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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

88th MEETING

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

DECEMBER 11, 2012

+ + + + +

The meeting convened at 8:30 a.m., 

Eastern Standard Time, in the Hilton 

Knoxville, 501 West Church Avenue, Knoxville, 

Tennessee, James M. Melius, Chairman, 

presiding.
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PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member*

MARK GRIFFON, Member

DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member*

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member*

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

LORETTA R. VALERIO, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member

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

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

ADLER, SANDRA

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

ALLEN, DAVID, DCAS

ANDERSON, DAVID

ANIGSTEIN, BOB, SC&A

BALLINGER, JOHNNY

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH

DAVY, THERESA, DOL

DEHART, JULIA

DEHART, ROY

FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A

GLOVER, SAM, DCAS

GOINS, MICHAEL C.

HINNEFELD, STUART, DCAS

JESKE, PATRICIA*

JUSTICE, LORING

KINMAN, JOSH, DCAS Contractor

KOTSCH, JEFFREY, DOL

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

LIN, JENNY, HHS

MAHATHY, MIKE, ORAU Team

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MCFEE, MATT, ORAU Team

MCKEEL, DAN*

MCQUADE, JAMES, DOL

MEE, ED

MOORHEAD. ARTHUR J.

NETON, JAMES, DCAS

PRESLEY, LOUISE

ROWE, GORDON*

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

SILVER, KEN, ETSU

STIVER, JOHN, SC&A

TAULBEE, TIM, DCAS

WHITLEY, GARRY

ZIEMER, MARILYN

* Participating via telephone
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome and Introductions

Dr. James Melius................. 6 

NIOSH Program Update

Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld, NIOSH...... 9 

DOL Program Update

Mr. Jeffrey L. Kotsch, DOL....... 23 

DOE Update

Mr. Greg Lewis, DOE.............. 42 

Update on 10-year Review Implementation

Mr. Stuart Hinnefeld............. 65 

Q&A (deferred).................. 258 

Hanford SEC Petition (#155; 1987-1989)

Dr. Sam Glover, NIOSH............ 87 

Dr. James Melius, WG Chair....... 109 

Battelle Laboratories, King Avenue,

(Columbus, OH) SEC Petition (83.14)

Dr. Tim Taulbee, NIOSH........... 121 

Board Work Session

- Scheduling meetings

Mr. Ted Katz..................... 163 

- Work Group Reports

Dr. James Melius................. 175 

Savannah River Site SEC Petition

(1972 - 2007)

Dr. Tim Taulbee, NIOSH........... 185 

Mr. Bob Warren, for Petitioner... 230 

Henry Gordon Rowe, Petitioner.... 234 

Board Work Session

- Board DR Review Process

Dr. James Melius,................ 241 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS (Con't.)

General Steel Industries SEC Petition

(00105)

Dr. Paul Ziemer, NIOSH........... 257 

Dr. Dave Allen, for Petitioner... 272 

Dr. Dan McKeel, Petitioner....... 300

Ms. Patricia Jeske, Petitioner... 310

Q&A ............................. 312

Adjourn

Dr. James Melius................ 380 
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (8:33 a.m.)

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good morning. 

4 Before we start, let me have Ted get the 

5 phones going here. 

6 MR. KATZ: Thank you. Good 

7 morning, everyone. Welcome to the Advisory 

8 Board on Radiation and Worker Health. Let me 

9 just check, are the lines un-muted now so they 

10 can hear us? Very good.

11 PARTICIPANT: We can hear you.

12 MR. KATZ: Super. Thank you out 

13 there.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you 

15 and welcome to the meeting number 88 of the 

16 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

17 Now I will have Ted go through and do the 

18 phone instructions and the roll call.

19 MR. KATZ: Right, thank you. So a 

20 few things. We don't have many visitors yet 

21 in the room but for you folks in the line, all 

22 of the materials for this meeting are posted 
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1 on the NIOSH website, under the Board Section 

2 of the website under "meetings." Just look for 

3 today's date and you will see all the 

4 materials for the presentations that are to be 

5 given today and the same for tomorrow.

6 There is a public comment session 

7 today. It is from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. It will 

8 start at 6:00. So folks on the line, please 

9 be in attendance at the front end if you plan 

10 to comment because the public comment session 

11 will only go as long as there are people 

12 continuously commenting and then we will -- so 

13 it could end earlier than seven. So please be 

14 there on the front end of that. We will start 

15 with commenters in the room, however.

16 Next, about just phone etiquette. 

17 For folks on the line -- for all of you 

18 listening, please mute your phones. Don't 

19 leave your line open so that we can hear what 

20 is going on your end of the phone. If you 

21 don't have a mute button, press * and then 6. 

22 That will mute your phone for this call, * and 
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1 then 6. And to un-mute your phone, if there 

2 is a point where it is appropriate for you to 

3 be speaking to the group, you just press *6 

4 again and that will un-mute your phone.

5 And also, please do not put this 

6 call on hold at any point. Hang up and dial 

7 back in if you need to because your putting 

8 the call on hold will disrupt the call for 

9 everyone else.

10 Okay, let's go to roll call then 

11 for Board Members. And I am going to address 

12 conflict of interest where it is germane for 

13 this meeting. And I am just going to go down 

14 the line alphabetically.

15 (Roll call.)

16 MR. KATZ: Very good. Thank you 

17 all. Jim?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks, 

19 Ted.

20 First up this morning, our first 

21 presentation will be from Stu Hinnefeld on 

22 NIOSH Program update. Stu, welcome.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you, Dr. 

2 Melius and hello, Board Members.

3 I'm starting to get a sense of 

4 deja vu when I do this. Well, I seem to be 

5 still in the meeting. Let me see if I can 

6 figure out how to do this. I don't think I 

7 know how to do it.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Somebody's run 

9 off with your presentation?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: I got it. Okay, 

11 this is the program status update that I give 

12 each meeting. I'll start off with a little 

13 bit of program news and the news that I could 

14 think of the last three months involved a 

15 couple of what we considered sort of outreach 

16 activities or workshop activities that we have 

17 conducted since the last meeting. One was the 

18 annual dose reconstruction and SEC workshop 

19 that we sponsor in Cincinnati through our 

20 outreach contractor, ATL International. And 

21 they identify interested parties, largely 

22 drawn from labor organizations but not 
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1 entirely. Usually these are people who are at 

2 the covered facility -- well, they are from 

3 covered facilities. Quite often they are 

4 union officials, and they are people who are 

5 trying to answer questions for their 

6 membership or from people who worked at their 

7 sites or the sites that they are involved in. 

8 And in order to help prepare them or assist 

9 them in providing better assistance in that 

10 fashion, we have these workshops in order to 

11 try to provide them some information about the 

12 program, a little more in-depth information 

13 about the program. This is a two-day workshop 

14 that focuses strictly on our activities, 

15 DCAS's activities and the Board and so on. It 

16 doesn't get into the party or any of the other 

17 parts of EEOICPA. So when that occurred there 

18 toward the end of September, we had 

19 approximately between 25 and 30 people, I 

20 suppose, there. And those workshops, there is 

21 a little workshop evaluation sheet filled out 

22 afterwards. They are almost universally 
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1 positive. Everybody is happy for the 

2 information. And we have had people back more 

3 than once. Some people have come to that 

4 workshop more than one time, recognizing that 

5 you can go hand them all this information and 

6 if they are not answering questions every day, 

7 it gets stale and may need to be refreshed. So 

8 we do have people back more than once for 

9 that.

10 So that occurred back in 

11 September. And then in November, starting on 

12 Election Day, our Ombudsman, Denise Brock, 

13 sponsored an advocate's meeting in St. Louis 

14 for people who advocate for various 

15 populations of claimants or petitioners. And 

16 that workshop covered pretty much the entire 

17 gambit of things available under this program. 

18 And it even, I believe, gets into the Former 

19 Worker Monitoring Program which is not really 

20 part of EEOICPA but is allied, a related 

21 organization at DOE and we frequently align 

22 with them on outreach activities and things of 
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1 that sort because it is the same population 

2 that everyone is trying to reach.

3 So at that workshop, we presented 

4 three or four presentations on various aspects 

5 of our activities and the Department of Labor 

6 presented for a day and the Department of 

7 Energy had part of a day. And so it was quite 

8 a lot of activity presented and some of it 

9 even got into the medical, medical benefits 

10 and home care and there was some discussion 

11 about that. I think there was some discussion 

12 about beryllium. So it was a pretty extensive 

13 advocate's meeting. I wasn't there for the 

14 entire thing but I was there for a portion of 

15 it and met several of the people there.

16 So those were a couple of the 

17 outreach activities, larger outreach 

18 activities that we do. We have done those 

19 since the last meeting and we participated in 

20 those.

21 So that is kind of the news of the 

22 last three months. I guess the other news is
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1 that the World Trade Center program keeps 

2 borrowing DCAS staff because there were 

3 certain similarities among the programs. You 

4 have a claimant kind of a population and 

5 claimant databases and things like that. 

6 Communications are similar. So we have had a

7 number of people working, or a couple of 

8 people going on details over there. Chris 

9 Ellison is still on detail over there.

10 That is about it for the news. I 

11 will page quickly through the statistics. If 

12 anyone has any questions, I will be glad to 

13 answer anything that anybody may want to ask. 

14 This is our up-to-date information on claims 

15 and where we stand. We have still, by this 

16 tally here, about 1,500 with us about of the 

17 38,000 that have been submitted to us. Some 

18 329 of those -- or, I'm sorry, 247 of those, a 

19 draft dose reconstruction has been done. So 

20 we kind of feel like we are done with those 

21 and they have gone to the claimants for their 

22 review.
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1 And there are a number of cases 

2 that we have just started moving on from 

3 Hanford. These are the non-SEC cancers and 

4 the most recently added SEC Class. There are 

5 quite a number of cases in that group and we 

6 wanted to make sure that our technical 

7 documents aligned with what we are going to be 

8 doing for dose reconstruction. So only 

9 recently have our technical documents been 

10 lined up to comply with the most recent 

11 designation. And so those are starting to 

12 move now.

13 And then there are a population of 

14 chronic lymphocytic leukemia cases that the 

15 arithmetic is going to be done on this month. 

16 And so those should start moving later on this 

17 month.

18 So there are a couple of fairly 

19 large populations that are kind of stuck but 

20 they will be moving, are starting to move 

21 about now in the claims that are in front of 

22 us.
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1 Here is our summary of our 

2 breakdown of how the cases that have been less 

3 than or greater than 50 percent. I think that 

4 works out to 29 percent and 71 percent now; 29 

5 percent being greater than 50 percent.

6 I think in my view the fraction 

7 has dropped a little bit. It used to be 30 or 

8 31 percent that were above 50 percent. The 

9 only thing I could attribute that to would be 

10 that the additional SEC Classes that have been 

11 added have moved cases out of dose 

12 reconstruction like lung cancer cases, for 

13 instance, which quite frequently are 

14 compensable, to dose reconstruction. But 

15 those get moved out of dose reconstruction 

16 when you have an SEC Class. So that is the 

17 only thing I could think of that would account 

18 for that.

19 And this is a chart you have seen 

20 for years and there is enough cases that have 

21 been out there that it won't change, I don't 

22 think, the relative shape of the charts aren't 
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1 going to change very much.

2 You can see that our submittals 

3 and production numbers are kind of running 

4 abreast, have been for the last couple of 

5 years. You can see the -- I don't know what 

6 color that is. It looks like blue to me, the 

7 cases received from DOL. I don't see colors 

8 very well. That line you can see has tracked 

9 fairly steadily for years. We had the big 

10 influx at the beginning and for the last two 

11 or three years, we have kind of had a steady 

12 input. And quite frankly, we don't see what 

13 would happen now to cause that to go down. 

14 That looks like that is just going to be the 

15 steady state of new cases that come up from 

16 this worker population. And we are 

17 essentially caught up. Other than oddball 

18 cases like I was mentioning, when you have a 

19 technical hold for like Hanford non-SEC cases 

20 or CLL, the cases are getting done within nine 

21 months from the time we get them. And they 

22 are being done now within five months of when 
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1 we get all the data associated with the case, 

2 in 90 percent of the cases. So we kind of 

3 feel like we are caught up in terms of dose 

4 reconstruction.

5 I have got the status of the first 

6 five thousand claims. I don't know if that is 

7 informative because these claims, some of them 

8 keep getting reopened and returned to us. So 

9 the claims that are open may have been 

10 reopened and returned in the relatively recent 

11 past. And if they are reopened for additional 

12 employment, sometimes we have to get 

13 additional information and so on.

14 And then I have got the ten 

15 thousand as well. It is the same kind of 

16 information. There are a couple in this 

17 population that have not yet been done the 

18 first time. Those probably relate to -- there 

19 is -- I think one case is a Sandia non-SEC 

20 that we wanted to make sure the technical 

21 documents lined up with. And if I am not 

22 mistaken, the other one is a Hanford non-SEC 
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1 in that population I was just talking about.

2 DOE's performance, I think, 

3 continues roughly the same. They in general 

4 make the 60-day. I don't have any particular 

5 issues to talk about there with DOE in terms 

6 of their responsiveness.

7 And a summary of the Special 

8 Exposure Cohort, which of course you guys are 

9 intimately familiar with. And a little more 

10 summary of those involved.

11 So that is what I have today for 

12 this presentation. If anybody has any 

13 questions --

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, anybody 

15 have questions for Stu? I actually have one. 

16 And I want to make sure I understood you 

17 correctly, Stu.

18 If I understood you, you said that 

19 there were two out of the first ten thousand 

20 that are still not --

21 MR. HINNEFELD: I believe there 

22 are two on here. I'm sorry, three.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Three.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Three, initially.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So those are 

4 several years old.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. Yes, the 

6 cases that -- we keep track of these legacy 

7 cases and there is the oddball one that we are 

8 trying to get rid of. Well, I think one 

9 might, the one I didn't think of might be a 

10 Battelle Columbus case. You know, we haven't 

11 resolved Battelle Columbus yet. We are here 

12 to recommend a Class for some portion of that 

13 period.

14 And then there are the two other 

15 oddball ones I mentioned that have been on 

16 hold for various reasons.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, it just 

18 seems unfair to the claimants for them not to 

19 get their claims addressed after --

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Absolutely.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- how many 

22 years.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: I absolutely 

2 agree.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: I absolutely 

5 agree.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: And it is an 

8 uncomfortable situation for me as well. That 

9 is why I know which claims those are. I'm 

10 trying to figure out what do we have to do to 

11 get those moving.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I mean I 

13 certainly would urge you to get those 

14 resolved.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: You bet.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

17 questions?

18 MEMBER ROESSLER: Jim, this is Gen 

19 on the line. Can you hear me?

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: And I can hear 

22 you very well, but I could hardly hear Stu at 
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1 all. I wonder if you would ask the speakers 

2 to get closer to the mic.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, either 

4 that or maybe we need more volume on that mic.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Speak directly 

6 into the mic like this?

7 MEMBER ROESSLER: That is a little 

8 bit better.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Was that better, 

10 Gen?

11 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, it is a 

12 little better.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any Board 

15 Members on the phone have questions?

16 Okay, thank you.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Before I yield the 

18 floor, I noticed that we were just joined by 

19 Louise Presley and I have an errand from Dr. 

20 Howard here today. Louise, could you come up 

21 here, please?

22 Dr. Howard asked me to present 
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1 this. It is an obelisk. I will read the 

2 inscription. It is: "In honor of Louise 

3 Presley for her constant companionship and 

4 attention to the efforts of NIOSH and its 

5 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

6 in their service to U.S. nuclear weapons 

7 workers, in memory of Board Member Robert W. 

8 Presley from John Howard, the Director."

9 MS. PRESLEY: Thank you.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Sure thing.

11 (Applause.)

12 MS. PRESLEY: Thanks to all of 

13 you. You have been a special part of my life 

14 since 2002.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Dr. Howard thought 

16 it was fitting, since we are here in 

17 Knoxville, to recognize Louise's service and 

18 to acknowledge Bob's dedication to the Board 

19 and his work on behalf of the Cold War 

20 Patriots. Dr. Howard also wanted me to 

21 specifically mention how vividly he remembers 

22 the barbeque we had here so many years ago and 
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1 the hospitality that Louise and Robert showed 

2 us at that time. That made quite an 

3 impression on John. So thank you, Louise.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thanks, 

5 Stu. And certainly, Louise, on behalf of the 

6 Board also, our best. 

7 Okay, our next speaker is Jeff 

8 Kotsch from DOL.

9 MR. KOTSCH: Good morning. This 

10 is the standard update for the Department of 

11 Labor. Chad, if I get too soft, let me know.

12 Just again the standard brief 

13 overview of the enactment of the Energy 

14 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 

15 Program Act. It was enacted in October of 

16 2000, at which time Part B, the mandatory 

17 federal entitlement program which is run by 

18 the Department of Labor became effective and 

19 Part D, which was the state workers comp 

20 assistance program administered by the 

21 Department of Energy, started. Then Congress 

22 amended, in October 2004, amended the Act to 
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1 abolish Part D and created the federal Part E, 

2 which was transferred to the Department of 

3 Labor. As of, most of these slides are 

4 December 2nd, we had 158,856 cases filed and 

5 over $8.7 billion in compensation paid. There 

6 are the agencies involved, and the location is 

7 for the Department of Labor's national office 

8 and its four district offices.

9 And this is the summary of the 

10 NIOSH referral case status. Again, as of 

11 December 2nd we have had 38,843 cases referred 

12 to NIOSH for dose reconstructions, of which 

13 almost 36,000 have been returned, over 30,000 

14 with dose reconstructions; 5,500 roughly 

15 without dose reconstructions, pooled because 

16 they might have been there when an SEC Class 

17 was implemented or there might be insufficient 

18 information for some of the cases and they had 

19 to be withdrawn.

20 We are indicating a little under 

21 2,900 cases at NIOSH, 1,576 for initial 

22 referrals and a little over 1,300 returned for
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1 reworks or primarily the majority of those 

2 would be -- the large majority would be due to 

3 additional cancers or additional employment 

4 for the rework.

5 And this is the breakdown of the 

6 NIOSH dose reconstruction status. Again, 

7 30,452 returned by NIOSH with the dose 

8 reconstruction. There you see the breakdown 

9 of the 25,287 cases that have dose 

10 reconstructions and final decisions by our 

11 Final Adjudication Branch. Roughly 64 percent 

12 denial, 36 percent final approval.

13 And this is the breakdown for the 

14 Part B cancer cases with final decisions to 

15 accept. Again, accepted dose reconstructed 

16 cases, 8,414 paid to 11,864 payees. Again, 

17 for anybody who hasn't heard it before, the 

18 number of payees is always greater because 

19 there might be, in the event that the employee 

20 has passed away, there is often more than one 

21 survivor. So that was $1.25 billion in 

22 compensation. For the accepted SEC cases, 
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1 about 17,700, $2.6 billion in compensation. 

2 The next one is the line for accepted SEC and 

3 PoC greater than 50. And the final is all 

4 accepted SEC and dose reconstructed cases, 

5 about 26,700, a little over 41,700 payees for 

6 $3.9 billion in compensation.

7 And just a bar, the bar depiction 

8 of the Part B cases final decisions for 

9 covered applications. And on the right side, 

10 a bit more breakdown for the final decisions 

11 denied. The primary one is less than 50 

12 percent compensation, less than 50 percent 

13 Probability of Causation, and then also 

14 medical information insufficient to support 

15 the claim and survivor ineligibility.

16 A quick summary, we have been 

17 doing this over the last couple of meetings, 

18 of the DEEOIC SEC outreach events for fiscal 

19 year 2012. Just a quick run-through.

20 The facility: Sandia National Lab, 

21 the date of that particular one was November 

22 1, 2011. The attendance, we had 385 people 
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1 attending and we had 48 new claims filed at 

2 that meeting.

3 Then November 2nd, there was a 

4 meeting with GE Evendale, 80 attendees.

5 The Y-12 plant meeting on January 

6 18th of this year, 133 people, 30 new claims.

7 Pantex in March, mid-March, 283 

8 attendees, 28 new claims.

9 Savannah River Site on April 17th 

10 of this year, 500 attendees, 40 new claims.

11 Linde Ceramics in mid-April or 

12 later April -- April 25th, 19 people in 

13 attendance.

14 The Brookhaven National Lab 

15 meeting on July 17th, which was a joint 

16 outreach task group meeting for an event. That 

17 was July 17th, 200 people, 19 new claims.

18 Sandia National Lab was on August 

19 22, 60 attendees.

20 Fernald, the Feed Materials 

21 Production Center meeting on January 25th, 

22 fairly lightly attended with 12 attendees.
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1 Hanford meeting on October 23rd, 

2 187 attendees and the Clarksville Modification 

3 Center meeting on November 18th -- I'm sorry, 

4 November 8th.

5 Other outreach events, there was 

6 informational meetings regarding medical 

7 benefits provided under the Act: one in 

8 Farmington, New Mexico, that was December 4th; 

9 and one in Kayenta, Arizona that was December 

10 5th. These are Part E events, principally 

11 related to home health care issues or issues 

12 involving the Part E program.

13 As Stu mentioned, we also 

14 participated in the meeting in St. Louis, and 

15 I forget the dates on that one.

16 In the cases of small SECs, these 

17 are ones where we might have a handful of 

18 identified claimants affected by the SEC. 

19 Generally, just press releases or even direct 

20 mailings are used as a method to contact the 

21 claimants.

22 Greg usually talks about this --
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1 I'll just run over it quickly -- the Joint 

2 Outreach Task Group. Its membership is up 

3 there, Labor and NIOSH, DOE, the Ombudsman for 

4 NIOSH and the Ombudsman for our program at 

5 Labor and the DOE Former Worker Medical 

6 Screening Program. And they have monthly 

7 calls and coordination meetings.

8 And then this is just the final, 

9 the end of the presentation where we usually 

10 go through the facilities that are either on 

11 the list for discussion of the meeting or also 

12 includes local facilities. Again, just 

13 running down the left-hand columns is the 

14 number of cases -- claims in parentheses for 

15 both Part B and E, cases returned with dose 

16 reconstructions, final decisions for Part B, 

17 final Part B approvals, Part E approvals, and 

18 then the total compensation, including the 

19 medical bills paid.

20 And you see the numbers for Baker 

21 Brothers. There was one Part B approval and a 

22 little over $277,000 in total compensation. 
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1 Battelle Labs, King Avenue, 208 Part B cases, 

2 32 Part B approvals, $7.1 million.

3 General Steel Industries, 682 Part 

4 B cases, 72 Part B approvals and a little 

5 under $11 million in compensation.

6 Hanford a little under 14,000 

7 cases, a little over $3,500 Part B approvals, 

8 $792 million roughly.

9 Joslyn Manufacturing, an AEC, so 

10 it is only Part B. They had 105 cases, 38 

11 Part B approvals, $2.9 million.

12 Savannah River is almost 14,100 

13 Part B cases -- I'm sorry, just cases, 14,100 

14 cases a little under 5,100 Part B final 

15 decisions and $670 billion roughly in 

16 compensation.

17 Then the local facilities: K-25, 

18 14,367 cases, 4,165 Part B approvals, $1.1 

19 billion in compensation; Y-12, a little under 

20 16,500 cases, 4,460 Part B approvals, $1.1 

21 billion in compensation; X-10 7,666 cases, 

22 1,821 Part B approvals and almost $491 million 
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1 in compensation.

2 Just a quick summary of the top 

3 four work sites that we are seeing. We 

4 forward probably around, I think it is about 

5 200 a month to cases for dose reconstruction 

6 to NIOSH. It might be a little lower. But 

7 the top four work sites generating new Part B 

8 cases are Savannah River, Hanford, Y-12 Plant, 

9 and Sandia National Labs.

10 And then the final -- I won't 

11 bother going through the rest of this. These 

12 are just the slides that we present for 

13 general information and we have all heard that 

14 a number of times, the general information on 

15 the programs for the people that are 

16 interested in that.

17 Any questions?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you, 

19 Jeff. Questions for Jeff? Yes, Paul, then 

20 Dave.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Jeff, I know that 

22 your figures usually differ a little bit from 
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1 NIOSH's, and we understand that. But one item 

2 that jumped out at me, if I heard it 

3 correctly, was that you are showing something 

4 like 36 percent approval rate on the PoCs 50 

5 percent or greater and NIOSH's number was 

6 something like 29 percent. That seemed 

7 remarkably different to me.

8 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, I am trying to 

9 remember if that is -- yes, that is what it 

10 is. I don't know how it is written up there 

11 but that is a function of the fact that it 

12 includes -- maybe it is improperly identified. 

13 But our final approval rates includes the SECs 

14 that we just automatically --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, you throw 

16 those back in?

17 MR. KOTSCH: Yes. I'm sorry, yes.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, thank you.

19 MR. KOTSCH: This probably could 

20 be better identified there.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David 

22 Richardson.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I guess now I 

2 have two follow-up questions. One would be to 

3 verify that. The number 16,000 with greater 

4 than 50 percent seems too close to -- too 

5 small to include all of the SECs plus those 

6 greater than 50 percent, if Stu's numbers are 

7 right. So maybe we could check on that and 

8 just next time understand it better.

9 The other question I had relates 

10 also to that. When I see those numbers, the 

11 number and the proportion that are greater 

12 than 50 percent, I always end up trying to do 

13 in my head something other than look at the 

14 crude proportion across all cancers. And so I 

15 am trying to kind of consider, well, what 

16 proportion of those are lung cancers? And 

17 part of it is I think about from a claimant's 

18 perspective, they are interested in those 

19 numbers to get a sense of the likelihood that 

20 their claim is possibly compensable or not. 

21 And I think in some sense to move forward with 

22 the time and investment of energy that it 
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1 takes to file a claim and to understand how 

2 likely it is that that might be compensated.

3 I guess a long way of saying it 

4 is, at some point -- and it doesn't have to be 

5 all the time because we see these numbers a 

6 lot, but at some point could we see this 

7 broken down by, for example, ICD code for 

8 those cancers which you have handled more than 

9 50 or 100 claims. So those would be the 

10 proportion of lung cancers which have ended up 

11 with a final positive decision and the 

12 proportion of prostate cancers and skin 

13 cancers. Would that be something that you 

14 could tabulate? Because I think for some 

15 people that would be useful and for me also.

16 I am curious because I have a 

17 sense that those numbers are markedly 

18 different.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu 

20 Hinnefeld. We have that tabulation on our 

21 website. It was updated about two months ago. 

22 It's on the SEC page of our website.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, so NIOSH 

2 is doing it, not DOL?

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. And it is 

4 a tabulation of cases that had a single 

5 cancer. When you start getting multiple 

6 cancers, it gets more complicated. So the 

7 cases that have a single cancer and it is 

8 broken down by, I think, by ICD-9.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, maybe 

10 you could point me to it. Thanks.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Sure. When we get 

12 a chance, I will show you.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, thank 

14 you.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You have got the 

16 floor. Now I have stolen it back here.

17 My other suggestion on this, the 

18 mystery numbers here, could that be the final 

19 approval be when you then put back in the SECs 

20 from those same original set of cases that had 

21 PoCs done but then later became SECs?

22 I wonder if that accounts for 
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1 that.

2 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, I think that --

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So the small 

4 difference rather -- and there is a separate 

5 set of SECs that are just direct SECs. They 

6 go to DOL. NIOSH never sees them --

7 MR. KOTSCH: Right --

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- and they 

9 never have a dose reconstruction done. And I 

10 think that -- my guess is from -- because I 

11 went through this and got all confused at one 

12 point.

13 MR. KOTSCH: That may be part of 

14 it. I will go back. We have had some 

15 reporting problems with our system. So I will 

16 double check those. The other thing would be 

17 sometimes -- I don't think this is the case, 

18 but it might include also our beryllium and 

19 our silicosis cases, too, that drive final 

20 decisions, but I will check. This should be 

21 just NIOSH-related things, but we will check 

22 those numbers again.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: I will point out 

3 one difference. One reason for the difference 

4 in numbers is the final decision lags behind 

5 the dose reconstruction by a considerable 

6 amount of time.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we have 

8 always had that lag.

9 Okay, Loretta. I'm sorry, 

10 Loretta, I didn't even see you. Go ahead.

11 MEMBER VALERIO: Can you give me a 

12 little more detail on how, if an individual 

13 meets the employment criteria for an SEC but 

14 the diagnosis is an unknown primary, if they 

15 are considered under an SEC or if they are 

16 still forwarded to NIOSH for dose 

17 reconstruction?

18 MR. KOTSCH: I think for those 

19 cases -- unknown primary. We don't -- I mean 

20 there are a list of probable sites for when 

21 there is a primary with an unknown or the 

22 secondary with an unknown primary. But an 
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1 unknown primary, I think, unless we get a 

2 decision or some kind of determination from 

3 one of our contracted medical consultants, we 

4 would probably have to forward it to NIOSH 

5 outside of the SEC realm. Can you think of 

6 anything else?

7 I mean, we need some other 

8 determination as far as a medical decision 

9 goes, and we would have to refer it to one of 

10 our, essentially our in-house oncologists or 

11 hematologists.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad?

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jeff, this is 

14 just an observation that I have seen and I 

15 don't understand. I usually try to direct 

16 them to you guys.

17 But, in discussing some of the 

18 Site Profiles, some of the questions I have 

19 been hit up with is the claimants file under 

20 Part E but then they get told that they can't 

21 process their claim until NIOSH does a dose 

22 reconstruction.
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1 MR. KOTSCH: In the Part E?

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

3 MR. KOTSCH: That shouldn't be 

4 right. I mean, generally a claim comes in 

5 from like, say a DOE facility, it initially 

6 comes in as both and essentially is treated as 

7 both a Part B and an E claim, if it is 

8 appropriate. They should not be connected; 

9 the Part E decision should separate from the 

10 NIOSH decision.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: And these are 

12 earlier claims and I don't know what to tell 

13 them. The only reason I am bringing this up 

14 to you is I want you to realize what we are 

15 seeing and what they are talking to us. 

16 Because they actually filed it under Part E 

17 because it was more of the chemicals that they 

18 worked with and their response back was that 

19 they were still waiting for NIOSH to do a dose 

20 reconstruction.

21 MR. KOTSCH: That may be for the 

22 Part B decision. That should not have held up 
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1 the Part E that I am aware of.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: So they should --

3 MR. KOTSCH: If it is a Part B and 

4 a cancer, yes, it is probably being related to 

5 -- it will be hinged on the NIOSH dose 

6 reconstruction. But if it is a non-cancer 

7 condition and a chemical exposure, that should 

8 be independent of the NIOSH dose 

9 reconstruction.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, and if we 

11 do see this, my direction was to contact your 

12 office and kind of get a clarification on 

13 that. You have got some outreach programs. Is 

14 that the correct process?

15 MR. KOTSCH: I think that would 

16 work.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

18 MR. KATZ: Jeff, back to Loretta's 

19 question about secondaries with unknown 

20 primary. I thought, at least one cancer, I 

21 thought it was bone cancer, perhaps, where 

22 even the secondary bone is covered, regardless 
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1 of what the primary was.

2 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, I mean there are 

3 -- bone, liver and kidney are covered. But I

4 think Loretta's question was an unknown 

5 primary. Right?

6 And we make our best shot with our 

7 either oncologist or hematologist that we have 

8 to try to make -- if there is enough 

9 information there, we will try to figure it 

10 out. If not, we can't really put it into the 

11 SEC process and we have to go through the dose 

12 reconstruction process.

13 But then again, they may not even 

14 have the information to provide that analysis.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

16 questions for Jeff?

17 Okay, if not, thank you, Jeff.

18 MR. KOTSCH: Okay, thanks.

19 MEMBER ROESSLER: Jim, this is Gen 

20 on the line again.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead.

22 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. I have 
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1 been corresponding, too, on email with others 

2 who are on the line. We are having some 

3 trouble hearing the speakers. The rest of you 

4 seem to come through well. I wonder if the 

5 mic could be turned up or they could get 

6 closer to it.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we changed 

8 the mic around and we will keep reminding 

9 people to speak louder on that.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay, thank you.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Because we are 

12 hearing them fine is the problem but that may 

13 not mean it is being picked up well enough on 

14 the phone.

15 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay, thanks.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We will keep 

17 reminding them. Thank you for letting us

18 know, Gen.

19 Okay, next Greg Lewis from 

20 Department of Energy.

21 MR. LEWIS: All right, good 

22 morning, everyone. It is Greg Lewis from the 
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1 Department of Energy, Office of Health, 

2 Safety, and Security. And I am going to talk 

3 about our role in the EEOICPA program.

4 Our core mandate, which I go over 

5 every time, is to work on behalf program 

6 claimants to ensure that all available worker 

7 and facility records and data are provided to 

8 DOL, NIOSH, and the Advisory Board.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Greg, if you are 

10 going to look at the slides, turn directly 

11 towards them and speak into the mic. Because 

12 even we were having trouble hearing you.

13 MR. LEWIS: Sorry about that.

14 So we have three primary 

15 responsibilities under the program. The first 

16 is to respond to individual requests for 

17 information for single claimants. The second 

18 is to provide support assistance to NIOSH and 

19 the Department of Labor on larger scale 

20 records research projects. And the third is 

21 to research covered facility issues, adding 

22 additional years, taking away years, things 
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1 like that, making sure we have the right 

2 facilities designated and we work closely with 

3 Department of Labor and NIOSH on that.

4 So I also talk about this every 

5 time. Our site contacts are really the most 

6 important part of our program. We rely 

7 heavily on our sites to gather these records. 

8 And our site managers or site POCs, as we call 

9 them, have a significant role in our ability 

10 to respond to requests. They work closely 

11 with NIOSH researchers and DOL researchers to 

12 identify the right people to participate in 

13 interviews, to identify the right collection 

14 to records, to provide those records to 

15 Department of Labor and NIOSH after site 

16 research visits. We also handle 

17 classification reviews and are an on-site 

18 resource to workers to direct them to 

19 Department of Labor and NIOSH or the correct 

20 person to address their issue.

21 We respond to about 6,000 

22 Department of Labor employment verification 
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1 requests a year, about 4,500 NIOSH requests 

2 per year, and 5,500 what we call document 

3 acquisition requests or DARs, which are the 

4 Department of Labor requests for basically all 

5 exposure information on an individual, that 

6 would be medical, industrial hygiene, 

7 dosimetry, things like that, really, and 

8 anything that puts an individual at a certain 

9 location on a site or might establish the 

10 exposure for that individual.

11 So it is about 16,000 requests per 

12 year and that has been fairly steady over the 

13 last few years.

14 We have a number of challenges in 

15 gathering these records. Claimants often 

16 worked at multiple DOE sites, particularly 

17 here in the Oak Ridge area. I think a number 

18 that I have heard is about your average 

19 employee that has worked at one of the Oak 

20 Ridge area sites, has worked at three, 

21 including the three gaseous diffusion plants, 

22 the National Lab, and Y-12. Your typical 
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1 employee, if they have worked at one, they 

2 have most likely got to about three of them in 

3 their career.

4 At some of the sites, we will have 

5 to go to 30 to 40 different record sources for 

6 an individual, particularly if they had a long 

7 career and particularly at sites where the 

8 contractor may have changed over from time to 

9 time. Many of the new contractors brought in 

10 their own records management systems, 

11 databases, their own way of doing things. So 

12 for an employee with a 30-year career, we 

13 would likely have to go to many different 

14 databases, even for the same type of 

15 information. For example, dosimetry 

16 information would be in one database for five 

17 years and then a separate database for the 

18 next few years and then in microfilm or 

19 microfiche, something like that.

20 So the large-scale records 

21 research projects, these are driven by the 

22 needs of Department of Labor and NIOSH. So we 
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1 do our best to react and anticipate what their 

2 needs are going to be, where they are going to 

3 need to do these projects. And we made sure, 

4 to the extent possible, that funding and 

5 manpower are available to support these 

6 projects. We come up with a plan to enable 

7 the classification reviewers on-site to keep 

8 up with the demand. These projects can be 

9 very expensive and time-consuming. But again, 

10 we do our best to make sure the resources are 

11 in the right place to allow us to respond in a 

12 timely manner.

13 We are often supporting four to 

14 five projects at once. I think the next slide 

15 I show will talk about some of the projects we 

16 are supporting now. And again, classification 

17 is sometimes a considerable concern and we do 

18 have to review millions of pages on occasion, 

19 particularly for the weapon sites and labs. 

20 And we try to do that in as expedient a manner 

21 as possible.

22 So here are some of the sites that 
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1 were facilitating records research now. As 

2 you can see, some of those are sort of in the 

3 thick of the research, some of them are 

4 winding down but we are still supporting the 

5 final three requests and some of them are just 

6 starting up.

7 Document reviews. Again, we have 

8 come up with a security plan that outlines how 

9 we plan to review documents, how we review 

10 final reports, source documents, things like 

11 that, what our timeframes are, what the 

12 requirements are for security clearances, for 

13 visits, what the visitors are supposed to do, 

14 what we are supposed to do. We try to lay 

15 that all out in that security plan. Now 

16 currently we are taking a look at that 

17 security plan. We are thinking about updating 

18 it. We don't envision any real significant 

19 changes, just kind of updating problems we 

20 have encountered over the years or things that 

21 we have adapted. So we are just going to 

22 formalize that in our security plan. We are 
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1 also working with NIOSH and SC&A on some 

2 slightly new protocols and procedures 

3 regarding worker interviews. So we are 

4 working with our headquarter security folks 

5 and some of our site security folks to make 

6 sure that we are comfortable with these 

7 changes.

8 So since the last Advisory Board 

9 meeting in September, 30 documents have been 

10 submitted to headquarters classification 

11 review. The average turnaround time has been 

12 eight working days and we have done it quicker 

13 when needed.

14 And then our third role, major 

15 role under the project is the covered facility 

16 database. The full listing is at the link 

17 there, and we are constantly working with DOL 

18 and NIOSH to refine that database and make 

19 sure it is accurate, up-to-date, has the right 

20 contractors listed, years, et cetera.

