This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health Nevada Test Site Work Group, has 

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has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and certified by the 

Chair of the Chapman Valve Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader should be cautioned that 

this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

1

NEAL R. GROSS

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

NEVADA TEST SITE WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

THURSDAY

JANUARY 5, 2017

+ + + + +

The Subcommittee met at the Marriott 

Cincinnati Airport, Montreal Room, 2395 Progress 

Drive, Hebron, Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time, 

Bradley P. Clawson, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Chair

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member*

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member*

*participating by telephone
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

LYNN ANSPAUGH, SC&A

BOB BARTON, SC&A

ROSE GOGLIOTTI, SC&A*

JENNY LIN, HHS*

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A*

JOHN MAURO, SC&A*

JIM NETON, DCAS

MARK ROLFES, DCAS

GENE ROLLINS, ORAU Team*

MATTHEW SMITH, ORAU Team*

JOHN STIVER, SC&A*

DENNIS STRENGE, ORAU Team*
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Table of Contents

Welcome........................................... 4

Chair's Opening Remarks........................... 5

Response to NIOSH's Review of SC&A's Nevada....... 6

Test Site Resuspension Issues Status Report....... 6

SC&A's Position on comment 8 -- Resuspension..... 96

Issues at the Nevada Test Site................... 96

Review of Closed and Remaining Open Items....... 132

Wrap-up and Adjourn............................. 245
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 8:54 a.m.

3 Welcome

4 MR. KATZ: Welcome, everyone, in the 

5 room and on the line. This is the Advisory Board 

6 on Radiation Worker Health. It is the Nevada Test 

7 Site Work Group. We haven't met in quite a few 

8 years. We have got some work ahead of us.

9 The agenda for today's meeting and all 

10 the papers that we could clear, I haven't checked 

11 recently, but most of the material for today should 

12 be posted on the NIOSH website. So for folks on 

13 the line, from the public, for example, who don't 

14 have those papers directly, you can go on the NIOSH 

15 website for this program, schedule of meetings, 

16 today's date, and you can follow along with all the 

17 papers and perhaps the presentation. I'm not sure 

18 if that is posted yet. If it is not posted, it will 

19 get posted after this meeting. That doesn't help 

20 you as much but you can listen along and then see 

21 what that presentation looks like as soon as it does 
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1 get posted.

2 Roll call, let's do that.

3 (Roll call.)

4 MR. KATZ: Okay, then. I think that 

5 takes care of preliminaries. I would just remind 

6 all you folks on the phone to mute your phones, 

7 except for when you are speaking to the group --

8 star 6 to mute your phones, star 6 to come off of 

9 mute.

10 And Brad, it is your meeting.

11 Chair's Opening Remarks

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: I appreciate that. 

13 First of all, I would like to tell everybody thanks 

14 for getting with this. One of the things that I 

15 have to do is I have to go back. It has been since 

16 2013 that we had a Work Group on this. So things 

17 might be a little bit old. So I just want to make 

18 sure that we take the time that we need to be able 

19 to discuss these issues.

20 With that, I am going to turn it over 

21 to Mr. Anspaugh and we will start into it. And I 
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1 believe we are going to be talking about the 

2 resuspension.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Brad, this is Arjun.

4 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, Arjun. 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Before we start, I 

6 would like to make a correction in the update that 

7 went out from SC&A. It was a cut and paste error. 

8 On item 20 it says review continuing. It should 

9 actually have said issue resolved. I was just 

10 trying to cut and paste the heading for each one 

11 and I cut and pasted the whole thing. I'm sorry 

12 about that but item 20 should say issue resolved.

13 MEMBER MUNN: That's the kind of change 

14 we always like to see, Arjun.

15 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Arjun.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: You're welcome.

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, I appreciate 

18 that, Arjun.

19 Lynn.

20 Response to NIOSH's Review of SC&A's Nevada

21 Test Site Resuspension Issues Status Report
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1 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. Well, thank you. 

2 It has been a long time since I have been here. I 

3 think 2008 was the last time. So, we all have a 

4 little bit of a problem with trying to remember what 

5 was going on and try and resolve some of these 

6 issues.

7 The first slide just shows my title 

8 slide. And the next one we start out with just to 

9 remind you what SC&A's task was related to 

10 resuspension. This was item number five on the 

11 long-standing matrix and that cascades down into 

12 several other issues that are shown too, I think 

13 item 6 and 7 plus some others.

14 So the basic task that SC&A was given 

15 related to the Nevada Test Site was basically about 

16 resuspension. And so our task was to review the 

17 calculation of the doses from the resuspension the 

18 radionuclides deposited on the ground. And the 

19 issues mainly relate to the resuspension of 

20 short-lived radionuclides previous to 1972 or 1971 

21 when the start of measurements of airborne 
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1 plutonium were started.

2 So besides just the resuspension, this 

3 also involves the review of ORAUT 2012, which is 

4 the Technical Basis Document on Environmental 

5 Occupational Dose, Revision 3. That is a very 

6 complex document and difficult to follow, as we 

7 will get into. 

8 And also, there was a review of how 

9 doses were actually being constructed by the dose 

10 reconstructors and Bob Barton will make some 

11 additional presentation on that later.

12 The next graph just indicates some

13 fairly recent documents. So we started out with 

14 this Technical Basis Document that was dated 2012 

15 now and I didn't know that there was a new update 

16 of this famous matrix that occurred in May 2015. 

17 I don't know if that has been released in a 

18 PA-cleared version or not but I hadn't seen it until 

19 last night when reading Bob's computer.

20 MR. ROLFES: This hasn't been cleared 

21 yet. It has a bunch of claim information that we 
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1 have reviewed and provided. So that is why it 

2 wasn't emailed because there were a number of 

3 individuals who didn't have government emails as 

4 well or government email access.

5 DR. ANSPAUGH: Including me.

6 Anyway, going on, there was from SC&A 

7 a review of the issues and comments matrix. And 

8 then we had two additional what are known as White 

9 Papers. The first was from Strenge and I am glad 

10 to hear that Dennis is on the line, which was 

11 NIOSH's response to short-lived radionuclide 

12 issues raised in comment 5 in one of the 

13 resuspension issues report.

14 Then we also have a report by Rollins 

15 related to the inconsistency issues and I am also 

16 glad to know that Gene is on the line. 

17 And then we have the document that is 

18 in your hands, I hope, which I was the main author 

19 on it, the response to NIOSH's review of the Nevada 

20 Test Site resuspension issue status report, which 

21 that report goes back to 2015.
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1 And then we have, finally, Bob Barton's 

2 memo about the comment 8, the White Paper given by 

3 Rollins.

4 So just to remind you that I would like 

5 to go back to the next side, which shows major 

6 events at the Nevada Test Site and maybe this is 

7 a good refresher for us all. Looking at the major 

8 events that occurred at the Nevada Test Site, the 

9 first one, of course, is January 1951 when 

10 atmospheric testing began. And then in January 

11 1962, atmospheric testing stopped. And finally in 

12 September 1992, all testing stopped.

13 And there were two SEC petitions, both 

14 of which were eventually granted. The first one, 

15 55, carried us from January '51 through January 19 

16 -- well actually, the end of December 1962. And 

17 then the second petition, number 84 went from 

18 January 1963 through December 1992. And there was 

19 a lot of -- I think controversy is a reasonable 

20 comment, about whether or not it was possible, 

21 given the data on hand to reconstruct internal dose 
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1 based on the information that was available. And 

2 the ultimate resolution was that from the period 

3 of January 1951 through December of 1962, for both 

4 SEC classes, NIOSH decided that they were unable 

5 to calculate internal dose.

6 In an effort to calculate some dose for 

7 people who did not have presumptive cancers or 

8 perhaps did not work 250 days, there was an effort 

9 established to try and calculate occupational 

10 environmental dose. And the way it stands right 

11 now, there is what I call the NIOSH resuspension 

12 window which carries from January 1963 up to about 

13 1972 or '71, when the measurements of airborne 

14 plutonium were actually started at the Nevada Test 

15 Site.

16 So in order to look at this resuspension 

17 window, it is necessary to try -- and I would use 

18 the word bootstrap the measurements of airborne 

19 plutonium into all the other radionuclides that 

20 were present. And the way that is being done is 

21 to make use of what we call the RIDP data, RIDP 
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1 standing for not a frog but for the Radionuclide 

2 Inventory and Distribution Program, which took an 

3 inventory of all radionuclides on the test site. 

4 Those measurements were made in the 1980s.

5 And so that plus the Hicks tables, as 

6 used by NIOSH, takes us back to January 1963, 

7 according to the present calculations. And it has 

8 always been a bone of contention of what happens 

9 to the people who were on-site in the latter part 

10 of 1962 after atmospheric testing stopped but 

11 before January 1st of 1963. So the way it stands 

12 right now, these people who are shown in this circle 

13 who represent claimants who were at the Nevada Test 

14 Site working from January 1962 through the end of 

15 1962 and these people are not getting any 

16 occupational environmental dose, which means I 

17 think that these people are not being treated 

18 equally as others.

19 And just to remind you, the next slide 

20 indicates that there was a very busy time in the 

21 latter part of 1962 because 30 underground nuclear 
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1 tests were conducted during that six months and 

2 also the preparations were underway for 46 

3 additional nuclear tests in 1963. And I think you 

4 all understand that digging the tunnels and then 

5 placing the devices and taking care of diagnostics 

6 requires that there be a lot of work being done at 

7 the site. So, even though atmospheric testing 

8 ended in July 1962, there was a lot of activity 

9 going on in the latter part of 1962.

10 So, the next slide indicates our 

11 Recommendation 1 to the Members of the NTS Work 

12 Group, which is change the time period of 

13 reconstruction of occupational environmental dose 

14 to January 17, 1962 through December 31, 1992. So, 

15 that would take care of those workers who are 

16 enclosed in that small circle who are not getting 

17 any dose calculated for them in terms of 

18 occupational environmental dose.

19 One of the reasons for this 

20 recommendation is that the same methodology can be 

21 used just as it is used to get back to January 1, 
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1 1963. That same methodology can be used to get 

2 back to July 17, 1962.

3 MR. KATZ: Lynn, can we -- let's stop 

4 there with that issue because it is not an issue 

5 that we can really -- there is any point in spending 

6 much time on.

7 DR. NETON: Yes, I think that this, 

8 although technically Lynn is correct that the 

9 methodology could be used, the decision was made 

10 in the evaluation of SEC 55 to purposely add that 

11 extra six months period after atmospheric testing 

12 stopped to allow for the stabilization of the 

13 source term after atmospheric testing stopped. 

14 So, we specifically didn't stop the SEC 55 in July 

15 of '62. We extended it six more months 

16 intentionally and added that to the entire Class 

17 so that no dose reconstructions, by definition,

18 could be done under SEC 55. I mean it was added 

19 under those -- that thought process. 

20 So it is an SEC. No dose 

21 reconstruction could be done, whether it is a 
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1 resuspension model or not. It is already decided. 

2 It is a fait accompli, essentially. We can't go 

3 back and change the definition of a Class at this 

4 point.

5 MR. KATZ: You would have to withdraw 

6 the Class, basically and that is just really not 

7 realistic.

8 DR. ANSPAUGH: You know, I understand 

9 what you are saying but I don't really think that 

10 is correct. If we could go back one to my slide, 

11 you know, the SEC Class runs continuously from 1951 

12 through December of 1992. There is really no 

13 distinction between what can be done for people in 

14 the two SEC classes.

15 DR. NETON: Well if you look at the two 

16 Evaluation Reports, SEC 55 spoke nothing about a 

17 resuspension or environmental model. The SEC 

18 Evaluation Report for SEC 84 clearly had the 

19 environmental model in there moving forward from 

20 1960.

21 I mean it is pretty clear in those two 
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1 separate reports, if you look at them, that is the 

2 way it was treated. I mean there is no 

3 environmental -- as a matter of fact, there was no 

4 environmental model in the Site Profile prior to 

5 its revision after the SEC was added. 

6 So, it was not considered to be 

7 possible. And again, the language is very 

8 specific in Section 4.5 of the SEC Evaluation 

9 Report why we intentionally added that six month 

10 period after atmospheric testing stopped. So, it 

11 is a policy decision not a scientific decision.

12 DR. ANSPAUGH: Exactly.

13 MR. KATZ: It is not a Work Group 

14 activity, unless SC&A is recommending that the 

15 Board retract part of that Class, which honestly 

16 is not a realistic path forward.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I have 

18 a question for Jim Neton. When you say no dose 

19 reconstructions, not even partial doses or 

20 anything?

21 DR. NETON: I'm sorry, Arjun. I meant 
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1 to say no internal dose reconstructions unless 

2 there is bioassay data, you know the normal --

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Right, I 

4 understand that and agree with it except that here 

5 we are talking about environmental dose.

6 MR. ROLFES: I would disagree with that 

7 because testing is going on and there is 

8 resuspension occurring, you know it is an outdoor 

9 environment, an outdoor workplace. So I would 

10 consider it to be an occupational exposure, not 

11 necessarily an environmental one, which would be 

12 more reflective of work in mercury, for example, 

13 outside of a trailer in an area that is not having 

14 active weapons testing going on.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. So I am not 

16 understanding the difference between 

17 environmental dose in this six month period and in 

18 the subsequent period when you have similar 

19 activities going on. You are distinguishing 

20 between occupational internal dose and 

21 occupational environmental dose.
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1 DR. NETON: Well, I could read you the 

2 language in 4.5, where we added that six months 

3 after atmospheric testing stopped. In the 

4 Evaluation Report for SEC 55 it said the extension 

5 of the SEC period through December 31, 1962, 

6 approximately six months after the last 

7 atmospheric test allows for the stabilization of 

8 the source term and for decay of a shorter-lived 

9 radionuclide associated with the final atmospheric 

10 test. That was our conclusion at that time in 

11 2006.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

13 DR. NETON: So we added, we 

14 intentionally added that six month period to allow 

15 for stabilization of that rapidly changing source 

16 term and we said we cannot do, with sufficient 

17 accuracy essentially, any dose reconstructions for 

18 internal dose during that period unless we have 

19 bioassay data. That is the way we have been 

20 behaving since 2006 and that is the conditions 

21 under which the Class was granted.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I am not 

2 questioning it. I am just confused. I am just 

3 trying to clear up the confusion is that I am still 

4 not understanding the difference between the 

5 environmental dose and the six month period. Not 

6 occupational dose. I understand -- not 

7 occupational, internal dose. But the 

8 environmental dose between that six month period 

9 and the subsequent environmental doses that we are 

10 agreeing we should try to estimate.

11 DR. NETON: In SEC 84 there is an 

12 Environmental Dose Report because an environmental 

13 dose is described how that is done. That is not 

14 considered in SEC 55 at all.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

16 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I do 

17 have one additional observation that I think I 

18 would like to bring to the table. There is nothing 

19 about I guess the work we have done related to that 

20 six month period that would imply withdrawing or 

21 making modifications to the definition of the SEC. 
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1 That is you cannot reconstruct doses. So it still 

2 would be covered under the SEC. The only real 

3 question is for those workers that are not covered 

4 by the SEC, is it possible to assign some dose, as 

5 you do starting in January '63, is it possible or 

6 plausible to assign some dose to that six month 

7 period from July '62 to January '63.

8 I just want to make it clear that there 

9 is nothing about the comments we are making that 

10 have any impact on the --

11 DR. NETON: John, there is a policy 

12 decision that we couldn't do doses at that time. 

13 You can concoct any scientific model and go back 

14 and demonstrate that something could be done but 

15 the decision has already been made that it can't 

16 be done.

17 DR. MAURO: Okay, that is an important 

18 point and that is why I jumped in. Really what we 

19 have here is a judgment that is being, I guess, 

20 discussed on where I believe it would be fair to 

21 say that SC&A's position is that we believe using 
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1 your very same methodologies some dose could be 

2 assigned for that, at least a portion of that six 

3 month period, because you have a certain 

4 methodology in place. That can actually be 

5 extended back in time. However, it is NIOSH's 

6 position that you probably can't because of the 

7 complexities associated with the rapid decaying 

8 and perhaps in-growth and change of radionuclides 

9 perhaps in time and space. It is a very fluid time 

10 period. 

11 And I guess I would like to try to get 

12 to the nub of the issue. I believe, and correct 

13 me if I am wrong, the nub of the issue is there is 

14 a point when the complexity of the problem is such 

15 that it is really beyond that you could reasonably 

16 perform the dose reconstruction and it is a 

17 judgment call. And I guess the judgment call on 

18 SC&A's part in our work is that, well, it appears 

19 that you could do it, even though it gets a little 

20 bit more complicated. While it is NIOSH's 

21 position that not only do you have your definition 
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1 of the Class but also there is a technical 

2 underpinning and that underpinning goes toward the 

3 fact that you are dealing with a very complex, 

4 changing dynamic situation for that six month 

5 period.

6 That is my understanding of the nub of 

7 the issue and it really becomes not only -- I don't 

8 want make it sound as if somehow we are challenging 

9 the definition of the Class.

10 MR. KATZ: Well, John, it is Ted. I 

11 mean but it doesn't -- the technical business 

12 doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter because it 

13 is a policy bright line. It is not a NIOSH 

14 discretionary matter. It is the Secretary signed 

15 on the bottom line and drew this line and it 

16 applies. And we are beholden to the Secretary's 

17 decision. 

18 So, it is not a NIOSH discretionary 

19 matter as to whether dose is being reconstructed 

20 for that six month period.

21 So that is why I say that the only way 
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1 for dose to be reconstructed for that six month 

2 period that we are talking about here is for the 

3 Secretary to reverse the Secretary's decision and 

4 remove that period of the Class for this cause, 

5 basically, for this element.

6 MS. LIN: This is Jenny with OGC. I 

7 would agree with Ted's assessment as well.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, in that regard I 

9 think we should just defer to OGC and NIOSH, in my 

10 opinion.

11 MS. LIN: I am not sure why we need to 

12 defer it. I think the message is very clear we 

13 agree with Ted that if the dose reconstruction --

14 if now the Advisory Board is making a decision about 

15 or wanted to make a decision that dose 

16 reconstruction is feasible, that would need to be 

17 escalated back to the Secretary. That is not a 

18 NIOSH discretionary issue.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I guess what I am 

20 saying is that we go along with that opinion because 

21 we have been saying something different, 
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1 presumably. I mean I am still confused but --

2 MS. LIN: I think we should move on from 

3 this discussion.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well is it fair to say 

5 that scientifically we could do it?

6 MR. KATZ: Well, it is just --

7 DR. NETON: Well, can you do it with 

8 sufficient accuracy? That is the question.

9 MR. KATZ: And there is no point in 

10 debating that.

11 DR. NETON: There is no point in 

12 debating. The decision about doing it with 

13 sufficient accuracy has already been decided.

14 MR. KATZ: Yes, this is not unique. 

15 There are other classes we have established where 

16 we have similar analogues where something could be 

17 done and we can't do it because it is just a legal 

18 bright line. So, it is not worth the Board's time 

19 I think to spend on this matter because it is out 

20 of our hands.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well also, too, back to 
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1 my predecessor before me, the late Robert Presley, 

2 we basically pushed for this six month time period 

3 past it because at the Work Group, we were concerned 

4 with these radionuclides going past that time 

5 period. There wasn't that drop dead off and 

6 actually, NIOSH agreed with us on that. And this 

7 is where we got that six month period.

8 And now to come back and say -- it really 

9 is out of our hands now but what we were doing at 

10 that time period was taking that SEC and we were 

11 wanting to make sure that the people were covered 

12 under that. That is where that whole six months 

13 came from.

14 MEMBER MUNN: It's not as though this 

15 hasn't been debated in Work Group and in the full 

16 Board before.

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Correct.

18 MEMBER MUNN: We have covered it very 

19 thoroughly, granted, in early years, but there was 

20 a great deal of discussion on exactly this point 

21 what you can do and what you can't do, as Jim said, 
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1 with sufficient accuracy. That was always the 

2 sticking point.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: And this six month 

4 period, we felt, gave the petitioners their best 

5 opportunity because this other SEC came in later. 

6 And if it would have all been one thing, it may have 

7 been a little bit different.

8 My personal opinion is that it is really 

9 out of our Work Group's hands to be able to do this. 

10 We have already addressed this and already gone 

11 through the Secretary and we can't do anything 

12 about it.

13 MEMBER MUNN: It is actually out of the 

14 Board's hands completely.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: Correct.

16 MEMBER MUNN: It is a fait accompli.

17 MR. BARTON: I just think their 

18 confusion was, when we read the decision, it was 

19 based on the inability to reconstruct internal dose 

20 because of the same definition for both periods. 

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Correct.
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1 MR. BARTON: On the second period, we 

2 can do environmental dose. So we were sort of 

3 asking the question could you possibly do 

4 environmental dose. But it seems like what we are 

5 all hearing is that for that first SEC it is the 

6 inability to do occupational and environmental 

7 internal dose; whereas, for the second SEC, it is 

8 occupational internal dose but we can do 

9 environmental.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: Correct.

11 MR. KATZ: Correct.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay, then.

14 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay, so we will move 

15 on.

16 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Lynn.

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay, the next one is a 

18 small point but we were somewhat taken aback by a 

19 very optimistic statement about the performance of 

20 bioassays during the period of time addressed when 

21 people are doing some dose reconstruction. And so 
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1 the second recommendation was simply to provide a 

2 modified statement.

3 Instead of saying very positively that 

4 people who entered the underground test areas had 

5 their name on the roster and so forth, and that if 

6 they were exposed then they would have had 

7 bioassays, we would like to change that to the 

8 wording on this slide that says -- the next 

9 one -- that these workers may have been identified

10 on the rosters that were published before the event 

11 and these workers may have had bioassay results. 

12 I think this is the more accurate reflection of the 

13 truth. We know that some people had their names 

14 on the rosters and never showed up and we have seen 

15 evidence of people who were in the tunnels who did 

16 not have their names on the rosters. Plus we do 

17 know that lots of people, rosters did not have 

18 bioassays, which is why the SECs were granted in 

19 the first place.

20 So, that is just a very minor second 

21 recommendation.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: You'll have to forgive 

2 me. I do not remember the details of our years ago 

3 discussions about this particular point. But do 

4 we have any evidence that there is a significant 

5 number of people who were not on the roster who were 

6 actually in the tunnels? I know a significant 

7 amount of effort was made at the time on-site to 

8 try to assure that they had a good handle on who 

9 went in and who did not because early days or not, 

10 it was well understood that this was hazardous area 

11 and that records needed to be kept. So I don't 

12 recall. You may have seen this much more recently 

13 than I. What is our concern with respect to how 

14 many people may or may not have been admitted to 

15 the tunnels without any indication that they were 

16 in fact going to be working in that hazardous area?

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well I certainly can't 

18 tell you how many. I did look in detail at one 

19 particular accident of some note, which is the Yuma 

20 accident in 1963, I believe. There were a lot of 

21 people's names on the roster who were known not to 
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1 have been there. There were several people who 

2 were there who did not sign in and did not have their 

3 names on the roster. And I think, further, it is 

4 clear that people who may have been on the rosters 

5 didn't necessarily have bioassays done because we 

6 went through a very long analysis of who had 

7 bioassays and who didn't. And it turned out that 

8 the bioassays were very selective, only directed 

9 towards radcon workers -- I shouldn't say radcon 

10 -- rad protection people and also security people.

11 DR. NETON: I agree with that but it 

12 makes no difference at all. We are doing dose 

13 reconstruction at this point. If a worker has a 

14 bioassay, we are going to use it; if they don't, 

15 they are in the Class already.

16 All workers are in the Class for 

17 presumptive cancers. If they have 

18 non-presumptive cancer, then they will get a dose 

19 reconstruction using available bioassay data. If 

20 they don't have it, we don't do anything. I mean 

21 this wording may be more accurate but it makes no 
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1 difference in how we are doing dose reconstructions 

2 at all.

3 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I understand that 

4 but I object to the very optimistic statement that 

5 they would have been on the rosters that they would 

6 have had bioassays.

7 DR. NETON: Well and I suspect that 

8 that is a holdover from before the Class was added 

9 and it is easy to change that "was" to "may." I 

10 mean that is not a problem but, again, it makes no 

11 difference in dose reconstruction at all.

12 MR. BARTON: As Lynn said, it is kind 

13 of a minor point. And I think that is exactly what 

14 we are talking about.

15 DR. NETON: I don't think that we would 

16 revise the document just to make this one change 

17 but if we are doing it for -- we are going to

18 obviously have some other changes. We would be 

19 happy to put that in there. It is not a problem.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: That would be good. 

21 We have learned a few things through the years. 
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1 And I agree with Lynn on the "may" but also, too, 

2 I agree with you that it doesn't make any difference 

3 in the dose reconstruction. But if we do make a 

4 change or whatever, it would be nice to be able to 

5 put that in because I look at the perception from 

6 the petitioners and so forth.

7 DR. NETON: I don't disagree it is more 

8 appropriate wording.

9 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

10 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay, so then we will go 

11 on.

12 Again, this is just a reminder of the 

13 NIOSH calculations. The goal was to reproduce 

14 concentrations of radionuclides in air. And we 

15 will stick to 1963 through 1971, when the 

16 measurements of plutonium in air started in 1971.

