THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes 


MEETING 44 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. II 


DAY TWO 


The verbatim transcript of the 44th 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Cincinnati Marriott 


Northeast, Mason, Ohio, on Feb. 8, 2007. 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

Feb. 8, 2007 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

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FERNALD SEC PETITION 

MR. MARK ROLFES, NIOSH/OCAS 

PETITIONERS 

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ROCKY FLATS SEC UPDATE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH 

PETITIONERS 

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DOW CHEMICAL SEC PETITION UPDATE 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS 

PETITIONERS 

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WORKING GROUP REPORTS 

WORKING GROUP CHAIRS 

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PUBLIC COMMENT 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 367 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

BEACH, Josie 


Nuclear Chemical Operator 


Hanford Reservation 


Richland, Washington 


CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 

 

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LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


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


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


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


Professor, Texas A&M University 


College Station, Texas 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


SCHOFIELD, Phillip 


Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 


Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 


BALDRIDGE, SANDRA, PETITIONER 


BEATTY, SR., EVERETT RAY, FERNALD MEDICAL SCREEN 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 


BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 


BURGAN, LARRY, DOW/SCI 


BURNS, JOHN 


CALLAWAY, ALLEN, FERNALD MEDICAL SCREENING 


CALVERT, CHARLES, MOUND 


CAMPBELL, EMMA E. 


CANTWELL, MIKE, CONG. STEVE CHABOT 


CHANG, C, NIOSH 


CORWEN, CHRISTINE, CONSTELLA 


CRAWFORD, LISA, TRESH 


CRAWFORD, PATSY 


CRAWFORD, RUDY 


D’ANGELO, JAY, ATTORNEY 


DICKEY, JOSEPH, CONSTELLA 


DONG, MAXIA, NIOSH/OCAS 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


ELLIOTT, MARY, ORAUT 


ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH 


EVASKOVICH, ANDREW K., LOCAL #69 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


GAFFY, VICKI 


GRANT, ROGER, ORAU 


HOPPE, BILL 


HILL, STEPHEN S., CONG. STEVE CHABOT 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


HUGHES, LAURA, CONSTELLA 


JERISON, DEB 


JOHNSON, KAREN 


JOHNSON, MARY 


KOTSCH, JEFF, U.S. DOL 


LATTIMORE, SUSIE L., FERNALD 


LEAVY, GLENDA, NIOSH 

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LEWIS, MARK, ATL 


MAHER, ED, DMA/ORAUT 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAUT 


MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW 


MILLER, RELADA, NIOSH/OCAS 


NESSELHAUF, NELLIE 


PALLER, RICHARD, NUMEC 


PATTERSON, AGATHA 


PETERS, DEB 


PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY 


PUFF, TIM, CONSTELLA 


RAMSPOTT, JOHN, SINEW 


ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SALEYRETTE, RUTH 


SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, SAIC 


SCHNORR, TERRI, NIOSH 


SENTKER, TED, G.E. 


SHEEHAN, WARREN, MOUND 


SIEBERT, SCOTT R., ORAUT 


SIMMONS, HOMER 


SKINTIK, ED, DOE 


SOUTHERLAND, G.H. 


TABOR, ROBERT G., FERNALD 


TIDWELL, CATHERINE 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 


WHITE, LIBBY, DOE 


WILLIAMS, RICHARD D., NIOSH 


ZACCHERS, MARY JO, ORAU 


ZIEMER, MARILYN 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(8:45 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO
 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to call the meeting to order. 


This is the second day of our Cincinnati 


meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health. 


Before we begin our session this morning I'd 


like to remind everyone -- Board members, 


federal staff people, members of the public -- 


please register your attendance if you have not 


already done so. There's a registration book 


in the corridor just outside the room. 


Also on the table in the back there are copies 


of today's agenda, as well as a number of other 


documents that are available for your use 


relating to items on the agenda this week. 


(Pause) 


I was just checking to make sure that there are 


also some NIOSH staff people available for 


assisting individual claimants. If you are 


here today and have a particular question 


regarding a claim that you need help on, there 


are NIOSH staff people and you can find out who 

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and where they are by checking with LaShawn at 


the back table, also. 


Now I'm going to call on Lew Wade, our 


Designated Federal Official, to make a couple 


of opening remarks before we get into the 


agenda. 


 DR. WADE: Well, first just welcome and thank 


you for coming. I know it's cold out there and 


we appreciate your coming. This Board does 


important things -- at least we think so -- but 


we can do them better when you're here to 


observe us and to input to our deliberations, 


so thank you very much for being here. 


I would like to -- to see if we have folks on 


the line. Particularly is Mike Gibson with us 


on the line? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, I'm here. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Mike. The other issue that 


I'd address briefly is that we're going to 


start this morning taking up the Fernald SEC 


petition. In order to have a Board of 


qualified individuals, individuals who bring 


knowledge and substance to the deliberation, 


many of the Board members have experiences at 


different sites. And the Board operates with 

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its own series of rules, that if a Board member 


has a conflict at a certain site, then that 


Board member won't participate, for example, in 


a review of an individual dose reconstruction 


audit that focuses on that particular site. If 


the Board member is conflicted, then they won't 


make motions or vote on site profile 


activities. But in the nature of SEC 


petitions, if a Board member has a conflict, 


then they won't participate in the discussion 


of that SEC petition. They obviously won't 


vote or make motion. We have one Board member 


conflicted at Fernald, that's Dr. Lockey, and 


therefore Dr. Lockey is not at the table. He 


is with us in the audience and could 


participate as a member of the public, but not 


as a member of the Board. 


 Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Lew. 


FERNALD SEC PETITION
 

MR. MARK ROLFES, NIOSH/OCAS
 

PETITIONERS
 

We will then proceed with consideration of the 


Fernald SEC petition. We're going to hear from 


NIOSH first. NIOSH will present their petition 


evaluation report. Then we will hear from the 


petitioners. Sandra Baldridge is here 

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representing the petitioners and she, and 


perhaps some of her colleagues, will address us 


at that time. 


So first Mark Rolf (sic) from NIOSH will 


present the NIOSH petition evaluation report. 


Mark, welcome. 


 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Dr. Wade, and thank 


you, Dr. Ziemer, ladies and gentlemen. My name 


is Mark Rolfes. I'm a health physicist from 


the National Institute for Occupational Safety 


and Health, Office of Compensation Analysis and 


Support. I've been working on the dose 


reconstruction project at NIOSH for about four 


and a half years as a health physicist. I 


complete dose reconstructions. I review 


technical documents and I have been involved in 


the Special Exposure Cohort evaluations. 


Today I am here to present to you information 


on the Special Exposure Cohort petition 


evaluation report for the Feed Materials 


Production Center, or Fernald. 


 Before I begin I would like to acknowledge the 


petitioner and thank Ms. Sandra Baldridge for 


her excellent petition that she put together, 


as well as all the Fernald workers that we were 

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able to go out and speak with. 


 Feed Materials Production Center, better known 


as Fernald, the construction began in May of 


1951 and all plants became operational by 1954. 


Production continued until July of 1989. 


Fernald's purpose was to supply high purity 


uranium metal fuel cores to plutonium 


production reactors at Savannah River and 


Hanford. Fernald also produced thorium for the 


Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program and for 


light water breeder reactors. In 1972 Fernald 


became designated as the DOE repositor for 


thorium. Fernald was also a storage site for 


the K-65 raffinates, the waste materials that 


were left behind after uranium was extracted 


from the ore. 


 NIOSH received an SEC submission, which we 


qualified -- I'm sorry. NIOSH received an SEC 


submission on December 12, 2005. We received 


an addendum to the SEC submission on January 


24th, 2006. We qualified the evaluation on 


April 6th, 2006, and we received another 


addendum to the SEC submission on September 


25th, 2006. NIOSH has issued its evaluation 


report on November 3rd, 2006. 

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 The petition submission had a proposed class 


definition of "All employees of DOE, DOE 


contractors or subcontractors who worked at all 


locations at Feed Materials Production Center 


in Fernald, Ohio, also known as the Fernald 


Environmental Management Project, from January 


1st, 1951 through December 31st, 1989." The 


petition was submitted to NIOSH on behalf of a 


class of employees at Fernald. 


In the evaluation of the Special Exposure 


Cohort for Fernald we have various technical 


documents prepared by our contractor, Oak Ridge 


Associated Universities, and Technical Basis 


Documents which comprise our site profile for 


Fernald which we use in dose reconstructions. 


We also went out and spoke with former Fernald 


employees. I went out to a Fernald retirees 


group meeting on May 2nd of 2006. We have 


information available to us in our case files, 


which we have in our claims tracking database. 


We have an additional repository of documents 


which includes air monitoring data and other 


miscellaneous records. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 

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 MR. ROLFES: I'm sorry? I apologize. We have 


documentation that was provided to us by the 


petitioner, as well as affidavits from the 


petitioner. We also have available to us 


information from the Fernald Historical Records 


database, information from the Health 


Information System. We have information from 


the CEDR database, which is the Comprehensive 


Epidemiologic Data Resource. We have Mobile In 


Vivo Radiation Monitoring Lab chest counts from 


1965 through 1989. And we also have a study 


that was conducted by Dr. Susan Pinney from 


U.C. which is titled "Radon and Cigarette 


Smoking Exposure Assessment of Fernald 


Workers." 


 The information that we have within our claims 


tracking system, the NIOSH/OCAS Claims Tracking 


System, indicates that we have 690 claims that 


have -- excuse me -- 690 claims that meet the 


class definition. Of those 690 claims, we have 


completed 619 dose reconstructions, which is a 


little over 90 percent of the claims that fall 


into this category. Of those 690 claims that 


we have, we had records of internal dosimetry 


for 631 of those claims, and external dosimetry 

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records for 641 of those claims. 


Now the SEC submission that we received for 


Fernald had several bases and concerns in the 


petition, and I will go through these briefly 


here and then go and discuss those in a little 


bit more detail. There was a concern about the 


lack of monitoring for recycled uranium 


contaminants. There was a concern about the 


lack of monitoring for thorium; a concern 


regarding the lack of monitoring for radium and 


its daughters, such as radon. There was a 


concern that there was no personnel or area 


monitoring for neutron exposures. There was a 


concern about the use of respiratory protection 


at the K-65 processes -- at the K-65 silos. 


There was a concern that internal dose was not 


assigned from bioassay or from air monitoring 


data. And there was a concern about the 


falsification of data. 


 The petition concern regarding the lack of 


monitoring for internal exposures from recycled 


uranium contaminants was presented to us. When 


NIOSH completes a dose reconstruction, however, 


we use uranium bioassay to determine uranium 


intake. From that uranium intake, based on 

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documented information and ratios of these 


other radionuclides, we're able to estimate 


intakes of those recycled uranium contaminants. 


There was a concern that there was no in vitro 


monitoring for thorium, and there was a concern 


that there were no intakes assigned for Plant 6 


thorium work between 1960 and 1963. However, 


NIOSH has assigned intakes based on a 


distribution of breathing zone air sampling 


data and the in vivo measurements that were 


conducted on the site. NIOSH has acquired and 


evaluated in excess of 6,000 in vivo results, 


and between 2,000 and 4,000 thorium air 


sampling results. These are actively being 


evaluated and put into a coworker model that 


will be used to update the site profile. 


There was a concern about the lack of bioassay 


for radium or its progeny. However, NIOSH has 


located more than 600 radon breath samples 


which we can use to estimate radium intakes. 


There was a concern that there was no neutron 


dosimetry. However, if you take a look at the 


operations and the materials on site, there 


really wasn't a significant potential for 


neutron exposures at Fernald. However, when we 

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do a dose reconstruction for certain areas, for 


certain workers, we do assign neutron dose in a 


dose reconstruction based on the 95th 


percentile neutron-to-photon ratios from 


information documented in our Technical 


Information Bulletins. 


There was a petition concern that doses were 


calculated on the basis that all workers wore 


respirators at the K-65 silos. However, we 


have bioassay data available to us, and the 


bounding exposure scenario and dose 


reconstructions are developed under the 


assumption that no respiratory protection was 


used. 


There was a petition concern that uranium 


urinalyses were conducted for chemical toxicity 


purposes rather than radiation dosimetry. 


However, this does not prevent us from doing 


dose reconstructions. We receive uranium 


urinalysis results in units of mass which we 


can convert to an activity excretion result. 


We are able to estimate an intake based on the 


urinalysis results and calculate an internal 


dose from -- from that. We have in excess of 


180,000 urinalysis results from Fernald 

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workers. 


There was a concern about the falsification of 


data, the concern that the air monitoring data 


were manipulated to give the appearance that 


air dust levels were lower. What NIOSH does 


when we complete a dose reconstruction, we rely 


primarily on an individuals bioassay data for 


estimating an intake, and then calculating the 


internal dose. However, if bioassay data are 


not available for that individual, for example, 


if that individual didn't provide a urine 


sample or didn't have a chest count -- we would 


estimate that person's radiation exposure based 


on coworker information. Only then if we don't 


have coworker information would we rely on air 


sampling data, and we would use a distribution 


of air sampling data to estimate that worker's 


intake, and we would not assume -- we would 


assume that the worker was not using a 


respirator, and this results in claimant-


favorable intakes, which result in a higher 


internal dose. 


Now I wanted to take you through a couple of 


sample dose reconstructions to show -- to 


demonstrate how we would reconstruct someone's 

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dose, and I tried to address some of the 


specific concerns of the petition, so -- this 


first sample is a dose maximizing scenario for 


an individual that worked in Plant 9 as a 


chemical operator. This individual does not 


represent anyone that we have as a claimant. 


It's a -- it's a hypothetical scenario, so -- 


this individual was a male. He was born in 


1932 and diagnosed with cancer in the year 


2000. For the purposes of lung cancer, we have 


information on his smoking history. We've 


documented that he was a former smoker, so this 


individual worked in Plant 9 during 1954 and 


1955. It was during this time period that 


Fernald produced in excess of 450 metric tons 


of thorium, and it was during this time period 


that we have a very robust set of thorium air 


monitoring data. 


What NIOSH has done in this sample is to assign 


the highest recorded air dust results to 


estimate the worker's maximum intake for SEC 


purposes. We have not applied any respiratory 


protection factors, and we have assumed that 


the thorium was in 100 percent equilibrium with 


its progeny. 

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The maximum intakes that we have assigned for 


1954 are 7,150 picocuries per day via 


inhalation, and 148 picocuries per day via 


ingestion. For 1955 we have assigned 10,500 


picocuries per day via inhalation and 217 


picocuries per day via ingestion. 


We have calculated the internal doses for three 


target organs just to demonstrate the -- the 


dose and the probability of causation. We have 


calculated the internal doses between 1954, the 


year of the first intake, through the year of 


cancer diagnosis in 2000. 


As you can see, the dose to the rectum for a 


rectal cancer would have been about 48 and a 


half rem and results in a probability of 


causation of 28 percent. The kidney's dose was 


approximately 229 rem and resulted in a 


probability of causation of 85 percent. The 


target organ, lung, for a lung cancer, the lung 


would have received approximately 2,486 rem and 


would cause a probability of causation of 98 


percent. 


We have put together a second sample dose 


reconstruction for this presentation for a 


worker that dumped raffinates into the K-65 

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silos for six weeks during 1952. Once again, 


we assume that no respiratory protection 


factors were applied, and this is very claimant 


favorable and results in a maximizing dose 


estimate. 


 Following this individual's work at the K-65 


silos he provided a radon breath analysis, and 


this is a form of bioassay, as well. This 


bioassay result indicated that the employee was 


exhaling .6 picocuries of radon-222 per liter 


of air. From that bioassay result NIOSH is 


able to estimate the radium body burden, and we 


estimated that the radium body burden was .15 


microcuries. We did this using a dose 


conversion factor from one of our Technical 


Basis Documents, a dose conversion factor of 


2.5 times ten to the 5th picocuries of radium226 per picocurie per liter of exhaled radon222. The radium body burden was converted to a 


chronic intake rate of 42,000 picocuries per 


day. 


As you can see on this slide, we have estimated 


the radium-226 intake rate -- and that's 


documented in this slide in column three. 


Because we know the radium-226 intake, we were 

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able to assign intakes of other associated 


radionuclides, based on measured information 


from Silo 2. Column one up there shows the 


various isotopes that were in Silo 2. Column 


two shows the activity relative to the radium226 activity. And finally column four shows 


the intake rates in picocuries per day of all 


associated radionuclides. 


So based on six weeks of chronic intake of K-65 


raffinates for a male who was born in 1932 and 


was diagnosed with cancer in 1990, and for lung 


cancer purposes he was also a former smoker, we 


have calculated internal doses from 1952 


through 1990 for the colon, for the lung and 


for a bone cancer. 


 The colon received approximately three rem and 


resulted in a probability of causation of 24 


percent. The lung cancer -- the lung received 


368 rem and resulted in a probability of 


causation of 96 percent. For the bone cancer, 


the bone dose was approximately 6,000 rem and 


resulted in a probability of causation of 99 


percent. 


NIOSH has evaluated the petition using 


guidelines in 42 CFR 83.13 and has submitted a 

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summary of its findings in our Petition 


Evaluation Report to the Board and to the 


petitioners. This evaluation report was 


submitted on November 3rd, 2006. 


As part of the evaluation process there is a 


two-pronged test that was established by 


EEOICPA and incorporated into 42 CFR 83.13. 


First, NIOSH must determine whether it is 


feasible to estimate the level of radiation 


doses of individual members of the class with 


sufficient accuracy. Second, NIOSH must 


determine if there is a reasonable likelihood 


that such exposures could have endangered the 


health of members of the class. 


NIOSH has found that the available monitoring 


records, process descriptions and source term 


data are adequate to complete dose 


reconstructions with sufficient accuracy for 


the proposed class of employees. And 


therefore, purely speaking under the law, NIOSH 


is not required to make a health endangerment 


determination. 


This summarizes the feasibility findings for 


the Fernald SEC petition, indicating that dose 


reconstructions are feasible from various 

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sources of exposure -- internal exposures from 


uranium, thorium, as well as other 


radionuclides; and external exposures from 


beta-gamma exposures, neutron exposures and 


medical X-ray exposures that were required as a 


condition of employment. 


 Additional documentation and additional sample 


dose reconstructions are available for the 


Advisory Board's review under the NIOSH share 


drive folder, "Document Review\AB Document 


Review\Fernald". 


 And finally, and most importantly, I would like 


to thank all Fernald workers for their 


contribution to the defense and the security of 


the United States of America. Thank you. 

 Are there any questions? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Mark. Let's move right 

directly to the petitioners then, and then 


we'll open the floor for additional discussion 


and questions. 


So Sandra Baldridge is here to represent the -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: I appreciate having this 


opportunity to present this petition in behalf 

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of the workers at the Feed Materials Production 


Center. I'm assuming that you've received a 


copy of the presentation. 


My name is Sandra Baldridge. My father, Julius 


Wolff*, worked in Plant 6 from January 1952 


until November 1963. I was privileged to gain 


access to several of the 1994 trial documents 


while I was preparing a request for 


reconsideration of my father's claim. It was 


then that I discovered sufficient deficiencies 


in the Fernald site profile. 


 I've reviewed countless documents while 


preparing the petition, and since. We're here 


today because of the contents of those 


documents. I believe the filing of this 


petition will re-- will result in a greater 


truth being realized about Fernald. 


The documents presented demonstrate the actions 


of a company working for the government for 35 


years, but not with the government. National 


Lead of Ohio rejected suggestions that would 


have improved the quality of their records. 


They ignored DOE policy made in 1960, to 


operate in a safe and responsible manner, by 


failing to implement the as -- the "as low as 

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reasonably achievable" approach to radiation 


control. It took them 22 years, until 1984, to 


recognize the important of -- the importance of 


the concept. Unfortunately, their attitudes 


and actions resulted in the injury of many 


people. 


I believe the exposure levels demonstrated in 


the documents, in conjunction with the 


indifference of some in management, made it 


possible -- made it impossible to accurately 


assess the exposure incurred by the workers. 


 Scientists are frequently expected to make 


decisions in the absence of complete 


information. The magnitude of the variables 


involved, however, can make it difficult to 


provide answers with absolute certainty. 


 The National Research Council addressed the 


issue of data quality in its 1989 review of 


worker's health and safety in the weapons 


complex. The Council stated that the data 


collected at DOE sites during ongoing 


monitoring and surveillance programs are useful 


in addressing risks to workers' health only to 


the extent that the data are accurate, 


comprehensible -- comprehensive, accessible and 

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comparable. The data collected in the past, 


the Council concluded, are inadequate, both 


because of the kinds of data collected and the 


means in which they were stored. 


I don't believe NIOSH has the information 


necessary to do dose reconstruction with 


sufficient accuracy for the workers at Fernald. 


There are differences of opinion concerning the 


quality of that data. I have included notes 


from some of the documents I've received. 


The first is a Government Accounting Office 


report that was prepared at the request of 


Senator John Glenn, and it was requested after 


there was an incident involving a release of 


radiation of uranium dust into the atmosphere. 


It -- the report was broken into two documents. 


The first sheet is a facts -- the fact sheet. 


It says the DOE's Oak Ridge Operation Office 


oversaw the contractors operating at Fernald. 


In its 1984 report the task force noted that 


Fernald overemphasized production, making 


environmental and health safety a secondary 


concern. 


The 1980 to 1984 annual environmental reports 


prepared by Fernald showed its radioactive air 

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emissions were below DOE's exposure standards. 


Oak Ridge, the United States Environmental 


Protection Agency, and the State of Ohio have 


questioned the accuracy of that data. 


The DO (sic) report showed that between 1980 


and 1983 the plant had the second or third 


highest dose of any DOE plant, and in 1984 it 


had the highest dose, even though it processed, 


according to the DOE officials, some of the 


least radioactive material of any DOE facility. 


Oak Ridge, the U.S. EPA and Ohio state 


officials have questioned the reliability of 


Fernald's air monitoring system and reported 


release data. 


In June 1984 an Oak Ridge appraisal noted that 


Fernald's sampling equipment and data analysis 


were questionable. ORAU conducted an 


independent assessment. The ORAU report 


pointed out that Fernald's source sampling 


equipment did not provide accurate emissions 


data and the on-site monitoring were poorly -- 


monitors were poorly located. 


From 1952 through 1984 Fernald reported that it 


had never exceeded the DOE air standards. 


Their 1956 release level would have exceeded 

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today's standard by 125 times. 


In 1980 Fernald received material containing 


plutonium in significantly higher than normal 3 


to 36 parts per billion. Concentrations were 


up to 7,757 parts per billion. In 1985 DOE 


defense program officials found that Fernald 


did not have documents showing the 


concentration of materials moving through its 


production process, and as a result the DOE 


could not determine the level of radiation to 


which Fernald employees had been exposed. 


The GAO noted that the DOE had not taken 


advantage of available independent information, 


either state or local, to test the accuracy of 


the contractor data. They stated that no 


federal, state or local agency had ever 


monitored radionucleide (sic) emissions from 


Fernald or verified the data. No coordinated 


DOE, State or contractor system existed to 


independently evaluate contractor-reported data 


on a test basis. 


The second report, "The Need for Better 


Environment and Worker Protection." Between 


September and December 1984, Fernald released 


unusually large quantities of radioactive 

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uranium dust into the environment as a result 


of malfunctions in the plant's air filtration 


system. Fernald was a chemical processing and 


foundry-type operation. They did not use a 


closed system to process radioactive material. 


Consequently, its operations were very dirty 


and dusty. The release amounted to 300 pounds 


of enriched uranium being released into the air 


over a three-month period in the fall of 1984. 


Knowledge of this release prompted the request 


for the investigation. 


Some additional findings in the investigation 


included. 


The report stated while the DOE checked the 


contractor's ability to accurately analyze 


samples, it does not provide the assurance that 


the release data gathered in the reports were 


accurate. 


Oak Ridge concluded that Fernald could reduce 


its air emissions by 90 percent of its 1981­

1984 reported release by merely applying better 


operating practices, with little cost for new 


equipment. 


The April 1984 task force of Oak Ridge report 


noted Fernald's management and staff did not 

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perceive that the facility had a problem. Even 


non-compliance was not viewed as a problem. 


In February 1985 the Oak Ridge board that 


investigated Fernald's 1984 releases expressed 


concern about the accuracy and effectiveness of 


Oak Ridge's ES&H appraisal program, and 


identified major weaknesses in both Oak Ridge's 


appraisal and Fernald's self-audits. Oak 


Ridge's appraisal program did not identify the 


problems that subsequently resulted in the 


excessive air releases at Fernald in 1984. 


The DOE requires contractors to measure the 


plant's stack releases for each radioactive 


substance emitted. 


Fernald was a self-regulated operation. 


 And Fernald had a cost-plus-award fee contract 


with the DOE and could financially be penalized 


by reporting radioactive releases. Oak Ridge 


did not use the award fee to encourage improved 


improvement (sic) at Fernald until 1985. 


Next I would like to address NIOSH's claim that 


they can do re-- dose reconstructions, and that 


data was shown in the NIOSH presentation. 
I 


would like to explain how I believe many of 


these dose reconstructions may have been 

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accomplished. Since my father's claim is the 


only one I have access to, I will use it as an 


example. 


His internal dose monitoring records were 


reviewed. Because the dose was determined to 


be below -- to be low and to allow for 


undocumented dose, his internal dose was 


assigned a hypothetical intake value. The 


internal dose assigned was based on the 


information provided in the document I'll refer 


to as OTIB-2. 


I examined the document and made some 


interesting discoveries. One, it is used for 


claimants who have a positive activity in their 


samples to ensure that the result will have the 


highest POC possible. Second, it is a method 


to facilitate timely processing of claims under 


the EEOICPA. Third, it is a substitute for 


further research and analysis when the POC is 


assumed to be below 50 percent, or the worst 


case assumption. Fourth, it can be applied to 


facilities where uranium was the primary 


radionucleide (sic). Fifth, it is a generic 


document that was developed with Hanford data 


as its basis. Sixth, it has application 

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restrictions based on the years in which the 


employee worked. For Hanford workers the start 


date is prior to 1953. For workers from other 


facilities the hire date must be after 1969, 


with a start date prior to 1970. 


I believe the use of OTIB-2 represents a 


misapplication of data in my father's claim 


since he started work at Fernald in 1952. 


Therefore, based on the application restriction 


noted in six, the OTIB-2 cannot be used in his 


dose reconstruction. 


As of February 1, 2007 575 dose reconstructions 


have been completed for employees at Fernald 


who were working there in 1969. 


I am reasonably certain that the OTIB-2 was 


applied to many of those claims as well. If it 


was, NIOSH may have completed hundreds of 


invalid dose reconstructions over the years for 


Fernald workers. This misapplication of data 


may have occurred in dose reconstructions for 


workers at other sites, as well, especially 


since OTIB-2 was considered a generic document 


and could be used as a substitution for 


research and analysis under certain conditions. 


NIOSH claims to have sufficient information 

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about the radiation exposure levels and doses 


that occurred at FMPC. If that's the case, why 


didn't they use it? Timeliness is not the 


issue here. Years have been wasted because 


they chose to take a shortcut. 


Next I would like to address Section 7 in the 


SEC evaluation. The feasibility determination 


for the proposed class of employees covered in 


this evaluation report is governed both by the 


EEOICPA and 42 CFR 83.13(c)(1). I would like 


to look at both of these documents. 


The EEOICPA, Energy Employees Occupational 


Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000, as 


amended, 42 USC 7384, Findings, Sense of 


Congress, Item six. Furthermore, studies 


indicate that 98 percent of the radiation-


induced cancer within the weapons complex have 


occurred at dose levels below existing maximum 


safe thresholds. It should be noted that the 


thresholds were exceeded at FMPC regularly, and 


sometimes by thousands of times the exposure 


limit. 


 7394(n), Exposures in the Performance of Duty, 


Item (c), Guidelines, Number (3), such 


guidelines shall (a) be based on the radiation 

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dose received by the employee or a group of 


employees performing similar work at such 


facility. 


At such facility. Now we just saw that OTIB-2 


was based on Hanford. 


Now 42 CFR 83, Special Exposure Cohort, 83.13, 


How NIOSH evaluates petitions, (c)(1) item (i), 


and this is just a portion of it, NIOSH must 


also determine that it has information 


regarding monitoring, source, source term, or 


process from the site where the employees have 


worked to serve as the basis for dose 


reconstruction. This basis does not limit 


NIOSH to using only or primarily information 


from the site where the employee worked, but a 


dose reconstruction must, as a starting point, 


be based on some information from the site 


where the employee worked. 


Now the EEOICPA is pretty clear when it set -- 


states that exposure in the performance of duty 


shall be based on the radiation dose received 


by workers at such site. That sets a 


restriction. 


So what gives HHS the right to change the 


parameters of the EEOICPA? Through the rules 

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and regulations governing dose reconstruction, 


HHS gave NIOSH the right to substitute data 


from one site to another. This matter has 


already been brought up to Dr. Howard of HHS, 


and it could be a considerable problem. 


This is apparent because NIOSH dose 


reconstructed Fernald workers using Hanford 


data based on OTIB-2 in lieu of doing the 


research necessary to actually determine 


whether data -- whether Fernald data was 


sufficient to dose reconstruct. This was to 


facilitate timeliness. 


It seems that with this type of provision in 


place, NIOSH will always have the data they 


need to do dose reconstruction. They'll just 


take it from another site. NIOSH feels they 


are only required to include some data from the 


employee's actual work site to determine POC. 


 It's imperative that the EEOICPA has precedence 


over the rules and regulations, otherwise the 


process becomes a mockery of the law. 


Coworker data is a permissible substitution. 


NIOSH claims to have enough data for each 


worker to make substitution unnecessary for 


FMPC dose reconstructions. 

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 Could somebody get me some water? I'm getting 


really dry. 


I would like to point out, it was a common 


practice at Fernald -- excuse me. 


(Pause) 


I would like to point out that it was a common 


practice at Fernald to sample dose workers. 


This practice enabled FNPC to estimate exposure 


without incurring the expense of processing 


results for all the workers involved. An air 


dust survey from a lengthy fire in Plant 6 


illustrated this practice. Twenty-six machine 


operators were involved in the fire, but only 


five were monitored. Therefore, the exposures 


received by 21 workers were not attributed to 


them in dose records. 


The value of uranium urinalysis data. NIOSH 


claims to have large amounts of monitoring data 


from uranium urinalysis, and they feel it has 


significant value in dose reconstruction. I 


would like it -- to look at this matter from 


the NLO's perspective through the historic 


documents included in this position (sic). 


 National Lead of Ohio's records are very clear 


on the benefits of uranium urinalys (sic) 

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monitoring and how they used the data. I will 


only refer to the documents by their dates. 


August 1972, the data have been used primarily 


as an indicator of operating conditions. 


August 1979, urinalysis results are only used 


as an indication of the adequacy of basis 


exposure control measures. September 1981, 


uranium in urine was used to monitor employees 


for exposure to airborne uranium. 


Workers were, in a sense, human monitoring 


instruments. They helped management keep track 


of their product to minimize losses. When 


uranium urine levels were elevated, management 


knew to look for excess product release, 


generally caused by equipment failure. We know 


this type of monitoring was done at various 


time intervals based on management's predicted 


exposure rates. This was to ensure uranium 


levels stayed below the toxic levels in 


workers. 


 Occasionally management was asked to respond to 


questions about the uranium urinalysis data, 


and here are some of their responses. 


November 1963, we do not consider the urinary 


uranium excretion measurement as an accurate 

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method of estimating either body burden or 


exposure. We have assumed that the 


determination of internal exposure by any 


method, or combination of methods, is less 


precise than are estimations of exposure to 


external radiation. 


July 1966, the state of the art for accurate 


estimates of radiation from internal emitters 


is not sufficiently advanced to make good 


estimates. 


 August 1979, uranium urinalysis are not used to 


evaluate internal radiation exposures at FMPC. 


September 1981, we have not used these results 


to make estimates of internal exposure. 


 June 1984, all employees are not monitored by 


in vivo counting for internal exposure, and 


doses cannot be computed from urinalysis data. 


In vivo count data is not available for all 


employees and doses cannot be computed from 


urinalysis data. 


Then there was a question asked: Do you 


calculate a dose equivalent to the critical 


organ from internally-deposited radionucleides 


(sic)? The response was no, the amount of 


deposited radionucleide determined from lung 

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counts is recorded, but this cannot be used -- 


let's see, the amount of deposited 


radionucleide determined from lung counts is 


recorded, which can be used to calculate lung 


burden. Excretion urinalysis data is recorded, 


but this cannot be used to calculate internal 


doses. 


And these come from a questionnaire on 


radiation record keeping, and the response was 


by their record keeper. 


In the SEC evaluation NIOSH claims workers in 


uranium production areas were also included in 


the urinalysis program to estimate internal 


dose. Not according to the historical FMPC 


documents. 


 National Lead of Ohio had a reason for stating 


excretion or urinalysis data recorded, but this 


cannot be used for calculating internal doses. 


The person making this statement knew something 


about the data that NIOSH doesn't. For NIOSH 


to disregard the FMPC's document or comments 


about the quality of their own data shows how 


desperate they are to use it, whether it's 


credible or not. 


In June 1984 questionnaire contains some 

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additional noteworthy responses: 


 Air monitoring results were never used to 


estimate internal deposition. 


Second, the only method used to estimate 


internal deposition was whole body counting. 


Third, Y-2 (sic) equipment was operated by 


National Lead of Ohio. Since 1970 they 


operated the counters themselves. 


 Fourth, if artifacts are discovered, a notation 


that the count results are unreliable is made 


in the worker's record. The reason is also 


included. 


Along the same line, other forms of monitoring 


are discussed briefly in the above-mentioned 


document. 


In vivo lung counting was the primary means of 


assessing internal dose. That's based on a 


1972 document. The whole body counting 


evaluations were done in-house. National Lead 


of Ohio performed all dosimetry evaluations inhouse after the first year. Therefore none of 


this data was verified by anyone outside the 


National Lead of Ohio operation for accuracy. 


I discovered additional information about 


uranium that could impact the usefulness of 

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FMPC's urinary analysis data. It claims the 


basis of the maximum allowable concentration 


for uranium dust is based on the chemical 


toxicity of uranium rather than the 


radiological toxicity. The reference notation 


was for the soluble form of uranium. The 


article further stated that the recommended 


allowable concentration of insoluble uranium 


compounds was five times higher than the figure 


used by Fernald. And for some reason, this 


page was excluded from the petition on the in-


line -- on-line copy. 


Data falsification. NIOSH acknowledged the 


possibility that air monitoring could have been 


manipulated, but dismissed the reality that it 


could have become a common practice. An 


admission on their part would compromise the 


credibility of data used for dose 


reconstruction. 


An affidavit that's included in the petition is 


the personal account of events participated in 


by an industrial hygienist employed in the 


position from September 1953 through March 


1971. He did air sampling for dust and toxins, 


measured exhaust and ventilation systems, 

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prepared reports for management, investigated 


releases and performed other types of 


environmental monitoring. He described the 


factors that could affect the accuracy of 


monitoring results. 


 First, he used a homemade sampler consisting of 


a vacuum and a filter. He noted that the dust 


was often lost from the filter. 


Readings for dust -- air dust levels were 


dependent on the direction or angle from which 


the measurement was taken. 


Third, delays after an occurrence allowed 


conditions to clear before monitoring was 


performed. 


 Fourth, resampling -- he was required to often 


resample because the results were too high for 


the management. 


Other factors that affected the results were 


open windows and drafts, resuspended dust, fork 


truck traffic, blocked ventilation ducts, 


production rates, and whether or not the 


procedures were followed. 


Another area of data falsification involved the 


calculation of effluents released from stack 


emissions. The specific details of those can 

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be reviewed in the petition documents. 


 Radionucleide (sic) exposure is an area of 


concern -- a major area of concern at FMPC. 


NIOSH claims radionucleides other than uranium 


were analyzed on occasion throughout the years, 


and data for specific non-uranium 


radionucleides is not readily available. The 


remainder of the information they provided 


involved assumptions, ratios and calculations. 


I believe the issues of radionucleides 


presented a serious exposure problem at -- to 


FMPC workers. There is too little information 


available to make determinations about all the 


possible isotopes to which workers were 


exposed. The levels to which they were exp-- 


to which they were exposed, and whether or not 


they were in equilibrium, and how old the 


product was and whether it had crossed over, 


and what it -- might have happened. If this 


occurred, how much product was involved, and 


did it involve any other products? Was it in 


the soluble form or the insoluble form, and was 


it -- and what was its retention rate? There 


are too many questions and too little data to 


cover all the possibilities. 

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Recycled uranium processing introduced isotopes 


from other DOE sites, the contents of which can 


only be speculated on in some instances. The 


transuranics present in ash were not 


identified, and there was apparently no attempt 


to detect them using the Mobile In Vivo 


Radiation Monitoring Laboratory. Furthermore, 


FMPC could not identify plutonium-238 and 


plutonium-239 because they needed to upgrade 


their equipment. 


Enriched uranium processing also introduced 


questionable levels of exposure. Uranium 


hexafluoride reduction product could contain 


neptunium, plutonium, americum (sic), technium 


(sic), whatever. Special order products were 


produced up to 37 percent enrichment on 


occasion. The physical inventory of products 


often didn't agree with the book inventory. 


NIOSH stated that neutron monitoring was not 


required at FMPC, yet chlorine is a neutron 


poison which was released by the cooling agent 


perchlorethylene, which was used in the casting 


and other processes as a cooling agent. 


The radiation exposure environment determined 


the dose received by workers. The task being 

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performed was the primary determiner of 


exposure apart from individual work habits. 


Other factors such as location of the worker on 


site, the process taking place, the types and 


quantities of material present, and the time 


spent in each location were significantly 


important. The importance of these principles 


is expressed in an FMPC document. Exposure 


from various jobs will fluctuate considerably 


over a period of time. A serious problem in 


determining internal exposure is in the 


difficulty in obtaining good work records, 


which show how long an individual has worked in 


various jobs. We have records which tell us to 


which plant a person is assigned and which job 


classification he worked; however, these 


records do not tell us the specific job 


operation he performed. 


 Sufficient information. The availability of 


sufficient information cannot be based on 


numbers alone. Information can only be deemed 


sufficient if it is enough to reach a 


reasonably accurate determination of the dose 


incurred. I believe it is impossible for NIOSH 


to establish upper bounding limits for doses 

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received based on the information available. 


One, the DOE lacked confidence in the 


credibility of FMPC practices and data. 


Second, the accuracy of the monitoring data is 


suspect because it was only evaluated in-house. 


 Third, FMPC records are incomplete, both in 


quantity and type of material that would have 


attributed to radiation dose to the workers. 


Fourth, FMPC kept records in such a way that 


would impair their comparability to other DOE 


facilities to allow them to be evaluated in a 


similar manner. 


FMPC wasn't always able to accurately predict 


the exposure potential for specific worker 


groups and women. There's a document that 


talks about four unexplained exposures. These 


people were not monitored; three of them were 


women. I'm assuming that the one gentleman 


that was monitored is what led into the 


investigation, but they still haven't deter-- 


been able to determine what they were exposed 


to or where. 


Six, FMPC monitoring equipment lacked the 


capability of detecting and identifying 


radionucleides (sic) present in the workplace. 

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 Seventh, there are large gaps in air monitoring 


data. The extreme fluctuations and exposure 


levels prevent the establishment of reasonable 


assumptions. 


Eighth, FMPC wasn't able to identify 


crossovers, residues and misidentified 


materials in a timely manner. 


Speculation is not a substitute for 


information. There just isn't enough accurate 


information to address all the possible 


exposures that could have occurred. I have no 


attempted to evaluate the exposure, but just 


present the obstacles to dose reconstruction as 


I see it. 


 Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Sandra. Do you have 


additional members --


 MS. BALDRIDGE: I would like --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- of the petitioning group that 


would like --


 MS. BALDRIDGE: I would like --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to address us? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: -- to give the floor to Ray 


Beatty. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

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 UNIDENTIFIED: Hello? 


 MR. BEATTY: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer and the 


Board members and Sandra for the fine job that 


you've done on constructing the SEC petition. 


You're a hard act to follow, so I won't try to 


reiterate a lot of the technical information 


that she shared with you, but I will try to 


attest to the extreme accuracy and validity of 


her information. 


I do want to kind of rebuttal (sic) a couple of 


things from the NIOSH report. I will have a 


couple of questions, either for Mr. Elliott or 


Mark Rolfes personally. 


As to the addendums that were submitted on this 


SEC petition, I'm familiar with number two, but 


number one, maybe we could discuss this a 


little later. I'd like to know a little bit 


more about number one. 


 In the sources of available information, it was 


slide number three in your presentation, the -- 


something that's been brought up at other Board 


member meetings throughout the nation, when -- 


particularly talking about the Fernald site, is 


HIS-20. I want to touch on HIS-20 a little 


bit. The HIS acronym stands for the Health 

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Infor-- Health Physics Information System. Now 


if NIOSH is throwing a great deal of 


credibility on that particular program, we need 


to talk. I personally worked at the site from 


January 20th, 1992 till closure October '06. 


HIS-20 was introduced at our site. Our 


training records, medical records, entry and 


exits to buildings was done through a 


monitoring scanning process with our badges. 


Now again, if NIOSH is using this information 


to do dose reconstruction as to people entering 


X buildings, we need to talk because the system 


was down more than it was up. And we know that 


for a fact from -- well, from records where 


people had to manually sign in to enter 


specific buildings to do certain work tasks. 


As far as the dose, what we did in bioassay, in 


vivo and other forms of medical monitoring and 


radiation exposure monitoring, our TLD badges ­

- I -- I can't dispute a lot of that 


information. I do not have the technical 


background and expertise to do that sort of 


thing. However, when the programs, though, 


shifted from say like time frames -- I just 


learned this morning from a fellow union 

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brother that some sites only do an annual 


bioassay, a urinalysis once a year, but yet 


they're going into high contamination areas. 


There's something wrong at that site really 


needs to be looked at. And when I started in 


'92, bioassay was done on a 30-day time 


interval, and it was changed over to 60 days, 


for obvious reasons. I guess the constituents 


or the -- the concerns from radiation, the 


product maybe had -- lot of it had been shipped 


off-site, but our concern was residual 


contamination and the -- the ugliness of some 


of the areas in which we had to perform work, 


and especially in safe shut-down doing hands-on 


cleaning, scrubbing of machinery, beam 


structures during the lockdowns and the gross ­

- gross contamination cleanup. 


Some of my comments also will not reflect 


directly on the class of the petition, but I 


think it -- my comments will be relevant to the 


reliability of the data. I want to emphasize 


that once more, the reliability of the data. 


NIOSH, I plead with you, if you plug garbage 


into an equation, your answer's going to be 


garbage, and that's what you've gotten from 

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some of the documents. Mrs. Baldridge attested 


to that, to the Technical Base (sic) Documents. 


They speak for themselves. 


Okay, that's -- that's my comments on the NIOSH 


report, and again I would like to talk about 


that addendum number one in the next few 


minutes with someone. 


The SEC petition evaluation report that I read 


touched a great deal on the site profile -- at 


least the people that developed our site 


profile, the six documents that were developed 


to make our site profile, I can't name all the 


persons but I do remember one specifically that 


came to our site, came to our union office -- I 


believe it's Dr. Mel Chew. Ironically, his 


name is on the SEC petition evaluation report. 


I have a concern that the person that wrote the 


site profile now evaluating the SEC petition, 


and it's kind of like the fox guarding the 


henhouse again, or you asking someone to 


dispute what they developed in a site profile 


when they do this SEC petition. No, I'm not 


going to hammer my own product. I'm going to 


say it's the greatest thing come along since 


sliced bread. So got a little problem with 

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that. Not necessarily conflict of interest, 


but I think some subject matter experts may 


have been -- well, kind of overstepped or used 


exclusively maybe in too many cases here. 


 The final thing that I'd like to comment on, 


and I think it's worth mentioning -- and again, 


it's going to be a reflection of the later 


years. I cannot stand here and testify to the 


fac-- what the former cold war veterans were 


subjected to. I wasn't there. I didn't start 


until '92. But up until '89 I -- I got the 


pleasure of working with a lot of former 


workers, the cold war veterans, and they shared 


some stories with me about the peaks and 


valleys in health and safety, I'll call it. 


There were spike periods. 


Initially I think in the early days production 


was number one, and then in the late '80s I 


think with -- especially with the incidents 


that Mrs. Baldridge alluded to and the DOD -- 


DOE finally stepped in. A law was developed, I 


think called the Price Anderson Act, and it 


kind of made people take notice of what was 


going on on these sites, and health and safety 


improved. And now I'm here to tell you in 

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these later years that -- and I made a couple 


notes here -- that there were peaks and valleys 


in health and safety, and I think the 


overriding issue was cost and schedule overrode 


health and safety because of closure. Getting 


this early closure, getting this place closed 


down, getting the other -- not necessarily 


stakeholders, but the -- the other government 


agencies that were -- well, hot on the heels of 


DOE and the contractors to get this cleaned up, 


like EPA. They -- they allowed some 


permissible limits to be changed. In other 


words, water being sent back into the -- the 


river, back to the aquifer where it was pumped 


out from under our sites it was so highly 


contaminated, went from 20 parts per billion of 


-- of uranium to 30 parts per billion. That 


just happened a few years ago. 


 They're -- they're -- tried -- there was -- 


there was attempts made to allow something 


called the WAC, or Waste Acceptance Criteria, 


on the on-site disposal facility, the dump that 


they built -- built there on the site. 


Initially all the contamination was supposed to 


be hauled off. There was a compromise made 

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there. I'm not sure if it was for the better; 


time will tell. But there is currently a -- an 


OSDF there on our site, and that Waste 


Acceptance Criteria -- you had to be below a 


certain level for the contaminated materials to 


go into that cell. If it was higher, you ship 


it off-site, either Nevada Test Site or other 


dumping grounds, Envirocare, what have you. 


The point there is, there was compromises made 


in the numbers, and this affects health and 


safety. Those kind of things were done 


historically, compromises. Numbers -- not 


necessarily manipulated, I can't attest to 


that. I've only heard it. But when -- when 


things are missing and then a federal lawsuit 


was filed on behalf of the community, called 


Fernald Settlement One. There was a lawsuit 


filed on behalf of the workforce, Fernald 


Settlement Two. This was won in federal court 


in Cincinnati, Ohio. It stands today. The 


former workers that from there -- from 1985 


back to 1951, they allowed -- they are allowed 


lifetime medical monitoring. Now that ought to 


say something. The fact that the -- the data 


that was used in -- in developing the lawsuit 

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proved that there was some shortcomings in what 


the DOE and the contractor had provided, or at 


least what these workers were told they were 


subjected to and various things. 


Finally that brings me up for a final comment 


on a report that I hold here in my hand by 


NIOSH. I have shared this a couple of other 


times in the past. This is my actual report, 


and I apologize to the Board for not having you 


a copy of this but I will certainly see that 


you get it, especially Ray, for the -- for the 


record. 


This report was written December of 2000. 


Okay? Again, I'm talking about a time frame 


past the SEC petition class of people, but I 


think it's relevant and it'll show a 


correlation of how information has not been 


maybe properly exchanged or things are missing. 


There's voids -- incompleteness and just flat-


out reliability of data. 


But in December of 2000 the division of NIOSH ­

- I assume this -- Larry, please correct me if 


I make a -- an inaccurate statement here, but 


within NIOSH I believe there's an investigative 


branch, Health-related Energy Research Branch, 

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Division of Surveillance and Hazard 


Evaluations. I've had it explained to me that 


if -- while I was working at the site, if I had 


a concern, I could contact NIOSH and ask them 


to come to my site and actually investigate my 


concern. This committee, it was established, 


was assigned this assessment to gather 


information as was needed for health effects 


due to occupational exposures for DOE site 


remediation workers. Okay? Not production, 


remediation, for these cleanup crews. Again, 


this was in 2000. This report come out January 


of '01. 


The purpose of this project or this assessment 


was just to evaluate whether or not DOE, the 


contractors and any other people involved that 


were monitoring the cleanups of these sites, if 


they were given the proper information they 


needed to do proper monitoring and evaluations 


and ultimately dose reconstruction for these 


workers. 


Well, there were four findings. The question 


was: Can remediation workers be identified? 


Are adequate worker, work history and medical 


data available for remediation workers? Can 

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individual workers be linked to their exposure 


and medical data? With current knowledge and 


understanding as described in this report, can 


epidemiologic expert -- exposure assessment or 


hazard surveillance studies of remediation 


workers and the technologies they employed be 


conducted now or in the foreseeable future? 


 Answer to number one: Some remediation workers 


who worked at DOE sites cannot be identified. 


Accurate, complete exposure, work history and 


medical record data are not available for this 


population. Individual workers cannot 


consistently be linked to their exposure and 


medical data. 


Number four, at the present time the necessary 


information to conduct epidemiologic exposure 


assessment or hazard surveillance studies of 


remediation workers is not available. 


NIOSH report. Now, they're doing dose 


reconstructions based on data supplied to them 


by the contractor and DOE, and this happened 


2000 to the present time, folks. What do you 


think it was like from the 1950s to 1989? 


It's -- I rest my case. Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Sandra, do 

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you have any additional individuals that you 


wish to address us at this time? Okay, thank 


you. 


Now I'll open the floor, Board members, for 


either questions or comments on any of the 


three presentations. 


Let me ask one to start with. Sandra, I wonder 


if you could clarify for me -- I -- are -- is ­

- are the petitioners asserting that there 


actually were neutron exposures? I was trying 


to understand your statement about the chlorine 


and I was having a little difficulty with that. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: It had been mentioned that 


there was no neutron monitoring and that 


basically there was no monitoring and there was 


no problem that was significant. And as I was 


reviewing the documents, I noticed that they 


mentioned the release of chlorine, that was a 


neutron poison. And people who were in 


constant contact with perchlorethylene as a 


cooling agent in various processes -- there 


would be a release from the perchlorethylene 


that res-- that possibly could have resulted in 


a neutron exposure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that's -- that's what you 

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were pointing out here. Okay, I -- I -- as I ­

- as I would understand it, a neutron poison -- 


such as boron is also a neutron poison, but it 


does not emit neutrons. I was -- I was trying 


to clarify whether you were asserting that 


neutrons are being emitted there, I -- 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: I was just referencing 


statements --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: -- (unintelligible) 


information. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, gotcha. Thank you. I'd 


like to also ask Ray -- Ray, do you know if -- 


you mentioned the TLD readings and so on. Did 


-- did Fernald use a -- a commercial TLD vendor 


or did they do their own TLD work? 


 MR. BEATTY: Up until about a year and a half 


or two years prior to closure they used their 


own, and then they went to a -- like a vendor 


per se. I believe they went to Savannah River, 


actually, and it come back a different type of 


film badge. And I believe someone -- Stu or 


someone maybe knows more about that than me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so when you said -- when you 


talked about in-house, they actually were 

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reading their own dosimeters -- 


 MR. BEATTY: Yes, they actually their -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Was this also true of their film 


badges prior to the TLD days? 


 MR. BEATTY: I believe so, yes. They had their 


actual own reading lab there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Jim Melius. Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: I'd like to first of all thank the 


petitioners for their very helpful 


presentations. I do have a few questions for ­

- for Mark. I haven't forgotten you, Mark. 

 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Dr. Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: Number one is in terms of -- in 

terms of developing the evaluation report, you 


men-- mention -- I'm a little confused from 


your slides and -- and what you presented. You 


mention one outreach meeting or -- and then 


were there additional attempts to talk to some 


of the petitioners as well as some of the other 


workers and worker representatives up at 


Fernald? 


 MR. ROLFES: I actually attended a couple of 


meetings with the Fernald union. I was at the 


meeting with Ray Beatty and Mel Chew, and I 


believe we had a couple of other NIOSH staff. 

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That was probably a couple of years back, I 


don't remember the exact date of it. But after 


we received the SEC submission in April, I 


attended a former workers' retiree meeting in 


May of 2006. And then we had followed up with 


those individuals. I had asked some of the 


retirees if they had any information to share 


with us, and if they had any concerns about the 


technical information or how we were doing dose 


reconstructions, and I passed around a sheet of 


paper and we got about ten people that signed 


up. And I know that we contacted some of those 


people. 


 DR. MELIUS: Ok-- okay, that -- just helpful -- 


know. Secondly, the -- SC&A has done a review 


of the site profile, which I think actually 


raises a number of significant issues about 


your evaluation report, and I'm just trying to 


understand the timing a little bit in -- in 


terms of this. Was -- was that report or the 


information in that report available at the 


time the evaluation -- your evaluation report 


was done, or are these sort of like parallel 


processes? I -- I'm not... 


 MR. ROLFES: I don't recall whether we received 

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SC&A's comments before the SEC submission. 
I 


believe we had some early on discussions with 


SC&A concerning their comments. I know we have 


received a final report, though, from SC&A now 


at this time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let -- let me speak to that also, 


Jim. You -- you may recall we did appoint a 


workgroup for Fernald. Brad Clawson is 


chairing that workgroup. The members of that 


are Presley and Ziemer, and Mark is the -- the 


contact person. We -- we do have in fact -- 


and I -- I don't think that NIOSH had this when 


they were preparing the evaluation report, if 


I'm not mistaken. I don't believe they had it 


then. This is very recent. There is a --


Brad, let me ask you to report for the 


workgroup and it'll speak to this point. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, as you -- as you remember, 


the Advisory Board, we asked SC&A -- I believe 


it was last meeting -- if they could take and 


make a matrix for us of potential issues with ­

- for Fernald. And I just received that just 


before I came out here and it -- it's right now 


in the process of going through the -- the 


legal department for privacy information and so 

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forth. I have given it out to each member of 


the workgroup, but NIOSH has not received it 


officially. SC&A'd still like to have time to 


be able to clean it up a little bit before it 


gets to them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So the answer is that NIOSH hasn't 


really officially seen the SC&A comments yet 


'cause they're --


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the 


site profile review was done a while back, so 


they would have had the overall site profile 


comments well before the evaluation report. 


The -- the -- the matrix, Brad, you're talking 


about is we've asked SC&A to cull down the 


overall matrix to ones that may impact an SEC 


in preparation for this -- the SEC 


deliberations. But I think you've had the site 


profile comments for a while, if I'm not 


mistaken. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The site -- the site profile 


comments were issued in November by SC&A -- 


November 10th, to be exact. I'm looking at my 


chart. And so that was the -- that was 


specifically on the site profile, not on the 


SEC. We now have SEC-related comments -- 

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 MR. CLAWSON: That is correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- which have not been released 


yet, to either the Board or to NIOSH, but the 


workgroup chair does have an early copy of 


those. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I think the SEC comments -- 


my point was that the SEC comments are derived 


from the --

 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- the original review, I 

believe. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: I actually have --

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Jim. Does that -- that 

answered --

 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- your question on that issue? 

Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- just trying to get a overall 

understanding of what's going on. 


Both in the SC&A report and I believe in your 


evaluation report you -- you're referring to a 


number of -- actually in your presentation, 


also -- a num-- number of procedures that we 


use in individual dose reconstruction that are 

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currently being developed. I believe the 


coworker model was referred to as, you know, 


being -- would be used. I can't tell if 


they're fully developed or -- or where they -- 


where they stand. I -- I believe in the SC&A 


report they refer to a number of, you know, 


changes in the site profile that are underway 


that would be used in the future, and I'm just 


trying to get an idea of what the time frame 


for those are. We get into problems in SEC 


evaluations when we're trying to understand 


something that's currently not fully developed 


and whether it'll be feasible or not and I'm 


just --

 MR. ROLFES: We're doing our best -- 

 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) yeah, yeah. 

 MR. ROLFES: We're doing our best to get the 

document completed as fast as we can, and we're 


trying to do our best to ensure that it's 


technically accurate in incorporating the 


workers' comments that we have received, so... 


 DR. MELIUS: But -- but in terms of like the 


coworker model, I believe there's some issues 


with the evaluation of thorium and radon 


exposures that -- that are not -- you would not 

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be able to use those now for dose 


reconstruction -- individual dose 


reconstruction for -- at least for some of the 


workers and -- 'cause they're still being, you 


know, developed, and I'm trying to get a sense 


of well, you know, is that five years away or 


ten years away, is it a month away? I mean --


 MR. ROLFES: The -- it's ongoing right now. 


The information that I discussed, I actually 


did sample dose reconstructions for and have 


places on the X drive for the Advisory Board to 


review. And what I've provided speaks to these 


issues, reconstruction of radon exposures, 


reconstruction of radium exposures, as well as 


other radionuclides from the silos. Some of 


these issues that were identified in the 


petition, I did my best to ensure that we had 


spoken directly to those issues, and I feel 


that we have done a good job demonstrating that 


we can reconstruct the maximum feasible 


radiation doses for the class. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- Larry, I asked a 


slightly different question -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me see if I can help here. 


think what you're asking is how soon are -- are 


I 
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you going to see a coworker data distribution. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: And it's going to be weeks. It's 


not, I don't believe, months. We're talking 


weeks away. 


 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay, okay, that's -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is -- they're being worked 


on, and I think that, you know, we need to 


understand the premise of the need for that. 


We worked through a number of dose 


reconstructions for Fernald, and we've used the 


data at hand. We've held back perhaps on some 


individual claims where there's gaps that we 


need to -- this developed for, this coworker 


distribution for. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: That's -- well, I guess if there 


are -- let others do questions. I have some 


sort of procedural issues, but let's come back 


to them after we've talked about questions -- 


other questions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just a -- a little follow-up on, 


little follow-up on the model stuff. You 


mentioned that you had radon breath samples, 

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600 radon breath samples. Is -- is it over a 


certain time period, is -- is there -- do you 


have any sense of -- does it cover the entire 


time period of the site or -- or the petition 


or... 


 MR. ROLFES: The radon breath samples were for 


the workers that were filling the K-65 silos, 


and the time period was between '52 -- it was 


'52, '53 and '54 that I can remember off the 


top of my head that we have data for, so I 


believe there were about 200 samples per year 


from '52, '53 and '54. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And the other -- the other 


question I thought that -- I think you said in 


the -- the petitioners raised a concern over 


falsification of --


 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- of air sampling records -- I 


think it was air sampling in particular, and I 


was listening to your response to that. I'm 


not sure that you met it head-on. I think you 


-- you indicated different ways you will do the 


dose reconstruction, but I think the question 


hangs out there. Was --


 MR. ROLFES: Okay. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- did you, in your review of the 


data, of the records, have you found any 


indication of falsification of these records? 


 MR. ROLFES: The petitioner provided an 


affidavit from a former industrial hygienist, 


which I did take a look at, and what -- what it 


described was the industrial hygienist going 


out and monitoring in Plant 5 for an 


individual's uranium exposures. And what we 


found is that the individual would take a 


sample, get the results, and his supervisor 


would ask him to go back because he didn't 


believe that the air sample was that high. So 


this occurred about five additional times 


because the individual continued to get a high 


air sample result. And it was not until the 


seventh try that the individual got a lower air 


sample result that was acceptable to the 


supervisor. 


However, we have no indication that the 


previous measurements would have been 


destroyed, so we have all of those air samples, 


we believe. And when we assign intakes, if we 


have to rely on air monitoring data we would 


use a distribution of those results rather than 

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a single air sample. But -- however, because 


this is a uranium facility and we have uranium 


bioassay data, that would be the most important 


piece of information to assign intakes and 


estimate the radiation dose, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so -- so you're -- but -- 


but there are circumstances where you're going 


to rely on air sampling data for some -- for 


some of the thorium work I think you mentioned 


you're going to use air sampling data for some 


 MR. ROLFES: We are going to have to rely on 


air sampling data because -- we did have 


bioassay data for thorium during the early time 


periods. There were some gross beta urinalysis 


results from the early time period, from '54 


and '55. However, they weren't routine, so 


we're going to develop a coworker model from 


the air sampling data that we have. During 


those two years I believe, from the most recent 


record review that I have done, I was able to 


count about 12,000 air samples from those two 


years. However, we also have Mobile In Vivo 


Radiation Monitoring Lab results, and we have 


those results from 1965 through 1989, so we're 

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going to use those results in conjunction with 


our air sampling data to develop a coworker 


model, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And -- and the coworker -- 


all these coworker models -- I think Jim was 


exploring this, but all these -- I might have 


missed this during your presentation, I 


apologize -- but all of them are in draft form 


or are there certain ones that are completed? 


 MR. ROLFES: We have developed several White 


Papers. The official product isn't -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. ROLFES: -- isn't finalized, but we have 


used the White Papers to do the same dose 


reconstructions to -- to show that we have been 


able to do that. But we are actively working 


on finalizing the product and incorporating 


people's comments into it, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess I would ask -- more of a 


general comment, but it might be helpful to 


expedite matters with the workgroup as we move 


forward in deliberations if you get some of 


these products which you think are going to be 


helpful --


 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- in our deliberations --


 MR. ROLFES: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- maybe they can be posted on 


that --


 MR. ROLFES: Definitely. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that drive --


 MR. ROLFES: I definitely will. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- as -- as they're available or 


whatever --


 MR. ROLFES: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah. 


 MR. ROLFES: I definitely will. 


 DR. WADE: Sandra, do you have --


 DR. ZIEMER: Sandra, do you have a comment? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: I would like to address three 


items that were brought up. They're talking 


about developing documents, reviewing 


documents, yet they're still in process. My 


question is, how can they presume to know the 


value of documents that haven't been reviewed? 


The second point is that I believe it's stated 


in the site profile that they had thorium data, 


but they didn't know how to analyze it. So you 


know, they can state that they have so many 


pieces of data, but until it's assessable, it 

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basically has no value. 


And thirdly, the gentleman that -- the 


affidavit about the monitoring procedures, I 


believe the time frame that he was referencing 


was not limited to one or more -- limited 


monitoring experiences, that he was relaying a 


process and a policy that was in place for in 


the neighborhood of 20 years. And you know, so 


to try to define it by one or two incidents I 


don't think is fair to the monitoring process 


that was in place. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Phillip. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, I -- I've got a question 


for you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You can use the mike, Phillip. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: You were saying that you're 


using the air sampling data when there was a 


localized -- might have been a localized 


excursion or something, and so you're using the 


surrounding air sampling data? 


 MR. ROLFES: No, what we would do when we 


complete a dose reconstruction, the most 


important piece of information that we have for 


a given claim is the bioassay data that we have 


for that person. What we would do is evaluate 

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that bioassay data to assign intakes. And if 


we didn't have bioassay data for that person, 


we would use coworker intakes to evaluate an 


intake. Now types of bioassay that we do have 


for Fernald include the radon breath samples, 


the Mobile In Vivo Radiation Monitoring Lab 


results, and the urine samples. And with that 


information, we feel we can do a very good job 


in reconstructing a maximizing intake. 


There are time periods where there were not 


detailed records of bioassay, especially during 


the 1954/1955 time period. And it's during 


that time period that we're going to use more 


of the air monitoring data, but we're 


developing a coworker model because we have air 


sampling data and Mobile In Vivo Radiation 


Monitoring Lab results from '65 through '89. 


We're going to compare the production rates 


from the two time periods and basically 


construct a coworker model with the information 


that we have, so... Does that answer --


 MR. SCHOFIELD: How often was the in vivo 


measurement actually done? 


 MR. ROLFES: I believe they had brought the 


counter up from Y-12 every six months, and they 

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would prioritize people based on their job and 


potential exposures. Or if there was an 


incident involved, they would put those people 


at the top of the list for the count. 


There were some occasions when the mobile in 


vivo counter was not at Fernald, but there was 


an incident that occurred, and so sometimes 


they would send those individuals that were 


involved in that incident to the location where 


the in vivo counter was. For example, they 


might have had it at Portsmouth Gaseous 


Diffusion Plant at the time, or they may have 


had it down at Oak Ridge, so they would send 


the employees down there occasionally. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: So when a person was maybe 


exposed to a localized incident and the air 


monitoring samples around there may not have 


picked up that localized thing, you're going to 


count on this in vivo, which could occur five, 


six, nine months later, to reconstruct this 


person's possible intake? 


 MR. ROLFES: Once again, the most important 


piece of information when I complete a dose 


reconstruction for Fernald would be to evaluate 


the person's bioassay data for -- to assess his 

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internal exposures. What we would do, we would 


take a look at all the bioassay data that we 


have for that individual, take a look to see 


how many results he has, take a look to see if 


any of his results are above the detection 


limit, see how many are below the detection 


limit, and what we'll actually do is assign a 


claimant-favorable missed intake based on those 


bioassay results. And we use information in 


our Technical Basis Documents to describe 


information about the limits of detection, the 


sensitivities of the bioassay, and it is that 


information that is most important to us. It's 


the bioassay data that we would rely on 


primarily. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: So you're relying on data that 


in some possibilities there are cases where, 


because the supervisor determined the health 


physics people are detecting a higher count, 


possible (unintelligible) excursion than what 


they wanted to see, so you're using this data, 


which is obviously flawed if there's -- was a 


common practice. 


 MR. ROLFES: I -- I heard nothing to indicate 


that the bioassay data was flawed, but what we 

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would do for -- for a person that was involved 


in an incident, I've frequently seen for 


individual claims where a person would give an 


incident sample, a urinalysis sample, because 


of an incident. And what we can do with that 


bioassay data is reconstruct very claimant-


favorable intakes based on that information, 


and that is the most important piece of 


information that we have in a dose 


reconstruction for internal dose 


reconstruction. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: So you're comfortable these in 


vivo measurements, even though they may have 


been many year-- months down the road from a 


possible intake that was not necessarily 


measured or actually caught at that time? 


 MR. ROLFES: The -- the in vivo measurements 


that we have, in combination with the 


urinalysis results that we have, I believe we 


can be -- we're very comfortable with it -- 


with that information, yes, I believe so. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: How often was the urinalysis 

done? 

 MR. SCHOFIELD: Some people that didn't work in 

the -- in the radiation areas or in the 

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production areas only gave urinalyses on an 


annual basis. People in the production area 


sometimes gave multiple samples per day, so... 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Okay, thank you. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: I believe in the documents -- 


in the petition it revealed that the in vivo 


monitoring, because it cost like $36 every time 


they performed the analysis, that it was only 


provided in 1972 to chemical work-- to chemical 


operators, and they were only monitored once a 


year. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I might insert at this point, 


Phil, I think that -- and Larry can speak to 


this -- if there'd been a gap or a period of 


time since the last bioassay and then something 


shows up, NIOSH makes an assumption, based on 


what the level is here, that it occurred, for 


example, the day after the previous bioassay. 


So the -- the claimant-favorable assumption is 


that it occurred way back and has been excreted 


during that period and that puts the -- the 


maximum. Isn't that -- Mark, is that not -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- I -- I don't think they 


generally use that -- that approach. I know 


what you're saying, but -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think it's a case by case 


thing, really, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: But they could use that -- yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, unless -- unless you have a 


-- a sort of a regular intake, if you have a 


spike here and don't know what happened, worst 


case assumption is that you'd go back -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's the worst case assumption, 


but that's not always -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- always the one applied. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I think that's what you're 


saying, it's ca-- it is case by case. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But it's that type of thing, you 


don't assume that it was what it is that -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: There's models that -- that we 


use to show how the dose is integrated over 


time, and when those spikes occur, as -- as Dr. 


Ziemer indicated, it would be back-estimated to 


when it first was taken into the body that 


would show this kind of result. 


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follow up on that is -- you know, the -- the 


hierarchy -- I don't think we disagree with the 


hierarchy presented by Mark that they're using 


urinalysis over in vivo counting as a primary 


or -- or first tier approach. If they have 


that data, that's better 'cause it's 


individual-specific and they won't -- you know, 


relying on air sampling data has more flaws, 


probably. And also with this particular 


radionuclide of interest, it's going to -- it's 


going to be there for a while, so depending on 


the analytical technique, they can certainly 


estimate what was there -- you know, from 


previous time periods, so I think that -- that 


was sort of where you were going is if it 


occurred a while after the incident -- that may 


not be an issue, but -- you know, 'cause 


there's still going to be some material in the 


person's body, so -- but it depends on 


detection limits and all -- all sorts of 


things, as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Brad, did you have a comment? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, I -- I had some questions 


for Mark on the -- the TDB (sic). I 


understand, you know, as all of us do on the 

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Board, that -- that this is kind of a living 


document and a -- but -- but I've got questions 


on -- on the thorium because in a lot of the 


places, when we look at the site profile it 


says thorium was here, here and here. But 


there's gaps in this, and what are we doing to 


be able to fill in these -- these gaps, because 


at many of these sites I know that it says it 


was here and here, but it was a lot of other 


places, and there's some large gaps. 


 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Some of the information -- 


the petitioner did a very good job at 


identifying a couple of gaps that we had, and 


she actually had pointed out in Plant 6 there 


was a thorium furnace. She provided some air 


monitoring results to us from that. That's --


that's one of the things when we receive the 


SEC petition, it -- it involves a much more 


detailed look into the records. And so I went 


out to -- to the DOE repository for the Fernald 


records out on Springdale, and went through 


quite a bit of Fernald records from the Fernald 


Historical Database. We went through and 


copied Mobile In Vivo Radiation Monitoring Lab 


results. We -- we went back and looked at a 

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lot more records. We have received an 


additional about 1,600 to 1,700 additional 


records for Fernald since the time the site 


profile had been written in 2003. We have a 


much more detailed amount of information -- 


 MR. CLAWSON: What --


 MR. ROLFES: -- to go in (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. CLAWSON: I -- even with myself, as lame as 


I am on some things, I've seen quite a bit of 


data that you guys are calling out production, 


and I've seen a lot of variances on the actual 


production records of how much was actually 


done. 


 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 


 MR. CLAWSON: How are we going to come -- how 


are we going to get this kind of brought in -- 


be-- because I see a lot of different 


information and we're talking hundreds, 


thousands. 


 MR. ROLFES: When -- for -- for dose 


reconstruction purposes, we would rely 


primarily on bioassay data. That -- that is 


the most important piece of information to us 


to reconstruct an individual's internal 


exposure. And the film badge is the most 

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important indicator of external exposure. 


Those are the two -- the top pieces of 


information that we would have a claim for 


within our health physics hierarchy of data. 


For instance -- does -- does that answer your 


question, or --


 MR. CLAWSON: Well, yeah, it does, but -- 


 MR. ROLFES: Okay. 


 MR. CLAWSON: -- maybe as we get into the 


working group I --


 MR. ROLFES: Sure. 


 MR. CLAWSON: -- because reading into the TDB 


(sic), one of my things that -- that came out 


in this was the thorium fire that they had, and 


they only had so much monitoring data for that. 


And we've -- I heard again today that we -- we 


had a lot more people that were involved in 


that than actually what was monitored. And in 


the TDB (sic) it doesn't readdress that. 


 MR. ROLFES: Okay. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Are we readdressing this and are 


we -- because the petitioners, to me, are a -- 


a great resource of knowledge for this and are 


we correcting this shortfall, I guess I could 


say, in the TBD? 

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 MR. ROLFES: As you said, the TBDs are living 


documents and NIOSH incorporates the 


information that is provided to us. We 


evaluate information that's provided by 


claimants, by petitioners and by the public. 


just spoke with this gentleman behind me, Rudy, 


and he said that he and Mr. Bassett -- who 


couldn't be here today, unfortunately -- had 


some comments. And when I attended the Fernald 


worker outreach meeting, I received 


approximately 40 comments from Mr. -- from Mr. 


Bassett that I'm working on incorporating at 


this time into the TBD, so... 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, that -- thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Sandra has... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sandra? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: Since the external monitoring 


based on the badges came up, as I was reviewing 


documents, particularly as they relate to my 


father's claim and working on the re-evaluation 


process, I discovered that there were certain 


operators that performed his job task -- he was 


involved in gauge setup -- who actually worked 


with their heads inside the equipment so that 


they could make the instrument settings or 


I 
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whatever was necessary. And I had reviewed 


another document where he had recommended 


cleaning the lights, getting the smoke off of 


the lights so that they could see. So I'm sure 


with his head inside that equipment, his badge 


wasn't on his nose. You know, his badge was 


somewhere down on his chest, so the readings 


for some workers couldn't possibly have picked 


up what they were actually inhaling in the 


course of performing their jobs. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: Compliments to Mrs. Baldridge. This 


is an impressive body of work. Anyone who's 


ever done any research knows what's gone into 


this, and it's impressive. Thank you for it. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 MS. MUNN: It's very impressive indeed. Have 


two comments with respect to some of the 


content. One, couldn't help but notice the 


quote from the original sense of Congress. 


Those of you who were at our first meeting of 


this Board will recall that I took issue with 


that statement, and at the time felt that it 


was -- should be the responsibility of an 

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advisory board like this one to point out the 


probable error in that, but the general sense 


of the Board was that the sense of Congress is 


the sense of Congress, erroneously or not, and 


we said nothing about it. It still concerns me 


that that particular item arises again when, if 


this statement that is made is a correct one, 


it has never been brought to my attention and 


I've not seen it in the body of data that we've 


worked with here. 


 The other puzzling thing to me is what appears 


to be a contradiction in the approach that 


we're taking now to the information that was 


recorded from the National Lab of Ohio's 


information from 20 and 40 years ago. If 


someone could clarify for me the difference in 


our approach now as opposed to what the 


Laboratory at that time apparently took as 


their position with respect to ability to 


establish dose, it would be helpful. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sandra, can you speak to that? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: NLO was National Lead of Ohio. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: They were the contractor that 


operated the FMPC. It was not a reference to a 

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laboratory, for clarification. 


 MS. MUNN: No, but since it's a portion of the 


data that you have uncovered, their statements 


-- some of their statements seem to be at odds 


with the approach that's currently being taken 


by NIOSH in how we are assessing the individual 


dose to the claimants, so -- 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: That -- that was one of my 


concerns. 


 MS. MUNN: And -- and I was asking for a 


clarification from NIOSH for that. 


 MR. ROLFES: I -- I believe there may have been 


some concern about some of the records -- could 


-- could you repeat what your question was 


directly, Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: You heard the -- and I'm sure you've 


seen the statements that were used in the 


petition --


 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 


 MS. MUNN: -- from NLO --


 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 


 MS. MUNN: -- with respect to monitoring -- 


what can and cannot be determined from 


urinalysis data, primarily, and -- 


 MR. ROLFES: Okay. 

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 MS. MUNN: -- clarification would be helpful. 


 MR. ROLFES: For -- for example, the -- the 


urine samples that were taken in the earlier 


time periods, the -- the routine monitoring of 


employees -- the urine samples were reported in 


mass units, meaning in micrograms -- or 


milligrams, even -- per liter of urine. What 


NIOSH does with that information is 


reconstructs a person's radiation intake. For 


an individual, based on their bioassay data, we 


take those mass results and multiply them by a 


specific activity of various types of uranium, 


either natural uranium for the earlier time 


periods or I believe after 1964 our default I 


believe is two percent enriched uranium. It is 


that information that we use to complete a -- a 


dose assessment. 


And I believe in the earlier time periods, as 


NLO indicated, they -- they didn't estimate the 


people's radiation dose from their urinalysis. 


They were monitoring for chemical toxicity. 


However, we have those urine sample results and 


we can convert those to -- to intakes based on 


known and documented activities -- specific 


activities of the materials that were 

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processed. 


 MS. MUNN: So let me try to be doubly clear 


here. The methods that were -- the same sample 


 MR. ROLFES: Uh-huh. 


 MS. MUNN: -- the sample results from that time 


were used for a different purpose then than 


they are used now, and the methods that were 


being employed in that analysis have improved 


and are more expanded today than they were at 


the time that these statements were made. Is 


that an accurate --


 MR. ROLFES: I believe the early urine 


monitoring that was done was -- they were more 


concerned about nephrotoxicity because of the 


soluble forms of uranium can cause kidney 


damage --


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ROLFES: -- and they wanted to prevent 


workers from receiving any direct chemical 


effects from -- from the exposures, so... 


 MS. MUNN: Hence the statements that they did 


not make evaluations based on -- 


 MR. ROLFES: Correct. 


 MS. MUNN: -- urinalysis. But the type of 

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analysis you are making now is different than 


from the type of analysis they were making 


then. 


 MR. ROLFES: Okay. We receive those uranium 


urinalysis results in units of mass, and what 


we do at NIOSH with those, we would take a look 


-- for example, say an individual had a -- a 


urinalysis result of 20 micrograms per liter. 


We would look at that -- say the -- say the 


sample came from someone in 1956. We would 


take that 20 micrograms per liter and we would 


multiply it by a specific activity of 683 


picocuries -- 683 picocuries per milligram, and 


then we would multiply that by a daily 


excretion from standard man of 1.4 liters per 


day. We would the use that urinalysis result ­

- it's now an activity excretion per 24 hours. 


We would use that urinalysis result to estimate 


the worker's intake, so... 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you, Mark. 


 MR. ROLFES: You're welcome. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me -- let me add to that. 


-- I think your question also goes to the 


purpose of the data that was collected, why was 


that information collected. And I think -- I 


I 
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think the petitioners have made a very clear 


case that in -- in the quotes that she's 


extracted from those reports, what the purpose 


was, as Mark's describing it, was -- it was not 


for calculating a body burden. It was for --


attempting to understand whether or not there 


was enough chemical metal exposure in the 


system that would cause, you know, failure in 


the -- in an organ. 


We -- we use data in this dose reconstruction 


program that were collected for purposes other 


than compensation. That's recognized in -- in 


our rule. You all commented and heard about 


that. The bulk of the data that we use when we 


talk about external dose or TLD badge, film 


badge data, is -- is compliance-driven data. 


And it's not research data and it's not 


compensation-related data. However, we're 


allowed to use that for those various purposes 


that the data was collected. I think your 


point's well raised. I think the petitioner's 


point is also well made. We understand the 


purpose of the -- of the data as it's 


collected, and we should do perhaps a better 


job of explaining how that purpose is 

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established in our understanding and how we're 


applying it in our dose reconstruction. 


 MS. MUNN: It would be helpful. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, John Poston and 


then Jim Melius. 


 DR. POSTON: Well, this may be beating a dead 


horse, Wanda, but in the early regulations and 


recommendations on internal dose, most of these 


-- all of these were based on what's called a 


maximum permissible concentration. And for all 


of the radionuclides that are listed, they're 


based on a radiation dose to what was called a 


critical organ, with the exception of uranium. 


The values that are listed as maximum 


permissible body burdens and so forth in the 


regulations are not based on dose. There was 


no dose calculation made. It was simply based 


on industrial hygiene considerations, as has 


been pointed out. That is, the nephrotoxicity. 


Had the concentration been based on dose, it 


would have been a factor of ten approximately 


higher than the value that was listed, and 


that's why instead of listing them in 


microcuries or millicuries per ML or cubic 


centimeter or whatever, the values were listed 

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as -- as mass. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, two points. One is this 


issue keeps coming up about sort of the 


legality of -- I should say the contradiction 


between what's written in the Act and -- and 


what's been the NIOSH approach of using data 


from other sites to reconstruct doses. And I 


think we'd asked at the last meeting for that 


to be put on the agenda to be discussed, and 


apparently it's not this time. I would hope 


that we could put it on the agenda for the next 


meeting. It's -- repeatedly keeps coming up, 


and I -- and I think we need to have some 


specific discussion of -- of that particular 


issue. 