21 So the SERT, the Secure Electronic

22 Records Transfer System, is the big new 
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1 development on our side. It is a big 

2 development for DOL and NIOSH as well. That 

3 went fully live as of October 15th. So what 

4 that means is: starting October 15th, all 

5 records requests sent to Department of Energy

6 from either NIOSH or DOL -- and these are the 

7 individual records requests, not the large8 scale records research projects -- but all of 

9 those are now coming to DOE through the SERT. 

10 We believe it has been very successful so far. 

11 You know, with any large system and this 

12 system has close to 400 users and is going to 

13 be handling, as you saw, 16,000 records 

14 requests a year and should be about 16,000 

15 records response a year, more or less. So it 

16 is a major system, and with any major system 

17 there has been some glitches, some little 

18 things that we have had to resolve, some 

19 things that we didn't anticipate until the 

20 system was stood up. But by and large, the 

21 response that we have gotten is very positive. 

22 This system works. We are getting the 
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1 request. It is instantaneous. It is 

2 transparent. As soon as DOL and NIOSH press 

3 that button to send the request, it is 

4 instantly visible on the DOE end and we can 

5 see it and start working on it immediately. We 

6 have been responding. And so far, everything 

7 has been going well. We believe it adds, as I 

8 said, a level of transparency. It takes out 

9 the need for sending things with FedEx or 

10 faxing. And I think most importantly, it 

11 improves the data security with 16,000 

12 requests going back and forth and this stuff 

13 being people's personal information, Social 

14 Security numbers, medical records, sensitive 

15 information like that. 

16 The security of this information 

17 is of the utmost importance. And we believe 

18 that this system adds a layer of security.

19 So a couple recent initiatives. We 

20 have been working on an outreach video. We 

21 have, I think, the final proof. Just as of 

22 this week we got it in our office. We are 
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1 going to be sending it out to Department of 

2 Labor, NIOSH, both Ombudsmen's office, those 

3 that participated in this video. And once we 

4 get their approval on the final version, we 

5 will be going live with that. It will be 

6 available both online and as an actual DVD 

7 upon request.

8 And we are also preparing -- well, 

9 we have actually come out with the first 

10 edition of our newsletter, which my office is 

11 going to be doing monthly. It is not going to 

12 be too big, you know, about two or three 

13 pages, talking about some of the initiatives 

14 that we are doing, some of the things that we 

15 are working on. We are going to be featuring 

16 some of the different sites and some of the 

17 things they do as far as indexing projects, 

18 some of the interesting stuff that they are 

19 doing on claimants' behalf. We are also going 

20 to be featuring some of our Former Worker 

21 projects as well. So we think it will be a 

22 good tool to provide information on what we 
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1 are doing, give a little bit of a behind-the2 scenes look at the things that we do for 

3 workers.

4 I believe we had a sign-up sheet 

5 available at the last Advisory Board meeting. 

6 But if not, I will put one out at this Board 

7 meeting and we will send it to anyone. We 

8 have an email listserv, so certainly the Board 

9 Members, anyone in the other agencies, as well 

10 as anyone in the public that would like to 

11 receive it is more than welcome.

12 Outreach, Jeff touched on it 

13 briefly but the Joint Outreach Task Group is a 

14 combined group with Department of Labor, 

15 NIOSH, the different Ombudsmen's offices and 

16 the Department of Energy and our Former Worker 

17 programs. Again, with the thought that we are 

18 all essentially trying to reach more or less 

19 the same worker population, it just made sense 

20 to combine resources, both for efficiency on 

21 our end, but also so there is a one-stop shop 

22 for the worker that they don't have to go to 
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1 three or four different meetings. You know, 

2 this program can be confusing and it is just 

3 easier to have one place where they can get 

4 hopefully all the answers that they are 

5 looking for and get into the right program or 

6 get their question answered by the right 

7 group.

8 And our Former Worker Medical 

9 Screening Program, this is a free screening 

10 program that all former Department of Energy, 

11 Department of Energy contract workers are 

12 eligible for. We have local programs in and 

13 around the major DOE sites. We also have two 

14 national programs, one for production workers, 

15 one for construction trades workers. No 

16 matter where you live, we are almost always 

17 able to find a clinic that we can contract 

18 through to screen you in an area close to your 

19 house, typically within 50 miles, most times 

20 closer than that. Although, even in the rural 

21 areas, we are typically able to get within 50 

22 miles.
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1 And the local programs here are 

2 the Worker Health Protection Program, a joint 

3 program with Queens College and United Steel 

4 Workers. The principal investigator is Steven 

5 Markowitz. And that is at K-25. And then 

6 also for the local construction trades 

7 workers, it is the Building Trades Medical 

8 Screening Program and the principal 

9 investigator is Knut Ringen. The contact 

10 information is provided on the screen.

11 And with that, are there any 

12 questions?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, thank you, 

14 Greg. I have one question/comment regarding 

15 the new interview procedure. You mentioned 

16 that you were coordinating with NIOSH but we 

17 would -- the Board and our contractor also 

18 need to be apprised of what is going on. We 

19 have had problems in the past. I think we got 

20 them straightened out, but I would like to 

21 make sure that the procedure doesn't interfere 

22 with our ability to interface when we do need 
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1 to do interviews. And so I am trusting you to 

2 -- we would like to be informed about this.

3 MR. LEWIS: And if I said NIOSH, I 

4 think I misspoke because I know that Joe 

5 Fitzgerald has been involved and I know that 

6 there is involvement with both SC&A and NIOSH 

7 and certainly I will make sure to keep you 

8 informed as far as the Board.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

10 you. Brad?

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: Greg, I 

12 appreciate your comments there and keeping us 

13 informed. One of my questions was: as this 

14 new security program comes into place, it is 

15 not going to conflict with any of our 

16 procedures that we have in place right now as 

17 a Board, or SC&A, or NIOSH, this electronic 

18 program that you were talking about?

19 MR. LEWIS: The SERT. The Secure 

20 Electronic Records Transfer?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right.

22 MR. LEWIS: I don't believe so. 
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1 Again, that is intended for the individual 

2 requests. So if someone applies to the 

3 program and NIOSH or DOL needs their records, 

4 they are making NIOSH or DOL would make that 

5 request for their records through the SERT.

6 Typically, for large-scale records 

7 research projects, we wouldn't be going 

8 through the SERT. Now certainly, if we did 

9 eventually want to use the SERT for that 

10 purpose, it would only be to get records from 

11 point A to point B. At some point, it may be 

12 valuable to get NIOSH or DOL to allow them to 

13 receive the records through the SERT, but 

14 certainly the request, the investigation, the 

15 research, all of that would -- there is no 

16 mechanism in SERT for that. That SERT is 

17 really just an ability to get records from one 

18 place to another securely. And of course it 

19 has some tracking built in for the individual 

20 level requests but I don't anticipate this 

21 would have any effect on how the records 

22 research and the large scale projects are 
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1 handled.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I understand 

3 that. And my other one is the eight days, I 

4 would question the turnaround because there 

5 has been numerous --

6 MR. LEWIS: Yes.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: It takes a long 

8 time.

9 MR. LEWIS: Yes, and the only 

10 thing, I keep meaning to put this in the 

11 slide. But the only thing that we track as 

12 far as the number of days is the requests that 

13 come into headquarters, the final report 

14 requests. All final reports or draft reports, 

15 once they have reached a significant level of 

16 content in NIOSH or SC&A or the Board wants to 

17 kind of distribute them further internally, 

18 they will come to us for a review. So that is 

19 only for the reports that are being sent to 

20 headquarters review. Because we only have the 

21 ability to track those in such a close manner. 

22 The stuff that is done out at the site for 
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1 classification review is, as you know, boxes 

2 and boxes of data sometimes. And we do work 

3 with the sites to try to ensure that it gets 

4 out in a timely manner. But we are not able 

5 to track it to the level that we are of the 

6 final reports. That is why we put the final 

7 report tracking in this presentation. But I 

8 agree, it does take longer for the sites to 

9 review, particularly because there are large 

10 amounts of information, but also they have 

11 competing tasks and needs for the 

12 classification folks on-site. We do try to 

13 get them to return documents in as timely a 

14 manner as possible. I know we do struggle in 

15 certain cases.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I understand 

17 about the large scale boxes and so forth. But 

18 many of our site visits that we have gone to, 

19 we have taken our notes and so forth and those 

20 are critical for us to proceed on forward. And 

21 some of these we are looking at three to four 

22 months.
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1 MR. LEWIS: Yes, and that is 

2 unacceptable. One of the things that we are 

3 trying to work on now is to make sure that 

4 sites are differentiating, particularly 

5 between things like notes or reports or things 

6 that were written on-site versus just the 

7 boxes of source documents. We understand 

8 that, I think, on your end the notes and 

9 things like that are of a higher level of 

10 importance, most times, than the source 

11 documents. But a lot of times our sites will 

12 lump that all together and go through the 

13 whole thing before sending it out and it 

14 doesn't make a lot of sense. We think we 

15 would like to separate out those notes or 

16 those particularly high-priority items, get 

17 those out in a much shorter timeframe and then 

18 work on the larger document requests. We have 

19 definitely not always done that well, and we 

20 think we can do better and we are going to try 

21 to.

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: Another part of 
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1 this, too, and this falls into NIOSH's ball, 

2 too, and that is: it is very difficult to 

3 track where we are at with these requests. And 

4 I am going back to our notes that have been 

5 written up on-site. The communication between 

6 DOE, the site, and then say NIOSH, too, it is 

7 really, there is no clear way except for going 

8 through you to figure out where we are at. And 

9 we are usually getting it third-hand. And I 

10 know it puts you in a bad situation, but if 

11 there is any way that we can clear or help 

12 that, it would be greatly appreciated.

13 MR. LEWIS: Yes, and I would be 

14 glad to talk to you or it may be good to sit 

15 down with someone from NIOSH, SC&A and the 

16 Board and talk about ways to improve that. I 

17 mean, I think having a clearly defined request 

18 -- I will say from our end sometimes it is: 

19 our sites end up somewhat confused over what 

20 the priority is for who or what exactly has 

21 been requested and they may not be asking 

22 enough questions on the front end, but I think 
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1 some further clarity from the requester 

2 establishing, there are four things I asked 

3 for, one is notes and two is documents X, Y, 

4 and Z and the third is this report that I was 

5 writing or something like that, and 

6 prioritizing those and being very specific 

7 about what those are because oftentimes I get 

8 put in a position where someone from NIOSH or 

9 SC&A will come back to me a month or so later 

10 or two later, saying, "Hey, I made a request 

11 at a certain site," and the site says, "Well, 

12 we have got a couple of requests, which 

13 request?" or "We thought we had finished that 

14 one." And I end having to go back and forth 

15 to make sure what was requested. What was 

16 completed. Is it all complete? What was the 

17 time frame? Things like that. So maybe 

18 getting that more clearly defined on the 

19 front-end might help everyone. But I think we 

20 would be more than willing to talk about it.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry has been 

22 waiting for quite a while here.
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Just quickly, 

2 how often does the Joint Communication Task 

3 Group meet?

4 MR. LEWIS: Well, so the Joint 

5 Outreach Task Group has monthly calls to kind 

6 of coordinate outreach activities between the 

7 different groups and talk about what each one 

8 is doing. Because, in addition to having 

9 joint meetings, we also may attend -- there 

10 are separate meetings for each group, too, 

11 that may have certain specific interests or 

12 specific needs at different locations and we 

13 might send information along with another 

14 group. Or we might, maybe DOL and NIOSH will 

15 be at a meeting, but DOE won't feel the need. 

16 So we coordinate monthly, but I think we 

17 typically have three to four actual Joint 

18 Outreach Task Group meetings.

19 I think we have a tentatively 

20 planned three meetings for next year, with a 

21 possibility for a fourth. And I think 

22 Northern California, we are planning to do the 
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1 Bay Area, you know, aimed at Berkeley, 

2 Livermore, Sandia/Livermore, and the Stanford 

3 Linear Accelerator Center, those four.

4 We are also looking into the 

5 Chicago area, aimed both at Fermi and Argonne 

6 Labs. And there is a third which escapes me 

7 right now. But we try to get that information 

8 out. And we have a calendar on our website 

9 that I can point you to as well.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Can 

11 I, in follow-up to some of Brad's questions 

12 and discussion, I really think we need a 

13 tracking system for these site requests, as 

14 opposed to the DOE headquarters request. So 

15 can we ask Joe, since I think everything, all 

16 our secure information is supposed to flow 

17 through our contractor through you. Correct? 

18 Supposed to. 

19 So could you work with DOE and 

20 NIOSH and see if we can get a system set up so 

21 we know? Which would give more specificity to 

22 what the requests are, what information Greg 
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1 gets, as well as maybe facilitate some of 

2 this. Because I think if not, we just keep 

3 going around and around on this and 

4 complaining and I don't think it is -- despite 

5 good intentions, I don't think we are 

6 necessarily understand what is going on or how 

7 it is being fixed.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: We do track our 

9 submittals to sites for requests for 

10 clearances, except for the interview notes 

11 like Brad was talking about. We haven't 

12 included those heretofore on our tracking 

13 system but when we make a request from our 

14 side to the sites. And so I don't have it 

15 with me but we could produce that, the 

16 information we have on our requests.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, if we could 

18 just copy onto that. I know that interview 

19 notes have been an issue at least at one site 

20 and I believe more than one site, where they 

21 have tended to lag or get sort of lost 

22 somehow. So let's work it out and see if we 
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1 can come up with a solution.

2 MR. LEWIS: Be glad to work on 

3 that.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It is important 

5 and we need to know when there are inordinate 

6 delays. Thank you very much, Greg.

7 Back to Stu Hinnefeld on the 

8 update on the ten-year review implementation.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, I have just 

10 a few slides to talk about progress on the 

11 ten-year program review.

12 Our progress on the ten-year 

13 program review is being done, usually in 

14 conjunction with one or -- usually one Work 

15 Group or Subcommittee of Board to keep the 

16 Board appraised of how things are moving 

17 along. It is proving to be kind of an 

18 extended process because the additional, the 

19 things we are doing here, we are adding on to 

20 the work we were already doing. And so it 

21 does continue in all these areas at varying 

22 rates of accomplishment.
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1 I have got a slide for each of 

2 five focus areas and I have selected just 

3 certain items to say about each one. I do 

4 have a little more detail on my notes. If 

5 anyone has questions on particular items, I 

6 think I can provide a little more information 

7 about some of the items that may not be 

8 addressed in the slides.

9 In the dose reconstruction area, 

10 of course, we are working very closely with 

11 the Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee in 

12 evaluating quality of dose reconstructions and 

13 working to sort of determine a way of 

14 measuring quality and to improve the quality 

15 of the dose reconstructions. So it is 

16 ongoing. It is a fairly significant piece of 

17 discussion at the last several, I think, or at 

18 least the last few Dose Reconstruction 

19 Subcommittee meetings.

20 In response to some of those 

21 conversations, we have implemented a blind 

22 review process which kind of gives us 
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1 continuing -- we expect it to give us a 

2 continuing sort of measure of the quality and 

3 some maybe quality items to look at as we go 

4 forward. 

5 This is still -- we are doing it, 

6 but it is still sort of developmental because 

7 it involves DCAS staff doing a dose 

8 reconstruction, unbeknownst to ORAU. The case 

9 is still assigned to ORAU. ORAU does the dose 

10 reconstruction. The DCAS person does it first 

11 and then we compare the two dose 

12 reconstructions to see, theoretically they 

13 should be pretty consistent. And the DCAS 

14 dose reconstructors are essentially coming up 

15 to speed in doing this. And we are learning 

16 how to document it in a way that allows for a 

17 reasonable comparison between the methods. So 

18 it is still a work in progress, but we are 

19 hopeful that we will be able to get some 

20 information out of that as we go forward.

21 We have, in fact, one of the items 

22 from the ten-year review was that if you, 
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1 DCAS, have all these quality aspects in place 

2 which you are talking about, why is it that 

3 the Board keeps finding all these findings 

4 when they review dose reconstructions? Or the 

5 Board's contractor.

6 And so we have -- way back we 

7 selected the five most recently completed dose 

8 reconstruction -- most recently completed 

9 cases that had been reviewed by the DR Review 

10 Subcommittee and looked at the findings on 

11 those cases to find out why in fact there were 

12 findings found on those cases.

13 So we are approaching, we are 

14 getting close to having a product on that that 

15 we will be able to provide to the Subcommittee 

16 and discuss there. The "Why was the error 

17 made?" is sometimes a little hard to figure 

18 out. You find what the error was, but it is a 

19 little hard to figure out, no matter when we 

20 do this, what exactly did the dose 

21 reconstructor do instead of what he was 

22 supposed to do?
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1 And part of the dose 

2 reconstruction review was to look at these 

3 efficiency measures and see if they are really 

4 worthwhile because of the issue that we face 

5 when we do an overestimating dose 

6 reconstruction and the person gets, for 

7 instance, another cancer. And then we do a 

8 more precise dose reconstruction and their DR 

9 goes down with the additional cancer from what 

10 it was originally, which is just pretty much 

11 not explainable. We are doing everything we 

12 can. We've put wording in the dose 

13 reconstruction. In the original one, when it 

14 is an overestimate, we say, this is an over15 estimating approach and if the information 

16 changes, it could change, you know, the dose 

17 reconstruction would likely change and go 

18 down.

19 When we prepare a re-worked dose 

20 reconstruction in this case where we had done 

21 an over-estimate and now we are doing a new 

22 one, we explained what the differences was,
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1 how the overestimate was done in the first 

2 one, and that is taken out here. And that is 

3 taken out here, and so what the new outcome of 

4 that particular part of the dose 

5 reconstruction is, we put all that language in 

6 there and we are trying to address it in that 

7 way.

8 When we looked at the amount of 

9 time and, therefore, cost associated with 

10 eliminating these efficiency measure 

11 altogether, we felt like we could not abide 

12 that. We couldn't keep up with the workload 

13 as well close to what we are doing now. You 

14 could argue we are not keeping up with the 

15 workload in all areas anyway. But it would 

16 just make it that much worse if we had to 

17 spend all that additional effort on dose 

18 reconstruction. So we felt like we weren't in 

19 a position to be able to do away with 

20 overestimating approaches altogether. But we 

21 have done a couple of overestimating 

22 approaches that didn't really save us that 
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1 much. We have done away with those. Those 

2 relate to using defaults for medical X-ray 

3 exposure, like defaults for frequencies of X4 rays when in fact we have the X-ray records.

5 And then the second one had to do 

6 with missed doses and maximizing the number of 

7 zero readings, rather than when we actually 

8 knew what the number of zero readings were and 

9 we could use the actual numbers.

10 So there have been a couple of 

11 things we have done away with, where we could 

12 do that without costing, without too much 

13 additional effort in the dose reconstruction.

14 The quality of service has had to 

15 do with how well we communicate to people and 

16 how well we listen to people. Most of the 

17 progress so far has been on the communications 

18 side. And this is getting tangled up in other 

19 initiatives that are being placed on us by our 

20 parent agencies.

21 First of all, we have re-written a 

22 number of our communication products, 
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1 especially what we call our process letters. 

2 When a person is going through dose 

3 reconstruction or through the SEC process, 

4 they get a series of correspondences from us, 

5 and we have re-written those into what is 

6 called plain language. There is this plain 

7 language act that government communications 

8 for the public are supposed to be written in 

9 plain language. So we are attempting to put 

10 these things, and they really sound to me much 

11 more readable. So we have done a number of 

12 changes to those kinds of process letters and 

13 to fact sheets.

14 To better serve people who want to 

15 participate in a Work Group or Work Group 

16 meetings but not in person, who want to 

17 participate by phone, we have adopted the 

18 practice of placing the documents that will be 

19 discussed, and in most cases, I believe any 

20 presentations that are going to be given, we 

21 get those available on our website before the 

22 meeting. So someone who is calling into the 
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1 meeting can follow along and have some hope of 

2 understanding the conversation because 

3 listening to the conversation without having 

4 the documents that people are talking about, 

5 there is just no hope of following it. It is 

6 probably difficult to follow on the phone 

7 anyway, but at least there is some hope of 

8 being able to follow it if you know what 

9 documents are being talked about.

10 And we did modify the Board web 

11 page to facilitate navigation, if any of you 

12 have checked it lately. If you print out the 

13 Board's landing page, you don't get 80 pages 

14 anymore. There is just a landing page and 

15 then the links to it work just the way they 

16 always did. It is just instead of taking you 

17 down the page, they take you to a different 

18 page. That was an initiative from a parent 

19 agency, either CDC or HHS to here is the 

20 standard format that you should have on your 

21 website.

22 Another initiative that I don't 
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1 mention here that is competing with our 

2 progress in these quality of service items, is 

3 the requirement for all documents on our 

4 website to be 508 compatible, which means they 

5 are prepared for an electric reader for 

6 essentially an audio, a program that gives an 

7 audio translation of the written text. So it 

8 is for people who are blind, essentially.

9 So we have had that requirement 

10 for new documents, that has been in place for 

11 quite some time. And all new documents for 

12 years have gone up in that fashion. And the 

13 key element here is if you can think with a 

14 figure if you have a paper with a figure in 

15 it, a graph or something, you'd have to put in 

16 alternate text to describe that figure so that 

17 the reader has something to explain to the 

18 person, to the user, what that figure 

19 maintains.

20 That has always been in place for 

21 new documents, but we have recently been told 

22 that all documents, including our archives, 
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1 have to be 508 compliant by this coming spring 

2 or middle of the year. And so the work on 

3 updating those old files is distracting from 

4 additional progress.

5 Timeliness of dose reconstruction 

6 certainly we believe we have kind of gotten 

7 where we can go with that. I think we have 

8 obtained most of what we can obtain in the 

9 routine cases. I think there may always be 

10 oddball cases. Hopefully they won't get to be 

11 years old anymore.

12 But for the most part, cases are 

13 done now within five months of receiving all 

14 of the data necessary to do the claim, and 

15 they are done within nine months total. And 

16 those are generous. I mean most of the cases 

17 are done in a shorter period of time than 

18 that.

19 And for reworked dose 

20 reconstructions where the person has already 

21 been in the process for a while but now they 

22 are getting a reworked dose reconstruction, a 
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1 recommendation from the ten-year review was 

2 that we have a higher priority on those cases. 

3 And so those we expect to be done within 60 

4 days of having all the information that is 

5 needed.

6 So if it comes back, for instance, 

7 with a new cancer, none of the employment 

8 information changed, we should get that done 

9 within 60 days of getting it back.

10 Well SEC is proving to be 

11 difficult. The whole sufficient accuracy 

12 effort has taken, we have had a couple of mis13 starts and fits and starts on that. Of course 

14 if it were easy to define sufficient accuracy, 

15 it would have been done when the wrote the 

16 rule, as opposed to trying to do it now. And 

17 we are doing sort of a case law basis. We are 

18 looking at -- we started out looking, starting 

19 essentially at the beginning, looking at all 

20 the documents that are associated. You know, 

21 the Board's recommendation, our Evaluation 

22 Report, Secretary's designation. And we 
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1 weren't getting very far. We weren't getting 

2 anything concise that could really be 

3 interpreted. So we said let's try the other 

4 direction. Let's start with the most recent 

5 and let's look at the Secretary's designation 

6 and then use our memories for what we knew 

7 about the specifics of those cases and why 

8 they were decided the way they were and 

9 summarize in that fashion.

10 And we expect we will be able to 

11 categorize these in a handful of categories, 

12 each one having its own particular explanation 

13 with it. That may be helpful and we can then 

14 the idea being that we can then proceed with 

15 discussions of feasibility along those lines, 

16 in accordance with decisions that have already 

17 been made.

18 And another recommendation was 

19 that when we make our SEC decisions or what 

20 our conclusions in the Evaluation Report, we 

21 should point out which ones are scientific 

22 decisions and which ones are sort of policy 
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1 decisions.

2 As we have gone through that, it 

3 kind of occurred to us that we don't really 

4 have -- you know, the pure scientific 

5 decisions are the arithmetic. You know, when 

6 you get into any really other kind of 

7 decisions, what you really have is a science8 informed policy decision. But the whole point 

9 of it, as Lew Wade reminded me, the whole 

10 point of the recommendation was transparency 

11 of the decision process. So make the 

12 decisions transparent. Don't worry about 

13 whether they are scientific or policy. Just 

14 be very clear about what decisions you made in 

15 the writing. And so we are proceeding down 

16 along that path now, and we are hopeful that 

17 we will be able to have something on some of 

18 these Evaluation Reports kind of in a 

19 companion document that kind of describes 

20 those decisions.

21 Okay, quality of science, again, 

22 these are several things that are in progress. 
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1 Our contractor, ORAU, is developing a process 

2 to minimize inconsistencies between technical 

3 documents. We recognize there are some of 

4 those out there. There is some progress made 

5 on this. I'm afraid I don't have an up-to6 date report.

7 With respect to some of our 

8 indirect exposure methods like coworker 

9 studies, we are in the process of using 

10 Savannah River site data to essentially as a 

11 validation exercise for our coworker 

12 modelings. And I think, if I am not mistaken, 

13 you know, Jim you can correct me on this, I 

14 think what we are doing is in Savannah River 

15 in some cases we do have enough information to 

16 identify sort of occupation groups, as opposed 

17 to the entire site as to coworkers. So we can 

18 make some comparisons about whether using the 

19 entire site is in fact a favorable approach 

20 the way we use it.

21 And we still are in the fairly 

22 early stages of characterizing and quantifying 
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1 claimant favorability. We always say we are 

2 claimant favorable but we have never really 

3 described it in any kind of quantity. And 

4 that was one of the recommendations from the 

5 review.

6 Finally we are going to be having 

7 a progress reporting page on our website of 

8 the ten-year review. It is designed, I think 

9 we just need to say go and it will go up 

10 pretty soon, that describes -- it will include 

11 the reports that were written, the five 

12 reports, the selected recommendations that 

13 were then built into the action plan and then 

14 progress on those various actions. And the 

15 progress will include sort of an evolution of 

16 the actions as we have gone down this path and 

17 felt like we weren't getting where we needed 

18 to go and we changed course a little bit. So 

19 we expect to have that up and running 

20 probably, I would think, within a month it 

21 will be on. So it will be a place where 

22 people can go and check and see this is what 
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1 has been going on, on the ten-year program 

2 review.

3 Okay, I will be glad to answer any 

4 questions that anyone or comments that anybody 

5 might have.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, we have 

7 sort of limited time here. So we may have to 

8 have you come back a little bit later for 

9 additional questions because we have a ten 

10 o'clock Hanford review and it is a petition. 

11 The petitioner will be, or the representative 

12 is expected to be on the line. So we try to 

13 hold to schedule.

14 Actually before I saw your 

15 presentation, LaVon sort of covered -- sent me 

16 an email sort of updating me. And we do 

17 expect to be able for the SEC Evaluation Work 

18 Group to begin some discussions, meetings --

19 Work Group meetings to discuss this sufficient 

20 accuracy issue either in January or February. 

21 I am going to hold LaVon to those dates that 

22 he put in his email for some reports.
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1 But I would add, I mean I think we 

2 really need to start addressing that issue 

3 because, at least from my perspective, one, it 

4 keeps coming up in terms of a lot of our 

5 decisions that we are currently doing we make 

6 today in upcoming meetings.

7 Secondly, the coworker issue, the 

8 issue of claimant favorability and so forth 

9 all revolve around what is sufficiently 

10 accurate. And I don't think we can make a 

11 judgment on that without -- or assessment of 

12 that without sort of dealing with those issues 

13 without directly dealing with sufficient 

14 accuracy. So I would urge you to keep to 

15 those deadlines.

16 And I think we should plan, I 

17 think we need to come back to the Board with 

18 some discussion on that. So it may very well 

19 be if things go well, and I am not sure our 

20 Work Group would necessarily have 

21 recommendations, but we may very well want to 

22 have that on the agenda for our next March 
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1 meeting in order to be able to give everyone a 

2 chance for some input on that as we wrestle 

3 with it.

4 So I think that is, again, I have 

5 been a little concerned that some of these 

6 have lagged in terms of getting up. The 

7 coworker I think is a critical issue because 

8 it potentially affects so many sites and so 

9 much of what you have done. But all these are 

10 important. We need to, I think, show some 

11 progress. So I am glad to see the web page 

12 and so forth and see if we can keep these 

13 moving.

14 And I think I have used up most of 

15 the time now. Are others going to have 

16 questions for Stu? Okay, then what we will 

17 do, Stu, when we have a break, we will have 

18 you come back up and ask questions.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm here for the 

20 duration.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, we figured 

22 that. Good. 
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1 Okay and I would like to move to 

2 Hanford. Ted, can you make sure the phone is 

3 working correctly?

4 MR. KATZ: One of my Board 

5 Members, Gen or --

6 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes, Ted, we 

7 seem to be on now.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay, very good.

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: But you never 

10 know. We have been on and off most of the 

11 morning.

12 MR. KATZ: Well, I understand. 

13 There have been a number of problems. One of 

14 the problems contributing to this, too, is 

15 that the vast majority, because I looked at 

16 the website that shows everybody's individual 

17 line, the vast majority of you that are 

18 listening have not muted your phones and that 

19 causes problems in and of itself. There is --

20 press *6 to mute your phone. But really 

21 everyone but the Board Members for most of 

22 this day should be muted for the entire 
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1 session until we get to public comment session 

2 later. The only exception to that is the SEC 

3 petitioners who can be off mute because they 

4 will be speaking to the group off mute during 

5 their SEC sessions. But that would be helpful 

6 anyway. Thank you.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So the next item 

8 on our agenda is an update on the Hanford SEC

9 Petition number 155, which we talked a little 

10 bit about at our last meeting. The Work Group 

11 has discussed and we have an update to date. 

12 The order will be that first Sam 

13 Glover will give an update. And essentially 

14 it is the presentation that he gave to the 

15 Work Group at our recent meeting. I will give 

16 you sort of -- since I chair the Work Group, I 

17 will give you sort of an update of the Work 

18 Group meeting. We may ask Arjun to comment at 

19 that point also.

20 And then before we take any 

21 action, actual action on the petition, we want 

22 to have an opportunity for the petitioner or 
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1 petitioner representative to make comments and 

2 then we would open it up to some sort of 

3 decision or action by the Board at that point 

4 in time.

5 So, Sam, go ahead.

6 DR. GLOVER: So we are going to 

7 try an alternate microphone. Does this sound 

8 okay? Can you hear me?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I can but I was 

10 hearing the other one, too. It is the people 

11 on the phone that were --

12 DR. GLOVER: Okay, I want to make 

13 sure that everybody can hear me so that 

14 everybody on the Board can participate.

15 MEMBER ROESSLER: We can hear 

16 offline -- I mean on the phone. I can hear.

17 DR. GLOVER: Great. I am --

18 giving this presentation now I feel a lot 

19 better. Last week I, unfortunately, was 

20 feeling very unwell. So I also promised 

21 Glenda when I put this together, I was like 

22 this is only going to be provided over the 
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1 thing. We are just going to be walking 

2 through these slides. So she made me redo 

3 these a little bit since we are actually going 

4 to present these.

5 So there is a few parts in this, I 

6 apologize, I am going to go through fairly 

7 quickly because they are really just an update 

8 that I provided to the Board and kind of 

9 reminding folks where we were.

10 So this is SEC-00155 and I am just 

11 going to very quickly give you a brief update 

12 on the petitions, discuss Hanford's bioassay 

13 program during this time period. And I 

14 focused on Super S and the fecal monitoring 

15 program. I am also going to discuss a little 

16 bit about OTIB-49, which is NIOSH's Super S, 

17 how we deal with Super S cases and 

18 specifically what do we do for OTIB-49 at 

19 Hanford, especially with cases dealing with 

20 fecal samples.

21 So very quickly, the petition came 

22 in November 10, 2009. The petitioner proposed 
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1 a very specific Class: all personnel who were 

2 internally monitored via urine or fecal 

3 samples, who worked at the Plutonium Finishing 

4 Plant in the 200 Area at Hanford Site from 

5 January 1, 1987 through December 31, 1989.

6 The petition was qualified for 

7 evaluation essentially for the opportunity 

8 that radiation records may have been lost or 

9 falsified. And this was part of the US 

10 Testing falsification of data issue and we 

11 have discussed this at some of the previous 

12 ones. But just to kind of refresh folks' 

13 memories, Hanford right now has four SEC 

14 Classes that were previously added and we sort 

15 of did this incrementally. The very earliest 

16 years 1943 through 1946 was the DuPont era; 

17 '46 through '68; and then we had a Class that 

18 subsumed all of that and added a few years at 

19 the end, which expanded from very specific 

20 Classes to a more broad Class beginning in '43 

21 through '72; and then most recently we added 

22 1972 -- it was added to the SEC from 1972 
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1 through 1983 for all areas of Hanford in SEC2 00201.

3 So SEC-00057 sort of subsumes most 

4 of that. They have asked for -- the original 

5 petition came in looking for 1943 through 

6 1990. The Advisory Board of NIOSH continued 

7 to review post-1983. The time frame 

8 associated with SEC-00155 was encompassed by 

9 SEC-00057; however, it was very specific and 

10 focused on the data falsification and was 

11 deemed appropriate for a separate review.

12 The petitioner's specific evidence 

13 of accusations by the U.S. EPA of purposeful 

14 wrongdoing by US Testing resulted in NIOSH 

15 determining that issues regarding quality of 

16 bioassay data required further investigation 

17 as a separate issue from the continuing Board 

18 evaluation of SEC-00057 and the intent of 

19 NIOSH's separate evaluation of SEC-00155 was 

20 to assure that issues identified with US 

21 Testing's non-bioassay analytical programs did 

22 not adversely affect the company's bioassay 
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1 analysis operations in Richland, Washington. 

2 They had two separate laboratories. If you 

3 recall, there was a New Jersey lab and a 

4 laboratory in Richland, Washington. And it 

5 was the laboratory in New Jersey that was 

6 found, to be convicted of wrongdoing.

7 NIOSH evaluated the time period 

8 requested by the petitioner, realizing that if 

9 issues were found, it would broaden. And so 

10 we looked specifically at January 1, 1987 

11 through December 31, 1989. And while the 

12 location was specified as employees who worked 

13 at the Plutonium Finishing Plant, the 

14 evaluation was primarily focused on the 

15 overall bioassay program. So it encompassed a 

16 broader part of Hanford.

17 So some sources of exposure. So 

18 our next slide, those who are following 

19 online, some sources of exposure 1987 through 

20 1989. And I have starred the ones that had 

21 identified as Hanford as being a potential 

22 source of insoluble plutonium with low 
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1 americium-241 content. This would be 

2 considered fresh plutonium.

3 So the weapons grade metal 

4 production, the Remote Mechanical C Line at 

5 Hanford is starred, the Plutonium Reclamation 

6 Facility, miscellaneous treatment glove box 

7 operations, analytical laboratory operations, 

8 development laboratory operations, and they 

9 also had this polycube processing going on at 

10 the time, which is mixture of polystyrene and 

11 plutonium oxide.

12 There were, also at the PUREX 

13 facility, an oxide production line that was 

14 run during the early part of this time frame 

15 and it also is identified as a potential 

16 source of fresh plutonium.

17 So personal monitoring data. US 

18 Testing processed thousands and thousands of 

19 bioassay samples during this time frame. I 

20 have got some graphs that will show this very 

21 shortly. Urinalysis was the principal method 

22 of bioassay at the site. Workers deemed to 
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1 have higher risk or those involved with 

2 potential incidents may also have fecal 

3 samples. Americium typically monitored with 

4 in vivo counting methods, usually as an 

5 indicator of plutonium intakes.

6 Hanford also maintained an 

7 extensive area monitoring program which was 

8 not the focus of this review.

9 Briefly, Pacific Northwest 

10 National Labs was responsible for overseeing 

11 the quality of the data produced by US Testing 

12 during this entire time frame. And they had 

13 around 250 blanks and quality control samples 

14 from 1987 to 1989 and annual reports were 

15 conducted and these were reviewed as part of 

16 NIOSH for our SEC review and in the Board's 

17 folder, I moved some of these documents there 

18 for your review.

19 Just very briefly about 1983 

20 Hanford modernized its bioassay program. They 

21 went from a gross separated alpha -- they 

22 still separated things, but it was done with a 
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1 gross measurement tool. And they went to 

2 alpha spectrometry in 1983. Well this is not 

3 a specter from their -- this is actually from 

4 my historic archives. This is the kind of 

5 information you get from alpha specter for 

6 different nuclides. So you get all the 

7 different radiometric materials separated and 

8 you can use this as a recovery-corrected 

9 method so you can adjust for recovery.

10 US Testing developed methods to 

11 respond to expedited samples. So there 

12 weren't just samples done at US Testing. There 

13 were also samples done for accidents and for -

14 - and so each of them had their own detection 

15 limits. And so when you look at the database, 

16 you need to recognize that some have different 

17 counting times and different, they allowed 

18 different recoveries. What would your 

19 detection limit be associated with that?

20 So this is a confusing graph. And 

21 it is really not that bad but when you first 

22 look at it, like what are you trying to say? 
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1 What I am trying to indicate is for a person 

2 who has a fecal sample in either a year before 

3 it or the year after it, how many urinalysis 

4 or in vivo measurements were conducted for 

5 that person? And so let's just take 1988. For 

6 people who had a fecal sample in 1988, there 

7 were 180 persons who had four other samples 

8 done. And, Paul, you had a lot of questions. 

9 Did I explain that okay this time? I hope. 

10 Because really I lost them the last time I was 

11 trying to explain this. And so in 1989, there 

12 would have been 120 persons who had four of 

13 these measurements conducted on either side.

14 So you can see in 1988 and '89, 

15 they ramped up the fecal monitoring program 

16 but essentially there are, for a person who

17 has a fecal measurement, they have many other 

18 measurements conducted the same time.