17 So then the problem was that -- again 

18 if you remember, that the measurements of plutonium 

19 were sort of singular. There weren't measurements 

20 of a lot of other radionuclides. The corrections 

21 were made for long-lived radionuclides based on 
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1 measured concentrations in soil. And just, as I 

2 recall, in addition to plutonium-239 and -240, 

3 those measurements included things like 

4 cesium-137, strontium-90, europium-152, -154, and 

5 -155, long-lived radionuclides that were there 

6 many years afterwards. That was in the 1980s.

7 And so the key issue thing here is you 

8 get a ratio of plutonium to these other 

9 radionuclides and then you can infer the 

10 concentration of these other radionuclides in the 

11 air. So, that takes care of the situation in terms 

12 of long-lived radionuclides.

13 Then the situation gets much more 

14 complicated of how do you correct for the 

15 short-lived radionuclides that were present during 

16 the early times and which were not present in the 

17 soil in the 1980s. So, those corrections were made 

18 on the basis of the Hicks tables, which indicate 

19 the presence of short-lived radionuclides at 

20 various times after deposition.

21 Now the Hicks tables do not include data 
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1 on plutonium-239, -240 and this is for 

2 classification reasons. They do include data on 

3 a long-lived radionuclide of use, which is 

4 strontium-90. So the idea is you have measured air 

5 concentration of plutonium in 1971, you get a ratio 

6 of plutonium to strontium-90 based on the RIDP 

7 measurements, the Radionuclide Inventory Project, 

8 and then you get measurements of strontium-90 

9 compared to all the other radionuclides based on 

10 the Hicks tables.

11 So, it is kind of a complex chain. You 

12 start with measured air concentrations. You have 

13 concentrations in soil. Then you have 

14 concentrations inferred from Hicks. That gets you 

15 back to the point of being able to reconstruct the 

16 concentration in air of all these radionuclides, 

17 including the short-lived ones. So, it is a 

18 complicated process.

19 The other thing about it is it is 

20 well-known that resuspension decreases as a 

21 function of time. And so the way the correction 
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1 was made for the decrease of time was using a 

2 resuspension equation that was actually developed 

3 by me based on measurements at the Nevada Test Site 

4 back in the 1970s.

5 And just to show you how this equation 

6 looks, this is actually taking from an ORAU report, 

7 the resuspension factor is a function of time. And 

8 you see that it decreases very rapidly from a level 

9 of one times ten to the minus five per meter down 

10 to about five times ten to the minus nine or 

11 something by 150 days or so. And eventually, the 

12 resuspension factor goes down to what is assumed 

13 to be a constant value of ten to the minus nine per 

14 meter after a long period of time. So, it does 

15 indicate that during very early times after 

16 deposition you have very high levels of resuspended 

17 activities, which decreases very rapidly.

18 The next one is just an example of the

19 Hicks tables. You may not have seen these things 

20 in person before. And this is just to show you an 

21 example. This is a very complicated process but 
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1 it started out with Harry Hicks, who had access to 

2 all the classified information on every single 

3 device fired at the Nevada Test Site and in the 

4 Pacific in terms of what were the fissile materials 

5 in case of a thermal nuclear event. What were the 

6 devices? What were the materials around the 

7 device that would have been activated? And one of 

8 the things that was very much present was tungsten, 

9 which is used as sort of a mass thing to keep this 

10 whole thing together for a picosecond or two.

11 So, if you look at the complete set of 

12 radionuclides, you see there are a lot of tungsten 

13 isotopes for some events and not for others. 

14 One of the key things about the Harry 

15 Hicks tables was these values were all normalized 

16 to an mR per hour at H plus 12 and that the document 

17 we submitted goes through some rationale for why 

18 this was done and the reason, basically, was that 

19 we had all kinds of measurements of mR per hour 

20 downwind of the test site because people knew in 

21 advance exactly when this would occur. The 
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1 monitors were all placed out there with their 

2 meters. They measured mR per hour. What we

3 wanted to do was to get the deposition of 

4 radionuclides on the ground so that it could be 

5 referred to that mR per hour.

6 And so what you see here is the Hicks 

7 tables which do exactly that. And if you wanted 

8 to look at something in particular like cesium-137, 

9 you can see what the deposition of cesium-137 in 

10 terms of millicuries, microcuries per square 

11 meter.

12 This was also important because if you 

13 knew the presence of one radionuclide at a given 

14 point in time, then you could reconstruct the 

15 presence of all the other radionuclides. So, 

16 these were a very important calculation.

17 But in order to actually achieve this, 

18 the Hicks tables were normalized, as I mentioned 

19 before, to an external gamma exposure rate of 1 mR 

20 per hour at H plus 12 hours with use of Beck's 

21 tables.
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1 Then the next one gives you an example 

2 of what the Beck's tables were. This is Harold 

3 Beck from the U.S. Department of Energy's 

4 Environmental Measurements Laboratory.

5 And so this gives -- for every 

6 radionuclide within the Harry Hicks tables, this 

7 gives the microR per hour per millicurie per square 

8 kilometer. So, the Hicks tables, as derived on the 

9 basis of fissile materials and so forth, in order 

10 to be normalized, you had to know the amount of 

11 emission of different radionuclides in order to 

12 come up with this normalization. So, it is not 

13 just the Hicks tables by themselves that are 

14 important. It is also the Beck tables, in order 

15 to derive that.

16 The next one is just a reminder of what 

17 these Hicks tables were for. They were not derived 

18 by or for NIOSH. They were derived for the offsite 

19 radiation dose reconstruction activity that was 

20 carried out by the Department of Energy in the 

21 1980s.
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1 Now one of the things that NIOSH has 

2 keyed in on was the Small Boy, which was one of the 

3 -- almost the last test at the Nevada Test Site. 

4 And another point about the Harry Hicks calculation 

5 is that they had to take into account 

6 fractionation. And this, again, gets into 

7 something that is very complex because it is known 

8 that as debris carries downwind, say from a nuclear 

9 explosion at the Nevada Test Site, the volatile 

10 elements which condense later are enriched in the 

11 material that goes downwind. And so what the 

12 problem is, in terms of this kind of dose 

13 reconstruction is if the volatiles are enriched 

14 downwind, that means that the refractories are 

15 missing downwind.

16 So then, where are the refractories, 

17 the missing refractories? Well, the missing 

18 refractories have to be on-site at the Nevada Test 

19 Site. So, in order to use the Hicks tables for 

20 on-site at the Nevada Test Site, you have to correct 

21 for this fractionation that was done to facilitate 
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1 the use for the people downwind. So that means 

2 that if you want to correct for what is on-site, 

3 the best way to do this takes four steps and the 

4 first two are shown on this slide.

5 So for example, for Small Boy, we start 

6 with calculations for 0.4 of the refractories 

7 present downwind. So in order to get back to even 

8 situation, then you need to add back in the 0.6 or 

9 60 percent of the refractory radionuclides that 

10 were missing to create an unfractionated source 

11 term.

12 And then it is necessary to renormalize 

13 the unfractionated source term to 1 mR per hour at 

14 H plus 12.

15 Then the next two steps, you start with

16 the now unfractionated source term and then you add 

17 back in another 60 percent of the refractory 

18 radionuclides that are presumed to have been on the 

19 Nevada Test Site and then you need to renormalize 

20 again.

21 Now, this is a situation where, 
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1 clearly, ORAU has gone through steps one and three 

2 with adding back in the refractories but I don't 

3 think the renormalization was done.

4 MR. STRENGE: This is Dennis Strenge. 

5 You are correct, we did not normalize --

6 renormalize because the normalization is not 

7 necessary because the only thing we needed was the 

8 relative activity among all the radionuclides. 

9 And you could take -- well, Hicks prepared a 1981 

10 report called Calculation of the concentration of 

11 any radionuclides deposited on the ground by oxide 

12 fallout from nuclear detonation. I'm sure you are 

13 aware of that one. And in there, he has the 

14 equations for the normalization and it shows quite 

15 clearly that every activity value in that table is 

16 corrected by the same factor. So, the 

17 normalization that he did did not change the 

18 relative activities. And for that reason, we have 

19 not done the renormalization. We did do the 

20 corrections you mentioned, quite clearly, that we 

21 removed the refractory fractions and we corrected 
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1 back to -- not to times zero but to the initial site. 

2 So, those corrections, we did do.

3 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay I understand. The 

4 question of whether or not the renormalizations 

5 should be done in order to get the correct relative 

6 things is something that I think needs to be looked 

7 at. And that gets to our Recommendation Number 3 

8 that we would like to see the details of the result 

9 of that calculation so we could actually check that 

10 very issue.

11 One of the things that is missing from 

12 both the ORAU team and also your report, Dennis, 

13 was the results of the recalculation process. And 

14 in order for us to verify the calculations were done 

15 correctly, we would really like to see the results 

16 of those calculations.

17 MR. STRENGE: Well I guess we just felt 

18 that dividing by the listed refractory fractions 

19 wasn't that complicated and the tables would be 

20 huge. So those things, I am sure, could be 

21 provided.
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1 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay well, we would 

2 certainly like to see that. My feeling is that it 

3 would be necessary to renormalize but I am open to 

4 being convinced otherwise. But I would really 

5 like to see the results of the calculations. In 

6 essence, you would be reproducing the Hicks tables, 

7 which is not that big a file and certainly not 

8 nearly as bad as what we are going to ask you to 

9 do later on.

10 MR. STRENGE: Okay.

11 MEMBER MUNN: This is a fascinating 

12 scientific puzzle. The question that arises in my 

13 mind immediately is would the additional steps to 

14 normalize these data, as has been requested, make 

15 a significant difference in the calculation of 

16 dose? That is the bottom line from my point of 

17 view.

18 I can understand -- as I said, it is a 

19 wonderful science puzzle and it would be great fun 

20 to delve into that for a few months and play with 

21 the numbers but whether it makes any significant 
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1 difference to the claimant is a key for us in the 

2 Work Group I think. Does anyone have any feel for 

3 what normalization --

4 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark. As of right 

5 now, we are calculating doses for non-presumptive 

6 organs, essentially, those that don't fall into the 

7 SEC.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

9 MR. ROLFES: The environmental 

10 intakes, the environmental internal doses that are 

11 calculated with the current model for many of the 

12 non-presumptive cancers are less than a millirem 

13 per year.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that was my concern. 

15 Is this really going to -- and less than a millirem 

16 a year is certainly not going to affect our final 

17 dose reconstructions. So that raises another 

18 aspect of the question, I suppose.

19 MR. BARTON: Mark, this is Bob Barton. 

20 Does that same concept apply to the less than 250 

21 days where even for presumptive cancers you apply 
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1 the environmental doses? Would they all be very 

2 low like that or did that make a difference for less 

3 than 250?

4 MR. ROLFES: I have a table somewhere 

5 in the past several years that might provide 

6 example calculations of the resulting internal 

7 doses from the various organs. I don't know where 

8 that is in my emails or files at the moment but I 

9 could dig it up again.

10 I think we provided that to the Board 

11 in the past.

12 DR. NETON: Well I think the question 

13 right now is does this normalization need to be done 

14 or not. I mean it sounds -- I didn't understand 

15 completely what Dennis was saying but it sounds to 

16 me like it was a pretty simple logic argument that 

17 showed that it wouldn't make a difference because 

18 it is all relative.

19 Couldn't we start with that and maybe 

20 try to convince SC&A that that normalization is not 

21 required? Can you put a page of writing and you 
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1 could go check that yourself to verify that it is 

2 appropriate not to normalize, rather than redo all 

3 the calculations for the normalization that may not 

4 be required anyway, which is what you are 

5 proposing, I think.

6 DR. ANSPAUGH: It certainly is 

7 possible to check that and determine whether it 

8 would make any difference or not. Yes, it could 

9 be done.

10 DR. NETON: I would rather start with 

11 that, rather than have you guys redo all the 

12 calculations using a normalization that might not 

13 be required. I mean the first step would be to say 

14 is it required yes or no. And I don't know what 

15 could be provided to convince you it is not required 

16 or how we need to guide you down that path, but 

17 clearly it is more than just Dennis saying that is 

18 so.

19 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I would like to 

20 see the results of Dennis's calculation and then 

21 I would like to redo it myself, if the Board asked 
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1 me to do it. I don't want to wander off.

2 DR. NETON: Well what I am saying, 

3 though, is it really necessary to redo them using 

4 the full normalization, if it is not required? 

5 That would be -- wouldn't seem to be worth the time 

6 to do that if one could convince others that it is 

7 not a required step.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, Jim, it wouldn't be 

9 that much from what I hear to show what Dennis was 

10 saying about whether the normalization does not 

11 matter.

12 DR. NETON: Dennis, is it possible for 

13 you to put together some brief discussion write-up 

14 that would lead us down that path better?

15 MR. STRENGE: Well maybe I have been 

16 looking too closely at it. It is really simple to 

17 me because if you have a set of numbers and you 

18 multiply them all by the same value, which is what 

19 the normalization does, you are not changing the 

20 relative values at all. It is sort of like you 

21 didn't change the relative values, you are going 
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1 to get the same answer out when all you are using 

2 is the relative values.

3 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well I would disagree 

4 that you are multiplying all the values by the same 

5 number. The numbers are different, depending on 

6 whether it is volatile or refractory.

7 MR. STRENGE: Could you go through 

8 that? I don't really understand that.

9 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well if you look at your 

10 table, which I believe is Table 1, you see the 

11 numbers are not all the same. Some of them are 1 

12 and some of them are 0.4. And there are a few 

13 oddballs that are in-between.

14 MR. STRENGE: Oh, those numbers are not 

15 involved in the normalization that Hicks did for 

16 the 12 hours.

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, we have a 

18 disagreement there. Maybe it would be better for 

19 you and I to try and resolve that offline. I don't 

20 know.

21 MR. STRENGE: Okay. Do you have my 
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1 email?

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: Actually to be able to 

3 come to this, both sides fill further out. But I 

4 agree with you, Jim, that I don't think we have to 

5 go through this. 

6 I think what we need to be able to do 

7 -- but I would like to see whether the Board will 

8 concede to a write-up, a White Paper, whatever you 

9 want to call it of why or however we want to be able 

10 to do this.

11 But there is a disagreement here. 

12 Somehow --

13 MR. KATZ: Why don't we have -- Dennis 

14 and Lynn can talk in a technical call offline and 

15 write up a memo just summarizing that discussion 

16 and, if there is still a difference, what the 

17 difference is and why. And if there is 

18 concurrence, explain that. And we will have that, 

19 distribute that to the Work Group.

20 DR. NETON: Yes, I think that sounds 

21 reasonable.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: That would be helpful.

2 MR. KATZ: And the other matter I think 

3 that is equally relevant is when Mark goes back and 

4 looks at his files, if he finds that this has no 

5 bearing on doses, it is a non-issue.

6 DR. NETON: Well, I agree. I mean a 

7 250-day exposure limit is not going to provide a 

8 tremendous amount of dose.

9 MR. KATZ: Right. Right. I think the 

10 bottom line is the Board doesn't want to spend a 

11 bunch of money on an issue that has no bearing on 

12 doses. So, if that is the case then it doesn't even 

13 really matter to resolve the -- if it --

14 DR. NETON: I mean to me, though, if 

15 there is a technical issue, we should address this.

16 MR. KATZ: I know, but I am just saying 

17 Lynn doing a bunch of recalculating and so on, that 

18 kind of spending real time and real money on an 

19 issue that has no bearing on dose, to me, is a waste 

20 of the Board's money and time.

21 MEMBER MUNN: As I said, it is a 
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1 wonderful exercise and would be great for him to 

2 do but the bottom line to me still is does it 

3 actually affect the dose reconstruction. That is 

4 our job here.

5 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well I think the other 

6 bottom line that I have been wondering about from 

7 the very beginning is how many people do we really 

8 have who would benefit from such a calculation to 

9 the point where they might actually be compensated. 

10 I don't know whether there is anybody.

11 DR. NETON: Well the problem with that 

12 logic, and we have gone down this path before is 

13 if there is one --

14 MR. KATZ: Yes, we want to do right by 

15 everybody.

16 DR. NETON: But, you know, I looked at 

17 those doses before the meeting and they are pretty 

18 small. These environmental doses, these 

19 resuspension doses, especially the 

20 non-presumptive cancers, remember these are --

21 MR. KATZ: No, I know. Mark already 
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1 addressed that.

2 MR. ROLFES: Yes, there was a specific 

3 example, I guess, that SC&A had asked us to provide 

4 a sample dose calculation for a thyroid cancer and 

5 we had redone that and I am trying to find the 

6 results here.

7 MR. KATZ: But you don't need to 

8 scurry, Mark, because we will have this technical 

9 discussion offline, we will have a memo. So you 

10 have time. You don't need to dig it up now, Mark.

11 MR. ROLFES: I was just going to say the 

12 doses were very low and it wouldn't have made a 

13 difference in the compensation decision.

14 DR. ANSPAUGH: The other thing is that 

15 if you presume that the calculations were done 

16 correctly, the doses are very low except for ET and 

17 the doses were up to a level of around for ET, I 

18 believe --

19 DR. NETON: Oh, for ET1 and ET2? Yes.

20 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I think I had looked 

21 into the number of nasal cavity cancers as well and 
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1 I didn't see any at the time. I think that was also 

2 combined with the issue of 1962 because you had 

3 asked us to extend the internal dose calculations 

4 back to 1962. Since we are not doing that, the 

5 doses received -- the dose is really only important 

6 in that first year for the ET1. Virtually 99 

7 percent of the internal dose is all delivered in 

8 that single calendar year. And we are not going 

9 to be doing any internal dose calculations for 1962 

10 because of the SEC determination.

11 As I said, I didn't see any individuals 

12 with employment in 1962 or 1963 that had cancers 

13 of the nasal cavity. So, there wasn't anyone for 

14 which the model would apply.

15 MR. BARTON: When you say the calendar 

16 year, you mean just 1962 or you mean July '62 to 

17 June '63?

18 MR. ROLFES: I have looked 

19 specifically, I believe, into 1962 because, at the 

20 time, SC&A had requested that we had redo the model, 

21 essentially, to start calculating internal doses. 
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1 Back -- develop our resuspension model, 

2 recalculate intakes dating back six months 

3 earlier.

4 MR. BARTON: Well, I didn't know if you 

5 were talking about that six month period or 

6 actually into 1963 where we are doing the 

7 environmental doses.

8 MR. ROLFES: It was during 1962 is what 

9 I had done for. Looking back at an email because 

10 I had looked into this. Let's see.

11 It looks like the doses were 

12 calculated. I'm just looking at an email. The 

13 doses were pretty low, with the exception of those 

14 that would potentially be received by a 

15 hypothetical claimant. We didn't have a claimant 

16 in our -- not this database at the time I had looked 

17 at this. The exception was the ET1 region, the 

18 nasal cavity, and the high doses from the 

19 short-lived fission and activation products for 

20 ET1 and other organs were almost entirely delivered 

21 in the year that the intake occurred.
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1 So this issue was really only an issue 

2 that would affect non-presumptive cancer cases 

3 with employment in 1962. And that was when we were 

4 considering re-estimating intakes back to July 31, 

5 1962.

6 And I agree there were some high doses 

7 to ET1 from the short-lived fission and activation 

8 products.

9 DR. NETON: But even if you put a rem 

10 dose into a nasal cavity, it is not going to be 

11 compensated. I mean it is not even close to being 

12 close to a 50 percentile case I don't think.

13 MR. ROLFES: That was one of the 

14 highest exposed organs, ET1. I think some 

15 elevated doses to surfaces and other metabolic 

16 organs.

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I guess it is an 

18 interesting question whether or not any of this is 

19 worth doing but if it is worth doing, I suppose it 

20 is worth doing right.

21 DR. NETON: Yes, I can't disagree. I 
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1 think we should resolve this first question, which

2 is the normalization factor. I mean if it needs 

3 to be completely -- first we can decide whether it 

4 does not need to be completely redone and if it 

5 does, then we can decide how to proceed I think 

6 after that.

7 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well my understanding 

8 of what the recommendation is that Dennis and I are 

9 trying to resolve this offline.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes. So we will set up a 

11 call. Work Group Members can listen in and you 

12 folks can discuss this. If Dennis wants to send 

13 you a piece of paper first, that is great and that 

14 should be back to the Work Group Members. You will 

15 have your call and then we will report out with a 

16 memo the results of that.

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: Dennis, are you still in 

18 Richland?

19 MR. STRENGE: No, I am in Washington 

20 State but I am in Western Washington. I moved to 

21 be close to grandkids.
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1 DR. ANSPAUGH: I see. Okay. Well, 

2 we'll figure how to get in touch.

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, we will set that up. 

4 It will be a conference line so that other folks 

5 can listen in.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Terrible choice, Dennis.

7 DR. NETON: Yes, this will be a 

8 conference call Ms. Copeland will set up, to get 

9 the number --

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, we will set that up.

11 DR. NETON: -- and Board Members can 

12 listen in. Because we need to do this somewhat 

13 transparently.

14 MR. KATZ: Yes, absolutely.

15 DR. ANSPAUGH: In order for Dennis and 

16 I to be prepared for such a conference call, I think 

17 we need to exchange some data first.

18 DR. NETON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Send -- you are welcome to 

20 email and just copy me in the process of emailing 

21 so that I can share that with the Work Group 
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1 Members.

2 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay.

3 MR. KATZ: By all means.

4 MR. STRENGE: Yes, that is good.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well when we get to 

6 that point, we kind of know the background of how 

7 we got to where we did.

8 MR. KATZ: Exactly.

9 CHAIR CLAWSON: We will look through 

10 the emails, then also the transparency of it. 

11 Because it is hard for us, as Board Members, too, 

12 to be able to come in when these decisions are being 

13 made and we are still wanting to know how we got 

14 to that. So, if we are involved with it, it would 

15 be good.

16 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I guess the bottom 

17 line is this is very complicated and difficult to 

18 comprehend stuff. It doesn't matter whether you 

19 are a Board Member or a flunkey. It is still hard 

20 to trump in.

21 Okay, well, let's move on to what I 
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1 think is also a central problem that we have been 

2 discussing here. I find that these calculations, 

3 as presented by NIOSH and also by Strenge, the 

4 calculations are not transparent and I can't follow 

5 them. After we got to the point where we are now, 

6 the intermediate results are not shown and the 

7 descriptions, I think are, in some cases, they are 

8 either not clear or conflicting. And we will go 

9 through and show some of these things.

10 And the next one is my favorite cartoon, 

11 which is the way I feel after looking at how these 

12 calculations have been performed, is that we go 

13 along just fine and I understand everything 

14 completely and then it is seems like the miracle 

15 occurs and I can't follow it.

16 So, the next slide indicates to me what 

17 is the miracle. What I infer from what is said in 

18 the documents is that IMBA was run to determine the 

19 relative importance of 177 radionuclides to 26 

20 organs for ten one-year periods. That gets up to 

21 be 46,000 IMBA runs. And then Dennis did it for 
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1 five scenarios, which is 230,000 IMBA runs. And 

2 then if you add in ingestion, that is up to half 

3 a million IMBA runs.

4 And so my conclusion is that I am not 

5 understanding what was actually done or running 

6 half a million IMBA runs really is a miracle.

7 MR. STRENGE: Yes, well, this data is 

8 -- I like running IMBA but not that much.

9 In the Technical Basis Document in the 

10 attachment A.6, what Gene indicated there was the 

11 dose from the short-lived fission products was 

12 actually taken from ICRP 68. So, we didn't need 

13 to run IMBA for all those radionuclides.

14 And in my White Paper, I indicated that 

15 I did run IMBA but that was only to get the annual 

16 dose values from a unit intake, one becquerel per 

17 year of strontium-90, which I then used to generate 

18 the final results. 

19 So, we did use IMBA but it was only one 

20 run. And, fortunately, when you run IMBA you get 

21 the results for all the organs in one run. So, that 
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1 simplifies things also.

2 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay well that is a 

3 factor of 26.

4 MR. STRENGE: Yes, right.

5 DR. ANSPAUGH: That does help.

6 MR. STRENGE: Yes.

7 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well you know the bottom 

8 line of all this stuff is that I think it would be 

9 very helpful if somehow or another in this process 

10 that there would be a very clear description of 

11 exactly what was done and with the intermediate 

12 results shown so that people like me, and I presume 

13 some of the other people here could understand 

14 exactly what was done.

15 MR. STRENGE: Yes, I can certainly 

16 understand the difficulty in going through that 

17 because when I did the work for the White Paper, 

18 I started with some of the files and information 

19 from Gene Rollins, who did the original calculation 

20 and it took quite a while to figure out what was 

21 going on. So, I can really understand where you 
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1 are coming from.

2 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. Well, maybe we 

3 can skip over some of this other stuff and get down 

4 to --

5 MR. KATZ: Well, can I just ask do we 

6 have a path forward into what will address your 

7 concern at this point?

8 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, if we could skip 

9 over to slide 26, this is our recommendation to the 

10 Members of the Work Group. And that is basically 

11 what we just discussed. I think it would be very 

12 helpful to me and I think to everybody else that 

13 this recommendation is that NIOSH and their 

14 contractors should be very specific about how the 

15 calculations were done and to provide the 

16 intermediate results so that we could understand 

17 exactly what was done and also do some 

18 verification, independent verification.

19 And I also understand that this could 

20 be voluminous in amount of material that may not 

21 be presentable in a written form but it could be 
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1 done on a DVD or some method of communicating things 

2 that are other than paper.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Well the volume may be 

4 reduced significantly, once you and Dennis carry 

5 on some conversations.

6 DR. ANSPAUGH: Hopefully so.

7 MEMBER MUNN: A great deal of this may 

8 be easily explainable verbally so that the written 

9 result can be much clearer for all concerned.

