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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

 CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL 

+ + + + + 

 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY 

 AND HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

 ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND 

 WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

 60th MEETING 

 + + + + + 

 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2008 

 The meeting came to order at 9:00 a.m. 

in the Oglethorpe Room of the Augusta Marriott 

Hotel and Suites, 2 Tenth Street, Augusta, 

Georgia, Dr. Paul L. Ziemer, Chair, presiding. 

PRESENT: 

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Chair 

JOSIE M. BEACH, Member 

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member 

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member 

MARK A. GRIFFON, Member 

JAMES M. MELIUS, Member 

WANDA I. MUNN, Member 

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member 

JOHN W. POSTON, Member 

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member 

 (via telephone) 

PHILLIP M. SCHOFIELD, Member 

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

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH CONTRACTOR 

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE 

BARRIE, TERRI, ROCKY FLATS 

BISHOP, MYRA 

BOBBITT, NANCY, SENATOR ISAKSON 

BOWCORD, JACK 

BRADFORD, SHANNON, NIOSH 

BREYER, LAURIE, OCAS 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC 

BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 

CANO, GINA, DOE 

CHEW, MEL, ORAU 

DEGARMO, DENISE, SIUE/DOW 

FARVER, DOUG, SC&A 

FUNK, JOHN, NTS 

HAND, DONNA, NUCLEAR WORKER P/A 

HANSON, JOHN, SIUE 

HARMON, YVONNE, SRP 

HARTNETT, LOUISE G. 

HINNEFELD, STU, NIOSH 

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

KNOX, WAYNE, SRS 

KOTSCH, JEFF, US DOL 

LEE, RICHARD, SRS 

LEWIS, GREG, DOE 

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 

MARSCHKE, STEVE, SC&A 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MILLER, RELADA, OCAS 

MCDOUGALL, VERNON, ATL 

MCFEE, MATT, ORAU 

MCKEEL, DAN, DOW-MADISON 

MOCK, LAVERNE, SRP 

NETON, JIM 

PRESLEY, LOUISE 

QUINN, TRISH, CPWR 

TICHENOR, DUDLEY, NUCLEAR WORKER 

VANDERSYDE, JANET, NUCLEAR WORKER 

VAUGHN, DAVID, NUCLEAR WORKER 
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VOLSCH, JOE, SIUE 

WORTHINGTON, PAT, DOE 

ZIEMER, MARILYN 
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 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

AGENDA ITEM PAGE

Welcome..................................... 3 

Vitro Manufacturing 83.14 SEC Petition...... 7 

Mallinckrodt (1958) 83.14 SEC Petition..... 32 

Blockson Chemical SEC Petition Status 

 Update ............................... 53 

Department of Energy Update................ 69 

 

Science Update............................ 126 

SEC Petition Update....................... 159 

Board Working Time........................ 189 

Procedures Work Group..................... 216 

Public Comment

 Denise DeGarmo ...................... 266 

 Donna Hand .......................... 276 

 Richard Lee ......................... 286 

 Wayne Knox .......................... 291 

 Terrie Barrie ....................... 299 

 John Funk ........................... 305 

 Dan McKeel .......................... 318 

 Anonymous Letter .................... 321 

 Dan McKeel .......................... 329 

 Jack Bowcord ........................ 337 

Adjourn 
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 (9:11 a.m.) 

 WELCOME 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, good morning, 

everyone. We are ready to reconvene the 

meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health, meeting here in Augusta, 

Georgia. 

 This is day two of the meeting. 

The agendas, again, are on the back table as 

well as a variety of documents in support of 

the activities of the meeting. 

 Also another reminder to register 

your attendance in the registration book in 

the foyer. Even if you did that yesterday, 

we'd like you to do that again today. We 

track the attendance every day. 

 And then finally, members of the 

public, if you wish to make public comment 

during our public comment session this 

evening, please sign up in the book that is 
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there in the foyer. 

 I also want to confirm the presence 

of our remote Board member, Dr. Gen Roessler. 

 Dr. Roessler, are you on the line? 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: I am on the line. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, well you don't 

seem so remote. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, you know the 

connection is much better this morning. It 

was almost impossible to hear last night 

during the public comments. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Oh, really. I'm 

sorry to hear that. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, I think 

Ted's reminders always help. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Very good. 

 And the record will also show that 

Phil Schofield has joined the Board this 

morning. That is, well, he's joined the Board 

much earlier in this career, but he is with us 

this morning. We're glad to have you here as 

well. 
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 The only person really missing from 

our deliberations today is Dr. Lockey who is 

not able to be with us. But we do have a 

quorum. 

 Mr. Katz, do you have any remarks 

as we get underway? 

 MR. KATZ: Just a reminder for the 

folks on the phone, just a general reminder, 

please remember to mute your phones, and use 

*6 if you don't have a mute button, and please 

don't put us on hold but hang up and dial back 

in if you need to break from the call for a 

while. Thanks. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

 We are going to follow the agenda 

pretty much as it's given, but let me indicate 

to you a couple of changes. 

 Number one, you may recall that 

yesterday we deferred the report from the 

Department of Energy because Dr. Worthington 

was not able to arrive because of difficulties 

in her flight, but she is with us now, and we 
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are going to schedule the DOE update at the 

11:15 slot, which, on your agenda, is the 

location of the science update. 

 We will move the science update to 

the slot in the meeting which is labeled 

review close-out process, Dr. John Mauro. 

Because that report you will recall was given 

yesterday because we had the open time slot 

yesterday. 

 So with that slight juggling in the 

agenda, we will proceed. 

 The first item then, this morning 

is an 83.14 SEC Petition for Vitro 

Manufacturing. The petition evaluation report 

will be presented by Stu Hinnefeld. Also, we 

may hear from the petitioner if the petitioner 

so wishes. It was not absolutely sure when we 

last contacted the petitioner that that person 

wished to speak or comment, but we will have 

opportunity for that as well. 

 So let us proceed then with the 

evaluation report on Vitro. I don't know 
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actually if it is pronounced Vitro or Vitro. 

Maybe it's Vitro, Stu. What is the official 

NIOSH pronunciation of this company? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Vitro. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: You call it Vitro. 

Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't know that 

that is the correct pronunciation. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I thought perhaps the 

people who worked there were in vitro, but 

Vitro sounds a little better, I think. So we 

might have to get corrected on that. In any 

event let's proceed. 

VITRO MANUFACTURING 83.14 SEC PETITION 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you, Dr. 

Ziemer. I suggested to LaVon last night that 

he might want to come and give a presentation 

with my name on it, but he didn't take me up 

on that, so here I am again. 

 This is, as introduced -- this is 

our presentation for the Vitro Manufacturing 

site, AWE site in Canonsberg, Pennsylvania. 
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It's just a little ways south of Pittsburgh. 

 Here is a little bit of the history 

of the petition. The date, November 10th, when 

we notified one of the petitioners, or one of 

the claimants from Vitro Manufacturing that we 

were not able to do a dose reconstruction for 

his or her case, and we sent them a letter to 

that effect, and sent them a blank Form A 

petition, SEC petition. 

 They then returned the petition 

promptly and we qualified on November 26th, our 

finding being that we are unable to complete 

dose reconstruction with sufficient accuracy 

for the employees there. 

 The Vitro site is an atomic weapons 

employer. Its operational period is from 1942 

to 1957. That is the period we have evaluated 

for this petition, as the active period, the 

covered period. 

 They conducted chemical processing 

to extract uranium from ores and scrap AEC 

materials, and they were, actually before 
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World War II, they were already engaged in the 

extraction of uranium and radium for 

commercial purposes. And then when the war 

effort was looking for uranium, they went to 

places like Vitro that already knew how to do 

it, and had them specifically for the 

Manhattan Engineer District then extract 

uranium for the government's purposes. 

 Physical forms were uranium ores, 

concentrates, U-308 is typically the product 

of the purification process, and then the 

byproduct materials containing uranium 

progeny. 

 So in other words, of course when 

you purify the uranium out of the ore you got 

all the stuff that is not uranium from the ore 

that is left over, many of those are 

radioactive elements, the progeny of uranium. 

 The data capture efforts are 

actually summarized in the petition evaluation 

report. There is a table in the back that 

describes documentation that was obtained, and 
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the records that -- where they were obtained 

from, you will see that. We have used our 

existing database which we have populated over 

the course of the project from the DOE 

Germantown offices and National Archives and 

records centers, and a number of data capture 

activities. We have -- we looked at existing 

project technical documents to see if they 

would help to help inform us about this. We 

looked at the legacy management, considered 

site's database, a couple of open net 

databases, NRC ADAMS database, and a variety 

of other systems including the Hanford 

declassified document retrieval system, and 

the Office of Science and Technical 

Information, OSTI. 

 And we evaluated the interviews 

that had been conducted with the claimants, 

the computer-assisted telephone interview that 

is conducted on all the claimants. Didn't see 

any information in that, in those interviews 

that would cause us to think that we could 
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feasibly reconstruct all the doses at Vitro, 

and we also concluded from that that we were 

not likely to learn anymore from interviews, 

or learn enough from interviews that would 

allow these reconstructions to be feasible 

given the limitations that we've encountered. 

 The radiological operations at 

Vitro Manufacturing, like I said, they were 

actually a uranium purifier and radium 

purifier prior to World War II. In 1942, the 

Manhattan Engineer District contacted them to 

produce purified uranium from ores and 

concentrates, and so the start date is 

actually an August date in 1942, which 

coincides with the establishment of the 

Manhattan Engineer District. So that is the 

start of the covered period. 

 In 1947 they received, essentially, 

some additional work from the AEC to process 

scrap and uranium-bearing residues. Now scrap 

materials as I understand it were often just 

off-specification manufactured products. It's 
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not like there was scrap metal that was 

contaminated; it was mainly uranium product 

that just didn't meet specification, so it 

went back for the uranium to be reclaimed out 

of, and Uranium-bearing residues, et cetera, 

and a number of other products. I think there 

was something about Canadian slimes, which I 

guess is some sort of byproduct of milling. 

And these products then, or these were all 

processed for uranium extraction for AEC at 

this point. 

 In 1955 most uranium processing 

ceased. There were still some small-scale 

activities. The waste residue removal began 

in 1956, and the last AEC contract terminated 

in 1957, so that is the end of the covered 

period. 

 Not all radioactive waste was 

removed, and there is in fact a residual 

radioactivity period for this site beginning 

at the end of the covered period. Our 

evaluation doesn't extend into that at this 
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point, and as I recall -- I don't know for 

sure -- as I recall, we don't have any 

claimants who are strictly in the residual 

period. I believe all claimants had some 

employment at least in the covered period, and 

then some of them do extend into the residual 

period as well. 

 The available monitoring data, we 

actually do have some monitoring data from 

employees there. We have some uranium 

urinalysis results for the years `50 to `54. 

It is not clear this is comprehensive. It's 

not clear we have all the samples, and there 

are some legibility issues with some of them. 

 Some of those you can't necessarily read. 

But there are a number of legible ones as 

well. 

 And then there are a limited number 

of radon samples from 1944 and from 1950, not 

from the entire period, just from those two 

years. But even at the time, the people 

taking the samples didn't express a lot of 
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confidence in those results. So we don't 

think that they are going to be of much value 

to us; that is a radium body burden bioassay 

technique that given at the time that they 

were taken, they weren't considered very 

reliable. We feel we would be hard-pressed to 

put much confidence in those. 

 On the external monitoring side we 

do have external monitoring periods from 

February of 1944 through March of 1954, and 

those appear to be complete. It appears we 

have essentially a comprehensive list of the 

external results of the people who were 

monitored for those years. 

 Workplace monitoring, we have some 

area air sampling, a very limited number of 

breathing zone air samples for certain years, 

`49 to `53, those are in total alpha activity. 

 And the -- but the breathing zone samples are 

too limited to really draw conclusions about 

the entirety of the exposure situation, and 

the general area air samples are oftentimes 
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difficult to correlate to what was actually in 

the breathing zone of workers from general 

area air sampling. 

 And there are some surface 

contamination surveys as well, but it is 

hardly a comprehensive survey, that we feel 

like we have a comprehensive knowledge of the 

contamination situation at the plant. 

 In talking about feasibility of 

dose reconstructions, the available bioassay 

that we have, the internal monitoring results, 

are for uranium only, and since this did 

purify uranium, it extracted uranium from ores 

and residues and other materials, the degree 

of disequilibrium between the uranium and the 

uranium progeny is variable, depending on the 

site location and the particular process. So 

we don't have a constant relationship between 

the progeny and the uranium, so we can't use 

the uranium bioassay results to deduce what 

the non-uranium intakes would be. 

 While I'm on the subject, and I 
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don't think this comes up in a slide, I did 

want to mention also, we don't have, really, 

information that the material was well 

controlled or confined to some portion of the 

facility, and our indications are that anybody 

that worked at the facility could very well 

have been exposed to the material. It wasn't 

limited to certain job titles, for instance. 

 The limited breathing zone air 

samples we feel are not sufficient to give us 

an adequate view of what the exposure 

situation was over the whole period of time, 

and the general area air samples, we do have 

more of those, but it is very difficult to 

deduce breathing zone concentrations from a 

general area air sampling program. 

 The breath radon samples, as I 

said, were not considered reliable at the 

time, and so we don't feel like it would be 

appropriate for us to use them in any manner, 

and I don't know if we would have -- I'm not 

sure we have the technique to even interpret 
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those, and so we don't know very much about 

them. 

 So in terms of our determination 

for internal dose reconstruction, we have 

determined that internal dose reconstruction 

is not feasible for uranium progeny. 

 For uranium exposure, we intend to 

use the bioassay if necessary, when it is 

necessary to due dose reconstructions, for 

members, for people who aren't compensated via 

the class, we intend to use their uranium 

bioassay core claimant. If a claimant has a 

uranium bioassay, we intend to use that to 

interpret their uranium internal exposure. 

But we don't have what we feel is a sufficient 

data set to allow us to build something like a 

coworker model to reconstruct internal doses 

for unmonitored people. If we have any 

claimants who don't have bioassay data, we 

don't think we can do an internal uranium 

assessment for them. 

 For external, like I said we have 
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external monitoring data for the years 1944 to 

1954, so for those years, certainly we can -- 

we will use those if we need to do dose 

reconstructions, we will use those data for 

claimants who have it. 

 We have not really determined 

whether we feel it is a sufficient dataset to 

do coworker models. We might very well. We 

might be able to do a coworker study, satisfy 

ourselves that we feel like we have gotten a 

decent representation of the monitored people. 

 It appears -- we don't know for sure we have 

all of them, but it appears to be a complete 

set that we have. 

 And it may very well allow us to do 

some sort of coworker approach, certainly for 

those monitored years. And I don't know about 

extending it. We haven't really decided if we 

would extend it. These decisions will have to 

be made before we complete the partial dose 

reconstructions for people who aren't 

compensated through the class. 
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 There's where I am -- we have not 

made a determination as to whether we can 

reconstruct the external dose for people 

without exposure records. We do believe we 

can reconstruct occupational medical dose 

using some existing complex-wide documents 

that we use for medical dose reconstruction. 

 In terms of feasibility, I kind of 

decided I'd throw a curve ball in here on the 

internal uranium and say it's infeasible and 

not feasible both - or it's feasible and not 

feasible both. It's feasible for uranium 

bioassay that we have. We intend to use the 

uranium bioassay we have if it pertains to a 

claimant and that person's internal dose, if 

we need to do a dose reconstruction. But for 

people who don't have their own uranium 

bioassay samples, we don't believe we can do 

internal uranium doses. 

 We don't find that it's feasible to 

reconstruct the internal dose from the uranium 

progeny for anyone, and from an external 
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standpoint we believe we can reconstruct the 

medical X-rays and for beta gamma we believe 

we can reconstruct it for monitored workers 

for sure, or for the ones who have it, we will 

include that. For the unmonitored workers, we 

have not yet determined yet whether we would 

try to include them. 

 And our health endangerment 

determination, we have no evidence of a 

discrete incident that could result in 

extremely high doses like you would receive 

from a criticality accident. But the evidence 

does indicate that workers in the class may 

have accumulated chronic radiation exposures 

sufficient to cause harm. 

 So we conclude that health may have 

been in danger for those workers covered by 

this evaluation who were employed for a number 

of workdays aggregating at least 250 in the 

class, or aggregated with other classes. 

 Our proposed class definition is 

all atomic weapons employer employees who 
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worked at Vitro Manufacturing in Canonsburg, 

Pennsylvania from August 13th, 1942 through 

December 31st, 1957, for a number of workdays 

aggregating at least 250 workdays, occurring 

either solely under this employment or in 

combination with workdays within the 

parameters established for other classes. 

 And this summarizes our 

recommendation for the period. This is the 

entire covered period for the site. We don't 

believe it's feasible to do a complete dose 

reconstruction, and we are recommending that 

the class be added for this facility for this 

period. 

 I didn't include it in the slide, 

but I did look awhile ago, we have 21 cases 

from this facility, some six of those have 

been compensated through dose reconstruction 

already. 

 So I believe that's the end. If 

there are any questions? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Stu. 
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Let's open the floor at this time for 

questions on Vitro. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes, any idea of the 

overall size of the facility? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: It was on the order 

of 35 acres. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes, but I mean, 

number of people working there. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I do not. I don't 

know that we have a way to reconstruct how 

many people worked there, but I do not know 

right now. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: And you have not 

tried to reach out or do any community 

outreach there, talk to - I know you are not 

directly involved, so it may be hard to answer 

this. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't remember any 

specifically for Vitro, no. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Okay. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: We've been in the 

Pittsburgh area, but I don't believe that was 
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associated with Vitro. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Okay, I'm just 

trying to get a sense of the number of 

potential claims, and some of the, like we had 

with the canal site, there was a huge worker 

population, but there hadn't been enough 

outreach for people I think to know they could 

apply. And I'm just curious on this one also. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't really know. 

 Like I said, it's a 35-acre site. I guess 

that could be -- I guess you could put a lot 

of people in 35 acres. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: You can't say. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: You can't say from 

that. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: What they did after, 

other than -- 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, the site became 

- well, it was a storage site for a while, and 

then it became essentially an industrial site. 

 There was a -- or actually it wasn't a FUSRAP 

mediation. The uranium mill tailings remedial 
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action program, remediation was done I think 

in the 1980s, and there were some vicinity 

properties involved in that as well. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Stu, I'd like to 

follow up on that. Was it a multiple-building 

site? I think you said we really don't know -

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 MR. HINNEFELD: We don't know -- 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: -- the extent to 

which it was even controlled, right? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, we don't know 

a whole heck of a lot about it. The tailings 

that were -- I believe we know that the 

tailings piles were just stored in piles at 

the site. I mean it wasn't like confined in 

any particular way, but there were tailings 

piles on the site, and some erosion from 

those, as well. There was some migration. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And I think we should 

recognize, this was at a time period when a 

lot of uranium was being used in consumer 

products. I've wondered on this particular 
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site, both from its name and location if this 

might have been the source of the uranium 

which was sent to the Homer Laughlin Company, 

which is near Pittsburgh, and which made 

Fiestaware during this -- just prior to the 

Manhattan Project. The folklore says that 

Homer Laughlin Company made the red or what 

looks like orange Fiestaware right up until 

the Manhattan project, at which point their 

source of uranium was diverted to the project, 

and they ceased to make that particular 

Fiestaware. 

 But my point is that uranium was 

widely used in consumer products, and the idea 

that it could be hazardous probably wasn't in 

the picture very much at that time. 

 MR. PROCTOR: Dr. Ziemer? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. PROCTOR: This is John Proctor 

in Las Vegas. I grew up in Morgantown, West 

Virginia. That's home of the glass country. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes. 
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 MR. PROCTOR: We used a lot of that 

uranium for making yellow glass. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, yellow glass is 

the so-called Vaseline glass which also 

contains uranium, and of course a lot of that 

material still exists, mainly in antique 

stores. 

 MR. PROCTOR: There's a lot of it in 

the old warehouses, a lot of glass company. 

I've got a friend who's got cobalt, gold, and 

uranium still to this day they -- the AEC 

comes by and checks it every year to see if he 

still has it. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, it's a good 

collector's item. Actually, the chair of this 

committee has a large collection of Fiestaware 

which is almost at critical mass in his house. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Paul, this is Gen. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, Gen Roessler. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, to answer 

some of the questions that Jim had, whoever 

would want to follow through on them I'd 
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recommend health physicist Joel Lubenau. He 

has done a lot of work and a lot of writing 

about this particular site. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, it certainly 

will be important to try to identify actually 

what the total workforce was there who might 

be eligible for this particular cohort. 

 Let's see if there are other 

questions? Dr. Melius, do you have a follow 

on? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: No, not really. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Other board members? 

 I want to ask if the petitioner is 

on the line, and if so does she wish to 

comment? 

 PETITIONER: Well, I don't think I 

really have any comments. It's all been very 

interesting. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very 

much. 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Paul? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, Bob Presley. 
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 MEMBER PRESLEY: I have a question 

for the petitioner. Can you hear me, ma'am? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Use your mike there, 

Bob. It might help. 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Sorry. Ma'am, can 

you hear me? 

 PETITIONER: Barely. 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Can you tell us how 

large the company was? 

 PETITIONER: Well, I would say they 

must have had over 200 employees, I would 

guess. I was in the lab all the time, and I 

wasn't really -- so many of the workers came 

into the lab, but usually they were the 

foreman who would bring samples in. So I 

really don't know how many laborers were 

there. But I would imagine it had to be 

around at least a couple hundred. 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Thank you, ma'am. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Mike Gibson. 

 MEMBER GIBSON: Stu -- 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Use the mike, Mike. 
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 MEMBER GIBSON: In Section 10 of the 

evaluation report, you talk about the 

evaluation of a second similar class that may 

be needed. Could you just give us a few more 

details about that? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, that would 

have to be for the residual period, because 

this class covers everybody during the 

operational period. Any additional 

consideration would have to be applied to the 

residual period. 

 And the residual reconstruction 

approach is sort of a topic of discussion and 

debate elsewhere, and we kind of rely on much 

the same technique, and it is being reviewed 

elsewhere. 

 So we are kind of holding a 

determination or a judgment on whether it's 

feasible for that period. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: And that is also 

sort of boilerplate language in these reports? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, the whole 
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thing, we don't want to shut out -- if later 

on we learn something else we don't want to 

shut anybody out by writing this without that 

in there. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: One of the other 

reasons was, I kept looking trying to find out 

what the other class was. I finally called 

LaVon and he explained to me that there wasn't 

really one. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I think you are 

right, it's just to make sure that what we are 

writing here doesn't close anybody out, that 

we might learn something later on. 

 PETITIONER: Could I add something? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, certainly. 

 PETITIONER: When I said about 200, 

you might consider that a wild guess, because 

I am really not sure about that. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: No, we appreciate 

that. I think we wanted to get a feel for 

whether it's a handful of people or thousands 

of people. At least it gives us kind of a 
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ballpark idea. 

 PETITIONER: It was more than a 

handful of people; I know that. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And were there - 

 PETITIONER: There was a little 

community right in that area called Strabane, 

and so many of the workers were from that 

particular area, because it was right adjacent 

to the plant. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 Other questions? If there are no 

other questions, it would be in order to have 

a motion concerning this particular site. 

 Mr. Presley? 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: I move that we 

grant the class petition. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, the chair will 

interpret that motion as a motion to recommend 

to the secretary that this become a class of 

the SEC. And seconded by Dr. Poston. 

 Is there any discussion on the 

motion? If there is no discussion we will 
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have a roll call vote. 

 We will, after the vote, also seek 

the vote of Dr. Lockey, and his vote will be 

recorded as soon as we are able to get it. So 

let us proceed. 

 Mr. Katz. 

 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson. 

 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston. 

 MEMBER POSTON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 
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 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes. 

 The motion carries, and we will 

again develop the precise wording that will go 

to the secretary and have that ready for the 

Board's perusal tomorrow together with the 

other action that we took yesterday. 

 Now we are just slightly ahead of 

schedule. I am looking to see whether or not 

we will have Mallinckrodt petitioners on the 

line. According to my notes, we will not have 

any Mallinckrodt petitioners on the line, so I 

think we can probably proceed then with the 

next item on the agenda, and that is the 83.14 

SEC Petition, and Dr. Neton from NIOSH will 

present the evaluation report for this one. 

MALLINCKRODT (1958) 83.14 SEC PETITION 

 DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 
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Good morning, everyone. 

 I'm going to continue on the theme 

of discussion of uranium processing facilities 

and SECs by bringing forth the evaluation 

report for the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company, 

Destrehan Street plant for a very specific 

time period, that is calendar year 1958. 

 Okay, a little bit of a petition 

overview here. This was a petition that NIOSH 

evaluated in accordance with the requirements 

of 83.14, 42 CFR 83.14, that is, which is a 

petition submitted by a claimant whose dose 

reconstruction could not be completed by NIOSH 

because we didn't have sufficient information 

available to do the reconstruction. 

 This particular claimant was 

employed as a clerk-typist at Mallinckrodt 

from 1957 through 1960. 

 A little bit of the background 

here. Mallinckrodt should be very familiar to 

everyone; it was one of the first SEC classes 

granted under this program, and there were 
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actually two classes added for Mallinckrodt. 

There was a period of time between 1946 and 

1948 where it was determined that some data 

were technically unreliable. There were 

questions regarding the integrity of the data, 

and a determination was made that we couldn't 

reconstruct dose except occupational medical 

dose during that timeframe. 

 The latter period at Mallinckrodt 

was covered, 1949 to 1957, and it -- after 

some lengthy discussion with the Board and 

others, it was determined that the class would 

be added because there was insufficient 

information to reconstruct dose from the 

radium progeny, the long-lived progeny of 

radium or uranium, in particular, thorium-230, 

protactinium-231, and actinium-227 that's 

present in the raffinate material, which is a 

byproduct of uranium processing. 

 We did conclude, though, that we 

could construct external dose and some 

internal dose, depending on the availability 
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of data. 

 I just want to go over this 

raffinate term a little bit, because it is a 

term of art that is not, maybe, understood by 

all. It's used specifically to find the 

residues created from the refinement of ore in 

a facility. And in fact the chemical 

extraction process that creates this material 

as Stu pointed out in his presentation creates 

a disequilibrium in these streams. 

 It's most important for these 

isotopes, radionuclides listed here, that is 

radium, actinium, thorium and protactinium. 

 To refresh your memory, I've just 

presented a slide that we went over in some 

detail during our deliberations for the SEC on 

Mallinckrodt originally, and you will see that 

the pitchblende ore is cleaned up through a 

chemical extraction process outlined here -- 

there's a pointer -- and as the pitchblende 

ore goes through it is resolved in the 

sulfuric acid material, and you create these 
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cakes on the right-hand side that are lead 

sulfate and barium sulfate. The radium comes 

out of the process there, so you have an 

extraction of radium there, and then as you go 

further down the process, you end up on the 

right-hand side with the Sperry Cake and 

Airport Cake, and that is where the 

disequilibrium products occur for the thorium, 

actinium and protactinium in these cakes here. 

 And that in fact is the basis for our 

inability to reconstruct dose at Mallinckrodt, 

very much like the Vitro facility. We just 

don't know how much of this material was 

generated and became airborne, because there 

was no monitoring program, bioassay, or area 

monitoring program that could be used the 

establish the internal exposure to those 

workers. 

 We reviewed the documentation and 

it indicated that operations similar to those 

that granted the class between 1949 and 1957 

existed at Mallinckrodt into the 1958 time 
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period. And in fact, no substantial 

difference could be found in those operations, 

and in looking at it we knew that the 

operations terminated some time in 1958, but 

it wasn't very clear as to when in 1958 that 

stopped. So we decided to include the entire 

calendar year to bound this particular class. 

 In addition to that, there was 

insufficient information to limit the class 

based on work location. These people often 

changed jobs; did not work in the same 

location of the plant at any given time. So 

very much consistent with what happened in the 

early class at Mallinckrodt; we couldn't 

create a class, for instance, of raffinate 

workers, because we just couldn't tell who was 

a raffinate worker at any given point in time 

during the operation of the plant. And this 

is the same limitation that existed in 1958 in 

our opinion. 

 After `58 however the plant 

operations went into decontamination and 
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decommissioning activities, very much 

different type of monitoring occurred. The 

large raffinate materials were no longer being 

generated, so we believe that we can do dose 

reconstructions in the D&D period at 

Mallinckrodt. 

 Much of this I have gone through 

for the feasibility of dose reconstruction. 

They continued to handle raffinate through 

`58. No individual bioassay does exist. And 

as I talk about it, records indicate workers 

rotated jobs. 

 The last bullet is important as 

well, because we believe that workplace 

materials and controls were insufficient to 

provide us any confidence that exposures were 

limited to what we would consider 

traditionally occupational radiation exposed 

categories, that is rad workers, chemical 

operators and those types of people. We 

really don't know whether administrative 

personnel were located very close, adjacent to 
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the production activities, how often they had 

to traverse the work area, that sort of thing. 

 So this class has no limitation based on job 

category at all. 

 We do believe however that we have 

sufficient data for reconstructing external 

and medical X-ray doses. We have external 

film badge data, and at a minimum we can apply 

the technical information bulletin we have for 

reconstructing medical X-ray doses, that we 

have used at many other facilities. 

 And internal exposure to other 

radionuclides, for instance, the uranium, will 

be reconstructed using the data that we have 

available. So we are going to do whatever we 

can do with the remaining data that exist 

outside of the raffinate materials to 

reconstruct doses in this class. 

 So to get to the health 

endangerment issue, we do have evidence that 

these workers accumulated chronic radiation 

exposures. There is no evidence that there 
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was an acute incident such as a nuclear 

criticality that created -- the class should 

be based on presence. 

 So therefore we are recommending 

the class be based on a chronic exposure 

scenario for workers who have aggregated at 

least 250 days within the parameters 

established for this class. 

 And the proposed class definition 

here would be, all employees of DOE, its 

predecessor agencies, and their contractors 

and subcontractors who worked in the uranium 

division at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company 

 Destrehan Street plant in St. Louis, 

Missouri, from January 1, 1958, to December 

31st, 1958, for a number of workdays 

aggregating at least 250 workdays occurring 

either solely under this employment or in 

combination of workdays with the parameters 

established for one or more other classes of 

employees included in the SEC. 

 And the final slide is our 
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recommendation that dose reconstruction is 

infeasible for members of this class, and 

health was endangered, and the covered period 

would be calendar year of 1958. 

 That completes my presentation. 

I'll be happy to answer any questions if there 

are any. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. 

