NEAL R. GROSS

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US Department of Health and Human Services

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

Los Alamos National Laboratory Work Group

Wednesday, March 23, 2022 

The Work Group convened via video-teleconference 

at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Josie Beach, Chair, 

presiding.
2 

Members Present: 

Josie Beach, Chair

Henry Anderson, Member

Bradley Clawson, Member

Jim Lockey, Member

Gen Roessler, Member

Also Present: 

Rashaun Roberts, Designated Federal Official

Nancy Adams, NIOSH Contractor

Terrie Barrie

Bob Barton, SC&A

Finn Black, SC&A

Elizabeth Brackett, ORAU Team

Grady Calhoun, DCAS

Nancy Chalmers, ORAU Team

Andrew Evaskovich, Petitioner

Joe Fitzgerald, SC&A

Rose Gogliotti, SC&A

Tom LaBone, ORAU Team

Mike Mahathy, ORAU Team

Rich Merrill, ORAU Team

Chuck Nelson, ORAU Team

Michael Rafky, HHS OGC

LaVon Rutherford, DCAS

Tim Taulbee, NIOSH
3 

Contents

US Department of Health and Human Services 

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health Los Alamos National 

Laboratory Work Group Wednesday, March 23, 2022

1

0

1

1

5

6

Welcome and Roll Call 4

NIOSH Presentation: ORAUT-RPRT-0102, 

Assessment of Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Plutonium Bioassay Programs 1996 to 2001 5

NIOSH Presentation: ORAUT-RPRT-0101, 

Bounding Intakes of Exotic Radionuclides at 

Los Alamos National Laboratory 40

Work Group Discussion 61

Petitioner Comments 71

Work Group Discussion & Path Forward 75

Adjourn 76
4

Proceedings

(11:00 a.m.)

Welcome and Roll Call

Dr. Roberts: I'm going to go ahead and say good 

morning to everybody and welcome everyone to the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. This, 

of course, is a meeting of the LANL Work Group. I'm

Rashaun Roberts. I'm the DFO for the Board. There 

is an agenda and there are other meeting materials 

for today. You can find everything on the NIOSH 

website, under 2022 Meetings, for March. 

Since Board meetings who have conflicts with regard 

to this site can't be in the Work Group, I will say for 

all of the Work Group Members that they don't have 

a conflict of interest. As I go through roll call, other 

staff, please do state any relevant conflicts that you 

may have as I move through the roll call. So let's go 

ahead and start with the Chair, Josie. 

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: Thank you, and welcome to all of you 

again. Just a couple of items before I give the floor 

to Josie, who's the Chair of this Work Group. So, in 

order to keep things running smoothly, and so that 

everyone speaking can be understood, everyone 

please make sure that your mute button on Zoom, if 

you're on Zoom is muted, and also if you're on the 

phone, you need to make sure that you're muted as 

well when you're not speaking.

So the mute button for Zoom is in the lower left-hand 

side of your screen. And if you're attending via 

telephone, you will need to press *6 to mute. And if 

you don't have a mute button, if you need to take 

yourself off mute, press *6 again. Again, all of the 

materials for today can be found on the NIOSH/DCAS 

website, and all materials were sent to Board 

Members and to the staff prior to the meeting.

So, with that, I will go ahead and turn the meeting 
5

over to you, Josie.

Member Anderson: Rashaun?

Dr. Roberts: Yes.

Member Anderson: I just wanted to -- I'm Henry 

Anderson, and I'm the Chair of the Board, one of the 

current Board Members that are on these 

committees. I'm trying to sit in on some of the 

Committee meetings periodically just to get up to 

speed on what everybody is doing, as the new Chair 

now. So I'll be on and off. I'm just listening in. 

Thanks.

Dr. Roberts: Great. And just for everyone's 

information, any Board Member, including, obviously, 

the Board Chair, is welcome to sit in on any of the 

Work Group meetings. So thank you, Andy, for that. 

And so, Josie, now I can turn it over to you.

NIOSH Presentation: ORAUT-RPRT-0102, 

Assessment of Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Plutonium Bioassay Programs 1996 to 2001

Chair Beach: Okay. Well, thank you so much. And 

Henry, nice to have you on today. You all remember 

our last Work Group meeting was in July of 2019. I'm 

going to make a few comments before I turn it over 

to NIOSH. First of all, I would like to say I'm confused 

about what is in RPRT-0102. It's not the analysis that 

the -- that was promised back in 2019 by NIOSH.

That was to be a review of the completeness of jobspecific bioassays based on available RWPs, not 

whether a coworker model can be based on routine, 

mandatory plutonium bioassays. 

Back in 2019, LaVon told us that all the RWPs had 

been identified, and the LANL RWP database was fully 

available to NIOSH. You can see that in the 

transcripts on page 13 of that last meeting, and that 

we would see a proposed RWP sampling plan before 

a review was conducted.
6

Now if you look back, there's been five updates to the 

Work Group and the Board, and there's been no 

mention to the Work Group that NIOSH decided a 

sampling plan would not be necessary. This is a 

sampling plan, as you remember, was agreed upon 

during that last meeting. 

From reading the introduction to RPRT-0102, it looks 

like NIOSH decided that the Work Group's questions 

about potential gaps in the RWP bioassays was not 

relevant enough, and decided to answer a different 

question, one that we did not ask.

So five years after first raising the issue of NCID-484 

and the question of incomplete job-specific 

bioassays, I feel like we are no further along, and it's 

-- that's a question. I don't know how any other 

Board Members feel about the review of 0102. 

Member Clawson: I do. I think it's an absolute joke, 

and this really upsets me that we have put all this 

time into this. These Petitioners have been waiting 

five years and you return garbage like this to us? You 

talk about conflict of interest. Here we are 

questioning the report that Liz Brackett and Tom 

LaBone went into LANL and performed, and they 

have no conflict? I beg to differ, who's even wrote 

0102.

This, to me this is totally against everything. We've 

been waiting five years for this. There has been no 

communication about this. There's been nothing 

about changes or anything else. 

The other thing is, is to me this is a deliberate delay 

of time. We have talked about this so many times. 

This isn't a science project. We asked for this data 

completeness. I'm having deja vu right now, because 

I'm going through the same thing I did in Savannah 

River, and guess what? A lot of the players in this are 

the same people. 

Myself personally, I don't think that we should even 

look at 0102. This is not what we wanted, this is not 
7

what we asked for, and I think that we ought to be 

pushing towards an SEC for this, because if NIOSH is 

non-responsive to be able to give us what we need, 

then there's no other choice. 

We go with the SEC. I think that this is deliberate to 

be able to keep it out of the hands of the Petitioners, 

because when they keep this into the Board and in 

the Work Groups, the Petitioners have no grounds to 

question anything or do anything. This to me was 

literally a slap in the face to the Board and the 

Petitioners.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. With that, let me just check in. 

Let's see if Gen or Jim, did you have anything that 

you wanted to add, if you've had an opportunity to 

review the report or to weigh in.

Member Roessler: I'll comment. What Josie and Brad 

are saying is a real surprise to me. I wasn't thinking 

of it from that point of view and I kind of don't know 

how to respond to it, especially Brad's comments. 

I really don't know how to respond. I did look at as a 

science approach. I thought that in view of I guess 

the previous reviews, that NIOSH decided to take a 

different approach and that's what they're presenting 

today.

So to preview it with these comments I'm, I'm just 

kind of confused. I guess I would like to hear from 

NIOSH, to see if -- and then I know that's going to 

take a long time, but to see if your concern is 

justified. I'm just trying to, not knowing how this 

should be handled.

Chair Beach: Let me expand just a bit, and then Jim, 

we'll let you talk. Gen, we as a Work Group gave 

NIOSH an assignment basically to create a sampling 

plan and to bring that sampling plan back to the Work 

Group, and the Work Group would decide the path 

forward. NIOSH decided to throw out the sampling 

plan with no review by the Work Group, and changed 

the question that we asked them initially.
8

Mr. Rutherford: I would like to say something on this 

real quickly.

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: Because I will -- I am almost positive 

that I sent you an email that indicated that we 

decided not to do a sampling plan because we 

recovered all the RWPs that we could and there was 

no need to do a sampling plan because we were going 

to do all of the -- we were going to use all of the 

RWPs that met the design criteria.

I will go back and look and see if I sent that or if I 

didn't send that. But I'm almost positive that I sent 

it.

Chair Beach: I spent quite a while reviewing all the, 

all the emails that went back and forth between us.

Mr. Rutherford: There is no need for a sampling plan 

if we use all of the RWPs. That was the point.

Member Clawson: Job-specific, job-specific RWPs. 

You're telling us you have all of those.

Mr. Rutherford: We recovered all of the available 

RWPs from LANL covering the study period, yes. All 

that they had, all that was available. I'm not saying, 

and I see you smiling Brad, but I'm not guaranteeing 

you there that there was every RWP. But we captured 

every available RWP that they had or was available 

to get.

Chair Beach: Well that was the purpose of the 

sampling plan, LaVon. We don't know if there's 40, 

60 percent of those RWPs that are missing in the --

Mr. Rutherford: Josie, which is going to be better? If 

they meet the design criteria, if they meet the design 

criteria and I take every one of them that meets the 

design criteria, that's going to be better than a 

sample. 

Chair Beach: LaVon --
9

Mr. Rutherford: The reason why -- the reason why 

you do a sample is because of the fact that there's 

such a large volume in number, it's going to take too 

long to even go through it. 

Chair Beach: LaVon, there was absolutely no 

notification of this to the Work Group. The Work 

Group should have had a say in the change of plan. 

Mr. Rutherford: I agree. If I didn't send that, I agree 

with you, that the Work Group should have been 

made aware of that. But I thought for sure I sent you 

that email. I will go back and look at that, and if I 

didn't, I didn't. But again, taken all of them into 

account is going to be better than taking a sample.

Dr. Roberts: Excuse me. Could we have Jim weigh 

in?

Chair Beach: Yes.

Member Lockey: Hi. Just to give you a heads up, I'm 

actually in Tampa, Florida. I'm in the Trauma Unit 

down here with one of my family members, so I'm 

going to have to -- I may have to go in and out of 

this meeting just because of what's going on outside. 

But anyway, when I read the document 0102 today, 

that was -- it was an interesting read, because I 

wasn't -- that's not what I was expecting. But when 

I went through it and I went through it in detail last 

week, it actually it's a very good thought out, madeout well sampling plan that, at least from a scientific 

perspective, from my perspective, if all the criterion 

sampling plan were worked out --

Dr. Roberts: Nancy, could you please mute your 

Zoom?

Member Lockey: If the sampling plan holds up, which 

I think it probably will, it's an excellent way to do a 

co-exposure model for dose reconstruction. The data 

is very rigorous, it's -- the plan is well laid-out and I 

guess from a scientific perspective it's a very 

scientific, valid approach. So I'd be interested to see 
10

what NIOSH -- I would be interested in seeing the 

presentation.

They're good scientists, they know what they're 

doing, they know how to put a sampling plan 

together and they know to do a co-exposure model. 

The question is, is the data adequate to support the 

plan they're approaching. For me, I found it from a 

scientific perspective an excellent, excellent 

approach.

Chair Beach: And realize we don't have a sampling 

plan. NIOSH didn't complete the sampling plan. 

They've thrown it out and came up with a study --

Member Lockey: If they can -- if they can do the dose 

reconstruction in a very valid manner, Josie, and it 

reflects the exposures that people had been 

potentially experiencing, then they can do good dose 

reconstruction from these.

