STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes 

MEETING FIFTY-SIX 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. II 

DAY TWO 

ABRWH BOARD MEETING

 

The verbatim transcript of the 

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held at the Millennium Hotel, 

St. Louis, Missouri, on June 25, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

June 25, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 7 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO 

DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY (MADISON, IL) SEC PETITION 10,181 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH 

PETITIONERS 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY UPDATE 142 

MS. REGINA CANO, DOE; MR. GUY MCDOWELL, DOE; MR. KEN 

STEIN, DOE 

SPENCER CHEMICAL COMPANY (PITTSBURG, KS) SEC PETITION 

 217,242 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 

PETITIONERS 

PROCEDURES WORK GROUP SUMMARY 243 

MS. WANDA MUNN 

MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A 

SEC PETITION UPDATE 274 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH 

PUBLIC COMMENT 289 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 303 

 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 

or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

 -- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

 P A R T I C I P A N T S 

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

CHAIR

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D. 

Principal Associate Director 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

BOARD MEMBERS

BEACH, Josie 

Nuclear Chemical Operator 

Hanford Reservation 

Richland, Washington 

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 
5

1 LOCKEY, James, M.D. 

2 Professor, Department of Environmental Health 

3 College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 

Professor, Texas A&M University 

College Station, Texas 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 
6

AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 

BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 

BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC 

BURGAN, LARRY, SCI 

CAITO, BRENDA, DOW CHEMICAL 

CHEW, MELTON H., CHEW AND ASSOCS. 

CURTIS, WILLIAM A., DOL-SCI 

DEAN, LINDA, NIOSH 

DEGARMO, DENISE, SIUE/DOW 

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 

HAGEN, LINDELL E., SCI 

HAMBY, MARY, GSI 

HANSON, JOHN, SIUE/DOW 

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 

HOPPE, BILL 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

KLEINSCHMIDT, WILLIAM, NIOSH 

KNOTH, GARY, SCI 

KOTSCH, JEFF, U.S. DOL 

LAWRENCE, ROBERT, SCI 

LEWIS, MARK, ATL INTL 

LORD, DAN 

MAHATHY, MIKE, ORAU 

MARSCHKE, STEVE, SC&A 

MARTIN, TAMMY, GSI 

MARTINETTE, JANICE W., HONEYWELL 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU 

MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW/VI NEWS 

PRESLEY, LOUISE S., SPOUSE 

RAMSPOTT, JOHN, SINEW 

ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 

SIMMONS, HOMER 

SMITH, BILLY P., CHEW AND ASSOCS. 

THOMPSON, DON 

VOLSCH, JOE, SIUE/DOW 

WEINHOLD, MARY A., DOW CHEMICAL 

ZIEMER, MARILYN 
7

P R O C E E D I N G S

(8:30 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO

1 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. I'd like 

2 to call the meeting to order. We'll resume on 

3 our second day of deliberations of the Advisory 

4 Board on Radiation and Worker Health here in 

5 St. Louis. 

6 I'd like to remind everyone again to please 

7 register your attendance with us, if you've not 

8 already done so, on the registration form 

9 that's in the entryway. Also, members of the 

10 public who wish to address the assembly at our 

11 public comment session this evening at 7:30, 

12 there is a sign-up sheet for you there as well. 

13 Copies of the agenda are on the table in the 

14 back, as well as support documents relating to 

15 various topics that will be under discussion. 

16 I'd like to call attention to the fact that on 

17 today's agenda the item called "Special Science 

18 Journal Publication", which was on the agenda 

19 for 9:45, that item has been covered -- was 

20 covered in yesterday's session so that will not 
8

1 be on our agenda this morning. The Department 

2 of Labor update for this afternoon was covered 

3 yesterday afternoon. That was originally 

4 scheduled at 2:30 today so that will not be on 

5 today's agenda. The Board interactions with 

6 Congress, which was scheduled at 3:00 today, 

7 was also covered yesterday so will not be on 

8 today's agenda. 

9 There may be a couple of items that do get 

10 moved forward, depending on how our time goes 

11 today, but otherwise we will follow the agenda 

12 as you have it. 

13 We have some comments from our Designated 

14 Federal Official, Dr. Christine Branche, 

15 including some phone etiquette instructions. 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Good morning. For those 

17 participating today in the room, I want to let 

18 you know that the hotel has notified us that 

19 there's supposed to be some fire alarm testing. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: At what time? 

21 DR. BRANCHE: I'm told between 11:00 a.m. and 

22 noon, central time. I've also been told we are 

23 not to leave the room. That's only a test. We 

24 can only hope that it'll be brief and quiet. 

25 For those participants by phone, we do ask that 
9

1 you mute your lines. It is critical that you 

2 mute your phones so that everyone participating 

3 by phone can hear every part of the discussion 

4 here at the conference hotel, as well as 

5 comments that are being made by your colleagues 

6 who are also on the line. 

7 If you do not have a mute button, then please 

8 use star-6 to mute your lines. It's important 

9 that a person even now mutes their phones. If 

10 -- when you're ready to speak, please un-mute 

11 your phones, including using star-6 to un-mute 

12 your line when you're ready to speak. And Dr. 

13 Ziemer will give an indication when it's time 

14 for phone participants to weigh in. 

15 Also for phone participants, if you would 

16 please -- if you do need to leave the line, 

17 please do not use the hold button. That 

18 provides an interruption by whatever music or 

19 sound your hold system provides and it disturbs 

20 the line. 

21 So again, if all phone participants could mute 

22 your lines, we would very much appreciate it. 

23 Thank you so much. Dr. Ziemer? 

24 (Pause for telephone noise) 

25 DR. ZIEMER: We still have someone on the line 
10

1 that has -- because of the noise, has failed to 

2 hear the announcement to please mute your 

3 phone, so please mute your phone if you're on 

4 the line at this time. If you have no mute 

5 button, use star-6. If none of those work, you 

6 may have to hang up. Thank you. 

7 I don't know if we have to isolate that line if 

8 that noise continues -- 

9 DR. BRANCHE: We might have to. 

10 DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY (MADISON, IL) SEC PETITION

11 DR. ZIEMER: -- but thank you. Our first item 

12 this morning is a petition from Dow Chemical. 

13 We have an -- the Dow Chemical petition has 

14 undergone some changes over a period of time, 

15 and we have previously had an earlier 

16 evaluation report from NIOSH. We have now a 

17 revised evaluation report so we're going to 

18 hear from NIOSH. LaVon Rutherford will present 

19 the evaluation report, and then following that 

20 we will hear from the petitioners. Dr. McKeel 

21 is here and Dr. McKeel, I don't know if you 

22 have others -- I think there's at least one 

23 gentleman from NIOSH who has -- or from Dow 

24 that has some additional information that he 

25 wanted to present as well. 
11

1 So we'll begin with Mr. Rutherford and the -- 

2 Board members, his slide presentation, as well 

3 as the evaluation report, is in your packet on 

4 your flash drive. Thank you. LaVon? 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, can everyone hear me? 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Pull the mike toward you a little 

7 bit. 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Can everyone hear me? 

9 As Dr. Ziemer indicated, my name's LaVon 

10 Rutherford. I am the Special Exposure Cohort 

11 health physics team leader for OCAS. The 

12 attach-- or the addendum that I'm about to 

13 speak to is available on the back table and -- 

14 if you want to get that to refer to it. This 

15 is an addendum to an evaluation report, as Dr. 

16 Ziemer had indicated, that we had completed 

17 previously. 

18 I want to give you a little background 

19 information, kind of get you up to speed with 

20 why we completed this addendum. At the May 

21 2007 Advisory Board meeting we presented our 

22 evaluation report, and in that evaluation 

23 report we concluded that dose reconstruction 

24 was not feasible for a class of workers from 

25 1957 to 1960. That is the entire operational 
12

1 period, and the Board concurred with that 

2 recommendation. 

3 However, at that time the petitioner -- and Dr. 

4 McKeel, who'll be speaking in a moment -- 

5 voiced a concern that DOE's definition of the 

6 covered activities at the site were not clear 

7 and that they should include thorium 

8 activities. Dr. McKeel said that there -- 

9 evidence existed that thorium activities at Dow 

10 Chemical should be considered a covered 

11 activity. In our evaluation report we did not 

12 address thorium activities or thorium exposures 

13 during the residual period. 

14 Based on this issue identified by the 

15 petitioner, the Board sent a letter to the 

16 Secretary of HHS. In that letter the Board 

17 recommended that the Secretary evaluate whether 

18 thorium activities should be included as a 

19 covered activity during the covered period at 

20 Dow Chemical. The Secretary then responded to 

21 the Board and sent a letter back indicating 

22 that the Department of Energy is responsible 

23 for identifying covered facilities and that the 

24 Department of Labor is responsible for 

25 identifying covered period. However, the 
13

1 Secretary did offer up assistance from NIOSH to 

2 support any review that would be conducted by 

3 the Department of Energy or the Department of 

4 Labor. 

5 The Department of Energy did a review looking 

6 at -- through a number of data sources, and 

7 they concluded in January 2008 that the Dow 

8 Chemical Company was probably producing thorium 

9 alloy for use in weapons production, and 

10 therefore the activity should be a covered 

11 activity under the EEOICPA. 

12 Because thorium work was considered an -- a 

13 cov-- is now considered a covered activity, we 

14 had to evaluate, one, whether it -- its impact 

15 to the SEC class that we had already 

16 recommended and the Board had concurred with 

17 and the Secretary had recommended as well. And 

18 we also had to evaluate whether dose 

19 reconstruction during the residual period for 

20 thorium exposures -- whether we could actually 

21 do that. 

22 Okay. In February 2008 we corresponded with 

23 the Department of Labor asking them whether the 

24 covered period would be affected by the 

25 inclusion of this thorium work. We received a 
14

1 letter back from the Department of Labor 

2 stating that, based on the Department of 

3 Energy's report, there's no reason to change 

4 the dates of the covered period. Therefore, 

5 based on that -- since we had already concluded 

6 in our previous report that thorium exposures 

7 during the operational period could not be 

8 reconstructed, we -- we determined that the 

9 existing class that we had already recommended 

10 was not affected by this. 

11 However, we still had the responsibility to go 

12 back -- based on thorium activities being now a 

13 covered activity, we had the responsibilities 

14 to go back and evaluate whether -- evaluate 

15 whether dose reconstruction was -- for these 

16 thorium exposures was feasible for the residual 

17 period. 

18 In March of 2008 we contacted the Dow Chemical 

19 Company -- we had -- during the previous 

20 evaluation we had contacted Dow and, over time, 

21 had received documents that they had during the 

22 operational period. However, at that time we 

23 did not ask Dow for any thorium exposure 

24 information during the residual contamination 

25 period -- at that time, which was identified as 
15

1 1961 to 1998. So we determined we needed to go 

2 back to Dow and see if they had additional 

3 documentation that would support dose 

4 reconstruction -- personal monitoring data, 

5 area monitoring data, source term information. 

6 We also went to the State of Illinois and 

7 requested similar documents. We did receive 

8 documents from the State of Illinois. If you 

9 have the addendum, attachment one to that 

10 addendum outlines all of the sources we 

11 contacted for information, and you'll see that 

12 we received nine documents from the State of 

13 Illinois. 

14 We also -- as I'd mentioned, we have contacted 

15 Dow Chemical Company. They are still working 

16 on retrieving information for us at this time, 

17 so we do not have additional information from 

18 Dow. 

19 A little background on the work that was 

20 conducted. During the operational period of 

21 1957 to 1960 Dow extruded uranium -- 1957 to 

22 '58 -- for the AEC under contr-- under a 

23 subcontract with Mallinckrodt, and they also 

24 straightened uranium rods for the AEC under a 

25 subcontract with Mallinckrodt in '59 to '60. 
16

1 Routinely they handled thorium, incorporating 

2 it into metal alloys -- products. They 

3 primarily did this under commercial work. But 

4 as I'd indicated earlier, there are indications 

5 they may have been used in weapons production 

6 as well. 

7 Our first evaluation report was issued in April 

8 of 2007. And as I'd indicated earlier, that 

9 report concluded that thorium exposures during 

10 the operational period could not be 

11 reconstructed. That report also concluded that 

12 uranium exposures during the operational period 

13 and the residual contamination period could be 

14 reconstructed. We did issue a -- an addendum 

15 one. That addendum one was actually issued 

16 because, right before we presented our May 2007 

17 -- presented at the May 2007 Advisory Board 

18 meeting, we did receive documents from Dow 

19 Chemical. We committed to the Board at that 

20 time to evaluate whether that -- those 

21 documents from Dow affected our pre-- previous 

22 feasibility determination. We issued addendum 

23 one and addendum one concluded that those 

24 documents did not change our feasibility 

25 determination from that April 2007 report. 
17

1 All right, I want to talk about the addendum. 

2 We issued the addendum on June 3rd, 2008. The 

3 addendum addresses -- the only thing that we -- 

4 we did not previously address in our initial 

5 evaluation, and that is whether it's feasible 

6 to reconstruct thorium and thorium progeny 

7 exposures during the residual contamination 

8 period. 

9 Personal monitoring during the residual 

10 contamination period -- we have no individual 

11 external monitoring data, film badge data or 

12 TLD information. We have no bioassay results 

13 for either uranium or thorium during the 

14 residual contamination period. 

15 Area monitoring data -- we do have air sampling 

16 from the final cleanup of the site in 2006. I 

17 do want to point out that the reference we used 

18 for the final 2006 was -- and as Dr. McKeel's 

19 pointed out to us -- an e-mail from the 

20 radiological safety officer who was in charge 

21 of that cleanup, and it included excerpts from 

22 the 2006 final status report. We just received 

23 that final status report on Friday. I have 

24 made that final status report available to the 

25 Board. It is on -- under Dow Chemical under 
18

1 the O drive, and you can review that. We are 

2 looking at that final status report to see if 

3 we can refine some of these calculations, and 

4 I'll get back to that later. 

5 We have access to air sampling data from 1957 

6 to '59, which includes general area and 

7 breathing zone samples. And we also have 

8 thorium monitoring -- thoron monitoring data 

9 from 1959 that was conducted with the metal 

10 alloy with the highest thorium content. 

11 Additionally, we have dose rate surveys from 

12 the operational period. We also have dose rate 

13 information from monitoring that occurred in 

14 1981. And in a brief review of that final 

15 status report this weekend, we do have dose 

16 rate information from that final status report 

17 as well. 

18 Our feasibility conclusion for this is: based 

19 on available information, NIOSH concludes that 

20 it is feasible to bound estimates for thorium 

21 and thorium progeny exposures during the 

22 residual contamination period with sufficient 

23 accuracy. We -- we made a decision, we knew 

24 that we had a Board meeting in -- scheduled in 

25 St. Louis. We also knew that, looking at the 
19

1 data that we had, we felt that we could develop 

2 the model based on existing data and that any 

3 additional data that we may get from Dow 

4 Chemical will only support to refine our 

5 calculations, so we mo-- went ahead with 

6 completing the addendum and completing the 

7 report so we could present that today. 

8 Our technical approach for reconstructing 

9 thorium dose -- our internal exposures, we have 

10 -- we -- again, I mentioned in 1959 we have 

11 general area sampling, as well as breathing 

12 zone and process sampling. We chose to use the 

13 highest general area air sample. That actual 

14 sample is actually below detection limits. We 

15 actually took the detection limit, which is 

16 actually slightly above the MPC value at that 

17 time. We used that as our starting point for 

18 the 1961 -- the first year of residual 

19 contamination. So we took a general area 

20 sample that was -- that was taken with 

21 operations in place, and we took that and we 

22 used that as our starting point for the high 

23 end of our -- our intake values. We chose the 

24 general area value because it was not focused 

25 on production, it was focused on -- it did 
20

1 include some of the -- input from production, 

2 but it also included resuspension. We felt the 

3 process samples and the breathing zone samples 

4 were truly indicative of operations, which are 

5 not included in the residual period, so we 

6 still feel this is an overestimate. 

7 We used the air monitoring data from the final 

8 cleanup survey and -- to support the end of the 

9 residual contamination period. We actually 

10 took this air data was -- was taken at 

11 perimeter boundaries of a radiological area 

12 that was established for cleanup of the 

13 rafters, and came out at 9.94 percent DAC, so 

14 this was actually taken during cleanup and 

15 would have included higher concentrations that 

16 on an -- what you would typically see over a 

17 chronic period. 

18 We took the -- it's 1961 data, and we took the 

19 2006 air sample data and we derived a decay 

20 constant from that using an exponential 

21 function. And using that decay constant we 

22 were able to determine the activity 

23 concentrations for each sub-- each year between 

24 1961 to the end of the residual contamination 

25 period. 
21

1 You will note that we are using 2006 -- October 

2 of 2006 as a final period. The residual 

3 contamination period right now currently is 

4 documented as 1998. We are working to change 

5 that date to the -- based on the evidence that 

6 we have, we feel that the -- at a minimum, the 

7 October 2006 cleanup final report is -- or the 

8 actual date identified as the final closeout is 

9 October 2006, so at a minimum we should be 

10 there. There are a couple of activities that 

11 we noticed this weekend when reviewing the 

12 final status report that occurred in 2007 that 

13 we need to determine whether those actually 

14 extend the contam-- residual contamination 

15 period into 2007. But based on those, it does 

16 not affect our feasibility to do dose 

17 reconstruction. 

18 Again, as I mentioned, intake values are 

19 derived for each year. We've -- taking those 

20 intake values, we can estimate the ingestion 

21 values as well. Thoron intakes are estimated 

22 using the thoron monitoring data oper-- from 

23 operations in 1959. 

24 External exposures -- we have external -- as 

25 mentioned, dose rate data from the Silverstein 
22

1 report. We also have dose rate data from 1982. 

2 The 1982 data, we have indicated that -- range 

3 from -- you know, as -- as you'll note, 

4 exposure rates range from .01 to .05 MR per 

5 hour. However, one foot from the thorium 

6 storage bin we have a .7 MR per hour. We chose 

7 that number as our bounding number for the dose 

8 rate. We assume that number, and no scaling 

9 factor based on time. When I say no scaling 

10 factor based on time, we did not drop that 

11 value over time. At -- when -- at the 

12 completion of this report we did not have that 

13 final status report. The final status report 

14 does have dose rate information in it that we 

15 may actually use to refine our external 

16 exposure numbers, but the external exposure 

17 rate was assumed at 40 hours per week. And we 

18 did -- if you look at the sample dose 

19 reconstructions in the O drive, you will notice 

20 that we assume a 50 percent occupancy based on 

21 the Battelle 6000 report. 

22 So our feasibility determination or conclusion 

23 is we feel that reconstructing the thorium 

24 exposures during the residual period, we can do 

25 that, NIOSH has sufficient information. And 
23

1 based on the previous evaluation report 

2 analysis concerning uranium exposures during 

3 the residual contamination period, and this 

4 analysis, we find that dose reconstructions are 

5 feasible during the residual contamination 

6 period. 

7 And in summary, the period 1961 through October 

8 31st, 2006, NIOSH finds that dose estimates can 

9 be reconstructed. Feasibility is "yes"; health 

10 endangerment -- we do not -- if we determine 

11 feasibility is "yes", we do not have to answer 

12 the question of health endangerment. 

13 And that's it. Questions? 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, LaVon. Could 

15 you clarify the matter of the -- the samples 

16 that you recently found that you said -- 

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: -- might extend the residual 

19 period into 2007? 

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Would that then change the 

22 recommendation for the class -- or the 

23 definition of the class? 

24 MR. RUTHERFORD: What it will do, it will de-- 

25 if -- one -- we had enough information to 
24

1 determine that we definitely wanted to extend 

2 the -- or to October of 2006, beyond the 

3 original 1998 date for the residual 

4 contamination period. There are two activities 

5 defined in that final status report. There was 

6 some sub-surface under a concrete slab, 

7 slightly above recommendations -- activity 

8 concentrations that were removed, and there was 

9 also some existent contamination that was 

10 created during the cleanup that had to be 

11 removed in one of the buildings. Based on my 

12 initial review of that, we may extend the 

13 contamina-- or residual contamination period 

14 out to November of 2007, which was the final 

15 date when that was closed out. 

16 But again, it will not change our feasibility 

17 determination. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I was trying to get a feel 

19 for how one would -- would approach, in terms 

20 of actions, whether one would want to have a 

21 single action to cover everything or do this 

22 incrementally. But at the moment the 

23 recommendation only goes through October, but I 

24 think you're saying it's a high likelihood 

25 there would -- if one were to approve this, for 
25

1 example, right away -- 

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, that November of 2007, 

3 based on that final status report. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Board members, 

5 are there additional questions for Mr. 

6 Rutherford? 

7 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, looking at -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mark? 

9 MR. GRIFFON: Just looking at some of the data, 

10 LaVon, can you -- can you just describe a 

11 little more -- I'm looking at this -- I mean 

12 you -- you've been through this a lot more on 

13 the calculation, but the approach for the 

14 residual period, you have a sample at the end -

15 - 

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 

17 MR. GRIFFON: -- and -- and what -- 

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: We actually take -- 

19 MR. GRIFFON: You said the last -- in the -- in 

20 the cleanup period, you said that was 10 

21 percent DAC, and what was the value on the 

22 front -- on the -- the last -- 

23 MR. RUTHERFORD: On the front end, the fron-- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: -- process sample. 

25 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, on the front end it was 
26

1 actually 8.44 picocuries per cubic meter, which 

2 was actually slightly above the MAC at that 

3 time. When you convert it back to -- they were 

4 using 77 micrograms per cubic meter, and when 

5 you actually convert the numbers it was 

6 slightly above that. 

7 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And -- and that was a -- I 

8 think you said it was a general area -- 

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, that was a general area 

10 sample. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: -- sample, not a process sample. 

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: And we -- we used that, as I 

13 explained, because, one, during that residual 

14 period, we sh-- we are only addressing residual 

15 contamination that would have been there from 

16 AEC-covered activities. So the only -- we 

17 would not be addressing any of the process -- 

18 process work that continued after that 1960 

19 period. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And then -- and then the 

21 model, did you -- is this -- is this a linear 

22 extrapolation between the two points or is this 

23 a decay -- 

24 MR. RUTHERFORD: It's an exponential model -- 

25 MR. GRIFFON: Exponential, right. 
27

1 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- it -- yeah, and it's 

2 defined in our TIB-70. 

3 MR. GRIFFON: In TIB-70, okay. 

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Uh-huh. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: And then on the -- on the thoron, 

6 how many results did -- you say you have 

7 results for thoron. 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, if I remember correctly, 

9 there were 13, but I -- it may have been more. 

10 Let me look around here. I know -- 

11 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- and I -- I do -- I -- I 

12 corroborate that 13, but I also see there were 

13 like 40 overall and you excluded a bunch. Can 

14 you explain why those were excluded? 

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we used the -- that -- 

16 that -- 13 were straight from the HK-- or the -

17 - the thorium alloy metal that had the highest 

18 thoron -- highest thorium activity during 

19 production, which would have creat-- you know, 

20 assuming would create the highest thoron 

21 exposures. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: But these -- there -- it's mixed, 

23 but there is -- definitely some of the highest 

24 values are on the samples that were excluded -- 

25 at least if I'm looking at the spreadsheet 
28

1 correctly, so I might -- if you can take a look 

2 at that, maybe -- 

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, I can take a look at 

4 that. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: -- not asking for an answer now. 

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, that could be -- I mean 

7 that may be an adjustment we -- you know, if -- 

8 if I -- if I determined I was wrong on that, we 

9 would just adjust that thoron monitoring based 

10 on the real -- that data. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: I guess I'm more focused also on 

12 the number of samples and the adequacy -- you 

13 know, whether it adequately covers. 

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, recognize that is 

15 operational thoron monitoring data. 

16 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: So if that is based on when -- 

18 again, residual period, the only thing we are 

19 addressing is residual contamination, not 

20 operational. So that is operational data so it 

21 certainly is an overestimate. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Thank you. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Lockey? 

24 DR. LOCKEY: LaVon, in 1981 it was NIOSH 

25 monitoring data. Is that correct? Was that -- 
29

1 or was that area sampling, personal sampling, 

2 what was that? 

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: That was actually -- and I 

4 don't know that that was NIOSH monitoring data. 

5 I thought it was Oak Ridge. I'd have to go 

6 back and look at it again 'cause we actually 

7 had two different sources at that time -- at 

8 that time. The '81 data actually looked at -- 

9 it had contamination measurements and dose rate 

10 data. 

11 DR. LOCKEY: And the contamination measurements 

12 were -- how extensive were they? 

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Oh, they were actually looking 

14 at uranium and the thorium concentrations, and 

15 the uranium activity was actually higher than 

16 the thorium. 

17 DR. LOCKEY: Okay, thank you. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any other questions, Board 

19 members? 

20 (No responses) 

21 If not, thank you again, LaVon, and we'll hear 

22 now from the petitioners and we'll begin with 

23 Dr. McKeel -- oh, Mr. Stephan, you have a 

24 comment here? 

25 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Just how 
30

1 -- how our side would like to proceed, if you 

2 don't have an objection, is that Dr. McKeel 

3 will go first and then Dr. DeGarmo, who has 

4 been assisting the effort and -- and some of 

5 her students are with her, will go second, if 

6 that's okay. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, yeah. 

8 MR. STEPHAN: Dan's presentation is -- is going 

9 to be, you know, relatively substantive and I 

10 think you'll have a lot of questions from that. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

12 MR. STEPHAN: And then we have a lot of workers 

13 who are here, and Deb Detmers from Congressman 

14 Shimkus's office is here, so when Dr. DeGarmo 

15 finishes, then I'd like some -- some time and I 

16 know that -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and I have -- 

18 MR. STEPHAN: -- Deb would like some time. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- Deb on my list as well, and I 

20 think Bill Hoppe also had some comments he 

21 wanted to make, so we'd be pleased to hear from 

22 -- from all of the folks. 

23 So Dr. McKeel, if you want to kick it off, 

24 welcome. 

25 DR. MCKEEL: Thank you very much. Good morning 
31

1 to the Board members and everybody here from 

2 the agencies and the public. 

3 Okay, so once again, this is the -- I am Dan 

4 McKeel, a co-petitioner from the Southern 

5 Illinois Nuclear Workers, and this is the Dow 

6 SEC 00079 petition that we're addressing this 

7 morning. At the heart of this issue is -- let 

8 me see if I can make this -- let me see -- can 

9 I get some help on -- is this the -- on the 

10 pointer? You just... I'm sorry. 

11 (Pause) 

12 Just so everybody will know, the object on the 

13 left is a sample -- this is a photo from ORAU -

14 - of HK31A, which is the specific 

15 thorium/zirconium/magnesium alloy that was at 

16 issue as being used in nuclear weapons. The 

17 FBI examined the purchase orders from 

18 Mallinckrodt that mentioned this and concluded 

19 -- rather nicely, by image analysis of those 

20 documents -- that the documents did -- the 

21 purchase orders did refer to HK31A and HM21A, 

22 which is another thorium/magnesium alloy. And 

23 that was part of the basis why DOE concluded 

24 that Dow Madison made thorium alloys that were 

25 used in nuclear weapons in '57 and '58. 
32

1 So I wanted to go through our version of 

2 exactly what happened. I was notified of this 

3 83.14 SEC in September of '06. I made a 

4 presentation to the Board during the Dow SEC 

5 update in February of '07, and then presented 

6 the petitioners' view of the SEC on May 4th of 

7 '07. At that time the Board recommended an SEC 

8 -- SEC for Dow, unanimously, from January 1st, 

9 1957 through 12/31/1960. At that time I asked 

10 that the class be extended to cover the 1961-

11 '98 residual period, which was operative at 

12 that time, based on the belief that some Dow 

13 thorium was AEC-related. And this was 

14 primarily based on worker testimony. 

15 So I believe that actually -- slightly 

16 differently from what LaVon presented to you -- 

17 that there were two tasks that were assigned by 

18 the Board May 4th, and LaVon covered those but 

19 I believe NIOSH was given the responsibility 

20 not only to reconstruct uranium and thorium 

21 internal and external doses during the residual 

22 radiation contamination period, but also -- and 

23 I'll address this as part two -- NIOSH has the 

24 responsibility of setting the residual 

25 contamination time period, the start and end 
33

1 dates. 

2 In May of '07 NIOSH admitted to the Board it 

3 could not reconstruct internal thorium doses 

4 during the AEC uranium contract period. And on 

5 that basis, the SEC was recommended. Now today 

6 NIOSH claims that they can now do what they 

7 could not do May 4th, '07. 

8 I've already said we had strong evidence at 

9 that time in May that some of the thorium 

10 activity at Dow Madison was AEC-related. We 

11 didn't know exactly, we -- and I'll -- I'll 

12 cover the -- we thought there were large 

13 numbers of shipments to Rocky Flats, an AEC14 related one, and we later learned that there 

15 were purchase orders from Mallinckrodt. 

16 At that time also the Board tasked Sanford 

17 Cohen & Associates, their contractor, to review 

18 the original NIOSH ER. SCA -- SC&A held a Dow 

19 outreach meeting on 6/20/07 in Illinois and 

20 they issued a report on the NIOSH original SEC 

21 evaluation on 8/24/07. NIOSH issues their 

22 first addendum to the original evaluation 

23 report August 6th, '07. 

24 The SC&A Task V Dow report, on page 32, 

25 mentions the following: With the understanding 
34

1 of the Advisory Board, SC&A did not attempt to 

2 obtain information from sources other than 

3 NIOSH or that distributed to both NIOSH and 

4 SC&A by the SEC petitioners and their 

5 representatives. As recognized by the Advisory 

6 Board, SC&A did not independently request or 

7 obtain information from any other source. 

8 I have a lot of comments about that report, but 

9 the two I wanted to bring to your attention was 

10 that that report has an error in the diagram 

11 that shows the pot room at Dow Madison as 

12 having six rather than ten, which were -- there 

13 -- all the workers said that there were ten 

14 melting pots at Dow Madison. And I bring that 

15 up because it's not just a trivial type -- 

16 typo. I believe that that was based on the 

17 Silverstein '57 data, and that that data was 

18 not really gathered at the Dow Madison plant, 

19 but at another Dow plant in Michigan. 

20 The other thing I want to mention about the 

21 SC&A report is that's the best overview of the 

22 testimony that the Dow workers gave, and they 

23 went into that in some detail and -- and 

24 mentioned operations that actually occurred 

25 during the -- during the residual period. And 
35

1 as LaVon alluded to, there were extensive 

2 thorium alloy production operations still 

3 ongoing through the -- the '60s, the '70s, into 

4 the '80s and some in the '90s as well. 

5 The Department of Energy Health Safety and 

6 Security did archives research and sent 

7 Mallinckrodt purchase orders to the FBI for two 

8 studies that led Mr. Podonsky to issue his 

9 January the 8th, '08 letter to Peter Turcic, 

10 indicating that the AEC used thorium alloy in 

11 nuclear weapons from 1956 to 1969. That letter 

12 did not give really any details on exactly 

13 where those nuclear weapons were produced and 

14 exactly what weapons were -- used the thorium 

15 alloys, and I presume that was because the 

16 documents that led to this conclusion had been 

17 de-- had been classified and declassified -- or 

18 were still classified; I'm not sure about that 

19 point. 

20 In any -- in any case, the letter concluded 

21 that Dow thorium alloy plate was supplied to 

22 the AEC via Mallinckrodt Chemical Works uranium 

23 division purchase orders in 1957 and 1958. 

24 And I think it's important to know that not the 

25 Department of Energy but Dow headquarters, a 
36

1 private company, produced those purchase 

2 orders. It's probably also worthwhile to 

3 remember that at that time period, 1951 to '75, 

4 Dow Chemical was the prime contractor at Rocky 

5 Flats. 

6 In any case, following that January '08 letter 

7 from DOE, both NIOSH and DOL accepted the fact 

8 that Dow thorium alloys were used in nuclear 

9 weapons. That was very important. 

10 Well, I'm going to have to stop just for a 

11 minute because I -- I don't know why that is, 

12 but I -- I need to show you this, so I'm going 

13 to switch over, maybe with -- Laurie, can I get 

14 your help? I'm going to switch over to the 

15 PowerPoint PDF presentation, which will have 

16 this slide on it. So I -- I want to quit this 

17 and boot up the -- the PowerPoint and we'll go 

18 right to that. This is identical to the -- 

19 that presentation. Okay, and then -- here we 

20 go. Okay. 

21 This is an excerpt from the DOE HHS (sic) 

22 January letter. I apologize for the quality of 

23 the text, but I'll read it for you. I think 

24 it's very important. This is a verbatim quote 

25 from that letter. 
37

1 (Reading) During its operations Mallinckrodt 

2 Chemical Works uranium division conducted a 

3 variety of activities that supported research, 

4 development and production programs for the 

5 nuclear weapons complex. In addition, the 

6 Office of Health and Safety within the Office 

7 of Health Safety and Security has confirmed 

8 that magnesium/thorium alloys were used 

9 directly in atomic weapons from 1956 to 1969, 

10 which is consistent with the 1957 and '58 dates 

11 of the purchase orders. 

12 And later in the letter it says (reading) 

13 conclude for the years 1957/'58 the Dow 

14 Chemical Company in Madison, Illinois probably 

15 produced the material for use by the United 

16 States, that the material emitted radiation and 

17 could have been used in the production of 

18 atomic weapons. Therefore, we conclude that 

19 Dow Chemical Company in Madison, Illinois meets 

20 the definition of an AWE, as defined by 42 US 

21 Code 73.84.4, based on their work with 

22 magnesium/thorium plates and sheets. 

23 I had several comments about that letter, that 

24 was quite welcome at the time. Again, it's 

25 important that subsequently NIOSH and DOL 
38

1 accepted those conclusions. It's important I 

2 believe that DOE found, based on evidence 

3 contained in documents that they referred to as 

4 Livermore documents and NS -- NNSA documents, 

5 of the use of this type of thorium in nuclear 

6 weapons work. However, NIOSH focused on only 

7 the two 1957/'58 Mallinckrodt thorium purchase 

8 orders, ignoring the fact that other such 

9 purchase orders may well exist, and that would 

10 be the most claimant-favorable assumption. The 

11 fact that Dow headquarters, and not DOE, 

12 produced the key Mallinckrodt thorium alloy 

13 purchase orders buttresses this possibility. 

14 And the possibility is -- and I wondered at the 

15 time, why didn't the Department of Energy have 

16 these purchase orders, and could they still -- 

17 could they -- could they have them, but they 

18 could be classified, for example. 

19 On the 3rd of this month NIOSH released its 

20 second SEC addendum, which is the main point of 

21 this discussion this morning. I wanted to 

22 point out that that was a sole-author document 

23 by an employee at ORAU, Mr. James Mahathy, and 

24 of course there was NIOSH peer review. What's 

25 important I believe in assessing that report, 
39

1 and all the -- the first addendum, as well as 

2 the initial evaluation report -- to my 

3 knowledge, Mr. Mahathy has never visited the 

4 Madison plant in Illinois, nor has he 

5 interviewed any Dow workers or petitioners. 

6 And almost all of the Dow -- and I put that in 

7 quotes -- monitoring data cited, we believe, 

8 was from other plants than the Dow Madison SEC 

9 sites. And we're talking particularly about 

10 the Silverstein '57 and the Schrader* '59 data 

11 that NIOSH relies heavily on in assigning 

12 thorium doses for intakes. We question the use 

13 of that data because it's not really from Dow 

14 Madison at all. I'll go into that a little bit 

15 further why we believe that. 

16 In our opinion, addendum two does not state 

17 clearly how thorium internal doses can be 

18 bounded. There is some reference to NUREG 1717 

19 and NUREG 1400. And although I understand they 

20 were not the primary documents relied on, these 

21 -- these guidances were not sufficient to bound 

22 the internal thorium in the original ER or now 

23 back in May of last year. 

24 The air and other monitoring data, as I said, 

25 is largely we believe not from Dow Madison. 
40

1 And it is very important to point out that 

2 NIOSH has no Dow film badge or bioassay data. 

3 There's no site profile for this site. There's 

4 no site-specific appendix to TBD-6000. So 

5 there is very sparse data from Dow Madison. 

6 And in fact, in the early days of this SEC 

7 petition I wrote to OCAS several times and was 

8 told that OCAS and NIOSH, quote, had no 

9 monitoring data for this site. So all of that 

10 data has come in since May of '07. 

11 And as the Board ponders this, I would also 

12 point out that other Dow facility operations 

13 mentioned in Silverstein '57 are not yet proven 

14 to be similar to Dow Madison thorium 

15 operations, even though the thorium alloys 

16 produced were similar, because they were major 

17 products throughout the Dow complex. Again I 

18 mention that the Dow pot room description, 

19 sometimes in these reports referred to as the 

20 meld room -- a term that I've never heard the 

21 Dow workers themselves use -- as mentioned in 

22 the second addendum and in the SC&A report says 

23 there were six rather than ten pots that the 

24 workers say were there. 

25 So that leads to a -- a central question in our 
41

1 minds, and that is is the Dow Madison data 

2 authentic, and it's the Madison part that I 

3 question. 

4 Silverstein '57 certainly merits questions and 

5 comments. And the first is that the Madison 

6 site workers -- and we've talked to dozens; 

7 we've had four outreach meetings recorded in 

8 verbatim transcripts -- nobody ever mentioned 

9 knowing Mr. Silverstein, and he was supposed to 

10 be the Dow Madison radiation safety chief. And 

11 he was, on paper. But the question is, we -- 

12 we don't -- we're not aware of any data that he 

13 actually was ever at Dow Madison and -- and the 

14 men just simply don't even know who he was. So 

15 the question is, and I believe there is -- 

16 there is evidence which I -- really it's too 

17 detailed to go into this morning -- I don't 

18 think that air data was actually measured in 

19 Madison, Illinois. So it should be thought of 

20 as data from another possibly but unproven -- 

21 unprovenly comparable site. 

