Idaho National Laboratory 

SEC Petition-00219 Status 

Update

Presented by: 

Bob Barton, SC&A, Inc.

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

Providence, Rhode Island

August 22–23, 2018
Background – INL SEC Petition-00219

 July 8, 2014: INL Petition Received

 Job Titles and/or Job Duties: All employees who worked in any area

 Period of employment: January 1, 1949, through December 31, 1970

 September 16, 2014: Petition Qualifies for Evaluation

 March 12, 2015: NIOSH Petition Evaluation Report Rev. 00 

Completed

 NIOSH original proposed SEC class included all workers with evidence of 

external dosimetry at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (CPP) for the 

period January 1, 1963–December 31, 1974

 CPP Post-1974 period held in reserve for potential 83.14 evaluation

 Original proposed class discussed by the Advisory Board on Radiation 

and Worker Health (ABRWH) at the regular semi-annual meeting in 

March 2015

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Background – INL SEC Petition-00219 (cont.)

 July 21, 2015: NIOSH Petition Evaluation Report Rev. 01 Completed

 Documentation was captured that suggests that for the period from March 1, 

1970, to December 31, 1974, a worker could enter the CPP with any INL 

dosimetry badge (i.e., a CPP-specific dosimetry badge was not required)

 Class definition revised to effectively split the SEC into two time periods 

(Part A and Part B) based on the site-wide badging policies

 Revised Class Definition: “All employees of the Department of Energy, its 

predecessor agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors who worked 

at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Scoville, Idaho, and (a) who were 

monitored for external radiation at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant 

(CPP) (e.g., at least one film badge or TLD dosimeter from CPP) between 

January 1, 1963 and February 28, 1970; or (b) who were monitored for 

external radiation at INL (e.g., at least one film badge or TLD dosimeter) 

between March 1, 1970 and December 31, 1974 for a number of work days 

aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring either solely under this 

employment, or in combination with work days within the parameters 

established for one or more other classes of employees in the Special 

Exposure Cohort.”

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Background – INL SEC Petition-00219 (cont.)

 July 21, 2015: NIOSH Petition Evaluation Report Rev. 01 (cont.)

 Revised class discussed by the ABRWH at the regular meetings in July 2015 and 

March 2016

 INL/ANL-W Work Group discussions in July 2015, November 2015, January 2016, and 

March 2016 

 Discussion by the ABRWH at the regular semi-annual meeting in 

March 2016.

 INL/ANL-W Work Group recommended the ABRWH accept “part B” of the proposed 

class definition (i.e., “[workers] who were monitored for external radiation at INL (e.g., at 

least one film badge or TLD dosimeter) between March 1, 1970 and December 31, 

1974”)

 The ABRWH voted to accept the INL/ANL-W recommendation for acceptance of “part B” 

of the class definition while “part A” (i.e., “[workers] who were monitored for external 

radiation at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (CPP) (e.g., at least one film badge or 

TLD dosimeter from CPP) between January 1, 1963 and February 28, 1970)” continued 

to be evaluated

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Primary Issue Under Consideration for Part A

 Part A of the proposed definition requires evidence of external 

dosimetry specific to the CPP

 During the course of NIOSH, SC&A, and the Work Group review of 

the proposed class definition, it was discovered that temporary/visitor 

badge records were not always migrated to the main INL dosimetry 

system

 Temporary/Visitor badges with positive recorded external dose were transferred to 

the official dosimetry database

 Temporary/Visitor badges with no recorded dose were generally not included in 

the official dosimetry database

 SEC Implication: Workers who were monitored via temporary/visitor badge at CPP 

and did not accrue a recorded dose could be inadvertently excluded from Part A of 

the proposed SEC class

 In response, DOE and INL conducted a significant coding and 

indexing effort to assure that all temporary/visitor badges were 

correctly migrated to the INL dosimetry system and available for 

individual SEC determination

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Primary Issue Under Consideration for Part A (cont.)

