STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes 

MEETING FIFTY-EIGHT 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. II 

DAY TWO 

ABRWH BOARD MEETING

 

The verbatim transcript of the 

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 

Redondo Beach, California, on Sept. 3, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

Sept. 3, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 7 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

MR. TED KATZ, DFO 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY UPDATE 16 

DR. PATRICIA WORTHINGTON, DOE 

DATA ACCESS AND DATA SECURITY ISSUES 62 

MR. EDWARD DACEY, NIOSH 

SCIENCE UPDATE 92 

DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH 

RESOLUTION 132 

DR. GEN ROESSLER 

PROJECT UPDATE 137 

DR. JOHN MAURO, SC&A 

SEC PETITION UPDATE 169 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH 

ANNOUNCEMENT OF CHANGES IN NIOSH OFFICE OF THE 

DIRECTOR 188 

REVIEW OF REMAINING VOTES FROM JUNE MEETING 188 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, NIOSH 

SUBCOMMITTEE, WORK GROUP REPORTS 204 

WORK GROUP CHAIRS 

PUBLIC COMMENT 283 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 306 

 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

CHAIR

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL (Acting)

KATZ, Theodore M., M.P.A. 

Program Analyst 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Atlanta, Georgia

BOARD MEMBERS

BEACH, Josie 

Nuclear Chemical Operator 

Hanford Reservation 

Richland, Washington 

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 
5

1 LOCKEY, James, M.D. (not present) 

2 Professor, Department of Environmental Health 

3 College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

4 MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 

5 Director 

6 New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 

7 Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

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

Professor, Texas A&M University 

College Station, Texas 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 
6

AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 

BERONJA, GREG, SC&A 

BRANCHE, CHRISTINE, NIOSH 

BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC 

CARROLL, STEPHANIE, CLAIMANT REP 

CARUSO, TONY & MARTHA 

DACEY, ED, NIOSH 

DEGARMO, DENISE, SIUE/DOW 

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 

ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH/OCAS 

FUNKE, JOHN 

HANSON, JOHN, SIUE/DOW 

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

KATZ, TED, NIOSH 

KIMPAN, KATE, ORAU 

KOTSCH, JEFF, U.S. DOL 

LERNER, STEPHEN, DOE 

LOCK, JIM 

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU 

MCLAUGHLIN, JUDY, BOEING 

NETON, JIM, NIOSH 

PETERSON, CARL 

PLOTKIN, LAURA, SEN. KUEHL 

PRESLEY, LOUISE S., SPOUSE 

RAFKY, MICHAEL, HHS 

ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 

ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 

STAUDT, DAVID 

VOLSCH, JOE, SIUE/DOW 

WORTHINGTON, PAT, DOE 

ZACCHERO, MARY JO, ORAU 
7

P R O C E E D I N G S

(8:30 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

MR. TED KATZ, DFO

1 MR. KATZ: Is -- is someone on the phone? Can 

2 you tell me if you can hear? 

3 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, I can hear you. 

4 MR. KATZ: Okay, great. And just let me, for 

5 everyone on the phone line, please mute your 

6 phones. If you don't have a mute button, use 

7 star-6, and that'll keep the line clear so that 

8 everybody can hear on the phone as well as here 

9 at the meeting. Thank you very much. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. I'll call 

11 the meeting back to order. This is the second 

12 day of the -- meeting 58 of the Advisory Board 

13 on Radiation and Worker Health, meeting in 

14 Redondo Beach, California. 

15 Before we get into our regular agenda items, we 

16 have several housekeeping items. First I would 

17 remind everyone to -- even if you did it 

18 yesterday -- to again today register your 

19 attendance in the registration book that's out 

20 in the lobby. 
8

1 Also I would like to announce that the Fernald 

2 workgroup chaired by Brad Clawson will meet 

3 this afternoon, 15 minutes after the recess 

4 which on our agenda currently is at 4:00 

5 o'clock. This is an open meeting, as are all 

6 our workgroup meetings. For tho-- it will -- 

7 my understanding is it is being put on the web 

8 site so that it will be available broadly for -

9 - 

10 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah, it's already there. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: It's already on the web site, I've 

12 been told. 

13 And additionally, interested members can -- or 

14 members of the public can call in, I believe on 

15 this same call-in number. Is that correct? 

16 DR. BRANCHE: That's correct. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: And what is that number, for -- 

18 DR. BRANCHE: It's on the top of the agenda 

19 page. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: It's on the agenda, 866-659-0537, 

21 participant code 9933701. 

22 I would further suggest to Mr. Clawson that 

23 some effort be made to make sure that the 

24 Fernald petitioners are aware of this recently25 announced meeting. We'll make sure that that 
9

1 occurs so that they're not taken by surprise. 

2 That meeting is expected to be somewhat brief, 

3 and perhaps the order of half-hour, so it will 

4 not be an extensive meeting. But nonetheless, 

5 we do want to make that known. 

6 Next, I want to distribute a document, Board 

7 members, that will be on our -- part of our 

8 working group discussion tomorrow. It is -- it 

9 is a proposed -- a proposed change in status of 

10 the -- the procedures review workgroup chaired 

11 by Ms. Munn, to change its status to a 

12 subcommittee. We will have that discussion 

13 tomorrow. Here is a straw man document that is 

14 similar to that which is used for our dose 

15 reconstruction subcommittee, so I give you this 

16 in advance so that when we are ready for that 

17 discussion tomorrow, if the group does wish to 

18 proceed in the change, that we have this as a -

19 - a document under which to make that formal 

20 change because a subcommittee has a different 

21 status in the system than does a workgroup. 

22 It's a more formalized -- more permanent part 

23 of the Board's operations. 

24 One other item of business. We've learned that 

25 after our public comment period at 5:00 where 
10

1 we found no outside callers, following Murphy's 

2 Law, as soon as we disconnected the line, a 

3 number of callers did call in. Some of these, 

4 or perhaps all of them, were associated with 

5 California State Legislators, I believe. In 

6 any event, we do want to accommodate them, but 

7 there is a statement that I'm asking Jason to 

8 read into the record this morning relative to 

9 that matter that I just mentioned, that -- the 

10 fact that we were not able to get the public 

11 comment last evening. 

12 MR. BROEHM: Can you hear me all right on this 

13 microphone? 

14 So this message came in shortly after 5:00 when 

15 a staff person, Laura Plotkin from District -- 

16 she's District Director for State Senator 

17 Sheila Kuehl, California 23rd District. Said 

18 (reading) Hi, Jason. I just called in to read 

19 a statement to the comment line scheduled from 

20 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, tonight, and it 

21 was over at 5:04. Someone that was still on 

22 the conference call said that someone had said 

23 at about 5:00 p.m., quote, is there anyone on 

24 the line who wants to make a comment, unquote, 

25 and then said the comment period was canceled 
11

1 until tomorrow night because no one said yes. 

2 Well, I started to dial in at about 5:02 and I 

3 think it is just ridiculous that there was no 

4 one there to take Senator Kuehl's, or anyone 

5 else's, comment. I'm very disturbed by this. 

6 This seems typical of the way this whole 

7 process has been handled. I will try again 

8 tomorrow night and hope that someone with some 

9 authority sees how important it is to take 

10 public comment when they say they are going to 

11 take it. 

12 If you can pass along my frustration about this 

13 to someone who gives a darn, I would appreciate 

14 it very much. 

15 Thank you. Please contact me at -- and her 

16 phone number -- in the afternoon tomorrow. I 

17 will be at meetings out of the office in the 

18 morning, or call me on my cell. 

19 That's it. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, and we are 

21 indeed trying to make contact and will 

22 accommodate that comment when we establish a 

23 time, perhaps later this afternoon. 

24 DR. MELIUS: Paul? 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Dr. Melius. 
12

1 DR. MELIUS: Can I make a suggestion, and this 

2 may already be taking place, I don't -- didn't 

3 look at the notices. It might be helpful that 

4 when we send out the notice for our meetings 

5 and the times and so forth to indicate that, 

6 for people calling in, to call in ahead of time 

7 and -- to the extent possible to let -- let us 

8 know or let somebody know that -- that they 

9 will be calling in 'cause I mean I -- it's -- 

10 it's hard for -- we have people sign up, but if 

11 you're outside, which I think we should try to 

12 accommodate, particular local people, when -- 

13 particularly an area as big as LA and so forth, 

14 that they -- they (unintelligible), but it 

15 would be helpful -- at least we notified them 

16 that they should try to call in and let us 

17 know. I mean we can accept others, but -- but 

18 it might facilitate this kind of situation in 

19 the future. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: It was my understanding that this 

21 individual did try to reach Jason but was 

22 unable to, so there was an attempt to let us 

23 know -- 

24 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I realize that in this ca-- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- but in general you're talking -
13

1 - 

2 DR. MELIUS: I'm not trying to find fault with 

3 what happened here, but -- but just for the 

4 future, I think it would be helpful if -- for 

5 people -- we -- we 'cluded the notice that went 

6 out so people would sort of realize there's a -

7 - a way of -- of contacting people and so 

8 forth. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: And particularly in the case of 

10 state and federal congressional groups, Jason 

11 does in fact try to determine ahead of time -- 

12 DR. MELIUS: No, I -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- who will be available and who 

14 does wish to make comment, so -- 

15 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- it is not our intention, and I 

17 hope that the local group here does not feel 

18 that we're trying to avoid those comments, that 

19 the -- the intent is to receive those comments 

20 and we certainly will try to accommodate them. 

21 So please make that known and give our 

22 apologies for missing that last night. But the 

23 comment will still be good today, so we're -- 

24 we'll be prepared to hear it. 

25 Now we're going to move -- oh, do we have any 
14

1 other -- yes, I -- oh, let me also now remind 

2 you that this is pass-the-baton time. We're 

3 hopeful that the baton-passing is better than 

4 that done by the U.S. Olympic racers who -- 

5 both men and women, who dropped the batons. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: Of course it will be better. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: I shouldn't say that on the 

8 record, should I? Most of them did well. But 

9 anyway, Christine is passing the baton -- 

10 DR. MELIUS: I can't wait till the next public 

11 comment period. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we'll have the Olympic team 

13 calling in. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Or their mothers. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Passing -- Ted Katz is the baton 

16 recipient from Christine Branche. And Ted, 

17 welcome, and you have some comments for us. 

18 MR. KATZ: Thank you. And now I'm really 

19 nervous, but -- no, I -- it's an honor to -- to 

20 be staffing this Board. I really am looking 

21 forward to this experience. I just have -- 

22 just a statement of redac-- redaction statement 

23 to make for everyone calling in, as well as 

24 everyone here. You need to know that there's a 

25 verbatim transcript being made of this meeting 
15

1 and it will be posted to the web as soon as 

2 it's -- it's reviewed and cleared and cleaned 

3 up. So you need to know, for one, that if you 

4 state your name, your name will be included in 

5 the transcript; there'll be no attempt to 

6 redact it. If you -- if you state medical 

7 information about yourself, that, too, 

8 ordinarily would be included in the transcript, 

9 although under the Freedom of Information Act 

10 and the Privacy Act, that would be reviewed and 

11 there's a possibility that it would be 

12 redacted. But ordinarily it would also be 

13 included. 

14 On the other hand, if you make a statement 

15 about a third party where you identify a third 

16 party in one way or the other, that information 

17 about the third party would be redacted to 

18 protect that person's privacy. 

19 There's a policy on redaction that's available 

20 to the public. It's in the back of this room. 

21 It's also posted on the web site with the 

22 agenda for this meeting, and it was also 

23 included with the Federal Register notice of 

24 this meeting, so that's available to you all. 

25 And finally, I would just like to say that if 
16

1 there is an individual who would like to make -

2 - provide information to the Board but does not 

3 want to be identified, does not want to do that 

4 publicly, please contact me. So that's Ted 

5 Katz. Please contact me and we'll make 

6 arrangements so that that can be done. 

7 Thank you very much. 

8 DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY UPDATE

9 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Ted. We'll move now to 

10 our first agenda item of this morning, and 

11 that's a report and update from the Department 

12 of Energy. We're pleased to have Dr. Patricia 

13 Worthington with us again. And Pat, welcome, 

14 be pleased to hear from you now. 

15 DR. WORTHINGTON: Good morning. It's always a 

16 pleasure to come before the Board and to 

17 provide some information regarding DOE 

18 activities. I'm joined today by three other 

19 individuals from Department of Energy -- Regina 

20 Cano, who I believe gave the update from the 

21 St. -- in St. Louis meeting, and she was also 

22 supported by Greg Lewis. We also have with us 

23 today Steve Lerner from Congressional Affairs 

24 office. 

25 I want to talk about support to this program, 
17

1 and it certainly is about support. It's 

2 critical support and we want to give you a 

3 status of the things that we've been doing. 

4 There are three major responsibilities under 

5 the EEOICPA program. There are three different 

6 kinds of things that we do in terms of this 

7 critical support to the organizations. We 

8 respond to both DOL and NIOSH regarding 

9 employment verification exposure records, and 

10 we provide support and assistance to the 

11 Department of Labor, to NIOSH, and the Advisory 

12 Board and their contractors, with various kinds 

13 of activities that involve research, retrieval, 

14 and provision of relevant records from DOE 

15 sites. And research issues related to the 

16 EEOICPA covered facilities, the time frame 

17 designations, and we again realize that DOE is 

18 a critical juncture, it's very important 

19 support and we take this very serious. And we 

20 want to give you today some updates on the 

21 things that we've done since the last meeting, 

22 but also to talk about enhancements to the 

23 program and to hear from you about areas that 

24 we might improve. 

25 Again, our responsibility is to make sure that 
18

1 the important DOE information is delivered to 

2 the right places, and part of that is funding 

3 those activities. We provide the funds to make 

4 sure that the records are retrieved. We had a 

5 -- we anticipate about 8,000 requests for FY'08 

6 based on where we're going today. We only have 

7 a couple of months remaining in the end of the 

8 year. And in terms of employment verification 

9 for DOE, we've had about -- or expect about 

10 6,500 this year. The dose documentation for 

11 NIOSH, about 4,000. The documents -- our DAR 

12 employee -- employee worker history, exposures 

13 for DOL, about 7,500 for this year. 

14 Our -- our requests received during FY'08, as 

15 you can see, the numbers are not going down 

16 dramatically. This gives you some insights. 

17 There's some fluctuation from month to month 

18 regarding the activities, but this is where we 

19 stand for -- sort of a picture where we are for 

20 2008. 

21 SECs, certainly that's a big effort, quite 

22 extensive in terms of resources and money and 

23 time and planning for these efforts. We have a 

24 number of them underway. Support for Hanford, 

25 Mound, Savannah River, Pantex and -- and Los 
19

1 Alamos. Again, this is one of -- of the most 

2 extensive areas for us in terms of working with 

3 the sites and the different contractors, past 

4 and present, to get information and to make it 

5 available. 

6 A little bit about some of the specifics about 

7 the Hanford one. That's certainly one that's -

8 - been a lot of interest, there's been a lot of 

9 involvement from a lot of organizations, and 

10 we've been doing quite a bit to accelerate 

11 these efforts and to be able to deliver the 

12 services a little bit better. Hanford staff 

13 hosted a NIOSH/contractor staff data capture 

14 visit in June, with a follow-up visit in July. 

15 And these are critical visits, they're critical 

16 interactions to make sure we bring the people 

17 making the requests together with people at the 

18 sites, that we understand the terminology and 

19 the appropriate way to search for these 

20 documents so that we can find a way to be able 

21 to work through the issues and to get the 

22 documents. Approximately 50,000 pages were 

23 identified for production. That -- that really 

24 is a huge effort; regardless of what site it 

25 is, that's huge. It involves identifying, you 
20

1 know, documents from many different sources and 

2 then providing scanning and -- and trying to 

3 get these records available. So we believe we 

4 have been making progress at Hanford, and we're 

5 working through processes that we can learn 

6 from at Hanford and -- and make things better 

7 at other sites as we move across the complex. 

8 Keyword searches resulted in almost 300,000 

9 potentially responsive documents identified, 

10 and that's important for us to be able to make 

11 sure that we're speaking the same language, 

12 that the people who are making the requests for 

13 the documents, that they were making them in 

14 such a way that people can locate them and find 

15 them and make them available so that we can be 

16 responsive. 

17 Hanford facilitated interviews with current and 

18 former workers. You've heard through every one 

19 of these meetings how important it is to hear 

20 from the workers, and so they certainly were -- 

21 were very helpful in making those individuals 

22 available for interviews. 

23 NIOSH staff toured the Hanford PFP facility. 

24 It's very important that the people that are 

25 involved in terms of trying to retrieve records 
21

1 and do reviews, that they get a chance to be on 

2 the ground, even if they're facilities that are 

3 -- are no longer active, but you get a better 

4 sense for the lay of the land and you -- you're 

5 much more engaged and you have a better 

6 communication when you have an idea of what the 

7 facility is and how it was laid out and what 

8 kind of operations went on there. 

9 In terms of Savannah River, that's another site 

10 that we're working on. Again, we've conducted 

11 preliminary planning meeting with the various 

12 organizations. That was done in late May. 

13 Again, what we're trying to do in this effort 

14 is communicate, communicate, communicate so 

15 that all the -- the organizations understand 

16 the ground rules, we have the right people in 

17 the right places. And again, that the 

18 terminology is const-- that it's consistent, 

19 that we're speaking the same language when 

20 we're making the requests. 

21 We hosted three additional site visits. You 

22 have a big visit, you plan, but often you find 

23 that when you get back that there's certain 

24 things you need to clarify, and we want to con25 - to continue to facilitate these additional 
22

1 visits and -- and ways of communicating as 

2 required. So we had activities going on in 

3 July and two activities in August. We 

4 performed secure reviews on approximately 

5 165,000 pages. There was a little over 1,500 

6 documents and I want -- I'll talk a little bit 

7 more on another slide about security reviews, 

8 but they're critical. I mean we have many 

9 things at the Department of Energy that we 

10 juggle as we try to make sure that we make the 

11 -- the information available. We want to go to 

12 the right places and find the right documents 

13 that can describe what happened with these 

14 workers and the different activities, but we 

15 also are -- have to be mindful and we have to 

16 follow the security protocols, so we are 

17 required to do security reviews before we 

18 release documents, and also to make sure that 

19 the people that are doing the reviews have the 

20 appropriate clearances. 

21 We transmitted 25 compact disks containing 

22 documents requested by NIOSH. That's 

23 significant. We are certainly -- I'm not the 

24 most savvy one, but I understand that we need 

25 to move more towards the electronic media, and 
23

1 wherever we can do that, we will. And we 

2 recognize that often when you make a request 

3 that another request -- similar request for the 

4 same kinds of documents may come up, and it's 

5 easier to retrieve these electronic documents. 

6 So we're trying to make sure that we do the 

7 scanning and we do other things and that, where 

8 we can, that we produce electronic media. 

9 DOE SEC on Mound, we continue to work on that. 

10 Again, it's critical to have the keyword search 

11 going on and we had those activities in August 

12 -- twice in August. I've always talked at 

13 every one of these visits about the DOE Legacy 

14 Management staff, and it certainly is a big 

15 asset to the Department of Energy. You know, 

16 there -- there are certain people that 

17 certainly are very savvy with records 

18 management, and we have individuals like that 

19 in Legacy Management. And they have been 

20 working with NIOSH and their contractor staff 

21 to help make this process better. 

22 During the first visit NIOSH reviewed 74 boxes 

23 of records and selected responsive documents 

24 for reproduction. They will be reviewing a 

25 similar number of boxes during the second 
24

1 visit. Again, communicate, communicate, 

2 communicate, face to face interactions where 

3 appropriate, and also reviewing boxes and going 

4 through things to see if these are actually 

5 relevant documents, are these the things that 

6 you want to request. And then as you do that, 

7 you certainly become more familiar with the 

8 terminology, what are the right phrases to use 

9 so that we get the right documents. 

10 DOE staff facilitated interviews in July with 

11 former Mound workers, and is currently 

12 arranging another round of interviews for 

13 September. Again, in terms of the data 

14 gathering we want to use all the sources that 

15 are available. And again, it's always critical 

16 to hear from the workers. 

17 The SEC at Los Alamos and Pantex, that work is 

18 also ongoing. DOE and NIOSH are in the initial 

19 stages of developing an action plan to gather 

20 documents and information to support the SEC 

21 evaluation. 

22 I want to just take a moment to talk about that 

23 action plan. Certainly we learn lessons as we 

24 go to each one of these activities. And as we 

25 do that, we want to pass it on to the next one. 
25

1 And it's important up front to establish an 

2 action plan, where you're going, what are the 

3 ground rules. And I think that that's 

4 certainly much better, and we can anticipate 

5 some of those hurdles and resolve them, in some 

6 case, before we even arrive at that point. 

7 Pantex, we continue to provide NIOSH with 

8 requested documents and we're awaiting further 

9 contact from NIOSH and the Advisory Board on 

10 additional requests. 

11 Security procedures, here we are again. I'll 

12 talk a little bit about that. Again, we're 

13 committed to providing documents, but we are 

14 under, you know -- you know, guidelines and 

15 protocols and procedures that we must follow, 

16 and we need to make the individuals that we 

17 have to interface with -- that they're aware of 

18 those requirements. And so we've had a number 

19 of meetings and -- and discussions to make sure 

20 that we all understand and that we have 

21 protocols in place at DOE, at NIOSH and other 

22 places to ensure that we can -- can meet those 

23 requirements. And it's certainly done to 

24 prevent any inadvertent release of materials or 

25 dissemination of information to the wrong 
26

1 places. 

2 DOE reviews documents to ensure that the 

3 sensitivity of the documents is consistent with 

4 the clearance level the individuals in the 

5 organizations and the protocols in the 

6 facilities that they have, they were reviewing 

7 these documents. And we will comply with 

8 existing DOE and NIOSH security requirements. 

9 Both organizations have security requirements, 

10 and collectively -- you know, when we carry out 

11 these requirements, we are ensuring that -- 

12 that we're doing the right things from a 

13 security perspective. And any infractions 

14 regarding security will delay our being able to 

15 deliver the documents so that we can address 

16 these workers' concerns and to get final 

17 resolution on their requests. And that we 

18 continue to refine our protocols. 

19 Both organizations, both DOE and NIOSH, we have 

20 had security requirements in place, and what 

21 we're doing now is we're refining those and 

22 making sure that -- that we're able to 

23 implement the requirements in such a way that 

24 we -- that -- that we carry out and we're 

25 meeting everything that's expected of us, and 
27

1 that we're able to do it in a timely manner. 

2 DOE activities, I want to talk a little bit 

3 more about these large-scale records retrieval 

4 activities. One is the Department of Labor 

5 site exposure matrix program. Major sites have 

6 been completed as of 2008. I believe that was 

7 a major accomplishment in this program in terms 

8 of being able to request and receive documents 

9 and to understand the operation and the 

10 activities that went on at these various sites. 

11 And so once you have a site exposure matrix and 

12 you -- things come up, you're able to refine 

13 that. If, for whatever reason, there's some 

14 missing data, you have a great starting point. 

15 So again, I believe that was a major 

16 accomplishment. We have completed the majority 

17 of them. 

18 The President's Advisory Board on -- here are 

19 some things that we've done with respect to the 

20 Board -- technical reviews of NIOSH site 

21 profile documents; we've had four over the past 

22 years. Site exposure cohorts, we have four 

23 large projects that are active right now and 

24 we're -- we're working those with you and 

25 trying to be responsive. 
28

1 NIOSH activities, again, the NIOSH data capture 

2 activities. These activities are ongoing and 

3 NIOSH can be working with up to ten sites in a 

4 single month. It's certainly a challenge for 

5 us in terms of being able to fund those, to 

6 provide direction and support, and to make 

7 people available to review those. But again, 

8 as requests come in, especially those that we 

9 have advance warning and we certainly are 

10 communicating with all the organizations and 

11 we're aware of things that are coming up and we 

12 try to set some priorities and work with the 

13 sites in terms of doing that. 

14 If I could talk just a moment about the 

15 funding, again, we have some large sites, we 

16 have small sites that are actually trying to do 

17 the best they can to deliver the documents, and 

18 staffing. In some cases, prior to this kind of 

19 request they had either very little staff or 

20 part-time staff. We try to do some advance 

21 warning. We're aware of when we have larger 

22 requests coming in and we can work with the 

23 sites on a temporary basis and provide funding 

24 so that they can have some increased staffing 

25 to help facilitate these things. 
29

1 So again, the role of DOE support, and we want 

2 to communicate, communicate, communicate and be 

3 aware in working to make this process better. 

4 In terms of the Special Exposure Cohorts, there 

5 are five active that are currently working at 

6 this time. 

7 Another responsibility of the Department of 

8 Energy is to research and maintain the covered 

9 facility database. We have 343 covered 

10 facilities in that database at this time. 

11 Current research in terms of the DOE AWE 

12 facilities, we've had some inquiries on a 

13 number of facilities, and as we get inquiries 

14 in we try to address those and provide the 

15 answers back. 

16 Office of Legacy Management, again, I mentioned 

17 that in an earlier slide. They're currently -- 

18 they have long-term stewardship responsibility 

19 for 70-plus sites in over 20 states, and they 

20 have a large number of records they have 

21 responsibility for managing. At this point in 

22 Department of Energy we're going through 

23 various contract reform. We no longer have 

24 single sites where we have an M&O that's been 

25 there for 50 years and all the records are 
30

1 there, so there is a need for an organization 

2 like Legacy Management to kind of work those 

3 legacy facilities. And they have -- it's a 

4 real strength with the Department. They have a 

5 lot of experts in that area and they help us in 

6 many of the activities that we come to and 

7 provide status to you here at these meetings. 

8 Initiatives, here are some things that we're 

9 doing that we believe will enhance or make the 

10 process better. And then as I indicated, we 

11 step back at the end of every one -- and in 

12 some cases, mid-way through or at the beginning 

13 and also at the end of these big activities and 

14 see what can we learn and how can we deliver 

15 the products better. We've named a POC within 

16 our office to coordinate all record requests 

17 from the Advisory Board and their contractors, 

18 as well as from NIOSH and DOL. We think this 

19 is important to have single-point 

20 accountability, where do you go and who did you 

21 talk to, and make sure that the protocols are 

22 understood, and we believe that this is working 

23 much better. 

24 We've been holding conference calls -- again 

25 this idea of communicating -- with the various 
31

1 organizations in terms of how we deliver the 

2 products and getting more information for them 

3 and making sure that we're being responsive and 

4 that we also have heads-up about schedules and 

5 that we're able to plan for that. 

6 And DOE has made arrangements with our Office 

7 of Legacy Management to provide research in 

8 support of facility questions and issues. Some 

9 of the questions that are asked are questions 

10 about many, many years ago, about areas where 

11 we have few documents or areas that may have 

12 been covered by documents that may not be 

13 readily available for review. So again, they 

14 serve a valuable role in helping us provide 

15 this support. 

16 Continuing with some of the initiatives, I've 

17 talked about the site exposure matrix, we've 

18 been working close with the Department of 

19 Labor, both the POC from the federal and the 

20 contractor side, and we're actively working the 

21 Los Alamos pre-project conference call, getting 

22 them ready for this activity. 

23 DOE is committed to providing site experts to 

24 participate and contribute to the Advisory 

25 Board working groups and conference calls, and 
32

1 please let us know where we might be of -- of 

2 better service to the -- for these activities. 

3 Another thing I want to talk about just briefly 

4 is the Los Alamos medical records. We've been 

5 working, you know, really very hard behind the 

6 scenes, working with the Medical Center and 

7 working with our folks in Washington regarding 

8 legally what can we do. We certainly 

9 understand the importance of those records and 

10 we have a process to move forward for the pre11 1964 records, and we -- we hope to be able to -

12 - to finalize the contract with the hospital 

13 and to be able to actually start that process 

14 of decontaminating the records and doing the 

15 sorting and bending and getting those records 

16 in a place where they can be readily retrieved. 

17 We also understand the importance of the post18 1964 records, that they are important, that 

19 they may have important EEOICPA-related 

20 information, and we're working with the 

21 hospital to make sure that they maintain those 

22 records in such a way that they can be 

23 retrieved, if needed, to answer questions and 

24 to support claims. 

25 DOE has been collaborating with both NIOSH and 
33

1 SC&A to streamline and improve the process of 

2 record research and data-gathering process. We 

3 think we've made significant progress in that 

4 and will continue to work with those 

5 organizations. 

6 And this was a very brief overview. It's an 

7 update on what Gina gave you in St. Louis, but 

8 it was intended to -- you know, to tell you 

9 that we remain committed, we're staying the 

10 course and we just want to give you numbers. 

11 We worked even late yesterday to kind of get 

12 the updates on where we were with Hanford 

13 'cause I know that we've been working that big 

14 project for some time. But I'm happy to -- to 

15 take any questions. 

16 And with regard to ETEC, I didn't mention that 

17 specifically, but we have provided I believe 

18 all the information that's needed, but if there 

19 are any additional, you know, data requests, 

20 we'll be happy to take those so that we can 

21 keep those -- keep that moving as well. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much, Dr. 

23 Worthington. I -- I've been impressed this 

24 past year, maybe a little more than a year 

25 since you've been involved, at the increased 
34

1 level of attention that DOE has given to the 

2 records retrieval process. I think, compared 

3 to the early days, we're -- we've seen -- 

4 really seen DOE step up to the plate on this 

5 and we thank you very much for those efforts. 

6 It has been very helpful. 

7 I want to ask a question about the technical 

8 reviews that you mentioned. I guess I wasn't 

9 fully aware of the extent of those. You 

10 mentioned four technical reviews. I'm assuming 

11 you feed those back to NIOSH, and at what point 

12 do those reviews go to NIOSH? Is that after 

13 they have published a site profile or do you 

14 get earlier drafts or... 

15 DR. WORTHINGTON: You want to talk a little 

16 about that, Greg? 

17 MR. LEWIS: Sure, this is Greg Lewis from DOE. 

18 Those technical reviews are the ones that SC&A 

19 are conducting on the site profile documents, 

20 so those we just facilitate the data-gathering 

21 proj-- the process. So I believe the ones 

22 active this year were the -- the ETEC facility, 

23 the Weldon Spring plant -- two others, off-hand 

24 I can't remember, but -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, I thought -- 
35

1 MR. LEWIS: -- those -- those are the four -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: I may have misunderstood. I 

3 thought you were saying that DOE was doing 

4 technical reviews also on the site profile -- 

5 MR. LEWIS: Oh, no, no, but we're facilitating 

6 the data-gathering project -- 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

8 MR. LEWIS: -- much the same way we do with the 

9 SEC process. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, you have a comment? 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: I think -- I think, just to be 

12 clear here, we're not talking technical 

13 reviews. We're talking reviews for sensitive 

14 information. 

15 DR. WORTHINGTON: That's correct. 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: So -- 

17 DR. WORTHINGTON: It may be -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I th-- 

19 DR. WORTHINGTON: -- some technical topic, but 

20 -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: -- I see what -- 

22 DR. WORTHINGTON: -- no, it's not a technical 

23 review. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: I thought there was some other ac25 - activity going on that I wasn't aware of. 
36

1 Yeah, okay. 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: No. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: That makes sense. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: We want to make sure that we 

5 abide by DOE's responsibilities and stewardship 

6 of -- 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: -- sensitive information, and so 

9 as we or as SC&A create a document from that -- 

10 that evolves from information that we've 

11 collected from DOE -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we have to share that with DOE 

14 to make sure there's no sensitive information 

15 that was captured in our write-ups. They've 

16 done a very good job, in my estimation, of 

17 turning those reviews around very quickly. I 

18 think -- in a matter of a few days now, it 

19 looks like to us. And so it's not -- it's not 

20 a time-consuming effort, but we're making sure 

21 that we don't release information that is -- is 

22 of national security concerns. 

23 DR. WORTHINGTON: In terms of the lessons 

24 learned as we move through these different 

25 activities, and we've certainly -- you've seen 
37

1 the volume of records, and then of course the 

2 kind of reports that are coming out, one of the 

3 lessons learned is that we -- we need to be 

4 more mindful of security requirements. We need 

5 to have periodic reviews of the documents to 

6 make sure that they don't inadvertently release 

7 some information that shouldn't be released. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Also yesterday during the 

9 discussion of the Connecticut Aircraft 

10 facility, there was an issue about the -- the 

11 designated period, and I think -- I think Dr. 

12 Melius asked the question at that time about 

13 what DOE was doing, and I -- 

14 DR. WORTHINGTON: I believe that Greg gave kind 

15 of a quick overview of what we're doing 

16 regarding that facility yesterday. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Anything further on that or -- 

18 maybe I'll ask -- ask Dr. Melius to clarify his 

19 question, and I think you were seeking some 

20 additional input. 

21 DR. MELIUS: Correct, from both DOE and DOL. 

22 Do -- Jeff Kotsch from DOL said that he would 

23 check back. I -- I can't remember what the 

24 other response was from DOE. I think you were 

25 going to check back also, but I'm just trying 
38

1 to get a status of -- we understand the 

2 information about the time period and the 

3 cleanup had been transmitted from NIOSH to -- 

4 to your agency and to -- to DOL, I believe, if 

5 I have that correct, and -- trying to get an 

6 update on where that stands in terms of re7 looking at the covered period. 

8 MR. LEWIS: I believe from our standpoint the 

9 Department of Labor designates the -- the 

10 actual DOE covered time period, so we had 

11 helped facilitate some -- some research, some 

12 data-gathering. We pointed them in the 

13 direction of a number of boxes, some of which 

14 Sam talked about the other day in terms of 

15 records. But I don't believe we had been asked 

16 to review the covered time period ourselves. I 

17 think we were just helping the records research 

18 process. 

19 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yeah, at this point -- 

20 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) understand each 

21 other. 

22 MR. LEWIS: Yeah. 

23 DR. MELIUS: It's mostly a question for 

24 Department of Labor -- 

25 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yeah, at this point we 
39

1 pointed them in the right direction and, if 

2 there are additional questions or requests, we 

3 -- we would answer them, but we don't believe 

4 we have any on the table at this point. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: As far as you know, you've 

6 provided them with the information they need to 

7 make -- 

8 DR. WORTHINGTON: At this time. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- any determination or change in 

10 the period. Thank you. 

11 MR. LEWIS: Yeah, we believe so. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, let's let -- Dr. 

13 Melius and then Wanda Munn. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have two questions. One, 

15 on the Hanford site, we've been waiting now I 

16 think six months or more, maybe even longer, 

17 trying to get access to records there. It -- 

18 it's holding up any further action that we can 

19 do on the Special Exposure Cohort petition 

20 there, as well as I think what NIOSH is trying 

21 to do in terms of modifying the -- the site -- 

22 site profile, and I'm -- my last understanding 

23 is that there've been a number of meetings, as 

24 you reported. But I guess I'm trying to get -- 

25 get a sense of when will NIOSH actually get the 
40

1 information that -- that it -- it requested 

2 because -- 

3 DR. WORTHINGTON: I understand what you're 

4 asking, and I believe that some information has 

5 been made available. The slide that I talked 

6 about here are the things that we've done, that 

7 so many thousands of documents have been 

8 scanned, we're right at that point now that 

9 we've -- that we've done almost all the legwork 

10 and we've gone through all the security hoops 

11 and we've scanned the documents, and I -- I 

12 would say that documents now will start coming 

13 out in huge volumes because we've -- we've 

14 overcome, I -- I believe, all of the hurdles to 

15 do that. 

16 DR. MELIUS: Okay. And just related to that, 

17 is the -- we also had budgetary problems last 

18 year with this -- there. Has that been taken 

19 care of for Hanford? 

20 DR. WORTHINGTON: I believe it was -- was taken 

21 care of. I think what I would describe as 

22 almost immediately upon becoming aware that we 

23 had a shortfall, we went out and identified 

24 funds, made them available, Hanford was pretty 

25 much on the top of the list, and we -- we've 
41

1 worked with them and we've made some 

2 projections regarding next year. I don't 

3 believe that, from anything that we're aware 

4 of, that we have any reason to be concerned 

5 about budget unless, for whatever reason, 

6 there's some massive increase that none of us 

7 are aware of and none of us have planned for or 

8 budgeted for, whether in -- yes, I -- I 

9 understand that we have -- that we could have a 

10 continuing resolution, and we would certainly 

11 make money available according to those 

12 requirements, but -- 

13 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and -- and I -- I understand 

14 there's -- 

15 DR. WORTHINGTON: -- so there wouldn't be a 

16 period there wouldn't be any monies, yes. 

17 DR. MELIUS: -- everyone will live through 

18 there, so I -- I guess my que-- question is, 

19 given the scope of what NIOSH has requested to 

20 date, the budget appears to be adequate to -- 

21 DR. WORTHINGTON: And Greg's been -- been 

22 working with them -- 

23 DR. MELIUS: Okay, that's -- 

24 DR. WORTHINGTON: -- very active, you know, 

25 very engaged with them on -- on what we believe 
42

1 to be the -- the needs. And I'm not aware of a 

2 huge disconnect regarding budget, with the 

3 understanding that we may be on continuing 

4 resolution and that money will be sent in 

5 certain increments, but we think we're okay. 

6 DR. MELIUS: So instead of -- 

7 DR. WORTHINGTON: We'll -- we certainly will 

8 watch that one very carefully. 

9 DR. MELIUS: -- by October 1st, that's -- 

10 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yeah, we will keep an eye on 

11 that, but we want to -- we're so close now to 

12 getting those documents out and so we'll give 

13 that certainly high priority. 