22 The same comments could be made for the 

23 Schrader 1959 thoron air data and was -- was 

24 any of that data -- this slide says was all the 

25 data from the Dow Madison, Illinois site. I 
42

1 think the answer to that question is no. I'm 

2 not sure that any of it was from Dow Madison. 

3 The other point I would make is those data 

4 apply to the operations period during the 

5 uranium contract in the current SEC class, but 

6 I don't see how data collected before 1959 can 

7 be extrapolated to be truly representative of 

8 operations over the Dow residual time span, 

9 which is what's under consideration this 

10 morning. 

11 The other point I'd like to make is that NIOSH 

12 makes the important claim now that they can 

13 reconstruct all uranium and thorium doses 

14 during the residual period, which starts in '61 

15 up to sometime at least as late as October 2006 

16 -- and maybe later, and I'll go into that in a 

17 minute. However, in all this time NIOSH has 

18 performed to date only three total dose 

19 reconstructions of 149 cases assigned to it. 

20 I don't believe that the addendum two addresses 

21 high intakes from numerous thorium fires and 

22 explosions with smoke and fumes that caused 

23 plant shutdowns as described in the worker 

24 testimony and affidavits. NIOSH addendum two 

25 did not give concrete examples how Illinois Dow 
43

1 thorium doses could be bounded in the various 

2 departments -- extrusions, castings, rolling 

3 mill -- with different exposures and operations 

4 at other sites. And I know that LaVon just 

5 said that they purposely avoided calculations 

6 based on thorium operations after 1961, but I 

7 don't think that's appropriate and I'll tell 

8 you why in a minute. 

9 I'd like to mention also that as far as using 

10 data from other facilities for Dow Madison that 

11 the Dow Illinois extrusion presses were not 

12 hooded. There were no vacuums to take away the 

13 dust. And some presses were unique, 

14 particularly the large press number seven, one 

15 of the largest in the world. 

16 Again, three of 149 cases sent to NIOSH by 

17 Department of Labor, according to the 

18 Department of Labor web site, have had dose 

19 reconstructions. Jeff Kotsch yesterday 

20 confirmed three dose reconstructions. NIOSH 

21 states that the 140 number should be 111, but 

22 I'll show you why I believe what I believe. 

23 I asked three times before this meeting to 

24 confirm for me please at NIOSH whether any of 

25 the partial dose reconstructions associated 
44

1 with Dow SEC 79 had actually been accomplished, 

2 and I was unable to verify that any had been 

3 done. But of course we do know that some 

4 people in the SEC class didn't have one of the 

5 22 specified cancers and therefore should have 

6 had a partial dose reconstruction now all these 

7 many months later. What's the reason for this 

8 low number of dose reconstructions? 

9 I wrote Mr. Elliott a letter and he kindly 

10 responded, and he said that the remaining non11 SEC claims at Dow are pending -- that's a quote 

12 -- due to -- and this is a quote -- updating of 

13 methods, end quote, and that the dose 

14 reconstructions will be done soon, quote. My 

15 question is why is such updating necessary if 

16 the addendum two issued earlier this month says 

17 NIOSH can reconstruct all those doses? 

18 This is the Department of Labor Dow EEOICPA 

19 statistics from 6/22/08, Part B, NIOSH actions, 

20 and you can see cases referred to -- I'm sorry, 

21 you really can't see that -- cases referred to 

22 NIOSH, 149; with dose reconstruction, three. 

23 So that's where I got my data. 

24 I have to mention -- I wish I didn't have to go 

25 into this, but throughout this process, and 
45

1 particularly since May '07, that the 

2 transparency -- to me, as a petitioner -- has 

3 been exceedingly low, and secrecy has been way 

4 too high, and I wanted to give you a couple of 

5 concrete examples. As of this date, the CDC 

6 FOIA office has still not supplied one item of 

7 a request I submitted to them in April of last 

8 year about the original Dow evaluation report. 

9 Another example, NIOSH refused to provide 

10 myself or Senator Obama's staff with names of 

11 the State of Illinois entities addressed in a -

12 - in a February 4th inquiry letter from this 

13 year. And you saw that same nomenclature, 

14 State of Illinois, in LaVon's report that he 

15 just presented. I was actually asking for the 

16 letter, in the FOIA request, that NIOSH sent to 

17 the State of Illinois, and it took 66 days for 

18 me to get that single letter. OCAS and/or CDC 

19 FOIA withheld another letter that was written 

20 on 4/10/08, and that letter was written to 

21 IEMA, as -- which is the Illinois Emergency 

22 Management Agency -- as was the first letter 

23 from February. The FOIA office declined to 

24 provide me with any of the 62 Dow headquarters 

25 documents put in the site research database on 
46

1 January the 9th, 2008. And you can find that 

2 that was done in the attachment to the addendum 

3 two report. I think it's on page 15 or 16. 

4 Anyway, my request -- my FOIA request of May 

5 16th should have produced those documents. 

6 You heard LaVon refer to a 2006 closeout 

7 report, but actually the -- the real closeout 

8 report that was issued by Pangea for IEMA is 

9 dated February 2008. And that's a closeout 

10 report for decommissioning and terminating 

11 Spectrulite's -- the current owner -- Illinois 

12 thorium license. And for some reason that I 

13 didn't understand when I prepared these slides, 

14 that was not cited in the 6/3/08 addendum two 

15 by NIOSH. What NIOSH did cite in that document 

16 was a -- a e-mail from the radiologic safety 

17 officer at Pangea, who is the contractor to 

18 IEMA for the decommissioning work. But surely 

19 that closeout report would have been a better 

20 source. And we know that OCAS sent at least 

21 two letters to IEMA requesting documents about 

22 the cleanup, so it's really unfathomable to me 

23 why they didn't have this February 2008 

24 closeout report when LaVon said that they just 

25 got that report on Saturday and gave it to the 
47

1 Board. So we also know -- I can tell you this 

2 -- that we know that there is a letter from 

3 Chris Barnes, the president and CEO of 

4 Spectrulite, who transmitted that closeout 

5 report to IEMA on March the 7th of this year. 

6 So IEMA should have certainly responded to 

7 OCAS's April '08 letter and sent that report to 

8 them, and why they didn't, I really don't know. 

9 Anyway, my FOIA appeal to the 86 -- the 08-

10 00862 FOIA appeal that I filed on the 20th of 

11 June of this year, I point out that many of the 

12 appendix two responsive documents were withheld 

13 from me, and that made my job -- and makes my 

14 job this morning -- much more difficult to try 

15 to rebut NIOSH's claim that they can 

16 reconstruct doses for the residual period. 

17 Now this is a contentious issue. I'm not sure 

18 I'm right, but I want to offer it up for your 

19 consideration. LaVon Rutherford just stated 

20 that NIOSH did not consider thorium operations, 

21 only the static residual contamination that was 

22 at the plant in -- in the residual period. In 

23 the 6/3/08 addendum two on page 25 the author 

24 states internal exposures to thorium during the 

25 residual period resulted from corrosion of 
48

1 stored material, resuspension of dust, scrap 

2 handling, scrap cutting, and loss of 

3 containment of disposed materials. But that 

4 description ignores the fact that Dow AEC and 

5 their commercial thorium streams were mixed and 

6 inseparable, and I've underlined and bolded 

7 that because that's a very important concept 

8 that's part and the heart of a provision of 

9 EEOICPA. And that is that if you have a mixed 

10 waste stream of AEC and non-AEC uranium, 

11 thorium, plutonium, whatever, that you have to 

12 consider all of that radionuclide, in this case 

13 thorium, as AEC-related. And so since we know 

14 that thorium alloy HK31 and HM21 were produced 

15 at least through the '70s and well into the 

16 '80s, and maybe even the '90s, according to 

17 testimony, that we believe that all thorium 

18 operations must be bounded during the residual 

19 period, including the production activities of 

20 that mixed -- that led to that mixed waste 

21 stream. 

22 That means that NIOSH must also bound thorium23 232, thorium-230 and thoron exposures through 

24 most of the residual period when thorium HM 

25 alloy production continued at the same pace as 
49

1 it had in 1957 to '60 for AEC activities at 

2 Dow, plus the post-1961 periods when Penalco 

3 owned the plant up to 1986, and after 1986 when 

4 Spectrulite Consortium bought the plant. I 

5 believe that internal and ingestion path 

6 thorium should be calculated for all casting, 

7 extrusion and rolling operations throughout the 

8 residual time period. 

9 This -- I -- I don't want to go over old 

10 material, but I just wanted to remind you that 

11 addendum two and the DOE letter of 1/8/08 of 

12 this year have ignored basically worker 

13 testimony that Dow Madison shipped large 

14 amounts of HK31 and HM21 to Rocky Flats AEC 

15 facility, and those shipments continued in 

16 1950s and 1960s and maybe even later. 

17 My summary and conclusions on dose 

18 reconstruction -- NIOSH could not dose 

19 reconstruct thorium internal doses in May 2007, 

20 and erred in stating they can now accurately 

21 bound internal thorium doses at Dow Madison in 

22 Illinois in the 6/3/08 second addendum report 

23 to the SEC 79 evaluation. The pot room 

24 description is flawed, and thorium fires and 

25 explosions with high intakes are not 
50

1 considered. 

2 I also point out that SC&A has not formally 

3 reviewed or concurred with the first or second 

4 addenda to the Dow Madison evaluation reports. 

5 This should be done, in fairness to the 

6 workers. 

7 Second part I think that needs to be addressed 

8 is the definition of the residual period, when 

9 it ends. And there seems to be some confusion 

10 still -- LaVon mentioned that they were sending 

11 information to have DOL, the Department of 

12 Labor, determine the end of the residual 

13 period, and I wanted to read you this excerpt 

14 from an April 15th of this year letter from 

15 Peter Turcic of Department of Labor to our 

16 group, DOE and to NIOSH, and here's what Peter 

17 says. (Reading) As for the period of residual 

18 contamination, Department of Labor accepts that 

19 thorium was in fact part of the AEC work and 

20 thus should be covered as part of the residual 

21 contamination at the facility. As for the 

22 period of time that residual, be it thorium or 

23 any other contamination, that is totally in the 

24 preview of NIOSH -- and I believe that's a typo 

25 and it's meant to be purview of NIOSH. So 
51

1 Peter Turcic is saying DOL has no part in 

2 determining that the period of time of the 

3 residual period. 

4 Now what that leaves us with is several 

5 proposed residual periods. One was the 

6 original one, 1961 to 1998, based on the 

7 uranium that was at the Dow Madison plant and 

8 used for AEC operations. In the NIOSH December 

9 6th report to Congress, that same time period 

10 is observed. SEC 79 evaluation report addendum 

11 two, issued 6/3/08, extended the residual 

12 period to be 1961 through October the 31st, 

13 2006. And that was based solely on a March 

14 3rd, '08 Pangea e-mail. 

15 Subsequently I followed up on that e-mail and 

16 talked to the radiological safety officer at 

17 Pangea and have more information about that. 

18 One thing I found out was that the IEMA 

19 closeout report by Pangea was dated February 

20 2008, not 2006. I also found out, as LaVon 

21 just mentioned, that IEMA required added 

22 decommissioning work in 2007, and that ended 

23 officially, according to the Pangea person, on 

24 November the 9th of 2007. Further what I 

25 learned, and I think this is extremely 
52

1 important, the site was not released for 

2 unrestricted use until June the 8th, 2008, so a 

3 few weeks ago. The project closure report of 

4 February '08 has this to say in the executive 

5 summary, and I quote, Pangea Group was 

6 contracted to provide for the remediation and 

7 removal of the remaining source and 

8 contaminated material from the Madison 

9 facility, and verification that all licensed 

10 material was removed from the site. 

11 On page 17 the report says all residual source 

12 material, as well as all waste generated during 

13 initial decommissioning effort, was disposed of 

14 at the U.S. Ecology facility in Robestown, 

15 Texas. 705 tons were shipped off-site. 

16 Page 20 of the closure report, section 5.2.2, 

17 says, I quote, To quantify the amount of 

18 contamination under the Building 7 casting area 

19 concrete slab, six 48-inch macro cores were 

20 taken in August of 2007 through the slab in an 

21 attempt to bound the contamination. 

22 This is not in the addendum two report. 

23 Page 20, section 5.2.1, secondary remediation 

24 of the dross storage area of Building 7, 

25 respiratory protection was mandatory for all 
53

1 workers engaged in grinding work to remove the 

2 contamination. The dross room remediation 

3 activities were completed in May of 2007. 

4 IEMA therefore, by its actions, believed the 

5 2007 contamination was significant and ordered 

6 it to be removed off site by Pangea during the 

7 secondary decommissioning phase, and the 

8 project closure report of February '08 says 

9 that 219 tons were removed during the secondary 

10 2007 decommissioning phase. That's on page 21. 

11 And then also on page 21 it mentions that the 

12 date of the final cleanup of the soil in phase 

13 two was in November of 2007. The Pangea 

14 radiologic safety officer told me on 6/21 that 

15 November the 9th was the last date, and 

16 actually documents that Senator Obama's office 

17 got from IEMA just recently -- I think it's 

18 part of actually the appendix, one of the 

19 appendices to the closure report -- shows that 

20 the last shipment of thorium was sent to Texas 

21 November the 7th, 2007. That's also mentioned 

22 on page 21 of the closure report. 

23 When I talked to Pangea they said that the 

24 reason that they recommended October 2006 as 

25 the end of the residual period was because this 
54

1 was the end of the primary decommissioning, and 

2 that that had resulted in a 99 percent cleanup. 

3 And then in another part of our conversation 

4 said 99-plus percent cleanup, and I'll come 

5 back to that a minute -- in a minute. When 

6 confronted with this accomplishment, however, 

7 IEMA ordered Pangea to perform two added tasks 

8 for the soil and dross room that were not 

9 completed until November the 9th, 2007. We 

10 believe that IEMA considered significant 

11 contamination had to be removed in 2007. And 

12 significant is a very important term because 

13 that's the -- the standard used in the report 

14 that NIOSH makes to Congress on residual 

15 contamination, and that's contained and 

16 specified as 10 Code -- Code of Federal 

17 Regulations Part 835, Appendix D. IEMA was 

18 unwilling to certify 100 percent completion and 

19 release the site for unrestricted use, the goal 

20 of license termination, until June 8th, this 

21 month. 

22 Now how about that statement that Pangea used 

23 that 99 percent of the contamination was 

24 removed by October 31st, 2006? The primary 

25 phase ended and, as I just showed you, produced 
55

1 705 tons of material. The secondary phase in 

2 2007 produced 219 tons. And so if you 

3 calculate those fractions, what you come up 

4 with is that during the primary phase in 2006, 

5 76.3 percent was removed; and during the 

6 secondary decommissioning phase in 2007, 23.7 

7 percent was removed. So phase one equals 99 

8 percent removal is just a serious misstatement 

9 of the facts, and all of those numbers come 

10 from the Pangea IEMA February the 8th closure 

11 report. 

12 Here's that standard I mentioned. Between the 

13 red lines is the actual wording from the 

14 document, and I've just retyped it below. 

15 NIOSH believes that contamination levels at 

16 designated facilities in excess of those 

17 indicated in 10 CFR Part 835, Appendix D, the 

18 occupational radiation protection surface 

19 contamination values indicate that there is, 

20 quote, significant contamination, end quote, 

21 remaining in those facilities. And that's on 

22 page 4 of 9 of the main file, the December 2006 

23 NIOSH PDF document, Report on Residual 

24 Radioactivity and Beryllium Contamination at 

25 Atomic Weapons Employer Facilities and 
56

1 Beryllium Facilities. John Howard, Director, 

2 was the author of that report. 

3 The petitioners therefore believe that the date 

4 November the 9th, 2008 (sic), when the 

5 secondary decommissioning tasks were 100 

6 percent completed, or June the 8th, 2008, the 

7 site unrestricted use release date, are more 

8 appropriate dates to end the Dow residual 

9 contamination period for the mixed AEC and 

10 commercial and military waste stream at Dow, 

11 Penalco and Spectrulite Consortium. 

12 Finally, I need to say that there were 

13 surprises to me in the handout that LaVon 

14 Rutherford spoke from today and the slides you 

15 just saw. And those points need to be strongly 

16 challenged, and I put this slide together this 

17 morning 'cause I really had just seen the 

18 information. I apologize that it's hard to 

19 read, but I'll try to read it for you. All the 

20 Board members have a copy of this and Dr. 

21 Ziemer has a -- a copy of each slide on a full 

22 eight and a half by eleven piece of paper, so 

23 it -- it has -- has gotten into the record, 

24 hopefully. 

25 The co-petitioner strongly challenges NIOSH's 
57

1 report today. It wrongly portrays the 1/8/08 

2 DOE letter by not mentioning that there were 

3 two 1957/'58 Mallinckrodt AEC thorium purchase 

4 orders, and I think may have been used -- 

5 probably should -- should be -- were used, 

6 although Mr. Podonsky's letter does use the 

7 word "probably," so there is an element of 

8 uncertainty in there. 

9 I think the addendum two and that document you 

10 all said to date should have underscored the 

11 fact that the thorium alloys were used in 

12 nuclear weapons between 1956/1969, not 

13 necessarily at Dow Madison but throughout the 

14 atomic weapons complex. 

15 LaVon mentioned that NIOSH and Department of 

16 Labor had exchanged letters about the covered 

17 period. Those were withheld from me; still 

18 have never seen them. 

19 The NIOSH March '08 letters to and from Dow 

20 requesting documents were withheld from me; 

21 I've never seen those letters. I've sent FOIAs 

22 that should have produced them. 

23 NIOSH got 62 documents in the site research 

24 database on the 9th of January of this year, as 

25 mentioned in the second addendum, but was not 
58

1 mentioned today. What LaVon mentioned is that 

2 NIOSH is still waiting for even more documents 

3 from the Department of Energy, so I don't 

4 understand that at all. 

5 He did mention that the addendum one had been 

6 issued, but LaVon's report today did not 

7 mention that SC&A had reviewed the NIOSH 

8 original evaluation report, but not addendum 

9 one and SC&A has not identified -- has not 

10 reviewed addendum two. 

11 The slides you all saw today does not explain 

12 NIOSH's rationale for setting the end of the 

13 thorium residual period at October 31st, 2006, 

14 and it does not describe interactions which 

15 I've detailed for you with Pangea and IEMA. 

16 Again, the 1957/'58 air sampling and breathing 

17 zone data we believe are not from Dow Madison 

18 site. 

19 1959 thoron monitoring data is not collected 

20 from the Dow Madison site, we believe. 

21 The dose rate monitoring from operational 

22 period was not from Dow Madison and was not 

23 included in SC&A's August 2007 report. And I'm 

24 talking particularly about the document 

25 referred to as Schrader 1959 in the addendum 
59

1 two. 

2 I therefore question the authenticity of all of 

3 that data that's being used to say NIOSH can 

4 reconstruct thorium doses as being authentic 

5 Dow Madison air sampling, dose rate data, et 

6 cetera. 

7 Another extremely important point is that 

8 addendum two omits mention of the fact that 

9 worker affidavits -- and you can see the SC&A 

10 report of August '07 for this -- that the usual 

11 work week was not 40 hours, but that at that 

12 plant, as at many other plants, overtime was 

13 common and that there was a far longer work 

14 week. So 40 hours is an underestimate of the 

15 work week and is definitely not claimant 

16 favorable. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Excuse me, Dr. McKeel. As 

18 concerns this one document, you said that it's 

19 -- you're entering it into the record, but 

20 nobody here has that piece of paper so we're 

21 going to need a copy of that one -- of this one 

22 slide, please, after you finish. We don't have 

23 this. 

24 DR. MCKEEL: You have -- you have a copy of all 

25 -- 
60

1 DR. BRANCHE: No, we don't -- 

2 DR. MCKEEL: Oh -- 

3 DR. BRANCHE: -- of this one slide. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Actually this -- this last slide 

5 is not in the packet, and for some reason there 

6 are several missing in the -- in the -- 

7 DR. MCKEEL: Well, the reason they're missing 

8 is that I had to do them today and I was at 

9 Kinko's at -- 

10 DR. ZIEMER: We -- 

11 DR. MCKEEL: -- 12:30 last night -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: -- we'll get together and 

13 coordinate those. 

14 DR. MCKEEL: -- but -- yes, actually what I -- 

15 Dr. Branche and Dr. Ziemer, what I would like 

16 to do is my presentation in electronic form is 

17 on your laptop, and you are welcome -- I wish 

18 you would keep that and use that as an official 

19 -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Can use that -- 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

22 DR. MCKEEL: Will that suffice as a -- 

23 DR. BRANCHE: That will suffice. 

24 DR. MCKEEL: -- submission for the record 

25 and... 
61

1 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, it will. Thank you. 

2 DR. MCKEEL: So both a PDF and the PowerPoint 

3 identical presentations -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: That will -- that will work. 

5 DR. MCKEEL: -- with all the slides -- 

6 DR. BRANCHE: Given that I've interrupted you, 

7 Dr. McKeel, there's some participants by phone, 

8 if you could please mute your line, and also 

9 please do not put us on hold. If you have to 

10 leave the line, it is better for you to hang up 

11 the phone and dial back in rather than put us 

12 on hold. Thank you. 

13 Sorry, Dr. McKeel. 

14 DR. MCKEEL: No, that's fine. So finally and 

15 lastly, we come to what I think is the 

16 overarching issue for today and that's -- we're 

17 asking the Board to please consider extending 

18 the class coverage for SEC 00079, and there are 

19 several options as to when the class should be 

20 extended to. I tried to find out how many 

21 people would be -- additional people would be 

22 covered if the dates were extended, and I -- I 

23 don't have the answer from NIOSH about that. 

24 But anyway, here are the periods that are -- 

25 could be considered. The original 1961 through 
62

1 1998 period when the current SEC was approved 

2 by the Board last May. 1961 through October 

3 31st, 2006 was the new date for the residual 

4 period in the NIOSH appendix two. But as I 

5 say, that date was only the date when 76 

6 percent of the residual contamination had been 

7 cleaned up. Our proposal, number one, to 

8 consider is extending it from 1961 through 

9 November 9th, 2007 when 100 percent of the 

10 license decommissioning activities were 

11 completed. Or if you want to be truly 

12 conservative and truly claimant favorable, the 

13 period would be 1961 through June the 8th, 2008 

14 when IEMA released the Madison site for non15 restricted use, and that was according to the 

16 Pangea phone call that I had on 6/21 of this 

17 month. 

18 Finally, I have a slide with my new contact 

19 information in Van Buren, Missouri, and I would 

20 just point out and invite any of you all to 

21 come and visit. Last two slides -- this is of 

22 the Current River, a national historic river in 

23 southern Missouri. Here's my friend 

24 [Identifying information redacted] on the front 

25 porch of the new house and the Current River is 
63

1 running by and we can watch that each day. 

2 And this is my one medical slide for this 

3 presentation. These beautiful flowers are 

4 foxglove, from which digitalis is manufactured. 

5 And for some reason this year, as opposed to 

6 last year, the foxglove produced abundant 

7 flowers. So thank you very much. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan. Could I ask one 

9 other clarification point, and this was one of 

10 the slides that is not in my packet here, but 

11 it was the slide -- slide having to do with -- 

12 I think you said 76 percent and then 100 

13 percent of the residual contamination. 

14 DR. MCKEEL: Yes. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Were -- were those numbers based 

16 on the mass of the activity removed; and if so, 

17 do you have any evidence that the -- that the 

18 concentrations were unchanged from the first to 

19 the second? You know what I'm asking whe-- 

20 DR. MCKEEL: Good point. Well -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Certainly it's -- 

22 DR. MCKEEL: -- the -- the slide is up on the 

23 Board. The 705 tons and the 219 tons were the 

24 amounts of radioactive waste shipped to Texas 

25 from the Dow Madison plant. Now -- you know, 
64

1 and there are shipping manifests that show 

2 that. It doesn't really show any measurements 

3 that were made of that bulk material as far as 

4 radioactivity levels, but apparently that's all 

5 -- you know, 924 tons of residual contamination 

6 were removed and shipped off site. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I know -- 

8 DR. MCKEEL: And that's all I (unintelligible). 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- often in decontamination 

10 operations the first time through, as it were, 

11 you pick up a large bulk of the contamination. 

12 But I was just wondering if we had evidence 

13 this time -- I'm -- I'm talking about the 

14 concentration -- 

15 DR. MCKEEL: Oh, I'm sor-- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- values and -- 

17 DR. MCKEEL: I'm sorry, I -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: -- we don't know at this point, I 

19 guess. 

20 DR. MCKEEL: Right. What -- what I do know is 

21 that the -- the 219 tons were from areas that -

22 - interestingly, the Pangea representative 

23 described as very small areas of contamination 

24 between Buildings 6 and 7 for the soil and the 

25 dross room is a relatively small room where 
65

1 they stored thorium sludge indoors, for reasons 

2 that I don't really understand because they had 

3 a 40-acre plot outside that they stored large 

4 amounts of magnesium/thorium sludge. That was 

5 cleaned up in 1992, at least partially, by this 

6 ERG group. But -- but the exact -- you know, I 

7 don't know if those facilities do any 

8 measurements on the bulk material they receive, 

9 and I didn't see any numbers of concentrations 

10 of radionuclides in that material shipped out. 

11 It may exist, I just -- I don't know. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Actually perhaps 

13 later, as we have discussion period, we can 

14 focus on some additional issues that were 

15 raised, but I think we want to go ahead and 

16 hear from the other petitioners. And Dr. 

17 DeGarmo -- is it DeGarmo or DeGiarmo? 

18 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

19 (Unintelligible) 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Welcome. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: For the record, when you do come 

22 to the mike could you please spell your last 

23 name for us? Thank you. 

24 DR. DEGARMO: D-e-g-a-r-m-o. And I have a lot 

25 of documents I want to refer to so I may be 
66

1 shuffling them back and force -- forth. 

2 First let me thank you for the privilege of 

3 addressing the Board. My name is Denise 

4 DeGarmo and I'm an associate professor of 

5 international relations at Southern -- 

6 DR. BRANCHE: Oh, I see, if you -- 

7 DR. DEGARMO: And if you want them, I will make 

8 them available to you. 

9 DR. BRANCHE: Okay. 

10 DR. DEGARMO: I'm an associate professor of 

11 international relations at Southern Illinois 

12 University in Edwardsville, which is just 

13 across the river from here. I received my 

14 Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, 

15 department of political science, in Ann Arbor 

16 where I focused on security studies with a 

17 specialization in U.S. nuclear policy. I've 

18 since expanded my interests to include 

19 international environmental security, and 

20 certainly the events that have occurred in the 

21 metro east fit into both of those purviews. 

22 About two years ago I was approached by Deb 

23 Detmers and asked whether I would be willing to 

24 assist her office and Senator Obama's office on 

25 the Dow petition. During this time I have 
67

1 conducted research, with the help of two 

2 students who I'd like to recognize, 

3 [Identifying information redacted]* and 

4 [Identifying information redacted]. We've 

5 worked tirelessly on this -- this issue to 

6 advance the cause of the Dow workers. The 

7 workers have not only become our friends, but 

8 they have become our heroes. We have an 

9 ultimate respect for the men and women who have 

10 worked through the atomic weapons facility. 

11 The -- as is the case with thousands of atomic 

12 weapon workers across this country, the best 

13 nuclear arsenal in the world was built upon 

14 their backs. These extraordinarily -- 

15 extraordinary people willingly answered the 

16 call of their government during a time of 

17 significant crisis. They swore their 

18 allegiance and took their oath of secrecy as 

19 they assumed their positions in the front line 

20 of defense. Unknowingly these individuals 

21 worked with dangerous materials in dangerous 

22 facilities, not always receiving the protection 

23 that they deserved. And as a result of this, 

24 individuals are suffering from afflictions 

25 associated with chronic radiological exposure. 
68

1 The government is responsible for their 

2 illnesses and is responsible for helping them 

3 in their time of need, given their 

4 extraordinary service to this country. Had it 

5 not been for the thousands of workers across 

6 the country, as well as those at Dow, from a 

7 scholarly point of view, we do not know how or 

8 if the nuclear arsenal of the United States 

9 would have been developed to the superior 

10 capacity that it is today. 

11 While we deeply appreciate NIOSH's 

12 recommendation for dose reconstruction, I do 

13 not believe that they have gone far enough and 

14 would like to ask you to reconsider -- or to 

15 consider, if you will -- the Special Exposure 

16 Cohort request. 

17 Let me tell you something about the workers. 

18 Some of the workers, including [Identifying 

19 information redacted], [Identifying information 

20 redacted], [Identifying information redacted], 

21 [Identifying information redacted] and 

22 [Identifying information redacted]*, have been 

23 collecting health data on the workers at Dow, 

24 trying to create some type of record which 

25 recognizes this kind of afflictions that these 
69

1 workers have encountered. 139 out of 2,000 

2 have heart disease, breathing ailments, or a 

3 combination of the two. And a disproportionate 

4 number of those individuals rely on the 

5 administration of oxygen for their subsistence. 

6 162 out of 2,000 have prostate cancer, where 

7 the national average is 120 per 100,000 people, 

8 so we see an increased rate there. While 

9 several individuals have been recently 

10 contacted by NIOSH for dose reconstructions for 

11 this type of cancer, we would like to see NIOSH 

12 give greater consideration to what we believe 

13 is a pertinent link between prostate cancer and 

14 radiation exposure. 

15 We noted that NIOSH is measuring exposures for 

16 prostate cancer at Blockson, and we would like 

17 to see some consistency for all facilities that 

18 are under review. From 2001 through the 

19 present 103 people have died. 

20 And although the Department of Energy does not 

21 recognize the presence of beryllium at the Dow 

22 Madison facility, we do have several workers 

23 whose only job was at Dow and have been 

24 diagnosed with berylliosis. 

25 What else do we know? Let me set these down -- 
70

1 thank you. I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. 

2 McKeel in his evaluation of the Silverstein 

3 report. I'm not sure it makes any logical 

4 sense to use that report for the purposes of 

5 dose reconstruction. Issues with all the 

6 Silverstein papers that I have read, including 

7 his professional articles -- I'm not sure that 

8 it accurately represents the thorium work that 

9 was taking place in the plant at that time, or 

10 into the residual period because I do have 

11 evidence that atomic weapons work was continued 

12 into the residual period, which should be taken 

13 into consideration. If it was not used for the 

14 previous SEC, why now has it been chosen to be 

15 used for a period that it's not reflective of? 

16 I also have an interesting letter here that was 

17 written by -- in 1959 by the technical 

18 department, [Identifying information redacted]* 

19 at Madison to [Identifying information 

20 redacted]* of Dow's environmental research lab, 

21 stating that it was a good time to evaluate 

22 thorium and daughter products evolved during 

23 sludge centrifuging. Apparently this process 

24 had been going on for some time, but had never 

25 been taken into consideration. And I wonder 
71

1 then, if something as important as the 

2 centrifuging process had not been evaluated for 

3 exposure, how can we be sure that that 1957 

4 report is actually accurate? 

5 So here's that (unintelligible) -- okay. 

6 The evidence that I referred to that suggests 

7 atomic nuclear weapons were -- involves 

8 thorium, uranium and beryllium. Before I speak 

9 to these materials I would like to remind the 

10 Board that one of the interesting things that 

11 Dow did during the atomic weapons work was that 

12 it set up its source material license and 

13 special nuclear material licenses not only for 

14 Midland, but included other operations, 

15 including Madison and Bay City. Whatever 

16 material was licensed to Midland was also 

17 available and licensed to these other two 

18 operations. This allowed Dow to move not only 

19 beryllium, plutonium, uranium metal, thorium 

20 alloys to other plants, it also allowed them 

21 less oversight where they were able to operate 

22 more freely outside of the AEC. They didn't 

23 have to create new licenses to track the 

24 movement of materials. 

25 We know that during the residual period that 
72

1 thorium was alloyed with magnesium for 

2 missiles. And during that process they created 

3 one alloy, known as lockalloy, that was used 

4 for missiles that carried nuclear weapons. We 

5 also know that during the late '60s and early 

6 '70s Boeing and the University of Michigan 

7 undertook a project for a nuclear missile 

8 called the Bomarc. The Bomarc missile was an 

9 intercontinental ballistic missile and Dow was 

10 asked to create an alloy that could actually be 

11 used for the delivery -- or the mechanisms, 

12 excuse me, for the actual nuclear device. So 

13 we do have evidence to suggest that work was 

14 going on with thr-- with thorium throughout 

15 this particular period. We also know that 

16 alloys were transferred back to Midland from 

17 Madison for use in their test reactors, test 

18 reactors that were producing plutonium for the 

19 nuclear weapons program. 

20 I also have some documentation that discusses 

21 the reintroduction -- or maybe the 

22 continuation, if you will -- of uranium into 

23 the Madison facility. The letter that I'm 

24 referring to is a letter that was written in 

25 1971 regarding source material license STB-527 
73

1 dated March 20th, 1968, and this source 

2 material license was amended to include 

3 uranium. And I wonder if NIOSH has given any 

4 consideration to the effects that this 

5 additional exposure to uranium radiation might 

6 have had on the workers. 

7 Additionally, in a letter dated 1972 to the 

8 U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, it is stated 

9 that Dow was using uranium metal for research. 

10 And we know that the only reason you would use 

11 uranium metal -- or one of the major reasons 

12 you would use uranium metal would be for 

13 nuclear weapons itself. 

14 In the case of beryllium I have an e-mail from 

15 Caroline Anders that states -- to Roger Anders 

16 at Paducah on October 7th, 2003, that they have 

17 no information to suggest any beryllium was 

18 ever used at the Dow facility. And yet, 

19 quoting Dow officials, the Granite City Press 

20 ran a story in 1963 which reported that Dow 

21 Madison would help produce beryllium/aluminum 

22 alloys for the purpose of enhancing their 

23 missile project. And in a letter from Madison 

24 division dated May 21st, 1959, [Identifying 

25 information redacted] comments on an increased 
74

1 use of beryllium in several of the alloyed -- 

2 alloys that were being used. And obviously 

3 this is -- beryllium might be included in kind 

4 of the residual period, since it fell into the 

5 first SEC. 

6 The last piece of evidence that I would like to 

7 -- to suggest NIOSH take a look at is that in 

8 1993 when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was 

9 going over the materials that were stored at 

10 the Tyson Valley facility, which is west of St. 

11 Louis, they found a number of magnesium/thorium 

12 sheets, four percent thorium, stored at the 

13 facility in bunker number 35. They were 

14 brought by McDonald Douglas to the facility 

15 sometime in 1968. Even though Washington 

16 University did not have an AEC source license 

17 to store them, this material was stored -- 

18 delivered, excuse me, to Dow Chemical on 

19 September 27th, 1993 for disposal. There were 

20 about 100 to 150 sheets of thorium-232. So 

21 those materials were at the Dow facility. 

22 What does all of this mean? Well, the health 

23 dangers are real at Dow Madison for all 

24 workers, for those already covered and for 

25 those who have not yet received coverage. The 
75

1 workers are dying at an alarming rate and are 

2 suffering from diseases associated with the 

3 fruit of their labor. Evidence of additional 

4 radiologic materials are being ignored. The 

5 impact of beryllium and the presence of uranium 

6 beyond the initial SEC should also be taken 

7 into consideration. I'm not sure how a dose 

8 reconstruction can be done when so much 

9 information has been overlooked, not available, 

10 or is -- has so many inconsistencies as I see 

11 in the Silverstein report. With so much 

12 information still classified, unavailable or 

13 even destroyed can we ever get a true picture 

14 of what is going on at this facility. 

15 Due to these men's exposure they will 

16 ultimately die for their country, yet they will 

17 not be buried at Arlington, nor will an 

18 American flag drape their coffins. The least 

19 we can do is support them now as they suffer 

20 the ailments from the work they did, work they 

21 accepted without question to the government 

22 that asked for their efforts. Would it not be 

23 better to err on the side of the claimant and 

24 adopt an SEC for those employed between 1960 

25 and 2006 rather than force them to go through 
76

1 another hoop to jump? Thank you. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. 

3 Robert -- are we going to have Deb go next? 

4 MR. STEPHAN: Mr. Hoppe, do you want to go 

5 next? 

6 DR. ZIEMER: What I want to ask is -- 

7 MR. STEPHAN: You want to take a break? 

8 DR. ZIEMER: We need to get a break here and -- 

9 MR. STEPHAN: Why don't we do that now. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: -- would this be a logical point 

11 to break and -- 

12 MR. STEPHAN: Let's do that. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- then we'll return. Fifteen14 minute break and then we'll return. Thank you. 

15 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:15 a.m. 

16 to 10:30 a.m.) 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Hi. Participants by pho-- oh, 

18 dear me. Again, if people -- are -- is -- are 

19 we back up? Okay. 

20 Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting the -- 

21 continuing the discussion of the Dow Chemical 

22 Company, the Madison, Illinois site SEC 

23 petition. Phone participants, I encourage you 

24 ag-- no, I require of you that you please mute 

25 your phones. And a new development has 
77

1 occurred in telephone land and this whole issue 

2 of putting us on hold. Please understand that 

3 if you -- if you put your line on hold, then 

4 everyone, including those participating in the 

5 meeting room itself, are interrupted by your -- 

6 whatever sound your hold button makes, so we 

7 ask that you not put us on hold but rather, if 

8 you must leave the line temporarily, that you 

9 just hang up the phone and dial back in. If 

10 you hold the line we'll have to interact with 

11 the operator to cut you off. Thank you so much 

12 for your cooperation. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We're going 

14 to continue now with our discussion of the Dow 

15 Madison petition. One of the individuals we'll 

16 hear from now is Bill Hoppe. I don't believe 

17 Bill is actually a petitioner, but one of the 

18 workers at the Dow site and has some 

19 information for the Board. I think we have 

20 passed out copies of your sheet, Mr. Hoppe, so 

21 you may proceed. 

