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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON LINDE CERAMICS

+ + + + +

FRIDAY

APRIL 16, 2010

+ + + + +

 The Work Group convened 

telephonically at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Standard 

Time, Genevieve Roessler, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Chair

JOSIE BEACH, Member

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor

ANTOINETTE BONSIGNORE, Petitioner

CHRIS CRAWFORD, DCAS

JASON DAVIS, DCAS

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

EMILY HOWELL, HHS

JENNY LIN, HHS

LINDA LUX, Petitioner

MONICA HARRISON-MAPLES, ORAU Team

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

JIM NETON, DCAS

STEVE OSTROW, SC&A

LAVON RUTHERFORD, DCAS

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Roll Call.................................. 4 

Chair Roessler............................ 10

Mr. Crawford

Building Contamination .............. 18

Questions and Answers..................... 26

Mr. Crawford 

Tunnel Contamination ................ 29

Questions and Answers..................... 37

Scheduling............................... 117

Welding Electrodes....................... 122

Adjournment.............................. 126
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 (11:02 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: So let's begin with 

4 roll call, then, starting with the Board 

5 members, starting with the Chair. 

6 CHAIR ROESSLER: Gen Roessler, 

7 Chair. No conflicts.

8 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. No 

10 conflict.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach. No 

12 conflicts.

13 MEMBER GIBSON: Mike Gibson. No 

14 conflicts.

15 MR. KATZ: And then the NIOSH ORAU 

16 team.

17 MR. CRAWFORD: Chris Crawford. No 

18 conflicts.

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford. 

20 No conflict.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld. I 

22 am on. I don't have a conflict with Linde.
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1 MR. SHARFI: Mutty Sharfi. No 

2 conflicts.

3 MS. MAPLES: Monica Harrison4 Maples. No conflicts.

5 MR. DAVIS: Jason Davis. No 

6 conflicts.

7 MR. KATZ: Very good. Then SC&A.

8 DR. MAURO: John Mauro. I have no 

9 conflicts. John Mauro, SC&A. No conflicts.

10 MR. KATZ: Great. And then other 

11 federal agencies including HHS, DOE, DOL 

12 officials or contractors.

13 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS.

14 MS. LIN: Jenny Lin, HHS.

15 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, NIOSH 

16 contractor.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. No one from DOE 

18 or DOL. 

19 And then, members of the public.

20 MS. BONSIGNORE: Antoinette 

21 Bonsignore, Linde petitioner.

22 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Antoinette.
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1 MS. LUX: Linda Lux, Linde 

2 petitioner.

3 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Linda. 

4 MS. LUX: Thank you.

5 MR. KATZ: I'll have a question 

6 for you, Linda, after we get started here. 

7 MS. LUX: Okay.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. But before we 

9 get any further onto this matter, there's one, 

10 let me just check with the Board members 

11 about, we don't have a set end time for this 

12 meeting. But let me hear from you as to when 

13 you need to be off this call.

14 CHAIR ROESSLER: I'm okay for all 

15 day. This is Gen. 

16 MR. KATZ: How about you, Jim?

17 MEMBER LOCKEY: Three hours.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay.

19 MEMBER BEACH: This is Josie. 

20 That's about my max, too.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. Three hours. 

22 And the same for you Mike?
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1 MEMBER GIBSON: I'm good.

2 MR. KATZ: Okay. And then how 

3 about the DCAS ORAU group? Does that, does 

4 that work for you? Three hours?

5 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes here.

6 MR. KATZ: Yes. I'm not saying, 

7 I'm not saying that this will take three

8 hours, but -- and the same for you, Steve and 

9 John?

10 DR. MAURO: That's fine for me, or 

11 longer, if necessary.

12 MR. OSTROW: Yes. I'm fine also.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay. Good. Okay. I 

14 just wasn't -- so then before I turn it over -

15 - someone has a -- if folks would mute their 

16 phones, there's feedback coming back. I'm 

17 hearing myself, which is awful. If you would 

18 mute your phones, *6, if you don't have a mute 

19 button, and then just press *6 again when you 

20 want to come back on to talk. 

21 I also just want to remind 

22 everyone to disconnect completely; don't put 
8 

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1 the call on hold. Okay.

2 I wonder if it's the court 

3 reporter's recording or something that's 

4 giving me the feedback. I don't know if other 

5 people are hearing it or it's just me.

6 CHAIR ROESSLER: I'm not hearing 

7 anything. This is Gen. I'm not hearing 

8 anything.

9 MR. KATZ: Okay. Because 

10 everything I say is echoed right back in my 

11 ear. 

12 Before we get in to it, Gen had --

13 I sent out an agenda for Gen and let me just 

14 go over the broad outlines, because Gen and I 

15 spoke this morning. We had a couple of emails 

16 from Antoinette and I just want to lay out the 

17 outlines of this. And then Gen will go in to 

18 the details of the agenda. 

19 But we have, Gen will be 

20 presenting some background information. 

21 She'll talk more about that. I have a 

22 petitioner letter from Linda Lux. And Linda 
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1 is on the line. 

2 And, Linda, I just want to know if 

3 you want me to read that in to the record or, 

4 since you are on the line, whether you want to 

5 do that yourself. 

6 MS. LUX: You can go ahead and 

7 read it. My voice isn't so great today. 

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. That's fine. 

9 That's fine. 

10 So after Gen does her background 

11 bit, I'll read Linda's letter into the record 

12 as she has requested.

13 And then we have presentations of 

14 the OCAS documents, the work that's happened 

15 since the last Work Group meeting by Chris 

16 Crawford. And a review and response from 

17 SC&A. And after that, Antoinette has sent a 

18 couple of emails with some concerns she posed 

19 about worker interview material. And so we'll 

20 have -- she'll have an opportunity to present 

21 those concerns and ask some questions relating 

22 to those. And then finally, the Work Group 
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1 will discuss how to go forward with respect to 

2 the May Board meeting in terms of reports to 

3 the full Board. Okay. 

4 So if that's good, then -- and 

5 before, just let me note, before Antoinette 

6 speaks on the issue of these interviews, I'll 

7 have a couple of remarks to say with respect 

8 to the Privacy Act. But, so let's then get 

9 started and, Gen, it's in your hands. 

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: Hi. Thanks, Ted. 

11 For those of you on the Work Group 

12 or others who did not get the agenda, if 

13 you're like me and you don't check your CDC 

14 email every day, you might not have received 

15 it. But I noticed this morning that it's 

16 posted on the OCAS website. So if you want to 

17 look at the agenda, once you go there, it will 

18 be under the Linde section. 

19 I would also remind speakers that 

20 since we have a new court recorder, it would 

21 be good for us to -- and we get in the habit 

22 of not doing this -- but to give our names as 
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1 we talk because he probably won't recognize 

2 all our voices.

3 So we have picked a tentative end 

4 point for the call. We're hoping to get done 

5 by, let's see, two Central, that would be 

6 three Eastern, if I got the times right. 

7 MR. KATZ: Two o'clock Eastern.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: One Eastern. 

9 Ted, you better say the time because I got it 

10 wrong on the first agenda.

11 MR. KATZ: It's 11 to two Eastern 

12 time, is what we're shooting for here. 

13 CHAIR ROESSLER: Eleven to two 

14 Eastern, and I think we can do that. 

15 And we'll follow, as Ted 

16 mentioned, we'll get the technical work done 

17 first. And then we'll take care of some other 

18 things and, Antoinette, you'll follow after 

19 our technical discussion. 

20 I'd like to remind the Work Group 

21 and others that we're, that we did have a 

22 December 14th face-to-face Work Group meeting 
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1 in Cincinnati that's posted on the website, 

2 that we followed that with a January 25th 

3 teleconference that's also posted. 

4 And then we have the, not Work 

5 Group meeting, although the Work Group, I 

6 think, listened in; the OCAS and SC&A had a 

7 February 23rd technical call. 

8 What I thought would be helpful 

9 is, and I listed this in the agenda, is to 

10 summarize the documents that we'll be looking 

11 at today. 

12 One that's not listed in the 

13 agenda, and I think Ted sent it to you and I 

14 also sent it to Work Group members this 

15 morning, is Steve Ostrow put together a 

16 document. It's a one-page document. The 

17 title of it is, Linde Work Group-SC&A 

18 Commitments. And he has on there three items. 

19 If you have that in front of you, that might 

20 also help to get through the process today.

21 The other documents then that you 

22 should have in front of you, I've got listed 
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1 on the agenda. There's the summary of the 

2 February 23rd technical call. Steve put that 

3 together. And then just the other day, Chris 

4 Crawford -- I think that was sent on April 7th 

5 -- was it, Chris? The three documents. 

6 They're called, The Cover Letter for Linde 

7 Work Group Transmittal of Tunnel and Time Line 

8 Papers, the second one is Approach to Dose 

9 Reconstruction During the Linde Residual 

10 Period and the third one is a document on 

11 Linde tunnels. 

12 So if we have all of that in front 

13 of us then I think the next item on the agenda 

14 would be for Chris and the OCAS people to go 

15 into their presentation of documents.

16 Or, Ted, did you want to read the 

17 petitioner letter first?

18 MR. KATZ: Yes. Let me just read 

19 that first and then we'll be on to Chris.

20 So this is from Linda Lux, dated 

21 April 14th, 2010 and it's addressed to the 

22 Linde Site Working Group. 
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1 After reviewing the notes 

2 regarding the Linde Site in Tonawanda, New 

3 York from the past Work Group meetings and 

4 also the Worker Outreach meeting I would like 

5 to say I feel the same frustration that 

6 participating petitioner Antoinette Bonsignore 

7 stated over the lack of importance the 

8 affidavits that had been submitted by 

9 claimants have been given. After all, they're 

10 the only ones who were at the Linde site at 

11 the time in question. 

12 I think, quote, the best available 

13 science, end quote, and a common-sense 

14 approach can only be applied after you read 

15 their statements. Anything else would not be 

16 a true effort in establishing if a dose can be 

17 reconstructed. I read in the 2005 

18 Worker Outreach meeting, page 120 of 126, 

19 under the heading Miscellaneous, it states 

20 that, in Building number 100, eight 

21 individuals that were office and clerical 

22 workers all developed cancer within a short 
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1 period of time from each other. Would a dose 

2 reconstruction ever account for an unexpected 

3 situation like that?

4 In regard to the renovations 

5 issue, along with the 1960s renovation of 

6 building number 30 there were other 

7 renovations, as well. Building number 14 was 

8 one of the most contaminated buildings inside 

9 and also in the soil outside. It stood right 

10 next to Building number 11. Both buildings, 

11 number 14 and number 11, were connected to the 

12 also-contaminated tunnel. Building number 11 

13 had two renovations. One in the 60s and again 

14 in the 70s. 

15 It is stated in my father's 

16 medical records that he worked in extremely 

17 dusty conditions for about a two-year period. 

18 My father worked in building number 11 in the 

19 60s and 70s. 

20 When my father passed away in 1994 

21 at the age of 59 of multiple myeloma, he had 

22 no idea he had worked in a contaminated work 
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1 site. 

2 I have read that Mr. Elliott has 

3 made the statement that a low percentage of 

4 cancers are related to radiation exposure. I 

5 am sure that many, many workers just like my 

6 father never realized they had been exposed 

7 and therefore, it was never mentioned to the 

8 doctors. 

9 I also find it very frustrating 

10 that risk factors are not being looked at for 

11 all cancers. For example, my father died of 

12 multiple myeloma at 59 years old. The risk 

13 factors are; over the age of 70, 

14 parenthetically, my father was 59; being 

15 obese, parenthetically, my father was slim; 

16 African American, parenthetically, my father 

17 was white; exposure to radiation, 

18 parenthetically, yes; male, parenthetically, 

19 yes. 

20 I feel in individual dose 

21 reconstruction that too much emphasis is being 

22 put on the job category and not that Linde as 
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1 a whole was a contaminated site.

2 In your last work session, Dr. 

3 Mauro stated that all home's natural radiation 

4 should be below 4 picocuries per liter. I 

5 believe natural radiation is called ionizing 

6 radiation. The workers, if I'm correct, were 

7 exposed to alpha, proton and/or neutron, which 

8 can cause five to twenty times more harm. 

9 These workers were exposed to 

10 these amounts day after day, all day, inside 

11 and outside. 

12 I feel individual differences in 

13 metabolic behavior of uranium and radiation in 

14 the body needs to be taken very seriously.

15 It is also concerning that some 

16 but not all of the testing data is missing. I 

17 have to wonder; was it lost or destroyed? 

18 I've read a lot of workers stating that they 

19 were never told some of the testing results 

20 that were done on their bodies, soil, or 

21 water. 

22 According to the statement of this 
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1 bill it states, quote, uncertainties are to be 

2 handled to the advantage rather than the 

3 detriment of the claim, unquote. I sincerely 

4 hope every affidavit from the Linde workers is 

5 read and carefully considered in your 

6 decision-making process. 

7 Thank you for letting me comment 

8 on my concerns. 

9 Sincerely, Linda Lux.

10 The end of the letter. 

11 And just to note, I had previously 

12 distributed the letter to the Work Group. 

