about higher priority to return claims as 


opposed to new claims since these pieces 


have already been in the system. I think 


that was referred to a Dose Reconstruction 


Subcommittee. We do, in our contract with 


our subcontractor, they do have an 


additional shorter incentive period for 


reworked claims. 


You know, we put incentive 


criteria in our contracts. And there is a 


specific one for reworked claims and it's a 


shorter duration than their incentive for 


the new claims. 


And let's see in the SEC world 


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there's a recommendation to be able to speak 


separately about issues that are policy 


issues as opposed to science issues. 


Because it's kind of when we make these 


decisions it's sort of a combination of 


both. And sometimes it's not clear whether 


we feel like we have a science question or 


policy question. 


LaVon, I don't know if you're 


quite up to date with that. I know some of 


our, either are we presenting this month 


where we have the separate policy document 


or will it be next month, next meeting? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Next meeting. 


Yes, actually what we're doing now is we 


actual do a, through the process of our 


evaluations we on a biweekly schedule, we 


provide updates through management of the 


chain of potential decision points that are 


made throughout the process of the 


evaluation. And ultimately that rolls into 


a final report. And then those will, 


portions of it will be seen within the 


Evaluation Report. 


MR. HINNEFELD: And then Dr. 


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Melius mentioned the sufficient accuracy 


question, which we're also working on with 


that Work Group. In the quality of science, 


not these, weren't all, these were generally 


not referred to the Science Issues Work 


Group. 


A couple were referred to the 


Procedures Subcommittee. One having to do 


with procedures, modification procedures 


database to encompass, you know, findings 


from all sources on these various documents. 


We're trying to figure out how exactly to 


address that. I kind of like to, we've done 


a lot of work with the procedures, what we 


call the procedures database or the 


procedures review application, Board review 


application. 


I hate to get, you know, I kind 


of like it, it's being formed up the way 


that we want it to work there. I'm thinking 


we may look more here at a sort of a meta 


application that would draw the findings 


from various places so that you could see 


all the findings to a particular document, 


that you'd be pulling them out of separate, 


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different applications rather than to throw 


them all into one big application, so. 


So far our work there has been 


really on getting the procedures review 


application working the way the Procedures 


Subcommittee wants it to work. And then 


there's some indirect exposure assessment 


work that I believe is still down the stream 


a little ways, right? I can't see too much 


else here. There's the EPA survey data. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I found your 


presentation from the, finally, I knew I'd 


seen it someplace. You've hit most of it so 


I think there's a peer review sort of issue 


that I think is more of an internal issue 


you're working on. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That assessment 


of indirect exposure methods focusing on 


SRS, I think? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, there's a 


lot of Savannah River work going on for the 


Savannah River SEC and so some of that may 


be useful for this process, some of it not. 


DR. NETON: Exactly. We targeted 


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Savannah River when this finding came about 


because it is a fairly robust database with 


all kinds of work, job titles and job 


histories that sort of thing. And we're 


going down that path looking at individual 


job titles and seeing if there are, if 


there's a need to stratify within the 


coworker models as they are. 


There's also some concurrent 


efforts going on though for SEC evaluation 


that Tim Taulbee's working on looking at 


stratification between traits, construction 


workers and the general site workers. And 


there's some really good stuff going on 


there in coworker models for those two 


strata looking at the exotic radionuclides 


curium, neptunium and I think maybe 


americium. 


And there's some really new 


statistical techniques that have been 


developed to be able to analyze the 


different strata to see if they really are 


different from each other and they would 


need to be separated. Those efforts are 


ongoing and I think at this point we're 


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looking at a, maybe a completion date at the 


end of August sometime. So maybe early fall 


we should be able to have some sort of 


report available. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I've also got a 


characterized degree of claimant 


favorability, evaluate utility of EPA 


surrogate data protocol. 


MR. HINNEFELD: That's kind of 


been done, right? 


DR. NETON: That one we actually 


recruited another division in NIOSH, DSHEFS 


Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations 


and Field Studies. And selected an 


industrial hygienist to look at it, sort of 


a fresh pair of eyes from a different 


discipline to see if the EPA documents would 


be formative as to how we would look at that 


issue. 


That's done. It should be 


available for posting on our website soon. 


That analysis has been done. The short of 


it is that there isn't much in there that is 


different than what we're already doing, to 


be honest with you. There were some 


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recommendations for maybe future 


investigations. But it looks like we've 


kind of got our bases covered in that area. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think that 


pretty much covers it. Maybe what we'll do 


is put together a sort of another, I'll work 


with Stu and LaVon or Jim whoever's 


involved. We can put together a little 


document or something that will sort of 


reference these, each of these items and 


then which Work Group is involved and sort 


of keep it updated. 


DR. NETON: All right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I think 


now I'm afraid we will loose track of these. 


MEMBER BEACH: Jim, I found on 


some of the notes that I had kept the action 


list, action items list. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER BEACH: Which pretty much 


outlines each category very well. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I have 


that also not here. I have a handwritten --


OPERATOR: This is the operator. 


The participants are having a hard time 


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hearing you. Is it possible to speak closer 


to your speakerphone? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


OPERATOR: Okay. I'll reconnect 


you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We are running 


ahead of schedule. And let me go through a 


couple of reminders as we get ready to get 


through this meeting. One is that we do 


have comments, public comments from the last 


two meetings I believe, that Ted sent out to 


everybody on the Board and we need to sort 


of go through that and so forth. 


Some of you may be responsible 


for that, not many I remember when I went 


through it. It mostly seemed to be NIOSH 


staff. But we need to go through and make 


sure of that. So that we will plan to do 


either tomorrow or Thursday during one of 


our work sessions. But if people could go 


through it ahead of time it would be 


helpful, particularly if you have questions. 


And we have sort of a spreadsheet 


that lays it out in simple form and then 


there's the attached transcripts that have 


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the full discussion of that particular item 


if you want to check that part out. We also 


remind everybody that we have updates from 


both NIOSH and from SC&A on where they are 


in terms of current work and due dates or 


expected delivery dates for various reports 


and so forth. So when we go through the 


Work Group reports, I think that would be 


the time to discuss each of those. 


So again, remind everybody to 


check your sites, your Work Group sites for 


both of those. And then also if there are 


differences in the way that's reported, 


let's bring those up also in terms of what 


you know. Because some of those may not be 


completely up to date. 


The other thing I'd like to get 


started on while everybody's here and early 


on especially since we have people that, 


Board Members that aren't here, is the 


schedule, upcoming schedules and scheduling 


future meetings because I'd like to try to 


get done. So Ted? 


MR. KATZ: You want to do that 


now? 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. At least 


let's get the potential dates out there and 


see where people stand. And then we can --


MR. KATZ: So why don't I start 


by reminding you of what we have scheduled 


ahead of us. That might be useful to some 


of you. So presently we're scheduled to 


have a Board teleconference, let's see, on 


August 15th. And then a meeting in Denver, 


September 18th through 20th. And then the 


following Board teleconference is November 


5th. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: September, what 


was the date? 


MR. KATZ: I'm sorry, September 


18 through 20 in Denver. And then again, 


November 5th is the following 


teleconference. And then the next Board 


meeting December 10th through 12th and that 


we hope to do in Tennessee. Either Oak 


Ridge or there had been talk at times about 


Nashville. But I mean Oak Ridge is where 


the sites are. 


MEMBER LOCKEY: When was the 


first teleconference? 


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MR. KATZ: The first 


teleconference, August 15th. 


MEMBER POSTON: The December 


dates. 


MR. KATZ: December dates are 


December 10th through 12th. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let's talk 


about location there while we're, because we 


were a little uncertain on where we should 


hold that meeting. Idaho was out. And as 


is Alaska and a few other places, but are 


there any other sites people think that we'd 


be ready for review or closure or where 


would be, because we really don't have much 


going on. We have lots of activity in 


Tennessee, but no outstanding SECs. 


MR. KATZ: We have an SEC that 


we'll be receiving for Oak Ridge late summer 


or early fall. Is that right Bomber? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, we're 


looking at late summer. And we plan to 


present that at the September Board meeting. 


And that's for Oak Ridge National Lab. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Big one, small 


one? 


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MR. RUTHERFORD: It's a Class 


right now. It's the early years up through 


I think 42 to 53, 54 time period. And so 


that's about it. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: We also have 


Clarksville that's coming up today. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other sites 


you're, I mean I don't have any problems 


with Tennessee. I'm just trying to think, 


it wasn't a sort of wasn't a compelling 


reason other than we hadn't been there for a 


while and --


MEMBER GRIFFON: What about 


Mound? 


MEMBER BEACH: We should be 


finished up with Mound in September is what 


I'm hoping for. The other question on the 


dates in December is why we decided to go 


with the 10th, 11th and 12th instead of the 


11th, 12th and 13th? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Somebody, more 


than one person I think had a problem. It 


wasn't me. 


MEMBER BEACH: Is that what it 


is? 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: On the, yes. I 


think we went back and forth on that so, 


sorry. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: The 


teleconferences are, there's a standard 


time? 


MR. KATZ: Yes, 11:00 a.m. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So our West 


Coast Members don't have to get up too 


early. 


MR. KATZ: November 5th, call 


date. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Just to mention 


that we will be ready for an addendum for 


SRS. And it will be right after the 


September Board meeting. So it would be 


presented in the December Board meeting. 


I'm just letting you know and that's the 


post-72, I believe thorium determination. 


Yes, and I think we have some, also some 


other items on that, that Mark may know that 


will be ready by then as well. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: The September 


18th date. Is that a problem, that may be a 


problem for some of us who celebrate Rosh 


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Hashanah. That happens to be the first day. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It didn't come 


up when we scheduled that was a problem. 


It's come up since and so we've been --


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, it is 


the second day which fewer people celebrate. 


You can celebrate on either day. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What about 


going back to SRS? I'm trying to remember 


when we've been, since we haven't --


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I just 


don't know if we're getting the addendum 


after the September, or at the September 


meeting, is that the, that's what he just 


said, right? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, that's 


what he said just after the September 


meeting. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I mean I'm 


not sure, I'm sure the Work Group will meet 


between then and December. I'm not sure if 


we'll be in a position to --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So the March 


meeting might be --


MEMBER GRIFFON: It might be more 


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realistic, yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I'm just 


trying to --


MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean I'd like 


to say, yes. But I mean --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So let's stick 


with Tennessee I guess. Yes, unless, okay. 


Then you have new dates. 


MR. KATZ: So that's scheduled 


already. Okay so let's go to new dates now. 


So and I'm just giving you weeks where the 


approximate, you know, the date range is 


approximately right. So the week of January 


28th or February 4th would make sense 


following December Board, I mean this is a 


teleconference. How do those weeks look for 


Members? 


MEMBER ROESSLER: The last week 


in January is the health physics mid-year. 


MEMBER MUNN: Let's just do 


February, the week of the 4th. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: February 5th. 


MR. KATZ: Does that work for 


everyone? 


MEMBER LOCKEY: What day is that? 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Tuesday. 


MR. KATZ: Does that work for 


you, Jim? Is that all right? 


MEMBER LOCKEY: That's my clinic 


day. 


MR. KATZ: That's your clinic 


day. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thursday the, I 


can't do the 6th. But what about the 7th? 


MR. KATZ: February 7th? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thursday. 


MR. KATZ: Does that work for 


everyone? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bill, do we 


still have you on the line, Field? 


MEMBER FIELD: Yes, that works 


fine for me, Ted. 


MR. KATZ: Okay, great. February 


7th. So 2/7 teleconference. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: What time? 


MR. KATZ: 11 o'clock Eastern 


Time. Okay then about the date range for 


the next face to face meeting the week of 


March 11th, 18th, 25th in that ball park. 


MEMBER MUNN: Let's stay away 


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from Easter. 


MR. KATZ: I don't know when 


Easter is. 


MEMBER MUNN: It's the 31st. 


MR. KATZ: When is Easter? 


MEMBER MUNN: March 31st. 


MR. KATZ: Okay. So we're all 


right. 


MEMBER BEACH: So the week of the 


11th or the 18th. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Does anybody 


have conflicts with either of those weeks? 


Because what I'd like to do is email out to 


the Board Members that are absent and see if 


they're, if we hear back and we'll try to 


pin it down before we close out this 


meeting. But at least give them some chance 


for input. 


MR. KATZ: For everyone at the 


table, the weeks of March 11th and the week 


of March 18th are both okay? Is that 


correct? 


MEMBER BEACH: Preferably having 


travel on the beginning of the week. 


MR. KATZ: Yes, I'm always trying 


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to avoid the weekends for travel, 


absolutely. 


MEMBER POSTON: That's spring 


break for a lot of the universities. 


MR. KATZ: Which week is? 


MEMBER POSTON: March 11th. 


MR. KATZ: So does that mean 


that's bad or good? 


MEMBER POSTON: Well that depends 


on if you're going on vacation or not. 


MEMBER BEACH: If you're a 


professor it's good because you're 


available, right? 


MEMBER POSTON: Yes, I should be 


available. But it's, some people like to 


take vacation. 


MR. KATZ: That's not allowed. 


No, so I'll follow up with the absent Board 


Members then. Bill, do those work for you, 


those two weeks? 


MEMBER FIELD: Yes, either one 


would be fine. The second one is better, 


but the first would be fine as well. 


MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: If you're 


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thinking of a location on that one you might 


want Savannah River, I don't know. 


MR. KATZ: Let's pencil that in. 


Savannah River Site for that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Then we can all 


go down to Fort Lauderdale with the college 


students. 


MEMBER BEACH: Not during spring 


break, please. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Are we talking 


Augusta then? 


MR. KATZ: Yes, that would be 


Augusta. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Actually when I 


flew out to the Oakland meeting I was with a 


bunch of disappointed Daytona 500 fans that 


had been rained out and they couldn't get 


flights out the next day so they all had to 


go and miss the race. And the internet kept 


going down on the plane and so, including 


right at the end of the race. So they were 


all going crazy on the flight. 


MEMBER MUNN: Poor things and on 


top of that they graduate and don't have 


jobs. 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well these were 


former students, for the most part. Had to 


get back to work. And just one more 


housekeeping, we'll start doing, we're 


pretty well tightly scheduled for the 


various site updates the rest of today and 


tomorrow because we'll have petitioners on 


the line maybe not commenting. So we'll 


want to try to start those at those times. 


I know Mark has got to leave 


tomorrow morning or tonight. And so we'll 


try to catch up with you in between on your 


Work Groups and so forth and start going 


through Work Group reports and so forth. 


And why don't we take a break and reconvene 


at 10:45? 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 10:06 a.m. and 


resumed at 10:47 a.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If everyone 


will get seated, we'll get started. 


MR. KATZ: While we're getting 


set here, let me just note for the folks on 


the telephone line, we have an international 


line hooked in here for one of the Board 


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Members and I believe during the last 


session you heard a message saying that the 


phone service was about to be discontinued, 


press *, one to continue the call. 


That message was for that 


international line, not for all of you on 


this domestic line. So when you hear it 


again, just ignore it. It won't cut you 


off. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, do we 


need to do any roll call? 


MR. KATZ: Yes. So yes, and 


we're missing a couple of Board Members from 


the room as well. Let me just check on the 


phone line and see which Board Members we 


have. 


MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill Field 


here. 


MR. KATZ: Great. Any other 


Board Members on the line? Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, we'll 


start the, first item for this session is 


the Winchester Engineering and Analytical 


Center, SEC petition and that is an 83.14 


and LaVon Rutherford will be presenting. 


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MR. RUTHERFORD: Thank you, Dr. 


Melius. Oh, wow, that kind of --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well that'll 


wake us up, yes. May not have coffee, but 


we've got. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay, for those 


of you who don't know me, I'm LaVon 


Rutherford, I'm the Special Exposure Cohort 


Health Physics team Leader for DCAS. And 


I'm going to discuss the Winchester 


Engineering and Analytical center Special 


Exposure Cohort Petition Evaluation Report. 


And that's a tongue twister. 


Is it going to let me move, here? 


Just the arrow keys. Okay. Let me see, now 


it's working with the arrows. Okay, yes, a 


little bit about this. 


We actually determined in August 


of '08 that dose reconstruction was not 


feasible for the Winchester site, however at 


that time we did not have a presumptive 


cancer claim. We had one claimant, it was a 


non-presumptive cancer and we did not want 


to ask that non-presumptive cancer person to 


be the petitioner for something that they 


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ultimately would not be compensated for. 


So we set this one aside and then 


we did receive a claim in November of 2011 


with a presumptive cancer. We did a little 


due diligence work to make sure that we had, 


we were pretty comfortable with everything 


we'd done at that point, but we did do some 


additional due diligence. 


And then in March 5 of 2012 we 


notified that claimant that we could not 


reconstruct dose at the facility and that we 


also provided them with Form A for being a 


petitioner. 


On March 13 we received that 


petition and then on April 27, 2012 we 


issued our Evaluation Report. 


A little bit about Winchester, 


it's also known as U.S. Public Health 


Service Northeast Radiological Laboratory 


and some other aliases, Northeastern 


Radiological Health Laboratory. It was 


known as National Lead Company because 


National Lead operated there for a period of 


time. 


And then the period of concern 


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that we are dealing mostly was known as the 


AEC Raw Materials Development Laboratory. 


It's located in Winchester, Massachusetts, 


it was a Department of Energy site from 1951 


through 1961 and then ownership was turned 


over. 


The last operator of the facility 


was the FDA, Food and Drug Administration. 


Their main function was participating in 


the development of methods for extraction of 


uranium and thorium from ore and those are 


low-grade ores and prepared metal-grade 


uranium tetrafluoride. 


There's a slight typo there, I 


don't know what I was doing at the time. I 


put tetrachloride and it should be 


tetrafluoride. I noticed it this morning 


when I was reviewing it and I was saying 


tetrafluoride and I was reading 


tetrachloride and I said, that's not right. 


The facility was located on 5.8 


acres approximately 15 miles from Boston. 


Main facility was a single-floor masonry 


building approximately 31,000 square feet. 


Had 30 rooms with labs, offices, boiler room 


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and work areas, shops, et cetera. 


Also on the site, a solvent 


storage building and a small pilot plant, 


house corrugated metal building. Workforce 


was approximately 70 to 100 workers. We got 


those numbers from an AEC summary report 


during the period and we also interviewed a 


senior chemist from the facility who gave us 


pretty much the exact same numbers. 


There's the floor plan. As you 


can see, if you look at where the entrance 


is, most of the rooms from close to the 


entrance are administrative in nature and 


then as you move farther into the facility 


you get a lot of the more production and the 


laboratory work. 


You can see like, 18 in the upper 


right-hand corners, the high U laboratory. 


Over at 24 and 25 you've got the pilot 


plant, you've got solvent extraction. 


The area is kind of, there was 


radiological work that really was conducted 


past the administrative buildings through 


all that area. 


A little background on where we 


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looked for information. We looked in our 


Technical Information Bulletins. We did 


interview a former Winchester employee, as I 


mentioned. We only have a few claimants and 


finding individuals to interview was tough, 


but we did find one individual who was a 


senior chemist that worked during the period 


and really gave us a really good, 


informative interview. 


We looked at existing claimant 


files, documentation provided by the 


petitioner, Site Research Database and data 


captures. There are standard data captures 


through Legacy Management, Opennet, NRC, 


NARA Atlanta and various DOE locations. 


We also contacted former 


operators or companies that operated the 


facility during the time period to see if we 


could get some information from them. 


National Lead Company, American Cyanamid, 


Wyeth General Insurance and the FDA. 


They, we did, we got two 


documents out of all the contacts that we 


made with them. We had, as of May 22 we had 


three claims for this facility. As I 


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mentioned, in '08 we had one claim and it 


was not presumptive cancer. 


In the last eight months we've 


received two claims, two additional claims. 


So we have a total of three claims. None of 


those claims had internal or external 


dosimetry. 


Operations at Winchester, this 


was a laboratory. They worked in 


conjunction with the Grand Junction 


operations pilot plant during the period. 


They did a lot of research work with 


focusing on extraction of uranium and 


thorium from low-grade ores and they worked 


back and forth with information they learned 


from the laboratory providing it to the 


larger-scale pilot plant at Grand Junction. 


So there's a lot of 


correspondence back and it actually makes 


some of our review difficult because you see 


these pilot plant documents and you don't 


know if it's pilot plant Grand Junction or 


pilot plant in Winchester. So we've had a 


challenge there. 


In 1957, Winchester extended its 


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research to developing methods for reducing 


radiological hazards from mill operations. 


In 1959, the facility transitioned from the 


development of production methods to testing 


uranium waste environmental analysis methods 


and performing laboratory testing and 


analysis. 


Internal sources, they dealt with 


uranium and uranium progeny from ore and 


raffinates. Thorium and thorium progeny 


from ore. Those were, as I mentioned, 


lower-grade ores, thorium ore and uranium 


ore. 


 External sources, photon/beta 


exposures from uranium thorium ores and 


raffinates and neutrons were not a 


significant source of the external exposure. 


Internal monitoring data. 


Approximately 50 uranium samples for the 


period of '52 to '55 we had a handful of 


radon breath analyses. I say a handful 


because it's not clear. Four of them we 


know, four of the analyses were definitely 


from the Winchester facility. Two of them 


we're not sure if they were from Winchester 


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or Grand Junction. But again, very few 


samples that we had. 


Air sample data, we had seven 


breathing zone samples from 1953, 25 uranium 


dust samples from 1955 and eight air samples 


for radon in 1955. So if you look at the 


operating period, roughly '52 to '61, '52 to 


'59 is the main operating period. 


We had spot data through the 


period of uranium urinalysis data, some 


radon breath samples, which would be 


indicative of radium uptake in 1955 and we 


had some air sample data spread out, '53, 


'55. 


And no external monitoring data 


for the covered period. My only thought 


would be that they were thinking that since 


they were dealing mainly with smaller 


quantities of ores they weren't getting a 


significant external dose, however we can't 


verify that and we have no dose rate surveys 


or no personal monitoring data at all. 


Limited process information about 


the extraction. We have a little bit about 


the extraction methods that they were 


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attempting in the early years, the '52/'53. 


Nothing beyond that. No detail as in 


quantities used for the source term. 


Because again, they did have a 


pilot plant in the back of the facility and 


they were testing some of the equipment that 


ultimately was used at Grand Junction for 


the process. 


Again, as I said, minimal 


information on quantities of thorium and 


uranium on site. We know that various mills 


sent samples to the site to run them through 


the tests and the various tests they were 


running. 


I believe most of these mills 


were domestic mills or which included, so 


lower-grade ores, as I mentioned. Reports 


do indicate a wide variety of forms of 


uranium-bearing materials were used on 


research and pilot plant projects on site. 


Ore, metal pitchblende and 


uranium oxide. We also know that thorium 


and thorium ore. Very little information is 


available to describe the pilot process, 


testing or laboratory work conducted at 


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Winchester. 


Based on the scattered data we 


have and no thorium monitoring data, the 


limited radon data that we have, we had some 


radon air data in one year. And based on 


this limited information that we have and no 


external monitoring data, we found that the 


information is inadequate to complete dose 


reconstruction with sufficient accuracy for 


the Class from January 1, 1952 through 


December 31, 1961. 


I put this on a slide because I 


mainly, that, because of the exposure 


potential. I said the findings from this 


SEC evaluation are consistent with SEC 


determinations for facilities with similar 


radiological exposures. 


The difference with these 


facilities, Mallinckrodt, Harshaw and Linde 


that you see, is these are production 


facilities. 


This is a laboratory facility, 


but the exposures that you would see at 


those sites are the same types of site of 


exposures that you would see in dealing with 


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the thorium ore, the uranium ore and such. 


Our feasibility, again, summary, 


internal dose reconstruction is not 


feasible. External dose reconstruction is 


not feasible. We will use any personal 


monitoring data that does come up for an 


individual for non-presumptive claims. And 


we can do occupational medical X-rays. 


Evidence reviewed indicates there 


was a potential for chronic exposure to 


these workers of radiation exposures, of 


intakes of radionuclides and direct exposure 


from radioactive materials. 