 Is it safe to assume that actually 

a good portion of the people in this time slot 

would already have been covered by the 

previous SEC? I'm just wondering -- 

 DR. NETON: I believe that is a very 

good assumption. There are very few people in 

this class. In fact part of the delay in 

getting this class out was, we had identified 

one person who was a plant worker, a regular 

traditional-type rad worker, and they ended up 

being compensated in the first class. 

 So we had to go back to the table 

and identify another candidate for the 

petition. 
NEAL R. GROSS

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 CHAIR ZIEMER: So this would be 

mainly people who, perhaps, didn't have enough 

time in the earlier class? 

 DR. NETON: Correct. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Or maybe started at 

this time period. 

 DR. NETON: If they started in 1958 

early, or maybe late 1957. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So the numbers 

involved here, we don't know exactly. 

 DR. NETON: Yes, I'm sorry I don't 

have an exact number here, but it's a very 

small number of people that are affected by 

this designation. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 Other questions? Dr. Melius? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: That was actually -- 

I was trying to understand why -- because I 

thought we'd discussed this a little bit three 

or four years ago. I thought we were sort of 

aware of this potential issue. 

 DR. NETON: I think it picks up a 
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few more people. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: I was just trying to 

figure out why it took so long. 

 DR. NETON: Well, part of it was 

that we lost our what we called our litmus 

candidate who ended up being compensated. We 

had to go back to square one. 

 The other part was, we had to 

substantially rewrite the site profile after 

the Mallinckrodt class was added. I think it 

became final in November of 2005. So we 

pulled back that entire site profile and 

rewrote it so we could do non-presumptive 

cancers. And when we started to apply it I 

think the site profile was issued in 2007. It 

was only then that we realized that this 2008 

period was substantially the same as the class 

between `49 and `57, because originally if you 

recall it was our contention that we could do 

all of Mallinckrodt until the SEC 

determination finalized, and then we 

recommended that we add the class. 
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 MEMBER MELIUS: My memory is too 

foggy to remember. There was some issue about 

we weren't quite sure about where to draw the 

line. I can't remember why we ended up 

choosing `57. 

 DR. NETON: Actually I think the 

petition only requested the class through `57, 

so we only evaluated through `57. Then it 

dawned on us later on, in trying to 

reconstruct `58, that it substantially had the 

same characteristics as the class through `57. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Denise can add to 

this, please. 

 MS. BROCK: That is correct. The 

original petition ran from 1942 to 1957. I 

think the slide said `46. But the petition 

was from 1942 on. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Was the first class - 

 MS. BROCK: Yes. I think I had `42 

through `57, and I think the first estimate 

was `42 -- 

 DR. NETON: `42 through `46 based on 
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the data reliability issue. 

 MS. BROCK: Then we went for the 

rest of it. 

 DR. NETON: Then the raffinate. I 

apologize for that error. But for some reason 

`46 to `48 did seem like kind of a short 

period. Thank you, Denise. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Josie. 

 MEMBER BEACH: When did operations 

end there; what year? 

 DR. NETON: That is a good question. 

 The cleanup persisted for some time, and I 

believe that the residual contamination goes 

through the 1990s or somewhere thereabouts. 

 MS. BROCK: That is correct. I 

believe that that actually stopped in 1962, 

and Weldon Spring started in 1955, at least 

that was prior to production, but when they 

were getting everything ready. And I think 

the production actually started at Weldon 

Spring in 1957/58 timeframe, and went into 

like 1967 or `68. 
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 DR. NETON: That's part of our 

problem is identifying who actually worked at 

Mallinckrodt, Destrehan Street versus Weldon 

Springs, because same company. 

 MS. BROCK: Same company, and then 

there was also United Nuclear which ran about 

the same time, that was in the hematite area, 

and that ran at the same time as Weldon Spring 

did, so it's very confusing. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. Other 

comments or questions? Jim. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes, I have one just 

general question. It seems that we get in 

these situations where we are sort of stuck by 

what the petitioner has put in for numbers of 

years, and they are -- depending on who is 

involved in the petition they may not know the 

exact time frames that are appropriate. 

Sometimes NIOSH modifies it as it comes 

forward, but then we end up in like this 

situation where we closed off at `57, and then 

you have to wait until you find an 83.14 
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person. 

 DR. NETON: Well, this is a little 

unique in this respect. If you remember, 

NIOSH's official position was that we could do 

dose reconstruction through `57. It was only 

until the Board deliberated, and the decision 

was made through the secretary that we 

couldn't do it. And that's why -- we would 

normally expand the class beyond the `57 and 

look to see, is that an arbitrary date or is 

there reason to continue forward. In this 

particular case it was NIOSH's position we 

could do it, so there was no reason to look 

about that at that juncture. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Denise may have an 

additional comment. 

 MS. BROCK: If I remember correctly, 

and it's been quite some time ago, I think 

that the designated timeframe was 1942 through 

`57, then sometimes it happens that additional 

years are added. Because I would have 

actually petitioned for that entire timeframe. 
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 So it was my understanding that, during that 

initial period, it was just showing `42 

through `57, and I think after that we started 

seeing additional time in the Federal 

Register, that DOE had actually extended that 

if I remember correctly. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: But I think the 

comment that Jim made probably is -- has been 

the pattern where NIOSH says we can't 

reconstruct dose, and they have expanded in 

some cases based on what they know about it. 

 DR. NETON: We would normally do 

that, to look about that -- the proposed end 

date to make sure that some other situation 

doesn't exist. 

 MS. BROCK: I thought that was the 

situation in this one. 

 DR. NETON: But this one I think we 

just flat out thought we could do it from the 

very beginning, and there was no reason to 

look past `57 because if we could do `57 we 

thought we could surely do `58; that was our 
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position at that time. 

 MS. BROCK: But at the beginning 

didn't they believe there really wasn't 

production going on after that, that it had 

actually went out to Weldon Spring? That was 

my thought. 

 DR. NETON: That was also part of 

it, the production we thought ceased in `57, 

and then when we looked closer at the records, 

there is a piece going into `58. We are not 

sure when it stopped in `58, but it clearly 

did continue into 1958. 

 MS. BROCK: Thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, in any event, 

we are sort of correcting past oversights 

here. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: No, I just worried 

sort of about the potential petitioners, that 

they are told `57, so anybody that started 

working in `58 -- and there has been all this 

outreach and publicity; Denise was part of 

that. Now we have this new sort of very small 
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class, and might have -- in retrospect it 

would have been better. So I was just 

thinking procedurally -- and again I don't 

think we all remember -- at least, I don't 

remember the details of this, but whether we 

are better off leaving open the possibility to 

go and review just rather than start doing a 

total close-out and trying to keep some of 

these open for review. I'm not sure it was 

possible in this one. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, in fact we've 

had a couple of fairly recent SECs where we 

were told at the time we approved them that 

the end date was somewhat uncertain and that, 

if necessary, it would be extended even after 

we had approved it. 

 DR. NETON: Los Alamos falls in that 

category right now. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So I think to the 

extent that NIOSH is able, at least they are 

trying to accomplish that, perhaps not always 

successfully. We obviously don't want to 
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piecemeal it year by year and month by month. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: And if we rely on 

the 83.14 then NIOSH has to wait until it 

finds the right candidate case, track them 

down, and as Jim said, this case wasn't the 

right case. So they are compensable, and it's 

difficult. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: But your point is 

well taken, thanks. 

 Other comments on this? If not, it 

would be appropriate to have a suitable motion 

for action. 

 Brad Clawson. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: I move to accept 

it. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: A motion to accept, 

which is a motion to recommend to the 

secretary that this class be added to the SEC. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Second. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And seconded by, I 

think, Wanda Munn. 

 Further discussion? Then let's 
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proceed. Again, a roll call vote, and we will 

seek Dr. Lockey's vote as soon as possible. 

 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach? 

 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson? 

 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon? 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston. 

 MEMBER POSTON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley? 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. 
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 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes. 

 There are no abstentions, at least 

not so far, unless Dr. Lockey abstains. But 

in any event, the motion carries, and we will 

proceed with the recommendation to the 

secretary, and the exact wording of the letter 

to the secretary will be provided later in 

this meeting to the Board members. 

 Now I'm wondering if we can go 

ahead with the Blockson report. According to 

my notes there may be a Blockson petitioner on 

the line to comment, also. And since we are 

ahead of schedule, I'm wondering whether we 

need to delay. 

 Ms. Munn, as I understand it, you 

may not have a specific recommendation for us 

but rather a report this morning, is that 

correct? 

 MEMBER MUNN: That is correct. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I wonder if we could 

go ahead and proceed with the report. If the 
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petitioner is not on the line now, we would 

allow that petitioner to make additional 

comments. 

 MR. KATZ: Let me see if the 

petitioner is on the line. Are either of the 

two petitioners for Blockson on the line? If 

you would let us know if you are already 

listening. 

 (No verbal response.) 

 MR. KATZ: Apparently not. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, let us proceed, 

I think, with the Blockson report, and then if 

petitioners are on the line later we will give 

them the opportunity to add any comments. 

BLOCKSON CHEMICAL SEC PETITION STATUS UPDATE 

 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

 Let me refresh your memories for 

those of you who are not a part of the 

workgroup involved in this particular site. 

 We have begun our deliberations 

based on seven specific findings which our 

contractor brought to us when they reviewed 
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the site profile. And the bulk of those 

centered around the extraction process and 

concerns over what radionuclides were 

contained in the raffinates, and specifically 

whether thorium followed one stream or the 

other during the process. 

 We fairly quickly resolved all of 

those outstanding issues. After consultation 

with workers, two worker group meetings, and 

extensive deliberation among the members of 

the workgroup, the contractor and our NIOSH 

representatives, at a meeting earlier this 

year, we brought this to the Board with an 

unformed consensus from the workgroup. 

 At that time it was the direction 

of the Board for us to go back, address very 

specifically the concerns that had been raised 

with respect to radon, and focus on that issue 

and see if we could resolve it yet further 

down the line. 

 We did that. We had a workgroup 

meeting in Cincinnati on October 15th, and left 
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that meeting with a number of questions 

relative to a few technical issues that had 

evolved from those discussions. 

 Throughout the month of November, 

there was a significant amount of information 

exchange: emails and technical conversations 

between NIOSH and the contractor. And on the 

3rd of December we had a technical call, not 

the Work Group itself, but the technical folks 

who were specifically concerned with what's 

possible and what is not possible in the real 

world. 

 Then on the 12th we had scheduled -

- it was the only available date that we had 

following that technical call, that we could 

arrange to have the Board members who were 

involved in the Work Group present, and gave 

both NIOSH and SC&A an opportunity to produce 

a couple of additional background papers, one 

involving an outside expert on air movement. 

 At this juncture, we are down to a 

primary concern with respect to radon and air 
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exchange rates inside Building 40, because of 

power outages and problems that some of our 

work group members had with the weather last 

week we were unable to conclude our 

deliberations on our meeting on the 12th

primarily because some of us had not had an 

opportunity to fully digest the material which 

had just been produced in the technical papers 

that I mentioned. 

 At that time it was suggested that, 

rather than try to move further until the Work 

Group members themselves had all satisfied 

themselves with respect to the content of that 

material, we would instead continue to delay 

this process. The Work Group Chair was really 

very concerned about that, because we have 

been attempting to bring this to closure now 

for quite some time, and I'm concerned about 

any further delays on behalf of the claimants. 

 But we didn't see any way around it 

in this particular instance. So what we 

expect to do at this juncture is, during our 
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Board administrative time tomorrow, we want to 

set up work group call time for all of us to 

have had an opportunity to review all of the 

material from the beginning to satisfy 

ourselves that there is no further item of 

interest to anyone to be addressed, and 

present this matter for a vote at the 

Albuquerque meeting. 

 That is the current plan. My 

apologies to all of you, and especially to the 

Blockson claimants for the length of time that 

is being involved here. We are trying to 

follow every thread that has been presented to 

us, and every potential concern that has been 

raised to its ultimate end. 

 It remains my personal opinion as 

the chair that we have the body of evidence 

supporting our ability to address dose 

reconstruction here, but that is not the 

opinion of the Work Group. I'm only 

expressing a personal opinion; that is not the 

position of the workgroup. 
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 We will certainly, of course, 

address that issue at our work group meeting 

when we determine that date. 

 We hope to be able to do that by 

telephone, hopefully toward the end of 

January, in adequate time to have a good 

presentation available for Albuquerque. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

 Let me see if there is any question 

that Board members have concerning the 

Blockson report, or any comments from other 

members of the workgroup, or others. 

 Mark. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Wanda, at this 

point I was following some of the documents 

and I was considering dialing in Friday but I 

had no phone or electric at that time. But 

the radon, I know there was some discussion on 

the radon model -- has NIOSH put forward a new 

model? Or are we at this point are we still 

discussing SC&A's model for the radon? In 

other words, I know, initially in the 
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evaluation report, there is a certain approach 

described, and I don't know where -- whether 

NIOSH has revised that approach, or whether 

that is still the approach we are considering. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Jim Neton. 

 DR. NETON: During deliberations of 

the working group NIOSH put forth that they 

would adopt the model prescribed by SC&A with 

one exception, and that would be the lower 

bound air exchange rate for Building 40, we 

would adopt one air exchange per hour versus 

their I think recommended .25 or something 

like that, and then we would end up with a 

Monte Carlo generated distribution of possible 

potential air concentrations within the 

building. So that is where we're at. 

 MEMBER MUNN: This is why I said, we 

are down to the question, the sole question of 

air exchange. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. Further 

questions? Ted Katz. 

 MR. KATZ: Let me just add something 
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to this report. I think there was a very 

illuminating dialogue as part of this process. 

 So we will have a verbatim transcript, and I 

think one of the reasons for postponing also 

was so that the full Board could have the 

benefit of that transcript. And I have asked 

for it to be expedited. It will be available 

to us early in January, and we will distribute 

it to the full board. But I think it helps, 

because it was an extensive dialogue and very 

clear and raised a lot of important issues, 

and we thought that that would really be 

helpful to the full Board when it begins its 

deliberations as well. So I just want to add 

that point. 

 MEMBER MUNN: That's doubly 

important in light of the fact that several 

Board members made the comment in previous 

presentations that they had not investigated 

themselves the material that was available, 

and I was asking for a packet of information 

and I had directed them to the record that 
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exists. 

 So thank you, Ted, for reminding me 

that one of the items that we hope you will 

take an opportunity to look at even before it 

comes to you is the transcript when it comes 

out. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Other comments or questions? 

Perhaps let me check again to see if either of 

the Blockson petitioners are on the line at 

the moment. 

 Either Blockson petitioner on the 

line or wish to comment? 

 Okay, we will check again after the 

break to see if they are here. 

 I think what we will do at this 

time is go ahead with our morning break. We 

are a little bit ahead of schedule, but let's 

plan to reconvene at 10:40. That will give 

you a decent size break and still keep us a 

little ahead of schedule. 

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off 
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the record at 10:13 a.m. and 

resumed at 10:42 a.m.) 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: If you would take 

your seats, we will reconvene the meeting. 

 I'd like to double check the phone 

line. Dr. Roessler, are you on the line? 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Paul, you said 

something about the phone line, and then I 

unmuted. This is Gen. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Oh, Gen, I was just 

checking to see if the phone lines were on, 

and if you were on. 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, I am. When 

you unmute, you can't hear anything for a 

minute. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Gen, 

we are getting ready to reconvene here. 

 Before we have our next 

presentation, I do want to check at this time 

to see if either of the Blockson participants 

or petitioners are on the line. Either of the 

Blockson petitioners. 
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 MS. PINCHETTI: Kathy Pinchetti is 

here. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, Kathy, thank 

you for being on the line. This is Dr. 

Ziemer, and I want to tell you that just prior 

to our break, since we got a little ahead of 

schedule, Ms. Munn, the chairman of the 

Blockson workgroup reported to the Board 

basically that the workgroup had no 

recommendation at this time because they are 

still dealing with the radon issue. 

 I'm assuming that the workgroup has 

kept you apprised of the issues that they are 

working on; is that correct, Ms. Munn? Have 

the petitioners been involved in those 

deliberations? 

 MEMBER MUNN: We have not had 

specific communication with them. It has been 

our desire and our hope that they have been 

joining us on our open - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: In any event, Kathy, 

I just wanted you to be aware that the 
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workgroup has indicated to us that they are 

not prepared to make a recommendation yet - 

are you still there? I'm hearing a lot of 

noise. 

 MS. PINCHETTI: Yes, I'm still here. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Still dealing with 

the radon issue and they are hopeful that they 

will be ready at the next Board meeting to 

make a more definite recommendation. 

 But we did want to give you an 

opportunity if you had some comments at this 

time to make those. You may or may not, but 

you are certainly welcome to do so if you had 

any comments for the Board. 

 MS. PINCHETTI: Well, I did get a 

copy of the SC&A report from Laurie Breyer, as 

well as the Harley report. And it still seems 

like the focus is on the 25-year-old spot of 

radiation that was found in `83, and that was 

20 years after the contract ended. So in 

other reports it seemed like there was 

discussion about how the radiation dissipates, 
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you know with the exchange of air over time. 

And it just seems like a 1983 spot would have 

lost a lot of the radiation by the time it was 

found. And I'm not clear if that spot was 

found in Building 40 or Building 55. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, I'll let Ms. 

Munn address that, and also the issue of the 

air turnover rates in one of the buildings was 

under discussion. But maybe Ms. Munn can add 

to that. Did you understand the question that 

was being asked? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I did understand 

the question. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Can you hear Ms. Munn 

okay? 

 MS. PINCHETTI: I can. 

 MEMBER MUNN: The issue with respect 

to the air sample is not as pertinent actually 

as the issue of the air exchange. And that's 

what we've been focusing on. The reason I 

made that statement is because you are 

correct, some of the measurements that have 
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been provided to us were made after the 

covered period. But they have been used as 

verification that the levels could not have 

been higher than that. The process is now 

quite well understood, and the amount of radon 

that could be possible is now - could be 

available from the process is now quite well 

understood. 

 Our issue is primarily how much of 

that stays in the building and how it is being 

transferred by the normal airflow through the 

building. 

 So that is our focus at this 

moment. So far as I understand that is the 

final aspect of the full production picture 

that has not yet been tied down. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I am going to suggest 

- the workgroup plans to schedule another 

meeting I believe by phone, and I'm going to 

suggest that you make sure that the 

petitioners are aware of the time of that 

meeting so that they can listen in and 
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participate with that. Kathy, is that 

agreeable with you? 

 MS. PINCHETTI: Yes, that's fine. 

It's just that there is a big time zone 

change. It's approximately 7:45 right now. 

And I work. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So we need to make 

sure that we can find, perhaps can find a time 

that is also convenient for the petitioner in 

some way. 

 MS. PINCHETTI: That's okay. I'm 

not asking for any accommodations. It's just 

that I need to make arrangements at work so I 

can listen in. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MS. PINCHETTI: One other question I 

had was about Florida. I don't know if we are 

basing the Florida comparison based on that, 

because that is where the rock came from. I 

don't know if there are purchase orders that 

show that data was actually from Florida or 

somewhere else, or if the Florida comparison 
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is because - they also had a phosphoric 

process going on there. 

 But in the reports that I just got 

they are making reference to the 25-foot doors 

being open, and in Illinois I don't think that 

is possible for probably nine months out of 

every year, because it is either snowing, or 

there are sub-zero wind chills, or there's a 

tornado brewing. So I don't know. 

 And also that the vents were frozen 

shut in some of the buildings because it was 

so cold, the vents in the ceilings. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Let me address your 

first issue with respect to time. You 

certainly have this voice's sympathies. I 

also live on the West Coast, and am not happy 

with being on the phone at six o'clock in the 

morning either. And so I feel fairly sure 

that we will be scheduling - we will be 

attempting to schedule a time that - certainly 

during the day, during the normal workday, and 

it will be at such a time that hopefully it 
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will be convenient for you also. 

 We will have that time established 

after our work period tomorrow afternoon, and 

it will be posted on our information website. 

 I'm not certain, but it will appear on the 

website as scheduled workgroup call. 

 Yes, the material that was used at 

Blockson did in fact come from Florida. That 

has been fairly well documented now. And we 

are aware of the fact that the doors certainly 

would not be open throughout the year. That 

is a part of the discussion that - several of 

the workers did mention however that they were 

greatly relieved during the summer months to 

be able to have them open because of the 

chemical fumes that accumulated during the 

process. 

 So it was our understanding that 

when they could be open they made every effort 

to do that. 

 MS. PINCHETTI: Okay. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, thank you. Did 
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you have any additional comments then, Kathy? 

 MS. PINCHETTI: No, no, I'm fine. 

Happy holidays to the Work Group. I know you 

guys have been putting in a lot of work on 

this. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you for being 

with us this morning. Thank you. 

 We will proceed then to the next 

item on the agenda, which is the Department of 

Energy update. And we are pleased that Dr. 

Patricia Worthington is with us this morning. 

 She had a difficult time getting here with 

fog and other issues yesterday. But Pat, 

welcome, and we are pleased to have your 

update at this time. 

 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY UPDATE 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Good morning. I'm 

pleased to be here. I certainly was 

challenged quite a bit yesterday to try to fly 

here. A lot of fog in the Augusta area. But 

I am pleased to be here today, and thank you 

for readjusting the schedule to fit me in. 
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 I wanted to give you an update on 

where we are in supporting this program. No 

major changes in the roles and 

responsibilities of DOE, but I want to give 

you a few statistics, and talk about some 

initiatives, and to address any questions you 

may have. And I have two members of my staff 

that are in the audience as well, Greg Lewis 

is here and Isaf, she's here as well. So we 

are happy to give this update. 

 A little bit about the activities 

again. We have sort of three main areas, and 

we continue to focus on those areas. One is 

to provide information for the individual 

claims. Those are primarily employment 

verifications and exposure records. We 

provide support to the Department of Labor, to 

NIOSH, and to the Board and its contractors 

through research and retrieval of documents 

from various DOE sites, and we update our 

covered facilities information. 

 I mentioned that I would give a few 
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statistics, and here are just some, to give 

you an idea of sort of the magnitude of the 

support that we provide. In terms of 

employment verification, nearly 7,000 a year 

dose records for NIOSH, about 4,000, and then 

employee work history and exposure rates, 

about 7,500 per year. 

 Again just a few more statistics. 

A little bit about what we did in 2007 and 

2008. Basically we had almost 22,000 

completed requests in 2007 and about 18,000 in 

2008. Again those were the numbers for those 

years. It's not intended to reflect a trend 

that things are going down, but just to give 

you sort of the stats. 

 For example in 2006 I think we had 

about 16,000 completed. 

 The SEC support is certainly a huge 

effort for us. You see on this slide that we 

are supporting a number of them. Probably the 

biggest ones for us right now are Hanford and 

Savannah River, and I will talk a little bit 
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more in detail about what we are doing in 

those areas. 

 The Savannah River one, we have 

certainly been active, and since June up to 

this point we've hosted seven visits for 

NIOSH, major visits there. And we've been 

doing a number of things to improve access to 

documents, and to make those things more 

available. And you see a term here called, 

electronic document work flow system. It's 

something that we made available to NIOSH so 

that they can on their own search it for key 

words and key phrases and be able to get a 

better feel for what kind of things they might 

need. 

 We have completed document reviews 

for over 2,000 documents, nearly 300,000 

pages. That certainly was a significant 

effort on the part of getting things ready at 

Savannah River. 

 And the last bullet is intended to 

talk about document reviews for what we call 
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classified documents. There were 157 of those 

documents. 

 Let me back up a little bit to this 

almost 300 pages of documents. When I say 

that we have conducted those reviews, we have 

actually conducted reviews, we've gathered 

information, we've scanned the materials and 

they have actually been transmitted to NIOSH 

for their use. 

 I will switch now and talk a little 

bit about the Hanford SEC, and the kinds of 

things that we are doing there, and continue 

to do. The first bullet is intended to talk 

about 400 unique boxes. There are many boxes 

at the site. There are certain things that 

characterize those boxes. We have pulled 380 

boxes, and there was an opportunity to go 

through those boxes and determine exactly what 

is needed, because typically you may not need 

everything that's in a box. 

 And as a result of nearly a million 

pages, 1,000 specific documents were 
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identified. 

 The same with Savannah River. 

We've hosted six major visits at the site for 

NIOSH, and a number of smaller visits. 

 I want to go to the next slide and 

talk a little bit about the tours in terms of 

hosting a visit and what does it mean. 

Certainly we are always talking about 

documents and retrieving documents. But it's 

nothing like being on the ground and kind of 

getting a sense for the operations and what 

went on there and the size of the facilities 

and the types of operations. So at Hanford 

there were multiple facility tours in various 

kinds of buildings. Some of the buildings 

were actually contaminated. Some of the 

buildings were undergoing demolition or D&D, 

so a wide variety of buildings and activities. 

 As you know Hanford is a very 

complex site. There are many different 

contractors with different missions going on 

at that time. We have great cooperation from 
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all of those contractors, and all of them are 

involved in participating in making the 

information available and looking for ways to 

better do that. 

 Again, about improving access, we 

are looking at record systems access so that 

NIOSH can search the systems themselves for 

key words and key activities, and look for 

ways to determine what kind of information 

might be needed. 

 In terms of additional staff, 

certainly when you have a big project like an 

SEC, the existing staff that were available at 

that site to do records retrieval might not be 

sufficient. So a number of people were added, 

I think six additional individuals added to 

help with that process, including individuals 

that are cleared and that would understand 

classification. 

 Office space and computing 

equipment, that is very critical that we make 

that available so that people can have space 
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to look at documents to do staging of 

documents and so forth, and they have 

computers that they can use right there and 

work on the information. 

 So all of these are part of our 

initiatives to make the information more 

available, and make the individuals that need 

to do the review more knowledgeable about the 

kinds of things that went on at those sites 

and those operations. 

 The next slide is just intended to 

provide a quick overview of the things we do 

in terms of supporting the Department of 

Labor. Ultimately we want to make sure that 

they have all the information available to 

them to be able to make decisions on claims. 

So this was part of working our interface. 

 Again, I've talked before about 

tours. We've made sure that the Department of 

Labor had an opportunity to tour facilities as 

well. 

 We met with Department of Labor 
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staff in Seattle to discuss issues related to 

the tank farms. There are a lot of complex 

issues associated with that, again, it's a way 

of making people more familiar with these 

unique activities that have gone on within the 

Department of Energy. 

 The last bullet is just making sure 

that where we have SMEs that are available and 

are knowledgeable about hazards, where it's 

appropriate we can make them available to the 

Department of Labor to provide some additional 

insights. 

 Again this is about the covered 

facilities. We continue to do that as more 

information becomes available, if there is a 

need for additional research to work on 

expanding that, we certainly take an 

opportunity to do that. 

 A little bit about initiatives: I 

talked about making people familiar with the 

operations on the sites and the facilities. 

Another thing we want to continue to work is 
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our interfaces, to make sure that we are 

communicating with the various groups we have 

to work with. We have designated a specific 

point of contact within our organization to 

work regularly with the Board and the 

contractors and NIOSH to make sure we 

understand all their issues. We hold weekly 

conference calls with the members of NIOSH and 

its contractors to make sure that they are 

receiving the information, there aren't any 

problems or concerns, or if there are things 

we need to do different or to work on those 

things. We don't want to wait until things 

build up. So we're looking to a designated 

individual, weekly interactions, and in some 

cases daily if things are - if we need to do 

that. 

 We talked at the last few meetings 

here about our Office of Legacy Management. 

They have great experts there who are very 

familiar with record retrieval that continue 

to support us in looking for covered facility 
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information, any of the things that we need 

additional research, we certainly reach to 

that organization to help us do that. 

 A little bit more about the 

initiatives. This process of retrieving 

information and developing reports and making 

sure that documents are reviewed certainly is 

one that we've worked on quite a bit this 

year, and we continue to collaborate with the 

various organizations, and we believe that 

we've streamlined that process and that we are 

able to do things much faster and much more 

efficiently than we were in the past. 

 We attended the NIOSH Advisory 

Board Meeting and the Department of Labor town 

hall meeting, so whenever DOE can be available 

to support those activities, we want to do 

that. 

 The next initiative I want to spend 

just maybe a moment talking about that, in 

terms of how do we do things better? How do 

we improve the record retrieval and retention 
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process in the department? We wanted to start 

at the head of the Department of Energy, at 

the Department of Energy. The records issues 

are owned by the CIO's office. So we've been 

working with that organization, and working 

with our procurement and contract 

organizations to ensure that we have a 

contract mechanism in place that will make 

sure that we can access and maintain ownership 

of records. We look to our contractors when 

we employ them at the sites to do certain 

things to be able to help us do that. So we 

want to make sure the contract language is 

clear. This certainly is very important in 

the area of subcontractors, because they are 

workers too, and we want to be able to 

retrieve information regarding subcontractors 

when it's needed, and that's been a challenge, 

much more so than some of the other things 

that we've been doing. So we are trying to 

make sure that we have a process in place that 

we can do a better job in that area. 
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 The next bullet deals with a site 

specific one that we have been working on. 

And that is to work with the Los Alamos 

medical center to get records there of DOE 

workers. Before 1964 the hospital was a part 

of the DOE and its predecessor organization. 

After that time it was a separate private 

organization, and some records, worker 

records, were left at the hospital. We have 

been working with the hospital. We have a 

mechanism now. We have a process in place 

where we can go in and clean up those records, 

sort them, package them, retrieve them and 

have them available so that if people request 

them that information can be provided. 

 The next slide is intended to kind 

of summarize some DOE activities. This is 

primarily about the DOE oversight POCs. We 

have them at every one of our major sites, and 

they play a major role as part of the site and 

part of the federal organization to help in 

this process they attend public meetings. 
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They work with DOE and NIOSH to facilitate the 

interviews with current and former workers. 

 In one of our sites in particular 

this particular POC actually goes out and 

meets with former workers in their homes there 

they are comfortable in having discussions, 

and talk with them about EEOICPA and what they 

can do and how they might apply. 

 So again, looking for other ways to 

reach out to these organizations, to these 

individuals, and make sure that they are aware 

of information and mechanisms and processes 

that might be available. 

 The next slide is intended to be 

one that will spark some questions and I'm 

here certainly to answer any questions that 

you might have. I do want to reflect back on 

one of the slides that I put up earlier, and 

that was about streamlining the process. And 

I want to mention sort of the role of our 

organization in terms of streamlining that 

organization in terms of HSS. If there are 
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documents that are subject or need to be 

reviewed, it is a high priority of our own 

organization, the people that you see here 

that you are working with to make sure that 

they happen, but it's also a high priority 

across the HSS organization. So at any time 

if we need to involve the security 

organization, this becomes the highest 

priority for them, and there are individuals 

that have been designated to work with us and 

to quickly act upon these things that need to 

be reviewed. 