 INL/ANL-W Work Group remained concerned that difficulties 

might arise concerning the implementation of the 

temporary/visitor badge coding effort, including (but not limited 

to):

 Name misspellings on original records

 Name variations used for the same individual

 Human error associated with the coding/indexing effort

 INL/ANL-W Work Group requested that SC&A develop a 

verification and validation (V&V) strategy to evaluate the 

effectiveness of the newly coded temporary/visitor badges in 

identifying workers who entered the CPP during the remaining 

portion of the proposed SEC class (January 1, 1963–

February 28, 1970)

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Verification and Validation Strategy

 Initial SC&A V&V strategy outlined in a memorandum delivered 

to the Work Group on September 29, 2016:

 SC&A method identified 32 individual claimants with a total of 51 

temporary/visitor badges that were not included with the energy 

employees’ monitoring record to date

 NIOSH could then request the dosimetry records for these 32 individuals 

to verify that the missing temporary/visitor badges had been correctly 

migrated to the INL dosimetry system and were included in the energy 

employees’ updated monitoring records 

 Initial V&V proposal was discussed during the Work Group meeting on 

May 16, 2017, at which time the Work Group requested that SC&A 

expand the number of claimants and associated temporary/visitor badges 

for V&V evaluation

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Verification and Validation Strategy (cont.)

 Revised SC&A V&V strategy delivered to the Work Group on August 3, 2017

 228 total claimants identified with nearly 1800 associated temporary/visitor badges 

 Claimants sorted/ranked into four separate groups based on the significance to 

V&V activities, factors considered include:

 Inclusion of various subcontract workers in addition to prime contract workers

 Observed name or spelling variations

 Necessity of a future dose reconstruction (this criterion was included so that 

DOE would not expend resources to research the monitoring records for 

energy employees who would not require a revised partial dose 

reconstruction)

 Work Group discussed the revised V&V approach during the Work Group 

meeting on August 17, 2017

 Work Group elected to proceed with the monitoring records requests for the first 

group of claimants identified in the revised SC&A methodology (30 energy 

employees in total)

 Record requests for the second group of claimants (Group 2) to proceed after the 

records had been received for Group 1

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Verification and Validation Progress To Date

 NIOSH requested the external dosimetry records for the first 30 

claimants (Group 1) in August 2017

 Due to a miscommunication with DOE, the temporary/visitor 

badges were still not being included with the claimant 

monitoring records

 After clarification of the issue, NIOSH resubmitted the requests 

for external dosimetry records in March and May 2018

 As of July 2018, revised monitoring records had been received 

for 18 of the original 30 claims in Group 1

 SC&A reviewed the revised monitoring record for the 18 

available claims and submitted its interim results to the Work 

Group on July 26, 2018

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Verification and Validation Progress To Date (cont.)

 SC&A had identified 420 temporary/visitor badges among the 

18 reviewed claims.

 Review of the updated external dosimetry files found that 332 

of the 420 badges (~79%) had been correctly migrated into the 

INL dosimetry system and were appropriately included in the 

individual’s monitoring record.

 In one case, none of the 31 identified temporary/visitor badges 

had been included. 

 In addition to the 420 temporary/visitor badges attributed to the 

Group 1 claims, SC&A identified an additional 32 temporary 

badges that appeared to have name variations/misspellings. 

Only 3 of these 32 temporary badges (~10%) were included in 

the updated DOE monitoring record. 

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Discussion and Path Forward – Part A of 

SEC-00219

 SC&A’s interim V&V results as well as NIOSH 

response/discussion points were discussed during the 

INL/ANL-W Work Group meeting on August 9, 2018

 Work Group voted to continue gathering and evaluating 

DOE-supplied monitoring files for the remaining 12 of 30 

claimants originally selected for V&V activities

 NIOSH to work with DOE-INL personnel to determine the 

root cause for observed missing temporary badge 

records among the 18 of 30 claims currently evaluated 

by SC&A

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Questions?

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