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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

73rd MEETING

+ + + + +

WEDNESDAY

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

+ + + + +

 The meeting convened at 8:15 a.m., 

Mountain Standard Time, in the Hilton Santa 

Fe, 100 Sandoval Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 

James M. Melius, Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member

MARK GRIFFON, Member

RICHARD LEMEN, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member
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PRESENT: (continued) 

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor 

AGUILAR, DIEGO

AGUILAR, NAOMI 

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

ARMIJO, ROBERTO, Hangar 481 Petitioner

BARELA, JOSE

BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG*

BEAVERS, DANNY

BONSIGNORE, ANTOINETTE, Linde Petitioner*

BRADFORD, SHANNON, NIOSH

BROEHM, JASON, CDC

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH 

CRAWFORD, CHRIS, DCAS

CRUZ, RUBEN, CDC

DARNELL, PETER, DCAS

ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH

EVASKOVICH, ANDREW, LANL Petitioner

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FRATELLO, MELISSA, Senator Kirsten 

Gillibrand's Office*

FRAZIER, THOMAS

GALLAGHER TORZA, DOROTHY

GARCIA, MARGARITO

GLOVER, SAM, DCAS

HERRERA, ANNA

HERRERA, ELROY

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

JACQUEZ-ORTIZ, MICHELE, Senator Tom Udall's 

Office

JOHNSON, RICHARD

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

KUNKEL, JAMES
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REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS

LEITON, RACHEL, DOL

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

LIN, JENNY, HHS

LUJAN, EUGENIO

LUX, LINDA, Linde Petitioner *

MAIVIGIL, CELINA

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MONTOYA, PAUL

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCDANIEL, GEORGE*

MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU Team

MCKEEL, DAN, Texas City Petitioner*

MILLER, MARLENE 

MONTOYA, ROBERTO

MANTOYO, PAUL

NEGRETE, MIGUEL, Congressman Martin Heinrich's 

Office*

NETON, JIM, DCAS

ORTIZ, DANIEL

ORTIZ, TOM

PRESLEY, LOUISE

RAEL, LOIS E.

RIVERA, YVONNE

RIVIRA, G.

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

SALAZAR, BENITO, Hangar 481 Petitioner

SANDOVAL, FLAYMON

TAPIA, JOSEPH

THURBER, BILL, SC&A

TOWLES, GERALDINE

TRUJILLO, GILBERT

TRUJILLO, JOHNNY

TRUJILLO, MELISSA

TRUJILLO, RICHARD

WADE, LEW, NIOSH Contractor

WANGER, WILLIAM

WOLDMAN, BILL, Senator Tom Udall's Office

*Participating via telephone
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 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Welcome - Dr. James Melius, Chair......... 5

Texas City Chemicals SEC Petition

Dr. James Neton, NIOSH.............. 6

Petitioner: Dr. Dan McKeel......... 32

Linde Ceramics WG, Recommendations on Linde 

Ceramics SEC Petition-107 (1954-2006)

Dr. Genevieve Roessler, WG Chair.... 61

Petitioner: Antoinette Bonsignore. 103

Petitioner: Linda Lux.............. 410

Linde Ceramics SEC Petition-154 (1947-1953)

Mr. Frank Crawford, NIOSH.......... 125

Petitioner: Antoinette Bonsignore.. 156

Reconstruction of Doses In The Absence Of 

Bioassay or Air Monitoring Data

Dr. James Neton, NIOSH............. 169

Mr. Joseph Fitzgerald, SC&A........ 192

BWXT SEC Petition (Operational period, 1985-

1994) (83.14)

Mr. LaVon Rutherford, NIOSH........ 257

Board Work Session....................... 285

Hangar 481 (Kirtland Air Force Base, 

Albuquerque, NM) SEC Petition Update

Dr. Samuel Glover, NIOSH........... 342

Petitioner: Robert Armijo.......... 367

Public Comment........................... 409

Adjourn.................................. 482
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 8:25 a.m.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Ted, do you want 

4 to do our --

5 MR. KATZ: Sure. So, good morning. 

6 Welcome everyone here. And welcome everyone 

7 on the line, and just a few instructions for 

8 folks on the line.

9 We have a number of SECs we're 

10 going through, and we'll be hearing from 

11 petitioners in some cases. They'll be out 

12 there on the line with you. We have a public 

13 comment session at 5:30, from 5:30 to 6:30, 

14 for people here as well as on the line.

15 Let me just ask all of you on the 

16 line, though, please mute your phones except 

17 when you're addressing this group, which would 

18 be during one of those periods. But to mute 

19 your phone, if you don't have a mute button, 

20 just use * 6. Press *, and then 6. That will 

21 mute your phone. To take your phone off of 

22 mute, press * and then 6 again.
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1 And, also, please do not put this 

2 call on hold at any point, but hang up and 

3 dial back in if you need to leave for a 

4 period.

5 And that's about it. Thank you. 

6 Dr. Melius.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We have 

8 several SECs to go through this morning and 

9 this afternoon. So we'll get started.

10 And the first one on the agenda is 

11 the Texas City SEC petition. This is a 

12 revised report, is that --

13 DR. NETON: Yes, it is.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And Dr. Jim 

15 Neton will make the presentation.

16 DR. NETON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. 

17 Melius.

18 Good morning, everyone. I am here 

19 to present Revision 1 of the Texas City 

20 Chemicals Evaluation Report.

21 And I'll get into a little bit 

22 about what's different in this revision in a 
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1 few seconds, but first I'd like to just go 

2 over a little bit about the AWE activities at 

3 Texas City. I think since the last time I 

4 presented this, we may have some new Board 

5 Members that haven't even heard about this 

6 yet.

7 So Texas City Chemicals was one of 

8 a number of -- several phosphate plants that 

9 were recruited by the Atomic Energy Commission 

10 in the early days, particularly in the early 

11 `50s, to be used as a potential source of 

12 uranium.

13 The way it works is that phosphate 

14 ore itself is naturally concentrated in 

15 uranium. It's about around .01 percent 

16 uranium by weight, which equates to about 30 

17 picocuries per gram. So there's some useable 

18 uranium in there.

19 And the thinking was by the AEC 

20 that as long as these phosphate ores were 

21 going through and making phosphoric acid and 

22 other fertilizer-type products, why not 
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1 extract uranium at the same time? And that's 

2 exactly what the concept was at Texas City.

3 In addition to the production, the 

4 contract to produce some ore, some uranium ore 

5 -- or uranium, that is, there was also a 

6 chemical extraction research contract that we 

7 found that the AEC had with Texas City that 

8 I'll get into a little bit later, but it 

9 fundamentally helps establish the covered 

10 period.

11 Now that we know exactly what's 

12 happened, it actually sort of anchors the end 

13 point of the covered period which is currently 

14 October 5th, 1953, through September 30th, 

15 1955. It's shrunk a bit since the original 

16 covered period, and I'll discuss that in a 

17 couple slides.

18 The residual period now is listed 

19 as 1957. In 1977, if you notice, there's a 

20 gap there of about a year. And that's an 

21 artifact of the way the residual contamination 

22 periods are defined.
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1 NIOSH has a responsibility to 

2 provide a report to Congress as to what the 

3 end point for the residual contamination 

4 periods are. This covered period just 

5 recently shrunk by a year at the upper end, 

6 and the report to Congress has not yet been 

7 issued for Texas City.

8 So until some sort of a 

9 transmittal, whether it's a letter report or 

10 more formal report, is sent there, there will 

11 exist this gap at least on the Department of 

12 Energy website.

13 I mentioned the covered period has 

14 changed since the early -- since the Rev 0, 

15 and that's partly or mostly because of the 

16 additional information that we received about 

17 Texas City Chemicals through our data capture 

18 efforts. We learned quite a bit more about 

19 the details of the production problems of 

20 uranium at Texas City.

21 In fact, at the end of the day at 

22 most, Texas City produced uranium for about a 
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1 six-month period, which allowed us to 

2 substantially shrink the exposure assessment 

3 for uranium that we had in the original 

4 report.

5 Also, the details of the research 

6 that was conducted by Texas City became more 

7 apparent and, in fact, allowed us to realize 

8 that the end date for the research they 

9 conducted would establish the end point for 

10 the covered period.

11 And also more complete uranium 

12 production data was discovered that allowed us 

13 to not only know the amount that was produced, 

14 but the periodicity at which it was produced 

15 as well.

16 So having uncovered this 

17 information, we sent about a year ago last 

18 November, I think it was, a letter to the 

19 Department of Labor asking them to consider 

20 this information and make a determination 

21 whether the original covered period, as 

22 established, was reasonable.
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1 The original covered period went 

2 from January 1st, 1952, to December 31st, 

3 1956. After reviewing our information, the 

4 Department of Labor concurred and changed the 

5 covered period to a start date of October 5th, 

6 1953, that reflects the date that what's --

7 so-called shakedown operations started.

8 The original date of January 1st, 

9 1952, really reflected a letter contract 

10 between Texas City and the Department -- or 

11 AEC with the intent to build such a plant.

12 In fact, it took a while for the 

13 plant to -- for the agreement to be formalized 

14 and the plant construction to be completed. 

15 And October 5th, 1953, is the date that the 

16 plant was actually completed and they started 

17 moving at least some minimal amounts of

18 radioactive material through the plant.

19 The new end date reflects the end 

20 of the AEC contract to conduct developmental 

21 work with leach zone material. That was the 

22 research contract. And that contract formally 
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1 ended September 10th, 1955.

2 It was a very small contract to 

3 look at the so-called leach zone material, 

4 which is the, as best I understand it, a layer 

5 of material above the phosphate-enriched layer 

6 in the ground that contains low phosphate, but 

7 equal amounts of uranium.

8 So it was of no economic value to 

9 the phosphate industry. They would just 

10 scrape that off and discard it.

11 The AEC recognizing that there was 

12 still about .01 percent uranium in there, 

13 Texas City Chemicals embarked on a research 

14 project to see if they could come up with a 

15 better way to more economically recover the 

16 phosphate from the leach zone material. 

17 Therefore, it would be a win-win.

18 They could get more phosphate out 

19 of the leach zone material, and the AEC could 

20 extract more -- get more uranium extracted 

21 from that leach zone that was previously 

22 abandoned or just discarded.
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1 Okay. Back to the petition 

2 information. As I mentioned, this is a -- the 

3 petition was originally qualified way back in 

4 2007 as an 83.13 petition. It provided 

5 information and affidavits to support the fact 

6 that radiation monitoring records for members 

7 of the Class may have been lost, falsified, or 

8 destroyed, and information regarding the 

9 monitoring records for Texas City Chemicals is 

10 unavailable.

11 Certainly, that is true. We have 

12 no monitoring information at all from Texas 

13 City unlike Blockson Chemical, which was 

14 another phosphate plant that produced uranium 

15 ores. They had some uranium urinalysis data. 

16 There was no urinalysis data at Texas City, 

17 nor were there any external dosimetry data.

18 So as I mentioned, the initial 

19 Evaluation Report, Rev 0, was issued January 

20 18th, 2008, and was presented to the Board at 

21 the Tampa, Florida meeting in April of that 

22 year. And in our original evaluation, we 
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1 concluded that all exposures, including radon, 

2 could be reconstructed.

3 Rev 1 was issued October 18th, 

4 2010. And in that revision, we reevaluated 

5 exposures to uranium, thorium, and long-lived 

6 progeny in light of the new covered time 

7 period.

8 That is the time period shrunk, so 

9 we revised our dose reconstruction methods to 

10 accommodate that. We also, as I mentioned 

11 previously, really shrunk the uranium period.

12 It turns out that only for the 

13 first six months of the covered period was 

14 uranium produced. And, in fact, only about 

15 400 pounds of uranium ever was sold to the 

16 Department of -- or the Atomic Energy 

17 Commission at $25 a pound. So they sold about 

18 $10,000 worth of product from all that effort.

19 But probably the biggest thing 

20 that we've done in this Evaluation Report was 

21 reconsidering the use of surrogate data for 

22 reconstructing radon exposure. Those of you 
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1 might recall the original Evaluation Report, 

2 very much like the original Blockson 

3 Evaluation Report, uses the Florida Phosphate 

4 -- Florida Institute of Phosphate Research 

5 data to bound the upper limit of radon 

6 exposure in a phosphate plant. And I think 

7 that was around 2.1 or around two picocuries 

8 per liter was the 95th percentile of the data 

9 from the Florida phosphate industry.

10 After going through Working Groups 

11 and stuff and such with Blockson Chemical, at 

12 least, we realized that that number was 

13 probably low. Florida phosphate plants tend 

14 to be draftier. The data were taken from a 

15 more current time period, `70s on, that were 

16 not necessarily reflective of what would have 

17 occurred in the 1950s. So we've gone back to 

18 the drawing board and looked at how we were 

19 going to possibly reconstruct radon.

20 The proposed Class originally was 

21 all employees who worked at Texas City from 

22 the original covered -- defined covered 
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1 period, which was 1952 to `56. Our Class 

2 evaluated all employees who worked at Texas 

3 City during the revised covered period, which 

4 is October 5th, `53, through September 30th, 

5 1955, just about one month short of two years.

6 As usual, we had a number of 

7 sources of information that we went to search 

8 out data for these facilities -- this 

9 facility. Our Site Research Database did have 

10 several of the contracts that were in place 

11 between the AEC and Texas City.

12 We had source-term. We knew how 

13 much phosphate ore was intended to be run 

14 through these plants and how frequently, you 

15 know, the production rate, and various AEC 

16 documents and memos. In particular, we had a 

17 lot of information from the Blockson plant, 

18 which is a wet chemical phosphate plant as 

19 well. So very similar processes that we could

20 rely on.

21 We also had information from 

22 petitioners, interviews of former workers, and 
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1 we did conduct one outreach meeting at Texas 

2 City in October of 2007. In addition, we had 

3 these numerous studies in the phosphate 

4 industry, not the least of which is the 

5 Florida Institute for Phosphate Research 

6 publications which tend to be quite 

7 comprehensive, hundreds of pages summarizing 

8 over 20 years of operation of phosphate mining 

9 and production.

10 And in addition, we had a number 

11 of Technical Information Bulletins that we 

12 would apply to this site, which would include 

13 the Technical Information Bulletin on how we 

14 reconstruct medical x-rays in absence of any 

15 data for a specific site, TIB-9, which would 

16 be used for how to estimate ingestion 

17 exposures based on surface contamination 

18 levels, those type of TIBs.

19 Okay. A little bit of this might 

20 be redundant. Texas City operations, they 

21 were contracted in `52 to construct the plant. 

22 As I mentioned, construction was completed 
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1 and startup occurred in `53.

2 And as I said, only three to 400 

3 pounds of uranium was produced between October 

4 `53 and March `54. About a six-month period.

5 There's two reports. The first 

6 report is a memo, an internal memo from the 

7 Atomic Energy Commission that said, basically, 

8 that the production never really got off the 

9 ground. It was in fits and starts. And it 

10 said something to the effect that 

11 approximately 300 pounds were produced.

12 The 400-pound number is based on a 

13 more -- I don't know -- more credible AEC 

14 report which was a summary of all the shipment 

15 and purchasing of uranium ore from the 

16 phosphate plants that they were contracted 

17 with. And that was the basis of the 400-pound 

18 estimate.

19 Texas City Chemical did file for 

20 bankruptcy in July of 1956. And that, in 

21 fact, was the basis for the original end date 

22 of the covered period. There was a FUSRAP 
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1 report that sort of suggested that uranium was 

2 produced during this entire time until they 

3 went bankrupt in `56. And we, of course, have 

4 since learned that that was not the case.

5 Okay. The research activities 

6 I've already gone over. This was to perform 

7 research into cheap methods to recover 

8 phosphorous oxide and uranium from these leach 

9 zone materials.

10 It was a very small, small 

11 operation. Laboratory based. There was one 

12 drum of phosphate ore received, as far as we 

13 can tell, over the entire time period. And 

14 there was another shipment of maybe 20 pounds 

15 from the Tennessee Valley Authority which was 

16 also operating a phosphate plant in that time 

17 period, but the contract did expire on 

18 September 30th, 1955.

19 So you can see what's happened is 

20 that the covered period starts in October of 

21 1953. By May of `53, the production of 

22 phosphate is gone -- of uranium is over and 
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1 you still -- the only thing that's keeping 

2 this as a covered facility is this leach zone 

3 contract for research. So there's several 

4 different things going on at the same time 

5 period.

6 Okay. Just to briefly go over 

7 dose reconstruction, there's a fairly lengthy 

8 Evaluation Report. It's like 60 some pages. 

9 I won't go into all the details, but I thought 

10 I'd at least go over the highlights.

11 We did assume that the dose for 

12 external exposure occurred starting at the 

13 beginning of the shakedown operations, and 

14 there's two things going on here. You have an 

15 external exposure from dose in the phosphate 

16 plant itself, and then you have an external 

17 exposure from the dose in the uranium recovery 

18 portion of the facility.

19 So the dose in the phosphate 

20 portion of the plant was reconstructed using 

21 annual doses that are published in TIB-43, 

22 which is Characterization of Occupational 
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1 Exposure to Radium and Radon During Recovery 

2 of Uranium From Phosphate Materials.

3 That is largely based on this 

4 Florida Institute -- the FIPR report, the 

5 Florida Institute for Phosphate Research 

6 report where they did summarize 20 years worth 

7 of research in -- or 20 years worth of 

8 monitoring the phosphate industry. I think 

9 that one plant provided 30,000 TLD 

10 measurements.

11 And it turns out that the upper 

12 value -- we used the upper value that was 

13 reported for the highest-exposed job category 

14 which was maintenance craft-type workers, and 

15 I think -- I'm sure it was 220 millirem per 

16 year is what we used for this.

17 In general, it was very hard for 

18 anybody in the phosphate industry to receive 

19 over about a hundred millirem, but at one 

20 point in the process you develop a scale in 

21 the piping. The radium deposits there, the 

22 progeny grow in, and there are certain parts 
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1 in the filtration mechanisms and the piping 

2 where the scale could get to doses that would 

3 give you annual exposures up to 220 millirem 

4 per year.

5 Okay. The external dose from the 

6 uranium recovery was assumed to have occurred 

7 continuously from startup through March of 

8 `54, which is that six-month period. And we 

9 modeled these doses using MCNP first 

10 principles using Monte Carlo techniques to 

11 model the exposure to a person working at a 

12 drum of uranium.

13 It turns out the contract with 

14 Texas City Chemicals required them to put the 

15 uranium into 30-gallon steel drums. If you do 

16 the calculation, I think 30 -- 400 pounds of 

17 uranium would fill a 30-gallon drum about 

18 three-quarters of the way full. So that's all 

19 they made is less than one 30-gallon drum 

20 total of uranium.

21 So we assumed all the uranium was 

22 in one drum and modeled the beta and gamma 
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1 exposures around that drum using Monte Carlo 

2 techniques very much like what was -- pretty 

3 much like what was done at Blockson Chemical 

4 and several other sites.

5 Internal doses, also we have two 

6 components internal dose from being in the 

7 phosphate plant and internal dose being in the 

8 uranium recovery operations. The intake after 

9 startup are assumed to have occurred from 

10 inhalation of phosphate rock dust.

11 We did a survey of a number of 

12 facilities, and the highest inhalation 

13 exposure that we could find in a phosphate 

14 plant was in Idaho in 1978 that measured 

15 exposures of 50.4 milligrams of dust per cubic 

16 meter.

17 So for this particular internal 

18 application, we assumed 50.4 milligrams per 

19 cubic meter for 2500 hours per year. It 

20 results in something like the inhalation of 

21 about 150 grams of dust. Pretty healthy 

22 intake.
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1 We scaled the amount of uranium 

2 breathed in based on what we knew to be in the 

3 phosphate ore itself, the .01 percent-enriched 

4 uranium, plus there are a number of other 

5 progeny that come along for the ride because 

6 uranium as mined in the phosphate business is 

7 typically in equilibrium unless it's gone 

8 through some chemical process.

9 And I think I've covered that. 

10 Okay. The uranium recovery operation, like I 

11 say, was a six-month period. And these are 

12 based -- we originally wanted to use the 

13 Bethlehem Steel data because we had very good 

14 bioassay information from Bethlehem Steel and 

15 it's a very similar process.

16 It turns out that Bethlehem Steel 

17 actually had a lot of good engineering 

18 controls, exhaust hood ventilation and such 

19 that we weren't sure existed at Texas City. 

20 So we went out in search of some data that --

21 what we could find for drumming operations of 

22 uranium.
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1 It turns out there was a 

2 publication by Christifano in 1960 who worked 

3 for the Health and Safety Laboratory. It 

4 summarized the uranium exposure to a number of 

5 different uranium activities in the refining 

6 of uranium.

7 And one of those, he looked at 

8 three different plants that were drumming 

9 uranium products. And the highest value for 

10 the daily weighted average we could find was 

11 approximately 190 dpm per cubic meter. So we 

12 assumed during the drumming operations of this 

13 30-gallon pail of -- or drum of uranium, that 

14 workers were exposed to 190 dpm per cubic 

15 meter over a certain period of time.

16 If you remember, it's a six-month 

17 period of operation. They only produced 400. 

18 What we ended up doing was assuming that they 

19 produced a hundred pounds per month in each of 

20 the six months.

21 So, we're about 50 percent higher 

22 than what they actually produced, but we feel 
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1 it's claimant favorable, and it allows us to 

2 essentially produce 25 pounds of uranium per 

3 week, and we modeled it based on that.

4 We did include some thorium and 

5 progeny as a function of the amount of uranium 

6 intake. It turns out the uranium purification 

7 process is not perfect. Some thorium and 

8 progeny do come along for the ride in the 

9 chemical extraction process. So we've added 

10 those back in.

11 Okay. Radon. We concluded in 

12 Rev 0 that we could do radon exposures. In 

13 Rev 1, we're saying we can't. We looked at 

14 the, if you recall back to the Blockson 

15 Chemical model, we had a single first order 

16 rate kinetics model or an input and an output. 

17 And based on that, we could calculate the 

18 equilibrium concentration of radon in the 

19 building.

20 We felt we had a pretty good 

21 handle at Blockson Chemical on the production 

22 rate, the work schedules, the building volume 
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1 and the range of air turnovers in that 

2 building. Turns out that we were lacking some 

3 very key information for input terms into that 

4 model. Most importantly, we didn't know the 

5 production schedule.

6 At Blockson, we knew it was 24/7. 

7 We don't know whether they worked eight hours 

8 a day. The way the plant was reported to 

9 operate in starts and stops, we really 

10 couldn't get a handle on the production rate 

11 to get the input term being constant in the 

12 model.

13 And probably more importantly, we 

14 just didn't know the facility volume and the 

15 partitioning of the -- within the building 

16 itself. Of course, the building volume is key 

17 in an equilibrium model. The bigger the 

18 building, the lower the radon concentration.

19 Originally we thought, well, Texas 

20 City processed about a third of the -- had the 

21 capacity to process about a third of the 

22 volume of Blockson. So we shrunk it down by a 
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1 third -- increased the radon concentration by 

2 a factor of three.

3 In the end of the day, we weren't 

4 comfortable with it because then we got to 

5 thinking we really don't even know the inner 

6 structure of this building. I mean, we knew 

7 pretty well that Blockson was an open alley 

8 situation. At Texas City, we didn't know. I 

9 mean, for all we knew it could have been in a 

10 20-by-20-foot room where the ore came in and 

11 was processed.

12 So because of that we came to the 

13 conclusion that we can't reconstruct radon in 

14 the residual period -- I mean during the 

15 covered period. Now because now we say we 

16 can't reconstruct radon during the covered 

17 period, we need to make sure that we can do 

18 something in the residual period because, as I 

19 mentioned, the facility was covered out 

20 through 1977.

21 After the end of production of 

22 uranium, there is essentially no radon to 
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1 worry about in the phosphoric acid building 

2 because they're not making it anymore. 

3 There's no source-term in there anymore.

4 The source of all of the radium is 

5 in these phosphogypsum piles that are outside 

6 the plant. When you make -- when you process 

7 phosphate ore, you dissolve it in sulfuric 

8 acid and precipitate out the junk. And with 

9 the junk, comes the radium.

10 The radium is included in that 

11 phosphogypsum and it would be essentially a 

12 slag. They just dump it out on top of these 

13 piles.

14 Well, at the end of the day 

15 through 1977, we estimate they produced about 

16 a million pounds of phosphate slag -- or 

17 phosphogypsum, I guess, technically, but they 

18 only produced 400 pounds of uranium.

19 So how much radon in the residual 

20 period is a worker going to receive from the 

21 residual amount of phosphate slag due to the 

22 production of 400 pounds of uranium embedded 
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1 in a million-pound pile of phosphogypsum?

2 Well, we calculated that. And at 

3 the end of the day it turned out that starting 

4 in 1957 -- or `55 at the end of the covered 

5 period, it would be somewhere around three6 tenths of a picocurie per liter on the piles.

7 And then we scaled it down over 

8 time as more and more new phosphogypsum was 

9 added to the pile to dilute out the source10 term. So that's where we ended up with that.

11 I should mention we did base this 

12 on some radon measurements that were obtained 

13 during a lawsuit that occurred in the early 

14 1980s. There was a couple measurements of 

15 flux rates on the piles, as well as radon 

16 surface concentration measurements, and they 

17 stacked up pretty well against what we saw in 

18 the phosphate industry.

19 And there's one other thing I 

20 should note is -- I learned a lot about the 

21 phosphate processing industry in the last year 

22 or two, if you can't tell. When you bury 
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1 phosphogypsum in piles, over time a crust 

2 develops on the surface, and so you have a 

3 lower emanation rate over time.

4 And the phosphogypsum was -- quit 

5 being added in `77. They did the measurements 

6 in the `80s. We found some literature to 

7 indicate that there should be about a factor 

8 of five difference between a crusty 

9 phosphogypsum pile and a de novo phosphogypsum 

10 pile. So we've increased those values by a 

11 factor of five to account for that difference.

12 Okay. A little about the status 

13 of the Texas City Chemical claims. We have 

14 ten that meet the Class Definition, so not a 

15 huge number of claims from the site. And we 

16 had previously completed dose reconstructions 

17 for two.

18 So we get into our evaluation 

19 process which is the two-prong test that I 

20 won't bore you with. And the feasibility of 

21 dose reconstruction, what we say now is that 

22 the process and source-term information 
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1 provide insufficient information to estimate 

2 doses associated with inhalation of radon and 

3 progeny with sufficient accuracy for the 

4 workers at Texas City Chemicals.

5 And so we are saying that we 

6 believe we can reconstruct reasonably uranium 

7 and the long-lived progeny from uranium, 

8 thorium, and the long-lived progeny from 

9 thorium. External, we can do the beta-gamma 

10 occupational-medical, but we cannot do the 

11 radon during the covered period, but we can do 

12 it in the residual period.

13 And so there's our recommendation. 

14 October 5th, `53, to September 30th, `55. 

15 And this is the formal definition that I hope 

16 is in the Evaluation Report.

17 So it's all AWE employees who 

18 worked from October 5th, `53, through 

19 September 5th, `55, for 250 days.

20 And that concludes my 

21 presentation.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks, 
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1 Jim.

2 Just a little background for the 

3 Board Members, new and old. This site had 

4 been originally referred to the Surrogate Data 

5 Work Group when the first Evaluation Report 

6 came out. And then we had really not taken 

7 any action on it, though I think we had done 

8 some discussion, but pending development of 

9 the surrogate data criteria of that.

10 So about a couple weeks ago, week 

11 and a half ago, the Surrogate Data Work Group 

12 met and reviewed the new report and discussed 

13 it. And we will be making a recommendation 

14 to the full Board on that, but that's sort of 

15 the time delay in our sort of Board 

16 involvement in this.

17 So this is something we talked 

18 about quite a while ago. It's sort of been on 

19 hold. And then more recently it's been on 

20 hold pending the Blockson review. So that 

21 held it up also.

22 So if that's helpful, any of the 
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1 Board Members have questions for Jim?

2 Yes, Dave.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Just out of 

4 curiosity, the petitioner had two contentions. 

5 There was the information regarding 

6 monitoring was unavailable, which I think you 

7 agreed with.

8 The other one you didn't address 

9 but I was curious about was the contention 

10 that radiation monitoring records of the 

11 proposed Class may have been lost, falsified, 

12 or destroyed.

13 What's the background on that?

14 DR. NETON: Well, we certainly 

15 would agree that they could have been lost. 

16 They're not there. I mean, we have no 

17 information to indicate that they were either 

18 falsified or destroyed, or they could have 

19 been destroyed as well, but we just don't 

20 know.

21 We don't know whether they were 

22 falsified. We don't have any information on 
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1 that.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But there was 

3 no evidence that monitoring had been done, for 

4 example -- you didn't have records?

5 DR. NETON: No. To my 

6 recollection, this has been going on for a 

7 while, we didn't have any indication that 

8 there was any monitoring, and we just didn't -

9 - couldn't unearth it.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else?

11 Dr. Ziemer -- well, why don't we 

12 hear from Dr. McKeel first, and then -- we'd 

13 like to hear from the petitioner now.

14 Dr. McKeel, are you on the line?

15 DR. McKEEL: Dr. Melius, this is 

16 Dan McKeel.

17 Can you all hear me?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can, Dan. 

19 Go ahead.

20 DR. McKEEL: Okay. Good. Thank 

21 you.

22 Well, good morning to everyone. 
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1 I'm Dan McKeel, and I'm the co-petitioner for 

2 Texas City Chemicals for SEC-00088, and have 

3 been since 2006.

4 This SEC has had a long and a very 

5 interesting history being intimately 

6 intertwined with that of another phosphate 

7 fertilizer plant, Blockson Chemical in Joliet, 

8 Illinois, that also had an AEC contract to 

9 extract uranium and furnish them with uranium 

10 yellowcake oxide.

11 SC&A and the Board selected the 

12 TCC site early on as a test case to apply 

13 draft Board surrogate data criteria. When I 

14 first became acquainted with this site and the 

15 Texas City Chemicals workers during a site 

16 visit and interview with KHOU TV in Houston in 

17 2006, I was impressed that these workers must 

18 surely be awarded an 83.14 SEC.

19 Why did I think this? Because 

20 there were zero, that is, no personnel 

21 monitoring data in the form of either film 

22 badges or urine bioassays.
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1 And to answer Dr. Richardson's 

2 last comment, there was no indication from the 

3 workers that those film badges or urine assays 

4 had ever been part of the radiation safety 

5 program.

6 I was told by OCAS and director 

7 Larry Elliott back in that time frame, that 

8 NIOSH had no monitoring data at all, as Dr. 

9 Neton admits this morning, and that only three 

10 records on TCC existed in its Site Research 

11 Database.

12 In 2007, Mr. Elliott further 

13 informed me that Texas City had no Site 

14 Profile and would not have a site-specific 

15 appendix to Battelle TBD-6001. And that is 

16 the same situation as today.

17 Only two Texas City Chemicals 

18 workers had completed NIOSH dose 

19 reconstructions in 2006, and none had been 

20 compensated by Department of Labor. Now more 

21 than four years later, Department of Labor 

22 says there are 17 Texas City Chemical cases --
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1 have been submitted to NIOSH for dose 

2 reconstruction, whereas NIOSH says the number 

3 is only 15.

4 Only three Texas City dose 

5 reconstructions have been completed by NIOSH 

6 according to the latest DOL website listing, 

7 and one TCC claimant has been paid, and this 

8 compensation event occurred apparently in 

9 2010.

10 SC&A reviewed the NIOSH/Texas City 

11 SEC-88 first Evaluation Report, Rev 0, and 

12 found that two of four draft surrogate data 

13 criteria had not been fulfilled. Specifically, 

14 SC&A found that NIOSH had failed the stringent 

15 justification criteria for using surrogate 

16 data from sites with similar processes and 

17 facilities.

18 As acknowledged at the November 

19 5th, 2010 Surrogate Data Work Group meeting, 

20 all the SC&A findings on the original Texas 

21 City Evaluation Report have not yet been fully 

22 resolved.
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1 Action on SEC-88 has been delayed 

2 by two primary factors. In January 2009, DOE 

3 transmitted Department of Labor documents that 

4 were used to shorten the 1/1/53 to 12/31/56 AE 

5 covered period by 15 months. Dr. Neton has 

6 described additional details of those 

7 exchanges.

8 The period of time during which 

9 uranium was extracted at TCC by the wet 

10 process was also reduced, as Dr. Neton just 

11 described. The covered period is now October 

12 the 5th, `53, through September the 30th, 

13 1955.

14 And as mentioned, by 1970 it is 

15 believed that one million tons of mixed waste, 

16 AEC and commercial phosphogypsum, had 

17 accumulated at the TCC site under new 

18 ownership, of course, at that time period.

19 The AEC Uranium Recovery Building 

20 at Texas City Chemicals was used until 

21 December 1977 or January 1978 when it was 

22 demolished. And this is direct testimony from 
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1 the person who directed the contractors who 

2 demolished the Recovery Building.

3 To my knowledge, and I have asked, 

4 the official Department of Labor letter 

5 changing the covered period has not been 

6 released to the public, and certainly has not 

7 to me as co-petitioner. This morning was the 

8 first time I ever learned that the original 

9 letter actually was submitted by NIOSH to the 

10 Department of Labor to change the covered 

11 period, and I have not seen that communication 

12 either. So I don't know exactly when this --

13 these important correspondence events 

14 transpired.

15 I should point out that there are 

16 two adverse results ensued from the 

17 perspective of claimants and potential SEC-88 

18 Class members that attended the reduction of 

19 the covered period. First, the number of 

20 eligible persons in the Class NIOSH is 

21 recommending now numbers only ten people, a 

22 result that is -- certainly is not claimant 
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1 favorable. And I don't believe it's been 

2 reported how many people would have been 

3 covered by the previous Class based on Rev 0.

4 And second, there now exists a 15-

5 month gap between the end of the operational 

6 period and the start of the residual period.

7 I was assured at the November 12th 

8 SEC Issues Work Group meeting that NIOSH 

9 intends to correct this unfortunate gap by a 

10 letter amending its recommendation on residual 

11 contamination to Congress. Dr. Neton 

12 reiterated that this is an important thing 

13 that NIOSH has committed to do, and I 

14 certainly hope this happens soon for the TCC 

15 workers' sake so that people in that gap 

16 period can at least have a dose 

17 reconstruction.

18 Very recently NIOSH withdrew Rev 0 

19 of its 1/18/2008 Evaluation Report and 

20 substituted a revised Evaluation Report on 

21 10/18/2010, following the enactment of the 

22 Blockson Chemical SEC number 58. That 
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1 happened after the Board rejected the radon 

2 model developed for the Blockson.

3 Now, as described by Dr. Neton, 

4 NIOSH has found that it could not reconstruct 

5 internal doses for radon at Texas City 

6 Chemicals and recommends an SEC Class for the 

7 reduced operational time period.

8 There are many unresolved 

9 surrogate data and document access issues 

10 surrounding this Texas City SEC. However, we 

11 welcome NIOSH's new recommendation and hope 

12 the Board will approve an SEC for this 

13 deserving group of former Texas nuclear 

14 weapons workers. At the November 5th meeting, 

15 it was my understanding that the four of the 

16 five members of that Work Group supported 

17 NIOSH's recommendation to approve an SEC 

18 Class.

19 It has been a sincere pleasure to 

20 work with all of the workers and people 

21 associated with Texas City. And it's been an 

22 honor to represent the Texas City Chemicals 
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1 group before the Board and the Surrogate Data 

2 Work Group.

3 We also wish to thank all those 

4 people who have helped us along the way. And 

5 especially we'd like to thank Congressman Pete 

6 Olson of Texas who has written the Board a 

7 letter on our behalf outlining the key reasons 

8 that SEC-00088 for Texas City Chemicals should 

9 be approved.

10 We thank the Board, SC&A, and 

11 NIOSH for their efforts as well, and I thank 

12 you for letting me address you this morning. 

13 Thank you very much.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Dan.

15 Okay. Let me clarify one of Dan's 

16 statements. I don't want to bias the Board 

17 here, but the Work Group, the members in 

18 attendance, Jim Lockey was not available for 

19 the meeting. So he was the fifth person, but 

20 it wasn't that he didn't get a chance to 

21 express his opinion in the Work Groups or his 

22 vote, whatever.
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1 So going forward I think the Work 

2 Group did recommend that the NIOSH 

3 recommendation should be, you know, that 

4 recommendation -- to the whole Board. I think 

5 there are some -- we do have some 

6 reservations, and I'll let Dr. Ziemer speak to 

7 that.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you, Dr. 

9 Melius.

10 I did indicate that I would 

11 support NIOSH's recommendation, but I did have 

12 a reservation that I felt was important to 

13 raise before the Board, and it has to do with 

14 the broader picture of consistency on our part 

15 on how we approach bounding issues. And in 

16 particular in this case, it would go to the 

17 issue of bounding radon and what would be 

18 considered plausible bounding assumptions.

19 There are two issues that NIOSH 

20 has raised. And I expressed this in the 

21 meeting, so I -- this is not new, but I did 

22 want to bring it up. There are two issues. 
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1 One is a production schedule issue. The other 

2 has to do with facility volume and perhaps 

3 partitioning within the facility.

4 One of the comments Dr. Neton 

5 made, for example, was that the area where the 

6 work was done might have been as small as, 

7 say, 20 foot by 20 foot. Well, conceptually, 

8 that's exactly my point. Let's think about 

9 maybe a small facility, if that's plausible. 

10 If you could get the work done in a 20 by 20 

11 facility, maybe that's a bounding area or 

12 volume from which one could -- because we have 

13 good source-terms. One could compute a 

14 concentration.

15 As far as production -- well, let 

16 me add one other thing to that. It's not 

17 clear to me whether in the worker interviews 

18 anyone has queried the workers about the size 

19 of the facility. For example, would a worker 

20 claim that 20 by 20, for example, just 

21 arbitrarily pick that number, was way too 

22 small or way too large or is that a reasonable 
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1 assumption? In any event, that's one issue.

2 The production schedule issue, it 

3 seems to me one could think conceptually about 

4 some scenarios, for example, constant 

5 production rate during the period or maybe a 

6 couple short-term situations, and see what the 

7 outcomes would be. So I was thinking of it in 

8 those terms.

9 I mean, I guess if some of our 

10 academicians here were to take this to their 

11 class, you could certainly ask a class of 

12 competent students to come up with a 

13 reasonable radon concentration for the room. 

14 You would also have to make an assumption 

15 about the turnover rates. And, again, in 

16 other situations, we've done some bounding on 

17 that.

18 Assume, for example, that there's 

19 not a high turnover level of the air, but a 

20 rate that's plausible, and see what you get. I 

21 admit there could be some additional issues on 

22 partitioning, but I just wanted us to think 
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1 about whether we are dismissing the bounding 

2 on this too readily. That's sort of the issue 

3 that's in my mind on this.

4 And, again, I've indicated I 

5 understand the problems in doing this. I 

6 fully appreciate NIOSH's position, and I know 

7 that Jim Neton and his staff have wrestled 

8 with this. So I appreciate that and I'm 

9 certainly willing to support the 

10 recommendation. I just want us to make sure 

11 that we're not dismissing the issue of 

12 bounding this particular one too readily 

13 because it seems to me this is one of the 

14 simpler cases as compared to others that we 

15 have faced.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I would just 

17 -- the counterpoint is that the plausibility 

18 isn't -- yes, if one assumed a certain size 

19 building and certain configuration, one could 

20 probably come up with a plausible level. But 

21 the issue is what's plausible in terms of 

22 choosing that configuration, I think.
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1 It's not coming up with a level. 

2 It's choosing that configuration for a 

3 building that you have, you know, no 

4 information about -- I'm assuming you have no 

5 information about. And so you not only -- you 

6 don't know the turnover, you don't know the 

7 geometry of the building, including how it's 

8 partitioned and that -- and I think that's the 

9 plausibility issue.

10 I do agree it gives you -- I think 

11 it makes us all hesitate given the amount of 

12 production at the facility. And I think if we 

13 had a little bit more information, we might 

14 feel differently, but we don't.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, and 

16 admittedly it's a small number of people.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: So the outcomes may 

19 not be very different, but I'm thinking of it 

20 in terms of more general terms.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We should have 

2 some discussion here, but I also want to point 

3 out that due to some other people that are 

4 scheduled to call in regarding Linde, I am 

5 going to have to sort of cut off discussion at 

6 9:15 and then we'll come back to this later.

7 So I'm not being rude or being 

8 selective here. So we'll do that, but we do 

9 have some people that have a tight time frame.

10 So, Brad, you're up first.

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: That's taking a 

12 hint there. You know, one of my problems with 

13 it is, is I look at what was the basis for 

14 SECs. It's not -- for lack of information. 

15 We have totally zip here.

16 Now I understand and I keep 

17 hearing the word "we assume," but a lot of 

18 times assumptions are not really the best 

19 thing. Especially, you know, we know the 

20 source-term, we go like this, we can build any 

21 kind of a model there is, and we can always 

22 throw in a credible scenario that will blow 
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1 that read out of the water. There's too many 

2 things to be able to assume here.

3 I thought the reason that we had 

4 SEC petitions was when we had the lack of 

5 information and everything else like that, so 

6 that the people got treated right. This isn't 

7 -- and no disrespect, but this isn't a 

8 classroom test to see if we can bound all this 

9 stuff.

10 This is people's lives that we 

11 have been dealing with. And I really have an 

12 issue with this especially with Texas City 

13 just from the standpoint of no data.

14 Now we can spend all the time 

15 there is and make all these neat models, but 

16 the bottom line is we still don't have the 

17 data there. And I personally feel like that's 

18 why these SECs were set up was for this 

19 reason.

20 And I have the utmost respect for 

21 the NIOSH people. Jim Neton has my utmost 

22 respect of anybody. But I think in my 
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1 personal opinion, we're missing what the real 

2 issue was.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Could I make a 

4 quick response?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sure.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Brad, this is not a 

7 case where there's no data. We have very good 

8 source-term data. Most of the rest of the 

9 reconstruction here for the other issues are 

10 based on that. I mean, you can calculate very 

11 accurately what upper bounds are for handling 

12 uranium in these cases.

13 I recognize radon is a little more 

14 iffy, but it's -- we're not a hundred percent 

15 in the dark here. We have good source-term 

16 data, and that's one of the primary things. 

17 And this is a very simple operation.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm afraid I'm 

19 going to have to cut us off now. When we come 

20 back, Wanda will be first and then Jim Lockey. 

21 So I will remember that, but we do have to 

22 get on to Linde and we have some people 
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1 calling in for this.

2 So the first person we are going 

3 to be hearing from is Melissa Fratello from 

4 Senator Gillibrand's office from New York.

5 Melissa, are you on the line?

6 Apparently, not yet. Maybe we're 

7 a minute early. Melissa was going to try to 

8 call in around 9:15, but she had a very tight 

9 schedule.

10 Melissa Fratello? We'll wait a 

11 minute.

12 MS. BONSIGNORE: Dr. Melius?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

14 MS. BONSIGNORE: This is 

15 Antoinette. I just sent her an email.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks, 

17 Antoinette.

18 MS. BONSIGNORE: Sure.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Gen, do you want 

20 to get ready and --

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: I'm ready.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, you're ready. 
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1 Okay.

2 MEMBER ROESSLER: I was already 

3 halfway up there.

4 Can I go now?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, why don't you 

6 wait then. As long as you're --

7 MEMBER ROESSLER: Okay. When you 

8 say it, I'll be there.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

10 Melissa Fratello on the line yet?

11 MS. FRATELLO: I am.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, very good. 

13 Okay. We jumped the gun a little bit. Go 

14 ahead. You'd like to make some comments.

15 It's Melissa Fratello who's the 

16 staff member for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand 

17 from New York State.

18 MS. FRATELLO: Thank you.

19 Good morning. I'll be brief. I 

20 just have a letter from Senator Gillibrand and 

21 Senator Schumer dated November 12 to Dr. 

22 Melius, to read into the record.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead.

2 MS. FRATELLO: Thank you.

3 Dear Dr. Melius. We are writing 

4 today on behalf of the sickened nuclear 

5 weapons workers from the Linde Ceramics 

6 facility in North Tonawanda, New York.

7 These sickened workers have been 

8 petitioning the National Institute For 

9 Occupational Safety and Health for 

10 compensation under the Energy Employees 

11 Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act 

12 pursuant to the Special Exposure Cohort 

13 Program since March 2008. We strongly urge 

14 the Advisory Board to recommend the approval 

15 of both Linde SEC petitions 00107 and Linde 

16 SEC petition 00154 without further delay.

17 We would like to raise two 

18 specific concerns regarding the evaluation 

19 process that are central to ensuring timely 

20 and fair evaluation of claimant petitions. 

21 First, we are concerned about the dismissal of 

22 the 180-day requirement for evaluation of SEC 
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1 petitions and submission of a recommendation 

2 to the Advisory Board.

3 Many claimants with whom you're 

4 working have spent years awaiting response to 

5 their -- evaluation of their claims, and, as 

6 many are sick and elderly, ensuring timely 

7 evaluation is paramount.

8 Second, we are concerned about the 

9 Division of Compensation Analysis and -- use 

10 of inaccurate Site Profiles in their 

11 evaluation process. Many claimants petitioned 

12 the Department of Labor to have their claims 

13 reopened. DCAS revised the Site Profile in 

14 November 2008. Nearly all of those requests 

15 were denied within months of the release of 

16 that revised Site Profile.

17 The issue of timeliness is 

18 critical to the process, which is why Congress 

19 mandated a 180-day response to petitions in 

20 the underlying law.

21 If the Advisory Board indeed 

22 believes that the specific 180-day deadline 
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1 mandated within 42 USC 7384 Q and 42 CFR 83.13 

2 is not a binding -- then the Advisory Board 

3 must ensure that any changes to the original 

4 November 2008 Evaluation Report are not used 

5 by DCAS to justify recommending the denial of 

6 the Linde SEC -- instead, any and all changes 

7 to DCAS's analysis after the 180-day deadline 

8 elapses, only be used to revise Site Profiles.

9 Those documents would be used 

10 solely for determining individual dose 

11 reconstruction claims for workers diagnosed 

12 with non-presumptive radiogenic cancers.

13 The Advisory Board needs to adopt 

14 a clear and consistent policy that will 

15 safeguard the need for timeliness within the 

16 SEC program without harming the petitioners --

17 adopting such a policy would allow DCAS to 

18 investigate ongoing issues about specific 

19 worksites without compromising the 

20 petitioner's right to a timely evaluation of 

21 their SEC petition.

22 Any claimant-favorable information 
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1 developed by DCAS can then be incorporated 

2 into Site Profile revisions to help individual 

3 claimants with non-presumptive radiogenic 

4 cancers receive more accurate dose 

5 reconstruction evaluations.

6 Ignoring the specific 

7 prescriptions within the Act should not be 

8 used as a vehicle to justify DCAS's policy of 

9 favoring the individual dose reconstruction 

10 program over the SEC program.

11 Assessing the viability of this 

12 Linde SEC petition based upon anything beyond 

13 the November 2008 Evaluation Report would 

14 disregard the very reason why Congress created 

15 this remedial compensation program in the 

16 first place.

17 The Advisory Board must recommend 

18 the approval of Linde SEC petition 00107 

19 because, one, DCAS has altered their SEC 

20 analysis repeatedly after frequent criticism 

21 from this Board's technical contractor and, 

22 two, DCAS has never addressed worker exposure 
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1 potentials in the Linde underground tunnel.

2 In addition, the DCAS refusal to 

3 reopen cases as Site Profiles are -- revised 

4 is troubling to -- DCAS relies upon Site 

5 Profiles to perform dose reconstruction 

6 evaluations. The Linde Site Profile is still 

7 a work in progress.