10 The first step is for you two that know 

11 what is going on to talk about it.

12 DR. NETON: Well this is a little 

13 different from that last conference call we were 

14 talking about.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it is. It is.

16 DR. NETON: It would seem to me if you 

17 provide all these calculations, it is still going 

18 to need a roadmap of some type because, obviously, 

19 they are going to be just massive, I assume, things 

20 like spreadsheets and whatnot that were done.

21 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I am presuming 
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1 that the spreadsheets are not going to fit on a 

2 piece of paper. I think that is the problem.

3 (Simultaneous speaking.)

4 DR. NETON: But if they are not 

5 annotated in sufficient detail, it would be 

6 difficult for this third party to look at and 

7 decipher because they probably weren't developed 

8 with that intent. I mean I shouldn't speak for 

9 Dennis. Maybe they are.

10 MR. STRENGE: There are a lot of 

11 spreadsheets and they are fairly complicated. It 

12 might be possible to do some extractions for say 

13 one organ instead of all 26 and put something 

14 together that can show the numerical progress.

15 DR. NETON: That is what I am thinking 

16 is maybe just an example, maybe a once through for 

17 an organ to show the concept or the process that 

18 was used. 

19 I think if the concept can be shown to 

20 be accurate, then I'm not sure we really need to 

21 go and verify every single cell of every 
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1 spreadsheet is valid.

2 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I certainly 

3 wouldn't have that kind of intent but I would 

4 certainly like to be able to go through a 

5 calculation say for an organ just to be able to 

6 follow the calculation.

7 MR. ROLLINS: This is Gene Rollins. I 

8 am the author of all this stuff, originally, I 

9 guess.

10 When I handed this off to Dennis to do 

11 a third-party review on it, I didn't give him much 

12 information about how to follow the calculations 

13 and he is a pretty smart guy but he figured it out. 

14 And I believe Dr. Anspaugh could figure it out, too. 

15 I don't think it is going to require that much for 

16 him to understand what we did.

17 DR. ANSPAUGH: You overestimate how 

18 smart I am but thank you anyway.

19 DR. NETON: I guess then the question 

20 is what can we provide, other than just a data dump 

21 of everything you have done to SC&A and Lynn 
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1 Anspaugh that will allow him to review?

2 MR. KATZ: Well you suggested he 

3 provide an example and maybe he could be on the line 

4 and walk Lynn through -- on the phone with Lynn and 

5 walk Lynn through the process, so that Lynn doesn't 

6 have to decipher it. We could do that, right?

7 Bob, you could use a little of it, too, 

8 because you could help facilitate at least Lynn 

9 getting the spreadsheets and all of that.

10 MR. BARTON: Oh, absolutely.

11 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, Bob is a lot 

12 smarter than I am.

13 MR. KATZ: So anyway, why don't we do 

14 that? It is almost -- it is not really a technical 

15 call, per se, but they can walk Lynn through the 

16 spreadsheet for an example.

17 DR. NETON: That is a clarification 

18 type issue.

19 MR. KATZ: And then Lynn can ask 

20 questions and sort that out. And then if we need 

21 more follow-up after that, we will have more 
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1 follow-up. 

2 Is that okay, Lynn?

3 DR. ANSPAUGH: That's fine.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, okay.

5 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay, we are almost 

6 done. So, let's go to Recommendation Number 5. 

7 And I had made this recommendation several times 

8 that I would like to see NIOSH and contractors also 

9 consider the source term for the Sedan event and 

10 the reason is this is a very large event that 

11 occurred on July 6, 1962 almost at the end of 

12 testing.

13 And the Sedan source term is very 

14 different because it was a large thermonuclear 

15 event, less than 30 percent fission and 70 percent 

16 thermonuclear. And this results in quite a 

17 different mix of radionuclides. And just as one 

18 example that I pointed out in the paper was if you 

19 look at the relative amount of some of the tungsten 

20 isotopes, it differs by five orders of magnitude 

21 larger for Sedan than for Small Boy, for example.
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1 And the next slide just shows that Sedan 

2 was a major event. Even though it was 600 feet 

3 underground, it created a huge crater that was 1280 

4 in diameter and 320 feet deep. And so it produced 

5 a massive amount of fallout, which was falling 

6 clear across the U.S. and also had appreciable 

7 residue on the Nevada Test Site. It created large 

8 amounts of activation products, in particular. 

9 So, this is just a suggestion that I think it would 

10 be helpful to see what the differences would be if 

11 we considered Sedan in additional to Little Feller 

12 I or Small Boy.

13 So, that was Recommendation 5. 

14 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Just 

15 a quick clarification for my benefit. So, the 

16 essence of this is that the construct that was just 

17 described with regard to the Hicks tables and the 

18 relative amounts and how that was back calculated 

19 out, are you saying that if Sedan was -- the 

20 incident because this is also in more or less the 

21 same time period I believe, would that change the 
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1 whole paradigm? I guess I am not quite sure of the 

2 implications of looking particularly at this event 

3 that was, I guess, one of the tests that contributed 

4 to the residual radioactivity that was actually 

5 observed in the soil and in the air. Does this 

6 change the paradigm?

7 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, it is going to 

8 change the radionuclide mix in a substantial way 

9 and I don't know if that means it is going to be 

10 worse or better. Well, if I had to guess I would 

11 say it was probably better because there is less 

12 fission product but I don't know.

13 MR. ROLFES: Gene, this is Mark Rolfes 

14 and I know we have discussed this issue as to 

15 whether or not we would. We looked at the Sedan 

16 event and I don't recall -- I'm looking for a 

17 write-up or anything in my email but I am unable 

18 to find anything. I know we discussed this. Do 

19 you have any recollection of this issue as to 

20 whether the source term would be significantly --

21 from what I recall, I thought that what we were 
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1 currently doing would have resolved it in more 

2 claimant-favorable mixes of radionuclides to use. 

3 But I might be imagining that.

4 Do you --

5 MR. STRENGE: This is Dennis. Yes, 

6 when I saw the comments on Sedan, it made me 

7 curious. As Mark indicated, I actually did do some 

8 calculations but they were never written up. What 

9 I found, briefly, was that -- for 1963, some of the 

10 values went up but it was, at most, a factor of 

11 three. 

12 And then when you get to 1964 and 

13 beyond, there is really not much difference and I 

14 think the reason is is because the three tungsten 

15 radionuclides, the longest half life is like 120 

16 days. So, even though they start out at a high 

17 amount, in a few years, they do decay away and don't 

18 contribute that much.

19 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Dennis.

20 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, you know if Dennis 

21 has already done this and it could be written up, 
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1 I think that would be helpful because Sedan was a 

2 very major event.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Atypical.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: Atypical, right.

5 DR. NETON: Yes, I agree. It sounds 

6 like we could just put that in writing, form a White 

7 Paper.

8 MR. STRENGE: Yes, one question I have 

9 on that, for the underground event we took the Hicks 

10 tables and backed out the refractory fraction 

11 twice. Is that -- I'm not sure how that second 

12 removal of the refractory fraction really 

13 physically is described when you have an 

14 underground event. It is kind of hard to imagine.

15 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, the way Hicks did 

16 it was the same as the Small Boy, as I recall.

17 MR. STRENGE: The same refractory 

18 fraction, yes. It was 0.4.

19 DR. ANSPAUGH: Right.

20 MR. STRENGE: But when we apply it, 

21 take it out the second time, we are, in effect, 
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1 saying that at the site of the detonation, the 

2 refractories are enhanced relative to the 

3 volatiles.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: Correct.

5 MR. STRENGE: Well, I guess that would 

6 still be applicable because I am sure the volatiles 

7 were probably just blown out and most of them went 

8 a ways. So maybe it is still valid.

9 DR. ANSPAUGH: I think it is still 

10 valid.

11 MR. STRENGE: Yes, okay.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay, so then Dennis, you 

13 will write up a little White Paper on that analysis.

14 MR. STRENGE: On the Sedan, yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes.

16 MR. STRENGE: I will have to go through 

17 and check on my calculations again but I will do 

18 that.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, if I remember 

20 right, back -- and I have to agree with Mark, I 

21 thought we looked at kind of all the Plowshare 
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1 programs because that is where we got some of the 

2 larger releases and stuff like that. And there 

3 wasn't that much difference.

4 But you know it is a question we have 

5 if we have got a write-up that we could have, then 

6 it has been addressed and taken care of.

7 MR. KATZ: Okay.

8 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay, well the next 

9 slide indicates that sort of what we were just 

10 talking about, actually. You mentioned, Brad, 

11 that there was a large number of underground shots 

12 that actually vented 1963 to 1970. We had these 

13 five Plowshare events that released from 100,000 

14 to a million curies. The Baneberry event released 

15 10 million curies and then we have all these tests 

16 of nuclear rocket engines.

17 The question here is just what does this 

18 mean relative to how we calculate the doses. And 

19 I don't have an answer to that and I am not sure 

20 that it has been seriously considered. But the 

21 next slide is the photograph of the Baneberry 
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1 event, which, as you can see, it was, indeed, a very 

2 massive event and it nearly resulted in getting the 

3 test site shut down because this was detected well 

4 beyond the borders of the United States, which was 

5 in violation of the treaty, of course.

6 So, the Recommendation 6 then is have 

7 we really considered these impacts of the hundreds 

8 of other releases in a serious manner enough that 

9 exposures to claimants are really considered 

10 fairly. And maybe NIOSH has already gone through 

11 that calculation. I don't know but my impression 

12 is it hasn't really been considered seriously.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: I thought we had 

14 because that was one of my question is what created 

15 what is referred to as the Plutonium Valley. And 

16 that is where the write-up Mark brought out of 

17 looking at this.

18 If my memory serves me right, it was 

19 addressed and that this was all put in, that we were 

20 good on it. But I guess we will have to resurrect 

21 that paper, Mark, if you can find that. Because 
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1 this was a big issue. The reason why is because 

2 that was one of my issues because I had dug into 

3 quite a bit of this and I wanted to know all of 

4 these, especially Plowshare because of the release 

5 into the environment and that is where I remember 

6 Mark did a write-up that also SC&A reviewed and they 

7 both came up with the same thing. But maybe we need 

8 to bring it back.

9 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I will see what we can 

10 do to find the previous document that we discussed.

11 MEMBER MUNN: I recall a lot of 

12 conversation about this during our site visit but 

13 I don't know about the documentation for it.

14 DR. MAURO: This is John. I have a 

15 question, conceptually. When I was working with 

16 Lynn on this, I was thinking in terms of the whole 

17 motivation behind this array of calculations was 

18 environmental. We all recognize that there were 

19 occupational exposures during this time period 

20 which were transient situations where it was 

21 impossible to try to reconstruct doses to 
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1 individual workers who might have been involved in 

2 the individual occupational activities, along the 

3 lines of backdrilling and on-site work.

4 Now, we are bringing into the picture 

5 something that in my mind is of -- philosophically 

6 or conceptually similar. Namely there were 

7 transients related to tests that were -- and I 

8 consider these field activities transients also, 

9 where a person goes out and does a certain job, 

10 which are occupationally related. 

11 The question I have is are these 

12 matters, such as these venting occurrences, 

13 occurrences that appropriately belong to what I 

14 would call this chronic environmental exposure 

15 that everyone was exposed to throughout this long 

16 time period, where you were trying to assign some 

17 environmental dose to those workers who are not 

18 covered by the SEC.

19 Now, what we are doing here is 

20 superimposing on that well there were also these 

21 transients that would also have occurred. Do 
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1 these scenarios fall within the purview of 

2 exposures that cannot be reconstructed and 

3 therefore a part of the story that says well, that 

4 is why there is an SEC. There are certain 

5 scenarios that we can't reconstruct doses to 

6 individual workers. Or do these fall into the idea 

7 that well, this is part of the chronic 

8 environmental exposure that Strenge and Rollins 

9 constructed to at least assign some dose, 

10 environmental doses to workers who may have been 

11 present on-site, where we don't know where they 

12 were necessarily, or what their -- but at least 

13 there is a way to assign them some internal dose.

14 So, I guess I would like to just raise 

15 the question. These particular incidents of where 

16 there were these transients that occurred during 

17 the time period of interest, do they fall into the 

18 category that is appropriately considered part of 

19 the chronic environmental exposure that you would 

20 like to try to reconstruct or do these represent 

21 scenarios that may have been transients but they 
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1 can be reconstructed, as opposed to the other 

2 situations of occupational exposures that cannot 

3 be reconstructed? I'm not quite sure if you 

4 understand the question.

5 MR. KATZ: John that was a very clear 

6 explaining of the question.

7 DR. NETON: This is Jim. It is not 

8 clear to me because I don't recall this evaluation 

9 that was done for these events, to be honest. But 

10 I don't know when we are talking about atmospheric 

11 inhalations or whether these would be resuspension 

12 models, deposition and then add to the resuspension 

13 model. To me, if they were atmospheric it would 

14 be related to the occupational environment. I 

15 mean if they are just released to the environment 

16 -- I mean released to the atmosphere versus this 

17 environmental model, which is essentially just a 

18 residual contamination model, I don't know you 

19 could do that. Could you really --

20 MR. ROLFES: I think where we are at 

21 right now with the current resuspension model to 
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1 assign environmental intakes, it is the product of 

2 many years of our work and the Work Group's work. 

3 So, we are trying to refine the model once again 

4 or going back to a previous discussion that we have 

5 had in the past with an earlier version of the 

6 environmental intake models because we have gone 

7 full circle.

8 MR. ROLLINS: This is Gene Rollins. I 

9 would like to say something here.

10 A resuspension model was not used to 

11 estimate these doses, these intakes. We keep 

12 getting back to that and it seems that Dr. Anspaugh 

13 seems to think that I am using his model to estimate 

14 atmospheric concentrations and I never did. The 

15 only atmospheric concentration I ever used in any 

16 of my calculations was the highest Pu concentration 

17 measured at the site in 1972 in Area 9. That did 

18 not require a resuspension model. That was 

19 empirical data.

20 So resuspension is really not an issue 

21 here.
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1 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, if I recall what 

2 you wrote in your report, you certainly have higher 

3 values in 1963 and to get there, you did use a 

4 resuspension model.

5 MR. ROLLINS: No. No, I did not.

6 DR. ANSPAUGH: Then I totally 

7 misunderstand what is in your report. And you also 

8 have a graph of the resuspension model in your 

9 report.

10 MR. ROLLINS: Right and that was used 

11 to estimate the effects of short-lived -- of early 

12 resuspension. And that was just a multiplication 

13 factor that I used based on that 1972 air 

14 measurement.

15 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I understand, but 

16 the ratio is based on resuspension, as stated in 

17 your report.

18 MR. ROLLINS: Well yes, I integrated to 

19 a function on how important it could be.

20 DR. ANSPAUGH: Yes and you applied it.

21 MR. ROLLINS: But I did not use it to 
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1 estimate airborne concentrations. I used it 

2 generally as a factor I could multiply the derived 

3 intakes by to account for early resuspension.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well that is using the 

5 resuspension model in my book.

6 MR. ROLLINS: Well okay but I didn't 

7 use it calculate airborne concentrations. I used 

8 it to develop a multiplier to multiply the intakes 

9 that I derived to take care of the early 

10 resuspension.

11 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well I agree and maybe 

12 we are just differing on some minor terminology but 

13 you did use a resuspension factor model to increase 

14 -- well, to create your multiplier for the intake. 

15 Right?

16 MR. ROLLINS: Yes, for 1963, '64, and 

17 '65.

18 DR. ANSPAUGH: Right. Okay, so we are 

19 in perfect agreement. Yes?

20 MR. ROLLINS: Right. But nowhere in 

21 the intermediate calculations did any air 
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1 concentrations were ever used, except for one 

2 measurement that was used that came from 1972 Area 

3 9 for plutonium-239.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay, yes, I 

5 understand.

6 MR. ROLLINS: Okay.

7 DR. MAURO: This is John again. So, my 

8 understanding is that the issues of these venting 

9 occurrences can be thought of within the concept 

10 of there is the actual airborne releases that 

11 occurred at the time of the event and there is no 

12 -- during this time period -- that is unrelated to 

13 resuspension. 

14 And the issue is not that we are trying 

15 to reconstruct those doses. The point that is being 

16 made here is the fact that those events occurred 

17 deposited radioactivity in the soil, as was done 

18 during atmospheric testing. It has, in fact, been 

19 captured by plutonium data that was measured in the 

20 air and by the soil activity that was measured 

21 because that is the rock you are standing on.
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1 MR. ROLLINS: Right, John. It's all 

2 based on the soil measurements that were made in 

3 1981, which would have included all these releases, 

4 they came after 1963.

5 DR. MAURO: Okay, good. That is why I 

6 am raising the question. I am trying to say that 

7 I think you might be okay.

8 MR. ROLLINS: Yes, I think so too and 

9 I am going to tell you why. Because we backed all 

10 that data in 1981. The case record goes back to 

11 1963. So, there were a lot of persistent 

12 radionuclides that were put on the ground by these 

13 ventings that occurred after 1963 but really 

14 weren't there in 1963. So in my way of thinking, 

15 that makes it claimant-favorable.

16 DR. MAURO: And that is why I bring the 

17 point up. And I think my sense is I am agreeing 

18 with you. That is, what is being said here is that 

19 these transients, at least to the degree to which 

20 they contributed to the activity in the soil and 

21 the associated resuspension, aren't captured by 
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1 the data that you base everything on. And you are 

2 not trying to reconstruct the doses from the actual 

3 airborne ventings but you are saying that, 

4 effectively, your methodologies have captured it 

5 because you are working with data from the soil that 

6 was collected and data from the airborne plutonium 

7 that was mentioned that would reflect these 

8 transients that have occurred and resulted in soil 

9 contamination and resuspension. That is what I 

10 understand that -- why you are okay, I guess I am 

11 saying that.

12 MR. ROLLINS: Well I appreciate you 

13 have a complete understanding of it, John.

14 DR. MAURO: Okay.

15 MR. ROLLINS: Thank you.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: But this would be part 

17 of the environmental, wouldn't it? Because back 

18 in the days, I remember because we were talking 

19 about this, we wouldn't be able to do these 

20 exposures as they were. This would become 

21 environmental because we were talking about the guy 
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1 that was going out there with a CAT in the Plutonium 

2 Valley making all of this. 

3 And so this is where I believe this 

4 paper that Mark was talking about and also where 

5 they were talking about that they back calculated 

6 this. And the reason why we didn't address it is 

7 because it wasn't an SEC issue. It was a Site 

8 Profile issue. And this is what we are back to now.

9 Is that painting a good enough picture 

10 for you, John?

11 DR. MAURO: I believe so. And I guess 

12 I would want to defer to Lynn because we did not 

13 -- Lynn and I did not spend very much time

14 discussing this one particular issue. And now 

15 that it is on the table before us and I just 

16 articulated my understanding of the issue, I would 

17 like to hear if Lynn agrees that my 

18 characterization of it is fair, where I am, in 

19 effect, agreeing with Gene and whether Lynn would 

20 agree that conceptually, in effect, these 

21 incidents, at least the resuspension in soil 
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1 contamination aspects of their contribution to 

2 dose as environmental is, in fact, a correct 

3 representation or did I miss something.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well you know the last 

5 major contaminating event was Baneberry and that 

6 occurred in 1970. So, I think Gene is correct in 

7 the sense that the measurements of the RIDP program 

8 went on for years and years but, basically, it was 

9 during the 1980s. And so in that sense, anything 

10 measured by RIDP in the 1980s would have included 

11 most of the major events -- well, all of the major 

12 events. So I think probably in that sense, we are 

13 okay.

14 The Baneberry event was also very 

15 unusual. It was both contributed to the 

16 environmental background but it also created some 

17 quite large exposures to workers who were evacuated 

18 and they were measured. They did have bioassays. 

19 So, I think Baneberry goes through both situations. 

20 And I think the large exposures to individual 

21 workers who were taken care of because they were, 
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1 in this case, identified and they were bioassayed 

2 or they had external badge measurements. So, I 

3 think Baneberry was unusual in that it encompassed 

4 both a contribution to the general environment and 

5 also very specific exposure to workers.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: So do you feel good 

7 about this? Because my question is because this 

8 was a very personal one to me because I wanted to 

9 know how they were going to be able to address all 

10 these releases. And this is when Gene came in 

11 because my memory is starting to work again back 

12 here, since I have slept, that they back calculated 

13 everything and it brought all this in.

14 But this was more of an environmental 

15 dose because, as you said with Baneberry and stuff, 

16 they have the bioassay. So, the people were taken 

17 care of. But my picture was was how are they going 

18 to be able to address all these releases to the 

19 general people, people that were just out there 

20 working and so forth. And this is when they came 

21 up with this and this came down to the environmental 
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1 dose of it.

2 So, do you feel good about what --

3 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well you know in 

4 thinking back, I am feeling better. I will tell 

5 you what. You know what Gene did originally in his

6 calculations was very conservative. He picked the 

7 highest concentration of plutonium ever measured, 

8 which appeared in 1972. And for some of these 

9 other radionuclides in the ground, he picked the 

10 highest concentration measured in any area. So, 

11 there is quite a large amount of conservatism built 

12 into there already.

13 And then considering that the 

14 measurements of the Radionuclide Inventory and 

15 Distribution Program were made in the 1980s, it 

16 should encompass all these residual activities. 

17 And so by the time you move them back to 1963, I 

18 think we are fairly well covered.

19 DR. MAURO: This is John. There is 

20 something important that has happened here that I 

21 just want to make sure I understand.
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1 When it comes to Baneberry, what I am 

2 hearing is that there is a lot of data, which means 

3 that the exposures from that, where you have 

4 bioassay data which was collected, it sounds like 

5 fairly extensively, you will have the data to 

6 reconstruct the doses for those workers not covered 

7 by the SEC, which would be the way you would always 

8 deal with any circumstance where you have data. 

9 But there is no intention here to say let's see do 

10 we want to address exposures for workers that may 

11 have been exposed to Baneberry airborne venting --

12 not the resuspension part now. Remember we like 

13 to separate the two ways of thinking. One is the 

14 resuspension aspect, which is this chronic 

15 exposure from the actual event where there was 

16 venting. 

17 Here is a circumstance where everyone 

18 agrees, yes, there was significant venting. Yes, 

19 we do -- where there was direct airborne exposure 

20 and not resuspension and that we do have lots of 

21 data where, at least for a significant number of 
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1 workers, we have data where we can reconstruct the 

2 doses for those workers not covered by the SEC but 

3 no attempt is being made here to build a coworker 

4 model to reconstruct doses to other workers that 

5 may have not been bioassayed but exposed to 

6 Baneberry direct releases.

7 Is that a correct statement?

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, lots of heads nodding, 

9 John.

10 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes. 

11 John, there is a specific matrix item on the 

12 discussion of Baneberry. It is matrix item 13 and 

13 SC&A had a comment that the method for estimating 

14 iodine-131 exposure due to the Baneberry venting 

15 does not appear to be claimant favorable. A 

16 similar approach for other ventings may also 

17 underestimate dose. And the suggestion was the 

18 development of a method for assigning more 

19 claimant-favorable partial iodine-131 doses 

20 appears to be warranted.

21 The NIOSH response -- following the 
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1 December 2014 Work Group in the matrix that is from 

2 May 15, 2015 -- the NIOSH response, we agreed that 

3 the iodine concentration measured at Orange Road 

4 on December 18th -- there is a typo, it says 1968 

5 but it is supposed to be 1970 -- at 9:30 a.m. may 

6 be a more appropriate concentration to use to 

7 estimate bounding doses to unmonitored workers. 

8 Had the concentration 3.5 times 10 to the negative 

9 seven microcuries per cc been used, an intake of

10 0.835 microcuries for two hours would have been 

11 calculated, resulting in a dose to the thyroid of 

12 6.5 times 10 to the negative fourth rem. That 

13 would be the maximum exposed organ and that would 

14 be less than one millirem, which is already 

15 accounted for in other doses assigned in a dose 

16 reconstruction for an NTS employee.

17 DR. NETON: But see I am not even sure 

18 those doses should be reconstructed, based on what 

19 we just talked about here.

20 MR. ROLFES: True.

21 DR. MAURO: That's why I brought it up. 
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1 I think that what is important about this is that 

2 we understand the bioassay. You always use that. 

3 What we have here is a circumstance where you have 

4 other data of airborne sampling that would allow 

5 you to -- now I don't know if you have considered 

6 this a coworker model, I don't think it would, but 

7 you are saying you have some other data which is 

8 air sampling data that perhaps might be useful in 

9 reconstructing the doses from the direct releases. 

10 But, Jim, you just pointed out that --

11 well, perhaps we should not do that.

12 DR. NETON: I think if you look, and 

13 this is in the SEC 84 time period, yes, I am pretty 

14 certain that the designation for the Class, the 

15 determination language, talks about the 

16 unavailability of bioassay and adequate bio air 

17 monitoring and all those kind of traditional 

18 monitoring data that are not sufficiently present 

19 to reconstruct doses. So, it already acknowledged 

20 that the source term -- not the source term -- that 

21 the monitoring information is not sufficient, 
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1 including environmental samples.

2 DR. MAURO: Okay, that was my 

3 understanding also.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: Mark, what was the date 

5 of that measurement?

6 MR. ROLFES: The date was December 18th 

7 and there is a typo up here that says 1968 but the 

8 Baneberry event occurred in 1970.

9 DR. ANSPAUGH: It was on December 18th?

10 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

11 DR. ANSPAUGH: Because at one point in 

12 time, you had a measurement that was made six days 

13 after the event. So if that one was really made 

14 on the 18th of December, that is better than one 

15 six days after the event.