Consequently, we feel that health 


may have been endangered. And here's our 


proposed Class, it's all employees. I may 


shrink it a little bit, so, all employees of 


the Department of Energy who worked at the 


Winchester facility from January 1, 1952 


through December 31, 1961. 


And then the standard language 


beyond that. And again, our final 


recommendation is dose reconstruction is not 


feasible for the period of January 1, '52 


through December 31, 1961. And that's it. 


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Questions? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions? 


Josie? 


MEMBER BEACH: LaVon, I just have 


a couple of quick questions. The lab 


access, you didn't mention that. Was there 


any, I see the hallways run straight through 


the whole building. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. In fact, I 


should have actually had a slide or 


discussed that a little further. We have no 


indication there were any access controls 


between, if you look, actually, and I'll see 


if I can pull it back up. 


MEMBER BEACH: It looked like 18 


and 11, those two rooms were, maybe 25? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, if you look 


up front, you can see the, like 29 is the 


Engineering Office, 30, and some of these 


area --


MEMBER BEACH: Thirty is the 


lunchroom? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, in some of 


these areas up front, the workers that, I 


mean, the individuals that worked in those 


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areas still had to go to the back. They had 


to go back into those areas. And we have no 


indication, in fact, in our discussion with 


the senior chemist that, there was no 


control stopping anyone from moving from one 


area to another at the time period. 


MEMBER BEACH: Okay and then I 


know you're covering all employees. Did the 


70 to 100 individuals, did that include all 


the office workers or just the lab personnel 


or were --


MR. RUTHERFORD: That was all 


personnel. 


MEMBER BEACH: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda? 


MEMBER MUNN: Just a matter of 


curiosity. How significant were the, was 


the contamination that you found in the air 


samples? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, you know, 


the, we did, the radon breath analysis were 


about, the four individuals that we had 


samples, the highest one was about 50 


percent of the MPC for that time period. So 


now I don't, you know, like I said, there 


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was four. 


And then some of the breathing 


zone samples were above the MPC, but there 


wasn't very many samples, so it's hard to 


really tell you. 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I understand 


that they couldn't be used, but 


nevertheless, interesting to know what the 


zone was. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, along the 


same lines, and I may have missed it, were 


those samples, do you think they were 


associated with pilot plant operations or 


with laboratory? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: These were the 


laboratory. The ones that, the numbers that 


I gave you in the slide are ones that we 


confirmed were Winchester facility 


operations, okay? And again, Winchester had 


their own pilot plant. 


Let me see if I can pull it back 


up. Winchester had their own pilot plant, 


which is a small pilot plant compared to the 


bigger pilot plant in Grand Junction 


operations offices. And so one of the 


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difficulties in reviewing the data is, as I 


mentioned, it would say pilot plant. 


And it wasn't easy to tell, and 


it's all associated with this, the AEC Raw 


Materials Division and so it was hard to 


tell whether it was Grand Junction's or 


Winchester. So the numbers, what I'm giving 


you here are definitely stuff from 


Winchester, that we see Winchester was up 


in, there's, on most of these reports, 


you'll see plant. 


And it'll say Winchester, you 


know, and that's how we're able to identify 


them. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and I 


think the question, I mean, these are 


different. This is a different type of 


facility, as you pointed out, from 


Mallinckrodt and --


MR. RUTHERFORD: Oh, it is, you 


know, the only reason I put that on there 


was because of the exposures to the ores and 


the ore material and some of, you know, that 


type of thing and they were doing some 


hands-on work with the extraction and stuff 


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in the pilot operations. 


But it was mainly, the only 


reason I put those down there was because of 


those were exposures you've seen at those 


facilities as well. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But I don't 


necessarily think the SEC is the analogy. 


It's the exposures may be the analogy. I 


don't think that, by itself, justifies the 


SEC. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, my language 


was probably wrong for the presentation. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: So, LaVon, there 


was this main building and a few smaller 


ones. Was the whole facility itself somehow 


restricted? That is, the lab plus the other 


buildings? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, if 


you, in the Evaluation Report itself, you 


can see a picture and the picture shows a 


gate around the whole facility. That's 


around the whole laboratory facility and the 


two separate structures. 


There was nothing controlling, 


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once you got inside the gate, into, I mean, 


so administrative staff and everything else, 


once they got inside the gate, everyone 


moved around that facility. 


We don't have any indication, 


let's put it this way, we have no indication 


that workers were prevented from accessing 


different areas. And our interview with the 


senior chemist supported that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 


questions or comments? Bill Field? I don't 


know if you have any questions? Apparently 


not. Okay, do I have a, Wanda, yes? 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I'm ready to 


propose the Class. 


MEMBER BEACH: And I'll second 


it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sorry, he was, 


we had two conversations, so can you repeat 


your motion? 


MEMBER MUNN: I am ready to 


propose the Class as suggested by NIOSH in 


the Slide Presentation Number 17. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, and we 


have a second from Josie? 


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MEMBER BEACH: I'll second it, 


yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 


further discussion? Okay. Go ahead. 


MR. KATZ: Okay, I will call the 


Members that are probably absent as well 


just to make certain. Anderson? 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Beach? 


MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Clawson? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Field? Bill, are you 


on mute? Gibson? Griffon? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Kotelchuck? 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Lemen? Lockey? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Lockey was 


voting, indicated to me he was going to vote 


in support of the SEC. We can confirm when 


he gets back. 


MR. KATZ: Okay. Melius? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Munn? 


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MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Poston? 


MEMBER POSTON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson, are 


you on the line? Okay, Roessler? 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Schofield? 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Valerio? 


MEMBER VALERIO: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Ziemer? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Let me just check 


again. Bill Field, are you on the line? 


MEMBER FIELD: Yes, I got 


disconnected, sorry about that. Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Yes? Okay, great. So 


it is unanimous among Members present and 


I'll have votes to collect from three 


Members. Motion passes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 


Now I'd like to start with the Subcommittee 


and Workgroup Reports and we'll start with 


Mark and then we'll start alphabetically as 


on the list that's on your, you were given 


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today and I think it's the usual list, so, 


but go ahead, Mark, with the Dose 


Reconstruction? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, the DR 


Subcommittee meeting or Subcommittee met on 


the 6th of this month and we did make some 


headway, as Stu mentioned, on a couple of 


those items from the 10-year review. Also 


we, one of our primary things that we 


discussed was a means to accelerate the DR 


Issues Resolution process. 


As many of you will know that 


we've lagged behind SC&A's progress in 


reviewing the cases, so we came up with a 


means, we hope this will accelerate the 


process of actually coming to resolution in 


the Subcommittee. 


And part of it involves the SC&A 


and NIOSH doing some technical calls in 


between our Subcommittee meetings to sort of 


get a handle on where a certain finding 


stands, rather than having to go back and 


forth between. 


Oftentimes we get an update at 


one Subcommittee meeting and then SC&A says, 


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oh, I didn't know that's what you meant, 


NIOSH. And they'll go back. And so it 


strings out for several meetings. So we're 


trying to make that a little more efficient 


by allowing some technical calls in between 


Subcommittee meetings. 


We're also going to open those up 


to allow for Subcommittee Members to dial in 


if they're available, but we don't want them 


to be at a Subcommittee meeting, but just to 


listen in and they're also going to create a 


record of the discussion to bring back to 


the Subcommittee. 


So we'll see what was said, but 


it should expedite our process at the 


Subcommittee level, allowing us to catch up 


on all these past findings. 


The other thing we got some 


updates on was in response to the 10-year 


review, NIOSH has put in place what they're 


calling a blind review program, a blind QC 


program, I guess, I'm not sure if it has a 


title. 


But basically they're pulling out 


cases and NIOSH staff is doing them in 


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parallel with the Oak Ridge group, ORAU and 


I think it's, I forget the numbers, but it's 


two or three per week or two or three per 50 


or, I, Stu can clarify. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I think we 


started at two a week and we weren't keeping 


up so we said let's try one a week for a 


while until we get caught up. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, and where 


that comes into the Subcommittee is that 


we've asked for sort of, to be able to look 


at that, the results of that in aggregate. 


We don't want to redo each one of 


those cases that NIOSH is doing internally, 


but rather, we'd like to see what they find 


in aggregate and whether it has any 


similarities to our, especially along the 


lines of quality control findings that we've 


found in the past. 


So we had a discussion on that 


and we're, NIOSH is setting that up so that 


we can link in and be able to sort of see 


some, not only get aggregate reports, but 


also be able to access it through our O: 


drive in between meetings. 


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We're also going to get a more 


in-depth presentation from NIOSH and ORAU at 


the next Subcommittee meeting on their QC/QA 


program. That was supposed to happen at the 


last meeting, there was a little 


miscommunication of what our expectations 


were, so I think we clarified that. We're 


going to get a further update on that. 


We think that's very important 


because a lot of our findings have been QA-


related, so we'd like to see exactly what is 


being done internally, the nuts and bolts 


part of the QA program and it might shed 


some light on our next summary report, which 


brings me to the next item, which is, the 


Board had asked us to consider another 


report to the Secretary. 


We had a discussion on that at 


the last Subcommittee meeting and the 


feeling was, at this point, it probably 


wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to 


develop a report from the Subcommittee or 


from the Board to the Secretary because it 


would likely be really just a status report 


and a lot of the findings are very similar 


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to the first set of five cases that we 


reviewed. 


So we'd rather wait and be able 


to say more about this QA/QC program and, 


you know, our findings going forward on the 


QA/QC issues rather than report out on 


something we think would be very similar to 


the last report. 


So that's sort of where we came 


as a Subcommittee, you know, if the Board 


has an other opinion there, we certainly 


would reconsider. Let's see, the, oh, we 


also began a discussion and I've offered 


that, at the next meeting I'll bring forward 


the specific documents that are about 10, 11 


years old, whatever, to reexamine the 


selection and the review of methodology 


documents. 


They've been in place since the 


very beginning and I think we've mentioned 


it a few times on the Board level that it 


might be a good time to reexamine those, so 


we're going to bring that item up to the 


next Subcommittee meeting. 


And I've offered to, for all of 


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our review, to find those original documents 


and distribute them, it would be especially 


beneficial to the new Members, but also to 


those of us who haven't looked at them in a 


while, I think it would be useful as well. 


Along those lines, one of my 


concerns is that in our review of several of 


these, and this is my opinion, not 


necessarily the Subcommittee's, but we have 


the DR Subcommittee, we have the Procedures 


Subcommittee and we have Site Profile 


reviews going on and one concern, and this 


is why I want to reexamine our methodology, 


is that, one concern of mine is that we, are 


we letting something fall through the gaps 


in our review process? 


Especially when you look back at 


the original definition of what we're 


supposed to do, which is advise the 


President on the scientific validity and 


quality of dose estimation and 


reconstruction efforts. 


I think it seems like, of late 


we've had a lot of focus on the quality and 


sometimes I think the, I'm afraid that the 


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scientific-validity question gets pushed 


around. For example, in our review of the 


individual cases, we often say, we look at 


the workbook and make sure that they applied 


the procedure correctly. 


In the procedures review they 


look at the procedure in detail and see that 


it makes sense, but oftentimes if it's a 


site coworker model, we defer that to the 


Site Profile review. And if the Site 


Profile reviews are where they're at in a 


lot of our cases, I think they're not 


completed, you know? 


So I just worry about, are we 


pushing things around and not getting to 


that answer of scientific validity as well 


as we need to? So that's something I want 


to bring up as we reexamine our methodology 


and maybe something for others to think of 


with the, how the committees work together. 


And I think that's it. Otherwise 


we continued our regular work on the backlog 


of cases that we're discussing. I think 


that's it, unless other Members had other --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One quick 


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update. Where are we with our blind 


reviews? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, that's a 


good -- as I was writing my notes, I, and I 


don't know, John or Stu, if you can help me 


out there? I forgot where we were with 


those. I know that SC&A reviewed the cases 


and I just don't know if they ever came back 


to the Subcommittee. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Good question. 


They've been reviewed and yes, I'll have to 


go back and refresh my memory. And I think, 


actually, John Stiver wasn't particularly 


involved in that if John Mauro was doing it. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I'll 


definitely add it onto our next, because we 


also had a question of, you know, should we 


do more of those? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So that was 


certainly part of the original plan and, 


that we cut way back on that. 


MR. KATZ: Yes, just to add to 


that, they've been, we had a discussion at a 


Subcommittee meeting of those blind reviews, 


but I don't think we concluded the 


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discussion, so had sort of an opening 


discussion of them and we haven't proceeded 


to wrap that up. And we need to, that's 


true. 


MEMBER MUNN: Well, we had a 


problem identifying an adequate number of 


cases that would be appropriate for the kind 


of review we wanted to do. 


MR. KATZ: No, the one I'm 


speaking of --


MEMBER GRIFFON: No, no, no, the 


couple that we assigned --


MR. KATZ: -- is, SC&A has 


produced some reviews of --


MEMBER MUNN: Oh, the ones that 


they've done? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, yes, yes. 


MR. KATZ: Exactly, exactly. 


MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but we were 


talking about the sparsity of claims that we 


had that would lend themselves to a blind 


review. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Oh, yes, no, 


that's a separate --


MEMBER MUNN: Okay, yes, separate 


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issue. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Gen and then 


Paul. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Mark, I'm glad 


to hear you say that you're doing some 


catch-up on some of these past findings. 


I'm thinking of the individual cases where I 


as a Board Member, and I'm not a part of 


your Subcommittee, I'm on the phone with 


SC&A where they go over the individual cases 


and every now and then they come up with 


something that, to me, sounds significant. 


And granted, some of these are 


very old cases, but then I sort of feel like 


I never know what happens. Does this get 


presented to NIOSH and do they discuss this 


and do they resolve this so that this 


particular problem doesn't continue? 


And I feel sort of, you know, I 


don't see any resolution as an individual 


Board Member. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, no 


connection back to you? 


MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, and that's 


what I'm looking for. 


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MEMBER GRIFFON: And I think 


that's why we, I mean, the urgency to catch 


up, sort of, is that we find ourselves 


reviewing some of the, still resolving some 


of the older issues and NIOSH is coming back 


to us saying, oh, we've changed that whole 


procedure since that case was done. 


You know, so we'd like to catch 


up and be sort of, you know, looking at more 


current dose reconstruction cases and 


therefore current issues, you know? So yes. 


But we're working on it, so 


hopefully this new, accelerated approach 


will get us up to speed by next meeting, 


right, Ted? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Mark, while I can 


appreciate the idea that maybe a current 


report to the Secretary might look a lot 


like the previous one, I'm nonetheless 


concerned that there's been quite a lapse of 


time since we've last reported to the 


Secretary. 


And I'm wondering if, this is 


sort of top of the head, if it might be 


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worth some sort of interim report to 


indicate that although the next batch, 


whatever it is, so many hundred, that the 


results appear similar, that you're going to 


look at this in some additional way. 


I'm just concerned about the 


length of time. I don't know how others 


feel about this, but I think it's been 


several years since we reported to the 


Secretary on what is one of our main charges 


as a Board. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, the, I 


mean, the other option we discussed at the 


Subcommittee was, perhaps we can draft a 


report back to here and do a presentation 


for the entire Board and then sort of leave 


it up to all of us to decide, is this worthy 


of submitting to the Secretary, you know, so 


we can do sort of a status report where 


we're at, where we think we're going, and 


then we can leave it up to the Board to 


decide whether it's worth submitting to the 


Secretary. 


MR. KATZ: My sense, and this is 


what we discussed at the Subcommittee is, I 


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mean, I don't think the Secretary is going 


to be very interested in process in general. 


So I think it would be good to 


have, really, more substance to provide at 


the point we communicate with the Secretary, 


which is, again, was why we were sort of 


pushing forward on getting more cases under 


our belt that have been resolved so that we 


know the results of that work. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I can 


understand that, but I sort of agree with 


Paul. I think it would be, I'd like to 


follow up on Mark's suggestion. 


I think at least the Board, the 


full Board needs an update. And I don't 


think you have to produce the report, but 


if, I don't know how this, I think SC&A 


would compile some sort of a report or 


tables that would at least give us some 


information to look at and at least have a 


status report of where we are. 


As an internal report, the public 


should probably make, you know, say if we 


don't go to the Secretary, at least make 


that available in some way on the Website or 


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something when we're done with it and so 


forth so that we can have some report back 


on this particular activity. 


Do that and, I think it's a very 


critical activity. I think we as a Board 


have, I think SEC process has sort of 


overwhelmed that. The -- our Subcommittee 


has done well, but there's resource issues 


at the NIOSH level and so forth. 


Some of the discussions going 


into his meeting were well, should we put a 


moratorium on doing any more dose 


reconstructions, that, I personally had 


problems with that because I think it is one 


of our mandates and we need to continue 


doing it while it also would have caused 


some disruption with our contractor to do 


that. 


But at the same time I'm, you 


know, agree with what Gen said, that we're, 


it'd be nice to have some more feedback. 


But the other thing that strikes 


me in doing the individual dose 


reconstructions, reviews, is that so many 


times we're running into what are obviously 


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SEC, in fact, some of the cases John and I 


have reviewed have been already turned into 


SECs in the process. 


And that's usually for like, key 


exposure, usually a key exposure for that, 


you know, particular individual and we're 


sort of reviewing, you know, we're saying, 


yes, the dose reconstruction was done well 


or there's, you know, maybe this problem or 


that problem. 


When in actuality, the science of 


it, it wasn't really, it didn't meet the 


mandate in the Act and I think that's 


somewhat bothersome with this connection 


with what the Procedures group does and Site 


Profile. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean, if SEC 


cases are getting through, that shouldn't be 


happening, so I don't know --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, this was, 


the one I can remember was one where in the 


interim between the time the case was 


reviewed and so we had just had a meeting 


or, I can't remember the full circumstances, 


and there was at least one other. 


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There was at least two cases like 


that and just, you know, maybe it's luck of 


the draw or something, but it had happened, 


and there's still some value in doing some 


of that, because there are other exposures 


at these SEC sites that we continue to do 


dose reconstruction, so I don't necessarily 


have a major problem with doing that. 


But you really wonder, what are 


we reporting on and how do we bring the 


overall quality involved? And I think it's 


just --


MEMBER GRIFFON: The only ones 


for the SEC sites should be non-presumptive 


cancers, but, you know, and then they would 


do partial dose reconstruction to see what 


they have left in there, yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One and I think 


two presumptive cancers I can remember going 


through. So but aside from that, I mean, I 


don't think that's a major issue as much as 


this whole issue of, we have Site Profile 


findings that are in, you know, limbo. 


We have SEC evaluation, if we 


tried to put everything that's not resolved, 


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we wouldn't have any cases to review or it'd 


be a nightmare to try to select cases. 


At the same time, I think we need 


to figure out how we bring that, all that 


information together. I think originally, I 


think we thought that the blind reviews 


would provide some of that, and that was 


before we had really, the whole program had 


been structured, before we had a Procedures 


Subcommittee, before, to some extent, before 


the Site Profile process was developed in 


the way it was. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, and yes, 


and my -- going way back, my initial idea, I 


think, was the, and I'm even forgetting my 


own words, but it was basically the basic 


and in-depth reviews. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We had three 


levels. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, we had 


three levels. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If the levels 


were blind, right. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we had this 


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big argument over, or discussion and 


disagreement with NIOSH over the interview 


process, said we were going to do blind 


reviews with interviews and then that was 


quite awhile ago, so. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: And also, I 


think I had a disagreement with, I know I 


had a disagreement with John Mauro on 


interpreting basic and in-depth review and 


so anyway, I think we, it's good to 


reexamine that methodology. 


I mean, I have no problem, the 


Subcommittee can definitely, I think, it 


sounds like I'm hearing from several people 


that we should report back, at least to the 


Board, and that's fine. 


We can, most likely I think we 


should be able to do that by September's 


meeting, if not, the following 


teleconference or something like that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, yes, I 


think --


MEMBER GRIFFON: I'll work with 


SC&A and get that for you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The other 


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thing, I think, to think about, would be how 


do we, is there something that we should, as 


a Board, have SC&A be doing? And I think 


the Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee would 


be who would be actually charging them and 


monitoring this, but at least look at some 


of the dose reconstruction reviews and/or 


potential reviews. 


And figure out how we, what are 


some of the options for pulling together the 


what the Procedure Subcommittee has done, 


what the Site Profile Reviews have shown, 


maybe look at some of the past reviews we've 


done and see how they might have been 


impacted by changes that have come about 


because of the, well, three things. 


NIOSH updates, the Procedures 


Subcommittee reviews and the Site Profile 


reviews and the SEC process and I think that 


has to be done on some sort of a selective 


basis because it's individuals. 


But it might be informative. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Because I think 


for me, on the Subcommittee, the cleanest 


cases we have are what I've defined as these 


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mini Site Profile reviews, which is 


basically that these are the AWEs that have, 


you know, NIOSH hasn't, they're too small to 


basically do a full Site Profile, so they 


might have a Site Matrix or something like 


that. 


There's not many claims, so we 


usually just do one of them and since we're 


only doing one, we basically say, well just 


review the whole methodology for that site. 


It's oftentimes just a model anyway; they 


don't have individual dose data, so we asked 


SC&A to review it like a Site Profile, 


review the whole site, and then we have that 


whole discussion on DR Subcommittee. 


That keeps it all, you know, but 


on these other cases, other instances like 


the bigger sites, like you said, we have 


several pieces happening at one time. So I 


agree, we need to figure that out. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and I 


think that if the DR Subcommittee could, if 


you think of sort of pulling some if this 


together between now and our December 


meeting, some of it we need, should try to 


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do meetings in between, but sort of on that 


schedule, because I think we, you know, so 


NIOSH has done its 10-year Review, I think 


we should do our 10-year Review of our 


process here in the same way and figure out 


how we can do this better and what else we 


should be doing. Josie? 


MEMBER BEACH: Yes, along the 


same line, I know Henry and I, when we were 


doing our review, one of the key issues, if 


Henry remembers, is the Site Profile 


Reviews, because they were so far behind and 


those would have made a difference in a 


couple of our cases. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, no, I'm 


sure it wouldn't, it gets very complicated 


when you look at the individual, all the 


things that go into an individual dose 


reconstruction that are involved and the 


ongoing updating that NIOSH is doing at the 


same time, so it's not a static process by 


any means to do that. 


Any other comments or questions 


on that? Bill Field, do you have any 


comments you want to make? 


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MEMBER FIELD: No, I'd just share 


some of the same concerns that Gen had and I 


think that was reflected in her comments. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks. Okay. 


Now that we've got something from -- a few 


things to do. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Savannah River. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Savannah River, 


huh? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, you're on 


still. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: I'm back on? I 


thought we were going alphabetical, now. 


Alphabetical after me? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you want to 


break for a while? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: No, these are, 


unfortunately these are rather quick. 


Savannah River, the, as we heard earlier 


from LaVon, NIOSH is planning to have an 


addendum on the thorium issues, the thorium 


exposure, the thorium dose reconstruction 


approach, I believe from 1972 forward. I 


think that's the date. 


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And that addendum is going to be 


presented to the Board in the September 


meeting. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually, it 


would be, it's going to be completed in 


October and would be presented at the 


December meeting. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Oh, I'm sorry, 


I, okay, so completed in October, I thought 


you said completed in August. Anyway, 


completed in October and presented in the 


December meeting. And likewise, some of the 


other critical issues, one of the primary 


ones is the coworkers on these other, what 


we're calling exotic nuclides, neptunium, 


curium, I think are, I can't remember the 


list. 


But NIOSH is working on coworker 


models on that, I believe, and Jim Neton 


mentioned that a little earlier. But I 


think we're looking at a similar timeline 


for that, October-ish, so right now the Work 


Group is pretty much idle until we, you 


know, get some of this information back from 


NIOSH. There really isn't a need to meet 


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until we have more of that information. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, any 


questions on that? We also had a letter, at 


least, was copied to us, I can't remember if 


it was directed to the Board or to NIOSH 


from the petitioner. Got it here. 


MEMBER BEACH: I think that was 


to the Board. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Was it to the 


Board? That's what I thought. 


MEMBER BEACH: It was. It was to 


you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: It was two pages, 


imaged, right? 


MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Yes, they were JPEG 


files. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mark, do you 


recall that? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: I recall it, 


yes, I mean, if you want to summarize what 


the --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I will, I've 


got it here. 


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MEMBER GRIFFON: -- petitioner 


said, that would be helpful. I mean, I 


think it was basically concerns about the 


timeliness of --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, yes, and, 


you know, yes, we share those concerns. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it 


basically is timeliness, asks about a 


schedule, which we at least now have a 


schedule on this. And I think the basic, 


the second page, I think there are three 


questions here. 


Were there periods after 


September 30, 1972 when workers at SRS could 


have been exposed to thorium or other exotic 


radionuclides? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: And the answer 


is yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The answer's 


yes, yes. Have methods been developed for 


reconstructing doses for those exposures? I 


think the answer is --


MEMBER GRIFFON: And that's under 


development. 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Under 


development and it will be reviewed. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, yes, right. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And then I 


think, if methods were developed, can there 


be -- are there ways of identifying the 


workers and until methods are, we can't --


MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, place the 


mill workers, yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- we can't 


really say that, okay. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, and those 


are, I think those are the primary issues we 


have remaining. I'm going by memory, but we 


may have a few other issues, but I think 


we've, Arjun, do you have a --


DR. MAKHIJANI: There are a few 


other issues, like tritides. I see they 


updated the Matrix after the Board decision 


to go up to '72 and you have the updated 


Matrix. So I think the ones that you 


mentioned cover sort of the most difficult 


ones, but there are some other issues. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I was going 


to say, I think we, as a Work Group we tried 


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to prioritize for NIOSH which ones we 


thought were, you know, we would like to get 


done earlier. 


So not necessarily thinking that 


October was early but, you know, we tried 


to, in some way, prioritize. I mean, I 


don't think neutron, I'm trying to think if 


neutrons was a remaining issue or if it was 


kind of, I think we were satisfied with --


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I think since 


neutrons really were an issue up to 1971, 


after that you had the TLD, so I don't 


believe neutrons is a remaining issue. 


But I can, let me check the 


Matrix and get back to you in a few minutes 


if that's all right, or in a later work 


session. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let me just, 


and LaVon or somebody can update or Tim, 


according to the update we got from NIOSH, 


americium coworker model, July due date, 


delivery date. Neptunium coworker model, 


August due date. Mixed fission products, 


November. Delivery date the end of 


November, was that. 


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Tritides, August due date, 


delivery date. Exotic radionuclides, looks 


like it's -- I don't know if this is a 


misprint, it says January 6, 2012. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: You're late. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Either late or 


it's --


MR. HINNEFELD: That was a first 


shot, Jim, wasn't it? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. HINNEFELD: That was the 


first shot at the --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That was a 


first shot. 


DR. NETON: I think the idea was 


that there was a proof of principle involved 


in looking at three of the exotics, you 


know, americium, curium and neptunium to 


see, you know, if anything came out of that 


original analysis. 


I'm not sure what other exotics 


there are beyond those. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, Dr. Melius 


just read the categories and things that 


fall into what we've been calling exotics. 


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January of this year was the original 


delivery of that Report 53 which we 


commented on rather heavily. 


So that was done, but it's now, 


the rework of that is the americium, curium, 


californium that comes here in a little 


while. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


DR. NETON: Yes, I'd forgotten. 


The January 12 report was issued. It came 


out for internal review. I had some 


comments on it. It went back for rework and 


it's very close to being completed, though. 


I think by the end of this month, 


it should be done. I can give a little bit 


update on the thorium. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can I just go 


through the rest of these? No, you stay 


there, Jim, I don't want you to get away, I 


want to hear from you. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We have an 


OTIB-75 validity due in September, a 


neutrons due in August and the tank farm 


exposure geometry due in September. So that 


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was the list that was provided to us. So if 


you want to add or whatever? 


DR. NETON: I was just going to 


add to the thorium issue. We had conducted 


three data capture efforts for looking for 


additional thorium records in January, 


February and March. Those record searches 


identified three boxes of information that 


we're going through. 


There's been a little bit of a 


slowdown in getting them to be redacted, but 


we have one of the three. We expect the 


other two to be cleared fairly soon. 


The bottom line, it seems, is 


that thorium was present after '72, but in 


much, much smaller quantities than it was 


before '72. So it remains to be seen, you 


know, what was done with those smaller 


quantities to generate exposure potential to 


workers and can we bound those? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just 


ask if you can keep the SC&A and the Work 


Group informed as these come in. Because 


this SEC has been going on for a long time 


and there's obviously a lot of frustration 


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there and I don’t want, sort of, a report 


sitting around waiting for, you know, 


something to happen or for follow-up and 


when it, you know, might be critical in 


terms of making an SEC decision there. 


I think you've already sort of 


prioritized in that way, so. 


DR. NETON: Yes, I did. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: And maybe even 


if you can revise that timeline that Jim, 


those dates that Jim just read out, a 


revision in that would be useful instead of 


just the, yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, anybody 


else have questions for Mark? Rocky? You 


want to do Rocky? That is quick. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Rocky is equally 


as short. We haven't had a Work Group 


meeting since the last Board meeting. There 


has been an SEC and the Evaluation Report, I 


believe, is near-complete by NIOSH and they 


plan to issue it in the end of August and 


present it in the September, this is the 


right one, present it in the September 


meeting, which will be in Denver. 


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So really the Work Group will 


convene shortly after the meeting in Denver, 


I think, to take up the new ER report. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. Any 


questions on that? Okay. Good. Okay, 


other, start going through alphabetically. 


I figure we will go to noon time and then 


break for lunch, so if anybody's stomach is 


growling or whatever. Josie? 


MEMBER BEACH: Okay, Brookhaven 


met in February just prior to the last Board 


meeting. Our main issue was, of course, the 


83.14 that NIOSH proposed. 


We took the time to go ahead and 


task SC&A and NIOSH to go ahead and look at 


the SEC issues and how they would affect the 


site post-'93 and to start working on the 


Site Profile issues. 


We expect the work to come back 


on that from NIOSH mid-July. So that's all 


I have there. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 


Questions for Josie? Okay. Fernald? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Last meeting we 


had was February 19. We still have several 


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outstanding issues. If you remember, we 


passed an SEC for the time period of 1968 to 


1978. 


It was voted on at the April 


meeting. We have, we still have several 


outstanding concerns. One of them is the 


time from 1953 to 1967 where they were using 


DWE information. We also have opened a 


coworker model for uranium that we're still 


waiting on a response back to. 


And we haven't seen anything as 


of yet, but right now I'm setting up a 


Fernald Work Group within the next month or 


so and I've been working with John Stiver to 


come up with a date. 


And I also talked to -- month and 


a half -- talked to Stu and them and find 


out where we're at on the coworker model for 


the internal exposure. And that's kind of 


what's holding us up on to a date to set 


forth. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Yes? 


MR. KATZ: As long as we're on 


Fernald, I might as well register, we had 


absentee votes. During the teleconference 


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is when we added the SEC Class for Fernald, 


and Gibson, Poston and Richardson were 


absent, but they had, have all registered 


their votes since they've voted. 


That was finished May 9. They 


all voted with the Board in favor of making 


that Class addition. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. John, 


you want to have anything? Or Stu? I don't 


MR. STIVER: Yes, we were, as 


Brad said, we were kind of waiting on some 


feedback from DCAS about where they stand on 


Issue One, which is the, whether they get 


down the coworker intakes, I think they were 


going to go back and look at some actual 


case files from completed cases and if they 


had enough, they could pull some statistics 


together on that. 


And if they determine that they 


could indeed do that, they were going to 


produce a White Paper, which we would then 


review. 


As regards our DWE data, we had 


agreed in principle, I know, that with that 


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approach I know there's some dissatisfaction 


about some aspects of that, the DWE model 


from '53 to '67. Our follow-on work in 


looking at the data completeness for the 


thorium bioassay for 1978 to 1989, when we 


were looking at that, we discovered that 


it's really difficult to, and we also saw 


this for the earlier period, but to place 


workers in particular buildings in 


particular times. 


And part of the DWE model really 


relies on that in order to assign people to 


particular facilities. And the DWEs are 


vastly different, obviously, in these 


different buildings. And so we're kind of 


concerned about the ability of NIOSH to do 


that in that particular model. 


That's one of the things we 


wanted to look into in a little bit more 


depth. And so we're probably looking at, I 


would say August before we could 


realistically schedule a meeting. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, yes, 


because you have a good statistical model, 


but we don't have input where people were. 


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MR. STIVER: Yes, exactly, you 


have to have the worker placement 


information. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, right, 


sure. Okay, John? Stu and LaVon or Jim, 


can you do that, I guess, and Fernald? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I'll just 


comment that we are pursuing the first 


document about the coworker, if this has to 


do, I think it has to do with whether the 


entire coworker dataset has been broken out 


for construction workers. Isn't that the 


question? 


But then there was another sub-


task that kind of came out of that. I know 


ORAU is working on it now. I don't know how 


long they've been working on it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's not 


updated at all on the list we received. 


MR. HINNEFELD: No, no, it's not 


on the list. And I'm going to have to check 


on the DWE issue that you just mentioned, 


John, that one was unfamiliar to me, so I'll 


have to, I'll go check. I came late to the 


game with Fernald because I'd only got 


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authority to work on it a few weeks ago. 


MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver 


again. I might also add that we have a Data 


Completeness Report from a later period and 


some follow-on work that's in review right 


now that should be delivered to the Board 


within a week or two. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, great. 


Thanks. Any Board Members with questions on 


that? Hanford. Now that I'm the chair of 


that, so we are now regrouping or will 


regroup after the 83.14 is presented. I 


forget when it, I believe tomorrow or today. 


Is it, when's it on? Later 


today, okay. After that we've had a little 


side discussions here and we will be, need 


to, presuming that that's agreed to by the 


Board and approved, the NIOSH 


recommendation, then we will be in the 


process of looking at the post-'83 period 


there. 


And we've also already made a 


significant amount of work in the review 


through SC&A on that and so I think it'd be 


pretty straightforward to be able to 


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identify any additional issues post-'83 that 


need to be evaluated and Arjun will be 


working on that and SC&A. 


And so we would then convene the 


Work Group. There's also another 


outstanding, sort of on the original set of 


petitions there's another petition involving 


a laboratory issue and we should have a 


report, our SC&A report within the next 


month, Arjun? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So why don't 


you update on that? It's complicated. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun 


Makhijani, SC&A. We've had a number of 


interviews to do the work, it is essentially 


complete. Some stuff is in DOE review and 


interviewer review for verification. 


I hope that by the end of next 


month that we will have completed everything 


and that the Work Group will have the 


report. A little bit will depend on how 


fast the DOE Classification review of the 


report goes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just want to 


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mention one other thing to the Board, I 


don't remember how this got circulated or 


how far it did, but we also ran into some 


issues with that regarding this ongoing 


litigation involving some of, one of these 


reports and some of the dose reconstructions 


involved and so we had to work out some 


other procedures for that, which I think 


worked satisfactorily, but it involved more 


involvement from the Office of General 


Counsel than we usually have in doing our 


work. 


And so just heads up to people, 


if you're, I think it's the first time we've 


ever encountered this particular issue and 


hopefully it won't be common, but it worked 


out okay. We worked out a procedure, so 


that, and, but if you, you know, doing some 


of your work and you run into that issue or 


whether there's some litigation involved or 


something, then I think you need to be, let 


Ted know right away. 


Anyway, just heads up on that. 


Took us 11 years or whatever it's been to 


find that, but we did. Okay. Idaho. Phil. 


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MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. There 


are some outstanding issues still on the 


Matrix that are being updated on that and 


they're due out in September. 


MR. KATZ: Hey, Phil, can you 


just bring the mic a little closer? Thanks. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Idaho, there's 


some outstanding Matrix issues that are 


being updated and they're due out in 


September. On the gaseous diffusion plants, 


we have some more issues that are due out in 


September. 


Some were just posted to the O: 


drive, particularly in relation to, let me 


gets my notes here, sorry. There's a White 


Paper that's been posted on the comparison 


to Paducah gaseous diffusion plant, hard 


copy bioassay records to two plant 


databases, that was, came out in March. 


As long as I'm on a roll, I'll 


go ahead and hit Pinellas. As you know, we 


have --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What, are you 


going to take the rest of the meeting off? 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. But we 


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did some on-site interviews, classified 


interviews, and those, that raw data is 


sitting on the O: drive, it has to be 


massaged and sent back to DOE for clearance. 


And hopefully, then we can schedule a 


meeting on it. 


One of the big issues, still, is 


the same was, problems site-wide just 


tritium issues we've still got to deal with 


and of course that is classified. Some of 


that is classified. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And the plan is 


still to let Mound go first on that? 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So what 


do you think on the Idaho? I guess NIOSH is 


expecting reports in September on, which 


would be really, the, I think the 


essentially, responses of TBD? 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Honestly, I 


would hope that given that data we could 


actually have a meeting in September to try 


and close some of these issues. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I have been 


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contacted and I don't know how we're going 


to deal with that issue yet, but there's, 


about the, all the reactors and the 


bioassays and other issues that were related 


to that because of this huge, huge number of 


reactors that we had there and what they 


were, spread out over the timeframe there. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it's a big 


site. Stu, you want to? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, our data 


that we submitted shows some completion 


dates in September. Those might be a little 


before they get to the Board, that might be 


more of an internal date. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I know we were at 


Idaho on a data capture just a week or two 


ago, gathering some data to go on, to help 


us in our response. I know we were just out 


there. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just 


add that I think, this is sort of the last, 


big, unexplored site, I think, and a very 


complicated site, as Phil mentioned and I 


think we need to try to be moving forward on 


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this. It's, unlike a lot of the other 


sites, there hasn't been an SEC petition to 


sort of move it along and I think we need to 


try to move that. 


So Stu, if you can keep the 


reports moving and then Phil, when we get 


the reports, we'll get the Work Group 


together on that and see if we can get, 


decide how to handle that site and do that. 


So when we sort of got behind, we 


combined it with the Argonne site, so it 


required a lot of work to do that, so that, 


John, yes? 


MR. STIVER: Yes, I'd like, 


before we move on, I'd like to add a little 


bit of information about Pinellas. We 


conducted the interviews, we spoke with one 


of the senior HPs at Sandia. 


Not Burkhardt, the other fellow, 


I can't remember his name off the top of my 


head, but he was very knowledgeable about 


the D&D period. And our concern was whether 


there was enough tritium bioassay and enough 


process knowledge to prevent them getting 


into some situations they weren't aware of 


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where people could have been exposed. 


And it sounds like, you know, 


from what he told me, there is a lot of data 


available and so we may want to pursue 


obtaining some of that data as well. 


And I don’t know how that might 


impact the -- a date for a meeting or we 


could just put that as a particular item to 


be pursued, but that's something we need to 


follow up on. 


That's probably one of the SEC 


issues that was so old, kind of. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I think it 


needs to be done. I'm not sure it's 


something SC&A should be doing or NIOSH and 


who's handling that site? I can't remember. 


MR. STIVER: Peter Darnell. And 


he'd been ill, obviously and was kind out of 


the picture, so this just came out as part 


of our follow-on interview, so we never 


really determined how to proceed as far as 


what entity would do that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, I know 


those interviews were helpful, so good. 


Maybe you can work out with LaVon while 


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you're here, just sort of a follow-up plan 


because again, that's another site that's an 


SEC that's been there for a long time and we 


need to try to move forward on that for that 


one in that site, also. 


MR. STIVER: Oh, you know, that 


name, I'll have to go back to my notes. But 


he was there in the early '90s. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We did get a 


lot of new data from those interviews, will 


hopefully guide us here we're going to go. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, I think 


that was good. Okay. I think we're, thank 


you, Phil, by the way, anybody else have 


other questions for Phil? 


Okay. Yes, some of the idea of 


these Work Group reports is to, it gives us 


a chance to pin down NIOSH and SC&A on the 


record and what we need to do for follow-up 


and schedules and so forth. 


But I think it helps us be more 


efficient with these and with communication, 


though I do think that NIOSH is, everybody 


involved has been doing a better job on that 


recently. So it's noon time. 


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 Why don't we take a break and 


back here for 2:00 for the Weldon Springs? 


Then we have a busy afternoon. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 12:01 p.m. and 


resumed at 2:05 p.m.) 


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


2:05 p.m. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If everyone can 


get seated we'll get started. Good 


afternoon, everybody. Looks like familiar 


faces there so, good. Ted, do you want to 


do the roll call? 


MR. KATZ: Yes, just check for 


Board Members on the line. Bill Field, are 


you with us on the line? How about Mike 


Gibson or David Richardson? Once again, 


Bill Field, are you on the line? Richard 


Lemen? Dr. Richardson? 


MEMBER FIELD: I'm here. It is 


Bill Field. 


MR. KATZ: Oh, Bill, great, glad 


to have you. And how about Mike Gibson? 


Okay then, let me just remind everyone 


that's on the line, mute your phones except 


when you're addressing the group, if you are 


someone who should be addressing the group. 


Press * and then 6 to mute your 


phone for this line. And then press * and 6 


again to un-mute your phone. There's still 


enough people hear to tell about the public 


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comment sessions. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, this 


afternoon we're going to take up first the 


Weldon Springs Site. And unfortunately, Dr. 


Lemen was unable to make this meeting due to 


a last-minute issue that came up. 


And he could not attend by phone 


either. So he'll not be able to present an 


update. And Ron Buchanan from SC&A is also 


unavailable, due to a previously planned 


vacation, I believe. But we will have an 


update from Stu. 


MEMBER FIELD: We’re hearing 


almost nothing here. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we'll have 


an update from Stu Hinnefeld, Stu? Just 


before Stu gets started, Stu will update us. 


I think there are two outstanding issues on 


the Weldon Springs SEC Site, which is the 


radon issue and the thorium issue. 


Since we don't have a Work Group 


here and wouldn't have a recommendation for 


the Work Group anyway at this point, it's 


not our plan to try to take any action on 


this SEC at this meeting. But it's more of 


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an informational update. Go ahead, Stu. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, this is Stu 


Hinnefeld again. At the last Work Group 


meeting, NIOSH was asked to present to the 


full Board information that we had about the 


model that we're proposing for 


reconstructing radon doses at Weldon Spring. 


And in addition, if we could, to 


speak to the question of what information do 


we have to support our conclusion that 


thorium processing at Weldon Spring only 


occurred from 1963 and later. 


And there's a further question 


about what do we know about the potential 


drying of the raffinate pits and what might 


potential exposure be from there. 


The first two, I think I can 


speak about at some length. The final one I 


could speak about very briefly. But 


probably I'm not ready to speak in detail 


about. 


First thing I'll go through now 


is the bounding radon model that we have 


proposed for Weldon Spring. 


Weldon Spring did not ever 


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receive any uranium ores. They received ore 


concentrates and then also I think maybe 


some, what we would call scrap recycling, 


uranium compounds that were sent for 


purification. But we know they'd 


received uranium mill concentrates. This 


has been discussed at the Work Group a 


while, in a number of settings. 


And going back to January of last 


year, when it was originally presented, the 


general description at the time was that all 


the radon is released during the processing. 


The radon that would be entrained in the 


mill concentrates would be released during 


the processing. 


And it would be introduced in 


some fashion into the digestion building. 


There is some small amount of ventilation 


and from that you would build a steady state 


model to estimate the amount of radon, or a 


bounding intake of radon, to use in the dose 


reconstruction. 


So another slide here speaks to 


some of the conditions that are described in 


May of 2011. The model apparently was 


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discussed and clarified some more. 


And then in June of this year we 


were asked to provide additional details 


about the model to the full Board so that 


the Work Group, I think, felt a little 


uncomfortable with the issue on their own. 


They felt like they wanted to 


expertise of the full Board to participate 


and know about how the radon model was being 


presented. 


In order to estimate how much 


radon would be generated in a year it's 


necessary to estimate, or to know how much 


material was processed through Weldon 


Springs. And various different sources give 


different estimates of that. 


As far as I can tell they range 


from about 5 million kilograms of ore 


concentrate up to about 14 1⁄2 million 


kilograms of ore concentrate. 


There might be a document that 


would lead you to conclude it may be a 


little higher, maybe as high as 16 million 


kilograms per year. I'll get to that in a 


little bit. That's the materials balance 


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report that was written for Weldon Spring. 


But at any rate, that would be 


the total amount that would be fed, the 


estimate of the amount of material that was 


fed through Weldon Springs. 


So an annual radon release, then, 


that would be released by that amount of ore 


concentrate at a 1 percent uranium, radium 


present at 1 percent of the uranium 


activity. So in other words the 


radium activity is 1 percent of the uranium 


activity, which was considered by the person 


who made that estimate to be a conservative 


upper, a high-end estimate for ore 


concentrates. Chances are there wasn't 


really that much radium in the ore 


concentrates. 


The person who made that original 


estimate and also estimated the range of 


radon emissions, 12 curies to 34 curies, 


actually worked for Argonne National 


Laboratories in the 1980s. 


MR. KATZ: Stu, can you hold just 


one second? People on the phone seem to 


have a lot of background noise. Is there 


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something we can do here about this? 


I'm not sure if it's because some 


people on the phone have not muted their 


phone lines. Because I have a phone right 


here which is very clear, listening to my 


phone. I'm hooked into this just as the 


people are here on the remote. 


It sounds clear as a bell to me 


so I'm mystified. But I have gotten a 


couple of messages of people who had a hard 


time hearing. I don't really understand it. 


MR. HINNEFELD: All right, in the 


1980s, Argonne National Laboratory wrote an 


estimate of historical doses from the Weldon 


Springs Site. 


They included in that a radon 


component. And that document was written in 


terms of doses to the surrounding 


population. What would this have caused? 


What would this site have caused to the 


surrounding population. 


And so they developed these radon 


generation rates of between 12 and 34 curies 


per year. The assumption of 70 percent of 


the material was uranium is the assumption 


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about the uranium content of the uranium 


concentrate, the ore concentrate. 


The bulk of the remaining 


probably being oxides and maybe, I guess, 


some sodium because it came with sodium 


diuranate, so other parts of the molecule. 


The equilibrium between radium 


and radon, well, that's a given that when 


you have that much radium you're going to 


have a certain amount of radon generated 


continuously. 


And so the estimator, at least, 


from Meshkov et al, that's the Argonne 


study, arrived at that 12 to 34 curies. For 


our purposes here we selected the higher 


value, 34 curies per year, and just went 


from there. And all this data is 


from Weldon Spring, that it was used just 


from Weldon Spring. We didn't use data from 


any other sites. 


The digestion building, which 


would be where the concentrates would have 


been digested in order to be refined to go 


into the extraction process and refinery, 


was the building that was selected to be 


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likely to have the highest concentration. 


We don't really believe that all 


the radon that was evolved during the 


process necessarily stayed in that building. 


We think probably some of it went out 


stacks. 


But the model presumes that 


everything that's evolved is fed into that 


building. So you have now an input rate. 


There's an expected ventilation 


rate of one air change per hour, which is a 


pretty low ventilation rate for an 


industrial building, which is what these 


were. These were steel structure, transite 


siding buildings. 


And so that's your output rate. 


And so you have an input rate and an output 


rate. And that will give you an equilibrium 


condition at some concentration. 


The calculation of working 


levels, which is what we wanted to convert 


this radon concentration into, because the 


working level is a little more meaningful in 


terms of workers’ exposure. 


And also, IREP expects a radon 


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dose to be in working levels or a working 


level month. Based on the equilibrium 


factor of .5, one working level is 100 


picocuries per liter of radium in full 


equilibrium. So if you're at .5 


equil,ibrium the working level, essentially, 


equates to 200 picocuries per liter. 


Working level being a measure of the 


progeny, not the radon. It's a measure of 


the radon progeny. 


The hours in a working level 


month are 170 and the number of occupational 


work hours a year we took to be 2,000. And 


so those values plug into the model. 


The equilibrium concentration for 


radon is described by this equation where 


one is the influx rate in picocuries per 


hour. V is the volume of the building. 


And ACH is the air changes. 


So you substitute in the values 


that I just described. You get 150 


picocuries per liter. Then you do the 


working level month conversion with these 


values where you have the working level 


months. 