19 And this just gives you a feel for 

20 how many more samples are being conducted. 

21 Typically anywhere from 1500 to 3,000 

22 urinalysis samples at a time, versus what may 
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1 be up to 150 or a couple hundred fecal 

2 measurements in a given year.

3 So Hanford was very much in front 

4 of the Super S curve or concerns when -- I 

5 provided some different documents Hanford had 

6 prepared for us or obtained for us so we would 

7 have those. I gave those to the Board. They 

8 presented an overview of technology shortfalls 

9 in 1988. They called it at the time, Super 

10 Class Y. And now it is, as the ICRP models 

11 have been updated, it is Super Class S, 

12 essentially the same but S and Y, it is just a 

13 different terminology in a document called 

14 Methods to Improve Plutonium Monitoring.

15 At the time they used ICRP 30 

16 biokinetic models. So kind of the older style 

17 but it is still -- they looked at what would 

18 be the deficiency or insufficiency to meet the 

19 DOE orders to meet the 100 millirem annual 

20 effective dose equivalent. And so they 

21 provided tables that showed the amount of 

22 plutonium going to urine. It was too low to 
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1 be observed using the alpha spec method. And 

2 they were very concerned that freshly prepared 

3 plutonium would take some time for the 

4 americium-241 to grow in. And so the in vivo 

5 counting methods would be insufficient to find 

6 these intakes.

7 And so I won't belabor the tables. 

8 This gives you some element of mass and 

9 activity that were required to meet their 

10 targets, what they felt the 100 millirem 

11 targets would be at the time. And those are 

12 annual effective dose equivalents. So 100 

13 millirem every year.

14 And so here we have what is called 

15 a bioassay challenges that they described in 

16 the '88 document. You can see that for an 

17 intake at their intake level, at what they 

18 consider their target level, it would very 

19 quickly drop below the level that they can see 

20 by alpha spec. And so you see the graphs. 

21 Curve A is excretion in urine from the acute 

22 intake that would be measurable at one year. 
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1 So this gives you what the urine excretion 

2 using the old biokinetics would have looked 

3 like. And then curve B shows what the 

4 expected urine excretion would be at the 

5 target line. So you can see for B within two 

6 or three days, it drops below. And that is 

7 for a type S intake. So that is the upper 

8 curve. The lower curve would be for what they 

9 had developed as their Super Class Y. It 

10 starts out below the intake level and for the 

11 target excretion, you can see that it doesn't 

12 get there.

13 So they actually began a pilot 

14 fecal program and I concentrated on the fecal 

15 program because there were a lot of questions 

16 by the Board. So I focused a lot of my 

17 presentation to that. They had about 50 

18 workers who participated and they had some 

19 issues regarding providing samples and sample 

20 not reported. Of the 84 scheduled samples, 

21 they only got 58. There were 1719 plutonium 

22 urinalysis samples for 1987, that same time 
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1 frame. And the workers did not like it. 

2 Obviously, fecal sampling programs are not 

3 really well received by the analyst or by the 

4 person providing the samples.

5 The pilot program was continued 

6 for 100 workers at the Plutonium Finishing 

7 Plant, the first one being at PUREX. So they 

8 actually then moved this to the Plutonium 

9 Finishing Plant. Fecal samples showed about 

10 40 to 50 percent of the workers were 

11 statistically greater than controls and these 

12 were -- it was basically a low-level plutonium 

13 intake going on at the Plutonium Finishing 

14 Plant that they were seeing in the fecal 

15 programs. And they actually then introduced 

16 some very long, high-rate sampling programs of 

17 air samples and then confirmed that there was 

18 this low-grade intake going on.

19 Plutonium urinalysis, they had 

20 2,008 routine, 130 specials, which would be 

21 associated with an intake or a suspected 

22 intake. There were 37 routine plutonium fecal 
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1 analysis and 34 specials.

2 So in 1989 after 12 months as a 

3 pilot program, the sampling frequency was 

4 changed to annual and essentially this became 

5 mandatory. They had mandated that the workers 

6 would participate. There were 2,156 routine 

7 urinalysis and you can see that the big ramp 

8 up of plutonium fecal analysis were 259 

9 routine with 16 specials.

10 So this was implemented with the 

11 experiences learned during the pilot program. 

12 It was mandated by the employers. There was 

13 not an external spike program. So the 

14 urinalysis program, they would provide some 

15 blinds with some spikes. It is harder to do 

16 that with a fecal program because you are 

17 really looking at trying to spike it with 

18 insoluble material and it is not just like 

19 spiking it with a liquid standard. However, 

20 all the standard radiochemistry practices were 

21 still observed. You still had to have, so you 

22 may not have a special QC sample with that 
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1 associated as a blank or a fecal sample that 

2 had a spike in it, you still had to run 

3 spikes. You still had to run blanks. You 

4 still had all those alpha specs and everything 

5 associated with all the quality control 

6 programs that US Testing ran for the 

7 urinalysis program. So they were still 

8 observing all those same procedures.

9 So until 1990, June 1, 1900, the 

10 routine fecal program operated normally, until 

11 the contract default with US Testing. The May 

12 samples were never analyzed.

13 In September, before an interim 

14 contract could be put into place, Hanford 

15 terminated the program. This was done because 

16 the Hanford facilities were no longer 

17 processing materials that would be classified 

18 as freshly separated Super Class Y plutonium. 

19 So they stopped this fresh oxide program.

20 So the in vivo would be able to 

21 see it, essentially is that means. Now the in 

22 vivo program will be able to see the 
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1 americium-241 with that. Even though there 

2 may be a deficiency in the urinalysis, you can 

3 still see it by the in vivo program.

4 So dose determinations made for 

5 workers in the program at the start of the 

6 year were assumed chronic exposures January 

7 through September, based on the fecal results 

8 in the December 1989 through April of 1990. 

9 This is PNNL's dose determinations, not ours. 

10 In the 1990 Pu urinalysis, there 

11 were 759 routine, 56 specials; and 35 routine 

12 fecal samples with 44 specials. At this time, 

13 once the US Testing shut down, they sent a lot 

14 of samples out to places like Los Alamos and 

15 Oak Ridge until they could get a contract in 

16 place because they still had to get that 

17 feedback on worker bioassays.

18 The results of the pilot program 

19 were summarized in a 1993 published paper 

20 about approximately 100 workers. They 

21 discussed the quality control samples using 

22 artificial and known blanks, people who were 
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1 known not to be exposed to plutonium. There 

2 were 391 samples from workers provided, 47 

3 control samples consisting of 31 artificial 

4 and 16 samples from unexposed individuals.

5 So very briefly, OTIB-49, that is 

6 our TIB on estimation of doses for plutonium 

7 strongly retained in the lung. Let's see, 

8 this seems to -- I think she split my slides a 

9 little differently. So anyway, sampling and 

10 radiochemical methods described, that actually 

11 goes to the previous slide. I missed that. 

12 That actually should have been with the 

13 previous slide. So in that paper they 

14 describe some of the radiochemistry.

15 So in this OTIB-49 estimation of 

16 doses for plutonium strongly retained in the 

17 lung and while the newer ICRP insoluble 

18 plutonium increased the retention time above

19 ICRP 30, the actions that we have seen, there 

20 are people who have longer retention than what 

21 the new models show. And so we have had to 

22 modify our doses associated with that. 
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1 So OTIB-49 was based on nine cases 

2 from Rocky Flats and one case from Hanford 

3 that had well defined intakes and exhibited 

4 long retention times. Upper-bound cases were 

5 used to establish the bounding dose. So the 

6 worst case, longest retained materials in the 

7 lungs by actual workers, that was actually 

8 used to set this data. We then compared that 

9 to data from the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium 

10 Registries autopsy cases to see how it 

11 compared.

12 Just to give you a feel, this is a 

13 case from Rocky Flats, Case 825. The dotted 

14 purple line shows the type S what you would 

15 expect. You can see that after a thousand 

16 days to ten thousand days, it drops off quite 

17 a bit. But you see that the blue dots don't 

18 follow that line. The material is much more 

19 insoluble than that and stays in the lung. So 

20 that is going to continue to give lung dose. 

21 It is not going to give necessarily a dose to 

22 the other organs in the body but for lung and 
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1 lymph nodes, it is an important factor. So we 

2 have to come up with dose adjustment factors, 

3 depending on the type of data being used, 

4 whether using in vivo data or urinalysis data 

5 or air data, you have to adjust for the 

6 factors on dose.

7 And so essentially here you will 

8 see the bottom line on curve B1, it says what 

9 a type S lung retention would look like. The 

10 top lines are what the cases, the worst cases, 

11 those two that Rocky Flats and that Hanford 

12 case, what they showed their retention to be. 

13 And so you can see for curve B2, these are the 

14 adjustment factors to go from the bottom line 

15 to those various cases. You can see that 

16 upper correction factor is the curve that we 

17 apply for OTIB-49.

18 So you can see that on an 

19 individual year as you get out past intake, it 

20 can take a substantial adjustment in dose from 

21 what you would expect from class type S. So 

22 we do not try to change the models; we adjust 
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1 the dose.

2 So we have essentially I am not 

3 going to get a lot into this but the Super S 

4 adjustment factors, depending on whether you 

5 are dealing with lung counts or with air 

6 concentration or urinalysis, there are a 

7 number of factors that are used to adjust the 

8 dose to make it equivalent to what the dose 

9 should be, based on the type S sampling.

10 All right, next slide. So OTIB-49 

11 specifically addresses adjustments of fecal 

12 data. Fecal samples collected less than two 

13 months after an acute intake or less than two 

14 months after the end of a chronic intake 

15 should be evaluated with the standard type S 

16 model. Once the intake is determined, the 

17 dose is adjusted using direct measurement 

18 factors. Fecal samples collected after this 

19 two-month time should be modeled as if they 

20 were urine samples because essentially what is 

21 happening is the mechanical clearance in the 

22 lung is being overridden. For whatever reason 
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1 the plutonium normally, there is a mechanical 

2 factor in addition to solubility, they are 

3 still pulling this out. And those essentially 

4 have been turned off. And so the mechanical 

5 factor is what puts it into the fecal samples 

6 and so you have to then model this as a urine 

7 sample.

8 And so we adjust that by a factor 

9 of three. And the reason is here is the 

10 correction factor. If you were to use 

11 injected plutonium and compare the fecal 

12 output and the urine output, this is the 

13 fraction of intake in the urine and fecal 

14 samples. If you look at the ratios, after 100 

15 days, three months, you sort of waiver in 

16 between two and three as an adjustment factor.

17 So application at Hanford, during 

18 this time really we are looking at standard 

19 procedures used to apply to Hanford data. 

20 Assumptions include the age of plutonium, the 

21 plutonium isotopic makeup, fuel grade or 

22 weapons grade, the solubility class, including 
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1 Super S, if appropriate. And that is 

2 dependent on the organs. You have to really 

3 look at the information available for a case 

4 and what are the cancers associated with that 

5 case.

6 NIOSH TBD currently uses the 

7 contractual MDAs. That has been discussed. 

8 Methods during this time period for SEC-00155, 

9 current TBD indicates ten year old plutonium 

10 should be used. Weapons grade and fuel grade 

11 may be evaluated. And I must say rarely is 

12 fecal data available. But OTIB-49 is used to 

13 evaluate and compare that with other 

14 indicators.

15 Sometimes they indicate intakes 

16 are not claimant favorable if the assumptions 

17 would result in detection by other methods. So 

18 you compare the urine versus the in vivo. And 

19 you have to look at did I have a claimant 

20 favorable assumption. Case-specific data must 

21 be reviewed since in vivo data may make some 

22 assumptions not claimant favorable.
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1 With that, thank you very much.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So at 

3 least from the Work Group's perspective, we 

4 have gone through this, we feel this sort of 

5 completes the evaluation of this SEC. We had 

6 already had a presentation and gone through on 

7 the issue of the US Testing and the fraud at 

8 that that we discussed at our last meeting. We 

9 still had some questions on the dose 

10 reconstruction method. So that is why we had 

11 another Work Group meeting and went through 

12 that.

13 Let me open up first for Board 

14 Member questions for Sam. I will add at the 

15 Work Group meeting, Arjun and Joyce Lipsztein 

16 were both involved. It was a conference call

17 and the SC&A was satisfied with the dose 

18 reconstruction method. I think it is a fair 

19 statement. We did not ask SC&A for a formal 

20 review of it but we did ask for their 

21 participation in the conference call including 

22 Joyce, who has got significant expertise in 
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1 this area.

2 If there are no questions, then --

3 yes, David. You look like you are --

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I have been 

5 trying to get myself organized. I apologize.

6 One question was related to intake 

7 dates. You had an algorithm for interpreting 

8 the fecal data based on the time from intake. 

9 Could you explain to me how that would be 

10 known or when that is known and when that is 

11 not clearly known?

12 DR. GLOVER: Yes, sir. That is 

13 where the case-specific data comes into play. 

14 Sometimes the only reason we know there was an 

15 intake is that it triggered the fecal samples 

16 and so they evaluated it as an acute. So 

17 Hanford oftentimes, as a result of whether the 

18 guy came back with positive nose wipes or 

19 there is an indicator that they began 

20 following an acute intake. Oftentimes we are 

21 going to treat these as constant chronic's, 

22 our standard approach. But if there is 
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1 indicators that the site actually had an 

2 intake, then we are going to look at that and 

3 compare the analysis as if it was -- so the 

4 site will often give us indicators that an 

5 intake occurred.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: There were --

7 I don't want to go back to -- I would like to 

8 but I am not going to go back to some of the 

9 other issues that were raised in the report. 

10 But one of the things I am trying to juggle 

11 was monitoring for kind of the relationship 

12 between the availability of in vivo data and 

13 the questions about the bioassay data. And my 

14 recollection of the Hanford data are that 

15 there is -- I mean in a sense, there is a lot 

16 of information. On the other hand, there is 

17 not. You saw transitions over time between 

18 kind of more bioassay monitoring or more in 

19 vivo monitoring and that there are at least 

20 groups of workers for whom, there is a large 

21 proportion of workers for whom there is 

22 neither. There are some who only have in vivo 
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1 information. There are some who only have 

2 bioassay. And then there are some who have 

3 both.

4 And some of the questions that 

5 were raised about concerns about the bioassay 

6 program are sort of set aside because, well, 

7 for americium-241 was largely monitored by the 

8 in vivo program, which is true as long as 

9 somebody was covered by the in vivo program. 

10 And presumably one of the reasons that you 

11 would do bioassay also is that there was some 

12 value in that. And I guess I am trying to 

13 understand how we kind of resolve that 

14 problem. Is there -- the argument I guess is 

15 that the in vivo program was sufficiently 

16 targeted such that they were running the 

17 bioassay program for americium, for example, 

18 with very little value added. Is that --

19 DR. GLOVER: I don't know whether 

20 very little value added is the right --

21 I guess the question I have is 

22 that not everybody always has to have bioassay 
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1 but we have to know that the highest people at 

2 Hanford had the bioassay or that were 

3 appropriately. So not everybody at Hanford 

4 has urine and fecal in vivo but they had a 

5 very aggressive monitoring program for the 

6 people at the plutonium finishing plant and 

7 the other facilities. And so many times 

8 everybody was monitored through certain time 

9 periods at Hanford. So I doubt -- and I 

10 didn't, unfortunately, pull the statistic 

11 down. Some of my database stuff came back 

12 late and, unfortunately, I was ill.

13 I did have the data come late on 

14 the in vivo but there is a very large 

15 americium-241 and that would have been coupled 

16 to the urinalysis program. You wouldn't have 

17 typically done urine or the americium-241 

18 measures. You may have whole body counts and 

19 not urinalysis because you may be in an area 

20 that is not really plutonium.

21 So for people getting Am-241 chest 

22 counts in the lungs, that would typically be 
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1 coupled with the bioassay program. For these 

2 very specific workers, they also had some 

3 fecal measurements done.

4 So but it really would have been -

5 - you know they had some very specific 

6 protocols and I don't think we have seen any 

7 evidence to believe that the highest exposed 

8 personnel wouldn't have been monitored.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think I would 

10 also add, David, this is a very focused SEC 

11 petition. So there is ongoing evaluation 

12 going on that is sort of more looking at the 

13 bigger site and so forth. We added a number 

14 of people, large numbers to the SEC already, 

15 site-wide. But there is still ongoing 

16 evaluation being done. This is sort of a 

17 separate focus. I mean the questions are 

18 appropriate but you sort of have to remember 

19 the context also.

20 Henry?

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, could you 

22 just remind me what triggered the special 
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1 samples?

2 DR. GLOVER: There would have been 

3 specific criteria that would associate with an 

4 incident. They expect if somebody may exceed 

5 the 100 millirem --

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: And would all of 

7 the people involved in an incident actually 

8 have had tests or was that also a voluntary 

9 thing so that you could have people that 

10 should have had a special test but didn't and 

11 then how would you address that issue? Because 

12 it would probably be in their record that they 

13 were involved in an incident but if they 

14 didn't have testing, assessing that would be a 

15 challenge.

16 DR. GLOVER: There are certain 

17 Classes of workers that -- typically routine

18 samples like closeouts or when they leave a 

19 site, that you may not get it. People at the 

20 Plutonium Finishing Plant, if you did not 

21 provide a sample, you are going to go on a 

22 work restriction.
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1 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

2 DR. GLOVER: So you are not going 

3 to continue to work.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: Good.

5 DR. GLOVER: So if you don't -- I 

6 mean it is sort of voluntary but not really.

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, okay, 

8 because the fecal samples are often a 

9 challenge. 

10 DR. GLOVER: Yes, that was sort of 

11 a pilot program and they were just trying to 

12 implement it. And when it became mandatory, 

13 then if you wanted to continue working, you 

14 had to participate.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay, thanks.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other Board 

17 Member questions? If not, if the petitioner 

18 or the petitioner representative is on the 

19 line, if you wish to make comments.

20 Again if the petitioner or the 

21 petitioner representative is on the line and 

22 wishes to make comments. You may be on mute, 
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1 so please, *6 again would get you. Okay.

2 I will add that the petitioner 

3 representative did participate in the Work 

4 Group call and discussion.

5 In that case, let me indicate that 

6 the Work Group at our last meeting slash 

7 conference call did vote with all those 

8 unanimously to recommend that the NIOSH 

9 recommendation is that this Class not be added 

10 to the SEC, that they could reconstruct dose 

11 with sufficient accuracy for this particular 

12 Class that was evaluated for this petition.

13 The Work Group agreed with that 

14 determination and, therefore, really is 

15 bringing a motion back to the Board that we 

16 accept the NIOSH evaluation.

17 So any further discussion or 

18 questions on that? If not then, Ted, do the 

19 roll call.

20 MEMBER GRIFFON: An affirmative 

21 vote is to support NIOSH?

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: To support 
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1 NIOSH, correct.

2 MR. KATZ: And let me just note 

3 for the record that Ms. Beach and Ms. Munn 

4 have been recused from this discussion and 

5 also for the vote.

6 Dr. Anderson?

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

11 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Let me just check to 

13 make sure. Mr. Gibson, are you on the line? 

14 Okay.

15 Mr. Griffon?

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Kotelchuck?

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Lemen is 

20 absent. Dr. Lockey?

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston?

3 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson?

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

7 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Ms. Valerio?

11 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: So the motion passes 

15 unanimously.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

17 And why don't we take our break now. I will 

18 remind the Board, we do have a number of 

19 issues to go over in terms of Work Group 

20 reports and so forth. But we turn, at least I 

21 believe it is on the second page on the 

22 annotated agenda that we received are some 
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1 suggested dates for meetings next fall. So if 

2 all of you could check your calendars, because 

3 I would like to do that. The next time we 

4 have a break we should at least start to 

5 discuss those while everybody is here.

6 And we will reconvene promptly at 

7 11:00 because we have an SEC evaluation to

8 review at that time. Thank you.

9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off 

10 the record at 10:37 a.m. and 

11 resumed at 11:03 a.m.)

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Welcome back and 

13 the next thing on our agenda is an 83.14 

14 petition Battelle Laboratories. And Tim 

15 Taulbee from NIOSH will be doing the 

16 presentation on that.

17 Go ahead, Tim. And again, best 

18 you can, speak into the microphone. Get as 

19 close as you can because it is hard to do that 

20 and look at slides at the same time.

21 DR. TAULBEE: Okay. Thank you, 

22 Dr. Melius. Well, hopefully we have moved the 
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1 microphone onto this side so that when I look 

2 at the slides, you will still be able to hear 

3 me. Thank you, Dr. Melius.

4 Before we get started, let me 

5 recognize the lead author of this SEC. And 

6 this would be Jason Davis. He did the lion's 

7 share of this work. I just have the privilege 

8 of presenting it to you all today.

9 So to give an overview of this 

10 petition, this has actually been a little bit 

11 of a work in progress over the past few years, 

12 as you will see. But in October, NIOSH 

13 determined that it was not feasible to 

14 complete a dose reconstruction for an existing 

15 Battelle Memorial Institute, King Avenue 

16 claim. So on October 18th we notified the 

17 claimant and provided a copy of the Special 

18 Exposure Cohort Petition Form A. October 25th 

19 we received the 83.14 and then on October 19th 

20 we issued this Evaluation Report.

21 The proposed Class is all atomic 

22 weapons employees who worked at the King 
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1 Avenue facility owned by Battelle Laboratories 

2 in Columbus, Ohio during the period April 16, 

3 1943 through June 30, 1956 for a number of 

4 work days aggregating at least 250 work days 

5 occurring either solely under this employment 

6 or in combination with work days within the 

7 parameters established for one or more other 

8 Classes of employees included in the Special 

9 Exposure Cohort.

10 So how did we come to this 

11 particular Class and determination that we 

12 couldn't do dose reconstruction? So that is 

13 the subject of my talk today. 

14 A little bit of background. 

15 Battelle is an EEOICPA-covered facility from 

16 1943 until 1986 as an AWE. It is a 58.3-acre 

17 site, accommodating 13 buildings bordered by 

18 King Avenue, Battelle Boulevard, Perry Street, 

19 Third Avenue, and the Olentangy River.

20 The main focus of their work was 

21 to perform atomic energy research and 

22 development for, initially, the Manhattan 
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1 Engineering District, the Atomic Energy 

2 Commission, the Department of Energy. They 

3 also did work for the Nuclear Regulatory 

4 Commission, Department of Defense and 

5 commercial entities. It has been owned and 

6 operated by Battelle Memorial Institute.

7 So that is a rough background of 

8 what the site was doing.

9 The information that we looked at 

10 to try to do dose reconstruction starts really 

11 with our Site Profile and Technical 

12 Information Bulletins and procedures. And the 

13 Battelle King Avenue Technical Basis Document 

14 was really pretty void of information prior to 

15 about 1956 time period. And the reason that 

16 the initial authors of it didn't cover that 

17 time period was we were having difficulty 

18 getting data but we also didn't have any 

19 claims at that time in that era. So it wasn't 

20 a huge priority for us to try and identify 

21 people or to identify information. It was 

22 only until recently during an update that we 
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1 went back to try and gather more information 

2 regarding that TBD.

3 We also have Site Research 

4 Database, existing claimant files. And what I 

5 want to talk to a little bit here is the data 

6 captures. Because of that vacancy in the TBD, 

7 this is why we started going back to the 

8 sites, to Battelle on-site. About two years 

9 ago, in January of 2011, we went up there. We 

10 talked to them. We looked through their 

11 microfiche records as to what information that 

12 they had in this early time period to try and 

13 gather more information on their inventory, 

14 their processes, their radiological monitoring 

15 information.

16 So we visited the site four times 

17 in the past two years, three in 2011 and one 

18 in 2012. We also looked at DOE's Legacy 

19 Management Database and the OpenNet or OSTI, 

20 Energy Citations database. We looked out at 

21 Hanford in their Declassified Document 

22 Retrieval System, conducted internet searches, 
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1 as well as looking at the NRC's ADAMS 

2 database.

3 So we have spent a lot of time in 

4 the last two years looking for records for 

5 this particular site in order to work on 

6 upgrading that Technical Basis Document. Well, 

7 in total in the Claims Tracking System we have 

8 62 Battelle claims for the King Avenue 

9 facility. Only 25 are during these 

10 recommended years that we are recommending 

11 this Class for. Dose reconstructions have 

12 been completed on 19 of them mostly due to 

13 work on other sites and many of these have 

14 become compensable due to this other work that 

15 we were able to fill in or SECs at other 

16 sites, for example.

17 Claims that contain internal 

18 dosimetry were zero. Claims that contained 

19 some external dosimetry were six. So what you 

20 will see here is the difference between the 

21 Class and the number we have completed. We 

22 are looking at six claims.
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1 Of the six claims, only one of 

2 them actually has an SEC cancer and that is 

3 this one that we are able to contact them and 

4 notify them of our inability to reconstruct 

5 the doses. So the other five that we have 

6 within the database that we haven't completed 

7 do not have SEC cancers.

8 So a little bit on the 

9 radiological operations during the AEC work. 

10 With the initial contract with Manhattan 

11 Engineering District was April 16, 1943 and it 

12 was to perform atomic energy research and 

13 development activities. This initial work was 

14 on the fabrication, rolling, forging, and 

15 extrusion of uranium metal. This was for the 

16 Clinton Pile as well as the Hanford Piles.

17 Then they switched in the mid to 

18 late 1940s through early 1950s to work with 

19 uranium and thorium metal. And with thorium I 

20 will get into more detail later but 

21 particularly we are concerned with the forging 

22 that they were doing.
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1 Between or right after the war is 

2 when they started doing some research in the 

3 extraction of uranium and thorium for 

4 phosphate ores, particularly the Chattanooga 

5 shale deposits and then to the monazite sands.

6 So this is kind of a summary of 

7 the radiological operations that they were 

8 doing this time. And I will go into more of 

9 the uranium and thorium operations here in a 

10 minute.

11 But the buildings that they were 

12 working on were somewhat limited. Building A 

13 was their corporate office but it did have 

14 some small laboratories. Most of the work in 

15 this early time period was done in the 

16 Foundry, the Metalworking Building and the 

17 Materials Building. They also had a 

18 Radiochemistry Building, a Machine Shop, and 

19 then two other Chemistry Buildings and a 

20 Mechanical Engineering Building that actually 

21 worked with some depleted uranium.

22 And what you will see here from 
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1 this particular slide is these areas. And up 

2 here you have got the -- okay, we can't see 

3 it. Do we have another pointer? Okay, 

4 apparently not.

5 Anyway, from this slide you can 

6 see Building 1 there with the Foundry down to 

7 the south of it is where the metal working and 

8 the materials laboratories are. Building 4, 

9 they are the Radiochemistry and so forth.

10 So the potential for radiation 

11 exposure was really uranium, enriched uranium, 

12 thorium, and then some special samples. 

13 External radiation is primarily beta and gamma 

14 from exposure to uranium and thorium and then 

15 the special samples of radium.

16 So the uranium operations that 

17 were going on during the war, 1943, and this 

18 is from an MED Trip Report, they talked about 

19 the heating of the pellets, the extrusion of 

20 small billets into rods; hammering of heated 

21 billets into rods -- that would be forging --

22 the rolling of the heated billets; experiments 
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1 to prevent oxidation; machining, they were 

2 doing some of that under oil and then nickel 

3 plating.

4 By 1945 they had written a report 

5 on the metallurgy of uranium, Tuballoy in this 

6 case and how all of these process work. So 

7 they were kind of a research development of 

8 how to do this during this war effort.

9 After the war, though, this work 

10 appears to have scaled back. The research 

11 shifted more to the extraction from ores and 

12 sands. And they were looking at small 

13 quantities -- large quantities of ores and 

14 sands but the batch processing methodology 

15 they were using was pretty small, on the order 

16 of ten to 20-pound type of batches. And when 

17 you look at the uranium content within those 

18 and the thorium content, you are looking at 

19 really gram-type quantities.

20 The emphasis during this time 

21 period appears to be more on the work of 

22 beryllium, at least that is the preference --
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1 the abundance of reports that were published 

2 during that time period.

3 One of the Trip Reports that 

4 caught our interest as well was, mentioned 

5 occasional samples from Chicago and Clinton 

6 Laboratories are received. These are low 

7 radioactivity. Intensity of radioactivity is 

8 measured before leaving Chicago or Clinton 

9 Laboratories and the results accompany the 

10 samples. An example of this was a radium 

11 compound measuring 0.1R for 50 hours at a 

12 distance at one foot. At present time, no 

13 samples have been received which reveal any 

14 significant degree of radiation. So in this 

15 time period they didn't really consider this 2 

16 mR per hour source to be significant. So we 

17 found that kind of interesting, especially 

18 when you consider during the war effort they 

19 were also processing some tons of uranium 

20 using that for research and that also was not 

21 considered significant apparently.

22 The report goes on to talk about 
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1 that the Battelle Institute had no radiation 

2 counters and was equipped in no way to work 

3 with radioactive materials. Although they had 

4 been doing this for the previous three or four 

5 years. The officer advises that should the 

6 occasion arise, the handling of hot material 

7 as necessary, the necessary counters and film 

8 badges should be obtained. So we have pretty 

9 good evidence that at this point they had no 

10 radiological monitoring capability prior to 

11 1946, even though they were doing some 

12 radiological work, including forging and 

13 rolling of uranium.

14 1952 is the first indication here 

15 we have of some kind of radiological controls 

16 of personnel monitoring -- not personnel 

17 monitoring but personal protective equipment. 

18 This is on the rolling of uranium. And here 

19 you are seeing a worker rolling rods in strips 

20 under various conditions and roll-separating 

21 force was measured. Here is the 

22 instrumentation. Here he is feeding a uranium 
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1 bar into the rolling mill, very precise type 

2 of measurements. You also notice he is 

3 wearing a respirator, a half-face respirator 

4 in this particular case. But this was the 

5 only mention or the only indication we had 

6 there was really any respiratory use during 

7 this type of scenario. We don't know if it 

8 was all the time. We don't know if this was 

9 just on a one time off. But we do know that 

10 the particular operation here with uranium 

11 rolling is more of a hands-on type of 

12 operation. This isn't remote. This could 

13 generate some dust here.

14 The inventory information that we 

15 have is also incomplete but it follows along 

16 the story of what we have been able to reveal 

17 from the records. A '43 and '44 time period 

18 we are looking at a little over a ton of 

19 uranium, '45, '46 we don't have any inventory 

20 reports so I have got a question mark there. 

21 We don't know whether there is a lot or a 

22 little. 1947, '48 through '51 it does seem to 
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1 ramp back up, which supports those 

2 measurements that I showed you in that 

3 previous picture. Enriched uranium not much 

4 at all was handled there.

5 Thorium, this one is a little bit 

6 of a surprise as to the 800 kilograms in 1947. 

7 We don't quite know what they were doing with 

8 that in that time period. We do have some 

9 indication in '48 and '49 and later. And I 

10 will talk about that in just a second.

11 So what we have is kind of an 

12 incomplete inventory picture. Now, there is 

13 the possibility of additional data captures 

14 being able to fill this in. The reason that 

15 we are not holding up this 83.14 really has 

16 more to do with the lack of monitoring

17 information. But the inventories are showing 

18 there was significant quantities or some 

19 quantity of radioactive material there on20 site. 

21 For thorium operations, 1948 we 

22 have a memo from Westinghouse discussing the 
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1 rolling of approximately 900 pounds of thorium 

2 received from Battelle Memorial Institute. So 

3 we know that they were receiving material from 

4 Battelle. 1951 Battelle produced a report on 

5 the technology of thorium, which discussed the 

6 production of the metal, physical properties, 

7 fabrication of it, chemical properties, 

8 mechanical properties. So we are kind of 

9 assuming that they were doing some of this 

10 work. And when you look at the inventory that 

11 they had leading up to this, it kind of 

12 supports that they would be doing some of this 

13 measurement on the chemical properties, 

14 fabrication, et cetera.

15 The interesting part for us was 

16 1951, an Oak Ridge Report, ORNL-1090 stated 

17 that the metal that they were using to develop 

18 their analysis on the metallurgy of thorium 

19 indicated that the metal was cast at Ames 

20 Laboratory, which we know Ames did a lot of 

21 thorium manufacturing or creating of billets. 

22 It was cast at Ames Laboratory, forged at 
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1 Battelle Memorial Institute, and rolled and 

2 machined at Westinghouse, which kind of moves 

3 up here to this 1948, receiving material from 

4 Battelle. Most likely, it was being forged 

5 back in 1948 and going to Westinghouse.

6 So we have some indication here 

7 that '48 through at least 1951, '52 time 

8 period, you have got forging of thorium going 

9 on there at Battelle in that foundry.

10 So going back here, the source 

11 term we are looking at ton-type levels of 

12 uranium and thorium. Process knowledge is 

13 showing rolling and forging, both physical 

14 processes that could generate dust and 

15 potential exposure to workers. There is some 

16 potential that workers were wearing 

17 respirators. We have no information about 

18 that as to what type or anything other than 

19 that one picture. That is all the information 

20 we have.

21 From an internal monitoring data 

22 standpoint we have no internal bioassay prior 
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1 to 1955 and we have one result in 1955. 1956 

2 is when uranium urinalysis really kicks off 

3 there for the facility and the records seem to 

4 indicate that this was kind of the birth, 

5 essentially of the urinalysis program there at 

6 the site. And we have quite a bit of records 

7 starting in 1956.

8 External monitoring data, there is 

9 no external monitoring data until February of 

10 1951. Some monitoring data between '51 and 

11 '55 and that is depicted in this particular 

12 slide where you can see the number of film 

13 badges that were issued. In 1950, it is very 

14 small, a couple of hundred in 1951 and then up 

15 to around 500 steady through about 1955, at 

16 which time the program really begins to take 

17 off, '56 and '57 with a wholesale monitoring 

18 of workers for external radiation.

19 We do have some what I would call 

20 non-routine radiological surveys. The first 

21 mention of, really, health and safety that we 

22 found was that 1943 Trip Report where they 
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1 said respirators are used in dusty places 

2 only. Don't know what dusty places means by 

3 their definition from that earlier time 

4 period. And we don't have any other 

5 indication other than that one sentence.

6 1947 we do have a radiological 

7 survey that appears to be the first survey 

8 that was conducted there. There is alpha 

9 contamination found in laboratory work table 

10 up to 2000 dpm, gamma surveys ranging from 1 

11 mR per hour to 12 mR per hour. Beta-gamma was 

12 0.1 mR to 160 mR. 

13 The author of the Trip Report 

14 recommended that Battelle obtain radiological 

15 survey instrumentation. So this is a second 

16 confirmatory piece of information that 

17 Battelle didn't have any instrumentation until 

18 at least some time after 1947. So it doesn't 

19 appear that there was any monitoring really 

20 going on until that particular time period. 

21 And then we have these intermittent surveys.

22 The next survey set we have is 
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1 three radiological surveys in 1950 conducted 

2 March through May. There were 48 air samples 

3 analyzed by the Health and Safety laboratory 

4 in New York under several conditions: wet 

5 sawing, dry grinding, although most of these 

6 48 samples were listed as installation blanks. 

7 They would take a blank and then they would 

8 move the air sampler to the particular 

9 location and take a measurement at that time. 

10 So they were very concerned about making sure 

11 that they had a good background going on. So 

12 really we have about 20 air samples from this 

13 time period.

14 1951 we have radiological survey 

15 conducted in three laboratories; 77 smears 

16 with contamination results ranging from 

17 background to 981 counts per minute. We don't 

18 have information on what counters were used or 

19 what the efficiency was. We could probably 

20 make some estimates there but 77 smears across 

21 three laboratories really isn't that much 

22 data.
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1 Twenty-one beta-gamma surveys 

2 again ranging from 0.1 mR to 20 mR per hour. 

3 The desks, at least from the locations where 

4 these surveys were taken, desk tops were 

5 generally contamination- free, although work 

6 benches and hoods were not.

7 In 1957 we do have some breathing 

8 zone air monitoring survey conducted during 

9 the rolling of thorium. What I found 

10 interesting about this particular survey which 

11 is outside the time period here, but the 

12 author of that particular survey indicated to 

13 the people running the lab to please let him 

14 know when you forge thorium. He would like to 

15 take some air samples.

16 So it looks like the forging of 

17 thorium was going on from 1948 up through 1957 

18 and in 1957 the person taking the air samples 

19 was actually wanting to try and get some data 

20 on that. So we have about a decade of an 

21 operation potentially going on here and we 

22 don't have any information about it, as to 
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1 what those levels were when they were doing 

2 that operation.

3 So when you go back and you take a 

4 kind of the weight of the evidence here of 

5 source term available, we are looking at again 

6 tons of, low tons, like one ton of uranium and 

7 likely a sub-ton of thorium. So low 

8 quantities but significant operations. The 

9 process knowledge tells us that they were do 

10 rolling and forgings, so an abrasive process 

11 that would generate dust.

12 Personal monitoring data we don't 

13 have anything during this time period for 

14 internal. For external we do have some 

15 starting in February of 1951, but for 

16 internal, we don't have anything of that time 

17 period, other than these handful of air 

18 samples at intermittent time periods.

19 So between all of those, it is 

20 just trying to do a dose reconstruction here 

21 to come up with sufficiently accurate value 

22 just doesn't seem feasible to us because of 
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1 the hands-on type of operation that was going 

2 on.

3 So as a result, our conclusion 

4 here is based upon these internal monitoring 

5 records, the process description is the 

6 source-term data. We feel these are 

7 inadequate to complete dose reconstruction 

8 with sufficient accuracy for the evaluated 

9 Class of employee during the period of April 

10 16, 1943 through June 30, 1956.

11 Why did we cut it off at June 30, 

12 1956? That is when the bioassay and 

13 urinalysis starts up. Now we do plan on 

14 conducting additional research at the site. We 

15 have got more data captures planned but our 

16 information so far indicates that we don't 

17 think it had any urinalysis out there, that 

18 there is no indication in the records that 

19 they were conducting any routine urinalysis 

20 prior to 1956.