14 DR. MELIUS: Thank you. And -- and my second 

15 question, I -- I'm not sure this -- who needs 

16 to answer this or can answer this -- is so with 

17 -- is -- I'm trying to get a handle on what are 

18 the protocols for security review, and I think 

19 this is -- may be more of a question for -- for 

20 NIOSH. I'm just trying to -- the Board, we're 

21 -- we're faced with a number of reviews now 

22 that -- that appear to be able to delay, or 

23 potentially delay, documents that -- that we 

24 received -- the documents we receive, either 

25 directly from NIOSH, from SC&A or somehow 
43

1 otherwise accesses as par-- part of our 

2 reviews, and I was trying to get a handle on 

3 what the -- the overall protocol and -- and -- 

4 and policies are. We -- we hear-- hearing this 

5 piecemeal and -- and so forth, and it may be 

6 that the turnaround can be quick from one type 

7 review and not the other, but is there some 

8 sort of comprehensive listing or protocol that 

9 will describe how these various reviews'll take 

10 place and -- and what is that specifically 

11 being reviewed? 

12 DR. WORTHINGTON: There is a -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Let -- let me answer it here 

14 first. 

15 DR. WORTHINGTON: Sure. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: It may be that our next item on 

17 the agenda will -- which is the -- the next one 

18 is the data access issue -- may answer some of 

19 that, but this -- go ahead, Pat. 

20 DR. MELIUS: I was actually hoping that that's 

21 what Larry would tell me, but it may not, so 

22 that's why -- 

23 DR. ZIEMER: May not answer it, okay. He's 

24 shaking his head, so let's hear Pat's answer. 

25 DR. WORTHINGTON: I do want to engage in a 
44

1 little bit of discussion with you, in 

2 particular about delay of documents. We 

3 believe that the process that we've established 

4 to ensure that we are meeting the security 

5 requirements would not result in a delay, but 

6 it would -- at various junctures the documents 

7 would be reviewed so that there is an 

8 inadvertent release and then information 

9 wouldn't be made available, so we believe it's 

10 -- facilitate getting the reports out. And so 

11 once reports are generated, before they are -- 

12 are released in any public forum, there's a 

13 process that it would come for review through 

14 the security organization to ensure that it is 

15 appropriate for release. And we believe -- I 

16 think that Larry's mentioned that we've tested 

17 this out, and we believe that we have the right 

18 people that we're able, in terms of numbers of 

19 individuals as well, that we're able to 

20 facilitate those and that it's only a matter of 

21 days to prevent a long delay if there's 

22 something wrong with the document. I don't 

23 know if you want to add more, Larry. 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me -- let me give you an 

25 outline, if I may, of how things are working 
45

1 right now. And I'll start with either NIOSH or 

2 SC&A needing to access information at a DOE 

3 site. And so what we've done is we have 

4 established a Point of Contact -- DOE has 

5 established a Point of Contact at that site for 

6 us to interact with. We've established at 

7 NIOSH/OCAS a Point of Contact to serve to 

8 coordinate and prioritize all of the requests 

9 relative to that site. And this is not a 

10 gatekeeper position. This -- if SC&A has a 

11 request, they work with this OCAS person to get 

12 that request put in front of DOE's Point of 

13 Contact, and jointly they talk about where it 

14 fits in the scheme of prioritization. That 

15 seems to have helped quite a bit, I believe. 

16 Secondly on that, regarding that kind of 

17 access, we have -- well, DOE would then respond 

18 to those -- those kinds of requests, and we've 

19 assured DOE that we have the proper safeguards 

20 and security policies at HHS, CDC and NIOSH to 

21 protect different kinds of sensitive type of 

22 information. And so we have to also give them 

23 assurances that the people who are working on a 

24 given task, whether it's an SCA person or a 

25 NIOSH/OCAS person, has the need to know and has 
46

1 the right to review that kind of information 

2 and will protect it accordingly. So we've -- 

3 we've had discussions about that. We're 

4 working to shore that up in some areas. 

5 Now once we have retrieved the information that 

6 we feel is important for a given task, and we 

7 start writing about that, whether it's -- 

8 whoever, SC&A staff or NIOSH/OCAS staff, or the 

9 Board, if your working group decides they're 

10 going to write their own kind of document -- we 

11 have committed to give those original draft 

12 documents to DOE for this security review. 

13 They return them to us with a -- either a 

14 thumbs-up or a thumbs-down -- I've not seen a 

15 thumbs-down yet so I'm not sure how that's 

16 going to work, but I -- I doubt we're going to 

17 know, unless we're properly cleared, what's 

18 going on with a document if it's -- if it's 

19 compromised in any way. But we'll be told -- 

20 the right individuals will be told, I'm sure. 

21 Once that draft document has gone through 

22 further editing and becomes -- and Privacy Act 

23 reviewed, if necessary, before it is thrown 

24 into any form of public dissemination, it is 

25 once again reviewed by DOE to make sure that 
47

1 through the editing process something hasn't 

2 occurred that would prevent -- or would reveal 

3 sensitive information. 

4 So there's two -- essentially two review steps 

5 that DOE has now in this process to make sure 

6 that sensitive information is protected. 

7 Does that help answer your -- answer your 

8 question? 

9 DR. WORTHINGTON: I do want to tell you, 

10 though, that in terms of individuals, DOE's 

11 been working with NIOSH, been working with the 

12 sites to make sure that Q-cleared individuals 

13 are available to work on these projects. And 

14 where appropriate, if we needed to, you know, 

15 work security clearance, we -- we've done that, 

16 you know, with the site and with -- and with 

17 NIOSH. And so we have the right people in the 

18 right places. We have, as -- as Larry's 

19 indicated, protocols that they had in place 

20 already that interface with the DOE protocols 

21 and we feel are appropriate now, and we have 

22 these reviews and we think it will facilitate 

23 rather than -- than delay getting reports out. 

24 DR. MELIUS: Two comments. One is that I think 

25 it would be -- be helpful, certainly for the 
48

1 Board members and also for our dealings with 

2 the public, to -- to understand what the -- the 

3 process is and to see it in writing 'cause it -

4 - it -- this -- 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: We're working up a flow chart. 

6 We haven't got that far -- 

7 DR. WORTHINGTON: It's not quite yet available 

8 -- 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: It's not -- it's not prime time 

10 yet. 

11 DR. WORTHINGTON: -- yet but Larry did a great 

12 job in -- in describing it, but we'll -- 

13 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

14 DR. WORTHINGTON: -- we'll have it ready for 

15 you. 

16 DR. MELIUS: And -- 'cause there's also Privacy 

17 Act reviews -- 

18 MR. ELLIOTT: Sure. 

19 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yes. 

20 DR. MELIUS: -- and -- and so forth, and -- and 

21 these all, you know, sequentially can add up to 

22 -- 

23 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 

24 DR. MELIUS: -- to time and -- and -- and 

25 problems, so the second is -- is more of a 
49

1 comment and, no matter how well-intentioned 

2 this is, and I'm not doubting anybody's 

3 intention-- 'tentions, this is, you know, a 

4 particular issu-- particularly security issues 

5 regarding the credibility of this program. The 

6 cla-- many of the claimants are very skeptical 

7 or suspicious of DOE's motives and -- and long 

8 history of -- of using security issues as a way 

9 of not informing people about the risks and 

10 about the potential health problems that they 

11 may be incurring, fighting workers compensation 

12 claims and -- and so forth, so no matter how 

13 well-intentioned this is, there's always going 

14 to be suspicion and -- and concerns. And I 

15 think it can significantly affect the -- the 

16 credibility of -- of this program, and so what 

17 you talk about as a prioritization of documents 

18 may be something that other people view as 

19 well, we're not getting these documents, 

20 therefore they're trying to cover something or 

21 what-- I mean you can twist all these -- no 

22 matter how well -- well-intentioned it is, and 

23 I think it's very important that we keep this 

24 process as open as possible so people -- we ha25 - so we have a written flow charts and -- and 
50

1 so forth so people can understand what -- 

2 what's going on with documents and that we be -

3 - be very careful that -- that we -- with all 

4 due respect for what needs to be done in terms 

5 of security, we don't want to undermine that in 

6 any way, but we also make sure that -- that 

7 that is not used as a way of undermining the 

8 credibility of the program, so -- 

9 DR. WORTHINGTON: And -- and -- 

10 DR. MELIUS: -- we need to tread very -- very 

11 carefully here and -- and I think there'll be 

12 continued concerns about that and -- and it's a 

13 hard area to even discuss sometimes, so I 

14 recognize that and so forth, but I would hope 

15 you keep that in mind, that we don't get into a 

16 proc-- or a process that bogs us down so much 

17 'cause the longer these reviews take, the more 

18 suspicions there are -- well, we don't have 

19 this doc-- I mean even the Privacy Act reviews 

20 you can see from other situ-- other sites that 

21 don't involve security issues cause problems in 

22 terms of the Board dealing with -- with some of 

23 these sites and -- 

24 DR. WORTHINGTON: And we understand that and 

25 when we're talking with workers -- I mean many 
51

1 of the workers -- I mean all of the workers 

2 that we've encountered, they're also very 

3 sensitive to the fact of releasing information 

4 that should not be released, and so I think 

5 that the workers also realize that we have to -

6 - to balance, you know, making reports 

7 available that in fact do meet the security 

8 requirements. But your comment about being as 

9 transparent as we can so that people will -- 

10 will understand that we're not hiding behind 

11 security, because DOE is committed, HSS is 

12 committed to making the -- the information 

13 available, and we believe that ensuring that we 

14 aren't having any security infractions will 

15 make the process faster and will not cause 

16 delays, and so we're trying to work with all 

17 the organizations, and I think we've made 

18 tremendous progress and we'll continue to 

19 refine things as we go along, and to make sure 

20 that we can be as timely as possible. 

21 MR. ELLIOTT: I echo that, that we do 

22 understand the concern. No matter what we do, 

23 no matter how transparent we are, we will be 

24 fighting this specter of something's going on 

25 that we -- you know, we can't talk about, we 
52

1 won't talk about, so it must be important to -- 

2 to the claimant or the petitioner. 

3 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: We will have a security plan in 

5 place in OCAS, I hope within the next 30 days. 

6 I know DOE is also providing -- or preparing a 

7 security plan on their side which will guide 

8 and direct and inform the various site records 

9 managers. And so once we have -- NIOSH has its 

10 security plan in place, we'll be happy to share 

11 that with you and I think that'll provide more 

12 insight into the process. It'll also show this 

13 flow diagram, as we understand it. So point 

14 well taken, Dr. Melius. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Ms. Munn? 

16 MS. MUNN: Dr. Worthington, you alluded to 

17 ETEC, and that site is a particularly 

18 complicated one and we realize that none of us 

19 are in position to have full information 

20 available with respect to ETEC and the other 

21 contractors there. But if you could give us 

22 any information about status at this time, it 

23 would be appreciated. 

24 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yesterday I think that some 

25 of my staff had an opportunity to actually go 
53

1 to the facility and -- and do a tour, kind of 

2 be on the ground, get more insights. We have I 

3 believe provided all the documents that have 

4 been requested and we thought that were -- were 

5 needed in support of this and so we're just 

6 actually waiting for new requests from us in 

7 this area -- Greg, I know you've been working 

8 this personally. Are there any new insights 

9 that you might have that -- anything you want 

10 to add about where we are with this -- or Gina? 

11 MS. CANO: I think also I just want to 

12 introduce -- we have two individuals from 

13 Boeing with us. We have Judy McLaughlin and 

14 Phil Rutherford, and so they are here and we 

15 offer -- I know there's a working group on 

16 ETEC, and we want to make them available so if 

17 you have any questions of them in regard to the 

18 data that's available, I would encourage you to 

19 -- to work with them, and at the same time 

20 would encourage you -- the working group to set 

21 up a tour of the facility, if possible. I 

22 think that was very insightful for us. But at 

23 this time we are waiting on additional requests 

24 to support the SEC. 

25 MS. MUNN: Good. Thank you. 
54

1 MR. KATZ: One moment, Larry. Can you just 

2 spell out ETEC for the court reporter? 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: That's Santa Susana. ETEC is -- 

4 I can't spell it out. 

5 MS. MUNN: Energy -- 

6 MR. KATZ: Energy Technology Engineering 

7 Center. 

8 MS. KLEA: Santa Susana. 

9 MR. KATZ: Santa Susana. 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: Santa Susana, Area IV. 

11 MR. KATZ: Thank you. 

12 DR. MELIUS: Just get the Italian. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, right now DOE owes us 

14 nothing on ETEC. We do know that your working 

15 group may request additional information. One 

16 thing I want to point out is that in -- that I 

17 didn't mention earlier in my remarks about our 

18 coordination with DOE is that -- well, two 

19 things. I've asked my Q-cleared staff to make 

20 sure that they go to the site and actually look 

21 at sensitive documents and identify which 

22 documents are actually needed for our work, and 

23 I think that has streamlined the process. 

24 The other thing that I didn't mention is that 

25 we -- we made sure that we talked about sharing 
55

1 of information, so whatever information NIOSH 

2 has already collected, SC&A should not have to 

3 request that information from DOE. DOE should 

4 not have to provide it. It's already in our 

5 holdings and it's available and accessible to 

6 you or the -- or your contractor. So that was 

7 an important step forward 'cause that's helped 

8 streamline some of the impact that was -- DOE 

9 was facing. 

10 On -- on Santa Susana, I would again plea -- 

11 make a plea to you all to consider the NIOSH 

12 recommendation to add this class. Again, we 

13 have a number of claims that are so affected. 

14 No matter what you decide in your deliberations 

15 about Santa Susana later, we can attend to that 

16 in an 83.14 situation where we can add more 

17 later. But right now there are a number of 

18 claims from Santa Susana that are in that class 

19 definition that are not going anywhere. So 

20 again I would ask you to consider moving 

21 forward with the Santa Susana class. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mike Gibson. 

23 MR. GIBSON: As far as the workgroup activities 

24 and scheduling, and especially to be fairer to 

25 the claimants and the petitioners, this flow 
56

1 chart, will it have some kind of time 

2 commitments on getting documents turned around 

3 such as the site profile reviews and the SEC 

4 petition reviews? You know, that's -- that's a 

5 concern in general and specifically for Santa 

6 Susana. We scheduled a workgroup meeting last 

7 week and found out at the last minute basically 

8 that petitioners would not have access to the 

9 information, and that really puts a damper on 

10 things. 

11 And secondly, just a follow-up, Larry, you just 

12 said that DOE owes us no documents. Unless I 

13 missed them in the last few days, I still 

14 haven't seen the cleared version of the site 

15 profile or the SEC petition to the claimants -- 

16 or the matrix, yeah. 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I don't believe that DOE 

18 has an involvement in those two last actions. 

19 I believe that's sitting in front of Privacy 

20 Act review folks right now. That's -- that's 

21 where I understand it to be, so DOE has no 

22 action. 

23 As far as time frames in this flow chart or in 

24 the security plan, you'll have to look at that, 

25 because each request and situation may be 
57

1 different. You take the Hanford example, I 

2 think it's important that as DOE works through 

3 a batch, like they have with the Savannah 

4 River, they give us 25 CDs, that's not all of 

5 what we've requested, but that's what they've 

6 got done so far so they provided that as soon 

7 as they possibly could. So that's another 

8 agreement that we have struck, not to hold up 

9 everything until the request is fully complete 

10 but to provide us with what they have as they 

11 complete their -- their review of it. So as -- 

12 as we develop the security plan and we develop 

13 the flow chart, we certainly will consider when 

14 and where we think it's appropriate to put in a 

15 time deadline. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Michael. 

17 MR. GIBSON: Just -- I was told last week at 

18 the meeting that after you guys cleared the 

19 Privacy Act review of the information, it had 

20 to go back to DOE for a second time and it was 

21 in their hands. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I believe -- I believe it-- 

23 I don't know if it was in their hands at that 

24 point in time. I don't know that to be true, 

25 but if it was, I don't know where it's at right 
58

1 now. If they've got it -- the history right 

2 now shows me that within five to seven days we 

3 see these things come back from DOE, especially 

4 -- I think the shorter turnaround time is on a 

5 Privacy Act review. They've already seen it 

6 once and it -- so it's a quicker read for them. 

7 DR. WORTHINGTON: These documents are given 

8 extremely high priority in terms of turning 

9 them around in Department of Energy. We're 

10 committed to, as fast as we can, review them. 

11 We have made people available and they're aware 

12 that we expect a, you know, quick turnaround. 

13 I do -- do want to comment on some -- some 

14 earlier discussion about access. DOE has not 

15 denied access on any of the requests for people 

16 coming to the sites, regardless of the 

17 organization. They have cleared individuals. 

18 We work with them and there've been no -- no 

19 cases of where people have not been given 

20 access -- organizations not been given access 

21 to the site and to get the -- what they needed 

22 to get done. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Josie? 

24 MS. BEACH: I was just wondering if we could 

25 get an electronic copy of your presentation 
59

1 here this morning? 

2 DR. WORTHINGTON: Yes, it's loaded on the 

3 system now and I think that will be made 

4 available -- yes. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other questions or 

6 comments? If not -- oh, Michael, additional 

7 comment? 

8 MR. GIBSON: Could someone, just either from 

9 NIOSH or DOE, let me know exactly, you know, 

10 where these two documents -- specifically the 

11 site profile review and SEC review -- you know, 

12 are they available and cleared for public -- 

13 public viewing? 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Just to correct, my comment 

15 earlier was to say that we have no outstanding 

16 requests with DOE. We -- we may have these two 

17 documents, but that's not, in my -- my 

18 phraseology, a request of information from 

19 them. You may be right that they have the two 

20 documents for review, and I'll find out where 

21 they're at and I'll get back to you. 

22 DR. WORTHINGTON: Okay. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Yes, Phillip. 

24 MR. SCHOFIELD: This is for Dr. Worthington. I 

25 just want to say that in behalf of a lot of the 
60

1 claimants in the Los Alamos area, they want to 

2 thank you for the effort that you have put 

3 forth on the medical records issue. 

4 DR. WORTHINGTON: Thank you. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Phil. Any other 

6 questions or comments? 

7 DR. WORTHINGTON: Gina, do you have a -- Gina 

8 has one clarification she wanted to provide. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Regina. 

10 MS. CANO: Larry, we do have four documents 

11 right now that are being currently reviewed by 

12 our office. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Santa Susana? 

14 MS. CANO: Well -- 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: Who requested them? 

16 MS. CANO: They were just -- 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: NIOSH or SC&A? 

18 MS. CANO: NIOSH, it was -- they were recent, 

19 but -- I would say within the past week, but I 

20 just want to make that correction so, you know, 

21 we will provide that information to you and I 

22 did check on status this morning, so -- at 

23 least left a message. I apologize. 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: My apologies, Mike. I didn't 

25 know about these four documents. 
61

1 DR. WORTHINGTON: We checked just this morning 

2 just to see if there was anything outstanding, 

3 and we will make them available. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. 

5 Worthington. Thank you again for your -- not 

6 only your presentation, but your attention to 

7 this whole program. Appreciate it. 

8 DR. WORTHINGTON: Thank you. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: I think if -- if Ed Dacey is here 

10 -- oh, before we proceed -- 

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Let's get this -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: -- additional comment now. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: -- let's get this correct. I'm 

14 just now told that the four documents are not 

15 Santa Susana, they're Atomics International, so 

16 it goes to a different site. So we have 

17 document requests in front of DOE we're waiting 

18 on, but they're not Santa Susana, and I will 

19 find out where we're at with the two Privacy 

20 Act review documents that you need for your 

21 workgroup. So I'm happy to be able to get that 

22 correct. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: It may be that -- that one of your 

24 staff members -- your staff is so fast they 

25 already have the answer. Here's Stu Hinnefeld. 
62

1 MR. HINNEFELD: It's -- it's not -- wasn't 

2 Atomics International. It's General Atomics. 

3 Atomics International is at Santa Susana. 

4 General Atomics is one of the four. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, that didn't answer 

6 Mike's question, but -- Mike, I think you have 

7 a commitment that we will follow up and give 

8 you that information very -- very soon. 

9 MS. MUNN: It's all in California. 

10 DR. MELIUS: Whatever -- whatever site it is, 

11 we'll let you know. 

12 MS. MUNN: It's in California. 

13 DATA ACCESS AND DATA SECURITY ISSUES

14 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I think we can proceed. 

15 You recall that the Department of Labor update 

16 was given yesterday so we can proceed to the 

17 next item, which is data access and data 

18 security -- might be appropriate sin-- in light 

19 of our discussion a few moments ago. Ed Dacey 

20 from NIOSH -- Ed, welcome. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Ziemer, as Mr. Dacey comes to 

22 the microphone to prepare, there -- there are 

23 some issues that will be affecting the Board 

24 members and their access to the firewall. And 

25 so given that we're not -- Mr. Dacey can 
63

1 certainly give us a sense of the timing, but 

2 he'll be coming up probably sooner than any of 

3 us are comfortable. It's better to have given 

4 you some information to help you understand the 

5 potential for changes if we can't necessarily 

6 tell you when those changes will be 

7 implemented. But certainly the ability of 

8 Board members who are not full-time federal 

9 employees to have access to the firewall is 

10 going to be an issue that will essentially 

11 affect you ability to access the share drive at 

12 some point in the future. So I wanted Mr. 

13 Dacey to comment and begin to share some of 

14 that information with us and talk about, in 

15 advance of that, whenever that will be in the 

16 future, how we might be able to talk about how 

17 your access to data can -- can be -- can be 

18 effectively altered and what will be a 

19 reasonable way for us to be able to manip-- 

20 maneuver around these potential changes. Thank 

21 you, Mr. Dacey. 

22 MR. DACEY: Thank you, Dr. Branche. I'm Ed 

23 Dacey. I'm the NIOSH information system 

24 security officer, and the focus on this will be 

25 pretty much IT security, address of the other 
64

1 general security or -- or access issues that we 

2 talked about earlier. 

3 A lot of the requirements that we're operating 

4 under came out of FISMA, Federal Information 

5 Security Management Act, passed in 2002. 

6 Initial deployment of FISMA was somewhat slow, 

7 but it's been wrapping up and we're seeing 

8 numerous changes happening quickly. 

9 Within CDC here's our general hardware overview 

10 -- 20,000 PCs, over 8,000 laptops. The number 

11 of servers is rapidly declining and the -- the 

12 mainframe is heading out the door within the 

13 next year. The 11,000 remote access users that 

14 -- primarily CDC staff, telecommuting, working 

15 evenings, weekends, but also staff deployed 

16 throughout the world. 

17 IT trends in general, the general industry 

18 trends, collaboration, mobile devices, telework 

19 -- all wonderful things that allow us to do all 

20 kinds of fantastic things and create all kinds 

21 of security nightmares. 

22 Increasing threats, the Veterans Administration 

23 laptop theft, as well as the NIH laptop, 

24 created monumental problems for those 

25 organizations. 
65

1 VA -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Can you tell us what -- what those 

3 were? I mean NIH laptop, what was that? 

4 MR. DACEY: Sure. In the NIH situation there 

5 was a researcher had study data that contained 

6 personal information on his laptop and he had 

7 it in his car and -- in a parking lot and his 

8 car was broken into. That laptop was stolen. 

9 Now the -- you know, the initial thinking was 

10 how could anybody leave a laptop laying in 

11 their back seat -- broken into, but apparently 

12 he had it in the trunk and it was stolen in a 

13 fairly sophisticated way, so there are serious 

14 threats out there in terms of losing laptops. 

15 The VA situation, that was the theft from the 

16 individual's home. In that case, you know, in 

17 addition to the, you know, political and press 

18 exposure, the problems with constituents, the 

19 estimates are that it cost VA in excess of $100 

20 million to deal with that situation -- costs 

21 for credit monitoring, all the internal steps 

22 they had to go through. It was a hugely 

23 expensive proposition that -- that took a 

24 tremendous amount of resources. 

25 Some of the other threats we're seeing that -- 
66

1 MR. KATZ: Ed, sorry to interrupt, but can you 

2 just try to talk into the mike so that the -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe raise it up. 

4 MR. KATZ: -- recorder can catch this? Thanks. 

5 THE COURT REPORTER: Ed, you can kind of turn 

6 that podium toward here if you want to, if 

7 that's good for you. 

8 MR. DACEY: So in -- in addition to the various 

9 viruses and worms, we're starting to see fairly 

10 sophisticated attacks, the -- the malware, the 

11 general worms, Trojan viruses, other things 

12 that can download data from PCs instead of just 

13 blasting them out the way that they used to 

14 with the Nigerian e-mails, which are almost 

15 comical. Now they're using a fair bit of 

16 social engineering, and so depending upon the 

17 time of year -- I mean at Valentine's Day we 

18 saw a lot of e-mails -- click on this valentine 

19 -- we'll see a lot more of those on Halloween. 

20 And so they're -- they're really cluing into 

21 personal behavior and so they're being somewhat 

22 more effective in terms of infecting PCs. 

23 And then there's some very sophisticated 

24 threats going on, data exfiltration, and this 

25 can be somewhat hard to detect, but they will 
67

1 load Trojan viruses, other things that will 

2 export data undetected out to external sources. 

3 SQL injection attacks are -- are another semi4 sophisticated approach that can be used to 

5 access databases remotely. And wireless hacks, 

6 the TJ Maxx hack where they stole hundreds of 

7 thousands of credit card information was done 

8 by accessing a wireless network. 

9 So there -- there's increasing threats across 

10 the board and those have elicited increased 

11 tension up and down the government. OMB's been 

12 very active coming out with requirements. The 

13 National Institute of Standards and Technology 

14 is promulgating lots of regulations that we 

15 need to follow. And within HHS they've 

16 developed a Secure One HHS program that 

17 outlines numerous steps that CDC and NIOSH has 

18 to follow. 

19 There -- there are a number of systems that 

20 they're looking at. They're called the 

21 financial transaction and procurement system, 

22 and critical operation systems that are needed 

23 for day to day operation. And then sensitive 

24 data, which is what we're talking about within 

25 this framework. 
68

1 This is the standard OMB definition on 

2 sensitive data. A variety of options here in 

3 terms of what falls under the sensitive data. 

4 Personally identifiable information is -- is 

5 the big one, but there's numerous other ones 

6 that can fall in there, too. 

7 PII can be sensitive or non-sensitive, 

8 depending upon the situation and context. If 

9 you've got, you know, someone's name and he's 

10 the employee of the month, non-sensitive 

11 situation. And employee on probation would 

12 def-- fall into the sensitive context, so a lot 

13 of this is situational in terms of what steps 

14 need to be taken. 

15 Microdata is becoming an increasing issue. 

16 When you're dealing with small populations, 

17 it's becoming easier, even if you don't have a 

18 unique personal identifier, to reconstruct who 

19 that individual might be. It's amazing what 

20 you can do going into Google and, with a number 

21 of searches, quickly reconstruct who an 

22 individual might be if you've got a few items 

23 to search on. So you sometimes are not as safe 

24 as you think you might be. 

25 In protecting sensitive information we need to 
69

1 identify our holdings, reduce to the maximum 

2 extent possible the collection of that data, 

3 limit need to know, and then also limit 

4 sensitive data accessed remotely, in transit 

5 and on portable systems. 

6 In terms of strategies -- and I think, you 

7 know, a lot of these issues -- I know that 

8 everybody involved in this is already, you 

9 know, well versed in the game, but just to 

10 reiterate, you know, people are key to this 

11 process. Encryption I think is absolutely 

12 essential. I think, you know, if we have a 

13 data loss of laptop, thumb drive, other 

14 removable media, even if it's encrypted there's 

15 still going to be significant fallout in terms 

16 of, you know, reporting of that information in 

17 the press, but if it's encrypted we're in 

18 infinitely better shape that if it were not. 

19 Know where it is and two factor authentication. 

20 What I mean by two factor authentication is if 

21 you're doing remote access, not only do you 

22 have the user ID and password, you have a 

23 second secure way to validate who you are, be 

24 it RSA key fob or some other device that can 

25 provide a reasonable degree of guarantee that 
70

1 that individual says -- is who they say they 

2 are. 

3 Within CDC the general approach that they're 

4 taking now in terms of systems security is to 

5 create standard centralized hardware and 

6 software platforms. In the past there have 

7 been a wide number of servers distributed 

8 throughout the agency. Those are going -- 

9 being consolidated down into the minimal number 

10 of servers so you've got tight control over 

11 what those boxes are, being sure that they're 

12 patched, that they meet standards and are under 

13 good physical control. 

14 Streamlining the certification and 

15 accreditation process for the systems on these 

16 platforms, the C&A process is part of the FISMA 

17 mandates that requires you to do a 

18 comprehensive review of your application 

19 systems to be sure that they are secure. CDC 

20 is structuring it so that if you run these core 

21 consolidated systems, the process is relatively 

22 straightforward and can be done with a minimal 

23 amount of trouble. If you diverge and run this 

24 on a system operated outside the CDC 

25 environment, be it by contractor or some other 
71

1 mechanism, then the approach is infinitely more 

2 difficult and infinitely more expensive. Up 

3 until now, CDC has not been rigidly enforcing 

4 that as the general approaches didn't get 

5 systems C&A secured in a timely manner, but now 

6 we're getting to the point where the ones that 

7 are not will not be allowed to continue to 

8 operate. 

9 In terms of remote access to systems and data, 

10 data is definitely most secure when it's stored 

11 centrally. Way back when, in the good ol' days 

12 of the -- when there was a CDC mainframe 

13 located in the sub-basement of building one in 

14 Atlanta and there were no PCs, the data was 

15 just as secure as could be. You know, it's a -

16 - it's a completely different world that we 

17 operate now and there are inherent tradeoffs 

18 between functionality and security. 

19 The -- the particular issue in terms of remote 

20 access has been bouncing around for some time, 

21 but it was triggered internally within CDC 

22 'cause we worked through some issues on 

23 teleworking implications for remote access. 

24 CDC, along with the rest of the government, is 

25 actively pursuing telework, and the question 
72

1 becomes how are you going to let the employees 

2 access systems and data when they're working 

3 from home. 

4 If you read through some of the OMB and FISMA 

5 guidance, they're fairly clear in terms of 

6 access to government systems and government 

7 data has to be through government computers. 

8 Now the CDC's remote access gateway, which we 

9 call CITGO 2, could currently differentiate 

10 whether a computer is a CDC computer or a 

11 person-- personally-owned computer. I mean 

12 it's currently not making any differentiation 

13 in terms of the rights of those computers in 

14 terms of what they can access, what they can 

15 do, but there are discussions currently that 

16 may result in limiting non-government computers 

17 to access any of our internal systems and data. 

18 So I think it's reasonable to expect that at 

19 some point we may well see changes that will 

20 apply across the board, not only for CDC 

21 employees teleworking, but for anyone accessing 

22 CDC network and systems remotely. The -- the 

23 timing on this is unclear. It will be a huge 

24 undertaking within CDC. With 11,000 remote 

25 users, it is neither a quick and easy decision, 
73

1 but I think, you know, we're likely to see that 

2 decision in the not-too-distant future and then 

3 phase in those changes in a semi-aggressive 

4 time frame. 

5 Now I've been talking about the CDC network in 

6 -- in our current structure with ORAU and -- 

7 and data residing there and accessing that 

8 data, it may seem that, you know, it's not an 

9 immediate concern. But everything we're 

10 talking about will apply to any CDC government 

11 owned and operated system. And the fact that 

12 we have contractor, you know, doing it 

13 externally does not, you know, alleviate the 

14 requirements to go through the steps. So I -- 

15 you know, we don't know the timing or exactly 

16 how this is going to play out, but I did want 

17 to broach the issue, let you know that, you 

18 know, it's a possibility and it may -- you 

19 know, once the decision is made, it may happen 

20 quickly. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Christine, 

22 you have a comment? 

23 DR. BRANCHE: Just a couple of comments and I 

24 just want to underscore something that Mr. 

25 Dacey said, and that is a -- a couple of 
74

1 things. First of all, when -- essentially when 

2 the -- when the signal comes, NIOSH will have 

3 to be compliant and we won't be necessarily the 

4 ones who decide when that time frame comes, but 

5 we certainly need to prepare. 

6 The other thing that Mr. Dacey said is that 

7 this change would be -- would affect not only 

8 those of you who are Board members, but all of 

9 the contractors, both those working with NIOSH 

10 and one -- the contractor working with the 

11 Board, would be affected. So we're going to 

12 have to think through access to NIOSH's -- the 

13 data that NIOSH currently provides to you by 

14 your access through the firewall. Currently we 

15 are -- we certainly have -- so that's what's 

16 going to happen. These are the kind of issues 

17 that are going to have to happen. 

18 Certainly anyone can come to NIOSH -- a NIOSH 

19 building and have access without any 

20 difficulty, but that's not usually how you all 

21 work. And so this really does open the issue 

22 of how you have access to our data and we want 

23 you to be aware of it and we want to start 

24 thinking through practical ways to overcome 

25 what is certainly to be a major change in the 
75

1 way you access information that's currently 

2 housed on the O drive. 

3 Dr. Ziemer? 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Certainly the access 

5 to the O drive appears to me to be the -- the 

6 biggest impact. Almost everything we -- else 

7 that we deal with is already on the web site 

8 and is public information, so the O drive is -- 

9 is where there is restricted information and 

10 information that may not be redacted and so on. 

11 It certainly seems impractical for this Board 

12 to have to go to Cincinnati to access the O 

13 drive, and so I guess we need to be thinking 

14 about what the real implications are in terms 

15 of use of personal computers. Some -- some of 

16 the Board members -- I think most of these 

17 Board members are currently using personal 

18 computers, several have government computers, 

19 but certainly that's a -- would be a 

20 significant issue for us. 

21 Let's get comments. Wanda Munn. 

22 MS. MUNN: Well, this raises so many potential 

23 problems for us that it's certainly appreciated 

24 to be -- have it laid out early so that one can 

25 think it through. I can imagine that 
76

1 government laptops dedicated solely to this use 

2 would not be so much of a problem as wireless 

3 access. Wireless access would appear to be a 

4 serious issue in terms of long-term security. 

5 And -- the procedures workgroup, for example, 

6 has just gone through a major exercise to try 

7 to get our -- what started out to be a complex 

8 matrix into now an individual documentary form 

9 so that we can track them quickly and easily by 

10 wireless. And I'm not asking that you provide 

11 any answers to that, I'm just actually thinking 

12 out loud in terms of some of the major problems 

13 that this kind of concern with security is 

14 going to make for us here. The wireless issue 

15 is one that would appear to be overwhelming in 

16 terms of what we can accomplish at -- in group 

17 meetings. I can understand if we are at home 

18 or in someplace where it's possible for our 

19 government computer to have a land line 

20 connection, then that might eliminate some of 

21 the concerns. But wireless connectivity, for 

22 most of us, is sort of a way of life now. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Well, certainly you could protect 

24 the wireless system, but if you're at a place 

25 like this hotel, sitting in this room where we 
77

1 can access the O drive, this wireless system is 

2 not protected, as I understand it. In fact, 

3 when we sign onto it, it says that it is -- 

4 MS. MUNN: Right, it's unsecure. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: -- unprotected and unsecure, so I 

6 -- I assume that that means that a hacker could 

7 easily access what you're looking at -- 

8 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- if you're looking at the O 

10 drive. Is that correct? 

11 MR. DACEY: That's true, I mean the -- wireless 

12 wi-fis is difficult to secure and -- and 

13 frequently you -- you can't fully trust 

14 whosever set that network up. Now broadband 

15 wireless where -- I mean you have a sprint 

16 broadband card that works similar to a cell 

17 phone is relatively secure and that's -- you 

18 know, if you've got good cell phone coverage 

19 where your residence or your meeting place, 

20 that's a very reasonable secure solution. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: So in principle, if these 

22 regulations went into effect, a place like a 

23 hotel where a workgroup may wish to meet, such 

24 as your workgroup -- 

25 MS. MUNN: Exactly. 
78

1 DR. ZIEMER: -- meeting later today, could in 

2 fact have a secure wireless system under what 

3 you just described if you had the appropriate 

4 cards or whatever it is. 

5 MR. DACEY: Tech-- it would be -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: You'd have to arrange it in 

7 advance, I assume. 

8 MR. DACEY: -- tech-- yeah, technically 

9 possible. 

10 MS. MUNN: Is it technically possible by card 

11 or by cable connection or what -- I mean I'm 

12 thinking -- 

13 MR. DACEY: Sure. 

14 MS. MUNN: -- do I just need a card in my 

15 government computer to enable me, or -- a 

16 little technical help there would assist. 

17 MR. DACEY: You know, I think that -- you know, 

18 there may be, you know, issues in terms of, you 

19 know, hardware and hardware distribution and -- 

20 and, you know, what the policy's going to be in 

21 terms of how we implement it. But just from a 

22 standpoint in terms of what's technically 

23 possible, a government laptop running the 

24 encryption software and using a broadband 

25 wireless card from Sprint or AT&T, the carrier 
79

1 of your choice, is a -- can be a secure 

2 solution. 

3 MS. MUNN: Good. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Brad? 

5 MR. CLAWSON: Well, I still work in the 

6 industry so I work in a DOE site and do you 

7 realize that your security doesn't match with 

8 DOE's security and it gets me in all sorts of 

9 problems. All these government agencies have 

10 their own individual little security issues and 

11 they're -- it's a massive problem. And I can't 

12 -- I can't access -- from a DOE site, I can't 

13 access the O drive because it recognizes it as 

14 a threat. And that -- and -- you know, I know 

15 that we're all trying to work a little bit 

16 together here, but we all need to get on the 

17 same page somehow, too. 