16 MR. KATZ: So, the Work Group can close 

17 this one.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, from what I have 

19 just heard from SC&A, we are in agreement that we 

20 can close this one, correct? But I leave it up to 

21 you.
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1 DR. ANSPAUGH: Yes.

2 DR. MAURO: Sorry, the discussion we 

3 just had was that, Mark, the fact that you were able 

4 to do a calculation that showed doses were 

5 negligible based on those air samples, I am going 

6 to use a word that is not meant to be pejorative, 

7 the fact that you were able to go through that 

8 exercise and show that these doses were negligent, 

9 really has no play because it has already been 

10 agreed we are not even going to try to do that. Is 

11 that a fair statement?

12 MR. ROLFES: Right, I agree.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, it is not pejorative.

14 DR. MAURO: Pejorative.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. Just 

16 for clarity, so we are talking about item 13 being 

17 resolved?

18 MR. KATZ: Yes.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes, thanks, Arjun. Right, 

21 we do want an updated matrix.
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1 So, you have to ask your Work Group 

2 fellow Members for their concurrence.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: Wanda, how do you feel?

4 MEMBER MUNN: I concur.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, Phil?

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I think that is 

7 settled.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: Gen?

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: It sounds settled to 

10 me.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. And I agree, 

12 too.

13 MR. KATZ: And then we have a petition 

14 for a comfort break. Some of you may want one as 

15 well, on the line. So, why don't we take a 

16 ten-minute break?

17 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

18 went off the record at 10:37 a.m. and resumed at 

19 10:49 a.m.)

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, we are all back here 

21 in the room and I think ready to go again, assuming 
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1 we have folks back on the line. Do we have Phil 

2 back and Gen?

3 MEMBER ROESSLER: I'm on. This is 

4 Gen.

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'm on. This is 

6 Phil.

7 MR. KATZ: Okey-doke.

8 So, Bob, is it your turn?

9 SC&A's Position on comment 8 -- Resuspension

10 Issues at the Nevada Test Site

11 MR. BARTON: Okay, so we have just gone 

12 through essentially what was SC&A comments 1 

13 through 7 on the resuspension issue, which Lynn did 

14 excellent work on. There is also comment 8, which 

15 was the subject of a separate White Paper response 

16 by NIOSH. And just to give a little back story on 

17 what that was, in addition to looking at sort of 

18 the technical aspects of how we derive these 

19 environmental intakes, we also ask the question, 

20 well let's go take a look at some actual claimant 

21 dose reconstructions and see what is happening 
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1 there as far as application of it. So, I am sure 

2 you all will be relieved that you can take your 

3 analytical hats off for a few moments.

4 And what we have found is discrepancy 

5 or -- inconsistency is a pretty harsh word because 

6 there are a couple of different, I guess you could 

7 call them methods that were being employed, one 

8 which is OTIB-18, which sort of a generic document, 

9 among many sites that employed an air sampling 

10 program to assign internal doses without actually 

11 constructing a coworker model, sort of an 

12 efficiency measure. So, we saw that that was 

13 actually being used a couple of times during the 

14 SEC period.

15 Also sometimes the environmental 

16 intakes were being applied. Sometimes there would 

17 be overlapping employment with Tonopah Test Range 

18 and in most cases, we saw that Nevada Test Site was 

19 being applied. Sometimes the TTR intakes were 

20 being applied. So we said you know this might be 

21 an opportunity to sort of shore up some of the 
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1 consistency because one of the great tenets of this 

2 program that we strive for is, to the extent we can, 

3 theoretically if a number of dose reconstructions 

4 were to look at the same case, they would all come 

5 to the same conclusions, within reason. I mean, 

6 obviously, every individual case will have its own 

7 nuances that will necessarily require some 

8 professional judgment but we felt that in some 

9 cases a more standardized procedure would be 

10 beneficial so that, again, let's say you had two 

11 claimants that were pretty much doing the same job, 

12 the same work history and are looking at their dose 

13 reconstruction report. Are they actually getting 

14 assigned the same thing within reason?

15 NIOSH responded to that and provided a 

16 really excellent discussion, which I think is 

17 beneficial not only to the Work Group, us and other 

18 interested parties such as the claimants 

19 themselves, about sort of the evolution of how 

20 doses get reconstructed and how necessarily they 

21 are not always going to be up to date with what the 
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1 TBD says. Just that is the nature of the beast. 

2 TBDs can't be revised. Every day you have a 

3 change.

4 But anyway, I don't have a presentation 

5 but I think just for everyone's benefit I am going 

6 to throw up our memo in response, which is on the 

7 website for everybody and just for ease of everyone 

8 seeing it here. So give me just one minute here.

9 Okay, can everybody see? It should be 

10 showing a PDF file, page two of SC&A's response 

11 memo. Is that up on the screen?

12 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

13 MR. BARTON: Yes, okay, great. So 

14 what we are looking at here is after the discussion 

15 that NIOSH, which really provides a lot of clarity 

16 on how the dose reconstruction methods sort of 

17 evolve over time, they did agree that, and I will 

18 read this into the record, "NIOSH agrees that, over 

19 the years, the lack of detailed instructions and 

20 the evolution of project- and NTS-specific 

21 guidance has resulted in inconsistencies in the 
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1 manner in which OTIB-18 and environmental intakes 

2 are assigned and the resultant doses evaluated." 

3 And this next part is definitely important, 

4 "However, these inconsistencies have not resulted 

5 in the discernible effect on case decisions." 

6 Essentially, the compensation.

7 But they did agree and they drafted up 

8 -- and I will scroll so everyone can see -- these 

9 eight sort of instructions. And I will back it up 

10 here just a little bit so you can see all eight.

11 And these are taken out of NIOSH's White 

12 Paper response. And as you can see, it really is 

13 kind of a step-by-step instruction for the dose 

14 reconstructor about how you apply these different 

15 things, such as OTIB-18 environmental intakes, 

16 when you have overlapping periods of employment at 

17 Tonopah and NTS, how you deal with all these 

18 different facets of it so that you kind of 

19 standardize the process, which is really what we 

20 were looking for.

21 And so we took a look at these essential 
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1 steps or punch list and all we have is we came up 

2 with five, I guess, comments or maybe suggestions, 

3 two of which are really sort of suggestions on how 

4 the TBD could be improved, if it were to be revised 

5 so that it is a little more clear to readers such 

6 as the claimants, who might ask similar questions 

7 that we ask when we do these reviews, or just other 

8 interested parties, or just for clarification to 

9 improve the document and the program as a whole.

10 So as we see these instructions, I am 

11 going to leave them up there because it is just 

12 easier to talk about them when everybody can see 

13 them.

14 Our first comment, and this is one of 

15 those that is sort of just a suggestion, but the 

16 first instruction says: Assign environmental 

17 intakes for all employees who were issued dosimetry 

18 at NTS between 1963 and 1992 and to all employees 

19 after 1993.

20 SC&A's comment on that was sort of for 

21 clarity and we already discussed sort of the 
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1 atmospheric period and that six months after 

2 testing and why that can't be reconstructed. And 

3 obviously there is the legality of it but there is 

4 also the technical reasons behind it, why that was 

5 chosen. And I think if you were reading this as 

6 a claimant, you might look at it and say well, why 

7 are we doing environmental intakes for that latter 

8 period? What about me? I work in the earlier 

9 period. And, obviously, for, I am sure, several 

10 valid reasons, it is just impossible during the 

11 atmospheric period to separate out source term that 

12 is purely environmental versus occupational. And 

13 so we completely understand why the decision was 

14 made not to try to tackle the environmental dose 

15 problem.

16 And our only suggestion is that maybe 

17 some text could be added to the environmental TBD 

18 to sort of flesh that out and explain why we are 

19 only talking about 63 to 92 and why we are not 

20 talking about the earlier period. 

21 So, again, that is just a suggestion to 
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1 improve the TBD. I think it provides clarity, 

2 especially for outsiders who are reading this and 

3 they are wondering the same question.

4 So, again, that is just a suggestion, 

5 sort of an editorial suggestion on how the TBD could 

6 be improved. It doesn't have an effect on dose 

7 reconstruction.

8 Our second comment is related to 

9 instructions 2 and 3. And so instruction 2 is: 

10 Beginning in 1993, OTIB-18 can be applied in lieu 

11 of environmental intakes as an overestimating 

12 technique for cases that do not require a best 

13 estimate. 

14 And number 3 is: Beginning in 1993, 

15 OTIB-18 intakes may be applied in lieu of 

16 evaluating claims that had bioassay results (in 

17 vivo and in vitro) that were less than the minimum 

18 level of detection or had relatively-low positive 

19 results reported.

20 It was a little confusing to me but I 

21 think I got it. So what we are saying is if it is 
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1 just a best estimate and you want to apply 

2 environmental intakes, you would use OTIB-18 to 

3 apply those environmental intakes. But I guess 

4 what I was confused about was it seems that OTIB-18 

5 is being used to assign occupational intakes in 

6 that post-1992 period. So, I was a little confused 

7 about how does that work. I mean, would you still 

8 be assigning some sort of occupational intake, 

9 based on bioassay or would that just --

10 MR. ROLFES: Well, if a person has 

11 bioassay data and we want to provide an 

12 overestimate of that person's internal dose, if 

13 they had several non-detectible bioassay results, 

14 non-positive bioassay results, the application of 

15 OTIB-18 would be a claimant-favorable 

16 overestimate.

17 MR. BARTON: It was just confusing 

18 because it said, I guess, in lieu of environmental 

19 intake. So environmental intake would not --

20 well, we will get to that point.

21 Part of the comment there was that, 
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1 obviously, it is always preferable to construct a 

2 coworker model for any unmonitored doses but we 

3 looked into, specifically, the technical basis 

4 from EG&G from 1993, which was basically their 

5 document on showing how they are in compliance with 

6 835 and they even ay in there that only about 2.5 

7 percent of the NTS worker population was on any sort 

8 of routine bioassay schedule. So, it is a very, 

9 very small portion.

10 And we went in and look at 100 random 

11 claims and we found that only five of those had 

12 routine gamma whole body counts. So, it is pretty 

13 much in line with what was said in that 1993 

14 document. So, we certainly find it maybe 

15 implausible to construct any sort of coworker 

16 model. But again, this is a recommendation to 

17 improve the TBD to say the reason that we are not 

18 considering a coworker model to specify 

19 unmonitored doses versus the OTIB-18 approach is 

20 that it is simply not feasible for reasons A, B, 

21 and C. So, again, that is --
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1 DR. NETON: Well, I think that is a 

2 little different logic, though. What they are 

3 saying here is OTIB-18 -- if a worker were going 

4 to be assigned environmental dose, that decision 

5 would have been made up front. They were not a 

6 general worker in the area. They were 

7 environmentally exposed.

8 And OTIB-18, you are right, is an 

9 occupational assignment but it clearly would bound 

10 any environmental intake that would be assigned. 

11 So, it is an overestimating technique. It is an 

12 efficiency process almost.

13 MR. BARTON: Right. I guess my 

14 question is then for unmonitored workers because 

15 that was the impression I got from this. If you 

16 are an unmonitored worker, then you would get 

17 OTIB-18. Do I have that correct?

18 DR. NETON: Only if the case is not 

19 compensable. OTIB can only be applied for 

20 noncompensable cases.

21 MR. BARTON: Okay so if you were trying 
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1 to perform a best estimate on a case --

2 DR. NETON: You would assign 

3 environmental dose.

4 If you can assign an OTIB-18 intake, 

5 which is way above an environmental intake and it 

6 is still not compensable, it is not compensable. 

7 It is just quick that way, rather than go on through 

8 the details of environmental.

9 MR. BARTON: Okay. I guess I was 

10 thinking of this in terms of how you assign the 

11 occupational portion. My impression was --

12 DR. NETON: Well, if it is 

13 environmental intake, it is not an occupational. 

14 The person would -- it would already have been 

15 decided that he is not going to get an occupational 

16 dose.

17 MR. BARTON: Okay. Maybe this is just 

18 not applicable to the environmental TBD. But 

19 again, if you had an unmonitored worker who was 

20 considered a rad worker out at the site post-1992 

21 --
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1 DR. NETON: He wouldn't get an 

2 environmental intake.

3 MR. BARTON: He would be able --

4 OTIB-18, right?

5 DR. NETON: Well, OTIB-18 could be used 

6 to overestimate his dose.

7 MR. BARTON: Okay.

8 DR. NETON: OTIB-18 is an 

9 overestimating TBD -- TIB. You can say we don't 

10 know exactly what this guy's exposure was. 

11 Clearly, it was less than what was it, ten percent 

12 of the MPC or DAC or whatever it was at that time.

13 MR. BARTON: Well, post-1992 you have 

14 to assign occupational dose.

15 DR. NETON: If it is an overestimating 

16 technique, you just say it is less than ten percent. 

17 You got less than ten percent of the DAC after 1992 

18 and if it is not compensable it is okay. If it is 

19 compensable under those conditions, you can't use 

20 OTIB-18. OTIB-18 can only be used as an efficiency 

21 process. It is not used to compensate cases.
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1 MR. BARTON: Okay, I guess I am still 

2 confused. So, you have a case where you have a rad 

3 worker that is not monitored outside of the SEC 

4 period --

5 DR. NETON: He cannot be assigned -- he 

6 should not be assigned environmental dose. He 

7 would be assigned an occupational dose.

8 MR. BARTON: Which it is not a coworker 

9 dose, right? There is no coworker model.

10 DR. NETON: No. You would take his 

11 bioassay --

12 MR. BARTON: But unmonitored.

13 DR. NETON: All right, we are getting 

14 into the post-835 compliance era.

15 MR. BARTON: Yes.

16 DR. NETON: And we are probably going 

17 to take that up at the next Board meeting.

18 MR. BARTON: Okay.

19 DR. NETON: We have some approaches 

20 that we have developed to deal with this 

21 requirement and 835 is everybody that had 
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1 potentially received 100 millirem CEDE in a year 

2 is required to be monitored.

3 MR. BARTON: Okay.

4 DR. NETON: And if you can demonstrate 

5 that they met that compliance requirement, then by 

6 definition everybody that wasn't monitored 

7 receives less than 100 millirem CEDE.

8 MR. BARTON: Okay.

9 DR. NETON: And we are working ways to 

10 deal with that universally --

11 MR. BARTON: Okay.

12 DR. NETON: -- as long as you are in the 

13 835 compliance era.

14 MR. BARTON: Okay. Yes, that one was 

15 really concerning, that post-835 period. That is 

16 why I had the question about it.

17 MEMBER MUNN: I have a question. Give 

18 me an example of an individual who is classified 

19 as a rad worker but is not badged.

20 MR. BARTON: We're talking internal 

21 dose, so it would be not bioassayed.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

2 DR. MAURO: This is John. Just to 

3 confirm my understanding, the reason OTIB-18 is 

4 bounding is that you actually compare the outcome 

5 of this ten percent DAC doses, which are too with 

6 the workers that were monitored and you found that 

7 they are grossly overestimated. In other words, 

8 for the places where you do have data, bioassay data 

9 and you can reconstruct the doses on that basis, 

10 those doses were always much lower than what you 

11 would have gotten if you assumed OTIB-18. That is 

12 what makes it bounding.

13 DR. NETON: That would necessarily be 

14 true, yes.

15 DR. MAURO: Yes, all I am trying to look 

16 for is you chose OTIB-18 because you felt it was 

17 a bounding analysis that can be used for the purpose 

18 of denial. And we know it is conservative because 

19 when you compare the results for places where you 

20 do have data, it is always conservative.

21 DR. NETON: Well, this item does refer 
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1 to Table 7-1 and -2 of ORAUT 2005 and I'm not sure 

2 exactly what that table is. But yes, that 

3 calculation would have had to have to have been done 

4 for us to use that approach.

5 DR. MAURO: Right. That is all I 

6 wanted to confirm.

7 MR. ROLLINS: John, Gene Rollins. I 

8 think you need to understand that when you compare 

9 OTIB-18 to when you have data, it is typically 

10 compared to negative data. We don't use OTIB-18 

11 if we have significantly positive data.

12 DR. MAURO: Oh, no, and I understand 

13 that. No, I was just looking for the reason you 

14 believed OTIB-18 was always going to be bounding 

15 as a way of assigning a dose and the reason is when 

16 you look at the people where you do have data, it 

17 certainly demonstrates that it is a very high dose 

18 that you are assigning by using OTIB-18.

19 MR. ROLLINS: For instances where the 

20 results are negative or very strong, positive.

21 DR. MAURO: I guess I am a little bit 
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1 lost on that. I'm sorry. I didn't quite 

2 understand.

3 MR. ROLLINS: We can only use OTIB-18 

4 if we have like a plethora of negative data or in 

5 certain instances and they are called out in OTIB 

6 and they give values, that the processor has to 

7 remain below those values to be able to apply 

8 OTIB-18 and assure that you are getting a 

9 conservative answer.

10 DR. MAURO: Okay.

11 MR. BARTON: Okay, well it sounds like 

12 the issue of post-'93 is still in the works. So, 

13 I guess my main comment there was that for 

14 unmonitored, and so this is not environmental 

15 intakes, I thought that the approach I was reading 

16 there of using OTIB-18, which may not be the truth 

17 anymore, I thought the TBD would benefit from a 

18 discussion of why a coworker model was not being 

19 used there. And again, it is for the benefit of 

20 the claimant or other interested parties looking 

21 at it and saying well other sites get coworker 
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1 models for unmonitored workers. What happened 

2 here is really the situation that you only have 2.5 

3 percent of those population actually on a routine 

4 monitoring program. So that is a very small 

5 population.

6 DR. NETON: Oh, just to clarify John's 

7 question, I did look up Table 7-2 in TIB-18 and it 

8 definitely has values that were evaluated that 

9 would indicate that the TIB-18 is an overestimate 

10 against whole body counts and exclusion data. So, 

11 that was done as part of a TIB-18 exercise.

12 DR. MAURO: Thank you.

13 MR. BARTON: And again, that was meant 

14 to be sort of an editorial suggestion.

15 Alright, anyway, moving on to comment 

16 3 and this has to do with instructions 4 and 8. And 

17 this is a situation where -- instruction is: When 

18 OTIB-0018 intakes are assigned, environmental 

19 intakes do not need to be assigned but may be 

20 assigned for claimant favorability.

21 So, that is the situation where the dose 
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1 reconstructor themselves is making that choice. 

2 Obviously, adding on the environmental intakes is

3 going to be claimant-favorable. Not including 

4 them is probably still claimant-favorable but, 

5 again, it is one of those situations where is this 

6 an opportunity to take that decision out of the dose 

7 reconstructors' hands so that, again, if you have 

8 a bunch of people looking at the same dose 

9 reconstruction, we don't have one electing to 

10 assign environmental intakes and another one 

11 electing not to do it. Does this have significance 

12 from a compensation standpoint? No, because we 

13 are talking overestimate cases. But again, it is 

14 the issue of trying to make these dose 

15 reconstructions as consistent as possible so that 

16 if we were to look at them, compare cases, we see 

17 that the same decision is being made in the same 

18 situations. 

19 And 8 is very similar to that and also 

20 it has very built-in claimant favorability that 

21 says if you have no external dosimeter, the 
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1 assumption should be that the EE is not on site and 

2 environmental takes should not be assigned; 

3 however, you can assign them for cases that do not 

4 require a best estimate.

5 So, those are two of the instructions 

6 that kind of leave it out there for the dose 

7 reconstructor to do it or not do it, based on 

8 probably the individual preferences of the dose 

9 reconstructor. And I think that is something that 

10 could be shored up.

11 It is not going to make much of a 

12 difference but, for example, if you are saying well 

13 you can apply environmental intakes if you want to 

14 but you don't have to, I mean you can always make 

15 it that if it is an underestimate you don't apply 

16 it; if it is a best estimate, you do whatever the 

17 best estimate methodology is and if it is an 

18 overestimate, you apply it. You know something 

19 standardized like that to take the decision out of 

20 the dose reconstructors' hands, even though it 

21 probably doesn't make any difference in 
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1 compensation because we are talking about non-best 

2 estimate cases. It is sort of an example of one 

3 of those steps that maybe we could standardize even 

4 more.

5 Our fourth comment had to do with 

6 instructions 5 and 7 and this was the whole 

7 employment overlap between Nevada Test Site and the 

8 Tonopah Test Range.

9 And I think this probably is just the 

10 way it is written but instruction 5 is: If the 

11 employment periods at TTR and NTS overlap for less 

12 than a year, we will apply the NTS intakes, which 

13 is claimant-favorable. They higher than the TTR 

14 intakes.

15 And then you get to 7 and it says: If 

16 there was only employment at the TTR and no overlap 

17 with NTS, then, obviously, we are going to go with 

18 TTR. We know they were there.

19 I guess my only question there was the 

20 whole notion of if there is an overlap of less than 

21 a year, we are going to assign NTS and, I assume, 
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1 although it is not written, if there is overlap of 

2 more than a year, NTS would also be assumed as the 

3 claimant-favorable assignment.

4 MR. ROLFES: NTS would always result in 

5 a higher internal dose than Tonopah.

6 MR. BARTON: Okay. I mean that one is 

7 easy.

8 The last comment is the only one that 

9 I think really might need some discussion. Let me 

10 see if I can find the spot in the report. Just bear 

11 with me, folks. I'm getting a little lag here.

12 Okay, in the section of NIOSH's 

13 response, and it's titled Path Forward for the 

14 Application of Ambient Environmental Intakes at 

15 NTS, it says that the environmental intakes should 

16 be applied as a constant because they are 

17 considered over estimates. And that is not new. 

18 That is right out of the TBD. It says that right 

19 in there.

20 What is new is the language in here that 

21 says if it is a best estimate, we are going to use 
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1 ten percent of the environmental intakes and assume 

2 its distribution with GSD of three. And that is 

3 the first time I had seen that before this White 

4 Paper exchange. And we didn't really understand

5 the technical basis of the ten percent and we 

6 weren't sure if this is a new sort of programmatic 

7 approach. I know that in other situations, we 

8 often use a reduction factor for cases where you 

9 have job titles and exposure potentials. That is 

10 different. For example, sometimes you will have 

11 a coworker model where the rad worker will have 95 

12 percent of the constant and non-rad workers or 

13 partial rad workers would get the 50th percentile 

14 in distribution.

15 Or I think there were situations, and 

16 John Mauro maybe you can remind me, in the old 

17 TBD-6000 methodology where the rad worker got 100 

18 percent, the supervisor who was there part of the 

19 time got 50, and the secretaries and administrative 

20 who really didn't enter that ten percent.

21 So, there were other reduction factors 
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1 used but I have never seen it used based on the type 

2 of dose reconstruction.

3 MR. ROLLINS: Let me explain before we 

4 get too wrapped around and too technical because 

5 there is really not much technical involved here. 

6 This is Gene Rollins.

7 The way I came up with the ten percent 

8 was pretty simple. If you go back and look at the 

9 air concentrations, the maximums to the averages 

10 for all the areas, it works out mostly to be less 

11 than 20 percent. In other words, the average is 

12 less than 20 percent of the maximum. And in the 

13 case of plutonium, it is much higher than that, 

14 which is what we based everything on initially.

15 So, there is almost a factor of ten 

16 there to get from a maximum to an average. And as 

17 you know, I used the maximums to come up with these 

18 environmental intakes. That is why they are 

19 bounding.

20 Now, further, when you go to add in the 

21 other radionuclides, there was measurement ---
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1 excuse me. So you look at the average, the maximum 

2 of the four concentrations and they average between 

3 0.21 and 0.63, with an average of about 0.31. So 

4 there is another factor of three right there.

5 So, I felt like that just by assuming 

6 ten percent to be closer to an average than values 

7 that were in the OTIB for bounding was reasonable. 

8 And that is all the analysis I did.

9 MR. BARTON: Okay. Well, I am sure you 

10 understand my confusion because the original TBD 

11 had no such language in it. It was just we are 

12 going to assign these environmental intakes as a 

13 constant to the workforce. And now we are doing 

14 a ten percent reduction and it sounds like it is 

15 a reasonable, maybe not exactly quantitative 

16 reduction. It is just something I had never seen 

17 before and it certainly gave us pause because I mean 

18 essentially what you are saying is the real 

19 environmental intakes are the ten percent of those 

20 derived values in the TBD.

21 MR. ROLLINS: In my opinion, we would 
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1 be closer to the average values that we see out 

2 there instead of the bounding values that I 

3 included in my calculations.

4 MR. BARTON: I'm not sure I have any 

5 more to comment on that. Again, it gave me pause 

6 that the reduction factor, which what I am hearing 

7 is it is not a reduction factor, that is the true 

8 value that NIOSH believes should be used. So, it 

9 is not a reduction factor and it is not based on 

10 the type of dose reconstruction, per se. It is 

11 what you are saying is that what is in the TBD now 

12 is only for overestimates.

13 MR. ROLLINS: Correct. And it is 

14 stated as such, that it is a bounding estimate. 

15 And so this came about when we had to do a best 

16 estimate and we had some discussions about this and 

17 I went back and looked at the original data. And 

18 based on observation, what I just told you, the 

19 differences between the soil concentrations maxed 

20 then -- maxed average and air concentrations maxed 

21 average, the ten percent seems a reasonable 
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1 assumption to reduce those maximum values is why 

2 I came up with the best estimate.

3 MEMBER MUNN: More accurate data, more 

4 accurate assessment.