21 The survey information that we 

22 have is intermittent, sometimes in Trip 
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1 Reports, sometimes just in a memo. There is 

2 no indication, unlike Oak Ridge National 

3 Laboratory that I presented back in September 

4 where we had indication that there was lots of 

5 air sample data out there, we just couldn't 

6 find it. We don't have any indication here 

7 that there is any air sample data, other than 

8 these few samples that we found.

9 So we don't believe there is 

10 anything out there, which is why we wanted to 

11 move forward on the 83.14 instead of waiting 

12 until we completed all of these data captures 

13 for this particular site.

14 June 30th was picked because when 

15 we looked at the bioassay data, starting in 

16 July of 1956 we have a list of workers and 

17 which buildings they worked in, buildings A, 

18 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the main buildings, the 

19 Foundry, the Machine Shop, the Materials 

20 Building, the Metallurgy Building. People 

21 from those buildings were all included in the 

22 urinalysis program. So we felt that this was 
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1 a reasonable cut-off at this time, at least 

2 from an 83.14 standpoint. We don't have 

3 anything up until this time period and then it 

4 looks like the program is beginning to take 

5 some form and monitoring the workers.

6 With regard to the external 

7 monitoring, we feel the same way. The process 

8 descriptions, the source-term data are 

9 inadequate to complete dose reconstructions 

10 with sufficient accuracy for the evaluated 

11 Class of employees during the period of April 

12 16, 1943 through February 13, 1951. This is 

13 the start of that film badge monitoring that I 

14 showed you earlier. So the actual external 

15 feasibility is shorter than the internal 

16 feasibility for this site.

17 When we start getting the film 

18 badge data, we do feel that we should be able 

19 to reconstruct the doses, or at least the 

20 external doses amongst these workers.

21 So our feasibility summary is that 

22 dose reconstruction is not feasible for 
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1 uranium and thorium from '43 to '56 and then 

2 for external, it is infeasible until February 

3 of 1951 and after February, we feel we can do 

4 external dose reconstruction.

5 So health endangerment, the 

6 evidence reviewed in this evaluation indicates 

7 that some workers in the Class may have 

8 accumulated chronic radiation exposures 

9 through intakes of radionuclides and direct 

10 exposure to radioactive materials. 

11 Consequently, NIOSH is specifying that health 

12 may have been endangered for those workers 

13 covered by this evaluation who were employed 

14 for a number of work days aggregating at least 

15 250 work days within the parameters 

16 established for this Class or a combination of 

17 work days within the parameters established 

18 for one or more other Classes of employees in 

19 the SEC.

20 Again, our proposed Class is for 

21 all workers who worked at the King Avenue 

22 facility owned by Battelle Laboratories in 
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1 Columbus, Ohio during the period April 16, 

2 1943 through June 30, 1956 for a number of 

3 work days aggregating at least 250 occurring 

4 either solely under this employment or in 

5 combination of work days within the parameters 

6 established for other SECs.

7 Again, this is just a summary of 

8 our recommendation. And with that, I will be 

9 happy to answer any questions.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you, 

11 Tim. Any questions? Yes, Phil.

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, Tim, I 

13 have got a question.

14 Starting in '56 we were seeing 

15 people monitored in those buildings. Do you 

16 know which all buildings they did this work in 

17 and were they decommissioned before '56 or 

18 were people still working in there but just 

19 not doing radiological work in there anymore?

20 DR. TAULBEE: Okay, say that last 

21 part again. I'm sorry.

22 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. What I 
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1 want to know is, you have a number of 

2 buildings listed in '56 where people were 

3 being monitored.

4 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, sir.

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Do you know, 

6 were those the only buildings where 

7 radiological work had occurred? Because what 

8 I want to know is if people were still 

9 working, like had offices now in some of the 

10 other buildings where radiological work had 

11 been carried on, were those buildings 

12 decommissioned, decontaminated?

13 DR. TAULBEE: That is unclear to 

14 us. Now at least from the 1943 time period 

15 with the foundry type of work, it doesn't 

16 appear that those buildings were 

17 decommissioned or decontaminated because the 

18 work continued on post-1956.

19 It is just bioassay monitoring 

20 picks up then in 1956. So we are seeing the 

21 work kind of continuing over this span and it 

22 just, the monitoring picks up like in 1956 
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1 time period. 

2 Does that answer your question?

3 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, it says 

4 there is people could have still been 

5 receiving a dose internally and externally in 

6 the other buildings.

7 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct, 

8 yes.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And they are 

10 still evaluating that. So we are not being 

11 asked to reach any conclusion on that at this 

12 point.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I just wanted 

14 to make sure that was clear in my mind.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, okay. Paul?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Just to clarify

17 though, for the early period that you are 

18 talking about here, you are including all the 

19 buildings on your map, I believe, not just the 

20 ones that you identified as radiological 

21 buildings. Am I correct?

22 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct. We 
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1 haven't found a way to really identify who 

2 worked in which building. So we are including 

3 all workers.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. Thank you.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I actually 

6 have a follow-up to that. Since the Class 

7 definition is the King Avenue facility, is 

8 there a way for DOL to identify which Battelle 

9 Laboratory workers worked at the King Avenue 

10 facility?

11 DR. TAULBEE: In this time period, 

12 yes. And the reason is that the Jefferson 

13 facility didn't start up until 1956.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I wasn't 

15 sure what the history of Battelle was. It's a 

16 lot bigger now, I know. Okay, thanks.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie and then -

18 -

19 MEMBER BEACH: I just was curious. 

20 There was badge data you found in 199 external 

21 dosimetry records in '51. You may have 

22 mentioned it. Why can't you use that or why 
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1 aren't you using that?

2 DR. TAULBEE: We are using that.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

4 DR. TAULBEE: I thought I had said 

5 that we were using the external monitoring 

6 records, the badge records starting in 1951.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, okay.

8 DR. TAULBEE: If you go back to 

9 this feasibility summary here, you will see 

10 that dose reconstruction is feasible after 

11 February of 1951 for external.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, okay. Thank 

13 you. I just missed that.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Loretta?

15 MEMBER VALERIO: According to 

16 slide 62, claims have been filed for Battelle. 

17 Can you give us an indication of how many 

18 employees were actually employed at this site 

19 during the time frame being considered?

20 DR. TAULBEE: We have two pieces 

21 of information along that lines and that is 

22 1947 and 1949. And it indicates the number of 
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1 employees working on the site or working on 

2 the AEC projects. I believe it is like 173 

3 and 180. They are in the SEC report where we 

4 call those out. So we are looking at a few 

5 hundred workers that were known to have been 

6 working on the AEC projects there at Battelle 

7 in the '47 and '49 time period.

8 There were, obviously, more 

9 employees at Battelle at that time period than 

10 that, but those were the ones who were working 

11 on the AEC projects. But we are not 

12 designating only people working on the AEC 

13 projects as being part of the Class. We are 

14 saying all workers because we can't identify 

15 who those people are. Or at least we haven't 

16 found a way to identify them yet.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie, do you 

18 have another question -- or just want 

19 attention? David.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I was also 

21 thinking about your map. If I was 

22 understanding correctly, although the map 
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1 showed a lot of buildings where a lot of work 

2 happened, for the period you are talking 

3 about, it was just Building A with the old 

4 administration building and Building 1, the 

5 Foundry that were really used until -- were 

6 actually constructed before the mid-'50s. Is 

7 that right? So all those other buildings on 

8 the map really didn't exist. That map is not 

9 showing what was there at the time that this 

10 SEC is being considered.

11 DR. TAULBEE: That is not -- no. 

12 The SEC goes through 1956. So some of these 

13 buildings that were constructed in the early 

14 '50s were doing radiological work.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, maybe I 

16 am just -- I mean it sort of says A and 

17 Building 1 and then it says Buildings 2 

18 through 7, 10 through 13 were not constructed 

19 until the mid-'50s, which made me all of a 

20 sudden sort of blank them off the map and 

21 think are we really primarily focused with 

22 just two buildings and the Classes covering 
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1 those people and the rest of it wasn't there. 

2 I am stating that as a sentence, but I mean 

3 that as a question.

4 DR. TAULBEE: Okay, I don't know 

5 the answer to that actually. With regard to

6 when each of the buildings came online and 

7 when they started doing work, I don't have 

8 that information at the tip of my hands here. 

9 A lot of the decommissioning 

10 information that took place in the 1980s, they 

11 documented some of the building histories. 

12 That is the information that we are going off 

13 of. So you will find things that are vague in 

14 the reports of built in the mid-1950s. It 

15 very well could be the 1952 time period and 

16 the authors were calling it that.

17 So I don't know that we have the 

18 actual construction information of when these 

19 buildings came on place. 

20 We do know that Building 1 was the 

21 primary one with the foundry with the rolling 

22 operations that were going on, rolling and 
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1 forging. These other ones we do know are 

2 radiological buildings, due to some of the 

3 other processes that were going on.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But we have no 

5 way of separating out the Class. So whatever 

6 was there and they worked in up through the 

7 end of June 30, `56, they are going to be 

8 covered. And apparently there is no way in 

9 the personnel records of determining if 

10 somebody come in in '55 could have worked in a 

11 totally separate building but we wouldn't have 

12 a way of knowing that or knowing that they 

13 weren't exposed, I guess would be the --

14 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- problem. Any 

16 of the Board Members on the telephone line 

17 have a question?

18 Okay, if there are no more 

19 questions, and my understanding is that the 

20 petitioner is not participating in the 

21 conference call.

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: Just one question. 
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1 The way I read it, if you worked at the Kings 

2 Avenue facility, you are covered. Correct?

3 DR. TAULBEE: Up through June of 

4 1956, yes.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I guess that 

6 got to my -- I mean at first I was thinking 

7 this is a very big site. There are a lot of 

8 buildings. What are the issues of access 

9 control? How many other people were working 

10 there? But it is sort of like during this 

11 period we are talking about, it is actually 

12 not a very big site and there were very few 

13 buildings. And those buildings that are there 

14 are apparently were the ones where there was 

15 work being done.

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: The whole facility 

17 is covered.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And they are 

20 putting up new buildings and probably maybe 

21 different operations, but you can't separate 

22 out the people. And we will see what happens 
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1 after '56. Maybe it got better after '56. 

2 That way we will have more monitoring records, 

3 so maybe that will help separate, though it 

4 doesn't always carry over to the personnel 

5 side.

6 If there are no further questions 

7 or comments for Tim, do I hear a proposed 

8 action on this petition?

9 Let's see, who could possibly --

10 Wanda?

11 MEMBER MUNN: Who would be willing 

12 to do that? I move that the Board accept the 

13 proposed Class --

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you turn on 

15 your mic?

16 MEMBER MUNN: They told me it was 

17 on. The proposed Class -- yes, well we are 

18 not the red light district over here.

19 (Laughter.)

20 MEMBER MUNN: I make a motion that 

21 the Board accept the proposed Class of all 

22 atomic weapons employees who worked at the 
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1 King Avenue facility owned by Battelle 

2 Laboratories in Columbus during the period 

3 from April 16, 1943 through June 30, 1956 as 

4 an SEC Class.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Second.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: There is a 

7 second from Brad. Any further discussion?

8 Then I will ask Ted to do the roll 

9 call, please.

10 MR. KATZ: Dr. Anderson?

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

13 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

17 MEMBER FIELD: Can you hear me, 

18 Ted?

19 MR. KATZ: Yes, perfectly.

20 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, I just want to 

21 go on the record that people on the line were 

22 not able to hear most of the presentation. It 
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1 was totally blank, just totally turned off, 

2 but I will vote yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson? Okay, 

4 still absent.

5 Mr. Griffon?

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Kotelchuck?

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey?

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston?

16 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson?

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

22 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Ms. Valerio?

2 MEMBER VALERIO: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: And it is unanimous. 

6 The motion passes. I will collect the 

7 absentee votes after this meeting.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, Ted, can I 

9 suggest that if we are going to continue to 

10 have problems with the lectern microphone that 

11 we ask the presenters to sit at the table and 

12 use one of these microphones?

13 MR. KATZ: Actually that problem 

14 wasn't a lectern problem. It was connectivity 

15 -- a phone -- an entire phone system problem.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

17 Since we have two SECs coming up 

18 directly after lunch and those are timed, I 

19 thought we would at least try to get started 

20 on some of our Board Work Group sort of 

21 business and other business between now and 

22 noon, and then at noon we will break for 
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1 lunch.

2 And the first thing I would like 

3 to do -- I am going to ask you, though. You 

4 are not ready now, so will you be ready this 

5 afternoon? Okay.

6 Mark Griffon will not be able to 

7 be here tomorrow. So we need to get in the 

8 Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee report and 

9 then Procedure Subcommittee report will be a 

10 little longer also, so I am going to put that 

11 off until this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

12 First let's start with the dates 

13 for the teleconference and meeting. And, Ted, 

14 do you want to go through that?

15 MR. KATZ: Sure. So I've just 

16 given you the date ranges for the next 

17 teleconference that we have to schedule. We 

18 already have it -- I don't know if anybody 

19 wants to be reminded when our meetings are 

20 already scheduled, but if that is helpful, I 

21 can do that, too. One second.

22 So going forward, what we have 
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1 scheduled is a February 7th teleconference. 

2 That is 11 a.m. March 12th through 14th, we 

3 are meeting in Augusta. May 2nd, another 

4 teleconference. It is again an 11 a.m. start 

5 time.

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: What is that, 

7 again, May?

8 MR. KATZ: May 2nd, May 2.

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

10 MR. KATZ: And then July 16 

11 through 18, Brad's country, Idaho Falls. So 

12 that is what is scheduled. And that is July 

13 16 through 18. 

14 I'm sorry, May 2 teleconference 11 

15 a.m.

16 So we are scheduling out another 

17 teleconference and another meeting beyond what 

18 we have here. And the right date range for 

19 teleconference is September 2nd through 6th or 

20 9th through 13th. Normally we do the middle 

21 of the week for the teleconference. So the 

22 Wednesday would be the 4th, I think.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I can't do the 

2 4th.

3 MR. KATZ: But are other days that 

4 week okay for folks?

5 MEMBER MUNN: The third.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The second is 

7 Labor Day.

8 MR. KATZ: Right.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: I can't do the 

11 4th either.

12 MR. KATZ: So the 5th -- how is 

13 the 5th?

14 MEMBER MUNN: Good.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: 9/5 it is.

16 MR. KATZ: Is the 5th good for 

17 everyone here? And on the phone, Bill and 

18 John? That is just teleconference 11 a.m. 

19 September 5th.

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: It's okay for 

21 me.

22 MEMBER POSTON: This is John. As 
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1 far as I know that is okay.

2 MR. KATZ: Okay, that is all three 

3 of them said okay. Okay, so let's do that, 

4 then. September 5th at 11 a.m.

5 All right, then. And then for the 

6 next face-to-face meeting after that, the 

7 right date range, I am giving you a number of 

8 options here, October 15th through 18th, the 

9 21st through the 25th and then the 28th 

10 through November first. So those are the full 

11 weeks.

12 The first week, the first day, the 

13 14th is Columbus Day or something.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Columbus Day.

15 MR. KATZ: So that is a federal 

16 holiday. Well, I am not an expert on federal 

17 holidays, but I think that is right.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Ted, I am out for 

19 October totally.

20 MR. KATZ: You are out for October 

21 entirely? Okay.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Is the preceding 
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1 week --

2 MR. KATZ: Well I think we may 

3 have to live without you, Josie, because that 

4 puts us really far out of our range, 

5 otherwise, of when the Board can meet in a 

6 timely way.

7 MEMBER FIELD: Ted, would --

8 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry, Bill?

9 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, would another 

10 week work that month? I'm going to be away at 

11 that time.

12 MR. KATZ: You are out for the 

13 month of October, too?

14 MEMBER FIELD: Just the week of 

15 the 14th.

16 MEMBER MUNN: The week of the 

17 14th.

18 MR. KATZ: So okay, that is fine. 

19 But then there is October 21st through 25th --

20 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: -- or the 28th through 

22 November first.
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1 So the 21st through 25th, does 

2 that work for you -- well, that is difficult. 

3 The first week of October is almost impossible 

4 because that is the beginning of the fiscal 

5 year and we can't really travel then.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Oh yes, that's 

7 right. We don't have any time before that to 

8 prepare, either.

9 The second week, the week of the 

10 7th is doable?

11 MR. KATZ: I mean that is also 

12 sort of dicey for the same reasons. It is 

13 very difficult to travel very early in October 

14 in the federal world.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What did we do 

16 last year?

17 MR. KATZ: Last year we met in 

18 September. That is just too soon after the 

19 previous one. If you want to stretch it out, 

20 we can push further into -- then we have to 

21 push into November, which we can do.

22 MEMBER MUNN: That is a long 
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1 stretch.

2 MR. KATZ: It's a stretch, right, 

3 but we will do what we have to. 

4 Because the last meeting is July 

5 16th through 18th, the previous meeting.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that is a long 

7 time. It tends to make for a hard schedule.

8 So the end of that second week, 

9 like 9th, 10th and 11th is still pushing all 

10 the federal folks too hard, is it?

11 MR. KATZ: It's not pushing 

12 federal folks. It is just you may not have 

13 systems in place to be able to travel in. So 

14 we just shouldn't do it then.

15 MEMBER MUNN: So is October 16, 

16 17, 18 doable for most people? That is still 

17 not good for David, and Bill said he couldn't 

18 be here, right?

19 MR. KATZ: So we have two Board 

20 Members right now saying they cannot meet in 

21 October, basically. So do we have other Board 

22 Members who can't as well? Because if this is 
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1 a widespread problem, then we will push into 

2 November. I mean that is the other --

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: Do you have any 

4 idea what will be -- I mean would they be 

5 presenting anything?

6 I mean do we have any SECs coming 

7 up?

8 MR. KATZ: We don't know the 

9 agenda.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: We don't have 

11 any idea.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Who knows. 

13 MR. KATZ: That is too far out to 

14 guess the agenda.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We barely --

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: I know.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we are 

18 usually half wrong.

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Right, yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, LaVon?

21 MEMBER FIELD: Ted, would the week 

22 of the 28th work?
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1 MR. KATZ: The week of the 28th 

2 works for -- I have heard from two people who 

3 can't meet that week as well, David Richardson 

4 and Josie Beach are out that week as well.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And Henry and I 

6 and Dick Lemen come back from a faraway place 

7 I dare not mention. We are out like the 

8 weekend before and getting back before 

9 Wednesday can be tricky.

10 MR. KATZ: Well why don't we push 

11 it to the next week in November, then? So it 

12 is a longer stretch but --

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I can't do that.

14 MR. KATZ: Oh, you can't do that 

15 either.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I have the 

17 Wednesday --

18 MEMBER ANDERSON: So the week of 

19 the 14th is -- I mean, that would work for us.

20 MEMBER MUNN: But that is out for 

21 David --

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: Two, yes.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: -- and for Josie and 

2 out for Bill. Bill said he is --

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: Bill, too?

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Why don't we do 

6 this more formally. I think --

7 MR. KATZ: Informally.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well no, 

9 formally in the sense of let's get actual 

10 dates. Can people email? Do like from the 

11 October through early November, and let's 

12 really count who is available and who is not.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we have got 

15 some Board Members --

16 MR. KATZ: That's fine. We will 

17 do this by telephone.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, or if you 

19 want to do a survey and we will talk about it 

20 again tomorrow if you can get --

21 MR. KATZ: Okay, and so for you, 

22 Jim, it sounds like the week of the 28th is 
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1 the only viable one of these?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, the week 

3 before, I think. Early in the week.

4 MR. KATZ: Oh, the 21st, okay. All 

5 right. We can do this by phone -- I mean, by 

6 email.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean I do 

8 think the Board is big enough now that coming 

9 up with a common date that everyone is 

10 available is going to be very difficult.

11 MR. KATZ: Right.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So it is trying 

13 to minimize who is -- the number of people 

14 that have to be absent from the meeting.

15 MR. KATZ: Right.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Again, I do also 

17 get worried that if we are not careful we are 

18 going to have quorum problems.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: By the way, 

20 what is our quorum?

21 MR. KATZ: Your quorum is ten.

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: And does the 
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1 quorum count if people have to abstain?

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Sure.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Sure, it does.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

5 MEMBER MUNN: It sounds as though 

6 the 21st is the logical --

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't know 

8 what we would do if they all abstain.

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Well I mean if 

10 they have to recuse themselves, then is it a 

11 different number we use?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: There has got to 

13 be some rule for that someplace.

14 Anybody want to volunteer a Work 

15 Group report? Brad, you were smiling and you 

16 didn't do what you were going to ask me. I 

17 thought you were going to ask earlier.

18 So go ahead.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, I wanted to 

20 kind of sit down and discuss about Pantex. As 

21 many of you know, back in August 24th, 2011 we 

22 deferred 1984 through 1991 and the bioassay 
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1 that was taken in 1989.

2 Since that time and I guess I am 

3 going to ask NIOSH officially and so forth, I 

4 talked to LaVon earlier, but we basically, we 

5 have been out there a year and a half waiting 

6 for this data, the problems at the site and so 

7 forth like that. I am basically at the point 

8 where, you know, how much longer do we drag 

9 this out.

10 We have still got the earlier 

11 years that we are going to have to evaluate, 

12 but I wanted to proceed on with these later 

13 years. So I guess I officially wanted to ask 

14 LaVon or Stu, whoever wanted to respond to it, 

15 where we are physically at.

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay, is this on?

17 I talked to Brad a little earlier. 

18 It does not look like we are going to get any 

19 additional data from Pantex for that '84 to 

20 '90 period. So what we have indicated is that 

21 we are going to stick with the analysis that 

22 we have already previously provided and let 
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1 the Work Group make the decision and the Board 

2 whether that is sufficiently accurate or not.

3 And so the only other thing we are 

4 doing is trying to get a hold of the subject 

5 matter expert to discuss some of the neutron 

6 to photon pairing and that is it.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. So as far 

8 as Pantex is going there, SC&A is waiting for 

9 this and, Joe, you can correct me if I am 

10 wrong, but they have started in to evaluating 

11 NIOSH's stance on this bioassay. And that is 

12 correct? Okay.

13 So we are going to be able to set 

14 up a Work Group now and as soon as SC&A gives 

15 their evaluation and gives a process to be 

16 able to give to NIOSH so we can sit down and 

17 have a Work Group meeting and discuss these 

18 later years, we still have the earlier years, 

19 too that we are working on and be able to sit 

20 down and find out the information, where we're 

21 at on that.

22 So just so everybody on the Board, 
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1 because they have been brought up to speed, if 

2 you remember last time they said they had 

3 found 320 boxes or something like that of 

4 data. We were waiting to evaluate that. It 

5 appears that they can't find this. And so we 

6 are proceeding on with their stance on the 

7 bioassay information that they would be able 

8 to back extrapolate for.

9 Any questions on our path forward?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So if I 

11 understand correctly and just to make sure for 

12 the record, that you will then schedule a Work 

13 Group meeting and come back to the Board with 

14 a final recommendation on both the early years 

15 and the latter years or just the latter years?

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: It depends on the 

17 information that we have gotten on the earlier 

18 years. There is still some possible data 

19 collection. This is, I mean when we are 

20 talking about Pantex, Medina/Clarksville kind 

21 of fall into it because it is part of the same 

22 data.
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1 But the one that we are mainly 

2 focusing on is the latter years and that we 

3 will be able to bring to the Board the latter 

4 years and possibly the earlier years, too.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we will 

6 schedule that for our next Board meeting, 

7 which will be the full meeting. Okay.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Brad, can you or 

9 LaVon clarify? Is the information not 

10 available because they can't find it or 

11 because it's classified?

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, it is 

13 actually -- and I want to clarify. What we 

14 are looking for is we are looking for these 

15 area access logs for that period. And they 

16 searched for them, and they didn't find any. 

17 We actually had identified documents that we 

18 thought indicated that they did this. They 

19 had done this in the past from the '84 to '90 

20 period. Well, they searched. They couldn't 

21 find them. And then we started to talk to a 

22 subject matter expert to see if actually they 
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1 did these or not. Either way, nobody is 

2 finding these records.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

4 questions on Pantex? Okay, thank you.

5 I'm just going to start going 

6 through the list. Brookhaven?

7 MEMBER BEACH: Brookhaven has not 

8 met since my last report. However, I did talk 

9 to Grady last week, and he has got some 

10 information on the SEC side. He asked me 

11 about splitting it up because we were working 

12 on the final years of the SEC time frame and 

13 the Site Profile. So I am thinking for the 

14 first part we should see something the first 

15 of 2013 and then in February for the Site 

16 Profile issues. So in the next couple of 

17 months for Brookhaven.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Any 

19 questions for Josie? Fernald?

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Fernald, we have 

21 been waiting, and Stu was going to give me an 

22 update on this. They have -- it is coworker -
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1 - construction worker model. Earlier, Mark 

2 Rolfes said that he would have it in a 

3 December time frame, but Stu came back and 

4 said that that was a little bit too 

5 optimistic.

6 SC&A has had two papers that were 

7 out. Since that time, they have been 

8 processed. They were cleared. And I believe 

9 the Board should have received those. And we 

10 are still waiting on NIOSH. And I guess I 

11 will leave it up to Stu of where we are at on 

12 that.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Stu, the 

14 question was for you as to where we are with 

15 Fernald.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, that is on 

17 our work coordination document that we put 

18 together for the meeting. January of 2013 is 

19 the expected completion date for the coworker 

20 effort and the first SC&A paper, which had to 

21 do with placing people in buildings for using 

22 DWAs, I think.
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1 And then the second paper they 

2 delivered was the mobile -- use of the mobile 

3 counting from '78 to '88. It was the second 

4 piece of the mobile counting. We don't have a 

5 date on that yet, but we are trying to 

6 accelerate that and get it about that same 

7 time as well. January is a little optimistic. 

8 We are working to get those two products, a 

9 response to those two products also. One 

10 should be ready in January. We don't have a 

11 date yet for the mobile counting.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any questions on 

13 that? Go ahead, Brad.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: As soon as we get 

15 a confirmed date, and we will probably set 

16 this up because we have to have so much time 

17 to be able to set up a Work Group meeting, we 

18 will have a Work Group meeting set up for 

19 that.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you for 

21 that.

22 Hanford, we have an ongoing set of 
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1 SEC petitions that we have been evaluating. 

2 Arjun, do you want to sort of give an update? 

3 Because I think you can explain it better than 

4 I can.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Dr. 

6 Melius. Arjun Makhijani here. 

7 You have already voted on the one 

8 SEC-155 this morning. The SEC-57-2 has been 

9 under research since last June, I think. Since 

10 you granted the last extension of the SEC to 

11 `83, we have had a little bit of difficulty in 

12 getting our document requests because of 

13 budget issues and so on at Hanford. We think 

14 those are resolved, but I think it will be the 

15 middle of the July meeting before we will be 

16 able to -- so we will be able to complete the 

17 work and have a Work Group meeting in the 

18 spring, I hope, but it is taking a little 

19 longer than I anticipated.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Any 

21 questions on Hanford?

22 And last but not least, Idaho.
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1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Nothing to 

2 update at this point. We are still kind of 

3 waiting on paperwork.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I don't have 

5 the NIOSH document in front of me but are 

6 those -- are we still on schedule for I think 

7 it was early in the spring or something for --

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, early 

9 spring.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Again, a 

11 reminder in July we do have -- when the snow 

12 melts we will be in Idaho. So we will, I 

13 guess, plan a -- I'm on that Work Group. That 

14 is why I am saying we. We would plan a Work 

15 Group meeting.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: What city in 

17 Idaho?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is there a city 

19 in Idaho? Idaho Falls. It's very nice.

20 MEMBER MUNN: They have built 

21 cities in Idaho?

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry brings his 
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1 fishing rod and --

2 MEMBER ANDERSON: There is one 

3 stop light. 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hopefully get 

5 the fishing license.

6 MR. KATZ: And just for the record 

7 to be clear for SC&A, when we have those new 

8 papers from NIOSH, we will have SC&A review 

9 those. Okay? As soon as they are out. 

10 Thanks.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, so it is 

12 noon. We are scheduled to break. We will 

13 break now, and at 1:30 we will come back 

14 promptly at 1:30 to start with Savannah River. 

15 Okay, thanks everybody.

16 (Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., a lunch 

17 recess was taken.)

18

19

20

21

22
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N

2 (1:33 p.m.)

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We will get 

4 started here. Before we start with Savannah 

5 River, I will give Stu Hinnefeld a chance to 

6 clarify something that came up this morning 

7 about some of the first 10,000 cases. I think 

8 we have got a better understanding now and he 

9 wanted to leave it on the record.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, thanks, Dr. 

11 Melius.

12 I was able to email back to the 

13 office and get a response about those three 

14 initial cases in the first 10,000. So there 

15 were three cases that were initial, meaning 

16 they haven't been done yet. And so I emailed 

17 back to get the status of that, to find out 

18 what those cases were. It turns out all three 

19 are fairly recent reinstatements of cases. Two 

20 of the cases had been pulled and one had been 

21 administratively closed.

22 And so administratively closed --
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1 it was originally a prostate case, so the dose 

2 reconstruction is probably non-compensable --

3 and the claimant opted out, just didn't sign 

4 the OCAS-1 form, just kind of opted out of the 

5 process. So we administratively closed the 

6 case. So there was never a dose 

7 reconstruction. So it stayed in that initial 

8 status.

9 And then, recently, that claim was 

10 reinstated with a survivor and an additional 

11 cancer. So it just came back to us pretty 

12 recently. But it shows as an initial because 

13 there was no dose reconstruction completed the 

14 first time because it was administratively 

15 closed. 

16 The other two were similar except 

17 that those were pulled instead of 

18 administratively closed. They were pulled 

19 before a dose reconstruction could be done. 

20 One was pulled for SEC, although it didn't 

21 seem to have any SEC cancers. And I suspect, 

22 Dan, it stayed pulled because it appears that 
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1 the claimant, the Energy employee, passed away 

2 because it was reinstated recently with CLL, 

3 an additional condition, and with a new 

4 survivor. So presumably that is what happened 

5 there.

6 The third one only had CLL, was 

7 referred to us erroneously, originally, and 

8 then was pulled because it didn't have a 

9 covered condition. And now that CLL has been 

10 added as a covered condition, it was 

11 reinstated. So all three are pretty recent 

12 reinstatements.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you for 

14 that clarification. As I have told Stu, part 

15 of my question was I thought we had cleared 

16 those already and I was surprised that there 

17 was still three.

18 I guess we succeeded too well in 

19 doing that and didn't give you time to 

20 clarify.

21 The next thing on our agenda is a 

22 new -- I guess it is an addendum to the 
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1 Savannah River evaluation and Tim Taulbee 

2 again.

3 MR. KATZ: So while Tim is getting 

4 ready, let me just check a couple things on 

5 the phone. One, let me check and see whether 

6 I have Dr. Field, Poston, and Roessler on the 

7 line.

8 MEMBER FIELD: Phil, I'm on the 

9 line.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Member 

11 Roessler.

12 MEMBER POSTON: I'm on the line.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay, great. We have 

14 all three of you. The other thing I would 

15 just like to ask for everybody on the line is 

16 please mute your phones. If you don't have a 

17 mute button, press star and then 6 to mute 

18 your phone. But the vast majority of people 

19 listening on the line are not muting their 

20 phones and that contributes to the problem 

21 that people have been complaining about, which 

22 is we have been losing connection. And part 
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1 of that problem is that technical glitch that 

2 we don't really understand here. We hope we 

3 sorted it out. We changed out some hardware 

4 and so on. So we hope this won't be a problem 

5 going forward. But in any event, it is 

6 important that you all mute your phones, 

7 please. Thanks.

8 DR. TAULBEE: Okay, thank you Dr. 

9 Melius and the Board.

10 For the next talk, it will be the 

11 Savannah River Site Special Exposure Cohort 

12 Petition Evaluation Report. This is the third 

13 addendum regarding thorium exposures in the 

14 post-1972 time period.

15 Before I get started, again, I 

16 want to recognize my team that was working on 

17 this. This was led by Mike Mahathy from ORAU. 

18 He did the lion's share of this particular 

19 effort, including data captures and the 

20 writing of the report. He was assisted by 

21 Billy Smith, Sam Chew, Jack Beck, Rowena 

22 Argall, and Pat McCluskey. So I just have the 
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1 privilege of presenting this to you today.

2 A little bit of an overview for 

3 those of you who may be new to the Board --

4 and this has been going on for quite a long 

5 time. The original petition was received in 

6 November of 2007. We presented to the 

7 Advisory Board in December of 2008, the 

8 Evaluation Report. At that time, we reserved 

9 thorium exposures.

10 In May of 2010, we presented an 

11 Evaluation Report entitled Addendum #1 and 

12 this was regarding thorium exposures. This 

13 was to the SRS Work Group.

14 In January of 2011, the Work Group 

15 and SC&A gave us comments back on our 

16 addendum. And the most significant Work Group 

17 finding at the time was potential thorium work 

18 in other areas that were not addressed in the 

19 Evaluation Report.

20 The Addendum #1 focused on the 300 

21 areas at the Savannah River Site, and we 

22 really didn't address other areas. And so we
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1 went back and did further research, more data 

2 capture, to address those other areas.

3 In February and in May, actually, 

4 of 2011, we gave updates here to the Board. In 

5 August 2011, in SRS Addendum #2, NIOSH, we 

6 recommended adding a Class of thorium-exposed 

7 workers in the 773-A and TNX areas to the SEC 

8 from January of 1953 through October of 1972 

9 and proposed identifying the Class based on 

10 dosimeter badge location.

11 At that same time, we indicated 

12 that more research was needed in the post13 October 1972 time period, because we had 

14 really focused in the early time period and we 

15 hadn't done any data capture from the latter 

16 time period.

17 In December of 2011, the Advisory 

18 Board partially concurred with our 

19 recommendation. However, you all recommended 

20 expanding the Class to include all workers at 

21 the Savannah River Site.

22 In March of this year, the Health 
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1 and Human Services Secretary added the Class 

2 of all workers at Savannah River from January 

3 of 1953 to October of 1972 to the SEC.

4 Last month, we issued our third 

5 addendum to the SEC, and hopefully our last, 

6 regarding thorium exposures to cover the time 

7 period of October 1972 through December of 

8 2007. So we are really only looking at the 

9 modern era here, or what I will the call 

10 modern era at the Savannah River Site.

11 So our recommendation to the Board 

12 is we believe reconstruction of thorium 

13 exposures is feasible and the doses can be 

14 reconstructed with sufficient accuracy for 

15 compensation purposes from October 1972 

16 through December of 2007.

17 So how did we reach this 

18 conclusion? Well, there is really five key 

19 areas that I want to talk to you today about. 

20 First, I want to start with a very low 

21 inventory or source term, its minimal use in 

22 certain defined locations, our knowledge of 
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1 the processes that were being involved, and 

2 then the radiological controls that were in 

3 place, and then I will discuss an alternate 

4 bioassay data method.

5 So, if you recall, back in August 

6 of 2011, this was a plot that I showed you of 

7 the thorium inventory on-site from 1954 up 

8 through 1972. And you can see that in the 

9 1960s with those thorium campaigns, the actual 

10 inventory peaked at around 120,000 kilograms 

11 on-site. And then, as the thorium was shipped 

12 off to Fernald, the inventory decreased 

13 significantly in the '71 to '72 time period.

14 I also presented in August 2011, 

15 in that Addendum, this particular graph which 

16 showed this would be thorium in production or 

17 received. All that we had at that time period 

18 was a waste management report discussing the 

19 thorium inventory. And they had a fairly 

20 large inventory, 6,000 kilograms to 8,000 

21 kilograms. But then they had another column 

22 that they said in process or in use. And so 
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1 that is what this particular graph was. And 

2 we didn't quite understand or know what was 

3 going on in this. 

4 So what was happening in 1977 with 

5 2,000 kilograms? We felt we needed to go back 

6 and do additional research, look at those 

7 inventory, or try to find the inventory 

8 reports -- which we did -- and uncover what 

9 work was going on in this time period.

10 So like I said, we went back. We 

11 looked at the inventory reports. Mike Mahathy 

12 did a fantastic job on this, of capturing all 

13 of this data from microfiche from 1972 to 

14 2007.

15 We also looked at the Savannah 

16 River Laboratory and Works monthly technical 

17 reports. And here SC&A assisted us there in 

18 the vault. John Stiver particularly helped us 

19 out there, reviewing, going through these 

20 monthly reports, looking for what thorium work 

21 was going on.

22 We also looked at radiological 
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1 surveys that we were able to find during this 

2 time period for these buildings that we 

3 identified where thorium work was going on. 

4 We looked at whole body count data 

5 and then another bioassay method.

6 What we learned was that large 

7 spike that you saw in that previous graph in 

8 1977 was the receipt of spent thorium fuel 

9 into the receiving basin for the offsite 

10 fuels. So let me explain what the receiving 

11 basin for offsite fuels was.

12 This was a collection, a spent 

13 fuel pool, a large spent fuel pool that 

14 collected fuels from offsite, not Savannah 

15 River's primarily, but from other locations, 

16 Elk River, for example, the sodium research 

17 experiment at Oak Ridge, and other commercial 

18 facilities would send the fuel to Savannah 

19 River and they would store it in the basin.

20 In the lower corner here, you have 

21 a picture of the RBOF. And the operations in 

22 this particular basin would be to receive a 
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1 cask of spent fuel, in some cases thorium 

2 spent fuel, and it would be repackaged in the 

3 basin. It would be taken out of the cask and 

4 then put into storage racks or into a 

5 different storage container.

6 All of this is done underwater 

7 because this is spent nuclear fuel. One, it 

8 is thermally warm due to the irradiation 

9 process. So it is emitting significant 

10 quantities of gamma radiation. So the water 

11 is used as a shield.