8 This flawed document will need to 

9 be revised for a fifth time in just five 

10 years. It fails to address even the most 

11 basic issues raised in the November 2008 

12 Evaluation Report.

13 Moreover, tunnel exposure issues 

14 were addressed neither in the November 2008 

15 revised Linde Site Profile, nor in the 

16 November 2008 Evaluation Report. This is true 

17 despite the fact that DCAS -- about potential 

18 worker exposure since January 2006.

19 All four previous versions of the 

20 Linde Site Profile have been -- and 

21 inaccurate. Yet DCAS has been using these 

22 inaccurate Site Profiles to evaluate dose 
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1 reconstruction claims since 2005.

2 The goal of timely compensation 

3 has been abandoned simply because SEC petition 

4 evaluations often uncover significant 

5 deficiencies in Site Profiles.

6 When such extreme uncertainty 

7 prevents DCAS from revisiting previously 

8 denied claims because Site Profiles need to be 

9 repeatedly revised, then DCAS should recommend 

10 the approval of an SEC petition pursuant to 42 

11 CFR 83.14.

12 Such a recommendation -- justified 

13 when claimant-favorable dose reconstructions 

14 cannot be completed in a timely manner. DCAS 

15 should not create endless uncertainty as to 

16 when and if they will reevaluate previously 

17 denied claims.

18 DCAS's policy of favoring 

19 individual dose reconstruction program over 

20 SEC approval is unfairly penalizing Linde 

21 claimants that deserve to have their claims 

22 reevaluated independently of the SEC 
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1 evaluation. This unjust catch-22 paradigm 

2 calls for swift action by this Advisory Board.

3 Preserving timeliness is 

4 fundamental to this claimant-favorable 

5 remedial compensation program. The Linde SEC 

6 petitioners and the individual Linde claimants 

7 have been unfairly denied timely and fair 

8 compensation time and again.

9 We strongly urge DCAS to recommend 

10 the approval of both Linde SEC petitions 

11 pursuant to 42 CFR 83.14. Most importantly, 

12 the Advisory Board must right this wrong and 

13 recommend the approval of Linde SEC petition 

14 00107 and Linde SEC petition 00104. The Linde 

15 workers have waited far too long for justice.

16 Thank you for your attention to 

17 this critical request. If you should have any 

18 questions, please do not hesitate to contact 

19 Anne Fiala in Senator Schumer's office at 

20 (202) 224-6542 or Ben Rosenbaum in Senator 

21 Gillibrand's office at (202) 224-4451.

22 Sincerely, Senator Charles Schumer 
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1 and Kirsten Gillibrand.

2 Thank you.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 

4 much. Appreciate it. And the letter, I 

5 believe, either has been circulated or will be 

6 circulated to all the Board Members. Ted and 

7 I can't remember what we did.

8 Okay. We'll now move on in your 

9 presentations about the Linde petitions.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: This presentation 

11 is really hot off the press. In fact, your 

12 copies of my slides should still be warm.

13 We had our last Work Group meeting 

14 last Friday. And because of the weekend and 

15 travel and everything else, our Work Group 

16 just finished putting together this report at 

17 8:00 a.m. this morning. So if you want to 

18 date it, put 8:00 a.m., November 16th on your 

19 paper.

20 Because of that, it has not been 

21 through a proper editing procedure, which is 

22 always a concern to me. If there are typos or 
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1 dangling participles, I apologize, but I'm 

2 sure Paul will catch that.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I will not let 

4 Paul, though, interrupt you to point out such 

5 - 

6 MEMBER ROESSLER: But the important 

7 thing is to get to present to you our Work 

8 Group information.

9 Even though it's sort of 

10 preliminary, we wanted to do it today. We did 

11 not want to delay any further.

12 Our Work Group members are myself 

13 as chair, Josie Beach, Mike Gibson, and Jim 

14 Lockey.

15 As I point out on here, we invited 

16 another Board Member, Bill Field, to 

17 participate. We invited him to participate in 

18 two meetings. He was able to make one. Bill 

19 is a radon expert.

20 The NIOSH team, Chris Crawford, 

21 Jim Neton, and David Allen. And I think Chris 

22 is here, I hope. I thought I saw him come in.
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1 He's here. Good, because later on 

2 you may have questions, and he and Jim Neton 

3 will be able to help.

4 The SC&A team really was led by 

5 Steve Ostrow. John Mauro was at every 

6 meeting, and John is here today.

7 I'll give a little bit of 

8 background. Now I did make a more detailed 

9 presentation on Linde. I think it was in 

10 September of 2009. So the new Board Members 

11 may have more questions, but I'll keep this 

12 kind of brief for today.

13 The Linde Ceramics plant was 

14 located in Tonawanda, New York. In 1942, 

15 Linde was producing dye for ceramics. And at 

16 that time, they contracted with the Manhattan 

17 Engineer District to process uranium ores to 

18 produce uranium oxide more commonly called 

19 yellowcake, and later uranium tetrafluoride or 

20 green salt. The plant ceased operation in 

21 1948.

22 Now, compared, in my view anyway, 
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1 compared to a lot of the facilities we've been 

2 talking about, this one is not terribly 

3 complicated. They had kind of a 

4 straightforward focus.

5 The plant ceased operation in 

6 1948. The decontamination and decommissioning 

7 was done between July 1st, 1949, and July 7th, 

8 1954, with most of the work done in 1949 and 

9 1950.

10 We're talking now about SEC-107. 

11 There is another one that will come up later. 

12 This period is January 1st, 1954, through 

13 January 31st, 2006, and there are two parts to 

14 this petition; the renovation period, which 

15 was from January 1st, 1954, to the 31st of 

16 December, 1969; and then the residual period 

17 which was January 1st, 1970, through July 

18 31st, 2006.

19 We've had a number of Work Group 

20 meetings. We started the Site Profile 

21 evaluation. Held four meetings from March 

22 2007 to June 2008. At that point, NIOSH 
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1 presented their petition evaluation in which 

2 they said they could do dose reconstruction 

3 during this time period.

4 So from September 2009 to present, 

5 actually last Friday, we've held eight 

6 meetings. Now I'm going to kind of quickly 

7 summarize this whole process. As you know, 

8 what happens is we have NIOSH's report. And 

9 then we ask SC&A to review their report and to 

10 identify any issues that they might have.

11 Eleven issues were identified 

12 initially, and this included nine issues 

13 identified by the petitioners. It was 

14 possible to group these issues into three 

15 categories: radon in the Linde buildings, 

16 exposure to airborne particulates, and then 

17 kind of a miscellaneous category.

18 Issues 1 through 3 with regard to 

19 radon, kind of a popular topic around here, 

20 radon would have come from radium left after 

21 the earlier decontamination efforts, and of 

22 course to natural background. No new sources 
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1 were introduced after 1948.

2 The radon source-term was measured 

3 during production period, and NIOSH proposes 

4 using this as a constant upper bound for dose 

5 reconstruction for the entire -- now, I'll 

6 tell you something here. I have a degree in 

7 math, but I am not good at arithmetic. Should 

8 be entire 16-year period. The entire 16-year 

9 renovation period, and therefore they consider 

10 this to be a bounding number.

11 With regard to radon issues, there 

12 was also comprehensive contamination and radon 

13 surveys performed in 1976 and 1981.

14 And I probably have shortened this 

15 a little too much. And if you have questions 

16 later, we'll invite NIOSH to respond on this.

17 But to do bounding here, NIOSH 

18 assumed -- the radon level is assumed to 

19 decline from the end of the renovation period 

20 in 1969 to a lower value in 1981, and then 

21 held constant to 2006.

22 When SC&A reviewed this process 
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1 and we spent a lot of time talking about it, 

2 they concurred that NIOSH can reconstruct the 

3 radon doses for the entire SEC period. So 

4 there are several subsets in that period.

5 With regard to airborne 

6 particulate contamination, and these were 

7 Issues 4 through 8, again breaking it up into 

8 two periods, the renovation period, NIOSH 

9 assumed that the concentration of material in 

10 the air at all times during this -- here, I 

11 have it right -- 16-year period was equal to 

12 that measured during the earlier 

13 decontamination period.

14 And during that time, there was a 

15 lot of activity, pneumatic hammers and other 

16 things stirring up a lot of dust and -- to 

17 remove a concrete floor and other things.

18 During the residual period, the 

19 first six years from 1969, airborne 

20 concentration was assumed to decay 

21 exponentially to a measured 1976 survey number 

22 and then held constant in 2006. And again 
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1 there you might want a little more detail on 

2 that.

3 Other issues, Issues 9 through 11, 

4 one regarded raffinates. And I think this 

5 discussion between SC&A and NIOSH was really 

6 kind of a clarification of what NIOSH had 

7 done. So SC&A agreed with NIOSH regarding the 

8 raffinates. They were removed from the site 

9 in the late 1940s.

10 And then there were some other 

11 miscellaneous questions that I think was just 

12 a discussion gaining an understanding of what 

13 NIOSH was doing. There were some additional 

14 issues. One had to do with ore 

15 concentrations, but really this wasn't 

16 relevant. We didn't have to know the source17 term exactly since there were some actual 

18 radon levels or based on actual measurements.

19 I'll go back here. At the end of 

20 all this discussion, as Work Group chair I 

21 thought we had reached kind of a conclusion 

22 that SC&A agreed with NIOSH that dose 
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1 reconstruction should be done.

2 So I proposed a motion at a Work 

3 Group meeting saying that I believe NIOSH 

4 could do dose reconstruction. I think Jim 

5 Lockey seconded it. And we took a vote, and 

6 we had a two-to-two vote. Jim and I voted for 

7 that, and Josie and Mark -- Mike Griffon voted 

8 against it.

9 So I said, well, okay, where do we 

10 go with a tie vote? How are we going to 

11 present this to the Board? So I asked Josie 

12 and Mike, what else can we do? What can we 

13 have SC&A do? What can NIOSH do? What can we 

14 do as a Work Group to address your concerns?

15 And I think Mike said, well, I 

16 don't think there's anything in addition we 

17 can do. I just really have a lot of questions 

18 about the process. And we're going to give 

19 Josie and Mike an opportunity to address those 

20 things in a little bit.

21 About that time, though, another 

22 issue was identified, and this has to do with 
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1 utility tunnels. This was brought up by the 

2 petitioners, and we found out that tunnels at 

3 the site -- the tunnels of concern are called 

4 utility tunnels. They were not used to 

5 process, store, or convey radioactive 

6 materials, but they might have been 

7 contaminated by flooding and seepage from the 

8 surrounding soil. And there might have been, 

9 well, radium and then radon contamination from 

10 plant operations, disposal of liquid waste in 

11 shallow injection wells. Although, these 

12 ceased in 1948.

13 Now this slide is new information. 

14 This has not actually come before a Work 

15 Group meeting, but I put it in here because I 

16 thought we might have some discussion about it 

17 later.

18 This came out in an email that 

19 came, I think, over the weekend. According to 

20 that email, a utility tunnel near the power 

21 house, Building 8, and near the Tonawanda lab, 

22 Building 14, was constructed in 1937.
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1 Bore hole samples near this tunnel 

2 reportedly did not show radium concentration 

3 above background for this area. And this is 

4 really important as we know when we deal with 

5 radon, is we need to know what the soil is, 

6 what the soil content is.

7 And then also according to this 

8 report, additional utility tunnels were built 

9 in 1957 and 1961. These utility tunnels built 

10 in 1957 and `61 with regard to non-radon 

11 exposures from the contaminated walls in the 

12 tunnels, assuming they were contaminated, 

13 again much discussion, but SC&A found the 

14 NIOSH bounding estimates from a 2001 survey 

15 acceptable from measurements taken at that 

16 time.

17 With regard then to radon 

18 exposures, there are two sources. One would 

19 be from the radium contamination. And the 

20 other one would be from infiltration coming 

21 into the tunnel from the surrounding soil.

22 With regard to the radium 
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1 contamination, SC&A found the NIOSH bounding 

2 estimate acceptable again based on this 2001 

3 tunnel survey.

4 Still a question about the last 

5 point. And in order to address that, NIOSH 

6 developed several really sophisticated 

7 analytical models for estimating the radon 

8 concentrations.

9 Well, we went back and forth quite 

10 a bit with these models. SC&A also spent a 

11 lot of time evaluating them and did not accept 

12 some of their parameters. So we felt that 

13 that was not a method that could be used. So 

14 the approach is not to use these analytical 

15 models.

16 Instead, NIOSH proposed use of 

17 radon data from another tunnel. It was a 

18 tunnel used in the production period, an ore 

19 conveyor tunnel in or near Building 30. And 

20 the thought was to try and use this real data 

21 and then compare the conditions between the 

22 two tunnels to see if this data and the 
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1 numbers they got there would be bounding.

2 So we spent a good bit of our 

3 time, and this was a teleconference on 

4 November 12th, comparing this conveyor 

5 tunnel/production tunnel, its characteristics 

6 to utility tunnels in order to establish a 

7 bounding value for the utility tunnels.

8 We came to the end of our time, 

9 and I put this in here, and I think SC&A will 

10 agree that this was said, John Mauro said, 

11 speaking for SC&A, that he tended toward 

12 acceptance of a bounding concept as a 

13 plausible upper bound, but still had 

14 questions.

15 Well, we didn't really have time 

16 to go back and forth and get this all 

17 resolved. And yet we didn't want to say okay, 

18 we need another meeting. So we decided that 

19 we couldn't come up with a recommendation, 

20 we'd presented all our discussions and so on 

21 here, and we decided to present this to the 

22 Board for a decision.
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1 However, as I mentioned before, we 

2 have a two-to-two sort of opinion about this 

3 particular position. And so what I'd like to 

4 do now is ask Josie if she would come up and 

5 present the thoughts that she and Mike had put 

6 together, and then I'll conclude.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So this is a 

8 little unusual, but we decided that the first 

9 concerns were Jim Lockey and Gen. The other 

10 two Work Group members' concerns were of 

11 course Mike Gibson and I.

12 The radon, we actually had two 

13 issues. You'll see in the next four slides, 

14 the radon exposure which was Issues 1 through 

15 3. The utility tunnels had two sources of 

16 radon. The first was the radium contamination 

17 on the walls from overflow from effluents into 

18 the tunnel, and from the injection wells used 

19 during the operation period. And then the 

20 second source of radon was from the radium 

21 contaminated within the soils that infiltrated 

22 into the tunnel walls.
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1 Okay. There's no bioassay data. 

2 There's no in vivo data. There's no film 

3 badge data or radon breath analysis available 

4 during that time period. And I'm mainly 

5 talking about the renovation period from 1954 

6 to 1969.

7 There was no field monitoring 

8 data. That includes the air sampling and/or 

9 radiological surveillance data. None of them 

10 are available for that time period. There's

11 no radiological characterization available to 

12 quantify the source-term.

13 Now NIOSH proposes to use 

14 surrogate data from the conveyor tunnel 

15 collected in 1946, but they failed to 

16 demonstrate technical equivalency for that.

17 Let me check my slides here. So 

18 those were samples taken during that time 

19 period.

20 NIOSH is also currently 

21 investigating the feasibility of taking actual 

22 radon measurements in the portions of the 
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1 tunnel that still remain on the site. This 

2 has been discussed during our Work Group 

3 meetings on a couple of occasions. And to 

4 this date, I'm not sure if they've gotten 

5 approval to do that.

6 So if that is done, the question 

7 will still remain whether measurements under 

8 present tunnel conditions are sufficiently 

9 similar to the former tunnel conditions to 

10 allow current air concentration measurements 

11 to apply to that former -- the former air 

12 concentrations.

13 SC&A and NIOSH have failed to come 

14 to a resolution on suitable methods for 

15 determining radon doses in the utility 

16 tunnels.

17 Okay. So that was our radon 

18 concerns. On to issues. I believe those are 

19 4 through 8, the air particulate 

20 contamination.

21 The Evaluation Report acknowledges 

22 a potential for inhalation and ingestion of 
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1 residual contamination from resuspension of 

2 uranium and uranium progeny contamination in 

3 Buildings 14, 30, 31, 37 and 38, as well as 

4 from contaminated soil. So the workers do 

5 describe very dusty conditions during -- while 

6 they were conducting invasive work during that 

7 period, which, again, is `54 to `69.

8 There is, again, no urinalysis, 

9 there's no in vivo data and/or film badge 

10 monitoring available during that time period. 

11 There's no air sampling and/or area monitoring 

12 data available for the renovation period. 

13 There's no radiological characterization data 

14 for the renovation period to qualify that 

15 source-term. To bound the internal dose for 

16 uranium, thorium-230 and radium, NIOSH 

17 proposes the use of surrogate air sampling 

18 data from the Linde cleanup period, and a 

19 single air sample taken in 1976. The 

20 technical equivalency has not yet been 

21 demonstrated.

22 Okay. Here's a couple of Mike and 
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1 I's concerns. Without the use of personnel 

2 monitoring and/or area monitoring for the 

3 renovation period, we are required to rely on 

4 surrogate data, which no technical equivalency 

5 in the radiological control program, physical 

6 status of the facilities and operations 

7 conducted by the workers has been 

8 demonstrated.

9 NIOSH has not sufficiently 

10 demonstrated that they can reconstruct the 

11 radon dose to workers from the exposures in 

12 the utility tunnels. SC&A has not accepted 

13 the methods proposed to date.

14 Okay. And then one other comment 

15 I have that I didn't have a chance to put on 

16 the slides, the construction of the utility 

17 tunnels. Between what has been reported when 

18 the construction occurred for the utility 

19 tunnels and through worker interviews, we have 

20 three worker interviews that sent affidavits 

21 through email yesterday. They state the 

22 tunnels existed in 1953.
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1 So that issue has still not fully 

2 been discussed and really needs to still be 

3 looked at. And I believe that will come up 

4 again in the next petition we'll hear from 

5 after this, but it does have some concerns for 

6 this time period also.

7 Let's see. Back to you.

8 MEMBER ROESSLER: So then to sort 

9 of round this out, conclusions by two Work 

10 Group members, and those two members are me 

11 and Dr. Lockey.

12 Just to summarize, we agree with 

13 NIOSH and SC&A that radiation dose can be 

14 reconstructed both during the renovation 

15 period and residual period in all pertinent 

16 Linde buildings, of course, using bounding, 

17 which is a legitimate method for doing it.

18 The use of measured radon values 

19 from the Building 30 production conveyor 

20 tunnel are claimant friendly, we believe, from 

21 the information we've heard, and would bound 

22 radon infiltration exposure from the 
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1 surrounding soil into utility tunnels.

2 So as you can see at this point, 

3 we probably need a lot of discussion by the 

4 Board since the Work Group did not come to a 

5 consensus.

6 So, Dr. Melius, I'll turn 

7 discussion leadership over to you, and we'll 

8 sit down and participate --

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I just 

10 commented to Paul that we should just accept 

11 the Work Group recommendations.

12 (Laughter.)

13 MEMBER BEACH: I actually do have a 

14 recommendation. If it's not totally out of 

15 line, I'd like to recommend that we approve 

16 the SEC for the renovation periods January 

17 1st, 1954, through December 31st, 1969.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks.

19 So Board questions. Jim Lockey, 

20 go ahead.

21 Was that a motion or --

22 MEMBER BEACH: No, it was a 
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1 recommendation.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Recommendation. 

3 Okay.

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: It's been a long 

5 haul, and we have agreed to disagree, and 

6 that's fine. That's the way it is.

7 In relationship to the tunnel 

8 construction issue, and I went back and went 

9 through all the documents. And after talking 

10 to Mike last night, I went back and looked at 

11 the worker's statement again that was signed 

12 by the three workers.

13 The data that we got over the 

14 weekend indicates that there was a tunnel 

15 constructed in 1937. And that tunnel in 1937 

16 was a utility tunnel. And that was the tunnel 

17 between the power plant and Building 14. Not 

18 around the ceramic plants, but between the 

19 power plant and Building 14.

20 So that tunnel existed in `37. 

21 And, apparently, there were samples taken 

22 around the tunnel that indicated at least 
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1 around that tunnel, it was not contaminated by 

2 radium in the soil.

3 Then the statement is made in 

4 emails that we got from, I think, Frank 

5 Crawford, was that the 19 -- the tunnel --

6 another utility tunnel was built in 1957. And 

7 that's based on the Shaw memorandum from 2005 

8 that also -- there's also engineering records 

9 that are dated with construction date sites, 

10 `37, `57, `61, and there's a subsequent, I 

11 think, one built in 1990.

12 So the second tunnel then was 

13 constructed in 1961. I went back and looked 

14 at the signed worker statements. And, in 

15 fact, two of the workers talk about the 

16 tunnel, Building 8 and Building 14. So -- and 

17 that wasn't existent at that time.

18 And one of the worker mentions 

19 that around the mid-`50s, that all the tunnels 

20 were present. So one said all the tunnels 

21 were present in the mid-`50s. The other two 

22 said that they remember working in the 
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1 Building 8/Building 14 tunnel.

2 A fourth worker that was 

3 interviewed previously, I think, by SC&A or 

4 NIOSH, I'm not sure who, said essentially the

5 new tunnels were put in in the -- in 1957 and 

6 `61.

7 So when I go back and do 

8 historical reconstruction in some of the 

9 cohort studies I'm involved with, we do focus 

10 groups, we talk to workers, and then we go 

11 back and look for -- try to look for 

12 documentation that is supportive one way or 

13 the other. And so that's why we think --

14 we're pretty confident that these tunnels were 

15 built the dates that we presented on this 

16 slide.

17 Now the reason that is somewhat 

18 important was the injection wells - the 

19 injection into the injection wells of this 

20 very highly alkaline material that had some 

21 radiation contamination, ceased in 1948. And 

22 the New York Assembly report was a great 
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1 report to review. And when I went through 

2 that whole report, it talks about the wells 

3 overflowing onto the ground and them having to 

4 bore new wells to keep the process going. But 

5 that ceased in 1948, and these two utility 

6 tunnels were built in `57 and `61.

7 And the only other piece of 

8 information about the utility tunnels was the 

9 Corps of Engineers apparently did core 

10 samples, I guess, in the Florida tunnels in 

11 `78-`79, and found that there was minimal 

12 contamination at least in the ground under the 

13 tunnels because they were concerned as to what 

14 backfill was used when these tunnels were 

15 constructed.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks, 

17 Jim.

18 Wanda.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Is the term utility 

20 tunnel correct for those two? Utility 

21 tunnels, as commonly understood, would not 

22 very often be inhabited. Were they simply 
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1 tunnels for running things back and forth?

2 MEMBER LOCKEY: The utility 

3 tunnels, as I understand it, were used to run 

4 steam lines, electrical lines, things along 

5 those lines.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: And looking at the 

8 worker statements, they did spend time in the 

9 tunnels going back and forth from one area to 

10 another. Sometimes they would wash their 

11 clothes in the tunnels.

12 And it was estimated -- I think 

13 NIOSH, and you correct me, they were going to 

14 estimate up to 20 percent of the time was 

15 going to be provided for the workers spending 

16 in these tunnels.

17 MEMBER MUNN: That sounds --

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: But they were 

19 utility tunnels. They weren't work tunnels. 

20 They were for running steam lines, electrical 

21 lines, things like that.

22 MEMBER MUNN: That sounds generous 
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1 assuming what one normally thinks of as a 

2 utility tunnel. Just wanted to make sure that 

3 was correct.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Phil.

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'm not familiar 

6 with the geology of this area. But I know 

7 based on geology in some areas if you have 

8 large granite, bedrock area, you can have high 

9 levels of radon naturally occurring.

10 So what I'm interested in knowing 

11 is how much of this radon is actually coming 

12 into these tunnels from the ground, and how 

13 much is residual coming from the contamination 

14 of the tunnels.

15 MEMBER ROESSLER: I think we should 

16 call on Chris or Jim to --

17 DR. NETON: Phil, you raise a key 

18 issue is that in the residual contamination 

19 period, only radon associated with the AEC 

20 activities -- radon in the tunnels associated 

21 with the AEC activities would be covered 

22 exposure.
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1 So any radon present in the 

2 tunnels from unnaturally high concentrations 

3 just due to some localized deposition of 

4 radium from a geologic perspective would not 

5 be covered exposure. But the way the law is 

6 written though is if you can't distinguish 

7 between the two, you've got to assume it all 

8 came from the AEC operations.

9 So originally we developed a model 

10 that would, based on the contamination levels 

11 in the soil, predict the migration of radon 

12 through the soil and into the tunnels and came 

13 up with a value. As Dr. Roessler indicated, 

14 the model was, after much debate, rejected 

15 because the thought was that the input 

16 parameters were too variable to come up with 

17 some bounding value.

18 So then we were left with a 

19 measurement inside a conveyor tunnel that 

20 would clearly include radon from both the AEC 

21 operations and any infiltration into the 

22 tunnel. And we have proposed to use that 
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1 value as a bounding value even though probably 

2 some of the radon at least was due to natural 

3 -- from natural sources.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry, and then 

5 Brad.

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: Not to put Bill 

7 on the spot, but being the radon person, do 

8 you have any - you must have spent a little 

9 more time on this looking at the documents 

10 than us. I'd appreciate any thoughts you 

11 might have.

12 MEMBER FIELD: I have, I guess, a 

13 good number of thoughts. And there's a lot of 

14 areas, I think, of uncertainty. One of the 

15 areas of uncertainty are the validity of the 

16 measurements that were made back in that time 

17 period. Whether or not they could accurately 

18 reflect the concentrations within the tunnels 

19 is a question. My guess is that they were 

20 just grab samples that were done back then, 

21 but I have no -- I guess I don't have a whole 

22 lot of confidence in how accurate they 
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1 represent the actual conditions long term in 

2 the tunnels.

3 The other question that I have is, 

4 you know, in homes, and a tunnel is not a 

5 home, but in homes, you can't predict what 

6 your home may have by what a home next to 

7 yours has. There's so much variation between 

8 home to home, and the majority of that's due 

9 to source strength.

10 So I guess the concern is I have a 

11 hard time saying that we could use information 

12 from one tunnel to project what the 

13 concentrations are at another tunnel. So 

14 those are my two major concerns. But I'd like 

15 to hear from SC&A what their concerns were in 

16 that regard, why they don't think it could be 

17 bounded.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead, John.

19 DR. MAURO: During our Work Group 

20 meeting on Friday, we had an extensive and 

21 very animated conversation regarding this 

22 issue. And let me -- and at the time, I think 
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1 all the participants -- it was a true 

2 roundtable Work Group meeting to let each 

3 other know and try to explore ideas.

4 At the end of the meeting, it was 

5 asked by the Work Group whether SC&A has an 

6 official position regarding recommending 

7 adopting the surrogate. I'll call it a 

8 surrogate for better or worse. And the answer 

9 was, no, we did not feel at that time we could 

10 say with one voice that SC&A's position is 

11 such and such.

12 Over the weekend, we have had, as 

13 you can imagine, engaged internally. And let 

14 me try to paint the picture for you. I'll try 

15 to be brief. Difficult for me.

16 Listening on the conversation, 

17 picture you've got this conveyor tunnel that 

18 was operational during the operational period, 

19 relatively small compared to, let's say, those 

20 big, complex utility tunnels.

21 It has -- and the way it's 

22 designed, the way I understand it, it actually 
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1 has like a manhole cover. And they would lift 

2 the manhole cover. They drop ore down it 

3 during operations. It would be transported 

4 along some conveyor into the building. It was 

5 a very functional part of the operation. Some 

6 residual ore might have spilled. And this is 

7 during the operation.

8 So it was -- so you could almost 

9 visualize this operating unit during the 

10 operation period.

11 That ended, as we understand it, 

12 that conveyor tunnel, the operations were on 

13 standby. It was cleaned up.

14 But then, subsequently, I guess in 

15 1946, some radon measurements were made and 

16 some characterizations were made of what might 

17 have been in the residue. And, apparently, 

18 there was a little bit of radium-226 in some 

19 sludge on the order of a hundred picocuries 

20 per gram, and some radon measurements that 

21 were made which were relatively low. I 

22 remember on the order of maybe 20, ten, nine -
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1 - picocuries per liter. But we have the 

2 numbers, whatever they are.

3 What is it? One as high as 40. 

4 Okay. So here we have that.

5 Now the question becomes now we 

6 have this other tunnel, the utility tunnel 

7 nearby, not connected, but nearby, sitting in 

8 perhaps a setting in terms of soil 

9 characteristics that's a little uncertain how 

10 similar they are, but, you know, common sense 

11 will dictate they're probably not that 

12 different.

13 They were -- I understand they're 

14 about a hundred meters apart and now you have 

15 this other tunnel. Now this is what happened 

16 during the meeting. My first sense was that, 

17 you know, they're very different situations.

18 The utility tunnel, first of all, 

19 and which I learned on the call, it was very -

20 - they were very large, but they also had lots 

21 of openings. They had stairwells opening down 

22 into them along the way.
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1 And, by the way, my original 

2 concern, original concern was there was an 

3 exhaust fan on the utility tunnels which drew 

4 a negative pressure. Very slight, but we know 

5 that once you draw a negative pressure, you 

6 sort of create a circumstance where there's a 

7 tendency for some of the atoms of radon in the 

8 pore space in the soil adjacent to the tunnel 

9 might find their way in. And you could build 

10 up a pretty high concentration of radon under 

11 those circumstances.

12 But offsetting that was the 

13 information we discussed on the phone that you 

14 have all of these stairwells that are all 

15 along the way. And the tendency would be if 

16 there's going to be turnover, the air is going 

17 to more than likely come in from these 

18 openings as if we had open windows.

19 So, you know, and I'm asking 

20 myself the question where do I come -- this is 

21 on the phone now. My sense was that, it's 

22 likely that the concentrations of radon in the 
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1 conveyor tunnel, as measured at that time, 

2 were probably higher than what one might 

3 expect.

4 If I were to say what's your best 

5 judgment? My best judgment is probably those 

6 numbers that they observed in the conveyor 

7 tunnel are likely to be higher than the ones 

8 that we're saying might have existed in the 

9 utility tunnels where we have no information.

10 And then you say, well, is that 

11 good enough from a surrogate data point of 

12 view? Because that's really what we're asking 

13 ourselves now. We're saying can we use the 

14 conveyor tunnel radon measurements as a 

15 surrogate bounding -- plausible bounding for 

16 the utility tunnels?

17 And I say to myself, well, maybe. 

18 And here's where I'm going to add something 

19 new to the story that I came up with with the 

20 crew over the weekend. I say what would I do 

21 if someone asked me I've got a tunnel under a 

22 building, it's a utility tunnel, and I haven't 
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1 made any radon measurements, but I want to get 

2 an idea of what the upper bound radon 

3 concentrations might be in that tunnel.

4 Well, it turns out if you go 

5 online and you do a search on radon and 

6 utility tunnels, you will be amazed how much 

7 data there are out there. And this is sort of 

8 like building weight of evidence. We have the 

9 conveyor tunnel information. Okay. It is 

10 what it is. It's got its strengths, it's got 

11 its limitations as a source of surrogate data. 

12 And certainly reasonable people could agree 

13 or disagree whether or not it's a good source 

14 as a surrogate.

15 Then I say so what I like to do in 

16 those circumstances, what else can I do to 

17 come at this problem that would add to my 

18 knowledge and judgments? Well, what I thought 

19 would be a good idea, say, okay, let's collect 

20 the best information we can on what are the 

21 radon levels in utility tunnels that have been 

22 measured? And, apparently, there's a lot of 
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1 that data. Go in, collect the data, pick the 

2 upper 95th percentile.

3 So, well, right now knowing 

4 nothing else, I would say it's likely that the 

5 real radon concentrations that were in the 

6 utility tunnel were probably less than that 

7 value because you're sort of like saying 

8 there's one piece of information. Utility 

9 tunnels have a distribution, but I say is that 

10 good enough?

11 I say not really. You know why? 

12 Because the data that was gathered for all 

13 those utility tunnels that are out there in 

14 the database in the world out there, they 

15 didn't have residual radium-226 sitting around 

16 the outside of it that may have been 

17 responsible for a different circumstance 

18 elevating it.

19 So I would say, well, one way to 

20 answer that is say, okay, I'm going to make 

21 some numbers up now just so you can visualize 

22 what I'm talking about. Let's say it turns 
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1 out that the 95th upper bound on some 

2 population of data out there representing the 

3 concentrations of radon in utility tunnels in, 

4 you know, in the U.S. or in the Northeast or 

5 wherever you want to pick your set having done 

6 it, is 50 picocuries per liter.

7 I made that number up just now so 

8 that you could understand how I'm thinking. 

9 And I say, but what would I do then.

10 Well, I would do one other thing. 

11 I'd say - I would say, well, what is the 

12 average radium-226 concentration in the soil 

13 in the vicinity of the utility tunnels?

14 I'm going to make another number 

15 up. We have data, they have bore hole data, 

16 and let's say we find out it averages out to 

17 probably about 10 picocuries per gram of 

18 radium-226. I made that number up.

19 So, that says to us, gee, that 

20 means that the radium-226 levels that might 

21 exist in the vicinity of the utility tunnels 

22 might be about ten times higher than it 
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1 typically would be because most soils are 

2 around one picocurie per gram of radium.

3 Well, one other way to come at the 

4 problem is to take the 50 on the upper end, 

5 multiply by ten to get 500. Big number. Big 

6 number.

7 Now, I say to myself, okay, Jim's 

8 saying I've got a plausible -- I've got a 

9 surrogate that says 40 based on this tunnel. 

10 I just did this thing, a thought problem where 

11 I made numbers up. I don't know what the real 

12 numbers are, but it's tractable in my mind. 

13 You could do this exercise and you could see 

14 what it -- and let us speak to you and what 

15 does it say.

16 So, let's say at the end of that 

17 you walk away and you come up with 500 

18 picocuries per liter.

19 At the end of that process, I ask 

20 myself if that's where it came out, did I just 

21 come up with a plausible upper bound?

22 And I'm going to tell you 
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1 something. I would say, yes, I did, even 

2 though it's ten times higher than yours.

3 What I just went through, the 

4 process I went through in my little thought 

5 problem where I made numbers up just so that

6 you could follow my thinking, I would say that 

7 would be a plausible upper bound and I would 

8 be comfortable.

9 And this is SC&A's position now, 

10 that that process that I just described if we 

11 went through that process, we're not sure how 

12 rich the data are in terms of being able to 

13 build distribution. We're not sure when we do 

14 that, whether or not we're going to gather 

15 data that is going to be fairly reasonable of 

16 the circumstances that we're dealing with, but 

17 I know there's a lot of data out there.

18 And there's some pretty bad 

19 formations, some granite formations where it 

20 could be really nasty, a lot worse than the 

21 kind of material we're talking about here.

22 So, in the end of the story, 
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1 SC&A's position is, after going through this 

2 process and seeing what emerges from it and 

3 then comparing that to the NIOSH surrogate 

4 approach, we'll have information in front of 

5 us that, in my mind, will probably have 

6 everything we're going to -- other than 

7 actually having real measurements in the 

8 utility tunnel, you really can't do better 

9 than that.

10 And then at the end of that, 

11 here's the hard part. You got to sit around 

12 the table and say, what do you think.

13 Do you think we've just placed a 

14 plausible upper bound on the radon 

15 concentration in those tunnels, or not? And 

16 there's where the judgment will have to come 

17 before us, by the Board.

18 But this is the thinking that has 

19 emerged in SC&A over the weekend, and I'm 

20 hoping that it helps in your deliberations.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Brad, and 

22 then I want to give an opportunity for the 
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1 petitioners to speak.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: You know, I was 

3 just looking at the measurements that they had 

4 in there and the utility tunnels were so much 

5 higher than underneath what the building was. 

6 391.42 picocuries per gram.

7 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry. You're 

8 referring to the soil, the concentration of 

9 radium in the soil?

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

11 DR. MAURO: There's some hits that 

12 are high.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: These are the ones 

14 that they poked underneath there. This is the 

15 ones that they did later on. 

16 I guess one of the things -- we 

17 keep using the term bounding and we've heard 

18 people discuss about our jargon and that they 

19 need to be able to help with it.

20 I really question our bounding 

21 sometimes. I've said this numerous times 

22 before. I can take and cure this all right 
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1 now. I can give you a number out there.

2 Now, will it be plausible? Well, 

3 that would be questionable. But that isn't 

4 what, in my personal opinion, we're here to be 

5 able to do. We're to take the weight of 

6 evidence that we have.

7 It bothers me that we go to such 

8 lengths and such grand scales to get out of 

9 putting an SEC out there.

10 I thought that's what this was put 

11 up for and it just kind of bothers me. It 

12 really does.

13 And I'm not questioning the 

14 integrity and so forth like that, but I just -

15 - it just amazes me to what length we go. I 

16 thought that's what an SEC was put out here 

17 for.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. John, you 

19 can sit down.

20 I want to hear the petitioners. 

21 Thank you.

22 Antoinette, are you on the phone?
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1 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes, I am.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

3 MS. BONSIGNORE: Can everyone hear 

4 me?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can. 

6 Thank you.

7 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. Thank you.

8 Good morning, Dr. Melius, and 

9 members of the Board. My name is Antoinette 

10 Bonsignore and I am the petitioner 

11 representative for SEC-107 and SEC-154.

12 I want to thank you on behalf of 

13 the Linde workers for this opportunity to 

14 address the Board this morning.

15 I would also like to thank the 

16 Linde Working Group for their efforts these 

17 past two years during the Linde SEC evaluation 

18 process.

19 The Linde SEC-107 petition was 

20 filed in March 2008 and qualified for review 

21 on July 18th, 2008.

22 The ER for this petition was 
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1 released by NIOSH on November 5th, 2008. One 

2 day earlier, on November 4th, 2008, NIOSH also 

3 issued a revised Site Profile.

4 The revised Site Profile was 

5 intended to incorporate and resolve the issues 

6 raised by SC&A in their July 2006 review of 

7 the January 2006 version of the Site Profile.

8 The revised November 2008 Site 

9 Profile represented the third version of the 

10 Site Profile since May 2005.

11 Since November 2008, the Linde 

12 workers and their families have not only been 

13 waiting for a resolution on this petition, but 

14 an additional SEC petition covering the 

15 operational time periods that NIOSH will be 

16 discussing later this morning.

17 Simultaneously, during the SEC 

18 evaluation process, a number of individual 

19 Linde claimants petitioned the Department of 

20 Labor seeking to have their claims reopened 

21 because NIOSH issued that November 2008 

22 revised Site Profile. Nearly all of those 
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1 requests were denied.

2 However, in a limited number of 

3 cases, the Department of Labor remanded 

4 previously denied claims to NIOSH to be 

5 reworked.

6 To my knowledge, two previously 

7 denied claims have been re-dosed and were 

8 eventually approved for compensation.

9 However, the Department of Labor 

10 summarily refused to remand eight other claims 

11 that I know of for reworks, and those 

12 claimants received boilerplate letters from 

13 the Department of Labor claiming that because 

14 NIOSH had not issued a Program Evaluation 

15 Report for Linde, their claims could not be 

16 reopened.

17 One of those claimants eventually 

18 took her case to federal court wherein the 

19 Department of Labor vacated their decision and 

20 agreed that since NIOSH had revised the Site 

21 Profile, the claim should have been reopened.

22 That claimant is still waiting for 
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1 a resolution of that claim despite the fact 

2 that the Department of Labor ordered a remand 

3 over a year ago.

4 I wanted to detail this history to 

5 drive home the point that Linde workers have 

6 been denied timely and fair compensation for 

7 the past two years while the SEC evaluation 

8 process has been proceeding.

9 And even though NIOSH issued their 

10 Evaluation Report for this petition in 

11 November of 2008, and after two years of back12 and-forth negotiations between NIOSH and SC&A, 

13 the analysis contained within the November 

14 2008 Evaluation Report has been materially 

15 changed as a result of the Working Group 

16 negotiations.

17 This brings me to a paramount 

18 issue plaguing the Linde SEC evaluation 

19 process: the complete and utter disregard for 

20 not only timeliness, but the clear and 

21 unequivocal language of the Act and the 

22 regulations interpreting the Act requiring 
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1 NIOSH to provide this Board with a claimant2 favorable rationale for their recommendation 

3 on any SEC within 180 days of qualification.

4 In this case, NIOSH has failed to 

5 meet their statutory and regulatory 

6 obligations to provide this Board with a 

7 claimant-favorable rationale for recommending 

8 the denial of this SEC petition.

9 All the while, the individual 

10 claimants have been penalized for the very 

11 fact that the SEC petitions were filed in the 

12 first place.

13 I would like to direct your 

14 attention now to the presentation materials 

15 that Ted Katz distributed to the Board today. 

16 I hope everyone received those.

17 MR. KATZ: Yes, Antoinette. I 

18 emailed them to all the Board Members.

19 MS. BONSIGNORE: Great. Thank you, 

20 Ted.

21 On the first page of my 

22 presentation, I argue that NIOSH's preference 
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1 for completing the dose reconstructions over 

2 approving SECs is exemplified in the Linde SEC 

3 evaluation process by not only ignoring the 

4 180-day statutory deadline, but by also 

5 refusing to reopen previously denied claims 

6 because the SECs have not been resolved yet.

7 At Page 2 of my presentation, I 

8 outlined some of the data-deficiency issues 

9 that should cause this Board to question the 

10 speculative nature of the dose exposure models 

11 NIOSH is relying on to support their denial 

12 recommendation.

13 Bear in mind the original dose 

14 exposure model presented in the original 

15 November 2008 ER has been materially changed 

16 after continued criticism and negotiation with 

17 SC&A.

18 Briefly, I would like to point to 

19 the data-deficiency issues that should lead 

20 this Board to question the credibility and 

21 validity of the negotiated settlement, for 

22 lack of a better phrase, that NIOSH and SC&A 
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1 have reached two years after the issuance of 

2 the ER.

3 For the Linde renovation period, 

4 there is no personal monitoring data, no air 

5 sampling data and no source-term data. NIOSH 

6 is relying upon surrogate data from limited 

7 data sources from other Linde time periods, 

8 mainly the D&D period of the late 1940s and 

9 early `50s and radiological survey data from 

10 the late `70s and early `80s.

11 A separate issue that NIOSH and 

12 SC&A have not reached agreement on is the 

13 worker exposure issue resulting from the Linde 

14 employees working in the underground utility 

15 tunnel system and those workers also using the 

16 tunnel system to travel throughout the Linde 

17 facility during the cold winter months in 

18 Buffalo.

19 Part of the reason why NIOSH and 

20 SC&A have not reached any agreement on the 

21 tunnel issue is because NIOSH has been 

22 ignoring this exposure issue since January of 
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1 2006 when Linde workers discussed this 

2 exposure issue with SC&A interviewers Kathy 

3 DeMers and Desmond Chan.

4 NIOSH had known, or should have 

5 known, about this exposure issue since January 

6 of 2006. But despite that fact, NIOSH has 

7 never addressed it in any of the Site Profiles 

8 and never addressed it in the November 2008 ER 

9 for Linde SEC-107.

10 Significantly, and I want to 

11 really emphasize this point to the Board, this 

12 is not a new issue that NIOSH was unaware of 

13 before they issued the November 2008 ER.

14 In fact, NIOSH only reluctantly 

15 agreed to investigate the issue at the 

16 insistence of petitioners as late as December 

17 2009 when I raised the issue during a Working 

18 Group meeting.

19 The lead health physicist for this 

20 SEC, Chris Crawford, told me during that 

21 Working Group meeting, and I quote, we are 

22 unaware that anybody worked in those locations 
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1 for any demonstrable period of time.

2 That statement has of course been 

3 proven to be inaccurate, and I emphasize the 

4 timeline here to demonstrate to the Board that 

5 the November 2008 ER is flawed and not 

6 claimant-favorable because it completely 

7 ignores the tunnel issue. 

8 And it ignores the tunnel issue 

9 because for some reason NIOSH never perceived 

10 any reason to evaluate this issue with any due 

11 diligence.

12 The November 2008 ER is flawed and 

13 not claimant-favorable, not only because the 

14 substance of the reasoning detailed in it has 

15 materially changed over the past two years, 

16 but also because it never addresses the tunnel 

17 issue.

18 NIOSH has failed to meet the 

19 statutory obligation to provide this Board 

20 with a claimant-favorable rationale for 

21 recommending the denial of this petition.

22 NIOSH and SC&A have been unable to 
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1 arrive at any agreement on whether NIOSH can 

2 reconstruct dose for worker exposures in the 

3 tunnels because there is little data available 

4 to assess radon levels.

5 There is no bioassay data, no 

6 field monitoring data and any assessment of 

7 source-term data is speculative at best.

8 NIOSH's most recent attempt to 

9 tackle this issue was revealed to the Working 

10 Group during the October 14th Working Group 

11 meeting just a little over a month ago.

12 NIOSH now wishes to compare 

13 exposures in the tunnels to the limited air 

14 sampling data from the uranium ore conveyor 

15 tunnel that was located in Building 30, but 

16 due to issues of technical equivalency, no 

17 agreement was reached during our last Working 

18 Group meeting this past Friday on November 

19 12th to conclude whether it is reasonable and 

20 appropriate to compare worker exposures in the 

21 utility tunnel to the recently discovered and 

22 limited air sampling data from the conveyor 
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1 tunnel.

2 One member of the SC&A team said 

3 NIOSH was trying to compare apples and 

4 oranges.

5 The complete absence of data to 

6 measure exposure in the tunnels was made clear 

7 to the petitioners during a July 29th Working 

8 Group meeting when NIOSH considered the idea 

9 of literally going out to the present Linde 

10 site that is still being remediated by the 

11 Army Corps of Engineers to collect new 

12 radiological data samples.

13 Petitioners strongly objected to 

14 this plan because in our mind, NIOSH needs to 

15 evaluate the data that they actually have 

16 right now, not the data that they wish they 

17 had.

18 The policies of the SEC program 

19 should be that, when NIOSH realizes they do 

20 not have sufficient data to reconstruct doses, 

21 the remedy should be recommending the SEC, not 

22 circumventing the law and the very purpose of 
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1 the SEC program by trying to create a new 

2 radiological survey.

3 On Page 3 of my presentation, I 

4 outline my argument that NIOSH routinely 

5 ignores the 180-day legislated mandate, not to 

6 help SEC petitioners with their petitions, but 

7 only as a vehicle to justify their policy 

8 choice of favoring the dose reconstruction 

9 program over SEC approval.

10 This Board should assess the 

11 viability of this petition based solely upon 

12 what is contained in the November 2008 ER and 

13 nothing else.

14 Anything beyond that would not 

15 only violate congressional intent of the 180-

16 day deadline, but ignore the remedial nature 

17 of this compensation program.

18 On Page 4, I outlined the issue I 

19 mentioned earlier dealing with NIOSH's refusal 

20 to reopen previously denied claims based upon 

21 the release of the November 2008 revised Site 

22 Profile and how NIOSH has been using a wholly 
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1 arbitrary and capricious standard to reopen 

2 some claims but has refused to reopen others.

3 The Department of Labor has 

4 refused to reopen claims for [Identifying 

5 information redacted], [Identifying 

6 information redacted], [Identifying 

7 information redacted], [Identifying 

8 information redacted], [Identifying 

9 information redacted], [Identifying 

10 information redacted], [Identifying 

11 information redacted] and, notably, 

12 [Identifying information redacted], but they 

13 did reopen and eventually approve claims for 

14 [Identifying information redacted] and 

15 [Identifying information redacted] based upon 

16 the revised Site Profile.

17 The one claimant that managed to 

18 force the Department of Labor to remand her 

19 claim to be reworked had to file a lawsuit to 

20 do so. Her name is [Identifying information 

21 redacted]. 

22 [Identifying information redacted]
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1 filed a survivor claim in January of 2005. In 

2 October 2007, she received a recommended 

3 decision of denial from the Department of 

4 Labor.

5 She objected to that decision and 

6 after a hearing was held in March of 2008, a 

7 final decision of denial was rendered in 

8 October of 2008.

9 Requests for reconsideration filed 

10 both in November of 2008 and December of 2008 

11 were denied by the Department of Labor in 

12 January of 2009, four years after the filing 

13 of the initial claim.