13 Thank you. 

14 And now it's you, Chris.

15 MR. CRAWFORD: Thank you, Ted. 

16 Just in terms of the agenda, Jim 

17 has, who is unfortunately not here, Jim Neton, 

18 has said that he would like us to concentrate 

19 on the period of the 107 Petition, if at all 

20 possible because that's probably the most 

21 pressing issue at the moment. 

22 And, in essence, I would like to 
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1 proceed right to bullet point number 2 which 

2 is the document entitled Approach to Dose 

3 Reconstruction at Linde. For that reason. 

4 This document addresses 

5 specifically the 107 period. That is, from 

6 January 1st, 1954 through to 2006, I believe -

7 - July 31st, 2006. 

8 So if that's okay with the Chair, 

9 I'll get right to that document. 

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: It sounds like a 

11 good approach, Chris.

12 MR. CRAWFORD: This document is in 

13 partial response to previous Work Group 

14 meetings and conversations with and papers 

15 exchanged between SC&A and NIOSH and our ORAU 

16 contractor. 

17 One of the big issues is how to 

18 account for internal dose, in particular 

19 during the period after the decontamination at 

20 Linde, through at least the 1976 survey, which 

21 is the next time we have a data point. In 

22 other words, we have data recorded from the 
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1 decontamination period and then there's a long 

2 blank period until 1976 and then, thereafter, 

3 there are quite a few more data points after 

4 that. 

5 Because the Linde Site was 

6 originally turned over by the AEC to Linde 

7 more or less as an unrestricted workplace --

8 in other words, by the standards of the time, 

9 it had been decontaminated sufficiently that 

10 it was considered not a hazardous situation. 

11 Based on our negotiations, you 

12 might say, between SC&A and NIOSH, we looked 

13 carefully at the decontamination era readings 

14 of some of the decontamination procedures. We 

15 had talked at one point of using the vacuuming 

16 process as a source for the airborne 

17 contamination, but, and then discounting that 

18 by a factor which is based on the presumed 

19 amount of material removed from the site: the 

20 contaminated material. Which means that 

21 further disturbances after 1954 would have 

22 churned up less material for several reasons. 
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1 Recently however, we settled on 

2 another measurement which is the air 

3 measurements recorded after pneumatic 

4 hammering of surfaces that had been previously 

5 cleaned by sandblasting. 

6 The reason we are looking at that 

7 as a good representative sample of 

8 contamination is, first, the site after 1954 

9 represents a site that has in fact been 

10 cleaned by sandblasting and other methods. 

11 Second, that pneumatic hammering does loft a 

12 lot of material when it's done, of course. We 

13 all know that. 

14 And we decided not to reduce the 

15 maximum contamination levels by that factor of 

16 two that I mentioned earlier because we are 

17 working on a previously cleaned surface. So 

18 we're assuming that the 2.3 MAC air, which is 

19 a measure of contamination which is 2.3 times 

20 beyond the accepted limits, shall we say, the 

21 maximum air concentration allowed for the 

22 entire period from 1954 through 1969, when we 
22 

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1 think, from worker testimony and other 

2 evidence, that the bulk of the renovations 

3 were done in the building. 

4 After 1969 we are using the TIB 70 

5 approach recommended by SC&A to do an 

6 exponential decline in the airborne 

7 contamination from the 2.3 MAC level down to 

8 the level actually measured in 1976. 

9 After 1976, we're assuming those 

10 levels were constant. All of these, in this 

11 document, all of this material is contained 

12 and you can see the actual readings in Tables 

13 3 and 4 on the approach document. 

14 We had previously resolved the 

15 radon issues to the satisfaction of SC&A. 

16 That is also available in Table 5. We had 

17 accepted a level of 10 picocuries per liter 

18 which was actually measured in the plant, I 

19 believe, in a quiet period between the early 

20 production period and the later production 

21 period as being bounding, considering that the 

22 ore had been removed and then the building 
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1 decontaminated, of course, after 54.

2 So we're going to continue that 10 

3 picocurie per liter assumption, which works 

4 out to .48 working level months per year 

5 through to 1970. 

6 And then we also do a decline on 

7 that down to the levels actually measured in 

8 1981 during that survey. The reason we picked 

9 the 81 survey is they were slightly higher 

10 than the 1976 radon measurements. So that's 

11 claimant favorable to do it that way. 

12 I should note, by the way, that the 1981 

13 measurements were not much above background 

14 level for the Buffalo area and that type of 

15 building. 

16 But the amounts allocated prior to 

17 that time and the continuing level from the 

18 tunnels, which we'll discuss in the next 

19 section, are accepted at the much higher 

20 levels from the 40s. 

21 There's also a section on external 

22 dose which is based on actual measurements 
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1 made in the building in the 50-54 time frame, 

2 Building 30, I'm referring to, which is the 

3 most contaminated of the buildings and then 

4 further measured in 1976 and 1981. Those 

5 measurements are quite comparable. In other 

6 words, there wasn't much change in the 

7 external radiation environment during that 

8 entire period. So that's more or less a 

9 constant. 

10 Since we all have the paper, I'd 

11 like to move on and introduce the tunnel 

12 paper. 

13 And then, Gen, I don't know what 

14 you're intention is. Perhaps SC&A would like 

15 to reply at that point.

16 CHAIR ROESSLER: Chris, this is 

17 Gen. 

18 I just turned my mute off, but 

19 maybe missed a little bit of what you said. I 

20 think you're asking, at what point do we want 

21 SC&A to respond?

22 MR. CRAWFORD: That's right. 
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1 Should I finish the tunnel, as well? Or 

2 should we take up the --

3 CHAIR ROESSLER: Well, let's ask 

4 Steve and John what their -- what they 

5 recommend. 

6 MR. OSTROW: This is Steve. I 

7 think it would probably be beneficial to 

8 discuss the airborne that Chris just went over 

9 now before we move on to the tunnel issue. 

10 DR. MAURO: Yes, I agree Steve. 

11 This way, basically, you have to carry too 

12 much information, you know, information at one 

13 time. CHAIR ROESSLER: That 

14 sounds like a good approach. 

15 So I think, Chris, you have 

16 presented your approach. 

17 And let's then hear from Steve and 

18 John. 

19 And we'll wait with the tunnels. 

20 We'll take the tunnel issue up next.

21 MR. OSTROW: Okay.

22 DR. MAURO: Very good.
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1 MR. OSTROW: Chris, this is Steve.

2 Just to clarify, I just want to 

3 make sure I got it right. I read the 

4 document. I listened to you. From, in the 

5 first period, from 1954 through the end of 

6 1969, you held the uranium air concentration 

7 constant at, I think it's 2.3 MAC. Is that 

8 correct?

9 MR. CRAWFORD: That's correct.

10 MR. OSTROW: Okay. In 1970 to 76, 

11 that's the next period, you assumed that that 

12 2.3 MAC which is, I think, 1,059 dpm per cubic 

13 meter, decreases down to .277 dpm per day 

14 until 1976. After the 1976 measurements, you 

15 have it decaying away from the 69 period to 

16 the 76 period. 

17 And then from 1977 onward to the 

18 present I guess, you're assuming the 

19 concentration is constant at the 2.77 dpm per 

20 day. 

21 Did I get the three periods 

22 correct?
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1 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. That's 

2 correct.

3 MR. OSTROW: Okay. And I see that 

4 as you noted, we checked into this, that this 

5 is consistent with the OTIB 70 guidance that 

6 we had suggested that you use in our previous 

7 meetings, teleconferences and technical calls. 

8 So, you did it consistent with what we 

9 suggested. 

10 And as we looked at it and we 

11 think this is a bounding approach right now 

12 and consistent with the OTIB. 

13 John, do you have any comment on 

14 that?

15 DR. MAURO: Yes. I have to say 

16 I'm very pleased that you adopted the OTIB 70 

17 strategy. 

18 In fact, you know, in effect, and 

19 this might be helpful for the group is, in 

20 effect, the levels that were observed are D&D, 

21 which are relatively high. I mean, when you 

22 think about the, when they clear a site with, 
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1 you know, 70 dpm per cubic meter or 1 MAC 

2 being the clean-up objective they've achieved, 

3 theoretically, based on the literature, it 

4 sounds like that would probably achieve that 

5 in 1954. That's why they were relative clear 

6 in release of the property. 

7 But nevertheless, you're going to 

8 go with measurements made during D&D at 2.3 

9 MAC and assuming they stayed at that level. 

10 And I can understand doing that because there 

11 was remediation going on where you were jack 

12 hammering. I know it wasn't going on 

13 continually but it was going on 

14 intermittently. Perhaps not until the 60s. 

15 But, the, what we see here is, you 

16 were in a difficult situation. I think 

17 everyone on the Work Group should understand 

18 that, really, very limited air sampling data. 

19 And that was a challenge. Here you have 

20 starting in 1954, all the way up until when 

21 the FUSRAP program began, we don't really have 

22 any particulate air sampling data, and this is 
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1 not uncommon in the residual period for many 

2 facilities, AWE facilities. And it's always a 

3 challenge to, well, what do you do? You 

4 don't, you know, no measurements were made 

5 because the general sense was well, it's 

6 cleaned up. 

7 But we all know that the clean-up 

8 criteria at the time, you know, may not have 

9 been what we would like or what it is today 

10 and, so you sort of, in all AWEs, including 

11 here, you have this situation. 

12 And OTIB 70 is the strategy that 

13 was adopted to come to grips with this problem 

14 in a uniform way that's claimant favorable and 

15 I think you have fully achieved that here. So 

16 yes, we are very supportive of the strategy 

17 that you just described. 

18 MR. OSTROW: Thank you, John. 

19 MR. CRAWFORD: Are there any other 

20 issues about the approach document at this 

21 point? Or should I proceed to the tunnel 

22 document?
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1 MR. OSTROW: This is Steve, again. 

2 I just want to --

3 MR. CRAWFORD: Steve.

4 MR. OSTROW: I just want to 

5 mention again, you mentioned it also, that we 

6 accepted your radon model. So, yes, ten 

7 picocuries per liter throughout this time 

8 period until you actually have the radon 

9 measurements later, much later is, it falls in 

10 to that same category of a strategy that is 

11 very consistent with OTIB 70 and I consider it 

12 to be a bounding strategy and an appropriate 

13 strategy to take in this situation.

14 MR. CRAWFORD: Thanks, Steve. 

15 CHAIR ROESSLER: Well, it seems 

16 then we've resolved another issue. 

17 And then, unless there are any

18 other questions I think, Chris, it would be 

19 appropriate to go on to the tunnel discussion.

20 MR. CRAWFORD: Thank you, Gen.

21 The tunnel network which ran 

22 between and below most of the buildings, I 
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1 would say, at the Linde Site presented quite a 

2 different problem. 

3 The things we know about the 

4 tunnels have to do with, we know about the 

5 size of the tunnel which has a minimum 

6 diameter of about 6 feet. A maximum diameter, 

7 I believe, was 10 to 12, that it wasn't used 

8 for common foot traffic. Many people didn't 

9 even know about the tunnels except for, of 

10 course, the trades workers who had to service 

11 them all the time. We also know that it 

12 wasn't used to transport processed material, 

13 that is, uranium ore or oxide; that 

14 contamination of the tunnel happened, we

15 believe, probably a small amount, from foot 

16 traffic, but primarily, from runoff from rain 

17 and some flooding in the tunnel areas. They 

18 were described as often damp. So over the 

19 years, material from the soils would come into 

20 the tunnels and contaminate the tunnels with 

21 uranium and its progeny. 

22 We have no measurements in the 
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1 tunnel of radon. We do have measurements but 

2 from very late, I think it was 2001/2002, of 

3 surface contamination and that's fairly highly 

4 localized near some of the buildings. 

5 Building 14 and Building 31 in particular are 

6 the most contaminated areas of the tunnels. 

7 In between those buildings, there's relatively 

8 little contamination. 

9 Our task, then, was to make a 

10 bounding estimate of radon: always a concern. 

11 And of course, of airborne radionuclides, 

12 uranium and its progeny. 

13 We basically approached this by 

14 looking at the tunnel ventilation system 

15 first. Was there a ventilation system? 

16 And we had several worker 

17 interviews point out that there were at least 

18 two six-foot diameter fans that were used to 

19 ventilate the tunnel. 

20 We also had the secondary evidence 

21 from workers saying that while the tunnels 

22 were often damp, mold wasn't a problem, which 
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1 there's some evidence of air circulation also. 

2 The 2002 document estimated the 

3 air flow as a complete air change in the 

4 tunnel every 10 hours. So we had something to 

5 go on there. 

6 We decided, because of the lack of 

7 knowledge, that we should take a conservative 

8 approach. And again, we chose the 10 

9 picocurie per liter level of contamination, 

10 the .48 working level months per year as 

11 representative of the worse case in the tunnel 

12 scenario. 

13 Then we also had to deal with 

14 airborne contaminants. And there again, we 

15 have a paucity of measurements. We do have 

16 surface contamination measurements done in 

17 2002 and very little beyond that. So there we 

18 had to use a calculation to come up with 

19 reasonable and claimant favorable estimates of 

20 the likely airborne material. 