12 The thorium fuel is encapsulated 

13 and now underwater. So it kind of got double 

14 encapsulation here with the thorium. So there 

15 is really no potential for exposure to this 

16 thorium there at Savannah River, at least from 

17 an inhalation standpoint.

18 And then as you can see in the 

19 center picture there is where the stored spent 

20 fuel is.

21 So if you look at the entire 

22 inventory on-site from 1953 up through 2007, 
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1 this is what it looks like. This is after we 

2 captured the additional inventory information 

3 and actually tallied it all up where all the 

4 thorium was on-site within their inventory 

5 records.

6 From 1972 through 2007, that 

7 predominant area that you are looking at there 

8 is the receiving basin for offsite fuels. Some 

9 of it is in L Basin as well as K Basin. When 

10 you strip out that water-stored thorium that 

11 doesn't have a potential for exposure, this is 

12 what the thorium inventory looks like. And as 

13 you can see, by 1972 the inventory is 

14 virtually gone. It's actually not gone. You 

15 just can't see it on this graph because of the 

16 scale is up here to 100,000.

17 If you look down here, this first 

18 notch here would be zero to 5,000. If you 

19 look from within that first notch up to 1,000 

20 -- or amplifying this graph by 100 times --

21 this is the inventory that they had on-site. 

22 And from here you are looking at from 1972 
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1 time period up through about 1983 or 1982 time 

2 period, you are looking at around 100 

3 kilograms, kind of on average, a little more, 

4 maybe 120. 1982 to 1989 you are actually 

5 looking at about 20 kilograms on-site. That 

6 was the inventory.

7 In the 1990s, it actually jumped 

8 up. And so what is going on during that time 

9 period? I will talk about that here in a 

10 minute. So there is more thorium on-site in 

11 the 1990s than there was from 1972 to 1989 

12 here on-site. And this is after we went back 

13 and captured these inventory reports.

14 The inventory reports are actually 

15 monthly reports. What we presented in the ER 

16 was just a snapshot of each year on June 

17 first. Okay, these do fluctuate some within 

18 the inventory. It does go down to as low as 

19 like four kilograms in one month and then 

20 maybe up to 175, whereas here it might be 

21 showing just 100 or something like that.

22 So they do move around a little 
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1 bit. But here you get the general feel for 

2 how much thorium there was on-site. We have 

3 these records going back month to month. Very 

4 different from what I presented earlier before 

5 lunch, where we have an incomplete inventory 

6 at Battelle. We don't exactly know how much 

7 material. We only had partial data. Here we 

8 have complete data through the entire time 

9 period, month by month by month.

10 So when you look at the total 

11 inventory of thorium, what was available for 

12 research and what was waste and storage, the 

13 vast majority of it was waste and storage 

14 there on-site. In fact, less than one percent 

15 of the actual thorium on-site was actually 

16 available for potential exposure.

17 So now let me talk about the 

18 locations where the thorium was located. 773-

19 A was the research laboratory that we had 

20 talked about before. And this is just '73 

21 through 1980. In the ER report, we go all the 

22 way through 2007 and discuss each of these 
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1 locations. And what you will see is that some 

2 of them drop out completely. They go to zero 

3 inventory. But the bulk of the thorium here 

4 that you can see, as I have mentioned, is in 

5 the RBOF, 6,000 kilograms. It jumps up here 

6 in 1977 to 8,000 kilograms. That was that big 

7 spike. And you also have some here in the K 

8 Basin and L Basin, and these actually continue 

9 on. And then it all gets shifted to the L 

10 Basin the latter years.

11 773-A running around 100 

12 kilograms, down to 80, back up to 100. 235-F, 

13 0.9 kilograms. I mean, very small quantities 

14 of thorium being used.

15 So when you look at the locations 

16 and you look at it over the whole time period 

17 of all non-storage area -- that means non18 radioactive material or non-spent fuel pool --

19 versus the 773 area, you can see that by 1982 

20 or 1983 time period here, virtually all the 

21 thorium on-site was there in 773-A being used. 

22 Okay? That is a large radiochemistry 
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1 laboratory.

2 So now before I get into the 

3 process knowledge component of this, let me 

4 first talk a little bit about thorium nitrate 

5 and I should have added thorium acetate here. 

6 But these are commonly used in chemistry 

7 laboratories. And in fact what I have got up 

8 here is just an example. This is the Chemical 

9 Safety Manual for the Pennsylvania School 

10 System in December of 2010. Under the 

11 radioactive chemical section, they list 

12 thorium nitrate of one of the chemicals that 

13 could be potentially used.

14 I contacted the radiation safety 

15 officer at the University of Cincinnati and 

16 asked how much thorium is there being used 

17 there at UC in their chemistry laboratories. 

18 It is not much. It comes out to about 1.1 

19 kilograms of thorium nitrate, thorium acetate.

20 So it is a commonly used material 

21 at radiochemistry laboratories. Savannah 

22 River Laboratory was a big radiochemistry 
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1 laboratory. This was their job. This is what 

2 they did. They had multiple fume hoods and 

3 areas where they could use these types of 

4 chemicals.

5 So from these Works technical 

6 reports and the Savannah River laboratory 

7 reports, we were able to gather more 

8 information about the process of what they 

9 were working with.

10 In 1972 the Alpha Material 

11 Laboratory used thorium oxide as a surrogate 

12 for plutonium-238 testing in glove boxes. So 

13 for those of you who know a little bit about 

14 plutonium-238, it has a very high alpha 

15 activity. In fact, about 16 curies per gram. 

16 So if you take a hundred-gram sample, you are 

17 looking at 1,600 curies. That same hundred18 gram sample of thorium is effectively 0.01 

19 millicuries. So you are looking at six orders 

20 of magnitude difference in the alpha activity 

21 between the plutonium-238 and thorium. Thorium 

22 is much safer to use, especially if you are 
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1 developing a process. 

2 In certain scenarios, thorium 

3 behaves like plutonium in a process line. And 

4 so they were using thorium as a stand-in for 

5 plutonium so that they can make changes 

6 without contaminating the entire area. Once 

7 you introduce that much plutonium to a glove 

8 box, it is basically contaminated. You will 

9 never get it clean again. You will end up 

10 packaging it up if you have to make changes to 

11 it.

12 So they were using thorium as a 

13 stand-in, again, inside a glove box.

14 In 1973, you have got gram 

15 quantities of thorium dioxide shards were used 

16 in 773-A hot cells to test vapor deposition. 

17 This is inside the hot cells behind several 

18 feet of glass using manipulator arms. So 

19 again, very low potential for exposures, 

20 unlike the process that I described earlier 

21 today there at Battelle, where they are 

22 rolling and handling thorium and forging 
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1 thorium, heating it up and hitting it with a 

2 hammer and creating dust. Here you have 

3 thorium inside of hot cells, inside of glove 

4 boxes.

5 From 1977 to 1980, you have the 

6 Alternative Fuel Cycle Technology Program and 

7 the Thorium Fuel Cycle Technology Program. 

8 Here is where there was actually multiple 

9 research projects going on during this time 

10 period. So let's look at some of those.

11 They are in mechanical grinding of 

12 thorium oxide in the high-level caves. Again, 

13 using manipulator arms to get to it. So very 

14 low potential for exposure, or zero actually.

15 Study of the effects of heat 

16 treatment on thorium oxide. Testing on the 

17 conceptual THOREX flow sheets. They were 

18 looking at modifying their previous THOREX 

19 that they did during the thorium campaigns 

20 when they are extracting uranium-233. They 

21 were doing this with Elk River fuel in the 

22 high-level caves. So again, this is 
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1 irradiated fuel, high gamma activity. You are 

2 not going to get close to it. You are working 

3 with manipulator arms behind shielded walls.

4 They did an analysis of off5 gassing -- this is tritium off-gassing -- of 

6 the spent thorium fuel from Elk River. This 

7 is where they took some of the Elk River and 

8 they cut it in the high-level caves again.

9 Hanford prepared and encapsulated 

10 30 fuel rods of 80 percent thorium dioxide and 

11 20 percent uranium dioxide for irradiation at 

12 SRS. SRS received the rods in 1979, stored 

13 them in a cage in 773-A. We have also found 

14 where they took a few of the rods down to TNX 

15 area and put them in their fluid flow testing. 

16 These are encapsulated. There is no potential 

17 for exposure. And were measuring fluid flow 

18 around them for putting them into the Savannah 

19 River reactors.

20 The program was canceled in May of 

21 1980 before any of these could be irradiated. 

22 So they were never used. They did some 
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1 testing on them. They didn't do any cutting 

2 on them, that we could find. They just simply 

3 did some fluid flow testing. So again, we are 

4 looking at encapsulated material, controlled 

5 much different than this morning, as I 

6 mentioned with Battelle forging and creating 

7 dust from thorium.

8 In 1980 at the plutonium-238 fuel 

9 form facility, thorium was again used as a 

10 surrogate for some of the work in the hot 

11 cells at the PuFF facility. It was also used 

12 as a doping agent for iridium welding agents.

13 As part of the Galileo Project in 

14 1987, thorium was used as a surrogate for 

15 plutonium during process testing. This is 

16 primarily when you are putting things together

17 and you are using thorium mostly because of 

18 its density and its weight, it is very similar 

19 to plutonium so that you can use it from that 

20 standpoint without the worry of plutonium-238.

21 From 1995 to 2010, and here is 

22 where you saw that increase of the thorium 
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1 inventory, this was for defense waste 

2 stabilization. This is where thorium was used 

3 as a surrogate for plutonium and other 

4 radionuclides to test the methods of how to 

5 stabilize waste, how to do vitrification 

6 effectively, as well as other stabilization 

7 methods.

8 So kind of in summary, if you look 

9 at the use from 1972 to 2007, I have kind of 

10 broken it into five different eras here. From 

11 1972 to 1975 you have got storage and 

12 surrogate. Average inventory is about 158 

13 kilograms. And the activity is 15.8 

14 millicuries of activity.

15 1976 to 1981, this was that 

16 alternate fuel cycle and thorium fuel cycle 

17 program. The inventory actually decreases a 

18 little but here is where there was more actual 

19 studies going on. Most of it was in the hot 

20 cells, from what we can tell. In fact, we 

21 really haven't found any that were outside the 

22 hot cells, based upon these monthly reports. 
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1 They are all discussing the cutting inside the 

2 hot cells or inside the glove boxes.

3 From `82 to `89, very low 

4 inventory, an average of 38 kilograms or 3.8 

5 millicuries of alpha activity.

6 From 1990 to 2003, it jumps back 

7 up 200 kilograms. And even in that high years 

8 there, 1990 to 2003, we are only looking at 

9 about a quarter of the inventory of Battelle 

10 that I talked about this morning. So we are 

11 way down on the actual inventory and the 

12 process is much more controlled and not a 

13 physical manipulation of the thorium in an 

14 open air type of environment where people 

15 could be exposed.

16 And then the defense waste 

17 research really kind of tailed off there at 

18 the end and we are down to very low 

19 quantities, around five kilograms.

20 So now let me talk a little bit 

21 about the radiological controls from 1972 to 

22 1990. Savannah River Plant Radiation 
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1 Contamination Control Manual, DPSOP-40, and 

2 the Savannah River Laboratory had their own 

3 Radiation Hazards Technical Standards. But in 

4 these manuals, they covered work in regulated 

5 areas investigating radiation and 

6 contamination incidents, protective clothing, 

7 injury, radiation exposure control, internal 

8 radiation exposure control monitoring. Again, 

9 to contrast with this morning, there is no 

10 records at Battelle of any of these types of 

11 procedures in place for handling radioactive 

12 material. At Savannah River, they are very 

13 well developed by this time period, 1972 

14 through 1990.

15 From 1991 to 2007, they 

16 implemented the new radiation control manual, 

17 and they called it WSRC-5Q, in 1991 to comply 

18 with DOE Order 5480.11. It was updated to 

19 comply with the 1992 RadCon Manual, the 1994 

20 RadCon Manual. And then in 1995, to comply 

21 with 10 CFR 835.

22 So we have control procedures in 
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1 place from 1972, and then once we got into the 

2 time period of 5480.11, they tracked right 

3 along with the orders that were coming out of 

4 DOE on how to upgrade and control their 

5 radiation environments.

6 Other information that we have 

7 found. We have collected samples of 

8 contamination surveys. This morning I 

9 presented a few from Battelle that we could 

10 find. Here we have thousands of radiation 

11 surveys that we have laid eyes on. We 

12 collected samples of some of them, so the 

13 Board can look at them and see what kind of 

14 information is covered. From 773-A, M Area, 

15 235-F. Again, these are the areas that we 

16 identified from the inventory reports of where 

17 the thorium was located.

18 We have also collected samples of 

19 air monitoring in some of these same 

20 buildings. There are more contamination 

21 surveys and air sample results that are 

22 available in electronic format.
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1 Post-1990, I think it was around 

2 1990, they started digitizing all of their 

3 surveys. So now you can go online, when you 

4 are on-site anyway, and search their database 

5 of radiological surveys and look at them. You 

6 can recover them and pull them back 

7 individually, electronically. So they have a 

8 very nice system now for recovering modern 

9 radiation surveys.

10 So let me switch gears kind of a 

11 little bit here and talk about radionuclide 

12 activities. And this is 1994. This slide is 

13 a little misleading, but the emphasis is 

14 really on what was their main hazard, what 

15 were they worried about in 773-A? This 

16 particular graph of activity shows all 

17 activity, including waste. And you are 

18 looking at thorium-232, an activity of about 

19 four curies. Actually in 773-A, in this time 

20 period, there is only 17 millicuries of 

21 activity.

22 But the general feel here is you 
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1 are looking at plutonium-238, that example I 

2 gave before, that six orders of magnitude of 

3 alpha activity difference. That was the real 

4 hazard. That is what the health physics folks 

5 were controlling for, the plutonium-238, the 

6 curium-244, and the americium-241. Those were 

7 the activities that they were most concerned 

8 with. That was why they were doing all these 

9 surveys. That was why they were controlling 

10 the environment.

11 So the final topic I want to talk 

12 about is an alternate bioassay data. There is

13 a large number of workers in 773-A that were 

14 monitored for americium, curium, and 

15 californium, because that was the hazard. As 

16 I showed on the previous graph, that was where 

17 all the alpha activity was. These were the 

18 people that they were wanting to monitor.

19 We have about 17,000 bioassay 

20 samples of these americium, curium, and 

21 californium bioassays. So we have a large 

22 data set.
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1 When we started looking at the 

2 details of the method and the development of 

3 the coworker model this past summer, it 

4 revealed that thorium would come through in 

5 the analysis and the alpha emissions of 

6 thorium would be counted as if they were 

7 americium, curium, and californium.

8 When you look at the methodology 

9 that was published by Butler and Hall in 

10 Analytical Chemistry in 1970, this was their 

11 words. This is pulled out of that report. 

12 This is them talking: "A procedure was 

13 developed for sequential extraction of 

14 plutonium, neptunium, and uranium with tri15 isooctylamine (TIOA), followed by extraction 

16 of thorium, americium, curium, berkelium, 

17 californium, and einsteinium with bidentate. 

18 Compared with previous methods, the new 

19 procedure is simpler, required less analysis 

20 time, and gives better recovery. And recovery 

21 of americium-curium-californium in 250 

22 milliliters of urine or 200 grams of feces was 
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1 90 percent."

2 They went on to say, "All alpha3 emitting actinides from thorium through 

4 einsteinium extract, indicating an excellent 

5 gross alpha analytical procedure. The data 

6 show that in analysis of americium, curium, 

7 and californium any contaminating plutonium, 

8 neptunium, or uranium must be removed. At 

9 this laboratory," -- this is Savannah River 

10 Laboratory -- "thorium, berkelium, and 

11 einsteinium are not present in biological 

12 samples in sufficient quantities to require 

13 separation or routine identification by alpha 

14 spectrometry."

15 In other words, the thorium that 

16 was left in there, along with the einsteinium 

17 and berkelium, did not cause a problem with 

18 false positives. They weren't seeing it. It 

19 wasn't causing a problem and so they didn't 

20 bother extracting it. So, effectively, these 

21 bioassay samples labeled as americium-curium22 californium contained thorium, einsteinium, 
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1 and berkelium as well.

2 So why weren't they worried about 

3 the thorium? Well, when you look at the 

4 volume in the activity, the mass, 200 

5 kilograms, as you have seen, is 20 

6 millicuries, so it is low alpha activity. 

7 Small volume, 200 kilograms is approximately 

8 ten two-liter bottles of thorium dioxide. So 

9 imagine a two-liter bottle of Coke, that would 

10 be 20 kilograms. Ten of them is virtually the 

11 entire inventory in the Savannah River 

12 Laboratory. From a volume standpoint, you are 

13 looking at very small quantities.

14 They were working with those 

15 quantities inside of the glove boxes, inside 

16 of the hot cells, using it as a surrogate for 

17 plutonium within their processes, whenever 

18 they were developing them.

19 773-A is a fairly large building. 

20 You have got a very small volumetric source 

21 term within that area. This is why the 

22 authors didn't feel that this was of concern. 
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1 And then in addition, they weren't seeing it 

2 as a false positive showing up in the 

3 bioassay. They were having many zero, a large 

4 quantity of zero data. So it didn't seem to 

5 be affecting.

6 So if workers were exposed to 

7 thorium, they would have been seeing a lot of 

8 false positive. We have been seeing a lot 

9 more of this data coming up positive instead 

10 of zero.

11 They made no effort to remove the 

12 thorium contaminate from the urine samples. As 

13 I indicated why, the activities were so much 

14 lower. It wasn't viewed as a significant 

15 contaminant, mostly because it was used as a 

16 surrogate within glove boxes, within hot 

17 cells. And it was far less hazardous than 

18 plutonium when you are working with it inside 

19 of a glove box and you have got to open it up, 

20 and change your process, change a particular 

21 vessel, cylinder or something out of there. If 

22 you have introduced plutonium initially, you 
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1 would never be able to recover that. You 

2 would have to bury it. You would have to 

3 dispose of it as basically true waste.

4 Using thorium gave them a lot of 

5 advantages. It was safer to use and so they 

6 did so.

7 So effectively what we have with 

8 these americium/curium/californium bioassays 

9 samples is an alpha urine bioassay sample that 

10 does not contain plutonium, uranium, or 

11 neptunium. Those were extracted out by the 

12 TIOA method. Everything else was left in 

13 there. It does contain thorium, americium, 

14 curium, californium, einsteinium, and 

15 berkelium.

16 So what does this data look like? 

17 Well, if you plot it, the alpha activity, this 

18 is urine alpha activity from the earlier 

19 years, you can see it is fairly significant of 

20 around one dpm per day from this bioassay 

21 data. 

22 By the time you get to 1972 to 
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1 1973, the data are actually indicating 

2 virtually no activity, very low 

3 concentrations. This is also corresponding 

4 with a decrease in the curium, californium 

5 campaigns that were occurring and so people 

6 were working with it less. But again, you 

7 don't see any large activities.

8 What kind of doses do we get from 

9 these type of bioassays? Well, from 1972 to 

10 1994 -- so we are looking at a 22-year period 

11 -- from Type M material, the bone dose is 18 

12 rems. So we are looking at less than a rem 

13 per year during this time period to the bone 

14 from Type M thorium.

15 Type S is 80 rem. Over a 20-year 

16 period you are still looking at around 4 rem, 

17 which is below occupational limits, and for an 

18 organ dose, it is way below occupational 

19 limits.

20 Why did we stop in 1994? Well, in 

21 1995, Savannah River Site started using alpha 

22 spectrometry, not gross alpha counts. They 
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1 actually began to phase it in around 1992-93 

2 time period. But by 1995 they were only using 

3 alpha spectrometry. Thorium wasn't one of the 

4 alpha energies that we have any indication 

5 they were analyzing for.

6 So the americium-curium7 californium combined analysis is really only 

8 valid from 1972 to 1994. Post-1994 we must 

9 use the whole body count data. We can't use 

10 that bioassay method anymore.

11 So what do the doses look like 

12 when we switch to this latter 12-year period? 

13 The doses go up, quite significantly, 

14 actually. The bone dose comes out to an 

15 average of around ten rem per year. However, 

16 Type S because if it gets stuck in the lungs, 

17 it is going to be counted in the whole body 

18 count or it would be easily seen, the doses 

19 actually drop down to around 15 rem over this 

20 12-year time period. So we are looking at 

21 around a little over a rem per year.

22 So the doses aren't unreasonable 
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1 from either the bioassay method or the whole 

2 body count, from a dose reconstruction 

3 standpoint. And keep in mind this latter time 

4 period is during the radiological controls of 

5 10 CFR 835, where we have concluded by this 

6 time people who should have been monitored 

7 were monitored.

8 Well, how can we verify that? 

9 Well, you really can't completely verify it 

10 but we do have some evidence of this. In 

11 2004, during remediation work of a thorium12 contaminated concrete pad down in the TNX 

13 area, in order to monitor the workers, they 

14 were concerned about the whole body count not 

15 being able to see low enough levels, per 10 

16 CFR 835, they put air samplers, lapel air 

17 samplers on the workers that were working down 

18 there. So we had that air sampling data.

19 So it looks like that they were 

20 complying with 10 CRF 835 in monitoring of 

21 workers who should have been monitored during 

22 an activity that could have generated airborne 
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1 activity.

2 So in summary, we start with a 

3 very low inventory, less than even what I was 

4 talking about this morning with Battelle. 

5 There is more inventory in the 1990s and 2000s 

6 than there were in the '70s and '80s, which is 

7 unusual. Most of the thorium on-site was 

8 actually stored in the spent fuel pools, where 

9 it was waste. And by waste, I mean buried in 

10 the burial grounds areas. That is included in 

11 that inventory.

12 Minimal use in certain defined 

13 locations, mostly in 773-A, especially post14 1983.

15 Our knowledge of the process: 

16 mostly used as a surrogate, except for the 

17 tests that they were conducting for the 

18 alternate fuel cycle. Again, this contrasts 

19 dramatically with what I presented this 

20 morning as far as our knowledge of the 

21 process. You have got a physical process, 

22 beating on thorium, rolling it, lots of dust 
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1 being generated. Here we are using it as a 

2 surrogate in glove boxes. When we do cut on 

3 it, it's in high-level caves. So very 

4 different process, very different exposure 

5 potentials.

6 Radiological controls are also 

7 very different. They have procedures in 

8 place. They have routine monitoring of the 

9 workplace, daily surveys going on. These are 

10 available. We only captured samples because 

11 there is really too many to capture. Air 

12 monitoring data is available and we have an 

13 alternate bioassay methodology that was 

14 actually monitoring the workers, even though 

15 they weren't intending to effectively monitor 

16 for thorium. We can look at and re-analyze it 

17 for thorium in this time period. And it 

18 doesn't result in doses that are really 

19 impossibly high. These are reasonable doses.

20 So as a result, our feasibility 

21 finding is that thorium between 1972 and 2007 

22 we can reconstruct the thorium doses.
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1 Our recommendation for the period 

2 October 1, 1972 through December 31, 2007, 

3 NIOSH finds that radiation dose from exposure 

4 to thorium can be reconstructed for 

5 compensation purposes.

6 And with that, I will be happy to 

7 answer any questions.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Board Member 

9 questions for Tim? Yes, Paul.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Just to clarify 

11 the record, I notice you have a health 

12 endangerment indication on the last slide that 

13 this is one where you say you can reconstruct 

14 dose. So --

15 DR. TAULBEE: Effectively, that 

16 should be no.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- for the record, 

18 you don't do health endangerment 

19 determination. Isn't that correct?

20 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct. It 

21 is an error.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: So that should 
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1 just be blank.

2 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other questions? 

5 Any of the Board Members on the call have any 

6 questions?

7 MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill Field. 

8 I just wanted to ask a quick question. I'm 

9 sure I know the answer but I just want to ask 

10 it anyway. It's that there is a lot of 

11 discussion of thorium. And my assumption is 

12 there is no concern about exposure to thoron 

13 and decay products during this period.

14 DR. TAULBEE: During this time 

15 period, the thorium that was available that we 

16 have been able to see from the process 

17 knowledge is mostly inside of glove boxes and 

18 inside of the hot cells.

19 The flow of air within 773-A was 

20 always from the cold areas of the building in 

21 to the hot areas of the building, into the 

22 hoods, into the glove boxes, and then in to 
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1 the high-level caves. So the flow of radon or 

2 thoron would be away from the workers during 

3 this time period, and up the stacks.

4 MEMBER FIELD: Okay, that was my 

5 question. I just wanted to verify that. 

6 Thanks.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other Board 

8 Members on the phone who have questions?

9 (No response.)

10 Okay. Yes, David?

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I was 

12 wondering, I don't think I understood two 

13 slides where you have doses for Type M and 

14 Type S. Could you just talk me through those?

15 DR. TAULBEE: Sure. Okay, we will 

16 start with the first one. Type M and S are 

17 different solubility classes for how quickly 

18 they clear the lungs. Type M would mean it 

19 would clear the lungs fairly rapidly and the 

20 next place that thorium primarily goes is to 

21 the bone. So the lung dose is low and the 

22 bone dose would be higher, due to this 
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1 monitoring method.

2 The dose is basically dependent 

3 upon the frequency in between your monitoring 

4 -- your data points as to how high that dose 

5 would be. What we end up doing is we fit a 

6 chronic exposure from, in this case, 1972 

7 through 1994, based upon that bioassay data 

8 that we had. And so the area under the curve 

9 is effectively the dose that we come up with.

10 So for this case, for Type M it 

11 comes up quite rapidly and then it levels off. 

12 And then that area comes out to about 18.6 

13 rem.

14 With Type S material, it stays in 

15 the lungs longer. So you have a slower 

16 buildup of that chronic exposure curve. So 

17 that residence time of the thorium in the 

18 lungs irradiates the lungs more than what it 

19 does the remainder of the tissue.

20 What ends up happening is your 

21 urinalysis relies on it coming out of the 

22 lungs, being in the systemic system and then 
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1 being excreted. So that is why under Type M, 

2 you will see the doses are lower in general 

3 than the Type S because it stayed in the lungs 

4 longer. And so by the time it reaches the 

5 systemic system and hit the urine, there is 

6 that lag time and that's what's giving you the 

7 dose. Does that make sense to you?

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I am 

9 understanding some parts of it, but maybe not 

10 all parts of it.

11 You had discussed this in terms of 

12 an average dose per year.

13 DR. TAULBEE: No, these are total 

14 doses.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, but when 

16 you were talking through it you said --

17 DR. TAULBEE: Oh, okay.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- well, this 

19 would be, if I am recalling right, like a rem 

20 per year.

21 DR. TAULBEE: For the bone dose, 

22 yes. Now --
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: How are you --

2 I guess, this is --

3 DR. TAULBEE: It actually changes 

4 on a year-by-year basis, okay? I was being 

5 simplistic from the standpoint of using an 

6 average of that total dose divided by time. 

7 Each individual year would be slightly 

8 different, okay, depending upon the intake of 

9 the curve that we fit based upon the 

10 biological data that I showed in the previous 

11 graph, on that graph. So this is the data 

12 that we are fitting from 1972 through 1994. 

13 Okay?

14 Typically, in certain years, 

15 especially with Type S material, it is going 

16 to be higher in certain years than in other 

17 years. So I was using a gross average over 

18 the time period. And so when you take 18 rem 

19 divided by 22 years, it will come out to an 

20 average of a little less than a rem per year. 

21 Some years could be as high as two rem, that 

22 type of thing. What ends up happening 
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1 in, I believe, the lung of this particular

2 model, the maximum that it comes up in any 

3 year is, I want to say like 4.6 rem. That is 

4 the maximum for that lung, that 80 rem. So it 

5 is higher than four but it is on that same 

6 ballpark. It is just an average that I was 

7 using as an example.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So this is --

9 I am still a little -- this is a hypothetical 

10 for somebody who had the bioassay data for 

11 americium-curium-californium from the previous 

12 slide.

13 DR. TAULBEE: That is correct.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: All right.

15 DR. TAULBEE: What we did is, we 

16 took --

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Projecting 

18 forward an calculating their cumulative dose 

19 for a single individual under this 

20 hypothetical exposure scenario?

21 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, what we did is 

22 we took the americium-curium-californium data, 
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1 this alpha activity, and assumed it was all 

2 thorium. Okay? So all that alpha activity, 

3 that is what we assumed, and we calculated 

4 based upon the biological models of excretion 

5 for thorium. Because they are different for 

6 americium, for curium, californium, and 

7 thorium. They are all different. We assumed 

8 it was all thorium and then calculated the 

9 cumulative dose from '72 to '94.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, thanks.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other Board 

12 Member questions? Go ahead, Jim.

13 DR. NETON: I am struggling here. 

14 I think I might understand Dr. Richardson's 

15 confusion.

16 My understanding, the cumulative 

17 dose a person received from a chronic exposure 

18 over that time period using the data model as 

19 Tim suggested, of course it would be to the 

20 lung and the bone. There are other organs 

21 that would be arrayed, depending on the 

22 cancer. But I think what is not shown here is 
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1 that exposure would continue off in time until 

2 the person developed a cancer. So this would 

3 be just for that snippet of their work history 

4 but it would obviously be a larger exposure 

5 depending on when the cancer occurred in 

6 relation to their work activity.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One thing you --

8 this is a comment in general -- you seem to 

9 have gotten away from for a while and you were 

10 doing sample dose reconstructions, 

11 hypotheticals that at least completed some of 

12 these assumptions when it was presented to the 

13 Board. And I think it would be helpful to go 

14 back to that earlier format, which at least 

15 was a little bit more complete. 

16 I'm not saying this was inaccurate 

17 but sometimes when you do it quickly, and you 

18 are probably so close to it Tim, that is a 

19 little hard. Some of us that are standing 

20 back, we are trying to understand what you are 

21 presenting and what is going on. And I think 

22 that was a little better format and I think we 
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1 should follow through on that for future 

2 reference.

3 And a number of the reports now, I 

4 think you have been doing a good job on sort 

5 of the quality of the data and so forth. But 

6 then again, others seem to get away from that. 

7 Some of it is the circumstances of the 

8 situation but again, I think that is helpful 

9 to have that explicitly addressed in your 

10 reports.

11 Any other questions?

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Tim, I have 

13 just got one quick question. I assume you 

14 looked for a database of incidents or anything 

15 like that. What kind of numbers did you see 

16 from any that might have been recorded?

17 DR. TAULBEE: For the incidents, 

18 there is two different scales. Actually, 

19 there is more like three or four different 

20 scales of how they reported the incidents. 

21 Major incidents were listed under the special 

22 hazards investigation reports. Those were 
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1 high level incidents, very large incidents 

2 that resulted in loss of time or money. That 

3 was significant viewed by DuPont at that time 

4 period. So that is one level of high-level 

5 reports.

6 What we found is that other 

7 incidents are buried within the monthly 

8 technical reports and the Savannah River 

9 monthly reports. There is a health physics 

10 section in there where they discuss the 

11 incidents have happened from very small spills 

12 that occurred in this laboratory with a few 

13 hundred dpm or a few thousand dpm type of 

14 levels, all the way up to really the special 

15 hazards investigations. So you see a wide 

16 range within them.

17 With regards to thorium, we didn't 

18 really see anything as far as incident when we 

19 reviewed all of those monthly reports or the 

20 special hazards investigations.

21 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay, thanks.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If there are no 
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1 further Board questions, I believe the 

2 Petitioner Representative would like to make 

3 some comments. Mr. Anderson?

4 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you, Chairman 

5 Melius. My name is David Anderson. I am the 

6 Administrative Manager for the Law Offices of 

7 Bob Warren, who is the lawyer for the 

8 Petitioner, [identifying information

9 redacted]. Can you hear me alright? I am 

10 authorized to speak for the Petitioner.

11 The last time I addressed this 

12 Board was almost exactly a year ago when you 

13 were reviewing Addendum 2 of the Evaluation 

14 Report. For those Board Members who are new 

15 or were not present at that time, let me 

16 review by commenting on the confidence with 

17 which NIOSH presented that Report regarding 

18 the thoroughness and reliability of their 

19 methods and data and, thus, their 

20 recommendations to the Board.

21 But when we looked more closely at 

22 these methods and data, we discovered alarming 
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1 levels of inappropriate extrapolation and even 

2 exaggeration, as well as significant gaps in 

3 their database. Consequently, the Board voted 

4 to override NIOSH's proposed Class and 

5 established a different broader one.

6 I mention this because we are 

7 struck once again by the confidence with which 

8 Dr. Taulbee's experts make this case while, 

9 once again -- at least in our preliminary 

10 examination of Addendum 3, because we have 

11 only just received it -- we already spot 

12 plenty of inconsistencies and potentially 

13 significant inadequacies, especially regarding 

14 thorium inventories, accurate and thorough 

15 identification of potentially exposed workers, 

16 and air sampling and bioassay monitoring data.

17 There certainly is a lot of detail 

18 presented here, including a very large body of 

19 new information added since the last addendum. 

20 It all looks very impressive and thorough but 

21 we are already convinced that, as before, a 

22 closer look will reveal significant gaps. In 
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1 fact, we think this report probably reveals as 

2 much about what NIOSH does not know about, 

3 than what it purports to know.

4 Of course, without the underlying 

5 documentation, it is impossible for the 

6 Petitioners to make a determination about the 

7 validity of NIOSH's evaluation. To that end, 

8 we have already filed the first of several 

9 Freedom of Information requests with the CDC, 

10 which is apparently our only means of 

11 obtaining many of these documents. 

12 However, due to the incremental 

13 pace of the FOIA process, we and the 

14 Petitioner will probably receive these 

15 materials months after the Board has already 

16 voted on the Petition, which is why we feel 

17 that we it is critically important that the 

18 Work Group refer this evaluation to SC&A for a 

19 careful review of the underlying evidence 

20 NIOSH has relied on, as well as the model for 

21 dose reconstruction that NIOSH has proposed.

22 The Petitioner, [identifying 
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1 information redacted], as well as the other 

2 Petitioners, certainly deserve the right to 

3 expect sufficient accuracy with regards to the 

4 handling of this petition and report.

5 So thank you very much.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you for 

7 your comments.

8 Okay, Mark, you are head of the 

9 Work Group. Do you have a recommendation to 

10 how we should follow-up or further comments?

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. I actually 

12 agree with the proposal by the petitioner that 

13 I think as the Work Group Chair, I recommend 

14 that we bring this back to the Work Group and 

15 ask SC&A to review this report. There is a 

16 lot of detail, a lot of new data here and a 

17 new proposed approach. So I think we have to 

18 consider it at the Work Group level. That 

19 would be my proposal.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Does anybody on 

21 the Board disagree with that?

22 MR. ROWE: This is Gordon Rowe. I 
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1 am one of the signers of the petition. I 

2 would like to say something, if I can.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead, Mr. 

4 Rowe. We weren't aware that you were going to 

5 be on the line.

6 MR. ROWE: Okay. This Evaluation 

7 Report, I just received it, and it is quite 

8 lengthy. I am concerned about the technical

9 issues that are involved here, and I would 

10 like to request that this report be given to 

11 SC&A so that they can analyze it and come up 

12 with their opinions, if this is possible.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Mr. 

14 Rowe. We appreciate it. The silence on the 

15 Board was indicating that nobody was objecting 

16 to that, after Mark's suggestion. So I 

17 believe that is what we are about to do.

18 I just have one question for Mark 

19 or maybe this is for SC&A. There are a number 

20 of other recent reports from NIOSH that have 

21 come through and a couple that are still 

22 apparently in progress. As I recall, there 
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1 are six or seven that were assigned a while 

2 ago and they are all coming due. I just 

3 wanted to make sure that if we were going to 

4 assign work to SC&A that we also look at these 

5 other situations. There is americium, 

6 neptunium, coworker models reports, a mixed 

7 fission products report, and others. And I 

8 just don't know what hasn't been assigned yet.

9 MR. STIVER: Dr. Melius and the 

10 Board, this is John Stiver from SC&A. I can 

11 say that we have been reviewing the 

12 radionuclide-specific coworker models as they 

13 become available. At this point, we are 

14 reviewing the neptunium model, and we are 

15 waiting for the thorium model to come out, 

16 which as we see today is now available.

17 In conjunction with that, we are 

18 also reviewing Report 53, which is the 

19 Stratification of Coworker Data Sets that is 

20 common to all these different cohorts.

21 MR. ROWE: Also, I would like to 

22 request, if I can, in the future if 
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1 communications, or additional information, 

2 additional reports, I would like to request 

3 that they be sent sooner so that I could have 

4 more time to go over the report before the 

5 meeting and before the reports are made public 

6 on the phone line or whatever.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We understand 

8 the concern, Mr. Rowe. And I can also assure 

9 you that we would not take action if we 

10 thought you had not had ample time to review 

11 or petitioner had not had time to review the 

12 report and be involved in this and, therefore 

13 -- and we will also be having our next meeting 

14 in March in Augusta. So we will be able to --

15 MR. ROWE: Meeting in March in 

16 Augusta?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. What are 

18 the dates, Ted?

19 MR. ROWE: All right. All right, 

20 I appreciate the information.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, March 12th, 

22 13th, and 14th, in that time period. So 
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1 probably at least two of those days in that 

2 time period we will be in Augusta.

3 MR. ROWE: The 12th, 13 and 14?

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, correct.

5 MR. ROWE: All right, thank you.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We will let you 

7 know in more detail when we pin down the 

8 timing and so forth.

9 MR. ROWE: Okay. All right, thank 

10 you.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we will let 

12 you know when they meet to discuss this also.

13 MR. ROWE: All right, thank you.

14 MR. STIVER: Dr. Melius, were 

15 there any other questions for us at this time?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, I just 

17 wanted to make sure that all the recent 

18 upcoming reports between now and next meeting 

19 get assigned to SC&A. I don't think I 

20 necessarily need to go through the whole list 

21 here. There is a revised report for 0054. 