 Having said that, I am available 

now for questions or for further elaboration 

on any of the quick topics that I've mentioned 

today. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much, 

Dr. Worthington. 

 Let's open the floor for questions 

or comments. Brad Clawson. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: First of all, I'd 

like to thank you. I just returned from 
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Hanford, and the tours we had up there were 

tremendous. It was very beneficial to us, 

especially the 300 area, the 100N area, 

because these are very complex sites, and they 

are hard to be able to keep up. 

 But one of the problems that I do 

see is that up high they're understanding what 

we need as far as being able to get documents 

processed through and so forth, but whenever 

we review documents, as a subcontractor or as 

a Board member, before we can take notes or 

anything else like that, they have to be 

cleared by you, which we understand, but it's 

taking a tremendous amount of time. 

 Some of our records are six months 

old. I still haven't got any of my notes from 

Mound. And I know that we are just getting 

this started, but I feel like this is an area 

where we can make some improvements. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: We believe that we 

have made some improvements. There is 

certainly a ways to go, and some of the things 
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are legacy things that happened before we set 

these particular processes in place. So we 

are looking to hear back from all the 

organizations in terms of real time if they 

believe that documents are held up. And Greg, 

you may have a comment on that. I'm not aware 

that there is a holdup on the Mound documents. 

 You may want to comment on what. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Actually, I'm 

speaking more to the notes. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: To the notes? 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: The notes that we 

took when we reviewed some of the 

documentation and stuff. And this was done in 

the Federal Building in Cincinnati, and then 

we turned over all of our notes, and we are 

still waiting for them. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: What timeframe was 

that? Was it several months? 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: What, four or five 

months? It's when we went to Cincinnati. It 

was SC&A and myself. What it came down to was 
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worker interviews. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Worker interviews? 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Greg, did you have a 

comment on that, or can you enlighten us? 

 MR. LEWIS: Yes, this is Greg Lewis. 

 That may be an issue of what the notes ended 

up being marked as, and who we can release 

them to, which speaks to the security plan 

we're working on how. But to my knowledge all 

of the notes were reviewed and released back 

to the person who submitted them. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And there's no 

reason that they would be held up for six 

months. So we need to follow up on that and 

make sure that they weren't directed to the 

wrong individual, or that we have made a 

mistake and they are still there and we need 

to forward them on, because six months is 

extremely long. Our process isn't designed 

for it to take that much time. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and part of 
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it too I think that we'll come to find out is 

that sometimes when we - especially with a 

worker's interview that has to go through a 

clearance process, and sometimes they get 

redacted or whatever else like that, at some 

point we are falling into a glitch because 

they get classified as somewhat classified or 

whatever, and we are losing track of where 

they are going, because they are going to have 

to go through a redaction process, and we 

never figure out - it's kind of hard to track 

where they are at. 

 Now we have made some substantial 

changes with that because through our 

subcontractor they are starting a process to 

be able to track where stuff is at. It'll 

make it a little bit easier. I know this is 

kind of the grass roots. But I hope that we 

can make sure that we can process through this 

as easy as possible. But there have been some 

issues. 

 MR. LEWIS: This is Greg again. I 
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understand tracking is an issue and a 

difficulty. But for the most part on our end 

we have had notes back to you within - we're 

working on a 7 to 14-day turnaround period. 

I'm not sure if we have always been hitting 

that, but certainly our recent experience is 

we have been. And in addition as far as 

reviewing original copies of notes, that is 

also available for someone with the right 

clearances and in the right setting in a 

cleared location. They can always review the 

originals if it happens that the specific 

piece of information that was removed is 

something that is important - typically that's 

not the case - but they can be reviewed in 

their original form as well. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: But this action we 

will take back and look for notes from 

Cincinnati about six months ago that were 

submitted for review never should last this 

long. So we will get back to you. We will 

look into that and see what happens. 
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 CHAIR ZIEMER: Maybe you can get the 

exact date of that before you leave and that 

would simplify this. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: I can probably get 

the exact date because what this covered was 

on Mound. But and this is - you probably hit 

the nail on the head when you said this is 

probably a legacy of before we kind of got 

into some of this process. And I think it's 

trying to catch up with a lot of the notes and 

interviews and so forth that we need to do, 

and maybe we can sit down with our contractor 

and make sure where all this stuff is at. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And make sure of 

it, because we aren't aware that anything has 

fallen through the cracks in that period of 

time. But if that is the case we need to fix 

it. 

 Joe has a comment, I think. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, this is Joe 

Fitzgerald. This is one I think I just talked 

to you a little earlier on. I've been to DOE 
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Germantown twice on those interview notes. So 

they are being reviewed, but the issue is, 

when things are identified there is a dialogue 

that is needed just to kind of move things 

forward. And I think that part of that is 

something that we're working on. That process 

is not probably where it needs to be right 

now. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And that's the one 

that I said I would follow up with you, Joe, 

on too, because there shouldn't be any 

documents there from six months ago that was 

just for an interview and that they've been 

cleared by one group, and an action should 

have been taken, and a document that is 

suitable for release should have been made 

available or whatever. We need to follow up 

on that and make sure. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and we've 

discussed this process issue. There is a 

process issue though, and I think it was 

probably unduly delayed, but that I think 
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needs to be addressed. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: But we are 

addressing those issues though? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, yes. These 

interview notes are pretty critical time wise 

for the SEC review. So I've basically been 

following up and working with the reviewers in 

Germantown to make sure they don't get hung 

up. But the one thing I particularly think we 

are looking at, and I mentioned this to Pat, 

is that if there is an issue, feedback needs 

to come back. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: We need it 

immediately. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: As quickly as 

possible, so we can go ahead and resolve the 

issue not when it hits the stand. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Let me insert 

something here, and we have several other 

comments. But there has been some concern in 

the last month or so, general concern on the 

part of the Board that the process seems to be 
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developing in terms of how this is done, 

without Board input; that is, that our 

contractors seem to be in the loop and NIOSH 

and others, but the Board in general has felt 

like it's not been in the loop on exactly how 

this process is going to proceed. And we can 

discuss that some more. 

 But let's get the comments here. 

Josie? 

 MEMBER PRESLEY: My comment was just 

back on the notes. I actually got a clearance 

to go in and review Kathy's, from SC&A's 

notes, from Mound, from Germantown, and they 

weren't available. She had gotten Brant's 

notes, but not her own notes, which were the 

reason that we had actually met to 

specifically look at them. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: So this seems to 

be an issue on the Mound notes, and we need to 

get to the bottom of that and expedite getting 

that done and getting it back out to people in 
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the form that they can use, or if there is a 

need for classified discussion of key 

individuals to arrange that as well. But yes. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, Jim. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: My issue is the 

major issue that we have, this so-called 

security plan or agreement we have been 

waiting on for many, many months now. It 

appears to be in a draft form that goes back 

and forth. The Board has not been made privy 

to that documentation at all, and I think it's 

by itself causing major problems. 

 I have major concerns that somehow 

processes or procedures are being 

institutionalized that will cause major delays 

in our ability, the Board's ability, to get 

its work done. And we have sort of no 

involvement in this. 

 And secondly, I think to have to 

deal with these issues on a case-by-case 

basis, or individual basis like these notes or 

that note, or this situation and so forth, is 
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difficult. It's difficult for you coming here 

to do that, because we don't know what the 

expectation should be. What's a fair amount 

of time that certain things should take? 

Which notes, which documents and so forth are 

subject to review, and what are ways that that 

can be appropriately expedited and so forth. 

And we are just being left in the dark on 

this. 

 I think it's a major problem, and 

continues to be a major problem. And no one 

from either the NIOSH or the DOE end seems to 

be willing to discuss it with the Board. Why 

we have not been able to see a draft document 

of this security plan is beyond me, since we 

are going to have to live with it and deal 

with it. We are not - and so forth, and we 

are going to have to explain and try to figure 

out why major reviews and so forth are going 

to be taking months and months longer because 

of these new procedures. 

 And I'm very disturbed by it, and 
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mostly disturbed by the secrecy that seems to 

be surrounding this particular document. 

 I don't think anybody has any 

problem with security reviews as necessary. 

But the fact that we've been - it seems to me 

like it's over a year we've been aware of this 

issue, and the security plans being discussed, 

and we have yet to see a document. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Maybe this is a 

good opportunity for me to give a little bit 

more information, a little bit more insight 

into the process and what we are doing. And 

I'll start with the endpoint first. 

 And the endpoint is that various 

groups, NIOSH and Labor and DOE, we've been 

working together to come up with a security 

plan. And what we wanted to bring to the 

Board was a consolidated draft plan for Board 

comment and feedback. And we are still not at 

that point. 

 I believe that we are very close to 

doing that. We have some comments that we are 
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working on with NIOSH, and so at some point I 

believe in the near future we would be in a 

position to be able to do that. 

 Your question about what kinds of 

things ought to be reviewed, and how much time 

should they take, because some things did 

occur over the last year or so, we have been 

working on that to make sure that we had a 

security plan in place that would clearly lay 

out a number of things. It would lay out 

access to the sites, how you get badges, how 

you get cleared, the kinds of documents that 

are generated and at what point in the 

generation of those documents would they be 

subject to reviews. 

 So we've been working on that. 

It's been lessons learned from some of the 

events that have occurred. And we think we 

are fairly close to having a plan that would 

in fact meet the national security 

requirements and also would expedite this 

process, and would be one that would minimize 
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the possibility of reports that were not 

appropriate being generated, and then 

therefore cause a delay. 

 And I believe that what we put 

together typically would mean that when 

documents are subject to review that they 

would be 10 to 14-day reviews, and that we've 

 been able to get them down now to days and 

not even weeks in terms of those things. 

 So I think that we are close, and 

certainly we were looking for the right time 

to come with a plan that would in fact address 

all of those things. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Pat, and I 

think the intent there is certainly good. 

 One of the sort of concerns as I 

sense it or have sensed it over the past 

several weeks is that the agencies have sought 

input on the process from the Board's 

contractor, and it appeared that it was 

assumed that the contractor was speaking on 

behalf of the Board. And although the 
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endpoint is that a document would come to the 

Board for a final review, a concern that 

perhaps there could have been input earlier 

from participating Board members, so that - 

not that we don't think the contractor's input 

is important. But the sort of assumption that 

the Board's contractor was speaking on behalf 

of the Board when we really had no input on 

that, I think, was a sort of concern. I think 

I've expressed, based on some email exchanges 

that I've seen on this issue, between Board 

members, and I've told the Board members, we 

can't do the business by email. 

 So if you have those kind of 

concerns, let's get them out in the open, and 

I'm trying to express, I think, what I've seen 

exchanges between Board members, concern that 

it was assumed that our contractor was 

speaking on our behalf. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Can I just clarify? 

 I mean, Paul, we were informed after the fact 

on a meeting. John Morrow went to a meeting. 
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 So it's hard to express our concerns ahead of 

time when nobody informs us about what's going 

on. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: That's what I'm 

saying. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Number two, it was 

presented to us in that email as I recall that 

we would essentially get to see the final 

security plan. There was no talk about the 

Board, any involvement of the Board in 

reviewing that or having any input into that 

final security plan. 

 I would also point out that this 

process has been going on at least since the 

St. Louis meeting which I believe was in June, 

and it started I think even a little bit 

before that. It's over six months, and if the 

three agencies can't get it together to 

produce a draft security plan, I'm sort of 

dumfounded that it should take so long. And I 

think it is - and the fact that we don't have 

one continues to cause delays and problems. 
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 And every time we raise these 

issues about delays or problems, they say, 

well, it's being taken care of in this plan, 

and the plan, which we've never seen, the 

process seems to go on and on forever. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Larry. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think there is 

an opportunity here to apologize for any 

perception that was acquired by asking SC&A to 

be involved in examining the draft plan. And 

let me make it clear: there are two plans. 

There is an agency plan at DOL that serves 

right now to speak to an audience at DOL as 

well as an audience on our side, as well as 

DOL's side. 

 There is a plan that complements 

the DOL plan that is a NIOSH plan that is 

overarching that includes the activities of 

NIOSH as well as all of the contractors 

involved, SC&A, ORAU, and whichever contractor 

is named to be successors to those two. 

 We ask - I ask SC&A to review and 
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comment on the draft plan that NIOSH had 

prepared, and was in negotiation with, DOL and 

DOE on, so that SC&A could comment on their 

ability to comply with such a plan. 

 We were in negotiations with the 

other two agencies, and primarily DOE here, to 

come up with a plan, and it didn't seem fair 

to share the draft with our contractor and not 

share the draft with your contractor to get 

their input on the ability to comply; also the 

ability to provide comment about difficulties 

that the plan might present. 

 There is a - these are predecisional documents, and until the agencies 

which have a management prerogative here come 

forward with their final negotiated and agreed 

upon plans, that is when I think the Board has 

an opportunity to provide comment on these 

plans. 

 Until then as they are being 

negotiated, they are considered pre-decisional 

and the agencies are not going to allow us to 
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put them out into the public forum because 

they are in the process of negotiation and 

change. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And we wanted to 

have a consolidated view of the agencies that 

we would present rather than drafts that may 

have diverging views. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And the fact that it 

has taken as long as it has I think is notable 

in the context that we are negotiating; we are 

going back and forth on some things that are 

fairly critical. 

 We recognize at NIOSH that DOE has 

the responsibility and the authority to 

protect national security information. And 

what they are asking of us is to review 

documents that are prepared based upon source 

documents that they have given to us or our 

contractors to make sure there is not any 

sensitive information. That's all they are 

reviewing, for sensitive information. And so 

that's about all I can say at this juncture. 
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I wish the plans were out there, too. We both 

have been pushing to get these things 

finalized, and it's taken us this amount of 

time to come to a series of agreements as to 

what these plans need to look like. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Larry. 

Brad, any additional comment? 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, one thing I 

wanted to bring up, Pat, I do want to tell you 

how much I do appreciate Greg and Regina 

because they have been a great help. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Thank you. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: But one of the 

things that I have seen that really comes 

down, and it's difficult, and I hope that we 

think about this, is like at Hanford, the 

Sigmas for us to be able to see certain 

things, it's not being portrayed down to the 

site or wherever we are going at. They didn't 

understand what we could really see and what 

we couldn't. There is a breakdown at the very 

bottom end of it that when this is set forth 
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of what we can actually review. Because at 

Hanford I had the opportunity to be able to 

look at something from Pantex, and it'd 

already be prearranged. But the people at 

Hanford did not - they were scared to give me 

it, and it was through Greg and Regina that 

then I was able to get to it. So I just 

wanted to bring forth that there is a 

breakdown at the site of what can and can't - 

and nothing was sent to them saying, when my Q 

clearance comes up what Sigmas I actually 

have. And this may be something that I hope 

that we can look at, because I saw a great 

nervousness until Regina called and took care 

of it with them of them of being able to allow 

us to see anything. Because they felt fine 

with their Hanford stuff, but how could they 

speak for somebody else's site. And this is 

an issue that is going to be coming up again 

and again, and I hope that maybe we can work 

through it and so forth. Because they didn't 

understand what I had and what I could see. 
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There was a breakdown there. And they were 

very reluctant, let's put it that way. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Greg, do you have 

a comment? 

 MR. LEWIS: Yes, I was just going to 

say, that speaks to, this Board is very unique 

in terms of what they do and how they interact 

with DOE sites, especially at a site like 

Hanford where we facilitated a workspace where 

you can review both Hanford documents and 

documents related to other sites. That's a 

unique situation, we've done that at both 

Hanford and at Livermore, and they are not 

used to that. That's very different than how 

they operate. And like you said, they are 

very used to making decisions on what and how 

to release and make Hanford documents 

accessible. It's a little bit different with 

other facilities. We are working that. There 

was a bit of a delay in the instance you're 

speaking of. But we do understand that is a 

unique situation at those two facilities and 
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any others where we facilitate similar types 

of arrangements. We will make sure they are 

getting used to how to handle that, and what 

preapprovals and things like that we need. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And we think that 

is the role of our office that we need to make 

this clear. We are the champions, we are the 

people working with the sites to make it 

happen, to make sure they understand the 

clearances and what is required. 

 So we will certainly be more 

aggressive in making sure that people 

understand the clearance level, and that those 

things are made available to you. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, because - like 

I say, this was a new situation and so forth 

like that. And I don't ever want to go into a 

site and have them scared that they are going 

to mess up, and this is kind of what I saw. 

Because I asked her about it, and they took me 

down, and they said, this is what your 

clearance shows. And it shows no Sigmas. 
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We've got this and so forth. But I wanted you 

to be aware of those issues, because we are 

probably going to get into it. And like you 

said, this is still grassroots, and I 

appreciate everything that you have done, but 

I don't ever want to - I don't like the 

situation where a site is very, very scared to 

even talk with us because they are afraid of 

some of these issues. 

 And I think if we address this up 

front and stuff we will be able - it will work 

out. It did work out at Hanford, and that's 

where you and Regina came in, and I appreciate 

it very much. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Jim, do you have a 

comment? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes, I would like to 

try to get a timeframe when this security plan 

is going to be made available and be 

completed. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Any reliable 

predictors, Pat or Larry? 
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 DR. WORTHINGTON: I know that Larry 

and I, we are working on it, and we will 

continue to expedite it. I don't want to make 

a commitment that we can't deliver. But it 

certainly is of highest priority and it's 

being worked on as we speak, as we are here at 

this meeting right now, so we hope to get back 

to the Board soon. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Can you give us an 

indication, at what level in the agency - for 

example at DOE, is this something that goes 

all the way up to the secretarial level, or is 

it an assistant secretary? Who approves, and 

also at NIOSH? 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Within the 

Department of Energy it is our intent that it 

will be approved in Glenn's organization, the 

HHS organization. Yes, that is the intent 

unless something changes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And at NIOSH it will 

be approved at the agency level, NIOSH's 

level, not CDC; not the department. But we 
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will have to have - there are elements in the 

plan that speak to how certain types of 

information are handled with regard to Privacy 

Act information which in DOE's parlance falls 

under official use only. We have to have our 

FOIA office and our Privacy Act office review 

what we are inserting into the plan in that 

regard, and so while they have helped us with 

language they haven't seen this yet in its 

full entire form. So they will have to look 

at that. 

 We also have - OGC has to put eyes 

on this plan as well, and they have not done 

that. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Larry, while you are 

at the mike, you may not be able to answer 

this, but to your knowledge is there anything 

in the Department of Labor's plan that would 

have a significant impact on what this Board 

does? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know that 

Labor is putting a plan together. Labor is 
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mentioned in DOL's plan - or DOE's plan. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: I think earlier 

you may have said Department of Labor one 

time. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry. DOE has a 

plan they are working up that speaks to the 

activities and an audience at DOE, but it also 

speaks to us and to DOL. 

 NIOSH has a complementary plan that 

speaks to the NIOSH audience and its 

contractors, as an overarching plan, which 

would include the Board's contractor and the 

Board's activities. And there would also be 

two procedures that will be OCAS based 

procedures that have to be followed. So you 

will have essentially two plans to look at, 

one DOE plan, one NIOSH plan. Both will speak 

- cross-walk each other. And then there are 

two procedures behind the NIOSH plan. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So the intent would 

be that we would have the opportunity to see 

both of those plans? I thought one was sort 
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of independent as a Labor plan. But you are 

saying it's not a Labor plan; it goes up 

through their system. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It goes - DOE is 

producing a plan, a security plan, that speaks 

to how NIOSH and Labor will interact with DOE. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Will interact and 

protect the information, yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: But I don't know that 

DOL is planning to put forward any kind of a 

plan. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Does that require 

approval by Labor, is what I am sort of asking 

too. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I'll let Pat 

answer that question. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: The plan as 

written, Greg, I don't believe there is a 

line. We certainly will be sharing, and have 

been sharing with the Department of Labor. 

But try to remember that the plan as it exists 

now, is there a line for the Department of 
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interfacing with them. 

 MR. LEWIS: I agree with you. I am 

not sure whether they are going to be 

officially signing off, but they have been 

providing input, and they are going to be 

working with it. 

 And just to clarify, I believe DOL 

is drafting a plan, but it is much more 

limited, and it deals only with their 

interaction with DOE. I don't believe it 

would involve NIOSH and/or the Board's 

operations. But again that - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: But I guess if that 

is occurring, my original question still 

applies. Do we know whether there is anything 

in their plan which directly impacts - well, I 

guess impacts on NIOSH or this board? 

 MR. LEWIS: Yes, as I said, I don't 

believe there is again - 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: I don't think we 

can speak for Department of Labor. But we 
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certainly have been working with them on 

elements of the plan to make sure, where there 

might be inconsistencies that we can work 

through those. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Josie, another comment? 

 MEMBER BEACH: This may be a 

separate situation, but I want to know if the 

plan will cover a situation that I encountered 

last week. I was trying to get clearance to 

view Mound documents at Hanford, and through 

second and third people was told I needed 

approval from NIOSH to be able to view those 

documents and have approval - will this plan 

help that? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: No. I don't know 

who is on the line, but you don't need 

approval from NIOSH to view the documents. 

But you do need to go through a NIOSH point of 

contact to facilitate your getting assistance 

from DOE to review those documents. If you 

approach DOE on your own they are going to of 
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course say, what authority do you have? And 

NIOSH has got a point of contact identified 

for these sites that you are aware of that 

needs to facilitate getting you into to see 

what you want to see. 

 It's not that we are sitting as a 

gatekeeper and giving approval. We are trying 

to facilitate, trying to answer the questions 

for DOE that have been raised, like Brad 

brought up about what gives you the right to 

see certain types of information. That's what 

we want to be out in front of, and be pushing 

to DOE and to the sites. This person has that 

authority to see that information based upon 

these needs. 

 So I know Jess is coming up here, 

and I can't speak for DOL either. But I would 

say - maybe he is going to say this - DOL's 

part in the DOE plan is to subtitle E, not 

anything on B. It's for their ability to get 

toxic chemical exposure information from DOE. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: At Department of 
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Energy, as a way of getting a handle on these 

document requests. We were receiving at one 

point document requests from many individuals, 

and we look for a way to have some single 

point of accountability, and to be able to set 

some priorities, and to kind of manage and 

schedule and budget for these activities. 

 So we've asked NIOSH to designate 

points of contact or specific leads for those. 

 Because in the past we were receiving in some 

cases multiple requests, the same thing from 

different individuals. We needed a little bit 

more control over it, so that was the idea 

that NIOSH would have a designated individual 

for those sites, and those things would be 

better coordinated, and hopefully we could 

deliver better services that way. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Jeff, did you have a comment from 

labor? 

 MEMBER KATZ: Only to say that I 

think on the Part B side it would be 
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employment verification with DOE. I don't 

think there is anything that impacts NIOSH. 

As Larry said, there is the Part E component 

for the chemicals. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. Any 

further questions or comments for Pat, or in 

general on this issue? 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: If not, I would 

want to make just a few closing remarks. 

 The intent of what we call process 

improvements, they are intended, in fact, to 

improve the process. There was never any 

intent to have secrecy or to eliminate the 

Board or others from participating or 

providing comments. 

 We were looking collectively, the 

agencies involved, for the right juncture, so 

it would be meaningful, rather than coming 

back to you many times with many different 

drafts, to say, this is DOE's position, but 

labor and NIOSH, they have a third or a fourth 

position. So we were trying to consolidate, 
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and to come back to you. 

 So we hope to be able to get back 

into the Board soon with some additional 

information and insights. 

 But your questions are always 

welcome, and we want to hear what you are 

thinking, and hopefully answer those questions 

or look for ways to figure out how to do that. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And we appreciate the 

efforts to streamline this process. 

 Jim. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: This is not - well, 

maybe it is a question for you - but is there 

any reason members of the Board can't be 

involved in these activities, in these 

meetings, and to be informed about what is 

going on? I'm talking about specific 

individual members of the Board. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: I believe that 

some specific things that we discussed about 

the process, there was a Board member present 

and participated in at least one of the 
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meetings. So certainly some of them are 

meetings that require cleared individuals. 

 But again, the agencies are trying 

to come up with a process and then present 

that draft. I don't know if that answers your 

question. 

 Greg, you had a comment? 

 MR. LEWIS: Yes, I was going to say 

that I believe Mr. Presley and Mr. Clawson 

were involved in some initial discussions, at 

least as far as the role of the Board and how 

you operate and how we could help facilitate 

that. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: There were a 

couple of meetings at least. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: That was mainly 

though, that was how we were going to handle 

some Mound issues that we were doing. 

 As far as what Dr. Melius is 

talking about - about the procedure and stuff 

- I haven't been involved with it. But I was 

involved in D.C. with the issues we were 
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discussing with Mound and how we would handle 

those. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: We want to look 

for the - the agencies to look for the best 

opportunity, the most timely manner, to get 

back to the Board with something for their 

review. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I suppose part of the 

issue - and maybe we can think of how to deal 

with this - I know the agencies are reluctant 

to have something out in public before they 

have developed their policy, and our process 

in the Board is the things we do have to be 

made public. So I'm not sure where the 

balance is between that. If a Board member 

participates, does that force us to go into 

the public arena or not? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, again, these are 

pre-decisional documents until the agencies 

decide that they have come to an agreement on 

what the document contents are going to be. 

And again, that is the point in time when the 
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Board should become involved. It's not going 

to be helpful at this point in the process of 

negotiating these agreements. 

 We are very close. I was hopeful 

that we would have something for the Board to 

chew on at this meeting, and that just didn't 

happen. It didn't happen because, as I said 

earlier, the Privacy Act component of this, of 

our document and DOE's document just weren't 

ready for prime time, and we didn't have the 

authority to speak about that from the FOIA 

office or the Privacy Act office. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, certainly - 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And this is a high 

priority. It really is for us, and we are 

trying to get it done. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, certainly, the 

intent of both agencies I believe is to 

streamline the process and minimize its impact 

on your activities and our activities. And so 

in that sense we have a common goal. 

 I guess one of the concerns is, if 
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there is something in the agreement that 

somehow is not palatable to the Board is it 

too late? Are these - that is more of a - 

it's almost a rhetorical question. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't presume to 

know what's going to be unpalatable to the 

Board in this. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I know that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can only - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I think our goals are 

the same. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Our goals are the 

same. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So we will be 

optimistic about the outcome. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We don't want to see 

any obstruction. We don't want to see any 

delays. But at the same time we have to 

recognize that DOE has an authority and a 

responsibility to protect information here. 

And so we are trying to work across the 

agencies to make sure that we are not in 
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violation of any national security issues in 

this whole process, and all I can say is, 

certainly we want to know what the Board's 

thoughts are on these two plans once the 

agencies have come to finalization. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: And we want to 

listen to the Board and receive their 

comments. And certainly that is a strong 

statement from us that we want to do that; we 

want to bring it to you for you to look at and 

speak freely on what your thoughts are on that 

document. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Depending on what your 

issues and concerns are, there may be room to 

move; there may be ways to change. But I will 

be frank and honest about it: in some 

instances there may not be. Our hands may be 

tied. And I'll give you an example. 

 We worked with one thing that Mr. 

Presley did work with us on in the early 

goings of the negotiations was to come up with 

a list of sites that would represent 
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facilities or sites where DOE review for 

sensitive information was mandated. That 

didn't survive the day in the end. 

 So we are away from that list now, 

and we are at where right now all sites - 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: All sites. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: - are considered to 

be subject to this review for sensitive 

information. 

 We have also struck an agreement, 

and I think also an accord in this agreement, 

that as we move forward and DOE reviews what 

they review, if there are examples or 

instances where they find that they don't need 

to see that kind of a document, or that site 

has already been taken care of and we don't 

need to see that kind of information again, 

they will be quick to tell us and we can then 

draw the boundaries in on this. 

 And we have some experience, some 

examples to show to that effect. 

 We have also come to a place where 
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in the process, as we are working with DOE, we 

identify a critical need on a certain review, 

and they have demonstrated an ability to turn 

those around. The three 83.14s that you have 

before you at this meeting are an example of 

that where in our planning to deliver an 83.14 

SEC or an 83.13 SEC; we had not anticipated 

DOE's need to have seven to 14 days to examine 

the document. So that had to be plugged in. 

 And for these three that you talked 

about at this meeting, Mallinckrodt, Vitro and 

the Met Lab, those weren't reviewed by DOE 

until late last week, early last week in fact, 

and they turned them around within a day. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: But it is a 

commitment of our organization that these 

things get the highest priority. And so we 

will assign people to get on them and review 

them when they are needed. 

 And there has been, I think, sort 

of a feeling that this process is one for 

delay. Our lessons learned from the people 
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that have been involved in it, is that it is a 

process that expedites things, and that it 

prevents a report that is generated that is 

inappropriate that will be investigated and 

delayed for long periods of time. 

 But the process will in most cases 

ensure that that wouldn't happen, so things 

are moving out in a timely manner. It is a 

process to help; it's not a process for 

secrecy or delays or whatever it is. And I 

think we've been able to demonstrate as we 

work through the plan that that can happen, 

and that we want to continue to move down that 

path. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, and we 

appreciate the commitment to that, and I think 

as I said, I think our ultimate goal for all 

of this is the same in that regard. So we 

look forward to receiving the documents soon. 

 Another comment? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: I did have another 

comment, but I will hold it. 
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 CHAIR ZIEMER: On this topic? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: I just fail to 

understand why expediting becomes as we had in 

the case of Hanford SEC now over a year 

waiting for access to documents. And an SEC 

evaluation that is going to go on for another 

couple of years because of the way NIOSH laid 

it out. 

 So I understand you are trying to 

expedite. I don't have any problems with your 

intent. But unfortunately, these things just 

-- at least in the implementation phase and 

the uncertainty over what is going to be in 

the plan and how these procedures would work 

are leading to long delays. 

 And the credibility of this program 

is very little to begin with, with the 

claimants, and this only makes it worse. 

 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Greg? 

 MR. LEWIS: Yes, we have not to my 

knowledge limited access to any documents 
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relevant to Hanford to those with the 

appropriate clearances, and they can review 

them in the appropriate setting. 

 We have in some instances limited 

our release of certain documents until there 

are assurances in place to make sure that 

people have appropriate plans to handle those 

documents. But on site in the proper location 

they can be reviewed by anyone. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: I think we have 

done a number of things to expedite, I know 

that concerns you, but really to expedite the 

process by getting clearances for past workers 

to come forth so they can talk openly and 

freely about any of the processes they need, 

making sure that space is available to do 

those kinds of things. 