14 In May 2009, she filed a request 

15 to have her claim reopened based upon the fact 

16 that the Linde Site Profile had been revised 

17 in November 2008. That request was also 

18 denied. [Identifying information redacted] 

19 then appealed that decision in federal court.

20 On September 22nd, 2009, the 

21 Department of Labor vacated the denial and 

22 DEEOIC director Rachel Leiton declared, and I 
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1 quote, based on the review of the revised TBD, 

2 I conclude that the November 4th, 2008 

3 revision does constitute a reasonable basis 

4 upon which to request a rework of the dose 

5 reconstruction in this claim. Additional 

6 development of the case shall include referral 

7 of the case to NIOSH for a dose reconstruction 

8 rework under the revised TBD for the Linde 

9 Ceramics plant. The new recommended decision 

10 shall determine the Probability of Causation 

11 based upon the results of the new dose 

12 reconstruction rework.

13 One year later the HHS Office of 

14 General Counsel informed [Identifying 

15 information redacted] that the Linde Site 

16 Profile may be revised by the end of the year, 

17 at which point, the dose reconstruction should 

18 be revisited.

19 [Identifying information redacted]

20 is left with no path forward, but to keep 

21 waiting and keep hoping.

22 After nearly five years, justice 
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1 demands that both Linde SEC petitions be 

2 approved without further delay.

3 [Identifying information redacted]

4 and the other claimants I just mentioned have 

5 been penalized because the Linde workers filed 

6 SEC petitions and NIOSH refuses to issue a 

7 Program Evaluation Report until the Linde SECs 

8 are resolved. This injustice demands swift 

9 action from this Board.

10 I would like to conclude this 

11 presentation by directing your attention to 

12 Pages 5 and 6 of my presentation.

13 On Page 5, I've transcribed the 

14 discussion I had with Dr. Melius during the 

15 Niagara Falls Board meeting in May of this 

16 year wherein I questioned why NIOSH is allowed 

17 to revise ERs ad infinitum.

18 Dr. Melius explained that the 

19 Board does not believe the 180-day statutory 

20 deadline is binding because NIOSH uses the 

21 information developed during this open-ended 

22 process to help claimants and petitioners.
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1 I asked that, when NIOSH ignores 

2 the 180-day deadline, to further support their 

3 initial recommendation to deny the petition, 

4 the wholesale disregard of the statute is 

5 being used against the workers, not to help 

6 them.

7 Dr. Melius again stated that the 

8 180-day deadline was not binding, that this 

9 was a question of judgment and that the Board 

10 wasn't ready to address the issue back in May.

11 The Linde petitioners ask that the 

12 Board address the issue now.

13 HHS has the exclusive authority to 

14 interpret provisions within the Act wherein 

15 legislative intent is unclear.

16 NIOSH has abused its authority by 

17 ignoring the very clear mandate to produce an 

18 Evaluation Report within 180 days of 

19 qualification.

20 Petitioners fail to understand how 

21 180 days is unclear. How does 180 days give 

22 NIOSH wiggle room?
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1 It does not, and Congress never 

2 intended such wiggle room.

3 I've outlined a remedy to these 

4 problems that I have identified on Page 6 of 

5 my presentation that would allow NIOSH the 

6 necessary flexibility to fully investigate the 

7 issues raised by SEC petitions and allow 

8 flexibility regarding the 180-day deadline 

9 without harming petitioners, without 

10 contravening the spirit and intent of this 

11 program.

12 Petitioners suggest that once 

13 material changes have been made to an ER, that 

14 the SEC should be approved either by NIOSH 

15 revising the original ER and recommending 

16 approval via 42 CFR 83.14, or in the 

17 alternative, the Board can step in and 

18 recommend approval.

19 Additionally, 42 CFR 83.13(b) 

20 provides that sometimes NIOSH will not have 

21 timely access to data and evidence it needs to 

22 evaluate an SEC.
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1 The director of DCAS is authorized 

2 to conclude that such evidence and records 

3 will not be available in a timely manner and 

4 NIOSH cannot gather the data to accurately 

5 reconstruct dose in a reasonable amount of 

6 time.

7 Remarkably, NIOSH has never 

8 invoked this authority. Petitioners

9 respectfully request that NIOSH invoke this 

10 authority now and declare that they are unable 

11 to complete dose reconstruction in a timely 

12 manner.

13 The final issue affects all of the 

14 workers during the residual period because all 

15 of the workers routinely used the tunnels to 

16 travel from building to building during bad 

17 weather.

18 It has been two years since NIOSH 

19 issued their flawed ER and that ER is not 

20 claimant-favorable, so, the workers are asking 

21 this Board today when is enough, enough.

22 The information developed by NIOSH 
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1 and SC&A after the 180-day deadline has --

2 after that deadline has passed, could then be 

3 used to revise the obviously inaccurate and 

4 incomplete Site Profile that NIOSH used to 

5 evaluate the SEC in the first place, and that 

6 new information can then be incorporated into 

7 the revised Site Profile to help individual 

8 claimants with non-presumptive radiogenic 

9 cancers and other claimants who do not meet 

10 the SEC criteria so they can receive more 

11 accurate dose reconstruction evaluations.

12 This plan would preserve the vital 

13 goal of timely and fair compensation while 

14 allowing NIOSH the necessary time to revise 

15 Site Profiles with greater accuracy and 

16 greater efficiency.

17 The Linde petitioners respectfully 

18 request that the Board ensure that the 

19 material changes made to the original November 

20 2008 ER are not used by NIOSH to justify 

21 recommending the denial of the Linde SEC 

22 petition.
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1 We urge the Board to recommend the 

2 approval of both Linde SEC-107 and Linde SEC3 154.

4 All of the Linde claims that have 

5 been denied since the release of the first 

6 Site Profile in 2005, have not been evaluated 

7 by NIOSH using an accurate and complete Site 

8 Profile.

9 The singular and inescapable 

10 reality that the tunnel-exposure issue has 

11 never been addressed in any of the four 

12 versions of the Site Profile demonstrates this 

13 fact.

14 We ask that after five years of 

15 unfairly evaluated dose reconstruction claims 

16 and after two years of an SEC evaluation 

17 process that has flagrantly ignored the 180-

18 day deadline, that the Linde workers should be 

19 granted immediate relief by this Board. These 

20 workers and their families have waited far too 

21 long for justice.

22 I want to thank the Board for your 
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1 time and consideration today. I would also 

2 like to ask you to review the correspondence 

3 that was contained in an Appendix that Ted 

4 distributed to the Board today that includes 

5 letters sent to the Advisory Board and NIOSH 

6 from Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand and 

7 from the Linde petitioners, as well as a 

8 November 15th Buffalo News article detailing 

9 the plight of the Linde workers.

10 I want to also thank Senator 

11 Schumer and Senator Gillibrand for their 

12 unwavering support over the years.

13 I will have a very brief comment 

14 about SEC-154 later today regarding the 

15 qualification of that petition and the 

16 technical issue that we have been discussing, 

17 dealing with when the tunnels were 

18 constructed, and I will have those comments 

19 later this morning. Thank you.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

21 Antoinette.

22 I think it's time for us to take 
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1 our break and so we will take a break. It's 

2 10:30. We will reconvene about 10:45, 10:50, 

3 something like that.

4 And the Board Members should not 

5 leave the room. You have to have your picture 

6 taken.

7 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

8 matter went off the record at 10:32 a.m. and 

9 resumed at 10:56 a.m.)

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Let's get 

11 started.

12 So, for a little variety for 

13 everybody, we're going to talk about Linde 

14 petitions.

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Can we just approve 

16 everything and move on?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Or disapprove. 

18 Whatever. Whatever the Work Group 

19 recommended.

20 (Laughter.)

21 MEMBER MUNN: Are we going to talk 

22 about 154 or are we going back to 107?
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're going to do 

2 154.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Frank, go ahead.

5 MR. CRAWFORD: Thank you. Somehow 

6 I feel like I've been here before, but I think 

7 that was the 107 petition.

8 The SEC-154 petition, which is for 

9 the -- what we might call the second 

10 production period at Linde, the petition was 

11 received on November 5th, 2009.

12 The proposed Class Definition, all 

13 employees who worked in any area of the Linde 

14 Ceramics plant in Tonawanda, New York from 

15 November 1st, 1947, to December 31st, 1953.

16 The petition qualified January 

17 22nd of this year. The DOE Facility Database 

18 shows October 1st, `42, through December 31st, 

19 `53, as the covered period for the Linde 

20 Ceramics plant, and that's leaving out the 

21 residual period in 107.

22 The Class evaluated by NIOSH was 
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1 essentially the same as the petitioner's 

2 Class. We've been through most of this.

3 Prior to 1942, the Tonawanda 

4 laboratory was the main process building on 

5 the site at Linde. They refined pre-processed 

6 ores from a vanadium mining operation. In 

7 other words, they reduced radium ores to 

8 produce U308 or yellowcake and other oxides of 

9 uranium coloring agents.

10 They did produce 80 tons of 

11 yellowcake prior to the wartime period. Then 

12 in 1942, they contracted with the MED, the 

13 Manhattan Engineering District, to refine more 

14 uranium.

15 As a result of that contract, the 

16 MED caused to be erected several other 

17 buildings: 30, 31, 37 and 38, which became 

18 known as the Linde Ceramics plant.

19 The Step 1 processing was from ore 

20 to the yellowcake itself. There was a Step 2 

21 process from yellowcake to uranium oxides, and 

22 then a Step 3 process from the oxide to the 
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1 fluoride, the green salt.

2 Just a little historical interest. 

3 The Step 1 ore-to-yellowcake process halted 

4 in the summer of 1946 so there were no more 

5 ores processed on site after that point.

6 The Step 2 process, going from 

7 yellowcake to oxides, was transferred to other 

8 plants in `44. So, that step was eliminated 

9 at Linde sometime in `44. That left only the 

10 Step 3 process producing the green salt.

11 Decontamination/decommissioning 

12 was done between July 1st, 1949, and July 7th, 

13 1954, which was the final building turnover 

14 date or site turnover date from the AEC to 

15 Linde. Most of the work, however, was really 

16 done in 1949 and 1950.

17 We have the usual sources of 

18 information and really they were the same for 

19 the 107 petition as well. I won't go through 

20 these in detail.

21 I've already said a little bit 

22 about this, but the quantities are also of 
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1 interest. In June 1943, they began the Step 1 

2 processing. That was done in Building 30.

3 They used both refined U.S. ores 

4 and raw African ores, the latter of which 

5 would have had a full radium complement in it 

6 to produce yellowcake.

7 Eventually 26,000 metric tons of 

8 ore were processed into about 2300 tons of 

9 yellowcake. Step 1 processing was conducted 

10 until July 31st, 1946.

11 I just went through this, but Step 

12 2 processing was conducted simultaneously to 

13 convert the yellowcake to uranium dioxide 

14 until March 1944.

15 Again, the Step 3 processing began 

16 on November 1st, `47, and proceeded right 

17 through to June `49, at which point shortly 

18 thereafter, the decontamination effort began.

19 There was actually some 

20 decontamination of the Step 2 and Step 1 

21 equipment occurring while the Step 3 

22 processing was going on.
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1 The potential for radiation 

2 exposures during this Class period, the 

3 internal sources -- since radon is the hot 

4 topic, I put it first.

5 Some radon exposure was present 

6 due to residual contamination of the surfaces 

7 by the ores. Particularly the African ores, 

8 of course. And we're not yet dealing with the 

9 tunnels. We're talking about the surface 

10 buildings.

11 There were relatively high levels 

12 of airborne contaminants, both uranium and its 

13 progeny, during operation.

14 By high, maybe it would help to 

15 say -- the TBD goes into some detail, but 

16 levels of 33 MAC were generally present during 

17 the processing period, where one MAC is 70 dpm 

18 of alpha radiation per cubic meter. That 

19 becomes more important later when we talk 

20 about the decontamination effort itself.

21 For external sources of exposure, 

22 of course, we had photon and beta radiation 
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1 exposure from the process materials and the 

2 residual uranium contamination of surfaces.

3 Neutrons were not a significant 

4 source of external exposure to Linde site 

5 personnel.

6 In terms of data, as you may know, 

7 historically, NIOSH suggested the early 

8 period, Step 1 processing period, be accepted 

9 as an SEC. It was a NIOSH initiative. 

10 Because essentially there was no -- there were 

11 no data, I should say, for internal exposures 

12 and almost nothing for external exposures 

13 prior to 1947.

14 But beginning in late `47, we have 

15 much more data. We have 641 uranium 

16 urinalyses from 75 different employees. We 

17 also have general area, 240 samples, and 

18 breathing zone, 178 samples, of air samples 

19 are available during the period from `47 to 

20 `54. Most of those were collected in `48, `49 

21 and `50.

22 And then later we have some FUSRAP 
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1 data in the `76 and `81 surveys, and even 

2 later in 2000 and so forth.

3 In terms of external monitoring 

4 data, we have 6,000 external dosimetry 

5 readings -- are available from the period from 

6 January `48 through December of `49. That's 

7 coincident with the Step 3 processing and the 

8 beginning of decontamination.

9 You're familiar with the 

10 evaluation process. It was a two-prong test 

11 established by EEOICPA.

12 The first question is, is it 

13 feasible to estimate the level of radiation 

14 doses of individual members of the Class with 

15 sufficient accuracy.

16 The second question is -- if the 

17 first is answered yes, we don't need the 

18 second question, is there a reasonable 

19 likelihood that such radiation dose may have 

20 endangered the health of members of the Class.

21 NIOSH found that the available 

22 monitoring records, process descriptions and 
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1 source-term data are adequate to complete dose 

2 reconstructions with sufficient accuracy for 

3 the evaluated Class of employees.

4 Looking at the feasibility for 

5 internal dose, we have enough urinalysis data. 

6 We were able to establish a geometric mean 

7 and standard deviation.

8 The breathing zone and general air 

9 sample data were compared with this co-worker 

10 urinalysis data and found to be compatible. 

11 That is, the predicted values from the air 

12 sample data were very close to the actual 

13 values found.

14 So, NIOSH finds that bioassay and 

15 air sampling data are sufficient to bound the 

16 maximum internal dose.

17 Now for radon, as explained in the 

18 TBD, all surface buildings are assumed to have 

19 a ten picocurie per liter radon level. This 

20 was established from what I might call a quiet 

21 plant period where readings were taken in 

22 between processing periods.
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1 The Step 3 processing itself did 

2 not handle ores. So, there's no reason for 

3 there to have been especially high radon 

4 levels during that time.

5 During the Step 1 processing, 

6 radon levels were greatly above ten picocuries 

7 per liter, by the way.

8 Now, we get to the fun part: the 

9 utility tunnels near the ceramics plant. 

10 After considerable research, we found that 

11 they were not built in the ceramics plant area 

12 until after 1956.

13 Dr. Lockey admirably summarized 

14 the findings there. I sent to the Board 

15 Members the applicable engineering documents 

16 where there are notes on the side of one of 

17 the engineering drawings which clearly state 

18 that in `37, these tunnels were designed and 

19 built.

20 In `57, there were tunnels built 

21 up near the ceramics plant, the north part of 

22 it. Then, in `61, more extensive tunnels were 
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1 built that continued from the ceramics plant 

2 area down to Building 8 and past Building 70 

3 on the east-west line.

4 We think that is very well 

5 established. And as Dr. Lockey also pointed 

6 out, there are various employee or witness 

7 statements, but most of the employee 

8 statements that we have do refer to Building 

9 14 tunnel being in existence before 1954, 

10 which is of course true.

11 The reason that the Building 14 

12 tunnel area we believe does not present an 

13 elevated radon hazard, is because bore 

14 samples, bore hole samples taken later, I 

15 believe in the `78 to `82 time frame, show 

16 that near that tunnel between Building 14 and 

17 Building 8 there was no elevated radium 

18 concentration in the soil at any depth. In 

19 other words, everything was background for 

20 radium.

21 There was increased uranium 

22 concentration, which is what we would have 
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1 expected from the documentary evidence.

2 The processing of ore both before 

3 the World War II period and -- well, 

4 especially before the World War II period, 

5 involved pre-processed ores without uranium 

6 content in them.

7 During the MED period, Building 14 

8 was used as a test lab to test procedures and 

9 to assay samples and that sort of thing. So, 

10 they had very small amounts of African or 

11 other ores brought into them. And there's no 

12 evidence of contamination near the building 

13 from African ores.

14 External exposures, we propose, 

15 can be bounded by using coworker dose based on 

16 the existing external dosimetry records for 

17 the Step 3 operations period and applying the 

18 methods in the TBD to divide workers into 

19 exposure classes during the decontamination 

20 work.

21 The word surrogate data seems to 

22 have taken on several meanings. In one sense, 
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1 coworker data could be considered surrogate 

2 data because it's applied to workers who may 

3 not have been monitored.

4 But in the sense that I think the 

5 Board has usually handled the term, this 

6 coworker data would not be surrogate data 

7 because it's based on the process workers 

8 working in this plant with these operations.

9 If we were going to another site 

10 and taking other uranium workers' sample data, 

11 I think the Board has established that that is 

12 what surrogate data is.

13 So, I just mention that because I 

14 felt there's two different ways of expressing 

15 that point. And the way that I am using it is 

16 it's only surrogate data if it comes from 

17 another site.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: There's at least 

19 two, but many more.

20 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes, I'm sure.

21 On the feasibility summary, we 

22 believe we can estimate dose with enough 
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1 certainty, with sufficient accuracy for all 

2 sources of exposure.

3 The recommendation, then, is that 

4 NIOSH finds that radiation dose estimates can 

5 be reconstructed for compensation purposes.

6 And this I threw in because I 

7 thought it might be useful to have some visual 

8 representation of the tunnel system. I'm 

9 sorry I can't make it larger.

10 If I can desert the mic and speak 

11 loudly for a moment so that the Board can see 

12 what tunnels I'm talking about, this is 

13 Building 8 and Building 14.

14 The original tunnel system went 

15 basically through here. That's the --

16 (Off the record comments.)

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Frank, we 

18 actually have a pointer. I was just 

19 suggesting to Ted that we break the budget 

20 next year and buy a pointer for DCAS, but I'm 

21 sure you have about ten of them back in the 

22 office, right?
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1 MR. CRAWFORD: We know that these 

2 tunnels existed prior to the MED period. And 

3 these are the tunnels where the bore hole 

4 samples show there was no excess radium 

5 component in the soils over the tunnels.

6 The 1957 construction drawings 

7 show that this section of tunnel here from 

8 Junction Box 1 to Junction Box 5, was 

9 constructed in that year.

10 In 1961, most of the rest of the 

11 tunnel system was built from Junction Box 6, 7 

12 and 8, and then down here past Building -- I 

13 think this is 70 out to here. So, those 

14 buildings existed during -- or those tunnels, 

15 I should say, existed during the residual 

16 period, but not during the SEC-154 period in 

17 that area.

18 And bore hole samples from around 

19 Building 30 do show not only elevated uranium 

20 levels, but elevated radium levels as well.

21 Of interest, the tunnels had an 

22 average depth of about three feet from the 
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1 surface. That is, the roof of the tunnel was 

2 about three feet from the surface.

3 The bore holes show that the 

4 contamination was also confined to within 

5 three feet of the surface in almost every 

6 case.

7 The uranium, in other words, is 

8 not migrating down through these clay soils at 

9 any great rate, because many of the bore hole 

10 samples were done fifty and sixty years after 

11 the contamination.

12 Inside Building 30 in the 

13 southeast corner, there's a grate called the 

14 grizzly which was over a tunnel and then cut 

15 beneath Building 30.

16 In the tunnel was a conveyor belt. 

17 It went, it's hard to say, but 60 to 90 feet, 

18 from looking at the drawings, to the ball mill 

19 operation. Again, if I can get this, it went 

20 from about here to about the middle there --

21 middle third.

22 The horizontal conveyor conveyed 
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1 the ore to a vertical conveyor which was 

2 combined with a weighing machine, which 

3 brought it up to the level of the ball mill 

4 where it was ground and then later dissolved.

5 The reason I'm going into this a 

6 little bit is you can see that the distance 

7 from the tunnel here and the tunnel outside is 

8 not that great. It could be a hundred feet or 

9 so, and maybe a little closer to the 

10 horizontal tunnel here.

11 The reason we think the ore tunnel

12 provides a reasonable certainty of a bounding 

13 estimate, is that; A) it did carry thousands 

14 of tons of African ore and it was a messy 

15 operation. We know it was from many reports 

16 from the period.

17 The workers would simply empty a 

18 bag of ore down through this grating, which 

19 would then fall on a conveyor belt. It would 

20 be conveyed 60 or 90 feet. Then it would be 

21 dumped into a waiting conveyor belt that was 

22 running vertically, a bucket kind of conveyor 
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1 belt.

2 This was very messy. The dumping 

3 in the grate was messy, and especially at the 

4 ball mill end. That was where we found the 

5 most contamination, from the records.

6 The transfer from the horizontal 

7 to the vertical conveyor was also a very messy 

8 operation. Lots of dust and lots of detritus 

9 in the tunnel. 

10 I think Dr. Lockey also mentioned 

11 that one of the -- or it may have been Jim 

12 Neton, that a reading taken in the ore 

13 conveyor tunnel in the sludge at the ball mill 

14 end, showed a hundred picocurie per liter --

15 not per liter. I'm sorry. Hundred picocurie 

16 per gram concentration in the sludges.

17 It is true that certain other 

18 plants on the site you can find even more 

19 radium concentration, but; A) this is inside 

20 the tunnel, and that's a big distinction.

21 It's one thing if you have high 

22 radium content someplace 20 feet or 50 feet 
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1 from the tunnel or a hundred feet from the 

2 tunnel, and quite another if you deposited the 

3 radium inside the tunnel. We expect that will 

4 give us a fairly bounding measure of the 

5 radon.

6 Naturally, we'd all like more data 

7 all of the time. But in this case, we think 

8 it's a reasonable supposition that this is a 

9 bounding number. That number, by the way, is 

10 44 picocuries per liter that was measured at 

11 the ball mill end of the conveyor tunnel.

12 I should also point out that, 

13 while a measurement was mentioned of 390 

14 picocuries per gram of radium taken from one 

15 of the surface bore hole measurements, that 

16 was not directly over the tunnel. To my 

17 memory, it was at least 20 feet away. It may 

18 have been farther. So, we have to keep that 

19 in mind.

20 Most of the high concentration 

21 looks like it came from surface spills. That 

22 is, it's confined to the top layer of the 
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1 ground. And a lot of it is near the railroad 

2 spurs which you can see here -- it's not on 

3 there. Oh, here we go. Right here.

4 These spurs are probably the 

5 important ones because the ore bags were 

6 deposited in the southeast corner of Building 

7 30. So, there's a very short distance between 

8 the rail spurs and there and it was fairly 

9 high concentration. Some of it not too far 

10 away from the tunnel, but that's why we had 

11 some high readings.

12 Looking at the site, however, it's 

13 interesting to note that most of the tunnel 

14 contamination inside the tunnel now, 

15 presumably from groundwater precipitation, 

16 occurred in this section of tunnel between 14 

17 and 8 and again up here near Junction Box 6.

18 This is a half-mile tunnel system, 

19 by the way. So, there are extensive areas of 

20 the tunnel that were not contaminated by 

21 surface contamination.

22 The reason I mention that is that 
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1 in our assumptions, we assumed for the surface 

2 external dose and for the surface contribution 

3 for the radon in the tunnels, that the tunnels 

4 were uniformly contaminated at the 95th 

5 percentile level of all the surface 

6 measurements that were made in the tunnel, and 

7 there were extensive measurements made there 

8 in the year 2000, so that we've taken a very, 

9 I think, a very claimant-favorable approach to 

10 both external dose and internal dose from 

11 resuspension and from the radon component that 

12 the surface contamination provided.

13 Now, we didn't use that in the 

14 model. We prefer to use the conveyor tunnel 

15 actual measurements because, as Dr. Field has 

16 pointed out, models may not be appropriate 

17 because of variation and very short spaces on 

18 a site.

19 I hope that helps a little bit to 

20 visualize what we're talking about.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Where are the 

22 injection wells?
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1 MR. CRAWFORD: The injection wells; 

2 they're scattered. That's a good question.

3 The reason we don't think they're 

4 a significant factor in the Building 30 

5 sections of the tunnels, is that the tunnels 

6 were built way after -- about a decade after 

7 the injection wells had ceased operating.

8 So, any spill of effluents -- and, 

9 by the way, these were extremely dilute --

10 highly caustic, but extremely dilute solutions 

11 considering the uranium and radium, the 

12 radionuclides of interest.

13 So, any spills that occurred, many 

14 of them drained off in a drainage ditch, went 

15 into local creeks, polluted the Niagara River, 

16 that sort of thing.

17 But what they didn't do is they 

18 didn't leak down into the tunnels, because the 

19 tunnels weren't there at the time.

20 Now, down around Building 14 we 

21 have bore hole samples again. If there had 

22 been leakage near those tunnels or overflow of 
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1 effluent that had covered the tunnels, we'd 

2 see increased radium levels, and we don't.

3 There were bore holes, I believe, 

4 in this area, but not near the tunnel.

5 MEMBER ANDERSON: How deep were the 

6 wells?

7 MR. CRAWFORD: My memory is, not 

8 very deep. About 150 feet. There was a --

9 there's a lot of correspondence on that. 

10 The Linde people wanted much 

11 deeper wells drilled, but the MED people 

12 wanted to save money and that's a New York 

13 State report, it's a rather highly colored 

14 report, but nonetheless there was a lot of 

15 controversy about that.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I remind anybody 

17 asking questions to please use the mic for the 

18 benefit of our court reporter.

19 MEMBER GRIFFON: I just had a 

20 question while you still had the map up.

21 Can you point to Building 57, 58 

22 and 90 on there? This is more relevant for 
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1 the first petition.

2 MR. CRAWFORD: I wish I had more 

3 buildings and more labeled on here, but, no, I 

4 can't.

5 My memory is, they're up in the 

6 north corner -- northeast corner here.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: I can't see your 

8 pointer.

9 MR. CRAWFORD: I can't see it 

10 either. At any rate, I believe they're up in 

11 this area, but I can't provide you with any 

12 detailed drawing.

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, okay. I was 

14 just curious because one of the later -- I 

15 think it's the Bechtel survey -- and again 

16 this is more pertinent, probably, to the prior

17 petition, but they indicate residual 

18 contamination around those buildings and I 

19 wondered how far they are away from the main 

20 process buildings and stuff.

21 Anyway, thank you.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Anymore to 
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1 present?

2 MR. CRAWFORD: No.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Then I 

4 guess the Board can questions.

5 Anybody have questions right now?

6 Go ahead, Jim.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: I just have one 

8 because I couldn't remember when the --

9 according to the air samples near the utility 

10 tunnels, when was that done and where were 

11 they obtained from; do you remember?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim, could you 

13 get closer to the mic in the future when you -

14 - 

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: Sorry. When the 

16 Corps of Engineers, I think, in `78 or `79 

17 took samples around the tunnels, where was 

18 that done; do you remember?

19 I just don't remember.

20 MR. CRAWFORD: Where or when?

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: Where was it done?

22 Do you know where they took those 
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1 samples? Was it around the utility tunnels?

2 MR. CRAWFORD: Well, actually they 

3 -- it was part of a much larger work. They 

4 took many bore hole samples around the utility 

5 tunnels, but they weren't specifically focused 

6 on the utility tunnels, for various reasons.

7 The way they decided to drill a 

8 bore hole, unfortunately, makes the sample 

9 very biased. So, we can't use it to provide a 

10 GSD or other statistical measures.

11 They did a gamma radiation survey 

12 at the surface. This is apart from the 

13 buildings. They also did bore holes inside 

14 buildings. But for the general surface of the 

15 area, they did a gamma survey, and they went 

16 to the hottest spots of the gamma radiation 

17 survey and drilled there to check what was 

18 there in the soils.

19 That was done in `78. It was done 

20 again, I believe, in the `81-`82 period. And 

21 it was done again in later remediation periods 

22 under FUSRAP.
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1 But they weren't focused on the 

2 tunnel at that time. They were measuring 

3 where the ore concentrations were hottest. 

4 And we had to plot the tunnels and then plot 

5 the bore holes to get some idea of which bore 

6 holes were close to the tunnels and which 

7 weren't.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, Dick.

9 MEMBER LEMEN: I understand this 

10 may have been brought up previously before I 

11 was on the Board, but this applies to both of 

12 these petitions on Linde. And that is when 

13 you do your dose reconstruction, and this is 

14 specific for lung cancer, how do you take into 

15 consideration the fact that the worker may 

16 have smoked?

17 Because epidemiologically, radon 

18 and cigarette smoking act synergistically and 

19 enhances the effect of the radon exposure.

20 MR. CRAWFORD: That information is 

21 sought by the Department of Labor in a 

22 questionnaire. Anybody with a lung cancer is 
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1 asked whether or not they were a current 

2 smoker or a former smoker.

3 And if they're a current smoker in 

4 particular, how much, how many packs a day 

5 they smoke.

6 Then that information, in turn, is 

7 put into our dose reconstruction program 

8 called IREP, and that does lower the 

9 Probability of Causation somewhat.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: No, it would enhance 

11 the Probability of Causation.

12 MR. CRAWFORD: For the uranium 

13 component. Let me put it that way. If you 

14 compare a nonsmoker that has the same dose, 

15 radiation dose, then they will have a higher 

16 Probability of Causation than, say, a current 

17 smoker would have with the same radiation 

18 dose.

19 MEMBER LEMEN: I'm not sure that's

20 correct.

21 MR. CRAWFORD: Exactly. I'm 

22 describing the process.
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1 MEMBER LEMEN: I think that may not 

2 be correct.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Could I comment on 

4 that?

5 What the model does, Dr. Lemen, is 

6 the two cases with identical doses, it will --

7 and both having lung cancer, the smoker will 

8 have some of his cancer attributed to the 

9 smoking.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: So, that's not --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, that's what 

12 the model does. Jim can explain it here.

13 DR. NETON: Yes, there's two issues 

14 here. One is the adjustment for -- this is 

15 Jim Neton -- for the risk associated with 

16 external exposure and smoking, which is one 

17 model. That's the NIOSH IREP model. It was 

18 developed by the National Cancer Institute. 

19 And there's a separate model in NIOSH IREP for 

20 radon.

21 What I can't remember right now --

22 which was developed from the Colorado Plateau 
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1 uranium miner's data. And I'm embarrassed 

2 about this, but I can't remember if there's a 

3 smoking adjustment in the Colorado Plateau 

4 uranium miner data or not.

5 MEMBER LEMEN: It seems to me the 

6 way you're explaining it, you're penalizing 

7 the smoker.

8 DR. NETON: That's actually, in 

9 fact, what happens.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: That should not --

11 DR. NETON: Because the chance that 

12 the radiation --

13 MEMBER LEMEN: That should not be 

14 done.

15 DR. NETON: Well, the concept is 

16 the chance that the radiation caused the 

17 cancer goes down because there's another 

18 factor that is contributing to his overall 

19 chance of developing cancer.

20 MEMBER LEMEN: But that's not 

21 consistent with the epidemiology. That is 

22 absolutely penalizing the smoker.
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1 DR. NETON: Well, he certainly 

2 would have a higher risk of developing cancer.

3 MEMBER LEMEN: Absolutely, but your 

4 dose response model would underestimate and 

5 bring down his potential for getting 

6 compensation.

7 DR. NETON: Perhaps this is 

8 something I could maybe discuss in a future 

9 meeting or --

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Or, yes, maybe 

11 your science update. Let's get back to Linde 

12 and --

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: Just for the 

14 record, though, there is a third issue, if I 

15 will. And that's the -- an issue I brought up 

16 probably seven years ago, I don't know, is the 

17 retention of how smoking affects the retention 

18 in the lung.

19 MEMBER LEMEN: I'm well aware of 

20 that.

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: And ICRP has 

22 looked at that and I asked NIOSH to consider 
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1 those factors.

2 DR. NETON: Right. And I think at 

3 the time --

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: That's the dose 

5 reconstruction side. That's not the IREP. 

6 That's not the epi side.

7 DR. NETON: Right. And at the 

8 time, we had concluded that the science just 

9 wasn't there -- the quantitative science 

10 wasn't there for us to make that adjustment.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: And I don't 

12 totally disagree with that. ICRP is a little 

13 inconclusive on where to go.

14 DR. NETON: Right. Exactly. But 

15 we are aware of the issue and it's a good 

16 point.

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: So, I just wanted 

18 to clarify. Go ahead, Jim. Sorry.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I'd like 

20 to hear from the petitioner.

21 Antoinette, you said you had a few 

22 more comments on --
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1 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes, I did.

2 Can everyone hear me? Hello? 

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can hear 

4 you.

5 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. I wasn't 

6 sure because there's been a lot of outside 

7 conversations I've been hearing on the --

8 okay. Thank you.

9 Thank you again, Dr. Melius and 

10 members of the Board for providing this 

11 opportunity for us to address the Board this 

12 morning.

13 There's two general comments that 

14 I'd like to make. The first is that, after 

15 hearing this presentation from NIOSH, it's 

16 very technical, very complicated, very hard to 

17 follow for the layperson.

18 It just reinforces the problem --

19 the inherent problem in how these SEC 

20 petitions are evaluated.

21 You have an ER that has just been 

22 issued about a week or so ago and now 
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1 presumably the Working Group would begin to 

2 take a look at the particulars of it along 

3 with SC&A, inviting the same problems that I 

4 identified with the SEC-107 evaluation 

5 process: an open-ended process where the 

6 original Evaluation Report becomes eventually 

7 materially changed and NIOSH is not held to 

8 what is contained in that original Evaluation

9 Report.

10 So, I just wanted to reemphasize 

11 that point because, unfortunately, the SEC 

12 evaluation process is inherently a flawed one 

13 because it invites the disregard of the 180-

14 day deadline and the statutory obligation 

15 associated with that.

16 The second point I wanted to talk 

17 about was -- is an issue that I had raised 

18 back in August of this year in a letter that I 

19 sent to Dr. Howard on behalf of the Linde 

20 workers. And it deals with whether the 

21 decision-making process surrounding the 

22 qualification of this petition was proper and, 
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1 consequently, whether the subsequent 

2 evaluation presented in this ER is based on an 

3 objective and proper evidentiary standard that 

4 meets the statutory and regulatory obligations 

5 of the SEC program.

6 NIOSH regulations require that 

7 NIOSH qualify and evaluate each SEC petition 

8 separately site by site.

9 In my letter to Dr. Howard, which 

10 is contained in the appendix documents that 

11 Ted distributed to everyone today, there are a 

12 set of emails between NIOSH staff and their 

13 contractors demonstrating what the petitioners 

14 believe to be the tangible effects of NIOSH's 

15 policy and previous position to deny SEC 

16 petitions.

17 These emails, we believe, show how 

18 this policy has affected the Linde workers, 

19 that this SEC petition was not evaluated 

20 independently and as a separate and unique 

21 petition, but that considerations were taken 

22 into account of whether qualifying this 
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1 petition in the minds of NIOSH staff and their 

2 contractors would have negative consequences 

3 regarding whether NIOSH could justify dose 

4 reconstruction determinations at any site.

5 The concern being that, if NIOSH 

6 qualified this petition, they would have 

7 greater difficulty justifying SEC denial 

8 recommendations at other sites.

9 I would refer the Board to the 

10 August 9th letter where I outlined these 

11 concerns and talked about these improper 

12 considerations that were used by NIOSH and 

13 their contractors in evaluating this petition.

14 I would ask that you review 

15 specifically PDF Page 5 and PDF Page 9 at some 

16 point today.

17 The second issue deals with this 

18 tunnel-exposure issue. Now, NIOSH is claiming 

19 that the Linde tunnels running under Buildings 

20 30, 31, 37 and 38 were constructed outside of 

21 the SEC-154 period, namely, in 1957 and 1961.

22 Consequently, NIOSH believes the 
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1 radon exposure issue that was debated in SEC2 107 is not really an issue here, and I 

3 submitted affidavit statements from three 

4 former workers, two of which were actually 

5 interviewed by SC&A during the Niagara Falls 

6 Board meeting, about the tunnels.

7 And I also provided some other 

8 documentary evidence from the New York State 

9 Assembly Report from 1981 talking about 

10 contamination from the overflow of effluents 

11 into the tunnels.

12 Additionally, NIOSH also turned 

13 over two documents that they discovered 

14 recently that they believe supports their 

15 contention that these tunnels were constructed 

16 in 1957 and 1961.

17 I forwarded both of those 

18 documents to the workers, and they had an 

19 opportunity to review them just last night.

20 I ask that NIOSH and the Working 

21 Group review the document identified as SRDB22 083626 which is titled Utility Tunnel Plot - 
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1 1, and specifically review a tunnel map at 

2 Page 11 of the document titled Property 

3 Telephone Line Layout.

4 This map is dated September 28th, 

5 1953. This map shows all of the Linde tunnels 

6 at the Linde site, including the tunnels 

7 running under Buildings 30, 31, 37 and 38 

8 existing during the SEC-154 time period.

9 The person who pointed this out to 

10 me was one of the workers that submitted the 

11 affidavit who dispute the fact that these 

12 tunnels did not exist during the early 1950s. 

13 And he actually provided a great level of 

14 detail about the tunnels to the SC&A review 

15 team with Steve Ostrow and Arjun Makhijani 

16 back in May.

17 And he has a great level of --

18 great deal of knowledge about the tunnels and 

19 great level of recall, and he pointed out to 

20 me that that map was dated September 28th, 

21 1953, and it shows the tunnels running under 

22 Buildings 30, 31, 37 and 38, and they're 
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1 actually there.

2 So, I would ask that the Working 

3 Group and NIOSH take a look at this, because 

4 this is a critical issue about radon exposures 

5 in the tunnels for this time period. And it 

6 calls into question whether SEC-154 ER 

7 presents a claimant-favorable analysis that 

8 justifies the denial recommendation contained 

9 within it.

10 Two other things that I wanted to 

11 point out as a result of Mr. Crawford's 

12 presentation in that he mentioned that NIOSH 

13 is relying on a coworker model. And this is 

14 an issue that I actually raised in the Working 

15 Group this past -- last Friday.

16 And I had asked the Working Group 

17 and SC&A whether there were any consistent 

18 policy standards that the Board had adopted 

19 similar to the policy standards that they had 

20 adopted for other site or surrogate data, and 

21 there are no standards set up for coworker 

22 models that are parallel to the standards that 
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1 have been set up for surrogate or other site 

2 data, and what those application standards 

3 should be and what the plausibility standards 

4 should be.

5 I think that's a significant 

6 problem here because we don't have a 

7 consistent policy that you can rely upon 

8 across -- to be applied here. And the fact 

9 that you're using a coworker model and we 

10 don't really have any plausibility standards 

11 is a concern that I think the Working Group is 

12 going to have to address.

13 And finally, I'd just like to say 

14 that a lot of the workers feel that often 

15 their statements are only considered relevant 

16 and only considered reliable when they fit the 

17 narrative that NIOSH has established already. 

18 And when they don't fit the narrative, 

19 they're not considered reliable.

20 And this is a consistent problem 

21 for the past few years whenever workers have 

22 submitted affidavits, statements. They feel 
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1 that they are often ignored. And that 

2 whenever they do submit statements, that NIOSH 

3 just comes back with additional evidence, a 

4 couple, you know, whether it's a month later 

5 or six months later trying to refute it and 

6 questioning their credibility.

7 And I just raise this issue 

8 because it really is a serious concern not 

9 just at Linde, but at all of these sites where 

10 workers feel that they're being ignored and 

11 not taken seriously.

12 And then just one further point 

13 that I wanted to mention is that -- actually, 

14 I think that's it.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you 

16 very much.

17 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes, that's it. 

18 And I just wanted to again just remind the 

19 Board that the correspondence that I mentioned 

20 earlier about the letter to Dr. Howard is 

21 contained in that appendix document that Ted 

22 distributed today.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

2 MS. BONSIGNORE: Thank you again 

3 for your time and consideration.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. I 

5 think we're going to break for lunch now. I 

6 would like to, though, sort of make some plans 

7 for this afternoon.

8 The Texas City petitioners had 

9 asked that we try to set a time when we'd be 

10 discussing Texas City. So, I'm going to set 

11 that for 3:30 at the start of our Board work 

12 time.

13 And then following that 

14 discussion, so I'm guessing four o'clock or 

15 something, it may not -- then we will go on 

16 and discuss Linde after that.

17 So, for those of you on the phone, 

18 if that helps you during when to -- again, 

19 those times are Mountain times. So, take that 

20 into account and we'll try to reconvene at one 

21 o'clock and we'll see you after lunch.

22 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 
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1 matter went off the record at 11:40 a.m. and 

2 resumed at 1:07 p.m.)

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-M 

2 1:07 p.m.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If everyone would 

4 get seated, we'll get started. And we have a 

5 pinch-hitting executive secretary since ours 

6 seems to have gotten lost on the town over 

7 lunchtime. So, Stu agreed to fill in.

8 (Stu Hinnefeld acting as DFO for 

9 Ted Katz.)

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So, before 

11 we get started, I need to know from Board 

12 Members -- someone told me that some Board 

13 Members are leaving tonight or early tomorrow.

14 Well, we're scheduled through 

15 11:00. We'll finish by 11:00 because I want 

16 to leave by 11:00 or so.

17 So, does anybody else have to 

18 leave early other than Mark? Okay. Okay. I 

19 just want to make sure that if you do, we have 

20 time for your reports and get input and so 

21 forth. Okay. Very good.

22 Okay. This afternoon we're going 
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1 to be talking about an issue that has come up 

2 at several sites. And what we thought we 

3 would do, we're not talking about the specific 

4 sites. We're talking about the -- or we'll be 

5 mentioning the specific sites, but we want to 

6 talk about more generally about this issue 

7 because it is the source of difficulty for a 

8 number of work groups.

9 So, I thank Josie for mentioning 

10 and suggesting that we do this, and then Joe 

11 Fitzgerald, because I think it will be 

12 helpful. So, at least we are all familiar 

13 with it. I'm not sure we're going to try to 

14 settle anything with it today or certainly not 

15 at a specific site, but at least that we get 

16 everyone familiar with the issue and so forth.

17 I will -- Ted did ask me to remind 

18 all the Board Members that since some of you 

19 will be conflicted -- we're talking about 

20 several sites in general, but some of you will 

21 be conflicted at specific sites.

22 Please be careful about not 
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1 offering questions or comments related to a 

2 site that you're conflicted on.

3 So, during the Q&A, but -- so, 

4 Jim, go ahead.

5 DR. NETON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. 

6 Melius. I know it's after lunch, so I'll try 

7 to be witty and keep you engaged so that you 

8 won't fall asleep.

9 This is a tag team presentation. 

10 I'm going to do the first part and Joe 

11 Fitzgerald from SC&A is going to follow me, 

12 and then I suspect there will be time for some 

13 Board discussion after that.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can I just add 

15 that we asked that this be sort of a joint 

16 presentation and there's been coordination 

17 between the two.

18 This isn't our -- sometimes we get 

19 into point/counterpoint. That's not the 

20 purpose of this.

21 MR. NETON: Hopefully, we won't get 

22 there.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

2 DR. NETON: The title of my slide 

3 is slightly different than the title that is 

4 on the agenda, but I think it captures the 

5 essence of what we're trying to discuss today. 

6 And that, in my mind, is the Reconstruction Of 

7 Doses in The Absence of Bioassay or Air 

8 Monitoring Data. At least that's what I'm 

9 going to focus on.

10 I think, in general, this subject 

11 could be applicable to external as well. But, 

12 in fact, almost all the cases that I could 

13 think of it's arisen when we're trying to 

14 reconstruct doses where we don't have a good 

15 set of coworker or bioassay data or even good 

16 air monitoring data that we can rely on.

17 This has come up in the context of 

18 several SECs. I can think of -- SEC 

19 evaluations: Mound, Pantex -- oh, there's 

20 another one. I'll think of it.

21 But I want to -- even though it 

22 came up in the context of SECs, I'd like to 
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1 sort of take a step back and go back to the 

2 fundamentals of dose reconstruction and what 

3 drives us to do what we do and what allows us 

4 to do what -- how we do it and sort of set the 

5 stage, because that's really what is the 

6 fundamental basis of adding an SEC is, can you 

7 or can you not do a dose reconstruction.

8 So, the next slide I have should 

9 be very familiar to most of the Board. Maybe 

10 not so much with some of the newer members, 

11 but this is the NIOSH, what we call hierarchy 

12 of data types used in, in this case, the 

13 internal dose reconstruction.

14 And as outlined here, you'll see 

15 obviously personal monitoring data, you know. 

16 A bioassay sample on a person would be as 

17 close to the gold standard as you can get, and 

18 preferably multiple samples over time and that 

19 sort of thing. Followed by coworker data, and 

20 we're very familiar with how we've been using 

21 coworker data in this program. And then 

22 followed by area monitoring data which would 
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1 be -- breathing zone samples of course would 

2 be the best, followed by other samples, maybe 

3 general area process.

4 But then way down at the bottom we 

5 have source term, and I think this is the area 

6 where we're running into some concerns or have 

7 some issues.

8 If you look at it, it says the 

9 examples are source quantity coupled with 

10 process knowledge.

11 So, if we have no bioassay samples 

12 on a person, we have no air monitoring data, 

13 but we know kind of that they had some stuff, 

14 they had a couple curies of cesium or they 

15 were working in a hood with protactinium-231, 

16 something of that nature, but we have no 

17 evidence of bioassay sample being taken, how 

18 can we go about convincing anyone that we can 

19 bound that dose?

20 And so I submit that that's --

21 this is the area that we really need to focus 

22 in on.
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1 I always like to ground ourselves 

2 in the regulation, because that's what drives 

3 how we do -- and I pulled out 42 CFR 82.17. 

4 You'll note there's a correction there. I 

5 think on your handouts it says -- I forget 

6 what it says. 81.17, maybe. I don't know, 

7 but it is 82.17. Your handout probably says 

8 81.17, but it really is 42 CFR 82.17.

9 And in that regulation it 

10 actually, you know, one of the subsections to 

11 82.17 says what types of information could be 

12 used to supplement or substitute for 

13 individual monitoring data. 

14 (Ted Katz returns as DFO.)

15 DR. NETON: And here we have 

16 listed three categories. The first one is 

17 very much like we talked about on the 

18 hierarchy slide, monitoring data from 

19 coworkers. There's a bunch of verbiage after 

20 that. I didn't bother to put it in there. I 

21 don't need to talk about that.

22 But the second one is a 
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1 quantitative characterization of the radiation 

2 environment such as area dosimeter readings, 

3 general area surveys, radioactive 

4 contamination surveys, that sort of thing.

5 So, what kind of information do 

6 you have from the workplace that gives you 

7 some confidence that there was either no 

8 exposure or some level of exposure that can go 

9 about trying to estimate the dose?

10 And the third type of information 

11 is this quantitative characterization of the 

12 radiation environment based on source 

13 materials, tasks, locations and radiation 

14 safety practices, and this is one area where 

15 it really gets to be a little bit sticky.

16 I think we've used this approach 

17 in the Los Alamos SEC and it has been the 

18 subject of some controversy as of late. So, 

19 we're going to talk about this a little bit, 

20 how we -- what we do.

21 The examples of types of 

22 information that we would use, this is also in 
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1 the regulation codified under 42 CFR 82.14. 

2 This is not the exhaustive list that's in 

3 there, but this is parts of it.

4 But if you see on the right-hand 

5 side, you see things like surface 

6 contamination surveys, area survey results, 

7 source-term characterization data, general 

8 process description.

9 So, clearly when the regulation 

10 was put forth, it was the intent that we would 

11 be doing some of this as we went along. It's 

12 not something that NIOSH has just invented 

13 recently. We felt that this would be part of 

14 our practice down the line.