22 According to the schedule, it is awaiting Tim 
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1 Taulbee's review. It's sitting on his desk or 

2 in his inbox, more likely. So whenever that 

3 gets cleared, so we can just keep this process 

4 moving. I know it is complicated with a lot 

5 of different reports but some prioritization 

6 to those. Thank you.

7 Okay, that concludes our 

8 discussion on that addendum. Everybody thank 

9 Tim for his presentation.

10 We have some time before we are 

11 scheduled to break, and I would like to have 

12 this to discuss the ten-year review, and I 

13 believe that people had questions for Stu that 

14 we didn't get to, if you can remember. Sure. 

15 Sure, questions from this morning?

16 I hope I didn't overwhelm 

17 everybody with my question.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Did we vote?

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, we don't 

20 need to vote if we are referring it, assuming 

21 that is by sort of acclimation, since no one 

22 objected to Mark's -- yes.
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1 Yes, Loretta, go ahead.

2 MEMBER VALERIO: Mr. Hinnefeld, I 

3 just need clarification. If the OCAS-1 hasn't 

4 been signed and the employee passes away and 

5 there is no additional cancers, if the 

6 survivor then has to file as a survivor, do 

7 they just sign the OCAS-1 on behalf of the 

8 worker or does it have to go through dose 

9 reconstruction as a survivor claim?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: No, it -- well, in 

11 order for the survivor to establish the status 

12 as the claimant for the case, they do have to 

13 file an application with the Department of 

14 Labor and verify that they are a survivor. And 

15 there are certain other things, like 

16 identifying other survivors with equal status. 

17 So that has to be done. And at that time then 

18 Department of Labor would reopen the case and 

19 send it to us for dose reconstruction. We 

20 would offer the claimant the opportunity to be 

21 interviewed, the survivor now, if they felt 

22 like they wanted to be. They can decline. 
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1 We'd offer them. But if that interview 

2 doesn't then tell us anything that we felt 

3 like was not considered in the dose 

4 reconstruction that we were done, if we had 

5 gotten that far, then it would proceed at 

6 pace. You wouldn't have the whole dose 

7 reconstruction process again.

8 As I understand it what you 

9 described was it was done up to OCAS-1. In 

10 other words, a draft dose reconstruction was 

11 done it was to the energy employee but before 

12 it could be closed out, before the OCAS-1 

13 could be signed and returned and then the 

14 final sent that the energy employee died and 

15 then a survivor stepped up.

16 There is some of the application 

17 process I described has to go through, but the 

18 dose reconstruction wouldn't change unless the 

19 survivor provided new information that hadn't 

20 been addressed previously.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

22 questions for Stu on the ten-year review?
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1 Okay, good. I guess time erases. 

2 Okay, thank you, Stu.

3 Mark, are you ready, or would you 

4 rather wait until the 4:45 slot? Okay, so we 

5 will have Mark do his Dose Reconstruction 

6 Review Subcommittee report. Then we may have 

7 a few more questions after that.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: All right, I will 

9 give the report and then the other Members of 

10 the Subcommittee can answer the questions. 

11 How's that?

12 All right, we had a meeting on 

13 November 27th, our last Subcommittee meeting, 

14 and a number of items were discussed. One was 

15 the items related to the ten-year review. And 

16 we followed up on a few things such as the --

17 we got an update on the DCAS blind review 

18 findings. And just as a refresher, DCAS has 

19 put into place a blind review process 

20 internally, where they are selecting, I always 

21 forget the number of cases, but I think it is 

22 two per -- one per week. Yes, one to two per 
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1 week. Anyway, on an ongoing basis, they are 

2 looking at these in blind fashion, reviewing 

3 them in parallel with ORAU and comparing 

4 results. And they are putting together this 

5 data in a database and giving us periodic 

6 updates on the Subcommittee.

7 So this is very useful to have 

8 this blind review going on and also feeding 

9 into our Subcommittee to give us a sense of 

10 what is happening.

11 It is a little too early to look 

12 at sort of aggregate findings on that, but 

13 they do have a fair number now that have gone 

14 through the process. I think 27 have gone 

15 through the entire process, and they have 70 

16 cases selected overall.

17 The second item was they gave us 

18 an update on some of their QA/QC I guess 

19 procedures or programs put in place and this

20 is on the ORAU side, they gave us an overview 

21 of their test plan for V&V of dose 

22 reconstruction tools.
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1 And then we also had a fairly 

2 lengthy discussion on the peer review process 

3 that is done in-house. So these are all 

4 related to the QA/QC issues that we were 

5 supposed to follow-up on.

6 The peer review process, again, it 

7 has changed over time. And now more recently 

8 they have what they call a PR, a peer review 

9 feedback log, and they are tracking certain 

10 categories of errors. And we are interested 

11 in trying to following that. Again, looking 

12 at it in aggregate to see what they are 

13 finding in-house as they do the peer reviews. 

14 And also getting a sense of -- we wanted to 

15 get a sense at this last Subcommittee meeting 

16 of how this process has been changed over 

17 time. So it has gotten a lot more, I guess 

18 systematic in the recent past as to where they 

19 are beginning to collect this stuff in a 

20 database. Early on they were doing peer 

21 reviews, but the data wasn't being collected 

22 or categorized in aggregate. So we sort of 
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1 had -- didn't have a good sense of what was 

2 happening internally, at least being able to 

3 track it.

4 So we think that they have 

5 definitely improved that process, and that is 

6 part of what we wanted to see on the 

7 Subcommittee.

8 The next item we talked about was 

9 the blind reviews that we've done -- SC&A. We 

10 have only selected two in all this time. And 

11 one question was put to the Subcommittee is do 

12 we want to continue the blind reviews? What 

13 can we get out of these blind reviews? So we 

14 had a discussion about it is a small sample 

15 but we do have two cases that have gone 

16 through blind review. And the Subcommittee 

17 came to the conclusion that we think the blind 

18 reviews are worthwhile, even though DCAS has 

19 an internal program, we think having some 

20 number of blind reviews that we do 

21 independently is still a useful tool. And it 

22 is also useful to do in the two methods that 
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1 they did this first round, which was one 

2 method where they have the SC&A dose 

3 reconstructors follow the exact procedures 

4 that NIOSH will go through. And the other is 

5 more of a best health physics practices 

6 approach. So they did it both ways, and it 

7 was a useful exercise to see sort of the 

8 uncertainty in the final numbers, I guess both 

9 internal and external doses.

10 We agree, I am not sure we pinned 

11 down a number, but we said something like four 

12 to six for the next year seemed to make sense, 

13 and then maybe reassess once we had a little 

14 larger sample of how much we were getting out 

15 of this. So that is where the Subcommittee 

16 stands as far as reporting back to the Board 

17 on that issue.

18 Another item we were asked by the 

19 full Board to look into was what we have 

20 termed the look-back, and we've picked 

21 basically a number of cases that were done at 

22 one site, in this case it happened to be Rocky 
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1 Flats, and we wanted to look back and see the 

2 original reviews that were done by SC&A, did 

3 they flag certain things. In other words, if 

4 something ended up being in an SEC, was that 

5 issue flagged in the original dose 

6 reconstruction report. And part of it is to 

7 see what we are finding out in our dose review 

8 process, but part of it is also the concern 

9 about how we are reporting our results. Are 

10 we saying that all these cases look great when 

11 in fact several of them ended up being in an 

12 SEC? It might be a little misleading to our 

13 audience that we are reporting to.

14 So in the Rocky Flats case, we had 

15 I think these numbers are accurate, I believe 

16 they had eight cases and six of those cases 

17 ended up eventually being in the SEC. And I 

18 think that the main headline out of this is 

19 that the findings that we had did not flag the 

20 SEC issues. However, when you went back to 

21 the SC&A case reports, they have a general 

22 section where it is linked to the open Site 
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1 Profile findings. And in those cases, they 

2 did recognize that, yes, in fact, we still 

3 have an open issue about neutron dose 

4 reconstruction and the SEC for Rocky Flats was 

5 based on the inability to reconstruct neutron 

6 dose. So it was flagged, but it wasn't sort 

7 of captured in the findings. It wasn't in the 

8 full -- in the body of the report. 

9 And that led to a discussion on 

10 the Subcommittee of how best to track all 

11 these -- you know not to sort of lose track of 

12 things. And that ultimately led to a 

13 discussion of me putting the Subcommittee 

14 matrices into a Wanda Munn-like database, 

15 reluctantly.

16 MEMBER MUNN: We hope.

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: I think it will -

18 - and we are making plans. Even this morning 

19 we had some emails going around about what 

20 fields we need in that database, et cetera.

21 So the idea would be that because 

22 it seems like what is happening is we have the 
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1 Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee, most of the 

2 findings are related to QA/QC type of issues, 

3 other issues that are identified, but the 

4 bigger issues, the more science issues are 

5 being investigated and explored and resolved 

6 at the Site Profile or SEC level. So we have 

7 to link those things, and we have to make sure 

8 we don't lose track of them. And it seems 

9 that putting all these things in a database 

10 makes a lot of sense. So that is where that 

11 discussion went.

12 Let me see. I guess the last item 

13 was a discussion of the review procedure 

14 itself. If you recall, some of you recall 

15 anyway, that we drafted a Board procedure for 

16 dose reconstruction reviews. And as we looked 

17 back at the initial draft, it was pretty clear 

18 that we sort of evolved from there. We are 

19 not - some of those principles we are 

20 following, but, for instance, we had a basic 

21 and advanced review, and it sort of morphed 

22 into something in-between for all the reviews 
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1 that we do. So we don't really select the 

2 basic or advanced. We have got one level of 

3 review.

4 What we have offered to do is the 

5 Subcommittee is going to re-look at that 

6 language, redraft the procedure really to 

7 reflect what we are doing. We feel that the 

8 approach is sound right now, as long as we 

9 make sure that we don't lose track of these 

10 bigger things that are really being conducted 

11 on the Site Profile level. But there is a 

12 benefit for the Dose Reconstruction 

13 Subcommittee to continue to look at these 

14 QA/QC findings because we do find a number of 

15 them.

16 So we will continue to go down 

17 that path, which is, there is also one 

18 distinction there, which is for some of the 

19 AEC sites we have something that we have 

20 started to call mini Site Profiles and this is 

21 where basically it is a small site. In some 

22 cases there is not even a Site Profile 
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1 document. So we asked SC&A to treat it as if 

2 they are reviewing the whole site, even though 

3 it is one case, because likely we won't see 

4 that at any other point. There won't be a 

5 Work Group established or any other level of 

6 review. So we treat it as like a mini Site 

7 Profile or as a Site Profile. So that would 

8 be what I would have termed for the advanced 

9 review, the more drill down and look into all 

10 the issues, rather than just that specific 

11 case.

12 But for the other cases, we are 

13 going to continue to review them as we have 

14 been, which is to say to make sure that NIOSH 

15 is tracking their procedures and making sure 

16 that what they have done is in accordance with 

17 their own procedures and the numbers are all 

18 there, everything adds up. With one note, 

19 that if they find something that just leaps 

20 out and wasn't necessarily on a previous Site 

21 Profile review, they certainly want to flag 

22 it. But that is sort of the approach that we 
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1 think we should have going forward.

2 And I think we need to, you know, 

3 we have started similar language, sharing some 

4 of the language, but we need to redraft this 

5 procedure and circulate it to the Board and 

6 maybe have the Board vote on once we have 

7 finalized it and can adopt it. But that is 

8 sort of how we were thinking.

9 And I think that is it.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any of your Work 

11 Group Members have -- turn off your mic.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: The blind 

13 reviews were -- certainly gave me, as a 

14 relatively new Board Member, a lot of 

15 confidence that there was really quite a good 

16 improvement in the reviews that were made in 

17 the blind review. It just gives you 

18 confidence.

19 Also, for the upcoming blind 

20 reviews, I think the two blind reviews we have 

21 done, one was, I believe, skin cancer and the 

22 other was -- was it lung cancer? There were 
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1 two types of cancers, and the other four or 

2 five we are going to be doing in the course of 

3 the next year, we will choose so that there 

4 will be different kinds of cancers, just to 

5 kind of go across the spectrum a little bit. 

6 Although, hopefully that should not create a 

7 difficulty. That should be -- I don't expect 

8 that there will be problems with a particular 

9 kind of cancer. Let's confirm that by 

10 sampling different cancer types.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, we did -- I 

12 forgot. Thanks, Dave.

13 We talked about possibly modifying 

14 the selection for the blind reviews. One 

15 thing we also note is that I think one of the 

16 cases, because they are blind, NIOSH might 

17 have done an overestimating approach so that 

18 numbers might look quite different than what 

19 SC&A came up with up when they were doing a 

20 best estimate approach. But since they were 

21 blind, then we could do what would be -- so 

22 one thing we talked about was possibly 
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1 modifying the way we selected these cases.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I would 

3 just -- I have one comment, which is I would 

4 argue for doing the six blind reviews this 

5 year. They are labor-intensive, but we really 

6 lagged in doing them, and I think it would be 

7 important that we do more rather than less. 

8 Because we will never get sort of a 

9 statistically valid sample of whatever. But I 

10 think we really need to just move that forward 

11 a little bit to see how much we will really 

12 learn from them and understand, particularly 

13 with this compared to this other change in the 

14 process that you are going through in terms of 

15 not losing key findings. That would be my only 

16 comment.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: In fact, we 

18 were saying that we have done two. The folks, 

19 the staff folks there thought that they could 

20 do four over the course of the year, one each 

21 quarter and that was realistic. So we figured 

22 that we would have a half dozen by the end of 
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1 the year. By the end of the next year.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I've never heard 

3 SC&A refuse work. I haven't heard SC&A turn 

4 down doing something, but again, you are 

5 closer to it. But if possible, or feasible, 

6 let's try to get the six in. I think it would 

7 be helpful.

8 And also our resolution of these 

9 tend to lag and it just -- I think if we are 

10 going to really learn something and make sure 

11 we have a good process, we should sooner, 

12 rather than later.

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: We will have to 

14 get Mauro --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: At the front end 

16 of the process, we had SC&A estimate how much 

17 it would actually cost to do the blind 

18 reviews. You have done two now. John Stiver, 

19 can you or one of the staff tell us how close 

20 the estimate was so we know whether we can 

21 afford the six that Jim has referred to?

22 MR. STIVER: Yes, we had had this 
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1 discussion at the November 27th meeting about 

2 the costs. You know, an optimistic estimate 

3 would be about 100 hours. It was about 

4 similar to a regular review. But due to the 

5 additional work involved, it would probably be 

6 about twice that as a ball park figure, when 

7 you are really looking at doing a full-blown 

8 blind, it always involves a lot more work. And 

9 you know, we also have the two different types 

10 of approaches. So my guess would be probably 

11 about 150 as a ballpark. But it definitely is 

12 larger than 100. But certainly having said 

13 that, six would not be an insurmountable goal 

14 for a year. We could certainly do that. We 

15 just have to reallocate people to that 

16 particular task.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I bet I can get 

18 him up to a dozen.

19 I mean seriously in my mind, and 

20 again, it is just my person opinion, if that 

21 has to come at the expense of other reviews, 

22 then so be it. I just think we have lagged in 
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1 doing these because they are complicated. And 

2 I think they really pose some issues in terms 

3 of how to do them, and I think we would 

4 benefit from pushing ahead a little harder on 

5 those.

6 While I have the opportunity, I 

7 would like to recognize or acknowledge a 

8 former Board Member who has joined us, Dr. Roy 

9 DeHart. Welcome. He has been away for 

10 several years.

11 (Applause.)

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Roy, you have 

13 been away for several years, same issues, same 

14 -- you could have just sat up here and joined 

15 right in and not miss a beat. The same sites 

16 we have been talking about.

17 Why don't we take our break. We 

18 need to get back here at 3:15 sharp and we 

19 will start on GSI. Thank you.

20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off 

21 the record at 2:51 p.m. and 

22 resumed at 3:19 p.m.) 
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, our next 

2 issue on our agenda is the GSI/SEC petition. 

3 And I believe I have a big hint here, I think 

4 Dr. Ziemer is going to start off then, Dave 

5 Allen? Okay. So go ahead, Paul.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you, Dr. 

7 Melius, I'll report on the activities of the 

8 TBD-6000 Work Group, particularly with respect 

9 to SEC Petition 00105 for General Steel 

10 Industries.

11 Also it may be useful to make sure 

12 that the petitioners are on the line and able 

13 to hear. You want to check on that? Or can 

14 we just ask if the petitioner and co15 petitioner are on the line?

16 MS. JESKE: This is Patricia 

17 Jeske, I am here.

18 DR. MCKEEL: Hello, this is Dan 

19 McKeel, I'm here.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. I 

21 wanted to make sure. I know we've had sound 

22 trouble today. But I wanted to make sure 
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1 that, at least we're able to hear at this 

2 point.

3 So I will report on the activity 

4 of the TBD-6000 Work Group, from our last 

5 meeting, and also then Dave Allen will make a 

6 brief presentation on behalf of NIOSH.

7 Part of this is just to review, 

8 because I've given reports at the last two 

9 full Board meetings on the activities of this 

10 Work Group, with respect to GSI. But let me 

11 remind you first of all of the timeline for 

12 the use of radioactive sources and radiation 

13 producing devices at General Steel Industries.

14 The periods of interest are the 

15 operational period which began January 1st 

16 1953 and went through June 30th of 1966. I 

17 have added on this slide, for convenience, a 

18 point which is during the operational period 

19 where I've identified the date at which the 

20 GSI folks applied for their original Atomic 

21 Energy Commission License, that occurred on 

22 March 7th, 1962.
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1 The license actually was issued 

2 May 21st of '62. And then the residual period 

3 is from July 1st, '66 through December 31st, 

4 1992. And then I note here that there was a 

5 DOE cleanup period January 1st through 

6 December 31st of 1993.

7 Now let me summarize the action 

8 that this Board took in September at our last 

9 full Board meeting, just to refresh your 

10 memory.

11 At that time I reported that both 

12 NIOSH and SC&A felt that it would make sense 

13 to review some other datasets involving the 

14 handling of uranium metal to ascertain whether 

15 there was a better surrogate dataset for the 

16 GSI situation.

17 And we're talking about surrogate 

18 data for the handling of uranium that would 

19 lead to airborne activity and hence to 

20 internal dose.

21 So at that time the Board asked 

22 NIOSH to examine possible alternate surrogate 
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1 datasets, which would be followed by an SC&A 

2 review, for determination of internal dose 

3 component for both the operational and 

4 residual periods.

5 And let me also remind you that 

6 the original dataset that came from TBD-6000, 

7 was one for which it had been determined, or 

8 for which there was question about whether or 

9 not it was a suitable surrogate for the GSI 

10 situation.

11 So the Board didn't take action on 

12 the SEC petition at that meeting but rather 

13 deferred action until the next full Board 

14 meeting, which is this meeting here in 

15 Knoxville, today.

16 The Work Group met on November 

17 28th, this past week or so, and let me 

18 summarize what the Work Group did and then I 

19 will also summarize the formal votes that were 

20 taken.

21 First of all we reviewed the NIOSH 

22 proposal for air sampling at AWE sites that 
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1 represented the handling of uranium in various 

2 forms. And I'm talking only about the 

3 handling processes, not he other types of 

4 uranium activities such as rolling and milling 

5 and cutting and grinding and so on.

6 Then the Work Group reviewed the 

7 SC&A evaluation of the NIOSH proposal, and 

8 again we're talking here about a dataset that 

9 might be considered a suitable surrogate. The 

10 Work Group also reviewed additional comments, 

11 or received additional comments, from the site 

12 expert and the petitioner. We also have 

13 written comments from the co-petitioner at 

14 that meeting.

15 After discussion NIOSH agreed to 

16 some modifications that were suggested by SC&A 

17 that grew out SC&A's review of the NIOSH White 

18 Paper. And the Work Group acted then on the 

19 proposed use of the air sampling data for the 

20 operational and residual periods and I'll 

21 summarize that action in just a moment.

22 Also the Work Group voted on the 
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1 overall NIOSH recommendation on SEC Petition, 

2 00105. Now this is really redundant in a way 

3 because I had reported to this Board earlier 

4 what those actions were, but we, for clarity, 

5 reiterated our voting.

6 And then finally the Work Group 

7 confirmed that all the SC&A finding on 

8 Petition 00105 had either been closed or 

9 transferred to Appendix BB as non-SEC issues.

10 So I have four recommendations 

11 that have come out of the Work Group meeting 

12 of November 28th.

13 Number one, the Work Group 

14 recommends that the Board accept the NIOSH 

15 proposal that it can reconstruct internal dose 

16 for the operational and residual periods. And 

17 that the surrogate data criteria have been 

18 met. And the four Work Group Members voted on 

19 this, there were ayes and no nays.

20 Secondly, the Work Group 

21 recommends that the Board accept the NIOSH 

22 proposal that it can reconstruct doses for the 
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1 "earlier" part of the operational period, 

2 January 1st, 1953 to April 18th, 1962. That 

3 vote was three ayes and one nay.

4 And let me also insert here that 

5 this date was, in a certain sense, I don't 

6 want to call it arbitrary, but it's not a part 

7 of the original petition. But the Work Group 

8 realized that there appeared to be two sort of 

9 differing time periods in terms of what may 

10 have been the level of radiation safety 

11 controls at this facility and therefore it was 

12 appropriate to consider them separately and 

13 vote separately on them.

14 This Board may wish to break them 

15 up the same way or not. That will be up to 

16 you, but I'm reporting how we voted on it.

17 For the later operational period, 

18 this is Recommendation 3, the Work Group 

19 recommends that the Board accept the NIOSH 

20 proposal that it can reconstruct dose for the 

21 later operational period, April 19th, 1962 to 

22 June 30th, 1966. The voting was three ayes, 
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1 no nays, one abstention.

2 And then finally the Work Group 

3 recommends that the Board accept the NIOSH 

4 proposal that it can reconstruct dose for the 

5 residual period, July 1st, 1966 to December 

6 31st, 1992. The vote was four ayes and no 

7 nays.

8 Now I thought it would be 

9 appropriate for you to hear a little more 

10 detail about the actual surrogate data 

11 proposal that NIOSH made as it has finally be 

12 modified with their consideration of the SC&A 

13 review.

14 I also have available, and I just 

15 show it here, as reminders, from the 

16 presentation at the Santa Fe meeting of June 

17 20th. And, Mr. Chairman, I'll leave it to you 

18 or the Board Members whether or not you want 

19 me to do that.

20 And I could do that now or after 

21 Dave presents his material from NIOSH. Or not 

22 do it at all, it would be a reiteration of how 
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1 the issues on the SEC petition were closed or 

2 transferred to Appendix BB Issue Matrix. And 

3 basically it would be a repetition of what was 

4 covered in the June 20th meeting.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: How do the Board 

6 Members feel? Would it be helpful to have 

7 Paul run through those?

8 MEMBER MUNN: I'm fine.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Fine which way?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: If it's material 

11 that you already have and I know it's been 

12 redistributed to you. And you have the slides 

13 themselves.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, why don't 

15 you go through it? Because I think it helped 

16 set the context for some of the decision 

17 making also.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, you want me 

19 to do that before you hear from Mr. Allen?

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, because 

21 Dave's really speaking to just one of the 

22 issues, if I have this correct.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. Okay. This 

2 is additional background on the petition 

3 itself. It was submitted in February of 2008, 

4 qualified for evaluation May of 2008. The 

5 Evaluation Report issued by NIOSH October 3rd, 

6 2008. SC&A review, January 24th, 2009.

7 I have here the original proposed 

8 Class Definition and the Class as evaluated by 

9 NIOSH. I'll simply read the final Class as it 

10 was evaluated, "All individuals who worked in 

11 any location at the General Steel Industry 

12 site, located at 1417 State Street, Granite 

13 City, Illinois from January 1st, 1953 through 

14 June 30th, 1966 and/or during the residual 

15 period from July 1st, 1966 through December 

16 31st, 1992.

17 So here were the issues in the 

18 Issue Matrix. Issue 1, dealt with lack of 

19 radiation monitoring data for the, what I now 

20 have called the earlier period, 1953 to 1963. 

21 There was concern about specific incidences, 

22 there was concern about assumptions for 
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1 reconstructing doses from radium sources. 

2 Concerns about training monitoring and other 

3 controls during t his period.

4 Ultimately NIOSH and SC&A agreed 

5 the doses could be bounded based on source 

6 size information and reasonable assumptions 

7 concerning work practices. And the Work Group 

8 voted at that time, in terms of the Matrix, 

9 two to one not to recommend SEC status for the 

10 early period on the basis of this issue.

11 Issue 2 was incomplete monitoring 

12 of workers from '64 to '66. Film badges had 

13 been provided for only betatron workers and 

14 radiographers, no film badges were used 

15 outside the betatron building. And I might 

16 say parenthetically it was agreed that there 

17 were exposures outside the betatron building.

18 Ultimately NIOSH developed the 

19 model for bounding doses to individuals 

20 working outside the betatron room and SC&A 

21 agreed the doses could be reconstructed during 

22 this period.
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1 Third issue, lack of 

2 documentation. The original concern dealt 

3 with lack of information on isotopic 

4 radiography sources, lack of information on 

5 monitoring data and lack of evidence of an 

6 effective radiation safety program.

7 After identification of sources 

8 and additional information on practices, SC&A 

9 agreed with NIOSH that bounding can be done.

10 I might add here, again 

11 parenthetically, that much of the additional 

12 information that we received on the 

13 radiographic sources, particularly in those 

14 early days, came from the petitioner who 

15 located many documents that were helpful to 

16 the Work Group. Or I should say the co17 petitioner, Dr. McKeel.

18 Issue 4, film badge dosimetry 

19 dependence on photon energy and exposure 

20 geometry. The concern was that film badges 

21 under-respond for certain geometries and 

22 energies.
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1 The final resolution of this is 

2 that the modeled doses for the betatron 

3 workers exceed the maximum film badge values 

4 that were reported, even for the energies and 

5 geometries that produced the highest film 

6 badge readings. SC&A concurred with this and 

7 the Work Group closed that issue.

8 Issue 5 was lack of validation of 

9 models of radiation exposure to betatron 

10 operators. The initial concern was that for 

11 the period when the film badge reports were 

12 available the measured and the modeled 

13 exposures did not agree.

14 The ultimate resolution was that 

15 later models, which eventually were normalized 

16 to the film badge data, did end up providing a 

17 reasonable agreement and both NIOSH and SC&A 

18 agreed that external doses could be bonded 

19 with sufficient accuracy through the use of 

20 the MCNPX simulations. And the Work Group 

21 closed that issue.

22 Issue 6 was the underestimate of 
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1 external exposure to unmonitored workers. The 

2 concern was based on early models that focused 

3 only on radiographers versus non-exposed plant 

4 and office personnel. But the current models 

5 now assign exposures to all workers, including 

6 exposures originating from betatron and 

7 isotopic sources as well as support 

8 activities, and all workers would be covered 

9 by one or another part of the modeling.

10 Issue 7, does reconstructions not 

11 based on best available science. The concern 

12 was actually an error in the calculation plus 

13 the difference in the model codes used by 

14 NIOSH and SC&A. This was not an SEC issue, it 

15 was resolved in the later models that were 

16 used by NIOSH and SC&A and the issue was 

17 closed.

18 Issue 8, incomplete model use for 

19 exposure assessments. This was a concern 

20 similar to the previous issue. It involved 

21 the omission of neutron doses in the original 

22 NIOSH model. And that was resolved in a 
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1 similar fashion, similar to Issue 7.

2 Issue 9, underestimate of beta 

3 does. The concern was based on neglecting 

4 what is known as the Putzier effect as well as 

5 omitting skin dose who were not betatron 

6 operators. The Putzier effect actually it 

7 will be addressed in the Appendix BB revision. 

8 It's been agreed to. The skin doses to other 

9 workers are addressed in the most recent NIOSH 

10 models.

11 And finally, Issue 10 was lack of 

12 consistency in assigning external exposures. 

13 This concern originally focused on an error in 

14 the NIOSH calculation, an error in the early 

15 model. It was not an SEC issue and this item 

16 was moved by the Work Group to Appendix BB in 

17 2010 and subsequently closed.

18 And then I put, at the end here, 

19 just a summary of those ten issues. Those 

20 that have been closed and those that have been 

21 transferred to Appendix BB. And that 

22 completes my presentation. Do you have 
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1 questions now Dr. Melius or shall we proceed 

2 with Mr. Allen?

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Actually if it's 

4 okay with everybody else why don't we proceed 

5 with David Allen and then we'll come back and 

6 ask you both questions.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Now we're ready 

9 to go and Dave Allen will be presenting. Speak 

10 directly into the mic, people are having 

11 trouble hearing from that mic.

12 MR. ALLEN: Okay, is this close 

13 enough? Okay, once again my name is Dave 

14 Allen. I'm here to give a very brief 

15 presentation on the use of surrogate data at 

16 GSI for uranium airborne concentrations.

17 Just a short background as far as 

18 the airborne at GSI. I want to remind you 

19 that the reason GSI is a AWE is that they 

20 performed X-ray examinations on uranium metal 

21 for Mallinckrodt. They did not correct 

22 defects or do any other type of manipulation 
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1 with the metal other than to position it for 

2 the X-ray, take the X-ray and then remove the 

3 metal and ship it back to Mallinckrodt.

4 Even at that there is potential 

5 for some amount of uranium airborne from 

6 handling the uranium and corrosion products on 

7 the surface of the metal. In order to 

8 estimate that airborne it was necessary for us 

9 to use surrogate data.

10 Originally, in the Appendix BB, we 

11 used surrogate data from TBD-6000. This was 

12 intended to be a bounding estimate since we 

13 didn't have a real good number on simply 

14 handling cold uranium metal. This was looked 

15 at by the Work Group, SC&A and others, and 

16 decided it was not representative. And, as I 

17 said we agreed, we felt it was a bounding 

18 estimate.

19 As a result the Work Group asked 

20 us to see if we could find data that was more 

21 appropriate to what they did at GSI. Dr. 

22 Ziemer presented that at the Board meeting, 
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1 the last full Board meeting, and the Board 

2 agreed that we should go back and see if we 

3 could find some additional data. And the data 

4 was to be representative of simply handling 

5 cold uranium metal.

6 We went back and we conducted a 

7 research to try to find some data that was 

8 more representative. We had a small amount of 

9 data that was representative prior to that. 

10 Between that and what we were able to add to 

11 it we were able to come up with 37 air samples 

12 that we felt were representative of the work 

13 at GSI.

14 The forms of uranium they were 

15 handling, uranium metal, that they were 

16 handling and these various air samples 

17 includes slugs, derbies, billets and dingots, 

18 and this is a wide range of sizes of uranium 

19 metal.

20 We presented that to the Work 

21 Group in a White Paper and also analyzed the 

22 data and showed that it was not dependent on 
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1 the mass by any means but, much to my 

2 surprise, it was not really dependent on the 

3 surface area either. As it turned out we were 

4 getting a similar amount of airborne from each 

5 of these types of uranium regardless of the 

6 size or the shape.

7 Once we sent the White Paper to 

8 the Work Group SC&A reviewed the White Paper 

9 and the data and presented their review, which 

10 included several additions, deletions and 

11 adjustments to the data that we presented.

12 During the Work Group we discussed 

13 this. Most of SC&A suggested changes were 

14 accepted, a few were not. And that resulted 

15 in essentially a third dataset. Once the 

16 meeting was over we took this third dataset 

17 that was agreed to and analyzed it, and I've 

18 put the values on the slide up here.

19 You can see that the one that says 

20 final is essentially the hybrid dataset that 

21 we settled on during the Working Group meeting 

22 and it does fall between the other two, the 
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1 values you get fall between the other two 

2 datasets.

3 Also in the White Paper where I 

4 presented this data we evaluated the data 

5 against the Board's surrogate data criteria 

6 and our determination was that the criteria 

7 was met. In SC&A's review they also reviewed 

8 the data against the surrogate data criteria 

9 and they came to the same conclusion.

10 During the Work Group meeting on 

11 November 28th the Work Group voted and also 

12 agreed with that. And that's all I have on 

13 that.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Do we 

15 have questions for either Paul or Dave? Again, 

16 the order of this will be Board Members will 

17 ask questions about the presentations. We'll 

18 then hear from the petitioners. And then 

19 we'll, well we actually have a motion from the 

20 Work Group to consider, so we would then move 

21 on to that. But this is the time to ask sort 

22 of technical questions, we're not going to 
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1 talk about what actions we'll take at this 

2 interval until we've heard from the 

3 petitioners. So, Brad, you're first.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: You know, in 

5 following this and trying to keep up with 

6 what's going on with this, and I don't know 

7 who I'd address this to, if it would be to 

8 you, Paul, or what. But what data do we have 

9 from 1953 to 1962, because my understanding 

10 was is that we really had no data out there?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: For the early 

12 period the reconstructed dose would be based 

13 on modeling. What we do know is we know the 

14 number and activities of the radium sources 

15 that were used for radiography in the early 

16 days. We do have information on the betatron 

17 in terms of its energy and output, and also 

18 the location.

19 So the modeling is what this would 

20 be based on. I'll let Dave speak to it 

21 additionally as well. But in the hierarchy of 

22 data, or the hierarchy that we use for dose 
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1 reconstruction, obviously the top tier would 

2 be personnel monitoring. We do not have that 

3 for the early period. We do have source 

4 information and that's what the models are 

5 based on.

6 Dave, do you need to add to that? 

7 And maybe Bob Anigstein, who's here from SC&A 

8 can also comment.

9 MR. ALLEN: I would agree. I just 

10 wanted to add that we also had information 

11 from some of the workers as far as what 

12 techniques they were using et cetera.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: For example, the 

14 use of the radium sources they used the 

15 fishpole technique. So you have a radium 

16 source in open air whose strength you know in 

17 terms of curies and you have to make some 

18 assumptions on distances and also on exposure 

19 times.

20 Also it turns out that the 

21 modeling that they used even makes assumptions 

22 to the effect that workers could cross the 
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1 boundaries and penetrate the radiation 

2 limiting ropes during exposures. And part of 

3 the modeling assumes that people walked 

4 through there and we assigned doses for all 

5 workers assuming that they walked through 

6 these things as well. And so that's the kind 

7 of thing that's done. But we don't have 

8 direct monitoring data.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: I guess, you 

10 know, and this is just my personal opinion, 

11 I'm sitting here looking at we had a 8314 for 

12 Patel Energy that came in there and they had a 

13 fair amount of data. And I'm looking at this 

14 from '53 to '66, which we really have no data, 

15 and we're assuming that we've got it right.

16 But as we've found in many of 

17 these sites, I guess, I feel really, I was 

18 kind of surprised that we didn't have a SEC 

19 for these earlier years, '53 to '66. I 

20 really, you know, we can put models out there, 

21 we can do everything like that. But in my 

22 personal opinion all we're doing is taking an 
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1 educated guess at what was really there.

2 We know some source terms but we 

3 don't have all the facts.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie.

5 MR. ALLEN: Could I say one there, 

6 Dr. Melius? I did want to point out that the 

7 radiation doses that we're getting, the 

8 external radiation dose from these sources, 

9 the purpose of it was for radiography. So in 

10 order to get an actual X-ray of a piece of 

11 material the radiographers have to know what 

12 the source strength is and how long to shoot 

13 it.

14 So the techniques you use in order 

15 to get the film, essentially they are 

16 calculating how much dose the film is going to 

17 get in order to perform their job. Granted, 

18 we don't have all that information but it does 

19 tell you that there was some type of control 

20 over this and they did have some kind of idea 

21 what they were doing there.

22 And then we also know the source 
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1 strength and the techniques that they were 

2 used, according to the people in that 

3 timeframe.

4 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I appreciate 

5 that and I hope you understand after being a 

6 radiographer for ten years I know that my 

7 equivalent dose, if I wouldn't have had a film 

8 badge, they could make an estimate for me but 

9 I bet you they would be off by a substantial 

10 amount because of the unforeseen things. The 

11 different thicknesses in the metal. The 

12 different process.

13 And you also, when you do 

14 radiography, you have a density that you have 

15 to match on this. So I'll give you an example 

16 of a half inch pipe that, because it's extra, 

17 extra heavy wall, would take over 37 shots to 

18 be able to do one weld or one spot in it.

19 So this is my issue that I have 

20 and others may not, but I'm sitting here 

21 looking at no data for these earlier years, at 

22 all, and I see us guesstimating. And I just 
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1 feel uneasy about it. To tell you the truth I 

2 was really surprised that we didn't have an 

3 SEC at least for the earlier years.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just 

5 correct you, Brad, we have data. I think what 

6 you're saying is we don't have monitoring data 

7 and I think you need to be specific about 

8 that.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: I stand 

10 corrected.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, as you know I 

13 was on the Work Group and one of my biggest 

14 issues was from the 1953 to 1958 time period. 

15 There's no real source term data and NIOSH 

16 intends to back extrapolate source term data 

17 from '58/'63 time period to that period of 

18 time and I don't feel that that's plausible or 

19 favorable.

20 There's a couple other things 

21 about the safety practices, but Paul already 

22 talked about those so I won't get into those. 
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1 But there were questionable safety practices 

2 back in the earlier periods. And there's no 

3 validation for that model in the very early 

4 periods.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any response 

6 from Dave or Paul?

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't have any 

8 particular response. I mean part of the issue 

9 on models is how well they do what we're 

10 wanting them to do. And what this model is 

11 intended to do is to do an upper bound, so it 

12 really is a very generous model based on what 

13 sources they had available.

14 And it's quite true, radiographers 

15 don't have the best safety record anyway. We 

16 know that from experience. And I think over 

17 the years AEC and NRC has had trouble with 

18 radiographers whose practices have often been 

19 questionable.