Member Clawson: Well, do you believe, Jim, that 

they'll be able to perform data adequacy?

Member Lockey: Yes. Based on what they presented, 

I think they can. From a scientific perspective, Brad, 

yes.

Member Clawson: Well, yeah. That's --

Member Lockey: I would -- if I had a database like 

this I -- you know, again, I'm looking at it, the way I 

look at things, from a science perspective, it's an 

excellent database, and at least their approach is. 

Now, it has to be looked at and make sure that all the 

things that they have stipulated in fact are present. 

I have no reason to think they're not, but that would 

take a review, perhaps by SC&A, to validate it. But if 

you're interested in doing a valid dose reconstruction, 

Brad, and you're looking for outliers, you'd take the 

highest exposure group, which is the plutonium 

group. You'd look at the various ways they have 

validated this to make sure they're capturing the data 

that reflects the population. It's a good approach.
11

Member Clawson: And that says nothing for --

Member Lockey: It says everything for dose 

reconstruction.

Member Clawson: -- of specific bioassays. It says 

nothing about that. This is taking totally routine 

plutonium samples. These are ones -- the people that 

are on them, they get routine all the time. This says 

nothing and that people were able to go to this. This 

is the exact same thing that we were into with 

Savannah River, and we got -- we got the bootstrap, 

we got this, we got that.

But all in all it come down to is you cannot do it. And 

there's a science project -- there's no doubt. I have 

no question. These are outstanding health physicists 

and everything else like that. But this isn't a science 

project. This is a compensation program and the 

requirements for that are far different in my eyes. 

Mr. Rutherford: I do want to say that this does 

include job-specific RWPs. If you look at the report, 

the report -- we pulled RWPs. RWPs are covered in 

that. That's in my presentation.

Chair Beach: What percentage of RWPs? I think it 

said, what did you say 70?

Mr. Rutherford: No, here's much more RWPs than 

that. You need to --

Chair Beach: Job-specific?

Mr. Rutherford: All of the RWPs are job-specific 

RWPs.

Member Roessler: Aren't we -- aren't we jumping 

again here by evaluating the report before they're 

even presenting it? It seems that we have no reason 

to say that they can't present their work. Then we 

evaluate it as a Work Group. If we decide that we 

should continue, then we turn it over to the other 

scientific branch area, SC&A, to take a look at it.
12

Chair Beach: Gen, you're correct in a way, but the 

Work Group requested a job sampling plan. NIOSH 

agreed to present that to the Board. They decided 

without consulting the Work Group that they were 

going to throw that out and come up with the 

coworker model instead, and they changed the 

question that we initially asked.

If you look at the introduction of RPRT-0102, the 

question, they completely changed it from job 

completeness to something that suited their needs, 

not what we asked and that is what the real problem 

is.

The second part of the problem is this is going to 

delay a decision for years, and we asked for a job 

sampling plan. I would still like to see that job 

sampling plan. If NIOSH isn't going to do it, then I 

suggest that we turn that over, all the data to SC&A 

and request they do a job sampling plan, that we 

requested it three years ago.

Member Clawson: So, LaVon, let me ask this 

question. Is this just plutonium? Is that the only ones 

that you're looking at --

Mr. Rutherford: We did under this -- under this 

report, we looked at just plutonium. If you look at 

0101, it covers all of the other exotic radionuclides. 

Now we do have other RWPs that we, you know, have 

the ability to look at. But yes, this report addresses 

just the plutonium RWPs.

Member Roessler: Well I understand, Josie, your 

frustration with this. But it just doesn't seem like 

we're going the proper way to just dismiss this. I 

think that we should hear the report. 

We can't prove right now whether LaVon had actually 

alerted us to this, but he is now today alerting us to 

the change, and I think we ought to at least hear the 

report and judge whether this is an acceptable way 

to go.
13

And if we do, then we assign it to SC&A, and that's 

kind of a normal procedure. I don't think it's going to 

take all that long to do that.

Member Clawson: Well, that's -- and I understand 

what you're saying, Gen. I think when this one 

started out it would be six months; five years later. 

Dr. Roberts: But Gen, I think, does have an 

appropriate point. This meeting was called today to 

give NIOSH an opportunity to present the two 

reports. We could certainly return to the discussion 

after those presentations. 

Also, another thing that was, as we were planning the 

agenda for this, was that SC&A was going to be 

tasked as part of this meeting. So my 

recommendation would be to go ahead and move 

through the agenda.

Chair Beach: That's fine, and we'll come back to 

either the tasking. I'm not letting go of the sampling 

plan at this point. I'd like to come back to that as 

well. My biggest frustration is when we set up this 

meeting, we were going to look at the sampling plan, 

so this is completely different than what we had 

originally agreed to.

Member Clawson: Well, we weren't just dealing with 

one radionuclide; we were dealing with a lot more. 

There's 40 percent of the RWPs bioassays that are 

missing, but you know we can -- we can throw 

numbers at it.

Chair Beach: I guess it's been recommended we go 

ahead and go through the reports, and I have no 

problem with 0101 by the way. I know we're starting 

with 0102, so LaVon, I guess you can tee that up.

Mr. Rutherford: All right. I'm going to take my video 

off, because I'm going to switch to my big screen.

Chair Beach: Okay.

(Pause.)
14

Mr. Rutherford: Let me know if you're seeing my 

screen.

Chair Beach: Yes, sure. We are, we are.

Mr. Rutherford: All right. I'm going to go ahead and 

get started, as soon as I find my glasses. So I'm 

LaVon Rutherford, the Health Science Administrator 

for DCAS. We're going to go over two reports today. 

The first report is titled "Assessment of Los Alamos 

National Laboratory Plutonium Bioassay Program 

from 1996 Through 2001."

This report is on our website. Both the reports and 

their presentations are available. I do want to 

acknowledge a few people from ORAUT that worked 

on this report: Mike Mahathy, Rich Merrill, Elizabeth 

Brackett, Tom LaBone, Nancy Chalmers, and even 

though he retired Chris Miles. He put a lot of time on 

this petition over the years.

So I'm going to talk about the background, report 

overview, study design, data analysis and summary 

and conclusions. I'm looking to do a little bit more on 

the background. Both reports I'm going to talk about 

today are in support of the evaluation and review of 

SEC Petition 109. The petition was received in April 

of 2008. The petition qualified for evaluation in May 

of 2008.

The qualified period for evaluation was 1976 through 

2005, and NIOSH issued an evaluation report in 

August of 2012 recommending a class be added to 

the SEC for the period 1976 through 1995. We issued 

an addendum in April of 2017 covering the remaining 

years of 1996 through 2005. 

In the addendum, we indicated dose reconstruction 

was feasible for '96 through 2005, given the LANL 

Radiological Control Program indicated a robust 

monitoring program and a documented radiation 

protection program implementing 10 C.F.R. 835.

In addition, NIOSH review of the non-conformance 
15

tracking system and current supporting system did 

not identify any major concerns. However, when 

SC&A reviewed the addendum, they also reviewed 

NPTS non-conformance tracking system and the 

current supporting system, and pointed out NCID484.

NCID-484 identified a number of findings that raised 

questions and concerns about the LANL bioassay 

program. NCID-484 came about because of a 1985 

LANL assessment. During that time, DOE had issued 

a moratorium on sites to allow sites to self-identify 

issues with internal monitoring programs, identify 

corrective actions without being fined under PriceAnderson. 

ORAUT got some outside help from people that had 

seen the issues at other sites. They conducted the 

assessment. So the 1999 audit of the Los Alamos 

National Laboratory bioassay program listed several 

deficiencies in the bioassay program that were of 

regulatory concern. Of particular concern to this 

report was Finding 1. Radiation workers were not 

consistently placed on the appropriate routine 

bioassay program.

The issue discussed in this finding included an 

ineffective HP checklist, workers failing to submit 

bioassay samples per RWP requirements and 

Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico, which I'll 

start calling Johnson Controls, personnel not fully 

participating in required bioassay programs.

The finding prompted the Work Group to ask NIOSH, 

due to 1999 LANL findings regarding bioassay 

program deficiencies, implied data inadequacy and 

incompleteness significant enough to impair dose 

reconstruction. So at the November 25th, 2018 Work 

Group meeting, NIOSH committed to reviewing RWPs 

and developing a sampling plan for determining 

whether -- did I get that, sorry -- determining 

whether workers were complying with bioassay 

requirements and what effect that may have on dose 

reconstruction.
16

After capturing RWPs, we decided a sampling plan 

would not be necessary. We would include all the 

RWPs that met the study criteria, design criteria for 

the analysis. So if you take all of the -- if you took an 

entire set of data and you used the entire set of data, 

that is going to be better than taking a sample of the 

data, or it will -- the sample could be as good, but 

the entire data set is the best, would be the best 

overall.

I would ask our statistician, Nancy Chalmers from 

ORAU, am I correct here?

Ms. Chalmers: Yeah Bomber, you are correct. I was 

actually the one that pushed to, you know, have us 

analyze all the RWPs instead of just the sample, 

because even if it's a random sample it could not be 

representative of the entire population. If you have 

the entire population available to you, you should 

always look at that. 

I think the sample, we were kind of settling for like 

you mentioned before, just for like efficiency sake. 

And so the fact that we could get them all, enter 

them, you know, in a fairly short amount of time and 

analyze all of them, I would always prefer to have 

everything, not a sample.

Member Clawson: Nancy, this is Brad. I totally agree 

with you. That would be good. So you're telling me 

that you covered all nuclides and everything, every 

RWP you've got. So what percentage of RWPs do you 

think that you've got total?

Ms. Chalmers: I think Bomber has a slide later where 

he defines what we called a Notable RWP, and we did 

-- our data capture folks, which you know they're 

very good folks, they made the best attempt they 

could to capture all those Notable RWPs they could 

get their hands on. And so if there are questions 

about how they did that and all of those things, I 

think we can direct that to the data capture folks.

But we had them come up with a definition for 
17

Notable RWP, and they handled sort of that part of 

the process. We got the data -- we got the data and 

we analyzed it all, everything we got our hands on.

Member Clawson: Answer me, answer me this then. 

As a statistician, if you take one radionuclide and you 

just look at that one radionuclide, with numbers can't 

you skew that? Can't you make it look better than 

what it really is overall?

Ms. Chalmers: Brad, our intent was only to make a 

statement about plutonium in RPRT-0102.

Mr. Rutherford: And then we looked at the other 

radio, the exotic radionuclides in Report 0101. Why 

don't you let me finish the report, and then you can 

-- or this overview, and then we can answer 

questions after that?

Member Clawson: That sounds fine. Don't bring 

anybody else in either, okay LaVon?

Mr. Rutherford: Well, the reason why that was a 

specific question that was brought up, and I thought 

that Nancy could provide a little more detail and help 

us out. So I'm going to continue on report overview.

So since co-exposure models are used to perform 

dose reconstructions for individuals without 

monitoring data, the question by the Work Group 

changes to do the indicated bioassay program 

deficiencies apply data inadequacy and 

incompleteness significant enough to impair 

development of a co-exposure model. 

So if individuals are not leaving their bioassay data, 

if we have indication of that and, you know, what we 

would use to fill in the gaps for individuals, for 

unmonitored individuals. We would use a coexposure model. So we felt switching this question to 

a co-exposure model question made sense. 