18 MR. DACEY: I -- I mean that -- that is im-- 

19 absolutely, you know, valid issue. I mean I 

20 think -- you know, within CDC -- I mean we're 

21 happy that -- we're not happy, we're pleased to 

22 have made some progress where now we have some 

23 internal consistency, but I wouldn't for a 

24 second suggest that, you know, we are a secure 

25 level, you know, government-wide, not that I've 
80

1 seen any government-wide definitions, but there 

2 are huge hurdles that still need to resolve in 

3 terms of interagency. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Christine. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Munn mentioned the idea of a 

6 government -- being able to access from a 

7 government-issued computer, a laptop, and I 

8 would say that certainly there is the option to 

9 issue all of you government property, to all of 

10 the Board members. We'd have to balance that 

11 consideration, however, with a couple of 

12 things. First of all, the expense of issuing 

13 them all -- them all to you, and then making 

14 certain that you all adhere to a number of 

15 responsible actions that you would incur as the 

16 holder of this government property. And I 

17 somewhat jokingly had talked to Mr. Elliott 

18 about, you know, I don't want the DFO position 

19 to become the laptop police for -- for the 

20 Board and that that -- that role does come on. 

21 DR. MELIUS: That's Ted's job. 

22 DR. BRANCHE: But I -- but I do think it would 

23 be important, if -- if -- Dr. Ziemer, if you 

24 would allow it, a few other concerns or -- or 

25 expressions of how the Board members -- how 
81

1 rapidly they would need information that's on 

2 the O drive. As we explore different options, 

3 we -- if you recall, Dr. Wade did begin to 

4 issue -- or to work with the thumb drives. And 

5 currently the thumb drives are used only for 

6 materials that you are allowed to -- we ask 

7 that you download the information so that we 

8 have fewer pieces of paper passing around and 

9 make it convenient for you. But if we were to 

10 use these thumb drives more frequently, if we 

11 were to mail them to you with information that 

12 had already -- it's either encrypted or has 

13 been purged of personal identifiers, would that 

14 be a viable option to consider as we look at 

15 the various options that we will want to be 

16 able to propose to you from and agency -- from 

17 -- from our agency to you as a Board. Is that 

18 a practical -- I mean given the frequency with 

19 which -- within which and the kind of 

20 information that you access from the O drive, 

21 is a more frequent mailing of an exchange of 

22 these thumb drives a practical option? I mean 

23 of course we would bear the expense of mailing 

24 things back and forth and make certain that you 

25 have all the right envelopes, et cetera. 
82

1 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let -- let me comment, and 

2 others will have comments, but take a site -- 

3 let's take Fernald as an example. There's a 

4 lot of Fernald data on the O drive, and what I 

5 find is that you often go there and you look 

6 down through a list of documents and you may 

7 say well, this one looks interesting, and you 

8 look at it and say well, that didn't give me 

9 much information and -- and so you're sort of 

10 scanning through to find documents that are 

11 useful. But if you have to identify everything 

12 in advance and then ask that it be downloaded 

13 and sent, it would become very inefficient, I 

14 think. The access is a way of streamlining 

15 things. I -- I think it certainly makes sense 

16 if -- if there are specific documents that you 

17 know that you need, and this includes -- it's 

18 what we do with the dose reconstruction cases. 

19 I know I have three cases that I have to review 

20 and I can get those on a disk or on a -- on a 

21 flash drive and -- and I'm responsible to care 

22 for that information while I have it. But just 

23 in the general sense, for workgroups that want 

24 to sort of look at all the different documents, 

25 it seems to me it's very impractical, just a 
83

1 top of the head impression. 

2 Brad. 

3 MR. CLAWSON: I'd echo what you just said 

4 because like -- well, just take Fernald for 

5 example. I've gone into Fernald into the O 

6 drive and been going through some of the 

7 process, and then I have to be able to go back 

8 out and go over to a Mound site, because all 

9 these sites are interconnected and so forth 

10 like that. I may go through three or four 

11 different sites because this product went to 

12 here or this is what they did with this, and 

13 it's -- it's kind of connecting the dots and, 

14 you know, I may sit there for two or three 

15 hours going from site to site, gaining this 

16 information that I need to be able to glean 

17 from this and for me to be able to say yeah, I 

18 just need this document and this document, I 

19 have never been able to really do that. It's -

20 - it's always led me into something else or to 

21 go someplace else. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? 

23 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I have another question then. 

24 This -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? 
84

1 MS. MUNN: We were speaking in terms of thumb 

2 drives. Is it possible that we might have 

3 encrypted cards rather than thumb drives with 

4 which -- through which we could access the data 

5 that we wanted and onto which the data that we 

6 wanted could be recorded. Sometimes it seems -

7 - maybe it's an erroneous impression that cards 

8 are certainly easier to handle and transport, 

9 and maybe -- I don't know whether they're 

10 capable of being encrypted, though. Are they? 

11 MR. DACEY: I -- I'm not -- when you say cards, 

12 I'm not sure I under... 

13 MS. MUNN: Memory cards. Memory cards. 

14 MR. DACEY: Well, I guess I would -- memory 

15 stick, I don't -- I -- maybe I -- I generally 

16 think of them as interchangeable. 

17 MS. MUNN: No, I'm not talking about -- I'm not 

18 talking about a USB port. I'm talking about a 

19 data card port. 

20 MR. DACEY: I -- I have to check on that. I'm 

21 not sure. 

22 MS. MUNN: It just would seem that it might be 

23 more easily encrypted than -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Well, certainly the technology 

25 issues have to be faced once we know what the 
85

1 rules are, and whatever we thought was true 

2 today, about ten minutes later the technology's 

3 going to change. So I think at the time this 

4 goes into effect we'll have to see what's 

5 available and what can be done. Let me ask a 

6 question then we'll follow with John. My -- 

7 mine has two parts. 

8 When you ta-- you indicated sort of uncertainty 

9 as to what the status of this is. Can you give 

10 us your best estimate, what's the probability 

11 this is going to go into effect, is A -- is it 

12 100 percent and -- or is it like 50-50, and B, 

13 if it is going to go into effect, can you 

14 venture a -- an early -- sort of what's the 

15 earliest possible date it might? 

16 MR. DACEY: This is -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Are you free to do that? 

18 MR. DACEY: Well, see, I -- I'm not involved in 

19 the internal CDC discussions, so I will venture 

20 my personal guess, 'cause I have no concept of 

21 what the real probabilities are. My guess 

22 would be greater than 50 percent that will 

23 happen. I mean beyond that, I -- I just -- I 

24 can't put a number whether it's 60 or 80, but I 

25 -- I'd say greater than 50 percent chance we'll 
86

1 see it. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Probability of causation's greater 

3 than 50 percent here, is it? Okay. 

4 MR. DACEY: And in terms of implementation time 

5 line -- again, this is just my own personal 

6 opinion, without any insights or involvement in 

7 discussions -- six to 12-month time frame, 

8 but... 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Larry, you have 

10 any further insight? 

11 MR. DACEY: Yeah, I think we -- you know, the -

12 - 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Put you on the spot. 

14 MR. DACEY: Having said that, you know, if 

15 there's laptops stolen tomorrow or, you know, 

16 it -- it could be next week. 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, let's hope no laptops are 

18 stolen tomorrow -- or next week. The only 

19 input I can provide you in the tea leaves that 

20 I'm trying to read as well is that we see this 

21 in -- in NIOSH/OCAS as being tied to the award 

22 of our new technical support contract. And no 

23 matter who gets that, we'll have -- we've 

24 purchased two new servers already that will -- 

25 will serve as -- gives an ability to encrypt. 
87

1 And whoever gets the new contract, the current 

2 situation that ORAU provides -- you don't go 

3 through our firewall right now, so you go to 

4 ORAU -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: -- site. That's where the O 

7 drive's at for you, but that'll -- that'll be 

8 going away. Now when, I can't say. I think 

9 Ed's estimation of six months to a year is 

10 probably fair on and -- but -- but we see it 

11 tied to certain events that will happen. One 

12 of those events is new contract award and 

13 knowing that new hardware has to be put in 

14 place that's going to speak to this HHS/CDC 

15 security policies and our efforts to be 

16 compliant. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: John Poston? 

18 DR. POSTON: Well, Dr. Ziemer, you probably -- 

19 you may not remember since you've retired, but 

20 this sounds like a faculty meeting, faculty 

21 commi-- meeting trying to solve a problem that 

22 they don't understand all the parameters but 

23 they haven't pulled back from trying to solve 

24 it anyway. I would point out, however, that 

25 those of us who've worked in the DOE complex 
88

1 and who still work in the DOE complex, we have 

2 secure ID cards that allow us to sign-on to 

3 secure servers, like Sandia Lab and so forth, 

4 from wherever in the world. And if we don't 

5 have the right ID, we can't get on it. And the 

6 ID is generated randomly by a card that's given 

7 us. It's called a secure ID. This is a 

8 problem easy to sign -- to solve, and I think 

9 we ought to move on with the other things on 

10 the agenda. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Well, let -- 

12 let me, though, give an opportunity for any 

13 additional comments. Larry? 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: I would just like to speak to the 

15 -- the concept of the flash drive option. 

16 Certainly NIOSH/OCAS is going to stand up and 

17 try to provide whatever decisions you all make, 

18 but in a flash drive situation my initial 

19 thoughts are that I look around the table, I 

20 see 12 individual members who have different 

21 levels of interest and need. And so this is 

22 going to impact -- if we go that route, it'll 

23 impact the staff at -- at NIOSH/OCAS 'cause 

24 we're going to have to serve each one of you 

25 individually, make sure your flash drive has 
89

1 what you want on it, and then there are going 

2 to have to be some business rules established 

3 about that. You know, if you're going to share 

4 the information because you think it's 

5 important, you need to have the other Board 

6 member see it as well. We'll have to set up 

7 some business rules on how that can be shared. 

8 So it's not a straightforward simple process. 

9 This is -- it's good that we're starting to 

10 think through this now rather than react when 

11 we're told you need to be compliant next week. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, any further 

13 comments? 

14 MS. KLEA: Could I make a comment? 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- 

16 MS. KLEA: About claimant's security? 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, we'll allow it. 

18 MS. KLEA: Bonnie Klea -- 

19 MR. KATZ: Just one -- Bonnie, just hold one 

20 second. Please, someone on the phone has a 

21 beeping sound. I don't know if it's a hold 

22 button or whatever, but if you could mute your 

23 phone. 

24 MS. KLEA: Yes, I'm Bonnie Klea from the Santa 

25 Susana Field Lab and I have a question why the 
90

1 program has gone from using a tracking number 

2 to now using our Social Security number on 

3 every single piece of correspondence. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know that that's the case, 

5 but let's hear from Larry. 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know what you're 

7 referring to, Ms. Klea. The NIOSH 

8 correspondence you receive does not use Social 

9 Security numbers. DOL correspondence uses the 

10 last four digits. NIOSH only uses the tracking 

11 number that we assign to you. 

12 MS. KLEA: That's not true. I have hundreds of 

13 pieces of correspondence with my name, address 

14 and Social Security number. I have claims from 

15 a lot of the other workers. Every single piece 

16 of paper has their Social Security number on 

17 it, and mail theft is a big problem. 

18 MS. BLAZE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Are these DOE or DOL -- DOL or 

20 NIOSH? 

21 MS. KLEA: NIOSH. I'll bring them tomorrow. 

22 Every piece of paper -- 

23 MS. BLAZE: I was asked to include our file 

24 number on every single sheet of paper that -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: File number or -- 
91

1 MS. BLAZE: Which was the Social Security 

2 number for my father. That's the file number 

3 that they assigned him. Otherwise it would not 

4 be submittable evidence. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, Larry, if -- 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me refine that. The -- if 

7 you're talking about the correspondence letter, 

8 and the correspondence letter that NIOSH sends 

9 out has a tracking number at the top as part of 

10 the subject line. If you're talking about 

11 individual documents that are attached to that 

12 correspondence letter, like a dose 

13 reconstruction report, yes, it does have a 

14 Social Security number in it. If it's an 

15 activity report, yes, it does have a Social 

16 Security number in it, because we're asking you 

17 to verify certain information to be accurate. 

18 Okay? So we use a tracking number on our 

19 letter correspondence. We do provide Social 

20 Security number in -- in attached information 

21 that's relevant to the claim to make sure that 

22 we have all the relevant information and it's 

23 correct. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We're going to -- and 

25 also thank you, Mr. Darcy, for your 
92

1 presentation -- Dacey. We're going to take our 

2 break now and we'll mute the phones as well. 

3 Break till 10:35 -- or 10:30, I'm sorry. 

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

5 to 10:30 a.m.) 

6 MR. KATZ: Can someone on the phone let me know 

7 that you can hear? 

8 (No responses) 

9 Anybody on the phone? 

10 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, I can hear you. 

11 MR. KATZ: Okay, great. And just let me remind 

12 everyone on the phone -- two things. One, 

13 please keep your phones on mute. Press star-6 

14 if you don't have a mute button. And secondly, 

15 please, please don't put us on hold. We had a 

16 situation just before the break where someone 

17 put us on hold and it was -- it was interfering 

18 with discussion, so if you -- if you need to 

19 leave your phones, please disconnect and dial 

20 back in, but don't put us on hold. Much 

21 thanks. 

22 SCIENCE UPDATE

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. We're ready to 

24 resume our agenda. The next item on the 

25 agenda, which originally shows up after lunch 
93

1 but since we have modified the agenda this 

2 morning we now come to the science update and 

3 science issues. The keeper of the science 

4 issues, Dr. Jim Neton from NIOSH. Jim, 

5 welcome. 

6 DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I'm happy 

7 to present today what's become sort of a semi8 regular portion of the Advisory Board meetings, 

9 and that is the status of the science issues 

10 that NIOSH is tracking. And not -- not the day 

11 to day issues, but sort of what goes on behind 

12 the scenes to keep our program current with 

13 either the current science or fixing some of 

14 the issues that may have been resolved either 

15 internally within NIOSH or as part of the 

16 deliberative process with Sanford Cohen & 

17 Associates. 

18 I spoke last Board meeting, if you recall, 

19 about the special edition of the Health Physics 

20 Journal that went out, and we had a nice 

21 discussion of what was included in that issue. 

22 And I think the meeting before I presented 

23 largely on what was going on with dose 

24 reconstruction science issues. So today I 

25 thought I might take a little time to spend a 
94

1 little time discussing what's been going on 

2 with the issues related to the risk models. 

3 That is, the care and feeding of the IREP 

4 program that is our main driver for the 

5 Department of Labor to estimate probability of 

6 causation. 

7 If you recall, there were seven issues 

8 identified some time ago by the Advisory Board 

9 in -- in consultation with NIOSH, that really 

10 needed to be looked at over the long term to 

11 make sure that IREP was up to snuff, so to 

12 speak, with the current science. And I've 

13 listed those on -- on this particular slide. 

14 You can't see it real well, but there's three 

15 of them highlighted in light blue; that would 

16 be the first, the sixth and the seventh issues, 

17 and those are the ones that I intend to address 

18 today. That is the incorporation of nuclear 

19 worker epi studies in the IREP risk models. 

20 There was a lot of interest up front, in the 

21 beginning of this program, that the 

22 Hiroshima/Nagasaki cohort was not necessarily 

23 the best one to use for developing risk models, 

24 although it was the best at the time. And so a 

25 little bit of what we've done to look at worker 
95

1 studies and see how they might inform us as to 

2 what the risk is in the occupational setting. 

3 And number six, which is the evaluation of 

4 Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia as a covered 

5 cancer under EEOICPA. I'd like to discuss some 

6 of the progress we've made there. 

7 And finally, I'll talk a bit about what's known 

8 as the DDREF, that's the dose and dose rate 

9 effectiveness factor, and what we've done to 

10 look at that in light of what's come out in the 

11 -- in the literature over the last five years. 

12 The other issues I'll just go over briefly. 

13 Smoking adjustment for lung cancer, if you 

14 recall, we completed that some time ago. That 

15 was the adjustment based on the Radiation 

16 Effects Research Foundation reanalysis of a -- 

17 Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors where the smoking 

18 adjustment was treated somewhat differently. 

19 We've completed that. We've done a PER. That 

20 one is closed. 

21 And then the other ones, grouping of rare and 

22 miscellaneous cancers, that is the situation 

23 where the IREP program lumped together only 

24 cancers that -- 50 or more cancers -- if there 

25 were less than 50 cancers, some of them were 
96

1 combined into one single risk model to give 

2 statistical power. 

3 And age at exposure analysis is the issue 

4 related to the fact that there are some 

5 indications in the literature that when a 

6 person is exposed at an older age, the risk of 

7 developing cancer may be greater, presumably 

8 because of a -- the status of the immunology -- 

9 immulogic (sic) system or something to that 

10 effect. We're intending to look into that. 

11 And then the other one is the interaction with 

12 other workplace exposures. That is, you know, 

13 how do these risk models that are purely based 

14 on radiation exposure fair -- fair when you 

15 compare them with other expo-- concomitant 

16 exposures in the workplace such as benzene and 

17 asbestos; are there confounders modifying 

18 synergisms, that sort of thing, that would be 

19 there to -- to warrant modifying the model. 

20 But I -- I -- again, today I just want to focus 

21 on the first, sixth and seventh bullets. Of 

22 course we'd be happy to entertain any questions 

23 on the other ones at the end of the 

24 presentation. 

25 In the area of incorporation of nuclear worker 
97

1 studies, I'm kind of excited to report that 

2 we've collaborated with another division within 

3 NIOSH, that's the Division of Hazard, 

4 Evaluations and Field Studies, under a National 

5 Occupational Research Agenda -- that's a NORA 

6 intermural research award. NIOSH every year 

7 offers internal comparis-- internal competition 

8 within NIOSH researchers to -- to fund certain 

9 studies that -- that are of inter-- the broad 

10 interest to the nation. And DSHEFS has an 

11 Office of Energy Research Programs that 

12 completed a NORA letter of intent and we serve 

13 as a collaborator -- I'm a co-investigator on 

14 this project. And like I say, it has been 

15 funded. 

16 The intent of this project is to evaluate the 

17 adequacy of risk models used in setting ra-- 

18 setting radiation protection standards. Of 

19 course for the OCAS part of it, we're not that 

20 much interested in how adequate the radiation 

21 protection standards are, but certainly the 

22 risk models that are applied are of -- of 

23 importance to us. And they had a unique 

24 concept -- DSHEFS had a unique concept to use 

25 two large worker epi studies that are out 
98

1 there. One was a NIOSH leukemia study, it was 

2 huge NIOSH case-controlled study of leukemia -- 

3 95,000, I think -- leuke-- workers at various 

4 DOE sites, and they intend to expand that to a 

5 cohort of about 150,000. With that size of a 

6 cohort, it is believed that one can get enough 

7 statistical power to have some degree of 

8 information that might be useful to -- to 

9 inform on what at least the risk of leukemia is 

10 in the occupational setting, compare that to 

11 what our models predict based on the 

12 Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors. 

13 The second part of this study is to use the 

14 data for solid tumors from the Inter-- Interag15 - International Agency for Research on Cancer -

16 - that's IARC -- who recently published a 15-

17 country study examining the cancer incidence of 

18 workers from 15 countries. I think there was 

19 something on the order of a half a million 

20 workers involved in this study. And they've 

21 come out with some risk models -- risk values 

22 that could be used to be informative as to what 

23 the exposure is -- the risk is in the 

24 occupational setting. 

25 So we're -- we're pleased to be participating 
99

1 with this and we hope some -- some good 

2 information will come out of this. The 

3 interesting concept is I don't think either of 

4 these studies, in and of themselves, will be 

5 sufficient to stand alone. But I think if one 

6 weights the uncertainty -- and this is the 

7 concept that's part of the study -- if one 

8 weights the uncertainty -- the relative 

9 uncertainty of the study and combines them into 

10 a total picture, one might be able to -- to use 

11 the data in such a way as to incorporate the 

12 worker studies. 

13 I've talked about this before, the leukemia 

14 evaluation is based on about 160,000 workers, 

15 and this project is currently at the research 

16 protocol stage. It's been -- the research 

17 protocol has been drafted. It's out for 

18 external review right now. 

19 Okay, the next project I'd like to talk about 

20 is our evaluation of the Chronic Lymphocytic 

21 Leukemia situation. As you know, our 

22 regulation specifically designates that the 

23 probability of causation for radi-- the risk 

24 for -- of developing chronic lymphocytic 

25 leukemia from radiation exposure should be 
100

1 equal to zero, and that was consistent with 

2 what the knowledge base that was known at the 

3 time. But we are -- we also committed to 

4 keeping abreast of current advances in the 

5 literature and are -- have made some -- I think 

6 some good headway in this area, although 

7 admittedly it's slow and probably not as fast 

8 as some would like, as -- as we've heard very 

9 clearly in a public comment session yesterday. 

10 Back up just a little bit. Since 2005 we've 

11 been looking at this -- NIOSH actually hosted, 

12 in collaboration with the Agency for Toxic 

13 Substances and Disease Registry, another part 

14 of CDC, a workshop that -- that collected a 

15 number of experts on leukemia, and specifically 

16 chronic lymphocytic leukemia. They assembled 

17 in Washington, met. A report came out of that 

18 meeting, and in fact a large portion of the 

19 British Journal of Hematology that was 

20 mentioned yesterday was devoted to the -- the 

21 progress that was made in that meeting, the 

22 findings and the observations. 

23 Out of that, it is pretty clear that there is 

24 compelling evidence, at least to our know-- our 

25 way of thinking, that chronic lymphocytic 
101

1 leukemia should not be excluded. We also went 

2 out independently and solicited expert opinion 

3 from five experts on chronic lymphocytic 

4 leukemia, and I would say that the -- the 

5 response was not unanimous, although I would 

6 say that it was highly skewed towards the idea 

7 that CLL should be considered radiogenic, 

8 although we did get a mixed -- mixed input. 

9 So given that -- that chronic lymphocytic 

10 leukemia could potentially be radiogenic, or 

11 cannot be not considered radiogenic, there's 

12 two things that need to happen. One is you 

13 need to have a risk model, and second is you 

14 need to have a method to be able to do the dose 

15 reconstruction. The risk model is a little 

16 tricky, because chronic lymphocytic leukemia 

17 doesn't express itself until much later on in 

18 development. People go for years with chronic 

19 lymphocytic leukemia and oftentimes it's 

20 diagnosed at a routine physical. It's also 

21 been misdiagnosed quite a bit because, as was 

22 mentioned yesterday, there are a number of 

23 similar type blood -- blood abnormalities that 

24 -- that it could be mistaken for. In fact, it 

25 is correct that now small lymphocytic lymphoma 
102

1 and chronic lymphocytic leukemia have been 

2 considered to be one disease by the World 

3 Health Organization. 

4 I'm sorry, is -- 

5 MS. BLAZE: Can I just ask a question? 

6 DR. NETON: Sure. 

7 MS. BLAZE: If they are considered 

8 (unintelligible) -- 

9 MR. KATZ: Excuse me -- excuse me, could you 

10 please come to the mike? Thanks. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Who's asking the question? 

12 MS. BLAZE: If they are considered the same, 

13 SLL and CLL, what would be prohibitive in using 

14 the risk models already established for SLL, in 

15 the best interests of time? 

16 DR. NETON: We'd have to look at both -- the 

17 problem is that they both have not been studied 

18 epidemiologically very well. The information 

19 is not out there. But it would be -- well, let 

20 me -- let me get to our -- our risk model and 

21 you'll see. That's basically what we're going 

22 to do. 

23 The risk model that we've been developed is 

24 similar to a lymphoma model. Even though CLL 

25 is considered leukemia, it behaves more like a 
103

1 lymphoma. The difference is that chronic 

2 lymphocy-- I don't want to get too technical 

3 here, but chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a 

4 disease where the blood that -- the B 

5 lymphocytes in the blood system just -- don't 

6 die like they would in a normal population. 

7 They don't undergo what's call apoptosis. So 

8 since they have a much longer life span than a 

9 normal cell, they tend to accumulate. 

10 Well, it's much different than a -- say a 

11 leukemia where you have a proliferation of 

12 cells that just swamp the system. This is a 

13 situation where there's a normal rate of 

14 production, but they just don't die and so they 

15 build up in the system, which is slightly 

16 different than small lymphocytic lymphoma, 

17 which is a nodular agglomeration of cells in 

18 different parts of the body. So they -- they 

19 have somewhat different diagnoses. In fact, 

20 it's probably considered now that they're 

21 different stages of the same disease, more than 

22 likely, although that's not universally 

23 accepted. There's still some debate going on. 

24 Nonetheless, the risk model that we picked is 

25 similar to a lymphoma model, except that we 
104

1 have an extended latency period. CLL takes 

2 some time to exhibit its -- its 

3 characteristics, sometimes out to 20 years. So 

4 to be real quick and not get too technical, 

5 suffice it to say that we would use a lymphoma 

6 model with an extended latency period, with 

7 some -- some adjustments. 

8 What's become a more difficult issue, though, 

9 is the dose reconstruction method. One has to 

10 know what tissue to reconstruct to come up with 

11 a dose and a probability of causation. The 

12 target organ for CLL could be either the cells 

13 in the bone marrow or any cell throughout the 

14 entire lymph system. So, you know, what to do? 

15 What do you -- what do you pick (electronic 

16 interference) (unintelligible) claimant 

17 favorable and pick the highest organ. But what 

18 happens in that particular case is if one 

19 selects the tracheobronchial lymph nodes, one 

20 ends up with huge -- and by huge, I mean 

21 800,000-rem doses to the tracheobronchial lymph 

22 nodes -- which virtually then says that every 

23 CLL that we would encounter was 80, 90 percent 

24 probability of causation, virtually all 

25 compensable, which is inconsistent with all the 
105

1 epidemiologic evidence that's out there. 

2 So we're working right now to resolve that 

3 issue. That's taken some time. The current -- 

4 I just got the draft report on this last week 

5 about the proposed -- draft methodology now -- 

6 that was -- was based on extensive review of 

7 the literature, and (unintelligible) 

8 probabilistic model that would use the 

9 inventory of the weighted average of potential 

10 CLL precursor cells in the body -- that is, 

11 knowing the trans-- knowing the residence time 

12 of the B-cell lymphocytes throughout the body, 

13 and there is a lot of information on this; 

14 there's a -- we've reviewed dozens of studies 

15 on this -- we would do the weighted average of 

16 the cell and then incorporate the uncertainty 

17 of that weighted average into -- into the dose 

18 distribution. 

19 And that's where we are right now. It's taken 

20 some time to assemble that body of literature, 

21 but I'm optimistic that this is going to move 

22 forward. We need to do some -- some more 

23 calculations, but we're as close -- closer than 

24 ever, I guess -- so I'll -- I'll leave it at 

25 that. 
106

1 Of course, once we do decide this as -- this as 

2 part of our regulation, then it will involve 

3 rule-making and having to go back out and 

4 public comment and all that sort of -- or 

5 formal -- formal things that accompany rule6 making. 

7 Okay, the other -- the other issue I'd just 

8 like to touch on briefly is the evaluation of 

9 the dose and dose rate effectiveness factor. 

10 Just to remind everyone, the DDREF reduces the 

11 risk value models for low dose and low dose 

12 rate radiation, which accounts for the possible 

13 curvature in the dose response model at lower 

14 doses and at chronic exposure situations. This 

15 is sort of -- even though one says that it's a 

16 linear no-threshold hypothesis, in reality it's 

17 generally accepted that there is -- it is more 

18 of a linear quadratic model which 

19 mechanistically can be accounted for by damage 

20 of DNA and double-strand breaks and repair, 

21 that sort of thing. 

22 It only applies, though, to low LET radiation. 

23 That is photons and X-rays, and in this 

24 particular case it's applied as an uncertainty 

25 distribution to the risk model. Now because of 
107

1 that, it's a direct multiplier on the risk 

2 model, it can have a huge impact on the 

3 relative risk of any type of cancer that we -- 

4 that we model. 

5 Just to give you an example and as a reminder, 

6 this is right out of the IREP documentation, 

7 this is what's currently in IREP for solid 

8 cancers other than the breast and thyroid. And 

9 you see we have sort of a histogram type 

10 distribution that assigns a DDREF of the 

11 highest frequency of .3 at 1.5 and a value of 

12 2. And remember, these would be -- you divide 

13 the risk model value by this value, so 

14 essentially if you have a DDREF of 2, the risk 

15 model goes down by half. 

16 We allow for possibility that the DDREF can be 

17 as high as 5 -- a one percent chance, as you 

18 see on the far right -- and as low as .5, which 

19 means it would actually -- the risk is -- which 

20 implies that the risk is higher at -- at low 

21 doses and dose rates. The mean value of this 

22 distribution, if one calculated it, would be at 

23 1.8. 

24 So we're -- we're re-looking at this, and 

25 partly this has been prompted by the release of 
108

1 the BIER VII report that indicated that the 

2 DDREF in their model would have a central 

3 estimate of 1.5 with a 95 percent confidence 

4 interval -- is what you see on the screen -- 

5 between .8 and 2.7. It's slightly different 

6 than -- than what we're currently using. 

7 However, we want to exercise caution. This 

8 would -- this would affect virtually every case 

9 that was exposed to low LET radiation, so we 

10 want to be sure if we -- if we change anything, 

11 we've got -- we've got it right and we've got 

12 the best science in play. 

13 So to get to that, again, we've done a 

14 comprehensive review of the literature and have 

15 reviewed over 300 references that are out there 

16 available to inform us on DDREF. We looked at 

17 a number of studies, including radiobiology, 

18 microdosimetry and epidemiology. There's a -- 

19 there's virtually a boom in -- in studies out 

20 there looking at -- at low dose effects now, 

21 primarily in the area of -- you might have 

22 heard of adaptive response and bystander 

23 effects, those type of things, and epigenetic 

24 effects. There's a lot of information out 

25 there. It's -- it's a real rich field right 
109

1 now to be looking at. 

2 We've got this report prepared, but we think 

3 it's prudent at this point to send it out for 

4 external peer review. And as part of our 

5 normal process, we're going to select five 

6 expert reviewers, send it out to them, get 

7 their opinion as to what the recommendations in 

8 the report are currently, and -- and move on 

9 from there. 

10 Okay, just a few other things that are 

11 happening in the background. We've initiated a 

12 formal verification and validation of the NIOSH 

13 IREP calculations. I want to quickly interject 

14 that we don't believe there's anything wrong 

15 with the calculations. We believe they're 

16 right. We also don't want to imply that they 

17 haven't been quality -- gone through any kind 

18 of quality assurance. All these calculations 

19 have been -- been reviewed. The issue is that 

20 we don't have a single big, thick document 

21 where they're -- all been assembled and -- and 

22 reviewed in accordance with a very defined 

23 protocol. So we're going back to reassemble 

24 all the studies that have been done and -- and 

25 assemble it in one location so that when one 
110

1 asks the question can you show me what you've 

2 done, we've got it in one handy location. 

3 We've asked SENES Oak Ridge, our contractor on 

4 this, to do this for us. And I'm hopeful that 

5 we can get this done within the next eight 

6 months. 

7 This is a little bit of an extension of what 

8 I've talked about in the past. The BEIR VII 

9 risk model comparisons are underway. BEIR VII 

10 came out with some -- some of their own 

11 versions of risk models. The problem is that 

12 they're not directly compatible to what we're 

13 doing. They have lifetime attributable risk 

14 calculations, not all cancers have been 

15 modeled, and -- there's another issue there, 

16 not all cancers, lifetime -- oh, and sometimes 

17 they use mortality data, sometimes they use 

18 incidence data. So we're trying to -- to fit 

19 these into our general scheme where we have a -

20 - actually a version of IREP running in the 

21 background, a developmental version, if you 

22 will, that is running these calculations trying 

23 to see what effect they might have on our -- 

24 our IREP program; more importantly, reviewing 

25 the new solid cancer incidence data that's 
111

1 coming out of the Radiation Effects Research 

2 Foundation. You know, they're continually 

3 updating this even though the cohort is -- some 

4 been exposed 60 years ago. People are 

5 continuing to develop cancer and they're being 

6 recorded and evaluated, and those data we 

7 believe are some of the more solid data that we 

8 can use in -- in moving these models forward. 

9 So we're reviewing it, evaluating the incidence 

10 data. It's incidence data which is much better 

11 for our situation. And we expect the leukemia 

12 analysis to come out shortly, as well, on top 

13 of the solid tumors. So we have -- we're 

14 working on those -- those issues. 

15 Also a new UNSCEAR report was just released. 

16 And if you recall when we -- we reported to 

17 Congress on cancers that we think should be 

18 added to the presumptive cancer list, we 

19 indicated that we thought basal cell carcinoma 

20 should be added, but we also indicated that we 

21 knew that the UNSCEAR report was -- release was 

22 imminent -- turned out that was a year or two 

23 ago, but it just finally came out -- and we 

24 want to review that new UNSCEAR report that 

25 speaks of radiogenecity of cancers to see if 
112

1 anything else has popped up on the radar screen 

2 that we might want to consider for inclusion on 

3 the presumptive cancer list. 

4 And finally, there's an NCRP committee review 

5 underway now that NIOSH has funded. It is 

6 going to review the uncertainty in risk models 

7 in general, and specifically IREP as well. But 

8 you know, how one treats uncertainty in 

9 development of risk models and what do you do 

10 with the data, what's a good sampling, those 

11 type of things, and we're real excited about 

12 that. That contract I think was just released 

13 last week sometime, and so we look forward to a 

14 good -- good peer-reviewed version of how one 

15 does risk model and uncertainty propagation in 

16 -- in this business. 

17 Okay, switch gears just slightly. Seems like 

18 about once a year I report to the Board on the 

19 compensation rates by NIOSH cancer models, so 

20 this is an update of what was presented I think 

21 about a year ago, maybe last October. 

22 And I always like to start with these important 

23 caveats. One, that the results are only 

24 through August 14th. It's based on only the 

25 number of claims that have received final 
113

1 adjudication by the Department of Labor. We 

2 don't want to presume what the outcome's going 

3 to be by DOL so we only use those that have 

4 been finally adjudicated. 

5 And although it's becoming less and less likely 

6 as -- as the number gets larger, these rates 

7 might be skewed by the dose reconstruction 

8 efficiency process. In other words, we might 

9 pick classes of claims to do because we can do 

10 them now, and that may artificially inflate 

11 certain cancers -- the results for certain 

12 cancers. And because of that, they might not 

13 be predictive of future results. 

14 And to make it simple and easy to compare, we 

15 tried -- we are only comparing claims that have 

16 one reported primary cancer. We didn't want to 

17 get involved where you have three or four 

18 cancers. I mean it's hard to describe, you 

19 know, how that works, so we only took claims 

20 that had one individual -- you know, one 

21 primary cancer for comparison. 

22 Okay, here -- here is the list, and I've got a 

23 comparison here of 2008 versus 2007 -- oh, did 

24 I miss a page here? Yeah, sorry, I went too 

25 fast. 
114

1 Lung cancer has turned out to be the highest 

2 compensable cancer at 79.1 percent. It's moved 

3 up about nine percentage points since last 

4 year. That by and large is reflective, I 

5 believe, of the way we handle missed dose for 

6 internal exposures to actinides. Virtually, if 

7 you inhale -- or had the potential to inhale an 

8 actinide -- plutonium, uranium, thorium -- in a 

9 DOE facility, even if all your bioassay samples 

10 were below the detection limit, it is 

11 conceivable to come up with enough dose, and 

12 oftentimes does, to make lung cancer 

13 compensable. So that -- that's where that 79.1 

14 percent is coming from. 

15 You see out of the top -- one, two, three -- 

16 top seven, there are four leukemias listed, and 

17 they are fairly high. Leukemia happens to have 

18 a risk model that doesn't require much dose. 

19 The dose from leukemia is in the -- you know, 

20 rems range, not tens of rems or a hundred rem 

21 like some of the other cancers, so it doesn't 

22 take a lot of -- a lot of dose to -- to get to 

23 the 99 -- to get to the 50th percentile for -- 

24 for the leukemias. 

25 Interestingly, basal cell carcinoma, which is 
115

1 one of the cancers I just mentioned we 

2 recommended be added to the presumptive cancer 

3 list, is being compensated at a rate of about 

4 66 percent. I think largely that's a 

5 combination of two things. One is that the 

6 cancer model itself doesn't require a huge 

7 amount of dose. But secondly, I think we are 

8 fairly generous with our assignment of dose to 

9 -- from beta emitters at facilities. There's a 

10 lot of missed dose associated with beta -- beta 

11 emissions, particularly working with uranium, 

12 and I think there's a lot of -- lot of dose 

13 provided through that process. 

14 I've only listed the first 15, I think, or so 

15 cancers, down to the -- anything that was 

16 greater than 15 percent. 

17 Other respiratory cancers are reflective of the 

18 -- of the missed dose model as well. 

19 Lymphoma is interesting. It's gone up a bit, 

20 and if you recall, last year we changed our 

21 target organ for handling lymphomas, with the 

22 exception of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Our handling 

23 of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas now will very often 

24 now target the tracheobronchial lymph node, 

25 which does deliver some huge doses, and I think 
116

1 that's where we're seeing some increase in 

2 compensation rate for lymphomas. 

3 The rest of these, you can read them as well -- 

4 thyroid, gall bladder, bone cancer. 

5 Interesting, eye cancer at 19 percent. There's 

6 not many cases, though. I think that 

7 represents only four cases or so. That's 

8 another thing I have to be careful of. Some of 

9 these cancers that show high percentages, there 

10 might be only one or two that were compensated 

11 out of the pool. 

12 I've just listed here on the next page the 

13 overall compensation rate as of this August 

14 14th. There's a 33.8 percent chance of 

15 compensation with a single primary cancer now, 

16 compared to 28 percent a year ago. And if one 

17 has multiple primary cancers, the compensation 

18 rate is 48.5 percent, making the total for all 

19 claims that we've received and processed and 

20 DOL has finally adjudicated to be 37.5 percent. 

21 I intended to have a slide -- or a handout at 

22 this meeting that listed all the cancers and 

23 the percentages. And unfortunately, due to cut 

24 and paste error, I had to pull that back. So 

25 some of the Board members may have received a -
117

1 - a single sheet that had the listing of all 

2 the cancers and cases. If I didn't get it back 

3 from you, I would appreciate -- I think I got 

4 them all, but it was a cut and paste error. We 

5 will amend that document. We issue it to the 

6 Advisory Board and post it on our web site as 

7 soon as we -- as soon as we get a chance. 