20 And so the question is do you have 

21 a model which will do fair bounding of not 

22 only those radiographers, but the rest of the 
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1 people in the field and in the plant who may 

2 be exposed it and may not even be part of the 

3 radiography group. And that's what the model 

4 is intended to do.

5 So SC&A and NIOSH have looked at 

6 these models extensively, and Board Members, 

7 and we don't all agree on sort of the end 

8 point on these things. So there's certainly 

9 room for disagreement.

10 And I'm just saying that to me 

11 those models do adequately bound, or if you 

12 want to use the term with sufficient accuracy, 

13 I believe they're extremely generous to all of 

14 the workers and those who were in the plant 

15 and do fairly bound what they could have 

16 gotten from those early sources.

17 But I don't dispute the points 

18 that are made. I think they're valid points 

19 as well.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What did you say 

21 you'd been doing for ten years, Brad?

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I agree with. 
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1 I guess my issue is the source term. You 

2 know, and fishpole radiography was basically 

3 outlawed because of the reasons that you spoke 

4 of. But I think if we're dealing with this 

5 with good source term and we're trying to 

6 reconstruct 40 years ago or something else 

7 like that and so much can be missed in it, my 

8 personal opinion is that there is such a gap 

9 there.

10 If we were lucky, everything is 

11 based on if we have the right source terms 

12 that are our there. And I do agree with you 

13 on the radiographers, because we have lost 

14 sources.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David 

16 Richardson, I think you had a --

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, maybe 

18 some of this discussion has helped clarify. I 

19 wanted just to follow up with Josie's 

20 comments, because you had raised an issue of 

21 lack of information on the source terms for a 

22 certain period of time. And it wasn't clear 
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1 to me, I was wondering whether you were 

2 talking about source terms for internal 

3 exposures or external exposures. Is it this 

4 issue of the radium sources?

5 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, the external.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Mark.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Dave or Paul, I'm 

8 trying to compare the FUSRAP Report to your 

9 most recent model and, you know, not that I 

10 would expect from an operation like to have 

11 really significant internal doses, but I'm 

12 wondering if you did any analysis to see that 

13 those numbers were consistent?

14 I'm seeing, you know, the one that 

15 caught my eye was the 3,000 to 4,000 

16 picocuries per gram in or around the vacuum, 

17 industrial vacuum in the facility. And then 

18 there's also a measurement of I think it's 

19 like 36 micro-hour per hour 75 feet outside 

20 the building.

21 I guess my point here is I'm 

22 wonder if those levels of contamination, now 
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1 that survey was done in 1990, 30 years after 

2 the operations are over. If that level of 

3 contamination is consistent with what could 

4 have come off the, you know, what you've 

5 described as pretty non-intrusive type of 

6 activities?

7 MR. ALLEN: We didn't do anything 

8 above what, Dr. Anigstein for SC&A did a type 

9 of analysis, I think what you're talking 

10 about. But we did get information that the 

11 facility was power washed and cleaned up at 

12 least two different occasions between the 

13 cover period and the FUSRAP Survey and that 

14 throws a major monkey wrench in back15 extrapolate 40 years. That answer your 

16 question?

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, not really. 

18 But it's what you know, right? I mean, I 

19 don't know if SC&A has a comment on that, if 

20 they looked into that issue at all. Anybody?

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well I don't have 

22 the answer but let me reframe it. Mark is 
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1 basically asking if the proposed model for 

2 internal does, which is the new surrogate 

3 data, air concentrations, and keep in mind 

4 what would happen would be that those would be 

5 used to establish contamination levels on the 

6 floors and eventually airborne, from 

7 suspension, whether those values are with the 

8 contamination levels found by the FUSRAP 

9 people.

10 And I think sort of the lynchpin 

11 of this would be if the FUSRAP, after all this 

12 cleaning, were finding levels that were higher 

13 than predicted by this model that would give 

14 cause for concern. Does that frame it 

15 correctly, Mark? I think it's what you're 

16 really asking. Is there any kind of 

17 consistency.

18 If the FUSRAP models are lower 

19 than what you would get from the NIOSH model 

20 then one would feel a little more comfortable. 

21 If I can put it in those terms. And I don't 

22 know the answer to that. And I don't know if 
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1 Bob Anigstein, Bob is pow-wowing with one of 

2 his colleagues so I don't know if he's even 

3 heard the question. But, Dave has an initial 

4 response.

5 MR. ALLEN: Yes, I mean in order 

6 to do that you have to essentially make some 

7 assumptions that the contamination is evenly 

8 spread through the surface, et cetera. And I 

9 think, you know, you said you saw the FUSRAP 

10 surveys and there were deposits or locations 

11 of pretty fixed contamination. It was not 

12 evenly spread.

13 Most of it was less than 

14 detectable, but there were areas where 

15 contamination was fixed into the concrete and 

16 they actually had to scabble this concrete to 

17 get this contamination loose.

18 And that is the other thing that 

19 ends up, between the power washing and the 

20 fixed contamination, as far as how much time 

21 it took to reduce it to that level and then it 

22 stopped reducing because it was fixed, is 
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1 another variable that makes this comparison 

2 very difficult to make.

3 So I mean essentially you could 

4 take the data that we've got, spread it around 

5 the floor, as we would model, but then 

6 concentrate it into certain locations and fix 

7 it after a certain point in time and yes you 

8 could come up with the same numbers. But is 

9 that analysis really very valid?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry.

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I'm always 

12 a little bit concerned when I hear that it's a 

13 generous exposure. And my question to that is 

14 how unrealistic is it? I mean it may be, and 

15 we've had this discussion numerous times, 

16 bounding because it's well above what it may 

17 well have been. But that's not a real 

18 realistic measure.

19 We do have any sites where we've 

20 had this kind of, I mean the radiography has 

21 been used before it was outlawed. Brad, but I 

22 mean do we have any measurements from any of 
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1 those that would tend to say these assumptions 

2 and this, I mean the modeling I can 

3 understand.

4 You can look at the model and say 

5 yes, the model is an appropriate model. The 

6 problem is what you feed into the model is 

7 what predicts what you get out. So how much 

8 over do you think it might be? I mean, if you 

9 look at a confidence interval you're confident 

10 that it's an upper bound, but how far above 

11 what would be a confidence interval is it?

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Before I respond 

13 to that directly, let me make sure that when 

14 we're talking about the models that we 

15 understand that there are several different 

16 pieces. The internal dose issue, which was 

17 the sampling, that's in a sense sort of the 

18 smallest piece of anything.

19 If you look at what the outputs of 

20 all of this are. The external dose is the 

21 driver of concern at this facility. And on 

22 the internal, even if you took the FUSRAP 
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1 numbers, which we don't take anymore because 

2 of this cleaning and so on, but even if those 

3 turned out higher this is almost trivial 

4 compared to the external numbers.

5 So yes, it's an interesting 

6 exercise. But if we're concerned about worker 

7 exposure those external ones need to be the 

8 driver. So I assume you're talking about the 

9 external models?

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: You obviously have 

12 to make assumptions, we know the source terms, 

13 we know the number of curies of radium, or 

14 millicuries actually of radium. I forget the 

15 numbers here off the top of my head. But we 

16 have that source term information. You have 

17 to make assumptions about the processes, the 

18 numbers and times of exposure and so on.

19 So yes, you can be reasonably 

20 conservative on that. You can go overboard 

21 and say the sources were out all the time, 

22 which is not plausible. So we, I think the 
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1 NIOSH, SC&A and the Work Group, have looked at 

2 what we would, those who think you can do 

3 this, think are reasonable claimant-favorable 

4 approaches to that kind of modeling.

5 And there's uncertainty. But also 

6 keep in mind that when you build the 

7 uncertainty into that distribution and go out 

8 to picking the 99th percentile on the numbers 

9 it becomes extremely claimant-favorable.

10 I think Jim Neton maybe had a 

11 comment or was going to add?

12 MR. ALLEN: Yes, I think I can add 

13 one thing to that and that is, there is one 

14 piece of reality check to the modeling in 

15 those earlier years. And that was in a 1962 

16 application for a radioactive material license 

17 that GSI submitted.

18 And in the application they said 

19 their past experience, no one had exceeded the 

20 limit in effect at the time. And on average 

21 they were less than 25 percent of the limit. 

22 And that gives you kind of a bound.
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1 As far as where their normal 

2 exposures are, no we don't have the records of 

3 that but we have the statement in their NRC 

4 application. And that is essentially where 

5 our model is coming out is between the 25 and 

6 the one times of the limit.

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: So did they do 

8 measurements and they're just not available?

9 MR. ALLEN: Yes, according to --

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay, I'd 

11 forgotten that. Yes.

12 MR. ALLEN: That was anecdotal 

13 according to one of the radiographers, he said 

14 they always had badges.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I think I can 

17 clarify a couple of questions that were asked. 

18 One by Mr. Clawson about the different 

19 thicknesses required different exposures. What 

20 they have in the AEC documentation is a 

21 statement by the supervisor that they did, 

22 that they did ten exposures per shift. That 
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1 was about the maximum.

2 And the AEC onsite inspector 

3 checked the shot records and he made an entry 

4 in the site visit report that said that is 

5 correct. He confirmed that ten shots per 

6 shift was in fact what they did.

7 And so based on an interview with 

8 the one worker who actually did radiography 

9 during that period, during half of that early 

10 period from '57 through '62 with the radium 

11 sources. He gave a very detailed account of 

12 how he handled the source. He handled the 

13 source at the end of this fishpole. And if 

14 you take the most claimant-favorable, so if he 

15 said well it was three to six feet away from 

16 his body.

17 So if you say, okay let's take 

18 three, so they took 12 to 15 seconds for each 

19 shot, for the actual transfer of taking the 

20 source out of the shield. Carrying it over 

21 and putting it behind the steel casting. So 

22 if you take the maximum of 15.
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1 And then the rest of the time he 

2 stayed in a small concrete room, it was 

3 partially shielded, at a distance from where 

4 the sources were. So the model that SC&A 

5 proposed as an alternative to the NIOSH, which 

6 we differ only by a factor of two which isn't 

7 bad, to fed into account, where we had the 

8 exposure duration.

9 We had the exposure duration of 

10 the source, dangling at the end of a stick. 

11 Exposure duration of him sitting in the little 

12 office waiting for the exposure to finish, for 

13 the fill to be exposed.

14 So this was based on, this was not 

15 just made up, this was based on real 

16 information. And then in addition the same 

17 worker submitted his exposure record during 

18 that period. It's just a summary but it 

19 showed that he had, if I remember correctly, 

20 9.1 rem over 18 quarters.

21 And then the complication is this 

22 was not his full-time job. He did this on 
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1 weekends. But he had an estimate of how many 

2 days a year he worked, or he said he worked. 

3 Almost all weekends, maybe 90 percent of the 

4 time, one or two shifts.

5 So if you combine that and 

6 extrapolate it to a full-time worker you end 

7 up with something between, I'm just going from 

8 memory now, but something say between ten and 

9 20 r per year.

10 And then if you combine that with 

11 his statement that, as Dave said, on the 

12 application that nobody every exceeded the AEC 

13 limit, which started out being 15 rem per year 

14 and then would be a maximum of 12, all three 

15 coincide.

16 It coincides with the model, it 

17 coincides with the exposure record, it 

18 coincides with the statement. And the 

19 statement was based on film badge records. Now 

20 those film badge records could not be 

21 recovered.

22 But it was based on film badge 
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1 records which the AEC would have had access to 

2 so it would seem unnecessary for them to have 

3 made a false statement when the inspector 

4 could have checked those records. So anyway I 

5 just wanted to clarify that part.

6 Is there anything else I can 

7 clarify while I'm here?

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie has a 

9 question.

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: For me?

11 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I just want to 

12 clarify, that worker that you were talking 

13 about was a part time worker. He started in, 

14 what 1960? And he only worked --

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: No, he was a, no 

16 correction. He was a full time employee of 

17 GSI.

18 But his regular job was working in 

19 a laboratory. So he mooned, his radiation, 

20 his radium radiography was something he did on 

21 weekends to earn extra money.

22 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.
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1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: But he had been 

2 qualified as radiographer in the previous job, 

3 in another place I think maybe he also 

4 moonlighted in addition to GSI work. But so 

5 it's not as accurate I'd like to have a 

6 regular full time worker.

7 But again, there were three 

8 different calculations which came within a 50 

9 percent of each other. So let's see, 

10 according to his account he started work in 

11 '53, he went into the Army in '54, came out in 

12 '56.

13 But if you look at the record 

14 where it said there were 18 quarters of 

15 exposure, ending as of the beginning of '62, 

16 that would have placed him at the beginning, 

17 at mid 1957 as starting his radiography work.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. And so he's 

19 the only one we've got an interview from 

20 during that time period? No full time 

21 radiographers?

22 DR. ANIGSTEIN: We don't have any.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I mean time being 

3 what it is, they're gone. But he was the only 

4 one who kept a record and also had a very 

5 clear memory of what happened.

6 But yes, it is based on one 

7 person's account. I agree with you.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Bob. 

9 I'd like to go to the Petitioners now.

10 DR. MCKEEL: Dr. Melius, can you 

11 hear me, this Dan McKeel?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead Dan.

13 DR. MCKEEL: All right. Good 

14 afternoon to the Board. Dr. Melius has 

15 restricted me to ten minute presentation to 

16 highlight the 38 White Papers of mine I have 

17 sent to the TBD-6000 Work Group and Board 

18 between 2007 and 2011. The 38 papers total 

19 539 pages and I therefore must rely on the 

20 Board having read these papers, only some of 

21 which were discussed in detail in the Work 

22 Group meeting.
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1 Often the Work Group simply 

2 acknowledged receipt with no further 

3 discussion of the content. And numerous of my 

4 GSI public comments have also been added to 

5 the written record.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dan, can you 

7 hold up a second. We're having trouble 

8 understanding you. So --

9 DR. MCKEEL: Well what is the 

10 problem Jim? I mean my telephone, I can hear 

11 you all very well.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Are you on a 

13 speaker phone?

14 DR. MCKEEL: No I'm not.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Are you on a 

16 cell phone?

17 DR. MCKEEL: No, I'm on a regular 

18 hardwired land line.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Then just 

20 go ahead.

21 DR. MCKEEL: And I'm speaking as 

22 loudly as I can without screaming.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

2 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. So point 

3 number two, at September 2012 Board meeting in 

4 Denver, I presented slides showing that only 

5 six important pieces of real measured, 

6 external or internal monitoring data have been 

7 identified for the GSI Illinois site as 

8 follows.

9 A series of 1958 to '66 AEC MCW 

10 purchase orders to do betatron NDT X-ray work. 

11 No POs have yet been discovered for the 1953 

12 to early 1958 period.

13 A 1962 NCC limited radiologic 

14 survey of the two cobalt-60 sources in 

15 Building 6.

16 A 1968 radiologic survey by GSI 

17 personnel of the new betatron building with a 

18 larger cobalt-60 gamma source.

19 Two, 1962 to 1963 NCC radiation 

20 film badge reports from two workers. Eight21 nine GSI radiographer Landauer film badge 

22 report 1963, 1966.
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1 These data represent only three 

2 percent of the total annual workforce of about 

3 3,000 workers. And they are all males doing a 

4 single job out of hundreds of jobs at the 

5 plant. Ten percent of the GSI workforce was 

6 estimated to be female.

7 Uranium dust concentrations were 

8 measured in and around a small industrial 

9 vacuum in 1992 in the old betatron facility, 

10 during the DOE/FUSRAP uranium cleanup that 

11 closed the residual period.

12 Three, all the other monitoring 

13 data at GSI is either surrogate or model using 

14 MCNPX. NIOSH and SC&A have no betatron data, 

15 surrogate or measured, from any site. And 

16 this would be necessary to validate their 

17 computer model results.

18 I should say in commenting on what 

19 has just been said, they also had no data on 

20 two of the, actually three of the sources at 

21 GSI. The iridium 192 for the 250 kVp portable 

22 X-ray machine.
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1 These key data seem not to exist. 

2 GSI is an absolutely unique site in the regard 

3 of using betatron 24, 25 MeV X-ray machine to 

4 examine uranium.

5 Four, a slide we showed in 

6 September shows very disparate SC&A and NIOSH 

7 computer modeling results over time, comparing 

8 2008 to 2012 data, and between the two 

9 entities, model agreement ranges between two10 fold and 12-fold between entities with some 

11 concerning ratio reversals.

12 The peer review literature 

13 standard for validating computers models is 

14 that agreement with real measured data should 

15 be plus or minus 10 to 20 percent, not 200 

16 percent.

17 Five, the SC&A revised GSI SEC-105 

18 issues matrix I received, was dated November 

19 the 30th, 2012, two days after the TBD-6000 

20 Work Group met.

21 And other GSI SCC matrix version, 

22 dated December the 5th, has been posted for 
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1 this meeting. Those matrices have not been 

2 discussed by Dr. Ziemer's Work Group.

3 Now I want to address the November 

4 28th, 2012 TBD-6000 Work Group meeting draft 

5 transcript. The DFO Ted Katz provided to me 

6 last Friday.

7 My two GSI Petitioner colleagues, 

8 Pat Jeske and [identifying information 

9 redacted], carried the ball at the November 

10 28th meeting. For reasons I made clear in a 

11 protest letter Ted Katz read into the record 

12 and then speculated to all of you.

13 Today I stand by every word in 

14 that letter. The GSI Claimants have been 

15 treated very unfairly by the TBD-6000 Work 

16 Group.

17 The SC&A August 2012 analysis of 

18 Allen 3, NIOSH AWE surrogate studies, failed 

19 to meet four of five, Board surrogate data 

20 criteria. However, by some magical reason 

21 that baffles the GSI Petitioners, on November 

22 28th, 2012 SC&A had reversed positions 
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1 completely.

2 So that by now five of the seven 

3 Allen-DCAS sites satisfied all five Board 

4 surrogate data criteria. I strongly support 

5 the SC&A August analysis for the following 

6 reasons.

7 The Allen surrogate data sets are 

8 not comparable to GSI uranium operation or the 

9 forms of uranium used. To be specific, GSI 

10 only used Mallinckrodt ingots, uncropped 

11 dingots, betatron slices and some billets. The 

12 surrogate Allen-NIOSH site used uranium 

13 dingots, billets, derbies and plugs but no 

14 dingots or betatron slices.

15 B, the surrogate sites did not 

16 perform 24-25 MeV betatron X-ray radiograph on 

17 their uranium. That is why the AEC was 

18 actively collaborating with GSI in 1952 to 

19 improve X-ray images even after the first 

20 betatron was put into operation in January of 

21 1952.

22 C, the DCAS surrogate sites have 
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1 not been stringent justified. Allen admits 

2 this saying he will be the justification and 

3 revise Appendix BB at some undefined time in 

4 the future. This is not acceptable. NIOSH 

5 needs to be able to demonstrate stringent 

6 justifications today, before this full Board 

7 votes on GSI SEC-00105.

8 Seven, six GSI SEC issues were 

9 moved to the Appendix BB issues matrix, as was 

10 mentioned at the 11/28 Work Group Meeting. 

11 These issues were definitely left open, I'm 

12 sorry, were deliberately left open to be 

13 resolved and closed later in 2013. This is 

14 poor decision, because they were still SEC 

15 issues originally, that needed to be resolved 

16 prior to the final SEC recommendations.

17 8-A, there is zero monitoring of 

18 uranium air intakes or urine uranium bioassays 

19 or GSI external beta and neutron doses for any 

20 GSI site worker 1952 to 1993. SC&A and NIOSH 

21 admit this fact.

22 8-B, the only film badge data for 
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1 GSI is for radiographers 1963 to 1973. The 

2 Landauer GSI film badges only read photons. 

3 Radiographers only wore their badges part 

4 time, 97 percent of the GSI workforce of 

5 3,000, covered in the SEC 105 Class, were 

6 never badged. They should have been because 

7 betatron activated castings were all over the 

8 plant. And many times, up to 400 shots had to 

9 be administered for the huge casting.

10 Number 9, TIB-70 surrogate data is 

11 not appropriate for modeling GSI residual 

12 period uranium intake. The TIB is based on 

13 known start values that steadily decline.

14 In GSI there were periodic uranium 

15 dust resuspension cycles due to power washing, 

16 both of the betatron buildings, renovation 

17 construction at the new betatron facility and 

18 new operations within Buildings 6 through 10 

19 along the transport pathways for uranium. All 

20 this was presented and agreed to by all 

21 parties at the August 28th, '12 TBD-6000 Work 

22 Group Meeting. TBD-70 does model this 
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1 scenario.

2 Ten, the Petitioners have 

3 submitted three DOE documents that prove GSI 

4 betatron AEC Mallinckrodt operations, were 

5 underway during November and December 1952. 

6 Those documents have been available since 1998 

7 in the ORO RHTG unclassified database and are 

8 on the FUSRAP website, as IL.28-5. And as a 

9 ORAU data capture dated April 4th through 8th, 

10 2011.

11 We circulated this key information 

12 to the Board, the Work Group, SC&A, NIOSH and 

13 DOE on October 19th. And to DOL on December 

14 5th and 10th.

15 The 1952 GSI betatron AEC 

16 collaboration data should have resulted in 

17 changing the GSI operational period start date 

18 from January 1, 1953 to November 1952 long 

19 ago. We hope this will be done soon.

20 Final Point 11, Member Beach on 

21 11-28-12, offered a motion to recommend 

22 approving the GSI SEC for 1953-1962. That 
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1 motion died because there was no seconds by 

2 the other three Work Group Members. Dr. 

3 Ziemer's slide presentation for today omitted 

4 that important fact.

5 In closing, the TBD-6000 Work 

6 Group, NIOSH and SC&A have had five plus 

7 years, since June 2007, to fully resolve all 

8 Appendix BB, Rev 0 issues.

9 The SEC 105 deliberation has taken 

10 four plus years to come to this point. The 

11 Petitioners, the fifth vote in this drama, 

12 from the outset have recommended this Board 

13 approve an SEC for GSI from 1953 to 1993. We 

14 urge the Board to do the right thing and pass 

15 this approval vote today. Thank you.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you Dan. 

17 Is the other Petitioner on the line and wish 

18 to speak?

19 MS. JESKE: This is Patricia 

20 Jeske.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

22 MS. JESKE: And I just want to let 
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1 the Board know that I stand behind Dr. McKeel 

2 100 percent. And I represent the Claimant.

3 He alone or collectively, I mean 

4 no one alone or collectively has put the time 

5 and energy into this SEC like he has. He was 

6 commended for his work by our speaker today, 

7 however, the outcome of that research they 

8 don't agree upon, even closely.

9 So these are the things that I'd 

10 really like to see the Board take all of this 

11 into consideration and yes there are a lot of 

12 pages to all his reports over the years. But 

13 he did summarize it quite well today.

14 And I do hope and pray that the 

15 Board sees that SEC Petition is approved. 

16 Thank you so much.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 

18 much Ms. Jeske. Board Members, that was 

19 quick.

20 We have an active recommendation 

21 from the Work Group that's come forward. So 

22 that's essentially a motion and second to 
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1 essential turn down the SEC and to accept the 

2 NIOSH evaluation for the production and for 

3 the residual periods, operational and residual 

4 periods.

5 So I guess that's open for 

6 discussion now. If you continue to have 

7 questions, technical questions we can address 

8 those also. Yes, David? Oh, sorry.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I want to go 

10 back to the external dose just for a point of 

11 clarification. Are there models for external 

12 dose or is there a model for external dose? 

13 And let's focus on the pre 1964 period.

14 Is there a single model or 

15 multiple models?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go Dave.

17 DR. ALLEN: There were multiple 

18 sources of radiation, there are multiple 

19 models. There were Radium 226 sources, but 

20 they also had the betatron starting in '52, I 

21 believe the first one was built.

22 And we also handled several 
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1 different scenarios as far as the model. One 

2 of the reasons we're calling them models, we 

3 had the radiographers with the fishpole 

4 technic and they described that to us.

5 But we also had people saying they 

6 put up boundaries and where they put the 

7 boundaries up. But that they weren't always 

8 obeyed, sometimes people walked throughout 

9 them.

10 So we had a separate model for 

11 people working near and walking through the 

12 area versus a radiographer out in the plant. 

13 And they also had a radiographer room in 

14 Building 6.

15 It was a cinder block room. So we 

16 have a separate model for when they're 

17 radiographing in that room.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. So 

19 you've described a number of exposure 

20 scenarios that are highly contextual.

21 And I guess my question is, at the 

22 end of the day, for somebody who's a worker at 
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1 General Steel in a year, are you deriving an 

2 estimated value for that work or for that 

3 year?

4 Or are you contended that you can 

5 place people into amount of time using a 

6 fishing pole or on a building at a given 

7 elevation?

8 I guess I'm going back for 

9 clarifying that. Is there a model for a dose 

10 in a year or are there models for scenarios 

11 which require you to understand people’s 

12 locations and activities?

13 DR. ALLEN: It ends up being yes 

14 and no. We develop models based on several 

15 different scenarios from what the previous 

16 workers were giving us. And then no, we can't 

17 place people in a specific location.

18 So we were going to choose the 

19 highest of those scenarios and give that to 

20 everybody. With the exception of 

21 radiographers, those that we know did 

22 radiograph have their scenario, if it were 
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1 higher.

2 And I'm not sure that is in all 

3 situations. In some cases it's the non4 radiographers that were higher and we would 

5 put everybody in that.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: There are 

7 scenarios were the external dose for your 

8 bounding is higher for a non-radiographer then 

9 it is for the radiographer.

10 DR. ALLEN: Yes.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: That's because 

12 people were standing, these are people who are 

13 above elevations outside of shielding or what 

14 were those scenarios?

15 DR. ALLEN: I think the, the one 

16 that comes to mind is the betatron for certain 

17 type of shots they did do. The radiographers 

18 in the control room had more shielding between 

19 them then somebody working in the tin building 

20 where the equipment was sent into the 

21 building.

22 It was kind of a labyrinth shield 
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1 design, but they didn't always use it as 

2 designed. So they could have had more 

3 scattered radiation coming down that tunnel 

4 then the radiographers got in the control 

5 room.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And there's a 

7 list of radiographers or you, how does a 

8 claimant establish that they were doing that 

9 task?

10 DR. ALLEN: Primarily we use the 

11 telephone interviews when we conduct a 

12 telephone interview for a claimant. But if we 

13 don't know then we will go with the highest 

14 one. That's been our modus operandi in the 

15 past on this.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So in the 

17 absence of information, the default is that 

18 everybody at the facility, currently under the 

19 proposed dose reconstruction strategy is a 

20 radiographer, unless there's an exposure 

21 scenario which leads to a dose higher then 

22 that, that a radiographer would have received?
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1 DR. ALLEN: That's how we've been 

2 doing it in the past on the existing Appendix 

3 BB and that's how we intended to continue.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And this 

5 scenario you were describing was something on 

6 the order of 10 to 15 rad per year for the 

7 radiographers?

8 DR. ALLEN: No.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I'm sorry, 

10 absentee information?

11 DR. ALLEN: I honestly don't 

12 recall the numbers. There was so many 

13 numbers, but I think that was a bounding one 

14 that Bob Anigstein put out there as it 

15 couldn't be higher then this at one point. But 

16 that wasn't the estimate as I recall.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What are the 

18 factors that lead that to change? It's 

19 basically you're just going to have a value 

20 for radiographers per year, right?

21 Because you're assuming the 

22 exposure conditions are invariant over this 
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1 period?

2 DR. ALLEN: Well we are assuming 

3 the exposures conditions change. One of the 

4 other scenarios was actually the X-raying of 

5 the uranium versus the X-raying of the steel.

6 We have a purchase order with the 

7 number of hours a year they worked with that. 

8 And that varied over the years. So that is 

9 taken into accounting for the external as well 

10 as internal dose.

11 And I do believe there is other 

12 variance, but there was so many different 

13 things we've looked at for this one. I 

14 couldn't tell you exactly where we are right 

15 now.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. But so 

17 now here on this report we're talking about, 

18 so for '53 to '54 are we, again this is just 

19 for clarification. Is the assigned annual 

20 exposure the bounding scenario exposure in the 

21 absence of information, something like 15 rem 

22 for 1953 to '54 and 12 rem for '55 to '62 for 
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1 everybody at the facility?

2 DR. ALLEN: I am sorry, I just 

3 don't remember the number of the top of my 

4 head. I don't believe it was quite that high 

5 though. It is in the number of rem.

6 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I mean 

7 that's in the ballpark, but this is one of the 

8 issues that has SC&A and NIOSH have not come 

9 to full agreement on the exact bounding value.

10 That's become what we would 

11 consider a Site Profile issue. So at this 

12 point it's in that range but the exact value 

13 that would be assigned has not been officially 

14 determined.

15 Although we both agree that it can 

16 be bounded, you just have to decide which set 

17 of assumptions are more appropriate. So we do 

18 this very often in these Working Group 

19 meetings, where in principle we agree it can 

20 be bounded.

21 There's enough data there to do 

22 this. But one has to eventual decide which 
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1 value is the more bounding.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But we're 

3 bounding at something over a grade per decade?

4 DR. NETON: Yes, it's in that 

5 range. I mean it's, and like Bob Anigstein 

6 pointed out, it is not inconsistent with what 

7 we've heard from this person who was a 

8 radiographer, has badge readings and what they 

9 had reported to the NRC and what the exposure 

10 limits were during that time period.

11 So there were high exposure rates 

12 documented, there's no doubt about. So these 

13 are not what I would consider implausible high 

14 doses. They're high, but not implausible 

15 high.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any, Phil, yes.

17 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, if all these 

18 different models you have, how do you pigeon 

19 hole a person into which model?

20 DR. ALLEN: Essentially, like I 

21 was just saying, we don't. We pick models, 

22 scenarios based on what various workers have 
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1 told us.

2 If they're worried about some 

3 people working on the roof of that building, 

4 they're worried about some people may have 

5 walked through the boundaries of the 

6 radiography, some people may have been working 

7 right outside the wall of the radiography room 

8 in Building Number 6. So we modeled all these 

9 with the intent of picking the highest one 

10 knowing we would not be able to place somebody 

11 at a particular spot.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

13 comments or questions? Yes, David.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I don't think 

15 I've encountered a situation where I would 

16 think making an SEC is in some sense, claiming 

17 in favorable. I mean that the proposal is to 

18 suggest doses that are of such magnitude that 

19 I would hope that most cancers would be 

20 compensable given or I mean I could be wrong, 

21 but I'm starting to imagine like if somebody 

22 works here for ten years and we project a 120 
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1 rad to them, that under an SEC you're covering 

2 a smaller set of cancers then not.

3 And have we bounded at such a high 

4 level that it's more favorable not to. I just 

5 hadn't imagined I guess this scenario that 

6 we're talking about. And it still isn't clear 

7 to me.

8 We're suggesting that there are 

9 people who are not radiographers who have, is 

10 that table bounding for the radiographers and 

11 yet there are some people who are going to 

12 assign higher doses yet, then that 12 to 15 

13 rad per year?

14 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, it's very 

15 generous.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: First let me 

17 answer the, excuse me, let me answer the first 

18 question and then you can do the second. First 

19 of all, your first question, there are past 

20 incidences and I can think of the Bethlehem 

21 Steel where essentially and possible Blockson 

22 also, where essentially the SEC and the dose 
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1 reconstruction method that was proposed was 

2 essentially a wash.

3 Either one probably would have 

4 compensated equal numbers. And it might have 

5 been different sites and different years and 

6 something like that, but there's nothing 

7 certainty and the exposures of the facility 

8 were high enough potentially that, either one.

9 And where that line is, is 

10 difficult. And at some point I think, and 

11 Henry pointed out, there are circumstances in 

12 time that we felt that the assumptions being 

13 made were so high that it really wasn't 

14 feasible.

15 Now in this case they're at least 

16 telling us there's at least some, very limited 

17 data, but some data would say that those are 

18 not unreasonable doses, dose estimates that 

19 we're doing. So do that.

20 But it can, I mean there's not a 

21 lot of examples like that but there are some. 

22 And we've encountered it before and it's a, I 
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1 think we have to sort of go back to then, do 

2 you think that's there possible to do dose 

3 reconstruction, yes. Yes, Paul, I'm sorry.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I just want to 

5 state that I don't think we should make the 

6 decision based on the idea that this is high 

7 enough so it doesn't matter. It still needs 

8 to be based on, is it a reasonable bounding or 

9 not.

10 And I think you agree with that. 

11 You're quite right. The models as I've seen 

12 them so far are pretty generous, as I've 

13 suggested.

14 And based on that external, 

15 there's very little additional contribution 

16 from the internal, regardless of what those 

17 values are for the handling of cold uranium. 

18 That has almost no impact on the external.

19 The other things is and it may not 

20 be clear but it maybe either, well maybe Jim 

21 or David Allen can explain this better. But 

22 if I'm a claimant and I come in and I say, I 
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1 worked these three years, I think David your 

2 question was, what do I get assigned as a 

3 dose?

4 And if I'm a radiographer there's 

5 a certain value, but we know that there's 

6 other people who handle this stuff that 

7 weren't the radiographers and had direct 

8 contact. And so they end up getting assigned 

9 some pretty substantial doses, were as the 

10 radiographers were often in the shielded 

11 facility.

12 And at least in the later years 

13 had film badges which could be used for at 

14 least that part of the operation. They 

15 weren't allowed to take their badges out to do 

16 other things outside of the betatron rooms 

17 however, so there's some work they may have 

18 done that was not covered by the badge and 

19 that would have to be modeled as well.

20 But I don't know, Dave did you 

21 make it clear what you would do? Okay, so I'm 

22 a worker, you've learned that I worked in 
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1 these years, what happens?

2 DR. ALLEN: Well I guess I would 

3 do a telephone interview with everybody and 

4 they'll generally tell us what type of work 

5 they did. And sometimes they know, sometimes 

6 it's survivors and they don't know.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Say we don't know.

8 DR. ALLEN: If we don't know then 

9 we go through the possible scenarios. We do 

10 not know who all the radiographers were in the 

11 earlier years, so we had no choice but to 

12 assume the worse. Unless we know something 

13 else.

14 A lot of time survivors don't know 

15 exactly what their loved one did. But they 

16 might know they were a lawyer or accountant or 

17 something and generally won't give the really 

18 high doses to someone like that if you have 

19 another scenario.

20 But if we don't know we give them 

21 worse case. We always give the benefit of the 

22 doubt on those.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dave.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, I 

3 partially agree with Paul. It doesn't matter 

4 how generous the, our best educated guesses 

5 and estimates are.

6 What I think we have to be able to 

7 defend is that if a person is benign, we have 

8 to be able to say that, we have to be able to 

9 justify if a person is benign. I still fell 

10 it's getting back to Brad's.

11 That in the absence of reliable 

12 exposure data it seems to me that claimant 

13 favorability would simple say, that in that 

14 early period we should do an SEC. Even though 

15 I believe that the models that have been 

16 developed are well done, internally 

17 consistent, but there just isn't the exposure 

18 data there that we can rely on.

19 DR. ALLEN: Can I make one 

20 statement Dr. Melius?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Please.

22 DR. ALLEN: Before you make a 
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1 decision like that based on claimant 

2 favorability, remember there are quite a few 

3 that are not SEC cancers.

4 And also remember this is external 

5 dose that we're talking about. There is a 

6 very good chance that you could be, it could 

7 be non-claimant favorable in this case to not 

8 make those early years in SEC.

9 Basically you end up with a lot of 

10 skin cancers and etcetera that can get dose 

11 and do get compensated for external dose that 

12 you would be eliminating their source of 

13 external dose in the early years.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So we're not a 

15 either or. We're not trying to figure out 

16 who's going to benefit and so forth.

17 I would just say one response Dave 

18 to keep in mind, is that both the Act and the 

19 regulations allow for the use of, do not 

20 require that there be monitoring data. And so 

21 we have to be very careful about what we base 

22 a SEC on.
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1 And simply the absence of 

2 monitoring data is not an adequate basis, 

3 scientific basis, for that under that act, 

4 under the regulations that we operate under. 

5 And so, enough said. Brad.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well my 

7 understanding is, is that this point right 

8 now, which ever way we vote on this we, 

9 correct me if I'm wrong Paul, but the Work 

10 Group and NIOSH hasn't even come up with what 

11 doses. I just read SC&A's report and Stu has 

12 just commented that, well yes but we haven't 

13 agree on this.

14 So in my opinion right now, we 

15 haven't even got the doses that are going to 

16 be assigned there.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Yes we do.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Actually this is 

19 true in many SEC cases where it's been 

20 determined that dose can be reconstructed. And 

21 so we move the issue from the SEC plate to 

22 the, either a Site Profile plate or in the 
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1 case, Appendix BB.

2 Where it's been agreed that we 

3 have a means of calculating it. We may not 

4 have come up with the final number, but we 

5 have a process for doing it.

6 So I don't think this is unusual 

7 at all and I think we've done it in many other 

8 cases. Perhaps maybe the Chair can help me on 

9 this.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I think we 

11 have some Site Profile issues going back to 

12 some of the earliest SECs that we approved or 

13 didn't approve and voted on. And Brad, if did 

14 it that way we'd have a large workload and a 

15 lot of people waiting.

16 So again, I don't think that's a 

17 criteria. And again, I don't want to indicate 

18 whether I agree or disagree with how we should 

19 vote on this SEC.

20 But I would point out that we have 

21 a recommendation from a Work Group, we have a 

22 lot technical backup information that's been 
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1 built up by that Work Group over time. And 

2 that for those of you that may not agree with 

3 the Work Group's recommendation, I think it's 

4 important that we get on the record, 

5 legitimate issues that would support an SEC if 

6 that's what you believe.

7 Because there has to be a 

8 justification for that SEC, because that's 

9 what Dr. Howard will be reviewing in making 

10 his recommendation to the Secretary. So 

11 there's some burden on us also.

12 And again, something that we need 

13 to keep in mind. Now again, some of these 

14 questions had been raised and obviously dealt 

15 with, discussed at the Work Group level.