 And I guess at this point only time 

will show that we have been working on this, 

and it in fact is to improve the process, and 

it's not to hurt it and to make things 

available for these workers. 
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 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Other comments? On this or 

anything related to the DOE report? 

 Again, thank you Pat. 

 DR. WORTHINGTON: Thank you for your 

attention. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And your other staff 

members who are with you today, Greg and Isaf, 

we appreciate your efforts as well. 

 I think it would be appropriate for 

us to go ahead with our lunch break. We are 

going to extend it. It is now quarter of 

12:00, and if we go until 1:15, that will give 

us an hour and a half for lunch rather than 

the hour that we had yesterday. 

 So let's recess for lunch, and plan 

to be back here at 1:15. 

(Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 11:45 a.m. and 

resumed at 1:18 p.m.) 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: We are ready to 

reconvene the afternoon session. I will check 
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to make sure that everyone that needs to be on 

the phone line is on there, in particular 

Board member Dr. Gen Roessler. Gen, are you 

with us? 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: I'm with you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

 We are going to begin our afternoon 

session today with the science update, and 

that will be Dr. Neton from NIOSH. So Jim, we 

are pleased to have you back for the science 

update. 

SCIENCE UPDATE 

 DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

 It's my pleasure to provide the 

Board what has sort of become a standard 

agenda item on the Board's schedule, and that 

is an update of the science issues, where 

NIOSH stands on science issues; past issues 

that were identified; our progress toward 

resolving those; as well as any - 

 MR. KATZ: Sorry, one second please. 

 The folks on the phone, somebody has not 
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muted their line and it's interfering with the 

conversation. Can you mute your line? If you 

don't have a mute button, please use star six. 

 DR. NETON: Okay, I guess I can 

continue now. 

 So update on any progress on past 

issues, and also discuss any emerging issues 

that are coming out that we think the Board 

might be interested in hearing. 

 Unfortunately the Board meets so 

frequently it seems that I have trouble 

putting out any ground-breaking progress in 

between some of these meetings, but we do have 

some news to report this time. 

 One thing I would like to discuss 

is, we've had a number of science issues on 

the table, and made various progress - 

progress on various of them over time that I 

report to the Board. But this year - and I 

think Larry might have alluded to this in his 

earlier presentation, we have adopted some 

specific science goals for this fiscal year. 
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These of course are listed here; they are not 

all of the goals, all the science issues that 

are out there. The ones that appear here are 

the ones we've identified as being 

particularly important to get moving in a 

rapid timeframe. I've listed them here, we 

can just go over them briefly. 

 One is the review of the new solid 

cancer instance data reported from the 

Radiation Effects Research Foundation. We are 

committed to doing that in this fiscal year. 

These are formally acknowledged and published 

by NIOSH as our science goals. 

 As you are aware the new data came 

out a few months back, and we are going to 

review those data against what's currently 

used in the NIOSH IREP model to see if there 

is any indication that the risk factors might 

change for certain cancers. 

 The second issue is in development 

of the chronic lymphocytic leukemia model. We 

have committed to that by the third quarter. 
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That would be a fiscal year quarter, so 

sometime in the April to June timeframe we 

intend to have at least this model developed 

and out of our shop. This has to go through 

secretarial office review, so I can't predict 

how long it will take once it gets through our 

shop, but it will at least be released for 

external review by then; or actually internal 

departmental review by then. 

 I can report that we solicited the 

input from three subject matter experts; 

that's three research hematologists, for the 

lymphocytic leukemia model that was developed, 

and we have just received this week the third 

report. So we are in the process of digesting 

the reviews that were received, and we will be 

responding to the comments that we got. 

 This third one I know has been out 

there for quite some time and I’m a little bit 

sheepish to acknowledge that it is still not 

done. But this is to issue the formal NIOSH 

position paper on the ingestion and oral-nasal 
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breathing issues. I reported several Board 

meetings ago that we completed the research on 

that. I know that these are holding up 

closure on outstanding issues on a number of 

reviews that SC&A has conducted, and we are 

committed to getting that done as fast as we 

can. It merely needs to be written up and 

formally documented. 

 The fourth bullet is a formal 

verification and validation of NIOSH IREP 

calculations. I reported on this I think at 

the last meeting. NIOSH IREP was checked for 

internal consistency and validated by several 

methods when it was being produced. However, 

as I think you heard in the public comment 

session last night, the level of formal rigor 

behind that review, that is a formal document 

that we can throw out on the table and say, 

this exactly is a consolidation of everything 

we have done, doesn't exist. So we are in the 

process of compiling that document, and we are 

committed to having that done by the third 
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quarter of this fiscal year. That would be 

somewhere between April and June of this year. 

 The fourth one is a new issue that 

I don't think I've discussed with the Board 

before, and that is the development of a dose 

reconstruction methodology for RECA cases. 

Before I move on to that issue in the next 

slide, I do want to point out one bullet that 

is not on this slide, and it's not a science 

issue, but I think it's important to mention. 

 If you recall last June, a little 

over a year ago, we put a report out that was 

requested by Congress about the presumptive 

cancer list. NIOSH was asked to make a 

recommendation as to what cancers if any 

should be added to the presumptive cancer 

list. 

 We issued that report to Congress, 

to the Appropriations Committee I think it was 

that asked for that report. And we indicated 

that we believe that basal cell carcinoma 

should be added to the presumptive cancer 
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risk. However we did also state that this was 

an interim report that would be updated when 

the UNSCEAR, the United Nations Scientific 

Committee on Atomic Radiation, UNSCEAR, 

released their forthcoming report. That 

report has been issued a couple of months ago. 

 We have looked at it. We see nothing in that 

report that would change our opinion of what 

we came to in that first report, so we are 

committed to following up with some type of 

communication back to Congress to let them 

know that our original recommendation stands. 

 Okay, with that aside, I would like 

to talk a little bit about this new RECA model 

that I have in my last bullet. 

 It turns out that the amendment 

that was issued in 2004 to the EEOICPA 

extended Part E coverage; that's the 

Department of Labor's part of this program, it 

extended Part E coverage to uranium millers, 

miners and ore transporters who worked at 

facilities covered under Section 5 of RECA. 
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This is totally separate from Part B now, so 

take your Part B hat off and think about Part 

E. 

 That coverage is essentially Part E 

is exposure to toxic substances. Well, 

radiation is considered a toxic substance by 

Department of Labor regulations, but they also 

know that there is a more quantitative way to 

evaluate the probability that that toxic 

substance, i.e. radiation, was the cause of 

endangering health. So when DOL issued their 

regulation for Part E coverage, they required 

that NIOSH would perform a dose reconstruction 

for certain cancer claims that were filed 

under Part E. 

 So given that we have engaged in 

developing some models to determine how we 

could do dose reconstructions for these RECA 

cases. We have been engaged in this research 

for some time now. WE hope to have a draft 

model done sometime in January that we can 

start testing and moving some of these cases 
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out. These cases have been on the books for 

awhile, but the good news I think is that we 

have been informed by Department of Labor that 

the number of cases expected under this Part E 

of RECA is small. Right now we're thinking 

it's somewhere in the vicinity of 50 cases. 

But one never knows in this program; numbers 

do have a tendency to change. 

 Okay, that's it for RECA dose 

reconstructions. I would like to just shift 

gears now and talk about something that is new 

in our program, and this has to do with the 

use of claimant data sets for coworker 

modelings, which will be coming out as TIB0075. The TIB has been drafted; it's been 

internally reviewed, and it's undergoing some 

final tweaking. So we expect it to be issued 

in the next probably week or so. But I would 

like to bring this up for the Board's 

attention. 

 It is interesting that this is 

somewhat relevant to the discussion that Tim 
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Taulbee had yesterday on Savannah River SEC 

evaluation report. Because he talked about 

using this type of analysis to reconstruct 

coworker models for Savannah River. This was 

not intentional. We did not intentionally 

collaborate these presentations. But it's 

actually sort of fortuitous that it came out 

this way. 

 Before I get you into this, I would 

like to actually acknowledge the contributions 

or the work of Tom LaBone and Janice Watkins 

of ORAU who conceived of and did the heavy 

lifting, the work on this project. I'm sure 

there are others at ORAU, but these are the 

two technical staff that did much of the work 

on this, and I'm grateful for their work. 

 A little bit about the background 

here. Personal monitoring data are not really 

available at all sites. There are a few sites 

out there that have collected large amounts of 

for instance bioassay samples, but they never 

computerize them. They are not available 
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electronically for us to review, and frankly, 

there are issues with taking those hard copies 

and coding them and making them available to 

our health physicists, primarily because of 

issues raised by cost and timeliness. How 

long is it going to take us to go through 

several hundred boxes, extract the records, 

code them, do a validation, that sort of 

thing. So a solution was proposed some time 

ago that we would rely on the claimant data 

set. 

 I have to admit that the first time 

this issue was broached to me, I was very 

skeptical. Because I said, how can we prove 

that the claimant set was actually 

representative of the general population? Of 

course that's what would have to be 

established before we could use these data. 

 In other words, is the claimant 

data set an unbiased random sample of the 

general -- of all the workers at the site. A 

couple of thoughts come to mind. One is, all 
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of our claimants have cancer, so could it be 

actually a biased high sample, because since 

they all have cancer, presumably they might 

have had higher exposures to give them 

cancers. 

 I can't think of another argument 

to the contrary, but there might be another 

argument that could be postulated why it would 

represent a sample bias low. 

 So we wanted to entertain this, but 

we thought, well, how could we go about doing 

this? And this is where Janice Watkins and 

Tom LaBone came in. They proposed a concept 

where we could use the complete data set that 

we have for the Y12 workers. It turns out 

that Y12 has been studied extensively through 

epidemiologic studies, and in these CEDR 

database, that is the Comprehensive 

Epidemiological Data Resource database that is 

managed by the Department of Energy, there is 

a very large set of electronic data available. 

 And in fact it essentially covers all workers 
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at the Y12 plant between 1950 and 1988. That 

is all monitored workers. 

 It's a huge data set of the uranium 

urinanalysis in particular, and it contains 

data for about half a million bioassay 

measurements. So it's a very huge 

comprehensive set of data. 

 And the idea was, could we use this 

to somehow test this hypothesis? This is just 

a histogram that shows the frequency 

distribution of the samples that were actually 

collected over the history of the Y12 

database. As you can see it starts in 1950, 

pretty low; peaks around 1958 to 1960; drops 

off in `66, and remains fairly constant. But 

you will note that the heyday of bioassay 

sample collection, there were upwards of 

almost 50,000 bioassay samples taken per year. 

 So this is sort of the universe of 

all samples. In statistical sampling, this is 

it. So this is the true value if you will of 

all samples that we are trying to model. 
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 So the concept was to test this 

database -- I did that already -- so we 

decided to do a feasibility analysis to test 

the claimant data against this database. So 

we thought, well we can easily develop an 

annual coworker model using the complete 

dataset. We have done that already for Y12, 

and we could establish the 50th and 95th

percentiles like we do for our coworker models 

using the database, which although it had a 

half a million records, it represented 7,357 

workers as you see on the slide. That is 

still a lot of workers. 

 We decided to do a worker modeling 

effort and not an individual sampling effort, 

because really we are trying to reconstruct 

does to workers. 

 So we have a coworker model that we 

have already established using these 7,000 

plus workers. So now we decided, let's 

develop a coworker model using only the 

claimant data. Well it turns out that we have 
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731 claimants who submitted about 68,000 

bioassay samples. So that is roughly 10 

percent of the total population. And what 

would happen if we compared the results of the 

coworker model developed using the complete 

set and the claimant data set. 

 This is a graphic that depicts the 

agreement at the 50th percentile, and you can 

see that there is fairly reasonable agreement 

between these two datasets. The pink line 

represents the claimant set, and the blue line 

represents the use of the entire data set. 

 There are some discrepancies 

though. If you look early on at 1950 the 

agreement is not quite so good, and there is 

also a little bit of a divergence after 1985. 

 When you go out to the 95th

percentile which are at the extreme ends of 

the distribution, you expect there to be more 

fluctuation at the extremes of the 

distribution; and you in fact do see that. 

The agreement is not quite as good, but 
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nonetheless it is fairly consistent across the 

Board, again, with the exception of the early 

years around 1950, and the later years after 

`85. 

 But then the question remains, 

well, even though they look like they agree 

fairly well, how can we demonstrate that it 

really is a statistically valid comparison. 

Do they really represent the same population 

of workers? 

 And so that is what we set out to 

do with a technique called a bootstrap 

analysis. A bootstrap analysis is, you select 

random sample distributions from the total 

population. In other words we had 731 workers 

that we are using for the claimant data set. 

So let's take 731 samples without replacement, 

a large number of times; in this case 10,000 

times, and develop a distribution of all of 

those samples. 

 And this in fact is what this says. 

 This is a depiction of what the bootstrap 
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analysis really is. And we chose to pick the 

95th percentile, because if we could get 

agreement at the 95th percentile, we are pretty 

sure the 50th percentile would agree, because 

again, the extremes of the distribution are 

where you see the largest fluctuations. 

 So the bootstrap analysis, 

calculate the 95th percentile of the bioassay 

results, of the dataset for each year, 

randomly draw K workers - in this case that is 

731 workers, because that is what the claimant 

data set had - and without replacement. And 

repeat step two N times. In this case we 

repeated this step 10,000 times. So we pulled 

10,000 sets of 731 people's records, and then 

we calculated the confidence interval that was 

generated from those sampling efforts, and 

that is what you see here, which is the 

results for -- this is only for 1953, but I 

just show this as an example of how the 

analysis would work. The solid red line in 

the middle is the -- wait a second -- the 
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solid red line is the true 95th percentile. 

That is of the entire population, the 95th

percentile is represented by the red line. 

The median of the bootstrap analysis is just 

to the left of that, very close which you 

would expect, based on that kind of sampling. 

 And then you see the lower 99 percent 

confidence interval and the upper 99 percent 

confidence interval identified. 

 Those are the confidence intervals, 

of those 10,000 runs, that is the range of the 

values that came out of that for the 95th

percentile. 

 And then the dashed blue line 

represents the claimant -- 95th claimant 

database reconstructed 95th percentile. 

 So what we have here is the 

claimant database, the 95th percentile for the 

claimant database is well within the limits -- 

is well within the 99 percent confidence 

intervals for -- using this bootstrap analysis 

technique. Which gave us confidence, okay, 
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this is producing some fairly reasonable 

numbers, and this slide summarizes that. The 

bootstrap sampling demonstrated that the 

results were 36 of 39 years that were 

reconstructed - this is for the 95th percentile 

- were within the 99 percent confidence 

interval. Yes? 

 MR. KATZ: Jim, can you pause? Can 

people on the telephone hear us? 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: I can year, yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Have you been losing your 

connection? 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: No, I haven't lost 

it. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay, thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, go ahead. 

 DR. NETON: Okay, thank you. 

 So for those three years that were 

outside those 99 percent confidence limits, 

that was 1950, `87 and `88, it appears that 

the reason was that the claimant dataset 

contained less than -- fewer than 10 percent 
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of the total data. So when you have fewer 

numbers, fewer than 10 percent of the 

represented samples, then you expect some 

statistical anomalies to occur. 

 And in fact there were a few other 

years that contained less than 10 percent of 

the data that were fortuitously within the 99 

percent confidence interval. 

 So what we have here is, we have 

identified that one of the limitations of this 

technique is, you have to be able to somehow 

convince yourself you've got at least 10 

percent of the real dataset being monitored, 

which is not exactly trivial in some cases. 

 So the conclusions of this analysis 

are that the feasibility did demonstrate that 

with certain caveats: you have to have at 

least 10 percent by year of the true data set, 

at least for the Y12 plant, it would produce a 

representative coworker model. 

 I talked about you need to have 

sufficient sample size. But then we thought, 
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well, what if you didn't? What if you didn't 

have 10 percent, maybe you could go back and 

randomly sample the existing hard copy records 

that were there on a random basis, and pull 

out and supplement the coworker data until you 

got 10 percent, and then reconstruct the 

model. 

 We leave that open as a possibility 

for further thought. 

 And that's it. That is the result 

of that analysis, and I would be happy to 

answer any questions on the whole presentation 

if there are any. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much, 

Jim. 

 Let's open the floor for comments 

or questions. Dr. Melius. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: One of the issues -- 

and I think I brought this up in a work group 

setting -- what you are calling a coworker 

analysis is really based on all the workers 

within a given facility and so forth. It 
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doesn't really take into account factors such 

as job task or job assignment or type of trade 

or whatever. 

 So an analysis based on -- even 

with a 95th percentile -- based on this general 

group of workers may not be appropriate for a 

subgroup that has much higher exposures. 

 And I think there are -- in our 

discussions we talked about the fact that you 

have information limitations. So you may not 

always have the information on the sampling by 

job task, or job assignment or something like 

that. Or you may not have adequate numbers to 

be able to do that. 

 But I think it's a significant 

problem, and it's something that you need to 

think about. Actually it should be that you 

have to demonstrate that whatever distribution 

you are putting forward is adequate to capture 

-- to be representative of those groups of 

workers, or somehow deal with a subgroup in 

some other way. 
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 It's not a trivial issue, and it's 

not an easy issue to deal with. 

 DR. NETON: No, I understand. You 

raise a good point, Dr. Melius. We have 

talked about this before. And this analysis 

of course presupposes that the workers with 

the highest potential for exposures were 

indeed monitored in the first place. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Well, that's my 

second point. 

 DR. NETON: That's a precondition. 

And I think we have been held to that standard 

for a number of sites now. And we have had 

extensive discussions about -- for instance 

the Y12 site that issue came up. How do you 

know that the workers who had the highest 

potential for exposure were indeed the ones 

that were monitored? So we have gone down 

that path to some degree. 

 Then you have to say well, even the 

highest exposed workers, is there a set of the 

highest exposed workers who were unmonitored. 
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 And I agree. We should have to be able to 

demonstrate that that is indeed true. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Then the further 

complication, is there a particular task or 

something that were not monitored. The kind 

of issues we hear about repeatedly at these 

sites where people are put into very high 

exposure environments where monitoring is 

deliberately not done or infeasible to do or 

whatever. And again there is a mathematical 

side to that. What is the potential exposure 

they may have experienced in those situations, 

and how would that compare to that, and does 

your coworker model, other model, incorporate 

that potential. Then that is even harder, 

because you are not measuring anything, so you 

are having to assume something. Then it is a 

repeated problem we have run across in these 

situations. 

 DR. NETON: I totally agree with 

you. We have to use extreme care when we 

determine to whom this coworker model is 
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applied. We have to justify that it is 

appropriate to apply to that particular group. 

 No disagreement there. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Mark. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Jim, I apologize, I 

walked in a little late, so I might have 

missed this in the beginning of your 

presentation. But I guess my fundamental 

question is, why are you going forward with 

this? Is this specifically for Savannah 

River? 

 DR. NETON: There are more than just 

Savannah River sites in mind. I mean there 

are sites with large amounts of uncoded data, 

bioassay information in particular that hasn't 

been coded. It is not necessarily even just 

for the main radionuclides. For instance, 

this would be applicable at Savannah River. 

Tim Taulbee actually mentioned that in his 

presentation yesterday, it could potentially 

be useful to reconstruct a coworker model for 

Savannah River. 
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 But you could also envision 

scenarios where the radionuclides of lesser 

usage at the sites that have not been coded 

could be brought into play with this type of 

analysis. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Then I guess to get 

back to the Savannah River question, there was 

a lot of data that wasn't uncoded, but I also 

see that -- it seems to me to do this, this is 

what I think Tim referred to as TIB XX -- I 

don't know if has a number yet. 

 DR. NETON: It's TIB-0075. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Oh, it's TIB-0075, 

okay. 

 DR. NETON: It's not been issued. 

It's imminent though. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Anyway, you went 

through quite a bit of work it seems to me to 

enter claimant data here to compare against 

the electronic Y12 data. 

 DR. NETON: No, it was actually -- 

while these are all claimant data, and 
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claimant data are coded as they come in. 

 MEMEBR GRIFFON: As they come in? 

Okay, so it wasn't extra work for you. 

 DR. NETON: No, we didn't go and 

code 68,000 pieces of claimant data -- or 

6,800. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, I guess the 

question is - and I can appreciate that you 

don't want to code all the Savannah River data 

- but is it a question of, NIOSH doesn't want 

to go through and code all that urinanalysis 

data for Savannah River? Or that Savannah 

River is not making it available to NIOSH? 

 DR. NETON: No, we have it available 

to NIOSH now. It's a matter of resources, 

time constraints. The question is, do you 

really need to code, say, 600,000 bioassay 

samples, or can you demonstrate that if you 

have a representative statistical sampling of 

those bioassay records and can construct a 

coworker model. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, I understand. 
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I wanted to make sure that it wasn't an access 

issue to the data. 

 DR. NETON: No, the data are 

available. Tim Taulbee assures me that he has 

found the records, and we have access to them. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Any comments? Larry 

Elliott? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think also in 

response to Mark's last question, it also has 

to be considered that if we were to go look 

for an individual claimant's data in those 

boxes, how much time, how many pages would we 

have to go through just for each claimant? 

 So if we have a model that can be 

used to address that with perusing through 

piles of paper, that was also in this -- 

factored into this consideration. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: And does this -- I 

guess I assume we've got to review this TIB 

obviously, and it might even be part of the 

Savannah River review as well as procedures or 

something, I don't know. But I guess I would 
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assume somewhere in this there is a 

justification of why -- I think this follows 

up a little on what Jim was talking about, why 

this Y12 analysis proves to me that this is 

useful with the Savannah River claim 

population. 

 DR. NETON: I would answer that with 

a question: why not? 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, why not might 

be -- I don't know -- 

 DR. NETON: That's why I'm saying, 

we thought about this part. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean there might 

be different percentages of construction 

workers applying for claims down there, 

because building trades are represented and 

the construction workers are not. 

 DR. NETON: Well, that gets to Dr. 

Melius' original question, we have to be 

careful to what subset of workers we apply 

this coworker model to, I'll grant you that. 

Because that is to me a more relevant issue. 
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But I think the model itself it has merit, we 

have done a feasibility. We have demonstrated 

at least at Y12, that they are not -- this is 

not a biased population of the overall 

population at the site. That is all we are 

saying. Of the overall monitored workers, if 

you had more than 10 percent of the data in 

your hand, the claimant population in and of 

itself is not a biased sample of the overall 

population. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: But all I'm saying 

is, in this case -- I mean I haven't seen it, 

so in this case it seems to me that you are 

comparing a claimant population that might 

have different sort of demographics than at 

Savannah River. And this at Y12 it seems that 

all worker data bounded claimant population 

data, but is that going to be the case 

necessarily at other sites. 

 DR. NETON: I understand what you 

are saying. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Mark, you are just 
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asking if what shows up in the Y12 case, would 

that show up at a site that had different 

kinds of demographics and different kinds of 

jobs and so on. 

 DR. NETON: Right, because I think 

if we go around the country, the people more 

likely to file at different sites might look a 

little different. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, let's ask this 

follow up question, Dr. Neton, beyond your 

conclusions, which are on this dataset, what 

do you see as the next steps in terms of this 

particular type of analysis? Where do you go 

from here? Is it the intent to develop a more 

generalized model that could be used sort of 

system wide? 

 DR. NETON: Yes, that was the intent 

of this entire feasibility analysis was that -

- to not go off and just apply this without 

some sort of statistical analysis. The Y12 

database was a convenient set, and I am 

totally understanding of what Mark was saying 
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about the transportability of this to other 

sites. But we thought about this long and 

hard, and I'm still having trouble figuring 

out why these demographics would shift from 

site to site. 

 We are open to any suggestions, and 

of course this TIB will be I'm sure reviewed 

by the Board and others. It's out there. We 

haven't used it yet, and we are still thinking 

about it. I mean this TIB does not say go 

apply this everywhere. 

 It's really almost inappropriate to 

call this a TIB. This probably should have 

been a report. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Is there another site 

that you could look at to sort of get beyond 

the one data point to see if -- 

 DR. NETON: Yes, I suspect there 

probably are, but I know this program well 

enough to know that N equal two, doesn't 

necessarily prove a point either. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I know. 
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 DR. NETON: But it's good for 

thought. We put it out there. We are not 

using it. Anybody that can come up with a 

justifiable reason why it wouldn't be 

transportable, I would love to hear it. I 

mean that's one reason to throw it out there. 

 We are not necessarily asking for formal 

comment from the Board, but this is sort of a 

summary of where we are. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: What about -- one of 

the other factors that comes to my mind would 

be the sort of monitoring practices at the 

sites, which I've noticed seem to vary over 

time, and it was resource dependent, and 

method dependent, and I suspect it was 

dependent on the skills and interest of the 

health physics team at the site and the amount 

of resources available to them. 

 I thought that when we were dealing 

with the TIB-0052, the construction thing, I 

seem to recall there were certainly 

differences there in terms of how they 
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approached it. That may be a special 

population and not appropriate. 

 The other question I would have is 

more related to the act. I think you need to 

-- in my mind, just thinking about this 

briefly, I think you would need a strong 

justification to use a method that is based on 

estimating a person's exposure when there are 

individual dose records available. 

 DR. NETON: We would fully use their 

records when they are available, if the 

claimants were going to ask for their records. 

But if we don't get them, we have to have some 

way of reconstructing them. We are not 

talking about substituting for their records. 

We are just saying, if we don't have your 

record we have developed a coworker 

distribution based on the claimant population. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: But I think if I 

heard Larry right, you might be -- you might 

be, because they'd be so difficult to find, or 

pull out all those records. 
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 DR. NETON: We always ask the 

Department of Energy for the records, a 

person's monitoring records, when we get their 

case. And if we don't get them we don't get 

them; I mean there is not much more we can do. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes, but if the 

Department of Energy is not bothering to get 

them then they are responsible for getting 

them, and there is something wrong - 

 DR. NETON: I understand what you 

are saying. This has to do with the uncoded 

records - 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: I don't want to get 

into that. 

 DR. NETON: Again, this is food for 

thought. I just throw it out there, and we 

can digest it and maybe talk about it at some 

other working group meeting or a future Board 

meeting. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Any other questions 

or comments? Very good, thank you. 

 Now we are scheduled to have an SEC 
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petition update, and this is passed from LaVon 

to Stu to Larry. Larry Elliott is going to 

give us that update. 

 Welcome back, Larry, to the mike. 

SEC PETITION UPDATE 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. I don't 

know if LaVon is on the phone or not, but if 

you are, LaVon, I hope I do you justice here 

this afternoon and present your material 

effectively. 

 The purpose of this special 

exposure cohort status update is in response 

to the Board's request to present the number 

of qualified petitions that are under 

evaluation, and the sites that are being 

evaluated through the 83.14 process. 

 This assists the Board in 

understanding that bit of work, and preparing 

and planning for it in their future meetings. 

 The petitions received to date are 

135. There are currently 17 petitions in the 

qualification process. There are 67 petitions 
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that have qualified for evaluation; nine of 

those are still in the evaluation, are 

progressing through NIOSH evaluation, and 58 

have been completed. 

 There have been 51 petitions that 

did not qualify for evaluation. 

 So we'll go through the ones that 

are still active. 

 The petition, the Special Exposure 

Cohort petition evaluation reports that are 

currently with the Advisory Board for 

recommendation include Chapman Valve. The 

history of this petition is that the 

evaluation report was approved and sent to the 

Advisory Board and the petitioners on August 

31st, 2006. 

 NIOSH presented its evaluation 

report at the September, 2006 Advisory Board 

Meeting. The Advisory Board established a 

work group to review and evaluate the report 

at its September, 2006 meeting. 

 The Work Group then presented its 
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findings at the May, 2007 Advisory Board 

Meeting, and a decision was made to postpone 

the recommendation until the July, 2007 

Advisory Board Meeting, allowing the 

petitioners time to review SC&A's report on 

the NIOSH evaluation report. 

 The Advisory Board voted six to six 

on a motion to deny adding the class to the 

special exposure cohort at its July 2007 

meeting, and following this vote the Advisory 

Board determined they would like to receive a 

response from the Department of Labor and the 

Department of Energy concerning potential 

covered work at the Dean Street facility. 

 Then prior to the October 2007 

Advisory Board Meeting, the Department of 

Labor provided a response to the Advisory 

Board's questions about the Dean Street 

facility. The DOE provided an update during 

the November 2007 advisory Board conference 

call and at that time they indicated they had 

not completed their investigation at the 
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Department of Energy. 

 DOE then presented their findings 

at the January 2008 Advisory Board Meeting, 

and those findings were that the Dean Street 

facility should be included as a covered 

facility, but there was no indication of any 

additional radiological activities because of 

the addition. 

 NIOSH indicated at the January 2008 

Advisory Board Meeting that they would revise 

the Chapman Valve evaluation report based upon 

the DOE findings. But also we indicated that 

there would be no changes in our feasibility 

determination based upon those findings. 

 NIOSH issued a revised evaluation 

report on February 5th, 2008. 

 At the February 2008 Advisory Board 

conference call the Advisory Board asked SC&A 

to do a focused review of the new information 

provided by the Department of Energy, and 

asked that the information be made available 

prior to the April Advisory Board Meeting. 
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 SC&A produced a report to the Work 

Group on March 12th, 2008. 

 Next, NIOSH presented the revision 

to the evaluation report at the April Board 

meeting. This was also in 2008. The 

Advisory Board decided to reconvene the 

working group to discuss a path forward. 

 The Work Group met on May 1st, 

2008, and asked NIOSH to send a letter to the 

Department of Energy inquiring about the 

extent of their evaluation. 

 In addition NIOSH agreed to 

continue looking for the pedigree of the 

enriched uranium analysis. 

 The Advisory Board voted again on a 

motion to deny adding a class to the SEC at 

the June 2008 Advisory Board Meeting. 

 The vote ended in a six to six tie. 

 The Advisory Board then asked NIOSH 

to contact the Department of Defense about any 

radiation related contracts for Chapman Valve 

to explain the enriched sample. 
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 NIOSH has made that contact with 

the Department of Defense, and DOD responded 

with no confirmation that Chapman Valve did or 

did not do work for the Department of Defense. 

 And we have some additional status to report 

on that at the conclusion of this presentation 

if you would like to have it. 

 Currently the status of the 

petition and the evaluation report are with 

the Advisory Board for recommendation. 

 Blockson Chemical: the evaluation 

report was initially approved and sent to the 

Advisory Board and the petitioners on 

September 5th, 2006. NIOSH presented its 

evaluation report at the December 2006 

Advisory Board Meeting. 

 We then withdrew the evaluation 

report after it was determined that it did not 

address all covered exposures. At its 

December 2006 meeting the Advisory Board 

established a work group to review the 

evaluation report for Blockson. 
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 NIOSH issued a revised evaluation 

report on July 3rd, 2007. 