22 MR. HOPPE: Okay, I thank you. The Madison 

23 plant is kind of -- direction was north and 

24 south was the buildings, more or less, and the 

25 rolling mill, which is on the west side, is on 
78

1 the west side of the arch, so it's a little bit 

2 of a location area. And where you see the dark 

3 spot on the upper right, that's where we called 

4 the Dow dump. It's 40 acres. That's where 

5 Mallinckrodt and Dow dumped all their radiation 

6 material in there. And we dumped I know a lot 

7 of barrels of sludge and that in there. 

8 And then next to it is their casting area, and 

9 they were talking about six pots in that 

10 Silverstein's deal. On the billet unit there 

11 was 12 -- or ten pots, and on the slab unit 

12 there's ten pots. And on the intermittent unit 

13 there's eight pots, so that's where that's at. 

14 And then the building over to it was the 

15 extrusion department and that's where all the 

16 presses were located, in there. And the only 

17 place they took readings was right around seven 

18 press. That's at the south end of the 

19 extrusion department. They never took them 

20 anywhere else in the plant. 

21 And on the far west side is the rolling mill. 

22 That's where all the mills were. That's where 

23 they rolled the flat metal from anywhere -- I 

24 guess from ought four to ought -- or up to 12, 

25 14 inches thick metal down there. 
79

1 And every building down there had radiation in 

2 it. They either sanded and all that in it. 

3 One building where the main office was, that's 

4 all -- where they did all the samples of -- for 

5 the alloying and that, and that dust went all 

6 throughout that building. At times they'd have 

7 to shut down the plant because of the pot room. 

8 When it was high humidity and that and it'd get 

9 the pots burning, all that smoke and that would 

10 go all the way over -- all the way across to 

11 the rolling mill and they'd have to shut down 

12 because the crane-man couldn't see what he was 

13 doing to -- for the coils over there to operate 

14 the crane, so at times that was all, you know, 

15 done like that. 

16 And on this other -- I don't know if you just 

17 got this long -- bigger page or not, but -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: We have it in two pieces. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah, exactly. 

20 MR. HOPPE: It's -- on the right -- like on the 

21 right-hand side it shows right where the 

22 parking lot is down there, and right across the 

23 street from the parking lot was the school. 

24 And all that smoke and all that was -- 

25 contaminate the whole area. It's -- it's a lot 
80

1 of contaminant all the way around, and a lot of 

2 the -- they stored a lot of the warehouse 

3 stuff, the slab -- slug -- sludge, pardon me, 

4 the sludge and that would be stored in casting 

5 at the north end of the building and that. 

6 They had the lee-- what they called the leech 

7 area. That was where they tried to recover the 

8 thorium, the radioactive material out of it, 

9 and it's -- it was all over the place. They'd 

10 dump all the -- all their acid and that out on 

11 the ground and -- but that's pretty well where 

12 it's at and on some of it it shows where the 

13 lunch areas were where we ate. It was right 

14 out there in the middle of it and all that, so 

15 if you've got any other questions, if I could 

16 help you -- I don't know if I answered enough 

17 on it or not, but... 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Bill, if you could help me orient 

19 the -- the individual sheet with the larger 

20 one, is -- is it the same set of buildings? 

21 MR. HOPPE: It's the same thing but it's just 

22 in a different deal. It doesn't -- you see on 

23 the upper left corner it's got the Dow dump -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

25 MR. HOPPE: -- on the colored one. 
81

1 DR. BRANCHE: Okay. So because we had to make 

2 it in two -- we had to make your one very large 

3 sheet in two copies, you're saying that the -- 

4 the part that says Dow dump should be on the 

5 left side -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I see -- 

7 MR. HOPPE: Yes, that's the large one. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: -- I see it -- 

9 DR. BRANCHE: -- and the Granite City -- 

10 MR. HOPPE: Okay -- 

11 DR. BRANCHE: -- should be on the right. 

12 MR. HOPPE: Yeah. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: I've got it. 

14 MR. HOPPE: That would be -- this would be the 

15 Dow dump in this area. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

17 MR. HOPPE: Okay. The dark part, or the red 

18 one, would be right in here. It's the same 

19 direction but it's just different. This here 

20 one I roughly put in the equipment and that 

21 down there. In the other one it's a little bit 

22 more of it, you know, finer deal. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. Next 

24 we'll hear from Deb Detmers, who's from 

25 Representative Shimkus's office. Deb, welcome. 
82

1 MS. DETMERS: First of all, welcome to the St. 

2 Louis area. We -- you -- you picked the wrong 

3 time; the Cardinals are not in town, but we 

4 welcome you here anyway, so... 

5 As you know, I've spoken before you before. 

6 I've been in Cleveland where you were. I was 

7 in Denver with you. I've traveled around, so 

8 thank you for being a little bit closer to home 

9 this time. 

10 Robert Stephan from Senator Obama's office and 

11 I have worked on this together now for a number 

12 of years since Rob-- actually since Senator 

13 Obama was elected. We are from different 

14 parties and from different spectrums, but we 

15 have bec-- this has become a bipartisan effort 

16 on our part, and we have involved a lot of 

17 people. This has taken a village to get us 

18 this far. We have a law firm, we have Dr. 

19 DeGarmo and her students from SIUE, we ob-- 

20 we've had Dr. McKeel's guidance with which -- 

21 out we wouldn't have been this far without Dr. 

22 McKeel's guidance this far. And literally we 

23 have involved people whenever we've had to 

24 involve people. 

25 I just want to state -- Robert's going to 
83

1 summarize a little bit, but I want to state 

2 from the record's standpoint, I started on this 

3 six years ago when these two gentlemen, 

4 [Identifying information redacted] and 

5 [Identifying information redacted], came to see 

6 me about their cases. [Identifying information 

7 redacted], four years ago when we had a town 

8 meeting, showed his papers to somebody and said 

9 -- they said oh, you've got a really low 

10 number. You should be getting your dose 

11 reconstruction -- you -- dose reconstruction 

12 any day now. That was four years ago. 

13 [Identifying information redacted] still not 

14 had his dose reconstruction. [Identifying 

15 information redacted] filed for his case in 

16 2001. So I just want to state this: This has 

17 been going on a very long time. Every time we 

18 get to a point that we think that we're pretty 

19 close, like in Denver where we thought we were 

20 very close to getting this SEC approved for the 

21 entire time, another hoop is put up. And every 

22 time you put a hoop up, I just want to point 

23 out to the Board that we jump through that 

24 hoop, and we have provided documents, and we 

25 have found the documents -- in many cases, a 
84

1 lot of the documents you have in front of you 

2 is what we have found, is what we as a group 

3 have found together. And we have jumped 

4 through hoops and we will continue to jump 

5 through hoops. We're not stopping. But the 

6 only people that can say "wait a minute" -- at 

7 some point we're going to say we're going to 

8 listen to the workers, and that -- and that's 

9 what I'm begging you to do is listen to the 

10 workers. We have workers' testimony. We've 

11 had it multiple times. We've had a number of 

12 workers and that worker testimony has remained 

13 consistent on what went on in that plant. And 

14 now it appears to us that in this -- what we 

15 are looking at today in this addendum is we're 

16 taking suspect at best information -- and I'm 

17 saying that kindly, suspect at best -- and 

18 we're putting that over what we have been told 

19 by the workers. And I'm saying that I'm not 

20 sure that that is the right direction to go and 

21 Congressman Shimkus doesn't think that's the 

22 right direction to go. I'm fairly certain that 

23 Robert's going to say he doesn't think that's 

24 the right direction and Senator Obama doesn't 

25 think that's the right direction to go. These 
85

1 guys have given everything. They continue to 

2 work, they continue to fight the battle, and 

3 they have consistently told you what has 

4 happened in that plant. And I think it's a 

5 time that we stop and we listen to what they're 

6 saying and say that is what happened there, and 

7 you're the only ones that can make that happen, 

8 and I ask you to do that. Thanks. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. And 

10 Robert, we'd be pleased to hear from you now. 

11 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer and the 

12 Board. We certainly appreciate your patience 

13 this morning. We've given this Dow petition 

14 due consideration, going back -- well, for a 

15 long time now. But I remind you of where we 

16 were in May -- I believe it was May -- of 2007 

17 in Denver. In May of 2007, after nearly two 

18 hours -- I believe Deb was there, I was there, 

19 Dr. McKeel presented -- we were almost to the 

20 point of approving the residual period -- we 

21 were almost to that point, and we stopped 

22 because we wanted to get some clarification on 

23 some legal issues, I believe, with HHS legal 

24 counsel. And so -- so since then, many things 

25 have happened. Many things have happened. 
86

1 I -- I just want to reiterate what Deb just 

2 said, and I feel for all those workers who do 

3 not have the resources that we fortunately do. 

4 To put this in context, we have a law firm who 

5 -- who has assisted us pro bono. They have 

6 won the Illinois State Bar Association pro bono 

7 award for the entire State of Illinois, which 

8 almost never happens for a law firm outside of 

9 Chicago. You have to understand the dynamics 

10 of how the Illinois -- the State of Illinois 

11 works. There is Chicago and there is down12 state, and Chicago is important. Okay? Down13 state usually is not. Okay? They've won that 

14 pro bono award almost prim-- almost solely 

15 because of their work on this case. This is a 

16 400-member law firm. Okay? Who assists us 

17 daily. 

18 We have obviously the resources of a 

19 Congressman's office. We have the resources of 

20 a Senator's office. We have numerous workers 

21 who -- who are communicating weekly, spending 

22 hours on this stuff -- hours. We have 

23 obviously Dr. McKeel, without whom we would 

24 essentially not be where we are at. Thankfully 

25 Dr. McKeel is retired, because if he were 
87

1 working we probably would not have the full 

2 benefit of his diligence. We have Dr. DeGarmo, 

3 as Deb said. I can't stress enough how much 

4 time we spend on all of this. 

5 And the point I'm trying to make is as we have 

6 been involved -- and quite frankly, in working 

7 with NIOSH, in working with DOL, in working 

8 with DOE -- things have improved from where we 

9 started. I think that is safe to say. We have 

10 a much clearer picture of what has gone on at 

11 Dow, and we have a much better chance of being 

12 accurate with potentially the dose 

13 reconstructions if we go that way, although I 

14 still question that we can be accurate. And I 

15 think we're much more to the point now where -- 

16 where we certainly believe, Senator Obama 

17 believes, all of our group believes that the 

18 Board should be unanimously voting to approve 

19 the extension of this SEC. I'm praying for a 

20 couple of you to come to the yes side -- I'm 

21 praying for that -- but I really do believe 

22 that this should be a unanimous vote. Okay? 

23 And I ask you to consider a couple of -- of 

24 items. These have been talked about just a 

25 little bit. Obviously the waste stream, I -- I 
88

1 just hope that there would be some discussion 

2 amongst the Board, and you can articulate back 

3 to us what your view is of mixed waste streams 

4 on this thorium. We know that Dow had 

5 magnesium/thorium operations that were 

6 commercially used -- for -- for commercial 

7 purposes. We know that. We also know that it 

8 was used for the AEC. So once it's brought in, 

9 how do we differentiate it from then on, so I 

10 would like you to address that point just 

11 amongst yourselves. 

12 The second point is, through our work we have 

13 shown that the thorium was used in nuclear 

14 weapons. This is not something that any agency 

15 discovered and brought to you, to the public 

16 domain or to us. Okay? So let's go back to 

17 our contention. Dr. McKeel has been contending 

18 for a long time that thorium was used and it 

19 was related to the AEC at Dow. When we went to 

20 Peter Turcic, Peter Turcic rightfully said, 

21 based upon the regulations, that we knew -- he 

22 knew, DOL knew -- that mag/thor was used there, 

23 but it was just commercially. It had to be 

24 used in conjunction with the AEC and it had to 

25 go into a nuclear weapon. 
89

1 So, what happened next? We got the 

2 documentation, a lot of it from the Bureau of 

3 Mines and Minerals yearbooks, a lot of it 

4 patent information related to Dow and their 

5 patents on mag/thor from the early '50s. We 

6 supplied that to the DOE. The DOE talked to 

7 Landauer, I believe, and it was admitted that 

8 mag/thor was used in nuclear weapons. 

9 So what happened next? DOL said we'll 

10 stipulate that, that it was used in nuclear 

11 weapons. But how do we know that the Dow 

12 thorium was used in nuclear weapons? Okay? 

13 So we've done all this work. Every time there 

14 is a hoop -- these hoops are -- are endless, 

15 and I understand DOL's position. They -- they 

16 have their regulations and -- and they're 

17 implementing them. I totally understand that. 

18 There is no documentation, supposedly, that 

19 mag/thor was used by Dow in nuclear weapons. 

20 We think that -- that there is a very credible 

21 case that it was. Mag/thor was -- Dow was one 

22 of the very early -- certainly one of the early 

23 producers and held many of the patents. We've 

24 tried to get those patents from the U.S. Patent 

25 Office and we've been unable to. They just 
90

1 simply don't have them. But nonetheless, if 

2 you are trying to come up with a document that 

3 shows definitively -- a purchase order, what 

4 have you -- that mag/thor was used by Dow, we 

5 don't have that document. And DOL doesn't 

6 have that document, nobody has that document. 

7 But I would ask you to consider this: We asked 

8 in 2006 -- Congressman Shimkus and Senator 

9 Obama, in a letter to DOE, they were very 

10 responsive, Libby White, Gina, their whole 

11 group -- we asked for all of their Dow 

12 documents, and they sent us a lot of 

13 information, reams and reams of information, 

14 which I think everyone has. But they did not 

15 send us the purchase orders from Dow and 

16 Mallinckrodt. That didn't come from DOE. That 

17 came from Dow, the 649 pages that Dow sent. 

18 Okay? 

19 There are no purchase orders -- there are -- 

20 there are not contracts, excuse me, between 

21 Mallinckrodt and the AEC. They don't exist. 

22 Obviously they -- the work was done, but this 

23 whole effort by DOL and NIOSH and DOE that 

24 worker testimony -- we have all this worker 

25 testimony, not only that thorium was shipped to 
91

1 Rocky Flats, which has roughly been ignored, 

2 that subject, but that it went to Mallinckrodt. 

3 We understand that the agencies have a 

4 regulatory job that they have to carry out that 

5 they need documentation to support the worker 

6 testimony. We -- we don't agree with it, but 

7 we understand it, and we understand why they're 

8 doing it. 

9 But you don't have that burden. You simply do 

10 not have that burden. I would -- I would -- I 

11 would remind, for the record, that it was never 

12 intended in the law, nor is it in -- anywhere 

13 in the -- in the original legislation that 

14 worker testimony had to be substantiated with 

15 documentation. Okay? You do not have the 

16 burden that these agencies have, and that is 

17 why the SEC needs to be approved. 

18 Now we go into a couple of more issues here 

19 related to the dose reconstruction process. We 

20 certainly respect NIOSH's efforts recently -- 

21 and obviously we disagree with their decision, 

22 but we respect their work -- that they can redo 

23 these dose reconstructions. They have no 

24 monitoring data from the workers themselves. 

25 They have no bioassay data from the earlier 
92

1 testimony. There's a large reliance on the 

2 Silverstein report. Okay? The Silverstein 

3 report is from August 7th, 1957. Okay? None 

4 of the workers can remember Silverstein. 

5 Nobody knows this man. Why not? Because he 

6 worked in Michigan. He worked in Michigan. 

7 Matter of fact, I can read it to you here if 

8 you want me to, it's right here in the 

9 document, where he worked. 

10 Dr. DeGarmo just had the document from 

11 Silverstein's staff, who in '59 was suggesting 

12 a different method of measuring thorium. That 

13 was in '59. Silverstein's report is from '57. 

14 Okay? 

15 These are -- these are very important points 

16 that we need to work out. What was 

17 Silverstein's ability to accurately measure 

18 what went on at Dow Madison when he was at Dow 

19 Midland -- or one of the other sites in 

20 Michigan? Okay? I mean do we need to support 

21 that he didn't come there with travel 

22 documents? I mean how far are we going to 

23 carry this out? Okay? He wasn't there. So 

24 why are we taking his word when his word -- in 

25 the -- in his report we can -- I encourage you 
93

1 highly to read his report. It's right here. 

2 Read his report and compare it to what the 

3 workers have said. And much of it is in 

4 disagreement. This is from a man who's never 

5 been there. 

6 So the point here is -- well, let -- let -- let 

7 me -- let me go to one more point here. This 

8 is from the compliance report of the AEC, 1960. 

9 The Dow Chemical Company magnesium foundry at 

10 Madison has a plant manager has responsibility 

11 of running the plant. The Dow Metal Products 

12 Company and the plant survey -- safety director 

13 have the responsibility of administering a 

14 radiological safety program as laid out by 

15 radiation hazards committee -- the Radiation 

16 Hazards Committee and the radiological safety 

17 officer, both being located at the main 

18 headquarters in Midland, Michigan. The 

19 radiological safety officer is Mr. Silverstein. 

20 The largest supply of thorium comes from Canada 

21 in the form of pellets as of July 1, 1960 a 

22 total of 80 tons of thorium have been used at 

23 the magnesium foundry at Madison. Go-- going -

24 - reading on, Dow Chemical is further licensed 

25 to transport -- transfer and deliver possession 
94

1 of title to refined source material -- this is 

2 all related to thorium -- to any person 

3 licensed by the AEC. 

4 Now why don't we have any more documentation 

5 beyond that? Because they didn't need it. 

6 It's in the -- it's in the compliance report 

7 right here. Yet we're being asked to provide 

8 it now. It doesn't exist. We've provided just 

9 about everything we can provide, but guys, we -

10 - as Deb said, you know, regardless of how the 

11 vote goes today, largely through the efforts of 

12 the workers, Dr. McKeel, Dr. Garmo -- DeGarmo, 

13 you know, we have brought this much farther 

14 than it was. 

15 And we are certainly prepared to take it much 

16 farther than it has gone today. Our -- our 

17 efforts have not been futile. We are producing 

18 documents which are highly relevant as we go 

19 on. Case in point, Peter Turcic's comment that 

20 magnesium/thorium was only used commercially at 

21 Dow, and that it was not used in nuclear 

22 weapons production. We've shown that to be 

23 false. 

24 So where we are today is we need to vote. We 

25 need to vote to continue the residual period. 
95

1 Now we have some dispute about the residual 

2 period which I think we can work out, based 

3 upon the documentation we have from IEMA. Some 

4 of it we just received on Friday, quite 

5 frankly. I drove to Springfield and picked it 

6 up. But we -- we could work some of those 

7 dates out. If we get to the point where it's 

8 only a dose reconstruction issue and the SEC is 

9 denied, God forbid, then I think we have many 

10 more conversations that need to be had about 

11 the dose reconstruction model that is being 

12 used. That's an unfortunate circumstance, 

13 which means that if the -- if the SEC is denied 

14 today, we would highly object to NIOSH 

15 proceeding tomorrow in recomputing these doses. 

16 There's only been three done so far because 

17 they've been waiting on all this to be 

18 resolved. We don't think at all that we're at 

19 the point where if the SEC is denied we can 

20 start doing dose reconstructions. So how much 

21 longer is that going to take? It's going to 

22 take much longer. As I say, we -- we were this 

23 close to approving this. That was in May of 

24 '07. And I don't want to be here in May of '09 

25 arguing about dose reconstruction methods. 
96

1 So from Senator Obama's point of view and in 

2 support of all these workers and everyone who's 

3 worked on this effort, we are asking for a 

4 unanimous vote to extend the SEC for Dow from 

5 at least '61 through 1998. Thank you. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Robert. 

7 Board members, we can open this now for 

8 discussion. We actually have a recommendation 

9 from NIOSH. You -- you have several options 

10 before you. I would point out -- and the 

11 Chair's aware that there is a fair amount of 

12 new information that the Board has received 

13 today that you may not have fully digested. We 

14 -- we have some new information from the 

15 petitioners -- that is, it's new to the Board 

16 members. We actually have some -- well, the -- 

17 the evaluation review from NIOSH is fairly 

18 recent. So you may wish to also consider 

19 whether or not you want to postpone a vote till 

20 later in the meeting or till a later period. I 

21 think you need to evaluate what you want to do 

22 with the information that you've received 

23 today. 

24 So it would be appropriate to have a motion, 

25 one way or the other, relative to the 
97

1 recommendation from NIOSH, noting that there 

2 still is a fuzziness on the period, that NIOSH 

3 has indicated that it could indeed be extended. 

4 So there's really two parts to it. One is the 

5 period itself, and the other part is the 

6 reconstructing of the doses. 

7 So let's open the floor for discussion. We can 

8 have -- we can have questions of the 

9 petitioners, of the agencies, so -- and Larry, 

10 it looked like you had a comment for us so let 

11 me recognize you first. 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I -- yes, I do have a 

13 comment, and it goes to several things. I 

14 think there's a lot of confusion that has been 

15 presented here today that we need to -- I need 

16 to ask LaVon to come up and speak to that may 

17 help, I hope, for a better understanding. 

18 I don't think we have an issue about the end 

19 date here. What will happen is we have to 

20 provide to the Department of Labor the research 

21 that has been compiled on when this residual 

22 period would be ended by the cleanup of the 

23 remaining activity or the AEC operations. And 

24 once we transmit that to Department of Labor, 

25 they will make the designation of the time 
98

1 frame for the residual period, so I don't think 

2 we've got any issue at that -- but I would like 

3 LaVon -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me ask, would that 

5 require additional action or is that sort of 

6 understood if -- were the Board to approve that 

7 in terms of the dates, or to make a 

8 recommendation along that line, would that 

9 require further action by this Board if -- if -

10 - 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: I think that would depend upon 

12 what the action is and which way it would go. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Well, if the class is defined as 

14 given here, and you find that later it's a 

15 different date. 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, it -- if -- if the scenario 

17 is that the Board recommends to the Secretary 

18 that a class -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that's what I'm asking, 

20 right. 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: -- be added, then -- well, you 

22 could couch the recommendation in -- in the 

23 context of whatever the residual period 

24 determination is by Department of Labor. If 

25 the scenario is that the Board makes a 
99

1 recommendation to the Secretary that NIOSH can 

2 reconstruct dose during the residual period, 

3 then I think it's moot. 

4 But I think -- you know, there's been a lot of 

5 presentation discussion about the Silverstein 

6 report, and I'm concerned that that has led to 

7 confusion. I think that needs to be spoken to. 

8 There's a lot of confusion that's been piled 

9 upon confusion about beryllium exposure. That 

10 is not something that we can -- we can address 

11 in this program. It's not a NIOSH 

12 responsibility. So I just want to put that on 

13 the record. We don't quibble about that. We 

14 truly believe that this site was a very, very 

15 dirty operation, that there was 

16 magnesium/thorium alloy produced even in the 

17 residual period. We need to speak to why we 

18 feel that we can bound the dose or reconstruct 

19 the dose, and what we're anchoring that dose 

20 to, and I'd ask LaVon to speak to that again 

21 for everybody's understanding, or at least to 

22 get it on the record as to where we're at with 

23 that. So that's -- that's an important point 

24 as well. 

25 And I may have had a couple more points but I -
100

1 - I think -- I think it would pay dividends, 

2 for the audience and the Board, to hear us out 

3 on that. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: LaVon? 

5 MR. STEPHAN: Sir, I'm just going to cut you 

6 off and just say we -- we totally understand 

7 about the beryllium issue and that's not a 

8 point of contention for us. 

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: A couple of things. One, the 

10 -- I just want to clarify a couple of things. 

11 I may have said that -- 'cause Dr. McKeel had 

12 mentioned that the Febru-- if I said a February 

13 2006 final status report, I meant February 2008 

14 final status report. I think Dr. McKeel said I 

15 said 2006. I was just correcting that. It is 

16 a February 2008 final status report and is 

17 available. 

18 The other thing is we are not waiting for any 

19 information from the Department of Energy at 

20 all. We are -- we have requested, as I 

21 mentioned in my presentation, additional 

22 documentation if it's available from Dow, but 

23 we are waiting for -- we aren't waiting for 

24 anything from the Department of Energy. 

25 As for the dose reconstruction methodology, 
101

1 there's been a lot of discussion to the 

2 Silverstein report, the 1957 report. If you 

3 look at the data we used for our dose 

4 reconstruction methodology, we did not use the 

5 Silverstein report at all. We used the 

6 Silverstein report only in looking at studies 

7 that were done early on, 1957, the data that 

8 was used and that -- that came out of that 1957 

9 study. The actual data that we used was the 

10 1959 survey data that -- from -- if you look at 

11 the air sample data and -- and that air sample 

12 data is available to you on your O drive. And 

13 also if you look at that survey data, it's very 

14 clear up in the upper right corner on the 

15 survey information, it has "site" and it says 

16 Madison. So we used that data in our -- in our 

17 dose reconstruction methodology. 

18 We did look at the Silverstein report. We 

19 looked at the Silverstein report during our 

20 original evaluation to determine if it 

21 supported dose reconstruction methodologies 

22 then, and we also re-looked at it as -- just to 

23 look at the values that were in that. But we 

24 did not use those numbers in that Silverstein 

25 report for our calculations. 
102

1 And again, I think the -- the way we 

2 differentiated between the -- oh, another 

3 question Dr. McKeel brought up, it -- it -- and 

4 Larry tried to allu-- alluded to it a little 

5 bit. There is a question as to, you know, 

6 whose responsibility it is to determine the end 

7 of the residual contamination period. What we 

8 have done in the past, we issue a residual 

9 contamination report. That residual 

10 contamination report identifies when we believe 

11 the end of the residual contamination period 

12 is. Department of Labor uses that report to 

13 define that end date. We will provide updates 

14 or some -- something in that manner, whichever 

15 Larry determines appropriate and -- to the 

16 Department of Labor for them to adjust that end 

17 date of the residual contamination period. 

18 The other thing is the differentiation between 

19 -- again, what we took was 1959 data -- 

20 operational data, operational air data, and we 

21 assumed operations stopped at that point, and 

22 then we used that as our high value. And then 

23 we used the end value of the 2006 survey data 

24 that was taken, and that survey data, again, 

25 was taken from air samples conducted during the 
103

1 rafter decontamination efforts, so those again 

2 were high samples. And then we used an 

3 exponential model for our -- our -- to 

4 determine that. 

5 In our opinion there was no other operations 

6 that would need to be considered for that 

7 because we were only looking at the residual 

8 activity from the AEC operations. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for clarifying that. 

10 Okay, Michael? 

11 MR. GIBSON: How were you able to distinguish 

12 between the AEW (sic) operations and the other 

13 operations? 

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's a good question. What 

15 we did -- we did not distinguish between AWE 

16 op-- between the AEC operations and the 

17 commercial operations from the thorium, so -- 

18 so what we did was we took air sample data that 

19 could have been commercial, could have been -- 

20 I mean it was -- could have been either/or at 

21 that time, and then we used that data and then 

22 we used the end data, again, that could have 

23 been from AEC-related contamination or 

24 commercial contamination. So again, it's -- 

25 it's an overestimate. 
104

1 DR. ZIEMER: So even though it might have been 

2 air contamination produced by production -- 

3 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- you're -- you would be 

5 assigning it to residual -- the residual 

6 cleanup -- 

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly, and -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: -- operation, regardless of where 

9 it came from. 

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other -- Gen Roessler? 

12 DR. ROESSLER: Before you explained what you 

13 used from the Silverstein report, I had a 

14 question -- and I'll still ask it, but -- is he 

15 still alive? Is he a person you could contact? 

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, I -- I don't know if 

17 we -- you know, in our data capture efforts, in 

18 our communications efforts early on, if we've 

19 determined whether Silverstein's alive or not. 

20 I'd have to go back and check. I'm -- I'm not 

21 sure about that. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Robert, did you have a comment? 

23 And then Larry. 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: I think the point we need to make 

25 here is that, you know, we don't quibble with 
105

1 the workers' testimony that they -- that this 

2 guy never showed up at the plant. That's -- 

3 that's not -- you know, we're not using the 

4 Silverstein report to anchor our dose 

5 reconstruction methodology. The Silverstein 

6 report was a reference placed in our addendum 

7 to show that we had looked at similar 

8 operations in Dow, and could we get any 

9 information that was relevant to Madison from 

10 that. Well, obviously we didn't take it. We -

11 - we referenced it, but we didn't use that 

12 information. So I don't see a need to go see 

13 if Mr. Silverstein is still alive. I think -- 

14 yeah, he's a radiation safety officer and, as I 

15 understand the organizational structure and 

16 radiation safety officers, they're at corporate 

17 headquarters and they've got some poor guy down 

18 at Madison here who he reports to -- 

19 Silverstein -- on what activities are going on. 

20 So you know, I -- I don't know that if you're 

21 asking us to go find Silverstein -- 

22 DR. ROESSLER: No, I just wanted to -- 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I'd like to know what the -- 

24 what the benefit would be. 

25 DR. ROESSLER: I think -- I think the point 
106

1 needed to be clarified as to what use was made 

2 of his report because there was an objection to 

3 that. And I think -- I think we've got it out 

4 on the table now. 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, thank you. Thank you. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: One other thing I would comment 

8 on -- I'm sorry, Robert -- with all due 

9 respect, and I appreciate your summary, Doctor, 

10 but on prostate cancer, we would expect a high 

11 rate of prostate cancer in this population as 

12 men get older and new -- new diagnostic tools 

13 come available. But unless those are age14 adjusted statistics, we can't rely on that to 

15 say that there's an excess here, and we are -- 

16 we have a consistent approach for 

17 reconstructing doses for prostate cancers. We 

18 have a model for that, so just wanted to assure 

19 you on that point. Thank you. 

20 MR. STEPHAN: With -- with respect to IEMA's 

21 report, quoting here, soils located north of 

22 Building 4 and west of Building 5 are 

23 significantly above the State of Illinois 

24 decontamination guidelines for total thorium. 

25 Reading further from that same report, 
107

1 approximately 39 percent of the rafters were 

2 inaccessible due to workers using aerial lifts. 

3 Did -- they couldn't simply get that high. I 

4 mean if -- you know, if you're familiar with 

5 the building, it's very high ceilings and, as 

6 the construction of the building goes, it's 

7 very -- well, it's impossible, really, to get 

8 all the way up there. So I think it just calls 

9 into question a little bit of their findings 

10 when 39 percent of the ra-- 40 percent of the 

11 rafters, if you will, were inaccessible when 

12 they were doing their testing, the Pangea Group 

13 was doing their testing. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Larry? 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: Another point I would like to 

16 speak to -- this is in reaction to Dr. McKeel's 

17 presentation -- with regard to the number of 

18 claims that we do have, and I -- I'm very much 

19 concerned about this, not because of what he 

20 presented, I don't think it was inaccurate, but 

21 I want -- I don't want to leave you with the 

22 impression that we have 149 claims. We only 

23 have 111, 100 -- 49 have been pulled from us 

24 for SEC determination by the Department of 

25 Labor. We have 103 that are still in our hands 
108

1 awaiting the resolution of how we're going to 

2 deal with this residual period, and we have 

3 pended those because -- and I'm not -- 

4 [Identifying information redacted] is in that 

5 group. I really want to get his dose 

6 reconstruction done or you guys make a decision 

7 to recommend an SEC class, but you know, we've 

8 been pending these claims for a number of 

9 months, awaiting the resolution of how to go 

10 about this. We think we have a solid approach 

11 that is a good overestimate and is claimant 

12 favorable and -- and would give an answer to 

13 these claimants. So yes, we do have a large 

14 number of claims in our hands at NIOSH pended, 

15 103. The three that we've sent back, two were 

16 done under TIB-4 -- which you know is an 

17 overestimating approach and DOL found them to 

18 be compensable based upon that and we won't 

19 ret-- they -- we won't ask for them to be 

20 returned. These were inaccurate dose 

21 reconstructions done in that regard 'cause that 

22 TIB-4 approach is an overestimating approach to 

23 show that the cancer was not caused, but those 

24 went ahead and got over to DOL and have been 

25 compensated. One is a partial dose 
109

1 reconstruction based upon exposure at another 

2 site, the GSI site, and so that's how that 

3 partial got done. We -- it was compensable and 

4 we did not have to do any further work on that 

5 claim to get that person a compensation -- 

6 compensation decision. Yet we still have 103 

7 claims that I would like to see moved toward a 

8 decision. Thank you. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

10 MR. STEPHAN: Larry or LaVon, can you help us 

11 understand in laymen -- laymen's terms the 

12 impact of thorium on IREP -- you know, dealing 

13 with the '57 and '58 issue or up to '69. And 

14 then also as a follow-up to that, in laymen's 

15 terms for the benefit of the workers, related 

16 to prostate cancer. 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I'm going to ask Jim to 

18 speak to the technical part of this on thorium 

19 and different cancer models and what that would 

20 mean as far as dose estimates. But while he's 

21 coming up here and getting his thoughts 

22 collected I will say this, that yes, we 

23 admitted during the AEC period that we could 

24 not reconstruct the thorium commercial dose. 

25 Okay? Now, you have to break out the next 
110

1 period of time, which is the residual activity 

2 period, and that's what our second addendum 

3 here talks to and how we go about 

4 reconstructing not only uranium dose -- which 

5 we said we could do during the AEC period -- 

6 but also how we're going to reconstruct the 

7 thorium dose and the thoron dose during the 

8 residual period. 

9 So now let Jim answer your question about risk 

10 models. 

11 DR. NETON: Well, I -- I think your question is 

12 related -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- 

13 related to how a thorium intake would affect 

14 the probability of causation for different 

15 organs. If that -- if that's the situation, 

16 then what -- what you have is a dose from 

17 thorium per unit intake, primarily in-- 

18 inhalation would be the pathway of exposure 

19 here, principally; would affect the lung, the 

20 liver and the skeleton. Those are the three 

21 primary organs that would be affected, and the 

22 probability of causation for those three organs 

23 would go up appreciably lar-- higher than any 

24 of the other organs that would be exposed, such 

25 as prostate or the -- the bladder or the 
111

1 stomach or something of that nature. That's 

2 typical of any of these -- what -- what's 

3 called the actinides, where they're alpha 

4 emitters and their radiochemistry is such in 

5 the biology -- in the body is such that they 

6 only accumulate in certain organs. 

7 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you. 

8 DR. NETON: That's about as good as I can tell 

9 you right now. 

10 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you. 

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: I would like to add something. 

12 If you actually look at the example dose 

13 reconstruction we -- you know, the -- the model 

14 that we have provided, there will be people 

15 that will be compensated under this model so, 

16 as Larry had indicated, that we would prefer to 

17 move forward with some of the dose 

18 reconstructions to at least get some of these 

19 answers out. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see, I think we have Jim 

21 Lockey and then Phil. 

22 DR. LOCKEY: LaVon, this is for you. In your 

23 presentation -- I was just looking at one of 

24 your slides is on -- I can't tell you which 

25 number it was, but a survey -- summary of 
112

1 available monitoring data for residual 

2 contamination period -- okay? -- continued, and 

3 it says NIOSH has do-- dose rate surveys from 

4 the operational period. 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 

6 DR. LOCKEY: Is that '57's -- what period are 

7 you talking about? 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: We have the actual '57 and 

9 some '59 data. 

10 DR. LOCKEY: All right. Do you have any data 

11 from Dow Madison after 1960 forward? 

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: We do have 1981, I believe, 

13 survey information -- huh? '81 or '84, and we 

14 also have the 2006 information as well. 

15 DR. LOCKEY: So Dow Madison didn't do any 

16 monitoring from 1960 to 19-- 

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: We -- at least we have not 

18 recovered any. Now recognize we may get that 

19 data from Dow and -- but I also want to point 

20 out that more than likely that data is going to 

21 allow us to refine those calculations, and more 

22 than likely is going to allow us to lower the 

23 calculations that -- for the external -- if you 

24 look at what we did, the external monitoring 

25 data we used was operational data, and it 
113

1 actually -- if you look at the act-- or the 

2 dose rates that we used -- 'cause at the time, 

3 they were still in operations. We used a dose 

4 rate that was next to the storage bin, one foot 

5 away from the storage bin of thorium. We used 

6 that dose rate. And if you -- okay, taking 

7 into account the Silverstein report, we didn't 

8 use any of that data, but the Silverstein 

9 report also indicated, if -- if you look at it, 

10 that operational -- the maximum an individual 

11 they would expect would be 30 millirem per 

12 week. We've actually defined 28 millirem per 

13 week for residual period. 

14 DR. LOCKEY: So -- so Dow would have been under 

15 a mandate to do radiation monitoring. Correct? 

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, if -- if they had a 

17 license they were under, they were mandated to 

18 do some sur-- some surveying at some level. If 

19 -- if they determined through calculations, 

20 through air monitoring data or through external 

21 monitoring data that they did not meet 

22 thresholds to require film badges or personal 

23 dosimetry, they would not have employed that. 

24 DR. LOCKEY: And all that data's been requested 

25 of Dow. 
114

1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, we have requested it now 

2 for the thorium, so the '61 on thorium data. 

3 DR. LOCKEY: And when -- and when was that -- 

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: But we would have -- we would 

5 have gotten the film badge monitoring data when 

6 we requested the -- any monitoring data from 

7 the '61 period on for uranium. They would have 

8 provi-- if they had film badge monitoring data, 

9 they would have provided it then. But -- so we 

10 don't expect to get film badge, but we could 

11 get dose rate survey information. 

12 DR. LOCKEY: And when was that asked of Dow? 

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: We asked it in February/March 

14 time frame of this -- just recently. Once we 

15 had the word from the Department of Energy and 

16 Department of Labor that changed the covered 

17 activities to include thorium in the residual 

18 period, we went back to Dow and requested that 

19 information. And they are working through that 

20 request now. 