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You start with what we just 


calculated, the picocuries per liter. You 


do the conversion from picocuries per liter 


to working level months. 


If they were in equilibrium over 


at the end, you have equilibrium factor 


where you adjust for the .5 equilibrium as 


opposed to the full equilibrium. 


And then you have the time 


duration, 2,000 occupational hours divided 


by 170 hours in a working level month. And 


so you arrive at a bounding working level 


month per-year exposure of just under nine 


working level months per year. 


So that's the model that we use 


for the radon concentration in the building. 


We believe there are conservatisms in the 


selection of 1 percent of radium. We 


believe that's probably high. 


And we think there's a 


significant conservatism in the assumption 


that all of the evolved radon ends up in 


this one building and is confined in the 


volume of the building. 


So that's it. I don't know how 


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better to explain it. I'll answer any 


questions if anybody has any. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: I've forgotten 


it. Were any measurements ever made in the 


facility for radon? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Not during the 


operational period. During the remediation 


period later on there were some radon 


measurements made. 


But the ore concentrates, 


probably were gone by that time. All that 


was left was some raffinate in the pits and 


then whatever contamination was around the 


place. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: While you 


didn't use surrogate data, how does this 


compare to other facilities where radon has 


been an issue and they processed ore? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, they didn't 


process ore at Weldon Spring. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: No, but it 


isn't processing ore, I mean concentrates. 


This isn't the only concentrate used. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, most of the 


radium has been removed. So you've got 


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significantly less radon than you would have 


if they had actually processed ore. 


I don't know if anybody knows off 


hand the kinds of radon concentrations we've 


seen in place or had ore stored. Do you 


guys know of any? I don't know that I've 


got a comparison on here. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So the contrast 


of this with, hate to mention this, Wanda, 


Blockson. Blockson, the building was a 


little bit more and the operation was more 


complex. MR. HINNEFELD: I 


think that in Blockson, probably all the 


radon did evolve in that building. And I 


think in this case it probably didn't, even 


though we made the assumption that it did. 


So we would have that additional bounding 


measure on this model. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right. And the 


single-building scenario, you would say 


would make more sense here than it did at 


Blockson. 


MR. HINNEFELD: I believe there's 


more conservatism into here in terms of 


getting, all this radon wasn't going to end 


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up in this building. But we assumed it went 


all the way through. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Stu, I know 


you're not the authority on this but when 


Weldon Springs first started out, they were 


going to use Blockson and they were going to 


use Fernald because as they said, they 


didn't have any data. 


Now all of a sudden we have data. 


And I have not really got a clear of what 


changed. Did we find some information or --


MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I don't 


know if we ever proposed surrogate radon 


data. Go ahead. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Actually, 


originally when we did the Evaluation 


Report, one of the things that we looked at 


was the fact that they did talk about using 


Fernald radon data. 


And at that time, surrogate data 


was becoming a hot issue. So I told our 


people, when you do the Evaluation Report, 


try to do it without the use of surrogate 


data, period. And so that's why they went 


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and they developed the model. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: So we actually 


do have radon measurements from --


MR. HINNEFELD: No, it's a model. 


It's a model based on conservative 


assumptions of the amount of radium present 


and then all the radon that's evolved being 


placed into this one building. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So the data's 


really is production and then the throughput 


and the --


MR. HINNEFELD: We do have data 


on production now. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, in 


buildings and so forth. But there is data 


there but it's production data, I guess it 


is. So it's not monitoring data. 


I don't think in this time period 


that you ever found monitoring data for 


these. Wasn't that one of the issues that 


came up with Blockson? I'm trying to recall 


whether --


DR. NETON: We had some 


monitoring data later on in the period of 


Blockson, some very limited data, but 


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nothing that was useful. That's why we 


ended up with a model there as well. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else 


with, Bill Field, I don't know if you --


MEMBER FIELD: Yes, Jim. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you have any 


questions or --


MEMBER FIELD: Yes, can you hear 


me okay? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MEMBER FIELD: Okay. I'm not on 


this Work Group but I was able to attend the 


last Work Group meeting by phone. That 


wasn't all that long ago. 


And I think it can be bound using 


the model that they've proposed. I just 


have some questions about some of the 


assumptions in the model itself. 


I have provided some references 


where the percent of the material was higher 


than 70 percent. And I was just going back 


and looking at where that arrived from. 


But I'm not sure. I struggle 


with it myself that that's a conservative 


figure. And then I understand how the 


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equilibrium ratio was calculated. 


But in my experience, assuming a 


50 percent equilibrium ratio for a building 


that has reasonable air movement I think 


that's not a conservative function. But 


these are all specifics with the model 


itself and not so much with can it be 


bounded. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any comments, 


Stu? 


MR. HINNEFELD: I actually didn't 


hear what his comment was about the 


equilibrium factor. He kind of faded there. 


MEMBER FIELD: Yes, what I was 


saying about the equilibrium factor, I avoid 


that. I understand you calculated 


empirically using this model. 


But based on my experience with 


buildings, that equilibrium factor's fairly 


low. If there's very little air movement I 


would expect a much higher equilibrium 


factor. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, so there'd 


be some discussion about what the 


appropriate factor should be --


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MEMBER FIELD: Right, these are 


specifics about the assumption and not 


whether or not it could bounded. 


MR. HINNEFELD: Right, okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 


questions? Again, we're not trying to reach 


closure this meeting. We probably will at 


the next meeting. 


So keep this in mind if you have 


questions that come up, more information on 


the model, please try to get them to Stu or 


to the Work Group before the next meeting. 


But I think we pretty much exhausted this 


one. You want to move on, then? 


MR. HINNEFELD: Well --


MS. M. JOHNSON: Excuse me? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes? 


MS. JOHNSON: This is Mary 


Johnson. I'm the claimant under the 


petition. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, when Stu 


is done with his presentation I'll ask you 


to speak. Because he's going to cover, I 


believe, at least two other issues. 


MS. M. JOHNSON: All right, thank 


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you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, I'm 


sorry. I should have mentioned that 


earlier. It's my fault. 


MR. HINNEFELD: The second issue 


that I can speak to is the thorium. When 


was the thorium processing done at Weldon 


Springs? We know that mainly it 


was a feed materials plant. Mainly it 


processed uranium. And our conclusion or 


our position is that there was thorium 


processing there. Yes, they did purify 


thorium but that didn't start until 1963. 


In support of that, we have a 


number of references. One is Reference ID 


8252 in our Site Research Database. The 


title of this document was prepared by, 


looks like, DOE Oak Ridge in July of 1986. 


And it says Historical Nuclear 


Materials Balance Report for the Former AEC-


owned Weldon Springs Chemical Plant. It 


describes the sources they used to compile 


this information. 


Where you see data search 


activities included, two thorough searches 


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of retired AEC DOE files retained in Oak 


Ridge and inspection of the files retained 


in Weldon Springs, Number 2, Number 3, 


contacts with U.S. government's records 


center in Winnebago Street, St. Louis and 


four reviews of active DOE files. 


And it says only Items 1 and 4 


produced usable information. One being the 


retired AEC DOE files in Oak Ridge and four 


being the reviews of active DOE files. So 


they got this information from there. 


The data that they used were data 


summaries and annual material balances. See 


if they came from data compilations and 


their associated work papers prepared by AEC 


employees and monthly material balance 


reports provided to the AEC by the operating 


contractor. 


So when they compiled this report 


they looked back to the inventory documents 


that DOE had kept for Weldon Springs. 


There's a tabular representation of the 


thorium inventory. 


And it has a column for, this is 


the number of kilograms -- and this is by 


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year, by fiscal year -- the beginning 


inventory, the receipts in that year, the 


removals, which can be shipments and 


discards, meaning throwing away, the ending 


inventory. 


And then there's a column called 


inventory difference, which is what the 


Department of Energy would do to resolve 


inventory differences, because it didn't 


exactly balance. It'd always have some 


inventory difference in their record. 


For thorium, at Mallinckrodt they 


didn't do that inventory difference 


resolution until the final year. So that's 


all zeros until the final year. And they 


just did the one resolution. 


This table shows that there was no 


thorium in the beginning of 1958. They 


received 44 kilograms in 1958. That remained 


their starting inventory every year through 


1962. 


In 1962, 39 kilograms were removed 


so they had an ending balance of five 


kilograms. And then in 1964 they started 


receiving, this is fiscal 1964 so it would 


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have been the last half of calendar 1963. 


They started receiving thorium in 


the tens of thousands of kilogram range in 


'64 and then hundreds of thousands of 


kilograms in '65 and '66. 


So there was a materials balance 


report that was prepared in 1986 from what 


appeared to be the original inventory control 


documents that described that thorium 


content. We also had a question 


about, was this thorium that was received and 


used there recycled thorium. In our program 


we refer to recycled thorium or recycled 


uranium as those materials that have been in 


a reactor, irradiated in a reactor and then 


purified, re-purified back to thorium 


uranium. 


But when they're refined back, 


they're not entirely pure anymore. You can 


bring along some contaminants in it that can 


change the radiological exposure 


characteristics of it. 


For instance, in recycled uranium, 


usually it brings along a little plutonium 


and neptunium, which alters your dose 


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reconstruction because you have to count the 


doses from those nuclides. In thorium, it 


bring along U-233, uranium 233, there's some 


of that there. 


In this instance, it appears that 


all of the thorium that went to Weldon 


Springs went there from the Fernald plant. 


And it appears that the Fernald plant did not 


start receiving recycled thorium from 


Savannah River until 1966, essentially the 


end of Weldon Springs' existence. 


We have several references that 


talk about that. Let me see if I can find 


some of these from Savannah River. I won't 


go through the reference IDs, although we do 


have it. We'll have to write-up some of 


this. We haven't written it. This just came 


together in the last few days. 


They have a memo about production 


of byproduct thorium nitrate solution 


handling and storage. They had a meeting 


about it to talk about what are they going to 


do with this recycled thorium, essentially, 


this thorium byproduct. 


And in there, there's a schedule 


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that calls for the first shipment from 


Savannah River to occur in the late '66 to 


'67 time frame. 


So that's where the recycled 


thorium went from when it went to Fernald. 


And so they were shipping it around '66 or 


'67. 


We also have, from Fernald, a 


report from 1967, this would be April of 


1967, called Analysis of Health Problem in 


Processing Recycled Thorium, in which they 


are preparing to receive or handle, preparing 


to deal with the recycled thorium that they 


received from Savannah River. 


And they are saying this is the 


things we have to worry about. And they talk 


about fission products and the other things 


that can be contained in recycled thorium. 


And that dates from 1967. 


There's a further memo. This came 


from Fernald. This was a later document. 


This was prepared in, I believe, the 1980s. 


The title of the document is Thorium, A 


Search of the Available Records of the FMPC. 


It describes the thorium work at 


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Fernald. It speaks about, in 1963 the AEC 


expressed the need for a quantity of 


extremely pure thorium nitrate for the 


production of dense thorium dioxide. 


They took some thorium nitrate 


they had on hand and they described the 


chemical purification they did to make is 


super-pure in order to send to Mallinckrodt 


Chemical Works, which by 1963 was Weldon 


Springs. But Destrehan Street was closed. 


So in here they're talking about 


this was the thorium that they then purified 


to a greater extent than normal to send to 


Weldon Springs in 1963. And those are the 


receipts that we saw arriving at Weldon 


Springs in the materials balance report that 


we started talking about. 


And, finally, attached to this is 


a list, apparently of all the thorium work 


orders that Fernald found in the 1980s. And 


maybe it's all of them. 


And in there, there's a work order 


to send essentially 40 kilograms in 1958. 


And then there are several others to send 


many, many more kilograms in '63 and later. 


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So in terms of when it arrived and 


whether it was recycled or not, we think we 


have a pretty complete story. And we managed 


to put that together with these documents. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, I think 


you were the one that had raised this issue. 


Is that making sense to you? I mean, it's a 


lot to absorb and to be able --


MEMBER CLAWSON: -- right, to be 


able to put my eyes on it. Just the 


documentation, and I understand, when you 


went back you used a memo that was a mass 


balance. But it was taken from other 


documentation. 


MR. HINNEFELD: It was a mass 


balance summary that was written in the 


1980s. I think it was 1986. And they 


described in it the documents that they used, 


where did they find the information that they 


used to put into that report. 


And we can provide the entire 


document. It's on the SRDB. We can put it 


on K: drive or provide it, send it to 


wherever you want to send it. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I just wanted to 


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look at it because it seemed like to me that 


I'd seen other documents that talked about a 


whole other process but from the earlier 


years. MR. HINNEFELD: There was 


a process -- yes, what you're talking about 


is a process that occurred at Mallinckrodt 


and a document that was written again in the 


'80s for an epidemiology report that 


described thorium work. And that gave the 


impression that that work continued at Weldon 


Spring. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: The document 


actually said that it continued on --


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, that it 


continued at Weldon Spring. We've not found 


that in any of this. We have not. And we 


tried to interview -- well, there were two 


persons involved in preparing that document 


in the 1980s. 


We interviewed one who essentially 


couldn't remember or didn't tell us that, oh 


yes, we know for sure that went over. We 


didn't get anything useful. The other person 


would never call us back or declined to talk 


to us. So we could only interview one of the 


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two. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: And you understand 


my position on this because I've got one 


document that's saying that it did and then, 


even the same time period to that, you're 


using a document that says it didn't. But I 


will review the information, and we’ll proceed 


on. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 


questions for -- and you are writing a report 


and all this will be documented --


MR. HINNEFELD: We will put this 


together. I'm sure some of this has been 


written before. But we will put it together 


concisely to address this issue only and 


include the references and make them readily 


available. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And now, 


the third issue? 


MR. HINNEFELD: The third issue had 


to do with the contention that the raffinate 


pits dried out. And therefore there would be 


a potential for re-suspension of material in 


the raffinate pits. 


I believe this probably relates to 


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the interim period between closure of Weldon 


Springs in '66 or '67 and the start of 


remediation in the late '80s. 


I think probably if the people were 


at Weldon Springs they would not let the 


raffinate pits dry out. They would pump some 


water back on the raffinate pits. 


Pits 1 and 2 had the shallowest 


amount of water. They only had a few inches 


of water on top. Pits 3 and 4 had far more 


water on top. So the document that describes 


the drying of the pits talks about pits 1 and 


2. 


Those documents were written in '88 


and '89. One was the sampling plan for the 


raffinate pits. Another was an EPA 


environmental impact statement. They both 


make the statement that those raffinate pits 


could dry out during the dry season. 


We have looked at what we can. We 


know that there was air sampling being done 


around the raffinate pits in '87, starting in 


'87. And then that expanded in '89 when the 


remediation work got going. So we had more 


sampling in '89. 


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In '87 and '88 a document that I 


received over the weekend didn't include the 


actual monitoring results that were collected 


in '87 and '88 and '89. But they were 


described as being indistinguishable from 


background. 


Now it could be the environmental 


monitoring for it that was written said that 


maybe all the results they gave, 


indistinguishable from background. They may 


not have actually given the results. From 


1990 on there are numerical results for the 


environmental monitoring. 


So during this period there was 


some sampling done, not throughout the period 


but during a course of the period. During a 


couple of years when the rainfall was less 


than average, they've looked at the rainfall 


for all those years, '87 and '88 rainfall, or 


'88, '89's rainfall were less than average. 


And they didn't see any particular 


airborne activity during those periods. So I 


guess by extension we would feel like that 


would be fairly indicative of the situation 


that was faced over the period of time when 


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the pits may have dried out. 


And there wouldn't have been that 


much resuspension anyway. So that I just got. 


And that's not quite as far. Haven't been 


able to get as much information together about 


that as I have about the recycled thorium. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any questions on 


that issue? Thank you, Stu, for summarizing 


and doing so on relatively short notice here. 


We appreciate that and follow-up. 


I believe that the petitioner is on 


the line and would like to make some comments. 


MS. TRIPLETT: Tina Triplett, and I 


have a couple of comments --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, go ahead. 


MS. TRIPLETT: -- about the 


raffinate pits. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is this Karen 


Johnson? 


MS. TRIPLETT: No, this is Tina 


Triplett. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Go ahead, 


sorry. Karen was on earlier. That's why I 


was confused. 


MS. TRIPLETT: -- we were just 


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talking about the raffinate pits. There was 


only, I believe, three references cited by 


NIOSH stating that there would be no 


significant exposure from the pit. 


But we have 11 cited references 


that state the exact same thing, where the 


pits could have evaporated, leaving that dry 


and cracked surface, which depended a lot on 


the temperature and the precipitation during 


those time frames, especially in the summer 


months. One of the things, and 


the document stated the most significant 


physical hazard connected to the pits was the 


quicksand nature of the contained residue, 


which NIOSH failed to detail that under a 


response to SC&A, SEC issue Number 7. 


Other details that were omitted was 


that the pits did dry to that quicksand nature 


during the summer months and that most of the 


material around the edges in the dry weather 


dried to a light, fluffy texture. So if those 


did exist it would create an exposure that 


cannot be dosed according to SC&A. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Does SC&A have 


that information? 


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MS. TRIPLETT: I believe so. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, then we'll 


make sure it's followed up on. 


MS. TRIPLETT: And I do have a list 


of the documents too. I can re-send if I need 


to. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, just to make 


sure. As I said earlier, Ron Buchanan from 


SC&A could not be here today and is not on the 


phone. So we don't have him to check with. 


John Stiver, you want to --


MR. STIVER: Yes, I can just say 


that Ron is in the process of putting all of 


this together. And we have some responses. 


So it won't be long, maybe another week or 


two. He'll be back at the end of this week. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks. 


You have any other further comments? 


MS. M. JOHNSON: This is Mary 


Johnson. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, go ahead. 


MS. M. JOHNSON: I would just like 


to have it on the record that we are very, 


very, very disappointed, to put it mildly, 


that this is not being voted on today. This 


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will be the third time we've been told at the 


next meeting a vote will go. We have waited 


time and time again for some kind of decision 


to be made, and we are tired. 


I am beyond frustrated, disgusted, 


and I think this is a ridiculous procedure. 


If any one of you people would step back and 


just look for one second like an outsider and 


place yourself in these claimants' positions, 


the amount of work, effort, research, 


assumptions, whatever it takes that you have 


gone through to try to deny us is absolutely 


ridiculous -- that they immediately need to go 


to school and get their doctorate in physics 


to understand this program, no other equal way 


that a claimant can have any kind of closure. 


Now you are asking us to wait two 


and three months more to get an answer. This 


is beyond, it's disrespectful. What does it 


take to get some justice in this program? 


MS. K. JOHNSON: Hi, this is Karen 


Johnson, too. I would also like to state that 


-- suspicious that none of our Work Group 


Members have made it here today. 


It's disrespectful. I'm 


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disappointed. We deserve more respect, and we 


deserve more Work Group representation on our 


Work Group, more Board representation on our 


Work Group. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 


Anything else? 


MS. K. JOHNSON: I think that's it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you 


very much. So we'll finish up reports. We'll 


get going, reconstitute a Work Group meeting. 


And I expect by the next -- hope by the next 


meeting we'll be able to get this resolved. 


Okay, back to Work Group work 


reports. Let's see where we are. Lawrence 


Berkeley? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: At the Oakland 


meeting I gave an update on the status of 


Lawrence Berkeley. We've not met since then 


so I have nothing further to report at this 


time. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Linde 


we'll hear from on Thursday. 


MR. KATZ: People on the line, will 


you please mute your phones. Press * then 6 


to mute your phones. We're hearing a lot of 


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background noise that I'm sure is getting in 


the way of the other people on the phone 


hearing. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mound we'll also 


hear from later. Nevada Test Site, do we have 


any activity there? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: No. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Pantex? 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Just to let you 


know, on Pantex original --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Talk directly 


into the mic, please. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: -- SEC was from 


1950 to 1991. As you know, we've passed an 


SEC for 1958 to 1983. One of the reasons why, 


is we didn't have sufficient data for the 1950 


time period to '57. We're still working on 


that. 


In 1991, due to the rise of the 


recycled uranium issue, Pantex did over 300 


bioassays. And at the last Work Group meeting 


we had NIOSH was going to go back and look at 


being able to use that for the time period 


from 1984 to '91, to be able to see if that 


would be able to be performed. 


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We're still waiting on that 


information. That's in NIOSH's court. I 


understand that there are some document issues 


and problems. But we'll probably have another 


Pantex Work Group to be able to go over that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I think my 


understanding from talking to Greg and DOE, I 


think we're in the process of resolving the 


documentation issues. And so they should be 


forthcoming relatively soon, and we can move 


on on that issue. I know it's been awhile, 


and there was a little bit of confusion over 


reviewing some of them. But I think it's 


resolved. 


But let's make sure everybody 


continues to communicate on that. Because 


that was some of the problem that we had going 


on there. So we've talked. 


Anybody else have questions on 


Pantex and then, I believe, you're going down 


for data capture. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, it is. But 


that's actually for Medina, Clarksville. But 


we're going to try to look at some of the data 


that has been held up there. 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, good. 


Thank you, Brad, for all your efforts on 


these. Dick Lemen's not here. Do you know if 


Sandia, if there's been any activity? 


MEMBER BEACH: We haven't had any 


meetings. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, okay, that's 


right. And same on Santa Susana, correct? 


MEMBER BEACH: That's Phil's now, 


it looks like. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, just very 


recently. 


MEMBER SCHOFIELD: So I haven't got 


anything done on it. I'll be honest with you 


there. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, that's why 


I was being honest and pointing out you 


haven't had much time to get much done. 


I guess David's not on the line. 


Science Issues Group? Has there been a 


meeting, Paul or whoever? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I'll report, 


and maybe Gen can also participate. The 


Science Issues Group did meet. I forget the 


date. It's been several weeks ago. 


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And we met with the folks from 


SENES Oak Ridge, who went through a fairly 


extensive document, trying to recall all the 


focus there. Gen, help me out. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: DDREF? 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, dose rate 


factors. But that's a very extensive 


document. All we've done so far is have them 


review for us what the issues are. 


And they've done a very extensive 


job of pulling together all the current 


literature on this. I actually don't recall 


what the next step is going to be on that, 


Gen. 


MEMBER ROESSLER: NIOSH is going to 


do a peer review on it. And they asked for 


ideas for peer reviewers. I turned in a list. 


And I think that was the one thing they were 


wanting from the Group. 


DR. NETON: Right, we had not had 


this reviewed externally for scientific peer 


review. We indicated we'd like to get this 


done in three to six months time frame. 


I have a list now of about ten 


external reviewers we'd like to use. Maybe 


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five or six to review the document, a good 


dispersion of backgrounds to review it. And 


we'll report back after that time. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, great, 


thanks. Thank you, Paul, for stepping in. 


SEC Issues Work Group, I think I've already 


reported. 


The only meeting we've had has been 


a short meeting to talk about the sufficient 


accuracy issue. And we're waiting on the 


NIOSH report. Wanda, Subcommittee on 


Procedures. 


MEMBER MUNN: Procedures met last 


on April 11th and continued the work that 


we've had in hand for quite some time, for the 


most part. 


I think the Board's aware of the 


fact that we’ve had almost 540, I think it's 


539 is the number that the database gives us, 


of the number of findings that we have been 


working on. 


And we continue to close out a few 


from time to time. And in terms of good 


progress we continue to move slowly in the 


right direction, in any case. 


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One of the things that might be 


confusing to people if they review the 


database is that it cannot, at the current 


time -- and we discussed this during our 


meeting -- the only thing that it doesn't do 


now, that we had laid out that we wanted to 


do, was it does not give what we have always 


called our Summary Report, which gives the 


grand totals of how many of the outstanding 


issues are still open. Most of the 


open items that we have left are related 


almost entirely to procedures which are no 


longer viable. They have either been 


superceded or have been cancelled for one 


reason or another. 


They're still on our list because 


they may have issues embedded in them which 


translate to current procedures. But for the 


most part, that's not the case. For the most 


part anything that does translate into current 


procedures has been identified and is worked 


on the list. 


The database is operating pretty 


well. We're rather pleased with it. The hot 


links are particularly helpful when we are 


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working in the database. And we're looking 


forward to the time when it will be more 


widely used by other organizations inside the 


Board structure. 