RPRT-0102 was developed to answer the question for 

plutonium. Why plutonium? I realize a conclusion was 

made that the primary radionuclides could not be 
18

used to address the exotics. Well, Report 0101 

addresses the exotics, and I'm going to go through 

that a little bit later.

Plutonium was used because plutonium posed the 

greatest radiological hazard to workers at LANL 

during the study period. If so if LANL was correctly 

monitoring for plutonium, what evidence would make 

us think that the monitoring was different for other 

radionuclides of concern? Also, what makes us think 

that a worker would leave the required bioassay 

sample for plutonium, but not for other 

radionuclides?

So we've got all these workers and we've got -- we 

determined they come up, that they're leaving 

bioassay samples for plutonium. But what makes us 

think they're not doing it for other radionuclides? 

That's something to think about. 

Co-exposure models. I'm going to talk about -- I'm 

going to shift to Slide 9, and I want to talk about 

Slides 7 and 8. Okay. The goal of the co-exposure 

study is to estimate the probability distribution of 

external doses or internal intakes to a target 

population. So our target population, if you look at 

either of those diagrams on either side, our target 

population is the exposed workers.

All members of the target population who are 

monitored are referred to as the study population. So 

you've got exposed workers and then you've got 

exposed workers that are monitored, and that's the 

study population. The distribution of intakes in the 

study population is referred to as a co-exposure 

model, and it can be used to estimate the distribution 

of intakes in the target population.

So we take the monitored individuals out of the study 

population, we create a co-exposure model, and then 

that co-exposure model is used to estimate intakes 

to exposed workers or potentially exposed workers 

who were unmonitored. So since co-exposure models 

-- wait a minute. So in the event the entire study 
19

population is not available, the co-exposure model is 

constructed from a study sample.

So if you look on the left-hand diagram that we have 

taken the study population, and we take a study 

sample, and that study sample is then used as the 

co-exposure model, for the co-exposure model and 

then used on the unmonitored workers. 

Three conclusions can be made. All the workers in the 

target population do not have to be monitored to 

construct a co-exposure model. If all the people in 

the target population were monitored, a co-exposure 

model wouldn't be necessary. So if the co-exposure 

model is generated from the study population, a 

bounding model can be generated if a significant 

portion of the most highly exposed workers in part of 

the population are monitored.

If the co-exposure model is generated from a study 

sample, a bounding model can be generated if the 

previous conditions hold and the study sample is not 

missing a significant portion of the most highly 

exposed workers from the study population. So I 

thought going through 7 and 8 while looking at the 

actual diagram would make that easier.

I want to talk about regulatory compliance. The 1999 

audit was intended to assess whether LANL was in 

compliance with the regulations promulgated in 10 

C.F.R. 835. These regulations established criteria for 

limiting dosed workers and for acceptable design and 

implementation of internal dosimetry programs that 

were used to demonstrate compliance with these 

dose limits.

Because compliance with regulations help to 

minimize and limit dose receipt by individuals, even 

one instance of non-compliance is of interest to the 

regulator and the site. 

Dose reconstruction is concerned with making a 

reasonable estimate of the radiation doses received 

by an individual. To obtain a reasonable estimate of 
20

radiation exposure based on a co-exposure model, it 

need only be based on a representative sample of the 

workers performing radiological work. Compliance 

with the regulations in place at the time the 

radiological work was performed is not required in 

order to perform a dose reconstruction or develop a 

co-exposure model.

All right. I want to talk about the study design. The 

approach used in this study was to assemble and 

analyze all the relevant data, available data about the 

plutonium monitoring program at LANL during the 

1996 through 2001 study period. 

We want to look at the Health Physics Checklist; the 

Bioassay Enrollment, Scheduling and Tracking, the 

BEST system; plutonium in vitro bioassay; plutonium 

in vivo bioassay; external dose; and then RWPs that 

require plutonium bioassay.

The Health Physics Checklist is a paper form from a 

worker, the manager and a representative from 

Environmental Safety and Health filled out to make 

changes in the worker's in vitro, in vivo and external 

dose monitoring programs. ORAUT captured Health 

Physics Checklists covering years 1985 to 2002. They 

developed a database from the study period of 1996 

through 2001. 

The study looked at the HPC adds, which means an 

individual was added to the plutonium bioassay 

program. Okay, if you look at this, these are adds, 

individuals that were added to the plutonium 

bioassay program over the years. You can see the 

drop-off in 2001. We believe this is because they 

were switching to the electronic dosimetry evaluation 

system and doing away with the Health Physics 

Checklist.

Now I want to talk about the BEST system. BEST is a 

system that was used to manage bioassay program 

enrollments, which included adding and removing 

workers from routine baseline termination and 

special monitoring programs. BEST data set --
21

enrollments that placed workers on bioassay 

programs were referred to as adds, which always had 

an associated sample request that is referred to as 

an enroll request.

So if the add-in added it was an enroll request. 

Sample requests not associated with adds for routine 

work samples were referred to as non-enroll 

requests. Some of the enroll requests and the nonenroll requests is the total of the number of 

plutonium bioassay requests in a year. So if we look 

at the enroll requests of five of them, you can see in 

green, and the non-enroll requests in blue. If you add 

those two together that's the total number of 

samples they would have in a given year. 

I also wanted to note that even though a non-enroll 

request, if you look at this previous slide said was 

referred to as for routine samples, routine samples 

could also be given to workers under an RWP if that 

person is on a routine sampling program. 

Okay. Let's talk about the in vitro bioassay. The in 

vitro bioassay data set was already created in 

support of OTIB-63. The data set includes 12,666 

plutonium urine and fecal bioassay samples of 3,219 

workers during the study period. The 12,619 urine 

bioassay results are the data that will be used for a 

co-exposure model for the plutonium at LANL, for 

plutonium at LANL.

So we look at the in vitro bioassay data set. We've 

got workers on the right, samples on the left. You can 

see the large number of workers and samples over 

the period of 1996 through 2001. 

Now let's talk about the in vivo bioassay data set. The 

in vivo bioassay data set was already created in 

support of OTIB-63. The data set includes 6,817 

plutonium/americium chest counts from 3,282 

workers during the study period. The number of 

workers monitored by chest counting and in vitro 

bioassay is essentially constant over the study 

period. 
22

Approximately 80 percent of the workers monitored 

for plutonium by in vitro bioassay were also 

monitored by chest count. So you can look at that. 

You've got workers and the number of counts 

completed, relatively constant through the years. 

External dosimetry set. Give me a second. The

external dose records of LANL workers provide a 

comprehensive list of individuals who performed 

radiological work. If you think about any individual 

that's going to go into a controlled area, whether they 

have their potential to see or potential to be exposed 

internally, they're going to be -- they're going to be 

monitored externally just because it's easy to do it. 

So you have a lot more people that are monitored 

externally. 

So we wanted to pull that data set the way we could 

use it to fill any data gaps that we had on some of 

these other different data sets. So again, the external 

dosimetry records were used to help identify 

individuals are missing employee numbers and other 

data sets and as an aid in the entry of those data 

sets. 

The external dose data consists of the 3.4 million 

records in the access data set. There are 

approximately 11,000 workers at LANL who were 

monitored for external dose each year during the 

study period. 

I want to talk about the RWPs. RWPs were used to 

control work with a high potential for exposure to 

radiation. All other radiological work was performed 

according to safe operating procedures. RWPs with 

plutonium access list check required that a person be 

on a plutonium monitoring program before 

performing work under the RWP.

Also, RWPs were specifically called out in the 

assessment, in that two out of five workers on one 

RWP did not leave the required bioassay samples. 

RWPs and acknowledgment sheets were transcribed 

by the ORAU team from the documents that were 
23

captured during the nine targeted visits. 

Notable RWPs were targeted for capture where a 

Notable RWP is defined as an RWP that occurred 

within the study period, required urinalysis as noted 

on the RWP by having special urinalysis or plutonium 

access list checked, or contained other equivalent 

terminology or notation indicating urinalysis.

(Phone ringing.)

Dr. Roberts: Mute.

Mr. Rutherford: Also contained in associated roster 

with names of personnel acknowledging the RWP. 

Plutonium access lists and acknowledgment sheets. 

The plutonium access lists were generated monthly 

and mailed as a memorandum to designated field 

contacts. Workers signed an acknowledgment sheet 

during the pre-work briefing, which was required 

before working under the RWP. The signature on the 

acknowledgment sheet indicated that the worker 

understood the monitoring requirements of the RWP.

Note that a worker could have signed an 

acknowledgment sheet and never performed work 

under that RWP. It is not a sign-in sheet. So if you 

look at a lot of the -- or at least some of the sites, 

some of the sites we used a sign-in and sign-out 

sheet going into an area, because they may have 

time limits on time that you could be in a given area.

For these RWPs, these are signed. They signed the 

acknowledgment sheet that they've read the RWP 

and they understand it. It didn't mean that they 

actually worked under that. They could have a group 

of workers that they took and said okay, I want you 

to -- you could possibly do work under this RWP, so 

I want you to read and sign it, the acknowledgment 

sheet so if we need you to do work under it, you can.

Okay. The RWP data set. During the study period, 

there are 19,568 records in the RWP data set, where 

each record is a signature of one worker on the 
24

acknowledgment sheet of a particular RWP that had 

a PAL requirement. There are signatures from 1,942 

workers. 

So we're not saying there's 19,568 RWPs; but what 

we're saying is there were 19,568 signatures from a 

worker on an acknowledgment sheet. A reasonable 

number of RWPs were obtained for the primary 

plutonium facilities at LANL. 

Now I want to talk about the data analysis. So we put 

a little diagram together. You can have an HPC, 

Health Physics Checklist. That Health Physics 

Checklist can feed the BEST, and then BEST will 

identify if you're on a plutonium access list and then 

you have RWPs that will go into the acknowledgment 

sheet or sign, the acknowledgment sheet is signed 

and then -- then that feeds into the in vitro and 

external and in vivo database because they could 

identify requirements to be in any one or all of those. 

So from the data set, we know that there are issues 

with the Health Physics Checklist. That was one of 

these things that was identified in the assessment. 

There's another problem-based PC checklist not 

being submitted consistently. So if we took solely the

analysis of the HPCs to BEST to in vitro, the branch 

cannot --

We wouldn't get anything of any real value other than 

that we know that of the HPC checklists that are 

submitted, these are the numbers that actually got 

into BEST and these are the in vitro, because you 

know if they weren't ever submitted, they wouldn't 

have got there.

So to address this issue, we analyzed the RWP, the 

acknowledgment sheet and then the in vitro/in vivo 

branch. This will show if a worker who did work with 

a potential for exposure to plutonium was monitored 

for plutonium. Note that this analysis is independent 

of whether a worker submitted an HPC or not. 

In fact, you can look back at this. If you look at --
25

from an RWP to acknowledgment sheet, then if they 

got into the in vitro or external in vivo databases, 

whether it was required. Those are independent of 

the HPC.

So if an individual performed radiological work that 

required monitoring for plutonium and was probably 

monitored, the HPC paperwork is irrelevant. So from 

the data set, we should be able to answer three 

critical questions. Were workers who signed an RWP 

acknowledgment sheet with a PAL requirement 

monitored in a timely fashion? What fraction of 

workers who signed the acknowledgment sheet were 

given RWP and was monitored? And what were the 

relative exposures of the different groups to 

plutonium?