21 DR. LOCKEY: Thank you. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Phil? 

23 MR. SCHOFIELD: During the residual period do 

24 you have any fecal analysis or urinalysis -- 

25 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 
115

1 MR. SCHOFIELD: -- samples? 

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

4 MR. STEPHAN: I just want to go to -- to this 

5 issue of the Silverstein report again. I mean 

6 I -- I appreciate your point about how you 

7 relied on it and how you didn't. But for 

8 example, the number you just gave me in the 

9 Silverstein report says, quote, workers 

10 occupied the area once every five or ten 

11 minutes for less than one minute each time, and 

12 the workers highly dispute that. Again, this 

13 is a guy that's in Michigan. He -- he doesn't 

14 know. It's the same guy who -- who has several 

15 numbers wrong in the report, so I just want to 

16 point that out, that, you know -- I mean there 

17 -- there is some ways you use the Silverstein 

18 report and there's some ways you don't, and 

19 some of those ways that it's being used we 

20 certainly do have question with and certainly 

21 does not jive with the worker testimony. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. McKeel? 

23 DR. MCKEEL: I have a comment to make about Mr. 

24 Silverstein and about radiation and monitoring 

25 badges at a site like Dow Madison, and I -- I 
116

1 really think we're overlooking something big 

2 time. I think it's quite right what Larry 

3 Elliott said, that Mr. Silverstein was the 

4 radiation safety officer for Dow Madison, even 

5 though he was housed in Michigan. And as such, 

6 he had overall responsibility for the program. 

7 Now when I was looking for -- I've searched 

8 quite hard for film badge data for Dow, and I 

9 dovetailed that with a search for film badge 

10 data from GSI. And over a year ago one of the 

11 places I contacted, on my own, was Landauer. 

12 And the reason why was some of the men had 

13 indica-- at GSI had indicated that maybe their 

14 data was sent to Landauer, so I called them up. 

15 And -- and so one of my -- and it was a formal 

16 request. We sent them the names, Social 

17 Security numbers and signed Privacy Act and 

18 medical releases from -- I think it was like 45 

19 Dow workers and 45 GSI workers, just as test 

20 cases, and said could you please run these 

21 against your databases and see if you had any 

22 film badge data for either one of those groups. 

23 And I learned that Landauer had this remarkable 

24 corporate sense of responsibility that they 

25 have kept, in some form, every single film 
117

1 badge reading they've ever -- that they've ever 

2 contracted for to measure. 

3 So anyway, long story shorter, there was no 

4 film badge data at all for Dow. Now there were 

5 other people -- Picker*, for instance. I'm 

6 sure you all and the health physicists know 

7 other places where there might have been film 

8 badge data. So you know, I personally couldn't 

9 call all those people. I'm not sure I even 

10 knew who all there were. But I did try to take 

11 care of it by asking NIOSH did they have any 

12 film badge data, and they had none at all. 

13 And to me, there's something really wrong with 

14 the emphasis that it's our job, the workers' 

15 job, to find their film badge data. Number 

16 one, the work was being done by the Atomic 

17 Energy Commission. Number two, worker safety 

18 is responsibility of the company, and that 

19 company was Dow Chemicals in Midland, Michigan, 

20 and Dr. or Mr. Silverstein was the person 

21 responsible for the safety of those workers. 

22 And there is a term in the law which I like, 

23 and that is the thing speaks for itself. What 

24 speaks for itself is no film badge data. And 

25 if you listen to the workers, they were not 
118

1 regularly badged. 

2 So the other footnote I want to put on the same 

3 thing is [Identifying information redacted] 

4 yesterday said that she had filed an SEC 

5 petition for the Hematite former nuclear fuels 

6 plant. And what's interesting about that plant 

7 is it's been through six owners; the first 

8 three did AEC work, the last three did 

9 commercial work. And it was pretty much a -- a 

10 sharp dividing line between that. So I -- I've 

11 spent a lot of time at the Hematite plant and I 

12 talked to the current manager, who's a young 

13 guy, very helpful, and I asked him in 

14 particular what was his experience about film 

15 badge data at a place like Hematite. Now 

16 remember, the last three owners, including the 

17 current one, Westinghouse -- private companies, 

18 not -- not federal, AEC, DOE facilities -- and 

19 here's what he said. He said that they have 

20 all of the film badge data that's ever been 

21 collected from the earliest AEC days at a -- at 

22 that site. And I said well, is -- is it stored 

23 at DOE, for instance? He said no, we've had it 

24 on-site, and he said AEC licensees such as 

25 themselves are required to keep that data 
119

1 forever on-site. 

2 Now, was he telling the truth? I don't know. 

3 That's a pretty big company, actually, 

4 Westinghouse, and he swore to me that all of 

5 the film badge data was there. He said he 

6 could not give it out to anybody. He said but 

7 they were required, to keep their license, to 

8 do that. 

9 So this thing speaks for itself. Dow -- Dow 

10 Chemical Company was sloppy. They did not keep 

11 those records. The Department of Energy has 

12 none of those records for the site. And so, 

13 you know, the credibility of Dr. Silverstein as 

14 a radiation safety officer is very low, as far 

15 as I'm concerned, just on that basis, judging 

16 on the record. 

17 So the other comment I wanted to make is we're 

18 not just questioning the Silverstein data as 

19 being authentic. And I know LaVon said on his 

20 1959 data there was some notations of Madison 

21 site. But you know, I'd just ask that there be 

22 careful scrutiny on that point. I'm still not 

23 convinced, without further proof, that that 

24 data that's being used was from the Madison 

25 site, so I'd ask people to look at that. 
120

1 The other thing I'd comment on is this idea 

2 that there's two sets of data, 1981/2006, from 

3 Dow Madison. Now in 2006, that truly 

4 represents the residual contamination period. 

5 There was no -- there was no production 

6 activity going on. However, the 1981 data 

7 presumably is different because thorium was 

8 still being processed in 1981. And so actually 

9 you should have been able to measure the 

10 impact. But -- but again, to really get a good 

11 feeling for the amount of radioactivity in that 

12 plant, you would have to have extensive air 

13 sampling data in all the different areas -- you 

14 know, castings, extrusions, rolling mill -- and 

15 it -- and it had to be at more than just one 

16 period of time. We're talking about 1961 to 

17 perhaps 2008 or let's just say 2006 to be 

18 conservative. That's a long span of time. You 

19 need to have many measurements during that 

20 time. 

21 So it again comes to something that seems to me 

22 has come up before this Board many, many times. 

23 What amount of sampling is enough? Is one 

24 datapoint enough? Is four enough? I don't 

25 think so. I think if you're trying to 
121

1 characterize radiation over a period, you can't 

2 just calculate a factor from 1961 and apply it 

3 robotically to each successive year. That 

4 doesn't make any sense. I mean you -- you 

5 don't know what the values were in all those 

6 other years, any real data. And it's -- it's 

7 not possible to model that accurately except 

8 using very simplistic assumptions. And my take 

9 on it is if assumptions are so simplistic that 

10 they really deviate too far from -- from 

11 reality, and to say that that's a bounding 

12 dose, I -- I'm sorry, when you don't have 

13 enough real measurements to know what the upper 

14 bound might be, so my take on it is whatever 

15 the source of that data, there's too little of 

16 it to do what NIOSH really needs to be able to 

17 do. And I -- I think you all should reject 

18 those measurements on those type of 

19 considerations, among others that you may turn 

20 up. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: I wonder if we could get some 

22 clarification on the point that was raised. I 

23 think, Dr. McKeel, you're ask-- you're 

24 questioning whether the air sampling data 

25 actually came from this plant or -- could you 
122

1 clarify that? 

2 DR. MCKEEL: I -- yes, I'm -- I'm asking that, 

3 and I'm also questioning over what period of 

4 time -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I understand the second 

6 point, but LaVon, can you confirm to us the 

7 location of those samples? 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, if you take a look at 

9 the -- if you look at the report, that report 

10 will have a SRDB number tied to that report. 

11 And if you go into your O drive and look into 

12 the references, you can pull that actual survey 

13 up and look at it. And when you pull that 

14 survey up, in the upper right-hand corner of 

15 that you'll see it says Madison site. So 

16 that's -- and -- and I know what Dr. McKeel is 

17 saying about not having oper-- or data over the 

18 period of time, but I explained our methodology 

19 that we used. We actually took operational 

20 data as a high point and starting point, which 

21 -- for the first year of the residual period, 

22 and then we used actual -- end point data was 

23 not the end point -- it was end point data 

24 that, again, was overestimated based on the 

25 fact that the decontamination efforts that were 
123

1 occurring in 2006. So I think we are -- are -- 

2 have provided a conservative model from that. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Robert? 

4 MR. STEPHAN: Final point on this issue, which 

5 I think backs up what -- not that it needed 

6 backing up, but adds to what Dr. McKeel was 

7 just articulating. I will submit this for the 

8 record, but for now I'm going to paraphrase. 

9 This is a sworn affidavit from some of the Dow 

10 workers. 

11 In late 1995 or early 1996 [Identifying 

12 information redacted] and [Identifying 

13 information redacted], who are electronic 

14 technicians, were working in the pot room. We 

15 came out and were talking to [Identifying 

16 information redacted], who was the melter; 

17 [Identifying information redacted], who was the 

18 stockman; and [Identifying information 

19 redacted] -- [Identifying information 

20 redacted], I apologize if I'm butchering his 

21 name, who was the general utility man. When 

22 [Identifying information redacted] came up -- 

23 then [Identifying information redacted] came up 

24 and told [Identifying information redacted] to 

25 get rid of all the badges that we wore, which 
124

1 were radiation dosimetry badges. [Identifying 

2 information redacted] put them in a 5-gallon 

3 bucket. He threw them in the dumpster. 

4 [Identifying information redacted] was the head 

5 of melting for the plant. [Identifying 

6 information redacted], [Identifying information 

7 redacted] and [Identifying information 

8 redacted] are the only ones that are living 

9 today. 

10 Now, legitimate question is in 1995 or 1996, 

11 who was the owner? Was it Dow Chemical, was it 

12 AEC-related? Well, of course not, because it 

13 was an entirely different operation at that 

14 point in time. But still we go back to this 

15 issue of the commingling of all the waste 

16 streams back from the '50s. So what would the17 - what would these radiation -- the dosimetry 

18 badges, what would they have said in 1995 or 6? 

19 We don't know, and so I -- I don't really have 

20 a quibble with the fact that NIOSH, with the 

21 available data that they have, can do a dose 

22 reconstruction. The question is -- and -- and 

23 that it is -- it's bounding, it's highly 

24 claimant-favorable. But do we know that that 

25 data is enough? We don't know the answer to 
125

1 that question. We certainly don't know the 

2 answer to that question. We simply don't know. 

3 So Dr. Branche, I'd be happy to submit this for 

4 the record and give you a copy. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

6 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn? 

8 MS. MUNN: A question of clarification with 

9 respect to badges. Is a material license that 

10 is issued by AEC or its successors and related 

11 to the requirement for badging -- 

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Only when -- 

13 MS. MUNN: -- incorporated -- 

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'm sorry, go ahead. 

15 MS. MUNN: -- with a level of anticipated dose, 

16 so that one might have a materials operating 

17 license but if the quantity of radioactive 

18 material that was being handled was so low that 

19 the dose would not be detrimental to the 

20 handler, badging would not be required? Is 

21 that the case? 

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: That -- that is correct, and 

23 we do have a -- one of the reports that 

24 indicates that may have been the situation, 

25 so... 
126

1 DR. MCKEEL: I'd like to comment on that. 

2 There are -- there are rules that the AEC has -

3 - NRC -- that, you know, if you're handling 

4 material that has a thorium content less than 

5 two and a half percent that that can be exempt. 

6 But that's not the case at -- at Dow Madison. 

7 You know, we don't have any film badge data for 

8 the production period when men were taking 

9 solid lumps of thorium and pouring them into 

10 those pots under heavy fumes and so forth. So 

11 I think the data from the Ames Laboratory, for 

12 instance, that [Identifying information 

13 redacted] has discussed with you all 

14 extensively, the -- the thoron doses to those 

15 workers in fact are so high during the residual 

16 period that he's asking that they be considered 

17 for compensation having worked at the Ames 

18 Plant for less than 250 days. And so I think 

19 rather than talking about are these doses so 

20 low that badges weren't required -- well, I'll 

21 just make this as a categorical statement: 

22 Those men should have been badged. And the 

23 fact that -- periodically you'll see in there 

24 testimony they were badged, but it was cosmetic 

25 badging. Their impression was, to a man, 
127

1 there's nobody who stepped up -- before 1986 

2 when Spectrulite took over -- who has said yes, 

3 I wore a badge every day and -- there's nobody 

4 who I've talked to who has ever seen a report 

5 of a personal dosimetry reading, nobody. And 

6 so I don't believe it happened. I believe it 

7 should have happened and -- wow, I -- I just -- 

8 I -- I think they should have been badged. I 

9 think that something happened to the badges. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

11 MR. STEPHAN: Again, following up here on Dr. 

12 McKeel's point, I appreciate the point that 

13 you're trying to -- trying to make, Wanda, but 

14 you -- if you refer to the IEMA reports, they 

15 cite throughout the report that in the mid-'90s 

16 and into -- well into 2000 that the levels were 

17 much higher than the guidelines. So if you're 

18 going to the question of you had a small amount 

19 of thorium and it didn't require badging, 

20 regardless, and we -- and we I think have lots 

21 of disagreements about what the amount of 

22 thorium that was used there was, IEMA's own 

23 reports when they're trying to do the 

24 decommissioning from Pangea cite numerous 

25 instances where the levels were much higher 
128

1 than their guideline, sig-- quote -- to quote 

2 the report, significantly higher in many cases, 

3 which is in the most recent IEMA report. 

4 MS. MUNN: Yeah, thank you. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

6 MR. GRIFFON: I have a -- a couple of questions 

7 I've been sitting -- sitting waiting my turn so 

8 I've several questions. I -- I wanted to start 

9 with the previous period that we looked at as 

10 far as internal dose. I'm talking mainly to 

11 the thorium and thoron dose reconstruction, and 

12 previously, during the operational period '57 

13 through '60 I think -- if I got the right area 

14 of the previous report -- NIOSH -- this is from 

15 the ER report, says NIOSH does not have enough 

16 documentation to ensure that all conditions 

17 that could have affected exposure levels were 

18 similar to those represented by the available 

19 air monitoring data. So -- but then we're go-- 

20 in the current model they're going on to use 

21 some of that air monitoring data as 

22 operational, extrapolating to the cleanup data 

23 and using that for the residual period. So you 

24 know, it wasn't good enough for the -- for the 

25 operational period, but I guess the -- the 
129

1 reasoning is that well, it was some data and it 

2 is operational and we're in a residual period. 

3 I'm -- I have some concerns about that. I 

4 guess I would say yeah, it's -- it's a little 

5 higher, so therefore is -- does that mean it's 

6 okay to use, is it bounding? I don't know. 

7 That's -- that's one question. I'll call LaVon 

8 up in a second -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Do you want to respond, LaVon, on 

10 that issue or... 

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Recognize that a lot of things 

12 we were looking at during that operational 

13 period, again, was what other activities were 

14 occurring that -- we -- we had to reconstruct 

15 all doses during the operational period, so we 

16 had to look at all activities that were 

17 occurring at that time. Okay? So we -- we 

18 were concerned that we had operational data, 

19 but we were not sure that we -- because of the 

20 operations, the '57 air data, that little bit 

21 of air data that we had come in, we weren't 

22 sure that all operations were covered by that 

23 data. 

24 What I'm saying now is is that we're taking 

25 operational data from 1959 -- again, that 
130

1 includes the resuspension factor from residual 

2 contamination as well as operations -- and we 

3 feel that is a bounding number, and recognizing 

4 that it is above an MPC that -- the data that 

5 we're using. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Then -- then I wanted to 

7 get into the -- the actual model if -- looking 

8 at the -- and this is a similar question that I 

9 asked about the thoron and of course -- the O 

10 drive booted me out, hold on. It -- it's -- 

11 it's -- the general question is that -- I 

12 looked at the thorium data -- here it is -- and 

13 in the ER report it says the thoron -- and I 

14 should say that the question I asked earlier, 

15 LaVon explained to me that the -- there were 

16 more datapoints, but the data they selected for 

17 the model was the December '59, the one last 

18 year, and that was consistent with what I saw 

19 in the Excel spreadsheet. This thorium data, 

20 now that I'm looking at this, you have a 

21 similar situation. You have much more data 

22 available and they take a lot of the December 

23 '59 data, but there's also datapoints from '58 

24 and '57. And in the ER report it says it took 

25 the highest available operational data, I think 
131

1 were the words -- 

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah. 

3 MR. GRIFFON: -- and -- and there's a couple 

4 points in December '59 here, and I would say 

5 well, you know, there's some that -- that might 

6 be -- might -- it was a good explanation, in my 

7 head anyway, why they might have not been 

8 considered. Some are breathing zone related to 

9 hand sanding. It might have been a particular 

10 -- okay, I can see rationale for dropping 

11 those, but this one says -- two of these say 

12 near control panel and in pot room, and other 

13 samples identified like that were included, yet 

14 these happen to be quite a bit higher than your 

15 95th percentile in your distribution. So 

16 again, I have some -- some specifics here on 

17 the model and I've just looked at it today 

18 really, so -- but I don't know if you can 

19 address that or -- 

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: I can -- I can address that 

21 our intent was to look at the general area air 

22 samples. We focused -- we stayed away from the 

23 strict process samples or breathing zone 

24 samples because those were associated with true 

25 -- with operations and -- and would have been 
132

1 le-- have leaned towards operations, more 

2 towards operations and not towards a 

3 resuspension residual period model that we were 

4 looking at. That's why we focused on general 

5 area. 

6 Now if there's a couple of samples that we 

7 excluded that look like they could be a general 

8 area sample, I'm -- I'm not sure why. I would 

9 have to look at that. But that was our intent 

10 was to use the general area data that would 

11 include both an operational -- it would have an 

12 operational component from any general area 

13 activity that the operations were -- were 

14 supplying, as well as resuspension. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: And the-- these have -- in the 

16 spreadsheet I'm looking at, there is a -- a tag 

17 back to the original survey documents. I 

18 haven't -- I haven't cross-walked these, so 

19 there might be a good explanation on why a 

20 couple of these were left off, but just looking 

21 at the description, in the pot room, it was 

22 included when it was 1.33 -- I think this is 

23 picocuries per meter cubed -- and the one that 

24 wasn't included was 9.33. The upper 95th right 

25 now is -- is, you know, around three, so it 
133

1 raises a question in my mind of how -- how was 

2 the data selected. 

3 And then LaVon, I don't know -- did you mention 

4 why -- why are there a couple of points from 

5 '57 and 8 included in this -- in the thorium 

6 stuff and not in the thoron? Or... There's 

7 some air sampling data from '57/'58 here. I 

8 thought you were only looking at the tail end 

9 of the -- sticking with the 1959 data for 

10 thorium. 

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Again, I'm not sure on that. 

12 I'd have to look -- go back and look at the 

13 data again on that myself. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: Again, there's a lot of values 

15 excluded from '57/'58. I don't -- I don't 

16 really see why these two were picked. They're 

17 not necessarily low-- they're kind of in the 

18 middle values, so they're not necessarily lower 

19 or higher, but -- 

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, if they were process 

21 samples or breathing zone samples, we clearly -

22 - 

23 MR. GRIFFON: Oh -- 

24 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- separated those out. 

25 MR. GRIFFON: All right. And then -- and then 
134

1 the data for the cleanup -- I'm probably 

2 missing this 'cause I've been going through a 

3 lot of documents, like everyone here has, 

4 obviously, but wh-- where is that da-- is that 

5 in -- in a spreadsheet format as well or -- 

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, it's actually -- we have -

7 - like I said, we just got that last Friday and 

8 that report itself is -- it should be in with 

9 the references. It's called the Spectrulite 

10 final closure report, I believe -- I can't 

11 remember. It's not referenced in -- in our 

12 addendum because we did not have that at that 

13 time, but we did put it in the O drive and make 

14 it available for the Board so it is there. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: And you mentioned ten percent DAC 

16 value, but was it multiple samples or was it 

17 one sample -- 

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, actually it was sampled 

19 over a month period of time. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: So a one-month sample. 

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: A one-month period of time and 

22 they took the highest actu-- we took the 

23 highest value of the -- based on that perimeter 

24 boundary. 

25 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And last question is the 
135

1 extrapolation model, is that -- it's -- it's 

2 described I think in the attachment of the 

3 addendum -- 

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, in detail. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: -- but is there -- is it in a 

6 spreadsheet somewhere? Is it -- 

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: That should be -- 

8 MR. GRIFFON: I have to look to that more -- 

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, it should be -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: -- closely, too, but... 

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, it should be in with the 

12 sample dose reconstructions. If not, it may 

13 also be in with the references itself in there 

14 and -- and that, again, is a model we've taken 

15 right out of TIB-70, so -- 

16 MR. GRIFFON: TIB. 

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 

19 DR. MCKEEL: I have one more comment to make 

20 about what LaVon just mentioned. It just 

21 struck me in my debilitated state, but we've 

22 been talking about a steady state over the 

23 residual period, and I think it's really 

24 important to recall that the reason the 

25 original residual period ended in 1998 was 
136

1 because the U.S. Army Engin-- Corps of 

2 Engineers, under the FUSRAP program, came in 

3 and remediated fully, they said, the uranium 

4 that was in the rafters in Building 6. Now in 

5 that report they clearly described commingled 

6 uranium and thorium in those rafters. And they 

7 also pointed out that, because Army Corps of 

8 Engineers believed at that time that all of the 

9 thorium there was commercial-related, they had 

10 no mandate to clean it up. So they made no 

11 specific attempt to clean up the thorium. But 

12 my reading of that report was an awful lot of 

13 it was commingled with the uranium, so -- now 

14 they restricted that cleanup just to the 

15 extrusion building, so they wouldn't have 

16 touched 5 or 7. But at least some of the 

17 residual thorium was undoubtedly removed with 

18 the uranium in 1998 and so there was sort of a 

19 little step effect in there where the overall 

20 thorium -- some of it left the site in 1998. 

21 That's a point. And 2006 measurements would be 

22 a little bit lower than they were say in 1997, 

23 probably, just -- yes -- yes, Diane. 

24 MR. RUTHERFORD: I was going to respond 

25 somewhat to Dr. McKeel. I also wanted to make 
137

1 a note that the license -- the 1962 AEC license 

2 did note or did make a note at the bottom of 

3 exemptions to 10 CFR 20 with less than four 

4 percent -- four percent or less 

5 thorium/magnesium alloy productions. Not -- I 

6 did not go back and look at the specific 

7 citation to verify what all the exemptions 

8 were. I'm just making that note, so I want to 

9 clarify that. Okay. 

10 The 2006 data that we actually took, the reason 

11 we took that 2006 data, one, we felt we could 

12 have taken the surface contamination data from 

13 1998 and actually did a two-step model that 

14 would have ultimately -- especially now that we 

15 had the 2006 data, would have actually lowered 

16 the concentrations from '98 to 2006. But from 

17 a claimant-favorable and from an ease of the 

18 calculations, we just moved the 2006 data and 

19 took that air sample data from 2006, which 

20 again is from D&D activities, it was generated 

21 by D&D activities as our high point, and we 

22 felt like that would -- would be a -- a simple 

23 approach and would cover the whole period. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, you have additional -- 

25 MR. GRIFFON: No. 
138

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Lockey? 

2 DR. LOCKEY: LaVon, one -- one question about 

3 what you just said, the AEC license and four 

4 percent. 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 

6 DR. LOCKEY: Can you -- explain that to me, 

7 will you, in a little bit more detail? 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. The AEC had determined 

9 -- make -- makes a determination -- as Wanda 

10 had mentioned earlier, part of your licensing -

11 - part of your radiological safety requirements 

12 will depend on how much material you handle, 

13 how much operat-- or what type of operations 

14 you're doing that you could possibly generate 

15 exposures to employees. Based on the studies 

16 they may do, the amount of material that's 

17 involved, they make a determination that a site 

18 may be exempt from monitoring practices -- 

19 personnel monitoring, typically, practices 

20 depending on how much radioactive material you 

21 -- you are working with. And in this case, in 

22 the license it indicates at the bottom -- now 

23 again, I want to qualify this that I have -- I 

24 just, you know, was only -- I haven't reviewed 

25 the actual citation under 10 CFR 20 to verify 
139

1 this, but -- but the AEC inspection says that 

2 there -- they are exempt from 10 CFR 20 when 

3 dealing with four percent or less thorium 

4 materials in 1962. Okay. 

5 DR. LOCKEY: Let me follow up. Prior to 1960 

6 what was the percentage in the thorium, do you 

7 know? 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, I -- I know they 

9 worked with four percent, and actually they 

10 worked with higher during a -- where's Dr. 

11 McKeel -- they actually worked with some higher 

12 period during that time. Now we -- again, it's 

13 during the operational period. I think they -- 

14 I can't remember the actual percentage, but it 

15 was much higher than four percent, some special 

16 material, thorium alloy material in -- that 

17 they used in 1959. 

18 DR. LOCKEY: And after 1960? 

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: After 1960, based on the AEC 

20 license, they were dealing with four percent or 

21 less. 

22 DR. LOCKEY: Okay. 

23 MR. STEPHAN: This is from Dow, February 22nd, 

24 1971. It's from Dow to the AEC. I was very 

25 surprised to get three invoices related to AEC 
140

1 source material license fees -- it goes on to 

2 discuss why he was surprised, why some of these 

3 licenses should be combined or canceled, and he 

4 says in here 859 pounds of thorium nitrate used 

5 during 1970 on license number STB1055 which 

6 contained about 40 percent thorium. 

7 DR. LOCKEY: Was that from Dow Madison? 

8 MR. STEPHAN: Yeah. 

9 DR. LOCKEY: Okay, 40 percent. 

10 MR. STEPHAN: Yeah, so -- I mean I could go 

11 through this whole document and find all kinds 

12 of other instances post-1960 that have much 

13 higher levels of thorium beyond four percent. 

14 DR. LOCKEY: Okay. 

15 MR. STEPHAN: I mean this is just one example I 

16 found right now, but th-- this is 1971, talking 

17 -- talking about the period of 1970. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Dr. McKeel? 

19 DR. MCKEEL: Well, they were licensed for 

20 several different kinds of thorium source 

21 material, including pure thorium -- thorium 

22 pellets, so it wasn't -- they weren't licensed 

23 just for the alloy. Some of the alloys had 

24 lower amounts, two and a half percent I think 

25 was HM21A for the thorium content of that. But 
141

1 you know, they had to -- they had to buy 

2 thorium to make the four percent or two and a 

3 half percent alloy, and then they had to dump 

4 that solid thorium into the magnesium and add a 

5 little bit of zirconium or whatever else was in 

6 the alloy mix. But they were dealing with ver7 - very enriched thorium, so -- I mean that's -- 

8 that's quite right, they -- I mean they were 

9 exempt -- once it got to be an alloy and a 

10 piece -- a hunk of metal with a small amount of 

11 thorium in it, then you can get exempt. But 

12 they -- they weren't exempt from having to have 

13 a license, and I feel badges, for their much 

14 higher compounds of thorium way above that 

15 limit. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. The Chair is 

17 going to make an executive decision here, and 

18 that is that we're going to take a lunch break. 

19 We will return to Dow, but not immediately 

20 after lunch. The Board has a session called 

21 Department of Energy update, and I just want to 

22 tell you that for the Board this will look more 

23 like a training session. It's dealing with 

24 certain procedures on the DOE documen-- 

25 documents that are retrieved. We will not be 
142

1 enacting any Board business during that hour. 

2 Those in the audience who wish to take a more 

3 leisurely lunch, we will -- we will recess from 

4 12:00 to 1:00 and then from 1:00 to 2:00 we'll 

5 have our DOE session. And so my intent is that 

6 at 2:00 o'clock we would return to the Dow 

7 issues, so don't feel obligated to come back 

8 for -- I'm -- I'm not implying that the DOE 

9 will give a boring session. Far be it from 

10 them to do so. But we will not enact business 

11 during that sort of training session, so we'll 

12 see you after lunch. 

13 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:55 a.m. 

14 to 1:05 p.m.) 

15 DR. BRANCHE: I'd just -- before Dr. Ziemer 

16 introduces the next segment, I'd just ask that 

17 phone participants -- is the line open 

18 completely? 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: I'd ask that phone participants 

21 mute their lines. If you don't have a mute 

22 button, please use star-6. 

23 I also ask that participants by phone not put 

24 this line on hold. If you must leave the line, 

25 it would be much better for you to hang up and 
143

1 call back in. Putting us on hold interrupts 

2 the entire line. 

3 Thank you so much for your cooperation. Dr. 

4 Ziemer? 

5 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY UPDATE

6 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We're -- official come 

7 back to order for the afternoon session. We're 

8 going to begin our afternoon agenda with the 

9 Department of Energy update. Reg-- Regina Cano 

10 is going to make the presentation. She's with 

11 the health and safety group at DOE, and 

12 supporting her today are Guy McDowell who's 

13 with the security division, and I believe by 

14 phone Ken Stein, who's also security division. 

15 Ken, are you on the line as well? 

16 MR. STEIN: Yes, I am. I am with the office of 

17 classification. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, very good. Thank you. 

19 Regina, welcome. The podium is yours. 

20 MS. CANO: Thank you. Again, thank you for 

21 allowing DOE to address the Board. I also want 

22 to let you know Dr. Worthington normally 

23 provides the presentation of the program update 

24 for DOE, but she has been on travel and so I 

25 guess it's appropriate to say, being in St. 
144

1 Louis, I'm pinch-hitting for her. 

2 So -- but again, we have a number of 

3 individuals from DOE present -- Greg Lewis, Guy 

4 McDowell, and as you mentioned, Ken Stein is on 

5 the phone. 

6 And again, you know, just -- I -- I realize 

7 that this may be repetitive. However, for -- I 

8 don't know if there are any claimants here or 

9 anybody from the public, I just want to make 

10 sure we go through DOE's responsibilities for 

11 their benefit. 

12 As previously mentioned, DOE has three major 

13 responsibilities under EEOICPA. We respond to 

14 DOL and NIOSH requests for information related 

15 to individual claims, which include employment 

16 verifications and data relevant to exposures. 

17 We also provide support and assistance to the 

18 Department of Labor and NIOSH and the Advisory 

19 Board for research-related activities. The 

20 other -- third element is that we research 

21 issues related to EEOICPA-covered facilities, 

22 which includes time frame designations. 

23 As mentioned, I would say at least probably 90 

24 percent of our work is dedicated to responding 

25 to individual claims. The majority of our 
145

1 budget does go towards res-- you know, 

2 providing the records to support adjudication 

3 of the claims. Basically for employment 

4 verification we respond to approximately 8,000 

5 a year; dose reconstruction, approximately 

6 5,000; and DARs, the Document Acquisition 

7 Requests, approximately 9,000. This is used to 

8 support Part E claims. 

9 Again, just to give you an idea of -- of the 

10 number of requests we've responded to in the 

11 past years, in 2006 we responded to 

12 approximately 17,000 requests; in '07, 21,000 -

13 - almost 22,000 requests, which -- you know, 

14 basically the increase went from -- 

15 approximately 32 percent from '06 to '07. 

16 The next couple of slides will just be -- 

17 provide you with an overview of the trends that 

18 we're seeing. For '07 it kind of gives you an 

19 idea of the active months. For '08, so far -- 

20 and this is as of April '0-- April, we have 

21 received approximately 10,000 requests, so 

22 we're anticipating to probably accommodate 

23 approximately 18,000 requests for '08. And so 

24 that also just shows you that, you know, in '07 

25 we were -- we responded to approximately 21,000 
146

1 and in '06 it was 17,000 and in '08 it's going 

2 to be about 18,000. That's what we're 

3 anticipating. 

4 Another area that we support, as I mentioned, 

5 is facilitating record requests between DOE and 

6 NIOSH. Currently -- to support SE-- SEC 

7 activities. Currently we have six ongoing SECs 

8 that we are supporting. As you can see -- you 

9 know, Fernald, Hanford, Mound, Nevada Test 

10 Site, Savannah River and Pantex. Our role at 

11 headquarters, again, is to facilitate record 

12 requests between the Department of Energy out 

13 in the field and NIOSH and the Department of 

14 Labor. Greg Lewis is our primary point of 

15 contact, and I know that a lot of individuals 

16 from NIOSH have dealt with -- with Greg. 

17 Just to give you kind of an update as to what 

18 has taken place with some of the SEC record 

19 retrieval activities, for Hanford -- I realize 

20 that several months ago we had some budget 

21 concerns, but I believe that that has been 

22 rectified, so we have made significant amount 

23 of progress in providing the documents relevant 

24 to Hanford and a number of the other SECs. But 

25 as of June '08 Hanford staff hosted NIOSH 
147

1 contractors and basically that enabled them to 

2 understand the needs for NIOSH, and that also 

3 allowed NIOSH to understand the limitations 

4 that Hanford may have in responding to some of 

5 the requests. 

6 To date Hanford has -- NIOSH has reviewed 

7 approximately 100 boxes of responsive 

8 documents, approximately 20,000 pages were 

9 identified for production, keyword searches 

10 resulted in about -- almost 300,000 potentially 

11 responsive documents, and we're also 

12 anticipating a July visit. This will provide 

13 NIOSH the ability to meet with subject matter 

14 experts. 

15 In regards to Savannah River, same thing. We -

16 - we have found that having preliminary 

17 planning meetings with our sites has proved to 

18 be very valuable. It enables our sites to 

19 understand NIOSH's expectations and their 

20 needs, and also for NIOSH and SC&A to 

21 understand Savannah River or the site's 

22 availability to provide certain documentation. 

23 We hosted a visit with NIOSH representatives 

24 June 10th through the 13th, and this is where 

25 we were able to provide technical reports for 
148

1 their review. During that review NIOSH also 

2 identified approximately 5,000 pages from 519 

3 documents from which they need electronic 

4 copies. These are undergoing proc-- are being 

5 processed by Savannah River at this time. 

6 We've also been able to retrieve and conduct 

7 security reviews, and provided over -- almost 

8 close to 3,000 pages of documents -- or pages 

9 from the SRS special hazards investigation 

10 reports. 

11 In regards to Mound, during an initial keyword 

12 search 2,000 boxes were identified as having 

13 potentially responsive documents. Subsequently 

14 NIOSH and SC&A have submitted a comprehensive 

15 data capture plan. The DOE Office of Legacy 

16 Management -- they have also hosted a visit in 

17 March of '08 which again provided NIOSH and 

18 Mound to have a face-to-face discussion in 

19 regards to understanding the needs. 

20 NIOSH reviewed approximately 74 boxes of 

21 records and selected responsive documents for 

22 reproduction. DOE staff facilitated interviews 

23 also with former Mound workers. Both NIOSH and 

24 SC&A have assembled a comprehensive research 

25 plan and within I believe the next few weeks we 
149

1 will be working with both groups to identify a 

2 plan of action and time frame for completing 

3 our SEC research. 

4 And I just want to say on that point, I think 

5 we found that developing a comprehensive 

6 research plan enables NIOSH and SC&A not only 

7 to share information, but it also provides our 

8 sites an opportunity to plan accordingly. It 

9 helps for budget purposes, you know, for them 

10 to plan in regards to how much -- how many -- 

11 number of staff that they have to hire, and 

12 also in regards to how much time it will take 

13 to respond to NIOSH's requests. So we've found 

14 that this comprehensive data-capturing strategy 

15 has been very valuable. 

16 As mentioned, DOE also -- we fund and 

17 coordinate large-scale records retrieval 

18 activities, you know, in addition to assisting 

19 Labor -- or NIOSH, we also assist Labor with 

20 their site exposure matrices databases. We've 

21 completed over 20 -- and I would say that 

22 number has actually gone up dramatically. I 

23 would think close to what, over 30, Greg, 

24 total? We also assist the Advisory Board, as 

25 you know, and -- with their site profile 
150

1 documents, the techni-- I should say the 

2 technical reviews, and then also for the 

3 Special Exposure Cohorts. 

4 While we have large-scale research activities 

5 going on at the site, we also want to make it 

6 clear -- or make a point that we also 

7 accommodate small research activities and we -- 

8 we're constantly -- there's constant activities 

9 going on at the site, particularly pertaining 

10 to gathering information to update and improve 

11 site profiles, and that may be requested by 

12 NIOSH or -- or SC&A. 

13 DOE also has responsibility to research and 

14 maintain the covered facilities database. 

15 There are over 343 covered facilities, and I 

16 can tell you probably at least on a monthly 

17 basis we're updating that database. And that's 

18 often as a result of information that NIOSH 

19 will provide to us and ask for us to clarify or 

20 po-- or potentially Labor. 

21 As I mentioned, we are -- we -- we research 

22 activities related to the covered facilities 

23 list. Right now we have several ongoing 

24 research activities taking place, and this may 

25 be, again, initiated by NIOSH, Department of 
151

1 Labor, Congress, or potentially a poten-- 

2 petitioner or a claimant. To assist us in this 

3 effort we have been working with the Office of 

4 Legacy Management. As you know, they have 

5 responsibility for the closure sites and an 

6 immense expertise in records management. So we 

7 believe that Legacy Management has been 

8 valuable in assisting us in the research 

9 activities. 

10 In regards to initiatives, within the past 

11 couple of years we've -- we're constantly 

12 looking for ways to improve the program and 

13 become more efficient in responding to the 

14 claimants and to NIOSH and Department of Labor. 