15 So, using that as a backdrop, I'd 

16 like to talk a little bit about, you know, 

17 with the regulations as the background, what 

18 are the key considerations that we would apply 

19 when using these types of information’s. 

20 For example, characterization of 

21 the source parameters. One needs to look at 

22 the source strength.
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1 Clearly, a source that is a couple 

2 picocuries versus megacuries is going to have 

3 a different potential for exposure.

4 But then on top of that, what are 

5 the physical properties of the source? Was it 

6 a liquid, a solid, a gas? The type of 

7 containment; was it sealed or loose? Those 

8 type of things very much come into play when 

9 you're trying to determine the potential for 

10 generation of airborne.

11 When you think about it, this is a 

12 lot of what goes into -- one person writes a 

13 radiation work permit at a plant. You have to 

14 characterize the environment, and then you 

15 establish what types of controls and 

16 monitoring will be put in place.

17 The evaluation potential for 

18 internal exposures. In addition to what the 

19 source looked like and what form it was, you 

20 know, what was the person doing with the 

21 source? Was there any grinding, rolling or 

22 cutting operations used?
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1 We need to consider engineering 

2 controls such as was it in a glove box with 

3 negative pressure, degrees of ventilation, 

4 that type of thing.

5 And then a review of the 

6 contemporaneous health physics program. What 

7 kind of program? What evidence do we have? 

8 What type of program was in place during the 

9 period under which we're evaluating those 

10 source conditions?

11 And that would involve evaluating 

12 the procedures related to the 

13 internal/external exposure control, or in this 

14 case, I'm talking about internal control, the 

15 radiation work permit system. Did they have 

16 one? Did they conscientiously evaluate every 

17 potential source of exposure?

18 And did they have -- probably as 

19 importantly, if they had that program in 

20 place, was there a contamination control 

21 monitoring program in place that demonstrates 

22 that they actually did what they said they 
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1 were going to do?

2 I think this is going to become a 

3 key point as we go through this discussion. 

4 So, you know, those are the key 

5 considerations. This is what I would call 

6 general concepts, and we talked about the 

7 contamination control programs. I'd like to 

8 expand on that a little bit.

9 So, for a well documented health 

10 physics program, that is, you know, we've seen 

11 sites with a lot of procedures that are out 

12 there that talk about doing A, B, C and D and 

13 checklists that need to be generated, but we 

14 need to establish that the required surveys 

15 were performed.

16 Also, we need to evaluate that the 

17 representative levels of contamination were 

18 observed.

19 So, if there were sources in 

20 place, did they go about and take periodic 

21 surveys whether weekly, monthly, annually at 

22 the time that the source was used, that type 
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1 of thing.

2 And then we need to verify that if 

3 they did find evidence of contamination, was 

4 there some sort of follow-up samples that were 

5 taken as appropriate?

6 One thing that we have learned 

7 over time in this program, is that it's not 

8 enough to say that we've identified the three 

9 people that work with the source and we have 

10 their names. Because we've done that before 

11 and Joe's smiling, I'm sure, because we've 

12 been down that road and you also needed to 

13 have some type of evaluation as to the 

14 potential exposure and support workers 

15 involved with that with the sources as well.

16 Because even though those workers 

17 were monitored, there may have been custodial 

18 staff or maintenance staff, crafts types that 

19 were involved in the, you know, workings of 

20 the plumbing and electrical apparatus, that 

21 sort of thing, that could have been exposed as 

22 well and were they potentially exposed.
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1 I would like to point out, though, 

2 even though, you know, the regulation says a 

3 quantitative characterization should be 

4 evaluated or done, I think for certain 

5 conditions we have to say it's possible to 

6 conclude that no exposure potential existed.

7 So, you know, that's probably -- I 

8 wouldn't say rare, but it would be difficult 

9 to prove.

10 But I think in certain situations 

11 such as -- I have a couple simple examples 

12 here -- sealed sources and containers that 

13 have been determined to be free of 

14 contamination. They were surveyed. They were 

15 never opened. One would be hard-pressed to 

16 come up with a scenario that, you know, people 

17 were heavily exposed from those sources.

18 Possibly, glove box operated under 

19 negative pressure. Although, one can argue 

20 there's always negative pressure and that sort 

21 of thing, were there holes in the glove.

22 But, you know, we need to be 
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1 diligent about looking at these things, and I 

2 think it is possible to conclude in some cases 

3 that exposure potential was nil.

4 This is not exactly in light of 

5 what I'm talking about, but the scaling 

6 factors based on other monitored exposures can 

7 be used.

8 So, it's not unmonitored -- it's 

9 unmonitored in the sense that you don't have a 

10 direct monitoring of the radionuclide of 

11 concern. But, for example, as we'll talk 

12 about at the Mound site, if the facility had a 

13 bioassay program in place that monitored gross 

14 alpha contamination in urine and there were 

15 six other classes of alpha emitters, one could 

16 come to some reasonable conclusions about the 

17 exposure of the workforce based on those gross 

18 alpha measurements for those secondary-type 

19 sources.

20 I meant to point out at the 

21 beginning of the presentation, I forgot, but 

22 what we're really talking about here are 
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1 secondary-type sources.

2 Sometimes we refer to them as 

3 exotic radionuclides, but all we're really 

4 saying is it's beyond the bread and butter 

5 radionuclides that exist at the facility.

6 Many facilities would handle --

7 for instance Los Alamos -- plutonium and 

8 americium to a certain degree in fairly 

9 significant quantities. There were robust 

10 monitoring programs for them, but there would 

11 be other sources of exposure that weren't 

12 monitored as frequently and need to be 

13 characterized. So, that's what we're talking 

14 about here.

15 Okay. And I'd just like to finish 

16 up with a few examples. I think Joe has some 

17 similar examples. And I'm not saying that 

18 this is going to end any debate on these SEC

19 issues, but I would fully admit that these are 

20 somewhat simplistic examples. But I'd just 

21 like to throw them out there as food for 

22 thought and maybe the basis for some 
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1 discussion.

2 So, here, I'll take Pantex as the 

3 first example where these pits were handled at 

4 Pantex. These plutonium pits were clad in a 

5 non-nuclear metallic material, pretty well 

6 encapsulated.

7 So, if we can identify, for 

8 example, here in 1967, a program audit that 

9 indicated that all nuclear components were 

10 surveyed for loose contamination upon arrival, 

11 rechecked as they were assembled, during 

12 assembly operations contamination checks were 

13 made, and then routine surveys were also made 

14 in locations where radioactive material was 

15 handled or stored, that kind of gives you a 

16 feeling that they were really watching out for 

17 contamination in the program.

18 And as importantly, if 

19 contamination was there, was found, was there 

20 any follow-up action to document or 

21 demonstrate what those exposures were?

22 In this particular case at Pantex, 
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1 the bioassay samples were what we would call 

2 event-driven. There was no routine program. 

3 They would take a bioassay sample in response 

4 to identification of contamination based on 

5 these, what appear to be at least on paper, 

6 some pretty rigorous survey requirements.

7 I think, though, it is incumbent 

8 upon NIOSH, I would agree, to demonstrate that 

9 these contamination surveys were performed and 

10 we have some demonstration that follow-up 

11 actions were taken.

12 I think where we probably are 

13 going to have some degree of room for 

14 discussion is to what extent those follow-ups 

15 need to represent or what's a good 

16 representative follow-up to give folks a 

17 comfort level that the program is as we 

18 believe it to be or as it seems to have been 

19 portrayed in writing. And I think that's what 

20 I just talked about.

21 Okay. Mound is my second example 

22 and I'll talk about this gross alpha 
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1 monitoring program.

2 There were -- almost all exposures 

3 at Mound were to 27 categories -- 27 

4 categories of radionuclides were exposed to 

5 different types of alpha emitters.

6 Mound had a lot of polonium work 

7 and other plutonium work, but they also 

8 engaged in a lot of alpha emitters, I think, 

9 looking for high specific alpha activity 

10 sources. So, for a long period of time, they 

11 relied on gross alpha measurements to capture 

12 exposures to these alpha emitters.

13 If we know what a worker was 

14 exposed to and you have a gross alpha 

15 measurement, it's not a big stretch to 

16 interpret that and figure out what his 

17 potential exposure was based on the frequency 

18 of that monitoring. 

19 I think the real trick here, and 

20 Mark Griffon alluded to it this morning, is to 

21 identify which types of workers -- which 

22 workers were the ones that were exposed to 
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1 these sort of minor sources of exposures.

2 And I'll go to the second bullet 

3 and talk about that a little bit. For 

4 example, there's a, you know, Mound has a very 

5 good compendium of historical program reports 

6 that we can review that document in fair 

7 detail what type of activities occurred at the 

8 site over time. And we feel that these 

9 historical program reports can be used to 

10 establish the level of activity associated 

11 with various sources that were in position at 

12 the site. And I throw out this example of a 

13 protactinium-231 extraction using a small ion 

14 exchange column in a ventilated hood.

15 I think I've heard that maybe 

16 three people were involved in this operation. 

17 So, yes, protactinium, as alpha emitters go, 

18 has a pretty short half-life. So, it's a high 

19 specific activity, it's an alpha emitter, a 

20 lot of potential for some high dose, 

21 particularly to the lung.

22 But if we can document that this 
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1 was all done in a hood, we knew the people and 

2 they were on an alpha bioassay program, I 

3 think we can go a long way towards 

4 establishing the dose associated with exposure 

5 to that type of operation with the proviso 

6 that we need to address the fact that there 

7 could have been other workers like custodial 

8 and maintenance staff involved in that 

9 operation, and to demonstrate that they did 

10 not have inadvertent exposures as well.

11 This next bullet is kind of 

12 simplistic, but a review of work activities 

13 that indicate no exposure potential for some 

14 sources.

15 I think there is one example at 

16 Mound where there was an onsite storage of 

17 drum material. There was a fair amount of 

18 material that was there. It was never opened 

19 or used. So, we would submit that that's a 

20 case where we probably wouldn't need to have 

21 much extra work involved in documenting the 

22 low levels of potential for exposure.
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1 And my last example at Mound is 

2 these contamination surveys that can be used 

3 to bound exposures. Tritide exposures at 

4 Mound has been a subject of a lot of debate. 

5 But at one point, the tritide exposures, the 

6 sources that were used were actually no longer 

7 used and they were put in storage.

8 And there were very -- I hate to 

9 use the word robust again, but some pretty 

10 significant contamination surveys done to 

11 document what the levels were in the areas 

12 where the workers, you know, used the source.

13 And we feel that these 

14 contamination surveys, even though these 

15 service workers might not have had bioassay or 

16 infrequent -- we could use those to bound the 

17 level of exposure to them based on the level 

18 of surface contamination existing in the 

19 workplace. In fact, I think that's something 

20 that Brant Ulsh is working on right now.

21 And my final example, yes, is from 

22 Los Alamos where there is an SEC currently 
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1 being evaluated for obviously -- there is an 

2 SEC already in place for 1943 and `75, which 

3 was based on an inability to reconstruct 

4 internal exposures to mixed fission activation 

5 products, as well as some of the certain, 

6 quote-unquote, exotic radionuclides.

7 But after `75, we believe that 

8 there was an in vivo monitoring program that 

9 was -- that helped to establish the potential 

10 for exposure to certain workers in certain 

11 buildings coupled with the availability of 

12 health physics records that allow for the 

13 bounding exposure's internal estimates.

14 We have some fairly well 

15 documented health physics procedures that were 

16 there coupled with contamination surveys that 

17 we have agreed to go back.

18 I think this is where we fell 

19 short in our Evaluation Report at Los Alamos. 

20 We did not follow up and demonstrate that, 

21 even though there was this pretty well 

22 described radiation protection program, you 
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1 need to follow up and demonstrate that, yes, 

2 the surveys were taken and the contamination 

3 levels were, if they were, demonstrated to be 

4 low, or if not, what the potential would have 

5 been based on the levels found.

6 And finally, there was the 

7 existence of these worker monitoring 

8 checklists where workers, as they were 

9 assigned to different facilities, had a 

10 checklist completed that put them on various 

11 bioassay programs based on some type of an 

12 informed process.

13 The health physicist would look at 

14 it and make a determination whether or not 

15 there was a potential for exposure. We're 

16 going back and looking at those.

17 So, these are just some rough 

18 examples. There's a lot more to this, but I 

19 just want to throw a few on the table as maybe 

20 a basis for some discussion.

21 So, in summary, there's a variety 

22 of information out there that's codified in 
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1 our regulation that can be used to reconstruct 

2 doses when you don't have workplace monitoring 

3 or bioassay data. But I think the degree to 

4 which any of these can be used, needs to be 

5 evaluated on a case-by-case basis. There are 

6 so many permutations out there that I feel, at 

7 least in my mind, it's difficult to come up 

8 with sort of a cookbook formula that says, you 

9 know, here's what you look at for sources.

10 I do believe, though, it is 

11 incumbent upon NIOSH to quantitatively 

12 evaluate the exposures associated with these 

13 source terms. I mean, it says so in the 

14 regulation. One of the first slides I showed 

15 you said NIOSH needs to quantitatively 

16 evaluate.

17 But I do think the degree to which 

18 that quantitative evaluation considers 

19 available data certainly could be the subject 

20 of discussion among reasonable folks. For 

21 example, what constitutes a representative 

22 sampling of available contamination surveys, 
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1 nasal smears, radiation work permits, that 

2 sort of thing.

3 So, with that, I've concluded my 

4 introductory remarks.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm going to 

6 suggest that we let Joe present because I 

7 think he has some other examples, and then 

8 we'll ask questions of you both. We'll try 

9 that.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Good afternoon. 

11 Thank you, and I appreciate Jim taking the 

12 time to walk through this with me and with the 

13 Board.

14 We've sat through a number of Work 

15 Groups together and I think he described it 

16 yesterday pretty adeptly, which is sometimes 

17 it's like Whac-A-Mole when you get into the 

18 exotics and the secondaries just because you 

19 have so many of them, on one hand. And when 

20 you have to actually disposition each of them 

21 in terms of exposure as well as dose 

22 reconstructability, it's a big job.
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1 And some of the sites, I guess, 

2 you know, one question may be why is this 

3 issue -- is this on? I might need some -- oh, 

4 there it is.

5 Certainly one question is, why 

6 now. And pretty much I think it's because 

7 we're in the midst of a lot of national labs, 

8 a lot of multipurpose national labs. We're 

9 focusing on Los Alamos, we're focusing on 

10 Mounds, we're just getting into Brookhaven, 

11 Sandia is on the way, and we're talking about 

12 laboratories like Los Alamos that have handled 

13 just about everything on the periodic table.

14 And certainly with the, for 

15 example, the first SEC at Los Alamos dealing 

16 with some of these exotics and the 

17 secondaries, it's a very pertinent issue and 

18 how we disposition this is pretty important.

19 I think it's not only a question 

20 of basis, which I think Jim was getting into, 

21 but it's an efficiency issue, too.

22 I think one thing that we have 
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1 discovered as we waded into this, at least at 

2 Mound, but some of the other facilities as 

3 well, that you can quickly get lost in it in 

4 terms of resources and time.

5 If there's not a good idea of how 

6 you're going to perhaps -- it's not a formula, 

7 but how you're going to logically walk through 

8 this and know pretty much along the way what 

9 the basis for decision is going to be, I think 

10 we could spend a lot of time debating issues 

11 which may not need to be debated, but just 

12 need to be addressed as a quantitative issue 

13 much in the way Jim has discussed it.

14 So, some of this is just due 

15 process, I think, in terms of looking at the 

16 efficiencies.

17 And certainly in terms of 

18 resources, we certainly don't want to spend 

19 any more time on issues that can be dispatched 

20 more quickly. So, that certainly is another 

21 issue.

22 And certainly another thing, too, 
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1 is the question of coherency in the sense that 

2 we're trying to look across the different SEC 

3 sites not so much to make them uniform, each 

4 one is unique anyway, but the question is as 

5 far as the basis for walking through 

6 consideration for secondaries and exotics, I 

7 think we're looking for some kind of uniform 

8 logic process.

9 And in some cases -- and I'll walk 

10 through that a little bit more on some of the 

11 sites. It's not so much they're radically 

12 different. It's just that I think they have a 

13 different spin or different approach on it.

14 Anyway, in terms of general 

15 issues, I think Jim has covered pretty much 

16 the basis and certain exposure potential as 

17 cited in the regulations.

18 But what I think is concern for us 

19 is that in practice -- and this is a bottoms20 up perspective. Jim is the top-down. I'm 

21 trying to give you the bottoms-up perspective 

22 from the Work Group experience.
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1 In practice, we're having 

2 difficulties with exposure potential. 

3 Certainly it has surfaced in a big way at 

4 Mound, but it's coming up in Los Alamos and 

5 Pantex as well.

6 And the issue is, when you get 

7 down to the point, and this is common for, I 

8 think, exotics and secondaries, where you're 

9 dealing with small amounts maybe only used in 

10 campaigns, you're not going to have much data. 

11 In a lot of cases, you have no bioassay and 

12 workplace monitoring data.

13 And then the threshold question is 

14 not so much the completeness and availability 

15 of data. It's whether you actually have an 

16 exposure potential in the first place, you 

17 know.

18 Is it a trace quantity? Is it 

19 sealed, you know? Does it have 

20 characteristics where maybe you don't have any 

21 data because there's really no need to have 

22 bioassayed it in the first place.
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1 And so we've been sort of getting 

2 into the issue of, is there a presumption of a 

3 rad control program that would not have 

4 generated bioassay data for some of these 

5 exotics because of the nature of their form or 

6 the quantity or whatever. But because that's 

7 a presumption, you start getting into exposure 

8 potential questions.

9 So, really, I think what we're 

10 saying is that exposure potential has become a 

11 threshold question in a number of the SECs and 

12 something that we hadn't foreseen. But as we 

13 got into the issue, it's not really laid out.

14 I threw this in, and in fact I 

15 inserted this Friday just to give some sense 

16 about, you know, when we talk about secondary 

17 sources or exotics -- I just wanted to give a 

18 thumbnail sketch.

19 And this is not a complete 

20 listing, but, you know, for the different 

21 sites when we talk about secondaries and 

22 exotics, this is kind of the menu of what 
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1 we're referring to.

2 And some of these are, you know, 

3 admittedly probably pretty much trace 

4 quantities. Others are probably more 

5 substantial, may represent some significant 

6 campaigns at some of the labs.

7 But in every case, I think we've 

8 established there's a source term. Meaning 

9 that there's a source term actual exposure 

10 source that needs to be dispositioned and 

11 addressed and is not simply a question that it 

12 hasn't been identified as a potential pathway. 

13 So, certainly that's the case.

14 Now, I put the but on the end here 

15 because in Pantex, I wouldn't say, except for 

16 some trace quantity, there's any real 

17 secondaries. But the going-in composition, 

18 some of which Jim has addressed, is looking at 

19 what would be described as an environment 

20 where you would not have any potential for 

21 uptake except for maybe incidental uptakes 

22 which would be event bioassayed.
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1 And in this case, certainly the 

2 issue will become how do you actually 

3 demonstrate this lack of exposure potential. 

4 So, the dynamic is the same even though I 

5 think for Pantex we wouldn't say there's any 

6 significant secondaries involved there.

7 This was a very imperfect 

8 graphical illustration of something that I 

9 kind of struggled with. Because, you know, 

10 when we're talking about availability and 

11 completeness of data, the right-hand side of 

12 this graph is pretty much where we've been on 

13 for quite a length of time: four or five 

14 years.

15 We've focused on, is it complete. 

16 Is it adequate? And what we're finding with 

17 the exotics and secondaries is that almost by 

18 definition, the data is lacking. You don't 

19 really have, in most cases, bioassay 

20 information. You often don't have workplace 

21 information. And I would go so far as to say 

22 in some cases, there's very little source term 
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1 information.

2 I mean, you know it was there --

3 it may have been listed -- but there's very 

4 little other than, you know, you might know 

5 the half-life, you might know it was used a 

6 certain time period. But the terms of the 

7 chemical form, what the process might have 

8 been in some detail; that's often lacking.

9 And I think what happens is when 

10 you get down to the lower right-hand side of 

11 this completeness and availability bar, this 

12 question of exposure potential becomes more 

13 and more important.

14 And so what we're finding is that 

15 when you don't have any data, the next 

16 question is, well, is it because you 

17 essentially did not have any exposure, and how 

18 do you know you didn't have any exposure. How 

19 do you prove that?

20 So, we quickly go into this 

21 question of how do you actually disposition a 

22 situation where you don't have any 
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1 quantitative data or have little quantitative 

2 data, and how do you judge what the exposure 

3 potential is.

4 And having lived through the 

5 tritide debates, it's a tough question. And I 

6 think both NIOSH and SC&A and the Board and 

7 some of the work groups have struggled with 

8 that question.

9 How do you prove or how do you 

10 validate an exposure pathway when you really 

11 don't have very much data to go by?

12 You might have radiological 

13 control program information, you know. Maybe 

14 they had a program description.

15 You might even have some 

16 contamination survey information, but you're 

17 really operating at the very fringe, you know.

18 Think about the program. You're 

19 operating at the very fringe of what can be 

20 quantified, and you're almost in the realm of 

21 what I would call professional judgment or, 

22 you know, an estimation of what might be the 
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1 case.

2 And I think that's one reason we 

3 wanted to put it before the Board because I 

4 think there's some real question about how you 

5 make decisions in that kind of environment and 

6 where do you cross the line and maybe go too 

7 far in terms of what the data would provide 

8 for you.

9 I'm not going to lay on this very 

10 much, because Jim just covered this in pretty 

11 much detail. But I would say on source term 

12 evaluation, and we're certainly in the middle 

13 of a lot of source term evaluation, it's 

14 almost where you end up if there's no bioassay 

15 and no air monitoring information, it's a menu 

16 of things which, you know, you choose what you 

17 think provides some parameters and you combine 

18 it with perhaps process descriptions, perhaps 

19 some sense of how rigorous the program was, 

20 how contamination control was handled.

21 And somehow with that combination 

22 -- call it weight of evidence, call it 
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1 professional judgment -- you come up with some 

2 sense of whether or not there might have been 

3 an exposure and to what extent the exposure is 

4 a problem.

5 And I think the difficulty here is 

6 not so much that you do that. It's just how 

7 is that weighed and how is that made 

8 transparent to a body like the Board, because 

9 it is sort of a conglomeration.

10 Each situation is unique. And I 

11 think as Jim has pointed out, you're going to 

12 need a lot of flexibility and judgment to 

13 decide how you're going to make that judgment.

14 Now, these examples are just 

15 examples. I certainly don't want to redo the 

16 debates in the work group that are ongoing.

17 But I think just to illustrate 

18 that, you know, this sort of glass half 

19 full/glass half empty situation we're in, I 

20 think you saw Jim's description of where NIOSH 

21 is, and this is sort of maybe the SC&A view of 

22 the world and, you know, using the same 
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1 information -- and for Mound, you know, what 

2 we looked at is that, yes, like the other 

3 laboratories, they had a long history of 

4 handling exotics, lot of research 

5 applications, certainly some documentation 

6 which actually, unlike some sites, actually

7 pegged what nuclides were present in the 

8 workplace. It didn't get into any details 

9 about how much or how it was used, but just 

10 the fact that it was in the workplace.

11 And the difficulty that we had, I 

12 think, with Mound, is the question of exposure 

13 potential being a threshold and how we 

14 actually address that as a basis for knowing 

15 if an exotic or secondary is going to be 

16 considered or not.

17 And how we actually deal with 

18 situations where you're going to give credit 

19 to the RadCon program, the operational 

20 program, contamination survey program, but in 

21 a lot of cases all you have is the 

22 documentation. It was done comprehensively.
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1 But, you know, I think as Jim also 

2 pointed out, how you deal with the validation 

3 of that program description.

4 I've sort of sat in these meetings 

5 where, you know, the particular nuclide or 

6 source term is not an issue because the 

7 description of the program, you have a good 

8 contamination control program, you have a good 

9 event bioassay program -- event-based bioassay 

10 program, and you've got the world's best 

11 internal dosimetrist running the program. So, 

12 what's the issue?

13 And I think that's where, when we 

14 get down to the point where we're trying to 

15 combine programmatic considerations to source 

16 term considerations, you know, how we do that 

17 is going to really determine whether or not 

18 you have an SEC potential issue or not. 

19 Which, you know, makes me a little nervous 

20 because sometimes we get to a situation where 

21 we're really dealing with a lot of these 

22 things subjectively at this point.
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1 Just a little bit more on the 

2 Mound SEC. Not dwelling on it too much, but 

3 where we came out after about a year and a 

4 half of debate, were some criteria that were 

5 sort of positive in a response a few months 

6 ago and that's kind of where we left it.

7 Because at that point, I think we 

8 had some concerns that we didn't quite know 

9 where we were as far as what the basis for 

10 determining exposure might be and how that 

11 would be actually implemented. And so we kind 

12 of left it at that.

13 I know it's being worked on, but, 

14 you know, some of the questions that we had 

15 is, you know, this is in fact the criteria 

16 that we're going to have to address. The 

17 criteria themselves have terms that are pretty 

18 vague and not defined yet.

19 It's kind of difficult to know how 

20 you would satisfy those terms and how is the 

21 judgment going to be used in terms of weight 

22 of evidence. We've heard that term, too.
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1 And how are we going to bring this 

2 to the Board in terms of showing the basis for 

3 either recommending or denying some of these 

4 particular nuclides or source terms if it's 

5 difficult to even lay that out? So, I think 

6 these are some of the considerations we 

7 certainly came out with Mound.

8 Los Alamos we talked about, I 

9 think, earlier. But again, I think the 

10 biggest issue with Los Alamos, and this gets 

11 into the same question with exposure 

12 potential, is trying to rationalize the basis 

13 for dose reconstructability before the SEC 

14 period and after the SEC period, and deciding 

15 how does one establish the quantitative basis 

16 for, you know, the latter period at Los 

17 Alamos, using the same kind of thinking that 

18 went into establishing why one could not dose19 reconstruct against the mixed activation and 

20 these fission products.

21 I think that gets into the same 

22 question of how do you actually validate the
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1 same considerations that we have been talking 

2 about relative to the other exotics, and it's 

3 not too clear to me right now.

4 I think, you know, some of the 

5 things that we've been batting around in the 

6 latest work group meetings are helpful, but 

7 we're not, you know, to me, we're just not 

8 quite there yet as far as knowing how to 

9 rationalize that.

10 And this question of how historic 

11 operational and design controls should be 

12 given credit in an analysis for an SEC is, to 

13 me, very troublesome.

14 Maybe it's because of my own 

15 history with doing audits at DOE, is that, you 

16 know, certainly what's written down in terms 

17 of operational descriptions and health 

18 physics, program procedures and whatnot, 

19 limits, I guess, in my experience, has never 

20 been so much the problem that the policies or 

21 the procedures were wanting; it's typically 

22 the execution and the implementation of those 
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1 procedures were either incomplete or not 

2 adequate.

3 So, when we start leaning on the 

4 program descriptions and procedures and begin 

5 to cite those as a basis for, you know, 

6 resolving either exposure potential or even 

7 advancing an SEC, I think I have a healthy 

8 skepticism and would want to be very, I guess, 

9 sure about, you know, what we were relying on, 

10 the document, the audit, whatever it is. 

11 Because I think again from experience, that's 

12 a tough one.

13 I think I'd be -- I think the 

14 program should be pretty skeptical about 

15 leaning on historic site documentation, unless 

16 we're pretty sure that it's rigorous and it's 

17 valid.

18 And I guess I would argue that 

19 that might be more true in the later era than 

20 the earlier era. And I guess that would mean 

21 later era being post-Tiger Teams, post-RadCon 

22 Manual, post-Price-Anderson Act regulations. 
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1 Before that, I think you really do have some 

2 questions on implementation.

3 Like I said earlier, Pantex is a 

4 slightly different issue. But, again, I think 

5 this issue of when you bank on site program 

6 descriptions and the rigor of the rad control 

7 program, I think it's very pertinent to 

8 Pantex.

9 And this again gets into the issue 

10 of the exposure potential and can you rely on 

11 descriptions like that and what do you need to 

12 validate -- how you need to validate those 

13 descriptions.

14 This is sort of in closing for the 

15 examples. I wanted to sort of flip it a 

16 little bit and say, you know, we had a sort of 

17 positive experience with Y-12.

18 This goes back probably for a lot 

19 of folks around the table. But, you know, one 

20 of the earlier SECs was Y-12. And, you know, 

21 we had a similar debate on some of the 

22 secondaries that existed at the Y-12 associate 
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1 -- I think it was the Calutron. I think it 

2 was Calutron.

3 And -- was it cyclotron? Okay. 

4 Calutron was somewhere else; wasn't it?

5 And there was some question about, 

6 you know, whether or not there was an exposure 

7 potential. There was some thinking that it 

8 was probably sealed sources. But in any case, 

9 we had incident files that could shed light on 

10 what the exposures might have been.

11 And this got kicked around back 

12 and forth. But in the end, I think to give 

13 Jim credit, I think he went back and actually 

14 validated whether or not, in fact, the 

15 incident file was available, whether the data 

16 was actually there and whether or not one 

17 could pin down this question of whether the 

18 secondaries were a potential exposure source.

19 And in the end, it was, you know, 

20 there wasn't -- the data wasn't in fact there 

21 and ended up being, I think, an added Class on 

22 the SEC.
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1 And this sort of gets to the 

2 original question. And I know the title of 

3 this thing is something like, you know, how do 

4 you disposition nuclides that are small 

5 quantities or small usage or something like 

6 that. And it sort of gives you the sense 

7 these are rather diminishingly small and 

8 insignificant source terms.

9 But I would, I guess, remind the 

10 group that we actually have worked on this 

11 thing and the Board has addressed SECs for a 

12 number of these, a number of sites. So, 

13 actually they do play a significant role.

14 Now, we think exposure potential 

15 is the critical threshold question. And I 

16 think it's one that is generic, but I think 

17 we're seeing it in secondaries and exotics.

18 We don't think it's defined as 

19 well as it could be in terms of overall 

20 program implementation and basis to 

21 determination.

22 We're picking out inconsistencies. 
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1 I don't think it's on a different page. But 

2 depending on the SEC site, you know, taking 

3 into consideration the uniqueness of the site, 

4 we're still seeing a bit of a disparity 

5 depending on the SEC and the individual that's 

6 across the table in terms of the discussion, 

7 which gives us some pause.

8 And this question of transparency 

9 is not a minor one. I think we have to 

10 disposition these issues so that they are 

11 transparent to the Board and transparent to 

12 the public as far as what the basis of the 

13 decision is, and not just a prejudgment that, 

14 you know, they were trace quantities or 

15 insignificant to begin with.

16 And in the absence of this kind of 

17 data, how do you actually weigh the 

18 credibility and reliability of information?

19 One concern I would have is that, 

20 as I said earlier, when you get into 

21 situations where you lack quantitative data, 

22 there's a tendency -- and I think this is 
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1 natural. We do the same thing. You start 

2 relying on worker interviews, site expert 

3 interviews. You start relying on 

4 documentation, different pieces of paper. You 

5 don't have the quantitative data. You start 

6 relying on more qualitative sources of 

7 information.

8 And I think incumbent upon that, 

9 you have to consider very closely what the 

10 credibility and reliability of that source is.

11 There's been several instances 

12 where, you know, what was put on the table 

13 were interviews with the program manager of 

14 the very operation that was handling these 

15 nuclides, and I guess the thought that was 

16 going through my head was, you know, certainly 

17 this person knew this operation, but he was 

18 also responsible for that operation.

19 So, you know, whatever he said, I 

20 always took, you know, with a grain of salt, 

21 you know. Is he truly independent from the 

22 standpoint of how that operation and how the 
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1 exposure was portrayed or not?

2 And I think that's something that 

3 one has to consider along with, you know, DOE 

4 documents and all the rest of it. And I think 

5 that's another issue to get into when you 

6 don't have as much quantitative data as you'd 

7 like to have.

8 And I think you've seen this 

9 already. So, I won't spend a lot of time, but 

10 I think Jim said it in his last slide, as 

11 well. In several instances, we were sort of 

12 challenged to prove the negative in a sense, 

13 meaning that if we felt there was an exposure 

14 potential, show us the data or show us why.

15 And I think really the issue is, I 

16 think, for these nuclides for which an 

17 exposure -- or I'm sorry -- for which the 

18 presence of that source term exists in the 

19 workplace, it's incumbent upon NIOSH to 

20 demonstrate in some fashion, quantitative or 

21 otherwise, whether an exposure potential 

22 exists.
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1 And that should be defined in 

2 practical terms and normalized against some 

3 determinations that exist at other sites. 

4 There is some kind of coherency.

5 And as I said earlier, the 

6 credibility and reliability of the sources 

7 should be as much a part of the consideration 

8 as anything else.

9 This is kind of playing around. 

10 Because in practice, I was trying to think of 

11 how we actually, in some of the work group 

12 deliberations, how we sort of go through some 

13 of this, and this is not actually too 

14 inconsistent with what Jim put up.

15 We go through, you know, bioassay 

16 data, workplace monitoring data. In a lot of 

17 cases for the exotics and the secondaries, 

18 there isn't any.

19 So, the next question tends to be, 

20 okay, for these exotics or secondaries, is 

21 there any exposure potential. And this is 

22 where I think there's a breakdown of sorts.
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1 Certainly a source term evaluation 

2 along the lines that Jim suggests is probably 

3 where we need to be, but I don't think that's 

4 where we are right now.

5 We tend to roam around with 

6 pulling in different pieces of information to 

7 justify a position, and I think the Work Group 

8 has struggled in several different venues on 

9 how one does that.

10 I think if there's sufficient 

11 quantitative information to put together a 

12 sound source term evaluation, then you're 

13 going to know, you know, is there enough there 

14 to justify Joe's dose reconstruction or not?

15 And if it turns out that's a 

16 sealed source, there's no dose reconstruction 

17 necessary. It's a sealed source.

18 If there's information, sufficient 

19 information as we've discussed earlier today 

20 on radon, then of course you would go ahead 

21 and look for a method that could be used to 

22 dose-reconstruct.
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1 Where I get nervous is, okay, 

2 there's not enough quantitative information to 

3 really support a good source-term evaluation. 

4 Then I think you really do get into a melding 

5 of both the subjective and quantitative 

6 information. And how you do that and what 

7 weight you give, you know, some of the more 

8 subjective information whether it's rad 

9 controls or process information, I think is 

10 going to be pretty darn important.

11 And that's pretty much, I think, 

12 what I wanted to close with.

13 Any questions for either one of 

14 us?

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim, if you want 

16 to step up also to the -- so we can ask you 

17 both whatever.

18 I'll just start off with one 

19 comment, and it's back to one of Jim's initial 

20 comments that we don't need a -- I forget 

21 exactly what you said, but, you know, a strict 

22 cookbook sort of approach to this is not 
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1 possible because each site is different.

2 And I think I probably agree with 

3 that, but I think we need to have some 

4 understanding among the Board and NIOSH about 

5 how we're going to approach these.

6 I think Joe mentioned one, sort 

7 of, transparency. Both of you mentioned, I 

8 think, the consistency in how we're doing it. 

9 And then, third, I'll just say sort of 

10 operationally, I mean, to judge that control 

11 program, there's just a lot of detailed 

12 review.

13 It's going to be very hard for --

14 I mean, it's hard enough for the Work Group to 

15 do it. But then to bring it to the Board and 

16 expect the Board to be able to then repeat 

17 that process or whatever, I think is going to 

18 be difficult.

19 But if we have a set of sort of 

20 guidelines or a process that we all 

21 understand, then at least I think we can know 

22 what the Work Group and SC&A and NIOSH went 
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1 through in looking at this issue and, you 

2 know, we can rely on that.

3 I mean, I think that's worked out 

4 on the SEC evaluations. I think it's working 

5 out on, I think, on surrogate data. We'll 

6 see. It's early.

7 But, I mean, at least to know 

8 what's being considered and that it's 

9 consistent from site to site and that we know 

10 that the Work Group and SC&A and NIOSH went 

11 into greater detail than we'll ever be able to 

12 do in a Board meeting. It's just not going to 

13 be practical, I think, at each site. So, 

14 coming to some understanding.

15 How to do that, I'm not sure. I 

16 agree. I don't think setting up a work group 

17 to develop guidelines is, at this point, is 

18 going to be useful. There may be some other 

19 ways, but let's get some other input.

20 So, Brad, I see you had --

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim, I was looking 

22 at your presentation here. In the very first 
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1 bullet you put there that the pits were all 

2 clad. In the early years, they were not.

3 DR. NETON: Right. And I think I 

4 indicated that this was after this 1967 

5 survey. So, I was trying to indicate that, 

6 you know, at some point in time, and maybe `67 

7 is not the right date, but, you know, whenever 

8 they were clad, then I think that there would 

9 be some reasonable -- that it would be a 

10 reasonable approach to what I have outlined 

11 there.

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, one of the 

13 things that bothers me is that we're using the 

14 1963 self-audit report to justify what they're 

15 actually doing, where actually you could go to 

16 the 1990 Tiger Team report that brings into 

17 question every bit of their RadCon program. 

18 Anywhere -- I believe it was over 450 pages of 

19 different findings.

20 One of my things is, is that we're 

21 using a self-audit of yourself. You're 

22 performing your own self-audit. This program 
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1 right here is proof that a lot of this can't 

2 work, and I don't understand how we can use 

3 something like this to -- and especially with 

4 Pantex because you -- you've shied away from 

5 the word exotics, but there were numerous 

6 exotics with them.

7 Now, they were sealed and so forth 

8 like this. But even with the bioassay event9 driven response, the interviews that we had, 

10 the question that I asked numerous ones, what 

11 is event-driven.

12 Well, before -- and it's like all 

13 of our sites -- 1985 to 1990 when the DOE 

14 orders started coming out, they interpreted 

15 what they wanted.

16 One of the things was -- my 

17 question to them was, what's event-driven. 

18 Well, if we can't clean it up before we go 

19 home.

20 Until Cell One, there was no 

21 cleaning it up. And when we asked even the 

22 Health Physics Department, the Cell One 
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1 instance, they admitted we did not know what 

2 we were dealing with, period.

3 To this day, they still -- a lot 

4 of their people do their own survey as we did 

5 in our tour and so forth like that. They 

6 checked each one of the pits, a vacuum test, a 

7 very specialized vacuum test to be able to 

8 check these things.

9 The loose contamination; there's 

10 no data for that. We had guards that used to 

11 do this. Until 1989 at Pantex, there were 

12 three RadCon. And for several years, there 

13 were only two, until 1989 when they shut the 

14 entire plant down because they could not 

15 implement the DOE orders that were coming out 

16 to them. They knew that they were responsible 

17 for this.

18 We see this at numerous sites that 

19 earlier years, the information is very 

20 sketchy, the quantities, and it's very hard 

21 for us to be able to rely on this especially 

22 when we're relying on a self-audit.
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1 This is why the Tiger Teams were 

2 built is because they found the flaws. And I 

3 look at this and this is part of our 

4 frustration as a Board Member and also a Work 

5 Group chair to see this, and then to be able 

6 to see other reports that totally contradict 

7 them that they're not taking into 

8 consideration. Especially when these -- when 

9 these contradict what the actual workers --

10 and I'm not just saying -- I'm meaning all the 

11 workers from security to whatever. They 

12 question this.

13 Then we get into LANL, and one of 

14 the things that bothered me was after 1975, in 

15 vivo counting -- well, we heard yesterday that 

16 a lot of them if you didn't make it into the -

17 - it wasn't a real problem, but well18 documented health physics procedures. That 

19 brings into the question as we've seen at, I'd 

20 say, all of these sites, the procedures and 

21 how they're interpreted.

22 The contamination surveys, the 
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1 worker monitor checklists, all these things 

2 were fine and dandy until the pressure of 

3 production run over them.

4 DR. NETON: Can I just stop you 

5 right there?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Sure.

7 DR. NETON: I mean, I just want to 

8 point out that I think you've missed the point 

9 that I've made is that that's a starting 

10 point, but it's incumbent upon us to 

11 demonstrate that those programs actually did 

12 what they said they did.

13 So, when I talked about the 

14 Pantex, I was very clear to say evaluation of 

15 loose contamination monitoring data is 

16 critical. And if we can't establish that they 

17 did what that audit said, then I totally agree 

18 with you, Brad.

19 And I don't want to get into the 

20 details of answering all these SEC-specific 

21 issues. But I think you would agree that if 

22 we could go out and demonstrate at a site, 
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1 forget Pantex for now, but if you had a survey 

2 program, they surveyed it before, during and 

3 after and you've got a well documented paper 

4 trail and there was no contamination, wouldn't 

5 you at least admit that you could get some 

6 feel that the potential for exposure was very 

7 low?

8 I mean, are you willing to accept 

9 that?

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: And I understand 

11 what you're saying.

12 DR. NETON: Okay.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Let's talk about 

14 the black diamond because NIOSH has used that 

15 as if the components and everything were 

16 clean.

17 We don't have documentation of it. 

18 All we have is a procedure that it was 

19 supposed to be this, but we also have the 

20 interviews and the operational -- that they 

21 were not.

22 And I apologize because Pantex is 
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1 mine and so, it's very dear and near to me. 

2 But the thing is, is that the lack of data --

3 but we can take certain pieces and parts of 

4 it. That's what gets to me.

5 And it seems like so many times --

6 and you've said it to me many times, you know. 

7 You want us to prove a negative or whatever. 

8 Well, the same is with us.

9 We've got people's documentation 

10 telling us and, you know, we can revert back 

11 to a self-audit here that I don't really put 

12 too much trust in and we don't even look at 

13 the Tiger Team report and that's where we get 

14 into -- and, you know, and this is something 

15 that Joe really touched on was, we're starting 

16 to get to the sites, the major sites that 

17 dealt with all sorts of things, you know.

18 And when we talk exotics, many of 

19 them we can't even mention. And that's why 

20 it's real hard for us to be able to say that 

21 it wasn't there or it was there, you know, and 

22 in what quantities, because a lot of that 
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1 information is not there.

2 DR. NETON: I appreciate your 

3 input. I know you've worked long and hard on 

4 this Pantex issue and I'm not trying to 

5 belittle what you guys have done.

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: I realize --

7 DR. NETON: But I do think that I'm 

8 saying something that's slightly different 

9 here than we've been saying in the past. And 

10 that is it's incumbent upon us to demonstrate 

11 that the rad protection programs did what they 

12 said they were doing.

13 It's not, I don't believe, 

14 sufficient to point out a paper trail, robust 

15 program and say, okay, it's good to go. I 

16 totally don't think that's appropriate.

17 And so we need to demonstrate that 

18 they did what they said and follow-up. And I 

19 agree the DOE, you know, Tiger Team audits and 

20 stuff need to be considered.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, we need to 

22 move on a little bit.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie is waiting.

3 MEMBER BEACH: I actually have four 

4 questions, but I'm just going to give you one 

5 at a time.

6 DR. NETON: Okay.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, your last slide 

8 indicates that NIOSH will use quantitatively -

9 - they'll quantitatively evaluate exposures. 

10 But at Mound during our Work Group meetings, 

11 NIOSH has taken the position that if routine 

12 bioassay data or requests can't be found, it's 

13 not likely an exposure issue.

14 That's what we've experienced and 

15 that doesn't really jibe with your --

16 DR. NETON: Yes.

17 MEMBER BEACH: -- position.

18 DR. NETON: I think there's a 

19 little bit of a disconnect there and I may 

20 need to get involved a little more closely 

21 with the Mound situation.

22 But as I pointed out in the slide 
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1 here that comes from the regulation, it 

2 certainly says that we need to do a 

3 quantitative characterization of the radiation 

4 environment. It doesn't say qualitative. It 

5 says quantitative.

6 So, I think where it's been at 

7 Mound is there's been sort of this approach 

8 that says, you know, there's all these sources 

9 out there. And I think we've been saying, go 

10 ahead and prove to us that something happened. 

11 And I think that we need to do a little more 

12 than that.

13 I mean, I'm probably shifting 

14 gears here a little more than what you've been 

15 used to hearing, but we need to at least prove 

16 that the sources did not have a significant 

17 potential for exposure or no potential for 

18 exposure based on some quantitative 

19 information.

20 Now, that could be, and at Mound, 

21 many of these go away, in my opinion, because 

22 of the gross alpha monitoring program which 
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1 has been a point of contention for some time 

2 now.

3 How far does the gross alpha 

4 monitoring program go to dispense with a 

5 laundry list of these exotics?

6 I mean, many of the exotics at 

7 Mound were alpha emitters because, frankly, 

8 that's what their main interest was in 

9 developing high specific activity alpha 

10 sources for neutron generation, at least in my 

11 opinion.

12 And so a lot of those go away, and 

13 then you're left with these other, you know, 

14 fission product-type, you know, cesium-type 

15 sources that we can deal with and I think we 

16 can dispense with on an individual basis.

17 MEMBER BEACH: But they need to be 

18 step-by-step, walked through how they're going 

19 to be --

20 DR. NETON: Right.

21 MEMBER BEACH: - dispensed with or 

22 evaluated.
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1 DR. NETON: And I can guarantee you 

2 that we're not going to have bioassay data for 

3 most of those sources, but I would really hope 

4 that we'd be able to demonstrate some type of 

5 contamination control measures, surveys, 

6 smears, you know, those type of quantitative 

7 pieces of information that can be used to at 

8 least put some type of a ceiling on the 

9 potential for exposure.

10 MEMBER BEACH: So, we should see 

11 something with the next Work Group meeting or 

12 --

13 DR. NETON: Yes, yes.

14 MEMBER BEACH: That's why I said 

15 yesterday we may push it out to February.

16 DR. NETON: Well, I need to talk to 

17 Brant. He and I have chatted a little bit 

18 about this, but hopefully we'll have something 

19 by the next Work Group meeting.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. I got a 

21 couple more that are for Mound too.

22 It seems more ad hoc right now, 
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1 more dependant upon the individual health 

2 physics involvement and their professional 

3 judgment.

4 I know we've heard that at the 

5 Worker Outreach meetings, we've heard that at 

6 Mound meetings.

7 It's not institutional or based on 

8 the hierarchy of data approach that you've 

9 outlined in your fist slide, so how is NIOSH 

10 going to implement this in practice?

11 DR. NETON: What, this hierarchal 

12 approach? Is that what you're talking about?

13 MEMBER BEACH: Well, right now you 

14 use a lot of professional judgment. So -- but 

15 the hierarchy outlines how it's going to be 

16 spelled out.

17 So, I guess that, again, doesn't 

18 jibe for me.

19 DR. NETON: Well, the hierarchy, 

20 we're already down to source term, I think, is 

21 where we're at.

22 There's not a lot of professional 
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1 judgment involved when using bioassay data or 

2 coworker. There is some, but not to the 

3 extent when you get down to the source term.

4 I think we've been getting there 

5 at Mound and that's what's taking some time is 

6 demonstrating to the Working Group's 

7 satisfaction that we really can quantitatively 

8 evaluate those sources.

9 The tritide exposures is a good 

10 example where we said, okay, the source term 

11 has been put away. There's nothing there. 

12 How do you know that the maintenance workers 

13 that went in there and cleaned up weren't 

14 exposed?

15 And we said, well, we have a lot 

16 of contamination surveys. Let's go evaluate 

17 those contamination surveys and at least we 

18 can put an upper bound on potential exposure 

19 to a worker based on the levels that were 

20 existing in the areas they were working in.

21 So, we're doing that in that 

22 situation. I mean, again, it's kind of a 
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1 case-by-case basis. There really isn't, I 

2 don't think, a cookbook to this situation.

3 I think this King document is a 

4 little bit of an issue. I need to take a 

5 closer look at that. It's probably not a good 

6 answer to your question, but I don't think 

7 it's as professional judgment driven as it 

8 appears. That's the best I can say.

9 MEMBER BEACH: It's not 

10 transparent, I guess, is the problem.