We have begun some discussion of 


putting together the overarching issues list 


and incorporating it into our database. We 


are closing out, within the next couple of 


weeks, closing out the last pair of two page 


reviews that I am still working on. 


And we'll undertake, at the next 


meeting, to take a look for the first time at 


the new set of two pagers, which have been 


provided to us by SC&A. 


Later in the meeting, I believe, 


SC&A is going to talk to us about the request 


that they've given to us asking the entire 


Board to take a look at what their expectation 


is for additions to work upcoming. 


And at that time I may have some 


comments about what we might be looking at in 


the future. But for the time being, our next 


meeting is scheduled for July 31. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. 


Are there any questions for Wanda? And we 


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will expect comments on the SC&A. 


MEMBER MUNN: You will undoubtedly 


have a few. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Undoubtedly. 


Uranium refining? 


MEMBER ANDERSON: We've been very 


active. We have switched membership, so I 


want to welcome our newest Member, David 


Kotelchuck. And right now we have 


one SEC that is basically on hold waiting for 


the release of a clearance document for us. 


And so it's sort of out of both NIOSH's hands. 


Oh, you've got it, you brought it? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Hot off the press. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: My gosh. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: I mean I just got 


an email that the Navy said we will be getting 


a document very soon, meaning within the next 


couple of weeks. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Check's in the 


mail. 


MEMBER ANDERSON: Check's in the 


mail. Well, that's good. Then before the 


next meeting we should be able to review that 


and have a discussion. 


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Because I think we’ve closed out 


most of the issues except for that. We did 


get a notice, or a letter from the petitioner 


asking for a hearing. But of course we don't 


do legal proceedings, hearings here. 


And there was a reply to that. But 


I would assume, when we have the Board meeting 


to go over our final recommendation, we would 


be sure that they would be available to make 


comments. Otherwise, most of our issues are 


on Site Profiles. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good, any 


questions for Henry? And last but not least, 


Worker Outreach. 


MEMBER BEACH: Okay, so Worker 


Outreach has two issues it's working on at 


this time. And we did pick up a new Member 


also, so welcome, Loretta. We'll be happy to, 


in fact, very ecstatic to have you with us. 


The first issue, in early 2010 we 


tasked SC&A to review a procedure that was 


recently issued by NIOSH, OCAS-PR-12. It 


replaced an earlier version, Procedure 0097. 


SC&A completed their review, which was 


submitted to the Work Group in April of 2010. 


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This addressed a number of concerns ranging 


from how worker comments are tracked, 


addressed and documented in the tracking 


system, to whether relevant outreach venues 


are pursued. 


In advance of the October 2010 


meeting, SC&A developed an issues matrix for 


us for the Procedure 12 actions. There was a 


revision to that in 2010. 


The Work Group provided its 


comments on PR-12 and asked to see a revision 


to that earlier document that was in 


development at the time. 


This matrix was updated in 2012 so 


if you followed we've actually had an update, 


three different matrix on PR-12. We also had a 


change in our lead for SC&A at the time. 


Let's see, where we're at now is 


NIOSH has reported that DCAS expects to be 


able to provide a response to the Work Group, 


to the March 2012 findings, by July 9th, is 


the date. And a draft copy of the 


Procedure 12 was sent to the Work Group and 


SC&A on July 7th, 2011. And at least one of 


the recommendations was put into the revision 


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back in March. 


So the process is working. 


However, we're hoping to see a closure to the 


Procedure 12 at the next Work Group meeting. 


They just had to fine tune it, basically. 


Okay, the next issue we're working 


on is the outreach pilot. SC&A was tasked by 


the Working Group. And I've reported on this 


before. I just wanted to bring everybody up 


to speed with the new Members. 


We tasked SC&A to prepare an 


evaluation plan for Objective 3, which is out 


of our mission statement or the mission of our 


Work Group. It's part of the implementation 


plan. 


This objective focuses on assessing 


DCAS's consideration of worker input, 


incorporation of that information into 


technical work products, and communication 


regarding the disposition and impact of 


meaningful comments. 


The Work Group agreed that the 


pilot evaluation is warranted and selected 


Rocky Flats Plant for the initial review. 


An implementation plan was drafted 


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by SC&A back in December of 2010, which 


described a process for SC&A to review worker 


comments, determining the outcome of the 


comments consideration, and evaluate the 


follow-up of communication efforts. 


Given the numerous comments -- I 


believe there was over, I think, 900 comments, 


there was a great deal -- within the Work 


Group we decided that we would break that down 


into a smaller sub-sampling, which ended up 


still being almost 200 pages. 


Anyway, to this end SC&A developed 


a sampling evaluation plan. It was reviewed 


by the Work Group, given final approval back 


in November of 2011. 


SC&A evaluated 101 randomly 


selected comments from a pool of 363 comments. 


These comments were submitted to NIOSH for 


input and validation back in February. And we 


just received last Thursday their initial 


review responses in time for this meeting. 


However, Stu, they're going to 


finalize it and get a report to us again in 


July. I believe on the 9th. So hopefully 


we'll be able to plan a Work Group meeting 


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once SC&A takes a look at those comments. And 


I'm hoping in the first of August time frame. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Will SC&A be 


ready? 


MR. FITZGERALD: We're already 


working on it, and we should be ready by 


August. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. And 


thanks for NIOSH for finally getting that, 


moving along there. 


MEMBER BEACH: It is tough. It's a 


lot of work. And it goes back many years. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any questions for 


Josie? 


(Off the record comments.) 


MR. KATZ: Hello, there's someone 


on the line who is trying to speak to someone 


else but not the Board. This is the Advisory 


Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 


Whoever's speaking could you mute your phone 


please? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's someone 


trying to reach you, Sam. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sounded work 


related. Okay, that takes care of our Work 


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Groups' reports. Not of our Work Groups but 


at least of the reports here. 


And we have two issues that I want 


to just try to remind everybody scheduled for 


tomorrow for Work Group session. One will be 


to go over the response to comments, the two 


meetings. 


So if you can read those over 


tonight, I thought I'd remind everybody this 


morning. Shouldn't take long but as long as 


we've read over and identified any ones that 


you have, main thing is to identify ones that 


you have questions about what the response is 


to those. But if we try to read it here for 


the first time it gets a bit tedious and not 


very helpful. 


So the second thing I would like to 


accomplish tomorrow, we have a fair amount of 


time for a Board work session later in the 


afternoon, would be the SC&A tasking. 


And John Stivers sent it, and Ted 


circulated an email to everybody. I think the 


memo from John that lays out a number of 


possible tasking assignments that we would 


need to look over and so forth. 


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I think at the end of the day 


tomorrow would be a good time to do that. We 


will have gone through enough of this meeting 


to know where we basically stand on most of 


the sites that are under consideration. And 


we should be ready. 


But the way their fiscal year is 


set up it's important that we get the 


assignments into the pipeline here now so they 


can get to work. It involves some guesswork 


and a little bit of some contingency. But 


it's something we need to talk about tomorrow. 


So anyway, if you can all please read up on 


that particular memo so we're ready to talk 


about it tomorrow, do that. 


And see we talk about it and Ruben 


walks in. Okay, I think we need to wait until 


3:15. So why don't we take a short break and 


try to get back here right at 3:15 so we can 


do the Hanford one. Because a petitioner may 


very well be on the line for that. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 3:08 p.m. and 


resumed at 3:15 p.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, it's 3:15. 


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We'll get started. 


MR. KATZ: Folks, while people are 


getting seated, let me just, for the benefit 


of people here from Los Alamos or the area, 


any of the New Mexico sites, who would like to 


speak, there's a -- hello, excuse me, 


attention. 


There's a public comment session 


tonight at -- begins, I believe, yes, at 5:15, 


5:15 to 6:15. If you would like to make 


public comments, there's a book outside the 


door where you can sign in, a registration 


book for that, and then we'll have your name 


and can call you during that public comment 


session. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, the first 


session right now is the Hanford SEC Petition. 


It's a new petition, an 83.14. 


And Sam Glover got his own audience 


here so we'll get tough questions then, Sam. 


We're not going to let you off light like we 


do LaVon. 


DR. GLOVER: Thank you, Dr. Melius. 


Is this okay? Everybody can hear me? 


All right. So we're here today to 


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talk about the 1972 through 1983 time frame 


for Hanford. And I just wanted to kind of 


start off by this has been a lot of work, been 


a lot of work in coordination with the Board, 


with its contractor. 


DOE has been tremendous. I won't 


name names, but going out of their way to be 


extremely helpful in trying to find claimants. 


Had people from the past to come and give us 


interviews. 


It's just been a tremendous effort 


all the way around, and so I really wanted to 


let folks know and as well as, you know, the 


people who came in for the interviews. 


They've been extremely helpful. 


We’ll wait for the computer to 


think. There it goes. 


So this is an 83.14. It's a 


continuation of earlier petitions. The 


proposed Class is all employees, the 


Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies 


and their contractors who worked at Hanford 


Engineering Works from July 1, 1972 through 


December 31, 1983. 


Just a little bit of history for 


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new Board Members, and this has been going on 


a long time, and so I want to make sure we 


kind of get the history of the first Class. 


There's been three Classes added to the SEC. 


There's an October 1, '43 through 


October 31, 1946, and that was part of 


Petition 57-1; September 1, 1946 through 


December 31, 1968 for selected area of 


Hanford, and that was Petition 57-2; an 


overriding Class was then established from 


October 1, 1943 through June 30, 1972 for all 


areas of Hanford, and this Class essentially 


subsumes the previous two Classes, and this is 


Petition 152. 


Petition 57 requested the SEC Class 


be continued through 1990. Petition 201, this 


report, represents the research NIOSH 


conducted as part of the post-1972 review. 


The remaining time period, 1984 through 1990, 


will remain the subject of continuing 


investigation. 


Petition 155, very briefly, I know 


Arjun spoke about this earlier, remains also 


before the Board. And this petition 


essentially deals with petitioners’ specific 


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evidence of accusations by the US EPA of 


purposeful wrongdoing by U.S. Testing. 


Resulted in NIOSH determining that 


issues regarding quality of bioassay data 


required further investigation as a separate 


issue from continuing the Board evaluation of 


Petition 57, from 1987 through 1989. 


The intent of NIOSH's separate 


evaluation of Petition 155 was to ensure that 


issues identified with U.S. Testing's non-


bioassay analytical programs did not also 


adversely affect the company's bioassay 


analysis operations in Richland. SC&A is 


currently preparing a report regarding this. 


So essentially this is an update of 


activities. The Advisory Board had previously 


identified three focus areas, americium, 


thorium, and uranium, as part of Petition 152. 


NIOSH prepared a number of draft 


reports for various nuclides which were used 


to develop Petition 152 and also to update the 


TBD. NIOSH continued to focus activities on 


the post-1972 time frame, concentrating on 


neptunium, uranium, that is HEU and U-233, and 


thorium. 


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Results of these investigation led 


to a Class proposed by NIOSH in the Evaluation 


Report for Petition 201, and data gained from 


additional data captures will be used to 


update the TBD. The standard sources of 


information, but I did want to point out here 


the TBDs, the TIBs. We had 19 additional 


interviews conducted just for this part of the 


SEC review. 


We now have over 32,000 Hanfordrelated documents, and we also had ten 


additional data capture efforts. Even with 


all of that help and all of that, research at 


Hanford has been challenging. 


Unlike Savannah River, there's not 


a single contractor for most of this. There 


are many. There are a multitude of 


contractors. So changes in contractors and 


missions often change the entire strategy and 


the documentation available and even the 


personnel change. 


These challenges have led to 


focused efforts involving the review of large 


numbers of classified and unclassified 


documents. NIOSH and the Advisory Board, with 


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the support of DOE Richland, have worked to 


review this complex facility with a view to 


timeliness and accuracy. 


So I'm going to talk about three 


nuclides. And at the conclusion of Petition 


152 for neptunium, NIOSH's research at that 


point indicated that programs related to 


neptunium had ceased. 


Activities before July 1, 1972, as 


described in Petition 152, included the Area 


200 activities which started very early, May 


1, 1948 through June 30, 1972, associated with 


neptunium-237, crude separation of neptunium 


from metal wastes beginning in May 1948. 


MR. KATZ: Excuse me. Someone on 


the line doesn't have their phone muted, and 


we have lovely music, but it's not helpful. 


DR. GLOVER: Yes, I think we got 


put on hold. There we go. 


So production of neptunium nitrate 


in the 200 Area ceased with the shutdown of 


PUREX in June of 1972. 


These are our Petition 152 


conclusions. Area 300 saw neptunium work from 


January 1, 1966 through December 31, 1970, 


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with target element fabrication and 


neptunium/plutonium separations continuing 


into 1970. 


Continued research at Hanford led 


NIOSH to follow a series of activities located 


in the 200 and 300 Areas involving neptunium 


operations that were not addressed by Petition 


152. These were conducted after June of 1972. 


A series of partial material 


inventories show that neptunium was used by a 


variety of departments including Metallurgical 


Development, Chemical Technology and Fuel 


Design and Development. 


Numerous buildings were identified 


as having continued neptunium operations 


including -- this is a partial listing, 


defense-related metallurgical work at 231Z, 


Fuel Design and Development in 308 Building, 


research in 325 and 329. 


And we had continued entries into 


the Q and J cells of PUREX, which were the 


neptunium separation facilities as part of 


PUREX. 


So those were the isolation, where 


they did the fine cleaning of neptunium to 


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separate it very purely from the plutonium 


products. 


For monitoring, we saw no bioassay 


prior to 1972. We had four, only four, in 


vitro bioassay measurements in the Petition 


201 time frame. All were collected on the 


same day in September of 1972. 


We have a single count for 


neptunium-237 in the Hanford REX database, and 


that's the radiological database. 


So the other nuclide I talked about 


was thorium, the second nuclide, and so also 


at the conclusion of Petition 152, NIOSH's 


research at that point indicated that thorium 


had ceased. 


We were looking at that. We had 


Area 100, 1965 through '68, where they had 


fuel element failures. Area 200 they had 


major thorium campaigns and production of 


thorium. 


Area 300, in the early years, they 


had long time, from the '45 through '70 


thorium operations and the final campaign 


being pelletized thorium oxide in the 1970 


time frame. 


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And again, continued research at 


Hanford led NIOSH to follow a series of 


activities located in the 200 and 300 area 


that were not addressed by Petition 152. 


These included preparation and 


shipping of 350 tons of thorium to Fernald. 


This material was left over from the Thorex 


campaigns and was slightly contaminated with 


U-233. 


This was conducted in 203-A, 241-WR 


and 204-S facilities. Shipments occurred 


during the period 1977 through '79, with 33 


shipments total is what we believe, and the 


facilities required cleanup after the material 


removal. 


Other included processes which 


generated plutonium/uranium/thorium scrap 


which was sent to LANL. 300 Area work which 


included reactor fuels research. 


We also see a Thorium Oxide Fuel 


Development Laboratory completed in mid-1979 


located in the 306 West Building. Very little 


data is available regarding thorium monitoring 


and cannot be tied to operations at the site. 


There are only 11 in vitro bioassay 


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urinalysis results for the element from the 


period 1972 through 1983. Only one record in 


1979, seven in 1980 and three in 1981. 


REX database contains 16 in vivo 


bioassay results for thorium-232 in the time 


frame. Again, very, very sparse. 


So finally, the third nuclide we 


concentrated on was uranium. Again, our 


research had pointed out that very little HEU 


and U-233 work was done by mid-1972. 


And, again, we continued our 


research and found additional activities in 


the 200 and 300 Area regarding HEU and U-233. 


These activities included research 


by the Nuclear Experiments Group, defense-


related metallurgical research at 231Z as well 


as at 234-5 plant, and likely other 


facilities. 


Research located in the 300 Area 


including the 325, 303-C, 305, 313, 314, 324, 


326, 327 and 333 Buildings. Criticality 


studies and associated fabrication of HEU for 


criticality studies in 306 Building. 


Hanford monitored workers for 


natural uranium exposure using total uranium 


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fluorometric methods as well as lung counting. 


At the end of 1983, Hanford 


implemented and began to utilize methods for 


the determination of isotopic uranium in 


urine, alpha spectrometry. 


NIOSH determined that it's unable 


to use natural uranium monitoring from this 


period to cover the types of work and research 


being conducted at Hanford during the proposed 


time frame. 


Conclusion from the research: NIOSH 


has evaluated the available information and 


determined that it does not have access to 


sufficient personnel monitoring, workplace 


monitoring, or source term data to 


sufficiently estimate potential internal 


exposures to HEU, U-233, thorium or neptunium 


during the period July 1, 1972 through 


December 31, 1983. 


So for Petition 201, why the Class? 


Workers potentially exposed to thorium, 


neptunium, HEU and U-233 who were not 


monitored nor does a suitable dose 


reconstruction method exist. 


 Several infeasibilities exist 


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during the time frame in question, and are 


presented in the form which provides broad 


coverage to the infeasibility. 


Decision was based on the lack of 


adequate biological monitoring data, 


sufficient air monitoring information and/or 


sufficient process and radiological source 


term data to reconstruct dose with sufficient 


accuracy. 


Why everyone? Based on dose 


reconstruction experience and records, NIOSH 


further determined that there is not 


sufficient information available to enable 


NIOSH to accurately assess whether an energy 


employee or Class of employees did or did not 


potentially enter specific areas of Hanford 


during the time frame associated with Petition 


201. 


What about employees not included 


in the SEC? NIOSH intends to use any internal 


and external monitoring data and medical dose 


that may become available for an individual 


claim and that could be interpreted using 


existing dose reconstruction processes. 


Health endangerment: the evidence 


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reviewed in this evaluation indicate that some 


workers in the Class may have accumulated 


chronic radiation exposures through intakes of 


radionuclides and direct exposure to 


radioactive materials. 


Consequently, NIOSH is specifying 


that health may have been endangered for those 


workers who were employed for a number of work 


days aggregating at least 250 work days within 


the parameters established for this Class or 


in combination with work days established for 


other Classes in the SEC. 


So the proposed Class: all 


employees of the Department of Energy, its 


predecessor agencies and its contractors and 


subcontractors who worked at the Hanford site 


in Richland, Washington, from July 1, 1972 


through December 31, 1983, for a number of 


work days aggregating at least 250 work days, 


occurring either solely under this employment 


or in combination with work days within the 


parameters established for one or more other 


Classes of employees included in the Special 


Exposure Cohort. 


Just a brief idea of the scope of 


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the SEC. We have about 4500 total claims of 


Hanford and PNNL. 


PNNL was a contractor who operated 


facilities at the Hanford site and so their 


claims are lumped in that time frame at 


Hanford. 


Eight hundred sixty-five of those 


have been currently withdrawn for the existing 


SECs. Total number with a DR at DOL is about 


4000, 3958. 


Number of claims with a presumptive 


cancer during the proposed time frame, 1522. 


Number of claims with non-presumptives is 


1082. Number of claims at NIOSH with a 


presumptive cancer is 59. 


So those numbers, you know, DOL 


will have to review those against the rules 


and criteria. 


So our recommendation for the 


period July 1, 1972 through December 31, 1983 


finds that radiation dose estimates cannot be 


reconstructed for compensation purposes. And 


we said feasibility no. Health endangerment 


yes. Thank you very much. 


MR. KATZ: Let me just note for the 


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record that the two Board Members who have 


conflicts, Ms. Beach and Ms. Munn, have been 


recused for this presentation and for the 


discussion too. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, questions 


for Sam. Paul. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: Sam, could you 


clarify the December '83 date? What happened 


in January 1st of '84 that makes that 


different? 


DR. GLOVER: For many of the 


activities, the neptunium, a lot of those had 


finished up operations, the ones we were 


actually looking at. 


Others included the implementation 


of a bioassay program appropriate for isotopic 


analysis of the uranium. 


And so, beginning at the end of 


1983, they've implemented a bioassay method 


appropriate for use, and also at that point 


you begin to see a more robust program. 


But we had specific concerns on 


select programs and some of those terminated 


at the end of '83. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: I was a little more 


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curious as to why it was December 31st. Did 


these others magically appear on the 1st of 


January or was this just a convenient cutoff 


time? 


DR. GLOVER: It was a bit of 


convenience. Essentially we gave it a little 


bit of time for some of those programs to come 


into place. 


They were implemented more of 


October of '83, begin to see those to get to 


use and so it allows all three nuclides to 


kind of --


MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, yes. So it's 


a little fuzzy, but you extended it perhaps a 


little beyond where it might have actually 


started. I just wanted to get the rationale 


and whether --


DR. GLOVER: That is correct, sir. 


MEMBER ZIEMER: -- we're going to 


have another thing beyond '83 that says --


yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Yes, 


there are issues remaining after '83 that may 


come up, but I think that, at least from 


SC&A's work so far, that's a reasonable 


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cutoff. Is that fair, Arjun, to the extent 


we've look at it? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, Dr. Melius. 


You know, as per your instruction, when we 


knew this was coming down the pike, I did some 


preliminary work going over our matrix to see 


whether, you know, this was a good stopping 


point. 


And I will agree that this is a 


good stopping point. I'm not saying that 


there won't be issues beyond that, and Sam has 


indicated it's still up for review. 


But for a lot of radionuclides like 


uranium there's other than fluorometric data. 


There's quite a bit of data on strontium-90, 


bioassay data and so on. 


And so I think, yes, I think it's a 


good cutoff date. If you assign it to us, 


we're ready to prepare a report on the issues 


for the rest of the period. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks. 


Other questions for Sam? 


MEMBER ANDERSON: I'll move that we 


accept the recommendation for NIOSH to add to 


the SEC workers between July 1, 1972 and 


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December 31, 1983. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I second it. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Second from Brad, 


okay. Any further discussion? Yes. Okay. 


Bill, do you have any? I'm sorry, I forgot to 


check. Bill Field, do you have any questions? 


MEMBER FIELD: No, thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, let’s do 


the roll call. 


MR. KATZ: Okay. Anderson? 


 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Beach is recused. 


Clawson? 


 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Field? 


 MEMBER FIELD: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Gibson, are you on the 


line? Absent. Griffon? 


 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Kotelchuck? 


 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Lemen, are you on the 


line? Absent. Lockey? 


 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Melius? 


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 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Munn is recused. Poston? 


 MEMBER POSTON: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: Richardson, are you on 


the line? Oh, no, you are not on the line. 


Absent. Roessler? 


 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Schofield? 


 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 


 MR. KATZ: Valerio? 


 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: And Ziemer? 


 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. 


MR. KATZ: It's unanimous. All in 


favor. Two absentee votes to collect. The 


motion passes. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: I would just like 


to make one comment on this Hanford. I've 


been involved in a lot of it. So many times 


we kind of pick at the negative things, but 


I'd really like to compliment Dr. Glover on 


the process. 


This has been a very, very 


difficult one and gone for a long time, but 


his diligence in reviewing the information, 


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I'd just really like to compliment him on that 


because this has been a very difficult one. 


And I've been involved in probably 


90 percent of it but I'd just like to tell him 


thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I would 


just echo that. I think he actually worked 


this a little bit more collaboratively than 


maybe some of the other SECs and also 


incrementally. 


And I think it worked out well in 


terms of identifying issues, gathering the 


information, sort of maintaining independence 


but at the same time addressing this. 


And I think it was able to get a 


lot more accomplished in the time period than 


if we had done it differently. 


Again, appreciate Sam and everyone 


at NIOSH and for the DOE's cooperation and 


SC&A’s and so I think we were able to move 


this one along and will continue to do so, but 


we still have some issues, one more SEC. 


And what our plan would be for 


moving forward now would be, one, as Arjun has 


mentioned, SC&A's finishing up a report on the 


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other outstanding, I think SEC 155. Is that 


the number? I can't remember the number. 


I think that's the number for the 


laboratory issue. That report is just about 


complete and will need to go through review, 


but hopefully we'll get that back in time. 


And then I think we also would be 


tasking, and I'll ask for some support, at 


least for my other Work Group Members, for 


tasking SC&A to move on and sort of look and 


identify issues post-1983 that need to be 


looked at. 