16 So I'm not saying there's no other 

17 information there, but from what I've read and 

18 I've read a number of the transcripts and a 

19 number of the White Papers and so forth, we 

20 have a lot of information that's been used to 

21 build and support this information. Mark,

22 then Phil.
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Just two points. 

2 And I didn't seem to generate a lot of 

3 traction in my questions on the FUSRAP angle 

4 and I take, just to sort of react to what Paul 

5 said.

6 I appreciate that the external 

7 dose is, I think you used the word, the driver 

8 in this situation. I do however have to point 

9 out that often time the way we review these is 

10 that you have to be able to reconstruct all 

11 doses.

12 So even then the smaller 

13 contributor, the internal dose, we have to be 

14 able to do it. So it likely would be a 

15 smaller dose but I think I'm still a bit 

16 concerned of how, whether these numbers make 

17 sense.

18 And it is a little, I'm not to 

19 even sure of the genesis of the material in 

20 the vacuum. I don't know if that was created 

21 after scabbarding the floor and collected in 

22 the process of the decontamination.
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1 I'm sort of review this, that part 

2 of it real time. So I'll leave that for now. 

3 The other question I had was on the 

4 radiography.

5 It seems to me, I'm just getting a 

6 sense of, back to the question of plausibility 

7 of these high doses that are in the model. It 

8 seems to me a lot of the, and correct me if 

9 I'm wrong, but a lot of this history or the 

10 operation seems to be based on the interviews 

11 of one individual.

12 And Dr. Anigstein, you reported 

13 that he had saved his dose records. Were 

14 those dose records consistent with what you're 

15 modeling here?

16 Where they anywhere near the range 

17 of what you're projecting with these models? 

18 You indicated, yes.

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN: We're you talking 

20 about --

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: I think you said 

22 that the individual that you interviewed, the 
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1 operator, had a summary of his dose history or 

2 something like that?

3 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: I'm asking if 

5 they are consistent with the external doses 

6 that you're projecting with these ten to 15 

7 rad per year?

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well let's see. 

9 The criteria, I mean three different. One is 

10 a statement that no one exceeded the maximum.

11 The maximum, which implied that 

12 somebody might have gotten it. So the maximum 

13 in 53 to 54 was 15 rem and after that would 

14 have been essentially 12 rem, depending on 

15 prior exposure history.

16 The time and motion study based on 

17 this man's testimony, I mean his interview 

18 information and based on the records of how 

19 many exposures there were per shift, would 

20 indicate that a typical would be about, I'm 

21 going from memory now, let's say ten. Nine 

22 and faction rem per year.
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1 That was just based on ten 

2 exposures per shift holding the stick three, 

3 holding the source three feet away. Takes 15 

4 seconds to put it in, takes 15 seconds to 

5 remove it. So it's counted that.

6 So that was the second data. And 

7 the third data was his exposure records that 

8 he had 9.1 rem over 18 quarters.

9 So we prorate that so it comes out 

10 to 2 rem a year. Then you have to make an 

11 assumption, did he work 50 days, he could have 

12 worked as little 40 days a year or he could 

13 have worked as much as a 100 days a year.

14 Meaning, he worked every Saturday 

15 and Sunday for 50 weeks or he did maybe 80 

16 percent of the time one day. So within that 

17 range and the reality will be somewhere in the 

18 middle, it comes out to something like, and 

19 I'm going by memory now, 8 to 20 rem.

20 So all of these are overlapping. 

21 So to my mind that's why I thought it was good 

22 confirmation. And then he said and he 
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1 testified he, at first he testified, he stated 

2 that he always had a film badge even though we 

3 don't have, that this was prior to the time 

4 that we had the AEC license.

5 He said he always had a film badge 

6 when he did this work. And then finally we 

7 have a photograph of a worker in, I say the 

8 actual original magazine.

9 This is sort of their company 

10 magazine, 1953 and I had the advocate for the 

11 advocates for the workers send it to me, so I 

12 saw the original. And very clearly there was 

13 a particular worker in 1953, betatron 

14 operator, and he wore what looked, for all 

15 intensive purposes, looked a film badge on his 

16 belt.

17 And I even mentioned even met, the 

18 only thing that you could see is you could see 

19 the dark rectangle and you could see the white 

20 rectangle. And by going through the ORAU's 

21 Museum website of different film badge 

22 configurations at that time, I found one film 
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1 badge holder that looked exactly the same 

2 shape.

3 So thus again, confirmation that 

4 the in factor, when they said we had records 

5 they did in fact have a problem.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well and if you 

7 can stay up there for one second. That's 

8 good, that's actually, I think that's good to 

9 see that it at least supports that these 

10 higher doses projected were plausible.

11 I asked Dave before this question 

12 of the contamination in the vacuum. Dr. 

13 Anigstein, this is for you still. Yes.

14 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay, sorry.

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: The contamination 

16 question --

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: Dave Allen 

19 suggested that you looked at this issue. Of 

20 the FUSRAP numbers compared to what is being 

21 modeled by the surrogate data, which seems to 

22 be coming from several different sites, from 
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1 all and other sites.

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Well the problem 

3 with that is, we did look at the, there were 

4 two surveys done. One in 1989 and another one 

5 in 1993.

6 The 1993 was a much more 

7 definitive survey of the floor of the old 

8 betatron building. The new betatron building 

9 they said was clean. They could find nothing 

10 above background.

11 Which indicates that most, and 

12 that's not unreasonable for two reasons.

13 According to the purchase orders, so they said 

14 where Mallinckrodt said we will pay you so 

15 many dollars per, at so many dollars per hour 

16 for each period of time to do radiography.

17 The vast bulk of that work was 

18 before the betatron was built. The new 

19 betatron went into operation somewhere around 

20 the end of 1993, which is also when they start 

21 the Landauer film badge program.

22 And from that time on there was, 
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1 even though they continued until June 30th, 

2 1996 and that's where I have the operation 

3 period they actually were very stingy. They 

4 did not give them very much work.

5 Most of the work was done earlier 

6 before the new betatron went into operation. 

7 So it would have had to have been done in the 

8 old betatron building,

9 And after, even later my personal 

10 opinion is, most likely they did it in the old 

11 building because the new one, they were busy 

12 doing their steel castings. It was right next 

13 to the building where the castings were. So 

14 it's reasonable that they would have had the 

15 contamination.

16 It was not possible to connect the 

17 air concentration with the reside on the floor 

18 because there was one of the petitioners and 

19 the advocate said, no someone claimed that 

20 there was a cleanup of that building and 

21 therefore any data there it will be 

22 irrelevant.
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1 We actually tried to back 

2 extrapolate and they said no, this would be 

3 irrelevant because there was a cleanup. So 

4 the fact that, however the air concentration 

5 is not the main way the floor got 

6 contaminated.

7 Most of the contamination would 

8 come from like chunks of uranium, I would say 

9 flakes of uranium that would simply come off 

10 during the handling and fall to the floor. And 

11 that become airborne.

12 So the airborne is not a true 

13 representation of what's on the floor. So if 

14 you ask, is the surrogate data, the number 

15 that was agreed on for surrogate data 

16 consistent with what was found on the floor?

17 We haven't actually done that 

18 calculation, but my personally estimate is 

19 most likely not. If you assume that something 

20 came up into the air, fell to the floor and 

21 that was the only thing.

22 But if you add the sloughing off 
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1 of the uranium, then certainly it would have 

2 accounted for a goodly part. And there was 

3 also, in addition because this was actually 

4 raised in a discussion earlier today, there 

5 was this vacuum cleaner.

6 Now the vacuum cleaner was in the 

7 old building, was most likely used to vacuum 

8 up the uranium that had sloughed off. Because 

9 if they were doing radiography of steel 

10 castings, those would not have been oxidized.

11 Those were fresh castings and 

12 there would probably be very little metal 

13 coming off. So the metal on the floor, if it 

14 was metal, would have been most likely from 

15 the uranium that had been down there during 

16 the earlier years.

17 And the concentration that was 

18 found inside the vacuum cleaner, means they 

19 took the vacuum cleaner dust and did an 

20 analysis of it. Indicates that it was about 

21 one and a third percent uranium, was 4 

22 nanocuries per gram of U2-38.
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1 And natural uranium is about 334 

2 nanocuries per gram of U2-38. So you're 

3 talking about, is it plausible that the dirt 

4 on the floor would have been one percent 

5 uranium and doesn't seem totally unreasonable.

6 Particularly if that vacuum 

7 cleaner was used during the time of the heavy 

8 uranium use. So it would have been put aside 

9 and not needed later. It wasn't that it was 

10 reused everyday to vacuum up whatever dirt 

11 there was.

12 So it's not inconsistent, let's 

13 put it that way. That's my only point. Is 

14 it's not implausible, it's not inconsistent.

15 And the fact that I reviewed 

16 everyone of the record that Dave Allen had, we 

17 didn't go out and dig up new records but we 

18 reviewed everyone of the records that Dave 

19 Allen had come up with. He came up with seven 

20 sites for operations.

21 And we didn't even just look at 

22 the ones that he selected, we looked at 
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1 everything from that site that was in the nano 

2 Site Research Data Base. And that seemed to 

3 be a very consistent picture of uranium 

4 handling operations.

5 Anytime that we saw a higher 

6 concentration, the data and the reported 

7 company had indicated they were doing 

8 something, They had just come out of the 

9 oven.

10 It was near an operation which 

11 Miles agreed to remove because it was not 

12 applicable where they were taking uranium 

13 slugs and, basically they were making washers, 

14 I'm not quite sure why. But they were

15 punching holes in uranium discs.

16 Well that clearly would have been 

17 an operation which would create a much more 

18 disturbance and would not have been 

19 applicable. But the one that we screened down 

20 seemed like a very consistent and 

21 interestingly enough they formed a very 

22 uniformed log-normal distribution.
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1 So if you took the 95th percentile 

2 of that, the evidence seemed to be there was 

3 bounding.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bob, could you 

5 please sum up, okay. Phil, do you have 

6 another question or?

7 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, as a matter 

8 of fact he just touched on it. Okay, I would 

9 assume the betatron operators probably had the 

10 highest exposure.

11 So are we going to give, with all 

12 these different models, are we giving these 

13 other people the 95th percentile of the 

14 betatron operators or they going to actually 

15 going to be 95 percent of one of these models?

16 DR. ALLEN: One of the things that 

17 kind of evens things out is that the castings 

18 were often laid out outside of the betatron 

19 room. These were, some of these were very 

20 large castings and they would draw out where 

21 there wanted the various X-ray shots to be.

22 And that was typically going to be 
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1 done by somebody familiar if not the A 

2 betatron operator himself. They also would do 

3 this for find and fix and then reshoot bad 

4 spots in these castings.

5 So often this was being done on a 

6 casting that was freshly radiograph by the 

7 betatron. The thing different about the 

8 betatron then a lot of X-rays is that it is 

9 high enough energy to actually activate steal 

10 and make it radioactive. It will be 

11 relatively short lived.

12 Several minutes for radioactive 

13 iron, but that would be the timeframe that 

14 these people would be out there working on 

15 this. And they also had a policy at GSI, not 

16 to wear their film badge out of there betatron 

17 building, into this Number 10 Building. 

18 Because there were a lot of sparks and they 

19 kept burning holes film badges.

20 So there is a chance these 

21 radiographers were actually exposed more to 

22 castings near the tunnel where this betatron 
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1 might have been. The scatter radiation came 

2 down this tunnel to about where they were 

3 doing this.

4 And not to mention, they were 

5 working in close proximately to what could 

6 have been a radioactive casting for some 

7 period of time. And that would have been done 

8 at the time when they weren't wearing their 

9 film badge.

10 So essentially much of the higher 

11 radiation scenario for non-radiographers ends 

12 up being, much of it was also radiographers 

13 doing that. So you end up with both of them 

14 getting that scenario.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do the Board 

16 Members on the line have any questions? Dr. 

17 Roessler --

18 MEMBER FIELD: No. I don't have 

19 none.

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: No, I don't have 

21 any questions here.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay then, just 
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1 wanted to make sure we hadn't forgotten you. 

2 Any other Board Member, questions?

3 We have a motion and a second on 

4 the floor? Then I guess Ted, call the roll.

5 MR. KATZ: Let me just be clear 

6 about what I'm doing, because we really have 

7 three motions, is that correct? Right, we 

8 have a motion for the early period and the 

9 second period of operation and then residual, 

10 is that correct?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: I only reported 

12 what the voting was on the different periods. 

13 I think the Chairman can determine whether 

14 that's more then one motion or not.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: We voted on two 

17 parts of the active period and then on the 

18 residual period. So when we have those 

19 separate votes I think --

20 MR. KATZ: All right, so we just 

21 need to be clear what we're preceding on.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Whether we have a 
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1 single motion to cover everything is, I think 

2 is the Chair's call.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well and the 

4 chair, since the motions are not mutually 

5 exclusive from the Work Group, I think we 

6 should treat this as a single motion. Unless 

7 somebody wants to divide it.

8 And essentially we have a motion 

9 to accept NIOSH’s recommendation that dose 

10 reconstruction is feasible, with sufficient 

11 accuracy for both the operational and the 

12 residual periods.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay, so everyone's 

14 clear. And so I need to be clear too.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Now it's been 

16 awhile since we looked at Paul's report.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay, I'm just going to 

18 do this alphabetically. Dr. Anderson?

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

21 MEMBER BEACH: No.

22 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: No.

2 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

3 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson, I'm just 

5 checking to see, he's been, hello? Okay, now 

6 Mr. Gibson's absent. Mr. Griffon?

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Dr. Kotelchuck?

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: No.

10 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: He's gone.

12 MR. KATZ: Excuse me, Dr. Lockey 

13 did, he left after the, I think the NIOSH 

14 presentation and Dr. Ziemer's presentation. 

15 Right, so Dr. Melius?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

18 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston? Dr. 

20 Poston, are you on the line? Dr. Poston? 

21 Okay, so I'm assuming he's absent. Dr. 

22 Richardson?
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No.

2 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

3 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

5 MR. SCHOFIELD: No.

6 MR. KATZ: Ms. Valerio?

7 MEMBER VALERIO: No.

8 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: We have seven yes's, 

11 six no's. Is that correct, 13? And absentee 

12 Members. So it is unresolved.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mark, I need 

14 your Work Group reports. You are not going to 

15 escape without doing it. Rocky Flats and 

16 LANL.

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, for Rocky 

18 Flats we did have NIOSH and SC&A and I joined 

19 them, went out to Denver to interview, 

20 classified interviews with some former 

21 operators and employees at the facility, some 

22 with lots of experience, 30 plus years' 
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1 experience back to the beginning of the 

2 facility. 

3 We got quite a bit of information 

4 on the tritium issues but also additional 

5 information on the thorium strike question. 

6 And NIOSH is going to pursue both those 

7 issues, and we are hoping to convene a Work 

8 Group meeting in January. Is that what you 

9 said? February, I'm sorry. Sometime in 

10 February we are going to convene the Work 

11 Group meeting, and we will certainly make that 

12 information available. I know the petitioner 

13 is very interested in attending, so we will 

14 get that information out there. So that is the 

15 brief update.

16 And then LANL, I don't think we 

17 had a meeting since the last Advisory Board 

18 meeting on LANL. So I really have nothing to 

19 report unless -- yes, help me out here.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, we basically 

21 we provided a questionnaire to the site, the 

22 thought process being that we have added a 
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1 Class up through 1994, implementation of 10 

2 CFR 835 occurred at that time period. So if 

3 we understand how the site is doing it now in 

4 compliance and how they would be able to 

5 reconstruct dose for these, we can work our 

6 way back, hopefully, to a period where that 

7 would -- you know we could cut that off.

8 So that questionnaire was 

9 developed with the Work Group looking at that 

10 and has been provided to the site.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

12 LaVon, for rescuing Mr. Griffon. No, no, you 

13 did well. You are doing fine, Mark.

14 I am just going to go through the 

15 list of Work Group reports. Paul, Lawrence 

16 Berkeley?

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: We have several 

18 SC&A reviews that are being -- of NIOSH 

19 reports that are being reviewed by NIOSH right 

20 now. And as soon as those are completed, and 

21 Lara is working on those, we will schedule the 

22 Work Group. I think we are simply waiting for 
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1 those reports to be completed.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Kansas City?

3 MEMBER BEACH: I'm here.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: All aboard.

5 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So Kansas 

6 City has not met, although last week we were 

7 in Kansas City for three and a half days. We 

8 did some interviews, and we retrieved boxes 

9 and boxes of data. So we are now waiting for 

10 SC&A's report on that data. And I don't have 

11 a time frame for that at this point. But we 

12 did have some very good interviews from 

13 several gentlemen from the '50s.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just 

15 remind all Work Group Chairs that we have both 

16 updated reports from NIOSH and from SC&A on 

17 deliverables. They often contain surprises 

18 for us in terms of dates -- occasionally -- I 

19 don't want to exaggerate -- occasionally have 

20 surprises as to when things you thought were 

21 forthcoming are actually forthcoming. So 

22 please check on those and also make some 
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1 differences in terms of obviously scheduling a 

2 Work Group meeting. So now is a good chance 

3 to pin down John Stiver or Stu or whoever you 

4 need to pin down. Go ahead.

5 MEMBER BEACH: So I will go on the 

6 record as saying that Kansas City is not on 

7 here yet.

8 Is it? There isn't a date, 

9 though.

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'm trying to 

11 pull mine up as quickly as I can.

12 MR. STIVER: SC&A's is on page 

13 two.

14 MEMBER BEACH: I was looking at 

15 NIOSH's. Oh, it is in those little --

16 MR. RUTHERFORD: Recognize we do 

17 not have an SEC petition for this site. So it 

18 is only under active Site Profile review.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Got it.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mound?

21 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, for Mound we 

22 haven't met since the last review of the SEC 
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1 data. So for the Work Group we have completed 

2 all of our SEC work. I do know there is a 

3 date for Mound on the coordination site. The 

4 tritides OTIB is due on January 8th either for 

5 review. We should see it sometime towards the 

6 first of the year, as well as the Site Profile 

7 issues, the matrix that we looked at in May. 

8 We should have an answer from NIOSH sometime 

9 in the January/February time frame. And once 

10 we have those, we will schedule a Work Group 

11 meeting.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

13 Josie. Brad, Nevada Test?

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, this one we 

15 are finishing out the Site Profile for Nevada 

16 Test Site. I have spoke with Arjun, and he 

17 has got the matrix is gone through and worked 

18 up. It is being processed through SC&A, 

19 double checking it, and it should be to NIOSH 

20 and the Work Group in what, a week or so, or 

21 two weeks.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, a little 
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1 update, Brad. SC&A is finished. It has gone 

2 to DOE about a week back for classification 

3 review, and we are waiting to hear back from 

4 them. And so if you want to schedule a Work 

5 Group meeting, feel free. It should be here 

6 in a week or two at the latest, I think.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dr. Roessler, 

8 Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: We have our Work 

10 Group assigned. I am the Chair. Bill Field 

11 is on it, and I think Richard Lemen is the 

12 other one. Is that right, Jim?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I believe so.

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: And we are 

15 waiting for our marching orders.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and Loretta 

17 is on that one also.

18 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay, thank you, 

19 Jim.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we weren't 

21 expecting activity on that yet. We are really 

22 waiting on NIOSH.
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1 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And LaVon is 

3 shaking his head, but when I ask him when --

4 MEMBER ROESSLER: He is still 

5 shaking his head?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: He is still --

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right, if you 

8 actually look at the Work Group coordination 

9 document, it talks about we did some 

10 additional data captures for the exotic 

11 radionuclides which is going to be complete 

12 later on this month. And then we expect to 

13 receive those records from DOE in late 

14 January. We will have to evaluate them 

15 records, and by the time we are done, we'll 

16 have some kind of recommendation to the Work 

17 Group by May, late May of 2013, for the period 

18 after 1957, I believe.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: I would like to 

21 have LaVon send that to me. About all I heard 

22 was they will have something by late May.
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: Does she want me 

2 to repeat?

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let me repeat 

4 because I think this mic works better. Yes, 

5 they will have a report. He is expecting the 

6 new Evaluation Report May of next year.

7 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So that would be 

9 presented at one of our meetings. And so it 

10 is probably really next summer before you 

11 really need to get activated to follow-up on 

12 that.

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: All right, 

14 thanks.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Pinellas?

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We just had a 

17 conference call here in November, and we 

18 closed out a few issues but we still have the 

19 tritium issue and stuff. And some bioassay we 

20 still have outstanding. It may be after the 

21 first of the year before they have a chance to 

22 do anything with it.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

2 Portsmouth, Paducah, K-25. Throw Kansas City 

3 in there, we have got a real --

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, we do. We 

5 just had a conference call on that. And most 

6 of the issues at Paducah, we have closed out. 

7 So we still have some outstanding with K-25 

8 and Portsmouth. Hopefully once I get a chance 

9 to go back and take a look at the few issues 

10 we have left, there again it will be after the 

11 first of the year before they have a chance to 

12 do anything. Then we can have a Work Group 

13 meeting.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sandia, Dr. 

15 Lemen isn't here. He unfortunately wasn't 

16 able to make it. I don't think there is any 

17 activity planned on that. I think there is 

18 still some issues. I don't know, Joe, if you 

19 or LaVon have anything you want to say.

20 MR. FITZGERALD: Sam has been the 

21 ringleader on that. But we have been 

22 accompanying Sam in almost all the data 
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1 captures. We are not trying to schedule one 

2 for Sandia Livermore. There are records there 

3 that are relevant both to the Albuquerque site 

4 as well. So that is moving forward.

5 In fact, we were going to do that 

6 in December and the site couldn't host us. So 

7 now we are looking at either January or early 

8 February. So that is moving pretty solid.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Great. Santa 

10 Susana, Phil?

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: There we've got 

12 some deliverables they hope to get to us in 

13 what that would be about April on some updates 

14 on the TBD. So then we can schedule a Work 

15 Group meeting.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David, Science 

17 Issues?

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: We have not 

19 met since our last report. We have been 

20 waiting on NIOSH to release the report on dose 

21 and dose rate effectiveness factors that SENES 

22 had prepared. I don't know when that will be.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do we have a 

2 date for that, Jim?

3 DR. NETON: At the last meeting I 

4 reported that SENES was still working on the 

5 draft. They were revising it based on current 

6 scientific information. We have received that 

7 back in-house within the last month, and we 

8 hope to get the document out for external peer 

9 review very shortly within the next -- within 

10 a matter of weeks. We have the reviewers 

11 lined up. We just have to have to get the 

12 letters prepared and make sure we have got the 

13 budget in line to do the work.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. The SEC 

15 Special Exposure Cohort Committee really our 

16 next step is what I talked about earlier. We 

17 need to sit down and deal with the sufficient 

18 accuracy issue. And so we are expecting to do 

19 that sometime whenever LaVon gets his reports

20 to us as promised by the end of January. So 

21 probably in February we will meet.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask a 
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1 question about that? So NIOSH is going to 

2 prepare a report for your Work Group on their 

3 definition of sufficient accuracy and then you 

4 will move from there?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No. LaVon you 

6 better probably explain what -- there is 

7 actually two reports.

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, actually 

9 what we are doing is we are taking and going 

10 back through past recommendations or past 

11 decisions and determinations and designations 

12 by the Secretary looking at the -- identifying 

13 the specific reason. Was it an internal 

14 issue? Was it an external issue? And 

15 basically summarizing each one of those in 

16 feasibility and try to break them down into 

17 different categories, something that maybe we 

18 can use to recognize something that points us 

19 towards the sufficient accuracy.

20 The other thing we are doing is we 

21 are putting together, we recognized early on 

22 that a number of our SEC Classes we have added 
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1 have been focused on thorium for --

2 infeasibility folks with thorium. So having 

3 these number of infeasibilities with thorium 

4 as well as we have a couple cases where the 

5 Board has made the determination that dose 

6 reconstruction is feasible for thorium, can we 

7 pull this into a report that basically looks 

8 at what it takes to come up with a feasibility 

9 for thorium. So we are coming up with a 

10 thorium feasibility report as well. That is 

11 scheduled to come out. It is in internal 

12 review now but I would say it will be out in 

13 late January, as Dr. Melius mentioned.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And as LaVon has 

15 promised.

16 The -- what used to be 6001. 

17 Henry?

18 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, our group 

19 has not met. We are waiting for Wanda's 

20 report on TIB-9, which for those of you who 

21 don't know TIB-9, it has to do with ingestion 

22 rates. What we saw is in the dose 
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1 reconstruction for our Site Profile that we 

2 are reviewing the assigned consumption rate 

3 was, I think, 0.5 milligrams per day and the 

4 EPA exposure factors handbook has it well over 

5 that. I think it is in the 100 milligram, 50 

6 to 100 milligram range. So our question is 

7 that is quite a difference. How is that 0.5 

8 developed and should that be changed to be 

9 more reflective of what the exposures may be 

10 and have different levels, rather than the 

11 assumption that whatever is there is low. And 

12 that was the review of TIB-9 to see what kind 

13 of recommendation may come out for that that 

14 we would then apply to our Site Profile.

15 But I think it has come up 

16 probably in other science as well and it is 

17 one of those kind of loose ends that's hung 

18 out there for quite a while.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim?

20 DR. NETON: I can comment on this 

21 TIB-9 issue. This is one of those so-called 

22 overarching issues. And I believe we have 
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1 come to agreement in principle between SC&A 

2 and NIOSH about what we are doing there. We 

3 put out a White Paper recently on our approach 

4 on TIB-9. SC&A reviewed it. There is one 

5 final question remaining that I need to 

6 address to the Subcommittee. But I think once 

7 we do that, we should have closure on that 

8 issue. At least that is my hope.

9 So by the next time the 

10 Subcommittee meets, that should be -- I am 

11 hoping it will be closed out.

12 MEMBER MUNN: They are on the 

13 agenda for February.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Excellent.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: That is DuPont 

16 Deepwater that we are working on, for those of 

17 you who are intimately familiar with that 

18 site.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you have 

20 something to say, LaVon?

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, I do have a 

22 correction on the Work Group coordination 
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1 document associated with the TBD -- former 

2 6001 Work Group, which uranium or whatever, 

3 that the date on United Nuclear for providing 

4 a White Paper to the Work Group to address --

5 if you remember SC&A had a concern. It was a 

6 Site Profile issue. We are developing a White

7 Paper that addresses that. We have figured 

8 out Hans's calculations, and we will have that 

9 at the end of January 2013, not 2012 as listed 

10 here.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You know many of 

12 us have trouble with whether to call Henry or 

13 Andy. So it is only appropriate that the Work 

14 Group have two names also.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: We know who we 

16 are.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We do, too.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Sometimes.

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Sometimes, yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Last but not 

21 least -- until tomorrow. We have another 

22 Subcommittee that will report tomorrow but 
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1 Worker Outreach.

2 MEMBER BEACH: I want to point out 

3 I made the list but not until this morning.

4 Okay, so on November 8th we had 

5 our last Work Group meeting. The procedures -

6 - and I am going to need a little help from 

7 NIOSH -- Procedure 12 was approved. We worked 

8 through all of our issues. It is ready to be 

9 issued. We were waiting for a final sign-off 

10 in NIOSH's corner. So I was wondering if 

11 anybody knows if that has been done or not.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't recall 

13 signing it yet, but there is an editing 

14 process and things to -- and working it into 

15 the loop.

16 I agree with you, though, it is 

17 done. It is put to bed. It is just putting 

18 the final changes that were agreed to into a 

19 document that is signable.

20 LaVon tells me our expected 

21 completion date is 12/21. So another week.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You have got 
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1 until a week from Friday.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, I can sign 

3 my name in that amount of time.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It will be under 

5 the tree, Josie.

6 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, so a couple 

7 of other things to go over. SC&A proposed 

8 changes to the PROC-10 procedure regarding 

9 streamlining the worker interview process. 

10 NIOSH expressed some concerns that the changes 

11 may cause inadvertent safety -- or 

12 complications for security. So NIOSH has the 

13 action to move that forward to DOE so DOE can 

14 take a look at it to see how that will affect 

15 the security and get back to the Work Group 

16 with comments.

17 The other item, the Work Group 

18 completed its pilot review for Rocky Flats. I 

19 know I have reported on that for a couple of 

20 meetings. And NIOSH has provided their 

21 responses to the recommendations.

22 Just a couple of bullets. The 
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1 whole report is available. It is fairly 

2 lengthy but a couple of bullets that I pulled 

3 out, SC&A found that in general DCAS was 

4 responsive to direct questions or concerns and 

5 in most cases, provided a real-time meaningful 

6 response or responded in subsequent 

7 communications.

8 SC&A found that many but not all 

9 of the technical statements and inputs found 

10 their way into NIOSH's technical documents and 

11 were adequately addressed. However, 

12 exceptions were found which bring into 

13 question the full extent of DCAS's 

14 responsiveness to Worker Outreach at the time 

15 in question.

16 SC&A recommended five actions for 

17 NIOSH, and NIOSH responded to each of those 

18 actions in detail and will continue to work to 

19 improve their process. That was pretty much 

20 the bottom line. If anybody on either side 

21 has anything else to add to that report. 

22 That did take a lot of our Work
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1 Group's time, energy, resources, and we were 

2 happy to complete that and move to the next 

3 phase.

4 We chose the next site for our 

5 review and that is LANL. We have sent out --

6 or I should say SC&A has sent out a scoping 

7 plan recently. That came out in November. We 

8 are waiting for NIOSH to give us feedback on 

9 that before we make formal tasking. So the 

10 scoping plan is out. We have not actually 

11 tasked it. So we are waiting to do that. And 

12 a couple emails have gone back and forth. So 

13 once we think that we have what we need, we 

14 will formally task that site.

15 And then NIOSH continues to brief 

16 us on the ten-year plan. I plan to -- we have 

17 completed some of our items, but I am kind of 

18 hesitating to do a full report waiting to see 

19 how NIOSH is -- because it is really their 

20 plan. We are just kind of looking at it for 

21 the Work Group. So the next meeting maybe I 

22 will share what has been completed, according 
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1 to what our Work Group has discussed.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions for 

3 Josie?

4 Okay, why don't we -- our public 

5 comment period is scheduled to start at 6:00 

6 p.m. So if people could get back in -- we 

7 will take a break and if people can get back 

8 here at 6:00 p.m.

9 As I mentioned tomorrow we will do 

10 the Procedures Subcommittee, and that will be 

11 sort of an expanded presentation. So I wanted 

12 to make sure we have time for that. So we 

13 will do that then.

14 And we will see you all back here 

15 at 6:00. Thank you.

16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off 

17 the record at 5:31 p.m. and 

18 resumed at 6:05 p.m.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: All right, if 

20 everyone would take a seat and Board Members 

21 can please get to the table here.

22 MR. KATZ: No one signed up.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, well why 

2 don't we still announce? There may be people 

3 on the phone. And, Ted, do you want to go 

4 through the instructions?

5 MR. KATZ: Yes, thank you, Jim.

6 So for this public comment 

7 session, just let commenters understand your 

8 comments will be taken verbatim like 

9 everything else that occurs, all the 

10 proceedings of these meetings. Everything you 

11 say about yourself, personally, no matter how 

12 sensitive, that will all be retained in the 

13 transcript. So understand that and choose 

14 what you want to say accordingly.

15 But if you discuss other parties 

16 in your testimony or comments to the Board, we 

17 will protect the privacy of those other 

18 parties. So if you say things that are 

19 revealing about them, we will remove as much 

20 as we need from the transcript to protect 

21 their identity.

22 And if you want to know the fine 
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1 details of this procedure, it is specified on 

2 the NIOSH Board site, under the Board section. 

3 Close to the top there, there is what is 

4 called a Redaction Policy and you can find it 

5 there.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is there anybody 

7 on the phone that wishes to make public 

8 comment?

9 DR. McKEEL: Yes, Dr. Melius, this 

10 is Dan McKeel.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, Dan, go 

12 ahead.

13 DR. McKEEL: Okay. Well, good 

14 afternoon again to the Board.

15 I want to respond to several 

16 points just made in the GSI SEC session that I 

17 feel need to be corrected immediately and put 

18 on the record.

19 The first point is that David 

20 Allen and DCAS's suggestion that recommending 

21 an SEC for the early years at GSI, 1953 to `62 

22 might actually be a bad thing and be claimant 
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1 unfavorable, was the way he put it, is 

2 misleading to GSI and other claimants. Larry 

3 Elliott, the former DCAS Director, told me the 

4 same tall tale way back in 2005. Since then, 

5 I have checked out this proposition that 

6 seemed incredible to me at the time and it 

7 certainly has turned out to be not true in 

8 practice.

9 Compare EEOICPA compensation 

10 especially for the GSI and Dow Illinois sister 

11 site that are right next to one another. GSI 

12 has twice as many claims, cases, and DR 

13 completed, yet the total Part B compensation 

14 amounts are $10 million plus at GSI with no 

15 SEC and a far longer covered period compared 

16 to $17 million at Dow with a 1957 to `60 SEC.

17 I have had it confirmed by many 

18 observers that SEC sites do far better 

19 compensation-wise, despite the 22 cancer 

20 restriction. Mr. Allen speculated on the 

21 types of cancers GSI claimants might have, a 

22 fact that he doesn't really know.
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1 The second point is that David 

2 Allen's answers to Member Richardson's 

3 question about non-radiographers being 

4 assigned higher doses than betatron doses was 

5 not accurate or complete. Between 2008 and 

6 2012, the SEC assigned dose to GSI layout men, 

7 a term that Allen did not use once, was 9.2 

8 rem per year in 2012 compared to 0.7 rem per 

9 year for betatron operators, based on Appendix 

10 BB and their calculations four years earlier.

11 In 2008, in fact, SC&A's assigned 

12 doses to betatron operators in the SEC 

13 Evaluation Report were ten-fold higher than 

14 for other GSI workers. I have shown these 

15 comparative data to the Board. That is 

16 covered in one of my slides.

17 Point C is that Mr. Allen 

18 repeatedly referred to NIOSH always using the 

19 scenario that gave the highest assigned dose 

20 in their dose reconstruction. This is simply 

21 not true based on GSI DR that I have seen 

22 personally and reviewed. And non-
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1 radiographers often get the lower of the two 

2 doses that Appendix BB specified. Everyone is 

3 not assigned the betatron operator dose under 

4 Appendix BB.

5 In addition to that, point four, 

6 Dave Allen has replied by email that I have 

7 seen to a GSI Docket 140 contributor, who I 

8 won't name because it will be redacted from 

9 the transcript, that the future revision 1, 

10 Rev. 1 of Appendix BB, will result in lower 

11 assigned total dose for many claimants so 

12 there won't be that many reopened denied 

13 claims that will be reworked and approved for 

14 compensation. Allen's reason given to this 

15 contributor, NIOSH will be doing far more best 

16 estimate dose reconstructions in the future.

17 There are many other points I 

18 would like to have added to or have rebutted 

19 during the session. However, I will reserve 

20 those remarks for a later time.

21 My final comment is, it is a shame 

22 that GSI claimants have to wait perhaps weeks 
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1 to learn the outcome of today's final vote 

2 because some of the Board Members aren't there 

3 or have left.

4 My question to Mr. Katz and the 

5 Board, that maybe they can answer now or Dr. 

6 Melius, is how will GSI claimants be informed 

7 of the Board's final SEC-105 decision? I'm 

8 hoping you might give me an answer to that 

9 right now so I can pass it on to the 

10 claimants.

11 Then finally I want to sincerely 

12 thank all the Members who did do the right 

13 thing and vote no to NIOSH's ill-conceived 

14 recommendation to deny GSI an SEC today.

15 Thank you very much for letting me 

16 comment.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Dr. 

18 McKeel. Ted will be reaching out to the Board 

19 Members who aren't here, but that may involve 

20 providing them with transcripts from this 

21 meeting for them to review. And so we can't 

22 give you a firm estimate now, but as soon as 
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1 we have a better sense of how long the 

2 transcript will take, as well as how long the 

3 Board Members want to -- will need to review 

4 and before they can make their recommendation, 

5 we will provide that to you. But I expect it 

6 will be sometime early next year.

7 DR. McKEEL: My question actually 

8 was not how you will inform me but how you 

9 will inform them. Because I honestly don't 

10 think it is my job alone to inform hundreds of 

11 claimants what happened with this 

12 deliberation. So is that the best you can 

13 inform me but how would you inform them?

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well again, that 

15 is only through the public process and there 

16 is a ways to go, depending on what the outcome 

17 of the vote is.

18 DR. McKEEL: Okay. So basically 

19 they would wait for that.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

21 DR. McKEEL: So they wouldn't even 

22 -- they won't get it from a transcript. Right? 
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1 They will have to wait for the next meeting.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm not talking 

3 about -- with the transcript I thought you 

4 were speaking about Board Members.

5 DR. McKEEL: No, I'm talking about 

6 the claimants. How will they know? In other 

7 words, the process will work its way through, 

8 and I understand that. And the Board Members 

9 who weren't there will have to get transcripts 

10 and other information about what was discussed 

11 today. Then they will vote. And I do know 

12 that at the next Board meeting, there will be 

13 -- it will be put on the record what the final 

14 vote was.

15 But what I am really asking is, 

16 will the claimants have to wait until the next 

17 Board meeting to learn what the final vote 

18 was?

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The answer is 

20 most likely, yes.

21 DR. McKEEL: Okay, thank you very 

22 much.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is there anybody 

2 else on the phone that wishes to make public 

3 comments?

4 Okay, hearing nobody, is there 

5 anybody in the audience that wishes to make 

6 public comments that didn't sign up?

7 In that case, seeing no one, I 

8 believe we are finished and adjourned for the 

9 evening. And we will reconvene tomorrow 

10 morning around 8:15.

11 And for the Board Members, plan to 

12 be completed by around noontime.

13 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

14 matter went off the record at 6:16 p.m.)

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