11 DR. NETON: Yes, that's a problem.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can I just 

13 interrupt a second?

14 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we should 

16 -- I'd like to avoid like very detailed 

17 questions about a specific site.

18 We have some conflict of interest 

19 issues here and I think we need to be -- let's 

20 talk about the general issues if we can.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think 
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1 that's all we should expect for answers and 

2 not, you know, which document and things like 

3 that.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Well, my next 

5 one is Mound too. So, I'll skip that and 

6 maybe I'll bring it up in --

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, you can ask 

8 the generics at the site, but I think that we 

9 don't want to say what are you going to do at

10 Mound or what are you doing at this or what 

11 are you doing at that?

12 I think we've heard in general 

13 what --

14 MEMBER BEACH: Right. Well, I 

15 guess this one's general.

16 As NIOSH moves further and further 

17 away from actual bioassay data and air 

18 sampling data, how is the reliability of that 

19 information going to be done?

20 And I was putting that right back 

21 towards the situation at Mound, but it's a 

22 general question for --
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1 DR. NETON: Yes. And, again, I 

2 hate to be a broken record. It sort of 

3 depends. I mean, as you get closer and closer 

4 into contemporary time frames, the health 

5 physics programs grew stronger and stronger or 

6 more robust because of the regulations that 

7 were impinging upon them.

8 So, as Joe indicted after 10 CFR 

9 835 came out, you had bioassay programs that 

10 had to be, at least on paper, well documented 

11 as to why people were or were not on bioassay 

12 monitoring programs, and those who had a 

13 potential to receive a hundred millirem were 

14 on a program. So, you'd have some very strong 

15 documentation. 

16 As you go back in time, it becomes 

17 a little less certain, but we're still going 

18 to rely on an evaluation of the health physics 

19 programs that were in place and the follow-ups 

20 that were taken to demonstrate the 

21 contamination levels in the facilities, those 

22 type of things, air samples that were taken.
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1 I mean, it really -- I don't think 

2 it's sufficient just to say that there was a 

3 good health physics program. I think I've 

4 said that a number of times already.

5 And, you know, it's incumbent upon 

6 us to demonstrate that the program did what it 

7 said it did and you should expect to see that 

8 from us.

9 And if we can't do that, then I 

10 would agree that there's issues.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. My other one 

12 was a LANL question. So, I'll hold it.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Phil. 

14 Phil and then Paul.

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well, first 

16 thing, I got to make comment on the Pantex 

17 slide that says zero potential.

18 You get nuclear materials. There 

19 is no such thing as zero potential. Any time 

20 you're handling nuclear materials, there is 

21 potential for somebody to get contaminated 

22 externally or internally.
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1 The other thing is bioassay. If 

2 there is no bioassay, some of these more 

3 exotics or even in cases where someone goes 

4 into a facility that has had an excursion of 

5 some kind, yes, people have been in there and 

6 cleaning. But a lot of times as we all know, 

7 there's loose contamination still resides 

8 within that facility.

9 Someone gets up on a ladder. 

10 Maybe just change a light bulb. Maybe you got 

11 an electrician there changing lights. He 

12 knocks that loose contamination loose. Now, 

13 it's in him.

14 He's not on a bioassay, because 

15 he's not expected to get anything. So, you've 

16 got that problem.

17 And then you listed things like 

18 sealed sources and glove boxes. We have 

19 problems with window leaks, gloves, valves, 

20 canisters leaking.

21 Here, again, you have all these 

22 different sources/potentials to people to be 
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1 contaminated, to get internal contamination.

2 And then you take a facility like 

3 INL. You've got 50-plus reactors. Now, 

4 you've got all kinds of exotics everywhere. A 

5 lot of these people aren't going to be 

6 monitored, quote, for the exotics necessarily, 

7 but they may be getting exposed to what's 

8 being discharged out that stack or what's even 

9 come loose into the room because they're in 

10 there doing a job that they aren't normally in 

11 that area. So, they're not on a program for 

12 that particular area.

13 And as we have heard from many, 

14 many sites, there is -- wasn't really a health 

15 physics checklist for many of the jobs or many 

16 of the things that were done.

17 And even to this day at a lot of 

18 the facilities, there are a lot of people 

19 protecting things like fire department, 

20 guards, crafts who worked nights, weekends. 

21 They're self-monitoring.

22 If they're doing a good job, 
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1 they're likely to catch it. If they're not, 

2 then the risk goes up.

3 So, I just have a real problem 

4 with that no potential.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul, then Wanda.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: My comments, I 

7 think, are generic and perhaps will amplify on 

8 the point that Brad made. And he certainly 

9 put his finger on one of the issues in our 

10 sites particularly in the early days, and it 

11 is the issue of sort of self-auditing.

12 And since I was heavily involved 

13 with the Tiger Teams, as was Joe Fitzgerald --

14 and, Joe, if I say something wrong, you can 

15 steer me in the right direction, because Joe 

16 had more experience on deck with some of 

17 those.

18 But on the Tiger Teams, one of the 

19 big issues that we found at all of the sites, 

20 virtually, was not necessarily that their 

21 health physics programs were inadequate, but 

22 that the implementation of how that 
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1 information was utilized -- and the driving 

2 force of production and the possibility of 

3 health physics not being independent or having 

4 the clout to actually do what they needed to 

5 do with the information that was found, was 

6 frequently a problem.

7 So, often what you have in these 

8 sites, you may have very good data. You have 

9 survey data and bioassay data and personnel 

10 monitoring data, it may, in many cases, not 

11 have been acted on properly because of the 

12 dynamics that you have talked about, Brad, but 

13 the Tiger Teams always wanted the local 

14 facility to have a good internal monitoring 

15 program -- I mean, an internal audit program. 

16 They needed to be auditing themselves.

17 But you can only do that well if 

18 the group's that auditing that is independent 

19 enough for management to be able for that to 

20 occur. And that was typically the kind of 

21 problem you had.

22 So, in many of these cases, and, 
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1 Joe, you can correct me, but I don't remember 

2 any of the health physics programs ever 

3 getting a grade -- we actually graded them.

4 I don't remember any of them 

5 getting a grade above C. There may have been 

6 one or two, but most of them graded down. And 

7 typically it had to do with how things were 

8 implemented in terms of the interaction with 

9 management.

10 So, as I think about that, I think 

11 much of the data that you would find at these 

12 sites that we utilize, the data itself may be 

13 very useful, but we find that the sites didn't 

14 implement it in a way that helped protect 

15 those workers in the way that they should have 

16 been.

17 And this led eventually to the 

18 RadCon Manual and to Part 835 which we were 

19 heavily involved in developing. So, we had 

20 some consistency over the complex as to how 

21 you did this in a way that gave enough clout 

22 to the health and safety side to stand up 
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1 against pressures from production.

2 MR. FITZGERALD: Paul, I think that 

3 was well said.

4 The issue I have is more moving 

5 from a quantitative, you know. And I actually 

6 appreciate that may be necessary when you get 

7 to a point, as I pointed out earlier where, 

8 you know, you just don't have much in the way 

9 of quantitative information and you have to 

10 start looking at the program.

11 But for those very reasons, I 

12 have, you know, and I think you do too, have 

13 some great qualms, because what you read may 

14 not necessarily be an intentional malfeasance 

15 or anything. It just may be a blind spot in 

16 some programs that when they say they don't 

17 have contamination, they may very well be 

18 thinking of, we don't have any contamination 

19 at the primaries, you know.

20 We don't really worry about the 

21 secondaries. We're talking about the 

22 primaries.
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1 So, when we're in this territory 

2 where we're trying to judge the adequacy or 

3 rigor of control for the exotics or 

4 secondaries, if we read a statement like that 

5 or an audit like that, we may actually 

6 misinterpret if we just go by that alone. And 

7 this is where the follow-up that Jim's talking 

8 about is highly important to validate that.

9 I went to Fernald in February `85 

10 to do a health physics review, and literally 

11 they were running the plant as a heavy metals 

12 plant. I mean, you know, it was astonishing, 

13 and this was `85.

14 So, I think that's something to 

15 keep in mind when you're trying to judge the 

16 program descriptions, because they may very 

17 well think they're fine. But in essence, 

18 they're not.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Wanda.

20 MEMBER MUNN: This is, I think, a 

21 very broad question that touches on a great 

22 deal more than what we're talking about here.
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1 Joe, you mentioned when you were 

2 giving us your presentation that some 

3 information had been taken at great length 

4 from an individual who was a program manager. 

5 And, therefore, had a personal interest in 

6 what was being said.

7 And, essentially, you said it in a 

8 nicer way than this, but essentially he said 

9 you couldn't trust it.

10 We talk a lot about what is and is 

11 not reliable information. And if we discard -

12 - I was going to say if we discard information 

13 that's given to us from people that we 

14 consider experts, and my next thought was, I 

15 guess my real question to you is who do we 

16 consider expert. Who do we consider reliable?

17 Is there any human being that can 

18 give us any information that would meet 

19 whatever our standard of quality is in terms 

20 of reliability?

21 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, I really 

22 appreciate that issue, Wanda. And I'm just 
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1 saying -- and that's why I think I chose to 

2 say it nicely.

3 I think, really, I think we all 

4 value that input. But at the same time, when 

5 you get to the point where you don't have much 

6 in the way of real hard data, you don't have 

7 much quantitative, and it looks like that, you 

8 know, that interview may become a fulcrum 

9 point to decide if there's an exposure to a 

10 nuclide in an SEC, I can't escape the 

11 perspective of, well, I have to consider the 

12 source and make, you know, to be mindful that, 

13 you know, the individual may have a stake.

14 And if he ran the program for 20 

15 years, he may be expert in the program. But, 

16 again, in describing whether there was a 

17 significance to a source-term, maybe an exotic 

18 or something, I don't know, you know, whether 

19 I could put as much weight if that was the 

20 only piece of information that was going to 

21 determine the outcome.

22 I'd have to keep the other 
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1 consideration in mind and have maybe 

2 additional perspective, maybe additional 

3 interviews or maybe looking for more data or 

4 something, but that became, you know, the 

5 central argument.

6 I'd have a hard time bringing it 

7 to the Work Group or to the Board and say, you 

8 know, so and so said, you know, this was no 

9 big deal, but so and so is also the one that 

10 ran the program.

11 I mean, I think that just wouldn't 

12 be sufficient.

13 MEMBER MUNN: But you see, Joe, the 

14 point I'm trying to make is --

15 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.

16 MEMBER MUNN: -- we, and by we I 

17 mean not only the Board, but all of you who 

18 are involved in the program in any way, are 

19 not likely to be interviewing anyone who does 

20 not have some kind of a personal stake in 

21 what, you know -- how do you get around that?

22 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I just think 
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1 it needs to be transparent. I think, you 

2 know, there's a piece of information, but you 

3 also ought to know, you know, there's a 

4 consideration to keep in mind. And we may 

5 very well bring it to you, but I think it 

6 becomes more important.

7 If it was just input amongst many 

8 and you had countervailing quantitative data 

9 as well and this corroborated the quantitative 

10 data, that would be not an issue to me.

11 But if it were the central 

12 deciding point, I'd want to bring it forward 

13 with that as a consideration for the Board.

14 I think the Board ought to know 

15 that, you know, this is really the central 

16 basis for the position.

17 So, it's not discounting it or not 

18 regarding that issue. It's just saying that I 

19 think that becomes more and more important to 

20 consider the source when it becomes the 

21 central basis for the finding.

22 MEMBER MUNN: I guess the real 
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1 point I'm trying to make is expert or not, 

2 human testimony has to be weighed against 

3 several criteria. And we spend a great deal 

4 of effort relying upon the reports of 

5 individuals who have been personally involved 

6 in all of the activities that we are 

7 interested in here. And it's incumbent, I 

8 think, upon us to, as you said, view what is 

9 reported in light of other concrete evidence.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and I don't 

11 think this is really different than what we've 

12 considered before. But in the context of 

13 getting down to less quantitative data, I 

14 think it becomes more and more important to be 

15 aware of that kind of thing.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, we could 

17 revert to some medieval torture system --

18 (Laughter.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- to extract 

20 the truth from somebody, but - 

21 MEMBER MUNN: Jack Bauer says 

22 that's not acceptable.
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1 (Laughter.)

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We need to 

3 wrap up because we have to move on to an SEC 

4 petition.

5 David, quickly.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: This is kind of 

7 a big picture question. There was a --

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry, we're 

9 going to have to come back to you later. 

10 Okay.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Joe, I think, 

12 was laying out an idea that there was a 

13 threshold for exposure potential. And I was 

14 taking what Jim was describing as an attempt 

15 to quantify exposures in a more continuous 

16 sense.

17 I mean, I think at some points it 

18 may be useful for us in thinking about this, 

19 also, as are we thinking about these as a 

20 binary issue when we say is there exposure 

21 potential or not.

22 And this is where there seemed to 
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1 be maybe a discrepancy between talking about 

2 potential for low exposures versus low 

3 potential exposures. And those are two 

4 different ideas.

5 And from an industrial hygiene 

6 perspective with something, is it a question 

7 about probability of exposure or intensity of 

8 exposure, and we're moving back and forth 

9 between those.

10 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, when I say 

11 threshold, I never looked at it that way until 

12 we got into this with Mound in the sense where 

13 dealing with these, this list of -- relatively 

14 long list of exotics, it became clear that 

15 since there was very little data, the 

16 threshold for even these being on the table in 

17 an SEC context was whether or not there was an 

18 exposure potential in the first place.

19 And if you can think about it when 

20 you don't have data, that's a devilish thing 

21 to get involved with. And those who were on 

22 the Work Group can understand, you know, we 
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1 went through this a number of times. It was 

2 very difficult, you know. There's some data, 

3 but not enough data to dispatch some of these.

4 And, you know, of course there's 

5 always this sort of presumption that, well, 

6 there may not be any data because the site 

7 didn't see a need to collect data. And that 

8 very well may be the case. But, you know, 

9 it's sort of gotten to this do loop where how 

10 do you actually disposition that question.

11 And you're raising a question on 

12 sort of a dose-assessment standpoint, but 

13 we're not even there yet. I mean, this is 

14 sort of do we even consider dose 

15 reconstructability if in fact there's no 

16 exposure potential at all.

17 So, there is a threshold that 

18 we've been kicking around. And I think to be 

19 fair about it, I think NIOSH, Brant worked 

20 hard, came back with some criteria, but that 

21 was the point where I guess I realized that, 

22 you know, this is, you know, this was just 
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1 something that couldn't be resolved because 

2 there were so many touch points that had to be 

3 satisfied and a lot of this required data.

4 DR. NETON: Just to comment on 

5 that, Joe showed Brant's, I believe, four 

6 points or whatever they are -- four bullets, 

7 and I think those have been largely 

8 misinterpreted.

9 I mean, I don't think that Brant -

10 - and I've talked to Brant about this -- was 

11 really trying to say that those are hard and 

12 fast criteria upon which one can evaluate 

13 exposure potential. Those are criteria upon 

14 which the source becomes smaller, but you 

15 still have to have some sort of quantitative 

16 description of the exposure.

17 I think in this program there is 

18 just no way we're going to get -- I don't want 

19 to say away with, but get around having to 

20 come up with some sort of quantitative number 

21 whether it's less than a hundred millirem or 

22 something of that nature.
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1 Because if there is any exposure 

2 potential, we assign a dose. I mean, we don't 

3 truncate doses because the exposure was less 

4 than a hundred millirem or five millirem or 

5 anything. We always assign down to the 

6 millirem if we believe it to be there, and 

7 it's going to be difficult.

8 If you get into these very small 

9 sources where there is a very low exposure 

10 potential, I think we have to come up with 

11 some sort of a bounding way to put a cap on 

12 that low exposure potential, but I think it 

13 has to be quantitative in some way.

14 I just don't foresee us saying low 

15 exposure potentials don't count in a dose 

16 reconstruction, because one could argue that 

17 extra 10 millirem would put someone from 49.9 

18 over to 50 percent, but it's difficult.

19 It's going to be difficult. I 

20 have no doubt about it. We're struggling with 

21 that.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So, bounding is 
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1 --

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dave, we really 

3 need to move on. I'm sorry. We can come back 

4 and talk. And I agree with you actually that 

5 I think we need to spend more time talking 

6 about this particular issue because I think 

7 it's all so critical.

8 We've spent more time on how to 

9 deal with some of the programmatic issues and 

10 so forth, but I think this one is just as 

11 important.

12 We're sort of bound by what we do 

13 with our -- for our petitions and we have a 

14 petitioner that may very well be on the line 

15 and we can't -- we said we'd start at 2:30 and 

16 I think we owe it to them to try to start near 

17 the time.

18 I think Joe and Jim will be here 

19 maybe during our Board work time period. We 

20 can come back and talk about this in sort of 

21 the follow-up on this also.

22 So, I apologize, but -- so, now 
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1 another SEC petition on BWXT.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. Let me 

3 find it here. And there's truly another 

4 petition for BWXT. We had one previously to 

5 that.

6 Also, I wanted to -- this is LaVon 

7 Rutherford, but I wanted to say that some of 

8 the points that just came up will be discussed 

9 in this petition evaluation. So, I think it's 

10 actually kind of fitting.

11 A little background. We actually 

12 sent a -- informed the BWXT claimant that we 

13 were unable to reconstruct their radiation 

14 dose for the claim on September 28th of 2010.

15 We received an 83.14 SEC petition 

16 on October 5th. We qualified the petition on 

17 that date and we issued our Evaluation Report 

18 on November 3rd, 2010.

19 A little background on BWXT. It's 

20 located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Actually had 

21 three different operating periods that were 

22 covered under the AEC.
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1 January 1, 1959, through December 

2 31, 1959, they were doing fuel fabrication for 

3 the AEC, oxide fuel pellets.

4 1968 through `72 was the period 

5 when they were actually doing some work with 

6 Fernald.

7 Those two periods were addressed 

8 in SEC-169. We recommended a Class for that, 

9 and the Board concurred with that.

10 The third period, January 1, 1985, 

11 through December 31st, 2001, is the focus of 

12 this presentation. That period, they were 

13 doing enriched uranium recovery from weapon 

14 scrap, as well as some highly enriched uranium 

15 blending, all under the AEC.

16 Again, our Class under SEC-169 was 

17 effective on August 12th. It addressed the 

18 first two covered periods.

19 The basis for that Class at that 

20 time was inability to reconstruct doses, 

21 internal doses for the Lynchburg Technology 

22 Center, and I'll get into that in a little 
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1 bit.

2 We didn't get into the third 

3 period at that time, because we had research 

4 ongoing for that third period, the `85 through 

5 2001.

6 We had actually continued some 

7 data-capture efforts with Dow. We were 

8 looking -- actually, we were looking for 

9 additional program information about the 

10 radiologic control program for that period to 

11 try to address some of the issues, again, very 

12 similar issues to what were discussed earlier 

13 about the lack of bioassay data.

14 We did feel that it was possibly 

15 feasible at that time. So, we did not get 

16 into that. However, through our additional 

17 research, we did uncover some additional 

18 issues with the rad control program, as well 

19 as some other issues.

20 Again, the facility includes two 

21 separate facilities -- or two separate 

22 licensed locations. You have the Navy Nuclear 
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1 Fuel Division, and you have the Lynchburg 

2 Technology Center.

3 If you look at it, that's kind of 

4 like the NNFD is the main production facility. 

5 It was primarily involved in fuel fabrication 

6 and using enriched uranium most notably for 

7 the Navy.

8 And then the Lynchburg Technology 

9 Center was your laboratory. It did a lot of 

10 testing, pilot work, different reactor 

11 research. Hot cell work and other activities 

12 occurred in that facility.

13 Where we look for information, 

14 this is pretty typical. The Board has seen 

15 this. We look at Site Profiles, Technical 

16 Information Bulletins, Site Research 

17 Databases, data captures and worker 

18 interviews.

19 I do want to make one correction. 

20 There were actually 37 or 39, depending on 

21 how you want to define it, interviews. 

22 Thirty-six interviews were mostly conducted 
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1 for the first part of the SEC. The last two 

2 interviews -- or the last interview involved 

3 three different health physicists at BWXT with 

4 discussions on their rad control program.

5 We did data-capture efforts with 

6 BWXT, Legacy Management, DOE Germantown, NRC, 

7 ADAMS Database, all the pretty much typical 

8 ones that we would look at.

9 Virginia Department of Health, 

10 Westinghouse Site, Landauer who had done some 

11 of the badge work, early badge work, 

12 transuranium and uranium registries, 

13 Washington State University, OSTI. We did 

14 internet searches.

15 Recognizing that this is mainly --

16 this site is mainly a commercial site, you 

17 know, we did have to -nation we did do some 

18 additional internet searches for this site. 

19 Hanford DDRS, National Academy Press.

20 A little bit about the claims. We 

21 have 85 claims -- or 86 claims. And if you 

22 remember from Stu's presentation yesterday, a 
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1 number of these are Legacy claims that have 

2 been in the program for a while.

3 And we have 65 of those 86 meet 

4 the current recommended Class. And we've 

5 completed dose reconstruction for two claims.

6 You'll look and you'll see that 

7 there is internal monitoring data for 43, and 

8 external monitoring data for 61. However, I 

9 want to define that most of that internal 

10 monitoring data is associated with uranium, 

11 and I'll get into a little bit more of that.

12 The Lynchburg Technology Center, 

13 LTC, mainly during the `85 to present, if you 

14 look back, Building A, which was the Reactor 

15 Building, it actually decommissioned work in 

16 1983.

17 The main work that continued from 

18 the `60s to present was focused on laboratory 

19 analysis, hot cell work, cask handling, liquid 

20 waste disposal and storage of highly activated 

21 contaminated materials, as well as fuel cell 

22 inspection.
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1 The NNFD, as I mentioned, was 

2 mainly their production facility, fuel 

3 fabrication. In the later years, they did 

4 downblending of highly enriched uranium to 

5 fuel-grade enrichments.

6 NNFD, the primary radionuclide of 

7 concern was uranium. In the early years, 

8 there was thorium, in addition. However, in 

9 these later years, it was uranium typically 

10 enriched from four percent to over 90 percent.

11 LTC, the primary radionuclides of 

12 concern for both internal and external were 

13 fissile materials, transuranics, irradiated 

14 fuels and materials, as well as fission 

15 activation products.

16 So, we did have -- it was not a, 

17 you know, it was more into that exotic number 

18 of radionuclides to deal with.

19 What we have, if you'll notice the 

20 -- at the NNFD, we had uranium bioassay for --

21 these are for claims that are in the 1985 to 

22 2001 period. And the only monitoring data 
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1 that we have are associated with what was 

2 given to us by BWXT for the claims.

3 We have a significant amount of 

4 uranium bioassay samples -- or a good amount, 

5 I should say, of uranium bioassay samples, as 

6 well as isotopic analysis for the NNFD.

7 For Lynchburg Technology Center, 

8 however, we had uranium bioassay, we have six 

9 results, and the whole body or lung counts at 

10 21 results, and breathing zone samples of nine 

11 results.

12 I do want to point out it's 

13 actually -- I want to correct that. The 21 

14 results are associated with positive whole 

15 body counts. We actually had 50 whole body 

16 counts for the period. I think that gets into 

17 Joe's exposure potential.

18 Available external monitoring 

19 data. We have film badge data that exists for 

20 both NNFD and the Lynchburg Technology Center.

21 NNFD did not address neutrons. 

22 They felt neutrons were not a significant 
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1 source of exposure. And so they were not 

2 addressed at NNFD.

3 They did address neutron exposure 

4 during the early years when reactors were in 

5 operation at LTC. However, those reactor 

6 operations ceased in 1983.

7 In available records, NIOSH found 

8 no radioactive material inventory data that 

9 would enable NIOSH to place an upper bound on 

10 potential exposures to the wide array of 

11 commercial and DOE radiological sources that 

12 could have been encountered at the BWXT 

13 facilities.

14 During our review, we found that 

15 there are insufficient monitoring and source16 term data. And this is mostly associated, 

17 again, with the Lynchburg Technology Center 

18 that -- from which to draw conclusions of 

19 potential magnitude of internal dose from the 

20 period 1985 to 1994.

21 Again in our review of the -- this 

22 period, we went back to try to draw a 
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1 conclusion that they had a good, rigorous 

2 health physics program that would support the 

3 limited bioassay samples and incident-based 

4 sample, or, as Brad called it, event-based 

5 samples that occurred at Lynchburg Technology 

6 Center.

7 And we uncovered that there was 

8 from an NRC audit, that there was severe 

9 limitations of records, plans and procedures 

10 in the 1980s. 

11 In addition, workers' records do 

12 not indicate that all workers with exposure 

13 potential were monitored and worker movement 

14 across the site was undocumented.

15 And really this is -- the last one 

16 was the kicker. We had CEP data. CEP, for 

17 those that remember, was a vendor who 

18 falsified bioassay data in the early `90s at 

19 Sandia. And they were the main bioassay 

20 vendor at BWXT at the time.

21 So, beginning in 1994, though, in 

22 December 1994, we do feel data is sufficient 
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1 to reconstruct internal doses. The NRC 

2 feedback, they had plans, procedures put in 

3 place. They put an NRC inspector on site. 

4 Increased health physics staff. And they also 

5 implemented 10 CFR 20 guidelines that were --

6 they were required to implement them by 

7 January 1, 1994. And CEP was replaced as 

8 bioassay vendor.

9 External exposures, we believe 

10 there are sufficient monitoring data and 

11 source term information to conclude the 

12 potential magnitude of external exposures, as 

13 well as medical dose. And we will use any 

14 personal monitoring data that comes available, 

15 with exception to CEP.

16 Again, for those that remember the 

17 worker interviews, we interviewed firefighters 

18 who indicated that they worked at both LTC and 

19 the NNFD. We interviewed other workers, the 

20 maintenance workers that were assigned at both 

21 NNFD and LTC.

22 And from their records, we could 
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1 not -- their monitoring records we could not 

2 distinguish between that to recognize an 

3 ability to separate the Lynchburg Technology 

4 Center from the NNFD.

5 So, therefore, we were unable to 

6 limit the Class to the LTC. We had to make it 

7 all workers.

8 So, our infeasibilities are 

9 focused on 1985 to 2001 -- or, actually, our 

10 infeasibilities focus 1985 to 1994. And from 

11 December 1st, 1994, to 2001, we feel it is 

12 feasible.

13 And, again, health endangerment, 

14 we could not reconstruct the dose. Evidence 

15 reviewed in this evaluation indicates some 

16 workers in the Class may have accumulated 

17 chronic exposures. So, there is health 

18 endangerment.

19 Our proposed Class is all atomic 

20 weapons employees for BWXT from January 1, 

21 1985, through November 30th, 1994, for a 

22 number of workdays aggregating at least 250 
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1 days and so on.

2 Again, does reconstruction is not 

3 feasible from January 1, 1985, through 

4 November 30th of 1994.

5 Any questions?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Questions from 

7 Board Members?

8 Paul.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: LaVon, were any of 

10 the personnel at this naval nuclear part of 

11 the facility actually Navy people versus --

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: You know, Dr. 

13 Ziemer, that's a good question. Of course we 

14 do not get any claims from that.

15 I imagine that there were Navy 

16 people that probably came in to inspect fuel, 

17 to inspect certain aspects of the program. 

18 However, I cannot be for sure of that.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, my follow-up 

20 question is, did you pursue records with the 

21 nuclear Navy for that site.

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, we did not 
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1 because the requirements or the implementation 

2 of the rad control program was the 

3 responsibility of the facility operator. So, 

4 we did associate that to get records from them 

5 solely.

6 If there were, you know, my 

7 understanding would be that the Navy would 

8 only keep personnel monitoring records or such 

9 associated for their own people. They would 

10 not keep personal monitoring records for 

11 contractor employees, and the Navy people 

12 would not be eligible under this program.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I understand 

14 that. But if there were personnel monitoring 

15 records for people who were co-working, those 

16 might be useful to you.

17 I know that, you know, the Nuclear 

18 Navy program, health physics program was 

19 actually attached to the Department of Energy. 

20 In a sense, it was my responsibility when I 

21 was there.

22 I can tell you that I could not 
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1 look at any Nuclear Navy information in health 

2 physics. And I only tell you that -- the Navy 

3 -- Nuclear Navy was very stringent in their 

4 recordkeeping.

5 And it may be that there are 

6 records, and it may be that you won't be able 

7 to get them either, but I'm just thinking of 

8 that as a data source.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: I do want to point 

10 out that it was really not the infeasibility 

11 of reconstructing dose at the NNFD, which is 

12 where they produced the fuel. It was at the 

13 Lynchburg Technology Center that drove the 

14 recommended Class.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: But -- well, okay. 

16 It would cover both sites, though.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: And actually, 

18 though, if you also remember, there was a 

19 significant amount of commercial work that 

20 occurred at that site.

21 So, the Lynchburg Technology 

22 Center was not only analyzing Navy fuel. They 
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1 were analyzing the commercial activities that 

2 BWXT was doing at the time, too. 

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Other questions 

4 from Board Members?

5 (No response.)

6 Okay. I believe we may have a 

7 petitioner or petitioners on the line. So, if 

8 those petitioners would like to make any 

9 comments?

10 If you're on the line and don't 

11 wish to comment, that's fine also.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Can I add one more 

13 thing, Dr. Melius? I apologize.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: I do want to point 

16 out this is one case where we used worker 

17 interviews to not only support the Class 

18 recommendation, but also to support the 

19 boundaries around that Class.

20 It just -- I just wanted to bring 

21 that up. Just one instance. One instance.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Okay. Do 
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1 the petitioners wish to make any comments? As 

2 I said, you don't have to.

3 Okay. Assuming not then, do any 

4 other Board Members have questions or do I 

5 hear a recommendation or motion?

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You just may 

7 want to remind them to push * 6. They may be 

8 on the line, but --

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, if you've 

10 muted the phone and you have * 6 on to mute or 

11 you muted your own phone, if you wanted to hit 

12 * 6 again, that will unmute.

13 Okay. Any other Board Members?

14 Wanda. I'm sorry.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Are you ready for a 

16 motion?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm ready for 

18 whatever the Board may wish to do. 

19 MEMBER MUNN: I would like to move 

20 that we accept the recommendation of NIOSH to 

21 grant an SEC for the period January 1, `85, 

22 through November 30, 1994, for BWXT.
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: I second it.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 

3 further discussion?

4 Okay. If not, could we do the 

5 roll call?

6 MR. KATZ: Let me note, before I do 

7 the roll call vote, that Dr. Poston had 

8 recused himself from this discussion from the 

9 beginning of it.

10 So, Dr. Ziemer.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

15 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley.

19 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

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

2 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen.

5 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon -- oh, Mr. 

7 Griffon, I should note, has left the Board. 

8 He's not in attendance. So, he's absent and 

9 I'll collect his vote with normal procedure as 

10 soon as we can after this meeting.

11 Mr. Gibson.

12 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

14 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Anderson.

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Did I leave anyone out?

22 I don't think so. Okay. So, then 
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1 it's unanimous with one absent member and one 

2 member recused. And I'll collect that vote 

3 afterwards, but the motion passes in any 

4 event.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We have a 

6 few minutes before the break. That will give 

7 you a full break, plus. So, don't fret, but 

8 we do need to really start at 3:30 sharp.

9 But maybe -- I had interrupted 

10 David Richardson in the midst of his 

11 questioning, and I think Henry had a question 

12 also on the exposure-potential issue. So, do 

13 you want to follow up?

14 I don't know if Joe Fitzgerald is 

15 in the room. Am I -- yes, Arjun is here. But 

16 he'll go get him and Jim's here. So, go 

17 ahead.

18 MEMBER ANDERSON: I didn't have so 

19 much of a question. Just a point that, you 

20 know, the biologic monitoring as well as air 

21 and badges, we tend to -- you get a 

22 quantitative value from that.
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1 But I think we also have to keep 

2 in mind that especially in the earlier years, 

3 the variability in some of those and their --

4 a lot of the -- or a number of the facilities 

5 were actually, you know, implementing kind of 

6 state-of-the-art, new techniques that were not 

7 yet fully developed.

8 So, we have to remember that even 

9 though it appears to be quantitative, its 

10 representativeness as well as, you know, the 

11 reliability is something we also have to 

12 always keep in mind, but it clearly would be 

13 our number one choice of data. But in some 

14 instances, there may be more variability in 

15 that than in the memory of workers and things 

16 like that.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David, did you 

18 have -- or lost your train of thought now?

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Okay. In 

21 terms of follow-up on this issue, my personal 

22 opinion is that it would be -- I think there 
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1 are obviously issues we could continue to 

2 discuss, but I think that what probably be 

3 most productive in the context of a specific 

4 site in, you know, keeping in mind.

5 So, I think both Jim Neton and Joe 

6 Fitzgerald's sort of presentations and their 

7 sort of not only raising issues, but sort of 

8 thinking about how we might approach these, I 

9 think, has been useful and will be helpful 

10 going forward on the Work Group.

11 So, I mean, I think it puts sort 

12 of the onus back on the work groups and I 

13 don't want to pressure you, Josie, but -- or 

14 whichever Work Group is ready. And if it's 

15 not ready for the next meeting, that's fine, 

16 but I think it would be to come back and have 

17 a discussion about a specific site.

18 We'll try to leave a little extra 

19 time on the agenda so that we can maybe 

20 discuss some of the general issues and give a 

21 full discussion to it because I think it will 

22 -- it may take time. It's always hard to 
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1 predict.

2 So, whoever is ready to come back, 

3 but I think -- again, I think we're seeing 

4 some potential changes in NIOSH's approach to 

5 this. And I think Joe sort of clarified how 

6 SC&A would look at it or how it should be 

7 looked at.

8 So, I think we can make progress 

9 and let's see where we go. Let's not try to 

10 put a time table on it, but at some point we -

11 - whenever someone, one of the work groups is 

12 ready, let's bring that issue back and have a 

13 full discussion of the Board.

14 Does that make sense to people?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Well, Jim, on that I 

16 believe that Mound is probably the closest, 

17 but it will depend on what NIOSH comes back 

18 with --

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right, right.

20 MEMBER BEACH: -- prior to the 

21 next meeting.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah, I'm not --
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1 again, I'm not sure if for our next Board 

2 meeting, you will be ready.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I don't want 

5 to, you know, push the process along until - 

6 because it really isn't going to do us any 

7 good until we've had a full evaluation, what 

8 the Work Group and NIOSH and SC&A feel is a 

9 full evaluation of the issue.

10 And, again, it may not resolve it, 

11 but at least that will probably bring back at 

12 least some more complete information to the 

13 Board about the site and this issue.

14 MEMBER BEACH: Well, the other side 

15 of that if it's not resolved, we may not come 

16 to a resolution in the Work Group either. So, 

17 it's --

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, and I think 

19 in that case I think we would want to bring --

20 I think it should be brought back to the 

21 Board.

22 And, you know, one of my 
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1 observations -- and maybe we can talk more 

2 about it with Linde. And again I'm not 

3 faulting the Work Group or -- and you can pick 

4 a bunch of other sites and so forth, is that I 

5 think one of the difficulties we have is with 

6 sites where we're having trouble resolving --

7 we keep making -- everybody is making good 

8 faith efforts to resolve them, but that takes 

9 time and repeated, you know, document 

10 development and review and so forth.

11 And so then by the time it comes 

12 to the Board, we've all forgotten about it. 

13 We haven't heard about the site for so long. 

14 So, it's very hard for the Board to resolve 

15 the issue.

16 I think the briefing today on 

17 Linde has been very, very helpful and I 

18 certainly understand it better. But for me, 

19 it was -- it identified issues that I needed 

20 to -- I wanted to look into or understand 

21 better, and I think other Board Members may 

22 have had the same. So, it's hard.
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1 And, again, we've got to try to 

2 find the balance, you know. Some of these 

3 issues take time to resolve. But how we keep 

4 sort of the Board engaged in it, too, so the 

5 Work Group isn't out there floundering or 

6 trying to reach consensus, maybe it can.

7 I mean, a small group can't. It's 

8 -- a full Board can't with some issues, as 

9 we've experienced. So, it's not -- you can't 

10 expect a group of four to do so, either.

11 Brad, you had a thought?

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just wanted to 

13 also express, you know, as Dr. Neton had 

14 mentioned, we can't get a cookie cutter for 

15 every one of them. Each one of these sites is 

16 unique, and we haven't even started playing 

17 into the classification issues either when 

18 we're talking transparency.

19 And this is where we're getting 

20 into a lot of them with a lot of these sites. 

21 And it's very difficult for us as a Work 

22 Group, to be able to bring this back and to be 
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1 able to give it a fair airing in front of the 

2 public and also the Board.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, but I think 

4 that's going to be harder. And I don't know 

5 how we'll resolve the classification issue. 

6 I'm concerned about it and we're all concerned 

7 about it, but it's going to be even more 

8 difficult if we don't understand how the Work 

9 Group or the people on the Work Group that, 

10 you know, with Q clearance that may have been 

11 involved in some of these issues, how they 

12 evaluated something.

13 If you come back and can't tell us 

14 even how you evaluated, you know, so what do 

15 you say? We went in a room and we talked 

16 about it and this is what we concluded about 

17 something. And we're not going to tell you 

18 what it was and we can't tell you how we did 

19 it, but, I mean, that's very hard for us to 

20 reach judgment on that.

21 Now, it's hard if you don't know 

22 what it is. But at least if we also know how 
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1 you evaluate it and how you reach your 

2 conclusion on it, I think we can, you know, 

3 have more trust and maybe work that issue out.

4 Let's see. I'm not real 

5 optimistic, but let's see what we can do. And 

6 we have some -- there's constraints on that 

7 obviously with -- we have very real security 

8 issues that need to be addressed.

9 Okay. With that, let's take a 

10 break for a half hour or so. Reconvene at 

11 3:30. We'll start with Texas City and then 

12 talk about Linde.

13 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

14 matter went off the record at 3:01 p.m. and 

15 resumed at 3:35 p.m.)

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We want to 

17 start again with Texas City. I'm trying to 

18 remember who I cut off now.

19 Wanda, do you have comments?

20 MEMBER MUNN: I was going to ask if 

21 you were ready for a motion, but I think you 

22 should ask for more comments.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else have 

2 comments or questions?

3 There's one other person that 

4 wanted to --

5 MEMBER MUNN: Someone else had 

6 their --

7 MEMBER ROESSLER: Speak up, Wanda.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Someone else was 

9 going to make a comment before --

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim, that was 

11 right. Yes.

12 MEMBER LOCKEY: I was going to say 

13 I appreciate both the comment that both Jim 

14 and Paul made reflecting around the modeling 

15 issue and size of the building and exchange.

16 Where's Jim?

17 Jim, how much effort was spent 

18 going back and trying to look at those 

19 particular parameters in this situation?

20 DR. NETON: It's been a couple 

21 years. So, I don't recall. I know we had a 

22 Worker Outreach meeting in Texas, and we 
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1 interviewed one claimant, but I don't 

2 remember.

3 One of the particular problems at 

4 Texas City Chemicals was a lot of the workers 

5 that did sort of the labor there are not 

6 eligible for compensation of this program. 

7 They were contractors.

8 And that was my recollection from 

9 the town meeting we did, was that many of the 

10 people there were disgruntled because they 

11 were the laborers that did the work that were 

12 contractors, and they aren't eligible to be 

13 compensated in this program because it's an 

14 AWE and only the AWE-direct employees are 

15 covered.

16 But to answer your question, I 

17 don't recall what we --

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: Is the building 

19 still there?

20 DR. NETON: No, I don't think the 

21 building is there anymore.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, my 
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1 comment that came up in the Work Group, also, 

2 is that without information on the building, 

3 it's very hard to model.

4 I'm uncomfortable in some ways 

5 with this, but at the same time I just can't 

6 figure out how to model it in a fair way or 

7 plausible way without enough information about 

8 the building to have some confidence in the 

9 model.

10 If we had the information on the 

11 building, I think that would help. And I 

12 think that's really what Jim Neton concluded 

13 also at the time.

14 Paul, yes.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: I believe there 

16 actually were photographs of the building, but 

17 -- and you could argue that you might estimate 

18 the size of the building from the photographs. 

19 But even if you do that, then the issue is 

20 one that Jim talked about, and that is of 

21 partitioning, which is what led me to think 

22 about saying okay, let's make a small volume 
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1 and put the thing there.

2 There is a little information on 

3 the building, but not enough to do what we 

4 would like to do.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. No further 

6 comments. Then, Wanda, your turn.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, and actually I 

8 do have a comment.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Given the information 

11 that we have with respect to the source-term 

12 and to the period of operation that was 

13 involved in this, the simple use of common 

14 sense would lead one to believe that there is 

15 no way that an SEC should be provided to this 

16 particular site.

17 The concerns with respect to 

18 bounding are very interesting. When people 

19 say they don't understand what bounding means, 

20 it puzzles because bounding is clearly not 

21 only allowable, but mentioned specifically in 

22 the regulations.
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1 And we can certainly create an 

2 upper bound regardless of what other 

3 circumstances exist when we know what the 

4 source term is.

5 The key words in Dr. Neton's 

6 presentation were sufficient accuracy, and 

7 that is the problem that is often faced.

8 I cannot believe that objective 

9 individuals could look at the information we 

10 do have and say that it's impossible to bound 

11 this; we certainly can bound it.

12 It is unfortunate that we are in a 

13 position where we must approve this kind of 

14 SEC, because as I've mentioned in the past and 

15 will continue to say again, this misleads 

16 people with respect to their concerns over 

17 whether or not they were injured not by their 

18 work, but by the radiation involved in their 

19 work.

20 One certainly cannot look at an 

21 environment like this one and say that it 

22 doesn't create a hazard. For some workers 
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1 under some circumstances, of course it does, 

2 but our job is to look at the radiation 

3 hazard.

4 And given the source term that we 

5 have, the radiation hazard can easily be shown 

6 to be small enough to not be of concern for 

7 virtually anything other than potentially 

8 respiratory cancers, but we don't have the 

9 latitude of saying this type of cancer and 

10 only this type of cancer. We're faced with 

11 the decision concerning all cancers or none.

12 And for that reason, I can see 

13 that we have no alternative other than to 

14 accept NIOSH's proposal for an SEC for this 

15 site even though there is every reason to 

16 believe that that's not a reasonable or truly 

17 an appropriate thing to do under any 

18 circumstances other than those imposed by the 

19 law.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Is that a motion?

21 MEMBER MUNN: I move we accept the 

22 NIOSH recommendation for an SEC.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you.

2 MEMBER PRESLEY: Second.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Second from Bob 

4 Presley.

5 Any Board Members have comments?

6 Brad, you're -- no? Okay.

7 Jim Lockey, are you --

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I would --

9 this is Ziemer. I was going to ask if the 

10 mover was arguing against her own motion.

11 (Laughter.)

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: You don't have --

13 that's a facetious comment.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: I understand where 

16 you're coming from. I would make a similar 

17 motion with a similar prelude probably.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think, again, I 

19 think we all know this. I mean, the issues 

20 are plausible upper bounds. And it's also 

21 that, you know, the two-step way it's 

22 established in the regulations, the two steps, 
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1 it's -- and if there are -- if we can't 

2 reconstruct doses with sufficient accuracy, et 

3 cetera, then the threshold for health 

4 endangerment is relatively low.

5 And it is met, I think, in this 

6 case and again, one -- I wouldn't disagree 

7 with some of Wanda's conclusions. But in the 

8 context of the regulation, I think we have to 

9 move ahead.

10 So, any further comments?

11 If not, Ted, do the roll call.

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim, I just want 

13 to make sure that the comment at the very 

14 beginning, exactly what we are voting on 

15 because it kind of went around.

16 Do we have that NIOSH cannot 

17 perform dose reconstruction?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The motion is --

19 MEMBER MUNN: With sufficient 

20 accuracy.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Actually, I think 

22 the motion was to accept the NIOSH 
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1 recommendation. So, it's to accept the Class 

2 Definition from NIOSH that all atomic employer 

3 employees who worked at Texas City Chemicals 

4 October 5th, 1953, through September 30th, 

5 1955, for a number of workdays, et cetera.

6 So, that's what we're voting to 

7 accept.

8 MEMBER LEMEN: As an SEC.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: As an SEC Class, 

10 correct.

11 So, now that we've clarified that, 

12 Ted.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Anderson.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

20 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson.

22 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon is absent. 

2 I will collect his vote after this meeting.

3 Dr. Lemen.

4 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

12 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley.

14 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

18 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: So, it's unanimous. No 

2 abstentions. One member absent, and the 

3 motion passes.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 

5 Okay.

6 The next topic to go back to is 

7 Linde, and do people have further questions, 

8 comments, suggestions?

9 Go ahead, Wanda.

10 MEMBER MUNN: As most of you know, 

11 when we start talking about radon and its 

12 effects and what we can and can't do with it, 

13 some of us have had quite a history with these 

14 issues.

15 It is of great concern that radon 

16 as an element, seems to have moved to the 

17 forefront of a great many things that we're 

18 doing and has become an issue just short of 

19 demonic status in terms of potential hazard to 

20 the environment and to the people who live and 

21 work near radon, which turns out to constitute 

22 a large portion of the United States, 
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1 actually.

2 But this particular amount of 

3 concern over the radon at Linde especially in 

4 light of the agreement that has gone forward 

5 between NIOSH and our contractor on other 

6 items, is a considerable concern, I think.

7 There is no guarantee any precise 

8 information over and beyond what we already 

9 have pursued with Petition 107, and I would 

10 like to move that we accept the NIOSH 

11 recommendation that they can in fact provide 

12 the kind of dose reconstructions that are 

13 necessary given the information that they have 

14 and reject the petition for SEC Number 107.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: 107, yes.

16 Is there a second to that?

17 MEMBER ROESSLER: Second.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Comments 

19 from the Board?

20 Jim lost his pen, but go ahead,

21 Jim.

22 MEMBER LOCKEY: When I go -- when I 
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1 was looking at this whole process in 

2 relationship to radon and bounding the radon 

3 issue, even though it's not part of the 

4 legislation as a physician when somebody gets 

5 involved with exposure-effect relationships, 

6 the outcome here in relationship to radon 

7 exposure is primary respiratory cancer.

8 So, when I look at, are we being 

9 claimant-friendly in relationship to this 

10 particular bounding issue in relationship to 

11 this particular material, radon, and the 

12 outcome of interest which is respiratory 

13 cancer, the answer is yes, in my mind.

14 That really takes -- that really 

15 has a lot of force with me because I'm saying, 

16 you know, I look at it and say, if we have 

17 claimants, are they going to get financial 

18 compensation for the cancer that really is of 

19 interest in relationship with radon exposure 

20 in this circumstance. And the answer is yes.

21 So, that's reassuring to me that 

22 we are in this situation, being claimant-
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1 friendly.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't want to 

3 try to generalize from a sample of one, but I 

4 think somebody made the same comment about 

5 Blockson. And just in the process of 

6 reviewing a lung cancer from Blockson, it's 

7 not -- didn't make it.

8 So, I mean, I guess I'd like a 

9 little more evidence there. But for doing 

10 that, it was just sort of odd that that's the 

11 one that came forward.

12 But anyway, other comments. 

13 Henry, and then Josie.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I'm just 

15 wondering do we want to split these two and 

16 deal with 107 separate from --

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We are dealing --

18 right now we're dealing with 107.

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We're not talking 

21 about 154.

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie.

2 MEMBER BEACH: My comment was just 

3 to remind the Board that this was not just 

4 simply a radon issue. One of my concerns was 

5 also the particulate. And I know Wanda 

6 strictly was talking about the radon and there 

7 was actually -- it was twofold.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, my 

9 particular concern, let me echo that, is I'm 

10 not sure about the radon yet because I think 

11 I'm actually confused and there's some factual 

12 things that we've been hit with today. I'm 

13 not sure what needs to be done next.

14 I was not enamored with John 

15 Mauro's proposal, but maybe it's something 

16 that would work. And I'm not sure it's 

17 something that's necessary to that.