8 Just to finish up here, I've listed the cancers 

9 where less than two percent of the claims have 

10 been compensated, and you can read them -- 

11 connective tissue, rectal cancer, pancreatic 

12 cancer, nervous system cancer -- which includes 

13 the brain. There's -- it's commonly held in 

14 some circles now -- I don't know where this 

15 arose -- that no brain cancers have been 

16 compensated. There actually have been a 

17 couple. The brain -- the nervous system model 

18 requires a fairly high dose to reach the 99th 

19 percentile, and in general in the DOE complex, 

20 after about 1960 or so, the external doses just 

21 aren't that great and the blood/brain barrier 

22 keeps any internally-inhaled material from -- 

23 from depositing in the brain tissue, so it's -- 

24 it's hard to get enough dose into the brain 

25 tissue to get to the 99th percentile, but 
118

1 certainly not impossible. 

2 There's only two cancers -- cancer models that 

3 have zero percent compensation rate, and those 

4 are -- as they were last year -- female 

5 genitalia and cancer of the ovary. 

6 That completes my formal remarks. I'd be happy 

7 to answer any questions if there are any. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Jim. Jim, 

9 could you remind us of the process that would 

10 be required to add to the presumptive list, 

11 such as for the basal cell carcinomas. And if 

12 -- well, I have a follow-up on that, but go 

13 ahead and -- 

14 DR. NETON: Well, Ted or others -- or Larry can 

15 correct me, but I believe it would have to 

16 require Congressional action. It was part of 

17 the original Act and, as such, would require 

18 Congress to amend that language to include 

19 additional cancers. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: My follow-up was is there a 

21 requirement that we be in step with the 

22 veterans' program and the miners' program -- 

23 compensation programs. They have a similar 

24 list of -- of presumptive cancers, so would 

25 that affect all the lists then? 
119

1 DR. NETON: No, not to my knowledge. I don't 

2 think there's any requirement that they be in 

3 step, although it would certainly be in the 

4 best scientific interests if they were. But 

5 sometimes the way regulations are written, you 

6 know, sometimes science is not the main driver. 

7 I don't know. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so it's -- requires 

9 Congressional action, but how does that -- how 

10 is that initiated? Is that something NIOSH 

11 would initiate? For example, what role would 

12 this Board play in something like that? 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, NIOSH has taken its action. 

14 We provided a report to Congress, and so 

15 someone in Congress will have to pick up that 

16 report and prepare a bill adding that cancer, 

17 or whatever the Congress decides to do with it, 

18 to the presumptive list. And whether or not 

19 they would add it across all of the 

20 compensation programs that use a presumptive 

21 list would be up to Congress. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm kind of asking what 

23 degree of sort of proactive activities are 

24 required? I mean they have a report, but is 

25 there any sort of proactive action that is 
120

1 required, either by the agency or by this 

2 Board, to stimulate action? 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: I am not aware of any action 

4 that's required. Certainly there's -- the 

5 Board may have -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Well, required may not be the word 

7 I want, but -- 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: The Board has some discretion to 

9 advise the Secretary of HHS that NIOSH has 

10 prepared a report, submitted it to Congress and 

11 -- and you would, I assume, you know, concur 

12 with what we've reported. I think our action 

13 at this point in time, as Jim has indicated in 

14 his presentation, is to examine the new 

15 information that's come out and determine 

16 whether or not there are other cancers besides 

17 basal cell that we would recommend be added. 

18 And if so, then we'll provide an additional 

19 report to Congress in that regard. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: And that would occur after you 

21 review the -- the recent report by UNSCEAR? 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: The UNSCEAR report, yes. 

23 DR. NETON: That was just released within the 

24 last month or so, to my knowledge. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. John Poston? 
121

1 DR. POSTON: Jim, I think we'd all agree that 

2 the ABCC or the RERF, as it's known now, is 

3 perhaps not the best set of data but it's 

4 certainly the largest and most studied. But -- 

5 and we also learned this morning that not all 

6 government agencies talk to each other. And I 

7 wondered if you'd talked to the International 

8 Health programs in DOE because they have access 

9 to all the Russian data, and that is chronic 

10 exposure, which is much more relevant to what 

11 we're talking about here. And the contact over 

12 there is Barry Fontos*, and I would recommend 

13 that NIOSH take a look at that information 

14 'cause they have internal exposure to 

15 plutonium, external exposure, all the things 

16 that we're talking about here. And the -- the 

17 nice thing is, if you want to say radiation 

18 exposure's nice -- is that it's all chronic. 

19 And there are some doses that are right up 

20 against the limits, so they're not zeroes. 

21 There's significant doses to mo-- a lot of the 

22 workers. 

23 DR. NETON: I -- I appreciate that input. We 

24 certainly travel in similar circles with the 

25 other agencies. There's only so many people 
122

1 interested in this type of stuff, so we -- we 

2 do go to meetings where we're aware of those 

3 studies, and we've been tracking them as well, 

4 but I think your suggestion to contact them 

5 directly is -- is a good one. One of the 

6 issues I know with some of the Russian studies 

7 is the doses are almost too high in some cases 

8 where people are getting fibrotic lesions in 

9 the lungs from their plutonium depositions and 

10 so you have to be careful in interpreting that 

11 information. 

12 DR. POSTON: Oh, yeah, there's plutonium 

13 pneumonitis. 

14 DR. NETON: It's -- it's interesting data. I 

15 agree with you, it's a good -- it's a good 

16 cohort to follow up on. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Roessler? 

18 DR. ROESSLER: My comment is on slide number 

19 nine with regard to your update from BEIR VII. 

20 It seems to me the big impact that you're 

21 talking about is reducing possibly the DDREF, 

22 which makes the denominator smaller, which 

23 makes the risk higher, which seems to me then -

24 - and you did say that you would then re-look 

25 at any calculations. It seems like there could 
123

1 be more compensations then if that's put into 

2 effect. 

3 DR. NETON: If -- if we did adopt it -- I don't 

4 mean to imply that we would adopt the BEIR VII 

5 model, there are some -- we have a slightly 

6 different take. I don't want to talk about 

7 draft opinions right now, but we may have a 

8 slightly different take on what the -- than 

9 what BEIR VII has indicated. But you're right, 

10 if -- if BEIR VII is true and the best science, 

11 then it would -- it would potentially reduce -- 

12 or inc-- potentially increase some of the 

13 compensations. 

14 DR. ROESSLER: So when is that external review 

15 -- when do you expect that will be finished? 

16 DR. NETON: Well, we haven't sent it out yet, 

17 but -- you know, you have to get the panel 

18 assembled, it could take six months. It's not 

19 going to be imminent. 

20 DR. ROESSLER: Enough, I'm -- may I have a 

21 question on slide six -- and I have to go back 

22 to it to remember what it was. I'll get there. 

23 Okay, yes, the evaluation of chronic 

24 lymphocytic leukemia where you talk about uses 

25 inventory weighted average of potential CLL 
124

1 precursor cells. I -- I just don't get that at 

2 all. 

3 DR. NETON: Yeah, what is the mean residence 

4 time of -- of the B lymphocytes in the body in 

5 a given location. It's -- it's -- believe it 

6 or not, it's known -- with some degree of 

7 accuracy, although not great, and we would 

8 incorporate the uncertainty. But you know, if 

9 you take the life cycle of a B lymphocyte, 

10 where does it spend its time in the body -- in 

11 all of the different lymph nodes, circulating 

12 in the bloodstream, being generated in the bone 

13 marrow -- there are -- there are -- one can map 

14 the -- the trans-- you know. 

15 DR. ROESSLER: So that would then have an 

16 effect on the organ dose that's calculated? 

17 DR. NETON: Yeah, you know -- 

18 DR. ROESSLER: How you determine what the 

19 target organ is and... 

20 DR. NETON: Well, it would actually be multiple 

21 target organs. It would be somewhat akin to an 

22 effective dose equivalent, if you want to look 

23 at it that way. 

24 DR. ROESSLER: Uh-huh. 

25 DR. NETON: Not -- not from the risk 
125

1 perspective, but as far as weighting it based 

2 on its -- it's relative amount of time in each 

3 of those organs, so you would have to calculate 

4 the dose through several different organs and 

5 then weight the effective dose to that cell 

6 based on how long it spent in each of those 

7 organs. It's -- it's complicated. It's a -- 

8 it's probably one of the hardest things we've 

9 had to do so far in this program, 

10 scientifically, as far as coming to grips with 

11 how to proceed. 

12 DR. ROESSLER: Thank you. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions? Jim, can you -- 

14 kind of put you on the spot here, but can you 

15 give me your take on the implications of 

16 bystander effect? I've -- I've been a little 

17 concerned about -- and there was some focus on 

18 this at the NCRP meeting -- 

19 DR. NETON: Yes. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- and it seems to be a real 

21 effect, but in essence it would say that the 

22 effect may show up in the cells that do not get 

23 the irradiation. 

24 DR. NETON: Right. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: That is the -- some nearby tissue. 
126

1 DR. NETON: Right. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Our system depends on calculating 

3 dose to the organ where the cancer occurs. Is 

4 -- is your take that the bystander effect would 

5 imply that the dose may occur elsewhere other 

6 than where the cancer occurs? I'll put you on 

7 the spot here but -- 

8 DR. NETON: That certainly puts me on the spot, 

9 Dr. Ziemer. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- 

11 DR. NETON: I could only speculate -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: -- it certainly seems like that's 

13 the implication that there -- 

14 DR. NETON: I think you're right, that these -- 

15 these so-called abscopal effects have been 

16 observed where one can -- as a matter of fact, 

17 there's a very interesting study that was just 

18 put out recently, I think it was in Italy, 

19 where they shielded -- they took mice that were 

20 preferentially prone to brain cancer and then 

21 shielded the head area and irradiated the rest 

22 of the body so that the brain tissue received 

23 almost no dose, or very small compared to the 

24 rest of the body, and they -- they demonstrated 

25 a significant increase in brain cancers in 
127

1 those mice. 

2 Now there's problems with that issue -- problem 

3 with that experiment, but it's an interesting 

4 demonstration of -- of that type of an effect. 

5 So I don't know. If -- if it turns out that 

6 yes, radiation that irradiated other parts of 

7 the body or -- can affect an organ -- different 

8 organ, it would have a serious impact on -- on 

9 what we're doing here, although I'd say it's in 

10 its infancy. And these things are not well11 understood. They're -- they're very 

12 interesting scientific investigations, but 

13 nowhere near ready for prime time, in my mind. 

14 But we're keeping our eye on it. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Dr. Roessler, you have 

16 an additional question? 

17 DR. ROESSLER: No, I should make my comment I 

18 guess out loud. I said that'll probably be 

19 BEIR XVII. 

20 DR. NETON: Possibly. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Any further questions or comments 

22 for -- Jim, thank you very much for that -- oh, 

23 sorry, one -- there is a comment. 

24 MR. GRIFFON: This is -- this wasn't on your 

25 presentation so I didn't want to ask this 
128

1 question, but just -- can you give us a status 

2 on the other -- you have a -- quite a few white 

3 papers that you've been -- 

4 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: -- working on on scientific 

6 issues. I just wanted sort of an update on 

7 where those -- 

8 DR. NETON: I knew Mark wouldn't let me off the 

9 hook on that. 

10 MR. GRIFFON: No, the other conversation was 

11 interesting so I didn't want to cut into it. 

12 DR. NETON: Yeah, we have several white papers, 

13 three that come to mind, that are in draft form 

14 or being drafted at this time. And those cover 

15 the three big issues in my mind right now that 

16 are related to oronasal breathing, the 

17 ingestion pathway and the third one -- I know 

18 we've got on that's been drafted on thoriated 

19 welding rod issue that was raised a while ago. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: And those are -- 

21 DR. NETON: But there are still other issues 

22 out there -- 

23 MR. GRIFFON: -- out soon or any -- any time 

24 frame? 

25 DR. NETON: I would hope so. I can't give you 
129

1 a time frame right now, I'm sorry. There are 

2 just so many competing and conflicting things 

3 going on right now, but -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: And the only other quest-- 

5 DR. NETON: We do need to get those done, 

6 though. And one in particular because that's 

7 affecting the procedures closeout of a number 

8 of issues. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: The only other question I had was 

10 on the -- the one slide showed smoking and 

11 cancer and complete, and I agree with that, but 

12 I've raised this since -- since -- I think the 

13 first time I talked about it was in the 

14 Mallinckrodt workgroup, which goes back to -- I 

15 don't know, '04? I don't know when it was. 

16 But the question of smoking and the effect on 

17 the dose or the int-- the lung dose, and I know 

18 that ICRP-60 has some discussions of it, some 

19 proposals from modifying factors to adjust the 

20 dose if a person smoked, so that's sort of -- 

21 DR. NETON: Yeah. Yeah. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: My question was does that affect 

23 things the other way for -- you know, would -- 

24 it -- 

25 DR. NETON: Well, I thi-- 
130

1 MR. GRIFFON: -- may increase your lung doses 

2 and therefore offset the -- you know, the IREP 

3 side of things. 

4 DR. NETON: Well, it -- it would only really 

5 affect lung cancers because we're talking about 

6 -- 

7 MR. GRIFFON: And they're highly compensable 

8 anyway, I know, yeah, so -- 

9 DR. NETON: -- you're talking about long-- 

10 longer residency time in the lung, which 79.1 

11 percent -- 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

13 DR. NETON: -- are already getting compensated, 

14 and would decrease the dose then, by 

15 definition, for the -- the systemic organs. So 

16 you know, I -- it would be hard to predict, 

17 sitting -- standing up here, how that would 

18 play out. But I'm, again, not certain how the 

19 -- the models are known with sufficient detail 

20 for us to be able to do that. We've talked 

21 about this before. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I did -- I raised it 

23 because it -- scientific issues, I'm not saying 

24 it's a real -- 

25 DR. NETON: I agree. 
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1 MR. GRIFFON: -- priority right now, but I 

2 think that's something that -- 

3 DR. NETON: It's something that we certainly 

4 should -- 

5 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

6 DR. NETON: -- should keep -- keep on the -- 

7 the table and keep our eyes open. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: One other thing occurred to me 

9 after Mark's question, and that is -- I -- I 

10 don't recall if this is part of the scientific 

11 issues slate, but I know that after the super S 

12 issue arose, and was addressed by this Board 

13 and by NIOSH and by SC&A, that an interest 

14 developed on the part of ICRP on the super S 

15 issue and modeling that. Can you tell us 

16 what's developed from that? 

17 DR. NETON: Yeah, I appreciate the reminder of 

18 that. ICRP contacted NIOSH and asked 

19 essentially for -- for the data that we used to 

20 develop the TIB-49, the super S models. And we 

21 have provided them that data, so they have it 

22 in their hands and presumably will be using it 

23 to inform them on their new models for highly 

24 insoluble compounds like that. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: So this may lead to a 
132

1 formalization of that in the ICRP system -- 

2 DR. NETON: Yeah, I don't expect that they 

3 would adopt our -- our -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- per se. 

5 DR. NETON: -- our model because it's unique to 

6 this program, but I think that just to 

7 demonstrate what we've done, which is there are 

8 -- there's substantial evidence of highly 

9 insoluble compounds of plutonium in the lungs 

10 for numbers of workers, and we've actually 

11 characterized the clearance, I think they would 

12 take advantage of that information. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Jim. 

14 We only have 15 minutes or so before our lunch 

15 break. I'm just looking at something we could 

16 pick up here quickly. I -- I thi-- I think the 

17 Chair is going to recognize Gen Roessler for 

18 the purpose of presenting a resolution. 

19 RESOLUTION

20 DR. ROESSLER: Thank you, Paul. I wish to move 

21 the following resolution. 

22 Whereas, Dr. Christine Branche has served with 

23 distinction as the Designated Federal Official 

24 for the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

25 Health; and 
133

1 Whereas, Dr. Branche is stepping down from the 

2 position of Designated Federal Official due to 

3 her recent appointment as Acting Director of 

4 NIOSH. 

5 Therefore be it resolved that the Advisory 

6 Board on Radiation and Worker Health commend 

7 Dr. Branche for her excellent service on behalf 

8 of the Board, and thank her for her service; 

9 and 

10 Be it further resolved that the Board hereby 

11 confer on her the Board's coveted Star-6 Award 

12 for her continued efforts to help keep the 

13 phone lines clear. 

14 Enacted this 3rd day of September, 2008 at 

15 Redondo Beach, California. 

16 MS. MUNN: I second that. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: The Chair recognizes this as a 

18 motion. Is there a second? 

19 MS. MUNN: Second. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: All in favor, aye? 

21 (Affirmative responses) 

22 Thank you very much. 

23 DR. ROESSLER: I would -- I would like to add 

24 that although that may appear as a joke, I 

25 think that has significantly improved our 
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1 interactions with people on the phone line to 

2 have you really be firm with them. 

3 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. If I may, thank you 

4 so much for this coveted award -- Star-6 Award. 

5 This is a -- as I understand it, a temporary -- 

6 although we don't know the time limits for the 

7 selection of the permanent Director of NIOSH, 

8 and I really appreciate the fact that we do 

9 have staff who can step in while we have this 

10 temporary change. So I -- I expect to be 

11 rejoining you and -- and -- but I do appreciate 

12 your recognizing me in this way. I have really 

13 come to really appreciate each of you and this 

14 process. It's not easy having a transparent 

15 process. We can always work more to make it so 

16 and to let people understand that we really are 

17 laboring on their behalf, although it may not 

18 always appear to be so. 

19 But thank you very much. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: We're not trying to move you out 

21 early because you -- you will be here I think 

22 the rest of the day, but it seemed like an 

23 appropriate moment to recognize you, so -- 

24 DR. BRANCHE: You certainly caught me off25 guard. 
135

1 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to go ahead and take 

2 our lunch break, but I want to check on -- is -

3 - there is a lunch prepared here that's 

4 available. We -- we took a hand count 

5 yesterday at the hotel and -- can somebody help 

6 us with that? 

7 MR. KATZ: So there -- there is a lunch -- a 

8 prepared lunch and that's at the cafeteria -- 

9 the restaurant -- Splash, called Splash. 

10 Also just want to mention, if there are any 

11 people here in the audience who plan to give 

12 public comment later, please do go and sign up 

13 with Zaida, just outside the doors. Much 

14 thanks. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And Larry, you have a 

16 comment? 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: I think it would be good order if 

18 -- if you, Dr. Ziemer, would explain where 

19 we're at in the agenda, 'cause I've gotten a 

20 couple of e-mails from people outside on the 

21 phone line wanting to know where things stand, 

22 have we had a discussion about security access 

23 and that, and so if you could update folks 

24 where we stand in the agenda, it might be 

25 helpful to them. 
136

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, on today's agenda we 

2 actually have covered everything on the morning 

3 agenda. The item called Department of Labor 

4 update was actually covered yesterday, which 

5 put us a little bit ahead. And so we also have 

6 covered now the first item that was listed for 

7 after lunch, which is the science update which 

8 we've just completed. So that's where we are 

9 on the agenda. We have completed what looks 

10 like the items through 1:15 p.m. 

11 We will begin after lunch with the project 

12 update from SC&A and continue from there. Are 

13 there any questions on that? 

14 (No responses) 

15 Okay. Then we'll recess for lunch and be back 

16 at 12:30. 

17 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:20 a.m. 

18 to 12:36 p.m.) 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We're ready 

20 to resume our deliberations. Before we return 

21 to our agenda, just a comment from our 

22 Designated Federal Official. 

23 MR. KATZ: Yes, just -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: In training. 

25 MR. KATZ: In training. Just -- just to remind 
137

1 everyone on the phone, please put your phone on 

2 mute. Yes, I would like to win that Star-6 

3 Award, too. Please put your phone on mute, and 

4 if you don't have a mute button, use star-6. 

5 And also please don't put us on hold. If you 

6 need to leave the phone for a while, just 

7 disconnect and dial back in. Much thanks. 

8 PROJECT UPDATE

9 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Ted. We're going to 

10 proceed on the agenda in the order that it 

11 appears. We -- again, we are about 45 minutes 

12 ahead of the schedule, but that's fine. We'll 

13 continue to -- to go. We'll begin with the 

14 project update from SC&A, and Dr. Mauro is 

15 here. John, welcome, and give us the update 

16 and then we'll have a chance for some 

17 discussion. 

18 DR. MAURO: Good afternoon, everyone. Good 

19 afternoon, everyone. For those of you who 

20 haven't met me before, I'm John Mauro and I've 

21 been the project manager for SC&A for the past 

22 five years -- sort of surprised the fa-- those 

23 five years went by pretty quickly. 

24 What I'm going to do is give a fairly high 

25 level overview of where we are, what we've 
138

1 accomplished, what we've yet to accomplish, and 

2 -- but we can dive into the weeds anywhere 

3 you'd like, on any particular project, where we 

4 are, its status and so forth. So please, as 

5 I'm going through the presentation, feel free 

6 to question any one of the projects where 

7 perhaps there in the middle of the workgroup 

8 meeting and may want to get a little bit of an 

9 update of where we are on any particular item. 

10 I'm going to start at the end. I always like 

11 to start a presentation with the bottom line. 

12 The bottom line is that we -- our co-- our 

13 project, which began in 2004, had an overall 

14 budget of $13.4 million. We spent $11.7 

15 million of that over the five-year period. 

16 We've got $1.7 million left. That's good news, 

17 and let me explain why. 

18 Our contract is ending I guess the first week 

19 in October, and I know we're about to enter -- 

20 and there's going to be a recompete, and 

21 there's always a time period where, between the 

22 current contractor and the new contractor. 

23 We're in the fortunate position of having 

24 sufficient resources, without having to go for 

25 additional resources, to keep the project going 
139

1 at its current pace for several months. So 

2 work can be assigned. Workgroup meetings can 

3 be held, et cetera, et cetera -- as far as I'm 

4 concerned, seamlessly, because we have $1.7 

5 million left in our budget. Okay? That's the 

6 good news. The good news is that we have 

7 plenty of resources to keep the Board's work 

8 moving forward. 

9 The bad news, however, is that -- as I've 

10 explained in the past -- though all of our 

11 deliverables, everything over the entire five12 year period, will have been delivered by the 

13 end of this month, I can't say the same for the 

14 closeout process for all of those deliverables. 

15 As you all know, workgroup meetings and the 

16 closeout process has been quite a protracted 

17 process, and there's still a lot of work to be 

18 done. And the bottom line is this: To really 

19 complete -- given all the work that we had to 

20 do over these five years, all the work products 

21 that we delivered, we estimate right now, as 

22 best we can tell, that there really is not 

23 sufficient resources to close everything out -- 

24 our -- you know, and that may take a year or 

25 more if we -- going to go forward with a 
140

1 closeout process for all the procedures, all 

2 the site profiles, all -- all the work we've 

3 done. So we anticipate that though we have 

4 $1.7 million left in the budget and we can 

5 continue work, the reality is there's still a 

6 lot of closeout work that yet -- is yet to be 

7 done and more resources will be needed to do 

8 that. 

9 In theory, that will continue with the next 

10 contract, whoever that might be. So -- so 

11 right now where we are is we've expended 87.3 

12 percent of the budget. We have $1.7 million 

13 left in resources. We're at a burn rate at 

14 about $300,000 a month. It's been consistently 

15 at that rate. And in general about half of 

16 that revenue goes toward new work, new site 

17 profile reviews, new SEC petition reviews, new 

18 dose reconstructions, procedure reviews, and 

19 about the other half goes toward the closeout 

20 process where we have workgroup meetings. And 

21 -- and it's -- strangely enough, it's been 

22 continuous -- fairly a flat burn rate, which 

23 makes it a lot easier for me to manage, that we 

24 don't have these ups and downs. 

25 Now we get abou-- into the -- get into -- a 
141

1 little bit more into the details. Let's start 

2 with Task I, which is the site profile reviews. 

3 In this -- and there'll be a series of two or 

4 three slides to cover all of the site profile 

5 reviews that we have been asked to perform. 

6 On the first column we als-- you'll recognize a 

7 lot of the site profile reviews, and I -- I 

8 have two major columns to the right of that. 

9 One is the status of it. What I mean by 

10 status, did we deliver the big volume to you 

11 folks, and if -- and if it says completed, the 

12 answer is yes, we have delivered that report. 

13 The next column, that says closeout status, 

14 says whether or not we have been through the 

15 workgroup meetings and closed out all of the 

16 issues associated with that particular site 

17 profile review. And as you -- and now we're 

18 going to go down that list, but you can see on 

19 this first page -- which, by the way, is more 

20 or less in the order in which they were 

21 authorized us to perform -- and we have by and 

22 large completed -- as you know, we've completed 

23 Bethlehem Steel, we've completed Mallinckrodt, 

24 the first version of Savannah River Site. If 

25 you remember, Savannah River site profile 
142

1 review actually had two phases to it. First 

2 one's completed, but the second one is still 

3 ongoing. There is a -- there is an active 

4 workgroup and we're still addressing the 

5 closeout process. The only other -- the -- as 

6 you move down the list you can see which ones 

7 are completed -- when I say -- in terms of 

8 we've closed everything out, there really is 

9 nothing more -- no more activity on the working 

10 groups, although that doesn't mean they won't 

11 be -- they could not come back to life again. 

12 We've completed -- as we go down, Nevada Test 

13 Site; Nevada Test Site -- and you'll see some 

14 notes right to the right of it, we believe that 

15 where we are in Nevada Test Site -- we've 

16 really gone through all the issues in the site 

17 profile review, but a lot of those issues have 

18 re-emerged in a different -- in the form of the 

19 SEC petition review process. So -- and we'll 

20 talk a little bit about that when we get to 

21 Task V. 

22 So from this table you could sort of just scan 

23 down, look at the next page -- what's important 

24 here is -- there's one particular category we -

25 - for example, draft LANL. We've delivered a 
143

1 site profile review for LANL, but we have not 

2 yet begun the closeout process. When I say we 

3 not -- have not yet begun, that means that a 

4 workgroup has not been formed and no work has 

5 been -- has gone forward in closing out the 

6 issues on that particular site profile review. 

7 Unfortunately, there are a lot of sites that 

8 fall into that category, and I'll start to 

9 flash through a little bit. 

10 You -- you could see I would say perhaps 50 

11 percent of them are in that state, and that's 

12 one of the reasons, as I mentioned earlier, why 

13 I think that though we have $1.7 million left 

14 in the budget, to closeout all of these yet to 

15 begin will require considerable resources and 

16 quite a bit of times. So in -- in essence, 

17 because of the protracted nature of the 

18 closeout process, we -- we -- you know, we are 

19 going to over-- we wou-- if this project went 

20 on for several more years and, you know, our 

21 contract didn't end in October, it will take 

22 some time and some considerably more resources 

23 than the resources allocated to close all this 

24 stuff out. 

25 I'm moving on now to a different task, unless 
144

1 anyone would like to tal-- talk some more about 

2 any one particular site profile. Now you might 

3 have some interest in where -- a little update. 

4 Brad, looks like you have a question. 

5 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, I just wanted to talk to 

6 you -- the very first one, it was INL and it's 

7 -- we don't even have a workgroup started for 

8 that, do we? 

9 DR. MAURO: That -- that's correct, INL's -- is 

10 one of the -- this might be -- is it on this 

11 page here? Yes, it is. It was one of the very 

12 early site profile reviews that we completed 

13 and it has been sitting on the shelf for over 

14 two years. 

15 Yes? 

16 MR. PRESLEY: John, we do have a working group 

17 for Los Alamos, LANL. We just haven't met. 

18 DR. MAURO: Is that correct? 

19 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

21 DR. MAURO: My -- apologize. We'll fix that. 

22 I'm going to move on to Task III. Task III, as 

23 you know, are the procedure reviews, and that 

24 has been a very aggressive working group. In 

25 effect, all our procedure reviews have -- the 
145

1 reviews themselves have been completed and 

2 delivered except for one, OTIB-66. OTIB-66, as 

3 you may recall, is -- and you probably don't 

4 recall -- has to do with tritides, and it's 

5 instrumental to several sites where tritides 

6 are an issue. We have -- I was told by the 

7 author before I came here that that document is 

8 complete. We -- our re-- the work product is -

9 - will be issued soon, and that will in effect 

10 complete our delivery of all our procedure 

11 reviews. 

12 It's important to -- to look back, remember 

13 that we delivered reviews of 133 procedures 

14 that were contained in three large documents, 

15 and then there was a smattering of other 

16 individual procedures that we reviewed. And 

17 important one, as you know, is OTIB-52. So in 

18 effect, where we are right now is we've really 

19 delivered all our work products. The only one 

20 that hasn't showed up and will show up real 

21 soon is -- is our review of OTIB-66. Not -- 

22 and everything that we're looking at, we either 

23 -- the re-- the closeout process is ongoing. 

24 Many procedures we have closed out. For 

25 example, on the first row you'll see that we've 
146

1 closed out 38 out of the 133 procedures. And 

2 then another 30 are mostly closed out. So 

3 there's a -- it's a living process. 

4 And I'd like to also add that as part and 

5 parcel to the management of this assignment, 

6 working with Wanda and the other members of the 

7 team, we've put in place a fairly sophisticated 

8 issues tracking system that seems to be working 

9 out fairly well. We worked out a lot of the 

10 bugs. In fact, we had our last workgroup 

11 meeting where we actually used it in -- in real 

12 time, just the way we're working now. We had 

13 the system up on the screen and we worked 

14 directly from it, as opposed to the -- the 

15 hand-- we usual-- have these matrices where we 

16 hand out stacks of paper, which became pretty 

17 cumbersome, especially when you're dealing with 

18 133 procedures, each of which may have ten or 

19 15 comments. So I think we've gotten pretty 

20 sophisticated in not only keeping track of the 

21 status of the issues, but we now have a -- 

22 almost like a legacy document. The way in 

23 which we achieve closure has been completely 

24 documented and is being completely documented, 

25 so anyone who would want to go back to an ar-- 
147

1 have an archive document to see how did we go 

2 from an issue that we've identified and how -- 

3 how was it eventually closed, and the rationale 

4 for closing it. So even though that's not on 

5 this slide, it was -- I think it was a very 

6 important accomplishment. 

7 Task IV are the dose reconstruction reviews. 

8 In effect, over the five-year period we were 

9 authorized to review 240 dose reconstructions, 

10 and they came out in groups. There are 

11 essentially ten groups. We have delivered all 

12 of our reviews except for the last set of 40. 

13 It's a very large document that's going to show 

14 up on your desk before the end of September 

15 that will be completing the last batch of dose 

16 reconstructions that we owe you. But the 

17 closeout process is very mu-- is alive and 

18 well. A lot of work is going on with the 

19 working group to close out those issues, and 

20 there's a lot more work that needs to be done. 

21 I'd like to point out, though, that there are 

22 within the scope of work that -- I guess the -- 

23 really the -- the ball's in the court of the 

24 Board. We owe you 20 additional DR reviews 

25 that we have not yet received to do. So in 
148

1 other words, in -- in effect, when we're done 

2 by the end of September, we will have delivered 

3 to you 220 dose reconstructions, but the last 

4 20 we -- have not been turned over to us yet to 

5 perform. 

6 Similarly within the scope of work for -- for 

7 this task, we had -- we budgeted for four blind 

8 dose reconstructions. We have basically 

9 completed two of those and are about to deliver 

10 those before the end of the month. But the 

11 other two we have not been authorized or 

12 assigned yet. So in a way, I guess -- with re13 - with regards to this task, unlike the others, 

14 I guess the -- the Board has 20 additional 

15 cases to identify that -- so we fill up our 

16 240, and two additional blind dose 

17 reconstructions. 

18 Task V, SEC petition reviews and their 

19 associated evaluation reports. And what we 

20 have is -- I've listed everything that we've 

21 done. It starts off ver-- the first row -- 

22 first two rows you -- I'm sure you don't 

23 recall, but one of the first things we were 

24 asked to do is to write procedures that would 

25 be used by SC&A to -- to re-- and the Board to 
149

1 review -- and this is a document that's on file 

2 and it's served us well -- and also to prepare 

3 a critique of the protocols that are being -- 

4 were used -- the procedures that were being 

5 used by NIOSH. And those were delivered and 

6 the reviews have been complete, so those first 

7 two items you see complete across. 

8 Now the next -- the third row down, we have 

9 been assigned 18 SEC petition 

10 reviews/evaluation reports over the five-year 

11 period and -- and we could start marching down 

12 and you could see on this page the -- the -- 

13 you could see which ones we've completed in 

14 terms of delivering a report, and which ones 

15 have been completed in terms of we've gone 

16 through the closeout process -- Y-12, we're -- 

17 we're -- we're completed. The Ames site, it's 

18 completed. Rocky Flats, completed, all the 

19 issues have been addressed, resolved -- that 

20 doesn't mean there may not be some residual 

21 issues that I know you're concerned about, but 

22 from SC&A's perspective, I think we've 

23 fulfilled our obligations in delivering all the 

24 work products associated with the closeout 

25 process. 
150

1 Chapman Valve, as you know, I think we're 

2 largely completed but there's still perhaps a 

3 little more that needs to be done because I 

4 know that there's still some questions before 

5 the Board. 

6 Blockson, as you know, is -- I -- I call it 

7 essentially complete. I'm not sure if there's 

8 much more that SC&A can do. 

9 And as we move down, Fernald, we delivered our 

10 report; Hanford, we delivered our report but, 

11 as you know, they're very much active in terms 

12 of the issues resolution process. 

13 LANL is in a sort of a unique position. We've 

14 been -- though we've been authorized to do an 

15 SEC review of LANL, we also have been asked to 

16 sort of stay in a holding pattern until we get 

17 further direction from the Board, so -- so no 

18 action is being taken at this time and as -- 

19 regarding the review of the LANL SEC. 

20 Nevada Test Site, though the site profile has 

21 been completed, the Nevada Test Site SEC 

22 petition is very active. There are a number of 

23 issues that we're currently engaged in, and a 

24 number of work products that we will be 

25 delivering to the Board soon. 
151

1 Mound is very active, we're working on that -- 

2 that as we speak. 

3 There was a -- a -- a Lawrence Livermore 

4 focused review that we delivered, and I believe 

5 all our work is completed. I think we've 

6 answered the Board's questions regarding that 

7 particular matter to -- to your satisfaction. 

8 Texas City was recently completed. Now we're 

9 getting to the ones that are relatively 

10 current. The Texas City focused review has 

11 been delivered. However, really there has been 

12 no action taken related to that matter. 

13 The Dow -- the Dow site pro-- SEC petition -- 

14 really there are two of them. There is the 

15 portion that deals from 1957 to 1960; we 

16 delivered the report. And I believe there 

17 largely -- that our work is -- is essentially 

18 complete. I think the closeout process is 

19 essentially complete. I -- I don't think 

20 there's very much more that SC&A will be 

21 involved in on that matter. 

22 Then there's a second part of Dow which deals 

23 with post-1960. We have delivered our report 

24 and that work -- the way we see it -- is 

25 largely complete, but I think that there may be 
152

1 still some workgroup activity related to that 

2 particular SEC petition. 

3 And the last item here is something that we 

4 haven't spoken about for a while. It is part 

5 of our scope of work under Task V, and this has 

6 to do with the 250 workday issue. You remember 

7 the-- there was some question -- is what about 

8 the workers who were at a site where an SEC was 

9 granted but they worked there for less than 250 

10 days and -- but there was some potential for 

11 them to have experienced a relatively high 

12 exposure in that time period. We've delivered 

13 a number of work products related to that 

14 matter, but I consider this still to be 

15 ongoing. I think there's still some concerns, 

16 some decision-making, some technical 

17 information that the Board may wish and the 

18 workgroup may wish to explore. So I left that 

19 as ongoing. 

20 With that, that basically is an overview. What 

21 I'd like to -- the major deliverables that we 

22 owe you -- as I said, our contract will end in 

23 the -- early October, but we do owe you 

24 material. There is the -- some of the material 

25 we're going to deliver and we'll be done with 
153

1 in terms of delivery. Some of it is 

2 protracted. For example, the first bullet says 

3 ongoing site profile closeouts. I think that 

4 that is going -- there are many site profiles 

5 that are currently in the process of a 

6 workgroup, engaged in closing out the issues. 

7 There are many site profiles where a workgroup 

8 has not formed yet, and that process has not 

9 begun. I see that as a long-term process. 

10 We owe you Weldon Spring site profile review. 

11 That is the last site profile review that's on 

12 our agenda that we owe you, and we will deliver 

13 that before the end of September, and that 

14 would effectively complete all our site profile 

15 review deliveries. 

16 I mentioned earlier with regard to procedures, 

17 we still owe you a review of OTIB-66 -- and 

18 that is instrumental, by the way, and important 

19 to the review of Pinellas and other sites where 

20 tritides are at issue. We -- that document has 

21 been basically complete and it will be 

22 delivered to you before the end of this month. 

23 We owe you, under Task IV, the ninth set of 40 

24 cases. We will deliver that product to you by 

25 the end of this month. And we owe you two 
154

1 blind dose reconstruction reviews that will be 

2 delivered by the end of the month. 

3 Finally, there is the ongoing SEC review 

4 process. The ones that are foremost before us 

5 as of this point in time include Mound, 

6 Fernald, Hanford and NTS as being the -- what I 

7 would say major undertakings -- undertakings 

8 that SC&A is very active in helping to resolve. 

9 This slide just points out that there are 20 

10 DRs and two blind dose reconstructions, as I 

11 mentioned earlier, where we are really awaiting 

12 the Board to authorize us to do the work. So 

13 of course we haven't taken any action on that. 

14 It's -- it's something that we're on the 

15 receiving end. 