I think we would be having a Work 


Group meeting both for the outstanding 


petition, the 155, as well as sort of the 


post- '83 issue. 


So we can try to close those, 


optimistically before the September meeting, 


but some of that'll depend on reviews and so 


forth. But I think we can certainly make 


progress. If not September, certainly the 


following meeting, then. 


We actually haven't had a Work 


Group meeting for a while because we knew that 


this 83.14 was in the works and it really 


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didn't make sense until we had completed that 


other report and so forth but we’ll do that. 


I also just want to mention, I 


thought it was helpful to have a justification 


in the report on the Class. 


I think that's the first time I've 


seen it in a report, and it's usually 


something we end up discussing here, getting 


on the record. 


But I think it's important when 


NIOSH addresses it up front so we're not, you 


know, trying to figure it out here or asking 


question. 


We still may ask questions but at 


least it's been addressed to some extent in 


the report that when we look at it for that. 


So any other questions or comments on Hanford? 


 (No response.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Ted, can 


you go check? We need to decide whether we 


launch into public comment. I don't want to 


break for a long period, but can you look and 


see who signed up? 


MR. KATZ: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let's do that. 


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Okay, okay. If you can just be patient with 


us for a little bit. We were not scheduled to 


start the next session until 4:30, which is 


over 45 minutes, and I'd prefer we not have to 


take a full break until then. 


How do the Board feel? Would you 


like a short break before, a 20-minute break? 


We could plan on restarting at 5:00 either 


way. At 4:00, excuse me. And then we can try 


to move through this. Start at 4:00. So why 


don't we do this, while we figure out the 


logistics, why don't we take a 20-minute break 


and then plan on starting at around 4 o'clock 


and that should cover us both ways? 


(Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter went off the record at 3:45 p.m. and 


resumed at 4:05 p.m.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, if everyone 


will get seated, we'll get started. Again, a 


reminder for anybody that's just come in that 


if you'd like to give public comments, if you 


could sign up at the desk outside. Just helps 


us keep people in order and so forth. 


MR. FROWISS: Dr. Melius? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 


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MR. FROWISS: Yes, I'm on the phone 


and I wanted to make a public comment at the 


appropriate time. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, and who is 


speaking? 


MR. FROWISS: This is Albert 


Frowiss in California. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Okay, 


we'll call you. It'll probably be about a 


half hour, 45 minutes. 


MR. FROWISS: That's fine. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Because we have 


other -- it may even be closer to 5:00, 


depending on how we go, but thank you. 


MR. FROWISS: Yes, the comment is 


about Los Alamos, so. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. No, I 


understand. Yes, we're a little off schedule. 


So we'll start with a presentation, just for 


everybody to know, update on the LANL 


petition. 


Mark Griffon, who's head of the 


Work Group, will be presenting that. And then 


Board Members may have questions for Mark 


about that. We may get some comments from 


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NIOSH at that time. 


Then we will be hearing from the 


petitioner and then we will be opening up the 


floor for public comment. We'll go through a 


little explanation on how that goes and so 


forth. 


We will also be hearing from some 


of your, I guess, Congressional 


representatives speaking. 


And we're expecting Congressman 


Lujan to speak around 4:30, so we may 


interrupt for him. He wanted to speak 


directly and is planning on calling in here 


about 4:30, so we may be adjusting the 


schedule as we go along. 


So start, Mark Griffon, who's the 


head of the LANL Work Group. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Good afternoon, 


everyone. Yes, since we're in the area, we 


thought it appropriate to do a more full 


report on the status of our Work Group 


progress. 


This is the Los Alamos Work Group 


looking at several of the petitions over the 


last several years. 


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The Work Group is not coming to 


this meeting with a recommendation today to 


add a partial Class, despite some efforts 


prior to this. 


We had a Work Group meeting 


recently. We're just not at a point where 


we're going to be able to make a 


recommendation today. 


But we at least want to give you a 


full update of the issues that remain and sort 


of our path forward and have some dialogue 


about that for both the Board and the public 


and the petitioners. 


So the most recent petition that 


we're working on is 109 and this goes from 


1976 through 2005. We had an Evaluation 


Report issued by NIOSH as is noted also quite 


a while ago, 2009. 


In the meantime, we've had four 


Work Group meetings and the last one, I don't 


remember the exact date but it was in May, 


just recently. 


And there's also been quite an 


effort on the on-site visits, worker 


interviews and data capture. 


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And in part, what slowed us up from 


the last time to this point was some questions 


on getting access to data at LANL. I know 


NIOSH had some hurdles to overcome in that 


regard, so that slowed down their progress a 


little bit. 


These are the prior SEC petition 


evaluations. Just to refresh all of our 


memories where we've been, we did designate 


the early Class '44 to '63, another 


overlapping time period, '43 to '75, and then 


'43 to '75. These are three separate 


petitions but we did qualify all those. 


And the last one just shows this 


one is still the one we're working on. That's 


the active petition from 1976 to 2005. 


And this is sort of a listing of 


the main issues that we are still considering 


on the Work Group level. 


I'm not going to read every line, 


but the first couple, mixed activation and 


mixed fission product and the exotic nuclides 


are probably the three ones that we're 


grappling with the hardest. 


That overlaps with the third item 


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on there, which is the completeness and 


reliability of the data, because those first 


two things on the list count on that data to 


work for the coworker models. 


The one item with regard to neutron 


exposure, we have accepted NIOSH's response to 


that. 


And then others are more specific 


regarding specific issues that, some of them 


were brought up by the petitioner in the 


petition or in the process of our Work Group 


meetings, and I'll get into a few of those in 


more depth in a minute. 


Here's this, this just extends that 


listing on some of the issues that were 


brought forward by the petitioner and, again, 


this may have been in the petition or through 


the Work Group meetings. I can't remember 


exactly. 


There's one little mistake on this 


slide. The second item shouldn't be closed. 


I think it should be the third item that's 


closed. 


And, again, we're going to go into 


more of these. The fourth one down is 


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environmental exposure models and one of the ­

- the second one is closed, you're saying? 


Okay. 


The fourth one down is 


environmental models, and this is of 


particular interest to the issues of security 


guards going around everywhere on the site 


basically, and whether the ambient 


environmental models adequately would bound 


their exposures because they're in and around 


waste sites, different areas. 


And a lot of times the ambient 


models are based on emissions data from the 


various buildings. 


The fire we'll go into a little 


more in a minute. And then the last issue 


noted the similarities between LANL and NTS, 


the campaign-based activities rather than a 


routine sort of production-based activities. 


They had a lot of campaign 


activities at LANL and the question is whether 


the way NIOSH is proposing to bound these 


doses can be done, given that type of work. 


So going into some of the major 


ones with a little more depth, the mixed 


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activation products and mixed fission 


products, just to go along with where we've 


been with this. 


NIOSH concluded that by 1976 the in 


vivo counting methods were well established 


and the data was available to bound the 


intakes. 


They proposed using cesium-137 for 


both the activation products and the fission 


product model at the time. 


Subsequent to that, SC&A raised 


some questions about using cesium and they 


modified their approach to base it on 


beryllium-7. 


Some remaining issues on this that 


we have is that the beryllium-7, they have to 


ratio these things to calculate all the 


activation products' doses. 


And the beryllium-7 ratios are 


based on the stack emission data and we asked: 


is that representative of the mix of nuclides 


that would be at the workplace in the work 


areas? 


So these are questions that we 


recently raised and NIOSH is still in the 


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process of answering these. Also, just the 


availability of the source data. Is there 


enough data, is on the table as well, and I 


think this goes on. We just didn't have much 


information about the emissions data in 


general, whether it was a continuous or 


integrated sampling method. 


And then who was included in the in 


vivo program also came up as a sort of 


remaining issue. Was everybody getting in 


vivo monitoring that should have gotten in 


vivo monitoring? 


And let's move on. The next big 


item is the mixed fission products. Again, 


the cesium-137, they're picking that out as a 


nuclide that was measured. 


And then they're ratioing that to 


get all the fission product doses. There is a 


real question here about the amount of usable 


data and whether these ratios apply. 


We're looking at a situation which 


has non-reactor facilities and the model in 


the past has been used by NIOSH for reactor 


facilities, so do we have good information 


about the appropriate ratios to use in this 


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circumstance? 


And the other thing that's come up 


during this discussion is that, you know, they 


weren't able to locate a lot of usable data. 


However, they located quite a bit 


of documentation indicating that from this 


point forward there was a very robust program 


and that, in fact, the people that were 


required to get monitoring were getting the 


monitoring. 


So, you know, this sort of raised 


some questions on the Work Group as well as 


SC&A as to, you know, how do you determine if 


it's robust? 


We'd really like to see the data 


more and examine that a little further than 


just accepting an operational document that 


says, you know, we were doing better by this 


point. 


And the status on this is that 


we've asked NIOSH to go back, basically back 


to this model, and demonstrate to the Work 


Group that the intakes derived from cesium are 


bounding of all the mixed fission products and 


for all work areas. 


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And we also want to understand, 


again, I think I raised this in the first one, 


understand the criteria for inclusion. Who 


was monitored through the in vivo and what 


triggered them to be monitored? 


And finally, oh, this is the areas, 


you know, the various scenarios for mixed 


fission product exposure. 


You know, can you bound it in these 


different areas, because they could have 


different radionuclide mixes so the ratios 


could be different, and we want to know is 


there a model that can bound the exposures for 


all these different areas? 


Okay, so we have mixed activation 


products, mixed fission products, two of the 


big ones that we're looking into. 


And I should also say that the 


prior SEC Class that we added for LANL was in 


part based on the inability to reconstruct 


doses for mixed activation and mixed fission 


products. 


So, you know, one argument that can 


be made is these doses would likely be pretty 


small but, in fact, we did use this as an 


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argument to add the Class before, so we're 


also wrestling with that. 


The third big issue is what we're 


calling exotic radionuclides, and the three 


big ones, I guess, are neptunium, curium and 


actinium. 


The question here is that the 


approach that is currently being put forward 


is to use the primary radionuclides. 


I think for the most part 


plutonium, but maybe uranium and americium, 


but the primary radionuclide measurements to 


bound the intakes of these exotics. 


So we haven't seen any data for 


these, neptunium, curium, actinium. They're 


basically saying that if, you know, we have a 


lot of data for these others and we think we 


would have a similar exposure experience that 


we can use this data to bound the exposures 


for the exotics. 


And, you know, we have some 


questions about this and whether this would 


hold for the campaign-type approaches, you 


know, whether we know exactly. 


We've asked for sort of a history 


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of where these exotics were used, what areas, 


what time periods and whether this model would 


actually hold true, so we're sort of asking 


for a proof of principle on these exotics. 


And here's just some of the further 


actions in that regard. And the petitioner 


actually pointed out, and it's in the 


transcript, the petitioner pointed us to a few 


reports of interest on this topic that NIOSH 


has also agreed to look into. 


And again, I listed those three but 


we want to ensure that the approach would 


bound all exotics. 


The completeness issue, this sort 


of overlaps the mixed activation products, 


fission products and the exotics, the question 


of the completeness of the data. Is there 


enough there to do a useful coworker model? 


And, you know, again, the thing 


I'll point out on this slide is that, you 


know, there seems to be a fallback position 


here that the third bullet says, "NIOSH 


indicates that considerable operational 


documentation suggests 'robustness' of LANL 


health physics monitoring program to ensure 


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workers who should have been monitored, were 


monitored." 


SC&A, and I think for the most part 


the Work Group, feels like we need a little 


more. We need a little more to support that 


these models are appropriate and adequate. 


Just the operational manual saying 


that we have a more robust program from this 


point forward is not going to cut it. We need 


some proof of principle here. 


Neutron exposures, I won't go 


through all of this. This is one where we've 


actually, the Work Group has closed this out. 


The primary issue was that neutron-


to-photon ratios were being used from a later 


time period for an earlier time period. 


We asked NIOSH to look into: did 


the operations change or would we expect 


similar neutron-to-photon ratios from the 


earlier time period as were in the later time 


period? 


They gave us enough evidence that 


SC&A came back feeling that it was pretty firm 


that it supported NIOSH's position, and the 


Work Group agreed with that and we closed that 


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one issue out. 


So I think those first three were 


the really primary issues. Some of these 


other ones get a little more specific, not 


that they're less important but they're more 


specific to certain areas or certain issues. 


This one is outside the 


LAMPF/LANSCE accelerator facility. There was 


a question about worker doses from this 


retention pond. 


And really I think we're close to 


closing that out. I think NIOSH has put 


forward a reasonable argument. We just asked 


them to write it up, basically. 


But I think, Joe, if I'm not 


overstating that, I think SC&A's, we've sort 


of agreed that they can probably get there but 


we're still waiting to see their report on 


that, so. Joe's not nodding in agreement but, 


anyway. 


Another outstanding issue is 


special tritium compounds. We've heard this 


from several of the sites today. We have not 


really opened this up to much of an extent. 


The question, as always, on this 


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is: we want to find out under what parameters 


the tritides were used, whether there was a 


likelihood for exposure and if we can bound 


that exposure. 


And when I say parameters, if they 


were doing certain things with the tritides 


that would likely make them airborne or 


there's a potential for exposure. 


How likely was there an exposure 


pathway? And we want to know sort of what 


tritides? Where were they used? So we really 


need to look into that issue a little more. 


And this goes back to the support 


service personnel and there's a question about 


the drop-off in bioassay at the later date and 


whether a coworker approach is going to be 


bounding of these workers. 


A lot of the support service work, 


they were doing very different things and 


getting possibly exposed to very different 


source terms than the monitored workers, who 


might have been working in glove boxes or 


other more specific tasks. 


The support service workers could 


have been out and about the site in different 


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waste areas. 


So how do you translate bioassay 


data that might have been from workers in 


glove box areas to workers that were around 


the site in various areas? And that's what 


we're wrestling with. 


And also, there's a question of 


what was the rationale for the bioassay data 


dropping off in the later years? 


You know, obviously the criteria or 


the policy must have changed. How did the 


site evaluate that, and was it an appropriate 


call by them? 


And then, this may overlap a little 


bit with my earlier list, but finally we have 


several petitioner issues that have been 


raised during our deliberations and within the 


petition itself. 


And at the bottom are some of 


those. I may have missed a few. Andrew can 


probably help me out when he presents if I 


missed any. 


But exotics at the firing sites. 


Again, this is a question of the model, of the 


coworker model. Would these people working out 


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in these more remote areas be bounded by the 


existing bioassay data, with the models that 


are being used? 


The Cerro Grande fire has come up 


with quite a bit of discussion on that and I 


think we still have some existing action items 


on that for NIOSH to go back and look at some 


of these issues. 


One concern that the petitioner has 


and some on the Work Group have, is the 


representativeness of the monitoring. 


They had area air samples, 


certainly not lapel samples, not individual 


air samples for the workers that were involved 


in this. 


There was also some evidence that 


the filters were clogging, and how were they 


handled? How were they monitored during that? 


How were they, you know, calculating the 


amount of airborne activity? 


Was it appropriate to then 


calculate the individual doses or at least 


bound the individual doses? So we have a few 


remaining actions that NIOSH is following up 


on on that. 


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And here is the last one, yes. So 


I think this is the final one, the Cerro 


Grande fire, and I think that's it. That's a 


highlight of it. 


But if I can summarize, the primary 


ones we've been looking at lately on the Work 


Group are the mixed activation products, the 


mixed fission products and the exotics and 


then, for all those, whether there's 


sufficient data that they can make a coworker 


model to bound exposures for unmonitored 


workers. So I think that's it, yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, Board 


Members with questions, and I've got two 


questions. 


One, sort of the same issue we 


talked earlier about with Fernald. It seems 


that we're going down the road of developing a 


possible, or NIOSH is, a coworker model. 


But if you remember, if you go back 


to the last time we visited LANL, I think 


NIOSH had decided that even though our first 


two approvals were based on specific areas and 


so forth that it really wasn't feasible to 


place people within those areas at the site, 


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so it's extended to the whole site through 


'75, I believe is the date. 


And so my question here is: are you 


looking at that issue also? It may be fine to 


come up with a theoretical sort of feasible 


coworker model. 


But it's not practical to apply 


that if you can't place people into the 


coworker model and if you lack enough 


information on where they worked and what type 


of work that they did. 


And it seems to me that spending a 


lot of time on sort of the technical side is 


not going to be useful at all if you're not 


able to place that. 


So is the SC&A or the Work Group 


looking or NIOSH looking at that particular 


issue? 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, I think 


there's two things. We're questioning whether 


the coworker models would be valid, because 


these are site-wide coworker models and 


they're going to be applied to everyone, but 


would it be valid to bound certain unique 


areas or segments? 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, that's one 


question. Second question is, well, if you 


can't put people into those areas, it can be 


valid for that or it can be, you know, 


theoretically valid for particular types of 


work but if you can't put people into those 


jobs or tasks, then it's not --


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I think the 


question has been raised on the, I mean, 


you're trying, kind of say on the flip-side 


if, for instance, exotics were only used in 


certain areas but we can't figure out who was 


in those areas. 


I've asked the question. I know I 


have. I'm not sure if I got a good answer but 


do we assign exotic exposures to everyone, you 


know, at the site? And we haven't really, I 


don't think we've got an answer on that one. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But we've 


certainly already concluded that through '75, 


that it wasn't able to place people within 


areas. 


Now, again, this may be a little 


bit different post-'75 but certainly that was 


NIOSH's conclusion when they, I mean, because 


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I think DOL was having problems implementing 


the two earlier petitions. 


And secondly I think we had, I 


think pretty compelling testimony from a 


number of the security personnel the last time 


we were out there that pointed out the 


inadequacies in their monitoring program, 


particularly in response to emergencies and so 


forth. 


And, again, I think that 


underscores some of the problems with any sort 


of model you try to put them in, if they 


weren't monitored during what could have been 


some of their higher exposures. 


They're already looking to a number 


of their potential exposures but, again, if 


they weren't monitored, I don't see where 


we're going to get very far with them, yes. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I mean, we 


certainly have, you know, we have been kind of 


letting it play out because NIOSH has been 


continuing to look for data. 


I think just the discussion on 


Hanford raises some thoughts in my mind about, 


you know, for example, the exotic model. 


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They're assuming plutonium can be used to 


bound all these other exotics. 


Well, why wasn't that proposed for 


Hanford? I mean, presumably you have quite a 


bit of bioassay data at Hanford. 


Are they that different? And 


what's the different circumstances that you 


could say for LANL we can use plutonium to 


bound these other exotics, but for Hanford we 


were unable to? 


I mean, I'm not sure I know that 


answer but it certainly raised a question in 


my mind about that, yes, so. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And then my 


follow-up question is on -- I guess it's as 


much for NIOSH. Have we solved some of the 


delays, problems getting data from LANL? I 


mean, is that --


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, my information 


is that the things that we owe from the last 


Work Group meeting do not depend upon 


additional data capture. That's my 


understanding. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, so we're up 


to date on information? 


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MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It wasn't clear 


from all the reports that were given. That's 


why I was --


MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, my 


understanding is that there is not a remaining 


data issue with Los Alamos. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Okay, 


thank you, Stu. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: And my 


understanding is that there's almost a --


because we've asked about the exotic and is 


there data, and I think there is an acceptance 


from NIOSH's standpoint that we haven't 


uncovered it yet. 


We don't think there is enough data 


to use, for example, for neptunium so we need 


another approach which they're defaulting to 


this plutonium approach, yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But it seems to 


me that we sort of fall into this path where 


we keep looking and looking for different 


approaches. 


And at some point, if it's 


possible, can we focus on what are the major 


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potential infeasibilities in terms of doing 


dose reconstruction? 


Again, if the solution is develop a 


coworker model, if you're not going to be able 


to place people in that coworker model, you 


know, why develop the model? And that type of 


thing, and I think that needs to be evaluated, 


so anyway. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: I don't disagree 


with that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I know. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: There has been a 


little bit of a moving target for the Work 


Group because approaches have been changed. 


But, yes, the clock is running and I think 


it's -- yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, at least I 


and other Members of the Board I think are 


frustrated with this and I know people at LANL 


even more so. Brad. 


MEMBER CLAWSON: Basically, Mark, 


you brought up my question that I had, 


especially dealing with Hanford in its 


condition with the other nuclides, these 


exotic ones. 


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I can't believe that we've tried to 


build a model and then be able to try to place 


people there. What we found out in Hanford, 


you couldn't really do it and that's why we 


went the direction that we did. 


And now all of a sudden, and I 


don't think these sites are that much, I just 


-- and then to be able to place people in 


there, it's not a good thing. 


MEMBER GRIFFON: I think NIOSH, 


because we made a note of that, probably can 


look into that for us. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Dave. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It adds a 


further complication that there are already 


three approved SEC groups. 


I mean, the transition from if you 


were in one of the last time period groups and 


then the next time period group you try to 


stratify in these coworker models as opposed 


to everyone, it would feel unfair to the folks 


who are in that fourth group. 


And so that's not to say that it's 


wrong but there has to be a feeling of equity 


among all of the groups that we decided. 


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CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Or a rationale 


why things changed, yes. 


MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, or a good 


rationale, yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other Board 


questions? Okay. Okay, I think we'd like to 


hear from the petitioner. 


I don't believe we know whether 


Representative Lujan is on the line yet? You 


haven't heard? 


 (No response.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Just want 


to make sure someone's paying attention, 


that's all. Okay. So, Andrew, yes. 


MR. EVASKOVICH: Good afternoon. 


I'm Andrew Evaskovich. I'm the petitioner for 


LANL Support Services workers. 


I'd like to thank you for coming 


back to New Mexico and listening to the 


members who have showed up that want to 


present their points of view on this issue. 


I'm grateful that you're here and I'm sure 


that they are too. 


Even though we haven't reached a 


decision yet, I hope that what they have to 


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say as well as what I say will influence 


opinion. 


Let me begin by referring to this 


model or method that they're trying to 


develop. 


NIOSH has developed a method to 


reconstruct dose for LANL workers and it's 


going to be based on substitute data and the 


hierarchy of data to assign dose for exotic 


radionuclides. 


And the hierarchy consists of 


personal monitoring data, secondly coworker 


data, third area monitoring data and fourth is 


source term. 


Let me talk about personal 


monitoring data first. The Evaluation Report 


states, "LANL clearly possessed capabilities 


to conduct bioassay measurements for these 


exotic radionuclides; however, specific data 


for such measurements are very sparse and 


generally unavailable." 


And to continue with this, in 1991, 


the Tiger Team found that LANL was failing to 


effectively identify workers for whom bioassay 


is required under DOE orders. 


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In 2011, HSS, that's the division 


of Health, Safety and Security at the 


Department of Energy, found that methods used 


at LANL to enroll workers in bioassay programs 


are not sufficiently developed to ensure 


requirements are met. So we're looking at 20 


years of basically the same problem. 


Coworker data is going to be based 


on common radionuclides. The uptake amounts 


for commons will be substituted for exotics. 


The Evaluation Report says this. 


Although LANL maintains a ready 


ability for targeted in vitro measurements, 


bioassay data are generally unavailable. 


In the absence of bioassay data, 


intakes of neptunium-237 could be bound using 


coworker data approach for plutonium-239. 


Notwithstanding, a 2005 HSS 


inspection report as part of the findings said 


this, "Specific controls must be put in place 


to ensure the appropriate neptunium bioassays 


are performed following workplace events 


involving neptunium, because the standard 


plutonium bioassay would be ineffective at 


detecting or quantifying neptunium intakes." 


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This report states, in addition to 


bioassay concerns, "There are also potential 


inadequacies in the assessment of neptunium 


airborne contamination from instruments 


designed and calibrated for plutonium." 


Does it sound like plutonium 


bioassay could be applied to neptunium? 


Likewise, when the same problem exists for all 


the other exotic radionuclides. 


Equally important, NIOSH has 


proposed using a ratio of beryllium-7 to 


activation products to reconstruct dose for 


activation products released from TA-53. 


NIOSH agreed to validate the ratio using air 


monitoring data. 


Now, in the '90s, after the Clean 


Air Act lawsuit against LANL, audits were 


conducted at LANL and the first audit revealed 


an issue of the ability of filters to capture 


beryllium-7 efficiently. 