21 Now the reason we believe that 

22 these are claimant favorable estimates is, 
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1 number one, we took the levels in the highest 

2 contamination spots found in the tunnels and 

3 assumed that they were the basis for all of 

4 the airborne contamination. We also assumed 

5 that 100 percent of the material was 

6 removable, which is very favorable because, 

7 typically, you're going to get about 90 

8 percent of the material fixed. That's found 

9 in TIB 70 also for those who want to see where 

10 some of the assumptions come from. 

11 So by assuming it's all removable, 

12 we think we have our worst-case scenario 

13 outlined and therefore, a bounding scenario 

14 outlined in the tunnels. 

15 The tunnel document which you'll 

16 all refer to, I hope, gives a -- our estimate 

17 of the dose rates both for external exposure 

18 and, more significantly I think, for the 

19 internal exposure. 

20 We used uranium progeny ratios 

21 based on the most claimant favorable ratios 

22 found and those happen to be outdoor 
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1 measurements. There were many -- several, 

2 let's say, piles of uranium-contaminated soil, 

3 windrows, that allowed us to make measurements 

4 in the outdoors. 

5 And then we took a look at what, 

6 how much of the material could have been 

7 airborne at one time, and we took a 95th 

8 percentile beta surface contamination level 

9 and calculated the likely air concentration of 

10 the various uranium progeny. That's contained 

11 in an unnumbered table under Internal Dose 

12 Potential in the tunnel document, page 4. 

13 I think I'd rather just entertain 

14 questions from Steve and/or John at that 

15 point.

16 By the way, these are considered 

17 to be, just to make it clear, these tunnel 

18 exposures are for all time. That is, from the 

19 1940s: 42, 43, right up through the end of the 

20 period in 2006, so anybody who worked in the 

21 tunnels during that time would get these 

22 exposure levels. 
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1 The one thing I did not mention 

2 is, based on worker testimony, we have some 

3 idea of how frequently workers worked in the 

4 tunnels and we interviewed several workers. I 

5 say we, ORAU conducted the interviews. I did 

6 not and was not present during the interviews. 

7 We found that, typically, maintenance and 

8 repair took about two months a year. In fact, 

9 the longest repair job that any -- one worker 

10 who spent his whole career in the tunnels, he 

11 said, could remember was a two-month repair 

12 job. Other than that, there were various 

13 inspections monthly. A couple of trades 

14 craftsman went through the tunnels looking for 

15 problems, leaks and that sort of thing. 

16 So we have discounted the total 

17 exposure by the time spent out of tunnels, you 

18 might say. So only 20 percent of the time the 

19 worker worked at the site is credited to 

20 tunnel work. 

21 And it's our intention to give the 

22 tunnel exposures to all trades people and 
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1 laborers and inspectors. 

2 For the most part, workers who 

3 worked in the surface buildings during the 

4 40s, 50s and 60s, would have had higher doses 

5 in those buildings than they would have in the 

6 tunnels. So we will always give people the 

7 highest possible dose assumption. 

8 After the exponential decay into 

9 the 1976 airborne-measurement time frame, the 

10 tunnel exposures will be higher than the

11 surface building exposures and we will give 

12 the tunnel workers -- credit for working the 

13 tunnels for that time period. 

14 I hope that's reasonably clear. 

15 DR. MAURO: Steve, do you want to 

16 jump in or do you want me to?

17 MR. OSTROW: I just have a little 

18 clarification. 

19 Chris, I think you mentioned 

20 somewhere, I can't find it right this second, 

21 that you weren't -- you would take care not to 

22 double-count on time. So that if a person who 
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1 was working two months per year in the tunnel 

2 you'd only give him, like, say, 10 months 

3 above ground. Is that correct?

4 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. Unless the 

5 above-ground exposure or intake would have 

6 been higher, in which case we would give them 

7 12 months above-ground because that would be 

8 more claimant favorable. 

9 MR. OSTROW: I understand. 

10 Basically you're only going to give people 12 

11 months a year, not 14 or anything. You're 

12 just going to, you know, you're not going to 

13 double-count those, basically.

14 MR. CRAWFORD: Correct. We'll 

15 just take the highest and give them that for 

16 the periods involved. 

17 As I said, after 76, the tunnel 

18 time will involve more exposure than the 

19 surface then.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. Will 

21 the tunnel time involve more exposure prior to 

22 1976 for anybody?
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1 MR. CRAWFORD: Probably not, 

2 because of the 2 MAC, 2.3 MAC air 

3 contamination assumption.

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: So really, what 

5 this does, this kicks in the 76 time frame, 

6 from that period on.

7 MR. CRAWFORD: Right. Sometime 

8 between 70 and 76, Jim, the tunnel becomes a 

9 source of more intake than the surface 

10 buildings do. 

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay.

12 DR. MAURO: What is the MAC for 

13 the tunnels? What I heard you say is, you got 

14 this residual activity measurements, you would 

15 make a certain assumptions regarding the mix, 

16 and you went with some upper 95th percentile, 

17 I guess, of becquerels per 100 centimeters 

18 squared or for meters squared, then applied a 

19 resuspension factor to get your airborne 

20 radioactive particulates. 

21 MR. CRAWFORD: That's correct.

22 DR. MAURO: And what resuspension 
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1 factor did you use and what MAC did you get?

2 MR. CRAWFORD: We applied 10 to 

3 the minus 6. I don't have a calculation here 

4 on the MAC reading, only the ones in the table 

5 that you see which are in dpm per year or dpm 

6 per meters cubed. 

7 DR. MAURO: What's your dpm per 

8 cubic meter? 

9 MR. CRAWFORD: That's, for 

10 uranium-238, which is the biggest, or 234. Two 

11 thirty-eight is 1.29 dpm per cubic meter. 

12 DR. MAURO: Okay. So it's --

13 MR. CRAWFORD: The MAC --

14 DR. MAURO: -- way below 1 MAC.

15 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. 

16 DR. MAURO: Okay. Got you. MAC 

17 is 70 dpm per cubic meter. 

18 MR. CRAWFORD: Right.

19 DR. MAURO: Okay. I just wanted 

20 to get a feel for it. 

21 But at that, but that's even 

22 higher than what it is going to be assigned 
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1 for the Building 30 people. In other words, 

2 because you have real measurements above3 ground in the 70s and 80s, those numbers are 

4 lower than this 1 dpm, this 1 dpm per cubic 

5 meter number. Is that correct?

6 MR. CRAWFORD: Right. Yes. 

7 That's my understanding, too.

8 DR. MAURO: Okay. Okay. 

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: I got a question. 

10 Jim Lockey. They had 6 foot fans, multiple 

11 fans in the tunnels. Right?

12 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. At least two, 

13 Jim. That's, we're sure of. But --

14 MEMBER LOCKEY: And when workers 

15 went down there did they increase the 

16 ventilation rate seeing that this was somewhat 

17 of an enclosed space and below ground? Do you 

18 know or not?

19 MR. CRAWFORD: The workers didn't 

20 state that in the testimony that I read. 

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: The reason I would 

22 ask that question is that it's belowground 
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1 accumulation of gases, things along those 

2 lines. I just was, but I guess the 

3 ventilation was, as far as what the workers 

4 were saying, was a constant ventilation rate. 

5 I guess then, right?

6 MR. CRAWFORD: That was the 

7 impression we got from the statements that we 

8 took.

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: Okay. 

10 DR. MAURO: Did you have any radon 

11 measurements down there at all?

12 MR. CRAWFORD: None at all to my 

13 knowledge. 

14 Mutty Sharfi, if you know of 

15 anything that's been done, let me know. But I 

16 don't think so.

17 DR. MAURO: So you're going to use 

18 the 10 picocurie per liter number across the 

19 board for the tunnels?

20 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes. 

21 MR. KATZ: Let me just ask the 

22 court reporter. Are you having an okay time 
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1 identifying who's speaking?

2 COURT REPORTER: I'm doing all 

3 right. But I would appreciate if you fellows 

4 would identify yourselves before speaking. 

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thanks. 

6 MEMBER GIBSON: This is Mike 

7 Gibson. I have a question. Was entry into 

8 these tunnels considered a confined-space 

9 entry or was a permit required?

10 MR. CRAWFORD: This is Chris. 

11 I can't answer that. Nothing was 

12 mentioned in the interviews, to my knowledge, 

13 about a permit being required. 

14 And we know that these entries 

15 were routine. That is, at least a couple of 

16 workers went through the tunnels, I think, on 

17 a weekly basis. 

18 So I can't answer the question 

19 fully. 

20 MS. BONSIGNORE: Mike, this is 

21 Antoinette. I can answer that question. 

22 There was no permit required. 
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1 And I apologize for interrupting 

2 here. I know I was told I could speak after 

3 this but there are so many errors here in 

4 terms what is being characterized from the 

5 worker that worked at Linde in the tunnels for 

6 -- from 1953 to 1991, that I feel like I need 

7 to say something because all of this material 

8 is being based on incorrect information. 

9 The tunnels: Chris said that the 

10 tunnels, people did not use the tunnels 

11 commonly to get between buildings. In fact, 

12 they did. During the winter months, all of 

13 the workers used the tunnels to get from 

14 building to building because of the inclement 

15 weather. That was a very common practice. It 

16 was not condoned by Linde management but 

17 everybody used them. 

18 And the worker that was 

19 interviewed stated that during the interview. 

20 He also stated -- he mentioned one job that 

21 he had done for two months. But he never 

22 stated that that was the longest job that he's 
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1 ever -- that he had ever participated in. In 

2 fact, he said, a lot of the jobs that he 

3 worked on could have took between six and ten 

4 months. And he also mentioned that during the 

5 interview. 

6 So the, combined with the fact 

7 that all of the workers used these tunnels to 

8 go from building to building all over the 

9 facility during the winter months, and 

10 combined with the fact that you really have no 

11 idea how long jobs took, or the time worked 

12 that was done in the tunnels, and I'm getting 

13 some further information from two other 

14 workers that did work in the tunnels during 

15 the 70s and 80s, and also because you have 

16 absolutely no data from inside the tunnels. 

17 And the tunnels were never 

18 remediated. 

19 And the tunnels also, they were 

20 flooded on a regular basis. But also during 

21 the 1940s during the operational period the 

22 effluents from the operations flooded into 
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1 those tunnels. And contaminated those 

2 tunnels. So you need to take that in to 

3 account as well. 

4 So there are a lot of 

5 discrepancies here in some of the documents as 

6 to what has been attributed to this worker. 

7 And I don't know where the error occurred. 

8 But this worker was never provided 

9 with an opportunity from the ORAU interviewers 

10 to take a look at the notes that were taken 

11 during that interview. Which has been common 

12 practice in the past. So he was never allowed 

13 to check the accuracy of what he what has been 

14 attributed to him. And I think that would 

15 have been helpful. 

16 And we could have avoided all of 

17 these issues if he had simply been provided 

18 with the notes and he could have corrected 

19 what had been attributed to him. 

20 MR. DAVIS: Chris, could I chime 

21 in here for a minute? This is Jason Davis. 

22 MR. CRAWFORD: Very good Jason, 
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1 yes.

2 MR. DAVIS: I'm Jason Davis. I 

3 actually conducted these interviews.

4 I conducted interviews with three 

5 separate workers that were in the tunnels from 

6 time periods spent in 1952 all the way up 

7 through 1954. 

8 We had three different workers 

9 that had three different job functions in the 

10 tunnels. Each of them provided different 

11 parts of the information that we're using for 

12 this tunnel document. 

13 We had one worker, that was an 

14 electrician, say that he spent, at max, 2 

15 percent of a 40 hour work week in the tunnel 

16 on a routine basis. Longer only if projects 

17 called for it. But the projects were 

18 typically short in length. 

19 We had another tunnel worker that 

20 said that he may have went into the tunnel 

21 maybe once a month, or for two to three jobs, 

22 if he needed to. And would come up for 
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1 supplies and lunch. 

2 We had a third worker that said he 

3 went through weekly walk-throughs with another 

4 employee. And would spend approximately one 

5 hour doing a complete walk through of the 

6 tunnels. 

7 Each of the interviewees also had 

8 different perspectives on how much time other 

9 workers would have spent in the tunnel. The 

10 maintenance worker that did the weekly walk 

11 through said that he had one other person go 

12 through with him. But didn't remember anybody 

13 else going through. The worker that said he 

14 spent the longest time down there said that, 

15 using the tunnel for transportation between 

16 buildings was not at all condoned by the 

17 company. And could only remember once 

18 instance, in particularly bad weather, where 

19 employees had used it to get from tunnel to 

20 tunnel.

21 As far as the workers not having a 

22 chance to review their interview statements 
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1 these interview statements have just gone to 

2 ADC review about three weeks ago. They were 

3 carried out as part of an effort for SEC 154. 