15 We have named a POC within our office to 

16 coordinate all records. And again, that's Greg 

17 Lewis. We hold, if not monthly, bi-week-- I 

18 guess every what, maybe every week, would say? 

19 Some type of a conference call with NIOSH, 

20 ORAU, SC&A or Department of Labor so we can 

21 make sure that we're being responsive to their 

22 needs. 

23 DOE headquarters has recently made an 

24 arrangement -- again, like I mentioned -- to 

25 work with the Office of Legacy Management to 
152

1 assist us in research. 

2 Something else we asked our sites to do was 

3 that -- was that they review and update their 

4 records research procedures. We found this to 

5 be very helpful. As a result, a number of the 

6 sites took steps to improve their data7 gathering methods and sources. They were able 

8 to find additional collection of records that 

9 could be potentially helpful to EEOICPA, so we 

10 found this to be very helpful. 

11 And most recently, we -- I guess late last year 

12 and early la-- this year, our DOE field staff 

13 trained the DOL District Offices, basically 

14 giving an overview of operational history and 

15 site records management procedures as it 

16 relates to EEOICPA. We thought this was 

17 important because we do have the subject matter 

18 experts available to Department of Labor. Not 

19 only do their know their sites and can explain 

20 it to Department of Labor, but they can also 

21 explain to the Department of Labor the records 

22 that they're providing to them and how they 

23 should interpret that information as -- and 

24 apply it to the claims process. 

25 We also made the commitment to provide site 
153

1 experts to participate and contribute to the 

2 working group conference calls. We hope that 

3 you would, you know, take advantage of that. 

4 If at any time you need assistance, just let us 

5 know. We'll make sure we have the appropriate 

6 person on the call. I think that's helpful 

7 when you're discussing activities at a 

8 particular site and you need -- need 

9 clarification. We'd be happy to have them on 

10 the call. 

11 Again, as I mentioned, we have requested that 

12 NIOSH and SC&A work together to draft a project 

13 plan for each records research project. This 

14 has been very valuable and helps us plan 

15 appropriately. And as well we've initiated 

16 pre-planning meetings. I think the face-to17 face really helps. That way it helps establish 

18 better communication amongst NIOSH and the 

19 field when they know who they're talking to. 

20 They can put a face with a name. I think 

21 that's -- that's been very helpful. 

22 Something else we continue to work on -- as you 

23 know, you know, we have the -- the NIOSH MOU. 

24 We currently are reviewing the DOE/NIOSH 

25 procedures to identify roles and our 
154

1 responsibilities. We believe that DOE needs to 

2 make sure that we can comply with expectations 

3 outlined in the MOU. We realize it's taking 

4 some time to complete, but a number of areas 

5 that we continue to work through include system 

6 of records, security clearances, and safeguards 

7 and securities. Again, we want to make sure 

8 that everybody can comply with what's outlined 

9 in the MOU. 

10 Security clearance, for example -- you know, I 

11 just want to make sure I understand the DOE 

12 process for granting security clearances, and 

13 we want to make sure that nobody is 

14 inadvertently terminated, their clearance. 

15 It's been challenging for us because, for 

16 example, if an individual was provided a Q 

17 clearance from a site, we have no way of 

18 tracking whether or not that clearance has been 

19 terminated or any kind of action's been taken 

20 on that particular clearance unless we have 

21 some way of connecting it to our organization, 

22 which in the -- we're -- we're doing right now. 

23 We're trying to reconcile the clearance issue. 

24 Again, safeguards and security is another area 

25 that we take very seriously. The MOU is 
155

1 something that did outline security 

2 requirements. We've looked at those security 

3 requirements and we're working with NIOSH and 

4 the Board and the contractors to make sure that 

5 everybody can comply. We need to make sure 

6 that we can protect the information that we 

7 provide to -- to the Board and to NIOSH. 

8 And I realize security has come up recently, 

9 there've been questions, so I just want to see 

10 if we can address some of the issues or 

11 questions that have come up relevant to 

12 security. Again, I just want to make clear 

13 that DOE -- we have never restricted access to 

14 any type of information that you feel that's 

15 relevant for EEOICPA. We will always make that 

16 information available, whether it's classified 

17 or unclassified, provided that the individuals 

18 accessing classified information have proper 

19 clearances. But at the same time we also need 

20 to make sure that the documents we are 

21 providing -- we do in a responsible manner. 

22 Ultimately we want to prevent the inadvertent 

23 release or dissemination of classified 

24 information, and controlled unclassified 

25 information, to unauthorized individuals. 
156

1 I -- I don't -- you know, DOE, from the very 

2 beginning -- I mean we always review our 

3 information that goes out, so I think there may 

4 be some concern or some -- as to whether or not 

5 we are instituting a no protocol, and that's 

6 not the case. I think from the very beginning, 

7 any type of document that's been provided to 

8 NIOSH will undergo some sort of review. 

9 However, in updating the MOU it's been -- we 

10 have been trying to understand NIOSH's internal 

11 procedures as to, you know, what kind of 

12 documents they do drafts so that when we do 

13 provide the appropriate guidance it does meet 

14 your needs. And we also want to make sure that 

15 we are complying with the security protocols 

16 that are in place. 

17 Again, I also want to mention that DOE has been 

18 working collaboratively with NIOSH to divide 

19 the guidance. We've had several meetings in 

20 Washington, D.C., as well as conference calls, 

21 to kind of flesh out some of the issues that 

22 we're concerned with. Again, you know, it's -- 

23 we want to make sure that -- that NIOSH, as 

24 well as the Board members, understand where 

25 we're coming from when we -- when we are 
157

1 referencing certain regulations or procedures 

2 that require the outline -- safeguarding and 

3 protecting information. 

4 Does anybody have any questions? 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Regina. Let me begin 

6 the questioning with this question -- or ask 

7 for an elaboration. You talked about the 

8 covered facilities database. Could you expand 

9 a little bit on the content or what types of 

10 information you have in -- 

11 MS. CANO: Sure. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: -- that database? 

13 MS. CANO: Basically it's just a brief 

14 description of the facility, including the time 

15 period that it's covered, AOAS's -- or I 

16 shouldn't say AOAS's -- subsequent owners or 

17 potentially known as, but it's always been 

18 intended just to be a brief description. You 

19 know, we see that NIOSH often -- or Department 

20 of Labor -- has additional information that 

21 will outline operational history for that 

22 particular site. But again, it just gives 

23 basically the claims examiner an understanding 

24 of what's covered and the time period, and 

25 whether or not it's an AWE facility, beryllium 
158

1 vendor obviously or a -- or a DOE facility. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Perhaps I should ask if any of 

3 your colleagues have comments also, either Guy 

4 or Ken or -- or Glenn (sic). 

5 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) If you have any 

6 particular questions, then we're here to 

7 (unintelligible) those for you. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: I have a couple. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Couple of comments? No, go ahead. 

10 DR. BRANCHE: I appreciate Gina's having -- 

11 Regina having mentioned that there have been 

12 on-site face-to-face meetings as well as 

13 conference calls to help us reconcile their 

14 adherence to their policies and their need to 

15 protect the data, and NIOSH's need to access 

16 the data, not only for their own work but also 

17 for -- and providing information to the Board. 

18 One of the suggestions that arose over the last 

19 few weeks has been the idea that in order to 

20 facilitate things that one of the Board members 

21 who is already cleared be an initial point of 

22 contact for the Board for DOE, and the 

23 suggestion had been that it be Mr. Presley. 

24 And I think that's something that I -- I talked 

25 to Dr. Ziemer about, but I think it's 
159

1 appropriate that if there are any objections 

2 that that raise -- that -- I mean he will be 

3 representing you and -- and be this point of 

4 contact, because in some cases the need for 

5 speed has been one that has made the idea of 

6 having someone readily recognized as 

7 representing your body would help. 

8 MS. BEACH: Christine, could you explain that 

9 role in its entirety -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

11 MS. BEACH: -- what that would consist of? 

12 DR. BRANCHE: I think I'd ask Mr. Presley if he 

13 could explain that role -- or -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Or maybe DOE can. Let me make a 

15 couple comments. It was indicated to me that 

16 the Board may need to be represented from time 

17 to time on some of the security issues. We 

18 have a limited number of people -- in fact, 

19 very limited at the moment -- of people who 

20 have Q clearance, maybe only one or two. But 

21 in any event, I'm certainly prepared to make 

22 that appointment if -- that's my prerogative. 

23 I'm not quite sure what it entails or what the 

24 expectation of DOE is, how they see the person 

25 in that role. Maybe we could hear from Regina 
160

1 on that, and then Bob, if you have comments as 

2 well. 

3 MS. CANO: I mean first of all I think, you 

4 know, we have already -- Bob and I -- or Mr. 

5 Presley and I have already worked quite a bit 

6 together, and I think it is an -- it is an 

7 appropriate -- that if there are questions 

8 relating to security that they do -- you know, 

9 we can coordinate those questions through Mr. 

10 Presley. However, when it comes to actually 

11 reviewing documents, having an ADC review, we 

12 prefer that those reviews take place at the 

13 site because they do have the expertise 

14 available to -- to review that information. 

15 However, we still can coordinate with Mr. 

16 Presley, which I think is important. It helps 

17 if we could have one point of contact and, you 

18 know, so we can address the concerns, if 

19 necessary. 

20 Ken, do you have anything else to add? 

21 MR. STEIN: No, that -- that (unintelligible). 

22 The classification review should take place at 

23 the DOE facility by DOE personnel. 

24 MS. CANO: But otherwise I think it is 

25 appropriate, if possible, to have somebody 
161

1 appointed by the Board to -- to act as the main 

2 point of contact on security matters. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Josie? 

4 MS. BEACH: I wonder if it would be appropriate 

5 to appoint the one person and then an 

6 alternate, in case that person isn't available. 

7 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I'd still like to go 

8 back to Josie's question, which is what is the 

9 role. I mean I hear coordinate. I don't know 

10 what -- do -- do -- is Bob going to speak -- is 

11 Bob going to speak for the Board, you know, 

12 weigh in on -- on this development of this 

13 policy? I'm not sure exactly what coordinate 

14 means. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: I myself don't know the answer to 

16 that, I just -- 

17 MR. GRIFFON: And I've lost my clearance for 

18 the meantime, so you know, I'm not a viable 

19 candidate. 

20 MS. CANO: I mean I think there are a couple of 

21 issues. One, as we try to work through the 

22 appropriate security guidance, I think that's -

23 - that's one area that we need somebody to 

24 coordinate with the other areas if security 

25 matters exist. For example, if question's 
162

1 raised by a Board member that -- well, is this 

2 considered classified, then you know, I think 

3 it would be appropriate to go to Bob -- or Mr. 

4 Presley, and then we can work with him 

5 directly. But again, that would be my 

6 suggestion. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Would it be helpful to have an 

8 alternate as well? 

9 MS. CANO: Yes, I think so. 

10 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but I don't understand -- 

11 again, if it's -- if it's looking at policies 

12 related to this, why -- number one, why does it 

13 have to be a person with clearance, 'cause the 

14 policy's not going to be classified. 

15 MS. CANO: It doesn't have to be. 

16 MR. GRIFFON: Right, it just needs to be -- I 

17 mean I'm not sure we don't need a workgroup on 

18 this, but I don't know, I just -- I'm a little 

19 confused. And then is Bob's role going to be 

20 to monitor -- if any questions come up that are 

21 potentially getting into secure areas, is that 

22 Bob's role to monitor the Board for those 

23 potentials? I -- I don't -- please define... 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Again, I don't have the answer to 

25 that. I'm not -- 
163

1 MS. CANO: Ken, do you have any... 

2 MR. STEIN: The only thing is -- I've already 

3 spoke about the issue of classification 

4 reviews, and of course I will keep that at the 

5 site. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: I didn't catch that. 

7 MS. CANO: I think that's a -- 

8 UNIDENTIFIED: Hello? 

9 DR. ZIEMER: I think Larry has a comment here. 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I hope I can help here a 

11 little bit. From a NIOSH perspective, we think 

12 it's important -- 

13 DR. BRANCHE: One second, Larry, 'cause we 

14 can't hear you. 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: Now you can hear me probably. 

16 From a NIOSH perspective, we think it's 

17 important that if we encounter a situation 

18 where -- this goes beyond coordination, I 

19 believe, with whatever DOE's needs are. This 

20 is more in line with what NIOSH wants to see 

21 happen, and that is if in a situation we 

22 encounter a question about whether information 

23 or data is of a secure restricted inf-- data 

24 classification issue, we want to be able to 

25 have a Board member or members with the right 
164

1 classification clearances to be able to put 

2 their eyes on that information, as we have done 

3 in a couple of instances in the past. We want 

4 to be able to have SC&A have the right cleared 

5 folks engaged, along with ours, so that it's 

6 not just NIOSH cleared staff coming back to the 

7 Board and -- and parsing out what can be said 

8 about a given set of information. So that's 

9 one perspective that I think a Board 

10 representative or representatives that have 

11 clearances could aid in. In other words, 

12 giving a balanced understanding and review of 

13 what has -- has been observed. So that -- I 

14 just want to put that on the table. 

15 I don't think that necessarily goes so much to 

16 DOE and Gina or Pat Worthington's interests to 

17 be -- for coordination, but from our 

18 perspective we think it is important that we 

19 bring forward a balanced review that includes 

20 perspectives of the Board, of SC&A and of NIOSH 

21 staff, rather than NIOSH staff coming in and 

22 saying here's what we found and here's what we 

23 can say about it and we can't talk about 

24 anything else. Okay? So I don't know if that 

25 helps, but I see this beneficial to -- to the 
165

1 collective effort that we have afoot. And I 

2 know there are several Board members who have 

3 had clearances and want clearances, and we're 

4 working hard with Gina's office to get on top 

5 of who will have clearances, who is being put 

6 in for clearances and where those situations 

7 stand, and how we -- how -- they sponsor it, 

8 but how we establish the need for those 

9 clearances in this program. 

10 DR. BRANCHE: Another point of clarification. 

11 One of the things it's very important that you 

12 understand, you are not required to have a 

13 clearance to be a member of the Board, and I 

14 don't want anyone to think that we're trying to 

15 push towards that area. But there are pieces 

16 of information, for some of you who like to get 

17 -- and dig down way into the data, that would 

18 not be available to you if you didn't have the 

19 clearance. 

20 The other thing I want to clarify as far as the 

21 policy is concerned, and Mark was right, you do 

22 not need to have clearance to be able to weigh 

23 in on the policy that's been developed. I 

24 think from the initial discussions earlier this 

25 year about the policy, I think we've 
166

1 matriculated to a point now where deliberations 

2 are now ongoing between NIOSH staff, me as your 

3 Designated Federal Official, and the Department 

4 of Energy so that the policy is as generic as 

5 possible to cover NIOSH, the contractor working 

6 for the Board and the contractors working for 

7 NIOSH on the -- with the dose reconstructions. 

8 We want the language to be that generic because 

9 renewals -- I guess new applications are about 

10 -- are underway now for the contractor serving 

11 NIOSH directly in the dose reconstructions, and 

12 for the one for the Board. So we don't want to 

13 have language that specifically names any one 

14 contractor. And frankly, the policy would need 

15 to govern all of the entities that I just 

16 named, including the Board. But again, all of 

17 those come under the aegis of NIOSH and its 

18 relationship and its access to data with DOE. 

19 So I wanted to -- I don't know if I've said too 

20 many words to make it a little -- to make it 

21 cloudy, but my attempt has been to clarify this 

22 issue of the policy and distinguish it from 

23 this -- a little bit more, as Larry has already 

24 explained, from this -- this, I think, 

25 essential point of contact issue. 
167

1 MS. CANO: And I also want to add there's 

2 basically two types of information that we're 

3 concerned with. Obviously classified, and then 

4 unclassified yet controlled information, and 

5 it's the latter. Obviously if you have a Q 

6 clearance that you -- and you're on site, 

7 you're subject to your requirements outlined in 

8 your -- when you receive your Q clearance, so 

9 you know, you know, what you can and cannot say 

10 when you're dealing with classified 

11 information. However, we still have documents 

12 that were released to NIOSH and the contractors 

13 whereby it's unclassified but controlled, and 

14 this is OUO, which is Official Use Only, and 

15 UCNI, which is Unclassified Controlled Nuclear 

16 Information, and then ECI, Expert Controlled 

17 Information. So we have -- we still have those 

18 three categories of records that we do provide 

19 to you. We want to make sure that you have 

20 procedures in place that will safeguard that 

21 type of information we provide to you. 

22 Again, you know, I just want to mention, I 

23 don't know if you are aware, but with UCNI if 

24 you disclose information, you're -- it's 

25 potential a $110,000 fine and criminal 
168

1 prosecution. So I just want people to be 

2 aware that when we release this information to 

3 NIOSH and the contractors, that you are -- you 

4 understand DOE requirements protecting that 

5 data. We just want to keep everybody out of 

6 trouble. We don't want to inadvertently 

7 release information to unauthorized users, 

8 so... 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: I think it also -- 

10 MS. CANO: And I also want to say real quick, 

11 we don't release classified information. NIOSH 

12 does not protect or accept classified 

13 information. We declassify that. But again, 

14 you still have -- certain people still have 

15 access to that information. 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: That's the point I was going to 

17 make. HHS has a policy that we do not hold, 

18 accept or retain -- we do not have the ability 

19 to safeguard and manage secure restricted data 

20 that is classified. The policy that Christine 

21 is mentioning is a -- is a -- it'll take the 

22 guise of a security plan that overarches all of 

23 the NIOSH responsibilities under this program 

24 to protect and show DOE that we have procedures 

25 in place to protect unclassified yet controlled 
169

1 information, like UCNI, OUO or ECI, Expert 

2 Controlled Information. And I think, you know, 

3 the Board members who have clearances will be 

4 helpful in making sure that this kind of uncon5 - unclassified yet controlled information and 

6 the procedures to protect it are in place, in 

7 accordance with the security plan that we'll 

8 put on the table. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn? 

10 MS. MUNN: Just a comment, although I also am 

11 still not really clear on what the end result 

12 of -- of this will be. From personal 

13 knowledge, I'm aware that dealing with levels 

14 of secured documents is a real sticky wicket, 

15 and unless an individual has much past 

16 experience in handling those documents, then it 

17 can be very time-consuming and very difficult 

18 for all concerned. I don't know the document19 handling backgrounds of all of my colleagues, 

20 but I do know that Mr. Presley has had 

21 extensive background with respect to handling 

22 classified and unclassified material. And if 

23 I'm not mistaken, has even been a classifier 

24 and a declassifier and from -- simply from the 

25 point of view of expedience in terms of our 
170

1 access to material and how it's handled, he 

2 would seem to be a logical point of contact 

3 from my perspective. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Other -- other comments -- and 

5 Board members, not just on this issue of a 

6 contact, but general questions on DOE documents 

7 and related matters. There were a number of 

8 questions I think that Board members had the 

9 opportunity to submit in advance. I don't know 

10 who all did and what -- if they've all been 

11 answered, but now's the opportunity if there's 

12 something out there that -- relating to 

13 document retrieval and protection of documents 

14 or related matters. 

15 Yes, Josie? 

16 MS. BEACH: I'm just going to go back to these 

17 -- this appointment. If -- if we could get 

18 something in writing that would explain the 

19 role, I think it would be helpful for all of us 

20 to understand -- I'm not opposed to having Mr. 

21 Presley do that. I'd just like to understand 

22 the role a little bit more. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Perhaps we can actually try to 

24 deal with this at -- during our working session 

25 tomorrow as well. I think the idea has been 
171

1 floated here, but it needs a little more 

2 specificity before we take action on it. 

3 Yes, Mike. 

4 MR. GIBSON: I'm also not opposed to Bob taking 

5 part of this. I am concerned, though, that 

6 this is an awesome responsibility for one 

7 person on the Board to take on. You know, I 

8 think it could in some ways limit our duties 

9 because we're relying on one person, and I just 

10 -- I think it would almost be better to have, 

11 as Mark said, maybe a -- a workgroup, or even a 

12 subcommittee, of cleared Board members that 

13 could deal with classified issues for whatever 

14 site it comes up in. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Actually I think the idea of 

16 either a workgroup or a subcommittee may indeed 

17 be one -- it might be a group of all of our 

18 classified members who would constitute that. 

19 Are we allowed to ask who's cla-- who has 

20 clearances? Is that -- 

21 MS CANO: Uh-huh, you are -- I believe. Are 

22 you not? 

23 DR. BRANCHE: I don't think so. 

24 MS. CANO: Okay. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: No. 
172

1 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: That's why I asked the question 

3 because I -- I wasn't -- 

4 MS. CANO: I -- I mean -- 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it -- 

6 MS. CANO: Maybe it's a CDC -- I -- 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: It's a -- well, you -- 

8 MS. CANO: No, I -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: It's a privilege to be carrying a 

10 classification, and if you have one, you're 

11 advised not to talk about the fact that you 

12 have one. And so yes, we keep lists of those 

13 who are interested or who are in a process. 

14 But no, we don't speak about who has an active 

15 classification. Mr. Presley has divulged that 

16 himself by stating in workgroup meetings that 

17 he has accepted this role for the time being 

18 until we have others who get a classification. 

19 But I encourage you not to speak about the -- 

20 the Board members who have these. We don't 

21 talk about cla-- NIOSH staff who have 

22 classification -- 

23 DR. BRANCHE: Right. 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and I don't think it's 

25 appropriate for Board members to do, either. 
173

1 DR. ZIEMER: Well, in -- if -- if we follow 

2 that through, then, if we did have such a 

3 working group, we would have to assure that -- 

4 that we didn't define the working group by -- 

5 by that. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: As I stumble over myself here, 

7 Dr. Ziemer, it would be inappropriate for there 

8 to be a workgroup, and certainly not a 

9 subcommittee. Our procedures are that all of 

10 our workgroups have meetings that are open to 

11 the public, and there are transcriptions. And 

12 if the point is -- well, that would not be an 

13 easy thing if the idea is to be able to talk 

14 about information that is classified. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we can't -- we can't do 

16 that an-- I mean we couldn't -- even people 

17 with clearances couldn't do that unless they go 

18 to a classified room or area. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Right, rather than use the word -

20 - excuse me, Mark, I'm sorry. I interrupted 

21 you. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: You know, I don't know, this -- 

23 this coordination thing's confusing me 'cause 

24 if they're making phone calls or e-mails to 

25 coordinate with the Board, it can't be anything 
174

1 classified, you know. It's a discussion of 

2 policy or procedures or -- and -- and I would 

3 agree, you know, Bob probably on this Board has 

4 the most experience in that area, but others 

5 that have dealt with research in the areas 

6 probably have some experience as well, so... 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Right. Actually as it concerns 

8 information that has to be reviewed in a -- in 

9 a secured place, there are no e-mails. Those 

10 have only been handled by phone calls. As it 

11 concerns policy, we have -- again, with NIOSH 

12 having the principal responsibility in working 

13 with DOE for drafting the policy, and taking 

14 into account the Board once the draft policy is 

15 ready, we'll be able to distribute that for the 

16 Board to see the policy that's being put in 

17 place 'cause this is something that has to 

18 happen at higher levels than we are as far as 

19 the policy being adopted within the two -- and 

20 adopted by -- approved by the two Departments. 

21 What probably is in order is for the -- if the 

22 idea of having a group of people who clearances 

23 are in place be available to DOE as points of 

24 contact, then that coordination would happen 

25 working with me -- as opposed to calling it a 
175

1 working group. 

2 MR. CLAWSON: Correct, agreed. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it -- it appears to me that 

4 where this is going is that at some point, 

5 including now, I guess, we will have a cadre of 

6 individuals which may range from one to 12, but 

7 will probably be somewhere in between, that 

8 will have the appropriate clearance and who 

9 could be called upon from time to time to 

10 address issues as they arose. It would be 

11 logical for the Designated Federal Official to, 

12 in a sense, coordinate that effort if -- if the 

13 agency needs to contact somebody. But let's -- 

14 let's keep this before us as a -- as an issue 

15 to discuss. We need to make sure that -- as 

16 far as DOE's concerned, that they have ready 

17 access to individuals who are both available 

18 and knowledgeable for handling particular 

19 documents and issues, and likewise working with 

20 NIOSH and with our contractor, all of whom will 

21 have groups of individuals who are so 

22 qualified, so -- 

23 MR. GRIFFON: But I -- I would agree with Josie 

24 that the first thing it'd be nice to see is 

25 just the role of this group or individual or -- 
176

1 or however we're going to set it up. You know, 

2 what -- what -- what are they going to be, a... 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and I think -- I think we 

4 may need to do a little brainstorming -- 

5 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: -- to -- 

7 MR. GRIFFON: I have a little better sense from 

8 Larry's comments and from Gina's -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

10 MR. GRIFFON: -- comments, but I'm still a 

11 little fuzzy on what -- what the role is. 

12 DR. BRANCHE: In all hon-- thank you. I think, 

13 in all honesty, the way some of this has 

14 evolved from having one person, into a cadre of 

15 people, and then some of my e-mails to the 

16 Board members -- is that a -- and I think -- 

17 and I know Regina alluded to this, and -- and 

18 Larry underscored it, a clean list of 

19 everyone's security status was not available in 

20 any one repository. And so as we've worked 

21 over the last several -- several weeks for the 

22 last couple of months with DOE to rectify that 

23 situation and to know who has clearance, who 

24 needs to have their clearances renewed, Dr. 

25 Worthington and her staff, principally Regina, 
177

1 have worked really tirelessly -- and I don't 

2 think I'm overstating that -- to make certain 

3 that people whose clearances were expiring 

4 could -- and wish to be reinstated could have 

5 that done. And so we're at a point -- again, 

6 as we've evolved -- that's much better than we 

7 were a few weeks ago, certainly a few weeks ago 

8 when the idea of one point of contact came up. 

9 Others of you have indicated a wish to -- 

10 you've made your preferences known about your 

11 own desire to have a clearance or not, and that 

12 will allow us, over the next several -- well, I 

13 don't know how long it takes; it takes some 

14 time to get the clearance. But as some of this 

15 gets rectified for each individual, the cadre 

16 of people can then be available. But I think 

17 the idea, as -- as, Mark, you've stated several 

18 times now, and Josie as well, to determine what 

19 this role is, I'll try to work with Gina at the 

20 break to get some of the responsibilities that 

21 you have in mind and -- 

22 MS. CANO: Okay. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: -- and bring that and vocalize it 

24 during the Board working time tomorrow. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Brad? 
178

1 MR. CLAWSON: One other thing I'd be able -- 

2 want to make sure and -- with this is, you 

3 know, I understand Bob's role, I -- I respect 

4 all that, but also, too, it is very important 

5 for him to have an alternate or whatever, also 

6 just as a sounding board to be able to how are 

7 we going to present this and how are we going 

8 to be able to put this information, so forth, 

9 to the Board members that we need. It's -- 

10 it's a difficult situation. 

11 MS. CANO: If I could -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: And actually I -- I think, in many 

13 practical cases, that person or persons would 

14 be working with NIOSH and SC&A to sort of 

15 answer that question collectively because it's 

16 -- it's the same question, I think -- how do 

17 you present -- how do you make public the -- 

18 the key information without compromising the 

19 secure information. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Gina wanted to say something. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

22 MS. CANO: You know, I think right now in 

23 regards to the policy, we're more -- we're 

24 concerned about establishing a policy for 

25 protecting unclassified yet controlled 
179

1 information. Those that have Q clearances 

2 understand the requirements that go along with 

3 a Q clearance. And when you're accessing data 

4 at a site, it's always been our priority to 

5 make sure we release information to NIOSH and 

6 its contractors in an unclassified manner 

7 'cause we want to make sure that you can use 

8 that to the best of your ability and not have 

9 to have -- to keep coming back to a classified 

10 document. So we will try in our -- you know, 

11 to make tha-- make sure that that document is 

12 unclassified. 

13 In addition, we work with NIOSH and the Board 

14 to establish locations where they can work with 

15 classified information necessary. Our 

16 classification officers are usually hand as 

17 well, so if they have questions -- okay, I need 

18 this information; how can I write this in an 

19 unclassified manner -- they will provide them 

20 with the appropriate guidance. 

21 So again, we do what we can to provide the 

22 information to you in an unclassified... 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Yes, Larry -- thank 

24 you. 

25 MR. ELLIOTT: I hate to keep coming to the mike 
180

1 and -- and -- but I think it is important for 

2 the Board members and the audience to 

3 understand that, since we have Board members 

4 here who either currently work at a site for 

5 DOE or have in the past, that if they have a 

6 clearance or they had a clearance at a DOE 

7 site, that is not what we want to see supported 

8 here. We want to see a clearance supported for 

9 the needs of this Board's efforts under this 

10 program. And part of what Christine was 

11 talking about, about the list being not fully 

12 completed and well-established, goes just to 

13 that, that -- that for various reasons, certain 

14 members or certain people have had clearances 

15 but they were in place for other reasons -- 

16 their work reasons, their consulting reasons or 

17 whatever -- and what we need to have is the 

18 purpose established for that clearance to be 

19 the NIOSH responsibilities under EEOICPA. And 

20 DOE's very receptive to that and working with 

21 us, but I think that's important for the public 

22 and the Board to understand. So you know, the 

23 -- if it's a Board member that comes forward 

24 and says I -- I'm ready, I want to have a 

25 clearance, I'm -- I'm willing to go through 
181

1 that arduous process of a background check, 

2 then you know, we need to sponsor that through 

3 HS-5, 15, whatever your -- 

4 MS. CANO: Our organization's basically -- 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, DOE, but with our 

6 established purpose. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: And if you wish to have that 

8 information, then you need to get in touch with 

9 me. If you'd like to have your clearance, I'm 

10 the -- I'm the per-- if you're a Board member, 

11 I'm the person you'd contact. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Yes, Dr. Lockey? 

13 DR. LOCKEY: If -- if somebody say has a 

14 clearance already, do they have to then go back 

15 and establish that it's also a clearance for 

16 this specific activity? 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: We need to provide the 

18 justification for that clearance to be 

19 recognized for the purposes of this Board's 

20 efforts. 

21 DR. LOCKEY: And is that effort as -- as hard 

22 as going back in time and getting the original 

23 clearance or -- 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it's just a matter of -- of 

25 restating, within the DOE security structure, 
182

1 that the person's clearance is also applicable 

2 for this purpose. 

3 DR. LOCKEY: Okay. Thank you. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Good. 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: If you've had a clearance and 

6 it's expired, and you're asking it to be 

7 renewed, then you can't renew it based upon the 

8 previous justification of working for a site. 

9 You need to renew it based upon this purpose, 

10 for this Board. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Good. And we'll 

12 return to this during our -- our work session. 

13 Regina, thank you, and members of the DOE 

14 staff. We appreciate your continued work with 

15 the Board and with the agencies, not only on 

16 this part of the effort, but the total program 

17 itself. 

18 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

19 DOW MADISON (CONTINUED)

20 DR. ZIEMER: We're now going to return to the 

21 Dow Madison petition, and let me remind you, I 

22 think, where we were. We had had quite a bit 

23 of discussion. We had had the presentation by 

24 NIOSH, presentations by various ones of the 

25 petitioners, a fair amount of discussion. I 
183

1 wanted to see, Board members, if you have 

2 additional questions, either of NIOSH or of the 

3 petitioners, or other comments you wish to 

4 make. 

5 (No responses) 

6 'Cause if you have no additional questions or 

7 comments, then let me advise you of possible 

8 actions you may wish to consider. Number one, 

9 it would be in order to have a motion to accept 

10 the NIOSH recommendation and so report to the 

11 Secretary. Number two, it would also be in 

12 order not to accept that recommendation and 

13 rather to -- to recommend an SEC, as requested 

14 by the petitioners. You have an additional 

15 option and that is to postpone action if you 

16 have additional questions or issues that you 

17 think need to be resolved in some manner or the 

18 other. So I'd like to hear from anyone who 

19 wishes to suggest an action. 

20 (Pause) 

21 Inaction itself constitutes an action, and it 

22 is not necessarily helpful. So what is your 

23 pleasure? 

24 MR. CLAWSON: What -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Brad Clawson. 
184

1 MR. CLAWSON: I've got one question -- excuse 

2 me. I've got one question right now, because I 

3 am a little bit confused in what NIOSH 

4 portrayed to us today. I am not fully clear 

5 exactly what they're saying because I thought 

6 previously we had already voted on a certain 

7 part of it and I'm really not clear -- and this 

8 is just a personal thing, probably -- of what 

9 exactly they're bringing forth to us and I'm -- 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I'll -- I'll ask LaVon or 

11 Larry to clarify that. It's the Chair's 

12 understanding that we are dealing with the -- 

13 the remediation period and the issue is whether 

14 or not NIOSH can reconstruct doses for that 

15 period. NIOSH has said that they can, and 

16 therefore is recommending that -- okay, Larry. 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: You want me to sit down? You 

18 just said it. No -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Okay -- 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I'll try to -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: -- you can say it even better, so 

22 -- 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I don't know about that. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Brad still has a puzzled look on 

25 his face. 
185

1 MR. ELLIOTT: NIOSH has provided the Board an 

2 evaluation report that recommended that a class 

3 be added for the covered period during the AEC 

4 operations because we could not reconstruct the 

5 commercial thorium dose. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: That's what we did before. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: That's what you've done before. 

8 That class has been added. There've been about 

9 43 claims that have been pulled from us for 

10 determination of eligibility in that class by 

11 the Department of Labor. 

12 The addendum that you have before you to that 

13 evaluation report today is a recommendation 

14 indicating that during the residual period -- 

15 we did not treat the residual period under the 

16 original class definition; we indicated that we 

17 had to go back and re-evaluate our ability to 

18 reconstruct the thorium dose or thoron dose -- 

19 and/or thoron dose during the residual 

20 contamination period. And this addendum two 

21 presents to you a recommendation that says we 

22 feel we have the ability to reconstruct all 

23 dose during that residual period. 

24 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. Time period, though, I -- 

25 MR. ELLIOTT: Time period? 
186

1 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah. 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: The time period will end -- I 

3 probably need LaVon's help on this 'cause -- 

4 but it -- 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right, the start of the 

6 time period is the very beginning of the 

7 residual contamination period -- I believe 

8 January 1, 1961 -- and it will end -- we -- we 

9 presented in our addendum October of 2006. 

10 However, as I'd mentioned, we received that 

11 final status report that indicated there were 

12 two more decontamina-- decommissioning efforts 

13 that occurred up to November of 2007, and those 

14 -- those efforts are outlined in that report. 

15 That may drive the end of the residual 

16 contamination period to October of 2007. So... 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: It will. 

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: It will -- yeah, it more than 

19 likely will. The reason why I don't want to 

20 say it will, because we just got the report, as 

21 I -- the full report and I didn't want to come 

22 out and say that, but it more than likely will. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Robert, a comment? 

24 MR. STEPHAN: Two -- two things that I'd like 

25 to remind the Board of goes to Mr. Clawson's 
187

1 point. Number one, we believe that the AEC 

2 period goes at least until 1969. So I'd 

3 highlight for you Labor's position, which is 

4 that they -- and DOE's position, that they do 

5 not know for certain that the mag/thorium was 

6 used -- mag/thorium, excuse me, mag/thorium 

7 from Dow Chemical in Madison was used in the 

8 production of a nuclear weapon. They have 

9 stipulated it was used in the production of a 

10 nuclear weapon -- nuclear weapons until '69, 

11 they just say they're not sure that it was from 

12 Dow. 

13 My question for the Board would be this: Find 

14 out where it's from, which I don't think that 

15 you'll be able to do. Secondarily -- so that's 

16 num-- that's point number one. 

17 Point number two is -- seems like a relatively 

18 minor point, but the report didn't come until 

19 February of '08 -- the closeout report -- and 

20 subsequent to that, the final closeout for this 

21 site did not occur until June -- I believe June 

22 8th of this month is when the final 

23 decommissioning letter arrived to IEMA. So 

24 we're -- we are -- we're quibbling really over 

25 just a matter of a few months, but I would hate 
188

1 to miss somebody over this point of, you know, 

2 when did it actually end, was it October of 

3 2007, was it June 8th of 2008, and I would, you 

4 know, beg your indulgence that we consider that 

5 we just make that time period closure be when 

6 the final decommissioning letter arrived, which 

7 I believe was June 8th of 2008. So to us, 

8 that's the time period. Wha-- and on that 

9 point we'd be arguing over a few months, but... 

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: I would like to -- and we can 

11 definitely take that into consideration after 

12 we look at the report in full, but I would like 

13 to remind the Board as well that if 

14 documentation becomes available to the 

15 Department of Energy or the Department of Labor 

16 that would support that the covered class for 

17 operations should be extended, we can go back 

18 and do an 83.14 and extend the existing class 

19 period to add those years, assuming that no new 

20 data came up from that point, so -- do you 

21 understand what I'm saying? 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and I would -- I would point 

23 out that changing the date of the original 

24 covered period is not an option that is before 

25 this Board -- 
189

1 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: -- today. 

3 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: The original action that we took 

5 covered the period from January '57 through 

6 December of '60, and if -- if evidence -- I 

7 think LaVon is suggesting is if evidence is 

8 substantiated that -- that that covered period 

9 should be different, then that could come back 

10 for action, but we don't have that option 

11 today. That is not before us, I don't believe. 

12 Larry? 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, that -- but that goes to 

14 both ends. That goes to the AEC covered 

15 period, which Robert just spoke about and Dr. 