 NIOSH presented the revised 

evaluation report for the Blockson Chemical at 

the July 2007 Advisory Board Meeting. 

 The Work Group met in Cincinnati on 

August 28th, 2007. A public meeting was held 

on September 12th, 2007, to explain the changes 

that NIOSH had made to the dose reconstruction 

technical approach. 

 A Work Group conference call was 

held on November 2nd, 2007. At the January, 

2008 Advisory Board Meeting, Dr. Melius 

indicated he wanted to review the pedigree of 

the bioassay data, and he wanted to discuss 

the radon model with Mark Griffin. 

 There was no change in the status 

of the petition, and the evaluation report, at 

the April Advisory Board Meeting. The Work 

Group planned to meet to discuss a path 

forward. 

 The Work Group met on June 5th, 
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2008. The Work Group met again on June 24th

and 25th, 2008, to discuss a resolution of the 

radon issue and any outstanding action items. 

 The Advisory Board deliberated over 

the SEC petition at the June 2008 Advisory 

Board Meeting. The Advisory Board determined 

that they wanted to see the SC&A radon model 

in a white paper or a report to moving forward 

with voting on the SEC. 

 SC&A issued a draft report on the 

evaluation of radon levels in buildings 40 on 

August 12, 2008. The Work Group met again on 

October 15th, 2008, to discuss the resolution 

of issues. 

 A technical call with NIOSH and 

SC&A was conducted on December 3rd, 2008, and a 

Work Group conference call was conducted on 

December 12th, 2008. 

 Status of this petition and 

evaluation report are with the Advisory Board 

for consideration, an update from the working 

group was given at this meeting. 
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Center, the evaluation report was approved and 

sent to the Advisory Board and the petitioners 

on November 3rd, 2006. NIOSH presented its 

evaluation report at the February 2007 

Advisory Board Meeting. 

 At its February 2007 meeting the 

Advisory Board established a work group to 

review the evaluation report. 

 In May of 2007 SC&A provided a 

draft review of the evaluation report to the 

Work Group, petitioners, Advisory Board and 

NIOSH. 

 The Work Group met in Cincinnati on 

August 8th, 2007; again, November 13th, 2007; 

March 26th, 2008; September 15th, 2008; and 

October 28, 2008. The status of this petition 

for Fernald is involved in research and 

discussion among the Work Group, SC&A and 

NIOSH. 

 Bethlehem Steel, the evaluation 

report was approved and sent to the Advisory 
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Board and petitioners on February 27th, 2007. 

NIOSH presented the evaluation report at the 

May, 2007 Advisory Board Meeting. 

 At that time the Advisory Board 

determined that it needed further information 

before making a recommendation on the SEC 

petition. 

 The Board tabled its discussion of 

the Bethlehem Steel SEC evaluation report 

until the Work Group could look at - which is 

looking at the use of surrogate data reported 

back to the Board. 

 The status of the Bethlehem Steel 

is that the evaluation report is with the 

Advisory Board for recommendation. 

 Hanford, Part 2, which covers all 

employees during the time period 1947 to 1990. 

 The evaluation report was approved and sent 

to the Advisory Board, and the petitioners, on 

September 11th, 2007. NIOSH presented its 

evaluation report at the October Advisory 

Board Meeting, and the Advisory Board sent the 
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report to their contractor and the Hanford 

Work Group for review. 

 The Advisory Board's contractor 

issued a white paper questioning whether the 

additional buildings should be included in the 

proposed class definition. 

 In March, 2008 NIOSH issued a 

revised evaluation report with a modified 

class definition. 

 NIOSH presented the revised class 

definition at the April, 2008 Advisory Board 

Meeting, and the Advisory Board concurred with 

NIOSH's recommendation to add a class status. 

 The research and discussion on the petition 

continues among the Work Group, SC&A and 

NIOSH. 

 Nevada test site for the time 

period 1963 to 1992, this evaluation report 

was approved and sent to the Advisory Board 

and petitioners in September of 2007. NIOSH 

presented the evaluation report at the January 

2008Board meeting. The Advisory Board sent 
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the report to SC&A and the Work Group for 

review. 

 The Work Group met on October 29th, 

2008 and the status is for the Nevada test 

site, 1963 to 1992, that the research and 

discussion on the petition continues among the 

Work Group, SC&A and NIOSH. 

 The Mound plant, time period 1949 

to present, the evaluation report was approved 

and sent to the Board and the petitioners in 

December 2007. The evaluation report was 

presented at the January 2008 Advisory Board 

Meeting. The Advisory Board concurred with 

NIOSH to add a class for the early years, but 

sent the report to SC&A for review, and 

established a Mound working group. 

 The Work Group met on April 1st, 

2008, July 14th, 2008 and October 27th, 2008. 

The status of the Mound petition is that 

research and discussion continues among the 

Work Group, SC&A and NIOSH. 

 Texas City Chemicals for the time 
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period 1952 to 1956. The evaluation report 

was approved and sent to the Board and 

petitioners on January 18th, 2008. NIOSH 

presented the evaluation report at the April 

2008 Advisory Board Meeting. The Board gave 

the petition and evaluation report to the 

Surrogate Data Work Group for review. 

 SC&A completed a focused review of 

the Texas City Chemical, Inc. evaluation 

report in July, 2008. The status for Texas 

City Chemicals is that the petition and 

evaluation report are with the Advisory Board 

for recommendation. 

 Area four, Santa Susana, field 

laboratory, time frame, 1955 to 1958. The 

evaluation report was approved and sent to the 

Advisory Board and the petitioners on February 

15th, 2008. NIOSH presented its evaluation 

report at the April 2008Board meeting, and the 

Board indicated they would not take action on 

this petition until SC&A had completed its 

review of the site profile. 
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the Santa Susana site profile on August 5th, 

2008. The Work Group had their first meeting 

on August 26th, 2008. And the status for area 

four is that the petition and evaluation 

report are with the Advisory Board for 

recommendation. 

 Dow Chemical, 1961 time period 

through 2006. The addendum two of the 

evaluation report was approved and sent to the 

Advisory Board and petitioners on June 3rd, 

2008. NIOSH presented addendum two at the 

June 2008 Advisory Board Meeting. To remind 

you what addendum two covers, it covers the 

residual period at Dow. 

 The Advisory Board asked the 

Procedures Work Group to review the recently 

approved dose reconstruction procedure for 

residual contamination. That is TIB, or 

Technical Information Bulletin 70, and 

assigned the petition evaluation to the Work 

Group on SEC issues. 
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 In September of 2008 SC&A completed 

a focused review of addendum two to the Dow 

Chemical SEC evaluation report. 

 November 17th, 2008, the Work Group 

for SEC issues met and discussed the SC&A 

report. The general conclusion from the Work 

Group was that NIOSH's dose model was 

bounding, but NIOSH needed to verify a couple 

of numbers for the Work Group. 

 Status: the evaluation report 

addendum is with the Work Group for 

recommendation. 

 Pantex, time period 1951 through 

1991: the evaluation report was approved and 

sent to the Advisory Board and petitioners on 

August 8th, 2008. The evaluation report was 

presented at the Board's September, 2008 

meeting, and the status: the petition and 

evaluation report are with the Advisory Board 

for recommendation. 

 General Steel Industries: the 

evaluation report for this petition was 
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approved and sent to the Advisory Board and 

petitioners on October 3rd, 2008. The 

petitioner requested that NIOSH delay 

presentation of this evaluation report until 

the February, 2009 Advisory Board Meeting 

which we agreed with. 

 Linde Ceramics, this covers the 

residual period at Linde. The evaluation 

report was approved and sent to the Board and 

petitioners on November 6th, 2008, and the 

petitioner requested that NIOSH delay 

presentation of the evaluation report until 

the May 2009 Advisory Board Meeting when the 

petitioner could be present, and we certainly 

agreed with that. 

 Savannah River site: the evaluation 

report was approved and sent to the Board and 

petitioners on November 18th, 2008. NIOSH 

presented the evaluation report at this 

Advisory Board Meeting. 

 Mallinckrodt, time frame 1958. We 

presented this evaluation report at this 
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meeting, and you have taken your action on it. 

 Vitro Manufacturing, the evaluation 

report was presented at this meeting, and you 

have taken your action. 

 Metallurgical Laboratory, the 

evaluation report was provided and presented 

at this meeting, and you have taken your 

action. 

 SEC petitions currently in the 

evaluation process are presented in this side, 

and you can see that in August we received a 

petition regarding the Westinghouse Atomic 

Power Development Plant, which covers all 

employees in L and K buildings from the time 

period January 1, 1942 to December 31st, 1944. 

 We expect to be able to deliver an 

evaluation on Westinghouse Atomic Power 

Development and present that evaluation at the 

February Advisory Board Meeting in 

Albuquerque. 

 On October 31st, of 2007, we 

received a petition from the Massachusetts 
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Institute of Technology which addressed all 

locations and all employees, January 1, 1942 

to December 31st, 1963. This was - as 

footnoted, this petition was initiated by a 

NIOSH finding that we couldn't reconstruct the 

dose. So it's an 83.14. 

 In November of 2008 a site visit 

was conducted - I'm sorry, a site visit was 

conducted in August of 2008, and NIOSH will 

present its evaluation report on the 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the 

February Board meeting. 

 On April 3rd, 2008 we received a 

petition regarding the LANL. All service 

support employees who worked in operational 

technical areas that had a history of 

radioactive material use at Los Alamos from 

January 1, 1976 through December 31st, 2005. 

Expected completion date is sometime in 

January, and we have had some difficulties 

with data capture; we have been delayed a 

little bit there. So we anticipate that we 
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will present this evaluation report for LANL 

support service employees at the February 

Board meeting. 

 The Brookhaven National Lab 

petition came to NIOSH on May 9th, 2008, and 

we've been working hard on that petition with 

the support of DOE. All of the Brookhaven 

records have not been incorporated into any 

electronic form, and so just finding those 

records has been a chore. 

 Our expected completion date is 

April, 2009, and we hope to present that at 

the May, 2009Board meeting. 

 Tyson Valley Powder Farm, which a 

petition covers all employees who worked in 

all areas of Tyson Valley Powder in St. Louis, 

Missouri, during the time period January 1, 

1942 through December 31st, 1949. This 

petition came to NIOSH in June 13th, 2008. We 

hope to complete this one sometime this month, 

the rest of this month, and we would present 

it at your February Board meeting. 
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 United Nuclear Corp, a petition 

that covers all site employees who worked in 

any area of this facility from January 1, 

1958, through December 31st, 1969. And in a 

separate period, January 1, 1970, through July 

31st, 2006, which is the residual contamination 

period. And we expect to provide a completed 

evaluation report in March of 2009. 

 Standard Oil petition covers all 

employees who worked in any area of the 

Standard Oil development site in Linden, New 

Jersey, from August 1st, 1942, through 

December, 31st, 1963. We received this 

petition September 18th, 2008, and we expect to 

complete it and present at the May meeting. 

It will be done in March, and we hope to 

present it in May. 

 Just a note: the completion of our 

evaluation reports were mandated by law to try 

to achieve completion of these within 180 

days, and we have noted that we have missed 

that mark in several instances. The Savannah 
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River site one took a little longer. General 

Steel Industries, Linde Ceramic Plant, Los 

Alamos National Lab and Brookhaven National 

Lab. 

 We have notified in each instance 

the Board and the petitioner as to what the 

delays are and why it's taking us the time 

it's taking us, and providing a timeline on 

when we expect to complete the report. 

 The reasons that we have exceeded 

180 days are varied. The Savannah River site 

petition covered a large site, broad time 

period, and required a significant data 

review. And we are still receiving data as 

you heard from Dr. Taulbee yesterday. 

 NIOSH was delayed on a number of 

evaluation reports because we were waiting for 

DOE to establish the protocol for data 

captures at Savannah River site, Los Alamos 

and Brookhaven. 

 The Linde Ceramics Plant evaluation 

report was delayed as a result of the 
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petitioner changing the basis for the petition 

and providing additional supporting 

documentation, and that extended the 

qualification period. 

 The GSI evaluation report exceeded 

180 days by a week as a result of the time 

required to resolve last minute technical 

comments from an interview review. 

 So our commitment is that once it's 

apparent to us that the evaluation report 

timeframe will exceed 180 days we inform the 

petitioners, the Advisory Board and 

congressional liaisons. We let them know that 

you all know that report will not be completed 

within 180 days, the reasons for that and our 

expected completion date for the report. 

 That concludes the slides, and I'm 

happy to take any questions. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, 

Larry. Let's see if there are any questions. 

 And we thank LaVon also for the work he 

probably did in helping get this summary 
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together for us. It's always helpful to 

remind us where we are on each of these SEC 

petitions. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Could I provide you a 

bit more background on what we have done with 

the Department of Defense regarding Chapman 

Valve and make sure that is on the record. 

 At the last Board meeting when 

Chapman Valve was discussed, NIOSH was asked 

to send an inquiry to the Department of 

Defense, asking them about any work that they 

may have contracted with Chapman Valve; and 

secondly, to conduct an additional search to 

determine if the shipping manifest from the 

D&D work done by Bechtel contained any 

reference to the enriched uranium sample that 

was found. 

 On October 6th, of 2008, the Office 

of the Secretary of the Department of Health 

and Human Services sent an email to the White 

House liaison section, within the office of 

the Secretary of Defense. It contained an 
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explanation of the issue and this request. 

 Between 1942 and 1987 did the 

Department of Defense, most likely either the 

U.S. Air Force or Navy, award any contracts to 

the Chapman Valve manufacturing company, 1942 

to 1958, or the Crane Company, 1959 to 1987, 

which is located in Indian Orchard, 

Massachusetts, for any work that would or 

could have involved the use of presence of 

enriched uranium. 

 On October 17th, 2008, the 

Department of Health and Human Services 

received a reply from the Department of 

Defense that provided a link to the computer 

database that contained a listing of 

individual contracts issued by the Department 

of Defense, and these listings were extracted 

from a form the Department of Defense uses 

called a DD-350, a 350 form. The computer 

database only contained records going back to 

1966. 

 NIOSH reviewed the database and we 
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did not find any records of contracts with the 

Crane Company in Indian Orchard, which is the 

successor to Chapman Valve. 

 The nature of these listings, 

however, are generic, and were not found to be 

useful for determining the existence of work 

with radioactive materials. That was not 

mentioned in the information provided in this 

database. 

 For example one contract specified 

work with nuclear reactors in 1978, but 

included no mention of the type of work, so it 

didn't get into detail like we would have 

hoped. 

 To view the original contracts 

would require a time consuming and costly 

manual search through boxes of records at the 

National Archives, and we would need the 

specific Department of Defense agency to help 

sponsor that search. We have not taken that 

step to date. 

 Regarding the Bechtel inquiry piece 
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done afterward - NIOSH sent a written request 

to Bechtel asking for worker monitoring 

records during their 1994-95 remediation 

project. In follow up phone calls were made 

to Bechtel's legal department on September 

25th, 2006, October 4th, 2006 and January 19th, 

2007. A second letter was sent to Bechtel on 

April 25th, 2007, and NIOSH received no 

response or acknowledgment to the 

communication efforts that I have mentioned 

here. 

 NIOSH located and placed on the Odrive the certification docket for the 

remedial action performed at the Chapman Valve 

site in Indian Orchard, Maine. This document 

was written by Bechtel for DOE at the 

conclusion of the rededication effort which 

took place from July to September, 1995. It 

contains a detailed 200 page survey of the 

site conducted just prior to the remediation 

work. Outside references to the enriched 
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sample found in the prior ORAU survey of 1991. 

 There is no mention, outside of the 

references of the ORAU survey of 1991, there 

is no mention of enriched uranium. 

 There were in fact 11 samples, 

isotopically analyzed for uranium, and all 

samples appear to be consistent with natural 

uranium. 

 We also identified an additional 

lead for Bechtel data in records retrieved 

from the Kansas City records center. However 

no relevant data has been found. So that has, 

I hope, for you a more detailed summary of our 

actions that we have taken regarding your 

requests to pursue these final threads on 

Chapman Valve. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you for 

that additional update. 

 Questions on either the report 

itself or the update. Wanda Munn. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Just as a matter of 

interest, whenever we see electronic records 
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stop at a certain point, we know when they 

probably started digitizing that information, 

is there any way of determining whether there 

is any ongoing effort with, for example, the 

Department of Defense in this case to go into 

the old handwritten records earlier than is 

currently - 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We have not exercised 

any effort to do so. And as I indicated 

earlier, if we were to do so, we would require 

the sponsorship of the particular agency that 

we think may have relevance here. They have 

to get us into the NARA records. 

 MEMBER MUNN: This was a much more 

broad question than that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry. 

 MEMBER MUNN: The real question is, 

do we have any idea whether there is an 

ongoing program to begin further 

digitalization of records earlier than those 

that were undoubtedly done at the time. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not aware of any. 
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 MEMBER MUNN: It's always intriguing 

to know whether agencies are going to try to 

transpose their handwritten and typewritten 

material that they have. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not aware of any. 

 But Tim might have additional information. 

 MR. KOTSCH: To add to that, we have 

no indication - we don't know if they are 

going to computerize those records prior to 

`66. What Larry mentioned was that the 

records that they have computerized, the 

information that is coded in those records is 

not useful. In other words, in their generic 

context saying, make this valve, do this type 

of work, it would be unlikely we would find a 

contractor who would say, and by the way it 

also included enriched uranium or something to 

that effect. So the nature of these 

procurements that have been computerized, we 

feel are not elucidating for the enriched 

uranium process. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Our request to the 
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Department of Defense, we can see in the email 

exchange, went fairly broad and pretty deep. 

In fact you have met Dr. Paul Blake before who 

runs the DTRA program, the Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency program for veterans, he was 

involved in the response. I talked with him. 

 And he was doubtful that we would be able to 

find any such contractual record in electronic 

form that would provide the level of detail 

that we wanted. He even suggested that we 

would probably be better off starting at the 

National Archives and working through that. 

 But he also offered - I mentioned 

the speculation that perhaps this was Navy 

fuel related. And he, as others, have said 

that he was somewhat skeptical of that because 

of the amount of enrichment in the sample 

versus what is in Navy fuel which nobody can 

talk about. So there - so I don't know where 

we go from here, but we feel we have done all 

that we can at this point, unless there is 

some other thread we need to pursue. 
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 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. Other 

comments, questions? 

 Okay, thank you again, Larry, for 

that update. 

 We are scheduled for a break - a 

comment first? 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Is it possible to 

get some of this in a short report or 

something from NIOSH, just to - 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I would be happy to 

send this email that was crafted. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: At least so we have 

a record of it as we pursue it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'll make sure the 

Work Group has that. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Particularly the 

Work Group and the Board, and that way we are 

not all hunting through transcripts. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: We have a break 

scheduled. I think we will go ahead and take 

that break, then we will come back. We have 

Board work time after that. 
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 Let's take a break. We're 

scheduled for 15 minutes; I'm going to give 

you 20. 

 (Whereupon the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 2:26 p.m. and 

resumed at 2:47 p.m.) 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I believe we are 

ready to resume our deliberations. Let me 

check the phone lines. 

 Dr. Roessler, are you on the phone 

line? 

 MEMBER ROESSLER: Gen Roessler here. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Gen. 

BOARD WORKING TIME 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Under Board working 

time, we have several issues we can deal with 

today. First of all we have some issues 

relating to site profile changes at Lawrence 

Livermore, and Ted Katz has got some 

information for us. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, thank you. 

 So just before Thanksgiving John 
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DR. MAURO: called me up to raise sort of a 

novel issue that SC&A had sort of come across 

to discuss how to go forward with it. 

 And the situation is this, and it 

relates to the discussion yesterday about 

close outs of site profiles. One of the site 

profiles as he termed it still sitting on the 

shelf awaiting the Board to take it up with 

the Work Group and a comment resolution 

process is Lawrence Livermore. 

 And in this case, despite the fact 

that the Work Group hasn't been formed, and 

there hasn't been a process resolution yet - 

issue resolution yet - OCAS had taken that 

site profile review off the shelf and reviewed 

it and OCAS agreed with some of its findings, 

and wished to go forward to make changes to 

the site profile which would affect of course 

the dose reconstruction done at Lawrence 

Livermore on the basis of some of SC&A's 

findings. 

 So there are two issues. John 
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brought this to me and said, this is a good 

thing, so OCAS has come to some SC&A staff, 

some OCAS staff have spoken with some SC&A 

staff. They want to make some changes to the 

site profile on the basis of the SC&A review. 

 And they were seeking clarification or what 

have you from SC&A staff to be able to 

implement some changes in the site profile. 

 And John said, and I agreed with 

him, you know, this is a good thing that this 

can move forward, even though it hasn't gone 

through the issue resolution process. But he 

also, we both recognized that this is sort of 

an unusual situation because the process is 

intended to be - have a process resolution, 

issue resolution with the Board, and the Board 

has not charged SC&A with doing anything with 

respect to this. 

 So this was just before 

Thanksgiving, so I said to John, well, don't 

make any significant expenditures on this, 

don't do any substantial work. Let me contact 
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Dr. Ziemer. But I think this is an issue that 

really needs to come before the Board. This 

is the first time this sort of situation has 

arisen. But as John pointed out in his 

presentation yesterday, there is more than one 

site profile that is actually is in this kind 

of status. It's been around for awhile, and 

so the issue could not just be for this case, 

but also for some other site profiles where 

OCAS may want to go forward before the Board 

has gotten to the SC&A review with making 

improvements to their site profile. 

 So I contacted Dr. Ziemer, and Dr. 

Ziemer got back to me after Thanksgiving and 

agreed that this was an important issue for 

the Board to take up, and also with a little 

bit more specificity said, limit what SC&A 

does at this point to nothing but providing 

clarifications on the issues it's raised until 

the Board has had a chance to take this up and 

give some consideration as to any one of these 

situations how far if anywhere should SC&A go 
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before there has been a work group and so on 

in interacting with OCAS to make changes just 

like there are in this instance. 

 And I don't even know the specifics 

of the changes. I just know that there were 

some and they were important for improving the 

dose reconstructions there. 

 So that is the situation we have, 

how it stands with Lawrence Livermore. I 

don't know far they've gotten, OCAS and SC&A 

on - well, OCAS in making any changes with the 

Lawrence Livermore site profile, but I think 

it's important that the Board decide how it 

wants to deal with these sort of cases, and 

how it wants to charge me in terms of managing 

SC&A as its project officer. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Ted. And 

let me add a couple of comments to that. 

 Number one, basically in the 

situation at hand, my instruction was that we 

were not tasking SC&A to do any new work; that 

if NIOSH wished to call John and ask what they 
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meant by something, a brief exchange of what 

something meant, that's fine. But I didn't 

want SC&A doing any tasks outside of the 

Board's tasking process, number one. 

 Number two, in principle, let's 

just talk in general terms, it's conceivable 

that the Board might not at all agree with 

what the SC&A recommendation was, and might 

think that NIOSH's recommendation or procedure 

or whatever the particular item was the 

appropriate way to go. 

 So to go ahead and make changes 

based on the contractor's review without 

involving the Board didn't seem to be 

appropriate either. 

 So there is two parts to this. One 

is the tasking issue, and the other is the 

general principle of the way in which the 

contractor's report gets used outside of our 

regular Board process. 

 So that is where we need some 

guidance, because in principle this could 
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arise in other cases if we haven't gotten to a 

site profile, but NIOSH has - or a review 

rather, and NIOSH has said, well, this makes 

sense, let's make a change. So how do we 

proceed? So we want to get some input on 

that. 

 Phil, Jim? Phil, go ahead. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I think maybe on 

some of these much larger sites that we go 

ahead and have them take a preliminary look at 

some of these, just because they are so large 

and so complex that it takes quite awhile 

before we get to the point where we can 

actually sit down both as a work group and as 

a Board and make any real decisions just 

because of the sheer volume of records they 

have to go through in these early stages. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 Jim. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: A couple of points. 

 I guess NIOSH OCAS certainly can take 

technical input from wherever. There may be 
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an article in a journal that changes a dose 

reconstruction method, or there may be some 

other process where they become aware of a 

potential change. I think there is always a 

potential at a site meeting or something where 

they are out doing some outreach that they 

will learn something new that changes a site 

profile or something. I don't find that to be 

problematic at all. 

 But I find it to be very 

problematic that we would have our contractor 

interfacing with NIOSH and making progress on 

trying to resolve issues without any 

involvement of the Board at all. And I think 

it puts us in a very awkward position of 

having to maybe disapprove of something that 

our contractor has recommended. But if you go 

back in time, I've found myself disagreeing 

with our contractor quite regularly on issues, 

and I think other members of the Board have 

also from their perspectives, or certainly 

seriously questioning their conclusions or 
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recommendations on a particular point. 

 So I don't think that is something 

unusual. Now these may be minor technical 

issues. They may be something very 

straightforward. I can't speak to what 

happened there. But I think it's problematic. 

 I think we have gotten into a 

position where our contractor is part of this 

close out process because of the nature of the 

way the contract award has been delayed and 

whatever, been put in the position of trying 

to rush things through the process. And I 

think that is wrong and I don't think they 

should be doing that. I think we need to be 

very careful about that. 

 I also think we've even had 

situations here where the contractor is 

preparing and presenting reports that not even 

the Work Group has seen prior to the meeting, 

and that I think is also inappropriate. They 

should be working under the direction of a 

work group, and work group Chair; and there 
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should be at least some level of control and 

so forth, and we need to ensure that their 

work is independent. 

 And I have been disturbed, and I 

think other members of the Board have spoken 

to me about being disturbed by the sort of the 

encroaching control over our contractor or 

attempts to control our contractor by the 

agency. And I think we have to be very aware 

of that and very careful. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Other comments? 

 Here again let me emphasize that in 

this case that any sort of activity that looks 

like an issue resolution should not go on 

without tasking. As I indicated in this case, 

if NIOSH wished to call John and ask what he 

meant in a couple of sentences, I don't object 

to that. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: Just to clarify, I 

was not objecting to how you handled it. I 

thought that was appropriate in bringing it 

back to the Board and so forth. And again 
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that particular question, if NIOSH sees a 

technical point that they feel they should be 

changing or addressing, that's fine. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And you are quite 

right that NIOSH is free to use whatever 

sources that they see out there that might 

help them modify or change what they are 

doing. 

 It seems to me, let me propose 

something here, and we can react to it, but 

one way to handle this would be that if a case 

arises where NIOSH is looking at a particular 

issue, and they see something that the 

contractor, whether it's SC&A or whoever the 

contractor may be, that they wish to 

incorporate, and if it will require a sitting 

down together to figure out how this works, 

then we need to be involved, and even if there 

is not a work group, we can always set up an 

Ad Hoc Work Group or something to say, yes, 

okay, here is an issue on this site, and we 

need to have Board members present. We will 
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set up an ad hoc group or whatever we have. 

We could do that on short notice if necessary, 

and I think we would have to leave that up to 

NIOSH and the contractor, say, here's 

something dealing with whatever site. Say 

it's Lawrence Livermore, and it's, we need to 

get together and hash out the technical 

details on this. So we can do that. We can 

task on short notice. And I think certainly 

the Board and chair are in a position to do 

that, either the fallboard or the chair in 

between, to appoint a group. 

 But I'd like to get input in some 

direction from the Board as to how we proceed, 

so that we make sure that we don't have the 

situation - that is awkward for all parties if 

we are out of the loop. 

 So any other input or suggestions, 

or if there is a better way to do it I'm open 

to hearing that. I always like my own ideas, 

but I'm old enough to recognize that there are 

two or three people in the world that have 
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better ideas than I do. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: I understand the 

need for this and so forth, but one of the 

things I want to make sure, especially as 

working chair of some of these groups, that 

they especially the member of - the chair of 

the working group is involved in it, not just 

a member of the Board or whatever like that. 

Somebody from the working group or whatever. 

Because a lot of these conference calls and so 

forth and fact findings or whatever you want 

to call them bring us some very important 

information. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, here we are 

talking about cases where there is not a work 

group. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: If there is a work 

group there is not a problem. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right, okay. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: If the Work Group 

gets involved. Here we have Lawrence 
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Livermore. We don't have a work group. We 

have a NIOSH report. We have an SC&A review. 

 NIOSH has looked at the review. They see 

something, they have said that's a good idea, 

let's modify our report. We don't have a work 

group. That is the situation. 

 Wanda. 

 MEMBER MUNN: There are some 

similarities in this dilemma to the issues 

that we discussed several years ago with 

respect to when our contractor could 

appropriately represent what was transpiring 

on the Board, for example, before 

congressional members. And they were neither a 

member of the Board nor were they the 

originators of the documents in question 

sometimes. 

 But when we don't have a work 

group, an obvious path through which a Board 

connection can be made, if we don't notify the 

Board that this is transpiring, and at least 

provide an opportunity of a week's time for 
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input of some sort, then it seems that we 

would be getting outside the realm of the 

structure as we - or at least as I perceived 

it at the time that we set up our association 

with our contractor. 

 Is there any problem with just 

simply asking both the contractor and the 

agency to see that situations of this sort are 

brought to our attention by electronic means 

and we have an opportunity to respond. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: That is not a problem 

at all, and that can be part of a policy, and 

actually was done in this case. The question 

for the chair is, how would you like us to 

handle that? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Is this appropriate? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, if the Board 

wishes to sort of develop a policy, and we 

don't have to do it sitting here. But I want 

you to be thinking about it. We could even 

come back tomorrow and adopt something, or you 

can instruct me to do certain things when such 
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a situation occurs. 

 But we want to make sure - and I 

think both NIOSH and the contractor wish to 

make sure that everybody is in the loop and 

nothing is happening that we are not aware of. 

 And Joe, you have a sage comment on 

this? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, just a little 

more context. I've been working on this 

Livermore issue, I think, now that I've heard 

a little bit more, it's the issue I've been 

working on. And quite frankly, this was a 

data capture strategy that NIOSH was 

developing for a revisit to revamp the site 

profile. 

 We weren't getting into any issues 

in terms of recommendations from the site 

profile. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: In other words how to 

capture data? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it was more 

of a case of for efficiency's sake we covered 
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references. We went to classified databases 

that the authors of the very first site 

profile that NIOSH had done four or five years 

ago had not. So the obvious question when you 

are going back was, looking at the delta, is 

there any facilitation that we could give them 

as to who we had gone to, points of contact, 

and what databases per se that were missed in 

the first review that they would then want to 

take advantage of in this next round of 

review. 