All right. The comparison of BEST versus the in vitro 

database. Overall out of 13,895 requests made 

through BEST for samples to be analyzed for 

plutonium, 11,914 were fulfilled or 85.7 percent. All 

requests from BEST were tracked and most were 

accounted for with reasons being given why sample 

requests were not fulfilled.

Of the 1,981 samples not received, 1,613 have 

legitimate reasons for not being received, such as 

termination or extended leave of the individual. A 

large number of the missed samples, the reason code 

was inactivation for migration. These were sample 

requests that were cancelled to move BEST to a new 

database.

So if we look at the plutonium samples requested 

through BEST and received for all workers. So we got 

requested and received, which is basically a 

percentage for each year. You could derive a 

percentage for each year from '96 through 2001, and 

our overall compliance is 85.7 percent.

If you look at this through, it's relatively constant. 

The assessment occurred in 1999, and if you look at 

it there's really no major jump in 2000. After that 

assessment, the number of samples requested and 
26

received and the percentage is not largely different. 

In fact, it's a little less. So we looked at -- we 

identified nine companies with at least 100 requests 

in BEST. Johnson Controls, KSL and LANL had the 

highest number of requests.

So we looked at those and remember, Johnson 

Controls was specifically called out in the 

assessment. So this graph looks at Johnson Control, 

the requests into BEST and the numbers that were 

received. You can see that they were lower, under 

lower than the other groups, and on average of 71.6 

percent.

But you can also see the observed decrease in the 

number of requests made to and samples received 

from the workers in '99 through 2001. That can be 

attributed to a planned reduction in the number of 

workers being on the monitoring program, which was 

actually discussed with LANL. 

These -- one of the issues that the Johnson Controls 

RadCon manager had concerns that they were 

monitoring individuals that did not need to be 

monitored, that so many of them were always 

getting, you know, no dose, that they didn't feel that 

they should have been monitored. So with 

discussions with LANL, they reduced the monitoring 

requirements on them.

So I want to talk about a comparison to the HPCs 

versus BEST. So we know that the HPCs we have a 

problem, that sometimes they weren't being 

submitted. But we did want to look at these and to 

see if they were submitted, what's the percentage of 

them getting there and you can go from there.

So there are 1,856 adds from the HPC checklist 

during the study period. A detailed comparison of the 

HPC with BEST showed that 1,802 out of the 1,856 

adds were of plutonium or were matched BEST. 

That's a 97.209 percent, and if you took into 

consideration that in vitro, the entire in vitro data 

sets, ones that did not actually end up with BEST, we 
27

came up with 1,848 or 99.5 percent.

So therefore workers who submitted the HPC add 

forms almost certainly were entered in the BEST 

system. So if they got there -- they almost definitely 

got into the system, so that's a good thing. 

So compliance with radiation work permits. A key 

part of this report is to quantify the extent to which 

the LANL workforce complied with the bioassay 

requirements for work involving plutonium. Workers 

were required to sign the RWP acknowledgment 

sheet for an RWP, to indicate they understood the 

monitoring and personal protection equipment 

requirements of that RWP.

As indicated earlier, their signatures did not denote 

that they performed any work, only that they 

understood the requirements to work under that 

RWP. So in the report, Table 10-1, sorry the statistics 

for monitoring of RWP work introduces a couple of 

terms that need to be explained. 

The table is recreated on the following slides. Work 

and Workers columns refers to the percentage of 

work and workers respectively. They were probably 

monitored as determined using the active RWP period 

and post RWP window. Work and Workers columns 

refers to the percentage of Work and Workers. The 

Other Work and Worker with the O, Open Window, 

refers to the percentage of work and workers 

respectively who were properly monitored as 

determined used the active RWP period, post RWP 

window and open window. 

So I'll explain this a little bit more. I'm going to pull 

a slide up here. So if you think of work as equivalent 

as a -- assume -- if you think of work as equivalent 

to one RWP, that is where. So for example if you had 

an individual that signs ten RWPs in a year and 

complies with the monitoring requirements for nine 

of them, then 90 percent of the work was in 

compliance. That's how these numbers are 

generated.
28

The Worker column, if you look at it specifically, it's 

specifically associated with the Worker itself. So 

that's where that number 65.1 percent for Johnson 

Controls, those are some of our key numbers that we 

were looking at. And again, the Work and Worker 

without the open window, that is solely individuals 

that submit a sample within the RWP period or the 

RWP or the, I'm trying to think of the proper term, or 

basically in that year of the -- or in that year shall I 

say. Let's get that right.

So and the Open Window is for a worker that submits 

any time after the RWP period. So that's where those 

numbers. But again the key important portion of it, 

to me anyway, is the worker period 65.1 percent for 

Johnson Control, which is a little bit lower than all 

these others, but you can see except for Others and 

Total. But the big three here, that is the lowest.

Okay. Now I want to talk about plutonium results for 

Johnson Controls, ES&H, NMT and other groups. 

NIOSH feels we established there's a considerable 

amount of data available on which to base a coexposure model for plutonium at LANL. However, 

when you break the data into groups, some groups 

have more plutonium data than others, and we've 

seen that.

Therefore, it is of interest to compare some measures 

of relative exposures of the groups, to see if the 

groups with less data are more highly exposed. An 

appropriate measure of the exposure to each of the 

four groups is the plutonium and urine analytical 

results for the groups.

So we've pulled together a graph. If you look at this, 

this is a comparison of plutonium-239 in urine for 

Johnson Controls, ES&H and NMT workers. If you 

look closely, the NMT and ES&H are slightly higher, 

and then the Johnson Controls. But all of them are 

relatively the same. 

So again, and I repeat that. The data for the four 

groups are similar, with NMT and ES&H being slightly 
29

higher. The few relatively higher results from 

plutonium-239 for Johnson Control workers appear to 

have been from a single event. 

I'm going to the summary and conclusions. So in 

summary, we compared the BEST versus the in vitro 

data set. 85.7 percent of the sample requests were 

fulfilled. We looked at the HPCs versus BEST. 97 

percent of the additions of BEST were matched or 97 

percent of the additions of the HPCs matched BEST, 

and compliance with RWP required sampling.

Approximately 97 percent of the 2,252 RWPs had 50 

percent or more of the workers monitored, and this 

was for plutonium, and a comparison of plutonium in 

vitro results across various groups. Results were 

similar across groups, with ES&H and NMT slightly 

higher. 

So in conclusion, the evidence supports the 

conclusion that plutonium bioassay data reported by 

LANL in the 1996 to 2001 study period, a period 

including a significant portion of the most highly 

exposed workers, the data is adequate to construct a 

co-exposure model for plutonium. And that's all I 

have on RPRT-0102.

Chair Beach: Thanks, LaVon. Are there any questions 

from the Board?

Dr. Roberts: Josie?

Chair Beach: Yes, sure.

Dr. Roberts: If I could just quickly interject, just that 

moving forward, if I know disagreements have been 

expressed. But if everybody could just be mindful of 

tone as we're getting into questions and discussion, 

that would be appreciated. Thank you.

Chair Beach: Sure, thanks. Any questions Work 

Group Members?

Member Lockey: Hey LaVon, Jim Lockey. Can you 

hear me?
30

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, yes.

Member Lockey: So when I went through this report, 

it is comprehensive and it takes some time to go 

through the details. So if I ask a question that is 

obvious, the answer's obvious, excuse me for that. 

But there were 19,500 RFW, RWPs, and then there 

were 1,942 PALs or plutonium assay lists. Can you 

review that again for me, what that means?

Mr. Rutherford: Let me get back to where -- do you 

remember which slide that was?

Member Lockey: No, it was in your report.

Mr. Rutherford: Oh, I'm sorry.

Member Lockey: It was in the original report. It 

wasn't on a slide. So like go through the original 

report. I was trying to think, the PALs were 

significantly less than the RWPs, and that's because 

that most RWPs didn't deal with plutonium or --

Mr. Rutherford: No. Actually it's because that 

individuals could be on the plutonium access list 

already, and they would not show up. Where an RWP 

would identify specific requirements and one of them 

may be plutonium monitoring. However, that 

individual could already be on a routine monitoring 

program. And so that's why you have such a larger 

number of individuals that compared.

So some of those are in a routine monitoring program 

under Safe Operating Procedures, and some of those 

are added to the plutonium monitoring from the 

RWPs. But they could already be on that program as 

well.

Member Lockey: So that 1,942 figure are people that 

are already on it or have been added? Is that what 

that number represents?

Mr. Rutherford: And I'm trying to --

Member Lockey: I wish I would have written the page 
31

down. 

Mr. Rutherford: Tom, Liz, can you help me out here?

Ms. Chalmers: Yeah. Bomber, this is Nancy. It's 

actually on your slide right before the Data Analysis 

section. That slide right there.

Mr. Rutherford: Ah, there you go.

Ms. Chalmers: So it's 19,568 signatures, and then 

that's from 1,942 workers. So about ten signatures 

per worker if you are going to talk about it. So that's 

all that is. On average, a worker signed in about ten 

times.

Mr. Rutherford: Right. I totally missed what you were 

asking there.

Ms. Chalmers: I think that's what he's asking about.

Member Lockey: That's what I was asking, trying to 

figure out.

Ms. Chalmers: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah. That's what, you know, exactly 

what Nancy just said there, too, is if you average that 

out, it would be on average a worker, you know, each 

worker signed ten acknowledgment sheets.

Member Lockey: Okay, and then in your report at 

Section 7.0, it said that on the BEST list, they could 

migrate from the BEST list to a new database. What 

does that mean?

Mr. Rutherford: Well, over time they have switched 

systems. I mean BEST was originally one of the 

systems, you know, and they put it in BEST. But then 

they switched from BEST to another system, and all 

of that data would be migrated over to that. And so 

if that -- if for example, if the sample was out for it 

was on the BEST system for to send it in but they 

were migrating the system, it might not have ended 

up in that old system. It would end up into the next 
32

system. Does that make sense?

Member Lockey: But the data wasn't lost, right?

Mr. Rutherford: Right.

Member Lockey: It's just --

Mr. Rutherford: Right. If the data got into the -- if the 

sample was sent and we got into the in vitro data set, 

it was there. Yes, we got it.

Member Lockey: Okay, and one other question on 

Section 7.2 is what did you mean by low recovery, 

meant by "low recovery" at collection. I wasn't sure 

what that meant.

Mr. Rutherford: And I think Tom could -- and Liz can 

explain that better than I can.

Mr. LaBone: It's low radiochemical recovery on the 

sample. So if you're familiar with how they run 

plutonium urine samples, they will put a tracer in it 

to determine how much of the plutonium they lose in 

the chemical purification process. 

Member Lockey: Okay.

Mr. LaBone: If it's below a certain QA level, they will 

resample it.

Member Lockey: So they automatically would 

resample it then?

Mr. Rutherford: That's the -- yeah. That's the usual 

procedure if you again have a QA problem with the 

sample in the lab. 

Member Lockey: Okay, gotcha. That's a QA issue, all 

right. Well, I have other questions, but I'll leave it 

open. I'll stop now for a second.

Chair Beach: Now if you have other questions, go 

ahead Jim.

Member Lockey: Okay. So LaVon, when you went 
33

through all this at the beginning, at least on the 

paper, on the document, you asked a question are 

there enough inadequacies to say that the coexposure model was not adequate? So I looked at 

what you went through and the various parameters 

that you were looking at, but can you answer --

based on where you are today, can you answer that 

question?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, I think we can answer that 

question for plutonium, that there is enough data and 

there are no -- deficiencies have not been identified 

to date that would prevent a co-exposure model from 

being developed. 