 Re-- regarding this particular site profile -- 


or excuse me, SEC evaluation, I think -- 


question -- terms of how -- how do we go 


forward now. I believe we've got the workgroup 


established already on the site profile. We 


have -- they're working with the -- resolving 


the SC&A comments on that site profile. 
I 


think given now that we have an SEC evaluation 


report, we need to get that brought into the 

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process and I -- I guess I would be curious to 


know how we get SC&A involved on issues related 


to the -- specifically to the SEC because I 


think we need to try to resolve that, you know, 


relatively more quickly than all of -- 


necessarily all the issues that are in the site 


profile review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's an excellent point and I 


think I might call on Brad -- Brad, you -- as 


chairman -- or chairman for the workgroup for 


this particular case, can you recommend a path 


forward here? 


 MR. CLAWSON: First of all, we just -- as you 


know, we did something a little bit different 


this time and we got SC&A to get involved with 


any potential SEC petition problems. They have 


given me a preliminary matrix, but it's not out 


for the public at this time because they still 


need to clean it up. So first of all, what I'd 


like to do is be able to get SC&A to be able to 


give us the final version of this, plus give it 


to NIOSH for them to be able to review. And 


then as soon as possible I'd like to be able to 


sit down as a working group and discuss these 


issues that we have got. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: So the -- the suggested path 


forward would be to have SC&A complete the site 


profile review, which we have already tasked 


them to do --


 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- for NIOSH to then respond to 


the findings of that, in conjunction with 


working with the workgroup. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then at some point to be able 


to come back to the Board with a recommendation 


from the workgroup on this SEC petition. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I just -- I'm not clear -- 


I'm not clear whether we've assigned SC&A to 


review the petition or the evaluation report. 


It -- I know at this point we're just working 


from the site profile, which was -- which was 


to kind of hit the ground running, that was the 


idea, and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Lew can help --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think we have to --


 DR. ZIEMER: Lew can help us on this -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- do that, yeah. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- with the work assignment. What 


was the assignment? 


 DR. WADE: We believe we asked SC&A to prepare 


a matrix of -- from their evaluation of the 


site profile, to prepare a matrix of issues 


that they felt were related to the SEC 


petition. And I think we're primed to have 


them go further as the workgroup and as the 


Board decides. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So it would be the completion of 


the matrix and development of -- of those 


issues that they have identified, I think as I 


-- I've seen a copy of the matrix -- or the 


preliminary, and a number of the issues that 


you identify need to be fleshed out yet I think 


by SC&A. They've been identified as possible 


issues, but perhaps need fleshing out, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do -- do they -- have we assigned 


SC&A officially under -- is it Task V, the SEC 


review, have we officially brought them on to 


review the petition and the evaluation report? 


 DR. WADE: I think we've asked them to do a 


specialized review, which was -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- the matrix. I think we can at 

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this point, or as quickly as you -- as is your 


pleasure, ask them to undertake the full -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause I -- I think they might 


want to expand the matrix to include things 


that were raised in the petition or -- or the 


evaluation report that they didn't consider. 


 DR. WADE: And that's fine. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Before we ask for a formal motion, 


let me see -- Dr. Roessler has a comment. 


DR. ROESSLER: Question. It seems like the 


timing on this would be that the Board would 


address it after the workgroup report, either 


at our next conference call, or would that -- I 


think that for the petitioners' information, we 


have to give them some idea as to when this 


would come up, conference call or the next 


face-to-face meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: When is the conference call? 


 DR. WADE: I believe it's -- let me get -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Ray. 


 MR. BEATTY: Along that line, Dr. Ziemer, thank 


you, Gen, for that -- including the petitioners 


as the working group does get together -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes. 


 MR. BEATTY: -- please, yes. I know you've 

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done that before --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. BEATTY: -- with Bethlehem Steel and -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, the prac-- the practice will 

be that any -- any meetings on this will 


include the petitioners, yes. 


 MR. BEATTY: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: It's April 5th. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The conference call is scheduled 


for April 5th, and John Mauro, can you speak 


for SC&A? Where -- what do we need, time-wise? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, let me -- let me help a 


little. Yes, Dr. Wade, our mandate initially 


was I guess well-focused, mainly we have our 


site profile and to go through it, prepare a 


matrix of what we believe to be potential SEC 


issues, which in a very preliminary way we have 


delivered. It is certainly not final, but one 


of the -- and I think that the plan as -- as 


laid out, in terms of what's -- finalization of 


that matrix and getting it into the working 


group hands, and then the next step of course 


to begin to work those issues at -- at a 


working group. But there is one aspect to it 


that we really haven't discussed, and it sounds 

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like there's quite a bit of additional work 


that -- regarding thorium, coworker models, 


various work products that are going to 


supplement the evaluation report and the site 


profile that are going to be very fundamental 


to some of the issues that we have before us. 


The question becomes are -- using the current 


plan, we may very well put together our matrix, 


meet what we still perhaps may not have had an 


opportunity to see the form of the coworker 


model, the new datasets. Thorium, as you know, 


was one of our major concerns, and it sounds as 


if there's a lot of new or now-available 


thorium data. That's going to be fundamental 


to our ability to engage this -- issues 


productively. So in terms of timing, we are 


prepared to engage this immediately, but the -- 


the -- when it's best to have let's say the 


face-to-face is a judgment call. Should we 


wait until NIOSH has an opportunity to put this 


material up on the O drive and make it 


available to us, perhaps it's available now, 


largely -- maybe not in a formal, final sense, 


but in a preliminary sense, as in many cases 


we've done in the past -- and that's fine. 

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Although I do think it's important that we are 


able to see and have some time to look at some 


of this new material. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Dr. Roessler, I think, as in 


many other cases, we -- we want to move forward 


as rapidly as we can, but still take the time 


to do justice to the issues that have been 


raised by the petitioners, as well as by the 


Board's own contractor. So I -- I think we all 


recognize both the urgency and the need to do a 


-- a good job on the review, so -- what I'm 


going to suggest is that we take a comfort 


break, and during the break I'll ask Brad and ­

- and Mark if you would develop some wording 


for a formal motion that will propel us forward 


action-wise. 


Now let's take a 15-minute break at this point. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:55 a.m. 


to 11:30 a.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll call the meeting back 


-- call the meeting back to order. The Chair 


recognizes Brad Clawson for purposes of making 


a motion. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I'd like 


to make a motion that we task SC&A with a full 

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review of the Fernald SEC petition. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. The motion is that we task 


SC&A to do a full review of the Fernald SEC 


petition. Is there a second? 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'll second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, seconded by Presley, and by 


Griffon, a double second. 


Now before we have discussion, as the Chair 


interprets this motion, the effect of the 


motion would be two-fold or multi-fold. Number 


one, it would defer action today on the 


recommendation from NIOSH to basically disprove 


the -- disapprove the petition at this time. 


That is, it would defer the action. 


Number two, it would set in motion our -- our 


normal process, which is -- after an SC&A 


review -- a issue resolution process involving 


the Board, SC&A and NIOSH, and -- or the 


workgroup, representing the Board, and SC&A and 


NIOSH. And then ultimately, hopefully would 


lead to a recommendation from the workgroup to 


the Board as to the SEC petition on Fernald. 


 MR. CLAWSON: That is correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any discussion on the motion? 


 (No responses) 

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There appears to be no discussion. Are you 


ready to vote on the motion? And if the motion 


passes, then Lew will take appropriate steps 


with our contractor, David Staudt -- or with 


our -- his title --


 DR. WADE: Contracting officer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- contracting officer to task S-- 


SC&A. 


Okay, all in favor of the motion, raise your 


right hand. 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 DR. WADE: Mike Gibson. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Mike Gibson, are you on the 

line? 

 (No responses) 

Mike? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yes, can you hear me? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, are you voting for the 

motion? 

 MR. GIBSON: There was some kind of technical 

difficulty and I did not hear the motion. Can 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let --


 MR. GIBSON: -- you repeat it for me? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, let me repeat the motion, 

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Mike. Brad Clawson made a motion, seconded by 


Mark Griffon and Bob Presley, to task SC&A to 


do a full review of the Fernald SEC petition. 


And I -- I pointed out that the effect of that 


would be to defer action by the Board at this 


time on the main petition, and that is defer 


action on sending a recommendation to the 


Secretary until we had a chance to complete the 


work that would be outlined in this motion, and 


that would be the normal process of developing 


findings by our contractor, resolving those 


with our workgroup, the contractor and NIOSH, 


and ultimately to have our workgroup bring to 


the Board a full recommendation on this 


petition. 


 MR. GIBSON: I -- I'd vote yes on that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So is there anyone 


abstaining from the motion and -- 


 MS. MUNN: No --


 DR. ZIEMER: Wan--


 MS. MUNN: -- I couldn't remember about Mike's 


conflicts. I couldn't remember whether he was 


conflicted. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, Mike was apparently not -- 


 MS. MUNN: Only on Mound, okay. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- conflicted on this, no. 

 MR. GIBSON: No, the Fernald conflict has been 

removed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. So -- and there are no no’s 

and no abstentions, the motion carries and we 


will proceed on that basis. 


It's understood we will keep the petitioners 


involved of any documents developed. We will 


provide those. We will keep the petitioners 


involved -- or apprised of any meetings, either 


phone or face-to-face, and they will be welcome 


to either attend or participate by phone in any 


such meetings. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Ziemer, before we leave the 


discussion of Fernald, Ms. Baldridge gave out a 


-- a copy of her comments, and I know Board 


members have them. I'm not sure everybody else 


has them, but I would be so bold as to read 


into the record the last comment on the page 


that Ms. Baldridge gave us. It says (reading) 


This has been a dauntless task, one that I 


would not have chosen for myself. But by the 


grace of God I have done this thing. 


I think it's important that be on the record. 


Thank you. 

106

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Lew. 


ROCKY FLATS SEC UPDATE
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH
 

PETITIONERS
 

Now our next item of business is just an update 


on the Rocky Flats SEC -- 


 DR. WADE: Our first item of business is to 


recover Dr. Lockey, who -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Dr. Lockey, I --


 DR. WADE: -- who threatened to stay in the 


audience, but no --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Dr. Lockey told me he really 


enjoyed --


 DR. WADE: -- Dr. Lockey has to come to the 


table. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- being out there, rather than up 


here. But the time is up, Dr. Lockey, and -- 


 DR. LOCKEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: And as Dr. Lockey returns to the 


table, relative to conflict of interest, we're 


now going to hear an update on the Rocky Flats 


SEC petition. There are two Board members who, 


in their current documentation, show as 


conflicted on Rocky Flats SEC, Ms. Beach and 


Brad Clawson. Both of those are under 


discussion and, again, it might change when 


next we meet. Because of the nature of this 

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next item, which is simply an update by the 


workgroup chair, we see no reason to -- for 


those two fine people to leave the table. But 


for the record to be clear, I point out that 


those are conflicts on the record now that are 


under discussion and deliberation. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that although they are still at 


the table, they still are not able to discuss 


or make motions --


 DR. WADE: That's right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and we don't anticipate any 


motion or --


 DR. WADE: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- discussion. There may be some 


questions for the workgroup. Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I'm -- I'm going to attempt 


to do a fairly brief overview of the workgroup 


status --


 DR. ZIEMER: Be-- before -- before you do, 


also, Mark, I want to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was brief. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- double-check and make sure that 


we have some Rocky folks -- Rocky -- Rocky -- 


 DR. WADE: Flats. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Rocky Flats -- I have to be 

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careful. My wife and I vacation on Rocky Fork 


Lake, and I keep wanting to say Rocky Fork. 


Rocky Flats petitioners, I'm wondering if 


Terrie Barrie's on the line? 


 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, I am. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good, Terrie, and you'll have an 


opportunity to comment also if you wish to. 


And I believe perhaps there was one other Rocky 


Flats person -- is there another Rocky Flats 


person on the line? 


 DR. WADE: Kay Barker. 


MS. MINKS: This is Erin Minks from -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is Kay on the line? Kay Barker? 


 MS. BARRIE: Dr. Ziemer, this is Terrie again. 


Kay Barker can't participate. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Thank you. Very good. 


MS. MINKS: Dr. Ziem-- Dr. Ziemer, this is Erin 


Minks from Senator Ken Salazar's office -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, very good. 


MS. MINKS: -- also on the line. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Welcome, and if you have comments 


after Mark's report, we'd be pleased to hear 


those, as well. 


MS. MINKS: Wonderful. Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. We -- I can't even count 

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the number of workgroup meetings we've had on 


Rocky Flats. We're -- we're moving along on a 


number of complex issues. You -- you've heard 


reports before. We did delay a meeting in 


Denver until the May meetings, so that's part 


of the reason we're in Cincinnati this time. 


And -- and we also -- we had a workgroup 


meeting on January 26th, I believe, a fairly 


recent workgroup meeting in Cincinnati and we ­

- at that meeting we also made plans to have a 


-- a meeting probably in early March, with the 


idea that we're going to get final reports -- 


SC&A's going to give a final evaluation report 


of NIOSH's evaluation report and -- and be 


prepared. We're shooting for this May meeting 


to have all the pieces in place and -- and to 


give us enough lead time, we thought probably 


early March is going to be when the workgroup 


meeting's going to take place 'cause we do have 


to go through Privacy Act reviews before 


releasing this report to the public. 


So we're probably shooting for early March to 


have another meeting, and I'll give you an 


update on -- on some of the items. The -- for 


those of you who've been following these 

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issues, the -- the issues pretty much have not 


changed, the categories. I'll go through these 


categories again and try to give a fairly brief 


update. 


There's some -- a small actio-- you know, not 


small, but there's action items that I won't go 


through the entire list, but I want to give you 


a sense of where we're at on -- on these major 


items. 


The first and probably one of the largest 


pieces left for us to complete is the question 


of data completeness. And SC&A -- I think 


since the la-- since the last we met as a full 


Board, SC&A reviewed 52 -- I think it's 52 -- 


individual cases, individual radiation files 


where they went back to the hard copy records, 


the entire radiation file for each individual, 


with the intent of looking at this question of 


do they have a -- are the records complete for 


-- for these individuals. And we looked at 


productio-- you know, sort of what we would 


consider high exposure potential workers, but 


also a random selection across the -- the group 


of claimants that we were sampling from -- SC&A 


did -- and -- and they -- they issued a report 

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back to the workgroup. They -- they did 


outline some gaps in external and, to a lesser 


extent, in some of the internal dose data, but 


we're -- at the point we're at right now, we're 


waiting for a NIOSH response to that report. 


In part what NIOSH is going to look at, and 


we've had some general discussions on this, 


there could be good explanations for some of 


these gaps. They -- monitoring practices 


changed over time, so depending on job title 


and where these people worked, they may or may 


not have been required to be on a monitoring 


program so therefore the gap may be very well 


explained. So that -- that part of the 


analysis is not complete and NIOSH is working 


hard on that and -- you know, 52 individual, 


when you have to look at all their work 


histories as well -- as well as the monitoring 


practices over time, it takes a fair amount of 


time. So -- but we expect their report soon on 


that, and that -- that's sort of where we're at 


with the data completeness review. 


Part of that is this question -- this 


particular issue that came up before we -- we 


embarked on the full data completeness review, 

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we had a question of a 1969 data gap, as -- as 


has been defined. And this -- this -- SC&A 


issued a separate report for that one time 


period and they -- they -- in this report they 


did note gaps that were involved for employees, 


including non-plutonium workers, sort of these 


uranium workers, as well as individuals 


involved in this 1969 fire. 


And third, and maybe one of the most important 


findings, was there -- there were instances of 


zeroes in the electronic database when the hard 


copy records had blank fields. So this -- this 


was particularly important to us due to the 


earlier-raised concerns about the database, the 


electronic data, so this question of -- again, 


there were blanks in the individual's hard copy 


records, indicating that they were not 


measured. And there were actually zeroes put 


in the -- in the electronic database. So that 


-- that -- again, I don't think we have a 


response from NIOSH on this report, so that's 


sort of in NIOSH's hands to review and get back 


to us on that, but that's a brief summary of 


what SC&A found. 


The third issue is an ongoing question on the 

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coworker models. They have coworker models for 


both internal and external exposures, and the ­

- based on a recent review of the cases at 


Rocky, it -- it looks as though the use of 


these models, especially the external dose 


model, may be a little more extensive than 


originally anticipated by NIOSH. I think it --


it's not a few cases, but it's probably in the 


order of dozens or maybe up to 100 cases, I'm 


trying to remember the numbers. So the -- the 


only reason this -- this continues -- or is on 


our radar more now I think is because the -- 


the issue was sort of dropped as a main 


priority of the workgroup because it was -- it 


was our understanding that the -- there was 


going to be very little reliance on coworker 


models. And now it seems like there might be a 


little more reliance, not -- you know, maybe 


not like some other sites, but a little more 


reliance on coworker models, and this rolls 


back into that -- this ongoing question of the 


-- of these databases and -- I know this is 


difficult if people haven't followed our -- our 


workgroup discussions, but there -- there are a 


few databases -- electronic databases that are 

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out there that are being used, and we have -- 


SC&A, along with the workgroup, have found some 


discrepancies between these databases -- 


databases, and we're trying to understand 


these. 


We have also some analysis by NIOSH that, you 


know, concedes that there's discrepancies, but 


indicates that it will not affect the coworker 


-- the projected doses or -- or intakes by the 


-- by the coworker model. So we have to -- in 


the last meeting we asked SC&A to look back at 


these in light of the fact that these coworker 


models may be used a little more -- for -- for 


more cases, and let's make sure that we're -- 


we're comfortable that -- that these -- so it's 


not so much -- I think we have -- SC&A is 


pretty comfortable with the models, the way the 


models were done. The question is the data in 


the models, so it's -- it goes back to the data 


again. The way it's modeled is not -- is less 


of a question, and I think we've also concluded 


that if there's any question of the way it was 


modeled, it's probably something that will 


continue in our site profile review -- in other 


words, it wouldn't impact the SEC decision. It 

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wouldn't -- it wouldn't affect the decision 


whether NIOSH could -- could calculate a 


plausible upper bound for -- for the -- for the 


population or -- of interest in the SEC cohort. 


So that -- so this down ba-- again, back to the 


data that was used in these models and whether 


it -- whether it (unintelligible) -- sufficient 


to be a problem. 


The fourth item was this category of other 


radionuclides, and again, the primary -- 


primary concerns at Rocky were plutonium, to 


some extent uranium. There were other 


radionuclides used over time. I think through 


the workgroup process we -- we've gotten 


agreement between SC&A and NIOSH on -- on 


everything except we're down to thorium, and 


there -- here I think we're -- we're -- since 


the last workgroup meeting, we -- we have sort 


of two questions we're dealing with on thorium. 


There -- there's not really a lot of monitoring 


data -- there might be some air sampling data 


for one particular operation, but overall 


there's not a lot of monitoring data, so -- so 


for some of the different thorium uses, they're 


relying on sort of a source term model where 

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they -- they're identifying how much thorium 


was present and from that estimating the like-- 


the potential intakes. And I think where we 


stand with that is that we're pretty close to 


agreement on the source terms, and we're 


waiting for NIOSH's response on -- on the -- on 


the approach for bounding for a couple of those 


instances. I won't get into all -- there's 


several different uses of thorium at the site 


over time. 


And -- and I think it's probably also fair to 


say that -- that -- just to go back, that the ­

- you know, data completeness seems like our 


biggest ob-- objective in front of us, the most 


work left for the workgroup is probably on this 


data completeness question. 


 Anyway, moving on -- so thorium, then we have a 


-- another issue which I've rolled into one. 


There's three issues here, safety concern-- we 


-- we've defined these issues sort of as safety 


concerns, data integrity issue and logbook 


analysis. And I think they all fall under this 


question of -- which was raised by petitioners 


and other people that -- that spoke before the 


Board or -- or to NIOSH or SC&A, the question 

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of the records -- they've indicated that their 


records don't seem to match their -- their 


experience, their -- for -- for a particular 


job, they felt they were in a high rad area and 


for that time period they had, you know, close 


to zeroes on their radi-- in their individual 


radiation record. For example, that's one -- 


one sort of example. There were a number of 


these that we've gone though in this workgroup 


process. Some of these led -- led into looking 


into these different pieces, such as these 


safety concern reports and back to some of the 


original logbooks. And the purposes for that 


was to sort of look at the logbook values, to 


the extent we could find actual quantitative 


information in the logbooks, and compare them 


to the radiation records of individuals to sort 


of get a sense of -- and our -- our goal here ­

- I think it's important to -- to -- to clarify 


that. Our goal as a workgroup was to look at 


the question of was there any indication of a 


systemic problem, so thi-- this is a -- a bit 


subjective how we -- how we defined that, but 


that -- that's what -- what we really want to 


nail down is -- and -- and in these three -- 

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SC&A has issued three reports on each of those 


topics I mentioned, and their basic conclusion 


in all three I think was that they -- they had 


-- they had no indication of systemic 


discrepancies in -- in those three prongs of -- 


of sort of what we're looking at. You know, 


however, they -- they do note that they did 


find specific discrepancies, and -- you know, 


but -- but our goal was not to necessarily 


chase down each particular case, but rather to 


address the entire class. So I think that's -- 


that's where we've -- where they're coming down 


on that is there's no systemic discrepancies. 


I do want to indicate the -- the logbook 


analysis is one of the last pieces we received, 


and the only -- there is another sort of 


qualifier that we -- that was raised in the 


last workgroup meeting on -- on this 


conclusion. We -- we initially asked for 


logbooks to sort of encompass the entire time 


period in question, from the '50s through about 


1993, which is when the -- when the D&D period 


would have started. And we also asked for -- 


you know, represent the -- the producti-- you 


know, have a good representation of the highest 

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areas of concern with regard to exposure, so -- 


so that's how we wanted the sampling of these 


logbooks to occur. The report back from NIOSH 


-- and I may be slightly off on those years, 


but I think it covered from the beginning of 


the site up through about 1971. I think that's 


approximately -- 1971. Beyond -- so -- so 


there was a concern from SC&A expressed in 


their report that from '70 to '90 really wasn't 


sampled. We don't have any indication -- so 


there was no comparison of logbooks, again, 


against these individual radiation records for 


that time period. And NIOSH said that although 


it wasn't in their report, they did find some 


logbooks from that time period. There's a --


we had a discussion about -- approximately 450 


boxes of records were retrieved at the Records 


Center and some of these boxes or -- or within 


some of these boxes there were logbooks that 


certainly did cover that time period or part of 


that time period. I'm hedging a little 'cause 


I'm not exactly sure what -- what was found in 


these boxes. And NIOSH did sample -- go 


through some of these logbooks and the 


impression -- or the conclusion they came to 

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was that there wa-- they were different than 


the logbooks that we looked at in the '50s and 


'60s in that there was not much quantitative 


informa-- or any quantitative information that 


they could use to cross-walk. So in the early 


periods we found -- very often, actually -- 


fairly specific -- you know, there was an 


incident involving five employees. They'd 


actually give the employees' names and they'd 


say they were sent to medical for urinalysis 


samples, and three days later in the log you'd 


see, you know, urine samples for said 


individuals came out this way, and they'd have 


values. So you had a date, you had a value, 


you had a name. We could cross-walk and -- 


and it sort of answered that question of, you 


know, were these records in the individual 


radiation records. 


For the '70s through 9-- for '92 or whatever, 


NIOSH concluded that these logs just didn't 


have that kind of information, so they -- you 


know, obviously it wasn't in their report 


because there was just nothing there to do a 


comparison with. I did -- the -- the -- the 


only question here is that these logs that they 

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reviewed were not scanned, so they're not 


really available to the Board or SC&A, so we 


were kind of -- we haven't seen that 


information. We did ask NIOSH to give us a 


report on sort of the -- a -- a box -- if they 


have these 450 sort of a index of the boxes, 


which ones they sampled from and generally what 


logs they looked in and what they found. And 


at the last workgroup meeting they agreed to -- 


to give us a description of -- of this 


activity, and that's as far as we've taken that 


at this point. We haven't asked SC&A to follow 


up on -- on these particular boxes or -- or 


logbooks within them. So that's a little bit 


of a -- we were hoping for logbooks in that 


time period to compare against them and our -- 


our conclusion from NIOSH is that they just -- 


the logbooks are there, but -- but they're -- 


they're not the same as what we had for earlier 


time periods. They're not useful. 


All right. The sixth item is this question of 


sup-- super S plutonium, which is a very un-- 


insoluble form of plutonium and we've -- we've 


-- NIOSH came up with a TIB, TIB-49 -- excuse 


me, TIB-49, method to reconstruct doses for 

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this particular issue of super S exposures. 


And SC&A's reviewed the model. I think we're 


at -- at like the final steps of -- in -- in 


this review they've -- the model was based on 


six or eight cases, I think -- six -- I can't 


remember the exact number, but -- of 


individuals that were clearly defined -- or -- 


or clearly exposed to this super S material and 


-- and also I think they tried to find cases 


that didn't have a previous exposure that would 


interfere with the interpretation of the data. 


So we have these six or eight cases that are 


referenced in TIB-49. 


We -- we noticed that there were 25 individuals 


involved in -- in one of the-- 25 other 


individuals that were involved in -- in this 


fire and -- and we asked if -- if this TIB-49 


approach would bound those cases as well, and 


all those case files have now been provided to 


SC&A. They're completing the review to assure 


basically that the six cases that were picked 


for this TIB were in fact appropriate and 


bounding and -- and would -- would yield the 


highest -- highest ult-- highest doses, or 


highest intakes. So that's our final step I 

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think on the analysis of the super S model. 


Seventh item is a question on neut-- neutron 


dosimetry. We have a -- several small 


technical follow-up issues on the neutron 


dosimetry, as well as the neutron coworker 


model. And basically I -- I think an important 


conclusion I -- I think we're here -- is that 


it doesn't appear that any of these are going 


to be SEC-type issues. It seems like -- you 


know, there's still some questions, but they 


don't appear to reach the level of an -- an SEC 


-- they -- they may be -- it -- so they 


wouldn't affect NIOSH's ability to sort of 


bound the doses. At least that's our un-- my 


understanding of SCA's interpretation at this 


point. 


And finally the D&D worker discussion. I think 


where we're at with this is NIOSH extended 


their coworker model and might e-- they -- they 


-- I guess there's another TIB, TIB-14 -- 


right? -- that extends the internal coworker 


model out beyond the D&D period. And we've had 


SC&A review that and look at it to make sure 


that approach is sound, and thus far I think 


we're -- we're in agreement that that looks 

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like it's going to be a useful ap-- approach. 


Of course this is notwithstanding that -- that 


whole question of the two databases and -- and 


the problems with the data. But the -- the 


model seems -- seems adequate, I think, is -- 


is the response from SC&A at this point. 


And I -- I guess the last thing that -- that we 


may need to go back to on our workgroup before 


we get to our May meeting certainly, and this 


was -- was me sort of reflecting on our SEC 


procedures, our -- our Board procedures, was 


that this question of proof of principle. I 


think -- I think early on we had some example 


DRs posted on -- on the -- posted for the 


workgroup, but I think we might want to look 


back, all of us -- NIOSH, SC&A -- and make sure 


those sample DRs ask and answer the right 


questions in terms of -- of this sort of idea 


of proof of principle. We -- we know you have 


these models; how are they going to be applied 


and used for certain circumstances. That's --


that's what I'm seeing as proof of principle, 


and I think that's -- that's a -- one final and 


important task. And part of the reason it -- 


it -- it may have shifted a little bit is 

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because we've -- some things in the models have 


changed as we've gone through this process or ­

- the coworker models, when we first started, 


were not even finalized so they were finalized 


maybe three or four months into the -- into the 


workgroup process, so I think that's the final 


task and I'll -- guess I'll close there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Mark. This has 


been a very hardworking workgroup. The other 


members of that workgroup are Mike Gibson, Bob 


Presley and Wanda Munn. Brant Ulsh from NIOSH 


is their NIOSH contact, and Joe Fitzgerald from 


SC&A is the contractor contact, so this has 


been a very hardworking group. 


I wonder if any of the other workgroup members 


have comments to add -- Mike, Wanda, Bob? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, Paul --

 DR. ZIEMER: Mike, go ahead. 

 MR. GIBSON: Paul, if I could just add, the 

Fernald -- one of the Fernald petitioners, I 


believe Ray was mentioning a NIOSH study that 


came out in 2000. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes? 


 MR. GIBSON: It was from the HERB branch of 


NIOSH, which I know is a different arm of the 

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same organization, the Health-related Energy 


and Research Branch, but they did put out a 47­

page doc-- well, 47-page PDF document, NIOSH 


Assessment of Information Needed for the 


Evaluation of the Health Effects Due to 


Occupational Exposures for DOE Site Remediation 


Workers. And this is the -- was the Fernald 


edition, but it does include Fernald, Mound, 


Rocky Flats, Savannah River, Hanford, Oak Ridge 


and Idaho National Engineering Environmental 


Lab. And it does have some very interesting 


findings, and I just -- I can send it to -- I 


will send it to each of the Advisory Board 


members and to Lew and, you know, he can get it 


out to the public -- public document. It's on 


the NIOSH web site. But it really discusses a 


lot of problems and how they're going to 


monitor remediation-type workers due to -- when 


you get into the remediation phase, a lot of 


job titles change and it's hard to track 


workers and, you know, a lot of things 


associated with that. The -- a very 


interesting report, and so I will -- I'll e-


mail that to each of the Advisory Board members 


and to Lew, but you know, I think it really 

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needs to be looked at pretty seriously 


considering looking -- you know, NIOSH has 


different divisions, but when HERB comes out 


with one assessment in January of 2001 and then 


we have all these other things from OCAS that 


seem to be at odds with each other and I think 


they need to be discussed and -- and looked at. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Mike. And --


and of course in turn your -- your workgroup 


can take a look at that and see how that 


factors into the picture. 


 Other comments? Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you for that, Mike. We'll 


look forward to seeing that document. It 


should be of interest to us with our Rocky 


Flats deliberation. 


Our chair is to be congratulated for his work 


in this very extensive review that we've given 


to Rocky Flats. There is a remarkable amount 


of information available and the review that's 


been made of it, both by NIOSH and SC&A, as 


well as the members of this group, has -- has 


been exhausting, at best. So -- and I might 


even say exhaustive, so we're looking forward 


to the fact that we've gotten down to the 

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relatively small number of major issues that 


Mark pointed out. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Other workgroup 

--

 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: Just one more issue. My contact 

list of the Advisory Board members doesn't 


include Josie or -- is it -- I forget the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Phil. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- gentleman's name. 


(Unintelligible), do you remember? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, what were you asking? 


 MR. GIBSON: My Advisory Board contact list 


does not include --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh --


 MR. GIBSON: -- the new members. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- they now are on the web site -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Mike, so I think it probably 


includes their e-mail addresses as well, but 


they're both now listed on the web site, so -- 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, I'll get that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- you can get the details there. 


 MR. GIBSON: All right. Thank you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see, Terrie Barrie, are you 


still on the line --


 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Doctor, I am. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- if you wish to make some 

comments? 

 MS. BARRIE: Well, actually I was prepared to 

present my comments tonight. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, that -- if you prefer to do it 


tonight, that's fine. 


 MS. BARRIE: I think -- I think that would be 


better for me, if that's okay with you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And what about the representative 


from the Senator's office? 


MS. MINKS: Yes, I -- this is Erin Minks again. 


Thank you so much for the opportunity to -- to 


speak with the Board today. We once again 


appreciate the opportunity of being a part of 


this process and we continue to monitor it very 


closely, as well as Congressman Udall's office, 


Congressman Perlmutter and Senator Allard. The 


only comment I would offer today is with regard 


to item number four or number five that Mark 


Griffon raised about the logbooks from the 


1970s to 1990s. We would like to encourage 


NIOSH and I guess it would be the Board to -- 

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to work with SC&A to make that available to 


SC&A to -- to fully review what is -- what are 


on -- in those logbooks with respect to primary 


resources, if that's still an opportunity 


there. We'd like that to be fully developed 


and explored before SC&A makes a 


recommendation, so that's probably the -- the 


most of our comments today. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. So noted. Board 


-- Board members, any questions for Mark or for 


the workgroup? 


 (No responses) 


If not, that will complete our activities for 


this morning. We have a lunch break from 12:15 


to 1:30. Do -- any housekeeping items, Lew, 

before --

 DR. WADE: No, none at all. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We'll recess until 1:30 


then. Thank you. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 12:08 p.m. 


to 1:35 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'll call the meeting back to 


order. 


DOW CHEMICAL SEC PETITION UPDATE
 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS
 

PETITIONERS
 
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I call the meeting back to order. We're --


we're going to review the status of the Dow 


Chemical SEC petition. We'll have an update on 


that. Before we do, I just want to indicate 


that I -- I want to check and see if Robert 


Stephan, who's on Senator Obama's staff, is -- 


Robert, are you on the line? 


 MR. STEPHAN: I am. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Also I -- hopefully 


here in the room, Deb -- 


 DR. WADE: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I'm looking at your last 


name, Deb. Deb is on the staff of 


Representative John Shimkus and she's here and 


welcome. 


And then also perhaps on the line is Arthur 


Weider*, who's one of the Dow petitioners. 


Arthur, are you on the line? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, we had an indication, and we'll check 


again later, but he is one of the Dow 


petitioners. He was planning on calling in, at 


least listening to the discussion. 


We're going to begin -- LaVon Rutherford from 


NIOSH will give us an update on the Dow SEC 

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petition. Then we'll have an opportunity to 


hear -- I think Dan is -- Dr. Dan McKeel is 


planning to speak and we'll have an 


opportunity, Deb, if you have additional 


comments as well -- and Robert. Okay? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Is this on? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. Go ahead, LaVon. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I see somebody left some 


Snickers up here. Is this for doing a good 


job? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, it is. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. I'm LaVon Rutherford. 


I'm the Special Exposure Cohort health physics 


team leader. I wanted to give you an update on 


the Dow Chemical SEC petition evaluation. 


We had initially planned to present the 


evaluation at the December Board meeting in 


Naperville. We worked -- we were working qui-- 


on a -- on a expedited -- to try to get the 


evaluation complete to try to get that done in 


Naperville or -- because being an Illinois 


site, it made sense. As we approached the 


deadline of completing that evaluation, we 


recognized there were a number of issues that 


still needed to be resolved, and a couple of 

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those issues were -- specifically, we needed to 


address the feasibility determination for the 


residual radioactivity period. Another issue 


that came up was -- we received the petition 


evaluation -- or the petition form A on 


November 28th. With that petition form A was 


37 affidavits, and -- and those affidavits 


needed to be read, they needed to be looked 


through and we needed to ensure that all the 


issues associated with those affidavits were 


addressed in the evaluation. 


Based on this, we determined that we were going 


to be unable to get the evaluation report 


complete in December. We sent a letter to the 


petitioner and we sent a letter to Dr. McKeel, 


who's the assoc-- or the petitioner 


representative, and we also contacted Dr. 


McKeel and the petitioner that we were going to 


delay the -- the actual evaluation report 


presentation. 


Then we intended to complete the evaluation at 


the February Board meeting, and we actually 


worked through the evaluation. We were working 


through the issues of the evaluation, and in 


the middle of January four documents became 

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available to us. Those four documents were 


documents that were -- were Dow Chemical-


specific documents associated with thorium 


exposures in some compliance inspection reports 


that were done by the Atomic Energy Commission 


during the covered period. Again, we received 


those roughly, you know, the middle of January. 


 Getting those documents, we immediately 


transferred the copies of those documents to 


Dr. McKeel, indicated that we needed to look at 


those documents 'cause they dir-- you know, the 


documents directly affected, you know, 


feasibility determinations that needed to be 


made. We also recognized in those documents 


that -- that one of the documents, a document 


that was addressing the evaluation of thorium 


exposures in preparation of the production work 


that would be done for the magnesium alloy, 


indicated that -- that records, radiation 


surveys and records would be sent to the home 


office in Midland, Michigan. So we needed to 


go back and ensure that we had pulled the 


strings properly, based on one of our lessons 


learned at the December Board meeting. 


You know, the December Board meeting came up -- 

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one of the issues was have we pulled the 


strings, have we checked all the proper 


resources for information. So we recognized we 


had not requested information from the home 


office in Midland, Michigan, so we -- we 


actually drafted a letter and sent a letter to 


the -- the home office in Midland, Michigan 


requesting if they had information, data, 


monitoring data, process information, any 


shipping records and so on that could be used 


in support of our evaluation. We have not 


heard back from them yet. That -- that letter 


was just recently sent. 


But because of the four documents that -- that, 


you know, came up -- and again, those documents 


were documents that were actually identified in 


a NRC search of data in November. Obvious 


question is is why did they surface in January. 


We -- we haven't found that out yet, but for 


some reason when we did our initial NRC search, 


there was an indication that we had no data. 


We actually indicated to Dr. McKeel that -- in 


I believe November -- that we found no data 


with that NRC search, and we were -- there was 


an error somewhere in the process. Somewhere 

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in the process, the data that was found did not 


get to us until the middle of January. 


So based on this data, some additional lessons 


learned that we want to verify that -- that the 


-- all the strings have been pulled properly, 


we determined that we would not present the 


evaluation at this Board meeting and that we 


would hold that off until the May Board 


meeting, and that we also will ensure that we 


address the feasibility during the residual 


radioactivity period, which is a issue that has 


been brought up by Dr. McKeel as well. 


That's it for the update. Questions? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Board members, do you have 


any questions at this point? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just a --


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just mainly a process 


question, LaVon. Is there anything now -- are 


those materials on the O drive? I might have 


missed you saying that. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Thanks for reminding -- yes, 


they are on the O -- on the drive, the shared 


drive. We actually have a Dow folder that 


we've actually -- we've put all the reference 

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documents that we've had so far in the site 


research database, and we also included the 


four documents that -- that came up in the 


middle of January. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that's within that AB 


document review --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the Advisory Board folder? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Good, thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Wanda. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Wanda, yes. 


 MS. MUNN: LaVon, what is this doing to our 


schedule now? What are you perceiving as being 


next steps and when are you going to get where 


you need to be with Dow? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Right now the plan is we 


-- like I said, we sent a letter to the Dow 


home office. If the Dow home office indicates 


that they do have records from the '50s -- from 


the covered period from Dow Madison, we will go 


to retrieve those records. And our plan is 


still to retrieve those records, evaluate that 


information and still complete our evaluation 

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by the May re--


 MS. MUNN: By May. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- by the May Board meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Now --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me add a little more to that, 


if I might. 


I think there's several possible scenarios here 


to play out. If -- if Dow or the Olin Company 


now, I think is who bought out Dow -- but 


anyway, if -- if our letter is not responded to 


before the -- next week, we'll be making a 


phone call to the recipient of that letter and 


encouraging them to follow the -- and respond 


to the request that is in that letter. We hope 


in that phone conversation -- if we don't -- if 


we have to go to that length, we hope in that 


phone conversation to get a better 


understanding and assessment of Dow's reaction 


to this request. 


If their reaction is one of we don't have any 


information, we have discarded that information 


under our record schedules, our lawyers say we 


can do that, then we're going to ask for them 

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to provide us a letter to that effect. 


If the scenario plays out that they say hey, we 


think we've still got some of that data and we 


need to go search for it, then we're going to 


ask them -- we're going to press them on how 


much time do you need to do that. We're going 


to impart to them the -- the urgency here. 


We're going to explain to them the -- the broad 


interest in this data, if it exists, and why we 


need it and what it'll be used for, hoping that 


-- that will compel them to provide it. 


 If the scenario plays out that they don't want 


to play ball with us, they seem to be obstinate 


or they seem to be recalcitrant or are not 


cooperative in their -- in their responses to 


us, then we will approach the Department of 


Labor and ask the Department of Labor to use 


their subpoena authority -- which we've already 


exercised in one other similar situation. 