16 McKeel has -- has opined upon that should be, 

17 in their opinion, extended to 1969. But it 

18 also would address this issue of the few months 

19 at the end of the residual period. And what we 

20 need to do there is we -- as LaVon has said, 

21 we've got to evaluate the report that came in 

22 on Friday in its entirety. The -- the -- and 

23 if I'm correct in this LaVon, and if I'm not, 

24 stand up and correct me, but the 2000 -- the 

25 letter that was in February I believe or just 
190

1 recently, that's a delicensure letter based 

2 upon the report that came out. So you know, I 

3 don't know that we can -- we can promise that 

4 that February is the right date. That's just 

5 when it -- the delicensure was issued, so they 

6 took the license away. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

8 MR. STEPHAN: Well, I think Dr. McKeel maybe 

9 can elaborate a little bit on this, but I -- I 

10 think you just -- you -- I mean if you're going 

11 to pick a date, you should pick the date that 

12 the site was decommissioned. You know, 

13 otherwise we could pick the date of -- of when 

14 the 700-some-odd tons was removed in 2006, yet 

15 there was 219 more tons released in 2007 whe-- 

16 you -- you're -- you're picking a date about 

17 when a -- when the last truck actually left the 

18 site, which no one knows. So if you have to 

19 pick a date, you would -- to us, you would pick 

20 the day that it was finally decommissioned, and 

21 that date would be June 8th of 2008. Otherwise 

22 we're just -- we're picking one date wi-- 

23 amongst several different papers going 

24 back and forth. Yeah. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Larry? 
191

1 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not going to quibble or argue 

2 with you on that, Robert. I -- in essence, I 

3 agree with you. But it -- it's not this 

4 Board's determination, it's not NIOSH's 

5 determination to make. We will present our 

6 research findings on this point to Department 

7 of Labor and they will establish the covered 

8 period for the residual period. And so if they 

9 choose to look at the -- the delicensure letter 

10 as that, I guess that's when it'll be. I -- I 

11 don't know what that -- that throws a monkey 

12 wrench, perhaps, into your considerations here, 

13 but -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: No, our -- our understanding, I 

15 think, as the report has come to us -- even 

16 though you have a specified date in there, our 

17 understanding based on the earlier discussion 

18 is that the ultimate ending date would be based 

19 on whatever determination Labor ultimately 

20 makes. If they wish to extend that, they 

21 could. I don't think this Board, if we 

22 approved it either way, would be saying that 

23 date is it, regardless of what the -- the date 

24 is shown. 

25 Yes, Dr. McKeel? 
192

1 DR. MCKEEL: Dr. Ziemer, I just have to 

2 interject, I included a slide in my 

3 presentation this morning which was the 

4 verbatim letter that Peter Turcic sent on that 

5 point, and his -- I don't think I'm -- I think 

6 this is the exact quote -- he said determining 

7 the residual period is the sole purview of 

8 NIOSH. 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: No, that is not true. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- 

11 DR. MCKEEL: That's what the letter says. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: -- I know -- I know that was the 

13 quote from Pete -- 

14 MR. MCKEEL: You want to get the slide back up 

15 there and look at it? 

16 DR. BRANCHE: The slide -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: That was the quote from Pete's 

18 letter, but -- but the -- the regulation is -- 

19 overrides that -- 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Exactly. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: -- quote of Pete's. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: If I can speak -- 

23 DR. MCKEEL: So Peter Turcic's -- 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: No, I think you -- 

25 DR. MCKEEL: -- misspoke? That -- that's the 
193

1 inter-- that's what you're saying, that's his 

2 letter -- 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: In all due respect, Dr. McKeel, I 

4 think that you're taking his words out of 

5 context. Yes, NIOSH makes a research 

6 determination, and we provide that in a report, 

7 as we have done in 2006, 2004, and now we have 

8 a series of sites that we're going to have to 

9 addend in that report with some type of an 

10 errata or addendum. And DOL will then take 

11 that and they will make the designation for the 

12 covered period. So I do not argue that Peter 

13 Turcic said what he said, but to take it out of 

14 context and say that it is NIOSH's 

15 determination is inaccurate. 

16 DR. MCKEEL: Well, the -- the -- I'm just going 

17 to let this stay on the record. The -- the 

18 words he used are sole purview, and I think if 

19 you look in any dictionary, sole means one. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- 

21 DR. MCKEEL: That's an unequivocal word. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: I think we understand, however -- 

23 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: -- that Labor -- Labor relies on 

25 NIOSH to provide them with the information on 
194

1 which their ultimate determination is made, so 

2 yes, it -- it will -- NIOSH will determine that 

3 and Labor will have to take the steps legally, 

4 formally, to make the -- the ultimate -- so 

5 they're -- they're both involved and I -- I'm 

6 comfortable that, either way, that we'll get 

7 the right date there. The two groups will be 

8 working together and do that part correctly, so 

9 -- Robert. 

10 MR. STEPHAN: I think we're -- I mean I 

11 appreciate Dan's point because you know I'm the 

12 one who initiated all of those e-mails that was 

13 trying to pin everyone down in each agency as 

14 to what their responsibility was, so as long as 

15 we can get, in some form or fashion from you, 

16 whenever you convey your opinion from NIOSH 

17 about the date -- you can get that to us and we 

18 would encourage that date to be June 8th of 

19 2008. 

20 

21 I do not want to lose sight of this point. I 

22 hate to restate this, but I think this is 

23 absolutely critical and it cannot be glossed 

24 over. And you know, I'm not sure if maybe Jeff 

25 would want to speak to this or not from the -- 
195

1 from Labor's perspective, but -- Jeff Kotsch -- 

2 but the determination from DOE and DOL was that 

3 the mag/thorium was used in a nuclear weapon, 

4 at least until '69. We think that our 

5 documents show very clearly, which supported 

6 DOE's original decision, that Dow played a 

7 significant role in that. I -- I do not 

8 disagree with Labor or DOE's characterization 

9 that they do not know for sure that Dow 

10 Chemical in Madison, Illinois supplied the 

11 mag/thor that went into the nuclear weapons, 

12 but they do not know -- we do not know, I don't 

13 think any of you know who did. So it's a very 

14 important point that needs -- well, there is no 

15 resolution to it because I don't think you're 

16 going to fi-- you're going to figure that out. 

17 So in absence of that, I -- I think you have 

18 all the information you need right now to at 

19 least take it, at a bare minimum, until '69. 

20 At a bare minimum, I think that's quite clear. 

21 So you know, I guess I would just ask, you 

22 know, maybe for some discussion amongst the 

23 Board as to how you view that at least until 

24 '69, you know, issue. Obviously we're arguing 

25 for, you know, the whole entire residual 
196

1 period. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: However, that -- that actually is 

3 not an option before us. Currently the periods 

4 are defined and we have to deal with -- with 

5 what's before us. If we get into that debate, 

6 we'll miss -- miss what we have to do, and that 

7 is to act on the petition that is before us 

8 here. 

9 Board members -- okay, we've -- oh, Phil, you 

10 have a comment or a motion of some sort? 

11 MR. SCHOFIELD: Actually this is more of a 

12 question for LaVon. Is there any documentation 

13 that you know of that shows them making 

14 shipments to Rocky Flats as late as '69? 

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Absolutely not, no. 

16 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Lockey? 

18 DR. LOCKEY: LaVon, this is a question for you 

19 also. The -- from -- from 1970 to 19-- to I 

20 guess 2006 or 2007, when you did the decay 

21 curve, did we have SC&A look at that? 

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, SC&A -- although I will 

23 say SC&A -- and you know, John'll correct me if 

24 he feels I'm wrong -- the SC&A original report 

25 -- they did look and -- they looked at uranium 
197

1 exposures during the operational period and 

2 concurred with us that we could reconstruct 

3 those. They also concurred with reconstruction 

4 of uranium exposures during the residual period 

5 in their report. And I did go back and look at 

6 that and review that and, like I said, John'll 

7 correct me if I'm wrong, but they did not look 

8 at reconstructing thorium exposures during the 

9 residual period. 

10 Now if you're asking towards the model that we 

11 used, I do not believe that the workgroup has 

12 looked at TIB-70 -- the procedures workgroup 

13 has looked at TIB-70, I don't believe, so I'm 

14 not sure that that has been looked at as well. 

15 Which is -- that -- that pro-- that procedure 

16 outlines the model that we used, the 

17 exponential model. 

18 DR. LOCKEY: Has SC&A looked at that model? 

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's what I'm -- I don't -- 

20 I don't believe that they have reviewed that 

21 model. And you know -- I mean I don't -- I 

22 don't have a problem with saying, that model -- 

23 the models that are outlined in there are the 

24 residual contamination models that we will be 

25 using for a number of sites, and so in my 
198

1 opinion it makes sense to, you know, make sure 

2 we're all okay with it, so... 

3 DR. ZIEMER: In that connection, the procedures 

4 workgroup is going to be proposing something 

5 soon relative to the -- well, I'm not sure that 

6 OTIB is covered. I think that -- not -- not 

7 70, so that -- that's still your bailiwick. 

8 Other comments or questions? 

9 (No responses) 

10 Are there any motions? 

11 (No responses) 

12 I'm going to interpret the lack of -- if there 

13 are no motions, I'm going to interpret that 

14 lack of a motion as a -- at least a one-day 

15 postponement because I'm not going to let you 

16 off the hook and we'll be back to this 

17 tomorrow, if we -- 

18 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: You may wish to digest some of 

20 this information overnight or -- what, but -- 

21 go ahead. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I was going to make a motion 

23 to postpone (electrical interference) today, 

24 given the fact -- mainly based on the -- the 

25 need for more time to assess this model of the 
199

1 thorium and thoron and -- and TIB-70 as they -- 

2 you know, as they overlap. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Are you making a motion -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: And used -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: -- to postpone for a particular 

6 time period or just for a day or what? 

7 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I don't think we're going 

8 to look at TIB-70 and this model in a day, so 

9 this is a motion to postpone and possibly to 

10 form a workgroup -- you know, I'm not sure -- I 

11 wasn't -- you know, I don't know that -- if we 

12 need contractor support or how we want to do 

13 that, but I -- I just don't think we're -- at 

14 this meeting we're going to be ready to -- I'm 

15 not going to be ready to vote on the thorium 

16 and thoron issues when I have, you know, 

17 several remaining questions about the model and 

18 the data used therein, so... 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so you -- there's a motion 

20 to postpone. Is there a second? 

21 MR. CLAWSON: Second. 

22 MS. BEACH: Second. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: At the moment, this motion to 

24 postpone is indefinite and -- and that is 

25 acceptable. If you don't want to specify a 
200

1 date, you are not required to on a motion to 

2 postpone. It has -- it has the effect of 

3 tabling the action temporarily, although it 

4 doesn't require the same vote as a tabling 

5 vote. It is simply a motion to postpone. 

6 Yes, did you wish to spe-- make a comment? 

7 MR. STEPHAN: Can I encourage a date versus 

8 indefinitely? 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- 

10 MR. STEPHAN: Next Board meeting or -- or 

11 something of the sort? You don't -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the Chair would certainly 

13 interpret it as being -- we -- we all want it 

14 to occur as quickly as possible, but Mark, do 

15 you -- does -- do you, as the mover, wish to 

16 ex-- specify a date -- an action date? 

17 MR. GRIFFON: I'm a little -- I mean I -- I 

18 understand the concern and the need to put a 

19 date on the table, I just -- I imagine this 

20 might require a workgroup. And if it does, you 

21 know, how -- well, are we going to be ready for 

22 the next Board meeting? I'm not sure. You 

23 know, I'd like to say we would be ready for the 

24 next Board meeting -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Perhaps the Chair can specify that 
201

1 it's the sense of the motion that we would move 

2 ahead as rapidly as we can gather the 

3 information, evaluate it and get back to the 

4 Board. And it -- 

5 MR. GRIFFON: Including -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: -- we may -- 

7 MR. GRIFFON: -- including the -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: -- wish to appoint a workgroup and 

9 do some tasking tomorrow as well. 

10 Larry? 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I would echo Robert's plea 

12 for setting some type of expectation on the 

13 table. Maybe it's not time, but I -- I would 

14 encourage the Board to talk about steps to be 

15 taken; what is the path forward. And I would 

16 encourage you to engage me, engage us in what 

17 we're going to do if -- while that's going on. 

18 And I would say to you that my plan, my 

19 thoughts are that we would proceed with pro-- 

20 now doing dose reconstructions for these 

21 claimants because we know that there will be 

22 some compensable claims come out of that 

23 effort, and I think it's time that we moved 

24 forward on that. And you know, that's one 

25 thing that I would put on the table before you 
202

1 that -- that -- for your consideration. We're 

2 doing that in other places. GSI, we -- we 

3 picked up those, and Blockson, and so you know, 

4 I -- I -- this goes back to the comment I made 

5 before about 103 claims being pended awaiting 

6 some type of resolution on this point, and we 

7 think we have a good model. It's claimant 

8 favorable and it is going to compensate some 

9 people in a residual period -- which, quite 

10 frankly, has not been seen to date in many 

11 residual periods that we've been doing. Okay? 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Understood. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: I guess I would -- just to -- to 

15 maybe define better -- I mean my conc-- I would 

16 want to establish a workgroup and task them -- 

17 I mean my -- I think I have two main concerns. 

18 Maybe others on the Board have different 

19 concerns, but it's the residual mod-- I mean 

20 the internal model for thorium/thoron -- 

21 thorium and thoron, and the -- the '69 question 

22 on whether it was still operational. I think 

23 we have to, the best we can, deal with that. 

24 I'm not sure we're going to have new 

25 information or whatever, but I think -- tho-- 
203

1 those are the two primary things I think a 

2 workgroup should move on. I don't -- maybe we 

3 can, my limiting their tasks, make it more 

4 efficient -- you know, instead of just having a 

5 wide open review, you know. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Lockey -- are you speaking for 

7 or against the motion? 

8 DR. LOCKEY: Well, I'm -- I'm -- I have some 

9 comments. Mark, I wasn't sure what you meant 

10 by -- by -- after the '69 group. I don't think 

11 we're going to get any additional information -

12 - 

13 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I -- 

14 DR. LOCKEY: -- on that. We -- I understand 

15 the TIB -- the TIB document, I think that's 

16 important -- 

17 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

18 DR. LOCKEY: -- but -- but if you're a-- if 

19 you're also saying that we need to get 

20 information about whether it was a AEC site 

21 after that point in time, I don't know where 

22 that data's going to come from. 

23 MR. GRIFFON: No, I'm not sure we're going to 

24 get any new information, but we certainly have 

25 a difference of opinion between the petitioner 
204

1 and NIOSH on -- on that, and maybe we can look 

2 at the evidence available and -- it might be a 

3 weight of the evidence question. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, the -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Larry? 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: NIOSH has not weighed in on this. 

7 Okay? 

8 MR. GRIFFON: Right, I'm sorry, yeah -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: I did what you asked me to do at 

10 the last meeting. I approached DOE and I said 

11 DOE, tell us, tell the Board what search 

12 strategies you used, what information resources 

13 you examined to evaluate whether or not there 

14 was magnesium/thorium alloy that was employed 

15 in weapons beyond the time frame. And you have 

16 a letter before you. I don't know what more I 

17 can do in that regard. 

18 The only other thing that I want to commit to 

19 as far as the expectations of what's going to 

20 happen here is that we will push out our 

21 research determination so that DOL can examine 

22 that and make a determination on the end point 

23 for the residual period. That's two things I -

24 - I've got to commit to you today as far as 

25 expectations. We'll start dose reconstructions 
205

1 using the -- the approach we've outlined, and 

2 we'll push out the research determination to 

3 DOL for a determination on the residual period 

4 conclusion. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Robert. 

6 MR. STEPHAN: Larry characterized it much 

7 better than I. I'm not so much concerned about 

8 a date, but the expectations would be good, and 

9 maybe that's not a form of a working group, but 

10 for example -- and I don't know if you want to 

11 work this into the motion, but for example, on 

12 Blockson, you know, Wanda Munn has been the -- 

13 the chairperson on that and we've known from 

14 the beginning exactly what issues we were 

15 trying to work through, so I'm just maybe 

16 encouraging -- I think Larry would agree, and I 

17 would want to make sure that we, you know, got, 

18 you know, concurrence with Dr. McKeel -- that 

19 we all know what we're going to try to work 

20 through. And then on the '69 issue, I would 

21 just say -- I mean I realize that is not the 

22 Board's purview, but we're talking about voting 

23 for a time period that encompasses the 1969, so 

24 it's just a matter of what information you're 

25 considering. And to Mr. Lockey's point -- Dr. 
206

1 Lockey's point, I -- I don't think you're going 

2 to find any information, but knowing that you 

3 have an absence of that information for all 

4 suppliers I think would be very useful to you. 

5 So that is -- you know, you may not find 

6 anything, but not finding anything would be 

7 useful, if that makes sense. 

8 MR. GRIFFON: So I guess I would retract my 

9 second task there -- I mean the main issue -- 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we're -- we're not actually 

11 tasking at this point. 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: The motion -- the motion before us 

14 is a motion to postpone, and we will -- any -- 

15 any tasking of our contractor, as well as 

16 defining the path forward, will occur during 

17 our work session tomorrow. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: Right, okay. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Yes -- yes, Dr. McKeel? 

20 DR. MCKEEL: If I may make one final comment, 

21 the part of this that I'm not happy about is 

22 the answer to the question of is there anything 

23 more that NIOSH could do to facilitate getting 

24 this moving along -- and -- and the Board. I 

25 mean we've just listened, preceding this, an 
207

1 hour of discussion between the Board and DOE 

2 and NIOSH, how they could cooperate in -- in 

3 DOE supplying documentation. And LaVon 

4 Rutherford just made the statement that there 

5 were no documents showing that Dow Madison 

6 supplied thorium for AEC activities as late as 

7 1969 and his answer was absolutely not, there 

8 are no documents. And I would submit to you 

9 that there are documents, and the documents are 

10 in the form of worker affidavits, which can be 

11 considered and given appropriate weight. But I 

12 think what needs to be done is I -- I do not 

13 think the evidence put forth by DOE is at all 

14 complete. Now what -- what they do accept, and 

15 this is a slight -- it's not just a nuance, 

16 it's kind of different from what Robert said. 

17 There seems to be no dissension, and I think 

18 the Podonsky letter was very clear that DOE 

19 accepts that the 1957 and 1958 purchase orders 

20 to Mallinckrodt for thorium alloy plates -- 

21 that they accept that as evidence that some Dow 

22 Madison thorium was used for AEC activities, 

23 and they further state that, since those two 

24 years fall within the 1956-1969 time frame that 

25 DOE says throughout the complex thorium was 
208

1 used in nuclear weapons, that -- that that is 

2 established. Now '57/'58 are in the current 

3 covered period so they recommend not changing 

4 the covered period, but at least that's a fact 

5 that's discovered. What we don't know in any 

6 detail at all is DOE says they base this 

7 decision on documents that they refer to -- I 

8 think quite vaguely -- as Livermore documents, 

9 and that somehow NNSA played a role in 

10 obtaining those documents. Well -- and the 

11 issue seems to be the reason why there's not 

12 full disclosure of why this determination was 

13 made, which of course I'm happy to hear because 

14 it confirms what the men have said for two 

15 years. But I think that there must be specific 

16 documents, and I was asked during the lunch 

17 break by someone -- well, what are those 

18 documents that prove the 1956 to 1969 time 

19 period? And I said I don't know. If you'll 

20 look at the transcript of May 4th, 19-- I mean 

21 2007, you -- I -- I asked that question then. 

22 I wanted to know what -- what is in those 

23 documents. I got a few documents sent to me by 

24 Dr. Worthington, which I appreciated, but it 

25 didn't answer that question. So I was asked 
209

1 what document can you find that written in, and 

2 you know, I -- I don't know the answer to that. 

3 But I don't see why we can't get that. Now if 

4 the answer is we can't get it because it's 

5 classified, then either a Q-cleared member of 

6 NIOSH or a Q-cleared member of DOL or the Board 

7 could go and look at the documents. And -- and 

8 the easiest way to do that -- I am sure that 

9 Dr. Worthington and Gina Cano know what those 

10 documents are in great detail, and somebody 

11 could have a meeting with them under proper 

12 conditions for looking at classified or 

13 restricted documents and see them so the Board 

14 would know directly. And I -- I urgently 

15 request that that be done quickly, because all 

16 of that research has been done now. DOE wrote 

17 us a letter and said our research is completed. 

18 Fine. But we don't know what the results of 

19 that were except that one sentence in that 

20 letter, so I think that -- I think that should 

21 be done. 

22 The other thing I'm just going to point out is 

23 the timeliness issue that we've talked about in 

24 many SECs. Now we're talking about appointing 

25 a new workgroup, and I think if you'll look 
210

1 back at the May 4th, 2007 Board meeting 

2 transcript you will also see there that there 

3 were, you know, two motions approved, both of 

4 them were by Dr. Melius, who's not here today, 

5 but I was under the distinct impression that a 

6 workgroup that he chaired said that they would 

7 look out and monitor what was happening about 

8 the Dow SEC. Now to -- to my knowledge, and I 

9 certainly haven't listened to every single 

10 workgroup meeting, but I don't think that's 

11 happened. So we already have a workgroup 

12 that's taken responsibility for that and I 

13 would -- I -- I think Dr. Melius is engaged on 

14 this issue and I -- I wish that could become 

15 more active and we could just move this along 

16 to a resolution because I -- you know, and I -- 

17 I've got to say about assessing the model, I -- 

18 I know it takes a while to do this, but NIOSH's 

19 report came out June the 3rd, and we've been 

20 working on this now for two years, so I don't 

21 see, for example, why NIOSH is in the stages of 

22 constructing their model. Since SC&A was 

23 engaged and the Board was engaged and Dr. 

24 Melius's working group was engaged, why 

25 couldn't they call up each other and have a 
211

1 technical workgroup meeting on this? So I 

2 frankly think there are a lot of things that 

3 can be done, but I don't -- I don't think that 

4 saying that NIOSH got the workgroup -- I mean 

5 got the Pangea IEMA closure report Saturday -- 

6 I have a letter from Larry Elliott, his second 

7 letter to IEMA dated April the 10th where he 

8 asks for all the subsequent documents. He 

9 asked for the documents February the 4th. And 

10 somehow IEMA didn't give them to him till 

11 Saturday, so it seems to me that -- by golly, 

12 if our group of private citizens, with a lot of 

13 help from Congress, I'll admit, can get those 

14 documents in our hand -- I called up and got 

15 the closure report myself on the 21st of June 

16 by simply calling Pangea and -- and the person 

17 that your e-mail ref-- that the NIOSH e-mail 

18 referred to, and he gave me access to their FTP 

19 site and I got the closure report and read it, 

20 long before NIOSH did. Now something's wrong 

21 when I can get something like that and NIOSH 

22 can't. And so I think we need to move ahead 

23 and I -- I think there are a lot of things that 

24 could be done proactively, and I guess I'll let 

25 it -- 
212

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

2 DR. MCKEEL: -- stop there. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Board 

4 members, we have a motion before us, motion to 

5 postpone. Anyone wish to speak for or against 

6 the motion? 

7 (No responses) 

8 If not, are you ready to vote? 

9 Okay, all in favor, say aye? 

10 (Affirmative responses) 

11 Opposed, no? 

12 (No responses) 

13 Abstaining? 

14 (No responses) 

15 Motion carries, and this will -- we will return 

16 to this tomorrow during the work-- working 

17 session to specify the path forward to 

18 delineate what exactly is going to happen. 

19 MR. STEPHAN: I -- I just want to -- I just 

20 want -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Robert, additional comment? 

22 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you. I just want to 

23 clarify with Larry for the benefit of the 

24 workers, for folks like [Identifying 

25 information redacted] and -- and some of the 
213

1 others, so we are going to proceed with dose 

2 recons-- these pended dose reconstructions for 

3 any of those probably at the higher end who -- 

4 who could get compensated quickly, just as 

5 we've been doing with Blockson. Okay? So 

6 there's only been three dose reconstructions 

7 done to date. They're going to start doing 

8 them now anyway, even -- even though the Board 

9 has decided to postpone this, so I just want to 

10 make sure we're clear on that, Larry. 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I -- Yes, we will start -- 

12 we'll unpend these claims and we'll start dose 

13 reconstructions that includes the residual 

14 period as quickly as we can. That requires us 

15 to make sure that we have an approved -- this 

16 appendium (sic) talks about our approach, but 

17 we have to have a guidance document that goes 

18 to our health physicists, so it won't happen 

19 like next week, [Identifying Information 

20 Redacted], but it's going to happen very soon. 

21 And what that means then is any that are non22 compensable would be revisited based upon the 

23 outcome, the resolution, of the issues that are 

24 going to continue to be discussed. 

25 And before I sit down, I would just like to 
214

1 respond to worker testimony. Yes, we -- we 

2 have shared the -- the affidavits and the 

3 testimony with the working group -- with the 

4 Board and the different working groups that 

5 have been employed here, with my staff, and I 

6 just want the folks that have worked there to 

7 understand -- that gave this testimony in these 

8 affidavits -- it's not that we -- we don't find 

9 them valuable and we disagree with them, we 

10 just have no corroborating evidence. What 

11 needs to be said in that -- in that light is 

12 that Dow did a lot of work for the Department 

13 of Defense, you all know that and we know that. 

14 And in that context, it's very possible in our 

15 minds -- it's that instead of Rocky Flats, it 

16 could have been Rocky Mountain Arsenal that was 

17 -- shipments were made to. We have no 

18 corroborating evidence, we -- you know, on the 

19 face of it, yes, we -- it's not that we do not 

20 believe you, but we have -- we need to have 

21 some corroborating evidence that shows us that 

22 -- that AEC work was done in that way and sent 

23 to other sites besides Mallinckrodt, and right 

24 now there is none. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Yes? 
215

1 MR. LEWIS: And this is Greg Lewis from DOE. I 

2 just want to clarify a point that Dr. McKeel 

3 made based on our Livermore letter. And 

4 essentially he was looking for the -- the 

5 source of these materials that were used in 

6 nuclear weapons and, based on this letter, it 

7 mentions that they looked for that link -- they 

8 did look in classified information and provided 

9 an unclassified letter. We certainly with -- 

10 people with Q clearances could come look on 

11 that source information, but they were looking 

12 for information specific to Dow or any 

13 supplier, and were not able to find any. They 

14 linked it to two production facilities, the Y15 12 and the Bendix plant, which is in Kansas 

16 City, and we went to those two sources to look 

17 for suppliers and were also unable to find 

18 evidence of a particular supplier. So the -- 

19 the purchase orders (unintelligible) the source 

20 that we have related to this Livermore 

21 document, but we certainly would be willing to 

22 -- to provide the source documents. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

24 DR. LOCKEY: Question -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: A question here from Dr. Lockey. 
216

1 DR. LOCKEY: Question, how many potential 

2 suppliers could it -- could there have been in 

3 that time frame? 

4 MS. CANO: To our knowledge there are -- there 

5 were several that DOE or the AEC had contracts 

6 with at the time. We had Alcoa whe-- Alcoa -- 

7 DR. LOCKEY: Okay. 

8 MS. CANO: -- Reynolds Aluminum, Nalco 

9 Materials -- Nalco Metals Division, and 

10 Westinghouse. We do know that they were 

11 actively involved with -- with alloys at that 

12 time, so -- but again, when we conducted our 

13 research, we limited our research to Dow 

14 Madison and Dow. I mean we did ask, you know, 

15 specific questions relevant to thorium and 

16 magnesium when they conducted the searches, but 

17 we also know at the time that these suppliers 

18 also existed. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

20 MR. STEPHAN: Can I just get on the -- I 

21 apologize, I just want to get on the record for 

22 the workers' benefit that DOE's decision -- 

23 correct me if I'm wrong, Greg or Gina -- did 

24 include review of the worker testimony, it did 

25 in-- it did include all of those affidavits, 
217

1 and it did include, for example, documents like 

2 those mines and minerals yearbook documents, so 

3 there -- there was other documentation and they 

4 did review the worker testimony. Thank you. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dan? 

6 DR. MCKEEL: I had just one thing I needed to 

7 clarify for the record and that is apropos to 

8 Mr. Elliott's comment about Rocky Mountain 

9 Arsenal. As soon as that suggestion was made 

10 that the Dow workers at Madison had confused -- 

11 got confused in their testimony, I asked them 

12 specifically; and what they testified to, what 

13 they believe, what they saw with their eyes was 

14 Rocky Flats, and there is no Rocky Flats 

15 Arsenal. They saw the words Rocky Flats. 

16 Nobody saw the words Rocky Mountain Arsenal so 

17 I think that is a straw man. It is not what 

18 they saw. It is against their testimony. And 

19 they say -- at least 11 affidavits -- that they 

20 sent thorium alloy, the same kind used in 

21 nuclear weapons, to Rocky Flats in large 

22 (unintelligible). 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. Thanks 

24 to all of the folks -- petitioners, staff 

25 members -- for your input on this. We 
218

1 certainly -- the intent of the Board to move 

2 ahead as rapidly as we can and try to come to 

3 closure on -- on these issues. 

4 Also it's been -- I think this is a case 

5 particularly where the petitioners have -- and 

6 their -- those working with them have had a 

7 great deal of input in terms of making -- 

8 finding and uncovering documents, and it's been 

9 very helpful. I think it's been helpful to the 

10 agencies and certainly been helpful to the 

11 Board, and we thank you for that. 

12 SPENCER CHEMICAL COMPANY (PITTSBURG, KS) SEC PETITION

13 Now we're going to address the Spencer Chemical 

14 Company petition. Stuart Hinnefeld is going to 

15 present the NIOSH evaluation report on that 

16 petition and -- do we have petitioners on the 

17 line for this? No -- 

18 DR. BRANCHE: It's not clear -- there -- there 

19 were some petitioners whose names we're aware 

20 of, but it's not clear that they're going to 

21 participate, and you can't say their names. 

22 But I would ask that whoever's participating by 

23 phone, please mute your line. Every person 

24 needs to mute their line. Thank you. 

25 MS. KIMPAN: Dr. Branche, this is Kate from 
219

1 ORAU. 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Yes? 

3 MS. KIMPAN: There was (break in transmission) 

4 Chemical on earlier that dropped off. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, there was someone from Spencer 

6 on earlier? 

7 MS. KIMPAN: Yeah, when you were all at lunch 

8 the Spencer person came on and was asking if 

9 this was the call for Spencer, so 

10 (unintelligible). 

11 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, we'll have our point of 

12 contact contact the person from Spencer 

13 Chemical. Thank you very much, Kate. 

14 MS. KIMPAN: Yeah, (break in transmission). 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Stuart. 

16 MR. HINNEFELD: You want me to go ahead? 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Good afternoon. I guess a 

19 little -- minute man should be added to our job 

20 titles now. I was scheduled to go at 10:30 and 

21 found out when Dr. Ziemer announced that I was 

22 next up. 

23 I'm here to present the results of our petition 

24 evaluation report for the Spence-- Spencer 

25 Chemical Company/Jayhawk Works. That plant is 
220

1 located in Pittsburg, Kansas, in the southeast 

2 corner. 

3 This petition was submitted to us on -- in May 

4 of 2007 and we qualified it for evaluation in 

5 January of 2008. It indicates that we had a -- 

6 quite a lot of communication with the claimant 

7 -- or with the petitioner in order to establish 

8 a -- an evaluation basis. In other words, a 

9 bas-- a qualifying basis so that we could have 

10 a petition that met the requirements of the 

11 rule and therefore we could go ahead and 

12 evaluate it. 

13 In our evaluation -- and this is an 83.13, so 

14 we did not initiate this class. This was a 

15 petitioner-initiated class. In our evaluation 

16 we've determined that we're unable to complete 

17 a dose reconstruction with sufficient accuracy 

18 for a class of workers there. 

19 This site was originally classified by DOE and 

20 DOL as an Atomic Weapons Employer facility from 

21 1958 to 1963. It conducted chemical processing 

22 to produce uranium and thorium oxides, uranium 

23 carbides and other forms, including UF-6. I 

24 think actually probably used UF-6 as a feed, 

25 but it handled a variety of chemical forms of 
221

1 the uranium. The physical forms were fused 

2 ceramic pellets and finely divided powders. Of 

3 course, oxide is a -- can be a pretty finely 

4 divided powder. And these are the uranium 

5 forms. We know essentially nothing about the 

6 thorium forms. 

7 The radioactive activities and storage occurred 

8 at several locations around the site, but the 

9 major processing building occurred -- or was in 

10 Building 702. We have no information about how 

11 materials moved around the site or how people 

12 moved around the site. 

13 After operations were completed, processing 

14 buildings were decontaminated and Building 702, 

15 the main production building, was dismantled 

16 directly. Research on this petition identified 

17 that the -- we'd identified information while 

18 we were researching this petition that caused 

19 us to question the starting date. We thought 

20 it started earlier than 1958. We said we think 

21 this work started in 1956. We provided that 

22 information to the Department of Labor, and 

23 they concurred that the starting date should be 

24 1956. 

25 They felt like the end date should be 1961. 
222

1 The end date is a li-- there's -- like I said, 

2 there's conflicting information on -- in the 

3 end of activities. The reason for this is that 

4 this site did commercial work in addition to 

5 AEC work, and there are a series of license 

6 terminations, there are -- there's a statement 

7 about a license termination. There's a 

8 statement -- a later statement about working 

9 with uranium and thorium and some of the 

10 airborne levels that they were experiencing -- 

11 not quantitatively but qualitatively. 

12 And so there's a certain amount of uncertainty 

13 with respect to that end date. The Department 

14 of Labor has opined that 1961 should be the end 

15 date. And that could very well be correct 

16 because, like I said, it was not real clear to 

17 us when the AEC work stopped. 

18 The project site research database, which 

19 includes documents -- you know, okay, this is 

20 our data capture efforts. We did our normal 

21 data capture -- our view of what's in the site 

22 research database and we've done quite a lot of 

23 data capture to populate that database. We've 

24 used -- we looked at what existing project 

25 technical documents we should be prepared to 
223

1 present. We spoke to people who worked at the 

2 -- you know, site experts who worked at the 

3 site. 

4 We did a number of database searches. These 

5 are our -- this is our typical data search 

6 effort for these sites when we try to find out 

7 as much as we can. We looked in -- a couple of 

8 searches from the Office of Scientific and 

9 Technical Information, and we inquired to 

10 companies -- at least one company -- that 

11 apparently provided personnel monitoring 

12 service. This is one of the more confusing 

13 things we encountered, but it's -- I don't 

14 think it's really critical to our conclusion. 

15 That company was Landauer that we inquired to. 

16 Radiological operations at Spencer 

17 Chemical/Jayhawk's were -- were like I said. 

18 They processed several types of uranium for use 

19 in the nuclear fuel cycle. They were mainly 

20 making oxides and carbides for fuel purposes 

21 and for research purposes. They researched 

22 chemical processes, et cetera. They had 

23 thorium on site. They had a license to do 

24 thorium work for research purposes, but we 

25 don't know what they did with the thorium. We 
224

1 don't even know what chemical forms of the 

2 thorium they had. 

3 The uranium enrichment was five percent or less 

4 in most cases, although it appears that there 

5 was one small area of their main processing 

6 building where they did use uranium, at least 

7 for some period of time, that you would con-- 

8 consider fully enriched, up to 93 percent U9 235. And like I said, we have noth-- we don't 

10 know any information about the thorium 

11 operation. 

12 Internal monitoring per-- data, there are 

13 documents from the period -- for instance, the 

14 license inspection reports and things like that 

15 -- that describe workers being on a bioassay 

16 program, but we have not been able to find any 

17 bioassay records. We have some summary 

18 information and a few individual air samples as 

19 well. Summary information would be that same 

20 kind of qualitative descriptive information. 

21 And external monitoring data, even though 

22 documents from the period indicated that 

23 workers were -- wore dosimeters, and a report 

24 includes results for one person. We have a 

25 report that has -- I think it was kind of an 
225

1 investigation report of a dose result because 

2 he had one cycle where his dose reading was 

3 very high compared to his previous dose cycle, 

4 so this report shows those two reports -- those 

5 two cycle reports for this one person. But we 

6 have not been able to find any dosimetry 

7 reports. 

8 The -- this -- well, the troubling thing to me 

9 about that -- but it's only minor -- you know, 

10 it's only a minor -- min-- you know, slightly 

11 troubling because it's not really terribly -- 

12 it's not really relevant to our decision -- is 

13 that we approached Landauer about this site. 

14 Landauer ostensibly was the company that 

15 provided the film badge service for this 

16 company. Landauer retains almost all of the 

17 records of -- that they've ever generated -- 

18 the results they've ever generated. They don't 

19 have -- they could not find anything for this 

20 site based on the name we gave them and the 

21 various synonyms -- in other words, other 

22 names, other owners that we asked about. They 

23 -- they couldn't find it. We don't have an 

24 account number that this site would have used, 

25 a Landauer account number, which would have 
226

1 facilitated the search, so we -- they did not 

2 find anything for this site when we asked them. 

3 Let's see, did I cover this? So although 

4 documents from the period -- I mean the period 

5 of operation -- describe air monitoring, 

6 radiation surveys and contamination surveys, we 

7 have not been able to find results of those 

8 surveys except in some qualitative 

9 descriptions. 

10 We have not obtained any bioassay results for 

11 any of the claims from the site. This is under 

12 the feasibility of internal dose 

13 reconstructions. We do not have any 

14 information about the nature of the thorium 

15 operation. Documents from the period describe 

16 workplace and personnel monitoring programs, so 

17 the site profiles for AWEs that either refined 

18 or worked with uranium or thorium may be able 

19 to use to reconstruct the doses for uranium. 

20 Those -- those site profiles really only 

21 address uranium, and we do kind of know the 

22 thorium op-- the uranium operations. We know 

23 some of the -- you know, the chemical 

24 conversions they did, some of the process they 

25 have, so we may be able to use those -- TBD-
227

1 6000 and 6001 to do a -- a uranium par-- 

2 partial dose reconstruction. But the lack of 

3 information regarding the thorium operations 

4 and, to a large extent, the source term would 

5 prevent us from reconstructing doses from the 

6 thorium. 