Now that's not to say when we actually get into doing 

the detailed development of the co-exposure model 

in accordance with the IMP guide, that there might 

not be issues come up.

Member Lockey: So based on the Johnson Control, 

what 71.8 percent, you think that's adequate at that 

percentage to --

Mr. Rutherford: Yes we do, given the other 

parameters. The fact that the -- that the -- if you 

looked at the urine data set, you know, the graph 

itself, if you looked at that, how they compared to 

the other two, ES&H, NMT, they were lower than 

them and kind of went right along with that. 

If we looked at overall, you know, who 

implementation and of following the RWPs and such, 

yes I think it is adequate.

Member Lockey: Is there any data that you know that 

are -- that would, that would really fill in the question 

of your conclusion here? In other words, is it -- what 

I'm trying to figure out is that you laid out a game 

plan here and you looked at the databases that are 

available and how you can go through them. But have 

you really tested to see that it's really truly adequate?

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah. I think we have. You know, I'll 
34

get Tom to give me his thoughts on this. Mr. 

LaBone: Can you elaborate on what you mean by 

"truly adequate"?

Member Lockey: Like the Johnson Control, there's 29 

percent that are missing, okay. So I'd like to know 

something about those 29 percent. It may be the 

data's not available. Is there a way to look at that 29 

percent and say based on all the data that's available, 

we think we will -- the results that we have available 

will actually reflect the ones that are missing?

Mr. LaBone: Yes.

Member Lockey: I mean we're looking at 

percentages. Is it -- I'm trying to figure is your 

conclusion based on these percentages, or is it based 

on something above and beyond that?

Mr. LaBone: Yeah. We went through basically the 

philosophical discussion of the co-exposure models in 

the beginning of the report, and it was to identify, 

you know, when does that break? When can you not 

do a co-exposure model?

Member Lockey: Right.

Mr. LaBone: And what we say is that if you are 

missing a significant portion of the most highly 

exposed people, then you can't come up with a 

bounding model. And so the question is, you know, 

to look at are the people who are missing, how many 

of them, and are they the most highly exposed 

people.

And you know, to truly answer those questions, you'd 

have to do something along the lines of like an ER 

sort of an evaluation, to go in to look at all the 

documentation and so forth and say, you know, 

there's no infeasibility here, that we have captured a 

significant portion of the most highly exposed. So I 

don't think you can just look at the percentages and 

then decide out of context can you or can you not do 

this. 
35

So again, it would require when we actually, redo the 

co-exposure models for LANL, is that that will be part 

of that process. 

Member Lockey: All right. So then your step forward 

if we agree with you would be you're going to then 

test this to make sure you have not missed a 

significant portion of high exposure people?

Mr. LaBone: Yeah. I think the thing we need to ask is 

okay, the Johnson Controls workers who did not 

submit HP checklist forms, could they have gotten in 

frequently to do plutonium work under an RWP that 

required bioassay? Because they would not be on the 

PU access list, and so how robust was the RWP 

basically pre-job briefing and screening process to, 

you know, not allow those people to work on that 

RWP?

And so we didn't, we didn't do that, but that would 

be something to look at. If that was a pretty robust 

program, then I can, you know, we can conclude that 

the people who in Johnson Controls who did not 

submit an HP checklist didn't get into to do work, 

because there was something there to stop them 

from doing radiological work with plutonium. 

So that's the kind of thing that you would look at 

when you were doing the complete study. 

Member Lockey: That's if you move forward with this, 

that would be the path you would take?

Mr. LaBone: Yes. If we again go to -- I think LANL 

has a co-exposure model running. When we go to 

redo it, to bring it up to the IMP Guide standards, is 

that that would be a question to ask and how good 

was the screening process to stop people who weren't 

qualified from getting into rooms or facilities that 

required RWP for plutonium sampling. 

Member Lockey: Thank you.

Chair Beach: Thanks Jim. Gen or Brad, any questions 

for LaVon?
36

Member Roessler: I have. Well, mine's not so much 

a question as just to make a comment at this point. 

I agree with Dr. Lockey, this is really an impressive 

database, and I think, sat here listening to this 

thinking as to what is our responsibility as Board 

Members and Work Group Members? I think we have 

to keep in mind the goals of the program, and which 

we can go back and look this all up. 

But it's always to use the best science available, and 

certainly if we can use an entire set of data to develop 

exposure models, that's the approach that should be 

used. I don't think that as Board Members and Work 

Group Members, and again we maybe need some 

legal advice on this, that we have any authority to 

actually reject something like this as an attempt to 

use the best science.

So I guess my thought at this point, since I'm not a 

statistician, I'm not as knowledgeable as Dr. Lockey 

in evaluating data, even though I think it's 

impressive, I think we ought to take the next step 

perhaps direct to NIOSH to go ahead and develop the 

exposure models or the co-exposure models, or take 

the step to have this reviewed as an appropriate 

approach by SC&A.

Chair Beach: Thanks, Gen. Anything else Brad?

Member Clawson: Yeah, I've got a question. NIOSH 

defines what as Notable base on plutonium. How 

many other RWPs for primary nuclides were

obtained?

Mr. Rutherford: You know Brad, I don't know offhand 

how many were obtained for the other primary 

radionuclides, meaning like uranium and tritium or -

-

Member Clawson: All the other primary nuclides.

Mr. Rutherford: I do not know the exact number. 

Somebody's got their phone to where I'm getting an 

echo here. Yeah, I don't know the exact number. But 
37

again, I think if you listen to Report 0101, you're 

going to find that based on the survey data and the 

air monitoring data in Report 0101, that the 

unmonitored workers, you know, weren't likely to 

exceed 100 millirem, and that's a big factor in this.

Now I mean we have other RWPs that we are looking 

at, to see if, you know, additional work should be 

done and, you know, we'll wait and see.

Member Clawson: Yeah. You focused on one, which 

is a big actor there. But there's a lot of other ones 

that play into it and --

Mr. Rutherford: I think, you know one -- yeah, it's a 

good point, I mean an excellent point that we did only 

focus on one, and but I want to remind you of a 

couple of things on the plutonium issue. You know 

plutonium, we know we've got all of these different 

data sets to look at, to see and get a comparative 

against to see if we were negatively affected by 

people not leaving their bioassay samples, you know.

And as I said earlier, why would an individual worker 

be -- say okay, I'm not going to leave it for 

plutonium, but I'm going to -- I'm going to leave it 

for plutonium, but I'm not going to leave it for these 

other radionuclides? The other issue we have is if the 

individual, if we had an RWP and Health Physics and 

Internal Dosimetry said well, you don't have the 

potential to exceed 100 millirem on this -- well, for 

this work.

And if they look at the radionuclide of concern and 

they say you don't have enough potential to exceed 

100 millirem, you don't have to be bioassayed. We're 

not going to have bioassay data. So we'll have -- we 

have a ton of RWPs, you know not -- I won't say a 

ton. We have a lot of RWPs where there are no 

bioassay requirements because a determination was 

made individuals would not exceed 100 millirem. 

Honestly, that's supported by Report 0101. I think 

it's just -- if you didn't hit certain thresholds, you 
38

know, the Internal Dosimetry Program and the 

Health Physics staff would not require a bioassay 

sample. So with plutonium, most of the heavy work, 

especially the most hazardous work, was with 

plutonium, and so we could use -- we could use that.

Member Clawson: Well, it was -- plutonium was used 

as a requirement, as a condition to be able to answer 

even into the facilities. So all of these people get into 

this and you start talking about the 100 millirem and 

everything else like that. Well there's a lot of other 

actors that play into this as well as you know, and 

that's what I want to make sure.

But let's, let's go on to something else. You talked 

and kind of discarded the findings of this team that 

came in there to evaluate what the, what the LANL's 

whole process was, and if there was any 

shortcomings that could make them susceptible not 

to be able to monitor people correctly. 

You kind of dismissed that a little bit by saying well, 

there wasn't any kind of finds or anything else like 

that, because that was self-reported. Now if I'm not 

mistaken, they only have two of those people that 

are part of this paper? 

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah. Two of the individuals that 

were on that assessment yes were -- are on that 

paper. 

Member Clawson: Okay. The other thing is, what 

came out of that? What changed at LANL?

Mr. Rutherford: Or there was things that changed at 

LANL. They did recognize, as you pointed out or as I 

pointed out, as was pointed out, that there were 

issues with the Health Physics Checklist. They 

removed, they moved away from the Health Physics 

Checklist Program and moved to the electronic 

database.

And in fact in 2001, they pretty much went to an 

electronic system, where all of the work plans and 
39

work processes were done electronically, and that 

would limit the fact or limit the chance or prevent the 

chance anyway, or limit or prevent the chance of 

individuals not submitting appropriate paperwork, 

because they would have to go through and basically 

make sure everything was checked off, Internal 

Dosimetry, whatever, when they were developing a 

safe operating procedure.

Or if when RWPs process was in place, they still all 

went into the safe operating procedure. I can't 

remember exactly what the electronic database was 

called. But yeah, there were a lot of changes that 

were made from that.

Member Clawson: Yeah, and one of them that I found 

was interesting was they developed a LANL-wide 

dosimetry enrollment criteria, facility-specific 

dosimetry matrix, and implementing a new bioassay 

enrollment process. There was a lot of changes that 

happened because of --

Mr. Rutherford: That was part of that electronic 

system I was talking about.

Member Clawson: Right. They, a lot of things 

changed on this, and this wasn't just implemented 

overnight. They showed weaknesses, and I believe 

when the question was asked to LANL, this group of 

people told them that yes, your ability to be able to 

monitor people safely is not up to speed. So I don't 

think we can really sit back and really disregard that 

because I -- there was so much that came out of that 

and change-wise, that it's pretty interesting.

Mr. Rutherford: Well I'm not disregarding it at all. I 

mean there were definitely issues with that. But you 

know, that was part of the discussion on regulatory 

compliance versus being able to do dose 

reconstruction. If we got the data, you know, if an 

individual -- remember, I mean, if we have enough 

data to do dose reconstruction, that's the key, 

whether the individual was in compliance or not or 

whether the site was in compliance or not. And right 
40

now at this point for plutonium, we feel like we got 

that data. 

Member Clawson: Well, I guess we'll see. 

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Chair Beach: Okay. If there's no other questions, I 

think we should move on to Report 0101, and then 

we'll circle back around for the end discussion on 

tasking and where we are moving forward, if 

everybody agrees. 

Member Lockey: Okay. I'm good with that.

Mr. Rutherford: So we're just jumping now, jumping 

to 0101?

Chair Beach: Yes.

Mr. Rutherford: All right. Can I get a drink?

Chair Beach: Sure.

(Pause.)

Mr. Rutherford: Okay, can everybody see my screen?

Chair Beach: Yes.

NIOSH Presentation: ORAUT-RPRT-0101, Bounding 

Intakes of Exotic Radionuclides at Los Alamos 

National Laboratory

Mr. Rutherford: All right. Let me see if I can -- okay. 

We went through 0102. Now I'm going to talk about 

Report 0101, Bounding Intakes of Exotic 

Radionuclides at Los Alamos National Lab. I'm going 

to talk about background, report overview and 

summary and conclusions.

Okay, some background. As part of the evaluation of 

SEC 109, NIOSH concluded dose reconstruction was 

not feasible for all employees at LANL from 1976 

through 1995, based on the inability to bound 

unmonitored exposures to exotic alpha emitters, 
41

fission products and activation products.