 Our intent, however, is as LaVon has indicated, 


to get all this wrapped up so that we can 


finally present this -- this 83.14 situation as 


we see it to -- to the Advisory Board and to 


the petitioners at your May meeting. That's 


our hope, that's our goal, that's what we're 

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working toward. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Then let me ask -- I 


don't know what order we need to go in, but 


Deb, do you wish to comment at this time or do 


you want to wait till Dan -- let's have Dan 


then, Dan McKeel. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Okay, thanks. Chris -- Chris 


Ellison has kindly offered to change my slides 


because I just want you to know that CDC's 


PowerPoint is a little bit older than the one 


on my Macintosh -- have you seen those ads 


(unintelligible) PC? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, anyway -- so it won't 


actually run my PowerPoint, so we've provided a 


PDF file which she has to click through -- same 


slides. 


 Anyway, thank you very much, to the Board, to 


NIOSH, to allow an update from the petitioner's 


side on this -- on this Dow issue. 


I would like to comment on what LaVon just 


mentioned, which is -- we recognized from the 


beginning of this that getting relevant records 


from Dow Chemical was going to be a very 


important part of proving our case about the 

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amount of thorium that was used at that site, 


and in particular to support our belief that 


there is a very intimate connection between Dow 


Madison and the home company and the Rocky 


Flats DOE site, and that the specific 


connection was that large amounts, truckload 


amounts of magnesium/thorium alloy were sent 


from Dow and were received to Rocky Flats and 


then in ret-- and then sometimes Rocky Flats 


would send thorium back to the -- back to Dow. 


 So several months ago -- four or five months 


ago we initiated a series of conversations with 


the Dow Midland and the local Dow site, which 


is now Spectrulite. CEO is a fella named Chris 


Barnes, so we contacted both Chris Barnes and 


we contacted the Dow Midland lawyers and had 


extensive communications with them on the 


telephone and in writing. And we did in fact 


get back a letter from them, which we certainly 


could provide to Larry Elliott and LaVon, which 


basically said we have no responsive records. 


You're asking for very old records and we don't 


have any. 


And I will just tell you that I don't accept 


what they said, and the reason is, as -- as you 

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all probably know, that Dow Chemical was the 


prime contractor at Rocky Flats from 1951 to 


1975. And there was initiated 15 years ago a 


class action lawsuit by landowners against the 


prime contractors, which included Dow and -- 


and Rockwell International. Now that lawsuit 


was just adjudicated this year, early this 


year, for $155 million and is now under appeal. 


So it's inconceivable to me that Dow Midland 


wouldn't have those records that relate to the 


-- to at least the Dow contract effort. 


So I -- one of the things that I'm going to ask 


from LaVon is we -- we would love to see a copy 


of the letter that you wrote to Dow Midland, 


and we can certainly also send you our 


correspondence related to that and we -- we 


would like to join that effort to try to get 


those records released. 


So Chris, if we could have the first slide now. 


I hope my pointer works here. I'm sorry you 


all have to turn around, but I did have some 


things that I thought would be interesting for 


you to see. This is an aerial view of the 


general area where the Dow Chemical Madison, 


Illinois plant is, and you can see that -- it's 

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right here, and then right next to it is the 


General Steel Industries plant that John 


Ramspott has been talking about, and myself, so 


they're -- they're really back-to-back. There 


was an early issue that's been resolved through 


Peter Turcic's efforts at DOL where this -- 


this General Steel site was called Granite City 


Steel. That's a plant that's right next to it, 


but it's a different plant. And then there was 


spillover work from General Steel at American 


Steel, so this is a highly concentrated 


industrial area. 


And you can see in this little vie-- this 


little view here of Dow -- I -- I draw your 


attention to this -- to this larger blowup of 


that same area, so this is the Dow plant here. 


I'm sorry the audience can't see that, but I'm 


really pointing to this little Dow map up 


there, and I wanted to draw your attention to ­

- here are the buildings which we will show 


you, and right next to the castings building, 


Building 7 over here, there's a plot of land 


that you can see. It's 40 acres. And the 


thing that's interesting about this plot is 


that was where the magnesium/thorium sludge was 

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buried. And one of the issues that's come up 


with the Rocky Flats SEC is what sort of 


amounts of thorium were we talking about that 


were going from Dow Madison to Rocky Flats. 


The testimony that we've provided as affidavits 


is that there were many, many truckloads, so 


there are probably tons of magnesium/thorium 


alloy that went out to Rocky Flats. The 


sludge, the magnesium/aluminum -- the 


magnesium/thorium sludge was dumped in this 


plot, and in 1993 a company called ERG from 


Albuquerque, New Mexico came in and cleaned up 


some of this material and carted away -- to 


Utah, I think -- 850-plus railroad cars full of 


that sludge. So they processed a huge amount 


of magnesium/thorium sludge at Dow Chemical. 


In this view you can see this property 


adjoining right here is GSI and -- and John's 


favorite topic, the old Betatron building, is ­

- is really right at the edge of this picture, 


so that's a general view of the location. 


Chris, if we could have the... This is a view 


of the floor plan of -- of Dow Chemical. It's 


a little hard to see, but the buil-- main 


buildings were arrayed like this and there are 

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really three of them and housed the castings, 


extrusions and the rolling mills. Now I'll 


show you the next map and I think you can see 


that I'm a little bit better, so Building 5 was 


the rolling mill, Building 6 was the extr-- 


where the extrusion presses were, Building 7 


was the casting and the pot room where the 


molten magnesium and thorium were allied 


together. I've mentioned the 40-acre plot, and 


on the map up ne-- on the next slide you'll see 


the rad areas in their radioactively 


contaminated map. These areas in the plant are 


areas that Bill Hoppe, who's here with us today 


and may choose to say a few words, and the 


workers have identified as places where they 


think there was contaminated thorium metal. So 


-- and -- and all I want you to take away from 


this is it was scattered throughout the main 


areas of the plant, all of these rad areas. 


Over here in this map here is that 40-acre plot 


that we were talking about. 


Next. So in the official SEC class definition 


that's covered in the Federal Register at the 


present moment, that covers the uranium work 


that was done with Mallinckrodt under an AEC 

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contract to do research and development work, 


extrusion, and bar straightening over at Dow 


Madison. And Dow Madison was -- that was their 


area of expertise and I'm sure that's why 


Mallinckrodt used them. And that -- that work 


was done in 1957 and '60, according to the 


contract. We have a little bit of testimony 


from a few men that perhaps the uranium work 


actually extended a year or so beyond that, but 


that -- that's -- that's where we stand on 


that. 


We also know that at the -- at that same time 


and extending from 1957 all the way up till 


today there were a series of thorium licenses 


granted to the set of owners for that property. 


And we also know from the workers that there 


were large amounts of beryllium that were used 


at that site up till the present time. And 


this was really not included in any of the 


remediation reports, for instance, done under 


FUSRAP in the year 2000 by the Army Corps of 


Engineers, but there -- there is large amounts 


of beryllium used at that site. 


Next, please. As far as personal monitoring 


data from this site, we have very good evidence 

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that a few workers up until 1986 were given 


film badges. Larry Elliott has confirmed 


several times that NIOSH has no monitoring data 


for them of any kind. We've contacted 


Landauer; they have no data for them. And 


through contacts who have the HASL datasets 


we've found out that there was no HASL New York 


Operations Office monitoring data for the Dow 


workers. The workers, numerous ones, expressed 


extreme doubt that their badges were ever read, 


and none so far has ever reported seeing a 


report of their film badge readings. And 


obviously they got no feedback from the 


factory. 


They asked. They said where are our badges, 


but they were either told that they were okay ­

- but they never actually got any of their 


individual reports. And there is further -- in 


the affidavits there's worker testimony that 


the film badges were simply put into buckets 


that were discarded and eyewitness accounts of 


that. 


 Next, please. We know that Dow -- that Dow had 


numerous Department of Defense contracts. Most 


of their work was with the military. And then 

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we believe also that there was this Rocky Flats 


contract that must have existed for the thorium 


work. The plant we know in 1951 to 1959, when 


it was -- in '51 it was given basically to Dow 


by the General Services Administration under a 


quit claim deed, and we know that it was 


included in -- in the national industrial 


reserve of plants that could be called upon by 


the government to manufacture specific defense-


related product, which I assume was thorium, 


and -- and that relationship lasted and was 


under what's called a national security clause 


that I haven't found a lot of -- about. But 


there was some special relationship with the 


government in the -- in the -- in that time 


period. 


I just mention here that there was a contract 


with Lockheed to produce an alloy that they 


made called Lockalloy, which was a 


beryllium/aluminum alloy, and that was used for 


other purposes but particularly in the SR-71 


Gary Powers-type spy plane in 1962. They had 


many contracts at Dow with NASA, the Air Force 


-- the Air Force owned a lot of the equipment 


at the plant in the 1970s. I've talked about 

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the Rocky Flats connection. We know that 


Martin Marietta on several occasions sent in 


special metals which the men have identified as 


thorium-containing metal, or thorium itself, 


and those runs continued -- production runs up 


through the 1990s. 


We also know that McDonald Douglas, who was one 


of the customers of Dow, stored thorium plates 


at the place where I taught pathology for 31 


years at Washington University. And when the 


AEC was reviewing their old licenses, they 


found that the only Wash. U. license that was 


out of compliance was one that related to 


thorium being stored out at their World War II 


bunkers in Tyson* Valley. They notified 


McDonald Douglas and Wash. U. of this. 


McDonald took them out of those bunkers and 


sent them over to Spectrulite in 1993, and I 


only relay this story and the relevance to this 


SEC because if, as the official documents read, 


production for thorium stopped at Dow 


Spectrulite in 1982, why would somebody ac-- 


why would they accept this material? Now it 


could be that that thorium/magnesium plates 


originally came from Dow and they were just 

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sending them back home, so I don't know about 


that. 


Next. But we do have that documentation. We 


also have a complete -- pretty complete history 


I think of the thorium licenses that were 


available at the site. All of this information 


has been given to NIOSH a long time ago. So 


starting in -- in the first license, 1952, was 


by the AEC. There was a second AEC license 


given to Dow Chemical in 1962. NRC licensed 


thorium to ConAlCo*, the successor, 


Consolidated Aluminum. And then Spectrulite, 


the current owners, have had two licenses, one 


in 1986 and then when -- I think in -- around 


1985 or so, Illinois became an agreement state 


with the NRC, and then the latest license was 


from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, 


the nuclear safety division, and that -- that's 


the current license that is presently being 


decommissioned and is -- and there's a cleanup 


actually going on to finally close down that 


thorium license, but that's that history. 


We also know that in the whole history of this 


site there've been numerous -- both company-


sponsored and one major federal cleanup period. 

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I mentioned the ERG carting away material from 


the 40-acre site. Actually, interestingly, 


this contract was with both ConAlCo and Dow, 


even though Dow sold the main part of the plant 


in 1973. So as I understand the story, Dow 


acknowledged that there was thorium stored 


there and that they had some financial 


responsibility for that and they stepped up and 


they paid for this cleanup, along with ConAlCo. 


We also know that Spectrulite Corporation 


itself has conducted numerous cleanups of 


various kinds, including carting away the 


sludge that had accumulated and -- and cleanup 


work in the pot rooms in particular, over this 


past decade. 


 The major cleanup done at the site that was 


federal was by the Army Corps of Engineers in 


2000, and they cleaned up uranium dust in -- 


only in Building 6 where the extrusion presses 


were located, and did a very limited cleanup of 


that. They recognized that there was thorium 


co-located with the uranium, but they -- in 


their documents they say that all of this 


thorium was related to activities other than 


AEC activities. Now of course we -- we do not 

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believe that and we've kind of mentioned why, 


but that's -- that's the official story. 


We've tried to contact the current owners to 


get records and to talk about what's at the 


plant right now, without success. So we've 


contacted Dow at both the headquarters and at 


the Madison site. 


Next. We can bring us up at least to saying 


that there was a lot of thorium metal still on 


site at Dow Madison as late as June of 2005, 


but by reports from the Pangea Group, which is 


an environmental remediation group located in 


St. Louis, and they've done a series of studies 


there. There was an early 2003 scoping report 


which found lots of residual thorium. Then 


there were two reports in 2005 and I believe 


that the OCAS office has all of these reports. 


The -- there was a sur-- a radiologic survey 


that was very extensive and very nice and -- 


and apparently this is all in con-- conjunction 


with decommissioning the thorium license. And 


anyway, the -- those -- those surveys in 2005 


found elevated thorium-230, thorium-232 


activity above background, above Illinois state 


guidelines for decommissioning, and it was 

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I 

throughout the plant buildings. And this study 


really amply confirms testimony which you'll 


see in the affidavits, which now number 66. 


hate to tell Larry that, but we have 29 new 


ones. But it -- it confirms that the plant was 


heavily contaminated with thorium. 


Interestingly, Pangea's reports mention not a 


word about beryllium 'cause I guess that wasn't 


their task. 


Next, please. Here is a -- just a -- what 


follows. This is to document that Pangea Group 


did the cleanup. This is one of their most 


extensive reports, and in the next two slides 


you'll see -- yeah. This is just an inventory 


of where Pangea found thorium throughout the 


plant buildings, and all I want you to focus on 


-- there were lots of different types of bars 


and plates and et cetera, but they were in 


Buildings 1, 4, 5, 6, the machine shop in 6, 


and on the next slide in Building 7, 8, again 


Building 9 in the machine shop, and in Building 


10. So they were widespread throughout the 


plant in all the major divisions. 


Next, please. We believe there was ample 


evidence that these workers were seriously 

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harmed. There was basically no formal 


radiation safety program. We do know there 


were a few Geiger counters that were 


interestingly used primarily when they had to 


separate radioactive from non-radioactive 


sludge. Some of their customers wanted to take 


the scraps and -- and -- sludge is probably the 


wrong word to use, but the scraps that were 


leftover after an extrusion run, some of the 


customers wanted to take those home with them 


and the only way the men had to identify which 


was which was to make piles and try to, with a 


Geiger counter, identify the hot stuff and put 


it in one pile and then leave the other stuff 


in another pile. 


 The workers uniformly say that not only were 


they not told about the risk of uranium or the 


thorium, but the substances were not really 


identified for them. And if they asked, 


thinking that they may be exposed to 


radioactivity, they were -- their concerns were 


minimized. The beryllium risks were -- were 


never talked about at all, and as far as we're 


aware, there's never been any remediation of 


the beryllium at all at that site. 

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So as far as badges, they were rare until 1986. 


The men feel they were purely cosmetic, that 


they were put on a few days before an 


inspection of state agency, for example, and 


taken off soon after and not worn. There were 


more badges worn in -- after 1986, but again, 


none of that dosimetry data has apparently 


survived. We don't know whether that means it 


was lost, it was never submitted. We just 


don't know. 


There a -- a rich history of accidents, 


injuries, deaths due to machinery, impromptu 


operations on the special thorium, explosions 


in the -- in the pot room were frequent. 


Magnesium is a -- very prone, especially if 


water hits it, to explode. So those explosions 


often involved magnesium and thorium alloys, 


and lots of smoke and fumes. And we have 


fairly extensive evidence that at least some 


records were shredded by workers who observed 


that, and I guess missing is a pretty inclusive 


term because as far as we're concerned, all the 


records from Dow and Dow Madison are missing 


un-- unless and until we can turn them up. We 


suspect that there are more records that are 

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classified. Libby White recently, for example, 


turned up four inches worth of classified 


documents that relate to the main Dow contract 


with Rocky Flats, but -- and I've underlined 


withheld because we believe there are many more 


records that need to be uncovered that exist 


but are just not being turned over. 


 Next, please. So LaVon mentioned one of what I 


think is our major things we're trying to 


accomplish. We certainly appreciate the 


recognition that this site deserves an 83.14 


SEC. I think that's -- that's certainly 


merited. But we are quite concerned about the 


very limited extent of the class definition 


which runs from 1957 to '60. And in those 


first 37 affidavits and in talking to the men, 


we've now had five big meetings with them to 


collect data, it's -- it's obvious that they 


can document that thorium was run continuously 


during the '60s, the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, 


even up into this century. And this was 


production runs, and also, as I've just shown 


you, there was residual thorium all over the 


place. But if we can't prove that any of that 


thorium was related to AEC contract work, then 

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we're probably dead in the waters on getting 


the -- the class definition extended. 


So we set out recently to get some more 


evidence that -- of the Rocky Flats connection. 


And also we think it's important just to set 


the record straight that this is a major 


beryllium site and we hope one day to get these 


workers covered for medical surveillance for 


their beryllium exposure. Lar Fuortes called 


into the outreach meeting. He's been studying 


a group of ten of these patients and workers 


from that site and so he's been helping us sort 


of ad hoc, but really that entire population 


should be screened for beryllium sensitivity 


and chronic beryllium disease. 


Next, please. So I just wanted to give you a 


feeling for the type of data we've got. These 


are very rich affidavits. This is from the 


latest set, just two excerpts. I blanked out 


the names. I was employed at Dow Chemical from 


1955 to '95, worked as a mag melter in the 


casting department. Thorium metal was being 


cast at the plant periodically the entire time 


I was employed, personally handled the thorium 


metal that was added to the pots, generated a 

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lot of fumes. Thorium metal was stored in the 


warehouse during -- was stored in the -- it 


says as stored in the warehouse during this 


period. I did not work in shipping but I hear 


rumors that the metal was being shipped to 


Rocky Flats, Colorado. 


Second excerpt says I was employed at Dow 


Chemical from '53 to 1995. I worked in the 


rolling mill as an inspector. Thorium ran 


periodically through the rolling mill at the 


Madison plant during this entire period. I was 


all over the department from shipping to number 


one mill. Now this is very important. He says 


I saw sales orders showing that the metal was 


being shipped to Rocky Flats. Well, obviously 


we'd like to get copies of that sales orders 


from either the Madison plant or from Dow 


Midland, and we really need to move heaven and 


earth to get those records. I would sand the 


thorium sheets by hand. None of the men in the 


rolling mill wore respirators. 


Next, please. Some more excerpts. I was told 


that the harmless radioactive chips would be 


melted. There are numerous testimonies of 


minimization of the danger of the thorium 

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metals. Another pot room. Because of the 


smoke and the fumes and the ashes from the 


melting of the chips would bellow out and go 


anywhere. In the pot room I was in -- I was in 


three explosions and burned all three times. 


And most of those exposures -- explosions, as I 


say, involved magnesium/thorium alloys. The 


first time I was in the hospital for a week. 


And these were workers that were exposed -- now 


we're not talking about the old days, 1988 to 


'93, '94 to '95 for the first excerpt on this 


page, 1989 to 2002 for the second one. Another 


worker worked about that same period, 1988 to 


2002 said did extrusion for a week, ran 


complete work cycle of thorium billets from 


Martin Marietta. And I think that affidavit 


goes on to place that in the 1990s. 


Okay. And the last two excerpts, I'd just 


summarize for you that of these 29 new 


affidavits, 11 different people mention thorium 


shipments to Rocky Flats, Colorado, and some -- 


a few of them return shipments back from Rocky 


Flats; 25 mention thorium and six mention 


beryllium. So these last two, I was employed 


at the Dow Chemical Plant 1959 to 2002, worked 

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in shipping and extrusion as a packer. As a 


packer I packed everything off of the presses 


for shipment to customers. Now here's a 


specific date. In 1957 I was working on the 


billet press and saw two skids of metal with 


rad tags set next to the number nine press. We 


were told not to come within five feet of this 


metal. Thorium was being extruded from at 


least 1975 through the late 1980s. I was told 


that the metal was being shipped to Rocky 


Flats. 


So you know, this is the kind of information 


we're hearing. HK and HM were names for metal 


alloys that contained thorium. They were 


rolled in the seven and four mills, metal in 


the ovens to be flattened. It was then 


stenciled in oil, shipped to Rocky Flats, 


Colorado. Scrap metal was shipped back to our 


company to be melted down. Okay? 


Next, please. So all of this information 


brings us to make three respectful requests for 


the Board to consider. The first is, at the 


appropriate time we strongly urge that the 


class definition be expanded from what's in the 


Federal Register, which is from 1/1/57 to 

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12/21/60, that it should be expanded to cover 


the entire period after 12/21/60 up until the 


present time. 


Also at an appropriate time when the NIOSH SEC 


evaluation emerges we ask that the Board task 


SC&A to perform a targeted review of both the 


thorium and the uranium work at Dow and Rocky 


Flats SO-- at -- the Rocky Flats DOE site, that 


-- that common work that they carried on 


together is what I'm talking about -- so we can 


ascertain the scope of the AEC-related 


activities at the Dow Madison plant. 


And we would also like to ask that SC&A examine 


those four NRC documents at OCAS that delayed 


release of the Dow SEC evaluation report beyond 


January the 24th, 2007. We also have looked at 


those documents and I think LaVon accurately 


reported what they show, but we really think 


that an independent review of those documents 


would be merited. 


Next. The third request we have of the Board 


is that they should facilitate and encourage 


NIOSH to do exactly what Larry Elliott just 


mentioned they were planning to do, and that is 


to use the subpoena power of Section 73.48(w) 

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of the Act to obtain from Dow Chemical all the 


SEC related documents pertinent to both Dow 


Midland operations and Dow Madison interactions 


with Rocky Flats. And those should include any 


possible AEC-related work done for them under 


contract. I'm not talking about AEC licenses 


for commercial thorium. I'm talking about AEC 


contract work. This would include all such 


records existing at either Midland, Michigan 


headquarters or at Spectrulite in Madison. And 


I think this step should be undertaken 


immediately and, as Larry said, it is being 


done at the present time. 


Four -- next, please. I just wanted to show 


you that this is Section 73.48 -- 73.84(w) of 


the law mentions subpoenas, oaths, examination 


of witnesses and that that power resides with 


the Secretary of Labor and so forth. It can 


also issue subpoenas and compel the attendance 


of witnesses. I thought that was interesting. 


I don't know that that's ever been used. 


 Next, please. Our fourth request is that NIOSH 


should be encouraged by the Board to set a 


definite delivery date for the Dow SEC 


evaluation report. You know, we need this some 

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time ahead to react to whatever they say about 


the class definition and the residual period. 


And so what we know is that it's going to be 


presented at the May 2007 meeting, but we only 


know that a rough target date is an April 


delivery, and we're hoping that it's earlier in 


April rather than later. And I will just 


mention that if we do have this evaluation 


report ready to present to the Board in May, 


that will be approximately eight months after 


we were first notified that we would be 


recommended for a Dow -- you know, an 83.14 


SEC. 


 Next, please. We're almost at the end. We ask 


that NIOSH forthwith publish our unredacted Dow 


affidavits -- the SEC application itself. Now 


the redacted versions were just posted 


yesterday. That's good. And -- but we also 


want the verbatim transcripts of all those 


meetings we've had with the workers up on the 


web site. And as I mentioned last night, we 


want them unredacted because we want the jobs 


listed there and we want the years that the 


people worked at the plant, the full set of 


years, to be on there. And I mentioned last 

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night that we've taken care, we think, of the 


Privacy Act concerns by having everybody of -- 


of those 37 who submitted affidavits has -- we 


have in our hands releases for them for both 


Privacy Act and medical releases. 


Six, regardless of what happens with the SEC, 


this site is -- is one of those that hardly 


anything has been done to date for dose 


reconstructions. There have been 94 cases that 


have been sent to NIOSH. Only two dose 


reconstructions have been done. And just for 


the record, we asked and Laurie Breyer supplied 


us with this information, that under the 


present class definition, 70 of those 94 people 


would be covered; 41 have SEC compensable 


cancers. So -- you know, so that's 41 out of 


94 would be covered by the present class 


definition. If we could expand that, we would 


certainly sweep in more of those cases. 


And the final request is that the Board should 


encourage expeditious completement (sic) of 


Section 7.2 on thorium, now marked as reserved 


and left blank, and the site-specific 


appendices for Battelle TBD 6000. The latter 


are not in the currently-posted TBDs. So 

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although TBD 6000 is on the web site, I can't 


see that it would help anybody. Tho-- those 


site-specific appendices are absolutely vital 


to make this a working helpful document to the 


dose reconstructors, and that needs to happen 


just as fast as possible, we believe. We would 


certainly be able to use the thorium section in 


this SEC, and perhaps in others, and that -- 


that's completely blank right now, so we ask 


that. And we simply mention, for the record, 


that both Dow Madison and General Steel 


Industries will be covered in that TBD 6000 as 


the main document to aid dose reconstructors. 


 And finally, you know, I included our -- my 


contact information. Chris Ellison is going to 


give this PDF file to the Board and to NIOSH, 


and after the meeting we'll be sure we send 


hard copies to everybody and get that 


distributed. So thank you again very much. 


think Robert Stephan may have some comments to 


make. Debbie Detmers does, and there's one 


worker, Dr. Ziemer, Bill Hoppe, who's here and 


may just want to say a few words about the 


thorium operations. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Thank you very much. 


I 
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Deb, if you want to proceed. 


 MS. DETMERS: Thank you for letting me talk 


today. I am Deb Detmers. I'm the district 


director for Congressman John Shimkus. This 


plant is actually not in our district, it's in 


Congressman Costello's district, but we have 


been working with Congressman Costello, Senator 


Obama and Senator Durbin on this for some time 


-- for a very long time, to be honest with you. 


I just want to make a couple of really quick 


points. 


First of all, our offices are here to assist. 


If there's anything we can do to be of 


assistance or answer questions, please let us 


know because we're here to -- to try to help 


get this resolved. Two of the workers came 


with me today, Bill Hoppe and Homer Simmons. 


These are both constituents of ours that I've 


been working with four years at least on -- 


six? Okay, good times -- six years on these -- 


the situation. It's been a very long, arduous 


process. 


A couple things that we really want to talk 


about. One is the class definition needs to be 


expanded. That limited amount of time -- with 

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the records that we've been able to gather, 


which has been extremely difficult given Dow's 


unwillingness to share information or the 


plant's willingness to share information, what 


we have gathered from these workers and when I 


have talked to a lot of workers, at least 


(unintelligible) of those and -- and more, that 


tell you the same story over and over again, 


and they're not telling you because somebody 


has told them to tell you this. They told you 


-- they're telling you this because this is 


what happened. And they're telling you the 


thorium and they're telling you about the 


beryllium, and they are sick and things are 


happening to them and they've been trying for 


six years to try to get this resolved and -- 


and they can't. So we urge you at the -- in 


every possible -- to -- to take a look at that 


and expand that time frame for the SEC. 


Second, I want to emphasize also if -- if 


that's not going to happen, or even if it is 


going to happen, the dose reconstruction 


process is -- is getting to be arduously long. 


Mr. Simmons's direct case I've been working on, 


it's been on and it's been off and it's been on 

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and it's -- I mean it -- it's gone on now -- 


since he started he -- it was his first dose 


reconstruction, supposed to start six years ago 


and we're still sitting here and he's not 


gotten any better. So I would just urge you to 


look at that as well. 


I can't talk about the science 'cause I'm not a 


scientist, but I do want to tell you if there's 


anything we can do to be of assistance with any 


agencies, if there's -- you want to talk to our 


bosses, I'm sure Robert agrees with us that 


we're quite happy to have that happen. So 


Robert, if you want to say something -- you 


still there? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Robert, are you still on the 


phone? 


 MR. STEPHAN: Yeah, can you hear me okay? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay, am I -- am I too loud or 


too soft? 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're -- you're just right. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. Just bear with me a 


second. I'm driving and I'm -- I'm trying to 


basically --


 DR. ZIEMER: Why don't you -- why don't you 

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pull over, Robert? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, we would feel --


 MR. STEPHAN: Get my head together here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I can see the headlines now. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Yeah, it wouldn't be good. Okay. 


Well, certainly we want to concur with what Deb 


just said. We've been working very closely 


with Deb and Congressman Shimkus and they've 


actually been working on this for -- for much 


longer than we have, and they've been working 


it on it in a very in-depth way trying to help 


people like Mr. Hoppe and Mr. Simmons. And so 


everything that she just said, we certainly 


would concur with. 


First, I would like to just very quickly thank 


the Board. The Senator wanted me to thank you 


for letting him speak in -- in November. Also 


wanted to, you know, thank the Board and NIOSH 


for honoring his request to do the outreach 


meeting at Blockson Chemical, which I -- I was 


able to attend one night of we thought was 


helpful. I think the NIOSH staff -- Stu and 


Laurie were there and several others. I think 


they thought it was helpful, and more 


importantly, the workers thought that it was 

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helpful. Matter of fact, several of them 


thanked NIOSH for -- for doing it. They 


thought it was the best meeting that they had 


had. And so I do want to -- I do want to 


acknowledge that. 


I also want to acknowledge and thank Wanda 


Munn, who was at the Board -- who was at the -- 


the outreach meeting for Blockson both nights 


and sat through the -- the entire meeting, so 


we -- we certainly appreciate her efforts. 


With respect to Dow, the -- the conversation 


earlier you had about potential subpoena of 


records from Dow, all we would add to that is 


just that, you know, Dr. Ziemer, what you laid 


out -- the process you laid out that, you know, 


you guys are going to go down with trying to 


obtain these documents sounds good, and we just 


would say that, you know, let's -- let's try to 


follow that as closely as we can. If -- if Dow 


is not responsive by the end of next week, 


certainly we think the phone call is 


appropriate, but -- but you know, we -- we just 


don't think that 60 or 90 days is a -- is a 


normal -- or is a reasonable time frame for 


them to come up with these documents, so as -- 

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as Dr. McKeel elaborated, we think that they -- 


that they have them. They went through a long 


lawsuit not very long ago and we -- we hope 


that you get a different response than we have 


gotten previously. We hope they're not 


obstinate, but if -- if they are, we -- we just 


would urge that, you know, normal business 


courtesies of 30 days, 60 days and that kind of 


thing really -- really not be used, that if 


they're not cooperative -- at the first hint 


that they're not cooperative, that the 


Department of Labor use their subpoena power to 


the fullest extent that they can. So just one 


note we want to make about -- about those Dow 


records. 


The second note on -- on the NRC documents that 


were discovered not very long ago, I -- I don't 


know if anyone from the NRC is there, but -- 


but if you are, you know, we certainly would 


like to talk to you because the NRC needs to, 


quite frankly, get with the program a little 


bit. We -- we told the NRC a long, long time 


ago that the documents that they -- that -- 


that were just found by NIOSH in the reading 


room, that they existed. And the NRC obviously 

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doesn't even know what's in their own reading 


room, so had they been more helpful months ago, 


we would have been a lot farther along in this 


process and we wouldn't be having to explain to 


Mr. Hoppe and Mr. Simmons why there -- there is 


a delay now to review these documents that we 


knew were available a long time ago. So -- and 


certainly that's not a reflection on NIOSH. 


You know, they -- they got them when they got 


them. But (unintelligible) the NRC will -- 


will play ball a little bit better here in the 


future. 


The -- the point about residual contamination, 


Larry Elliott and several folks at NIOSH 


walked me through -- in a conference call a 


couple of weeks ago -- you know, their side of 


this issue and I appreciate the time that they 


took to do that. One of the questions I have 


is in Dr. McKeel's slide he references thorium 


licensing in 1955. And Larry, if you're there, 


I'm just wondering, can you guys essentially 


prove that that thorium in 1955 was for 


commercial purposes? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Larry is approaching the 


mike here, Bob, hang on. 

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 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Here you go. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Robert, this is Larry Elliott. 

 MR. STEPHAN: Hey. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm glad you raised that question 

and -- and no, I don't have proof today that 


the NRC licensure that has been listed by Dr. 


McKeel in all cases goes to commercial versus 


AEC-related work. I don't have that in front 


of me. This is an important issue, though, and 


-- and it goes I think really to the -- it's 


not the class definition. There is no class 


definition at this point in time. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Let's -- let's be clear about 


that. This goes to the covered facility 


description, which NIOSH does not set in place. 


The Federal Register notice that I think Dr. 


McKeel is talking about about a class 


description is the covered facility description 


that is DOE and DOL's responsibility to set in 


place. 


It is our understanding at NIOSH that the 


documentation that has been provided by the 


Department of Energy, reviewed by the 

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Department of Labor and also reviewed by our 


folks, both in our general counsel's office and 


in our technical staff, do not find any linkage 


of AEC work after the covered period of 1957 to 


1960. We have to go by that unless there's 


another document produced that indicates 


otherwise, and to date we have not seen such. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is -- this is very important 


because people who only worked during the 


residual contamination period are going to 


receive a different type of exposure 


reconstruction -- dose reconstruction. That 


reconstruction will only -- we're re-- we're 


bound by the law and the regulations to only 


reconstruct the AEC portion of that dose. In 


this case it would be uranium. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We acknowledge, we respect and 


understand that this particular site did a 


variety of thorium alloy-related work for the 


Department of Defense. We do not argue that. 


We do not quibble about that. We -- we do not 


question the veracity or the validity of the 


affidavit comments that have been provided to 

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us. We accept the fact that thorium alloys 


were produced by Dow in their commercial 


operations in support of Department of Defense 


and other contractual agreements that they had 


outside of DOE or AEC. 


We have looked at the documentation of Dow 


operating the Rocky Flats site for the 


Department of Energy or AEC -- this is the four 


inches of documentation that Libby White 


provided us a couple of weeks ago that we 


shared with everybody. This contract language 


that we see there doesn't indicate any 


relationship to us between Dow Madison and 


Rocky Flats and thorium shipments. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Again, we do not question the 


veracity of the affidavit testimonies about 


working on thorium. We understand they worked 


on thorium. This was a dirty place. It was a 


dirty operation. We don't question, we don't 


quibble about the fact that these folks -- 


these fine folks were put in harm's way without 


being told specifically by the management of 


this facility what they were going to 


encounter, what types of radioactive material 

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they were going to encounter, both in a 


commercial operation processing of thorium-


based alloys and in the uranium extrusion 


process that they did for the Atomic Energy 


Commission. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: So if -- if -- if we're going to 


take up a discussion about the covered facility 


description, I think you need to employ in that 


discussion Department of Energy and Department 


of Labor. NIOSH has no responsibility or 


authority in that regard. Our class 


definition, once it comes forward, will be 


established around what we can or we cannot do 


in dose --


 MR. STEPHAN: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- reconstruction. That's the 


regulation that we have to follow here. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Right. Larry, I appreciate your 


going through that, and if -- if I could, you 


know, implore the -- the -- the Board or the 


Department of Labor, Department of Energy -- 


I'm not exactly sure what the process is, but 


as -- as Larry indicated just now and as he 


indicated to me two weeks ago, to have this 

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type designation reviewed. And -- and the 


question we have is someone at the Department 


of Labor or the Department of Energy to come 


forward and show the documentation as to how it 


is they arrived that only AEC, you know, 


government work was done during those years and 


that all the other years it was commercial. 


And the point that I'm trying to make is is how 


much weight do we give to worker testimony. 


You know, it's interesting when you go to these 


worker outreach meetings because if a worker 


ever says something that all the other workers 


dispute, they speak up and they correct him. 


And in this case you have 11 -- at least 11 


workers who give -- gave very detailed 


information about the Rocky Flats and Dow 


Madison relationship. And it just is not good 


enough for us to tell the workers well, that's 


the way that it is because that's what the 


Department of Energy says goes, and your 


testimony and what you saw and what you're 


telling us essentially we don't believe. That 


-- that's what it really comes down to. 


So I'm hoping we can take up a discussion and 


the Board will encourage a discussion among DOE 

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or DOL, whoever it is, to show us how it is 


with documentation that they arrived at the 


site designation, you know, being an AEC site 


for only those years, 'cause that's very 


important. And I hope we're not going down the 


path that -- that worker testimony is 


essentially disregarded. If it is because 


there are documents which prove that it is not 


correct, then fine. But you know, we should 


have access to that information to show us 


because I personally believe the workers and, 


you know, they -- they need something 


themselves to say, you know, this is why we 


can't give credence to what you're telling us. 


Here -- here it is on paper. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Robert, I --

 MR. STEPHAN: It's not a -- go ahead. 

 DR. MCKEEL: Robert, I have --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, here's Dr. McKeel -- 

 DR. MCKEEL: -- I have a --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- again, Robert. 

 DR. MCKEEL: -- footnote to add to that. I 

don't think we've really missed any of these 


issues. In June of last year the -- the actual 


statement that has been played back to us that 

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documents that none of the activities at Dow 


were related to AEC activities was actually 


contained in one of the FUSRAP reports 


generated by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 


St. Louis district. So we went down in June, 


Deb Detmers went; Robert, you went -- 


 MR. STEPHAN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MCKEEL: -- or I think you actually -- you 


were going, you didn't come; John Ramspott 


went, I went. And we talked to the Deputy 


Director of the St. Louis Army Corps of 


Engineers, and in particular we talked to one 


of their assistant counsels, a fella named Mark 


Wunch, W-u-n-c-h. And one of the questions 


that I asked Mark directly that day was that we 


wanted them to clarify their authority by which 


they could make such a statement that none of 


the thorium work was related to AEC activities. 


And we knew from testimony from the workers 


that that cleanup actually occupied one week, 


and people were there -- they didn't interview 


any of the workers. They -- they came in, they 


-- they did their business. They had to work 


hard to finish in that period of time. So we 


asked Mark to provide that documentation. 

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We followed up with him after that meeting by 


e-mail and he replied back, and the answer was 


that their documentation was their own 


document. They did not have, they have not 


produced, they cannot produce a primary source 


document that proves their statement. They 


simply made the statement and then cited their 


own document as proof. 


And so with all due respect, when Larry gets up 


and says that his legal people, that the 


Department of Labor leg-- pe-- people have 


reviewed all those documents and they can find 


no linkage to Dow Madison, then I think we're 


going to have to get to the point where they 


tell us what they did to arrive at that 


decision specifically and provide the details. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Right. 


 DR. MCKEEL: I don't think any such 


documentation has been produced so far. So 


what you have is the sworn testimony now on the 


record, names can be used, of numerous workers 


at the Dow Madison plant versus a statement, 


one line, in a FUSRAP report by people who know 


far less about that site than we do and cannot 


produce any more documentation. I can supply 

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Mark Wunch's reply to me. So we need to reexamine that. That's not a fact that's been 


established either way. And in fact, I would 


say that the preponderance of evidence, if you 


like that sort of reasoning, is that there was 


a connection with Dow and our job -- 


collectively, all of us, if we're really 


interested in doing the best thing for the 


workers -- is to find those documents. And I 


think that it's really impossible to imagine 


that a DOE major site would accept shipments, 


truckloads of -- of thorium/magnesium alloy and 


send material back to Dow Madison to be 


processed without having a contract, so our job 


is to find that contract. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. John -- Robert, did 


you have additional comments? 


 MR. STEPHAN: Yeah, I'll try to finish up here, 


guys. I know we're going long -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, that's fine. 


 MR. STEPHAN: -- and I want to thank you for 


allowing this discussion about Dow because I 


know it was not -- you know, one time it was on 


the agenda, then it was off, and I appreciate 


you putting it back on. 

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Would it be appropriate to -- because I -- you 


know, I -- I understand that this is not a -- 


not a NIOSH issue, that NIOSH has their hands 


tied to many degrees on this issue. Would it 


be appropriate to enlist the help of SC&A to 


work through this residual contamination issue 


and the site designation -- and the reason I 


think it's important is because, you know, 


we're talking about potentially, you know, at 


least a few dozen, maybe several dozen -- Dr. 


McKeel can correct me on the exact number -- 


workers who may be included in this class 


designation. Is that -- is that a -- a 


realistic thing that you -- you would ask SC&A 


to do? 


 DR. ZIEMER: SC&A does what the Board asks it 


to do within our purview. I -- I guess I would 


have to ask for legal advice myself on that. 


One -- one thing that should be noted, I guess 


-- I think from what Larry said that what it 


appears so far is, although the work may have 


been concurrent, there's no -- that NIOSH has 


not seen evidence that the thorium part was 


connected to the DOE or AEC part of Dow's work. 


Was that correct -- is that what Larry was 

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saying? 