16 In theory, there are four SEC petition reviews 

17 that you could authorize us to do that are 

18 within the scope of our current mandate but 

19 have not been authorized as of yet. And of 

20 course the second bullet, ongoing closeout 

21 process, awaiting new workgroups to form to 

22 address site profiles that have not yet been 

23 activated. So this is in effect the work that 

24 remains to be done. 

25 And again, just to summarize the budget status, 
155

1 as of August 1st we had $1.7 million. We are 

2 at a pace of about $300,000 a month, sometimes 

3 we'll -- we'll actually reach $340,000 per 

4 month, which really means we have enough 

5 resources to keep the current pace that we're 

6 at going right through into December. But then 

7 after that we will run out of money. And of 

8 course, though, I was told by David Staudt that 

9 we probably will be receiving a no-cost 

10 extension to our contract. Our contract ends I 

11 believe October 10th, which in theory means all 

12 work stops. But we were told that we will be 

13 receiving a no-cost extension and I'm not quite 

14 sure to what time period, but we are in a 

15 position that if a no-cost extension is 

16 granted, and let's say it's granted up through 

17 sometime in December, we do have sufficient 

18 resources to continue the Board's work up 

19 through that time. I believe sometime in 

20 December we will run out of money and we will 

21 have to stop work, unless there are some 

22 additional funds made available. 

23 And of course during that time period there's 

24 going to be the recompete for our contract. I 

25 was told that just today the request for 
156

1 proposal came out, it's on the web, and -- and 

2 of course SC&A will be putting our proposal 

3 together. My guess is it takes some time for 

4 that decision to be made, which will affect the 

5 time period over which the -- our no-cost 

6 extension would -- would continue. 

7 Any questions? 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, John, for a 

9 very concise update and review. Let's see -- 

10 MR. STAUDT: Hey, Dr. Ziemer? 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Is someone on the line? 

12 MR. STAUDT: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, this is David 

13 Staudt, how are you? 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, hello, David. 

15 MR. STAUDT: Yeah, I just wanted to chime in 

16 and -- and verify that in fact the SC&A 

17 contract will be extended for two months, 

18 through November, and the plan would be to have 

19 the -- the follow-on contract awarded before 

20 the end of November, if all goes well. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Basically that would take them to 

22 -- from October 10th through December 10th? Is 

23 that right? 

24 MR. STAUDT: About -- I'm thinking right now 

25 that would be -- the modification will go 
157

1 through December 1st. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, roughly two months. 

3 MR. STAUDT: Right, exactly. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: And is there an expectation that 

5 the new contract would be or-- would be awarded 

6 by then? 

7 MR. STAUDT: I'm going to do my best. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. I won't make you 

9 promise, but at least you're shooting for that, 

10 it sounds like. 

11 MR. STAUDT: That is correct. So I -- so I 

12 think from the Board's perspective, you know, 

13 Dr. Zei-- John Mauro has laid out the tasks 

14 that can get done and their best efforts to 

15 finish work through December -- I mean through 

16 -- sorry, through December 1st. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, we can talk about 

18 additional tasking in more detail tomorrow, but 

19 John, you did have some suggestions on possible 

20 site profiles that might be addressed and 

21 possible SECs. Do you want to tell us what 

22 those are now? 

23 DR. MAURO: Yeah, in fact I have my notebook -- 

24 I jotted them down and I don't -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let's -- I -- I have your 
158

1 memo so let me share. 

2 DR. MAURO: Help me out, please. Thank you. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: SC&A -- and we won't decide this 

4 now, but for the Board to be thinking about for 

5 our work session, John has suggested that if we 

6 want to make any new assignments -- and keep in 

7 mind, basically the money that's been set aside 

8 now is for closing -- 

9 DR. MAURO: That's correct. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: -- it's not really for new work, 

11 but -- 

12 DR. MAURO: Correct. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- let me give you this and then 

14 some caveats. 

15 UNIDENTIFIED: Hello? 

16 DR. ZIEMER: New site profiles: Brookhaven, 

17 Kansas City Plant -- 

18 UNIDENTIFIED: What's that? 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Brookhaven, Kansas City Plant and 

20 Lawrence Berkeley. New SECs might be Savannah 

21 River -- 

22 UNIDENTIFIED: Hello? 

23 DR. ZIEMER: -- construction workers, Pantex -- 

24 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- Santa Susana -- 
159

1 UNIDENTIFIED: Can you hear me? 

2 DR. ZIEMER: -- and Los Alamos. 

3 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay, I can he-- 

4 UNIDENTIFIED: Can you hear me? 

5 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Is that David still on? 

7 UNIDENTIFIED: I can hear you. 

8 MR. STAUDT: That -- that's not me, Dr. Ziemer. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: It's still David. These are just 

10 suggestions that we got from SC&A. Now John 

11 said with respect to the new site profiles, 

12 should the Board ask them to initiate the work, 

13 they would suggest that it be limited to what 

14 they call paper studies so that the work can be 

15 completed during the no-cost extension period. 

16 Also -- 

17 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: -- well, you've talked about the 

19 resources -- 

20 UNIDENTIFIED: I talked to Mike 

21 (unintelligible) -- 

22 DR. ZIEMER: -- to do the other closeouts, but 

23 you couldn't do full site profile reviews and 

24 expect to -- to complete them and have a 

25 closeout on the funds available. 
160

1 DR. MAURO: Yeah, in fact I -- with regard to 

2 both the site profiles and the SECs, I think it 

3 would -- we would not be able to complete that 

4 work product and deliver the report in that 

5 time frame. My thoughts were that -- I call 

6 them paper studies because a lot of the time 

7 that's involved is visiting the sites, 

8 interviewing workers, getting feedback, and 

9 then doing further records searches. 

10 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. 

11 DR. MAURO: That's -- and that is a protracted 

12 process, typically four months, to be able to 

13 really go through the full process according to 

14 our procedures. Should the Board want any work 

15 to be done on those subject areas, and to make 

16 sure that there is a smooth transition between 

17 our current contract and a future contract, 

18 ideally you'd have a paper study done where -- 

19 for example, let's say we were to review 

20 Brookhaven, as an example. What did we be -- 

21 what we would do is review the Brookhaven site 

22 profile and its supporting documentation on the 

23 site query database, and write a report on that 

24 basis alone. That is, it'd be purely based on 

25 the records that are immediately available to 
161

1 us on the site query database, and we would 

2 identify our initial set of issues and the 

3 rationale for our issues, and deliver what I 

4 would call an abbreviated version of the 

5 report, which would really get to the -- the 

6 issues as they appear before us within the site 

7 profile and it's supporting site query 

8 database, but not go any further than that. I 

9 see that as doable in the time frame, and it 

10 also creates a situation where you have a work 

11 product that allows for easy transition to the 

12 next contractor because you'd have a -- the -- 

13 the issues will have been identified with their 

14 rationale, and at that point if a different 

15 contractor is aboard, it's something that the 

16 baton can be handed over pretty easily. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, that's very helpful. 

18 See if there's additional questions. Yes, 

19 Brad. 

20 MR. CLAWSON: I -- I guess, and I know I'm 

21 conflicted on this but my question is -- I was 

22 on the INL. My understanding is for the last 

23 two years we've had this site profile sitting 

24 there and X amount of dollars to be able to 

25 finish that. Would you guys be able to finish 
162

1 that site profile? 

2 DR. MAURO: The -- the site profile review has 

3 been completed, it's been -- it was completed 

4 over two years ago. Quite frankly, we've 

5 learned a lot over those two years. I would 

6 sure like to take another look at that, read 

7 through it and see if there are other issues 

8 that may become apparent. It's -- it's -- it 

9 was during the early days and so the -- the 

10 answer to your question is, I would suggest 

11 that if INL were to become on the front burner, 

12 first thing to do would be to ask SC&A to 

13 review it, take another look at it, see if 

14 there's any additional issues that may have 

15 gone away because we've addressed them in the 

16 interim over that two-year period on some other 

17 venues, other issues that may become apparent 

18 because we've gotten a little bit smarter over 

19 those years, and then prepare what I would call 

20 a ma-- a revised matrix to reflect our current 

21 thinking about those issues. And then of 

22 course at that point would be the point at 

23 which there would be a workgroup meeting, but a 

24 workgroup has not been formulated yet for INL. 

25 That would be -- I would say what I just 
163

1 described would be something that would be 

2 doable within that two-month time frame, but 

3 that's about it. We really could not go very 

4 far on the closeout of those issues. I think 

5 the best we'd be able to do is perhaps 

6 articulate the issues in a current way, in a 

7 matrix, get it into a workgroup's hands, 

8 perhaps get them into NIOSH's hands for them to 

9 take a look at, but I don't think there's much 

10 more than that that could be done between now 

11 and the end of October. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Let me insert here, Brad, that I 

13 think one of the limitations would not be with 

14 SC&A but would be with this Board and NIOSH. 

15 You know what it takes to close out a matrix -- 

16 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- in terms of workgroup time, 

18 NIOSH response time, so the -- the matrix in 

19 essence, even if you added nothing or took away 

20 nothing, the matrix as it exists, or the 

21 findings as they exist, would be very difficult 

22 to close out in two months -- 

23 DR. MAURO: No. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: -- for this Board and for NIOSH, 

25 simply the time and effort it would require of 
164

1 us to -- through a workgroup process, to close 

2 out a site like INEL. 

3 MR. CLAWSON: Well, and -- and I understand 

4 that. My -- part of my thing is this -- this 

5 is I guess kind of a personal thing. It sat on 

6 -- it's sat on this shelf for two years, we've 

7 had money set aside for it, you know, we have 

8 money and time. I know that it'd probably 

9 extend on to it, but I -- I guess this is kind 

10 of at the point I'd like to -- we haven't even 

11 had a working group for that by now. This has 

12 -- this has been put there and nothing's been 

13 done. I know there's a lot of issues in there 

14 and so forth and I'd just -- I just -- you 

15 know, looking at we do have money for this that 

16 has been set aside and I guess I'd just like to 

17 see it get started, but we can take that up in 

18 the Board's working time. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: And -- and the reality is, of 

20 course, in the past year -- actually past two 

21 years, the -- the pressure on workgroup 

22 activities and contractor activities has been 

23 focused on SECs because there are timetables 

24 associated with those that we have to respond 

25 to under the law. So things like this then get 
165

1 moved to the back burner. 

2 Other -- other comments or question for John on 

3 his report or on the transition -- which may be 

4 a transition back to SC&A or to another vendor, 

5 we don't know at this point. 

6 Wanda? 

7 MS. MUNN: John, this is -- this is getting 

8 down in the weeds a little bit, but as you 

9 probably recall from our last procedures 

10 workgroup meeting, we had a fairly extended 

11 discussion about white papers that get issued 

12 but don't seem to go anywhere and how we could 

13 incorporate those into the long-term archive 

14 record that we were generating from procedures. 

15 Have we located yet a spot electronically where 

16 white papers that have been generated by SC&A 

17 have a face sheet put on them showing the date 

18 and the -- the author and a -- a place for them 

19 to live so that we can actually -- 

20 DR. MAURO: Absolutely, yes. In fact, one of 

21 the most important aspects of this archive are 

22 white papers, because very often the issues 

23 that we address are -- are an exchange of 

24 technical information between SC&A and NIOSH in 

25 the form of white papers, and it's essential -- 
166

1 and we knew that from the very beginning when 

2 we helped configure the -- the ma-- the 

3 computerized matrix we're currently using on 

4 Task III, yes, there's a -- there's a -- a 

5 place that-- within the system where you click 

6 on that particular issue and you could go and 

7 immediately it brings you to any white papers 

8 that were loaded into the system that are 

9 associated with that particular issue. So the 

10 answer's yes, that's already there. 

11 MS. MUNN: And -- and I guess my question is do 

12 we have a place where they get loaded into the 

13 system? That's my concern. 

14 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

15 MS. MUNN: There's a spot. 

16 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

17 MS. MUNN: So -- good. 

18 DR. MAURO: It's there. 

19 MS. MUNN: All right. 

20 DR. MAURO: And it's waiting to be used. In 

21 fact, we identified one at the last meeting. 

22 If you recall, NIOSH had a response to our 

23 OTIB-52 -- 

24 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

25 DR. MAURO: -- a whole series of answers. 
167

1 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

2 DR. MAURO: And we had some nice discussion -- 

3 well, what do we do with this. I think the 

4 outcome was let's load them into that slot, and 

5 that's exactly what we did. 

6 MS. MUNN: It needs to go to the place -- 

7 DR. MAURO: Goes to the place. 

8 MS. MUNN: -- wherever the place is. 

9 DR. MAURO: Yeah, it -- it -- basically a file 

10 that's standing behind the face sheet that, if 

11 you click on, it brings you right to it. So 

12 you could say okay, here's the white paper that 

13 was generated during -- that was -- that was 

14 issued during this workgroup meeting that 

15 addresses OTIB-52 issues. 

16 MS. MUNN: So at this time, that place is in 

17 fact the procedure itself. 

18 DR. MAURO: Yeah, it's in -- it's in it. It's 

19 part of the automated system. The answer's 

20 yes. 

21 MS. MUNN: It's a suborder of the -- 

22 DR. MAURO: A sub-- 

23 MS. MUNN: -- procedure itself. 

24 DR. MAURO: -- a subset. 

25 MS. MUNN: Okay, thank you. 
168

1 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Any other comments or 

2 questions? Did you have -- 

3 MR. KATZ: Just a -- it's not on this topic, 

4 though. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 

6 MR. KATZ: Just an encouragement -- again, if 

7 there's anyone here who plans to speak at the 

8 public session later, please do sign up at the 

9 break outside with Zaida sitting at the table. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: If we don't have any other 

11 comments or questions at this time, I thank you 

12 again, John Mauro -- 

13 DR. MAURO: Thank you. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: -- for your report. I will insert 

15 an additional comment here. I want to again 

16 announce that the Fernald workgroup will be 

17 meeting today at 15 minutes after the recess of 

18 this Board, which would be approximately 4:15. 

19 But whatever time we recess, then that 

20 workgroup will meet. The announcement of that 

21 meeting has appeared on the web site. 

22 Individuals and members of the public who are 

23 not here locally that wish to participate can 

24 use the current call-in number for this meeting 

25 to participate in that workgroup, and the 
169

1 public recorder will also be recording -- 

2 making a transcript of that. That workgroup 

3 will not involve an extensive meeting, but I 

4 think they're estimating approximately a 30-

5 minute meeting to get some issues underway for 

6 -- relating to the Fernald site. And again, I 

7 believe efforts have been made to reach the 

8 petitioners to make sure that they know that 

9 that meeting will occur. 

10 MR. CLAWSON: I've personally contacted them 

11 and talked to them on the phone. 

12 SEC PETITION UPDATE

13 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. The next 

14 item on our agenda -- we're going to go ahead 

15 with the -- the item which occurs after the 

16 break on the agenda, but we're -- again, we're 

17 about 45 minutes -- almost an hour ahead, so 

18 we're going to continue with the SEC petition 

19 update. LaVon Rutherford from NIOSH will give 

20 us that overview of where we are on SEC 

21 petitions. LaVon, welcome back. 

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. 

23 Ziemer. Again, I will be giving that update on 

24 current SEC petitions. We -- we do this 

25 routinely at the Board meetings to -- this 
170

1 gives the Board a chance to get a status report 

2 on current petitions that are in the qual-- 

3 that are qualified and also potential 83.14 

4 sites that we're looking. This also allows the 

5 Board to prepare for future workgroup meetings 

6 and also in preparation for future Board 

7 meetings. 

8 As of August 18th -- and I have to say that, as 

9 of August 18th, because that number changes 

10 continuously -- we had 125 petitions. We now 

11 have 127 petitions. We have 14 petitions that 

12 are in the qualification process, and we have 

13 62 petitions that have qualified. 

14 Of those 62 petitions, nine of those are 

15 actually in the evaluation process, and 53 have 

16 completed their evaluation. We also have 49 

17 petitions that did not qualify. I will note 

18 that at the last Board presentation we had 114 

19 petitions, and so we've receive 13 petitions 

20 since the last Board meeting. Of those 13, 

21 seven of them are from one site. 

22 I want to give you a little background on some 

23 existing evaluation reports that are with the 

24 Board awaiting recommendation. 

25 Chapman Valve, we approved that evaluation 
171

1 report and sent it to the petitioners and the 

2 Advisory Board on August 31st of 2006. We 

3 presented the evaluation report at that Septem4 - at the September 2006 Advisory Board meeting, 

5 and the Advisory Board established a workgroup 

6 during that meeting as well. 

7 The workgroup initially presented their 

8 findings in May of -- at the May 2007 Advisory 

9 Board meeting, and a decision was made to 

10 postpone any recommendation till the July 2007 

11 meeting to allow the petitioners time to 

12 receive SC&A's report on the evaluation. 

13 The Advisory Board voted 6 to 6 on a motion to 

14 deny adding a class to the SEC at its July 2007 

15 meeting. Following this vote the Advisory 

16 Board determined they would like to receive a 

17 response from Department of Labor and 

18 Department of Energy concerning potential 

19 covered work at the Dean Street facility. 

20 Prior to the October 2007 Advisory Board 

21 meeting Department of Labor provided a response 

22 to the Advisory Board's question about the Dean 

23 Street facility. They recommended -- or they 

24 determined that the Dean Street facility would 

25 be added -- added. DOE provided that update 
172

1 during the November 2007 Advisory Board 

2 conference call. 

3 DOE presented their findings at the January 

4 2008 meeting that there's no -- or that the 

5 Dean Street facility should be included as a 

6 covered facility, but there was no indication 

7 of any additional radiological activities. 

8 NIOSH indicated at that meeting that we would 

9 revise the Chapman Valve evaluation report 

10 based on the DOE findings, but also indicated 

11 that we did not expect that the -- the findings 

12 to change our -- our feasibility determination. 

13 We issued that revised evaluation report on 

14 February 5th of 2008 and at the February 2008 

15 Advisory Board conference call the Board asked 

16 SC&A to do a focused review of the new 

17 information provided by DOE, and asked that the 

18 information be available prior to the April 

19 Board meeting. SC&A provided that report to 

20 the workgroup on March 12th of 2008. 

21 NIOSH presented the revision to the evaluation 

22 report at the April Board meeting and, as 

23 previously expected, we -- our feasibility 

24 determination did not change. The Advisory 

25 Board decided to reconvene the workgroup to 
173

1 discuss a path forward. 

2 The workgroup met on May 1st, 2008. At that 

3 time they asked NIOSH to send a letter to DOE 

4 inquiring about the extent of their evaluation. 

5 In addition, NIOSH agreed to continue looking 

6 for the pedigree of the enriched uranium 

7 analysis. 

8 The Advisory Board again voted on a motion to 

9 deny adding a class to the SEC at the June 2008 

10 Advisory Board meeting. However, the final 

11 outcome of that motion could not be determined 

12 and was not available at the time of my 

13 preparation of this presentation. 

14 Current status is the petition and evaluation 

15 report are with the Advisory Board for 

16 recommendation, and I expect an update will be 

17 provided at this meeting. 

18 Blockson Chemical, the evaluation report was 

19 initially approved and sent to the Advisory 

20 Board and petitioners on September 5th, 2006 

21 and we presented our -- that evaluation report 

22 at the December 2006 Advisory Board meeting. 

23 However, we withdrew that evaluation report 

24 because we determined at that meeting that the 

25 evaluation report did not address all covered 
174

1 exposures. 

2 At the December 2006 meeting the Advisory Board 

3 established a workgroup to review the 

4 evaluation report, and NIOSH reissued a revised 

5 evaluation report on July 3rd of 2007. 

6 We presented the revised evaluation report at 

7 the July 2007 meeting and the workgroup met in 

8 Cincinnati on August 28th of 2007. Public 

9 meeting was held in September 12th of 2007 to 

10 explain changes made to the dose reconstruction 

11 technical approach, and the workgroup held a 

12 conference call on November 2nd, 2007. 

13 At the January 2008 Advisory Board meeting Dr. 

14 Melius indicated he wanted to review the 

15 pedigree of the bioassay data, and he wanted to 

16 discuss the radon model with Mark Griffon. 

17 At the -- there was no changes in the status of 

18 the petition at the April Board meeting, and 

19 the workgroup met on June 5th of 2008. The 

20 workgroup met again on June 24th and 25th to 

21 discuss resolution of the radon issues and any 

22 outstanding issues. 

23 The Advisory Board deliberated over the SEC 

24 petition at the June 2008 meeting. However, 

25 the Board determined that they wanted to see 
175

1 the SC&A radon model in a white paper or report 

2 prior to moving forward with the voting on the 

3 SEC. 

4 SC&A issued a draft report on the evaluation of 

5 radon levels in Building 40 on August 12th of 

6 2008. 

7 And the current status, the petition and 

8 evaluation report are with the Advisory Board 

9 for recommendation. 

10 Feed Materials Production Center -- again, 

11 these are evaluation reports that are with the 

12 Board currently. 

13 Feed Material Production Center, the evaluation 

14 report was approved and sent to the Advisory 

15 Board and the petitioners on November 3rd of 

16 2006, and we presented the evaluation report at 

17 the February 2007 Advisory Board meeting. At 

18 the February meeting the Advisory Board 

19 established a workgroup to review the 

20 evaluation report. 

21 In May of 2007 SC&A provided a draft review of 

22 the evaluation report to the workgroup, 

23 petitioners, Advisory Board and NIOSH. The 

24 workgroup met on -- in Cincinnati on August 

25 8th, November 13th and March 26th of 2008. The 
176

1 August 8th was -- and November 13th were of 

2 2007. 

3 The current status is the workgroup review of 

4 the Feed Materials Production Center evaluation 

5 report is ongoing, and they have a workgroup 

6 meeting scheduled I believe tomorrow. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Today. 

8 MR. GRIFFON: Today. 

9 MR. CLAWSON: Today. 

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Today -- today? Oh, you got 

11 me. 

12 Bethlehem Steel, the evaluation report was 

13 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and 

14 petitioners on February 27th of 2007 and we 

15 presented the evaluation report at the May 2007 

16 Advisory Board meeting. At the time -- at that 

17 time the Advisory Board determined that it 

18 needed further information before making a 

19 recommendation on the SEC. The Advisory Board 

20 decided to table the discussion on Bethlehem 

21 Steel SEC evaluation report until the surrogate 

22 data workgroup had a chance to look at the 

23 report and review the data. 

24 Current status is the petition and evaluation 

25 report are with the Advisory Board for 
177

1 recommendation. 

2 Hanford, Part 2 -- I say Hanford part two 

3 because we actually -- we did this as two 

4 separate evaluations because it covered a very 

5 long period of time, and we made a 

6 recommendation for the early years. And 

7 Hanford, Part 2 is basically the -- the post 

8 years or the years after that earlier period of 

9 1947 to 1990. 

10 The evaluation report was approved and sent to 

11 the Advisory Board and petitioners on September 

12 11th of 2007. We presented the evaluation 

13 report at the October Advisory Board meeting 

14 and the Advisory Board sent the report to their 

15 contractor and Hanford working group for 

16 review. That Hanford workgroup had already 

17 been established to review the site profile. 

18 The Advisory Board's contractor issued a white 

19 paper questioning whether additional buildings 

20 should be included in the proposed class 

21 definition. Based on that and further review 

22 done by our own SEC team, we issued a revised 

23 evaluation report with a modified class 

24 definition in March of 2008. NIOSH presented 

25 the revised -- actually NIOSH presented the 
178

1 revised definition at the April 2008 Advisory 

2 Board meeting and the Board concurred with that 

3 recommendation. 

4 The remaining years of the petition and 

5 evaluation report are still with the Advisory 

6 Board, workgroup and SC&A for review. 

7 Nevada Test Site, the evaluation report was 

8 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and the 

9 petitioners in September of 2007. NIOSH 

10 presented the evaluation report at the January 

11 2008 Board meeting, and the Advisory Board sent 

12 the report to their contractor and the NTS 

13 Board workgroup for review. That workgroup had 

14 already been established as well. 

15 The petition and evaluation report are still 

16 with the Advisory Board, workgroup and SC&A for 

17 review. 

18 The Mound Plant, the evaluation report was 

19 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and the 

20 petitioners in December of 2007. We presented 

21 the evaluation report at the January 2008 

22 Advisory Board meeting, and the Advisory Board 

23 concurred with NIOSH to add a class for the 

24 early years, but sent the report to their 

25 contractor for review and established a Mound 
179

1 workgroup. 

2 The Mound workgroup met on April 1st, 2008 and 

3 on July 14th, 2008. 

4 Status of petition and evaluation report are 

5 with the Advisory Board, workgroup and SC&A for 

6 review. 

7 Texas City Chemical, evaluation report was 

8 approved and sent to the Board and petitioners 

9 on January 18th of 2008. We presented that 

10 evaluation report at the April 2008 Advisory 

11 Board meeting, and the Advisory Board gave the 

12 petition and evaluation report to the surrogate 

13 data workgroup for review. The petition and 

14 report are still with the workgroup -- 

15 surrogate data workgroup and Advisory Board for 

16 recommendation. 

17 Area IV Santa Susana, the evaluation report was 

18 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and 

19 petitioners on February 15th of 2008. We 

20 presented our evaluation at the April 2008 

21 Advisory Board meeting. The Advisory Board 

22 indicated they would not take action on that 

23 petition until SC&A had completed their site 

24 prof-- the site profile review. 

25 SC&A issued their draft review of the site -- 
180

1 Santa Susana site profile on August 5th of 

2 2008, and the workgroup scheduled their first 

3 meeting for August 26th, 2008 -- and which they 

4 had that meeting. 

5 Current status is the petition and evaluation 

6 report are with the Board and workgroup for 

7 recommendation. 

8 Dow Chemical, Addendum 2. This covers the 

9 residual contamination period for Dow Chemical. 

10 Addendum 2 of the evaluation report was 

11 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and 

12 petitioners on June 3rd of 2008. NIOSH 

13 presented the addendum at the June 2008 

14 Advisory Board meeting, and the Advisory Board 

15 asked the procedures workgroup to review the 

16 recently-approved dose reconstruction procedure 

17 for residual contamination. They gave that 

18 action to their contractor, SC&A, and I can say 

19 I -- I believe SC&A presented a draft of that 

20 review last week. This presentation doesn't 

21 show it because I had it prepared earlier than 

22 that. 

23 Current status is the procedure is still with 

24 that -- with the procedures workgroup. 

25 Pantex, evaluation report was approved and sent 
181

1 to the Advisory Board and petitioners on August 

2 8th, and I believe Mark Rolfes presented that 

3 evaluation report yesterday at the Advisory 

4 Board meeting. So the current status is with 

5 the Board. 

6 Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engineering 

7 Laboratory, CANEL, evaluation report was 

8 approved and sent to the Advisory Board and 

9 petitioners on August 14th. NIOSH presented 

10 the evaluation report at this Advisory Board 

11 meeting. I know there was some discussion that 

12 came up yesterday concerning the worker input 

13 for CANEL, and Dr. Melius and I had 

14 corresponded back and forth a couple of times 

15 with his concerns. I had indicated in our e16 mail that, you know, in addition to the CATIs 

17 that were done during that period, that -- that 

18 we also, during the data capture efforts, had 

19 talked to some people as well. We decided 

20 early on at -- we -- actually June 10th, as 

21 part of our project plan, we made the decision 

22 that we would not pursue any additional worker 

23 interviews at that time because we felt that 

24 the date we had -- there really was -- 

25 additional worker input would provide little 
182

1 value for feasibility determination. So at 

2 that time, again, we decided that additional 

3 worker input would not provide anything for our 

4 feasibility determination, nor would it affect 

5 our class definition. 

6 Additional questions on that? 

7 DR. MELIUS: Not yet, wait until we can take up 

8 CANEL. 

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Take it up -- are you sure? 

10 All right. SEC petitions that are currently in 

11 the evaluation process. We have a number of 

12 petitions that are right now in the evaluation 

13 process. 

14 Westinghouse Atomic Power Development, we 

15 received that petition on August 13th and -- of 

16 2007. However we -- we -- during our review of 

17 that petition, we recognized that there was 

18 some -- covered period was -- that was 

19 identified and work that was identified during 

20 the covered period -- our documentation wasn't 

21 really supporting that so we went to the 

22 Department of Energy with concerns over that 

23 and Department of Energy has provided a 

24 response to that. However, we are waiting on 

25 the Department of Labor to revise their covered 
183

1 period for the Westinghouse Atomic Power 

2 Development, and we have corresponded with the 

3 Department of Labor concerning that. However, 

4 we have no timetable on when. 

5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this is 

6 one that we -- we actually completed evaluation 

7 -- a 83.14 evaluation for this. However, we 

8 ended up pulling this back after it was 

9 recognized through discussions with the 

10 Department of Labor that the Hood Building and 

11 the -- MIT in itself were two separate covered 

12 facilities. However, it was not clearly 

13 described in the Department of Labor's facility 

14 database. 

15 We do plan -- a site visit was planned for the 

16 end of this month, and I'm not sure if it was 

17 conducted -- end of August it was planned and -

18 - but we do plan to present this evaluation 

19 report at the December Advisory Board meeting. 

20 Savannah River Site, we received this petition 

21 on November 19th, and that evaluation is 

22 ongoing. We do plan on completing that 

23 evaluation in November and we plan to present 

24 that evaluation at the December Advisory Board 

25 meeting. 
184

1 General Steel Industries, this petition was 

2 received in February of 2008 and we do plan to 

3 complete this eva-- this evaluation in 

4 September and present this at the December 

5 Advisory Board meeting. 

6 Los Alamos National Lab, I know there was some 

7 discussion about this workgroup being 

8 established. Some of you will remember we had 

9 a petition that covered the early -- the 

10 initial covered years at LANL up to 1975, and 

11 we made a determination to add a class up to 

12 1975. However, at that time we determined that 

13 we wanted to -- we needed to determine a true 

14 end period for that -- that class because we 

15 had not resolved all the feasibility issues for 

16 post-1975. We had indicated at that time -- 

17 and at that time a workgroup was established. 

18 Mark Griffon was the lead of that workgroup, 

19 and we had been working through that with our 

20 contractor to resolve those issues. 

21 However, in April we received another petition 

22 from LANL that covered the post-1975 period and 

23 we had determined that we would address the 

24 feasibility issues that were still laying on 

25 the table in this evaluation report. We plan 
185

1 to have this evaluation report completed and 

2 present this evaluation at the December 

3 Advisory Board meeting. 

4 Linde Ceramics, we have -- this petition is for 

5 the residual period at Linde Ceramics, and 

6 we're on schedule to complete this evaluation 

7 report in October of 2008 and present it at the 

8 December Advisory Board meeting. 

9 Brookhaven National Lab, we've had some issues 

10 getting access, getting data and -- not at -- 

11 pointed at DOE, but just some issues with the 

12 site and some problems that we've had. We are 

13 on schedule to complete this at the end of 

14 November. However, the time period is going to 

15 be very close and I'm not sure we're going to 

16 have it in time for the December meeting. 

17 Tyson Valley Powder Farm, this is on schedule 

18 to be completed -- again, this is late 

19 November, early December time frame. Howev-- 

20 this is a -- a pretty small -- there's not a 

21 lot -- lot of information or stuff about this 

22 facility, so I -- I would expect it to -- to be 

23 early December before we complete it. 

24 DR. MELIUS: Where is that? 

25 MR. RUTHERFORD: That is the St. Louis area. 
186

1 It was actually a -- a storage site that 

2 actually stored residual by-product material 

3 from Mallinckrodt. 

4 UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, okay. 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: So -- we have three sites that 

6 we are currently -- we've determined dose 

7 reconstruction is not feasible. Those -- and 

8 we are pursuing 83.14s. Mallinckrodt, we -- we 

9 looked at the -- the existing Mallinckrodt SEC 

10 class goes up to 1957. However, we determined 

11 there was still work -- we -- recent 

12 documentations and stuff has shown there was 

13 work that occurred up into 1958 that based on 

14 the -- the designation -- HHS designation 

15 letter findings and the Board's findings, we 

16 needed to add 1958 to that -- to that class, so 

17 we are pursuing an 83.14 to add 1958 to the 

18 Mallinckrodt. 

19 Vitro Manufacturing is one of the sites that we 

20 -- we had roughly 19 sites that we -- we have -

21 - went through a process of these smaller sites 

22 that -- working through with a team to 

23 determine feasibility on these sites. Vitro 

24 Manufacturing we determined dose 

25 reconstruction's not feasible and we're 
187

1 pursuing an 83.14 on that one. 

2 Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center, 

3 the -- this site we only have one claim for. 

4 That claim has a non-presumptive cancer and so 

5 we've completed the process of developing our 

6 feasibility determination. However, we will 

7 not move forward until we can get a -- a 

8 presumptive cancer (unintelligible) 83.14 

9 (unintelligible). 

10 And then there are 12 other sites that we are 

11 going through the process of determining if 

12 dose reconstruction is feasible. 

13 I do want to point out that -- or actually I 

14 want to point out that there are -- currently 

15 there are ten SEC si-- with the Board for 

16 recommendation, and the December Board meeting 

17 we're looking at about six 83.13 SECs that will 

18 be going to the Board for recommendation, along 

19 with two or three 83.14s -- SECs, so just 

20 wanted to... Questions? 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. 

22 Questions, comments? 

23 (No responses) 

24 Okay, thank you LaVon. We appreciate the 

25 update and keeping us current on all those 
188

1 activities and what's coming down the pike. It 

2 appears the December meeting we'll have a lot 

3 of SEC issues before us. 

4 MS. MUNN: Oh, goody. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Now I'm looking to see if we can 

6 pick up a few more of these items that are -- 

7 before our break. Can we go ahead with some of 

8 these? 

9 DR. BRANCHE: Certainly. 

10 ANNOUNCEMENT OF CHANGES IN NIOSH OFFICE OF THE 

11 DIRECTOR;

12 REVIEW OF REMAINING VOTES FROM JUNE MMETING

13 DR. ZIEMER: Let's go ahead with announcement 

14 of changes at NIOSH. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. As I 

16 announced yesterday, Mr. Katz will be the 

17 Acting DFO as I am now in a different capacity, 

18 and during this time I'm going to ask Ms. Emily 

19 Howell to talk more about the information that 

20 you distributed this morning about the 

21 suggestion of moving the procedures workgroup 

22 from a workgroup status to a subcommittee 

23 status. 

24 But before doing so, there was one vote from 

25 our meeting at the end of June in St. Louis 
189

1 that I needed to get -- Dr. Melius was away 

2 from that meeting and the Board voted on 

3 Chapman Valve. There was an official motion to 

4 accept the motion from -- that NIOSH suggested, 

5 that there be no Special Exposure class. At 

6 the end of that meeting there was -- there were 

7 six in favor and six not in favor -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: No, no -- 

9 DR. BRANCHE: What did I say? Six in favor, 

10 five not in favor, excuse me, and with Dr. 

11 Melius's vote we have a six to six split, and 

12 so there would be no information going to the 

13 Secretary as a result of that. 

14 And Dr. Melius I believe had some additional 

15 comments that he wanted to raise -- or no? 

16 DR. MELIUS: Not -- not now. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Not now? Okay. So that's where 

18 the vote status is on Chapman Valve, and that 

19 was the last of the votes that we needed to 

20 obtain to close out all of the actions that the 

21 Board took at the meeting in St. Louis at the 

22 end of June. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: I do want to insert a comment 

24 here, and the Board can be thinking about it. 

25 We had a six-six split on Chapman before, you 
190

1 may recall, and there were some additional 

2 issues that arose and so the Board continued to 

3 look at Chapman because with a six-six split we 

4 have nothing to recommend to the Secretary one 

5 way or the other. Again we have a six-six 

6 split, and one of the questions then becomes 

7 what -- what happens next. For example, do we 

8 report that to the Secretary for informational 

9 purposes? Do we continue to pursue anything 

10 relative to Chapman that might alter the vote, 

11 should something new arise? Or do we let it 

12 stand -- the effect of the six-six split is 

13 that there is no recommendation to the 

14 Secretary for an SEC. And in the absence of 

15 that -- or a class of the SEC. And in the 

16 absence of that, NIOSH then continues to 

17 operate as they would, and that is to do dose 

18 reconstructions. 

19 But during our work period I think we do want 

20 to discuss and ascertain the wishes of this 

21 Board relative to the impact of what that 

22 means, the six-six split, and also maybe get 

23 advice even from counsel on whether or not we 

24 should report this in some way, officially, to 

25 the Secretary. So have that in the back of 
191

1 your mind on the Chapman Valve issue. 

2 Now are we ready to hear from Emily then? 

3 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, thank you. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Now let me preface this, before 

5 Emily Howell comes -- I had mentioned it 

6 earlier, I think this morning, that this 

7 document is one that we could consider should 

8 the Board agree to change the status of the 

9 procedures workgroup to that of a subcommittee. 

10 We won't necessarily determine that now; we can 

11 do that during our work period tomorrow, but I 

12 think Emily can advise us as to what it -- what 

13 needs to be done, should we go that direction. 

14 MS. HOWELL: I don't have much to offer here. 

15 Dr. Ziemer passed out some language to you all 

16 earlier this morning that is a draft request to 

17 establish a subcommittee from the procedures 

18 workgroup, similar to the subcommittee that we 

19 currently have for dose reconstruction reviews. 

20 This was something that staff and agency 

21 officials had discussed previously, simply 

22 because one of the definitions within FACA of a 

23 subcommittee is a group that has an ongoing 

24 task associated with it for which -- it's not 

25 necessarily a finite task. And just as the 
192

1 subcommittee for dose reconstruction reviews 

2 continuously audits and reviews dose 

3 reconstructions that NIOSH has performed, the 

4 procedures working group has been doing the 

5 same with procedures. And as new procedures 

6 come forward, their task -- their -- what they 

7 are tasked with continues to expand, and so 

8 it's not really a finite work order anymore. 