5 MR. ROLLINS: Excuse me, Gen. I 

6 couldn't understand you.

7 MEMBER MUNN: I just said it is a more 

8 accurate assessment.

9 MR. ROLLINS: I think it is more 

10 reasonable for a best estimate.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

12 MR. BARTON: Well, like I said, it was 

13 certainly new to us and I wanted to bring it to the 

14 Work Group's attention in case they had questions 

15 about it. I'm not sure if there is anything more 

16 that should be done about it. Maybe I guess a more 

17 analytical response, beyond what Gene just 

18 provided, to sort of justify the ten percent 

19 because I mean it kind of -- it might be a reasonable 

20 number. It is just we didn't know where it came 

21 from and, again, we had never seen a reduction 
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1 factor used for -- based on the type of dose 

2 reconstruction. But like you are saying, that is 

3 not what is happening. You are saying that were 

4 the TBD to be revised today, it would say assigned 

5 ten percent as a distribution for best estimates 

6 and then if it is not a best estimate, we are going 

7 to assign the original environmental intakes.

8 MR. ROLLINS: That would be my 

9 recommendation.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, if I follow this 

11 right, the reason why we went down to the 90 is 

12 because the original was a best estimate. 

13 Correct?

14 MR. ROLLINS: The original was a 

15 bounding. What is in the TBD now is bounding.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay and you reduced it 

17 by ten percent why?

18 MR. ROLLINS: The justification for 

19 that was going back and looking at the raw data, 

20 the empirical data --

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.
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1 MR. ROLLINS: -- and comparing the 

2 maximum values, which I used in my calculations to 

3 the average values.

4 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, now I 

5 understand.

6 MR. BARTON: The reduction of 90 

7 percent. They are using ten percent of the value.

8 MR. ROLLINS: We got a reduction of 20 

9 percent when you just look at the air 

10 concentrations and then you get another reduction 

11 of a factor of three when you look at the maximum 

12 to average soil concentrations when you enter the 

13 other radionuclides back in.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

15 MR. ROLLINS: We put those two together 

16 and I came up with ten, which I think is still too 

17 high but I think it is reasonable.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

19 DR. NETON: And you also have the GSD 

20 of three built in there, which does not apply to 

21 the bounding value.
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1 MR. ROLLINS: That is correct.

2 DR. NETON: The standard deviation is 

3 three, which would put the 95th percentile 

4 somewhere around six times that.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. 

6 DR. NETON: So, when you are sampling 

7 it and the compensation is the 99th percentile, it 

8 is going to use more than just the ten percent. It 

9 is going to sample that distribution up to the 95th 

10 percentile around 60 percent, I think.

11 MR. BARTON: Okay. This is a 

12 site-specific approach. This isn't something 

13 that is programmatic.

14 MR. ROLLINS: Correct.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: No, and this is 

16 something we found out. Each one of these sites 

17 are unique in their own aspects. And Nevada Test 

18 Site has been one of those sites. There is not that 

19 many places you go and blow stuff up.

20 MR. BARTON: Thankfully.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes.
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1 MR. BARTON: Okay. Well, then the 

2 reason I brought it up is we hadn't seen it before 

3 and it kind of was kind of included in the response 

4 about consistency. So, we weren't sure where that 

5 came from and NIOSH has provided their explanation. 

6 I don't know if there is anything more the Work 

7 Group wants to say about it.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: No, I am understanding 

9 why we got that. I was looking at it and I and I 

10 am just saying that with being everybody explaining 

11 to me, I now see the picture.

12 MR. BARTON: Well those were the five 

13 comments. And I guess in summary, and I kind of 

14 saved my summary paragraph, I think this is exactly 

15 the type of thing we were looking for where to 

16 standardize what we can standardize within reason 

17 so that, again, the goal is if you have a bunch of 

18 different dose reconstructors looking at the same 

19 case, they would all evaluate it the same way. So, 

20 I really appreciate the response here by NIOSH.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well also, too, with 
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1 Ron and myself where we sit on the Dose 

2 Reconstruction Work Group, this is something that 

3 we deal with every time and that is getting it to 

4 where we can actually -- SC&A or whoever else could 

5 come in and take a dose reconstruction and have 

6 enough information in there to be able to 

7 understand and go through the process. And that 

8 is a continuing thing.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Without completely 

10 removing the discretion of appropriately trained 

11 professionals to do their job.

12 MR. BARTON: Right. There are certain 

13 things that just can't be dictated by a proceeding. 

14 I understand that.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Absolutely.

16 MR. BARTON: That is all I had on 

17 comment 8.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

19 MR. KATZ: So now we go to the rest of 

20 the matrix.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Did you have anything 
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1 else?

2 DR. ANSPAUGH: No, that was it for the 

3 issues that were before us related to resuspension 

4 or environmental/occupational dose 

5 reconstruction.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Okay, so I 

7 think we only closed one in the matrix, right?

8 MR. BARTON: There was a number of them 

9 that were kind of cascaded from the other issues.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: That is what I was --

11 MR. BARTON: There is still some 

12 technical things to work out.

13 MR. KATZ: We closed a couple.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, we definitely 

15 closed 13.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: So where are we at on 

17 the number one issue, the Nevada Test Site matrix? 

18 Do we agree workers -- I'm trying to see if we have 

19 got a --

20 MR. KATZ: Are you working off of the 

21 SC&A matrix or both that and the NIOSH?
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1 MR. ROLFES: There is three matrices 

2 out there.

3 There is an SC&A matrix that was 

4 recently sent. There is also the resuspension 

5 model matrix that had the eight comments. And then 

6 there is the original bigger matrix that is out 

7 there.

8 MEMBER MUNN: I appreciate Ted's 

9 suggestion that they be combined.

10 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: I have the one that is 

12 dated 1/29/2016. Do we have a --

13 MEMBER MUNN: I am working off Arjun's.

14 DR. ANSPAUGH: That is only related to 

15 resuspension. So, that is a small subset.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it is.

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, who wants to 

18 start working through the --

19 MEMBER MUNN: It seems to me that the 

20 one Arjun sent out on the 29th was, at least, 

21 recently up to date.
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1 MR. KATZ: Yes, except it lacks the 

2 most recent upgrade.

3 MR. ROLFES: I don't think SC&A's 

4 matrix contains the response that NIOSH provided 

5 on May 15, 2015.

6 MR. KATZ: So you are going to have to 

7 work with both those matrices to go through this.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. Might 

9 I suggest that -- I guess we are now below item 7, 

10 after Bob and Lynn's discussion. And a number of 

11 items are closed. If we could go through them in 

12 order, ones that are closed. And I would suggest 

13 for the ones that are open, we should work from the 

14 NIOSH 2016.

15 MR. KATZ: Right, that sounds good.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: So that way, we kind of 

17 go in order and also address the open issues.

18 MR. KATZ: Right. Arjun, that sounds 

19 like a good plan.

20 MEMBER MUNN: I had a hard time getting 

21 to the --
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1 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, so you can take 

2 care of that, Arjun?

3 Review of Closed and Remaining Open Items

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure, Brad.

5 So, starting with item 8, so what I had 

6 done is I went through the meeting transcript and 

7 the previous materials to come up with this. And 

8 of course, the Working Group should endorse, if 

9 they see fit, these comments.

10 So, item 8 about 1967 external dose data 

11 was closed and that was discussed in December of 

12 2014. And I think NIOSH agreed with that.

13 DR. NETON: So which matrix are we 

14 working from?

15 MR. KATZ: Arjun, one second. So, we 

16 are working from Arjun's matrix but we will refer 

17 to the latest NIOSH responses for items that are 

18 not already closed.

19 MR. ROLFES: We started at 8 on the SC&A 

20 matrix, the memo there.

21 MR. KATZ: The full matrix, not the 
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1 resuspension matrix.

2 Okay, is everybody -- okay. Sorry, 

3 Arjun. Go ahead.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. So, according to 

5 the December 2014 transcript, the issue was closed. 

6 We haven't formally closed it in the matrix. So, 

7 that is the reason for the comment. So, maybe the 

8 Work Group can indicate whether it should be 

9 formally closed.

10 MR. KATZ: So, Arjun, when you say that 

11 you closed it and if the Work Group closed it in 

12 2014, then it is closed.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's right. You are 

14 right. The Work Group did close it and that is the 

15 reason for the comment.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes, so it is closed.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

18 So, number 9 is similarly closed from 

19 the Work Group transcript and discussion.

20 So, number 10 is pending some action by 

21 NIOSH regarding pre-1963 external environmental 
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1 doses. I think we covered this earlier.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: Wasn't that discussed 

3 today?

4 MR. KATZ: Yes.

5 MR. BARTON: Well this says it is 

6 external. I know we covered internal.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: External 

8 environmental doses.

9 Yes, so as I read the transcript, and 

10 as I read, going to the NIOSH 2015 matrix update, 

11 that NIOSH is going to revise the TBD according to 

12 the discussion that was held in 2014, December.

13 MR. ROLFES: Yes, and our response 

14 indicates that we are going to add a missed dose 

15 into the coworker doses in the TBD when we revise 

16 the external dose TBD. I guess the coworker doses 

17 currently don't have missed dose incorporated into 

18 them.

19 DR. NETON: So this is environmental 

20 dose. Is it environmental doses?

21 MR. KATZ: External.
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1 DR. NETON: It was the external 

2 environmental dose.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think the missed dose 

4 should solve the problem, in my opinion. But it 

5 is for the Work Group to --

6 DR. NETON: Okay. Well then this one 

7 would essentially become an abeyance if the Work 

8 Group agreed to our path forward but we have to 

9 revise a TBD.

10 MR. KATZ: Right.

11 DR. NETON: So mark that one in 

12 abeyance.

13 MR. KATZ: Right. Yes, so that is a 

14 current response and the Work Group agrees.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: We agreed to --

16 MR. KATZ: Well, you already did that 

17 --

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: I thought we did.

19 MR. KATZ: -- in '14.

20 MR. BARTON: You know is this really an 

21 environmental dose? I mean after 1957, everybody 
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1 was badged at the site, right?

2 MR. ROLFES: Right.

3 MR. BARTON: So we would really be 

4 looking at unbadged people who probably should have 

5 been badged.

6 MR. ROLFES: Right.

7 MR. BARTON: So that would be 

8 unmonitored occupational, really, right? I don't 

9 want to pick the nit here but I think that we were 

10 talking about occupational doses at this point, 

11 right?

12 MR. ROLFES: The original issue says 

13 external environmental dose but in our response we 

14 have indicated external dose.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, and I think that 

16 is actually correct because it is the external dose 

17 TBD that needs to be fixed.

18 MR. BARTON: Right, we are talking 

19 about coworker models.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

21 MR. BARTON: I think it is just the 
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1 semantics of how it is written.

2 MR. KATZ: Alright. So, we'll close 

3 that one. The TBD is updated. Is that on 

4 schedule?

5 MR. ROLFES: Not that I am aware of, 

6 just because everything -- we hadn't received any 

7 kind of response.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, of course. That 

9 wasn't a leading question. Okay, thanks.

10 Go ahead, Arjun.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, so item 11 was 

12 open and NIOSH was to provide the basis for the 

13 beta/gamma ratio of 1.04. NIOSH yesterday, day 

14 before yesterday, sent a spreadsheet. I've only 

15 had the briefest chance to look at it. It seemed 

16 to change this ratio slightly and provide the basis 

17 for that.

18 MR. BARTON: Arjun, NIOSH has a 

19 response in their matrix which I think it would 

20 probably be appropriate to have them --

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, right. I agree. 
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1 We should go to NIOSH's matrix now, since this is 

2 an open item.

3 MR. ROLFES: Okay, I believe the 

4 reference that you are referring to, Arjun, was 

5 sent out about a year and a half ago, along with 

6 the updated issues matrix from May 15, 2015.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: And you sent the 

8 spreadsheet recently, right?

9 MR. ROLFES: No.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Or am I mistaken about 

11 that?

12 MR. ROLFES: No, that was sent in 2015, 

13 May of 2015.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, okay, sorry about 

15 that.

16 MR. ROLFES: Let's see. I will have to 

17 look back at our response here. Let's see. I can 

18 go through our response. It says the issues 

19 regarding correction factors for skin dose are 

20 addressed by using the beta/gamma methodology 

21 summarized in Section 6.4.2.1 and discussed in 
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1 detail in Attachment C of the Nevada Test Site 

2 occupational external dose TBD. We go on. I 

3 won't read the rest of that.

4 We had searched through several 

5 original files to derive a beta/gamma ratio of 1.04 

6 to 1 originally and that original file could not 

7 be located. NTS data from 1966 to 1986 was 

8 reanalyzed using current EEOICPA data files and a 

9 value geometric mean of 1.16 with a GSD of 2.15 and 

10 a 95th percentile value of 4.09 was derived from 

11 the data.

12 The published value had a GSD of 2.41 

13 and a 95th percentile value of 4.59. The change 

14 in the current value compared to the published 

15 values is due to the additional claim data

16 available for analysis at this time.

17 Gene, did you want to add anything? I 

18 don't need to read everything that we have added 

19 here verbatim. Is there anything that you have to 

20 add or are there questions about the reanalysis of 

21 the beta/gamma ratios?
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I had a question about 

2 the spreadsheet. This is Arjun. You have dates 

3 in the spreadsheet that said date of claim year. 

4 Is that -- I don't understand what claim year refers 

5 to.

6 MR. ROLFES: Claim year?

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that is not the 

8 claim made under EEOICPA.

9 MR. BARTON: Yes, Arjun, it is.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: It says 1966.

11 MR. BARTON: Right and then there is a 

12 claim number next to it, which I won't read out but 

13 --

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

15 MR. BARTON: -- what seemed to have 

16 happened was --

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: What is the date? It 

18 can't be 1966 for the claim.

19 MR. ROLFES: That was the year that the 

20 dosimetry was recorded.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, okay. Alright. 
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1 So, that clears that up.

2 I had a question, though. One of the 

3 items that we discussed in December 2014 was the 

4 significant difference between these ratios and 

5 the ratios that show up in the Hicks tables and the 

6 reason for the difference, which I didn't see 

7 discussed.

8 MR. ROLFES: The difference between 

9 recorded dosimetry data and Hicks data?

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

11 MR. ROLFES: The dosimetry data, which 

12 are directly used for dose reconstruction, not 

13 calculated values.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I mean Hicks data 

15 are representative, I presume, of environmental 

16 dose, which is what this was about.

17 MR. BARTON: Yes, at the last meeting, 

18 if you go through the transcript, there was a pretty 

19 interesting conversation about it. Because if you 

20 look at the Hicks data, which was actually provided 

21 in an Appendix, I believe --
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

2 MR. BARTON: -- the ratios were quite 

3 high compared to close to unity. I mean we are 

4 talking six, seven, eight. And what Hicks had come 

5 up with for beta/gamma ratios, and of course it is 

6 always better to use the actual empirical data than 

7 some sort of construct, but I think the Work Group 

8 is certainly curious why we would have such a large 

9 discrepancy between what he was predicting and what 

10 we were seeing based on the original analysis, 

11 which had a ratio of 1.04 and the newer one which 

12 is 1.16. 

13 So, that was part of the discussion last 

14 time. And I think Arjun is correct. I don't think 

15 it really addresses it here. Like I said, it is 

16 always better to use empirical data.

17 I think we were curious why -- maybe it 

18 is just an academic issue but why would we see such 

19 large differences between those Hicks numbers 

20 which are in the TBD and just I don't think they 

21 are being used.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: If I might just 

2 supplement Bob's comment -- this is Arjun -- is that 

3 these doses which are in the spreadsheet are the 

4 badge doses, ratios derived from badge doses, which 

5 are integrated for all kinds of exposure. And I 

6 think the Hicks tables are explicit for 

7 environmental dose, if I am understanding the 

8 situation correctly.

9 And for addressing environmental dose, 

10 the question is shouldn't that be applied. Aren't 

11 the Hicks tables relative?

12 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, the Hicks tables 

13 don't directly have beta to gamma ratios. It would 

14 take some appreciable manipulation of Hicks to get 

15 ratios like that. And I guess it depends whether 

16 the refractories were added back in or not.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Lynn, my 

18 understanding is that NIOSH did have them back in 

19 for the discussion that we have just had.

20 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, yes, at least for 

21 the material we were discussing before. But in 
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1 terms of what the Hicks ratios may have been 

2 derived, like I say, it would take some 

3 manipulation. And I am not sure which version of 

4 the tables were manipulated.

5 MR. BARTON: I can say that the Hicks 

6 data that we are looking at is in Attachment C, page 

7 118 of the NTS external TBD. And just looking at 

8 some of the values, I mean it can get as high as 

9 almost 60. And so that is why we are certainly 

10 curious as to why we would be seeing such large 

11 beta/photon ratios in these predictive tables 

12 admittedly and not in the actual badges.

13 MEMBER MUNN: I may be missing a 

14 salient point. Time dependency?

15 DR. MAURO: This is John. If I recall 

16 correctly, the Hicks tables give you picocuries or 

17 becquerels per meter squared, the numbers. And if 

18 you are looking to say let's take that value and 

19 convert that to what the field would be in terms 

20 of photon and beta, you are going to have -- it is 

21 going to be difficult to do because of the vertical 
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1 distribution of the radionuclides.

2 And Lynn, am I correct about that?

3 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, the Hicks tables 

4 do assume some partial shielding by the soil, yes.

5 DR. MAURO: Oh, okay, so that is built 

6 in. My recollection of the Hicks tables is the mR 

7 per hour that you would have at a given point in 

8 time is what is measured and from there, you could 

9 go and figure out what the becquerels per meter 

10 squared is.

11 But you are saying that you could also 

12 get picocuries per gram as a vertical and, 

13 therefore, somehow get to what the ratio of beta 

14 to gamma might be.

15 I'm just trying to follow the logic 

16 sequence here of the relevance and applicability 

17 of the Hicks tables to getting this ratio. I am 

18 having a little trouble with that.

19 MR. ROLLINS: John, if I may make a 

20 comment. Gene Rollins here.

21 I think what we are seeing is layering. 
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1 I think some of the beta particles are being 

2 shielded by soil that has been deposited on top of 

3 it. But that is the only thing I can think of.

4 DR. MAURO: But that is where I am 

5 coming from. 

6 By the way, I think there were -- are 

7 we working from the -- I think there was a matrix 

8 dated mid-2015 that we are working through because

9 I don't see it on the screen.

10 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

11 MR. KATZ: That's right, John.

12 DR. MAURO: And is it something that 

13 cannot be put up on the screen? It would be a 

14 little easier to follow the discussion. Because 

15 I know I read through that and the description that 

16 we just heard of the rationale and the curves, the 

17 data, which was a spreadsheet, was in a couple of 

18 files that I looked at over the last day or two. 

19 And it is not here in front of me on the screen. 

20 Is there any reason why we can't put that up? It 

21 might be helpful to everyone if that was in front 
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1 of us.

2 MR. KATZ: There is no reason not to put 

3 it up. It is just that we will be bouncing between 

4 two matrices.

5 DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. I thought we 

6 were in the 2015.

7 MR. KATZ: Well, we are going through 

8 -- we are for this item. But in general, we are 

9 running through Arjun's matrix.

10 DR. MAURO: Oh, okay.

11 MR. KATZ: Where needed, we are going 

12 to this one. So, if Bob can handle it, that's fine.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I am 

14 looking at the third revision of the external dose 

15 TBD in Appendix C that Bob Barton just talked about. 

16 And there is a Figure C-2 there, which shows the 

17 calculated beta/photon ratios for skin and then 

18 there are also immersion calculated beta/photon 

19 ratios.

20 And Lynn is right, these had to be 

21 calculated and the reference given here is 2006. 
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1 And all of these values, they are time dependent, 

2 I think as Wanda just said, if I recognized the 

3 voice correctly, but they don't necessarily go down 

4 with time.

5 The ratios for skin actually vary in the 

6 first hundred days quite a bit and then they seem 

7 to go up and then go down. So, it is quite a 

8 complicated time evolution.

9 And similarly -- yes, so there is 

10 nuclear rockets, too, but that is not in the present 

11 discussion.

12 MR. BARTON: A question. It appears 

13 that these are based on the annual, the ratios that 

14 have come off the dosimeters, they are annual. Are 

15 they annual average ratios?

16 MR. ROLFES: I believe it was an 

17 annual. Let's see. Yes, it was per year, by year.

18 MR. BARTON: And this is everybody who 

19 had a positive beta and gamma reading? 

20 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

21 MR. BARTON: I imagine you couldn't do 
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1 it month by month if you have so many detection 

2 limit, you need positive results to actually get 

3 a ratio.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: So could that be part 

5 of the explanation that maybe there are situations 

6 in which the beta dose is high but the gamma dose 

7 is below the detection limit and so when you take 

8 the badge data where both are positive, you get 

9 smaller ratios than calculated when all the 

10 radionuclides are taken into account on a time 

11 evolution basis?

12 MR. BARTON: That was one explanation. 

13 I think when we came out of that meeting, we were 

14 all kind of curious and are hoping to have a clearer 

15 explanation. I'm not sure we do have one. Good 

16 theories. I'm not sure.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, obviously, what I 

18 am saying is just a theory.

19 MR. KATZ: What is the path forward 

20 here?

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, what is the path 
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1 forward?

2 DR. NETON: How large are these 

3 environmental doses that we are assigning?

4 MR. ROLFES: The environmental doses, 

5 I don't recall that there is any elevated external 

6 environmental doses being assigned. Gene, is that 

7 correct? Gene?

8 DR. NETON: He might be on mute.

9 MR. BARTON: Could this be a situation 

10 where environmental is not the right word again?

11 DR. NETON: That is what I am 

12 wondering.

13 MR. BARTON: Because I mean if you 

14 don't have a dosimeter then actually you are 

15 getting environmental dose.

16 MR. ROLFES: Right. Essentially, 

17 everybody entering the site is going to be badged 

18 for external dosimetry, to be assigned.

19 MR. BARTON: So are these beta/photon 

20 ratios, though, I mean are they applicable to the 

21 actual badge readings? Because I don't think 
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1 every badge had the open window element.

2 MR. ROLFES: I think the issue was 

3 prior to 1966, when they weren't reporting beta 

4 doses or only in certain situations, I believe.

5 And so what we did is analyze the 1966 

6 through 1986 data, where individuals had positive 

7 recorded external dose for both photons and beta 

8 to develop a ratio that can be used prior to the 

9 time period when beta doses were reported.

10 MR. BARTON: And we looked at this data 

11 in-depth. Wasn't the analysis done to see if 

12 certain -- because we essentially end up with one 

13 number for that entire period and we are also 

14 looking at claimants. So, I don't know, we might 

15 have some claimants who have 40 comparative results 

16 and you might have some that only have one.

17 Again, we have, unfortunately, did not 

18 have a chance to really delve into this data set 

19 prior to this meeting. And I am wondering because 

20 that could be a way that it might be biased towards 

21 certain people doing certain jobs that had a lot 
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1 of data versus someone who only had maybe one data 

2 point because they were only employed in 1966 or 

3 something along those lines.

4 DR. NETON: Was it their annual 

5 beta/gamma?

6 MR. BARTON: Yes, annual.

7 DR. NETON: Is it 1.1 for every year or 

8 does it vary by year?

9 MR. ROLFES: It was done as a summary 

10 of all the data from 1966 through 1986.

11 DR. NETON: Okay.

12 MR. ROLFES: We developed a 

13 minimum/maximum and we have developed a 

14 distribution.

15 DR. NETON: And you assigned the 

16 distribution?

17 MR. ROLFES: Let's see. Yes, the 

18 published value had a GSD of 2.41 and a 95th 

19 percentile of 4.59.

20 DR. NETON: I guess my question is are 

21 we really talking about environmental dose here or 
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1 are we talking about occupational?

2 MR. ROLFES: This is essentially 

3 occupational external dose but it is under the 

4 common text of initially environmental.

5 DR. NETON: And I guess, Gene, are you 

6 still on the phone?

7 MEMBER MUNN: I think we may have lost 

8 Gene.

9 MR. ROLLINS: No, I'm here.

10 DR. NETON: I guess the question we had 

11 is how are we assigning -- what kind of 

12 environmental doses are we assigning in this early 

13 period before 1968?

14 MR. ROLFES: Yes, Gene, this is Mark.

15 MR. ROLLINS: Are you asking are we 

16 assigning beta dose to that?

17 DR. NETON: Well, environmental, yes.

18 MR. ROLLINS: I guess we would 

19 typically -- currently, we are not doing that, no, 

20 if there is strictly gamma doses that are being 

21 assigned.
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1 DR. NETON: And how large are the gamma 

2 doses that were assigned?

3 MR. ROLLINS: I would have to go look 

4 it up but they are not huge.

5 DR. NETON: That's what I thought.

6 MR. ROLLINS: They are in the 25,000 to 

7 30,000 millirem per year range.

8 DR. NETON: Alright.

9 MEMBER MUNN: And you are certainly not 

10 anticipating that beta doses will be higher.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that is the 

12 debate. So, in the period where beta doses were 

13 not measured, as Mark was just indicating, if we 

14 are going to go with a beta/gamma ratio what should 

15 the dose assignment be. And I think Jim Neton is 

16 right that this is the overall assignment of a beta 

17 dose and not just environmental dose in a pre-1967 

18 period.

19 MR. ROLLINS: That's correct. And as 

20 we pointed out before, the ratio that we are 

21 currently using of 1.04 was based on a series of 
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1 empirical measurements with film badges.