 DR. WADE: Larry left. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No one was questioning that the 


work -- the work did go on concurrently, at 


least --


 MR. STEPHAN: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- as a minimum. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Right. What -- what I -- Larry, 


if I could -- go ahead, Larry, if you want to, 


if I -- if I could jump in. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry's conversing also with a 


Department of Labor person. We're just trying 


to get a feel for -- Larry, as I understood 


what you said, we know the work went on 


concurrently. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The question then is that the 


thorium work -- you were looking for evidence 


that the thorium work was somehow connected 


with the DOE/AEC contracts. So far --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- there's no such evidence. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well --


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- during the covered period -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- of -- I think it's '5-- I 


don't have it in my -- I've got my book, but I 


don't --


 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- it was '57 to '60, is that 


right? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: '57 to '60. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: '57 to '60, that is the covered 


period for the AEC work. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We have the contract that talks 


about that work. It's -- it's extruding 


uranium. Okay? 


 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


Mallinckrodt. That contract was 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, yes, and that's what is the 


basis of this being an AWE. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right? Okay. We would have to 


reconstruct all radiation dose for that covered 


period, so that's going to include not only the 


uranium that AEC contracted -- or Mallinckrodt, 

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through a -- through this -- contracted with 


Dow. We'll do that. We'll also have to 


reconstruct the thorium dose for that time 


period. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Now the way the law has been 


amended and reads, for the residual period -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Outside that. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we only reconstruct -- outside 


that covered period, the residual period from 


1957 on to present, I think, would -- or till 


they fully removed the site, we are only going 


to reconstruct uranium. Okay? And this is why 


Dr. McKeel feels this is so important, you 


know, to try to get established, because if 


we're only allowed to reconstruct uranium, we'd 


lose all of that thorium dose. 


We're not saying those folks weren't exposed to 


thorium. We believe they were exposed to 


thorium. But we're not allowed, we're not 


required, we're not enabled to reconstruct the 


-- the commercial-based dose in the -- in the 


residual period. Okay? 


 DR. ZIEMER: On the other hand --


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asked Libby if she wouldn't come forward and 


explain where D-- what DOE can bring to the 


table in this, and I was about to ask Jeff -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- Kotsch from DOL if he wouldn't 


also come to the mike and get on the record and 


explain where DOL's at on this because I 


believe that DOL has -- has answered Dr. McKeel 


in this -- in this particular instance to a 


certain degree. I'm not sure exactly what that 


communication has been and how it's been 


formatted, but you know, I -- I think they need 


to come to the mike, get on the record and 


explain what those two other Departments are 


doing in this regard. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Actually Department of Labor -- 


neither Department of Labor nor Department of 


Energy have really seen the -- all of this 


evidence. They've not seen the affidavits from 


the workers. So we -- we certainly could bring 


this case before them and of course would be 


happy to do -- I mean if there's any way we 


could work to resolve this quickly, that would 


be great. And you know, Mr. Podosky could 


perhaps facilitate that. 

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187

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. Dan, remind me now, on the 


affidavits that you showed us, did the workers 


indicate in the case -- let's see, in the case 


of thorium, that they -- that thorium was being 


shipped to Rocky? Is that what --


 DR. MCKEEL: That's right, we have 29 new 


affidavits and 11 of them testified to that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I think what we're hearing on 


the contract, the contract doesn't show 


anything about the thorium, so -- and -- but 


the workers --


 DR. MCKEEL: But -- but let me also say that 


contract that we got also doesn't say anything 


about any of the radioactive nuclides used at 


Rocky Flats by the tons. It doesn't mention 


about plutonium. It doesn't mention anything. 


So my feeling is that we have gotten six inches 


of unclassified and -- and four inches of 


declassified, formerly classified, records from 


the Department of Energy, thanks to Libby 


White, that certainly pertain to that contract. 


But that cannot be the total car-- file on the 


work done under contract by Rocky Flats for the 

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 MR. STEPHAN: Dr. McKeel, could I --


 DR. MCKEEL: -- Atomic Energy Commission. 


 MR. STEPHAN: -- interject --


 DR. MCKEEL: It -- it can't be, because they 


worked with plutonium. Somewhere somebody's 


got to write that down in a document. So I'm 


saying we don't have the complete record -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MCKEEL: -- and we need to get it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, I think we understand 


the issue and --


 DR. MCKEEL: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Libby is here and Jeff is here, 


and it may be that, as a first step, you could 


provide them with your affidavits and -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- maybe they can -- Libby's 


shaking her head that perhaps there's some 


follow-up that can be done. Of course the oth­

- and we've got some legal counsel here. Go 


ahead, Liz. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) I think Lew 


wants to address Robert first, or do you want 


me to (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: I can. 

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MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: To the question of SC&A's 


involvement, SC&A has a contract that has a 


number of tasks to it. One of those tasks is 


to look at technical issues surrounding SEC 


petitions. I think if the Board wished to, 


they could task SEC (sic) with certain work 


related to an SEC petition that's in the 


offing, frame it within the contract of 


technical issues and move forward, if the Board 


wished. So I think there's a mechanism there. 


What the Board chooses to do remains to be 


seen. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But -- but --


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I'd like to --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- they wouldn't -- S-- SC&A 


wouldn't be in a position to -- unless they had 


-- came up with some documents, to -- to chan-- 


recommend changing this unless they came up 


with some documents that were -- 


 DR. WADE: No --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- clear cut one way or the other. 


 DR. WADE: Right. SC&A looks at technical 


issues. And if you ask them to review certain 


technical documents, they'll bring -- they'll 

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bring their reports back to you, and then the 


Board could do what it wished with them. Now 


the SC&A contract could be modified, but the 


contract that's in place has a task that deals 


with SEC-related issues and it deals with the 


review of technical materials. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But we already know that the 


affidavits, at least at first look, appear to 


be somewhat in contrast with what we've seen so 


far in the actual contracts. That is, the con­

-


 DR. MCKEEL: That's true. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's I think --


 DR. MCKEEL: But I --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- what you've told us, and so 


that's --


 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, sir, that's true. 


 DR. ZIEMER: SC&A could only acknowledge that 


at this point. What seems to be lacking is the 


contractual documents -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: Oh, I -- I'm the first to admit 


that. But -- but I must say this. So right 


now what we have on the table -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MCKEEL: -- is I would say 11 documents 

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that meet the -- all -- all the requirements 


for a -- a valid affidavit. That's what's on 


the table. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MCKEEL: What's lacking is the contract. 


But it -- it really is a fundamental issue of 


how much -- I -- I think Terrie Barrie is going 


to raise this about the Rocky Flats SEC perhaps 


later on today, but it -- it's an issue that 


cuts across centers. 


 DR. WADE: Liz, we need to hear first. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I just wanted to clarify for 


Robert that SC&A's contracts can't be modified 


for putting SC&A on a task that belongs to the 


Department of Labor or Department of Energy. 


They would have to get their own contractor for 


that. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. Could -- could I make a 


comment, Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 MR. STEPHAN: I want to focus specifically on 


the contract, the four inches of classified 


material which has been declassified that Libby 


White provided us. And you know, Larry had 


made the comment that that contract very 

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clearly does not establish any sort of 


relationship between Rocky Flats and Dow 


Madison. And so all I -- all I want to make 


sure that we keep in mind is that that 


contract, if you read it, is a fairly standard 


boilerplate contract about, you know, how much 


people are paid per hour and how much benefits 


-- how many benefits they get and what days off 


they get. And so it's certainly reasonable to 


me that a relationship could have existed 


regarding thorium between Rocky Flats and Dow 


Madison and it not be in that contract. So I 


would encourage folks to read that. That 


contract in no way should be viewed as some 


sort of a smoking gun which disproves the 


theory that there was a relationship between 


thorium -- between Rocky Flats and Madison. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Absolutely not. They could have 


written a letter. They could have had a 


memorandum of understanding. It could be a 


completely separate document, and in fact that 


would be perfectly reasonable. So we just 


haven't gotten the documentation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Might have even been a handshake 


under the secrecy of the period, who knows? 

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 DR. MCKEEL: Oh, I'd never suggest such a 


thing, but it --


 DR. ZIEMER: No, I didn't suggest it. 


 DR. MCKEEL: -- but it's possible. Yeah, it's 


well (unintelligible). 


 MR. STEPHAN: Dr. Ziemer, I have -- I have one 


last --


 DR. MCKEEL: Of course. 


 MR. STEPHAN: -- comment and I have to go, if 


you don't mind. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead, Robert. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. Which is just that I think 


what I'm asking -- and maybe this is not 


allowable, I'm not sure, based upon the 


discussion you just had about SC&A -- but what 


I'm asking is, we -- we believe that there is a 


relationship between Rocky Flats and Dow 


Madison, regardless of what that contract says. 


We believe it because -- for a variety of 


reasons Dr. McKeel laid out, and particularly 


because of the worker testimony. And so what I 


would be asking is can SC&A essentially go and 


establish what is the documentation which 


establishes the site designation. Is that --


is that something that they could establish, 

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because I'm not aware of the document that 


proves why the site designation is the way that 


it is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let -- let me ask Lew to 


answer that, and perhaps -- 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- counsel can add to it. 


 DR. WADE: Well, to the issue of site 


designation, Robert, this is Lew Wade, that's a 


judgment that's made by the Department of 


Energy, the Department of Labor, not by HHS and 


not under review of this Board. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: So the current contract with HHS 


wouldn't serve for that purpose. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Well, I 


-- I just hope -- you know, keep in mind that 


right now we're going with a site designation 


that really is in question and -- and should be 


invalid unless proved otherwise. 


And the last thing I would add is I certainly 


appreciate, Larry, your -- your comments that 


you're going to do your best to -- to get the 


site profiles done in time for the May meeting. 


And I just hope that what we're doing is we're 

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-- we're maybe dragging this out a little bit 


longer for the purpose of potentially including 


more people. But if -- if we are dragging it 


out longer for the purpose of potentially 


excluding people, I think -- I think we've had 


long enough to do that. And so, you know, at 


some point there has to be an end to this 


process, and it's just going to be very 


difficult for us to face Mr. Hoppe and Mr. 


Simmons in May if this is put off again and the 


reason it's put off is not because we're trying 


to include more people. You know, so if we're 


trying to be inclusive, I could understand, you 


know, trying to -- to look under every rock, 


but if we're trying to be exclusive -- which I 


don't think that you are, but I'm just trying 


to make the point. If we're trying to be 


exclusive to the point of making sure we have 


the -- the science exactly right, I think -- I 


think we've had long enough to do that and we 


just need to move forward come May. So I 


certainly appreciate your guys's time in 


allowing me to, you know, express some 


comments. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Robert. This is Larry 

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Elliott again, and I share your concern. I --


I believe that -- and accept, acknowledge and 


recognize that the Dow claimants have -- have 


been -- it's been long overdue in responding to 


their needs and -- and addressing their 


concerns. We want to be thorough as we do 


that, and so we -- we -- when we learn of 


something like these NRC reports, we want to 


make sure that we pursue those to the best 


advantage of the claimants. It's not that 


we're trying to use this information to their 


disadvantage, but to their advantage, whether 


we end up doing dose reconstruction -- we want 


to be able to use all the available data that 


exists, that we know of. If we add a class 


here, we want to be able to thoroughly and 


carefully attend to those non-presumptive 


claims where we end up doing a partial dose 


reconstruction, and we want to make sure we're 


thorough in that effort as well. So thank you 


 MR. STEPHAN: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- for your comments. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 


guys. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Board members, do you 


have any comments or questions -- okay, Dr. 


Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have a -- one -- one question 


for Larry. This -- I think this is the first 


it's come up, the residual contamination dose 


reconstruction issue. If -- you unable to 


reconstruct the residual contamination with 


sufficient accuracy, you know, et cetera, and 


there's health endangerment, they do qualify -- 


could qualify potentially for a Special 


Exposure Cohort? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That is correct, yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, that's -- yeah, just -- 


okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: But -- but we'd end up -- in that 


scenario, we'd end up with two classes. And 


the reason why --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- is because we would include 


the thorium work done during the covered period 


but not during the residual period. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh, and -- and I would just 


also add -- this probably is a comment, then I 


have a recommendation to make. One is that we 

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-- we could move -- you know, again, 


hypothetically, if an evaluation report is 


ready for -- by the May meeting, maybe not all 


these issues that Dan and others have -- have 


raised are resolved, there's no reason that we 


couldn't approve at least part -- so to speak, 


deal with part -- part of the SEC re-- request 


that -- come in and mo-- move forward on that 


and reserve the right and be able to pursue -- 


continue to pursue some of these other issues. 


For example, if we don't have all the, you 


know, contractual documents and so forth, the 


documentation, we don't need to necessarily put 


off, you know, dealing with -- with at least 


part of the SEC and getting some compensation 


out to some of these people. It's maybe not an 


ideal solution, but it at least would provide 


partial compensation for that group -- again, 


hypothetically, if that was the recommendation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, in fact we have done that in 


some other cases. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right, yeah, (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: In Iowa we did something similar 

and --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- and in Mallinckrodt. Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's been the premise of our 


83.14, as I indicated yesterday. When we 


identify a component of dose, we move forward 


with that and present it to you. This is --


this particular example of Dow has been 


slightly different in that regard because the ­

- the concern about the residual period is so ­

- so huge here --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and we wanted to see what we 


could do about addressing that. We didn't want 


to come forward without something to say about 


that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But it doesn't exclude doing 


something later, if needed. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's -- that's true. We could 


come forward with a -- an evaluation report on 


the covered period alone, which is -- the 


report I reviewed back in -- in November and 


decided that there were too many technical 


issues that -- and -- and Jim Neton and I had a 


long conversation about this, and Dr. Neton was 


not comfortable with the technical aspects that 


were unaddressed in that for the covered period 

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alone. And then we both had -- had concerns 


about how -- what we were saying and what we 


were not saying about the residual period in 


that particular report. 


 DR. WADE: Larry, could I ask you a question 


about the residual period? Let's assume that ­

- that we were to pursue the residual period as 


you defined, uranium only, and moved forward 


with an SEC class for that. Then who would be 


compensated? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: The presumptive cancers in that 


class. 


 DR. WADE: That had worked... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That had worked in that period. 


 DR. WADE: 250 whatever it was. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: So all of a sudden, the thorium 


issue really becomes moot. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Only -- only for those that don't 


have presumptive cancers. Then it's an issue. 


 DR. WADE: Right, but we would capture the 


people who did have the presumptive cancers 


through that petition. 


 DR. MCKEEL: But not all of them. 


 DR. WADE: Not all of them, but some of -- 

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 DR. MCKEEL: There are 94 people who have 


claims at NIOSH and it would capture 70 of 


those in that '57 to '60 group -- 


 DR. WADE: And --


 DR. MCKEEL: -- and of those, 41 have a 


presumptive cancer. 


 DR. WADE: Well, I'm not sure of the numbers, 


so let's just walk through it a little bit. Go 


ahead. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: No, I think -- I think Dan's 


right --


 DR. MCKEEL: I think there are numbers from 


Laurie (unintelligible). 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that -- yeah, these are the 


numbers that we've given -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: I checked them last night, right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: These are the numbers that we 


have given them, and I don't have them right 


here in front of me, but -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- essentially there's a -- 


there's a subset of these claims that only have 


time in the residual period. And if in your 


scenario, Dr. Wade, we come forward with an 


evaluation report that establishes a class for 

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which dose -- uranium dose cannot be 


reconstructed for the residual period, that 


would be the class and those people who had 


presumptive cancer, one of the 22, would -- 


would find themselves compensated. The 


remainder -- this is another reason why this is 


so critical that we be -- be very thorough in 


our efforts. The remainder of that group, that 


subset, who had non-- a non-presumptive cancer 


would essentially have the -- the only remedy 


that we can apply in a partial dose 


reconstruction would possibly be the 


occupational medicine dose, which is the X-ray 


-- annual X-ray, and that's not going to get a 


lot of people compensated. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We cou-- we would not pick up 


thorium. 


 DR. WADE: But following forward on Dr. 


Melius's suggestion of taking action that would 


deal positively with certain situations, the 


residual contamination step would deal 


positively with certain situations and wouldn't 


close the door on coming back and dealing with 


people if we could resolve this issue of the 

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thorium. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: If that -- if that scenario was 


that the thorium issue became part of the 


coverage, we would have to look at can we 


reconstruct that. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, I just wanted to get it on the 


record, that's all. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: And that's where a lot of -- I 


mean I applaud Dr. McKeel and John Ramspott and 


all the work that SINEW is doing. They -- they 


have -- well, essentially they've been a 


research arm of NIOSH in all of their efforts 


and all the information that they've brought 


forward has certainly been beneficial and we've 


added it. It's -- in many cases I know they've 


brought it forward knowing this kind of goes 


against our argument in a way because some of 


this is technically, you know, well-developed 


enough that it can enable them to do some kind 


of dose reconstruction, perhaps. But you know, 


they brought up other good points about the 


limitations of that, so I applaud you. Thank 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I wanted to --


 DR. MCKEEL: Thank you. 

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204

 DR. ZIEMER: -- check and see if Arthur Weid-- 


Weider is on the line. He's the petitioner 


from Dow. Arthur, did you come on the line at 


all? Arthur? 


 (No responses) 


 DR. WADE: We have two people here to speak. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Apparently not, so -- we have a 


couple of folks -- additional folks here to 


speak --


 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, sir, they came all the way up 


from Illinois today, so we'd love to have them 


have an opportunity --


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 DR. MCKEEL: -- to make some brief remarks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me -- let me ask how brief it 

will be. Do we need to take comfort breaks 


first or have they --


 DR. MCKEEL: I think they're -- they're going ­

- they are going to try to get back tonight, so 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, no, I just meant is it -- are 


we talking about 30 minutes each or -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: If -- if Bill can be very short -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're going to keep them brief so 

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 DR. MCKEEL: What do you think? Do you think 


you can -- can y'all do three minutes? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, go ahead. Go ahead. 


 DR. WADE: You don't need to be brief. Go on. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, I'm --


 DR. WADE: No need to be brief. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I was just going to -- you know, 


we can take a break first if necessary, but... 


MR. HOPPE: Hi, I'm Bill Hoppe. I worked at 


Dow from 1961 to 2002. I got 18 years in the 


rolling mill and I've got 22 years in 


maintenance. And in the rolling mill we did 


almost everything, but my main job I guess 


you'd say would be in shipping. I was a crate 


builder down there. The duty was block trucks, 


make sure, you know, everything was secured on 


the trucks when they shipped it. 


We usually ship out about four trucks a month 


to Rocky Flats. It was thorium and it would go 


from -- the gauge would be anywhere from 016 up 


to about eight inches thick metal, and each 


truck probably held anywhere from 36,000 pounds 


to 40,000 pounds, all depends how heavy the 


metal was in that. 


 And then in the rolling mill everyone did 

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almost every job, and when they ran the thorium 


thin sheets they'd make two or three passes, 


then they had to sand everything off, get all 


the dirt off of it. Any gouges in it they had 


to get that off. It'd go through a picker 


line, then it would go back through the mills 


again, and they did that maybe 20, 30 times 


like that. It'd be dust all over the place. 


And then when I got into maintenance, I got 


into the instrument shop in the maintenance 


part and my job there was to check on the 


instrumentation and that, and I worked a lot in 


the pot room checking the instruments for the 


temperature. Whenever they ran thorium it was 


real critical to keep the temperature with four 


degrees. And I ran up to about -- thorium up 


there till about 1996 or so. 


And the only time I ever had a badge on -- the 


government came in in 1995 or '96, I'm not 


positive there, but we had to wear a badge 


while we were in the pot room, and then when we 


got done we just threw them in a bucket and 


about two months later they just threw them 


away. I've got a statement on that. 


And go back to when I was in the rolling mill ­
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- I'm jumping all over the place, but -- sorry 


about that, but -- when we shipped out to Rocky 


Flats, we used to have to put stickers all the 


way around the metal, don't put film within 20 


foot of this package. And then when they got 


metal back from Rocky Flats, if it was thin 


sheets and that, sometimes we'd unload it and 


set it over there by where the track well was. 


It might sit there for two -- one, two, three 


weeks before they'd take it over to casting. 


But whenever they brought in the heavier plate, 


they had a guy by the name of Jay Burns, he was 


the head of metals for Dow, and Bill Barnes, 


Sr., he was a top salesman for Dow at that 


time, and they -- they'd be sitting there 


waiting for this metal to come in. They'd 


weigh it, put it right on the wagon and haul it 


right straight over to casting, and I don't 


know why -- you know, why that was so 


important, the heavier stuff, but that's what 


we had down there. 


And I don't know about the dose reconstruction. 


I've got a list of job classes met and we only 


know of three guys that was on the same job the 


whole time they were down there, and all the 

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rest of them was all over the place. I did 


everything in the mill except for three jobs, 


so if you'd like to have it, I've got it here 


for you. That's about all I can -- I know 


right now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good. Thank you very much. Thank 


you very much, and the other gentleman, we'd be 


pleased to hear from you. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Homer Simmons I think was the 


ninth person to file a claim at Dow, and that 


was in August of 2001. He's been denied for a 


Title -- for Part E and -- just remind 


everybody that there's something like 20 Part E 


claims from Dow, which is an AWE only site. 


And his Tit-- his Part B claim is still open 


today. 


 MR. SIMMONS: I worked in there for 45 years. 


My brother worked in casting. He died of 


cancer at 46 and I -- we been working at it 


pretty hard since then. And we had the head of 


all the casting departments for Dow Chemical, 


Julius Smith, offered his 'vice to take and 


help any way he could and nobody accepted it 


and he died since then. And there's an awful 


lot of widows out there that's been waiting for 

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this money to come in that's never got it, 


either. And they call you up wondering what 


are -- what are you doing there, I -- so what 


do you tell them, you're not doing nothing? 


And most of them are all at the age where 


they're about ready to -- they need everything 


they can get, too. And -- and this book 


specifies that all the metal cast uses -- it 


uses a belinium (sic) in it, so that -- almost 


every metal in there that's been cast, it has 


belinium (sic) used in it, so it's really not a 


question 'cause it's published in a book where 


anybody can read it. You don't have to have 


paperwork to read it. They put out a thing for 


my foreman, he -- or my brother when he was 


foreman that shows that the used uranium and 


they had Geiger counters and they looked 


through a box and they found the ones that had 


the best beats and that's the ones they casted. 


And everybody worked all over the plant. They 


worked from -- not one job, but every place and 


so everybody's almost versatile and they all 


worked around seven and there was caustic pipes 


and stuff where they cleaned it up the cramen 


(sic) breathed it and the people on the floor 

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all -- almost all of them handled it and every 


time they cleaned it up it failed to pass 


anyway so they never really cleaned the plant 


up since they started. And basically I can't 


see how they can even let the plant stay in the 


condition it is with -- with not taking the 


people in there and making them aware that they 


should be claimed for right now. But other 


than that, I ain't got much else to say. 


 DR. MCKEEL: There's one point I wanted Homer 


to clarify for y'all and that is that in many 


of the documents about Dow you will see 


references to, quote, mag, quote. And I wanted 


him to let -- just let you all know that most 


of the ti-- they did a tremendous amount of 


work with magnesium, and the book he's talking 


about has to do with magnesium. It's by W. H. 


Gross* from the American Society for Metals, 


and it does talk about the use of beryllium in 


some of the magnesium alloys. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) history of the whole plant 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. MCKEEL: Right, it's a general book about 


metal fabrication at -- at all of Dow, but I 

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want Homer to just confirm for you all that in 


many of the documents that refer to mag, 


they're really not talking about 100 percent 


pure magnesium metal. They're really talking 


about magnesium and thorium, and the same when 


they talk about sludge. A lot of the sludge 


that they're talking about, some of it was pure 


magnesium, but a lot of it was 


magnesium/thorium. I just want him to tell you 


about (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. SIMMONS: And -- and each one of the dies 


they run are all different there, like they run 


metal for magnesium for Samsonite Luggage. 


They ran all that, that was mag. And they run 


like shell castings, they run them 


continuously, and that's got -- all -- that -- 


all of them got different stuff there and they 


run that for the government. That was one of 


their biggest orders for years. And the heavy 


press belonged to the government, and when 


business was poor they -- they might let them 


run something else, but most of the time they 


run the stuff for the government all the time, 


and if they had any government orders, they 


didn't run nothing for the civilian. And we 

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had one guy that come down and testified there. 


He come out of the hospital and come over here 


-- he forgot his teeth and he signed a 


deposition for him, and he died about a week 


later, but you can see he was thinking about 


his family. He wasn't thinking of himself. 


But there's a lot of people's in bad shape 


there. And like the way you's -- take and keep 


hauling it around for long and long, these 


widows ain't going to need it if you wait long 


enough for them. They won't need no money 


where they're going, but that's all I got to 


say. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you -- thank you very much. 


I think we should take a break at this point. 


When we come back we'll talk briefly about the 


road ahead on this, and then some other issues. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have a rec-- okay. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:13 p.m. 


to 3:42 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're ready now to resume our 


deliberations, and the Chair recognizes Dr. 


Melius for purposes of making a motion relating 


to the Dow Chemical SEC. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would move that we engage our 

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contractor, SCA, to start a limited SEC 


evaluation review related to Dow. This would 


involve -- right now, since there is no 


evaluation report, this would mainly involve 


having them become familiar with the available 


documentation -- there's actually a separate 


section on the O drive that contains some of 


the information we've talked about today, as 


well as other documentation that NIOSH has 


gathered. I think this would sort of 


facilitate us getting ready for the review that 


-- of the evaluation report as it comes to us ­

- you know, hopefully it -- in -- in May and 


would help us get things started. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. That was a motion plus 


maybe a statement of support for the motion. 


Is there a second to the motion part of that? 


 Okay, Phillip Schofield has seconded it. The 


motion is to engage -- ask our contractor -- or 


task our contractor, SC&A, to begin a -- I 


think you described it as a limited SEC review. 


It's limited in fact by the fact that there is 


currently no evaluation report. We do however 


have the petition. We have some related 


documents --

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 DR. WADE: Posted on the web site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- those are available. And let 


me ask the mover and seconder, do you wish to ­

- to expand the motion to include a -- any sort 


of a full scale SEC petition review when the 


documents become available, or do you wish to ­

- does the Board and the petitioners -- or the 


motioners -- movers wish to, in a sense, wait, 


perhaps for another meeting, till we see how 


things develop? I'm going to assume it's the 


latter unless you say well, let's expand the 


motion and cover it fully. 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I -- I would suggest that we 


wait on that. We -- we have a workgroup that 


is actually tasked with dealing with some of 


the 83.14 issues, so that's the SEC workgroup 


that I chair and -- and sort of have them -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: That workgroup --


 DR. MELIUS: -- sort of monitor what's going on 


for the time being. We also have a conference 


call I believe in April, early April, at which 


time we'll I think be in a better position to 


sort of understand schedules and so forth for 


what will be going on, so I would just -- just 

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 DR. ZIEMER: So -- so the petition (sic), as -- 


as you've stated it. Ms. Munn, wish to 


comment? 


 MS. MUNN: No, it's more of a query than a 


comment. I'm not clear on what we're asking 


SEC -- what we're asking SC&A to do with this 


SEC petition. Are we asking them to verify 


that the documentation that has been presented 


is all that's available? Are we asking them to 


try to find additional documentation? What 


exactly are we asking, Jim? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: The -- the answer to both of those 


-- your questions -- would be no. What we're 


asking them to do, and I believe this is how we 


set up the task order for a limited review, is 


really simply become familiar with what 


documentation is already available in 


preparation potentially for reviewing the full 


evaluation report when it comes out. So we're 


not asking them to seek out new information. 


We're simply asking them to become familiar 


with and review what is currently available. 


Again, in the context that in the future we 


will be asking them to look at -- may-- maybe 

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asking them to look at the evaluation report. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Basically, as I understand the 


motion, this would include all of the materials 


that NIOSH has developed. It would include the 


materials developed by the petitioners and by 


their representatives. So basically it's a -- 


sort of a preparatory action to get them 


underway. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Just to clarify that, we have on 


the open drive a folder set aside for Dow 


Madison. The petition is there. This is an 


83.14 situation so the -- we told a claimant 


that we can't reconstruct their dose. That 


letter exists there, then the -- the form that 


we asked the petitioner to sign, the form A is 


there. Our letter establishes why we can't -- 


what we can't reconstruct. All of the 


material, the information that has been so 


kindly provided by Dr. McKeel and his 


colleagues are contained there, as well as 


anything else that we have brought to bear. We 


will notify not only the -- the Board, but also 


SC&A, when we add anything to that folder from 


this point on. So I don't believe we've 


touched SC&A on anything that's gone into that 

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folder up to this point, but if you take action 


on this motion, that tells me that anything we 


add to that folder we'll not only notify you 


but we'll notify SC&A. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Further comments or questions? 


Yes, Libby. 


MS. WHITE: Hi, yeah, I just wanted to mention 


on behalf of DOE that we will once again take a 


look at all the files that we provided and do a 


thorough search, both of our own records in our 


office, the Office of Health, Safety and 


Security, but work with our Office of Legacy 


Management and also with the History Division, 


which was the group that provided the 


classified information, the four-inch-thick 


unclassified information, as well, just to 


search and see if we can find anything else. 


We'd be happy then to provide a summary of 


everything we have provided to date and where 


we have searched and get that to NIOSH and also 


the Advisory Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, thank you very much, Libby, 


and we appreciate the -- those extra efforts to 


-- to help identify such documents. Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, actually let's -- I think we 

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need to move on the motion first, and then I 


have another brief request. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. If -- are we ready to vote 


then? 


Okay. And Mike, are you still on the line? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And you've heard the motion? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We're now ready to vote. 

All -- all that are here present in favor of 


the motion, raise your right hand. 


 (Affirmative responses) 


And it looks like we have all ayes here. Mike? 


 MR. GIBSON: Aye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Voting aye, there are no no’s, no 


abstentions. Thank you very much, the motion 


carries and is so ordered. 


Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: And actually I think you may 


already have the document, but it would be 


useful for me to have the presentation that Dan 


just presented to us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I've just now received a copy of 


that from Dan, and we'll see that copies of 


this are made and distributed to the Board. Do 

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we have an electronic version? 


 DR. MCKEEL: Yeah, the PDF document, Chris said 


that she'd make sure that that -- that final, 


final version -- there are a couple of slides 


that I presented that are not in that. Most of 


them are, but we will get you -- she will get 


that to you and hopefully can make copies -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: So you'll all get --


 DR. MCKEEL: -- for everybody. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- an electronic version of this, 


which you probably prefer -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: Right, and there is a little 


handout that expands on a few more things. I 


sent you a nicer copy of the map, the 


contamination map like that. And so --


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that -- is that on the 


electronic --


 DR. MCKEEL: It is on the electronic, but it's 


lower resolution. That -- so if you wanted to 


scan that one, for example, that's a better 


copy of that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Better copy, so maybe I should 


give that to Chris. 


 DR. MCKEEL: I think that would be a good idea. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Where'd she go? She -- well, I'll 

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catch -- I'll catch --


 DR. MCKEEL: Yeah, the electronic file is right 


there on the laptop and it's yours, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. 


 DR. MCKEEL: And I do appreciate the motion and 


the extra effort and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. MCKEEL: -- the Board's efforts, NIOSH's 


efforts, DOE's efforts and everybody. Thank 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we thank you again, Dr. 


McKeel, for your efforts in this particular 


case. 


 DR. WADE: Just very briefly for the record, 


I'll meet with the contracting office and then 


we will talk to SC&A and what we will instruct 


them to do is to undertake a limited focused 


review of the materials posted on the -- the 


shared drive related to Dow Chemical and that ­

- they'll review those materials from a 


technical point of view and that will be the 


nature of the instruction. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see, was there -- Jim, did 


you have an additional comment or was -- 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I was --

-- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- that was it? 


 DR. MELIUS: -- just getting --


(unintelligible) was what I wanted. 


WORKING GROUP REPORTS
 

WORKING GROUP CHAIRS


 DR. ZIEMER: Now we are going to have an 


opportunity to get updated on the activities of 


our various workgroups. And I think what we'll 


do is we'll just go right down the list. Was 


this distributed? 


 DR. WADE: Yes, everybody should have a copy. 


 DR. ZIEMER: There's a -- there's a copy of the 


current workgroups and subcommittee that has 


been distributed to you. This is a -- a 


version of Larry's e-mail that was distributed 


 DR. WADE: My e-mail. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry -- not Larry's, Lew Wade's 


e-mail that was distributed to you earlier, and 


what I did is I took Lew's e-mail and I simply 


reconfigured it and indented some things so it 


was easier for me to read and -- and in the 


process of that, my computer decided to delete 


Robert Presley from one of the workgroups. All 


I was doing was indenting, but I learned now 


that in the process Mr. Presley went off into 

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cyberspace. He actually is a member of the 


Fernald site profile group, and he wondered why 


we had removed him. I wasn't able to convince 


him that it was by order of the President of 


the United States, so he's going to remain on 


that group. So if you would correct your copy, 


the workgroup on the Fernald site should 


include Mr. Presley. 


Now let's go back through the list. We've 


already heard from the Subcommittee on Dose 


Reconstruction. 


Workgroup on the Nevada Test Site site profile, 


Mr. Presley is the chair of that. 


 MR. PRESLEY: We met last time right before the 


Naperville meeting. We have not met since. We 


just got a matrix on comments that SC&A had 


made on the -- their latest set of comments. 


believe Mark sent that what, Thursday or Friday 


of last week. SC&A has that back. We're 


currently commenting on that as a group and 


that's where we stand. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Board members, 


any questions for that workgroup at this point? 


 DR. WADE: I would have one general question -- 


and in fact, for all the presenters. When do 


I 
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you contemplate getting the workgroup together 


again, Robert? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Lew, that's something we've got 


to decide and talk about, our -- all of our 


schedules. What we'd like to do -- I think 


everybody'd like to do this, is since a lot of 


us are on the -- you know, different workgroups 


is if we can get together and have our meetings 


back to back so that all of us can -- that are 


-- that are on more than one workgroup can go 


to wherever we go one time and -- and meet, you 


know, for a day or two, maybe three, whatever 


it takes. That's what we need to sit down as a 


-- as a committee and talk about, when we need 


to do this. But I -- right now, I don't have 


any dates. 


 DR. WADE: All right. So maybe either today or 


later tomorrow, after all of these discussions, 


we can start to pick a target week, maybe 


sometime middle to the end of March, and start 


to focus. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's plan to do that. 


We'll proceed here. The next workgroup is the 


Savannah River Site, and Mike, you're chairing 


that. Give us an update on where you are? 

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 MR. GIBSON: Okay. This again is another 


workgroup that we had some difficulty of 


getting DOE to I guess provide us the records 


we needed. I think that's been worked out now 


with Sam Glover from NIOSH. There are a --


there is a date scheduled from February 28th 


through March 1st for the Q-cleared members of 


the working group to -- to go to Savannah 


River, along with NIOSH and Kathy DeMer (sic) 


from SC&A to go through the classified data 


that we need to look at. And I hope to have a 


conference call that has not yet been scheduled 


prior to that meeting, just to reaffirm with 


the working group and NIOSH and SC&A, you know, 


just what our goals are and then try to tighten 


things up. So after that -- after that review 


of the records, we could have another meeting 


or phone call and discuss what we can discuss 


and try to have something for the Board, 


hopefully in the May meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. So the February 28th 


to March 1st time frame you'll -- your group 


will -- or part of your group will be on site 


in Savannah River, so that's outside of our 


window anyway then where we'll need to have the 

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workgroups meet, wherever it is. We want to 


keep that block of time open for that visit. 


Thank you, Mike. 


Then the Rocky Flats, we've already had the 


report on Rocky from Mark so we can go on. The 


next one is Chapman Valve, and bef-- the 


chairman is Dr. Poston. Before Dr. Poston 


makes his comments, I want to check and see if 


Portia Wu, who's from Senator Kennedy's staff 


and who's -- Chapman Valve is amongst their 


constituency. Portia, are you on the line? 


 MS. WU: Yes, I am. Can you hear me? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, very well. So we'll have --


 MS. WU: And Stephanie Bass -- 


 MS. BASS: Yes, I'm on the line as well. I'm 


from Senator Kennedy's Boston office. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, very good, and what we'll do 


is have Dr. Poston make the workgroup report 


and then if either of you wish to add comments, 


that will be fine. 


Okay, Dr. Poston. 


 DR. POSTON: Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


This is sort of a pro-- a historical progress 


report since I'm a rookie. 

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Just to remind you, the SEC petition was 


qualified on November the 9th of 2005, and then 


the NIOSH SEC petition evaluation report was 


submitted to the Board on August the 8th, 2006. 


And in the Las Vegas meeting in September we 


asked SC&A to perform a review of the petition. 


Almost immediately, less than a month after 


that, there was a total rewrite of the petition 


evaluation report, and so that caused a little 


delay in the SC&A evaluation. 


 During that period I participated in a -- in a 


meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts with John 


and Arjun, and we interviewed former workers 


and survivors and so forth. That was a 


interesting situation. 


And then December the 6th SC&A did release 


their document. I've read that document in 


great detail, talked with John about it. It 


does include both the original -- consideration 


of the original petition evaluation report, as 


well as the total rewrite. 


Basically I don't think there are any major 


issues. There's probably two things that we 


need to be concerned about. There is a concern 


about the fire that occurred in June. There 

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were only five folks involved in that. Some of 


the assumptions about the internal exposure, if 


you change the -- the date of intake only a few 


days, it changes the doses significantly, so we 


need to iron that out a little bit. 


 The other major issue involves the -- what some 


people call the chip furnace, other people call 


it an incinerator, and trying to evaluate the 


exposures associated with -- with those kinds 


of things. You may know that when they machine 


these materials they often put the turnings 


into a furnace to reduce them to -- to an oxide 


form so they don't spontaneously ignite. In 


the early days there were some shipments that 


ignited, and so it was common practice in these 


facilities to burn or incinerate the materials. 


We're very unsure about potential airborne 


exposures for the workers who had to -- the 


chips had to be turned to continue to expose 


surfaces so they would oxidize, and also 


putting materials in the furnaces and taking 


them out. 


Those are the two major issues that we feel 


like we need to address. 

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So the next thing to do is schedule a -- a 


working group meeting, and I would like to do 


it as soon as possible. I don't want to be a ­

- a renegade, however -- if March makes sense 


for everybody else, then I would cooperate -- 


but I'd like to see if we could get this thing 


going 'cause I don't think there's a -- I think 


there's only a couple of issues that need to be 


addressed. I do think we're going to have to 


do it face-to-face, but I'd like to get it 


done, so I -- if -- unless there's someone 


wants to assassinate me, I'm going to move 


forward and try to have a meeting -- 


 DR. WADE: No need to wait till March. 


 DR. POSTON: -- as soon as possible. 


 DR. WADE: I think that the sooner the better, 


if --


 DR. POSTON: That's all I have on it. 


 DR. WADE: If you want to poll your members and 


-- at this meeting and get a sense of date, we 


can schedule the meeting while we're here. 


 DR. POSTON: All right. 


 MS. WU: This is Portia Wu from Senator 


Kennedy's office. Have there been any meetings 


of the working group? 'Cause I'm -- I remember 

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I was on the call when it was set -- 


 MS. BASS: Right. 


 MS. WU: -- and just to clarify, have there 


been any meetings of the working group thus 


far? 


 DR. POSTON: No. I -- I don't remember the 


date I was asked to take on this position as 


working group chair, but I missed -- for 


personal problems, I missed the December -- 


December meeting and I've just been out of 


pocket because of some family matters and I 


haven't been able to convene the working group. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But we want to make sure to keep 


the -- the staffers there informed of any 


activities of the workgroup, so -- and -- and 


we will certainly do that. Make sure that Dr. 


Poston has either your e-mail numbers or -- and 


I think Jason will be able to provide those for 


us if needed -- yeah. 


Did you have any other comments, Portia, or... 