9 And based on that, we thought it might be more 

10 appropriate to place that under the heading of 

11 a subcommittee, a standing group that continues 

12 to look at those standing issues. And so what 

13 you have before you is a letter that I think is 

14 based off of the language that we have used 

15 previously in establishing subcommittees. It's 

16 actually an agency determination that a 

17 subcommittee is necessary, but certainly we 

18 wanted to bring that before the Board for your 

19 input and any questions that you may have. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Again, we can make that 

21 determination during our work period, but let 

22 me ask if there's any immediate questions right 

23 now for Emily. 

24 DR. MELIUS: I don't have any -- are we going 

25 to discuss this later? 
193

1 DR. ZIEMER: We can discuss it now to some 

2 extent, as well, if you wish. We have the time 

3 to do it. 

4 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: There's no reason not to. 

6 DR. MELIUS: I would just like some explanation 

7 under -- under the functions, the six functions 

8 there, that are listed -- it's on page two. I 

9 mean for -- you know, first of all, on number 

10 two, clarify Board intend regarding the 

11 technical scope of procedures and SEC tasks 

12 assigned to the audit contractor -- I don't see 

13 where SEC tasks are a function of the 

14 procedures committee, but that may be my 

15 ignorance. 

16 MS. HOWELL: Well, I'm just -- you're looking 

17 at me and this letter is actually authored by 

18 Dr. Ziemer, so I would direct the -- 

19 DR. MELIUS: I was looking at him when I made 

20 the -- 

21 MS. HOWELL: I would direct the questions on 

22 those issues to him, but I would -- I would 

23 point out that, based on the way this letter is 

24 written, just as with the subcommittee for dose 

25 reconstruction reviews, all of the work of a 
194

1 new subcommittee on procedures would return to 

2 the Board for final action, just as the 

3 subcommittee for dose reconstruction reviews 

4 would. So I just wanted to make that clear. 

5 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. No, I -- I appreciate that 

6 and I -- 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I would point out -- I may 

8 be getting up in age, but I don't recall seeing 

9 these statements before, myself. 

10 MR. CLAWSON: Well, I can relate to that. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I would have asked the same 

12 question. 

13 MR. GRIFFON: Actually I'm not sure that some 

14 of these may have been lifted from the original 

15 language we drafted and -- and that first item 

16 we basically completed, I think. I -- I'm not 

17 sure, but I was wondering also where this 

18 language came from. 

19 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that was -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Does this match up with your 

21 description in the -- I'm going to look right 

22 now. 

23 MR. GRIFFON: I don't think the workgroup 

24 description has that much detail, yeah. 

25 MS. MUNN: No, it doesn't. 
195

1 DR. MELIUS: Would it be possible to get two 

2 documents? It might facilitate our -- our 

3 review. One -- one would be the -- the 

4 workgroup description. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Well, here's -- here's what I'm 

6 going to suggest. This document is the type of 

7 format we need for establishing a subcommittee. 

8 I -- I don't -- none of us have really looked 

9 at the content. I don't -- as I say, I don't 

10 think I did, but who knows? In other words, we 

11 would have a section describing the name of the 

12 committee, who will be the members, what its 

13 function is and how frequently it will meet. 

14 The -- the heart of this will be obviously the 

15 functions, and that we'll need to discuss 

16 tomorrow after everybody has a chance to look 

17 at this and digest it. 

18 DR. MELIUS: And -- and -- and -- can I -- what 

19 I thought would -- might be helpful, at least 

20 would be helpful to me in -- in reviewing these 

21 functions is -- one is the -- having the 

22 workgroup charge for -- for the procedures 

23 workgroup. And secondly, to have the -- 

24 similar document that was put together for the 

25 individual -- the dose reconstruction review 
196

1 committee -- subcommittee -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

3 DR. MELIUS: -- so we can see how that matches 

4 up -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let me respond to both of 

6 those right away. The last -- the latest and 

7 most up-to-date version of the workgroup 

8 charges was e-mailed to you two days ago, so if 

9 you can pull -- oh, you were having trouble 

10 with yours. 

11 DR. MELIUS: I'm having intermittent problems, 

12 and I can guarantee those intermittent problems 

13 will occur during our discussion tomorrow, just 

14 out of -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: But I -- I -- 

16 DR. MELIUS: -- the nature of... 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- have it in electronic form so 

18 we can get it printed out here as well. And 

19 then the -- 

20 DR. MELIUS: The other document that I -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: -- the other document I also have 

22 in electronic form, unless -- 

23 DR. MELIUS: Should be on the -- it's on the -- 

24 I know it's on the web site, but if someone get 

25 that into a written form so we have it in front 
197

1 of us. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we'll get it so we have them 

3 -- 

4 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean I don't think that -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: -- both tomorrow. 

6 DR. MELIUS: -- that's ask-- 'cause -- 'cause 

7 just based on Emily's clarification there, and 

8 I believe this came up also when we discussed 

9 the -- the dose reconstruction review work-- or 

10 subcommittee -- I mean I -- when looking at 

11 function, I think there's an issue of not only 

12 what is included in the functions but how those 

13 functions or those tasks are reported back to 

14 the -- the Board and there's sort of general 

15 language here under the -- first paragraph on 

16 page two, but I guess I'm -- I would be more 

17 comfortable with some specific language, but 

18 maybe that's not the usual format or something 

19 and that's why I'd like to look at the other 

20 document, also. It may not... 

21 DR. ZIEMER: That'd be helpful. 

22 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you. Brad. 

24 MR. CLAWSON: Excuse me for my ignorance and 

25 stuff, and I -- is this -- is this just to kind 
198

1 of clarify it a little bit more or by making it 

2 a subcommittee is it going to be able to make 

3 it function better or is this just more of a 

4 clarification, I guess -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: No, this -- under -- we'll let 

6 Emily speak to this, too. Under the rules -- I 

7 think this is HHS rules -- a subcommittee is 

8 one which operates under FACA -- is this not 

9 correct? 

10 MS. HOWELL: Right. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Workgroups do not, although we 

12 have opened our workgroups so they look the 

13 same. But workgroups -- we're not required to 

14 have open meetings or -- or to take -- make 

15 transcripts or have public input to workgroups. 

16 We are -- we would be on a subcommittee. 

17 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Subcommittee meetings must be 

19 announced in the Federal Register, and a 

20 subcommittee is on, which Emily described, has 

21 an ongoing activity as opposed to a workgroup, 

22 which is more ad hoc. It's going to address 

23 say Bethlehem Steel, and when it's done, the 

24 workgroup is over. 

25 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, I -- I was just wondering -
199

1 - I just was wondering if -- because we were 

2 doing something wrong or just why we were doing 

3 it and that's -- that's why I wanted to clarify 

4 -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: There's no guarantee that it'll 

6 make it more efficient. 

7 MR. CLAWSON: Well, I -- I'll look at Wanda and 

8 discuss that, but -- 

9 MS. MUNN: I'd really like it if you could 

10 figure out a way to make it work better, Brad. 

11 I'm all for that. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe it will help. 

13 MR. CLAWSON: I just -- I just wanted to make 

14 sure if -- if there was a reason -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: No, it has to do with the 

16 requirements. Any -- Emily. 

17 MS. HOWELL: Right, just because it's an 

18 ongoing function and task, it's better to have 

19 it organized as a subcommittee, and there are 

20 certain requirements that we would then have to 

21 follow, including Federal Register notices. 

22 But I think since the work of the procedures 

23 workgroup has risen to the level where having 

24 the protections of the Federal Register notice 

25 and what-not are really called for because it's 
200

1 doing such important work, just as the 

2 subcommittee on dose reconstruction reviews 

3 does, and it's ongoing in nature and that's 

4 really the main distinction we're making. 

5 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. Thank you. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: We're not saying that the Fernald 

7 work is unimportant, however, Brad. 

8 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, just wanted to make sure. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments on this -- 

10 DR. MELIUS: You know, if anybody would confess 

11 to having written this document and could help 

12 us tomorrow interpret it, it would be -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: I'll be ready to confess after I 

14 study it further. 

15 MS. MUNN: Well, there -- there are a few 

16 things that one can observe about the way it's 

17 written, even though I had nothing whatever to 

18 do with it-- with its writing. 

19 DR. MELIUS: That you remember? 

20 MS. MUNN: Well, this is a -- this issue has 

21 been, certainly for the chair of this group, a 

22 two-edged sword because what Ms. Howell had to 

23 say with respect to the level of -- of work 

24 that is now involved and the level of 

25 importance of what transpires there is 
201

1 certainly true. Moving into subcommittee 

2 status removes some of the flexibility that you 

3 have in a workgroup, and the ability to be able 

4 to call meetings quickly and meet on issues of 

5 real importance was a major issue at the time 

6 that we established this workgroup and, as a 

7 matter of fact, continues to be a concern for 

8 us from time to time. So when we're required 

9 by law to perform actions like Federal Register

10 notices, this immediately places us in a 

11 position of removing some of our ability to 

12 respond quickly to ongoing changes in 

13 procedures, new procedures that are being 

14 awaited very eagerly by either claimants or by 

15 -- by NIOSH for clearance. So it's -- it's not 

16 a clear-cut issue as to how you go. 

17 With respect to the second item there and the 

18 reference to SEC tasks, our original charter, 

19 as -- as we've reported it on line doesn't 

20 include that, but you could easily read it into 

21 the statement that we have where the workgroup 

22 is responsible for reviewing the outcomes of 

23 SC&A Task III and related assignments, which is 

24 the review of all NIOSH, OCAS and ORAU 

25 procedures used in the dose reconstruction 
202

1 process. Obviously anything that is that 

2 expansive is going to get into procedures that 

3 are used in SEC issues as well. So by -- by 

4 logical extension, one can see where that 

5 language might crop up. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: I now have discovered where it 

7 cropped up. It appears in the charge to the 

8 dose reconstruction subcommittee in a slightly 

9 different form, and I think in your original 

10 charge when you had some SEC responsibilities 

11 as well, it might have included the term SEC. 

12 Right now the -- it says clarify Board intent 

13 regarding technical scope of tasks assigned to 

14 the audit contractor. And the implication is 

15 tasks related to dose reconstruction, they 

16 would clarify them to the contractor. If we 

17 assigned doing a blind review, they would spell 

18 that out. 

19 I suspect somehow that terminology got moved 

20 here. I don't know why the SE-- and I -- maybe 

21 I did it, but obviously it would have to say 

22 procedures review tasks, certainly not SEC, but 

23 I see that it parallels what was in the other 

24 one. 

25 MS. MUNN: Yep. 
203

1 DR. ZIEMER: That's probably how it arose. But 

2 anyway, we have the opportunity to word that 

3 any way we please tomorrow, but use that as a 

4 starting point. 

5 Other comments or questions? 

6 (No responses) 

7 Okay, let's see how we're doing on time -- it's 

8 just about 2:00 o'clock. I'm going to go ahead 

9 and have us take our break. It says 2:15 to 

10 2:30. It's going to be 2:00 o'clock to 2:30 

11 because we have a -- during the break we -- oh, 

12 there's a surprise going to occur during the 

13 break. This is not part of the official 

14 business, so we -- we will not record the 

15 surprise nor let anybody know what it is, but 

16 we're going to recess for a break till 2:30. 

17 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 2:00 p.m. 

18 to 2:30 p.m.) 

19 MR. KATZ: Just checking, if someone can hear 

20 us on the phone? Hello? Is anyone on the 

21 phone? 

22 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

23 MR. KATZ: Great, thank you. And let me remind 

24 you, please, all on the phone to mute your 

25 phones, press star-6, please, and don't put us 
204

1 on hold. Disconnect instead if you have to 

2 break from the line. Thanks. 

3 SUBCOMMITTEE, WORK GROUP REPORTS

4 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. We're going to 

5 reconvene now and we're ready to start some 

6 things which were on tomorrow morning's 

7 schedule, namely reports of the subcommittee 

8 and the workgroups. So before we do that -- 

9 comment? Oh, is there a question? 

10 MS. MUNN: I was -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: You were not ready? 

12 MS. MUNN: I was not prepared to do that this 

13 afternoon, no. 

14 DR. BRANCHE: Well, fortunately you're a P, so 

15 you... 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we can do some other things 

17 and postpone that. 

18 MS. MUNN: Well, you need not postpone anything 

19 except mine. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: You won't be ready tomorrow, 

21 either. Is that right? 

22 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

23 for one and one for all. 

24 DR. POSTON: She would prefer the -- the active 

25 word, "ignore". 
205

1 MS. MUNN: Yes, this is true. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let's proceed to the extent 

3 we can, and if any need to be -- we can 

4 postpone any particular ones if necessary. 

5 MS. MUNN: I had -- it was my intent to provide 

6 two additional slides -- 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

8 MS. MUNN: -- to the presentation that I had 

9 made with respect to Blockson at the last 

10 meeting, and there will be -- just simply 

11 repeat what was there for the sake of 

12 refreshing everyone's memory, and -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: And some additional -- but we can 

14 do that tomorrow. We'll do the ones that we 

15 can and come back -- 

16 MS. MUNN: Fine. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- tomorrow, but for the sake of 

18 efficiency, just -- we'll go ahead and move 

19 ahead. Mark, are -- do you want to go ahead 

20 and report? 

21 MR. GRIFFON: On -- on which, the subcommittee? 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

23 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I guess -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: While you're getting the materials 

25 there, let me kick -- kick yours off, as it 
206

1 were, by reporting to the Board that the 

2 package for cases 61 through 100 has now been 

3 submitted to the Secretary. I e-mailed copies 

4 of that document to you all over the weekend, 

5 so if your -- if your e-mails accept fairly 

6 large sets of documents, then you would have 

7 gotten it. It does -- I think it's several 

8 megabytes of stuff. But anyway, that package 

9 has gone out so the Secretary now has reports 

10 on the first 100 cases. 

11 And Mark, do you want to take it from there? 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay. We had a 

13 subcommittee meeting -- I'm trying to remember 

14 the date. I also wasn't quite prepared, but we 

15 had a subcommittee meeting a few weeks back 

16 prior to this meeting. We did continue along 

17 our -- we're on the sixth set of case reviews 

18 and the seventh set, and we went through the 

19 sixth set matrix. We -- I think we're close to 

20 resolution on almost all findings in the sixth 

21 set, and we made it through a full first pass 

22 of the seventh set of -- of findings. We have 

23 a little more work to do on -- in that regard, 

24 but we are steadily working along. As you 

25 know, SC&A -- we're -- we're coming up on the 
207

1 tenth set of cases to -- to assign them, so 

2 we're -- we're not too far behind SC&A's work 

3 at this point, which is good. So the -- the 

4 subcommittee meetings that we have in between 

5 the Board meetings usually focus on these 

6 matrices and the individual findings for all 

7 the cases where we can have these sort of 

8 detailed discussions. And so we're moving 

9 along on the sixth set and seventh set, which I 

10 believe both have 20 cases in, so that'd be 40 

11 more cases that we're -- that we're running 

12 through the audit process. 

13 The other thing that occurred at the last 

14 meeting was we had agreed to -- to have a first 

15 100 cases sort of summary report, so -- so to 

16 date we've issued three, now that Paul just 

17 mentioned this latest one -- we've sent three 

18 separate letter reports to the Secretary. I 

19 believe it was the first 20 cases, then the -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Then 40. 

21 MR. GRIFFON: -- then 40 and then -- 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Forty. 

23 MR. GRIFFON: -- 40, right, which would give us 

24 the total of 100. And we agreed to do like a 

25 summary report of the first 100 in the -- in 
208

1 their entirety. And at the last subcommittee 

2 meeting I -- I brought out a -- a very draft -- 

3 early draft report regarding the first 100 

4 cases and asked the subcom-- we discussed it 

5 and I asked the subcommittee members for their 

6 input into that. I think we -- we nee-- it's 

7 an early draft, we need work on that so we need 

8 to work on the language, and we're also going 

9 to try to pull in some more information from 

10 NIOSH to include in that report. But it is 

11 underway. It's possible by the December Board 

12 meeting that we'll be able to bring a -- we're 

13 -- I'm hopeful that we can bring a final report 

14 back for the Board's consideration on the first 

15 100 cases in the December meeting. 

16 And finally, the last update I have -- I feel 

17 like I'm probably missing something, but the 

18 last major update item is recently we -- we 

19 were working on selecting a tenth set of cases. 

20 And as you know, we have the two-step sort of 

21 process where we preselect cases and then we 

22 ask NIOSH, based on these preselected cases, 

23 can you give us more information about how the 

24 dose reconstruction was conducted so we can 

25 kind of look at the specifics of whether it was 
209

1 a -- an overestimating approach or was a -- 

2 whether it was a best estimate or whether it 

3 included a neutron dose reconstruction 

4 component -- we had these other fields that we 

5 asked them to give us more information on. Stu 

6 Hinnefeld has now provided that in a -- in an 

7 e-mail that -- I'm not sure if you sent this to 

8 all -- all the Advisory Board or to the 

9 subcommittee, I -- 

10 MR. HINNEFELD: (Off microphone) Subcommittee. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so the subcommittee should 

12 have received this last set, and we were hoping 

13 that at this meeting the subcommittee can -- 

14 this list now is down to 22 cases, and part of 

15 the reason is that several of the cases on the 

16 original list were pulled because they were 

17 undergoing PER review or -- so they were no 

18 longer available for us to -- to access for our 

19 audit process. So we're hopeful that by the 

20 end of this meeting we can -- as -- as a 

21 subcommittee and as a Board -- basically 

22 approve 20 of those cases for SC&A to work on 

23 for the 10th set of cases. So I'm not sure how 

24 to -- to -- how to handle this procedurally 

25 'cause right now the subcommittee has this 
210

1 listing, but I'd almost say that we -- we might 

2 as well just address it as a full Board and if 

3 we can get copies of the -- that matrix to all 

4 Board members we can try to select 20 cases out 

5 of those and ho-- and that would be something 

6 we'd have to do tomorrow during our working 

7 session, if that was -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: If you can bring it to us tomorrow 

9 I think it would -- I don't think you want to 

10 wait till December to -- 

11 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, we want to -- we'd 

12 like to -- you know, we'd like to get the final 

13 -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: That -- is that the -- 

15 MR. GRIFFON: -- set in -- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- tenth set? 

17 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: And let me ask this question. On 

19 the eighth set, SC&A, have you completed all 

20 the reviews with Board members on set eight? 

21 Is John here? 

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: (Off microphone) 

23 (Unintelligible) 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Or -- or Mark, you know if 

25 -- 
211

1 MR. GRIFFON: I'm not sure on the face to face 

2 meetings where we stand -- yeah, I'm not sure 

3 on that. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, here's John. John, I was 

5 asking on set eight of the dose reconstruction 

6 reviews, have all of the reviews with the Board 

7 members been done by SC&A now on the eighth -- 

8 DR. MAURO: The eight set -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- eighth set? 

10 DR. MAURO: -- has been delivered. The big 

11 binder. 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 

13 DR. MAURO: That's in hand. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: Have you done the individual 

15 Board member meetings, you know how you -- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: The team -- 

17 MR. GRIFFON: -- the team meetings? 

18 DR. MAURO: Yeah -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: You've done the team meetings? 

20 DR. MAURO: -- it's the ninth set that I think 

21 you're talking about. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: No, I've asked about the eighth. 

23 DR. MAURO: Eighth set has been done. 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Eighth set's done and the 

25 report's been issued. 
212

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, okay. 

2 DR. MAURO: The report's issued, the one-on3 ones have been had, it's all completed and 

4 sitting on the shelf ready to go to closeout. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Ninth set you don't have team 

6 members for yet. Is that correct? 

7 DR. MAURO: I -- I have to say I don't recall 

8 receiving that letter. Usually you send me a 

9 letter with the -- 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

11 DR. MAURO: -- one-on-one connections. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think -- 

13 DR. MAURO: I don't -- I don't recall -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think that's been -- 

15 DR. MAURO: -- seeing that. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- done. Where are we on set 

17 nine? 

18 DR. MAURO: We're -- we're -- we probably -- 

19 out of the 40, I'd say we've got a little over 

20 30 done. We're going to have the rest done -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: So you will be ready for the team 

22 assignments -- 

23 DR. MAURO: I would say within -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: -- within a month? 

25 DR. MAURO: -- a week or -- no, we -- we're -- 
213

1 our plan is to finish this thing up by the -- 

2 well, by the end of this month. The only thing 

3 will slow us down is the one-on-ones 'cause 

4 we're real close to having those -- those one5 on-one meetings scheduled, so we'd like to 

6 schedule them as soon as possible. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so I'll get you team 

8 assignments -- 

9 DR. MAURO: Please. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: -- this next week. 

11 DR. MAURO: That'll be great. 

12 MR. GRIFFON: So if -- maybe if NIOSH can make 

13 hard copies of the -- the matrix that Stu sent 

14 to the subcommittee and get them -- get those 

15 to all Board members, then we can -- I'd ask 

16 that everybody just consider those. I -- I 

17 don't think we need another step where the 

18 subcommittee comes back with a consideration 

19 'cause right now it's basically down to 22 

20 anyway, and we'd like to get 20. But on the 

21 other hand, if -- if these cases don't -- you 

22 know, if -- if what's left is not reasonable, 

23 then you know, we might be less than 20 but 

24 we'll at least get some cases to SC&A out of 

25 this listing, is my hope. And we -- I'd like 
214

1 maybe to take that up during the working 

2 session tomorrow. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Right. In fact, what -- what you 

4 might do, Mark, we might just ask the full 

5 Board to, in a sense, approve the full 20 in 

6 case you lose one between now and when they 

7 actually are reviewing. You've lost some 

8 simply because -- 

9 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: -- they've been pulled for one 

11 reason or another. 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Would that -- 

14 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I just want to make sure 

15 that all Board members take an opportunity to 

16 look through them, though -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: -- because if we look down and -- 

19 sometimes what we thought were going to be best 

20 estimate cases, when you look at it, you know, 

21 it says overestimating appro-- you know, so if 

22 -- if -- if a lot of these cases don't live up 

23 to what we thought they were going to be on -- 

24 in our first screening, I'm not sure we should 

25 just do them just to do numbers, you know. So 
215

1 I'd like everybody to at least consider -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but you'll -- 

3 MR. GRIFFON: -- obviously -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- bring the 22 cases and we'll 

5 look at them? 

6 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, well, I'm asking NIOSH to 

7 distribute those now -- 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, now, okay. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: -- so everybody can have them to 

10 look at tonight and consider tomorrow. 

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Start working on it. 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah -- oh, okay. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Stu. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: Thanks. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Anything else? 

16 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I think that's it unless 

17 other members of the subcommittee -- I think 

18 that's -- brief update. 

19 MR. KATZ: The first on the list is Blockson 

20 Chemical, but we have that scheduled for 

21 tomorrow and there are people that are going to 

22 be calling in for that so we're going to skip 

23 over that and that leads us then to Chapman 

24 Valve, Dr. Poston, chair. 

25 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Ted, I'm sorry to interrupt 
216

1 -- this is Liz Homoki-Titus. I just want to 

2 remind the Board that I believe the information 

3 that Mark has asked be distributed may have 

4 Privacy Act information in it that needs to -- 

5 and those documents need to be protected. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Which information? 

7 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I believe the document that 

8 Mark has asked be distributed to the Board may 

9 have Privacy Act information in it. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 

11 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: So I just want to remind 

12 everyone that that -- those documents need to 

13 be protected from further release. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

15 MR. KATZ: Thank you. 

16 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. 

17 DR. POSTON: Mr. Chairman, we've made no 

18 progress since the last meeting, as was -- 

19 Christine indicated. The last vote that we've 

20 had, which was the second vote by the 

21 subcommittee (sic), was six to six -- or I'm -- 

22 by the -- by the Board -- 

23 DR. ZIEMER: The Board. 

24 DR. POSTON: -- based on our subcommittee (sic) 

25 recommendation. I'm a little bit at a loss as 
217

1 to where we go from here because we're now out 

2 of the realm of what we can do and into the 

3 realm of what-if, and it's very, very difficult 

4 to address those what-if issues because we -- 

5 you can continue to raise those and raise those 

6 and raise those. Right now the Board seems to 

7 be divided on -- on how to proceed and I don't 

8 know what the solution to such a -- such a 

9 thing is. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let -- let the Chair suggest 

11 something and then you can react to it. And 

12 I've discussed this with counsel. The -- with 

13 a six-to-six split, we have no recommendation 

14 for the Secretary. That is, we can neither 

15 recommend that we support the NIOSH 

16 recommendation to -- to deny or that they can 

17 do dose reconstruction, nor can we recommend 

18 that a class be added to the SEC. In the 

19 absence of either of those recommendations, 

20 there's no action that the Secretary takes 

21 because the Secretary needs a recommendation 

22 from us to move things up the chain, as it were 

23 -- that is, if he's to recommend a class to the 

24 SEC. 

25 Counsel has recommended, however, that we do 
218

1 report to the Secretary that the split has 

2 occurred, as a matter of courtesy, to 

3 officially tell him that we -- we neither 

4 support the NIOSH recommendation nor do we 

5 support a new class for the SEC, which is what 

6 it amounts to -- simply report that. In -- in 

7 the absence of any action on the SEC, the 

8 status quo continues, which would be that NIOSH 

9 would continue to do dose reconstructions, as 

10 they have for that particular site. 

11 Now it's conceivable that at some point in the 

12 future additional information might emerge. 

13 One -- this Board could instruct either its 

14 contractor or the workgroup to pursue some line 

15 of -- of investigation. Or we can, in a sense, 

16 put it to rest and say well, we've done the 

17 best we can. If new information emerges for 

18 some reason or another in the -- in the future, 

19 we can always reopen the issue. But -- at 

20 least it is my intent, unless there's an 

21 objection from the Board, to at least report to 

22 the Secretary officially that the split vote 

23 has occurred and that we therefore have no 

24 recommendation to make. And I'd like to get 

25 any reaction to that -- yes, Dr. Melius. 
219

1 DR. MELIUS: I'd like to hear from Emily about 

2 the legal implications of that, if there are 

3 any, and then from Larry or -- Larry's not 

4 here, someone can speak on behalf of OCAS -- 

5 Jim, maybe you -- I don't want to assign -- 

6 appoint somebody, but -- about the programmatic 

7 implications of that. Thank you. 

8 MS. HOWELL: Certainly a letter to the 

9 Secretary reporting that you are at a six-six 

10 vote and do not foresee any ability to change 

11 that vote is not within -- is most likely not 

12 what would be con-- termed a recommendation 

13 under the law and regulations. However, it 

14 would offer some closure on the issue for the 

15 petitioners and for the agency. I mean this is 

16 something you can discuss further, but if the 

17 Board felt that there were some additional 

18 scientific items that needed to be looked into 

19 that could have -- that could sway the vote, 

20 then I would certainly encourage you to do 

21 that. But this is the second time you've tied 

22 on this and I'm not sure I've heard anybody 

23 mention a new scientific issue that could 

24 change the outcome. 

25 So legally, you can do nothing and sit on it. 
220

1 You can send a letter to the Secretary at least 

2 advising the Secretary of where you stand. 

3 Do you have any other questions? 

4 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- no, just when you say 

5 scientific -- I think you would include that 

6 sort of technical information. 

7 MS. HOWELL: Yes, what you are -- 

8 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean -- 

9 MS. HOWELL: -- allowed to look at when 

10 determining whether or not -- 

11 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I suppose. I know you're -- 

12 we're not -- we don't look at legal whatever -- 

13 or policy or whatever. 

14 MS. HOWELL: Right. 

15 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, okay. I just want to 

16 clarify that. Tha-- thank you. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think somewhat a generic 

18 way -- further pertinent information that we 

19 would consider. 

20 DR. MELIUS: Relevant to the Board's function, 

21 I -- okay, that's (unintelligible). 

22 DR. ZIEMER: And Larry's here now. You want to 

23 -- 

24 DR. MELIUS: Teach you to leave the room, Larry 

25 -- or to come back in. 
221

1 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, we have posed the question 

2 of the implication of the six-six vote, and 

3 I've indicated that perhaps we will report that 

4 to the Secretary. But we also would like to 

5 hear from NIOSH -- 

6 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: -- I believe the implication is 

8 you would continue to operate as you have and 

9 do dose reconstructions. Is that not correct? 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: That is correct. I'm sorry, I've 

11 -- I've had to switch -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Chapman Valve -- 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Chapman Valve, and yes -- 

14 DR. ZIEMER: -- six-six (unintelligible). 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: -- in our evaluation report we 

16 determined that it was feasible for us to 

17 reconstruct doses, and that's what we are doing 

18 at this point in time. 

19 Now it comes to my mind, though, that we're 

20 going to have to turn around to the petitioner 

21 and somehow -- and we're going to have to ask 

22 general counsel to help us with this -- what do 

23 we do with closing out? Do we administratively 

24 close this petition, how do we inform the 

25 petitioner -- because I think we owe the 
222

1 petitioner some kind of re-- you know, 

2 documentation of where things stand, so -- does 

3 that answer your question? I'm sorry. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that's helpful. Jim, it was 

5 your question, do you want to pursue it? 

6 DR. MELIUS: Then I -- no, I -- that's fine. I 

7 just had another comment or question, and 

8 that's in -- I mean I wasn't at the last 

9 meeting where this was discussed but I read the 

10 -- the transcripts, and so to the extent they 

11 reflected what was discussed on the record for 

12 that and -- and I didn't hear -- see any 

13 discussion there at -- at the last meeting of 

14 potential next steps or whatever. I think the 

15 assumption was we were going to vote and then -

16 - obviously I wasn't there and so you need to 

17 collect my vote, so -- I'm sort of -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we -- we -- I thought it 

19 would be premature to talk about next steps in 

20 the absence of the vote. 

21 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- no, no, I agree, I'm not 

22 disagreeing with that, so -- so I -- I would 

23 also think that it would be helpful to talk -- 

24 are there next steps. I think the -- Dr. 

25 Poston was saying that he didn't think so, you 
223

1 know, based on his work and -- and I guess I'd 

2 like to have some, you know, further discussion 

3 of that from other people on -- on the 

4 workgroup and been involved and possibly what 

5 else was talked about at the last meeting. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: And I'll -- just to refresh 

7 memories, you recall that kind of the last item 

8 that was pursued was the enriched uranium 

9 sample and the pedigree of the identification 

10 of that. And I think we were -- were given the 

11 information that the pedigree appeared good, 

12 that it truly was enriched uranium. It was a 

13 single sample. No evidence of any other urani14 - enriched on the site, and so I think it came 

15 down to folks trying to evaluate what to do 

16 with that one single sample and the implication 

17 of that, but each one made their own decision. 

18 Wanda, you have a comment, and then John. 

19 MS. MUNN: Simply that it would appear to be a 

20 responsibility of ours to report something to 

21 the Secretary. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: And to the petition, as well. 

23 MS. MUNN: And to the petitioners. There's no 

24 other way that we can legitimately walk away 

25 from an assigned task without at least a 
224

1 commentary about how to close it. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Michael? 

3 DR. POSTON: I thought I was next. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah -- oh, you are next, and then 

5 Mike. Go ahead. 

6 DR. POSTON: Well, as I recall, there were only 

7 two samples so it's inconclusive, in my 

8 opinion, since you have one that has a slightly 

9 enriched signature and you have another one 

10 that shows no enrichment at all. It wasn't -- 

11 I think the sample that showed the enrichment 

12 was not in the area that was cons-- that we -- 

13 with which we were concerned, but it was in 

14 part of the building, I think, so that there 

15 are lots of unknowns here. The -- the working 

16 group did agree several times in several of our 

17 sub-- working group meetings that NIOSH could 

18 construct -- reconstruct the external doses, 

19 'cause they had dosimetry from film badges and 

20 so forth. And it was our -- my position, and I 

21 think some of the others on the -- on the 

22 working group position, that the approach taken 

23 by NIOSH to bound the internal doses was such 

24 that it was so conservative in terms of -- or 

25 being compensable or of applicant favorable or 
225

1 whatever the PC word is, that -- that there was 

2 -- that even if we assumed that there was 

3 enriched uranium at that low concentration of 

4 around two percent, it would only double the 

5 internal doses and it still would not make the 

6 -- the petitioners or the individuals that -- 

7 for which the dose re-- reconstructions were 

8 being made, it still wouldn't really influence 

9 their -- their dose, because the internal dose 

10 was a small part of the external dose. So that 

11 was the -- that -- that's where we left it. We 

12 don't have -- we did the best we could in terms 

13 of going beyond the pale to establish was that 

14 a real sample or not. We concluded that it 

15 probably was. It's still some question because 

16 the person at Oak Ridge who we talked to 

17 couldn't answer all the questions. It's a long 

18 time ago. He couldn't remember exactly. And 

19 we do have some statements by -- by the 

20 petitioners that they did receive equipment 

21 from Oak Ridge. We have no indication that 

22 that happens to be the truth. I'm not saying 

23 that it's not, I'm just saying we have no 

24 records of any shipments from Oak Ridge to 

25 Chapman Valve. We have a tremendous number of 
226

1 records of shipments from Chapman Valve to Oak 

2 Ridge, but no returns. So we have -- even 

3 though that's a petitioner's statement, we have 

4 no confirmation that that is in fact the truth. 

5 So -- so the -- the -- both times when the -- 

6 in the subcommittee (sic) and when it came to 

7 this committee -- to the Board, the 

8 recommendation was that the petition be denied. 

9 Okay? So that's -- that's -- that was the 

10 conclusion, so -- and members of the working 

11 group who voted in favor of that then voted 

12 against it when it came to the Board, so that 

13 leaves some question as what's going on. I 

14 mean the record will show that the first time 

15 the working group met and made the motion after 

16 considering it, the data, and made the motion 

17 that the SEC petition be denied, the vote was 

18 unanimous. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Michael, you had a 

20 comment? 

21 MR. GIBSON: Yeah. There is no evidence that 

22 additional enriched uranium work went on, 

23 there's still no explanation for that sample 

24 and no evidence to the contrary so, you know, 

25 that's just... 
227

1 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any further comments 

2 on -- on this. Mike -- Brad. 

3 MR. CLAWSON: You know, I've got to agree with 

4 it, and has John has stated, I guess one of my 

5 biggest problems and issues with it is when you 

6 look at an SEC, this ability to be able to do 

7 all these things and -- but what one of my 

8 underlying issues is is there's so many 

9 unanswered questions out there. And basically 

10 my feeling is is that we've got to err in the 

11 side of the claimant. There may not be a lot 

12 of -- we all know how terrible a lot of these 

13 records are that have come in and come out, and 

14 just because there is nothing coming back from 

15 Oak Ridge doesn't mean that it didn't happen. 

16 Some of these things still happen today. I 

17 have product that I store that I have no 

18 paperwork for because it is somebody else's 

19 product. These are some of the issues that -- 

20 that still bother me and so forth like that, 

21 and that's -- that's why we've got into this. 

22 I -- I just -- you know, we're -- we're trying 

23 to reconstruct something from how many years 

24 ago, and -- and I know it's a very difficult 

25 source, but -- but I just -- I -- I feel that 
228

1 we've got to -- we've really got to look at 

2 this and be able to give the claimants 

3 everything that we can. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we don't need to redo the -- 

5 the debate on this site, which we went through 

6 thoroughly, but we need to decide what to do 

7 going forward. Jim and then John again. 

8 DR. MELIUS: I think we also have to look at 

9 one other issue, which is what I'm trying to 

10 focus on 'cause I agree, I'm not sure redoing 

11 the debate is going to change where we were, 

12 but -- but is there some other source or type 

13 of information that -- that could be pursued, 

14 or should be pursued, that may or may not be -- 

15 be -- be helpful in -- in this effort. So one 

16 is -- is, you know, has a thorough search been 

17 done for what could be the, you know, potential 

18 types of operations at that facility and, you 

19 know, potential sources of exposure. 

20 Secondly, it's my recollection from the -- 

21 again, just from the transcripts of the last 

22 meeting and the discussion of the famous 

23 samples, enriched samples, was the -- that the 

24 -- the contact person that provided the letter 

25 report for -- for NIOSH also discussed it with 
229

1 a number of other reference -- other people 

2 that -- that he -- I believe it was a he -- had 

3 contacted that were involved in the original 

4 operation. And my -- one of my other questions 

5 would be has NIOSH directly contacted those 

6 people to see if they could be -- provide 

7 additional information. We're relying on, you 

8 know, one person having done this sort of so9 called investigation for us. Now that -- that 

10 may not be fruitful. You may have already 

11 thought about that. You may have already done 

12 that, I -- I'm going from my memory on -- on 

13 the -- the thing, but -- but I -- I think -- I 

14 like to be, before taking any action or any 

15 inaction, I guess, be assured that we had 

16 actually looked at every possibility that -- 

17 that we could. 

18 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. The letter 

19 report that we commissioned to be written was -

20 - was drafted or written by the person who was 

21 responsible for the collection of those samples 

22 and the writing of the report itself. 

23 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

24 DR. NETON: So we believe it would be the best 

25 source of information for the origin of that 
230

1 sample. I believe that the references that he 

2 made, and I'd have to go back and look at the 

3 letter report, were sort of ancillary personnel 

4 who were not there or present, and they were 

5 just more sort of reference material, but I 

6 didn't -- I didn't get the sense that -- at 

7 least when I read it -- that there was anything 

8 worth following up with the people that he had 

9 mentioned in the report. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: John? 

11 DR. POSTON: Just to correct what Dr. Melius 

12 said -- he used the word "samples," there was 

13 one sample. I'd like to make sure that's on 

14 the record. 