If the presence of beryllium-7 is 


under-reported, how will this affect the ratio 


validation? 


Let me talk about contamination 


surveys. In 1991, the Tiger Team had findings 


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concerning contamination surveys, and in 2005 


HSS inspection had findings concerning 


radiation surveys. 


You could see the details of these 


findings in the reports I sent to you, 


selected Tiger Team's concerns and health 


physic procedures and source terms. 


The Tiger Team, there's a lot of 


information in there that goes to the 


robustness of the health physics program. And 


I think the Tiger Team report shows that it's 


not that robust or at least it wasn't in the 


'90s. 


And if you look at these later 


reports that I presented, they also show that 


there are problems with the robustness of the 


program. 


Let me talk about source term data. 


If you glance at the Clean Air Act audit 


report, you will see the LANL filters may not 


be thin enough to prevent self-absorption. As 


a result, gross alpha counting accuracy is 


uncertain. 


I also included in my petition a 


listing of potential release sites and areas 


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of concern for the LANL RCRA permit. The list 


describes hundreds of places at LANL that have 


contamination. 


Many only have a chemical or metal 


releases, some have radioactive materials and 


a few are not characterized at all. 


Here is a sample of the radioactive 


releases, but let me begin by telling you the 


report says that further investigation is 


required to determine if they pose a threat to 


human health and the environment. 


In TA-0-030(d), Septic System. 


They had neptunium-237, plutonium-239/240, 


uranium-235. 


TA-0-030(h), another septic system. 


They have neptunium-237, plutonium-239/240 and 


U-235. 


The report also says that 


analytical data obtained from the MRAL are 


unreliable and may only be used as screening-


level data. This site is under investigation. 


TA0-030(n), another septic system. 


Type of release, plutonium-239/240 and 


polonium. These were detected above 


background and the extent of the contamination 


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is not defined. 


Now, if you look at Table 5-1 of 


the Evaluation Report for SEC 00051 which is 


for LANL '43 to '75 and they refer to this in 


Evaluation Report 109, you'll see that it 


states that there are no radionuclides in TA0. 


So that's an error that I found there. 


TA-2-011(a), Storm Drain and 


Outfall. Types of release, cesium-137, 


strontium-90, technetium-99, cobalt-60 


tritium, uranium and isotopic plutonium. 


TA-3-007, Firing Site. Type of 


release, bismuth-211, -212, -214, cesium-137, 


lead-212, -214, radium-224, thallium-228 and 


thorium. 


TA-4-004, Soil Contamination. Type 


of release, it says radionuclides and they're 


not specified. 


TA-9-012, Disposal Pit. Type of 


release unknown. The report says, “given that 


no investigation has been conducted, the 


nature and extent of contamination has not 


been defined.” 


And I raise this issue because the 


last time you were here one of the guards 


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mentioned that they held an exercise in this 


area and they found out later that it was a 


hot dump. 


TA-15-001, Surface Disposal. Type 


of release, uranium, radionuclides not 


specified and other unknowns. 


 TA-16-005(m), Chemical Pit, 


Decommissioned. Type of release, uranium, 


depleted and enriched, radium, cobalt, 


strontium-90 and barium. 


TA-20-003(b), Firing Site. Type of 


release, strontium-90, radionuclides, uranium235. 


TA-35-14(g)(3), Soil Contamination. 


Type of release, radionuclides, nature and 


extent of contamination is not fully defined. 


C-36-001, Containment Vessel. Type 


of release, it only says radioactive 


materials. There is little or no information 


about this site. That's in the report. 


TA-42-002(a), Former Structures. 


Type of release, radionuclides and it lists 


americium-241, cesium-137, lanthanum-140, 


plutonium-238, 239, tritium, uranium-235 and 


unspecified fission products. 


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TA-50-001(b), Waste lines and 


Manholes. Type of release, acidic radioactive 


liquid waste, caustic radioactive liquid waste 


and industrial radioactive liquid waste. 


Potential contaminants of concern 


exist at this site. The nature and extent of 


potential contamination has not been 


investigated. 


NMED, New Mexico Environment 


Department, asserts the permittees cannot 


assume there is no unacceptable risk because 


neither a human health or ecological risk 


assessment has been completed. 


If NIOSH is going to use coworker 


data, then it must establish that the workers 


shared a common radiation environment. 


In its discussion points, NIOSH 


said all alpha activity was done in a glove 


box. What are the commonalities of a glove 


box worker and, say, a plumber working on a 


septic tank in TA-0? 


NIOSH will say that it is claimant-


favorable because the glove box worker would 


receive a higher dose, but without knowing the 


extent of the contamination of the site, how 


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can NIOSH subjectively say that? 


Worker monitoring checklists. 


NIOSH has said that the development of the 


health physics checklist will enable them to 


reconstruct dose for exotics. 


Inspection report of 2005 declares 


the site standard bioassay program and TA-55 


health physics questionnaire are only designed 


to account for plutonium, uranium, americium 


and tritium. 


NIOSH has said the checklists were 


required for new hires, rehires, transfers and 


film badge requests. This excludes 


programmatic changes. 


In 1991 there were Tiger Team 


findings concerning the health physics 


checklist and in 2008 there was an HSS finding 


concerning enrollment in the bioassay program. 


As far as well-documented health 


physics procedures, NIOSH says that the health 


physics procedures at LANL will enable them to 


reconstruct dose. 


In 1991 there were Tiger Team 


findings concerning the health physics 


program. In 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2011 there 


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were HSS findings concerning the LANL health 


physics program. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Andrew, could you 


try to wrap up relatively soon? 


MR. EVASKOVICH: Okay. Let me talk 


about how NIOSH has applied their method. We 


just talked briefly about circularity, which 


basically is Catch-22. If I can read from 


that, and then give a dose reconstruction. 


"There was only one catch and that 


was Catch-22, which specified that a concern 


for one's safety in the face of dangers that 


were real and immediate was the process of a 


rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be 


grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as 


soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy 


and he would have to fly more missions." 


 That's from Catch-22. 


Let me read you a dose 


reconstruction statement. The diverse 


operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory 


included less commonly encountered materials. 


And individuals involved in basic 


research may have been exposed to intakes of 


secondary radionuclides without corresponding 


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bioassays. 


During the period of claimant's 


employment, targeted bioassay methods were 


available for these radionuclides, and since 


no records of these bioassays were present in 


his files returned by DOE, his potential 


intakes were assumed to result from exposure 


to plutonium. So that's how NIOSH is 


currently handling exotic radionuclides. 


I'm not saying that they can't 


reconstruct dose accurately ever for LANL, but 


the problem is the records haven't been 


presented. I don't think the data is 


sufficient in order to support the model they 


proposed. 


We're waiting for an answer. These 


people out here are waiting for an answer and 


I think the answer is to add a Class to the 


SEC for LANL workers. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 


Andrew. Okay, now we'll go into official 


public comment. 


Okay, I believe that we have 


Representative Lujan on the phone. 


CONGRESSMAN LUJAN: Congressman Ben 


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Ray Lujan. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, go ahead. 


This is Jim Melius, the Chair of the Advisory 


Board and we're waiting to hear from you so. 


CONGRESSMAN LUJAN: Mr. Chairman, I 


appreciate your time today and thank you, Dr. 


Melius, for allowing us to call in. 


I really wanted to be in New Mexico 


for this but, sadly, we have votes this week 


and so it doesn't allow me the opportunity to 


be in New Mexico. 


But we want to thank you for taking 


the time to be in New Mexico and, again, I 


regret that I'm not there in person. 


However, I especially appreciate 


the opportunity to call in and speak with you 


on the important issue of the Special Exposure 


Cohort Petition, SEC 00109. 


It's my understanding that the lack 


of action over the last three years on this 


petition is due in part to NIOSH's inability 


to obtain data from LANL, Los Alamos National 


Laboratory, to support the premise that dose 


can be reconstructed using substitute 


radionuclides for reconstruction. 


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But, Mr. Chairman, my concerns are 


this, is that I believe it's time to draw up 


the substitute data and move on to another 


type of methodology to perform the dose 


reconstruction so that action upon the 


petition can finally be taken. 


As you're aware, many of my 


constituents have been negatively affected by 


the inaction of this petition by NIOSH. 


And these workers have contributed 


to the safety and security of our nation and 


as a result have seen their health negatively 


impacted by their work. 


This petition recognizes the 


sacrifice that these workers have made and 


provides them with the compensation that they 


deserve and it's long past time to move 


forward on this petition. 


And, Mr. Chairman, I do have a 


letter that's been prepared that I'm going to 


ask my District Director Jennifer Catechis, 


who is present, to give to you. 


But included in that I have some 


separate questions that I hope may be able to 


be addressed this evening or down the road. 


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Since May of 2008, what are the 


number of Part B claims for LANL workers post1975 that have been denied so that we can get 


an idea of how many people have been 


negatively affected by the NIOSH inaction on 


this petition? 


And what is the anticipated 


remaining timeline for NIOSH to take action on 


this petition? 


And when can people expect to know 


if their SEC 00109 is approved or denied? And 


what will it take for NIOSH to make a final 


decision? 


Mr. Chairman, I know that you're 


there and that you guys work so hard with this 


but, you know, this has been going on for so 


long, beyond the timetables associated for 


approval. 


Even when this petition evaluation 


was prepared back in February of '09, it was a 


full 180 days past the required deadline to do 


so and we still haven't taken action and here 


we are at this time period. 


So, Mr. Chairman, as you can see, 


we're very concerned. A lot of people in the 


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district have told me that they just feel the 


federal government is waiting for them to die 


to wait them out. 


And I don't know how to answer that 


question when we're not able to get action 


here with this case in Los Alamos when other 


labs have been able to resolve this rather 


quickly, when NIOSH working with other labs 


has been able to resolve this quickly. 


So, Mr. Chairman, you can see that 


this is impacting people's lives and I know 


that that's why everyone on the Board accepted 


the challenge, the appointment associated with 


the responsibilities with NIOSH and I 


understand that you have to use the evidence-


based information to make this decision. 


But when the information or the 


data that we need to make decisions is not 


coming in or is not being provided, we need to 


find other methods to be able to remember that 


it's real people that we're talking about 


here. 


So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the 


opportunity to be able to share that with you, 


to provide you that statement in addition to a 


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letter that's been prepared for this evening 


and if there's any questions I'd be happy to 


address anything at all. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you and we 


appreciate and share your concerns. We did 


learn a little bit earlier that NIOSH now has 


all of the data that they believe they need 


from the Los Alamos site so they should be 


able to move ahead. 


And our discussion here earlier, 


just before your comments, were trying to see 


what we could do to expedite and move this 


forward and as quickly as we can now. 


We agree that over three years is a 


long time and we're trying to get it settled 


as soon as we can but --


CONGRESSMAN LUJAN: We appreciate 


that, Mr. Chairman. And, you know, if there's 


any way to get a timetable associated when we 


can expect that decision, that would certainly 


be appreciated so that we can begin to plan 


accordingly to get ready for whatever is 


needed to get ready for. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, when we 


respond to your letter, we will include a 


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timetable. 


CONGRESSMAN LUJAN: Thank you, Mr. 


Chairman, I appreciate that and taking the 


time to be able to listen and visit with our 


constituents who I know that are there. 


And they all have personal stories 


that I couldn't even begin to describe to you, 


Mr. Chairman, so thank you for being there and 


willing to listen to the people of New Mexico 


and for getting something done on this issue. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And thank you for 


taking time from your busy schedule in 


Washington to speak to us. 


CONGRESSMAN LUJAN: Thank you very 


much, Mr. Chairman. My best to everybody 


there and my prayers are with all the families 


that are represented there as well. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 


CONGRESSMAN LUJAN: Thank you, sir. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So we'll 


now go into the public comment session, but as 


part of that, Ted has to get the list and he 


will also give a set of instructions so you 


understand that. 


And if you just arrived and you 


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didn't sign up and wish to provide public 


comments, if you could please go to the desk 


and sign up. It just helps us keep people in 


order and so forth. 


MR. KATZ: So before we get started 


on public comments, just to let you know the 


ground rules in terms of the record of what 


you say. 


Everything in these Board meetings 


is transcribed and posted for the public. 


These reports go on the NIOSH website and 


everybody can read them. 


So just to let you know, your 


public comments are recorded similarly and 


anything you say about yourself that might be 


very private will still end up in that 


transcript just as you say it. 


And the only exception to that is 


if you talk about someone else, a third party, 


that information will be redacted to the 


extent to protect that person's privacy so 


that people who are not representing 


themselves here don't find their personal 


information out there in the public without 


their consent. 


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So that's the basic ground rule. 


There's more specifics to it that can be read 


on paper that's on the back table there. 


And as well for people who are on 


the phone line, on the NIOSH website under the 


meeting section there's some paragraphs 


explaining this, what's called the Board's 


Redaction Policy. 


But again, that's all meant just to 


protect people's privacy where they can expect 


it and to let everyone else realize that when 


you're speaking about yourself that you're 


accepting that your privacy is shared with the 


public. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, and we have 


a number of people signed up and we're going 


to go a little bit out of order here to get 


one person in who requested. Lois Rael. 


MS. RAEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


I had major surgery ten weeks ago so I 


appreciate that you can bump me up a little 


bit. 


My name is Lois Rael and my maiden 


name was formerly Miestas. And I was 


fortunate and very lucky at the age of 21 to 


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get my first job at LANL. 


I was paid $8.32 an hour at that 


time and that was quite a bit of money. I met 


my husband soon after I started work there and 


we moved to Santa Fe. I'm formerly from 


Espanola. 


And we decided that instead of me 


driving back and forth every day it might be 


best for me to take the commuter van, which 


was called SECA. 


I do want to mention that the lab 


has provided many prestigious jobs to the 


Espanola valley and the surrounding 


communities and it's been a pleasure, I'm 


sure, for all of us to be employed there and 


very proud of it. 


In 1981 an employee of the 


metallurgy facility, Building 29, Technical 


Area 3 was exposed to plutonium. 


He left the building without 


following the proper protocol and, yes, he 


drove a van home that evening and I was one of 


his passengers. 


I still hear the little knock on 


the door. I want to share a story with you. 


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I hear the knock on the door that evening, the 


day after. 


These men in white clothing came to 


the door. My husband answered. They asked 


for me and they were all dressed in this white 


clothing, masks, feet and all were covered. 


They asked me to retrieve the 


clothing that I was wearing on that day. They 


put it in bags, took it and I never heard from 


them again. 


Was I ever monitored? No. Was I 


ever swabbed or urine samples? No. It was 


like they just disappeared. I never got the 


clothing back and needless to say that I heard 


about the accident by reading about it in the 


newspaper. 


In 2008 I was diagnosed with a very 


rare cancer. It's called angiosarcoma, cancer 


of the spleen. There's only about 150 to 200 


cases of that type of cancer in the entire 


United States. 


At that time I had surgery. They 


removed my spleen and following up after that 


I did chemo. 


Well, I talked about this little 


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story back when, I think you guys were here 


about two years ago down at the Hilton 


downtown? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct, yes. 


MS. RAEL: Thank you. And I did 


speak a little about it. For those of you 


that are Board Members, I thought you'd want 


to know a little bit about the background on 


that. 


Since then, things have changed. 


In August my cancer metastasized to my liver. 


My claim, original claim was denied. 


I've completed the 16 weeks of 


chemo and the whole right lobe of my liver ten 


weeks ago was removed with cancer. During the 


surgery, they also bruised my ribs. 


And the other thing that I wanted 


to mention is that I also have now a support 


letter from Johns Hopkins in favor of my case 


which has been resubmitted. 


I'm not complaining. I'm thankful 


for what I have, not for what I don't have. I 


have my faith. I have breath today. I'm 


thankful for every day that I wake up. 


I have my family. I have my 


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grandson that's 16 months old and another one 


due in August. I've learned to live each day 


as it's given to me, and actually it's each 


moment. 


I've learned not to judge people by 


the way they look on the outside because you 


never know what's going on on the inside. 


I look at the moments that I can't 


have, like my grandson reaches out and I can't 


hold him because I had this major surgery. 


There's been days when I can't visit him 


because he's running a fever or he's got a 


runny nose and my immune system was 


jeopardized. 


These are people. Like Congressman 


Lujan mentioned, we are people. We are here 


to fight for what's happened to us. 


Thank you so much for your time and 


I appreciate if you reconsider my claim. 


Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you for 


sharing with us. 


MS. RAEL: One more thing I guess I 


forgot to mention, which is probably one of 


the most important. During this chemo 


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treatment, I've lost most of my vision, and 


it's caused by the cells that the chemo, it 


eats, and I don't know if I'll get it back. 


Would you like a copy of the Johns 


Hopkins report? It's on file. I mean, I've 


submitted it for my claim. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, actually, if 


you could share it with the Board too I think 


would be useful. 


MS. RAEL: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, thank you. 


And, again, thank you for being willing to 


share that stuff and best wishes to you. Next 


person, Harriet Ruiz. 


MS. RUIZ: Dr. Melius and Board 


Members, thank you so much for your time. I 


am a former State Representative and a former 


SEC petitioner. 


I stand before you very frustrated, 


as you can hear in all the voices that you're 


going to hear, also the one from Weldon, that 


Andrew's petition, particularly for Los 


Alamos, is taking so long. 


The woman who just spoke would have 


been compensated under his petition, and I'm 


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sure many others would. 


Under my petition, so many people 


did get compensated. I get phone calls and it 


just is such an uplifting thing to validate, 


to validate their work. 


I just am a little bit angry and 


very frustrated, and I just know you work 


really hard. It isn't all on you. 


I know it goes down to NIOSH, LANL 


releasing of documents and stuff that we're 


not privy to, and also the claimants aren't 


privy to. The SECs actually relieve them, and 


you know that, from that burden of proof. 


So I just wanted to express my 


frustration and anything you could do to speed 


along this SEC would be greatly appreciated. 


Thank you for your time. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, again, 


for taking the time. Michele Ortiz. 


MS. JACQUEZ-ORTIZ: Good afternoon. 


Thank you, Chairman Melius and Members of the 


Advisory Board, for allowing time on the 


agenda to share a statement on behalf of 


United States Senator Tom Udall. 


Earlier this year, the Senator 


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submitted a request for the Advisory Board to 


consider holding its meeting in New Mexico 


when the Special Exposure Cohort Petition 


submitted by Andrew Evaskovich would be 


discussed. 


Thank you for considering the 


Senator's request and for your decision to 


meet here in Santa Fe to hear directly from 


LANL claimants and their families as you 


continue your review of the LANL petition. 


As you know, NIOSH received the 


LANL petition on April 3, 2008 and it 


qualified for evaluation on May 29, 2008. 


Even though it's been four years 


since the petition was submitted, the 


petition's progress has been slow. 


The Senator is aware that the 


Advisory Board's LANL Work Group, along with 


the Board's contractors, have put a lot of 


time and effort into evaluating the petition. 


One reason, as claimants have 


shared with our offices, for this lack of 


progress is a lack of sufficient data from 


LANL for NIOSH to consider in its evaluations. 


The lack of access to relevant data 


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is a common refrain in recent LANL Work Group 


meeting minutes. 


For example, there are several 


notes in the May 2011 minutes in which the 


Work Group posed questions to NIOSH and the 


agency responded that it would be necessary to 


go back to the site and verify the 


information. 


Yet it's not clear that NIOSH was 


able to get this information from the site. 


As a result, the LANL petition remains in a 


state of limbo. 


At what point should the Advisory 


Board weigh in when NIOSH lacks access to or 


cannot get access to sufficient data to 


accurately reconstruct dose? 


In years past, Senator Udall has 


expressed his concerns to the Advisory Board 


about the issue of timeliness. 


Congress is relying on the Advisory 


Board to ensure that the petitioner's right to 


a timely evaluation is not compromised. 


Congress also placed within the 


Advisory Board's purview the tough job of 


evaluating the scientific validity of dose 


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reconstruction practices and methodologies, 


including the use of substitute data. 


LANL is a unique facility in the 


DOE complex and the Advisory Board should 


carefully examine to what extent substitute 


data is a claimant-friendly evaluation tool, 


especially in light of LANL's historic work 


with exotic radionuclides. 


The Senator encourages the Board 


and its LANL Work Group to press the issue 


mentioned by Dr. Griffon during his Board 


presentation: specifically, can the robust 


health physics monitoring program that NIOSH 


cites be scientifically validated? 


To declare the monitoring program 


robust is one thing, but NIOSH needs to prove 


it. If the information doesn't exist or can't 


be accessed, if NIOSH is not able to 


demonstrate that it can accurately reconstruct 


dose or if NIOSH cites a data monitoring 


program that's scientifically indefensible, 


the Advisory Board can, in its capacity and 


the power given to you by Congress and the 


President, approve the SEC for LANL. 


It's been four years since the 


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petition was filed. These workers deserve the 


benefit of the doubt. They've been waiting 


long enough and it's time to move forward on a 


decision. 


Senator Udall realizes the 


difficult task the Advisory Board has in 


considering the complex issues associated with 


this program. He understands the hard work and 


long hours each of you commit as Members of 


this important Board and he thanks you for 


considering these issues as you move forward 


on the LANL petition. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 


Michele. Again, just to clarify, there 


certainly have been some difficulties due to 


access and receiving information. 


As I understand it now, NIOSH does 


have all the information that they feel they 


need to be able to move forward with the 


reports that they need to do and I think DOE 


has confirmed that, so thank you. Sammie 


Hayes. 


MS. HAYES: Hello. I have been 


here --


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Welcome, or 


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welcome back I should say. 


MS. HAYES: Pardon? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Welcome. 


MS. HAYES: I'm not too well with 


these things. 


 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 


MS. HAYES: But anyway, thank you 


for hearing me, Mr. Chairman and Board 


Members. 


In listening to the Work Group 


presentation and people listening around here, 


I have one question. What the heck is the 


matter with the Los Alamos petition? 


We have waited. I could have 


gotten a bachelor's degree in the four years 


it's taken for this thing to be approved or to 


be disapproved. 


You have information. You have 


data. You have been provided with data that 


you should be able to make a decision on. 


NIOSH is just waltzing around and you're 


dancing to their tune, which is ridiculous. 


It's time for you all to take your 


job and do what you're supposed to do and tell 


NIOSH enough is enough. I'm too frustrated to 


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say anymore. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Next 


person I have is Joni Arends. Jennifer, did 


you want to make -- oh, okay, then, excuse me, 


let Jennifer. 


 (Off microphone comments.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, that's okay. 


Come on up and do the letter. I thought it 


was just a placeholder for the Representative. 


That's why I was skipping over. 


MS. CATECHIS: No, I was just going 


to submit the letter which restates what the 


Congressman mostly stated there. So if that's 


easiest for you if I just submit the letter 


and that's all you need, then I'm good. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's fine or 


you're welcome to read it into the record if 


you'd like. 


MS. CATECHIS: Okay. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, that's fine. 


MS. CATECHIS: “Dear Dr. Melius, I 


wanted to take this opportunity to thank you 


for coming to New Mexico, for allowing me the 


opportunity to offer a statement for the 


record and for allowing me to call into the 


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meeting earlier today. I send my regrets that 


I could not join you in person. 


I write today in strong support of 


SEC 00109 regarding Los Alamos National 


Laboratories. I would like to highlight the 


history of the SEC with the Board today. 


The original petition was submitted 


in April of 2008 and qualified for evaluation 


in May of the same year. 


The petition evaluation was finally 


prepared and submitted by NIOSH in February of 


2009, a full 180 days past the required 


deadline to do so. 


Since February 2009, NIOSH has 


taken no further action on the SEC, creating a 


full three years of inaction on the part of 


NIOSH regarding this particular petition. 


It is my understanding that the 


lack of action over the last three years is 


due to NIOSH's inability to obtain data from 


LANL to support their premise that dose can be 


reconstructed using substitute radionuclides 


for reconstruction. 


After this significant delay, it is 


time to drop the substitute data and move on 


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to another type of methodology to perform 


those reconstructions so that action upon the 


petition can finally be taken. 