NIOSH found that dose reconstruction is likely 

feasible starting in 1996, with the implementation of 

10 C.F.R. 835. At the November 2018 Work Group 

meeting, SC&A indicated they found no 

substantiation for NIOSH's belief regarding exotic 

radionuclides. Just because they may have controlled 

for the primary radionuclides doesn't mean they did 

for the exotics.

SC&A felt that they had a program on paper, but 

there was not enough data and evidence to support 

that -- for them to conclude that 100 millirem was 

bounding for unmonitored workers. So after the Work 

Group meeting in November 2018, we had many 

discussions on the path forward for addressing mixed 

fission, activation products and exotics.

Our approach was to identify radionuclides of 

concern, determine the air concentrations required to 

get 100 millirem, identify areas where the potential 

for exposures to mixed fission activation products 

and exotics, capture air sample data from these areas 

and then from these areas identify areas of greatest 

concern, and then compare actual air concentrations 

to those required to get 100 millirem CEDE.

We expanded that somewhat by not just looking at 

air sample data, but also getting surface 

contamination area data and establish a limit for 

contamination being resuspended. 

For an overview, so the report addresses the issues 

of bounding doses for exotic radionuclides for LANL 

workers from 1996 through 2005, using surface 

contamination survey data, air monitoring data and 

personal contamination monitoring to comply with 10 

C.F.R. 835. Exotic radionuclides include short-lived 

activations, spallation products from Los Alamos 

Neutron Science Center, LANSCE, and mixed fission 

products in TA-3 and TA-48.

The report also addresses heavy elements of 
42

actinium-227, neptunium-237, americium-241, 

curium-244 and thorium. 

Workplace monitoring. Workplace monitoring was 

used by LANL Health Physics to ascertain the 

effectiveness of the workplace controls, in 

compliance with 10 C.F.R. 835. This was one of the 

issues that was brought up by SC&A, where they 

thought they had a good, you know, they had a good 

program on paper, but they really didn't see enough 

data yet to see if it was done in the field. 

I think the data that we've seen actually in this group 

supports that, that it was happening in the field. 

Site-wide procedures addressing various aspects of 

radiological protection. Very specific monitoring 

instructions, which include survey locations and 

frequencies, and published routine monitoring 

instructions for each area. In addition to routine 

sampling, LANL used continuous air monitors with 

alarm capabilities. 

They also had a Hazard Index. A Hazard Index of less 

than 1 indicated a low hazard potential from airborne 

radioactivity, and no air monitoring was prescribed. 

A Hazard Index of 1 to 100 indicated increased 

potential for airborne radioactivity and general air 

monitoring was prescribed. A Hazard Index of 2 

corresponds to the two percent of an ALI, which 

equates to the 100 millirem.

In addition to routine general air sampling, LANL also 

used continuous air monitors with alarm capabilities, 

as I indicated I think already. Workers were required 

to frisk when exiting high contamination areas, 

airborne reactivity areas, contamination areas, buffer 

areas and controlled areas. LANL maintained and 

operated a large inventory of portal monitors 

consisting of personal contamination monitors and 

hand and foot monitors.

Now if you look at the report in Tables 2-2 and 2-3, 

you'll see that large inventory of PCMs and hand and 
43

foot monitors. NIOSH got examples of personnel 

alarming the portal monitors and the action taken. 

Table 2-4 lists examples of the incident reports 

involving the use of portal monitors.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the LANL radiological 

control program, we analyzed contamination survey 

and air monitoring data. Routine smears and air 

sampling surveys were selected from TA-3, TA-48 

and TA-53. These TAs were selected because of their 

known work with exotics during the 1996 through 

2005 period. 

Now we pulled background information from the 

smear and air survey data, including date, TA, 

building number, survey frequency and the number 

of results. The data collected from the smear surveys 

included results exceeding 20 dpm per 100 square 

centimeters alpha, and 1,000 dpm per 100 square 

centimeters beta. Those are the LANL action limits, 

but if -- so those are listed in their RadCon manual, 

but those are the same action limits that are in 10 

CFR 835.

ORAUT derived limits associated with 100 millirem, 

with 400 dpm per 100 square centimeters alpha and 

3.2 million dpm per 100 square centimeters beta, and 

I'll talk a little bit more about how we came up with 

those numbers. So our purpose for compiling this 

data, I want to demonstrate the samples taken in 

these areas was substantial.

So if you look through the report, you can look at the 

tables and there were large numbers at this table. I 

also wanted to determine the likelihood an individual 

could receive a significant intake. The purpose of 

collecting the 100 or collecting smear data exceeding 

400 dpm per 100 square centimeters alpha and 3.2 

million dpm per 100 square centimeters beta was to 

assess the likelihood of an individual exceeding 100 

millirem.

And I want to throw out, you know the thought 

process here is if we don't have a lot of personnel 
44

monitoring data, the question of the 100 millirem is 

significant. And so looking at these areas and 

deciding whether, you know, there was a potential to 

exceed 100 millirem was of greatest concern.

So we looked at previous LANL documents, 

evaluation reports, Work Group meetings and 

associated papers and those indicated the following 

radionuclides with limited data: mixed fission 

products, mixed activation products, americium-241, 

thorium-232, thorium-230, protactinium-231, 

neptunium-237, curium-244 and actinium-227. 

So we wanted to identify worse case radionuclides. 

Of these radionuclides, ORAU evaluated which alpha 

and beta emitter would require the smallest amount 

of surface contamination to be resuspended and a 

worker exposed for a year to receive 100 millirem 

CEDE for both alpha and beta.

So what we're looking at, if you think about it, you 

have derived air concentration limits for each of these 

different radionuclides. However, if we take that each 

one and we look at which one is going to require the 

least amount of surface contamination to be 

resuspended, and then we're going to get -- and from 

that get the 100 millirems CEDE. What we found was 

actinium-227 was our worst alpha emitter; 

strontium-90 Type S worse beta emitter.

But I want to point out that, you know, strontium-90 

Type S is not what we would expect to see at LANL. 

We would really expect to see Type F. But we used 

Type S, because this was a little more conservative. 

All right. Data collected from the air sample surveys 

included results exceeding .04 dpm per 100, per 

cubic meter alpha and 320 dpm per cubic meter beta. 

The limits associated with the air data are just 

derived limits. We did not pull any action limits from 

LANL. The purpose of collecting air data exceeding 

.04 dpm per cubic meter alpha and 300 dpm per 

cubic meter beta, was to assess the likelihood of 

exceeding the 100 millirem.
45

Again, actinium-227 and strontium-90. The only 

difference was the conversion and the resuspension 

factors that made up the difference in the numbers. 

So contamination surveys and airborne data results, 

Table 3-1 summarizes the monitoring results for all 

three TAs as a whole individually. Table 3-2 shows 

the results by year, and Table 3-3 through 3-5 are 

summarized below.

A review of the data shows that over 98 percent of 

all smears and 99 percent of air monitoring data were 

below. That needs to be corrected. It should say a 

review of the data shows that over 98 percent of all 

smears were below the lower limit of alpha 

contamination and 99 percent were below the ORAUderived airborne limit, alpha limit.

The evaluated data does not represent a random 

sample or all the data, but the data suggests the 

workplaces were well controlled. So again, you know, 

we didn't develop a sampling plan on this. What we 

did was we pulled all the data, we did a number of 

data captures, I believe there was nine requesting 

data from LANL to cover these different Technical 

Areas, and we got all this data and from that data we 

did the analysis. We included all the data that we got.

The results exceeding the limits still need to be 

evaluated further. So if we look at our breakdown of 

the smear survey, again these next few tables are 3-

3 through 3-5. I took some of the information, I didn't 

take all of the information from it for the 

presentation. You can refer to the report to get the 

rest of the information.

As you can see, there was a lot of data, 40,717 

smears over the study period, and over half of them 

were from TA-53. If we also remember -- well, when 

I talk about TA-53 more, about the size, you'll 

understand why. But if you can look at the 

percentages, overall percentages is 1.2 percent 

exceeding the lower limit, and that's the lower action 

limit. 
46

That is not a limit that could possibly give, if 

generated and you're exposed to it for 2,000 hours, 

give you the 100 millirem. And so again, it's just the 

LANL action limit. So if you look at the breakdown 

and results above the drive limit, now this is the limit 

associated with the 100 millirem. 

If you look at all of these, overall it is exceeding the 

upper limit. It's all less than one percent. In fact, it's 

.04 percent for all the areas combined. And so this is 

the upper limit associated with the 100 millirem, and 

I'll talk about each TA in a little more detail. And this 

third table is the air concentrations. Again, we have 

67,067. The overall exceeding the 100 millirem limit 

is less than one percent. TA-53 is the worst at seven 

percent.

All right. So I'm going to talk about the Technical 

Areas. TA-3 has a mixture of LANL activities that 

included bench scale operations, larger radiological 

operations, the chemistry, metallurgy, research and 

Sigma Complex. That CMR is the chemistry, 

metallurgy and research. 

CMR's actinide chemical and metallurgy research and 

the Sigma Complex was associated with material 

fabrication. All smears with alpha plus beta results 

were from Radiological Buffer Areas or Contamination 

Areas. I'll talk about that a little further. Surface 

contamination was not found in the same location for 

over two consecutive days.

So you think about this. If you had a smear that 

exceeded a lower limit, for LANL a lower limit, not the 

derived upper limit but a lower limit, if it was there, 

they would either clean it up or post it as a 

Contamination Area, and but if for -- and eventually 

clean it up. 

Okay. There were 28 smeared spots that exceeded 

the derived upper limit for alpha or 100 dpm 100 

centimeters squared. No spot exceeded the derived 

upper limit for beta gamma or beta, excuse me, 3.2 

million dpm per 100 centimeters squared. 17 of the 
47

28 smeared spots were found in the Sigma Complex 

area, where uranium was the radionuclide of concern, 

and the other 11 smears exceeded the upper derived 

limit were found in CMR, where actinides were a 

primary source of concern.

All smears with the alpha plus beta results exceeding 

the limit were taken in Radiological Buffer Areas or 

Contamination Areas. So if they exceeded the limit, 

it was already in an RBA or a Contamination Area, 

and that's really important because there were 

specific controls for going into those areas.

Surface contamination smears were below the 

derived upper limit, 99.87 percent of the time. 

Survey spots with readings above the lower LANL 

surface contamination limit were posted and/or 

claimed in the survey. So given this information and 

considering the minimal number of surface 

contamination samples above any limit, the minimal 

amount of time potentially exposed, routine workers 

would not be exposed to surface contamination for a 

year to exceed 100 millirems.

Airborne contamination results exceeding an alpha or 

beta limit were found on 119 sets of results for TA-3. 

Those were all in CMR, and we say "sets of results." 

Sets are a grouping of airborne results from the 

specific location. An example would be on January 

26th of 2000 in TA-3, Wing 5, there were 67 results 

and only one exceeded the limit.

Okay. All were for alpha results exceeding .04 dpm 

per cubic meter, and all 179 individual air monitoring 

results exceeded .04 dpm per cubic meter. A set of 

individual air monitoring results that exceeds the 

limits is .15 percent of the total air monitoring. So 

less than one, much less than one percent.

Now I'm going to talk about TA-48. TA-48 is know is 

the radiochemistry sites, holding research and 

development and nuclear and radiochemistry. 