4 So it's a little bit delayed in the process. 

5 Since they have just been through ADC review, 

6 document control has not had a chance to send 

7 them to the workers in order for the workers

8 to verify the information. Because we're 

9 not permitted to mail things that have not 

10 been ADC reviewed. There is always the 

11 potential that a worker could say something 

12 that might have security implications. So it 

13 has to be derivative classified before we can 

14 send it through mail or email. So we haven't 

15 had a chance to send these to the workers yet. 

16 

17 But it is something that we intend 

18 to do. 

19 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. But I have 

20 to emphasize that the worker that I spoke to 

21 that has been identified in this report as 

22 having worker there from 1953 to 1991, I know 
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1 him personally, he went over the document, he 

2 said, he never said these things.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Can I ask a 

4 question? This is Josie Beach. Of Jason. 

5 Jason, were you the only one that 

6 conducted these interviews? I read some that 

7 I thought that a Ms. Maples had conducted?

8 MR. DAVIS: Those were earlier 

9 interviews that were conducted a couple of 

10 years ago. 

11 The interviews that I'm referring 

12 to right now, there was myself and a 

13 [identifying information redacted] who 

14 unfortunately isn't on this call right now. 

15 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So you and 

16 [identifying information redacted] then?

17 MR. DAVIS: Yes.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Thank you.

19 MS. BONSIGNORE: And one, this is 

20 Antoinette, one more thing. I specifically 

21 asked this worker if it was common practice 

22 for people to use the tunnels to get, to get 
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1 from one building to the next during the 

2 winter months. He said it was common 

3 practice.

4 I then verified the information 

5 with two other workers, who have not been 

6 interviewed yet, who are preparing statements 

7 for the Linde Working Group, who also confirm 

8 that.

9 MR. DAVIS: And we actually point 

10 blank specifically asked him the same 

11 question. And he said no, it was not common 

12 practice. But -- 

13 MS. BONSIGNORE: Well that's 

14 incorrect. 

15 MR. DAVIS: -- practice.

16 MS. BONSIGNORE: That's just 

17 incorrect.

18 MR. DAVIS: We can only go by what 

19 he gives us. 

20 MS. BONSIGNORE: Well, I, then you 

21 heard him incorrectly or someone could, you 

22 know, I don't know if you tape recorded the 
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1 interviews. 

2 But I asked him specifically that 

3 question. And he said, he doesn't know where 

4 you got that information. He never said that. 

5 And he also doesn't know where you 

6 got the information that he said that the 

7 maximum time he took -- it took for him to 

8 jobs was two months. He, I mean, he 

9 essentially said I don't know where they got 

10 that. Somebody is dreaming about that. 

11 Because that's not true.

12 MR. DAVIS: Do you specific --

13 CHAIR ROESSLER: This is Gen. 

14 I have a question. Assuming that 

15 the tunnels were used in winter weather, this 

16 is a question of the OCAS people, I would 

17 assume that you could calculate the amount of 

18 time a person would spend in the tunnel going 

19 from place to place. Do your estimates --

20 would they cover that sort of scenario?

21 MR. DAVIS: Even if a worker were 

22 to walk from building to building, yes, we 
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1 could estimate the time it would take them to 

2 walk from building to building. 

3 But as Chris Crawford has already 

4 said, the exposures we're giving people from 

5 working aboveground are going to be higher 

6 than any exposure they would have received in 

7 the tunnel during that time. 

8 So it would actually be less 

9 claimant favorable for us to subtract time and 

10 give them a tunnel exposure for the 20 to 30 

11 minutes it took them to walk to another 

12 building.

13 CHAIR ROESSLER: And who is 

14 speaking?

15 MR. DAVIS: This is Jason Davis 

16 again.

17 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay.

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: That was my 

19 impression, Jason, is if you are using -- if 

20 the non-tunnel exposure was higher, you're 

21 going to go that direction to be claimant 

22 favorable.
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1 MR. DAVIS: Exactly.

2 COURT REPORTER: Sorry. This is 

3 Ben. Who's speaking?

4 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey.

5 Sorry Ben.

6 DR. MAURO: Yes. Jim, this is 

7 John Mauro. 

8 I've been listening to the 

9 occupancy time issue. And I think that that 

10 isn't the driver here. What I mean by that 

11 is, for the reason you just gave, I -- my main 

12 interest is for, up until 1976, in effect, you 

13 develop a surrogate data model. I mean, let 

14 me explain what I mean. You don't have any 

15 data for airborne radon or airborne 

16 particulates for the tunnels from 54 all the 

17 way to -- no data at all. But then in, I 

18 guess around 1970, you have this surface 

19 contamination information. 

20 So what, effectively, you're 

21 saying is, we're going to assign all workers 

22 the Building 30 dose up through 1976, I 
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1 believe. Which we all agree, for Building 30, 

2 is claimant favorable for the workers there. 

3 And so from that perspective one 

4 could argue, yes. 

5 So, you know, the tunnel issue 

6 effectively means that as long as we're sure 

7 that the levels in the tunnels during this 

8 time period were less than the levels in 

9 Building 30 we are claimant favorable for that 

10 time period since we're going to assign all 

11 workers the more limiting exposure, which is 

12 the Building 30 exposure. Now, in my 

13 mind, the most important question that we have 

14 to ask ourselves is, is it -- a case needs to 

15 be made, and I think this is the case that I 

16 really haven't heard. That assuming, though 

17 effectively you are saying that, you consider 

18 it virtually extremely unlikely that the 

19 average airborne dust loading inside the 

20 tunnels from 54 to 76 was above 2.3 MAC, as 

21 long as a case can be made why it's highly 

22 unlikely that the levels that were in the 
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1 tunnels during that time period were less, and 

2 you feel comfortable that they're less than 

3 this 2.3 MAC number that you are assigning to 

4 all workers, and so in effect you are saying 

5 that we're going to use that as our bounding. 

6 Same thing goes for the radon. 

7 You're saying, in effect, we feel confident 

8 that the levels of radon in the tunnels are 

9 less than that. 

10 So it doesn't really matter how 

11 much time a person spends in the tunnel. 

12 Because you're going to be assigning everyone, 

13 at least up to 1976, this extremely 

14 conservative number. 

15 Now the only thing I haven't heard 

16 is the arguments of why you believe that it 

17 really isn't plausible for the concentrations 

18 in the tunnels to be above 2.3 MAC particulate 

19 and above 10 picocuries per liter radon. 

20 If that case can be made, and in 

21 extremely -- you know, a compelling way, I'm 

22 fully supportive of the approach you are 
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1 taking. 

2 But right now, I guess in reading 

3 the material, I haven't heard too much why you 

4 feel -- why you could say with a degree of 

5 confidence that there wasn't anything unusual 

6 about the tunnels. You know, that it's almost 

7 self-evident. Of course, it's going to be 

8 higher in Building 30 than in tunnels. I 

9 really haven't heard anything like that.

10 MR. CRAWFORD: This is Chris.

11 I think our -- obviously, we've 

12 had to make a calculation of the airborne 

13 level based on the contamination found. 

14 We know there was very little 

15 remediation in the tunnel. The only 

16 remediation I'm aware of is, in fact, in the 

17 stairwell going down to the tunnel in Building 

18 14. Which I believe happened in the 70s. But 

19 the tunnels themselves I haven't seen any 

20 document suggesting there was remediation. 

21 Which means that we can pretty 

22 much assume that, I think, that we have a 
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1 steady state situation. That the extensive 

2 measurements that were made in the 2001/2002 

3 survey where they took measurements every 

4 meter along the length of the tunnel in 

5 multiple places around the diameter of the 

6 tunnel, give us a very good picture of what 

7 contamination, most of it probably fixed by 

8 that time, was present. 

9 And so we calculate what could be 

10 the airborne level based on pretty much a 

11 steady state. 

12 Again, if we had had any 

13 indication that processed material was carried 

14 through the tunnel it would be, you know, a 

15 new ball game. But these tunnels were used to 

16 carry steam, and electricity, and you know, 

17 water, piping. And were pretty much limited 

18 to that use from what we can tell. 

19 By the way I would like to make 

20 one slight correction to Jason's statement for 

21 the employee in question. He didn't say, 

22 there were no or only one instance. He said, 
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1 he did recall more than one instance in which 

2 employees used the tunnel to get from the 

3 buildings to the cafeteria. But it wasn't 

4 general practice. Just to get that as 

5 accurate as possible. 

6 But getting back to your point, I 

7 think we have -- we've made enough claimant 

8 favorable assumptions with the contamination 

9 that we do have measurements on to calculate a 

10 claimant favorable level of airborne 

11 contaminants in the tunnel. 

12 DR. MAURO: In effect, you are 

13 assuming 2.3 MAC in the tunnels. I mean for 

14 all intents and purposes, you are assigning 

15 all workers 2.3 MAC. 

16 MR. CRAWFORD: Through the 70s. 

17 DR. MAURO: Right up through the 

18 70s. 

19 And you're making the assumption 

20 that -- and by the way, we completely accept 

21 that as being the bounding assumption for the 

22 building, the workers in the buildings 
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1 aboveground. 

2 And now you are saying, you 

3 believe that's also the bounding, that is, 

4 you don't expect it to be more than 2.3 MAC in 

5 the tunnels. 

6 And the reasons you would argue 

7 that is that for the measurements you do have 

8 for residual radioactivity in the tunnels, 

9 which of course are in the 70s, you think 

10 that, whatever those observed levels were that 

11 you saw in the 70s, likely were the same. All 

12 the way back to 1954. And there really is no 

13 reason to believe that they would be 

14 substantially higher at an earlier time. 

15 You know, we're not very happy with the 

16 10 to the minus 6 resuspension factor. We'll 

17 get to that in a minute. 

18 But in essence you are arguing 

19 that, you know, if you assume that the upper 

20 95 percentile residual activity observed in 

21 the 70s was probably -- that level wasn't that 

22 much different during the 60s and the 50s at 
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1 the surface contamination level that was 

2 observed. Especially if you picked the 95th 

3 percentile. You could make a 

4 very compelling argument, not withstanding 

5 what resuspension factor you used. Let's say 

6 you decide to go to 10 to the minus 4. By the 

7 way, which is a number I like a lot better, 

8 but it was wet.

9 So, but what I'm getting at is, I 

10 just, I just feel like I need a little bit 

11 more level of comfort that there were no 

12 surprises. That there was no reason, that 

13 there really would be, by assigning 2.3 MAC 

14 from 54 -- in effect, what you are doing is 

15 saying, listen, for all intents and purposes, 

16 we believe strongly that the levels of radon 

17 and air particulates in the tunnels were below 

18 the levels that we're assigning to the above 

19 grade buildings. And the argument you are 

20 making is basically, there's no reason to 

21 believe that they could have even approached 

22 that level based on the residual radioactivity 
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1 that you observed in the 1970s. Would that be 

2 a true statement?

3 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes, and when we do 

4 get to the, this is Chris by the way, for the 

5 court reporter, when we do get to the 10 to 

6 the minus 6 value I have some part of TIB-70 

7 that I think is relevant here.

8 DR. MAURO: Okay. You hear, I 

9 mean, I guess, in effect, for the Work Group 

10 members, you can see -- in effect what we have 

11 here is, the exposure time does not -- I 

12 understand that there's a concern about what 

13 is the exposure duration. But that really is 

14 not a SEC issue here. The real issue is, 

15 because they're using, across the board --

16 since you don't know who went in to the 

17 tunnels or not, you just automatically go to 

18 assign everyone that worked there, this 2.3 

19 MAC and 10 picocuries per liter. Which 

20 clearly is a conservative number. As long as 

21 you believe that those concentrations probably 

22 were never even approached inside the tunnels. 
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1 CHAIR ROESSLER: This is Gen, 

2 before we address that further, I think I 

3 would like to make an interpretation here 

4 because of what Antoinette brought up. 

5 I think what you're really saying 

6 John, and what Chris is verifying, is that the 

7 discussion about any errors in how long people 

8 were in the tunnels is really not pertinent to 

9 this. 

10 DR. MAURO: This is John. That's 

11 what I'm saying.

12 CHAIR ROESSLER: Yes. I just 

13 wanted to reemphasize that.

14 MS. BONSIGNORE: Can I ask a 

15 question? This is Antoinette. 

16 Does -- the assumptions that 

17 you're making about applying the Building 30 

18 exposures to people who worked in the tunnel 

19 after 1954, does that take in to account the 

20 fact that the effluents, and I don't know if 

21 I'm saying that, pronouncing that correctly, 

22 from the operations period from the 1940s 
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1 leaked into the tunnels on a regular basis? 

2 Does that take into account that fact along 

3 with the fact that the tunnels were never 

4 remediated from that, from those effluents? 

5 MR. CRAWFORD: Antoinette, was 

6 that addressed to me, Chris?

7 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes, it was.

8 MR. CRAWFORD: Okay. First of 

9 all, let me just say that when you speak of 

10 those effluents, I think you may be speaking 

11 of the injection wells on site. And typically 

12 those wells are drilled down fairly deep. And 

13 then liquid material is pumped in to them and 

14 sent in to the ground table. 

15 Something that would never be 

16 permitted today, by the way, but was done in 

17 the 40s when they were in a hurry and didn't 

18 have the standards that we have today. 