7 So the lack of the external monitoring records 

8 prevents us from reconstructing the total 

9 external dose, although TBD-6000 -- medical X10 rays can be reconstructed using our existing 

11 technical documents, and the external dose from 

12 uranium can likely be reconstructed using -- 

13 can likely be reconstructed, it should say 

14 likely, by means of those TBD-6000 and 6001. 

15 The way I -- the reason I say likely is that 

16 most of the data we have that went into 6000 

17 and 6001 does not really include enrichments up 

18 to 93 percent, so up to five percent, I don't 

19 know, maybe there's, you know, and extrap-- 

20 extrapolation that can be made there from the 

21 data collected up to -- you know, that was -- 

22 there's -- that generally not reflected on 

23 enriched uranium. There may be some enriched 

24 uranium data that went into 6000 and 6001. But 

25 when you're talking about going up to 93 
228

1 percent uranium, I don't know that there's a 

2 way to get to that, so it's not entirely clear 

3 to me that we'll be able to do a complete one, 

4 but it seems like there would be something that 

5 we could do in terms of uranium internal dose 

6 based on 6000 and 6001. 

7 Our feasibility of internal dose reconstruction 

8 table is shown here, and this -- like I said, 

9 this shows clearly in uranium that we can 

10 reconstruct -- that it's feasible to 

11 reconstruct uranium internal doses. I'm not 

12 real sure that we'll -- we'll actually be able 

13 to do that, but I think there'll be something 

14 we can do. We can only -- and we may be able 

15 to reconstruct the external dose from the 

16 gamma, neutron -- or gamma, beta external dose 

17 from uranium, based on the uranium -- the TBD18 6000 and 6001, but that would only be a 

19 component of the external dose. We can't 

20 really complete the entire external dose, but 

21 we do believe we can reconstruct the medical X22 rays. 

23 The reason I -- that the Landauer -- or the 

24 fact that Landauer couldn't -- didn't -- 

25 couldn't provide any results for this site is 
229

1 not very troubling to me is that the -- we 

2 would still be adding this class anyway because 

3 the cl-- the -- the fundamental thing, the real 

4 difficulty, is the internal thorium dose is 

5 really the -- what's going to -- you know, 

6 drives, you know, in large part the ad-- the 

7 addition of the class. Landauer results 

8 wouldn't have anything to do with that. And 

9 so, you know, that -- that's not that 

10 troubling. If we in fact had individual 

11 dosimetry data or dosimetry data make a 

12 coworker model, I doubt that those doses from 

13 that experience would be any higher than those 

14 prescribed by 6000 and 6001, so I don't -- I 

15 don't -- it doesn't -- you know, it doesn't 

16 concern me all that much we didn't get the 

17 Landauer data. 

18 And -- and finally, based on the query we -- we 

19 ran of the 30 some-odd cases -- there were 30 

20 cases affected by this -- based on the query, 

21 strangely enough, there are almost no cases 

22 that have non-SEC cancers. I think the query 

23 came back that 29 out of the 30 cases have SEC24 listed cancers. That -- that's really unusual. 

25 Oh, I might also mention that the -- the 
230

1 uncertainty in the end date, the December 1961 

2 end date, also does not affect any claimants. 

3 You know, by moving the end date from '63, 

4 which was the original end of the covered 

5 period, moving that end date back to '61, no 

6 claimants drop out. No one is -- no one is 

7 dropped out because of that. 

8 Okay, in terms of the health endangerment 

9 question, there is no evidence of a discrete 

10 incident that would have resulted in extremely 

11 high doses such as a criticality incident. But 

12 there is evidence that workers would have 

13 accumulated or could have accumulated chronic 

14 radiation exposures through intakes of 

15 radioactive materials and direct exposure. And 

16 we conclude, based on that, that the health may 

17 have been endangered for those workers covered 

18 by this evaluation who are employed at the -- 

19 at the number -- at the number of work days 

20 aggregating 250. 

21 Our proposed class for this site is all Atomic 

22 Weapons Employer employees who worked in any 

23 area of the Spencer Chemical Company/Jayhawk 

24 Works near Pittsburg, Kansas from January 1st, 

25 1956 through December 31st, 1961 for a number 
231

1 of work days aggregating at least 250 work 

2 days, occurring either solely under this 

3 employment or in combination with work days 

4 within the parameters established for one or 

5 more other classes of employees in the SEC. 

6 Now we defined that class because that's the 

7 end date of the covered period. The period 

8 1961 to '64 could be -- you know, as -- as we 

9 think about this, what -- what happens to that 

10 period '61 to '64, even though it's not 

11 relevant to the current crop of -- of 

12 claimants. You know, there may be other 

13 claimants later on that it would be relevant 

14 to. The -- the demolition or the -- the 

15 decontamination and disposal of the buildings -

16 - I mean one of the buildings was dismantled 

17 right away -- that all kind of seems to be 1964 

18 time, and at -- '63 or '64, something like 

19 that. So at the time the residual 

20 contamination report was prepared, that was the 

21 end of the covered period, so there is no 

22 residual period defined in the last residual 

23 contamination report that we wrote. So as part 

24 of the addenda that we provide -- you know, the 

25 update to the residual contamination report, 
232

1 which had extensive discussion in the previous 

2 site -- we would also suggest probably that a 

3 residual period be started from '60 -- after 

4 '61 through '64, and then we could evaluate 

5 that period. Like I said, there are no 

6 claimants in that period now, but if the -- the 

7 claim came up, then the evaluation of whether 

8 in fact it's feasible to do the thorium during 

9 that time, without any data, that would be a 

10 question that you would face later on. 

11 So our recommendation is for the period January 

12 1st, 1956 through December 31st, 1961 NIOSH 

13 finds that radiation dose estimates cannot be 

14 reconstructed for compensation purposes, so we 

15 have a feasibility finding that no, it's not 

16 feasible to reconstruct the doses; and we have 

17 a positive health endangerment finding, which 

18 are the two-pronged test we have to follow. 

19 I think this came up earlier in one of the 

20 other sites, what do we do about this maybe 

21 indeterminate end date. I think maybe language 

22 in the recommendation letter that would say "or 

23 whatever date is ultimately selected as the end 

24 date" may be appropriate to include in -- in 

25 your recommendation. 
233

1 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Stu. Josie, you have a 

2 question or comment? 

3 MS. BEACH: Well, I think you've partially 

4 answered it. I was going to ask you about the 

5 samples that were taking (sic) in the ER 

6 report, 1964 in Building 709. It does talk 

7 about some smears after the building was washed 

8 down, so I'm concerned about that in the 

9 residual period, and not quite clear how you're 

10 going to address that. 

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, those -- those smear 

12 results in 1964 were after the decontamination 

13 of the building, and the results are within the 

14 free release standards that are used today for 

15 free releasing properties. So that would 

16 essentially evidence that this contamination -- 

17 the residual contamination period would end at 

18 that time. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask if the petitioner is on 

20 the line. Petitioner from -- 

21 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, I am. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, please identify yourself and 

23 then -- if you wish, and then you may make 

24 comments. 

25 MS. SHUPACK: Yes, sir. My name is Sally 
234

1 Shupack, and I'm the original petitioner for 

2 the SEC, Spencer Chemical Company. And I just 

3 want to say that we have spent a lot of time, 

4 about seven years, trying to get to the truth. 

5 And I found, like NIOSH did, that every agency 

6 that I wrote to did not have the 

7 epidemiological surveys to produce, including 

8 Landauer. 

9 I also in my research found that they did 

10 reference the badges and inspection reports, 

11 and they referenced urinalysis reports. 

12 Neither of the two companies that were supposed 

13 to monitor have that data. 

14 Also it was in the documents that I produced 

15 for NIOSH, which was about two boxes full of 

16 legal documents, it was said that over 50 

17 percent of the badges that were sent to 

18 Landauer were contaminated. One thing that I 

19 think is important to know, too, in the 

20 documents is that the hooding operations were 

21 not filtered, so the radiation dust from the 

22 operations was sent out into the effluent air. 

23 So because of that, I think that any person 

24 that worked at Spencer could have potentially -

25 - their health could have been endangered 
235

1 because you -- I -- you don't know what the 

2 circumstances were for each person and what the 

3 proximity was to the operation. 

4 There's a lot of things that I could cite. The 

5 inspection reports were categorized almost as 

6 shoddy. I don't think that there was much 

7 consideration for the employees as far as 

8 protection. The respirators were dusty. One 

9 of their solutions for getting the 

10 contamination rate down on the badges was to 

11 put them in plastic bags so that they wouldn't 

12 pick up the air -- the radiation dust, which to 

13 me is just counterproductive if you're trying 

14 to assess radiation exposure. And even at 

15 doing that, there was only -- over 50 percent 

16 of the -- the badges were contaminated. 

17 The problem is, we just don't know which -- 

18 which people were exposed at that level because 

19 of lack of documentation. I feel like that 

20 there is nothing more that can be done. I 

21 certainly have -- have done an extensive 

22 research into it, and NIOSH has done an 

23 extensive research into the matter, and I think 

24 we're at the end of the road, to the place 

25 where the Board has to look at the evidence and 
236

1 determine whether we are approved for SEC 

2 status. 

3 One other thing I might tell the Board is that 

4 I had -- because I am not a expert in nuclear 

5 energy, by any means, my family and I hired a -

6 - a lady and her husband -- her name's 

7 [Identifying information redacted]* and she is 

8 -- she has a Ph.D. in nuclear energy -- to 

9 review all the documents that were obtainable. 

10 And I would submit that if there is any 

11 question in the Board's mind, after the 

12 testimony of NIOSH and myself, as to whether we 

13 should be approved for SEC -- Special Energy 

14 (sic) Cohort -- that you would read 

15 [Identifying information redacted] report, who 

16 certainly has the educational and professional 

17 background to address the two issues about dose 

18 reconstruction and whether there was health 

19 endangerment. And I think she concurs with 

20 NIOSH and with myself that that in fact is 

21 true. But I would submit to you that she -- 

22 that you read her report if you have any reason 

23 or any doubts about either the lack of 

24 information or the results of the operations, 

25 the -- the safety issues, the protection 
237

1 issues, and the chronic daily -- daily 

2 accumulation of radiation. 

3 My father was 51 years old when he died of 

4 pancreatic cancer, and he was a healthy man. 

5 He worked for Spencer for over 30 years, and I 

6 believe that his death is a direct result of 

7 not only the radiation he was exposed to, but 

8 probably the chemicals he was exposed to. 

9 So I respectfully submit, though, that you 

10 consider all the data and that you rule in our 

11 favor. Thank you for hearing me. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much for your 

13 comments. 

14 Board members, do you have any questions for 

15 the petitioner? 

16 (No responses) 

17 If not, any general questions or comments 

18 relative to the petition? 

19 Yes, Mr. Griffon. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: I just had a question for -- for 

21 Stu, probably just to follow up on the thorium. 

22 You say you can't reconstruct -- and mainly 

23 it's because you don't know much -- 

24 MR. HINNEFELD: We don't know what they did. 

25 MR. GRIFFON: -- operational history -- right? 
238

1 -- or... 

2 MR. HINNEFELD: We don't know what they did 

3 with the thorium. We've got no -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: And no -- 

5 MR. HINNEFELD: -- data at all. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: -- no potential source term 

7 amounts per year, nothing -- none of that -- 

8 MR. HINNEFELD: (Unintelligible) licensed 

9 quantity -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: -- information. 

11 MR. HINNEFELD: There is a licensed quantity. 

12 It's ten -- ten kilograms, 100 kilograms? I 

13 think it's ten kilograms, at least ten 

14 kilograms. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: So really you -- you just don't 

16 know process information. 

17 MR. HINNEFELD: No. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Licensed quantity doesn't -- 

19 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- help you very much. 

21 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: LaVon, do you have a comment? 

23 MR. RUTHERFORD: I only wanted to add -- and I 

24 think Stu may have already said it, but I -- I 

25 do know from the documentation this was a 
239

1 unique process. It wasn't a process -- it was 

2 a unique process in producing the thorium that 

3 they were -- they were looking at -- at using, 

4 and there is some detail in the report on the -

5 - on that, but there's no data and no detail-- 

6 detailed process description. It's just that 

7 it was a unique process. 

8 MR. GRIFFON: A unique process, that's all... 

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, yeah. I mean a unique 

10 process at that time when they were trying -- 

11 there was a number of sites that -- or 

12 companies that DOE was looking at for producing 

13 thorium metal and doing -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Trying different -- 

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- thorium work. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- methodologies. 

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly. 

18 MR. HINNEFELD: It was for research and 

19 development -- 

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 

21 MR. HINNEFELD: -- kind of stuff. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, are you ready to 

23 make a motion on this petition? 

24 MS. MUNN: I am. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I -- Ms. Munn -- 
240

1 MR. SCHOFIELD: I second. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: You haven't heard the motion yet. 

3 You're going to second whatever she -- now's 

4 your opportunity, Wanda. 

5 MS. MUNN: This could take a while. In the 

6 absence of adequate information to allow 

7 radiation dose estimates and dose 

8 reconstructions, I move that we accept the 

9 recommendation of NIOSH and forward the 

10 recommendation to the Secretary that the SEC 

11 for Spencer be accepted as written. 

12 UNIDENTIFIED: Yay. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Well, we have -- we have -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Is there -- is there a second? 

15 MR. SCHOFIELD: Second -- 

16 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, Phil. 

17 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, I can second it. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Phil -- Phil has seconded the 

19 motion. Is there discussion on the motion? 

20 (No responses) 

21 We'll take a roll call and also the Designated 

22 Federal Official and the Chair will seek the 

23 vote of Dr. Melius separately. Okay? 

24 DR. BRANCHE: Unless Dr. Melius is on the line. 

25 (No responses) 
241

1 Okay. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: A roll-call vote. 

3 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Beach? 

4 MS. BEACH: Yes. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Clawson? 

6 MR. CLAWSON: Yes. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Gibson? 

8 MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

9 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Griffon? 

10 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

11 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Lockey? 

12 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Munn? 

14 MS. MUNN: Aye. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Presley? 

16 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Poston? 

18 DR. POSTON: Yes. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Roessler? 

20 DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Schofield? 

22 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Ziemer? 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. The motion carries, 

25 regardless of Dr. Melius's vote, but in any 
242

1 event we will proceed to prepare the formal 

2 wording for the submission to the Secretary and 

3 the Board members will have a chance to see 

4 that later in the meeting. Thank you very 

5 much. 

6 Our next item, and I want to ask Ms. Munn, do 

7 you wish to proceed or do you want us to take a 

8 break first -- your prerogative. 

9 MS. MUNN: I would appreciate a break, and then 

10 immediately thereafter I would like to address 

11 our procedures workgroup report. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's keep it to 15 minutes 

13 and return promptly. 

14 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:05 p.m. 

15 to 3:20 p.m.) 

16 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) phone -- 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Please open the lines. Could 

18 someone participating by phone please let me 

19 know that you can hear me? 

20 UNIDENTIFIED: I can hear you. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

22 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you very much. And now -- 

23 thank you very much, and -- and now if everyone 

24 participating by phone could please mute your 

25 phones. If you do not have a mute button, then 
243

1 please use star-6, and then when you are ready 

2 to speak then you would use that same star-6 to 

3 unmute the line. And again, I ask that all 

4 phone participants do indeed please do mute 

5 your phones and please, if you must leave the 

6 line, do not put us on hold. Thank you very 

7 much. 

8 SPENCER CHEMICAL (CONTINUED)

9 DR. ZIEMER: Just before the break Mark Griffon 

10 asked NIOSH what the license limit of thorium 

11 was at -- at the Spencer Chemical Company site, 

12 and I think during the break that -- the NIOSH 

13 people double-checked in the evaluation 

14 reports. 

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Stu, do you have that number for 

17 us? 

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I -- I didn't remember 

19 the entire bullet. It's in the evaluation 

20 report. The ten kilogram limit was for the 

21 first license for thorium and -- and uranium 

22 oxide production, but there were other later 

23 ones with much higher quantities. But at that 

24 same time there was a 1,000 kilogram limit on 

25 the thorium for research and development -- 
244

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

2 MR. HINNEFELD: -- so it's quite a lot more 

3 than I said. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Right. And so that's a 

5 considerably greater quantity and even there 

6 the processes were not know, so -- well, thank 

7 you for clarifying that. 

8 PROCEDURES WORK GROUP SUMMARY

9 We'll now move to the procedures workgroup 

10 summary and -- chaired by Ms. Munn. And Ms. 

11 Munn, we'll turn it over to you, and I think 

12 you're going to have a few comments and then 

13 one of your colleagues is going to make a 

14 presentation. 

15 MS. MUNN: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. This is I 

16 think a fairly straightforward report to you on 

17 the activities of the procedure workgroup, your 

18 workgroup that never sleeps. We meet fairly 

19 regularly, either by telephone or more often 

20 face-to-face, virtually every month because we 

21 have so many activities ongoing. We'll speak a 

22 little more about the extent of those later as 

23 we get into some of our activities. 

24 I have several items I want to bring before the 

25 Board for action today, and before we start 
245

1 those I want to bring you up to date on 

2 something that has occupied an enormous amount 

3 of our time for the last several months. 

4 You may recall at our last meeting you had a 

5 presentation at some length by Kathy Behling, 

6 who had been working with her colleagues and 

7 with NIOSH over several months to completely 

8 revise our database of activities to make it 

9 possible for us to not only have a first-rate 

10 and complete archive of the reviews that had 

11 been completed, but also of each and every 

12 action item that had been taken with respect to 

13 those. As you are probably aware, we have now 

14 tasked our contractor with a total of more than 

15 100 different procedures to review. And even 

16 though each one of them does not always have a 

17 large number of findings, even a small number 

18 of findings for that large number of procedures 

19 turns out to be an enormous number of 

20 individual items to track over a period of 

21 time. Closure comes in a form of -- of many 

22 different ways, and we want to be very thorough 

23 in making sure that we do those properly. 

24 What I've asked Steve Marschke, who is going to 

25 be taking the primary responsibility for upkeep 
246

1 of -- of SC&A's portion of this database in 

2 future, to do today is to bring you a very 

3 quick update on where we are. As you can 

4 imagine, with a change of this magnitude to the 

5 way we do business, there's a great deal of 

6 tweaking that needs to go on in the early 

7 stages. We thought we'd give you an 

8 opportunity to take just a very brief look at 

9 what some of the tweaks now look like, in case 

10 you have not had occasion yourself to be using 

11 this database particularly. 

12 I've passed out to you two items, one titled 

13 "ABRWH Procedures Issues Tracking" and the 

14 other entitled "ABRWH Procedures Issues 

15 Tracking System". I'll turn it over to Steve 

16 and let him explain to you what those are and 

17 how we have brought them to this stage from 

18 what you saw the last meeting. We had one or 

19 two items that we anticipate will change them a 

20 little bit the next time you see them. Steve? 

21 MR. MARSCHKE: Thank you, Ms. Munn. The first 

22 -- let's I guess go directly to the slide and -

23 - I don't have an electronic copy, but the 

24 Board all has the handouts that Ms. Munn handed 

25 out. The first slide is a screen capture of 
247

1 what we call the -- the main screen on the 

2 database. It's also called -- sometimes called 

3 the summary screen. And the change is the 

4 circled area, the change from what -- what 

5 Kathy presented a couple months ago. 

6 Previously we had two buttons in there, one 

7 button for -- to print the details, another 

8 button to print the summary results. I'll get 

9 more -- and then we've replaced those two 

10 buttons with a single button, and I'll get more 

11 into what that single button does a little bit 

12 later. If we just go -- and that's really all 

13 I have to say about the first slide. 

14 The second slide -- again, you can start -- it 

15 still has the same button circled because, 

16 again, those two buttons have been collapsed 

17 into one. We've also made a couple additional 

18 -- of additions to this detail -- what we call 

19 the detail sheet. One is on the -- about in 

20 the middle on the right-hand side. We've added 

21 a status date, and this is -- this is a field 

22 which gets changed anytime the status of the 

23 issue gets changed. As Ms. Munn indicated, we 

24 have issues which are closed. We obviously 

25 have issues which are open, and we have issues 
248

1 which are in between called in progress, in 

2 abeyance, transferred -- we have about a half3 dozen statuses that we've settled upon. And 

4 any time we transition from one status to 

5 another, the status date field will now get 

6 updated. And when the issue stat-- changes to 

7 closed, then we'll have -- this status date 

8 will be the same as the issued closed date. 

9 The other thing we've indicated we've added to 

10 the detail screen here is a field to indicate 

11 the source of the issue. Currently most of the 

12 issues come from three reports that SC&A 

13 prepared for the Board where we reviewed over 

14 100 procedures and -- or -- or other documents. 

15 But on occasion -- and we are anticipating that 

16 we would receive issues from other sources, as 

17 well; perhaps maybe another working group would 

18 transfer another issue in to the procedures 

19 working group, and we would use this field here 

20 to track where the particular issue came from. 

21 If we look at the third slide, this is the 

22 slide -- when you press the print/view reports 

23 button, either from the summary screen or from 

24 the detail screen, this third slide is what 

25 appears on your screen. And basically you'll 
249

1 see here the first two buttons on here are the 

2 -- print the issues summary and print the 

3 details, which were on the old database which 

4 Kathy had explained to -- to you. We've added 

5 two additional print capabilities here. One is 

6 to print the issues sorted by meeting date, and 

7 that -- we felt that would be very helpful 

8 because, as Wanda said, we've been having a lot 

9 of meetings. We get a lot of action items that 

10 come out of these meetings, and this is a way 

11 that we can sort on those meeting dates and 

12 find out what it is we have -- we were supposed 

13 to do and what it is we've done, and kind of 

14 where we are fulfilling our issues or action 

15 items. 

16 And if you look at the -- fourth slide is an 

17 example of what you -- what is produced when 

18 you select that button. And I think it's 

19 pretty self, you know, explanatory. 

20 The -- if we go back to the -- the slide with 

21 the tracking report slide, the fourth button on 

22 that slide, the second new button, is called 

23 the status summary button. And when you press 

24 that button you -- it -- the database manager 

25 produces the last slide, which was -- which is 
250

1 titled the Issues Tracking System, and this is 

2 -- and the sub-- and the subheading is Summary 

3 Status of Procedures. This is the -- basically 

4 this gives us a one-page snapshot of where we 

5 are. And you'll see it lists -- everything is 

6 now listed by finding date. One of the 

7 enhancements that Wanda talked about is we want 

8 to identify and -- or put an identifier next to 

9 each one of these finding dates. 

10 For example, the first finding date, 1/17/2005, 

11 that is the first set -- or that is SC&A's 

12 report on the -- on the first set of procedures 

13 that we reviewed. I believe it was 33 

14 procedures that were reviewed in there. And if 

15 you just look across you can see in that 3-- 

16 with those 33 procedures we had 182 findings; 

17 currently 29 of them are open; 49 -- 48 of them 

18 are in abeyance. And what we mean by in 

19 abeyance is we have agreed upon a resolution to 

20 the issue, and quite often that resolution 

21 involves revising the document, and in abeyance 

22 means we -- that document has not been revised 

23 as of yet. We are -- fully anticipate when 

24 that document is revised that that issue will 

25 then be closed. And we -- and again, you can 
251

1 see we have just transferred and -- one is 

2 transferred and 104 are closed. 

3 You'll notice on the handout that I gave you 

4 there are some handwritten markings on the 

5 bottom of it. They obviously were not produced 

6 by the database. We have a -- Nancy Adams has 

7 also been tracking these issues, and we have a 

8 little bit of disagreement between her 

9 statistics and the statistics that are being 

10 produced by the database, and the hand markups 

11 was Nancy's attempt to reconcile these 

12 differences. And when I get back to my office 

13 tomorrow I hope to do the same and figure out 

14 why we are getting different things for what is 

15 supposed to be the same numbers. 

16 But that's the update that I wanted to present, 

17 and I give it back to Ms. Munn. 

18 MS. MUNN: Thank you very much, Steve. Josie? 

19 MS. BEACH: Is this available for us on line? 

20 MS. MUNN: Yes, it is. 

21 MS. BEACH: Where's it at? 

22 MS. MUNN: Yes, it's on the O drive. Uh-huh, 

23 yeah. 

24 MR. MARSCHKE: You have the O drive there? 

25 MS. BEACH: I do. 
252

1 MS. MUNN: Yeah, Steve'll find it for you. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: As you guide Josie there -- for 

3 the record, indicate where -- where on the O 

4 drive the Board members will find it. 

5 MR. MARSCHKE: (Off microphone) Go onto the -- 

6 (unintelligible) on your O drive -- my computer 

7 (unintelligible) -- 

8 MR. GRIFFON: It's right on your main screen. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Well, the name of the file. 

10 MR. GRIFFON: Shortcut to Advisory Board -- 

11 MS. MUNN: Shortcuts, uh-huh -- 

12 MR. GRIFFON: -- SC&A. 

13 MS. MUNN: Shortcuts'll get you there. 

14 MR. MARSCHKE: Go -- like NIOSH data, that one. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: You got that? 

16 MR. MARSCHKE: And then go -- 

17 MR. GRIFFON: Then procedures review -- 

18 MR. MARSCHKE: -- (unintelligible) Advisory 

19 Board, and then on Advisory Board you see it 

20 says Advisory Board/SC&A, like -- like the 

21 second one? 

22 MS. BEACH: Oh. 

23 MR. MARSCHKE: Then you see procedures review 

24 tracking system? 

25 MS. BEACH: Got it. 
253

1 MR. MARSCHKE: And then you go over here -- if 

2 you can slide that so that you can see the 

3 title more -- 

4 MS. BEACH: I'm not sure how to do that. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: It's -- actually there's a 

6 shortcut key -- it's only two keystrokes to get 

7 there. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. But the -- the brief answer 

9 is -- is it's on the O drive. 

10 (Whereupon, Mr. Marschke, Mr. Griffon and other 

11 Board members spoke simultaneously.) 

12 MR. MARSCHKE: You can see it's a -- one 

13 without a -- it's the name, doesn't have data 

14 or anything at the end of it. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: And I remind you that there are 

16 designated individuals who have the capability 

17 or the permission to make changes in the 

18 database. Most of you will simply be able to 

19 inquire or read it, but -- 

20 MS. MUNN: Yes, you can query it, you can read 

21 it, but only -- 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Our contractor has -- 

23 MS. MUNN: -- NIOSH and the contractor 

24 (unintelligible). 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- and NIOSH has -- have 
254

1 individuals who can make changes on the behalf 

2 of their groups. 

3 MR. MARSCHKE: That's correct. Yes, that's 

4 correct. 

5 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, that's only a -- thank you 

6 very much, Steve. I appreciate it. 

7 MR. MARSCHKE: You're very welcome. 

8 MS. MUNN: I want you to be aware of the fact 

9 that what you're looking at here -- the sheet -

10 - the single sheet with the compilation of the 

11 summary status of procedures is something that 

12 we have discussed at great length and, with the 

13 additional tweaking that Steve mentioned so 

14 that we can be a little more adept at finding 

15 what belongs to the first set, what belongs to 

16 the second set, and what miscellaneous things 

17 have come in as a result of additional requests 

18 from usually this body, we will maintain a 

19 little better feel for exactly what we're 

20 dealing with as we look at that finding date 

21 item. It is our hope that at every meeting of 

22 the full Board from now on Nancy Adams will be 

23 bringing you a copy of this so that you will 

24 have an opportunity to review for yourself 

25 where we are with respect to the charge that 
255

1 we've given to our contractor and to this -- to 

2 -- to the procedures working group regarding 

3 our -- our items that we have to address. 

4 At the base of that summary status of 

5 procedures, in case you missed it, there is a 

6 description of what each of the items -- the 

7 headings means. That may change a little bit 

8 in time, too, as we work with this database a 

9 little more so that -- we want to be as clear 

10 as possible to the -- to the casual member who 

11 drops in to see where we are -- exactly what 

12 you're looking at. 

13 Do you have any additional questions on this? 

14 Just want you to be accustomed to seeing what 

15 it looks like because Nancy's going to bring it 

16 to you on a regular basis. Right, Nancy? 

17 Hopefully so. 

18 Now we have one or two other things we need to 

19 address. You may recall that a couple of 

20 months ago our contractor produced a status 

21 report of considerable weight, we felt, in an 

22 attempt to get information to the Secretary on 

23 progress that we are making relative to our 

24 procedures reviews. We've never done a status 

25 report, so we had more than one iteration of 
256

1 the report itself that was done more than a few 

2 weeks ago. We issued a draft of our 

3 transmittal letter. And is often the case, we 

4 let some time get away from us before we 

5 actually did what we needed to do. 

6 We now have available for your perusal copies 

7 of what we hope to be the transmittal letter 

8 for that draft for the Chairman of this group 

9 to send out. I'll read it for the record. 

10 This report is a first account from the 

11 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

12 relative to the overview process for procedures 

13 developed and utilized for the National 

14 Institute of (sic) Occupational Safety and 

15 Health in fulfilling the responsibilities 

16 derivative from the Energy Employees 

17 Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. 

18 Section 3642 (b) (42 USC 43840 (b)(2) of the 

19 Act directs that the Board shall advise the 

20 President on the scientific validity and 

21 quality of efforts being performed for purposes 

22 of the compensation program. 

23 In order to assure the completeness and 

24 scientific validity of procedures being used by 

25 NIOSH to receive, process and complete claims, 
257

1 the Board has selected groups of procedures and 

2 supplementary documents for in-depth review. 

3 The professional review is a major function of 

4 the Board's technical contractor, Sanford Cohen 

5 and Associates, and is administered by the 

6 Board's working group on procedures established 

7 in October, 2006. The working group consists 

8 of five Board members: Wanda Munn, Chair; 

9 Michael H. Gibson; Mark Griffon; Dr. Paul 

10 Ziemer; and Robert Presley, Alternate. 

11 Following the selection of a document for 

12 review, the technical contractor undertakes 

13 thorough research of the procedure and provides 

14 the workgroup with a detailed report including, 

15 when applicable, a list of findings and/or 

16 observations. These findings or observations 

17 have been presented to the working group in a 

18 matrix format to allow individual concerns to 

19 be addressed as necessary. The workgroup then 

20 meets with the technical professionals from 

21 NIOSH and the contractor to prioritize, 

22 facilitate, and assist in coming to closure on 

23 each of the items identified. 

24 After the Board's selection of a third set of 

25 procedures, it was observed that the tracking 
258

1 system used -- being used could result in some 

2 loss of descriptive detail following closure of 

3 an individual item. Since each factor 

4 considered in achieving resolution can be of 

5 significance after the fact, the need for 

6 better narrative in the final archive was 

7 recognized. The contractor undertook and has 

8 now completed a significant revision to the 

9 format to be used. The new format can be 

10 accessed electronically and queried to display 

11 whatever set of information is desired relative 

12 to either an individual item or the entire set. 

13 Completion of this notable improvement presents 

14 an appropriate moment to summarize the status 

15 of the first set of procedures and assess the 

16 progress of this substantial effort. Since the 

17 working group first convened, meetings have 

18 been held on a regular basis approximately 

19 every six weeks, both in group session and by 

20 teleconference. The first set of 33 procedures 

21 referred to SC&A resulted in 153 individual 

22 findings of varying weight. Of those items, 99 

23 have been resolved and are now closed. Fifty24 four are open and under discussion or otherwise 

25 in process. 
259

1 Approximately two-thirds of the findings relate 

2 to the clarity, completeness and consistency of 

3 the procedures for use in dose reconstruction. 

4 The other third deal with technical issues such 

5 as accuracy, claimant favorability and 

6 scientific quality. It should be noted that 

7 approximately 50 percent of the technical 

8 findings have been closed. Likewise, some 50 

9 percent of the non-technical findings have been 

10 closed. 

11 At the conclusion of the procedures review 

12 process and the resolution of the issues that 

13 were identified, the expected impact will be, 

14 one, modifying a procedure to correct an error, 

15 provide further clarifications of its 

16 scope/guidance and/or improve its logical 

17 sequence format -- that's a typo, I believe; 

18 two, develop new guidance documents and/or 

19 eliminate redundant procedures; three, 

20 revisiting some adjudicated cases through their 

21 Program Evaluation Program and perhaps change 

22 the dose construction methodology for 

23 performing future claims. 

24 Accordingly, the Board's review process should 

25 help to assure that the procedures being used 
260

1 by NIOSH and its contractors not only are 

2 scientifically solid, but also are clear and 

3 efficient. 

4 We are attaching as an appendix the 

5 contractor's more extensive report of the 

6 endeavors associated with the first set of 

7 procedures. We trust you will find this 

8 information comprehensive and of interest. We 

9 will, of course, be pleased to provide 

10 additional detail if you desire. 

11 I would place this document before the Board 

12 and request that you approve it for our Chair's 

13 signature and transmittal to the Secretary, 

14 with the attachment as described. 

15 Yes, Josie, you have a question? 

16 MS. BEACH: Sorry. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Wait a minute, you made a motion. 

18 Right? 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Basically that constitutes a 

20 motion. It's a recommendation from a 

21 subcommittee, doesn't -- or from a workgroup, 

22 does not require a second, so we'll consider 

23 this before us as a motion. The motion would 

24 be to transmit this letter, with the attached 

25 report, to the Secretary. 
261

1 MS. MUNN: Thank you very much. The next item 

2 we have I think is a -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Whoa, you want action on the 

4 motion? 

5 MS. MUNN: I guess that would be nice to have 

6 action on that. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: A possible friendly amendment in 

8 the first sentence of the second paragraph, 

9 "procedures used by NIOSH", would it be correct 

10 to say "used by NIOSH and its contractor" or is 

11 this adequate? I think we cover it for ORAU 

12 procedures, as well. 

13 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, we did. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Is that correct? 

15 MS. MUNN: Yes, it is correct. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: I hadn't noticed that before, but 

17 if that's agreeable -- 

18 MS. MUNN: No. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- we could add that as a friendly 

20 amendment. 

21 MS. MUNN: I believe it should be added, yes. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: You had also asked, Wanda, if 

23 there was a wording problem amongst those three 

24 items near the end. 

25 MS. MUNN: Yes, as I was reading it. 
262

1 DR. ZIEMER: That was intended to be quoted 

2 directly from the SC&A report -- 

3 MS. MUNN: Yes. Yes. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I am trying to pull up my 

5 copy -- 

6 MR. GRIFFON: Or improve its logical sequence, 

7 I think -- 

8 MS. MUNN: Its logical sequence, there's a T -- 

9 MR. GRIFFON: -- instead of is logical, yeah. 

10 MS. MUNN: -- left out of -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

12 MS. MUNN: -- its logical sequence. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Which one is that? 

14 MS. MUNN: The second -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I gotcha -- 

16 MS. MUNN: -- line of the first item. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- okay. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Got it, okay. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: Paul, maybe on the -- the next 

21 sentence, too -- this is just a wording thing, 

22 but "are scientifically solid" -- I mean I 

23 wonder if we want to say scientifically 

24 defensible or -- or something. I don't know 

25 that we've ever used "scientifically solid." 
263

1 MS. MUNN: Sound? 

2 MR. GRIFFON: Sound. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Sound. 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Sound is better than solid. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: I agree, that's -- 

6 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Those certainly are all friendly 

8 amendments. Any other comments on the motion 

9 to approve this for forwarding to the Secretary 

10 -- basically it becomes a status report. We 

11 did want to, to some degree, indicate impact of 

12 -- of the review procedure, and Mark was very 

13 helpful in -- in developing the -- the comments 

14 toward the end of the letter about the 

15 technical findings and the percent of issues 

16 closed and so on. 

17 MS. MUNN: For which thank you. You may note, 

18 if you began checking very carefully, that some 

19 of the numbers that are quoted are not in 

20 accordance with the numbers that you've just 

21 seen on the printout that we gave you. Please 

22 be aware that that's due to the fact -- as we 

23 know from other presentations -- that these 

24 numbers change on a daily basis as -- as things 

25 are moved in and out of databases. These 
264

1 numbers are intended to reflect the same 

2 numbers that occur -- that appear in the SC&A 

3 report that's going to be transmitted so that 

4 there will not be a confusion -- 

5 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think -- 

6 MS. MUNN: -- in that regard. 

7 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think actually we might have 

8 that unique circumstance -- we -- we've 

9 discussed this, but for that first set, I think 

10 we did some double-counting in -- 

11 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

12 MR. GRIFFON: -- in the database and we're 

13 going to correct that, I imagine. 

14 MS. MUNN: Yes, we will correct that. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's why we used the words 

16 "approximately 50 percent"; it isn't exact, but 

17 it's close enough for -- for this particular 

18 case. 

19 Are you ready to vote on Ms. Munn's motion? 

20 All in favor, aye? 

21 (Affirmative responses) 

22 Opposed? 

23 (No responses) 

24 Abstentions? 

25 (No responses) 
265

1 I believe it's unanimous. Since this is a 

2 report to the Secretary, we will also obtain 

3 Dr. Melius's vote as well. 

4 Thank you. Proceed. 

5 MS. MUNN: The next items that I'd like to have 

6 you -- that we would like to have you give us 

7 your reassurance upon has to do with, we think, 

8 a very simplistic issue. As we are moving 

9 through our procedures, we frequently encounter 

10 a situation where we are asked to have a -- an 

11 existing procedure either changed or have the 

12 issue moved from the procedure that was 

13 originally reviewed to some other procedure. 

14 It has been our philosophy that when this 

15 occurs our contractor, who originally 

16 identified the finding, would continue to 

17 follow that finding to its closure, whether or 

18 not it went into another document that was not 

19 on the current list as authorized for -- for 

20 review by the contractor. 