15 Secondly, I don't want to debate this, but in a 

16 scientific method I think it would be fair to 

17 have a way forward for the working group, and 

18 if Brad and Jim have questions that they think 

19 they would like to see answered, as chairman of 

20 the working group I'd be happy to receive those 

21 so that we can address those concerns. I don't 

22 know what those -- all those concerns are. And 

23 if there is a path forward, then let's -- let's 

24 lay it out and get it done. But right now we 

25 just have a what-if situation and I don't even 
231

1 know what the questions are the working group 

2 is supposed to answer for the -- for the 

3 members who have concerns that we haven't 

4 looked at everything. So I'll be happy to 

5 receive a list. I'll be happy to convene the 

6 working group. And we'll be happy to try to 

7 address those issues. But I -- first I have to 

8 know what they are. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Well, even if there are issues, 

10 I'm proposing that at this point I think we 

11 have an obligation to at least inform the 

12 Secretary officially as to where we are, 

13 because this particular case has -- has gone on 

14 for quite some time. We've had two votes on 

15 it; both have been split. I -- unless there's 

16 great objection from -- from the Board, I think 

17 it would be appropriate to at least report 

18 where we are. This doesn't preclude, if -- if 

19 we can identify other issues that need to be 

20 addressed, that occurring. 

21 Mark. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: I also would say -- I guess 

23 there's two -- as far as what else can be 

24 looked at or considered, I guess there's two 

25 things that I've brought up in the past that -- 
232

1 and -- and I understand, Jim's already shaking 

2 his head -- but if -- if there's been any -- 

3 any luck in finding remediation reports or that 

4 sort of thing. I don't think there has been. 

5 And then the other thread, which I think -- the 

6 only thing I -- I -- I know there's some -- I 

7 know -- I know the reasons why this is not 

8 viewed as a -- necessarily a popular 

9 recommendation, but I think it could impact 

10 many other sites, and that's to pursue this 

11 whole Naval operations question, whether there 

12 was any Naval operations there in later years, 

13 because I think -- I -- I know for a fact that 

14 several of these sites also did Naval work, so 

15 if it shows up in residual periods, this could 

16 well explain the enriched sample that's there. 

17 It could be from activities not related to the 

18 -- the AWE period, but -- 

19 DR. POSTON: Yeah. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, so those are two 

21 things. And I -- I think that they -- they're 

22 both -- I understand some concerns about doing 

23 both of those and I understand why NIOSH hasn't 

24 really chased those, especially the Naval one. 

25 But -- 
233

1 DR. NETON: That's correct. The Naval one, 

2 we've had very -- very little luck getting 

3 information out of Department of Defense in 

4 this regard. And I would also suggest that if 

5 it is a Naval sample, then it's not covered 

6 under the -- it would put closure maybe to the 

7 issue and identify it as a sample, but you 

8 know, it's not covered under this program. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: No, I underst-- 

10 DR. NETON: Secondly, though, you know, the -- 

11 we -- we looked at the closeout docket for the 

12 FUSRAP program on this site. There's like -- 

13 it's on our O drive. There's 400-plus pages or 

14 more of the closeout of that -- of that 

15 remediation effort, and we've found no 

16 indication in there about any enriched uranium 

17 samples whatsoever. We've looked at that. So 

18 I -- I am very skeptical that we would find any 

19 more information looking at remediation. I 

20 wouldn't even know where to begin looking 

21 (unintelligible) remediation. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: I thought at one point you were 

23 contacting -- was it Bechtel or -- or whoever 

24 the contractor was and you -- 

25 DR. NETON: That's true. 
234

1 MR. GRIFFON: -- you weren't able to get -- 

2 DR. NETON: We weren't able to get any 

3 information -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: -- in touch with them -- 

5 DR. NETON: -- out of Bechtel. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: -- and that was the only -- and 

7 also the waste disposal. I imagine it would 

8 have been -- 

9 DR. NETON: But again, in their -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: -- Utah or something, yeah. 

11 DR. NETON: -- in their official closeout 

12 reports for the site, with the -- with the 

13 disposition of all the materials, there was not 

14 one mention made of any enriched uranium during 

15 the closeout. 

16 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

18 UNIDENTIFIED: Excuse me -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: I understand that we have someone 

20 from Senator Kennedy's staff on the line 

21 relative to Chapman Valve. Is that correct? 

22 UNIDENTIFIED: You have someone from State 

23 Senator Sheila Kuehl's office. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 

25 UNIDENTIFIED: I was told to call in at 3:00 
235

1 o'clock today -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: No, no, no, we're still -- 

3 UNIDENTIFIED: -- (unintelligible) call. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- on Chapman Valve. 

5 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Is someone from Senator Kennedy's 

7 office on the line? 

8 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Someone... 

10 (No responses) 

11 Jason, are you here? We don't have anyone from 

12 Senator Kennedy's office identifying -- do you 

13 know if -- 

14 MR. BROEHM: We've been kind of back and forth. 

15 I understood that you were going to take this 

16 up tomorrow after your earlier discussion on 

17 the vote, so I told her no. Then I -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Oh -- 

19 MR. BROEHM: -- e-mailed her back and said 

20 we're on -- they're discussing it, so I don't 

21 know if that second message has reached her or 

22 if she able -- 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay -- 

24 MR. BROEHM: -- but I know that she wanted to 

25 speak. 
236

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, I'll -- I'll just -- 

2 I'm going to interrupt it at the moment then. 

3 We're going to interrupt Chapman Valve. We do 

4 have someone from Senator Kuehl's office on the 

5 line. This is the individual who tried to 

6 reach us yesterday evening, Laura Plotkin, I 

7 believe. Laura, are you on the line? 

8 MS. PLOTKIN: Yes, that's me, and I'm really 

9 sorry -- I mean I -- I jumped in this -- middle 

10 of this call and I was just waiting for a word 

11 I recognized -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: No, that's -- 

13 MS. PLOTKIN: -- and I heard NIOSH 

14 (unintelligible) -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: -- we knew you were calling in, so 

16 pleased to hear from you now, Laura. 

17 MS. PLOTKIN: -- (unintelligible) for -- for 

18 coming into the middle of -- of another subject 

19 here but -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: That's all right. 

21 MS. PLOTKIN: -- I'm just going to take a 

22 minute. I have a very brief statement to read 

23 and there was no way for me to -- to leave it 

24 when I called yesterday, so if you don't mind -

25 - 
237

1 DR. ZIEMER: No, we're pleased to hear it now. 

2 MS. PLOTKIN: -- I'll take a few seconds. 

3 Thank you very much. 

4 My name is Laura Plotkin and I'm California 

5 State Senator Sheila Kuehl's District Director, 

6 and I'm calling to officially support the 

7 Special Exposure Cohort petition number 093 

8 that was written by Bonnie Klea, whom I'm sure 

9 many of you know and have heard from over the 

10 years, for the Santa Susana Field Laboratory 

11 workers who worked in Area IV of the former 

12 Rocketdyne site and were exposed to radiation 

13 there. We have noticed that the compensation 

14 rates for workers' claims are extremely low for 

15 this site, only about ten percent, whereas the 

16 national average is about 35 percent, and 

17 California as a whole, 19 percent. We urgently 

18 request that you more fairly respond to these 

19 claims and distribute compensation to address 

20 the longstanding needs of these deserving and 

21 long-suffering Santa Susana Field Lab workers 

22 and their families. Thank you very much. 

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

24 for coming back today after your frustrations 

25 of last evening. 
238

1 MS. PLOTKIN: Yes, well, I appreciate your 

2 taking the time out of what you were doing when 

3 I called to listen to the statement, and I hope 

4 that you will help these people. I've been 

5 working with them for 14 years and they deserve 

6 some attention. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

8 MS. PLOTKIN: Thank you very much. Bye bye. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: We -- we can certainly return also 

10 to this topic tomorrow, did -- since we were at 

11 that point in the subcom-- or the workgroup 

12 reports so at least wanted to get some initial 

13 -- 

14 MS. PLOTKIN: Yes, also there's one other 

15 comment -- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Oh -- 

17 MS. PLOTKIN: -- just before I -- I sign off 

18 that I would like -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay -- 

20 MS. PLOTKIN: I had -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: -- go ahead. 

22 MS. PLOTKIN: I had heard earlier today that 

23 you were thinking of just only doing the 

24 compensation for the badged workers, and I know 

25 that Ms. Klea is someone who worked as a 
239

1 secretary a few feet away from where the badged 

2 workers worked and got [Personal Identifier 

3 redacted]. And I think you might want to 

4 relook at that issue with some of these claims. 

5 And that's all I'm going to say. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and in fact, that -- that 

7 will not be the case. We -- we don't usually 

8 restrict this to badged workers. It's usually 

9 -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, it is. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? 

12 MR. GRIFFON: It's written that way. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: It's written that way, but that's 

14 -- is that -- 

15 MR. GRIFFON: That was the intent by NIOSH. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: The in-- no, Larry, could you 

17 clarify the intent by NIOSH was to restrict 

18 this to badged workers for Santa Susana? 

19 MR. GRIFFON: Monitored. Monitored workers. 

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: The evaluation report was for 

21 just monitored workers, and it was based on the 

22 external exposures for -- it was based on the 

23 workers that worked in the radiological areas 

24 at that site, which were well-defined during 

25 that period. Based on interviews that we had 
240

1 with certain individuals, all those individuals 

2 were monitored -- or had badges, meaning -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: That's what you've recommended. 

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, that is what we've 

5 recommended. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: So it is -- that is the case, 

8 the recommendation is just for monitored 

9 workers. It's very similar to Lawrence 

10 Livermore National Lab recommendation. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Does that say unmonitored workers 

12 did not have access to radiological areas? 

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: What -- what it said was if 

14 they went into -- yes, if they went into 

15 radiological areas, they were badged, 

16 monitored. 

17 MS. PLOTKIN: But what if they just worked a 

18 few feet away? Would -- would they -- would 

19 there be a danger for exposure to radiation if 

20 you work in the building right next door to it? 

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, obviously we'd have to 

22 look at that -- the situation which she's 

23 talking about 'cause we don't know if -- I mean 

24 the workers could have been badged and could 

25 have wore their badges out in un-- you know, in 
241

1 areas that weren't radiological areas and -- 

2 and in that situation they would be standing 

3 right next to -- to workers that weren't 

4 badged, so -- 

5 MS. PLOTKIN: Well, if you would speak to her 

6 about it, she -- she has a long history and a 

7 lot of information, and I think it would be 

8 good -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we've heard -- heard the 

10 comment and -- 

11 MS. PLOTKIN: Okay. 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- that'll certainly be looked at 

14 -- 

15 MS. PLOTKIN: Okay. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- as we proceed. 

17 MS. PLOTKIN: Thank you so -- thank you so 

18 much. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, thank you. 

20 MS. PLOTKIN: Bye bye. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I was saying we -- we can 

22 return also tomorrow to Chapman Valve if we 

23 want to think further on -- as John described 

24 it, path forward would require identifying 

25 specific steps, but even -- even with that, I'm 
242

1 still raising the question of reporting where 

2 we are, because taking additional steps, we may 

3 be talking about another six months or a year 

4 or something. I mean this can drag out. In 

5 the meantime -- yes, Emily, you have a comment 

6 on that? 

7 MS. HOWELL: I guess I would just offer that if 

8 additional steps are going to be taken by the 

9 working group that perhaps they should be 

10 framed in terms of what it would take to arrive 

11 at a determination about whether bounding dose 

12 would be possible if you can determine things 

13 with sufficient accuracy, because if the steps 

14 are just incremental steps that aren't going to 

15 allow you to reach that threshold question, is 

16 it worthwhile, the expenditure of time and 

17 resources? 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Further comments on 

19 this? Jim, did you have an additional comment 

20 or -- 

21 DR. MELIUS: Not now. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're going to return to it 

23 tomorrow I think when we have the Chapman Valve 

24 person on the line as well. Thank you. 

25 Let's go ahead. 
243

1 MR. KATZ: Yes, next we have Fernald site 

2 profile. That's Mr. Clawson. 

3 MR. CLAWSON: On the Fernald workgroup we've -- 

4 we've met twice. In the last month I've tried 

5 to set up some other meetings. We are meeting 

6 at 4:30 today. Part of things that we're -- 

7 we're getting into is data integrity and this 

8 is, this afternoon, what the meeting is going 

9 to be over. We've requested -- SC&A did a 

10 sample to show us -- just to be able to assure 

11 that the information that we do have is 

12 reliable and so forth. And then after we get 

13 through the year end, we -- going to be setting 

14 up another workgroup meeting, proceeding on. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

16 MR. KATZ: Okay. And next we have Hanford site 

17 profile and Special Exposure Cohort; that's Dr. 

18 Melius. 

19 DR. MELIUS: As I dis-- as we discussed a 

20 little bit earlier when I was asking questions 

21 to Dr. Worthington, really all further progress 

22 on Hanford has been stopped pending access to 

23 information, both by NIOSH and SC&A and -- at 

24 the site. And I think we heard the 

25 information's -- check's in the mail or getting 
244

1 close to being in the mail. I think there's -- 

2 you know, I would just add, I -- I have cont-- 

3 contin-- continued concerns as to how long this 

4 process has dragged on for and the very 

5 significant delays that it's made in any 

6 further -- ability to have any further progress 

7 on the -- on this SEC petition. NIOSH is 

8 proposing to make some major changes in the 

9 site profile so they -- they needed access to 

10 considerable information, and that's even 

11 preceding what SC&A's ability to -- to -- or be 

12 able to review most of this information, so 

13 we're really at a -- may be facing even further 

14 delay. I don't think it's fair to ask NIOSH 

15 how long it's going to take them to do what 

16 they need to do 'cause they haven't even seen 

17 the information yet and a lot will depend on -- 

18 on -- on what they need to access and I think 

19 it's -- continues to be problematic. I don't 

20 know if anybody from SC&A wants to comment or 

21 elaborate. And then I -- I -- if not, the -- 

22 the -- just one other thing is the -- would add 

23 that Brad -- there was an informational meeting 

24 that Department of Labor held -- you end up go25 - you ended up going to, I believe. 
245

1 MR. CLAWSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

2 DR. MELIUS: I don't know if you want to add -- 

3 say anything about that -- we sort of got 

4 invited to at the last minute. 

5 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, actually we were requested 

6 by Hamtech, which is the union up there, if a 

7 member of the workgroup was going to come to 

8 that, which I was asked to come and I went to. 

9 And Department of Labor came in and had a -- 

10 had a fairly good turnout. I believe the first 

11 night was 200-something people. The second 

12 night was almost 160. That was to go over the 

13 DOL part of the chemical exposure and so forth, 

14 and they were explaining to them how the 

15 process worked. And in talking with Department 

16 of Labor after that, they had quite a backlog, 

17 which has been taken down substantially and is 

18 now down to about 200 people -- 200 cases, 

19 excuse me. 

20 DR. MELIUS: I -- I -- I would just also add 

21 that, you know, as we're trying out this new 

22 process of sort of SC&A working through NIOSH 

23 to get access to records and then this review 

24 by these -- whatever the -- however many steps 

25 of review there are in terms of access from the 
246

1 Department of Energy for security reasons, I 

2 think it's -- behooves us as a Board to make 

3 sure that we keep, you know, very careful track 

4 of -- of the process and assuring -- being able 

5 to ensure the petitioners and others that are 

6 involved in this process that we are 

7 documenting and understand what is being 

8 accessed and making sure that if information is 

9 being refused access to SC&A for any reason, or 

10 to the Board, that we unders-- you know, that's 

11 documented also. And so I would hope that, as 

12 Larry does his spreadsheet, whatever this is 

13 going to be describing -- flow chart describing 

14 this process that we include that. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Well, hopefully the process will 

16 be more efficient so there's not a double 

17 asking of the same documents by our contractor 

18 and by NIOSH. And of course if SC&A is running 

19 into issues, you'll need to let the Board know, 

20 of course. 

21 DR. MELIUS: The -- the start-up has not been 

22 efficient, so... 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Okay -- 

24 DR. MELIUS: I -- we'll give it time. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- let's proceed. 
247

1 MR. KATZ: Okay, before -- let me just ask 

2 again, someone on the line has their phone 

3 open, it's not muted. Can you please mute it 

4 or press star-6? Thanks. 

5 And we're up to Los Alamos National Lab, site 

6 profile and Special Exposure Cohort petition, 

7 and that's Mr. Griffon. 

8 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think LaVon gave the 

9 update for this. We're -- we're holding out. 

10 We -- we will convene as soon -- I noticed 

11 John's slide saying that the workgroup hasn't 

12 been for-- we -- we have a workgroup, we've 

13 just delayed our meeting pending the evaluation 

14 report from NIOSH 'cause we -- we don't want to 

15 double-work this issue, so I expect 

16 October/November I think is what LaVon is -- is 

17 expecting -- yeah, he's nodding his head yes, 

18 so as soon as we get a report from that, we'll 

19 -- we'll -- we'll move on that and have a 

20 workgroup meeting and start that process. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

22 MR. KATZ: And the next workgroup is Mound 

23 Special Exposure Cohort petition, and that's 

24 Ms. Beach. 

25 MS. BEACH: Okay, Mound met the last -- for the 
248

1 second time on July 14th. We were able to 

2 close out one of our 21 matric (sic) items at 

3 that time -- at that meeting. Both NIOSH and 

4 SC&A have the action items they are working on, 

5 pulling documents. SC&A at this time has a 

6 scheduled interviews in Cincinnati next week 

7 and I am working -- talking with some of the 

8 workgroup members, actually all of them, to 

9 schedule our next workgroup meeting for the 

10 last week of October. 

11 MR. KATZ: Okay, and the next is Nevada Test 

12 Site profile, Special Exposure Cohort petition, 

13 and that's Mr. Presley. 

14 MR. PRESLEY: The working group has not met 

15 since the 23rd of June, our last meeting in St. 

16 Louis, but that's not to say that there hasn't 

17 been a tremendous amount of work going on 

18 behind the scenes. 

19 In St. Louis three items came forward that SC&A 

20 had some issues with. Those three items were -

21 - were and have been discussed by SC&A and 

22 NIOSH. At this time I'm going to ask John 

23 Mauro to stand up and give us a report on those 

24 three items since we've not had a meeting, to 

25 tell us the outcome of those, and then I'll 
249

1 continue. 

2 DR. MAURO: The three items -- first one has to 

3 do with the reconstruction of the internal 

4 exposures to workers who were outdoors, not 

5 going into radiation control areas, were 

6 outdoors, exposed to airborne resuspended dust. 

7 The methodology that we discussed at length at 

8 our last meeting had to do with taking 

9 advantage of the large number of air sampling 

10 stations that were distributed around the site. 

11 At the time of the meeting we were gathering 

12 information on the degree to which these air 

13 sampling stations -- which were I believe in 

14 place around 1971/'72 time frame and collecting 

15 air samples, and of course our interest and all 

16 our interest is to reconstruct the internal 

17 exposures to those outdoor workers who were 

18 there pa-- after the -- during the above-- 

19 below-ground testing period, post-1962. So in 

20 effect, what we have here is we need a way in 

21 which to reconstruct internal exposures to 

22 outdoor workers, not -- not entering control 

23 zones, present outdoors from '63 onward. And 

24 the plan being that you could start with the 

25 air sampling that was collected in 1972, 
250

1 starting at that time period. 

2 A number of concerns were raised at that time 

3 that the location of the air sampling -- it's a 

4 big site -- the location of the air sampling 

5 stations relative to where the workers were 

6 doing their jobs might have been relatively 

7 large, like miles apart. In addition, there 

8 was some concern regarding differences in 

9 elevation, so -- and -- and there were also 

10 some concerns that were discussed regarding 

11 some cleanup that may have taken place between 

12 the time of the work activities, let's say in 

13 '63, '64, '65, where material might have been 

14 removed and therefore the relevance of the 

15 samples collected in 1972, so -- and these 

16 matters have been all put on the table. I 

17 think that there is an ongoing dialogue, an 

18 effort to achieve closure on these issues. 

19 I'd like to point out that we're really dealing 

20 with an issue that -- can you use, on a very, 

21 very large site, sampling stations that really 

22 are capturing almost like an overall ambient 

23 set of conditions, when you're concerned about 

24 perhaps some localized area where some 

25 aggressive activity might be going on where a 
251

1 localized amount of dust is being dis-- 

2 generated that could have some residue in it 

3 from historical fallout, and whether or not you 

4 -- you -- you can ma-- map the two. So that's 

5 issue number one. 

6 Issue num-- 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me interrupt here. 

8 DR. MAURO: Yeah. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: So who is developing the model for 

10 this? Is it SC&A or NIOSH? 

11 DR. MAURO: The way we left it was NIOSH's 

12 contractor indicated that they have a 

13 considerable amount of bioassay data, from 

14 security guards that were widespread throughout 

15 the area from '63 to '72, which would confirm 

16 that -- that there was no elevated exposures 

17 that -- in other words, there -- that there was 

18 no incompatibilities betw-- so it's sort of 

19 like a way to validate that the air sampling 

20 that were tak-- was taken in '72 is consistent 

21 and compatible with the bioassay data that was 

22 collected by the security guards who were 

23 working the areas at the time. And that -- and 

24 I'm hoping I'm communicating this correctly, 

25 tha-- so from that perspective, the -- it's my 
252

1 understanding that that's an action that NIOSH 

2 has taken. 

3 In the interim, I have a great deal of material 

4 -- well, material has been transmitted to all 

5 of us by John Funke related to the fa-- this 

6 very same issue and the distances and the 

7 elevations and the locations and their 

8 representativeness, and now he called me on a 

9 number of occasions to alert me to the fact 

10 that this information is before us. SC&A has 

11 not taken any action on that -- on 

12 (unintelligible) -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm asking my usual 

14 question, you know, and that is I -- I want to 

15 make sure that SC&A is not doing NIOSH work -- 

16 DR. MAURO: And the answer is we have not taken 

17 any action on that item at all. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

19 DR. MAURO: Okay? Second item. The second 

20 item is -- has to do with the ability to again 

21 reconstruct internal exposures, but now we're 

22 talking about a different group of workers. 

23 We're talking about workers that have gone into 

24 the mines, you know, or in-- or in radiation 

25 control areas where there's a much greater 
253

1 potential for internal exposure. NIOSH has 

2 come up, in their evaluation report, with a 

3 strategy for building a coworker model to 

4 reconstruct the internal doses to workers who 

5 might have been internally exposed. The 

6 approach basically is selecting 100 workers 

7 that had the highest external -- cumulative 

8 external exposures and collect all of their 

9 bioassay data, under the assumption that the 

10 workers that experienced the highest external 

11 exposure were likely to be more or less 

12 representative of the workers that experienced 

13 the highest internal exposures. And -- and 

14 then on that basis, they've got a pool of 

15 workers with bioassay data that can be used to 

16 construct a coworker model for internal 

17 exposures to all workers who may have 

18 experienced internal exposures during the post19 aboveground testing period. 

20 SC&A has been given a mandate to evaluate that 

21 strategy, and that work is largely complete. 

22 And let me explain what that strat-- what we 

23 have done. We downloaded all of the bioassay 

24 data for all 100 workers that represent the 

25 group -- the cohort of workers that are being 
254

1 used for the co-- the coworker database. We 

2 collected all of their bioassay data and put it 

3 into a large database. So now we have all of 

4 that data and we're -- step one, we're trying 

5 to determine if there is in fact a direct 

6 correlation that those who have the highest 

7 external exposure also have the highest 

8 internal exposure, to test that premise. 

9 There's reason to believe that there's good -- 

10 that might be true, but until we actually test 

11 that premise, which is the rock that this whole 

12 concept is standing on so we will know that we 

13 will know that very soon. 

14 The second thing we did is say to ourselves -- 

15 but there are different categ-- you grabbed 100 

16 workers, but we know that there are also 

17 different categories of workers that went into 

18 the tunnels. There were -- there were safety 

19 personnel, there were carpenters, there were 

20 welders. In fact, we identified I believe 

21 seven different worker categories, and we're 

22 saying is it possible that those -- one or more 

23 of those categories of workers may have 

24 experienced internal exposures which are not 

25 captured -- or the high end exposures which are 
255

1 not captured by the high end exposures from the 

2 group of 100. 

3 We have -- what we've done then is we have 

4 access to the database, we went -- we grouped 

5 all of the workers post-- again, this is post6 '62 -- into seven worker categories and from 

7 those seven categories we sampled -- randomly 

8 sampled 20 from each category. Okay? And we 

9 download-- this is all done already -- we 

10 downloaded the internal bioassay data, which 

11 generally is plutonium, tritium, gross gamma, 

12 iodine -- I think that might be it -- and we're 

13 creating a table. And you can almost visualize 

14 this table. We take the hi-- let's say we're 

15 talking plutonium. We take the 100 -- all the 

16 plutonium readings for the group of 100 and 

17 rank them from highest to lowest observed in 

18 picocuries per liter in urine. Then we go to 

19 our group, group number one, highest to lowest; 

20 group number two, highest to lowest. If we 

21 find that the highest -- that the -- that the 

22 hierarchy, this -- the listing for the group of 

23 100 does in fa-- is either comparable to the 

24 highest in any of the other group, or higher -- 

25 well, there's good reason to believe that group 
256

1 of 100 is pretty good. If it turns out we find 

2 out no, there are certain groups of workers -- 

3 one of our seven categories -- where we're 

4 seeing substantially higher concentrations of 

5 plutonium, for example, in the urine, that 

6 means that something is -- something's not 

7 working well. 

8 We're done with that. That's all been done. 

9 We have the entire database and it's this far 

10 away from being delivered to you folks for 

11 consideration. It's more a question of this -- 

12 taking this very complex array of data and 

13 getting it into a form -- sort of boiling it 

14 down to a form where everybody could look at it 

15 and ask it some very simple questions of the 

16 type I just mentioned. That's the second 

17 thing, and we're just about done with that. 

18 The third thing, which I consider to be perhaps 

19 the most import, is badges left behind. Okay? 

20 There is this big issue, as you know -- and we 

21 have a two-pronged approach to -- and we -- and 

22 we're just about done with that work, too -- 

23 two-pronged approach. One is interviews, 

24 interviewing all of the workers who claim that 

25 they did in fact leave -- and get -- and get 
257

1 their story, and we have a -- there'll be a 

2 report that says here's the results of our 

3 interviews with all of these workers and who -- 

4 who have claimed that they've left their badges 

5 behind, so we're going to hear their story. 

6 But completely separate from that, we went in 

7 and we sampled ten workers that had the -- what 

8 I considered to be the potential for the 

9 highest exposures in -- and the -- in -- under 

10 the idea that the workers that had tendency to 

11 have the highest potential exposures, in 

12 theory, might have had a greater motivation to 

13 leave their badges behind. And then this is -- 

14 and then we did this analysis that was 

15 suggested by Dr. Lockey quite a while ago, is 

16 to go through that worker's day by day work 

17 history, every day -- 'cause there's a log, a 

18 written log of this worker where each day he 

19 goes in we get a PIC reading and we get -- and 

20 if it's a positive PIC reading, they pull his 

21 film badge and they read his film badge. If 

22 there's not a positive PIC reading, they don't 

23 pull the film badge. So what we did was we 

24 took these workers -- and there's quite a lot -

25 - you can imagine the number of records. We're 
258

1 talking about a worker that, on a day by day 

2 basis, went into a controlled area. And what 

3 we're doing is we're saying is there parity 

4 between the PIC readings -- day by day PIC 

5 readings and the individual film badge readings 

6 that are either individual dai-- reading 'cause 

7 they pulled it or they're weekly or quarterly, 

8 and -- and we're -- and again, it's a 

9 comparison, the idea being if there is a gross 

10 incongruity between the PIC readings and -- the 

11 Pocket Ionization Chamber readings and the film 

12 badge readings, that would be an indication 

13 that something isn't right. 

14 I could tell you -- as -- where we -- that work 

15 is done. The tables are -- I've looked at 

16 them, and the outcome of it is that by and 

17 large we're not seeing -- except in one 

18 instance, we're not seeing things that seem to 

19 be incongruent. What does that mean? That's 

20 something that we will discuss together when we 

21 present our results. 

22 So a great deal has -- on the first item, 

23 nothing -- I mean as far as SC&A goes. But on 

24 the second and third item, a great deal of work 

25 was done. And I'd like to point out that this 
259

1 idea, which I call stratified sampling, going 

2 in and carefully selecting actual real world 

3 data from -- from real people to test certain 

4 questions about the robustness of a -- of a 

5 dataset to be used as a coworker model and -- 

6 is -- is going to be the -- what I consider to 

7 be the heart of the evaluation of any SEC 

8 petition. So thi-- we've laid some groundwork 

9 on NTS that I think is going to mean -- serve 

10 us well in future evaluations. 

11 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you, John. John and I've 

12 discussed this a few times. Most of these 

13 issues are not site profile issues but are SEC 

14 issues. That will come up in our next meeting, 

15 which -- hopefully just as soon as we can get 

16 everything in order and be able to have our 

17 meeting, we will have one to discuss SC&A's 

18 findings. 

19 As far as the information that the gentleman 

20 from Nevada has been sending in, I think the 

21 first three letter -- or first two letters 

22 NIOSH has responded, and the last information 

23 that came in -- the middle of last week, I 

24 believe -- they are in the process of 

25 responding to that -- those comments right now, 
260

1 and he should have something in his hands in 

2 the next little bit. So even though we have 

3 not met, there is a tremendous amount going on. 

4 We hope -- I say again, we hope to put this 

5 issue to bed sometime in the near future. That 

6 way we can get some of these people paid. 

7 Thank y'all. 

8 MR. KATZ: The next group is Pinellas Special 

9 Exposure Cohort petition, Mr. Schofield. 

10 MR. SCHOFIELD: So far we've only had one 

11 meeting, but SC&A has been working on the 

12 issues that were identified, and there has been 

13 progress made. So we hope to meet latter part 

14 of October or November to address some of these 

15 issues. Some of them do fall in areas of 

16 classification that we may not be able to put 

17 out on the web site for the public, so it -- it 

18 does present a problem for us. 

19 MR. KATZ: The next group is procedures, but 

20 we're going to skip that till tomorrow, I 

21 believe -- right? Or are you ready to proceed 

22 with that? Okay. 

23 MS. MUNN: Procedures we can report on. The 

24 procedures workgroup, which meets quite 

25 regularly, has met twice since our June 
261

1 meeting, once on July 21st, again on August 

2 21st, and intend to have a very brief meeting 

3 at the close of this session tomorrow. 

4 As was reported to you earlier today, we have 

5 made the big transition from paper processing 

6 to digital processing of the material with 

7 which we're working. This we consider to be a 

8 very significant step. It's taken us the 

9 better part of a year to get that done. It now 

10 seems to be working very well. The material is 

11 on the O drive. 

12 We did, during our last meeting, manage to get 

13 through a first cut of the entire population of 

14 the second set of the three sets of procedures 

15 that we have to deal with. We have action 

16 items from that last set which have been 

17 distributed to the workgroup members and will 

18 be the items that we will be addressing 

19 hopefully tomorrow. It's our intention at that 

20 time to establish a new date for another full 

21 day's meeting so that we can begin to work with 

22 the third set of procedures, which we 

23 understand now has been fully populated in the 

24 database. 

25 MR. KATZ: Okay. And Rocky Flats site 
262

1 profile/Special Exposure Cohort petition, Mr. 

2 Griffon. 

3 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we -- we haven't had a 

4 workgroup meeting since the last Board meeting. 

5 I have been working -- talking with NIOSH and 

6 DOL to sort of understand the whole question of 

7 the SEC implementation. We're -- we're 

8 actually -- I hope to have a more definitive 

9 update at the next meeting and -- on where we 

10 stand as far as the implementation questions 

11 that were ro-- that had been raised in some 

12 newspaper articles and we followed up on with 

13 the workgroup. But now we're -- we're trying 

14 to make sure that -- my main goal is to make 

15 sure that we're all talking apples and apples 

16 so we -- we actually -- I -- I've also 

17 contacted Margaret Ruttenber at the University 

18 of Colorado and want to bring her in the loop 

19 and make sure that we, again, are talking about 

20 the same things and -- and make sure that the 

21 implementation is working effectively. And 

22 once -- once I get more information on that, I 

23 will either reconvene the workgroup or report 

24 it back to the Board. I'll -- we'll -- we'll 

25 figure that out as we go, but right now it's -- 
263

1 it's been some phone contact outside of the 

2 Board meetings, but nothing as far as the 

3 workgroup goes. 

4 MR. KATZ: And Santa Susana Field Laboratory 

5 Special Exposure Cohort petition, Mr. Gibson. 

6 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, we met last week in 

7 Cincinnati. We began reviewing the site 

8 profile. We really didn't anticipate making a 

9 whole lot of progress closing issues because 

10 the material was still tied up with DOE or 

11 whoever has it, and the petitioners were not 

12 able to look at that. So we want them to be 

13 able to raise any concerns they have before we 

14 close issues. 

15 It also -- it did become apparent that we're 

16 running into a lot of SEC issues and it's like 

17 a parallel track, so SC&A's only been tasked to 

18 review the site profile, so the workgroup would 

19 like to recommend to the Board that they task 

20 SC&A to begin the SEC petition review. 

21 And as far as the NIOSH recommendation on the -

22 - their recommendation on the SEC petition, we 

23 generally thought that we could probably 

24 support that originally, but due to some 

25 information, you know, that's come to light 
264

1 recently, I haven't talked to other members of 

2 the workgroup, but I can't not support 

3 recommending that decision at this time without 

4 further information. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Could I ask a question here, Mike, 

6 or maybe some clarification. I'm trying to 

7 remember, didn't we set up the task group in 

8 the framework of the SEC recommendation? Did 

9 we not task SC&A to do a -- we only tasked -- 

10 just for clarity, I don't remember, actually. 

11 DR. MAURO: We were tasked to do a site profile 

12 review, but in the process read -- review the 

13 evaluation report and identify site profile 

14 issues that we believe have the potential to be 

15 SEC issues. I have to say that in -- in -- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: And when it -- we did the tasking 

17 last meeting, was it? 

18 DR. MAURO: Was it last meeting? Or it might 

19 have been the one before, I'm not sure. 

20 MS. BEACH: It was the one before. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- was it the last full Board 

22 -- face to face in St. -- 

23 MS. BEACH: No, it was prior to the last one. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

25 MS. BEACH: It was two meetings ago. 
265

1 DR. ZIEMER: Two meetings ago, okay. 

2 DR. MAURO: Now -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Whenever it was. 

4 DR. MAURO: -- we -- we have do-- been doing a 

5 lot of soul-searching, saying okay, we just 

6 finished our site profile review and delivered 

7 it, and we've identified a number of issues 

8 that we feel are potential SEC issues. And 

9 then the question was posed to us, legitimately 

10 so, well, SC&A, do you believe that the 1955 to 

11 '58 -- I believe the time period was -- the 

12 data are so inadequate, as concluded by NIOSH, 

13 that you also concur in their finding. 

14 Well, quite frankly, we did not look at that 

15 the way -- I guess the way -- given that we're 

16 -- we -- we should have. I -- and I'm hesitant 

17 to say here and now that yes, we had -- we ent18 - agree entirely, we looked at the data, we see 

19 the nature of its deficiencies. What we did 

20 find is a great deal of deficiencies in the 

21 data, not only during that time period but even 

22 after that time period. And so I -- I have to 

23 say that I really don't feel comfortable right 

24 now saying yes, we looked explicitly at that 

25 question and -- 
266

1 DR. ZIEMER: No, I was really asking -- I was 

2 just asking -- I was trying to remember what 

3 our actual tasking was. I guess Mike's right 

4 then, it was just the site profile. 

5 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I believe. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: So tomorrow when we do our tasking 

7 we can talk about whether we need to modify 

8 that. 

9 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Mike. Thanks, John. 

11 MR. KATZ: Okay, and Savannah River Site 

12 profile, Mr. Griffon. 

13 MR. GRIFFON: The Savannah River workgroup 

14 hasn't met, either, and part of the delay here 

15 is that NIOSH has been in the process of 

16 getting records -- I'm looking for LaVon or Sam 

17 -- maybe Sam can help me out if I need help, 

18 but I think NIOSH is still in the process of 

19 getting some records. We had an initial 

20 meeting, and then we had some requests for data 

21 and -- and I think we're still in the process 

22 of trying to get some of that data. 

23 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, we're pulling data 

24 together right now, but we al-- I mean we're 

25 also finishing the evaluation report up for -- 
267

1 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- Savannah River Site -- 

3 MR. GRIFFON: Well, that's the oth-- that's the 

4 second part of my question is right now our 

5 workgroup is specifically for the site profile. 

6 In the meantime, an SEC evaluation report is -- 

7 is being completed. 

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: And we will present at the 

9 December Board meeting. 

10 MR. GRIFFON: And I think it might make sense, 

11 I don't know, if -- you know, if -- if it's 

12 agreeable to -- you know, I think we need to 

13 vote on this, but if the Board says for our 

14 workgroup to also take up that SEC, I think we 

15 would roll them together and do that at the 

16 same time, so -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: -- but no report other than that. 

19 MR. KATZ: All right. And next, Special 

20 Exposure Cohort issues group, which includes 

21 the 250-day issue and preliminary review of 

22 83.14 SEC petitions, Dr. Melius. 

23 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, actually includes one other 

24 thing. We have a -- on the 250-day issue we 

25 need to schedule a meeting. We've got some 
268

1 updates. We're focusing on the 250-day issue 

2 re-- re-- specific to two sites. Initially one 

3 is the Iowa -- Ames, Iowa site and the other is 

4 the Nevada Test Site, and so I think we sort of 

5 split up work last time. SC&A pursued one le-- 

6 at Nevada Test Site, NIOSH did -- was doing 

7 some work on Ames. We just need to get the -- 

8 the groups together and -- and ha-- and have a 

9 meeting. I think it probably needs to be a 

10 face to face, though we might be able to do 

11 that by phone, but the -- the other site that 

12 we're involved in is the Dow site, just 

13 assigned to us. 

14 And that one, we are currently waiting for a 

15 follow-up report on -- I mean NI-- NIOSH had 

16 modified its evaluation and now SC&A has 

17 reviewed that evaluation -- I believe it is the 

18 second. Right? Second or third. And that -- 

19 that report from SC&A is in Privacy Act review. 