 So I consider that facilitation; 

pointing them to the right people, identifying 

the databases more clearly. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So it wasn't a change 

in their documents? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: No, it wasn't a 

policy exchange at all. It was a facilitation 

on a data capture. Now the reason I think we 

wanted to come to you and Ted was simply 

because it turned out, these data capture 

strategy plans get pretty detailed and 
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complex, and once you get beyond the first 

hour or two of facilitation, you start 

questioning, well, this is a fairly big job, 

we just want to make sure that somebody was 

aware, that the Board was aware, that we are 

working on this, and it's not simply we are 

doing on our own time and doing it off the 

premises, that this facilitation is happening. 

 So I just wanted to make sure that 

there was somebody besides just me and John 

aware of the fact that we were providing this 

kind of support. But it wasn't in the policy 

context, it was on the facilitation context. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Well, it's billable 

hours anyway. Right? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: No, we don't have 

an authorization from the Board to work on 

Livermore. The Livermore site profile was 

completed. 

 MEMBER MUNN: That's really the 

issue here. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, helping out 
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is fine in a certain context of time. But 

once the time gets lengthier, then I think 

there is more of a concern that at least we 

alert - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Right. 

 Jim? Then Ted. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: In that case, isn't 

it appropriate to be able to encompass that 

kind of assistance into one of the tasks. I 

don't remember the tasks well enough that are 

part of the contract to be able to - if it is 

adding up to many hours of facilitation, then 

it should, and there should be some 

appropriate control from NIOSH and the Board 

on authorizing that. But it would be more of 

a generic issue, wouldn't it, Paul? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I think you are 

right. My concern here would be, if this is a 

one-time thing, it's kind of a no, never mind. 

 But if it's a facilitate here, facilitate 

there, pretty soon you are adding up hours, 

and so is there then a separate task - a 
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facilitation task to which we assign a budget. 

 You can spend up to a certain amount each 

year facilitating things of this nature, which 

may not have to do with modifying a report per 

se, I mean, it may lead to that. But if it's 

to the extent that our contractor is helping 

get the job done, and in a sense is helping us 

by doing that, and helping NIOSH. We do have 

management money, but I think that's a little 

different than this. This is - this looks a 

little different from other things that we 

have done, doesn't it? John, how does it look 

to you? 

 DR. MAURO: The ground rules that I 

have been using from the very beginning is, 

once we deliver our report, a site profile 

review, we do not bill any more time until the 

Work Group has started and we are authorized 

to do more work. 

 Now given that, what could happen 

that would put us in a position to jeopardize 

that situation? One, we get a phone call 
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from a representative who wants clarification 

on Pinellas. Explain to me what this OTIP-66 

is? I answered that question over the phone. 

 A perfect example here, let's say 

we are talking about the situation that Joe 

just described. Another situation would be 

documents. We have an obligation to make sure 

that every document that we use in our report 

we share with NIOSH. So if we get a call from 

NIOSH, listen, I see you've cited this, this, 

this, this document, we have an obligation to 

make sure that that is available to everyone, 

so we'll do that. 

 So there are some what I would 

consider to be very modest levels of effort 

which are on the order of an hour or two that 

very often we encounter, and I do that. I 

take care of it, and I'll bill that hour. 

Even though that sort of breaks one of my - I 

like to put a freeze, because I'll tell you 

what I do. I like to track how much does it 

cost us to put the product out, and then from 
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then on, from that date, the date on that 

report, from then on every hour that is billed 

and every dollar that is billed goes toward 

what I call close out, so that I could always 

report back to you how much did it cost to 

produce the Pinellas report, how much did it 

cost to support the close out of Pinellas. 

And I could give you those numbers for every 

one of these sites. 

 The way I see it is that this 

little what I call follow on support to 

whoever it might be is very very modest, and 

my general rule of thumb, if it takes an hour 

or two, that's okay. And that's how I've been 

running the program. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: If you are talking 

about an hour or two here or there doing 

things such as you describe, which is 

providing reports, or even what Joe described, 

sharing your strategy for - or the points of 

contact or whatever it might be, you can 

easily bill that against the close out 
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process, or we can identify it separately, 

either way. But if it's very modest it's 

probably not worth tasking separately. 

 DR. MAURO: That's what we've been 

doing, yes. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: But if in somebody's 

judgment you are getting - if the thing that 

Joe is describing now gets very extensive and 

I don't know, Joe - is he still here? But if 

you end up having to spend a lot of time 

facilitating this, and I don't know what might 

occur. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: It's a subjective 

thing. I think it's very profitable for us to 

help with the data capture on a site we've 

been at in terms of the feedback we can 

provide. I think that is a very profitable 

time. After a couple of hours, you get to the 

point where you just want to make sure that, 

you know, that you are aware that we are 

involved in this. 

 And of course the other issue that 
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you raised, which is, if this is something 

that would be continuing over time, then 

perhaps that is something we need to 

benchmark, because it may take more time. 

Some sites will be more complicated. And I 

think this was a recognition that as perhaps 

these sites are revisited, this might be a 

continuing role, and therefore we ought to 

flag it as something that the Board should be 

aware of. 

 So this was mostly a heads up. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: This may be a case 

where it is not broken yet. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I really don't 

think so. 

 DR. MAURO: If you have a task they 

can bill it on. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, it sounds like 

it's sufficiently modest that it - unless it 

reaches a point where in your judgment it is 

becoming a significant effort. 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I just want 
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to make sure - we have had instances where the 

Board will say, what are you doing that for? 

How come we don't know about it? Well, in 

this case we are alerting you that, yes, we 

are working with NIOSH and looking at the data 

capture plan for Livermore and providing 

feedback and spending time doing that. 

 So it was more of a heads up, to 

make sure you were aware of that, and it 

wouldn't come across as a surprise later on 

that we were doing that. But it's not 

crossing over into the issues or policy area, 

which I think is what I heard earlier, which 

is not the case. 

 MR. KATZ: I just wish you'd use a 

term other than profitable. 

 (Laughter.) 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Ted, Wanda, Mike. 

 MR. KATZ: I mean just for the 

record, though, this wasn't made clear to me. 

 So I guess, John, you and I need better 

communication. Because this was not my 
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understanding, the characterization that I 

received of what was the work that needed to 

be done. 

 DR. MAURO: When I called, I 

realized that we were moving into a mode that 

we hadn't been into before, where one of our 

folks might be spending several hours, maybe 

more, helping out in this capacity, which 

would be - and I said, let me alert you to 

this. It's the first time this came up where 

there was a possibility that this could 

continue for awhile, and that's the reason I 

called. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, but you explained 

that they were going to be making improvements 

to the site profile based on the 

recommendations you made. I mean that was 

very clearly the characterization. So I did 

think we were in a mode of making changes 

based on your recommendations. That's how I 

understood that. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, by the time it 
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got to me, the changes were pretty far along. 

 Okay, that's very helpful. It's 

much more clear. 

 Wanda, do you have some additional 

advice? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I don't know if 

it's advice. I'm just mulling over here the 

fact that we came a long way from the original 

question that was posed. But as long as that 

question has been posed, it seems reasonable 

that we should address it at some juncture, 

whether now or in the future. It's a 

reasonable possibility that might exist with 

respect to future interactions, especially 

once any process has been initiated of 

contact, especially contact points. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I think the parties 

involved are sufficiently sensitive to that 

that if it reaches that, they certainly have 

been good about alerting us, even in this case 

where the threshold actually was pretty low 

and they still let us know, even though it got 
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misunderstood a little bit. 

 DR. MAURO: I perhaps communicate 

too much. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It's not possible, 

John. 

 DR. MAURO: I have become very 

sensitive to the fact that it is very 

important for me not to move forward with 

anything unless - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Right, and we 

appreciate that, so thank you. 

 Michael, additional comment. 

 MEMBER GIBSON: there is nothing 

wrong with efficiency with the agency and the 

contractor trying to work together. But even 

on data capture it seems - you know, NIOSH 

goes out and takes a look at the puzzle, and 

then we want our contractors to take a second 

look at that puzzle, to see where someone 

might have missed something. And that's how 

we get to this resolution process. 

 So it's also - it looks like there 
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could be a way that there may not be 

necessarily two complete different views when 

you share this kind of information. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Right, but we do as a 

practice want to share all the data sources, 

have all the folks have access to the - as 

much of the information as they are able. 

 MEMBER GIBSON: But after the fact. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, good point. 

 Okay, other comments? 

 Well, it appears to the chair that 

we don't need a specific policy at this point, 

but we are sensitive to the issue. The 

contractor is, NIOSH is, and it appears that 

we have a way to deal with it at the moment. 

So thank you very much. 

 Next we have Procedures Work Group. 

 Let's see how we are in time here? We're 

good. 

PROCEDURES WORK GROUP 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Procedures Work 

Group. Wanda, you have a couple of items. 
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One has to do with the CATI interview issues, 

and there was another - oh I think it was the 

- wasn't there another one that involved your 

work group? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, there is. There 

are a couple of things that we need to report 

on. The question is, do you want - from my 

perspective, would you like me to give the 

Procedures Work Group report now and then we 

can discuss the CATI and the other items with 

respect to how our tracking system is going? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: You might as well do 

the whole thing. 

 MEMBER MUNN: If we have the time to 

do that. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: How long do you need 

- you are going to also discuss the issue that 

Dr. Melius raised? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, if possible. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, let's do that. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Let's see if we can do 

that, and we will try to move through it 
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quickly and efficiently - give you a little - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, I guess 

somebody doesn't think you can move through it 

quickly. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It's Christmas time. 

The Procedures Work Group met in Cincinnati on 

the 9th of this month. And for the first time 

approached our data tracking base in a fully 

digital manner. Of course this database has 

been worked on for a number of months, and the 

contractor has done a beautiful job in 

cooperating with NIOSH to get this up and 

running. 

 And from our perspective as a work 

group it's working very well. We did go 

through this fully paperless this time. No 

one touched a single tree. And we were able 

to move through the items. We limited 

ourselves to what we call the third dataset, 

based on grouping - the last group that we had 

tasked our contractor with doing, and were 

able to close quite a few at the time that we 
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were there. 

 We also started our day by 

discussing the new proposed CATI questions 

that we had all received by email a week or so 

prior to the meeting. There were as you all 

know two segments to that, one set of 

questions for the employee himself or herself, 

and the other one for survivors. 

 We had a fairly brisk discussion in 

the Work Group with respect to whether the 

questions, especially the questions on the 

survivor questionnaire were appropriate or 

even useful; whether they were in fact 

providing the kind of information that we were 

attempting to get to. 

 Having had such a significant 

amount of feedback from survivor petitioners 

with respect to their concerns over these 

questions when they have them, the sort of 

mistaken feelings that they were sort of being 

tested, and that they did not have the proper 

responses; that they were somehow going to 
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negatively affect their claims. 

 We looked at them fairly closely. 

I don't think there is any way that you can 

report in a concentrated form on the real 

essence of any conclusion that we reached, 

except that we did understand clearly that the 

individuals who do these questions try to 

reassure the claimants at the time that they 

are carrying out the questionnaire so that the 

claimant will not be unduly concerned that 

lack of information on their part creates a 

negative atmosphere for their claim. 

 But the letter itself still has - 

although it contains the appropriate 

information from I believe the viewpoint of 

most of the Work Group members, it may have 

too official a tone. This was a finding which 

one of our previous work groups came to with 

respect to closing letters that went out to 

claimants; the information was there, but the 

tone was not perhaps what we wanted to 

achieve. 
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 So we wanted to bring this back to 

the Board. We took no real action on it, 

because it was very clear from our discussions 

that it was likely almost all members of the 

Board feel strongly about this. 

 It was our suggestion that we plan 

to meet toward the end of January again; as a 

matter of fact we established a date of 

January 28th in Cincinnati. Prior to that time 

we would ask that each Board member review 

that letter and the two questionnaires very 

carefully, and provide Ted Katz and me with 

any comment that you have, any suggested 

wording that you have. We would like to try 

to, at our next meeting, blend the concerns 

that are expressed into a cogent response, 

which we could bring to you at the Albuquerque 

meeting as a potential for comment. 

 If anyone has any suggestion as to 

a move effective way to try to achieve some 

sort of consensus on the Board with what our 

response should be in terms of comment period, 
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we are certainly open to that. 

 Yes? 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: I just think in 

terms of the comments, the other things that 

we were talking about on the procedures call 

is maybe when you go through these 

questionnaires and the letter, that you 

differentiate your comments on the 

questionnaire itself versus the process. 

Because I think we were finding issues with 

both parts, and wanted to kind of keep them 

separate. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And let me ask for 

clarity. My recollection is that, is it only 

the questions that the OMB has to approve and 

not the letter itself? Was that not the case? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Is this on? Now it's 

on. That is correct, the OMB will review the 

survey instruments and approve those. What 

you have before you is a cover letter that 

Wanda has mentioned that goes to the claimant 

introducing the questionnaire to the claimant, 
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giving them an advanced understanding of what 

is going to be asked of them so they can 

prepare for the interview process. 

 And we ask as Mark has clearly 

identified during the discussion to if 

possible segregate your comments to that of 

the process versus that of the questions that 

are posed. Because we will need to consider 

and react to both sets of types of comments, 

but the ones that the OMB will be interested 

in knowing how we - what kind of comment we 

got on the questions. We wanted to forward 

those and show how we reacted. 

 Let me also take this opportunity 

to say that in the working group discussion I 

noted for the working group that we had put 

forward these two revised survey instruments, 

based upon input that we viewed in the SC&A 

review of procedure 90, is it? Well, whatever 

the interview process procedure number is; I'm 

lost on that right now. But also input from 

the folks who actually do the interviews, and 
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input from the general public during public 

comment period. We heard loud and clear 

concerns and frustration and burden that these 

questions were bringing. 

 In that light I proposed that there 

might be another option, rather than this set 

of questions being posed, we might go at a 

questionnaire designed specifically to confirm 

the information that we already have in the 

claimant file; that is necessary, that is 

appropriate for us to do. But as I said it's 

a small short number set of questions that 

would go just to confirming the information at 

hand with the person. And also - we are 

proposing that this will be done when we 

change contract award situation here, that we 

will start awaiting the - for DOE claims we 

would await the arrival of the DOE dose 

information before we sat down with the 

claimant to do the interview process, so we 

could cover that with the claimant, address 

whatever concerns they might have about it not 
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containing everything they think it should 

have, and then there could be another set of 

questions designed specifically for energy 

employees, plus a separate design set for 

survivors that get at information the health 

physicists feel is essential to doing a dose 

reconstruction. 

 And so that might take on a 

different look than the two examples you have 

before you that are revised questionnaires 

based on input. I remind you all - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: But that would be 

down the road, Larry, is that right? Or is 

that in this one? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We are working on this 

option right now, and if we get a request 

through the Federal Register notice, it's my 

intent that we would provide an example of the 

two that you have got, and this third example, 

so when we come up with this third example, we 

are going to share it with the Board as well 

so you can see what it looks like. 
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 CHAIR ZIEMER: Will that change the 

reply time in the Federal Register? Or would 

there be a new separate - 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it doesn't change 

the reply time. We have folks working on this 

option that I'm talking about now. Remember 

at the working group meeting I mentioned that 

I was awaiting some consensus comments from 

health physicists that would be factored into 

this option. 

 And so the time won't change, and 

as I committed to the working group, your 

comments come in after the suspense date of 

the public comment period, they will still 

consider the Board consensus comments as we 

move forward to revise these documents. 

 And we'd account for that in the 

OMB package that we would send up. 

 But I would remind you that the 

review of Procedure 90 and the fact that we 

have used this same set of questions for 

almost 25,000 cases, probably around 35 to 
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40,000 claimant interviews. And we are asking 

ourselves what do we really need. And we are 

forced with this OMB requirement to speak 

about the burden, and you will see that 

mentioned in the Federal Register notice, what 

we estimate to be the burden hours based on 

the two documents that you have before you. 

And I've got to believe that there is a better 

type of questionnaire that will put less 

burden and less frustration before the 

claimants. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Now what do the Board members have? 

 Do all the Board members have the document 

that we saw? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, all the Board 

members have the cover letter and the EE and 

SV questionnaires. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So not only the Work 

Group but everybody else has the document. 

 MEMBER MUNN: That is correct. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And your proposal, 
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Wanda, is basically that Board members prepare 

their comments and provide them to you so the 

Work Group can develop from that a 

recommendation to bring back to the full Board 

at its next meeting; is that correct? 

 MEMBER MUNN: That is correct. We 

are asking that those comments be gotten to 

us. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And in that you are 

basically asking the Board, is that how you 

would like to proceed? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly. And if that 

is the way the Board would like to proceed 

then our timeline is very clear. We need your 

input in the next couple of weeks. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: You will meet in 

January? 

 MEMBER MUNN: We would need your 

input in a couple of weeks so that we could 

prepare something in the Work Group. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Right, and then 

develop a recommendation for the February 
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meeting, at which time the full Board could 

hopefully approve something. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Either approve or 

further deliberate what we bring to you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Comments or questions 

on that? Is that agreeable as a way to 

proceed? Mark. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: Just a question, if 

Larry knows when this third option might be 

available and when we might see this. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I am giving my 

personal thoughts here. The third option may 

not even be a viable option once we look at it 

and see it. But if it comes out as I think it 

may, it's very soon. It's got to be soon, 

because the Federal Register notice went out 

what last Thursday, is that right? 

 MEMBER MUNN: That's about right. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And the individuals 

have to contact you to get the - 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Right. So if you as 

an individual citizen want to comment in the 
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public comment period, you send in a request 

to see -- 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: You have to be able 

to provide this. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I have to have this 

ready very soon. Because if we get a call for 

what these exhibits are tomorrow, we have to 

respond. We are trying to put this option 

together. 

 MEMBER GRIFFON: And again can you 

describe this third option a little bit? 

It's got to be a questionnaire that says, you 

know, check off what records we have, and does 

that agree with your memory of where you 

worked? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The third option as I 

tried to explain it before, my concept of this 

other option is that we take the time to 

confirm what information we have. So that is 

a short list of questions, the critical 

issues. We have your name, your date of 

diagnosis, your work history, this is where 
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you worked. That would be - if you look at it 

in three segments, that is the first segment. 

 The second segment would be for a 

DOE worker to say, we've received your dose 

information, and we show that you have been 

badged these years. You didn't get a badge 

this year. You didn't have a whole body 

count. You did provide urine for bioassay on 

these timeframes. Is that to your knowledge 

anything different than that? A brief 

question in that regard. 

 The third segment would be those 

questions that the health physicists who do 

dose reconstructions feel are questions that 

would help them understand best how to 

reconstruct that dose. And I don't know what 

those are yet. So I'm waiting to see what 

those are, because they may be no different 

than the questions we currently have, and 

maybe a shorter version. But that is where we 

are trying to go. We are trying to lessen the 

burden in this third option, and hopefully in 
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the two that you had before that we want to 

lessen the burden. But we also want to lessen 

the frustration, so that also goes to this 

process aspect of how to administer the 

questionnaires. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Josie. 

 MEMBER BEACH: That third option 

could be a case by case basis, too. So that 

sounds like it could be somewhat cumbersome 

depending on the claimant. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I'm not 

proposing that it be a site-specific kind of 

questionnaire. The questionnaires have to be 

standard in the format of questions that are 

used. And so it goes - the front part, the 

first segment is probably individual specific, 

yes. But the questions that come out of that 

are simple. Do we have everything? Is 

everything correct? That is the question. 

 So that is the question we can ask. 

 It's a little burden, but it is important to 

verify that we have this information correct. 
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 MEMBER BEACH: Right, and I wasn't 

thinking of the first two sections you 

described. I was thinking of the third one, 

and maybe I got carried away on my thinking. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You know, I've got a 

problem right now with the two examples that 

you have before you, and the way we have been 

using the current questionnaire recently in 

time. And that problem is that we already 

know the question - we already know the answer 

to many of those questions. So why are we 

asking the question? You burden the claimant 

when you ask a question and you already know 

the answer. And you raise their expectation, 

and by that you raise their frustration level 

when you don't do anything that they think you 

ought to have done with that answer that 

they've given you. 

 So we are coming at it with a very 

hard critical look at what we need in a 

questionnaire approach in the CATI interview. 

 So hopefully we come out of this with less 
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burden and less frustration on the claimants. 

 That's what we want, but we also want to gain 

information that will help do the dose 

reconstruction. So it's a difficult balancing 

act. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. Other 

comments? Dr. Melius. 

 MEMBER MELIUS: I asked a question 

yesterday whether this - our comments would 

become part of the docket for this. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know if you 

are going to take my word on this, or if you 

want the lawyers to come up and parrot me 

after this. But again it is not a regulatory 

docket. It is NIOSH's docket, and I believe 

that I have the ability to insert information 

into that docket post the comment period. If 

it was a regulatory docket, I am very well 

aware that I cannot do that. 

 So if you don't believe me and you 

want the lawyers to come up and say that, I 

guess we can have them do that. 
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 MEMBER MELIUS: You say that with 

more certainty than you did yesterday. I will 

also trust you that should the lawyers tell 

you otherwise you'll let us know. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Any further comments? 

 Can I take it by consent, Board members, that 

we will proceed as described and get our 

comments to Ms. Munn so that the Work Group 

can develop a document for us to look at? Any 

objections? 

 MEMBER MUNN: I will send you all an 

email reminding you of what the anticipation 

is, and so that you will have some specific 

dates in front of you where you can work 

toward those dates hopefully in getting the 

information back to us and repeating our 

expectation. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. You have 

one other issue now you wanted to talk about. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Actually I wanted to 

touch on one other thing that we had done 
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during the procedures review process. We had 

an opportunity for the first time to see 

SC&A's review of OTIP-066, which is a crosscutting procedure regarding the calculation of 

dose rate of tritides. And we are pleased to 

see they had two observations and four 

findings. Unfortunately, the timing is such 

that NIOSH had not had an opportunity to 

really take a look at that at all. So that is 

on our fast track list for requests that NIOSH 

take a look at that as soon as possible, and 

we are hoping that we will have some feedback 

from NIOSH regarding those four findings when 

we meet again. 

 As I said, we've gone through the 

entire third set which dated back to October 

29, 2007. And at this point as John Morrow 

had indicated yesterday in his report, we are 

approximately halfway through the existing 

outstanding findings that we have before us. 

 Now yesterday when we were in other 

discussions, regarding Savannah River I 
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believe, I had made a comment relative to 

OTIB-0052, and how we were progressing through 

that, and Jim had asked that I illuminate you 

further with regard to where we are. 

 I had thought this might be an 

opportunity to have you all familiarize 

yourself with the portion of the O-drive data 

that we utilize all the time in the procedures 

activities, because of course the purpose in 

having this database established the way it 

is, is for all of you to be able to follow 

where we are with any one of these procedures. 

 Are all of you here capable of - I 

guess Mike may not be right now - but can all 

of you bring up the O drive on your computer 

today? If you can, perhaps we can use OTIB0052 as a very quick lesson in how we move 

through these in the Procedures Work Group and 

get a little familiarity under your belt with 

how to get to information that you might like 

to have in that regard, if you would like to 

take a few minutes to do that, I'd be 
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delighted to do so. And I think Steve 

Marschke who usually does this for us in work 

group and Stu who - Stu Hinnefeld who handles 

the NIOSH side of input and upkeep for this 

particular database is quite willing to throw 

some of the information up on the Board so 

that you can see how we do it if you want to 

do that. 

 Would you like to do so? Take just 

five minutes or 10 minutes here to take a look 

at how we do the procedures things. 

 Stu has I think some reservations 

as to how well this is going to go, because 

apparently things are slow on the net right 

now. But let's see if we can bring it up. For 

those of you who are going to try to follow if 

you can bring up the O drive on your computer 

and let me know when you are ready. 

 Okay if you have the O drive up 

then you will see the shortcut folder there to 

the procedures, right? Click on that folder. 

 And wait for a few minutes. 
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 MEMBER CLAWSON: Which shortcut? 

There are several shortcuts. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It should say shortcut 

to database. Procedures Database. No? Let 

me go back and see. I'll start from square 

one here, and see if I can follow with you. 

 Now the first thing you need to 

know about this database when you are working 

with it is that we have deliberately arranged 

it alphabetically so that all you need to know 

is the number of the procedure or the document 

that you are looking for, and you can just run 

down - if you notice the finding date, the 

next thing you see is the title of the - the 

number of the document, and by looking just at 

the title of the document alone, and to the 

column next to it, you can tell how many 

findings we have on that particular OTIB-0050, 

and on the third column you will see dash one, 

dash two, dash three, dash four, that tells 

you without going any further that on that 

particular procedure you have four different 
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findings, and you can see in the far righthand column what the specific status of each 

one of those findings is going to be. 

 Now when we did our work this time, 

you noticed above the - you see the boxes 

above the data, the second one from the left, 

says filter slash sort. What we did when we 

were working on this group of three, since we 

knew that the date was crucial for identifying 

them, we sorted - if you click filter sort, 

then it will show you three different ways 

that you sort. We sorted first by date, then 

second by procedure number, and third by 

finding. 

 And then we only looked at open, in 

progress and abeyance. You see where it says, 

filter on? We took all of those check marks 

out except for open, and in progress and 

abeyance. 

 And then we clicked on filter on, 

but I'm not asking you to do that, because 

that is not the way we want to handle what I'm 
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trying to tell you to do here. I just wanted 

you to see how we filtered so that we could 

bring up only the information that we wanted 

to see. 

 Now if you go back now to what Stu 

is showing you on the big screen. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Wanda, I'm not 

showing them anything useful, because this is 

not working. I'm going to have to restart 

this. You guys keep working on the phones. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Okay, those of you who 

have this up on your screen, on the far right 

of your dataset is the move-me-down block, so 

that as you put your cursor on that block and 

move it down, you are moving through the OTIBs 

for example by number and if you go down to 

OTIB-0052, are we following okay, are you 

getting there, you have OTIB-0052 up? 

 MEMBER BEACH: We have several. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Right, so you look in 

the third column and you will see how many 

OTIB-0052 findings we have. 52, one, two, 
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three, four, five six, notice it goes all the 

way down to 16 before it changes to the next 

number. 

 Now looking at those 16 original 

findings, starting at one, you can go over to 

the far right and you can see what the status 

of it is. If we want to go to the detail of 

this we can find that we already know it is 

going to be addressed in some other finding. 

 Now just above the database itself 

you see the three tabs on the far left in 

gray: summary, details and procedures. If you 

put your cursor first on 52, and then click on 

details, it will bring up for you the 

information on that first finding of OTIB0052. It will show you that it's addressed in 

findings, in another finding, and it will give 

you by date on the left what has transpired. 

It shows what the finding is, and then it 

shows you what the initial response was from 

NIOSH on 8/23/2007, and then as you go down 

those - that form you will see that on the 29th
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of August NIOSH and SC&A discussion, you can 

see an abbreviation of what was said, what was 

decided. And then on the 6th an SC&A follow 

up. If you want to see what that says, the 

status of this issue is going to be changed. 

Addressed in finding #16. So the status of 

this now is addressed in the finding. That is 

the next one down. 

 Down at the bottom you will see 

next issue. If you want to click on the next 

issue, then what comes up is finding #2 and 

#3. They are both closed. You see what the 

original finding was, what the NIOSH response 

was initially, what the discussion was later, 

and the follow up is that SC&A agrees with the 

NIOSH initial response. This issue is closed. 

 And the date that it was done. 

 If you go to the next issue, and 

you find item #3. It's closed. You can click 

right on next issue, next issue, next issue, 

and go all the way down through all 16 of 

those issues. 
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 When you are finished looking at 

the detail, then put your cursor back up on 

the summary. Statement on the far left of the 

top of the database. Click on summary again 

and you are back on the summary sheet. 

 Was everybody able to follow that 

reasonably well? It is a little cumbersome 

the first few times you use it. But once you 

have become familiar with it, it really and 

truly is a marvel of complex information one 

step at a time. So that anytime you have any 

question with respect to where we are on any 

one of the procedures that we have given to 

SC&A to comment upon, you can see what is 

there. You can through the filter and sort 

potential; you can identify how many open 

items are there; how many are in progress; how 

many are closed. It will bring that up for 

you very easily. 

 Have I puzzled anyone? If you have 

any questions with respect to this please 

don't hesitate to address them to the Work 
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Group. I'm sure Stu would be glad to answer 

your questions. Steve Marschke is glad to 

answer your questions with respect to how to 

handle this database. 

 So once you know how to get into 

it, it can be a very helpful tool. If you 

have any comments on it please let me know, 

and were you able to follow any of that Jim? 

No, I'm sorry about that. 

 Any other questions or comments 

with respect to the Database? 

 If not then - 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Just very quickly, on 

OTIB-0052 then, somehow my formatting is on 

black in here, how many of the 16 findings are 

closed now on OTIB-0052? 

 MEMBER MUNN: One, two, three, four, 

five, six - I count six closed. I count two 

of them have been transferred which to all 

intents and purposes - no only one has been 

transferred. It essentially closes it for 

this particular procedure. There are one, 
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two, three, four, five, six that are in 

progress, which means they are currently 

actively being pursued. And there are - there 

is one which is in abeyance, which means the 

action has been agreed to by both the 

contractor and by the agency, but the action 

has not yet been completed, and for that 

reason it is still considered open, because 

the closing action has not transpired. But 

it's been agreed to. 

 Any other question? If not, then 

that concludes all I have to say with respect 

to procedures unless someone has some other 

issue they'd like to bring up. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: The only other 

comment at this point that I would make, and I 

think Ted, you may have suggested this as 

well, that on some of the procedures which may 

have unusually significant impact on what this 

Board does, you may want to bring them forward 

separately for closure action rather than 

aside from the whole set of all the - I forget 
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how many procedures, but it's over 100 - 

around 100. But if there are particular 

procedures that we feel the Board may want to 

look at separately, and you would have to 

identify what those are. Is OTIB-0052 one of 

those, or if there are any high impact 

procedures, or in some cases for example, if 

it's a procedure that has particular 

significance for a particular site. Now in 

the case of Appendix BB we've moved that out 

so it's being looked at separately. But I'm 

just thinking in general terms if there are 

some that the Work Group identifies as needing 

special attention, why you might want to 

generate a separate recommendation on those. 

 MEMBER MUNN: We can certainly do 

that, and be glad to in the future try to make 

note of those and make sure that at the very 

least they are mentioned specifically. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, I think the Work 

Group could do this as they proceed and say 

this procedure is more than a minor 
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administrative detail. It has high impact or 

needs some visibility. 

 MEMBER MUNN: We do have several of 

those. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And try do to that as 

we proceed. 