18 But I am concerned about the 

19 exposures during the renovation period and 

20 whether, based on source term information and 

21 no sampling data, as I understand it, it's 

22 really realistic to be able to reconstruct 
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1 those.

2 Now, I have not had time to read 

3 the reports. And my understanding is that 

4 SC&A found that it was. And that was the 

5 conclusion of at least some members of the 

6 Work Group.

7 But, you know, frankly, 

8 personally, I would like some more time to 

9 review that information and understand it. 

10 Because certainly one of the options I saw, 

11 aside from the radon, was to separate this 

12 into two time periods: the renovation period, 

13 a lot of demolition and so forth going on, as 

14 I understand it, and then, secondly, a more 

15 traditional, residual exposure period.

16 And I think that's sort of the 

17 suggestion that Josie made early on when we 

18 had our discussions, but I personally would 

19 really need to read more and understand it 

20 better.

21 I'm not sure what I'll conclude. 

22 I don't want to say I would, you know, for 
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1 example, I'm not sure I would support an SEC 

2 at this point from what I know, but I would 

3 certainly -- I certainly still have questions.

4 This is a lot of information to be 

5 presented to the Board in a short period of 

6 time. And for us to understand, I understand 

7 how the -- well, along the Work Group. But 

8 for the rest of us to sort of understand it 

9 and feel comfortable agreeing with a Work 

10 Group that's split on something is a little 

11 bit difficult in a short period.

12 Yes.

13 MEMBER ANDERSON: Just one more 

14 back on this. I'm wondering, I mean, because 

15 part of it is sending it back to the Work 

16 Group when they've really thrashed out a lot 

17 of the issues.

18 But saying one thing we might be -

19 - looking at it, I would tend to agree that, 

20 you know, our traditional residual period when 

21 it's basically just a decrement over time is 

22 quite different than when they're chopping up 
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1 and breaking up cement floors and things like 

2 that --

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: - that we could 

5 ask the group to look at would they come to 

6 agreement if you could split the renovation 

7 period out and how, you know, can that be 

8 done?

9 I mean, was the renovation done 

10 mostly at one point in time and then ended, 

11 and now we're just pushing forward with the 

12 rest of the residual time?

13 That might be something that the 

14 Work Group in fairly short order could decide, 

15 well, is that feasible to split it, how would 

16 you split it, and then would there be 

17 agreement?

18 Because the latter period is kind 

19 of the -- the residual would be more of the 

20 radon issue, perhaps, than the dust issue. 

21 And early on it's a different source term, I 

22 would think.
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1 So, that might be one thing that 

2 at least I would be interested in hearing from 

3 the Committee is to if that's feasible, could 

4 that be done.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie, then Paul, 

6 then Jim.

7 MEMBER BEACH: So, I actually had a 

8 point to make before Dr. Anderson. But to 

9 answer him, I did -- Mike and I talked and 

10 recommended that the SEC be granted for the 

11 residual period -- or the renovation period, 

12 excuse me, from 1954 to 1969.

13 We did not think that after that 

14 it would be acceptable to have an SEC period. 

15 So, that was something I talked about this 

16 morning.

17 The other thing is not to put Bill 

18 on the spot, but he -- just speaking strictly 

19 on the radon, his recommendation, he was 

20 invited because he was an expert in the field 

21 of radiation -- radon. Excuse me.

22 What NIOSH proposed was to use the 
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1 samples from 1946. And I'm pretty sure I 

2 heard Bill say that he didn't feel that could 

3 be bounding, but I'll let him speak to that, 

4 if he would.

5 MEMBER FIELD: One thing I'm sure 

6 about is I don't think the samples can be 

7 bound, from my perspective, based on the 

8 quality of the measurements, that being 

9 unknown, and how well it reflected long-term 

10 average exposures.

11 And I think what you were saying, 

12 Jim, is sort of my feelings as well, is that 

13 it would be very helpful to have more time to 

14 digest some of this.

15 So, it would be interesting to 

16 know where the contamination was on the 

17 surface, if there was gamma measurements 

18 performed on the surface, where the bore 

19 measurements were in relationship to the 

20 various tunnels.

21 I've heard conflicting information 

22 just this morning about different 
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1 concentrations in the various bore holes.

2 So, I did think John's suggestion, 

3 I thought that was -- it was a logical 

4 suggestion. It would be helpful to see that 

5 in writing, because he went through it pretty 

6 quickly this morning, and just to digest that 

7 a bit more also, but I thought that was 

8 something that had merit.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, of course one 

11 of the reasons this has come to this level of 

12 discussion with the Board is because the Work 

13 Group was split on this, but it appeared to me 

14 that there's a lot of new information that 

15 arose over the weekend relative to the 

16 tunnels. And it wasn't clear to me to the 

17 extent to which the Work Group actually has 

18 dealt with that part of it or even the musings 

19 of Dr. Mauro and others over the weekend and 

20 how that plays into it.

21 I was certainly prepared to 

22 support the NIOSH recommendation, except when 
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1 the tunnel information came into the picture. 

2 And actually in writing, what we have from 

3 SC&A is that they don't really have a strong 

4 position on that, but we heard some 

5 conflicting things. And I do not have a good 

6 feel for the extent to which those tunnels are 

7 important or not.

8 Jim, I didn't fully -- it appeared 

9 that you said you were going to have to 

10 consider all radon, not just fractionate it 

11 out.

12 And there were some other issues 

13 that I didn't get a good grasp on, but I guess 

14 personally I would feel uncomfortable voting 

15 on this today.

16 And with all respect to the 

17 petitioners' concerns about dragging this out, 

18 and I do recognize that, but I think in a 

19 certain sense it's unfair if we have new 

20 information, just to say, well, time is up, 

21 we're going to vote and not consider this.

22 It is some information that is 
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1 perhaps important, but I don't know if it's 

2 important at this point.

3 DR. NETON: The only radon that is 

4 required to be considered is AEC-derived --

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I understand 

6 that part, but can we do that?

7 DR. NETON: If the analysis was 

8 based on an in situ measurement in the tunnel, 

9 there's nowhere we could differentiate between 

10 the AEC radon and the natural radon. So, we 

11 would automatically assume it was all AEC12 derived as opposed to a model that could --

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, which changes 

14 the final number.

15 DR. NETON: Actually, interestingly 

16 enough, the model we originally proposed was 

17 about 40 picocuries per liter before we found 

18 this radon in the tunnel issue.

19 I think it was sort of, well, 

20 coincidental. Fortuitous, I guess. I don't 

21 know that we expected that sort of agreement 

22 from a model versus a measured value.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Gen, then Dick 

2 Lemen.

3 MEMBER ROESSLER: It seems like 

4 there are several reasons to put this off a 

5 bit. And I think that we should only maybe 

6 consider doing it for a short time, but I have 

7 a list of papers, references -- well, actually 

8 Steve Ostrow put together in the anticipation 

9 that some of the Board Members would want more 

10 information.

11 I realize that in a short 

12 presentation, we couldn't go over all of the 

13 methodology that NIOSH had proposed, which I 

14 think convinced some of us in the Work Group. 

15 But certainly in a short period of time, you

16 couldn't fully comprehend that. So, I can 

17 provide that list of references.

18 The second thing is, as Paul said, 

19 we were rushed since the Work Group meeting 

20 the other day. We ended sort of uncertain. 

21 As a Work Group, we didn't have time to pull 

22 together all of this.
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1 We do have some new information. 

2 So, my suggestion would be that I think the 

3 Work Group would be willing to do these things 

4 to send out the material to the Board Members 

5 and then to have another meeting and discuss 

6 the new issues, but I don't think we should 

7 delay it beyond the Board's next 

8 teleconference call.

9 I think we should commit to try 

10 and -- if we did delay the vote, to plan to 

11 make the decision then.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just asked Ted 

13 to look up the next meeting, because I don't

14 recall when it is.

15 MEMBER LEMEN: Are you ready for 

16 me?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

18 MEMBER LEMEN: I really feel that 

19 we have enough information to go ahead. I'm 

20 not in favor of accepting NIOSH's proposal. I 

21 am -- from what I've heard this morning, I 

22 think we should go ahead and make a vote and 
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1 go ahead with Wanda's vote.

2 But then if it passes, I guess 

3 there's no need to go to the second one, but 

4 I'm in favor of an SEC for this and I don't 

5 think that additional time is going to change 

6 that information.

7 I'm still concerned about the way 

8 several things have been treated in the dose9 response area. So, I'm just speaking in favor 

10 of going ahead and designating this as an SEC.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else 

12 while Ted struggles to find out when we're 

13 meeting next?

14 MR. KATZ: I've found it. It's 

15 January 12th.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

17 MEMBER LEMEN: That's a telephone 

18 one, though, right?

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I think it 

20 may be possible. I think it's difficult if 

21 there's lots of questions about technical 

22 material, to deal with something like this in 
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1 a conference.

2 I'm willing to try, but I 

3 personally would be reluctant to say that I 

4 would, you know, absolutely not want to go 

5 beyond that teleconference.

6 I just think the nature of a 

7 teleconference and getting everybody and 

8 listening to everybody makes it difficult, but 

9 it may be.

10 It may be that after reviewing the 

11 information -- I do think there's time between 

12 now and January 12th. So, I'm willing to give 

13 it a try.

14 The other concern I would have 

15 would be the question of does the Work Group 

16 need to get together or how are we going to 

17 resolve some of these issues about -- well, I 

18 guess is SC&A going to figure out what they're 

19 proposing?

20 Does the Work Group want to feel 

21 the need to review that or is there some way 

22 of reviewing that information and some of 
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1 these factual issues and getting clarification 

2 on it?

3 There will be a conference call. 

4 I don't think it's insurmountable, but I do 

5 think that would be a prerequisite also.

6 Josie.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Well, out last Work 

8 Group meeting dealt with the radon. The start 

9 of the meeting, we had a proposal from NIOSH 

10 and SC&A. From the paper that we received 

11 prior to the meeting, they were not in 

12 agreement to that proposal.

13 During the Work Group meeting, 

14 they had changed -- well, part of the group 

15 had changed their focus or opinion on it.

16 So, when we left the Work Group, 

17 there was no recommendation that was strictly 

18 on the radon. And then of course John came up 

19 with a new proposal which Bill -- well, I 

20 shouldn't stick it on Bill, but would like to 

21 be explored further.

22 I have to agree with Dr. Lemen 
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1 that I think we should go ahead and go for 

2 this vote. And then if it fails, I'd like to 

3 make another recommendation or proposal.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mike.

5 MEMBER GIBSON: I guess I'd just 

6 like to comment, too, that, you know, we're 

7 two years into this process now in this SEC. 

8 And we keep going out and getting this 

9 information to try to verify some of these 

10 plausible bounds that's been put on this 

11 petition since, I think, November of `08. 

12 And, you know, if we go out and find more 

13 information, are we going to come to an 

14 agreement on it? Do we know that that 

15 information is good?

16 I know the regulations allow for 

17 bounding doses and things like that, but the 

18 regulation also requires for timeliness. And 

19 so when do we -- when do we give just dues to 

20 these claimants and look at the timeliness 

21 issue and weigh that just as heavily as some 

22 of this other data that may or may not be out 
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1 there somewhere?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just add 

3 aside from that, I think what at least some of 

4 the Board Members are saying is that, yes, 

5 you've been working through this issue for 

6 quite a while. The rest of us are unfamiliar 

7 with it. And it's very hard in a short period 

8 of time, to become familiar enough to reach a 

9 judgment, and especially when the Work Group 

10 is split on this.

11 And I think what we're talking 

12 about is not to delay this forever, but to our 

13 January conference call. And maybe we can 

14 settle then, maybe we'd have to go to another 

15 meeting, but certainly no -- every intent to 

16 try to finish it up in January or at the 

17 following meeting, I guess.

18 I don't want to predict how we'll 

19 do it, but, I mean, it is hard to do that and 

20 I'm personally confused in trying to reach 

21 that.

22 And I don't think that -- I think 
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1 we also have to owe the claimants and the 

2 petitioners the right to give our best 

3 judgment. And that's an informed judgment. 

4 It's not a reflex judgment.

5 And I think we, you know, some of 

6 us at least feel we need more time.

7 Paul.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Maybe a good way to 

9 proceed would be for a motion to table to the 

10 next meeting. A non-debatable motion, if it's 

11 seconded.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Are you making 

13 that motion?

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, and I'm making 

15 that motion.

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: I'll second.

17 MEMBER LEMEN: Wait a second. 

18 Point of order. I don't think we can do that. 

19 We already have a motion.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: A motion to table 

21 over -- supersedes an existing motion. It has 

22 the priority and it's a non-debatable motion.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So, we 

2 have a motion to table until the next meeting, 

3 and we have a second to that.

4 Ted, do you want to do roll call 

5 on that?

6 MR. KATZ: Yes. Okay. I'll just 

7 start at the top of the alphabet for this.

8 Dr. Anderson.

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

11 MEMBER BEACH: No.

12 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

15 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Mr. Gibson.

17 MEMBER GIBSON: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon is absent, 

19 which is okay in this case.

20 Dr. Lemen.

21 MEMBER LEMEN: No.

22 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey.
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1 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

7 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley.

9 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. The motion passes 

19 with 13 votes in favor, two opposed and one 

20 member is absent.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Before we 

22 move on to the other petition, let's try to 
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1 decide what we need to do informationally or 

2 otherwise to get ready for the next meeting.

3 I think most of it is we get the 

4 information to all the Board Members so we 

5 have reference and access to all of the 

6 various reports in this area and the SC&A 

7 reviews and so forth.

8 I'll leave it up to the Work Group 

9 to deal with the factual issues that have come 

10 up.

11 I mean, I really think that can be 

12 done with a conference call. Is that fair?

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: I think so.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes, and do 

15 that. And I'll really leave it up to the Work 

16 Group. At least, personally, what I would say 

17 is just decide whether you want to or not 

18 pursue Dr. Mauro's proposal or task him with -

19 - but I'm a little bit -- you'll have it, but 

20 I would also just add that I think we've had 

21 problems before with that kind of a task.

22 If we're going to be bounding, 
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1 that's something that, frankly, that NIOSH 

2 should be doing, not our contractor to do that 

3 and, I think, as it was proposed.

4 So, I would leave it more for 

5 something, you know, maybe John described 

6 something, it's something the Work Group and 

7 NIOSH can talk about.

8 I'm not -- as I said, I have 

9 problems with it, but I was hearing it very 

10 quickly and so forth and I'm not even sure if 

11 it's necessary, but that's really up to the 

12 Work Group to decide and so forth.

13 And then if it did, obviously it 

14 would delay things and I personally have

15 concerns about that also. I'm not sure of 

16 that, but I'll really leave it up to you.

17 Bob, and then Josie.

18 MEMBER PRESLEY: You don't hear me 

19 talk a whole lot, but is it too much to ask --

20 we've got a Work Group that's split. We've 

21 got a Board that's got some questions. John 

22 came up with some very good thoughts. NIOSH 
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1 has got some good thoughts.

2 Is it too much to ask that NIOSH 

3 and SC&A get together and see if they can iron 

4 out some of these problems as experts and then 

5 come back to the Working Group with a 

6 proposal?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's a 

8 possibility. I think we want to do it under 

9 the Work Group's --

10 MEMBER PRESLEY: Auspice.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- auspices. 

12 I'm just not even sure the Work Group wants to 

13 do it.

14 And if we -- this is not something 

15 you can do overnight, I don't think. And so 

16 we're talking about doing this, put kind of an 

17 effort, then we're saying we're going to put 

18 this off for dealing with this.

19 If that's what's necessary for 

20 radon, then I think we're talking about 

21 months. And, really, I think the Work Group 

22 is most familiar with it and I'd almost rather 
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1 see the technical discussion take place with 

2 the Work Group.

3 Josie, you were --

4 MEMBER BEACH: I think I'll just 

5 get with Gen on -- I was hoping that we could 

6 come up with a timeline on the documents also, 

7 but I'll just speak with Gen offline.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, okay. Yes, 

9 Gen and then Jim and then Paul.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: As far as the 

11 timeline on the documents, that's ready to go.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Is it?

13 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes. I mean, 

14 almost ready to go. I can get that out right 

15 away, and I can preface it with a little 

16 guideline as to read this one first, and then 

17 if you need more information.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

19 MEMBER ROESSLER: With regard to 

20 putting this altogether, I kind of don't like 

21 this idea of a two-step process. It seems 

22 like the Work Group almost has to meet two 
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1 times to tell SC&A and NIOSH what to do and 

2 then get together and make a decision.

3 Is that what was being suggested?

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I mean, do 

5 you want to entertain that suggestion, I 

6 guess, is --

7 MEMBER ROESSLER: Oh, no, no. I 

8 don't think we should.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: I was going to 

11 suggest, if we follow through on Bob's idea 

12 that SC&A and NIOSH get together and consider 

13 this new idea, isn't that a technical meeting 

14 and the Work Group can listen in? And after 

15 that, then we have a Work Group meeting.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's fine. 

17 However you want to do it is fine with me. I 

18 just -- Paul. Paul has a better idea.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Not a better idea. 

20 But in the SC&A report, they indicated they 

21 didn't have a position on the tunnels -- or in 

22 the report, the written report. Today, we 
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1 heard that they do have a position.

2 My suggestion is SC&A, if you now 

3 have a position, tell the group what it is. 

4 I'm not asking you to do -- not now, John. 

5 Not now.

6 But if SC&A has an official 

7 position on the tunnels, then that should be 

8 in writing; should it not? And that -- not 

9 that they are suggesting a methodology 

10 necessarily. Although, that might be part of 

11 it or an approach.

12 But it was just the way I 

13 understood what John was saying, we didn't 

14 have a position on the tunnels. Now, we do 

15 and sort of here it is. And then maybe NIOSH 

16 is in a position to respond to that.

17 That's just an idea.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Jim 

19 Lockey.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: (Speaking off mic.)

21 MR. KATZ: Sorry, Jim. Can you 

22 speak into the mic, please?
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1 MEMBER LOCKEY: (Speaking off mic.)

2 MR. KATZ: The mic's not on.

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: -- formally join 

4 our Work Group because, you know, he's the 

5 expert in this area. And I can rely on his 

6 expertise in relationship to what SC&A and 

7 NIOSH may be proposing in relationship to the 

8 tunnels.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Are you ready and 

10 willing?

11 MEMBER FIELD: I defer to the 

12 Chair.

13 (Laughter.)

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: I had thought of 

15 suggesting that earlier and thought that it 

16 might be perceived as a way of breaking the 

17 vote.

18 But I think since Dr. Lockey 

19 mentioned it, I've known Bill for a long time. 

20 He's a very good scientist. And I think he 

21 would make the best scientific decisions. And 

22 I don't think it would be moving in the 
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1 direction -- I mean it would probably break 

2 the tie, but I think it would be based on the 

3 -- a very objective evaluation.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: He'll probably 

5 abstain.

6 (Laughter.)

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I also don't 

8 think we should put too much, you know, 

9 emphasis on, you know, a three-two versus a 

10 two-two. I mean, it's really getting the 

11 views out and I think that -- that's not --

12 shouldn't be a consideration.

13 It's more you're willing to put 

14 the time in at least for that one conference 

15 call and --

16 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. 

18 Consider that done and so forth.

19 Anybody else?

20 MEMBER BEACH: I've got to say one 

21 more thing. Is that on -- I honestly think 

22 that we should go with the documents in hand 
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1 without having SC&A present us another 

2 position on radon. That's just my opinion.

3 And I think that there's enough 

4 been put out to give the Board food for 

5 thought without adding more to it.

6 We went from a model to the -- to 

7 the tunnel, the conveyor tunnel, and now I 

8 just don't think we need to have another 

9 process put in. That's just my opinion.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I think I'd 

11 leave that really to the Work Group to decide 

12 what -- again, I think SC&A provides technical 

13 input. They don't vote on something and like 

14 what you -- at least what I always consider is 

15 not what -- not read their summary or their 

16 bottom line. I read what the reasoning is and 

17 the information. So, to the extent that's 

18 helpful, but it's really for the Work Group to 

19 decide.

20 Okay. And, again, if you are --

21 anybody on the Board who's not on that Work 

22 Group who has questions as they read documents 
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1 and so forth, I'd sort of encourage you to 

2 reach out and -- so, make sure that by the 

3 time we're ready to deal with this again, that 

4 we are fully informed and we're not -- we're 

5 not coming in with a list of another ten or 20 

6 things that need to be done.

7 Maybe that will be it. Maybe that 

8 will be the way people feel. But if it can be 

9 settled between now and the January 12th call, 

10 all to the better.

11 We have another Linde petition. 

12 154. Now, this Evaluation Report has just 

13 been presented, very recently published, and 

14 SC&A has not looked at it.

15 The Work Group has not reviewed 

16 it; is that correct?

17 Have you discussed this at all, 

18 Gen, this report at the Work Group level?

19 MEMBER ROESSLER: No.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Henry.

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: And I would move 

22 we send it to the Committee.
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1 (Laughter.)

2 MEMBER ROESSLER: Thanks, Henry.

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: Well, that's 

4 usually what the SC&A review would be unless 

5 it's --

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I leave it to the 

7 -- actually, I should let Wanda -- I think she 

8 wants to talk, too. But looking at it, a lot 

9 of the issues have been covered, I think. I 

10 can't quite tell.

11 And I think we have things called 

12 focused reviews and maybe that's in order, 

13 maybe it's not, but I think, you know, 

14 certainly the Work Group might want to look it 

15 over and decide what they need information on, 

16 does it need a complete review and is a more 

17 focused review more in order, but however you 

18 want to do it. I mean, I think it's --

19 MEMBER ROESSLER: What would you 

20 expect would be the timeline on it?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You tell us.

22 MEMBER ROESSLER: Well, not by --
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1 not by the January teleconference.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no. No, I 

3 don't think that's feasible or necessarily 

4 appropriate. If you're going to review it, 

5 it's going to take time. But then, again, I 

6 don't -- it may or may not be. I'm not --

7 MEMBER ROESSLER: Why don't we --

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's a 

9 complicated site. And then --

10 MEMBER ROESSLER: Why don't we have 

11 the Work Group discuss what we think we can do 

12 when we're on our teleconference.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: And then we'll 

15 report in January.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good.

17 Is that agreeable to everybody?

18 Wanda, you had your --

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, sure.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Why not?

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Another ringing 
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1 endorsement.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Go right ahead. 

3 Whatever you say.

4 (Laughter.)

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We have 

6 about a few minutes before our discussions on 

7 Hangar 481, but I believe -- is Michele Ortiz 

8 here from Senator Udall's office?

9 Not yet. Okay. I saw her leave 

10 earlier. I don't know if she's coming back. 

11 She wanted to make some comments on a number 

12 of sites.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Jim?

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

15 MEMBER BEACH: I have another on 

16 Simonds Saw.

17 Is it appropriate to discuss 

18 tasking of the ER report to SC&A? We kind of 

19 talked about it yesterday for this -- for the 

20 later period. We voted on the early period.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You mean for the 

22 residual period?
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Okay. 

3 Michele is here. Why don't we take that up in 

4 our Work Group session?

5 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Actually, let me 

7 make a suggestion for you all to think about. 

8 Other than Linde and maybe a few other sites, 

9 I guess recently with Dow we spent time, but 

10 we've not talked in general about the residual 

11 periods. And we've tended not to follow up on 

12 them when we approve an SEC.

13 And I think with our surrogate 

14 data criteria there's some issues that have 

15 come up with those, and I think it may be 

16 worthwhile having -- at least considering 

17 having a general discussion on the residual 

18 period, because I'm not sure it's the most 

19 efficient way is to have SC&A review each one 

20 or Work Group follow up on each one.

21 If we had a sort of better 

22 understanding how NIOSH was approaching them 
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1 in general at sites and where there might be 

2 issues with that, I think it might be helpful 

3 in terms of deciding when to, you know, review 

4 those in more detail or not.

5 I think, I mean, Josie and I 

6 talked yesterday. Certainly the -- some of 

7 the pictures that at least we saw of that 

8 facility and the residual uranium up to the 

9 present time at least in small quantities 

10 throughout the facility, it raises some 

11 issues.

12 Now, it may very well have been 

13 taken into account in the Evaluation Report 

14 and NIOSH's follow-up, but I think we tend not 

15 to necessarily review those in detail. So, 

16 again, I don't think it's always necessary.

17 I think the other issue that, 

18 frankly, comes up with these, is we've tended 

19 to focus on a -- when we grant an SEC, we 

20 don't do a very detailed review on the NIOSH 

21 proposal for handling some of the other 

22 exposures at the site.
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1 I don't have particular problems 

2 with them, but again it's sort of for the 

3 people with the non-SEC cancers that, you 

4 know, it helps them be able to do it.

5 And I think we really just wanted 

6 -- we focus on for the SEC, the exposure that, 

7 you know, leads to the SEC and so forth.

8 And so, sometimes that method 

9 carries over into the residual period. So, I 

10 think it would be helpful for NIOSH to sort of 

11 present how they're approaching these and then 

12 let us think how we could do that.

13 And so one of the meetings coming 

14 up -- but before I commit more time or 

15 anything, let the people think about it and 

16 see what you think.

17 Michele, you've got your thoughts 

18 together?

19 Okay. I'm sorry. We were running 

20 a little ahead of time. So, we were -- I 

21 didn't mean to put you on the spot or drag you 

22 from your --
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1 MS. ORTIZ: That's fine. I'm ready 

2 to go.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. This is 

4 Michele Ortiz from Senator Udall's office who 

5 is someone who has worked on this program for 

6 quite some time. You've been very helpful and 

7 very interested. So, go ahead.

8 MS. ORTIZ: Thank you so much, Dr. 

9 Melius and member of the Advisory Board, for 

10 allowing me to read a statement into the 

11 record.

12 My name is Michele Jacquez-Ortiz, 

13 and I am speaking today as a representative of 

14 United States Senator Tom Udall.

15 As some of you may know, Senator 

16 Udall has a long history with this program. 

17 While serving as a member of the United States 

18 House of Representatives, Tom Udall, along 

19 with his New Mexico colleague Senator Jeff 

20 Bingaman, hosted the first public hearings in 

21 New Mexico on this issue and worked to ensure 

22 that his constituents would be covered as part 
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1 of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

2 Program Act.

3 Senator Udall and his staff have 

4 spent years since the program's inception, 

5 trying to realize justice for these claimants.

6 First, Senator Udall would like to 

7 express his gratitude to the Board for its 

8 decision to host this week's meeting here in 

9 New Mexico so that local claimants have an 

10 opportunity to be here in person and share 

11 public comment.

12 There are three specific SECs that 

13 affect New Mexico claimants that Senator Udall 

14 would like to see addressed.

15 First, yesterday you received a 

16 Work Group report on the SEC petition filed by 

17 [Identifying information redacted]. 

18 [Identifying information redacted] post-1975 

19 LANL SEC petition is of particular interest to 

20 the Senator because it includes many of the 

21 same issues raised in [Identifying information 

22 redacted]'s LANL pre-1975 SEC petition, but 
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1 obviously has the potential to help a larger 

2 number of deserving workers.

3 The Senator felt it was important 

4 to present a statement to the Advisory Board 

5 to stress his strong support of an SEC for the 

6 proposed class of LANL workers in whole or in 

7 part.

8 Second, the Senator would like to 

9 express his support for the Kirtland Air Force 

10 Base Hangar 481 SEC petition that you will 

11 hear about next.

12 You will be hearing the message 

13 from Congressman Martin Heinrich in a few 

14 minutes, but Senator Udall joins Congressman 

15 Heinrich in expressing support for the 

16 Kirtland petition on behalf of the Senator's 

17 Albuquerque constituents.

18 Third, Senator Udall is closely 

19 watching the Sandia National Laboratory SEC 

20 petition that we understand is on hold 

21 awaiting completion of the NIOSH Evaluation 

22 Report. It's this latter issue that the 
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1 Senator would like to flag as a concern.

2 As you know, the law states that 

3 NIOSH has 180 days in which to issue an 

4 Evaluation Report after an SEC petition is 

5 filed.

6 Although the SEC for Sandia 

7 National Lab qualified well past 180 days ago, 

8 NIOSH still has not issued its Evaluation 

9 Report.

10 NIOSH has also missed this 

11 deadline with other SEC petitions, including 

12 LANL's SEC-00109, the [Identifying information 

13 redacted] petition, which was about 60 days 

14 late.

15 In fact, a number of SEC petitions 

16 have been dragging on for several years. 

17 Namely, Savannah River, Fernald, Mound, Pantex 

18 and others with which the Board is certainly 

19 very familiar. At least a couple of these 

20 have been lingering for over five years.

21 The Senator would strongly 

22 encourage the Advisory Board to closely 
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1 examine the issue of deadlines and timelines.

2 The Board should consider the 

3 possibility of developing a policy that 

4 provides for reasonable timelines which would 

5 work to ensure that petitioner's right to a 

6 timely evaluation of their SEC is respected.

7 Several of these petitions, 

8 including LANL's petition, have been 

9 unreasonably drawn out to the point that the 

10 petitioner's right to a timely evaluation has 

11 been compromised.

12 That's certainly not what Congress 

13 intended, and Congress is relying on the 

14 Advisory Board to honor the spirit of the law.

15 Senator Udall would like to 

16 respectfully request that the Advisory Board 

17 consider developing reasonable and objective 

18 timelines that are standardized for all of the 

19 stakeholders involved in the SEC process.

20 This would better prepare 

21 stakeholders and, most importantly, SEC 

22 petitioners so that they know what to expect 
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1 during the process.

2 It was not the intent of Congress 

3 for NIOSH to be allowed to keep re-approaching 

4 the Board with a multitude of creative 

5 explanations and justifications for why an SEC 

6 petition is not necessary.

7 At a point, the discussion must 

8 end and a decision reached based on all the 

9 relevant facts presented by the parties 

10 involved.

11 This is what Congress intended. 

12 And it's not fair for petitioners to face 

13 seemingly arbitrary sets of circumstances and 

14 timelines to complete this process.

15 Senator Udall would also like to 

16 flag the issue of surrogate and substitute 

17 data.

18 There have been many concerns 

19 shared with him about NIOSH's increasingly 

20 frequent use of surrogate and substitute data 

21 and how appropriate these data points are for 

22 this program.
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1 Congress placed within the 

2 Advisory Board's purview the tough job of 

3 evaluating the scientific validity of such 

4 dose-reconstruction practices and 

5 methodologies.

6 The Senator urges the Board to 

7 carefully examine this issue keeping in mind 

8 the spirit of the law and to ask, does the use 

9 of surrogate and substitute data favor 

10 individual dose reconstruction over SEC 

11 approval. How objective or subjective is 

12 surrogate and substitute data? To what extent 

13 is surrogate and substitute data a claimant14 friendly evaluation tool?

15 NIOSH can provide the most 

16 creative, compelling justifications for their 

17 use of substitute and surrogate data in dose 

18 reconstruction. However, it's the Advisory 

19 Board's ultimate responsibility to evaluate it 

20 and decide whether or not it passes the smell 

21 test for each of you.

22 Senator Udall realizes the 
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1 difficult task the Advisory Board has in 

2 considering the complex issues associated with 

3 this program.

4 He understands the hard work and 

5 long hours each of you commit as members of 

6 this important Board, and he thanks you for 

7 your service, for your thoughtful 

8 consideration of these issues that he's 

9 raised, and of course for allowing time on the 

10 agenda for his statement. Thank you.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

12 Okay. We'll now move on to the 

13 481 presentation. I'll remind the Board that 

14 this was initially presented several meetings 

15 ago. Not too long ago, but in the past.

16 At that time, the petitioners had 

17 just received the report and requested more 

18 time so they could gather more information. 

19 They had submitted or were about to submit a 

20 Freedom of Information request for additional 

21 information.

22 So, that was provided to them and 
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1 so we then -- we postponed the -- so, the re2 presentation and further discussion until we -

3 - until they had had time and Ted and others 

4 have been in contact with them.

5 So, that's why we're doing it at 

6 this meeting. And since we're out in Santa 

7 Fe, it was -- thought it was more convenient 

8 also.

9 So, Sam, go ahead.

10 DR. GLOVER: Thank you very much, 

11 Dr. Melius.

12 I realize it's a long presentation 

13 because it was recommended to be denial. I 

14 want to make sure we've covered all the facts.

15 So, I will go through these fairly 

16 quickly. These are slides we have seen 

17 before. So, this is for Hangar 481.

18 Site history. Hangar 481 is 

19 located at Kirtland Air Force Base in 

20 Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ross Aviation, with 

21 operations based at Hangar 481 was under 

22 contractual agreement with the DOE to provide 
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1 air transport of personnel and equipment 

2 associated with DOE operations at the Sandia 

3 National Laboratory in Albuquerque. And also 

4 facilities such as Los Alamos, they certainly 

5 transported other materials.

6 Ross Aviation maintained air 

7 transport services for government-owned 

8 aircraft at government-owned facilities which 

9 included Kirtland Air Force Base, Las Vegas, 

10 Tonopah, Los Alamos and Desert Rock, Nevada.

11 Transported equipment including 

12 packages containing radioactive materials 

13 associated with the atomic bombs program.

14 This is a diagram of Kirtland Air 

15 Force Base. Let's see where we -- I had a 

16 picture of Hangar 481. I don't think it came 

17 through very well. I had it circled on the 

18 original, but it is in the -- it's shown a 

19 little bit better in the list. This is an 

20 updated picture.

21 Anyway, February 27, 2009, 83.13 

22 petition was received. September 8, 2009, 
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1 petition qualified for evaluation. December 

2 18th, 2009, Evaluation Report was issued.

3 In February 2010, Evaluation 

4 Report presented at the Advisory Board 

5 meeting. Delay was requested by the 

6 petitioner, as Dr. Melius said, until the 

7 Freedom of Information Act material could be 

8 provided.

9 In July 2010, the FOIA was 

10 completed by both parties, both Department of 

11 Energy and NIOSH.

12 On September 23rd, 2010, a revised 

13 Evaluation Report was issued with an updated 

14 photo of Hangar 481.

15 The petitioner concerns were lack 

16 of personnel monitoring for certain 

17 individuals who were employed at Hangar 481; a 

18 deceased, former Ross Aviation employee at the 

19 Hangar 481 did not wear dose monitoring 

20 badges, and to the best of his knowledge, 

21 there was no monitoring of any kind at Hangar 

22 481 or adjacent to there; and also shipments 
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1 of substances and items were delivered to the 

2 hangar in guarded shipments from Sandia 

3 National Laboratory and loaded into planes at 

4 Hangar 481 for further delivery by personnel 

5 wearing badges.

6 Submitted a statement from another 

7 Hangar 481 employee who said, I recall that 

8 pilots, flight engineers and flight mechanics 

9 who were present at the time of loading on the 

10 ramps would be wearing radiation dose badges. 

11 I was not required to wear radiation badges 

12 during times that I assisted in loading cargo 

13 into the planes or while cleaning the planes.

14 Evaluated employee, name redacted, 

15 but this person would have been working in the 

16 offices in the hangar building, and, on

17 occasion, when the cargo would have been 

18 loaded into the planes parked on the ramp that 

19 was located near to Ross Aviation hangar.

20 So, the qualification summary, 

21 based on Hangar 481 research and data-capture 

22 efforts, this was a very new site when we 
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1 received this. Essentially, as soon as the 

2 site came in, we received a petition.

3 NIOSH determined that it had 

4 access to summary reports containing personnel 

5 monitoring data for Hangar 481 workers during 

6 the time period under evaluation, as well as 

7 area monitoring, radiological surveys for 

8 radioactive material shipments by planes based 

9 at Hangar 481.

10 NIOSH has identified a lack of 

11 individual dosimetry results for the evaluated 

12 period so that we have summary results, but 

13 not necessarily the individual results.

14 And NIOSH found support for the 

15 petition basis regarding lost or otherwise 

16 unavailable personnel monitoring data.

17 So, the petitioner proposed the 

18 Class, all employees who worked at Hangar 481, 

19 Kirtland Air Force Base from March 1, 1989, 

20 through February 29th, 1996, which is the 

21 covered period.

22 The petitioner-proposed Class was 
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1 evaluated by NIOSH. As I said, the evaluated 

2 Class represents the entire covered period as 

3 determined by the Department of Labor for this 

4 Department of Energy facility.

5 So, available sources of 

6 information. Conducted extensive searches of 

7 DOE databases and internet resources, ORAU 

8 Technical Information Bulletins, procedures 

9 and technical basis documents, Site Profiles, 

10 as well as, of course, Technical Information 

11 Bulletins, TIB-6.

12 We have 194 documents in the NIOSH 

13 research database, case files in the NIOSH 

14 OCAS tracking system, summaries of personnel 

15 radiation exposure during the covered period 

16 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and also 

17 the DOE Occupational Radiation Exposure Report 

18 for 1996.

19 NIOSH also reviewed a DOE document 

20 that provided part of the basis for exempting 

21 Ross Aviation for performing worker internal 

22 exposure monitoring for Hangar 481 activities. 
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1 We reviewed documentation provided by the 

2 petitioner.

3 We interviewed seven individuals. 

4 Some of them more than once. Two current or 

5 former DOE Albuquerque employees, two 

6 individuals with NNSA, three former Ross 

7 Aviation employees, including the former 

8 director of safety and security and the former 

9 general manager and personnel director.

10 When I put these slides together, 

11 we had one claim. We now have two. So, a 

12 second claim was received since I put these 

13 in.

14 So, dose reconstruction completed, 

15 zero. As you can see, it's a very short 

16 slide.

17 So, activities at Hangar 481. 

18 Radioactive materials were transported in 

19 sealed containers in accordance with DOT 

20 requirements.

21 From former Ross employee 

22 accounts, radioactive shipments, loading 
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1 activities took place at specific loading 

2 areas called hot pads that were located at 

3 least 6,000 feet from Hangar 481. Hot pads 

4 are not part of the facility definition. 

5 Cleaning and servicing of unloaded aircraft 

6 took place in Hangar 481.

7 Based on Ross Aviation shipment 

8 records, radioactive material shipments 

9 predominantly consist of tritium, depleted 

10 uranium and mixed fission products.

11 During the majority of the covered 

12 period at the site, aircraft nondestructive 

13 testing was performed in Hangar 481 via x-ray 

14 analysis. This work was documented as being 

15 performed for short durations at night during 

16 off-shift hours. That was confirmed in 

17 interviews.

18 Health Protection Division 

19 appraisal document dated April 1994 states 

20 that the x-ray operations at Hangar 481 had 

21 been curtailed.

22 So, information gained through the 
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1 personal interviews of the former Ross 

2 Aviation safety director sometimes indicated 

3 x-ray testing was outsourced around 1992 or 

4 `93, but he was unsure of the exact date.

5 After that time, x-ray testing was 

6 no longer performed at Hangar 481, but they 

7 were taken to Arizona for testing it off-site.

8 Obviously, only operations 

9 performed at the facility are addressed in 

10 this evaluation.

11 On December 2nd, 1992, 

12 Occupational Safety and Health inspection 

13 report stated, Ross Aviation does not handle, 

14 store or use radioactive materials in the 

15 Albuquerque facilities. There is an x-ray 

16 machine used in one building. Most people 

17 wear external dosimetry support other Ross 

18 Aviation activities including involving 

19 loading and unloading aircraft, as well as 

20 flight operations.

21 December 2nd, 1992 report also 

22 states they used a Baltograph IV x-ray unit 
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1 and control console. This unit is operated 

2 for nondestructive testing approximately ten 

3 minutes per month. There are only two 

4 qualified operators who are the only current 

5 radiological workers at Ross Aviation.

6 Inspection records, operator 

7 training records and device records were 

8 inspected and no discrepancies noted.

9 Ross external dosimetry program is 

10 contracted through Eberline as a DOE 

11 laboratory-accredited program. The highest 

12 recorded exposure for 1999 was approximately 

13 45 millirem. No discrepancies were identified 

14 in the dosimetry records from Eberline to 

15 Ross.

16 Furthermore, on August 7th, 1997, 

17 the Transportation Safety Division of the 

18 DOE's Albuquerque Operations Office issued the 

19 technical basis for radioactive material 

20 intake potential regarding activities 

21 performed by Ross Aviation at Hangar 481.

22 They concluded based on the TSD 
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1 Special Agent tasks, no contact with package 

2 contents, operational history with 

3 confirmatory surveys showing no package breach 

4 or leakage and the DOT-compliant shipping 

5 packages and programs, the document concluded 

6 there was no credible path for an intake of 

7 radioactive materials during normal 

8 operations.

9 Because Kirtland Air Force Base

10 and Hangar 481 are directly adjacent to the 

11 Sandia National Laboratory, it is conceivable 

12 internal dose to individuals working at Hangar 

13 481 could have occurred from ambient 

14 environmental sources at Sandia-Albuquerque 

15 moving across the site boundary.

16 Based on available information on 

17 the radiological program and potential for 

18 internal exposure sources, NIOSH concludes 

19 that internal radiological exposures to Ross 

20 Aviation employees resulting from services 

21 rendered for the DOE at Hangar 481 are 

22 unlikely to have occurred.
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1 Radioactive materials handled by 

2 workers at Hangar 481 were in sealed DOT3 compliant containers monitored in accordance 

4 with DOT regulations that verify radiation 

5 contamination on package exteriors. Results 

6 of available radiological surveys performed on 

7 the packages and in the transport aircraft 

8 support this.

9 So, we did review documents from 

10 NTS, I looked at documents from Sandia, so 

11 that they do support that they were surveyed 

12 and it did support this premise.

13 External radiological exposures to 

14 employees at Hangar 481 occurred as a result 

15 of handling packages containing radioactive 

16 materials. Those radioactive materials emit 

17 photons and particle radiation, gamma and 

18 beta.

19 However, since the materials were 

20 in a sealed package, photon radiation would be 

21 the dominant external source.

22 Nondestructive testing was 
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1 performed at Hangar 481. And this work was 

2 details being performed at night for 

3 approximately ten minutes per month. And 

4 those individuals were badged.

5 In a personal interview, a former 

6 Ross Aviation safety director stated the names 

7 of two individuals involved in x-ray 

8 activities at Hangar 481. The names provided 

9 are listed in the personnel monitoring summary 

10 data available to NIOSH.

11 Therefore, NIOSH concludes that 

12 the personal dose from these operations would 

13 be accounted for in the personnel exposure 

14 summary data available to NIOSH.

15 According to available radioactive 

16 material shipping documents associated with 

17 Hangar 481, the principal photon-emitting 

18 radioactive materials were predominantly 

19 depleted uranium and mixed fission products.

20 Photon exposure from depleted 

21 uranium are primarily from thorium-234 

22 daughter of uranium-238.
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1 Photon exposures were also 

2 possible from radioactive shipments containing 

3 mixed fission products. Shipping documents 

4 indicate that such shipments consist of 

5 samples taken from the weapons test tunnels.

6 Nondestructive x-ray testing was 

7 performed. So, therefore, of course, serves 

8 as potential external source of exposure. 

9 This work was performed during the evening 

10 shifts by trained radiological workers.

11 Bremsstrahlung effects could also 

12 be considered as a photon source, but are 

13 accounted for in the exposure summary data.

14 Due to the fact that the 

15 radioactive materials were transported in 

16 sealed DOT-compliant containers, beta exposure 

17 was not likely.

18 However, as recorded in the 

19 personnel dosimetry data, some shallow 

20 exposures to either beta or non-penetrating 

21 photon did occur. So, we'll account for those 

22 in the exposure assessments.
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1 Neutron generators were frequently 

2 transported by aircraft in Hangar 481. These 

3 devices emit neutron radiation only when 

4 powered and energized.

5 Since these devices were only 

6 being transported, neutron exposure was not 

7 feasible.

8 This statement is backed up by 

9 neutron monitoring data which indicated no 

10 positive neutron doses were ever recorded for 

11 any individual at Hangar 481. Based on this 

12 information, neutron exposure was not 

13 considered as a factor.

14 Incidents. The petitioner did not 

15 file a claim on the basis of exposure 

16 incidents and did not indicate knowledge of 

17 any having occurred at Hangar 481.

18 The former director of Safety and 

19 Security at Ross stated there were no 

20 incidents involved radioactive material 

21 shipments at Ross that he was aware of.

22 A NIOSH review of all Ross 
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1 Aviation/Hangar 481 documents contained in the 

2 SRDB has found no information regarding any 

3 radiological incidents.

4 Therefore, incidents were not 

5 considered -- were not considered a factor for 

6 this site. They were obviously considered, 

7 but not considered a factor.

8 External dosimetry monitoring 

9 practices. Interviews indicated that those 

10 with the highest exposure potential were 

11 monitored. Mechanics, pilots, those involved 

12 with handling or securing packages.

13 Nondestructive x-ray testing on 

14 night shift was also a source of external 

15 dose, and they were badged.

16 TLDs were issued and exchanged 

17 quarterly with shallow and deep dose. In 

18 1996, activities had ceased. So, no 

19 monitoring was required.

20 Area monitoring surveys for 

21 contamination, area monitoring focused on 

22 surveys for contamination areas where it was 
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1 possible for contamination to spread.

2 The available area monitoring data 

3 support that there was no spread of 

4 contamination.

5 These data also provide 

6 information about the program and plane 

7 conditions.

8 The annual summary data for Ross 

9 Aviation, you can see for the period from `89 

10 to `96, you have about a little under a 

11 hundred being monitored. It dips down `92, 

12 `93. It was higher `89 and `90.

13 You see the highest of maximum 

14 doses is somewhere in the 70, 80, 90 dose. 90 

15 millirem. Actually, that's the maximum 

16 individual shallow dose.

17 Maximum individual deep dose, 172 

18 in 1994. You see the total person, you know, 

19 we're talking about 200 millirem for all the 

20 people who were monitored.

21 Eberline provided external badge 

22 services. Records of external dose for 
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1 individuals have not been obtained. Annual 

2 summaries of external dose are available and 

3 will be used to bound dose when individual 

4 records are not available.

5 NIOSH will use the highest 

6 recorded annual dose for all years during the 

7 covered period for all individuals. It's a 

8 deep dose of 172 millirem per year, and a 

9 shallow dose of 89 millirem per year, 

10 including for the partial year 1996.

11 This measured dose would include 

12 ambient dose. No additional environmental 

13 external dose would be assigned.

14 The dose estimate will be used to 

15 evaluate the partial year 1996 even though the 

16 activity had ended and no exposure to 

17 radioactive material was expected.

18 Dose would be bounded by assuming 

19 the medical dose, annual x-ray examinations 

20 using standard NIOSH methods, TIB-6.

21 Internal dose. Based on the 

22 findings provided in the Evaluation Report, 
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1 NIOSH has concluded there is no potential for 

2 internal dose from the facility.

3 Proximity to Sandia National 

4 Laboratory suggests that ambient internal dose 

5 be evaluated using the information in Sandia 

6 Site Profile for environmental.

7 So, this is just a brief sample 

8 dose reconstruction for a nondestructive 

9 testing technician who worked the entire time 

10 frame. Again, this is just a hypothetical 

11 case and claimant-favorable assumptions using 

12 the assumptions that we've provided: hundred 

13 percent anterior to posterior, the claimant14 favorable energy distribution on the photons -

15 - let's see.

16 So, this is what we came up with: 

17 External dose of 1.8 rem. Skin BCC would have 

18 about 2.7 because of the shallow dose. 

19 Probability of Causation for the lung cancer 

20 would be ten percent. Three percent for 

21 prostate. And the BCC was 14 percent. And if 

22 you had all three cancers, the total PoC for 
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1 all three would be about 26 percent.

2 So, NIOSH evaluated the petition 

3 using the guidelines of 83.13 and submits its 

4 findings that was issued on December 18th, 

5 2009.

6 Of course the two-prong test, is 

7 it feasible to estimate the level of dose to 

8 individuals of the Class with sufficient 

9 accuracy?