20 That got confirmed this afternoon. For 

21 informational purposes, it's been there since 

22 August 8th, so we expect -- hope it will come 

23 out of there shortly and -- and then we'll -- 

24 once we have that, I think we can start to act 

25 and again probably need to schedule a face to 
269

1 face meeting to go over the -- the issues on -- 

2 on that site and -- and discuss that. 

3 I would just add that -- I know Dr. McKeel's 

4 been corresponding with the Board and with 

5 Larry and I think Dr. Ziemer and myself. It's 

6 a number of informational issues that I think 

7 are outstanding for Dr. McKeel and the other 

8 petitioners on that site, and I would urge 

9 whoever has any control over those issues 

10 there's an FOI request that's at least a year 

11 old, and maybe longer. I don't understand the 

12 delays on that, but I would hope that we could 

13 get those taken care of 'cause it would 

14 certainly be helpful to the review process if 

15 we had all the information available and -- to 

16 the extent that it can be made, you know, 

17 available to the petitioners that it -- that 

18 take place. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Let me insert at this point I 

20 think Dr. Branche has looked into those Freedom 

21 of Information requests and -- maybe you can 

22 update us, Christine, but I think most of Dr. 

23 McKeel's requests now have -- 

24 DR. BRANCHE: Yes. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: -- have been granted -- right? Or 
270

1 followed up on in... 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Those that were within NIOSH's 

3 purview have been addressed. There was a 

4 delay. The delay was explained -- I understand 

5 his frustration, but in trying to respond to a 

6 number of questions that he had, as well as 

7 some other Freedom of Information Act requests, 

8 there did pose a delay. That's a distinctive 

9 issue from Dr. McKeel's additional questions 

10 about an appeal that he made, and so we helped 

11 Dr. McKeel sort through the unfortunate 

12 bureaucracy of who is responsible for which 

13 parts of his appeal. And so now he is saddled 

14 with that information and is pursuing 

15 clarification and a rectification of his issues 

16 with those various offices. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: And -- and also related to Dow, I 

18 think that SC&A just got us the radon report on 

19 Building 40, wasn't that -- 

20 MR. GRIFFON: That's Blockson. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, that was Blockson. Yeah, 

22 yeah. 

23 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, no, the -- the report on Dow 

24 is in Privacy Act review. And as I said, 

25 hopefully -- Christine, I think it would be 
271

1 helpful if you can sort of copy the workgroup 

2 or copy me and Dr. Ziemer on some of the 

3 correspondence back to Dr. McKeel, if you 

4 haven't already. You may have. There's a lot 

5 of e-mail traffic, but it would just be helpful 

6 so we know the status of the information. It's 

7 -- it's confusing at times. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: Where concerned, where NIOSH's 

9 responsibilities are, I know I copied Dr. 

10 Ziemer. I'm almost sure I did not copy you, so 

11 I will take care of that. 

12 DR. MELIUS: Okay, appreciate it. Thank you. 

13 DR. MAURO: Excuse me, Dr. Ziemer, one thing 

14 that might be helpful. I just got a phone 

15 call, the Dow II report, just to help out, was 

16 just delivered from NIOSH to Nancy Johnson and 

17 it is -- be going out to the full Board within 

18 a day or so. So Dow II is out of the PA 

19 process and is about to be distributed. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: That's good. Thank you. 

21 MR. KATZ: Yeah, good news. 

22 DR. MELIUS: Do I get two more wishes? 

23 DR. ZIEMER: You've used them up. 

24 MR. KATZ: TBD-6000 and 6001, Dr. Ziemer. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: TBD-6000 and 6001 was -- is the 
272

1 newest workgroup. It was transferred from the 

2 procedures workgroup just recently. We are 

3 awaiting the NIOSH analysis of the film badge 

4 data for the General Steel Industries site, 

5 which is covered by Appendix BB, which is going 

6 to be the initial focus and was the initial 

7 focus when we picked it up from the procedures 

8 workgroup. So as soon as that material is 

9 available for us, we'll have our first face to 

10 face meeting. 

11 MR. KATZ: The use of surrogate data, Dr. 

12 Melius again. 

13 DR. MELIUS: I thought we got skipped there. I 

14 guess we're a U not a -- 

15 MR. KATZ: You're a U. 

16 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I guess the -- two issues on 

17 that. The -- I've submitted now to the 

18 workgroup a second revision to the original 

19 document that we circulated. I'm waiting to 

20 hear back from the workgroup on that. And then 

21 the next step would be then to share it with 

22 the -- the Board on that, and then we also have 

23 a document from NIOSH that we haven't -- I 

24 don't know if it's on the web site yet or not. 

25 The last I knew, it wasn't, but on surrogate 
273

1 data that Larry described yesterday and I think 

2 we need to figure out where that -- that fits 

3 in. But little bit difficult until we've seen 

4 it, I -- frankly, so I don't (unintelligible). 

5 DR. NETON: It's on the web site. 

6 DR. MELIUS: Oh, it is? Okay. Well, I can't 

7 access the web site now, so -- it figures. 

8 MR. KATZ: Worker outreach, Mr. Gibson. 

9 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, we have not had additional 

10 meetings, and as I've reported previously, 

11 we've waiting on NIOSH further developing their 

12 procedure and their new database, but it's -- 

13 you know, I had a little chat with Larry at 

14 lunch last week, it's -- you know, most of our 

15 workgroups -- we wait for a NIOSH document, 

16 then we have SC&A review that document and put 

17 out a -- a matrix and go through it, and it 

18 doesn't really seem that that's going to fit 

19 the need of this particular workgroup. So I'd 

20 like to try to convene a meeting of the 

21 workgroup in the very near future and see if we 

22 can't develop a more real live type criteria to 

23 -- to assess how the program is developing with 

24 regards to workers and their input and the 

25 outreach group at NIOSH. 
274

1 DR. ZIEMER: I think you're exactly right, 

2 Mike, because the worker outreach activity 

3 clearly is different from the others, and I 

4 think you have kind of an open charter, as it 

5 were, to define how you evaluate worker 

6 outreach. You may want to look at are there 

7 enough programs, what are they doing, how are 

8 they doing it, what are they accomplishing, and 

9 I think you're quite right. The workgroup may, 

10 you know, have to do some brainstorming and see 

11 how they can best evaluate the effectiveness of 

12 the worker outreach program. So I think that 

13 would be very good. 

14 I think that concludes our reports. We will 

15 return tomorrow to discuss further the 

16 Blockson, Chapman Valve, and we'll be talking 

17 about some other things in that -- we also have 

18 the CANEL issue to talk about under SECs 

19 tomorrow as well. 

20 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that letter will be ready -- 

21 distributed in the morning, so -- 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Good. 

23 DR. MELIUS: -- it's all... 

24 DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to recognize Larry 

25 Elliott for some additional information for the 
275

1 Board right now. 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I'm going to start off with 

3 an apology and regrets. I misinformed the 

4 Board this morning about CANEL. I had this 

5 picture in my mind of a letter that was sent to 

6 DOL on CANEL, and it certainly was a letter on 

7 CANEL but it wasn't regarding the residual -- 

8 or the remediation period. CANEL is a DOE site 

9 and we typically think of residual 

10 contamination with regards to Atomic Weapons 

11 Employer sites, and that's the report that 

12 NIOSH has been authorized and required to 

13 develop, and so we kind of tend to forget what 

14 goes on with DOE facilities. 

15 We assume that remediation activities in DOE 

16 facilities are covered in the covered period in 

17 the covered facility designation, and in this 

18 instance we have documentation that, to us, 

19 indicates that there was a small period of 

20 remediation outside of the covered facility 

21 designation, and we have not shared that with 

22 DOL yet. I've instructed staff to locate the 

23 documentation, give it to DOL, and Jeff has 

24 assured me that they will look at it in short 

25 quick order. 
276

1 There's -- there's some questions that we have 

2 raised about the remediation period because the 

3 site transferred from DOE to -- the operator of 

4 the site at the time was Pratt-Whitney, and so 

5 they -- the information that we have seems to 

6 indicate that Pratt-Whitney took on that whole 

7 thing, so now the legal question becomes is it 

8 DOE-owned or is it not DOW-owned, will it be 

9 covered or will it not be covered, so that'll 

10 be the Department of Labor's responsibility to 

11 make that determination. 

12 My apologies for misinforming the Board. I had 

13 just a barrage of input coming at me at one 

14 point in time and I -- I regret some of my 

15 actions this morning and some of my statements. 

16 I hope it didn't cause confusion, and I hope 

17 this clears it up for you. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: And so I -- I think in part that 

19 answers your questions, Jim, in terms of 

20 informing -- 

21 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: -- both DOE and Labor on that 

23 issue -- right? -- 'cause you were looking for 

24 confirmation on where they were on that. 

25 DR. MELIUS: What the status was and so forth. 
277

1 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, let's play a scenario out 

2 here. Let's say DOL does their job and they 

3 say well, there's a -- an extended time frame 

4 here that needs to be covered. Right now we 

5 don't have any claims for that time period, but 

6 we would attend to that under an 83.14 

7 addition. 

8 DR. MELIUS: Right, yeah, I mean talking -- 

9 this is sort of independent of the letter and 

10 what we send to the Secretary, but in talking 

11 to Larry's staff earlier this afternoon, what I 

12 thought would be helpful if we -- 'cause there 

13 is this time period in -- in question and so 

14 forth -- is that that gets pursued, wha-- 

15 whatever time period it takes and whatever 

16 information. If we could just be kept informed 

17 of where that is going through LaVon's regular 

18 updates, you know, and maybe it's a line in a 

19 table, you know, that we see, that way we know 

20 what's going on and can -- can follow up. And 

21 I think along with that, I'm a little -- I'm 

22 concerned that we've got a site with a lot of 

23 employees and almost no claims, which tells me 

24 that -- you know, it's like over 2,000 

25 employees there at any given time period in the 
278

1 '60s, which is sig-- significant numbers, and 

2 so -- makes me question sort of the outreach 

3 that's been done there. And again, it's not an 

4 issue with NIOSH, really. I think Department 

5 of Labor's responsibility to do claims 

6 outreach, but I think it would be helpful that 

7 with -- you know, presumably approve the SEC, 

8 that there be attempt at outreach, and also as 

9 part of maybe some of the information-gathering 

10 about this time period in question, some 

11 outreach to the workers and so forth. It's a 

12 union site. Pratt & Whitney's a machinists 

13 union and -- for -- for many years and a strong 

14 union, so there should be a fair number of 

15 knowledgeable people there that might -- that 

16 might be helpful, particularly with this area 

17 in question. 

18 But I don't have any questions about the -- the 

19 -- the SEC, as proposed, that time period, but 

20 I think that would take care of those issues. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: I think that's an important point 

22 and I'd like to suggest even, 'cause it occurs 

23 to me, your having mentioned that, Mike, that 

24 might be a kind of parameter your workgroup 

25 could look at, the type of -- you know, how 
279

1 many employees and how many claims and -- 

2 that's kind of an early indicator of maybe 

3 there's an outreach issue at a site like this, 

4 so you may want to, you know, as a first step, 

5 look at various sites and see what that ratio 

6 looks like. Maybe that's data that's already 

7 available. 

8 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, just please understand, 

9 NIOSH has no responsibility to perform outreach 

10 to solicit claims, so our worker outreach 

11 efforts have not included that, so I just -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so we have to be careful 

13 we're not doing the Department of Labor's 

14 stuff. 

15 DR. MELIUS: But -- but -- but I would think 

16 that if -- I mean -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: But it does in a -- 

18 DR. MELIUS: -- I don't want to speak for 

19 Department of Labor, but if Department of 

20 Labor, which they often do with SECs being 

21 passed, do outreach to a site which do that -- 

22 that and I've noticed recently that NIOSH, when 

23 there's issues at a site, that NIOSH people 

24 often accompany them at some of their outreach, 

25 that -- you know, we can combine -- get this 
280

1 done, get the information out to people that -- 

2 that are -- have legitimate or potentially 

3 legitimate claims, get those in and at the same 

4 time whatever -- get some information-gathering 

5 that may be helpful to whatever issues may 

6 remain. 

7 MR. KOTSCH: Right. Jim, that's what I wanted 

8 to mention is that when -- when there is a new 

9 SEC class, we do go out and sometimes NIOSH 

10 goes with us and as -- as we go out and meet 

11 with the people at the site and explain the new 

12 SEC and -- but you're right, there may be -- I 

13 think we probably combine that at this point in 

14 time with a -- you know, potentially with an 

15 outreach meeting. 

16 DR. MELIUS: Right. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mark. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: Nothing related to 

19 (unintelligible) just two quick items. One 

20 (unintelligible) may check with 

21 (unintelligible) surrogate data link. It's on 

22 the web site, but when I open it up it opens up 

23 the internal dose IG-002, so I don't know if 

24 that's just a little glitch or what, but I was 

25 trying to download it and it was linked to the 
281

1 wrong thing. 

2 DR. NETON: Well, it was posted, but apparently 

3 there's a -- there's a -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Anyway, just check it -- yeah, 

5 it's there listed, but just -- 

6 DR. NETON: Staff -- staff that's responsible 

7 for that is in the room so she'll correct it 

8 immediately. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to know -- yeah, 

10 just -- just for information. I'm not, you 

11 know, pointing any -- I'm not criticizing at 

12 all. 

13 Second thing is with the workgroup updates, and 

14 certainly I don't have any update to offer for 

15 some of these, but there are some workgroups, 

16 as noted in John's presentation, that are not 

17 quite finished with their work -- Y-12, my 

18 workgroup, being one of them. There's a site 

19 profile hanging out there. We closed out SEC 

20 and, as we often do, we prioritize and move on 

21 to other work. But I know not too long ago I -

22 - I had some conversations with Jim Neton and 

23 others at NIOSH and we were looking for the 

24 most current matrix on the -- the Y-12 issues, 

25 and I think we exchanged some documents on 
282

1 that. I think at some point we're going to 

2 want to close some of these out. 

3 Mallinckrodt's another one, and I -- I think we 

4 -- you know, I thought I was on that workgroup, 

5 but at the time I think Jim Neton -- said it at 

6 the last meeting, I think he was correct, that 

7 it was sort of a -- a workgroup that had 

8 several sites that we -- we were discussing 

9 several of the sites, so if we're going to 

10 capture some of those old site prof-- if we're 

11 going to close out some of those old site 

12 profile issues, we may have to -- you know, set 

13 up -- may have to follow through with 

14 workgroups on some of those things, so -- 

15 DR. NETON: I agree with what you said, Mark. 

16 I think Mallinckrodt, though, is virtually 

17 entirely SEC now during the operation period. 

18 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think we have non-SEC 

19 cla-- non-SEC cancers that you're still re-- 

20 DR. NETON: That's true. 

21 MR. GRIFFON: -- reconstructing, right? So -- 

22 DR. NETON: That's true, but then that would be 

23 a different analysis of the site profile -- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

25 DR. NETON: -- because it's been completed 
283

1 reworked to only address non-SEC -- 

2 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

3 DR. NETON: -- or to address the dose that we 

4 can reconstruct in the SEC class. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: I mean we may want to -- it may 

6 be a matter of re-- 

7 DR. NETON: It's not been reviewed, though. 

8 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

9 DR. NETON: But you're right, there's some 

10 loose -- 

11 MR. GRIFFON: Anyway, general -- 

12 DR. NETON: -- issues hanging out there of that 

13 nature, you're right. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I think we're ready to 

15 recess for today. I'd like to remind you that 

16 the -- well, recess for now. The workgroup 

17 will reconvene in 15 minutes, the Fernald 

18 workgroup, and then we have a public comment 

19 period this evening at 7:30 local time here -- 

20 7:30 local time here. Or 10:30 eastern time. 

21 Thank you very much. 

22 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:00 p.m. 

23 to 7:30 p.m.) 

24 PUBLIC COMMENT

25 DR. ZIEMER: I'll call our meeting to order. 
284

1 This is the public comment period of the 

2 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

3 We're going to open our session this evening 

4 with some material that was provided in written 

5 form from D'Lanie Blaze, and that will be read 

6 into the record by Dr. Branche. I would like 

7 to indicate also that in a moment we will also 

8 ask for folks who are on the line if they wish 

9 to make public comment. In all cases the 

10 comments, under our rules, are limited to ten 

11 minutes per individual. 

12 Let us begin then with comments from D'Lanie 

13 Blaze, and they will be read into the record by 

14 Christine Branche. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you for -- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I'm sorry, let me interrupt 

17 you. I'm sorry -- well, we do ask that those 

18 on the phone, when you're not speaking, to mute 

19 your phone or use the star-6 button to do so if 

20 you need to. 

21 Also, I think I need to ask the Designated 

22 Federal Official to officially read the 

23 requirements for the -- the use of the phone, 

24 particularly with respect to the rules for -- 

25 MR. KATZ: The rules for redaction. 
285

1 DR. ZIEMER: -- redaction, and then we will 

2 begin. Sorry, Dr. Branche. 

3 DR. BRANCHE: No problem. 

4 MR. KATZ: Sure. And -- and the rules for 

5 redaction. If you are giving comment, your 

6 name will be included. There's a -- there's a 

7 transcript of this meeting, a written 

8 transcript, and that transcript will be posted 

9 to the NIOSH web site, so it'll be publicly 

10 available. If you give your name as part of 

11 your comment, your name will remain in that 

12 transcript. If you give personal information, 

13 medical information or other -- that will be 

14 retained, generally speaking, although medical 

15 information could be redacted under the Privacy 

16 Act or the Freedom of Information Act, so that 

17 -- that's uncertain, but -- but generally 

18 speaking, it would be retained, too, if you 

19 give medical information on yourself. 

20 Now if you give information about a third 

21 party, about someone else, that information 

22 will be redacted. It will not be retained in 

23 the record. And the NIOSH policy is in this 

24 meeting hall at the back of the room, if you 

25 want to see the redaction policy. It is also 
286

1 attached to the agenda that's posted on the 

2 NIOSH web site. And -- and it's also available 

3 on the NIOSH web site, generally, too, so -- 

4 and that -- that raises other points. That 

5 last -- last point I would say is if -- if you 

6 have comments but you don't want to be 

7 identified, then we can make provisions for you 

8 to have your information provided to the Board, 

9 but you'd have to contact me. That's Ted Katz. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Mr. Katz. Let's 

11 proceed now with the testimony from D'Lanie 

12 Blaze, as presented by Dr. Branche. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Blaze says (reading) Thank 

14 you for giving me the opportunity to comment 

15 and address the Board via e-mail as I will be 

16 unable to be present during the public comment 

17 period tonight at 7:30 p.m. I would very much 

18 appreciate your addition of my comments below 

19 to the record for public comment, as well as 

20 forwarding it on to the Board -- which I have 

21 done. 

22 And so I read (reading) The Inclusion of CLL to 

23 the List of Specified Cancers: 

24 With respect to chronic lymphocytic leukemia, 

25 CLL, the disease has already been reclassified 
287

1 to be, quote, the same disease entity, end 

2 quote, and small lymphocytic lymphoma, SLL, by 

3 the World Health Organization, the Revised 

4 European American Lymphoma Classification 

5 Scheme, the Veterans Administration, and 

6 virtually every medical and scientific 

7 professional on the globe, the Department of 

8 Labor and NIOSH being the only exception. 

9 Six months ago Larry Elliott of NIOSH responded 

10 to my submission of 500 pages of recent 

11 scientific research regarding CLL with the 

12 following statement, quote, More science is 

13 needed before the rule-changing process can 

14 begin, end quote. At yesterday's Advisory 

15 Board meeting I asked him when we can 

16 anticipate the addition of CLL. He and a NIOSH 

17 physician took great pains to explain to me the 

18 complicated method of devising dose 

19 reconstructions and models of CLL before it can 

20 be included. However, the science has already 

21 been performed by the aforementioned entities, 

22 resulting in CLL's reclassification. Further, 

23 since all organizations and specialists in the 

24 field concur that CLL and SLL are indeed 

25 identical, it stands to reason that conceptual 
288

1 models used for SLL can be applied to CLL, 

2 resulting in a more timely inclusion to the 

3 list of specified cancers. 

4 Claims must cease being denied on the basis of 

5 CLL diagnosis in lieu of recent research, and 

6 CLL must be added to the list of specified 

7 cancers immediately. This is not a challenge 

8 of policy; it is now the correction of an 

9 error. 

10 Site-wide contamination has been evidenced 

11 repeatedly and continues to surface, calling 

12 for the immediate revision of EEOICPA to 

13 include every worker of SSFL, regardless of 

14 work area. DOE maintains that their work and 

15 resulting contamination were exclusive to Area 

16 IV, 290 acres of SSFL's 2,850 acres. However, 

17 this is a misperception the DOE has attempted 

18 to perpetuate in an effort to avoid 

19 accountability. The reports that substantiate 

20 the following information are listed below, and 

21 I urge you to follow up on this matter. 

22 Number one, SSFL's site-wide water reclamation 

23 system. Contaminated industrial wastewater 

24 from Area IV was drained to the R2A and R2B 

25 ponds, and the Silvernale Reservoir, all of 
289

1 which are located beyond Area IV boundaries in 

2 Area II and III and contain contamination and 

3 sewage effluent. The Radioactive Material 

4 Disposal Facility wastewater contained 

5 transuranics, fission products, spent nuclear 

6 fuel, phosphoric and sulfuric acids, and 

7 caustic solvent known as Big-K. The water was 

8 then reclaimed from the ponds for rocket engine 

9 test stand cooling, used repeatedly by rocket 

10 engine test stand personnel. They contaminated 

11 themselves, the ground and surface water, the 

12 soil and the air. 

13 Number two, the soil from this pit -- of, 

14 sorry, and it concerns SSFL's Burro Flats 

15 Burrow (sic) Pit, Area IV. The soil from this 

16 pit was radiologically contaminated, it was 

17 later discovered. Soil from this pit was 

18 routinely removed and transported site-wide for 

19 use at the rocket engine stands whenever extra 

20 soil was required. 

21 Number three, Area I burn pit. Facility 

22 records detail waste which originated in Area 

23 IV's Hot Lab being transported across SSFL for 

24 disposal at the Area I burn pit through means 

25 which included combustion, ignition, oxidation 
290

1 or dumping. Located approximately 1,000 feet 

2 from several rocket engine test stands, 

3 personnel were exposed to burning radiological 

4 debris on a regular basis, as this 

5 environmental crime continued for decades. To 

6 date the DOE has not provided a radiological 

7 survey of any area other than Area IV. 

8 Number four, significant release of 

9 radionuclides to the environment. There were 

10 three significant nuclear incidents on record 

11 from 1959 to 1969, as well as numerous uranium 

12 fires involving the Hot Lab. Sodium Reactor 

13 Equipment (sic), 1959, estimated to be over 200 

14 times worse than Three Mile Island; SNAP8ER, 

15 1964, lost fuel; SNAP8DR, 1969, lost fuel. 

16 Each incident resulted in the intentional 

17 venting of radiation to the environment. Area 

18 IV can be clearly seen from the rocket engine 

19 test stands at Area II. The general safety 

20 rule regarding radiation is that if you can see 

21 it, you can breathe it. Rocket engine test 

22 stand employees were exposed when radiation was 

23 released to the environment. The Santa Ana 

24 winds, often reaching upwards of 50 miles per 

25 hour through the canyons at SSFL, are a major 
291

1 concern with respect to this issue, as well as 

2 other waste generated by DOE at Area IV which 

3 resulted in steam in the sodium pond, which is 

4 documented by numerous employees as raining 

5 black rain onto test stand personnel. 

6 Number five, DOE contractors and subcontractors 

7 at Area IV had vested interests in all areas of 

8 SSFL. This set the stage for employee 

9 rotation, which was common and undocumented. 

10 Rocket engine test stand personnel routinely 

11 worked in Area IV, as well as all other areas 

12 of SSFL, without dosimetry badges or job 

13 descriptions that were indicative of this type 

14 of flexibility. This prohibits exposure from 

15 being adequately assessed due to job 

16 description and documented job location. This, 

17 coupled with the destruction of work records, 

18 as well as the important facts above, 

19 necessitates the immediate inclusion of all 

20 SSFL employees under the Act at once. 

21 Number six, debris field discovered off site 

22 August of 2008. Just three weeks ago yet 

23 another 40,000 cubic foot debris field of DOE's 

24 waste was discovered at Sage Ranch State Park 

25 bordering SSFL. This waste is currently being 
292

1 tested for radiological and chemical 

2 contamination, verifying once again that DOE 

3 activity impacted the entire facility and 

4 extended into off-site areas. 

5 Number seven, ETEC, which is Energy Technology 

6 Engineering Center, SABER, which is Steam 

7 Accumulation Blowdown Evaluation Rig, Hot Fuel 

8 Storage Building and storage of strontium-90 at 

9 Area I are documented DOE activities at SSFL. 

10 Number eight, Environmental Survey Preliminary 

11 Report of DOE activities at SSFL details the 

12 storage of DOE hazardous waste at Area II, in 

13 drums, on unpaved surfaces, et cetera. 

14 Heroes of the space race who worked at SSFL are 

15 currently languishing without compensable 

16 recourse, and it is clear that they were 

17 exposed to DOE activities and contamination in 

18 the line of duty. 

19 And the rest of the letter is her documentation 

20 of the reports. Thank you. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. On our sign22 up list here at the meeting we had no other 

23 individuals sign up for this evening, but let 

24 me ask if there are any here in this room who 

25 do wish to make public comment this evening. 
293

1 (No responses) 

2 Okay, I will now then turn to the phone lines 

3 and ask if there is anyone on the phone lines 

4 that wishes to make public comment. 

5 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, hello? 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Please identify yourself and then 

7 proceed. 

8 MR. PETERSON: My name is Carl Peterson. I am 

9 the husband of a claimant, [Personal Identifier 

10 redacted]. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

12 MR. PETERSON: Let me excuse myself in the 

13 beginning. We just found out about the meeting 

14 this morning. We were able to download the 

15 workshop. This is in reference to Chapman 

16 Valve. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. 

18 MR. PETERSON: I'd like to address the Board -- 

19 you know, I've just put together some notes so 

20 they will be sporadic, so please excuse me. 

21 I'd like to start by just talking about the 

22 previous speaker, because I think one of the 

23 issues at Chapman Valve is it appears that 

24 information that is speculative and prepared by 

25 a contractor who has a vested interest in not 
294

1 having any problems at the site winds up 

2 preparing the reports and the panel seems to 

3 weigh heavily in their favor. And I think one 

4 -- one of -- two issues, one is I think it was 

5 talked about a number of times in the workshop 

6 how Department of Defense and Department of 

7 Energy did not keep the best of records, did 

8 not always say what was and what was not at the 

9 sites. You know, another item that I would 

10 certainly like to talk about is H. K. 

11 Ferguson's report, which is talked about quite 

12 a lot. But you know, I think the whole intent 

13 for this is to give the families the benefit of 

14 the doubt. 

15 I am a registered architect and engineer, and 

16 as such we have what's called peer review, 

17 which I know as -- as scientists and doctors on 

18 the Board, you also have this. Here we have an 

19 incident where we have a contractor doing their 

20 own review and writing a report of their own 

21 work, and we're taking that, quite frankly, as 

22 the Bible. We -- we have no independent 

23 information as to what happened at that site 

24 and what didn't happen at that site. And -- 

25 and I don't think that information should be 
295

1 weighed as heavily as factual information, one 

2 of the things being the discovery of the 

3 enriched uranium in the so-called loading dock 

4 area. 

5 Now granted, I -- I do not have professional 

6 expertise in uranium, the storage of or 

7 movement of, but I think as a layman I have a 

8 basic understanding. And as the previous 

9 speaker spoke, if it's in the area and you 

10 could see it, you could breathe it, or -- or be 

11 exposed to it. So I -- I think the Board 

12 limiting themselves to say well, it was just in 

13 a little area at the loading dock is not -- is 

14 not operational. If you're going to take 

15 Ferguson's report as the Bible and say 

16 everything in that is perfect, then I -- I 

17 think the only factual piece of information is 

18 you know that the uranium was there. 

19 Now again, you say well, it could be there from 

20 the Navy, it could be there from the Nautilus 

21 program, it could be there from the Department 

22 of Defense, but we don't know that. Again, I -

23 - I'd like to emphasize the benefit of the 

24 doubt. It was there. I mean we've -- so far 

25 we've spent as much time as -- or more time 
296

1 than World War II (unintelligible) 60 years 

2 later, some information. Now the information 

3 might not have been there originally. They 

4 might have kept that information secret or just 

5 not documented that information, but we know it 

6 was there. We know -- I mean I would assume 

7 you have to know it as scientists, but having -

8 - having that particular material in the 

9 loading dock area does not limit it to the 

10 loading dock area unless maybe it was lead 

11 shields. I would tend to doubt that. But -- 

12 so it seems to me as we go along and -- and I'm 

13 very disconcerted that -- that it's a tie vote 

14 and everyone knows that -- and we've listened 

15 to you talk earlier today -- that that's a 

16 death knell for the program 'cause that was 

17 stated in the meeting earlier today, NIOSH is 

18 not going to do anything more if you submit to 

19 the Secretary a tie vote. And -- and I put 

20 forward to you -- I have a number of pages of -

21 - of (unintelligible) I've gone over here in 

22 terms of a lot of your members bringing up 

23 these own questions about documentation of 

24 records, you know, not being able to find 

25 records, which doesn't surprise me. It's 60 
297

1 years later. 

2 But -- but isn't the whole thought of this 

3 process that families should be given the 

4 benefit of the doubt? If we know something 

5 does exist, does it really matter now when -- 

6 if you -- if you can't find a document that 

7 said when it existed, then you have to go on 

8 the premise that it was there. I mean if 

9 you're using the Ferguson report, then you -- 

10 you have to use the contrary information that 

11 you have as scientists. 

12 You know, the Chapman Valve families have been 

13 sitting here now for years and years and years 

14 and -- and I know -- I know you have a lot of 

15 projects to consider, but this one is as 

16 important to these families as the other 

17 families on the other sites. And it just 

18 appears to me that over and over again the word 

19 is it could be something else. Well, I don't 

20 really think that's good enough. You know, 

21 unless you have documentation that it is 

22 something else, then I don't think you could 

23 use that as a variable to just say we're going 

24 to pass this on and we can't make a decision. 

25 I -- I would think in -- in good conscience you 
298

1 -- you should allow this process to continue. 

2 If you're a tie vote, then just based on that 

3 alone you should give the benefit of the doubt 

4 to these families and let the process continue, 

5 not just let it die here tonight, because there 

6 are unanswered questions and -- and we can't -- 

7 you should not -- you should not be able to 

8 live on speculation and comfort yourself that 

9 well, it could have been something else. It's 

10 just not good enough. I mean I -- I think 

11 these families have been hung out there too 

12 long. If you are in fact a tie vote, then 

13 someone should step up and just say we should 

14 recommend to the Secretary -- because there's 

15 enough of us, there are enough of us that say 

16 this should continue and -- you know, I -- I 

17 could go on and on, but -- but I think that 

18 gives you the gist of -- of what I'm saying. 

19 There's more documentation. If I had more 

20 time, you know, I would write it down. You 

21 know, I just -- one of the things in the Folle* 

22 report (unintelligible) unlikely but not out of 

23 the realm of possibility that something more 

24 happened. I -- I guess the big question here 

25 is there was something that happened there, but 
299

1 none of us know how it got there or when it 

2 left there or how much stayed there. And just 

3 that alone should -- should force you to tell 

4 that Secretary this should continue. And I 

5 guess -- I guess that's my point right now. I 

6 mean I would really wish that the panel would -

7 - would go back and -- and -- and think about 

8 this, not just use facts. I mean one of the 

9 clear things in my mind is when I have a 

10 contractor and I'm building a building, I don't 

11 have him test the concrete and steel. It's 

12 just not done and -- and we also all know 

13 documentation, because of the secrecy of all 

14 these programs and such, it probably does not 

15 exist and never will. So again, I just 

16 reiterate, you know, if you have a split vote, 

17 why should that not go in the favor of the 

18 families. I just don't understand. And I -- 

19 I thank you very much for -- for the -- 

20 listening to me. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much for your 

22 comments. 

23 Let me ask now if there are others on the line 

24 that wish to make comments this evening. 

25 MR. FUNKE: Yes, Dr. Zimmer (sic). 
300

1 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

2 MR. FUNKE: This is John Funke. I've got a 

3 couple items I missed out the other day and I'd 

4 like to bring them to the Board's attention. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that's fine, John. Please 

6 proceed. 

7 MR. FUNKE: Okay, I don't know, I -- I missed 

8 part of your discussions, but I don't know 

9 whether the subject of Area 51 has been brought 

10 up. As we know by now, the government has 

11 finally admitted that Area 51 did indeed exist, 

12 and it was a DO (sic) covered facility. And 

13 now this is going to expand the site profile 

14 considerably and it's going to create a lot 

15 more problems related to the site profile, and 

16 I was just wondering if the Board has taken 

17 that into consideration. 

18 And there's one other problem because of Area 

19 51 and also existing problem on the Test Site, 

20 we have another problem with certain types of 

21 employees. As you're aware, there were Defense 

22 Nuclear Agency people working on Nevada Test 

23 Site during the testing, representing the 

24 various departments of -- of Defense -- I mean 

25 the -- the Pentagon. There was Air Force, Army 
301

1 Navy, Marines, just about all of them were 

2 represented in this Defense Nuclear Agency. So 

3 these people worked right elbow to elbow with 

4 me, with the rest of them. However, because 

5 their badges are another color, DoD, they are 

6 not allowed to participate in this program. 

7 And I understand there was a considerable 

8 amount of lobbying went on by the Department of 

9 Defense to have these people, you know, left 

10 out of the process. However, I don't think 

11 this was right and I -- I know the Board may 

12 not -- it may be out of your realm to do 

13 anything about this, but you might consider 

14 some discussions on it or maybe finding out 

15 from DOL what can be done about it, but these 

16 people are being -- falling through the cracks, 

17 so to speak, because they -- because it's a 

18 Department of Energy program, and they are 

19 Department of Defense workers, they're not 

20 included. However, they were -- some of them 

21 were subject to more exposure than we were. 

22 And this also covers Area 51. We had four 

23 contractors over there that were captive 

24 contractors. We had REECo Systems, which was 

25 REECo. We had Holmes and Narver, we had 
302

1 Wackenhut Guard Service, and we had EG&G 

2 Special Projects. And of these three 

3 contractors, one of them wore a DoD badge and 

4 that was EG&G Special Projects. These -- they 

5 can't -- not get covered under the Department 

6 of Defense programs because they were civilian 

7 employees. Some of these people were injured 

8 out there and could not even file state 

9 industrial insurance claims because Area 51 

10 didn't exist, therefore they couldn't prove 

11 their case before the state industrial 

12 insurance system. Now we're going into this 

13 process of who gets covered where, it seems 

14 that EG&G Special Projects has been dropped off 

15 once again, and there was quite a few people 

16 that worked for EG&G Special Projects and they 

17 were supportive of REECo and the other captive 

18 contractors, and they were indeed a captive 

19 contractor as well. So this also needs to be 

20 looked into to see if we could possibly get 

21 these people covered. 

22 Now see, there was one other thing there. On 

23 the -- on the rocket test stands the lady 

24 talked about, there was a -- as you were aware, 

25 NRDS area of Nevada Test Site carried on tests 
303

1 from atomic rockets which use liquid hydrogen 

2 as a fuel. And she was absolutely correct, 

3 when these things did run, they did put off 

4 quite amount of water into the atmosphere, and 

5 it was visible. I have photographs that shows 

6 that, so that -- whatever supporting that -- to 

7 her claim, I would go ahead and like you to 

8 pass that on, any information I provide. I do 

9 have one book that explains how that takes 

10 place and how that does happen. 

11 Other than that, that's pretty much it. Thank 

12 you very much for the time. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, John, for your 

14 comments and your points are so noted. 

15 Are there others on the line that wish to 

16 speak? 

17 MR. PETERSON: Yes, Mr. Chairman, this is Mr. 

18 Peterson again. I just have a question for 

19 you. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

21 MR. PETERSON: You -- you had mentioned earlier 

22 today that you were continuing and talking 

23 about Chapman Valve tomorrow? 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we do have that on the agenda 

25 tomorrow again in the morning. I -- I don't -- 
304

1 MR. PETERSON: (Unintelligible) 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Let me check the time here, just 

3 looking at -- 

4 It's one of the early things in the morning, so 

5 shortly after 8:30 that will come up again. 

6 MR. PETERSON: Okay. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: So you're welcome to be listening 

8 in again for those comments -- 

9 MR. PETERSON: Yes. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: -- and discussion. Right. 

11 MR. PETERSON: Thank you very much. 

12 DR. BRANCHE: 8:30 local time. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: What time? 

14 DR. BRANCHE: 8:30 local time. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: 8:30 local time here. 

16 MR. PETERSON: Oh, okay, I realize that. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Middle of the day there, 

18 probably. Right? Okay. Thank you. 

19 Other comments? 

20 (No responses) 

21 Okay, let me give one more opportunity here 

22 locally. Anyone here in the room that wishes 

23 to comment? 

24 (No responses) 

25 If not, let me thank you all for your 
305

1 participation this evening. We're going to 

2 recess until our session tomorrow morning at 

3 8:30. Thank you very much. 

4 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 7:58 

5 p.m.) 

6 
306

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of Sept. 3, 

2008; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

4th day of Oct., 2008. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102 
307

I hereby certify that to the best of my 

knowledge, the Transcript of the September 3, 

2008 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health Meeting held at Redondo Beach, CA, is 

accurate and complete. 

______________________ 

October 17, 2008 

Paul L. Ziemer, Ph.D. 

Chair, Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health