19 There is no direct testimony or 

20 evidence, that I'm aware of, that there was 

21 ever a direct leak from the pumping operation 

22 in to the tunnels. 
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1 Our baseline assumption, and the 

2 most likely source of contamination for the 

3 tunnel, we think, is surface runoff water. It 

4 rains or snows. There's a quick melt. The 

5 tunnels flood with surface waters. 

6 Jim Neton has just joined us by 

7 the way. 

8 And that water brings in with it 

9 radioactive materials that have contaminated 

10 the soils around the Linde buildings. 

11 It's a minor point, but I just 

12 wanted you to know that we don't think any 

13 direct effluents were ever pumped through the 

14 tunnel or, you know, spilled in to the tunnel.

15 MS. BONSIGNORE: And you're basing 

16 that on what? Your belief that none of the 

17 effluents were actually in the tunnels?

18 MR. CRAWFORD: Well, it's based --

19 first of all, we have no evidence to the 

20 contrary which is something. 

21 The second, the purpose of an 

22 injection well is to take contaminated liquid 
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1 material, highly acidic probably due to the 

2 processes used here, and pump them into the 

3 ground. There is no connection between that 

4 operation and the tunnel. I mean, you -- 

5 MS. BONSIGNORE: So when the 

6 injection wells would overflow where would 

7 that water go? MR. CRAWFORD: In 

8 the soils around the well, I assume. 

9 And by the way, I'm unaware of the 

10 injection wells overflowing. So it's --

11 MS. BONSIGNORE: I've read that in 

12 many documents. The injection wells 

13 overflowed all the time. That was part of the 

14 problem.

15 MR. CRAWFORD: At any rate, they 

16 would contaminate the soils around the 

17 injection well itself. And we do know those 

18 locations.

19 DR. MAURO: How deep -- I'm sorry 

20 to interrupt. This is John Mauro. How deep 

21 were the injection wells and how far below 

22 were they below the tunnel level? And I 
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1 guess, along those same lines, the ground 

2 water, the water table. I assume the 

3 injection wells went down in to the ground 

4 water or below? 

5 You know -- let me explain where 

6 I'm going. I see this is a relatively simple 

7 question. Are there any -- is there a 

8 possibility that there are any surprises in 

9 terms of there being substantially elevated 

10 levels of residual radioactivity, in sediment 

11 type material, sitting in these tunnels in the 

12 50s and 60s that were substantially higher 

13 then what was observed in the 70s? And I 

14 guess that's really where I'm coming from in 

15 all of this discussion regarding runoff, 

16 injection wells, et cetera, all go toward the 

17 question of being assured that there were no 

18 surprises where the residue that might have 

19 been present in the sedimentary material 

20 inside the tunnels was not orders of 

21 magnitude, on that order, higher than what was 

22 observed in the 1970s from FUSRAP measurements 
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1 made in the tunnels.

2 I guess for me to be comfortable 

3 with the strategy you're adopting would be a 

4 level of assurance that there's nothing --

5 there's no real possibility that that 

6 situation could have existed. And this goes 

7 toward the injection wells, the runoff, et 

8 cetera, and whatever. To be sure there was no 

9 mechanism where you could have had a 

10 circumstance where there were relatively high 

11 levels in the 50s and 60s in the tunnels and 

12 then, for some reason low levels, in the 70s. 

13 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. I 

14 have one question about the tunnels. 

15 Was there, there had to be 

16 drainage back in the days with the tunnels. 

17 Is that right? Or do we know that, one way or 

18 another? I mean, if these, if these tunnels 

19 would flood at times from runoff where would 

20 the drainage go once it was in the tunnel?

21 MR. CRAWFORD: Jim, this is Chris 

22 Crawford. That's a good question. 
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1 At some point -- we can look at 

2 the 2002 survey and see if they mentioned 

3 that. It seems very likely there would be 

4 drainage. I don't see how else you could work 

5 in the tunnels if they didn't have some way to 

6 get the water out. 

7 MS. BONSIGNORE: I have an answer 

8 to that question. 

9 They had sump pumps in there. And 

10 the sump pumps were regularly clogged up and 

11 they had to be replaced on a regular basis. 

12 That was some of the work that the maintenance 

13 people did to handle the flooding which was in 

14 the area of about four or five inches of water 

15 that flooded the tunnels regularly. And they 

16 often malfunctioned and they needed to be 

17 replaced.

18 MEMBER BEACH: This is Josie. I 

19 have a question about the sump pumps. 

20 Where did they pump it to when 

21 they were operating and pumping correctly? Do 

22 you know, Antoinette?
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1 MS. BONSIGNORE: I don't know, but 

2 I can ask. 

3 MEMBER GIBSON: Jim, this is Mike. 

4 I've got a question or maybe just a comment. 

5 I've got to jump in here. 

6 You know, we're sitting here 

7 discussing all these details making worst case 

8 assumptions and this and that. But we still 

9 have worker comments that are basically 

10 unresolved. And you know, I don't think that 

11 shows much deference to the philosophy of this 

12 program to give them credible weight to these 

13 workers. You know, they're interviewed. 

14 They're listened to. And then we sit here on 

15 these calls and try to make worst case 

16 assumptions. And I just don't think that's 

17 fair to the workers. 

18 MEMBER LOCKEY: John, this is Jim 

19 Lockey. One of the questions I have, let me 

20 ask you. 

21 In the surface water runoff in the 

22 -- what is the level of contamination in that 
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1 soil, in that surface soil? Do we know

2 historically what it was back then?

3 DR. MAURO: This is -- are you 

4 posing that question to me? This is John 

5 Mauro.

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes John.

7 DR. MAURO: I don't have an answer 

8 to that. And it's a good question. 

9 The only information I have, and

10 Steve you may have more, is the rock you're 

11 stand -- that NIOSH is standing on, regarding 

12 the tunnels, regarding its potential for 

13 exposure from the 50s right through to the 

14 70s, is the residual radioactivity 

15 measurements made in the 70s. And on that 

16 basis, one, and in fact that's the level, that 

17 level that they observed is in fact 

18 representative more or less even within the 

19 order of magnitude of the level that actually 

20 existed in the 50s and 60s in the tunnels. 

21 They are fine. 

22 But the concern I think everyone 
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1 has here is the assurance that there were no 

2 surprises. That is, just like everyone is 

3 asking, what happened to the runoff? Is there 

4 reason to believe that there might have been 

5 substantial levels that accumulated in the 

6 tunnels. But then over time, because of the 

7 flooding or whatever, could have washed it 

8 away and it could have ended up someplace 

9 else. And by looking at that someplace else 

10 we may have some idea of what the levels were. 

11 In other words, there may be a 

12 line of, there's just a line of questions that 

13 are emerging from this discussion. And I 

14 think it would help give us the assurance that 

15 there were no surprises in the 50s and 60s in 

16 the tunnels. 

17 Right now, all we know is that 

18 measurements were made in the 70s that were 

19 very low. And that if that was in fact more 

20 or less the case for the entire time period, 

21 there really is no issue here. 

22 Notwithstanding occupancy time, 
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1 occupancy time becomes a nonissue from that 

2 perspective. 

3 But I do think that there, we 

4 could sure use a little more information about 

5 the assurance that there were no surprises in 

6 the earlier years in those tunnels regarding 

7 residual activity and the potential for radon 

8 buildup associated with the residual 

9 radioactivity.

10 MR. CRAWFORD: Jim Lockey, this is 

11 Chris Crawford. 

12 I just wanted to mention that the 

13 FUSRAP surveys, and there were multiple FUSRAP 

14 surveys, were very concerned with soil 

15 contamination. In fact, more so than with the 

16 building contamination, I would say. Because 

17 they were thinking of remediating the soils in 

18 particular. So we have quite a bit of data on 

19 the external contamination of the soils if 

20 that helps.

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: Well, I think it's 

22 a piece of the puzzle. 
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1 I think the questions being raised 

2 are important in regard to the injection 

3 wells. Where were they located? How deep 

4 were they? How often did they overflow? What 

5 was the surface soil contamination in the 

6 areas of the surface wells? And was the 

7 runoff -- is the runoff situated in such a way 

8 that it can make its way in to the service 

9 tunnels? 

10 I think that that's sort of the 

11 track that we already have here. And I think 

12 the questions are being raised are good 

13 questions. 

14 But the tunnel -- that the tunnel 

15 wasn't remediated I think it provides at least 

16 some information that perhaps -- and 

17 historically it wasn't significantly 

18 contaminated. 

19 But I don't think we have 

20 information about -- well perhaps it was 

21 significantly contaminated in the past. And 

22 it might have been cleaned up by the work 
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1 force and we just don't have that information. 

2 I think it's a valid, it's valid 

3 to go back and look at where the surface wells 

4 were, how deep they were, what the soil 

5 contamination was around them, where the flow 

6 occurred from a hydrology perspective, and 

7 where the tunnels were relocated. You know, 

8 just a, I think that's a worthwhile endeavor.

9 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I 

10 just joined in a little late. I apologize 

11 for my delinquency but I had a conflict with 

12 an appointment. 

13 I think I've heard some very good 

14 points raised here in the last 10 minutes, you 

15 know, the discussion. I've got a couple 

16 questions, I guess, and a comment, maybe. 

17 One is, the injection wells were 

18 used during the production period only. Is 

19 that right? I mean, was it the idea that they 

20 would produce this raffinate type material and 

21 dispose of it through these injection wells. 

22 So during the time period that we're taking 
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1 about reconstructing exposure now, there were 

2 no injection well activities ongoing, is that 

3 correct? So any injection well activity would 

4 have preceded any of the time periods that 

5 we're looking at. So it couldn't have 

6 increased it during this time period. 

7 And then we have, it seems to me, 

8 that we have a lot of information about plant 

9 survey conditions during the operations and at 

10 the end of the operations. And I'm just 

11 wondering out loud here if the plant -- if 

12 it's conceivable that the tunnels themselves 

13 could be more contaminated than the plant 

14 surfaces themselves? 

15 I'm trying to get a feel for a 

16 potential bounding mechanism here.

17 DR. MAURO: Jim, I agree with you 

18 completely. That's what I was fishing for.

19 DR. NETON: Right. And I'm not, 

20 you know, not withstanding this other 

21 information we might be able to find. We may 

22 or may not be. And I do think we need to 
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1 exercise some more due diligence here and 

2 figure out what happened in these tunnels. 

3 But I think there are some 

4 scenarios here where one could still 

5 conceivably bound them given plant conditions. 

6 Because those were fairly contaminated 

7 surfaces with none ratios of long-lived 

8 progeny and such. 

9 So I just offer that up as a food 

10 for thought. 

11 But I think, I heard pretty 

12 clearly here that, you know, more work needed 

13 to be done on these tunnels in order to 

14 provide a convincing argument that we have 

15 bounded the dose. 

16 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. 

17 What's a little disturbing to me 

18 is that this is the first time I heard the 

19 word sump pump used. 

20 And living in Ohio we have some 

21 old foundations here that water just flows 

22 through. You don't -- when it rains, you 
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1 don't go down in your basement because you 

2 have six inches of water on the ground. 

3 So I think we do have more work to 

4 do about the tunnels, and the injection wells, 

5 and where this runoff could potentially be 

6 going.

7 MEMBER BEACH: I'd also, this is 

8 Josie, I would also like to request SC&A to 

9 interview some of these workers if they 

10 haven't already that Antoinette keeps 

11 referring to.

12 MS. BONSIGNORE: They would be 

13 willing to speak with SC&A. Absolutely. 

14 And just to point out, they did 

15 speak with SC&A back in 2006 when SC&A 

16 produced that report.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

18 MS. BONSIGNORE: And they talked 

19 about the tunnel contamination. 

20 And actually, SC&A made a finding 

21 back in 2006 saying that NIOSH needed to 

22 evaluate worker exposure in the contaminated 
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1 underground tunnel system. But NIOSH never 

2 addressed that issue in the revised Site 

3 Profile of 2008. And actually in the report 

4 that SC&A put out in, I believe it was August 

5 2009, which was the assessment of the 

6 disposition of SC&A's Linde Site Profile 

7 Review in response to SEC Petitioner concerns, 

8 the underground tunnel exposure issue was not 

9 even mentioned. 

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: This is Gen. 

11 It seems we've come down to one 

12 big question. And I would say that what we 

13 are trying to determine is, if the exposures 

14 in the tunnels can be bounded by the plant 

15 conditions? And if that's true, then I think 

16 what we need to do is come up with an itemized 

17 list of what more work needs to be done by 

18 OCAS, and perhaps SC&A can help us put this 

19 list together. And have that as one 

20 assignment. 

21 Then it seems like, as that's 

22 going on then, to answer some of the questions 
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1 that Antoinette has brought up, if it's a 

2 proper procedure, then we could ask SC&A to 

3 interview these workers since they are 

4 available. 

5 DR. MAURO: Gen, this is John 

6 Mauro. 

7 And I would be more interested, 

8 not so much in occupancy time, I know a lot of 

9 attention was paid to that, I'd be more 

10 interested in hearing what they may have to 

11 say that would help us get a richer 

12 understanding of the, of the processes and 

13 scenarios by which residual radioactivity 

14 might have entered the tunnels during 

15 operations. Because, and somehow you know, 

16 the residual radioactivity could have been 

17 somehow deposited there by some mechanism. 