2 MR. BARTON: Which has changed, 

3 though, to 1.16 after it was reanalyzed. 

4 I'm just looking at the data here and 

5 for annual doses, at least in 1966, most of them 

6 are in the hundreds of millirem, one at 1.9 rem. 

7 And I don't know if it goes down to the years 

8 subsequent.

9 DR. NETON: Those are occupational 

10 doses, though.

11 MR. BARTON: Yes. Yes, well I mean if 

12 everybody as a film badge entering the site, I'm 

13 not sure we have. I mean this is what we discussed 

14 before.

15 DR. NETON: Okay, well, that is --

16 (Simultaneous speaking.)

17 MEMBER MUNN: More than inclusive.

18 MR. ROLLINS: Because they are badged. 

19 We don't assign environmental or external because 

20 they are all badged.

21 DR. NETON: Right.
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1 MR. BARTON: But prior to 1967, they 

2 didn't have the open window measurements.

3 MR. ROLLINS: That's correct.

4 MR. BARTON: So there is no measurement 

5 of air.

6 MR. ROLLINS: So we put out a 

7 beta/gamma ratio.

8 DR. NETON: Right. This is actually 

9 for all badged workers. I mean so I think we are 

10 okay.

11 MR. BARTON: Yes, if we change it to 

12 occupational.

13 DR. NETON: Yes, it is all badged 

14 workers, period. It seems they were all 

15 occupationally-measured doses.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I agree with Jim 

17 and Gene. So, the question is is the number 

18 calculated from badges that have both photon and 

19 beta measurements after 1967 the right number to 

20 use? Because the gamma doses in most badges were 

21 zero, right, as I understand the history? And so 
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1 we don't know what the beta doses in those 

2 situations would be, especially in the early months 

3 after a test. And so since we are talking about 

4 that specific period before 1967, I think some kind 

5 of idea as to why the Hicks tables numbers should 

6 not be used on the theory that there might be 

7 significant beta doses when the badge registered 

8 no gamma dose.

9 DR. MAURO: This is John. Just to get 

10 a little orientation here, the important point that 

11 we are talking about here is all of the worker --

12 we are talking skin dose. And since skin does is 

13 not covered, it is essential that we are trying to 

14 assign a dose to workers with skin doses during the 

15 covered period that would normally not be 

16 compensated for skin cancer.

17 So, getting it right regarding the dose 

18 to the skin from beta is going to be very important. 

19 And I think the essence of the discussion here is 

20 do we use the empirical data to assign skin dose 

21 that you have available to you, which might be 
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1 limited. I know you had that graph and spreadsheet 

2 that was very useful and you actually list all of 

3 the measurements by year of the kinds of data you 

4 have and you come up with your ratios and your 95th 

5 percentiles.

6 Or is there reason to believe that that 

7 curve or that data set is really not representative 

8 and you would get, of course, a substantially 

9 different result and, I believe, a much higher beta 

10 dose -- correct me if I am wrong -- if you went with 

11 the Hicks tables?

12 So what I am trying to do right now is 

13 just understand what the issue is we are struggling 

14 with and I think that -- I'm trying to characterize 

15 that so we are all thinking about it the same way. 

16 Did I describe our conversation appropriately, the 

17 context of what we are discussing and why we are 

18 discussing it?

19 MEMBER MUNN: I think so. I would like 

20 to know the magnitude of exposure that we are 

21 talking about. Are we talking about single digit 
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1 millirem?

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, if Bob Barton is 

3 right from the numbers that he just quoted --

4 MR. BARTON: I'm going to throw it up 

5 right now.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- we are talking about 

7 non-SEC cancers. This could be very important for 

8 skin cancer.

9 MR. BARTON: Okay, I don't know if 

10 everybody can see this spreadsheet up on the Skype 

11 meeting.

12 DR. MAURO: I have it in front of me.

13 MR. BARTON: Yes, so Column E is your 

14 gamma dose and Column D is your beta dose. And then 

15 you see it is just a simple ratio. And the maximum 

16 observed was a little over 18 in the empirical data.

17 DR. MAURO: Right now on my screen I 

18 have the matrix but not the spreadsheet.

19 MR. BARTON: Okay, one moment.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you want to put the 

21 spreadsheet up?
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1 MR. KATZ: Yes, Bob is doing that.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: It has the claim 

3 numbers on it.

4 DR. MAURO: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: That's okay, Arjun. That's 

6 okay. This is just for us internally anyway, this 

7 screen.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Alright.

9 MR. ROLFES: In dose reconstruction, 

10 the first thing that we would use is the empirical 

11 data, rather than a calculated model. I mean the 

12 dosimetry is always the most important thing for 

13 us to consider, the very first step in a dose 

14 reconstruction.

15 DR. MAURO: Mark, this is John. I 

16 agree with you. I think the heart of the matter 

17 is that we do need to have confidence that the 

18 empirical data that you have tabulated here is 

19 complete, reliable, and representative. And, as 

20 a result, represents the best information 

21 available, as opposed to, if that is the case, then 
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1 defaulting to what I would consider to be a 

2 surrogate approach, which would be using the Hicks 

3 tables, which would require, as I understand it, 

4 quite an elaborate evaluation, given your starting 

5 point is picocuries per meter squared. And the 

6 issue that Gene mentioned earlier regarding the 

7 degree to which the data might be shielded or not 

8 shielded -- anyway, what I am getting to is that 

9 I would argue that the issue before us is do we 

10 believe this data set is an adequate set of data 

11 to build a coworker model for assigning beta dose 

12 based on observed gamma dose. I think that is what 

13 we are talking about here.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: John, that is what we 

15 are talking about but it is not a question of 

16 measured data versus some hypothetical. It is a 

17 question of what does the measured data beta/gamma 

18 ratios represent when the vast majority of recorded 

19 gamma doses were zero or below detection limit.

20 DR. MAURO: Oh.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: And so whatever the 
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1 beta dose might have been at the time is not 

2 included in this calculation.

3 And so, I think that is why we are --

4 if the majority of badges had positive gamma doses, 

5 then it would be a completely different situation 

6 but, if I remember correctly from past discussions, 

7 well over 90 percent and maybe over 95 percent of 

8 the badges recorded zero gamma dose. And so we 

9 have got the majority of badges that are not 

10 represented in this ratio calculation.

11 MEMBER MUNN: And it is being 

12 postulated that in that scenario you may have beta 

13 doses which are significant enough to affect dose 

14 reconstruction. Is that right?

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: It is simply we have 

16 very different numbers from the Hicks tables which 

17 are, after all, based on some very serious 

18 scientific work that was done at the time to analyze 

19 the testing with actual data from the weapons or 

20 the devices that were being tested. So, it is not 

21 an arbitrary set of numbers versus measurements.
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1 And so the question is when most of the 

2 badges, the vast majority of the badges are not 

3 represented in this particular ratio calculation 

4 in the spreadsheet, is it preferable, especially

5 when it would be more claimant favorable to use a 

6 number the Hicks tables compared to this particular 

7 ratio.

8 DR. MAURO: Well, Arjun, I would like 

9 to add a little to that. My recollection is that 

10 I did a lot of work in the Marshall Islands and 

11 exposure to people at Rongelap. And if I recall, 

12 the beta doses were very, very high relative to a 

13 gamma dose in the shorter time periods. I may have 

14 flubbed it, I don't know.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, I think you are 

16 right. The Marshall Islands data do indicate a 

17 very high beta, Karl Morgan's measurements at 

18 Bikini indicated there indicated very high 

19 beta/gamma ratios, obviously, in the period 

20 immediately after the test. Sometimes, if memory 

21 serves me right, running into the hundreds.
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes, and I remember using 

2 a factor of ten. 

3 Now the reason why this is relevant, and 

4 I am just trying to help to get clarity in thinking 

5 about the problem, so if we have a data set for 

6 measurements made at NTS for gamma and a large 

7 fraction of them are zero, can an argument be made 

8 that there could be a substantial beta dose there 

9 that we are missing? In other words, is it 

10 appropriate? Is the presumption here that if the 

11 gamma dose is not detected, that it is likely that 

12 there is very little, if any, beta dose? And I am 

13 sure -- and it is not apparent to me that that is 

14 fairly the case.

15 DR. NETON: Well, I'm looking at the 

16 data in -- I don't see the whole spreadsheet but 

17 their 1966 doesn't seem to demonstrate that. We 

18 have in 1996 -- 1966, a large number of badges that 

19 had a lot of beta activity -- beta dose and no gamma 

20 dose. I don't think that is true.

21 What changed between 1965 and '66, '64, 
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1 '66?

2 MR. BARTON: Would it be helpful to the 

3 Work Group to see what the Hicks numbers actually 

4 are?

5 DR. NETON: I have seen those recently. 

6 They are high.

7 MR. BARTON: They are very high.

8 DR. NETON: I'm saying though in '66, 

9 the empirical data doesn't support John's argument 

10 that there is a substantial portion of beta dose 

11 and no gamma, associated gamma dose. At least in 

12 '66, that is not true.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: How do you conclude 

14 that from this table, Jim?

15 DR. NETON: I'm just looking at --

16 well, given that the ratios are around one, I don't 

17 know how -- I don't see. Do we have a huge amount 

18 of beta with no gamma? That would be tremendously 

19 high beta/gamma ratios. And I don't see that. I 

20 don't have the whole table in front of me but that 

21 is my question.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that is the 

2 question. That is obviously the question.

3 DR. NETON: Is that supported by the 

4 1966 data? No.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Well --

6 DR. NETON: There is virtually no 

7 measurements there that don't have --

8 MR. BARTON: There wouldn't be any 

9 zeros in the --

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, this table does 

11 not include any measurements where the gamma was 

12 zero. That is the whole point I am trying to make.

13 MEMBER MUNN: And what I am asking is 

14 so how many of them are there, since we do not have 

15 -- we have significant numbers here.

16 DR. NETON: Well, yes, if you look at 

17 the ones that the gammas are zero, what are the 

18 betas? That is the question.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: That is the question. 

21 And we know both from tables and from the Marshall 
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1 Islands that beta/gamma ratios are -- were often 

2 much, much higher than one. The analysis of an 

3 Appendix C of the TBD also shows the same results. 

4 And you know what was done by Eckermann in 2006. 

5 The data from Marshall Islands also show the same 

6 thing.

7 Now, it is obviously sketchy data but 

8 the question is, in that context, given the 

9 importance of skin cancer, what is the 

10 claimant-favorable approach to use? Is it this 

11 approach or the numbers derived from or maybe one 

12 ratio based on the Hicks tables shown in Appendix 

13 C?

14 DR. NETON: Well, I think one could 

15 actually look at the ones where the gamma was 

16 non-detectable and look at the betas and, first of 

17 all, determine how high those values were. If you 

18 have zero gamma and you have ten millirem beta or 

19 something to that effect, it is really a nonissue.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: I mean it would be 

21 useful to see that.
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1 DR. MAURO: I think the conversation we 

2 are having is very important. And I think we have 

3 to all be comfortable with the ratio that is 

4 eventually selected and the issues we are raising 

5 here because we are talking about people with skin 

6 cancer need to be assigned appropriate beta skin 

7 dose. 

8 This is a very interesting issue. And 

9 when you think in terms of what the ratios are in 

10 other venues that we see, such as the Marshall 

11 Islands and in that period of the Hicks tables and 

12 then we are looking at your empirical data and we 

13 just want it all to ring true. And right now, it 

14 doesn't appear to all ring true.

15 DR. NETON: I'm just having trouble 

16 visualizing a scenario where the beta is huge and 

17 the measured photon is zero.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, what was the 

19 threshold of detection back then?

20 DR. NETON: It is what, 30 millirem, 

21 maybe.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: I don't know.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: It is pretty high. 

3 So, if you have a threshold of detection of 30 

4 millirem and the beta/gamma ratio was ten, you are 

5 talking about omitting a pretty significant dose.

6 DR. NETON: Well, the detection limit 

7 for gamma back then is probably ten or so.

8 MEMBER MUNN: I would think so.

9 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith with the 

10 ORAU Team. Just to point out an addition that was 

11 made to Revision 3 of the external NTS TBD, in other 

12 words, a document that is on the street right now, 

13 language was added to Section 6.4.2.1 and that is 

14 page 52 out of 135 of the PDF file.

15 Language was added to I think address 

16 this issue. Again, I am trying to refresh my 

17 memory tape from several years ago. I guess it 

18 would be four years ago. But the language of that 

19 is in that section that is here, that a more precise 

20 estimate is required for beta to photon ratio. The 

21 values in Attachment C can be used.
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1 So, in other words, yes, we have had 

2 this discussion before. And I believe that 

3 paragraph or that section language was added in to 

4 address what is being discussed right now.

5 MR. BARTON: When you say a more 

6 precise estimate --

7 MR. SMITH: Well, I think it is 

8 important to probably read these paragraphs on page 

9 52 in context. The paragraph ahead of it, which 

10 obviously will get revised with the updated 

11 information on the empirical beta to gamma ratio, 

12 states that the regulations in 42 CFR allowed 

13 claims to be completed with using efficiency 

14 methods. So, to some degree, I believe, the 

15 approach was if we have claimant-specific 

16 information the dose reconstructor has the 

17 professional judgment option of using Attachment 

18 C. If we have a claim at hand SEC space and we don't 

19 have specific information that would let us know 

20 what tests or what activities that worker was 

21 doing, then you would use the ratio straight -- the 
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1 empirical ratio that we have been discussing, as 

2 Gene has pointed out, in order to derive an electron 

3 dose.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I actually I have 

5 the TBD open in front of me. This is Arjun. And 

6 I am looking at the section that you have been 

7 citing. I actually don't understand how this is 

8 constructed. Because if Attachment C represents 

9 the precise estimate, why don't we use that as a 

10 first resort, rather than as a second resort? 

11 I would have thought that the direction 

12 to the dose reconstructor would be to use the 

13 precise estimate first and then if it were, for some 

14 reason, not suitable, to resort to some other 

15 method as a second option.

16 MR. SMITH: Well, maybe Gene can jump 

17 in and add some background information. But to use 

18 Attachment C, I believe we need to know information 

19 about what specific tests they might have worked 

20 on or been associated with, and whether or not they 

21 were out in the field or not. We may have that 
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1 information and/or we may not have that 

2 information.

3 DR. MAURO: I think that is an 

4 important premise we are operating from, as I think 

5 about this and these ratios. We have workers out 

6 there where they are badged and we have 

7 measurements but we are making an assumption that 

8 the exposure scenario that this worker, whatever 

9 their values are, was because he was standing on 

10 contaminated soil from fallout. That is how the 

11 exposures occurred.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Or immersed in. 

13 Immersed in.

14 DR. MAURO: Yes, you are right about 

15 that. There is the immersion component also. And 

16 we are trying to reconcile what other experience 

17 has been with people standing on and I guess 

18 immersed in. I would have to go back and look at 

19 my experience in Rongelap to reconstruct it. If 

20 I recall correctly, it was standing. But 

21 nevertheless, nevertheless. All I am trying to 
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1 say is that we are operating from the premise that 

2 the ratios that we expect to see or are seeing is 

3 as a result of individuals outdoors standing in an 

4 environment where there is a deposit of 

5 radionuclides, some of which are resuspended and 

6 that is our scenario, when in fact is it possible 

7 that the new data also reflect workers that were 

8 doing other types of -- exposed in other types of 

9 scenarios where the Hicks tables and the fallout 

10 assumptions we are making here don't apply. Or are 

11 we really dealing with workers, yes, these are 

12 workers that were outdoors and the way that they 

13 were exposed is to to those fallout radionuclides 

14 that were in the soil?

15 DR. ANSPAUGH: If somebody is standing 

16 there in 1966, that material would have weathered 

17 into the soil and certainly the beta/gamma ratio 

18 would have decreased dramatically.

19 DR. MAURO: Yes, that is true, too. 

20 Yes.

21 MR. BARTON: I would like to ask you a 
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1 question. Are we planning to use beta/gamma ratio 

2 method going back into atmospheric testing?

3 MR. ROLFES: That is what the entire 

4 issue was for, I believe, because the beta not being 

5 recorded.

6 MR. BARTON: So it is not just '63 to 

7 '65. It is '66 all the way back and then it is 

8 applied to the coworker photon doses as well?

9 MR. ROLFES: It is applied all the way 

10 back, back to 1951 and within Attachment C here, 

11 we give the photon ratios at various times for 

12 listed tests here.

13 MR. BARTON: That is Appendix C?

14 MR. ROLFES: This is H-9 of Attachment 

15 C of the TBD and it is on page 121 of 135 of the 

16 NTS TBD. And I think it says here, too, if you 

17 can't discern what test the employee was involved 

18 with that you should use the average beta to photon 

19 values for the given test, if the EE isn't directly 

20 identified with a specific event.

21 MR. BARTON: Could the differences in 
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1 ratio be simply that a lot of these Hicks table 

2 ratios appear to being the results of atmospheric 

3 testing? Although they do calculate them out to 

4 like 50 years. So, let me just throw it out to the 

5 Work Group.

6 DR. MAURO: Well let me --

7 DR. NETON: Where are these doses 

8 calculated, one meter off the ground or at the 

9 ground surface? I mean it makes a big difference.

10 DR. MAURO: Yes. Well, just let me 

11 back up for one minute.

12 MR. BARTON: I didn't write the TBD.

13 DR. NETON: No, these are the Hicks 

14 table ratios.

15 MR. BARTON: Well, it is in your TBD.

16 DR. ANSPAUGH: These tables, they 

17 don't do anything with beta. The gamma is 

18 calculated at one meter above ground. But you have 

19 to remember the Hicks table assumed no decrease 

20 with time of the tritium in going in the depth. 

21 They only are designed to look at the decay of 
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1 radionuclides but not the distribution into the 

2 soil with time.

3 MR. ROLLINS: And this is Gene Rollins 

4 again. Something else I think we need to consider 

5 that when these weapons were detonated, a lot of 

6 non-contaminated dust was taken into the 

7 atmosphere and it would fall back down. So, 

8 weathering might be almost instantaneous.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, on the page that 

10 Mark just referred to, Table C-3, you have average 

11 beta photon ratios for someone was on-site during 

12 the year for particular tests. And for those cases 

13 where you have information for the worker as to what 

14 test they participated in, I don't see why these 

15 numbers can't be used in preference to calculated 

16 number that is from the spreadsheet, especially if 

17 they are more claimant-favorable and they are 

18 already in the TBD.

19 MR. BARTON: It's kind of a strange 

20 situation because it sounds like that the best 

21 estimate method is using the ratio of 1.16; 
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1 whereas, if you go to -- I'm sorry. For an 

2 overestimate you are going to use the 1.16 as an 

3 efficiency measure. And if you want a best 

4 estimate and more precise dose reconstruction, now 

5 you are going to go to Attachment C, which now you 

6 are getting up into, in some cases, double digits. 

7 But even in Table C-3, I mean for a year 

8 after the test it is 2.2, 3.4, 3.3, you know numbers 

9 like that, with an average usually right around 

10 2.0. 

11 So it is just strange that usually for 

12 an overestimate you are throwing kind of a larger 

13 number at it and then if you want a best estimate, 

14 we kind of refine it down based on the data. But 

15 in this case we are saying you know if you want an 

16 overestimate or underestimate, we are going to use 

17 the empirical data and if we need a more refined 

18 estimate, we are going to use the appendix. It is 

19 almost --

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Reversed.

21 MR. BARTON: -- backwards.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I do think that looking 

2 at the language in the section we were just looking 

3 at on page 50-something, the instruction is 

4 backwards in terms of the priority. It should be 

5 this particular thing.

6 Anyway, the information is available 

7 here. I don't see why this particular table 

8 shouldn't be used always. I mean, if you don't 

9 have data from a particular test, the various tests 

10 can be averaged, depending on some judgment about 

11 how long the worker was there, during which period, 

12 which you always know.

13 DR. MAURO: There is one more dimension 

14 to this I guess I am having a little trouble with. 

15 I am looking at the tables right now and this is 

16 airborne, submerged in a plume. And we are talking 

17 about the time period during above-ground testing. 

18 I'm getting myself oriented now.

19 And any individual that may have been 

20 exposed could have experienced some exposure from 

21 airborne activity, which would include beta and 
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1 gamma, but there is also the accumulated activity 

2 in the soil, which goes back to Hicks, which is a 

3 different situation. Are we trying to reconstruct 

4 the doses to the scan of workers for the entire time 

5 period of '51 to '92 from beta emitters from both 

6 exposure to an airborne activity and also exposure 

7 from deposited activity that might be contributing 

8 also?

9 If that is what we are doing, which 

10 would be a good thing to try to capture the whole

11 thing if that is where we are, to give the benefit 

12 we can to the folks with skin cancer, then the data 

13 that you do have, if we went back to that curve, 

14 does that go back -- does that begin in the '50s 

15 -- I don't have it in front of me -- and goes all 

16 the way, as a function of time, what the reserved 

17 ratios are? And the question of zero --

18 What I am getting at is that I don't feel 

19 as if, and this might be because I have not been 

20 studying it the way Gene, and maybe Dennis has, and 

21 others, but I actually feel off balance right now 
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1 and that to understand if in fact we are giving, 

2 assigning to the workers during the above-ground 

3 testing and then subsequent above-ground testing 

4 the benefit of the doubt and giving them the 

5 plausible upper bound beta dose to the skin.

6 So, right now I am in a place where I 

7 can't say to myself that I think that that is being 

8 done here. I'm not. You know the conversation we 

9 are having I think is trying to get to that point 

10 but it seems to be pretty complicated.

11 DR. NETON: Well, John, I think we have 

12 beta/gamma numbers for all workers after '66. So 

13 all we are talking about here is they didn't measure 

14 beta prior to '66. So, we are talking about '51 

15 to '65.

16 DR. MAURO: Okay.

17 DR. NETON: And we have photon 

18 measurements on those folks but we don't have beta 

19 measurements. So, it is trying to assign a beta 

20 dose to people who worked there prior to 1976 only.

21 DR. MAURO: Okay so that includes the 
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1 period of time where there was above-ground 

2 testing?

3 DR. NETON: Oh, yes.

4 DR. MAURO: And when there wasn't 

5 above-ground testing and when there was venting and 

6 when there wasn't venting.

7 DR. NETON: Correct.

8 DR. MAURO: So we have the full mix of 

9 scenarios and we are looking for a way to get a ratio 

10 that could be used for those workers, where do have 

11 some data on both beta and gamma. And that ratio 

12 that you observed for that person for that year 

13 would be very much a function of where he was and 

14 when he was wherever he was doing it, and whether 

15 he was exposed to the deposit activity, whether he 

16 was exposed to the submerging activity.

17 So, it seems to me we are in a 

18 circumstance where the data that we do have has to 

19 be fully understood as to what we have captured 

20 there or didn't capture and whether or not it is 

21 fair to say that this particular ratio would be 
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1 applied across the board. I assume with regard to 

2 the actual photon exposures, every worker is going 

3 to be assigned some photon exposure, whether he was 

4 measured or not. Am I understanding?

5 In other words, what you are claiming 

6 here is we can reconstruct the photon exposures to 

7 everyone and using this ratio, we can reconstruct 

8 the beta exposures to everyone and those doses will 

9 be assigned to everyone who is not compensated 

10 under the SEC. Is that what we are trying to do 

11 here?

12 DR. NETON: Yes, I think so.

13 DR. MAURO: Okay, good. So and we do 

14 have some limited amount, it sounds like a small 

15 percentage of the workers, were badged where we 

16 have photon exposures and where we also have photon 

17 and beta exposures. And somehow that data, as a 

18 function of year, and somehow that data --

19 PARTICIPANT: I can't hear.

20 DR. MAURO: Can you hear me now?

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes.
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1 DR. MAURO: Somehow that data, we feel 

2 is sufficient, where we can reconstruct doses with 

3 sufficient accuracy. I guess right now, from 

4 looking at the data and understanding these ratios, 

5 I have to say I am uncomfortable saying we have got 

6 a handle on this problem.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, John, let's talk 

8 a path forward then to be able to take care of that, 

9 then. What do you feel we need? If NIOSH has 

10 given us this, it looks like to me it is in SC&A's 

11 hands to evaluate this, make sure we know where we 

12 are going at.

13 You know I am going to be honest. This 

14 has been a lot of years and, as all of us have been 

15 going through the days, we are trying to remember 

16 how we got to where this point is at.

17 So, I agree that we need to come to 

18 resolution with this but it looks like to this part 

19 of it, for me, this is in SC&A's hands to do this 

20 evaluation. Am I correct?

21 DR. MAURO: Yes, we already went 
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1 through this in advance and closed it out but I 

2 don't recall.

3 MR. ROLLINS: No, no, we have never 

4 closed this out, John.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: No, this hasn't been 

6 closed. This has been one that has been hanging 

7 on for quite a while.

8 MEMBER MUNN: But the thing that still 

9 bothers me -- there are a couple of things that 

10 bother me. In all the discussion, I still haven't 

11 had anybody give me an answer to my original 

12 question, which is, essentially, what is the 

13 magnitude of exposure that we are talking about as 

14 a possibility in the scenario that has been painted 

15 for us?

16 The other thing that I have a question 

17 about is whether or not Marshall Island data is 

18 particularly applicable in this particular case. 

19 The kind of exposure that I would expect from 

20 Islanders is not the same kind of exposure I would 

21 -- for beta is not the same kind of exposure that 
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1 I would expect from a worker on a Nevada Test Site. 