10 NIOSH found that the available 

11 monitoring records, process descriptions and 

12 source-term data are adequate to complete dose 

13 reconstructions with sufficient accuracy for 

14 the evaluated Class of employees. Therefore, 

15 health endangerment is not required.

16 This is the summary of our 

17 feasibility. For internal dose 

18 reconstruction, only environmental. External, 

19 gamma/photon, beta. Neutron is not 

20 applicable. And occupational-medical x-rays 

21 all as feasible.

22 Thank you.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Board 

2 Members have questions for Sam?

3 Don't run away, Sam.

4 Paul.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Sam, the medical x6 rays were actually done in Hangar 481?

7 DR. GLOVER: As I reread that, that 

8 sort of flies in the face of what we just said 

9 for science.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: That was the reason 

11 for my question.

12 DR. GLOVER: Yes, I would have to 

13 discuss that with my -- but that was when we 

14 wrote that --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: So --

16 DR. GLOVER: Unfortunately, I did 

17 use -- presented essentially the same what I 

18 had before. This is what the ER said.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: It wouldn't change 

20 your conclusion.

21 DR. GLOVER: No.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: I was just 
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1 questioning whether you would actually include 

2 medical x-ray in this case.

3 DR. GLOVER: We certainly don't 

4 have documentation that -- we have -- we 

5 didn't go out of our way to evaluate that, 

6 but, yes.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Other 

8 Board Members with -- yeah, Bob.

9 MEMBER PRESLEY: Do you have 

10 records showing the dose of medical x-rays?

11 DR. GLOVER: No, I think what his -

12 - regarding the medical x-rays that he was 

13 talking about, that Paul was mentioning, are 

14 the x-rays from the x-ray unit that was -- it 

15 was used for nondestructive testing on the 

16 planes.

17 MEMBER PRESLEY: That's exactly 

18 what I mean. It was not used for medical x19 rays. It was used for nondestructive testing 

20 --

21 MR. KATZ: Bob, please use the 

22 microphone.
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1 MEMBER PRESLEY: What?

2 MR. KATZ: Please use the 

3 microphone when you speak, because it can't be 

4 picked up by the transcription.

5 MEMBER PRESLEY: Because it was 

6 used for nondestructive testing on certain 

7 weld areas on that airplane and other 

8 airplanes that Ross used.

9 DR. GLOVER: Yes, sir. I think 

10 Paul caught me on a thing that -- a new change 

11 in our program about x-rays being conducted 

12 on-site. And I said we would use TIB-6.

13 In the event that an x-ray was 

14 conducted at a different facility outside of 

15 the covered facility, I would have to talk to 

16 my colleague, Jim Neton, and verify, but I 

17 don't believe that would be a covered 

18 exposure.

19 So, my use of TIB-6 is what --

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. And it 

21 would be surprising for them to use the 

22 radiographs for -- I wasn't even thinking 
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1 about that. I just wondered if they had a 

2 medical x-ray on the site.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, David.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Thank you. It 

5 was a nice presentation. It's a nice write-up 

6 of the report. I just have two questions for 

7 clarification.

8 One is I was wondering why the 

9 shallow dose exceeds the deep dose here.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Exceeds what? I 

11 didn't hear the question.

12 DR. GLOVER: In an exposure 

13 assessment, that deep dose is going to be 

14 attenuated. So, for BCC you get a higher --

15 based on our assumptions where we use the 

16 organ factor, the actual depth within -- how 

17 much dose is actually received by the organ.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So, the values 

19 of these tables you take the maximum value.

20 DR. GLOVER: So, that's your 

21 exposure. But as it penetrates the body, you 

22 know, it would be attenuated and you would see 
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1 -- you may not get, you know, the rem --

2 here's the entrance dose. But as you get into 

3 different parts of your organ, you're actually 

4 -- that organ is going to see a different 

5 dose.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And the other 

7 one was you described - I mean, it made sense 

8 to me you were describing that you confirmed 

9 that there was no neutron dose based on 

10 dosimetry information.

11 I was wondering, I mean, they 

12 weren't routinely badging people for neutrons. 

13 So, what was the basis for that?

14 DR. GLOVER: We reported in the 

15 base year that there was a TLD exchange. I 

16 have to -- it's been a while. So, I re17 reviewed that part.

18 There was no credible real source 

19 as a neutron. The neutron generators weren't 

20 on.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, right.

22 DR. GLOVER: I have to -- let's 
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1 see. We cite that the dosimetry information 

2 didn't support -- I'd have to review that 

3 again, but I don't think there's any credible 

4 mechanism for neutron dose.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Anybody 

6 else with Board Members?

7 If not, we'd like to hear from the 

8 petitioners that are here. Welcome. Want to 

9 step up to the mic and however you want to --

10 or to the lectern. Either one is fine.

11 MR. ARMIJO: It will take me a few 

12 minutes to get my things out, if that's all 

13 right. I don't have an actual PowerPoint 

14 presentation. However, I have some talking 

15 points and some things that I think we need to 

16 bring to the attention of this Board.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Go ahead.

18 MR. ARMIJO: My name is Robert 

19 Armijo. I'm an attorney here in the State of 

20 New Mexico.

21 Standing beside me is my client 

22 [Identifying information redacted] whose 
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1 [Identifying information redacted] worked for 

2 nine years at Ross Aviation at the Hangar 481 

3 building. He is the petitioner for the SEC 

4 petition in this case.

5 Also standing beside me is a

6 former pilot with Ross Aviation, [Identifying 

7 information redacted]. She has provided us 

8 with a great deal of information that I think 

9 would be most pertinent to the considerations 

10 of this Board.

11 We very much appreciate this Board 

12 being here in New Mexico and giving us an 

13 opportunity to present our information to you.

14 We're not here really to attack 

15 the science of the dose reconstruction. 

16 Rather, we're here to attack some of the 

17 underlying data that has been relied upon for 

18 the development of the scientific data, and we 

19 believe that the evidence that we have located 

20 would demonstrate that there are some flaws.

21 With all due respect and not to 

22 disparage anyone on this Commission, but there 
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1 are some flaws in the reasoning that have 

2 cropped in here.

3 We would wholeheartedly support 

4 the position stated by the congressional staff 

5 as far as the use of secondary or alternative 

6 means of evidence.

7 And one of the points in this case 

8 that I'll get to in just a bit, is that it 

9 appears that the actual data of what these TLD 

10 badges showed has never come to light.

11 One of the unsworn interviews 

12 conducted by Mr. Glover, who has conducted a 

13 good investigation in this case, reports that 

14 the Ross Aviation or personnel who came later, 

15 shredded information concerning the dose data.

16 So, although we might have 

17 summaries, unaudited, unsworn secondary 

18 evidence, that direct evidence is no longer 

19 available.

20 Also, Mr. Glover learned and 

21 pointed out to this Board that the actual TLD 

22 data that was supposed to be maintained by 
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1 Eberline, has never been produced in spite of 

2 the length of time that this petition has been 

3 pending.

4 And because of that failure to 

5 produce that information, Mr. Glover and those 

6 that conducted the scientific evaluation had 

7 to use unaudited, unsworn, secondary evidence 

8 instead of looking at the best evidence of 

9 whatever that data may have been.

10 At this point, it appears that for 

11 the 481 hangar, we simply don't have -- we 

12 just don't have the data information that may 

13 have existed from those that were badged.

14 Personnel in the hangar were not 

15 badged. Flight personnel were badged. The 

16 lady standing beside me who was a pilot, was 

17 badged, and she has prepared an affidavit 

18 stating that she was never told what those 

19 badges showed.

20 Now, we have the secondary, 

21 unsworn, unaudited information suggesting 

22 everything is fine. But as of today, we do 
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1 not have those TLD badges to know what they 

2 actually showed.

3 [Identifying information 

4 redacted], the petitioner, contends that his 

5 SEC petition should be approved because it is 

6 not feasible to estimate with sufficient 

7 accuracy radiation doses for employees of Ross 

8 Aviation, including his late wife [Identifying 

9 information redacted] who worked at its 

10 facilities, including Hangar 481.

11 [Identifying information redacted]

12 contends that NIOSH must determine that there 

13 is a reasonable likelihood that radiation 

14 doses of Ross Aviation personnel who fit the 

15 definition of the Class in this case, may have 

16 endangered the health of members of the Class.

17 [Identifying information redacted]

18 recognizes that NIOSH dose reconstructions 

19 under the EEOICPA, that's the Energy Employees 

20 Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, 

21 are performed using methods promulgated under 

22 the federal regulations, specifically 42 CFR 
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1 Part 82, and the detailed implementation 

2 guidelines that are available online.

3 However, he contends that there is 

4 not sufficient data available to allow NIOSH 

5 to perform dose reconstructions under those 

6 provisions.

7 Now, the regulations 42 CFR 

8 Section 83.13(c)(1) states that radiation 

9 doses can be estimated with sufficient 

10 accuracy if NIOSH has established that it has 

11 access to sufficient information to estimate 

12 the maximum radiation dose for every type of 

13 cancer for which radiation doses are 

14 constructed that should have been incurred in 

15 plausible circumstances by any member of the 

16 Class, or if NIOSH has established that it has 

17 access to sufficient information to estimate 

18 the radiation doses of members of the Class 

19 more precisely than an estimate of the maximum 

20 radiation dose. That's basically, as I 

21 understand it, what the law requires.

22 The flaw in this case is we don't 
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1 have the raw data. It is not available. It 

2 has not been produced. And we're using 

3 unaudited information which is not the best 

4 evidence. And that evidence is then being 

5 presented as a reason to deny the SEC Class 

6 certification.

7 [Identifying information redacted]

8 bases his position on the following 

9 circumstances: number 1, Mr. Glover who has 

10 been very helpful to us as we have continued 

11 this matter -- and I might add if I can 

12 digress for a moment, right now this petition 

13 covers the period of 1989 through 1994.

14 Mr. Glover discovered the 

15 existence of contracts all the way back to 

16 1970 that I'm holding in my hand here.

17 Interestingly, when Mr. Glover 

18 sent this information to the U.S. Department 

19 of Labor with the suggestion that the term of 

20 coverage for Ross Aviation's Hangar 481 

21 facility be extended back to 1970, he was told 

22 that it wasn't his job to do that and that the 
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1 Labor Department wouldn't do that.

2 That's my job, as I've learned. 

3 And we are going to turn this information in 

4 to the Labor Department with the express hope 

5 that we will be able to extend this period 

6 from 1989 back to 1970.

7 But even without that, we would 

8 contend that this petition should be approved 

9 in the present manner because of the other 

10 circumstances I'm going to present.

11 Mr. Glover reported to me as early 

12 as late summer, that approximately 4,000 pages 

13 of additional documents in the possession of 

14 Sandia National Labs have been recently 

15 located and have yet to be analyzed.

16 Petitioner has requested these 

17 materials. We have requested them by a 

18 Freedom of Information request most recently 

19 submitted to NIOSH. And at this date, the 

20 information has not been analyzed by NIOSH. 

21 And, furthermore, has not been produced.

22 We don't like the idea of having 
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1 to continue to delay this process because we 

2 believe the petition should be granted, but 

3 there simply is more data that has not yet 

4 been brought to bear. And without that data, 

5 I don't see how the science can come to an 

6 adequate conclusion.

7 Number 2, petitioner has learned 

8 as more fully addressed in an affidavit --

9 now, this is an affidavit that we have from 

10 the former worker that I'll be talking about 

11 in just a moment.

12 It's not just unsworn telephone 

13 interview information. This is an affidavit 

14 from a former worker.

15 And one of the things that is 

16 going to be presented in that affidavit, and I 

17 would plan to give it to Mr. Glover, turn it 

18 in so that this can be evaluated appropriately 

19 and subjected to a litmus test of accuracy, is 

20 that the radioactive shipments from Sandia 

21 Labs were regularly delivered to Ross 

22 Aviation's Hangar 481 premises to be loaded 
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1 and stored on airplanes.

2 This is specifically contrary to 

3 the unsworn telephone information given to Mr. 

4 Glover that the radiation materials were 

5 instead loaded on the airplanes at these hot 

6 pad locations at some great distance from the 

7 hangar and away from other things.

8 In fact, the hot pads were used 

9 for loading of Class C and Class A explosives, 

10 as they should have been, but the affidavit 

11 indicates that the Class B radioactive 

12 materials were instead delivered to the hangar 

13 building just as was pointed out from one of 

14 the people that expressed where those loadings 

15 took place in our initial petition.

16 And that was the regular practice 

17 for the loading of these materials that came 

18 from Sandia National Labs, many times with 

19 guarded shipments, many times with personnel 

20 who were suited in delivering these containers 

21 to the Hangar 481 facility to be loaded.

22 So, if the premise upon which the 
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1 science is based is that the loadings and 

2 deliveries of these things took place at the 

3 hot pads, we would dispute that fact.

4 And that's a fundamental fact. 

5 It's mentioned in the report. And we would 

6 submit that that is something that needs to be 

7 looked at more deeply and subjected to a 

8 litmus test of accuracy rather than a 

9 telephone interview of a former worker.

10 Number 3, the petitioner has 

11 learned as more fully addressed in this 

12 affidavit, that radioactive shipments from 

13 Sandia National Labs were regularly delivered 

14 to Ross Aviation Hangar 481 in containers 

15 identified as AL-R8 containers.

16 Now, the documents we have 

17 discovered would suggest that these AL-R8 

18 containers were discovered in approximately 

19 1991 not to be adequate to shield the 

20 contents, and yet these containers were 

21 apparently, in the belief of [Identifying 

22 information redacted], regularly delivered.
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1 And she has in her affidavit, 

2 indicated that she believes in looking at the 

3 photos of these, that they indeed were the 

4 containers that were used up to that time and 

5 continued to be used after that time.

6 So, I think there is a second 

7 serious flaw in the evidence that would need 

8 to be looked at.

9 One of the premises for this 

10 petition is that the materials were shielded 

11 in containers. Well, and we're not disputing 

12 that the shielding might have stopped the 

13 particles, the alpha and beta-type stuff, but 

14 apparently the gammas and other types of 

15 radiations were not adequately shielded and 

16 that these materials then would have been in 

17 containers.

18 And if there's assumption that the 

19 containers were protective, our position is 

20 that that would not be the case.

21 Now, I realize there may be 

22 secondary sources that a person can consult, 
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1 but it also comes back to the question that we 

2 don't have the actual badges.

3 The next point and the next reason 

4 we offer is that to date, NIOSH, and I've 

5 mentioned this before, has not been able to 

6 obtain primary source data of dosimetry 

7 readings, because the raw data collected by 

8 Eberline has yet to be produced. Yet to be 

9 produced.

10 About a year and a half this has 

11 been going on. Perhaps longer. It's yet to 

12 be produced, and all we have is summary data, 

13 secondary data.

14 So, I would submit that the --

15 it's not the science that we're challenging. 

16 It's the evidence. It's the data upon which 

17 that science is being applied.

18 Next, since radioactive material 

19 was regularly delivered to Hangar 481 site to 

20 be loaded on planes at that location and since 

21 containers holding such materials may have 

22 been inadequate to shield against leaks of 
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1 radiation, the methodology assigning ambient 

2 external dose data to Ross Aviation personnel, 

3 including [Identifying information redacted], 

4 cannot be viewed as sufficient to 

5 appropriately bound any potential internal 

6 dose for Hangar 481 Class as contemplated by 

7 Section 2.7.2.2 of the Evaluation Summary 

8 Report.

9 Basically as I understand it, the 

10 bounding is done by looking at generally 

11 Sandia National Labs located some distance 

12 away from Hangar 481, and figuring out what 

13 that ambient dosage would be, and then trying 

14 to apply that dosage of what a person at 

15 Hangar 481 might have been expected to 

16 receive.

17 Well, if the containers that were 

18 delivered to the Hangar, in fact, were 

19 delivered there, if those containers were, in 

20 fact, inadequate to provide appropriate 

21 shielding, then I would challenge the use of 

22 the ambient data from Sandia and would instead 
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1 urge that we should have the raw data, the 

2 actual badges of those people who were badged 

3 around that Hangar 481, as the basis to 

4 determine if you can truly bound the radiation 

5 of the people working at that location.

6 Next, additional personnel of Ross 

7 Aviation have been located having relevant 

8 data that undermines the reliability of the 

9 fundamental assumptions on which the 

10 Evaluation Report was based.

11 We have interviewed additional 

12 people. These are unsworn statements. 

13 However, one of the statements has indicated 

14 that these barrels at times, and it may have 

15 been nuclear waste, were actually stacked when 

16 she would arrive at work. And those barrels 

17 would be waiting there to be loaded on the 

18 planes.

19 Now, I'm not aware of any sweeps 

20 that were done of the Hangar building or the 

21 adjacent areas where these barrels may have 

22 been stacked. And, again, we've got to 
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1 subject that evidence to the litmus test of 

2 accuracy.

3 Another piece of information we 

4 have and the person that indicated this 

5 information to me, indicated he would be 

6 willing to be interviewed, and I would 

7 encourage him to be interviewed again to 

8 respect the accuracy of the information, was 

9 that he -- I won't use gender -- but that this 

10 person as a pilot, was rather cavalier in his 

11 beliefs as far as what radiation may be as far 

12 as being harmful. And on occasion, would 

13 leave his dose badge in his locker in Hangar 

14 481.

15 And this individual reports that 

16 on one of the occasions that he left his dose 

17 badge in his locker inside Hangar 481 for the 

18 quarter of when it was supposed to be turned 

19 in, that he was told later that it was 

20 surprisingly high in its reading.

21 And his response was, well, I 

22 wasn't even wearing it and I left it in my 
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1 locker.

2 Now, that may or may not be 

3 accurate information, but I certainly think, 

4 and we have the information to provide an 

5 interview of that person to again determine 

6 the accuracy, that is another piece of 

7 information that needs to be evaluated before 

8 the science can be looked at.

9 So, we believe that there is 

10 indeed additional evidence that needs to be 

11 brought to bear. We believe that the evidence 

12 developed to date simply is not the core best 

13 evidence to use to suggest that this petition 

14 be denied.

15 And true enough there may be 

16 secondary sources of information, those may be 

17 very scientifically good, but they're not the 

18 best evidence. And in this instance, we would 

19 contend that this petition should not be 

20 denied.

21 The recommendation should not be 

22 for denial. If anything, it should be for 
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1 approval. And if it can't be approved, there 

2 is a wealth of additional information that has 

3 not been tapped that should be tapped quickly.

4 And on behalf of the Class, we 

5 would urge this petition be carried forward 

6 with additional investigations if it cannot be 

7 approved right now.

8 Now, I have in my possession the 

9 affidavit. I can deliver it to Mr. Glover 

10 today.

11 Attached to it are documents to 

12 support many of the things I've said which 

13 again can be reviewed to make sure that I'm 

14 not exaggerating or misstating anything.

15 I'm an attorney; I'm not a 

16 scientist. I don't claim to have the answers, 

17 but I do know that there are people that had 

18 cancer who worked at this location. And I do 

19 know that there were radioactive materials 

20 that this outfit processed through 

21 transportation, and this outfit had contracts 

22 that bring it within the scope of coverage 
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1 under the EEOICPA.

2 I stand ready for questions and 

3 ready to deliver the materials I have to Mr. 

4 Glover.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you.

6 Paul, I believe, has some 

7 questions.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, thank you very 

9 much for your presentation.

10 MR. ARMIJO: Yes.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm trying to 

12 understand a little more about the Eberline 

13 TLD data, and maybe either you or Sam can 

14 answer.

15 The dose summary that is in the 

16 report, what's the basis for that?

17 It sounded like we're saying or 

18 that the concern was that the original 

19 Eberline data is not available or what was the 

20 point?

21 DR. GLOVER: That is correct. 

22 Those are summary tables that were reported to 
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1 the Department of Energy or the NRC. And so, 

2 they summarized the total exposure at the 

3 facility. And what the highest dose was, we 

4 do not -- and that was the basis that we 

5 approved review of the Evaluation Report to be 

6 conducted was that the original data was not 

7 there.

8 So, we have summary information, 

9 but the actual records, the individual records 

10 are not present.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: And Eberline does 

12 not have an archive of -- they're obviously 

13 not going to have the TLD badges. You don't 

14 save those like you would a film badge.

15 So, what are we looking for at 

16 Eberline?

17 DR. GLOVER: That would be the 

18 summary --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: The readouts from 

20 the TLDs?

21 DR. GLOVER: We have had no luck in 

22 getting any additional records for the actual 
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1 individual personnel. That's why we're using 

2 the maximum at the site. That's why we've had 

3 to go to that, because we don't know who that 

4 -- the maximum person is.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But what do you 

6 mean by no luck? I guess I don't understand.

7 DR. GLOVER: I'm sorry.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What do you mean 

9 by no luck?

10 DR. GLOVER: Well, we haven't -- we 

11 have tried to find the original records. We 

12 have not had any success in getting the 

13 individual readings for these personnel.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, Eberline says 

15 that they don't have them or are they not 

16 cooperating?

17 I guess I'm not -- I mean, if you 

18 don't --

19 DR. GLOVER: I just -- maybe Stu 

20 can recall.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we talked 

22 about this a little bit the last --
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't actually --

2 I don't recall ever asking Landauer, to be 

3 honest with you.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, this is 

5 Eberline.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Eberline. That's 

7 what I meant. Eberline.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, Eberline. I 

10 don't recall ever asking Eberline, no, if they 

11 had them.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, can I add 

14 something?

15 If you look at Page 21 of 51 of 

16 the Evaluation Report, it says NIOSH is 

17 working with Landauer to obtain from Eberline 

18 the raw data represented in the summary 

19 reports.

20 So, that's why you remember 

21 Landauer.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, okay. Okay. 
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1 Paul has some other --

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I was just 

3 trying to get a handle on that because there's 

4 some related things.

5 Was this a licensed facility or is 

6 this just a transportation thing where you 

7 don't need a license for transportation 

8 transfers like FedEx can handle radioactive 

9 shipments.

10 Was there a license and then 

11 inspections at this Ross Aviation -- or at 

12 this facility, this Hangar?

13 They were obviously submitting 

14 reports to NRC annually. That's where these 

15 numbers come from, as I understand it.

16 DR. GLOVER: Right. That is 

17 correct.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, if they're 

19 doing that, they must be a licensee?

20 DR. GLOVER: I'd have to go back to 

21 the report, Paul.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Because what I'm 
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1 wondering is typically there would be, 

2 independent of this, annual inspections that -

3 - the real dose of record, legally, is not 

4 what is at Eberline or Landauer.

5 The dose of record that the NRC 

6 recognizes is the number that is provided to 

7 the licensee. That's what the NRC uses.

8 So, I'm just trying to get a feel 

9 for what it is we need to look for here if 

10 this is a real issue and, you know, there's no 

11 reason to think the NRC thought that these 

12 were fictitious numbers, I gather.

13 I mean, the NRC or the -- yes, the 

14 NRC apparently has accepted these numbers as 

15 their dose of record, which has a certain 

16 legal foundation.

17 MEMBER POSTON: But, Paul, remember 

18 that during this period they were only 

19 required to submit the summary data. They 

20 were not required to submit the individual 

21 data.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, that's why I 
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1 was asking you about inspections, because an 

2 inspector would typically look at the annual 

3 readings and they would have to match up with 

4 what was being submitted.

5 MEMBER POSTON: Didn't change until 

6 about 1994.

7 DR. GLOVER: As you saw, there were 

8 some reports about the inspections about how 

9 they looked at the Eberline data and compared 

10 it with what the summary was.

11 They didn't find any discrepancies 

12 between what Eberline had and the -- so, there 

13 were inspections. In some of those reports 

14 that I've listed there, we have some of that 

15 back and forth that they evaluated the records 

16 and didn't find any discrepancies.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. See, I think 

18 that's important --

19 DR. GLOVER: Yes.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- from a legal 

21 point of view. If the NRC has audited those 

22 numbers, I just simply make that point.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Brad.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Sam, I guess I'm 

3 looking for a little history of what these 

4 planes were for.

5 Are these the same planes that 

6 were supposed to be going to Pantex?

7 DR. GLOVER: These would be like 

8 going to NTS, taking the shot samples back and 

9 forth. That would be correct.

10 MEMBER CLAWSON: And also Pantex?

11 DR. GLOVER: Yes, they'd go to 

12 Pantex. I believe it was discussed at the 

13 Pantex. They'd also transport personnel to 

14 different facilities. That's correct.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Because of 

16 our interviews that we had here a couple weeks 

17 ago that the individual explained about 

18 traveling with -- I just wanted you to 

19 remember what he had told us about that and 

20 what they had to start doing.

21 I just --

22 DR. GLOVER: I would point out that 
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1 things that occur on an airplane aren't part 

2 of the covered facility. It's only while 

3 they're at Hangar 481 that that's a covered 

4 exposure. And we are including the badged 

5 pilots as part of this.

6 And so even though their exposure 

7 likely occurred off-site, we're including that 

8 within the --

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: So, this is kind 

10 of a traveling --

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it's tricky. 

12 That's for sure.

13 DR. GLOVER: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We also 

15 have Miguel Negrete from Representative

16 Heinrich's office who I believe is on the 

17 phone.

18 MR. NEGRETE: Yes.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, Miguel. Go 

20 ahead and make some comments.

21 MR. NEGRETE: Well, my name is 

22 Miguel Negrete and I'm a constituent liaison 
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1 for Congressman Martin Heinrich. And the 

2 Congressman asked me just to make a brief 

3 statement on his behalf since I could not 

4 attend the event or -- and he is in 

5 Washington.

6 But on behalf of Congressman 

7 Heinrich, I just wanted to say I would like to 

8 take this opportunity to express my support 

9 for the Hangar 481 petition.

10 I feel that it is important that 

11 the Advisory Board take into consideration the 

12 information being presented and the stories 

13 that are being shared.

14 I'd also like to thank the Board 

15 for hosting this meeting here in New Mexico so 

16 that the affected claimants have an 

17 opportunity to personally interact and 

18 participate in the meeting.

19 I understand and recognize the 

20 hard work it takes the members of this Board 

21 to fully consider each petition presented. 

22 This is not an easy task but one I know you 
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1 take seriously.

2 I am hopeful for a positive 

3 outcome on behalf of the petitioners, and 

4 again I thank you for your time and 

5 consideration.

6 Martin Heinrich, member of 

7 Congress, First Congressional District of New 

8 Mexico.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you 

10 very much.

11 MR. NEGRETE: You're welcome. 

12 Thank you.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Board Members 

14 have questions or comments?

15 You can sit down now. You don't 

16 need to stand there. Do others want to make 

17 comments? I'm sorry.

18 MR. ARMIJO: I believe that Ms. 

19 Torza might wish to make a comment.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, yes, you're 

21 welcome to. I'm sorry. I didn't - 

22 MS. GALLAGHER TORZA: Yes, I 
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1 wouldn't even really know where to begin. I 

2 have so many comments.

3 But one thing that just struck me 

4 that somebody mentioned, was the fact that the 

5 airplanes are not covered under the covered 

6 facility.

7 However, I have had cancer and a 

8 thyroid tumor removed just a couple of months 

9 ago, and so I'm in the process.

10 And Department of Labor stated to 

11 me after I sent all kinds of information to 

12 them in Seattle of what we actually did, you 

13 know, what Ross Aviation was all about.

14 We had a hangar for the Department 

15 of Energy. We had Department of Energy-owned 

16 aircraft that we devoted a hundred percent to 

17 the Department of Energy and transportation of 

18 weapons and weapon components, nuclear 

19 materials and personnel as well.

20 Why the airplanes would not be 

21 under that covered facility, what is the 

22 purpose of having a hangar, you know?
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1 We had that hangar for DOE, and we 

2 had those airplanes for DOE, and we 

3 transported whatever they needed to wherever 

4 we needed to go.

5 So, I am concerned when I hear 

6 that the airplanes aren't part of the covered 

7 facility.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I believe that's 

9 a legal determination. I don't know if 

10 anybody can shed light on it that -- or wants 

11 to. Okay.

12 MS. GALLAGHER TORZA: And I guess 

13 it's in he process of Department of Labor.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: It's an outcome of 

15 the specific language in the statute. 

16 Specific language in the statute is to 

17 reconstruct the dose that occurred at the 

18 covered facility.

19 And the covered facilities are 

20 defined not as, you know, there are no mobile 

21 sources in the time that's covered.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bob, then Brad.
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1 MEMBER PRESLEY: As I remembered, 

2 probably 99 percent of the atoms moved by Ross 

3 Aviation were classified.

4 That meant that that stuff was 

5 brought on a special truck by special people 

6 to a special area, put on the planes, flown to 

7 their destination and were picked up by 

8 people, special people, special vehicles, 

9 taken wherever they needed to go.

10 We did not store that type of 

11 packages just anywhere overnight. And I don't 

12 -- I was never at Hangar 481, but you might be 

13 able to tell me if there was a secure storage 

14 site at that area.

15 MR. ARMIJO: Not to my knowledge.

16 MEMBER PRESLEY: Then that's -- go 

17 ahead.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Brad.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: I understand that 

20 the -- I'm trying to really get my hands 

21 around this. Because to me, this had actually 

22 looked like an extension of the facility 
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1 because this was loaded.

2 And if it's not, then we really --

3 boy, we've screwed up looking at this because 

4 I really have -- I'm just really having a hard 

5 time getting my hands around it.

6 I understand that this Class is 

7 just for the Hangar, but that product and so 

8 forth was only in there for a little bit. And 

9 the rest of the time for this company, it was 

10 flying in the air.

11 And I understand what Stu's 

12 saying. I'm just really having a hard time 

13 getting my hands around that.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda. 

15 MEMBER MUNN: I was just going to 

16 comment that there were four planes minimum. 

17 Four planes indicated in the accounts that we 

18 have.

19 And the material that was 

20 indicated as being most common was tritium, 

21 depleted uranium and mixed fission products, 

22 all of which were in containers that were DOT-
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1 approved.

2 It would be interesting to know 

3 the background of the information that the 

4 attorney just mentioned with respect to the 

5 1991 findings on the container.

6 But this is a DOL issue, is it 

7 not, with respect to coverage of the facility 

8 and whether or not the planes -- is that not 

9 correct? It's DOL's purview?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it is.

11 So, our focus is on what is the 

12 covered facility and what is in the report and 

13 so forth.

14 Paul, you have comments or 

15 suggestions?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, my question 

17 was with relation to the AL-R8 containers.

18 Is this new information as far as 

19 NIOSH is concerned?

20 It seemed like there may have been 

21 a number of points that perhaps need 

22 additional look by NIOSH. I wasn't clear 
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1 whether this is new information to NIOSH or 

2 not.

3 DR. GLOVER: I don't think we ever 

4 tried to really look at, you know, his 

5 contention was that it didn't block all of the 

6 gamma, and we don't try to say that it does 

7 block all the external dosimetry, you know.

8 People did get -- we're assigning 

9 external dose. These weren't necessarily 

10 heavily shielded packages. We're just 

11 contending that --

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: You're not actually 

13 modeling from the containers or the 

14 transportation index values. You're using the 

15 personnel monitoring data.

16 So, in principal, if the 

17 monitoring data is reliable, then it doesn't 

18 matter what the adequacy of the shielding is 

19 as far as the DOT regs are concerned.

20 DR. GLOVER: Yes, sir.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Is that correct?

22 DR. GLOVER: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, my sense 

2 is that the petitioners had brought some new 

3 information forward. It's not been evaluated 

4 yet. It needs to be evaluated and that it 

5 appears to contradict some of the information 

6 that NIOSH relied on in their Evaluation 

7 Report.

8 To what extent it will do so, you 

9 know, ultimately after review we don't know, 

10 but I think -- again, personally I think the 

11 petitioners deserve some review of that 

12 information given that.

13 And, really, NIOSH hasn't had time 

14 to and I don't think we should -- it's 

15 difficult for us here to try to tell how 

16 important it is or not.

17 So, my recommendation was that we 

18 refer back to NIOSH for some follow-up on this 

19 information and presentation at the next Board 

20 meeting.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: I second that.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What?
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1 MEMBER CLAWSON: I second that. 

2 I'm just looking at maybe if this was put 

3 together wrong, if we found more information, 

4 which we're going to have to find out like 

5 that you've said that goes back further and 

6 may have to reevaluate how this was worded, I 

7 guess.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It could. And 

9 there's some covered-period issues, but that's 

10 really up to DOL. And they have a process for 

11 doing that and we don't know the timing on 

12 that. And I don't think we can -- should 

13 necessarily wait or -- but I think we have 

14 some new information. Let's have NIOSH 

15 evaluate it and do -- they may need to do 

16 further interviews and further data gathering.

17 I think they're just hearing this 

18 for the first time, if I'm correct, Sam?

19 DR. GLOVER: That's correct.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yeah, and I think 

21 that's the fair thing to do.

22 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I just have a 
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1 comment to make about the time period. I flew 

2 on the Ross a number of times and that was all 

3 before 1989.

4 So, you know, and everybody in 

5 town knew the schedule. You knew when it was 

6 going to land, you knew when it was going to 

7 take off. It was pretty much you could set 

8 your clock by it.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Just one point of 

10 clarification on the additional years and 

11 additional contracts.

12 We provided at least some of those 

13 quite some time ago to the Department of 

14 Labor. And the determination is based in part 

15 on the nature of the contract whether it's an 

16 M&O contract, an integrating contract. That 

17 was sort of the basis for the determination 

18 that was made at the time.

19 I can't swear that we've sent all 

20 of these. So, we can certainly do that.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Yes, let's 

22 follow up and let's see how that process goes.
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1 MR. ARMIJO: We have that letter 

2 from Labor and it appears to be -- I have a 

3 copy here. It doesn't seem to mention the 

4 type of contract, but rather just other 

5 issues.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

7 MR. ARMIJO: And I have a copy I 

8 can share with NIOSH.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you.

10 Yes, Dave.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Just a 

12 question.

13 If we are going to allow NIOSH to 

14 go back and take more time to consider this, 

15 do we want them to, if they haven't made a 

16 request to Eberline/Landauer for the data, is 

17 that something that would be useful at this 

18 point or, Paul, were you arguing that the NRC 

19 REIRS data would be in its aggregate form?

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: To me, if the NRC 

21 inspectors have compared the annual reports 

22 which they used against that data which was 
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1 present on the site, I would accept that as 

2 having strong legal foundation. But, again, 

3 I'm not an attorney either.

4 Obviously, if the Eberline data is 

5 available, that would be great. It seems to 

6 me it would be very difficult and you'd have 

7 to have a great scheme between the regulatory 

8 agency and these folks to falsify this and 

9 what would be the point?

10 These are not high doses to start 

11 with. So -- unless there were some and 

12 someone was covering it, you know.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: So, Jim, do we 

15 need to make a motion to have NIOSH -- or just 

16 --

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think we do it 

18 by consent and I think NIOSH agrees.

19 Is that a fair statement, Stu?

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Sorry. I got 

21 caught having a sidebar conversation.

22 What was the question?
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You're 

2 comfortable with us referring it back to you?

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. For 

5 follow-up. Good. Thank you very much to the 

6 petitioners and everybody for coming here and 

7 for providing this information.

8 And if you can get the information 

9 to NIOSH, we appreciate it.

10 MR. ARMIJO: Thank you very much 

11 for having us out today.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. We will 

13 obviously keep you informed about the process 

14 and what goes on from here.

15 MR. ARMIJO: Thank you, sir.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

17 Since we're already into the 

18 public comment period and we have people 

19 waiting, it's hard to go back.

20 I will face all your wrath and 

21 comments and complaints and just charge ahead. 

22 You are all -- Board Members, others are 
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1 welcome to take a personal break during this 

2 process.

3 Our court reporter and I have an 

4 agreement that should a break be necessary, he 

5 will inform me.

6 If everyone can get seated now and 

7 we will get started. Board Members who stayed 

8 at the table are welcome to another cookie 

9 before anybody else gets back.

10 Okay. We have some people on the 

11 line. So, we need quiet in the room, please. 

12 That includes you, Dr. Wade and Dr. Neton.

13 No, you can leave. Just I was 

14 requesting quiet.

15 DR. KATZ: So, before we get 

16 started with public comments, let me just 

17 remind people in the room, as well as on the 

18 line who are prepared to give public comments, 

19 that this session, as all of the Board 

20 meeting, is transcribed verbatim.

21 So, your comments will be 

22 transcribed verbatim and will be published as 
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1 all of the Board meeting transcripts are 

2 published on the NIOSH website.

3 So, anything you say will be 

4 captured completely and reported there, your 

5 name and any personal information.

6 If you discuss, however, another 

7 party, a second party, that information that's 

8 private for that person will be redacted from 

9 the transcript.

10 So, the full instructions about 

11 this, the full rules about redactions from the 

12 transcript are out on the table outside. And 

13 for people remote from here, they're also on 

14 the NIOSH website under the Board section of 

15 the NIOSH website, but that captures it pretty 

16 simply.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Go ahead. 

18 And our first person, we actually -- my 

19 fault. We neglected to give time for one of 

20 the Linde petitioners earlier.

21 And so, I believe she's on the 

22 line.
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1 MS. LUX: Yes, I am.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

3 MS. LUX: Okay. My name is Linda 

4 Lux. I am a petitioner for the SEC-00107 

5 Linde Ceramics.

6 And what I wanted to say was in 

7 2001 when my [Identifying information 

8 redacted] and I first submitted the Energy 

9 Employees Occupational Illness claim regarding 

10 my father's cancer and untimely death, we 

11 worked from very vague Union Carbide 

12 employment records.

13 We were only provided proof for 15 

14 years of my father's work at a listed site 

15 although we knew he worked many more at the 

16 Linde site in Tonawanda, New York.

17 We were told by the Union Carbide 

18 retirees, which is now Dow Chemical, that the 

19 records had been destroyed. Apparently, they 

20 had been stored in a salt mine and over the 

21 years became unreadable.

22 It is hard to believe that records 
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1 placed in storage for self-keeping would be 

2 put in a salt mine, but we worked with what we 

3 had from employment records and submitted the 

4 claim.

5 Putting together a medical record 

6 history was time-consuming and very difficult. 

7 I naively thought someone was going to 

8 actually read through the medical records I 

9 had been asked to provide.

10 I thought the type of cancer my 

11 father had had which was a listed cancer, and 

12 the risk factors associated with it, would be 

13 looked at and compared to radiation and toxins 

14 that were associated with the Linde site.

15 I pointed out to NIOSH and 

16 Department of Labor that in my father's 

17 medical records from 1997, the doctor noted a 

18 statement my father had made that he worked in 

19 extreme dusty conditions for a two-year period 

20 of time.

21 My father worked as a computer 

22 programmer and a systems analyst in the 
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1 computer department. So, dusty conditions 

2 would not be normal for his type of work.

3 My father is not alive today to 

4 speak for himself and tell us what time period 

5 he was talking about, but I would think that 

6 supposedly claimant-favorable programs would 

7 have at least acknowledged this as a possible 

8 exposure my father may have had.

9 I also pointed out that in the 

10 descriptions of Linde buildings in SC&A's July 

11 14th, 2006 report on Page 109, it says the 

12 southwest corner of the Linde site also 

13 referred to as the Tonawanda Laboratory, 

14 including Building 11. And it shows Building 

15 11 was remodeled in the late 1960s to create 

16 an office area and computer room. And then 

17 later again to remove the computer room.

18 It has been stated by workers that 

19 very often they were required to work in the 

20 buildings while they were being renovated.

21 I do remember my father coming 

22 home from work very dirty and an odor on him 
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1 in the late 1960s. And I stated this to the 

2 Department of Labor phone interviewer back in 

3 2001.

4 This would be the same interview 

5 NIOSH claims it listens to before they issue 

6 the recommended decision.

7 I later stated to NIOSH my concern 

8 over the imbedded toxins that would have been 

9 released into the air from the contaminated 

10 buildings being remodeled and how it made 

11 sense as to why my father was so dirty after 

12 working in that time period.

13 According to the workers who have 

14 given comments, many buildings were remodeled 

15 from the 1950s right through the 1990s. But 

16 my concerns over the construction seem to have 

17 fallen on deaf ears because the latest dose 

18 amounts given to my father equaled a less than 

19 five percent chance that his work location 

20 caused this cancer.

21 Less than five percent for a 

22 worker that had two listed cancers at 59 years 
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1 old and had worked more than 15 years at a 

2 listed site.

3 Both types of cancer my father had 

4 were in the bone marrow. Cancer research 

5 shows that bone marrow is one of the first 

6 places a radiation-induced cancer will show 

7 up.

8 Office workers are being ignored 

9 in these dose reconstructions by only giving 

10 them five percent as compared to a 95 percent 

11 for other positions.

12 Even with the new dose numbers 

13 that NIOSH is proposing, it would be 

14 impossible for an office worker to qualify for 

15 compensation. Yet, many officer workers did 

16 get cancer.

17 In the Worker Outreach meeting for 

18 the Linde workers, SC&A stated on Page 120 of 

19 126, that eight office workers in Building 

20 Number 100 were all diagnosed with cancer at 

21 the same time.

22 Just like Building 11, Building 
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1 100 was also in the Tonawanda Laboratory on 

2 the southwest corner of the site. This could 

3 not be a coincidence.

4 Just simply assigning a worker a 

5 job category that ranges in dose amounts for 

6 five percent for office workers to 95 percent 

7 for production workers and how many years they 

8 worked at the site, does not give a true or 

9 fair estimate of what they were exposed to.

10 There are workers at the Linde 

11 site that have gotten sick in unnatural 

12 numbers in all job categories all over the 

13 site.

14 And with the amount of toxins that 

15 were stored in the properties, poured into the 

16 wells and the sewer systems, dumped and buried 

17 in the soil and then unearthed again during 

18 construction and demolition projects, has 

19 resulted in contamination and hot spots all 

20 over the Linde site, and even in the lake 

21 across the street and on land that I believe 

22 Union Carbide eventually purchased.
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1 It is startlingly disturbing that 

2 the unique underground tunnel system that 

3 connected most of these buildings together and 

4 used by employees to get from building to 

5 building during inclement weather, was not 

6 only constructed in contaminated soil, but 

7 also allowed the contaminated drainage to seep 

8 into the tunnel itself.

9 Like other workers, I raised this 

10 issue about workers being exposed in the 

11 tunnels during a Department of Labor hearing 

12 in 2008.

13 Each and every Linde worker in all 

14 job categories were unknowingly put in harm's 

15 way every single day just by simply going to 

16 work, and many lost their lives because of it.

17 I hope you will consider my 

18 statement in your review of facts for the 

19 Linde SEC petition, and thank you for letting 

20 me make my statement.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, Linda. 

22 Appreciate that.
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1 The next person I have listed, 

2 Antoinette.

3 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do you wish to 

5 make another --

6 MS. BONSIGNORE: Can you hear me?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I can. Yes.

8 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. Thank you, 

9 Dr. Melius, and the Board.

10 I would just like to get a little 

11 clarification for myself and the other 

12 petitioners and Linda who just spoke, about 

13 what happened today regarding the Board's 

14 refusal to take a vote on Linde SEC-107.

15 Specifically, I feel as though all 

16 of the issues that I raised today in my 

17 presentation and all of the issues that 

18 Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand raised 

19 in their letter to the Board that was read 

20 into the record today, were essentially 

21 ignored.

22 And I would really appreciate it 
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1 right now that there be some clarification, 

2 explanation as to why the Board feels that 

3 this petition should be kicked down the road 

4 for another two months, another three months, 

5 another four months.

6 It just does not make any sense to 

7 me when the issue that's the sticking point 

8 here is the tunnel issue and NIOSH has known 

9 about the tunnel issue since July of 2006.

10 I don't understand why NIOSH is 

11 being given such leeway to continue to 

12 evaluate this issue when they've known about 

13 it since July of 2006.

14 The fact that they never took any 

15 -- made any efforts to address the issue in 

16 any of the Site Profiles that they revised 

17 after that point or in the Evaluation Report 

18 that they issued in November of 2008, should 

19 not be an excuse for their -- to further 

20 penalize the workers who deserve to have a

21 vote on this petition.

22 And I'm just really very shocked 
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1 and disappointed that a decision was made so 

2 swiftly without any real explanation.

3 And when I asked for an 

4 explanation about an hour and a half ago, I 

5 really wasn't even -- I was barely 

6 acknowledged.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I would 

8 think -- I don't recall you asking for an 

9 explanation, but we have your comments. And I 

10 think we discussed at length among the Board 

11 for a period of time, why we decided to put it 

12 off.

13 And I don't think we can repeat 

14 that all here, but -- so, we understand your 

15 comment and we have it now. Thank you.

16 MS. BONSIGNORE: Well, I'm sorry, 

17 Dr. Melius, but I did ask for an explanation 

18 and no one actually responded to me. And I 

19 think that Linda is on the line right now --

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, this is a 

21 public comment period and we have your 

22 comment.
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1 As I said, we gave a lengthy 

2 discussion and I really don't think it's 

3 appropriate when other people are waiting to 

4 make comments, to repeat all those reasons.

5 MS. BONSIGNORE: All right.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We made a 

7 determination and we record that you are 

8 disappointed with that.

9 MS. BONSIGNORE: All right. Thank 

10 you very much then.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

12 Andrew. Andrew? Okay.

13 MR. EVASKOVICH: My name is Andrew 

14 Evaskovich. I'm the LANL petitioner. I spoke 

15 to you last night. I'd like to thank you for 

16 this opportunity to speak again tonight.

17 Really, I just signed up because I 

18 was wondering, you know, because occasionally 

19 issues come up that sometimes need to be 

20 addressed. And that's what happened today.

21 And these are more overarching 

22 issues as opposed to dealing with LANL itself. 
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1 And it deals with this bioassay data, or the 

2 lack of it, and the procedures that NIOSH 

3 wants to implement in order to accomplish dose 

4 reconstruction.

5 Now, I understand today that 

6 currently the Board does not really wish to 

7 develop a process to evaluate or deal with 

8 issues, that you're going to let the 

9 individual Work Groups work on these issues 

10 and maybe use them as examples later on.

11 But I think as we were talking 

12 about or you were talking about transparency 

13 today dealing with these issues, it does 

14 affect the public's view of the issues.

15 And I think you do eventually do 

16 need to come up with some process to look at 

17 these for the way that you evaluate the 

18 information so that we, as the public, have 

19 some sort of a guideline as to what you are 

20 doing in your work procedures.

21 I don't know, you know. The thing 

22 that came to mind to me was, like, developing 
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1 a list of questions or a flow chart that you 

2 would follow so that we could look at this and 

3 have an idea what your work processes are 

4 going to be to understand your thought 

5 formations or anticipate questions that you 

6 might be asking in order to gain information 

7 in order to make the best decision that you 

8 could.

9 Another issue I have is with the 

10 actual data. We're going to be going back to 

11 LANL. This is LANL particular.

12 An individual that I talked to 

13 today, he was unable to speak tonight about 

14 this. It deals with the FMU system that was 

15 developed at LANL for dealing with maintenance 

16 projects. And he said that there was a work 

17 ticket that HPs, the health physicist had to 

18 sign off on. And he -- the data was disposed 

19 of because they changed the maintenance system 

20 at Los Alamos. And I guess it was 

21 centralized. And they decentralized it and 

22 assigned it to the individual technical areas.
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1 And this data that he kept or was 

2 responsible for, the laboratory disposed of 

3 it. So, I think there is an issue of lost 

4 data.

5 And basically I have a question 

6 that is he wanted to submit his comments in 

7 writing. Will that need to be in an affidavit 

8 form or a letter to the Board?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It does not need 

10 to be an affidavit, but a letter submitting --

11 however he wants to submit them is fine. It 

12 doesn't need to be a formal affidavit.

13 A letter -- or some people just 

14 give us a typed page or a written page. 

15 Whatever is fine.

16 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, I wasn't 

17 sure because we, you know, I submitted 

18 affidavits with the petition process and --

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, that's a 

20 good question. That's a fair question, but it 

21 does not need to be an affidavit. I don't 

22 believe we've ever required that.
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1 MR. EVASKOVICH: And you guys of 

2 course would share that with NIOSH?