18 I fully understand that the 

19 measurements made in the 1970s show that there 

20 was a negligible amount of activity. And the 

21 strategy adopted by NIOSH is certainly valid 

22 if there's confidence that that level of 
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1 relatively negligible activity was observed in 

2 the 70s was in fact the case for the entire 

3 life of the tunnels. 

4 But I don't know if we can get 

5 that kind of information or where we, how we 

6 approach that problem. You know, what kind 

7 data would we look at? What kind of questions 

8 would we pose that would help us to get a 

9 richer understanding to be sure that there 

10 were no surprises in the 50s and the 60s by 

11 way of a buildup of activity in the tunnels. 

12 

13 Because I can envision that, if 

14 there was a buildup, it could have been washed 

15 away over time, also. And therefore, things 

16 looking really good in the 70s may not have 

17 looked so good in the 50s.

18 MS. BONSIGNORE: This is 

19 Antoinette. 

20 I think in terms of being able to 

21 interview workers who would have direct 

22 knowledge of the possible contamination of 
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1 injection wells, that may be a little 

2 difficult because most of those folks have 

3 passed. 

4 The workers that I've been 

5 speaking to are people who worked there in the 

6 late 50s and forward. 

7 People who would have direct 

8 knowledge, I only know of one gentleman who 

9 worked at Linde during the early 40s, during 

10 the operational time period, who I've spoken 

11 to a few times. Who I think lives in Ohio. 

12 But he's -- his recall is incredible actually. 

13 But I don't know what his health is. I 

14 haven't spoken to him in a few months. But I 

15 could get that name to SC&A.

16 CHAIR ROESSLER: Antoinette, this 

17 is Gen. 

18 I think the injection well 

19 question could probably be answered by OCAS by 

20 looking back through the record.

21 MS. BONSIGNORE: Well it could. 

22 But I think it would be helpful to, if we 
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1 could provide some worker statement from 

2 somebody who was there as to what was going 

3 on. I think, I think that worker testimony as 

4 to the actual working conditions is very 

5 relevant.

6 MEMBER BEACH: Well Gen, this is 

7 Josie. 

8 If they did pump -- if they did 

9 use the sump pump to pump the water, it's 

10 likely -- there's a likelihood that they 

11 sampled that water before they discharged it.

12 DR. NETON: Yes. This is Jim. 

13 I don't know. It's possible. We 

14 would have to go see if we can find a record. 

15 We've certainly not seen anything like that 

16 in the information we've retrieved so far.

17 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. 

18 Well where does, where do the sump 

19 pumps drain in to, is the other question. 

20 Where was it going?

21 MS. BONSIGNORE: I'll ask the 

22 gentleman who told me about that. I'll ask 
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1 him that question. I didn't think to ask it 

2 because quite frankly I'm a little, it 

3 wouldn't have occurred to me ask that. So I 

4 will ask him that. 

5 CHAIR ROESSLER: So in order to 

6 move forward on this, it seems like there are 

7 two things we need to do. 

8 We need to come up with a list of 

9 things that OCAS -- I think SC&A needs to help 

10 us come up with a list of things that OCAS 

11 needs to do to assure SC&A in looking at this 

12 that the exposures in the tunnels can be 

13 bounded by the plant conditions. 

14 And then it seems, intertwined 

15 with that, we need to pursue the idea of SC&A 

16 interviewing the workers. And to do that, I 

17 think we also need a list of topics and items 

18 that should be asked of these people, that 

19 will help them answer this main question. 

20 And it also seems that, if we're 

21 going to do this, and I think we do, we have 

22 brought up so many questions here, that we're 
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1 not going to be able to come up with any 

2 resolution with regard to SEC, I think this is 

3 107, that we can present at the Board meeting 

4 in May. Am I correct in the way I'm 

5 evaluating this?

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: Gen, I agree with 

7 that. 

8 Jim Lockey.

9 CHAIR ROESSLER: Any feedback from 

10 anybody else?

11 MEMBER BEACH: Gen, this is Josie. 

12 I agree with that. 

13 And I wonder if Antoinette is 

14 comfortable with that assumption also.

15 MS. BONSIGNORE: I am. 

16 And also, this is just another 

17 separate note. There is SEC 154 that 

18 qualifies in January which covers the time 

19 period from 1947 to 1953. And I don't know 

20 what the overlap is in terms of the analysis 

21 of that data with respect to its impact on 

22 107. So, and I'm -- since that Petition only 
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1 qualified at the end of January I expect that 

2 the ER for that won't be available probably 

3 until July.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

5 Rutherford. 

6 Actually Antoinette, we anticipate 

7 that will be done sooner then that.

8 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: We are actually 

10 hoping to have it out either in May, late May, 

11 or at the latest, early July, early June.

12 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay, great. All 

13 right. Thank you, LaVon.

14 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. 

15 I don't think there is any overlap 

16 between the dates, obviously. They are two 

17 separate dates. 

18 But the 107 Petition specifically 

19 deals with the post-decontamination era.

20 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes, I know that 

21 there's no overlap in the dates but there must 

22 be some overlap in the data that's being used 
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1 because some of the data that you're using for 

2 bounding estimates is based on data from that 

3 time period, from the early, from the 47 to 53 

4 time period.

5 DR. NETON: Right. And I guess 

6 there's the tunnel issues in that time period.

7 MS. BONSIGNORE: And there's also 

8 the tunnel issue --

9 DR. NETON: Yes.

10 MS. BONSIGNORE: -- which I don't 

11 know if even, if that was even addressed in 

12 that in that evaluation --

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

14 Rutherford. 

15 MS. BONSIGNORE: -- this 

16 discussion.

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

18 Rutherford again. 

19 Yes. With the tunnels being 

20 brought up during the 107 Evaluation Review 

21 and we are addressing the tunnels in 154 as 

22 well.
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1 DR. NETON: You are correct, 

2 Antoinette, there is overlap there with the 

3 tunnels. But it would be the same, a lot of 

4 the same logic would go in to those analysis.

5 DR. MAURO: LaVon, this is John 

6 Mauro. 

7 It may turn out that some very 

8 valuable information might be available to you 

9 for the, I guess that's 47 to 53 time period. 

10 Where they may have, I don't know whether 

11 they made measurements or didn't make 

12 measurements in the tunnels. But if there is 

13 any data for that to -- in effect, where I'm 

14 headed with this is, if there's some data 

15 characterizing what might be in the tunnels in 

16 that time period, or even earlier, you know, 

17 any time period, you know, during operations, 

18 during D&D, and then you have the back end of 

19 the process, mainly the measurements made 

20 during FUSRAP measurements in the 70s, well 

21 now we're sitting pretty good. 

22 So I mean, in effect, if that data 
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1 is out there and you find something when 

2 you're looking in to this other SEC time 

3 period, that's going to be golden for this 

4 time period.

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well it's -- John 

6 this is LaVon again. 

7 It's become quite clear that we 

8 need to make sure that 154 has fully addressed 

9 that. And I know we have that in there and we 

10 are working on that. So we will make sure 

11 before that's released that that's -- in those 

12 two, 154 and 107 SEC Petitions, work together 

13 on that.

14 DR. MAURO: This is John again. 

15 One more line of inquiry. And I 

16 know that Gen you had mentioned that maybe 

17 SC&A could help put together some things that 

18 might be worth looking in to. 

19 But one thing that comes to mind 

20 right away, and we'll certainly put this 

21 together as part of the memo, is understanding 

22 the injection wells and what they look like 
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1 and what the hydrogeology looks like. And 

2 where the injection wells went. And these are 

3 matters where, what you're really saying is, 

4 okay, let's assume that a considerable amount 

5 of water was put down the injection wells 

6 along with some residual activity that was 

7 generated during D&D, and maybe even during 

8 operations. And it went down in to these 

9 injection wells. And then understanding the 

10 hydrology of the region and the ground water. 

11 Understanding whether or not there's any 

12 possibility that there was a hydrogeological 

13 connection between where the injection well 

14 deposited its water and any hydrogeological 

15 connectivity to the strata at which the power 

16 is located. 

17 If there isn't any, that will go a 

18 long, and this is a classic ground water or 

19 hydrogeological question, if there isn't any 

20 reasonable connection where you just could not 

21 get there, you know, that's a very important 

22 piece of information. It's part of the weight 
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1 of evidence. 

2 But if it could get there, you 

3 know, then it changes the complexion of the 

4 problem a little bit.

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: John, Jim Lockey. 

6 I agree with you. I would 

7 actually like to see an illustration of the, 

8 of where the tunnels were in relationship to 

9 the injection wells.

10 DR. MAURO: Yes, me too.

11 MEMBER LOCKEY: The topographical 

12 configuration of the area. 

13 I don't have a clear understanding 

14 of these tunnels, and how long they were, and 

15 were they covered by ground or were they 

16 covered by -- you know, I just don't have a 

17 good understanding of that. 

18 And the second thing I'd like to 

19 know and -- perhaps when they interview the 

20 workers again, is that when they did have a 

21 flooding problem in the tunnel, was there any 

22 residual contamination, just soil 
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1 contamination of the tunnels? And if there 

2 was, how did they handle that? Or was it just 

3 ground water uncontaminated, just pure 

4 groundwater, rain runoff that perhaps ran down 

5 the side of the tunnel and crept in to the 

6 cracks. I just don't have an understanding of 

7 that. And I think that's something the 

8 workers can help answer.

9 MR. CRAWFORD: One thing I, this 

10 is Chris Crawford, one thing I would like to 

11 point out is, during the later production 

12 period and the decontamination period, the 

13 airborne levels in the Technical Basis 

14 Document or the Site Profile are so high that 

15 we've already accepted that at 33 MAC it is 

16 probably irrelevant, the airborne levels in 

17 the tunnel at that point, during that period. 

18 

19 To get -- it's one thing that I've 

20 noticed that, well one can't expect the 

21 workers to understand easily, but the concept 

22 of dose gets lost sometimes in these 
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1 conversations. The difference between the 

2 accepted airborne levels of uranium and 

3 progeny in the 47 to 53 period and that 

4 measured in 1976 is a factor of 15,000. Okay. 

5 Less in 1976. It's not like it's close. 

6 So I just want people to keep that 

7 in mind. The levels we're talking about 

8 during the production period are extremely 

9 high. 

10 DR. MAURO: But our real interest 

11 is this 2.3 MAC. In fact, what is being said 

12 is, your plan is to assign this between 54, 

13 right now just to stay within the time period 

14 that we're concerned with for this SEC, 54 in 

15 to 70s or later, up -- from 54 to 76, you're 

16 effectively going to assign 2.3 MAC to all 

17 workers. It doesn't really matter whether 

18 there are tunnels or not. It's irrelevant. 

19 All workers are going to get that assignment. 

20 The only little question is, are 

21 we sure that number is bounding to people who 

22 may have spent some time in tunnels. And if 
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1 we could say that with a degree of confidence, 

2 we're done.

3 MEMBER LOCKEY: Up to 76, John. 

4 Right?

5 DR. MAURO: Yes. I think it's, 

6 yes -- up to 76, different questions come in 

7 because then they are doing something else. 

8 But, and we haven't really talked about that. 

9 But between 54 and 76, I guess, 

10 the case has to be made that 10 picocuries per 

11 liter radon and 2.3 MAC sure as heck bounds 

12 any possibility as to what exposures people 

13 may have gotten in the tunnels. And if we 

14 can, that can be said with a degree of 

15 confidence by all the different lines of 

16 inquiry, interviews, looking at the ground 

17 water, looking at the injection wells, or 

18 whatever, and looking at the runoff, et 

19 cetera.

20 And if the weight of evidence 

21 builds along the lines that shows that yes, we 

22 can feel confident that 2.3 MAC and 10 are 
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1 more than bounding for the tunnels from 54 to 

2 76, we're done. 

3 Then of course, we really haven't 

4 talked about this. What about 76 and on? We, 

5 you know that, we haven't had that discussion 

6 yet.

7 MEMBER LOCKEY: Chris, Jim Lockey 

8 here. 

9 Are the tunnels still there? Do 

10 you know?

11 MR. CRAWFORD: As far as I know, 

12 they are. And I'd also like to mention that 

13 we have some tunnel measurements in the 76 to 

14 81 period. I forget which FUSRAP visit they 

15 did tunnel measurements. They're not large 

16 numbers: maybe 15. And then a very thorough 

17 survey in 2002. So we do have some beginning 

18 and endpoint measurement for that period.

19 DR. MAURO: I would -- this is 

20 John Mauro. I would argue that since you do 

21 have lots of measurement for surface 

22 contamination starting in the 70s, the only, 
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1 and so therefore you have a handle on 

2 external, of course, exposure and airborne 

3 particulates. The only place where we may 

4 have some dispute with you on what you're 

5 going to assign for post-70 exposures would be 

6 that you've used this 10 to the minus 6 

7 resuspension factor. But that's a site 

8 profile issue. 