2 You know clothing alone would make a difference.

3 MR. STIVER: Wanda, this is John 

4 Stiver. I might be able to help out a little bit 

5 here. About ten plus years ago, when I was working 

6 at SAIC, we were dealing with this very same issue 

7 with dose at PPG and the Nevada Test Site and we 

8 used the Hicks tables to generate beta/gamma ratios 

9 for various geometries of the most prominent one 

10 applicable to the test participant that is kind of 

11 standing politically for a claimant, puts in a 

12 claim of one of his fission products and activation 

13 products and actinides. And I just pulled out from 

14 the Health Physics Society website the paper by 

15 Barss and Weitz in 2006, which I believe I had sent 

16 to Jim Neton about a year ago when we were kind of 

17 grappling with this idea of skin dose. And on page 

18 385 you guys could probably -- I just sent it to 

19 Bob Barton. It is available on the Health Physics 

20 Society website and I pulled it down. And you want 

21 to know kind of what the beta/gamma ratios might 
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1 be for different distances from a flame source with 

2 different times after detonation. And Table 2 on 

3 page 385 we have got the Nevada Test Site is well 

4 based on the Hicks tables actually with the 

5 classified information included, the shot specific 

6 radiochemistry, although in this case the actinide 

7 is really not going to make much difference.

8 For times of detonation from half an 

9 hour to two years, distances from the flame source 

10 for bare skin exposures. That was just one table 

11 of many with distances from one to 200 centimeters.

12 And say just for taking 100 centimeters 

13 at one meter above the flame source at 12 hours 

14 post-detonation, we are looking at a beta/gamma 

15 ratio of 16.

16 And as you go our further in time, this 

17 is not including weathering and so forth, this is 

18 just the results on the flame, they go from 7.8 at 

19 half an hour up to 96 at two years. So, we are 

20 talking about pretty serious beta exposures.

21 MEMBER MUNN: But John, my concern is 
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1 the scenario that has been painted for us here is 

2 when we have zero gamma from which to begin our 

3 questioning.

4 MR. STIVER: Right. Zero, I don't 

5 know. You know I would assume for a dose 

6 reconstruction you would be looking like half the 

7 MDL, 20 millirem or whatever it might be. So, in 

8 that case, you might, in the worst-case scenario 

9 two years post-detonation, you would be looking at 

10 100 times that. 

11 I don't know how that would be done 

12 procedurally, but I know it would be a question for 

13 NIOSH. You know just to get an idea of what these 

14 beta/gamma ratios might be I know John brought up 

15 the PPG information and we talked about open and 

16 closed window dosimetry. But based on this work, 

17 he put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this 

18 report way back when and it might be worth us going 

19 back and taking a look at that in comparison to some 

20 of these other data sources. Maybe we could have 

21 a technical call or at the next meeting, get 
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1 together and talk about this in a little more 

2 detail.

3 DR. MAURO: And I agree, John. 

4 And Wanda, I understand your question. 

5 Could we go back to that spreadsheet where the curve 

6 is showing the ratios that was compiled? Because 

7 there are measurements there, I think reported, of 

8 what type of gamma doses were observed, what the 

9 scale was. And we are talking about a very low one. 

10 We have some gamma doses -- it is hard for me to 

11 read. Any way to make it a little bigger? If 

12 everybody is in the same position I am, I'm having 

13 a little trouble looking at it.

14 MR. BARTON: Just get closer, John.

15 DR. MAURO: I can't get closer. I am 

16 about an inch away.

17 All right, so we are talking about --

18 oh, thank you. And the column that has the gamma 

19 is -- okay, here we go.

20 So, we are talking about -- these are 

21 millirems, I presume. We are talking about a few 
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1 hundred millirems, tens to hundreds of millirems 

2 that were observed in a given year. And I assume 

3 that the numbers we are looking at, these are 

4 individual claims. So, you can see the 

5 variability, which is good, the fact we had 

6 individual claims. We don't know their duration, 

7 where they were, what they were doing, that sort 

8 of thing. But we are seeing numbers that are not 

9 insignificant, if in fact the ratio for the 

10 beta/gamma, in some circumstances, could have been 

11 ten to one.

12 Now what we are saying is we are looking 

13 at say the very first line in 1966, we are seeing 

14 only a modest beta/gamma ratio.

15 MEMBER MUNN: There's Bob's 1.6.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes, it is very low. And 

17 to go back, so this is a real number. We don't know 

18 what that person was doing in 1966 that this is what 

19 he experienced. And in theory the argument could 

20 be made well, obviously, he wasn't standing on 

21 contaminated soil being exposed that way because 
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1 his beta dose would have been much higher, right, 

2 I mean in theory. So, he probably was doing 

3 something else. Is that possible?

4 MEMBER MUNN: I'm not arguing the 

5 source of the exposures. I'm not arguing any of 

6 those things. My point is this table that we are 

7 looking at, John, shows us an enormous range in the 

8 beta/gamma ratio and I'm not arguing that. What 

9 I am saying is this table does not show us zero gamma 

10 exposures. And that is what this discussion 

11 originated from is the fact that there are some 

12 people, I don't know how many people, but there are 

13 people who have badges that does not show a gamma 

14 ratio -- does not show a gamma exposure. And the 

15 argument here is how do you identify the beta 

16 exposure and what that was.

17 So, my question is, it is simple 

18 mathematics. If you multiply a zero by anything 

19 you get zero. So, if we are going to --

20 DR. MAURO: I hear what you are saying 

21 but I am assuming then you see zero, you are going 
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1 to assume that he as at one-half the MDL for his 

2 change out period.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly.

4 DR. MAURO: And that will give you some 

5 dose. Let's say it is 10 or 20 per change out 

6 presuming the change out was monthly. In theory, 

7 the dose that you would assign to gamma for that 

8 worker would not be insignificant.

9 And then if you assume, you would have 

10 to assume, of course, some ratio to that to get the 

11 beta. So, we are not talking about small doses.

12 MEMBER MUNN: My first question was 

13 what is the magnitude. If it is not small, how 

14 large are we talking about? That is my question.

15 DR. MAURO: Let's try one out. Let's 

16 say we are at ten. We will go with the assignment 

17 of one-half the MDL being ten but in DCS it is 

18 probably closer to 20 and it is monthly change out. 

19 So, we are talking 200 millirem per year --

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Per month.

21 DR. MAURO: The monthly change out and 
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1 you are not seeing anything and the MDL is 20. So 

2 over the course of the year, I am just multiplying 

3 by ten months, should be multiplied by 12, so it 

4 is 120 millirem, right?

5 DR. ANSPAUGH: No, 240.

6 (Simultaneous speaking.)

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: So there are two 

8 separate issues involved. One is if you -- the 

9 issue that I raised wasn't the question of what you 

10 would do to apply a beta/gamma ratio, even though 

11 in situations where the photon dose was zero in a 

12 dose reconstruction.

13 The issue that I raised was given that 

14 95 plus percent or whatever the actual number is 

15 is very high in the 90 percents of recorded gamma 

16 doses are below MDL. So, zero was below the 

17 measurement limit, the measurement threshold.

18 What were the missed beta doses in those 

19 circumstances? And if those missed beta doses 

20 were representative of the high beta doses relative 

21 to gamma that are calculated and measures in 
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1 situations like the Marshall Islands, I wasn't 

2 referring to doses received by the Islanders, 

3 Wanda. I was referring to the measurements made 

4 in the working situations by the health physics 

5 section of the Marshall Islands tests.

6 So this has nothing to do with dose 

7 calculations for the Islanders. These were field 

8 measurements that were made of beta/gamma ratios 

9 at the time but I recall the ones made by Karl Morgan 

10 and published later.

11 So, we are talking about whether it is 

12 appropriate to use this approach, given that the 

13 vast majority of doses are recorded and gamma was 

14 zero. And if not, then secondarily the question 

15 arises so what is the appropriate way to assign a 

16 beta dose in situations where the recorded gamma 

17 dose is zero. And obviously, you could use LOD 

18 over two or something like that.

19 But whatever method you use, it would 

20 apply to whether you use a ratio of 1.16, or 10, 

21 or 5, or 50 or whatever. You would use exactly the 
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1 same thing. So, the method for assigning dose in 

2 a situation where the gamma dose is zero would be 

3 exactly the same, independently of whatever 

4 approach you use to calculate the ratio.

5 DR. MAURO: And I don't think it is 

6 insignificant. I mean we are talking rems per 

7 year.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, we are talking 

9 rems.

10 DR. MAURO: It is rems per year.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you.

12 DR. NETON: Right, my original point a 

13 while ago was if you looked at the badges in '66 

14 that had zero dose, what is the magnitude of the 

15 measured beta dose.

16 DR. MAURO: Right, a couple of rem.

17 DR. NETON: Is it within range? So you 

18 are arguing it could be in the rem range but I am 

19 saying if you have a lot of badges in '66 that have 

20 zero recorded gamma and very low recorded beta, 

21 then I don't understand how you can assign 2 rem 
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1 doses.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, we haven't seen 

3 the recorded beta doses.

4 DR. NETON: Well that is why I say we 

5 need to look at that, Arjun.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. So, I think 

7 there are two sort of questions for investigation. 

8 One is you know the values in Appendix C and the 

9 kind of values that John Stiver was just referring 

10 to. And whether that is the most 

11 claimant-favorable way or -- and the second thing 

12 is to look at the recorded beta doses in 1966 for 

13 those cases where the recorded gamma dose was zero.

14 DR. MAURO: I think this issue that we 

15 are discussing right now is one of the most 

16 important issues that we have been discussing, 

17 simply because we are talking probably about a very 

18 large number of workers that were working in that 

19 time period who may have developed skin cancer. 

20 So, this has the potential to have -- and I think 

21 we are talking about rems per year, even when the 
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1 doses to the gamma were low, relatively low, or 

2 below the MDL level. We are still talking now --

3 Jim, you probably have a feel for this but when you 

4 are talking about a rem or two or three per year 

5 to the skin to workers, now I don't know how many 

6 years they have been there, are we in a realm where 

7 we have the very real possibility of compensation?

8 DR. NETON: Oh, yes, for certain skin 

9 cancers.

10 DR. MAURO: Yes. So, this particular 

11 --

12 DR. NETON: Certain skin cancers are 

13 very sensitive.

14 DR. MAURO: So we have been talking 

15 about this for quite some time and my reaction is 

16 we have got to really nail this and everyone has 

17 got to be very comfortable with the methodology, 

18 with the ratios that are being applied, and 

19 interpreting the validity representativeness of 

20 the data that you do have and what it means.

21 So, yes, I feel very strongly. And I 
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1 don't get too excited about things but I think this 

2 is a big one and we have got to get really 

3 comfortable with this.

4 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Well, that 

5 being said, let's talk about the path forward, 

6 then.

7 MR. KATZ: Right. Who wants to look at 

8 those empirical data?

9 DR. NETON: Well, I think we need to 

10 look at the data that had zero recorded gamma and 

11 look at how much -- the magnitude of beta to start 

12 with.

13 I also think it seems like we need to 

14 look at -- I am a little confused from what I have 

15 heard about how we are actually assigning beta dose 

16 in those periods, based on Table C-3 versus C-1 and 

17 versus the ratio. I'm not quite clear how that is 

18 working. So I think we need to begin looking at 

19 that.

20 MR. ROLFES: Yes, this has been -- this 

21 was put into the TBD years ago and we haven't 
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1 received kind of written comment on it. So, we 

2 have proposed this method, of which I would have 

3 to look back and review myself, but we haven't 

4 received any written comments on that revision. 

5 So, I don't know if that is something that the 

6 Advisory Board would like to task SC&A to do.

7 DR. NETON: You mean on this specific 

8 issue or the whole TBD?

9 MR. ROLFES: I guess that particular 

10 issue, that particular piece that was added.

11 DR. NETON: I think it is very clear to 

12 me what the comment is, at this point. I think we 

13 know.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Jim, you know 

15 when we were looking at that section on page 

16 50-something earlier in the TBD and then at 

17 Appendix C, I made the comment that the instruction 

18 seemed to be a little bit backward in the sense that 

19 if the precise estimate is from Table C-3, then that 

20 should be the method of choice, just leaving all 

21 other issues aside for the moment. And that if for 
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1 some reason Table C-3 cannot be used, then some 

2 other approach should be developed.

3 So, it would seem if NIOSH believes that 

4 Table C-3 is the precise method, and we generally 

5 know what tests people were in, I don't see why we 

6 should be resorting to the kind of ratios that are 

7 presented in that spreadsheet.

8 DR. NETON: Well I mean if C-3 is the 

9 sort of default if you know the values, then we 

10 don't have any argument here, right? I mean is 

11 there an argument that if we know where the guy was 

12 positioned and we can use C-3, those values 

13 appropriate, those ratios?

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't think we have 

15 reviewed those ratios.

16 DR. NETON: But they are much higher 

17 than one, obviously, and they seem to be in the 

18 certain ballpark that we are talking.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

20 DR. NETON: But let's say for example 

21 if you agree with those ratios, then that is okay.
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1 Then the second issue then is what do 

2 we do if we don't know where this person worked. 

3 And it is not clear to me what we are doing.

4 MR. ROLFES: Okay, there is averages in 

5 Table C-3 that can be used by year.

6 DR. NETON: So, I guess what is the 

7 usage for the 1.1 ratio, if we are not using it? 

8 I mean where are we using it?

9 MR. ROLFES: Gene, I am going to have 

10 ask you for help on that. When would the 

11 beta/gamma ratio of 1.1/1.0 come into play in 

12 comparison to Attachment C?

13 DR. NETON: Three.

14 MR. ROLLINS: Well, we are very -- I'm 

15 sorry, my battery is running down. Hang on just 

16 a second.

17 That is the third telephone I have been 

18 through.

19 MEMBER MUNN: You need a charger.

20 MR. ROLLINS: I have got chargers all 

21 over the house. I just to have keep moving phones 
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1 around.

2 Personally, I have never used Table C-3 

3 and the reason being is that those ratios were not 

4 supported by the empirical data. And I understand 

5 there are genuine concerns about what that 

6 empirical data may actually represent, as opposed 

7 to earlier times. But I just always used the 

8 1.04/1.16 when I applied the beta doses prior to 

9 the period when they were measured.

10 And in my experience, and I have done 

11 probably hundreds of NTS cases, I really haven't 

12 seen that many where it was applicable to do that. 

13 Either they weren't there during that time period 

14 or for whatever reason. Maybe it was a prostate 

15 and it didn't matter.

16 DR. NETON: Right. It was 

17 specifically skin cancer is the big issue here.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: Nevada Test Site has 

19 got a lot of that.

20 DR. NETON: Yes, I think I would like 

21 that. NIOSH, we need to have an internal 
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1 discussion on our part a little bit on this before 

2 -- I'm not confused, I guess. I just need to know 

3 a little more about the background behind this. I 

4 haven't looked at this in a long time and we have 

5 got the John Stiver paper that you provided, which 

6 I don't recall getting but I'm sure he sent it to 

7 me.

8 We have got the disconnect between the 

9 theoretical calculations versus the empirical and 

10 I am concerned, I guess, about going back in time 

11 where there is active testing going on, applying 

12 '62 ratios where the testing has stopped. I mean 

13 I do have some concern about that.

14 So, I think we need to look at that a 

15 little closer.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, so I believe that 

17 it is going to be in NIOSH's hands but I also want 

18 to make sure that SC&A provides you with what their 

19 issue is. I want to make sure that we are all good 

20 with the same issue.

21 DR. NETON: That is a good point, Brad. 
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1 I think maybe it would be good if SC&A would 

2 summarize the concerns they have or not. I mean 

3 we are not hitting a verbal target. We are hitting 

4 a written target.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: And also, we are all 

6 onboard -- we are looking at the same thing for the 

7 same process. Because we have gone around the 

8 table here several times and we were going in 

9 different directions.

10 So, Arjun, I think that will basically 

11 come down to SC&A just to make sure that we have 

12 clarified what our issue is with it. NIOSH will 

13 have the action.

14 MR. KATZ: Right. Just a memo is fine, 

15 Arjun, summarizing the points of concern.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, in that memo, if 

17 I might suggest, you know we have not reviewed the 

18 section in question of the external dose TBD nor 

19 the numbers in Appendix C. And I don't know what 

20 order you want to take them in, Brad, but at some 

21 point I think -- or if NIOSH is going to move from 
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1 that, maybe we ought to just wait until NIOSH gets 

2 back to us.

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, I think it makes sense 

4 to first sort out this first order of questions and 

5 then, if necessary, you can then review those 

6 actual values.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure, so we can lay out 

8 our position in a memorandum as to what we think 

9 the issues are and then NIOSH will have that in 

10 their reconsideration.

11 MR. KATZ: Yes, that sounds good.

12 DR. MAURO: This is John. I just want 

13 to point something out. What is going to happen 

14 here is I guess we will just go on to reiterate we 

15 are looking at arrays of numbers right now and we 

16 have raised a number of questions. So, in effect, 

17 the transcript of this meeting -- I think we have 

18 articulated all the different aspects to the data 

19 sets and why we have some questions and concerns.

20 MR. KATZ: Right.

21 DR. MAURO: So, I think it has already 
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1 been done. So, what I am hearing is you would like 

2 a memo from us to try to put into one place the 

3 conversation we had in some cogent way.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes and, John, you don't 

5 need to reiterate the conversation really. Just 

6 crystalize the bullets of concern, basically, that 

7 they can then address.

8 DR. NETON: I agree it is in the 

9 transcript but it is very hard to start citing 

10 transcript pages and stuff. That gets kind of 

11 messy.

12 MR. KATZ: Yes, so just a very brief 

13 synopsis of the concerns is good.

14 DR. MAURO: Yes, well I think we at SC&A 

15 need to collect our thoughts also. You will notice 

16 that this has unfolded in front of us as we spoke. 

17 And I think John Stiver brought to the table some 

18 important experience, as has Arjun and mine. So, 

19 to get our story together, it might not -- I would 

20 like to have an opportunity for us at SC&A to 

21 collaborate a little bit more and get our arguments 
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1 down a little clearer regarding why we have 

2 concerns. So, I would like to do a little bit of 

3 work on this.

4 MEMBER MUNN: We would like that, too.

5 MR. KATZ: That is fine, John, but you 

6 don't have to build a big mountain here because 

7 until they get to those initial questions, you 

8 don't know where you are. They may answer the 

9 problem.

10 DR. MAURO: Sure, okay.

11 MEMBER MUNN: In 500 words or less.

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Don't put that on them.

13 DR. MAURO: We won't get carried away.

14 MEMBER MUNN: That's great. And John 

15 Stiver, I would really appreciate having a copy of 

16 your paper.

17 MR. BARTON: I can send you the one he 

18 was talking about.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Okay, that will be fine.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, should we break 

21 for lunch?
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1 MR. KATZ: I think so.

2 MR. STIVER: Wanda, I can definitely 

3 provide that to you.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Thanks, John.

5 MR. KATZ: Yes, thanks, John.

6 So, let's break for an hour. I guess 

7 you can't really get a lunch in less than an hour 

8 here, especially since I'm not sure we can drive 

9 anywhere with the snow coming down.

10 (Simultaneous speaking.)

11 MR. KATZ: Okay, so anyway it is 12:45 

12 and we can reconvene at 1:45 for everybody. Okay, 

13 thanks and thanks for hanging in.

14 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

15 went off the record at 12:45 p.m. and resumed at 

16 1:47 p.m.)

17 MR. KATZ: Welcome back, everyone. I 

18 think we have our room assembled here. Let me 

19 check on the line. This is the Advisory Board of 

20 Radiation Worker Health NTS Work Group.

21 (Roll call.)
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1 MR. KATZ: All right.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: I guess back to Arjun 

3 and the matrix.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, thank you, Brad. 

5 So we dealt with item 11 before.

6 MR. KATZ: Yes.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Item 12 is sort of 

8 open. We can go to the May 2015 version of NIOSH 

9 of the matrix and they proposed to revise TBD to 

10 take radon doses into account in this particular 

11 way. I think it looks okay to me but it is for the 

12 Work Group to discuss.

13 MR. BARTON: Arjun, I do -- Arjun, this 

14 is Bob. I do have one question which is kind of 

15 universal to this site. It kind of has the caveat 

16 in here that when records indicate the claimant 

17 made entries, how do we know when the claimant made 

18 entries into the Gravel Gertie?

19 MR. ROLFES: How do we know when a 

20 person made entry?

21 MR. BARTON: Yes.
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1 MR. ROLFES: There probably were not 

2 very few, I mean with the exception of the Device 

3 Assembly Facility. There were some tests on the 

4 Gravel Gertie design. We would have to have some 

5 sort of indication that an individual had entered 

6 the Gravel Gertie and was involved in assembly or 

7 disassembly operations inside the Gertie.

8 MR. BARTON: Well this also involves 

9 the period after the SEC.

10 MR. ROLFES: Correct. Yes, the Device 

11 Assembly Facility would be after the SEC time 

12 period. So, we need some sort of information to 

13 tie that individual. If an individual identified 

14 that they entered the Gravel Gertie, then we would 

15 assign radon and thoron exposures.

16 MR. BARTON: So this would be kind of 

17 dependent on the additional records section of DOE 

18 files.

19 MR. ROLFES: We would have to have some 

20 sort of notification in the DOE files or in the 

21 telephone interview or in the initial claim of DOL 
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1 and giving the benefit of the doubt to someone if 

2 they were in a job category that would involve such 

3 an entry, then -- it really only comes down to the 

4 importance for lung cancer or respiratory 

5 tri-cancer claims. So, in those cases, for the 

6 benefit of the doubt we would probably assume, as 

7 an overestimating approach, that they did if they 

8 had a potential job that fit the bill.

9 MR. BARTON: So for instance say like 

10 a scientist or something like that and you were 

11 doing a best estimate, you would assume that they 

12 were? Because if you don't know who went in, it 

13 kind of begs the question.

14 MR. ROLFES: Right, you would have to 

15 have some details. But that is my initial 

16 thoughts. I don't know that that is written 

17 anywhere, though.

18 MR. BARTON: All right. I mean I just 

19 say this because it is kind of a universal concern 

20 in the program is when you start to try to place 

21 workers in specific areas, I mean it has gotten 
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1 dicey even in places where the dosimeter badge had 

2 an area code associated with it and I don't think 

3 they really did that in NTS. Maybe they did that 

4 in later years.

5 MR. ROLFES: And the other would be 

6 tunnel workers as well, if an individual was 

7 involved in tunnel work and kind of assembly work, 

8 we would assume that person could have been exposed 

9 to radon and thoron.

10 MR. BARTON: Okay, so there would be a 

11 sort of, I don't want to say cohort, but a group 

12 of job categories.

13 MR. ROLFES: If there is a person that 

14 says they were a miner, you know, obviously, they 

15 would have likely. But without a specific 

16 example, I think you would have to probably take 

17 a look into all the pieces of information that we 

18 get with the claim.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Well and then there is 

20 another item, too, certainly for unusual 

21 activities like Gravel Gerties, it would be highly 
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1 likely that any worker who is making a claim 

2 themselves would mention that in their CATI.

3 MR. BARTON: I agree with that when the 

4 CATI is with the worker.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

6 MR. BARTON: But there is a lot of 

7 claims that it is with the survivor and there are 

8 security concerns.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Absolutely.

10 MR. BARTON: So obviously, I mean I 

11 think we all want the CATI to always benefit the 

12 worker. I would be a little concerned if we were 

13 using a CATI with a survivor and it didn't say 

14 Gravel Gerties but they had a job title that might 

15 have entered them. But if the plan is to assign 

16 it to those job categories that could have gone in 

17 there, and I know it is pretty much a small group 

18 because there weren't that many people at the site 

19 going in there, that is reasonable. I think that

20 might want to be defined a little bit as to what 

21 instructions there will be as far as -- and I know 
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1 it is case by case to a certain extent but this is 

2 another one where I think that the intent is to 

3 assign this radon dose, which I agree with the 

4 approach, it is just a question of how it is going 

5 to get implemented on a practical basis.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I 

7 agree with Bob. It is kind of jogging my mind -- 

8 I have been away for a while -- the fact that this 

9 question has been a difficult one.

10 And so if the NIOSH could add the job 

11 categories and say "job categories such as" would 

12 be assigned this radon, that would be a good thing.

13 DR. NETON: So I guess this will be in 

14 abeyance.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes. It is probably a may 

16 and not a would because it probably depends on the 

17 totality of the information.

18 DR. NETON: Right.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, NIOSH will propose 

20 some language for the Work Group to look at?

21 MR. KATZ: Yes.
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1 DR. MAURO: This is John related to the 

2 matter. Do we have information -- I haven't looked 

3 at the Site Profile -- on the levels so like default 

4 concentrations of radon and its progeny? They are 

5 assumed inside Gravel Gerties and inside the 

6 puddles or wherever there might be this concern for 

7 elevated radon.

8 MR. BARTON: I thought we were using 

9 Pantex, right?

10 DR. MAURO: Whether you went in or not, 

11 if you didn't go in, what would be assumed?

12 MR. ROLLINS: This is Gene Rollins. 

13 We have those concentrations in the TBD.

14 DR. MAURO: It's there already. Okay, 

15 very good. Thank you.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, do we move on to the 

17 next one, Brad?

18 MR. KATZ: Yes, Arjun.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So the next one 

21 is about the environmental I-131 doses. I think 
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1 we discussed this earlier. I will live it up to 

2 Lynn Anspaugh to say if we have anything more to 

3 say here.