 MEMBER MUNN: We do have several. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So it doesn't get 

lost in the details of you know coming to the 

Board saying here are 100 procedures that we 

are recommending be closed out, it would be a 

little like the dose reconstruction group 

coming with 100 dose reconstructions and 

asking us to approve them all at once, and 

that would be difficult. 

 MEMBER MUNN: We will try to make 

sure that those things are brought to your 

attention. 

 And Stu, thank you very much for 

getting that up on the screen for us. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm just waiting for 

the electrons to get in the right place. My 
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computer is shut down. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Well, we appreciate 

it. Thank you very much. I know it's tough 

when the process is slow, but I thought it was 

helpful to have them on the screen for people 

who might not be able to follow on their 

computer setup. 

 Thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 We had some space reserved for SEC 

discussions, and I'm trying to remember 

whether or not that was reserved for 

discussing further details on those petitions 

that we've acted on. Ted? Right. 

 Now we also have a 4:00 o'clock 

adjournment time, because we are going to 

reconvene a little later this evening. We do 

have some work time, mainly work time, 

tomorrow morning, so since we do need to have 

a break and then time for people to have 

dinner, that is, if your cookies and brownies 

are all digested by now, then perhaps we will 
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go ahead and recess for this afternoon, and 

then reconvene at 7:30 for the public comment 

period. 

 Let me ask if there are any 

additional housekeeping items we need to take 

care of. 

 Apparently not. Board members, any 

other issues right now? I'm sorry, is 

somebody on the line. 

 So we will reconvene at 7:30 for 

the public comment period. 7:30 for public 

comment, Eastern Standard Time. 

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off 

the record at 4:00 p.m. and 

 resumed at 7:30 p.m.) 
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PUBLIC COMMENT 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Good evening, 

everyone, and welcome to the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health. 

 We have a number of individuals who 

wish to make public comment this evening, many 

of whom are not speaking in relation to the 

local facility, but who agreed to wait until 

tonight so that the Savannah River folks who 

were here yesterday would have an opportunity 

to speak. 

 And I also want to make sure that 

there are several folks online, or on the 

telephone lines, who we've also agreed would 

be able to address the group. 

 Let me first see - I want to see if 

one of our Board members is online. Gen 

Roessler? She may not be, because her 

[Identifying information], and she may have 

had to leave for that. 

 Terrie Barrie, are you on the line 

this evening? 
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 Okay, John Funk, are you on the 

line? 

 MR. FUNK: Yes, sir. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, standby. 

 And Dan McKeel, are you on the 

line? 

 MR. McKEEL: Yes, sir. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan. 

 Again, Terrie Barrie, are you with 

us yet? 

 (Pause.) 

 Okay, we'll check back on that. 

 So let me begin then this evening - 

 MS. BARRIE: Dr. Ziemer? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie Barrie. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Good, I was just 

checking to see if you were there. Thank you. 

 And we will get to you and a couple of others 

on the line in just a little bit, so please 

bear with us. 

 Before we have the actual comments 
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from the members of the public who are 

assembled here our Designated Federal 

Official, Ted Katz, will remind us of the 

redaction rules and related matters. 

 MR. KATZ: Right. Welcome, 

everybody, and I'll try to be quick about 

this, since I think everyone here has probably 

heard this. But as a requirement we have to 

repeat this before each public comment 

session. 

 So there is a verbatim transcript 

being made of this session. If you give 

comments, you have the option of not giving 

your name, although I think all the 

commentators listed at least want to be 

identified, so that is okay. But if you don't 

want to you can come up to the mike and speak 

without giving your name. 

 If you do give your name it will 

show up in the transcript. If you give 

personal information about yourself, such as 

medical information even, that ordinarily will 
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also show up in the transcript. If you give 

information however about a third party, that 

information will be redacted; it will be 

removed from the transcript. It will not show 

up in the transcript. 

 And last but not least if there was 

someone here who wanted to address the Board 

in private, you could speak to me and we could 

try to arrange something like that. 

 Otherwise just to note this policy 

in all its legal language is laid out where 

you registered to speak here, and it's also on 

the NIOSH website with the agenda for this 

evening. 

 Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And those of you who 

are here in the assembly, I will call you in 

the order that you signed up. And since I 

have to call you by name, your name will 

appear in the record unless I learn very 

quickly from you that you do not wish to be so 

identified. 
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 But I will proceed with the list as 

I have it. First we will hear from Denise 

DeGarmo, and Denise will be addressing us in 

relation to the Dow Madison facility I 

believe. 

 Denise, thank you. And Denise also 

has a handout. Board members, I think you 

should have all received it now. And Denise 

will also supplement her remarks with some 

slides here. And I believe those are ready to 

go as well. 

 Thank you. 

 MS. DeGARMO: Thank you very much 

for allowing me to speak in front of you. As 

a courtesy to the Board I wanted to inform you 

of some activities that I have taken on behalf 

of Dow Madison. And in October of 2008 I 

turned over new research materials to the 

Department of Energy, to NIOSH and the 

Department of Labor, and requested extension 

of the covered period for Dow Madison to 

include the years 1954 to extend to the year 
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1972. 

 As you know we have several primary 

documents that establish Dow as an AWE site. 

Those include the January 4th, 1956 agreement 

between Mallinckrodt Chemical Works and Dow 

Chemical Company for experimental extrusion 

work. 

 On the record we also have a FUSRAP 

document entitled, designation summary for the 

former Dow Chemical Company in Madison, 

Illinois. 

 Document number three consists of 

the DOE environmental management trip report, 

May 1988 visit to the Weldon Springs site in 

Weldon Spring, Missouri. 

 And the fourth document that 

established Dow Madison as an AWE site 

consists of the FUSRAP, considered sites 

database report on Dow Chemical Company. 

 In addition to that we have two 

purchase orders from 1957 and 1958. We have 

purchase order U-3067-L that was done in 
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12/05/1957 between Mallinckrodt Chemical Works 

and Dow Madison; and in addition to that we 

have a purchase order dated 3/15/1958, U52990-A which is also another purchase 

agreement, purchase order agreement between 

Mallinckrodt and Dow Chemical. 

 We included - we were able to 

include thorium into dose reconstructions as 

of January 8th, 2008, with a letter to Peter 

Turcic, and I believe you have it on hand, so 

I did not provide it in an additional copy. 

But we after several months of additional 

research in the state of Michigan were able to 

come up with new evidence presented in the Dow 

Diamond, which is the Dow Midland or Dow 

companies corporate journal. 

 And some of the information we 

retrieved was pretty revealing. In September, 

1954, and you can look at the highlights, they 

are not very good here, Dow Madison was the 

first facility built for the mass production 

of magnesium and magnesium alloys. The sole 
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purpose of Dow Madison also was if you read 

further into this article for the purpose of 

production and development of magnesium 

thorium HK31A. 

 In February 1957 document, we have 

a secondary document establishing a contract 

with the Atomic Energy Commission for further 

development and production of HK31A. 

 So this relationship between Dow 

Madison and Mallinckrodt Chemical Works 

extends beyond just simply Mallinckrodt. We 

now have reference to a contract which puts 

Dow Madison into direct contact or in direct 

agreement with the Atomic Energy Commission 

for the production and development of this 

alloy. 

 In that document that you have in 

front of you it says Dow was awarded a 

contract from the Atomic Energy Commission in 

1947 to develop the alloy HK31A. Subsequently 

the company began a program to develop 

magnesium thorium alloys in cooperation with 
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the Atomic Energy Commission but at its own 

expense. In 1947 the AEC awarded Dow a 

contract. 

 The first rolling of HK31A sheet 

began in 1953 at Midland, and the following 

year it was moved to the newly completed 

Madison, Illinois facility. 

 The summer of 1963 references 

Madison as being at the heart of the metals 

production program for Dow Madison, and you 

have that in front of you so you can look at 

that. 

 Dow Madison was at the heart of the 

production of magnesium thorium alloys as Dow 

reported in the Dow Diamond data summer of 

1963. Although the company headquarters is at 

Midland, Michigan, the Madison plant is the 

heart of the Dow Metal Products Company. 

 So we already have moved beyond the 

approved SEC of 1960 as we are beginning to 

illustrate that the work on HK31, and 

continuous rolling beyond that 1960 date has 
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extended out. 

 We have several patents that were 

given to Dow in regard to magnesium alloy. 

The first one is dated April 26th, 1960, 

2934461, and it has to do with rolling of the 

magnesium alloy. And we have a copy of that. 

 And I have not submitted that to you, but I 

am willing to with a copy of that should you 

want it. 

 We have another one in `62, again, 

moving us beyond the 1960 SEC date. This is 

patent #3039901, anneal from magnesium alloys. 

 We have another one in 1964 which 

had to do with the production of fibers, 

3121943. And there it is. 

 And additionally we have found 

additional references to Dow Madison in the 

minerals yearbook. In 1963 there is a 

specific quote here, and I'm sorry I don't 

have copies of this, but I was working on this 

from the car ride down, so I can provide these 

to you as well. The Dow Metal Products 
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Company which is out of Madison, Illinois, 

increased their prices on selected items of 

alloys, HK31A and HM21A. 

 In 1964 at the top of the page 

there is a reference to the fact that the 

principal domestic producer of magnesium 

thorium alloys HK31 is again with Dow Madison. 

 Finally from the Department of 

Energy we were given a document from Lawrence 

Livermore National Laboratory that links Dow 

HK31A to a nuclear weapon, and one of the 

questions that had been raised was whether or 

not HK31 or Dow Madison had any materials 

going into a nuclear weapon. And at the 

beginning of this document, which I have in 

here somewhere, the first paragraph says, 

regarding your inquiry about thorium and 

thorium alloyed with magnesium material that 

were used in weapons parts, and whether Dow 

Chemical provided the material, I am enclosing 

the following table. 

 We have examined the drawings of 
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weapon parts that contain thorium in our 

database. On the drawings the parts in this 

table specified a particular standard of metal 

that was produced by Dow Chemical as 

referenced in the Dow product guide above. 

 So we believe that we have now made 

a link between Dow Madison and the Atomic 

Energy Commission, and that extends that 

relationship with Dow and Mallinckrodt beyond 

Mallinckrodt. Dow Madison had its own unique 

relationship with the Atomic Energy Committee 

that involved magnesium thorium alloy research 

and development, and in fact this alloy was 

contracted by the AEC. The thorium and its 

alloys were used in atomic weapons from 1962 

through 1969 as shown in this chart, and given 

that the magnesium thorium alloys were used in 

the atomic weapons complex through 1969, and 

given the development of these alloys, were 

contracted by the Atomic Energy Commission, 

not to mention some of the problems with 

internal and external dosimetry, it appears 
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that we would have satisfied the statutory 

requirements to extend the covered period to 

1954 when Dow Madison began producing and 

development HK31A through 1972, when they 

actually sold the Madison plant. 

 We have been contacted by the 

Department of Labor who have told us that they 

have made a draft decision and we should be 

receiving that in due time, but it is not 

going to be ready for this particular meeting 

because of the contents of the response; there 

were quite a few attachments. 

 So thank you very much for allowing 

me to present this information. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much, 

Denise. Let me make sure now; you have 

provided all of your documents to Labor and 

also to NIOSH and DOE as well? 

 MS. DeGARMO: Yes. I do have to now 

include the mineral yearbook. I need to send 

that off to the Department of Labor, 

Department of Energy and NIOSH, as well as the 
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additional two patents beyond what they have. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And your 

understanding from Labor is they are underway 

with material? 

 MS. DeGARMO: I was told they have 

the draft decision. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

 MS. DeGARMO: Thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Board members, do you 

have any questions from Denise? Very 

important development here. Yes, Brad. 

 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just had one 

question. When you submitted this to Labor, I 

guess are they going to involve us to let us 

know? I know there is kind of a cross between 

us and Labor in stuff. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: They will certainly 

let the NIOSH people - does DOE make any 

determination first? I forget the exact 

process here. But Larry can you enlighten us 

as to what the process here on this is. I 

don't recall the exact sequence of events that 
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this might trigger. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The Department of 

Energy is responsible and given authority 

under the act to come up with a list of 

covered facilities, and they did so early on 

in the program, posted that under Federal 

Register notice and put it on their website. 

 The Department of Labor has the 

responsibility for setting additional 

timeframe limits around those. So this will 

be a Department of Labor decision in that 

regard, as I understand it, and DOE has 

provided input to that DOL examination. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And then once a final 

decision is made on that, then NIOSH will take 

whatever appropriate action is needed. 

 Thank you very much. 

 Next we will hear from Donna Hand. 

 Welcome, Donna. 

 MS. HAND: Good morning. I'm Donna 

Hand from Pinellas Plant. A worker advocacy. 

 Can you hear me now? Okay. 
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 Last night I was talking to you 

about a person that had some wounds. He was 

hit with classified waste. And then right here 

with his classified waste at Pinellas Plant, 

they said that he may have been exposed to 

photon, electron and neutron radiation. 

However in the dose reconstruction they will 

not use electrons, external electrons; they 

did not use neutrons. He only had 100 

milligrams of dose to him, and he also - it 

was at a constant distribution, so the 

uncertainty was never even ran on the PoC nor 

in the dose reconstruction. 

 And airline pilot gets 200 

millirems a year, and you are telling me that 

a person that was a janitor - he 

decontaminated the areas, he got cut with 

classified waste. He was in a neutron 

generator area, and he only got 100 millirems 

a year. 

 These issues were brought up, and 

that the waste - they said then that the waste 
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should have been monitored. The waste 

consisted of the treaty on contaminated papers 

as well as the foams and the metals, all 

during the trigger testing. They would 

explode the trigger to test them. And that's 

what was in 200. And all the waste would be 

picked up and put in a radioactive bag. From 

that bag it was put into a drum. They'd seal 

the drum, and they'd take it out to the 

storage area until it's ready to be shipped 

off to Savannah River. 

 In 1990 the Tiger Assessment Team 

came to Pinellas Plant, because in 1986 a 

report came out saying that they were not 

following procedures and policies. They were 

mixing their waste. They were putting 

radioactive waste into non-radioactive waste. 

 They were putting non-radioactive waste into 

radioactive waste. And they weren't following 

any policy or procedures. They were just 

going ahead and doing processing before policy 

procedures were in. 
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 Back to the wound count. According 

to technical basis 11.5, down at the bottom 

they say that a wound is defined as any break 

in the skin. Any wound that occurred in a 

work area - and this one is discussing 

plutonium - will have plutonium contamination, 

especially after the event. However, these 

people should have been monitored, so 

therefore you use the monitoring site, and use 

that monitor with an alpha detector, an alpha 

detector is the method to use. 

 There was no alpha detector. There 

was nothing to detect the wounds. He went to 

the medical center; they gave him some iodine 

to put into it, and a Band-Aid. And according 

to the standards, unless you are going to be 

exposed, a potential exposure to 500 millrems, 

they don't put in cuts and wounds. But yet 

DOL and NIOSH both are requiring that if they 

be monitored, or they will not use those 

wounds into it. We have had several people 

and I'm sure other sites have this internal 
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exposure, and it's not being accounted for. 

 Now you go back to the dose 

reconstruction; again, like I said, it was 

only 100 millirems. We have people that have 

all worked in the same area. They have all 

had skin cancer. Each one has a different 

type or distribution. Most of them it's 

constant, and it's supposed to be log normal 

because they have been unmonitored, and this 

is according to their own reports that they 

wrote in their articles, the 15 articles, is a 

log normal distribution with a mean and 

geometric standard deviation. 

 They put that its uncertainty, log 

normal is 1.1. However you run constant at 

.100, except for one gentleman. In one 

gentleman his skin cancer was triangular. Why 

the difference? Why did you change? These 

are the same workers, same area, same organ; 

they changed it. 

 We have an area that in Pinellas 

Plant that is classified. The workers called 
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it Heather. That is in Building 300. In the 

early years Building 300 was detached, then it 

became attached. The technical basis document 

says that there is 300 there. But however 

there is no other reference to it at all. 

 In the baseline report that was 

done by DOE and Lockheed Martin, they have 

established and given out information that was 

not classified on 300. Tritium was there. 

How come the workers that were there in 300, 

that tritium dose is not attributed at all? 

 We developed the facts and figures 

that we got from OSTI, OpenNet, all about the 

policies and procedures. And the baseline 

report back in Section K lists 28 

radionuclides. DOL and also NIOSH, because 

DOL health physicists will state that NIOSH is 

using everything correctly, they completely 

ignored 27 radionuclides. That was potential 

exposure to those workers, and they will not 

use any of those. 

 Depleted uranium is one of those. 
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They had uranium beds. They made the beds. 

They refurbished the beds, with the depleted 

uranium, and their own technical basis 

document they speak about depleted uranium. 

But yet according to them uranium exposure was 

never to any worker. 

 Environmental dose outside, they 

get over 2000 BQ's just on that north end, the 

reason being the pond was given the tritium 

water. They aerated it, then they sprayed it 

across the field. That is also where they 

buried drums. USGA did a survey back in the 

contamination era. What is this metal thing? 

 In the northwest corner there were drums 

buried there. They had to pull them up and 

ship them to Savannah River. 

 They took another test, and guess 

what? In the northeast corner there are also 

drums. They had to go dig them out as well. 

To this day there is a sign from DOE saying, 

hazardous area, do not enter. 

 I wrote to NIOSH to the director 
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about the Pinellas Plant doses. I requested a 

rework of all Pinellas Plant doses. In the 

technical basis document in November of 2006 

that increased the assigned dose, the 

increased assigned dose went to .550, so 550 

millirem. All the dose reconstructions 

before, they said, nope, we did it properly. 

In fact, she stated it was all done by proper 

methods, and regarding the neutrons we only 

monitor or we only acknowledge people that had 

significant exposures. This law says that the 

dose reconstruction is to be for any worker 

that may have potential exposure. You do not 

restrict. 

 In fact NIOSH in the very beginning 

of this program got in trouble with Congress 

because they were being restrictive. This is 

all doses are to be accounted for, and all 

potential doses. It doesn't mean if it's a 

little or a lot. You have got to acknowledge 

those doses were there, and they have 

potential doses. 
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 The primary internal dose hazard at 

Pinellas Plant came from tritium and 

plutonium. They admit it from Dr. Branch, but 

however, plutonium is not even used. They 

just used tritium. On their Pinellas 

template, it's .930 for photons, it's .930 for 

tritium. Zero neutrons, zero everything else. 

 And the REMS database in 1990, when you put 

in Lockheed-Martin, it shows there were 

neutron doses in those perimeters there. 

 In 1997, this is after everything 

has left, because it stopped production in 

`92, and in `97 the decontamination was 

completely finished. Again it showed neutron 

exposure there as well. How come they are not 

using neutron doses? 

 Alpha: they refused to use alpha. 

In Table 6.6 of their own technical basis 

document it shows there are alpha rays there. 

 It shows Krypton 85, cesium 137, and 

americium 241, U-238, U-235, U-234, plutonium 

238, at 80 percent, plutonium 239 at 20 
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percent. This is their own documentation, 

their own technical basis document, their own 

information that they are completely ignoring. 

 There is a list in here of 

equipment that produces this, as whenever they 

would test and everything they would X-ray 

that part. The industrial X-rays are not 

accounted for, and these people were exposed 

every time they took an X-ray when they tested 

that part. It is completely - the medical Xrays, unless it shows up in their medical 

record, they will not give them the medical 

occupational record. 

 However the nurse that they 

interviewed, and she was the one that took it, 

said I always took two views. It was done 

every year; two views. That happened all the 

way up to 1982. From then, guess what, she 

got an upgrade in her X-ray machine, and 

that's when they had exempted and non-exempted 

employees. And that's when they started the 

five year, three year, that combination. But 
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still some of them had it every year. 

 There are more issues. This will 

be followed up with a formal letter to the 

Board with all my concerns, and also the 

documentation. 

 Thank you for your time. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. I would 

just remind you, Donna, that we now have a 

Pinellas Work Group, so they certainly make 

note of these issues that you raise as we go 

forward with Pinellas. Thank you. 

 Then let's hear from Richard Lee. 

 MR. LEE: My name is Richard Lee as 

you just stated, and the only thing I can tell 

you is, I worked in the Savannah River site 

from 1980 to 1994. I started off in 

construction as a pipe fitter and a welder, 

and I wound up being management in 

construction. 

 I can tell you the standard 

procedures that was done on a daily basis as 

far as operations goes. I was based out of 
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central shops. I worked all the shut downs in 

all the various areas. I had a Q clearance, I 

could go just about anywhere on the site. I 

didn't need to be escorted. I did a lot of 

escorting. 

 When we went into areas the only 

time we ever wore a film badge or had a pencil 

which was a dosimeter was what they called a 

hot spot or a hot area like a reboiler; then 

they'd put it on us. Other than that we went 

into -20, -40, all over the area, never 

required to wear anything but possibly white 

coveralls, as far as a worker goes. 

 When I first started out there from 

my concern I quested an HP, health physics, 

guys on a line break we were doing, and pretty 

well got chewed out and kind of threatened to 

run out of the area, so I learned real quick, 

you keep your mouth shut, keep your job, do 

your job, protect yourself the best you can 

within the guidelines that they give you. 

 But that was the norm for 
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construction. I was also the gentleman that 

did the heat exchanges in 100C, the decon. 

They would assign us, or assign myself either 

an apprentice or another fitter, but I was the 

guy that was on it all the time. We had 

nothing there other than plastic suits. We 

did all the hookup, the flushing. Unhooked 

it, bolted it back up, called the boilermakers 

to come to get it, that came from the Ford 

building and were returned to the Ford 

building. 

 We did a line break one time in 

100C. Half the time they didn't even know who 

was in the buildings. There was myself and 

another fitter. We were bolting up a six-inch 

flange, 300-pound flange, up in the rooftop. 

We climbed up there. We were putting the 

flange up, trying to pin it. We noticed 

operations had come in in plastic suits below 

us. Before we knew what was going on, they 

made a line break; an alarm went off; I got an 

uptake of tritium, got an uptake of nine, 
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before they could get us out. We were never 

notified or told. My general foreman had to 

come in. Of course we were already - when the 

alarm went off we were already trying to get 

out and get down. But that was just neglect 

was all that was on their part. 

 When I went into the Bechtel side 

as management as a cost engineer, since I had 

the clearance that I had, I went into all of 

the areas; even escorted the other cost 

engineers for us to do walk downs. We would 

notify the project manager of the jobs that we 

needed to do, then they were supposed to set 

up everything. We'd go in the areas, and I 

can't remember not one time of ever wearing a 

film badge or a pencil in all the areas. I 

went in from 700 area in the weapons to all 

the 100 areas, to the canyons, F&H area, we 

went all over the site. And that was for a 

lot of years, and we were never required a 

wear a film badge. And I kind of thought it a 

little strange, but I knew in construction we 
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always had to wear coveralls. I'm kind of 

making a pun, now I'm in a lab coat and 

booties, and I thought that was pretty good. 

But that was the standard for the day. I mean 

there just wasn't what everybody thinks there 

was. There wasn't all this protection that 

everybody thinks is there, and I was the one 

physically on hand. All of us, all the 

construction workers, we all know that's how 

it operated. And I thought it was important 

that you all know that in case you have a 

misconception of actually how it went down, 

and how it was on the site. 

 And that's basically all I have. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

 MR. LEE: Thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Let's see, I have 

Wayne Knox on the list. I think we heard from 

Wayne yesterday. Yes, Wayne, you are back. I 

will give you 10 more minutes. 

 MR. KNOX: One more time. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay. 
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 MR. KNOX: We drove all the way back 

to Atlanta just to talk to you one more time. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Stay close to the mic 

here. 

 MR. KNOX: I'm a wanderer. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Well, you can't 

wander here; we won't have a record of what 

you say. 

 MR. KNOX: Very good. I will try to 

stay put. 

 My name is Wayne Knox, and I 

addressed you before. I was a military 

captain in the `60s in radiation physics. I 

was a major in the military assigned to 

Eisenhower Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, in 

nuclear medicine science. And I spent many 

years, 15 years, supporting the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission on the regulatory 

development and compliance side of the house, 

and doing and operating on inspection teams. 

I have evaluated over 50 percent of U.S. 

nuclear power plants on behalf of the Nuclear 
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Regulatory Commission. 

 I have even functioned on the DOE 

Tiger teams, and many special Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission teams. 

 I want to talk to you about the 

real world and this is what a number of people 

have been trying to tell you: the real world 

is different from what you think it is. 

 I spent some time in the DOE's 

environment working up at Hanford. I've 

worked over here at Savannah River. And I 

support - of course I can't certify everything 

that they say, but I have observed many of 

these things. I am a protege of Dr. Karl 

Morgan. Dr. Morgan was almost like a father 

to me. We spent a lot of time together after 

school working in his little greenhouse and 

over at his house talking to him about health 

physics and what went on in the real world. 

He knew some real world stories. He even told 

me - and he was almost tearful when he told me 

about a black man that had an accident up at 
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Oak Ridge and they brought him in and injected 

plutonium into his veins. And people - now I 

can't prove that, but I suspect that knowing 

Dr. Morgan it was true. And some people up at 

Oak Ridge might indeed know that. 

 I say that to say, the real world 

is different from what you perceive it. I 

worked as an operational health physicists. 

We're the knuckle draggers of the group. We 

have to get the work done, in spite of all the 

elegant models, in spite of all the weird 

worded procedures, and even the regulatory 

requirements. We have to get the work done. 

 Today I want to address a single 

point, only a single one, and it concerns 

regulatory compliance. 

 My client, I like to call her my 

client but she is my friend, she is sitting 

back there. She is the claimant. Mrs. 

Beulah Lindsay drove back down here from 

Atlanta for me to address this single point 

with you. 
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 We - I reviewed all of her father's 

data and I found where there was a regulatory 

shall I say oversight at this point let's not 

call it a noncompliance; but it is a 

regulatory noncompliance. This is the letter 

that was sent to you from her lawyer. 

 And I quite frankly was expecting 

some type of reply from you. It was not a 

threatening letter; it just laid out the facts 

for your review. 

 Next she received this letter here, 

which did not even address the information 

that I provided to you, and at this point I 

would like to call it a purely regulatory 

oversight, because it is if I were looking at 

it from a Nuclear Regulatory Commission or a 

DOE perspective, it is not - it will be not in 

compliance with the regulations. 

 Basically what I discovered was 

that DOE, the DOL, directed NIOSH - I think 

that is the way the procedure flows - to use 

IREP in order to calculate the Probability of 
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Causation of Mr. Lindsay's death from cancer. 

 NIOSH made a calculation and 

determined that the Probability of Causation 

was 32 percent. And it was due to cancer of 

the stomach that had metastasized to the lymph 

node, the liver and the lungs. 

 Based upon your regulations, your 

regulations, there is no process in which - or 

shall I say it's unlikely that cancer would 

move from the stomach to the lungs, that route 

is closed off, and as such, the lung cancer 

now becomes a secondary or primary, and based 

on your regulations when you have an unknown , 

an unknown primary, it requires you to go back 

and evaluate all of the possible primaries and 

select the greatest one of those, and include 

that in your calculation for the effective 

Probability of Causation. 

 That is now Mrs. Lindsay's father 

PoC would be calculated based upon two 

primaries instead of one. I can show you in 

more detail what it's about. I passed around 
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to you a little map on how that process works. 

 Basically again based upon your regulation 

you should have looked at the stomach cancer 

and it had lung cancer metastasis to the 

lungs. What you should do is go to your 

secondary cancers, lung, and see if there is 

stomach cancer in that field. Stomach cancer 

is not mentioned as a place in which - that is 

the lung is not mentioned as a place in which 

stomach cancer would move. So therefore you 

should have considered two primary cancers: 

stomach and perhaps one of these others. And 

that process is laid out in the procedures; 

it's laid out in this description that I 

provide to you. And I am requesting that the 

Board follow the regulatory requirements. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you very much, 

Wayne. I can't help but making a couple of 

remarks, the first of which is to make sure 

that you understand that virtually everyone on 

this Board has had some considerable real 

world experience, including two of whom had 
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that experience with K.Z. Morgan. So you have 

a common bond with some of the folks here. 

 MR. KNOX: Okay. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Number two, I think I 

should point out that the PoC calculation is 

actually done by Labor using the NIOSH 

recommended method. NIOSH does not do the 

PoC; they do the dose reconstruction, just so 

that is clear. 

 Thirdly I wanted to make sure you 

understand that this Board does not do the 

dose reconstructions, nor do we review them 

for claimants. The dose reconstructions are 

done by dose reconstructors. We do audit 

random samples of the dose reconstructions, 

but the important thing here I think for this 

information needs to feed back to Labor which 

does some essential determinations of the 

cancers and so on. 

 So I want to make sure it gets in 

the right stream, and there are folks here 

that can help make sure that the points you 
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are making get to the right people who are 

involved in this particular claim, because the 

Board cannot under the law get involved in 

this particular claim. 

 But perhaps, Jeff, I don't know if 

you can help Mr. Knox or Dr. Knox get to the 

right person. We just want to make sure your 

information gets to the right place, so that 

it can be considered as needed, okay. 

 MR. KNOX: I do not have a Ph.D. I 

have a master's, so you may address me as 

Master Knox. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, Master Knox. 

Very good. 

 MR. KNOX: Now who am I going to be 

talking to? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Jeff is with the 

Department of Labor, and at least make sure 

that you get your information into the right 

channel so that it can be duly considered. 

 Now I want to see if Terri Barrie 

is still on the line. And Terri, we'd be 
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pleased to hear from you if you are with us? 

 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, I'm 

still here. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And thank you for 

your patience. I know you wanted to speak 

yesterday, and by the time we got to you, you 

probably had given up on us. 

 MS. BARRIE: Oh, that's fine. I 

wanted to make sure that the claimants from 

the Savannah River site had plenty of time to 

address the Board. 

 But I thank you for giving me the 

opportunity tonight, and to members of the 

Board and Mr. Katz. 

 What I want to voice my concerns 

about is the Ruttenberg Database. And as you 

know it contains exposure records for the 

Rocky Flats workers. 

 And I apologize in advance to the 

audience if some of these comments are not 

self-explanatory. 

 I understand that NIOSH has finally 
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agreed to the state of Colorado's conditions 

to limit the researchers views to the 

compensation program only. Margaret 

Ruttenberg thought that was the case six 

months ago though, and during the working 

group teleconference of June 17th, 2008, she 

thought that negotiations were well on their 

way, and six months ago she had hoped to have 

the database transferred to NIOSH. 

 I am trusting that this recent 

information that NIOSH has sent the agreement 

letter and everything is being processed 

promptly. But let's assume that NIOSH and 

Colorado have finally agreed, and the database 

is in NIOSH's hands. Who will compare the two 

databases? I think it's safe to say that the 

Rocky Flats claimants have no faith whatsoever 

that NIOSH can conduct this investigation in a 

fair and impartial manner. 