9 I mean, the way I see it is, 

10 that's a tractable problem. We can debate it, 

11 you know, and eventually settle on a strategy 

12 that is claimant favorable. 

13 The issue that remains as an SEC 

14 issue is putting to bed the pre-70s levels 

15 that we are going to assume the workers are 

16 experiencing. And you know, and I agree with 

17 you. Certainly, you know, intuitively, we 

18 won't argue that 2.3 MAC certainly should not 

19 -- but you know, you'd be a lot more 

20 comfortable if you could, you know, show that 

21 it is highly unlikely that the levels in the 

22 tunnels were substantially higher in the 50s 
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1 and 60s than they were in the 70s when they 

2 were measured for various, you know, lines of 

3 argument that could be made. But you'll hear 

4 more about that. 

5 I know we're putting a lot of 

6 attention on this. At one time, it was a 

7 nonissue or a secondary issue and now this is 

8 becoming the primary issue. Because I do 

9 believe we've resolved the above-grade 

10 problem. I think you've come up with a 

11 solution that is certainly claimant favorable 

12 and now we're chipping away at the tunnel 

13 issue. 

14 But I think that, you know, the 

15 big issue is not so much from an SEC point of 

16 view, in my mind, 76 and forward, is more of a 

17 site profile issue and how you're going to 

18 come at that problem because you've got data. 

19 So I don't know if that helps any.

20 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes. That does 

21 help, John.

22 CHAIR ROESSLER: John, this is 
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1 Gen. 

2 It seems like the approach on this 

3 then is to be able to convince SC&A that the 

4 number that's being used, the bounding number 

5 that's being used for the plant conditions 

6 then is actually appropriate for the tunnels. 

7 And I think what we need to have SC&A do, and 

8 hopefully you and Steve can put this list 

9 together based on the things that have come up 

10 today, a list of things that OCAS needs to 

11 answer to reassure you that numbers, those 

12 numbers are appropriate.

13 DR. MAURO: I would call in more 

14 lines of inquiry. In other words, the thing 

15 that we need to be assured of is that there's 

16 no reason to believe that the concentrations 

17 residual in the tunnels in the 50s and 60s 

18 was, it would have to be orders of magnitude 

19 higher than what was observed in the 70s in 

20 order for it to be a problem. 

21 I can't say off the top of my head 

22 how many orders of magnitude, but it has got 
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1 to be -- it would be a big difference. But 

2 it's, you know, it could have been. 

3 And there are lines of inquiry 

4 that can help us. 

5 We're never going to narrow it: 

6 the number. We're never going to know it 

7 exactly. But we can start to make a weight8 of-evidence argument based on all the kinds of 

9 things we've talked about earlier that can 

10 lean you either one direction or the other. 

11 Say, hmm, it appears that, you know, there 

12 really was no vehicle by which these tunnels 

13 could have been contaminated and create the 

14 situation where there were very high levels in 

15 the tunnels in the 50s and 60s. Or maybe we 

16 will find there are depending on what we learn 

17 about the injection wells, for example.

18 DR. NETON: Yes. John, I'm just 

19 sitting here thinking where you're through on 

20 the 2 MAC error. It seems like we can almost 

21 reverse-engineer the -- that's a bad term. We 

22 can almost back-calculate using 2 MAC error 
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1 what the surface contamination levels would 

2 have been in the tunnels --

3 DR. MAURO: Yes.

4 DR. NETON: -- using some very 

5 conservative or claimant favorable 

6 resuspension factor to compare the level that 

7 would have been there. And I suspect just off 

8 the top of my head that those values are going 

9 to be orders of magnitude higher than what was 

10 measured.

11 DR. MAURO: I like it. In fact, 

12 that's a very good line. That you just said, 

13 okay. Under what circumstances could you have 

14 a, create a situation in the tunnels where 

15 people could have gotten more than 2.3 MAC? 

16 DR. NETON: Right.

17 DR. MAURO: And what levels of 

18 residual activity and sedimentary material on 

19 the bottom of the tunnels could create that? 

20 And --

21 DR. NETON: Yes.

22 DR. MAURO: -- and then you have 
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1 to ask yourself, well, all right, what -- is 

2 there any way you can imagine that that could 

3 have happened? And if you find a way for that 

4 to happen, it's over.

5 DR. NETON: And there's a limit --

6 you need to look at, look at the tunnel pumps 

7 and all this kind of stuff. But it gives you 

8 -- sort of grounds you in a value.

9 DR. MAURO: Right.

10 DR. NETON: It says, look, it 

11 could it have been it could've been this 

12 high, given now what we've researched about 

13 the tunnels under those conditions? So --

14 DR. MAURO: Yes. And if that 

15 doesn't approach this back-engineered number -

16 - 

17 DR. NETON: Right.

18 DR. MAURO: -- I think that 

19 that's one way to come at the problem. 

20 DR. NETON: Yes.

21 DR. MAURO: I realize that we're 

22 never going to know exactly what the right 
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1 answer is. But if we can say, listen, we're 

2 comfortable that, you know, it probably was 

3 never higher than this for a variety of 

4 reasons. And the 2.3 MAC will cover that.

5 DR. NETON: Right.

6 CHAIR ROESSLER: For the court 

7 reporter's information, the recent 

8 conversation was, I think, between Jim Neton 

9 and John Mauro.

10 DR. NETON: Yes. Thanks, Gen. 

11 I'm sorry. I keep forgetting that.

12 MS. BONSIGNORE: This is 

13 Antoinette. 

14 I'd just like to make a comment 

15 that the workers wanted me to express at this 

16 meeting, the one's that I've been speaking 

17 with. 

18 They lost a lot of confidence in 

19 this evaluation process for this reason. 

20 Their feeling -- and quite frankly my feeling 

21 -- is that a lot of this evaluation, 

22 discussion, and going back and forth starts 
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1 from the perspective of, how do we figure out 

2 how to deny this SEC petition? How do we, of 

3 course, we can bound this. We just have to 

4 figure it out. We just have to manipulate the 

5 numbers. We have to make assumptions after 

6 assumptions after assumptions. That's their 

7 feeling from all of this. That's my feeling 

8 from all of this. 

9 And I realize I'm not, you know, I 

10 mean, clearly I'm not a scientist. I'm not a 

11 health physicist. Neither are these workers. 

12 But their feeling is that this is the way the 

13 approach is taken on these SEC evaluations. 

14 And it's disturbing to them 

15 because they don't understand why they're 

16 being, that their concerns that they've raised 

17 in worker interviews are not being taken 

18 seriously and why their statements are being 

19 used as a way to deny this. How can we figure 

20 out how to deny this petition? That's how, 

21 that's how they feel. Quite frankly, that's 

22 how I feel. And I just want to 
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1 make that statement because all of this back 

2 and forth about MACs and picocuries and all 

3 this other technical jargon that's going back 

4 and forth is somewhat difficult for me to 

5 follow and it's difficult for them to follow, 

6 and I think that should be a concern of this 

7 Working Group.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: Thank you, 

9 Antoinette. I understand what you're saying 

10 and, of course, this is a difficult situation 

11 to deal with. 

12 This is why the program has SC&A 

13 as the critiquer of the work that OCAS is 

14 doing. Critiquer, interpreter. 

15 And I think we can achieve part of 

16 getting partway on this with what we've 

17 planned to do upcoming and that's to have 

18 further worker interviews by SC&A. 

19 MS. BONSIGNORE: Well, I just, I 

20 just hope that the people doing the 

21 interviewing will comment this objectively and 

22 not, and not in the mind set of, how can we 
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1 use the information from the workers to deny 

2 this petition. Because that's their feeling 

3 when they're, when they are interviewed. 

4 That's the feeling they have. 

5 And that, you know, that should be 

6 a concern to them. This is, this is a 

7 remedial compensation program. This is a 

8 reparations program. Something -- there was a 

9 great injustice done to these people. They 

10 were systematically lied to. And their 

11 feeling is that, they are being victimized all 

12 over again.

13 DR. MAURO: Antoinette, this is 

14 John Mauro. 

15 I envision questions that go 

16 toward, did they experience any operations or 

17 make any observations where they could have 

18 seen ways in which residual radioactivity 

19 could have found its way in to the tunnels? 

20 In other words, I'm sort of 

21 arguing from your perspective. I'm looking at 

22 it from the point of view that is, can there 
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1 have been any circumstances where there could 

2 have been some surprises in those tunnels? 

3 So in effect, I'm looking to see, 

4 I want to be convinced there were no 

5 circumstances. And until I'm convinced of 

6 that, you know -- and that's why we're holding 

7 a hard line on this. I don't know if you've 

8 noticed. I mean, there are some measurements 

9 that were made in the 70s. In effect, SC&A 

10 says, that's not good enough. We want to hear 

11 a little more. 

12 And everything that we've been 

13 talking about is finding ways that maybe there 

14 was some surprises. Maybe there's some 

15 radioactivity that found its way into those 

16 tunnels in the early years that was 

17 substantially higher. And in effect, we're 

18 looking for that. 

19 And we're going to pose our, we 

20 will offer up our -- when we build our 

21 interview questions. Certainly, I mean, I 

22 don't know if this appropriate but I have no 
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1 problem, you know, getting the help of 

2 Antoinette and crafting the questions in a way 

3 that will probe this very important question 

4 that we're trying to get to.

5 MS. BONSIGNORE: I would be more 

6 than happy to help you devise questions. 

7 Just to, further on your point 

8 there, John, it's not only this discussion, 

9 but it's been the discussion of all aspects of 

10 this petition evaluation process that they're 

11 very concerned with. 

12 And that's, you know, they ask me 

13 time and again, why are they, why are they 

14 working -- why is their job to deny this 

15 petition? I thought their job was to evaluate 

16 this fairly. Not figure out; how do we deny 

17 this petition? They're feeling is that where 

18 you start from, that you get a petition, and 

19 the beginning, at the very outset of the 

20 evaluation, the job is how do we deny this 

21 petition? That's their feeling. That's my 

22 feeling.
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1 MS. LUX: This is Linda Lux. 

2 I don't know. Can you hear me?

3 DR. MAURO: Yes, I can.

4 CHAIR ROESSLER: I can hear.

5 MS. LUX: I just wanted to say 

6 that I completely agree with what Antoinette 

7 just said. I, and my mother, both feel the 

8 exact same way. And that is why in the letter 

9 that I did read that when there was those 

10 eight individuals in Building number 100 that 

11 had all, were diagnosed with cancer right 

12 around the same time period, would a dose 

13 reconstruction account for an unexpected 

14 situation like that? 

15 I mean, where you're so focused on 

16 one building but there are so many other 

17 things that are not accounted for that nobody 

18 would have ever known until it shows up that 

19 someone has cancer. 

20 How do you account for that?

21 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay. Well, I 

22 think again to move forward on this, Ted, do 
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1 you have any recommendations as to how we 

2 should proceed? Can we make these assignments 

3 to SC&A?

4 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 

5 I'm just coming off of mute. 

6 Of course, we can make assignments 

7 to SC&A. And it sounds like there's some 

8 follow-up that DCAS also needs to do. And 

9 then, and we just need to make certain that 

10 all those are prescribed clearly. 

11 And then John and DCAS will, 

12 following this meeting, distribute memos 

13 saying, these are the action items we 

14 understand. This is why we are going forward, 

15 so that the Work Group will have a very clear 

16 understanding of exactly what work is getting 

17 done by either party, both parties. And so we 

18 can figure out when to meet again as well. 

19 Probably should need a rough time frame to go 

20 with action items. 

21 So if there needs to be more 

22 discussion now to clarify what each party is 
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1 going to do, that would be good. And then, 

2 and then we'd have these action items. 

3 As far as the Board meeting is 

4 concerned, what I heard is that we are going 

5 to take Linde off of the agenda entirely based 

6 on this more work to do. So then it would not 

7 -- there would be no discussion of Linde, you 

8 know, other than the Work Group reports where 

9 you can update folks on where things stand. 

10 But it wouldn't be a separate agenda item as 

11 it is presently in draft for the Board 

12 meeting.

13 CHAIR ROESSLER: That's my 

14 understanding as explained. We would just, as 

15 a Work Group, do an update.

16 MR. KATZ: Right. And --

17 MS. BONSIGNORE: Ted, just a 

18 thought in terms of the May Board meeting. 

19 That would probably be a good opportunity for 

20 SC&A to do interviews if that's possible to 

21 arrange.

22 MR. KATZ: All right.
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1 MS. BONSIGNORE: Because all the 

2 folks are going to be there. They'll be at 

3 this Board meeting. I'll be there.

4 MR. KATZ: That's a great idea, 

5 Antoinette, actually. That saves SC&A money 

6 and trouble. And the Board saves the Board's 

7 money because that's how SC&A gets paid. And 

8 so, that's a great idea.

9 MS. BONSIGNORE: And one last 

10 thing I wanted to raise is, LaVon had 

11 mentioned, I believe during the March 31st 

12 Board meeting, I think it was on worker 

13 outreach, but I'm not sure, about increasing 

14 transparency about data-capture efforts in 

15 these kinds of evaluations, listing of the 

16 data-capture efforts when they occurred. 