 MS. WU: No, it's just -- and I know Mary Anne 


Reale*, who's one of our petitioners, is also 


on the line. You know, Senator Kennedy's very 


concerned that this petition gets as -- as much 


attention as it deserves and -- and we are 

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concerned about how long it's taken. I realize 


there are a lot of reasons for that, but we 


just want to be sure it moves along. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Based on what the chair of 


the workgroup has told us, it sounds like they 


may be able to come to closure fairly rapidly 


here and -- and be able to bring a 


recommendation back to the Board, perhaps even 


by our April telephone meeting, so that's 


certainly what we'll shoot for, at least. 


Okay, thank you very much. Let's proceed to 


the next one then and this'll be Dr. Melius's 


SEC issues workgroup. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Our workgroup met in 


Cincinnati on I believe it was January 17th, 


that all members of the workgroup were present. 


I think Mark was there by phone. Larry and Jim 


Neton and I think LaVon -- I can't remember who 


else -- from NIOSH was present, as well as 


Arjun and I think some other people from SC&A 


on the phone. We had -- we had a good meeting. 


We covered two separate issues there. One is 


the -- the high exposure shorter term expo-- 


time period issue regarding Special Exposure 


Cohorts. We had a short report from that that 

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was prepared -- Arjun's not here. I believe we 


distributed it after. There was -- it was 


prepared for the workgroup but I believe we got 


it cleared and -- regarding some privacy 


concerns and then distributed out to the rest ­

- rest of the Board. If not, I'll make sure 


that -- that takes place. You don't... 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think the Rocky Flats workgroup 


wanted a copy of that particularly, but I don't 


know that it has been distributed yet. Nevada, 


I mean --


 DR. MELIUS: Nevada --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Nevada Test Site. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Haven't seen that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I'll follow up and make sure 


-- that was my --


 DR. ZIEMER: There were some -- some issues on 


privacy things that they were to look at, so we 


need to find out where that is. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Can I just clarify something 


for you all? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: There should be no privacy 


issues that constrict Board members exchanging 

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any information, and there should be no 


constriction from SC&A giving the Board Privacy 


Act information. It's only if it's going to be 


made public that there's a restriction. So 


there --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, well, let me ask -- 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- shouldn't be any 


limitation on --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- you this because our -- our 


workgroup meetings were open. Right? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right, so anything that 


would be made public from one of those 


workgroup meetings would have to be cleared. 


But there's no reason that Dr. Melius can't 


give Mr. Presley --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yeah, I got --


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- a document. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: It's also if there's to be a 


workgroup meeting, workgroup mem-- workgroup 


members, SC&A could have materials in their 


hand, but they shouldn't be publicly discussed 


and they shouldn't be made publicly available. 


Now obviously we like to have everything that 


we discuss in our hands in front of the public, 

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but if it becomes a matter of efficiency of our 


operation, then you can have meetings but just 


not discuss the materials publicly. 


 MR. BROEHM: And I would just say, from the 


Congressional angle, that on a number of your 


meetings Congressional staff are listening in 


by phone. I've had a number of instances now 


where they're hearing documents discussed in 


the course of discussions and then come back to 


me and ask for a copy of that. As much as 


possible, when these are Privacy Act reviewed 


in advance of the meeting or subsequent to a 


meeting, it would be very helpful to get those 


as soon as they're available so I can share 


those with the staff and they can have those 


before them. Particular-- particularly I think 


the matrix -- matrices that are used to sort of 


guide discussions, those are often helpful. 


know Mark has been great about providing these. 


That helps them sort of follow the discussion. 


It gets very technical, and especially being on 


the phone, I think it's even harder to follow, 


so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask, Jason, do you 


typically know in advance what Congressional 


I 
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people are likely to be on the line in one -- 


each of the workgroups? Do we let you know 


when the workgroups are meeting, or does Lew -- 


 MR. BROEHM: I get that through Dr. Wade -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Because --


 MR. BROEHM: -- and I send out messages to let 


them know that one's coming up. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the easy way to do this would 


be for us to -- to copy Jason on our documents, 


and then have him distribute them to the 


appropriate people 'cause we don't always know, 


you know, which staffer's going to be on the 


line. 


 MR. BROEHM: No, I would appreciate that coming 


through me just so that I can be the -- the 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that --

 MR. BROEHM: -- link. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Would that work well? So the --

the chairs, as you make your distributions, 


make sure Jason is copied. Is that a good way 


to do it or should we have Lew -- copy it to 


Lew? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: No, I was just going to say 


if you're going to add him would you mind just 

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going ahead and adding us 'cause -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I don't know; now you're 


pushing us. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, we -- we can certainly do 


that. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Can I just clarify the procedural 


thing 'cause this issue becomes most 


problematic when there's a -- the work-- SC&A 


is rushing to get a report done in time for a 


workgroup meeting, and they have limited time 


and I don't think the problem's necessarily at 


their end, in most instances, and then we're 


trying to have the workgroup meeting, get 


report to us. Meanwhile give counsel's office 


adequate time to review -- review the report 


and I think it would be helpful if we had some 


sort of set procedures for that 'cause ideally 


counsel's office would get it ahead of time, 


and then by the time anybody on the Board or 


anybody else should see it, it should be -- 


have, you know, privacy clearan-- Privacy Act 


clearance and -- and so forth. That way we 


don't have two different versions of something 

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circulating around and -- and, you know, the 


potential for something getting mistakenly 


distributed -- you know, the wrong type of 


copy, but --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- in the instance -- the 


problem's in the instances when it's not, and 


for example, I never got any -- recall any 


notification afterwards from the counsel's 


office about something being cleared 'cause 


that would go -- go through Lew or go directly 


to SC&A and I think we just need to sort of 


reach understanding so we don't avoid -- you 


know, make proper distribution at the same time 


we avoid making mistakes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, and for a practical matter, 


for example, and take your last meeting, I 


think we got the SC&A report from Arjun the 


night before, or maybe it was that morning. So 


there would have been not enou-- in -- you 


know, sometimes that's just a matter -- the 


contractor has got a lot of irons in the fire 


and -- and they're pushing pretty hard against 


deadlines and it's time for the meeting and 


they've got to get something to us and that's 

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just the -- sort of the nature of the game, so 


it's -- it's a difficult thing. If you can 


help us --


 DR. WADE: Well, it -- it's something I'd like 


to talk about --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- procedurally --


 DR. WADE: -- there's several issues and we do 


need to review procedures and understand 


procedures. But in SC&A's case, it begins when 


SC&A has a report in their hands that they're 


prepared to turn over to the Board, to NIOSH. 


What SC&A does is send that report to David 


Staudt, the contracting officer, and say we 


want to go public with this report; would you 


please see that it is okay from the Privacy Act 


point of view, so step one. 


Step two is David will take that report and 


then forward it on to Liz and her team to look 


at. Liz and her team will look at it in an ex­

- as expeditious a way as possible, and they've 


done that very well, and then they'll return 


that report to David, who then returns it to 


SC&A and says okay. 


 Now -- so that's what happens. If we need 


more than that to happen, we need to talk about 

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that. 


Now remember, if the -- the report is in the 


hands of the Board and SC&A and NIOSH and it 


hasn't yet cleared Privacy Act review, there 


can still be a meeting. The report can be in 


front of people. But the report should not be 


given to the public and should not be -- and 


there -- and the Privacy Act aspects of it 


should not be discussed during that meeting, 


and we're all schooled as to what they are. So 


that's what happens now. We can talk about 


that. We can talk about expanding that as you 


would like. 


 DR. MELIUS: But I think it's the situation 


where there hasn't been time for a prior 


Privacy Act review that -- that is a little bit 


more problematic in -- 'cause that review is 


still going on and we just need to make sure 


whoever -- whatever then gets distributed, you 


know, is the cleared document and -- and also 


to know, you know, how problematic it is and, 


you know, how --


 DR. WADE: So the --


 DR. MELIUS: -- how do we make sure, you know, 


it gets up to Congress, gets to whoever 'cause 

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I'm sure even the people in Congress don't want 


to have to have, you know, reports that sort 


of, you know, have Privacy Act information and 


have to be restricted in some way. I mean just 


hard -- that much harder to keep track of. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so let's deal with that in two 


steps. The first step is that the Designated 


Federal Official, who should be at every 


workgroup meeting, should make clear to those 


present the issue. If there's going to be 


reports in front of Board members discussed 


that are not cleared, that should be made clear 


on the record, so we should be okay on that. 


The -- the most vexing issue you raise is in 


now what happens once the document is cleared 


in getting it distributed to people. And there 


it -- it re-- it involves really getting it to 


Jason and then getting it up on the NIOSH web 


site. Now we have to make sure that those two 


steps happen, and I think there's a little bit 


of open air in those two steps. So we can talk 


about that. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: We're working on that. 


Jason and I talk so that -- where we have a 


channel now for providing him the Privacy Act 

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cleared documents and we usually send the 


Privacy Act cleared documents back to David 


Staudt, with a copy to you. Would you like us 


to start providing them to OCAS as well? 


 DR. WADE: I would. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: I think the two things that have to 


happen is that -- really three things. Jason 


needs to get them to give them to the 


Congressional people. Larry needs to get them 


to post them. And then Board members need to 


get them with the understanding that it is now 


okay to give these things out, so all of those 


loops need to be closed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: There's one other important 


distribution point here. Not only the web 


site, but I have to take care of, through 


Laurie Ishak, getting -- if it's an SEC 


petition-related document, I need to get that 


into the petitioners' hands. I receive 


numerous requests for these, but I can't 


release them to the petitioner until I hear 


from counsel's office that they're cleared for 


distribution, so we don't want to forget the 

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petitioners as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: Now could -- could we impose upon 


you or someone at that point to also send the 


report to all the Board members? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We do that when we post it on the 


web site. There's a -- there's a distribution 


list that you're included on notifying you that 


the document has been put on the public web 


site. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We also do that, for your 


information, when it goes into the open drive, 


the shared drive, as a non-redacted piece of -- 


if we get it for that. 


 DR. WADE: So then the question to the Board 


is, is it enough to get Larry's e-mail? 


 DR. MELIUS: I may be wrong, but like in this 


case, I'm not sure where this document would go 


-- would have gone. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, I was not --


 DR. MELIUS: It's -- it's not a -- not a site-


specific document necessarily. It's the 250­

day issue and -- I mean I could have missed it 


and you -- you may have put it up there and I 

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may have missed it, but it's -- you know, it's 


still a little different than a site -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: You're absolutely right, and I 


think that's another situation that we need to 


attend to here. We need to -- my suggestion 


would be we create a folder for your working 


group --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and notify you when something 


goes into that folder. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: And if you want us then to post 


it on the web site, we'll need to hear from 


general counsel that it's okay to do so. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? Does that sound 

reasonable? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That sounds like (unintelligible) 

--

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah, that -- that would be 

fine, yeah. 

 DR. WADE: I would think the default is we want 


to post everything on the web site once it's 


cleared. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

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 DR. WADE: I think that's our default. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I also just want to clarify 


for you all, when we send documents back that 


have been Privacy Act reviewed, we're sending 


them back to David Staudt -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- notes to SC&A, but you're 


sending them in a Word version so that they can 


see where we have indicated Privacy Act review 


has to be done, so those need to be converted 


if you get them from SC&A before they're made 


public 'cause otherwise they still have the 


information. 


 DR. WADE: Well, let's hear from SC&A then. 


When you get that Word version then, John, do 


you then make the changes and make a document 


available? 


DR. MAURO: At this point we have been in a 


mode where the product that we put out, 


especially when they're short-term products 


such as the ones Dr. Melius is referring to and 


the one that we sent to Brad Clawson recently, 


we -- and we have these one-day turnaround, 


those have been the problematic ones whereby -- 


and the only solution that we've had and what 

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we're dealing with is make sure -- and this is 


something that we did not always do but now we 


do do, is put in this statement on the bottom 


that this may contain Privacy Act material and 


should be treated as such until legal counsel 


at NIOSH clears it. Once they get back to us 


and clear it, then we're -- we know we're free 


to -- to distribute it, but we don't do that 


distribution. We're -- what I'm getting at is 


all we -- all we are now is informed that yes, 


this piece is now clean and can be -- has been 


cleared as a Privacy Act document, but we don't 


take any action from there. I think that at 


that point, whether it goes up on a web -- the 


-- the NIOSH web site, whether it's distributed 


to the various representatives -- Congressional 


representatives, we don't take that action. 


 DR. WADE: Well, let's assume, John, that you 


get it back from David and it says remove this 


line. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: So then you do --


DR. MAURO: And then we do that. 


 DR. WADE: -- that and make a clean document. 


DR. MAURO: And then -- yes, and then we do 

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that, but I -- so that we do clean our -- our 


material. 


 DR. WADE: Then what do you do with it once you 


clean it? 


DR. MAURO: I don't know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, John, you are making Board 


distribution of all of your reports. 


DR. MAURO: We always are making Board 


distributions --


 DR. WADE: So once you've cleared it, then you 


make a Board distribution? 


DR. MAURO: Yeah. For example, the last -- and 


I'm going to have to defer -- the most recent 


time where that happened where we went through 


this iterative process where the loop was 


closed was on material related to Rocky, the 


separate pieces, and I know Joe's sitting right 


behind me and I know he received back material 


that has been so-called cleansed of any mater-- 


now what action Joe has done with that material 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so it's Joe's fault. We've 


established that. 


DR. MAURO: Let's get Joe up --


 DR. WADE: Let's get Joe up here. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


(On microphone) Yeah, consistent with where 


you're driving, what we have done is when we've 


gotten the changes -- recommended changes, 


we've made the changes and then we have sent 


the changed document back to NIOSH, back to 


counsel, and basically say here it is. But you 


know, we would not do any public distribution 


or anything. But what -- what I was looking 


for was a confirmation did we change it 


satisfactorily, did we meet all those changes 


before we go anywhere else. So any -- any 


outside distribution would have to take place 


at that point. Again, we would not do anything 


other than send it back to NIOSH and I think in 


the case of Rocky Flats we made it available 


just to the workgroup and that was it. That 


was the entire distribution. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Now it would serve everyone 


better I think if you distributed it to the 


Board. I -- I see no downside to distributing 


it to the Board. But what about closing the 


loop, counsel, in terms of -- you -- you 


suggest changes to SC&A. Do we assume that 

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they've made them and distribute it? Do you 


want to see it again before it's released? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Our preference would be to 


see it again. If it's a timeliness issue, then 


I think they're capable of following our 


direction. There are a number of times, 


though, that we send them a question that needs 


to be addressed before we can make a decision. 


 DR. WADE: I would like to suggest that if the 


instructions back to SC&A are simple, then we 


should assume that they followed those 


instructions and can release the report. If we 


find evidence to the contrary, we should deal 


with it. I -- I wouldn't make it overly 


complex at this point, so I -- if SC&A gets 


instructions back that are easy to follow and 


clear, you should follow them and then release 


it. If there's any question, then you need to 


follow up. 


DR. MAURO: So what I'm hearing is we do have a 


certain degree of discretion here, and that is 


when we do get instructions back and if we feel 


that yes, it's clear and unambiguous, we make 


those changes and we are -- at that point the 


document is cleansed. If there's any ambiguity 

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on our part regarding whether or not we got it 


right, then we get back to you. 


 DR. WADE: I think that's reasonable. 


 DR. MELIUS: Then -- then SC&A would be -- then 


do a distribution to the Board, as well as to 


NIOSH -- to Larry and then to Jason to get -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, no, Jason would catch it 


through Lew, I think. Right? I don't think 


SC-- or through -- through counsel, but -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I don't think our contractor 


has to -- has to get it to Jason. And Jason 


will take care of the people on the Hill, as 


appropriate. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Jason and Larry will get it 


directly from counsel. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay --


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: You guys. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that's good. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, for Rock-- Rocky Flats, 


I think the only thing this would have changed 


is the distribution would have been to the 


entire Board from us, rather than just the 


workgroup. But we still have the expectation 


that the -- that counsel would handle further 

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distribution. We wouldn't do anything with 


that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I think that's 

helpful. 

 DR. MELIUS: Can I give my report now? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I think --

 DR. WADE: Go ahead, we're done. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Question --


 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Question, Wanda's got one and 


I've got one on this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead, Robert and then 


Wanda. 


 MR. PRESLEY: This is clear as mud. Golly bum. 


Jason just mentioned something about these 


matrix, to get them out to -- to the people 


before the -- that we have the meetings. Now I 


don't think that you all want us to, when I 


fire my comments or the working group's 


comments back to -- to SC&A or back to Mark, I 


don't think Larry wants a copy of all these 


things flying back and forth. I think what you 


really want is the document that we're going to 


use at our next working group meeting. Is that 


correct? 

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 DR. WADE: Yes. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm going to speak for Jason 


here, as well. I hope he finds what I have to 


say amenable to his needs. Our interest is to 


-- if the working group is going to take up a 


document from SC&A for its discussion, we would 


like to be able to not only have that document 


shareable with the rest of the Board, but also 


publicly shareable on our web site and 


shareable with the Congressional delegation 


that is interested in that document. Then 


whatever you -- whatever comes out of your 


deliberation -- you know, your comments on it 


and that -- I don't need to see those until the 


document is changed to reflect and address 


those comments. And then I think it then again 


has to go through the same process. 


 DR. WADE: Yes --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Does that help clear up the mud? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yes, some, but now do you want -- 


do you want me to send you the copy or -- most 


of the time when I get a new matrix, it would 


come from Mark. So do you want your people to 


send it to you or do you want me to make sure 


you get it? We'll -- we'll -- we'll comment 

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things --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, each of the --


 MR. PRESLEY: -- and then we get a new matrix 


and Mark is the one that we're getting our 


matrix from and adding comments to it -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well --


 MR. PRESLEY: -- then we're going back to the 


meeting. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Here we're talking a different 


source of information. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: The source of information that 


was being discussed just a moment ago, as I 


understood the conversation, was about an SC&Agenerated document. And I'll tell you that any 


document that NIOSH prepares also has to go 


through the same rigorous review for Privacy 


Act concerns before we distribute it publicly. 


Okay? 


 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) This was 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Pardon me? 


 MR. PRESLEY: (Unintelligible) comment 


document. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. So even though it -- you 

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know, it may come to you from Mark, it has to 


go still through general counsel, Privacy Act 


review, et cetera. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I want to make sure. Okay. 


 MR. BROEHM: I just wanted to confirm that 


Larry speaking for me was -- was fine. The 


needs that we have are that, you know, in 


advance of a meeting I think it's helpful for 


Congressional staff to have that in front of 


them in advance of the meeting to help guide 


them through the discussion. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I just want to make sure you get 


it to the right people and I don't get in 


trouble for sending you something -- 


 MR. BROEHM: Right. 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- that you're not supposed to 


have. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? Okay, John, go ahead, do 


you --


DR. MAURO: Just to close the loop, when we get 


a document back that has been cleansed and we 


have changed it in accordance -- and redacted 


and removed the material that needs to be 


redacted in accordance with the instructions we 


receive, I think one of the things we will do 

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when we send this document out again, there 


will be a statement on the bottom that confirms 


that yes, it's clean. So in other words, any 


document that comes out of SC&A will have one 


of two things on it. Either it will say this 


is -- contains potentially PA material, please 


do not distribute; or it will contain the 


statement that said this has been checked and 


cleansed of and can be distributed, so there's 


never any ambiguity. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good, thank you. Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: My concern is not so much with 


documents that are eventually going to end up 


on the web site or will be open information, 


but if our past experience is any basis for 


evaluation, most of the Privacy Act information 


that we see occurs in face-to-face working 


group meetings. And as -- as long as we're 


working in face-to-face groups with pieces of 


paper that -- or -- or any other form of 


information that has names and identifiers on 


it, one can have some control of it. But as an 


example, because the NTS working group is very 


interested in the results of the SEC's 250-day 


issues which may still contain some privacy 

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information, there are real reservations in my 


mind about sending this information 


electronically. 


From my perspective, any time I send anything 


on e-mail, it's an open document. And so I 


would be very hesitant to put any -- or receive 


anything that contained names and identifiers 


by e-mail. I know we all have firewalls of one 


sort or another, but it's a major concern, it 


would seem to me, when we're talking about we'd 


like to have the information that the other 


working group has developed before it's 


cleared. I would really hesitate to see that 


come on e-mail. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Actually the information I was 


referring to was actually an SC&A report -- I 


think it was Arjun's report -- and it became an 


official sort of document in itself, so it 


would have been cleared. But anyway, go ahead, 


Liz. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would just say -- and as I 


recall this particular document -- first of 


all, I believe that SC&A does a privacy review 


themselves before anything gets distributed, so 


it's not like they're sending everything to 

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counsel's office saying well, what needs to be 


taken out. There's already been I think 


appropriate care. There's Privacy Act training 


and -- and so forth involved. I think in this 


particular instance the -- the question that 


came up was -- it was some information from a ­

- that was publicly available as a thesis at 


University of Iowa, I believe, that actually 


had some names and -- historical names in it. 


It wasn't about people's illness or anything 


that -- that, and I think there was a question 


of -- so -- so if it's publicly available at a 


library, anybody can go and get it, then how do 


we apply the -- you know, the Privacy Act to it 


when it gets distributed in the context of a 


federal -- as a federal document or somehow, 


you know, connected to the -- to the federal 


government, but -- but I think everyone's -- I 


don't think there's -- we have information 


circulating that's sort of, you know, 


blatantly, you know, breaks or, you know, 


violates the Privacy Act. I think there's just 


questions where -- where there's a question 


about something and -- and making sure that -- 


especially when you have so -- you know, how do 

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you de-identify something and make sure you've 


done it appropriately so it's still 


understandable and useful as a document. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, you understand my concern, 


though, with respect to exchanging e-mail 


information that we may need and may want, but 


which may not have been actually cleared. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Liz. 


 DR. WADE: It's not a trivial question. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I just wanted to address 


what Ms. Munn brought up. That is a concern 


for the federal government and each agency is 


now working on a new policy regarding e-mail 


and the sending of e-mail over non-secured 


networks, et cetera. So I would assume that 


when the CDC finishes establishing their policy 


-- and they're putting their employees through 


the change right now -- that the change will 


also come to the Board, as well as SC&A and all 


the other contractors. ORAU, NIOSH, all of us 


are going to have to start following that 


regarding the use of laptops and wireless 


internets and using unsecured networks to send 


Privacy Act information. So it -- they are 


aware of it and there is -- policy is 

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forthcoming. It just is not ready yet. 


They're going off OMB circulars on it right 


now. 


 DR. WADE: And absent that policy, each person 


has to use their own common sense as to how 


they will approach it. 


 MS. MUNN: And FedEx, hopefully. 


 DR. WADE: And FedEx, if that's their choice. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, there's also encryption, and 


for most -- many medical documents now, Privacy 


Act kinds of information's handled through 


encryption and there's some pretty 


straightforward ways of doing that that are 


considered to be secure and actually are 


approved by the federal government, I believe, 


also, as part of the --


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


that sort of thing. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, I think we should hear your 

report. 

 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay. Where was I? Okay. 

Whatever report we got from Arjun, we -- we had 


-- had discussion and then there -- two issues 


that we -- we were looking at -- or the 

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context, and this one was from the Ames 


Laboratory, which we've discussed as a past SEC 


(unintelligible) there, and the second was with 


the Nevada Test Site. After fairly lengthy 


discussions we decide the best way to move 


forward was -- one on the Ames was that SC&A 


was going to clarify some of the issues 


regarding potential exposures at that facility 


from -- from fires and explosions. And that 


for the Nevada Test Site we would identify a 


number of exposure in-- incidents there 


regarding above-ground testing and then 


evaluate those in the context of their 


potential -- sort of SEC evaluation and the 


potential exposures that people have received 


in less than a 250-day period, and then come 


ba-- and that -- that was -- would help to form 


the basis for a report from -- from our working 


group. 


 The next step in that -- both of those 


processes, both for Ames and NTS, was to get 


the people from SC&A together with some NIOSH 


and possibly ORAU staff, I'm not sure, to work 


out some of the -- the technical details about 


how those examples would be developed. And 

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then I expect we'll have those done and we'll 


be having a discussion of that at another 


workgroup meeting, most likely prior to our 


April -- April meeting -- that. So it -- the ­

- we were making progress. I think we have a 


path forward that everyone agrees on that will 


be helpful for everybody involved and should 


work out. 


Now I don't know if Paul or Gen or Mark have 


anything to add to that part of our report, but 


 DR. ZIEMER: No. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. The second part of our 


report concerns the 83.14 issue. We were 


charged with sort of working with NIOSH and 


trying to evalu-- what would be better ways of 


presenting and the ty-- types of information 


that would be useful to have, either in the 


evaluation report for the 83.14s or for -- 


available to the Board prior to our evaluation 


of -- of the NIOSH re-- NIOSH reports. We did­

- didn't have any new 83.14s to discuss, non-- 


none had come up, so we sort of worked off of 


our experience with -- one's an 83.14 and the 


other was an 83.13, but they were sort of 

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similar in that we didn't have site profiles 


prior to the review of them. One was the 


Monsanto, the other was General Atomics, I 


believe and -- do that. 


And we worked with NI-- I think there's sort of 


an agreement that there were certain areas, 


particularly regarding description of work 


areas and the basis for how NIOSH went about 


defining the class that could be better 


explained in the reports, and so we had some 


di-- dialogue on that. 


And secondly, we also agreed that it would be 


very helpful to have some of the backup 


information for those reports available to the 


Board on the O drive so that we'd be able to 


look at that information, review that 


information prior to the -- our -- any rev-- 


our review of -- of that report. Particularly 


we're interested in sort of summary or 


decision-making documents that would be -- not 


-- not just all access to particularly raw 


data, but also to some of the background 


evaluation that NIOSH or their contractors have 


done in the development of the SEC evaluation 


report. And NIOSH I think's actually already 

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going ahead and implementing that -- that 


program and I think it's useful and it will 


help us in the evaluation of future 83.14 


reports. 


Again, I don't know if Gen, Paul or Mark have 


anything to add to that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You've covered it well. Thank you 


very much. 


Then we have the workgroup to review SEC 


petitions that did not qualify. I think Jim 


Lockey -- you gave us kind of a summary of that 


last time, but there was a follow-up action 


that you were going to do so tell us where you 


 DR. LOCKEY: We were waiting for the -- there 


were -- if a petition doesn't qualify, the 


petitioner has the right to appeal it to the 


Director of NIOSH. I think there were four 


petitions under review by the Director of 


NIOSH. There's a committee that does that for 


the Director and LaVon Rutherford spoke to me 


this morning and said that that review process 


has been done and the summary reports are going 


to be made available to this working group 


within the next week, and hopefully we can fin­
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- finalize this during the meeting during the 


last two weeks in March. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. I don't think 


we have any -- well, let's see, Hanford site, 


yes. Jim, just give us a quick update on 


Hanford. 


 DR. MELIUS: Hanford, we tried to schedule a 


meeting of -- of the workgroup. We -- if you 


recall, at the last meeting I reported that 


we'd had a conference call, the workgroup, with 


NIOSH and SC&A to try to sort of prioritize how 


we would approach the site profile review for ­

- for Hanford. We had actually made -- 


narrowed down some of the issues. The main --


main issue that really was ready for discussion 


had to do with the neutron doses at that 


facility and we were -- I was trying to 


schedule a workgroup report and were -- we were 


not -- unable to come up with a date that would 


be workable for that before this meeting. So 


we will have to schedule that meeting now. 


I would add, and I think we'll discuss -- 'cuss 


this tomorrow, the particular problem -- issue 


was the availability of one person from ORAU, 


Jack Fix, to be available for a meeting. 
I 

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believe he was out of the country till sometime 


into February or March, but I -- it points out 


to this -- this problem of, you know, document 


ownership. Jack has -- is conflicted on the -- 


on the Hanford site. I think he would be a 


resource for us, but he -- he is conflicted and 


-- and here we're in a situation we have a 


conflicted person, a site expert, but who -- 


but we're holding up, you know, moving along in 


a process because that person's not available 


because apparently nobody else has sort of 


taken over document ownership yet and is ready 


to meet and capable of fully discussing the -- 


the technical issues involved. And I would 


hope we'd be able to get beyond that with this 


because to me it's -- it's a problematic 


situation, much as we've had with Rocky Flats 


where so much is -- of the discussion relies on 


-- on one person who has a -- an admitted, you 


know, potential conflict of interest on that 


site. Again, not to take away from their 


capability or -- or knowledge, but it just I 


think is a somewhat awkward situation given our 


concerns about conflict of interest and I think 


we're going to hear more about that tomorrow. 

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I think Larry and Kate are supposed to give us 


an update on the implementation of the policy. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Speaking of 


conflict of interest, we do have a workgroup on 


that but I don't think we have any actions -- 


or do we? 

 DR. LOCKEY: Well, there's one -- do you want 

to --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. LOCKEY: This brings up the --

 DR. ZIEMER: Do you have a -- okay. Emily. 

 MS. HOWELL: Our office has been working to 

provide Dr. Lockey, who's the chair of this 


working group, with materials so that the 


working group has something to look over, and 


we should be getting those to him next week and 


hopefully the working group will, you know, be 


able to meet. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Our plan, again, is probably to 


try to have our first meeting -- last two weeks 


in March. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Very good, thank you. We 


already heard from the procedures review 


workgroup yesterday so that one is done. 

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 MS. MUNN: Are we going to vote on that today? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? 


 DR. WADE: Tomorrow. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We'll actually have the vote on 


that tomorrow. 


 MS. MUNN: Tomorrow? All right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay. Workgroup on 


Blockson, Wanda Munn chaired that one and 


Wanda, why don't you tell us about those 


activities. 


 MS. MUNN: The Blockson group has not yet met 


because, as I think all of the Board is aware, 


the original site profile and SEC petition were 


pulled back for additional rework and that is 


underway as we speak. There is no real reason 


for the group to meet until those documents are 


available to us. 


We did have the workers outreach meeting that 


was put together by the Department of Labor and 


was -- I think I sent you all a report 


indicating it was well-attended. I was very 


pleased to be there myself. The workers were 


quite forthcoming in their information. 
I 


believe several key issues that were of concern 


to us at the time we went in were illuminated 

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considerably by the comments of the workers and 


gave Tom something to work with as he went back 


to address those documents. 


We're hoping that we will have the 


documentation from NIOSH in our hands -- what, 


within the next few weeks? -- so that we'll 


have something to start to go with. It's our 


anticipation at this time that the working 


group probably will meet for the first time 


sometime in late March if the documents are 


then available. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. I believe 


that -- well, Fernald work-- 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) Dr. Melius has 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, go ahead, Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Make just one quick observation. 


In reading actually Wanda's rep-- e-mail to the 


Board about the Blockson site visit and 


actually talked to somebody else about it and 


do that, I certainly was impressed about the 


type of information that was obtained from that 


and -- and as I think Wanda said and said in 


her e-mail how worthwhile that -- that -- and 


helpful that -- that visit was, and I would 

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certainly encourage NIOSH in its sort of future 


dealings with I think all sites but 


particularly some of these sites that have not 


had as much attention and -- and invol-- 


involvement in that -- that -- you know, prior 


to evaluation reports -- you know certainly 


prior to the Board being -- being put in place 


to take action on these, that -- that we have 


had significant and outreach efforts and the 


kind of public meetings and so forth that -- 


that were -- appeared to be handled well and 


well-attended in -- in the Blockson situation 


and hope we could continue those. I -- I just 


think they're very critical to having sort of a 


credible program, as well as doing technically 


a good job with these reports. The Blockson -- 


or at least appeared to identify some other 


group of workers that hadn't been considered in 


the original report and I thought it was very 


helpful. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good comment, and I -- I think 


it's also excellent if we can have at least a 


Board member present -- Wanda in the case of 


Blockson. John was able to attend the Chapman 


Valve meeting. We had some earlier meetings 

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that some of us attended at Bethlehem. And 


whenever -- particularly those of you chairing 


working groups, if you or one of your members 


can participate whenever those activities -- 


that would be excellent. I think a Board 


presence at these also is useful, not only for 


the Board, but for the participants as well. 


Our final workgroup is the Fernald, and we -- 


we heard from -- on that earlier, so that 


completes our roster of current workgroups. We 


will have an opportunity tomorrow to talk about 


adding some additional workgroups, but that 


gets us up to date on the activities of the 


present workgroups. 


I do want to point out tomorrow when -- we're 


going to adjourn here shortly and -- and we'll 


reconvene for public comment period later 


today, but Board members, looking ahead to 


tomorrow, since we have no formal 


recommendations to send to the Secretary this 


time on SEC petitions, we don't have to work on 


the wording. So the --


 DR. WADE: Brilliant. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? 


 DR. WADE: Brilliant. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: The section in the afternoon 


called Review of SEC Petition Recommendation 


Wording -- we can delete that. That knocks 


roughly an hour off your afternoon schedule, 


and you can look at the rest of the things 


there, but if -- if we're very efficient on 


what's there for the rest of the afternoon, it 


appears to the chair that it might be possible 


to finish before the next snowstorm hits, 


whenever that may be. But I'm -- I'm hopeful 


that we will be able to com-- complete our 


business early afternoon, so that's just a -- 


sort of an incentive for those of you who want 


to try to get to the airport in a timely 


fashion and still allow enough time. I don't 


know that the roads are completely clear yet, 


but we'll try to be efficient as we proceed 


tomorrow. 


 DR. WADE: We can certainly work through lunch 


and then adjourn. I think that --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- will save another hour. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If we -- if we do that, we could 


adjourn by 1:00, perhaps even. 


 DR. WADE: Perhaps. 

270

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 DR. ZIEMER: Now this evening we have a public 


comment period beginning at 7:00 p.m., so we'll 


look forward to having you all back at that 


time. Let me ask if there's any other 


housekeeping items that we need to take care of 


before we recess. 


If not, thank you very much. Those of you who 


-- members of the public, particularly -- if 


you do wish to address the Board and the 


participants this evening, please remember to 


sign up on the registration sheet out in the 


foyer. 


 We are recessed till 7:00 p.m. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:46 p.m. 


to 7:00 p.m.) 


PUBLIC COMMENT 


DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to call the meeting to 


order for the public comment session. This is 


the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 


Health -- make sure you're all in -- you know, 


if you thought you were coming to the hotel for 


the big party, this is just one of them, but 


welcome. 


This is our second public comment session. We 


had one yesterday afternoon. I know a number 

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of the local folks came at that time, perhaps 


concerned about weather, but we're glad that 


those of you who are brave enough to come out 


this evening were able to do so. 


For those of you who aren't well-acquainted 


with the work of the Advisory Board, this Board 


is, as its name indicates, advisory. We advise 


the Secretary of Health and Human Services. We 

are independent of the government agencies. We 

don't work for the agencies. 

We are a group of independent people from 

various parts of the country with various 

backgrounds. We do not do the dose 

reconstructions. We do not adjudicate cases or 


handle individual problems. That doesn't mean 


we don't want to hear about problems or issues. 


We are providing a kind of oversight for the 


many facets of the dose reconstruction program, 


so we do want to hear your concerns and your 


stories insofar as they will help us understand 


issues that are facing the federal agencies 


that are administering this program. 


In this case, our -- the main agency that we're 


working with is NIOSH, which is part of Health 


and Human Services, but also relates to work of 

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the Department of Labor and the Department of 


Energy as well. 


 I'm Paul Ziemer, Chairman of the committee. 


The committee members are all here. You may 


see their name tags, but if you're like me, you 


may have trouble reading them. 


This is Dr. Gen Roessler, who retired from the 


University of Florida who now lives in 


Minnesota -- somewhat close to Lake Wobegon, I 


understand. 


Wanda Munn is a retired engineer from the 


Hanford area -- Richland, Washington. 


 The fella called "court reporter", Ray Green is 


our -- is our court reporter. Some people have 


been concerned that he has a breathing problem, 


but that's part of his -- his apparatus. 


 Dr. Jim Melius is from the New York area. He 


is a -- both a medical doctor and a Ph.D. by 


training. 


Dr. Lewis Wade is the Designated Federal 


Official. That means he's not an official 


voting member of this Board, but under the 


Federal Advisory Committee Act he is the 


designee of the Secretary of Health and Human 


Services who helps coordinate the activities of 

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this particular board. 


I will be sitting there in a moment. I'm a 


retired professor of radiation safety and 


health physics from Purdue University. 


Mark Griffon is a health physicist who 


basically is a private consultant. 


Jim Lockey is not here this evening. He's 


local, University of Cincinnati, an M.D. And 


the main reason he's not here is he is 


officially conflicted on the Fernald site, and 


since we're expecting most of the folks here to 


be providing information about or concerns 


about Fernald, Jim would not be allowed to be 


seated at the table, as it were, for Fernald 


issues so he is not with us tonight. 


Bob Presley is from the Oak Ridge area, 


formerly worked at Y-12 for many years and is 


still working in another capacity there in Oak 


Ridge. 


Another seat is -- that normally is here and 


not here today is Mike -- I blanked out. 


 DR. WADE: Gibson. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Mike Gibson. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Mike Gibson. Mike, I hope you 


didn't hear that on the phone. Mike has been 

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calling in all day. Mike, are you still on the 


phone this evening? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, I'm here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I'm -- I'm claiming old 


age, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 


-- I wouldn't ordinarily forget the last name, 


but anyway, welcome, Mike Gibson. 


Mike has worked around the Mound site. He's 


from Ohio. He's not too far away, but by phone 


this evening. 


John Poston, professor of radiation safety and 


health physics, Texas A&M. 


Brad Clawson, who is -- what was that name 


again? Brad Clawson works in the Idaho Falls 


area, Idaho National Laboratory. 


Josie Beach is at the -- in the Hanford site 


area where she originally worked for the main 


contractor and now is with C2H -- 


 DR. WADE: CH. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- CH2 --


UNIDENTIFIED: CH2M-Hill. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Hill. 


UNIDENTIFIED: CH2M-Hill. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Again, you know, it's the old age 


thing and that again is my story, Josie, I'm 


I 
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sticking to it. A -- a new -- new member of 


the Board, this is Josie's first meeting with 


us. 


And then Phil Schofield, also his first 


meeting. Phil is -- comes to us from the Los 


Alamos area, so we welcome two -- two new Board 


members with us this evening. 


So now with that, I'm going to begin with two 


individuals who have requested public comment 


from sort of long distance. The first of these 


is Terrie Barrie, and Terrie, are you on the 


line? 


 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Doctor, I am. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and Terrie Barrie is with the 


Rocky Flats petitioners. And then I think 


after Terrie, we will hear also from Kay if 


she's on the line. 


 DR. WADE: Kay Barker. 


 MS. BARRIE: Dr. Ziemer, can Kay go first? 


She's (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Kay can go first. 


 MS. BARRIE: Yes. 


 MS. BARKER: Thank you, Dr. --


 DR. ZIEMER: Both -- both from Rocky Flats. 


 MS. BARKER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Good 

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evening, Dr. Ziemer and members of the Board. 


My name is Kay Barker and I want to thank you 


for allowing me to phone in my public comments 


tonight on the Rocky Flats petition. One of 


the topics I want to talk about tonight is 


conflict of interest. 


 I recently heard Ms. Karin Jensen (sic) say 


that she has no personal conflicts with Rocky 


Flats. I don't understand what that means. On 


her ORAU disclosure statement she lists Rocky 


Flats as an employer. Board member Mike Gibson 


asked for an explanation, too, but I did not 


understand Dr. Wade's explanation. Wouldn't 


anyone who worked for or was assigned to Rocky 


Flats have a personal conflict? 


I checked the Webster's New World Dictionary
 

for the correct meaning of conflict of 


interest, and this is what it states: A 


conflict between one's obligation for the 


public good and one's self-interest. In the 


case of Karin Jensen (sic) and Roger Falk, 


being ex-employees of Rocky Flats but also the 


authors of the neutron dose reconstruction and 


the SEC evaluation report, both Karin and Roger 


now work for NIOSH giving professional 

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testimony against the very people they once 


worked with at Rocky Flats. Now that's a 


conflict of interest. 