Many of my constituents have been 


negatively affected by the inaction of NIOSH 


on this petition. These workers have 


contributed to the safety and security of our 


nation and as a result have seen their health 


negatively impacted by their work. 


This petition recognizes the 


sacrifices these workers have made and 


provides them with the compensation they 


deserve. 


It is long past time to move 


forward on this petition. Sincerely, 


Representative Ben Ray Lujan.” 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 


much. Joni Arends, please. 


MS. ARENDS: Good afternoon, 


Members of the Board. My name is Joni Arends 


and I am the Executive Director of Concerned 


Citizens for Nuclear Safety. 


CCNS formed in 1988 to address 


community concerns about the proposed 


transportation of waste from Los Alamos 


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National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation 


Pilot Plant, which at that time was being 


proposed. 


I want to thank you first for 


meeting in New Mexico. I want to encourage 


you to move on with the SEC petition that's 


the subject of these public comments. 


CCNS has been working on LANL 


issues for almost 25 years and we find that 


the issues that were raised today are 


significant. 


We think that they put forward that 


it's infeasible to conduct a dose 


reconstruction for these folks and that, as 


you have seen, there's a toxic cocktail at 


LANL. 


It's radionuclides, it's hazardous 


materials, it's toxic materials, it's PCBs, 


it's exotic radionuclides, it's hazardous 


materials. 


As we say, LANL has used every 


single element in the periodic table to see if 


they could be used for nuclear weapons. 


Since LANS, the Los Alamos National 


Security, LLC, came on board in 2005, the 


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public has had trouble getting data from LANL. 


Before 2005, it was a more open 


situation. Now, we have a gatekeeper for the 


public that we have to go through in order to 


obtain documentation. 


While they'll say that they've 


provided all of the information, we know from 


our experience working with CDC on the Los 


Alamos Historical Document Retrieval and 


Assessment Project that there were delays with 


that project. 


The first and second phase were 


supposed to take less than a year or two 


years. It actually ended up taking ten years 


to get all of the necessary data to be able to 


go through the first couple of phases, and 


then we don't even know if the researchers 


obtained all of the information. 


So this access to information is an 


ongoing struggle for not only you and the 


NIOSH, but also for the public. 


I want to talk about our experience 


with the permitting at LANL as evidence in 


support of the SEC petition and specifically 


for the firefighters and for the security 


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folks, the people that aren't necessarily in 


facilities that are moving around. 


In 1994, CCNS sued the Department 


of Energy for violations of the rad NESHAP 40 


CFR 61 Subpart H. 


And as a result, Judge Mechem in 


1996 said that 31 of the 33 stacks that LANL 


was monitoring from their radionuclide 


facilities were out of compliance with the 


Clean Air Act. 


That means that the mixed 


activation products, the mixed fusion 


products, the exotics, the tritium and the 


beryllium were not being measured properly. 


That was 1994. 


We have found that since the Clean 


Air Act audits finished in 1998, we're still 


experiencing problems. 


For instance, under the Title V 


Clean Air Act permit that the New Mexico 


Environment Department has issued, they're not 


reporting the beryllium emissions from a 


significant facility, the Sigma facility. 


And we're going to have to go back 


and look at what emissions are coming out of 


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the Sigma facility, which is a main beryllium 


facility. 


I want to talk about neptunium and 


the problems that we've experienced with 


neptunium. 


In 2007/2009 time frame, the 


National Academies of Science came out and did 


a report on the protection of groundwater, the 


plans and practices of groundwater monitoring 


at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 


And at that time, we were 


complaining about the data that was reported 


in the draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact 


Statement for LANL. 


We were complaining because it said 


that there were high levels of neptunium in 


the Buckman Well Field, and the Buckman Well 


Field provides water for Santa Fe and it's on 


the east side of the river. 


And what we did is, we raised 


questions. Is the neptunium really there or 


are they using the wrong analytical methods? 


And we complained about it and the 


NAS wrote about it in a paragraph and I will 


bring these copies of these documents down 


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tomorrow. I didn't have time today to prepare 

them. 

The NAS said there's a problem, 

because DOE is presenting this data to the 


public for review and comment, but they're not 


using the right analytical methods for 


neptunium in our drinking water. 


And even though that complaint was 


made, not only by CCNS but the National 


Academies of Science, DOE published that data 


in the final Environmental Impact Statement. 


They published it in the final 


Environmental Impact Statement. They didn't 


go back and correct it. They didn't do reanalysis. They didn't look at what analytical 


method they had used for neptunium. 


This is just one of the issues. 


You know, we could talk about chromium. We 


could talk about tritium. We could talk about 


a lot of different analytes that they're not 


using the right analytical method. 


And recently, or it's not even 


recently. At the standards here, in many 


cases, there'll use an analytical method that 


will have a result that's higher than the 


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standard so that they can say “no detect.” 


So when we see a lot of no detects 


in their Environmental Surveillance Report, 


which is an annual report, or we see it in an 


environmental impact statement, we ask 


questions. 


Are they using the right analytical 


method? We have to go back, as NIOSH has 


probably done, go back and look. What 


detection limit are they using? This is a 


problem for us. 


I have two more examples. I would 


like to talk about the Cerro Grande fire. I 


would like to talk about the fact that during 


the fire in May 2000 the air monitoring 


equipment was shut off because of electricity 


concerns about sparking more fires. 


And this has been a topic of 


contention for 12 years, about what really 


happened. So we're not able to say exactly 


what the firefighters were exposed to. 


I can say that when I was up at Los 


Alamos during that fire, I saw firefighters 


from the volunteer fire departments or from 


our area, from Taos clear around down to 


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Galisteo. 


They had no protective equipment. 


They had no respirators. They didn't even 


have dust masks. And this was criminal. 


Later that summer, the fire started 


at Idaho, the fire started at Hanford. And we 


called our colleagues around Hanford and 


around Idaho. 


And we said, get your guys, your 


firefighters, to at least get bioassays before 


they go in to these fires. They have to have 


some kind of equipment so that they're not 


breathing in these particulates from these 


areas. 


The second point about the Cerro 


Grande fire is that TA-16, TA-15, they burned 


three times during the fire. The fire went 


across, it came back, it went across, it came 


back, it went across as it was heading toward 


Area G. 


The burns were different 


magnitudes. There were some very hot fires. 


There were very low-intensity fires over this 


area. 


Recently the New Mexico Environment 


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Department has raised concerns about the 


levels of dioxin and furans at the firing 


sites and has asked LANL to go back and look 


at the level of sampling there. 


We believe that all of these issues 


that I've raised indicate that you can't do a 


dose reconstruction, that we have to move 


forward with something else for these folks. 


We support what Senator Udall has 


said. We support what Representative Lujan 


has said in terms of moving forward. 


People are suffering, and I know 


that you hear this all over the country when 


you're doing your work, but people are 


suffering and people are dying. 


And however you can move forward 


with this petition, it needs to be done as 


quickly as possible. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Mark, 


does the Work Group or SC&A have the NESHAP 


report? Yes, okay. I just wanted to -- okay, 


thanks. Next person I have is Reverend Holly 


Beaumont. 


REV. BEAUMONT: Mr. Chair, Members 


of the Board, I'm the Reverend Holly Beaumont. 


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I'm Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, New 


Mexico, which is a state-wide advocacy 


organization that stands with and advocates 


for workers and their families. 


I've lived in New Mexico for 25 


years at the foot of the Pajarito Plateau and 


was surprised as I began to work with Joni 


Arends and Las Mujeres Hablan how easy it is 


for all of us to move to New Mexico and slip 


into this state of denial about this industry 


up on the hill that has essentially held the 


people of northern New Mexico hostage now for 


decades. 


We see the results of that 


unhealthy relationship here in just a small 


microcosm of the sum toll that it has taken on 


the communities of northern New Mexico. 


We are at our wits' end at how to 


persuade those in decision-making positions to 


do what is right. 


As I wrestle with what it is that 


continues to delay this process, I realize 


that to a certain extent in order to act on 


behalf of these workers it requires lifting 


the veil of denial from your own psyches and 


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to acknowledge that what you are about at 


LANL, whether it is a direct relationship or 


as this relationship, is to handle and work 


with deadly chemicals and substances that are 


designed to kill human beings and that, in 


order to create those weapons, you are 


required to expose human beings to those 


substances and to figure out how to contain 


them and store them and that far too often 


your very best efforts, assuming that they are 


best efforts, have come short and failed and 


have released those substances into the 


environment and exposed generations of 


families here in northern New Mexico. 


So as a person of faith, I beseech 


you to do what must be done in order for each 


of you to find your own peace in being a part 


of this industry of death. 


And I am reminded of Dr. Martin 


Luther King, who is so often quoted, but one 


of his most famous statements was that justice 


delayed is justice denied. 


And he made that statement about 


people who I believe in many ways had striking 


parallels to the workers who have stepped 


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forward here today, those who have spoken, 


those who are named and those who simply wait, 


that there is a system here that has the 


ability and the resources to do the right 


thing for these people and, for reasons that 


are only fully known to you, continue to 


withhold that compensation and those resources 


and to find justification within your own 


minds for making those decisions again and 


again. 


So we stand before you as people of 


conscience and people of faith imploring you 


to bring that to an end and to move ahead, 


providing justice and compassion for those who 


deserve it and who will not rest until they 


receive it. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. I 


believe that there was somebody on the 


telephone who wanted to speak about LANL. 


MR. FROWISS: Yes, Dr. Melius. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 


MR. FROWISS: Can you hear me? 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can. Can 


you identify yourself first for the court 


reporter? 


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MR. FROWISS: Yes, my name is 


Albert Frowiss. I'll spell it for the record. 


It's F-R-O-W-I-S-S, Box 909, Rancho Santa Fe, 


California. 


And I appreciate all that you do. 


I attend most of your meetings by phone, some 


in person. 


I'm a private advocate for SEC 


claimants all over the country and I've done 


probably 250 claims for LANL and Sandia in the 


last year or two and I run a lot of newspaper 


ads in the local New Mexico papers for public 


outreach. 


My questions today are really not 


for your Board but they relate to LANL and 


probably for others at the meeting, DOL or DOE 


people. 


I had two questions. The first 


one, and I'm sorry that it's just a minor 


detail relative to all the eloquent remarks 


that have been made already. 


But I'd like to know why it's 


taking so long, typically 90 days, for the 


point of contact for LANL to get normal EE-5 


employment verification for LANL employees. 


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These are requests that don't even 


involve DAR requests. They're just simple 


employment verification requests. And so 


that's one of my questions. 


I think Mr. Lewis mentioned earlier 


that the LANL point of contact person is at 


your meeting. 


The second question that I have is 


really probably a DOL policy issue and that is 


regarding Technical Area 0 in the current SEC. 


There's been nobody that's seemed to be able 


to define whether this area includes the 


school, the lodge, et cetera. And so I think 


there are people in Washington, D.C., at the 


policy office who are still struggling with 


that. 


And I just wonder whether any 


enlightening remarks can be provided in this 


forum today. Thank you very much. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't know if 


there's anybody here that can answer those 


questions now? Greg may. Greg Lewis from DOE 


is here. 


MR. LEWIS: Yes, this is Greg Lewis 


with DOE. I'd be glad to talk to him directly 


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but I do not believe our numbers show that 


it's 90 days for employment verifications. I 


believe we're much faster. 


I mean, I don't know if there are 


specific employment verifications he's talking 


about but I think our average is much faster 


than that but I'd be glad to discuss, you 


know, with him directly. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Sir, if you 


want to contact either through the point of 


contact or directly to DOE headquarters, 


they'd be able to, I think, follow up on that. 


MR. FROWISS: I'll do that. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And I 


don't believe anybody here is from DOL and I 


suggest you follow up directly with DOL 


headquarters also on -- usually the people 


that handle sort of facility definition issues 


don't attend our meetings so. 


But we'll mark it as a public 


comment and make sure there's follow up on 


this for you. 


MR. FROWISS: Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Is 


there anybody else here who signed up for 


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public comment or didn't sign up for public 


comment and wishes to speak? 


DR. MERRITT: There's someone on 


the phone. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Are you 


speaking about LANL or --


DR. MERRITT: Yes. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. You go 


ahead and then I've got a couple of people 


here who want to speak but go ahead and 


identify yourself first, please. 


DR. MERRITT: This is Dr. Maureen 


Merritt. I'm a retired occupational medicine 


physician. 


And I've been involved with issues 


regarding LANL and the EEOICPA as an advocate 


and authorized representative for 


approximately the last seven or eight years. 


I've worked with a number of the 


people that have spoken to you today, in fact, 


and I've done a lot of research myself over 


the years and I'd like to speak briefly about 


the SEC petition 00109. 


I've reviewed the Tiger Team 


reports, the LAHDRA report which just came out 


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in its completed form not even two years ago. 


I've done extensive research 


through the NAS and other scientific bodies 


and publications, all in the interest of 


helping sick claimants through the EEOICPA 


process, most of who have had to go through 


dose reconstructions. 


And I have to say that after all of 


this and being on the Advisory Committee of 


the Cold War Patriots, which is a national 


nonprofit with approximately 8,000 members 


now, and being a founding member of New Mexico 


Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocates and being 


instrumental in setting up the first state 


Office of Nuclear Worker Advocacy, I have to 


say that I believe that dose cannot be 


reconstructed accurately for the time period 


in question. 


I've looked into it very carefully 


as I know the petitioner and others have. And 


the fact that it feels that the 180-day rule 


has been circumvented to the point where, if 


we're going on nearly four years, it's just a 


travesty. 


And as Holly mentioned, justice 


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delayed is justice denied and I believe the 


Board really, respectfully, I request that 


they act on this petition as soon as possible. 


And, of course, my hope would be to see it 


approved. Thank you very much. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Is 


there anybody else on the line that wishes to 


make comments about LANL? 


Okay, now I saw at least two hands 


in the audience so whoever wants to go first. 


And when you come to the microphone, please 


identify yourself for the records. 


MR. MARTINEZ: Chairman, gentlemen, 


ladies, my name is Cirilio Jake Martinez. I'm 


from northern New Mexico, Hispanic, born in 


Espanola. 


I worked for LANL for 31 years as a 


mechanical tech at TA-53 and also as an 


environmental technician. I did a lot of 


things for the lab. You know, I'm proud to 


serve my country with LANL. 


But a lot of the things that I did 


there were not monitored right by my 


supervisors. 


We did a lot of chemicals, freon, 


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acetone, tripropylene. I don't know how to 


pronounce it very well. But we would use our 


bare hands, no plastic gloves or anything like 


that. 


We'd work overtime to do shielding 


over at TA-53 at Area G, I'm sorry, TA-53 and 


we'd move hundreds of lead bricks with no 


gloves or nothing, you know, on overtime. 


And naturally when you're young and 


you're raising a family, you try to get the 


overtime that you can, and at that time I 


think I was making like $2.50 an hour as a 


technician, okay? 


There was also the switchyard where 


we would go in and we would maintain the 


vacuum on the accelerator machine. Sure, they 


did experiments to help human beings. 


They had targets. They had, you 


know, like 10-foot instruments with detectors 


at the end of these ten-foot and they couldn't 


even read the readings. It would peg the 


meter. These were targets. 


And we would go in there and they 


would get dosimeters to put on our shirts and 


sometimes they would peg and they would say 


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that we dropped them or that it wasn't an 


actual reading. 


So they would in turn, say, okay, 


we're just going to give you, you know, it's 


not a right reading. You know, it was up to 


them, you know, and so we agreed to that. 


Then at one point what happened was 


TA-53 got into some financial trouble so I 


decided, okay, well, I'm going to go into the 


environmental field. So I got lucky and I 


knew some people there and I got into the 


environmental field. 


When I was in the environmental 


field, I did drilling and it was related to 


sampling and we did core sampling for all 


types of nuclides that were in the ground. 


Tritium, at TA-54 I remember 


drilling. I was the actual driller. We would 


drill shafts 120 feet to find out if the plume 


of tritium would be traveling. 


They never gave us respirators or 


anything like that. The only thing that they 


ever gave us was a little air sampler that 


they would put over maybe about five feet from 


the actual hole, and that was it. 


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And we never got told if we were 


exposed to anything. A few times I lost my 


clothes because the readings were so high we 


weren't able to take our clothes home. 


And then also at different sites, 


the firing sites, I worked at different firing 


sites because -- well, that was my drilling 


experience. 


And then I transferred over to the 


environmental group which were the air quality 


group and I did air quality monitoring. 


And with the air quality, we went 


throughout northern New Mexico. We served all 


the northern New Mexico pueblos. I was in 


charge of representing the northern New Mexico 


pueblos with all the air sampling. 


I maintained the vacuum pumps. I 


did the tritium, the particulate matter, 


collected the particulate matter. I went to 


every single site that EPA mandated that we 


should monitor so I was involved in all that. 


I was also involved in the Cerro 


Grande fire, okay, as a technician that was 


called in from home. While everybody else was 


home, was called in to monitor. 


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I was not given a respirator. I 


was not given a radio. They were more 


concerned on picking up the filters, the 


particulate matter filters, which is 47 


millimeter in diameter, and the particulate 


matter. 


A vacuum pump is pulled on the back 


end of that particulate matter of that filter 


and then the particulate matter gets picked up 


on that filter. 


So they were more concerned about 


that than the safety of the worker. They just 


said, hey, go out there. Go do it. Go pick 


it up. 


The command post was in White Rock. 


Our office was at TA-54. They call it the 


kiva now. At that time it was called the cave 


but now it's called the kiva or cave, either 


one. 


So we were asked to drive from 


White Rock to the cave, pick up all of our 


equipment and go out into the field and put 


out these samplers. When I got there, some of 


these samplers were actually off. 


The reason why they were off was 


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because the vacuum pump, once it fills that 


filter, it's not going to run anymore. So 


either the pump would go out or the breaker 


would trip. 


And I'm not saying that all of them 


did that but I know a few of them did that and 


at different locations, not at one location 


but at different locations and we were out 


throughout the whole lab. 


I remember seeing the firefighters 


there and I spoke to some of them, some of 


them which have gotten cancer right now, that 


do have cancer, and I was by them. 


Also I remember at the TA sites, 


some of the firing sites, I was out there. I 


would walk up to the site and I would see the 


fire and it was in different colors. 


I would walk up to the sampling 


station which is a little birdhouse, okay? 


It's probably maybe 36 inches by 36 inches 


square and we have all our instruments in 


there. 


And we would sample for tritium and 


we would sample for the particulate matter and 


that was because of EPA mandates. Whatever 


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EPA mandated, that's what the lab sampled for. 


So as I would walk up to these 


stations, we'd have these wooden pillars that 


we would anchor these samplers to. They would 


be on fire. 


But yet, like I said, they were not 


concerned about us. They were concerned about 


the filters, bringing in the filters. And 


again, like I said, I'd like to emphasize 


this, some of those stations were off. 


They were not monitoring at the 


time that the, you know, the fire was there. 


I was there. I collected some of these 


filters where some of these machines were not 


on, which mechanically they did what they were 


supposed to. 


They were collecting the 


particulate matter but once they got 


overloaded, I mean, the pump either burned or 


they tripped the breakers. 


And since then, since 2000, I've 


had a tumor removed. I can't sleep at night. 


I have severe sleep apnea. I have some 


growths coming out of my hands. 


I mean, like this lady said 


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earlier, you know, I hope that you make a 


decision and you help us before we die. 


You know, money to me does not mean 


anything. It's that medical expense that will 


cover me in case I do get sick. 


Maybe not today but in the future 


if something comes up from the sampling and 


what I did for our country and LANL will be 


able to help me. What am I going to do with 


$250,000 if I'm dead? 


So please make that decision and 


make that decision for all of us, not just for 


me, for all of us. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 


MR. FUENTES: Good afternoon, 


Members of the Committee. My name is Jerry 


Fuentes. 


I worked at Los Alamos National 


Laboratory from 1978 to 1985. I analyzed 


plutonium-238 oxide. I analyzed americium, 


neptunium. We did thorium. We did all of 


these radionuclides that we analyzed. 


The bottom line was I was ingesting 


quite a bit of this radiation, this plutonium 


and all these other radionuclides. 


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We had these open front boxes 


called wet chemistry boxes and we'd be working 


analyzing 238 or 239 or whatever weapons grade 


it was. 


And the air would shut off and you 


would have all this particulate emissions come 


out and just drench you with plutonium and 


with all those small particles that were in 


there. 


You had to get out and you had to 


decontaminate your own lab and you had to 


change your clothes if you were wearing, you 


had to always where your lab smocks. That was 


one thing that happened. 


Another thing, I was working with 


the gentleman, the first lady that spoke here. 


He took the plutonium home with him. He 


contaminated the whole Wing 3 of TA-3, a CMR 


Building. 


He contaminated me also. They had 


to go to my house and decontaminate my house 


and the bar that I was having one beer at 


also. 


After that, then they took us back 


in and we had to decontaminate the Wing 3 that 


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was completely, totally contaminated with 238. 


Then they sent us in there again. 


And so I just have to say that the 


monitoring at Los Alamos left a lot to be 


desired. 


I currently have two cancers right 


now. Thank God they're in remission, but I 


have two cancers and it came probably from 


there. Nobody in my family has cancer and now 


I have two cancers, multiple cancers. 


If this occurred at Los Alamos, 


they would never monitor you if you worked 


with uranium fuel rods. I worked with uranium 


fuel rods. They didn't care about that. They 


thought that it wouldn't give you enough 


radiation or it wouldn't bother you. 


But when it came to plutonium, they 


allowed you to self-monitor, but not with 


uranium. They would not allow you to self-


monitor. These are my experiences there. 


Thank you very much. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you for 


sharing that with us. Best wishes to you. 


Yes. 


MS. MACE: Good afternoon. My name 


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is Cari Mace. I'm the President of the 


International Association of Firefighters in 


Los Alamos, Local 3279. 


I'm here because we support this 


and we support it because it's a small part of 


the bigger picture for us. 


When we come to work, we have the 


potential of being exposed to any number of 


things, any day of the week. Right now 


there's 37 personnel at LAFD who can respond. 


And knowing that we can go 


anywhere, anytime to have something in place 


to help out the brotherhood, knowing that my 


brothers and sisters are going to be protected 


if they get sick because I already have 


brothers that have cancers from working at 


LAFD. 


I have several friends that are 


retired now from LAFD who have dry coughs from 


the fire. It's very personal for me because I 


work by these guys every day and I see their 


families. 


And I know that if they get sick 


that they would hope that LANL would have 


something in place to help them, so this is 


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just a small part of the bigger picture for us 


as well. 


And I'm sorry for the individuals 


that are sick. It's the potential is always 


there and we know what we do when we show up 


to work because we understand the risks that 


we're taking every day when we come to work. 


But we're also hoping that if we do 


get sick that there's something there to help 


us out. Thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 


Anybody else that would like to make public 


comment? Yes, Danny. 


MR. BEAVERS: Mr. Chairman, my name 


is Danny Beavers. I'm a business 


representative for the plumbers and 


pipefitters and I currently represent about 


150 pipefitters in Los Alamos. 


And I'm not here just to speak for 


them or not to speak for myself but, you know, 


over the years we've represented thousands and 


thousands of construction workers there. 


Many of them have passed away. 


Many of them are too sick to come. Some of 


them have given up hope that this would ever 


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happen. 


I spoke two years ago in support of 


this petition and I'm here to do so again. I 


mean, these people went to work up there. 


They didn't question. They did their jobs. 


Many of them became ill from that. 


And I think it's time that the 


Board and NIOSH and whoever else move forward 


with this and give them an answer for the ones 


that are past 1975 on the last SEC. There are 


still a lot of people who this would affect. 


There was a lot of people got paid 


when the last one passed. A lot of people got 


medical. And I think it's just time that it's 


done. With that, thank you. 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Danny. 


Anybody else that would like to make public 


comments? Okay, anybody else on the telephone 


line that would like to make public comments? 


 (No response.) 


CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, if not, 


again, thank everybody for coming out. We 


appreciate your information you provide us and 


is really helpful and helps to move this 


process along and keep us accountable also, so 


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again thank you all for taking the time. 


 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 


matter was concluded at 5:52 p.m.) 


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