17 What, you know, what the effort was. The date 

18 of the effort. What was produced. 

19 Is that something that that we can 

20 expect for this evaluation? Because it would 

21 be helpful to me to know what the data-capture 

22 efforts have been to date, when they occurred, 
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1 and in particular what data-capture efforts 

2 have been done in response to worker's 

3 statements and worker's affidavits.

4 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

5 Rutherford. 

6 Antoinette, are you concerning 107 

7 or are you talking about 154 SEC?

8 MS. BONSIGNORE: Both.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Both. Okay. 

10 One oh seven, we could go back and 

11 do some, you know, and pull some stuff 

12 together to give you a feel for the level of 

13 effort that went in to recovering documents in 

14 support of 107. And 154 as well.

15 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. Thank you.

16 DR. MAURO: Ted, this is John 

17 Mauro. Just a quick question for you. 

18 We will certainly prepare what I 

19 consider to be a series of action items, as we 

20 understand them, based on this conversation. 

21 Taking notes as we went along. And as usual, 

22 I will send out an email saying, this is our 
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1 understanding of the actions. 

2 Now, I know one of the actions are 

3 going to be lines of inquiry. And you know,

4 we're going to provide to the Work Group 

5 things that I think are worth pursuing. And 

6 of course, one of them will be setting up 

7 questions and SC&A performing interviews 

8 perhaps at the time of the meeting. 

9 But a question I have is, one of 

10 the lines of inquiry, clearly, a 

11 hydrogeological injector well question. We 

12 can lay out kinds of things, kinds of 

13 investigations and drawings and information 

14 that is going to be important for that part of 

15 the problem. Now, question to you is, we will 

16 do all that, but is it the Board's desire that 

17 SC&A then do it? That is, do the -- we have 

18 the hydrologist. We have the people that are 

19 very familiar with injection wells and 

20 hydrogeology, or is that something that once 

21 we've identified the problem and what needs to 

22 be done, we stopped and leave it in the hand 
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1 of NIOSH?

2 MR. KATZ: Well, let me ask, John, 

3 for DCAS. 

4 Is this, is this something that 

5 you are confident and prepared to go forward 

6 on? Or is something that we need to ask, task 

7 SC&A with following up on?

8 MS. HARRISON-MAPLES: This is 

9 Monica. Can I jump in on this a little bit?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, of course.

11 MS. HARRISON-MAPLES: I just 

12 wanted to -- I didn't know if Chris was aware 

13 that there are quite a few records having to 

14 do with the injection well. I didn't speak up 

15 earlier because I don't have those at hand. 

16 And I didn't want to mis-speak anything that 

17 was in those reports. 

18 But I think before we answer that 

19 question, we ought to at least review those to 

20 see what information is already out there 

21 because there were quite a few studies done 

22 before they placed the injection wells. There 
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1 were hydrology studies and studies having to 

2 do with the water table and that kind of stuff 

3 and we need to look at those.

4 MR. KATZ: Well I guess then, and 

5 it makes sense. I mean, you understand the 

6 basic framing of the problem with respect to 

7 hydrology and the tunnels. And if DCAS then 

8 will go ahead and see what information they 

9 have, lay that out. Then if there needs to be 

10 more work to come, you know, you can raise 

11 that to Gen and to myself. And if we need to 

12 bring in SC&A to do work where there's hidden 

13 data or there is an analysis, and you can do 

14 that, we'll take care of that at that point.

15 DR. NETON: Yes. Ted, this is 

16 Jim. 

17 I totally agree with that

18 approach. I think, you know, we brought forth 

19 that we need to evaluate the exposures in the 

20 tunnel to see if they can be bounded by the 

21 2.1 MAC conditions that we're proposing for 

22 the plant.
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1 But in conjunction with that, I do 

2 think we need to explore the configuration of 

3 the tunnels, or the relation to the injection 

4 wells, and the surveys and such that Monica 

5 made, you know, had just brought up. 

6 I think, I think the burden falls 

7 on us at this point to take that forward. I 

8 don't know that jumping into the hydrogeology 

9 issues and stuff at this point might be a 

10 little premature.

11 DR. MAURO: This is John. 

12 And that was, and you answered my 

13 question. So we will just lay out things 

14 that, lines of inquiry that we think will be 

15 helpful. And other than interviews, take no 

16 other action.

17 CHAIR ROESSLER: Okay. So then it 

18 seems like the next thing -- this is Gen -- we 

19 need to talk about is the time line. Since 

20 the interviews cannot be conducted, or it's 

21 appropriate that they be conducted at the 

22 Board meeting in late May, I'm wondering if 
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1 Jim, you and Chris, would have your 

2 information pulled together by then or shortly 

3 thereafter so we can schedule another Work 

4 Group meeting?

5 DR. NETON: You mean at the Board 

6 meeting itself, Gen? Or --

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: No, I wasn't 

8 thinking about the Board meeting. 

9 But it will take some time, I 

10 think, after SC&A does the interviews to 

11 compile them and put a report together. So 

12 I'm thinking sometime after the Board meeting.

13 DR. NETON: Yes. I think after 

14 the Board meeting, June time frame maybe. End 

15 of June maybe. How does that bounce up 

16 against the next Board meeting, though? We 

17 have one in August. Is that correct?

18 MR. KATZ: That's right. We have 

19 one in August. This is Ted. One in August. 

20 I guess what I would suggest is, 

21 if the folks of NIOSH are going to go look at 

22 what information they have in hand, which may 
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1 then let them know how much work they have 

2 left to do, depending on what they do have in 

3 hand with respect to the injection wells, et 

4 cetera. So why don't, when we get the action 

5 items from them, they can give us a clue then 

6 as to whether June makes sense, or July, 

7 depending on how much work they have left to 

8 do. 

9 And again, you know, we'll plan --

10 as I suggested that if SC&A can pull it off, 

11 if not necessarily, you know, tractable -- but 

12 if it they can pull it off and do the 

13 interviews during the May Board meeting, then 

14 that would be great. 

15 MS. BONSIGNORE: And I can, this 

16 is, I'm sorry, this is Antoinette. I can put 

17 together a list of names for SC&A.

18 DR. MAURO: Great. That was --

19 this is John Mauro. I was going to say that 

20 would be very helpful. 

21 Because while we are working on 

22 the questions and the lines of inquiry that we 
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1 would like to pose, if we have the right 

2 people to talk to, and of course, the hardest 

3 part is scheduling, you know, when those folks 

4 might be available. We will be available when 

5 they are available. If they are available at 

6 the time of the meeting, great.

7 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes. We have 

8 been planning on presenting to the Board in 

9 May. So they've all cleared their schedules 

10 for this Board meeting. So they'll be there. 

11 And also there was that one other 

12 gentleman who worked at the site in, during 

13 the early 40s from, I believe, from 42 to 

14 maybe 49 -- some of his documents are actually 

15 cited in some of the site profile. He lives 

16 in Ohio. I can give you his name. I could 

17 call him first and let him know, and make 

18 sure it's okay. But I think it would be 

19 useful to speak with him as well because he 

20 may be able to shed some light on the issue of 

21 flooding and overflow from the injection 

22 wells.
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1 MR. KATZ: Right. Thank you, 

2 Antoinette. And this is Ted again. 

3 And if NIOSH has some names to 

4 give you, John, that would make sense as well 

5 for the interviews. We can set a time for the 

6 next meeting when we hear back from NIOSH and 

7 SC&A with their action items.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: Sounds like a 

9 good approach. 

10 So do we all, have we pretty much 

11 reached the end of our discussion today? In 

12 fact, I'm wondering whether we have completed 

13 the technical discussion and whether we've 

14 also incorporated everything that Antoinette 

15 had wanted to say? We said we're going to let 

16 you talk at the end, Antoinette. But I think 

17 you've probably covered everything.

18 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes. I think 

19 I've talked enough. 

20 I just have one question for Ted. 

21 You mentioned there's a Board meeting in 

22 August. Where is that?
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1 MR. KATZ: It's in Idaho. Yes. 

2 It's in Idaho.

3 MS. BONSIGNORE: Idaho. Okay. 

4 Where in Idaho?

5 MR. KATZ: In Idaho Falls.

6 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. 

7 CHAIR ROESSLER: That meeting I 

8 think is the 10th through the 12th.

9 MR. KATZ: That sounds right, Gen.

10 CHAIR ROESSLER: Of August, in 

11 Idaho Falls.

12 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. Thank you.

13 MR. KATZ: That sounds right. 

14 So, but John, just to be, have we 

15 covered all the technical matters?

16 MR. OSTROW: This is Steve. 

17 There's one other matter we should 

18 mention that hasn't been resolved today. We 

19 had brought up the -- this is based on, we had 

20 went through the worker statements very 

21 carefully. And we identified one of the 

22 issues as the thoriated tungsten welding 
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1 electrodes. 

2 Apparently, the workers at Linde 

3 occasionally used welding electrodes that 

4 contained a couple of percent thorium in them. 

5 Which is apparently common welding practice. 

6 We did some research in this and there's a 

7 potential to get an exposure from the 

8 electrodes, internal inhalation. 

9 Since, in order to use them they 

10 have to be ground to a point. And when you 

11 are doing a welding every now and then you 

12 have to re-grind the electrode. 

13 And we have spoken to NIOSH. And 

14 we understand that NIOSH is addressing this 

15 issue but on a complex-wide basis not just a 

16 Linde basis. 

17 And I just wanted to ask the 

18 question to you, Jim, to what the status is of 

19 that White Paper or methodology you're 

20 devising?

21 DR. NETON: Yes. Steve, this is 

22 Jim. 
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1 We are currently incorporating 

2 that into a TIB. And it's draft form. I was 

3 hoping, I'm hoping that we can have that TIB 

4 completed by the Board meeting next. So the 

5 Board meeting in Niagara Falls. 

6 But, you know, in sitting here 

7 sticking through the issue with thorium 

8 welding rods, we certainly acknowledge that 

9 there are covered exposures during AEC-covered 

10 time periods while AEC operations are ongoing. 

11 But if these, I have to follow up on this. 

12 But I suspect if these were used during the 

13 residual period, they would not be considered 

14 covered exposure. Because only, you know, 

15 only during AEC operations would you cover 

16 that. I need to follow up on that. 

17 But I don't know if it would be 

18 covered exposure during the residual 

19 contamination period. Because there's no AEC 

20 contract in place. The welding rods were, you 

21 know, not being used for any purposes related 

22 to AEC operations, at least to my knowledge at 
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1 this point. 

2 So we need to follow up on that.

3 MEMBER BEACH: And, Jim, this is 

4 Josie. 

5 I was reviewing SC&A's commitments 

6 and there was one issue under number 1 that 

7 said, SC&A still had some disagreements about 

8 NIOSH's approach to dust loading during 1954 

9 to 1962 and post-1970. Did we address that 

10 fully?

11 CHAIR ROESSLER: I'm not sure that 

12 we did. 

13 Steve, if you're there, can you 

14 answer that?

15 MR. OSTROW: I got a little bit 

16 interrupted here. What was the issue again?

17 CHAIR ROESSLER: This is in the 

18 material you sent out that I sent to the Work 

19 Group members this morning. It was your 

20 listing of SC&A commitments. And under number 

21 1, this is in the red type, the last line, you 

22 said, but still have some disagreement about 
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1 NIOSH's approach to dust loading during the 

2 1954 to 62 and post-1970 period.

3 MR. OSTROW: Okay. This is Steve. 

4 I see it now. Yes. 

5 We discussed that all. We 

6 discussed the dust loading. That was the 

7 first thing we discussed today. And it 

8 covered the entire period up to the present. 

9 MEMBER BEACH: So I guess my 

10 question was, if you were comfortable with 

11 that and we're finished with that?

12 MR. OSTROW: Yes, we are.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Thank you.

14 DR. NETON: Thanks for bringing 

15 that up, Josie. 

16 I, of course, missed the first 

17 part of the meeting and I'm glad to hear that 

18 those issues are resolved.

19 CHAIR ROESSLER: So I would ask 

20 any other Work Group members; Jim, or Mike, or 

21 Josie, do you have any further items or 

22 questions that we should address?
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1 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. No, 

2 I'm good.

3 MEMBER GIBSON: This is Mike. Not 

4 at this point.

5 MEMBER BEACH: Gen, this is Josie. 

6 I'm good. I just would like to review the 

7 questions that are going to be asked.

8 CHAIR ROESSLER: I think that's 

9 part of the plan.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

11 CHAIR ROESSLER: I mean, that is 

12 the plan that we'll get a chance to look at 

13 those. 

14 So I think, Ted, I think we're 

15 finished.

16 MR. KATZ: I think you're right. 

17 I think you are right. 

18 So thank you, everybody, for all 

19 the hard work today and that went into today.

20 And thank you very much to 

21 Antoinette and to Linda for participating. 

22 MS. LUX: Thank you. 
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1 MR. KATZ: We're -- I believe, 

2 we're adjourned then. 

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

4 matter went off the record at 1:00 p.m.)

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