4 DR. ANSPAUGH: I don't think we have 

5 anything additional that we didn't discuss this 

6 morning.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

8 MR. BARTON: Yes, it was 13. We closed 

9 13 this morning.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Number 14 is closed.

11 Number 15 was included in the 

12 discussion of 5 that we started the day with.

13 Lynn, did you want to say anything more 

14 about that?

15 DR. ANSPAUGH: No.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think we covered 

17 fractionation earlier on.

18 DR. ANSPAUGH: Yes, we discussed that. 

19 We have a path forward, I think --

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

21 DR. ANSPAUGH: -- in order to resolve 
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1 it.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. So, it is open 

3 but it is part of something we already discussed. 

4 Sixteen is closed.

5 Seventeen I think is -- let's see what 

6 the NIOSH response is. Yes, so this is covered as 

7 part of 5. I don't know, Lynn, if you wanted to 

8 say something about 17.

9 DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I believe that 17 

10 will be closed if we close number 5.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I believe so, too, 

12 but I am deferring to you.

13 MR. KATZ: All right, so it is open, 

14 still, until we finish up.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, right.

16 Eighteen is closed.

17 Nineteen I think review of beta/gamma 

18 doses we discussed already, pre-1966 beta dose. 

19 This 19 and the earlier one should have been 

20 consolidated really. I think we have done so 

21 today.
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1 So, I think we have a path forward on 

2 that.

3 Twenty is closed. I apologize for my 

4 error, which I said in the beginning at the time 

5 of the start, I said that was an error. It should 

6 be 20 should be marked closed.

7 Twenty-one is open and we should go to 

8 the NIOSH description and I give it over to Mark.

9 MR. ROLFES: All right. Let's see. 

10 This was about whether individuals had extremity 

11 dosimetry. And I will just read our response here. 

12 Let's see.

13 Well, I think our previous response is 

14 above. And following the Work Group meeting that 

15 was held in December of 2014, we had completed 

16 another review of claims that had been submitted 

17 since 2012, which identified 12 NTS employees, two 

18 Sandia Albuquerque employees and one Sandia 

19 Livermore employee that had skin cancer claims on 

20 the [identifying information redacted]. One of 

21 these individuals was a [identifying information 
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1 redacted]. The individual was -- well, I don't 

2 want to go into the details of his case here.

3 But let's see -- I don't know. I am 

4 going to be discussing specifics of one claim and 

5 it is probably not appropriate to discuss the one 

6 claim.

7 MR. BARTON: Your response is right on 

8 the meetings and people could read it.

9 MR. ROLFES: Right but not out loud for 

10 members of the public on the line.

11 MR. KATZ: You can mention things that 

12 just can't be put together on a person. But I mean 

13 like you can't talk about the years he was employed, 

14 stuff like that.

15 MR. ROLFES: Okay. It is giving him 

16 specific dosimetry results and I don't know -- I 

17 don't want to identify the individual but don't 

18 know exactly how far I should proceed.

19 MR. KATZ: I think, again, if you 

20 mention details that can't be -- that no one can 

21 pin to an individual, they are fine, the details 
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1 are fine.

2 MR. ROLFES: Okay. So anyway, this 

3 individual was never issued extremity badging at 

4 the NTS but during the late 1950s and '60s, he was 

5 issued wrist badges by Sandia Albuquerque.

6 While wearing the wrist badges over 

7 nine quarters, all of the wrist badges were below 

8 the detection limit. Over the same period, his 

9 whole body badges measured 40 millirem. His 

10 entire career -- I will leave out the dates -- he 

11 was assigned 70 millirem from Sandia Albuquerque, 

12 25 millirem from NTS and 290 from Pacific Proving 

13 Ground. He was a -- what about a job title?

14 MR. KATZ: Don't. Don't go there.

15 MR. ROLFES: Okay. This case was 

16 compensable using the external dose from NTS and 

17 PPG and the individual had several skin cancers.

18 DR. MAURO: Hey, Mark, this is John. I 

19 see in the response, a little hard to read here 

20 because it is small, but I read it before but is 

21 there a standard procedure for when you encounter 
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1 these cases? In this case you had a particular 

2 case and you came up with a strategy, how to deal 

3 with that person, but is there guidance in general 

4 when you are dealing with an extremity? Unless 

5 this is the only case where you have to do with OSHA 

6 construction for extremities cancers and this is 

7 what you do and that is the end of the story. Or 

8 do you have the need for a more descriptive 

9 prescriptive approach for reconstructing doses to 

10 extremities for workers in general?

11 MR. ROLFES: Let's see here. I am 

12 looking back in our previous response. Let's see. 

13 Our previous response here is that we would 

14 evaluate extremity dosimetry to determine the 

15 appropriateness of the application of a glove box 

16 factor, such as dose to the prostate or gonads. 

17 And to determine claimant-favorable doses 

18 applicable to skin cancers appearing on the hands 

19 and forearms, in cases where extremity monitoring 

20 included other parts of the body, such as the head, 

21 an evaluation would be made to determine 
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1 appropriate adjustments necessary to cancers 

2 appearing above the shoulders.

3 When cases of device assembly workers 

4 require dose reconstruction, extremity doses will 

5 be evaluated for application to cancers appearing 

6 on the extremities.

7 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I don't think 

8 there is any generic model for dealing with 

9 extremities. It depends on the specific 

10 situation. I know like at Fernald, we had a ratio 

11 extremities, the whole body. But if you are 

12 standing in a uniform plane, extremity dose is 

13 equal to the whole body dose.

14 DR. MAURO: Yes.

15 DR. NETON: So, it really depends on 

16 the specific job or task.

17 DR. MAURO: And I agree that that is a 

18 reasonable approach, case by case. What is 

19 upsetting was -- and I guess is that already in the 

20 Site Profile? So, does it require any additional 

21 language or do you feel it is addressed 
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1 sufficiently or do you think we need to talk a 

2 little bit more about that?

3 MR. ROLFES: I would have to take a look 

4 at the context of the TBD but this was for one 

5 individual out of the thousands of claims that we 

6 had received. And I think we agreed that we would 

7 keep this in mind, in the event that an individual 

8 with a cancer on an extremity was referred to us 

9 for dose reconstruction by the Department of Labor. 

10 And as of the review that we had completed in 2012, 

11 we had identified those 12 employees.

12 But this is something also that if an 

13 individual indicates that they were issued 

14 extremity dosimeters for something, then we would 

15 certainly also look into that. I would have to 

16 look into that.

17 DR. MAURO: I understand that. I was 

18 only asking whether or not there needs to be some 

19 revisions or editing of the TBD. Because clearly, 

20 the TBD is going to require some revision as we go 

21 through this process. And this is one of the areas 
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1 that I am only asking is that whether or not there 

2 is an action that you think needs to be taken to 

3 clarify or expand upon whatever discussions are 

4 there already or do you feel that there is really 

5 no action item?

6 MR. ROLFES: Let me just search the TBD 

7 while we are sitting here and see if I can find 

8 anything about the discussion of the extremity 

9 dosimetry.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I 

11 think I agree with what Jim Neton just said. I mean 

12 the ratio of whole body to extremity can be one or 

13 it can be very high. It could be an order of 

14 magnitude, depending on the job.

15 I remember the higher ratios arise when 

16 people are handling materials and maybe some 

17 guidance can be included in the TBD for typical 

18 cases, not kind of an actual instruction in terms 

19 of a number, but typical ratios that the dose 

20 reconstructor could consider and then apply in the 

21 specific instance, like the plane situation would 
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1 be one and handling uranium would be a completely 

2 different situation.

3 DR. MAURO: Is there a generic 

4 procedure on this? I mean well over 100 

5 procedures.

6 DR. NETON: There are some specific 

7 geometry corrections procedures. I can't 

8 remember the exact numbers anymore but we have got 

9 one on machining uranium metal. We have got the 

10 glove box one that corrects for extremity dose. 

11 So, there is a couple of them out there but they 

12 are sort of generically written that we think could 

13 be referred to in this situation.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: But Jim, would you 

15 agree that some kind of guidance would be 

16 appropriate that these ratios could vary a lot from 

17 one upwards and some reference to --

18 DR. NETON: Yes, I mean I am looking 

19 through the TBD, the TBD right now, as Mark is 

20 doing, and I don't see anything in here that speaks 

21 to that. I wouldn't be against adding some 
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1 language in there about reviewing the 

2 exposure-specific situation to assign extremity 

3 dose.

4 MR. BARTON: Would you end up using 

5 like a surrogate from another site?

6 DR. NETON: No, I don't think we put 

7 values in there. I think you could talk about 

8 these unique -- not unique but specific exposure 

9 geometries where extremity dose could be much 

10 higher than one, a ratio of whole body, that is, 

11 and deal with that in a case by case basis.

12 DR. MAURO: Yes, a little qualitative 

13 guidance.

14 DR. NETON: There is not much you can 

15 do quantitatively here, I don't think.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes, I agree.

17 MR. BARTON: I'm just wondering 

18 because we are talking about bomb assembly workers 

19 with that kind of activity that happened at Sandia 

20 or something like that.

21 DR. NETON: We ran into this extremity 
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1 issue at other facilities.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Have you run into it at 

3 ☺Pantex? How was it resolved over there?

4 DR. NETON: I don't recall, Arjun. Of 

5 course, Pantex is an SEC for its entire time period, 

6 too.

7 MR. ROLFES: There is discussion in the 

8 TBD. My search function was not working earlier. 

9 There is a discussion of the extremity monitoring 

10 conducted at NTS. It is section 6.3.2.3.

11 DR. NETON: Right. It really just 

12 talks about the type of monitoring that was done.

13 MR. ROLFES: Okay, page 34.

14 DR. NETON: Yes, I kind of saw that. 

15 But it doesn't really get into the -- if people were 

16 -- if extremity monitoring was conducted, I guess 

17 one could look at some of the values that we have 

18 if we have some extremity monitoring. But again, 

19 it is specific. You know a photographer walking 

20 around the site taking pictures is going to be 

21 different than a guy who is doing weapons assembly 
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1 work.

2 MR. BARTON: One other question I had 

3 and it might just how it is worded. Under the 

4 middle column that says status it says according 

5 to NIOSH there were no claims of device assembly 

6 workers involving extremity cancers as of 2007. 

7 And then the most recent one is a review of claims 

8 submitted since 2012. From 2008 to 2011, were 

9 those claims looked at as well or --

10 MR. ROLFES: The second review was done 

11 in 2012. Let's see. Maybe it was done after. It 

12 says a review of the claims submitted since 2012. 

13 So this was probably done after the Work Group 

14 meeting in December of 2014. So I would have to 

15 look to see what date that was done but there were 

16 additional claimants that fell into this category.

17 MR. BARTON: I'm just wondering 

18 because we looked before 2007 and then we looked 

19 2012 on.

20 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

21 MR. BARTON: So there is another period 
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1 that might have another example in there to kind 

2 of help.

3 MR. ROLFES: Yes, there could be 

4 another claimant, since we are talking about 12 

5 employees at this time or at the time that this 

6 analysis was completed.

7 MR. BARTON: And this is kind of -- I 

8 just happened to be looking at this claim last 

9 night. But one of the discussions that we had had 

10 previously is that a lot of the bomb assemblers were 

11 not necessarily just NTS employees --

12 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

13 MR. BARTON: -- but were actually 

14 coming from the sites.

15 MR. ROLFES: Assigned laboratories.

16 MR. BARTON: And that one case, and it 

17 was from the '80s, you did an extremity monitoring. 

18 He wasn't even a chemist but he was involved in the 

19 drill backs and doing their own testing. You know 

20 what the nuclear material was that happened in 

21 underground tests. And he had that extremity 
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1 monitoring and actually was associated with NTS, 

2 even though he was an employee of one of those other 

3 sites.

4 MR. ROLFES: Sure.

5 MR. BARTON: So, that is kind of a 

6 mitigating -- again, it is just by happenstance I 

7 came across it. It was actually in the list of 

8 claimants about how you find out if they were in 

9 the NRDS or NRDL or not for that study you did.

10 MR. ROLFES: Got you.

11 MR. KATZ: Okay, so NIOSH is going to 

12 propose some additional language, qualitative 

13 guidance. So, that is in abeyance.

14 Arjun?

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, so we are in more?

16 MR. KATZ: Yes, sure. That one is in 

17 abeyance.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: So we were on 21.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: So 22 is still open and 

21 that was pending the resolution of Pantex, the same 
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1 question at Pantex on neutron/photon ratios. And 

2 so I will hand it over to Mark to update us.

3 MR. ROLFES: Yes, this is Mark. And we 

4 had previously proposed neutron to photon ratio for 

5 Pantex. However, as a result of many 

6 deliberations with the Work Group we ended up using 

7 the data that we had and made some adjustments to 

8 the recorded neutron doses during certain time 

9 periods. And we have developed, essentially, a 

10 coworker external dose approach for photons, 

11 neutrons, and electrons and have proposed to use 

12 that in lieu of the n/p ratios.

13 So, let's see if there is an individual 

14 that we believe that would fit the bill at NTS as 

15 being involved in a job where neutron dose would 

16 be possible and they were not monitored for 

17 neutrons, then we could assign a coworker neutron 

18 dose from Pantex.

19 MEMBER MUNN: So, if that's 

20 incorporated, we can close it, right?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well before we had 
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1 discussed an approach of using an n/p ratio from 

2 Pantex but now the approach is being changed. So, 

3 I don't know how Brad wants to consider this.

4 Brad, you are also --

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, if you remember, 

6 we were back there and the way NIOSH was looking 

7 at this and, Jim, correct me if I am wrong but we 

8 were looking at one that we could use throughout 

9 all the sites but come to find out that each one 

10 of the sites had their unique differences. So each 

11 site was then going to have its own ratio, if I am 

12 correct.

13 DR. NETON: Well, we found out we 

14 couldn't use a ratio at Pantex and, as Mark said, 

15 we ended up developing a distribution of monitored 

16 neutron doses and apply it over the years. And I 

17 am looking up here. The neutron doses were pretty 

18 small for Pantex. I can tell you that if I can find 

19 them.

20 MR. ROLFES: This approach has been 

21 approved. It is in the Pantex TBD as well. I just 
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1 wanted to add that, since we said that this was 

2 pending the approval of the Pantex external 

3 coworker model.

4 CHAIR CLAWSON: How are we applying 

5 this at NTS?

6 MR. ROLFES: If an individual was 

7 involved in a job category where they had an 

8 exposure or a potential exposure to neutrons, such 

9 as handling fissile material, for example, then if 

10 they had no dosimetry for neutrons, we would apply 

11 a coworker neutron dose based upon the Pantex.

12 DR. NETON: I can tell you the Pantex 

13 doses, the highest annual dose at Pantex, 50th 

14 percentile, is 43 millirem and it goes down from 

15 there. It is no higher -- it is 4 millirem in 

16 recent -- it is very small.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: This approach seems a 

18 little strange to me. This is Arjun.

19 It is one thing to take an n/p ratio and 

20 apply it from Pantex to NTS. But the use of 

21 coworker model distribution from Pantex for a 
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1 different work population at NTS doesn't --

2 DR. NETON: Well, I would say --

3 MR. ROLFES: The work population isn't 

4 too different. The work is slightly different in 

5 that there are different types of devices handled 

6 but the work, the hands-on work is essentially 

7 using the same fissile materials at Pantex, as they 

8 are at NTS.

9 MR. BARTON: Can we argue that it fits 

10 the surrogate criteria? Because that is 

11 essentially what we are doing.

12 MR. ROLFES: I would think so. It is 

13 essentially an assembly worker.

14 DR. NETON: And these guys were 

15 probably doing this more full-time than the ones 

16 at NTS. Is that right?

17 MR. ROLFES: Oh, yes. Yes.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Oh, yes, absolutely.

19 DR. NETON: These guys were part-time 

20 production. And again, the highest total was 43 

21 millirem.
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1 MR. ROLFES: You are talking the 

2 majority of the work involving fissile material 

3 handling would be done at Pantex in configurations 

4 that would likely maximize the dose rates and doses 

5 that the employees received. NTS was an 

6 intermittent. There wasn't a lot of time spent 

7 directly handling fissile materials in advance of 

8 a test. You know these operations that were 

9 conducted at NTS would have lasted a short amount 

10 of time, not 40 hours a week, as would at Pantex.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: I would agree.

12 MR. BARTON: And they might be from 

13 Pantex.

14 MR. ROLFES: Right.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: And this is what we got 

16 into is that most of the people that would fit this 

17 bill were NTS or from other sites, Sandia, 

18 Livermore, Pantex, whatever else. People were 

19 actually doing it and most of them had their own 

20 badges in their facilities, too.

21 So this was kind of the uniqueness of 
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1 what NTS was. So, I guess you know Arjun, I really 

2 don't see anybody that would really fit this but 

3 I think that they have taken the appropriate steps 

4 to be able to take care of it. But unless there 

5 is a real big outstanding issue --

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Brad, I think I 

7 understand Jim and Mark's point, now that they have 

8 explained it and I have no problem in proceeding 

9 in the way they have proposed.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, so we could close 

11 this one or put it in abeyance?

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, there would be 

13 some pending change to the TBD.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, so this will be 

15 in abeyance.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

17 MR. KATZ: Mark, did you say this is 

18 already in the TBD or not?

19 MR. ROLFES: The Pantex TBD has been 

20 approved.

21 MR. KATZ: Oh, the Pantex TBD.
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1 MR. ROLFES: But the NTS TBD, I don't 

2 believe has been updated to include a statement to 

3 use the Pantex external dose coworker model.

4 MR. KATZ: Okay, good. Thanks.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, can we move on, 

6 Brad?

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, go ahead.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, 23 we have 

9 discussed, unless Lynn has something more to say.

10 DR. ANSPAUGH: No, I think our 

11 conclusion has been what the soil data are and we 

12 felt that they were adequate for the purpose for 

13 which they have been used.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right.

15 DR. ANSPAUGH: So I think this one, in 

16 particular, probably can be closed.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so it will be 

18 closed in the mix of things to resolve number 5.

19 The next issue -- sorry.

20 MR. KATZ: No, no. I'm just trying to 

21 understand whether -- if that is something that 
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1 there is nothing more to do with, then we can 

2 actually close it.

3 DR. ANSPAUGH: I think this one could 

4 be closed.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

6 MR. KATZ: Then let's do that, if the 

7 Work Group Members are in concurrence.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: Phil, do you have any 

9 problems with it?

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I don't have any 

11 comments. I agree, let's just close it.

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay, Gen?

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: Am I off mute?

14 MR. KATZ: Yes.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: You are off mute now.

16 MEMBER ROESSLER: I agree, let's close 

17 it.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: Alright, Wanda?

20 MEMBER MUNN: Oh, yes.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Great.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I was ready this 

2 morning.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: You shouldn't be so 

4 overzealous on stuff there.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay, thanks, Arjun.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, okay, number 24 is 

7 closed. Number 25 was transferred sometime back 

8 to the Worker Outreach Group, so no longer 

9 discussed in this Work Group.

10 And Number 26, the grab bag of things 

11 originally in 2005 in the TBD review we raised quite 

12 a few issues around waste handling and related 

13 activities. And so I will hand this over. This 

14 is kind of a lot of it is post-1992 but I will hand 

15 it over to Mark to have a response. It's 

16 complicated.

17 MR. ROLFES: The concern was about the 

18 monitoring practices, primarily for individuals 

19 under 10 CFR 835 in the more modern era after 1992.

20 We have put a significant amount of 

21 information into the TBD that describes the 
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1 monitoring practices and can see the response is 

2 pretty lengthy here. I don't know that you want 

3 me to read this monotonously. 

4 Are there specific questions or is 

5 there anything that sticks out that you have 

6 questions about what we have added to the TBD?

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I just want to 

8 point out to Brad that this is a significant change 

9 in the TBD and that we have not reviewed it and I 

10 don't know whether you wanted it reviewed.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, yes, I did. But 

12 I thought yes, that was part of the thing that we 

13 wanted you to take a look at because we have had 

14 a lot of changes to the TBD and I just wanted to 

15 make sure that we agreed to how it finally got in 

16 there.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, I guess that will 

19 be in abeyance.

20 MR. KATZ: No, that one is just SC&A 

21 needs to review it. That's it.
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1 CHAIR CLAWSON: Right.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: So are you tasking us 

3 to do that?

4 MR. KATZ: Yes.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: All right.

7 MR. BARTON: I feel a little bit 

8 ignorant on this. Can someone tell me what an 

9 orphan source is?

10 MR. ROLFES: A lost source.

11 MR. BARTON: A lost source?

12 MR. ROLFES: Yes, a source that 

13 industry have -- an industrial facility uses a 

14 source and loses it and it is discovered. You know 

15 it is sent for disposal.

16 MR. BARTON: Okay.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Not in its proper home.

18 MR. BARTON: That's the end.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that is the end.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. So do we want to 

21 go over what --
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1 MR. KATZ: Do we really want to go over 

2 it?

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: -- the TIB as well? We 

4 had better make sure that everybody understands or 

5 -- well, just to make sure that everybody is in 

6 agreement.

7 MEMBER MUNN: I have one question 

8 before we start that and that is on number 25. Do 

9 we know if anything at all is going on with the Work 

10 Group?

11 MR. KATZ: No, nothing is going on with 

12 that Work Group. And moreover, this is really a 

13 little odd to transfer it even to another Work 

14 Group. I didn't go back and look at the transcript 

15 to see what had been said at the time about why this 

16 would be transferred.

17 MEMBER MUNN: But you know since 

18 December 2014, I haven't heard anything about it.

19 MR. KATZ: No. Well, the Worker 

20 Outreach Work Group is not going to meet over this 

21 little thing here, anyway.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: I didn't think so.

2 MR. KATZ: But Arjun, do you want to 

3 talk more about that item 25?

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well you know this 

5 dates back to quite a long time ago when NIOSH and 

6 us and the Work Group and the Board had extensive 

7 discussions about how worker outreach should be 

8 approached and specifically on documentation of 

9 interviews and things like that.

10 And since that time, as noted here and 

11 as you all know, NIOSH has changed its 

12 documentation approach and a lot has happened and 

13 there is much more documentation now.

14 I mean I, if you want to close it here, 

15 that would be okay with me. I just don't know if 

16 it is not being handled in the Worker Outreach and 

17 there is no intent to do it, we could close it. It 

18 doesn't matter to me.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes I think, Brad and 

20 company, this is -- I mean the only other thing 

21 specific that I recall from what you brought up 
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1 there was about whether the appropriateness or the 

2 completeness of the interview conducted. But that 

3 is water under the bridge. And SC&A and NIOSH do 

4 these interviews together these days and have been 

5 for the past eight years or nine years. So it is 

6 really I think the whole matter can just be closed.

7 DR. NETON: Yes, and the issue is now 

8 it is an SEC for the entire period. It is not 

9 necessarily relevant.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes.

11 DR. NETON: I mean as important as it 

12 might have been if the interviews were used to 

13 establish dose reconstruction for presumptive 

14 cancers.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I think -- can't we 

16 just say that NIOSH is --

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: I think we ought close 

18 this. Just close it. A lot of things have changed 

19 since --

20 MR. ROLFES: Our notes say that the 

21 matter was closed in the December 2014 meeting.
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1 MR. KATZ: Oh, okay.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, no. That is a 

3 little bit of misleading. If I am remembering the 

4 transcript of the meeting, it was closed for the 

5 purposes of this Work Group because it was 

6 transferred.

7 MR. KATZ: I see.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: But what we are 

9 discussing now is that it should be closed, period.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Okay well, we 

11 probably could have closed it then but --

12 MR. BARTON: We basically had the same 

13 conversation back in 2014.

14 MR. KATZ: Yes. So let's consider it 

15 closed now.

16 MEMBER MUNN: NIOSH has changed its 

17 documentation process and it is now closed.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: It will state in this 

20 transcript that it is closed.

21 I don't know about anybody else but I 
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1 go back and read those transcripts and I think to 

2 myself, wow, do I really sound that stupid? 

3 You know, you stop in the middle of 

4 sentences and stuff. Oh, my God. So you guys do 

5 a great job on transcribing this, maybe help us a 

6 little bit.

7 MEMBER MUNN: This is a rhetorical 

8 question, right?

9 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes. What can we say? 

10 Okay, I guess it is all yours, Ted.

11 Wrap-up and Adjourn

12 MR. KATZ: That's all. We are all 

13 finished, I think. And we can't schedule another 

14 meeting until we have a new TBD and/or the follow-up 

15 when Lynn has his discussions and so on.

16 So, I think that is all we have. Oh, 

17 you want me to run through all we have.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: The only problem is that 

20 part of my -- I lost my internet connectivity. So, 

21 I have two -- so like the early part, I don't have 
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1 those items because they are online but they are 

2 not on my current document.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: Maybe after you get 

4 back, maybe you could just send out to everybody 

5 and we could just --

6 MR. KATZ: I would be happy to do it. 

7 I will send out a very brief thumbnail on what the 

8 action items were and who has them. So, I will do 

9 that when I --

10 MR. BARTON: I have some notes but I 

11 don't know how complete they are.

12 MR. KATZ: Sorry?

13 MR. BARTON: I have some notes but I 

14 don't know how complete they are.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes, so I will send it to the 

16 Group and people can correct or add to it as 

17 necessary.

18 Okay and thanks, everyone, for all the 

19 work and diligence, attention and good luck with 

20 your weather in various places.

21 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 
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1 went off the record at 2:27 p.m.)