 Some of you, the Board members and 

the audience, are aware that a Rocky Mountain 

news article reported that a Rocky Flats 
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worker was not listed in the NDRC, a project 

managed by ORAU, a contractor for NIOSH. 

DOL's requirement for automatic coverage under 

the Rocky Flats SEC is that a worker be listed 

in the NDRP or work in building 881. However 

the Ruttenberg database shows that this worker 

was exposed to neutron radiation, was not 

included in the NDRP, nor did he work in 

building 881. 

 Are there more workers who should 

be covered by the Rocky Flats SEC? What is 

more troublesome is the fact that NIOSH was 

aware of this database while the Board 

deliberated the Rocky Flats SEC petition. 

NIOSH was the funding agency for the 

Ruttenberg research. 

 I am appalled that this information 

was ignored by NIOSH and their contractor, 

ORAU, when they researched resources for the 

Rocky Flats site profile and evaluated Rocky 

Flats SEC petition. 

 Ignoring this information casts 
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serious doubts on the thoroughness of NIOSH's 

investigation not only of the SEC petition but 

the dose reconstruction process for the Rocky 

Flats claim in itself. Is there other 

information that NIOSH and ORAU overlooked for 

the Rocky Flats site or for any other site for 

that matter? Will this database offer 

information for the years not included in the 

SEC that might show that NIOSH's methodology 

cannot produce a dose estimate with reasonable 

accuracy? 

 The Rocky Flats claimants won't 

know the answers to these questions until the 

two databases are thoroughly reviewed. 

 Again I think I can safely say that 

the Rocky Flats claimants demand an answer, 

and they demand it now. Contrary to what Dr. 

Brant said during the June 17th, 2008 

teleconference, the Rocky Flats special 

exposure cohort is not a closed case before 

the Board, and that is the quote. There is 

nothing in the law that states that the 
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Board's recommendation on an SEC petition is 

final. 

 There is nothing in the law that 

prevents the Board from reviewing evidence 

after the recommendation is submitted to the 

Secretary of Health and Human Services. There 

is nothing in the law that prevents the Board 

to say, hey, after reviewing additional 

information we amend our recommendation on 

such and such a petition. 

 I do not advocate for another 

prolonged and arduous series of meetings. In 

fact I advise against it. The Rocky Flats 

claimants do not deserve that. However what 

they do deserve is that every agency follows 

the law. This process is meant to be 

claimant-friendly. Ignoring evidence is not 

claimant friendly. Ignoring evidence is not 

sound science. 

 I urge the Board of the Rocky Flats 

working group, in conjunction with SC&A to 

compare both databases as soon as it is 
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received by NIOSH. I understand that it 

should not be a long process. 

 Then I also recommend that they 

immediately report those findings to the Rocky 

Flats claimants and the members of the 

Colorado Congressional delegation. 

 Again, thank you for your time. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, Terry. 

And I did want to ask, were you on the line 

yesterday when we got the report about the 

status of that dataset? I believe it's very 

close - I don't believe NIOSH has it yet as I 

understand it, but they are very close to 

finalizing whatever agreement is necessary to 

get that data, and then they will move ahead 

and we have the Work Group that will be 

monitoring that activity as well. 

 MS. BARRIE: Well, thank you, 

doctor. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I don't believe they 

have the database yet as I understand it, but 

they believe that they will be getting it very 
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shortly. So we will keep you apprised of 

course on that. 

 MS. BARRIE: Thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: So thank you for your 

comments. 

 Next we will hear from John Funk. 

John, are you still on the line? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: And John is with the 

Nevada test site. Please go ahead. 

 MR. FUNK: Okay, Dr. Ziemer. Before 

I start out I'd like to refer to two 

documents, they are reference site profile 

documents. One is DOE/RV-317 (REV 1). The 

second one is DOE NB/209 (REV 15), and it's 

dated December, 2000. As you know that was a 

list of all the tests by name and by date. 

 Okay I will start now. Good 

afternoon, Dr. Ziemer, and ladies and 

gentlemen of the Presidential Advisory Board 

and Designated Federal Officer Mr. Ted Katz. 

 Thank you for allowing me this 

opportunity to once again raise challenges to 
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the NTS site profile, TBD documents, the dose 

reconstruction process. As you know from our 

report sent to you, I originally had a 

somewhat lengthy PowerPoint presentation with 

supporting documents and visual aids with 

charts and color like NIOSH uses. I have 

decided to spare you that report, and 

concentrate on only two issues for the moment. 

 However the other issues in the original 

report are just as important, and I would hope 

that the next NTS working Board meeting the 

Board would take the time to review my report 

in its entirety. 

 Before I start I would like to 

mention that the issues I am going to speak on 

were part of past issues I have raised, and 

NIOSH will claim that they have responded to 

these issues, but the fact of the matter is 

they have not, at least not in the same manner 

they require claimants to respond, and that is 

by proving their statements with proof 

positive documents, as they require the 
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claimants to do. Which I now will do with 

supporting DOE reference documents. 

 With that I will now get into the 

issue and explain how the issues are not being 

properly addressed and expose serious flaws in 

the reference documents of the site profile 

TBD documents. 

 Issue #1, NIOSH using job 

classifications as a major factor in 

determining who was or was not exposed to 

radiation. I would like to mention I have 

brought up this subject of NIOSH using job 

classifications up once before on September 

19th, 2006Board meeting at the Westin Hotel. 

And I recent also brought these up in the 180 

issues that I sent to the working board. 

 For unexplained reasons that 

testimony fell on deaf ears, so I will try 

presenting this issue once again, hopefully 

with more success than the last time. 

 Please bear with me. I will 

explain how Technical Base Documents, 
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reference records, may be wrongly influencing 

dose reconstructors who are doing dose at 

NIOSH. And I would like first to call your 

attention to two reference documents. The 

documents are DOE/RV-317 (REV 1) and glossary 

page - glossary section, page 274, under shaft 

and EG, capital E-G, underground description. 

 And especially DOE/NV-2009 REV-15 

on pages one through pages 151 in tables of 

shots and date - shots and date and by name. 

Please note only one shot disseminates the 

difference between a mine shaft and a drilled 

shaft, and that is on page 58. 

 However, the same document does 

acknowledge there was a difference between 

mined and drilled shafts in other sections of 

DOE/NV-209 (REV 15) also in DOE/NV-209 - oh 

excuse me, I got that number twice. Please 

bring your attention to by date section page 

58 and 59. Ajo is identified as a mined 

shaft. However on page 92 and 93 it is simply 

listed as a shaft only. 
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 And last look under glossary, same 

document, page 158, under shaft description, 

DOE very clearly disseminates, there was a 

difference between a mine and a drilled shaft. 

 Now please look in document DOE/NV317 (REV 1) on page 274, the glossary under 

shaft, and other crafts - excuse me - is that 

a page messed up here? Oh, boy. Somehow I 

got my pages mixed up. 

 (Pause.) 

 I lost track of one of my pages. 

But essentially what it says, it says in there 

also, they acknowledge there was a difference 

between a shaft and a mine shaft and a drilled 

shaft. 

 IN the case of the mine shafts, the 

mines were the predominant labor force on 

them. In the case of the drilled shafts, the 

operating engineers, the carpenters, the 

laborers, the iron workers, carpenters 

helpers, electricians, they were the 

predominant crafts on the drilled shafts. 
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 This causes a very big problem 

because it gives the illusion that only miners 

worked in all shafts based on language and the 

job classifications which are not even dated 

to the period of the testing period, 1962 to 

1992. These job classifications go from ` 93, 

`94 and `95. These miner job classifications 

are very explicit about shafts and tunnels 

without - are very explicit about shafts and 

tunnels without disseminating mined or drilled 

shafts. In other words it says they did them 

all, of which type of shaft they worked on, 

just shaft and tunnels and nothing else. 

 There is however no defining 

information about other crafts participation 

underground other than they worked in the 

tunnels or shafts without defining their 

duties. But also did not discriminate - 

disseminate the types of shaft or their 

importance as well. And because of the way 

the reference documents for the site profile 

and TBD documents are written, especially 
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documents I have noted, such information the 

way it is rendered clearly eliminate other 

crafts as their participation and reentry 

operations as work practices of other crafts 

are not disseminated so equally eloquent in 

their classification descriptions of work 

practices as miners' job classifications are 

noted, and such could severely minimize to 

their importance. 

 This is only one example of how 

flaws might happen when using existing 

reference documents to qualify applicants for 

exposure based on facts related to jobs 

classifications or work locations or duties of 

workers by craft found in the site profile, 

the TBD reference document, like job 

classification and craft responsibilities and 

duties. 

 Existing reference to documents 

related to test information, when using a 

chart, please see miners' charts. I don't 

know if Ted got you a copy of that chart, 
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green and yellow? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, we all have the 

chart that Ted distributed. 

 MR. FUNK: Okay, what I did on that, 

in the other letter I explained the 

mathematical formula I arrived at that. I 

gave the miners 32 mine shaft shots, which I 

don't even think they had that many. I gave 

them all the Plowshare. I gave them all the 

craters. And I gave them all the unspent, 

along with the tunnels, and even then the 

whole list only came up to 141 shots of which 

they were the dominant craft. 

 And I took the total of the shots 

and subtracted that, and I percentaged it out, 

and it came out that the miners only dominated 

17-1/3 percent of all the shots on the test 

site, and the rest of the crafts dominated the 

82-2/3 percent of the rest of them. 

 So that does not - that is not the 

way NIOSH has showed this. Because I've heard 

the Board meetings. I've heard miners, 
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miners, miners, miners did this, miners did 

that. Nobody else seems to participate in any 

of the re-entries. They've got miners going 

to re-entries in the flats. They got them 

going up in the tunnels. And it seems like 

the rest of us were out there as tourists or 

something. I don't know, I got paid for 

working, and I did an awful lot of re-entries 

in the flats too. 

 So I don't know where they are 

coming up with these figures other than the 

fact that if you look at these documents, they 

are either tunnels or they are shafts, and 

there is only one that identifies it as a mine 

shaft. The rest of them are simply shafts. 

 Now there is a lot of difference 

between the type of shaft they were and the 

type of shafts they were would determine who 

worked on them. So that's what we need, to 

get that document back to DOE, and they need 

to get the shafts that were mined, identified, 

and they need to get the shafts that were 
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drilled identified in order for people to get 

a fair consideration. 

 We also need to get in these job 

classifications and get these descriptions. 

For example nowhere does it state - in one 

place it does say it was a carpenter-welder, 

but not where he worked. It just says, 

general foreman, carpenter, carpenter foreman, 

general foreman, carpenter welder. It doesn't 

say anything about in the tunnels if you read 

the miner-welders' description, it pretty much 

covers what the carpenters actually did. We 

built the bulk heads. We cut all the steel. 

That wasn't done by iron workers. Them bulk 

heads were concrete forms; under the 

collective bargaining agreement we get all the 

concrete forms. There was never an iron 

worker or miner ever touched the bulk head in 

any of them tunnels, and there was 32 of them 

coming out of every drift. A drift is a test 

drift. So that does - that's free shot work. 

 I understand that NIOSH is working toward 
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that to eliminate all them people too. So I 

want to make sure to clear that up. 

 It took me two years just to get 

you to admit that we even worked underground. 

 So and I think you will remember that. 

 Also issue #2, why has the Board 

done nothing about Mrs. Dorothy Clayton's 

testimony at the NIOSH Presidential Board 

meeting at the Westin Hotel September 19th, 

2006, at Las Vegas, Nevada, page 176 to page 

182 of this particular meeting. 

 And again when she testified on 

this exact same issue January 8th, 2008 at the 

Presidential Advisory Board meeting held at 

the Sun Coast Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

 I would like to mention, I was 

recently told that Dorothy Clayton's testimony 

was in the investigative stage, and the 

results would be announced sometime soon. 

However NIOSH very clearly wrote me an email 

and told me, state in their response, this 

issue, this report sent to me, I quote: 
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Dorothy Clayton's testimony is too complicated 

and cannot be read by a lay person, and the 

claimants do not understand the procedures 

being used. So therefore this subject has 

been addressed and her testimony will be noted 

in the records. 

 Now all you Board members were 

there during her testimony, and she provided 

you with the documents that showed they did 

cook the books up there. And I do not believe 

that her testimony was so complicated that we 

had to go get a translator to find out what 

she said. And when one of those politicians 

talk, we got to get the news media to tell us 

what they said, but Dorothy Clayton's 

testimony was very clear to me. 

 So at both meetings, Mrs. Clayton 

provided DOE supporting documents, which show 

positively that DOE tampered with film badge 

records, and this has not been properly 

addressed. And I would like to know where her 

testimony - and where the results of the 
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investigation. 

 I would also like for those Board 

members who were not present at the Westin 

Hotel on September the 19th, 2006, to be 

provided a copy of Mrs. Dorothy Clayton's 

presentation and to revisit her testimony at 

the other Las Vegas meeting on January 2008 so 

they can see for themselves that widespread 

film badge tampering did in fact take place, 

and see for themselves that these film badge 

records are not as indisputable as NIOSH has 

stated. 

 These facts prove that NIOSH stand 

on documents of DOE and NTS records is fragile 

at best. NIOSH's position of the stand of the 

documents records is not so much only fragile 

but arrogant. In the recent announcement of 

the Inspector General's office suggesting 

removing NIOSH from the interview process of 

EEOICPA is long overdue, and heartily welcomed 

by NTS claimants as well. 

 Thank you very much. 
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 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you, John. 

 I should point out that in the 

packet of material, I think probably you 

provided it, but the transcript is included 

for Ms. Clayton's testimony, so the Board 

members do have a copy of that in case any of 

them had forgotten it. So thank you very 

much. 

 MR. FUNK: I didn't know if it all 

came through. I had an awful hard time trying 

to get it through. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: No, we have it, thank 

you. 

 Next we will hear from Dr. McKeel. 

 Dan, are you still on the line? 

 DR. McKEEL: Yes, sir, I am. Can 

you hear me all right? 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Yes, very well. 

Thank you for your patience, and please 

proceed. 

 DR. McKEEL: All right. 

 Good evening to the Board, and the 
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audience participants. 

 I'm Dan McKeel, and I serve as an 

SEC petitioner for three EEOICPA sites, Dow 

Madison, General Steel Industries and Texas 

City Chemicals. 

 My organization, the Southern 

Illinois Nuclear Workers, or SINEW, has 

proudly joined with the Alliance of Nuclear 

Worker Advocate Group, in forwarding 

suggestions to President-Elect Obama for 

immediate administrative reforms to the act. 

 ANWAG will also soon be forwarding 

copies of its 20 longer term reforms to the 

act to President-Elect Obama, and to members 

of the new U.S. Congress. 

 My remarks tonight are surrogates 

for questions that would be asked by one of 

the missing radiation Board members that the 

Bush 43 - 

 (Pause.) 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Did we lose Dr. 

McKeel? 
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 MEMBER ROESSLER: The line is still 

open. I think he got dropped off. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Dan, I don't know if 

you can hear us, but we can't hear you. 

 Okay, perhaps Dan will call back 

in. Dan, are you back on the line? 

 MR. KATZ: He may not realize that 

he is not connected. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, and I don't 

think I have a phone number for him. 

 Standby just a minute. Of course 

if he is on the phone you won't be able to 

reach him anyway. 

 We have another piece of testimony 

to read into the record. So let me ask Ted to 

do that, and while we wait for Dan to realize 

he's been cut off, and maybe will come back on 

the line. 

 Go ahead, Ted. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Dan? Okay. So 

this is unnamed testimony. 

 In April of 2009 it will be seven 
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years since I have filed an EEOICPA claim for 

survivor benefits. When I filed my claim I 

did not expect a quick resolution, but I never 

anticipated that it would take this long, nor 

did I expect that I would encounter so many 

challenges along the way. 

 I consider my claim to be very 

straightforward. My husband was employed as a 

health physicist for the SL-1 reactor, by 

combustion engineering at Idaho National 

Engineering Laboratory from January 1959 

through March 1961. 

 On the night of January 3rd, 1961, 

a nuclear excursion occurred at the reactor 

while a crew of three military men were 

assembling the reactor control rod drive 

mechanism. The incident, and the sequence of 

events that occurred that evening and in 

subsequent days are detailed in the IDO report 

on the nuclear incident at the SL-1 reactor, 

January 3rd, 1961 at the National Reactor 

Testing Station. 
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 This report can be accessed through 

the Department of Energy Idaho operations 

website. 

 My husband entered the reactor 

building twice the night of January 3rd, 1961, 

in an effort to locate and rescue the three 

men inside the reactor building. The first 

time he entered with one other individual in 

an effort to locate the three men inside and 

determine if they were alive. 

 After finding the one survivor they 

quickly left the building to get assistance to 

carry him out. 

 During the second entry my husband 

entered with three other men. They placed the 

sole survivor on a stretcher and carried him 

outside. During this entry my husband's 

respirator failed, and he had to remove it in 

order to breathe. This caused him to directly 

inhale the very high concentrations of 

airborne radioactive material that were 

present in the reactor operating room as a 
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result of the nuclear excursion. 

 The reported dose rate inside the 

reactor was in excess of 1,000 R per hour. My 

husband left INEL in March, 1961, and was 

employed in Germantown, Maryland, by the 

Atomic Energy Commission and its predecessor 

agencies, the Energy Research and Development 

Agency, and the Department of Energy, AEC, 

ERDA, DOE, from April 1961 through December, 

1988. He was the chief health physicist for 

the AEC ERDA, DOE, and in this capacity was 

responsible for the oversight of the radiation 

health and safety at DOE and DOE contractor 

facilities. 

 In that capacity he routinely 

visited DOE sites and entered radiation areas 

to perform radiological safety inspections. 

My husband was diagnosed with multiple myeloma 

in August of 1994, and died from that cancer 

on January 30th, 1999. 

 Based on my knowledge and belief as 

a former health physicist that my husband's 
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cancer was caused by the exposure he received 

at the SL-1 reactor, I filed a claim for the 

EEOICPA survivor benefits on April 25th, 2002. 

 On November 13th, 2006, I received 

a notice of a recommended decision to deny my 

claim from the DOL Seattle District office. I 

filed a written object to the denial of my 

claim on January 7th, 2007, which included 

supporting documentation. On March 21st, 2007, 

the final adjudication branch of the 

Jacksonville district DOL conducted a hearing 

in Orlando, Florida. Subsequently on May 30th, 

2007, my claim was remanded back to NIOSH to 

rework my husband's dose reconstruction 

report. 

 Since the remand order I have 

received two revised dose reconstruction 

reports, one in July of 2007 and one in 

September 2008. NIOSH is currently working on 

a fourth. 

 I believe that the dose 

reconstruction reports that I have received to 
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date significantly underestimate my husband's 

combined internal and external exposure. 

 Among the issues I have repeatedly 

raised are, my husband entered the SL-1 

reactor operating room twice the evening of 

January 3rd, 1961, yet his report of exposure 

is nearly identical to individuals who only 

entered once. It is highly probable that the 

dosimeter my husband was wearing was not 

readable. IDO 19302 indicates that the 

extremities of the personnel who entered the 

reactor operating room were contaminated in 

excess of 5R per hour. 

 The probability exists that the 

film badge was too grossly contaminated to be 

read. Given the dose rates inside the reactor 

operating room, it is also very likely that 

the film badge was blackened to the point that 

no meaningful information could be obtained 

from the badge. 

 Through a Freedom of Information 

Act request I obtained all of the occupational 
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exposure histories that had been acquired by 

NIOSH for my husband. Among the external 

exposure histories provided by INEL, there is 

a personnel exposure questionnaire which was 

not discussed in the dose reconstruction 

report. This report indicates that the 

dosimeter readings for [identifying 

information] for the period of 12/7/60 through 

1/3/61 were lost reading because of the SL-1 

incident. That is in quotes. 

 This would strongly suggest that 

the dosimeter worn by [identifying 

information] into the reactor that evening was 

lost because it could not be read, or that it 

was literally lost in the confusion of the 

rescue operations. 

 My husband's internal exposure 

cannot be estimated from the available 

records. The estimates in the dose 

reconstruction report are based only on 

several bioassays that were conducted after 

the accident, records of the whole body counts 
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taken at INEL, as well as at Los Alamos 

National Laboratory immediately after the SL-1 

excursion have not been located. 

 The dose reconstruction report 

fails to acknowledge the respirator failure, 

and obvious internal exposures that would have 

resulted from that failure. 

 And the dose reconstruction report 

fails to recognize my husband's 28-year 

employment history with the AEC or ERDA, DOE. 

 This report states that he worked at INEL 

from January 1st, 1959 through March 31st, 1961, 

and from April 24th, 1961, through December 

16th, 1988. This affects many of the 

assumptions made in the dose reconstruction 

report with respect to, "missed dose". 

 The dose reconstruction report does 

not appear to address the "missed dose” 

related to the SL-1 accident. 

 I filed my claim for survivor 

benefits under EEOICPA nearly seven years ago. 

 In that period of time I have promptly 
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responded to every request for information. I 

have been engaged in numerous telephone 

conversations with both DOL and NIOSH. I have 

written letters, and I have participated in 

the hearing concerning my claim. I have 

provided ample documentation to support the 

assertions in my claim. 

 I believe, however, that the 

information that I provided has basically been 

ignored. Additionally to date I have not 

received a response to the numerous questions 

and concerns that I have raised, particularly 

those identified in my adjudication hearing. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this 

public comment. I regret that I could not 

make them in person. I would welcome any 

questions that you have. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you for reading 

that into the record, Ted. And I want to 

check and see if Dan McKeel got back on line. 

 DR. McKEEL: Yes, sir. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Dan, we lost you very 
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early in your presentation. And I think I am 

going to suggest that you start at the top. I 

don't know at what point you realized you were 

cut off. 

 DR. McKEEL: Well, the line was 

silent, and then it just went, a message from 

the operator, if you need to make a call. So 

it was cut off. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: The others on the 

line were not lost; it appeared to be a single 

line. So please begin again if you would. 

 DR. McKEEL: Thank you very much. 

 So again, good evening. I am Dan 

McKeel, and I serve as an SEC petitioner for 

three EEOICPA sites, Dow Madison, General 

Steel Industries, and Texas City Chemical. 

 My organization is the Southern 

Illinois Nuclear Workers, or SINEW, and we 

have proudly joined with the Alliance of 

Nuclear Worker Advocate Group in forwarding 

suggestions to President-Elect Obama for 

immediate administrative reform to the act. 
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 ANWAG will soon be forwarding 

copies of its 20 longer-term reforms to the 

act to President-Elect Obama and to members of 

the new U.S. Congress. 

 My remarks tonight are surrogates 

for questions that would be asked by one of 

the missing Radiation Advisory Board Members, 

the Bush 43 administration has failed to add 

to bring the Board to its mandatory full 

strength of 20 members. 

 The first comment is, regarding the 

announcement of CDC's decision who the new 

Board contractor will be. Mr. Katz said at 

the November 6th conference call the key 

decision would be announced before 

Thanksgiving. When it was not I wrote to him 

as to when the decision would be forthcoming 

and was told it would be at this meeting in 

December. 

 Yesterday the CDC contract officer 

told us the contractor decision was under 

policy review, and that he alone was 
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responsible for this deadline not being met. 

 Since none of the current Board 

members pinned him down why not, I will ask as 

a surrogate for the missing Board member. 

 The question would thus be to CDC 

and the contract office, why specifically has 

the new Board contractor selection not been 

made public as the five-year SC&A contract 

ends today December the 17th, 2008? 

 My second surrogate missing Board 

member comment relates to why NIOSH and the 

Board took 3-1/2 years after the historic 

Mallinckrodt Destrehan Street SEC petitions 

were awarded to recognize that Mallinckrodt 

downtown radiological operation continued well 

into 1958. The current Mallinckrodt SEC 00133 

evaluation report presented for the first time 

to the Board today in section 4.1, operations 

description, cites multiple previously known 

reports to justify this very belated discovery 

of a heretofore presumably obscure fact. 

 The cited Mallinckrodt report is 
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dated 1994. On page nine of 19 of the 83.14 

SEC 133 evaluation report dated 12/1/08 the 

specific citation is Mallinckrodt 1994, 

columbium-tantalum plant characterization 

plant, Mallinckrodt, Inc., St. Louis, Missouri 

plant; Mallinckrodt, January 10th, 1994, and 

that is the site research database reference 

ID 3840. 

 The missing Board member should 

have asked two more questions. One, why was 

this 1994 Mallinckrodt report not reviewed by 

NIOSH, the Board and SC&A and acted upon in 

2005 when the original two MCW Destrehan 

Street SECs were being examined? 

 And the corollary question: When 

did NIOSH first obtain the 1994 report and 

share it with the Board? 

 The second question would be: why 

did it take 3-1/2 years to recognize the 1958 

MCW downtown site operations involving the 

same type of pitchblende-derived raffinate 

operations that were carried out and discussed 
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in detail when the Board wisely voted to 

overturn NIOSH's recommendation to deny the 

MCW Destrehan Street SEC-00112-2 that extended 

only through December 31st, 1957? 

 As a footnote, there appears to 

this surrogate missing Board member that from 

the NIOSH SEC 133 evaluation report, and from 

the SC&A TR task 10002 report, dated 

1/31/2005, there were ample references to 1958 

pitchblende raffinate operations at the MCW 

downtown site. 

 The references to the SC&A 2005 

report include the full citation. Oak Ridge 

Associated University team, ORAU, technical 

basis document for the development of an 

exposure matrix for the Mallinckrodt Chemical 

Company, St. Louis downtown site, St. Louis, 

Missouri, period of operation from 1942 to 

1958, O-R-A-U-T dot T-K-B-S dash zero zero 

zero five J-L Westbrook Rev. 00 24 October 

2003 D. That's the full citation. 

 Note the final phrase, period of 
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operation, 1942 to 1958. That is included in 

the SC&A January 31st, 2005 rev zero zero 

report citation is omitted by NIOSH and ORAU 

from Joe Guido's December the 1st, 2008 SEC 133 

Rev 2 evaluation report citations on page 19 

of 19. And that citation reads: ORAU T-K-B-F 

zero zero five, basis for development of an 

exposure matrix for the Mallinckrodt Chemical 

Company, St. Louis downtown site, and the St. 

Louis airport site, St. Louis, Missouri, rev 

two, Oak Ridge Associated University ORAU June 

14th, 2007, and that is cite Research Database 

reference I-D 32277. 

 The missing Board member also would 

ask a third question, and that is, why would 

NIOSH and ORAU not cite the full O-R-A-U-T 

dash T-K-B 0005 report title from rev zero 

zero issued in 2005 in its rev 02 version 

issued in 2007? 

 The surrogate missing Board member 

would then ask a fourth and final question: 

Why did SC&A not recognize early in 2005 that 
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radiological operations continued at MCW 

Destrehan Street in 1958 that should have led 

to an 83.14 SEC or to an extension of the SEC 

00012.2 class, to include 1958? 

 It would seem that the SC&A task 

one zero zero two report dated 1/31/2005 with 

at least four allusions to 1958 operations, 

and urine bioassay samples being taken to 

include 1958 would have led logically to this 

conclusion. 

 After listening to today's 

proceedings, I added two short comments a 

Board member might have made. First on the 

Chapman Valve SEC request to Bechtel, Larry 

Elliot mentioned that his office had sent 

three letters and made two phone calls without 

getting any response. This is the ideal 

situation to invoke section 73.84W of the 

EEOICPA by asking the Department of Labor to 

subpoena those Bechtel records. I continue to 

wonder why this powerful tool is so 

underutilized. 
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 Second, during the Mallinckrodt SEC 

discussion, NIOSH's Jim Neton was unable to 

say exactly how many claimants would be 

covered by the 1958 MCW SEC 00133 class. I 

believe this type of information should be a 

standard part of NIOSH SEC presentations. The 

data should be gotten before NIOSH presents to 

the Board. 

 My final comment is that I believe 

it would be improper to redact from the 

transcript of my public comment tonight the 

names of the key government officials 

responsible for us not knowing the name of the 

new Board contractor by today. This delay is 

causing obvious problems with Board 

functioning. Those people would be the CDC 

director, Dr. Julie Gerberding, Acting NIOSH 

Director Dr. Christine Branch, and the CDC 

contract officer, Mr. Karl Staudt. 

 Thank you very much. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Dan. 

 A number of questions for us to ponder. Some 
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of which we talked about earlier, because we 

asked ourselves how we overlooked certain 

things, and it is sometimes difficult to go 

back and sort of quarterback those things. 

But thank you for your comments nonetheless. 

 DR. McKEEL: Yes, sir, thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: I had another one 

here. I missed the second page. Dr. Jack 

Bowcord, thank you. 

 DR. BOWCORD: I will be real brief. 

 I know this has run over. 

 Just sitting here tonight listening 

to all these people, it sounds to me like 

there is a huge dose reconstruction problem. 

My Father worked at the Manhattan Project from 

1942 to 1946 and then he worked at Savannah 

River for 27 years, and then they come back 

and tell me he's got a dose reconstruction of 

11 percent? 

 Come on. He was all over that 

plant, and he was an engineer. He wasn't an 

office worker. It goes back what everybody 
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has said here and said tonight. Dose 

reconstruction is based on what you do and not 

where you work. And I think that is terrible. 

 His office building at Savannah 

River plant was connected to a reactor that 

was called Hector, and when that was 

demolished about eight years ago the office 

building was taken down as radiation exposed. 

 In 30 years of working for the government 

never wore a dosimeter badge and never wore a 

film badge ever. When I was in dental school 

and medical school, I kept asking him, dad, 

why don't you have to wear a badge? You are 

all over the plant. He was the head 

purchasing agent. He was in every division of 

that plant. 

 I said, we got to wear them at 

dental school to take dental X-rays. You 

don't have to wear them and you are working 

next to a reactor? 

 I think the dose reconstruction 

plan is a joke is what I think. 
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 Thank you. 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 I want to give opportunity to 

anyone else who may be here who wishes to 

speak but did not have an opportunity to do 

so. 

 Is there anyone else on the phone 

line that wishes to make comment that didn't 

have an opportunity to do so? 

 (No verbal response.) 

 CHAIR ZIEMER: If not, I thank all 

of you who participated tonight. We 

appreciate your attendance here. I do want to 

remind you - oh, okay, I'll do this after we 

are dismissed - want to remind you all that 

the Board will be meeting again at tomorrow 

morning. You are welcome to join us. 

 Thank you all and good evening. 

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter was 

concluded at 8:47 p.m.) 
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