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes.

4 MR. EVASKOVICH: All right. Well, 

5 that's all I have right now. I appreciate 

6 this opportunity. And, like I said, thank you 

7 for coming to New Mexico and listening to us 

8 and our concerns.

9 We're very grateful that the Board 

10 did come to New Mexico, and we hope that the 

11 hospitality here at Santa Fe exceeded your 

12 expectations. Thank you.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: One thought I 

14 had, and, I mean, I appreciate your point 

15 about the -- it's helpful for a petitioner to 

16 understand what the criteria are to be used.

17 And I don't think as we talked 

18 today, we're ready for that yet or ready to 

19 have something regarding that.

20 But one thing that might be useful 

21 to you and it is -- I think both Jim Neton and 

22 Joe Fitzgerald presented the types of things 
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1 that would be considered in there.

2 And I don't think there's any 

3 reason those PowerPoint slides and so forth 

4 couldn't be shared with you if that would be 

5 helpful to you.

6 I'm not sure to what extent 

7 they're usually available. I don't think we 

8 usually do, but --

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, those are on the 

10 table.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: They're on the 

12 table. Okay. Then those might be helpful at 

13 least in the short term and so forth.

14 MR. EVASKOVICH: Oh, yeah. And 

15 that's why it was in my discussion with Joe 

16 trying to get some clarification, and that 

17 helped.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

19 MR. EVASKOVICH: And I'd also like 

20 to thank Jim Neton. I did talk to him this 

21 afternoon after that presentation and I got 

22 some clarification. And I believe that NIOSH 
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1 is -- well, the way he expressed himself, I 

2 believe that they re going to actively pursue 

3 the questions that I had and I've presented in 

4 the Work Group and here at the Board meeting.

5 So, I'd like to thank Jim Neton 

6 and NIOSH for their responsiveness to the 

7 issues that I have raised. And I am grateful 

8 for the work that NIOSH does.

9 I think I fail to thank them for 

10 the hard work that they put in, as you guys 

11 do. And I think people fail to recognize that 

12 sometimes because it's sometimes adversarial 

13 as far as the way this procedure works and 

14 unfortunately I guess debates devolve into 

15 that.

16 But I am grateful to the work that 

17 everybody does that's in this group and we are 

18 -- and I'd like to say thank you to everybody.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you, 

20 Andrew.

21 Okay. William Wanger.

22 MR. WANGER: You'll have to excuse 
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1 me. Rigor mortis kind of sets in when I sit 

2 too long.

3 I'm William E. Wanger from 

4 Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm a retired 

5 journeyman machinist from Sandia National Labs 

6 formerly of ACF Industries prior to that.

7 I have a little joke you might be 

8 interested in hearing since everybody had sort 

9 of a straight face here for a while.

10 The big animals and the little 

11 animals were having a football game. The 

12 little animals were getting shellacked in the 

13 first half.

14 The second half came up and the 

15 elephant had the ball and started running, and 

16 he was tackled.

17 And the squirrel who was the 

18 captain of the little animals says, who did 

19 that? Who did that? The centipede said, I 

20 did that.

21 And so the next one, the 

22 hippopotamus ran with the ball, and he got 
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1 nailed. And the little squirrel says who did 

2 that? Who did that? The centipede said, I 

3 did that.

4 And he says, well, he says, where 

5 were you during the first half? He says, 

6 putting on my shoes.

7 (Laughter.)

8 MR. WANGER: And I'm glad to see 

9 that all of you guys, all the Board Members, 

10 ladies and gentlemen, have your shoes on for 

11 the second half.

12 I have a little letter to read 

13 here, a statement. I'm also retired 

14 representative of the Local 1689 International 

15 Association of Machinists. None paid. I have 

16 two meetings a month. One in Berlin, one in 

17 Albuquerque. And I attempt to help retirees. 

18 And I'm not paid. I'm just passing on 

19 information to them and trying to help them 

20 out when they have concerns.

21 Okay. My letter states, to whom 

22 it may concern. Remember possible radiation 
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1 exposure that was undocumented. I worked for 

2 ACF Industries known as South Albuquerque 

3 Works, from October of `62 until April of `67. 

4 At this plant, there was a lot of 

5 undocumented possible radiation exposure 

6 areas, as well as many other hazardous 

7 material exposures.

8 I worked for Sandia National 

9 Laboratory from April 1997 until October 3rd, 

10 1999.

11 In the early years, I worked a lot 

12 of time, 1970 to `72, in four buildings north 

13 of 840 to include the plastic shop and three 

14 Quonset hut-type buildings.

15 In the middle 1990s, all these 

16 buildings were torn down, the earth removed to 

17 a depth of ten feet or so from where they 

18 stood and the area was blocked off with 

19 radiation signs.

20 It is said that one radioactive 

21 bolt was found, and I question whether that's 

22 the whole story.
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1 The area remained so until about 

2 the year 2000 when some buildings in the area 

3 was allowed. Hence, it is possible that many 

4 workers were exposed unknowingly to radiation 

5 of some kind at some point. No documentation 

6 of radiation exists, as I am told.

7 Another instance was in 1967 when 

8 I was a newly hired machinist apprentice. 

9 Some old machinists kept uranium round bars in 

10 their toolboxes.

11 Now, whether it was depleted or 

12 enriched uranium, I couldn't tell you. They 

13 thought it was great fun to come up behind an 

14 apprentice and hit the bar with a hammer 

15 causing sparks and a loud noise and scare 

16 them.

17 This happened to me on several 

18 occasions during `67. This was also known to

19 happen at the ACF Industries location. When 

20 it no longer bothered me, it stopped.

21 No one knew where they came to 

22 have the uranium bars in their toolboxes. 
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1 These machinists are long dead and gone. So, 

2 they were old in `67.

3 Over the years at Sandia, 

4 especially in the earlier years, I worked with 

5 and around radiation. Sometimes I had a 

6 radiation monitor badge, and sometimes not.

7 Uranium and other radioactive 

8 machining was done in various shops long 

9 before the toxic shop was established.

10 This shop, once established, was 

11 to machine toxic and radioactive material in 

12 one location.

13 It was eventually closed and the 

14 work sent to Los Alamos due to the hazards 

15 involved, as well as other problems.

16 Some areas had radioactive 

17 material in cabinets at various locations at 

18 Sandia. As to what kind of radioactive 

19 material, I really don't know, but I saw many 

20 of the signs and handled some of the material.

21 The ones I handled was depleted 

22 uranium, as far as I know. That's what they 
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1 told me anyway.

2 It is possible that there were a 

3 lot of workers exposed knowingly and 

4 unknowingly to radioactive material, as well 

5 as other hazardous material.

6 Monitoring for the most part, was 

7 not very good in the early years. I am sure 

8 that not many paper records can be found about 

9 much what happened in the early years.

10 Much of this could be attributed 

11 to workers not being properly informed of the 

12 hazards involved. Also, many hazards were 

13 unknown in the early years.

14 ES&H was not big at Sandia until 

15 the Tiger Team came to inspect sometime in the 

16 1980s.

17 Some offices were installed in 

18 buildings that once held research labs where 

19 radioactive materials were handled, and 

20 undocumented various spills occurred.

21 One of the greatest problems with 

22 the Energy Employees Compensation Act is 
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1 survivors' claims. Widows and/or other 

2 survivors of deceased former employees have a 

3 very hard time to establish exposure to 

4 possible hazardous and radioactive materials 

5 of the deceased person. This is also true for 

6 living former workers.

7 In my own opinion, I saw many 

8 instances that are probably classified which I 

9 cannot relate in the material, throughout my 

10 32 years there and five years almost at ACF.

11 The workers who died -- the 

12 survivors that are left, I have tried to get 

13 them to file claims for the survivors. I have 

14 tried to get the living workers to file claims 

15 with the Department of Labor. Some of them 

16 have. Some of them don't want to fool with 

17 it.

18 Widows have a terrible time 

19 especially when they're old and the workers 

20 never discussed their job at home.

21 In the old days, we done the job 

22 regardless -- or irregardless of any kind of 
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1 safety monitoring or anything like that that 

2 was in existence. That was always an 

3 afterthought.

4 Paul Ziemer over here hit the nail 

5 on the head when he said he had -- the 

6 implementation was a great problem. And I 

7 felt a bit inspired when he said that, because 

8 there were safety procedures in place had they 

9 been used and had data, been acted upon after 

10 that.

11 I do believe that many people from 

12 Sandia worked on Los Alamos projects with the 

13 radiation. I understand that Los Alamos has a 

14 cohort. I would ask for you guys to consider 

15 that perhaps Sandia workers that have 

16 radiation-induced sicknesses could be added to 

17 the cohort at Los Alamos since while I was 

18 there, Los Alamos people came down, had us do 

19 work, we had them do work at ACF. We had 

20 Sandia people, engineers come down and we did 

21 work for them unknowing what it was or 

22 anything like that.
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1 In the old days, it was get the 

2 job done. It was our patriotic duty to do 

3 whatever it was that had to be done regardless 

4 of the cost.

5 Many of my friends over the years 

6 have died early deaths with horrible illnesses 

7 that may have been induced by hazardous 

8 exposure to material. Radiation could have 

9 been possible for many of the things.

10 In one area, all the grinders --

11 we had a separate grinding shop at Sandia. 

12 All of them died from cancer, and all had the 

13 same cancer. Lung cancer. Now, that's very 

14 strange for all of them to die from that, you 

15 have to admit.

16 And I'm glad to see that all you 

17 gentlemen are concerned over the current 

18 workers, as well as the past 20 years or so. 

19 Like I say, I've been retired for over 11 

20 years now. I'm not in the game anymore, but 

21 I'm still fighting for the rights of the 

22 deceased, the dead, the sick and the ill.
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1 And those have gone before me I 

2 have great respect for because I have known 

3 many of them and they were great heroes.

4 If anybody deserves the Medal of 

5 Valor, the Medal of Honor, it would be some of 

6 them because there are people I have 

7 interviewed -- I work part time for Johns 

8 Hopkins University interviewing retirees. And 

9 you might not be amazed, but you might be, of 

10 the sicknesses and illnesses that these old 

11 gentlemen who can barely walk and barely get 

12 around yet and are almost dead, what they have 

13 and what they have suffered in their life and 

14 the things they worked on.

15 It is amazing, and I take my hat 

16 off to all of them and to all of you. Thank 

17 you very much.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Just 

19 for your information, there is a petition, SEC 

20 petition for Sandia that's qualified. There's 

21 an Evaluation Report that I think will be done 

22 after the first of the year on that, and so 
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1 the Board will be taking up that petition. 

2 So, thank you.

3 Okay. [Identifying information 

4 redacted], I believe it is, signed up. No. 

5 Okay. Fine. That's not required.

6 Marlene Miller.

7 MS. MILLER: Does this mic work?

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, it does. 

9 Yes. Either mic is fine.

10 MS. MILLER: Okay. Thanks.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wherever you're 

12 most comfortable.

13 MS. MILLER: Thank you. Gives me a 

14 place to hide.

15 I'm Marlene Miller. I'm the widow 

16 and survivor of Charles M. Miller. And my 

17 comment is on the Los Alamos SEC. And I 

18 definitely believe that the dates for the Los 

19 Alamos SEC should be extended.

20 My husband, Charles Miller, who 

21 was a Ph.D. from Stanford, worked at Los 

22 Alamos National Laboratory continuously from 
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1 1980 until his death from a radiation-caused 

2 glioblastoma brain tumor in 2001.

3 And the reason I state that it's 

4 continuously, is I got a letter from the DOE 

5 and they had that he had worked at Los Alamos 

6 intermittently, which just simply isn't true.

7 And Charlie worked with Nick 

8 [Identifying information redacted], another 

9 young Ph.D., who died from stomach cancer at 

10 the age of 46. Charlie died two weeks after 

11 his 47th birthday, and I just don't believe 

12 that it's a coincidence that these two healthy 

13 young men worked together and both died at 

14 such a young age from cancer.

15 Charlie and Nick's careers began 

16 and continued in the very contaminated D Wing 

17 in the CMR building basement. They did 

18 extensive research, experiments and analysis 

19 with highly radioactive materials, isotopes, 

20 et cetera, with dangerous laser dyes benzene 

21 and DMSO, which both quickly exacerbate the 

22 absorption of radiation into the body, brain 
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1 and other tissue.

2 And this statement about the DMSO 

3 taking the radiation into the whole body, this 

4 was proven at Livermore national Laboratory. 

5 So, it's -- that's where I got my information.

6 And when Nick and Charlie had 

7 accidents in the room where they worked, I 

8 don't know if they were put into this 

9 contaminated room because of the type of work 

10 they were doing or because there was no other 

11 space available, but it's well known that the 

12 basement D Wing has always been very 

13 contaminated, and then of course the materials 

14 that they worked with.

15 And they even talked one time 

16 about an explosion and Nick came home from 

17 work with his lab coat just in shreds where 

18 they had -- one of these materials -- one of 

19 these experiments they were working on, 

20 exploded on them.

21 And they would just clean up these 

22 accidents and spills and things themselves. 
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1 And I don't know, you know, it just seems like 

2 things were different in the `80s.

3 But they worked in these 

4 conditions and circumstances for several years 

5 and were not monitored for radiation or any 

6 other type of exposure.

7 Monitoring was started in the CMR 

8 Building -- was not started in the CMR 

9 Building until the mid-`80s. So, they had 

10 worked in these conditions with these 

11 materials for five years.

12 And, therefore, it's impossible to 

13 know how much radiation and other nuclear 

14 exposures they received during these years. 

15 However, it was enough to cause both of them 

16 to die from cancer.

17 And I believe that an enormous 

18 amount of dangerous work was done at LANL in 

19 the late `70s and early `80s that was not 

20 monitored.

21 I also believe that when 

22 monitoring was done, it was not complete. 
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1 And, therefore, not accurate or adequate. 

2 There was also the factor of human error.

3 And NIOSH has done -- the first 

4 dose reconstruction they did, they included 

5 the data that I collected from Los Alamos. 

6 And apparently it was very incomplete because 

7 they thought he was an intermittent employee 

8 of Los Alamos, and he was a full-time 

9 continuous employee.

10 And then I also in the claim that 

11 I made, told them that Charlie worked at the 

12 Nevada Test Site. And he was the lead 

13 diagnostician for the weapons tests at Nevada.

14 And one of the -- when they were 

15 talking about the Ross, that brought back some 

16 memories to me because after there would be a 

17 test, Charlie would sleep in a -- he called it 

18 a shack. what it was, I don't know.

19 And then when the drillers would 

20 bring up samples from the tests, he would test 

21 those samples, decide if this is the material 

22 they needed to return to Los Alamos for 
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1 further analysis, and so he would package this 

2 material himself in these containers and fly 

3 back on the Ross from Los Alamos with them and 

4 take them to the lab. So, he had a lot of 

5 close contact with that type of stuff.

6 And, also, the work that Nick and 

7 Charlie did was classified. So, I don't know 

8 what materials he worked with.

9 I heard somebody speaking of gamma 

10 and different things, which I don't have any 

11 chemistry or physics background. So, I don't 

12 know what any of these things mean, but I do 

13 know that it took a toll on my family.

14 And so, you know, I really think 

15 it would be irresponsible for anyone not to 

16 extend the SEC, the Los Alamos SEC, because 

17 there is so much information that's incomplete 

18 or unavailable.

19 And I know Nick's [Identifying 

20 information redacted], [Identifying 

21 information redacted]. Nick and Charlie were 

22 best friends, and [Identifying information 
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1 redacted] and I are still very good friends. 

2 And one day [Identifying information redacted]

3 and I went to the unclassified library there 

4 at Los Alamos trying to find some of the -- if 

5 there were papers that they had written that 

6 weren't classified, and we were promptly 

7 thrown out.

8 They said you have no business 

9 looking at any of this stuff. And so they 

10 wouldn't even let us look at anything that 

11 might have been unclassified.

12 Let's see. In my experience --

13 oh, okay. NIOSH has done three dose 

14 reconstructions. And the first one was, you 

15 know, I gave the information of when and where 

16 he had worked, but I don't know what they did 

17 with it.

18 But anyway, I then went to the 

19 health part of LANL and got his Los Alamos 

20 records that were available. And they did a 

21 dose reconstruction. And they said something 

22 like -- I don't know. Maybe it was 24 percent 
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1 likely that his cancer had come from his work 

2 at Los Alamos.

3 But then I found out that they had 

4 not included the data from NTS. And so, I 

5 wrote a letter to NTS and I got that data. 

6 And he had received a greater amount of 

7 radiation at NTS than was recorded at LANL.

8 And when they did another dose 

9 reconstruction, it was like a 12 percent 

10 likelihood that his cancer had been caused by 

11 his work at Los Alamos and NTS.

12 And so I talked to someone at the 

13 Department of Labor and they said, you know, 

14 how can this be.

15 So, they asked for another dose 

16 reconstruction. It came out that it was five 

17 percent likely that his cancer had been caused 

18 by his work.

19 And so I think -- I don't know if 

20 bunches of his information has been lost. I 

21 don't know if, you know, as it gets passed 

22 around to these different places, what happens 
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1 to it. I just simply don't know.

2 But I do know that his cancer, and 

3 also Nick's cancer, was caused from their work 

4 at Los Alamos. And, you know, for these guys 

5 to die at age 46 and 47 and both of their 

6 parents were all still living at the time and 

7 none of their parents died from cancer --

8 Nick's mother is still alive. Charlie's 

9 parents are now both dead. Neither died of 

10 cancer. And Nick's dad did not die of cancer.

11 So, there doesn't appear to be 

12 cancer in the families. And yet, this is what 

13 these two young men died from. So, I do 

14 really urge that you do extend the Los Alamos 

15 SEC.

16 Thank you so much. Does anybody -

17 - do you have a question?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No. Thank you.

19 MS. MILLER: Okay.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'll just say if 

21 you have questions about the dose 

22 reconstruction, I think you can talk to some 
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1 of the NIOSH staff.

2 MS. MILLER: Okay.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: One quick 

5 question. Clarification.

6 Did you say in the basement of 

7 Wing 4 or Wing 7?

8 MS. MILLER: Wing D. I believe it 

9 was Wing D, CMR Building.

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: It has to be a 

11 number.

12 MS. MILLER: Seven does not sound 

13 right. Five could sound right.

14 Could it be Wing 5?

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'll talk to you 

16 in a few minutes. I think it's Wing 4, 

17 because of what you've said.

18 MS. MILLER: [Identifying 

19 information redacted] can tell me for sure, 

20 and I can give [Identifying information 

21 redacted] a call.

22 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. Yes, 
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1 because that information would be important.

2 MS. MILLER: Okay. I know that the 

3 lab was contaminated. And, like I said, I 

4 don't know whether they put them there because 

5 of the type of work they were doing or if it 

6 was the only space available.

7 But another interesting thing is 

8 they're not finding that Parkinson's Disease 

9 is being caused -- people with Parkinson's 

10 Disease have worked at LANL.

11 And [Identifying information 

12 redacted], who is the person that actually 

13 hired Charlie and Nick, is in the last stages 

14 of [Identifying information redacted] right 

15 now. And another man that Charlie worked with 

16 has Parkinson's Disease.

17 So, they definitely worked around 

18 dangerous things. But I can give [Identifying 

19 information redacted] a call and [Identifying 

20 information redacted]'ll know exactly what 

21 wing they were in.

22 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay.
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1 MS. MILLER: Okay. Thank you.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

3 MS. MILLER: Thank you all.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Next person 

5 signed up is a Joseph Tapia, I believe.

6 Joe?

7 MR. TAPIA: My name is Joseph 

8 Tapia. I worked with the laboratory, Los 

9 Alamos National Laboratory, from 1953 to 1990 

10 when I retired.

11 I have had prostate cancer. And I 

12 am in remission right now. And I worked at S13 site for WX3. And my job, I was a technician 

14 for 30 -- well, I worked 37 years for the lab.

15 But I did technician work on 

16 nuclear assemblies and non-nuclear, both, all 

17 my life. My entire life at Los Alamos.

18 I worked on -- at Nevada Test Site 

19 also. We would assemble the nuclear bombs 

20 over there and they would test them. So, I 

21 was in that category of going back and forth 

22 from Los Alamos to the test site in Nevada.
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1 I never did get -- I never did get 

2 any doses. I did get a letter about the same 

3 time that they were having a conference over 

4 here on New Mexico. They had it about this 

5 summer, I guess.

6 I did get a letter from Nevada 

7 telling me to attend the meeting at Nevada, 

8 which was almost -- probably about five days 

9 before the meeting or something over there.

10 But I never did get any exposures, 

11 to my knowledge, of what I got in Nevada 

12 because we were always working with nuclear 

13 over there.

14 And we did nuclear at the 

15 beginning of the year until about, I guess, 

16 from 1953 until about 19, maybe, 65.

17 We used to do all the work at Los 

18 Alamos, and then they stopped us because we 

19 couldn't fly a complete nuclear bomb across to 

20 the Nevada Test Site. So, we started to go 

21 make trips back and forth to Nevada test site.

22 There was a lot of situations --
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1 not a lot, but there was a few that we had. 

2 One was in Los Alamos. We were working on a 

3 device and we had -- we did have a monitor. 

4 And we were opening a package from -- with 

5 tritium, which is used on nuclear bombs.

6 And we -- as we opened it, the 

7 monitor was there. And they opened -- it was 

8 very well wrapped in polyethylene and 

9 everything. We had to take it apart.

10 And all of a sudden I guess the 

11 monitor noticed there was a high reading and 

12 he said, run. So, everybody ran. I don't 

13 know. But it wasn't -- it was just, I guess, 

14 from the package that was contained some 

15 radiation came -- I don't know how much.

16 We went back and it was -- he said 

17 it was okay to work on it. So, we worked and 

18 we finished whatever we had to do that night. 

19 It was -- we were working overtime, as a 

20 matter of fact.

21 There was another instance, too, 

22 in Nevada. The same thing with another 
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1 tritium bottle over there.

2 And we had the same situation 

3 happen. And there was a monitor, always. We 

4 had monitors. And we had radiation badges, 

5 but that was it, you know.

6 And we -- and it happened the same 

7 way, but it was just, I guess, the pressure 

8 from flying it from Los Alamos to -- when they 

9 opened the package, it had some contamination 

10 that just flew up into the air.

11 And, also, we did a lot of 

12 radiographies over there. And it was all done 

13 with cobalt because we didn't have an x-ray 

14 like we do at Los Alamos and everything. We 

15 didn't have it over there. So, they'd do it 

16 with a cobalt source.

17 One time when we were taking 

18 radiography on the unit, they called it a worm 

19 that goes all the way up and that exposes the 

20 source onto the units that we're 

21 radiographing. We -- it got jammed and they 

22 couldn't bring the worm back in for a while.
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1 Finally, I guess -- we weren't 

2 there. We were at the guard station. The 

3 building was -- and this was outside, I mean, 

4 before they built a new DAP. They have a new 

5 place now that was very concealed. Everything 

6 was real nice now, but it wasn't that nice 

7 then. We were working in buildings.

8 And anyway, they finally contained 

9 it for -- they rolled it back in and that was 

10 the end of that, you know. Everything was 

11 okay, they said.

12 But anyway, my -- what I'm here 

13 for is because I went -- I did NIOSH and all 

14 that by -- at first back in 2007, I guess, 

15 2008 or something.

16 I got a letter back from NIOSH 

17 that I was denied compensation for the cancer. 

18 And that -- now I'm working with New Mexico 

19 workers and see what they can help me with.

20 But I would like to also present 

21 that I had a coworker with me that I worked 

22 all the -- that we worked together. He was 
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1 there for maybe ten years. I had been there 

2 for 34 years. Anyway, he got cancer of the 

3 prostate and they gave him compensation.

4 And we, as far as I know, we're 

5 the only two in the building which was about 

6 eight employees, eight technicians, that got -

7 - that didn't have any cancer. Just he and I. 

8 But he got it way back -- it's been quite a 

9 while that he got his compensation. And I 

10 couldn't understand how he got it and I 

11 didn't, you know.

12 So -- and then also, you know, 

13 there's other things that I've had. I've lost 

14 my eyesight on one -- and there is -- we used 

15 to do a lot of -- lot of assemblies, non16 assemblies and assemblies.

17 And also, like the lady said, 

18 testing units over there at NTS that were in 

19 tunnels, they were exposed to radiation.

20 They would package them up after 

21 they were -- they were concealed. They would 

22 pack them up and they would ship them to Los 
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1 Alamos.

2 And these samples that we would 

3 get, we would get the samples out and send 

4 them to the labs wherever they were supposed 

5 to go. We did that a lot.

6 And we did a lot of that down 

7 there because they had a lot of tunnel shots 

8 with radiation exposures.

9 And anyway, my main thing is that 

10 this fellow and I don't understand on what 

11 basis because I really helped him fill out his 

12 paperwork when he sent it over there, because 

13 he felt that I could help him.

14 And we came over and did all this 

15 paperwork, filled it all out and everything. 

16 And he was the type of guy that had everything 

17 in order, you know, from the day he started 

18 working. And he was pretty good, but -- and I 

19 don't want to say who or anything. It's kind 

20 of a, you know, I wouldn't -- unless it's in 

21 privacy.

22 But like I say, he was only there 
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1 like ten years doing the work that I did for 

2 34 years. And I complete -- I got exposed all 

3 that time.

4 There was one instance where I was 

5 at -- doing an assembly with D38, plutonium --

6 not D38. That's uranium. Plutonium-138 and 

7 we had a really -- a dirty plutonium which 

8 only the lab had. It was only like maybe, I 

9 don't know, 15, 17 kilograms of it that 

10 existed in the world.

11 Anyway, they were just samples 

12 that they were putting in these pits. A small 

13 percentage. Grams, even. I don't know what 

14 exactly it was, but I knew it was grams. And 

15 it was this dirty plutonium that was very high 

16 toxicity and very highly -- anyway, we sent it 

17 to a test site here at Los Alamos to blow up.

18 But they put it in sealed vessels. 

19 And they put this unit into a sealed vessel 

20 that was contained. And they contained the 

21 explosion in that thing and then they make 

22 sure that everything -- and they went off all 
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1 right.

2 Well, anyway, to make a long story 

3 short, I was put -- they put me -- because I 

4 had reached a level of radiation and they put 

5 me that I couldn't work on any more radiation 

6 anymore for three months or something. I had 

7 reached my quota in a quarter.

8 So, they took me off of it and I 

9 did small stuff with D38, which is too glowy. 

10 It's not that bad, but it's bad for your eyes 

11 when you're -- and I have lost my right eye 

12 already.

13 What is was all about, I don't 

14 know. I have no -- and my folks, my -- I did 

15 have a daughter that died 40 years old. And 

16 she was -- she was -- I don't know. I kept 

17 thinking, you know, maybe I brought something 

18 home, you know.

19 Anyway, she had Ewing's sarcoma 

20 and she died at 40 years old. She was married 

21 with three children and it was really hard.

22 But, like I say, I can't prove 
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1 that or nothing like that, but, anyway, my 

2 case is why he got it and I didn't get it.

3 I have not -- I don't understand 

4 that at all because I know what he did, I know 

5 the -- where he worked and he didn't get any 

6 more doses than I.

7 In fact, with my 34 years and his 

8 ten years there, it was -- I had to get, you 

9 know. I was there longer to be exposed.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Excuse me, sir. 

11 Could you please try to wrap up soon?

12 MR. TAPIA: That's about it, you 

13 know.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

15 MR. TAPIA: I just felt like I 

16 needed to present it to the Board. And I am 

17 working with New Mexico. [Identifying 

18 information redacted] is helping me and I 

19 thank you for listening to me. And hopefully 

20 something can come of it.

21 Anyway, I have made an attempt. 

22 Thank you.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 

2 much, sir.

3 The next person I have listed is, 

4 I believe, Paul Mantoya. Okay, Paul.

5 MR. MANTOYA: Yes, my name is Paul 

6 Mantoya and I worked 31 years for the National 

7 -- Los Alamos National Laboratory.

8 The first nine years I worked at 

9 Sigma from 1962 to 1971. I worked in the 

10 powder metallurgy group. And I worked with 

11 the beryllium. I used to make hot presses, 

12 cold presses on every daily base.

13 I operated extrusion presses. I 

14 used to extrude fuel elements that they used 

15 at the Nevada Test Site. They're all uranium 

16 beats. U-235. They're all loaded.

17 We didn't have -- we wouldn't use 

18 them in hoods. We would just blend them with 

19 work and so on and run them through the 

20 extrusion press.

21 We would run that press at 150 

22 tons with a die on it. We would put on the 
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1 plenum or whatever part you wanted.

2 Okay. So, Los Alamos National 

3 Laboratory or this whole program, the U.S. 

4 Department of Labor have never recognized. In 

5 other words, we should be -- we should be 

6 recognized like with the uranium miners, 

7 because right now -- I used to work with more 

8 -- I worked with more uranium than what this 

9 uranium workers will ever see in their life 

10 because I worked with the pure, pure. It's 

11 all pure uranium.

12 I worked with a little bit D38, 

13 but the D38 was always kept separate. I 

14 operated hot presses of all sorts, ran all 

15 different presses. We used to use graphite 

16 dies and all kinds of dies. Tandem dies and 

17 everything.

18 And at several times we had some 

19 accidents. Especially running the isostatic 

20 press, because we used to run it rather with 

21 hot presses and cold presses also.

22 Okay. So, then in 1971, I moved 
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1 over to what is known as TA-21, DP West. That 

2 place was terrible. And actually I went out 

3 there and I started casting uranium shells --

4 or, well, I mean, uranium. And I started 

5 casting plutonium shells. Pu-239. I never 

6 done any 238, but I -- we used to cast -- I 

7 worked with plutonium-242 also. So, I done a 

8 lot of castings.

9 We had in 1976, we had a group 

10 leader that said that -- we were all reluctant 

11 to work with radiation and all this and that. 

12 And he said that we should -- we shouldn't do 

13 that. And he didn't call us crybabies, but he 

14 did call us something else.

15 Okay. So, about two months later 

16 he didn't -- we didn't see him for a few days 

17 and they said that he was a little bit sick.

18 Okay. So, he came back to work. 

19 Okay. Next two months he was out completely 

20 and they done surgery on him on his head. He 

21 had a tumor. And, okay, next month he was 

22 gone.
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1 Okay. So, a lot of the people 

2 that did work at that time -- okay. So, then 

3 at the same time in 1976, we had a -- what 

4 they call a reduction vessel. It blew out and 

5 I picked up so many nanocuries of americium6 241 in my lungs.

7 Okay. So, that went on. Okay. 

8 So, we moved on to the plutonium plant in 

9 1977, TA-55. I worked out there 17 years 

10 doing the same thing. I was casting uranium 

11 and running beryllium plates through a rolling 

12 mill, you know. You would get a real fine --

13 okay.

14 And then I was also casting 

15 uranium shells. And we also had a lot of --

16 rather, we would get hot just about every day 

17 because they have the CAM alarms out there in 

18 the door.

19 And since they had negative 

20 pressure inside the -- inside the room, those 

21 CAM alarms won't go off even if there's some 

22 leakage of -- the CAM alarms won't go off 
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1 because until they open the door.

2 Whenever they would open the door, 

3 then of course you lose your negative 

4 pressure, you know, through the hallway. Then 

5 the CAM alarms will go off. By that time, it 

6 is too late.

7 And then also in 1987 in August, I 

8 had -- there was also one of those vessels 

9 ruptured and I picked up -- and I picked up 

10 like three nanocuries of americium-241 again. 

11 Not to mention the Pu-239 and everything that 

12 went along with it, you know.

13 And then also -- okay. So, they 

14 put me on -- they sent me on a prompt thing, 

15 you know, whatever they would call it.

16 Okay. So, then in February 1988, 

17 the same thing happened. So, I picked up 

18 more. So, I do have -- and so then, anyway, I 

19 would pick up -- in one of those years, I 

20 picked up -- by the time -- okay. They pulled 

21 me out of the plant in September, but there's 

22 two months outstanding and I already had 4.82 
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1 of radiation. 4.82.

2 And I know -- okay. So, they 

3 pulled me out, out of the plant like until 

4 December -- until January 1st. Okay. I came 

5 back on January 1st. That happened in two 

6 consecutive years: 1982, 1983.

7 Okay. So, I know -- so, they kept 

8 everything under the rug, but I know that the 

9 way that I was going, I know that I went 

10 pretty close to 6.0.

11 They won't say anything. They 

12 used to send me to the lung count out there 

13 that they had at the rad lab. What they 

14 called the rad lab, you know.

15 So, anyway, that went on for quite 

16 a while. And I know, okay, so then in 1989 I 

17 was pulled out of the -- I was pulled out of 

18 the plant like almost two years because I had 

19 -- okay. So, I worked at the target fab. I 

20 worked with the beryllium plates. Actually 

21 would take the hardness testers on them and 

22 run all kinds of tests on them and everything 
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1 else.

2 Okay. So, they brought me back to 

3 -- in 1991 they brought me back to the plant, 

4 TA-55. This time I was in casting, but I was 

5 working for this staff member and we would 

6 work on accountability.

7 What I was doing, I would take all 

8 -- myself and my boss would take every single 

9 -- that was after the Tiger Team came over. 

10 They had to account for everything.

11 So, my boss and I would take out 

12 everything out of the -- every single item 

13 that was inside the vault. We'd go out there 

14 and take out so many at a certain time -- at a 

15 time.

16 And I would run through the 

17 calorimeters and that would give you an 

18 accurate, true value of how many grams each 

19 thing -- and that would confirm everything, 

20 you know. So, I done all that.

21 Okay. So, then I retired in 1993. 

22 Okay. So, then, believe it or not, but as 
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1 soon as I retired in 1993, myself and another 

2 fellow, we got together with Congressman Bill 

3 Richardson at that time. That was in 1994. I 

4 knew that the lab wouldn't go after me then.

5 So, okay. So, we started this 

6 program that we're seeing today, believe it or 

7 not. Okay. So, we kept on. Then U.S. 

8 Senator Jeff Bingaman came on. And he took it 

9 on from then on.

10 We've been fighting. 

11 Unfortunately, I haven't gotten my 

12 compensation. My other coauthor got his 

13 already and good for him.

14 He feels bad because, you know, he 

15 tells me all the time that he feels bad that 

16 he got his and I didn't get -- I haven't 

17 gotten mine.

18 Okay. However, I still -- okay. 

19 So, I was diagnosed with beryllium sensitivity 

20 by Johns Hopkins in the year 2000.

21 Okay. So, I've been going to the 

22 National Jewish Hospital every year. Okay. 
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1 One of the doctors told me out there that I 

2 did have -- he was almost certain that I had 

3 the beryllium CBD. Beryllium -- chronic 

4 beryllium, but he wasn't sure.

5 He said that he would need to give 

6 me a biopsy. He said -- and I told him, no, I 

7 think what you see in my lungs, I think it's 

8 plutonium.

9 And he said, no, it's not 

10 plutonium. I know what plutonium looks like. 

11 You do have plutonium also in your lungs, but 

12 you do have beryllium, but I want to be sure.

13 Okay. So, he tried to talk me out 

14 into a biopsy, and I didn't do it. And I

15 haven't done it either.

16 Okay. So, right now --

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mr. Mantoya. 

18 Excuse me, Mr. Mantoya. Could you try to sort 

19 of wrap up here?

20 MR. MANTOYA: Okay. Sure.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

22 MR. MANTOYA: Okay. So, then 
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1 anyway just in the last six months ago, they 

2 gave me $5,000 because I had beryllium 

3 sensitivity.

4 So, I would like to ask you people 

5 to consider Andrew's, you know -- and 

6 hopefully everything will get going, you know, 

7 and I sure thank you for giving me the time.

8 CHAIRMEN MELIUS: We thank you, 

9 sir. Thanks.

10 Next person I have is Celina 

11 MaiVigil, I believe it is. Celina -- yes, 

12 okay.

13 MS. MAIVIGIL: Hi.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hi.

15 MS. MAIVIGIL: It's Celina 

16 MaiVigil.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

18 MS. MAIVIGIL: And I am still a lab 

19 employee. I've been working up there for 26 

20 years. I am in procurement. I have basically 

21 always had an office job, but I've worked in 

22 different areas.
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1 I mean, some of the examples where 

2 there was radiation even though, again, I've 

3 been considered an office employee, I've 

4 worked at TA-53, been down into the 

5 accelerator, out in the back where they had 

6 the containers. Supposedly they were all 

7 sealed, but yet some of the containers you 

8 could see had running liquids that had been 

9 either leaked or -- I don't know, but we just 

10 saw them.

11 There was -- I had worked at TA-54 

12 for a while. I went into some of the sheds 

13 where -- the storage sheds where they had some 

14 of the containers that were being stored and 

15 held there for a while and eventually shipped 

16 out.

17 I also worked for the Zia Company 

18 and I worked right across the hall from the 

19 machine shop again in an office job, but in an 

20 office setting, but it was directly across the 

21 hall from the machine shop.

22 I also worked for DOE in Los 
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1 Alamos. I don't know that there was any 

2 contamination during the five-and-a-half years 

3 that I worked there, but I have been up in Los 

4 Alamos for most of my working life and I have 

5 been denied twice.

6 There has never been any cancer of 

7 any kind in my family up until I was diagnosed

8 with cancer. And then my [Identifying 

9 information redacted] is also a retired lab 

10 employee, and he was diagnosed with 

11 [Identifying information redacted] about three 

12 or four years ago.

13 But there are two ladies that 

14 worked with me. In fact, one of them was the 

15 one that hired me when I started working at 

16 the laboratory. She also had breast cancer. 

17 She's retired now and she's still alive, but 

18 she has been approved and has gotten her 

19 compensation.

20 The other lady has retired 

21 probably four or five years ago. She had 

22 breast cancer within a year after she was 
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1 retired, has gone through treatment and was in 

2 remission. Two months ago she was diagnosed 

3 with a second breast cancer.

4 She is in the process of getting 

5 compensated and has been told that -- and, 

6 again, I don't know why, but her chances of 

7 being compensated are just as good as the 

8 other lady that worked with me. And we all 

9 worked in procurement directly together.

10 I am a few years younger than 

11 them. But other than that, I don't know why 

12 I've been denied and they have not. Thank 

13 you.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

15 I believe we also have some 

16 commenter’s on the line. And I believe Terrie 

17 Barrie is on the line as one.

18 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Dr. Melius. This 

19 is Terrie Barrie, and there's about, from what 

20 I understand, like two or three other people 

21 who are interested in making some public 

22 comments.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

2 MS. BARRIE: Okay. Well, good 

3 evening. And, Dr. Melius, and members of the 

4 Board, I want to thank you again for allowing 

5 me to call in to comment.

6 First, let me warn you that my 

7 comments will not come close to the powerful 

8 statement made today by Antoinette Bonsignore 

9 for the Linde Ceramics claimants.

10 I have to agree with her that I'm 

11 disappointed also that a decision was not made 

12 today and has been postponed.

13 What's really sad is that the same 

14 issues Antoinette and Andrew Evaskovich have 

15 raised to the Board, are the very same issues 

16 that faced the Rocky Flats petitioners three 

17 years ago. And those are the failure of NIOSH 

18 to comply with the 180-day requirement, 

19 ignoring evidence, and the seemingly endless 

20 scientific debates.

21 I would have hoped that by this 

22 time, and we're talking, what, seven, eight 
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1 years now, that some of these issues would 

2 have been resolved by now.

3 I know you won't be surprised by 

4 this, but I want to talk mainly about the 

5 Rocky Flats Site Profile and SEC petition.

6 I was very happy to learn that the 

7 Board's Work Group on Worker Outreach chose 

8 the Rocky Flats site to audit NIOSH's response 

9 to comments made by the public either during 

10 the Board meetings in Denver or by letters to 

11 the docket or emails to NIOSH officials.

12 This audit is so important. One 

13 reason is that the Rocky Flats SEC petition 

14 was the first large-scale petition, I believe, 

15 in terms of potential claimants to be 

16 considered by the Board.

17 Many workers, claimants and 

18 advocates from the Rocky Flats facility feel 

19 that their comments were summarily dismissed 

20 by NIOSH.

21 Some feel that their comments were 

22 rejected simply because they did not have a 
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1 degree in health physics, yet these commenters 

2 had years of practical experience on the 

3 production floor and related the reality of 

4 work practices at Rocky Flats as opposed to 

5 what was simply written in the procedure 

6 manual.

7 You heard last night from Andrew, 

8 the LANL petitioner, and Loretta Valerio, the 

9 director of the State of New Mexico's Advocacy 

10 Office that human error and the lack of 

11 following written procedures resulted in 

12 unmonitored exposures.

13 The workers from Rocky Flats 

14 explained the same thing to the Board back in 

15 2007.

16 It will be interesting to learn 

17 how many of the oral histories NIOSH 

18 investigated and incorporated into the 

19 technical documents for Rocky Flats.

20 One particular comment that I'm 

21 interested in learning whether NIOSH 

22 considered was not made by a former worker, 
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1 but by a biologist, [Identifying information 

2 redacted], on May 2nd, 2007.

3 As a scientist, he disagreed with 

4 the dose-reconstruction process and offered 

5 some very convincing, at least in my opinion, 

6 arguments.

7 Has NIOSH considered [Identifying 

8 information redacted]'s views, entered into a 

9 discussion with him or did NIOSH simply ignore 

10 the entire testimony? This audit will answer 

11 that question.

12 Another comment I remember, and I 

13 don't know if a formal response or explanation 

14 was offered by NIOSH, is the conflict of 

15 interest issue with the neutron dose16 reconstruction project.

17 The feelings of some claimants 

18 about this audit are ambivalent. They 

19 remember the two years it took for the SEC 

20 process. They remember the three years it has 

21 taken to get to the bottom of the Ruttenber 

22 Database which, unfortunately, is still not 
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1 fully resolved, and they worry about the 

2 administrative costs.

3 Hopefully this audit will not take 

4 long and the Work Group could present a 

5 preliminary finding at the February meeting.

6 I would also suggest that the SC&A 

7 report on Rocky Flats' Site Profile and 

8 NIOSH's SEC petition Evaluation Report be 

9 reviewed as part of this audit.

10 SC&A interviewed many former 

11 workers from the Rocky Flats site during that 

12 process.

13 Some of the interviewees may not 

14 have been present at the Board meetings or 

15 were reluctant to speak in public.

16 It would be interesting to learn 

17 again if any of the oral histories relayed to 

18 SC&A were incorporated into NIOSH's technical 

19 documents.

20 Regardless of the outcome of this 

21 audit, ANWAG endorses the Colorado 

22 congressional delegation's letter to Secretary 
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1 Sebelius requesting that she reverse the 

2 decision -- the SEC's decision and designate 

3 that all workers from Rocky Flats be covered 

4 by the SEC from 1952 through 2005.

5 Too many issues have come to light 

6 after the Board voted for the narrow Class of 

7 workers to become a member of the SEC.

8 I want to publicly thank the 

9 delegation for their continued support and 

10 their struggle to obtain justice for the Rocky 

11 Flats workers.

12 I would also like to publicly 

13 thank Senator Tom Udall, Senators Schumer, 

14 Gillibrand and all the other congressional 

15 people who constantly send letters to the 

16 Board and I hope you do seriously consider 

17 their input.

18 In closing, I want to ask the 

19 Board to take stock of the SEC petition 

20 process. I and other advocates believe that 

21 the process has strayed a long way from the 

22 congressional intent.
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1 Thank you again for allowing me to 

2 address the Board.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

4 Terrie.

5 By the way, I don't know if you 

6 heard, but Rachel Leiton when she was doing 

7 the DOL presentation, indicated that the DOL 

8 policy or whatever, I forget what the document 

9 is called for implementing how they'll handle 

10 the -- bulletin should be out very shortly.

11 MS. BARRIE: Yes, I did hear that.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

13 MS. BARRIE: And we wait for it 

14 daily.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

16 MS. BARRIE: Thank you.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Check's in the 

18 mail.

19 (Laughter.)

20 MS. BARRIE: Yes, right.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks.

22 Anybody else on the line that 
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1 would like to make comments? Could you please 

2 identify yourself?

3 MR. McDANIEL: Yes, my name is 

4 George McDaniel.

5 Do you hear me?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, we can.

7 MR. McDANIEL: Okay. My 

8 [Identifying information redacted] worked at 

9 Linde Ceramics in Tonawada. She was employed 

10 there from 1952 to 1968, a period of 16 years.

11 At the current time, she does not 

12 fall under the SEC because that was for people 

13 that worked there during the active period of 

14 the uranium manufacturing or crushing.

15 However, she did work in Building 

16 30 for her total 16 years at the facility, and 

17 Building 30 was the most contaminated plant in 

18 the -- most contaminated building in the 

19 facility.

20 It was demolished under FUSRAP 

21 because of its noncompliance with the -- oh, 

22 let's see. Because it didn't meet the safety 
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1 standards. So, they knocked it down.

2 So, they covered people that 

3 knocked it down, they covered people that 

4 worked there when it was milling uranium ore, 

5 but it didn't cover the people in between.

6 So, I don't understand how it can 

7 cover some people and not others. I mean, if 

8 it was so hazardous that it had to be taken 

9 down, how can the employees that work there 

10 not be covered? It just doesn't make sense.

11 In listening to some of the 

12 comments from people while I've been on the 

13 line, I find that there's -- I have a 

14 question.

15 Does the reconstruction matrix 

16 take into account that -- of cancers by all 

17 employees in a group in the same building, do 

18 they factor that into the percentage of 

19 causation or is it all individuals?

20 Because if six people work in an 

21 office and five of them die of cancer, how 

22 could it not be related to the building? That 
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1 just doesn't make any sense to me at all.

2 Again, I hope that you will review 

3 these petitions and grant SEC status to all 

4 employees there because obviously the site was 

5 just really contaminated.

6 If they had to knock it down, that 

7 should speak for itself, and I thank you for 

8 your time.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, sir.

10 Anybody else on the line who'd 

11 like to make comments?

12 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: Yes, I'm here.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, who are 

14 you?

15 Can you identify yourself and --

16 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: A former Los 

17 Alamos worker.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Can you give us 

19 your name?

20 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: Not right now, 

21 no.

22 I was curious about yesterday's 
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1 meeting. There was some kind of facility tour 

2 that was conducted with the Department of 

3 Labor and some other individuals.

4 I was wondering what facilities 

5 they toured. They didn't mention what 

6 facilities.

7 They were pretty impressed on the 

8 Los Alamos facilities that they toured, but 

9 they didn't mention what facilities they 

10 toured.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I was not on the 

12 tour. A number of the Board Members took a 

13 tour of the facility. A riding tour of the 

14 facility and the museum.

15 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: Yes, and the 

16 museum, but what facilities did they look at?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I can't tell you 

18 right offhand. And this is a public comment 

19 period, not sort of a question-and-answer 

20 period.

21 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: Sorry. I was 

22 just curious as to --
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, I understand. 

2 It's not --

3 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: And I was 

4 wondering about DOELAP certification on any of 

5 these dosimetry records and stuff. When was 

6 that done? Is that taken into account?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm sorry, sir, 

8 but this really isn't a question-and-answer 

9 period. We're here -- if you have a public 

10 comment regarding LANL or the SEC, that's 

11 fine, but we're not here to sort of answer 

12 questions.

13 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: Oh, okay. 

14 Well, I just wanted to mention the DOELAP 

15 certification on Los Alamos.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Again, we're not 

17 here to answer questions and do that. If you 

18 have a comment -- if you don't, that's fine.

19 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: Okay. Thank 

20 you.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

22 Anybody else on the line that has 
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1 comments?

2 Okay. If not, I will bring this 

3 public comment session to a close and thank 

4 everybody for being here, and we will 

5 reconvene in the morning.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

7 matter went off the record at 6:55 p.m.)

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