Radiochemistry A or RC-1 was the only building of 

radiological concern. RC-1 activities included small 
48

scale radiochemistry, chemical research of high alpha 

activity in the alpha facility, sample counting room, 

small scale production of medical radioisotopes. The 

radionuclides used in these locations primarily 

included actinides and mixed fission and activation 

products. 

Surface contamination smears exceeding either the 

lower alpha or beta contamination limit were found in 

56 surveys, all in RC-1. All smears exceeding the 

lower LANL surface contamination limit were found in 

a Radiological Buffer Area or Contamination Area. 

Again, specific controls to get into those areas. 

From the 56 surveys or 7,888 smears, alpha 

contamination exceeding the lower limit, LANL limit 

was found on 57 smears and beta contamination on 

54 smears. Individual smears exceeding the lower 

LANL limit were .7 percent of the total number of 

smears, again less than one percent. As for the 

derived upper contamination limit, no smears 

exceeded the beta limit, and there were four smears 

that exceeded the upper alpha limit.

Of the total number of smears, 99.9 percent were at 

or below the derived upper limit. Again, survey spots 

with readings above the lower limit, which was again 

from the LANL RadCon manual in 10 C.F.R. 835 for 

surface contamination, were posted appropriately 

and/or cleaned and resurveyed. I just want to remind 

that, even though we've indicated that 99.9 percent 

were at or below, so --

Airborne results. Airborne contamination results 

exceeding the derived limit were found on ten sets of 

airborne results for TA-48. All were from RC-1. 29 

individual air monitoring results exceeded the 

derived alpha limit. No beta results exceeded the 

derived limit. So of the total monitoring results, .45 

percent exceeded a limit, again less than one 

percent.

Talk about TA-53. TA-53 has LANSCE. During the 

period of evaluation, TA-53 had approximately 400 
49

buildings and other structures, and about 800 

personnel, a large area. There were many controls 

established to protect workers, including shielding, 

fencing, access controls, sweep procedures, beam 

shutoff mechanisms, monitoring devices, dosimetry, 

posted safety information, training, other 

administrative controls and emergency response 

mechanisms.

Radionuclides of interest in this area were primarily 

actinides and mixed activation products. Surface 

contamination exceeding either the lower LANL limit 

was found on 46 surveys. All smeared locations were 

in areas that LANL monitors for external exposures 

and intakes. From the 46 surveys, which included 

24,058 smears, alpha contamination was found on

107 smeared spots and 59 beta -- alpha was on 107 

smeared spots and 59 spots with beta.

Okay. The set of individual smears exceeding the 

lower LANL surface contamination limit is .34 percent 

of the total smears available. Again, that's one 

percent. Considering the derived upper limit, ORAUT 

found three smear spots exceeding the alpha limit, 

and no smear spots exceeding the beta limit.

One spot experimental area, in the experimental area 

in MPF-3M and the other two in the beam target area. 

This equates to 99.9 percent of all smeared spots 

were at or below the derived upper limit. Again, 

surveyed spots with readings above the lower limit 

with surface contamination were posted 

appropriately and/or cleaned and resurveyed. Air 

monitoring results for air monitoring samples 

analyzed for gross alpha and beta contamination. 

286 individual monitoring results exceeded the 

derived upper limit, and 14 exceeded the derived 

beta limit. A majority of these results were reported 

for Experimental Area A, where 185 individual air 

monitoring results exceeded the alpha limit, and 9 

individual results exceeded the beta limit.

That's not unexpected, given the activation products 

arising from the spallation process. The said air 
50

monitoring results that exceed the alpha beta limit is

about seven percent of the total air monitoring 

results. Air monitoring results represent sampling at 

the target area, along the beam line and at the 

surface area in ancillary support facilities. Recognize 

that no one's going to be around when that beam is 

activated.

The majority of the results exceeding the limit were 

found in Experimental Area A, as I discussed. 

So, our Technical Area summary. While the analysis 

included smearing, contamination, surface and air 

monitoring data from three TAs, the results of 

smearing air monitoring data demonstrate that LANL 

effectively controlled radioactive contamination. 

Radionuclides of interest for the period of evaluation 

were primarily actinides in TA-3 and TA-48, and 

included activation and fission products. Spallation 

activation products, as well as alpha emitters 

including plutonium, were of primary interest in TA53. 

Summary and conclusions. A list of summary and 

conclusions. In the report, LANL Radiological Control 

Program is discussed and demonstrates that 

contamination was well-controlled in TA-3, TA-48 and 

TA-53. They show LANL controlled routine 

contamination that could lead to doses greater than 

100 millirem. The LANL Radiological Control Program 

included the use of portal monitors to identify and 

remediate workplace contamination.

It required frisking upon exiting Contamination 

Areas, Hot Contamination Areas, airborne reactivities 

and radiological Buffer Areas. Examples of PCM 

alarms and responses were provided. The weight of 

the evidence clearly indicates that workers' doses to 

unmonitored exotic radionuclides were not likely to 

exceed 100 millirem. 

Doses for workers monitored by a bioassay can be 

bounded using bioassay results. So if we have 

bioassay results, we can bound the workers' dose 
51

using that. If the workers are unmonitored, it's pretty 

clear from this report that the unmonitored workers 

were unlikely to exceed 100 millirem. Therefore, they 

could be bounded at 100 millirem, and that's it. 

Sorry.

Chair Beach: Thanks, LaVon. Questions from the 

Work Group Members, comments? Member Roessler: 

I have some questions, Josie. 

Chair Beach: Oh, please. Go ahead, Gen.

Member Roessler: Okay. We just got this report this 

morning, so maybe some of my questions are kind of 

native, but I do have a few things marked here and 

the pages aren't numbered. So I don't know how 

we're going to do this. But if we could go back to your 

slide, it's probably Slide 3 on background. 

Chair Beach: Yeah, Slide 3.

Member Roessler: Okay. I guess my first question is, 

looking at --

Mr. Rutherford: Hold on. For some reason, it jumped 

away. I don't know why it did that.

Mr. LaBone: I think if you just hit escape you'll be 

back there. 

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah. 

Member Roessler: Okay, that's it. Now Bullet 2 as I 

read that, I was wondering. This is I think an 

interesting and a valid approach here. Is there 

precedents in other sites for using the 10 C.F.R. 835 

to set this -- to set up a limit below which you don't 

have to do measurements?

Mr. Rutherford: Well, you know, that's interesting 

that you bring that up Dr. Roessler. We actually 

introduced that on LANL a number of years ago. 

However, the issue was brought up that -- by SC&A 

mainly, that until you verified that the site had 

actually implemented the requirements of 10 C.F.R. 
52

835 and had shown that they were following it and 

complying with it, they felt like setting a date, a 

specific date would not be a good idea. It would 

require further analysis.

So that's why we have done additional work, and 

especially here at LANL. So LANL is really the first site 

that looked into this, the 10 C.F.R. 835 period, and 

all of the sites we have taken over the approach that 

we're not just going to assume compliance at the 

1996 period when, you know, 10 C.F.R. 835 was 

promulgated, but we are going to actually look at the 

data to try to determine if they were truly compliant 

with 835.

Member Roessler: And so at LANL, it's clear it was 

implemented?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, and I want to say compliant with 

835 for the 100 millirem, you know, because as I 

spoke on 0102, you don't have to comply with 

everything in order for dose reconstruction to be 

feasible, if we are getting the bioassay data needed 

to -- for the information, the data needed in order to 

support dose reconstruction.

But in order to set the bar at 100 millirem, you know, 

we needed to be able to see if they were controlling 

these areas in accordance to ensure that individuals 

would not exceed the 100 millirem. We have shown 

that with -- we were looking specifically at TA-3, TA48 and 53, because of their concern with exotic 

radionuclides and our limited data associated with 

them.

Member Roessler: Okay. That brings up the next -- I 

guess this is a comment in that last bullet, where you 

clearly state the 100 millirem per year CEDE. That's 

the correct way to state it. But throughout your 

presentation and the written report, you leave out 

the per year. 

That bothers me, because even though it's implied all 

the way through here, it bothers me that somebody 
53

could pick up a report and see that 100 millirem and 

say well, per unit of time is really important. Is that 

per job or is that per this SEC period or what is it, 

and that's just a comment, that I think in really 

important statements throughout this you should 

always have the per year. Do you see what I'm 

complaining about?

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah. I didn't pick that up.

Member Roessler: I don't know. That always kind of 

bothers me when people talk about dose, and they 

don't say per unit of time. So that's just a comment 

there. But okay, now I've got a few more I think here.

Chair Beach: Before you move on Gen, I wanted to 

make a comment about your first comment about the 

-- that bullet about 10 C.F.R. 835. Doesn't the 1999 

report dispute that LaVon?

Mr. Rutherford: Well, that's one of the things that 

drove us to change our idea that 1996 was the right 

date for setting our, you know, for whenever 10 

C.F.R. 835 was promulgated, and in 1996 everybody 

was supposed to be in compliance unless they had 

indicated, provided information that they would not 

be in compliance at given dates.

So we had set 1996 was the initial thought. If they 

were in compliance with 835 then, then 100 millirem 

would be a good limit. However, I will say that the 

1999 audit brought into question the -- not only, it 

was more questions associated with the bioassay 

program and whether individuals were leaving 

appropriate bioassay.

It did not bring into question specifically the routine 

monitoring, field monitoring program. It was more 

associated with the bioassay program and individuals 

leaving the appropriate, whether they were leaving 

the appropriate bioassay samples, and we did 

address that 0102. 

Chair Beach: Yeah, yeah I know you did. I just found 
54

that to be a little misleading, that it's likely feasible. 

So that was just my comment.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, yep, and a good comment, 

because we initially said that it was likely feasible, 

and in fact our addendum I think I reported, we said 

it was feasible until we got into NCID-484 -- yeah I 

think it's 484 -- and also based on SC&A's comments 

that there wasn't enough data there to support the 

belief that 100 millirem was bounded.

So I think what our report is trying to show that 

here's a lot more data here, and we still feel like that 

100 millirem is bounded.

Chair Beach: Okay, go ahead Gen. 

Member Lockey: LaVon, can you hear me?

Chair Beach: Yes, I can.

Member Lockey: I'm sorry. Were you done? 

Member Roessler: Go ahead.

Member Lockey: So in relationship to the paper, you 

said that there's a Hazard Index of 1, less than 1 to 

100, right?

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Member Lockey: And that had to do with I guess in 

relationship to surface samples as well as air 

monitoring; correct?

Mr. Rutherford: The 1 to 100 is for airborne 

monitoring. A Hazard Index of less than one indicates 

low potential for, from airborne radioactivity. That 

could be -- I mean yes, it could be if the surface 

contamination in the area was high enough. They 

may identify that the area, you know, should be a 

Hazard Index of, you know, 2 or above. 

Member Lockey: How did the facility break down in 

that Hazard Index criteria?
55

Mr. Rutherford: You know, I'm not sure about that. I 

don't know that we looked into that. Mike or Rich, do 

you know?

Mr. Mahathy: We didn't do further -- this is Mike. We 

didn't do a further check into that.

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, I didn't think so.

Member Roessler: Was Jim's question -- I had a 

question there. Was your question how do they 

determine a Hazard Index?

Mr. Rutherford: I think we're --

Member Lockey: It wasn't how they determined the 

Hazard Index. I was just wondering, they assigned 

Hazard Index I guess to certain areas within the 

facility. I was wondering, I was wondering what that 

breakdown was, you know. 