How can the NDRP be used against the Rocky 


Flats employees, as you can't just white out 


Roger Falk's name and write in somebody else's 


when Roger is listed as the author of the NDRP. 


No matter how you look at it, the NDRP is a 


conflict of interest and can't be used. The 


same goes for the SEC evaluation report that 


Karin wrote. It seems like conflict of 


interest means nothing to NIOSH/ORAU as it was 


just reported that NIOSH revised the 


occupational internal dose for Rocky Flats on 


February 1st of this year. The author of this 


TBD is Roger Falk as site expert, with 


NIOSH/ORAU team approving it. Not only is 


Roger Falk a major conflict of interest, but so 


is Nancy Daugherty* as Roger used her research. 


Conflict of interest abounds in the Rocky Flats 


petition just with all the people who work for 


NIOSH/ORAU. Not only do you have Karin Jensen 


(sic) and Roger Falk, you also have Joe 


Aldrich* and Nancy Daugherty, who I personally 


knew when she worked at Rocky Flats. Conflict 

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of interest do abound in the Rocky Flats 


petition, and nothing seems to be done about 


it. It amazes me that the NDRP and the SEC 


evaluation report are considered valid, along 


with the occupational internal dose. If SC&A 


submitted documents with similar conflicts, 


would they be accepted? For some reason I 


think not. 


How many more conflict of interest do the Rocky 


Flats claimants have to accept? Conflict of 


interest, whether person or otherwise, is still 


conflict of interest and can't be used. This 


alone should guarantee the Rocky Flats 


petition. 


I'm also very concerned about what Mr. Falk -- 


excuse me, Mr. Funk said last night, that Dr. 


Poston's family members are or were part of the 


ORAU team doing dose reconstructions. I'm not 


sure if that is illegal, but it definitely 


raises concerns in my mind about the ethics and 


why he's even on the Advisory Board with his 


family's conflict of interest that affects him. 


Secondly I'd like to talk about the NDRP and 


what I found in the NDRP report. The NDRP is 


not only a conflict of interest, it is not 

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accurate for 1970. Though some of these 


records are not complete or not present for 


1970, now isn't that the definition of the SEC 


petition? Under 2.0, Obligation and 


Limitations, it states: Except for the 


application of the NDRP ratios as described in 


Section 4.1.6, the methods described in this 


(unintelligible) -- in this TIB apply only to 


workers at Rocky Flats -- Flats plutonium 


facility during the period from 1952 to 1970. 


There are three important cavets (sic) on 


limitation. The first one: The final NDRP 


neutron dose for 1970 may not be accurate. 


Recorded dosimeter status was not always 


complete. 


Second item: The gamma dose information for 


1970 may not be present. 


Third item: The information on gamma dose was 


collected only when applicable to the NDRP 


effort. 


 If the original NDRP lists these cavets (sic), 


how can NIOSH assume they can use this for dose 


reconstruction? 


I must remind you again that in my late 


husband's case I have, in the NDRP, values for 

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neutron dose a full two years before he ever 


started working at Rocky Flats. How can this 


be data reliability and an accurate NDRP. That 


doesn't include the fact that the NDRP's a 


major conflict of interest. 


The third item I'd like to briefly discuss is 


the site profile. Frequently I hear in the 


discussions that this is a -- not a site 


profile issue and not an SEC issue, as well. 


disagree that these should be separated. Dose 


reconstruction is based upon the site profile. 


If the site profile has errors, and it does, 


then any dose cannot be reconstructed with any 


sense of accuracy. NIOSH has already claimed 


that the site profiles need to be updated every 


two years. If that is the case, then every 


dose reconstruction they do would be incorrect, 


and so on and so on, for every update they do. 


For an example, just look at all the claims 


that have been processed on the Rocky Flats 


site profile before the site profile was even 


audited and the necessary changes made. Will 


all of these claims be reopened and corrected 


to reflect the corrections made to the site 


profile? This will be -- need to be done at 


I 
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all plants and not just Rocky Flats. 


The last item I'd like to discuss is something 


that came up at the January 26th working group 


meeting. There was a discussion during this 


meeting about Plants A, B and C. I think 


everyone agrees that Plant A, or Building 444, 


was the uranium foundry and that Plant C was 


plutonium production. I didn't hear any 


reference to the small foundry in Plant B, 


Building 881. A quick call was made to a site 


expert and he said there was a foundry in 


Building 881. That data was decommissioned 


prior to 1964. I did a quick Google search and 


found on a DOE web site the historical American 


engineering record which mentions that a 


foundry was in Building 881 from 1953 to 


approximately 1964. How is it possible that 


NIOSH is not aware of this? I got the 


impression that NIOSH is only considering 


Building 444 as the foundry. Here lies another 


site profile error and also a dose 


reconstruction error as well. 


Dr. Ziemer, I urge you and the other Board 


members to seriously consider all these issues 


I have raised this evening before deciding on 

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the Rocky Flats petition. Conflicts of 


interest alone are serious enough to show 


NIOSH's inability to reconstruct dose on the 


Rocky Flats claims. 


Thank you for allowing me this time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Kay. I do 


want to assure you that these issues will be 


looked at. Mark Griffon is here making some 


notes next to me. As you know, Mark is our 


Board person that's heading up that site 


profile -- or that working group. 


Also I did want to mention that in cases where 


the site profiles are revised and amended, any 


such amendments that do affect how dose 


reconstructions are done, it is in fact NIOSH's 


policy to go back and review any previously-


denied claims to determine whether or not the 


updates or changes would affect or change the 


compensation decision. So that in fact is done 


across the board when such changes are made. 


I'm looking to Larry Elliott to make sure I've 


stated that correctly and he is nodding his 


head that that is the case, that they do in 


fact review any cases that had been denied 


under a previous version of a site profile. 

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With respect to conflict of interest issues, 


I'll simply suggest that NIOSH again examine 


the issue of those names that have been 


mentioned, recognizing that there is an 


allowance in the process that allows 


individuals who have worked on a site to be 


called on as site experts, just as we call on 


workers who have been on the site to provide 


input. But there are some specific 


requirements as to what they can and can't do, 


so we'll simply ask that NIOSH and our working 


group again look at those individuals you have 


named to make sure that they meet those 


requirements. 


 And the other comments, I think Mark has made 


some notes here and will make sure that we 


follow up on that. Thank you very much. 


 Terrie -- Terrie Barrie? 


 MS. BARRIE: Yes. 

 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mike, you have a follow-up 

comment? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yes, if I could, please. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 MR. GIBSON: I have raised these questions in 
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the past several times, and I've still not got 


an answer. The people who put together the 


site profile as site experts, so-called, I've 


asked repeatedly how many working people, not 


necessarily union, just working people who did 


not have management authority, were used as 


site profile experts. And I would like to know 


the answer to that question. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I don't know the answer to 


that, Mike, specifically on Rocky, and maybe we 


can get that information, but -- 


 MR. GIBSON: But --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- certainly --


 MR. GIBSON: And for -- for all sites. 


 DR. ZIEMER: For all sites. 


 MR. FUNK: Dr. Zimmer (sic)? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MR. FUNK: This is John Funk from Nevada Test 


Site. I'd like to pass this on to Mike. In 


our case, Mike, the whole site profile was 


taken from a single individual, Mr. Ray Brady, 


who was a health physicist, and a couple of 


other people and it passed through three or 


four hands. By the time it got highly 


editorialized and in fact it's -- it's so 

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distorted and so misinformed, I don't even know 


how we've even went as far as we've went. So 


if the rest of the sites are like ours, they're 


not -- in fact they came to building trades in 


Las Vegas and they interviewed them and none of 


the people in building trades got any 


experienced personnel from the site. They went 


to two carpenters, which one was the southwest 


regional manager and the other one was his 


assistant, and the regional manager had never 


been on the test site and his assistant had 


been an apprentice under me, and he volunteered 


that he didn't feel that he was qualified 


enough and he might have been 'cause he was 


just a welder. But they made no attempt to 


contact me and they no -- made no attempt and ­

- although I have managed to put to-- a dozen 


people together right now. I'm putting my own 


site profile together. I'm going to submit one 


with an SEC application with one of my own 


experts, and people from the site who hold very 


high positions. But that -- this is what 


happened to you, it's happened to all of us and 


it's just one person where they got all the 


information from and NIOSH editorialized 

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anything we had completely out of existence. 


Thank you. 


 MR. GIBSON: I'm sorry --


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, John. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- who was that -- was that Phil? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think that was John Funk. Was 


it John Funk? 


 MR. FUNK: Yes, it was. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, John Funk, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, let's hear from 


Terrie Barrie now. 


 MS. BARRIE: Okay, Doctor. 


 Good evening, Dr. Ziemer and members of the 


Board. This is Terrie Barrie, the Alliance of 


Nuclear Worker Advocacy Group, and again I 


thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. 


First I would like to publicly thank Richard 


Miller for his years of dedication and 


involvement with the sick nuclear workers. 


Many of us will miss his insight and efforts to 


correct the problems with the implementation of 


EEOICPA. I wish him well in his new position. 


I would also like to state my displeasure with 


NIOSH for ignoring Mark Griffon's direction to 

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send the draft SC&A reports I requested on 


January 9th. Mark Griffon and Dr. Wade assured 


me that as soon as they were reviewed for 


Privacy Act issues they would be forwarded to 


me. The data completeness report was posted to 


NIOSH's web site on February 6th and -- but I 


had yet to receive the safety concerns draft 


report. Both of these reports I believe were 


submitted to NIOSH in December and I would 


think that there has been ample time to remove 


any personal information by now. And I also 


sincerely hope that all the Board members take 


time to read these draft reports. 


Now I would like to offer some observations 


that I have from listening to the Board working 


group meetings. NIOSH stated that they 


interviewed the Rocky Flats site experts on 


badge destruction. NIOSH's Rocky Flats site 


experts asserted that investigations into badge 


destructions were in fact done. SC&A requested 


proof. NIOSH did not offer proof, only the 


word of the experts. SC&A could only find one 


instance of badge destruction investigation in 


their review of the logbooks that would 


corraborate (sic) the -- NIOSH's assertion. 

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And I must remind you, as Kay has already, that 


there is a major conflict with Roger Falk as a 


site expert. Not only was he responsible for 


the health physics department at Rocky Flats, 


but he testified against my husband in his 


workers compensation claim. If the Board 


accepts NIOSH's site expert testimony as being 


the truth, then the Board must accept the 


petitioners' site experts' affidavits, or 


SC&A's site experts' testimony, as the truth. 


Conversely, the Board must ignore NIOSH's site 


expert's testimony if there is no documentation 


to back it up, just as the Board demands 


documentation to prove the petitioners' 


assertions. 


NIOSH revealed that they are using the coworker 


model more frequently because it is easier. 


Easier does not mean it's accurate. Using 


coworker model because of its ease here is a 


gross injustice to the claimants. The Board 


has not signed off on the coworker model as 


being scientifically valid, as required by law. 


By using coworker models NIOSH is ignoring the 


information supplied by the claimants in the 


initial interview. 

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In Mr. Jack Wedding's* dose reconstruction, and 


I do have his permission to use his name, NIOSH 


ignored his oral history. Mr. Wedding was 


scrubbed down four times after the '69 fire 


before he was decontaminated enough to be 


placed in an ambulance to be taken to the 


hospital -- to the hospital to be further 


decontaminated. Mr. We-- (broken transmission) 


of his Rocky Flats medical records in his file, 


and that should have included this incident. 


SC&A stated they could not find conclusive 


evidence that there is a systemic problem with 


raw records versus the HIS-20 database, but 


they did find circumstantial evidence. The law 


nor the final rule require that a preponderance 


of evidence standard needs to be met. There is 


ample documentation showing that there are gaps 


in records. In SC&A's review they chose to 


examine only files that had a full year of 


missing data. I am sure that the percentages 


of files with gaps would go up if the report 


included workers' files that were missing any 


dosimetry. My husband's file, for example, is 


missing some dosimetry information -- not a 


full year, mind you, but a quarter for this 

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year or six months for that year. 


It was widely reported that records from the 


Fernald plant was -- were buried as toxic 


waste. It happened at the Rocky Flats plant, 


too. A report prepared by History Associates, 


Incorporated for DOE dated August of 1995 shows 


a list of documents they requested but were 


reported missing or permanently withdrawn. The 


Rocky Flats newspaper titled Envision dated 


February 19th of 2004 reports on page seven 


that, and I quote, More than 466 boxes of 


unneeded documents were destroyed, end quote. 


Considering that DOE kept records from 1967 


that addressed vacation leave for certain 


employees, I wonder if these documents were 


really unneeded. 


A working draft report titled "Managing Data 


for Long-term Stewards -- Stewardship" was 


prepared by ICF Kaiser Consulting Group in 


March of 1998 for DOE. They used Rocky Flats 


as a focus site. It states in Chapter 4 that, 


and I quote, Paper records may be fragile. 


Many old records are preserved with carbon 


copies. These have proven difficult or 


impossible to scan electronically. Also paper 

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records decay over time, particularly records 


preserved on acid-based paper. Production 


records have been lost. Production records for 


(unintelligible) were identified by records 


management personnel for long-term retention. 


Initially these records could not be archived 


immediately because they were con-- they were 


(unintelligible) contaminated. Before they 


could be arc-- (broken transmission) -- were 


inadvertently boxed up in crates and disposed 


of as low-level waste, end quote. Here is 


proof that records were destroyed at Rocky 


Flats. Is there conclusive evidence that these 


records were workers' files? No, and I'm sure 


NIOSH team will argue just that. But coupled 


with the many gaps in records and the testimony 


of workers, a reasonable person can infer that 


the missing dosimetry records were indeed 


destroyed. 


 It matters not if these records were destroyed 


by malicious intent or just merely the result 


of sloppy record-keeping, the result is the 


same. The data missing from workers' files may 


hold the very key to the actual exposures the 


workers received at Rocky Flats. The Board 

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cannot and should not ignore this. NIOSH may 


be very capable with developing a scientific 


calculation. But if they do not possess all 


the data, those calculations could be so very 


wrong. 


I also disagree with the assessment that the 


environmental dose the workers receive is 


inconsequential. I remind you that the -- that 


there was a grand jury investigation into the 


environmental crimes committed at Rocky Flats. 


The workers were there and -- and -- and were 


contaminated by this. Last Thursday it was 


also reported in the Denver Post that the judge 


matched -- plans to release some of the grand 


jury testimony. There is also a lawsuit filed 


by landowners surrounding the Rocky Flats 


plant. I have the contact information of the 


law firm who represented the landowners. I 


would suggest that the Board investigate if any 


testimony or evidence is available that would 


further support the SEC petition. 


I would also like to be assured, also, that any 


personnel from the NIOSH/ORAU team has 


disclosed any involvement with these two cases 


on their disclosure statements. 

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Thank you again, Dr. Ziemer, for giving me the 


-- this time to address the Board, and I will 


be happy to FAX you the documents I cited in my 


comments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Terrie. So the ­

- the documents you referred to, have you -- 


you've not received any of them as yet? 


 MS. BARRIE: No, Doctor. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is --

 MS. BARRIE: The SC&A reports? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are these -- I think Mark has a -- 

Mark has handed me a list which he thinks -- 


it's one document called "Other Radionuclides, 


Including Thorium," one called "Data 


Completeness Evaluation" -- are these the -- 


does this match up with what -- 


 MS. BARRIE: Okay, the di-- okay, I do not have 


the "Other Radionuclides," I do not have the 


safety concerns. 


 DR. ZIEMER: "Completeness of Records for '69 


and '70" is another one. 


 MS. BARRIE: Yes, that has been posted to the 


NIOSH web site and I have reviewed that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That you have. "Data Reliability 


Safety Concerns"? 

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 MS. BARRIE: I do not have that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: "Data Reliability, Data Integrity 

Examples"? 

 MS. BARRIE: I do not have that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: "Data Reliability Logbook Review". 

 MS. BARRIE: I do not have that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I think those are the ones 

that have been cleared so far. Looks like you 


only have one of -- of six. So I -- I'm 


wondering if so-- I need help from somebody 


here. What -- what -- anybody -- maybe Larry, 


do you -- can you tell us the status of -- are 


these on the -- one of the drives or -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: These are the documents that you 


were speaking about earlier today, I believe, 


in this exchange about how SC&A products get 


through the Privacy Act review process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I have not been given those 


documents until perhaps today, I was looking at 


my e-mail --


 DR. ZIEMER: So NIOSH didn't get them either. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: No, we don't have -- I don't have 


them to post. I don't have them to distribute. 


 DR. ZIEMER: John Mauro, do you know the status 

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of these? These are SC&A documents -- or Joe 


Fitzgerald, Joe can help us out here. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we had submitted all 


these sections in the -- the first week of 


January to -- to legal counsel -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: To legal counsel for --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- for Price Anders--


 DR. ZIEMER: -- review. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- for -- for the Privacy Act 


review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We made those changes and then 


sent them back to NIOSH about the third week of 


January or fourth week -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: By NIOSH, he's talking about the 


legal office, not --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Legal office, with -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- not Larry's --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- the understanding that 


NIOSH would then make distribution to the 


petitioners as well as to the Congressional 


staff. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Once they cleared there. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But it -- they've all been 


reviewed and cleared, yeah. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I guess just to -- to 


clarify, on the 26th in the workgroup we -- we 


realized that these things, although we thought 


they were Privacy Act cleared at that point, a 


few of -- some -- a few of them, not all of 


them, we -- we understood that -- you know, we 


made a commitment to those on the phone that we 


would -- as soon as they were cleared, to make 


sure they got them. So I think there's a 


little delay here, but we'll -- you know, I 


think we got the -- you know, NIOSH has the 


message and we're continuing to get these out, 


so -- as soon as we can. Right, Larry? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Okay. Well, Mark and Joe, 


if you'll follow up on that. Terrie, we'll 


make sure that -- that those get to you here 


shortly. 


 MS. BARRIE: Okay, I appreciate it, Doctor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And -- and we have -- we have the 


notes on your other issues there. Thank you 


very much. 


Now we have -- we have a letter from -- a 


Congressional letter from Senator Cantwell's 


office that needs to be read into the record, 


and I'm going to call on Chia-Chia Chang to 

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come read that into the record. 


MS. CHANG: (Reading) I want to thank Chairman 


Ziemer and members of the Advisory Board on 


Radiation and Worker Health for the opportunity 


to submit testimony about issues relating to 


the review of the Hanford site profile and the 


Hanford Special Exposure Cohort petition that 


was recently qualified. In addition, I want to 


thank Dr. Melius and the Hanford working group 


for their support to organize issue-specific 


discussions between NIOSH and SC&A and keeping 


the process moving toward a resolution. Too 


many workers at Hanford have waited years for 


help, and they deserve a comprehensive review 


without further delays. 


One of the Hanford working group's primary 


goals is to provide clarity on some of the 


difficult issues in question between the NIOSH 


Hanford site profile and findings from the SC&A 


review of the Hanford site profile, both of 


which entail a great deal of complexity and a 


considerable amount of technical information. 


For example, the issue of neutron-to-photon 


ratio methodology for dose reconstruction is a 


concern that needs careful examination by the 

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working group. The potential that reactor 


workers at Hanford were exposed to chronic 


levels of unmonitored neutrons is an issue that 


NIOSH should explore further and not dismiss. 


I also want to take a brief moment to comment 


on the Hanford Special Exposure Cohort petition 


that NIOSH recently qualified, which would 


cover all employees at Hanford from January 1, 


1942 through December 31st, 1990. This 


petition is a resource providing critical 


information so that we may better understand 


the full extent of workers' exposure to toxins. 


I am concerned that without carefully examining 


this petition we might wrongly deny worker's 


compensation to thousands of deserving Hanford 


employees who have already waited too long. 


have full confidence that NIOSH will give the 


petition a fair and thorough review. 


 I have enjoyed working with the Board to move 


the Hanford review process forward. It is my 


hope that the Board ultimately resolves some of 


the worker compensation issues that have long 


plagued many workers and their families for 


years at Hanford. In particular, workers at 


Hanford deserve a Special Exposure Cohort 


I 
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designation. 


 America's nuclear workforce has a rich 


tradition of hard work and tremendous sacrifice 


that has kept our country secure. There is no 


room for compromise when it comes to workers' 


safety or health. Time is of the essence, and 


those workers who have become significantly 


exposed to unmeasured neutrons deserve quick 


action, and we have a responsibility to step up 


and deliver it. 


Thank you again for allowing me to submit 


testimony, and I look forward to working with 


the Advisory Board on worker compensation 


issues at Hanford. 


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


we'll hear from John Ramsport (sic) and he 


represents the Illinois nuclear workers. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: Again would like to thank the 


Board and other authorities are here at the 


meeting tonight. My name is John Ramspott and 


I do represent workers at General Steel 


Industries in Granite City, Illinois. 


Appreciate -- and also wanted to thank you for 


the courtesy shown us last night during public 


comment section where myself, Dr. McKeel and 

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300 

Vincent Kutemperer had an opportunity to try to 


share some information on activation with a 


Betatron device. 


And tonight I'd like to share a little 


information, if I may. So far at General Steel 


Industries there have been four dose 


reconstructions and absolutely -- 'cause we do 


have copies of them, they've been redacted or 


the individuals are dead -- there is no 


Betatron mentioned. It definitely was not 


taken into consideration and it should have 


been. And the reason for that is -- it's real 


simple -- the uranium that went there was to 


clearly be inspected with a Betatron. That's 


why the uranium went over there. I don't know 


how it was missed the first time. Chest X-rays 


seem to be pretty common. They're X-ray 


devices. This is an accelerator. I think 


someone just missed the boat. 


I think it needs to be considered now. I also 


believe these four individual cases, which have 


all -- actually one said it was paid, but then 


we found out later it was paid because they 


were at another site, but the other ones 


definitely should be reopened, and we are going 

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to ask that that happen. And maybe a little 


direction on the proper authorities to send 


that request to would really be appreciated. 


And again, the operation period was 1953 


through 1966, and then after that period -- 


that is the recognized contract period for the 


AEC uranium for Mallinckrodt -- we know the 


device was used all the way through and until 


the plant was closed in 1973. And again I 


repeat, they really should have factored that 


from day one. 


Now to our knowledge -- and again, with 


extensive research -- we really aren't sure if 


they've ever used the Betatron device and it's 


been factored in to any dose reconstructions at 


any of the sites that are included in this 


program. TIB-6000, which covers our site, 


clearly states that all radiation should be 


considered for dose reconstruction during the 


contract period. All radiation it says. We 


clarified that and everybody was pretty clear 


on it. 


Now we have looked for information to find a 


Betatron or any other sites, and we did that 


'cause that's a good way to start if we can 

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find their records and see how they're looked 


at, it gave us an i-- it would give us an idea 


of what to look for for our site. Well, there 


was one site that had a Betatron. Actually 


they had two sites, or two Betatrons equal to 


the type, or very much like -- same brand as 


the one General Steel had, and we think they're 


really important and Mr. Elliott said we try to 


help quite a bit and we do and in good 


conscience I got to mention these tonight. 


There were two of them at Los Alamos. They are 


referenced in some documents. Actually the TBD 


document actually mentions a 20-million-volt 


Betatron and a 24-million-volt Betatron. But 


sad to say, that seems to be where it stops. 


And since that particular site is now being 


considered I believe for an SEC, I don't think 


it'd be fair if those people don't get their 


opportunity to see if what we heard last night 


about activation -- there's no reason it 


wouldn't apply to them as well. So I'm going 


to ask that we look at that if we could 'cause 


the Betatrons are not quite as exotic or -- as 


a lot of people think with our research, and I 


do have the documents. We're going to provide 

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a complete package of everything I'm going to 


discuss tonight to Larry Elliott, the Board -- 


just like we have done in the past. Everybody 


should be able to use this information. 


On a recent exploration we also find out the 


information in this TBD -- we don't believe 


it's correct. We believe it's really way off. 


The TBD cited says that a Betatron puts out 25 


R at three feet or one meter. I have a 


published Allis Chalmers -- out of a service 


bulletin document dated 1951, these are the 


people that made the machine, and the specs are 


for 22 million, that seems to be the standard 


at that time, and I'll read exactly what it 


says in the service manual at 22 million volts 


the uncompensated X-ray output will be at least 


100 Roentgen per minute at three feet from the 


target at the center of the X-ray beam cone. 


The published report says 25, so it's off 


considerably. So if what we heard last night 


about activation takes place, this machine 


clearly should be considered and they have two 


of these at Los Alamos -- or did have. They're 


probably gone now. And the reason we know they 


were at Los Alamos, we've now found the serial 

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numbers. And the serial numbers for these 


particular machines -- 'cause this is to let 


somebody else verify what I'm saying -- 


Betatron number one, the serial number is 1­

01005 -- I'm sorry, let me repeat this again 


and get it straight -- 1-0100-15987, and Los 


Alamos Betatron number two is 1-012020278. 


Well, fortunately in the same service manual-


type bulletins, this -- I'd have bet a lot of 


money we'd never find, or it would never have 


found -- we now have the serial numbers for the 


two that were General Steel. And the first one 


at Eddystone, Pennsylvania, which in turn came 


to Granite City Steel in 1963, was 1-0120­

22900. And the second one, which came to 


Granite City originally, 1-0120-22685. And 


having been in the office equipment business a 


long time and know a little bit about military 


equipment from some friends that I've consulted 


with, you don't want to lose anything that has 


a serial number on it. So now we think these 


should be able to be found, verified, and if 


they do exactly what the General Steel Betatron 


apparently does and all Betatrons of that size, 


it's going to be important. 

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 Well, this time went a little further and kind 


of hit the gold mine. This is a list of 40 


more. There are Betatrons all over the place. 


I'm going to read some and they're going to 


sound pretty familiar 'cause some of them are 


actually being considered for SECs right now. 


I'm going to start the way they have them 


listed, Allis Chalmers Company -- and all these 


companies, matter of fact, the ones I've 


checked off here, they're all existing 


radiation program sites that are on a published 


list from the Department of Labor, but what I'd 


like to do is get the latest list double-


checked 'cause I bet out of these 40 machines, 


there may be some other sites 'cause there's a 


ton of arsenals. Allis Chalmers, Pokitney 


(sic) Arsenal; Birdsboro Corporation, which is 


listed as Birdsboro Foundry; Armco Steel 


Corporation; and of course General Steel 


Castings Company; Los Alamos, referred on this 


list and then clarified as University of 


California; and the Naval Research Laboratory. 


They all had Betatrons and it's including some 


AWE sites and DOE sites with SECs in motion, so 


I feel that we really need to have someone look 

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at this thoroughly. If these are SECs in 


motion and we're missing these machines, we're 


missing another radiation source that should 


have been reviewed for these sites. And the 


sad part is a lot of these people at these 


sites have already had dose reconstructions 


done. If they missed it by a percent and they 


happened to be in this area where this machine 


is, I know we're going to ask the ones at 


General Steel be looked at again and reviewed. 


I would think that might apply to all those 


people, too, and that's why we decided to kind 


of go public on this. It's -- took a little 


thought, but it's the fair right thing to do. 


And like Larry said earlier today, we really 


tried to help a lot of people, not just 


ourselves or our sites. 


And kind of in closing, one thing happened 


today -- this might really be the mother lode 


'cause gentleman walked up to me and he says 


oh, yeah, by the way, we had one of those, too. 


Now this one I haven't verified, but he says is 


that one of those big things with a magnet on 


it; is that one of those things? What'd you do 


with yours over there? I said well, they 

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looked at, you know, metal castings or tank 


turrets; said what did you do with yours? He 


said we looked at uranium ingots. One of the 


people from Fernald, Ray Beatty, who did a 


fabulous presentation along with Sandra, who I 


consider very credible and I have to do a 


little more homework with him, I have his card, 


he said he had a Betatron at his site, too. 


And I know that's a fresh SEC site, so now we 


got two DOE sites. I think there are three 


SECs in motion maybe for the Naval Lab -- Naval 


Research Lab, I saw that on Larry's list, and 


of course Los Alamos and now Fernald. 


Fernald's the only one I personally can't swear 


to 'cause I have to do a little homework. The 


guy described it to a T, said he looked at -- 


or they used it to inspect for flaws in uranium 


ingots, and they're not on the list but I 


understand why. We were told that some sites 


were so secure that their own personnel were 


actually trained to service them so they 


wouldn't be on a list of normally serviced like 


a General Steel, and the same thing happens 


and, like I say, there are a ton of locations 


here. Like Rock Island Arsenal, there's a lot 

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of places that we'll need to check out a little 


further, but it seems to me like maybe the 


Betatron ought to really, really be taken 


seriously and looked at now 'cause it affects a 


whole lot of other sites, and I think the way 


the law's written, they really do have the 


opportunity or should have the opportunity of 


having these factored into their dose 


reconstructions. 


So I'm open for any questions or -- I certainly 


appreciate your time, and again, the courtesy 


we had last night and -- matter of fact, Larry 


and I just chatted very briefly at the break. 


I told him I had some new information coming 


and we're definitely going to provide him with 


it, give it to anybody that can use it 'cause I 


think this is really important. So thank you 


very much for your time. Any questions? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, John. We appreciate 


your input on this issue and continued 


sleuthing on everybody's behalf. Thanks. Any 


questions, Board members? 


Okay, let's hear then from Dr. McKee -- McKeel, 


Dan McKeel. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, I'm not going to talk about 

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GSI and I'm not going to talk about Dow. I'm 


going to talk about philosophical big issues, 


just things that sort of occurred to me as we 


were all deliberating the past two days. 


I guess the first issue that I want to follow 


up on is what Terrie Barrie and Kay Barker just 


mentioned about conflicts of interest, and I 


know the Board and ORAU and NIOSH have been 


dealing with this very actively so I -- I 


really don't have any big major insights to 


provide. 


However, I would like to point out that 


conflict of interest -- you know, there are 


social aspects, there are ethical aspects, but 


in a sense when you're dealing with this kind 


of a federal Act, it really becomes a legal 


issue. And I want to couple that thought with 


the idea that it -- it seems to me, I'm -- I'm 


not aware of all the background that's behind 


this, but it certainly seems to me recently 


that Privacy Act concerns have loomed large in 


the deliberations of this body, and I sense 


that there is a -- something's happened down at 


CDC and in that arena that has -- has led to 


this. It may be government-wide, I'm not sure. 

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But it occurs to me -- a couple of things. One 


is, Privacy Act concerns are not new. The law 


was formulated in 1974. There are several 


physicians on this Board and certainly in my 31 


years as a professor at Washington U. medical 


school, medical concerns were a big -- a big 


issue for us in protecting private medical 


information of people and I -- I know the 


upheaval that was caused when the provisions of 


the HIPAA law started being applied in -- in 


the medical arena. So this -- this is a timely 


issue and I -- I know there are a lot of 


concerns. 


I mentioned to y'all yesterday that -- that I 


have a specific concern about Privacy Act 


issues, and that goes to the fact that I 


believe that redacting in our affidavits for 


the Dow site has actually led to -- I'm -- I'm 


pleased that they're now posted on the web 


site, but I think it leads to a serious 


dimunition (sic) of the information we wanted 


to convey and that you all need to know when 


you read those documents and consider them. 


And I just want to mention this, that -- you 


know, I tried and our group has tried to 

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initiate a dialogue to the people that we think 


are the people who we really should dialogue 


about this with, and that's the legal officers 


at OCAS and NIOSH and CDC, and I -- I name all 


those because e-- even the machinations of that 


big agency and sub-agencies within a big agency 


are rather difficult to define, and I am dimly 


aware of at least three different legal offices 


and several FOIA offices within OCAS, NIOSH and 


CDC. And I guess what I want to speak to y'all 


as a petitioner, an SEC petitioner, is that it 


certainly would be useful if somebody would get 


together within those agencies and publish 


maybe a little white paper or some guidance to 


the rest of us who need access to those people. 


I mentioned last night that we've really been 


blocked from direct access from talking to the 


-- the legal affairs officers. And I think 


this is -- you know, you apply the Privacy Act 


essentially is a legal issue. And we have 


expert people in the legal profession with 


tremendous expertise in that area, and they 


want to talk to somebody that we can talk on 


the same level and get this straightened out 


because we have a goal, you all have 

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constraints, and we need to get it straightened 


out. And I -- I -- we need some facilitation 


to find a path forward. 


That brings me to a not exactly connected idea, 


but it is somewhat connected, and that is -- 


we're talking about affidavits. The issue was 


raised earlier today how much weight does the 


Board, NIOSH, the agencies, how much weight is 


paid to testimony from workers. And the issue 


is, who are the real site experts? Are they 


the people who are -- own TBDs and site 


profiles? Maybe. But if you think about it -- 


for instance, in the Dow situation, we have 


affidavits now -- 66 affidavits which 


encompasses, as I tried to show you today, you 


know, hundreds of man-years of expertise that 


can't be gained any other way than actually 


working at the department. And I'm aware of 


some, not all, of the early debates that went 


on in this program about -- particularly at the 


level of NIOSH -- of when would it be desirable 


-- most desirable to get worker input into the 


process. And as I understand the -- the 


reasoning, there was a debate. One side said 


well, it would be much better to get worker 

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input early in the process of creating a site 


profile so that the site profile could be truly 


informed by people who actually worked there, 


who -- who really didn't have a conflict of 


interest with anybody. Now when you get up to 


the management levels, people who made policy 


decisions, people who could say were the film 


badge data -- should they be conveyed to the 


workers, yes or no, that's a whole different 


story. But I'm talking about the people who 


actually ran the presses and rolled the mills 


and did the extrusions. It seems to me that 


they're not conflicted. But as I understand 


it, the decision was made by NIOSH to -- and -- 


and Department of Labor, who shares that task ­

- that it would be better to wait until after 


the site profiles are created and then solicit 


worker input. And it seems to me, with all due 


respect -- I know there are two sides to every 


issue -- but that was a very bad decision 


because we have heard time and time and time 


again that there has been extra work created 


for the workgroups and for everybody to 


basically fix flawed documents where a -- a 


session probably lasting -- or several sessions 

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lasting four to eight hours with the workers, 


as we've done, would have clarified many of 


those issues and really resulted in far, far 


better, more accurate, more believable, more 


credible, better accepted site profiles. So 


you know, it's never too late to change and I 


would strongly urge there be a debate about 


this. 


And along with that debate, I'd just like to 


say that I -- I was privileged, I think, to be 


able to participate a little bit in the 


Blockson outreach meeting we just had in 


Joliet. And you know, we had a dialogue about 


the best way to go about that. What was very 


successful at Dow and GSI was to select topics 


and let the workers comment on those topics 


rather than just have a freeform presentation 


by the workers of what was at the top of their 


minds right at that moment. 


So I'm -- I'm not -- I'm not saying there's a 


right way or a wrong way, but this is something 


-- I think how you actually conduct a worker 


outreach, how you solicit site expert testimony 


from workers who are trying to remember things 


that happened ten to 50 years ago, that's a -- 

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that's an area that needs a little more 


attention. And you know, I think we ought to 


initiate such a -- such a -- a process. And 


then along with that would be where is it most 


desirable to have that worker -- at what time, 


what is the timing that we ought to get that 


worker input into the process. 


And then finally, I think everybody needs to 


look inside themselves and come up with a -- a 


-- a really clear idea of how much weight 


you're going to attach to various site experts. 


And I don't know, as a professor at a -- at a 


medical school, I -- I guess -- one side of me 


says well, you know, kind of the benign 


dictatorship idea of things, that the professor 


knows everything; the students don't know 


anything. But having done that for 30 years, I 


have really a different perspective on that and 


that is we definitely all learn from each 


other. And I really feel that I learn far more 


from my students that I -- than I ever taught 


any individual. And collectively, you know, I 


was the benefactor of the educational process, 


not them. 


I'm sure I imparted a few things that a few 

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people remember, but collectively, they made me 


a much wiser person. So I've gone through that 


same experience in this program, which is a 


little bit new to me, but I've read documents 


by people who were chosen because they had had 


no previous experience at the site, and then 


they read existing documents, basically, and 


wrote a site profile. So I've seen how that 


worked out at, you know, Mallinckrodt downtown 


and Weldon Spring, which I knew really quite a 


lot about, and -- and -- and so forth at 


various places. And it's really my considered 


opinion that -- that the worker input is at the 


wrong end of the process and that we -- we 


should revisit that. So that -- that's enough 


of that little sermonette. That's just sharing 


the way I feel as a former professor and so 


forth. 


The second thing and the last thing I want to 


talk to you all about, I -- I guess I would put 


is the general idea of data capture and data 


management. And it seems to me the more I'm 


hearing of these processes that that af-- that 


-- those two processes could use a lot more 


focused attention. They seem sort of mundane, 

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but I certainly ran into this in the medical 


school doing large-scale longitudinal studies 


of Alzheimer patients that actually that sort 


of methodology, data management I would call 


it, and collecting data are absolutely 


essential. And I -- my considered judgment 


after all this time of being involved with this 


program is that too little attention was paid 


to data capture efforts at the front end and -- 


and actually they're just done in a very 


inefficient, very kind of dis-coordinated way. 


And that even now, you know, when I read about 


these regular data capture efforts and that for 


particular sites, you know, 44 boxes this time 


and 16 more this time and 12 this time, if you 


really think about it, you know, you've got 316 


sites and it's very clear from the research 


John and I have done that basically he and I 


have done all the research for our two sites, 


except during the periods of the cleanup. 


 Now the Department of Energy came in and looked 


at General Steel for a week, and the Army Corps 


of Engineer (sic) came in, Oak Ridge National 


Laboratory made some measurements, but 


collectively the federal agencies looked at Dow 

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for probably three weeks. That's all. At 


neither -- during neither of those experiences 


was there any interaction with the workers, so 


tho-- those documents are -- are basically 


uninformed about what actually went on in those 


buildings, in -- in my opinion. 


So I have a couple of recommendations just for 


your consideration. One is, I think everybody 


ought to get together and say look, rather than 


collecting this data so sporadically, maybe a 


lot of effort and -- and actually some more 


money should be channeled into a major data 


capture effort for all of the sites and that, 


you know, there ought to be benchmarks for 


that. I mean somebody could define -- we have 


100 percent of the documents to collect, and so 


the first benchmark would -- at this point, six 


years into the program, have we got ten percent 


of that data collected and captured and scanned 


and on the shareable O drive, or have we got 50 


percent or have we got 90 percent. And if you 


did that sort of analysis and you came up with 


a conclusion that maybe you had 20 percent, 


then I would say, you know, you'd be -- time 


would be well spent to divert attention from 

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some of the other things to getting data 


captured. And -- and you know, I -- I ran into 


this at -- in the Mallinckrodt SEC and now I'm 


running again into it in the Dow SEC where 


documents suddenly appear. And I think part of 


the reason is because they weren't looked for 


systematically, so somewhere in this big 


universe are all the documents we need for Dow. 


And -- and, you know, it should be thought of 


in that way, by site. Let's get all the 


information about these -- this site. I 


understand it's a major effort. 