21 This does not mean -- we had not interpreted 

22 that to mean that the contractor would review 

23 the entire other document, but that when an 

24 item moves from one spot to another, or is 

25 revised in the existing procedure, that portion 
266

1 would be reviewed by the contractor for the 

2 specific purpose of assuring that the sense of 

3 the finding had in fact been closed by the 

4 change that occurs. 

5 So the question before you is: Is it your 

6 interpretation, as it was ours, that it is the 

7 responsibility of the -- of SC&A to follow the 

8 finding through to its resolution, regardless 

9 of where it goes, because -- because we have 

10 not previously discussed whether this is in 

11 fact what will transpire, and it involves the 

12 possible inclusion of certain documents that 

13 would not have otherwise been addressed by the 

14 contractor. But this is not going to be an 

15 extensive review we're talking about. We're 

16 just talking about following the finding itself 

17 to its logical resolution. 

18 Do you find that our interpretation is adequate 

19 and correct without further budgetary 

20 confirmation each time the contractor is 

21 expected to address these issues? Are we 

22 thinking correctly; that's essentially the 

23 question. Do we have any problem with the 

24 philosophy as expressed? 

25 DR. LOCKEY: I'd like to have a comment from 
267

1 the contractor about that. 

2 DR. MAURO: That's what we've been doing all 

3 along. I -- I guess I've taken it upon myself 

4 to follow the -- wherever it went. The issue 

5 very often -- in fact, it happened very 

6 recently where a series of comments actually 

7 were resolved in a new set of procedures that 

8 we were not actually authorized to review. So 

9 I authorized my folks to review those portions 

10 of the new procedures that dealt with the old 

11 issue and bring it to closure. So I have been 

12 moving along on that basis, but I brought that 

13 to Wanda's attention at our initial meeting, 

14 just to confirm that proceeding in that 

15 capacity was in accordance with your desire. 

16 DR. LOCKEY: And you had that in your budget 

17 already. 

18 DR. MAURO: Yes, because it's part of the 

19 closeout of an issue that we budgeted for. 

20 See, the fact that the issue -- the issue was 

21 part of one procedure, the fa-- and we've re-- 

22 reviewed it, and also part of our budget is the 

23 closeout process. The fact that the closeout 

24 process takes us someplace else -- it's very 

25 important to point out, though, when tha-- when 
268

1 a particular issue leaves one location and goes 

2 to let's say another location, we don't review 

3 the entire new document. 

4 For example, if the issue becomes subsumed 

5 within this other new procedure, for example, 

6 or a revision to a procedure that contains 

7 substantial new information over and above the 

8 issue that's -- that we're concerned with, we 

9 don't review the entire document. So in effect 

10 we simply follow the finding to its closure. 

11 If it's subsumed within a new procedure that 

12 covers much more territory, we do not initiate 

13 a review of that entire procedure. We simply 

14 apprise the working group that we've followed 

15 it to its logical conclusion, alerting, though, 

16 the group that there is this new procedure that 

17 has only been now partly reviewed, only to the 

18 extent needed to achieve closure of initial 

19 issue. 

20 MS. MUNN: Do I assume that the absence of 

21 further comment or question indicates the 

22 approval of the body? I'd like to hear that 

23 verbally for the record so that -- 

24 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 

25 MS. MUNN: Huh, yes? 
269

1 DR. ZIEMER: Certainly the members of the 

2 workgroup were in favor of that. It's as John 

3 described and it makes sense to follow the 

4 issues to closure, and I think there were -- 

5 well, you've named the workgroup so that's 

6 about five of the Board members there, and then 

7 you've heard from some others. 

8 MS. MUNN: Very good, we'll take that as a -- 

9 as a unanimous agreement. 

10 The last item that I have to bring to you for 

11 your consideration is of significant importance 

12 to those of us who are on this particular 

13 working group. We'd like you to consider the 

14 possibility of viewing TBD-6000 and 6001 in a 

15 different light than the other procedures that 

16 we've had to deal with. These procedures, as I 

17 think all of you know, are base procedures from 

18 which a significant number of appendices, each 

19 appendix being a site-specific document, will 

20 derive. 

21 We did not have a feel for how significant an 

22 impact this was going to be on our particular 

23 group until the General Steel Industries 

24 Appendix BB had been issued and we began to 

25 look at it. Because there was some urgency to 
270

1 -- for the -- for the appendix to be reviewed 

2 thoroughly and discussed, the amount of time 

3 that has been consumed in our workgroup to 

4 address this particular item has pushed all of 

5 the other items -- you've just seen the 

6 information from the first set and you see how 

7 many outstanding items we still have -- have 

8 had -- it's had the effect of pushing them back 

9 a little. Not completely to the back burner, 

10 but away from what would be our preferred 

11 method of approach, which would -- we'd like to 

12 be first in/first out. We've not had an 

13 opportunity to do that, and we foresee that 

14 what may transpire with TBD-6000 and 6001 in 

15 the future could very easily result in the 

16 further complication of what we're trying to 

17 do. 

18 We would like to request that the Advisory 

19 Board as a whole consider the possibility of 

20 viewing TBD-6000 and 6001 in a different light 

21 than other procedures, and that you consider 

22 some other approach, whether it's another 

23 working group or whether it is some other 

24 method for dealing with these particular 

25 procedures. Our suggestion would be another 
271

1 working group, but if that is unreasonable and 

2 if anyone has a better concept, or if you have 

3 a strong objection to our considering that, 

4 please do let us know. We're open to any 

5 suggestion that you might have. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, I think the Chair can 

7 interpret that as a motion, in the sense that 

8 my recollection is that it actually is a 

9 recommendation from the committee that -- or 

10 from the workgroup that the actions dealing 

11 with TBD-6000 and 6001 and the appropriate 

12 appendices be addressed by a separate group. 

13 Whether it be a workgroup or a subcommittee 

14 could later be defined, but I believe that was 

15 the recommendation -- 

16 MS. MUNN: That is the recommendation of the 

17 working group, yes. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: -- and -- and so I will interpret 

19 that as a motion. It does not require a 

20 second. It is open for discussion if anyone 

21 wishes to speak to or against such action. 

22 MS. PENCHETTI: This is Kathy Penchetti and I 

23 was wondering if you could interpret, what is 

24 TBD-6000 and 6001 referring to? Is that a 

25 certain site or a certain SEC petition? 
272

1 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, let me give you a brief 

2 description and perhaps Larry or one of the 

3 NIOSH people can -- can correct it, but those 

4 two deal with a variety of uranium AWE 

5 facilities, and each of -- in a -- in a general 

6 sense, the appendices that deal -- deal with 

7 specific facilities. 

8 Larry, could you give us a better, more precise 

9 description than what I've given from the top 

10 of my head? The -- 6000 and 6001 are broad 

11 guidelines on how to deal with those kinds of 

12 facilities, and then the appendices deal with 

13 site-specific issues on various uranium 

14 facilities. And there's two types of uranium 

15 facilities described in those two TBDs, 6000 -- 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- and 6001, so here -- here's the 

18 sort of official descriptions. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: As Mr. Elliott prepares, could 

20 the person -- could you all please check to 

21 make certain that you've muted your phones? If 

22 you don't have a mute button, then star-6 will 

23 work. Thank you. 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: Technical Basis Document 6000 

25 deals with Atomic Weapons Employer facilities 
273

1 that worked with uranium and thorium metals, 

2 and TBD-6001 deals with Atomic Weapon Employers 

3 that refined uranium and thorium. So one is a 

4 metal operation and the other one is a 

5 refinement operation, and there are a number of 

6 sites associated with each one of those 

7 particular categories, and there are appendices 

8 that are -- so -- so the Technical Basis 

9 Documents themselves deal primarily with how a 

10 dose reconstruction would be done for uranium 

11 or thorium as it was worked in one of those 

12 sites. 

13 The appendices speak specifically to unique 

14 exposures that occurred at one of the specific 

15 sites mentioned under either TBD-6000 or 6001. 

16 And for example, Appendices BB, which there was 

17 much discussion about in the working group on 

18 procedures, covers a unique exposure of non19 destructive testing of using a large X-ray 

20 device called a Betatron operation. So that 

21 presents a unique exposure in that regard and 

22 we needed to have an appendices that provided 

23 guidance on how to reconstruct doses for that 

24 unique exposure. 

25 Does that help? 
274

1 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Thank you very much, Larry, 

2 for clarifying that. And Board members, if you 

3 approve this action, then in our working period 

4 we can actually discuss how to implement it. 

5 But the -- the general idea here would be to 

6 have some subs-- subset of the Board focus 

7 specifically, either workgroup or a 

8 subcommittee, focus on these uranium facilities 

9 as they come before us. 

10 DR. BRANCHE: As you consider that, Dr. Ziemer, 

11 a subcommittee does require a different kind of 

12 action. A workgroup is probably your easiest 

13 approach at this point. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Understood. Discussion, pro or 

15 con? Does anyone wish to speak against the 

16 motion? 

17 (No responses) 

18 If not, I'm going to call for a vote. All who 

19 favor it, say aye? 

20 (Affirmative responses) 

21 Any opposed, no? 

22 (No responses) 

23 Any abstentions? 

24 (No responses) 

25 The ayes have it and motion carries, and in our 
275

1 work period tomorrow we will discuss how to 

2 implement that action. Thank you -- 

3 MS. MUNN: Absolutely. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- very much. Ms. Munn, back to 

5 you. 

6 MS. MUNN: Thank you so much. That concludes 

7 my report. Unless you have some question of me 

8 with respect to other activities of the 

9 workgroup, I'm done for this meeting. 

10 SEC PETITION UPDATE

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. We 

12 have one more item that we want to take care of 

13 yet this afternoon, and that is the petition 

14 update -- SEC petition update, and LaVon 

15 Rutherford will give us a summary of where we 

16 stand on the various SEC petitions. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: As Mr. Rutherford comes to the -- 

18 to the microphone, I do ask that everyone who's 

19 participating by phone please check your lines 

20 to make certain that you are muted. If you 

21 happen to be on a cell phone, there is a mute 

22 function. If you do not have a mute function 

23 on your cell phone, then I'm going to ask that 

24 you actually think about joining our call 

25 through a land line phone because the 
276

1 interruption that the one individual is 

2 providing is really quite -- causing quite a 

3 bit of disruption to the line. Thank you so 

4 much for your cooperation. 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. Thank you, Dr. 

6 Ziem-- (electronic interference) -- thank you, 

7 Dr. Ziemer. As Dr. Ziemer mentioned, I'm going 

8 to give an update of existing SEC petitions. 

9 Some of these petitions will be updated in 

10 detail again tomorrow as well. 

11 The reason for this update is to provide the 

12 Advisory Board the current number of qualified 

13 petitions under evaluation, and sites being 

14 evaluated through our 83.14 process. The 

15 intention is to update the Board in hopes that 

16 this will help the board prepare for future 

17 workgroup meetings, as well as future Board 

18 meetings. 

19 As of June 9th we had 114 petitions. As of -- 

20 I'm not sure of the date today, but we have 117 

21 petitions. We picked up three petitions in the 

22 last few weeks, those petitions for the 

23 Hematite, as was mentioned pre-- previously, 

24 Argonne National Lab and Tyson Valley Powder, 

25 so we actually have 117 petitions. We have 
277

1 eight petitions in the qualification process, 

2 which now are 11. We have 58 petitions that 

3 have qualified for evaluation, six evaluations 

4 are in progress and 52 have been completed. We 

5 have 48 petitions that did not qualify. 

6 Now I want to talk about existing SEC petitions 

7 that are with the Advi-- or existing evaluation 

8 reports that are with the Advisory Board for 

9 recommendation, and kind of go through a 

10 summary of their status and where they stand. 

11 The Chapman Valve evaluation report was 

12 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and the 

13 petitioners on August 31st, 2006. We presented 

14 that evaluation report at the September 2006 

15 Advisory Board meeting. The Board established 

16 a workgroup to review that evaluation report at 

17 the September meeting, and the workgroup 

18 presented its findings at the May 2007 Advisory 

19 Board meeting. A decision was made at that 

20 time to postpone a recommendation till July 

21 2007 until the Advisory Board -- or July 2007 

22 Advisory Board meeting. This would allow the 

23 petitioners to review the SC&A report. 

24 The Advisory Board voted six to six on a motion 

25 to deny adding a class to the SEC at the July 
278

1 2007 meeting. In light of the vote, the 

2 Advisory Board determined they would like to 

3 receive a response from the Department of Labor 

4 and Department of Energy concerning potential 

5 covered work at the Dean Street facility. 

6 We had a couple of updates that occurred in 

7 October and November of '07, and then DOE 

8 presented their findings at the January 2008 

9 Advisory Board meeting that the Dean Street 

10 facility should be included as a covered 

11 facility, but there is no indication that any 

12 additional radiological activities occurred 

13 because of the addition. 

14 At that January 2008 Advisory Board meeting 

15 NIOSH committed that we would revise the 

16 Chapman Valve evaluation report. But based on 

17 DOE's findings, we did not anticipate any 

18 change in our feasibility determination. We 

19 issued that revised evaluation report in 

20 February 2008 and at the February 2008 Advisory 

21 Board conference call the Board tasked SC&A to 

22 do a focused review of the new information 

23 provided by DOE and asked that the new 

24 information be available prior to the April 

25 Board meeting. 
279

1 SC&A provided a report to the workgroup on 

2 March 12th of 2008. NIOSH presented the 

3 revision to the evaluation report, and that 

4 revision did not change our feasibility 

5 determination. 

6 The Advisory Board decided to reconvene the 

7 workgroup to discuss a path forward. The 

8 workgroup met on May 1st. They asked NIOSH to 

9 send a letter to DOE inquiring about the extent 

10 of their evaluation. In addition, NIOSH agreed 

11 to continue looking for pedigree -- the 

12 pedigree of the enriched uranium analysis. 

13 Pending the outcome of these two actions, the 

14 workgroup intended to reconvene and presumably 

15 make a decision prior to the June 2008 Advisory 

16 Board meeting. 

17 Status: The petition and evaluation report are 

18 with the Advisory Board for recommendation, and 

19 an update is scheduled for tomorrow. 

20 Blockson Chemical, the evaluation report was 

21 initially approved and sent to the Advisory 

22 Board in September of '06. NIOSH presented the 

23 evaluation at the December 2006 Advisory Board 

24 meeting. At that time it was brought to our 

25 attention that we did not evaluate all covered 
280

1 exposures, therefore we withdrew that 

2 evaluation report. At the December 2006 

3 meeting the Advisory Board established a 

4 workgroup to review the evaluation report. 

5 NIOSH issued a revised evaluation report at the 

6 July -- on July 3rd, 2007. We presented that 

7 revised evaluation report for Blockson Chemical 

8 at the July 2007 Advisory Board meeting, and 

9 the workgroup met in Cincinnati on August 28th, 

10 2007. 

11 A public meeting was held on September 12th, 

12 2007 to go through changes that were completed 

13 in the dose reconstruction technical approach, 

14 and the workgroup held a conference call on 

15 November 2nd, 2007. 

16 At the January Advisory Board meeting Dr. 

17 Melius indicated he wanted to review the 

18 pedigree of the bioassay data and he wanted to 

19 discuss the radon model with Mark Griffon. 

20 There was no change in the status of the 

21 petition and report at the April Board meeting. 

22 The workgroup planned to meet to discuss a path 

23 forward. 

24 The workgroup met on June 5th, 2008. A couple 

25 of the action items were given. The workgroup 
281

1 intended to have a conference call on June 24th 

2 to discuss resolution of the radon issue and 

3 any outstanding action items. I believe that 

4 occurred. 

5 MS. MUNN: It did. 

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: The status: Petition and 

7 report are with the workgroup and an update 

8 will be provided in tomorrow's meeting. 

9 Feed Material Production Center, the evaluation 

10 report was approved and sent to the Advisory 

11 Board and petitioners on November 3rd, 2006. 

12 NIOSH presented the evaluation report at the 

13 February 2007 Advisory Board meeting, and at 

14 that meeting the Advisory Board established a 

15 workgroup to review the evaluation report. 

16 In May 2007 SC&A provided a draft review of the 

17 evaluation report to the workgroup, 

18 petitioners, Board and NIOSH. Workgroup met in 

19 Cincinnati on August 8th, November 13th and 

20 March 26th of 2008. 

21 Current status is the workgroup review of the 

22 Feed Materials Production Center is ongoing. 

23 Bethlehem Steel, the evaluation report was 

24 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and 

25 petitioners on February 27, 2007. NIOSH 
282

1 presented that evaluation report at the May 

2 2007 meeting. At that time the Advisory Board 

3 determined that it needed further information 

4 before making a recommendation on the SEC 

5 petition. The Advisory Board tabled the 

6 discussion of the Bethlehem Steel SEC 

7 evaluation report until the workgroup that is 

8 looking at the use of surrogate data reports 

9 back to the Board. 

10 The status is the petition and evaluation 

11 report are still with that workgroup and the 

12 Advisory Board for recommendation. 

13 Hanford Part 2 -- for those that don't know, 

14 Hanford Part 1 went through and a class was 

15 included. Hanford Part 2, the evaluation 

16 report was sent to the Advisory Board and 

17 petitioners on September 11, 2007. NIOSH 

18 presented the evaluation report at the October 

19 Board meeting. The Board sent the report to 

20 their contractor and the Hanford working group, 

21 which was already established and chaired by 

22 Dr. Melius. 

23 The Advisory Board's contractor issued a white 

24 paper questioning whether additional buildings 

25 should be included in the proposed class 
283

1 definition. In March 2008 NIOSH issued a 

2 revised evaluation report with a modified class 

3 definition which included -- which made it a 

4 more generic class definition with respect to 

5 the areas identified. 

6 NIOSH presented that revised class definition 

7 at the April 2008 Advisory Board meeting and 

8 the Board concurred with NIOSH's recommendation 

9 to add a class. 

10 Status -- the remaining years of the evaluation 

11 report are with that Advisory Board workgroup 

12 and SC&A for review. 

13 Nevada Test Site, the evaluation report was 

14 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and the 

15 petitioners in September of 2007. NIOSH 

16 presented that evaluation report at the January 

17 2008 Advisory Board meeting, and the Advisory 

18 Board sent the report to their contractor and 

19 to the NTS Board workgroup for review. Again, 

20 that -- that workgroup had already been 

21 established to review the site profile. 

22 Our current status is the petition and 

23 evaluation report are with that Advisory Board 

24 workgroup and SC&A for review. 

25 Mound Plant, 1949 -- the evaluation report was 
284

1 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and the 

2 petitioners in December 2007. We presented the 

3 evaluation report at the January 2008 Advisory 

4 Board meeting and the Advisory Board concurred 

5 with NIOSH to add a class for the early years, 

6 but sent the report to their contractor for 

7 review and established a Mound workgroup, which 

8 is chaired by Josie Beach. 

9 The Mound workgroup met on April 1st, 2008 and 

10 the petition and evaluation report are under 

11 review with that workgroup and SC&A. 

12 Texas City Chemical, the evaluation report was 

13 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and the 

14 petitioners on January 18th, 2008. We 

15 presented the evaluation report at the April 

16 2008 Advisory Board meeting, and the Advisory 

17 Board gave the petition and evaluation report 

18 to the surrogate data workgroup for review. 

19 The petition and evaluation report are with the 

20 Advisory Board for recommendation, and an 

21 update is scheduled for tomorrow's meeting. 

22 Area 4, Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the 

23 evaluation report was approved on February 15th 

24 and sent to the Advisory Board and the 

25 petitioners. NIOSH presented the evaluation 
285

1 report at the April meeting. The Advisory 

2 Board indicated they would not take action on 

3 this petition. A -- at that time SC&A was 

4 reviewing the site profile, and until that SC&A 

5 review was complete they would not take action. 

6 Status: The petition and evaluation report are 

7 with the Advisory Board for recommendation, and 

8 an update will be provided at this meeting. 

9 Y-12, 1943 to 1947, the evaluation report was 

10 approved and sent to the Board and petitioners 

11 on June 6th, 2008. We presented that 

12 evaluation report yesterday and the Board 

13 concurred with our recommendations. 

14 Spencer Chemical, evaluation report was 

15 approved and sent to the Board and petitioners 

16 on June 9th. We presented that evaluation 

17 report today and the Board concurred with our 

18 recommendation. 

19 Dow Chemical, Addendum 2 -- this is, again, the 

20 second addendum and -- to the previous 

21 evaluation. Addendum 2 of the report was 

22 approved and sent to the Board on June 3rd and 

23 we presented that addendum at this mee-- 

24 Advisory Board meeting, and the path forward 

25 will be discussed tomorrow with the Board. 
286

1 Okay, SEC petitions currently in the evaluation 

2 process. Pantex, we have a Pantex petition 

3 that has been -- petition that has far exceeded 

4 the 180 days. There have been a number of 

5 reasons around that, not only due to issues 

6 with qualification, the Administrative Review 

7 Panel, but also issues with data capture. We 

8 plan to have that report -- that report is on 

9 schedule to be completed in August of '08 and 

10 we plan to present that report at the September 

11 meeting. 

12 Westinghouse Atomic Power Development, during 

13 our evaluation process of the Westinghouse 

14 Atomic Power Development we brought up 

15 questions concerning the approved covered 

16 activities for that facility. We corresponded 

17 with the Department of Energy with concerns 

18 that the covered activities that were currently 

19 identified for that facility were actually 

20 activities that occurred at another site. 

21 We recent-- recently received a response from 

22 the Department of Energy that they concluded, 

23 they were in agreement. The covered activities 

24 previously identified were activities covered 

25 at another site, but they also identified that 
287

1 there were covered activities that did occur at 

2 that site, but at a different time period. 

3 They've submitted that information to the 

4 Department of Labor that ultimately will change 

5 the covered time period for that site and will 

6 affect existing claims we have for that site. 

7 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this was 

8 the one that we had planned to present at last 

9 -- the previous Board meeting, and it became 

10 clear to us late in the game that the 

11 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the 

12 Hood Building were two separate facilities, and 

13 we would require a separate evaluation report. 

14 We are still working to complete -- this will 

15 actually be identified as the Hood Building 

16 evaluation report. The Massachusetts Institute 

17 of Technology, which is a -- will be a shorter 

18 time frame. We have no claims that fit into 

19 that time period at this time. The Hood 

20 Building will be complete and presented at the 

21 September Advisory Board meeting. 

22 Savannah River Site, construction workers, we 

23 had planned to have this report ready for the 

24 September 2008 meeting. However, due to data 

25 capture issues, it -- we do not expect that 
288

1 will happen. We roughly lost about two months 

2 of our -- with difficulties in data capture. 

3 What we plan to do is we will send a -- a 

4 letter to the Board outlining what -- you know, 

5 the reason for this delay. We will also 

6 contact the petitioners and also correspond to 

7 them the reason for the delays, and then we 

8 will ask Jason to correspond to any 

9 Congressional contacts the reasons for our 

10 delays as well. 

11 General Steel Industries, we plan to -- the -- 

12 we see no problem with completing this 

13 evaluation report and presenting it at the 

14 September meeting. 

15 And the last one, which I didn't start out with 

16 the facility, but is the Los Alamos National 

17 Lab. We are on schedule to complete that 

18 evaluation report in October, and we would 

19 present at the following meeting. 

20 We have six sites that are in various stages of 

21 the 83.14 SEC process at this time. We also 

22 have a number of sites that we've kind of 

23 changed our approach on. We had Battelle sites 

24 that we are moving down a path of doing our due 

25 diligence of data capture efforts, and what 
289

1 will happen is our -- our contractor, ORAU, 

2 will determine feasibility on those sites. If 

3 dose reconstruction is feasible, that group 

4 will complete those dose reconstructions at 

5 that time. If not, they will immediately move 

6 them into the 83.14 process. 

7 And that's it. Any questions? 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, LaVon, for a very 

9 concise summary. Questions, Board members, or 

10 comments? 

11 (No responses) 

12 It's good to see what's coming on the horizon 

13 for us, a lot coming down the pike. 

14 MS. MUNN: Something to do. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to recess here 

16 momentarily. I think one of our workgroups 

17 will be meeting -- Blockson workgroup is going 

18 to be meeting the rest of the afternoon. 

19 I'll remind you we have a public comment period 

20 this evening at 7:30 right here -- is it 7:00 

21 o'clock? 

22 DR. BRANCHE: 7:30 Central Time. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: 7:30 Central Time here in this 

24 room. 

25 Any other housekeeping comments, madam? 
290

1 DR. BRANCHE: No, just that we reconvene at 

2 8:30 tomorrow. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: And then we'll reconvene tomorrow 

4 morning at 8:30, so we're recessed until 7:30 

5 this evening. 

6 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:20 p.m. 

7 to 7:30 p.m.) 

8 PUBLIC COMMENT

9 DR. ZIEMER: Good evening. We're going to 

10 begin with the public comment session for this 

11 evening. We have a few instructions and the 

12 reading of the redaction policy by our 

13 Designated Federal Official, so let's do that 

14 first. Christine Branche. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Good evening. Please understand 

16 that if a -- every per-- every person who 

17 mentions -- who comes up to the microphone to 

18 give a comment, you're to give your own name 

19 and no attempt will be made to redact your 

20 name. 

21 If an individual in making a statement reveals 

22 personal information -- for example, medical 

23 information -- about themselves, that 

24 information will not usually be redacted. But 

25 the NIOSH Freedom of Information Act 
291

1 coordinator will review such revelations in 

2 accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, 

3 as well as the Federal Advisory Committee Act. 

4 And if deemed appropriate, will redact -- that 

5 means remove -- such information. 

6 All disclosures of information concerning third 

7 parties will be redacted. 

8 Is persons participating by phone would please 

9 mute their lines, either using the mute button 

10 or the star-6 feature, that will allow all of 

11 the phone participants to be able to hear all 

12 of the -- all of the information that's 

13 exchanged here at the meeting. 

14 When you are ready to speak, at Dr. Ziemer's 

15 instruction, then please unmute your phone. 

16 And if you've the star-6 feature to mute your 

17 line, then you would use that same star-6 to 

18 unmute your phone. 

19 Also, if you must leave the line, do not put 

20 this call on hold. It would be better for you 

21 to hang up and dial back in, but do not put us 

22 on hold, please. 

23 Thank you. Dr. Ziemer? 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We -- we do 

25 not have a large number of individuals who have 
292

1 signed up to comment, but nonetheless, our 

2 regular time limit of ten minutes per person 

3 remains in effect for the public comment 

4 period. 

5 Also as I look out I'm not certain that all the 

6 individuals who have signed up are actually 

7 here. Let me start, though. I'll take them in 

8 order. 

9 [Identifying information redacted] -- 

10 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Funke wanted to go first. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? 

12 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Funke wanted to go first. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: He is not going to go first. 

14 DR. BRANCHE: Oh, okay. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: We -- the courtesy is that those 

16 who sign up locally go first. 

17 I don't see [Identifying information redacted] 

18 here, however. [Identifying information 

19 redacted] is -- her husb-- well, [Identifying 

20 information redacted] signed up and is -- is 

21 not -- apparently not here. 

22 [Identifying information redacted], also Dow -- 

23 [Identifying information redacted] was Dow -- 

24 and the Dow people, many of them had commented 

25 last night and, since much of the Dow business 
293

1 was completed, they may not have remained. 

2 [Identifying information redacted]? Is 

3 [Identifying information redacted] not here 

4 either? Also Dow. 

5 Okay, then I will go to John Funke by phone. 

6 John, can you hear us? 

7 MR. FUNKE: Yes, sir, I'm here. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Proceed, John.` 

9 MR. FUNKE: Good evening, Dr. Zimmer (sic), 

10 Board members. Excuse me if I don't identify 

11 you all; just assume I did. 

12 I got an important announcement here. I've 

13 come into possession of a letter -- I won't say 

14 who it's from to who it's to because under the 

15 third party stipulations that you just read 

16 off, but it pretty much says in a sense -- I'll 

17 read the paragraph. 

18 (Reading) Based on the information provided to 

19 us by DOE, I am pleased to report that the 

20 Department of Labor has determined that the 

21 classified area satisfies the EEOICPA 

22 definition of a Department of Energy facility 

23 for the period January 1958 to December 31st, 

24 1999. 

25 This is referring to the Area 51 on Nevada Test 
294

1 Site. I am -- most assuredly you'll all be 

2 hearing about this in the coming days, and I 

3 have a couple questions I would like to pose on 

4 this. 

5 If 51 is accepted, how will this affect the 

6 existing site profile, or will they do a 

7 separate site profile for 51, apart from the 

8 existing profile? And will this also include 

9 Area 11 of the plutanium (sic) dispersement 

10 site just above 51? Now -- I'll let somebody 

11 answer that after I'm done. I want to move on 

12 to a couple of other things. 

13 I understand the other day Dr. Zimmer (sic) 

14 asked Robert Presley if they had resolved all 

15 the issues in the -- in the site profile and 

16 Technical Base (sic) Document. And from what I 

17 could hear, I think he said he had a few, but I 

18 believe there's a lot more than a few. I've 

19 just reread what was written and there still 

20 seems to be a lot needs to be cleaned up in 

21 there. 

22 And also there's new things coming forward 

23 every day. I'd like to point out a couple. 

24 I found evidence of a unregistered, 

25 undocumented waste site in Area 3 at Nevada 
295

1 Test Site. I did this on an in-person 

2 inspection. When I went out there my curiosity 

3 got up because they had fenced in what we used 

4 to call Step City, the storage area or the bone 

5 yard. And it was after -- I made a call to a 

6 former employee that I worked with out there. 

7 He related to me that after we had closed down 

8 Area 3 and moved out, DOE came back in there 

9 and dug up a 30 by 30 by 14-foot-deep hole and 

10 removed quite a bit of radioactive waste. And 

11 I'd like to point out that this -- this area 

12 was directly in the shop area of Area 3, and 

13 everybody worked there worked around this site 

14 and on top of it for over 25 years. 

15 I'd like to move on to another thing. When Dr. 

16 Anspaugh, Ron Sharp, former (unintelligible) 

17 was set up and myself was out there, I noticed 

18 in the parking lots that had originally been 

19 rock-hard and paved with limestone, as all 

20 parking lots were, I was leaving two-inch 

21 footprints as I was walking across it. And on 

22 closer examination I realized that the whole 

23 entire area had been plowed. And then when -- 

24 in checking Area 2 and Area 12, I found the 

25 same thing. It appears that the whole entire 
296

1 Yucca Flats has been plowed and winrowed (sic) 

2 under. And so I contacted Department of Energy 

3 and asked them if this had been done; they said 

4 that it had been done in some areas. They 

5 didn't say which. And I requested a cleanup 

6 report as to what was taken off of the site. 

7 And they were going to give it to me and then 

8 the next day they called me back and said they 

9 couldn't give it to me because all the cleanup 

10 report was still in the draft stage. So this 

11 cleanup report is very important. 

12 And I also inquired about the animal biology 

13 reports which the environmental report goes 

14 into great detail about, but there no result to 

15 the animal biology report, so I'm trying to get 

16 that as well. 

17 And there was another thing that's came up is 

18 I've been reviewing and studying on the NRDS 

19 area. I found out that the -- when the 

20 reactors were run that a great deal of water 

21 was generated as a result of these reactors 

22 running when -- when gaseous hydrogen hits the 

23 air superheated, it turns immediately to water. 

24 And I guess the water that was generated from 

25 these runs was so great, they had to actually 
297

1 concrete the areas in and concrete the dry 

2 washes and even build a holding area they 

3 referred to as a canyon, lined with concrete. 

4 And I noticed in reading this site profile and 

5 the Technical Base (sic) Document, there is no 

6 reference at all to any water studies or any 

7 reports on water in the NRDS area. 

8 And that's pretty much it for now, so I'll go 

9 ahead and let somebody answer them other 

10 questions if they can. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, John. I don't 

12 know if anyone is prepared to answer your 

13 initial questions here tonight. I'm looking to 

14 NIOSH staff and they are not prepared to answer 

15 those questions tonight. They did hear your 

16 questions, so all -- all I can do is tell you 

17 that they have been heard. And I don't know 

18 that the workgroup would be prepared to address 

19 those, either, at this point. Thank you very 

20 much. 

21 Are there any other individuals on the phone 

22 lines that wished to make public comment? 

23 (No responses) 

24 Okay, I hear none. Let me -- (electronic 

25 interference) -- yes? 
298

1 UNIDENTIFIED: Doctor (electronic interference) 

2 comments? 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 

4 MR. DUTKO: Doctor, my name is John G. Dutko, 

5 I'll spell -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Spell -- 

7 MR. DUTKO: -- (unintelligible) -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: -- spell your name -- spell your 

9 name, please? 

10 MR. DUTKO: Sure. D as in dog, u-t-k-o, John 

11 G. Dutko. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, John, yes. Thank you. Go 

13 ahead, John. 

14 MR. DUTKO: Yes, sir. Sir, at -- at -- at GSI 

15 in 1993 the government cleaned out -- cleaned 

16 up the old Betatron. They found U-238 in the 

17 railroad tracks of the Betatron, the heating 

18 system, in the vacuum cleaner (unintelligible) 

19 handling systems, the air exhaust 

20 (unintelligible). Now if they found that in 

21 '93, surely that residue had to be there is the 

22 '60s (electronic interference) work, wouldn't 

23 you think? 

24 My comment is this, sir: How could that 

25 uranium-238 not affect us if we walked through 
299

1 there (electronic interference) as we did in 

2 that old Betatron. The new Betatrons, in '73 

3 when General Steel was sold, was hosed out by a 

4 (unintelligible) to clean up the Betatron and 

5 remodel it. They hosed it out with a fire 

6 hose. That was never done to the old Betatron 

7 and in '93 the cleanup crews did find uranium8 238, and we walked in it (electronic 

9 interference) here, sir. How can that possibly 

10 not affect... 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Does -- does that complete 

12 your comments, John? I'm -- I'm -- I'm taking 

13 your question as -- at the moment as a 

14 rhetorical question because, in essence, the 

15 dose reconstruction process tries to answer the 

16 very -- that very question, whether or not an 

17 individual worker has been affected by -- 

18 MR. DUTKO: Well -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: -- their dose. 

20 MR. DUTKO: -- it's questionable whether they 

21 did, sir. I have another comment -- 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

23 MR. DUTKO: -- (unintelligible) the way of a 

24 question. As we -- as we X-rayed the Betatrons 

25 and a casting left the new Betatron to go out 
300

1 in the 9 or 10 building, it took us about a 

2 half-hour to get that -- remove that casting 

3 and set it up in one of the buildings. I'm 

4 told that -- that casting would remain 

5 activated for as much as an hour. Now, if the 

6 last shot fired into a casting before it left 

7 Betatron was a 60 Roentgen shot, would it 

8 remain activated the same length of time as a 

9 10,000 Roentgen shot, sir? 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

11 MR. DUTKO: Do you under-- (electronic 

12 interference), Dr. (electronic interference)? 

13 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I didn't follow that fully. 

14 Could you -- you may wish to repeat that. I'll 

15 see if -- 

16 MR. DUTKO: Okay. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- I can -- 

18 MR. DUTKO: As we -- as we -- as I repeat, when 

19 a casting leaves a Betatron I'm told it can 

20 remain activated as -- as long as (electronic 

21 interference) hours. It takes a half-hour to 

22 remove the casting from the Betatron and to set 

23 it up (electronic interference). Now if -- 

24 last shot fired in the Betatron was a 60 

25 Roentgen shot, which takes about (electronic 
301

1 interference) minute to fire, let's say, would 

2 the -- would the activation time be the same as 

3 a 10,000 (electronic interference) shot where 

4 there was an hour -- hours running on the 

5 machine, would the casting say -- stay 

6 activated the same length of time? 

7 DR. ZIEMER: John, I don't know that I 

8 personally can answer that, or have all the 

9 parameters, but certainly the NIOSH dose 

10 reconstructors would be able to answer that 

11 question based on -- 

12 MR. DUTKO: The reason I ask (electronic 

13 interference) it's -- we are told -- we are 

14 told that the castings, as they're work-- 

15 worked on, dissipate, the radioactivity 

16 dissipates before (electronic interference) 

17 work on. It's hard to believe that if I fire a 

18 10,000 Roentgen shot into the casting before it 

19 leaves the Betatron that it's going to stay 

20 active in shorter -- than the -- than the other 

21 shot. I would say it would be active 

22 (electronic interference) longer. I -- I -- I 

23 can't see a 10,000 (electronic interference) 

24 shot deactivating in two hours, the same as a 

25 60 Roentgen shot. 
302

1 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the only comment I'll make 

2 at this point is that, in general, the typical 

3 activation products are all very short-lived. 

4 I think for -- for your -- the specific case 

5 you're talking about, we would have to examine 

6 the details of that. But in general, those are 

7 fairly short-lived activities from the nuclides 

8 that are activated. But in a particular case, 

9 the dose reconstructors would be able to handle 

10 that information and make an appropriate 

11 estimation of dose. 

12 Do you have any further comments, John? 

13 MR. DUTKO: I thank (electronic interference), 

14 sir. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: No. Okay. 

16 MR. DUTKO: I -- I -- it bothered me, though. 

17 It bothered me, saying that a casting would 

18 dissipate within a two-hour period and it -- 

19 and it -- when -- when many different 

20 (electronic interference) lengths of shots are 

21 fired in (electronic interference) Doctor. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Okay, thank you. 

23 MR. DUTKO: Thank you, sir. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Any others by phone? 

25 (No responses) 
303

1 Okay, let me offer the opportunity again -- 

2 anyone here in the assembly that has any 

3 comments to make? 

4 (No responses) 

5 If not, then we will recess for the evening and 

6 the Board will reconvene tomorrow morning at 

7 8:30. Thank you very much. Good night, 

8 everyone. 

9 (Whereupon, an adjournment was taken at 7:47 

10 p.m.) 

11 
304

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of June 25, 

2008; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

25th day of July, 2008. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102