So -- and then just the final thing is, Mark 


Griffon's group with Rocky Flats I know have 


been dealing with major issues which really 


come down to data management issues. How do 


you cross-walk between two databases, 


relational databases, some are I'm sure old 


legacy flat file databases, but there is a 


wealth of information technology expertise out 


there that could actually help with that. I'm 


sure there is within the agencies. But it 


seems to me that that would be the sort of 


thing, as well. For example, as a practical, 


real world thing, we wanted to get people to 

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the Blockson worker outreach meeting, not just 


as a general meeting but because we needed 


specifically -- you all needed -- more data 


about what happened in Building 55 and Building 


40 and the work flow from the phosphate rock to 


the extracted uranium. Well, it turned out 


that NIOSH had the names of 21 people that they 


(unintelligible) invited. And then we asked 


the question well, is that all the workers who 


are living that we could invite to this 


meeting? Well, it turned out -- and so we 


initiated a process of asking DOL how many 


could they come up with. Well, interestingly, 


they turned up with 39 more names. And then we 


said okay, that's great, so now we have 70 


people that we could invite. So could NIOSH 


send their 21 names to Department of Labor and 


so the Department of Labor would know who they 


were and they could send out -- DOL could send 


out invitations to the other 39. Well, 


apparently there's a big problem with that 


happening. Either it's a problem between 


sharing the names -- we also said the other 


way; can NIOSH look at the DOL database and 


pick out those -- you know, mark or flag those 

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21 names and then just send out invitations to 


the other 39. I was told that that -- that 


wasn't possible. 


And I guess I'm going to end on saying that 


that reminds me of exactly what we've heard on 


the national level with two big events. The 


9/11 disaster taught us that in the same little 


city, the same little municipality, that the 


fire department and the police department 


cannot talk to each other. They can't listen 


to each other on the radio because their 


systems are not compatible. And there was a 


lot of talk about getting that all straightened 


out, and I gather there's been some movement on 


that, but perhaps not enough. 


The other time when we heard this is when we've 


had these massive reorganizations of the 


intelligence community and we learn that, you 


know, the FBI and the CIA may have a problem 


communicating person-to-person, but their 


databases also have a problem. So it's just a 


-- a way of saying that I think these are two 


sort of fundamental infrastructure issues, data 


capture and data management, that it would 


really be -- behoove everybody to put some more 

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effort and maybe a little bit more money and it 


would materially speed along what to me is -- 


it's necessarily a careful, slow, thorough 


process, and I think Wanda Munn has talked 


about that, many of you all have talked about 


how it's necessary to be thorough. I agree 


with that. But I do think that some of these 


steps of getting the data that we need, making 


the documents flow, managing the data -- that 


would really speed things up a lot, so anyway, 


that's the end of my little lecturette for the 


night and I -- I miss being a professor, so 


I'll just let it go at that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan, for sharing some 


very challenging ideas with us tonight. 


I'd like to find out if -- if Bob Tabor is on 


the phone. He's requested -- from Fernald -- 


to speak by call-in. Bob, are you on the 


phone? Bob Tabor? 


 (No responses) 


 Okay, apparently not. Deb Detmer, is Deb still 


here? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: They went -- okay. Deb Jerison? 

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She's here yet, okay. 


 MS. JERISON: Thank you for letting me speak. 


This is not something I normally do, so just 


bear with me a little bit. 


I've run across several questions that NIOSH 


hasn't been able to answer and would like to 


bring them to the attention of the Board. I'll 


address them using my father's claim, since 


that's what I'm best acquainted with, but I 


think they have implications for other 


claimants as well. I know that NIOSH is 


probably tired of hearing from me and I 


apologize, but I really feel like some of these 


things need to be addressed. 


My father, James Good, worked at Mound 


Laboratory from 1949 to 1957. He died in 1960 


when I was ten, the eldest of four children. 


His death certificate says he died of Hodgkin's 


Disease. For many id-- year-- years I didn't 


even have any idea what he did at work. I just 


knew he was a physicist. 


In 2002 my mother applied for EEOICPA and I 


started helping her with the claim in 2005. 


We're currently on our third draft dose 


reconstruction. All three have been 

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overestimates. The first one gave my father 44 


rem, and when I ran the IREP the probability of 


causation came out to be about 18 percent. 
I 


submitted some additional information and NIOSH 


also revised the way they were dosing the 


lymphatic system, so the second dose 


reconstruction came out to 126 rem with a 


probability of causation of 44.7 percent. I 


submitted additional information and dose 


reconstruction number three came out to 159 rem 


with a probability of causation of 38 percent. 


So all three of these were overestimates and I 


still -- well, I still don't think that all the 


radioactive exposure's been considered, but I 


don't have a scientific background so I can't 


follow all the ins and outs of how dose 


reconstruction is calculated. But I can think 


logically, and it makes no sense to me that as 


the rem goes up, the probability of causation 


goes down, and this is something NIOSH hasn't 


really been able to explain to me. 


My mother and I also know that there are 


monitoring records that are missing from my 


father. NIOSH disagrees with this and feels 


that the records are complete. There's a 

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period of several years that he had a few -- 


the he had few bioassay or dosimeter readings. 


NIOSH says this is because he was no longer 


working with radioactive materials. But that 


makes no sense as he was a research physicist. 


He had five -- or he had six months worth of 


dosimeter readings in 1954, six months in 1955 


and none at all in 1956, which results in him 


getting no missed dose for that year in the 


dose reconstruction. Except for polonium, his 


bioassay records are sketchy. He had seven 


thorium results in 1956, although the papers he 


wrote on thorium were mainly written in 1955, 


so these records are either missing or he 


wasn't monitored. He had one result for 


protoactinium (sic) within the time frame of 


the dose reconstruction. 


So what was -- what was he working on? I found 


papers that he'd written that document some of 


the -- what he was doing, and I'm also waiting 


for a couple Freedom of Information requests. 


Research papers show that he was working on 


bismuth, uranium, bazillion monozite (sic), 


cobalt-60, rare earth elements, polonium and 


polonium metal compounds, lanthanum -- which 

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was used as a preliminary for actinium work, 


and a literature search for the preparation and 


usage of zirconium/tritium targets. I found no 


papers he wrote yet that show he worked on -- 


with actinium or tritium, but Mound worked on a 


need-to-know basis. And although people often 


worked in teams, they didn't seem to look at -- 


look things up for other researchers, so it 


seems likely that the work he did was in 


preparation for later work with actinium and 


tritium, but no documentation survived. 


NIOSH has told me a number of times it really 


doesn't matter if he worked with other 


radionuclides that aren't in his dose 


reconstruction because their overestimate of 


polonium exposure would cover these. This may 


or may not be true. I -- I can't tell, but it 


doesn't seem like good science to approach it 


that way. 


My mother clearly remembers an incident in 1950 


when my father was sent home from work and 


remained off for several days. His dosimeter 


records indicate that he did -- didn't work in 


his lab for 11 days following the incident. 


His supervisor, George Pish*, called my mother 

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to warn her he was coming home early because of 


an exposure and he might be upset. When he was 


home -- while he was home he drove urine and 


fecal samples to Mound every day and was sent 


home, presumably because the samples were too 


hot to allow his return. Interestingly enough, 


I found a document, MLM-177, that outlines 


Mound's policy on exposure for this time 


period. It states that a worker who has a 


count higher than 12 C. per minute per 50 


milliliters is removed from his job or put to 


work in an area where the possibility of 


exposure is more remote, or he's barred from 


the operating area altogether. It says nothing 


of what would cause a person to be removed from 


the site for several days. 


There's no record of these samples. His 


polonium bioassay results for the day of the 


incident was zero. There was no surviving 


radium results. We don't even know at this 


point what they were testing for. The incident 


report discusses how a fire started in the 


glovebox he was working in as he was heating a 


vial containing polonium with a torch. An 


explosion caused the gauntlets and rings to be 

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blown off and caught a piece of paper on fire. 


My father smothered the fire with a smock. The 

incident report says his next move was to 

replace the gauntlets, thereby preventing 

conta-- further contamination of the lab. Then 

he checked and found his hands and pants were 


hot. During the rest of the cleanup, a vial of 


radium was spilled in another hood and he was 


exposed to this as well. 


NIOSH has given him credit for the radium 


exposure, but not for the polonium exposure 


because they say the polonium didn't spill. 


There was an explosion in the glovebox. His 


hands and pants tested hot. He prevented 


further contamination. NIOSH says the incident 


report is incorrect and should have said to 


prevent further potential contamination. I 


don't see how they can determine this so long 


after the fact. 


In the first dose reconstruction he was given 


no credit for this incident. The second dose 


reconstruction gave him a little over one rem, 


and the third one gave him 20 rem exposure for 


the radium but none for the polonium. 


One of the big issues that's being raised at 

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the site -- in the site profile review is 


radon. When I looked at my dad's dose 


reconstruction there was no mention of radon. 


When I asked about this I was told that it 


wouldn't be applicable because it would not add 


dose to the cancer site. This seems odd 


because the organ they used as a dose 


equivalent -- for external radiation, at least 


-- was the lungs. 


And at Mound there were handwritten logbooks 


for the different buildings that discuss 


everyday occurrences, such as problems with the 


ventilation system. I've found copies of 


logbook excerpts from several buildings, 


including the R building where my father 


worked. I sent these to NIOSH to document 


building-wide incidents that my father was 


exposed to, and also to ask -- and also asked 


that they be used for all applicable claimants 


since they reference people by name. NIOSH 


said that they couldn't use them for other 


claimants because of a privacy issue, and they 


added no dose to my father's claim as there 


were no accidents mentioning him by name. 


 The Mound building site profile review 

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discusses how negative pressure would suck 


radon into R and SW buildings, and this is 


borne out by the logbooks. I don't know where 


the originals of these are, but it would be 


really good if we could find them. 


We found Mound medical records where my father 


had gone to the on-site doctor's office for 


treatments of cuts and burns. One of these 


reports that my father -- getting a piece of 


hot steel in his eye. The first time I asked 


NIOSH about this I was told that hot meant 


temperature rather than radioactive, but the 


word -- because the word hot was not in 


quotation marks. I asked how they determined 


this. NIOSH referred me to OTIB-0022, Guidance 


on Wound Modeling for Internal Dose 


Reconstruction. It's not specific enough to 


answer my question. I asked NIOSH for the 


written documentation or the basis that they 


were making this determination on and they 


declined to answer. 


Next they told me that if it was radioactive it 


wouldn't have added to the -- any dose to the 


cancer site. This seems hard to believe as the 


cancer site was the lymph nodes on the neck 

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below his eye. 


When my mother has asked about overtime or how 


the radiation from machines my father worked 


with was accounted for, she was told that the 


dosimeter bioassay testing would have picked up 


all the radiation he was exposed to, no matter 


how many hours a week he worked or what 


machines he used. I know that not all the 


materials were bioassayed for, especially in a 


research lab, and I don't think all types of 


radiation was monitored by dosimeters -- could 


be monitored by the dosimeters, so I don't feel 


comfortable with this explanation. 


I also think there's a possibility that NIOSH 


may be underestimating the neutron dose from 


the early years at Mound. For about half a 


year in 1950 my father's neutron dose was 


reported in reps rather than rems. NIOSH 


states that reps and rems are roughly 


equivalent. The 1950 AEC publication, Control 


of Radiation Hazards in the Atomic Energy 


Program, states that neutrons and protons -- 


that for neutrons and protons one rep is 


equivalent to ten rem. Maybe a ten-to-one 


discrepancy isn't enough to be significant, but 

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I'd feel more comfortable if this were 


examined. 


NIOSH also states that there's no indication 


that Mound subtracted any background radiation 


from dosimeter readings from 1949 to 1957. 


Well, equally, there's no indication that they 


didn't. I would feel much more comfortable if 


this was based on actual information rather 


than guessing. 


Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Thank you, Deb, for 


sharing that with us. 


 I inadvertently skipped over Sandra Baldridge. 


Sandra's with us again this evening, and I 


think we now have some material that -- is this 


Sandra's material that was distributed? Yes. 


Board members, you should have a packet. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: That's actually a summary of 


the documents in the petition, and I -- it's 


helped me because if I've got an idea in my 


head and I'm not sure where I read it, I can 


reference my summary sheets. I thought it 


would be beneficial for all of you. 


But I would like to thank you for this 


opportunity to speak again this evening -- I'll 

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adjust since I'm a little taller -- I will try 


to make it brief. 


I do really appreciate the patience that I have 


seen not only with the Board members but also 


the participants. I haven't seen any unusual 


facial expressions or rolling of the eyes or 


whatever -- impatience with presentations in 


the past. 


I do want to refer just to a couple items that 


I think are kind of interesting. I have a lot 


more highlighted but I've chosen to cut it 


down. The summary primarily outlines 


incidences or high exposures and a few other 


interesting items. The reference letters and 


numbers to the side were my originals. I 


didn't have the time to do the comparison for 


you. The first statement -- you can just 


listen and you'll be able to find them later. 


This is from a letter, 1951, it says: Cancer 


is a specific industrial hazard of the atomic 


energy business. This significant fact 


justifies, in the opinion of the committee, the 


continued exploitation of the commission's 


special facilities for radiation and cancer 


research, diagnosis and therapy. The committee 

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recommends the cancer program be vigorously 


pursued as a humanitarian duty to the nation. 


 I have trouble with that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sandra, what -- what agency was 


that from? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: That's a letter --


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm wondering if -- that -- that 


sounds like a cancer research -- 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: Advisory Committee for Biology 


and Medicine. That was in a -- a 


correspondence. It's listed as PE-560, a 


letter to Dean from Goodpasture. 


 DR. ZIEMER: PE-560? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: Then identified under index 


section six of PE-544a, talk-- talking about 


the sludge furnace alterations for oxidation of 


thorium residues in Plant 6. It says: There 


have been 30 known fires in the past four years 


of pyrophoric thorium residues. In one case 


the fire burned through a concrete storage pad. 


Some drums had been stored on soil. In 


addition to known residues, there are 1,300 


drums of unknown pyrophoric residues in 

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storage. The operator will manually place a 


packed thorium charge of approximately 30 


pounds in the cradle of a hoist. 


And my question was, not knowing the process, I 


don't know how he would lift -- pack and lift 


unless he brought that into some kind of 


proximity with his body. 


 Thorium residues will be dumped and mixed on a 


four by eight-foot steel table. Suitable 


shovels and hoes and rakes will be provided for 


mixing. The storage area will be temporarily 


enclosed by a six-foot cyclone fence to prevent 


cross-contamination of thorium and uranium 


materials. 


And my comment is, what stops the wind? The 


MAC which we have been using for thorium is 


approximately 20 times that presently 


recommended by the National Committee on 


Radiation Protection. 


 PE-178g, talking about cleaning out the burnout 


oxide conveyors in Plant 5. Up to a year ago 


the operator had to position himself under the 


inspection plate to remove it for access under 


the oxide conveyor. This caused much of the 


oxide to come down upon him. Breathing zone 

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samples results of this operation were found to 


be 97,000 times MAC. 


 PE-371c, MACs of 608, with nothing in process 


to improve the condition. MAC of 465, with 


nothing in process to improve the conditions. 


Then in section four, it's probably under the 


addendum, in PE-397e, which was a health 


protection review from 1964, it talks about 


recycled materials from GE-HAPO -- HAPO -- are 


being processed in several plant areas. They 


contain impurities. They increase in alpha-


beta and/or gamma emitters. 


Then it also -- under that, it says: Consider 


neutron film. Detailed study of the neutron 


generator is needed. Potential air 


contamination from tritium. 


My question is, since all these documents are 


in NIOSH's possession, I was wondering if they 


had checked workers' records for any of these 


locations and dates to see if these exposures 


have been confirmed in the records of dose. 


And I thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. That last 


one on the neutron film sounds to me like it 


could be a deuteron tritium accelerator. I'll 

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just throw that out, may be something we can 


follow up on. If they're talking about -- or 


that would be a tritium target, a deuteron 


accelerated to a tritium target to give a 


neutron -- I think, help me out, John Poston, 


maybe a 14 MeV neutron. 


He's shaking his head. Is that -- two of us 


agree on something here, so it must be right, 


but I hadn't we -- we had asked before about 


the neutron issue and this may be partially an 


answer to that. 


Now does this come -- this comes out of that 


site information --


 MS. BALDRIDGE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. So I'm wondering if they 


might have had a DT accelerator. Those are 


often used as moisture gauges, actually. So --


okay, thank you very much, Sandra. 


Now Andrew Evaskovich -- may not get your last 


name quite right, Andrew, but it's close -- 


close enough for government work, right? 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Well, as I've said before, you 


can call me Evak, that's what everybody else 


does. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

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 MR. EVASKOVICH: My name is Andrew Evaskovich. 


I'm with the --


 DR. ZIEMER: Evaskovich. 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- from Los Alamos. I'm with 


the Air National Guards Union of America, Local 


Number 69 there. I just basically wanted to 


touch on some issues concerning like data 


capture. During the worker outreach meetings 


we had a person from NNSA who -- I guess the 


best word would be -- would be crashed our 


meeting. This was arranged with NIOSH to come 


talk with us and for us to present information 


in order to improve the site profile, and she 


showed up. I didn't know who she was. Other 


members knew her because they knew her dad, so 


they allowed her to attend. However, I think 


once people found out she was with the NNSA it 


cast a pall upon the meeting and therefore not 


all the information was captured, and her name 


was Philippa Greigo*, and I spoke to Libby 


Hunt* about this earlier, but I wanted it to be 


on the record. 


And being that Mr. Podonsky (sic) was here 


yesterday talking about records and the fact 


that there are records in a warehouse that need 

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to be retrieved, I think there are some issues 


concerning that. I've spoken with Congressman 


Udall's office about this. Actually they 


brought it to my attention, but my 


understanding is, as far as those records go, 


the hospital is still in control of getting 


access to them and individuals have to request 


that their records be looked for and saved. So 


-- because there's a -- the vast mixture of 


records. They're not only former AEC 


employees, because the AEC controlled the 


hospital and the records up to the mid-- early 


to mid-'60s, and it was turned over to the 


county. And sometime -- the records were moved 


into this warehouse and basically discarded. 


And like Mr. Podonsky (sic) mentioned, there's 


an issue with the Hantavirus because rodents 


were moving in and living among the records and 


condition of the records is poor. 


What I would like to request among the Board 


and Mr. Elliott of NIOSH, and other persons 


involved, is just to ensure that the records 


are preserved for the purposes of using them 


for reconstruction because if individuals do 


not know or become ill later down the -- you 

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know, down the road or after time, and they're 


not aware of this and they haven't requested to 


have those records preserved, they may be lost. 


So I think we need to preserve all the records 


until we can determine whose records are there 


and whether or not they need to be saved. 


My final issue would be the LANL RaLa SEC 


because that was approved in September in Las 


Vegas, and upon further research, in my opinion 


the -- the SEC did not cover enough areas 


because there were exposures to areas aside 


from the ones listed in the SEC because of the 


experiments that were conducted. There were 


radioactive clouds that went to local 


communities, as well as into the Los Alamos 


area, and there are documented incidents in the 


human radiation experiments report prepared by 


the President's Council in the '90s that refer 


to these experiments and the fact that there 


was contamination on the main (unintelligible) 


road and Technical Area 1 from RaLa clouds. 


I think we have a chance to correct this with 


the upcoming SEC that Harriet Ruiz has -- her 


petition that Harriet Ruiz has submitted, that 


will be reviewed I hope in Denver as far as the 

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evaluation report. So I think this gives 


everybody a chance to get another bite at the 


apple and I'm looking forward to that coming up 


in Denver. 


I'd like to thank you for your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Andrew, if you could 


clarify, I'm -- are the records that you are 


referring to, are those the same ones we were 


talking about earlier or are there two sets of 


records that --


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Which are we referring to? 


This is with --


 DR. ZIEMER: We were talking about some -- 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- Los Alamos. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I think Glen was talking 


about some that I got the impression had been 


buried. 


 (Multiple off-microphone remarks, none clear 


enough for identification of the speaker or 


transcription of content.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Were those the Mound records? 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Those are the Mound records. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But -- but were buried at Los 


Alamos. 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yes. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: You're talking about Los Alamos 


records that are in a -- some sort of 


warehouse. 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Right, those were -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I --


 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- from the hospital, but they 


were --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. You had talked about I 


think sort of biological contamination and -- 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I wasn't sure whether that 


was another set of records and that's -- 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yeah, they're two different 


sets of records. The --


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: -- Mound records are different 


from these records. Mr. Podonsky (sic) 


mentioned that the DOE has been working to try 


to recover those records. Michelle 


(unintelligible) Ortiz from Tom Udall's office 


has been working on this for quite a while, as 


well, for the last I believe eight months. And 


I just want -- and she had informed me that 


people have to request individually for those 


records. I -- I think that the whole block of 

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records needs to be saved and they need to be, 


you know, combed through to determine what is 


valuable for EEOICPA purposes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is this hospital still controlled 


by Los Alamos, or did you say the county now 


controls it? 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: The county took it over I 


believe in the early '60s and I think now it's 


a private corporation that has the hospital. 


And there was -- that was part of the problem 


was who owned the records, who controlled the 


records, you know. Several agencies have been 


involved, the Department of Energy, the county 


was involved for a while, the hospital itself 


and that corporation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay --


 MR. EVASKOVICH: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Libby and Glen are both aware 


of the details on this, are they not? And --


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Yeah, I hope so. I know that 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Paul, could I (unintelligible) 


on this --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, additional -- Phillip has 


some comments --

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 MR. SCHOFIELD: Some of those records are 


suspected to have low level alpha contamination 


on them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: As well as the -- whatever -- 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Biological contamination, yes. 


The other thing is, these -- a lot of these 


records, the way medical records were done in 


Los Alamos, everybody's records, regardless of 


the doctor you saw, went into the same file. 


And this is true from the day you started there 


or the day you were born. So those records 


will cover -- in some cases they will cover a 


person's entire life. Others it will cover 


from the day they started up in Los Alamos or 


moved to Los Alamos, whether they were a child 


or a spouse of a worker or a worker. And 


that's what the -- that's why these -- this is 


such a big issue there is because the fact 


that, unlike where most places your doctor 


keeps his own set of records. There they were 


collected from all doctors, from any time you 


saw a doctor, nurse or anybody, they all went 


in the same file. And they were just literally 


thrown in -- this warehouse is part of the old 


Zia shops area, and they were just thrown in 

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there so they've had a lot of water damage. 


They've had mice, they've had squirrels in 


there, and there is indication, like I said, 


that some of them may have some low level alpha 


contamination. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. 


 MR. EVASKOVICH: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Don Kummler. 


 MR. KUMMLER: My name is Don Kummler and I want 


to thank the Board for the opportunity to speak 


tonight. And I'm somewhat hesitant about 


speaking and I hope I don't regret this later 


on. 


Today I picked up some information off the back 


table and one of the pieces was a VHS tape, 


which I took home and looked at it tonight and 


upon reviewing the tape, which was -- had a lot 


of good information on it, I -- I got a concern 


as -- as to -- with the reconstruction process 


in determining exposure. 


I worked at Fernald and the first thing I would 


do in the morning is I would go to the laundry 


room and pick out the cleanest pair of overalls 


and the cleanest pair of gloves I could find, 


and then I would go on to the work site and 

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work. Well, upon leaving the site, when the 


job was finished, I had a clean pair of 


coveralls and gloves in the gang box that I -- 


I hadn't used. I used -- had them there for a 


spare set of clothing in case I would need them 


during the day. And upon leaving the -- 


somebody came out and checked my -- my shoes, 


my tools, and he noticed I had this pair of 


coveralls and these gloves in -- in the gang 


box and he checked them and pegged needle. And 


I was concerned because just recently I filed a 


claim a couple of weeks ago for skin cancer 


and, as you can see, I'm dealing with skin 


cancer all the time, pre-cancer, basal cell, 


the other one, squamous cell carcinoma. 


And so my concern is -- my question is, to the 


best of your knowledge, has this concern been 


brought to your attention previously, or is 


this something you just heard of, you know? 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's one of the cancers on the 


list, is it -- I need some help here, but 


squamous cell and -- what was the other one? 


 MR. KUMMLER: Basal cell. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- basal cell, those are both on 


the list, are they not? So -- and we've had 

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other cases of cancer that have been brought to 


the -- for dose reconstruction. 


 MR. KUMMLER: I guess my concern is in -- in -- 


during -- you know, watching the tape and the 


reconstruction process of determining your 


radiation exposure, how would that fit in if 


you were -- first thing in the morning you're 


wearing contaminated gloves and you're wearing 


contaminated clothing, and you're sweating all 


day and you're wiping your forehead, you know, 


and this is where I picked up the -- the -- the 


skin cancer is on my forehead and my arms, and 


I just wondered if -- if this has ever come to 


your attention, you know, that, you know, the 


contaminated clothing, you know, that the -- 


that the workers were wearing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If -- if that information was 


provided to the dose reconstructor as -- in 


your interview process, I assume you have 


provided this kind of information? 


 MR. KUMMLER: No, I didn't -- I didn't -- I 


didn't tell him about that, I just -- I don't 


think I did. I just told him, you know, about 


my skin cancers and I didn't explain that to 


him. I -- I'm really new at this. I -- just 

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two weeks ago I got some information -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: But you have -- you have put in a 


claim? 


 MR. KUMMLER: Yes, I have. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think probably you -- you may 


need to talk with one of -- and Larry can get 


you -- make sure that that's in your record so 


the dose reconstructor can take into 


consideration whatever needs to be done in that 


case. 


 MR. KUMMLER: All right. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, you can look at that issue. 


Right? 


Brad, you have a comment there? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, I -- I just had a question. 


On -- on your coveralls and so forth like that, 


Fernald -- did they do their own laundry 


service? 


 MR. KUMMLER: Yes, they did. 

 MR. CLAWSON: So everything was done in-- 

inside --

 MR. KUMMLER: Yes, in house. 


 MR. CLAWSON: -- in Fernald facility? 


 MR. KUMMLER: It was all done in house, yeah. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay, I -- thank you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Phil, did you have an additional 


comment? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: I just (unintelligible) one 


quick comment on that. Do you know if your -- 


all the clean laundry was monitored before it 


was returned to be put back in service or not? 


 MR. KUMMLER: All I know is that when -- at the 


end of the day I would turn in my work gloves 


and my coveralls, and the next day I would go 


back to the laundry room and pick up a new pair 


of coveralls. I -- I don't know what they -- 


how they -- how they monitor them at all. I 


just know what I did, you know, just -- I would 


-- I would go find the best pair of coveralls 


and cleanest pair of gloves I could find to 


work with that day, 'cause some of them were 


pretty rough so I found the best ones, you 


know. I was just concerned because, you know, 


of -- you know, I pegged the needle with what I 


had. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Did you ever find any 


(unintelligible) imbedded in the clothing or 


pockets? 


 MR. KUMMLER: I can't say I have, no. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, again, pro-- provide the 

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necessary information -- 


 MR. KUMMLER: All right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to NIOSH so that they can take 


that into consideration. Recognize the normal 


practice, and there's always quirks in the 


system, the normal practice is to not only do 


the cleaning but to monitor the -- the garments 


before they go back into circulation. And 


there typically is a -- you know, what -- what 


is a clean garment, and you know, hopefully one 


would be starting at least with a clean garment 


 MR. KUMMLER: Yeah, these were --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but that -- that doesn't mean 


it would look clean from a -- as far as white 


is white, but you want it to be radiologically 


clean. 


 MR. KUMMLER: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But at least raise the issue in 


your -- in your information input to the 


system. 


 MR. KUMMLER: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and we have another comment 


from Sandra? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: Yes, I don't know if I have the 

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laundry documents in the SEC petition or not, 


but I do have documents and there was 


monitoring where they determined that the 


inside of the gloves were contaminated and 


there were a lot of issues about the expense, 


how they were going to do this and -- and who 


was going to be provided clothing changes. 


Subcontractors came in and worked in street 


clothes, left and took the contamination home 


with them because they were always looking to 


cut the budget. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And clearly there could be issues 


of that type, or similar issues, at different 


sites, depending on their practices and 


situations, but at least you want the dose 


reconstructor to be able to take a look at -- 


at the issue. 


Catherine Tidwell. Catherine wasn't sure 


whether she wanted to come or not, but 


Catherine, you can make that decision now. 


 MS. TIDWELL: Thank you. My name is Catherine 


Tidwell. I'm not a site profiler. I'm not a 


scientist. I'm the widow of a former Mound 


employee. He worked at the Mound from 1963 to 


1970 in the SM building, which notoriously I 

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guess was very hot. He was never allowed to 


talk about what he did and -- and we had five 


little children so there wasn't a lot of chance 


for him to talk anyway. 


Prior to that he worked in the aircraft nuclear 


propulsion department, General Electric in 


Cincinnati. He worked there from '57 to '61. 


They do have record that he worked there, but 


all his exposure records -- I don't know, they 


just -- they're gone. I don't know where 


they're at. 


In 1987 he was diagnosed with liver failure. 


Because I am an RN, I knew the physician at the 


Mount, Dr. Jim Ruffner*, and he worked with my 


husband and I and my husband did have a liver 


transplant in 1994. He had it at the 


University Hospital in Cincinnati, and USTUR, 


the United States TransUranium Registry, was 


extremely interested in his case. He did not 


have cancer, but they very much wanted his 


liver when it was removed. We did agree to 


give it to them. They said at the time he was 


the only living donor of a contaminated organ. 


It took four years for us to get a report back, 


and it did say that he had a significant uptake 

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of plutonium which was in his liver. And I 


don't have exact quote from them, but they said 


it wasn't as much as people in Russia, which -- 


you know, I feel sorry for those people, but I 


have no control over that. 


He did apply, as soon as he was allowed, to the 


EEOICP. His case was denied because it was not 


malignant. And my question is, will there ever 


be any consideration given to anything besides 


a malignancy? 


 DR. ZIEMER: There -- there's another part of 


the program --


 DR. MELIUS: Subtitle E. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Subtitle E, which -- maybe 


Larry can address this a little bit -- that 


possibly this might come under. 


 MS. TIDWELL: Okay, I --


 MR. ELLIOTT: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


better than I. 


 MS. TIDWELL: One other thing -- I mean he 


suffered for, you know, 18 -- well, 17 years, 


and he did have some squamous cell, which I 


have submitted and NIOSH is doing a dose 


reconstruction but, you know, I don't have a 


whole lot of faith in that. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, there is -- there is that 


issue on -- as far as the liver's concerned -- 


 MS. TIDWELL: But the -- you know, the liver 


demise was --


 DR. ZIEMER: But Larry will describe for you 


the -- the provisions of the... 


 MS. TIDWELL: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, under Subtitle E now -- it's 


part of the compensation program Act, there's a 


provision that covers toxic chemical exposures, 


and you can submit your claim for the liver in 


that way. I don't know if you've done that or 


not, but Jeff Kotsch is here from DOL. He 


could perhaps help you in a little more detail 


than I can since --


 DR. ZIEMER: That -- that would go to the 


Department of Labor rather than NIOSH. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Rather than NIOSH. 

 MS. TIDWELL: Okay. Wasn't that automatically 

going to --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay, Labor --

 MS. TIDWELL: -- flip over? 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is involved at the front end of 

this, also, but I'm not sure what happens if -- 


if that came to --

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 MS. TIDWELL: I mean do I have to submit --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to Labor, would -- would -- how 


would that sort out if --


 MR. KOTSCH: Normally --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Normally the -- the case would 

transfer from B to -- I mean the B cases are 


considered under E automatically. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so --


 MR. KOTSCH: But B is only, unfortunately, 


applies to malignant -- 


 MS. TIDWELL: Right. 


 MR. KOTSCH: -- carcinomas. 


 MS. TIDWELL: Right. 


 MR. KOTSCH: But I know the way the procedure 


was supposed to work was that all the -- all 


the B cases that we had in house would -- once 


we got Part E and became active with that, were 


-- were to be considered under Part E. 


 MS. TIDWELL: How -- how do I know if --


 MR. KOTSCH: Let me take your -- take your name 


and --


 MS. TIDWELL: Okay. 


 MR. KOTSCH: -- (unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: They can follow up for you and 

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figure out what's --


 MS. TIDWELL: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- what should --


 MR. KOTSCH: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If it didn't happen, they can make 


it happen. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, we can make it happen and it 


should have -- it should be happening if it 


hasn't. 


 MS. TIDWELL: Okay. Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That completes the list of 


individuals who have asked to speak, but let me 


ask if there's anyone else -- yes, please 


approach the mike and you can identify yourself 


for us. 


MS. CRAWFORD: My name is Lisa Crawford. I'm 


the president of Fernald Residents for 


Environmental Safety and Health, with a local 


environmental organization that has fought 


Fernald and finally cleaned it up for the last 


22 years. 


I spoke at several hearings on the EICIPO, 


whatever initials. I just -- I really -- this 


is a really emotional issue for folks around 


all the different sites. You know, I'm -- I'm 

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going to be real honest tonight -- which I'm 


honest always anyway, that's why we're in the 


position we're in now -- and just say that 


NIOSH and DOL should be totally ashamed of 


themselves. This is a very complicated, 


excessive, burden on the individual that should 


not be so. 


I have a sister-in-law who has been through 


this process for over three years now. Finally 


she was able to get the compensation. Her 


father worked at Fernald, not for a very long 


time; he was a young man in his early 30s. And 


it took three years. It was kicked back. It 


was here. They lost the paperwork. This 


happened, that happened. She said to me six 


weeks ago when it was finally settled, I FAXed 


them, I e-mailed them, I snail mailed them, I 


FedExed them, I UPSed them and they were all 


lost. She said I could have spit them and they 


probably would have lost those somewhere along 


the way. This clearly shows us that there's a 


problem. 


The gentleman who spoke earlier, this gentleman 


right here -- I don't remember his name -- he 


hit the nail on the head. Yes, you should be 

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talking to every single worker before you start 


anything else. In the early years at Fernald 


when they began the cleanup process, we 


encouraged our site folks to talk to the 


oldtime workers. And I'll be frank about it, 


they knew where the bodies were buried. They 


knew where stuff was buried around the site 


that nobody else knew, because they were the 


ones that actually buried it. It's a good 


policy to go back and talk to people. That's 


one issue. 


 The other issue he brought up was, you know, we 


should -- dose reconstructions -- we had one at 


Fernald. John Till did it. He was veering in 


the wrong direction so we as a community 


brought in our own specialist and analyst and 


veered him back in the right direction, so we 


felt very comfortable that we had a good dose 


reconstruction. You can't take overall data 


and apply it to individual people. It does not 


work. 


 These workers worked very hard under poor 


conditions -- I -- I will speak for the Fernald 


workers because the conditions were absolutely 


appallingly poor. 

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 Another issue that this gentleman spoke about 


was -- and I think this lady over here -- you 


know, those of us who live in the community in 


the early years of Fernald when we were 


drinking -- I drank from -- my family drank 


from a contaminated well. Tons and tons of 


uranium dust was distributed all over this 


community, and the DOE people would sit in 


these public meetings and say to us the dust 


never left the site. That's like telling a 


worker in a building you didn't get anything. 


That's bull and we all know it. You know, is 


there a plastic bubble around this facility or 


all the facilities? No, we know there's not. 


Was there a plastic bubble around these 


workers? No. It's -- it's very emotional. We 


know that and I know you all, as you sit around 


the table, you hear this day in and day out. 


It's emotional for those of us, too. 


And my final comments are, there's been a 


tremendous amount of work done on the Fernald 


facility. There were two lawsuits filed, one 


by the residents, one by the workers. There is 


so much data and information that's available 


if somebody will go and look for it. There's a 

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law firm that has reams and reams and reams of 


information. Don't put the cart before the 


horse. If it's there and it's available, I 


would encourage all of you to go and find it 


and look for it. 


And again I would just say NIOSH and DOL should 


be totally ashamed of themselves. This is a 


long and tedious process. It makes the people 


in the community and the people who are 


fighting for their loved ones feel stupid, 


worthless. You know, if I send you something 


five or six times and you lose it, I think 


you're incompetent; it certainly isn't me 


that's incompetent. And it shouldn't take this 


long and this tedious of a process to repay and 


compensate these workers for literally, in some 


cases, putting their life on the line for this 


country. 


 DOE now stands back and says these are Cold War 


warriors. These are Cold War American heroes, 


and dadgone it, let's make sure we're 


compensating them for giving them all these 


dadgone diseases and contaminating them and 


causing them to have cancers. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Lisa, for those 

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remarks and we hear what you're saying. 


Is there anyone else that does want to add any 


comments tonight? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think it's Mike Gibson 


again. Mike? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead. 


 MR. GIBSON: This -- this is Mike. Just a 


point of order, since we are in session, under 


Robert's Rules of Order is it -- is it correct 


for me to make a motion at this point? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mike, I -- I think if you want to 


make a motion, I'll ask that -- will you be 


with us tomorrow? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, I'll be with you tomorrow. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let-- let's do it during our 


regular business session, if tha-- if that's 


agreeable. We've gone a bit over time here 


tonight, but if you want to -- if you want to 


put the motion on the table, I would prefer to 


allow time -- whatever it is, that we can 


discuss it and deliberate on it. I don't want 


to keep folks here excessively long. But 


perhaps if you have a motion you want to make, 

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you can let us -- give it to us tonight and 


let's put it on the agenda for tomorrow. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay, the motion I want to make 


for the agenda tomorrow is that -- you know, 


I've heard these folks from Fernald and from 


all around the nation and I agree with them, 


and I just think that we need to maybe 


establish a working group to look into the site 


profiles by workers and not by the people who 


ran the program. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, the -- the motion is to have 


a working group to examine the site profiles 


and -- give me the rest of it? I need to --


 MR. GIBSON: Maybe -- maybe go around and visit 


the sites and talk to workers and not 


necessarily people who have managed the 


radiological programs at these site-- DOE 


sites. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean maybe --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- maybe I can -- there's a 


worker outreach effort going on right now. 


Maybe we do need a workgroup to sort of look 


and get a sense of where that's at and how 


effective it's been, what results ha-- how has 

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it influenced the site profile development 


process. I think that might (unintelligible) ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let -- let me make -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Would that -- would that be 


consistent with your -- your motion, Mike? I 


think that --


 MR. GIBSON: I don't think it's exactly -- I 


don't think it's exactly consistent with -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let -- let me --


 MR. GIBSON: -- (unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- suggest that we do the 


following, Mike. I -- I think we know the 


general -- kind of the gist of it, and maybe we 


have some other nuances for it here. Let me --


we'll formally put it on the agenda and call on 


you tomorrow and you might, you know, polish 


the wording a little bit and then we'll have a 


chance to hear from Mark and any others that -- 


either to provide additional input, but let -- 


let's have a full Board discussion on how we 


can best do this. I think we would be in 


sympathy with -- conceptually with doing that. 


We need to figure out a way we can do it 


efficiently and within the framework of some of 

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the other related activities where we 


definitely want to get the worker input. So --


 MR. GIBSON: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- if that's agreeable, we'll -- 

we'll --

 MR. GIBSON: And please, any Board members, 

send me an e-mail tonight or tomorrow morning ­

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 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- giving me your thoughts. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Thank you, Mike. 


Sandra, you have an additional comment? 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: Yes, I'd like to caution on one 


-- one thing about that. After I was getting 


the petition prepared, I -- I went to one of 


the Fernald workers meetings and presented a 


brief summation of my findings, and literally 


had people arguing with me that thorium was 


never processed in Plant 6, despite the fact 


that the documents were there, even working on 


site. They didn't always know what was -- what 


the processes that were being conducted from 


one building to the next, or in one time frame 


or the next, or -- I question whether the 


people who were actually handling the equipment 

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or the materials even knew what they were 


handling. So --


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


need to stop. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: -- there is a balance that 


needs to be made --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: -- so even --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, good point. 


 MS. BALDRIDGE: -- the workers don't know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, thank you very much. 


 DR. WADE: This is public comment. We need to 


-- don't need to have any more discussion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we're --


 DR. WADE: I think we need to stop -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is for public comment. I --


I think now we want to thank everyone who did 


participate this evening. Thank you for being 


patient with all of -- with each other 'cause, 


you know, it's been a long day for many of you, 


but we thank you for your participation. We 


will be meeting again tomorrow. You're welcome 


to -- to rejoin us. What time? 


 DR. WADE: 8:30. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: 8:30. That you very much. We're 


adjourned for the evening and we'll re-- 


reconvene tomorrow morning. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 8:45 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

367 

1 

2 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of Feb. 8, 2007; 


and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 


testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


22nd day of April, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102