Mr. Mahathy: We would have to get that -- basically 

we included that to show it was part of the rigor of 

the program.

Member Lockey: But you can't tell me if 50 percent 

of the facility was a 2 and the rest was a 1 or 1 to 

100, right? Less than 1 to 100?

Mr. Rutherford: No.

Member Lockey: Okay. That's what I was asking.

Member Roessler: So my question on that is how --

and again we just got this, so I haven't had time to 

think about it. How do they determine the Hazard 

Index? Is it by first knowing the alley and then they 

get HI? 

Mr. Rutherford: Again, I don't know the details of 

that. Rich or Mike do you know the details?

Mr. Mahathy: Rich? 

Mr. Merrill: I don't know. I would have to go back and 

look at the reference. 
56

Mr. Rutherford: I'm not sure, Dr. Roessler.

Member Roessler: I think we should know that, so I 

think that's something that we should think about.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Member Roessler: I have another question, if I can 

continue on. 

Mr. Rutherford: Sure.

Chair Beach: Yes. Please do, Gen.

Member Roessler: Okay. From the Hazard Index 

slide, go about three more under contamination 

surveys. Yeah, okay there. The second bullet. You 

talk about the derived limits associated with the 100 

millirem, and then you say CED. What is "CED"?

Mr. Rutherford: Committed effective dose.

Member Roessler: Okay. Why do you leave off the 

equivalent? Does that mean that because you leave 

off equivalent you're dealing with just the one type 

of radiation? I'm just -- you know, it's been 25 years 

since I studied all this. I guess I need to be brought 

up to date.

Mr. Rutherford: You know, I'll be honest with you. I 

can't remember myself. So go ahead, Liz.

Ms. Brackett: This is Liz Brackett.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Ms. Brackett: So it's called, it's committed effective 

dose equivalent in the ICRP-26 and 30 system, but 

in the ICRP-60 and 68 they changed the weighting 

factors and some other things, and so they changed 

the name and it's just committed effective dose in 

the current system.

Member Roessler: Okay. See, I was afraid I wasn't 

up to date and that's what it is. So okay, thank you.
57

Mr. Rutherford: Liz, I forgot that and I should have 

remembered that.

Member Lockey: Well, isn't committed effective dose 

organ-specific dose?

Mr. Rutherford: No. It's the dose derived for all organ 

exposure.

Member Lockey: Right.

Member Roessler: And all weighted?

Member Lockey: Yes, yes.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Lockey: -- for 50 rem, I think, right?

Mr. Rutherford: Uh-huh.

Member Roessler: And I just have one more 

comment and then I'm done. Just to, and this is the 

second to last -- well the last two slides in your 

summary, quite often people pick up, and this is just 

a kind of whiney comment, pick up the summary and 

conclusions and look only at that. Again, I'd be very 

careful there when you talk about the 100 millirem. I 

think I would be --

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Member Roessler: --happier if you put per year. 

Mr. Rutherford: Got it.

Member Roessler: And that's it.

Chair Beach: All right, thanks Gen. Any other 

comments or questions by Board Members?

Member Clawson: Yeah, Josie this is Brad. I do.

Chair Beach: Hi Brad. Yeah, go for it.

Member Clawson: One of the things I want, and 

LaVon you probably haven't lived through this or 
58

anything else like that. One of the problems that I 

had with C.F.R. 835 and that 100 millirem is at the 

time, this is when the contracts were changing with 

DOE, and they were not cost class. All of a sudden a 

lot of these starting to become bid.

So this 100 millirem they came up with was if you 

were below that, you didn't have to participate in the 

bioassay programs. So this was money. So we're 

talking money now. There's numerous kinds of 

people as they get close to the 100 millirem, then 

they would be subjected not to be able to go in the 

radiation work areas and so forth like that, to be able 

to keep them off the bioassay program, because that 

cost the contractor money.

Now the reason I can specifically speak to this is 

because this has affected me numerous times. So 

when you're using the C.F.R. 835, I want you to look 

at all the weaknesses with it too, plus I want to take 

an opportunity to -- I have never questioned you 

guys' ability to be able to generate a good report. You 

guys are amazing, you're very, very good health 

physicists, and when I disagree with you on things, 

it's not because I don't think that you are. You do a 

wonderful job.

But the thing is, I look at these reports like a cake. 

It's really beautiful, it's got the roses on it, it's got 

everything like that. So I really judge these reports 

after we cut into them and see what they are really 

all about. If my tone was wrong, I want you to 

understand my frustration because bottom line is 

NIOSH unilaterally redirected the review of 

something different than what the Work Group 

requested and expected.

I never saw or heard of any changes. Now if I'm 

wrong LaVon, I apologize. But guess what? 

Everything you sent to Josie was sent on to Work 

Group Members, and I have never seen any kind of 

change. I have been waiting five years, five years to 

be able to see this. So understand my frustration 

when we don't even get a copy until today of your 
59

presentations. We have to go out and find 0101 and 

0102 to be able to operate and be able to review 

these things and look at them.

So that was kind of what my frustration was bottom 

line. I do want to make sure that you understand that 

I respect all of you as health physicists. I really do, 

and I've appreciated the time that you take and you 

sat down with me and explained the whole aspect 

and why we're going at it. I just want to make it clear 

what my frustration was and why I was there.

And I just -- I just want to make sure it was very 

clear what my frustration was and why I was there. 

Mr. Rutherford: I appreciate that and I do understand 

that. I do want to say one thing, a couple of things 

anyway, that you know, it was decided when I talked 

to Josie a month or two ago, I thought that, you 

know, 0101 would be out sooner than it was. We 

were look at scheduling Work Group meetings before 

the April Board meeting and trying to get things 

going.

You know, when we talked about it, we said okay, 

we'll schedule -- you can do the presentations on 

0101 and 0102. We talked between Josie and 

Rashaun, and we'll task SC&A at that Work Group 

meeting to review the reports. So I was, you know, 

it bothered me that I was unable to get the reports 

out sooner and get the presentations out sooner. But 

I had anticipated, based on our discussions, that it 

was going to SC&A for review.

So I felt that even though the Work Group did not get 

a lot of time to review 0101 and there was other time 

there, that there was going to be a period there when 

0101 and 0102 would have been reviewed by SC&A, 

and so the Board, the Work Group and SC&A could 

have brought all their issues at the next Work Group 

meeting. So that's, that was my thought process, just 

so you know.

Member Clawson: Well, and I understand that. But 
60

understand where I just came from too, because 

Savannah River was an ugly process and we went 

around and around for so many years, and I was 

really hoping this, that when we came into this, but 

we're back with the same whole thing. I do realize 

that timeliness is really of the essence, but it is.

We have a responsibility as Board Members and all of 

us, and I know that we take it all literally, to the 

Petitioners and this is just taking way too long. It 

really is, and I just -- I just get frustrated with it and 

I apologize if I offended any of you. But also if you'll 

understand my standpoint of we are as Board 

Members, if we've even worked in a place or done 

anything, we're conflicted.

All of a sudden I see a report by certain individuals, 

and all of a sudden those same individuals are writing 

the report and contradicting their own report. I really, 

I have a -- I really believe that's a conflict of interest, 

and maybe you guys have addressed it and gone 

through the whole legal challenges on it. But I'll tell 

you what, it doesn't, it doesn't look pretty and it 

doesn't smell pretty.

Chair Beach: Okay. I think for me, reading the RPRT0102 and the fact that our original question was 

changed was -- it was hard to take to start with, to 

be honest. What I'd like to do now is talk about 

tasking. Hopefully we can, I can satisfy all who are 

members, since we are both on different sides.

Chair Beach: My initial thought is that we should take 

this to the full Board and go ahead and vote on an 

SEC. What I would like to do now is discuss a tasking. 

So moving forward--

Dr. Roberts: Excuse me, I'm sorry Josie. Someone, 

E. Brackett, needs to go on mute. I think there's an 

echo. So E. Brackett.

Chair Beach: Elizabeth, yeah.

Ms. Brackett: Sorry about my sound system, how it 
61

started on my computer, too.

Chair Beach: Interesting, but it does happen.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you.

Work Group Discussion

Chair Beach: Okay. So moving forward, I would like 

to propose that we task SC&A with reviewing Reports 

0102 and 0101. On a parallel track, I would also like 

to have SC&A take a look at all the available RWPs 

that LaVon captured, not just the plutonium, and I 

believe SC&A would need to have access to all RWP 

files.

The original question still needs to be answered, the 

question of unsubmitted job-specific bioassays and 

the completeness of the job-specific bioassay data 

sets, as well as compliance by NIOSH by LANL 

workers for all of the RWPs, including the non-PU 

source terms. So I feel like it's important to do both 

of those together. 

I guess I would have to ask SC&A if that's something 

that they can do if they're so tasked, if their Work 

Group agrees with that tasking, if they can complete 

both reports and do the additional tasking of looking 

at the RWPs that were originally spelled out for the 

sampling plan.

So I guess I should first ask SC&A if they can take 

that on, and then if the Work Group would agree to 

that tasking.

Mr. Barton: We certainly obviously can review the 

reports. On the question of in parallel doing survey 

for RWP analysis, that is a very significant chunk of 

work. I'd like a little bit of time just to see the full 

data set and sort of come to grips with what that 

would take, because that is a very tall order. As we've 

seen, it can take a very long time to do these sorts

of things, as NIOSH would certainly attest to.

But we'll certainly do everything we can to obviously 
62

look at both reports, and then --

Mr. Rutherford: Josie, I will tell you that we are, we 

are looking at the rest of the RWPs right now.

Chair Beach: Pardon me? Go ahead.

Mr. Rutherford: We are, we are looking at the rest of 

the RWPs.

Chair Beach: Is that something you can make 

available to SC&A?

Mr. Rutherford: We certainly can.

Chair Beach: The other thing that I think would be 

important would be in real time, that if there's any 

tech calls that would need to be made between SC&A 

and NIOSH, to get a feeling or an understanding of 

your approach, if that could be made possible, that 

time frame for tech calls if needed. 

Mr. Rutherford: Yeah, most certainly.

Mr. Barton: Yeah absolutely. I mean we certainly 

have some clarifying questions that probably aren't 

appropriate at this stage right now. It's, you know, 

just sort of wading into these reports. But certainly 

some tech calls would be warranted down the line.

Chair Beach: Okay. So the big thing, LaVon, I think 

on your side would be making that data available, 

and then I guess if SC&A feels like they can do that, 

the Work Group Members, can you weigh in on your 

thoughts?

Member Clawson: Josie, this is Brad. I'm kind of like 

-- see, I'd like SC&A to be able to look at NIOSH's 

study approach, if in fact it was relevant to the one 

that the Work Group even started with. That should 

be fairly easy to be able to tell, just in the process 

that they have going on right now.

Chair Beach: Okay. Gen and Jim?

Member Roessler: I see Jim is muted, so I'll talk. Yes, 
63

thank you Josie. I think this is an appropriate way to 

go, and I certainly agree with it.

Member Lockey: Hi, Jim. This is Jim. I agree. I think 

with Brad's comments for Savannah River, I agree 

that it would be -- there is a time factor here that's 

important. So I think maybe based on Gen what you 

said, there's a basic philosophy here, is that are we 

going to use the best science? Does the best science 

say yes, the science says we can do dose 

reconstruction in a very valid manner based on the 

database that's available?

If SC&A's able to answer that question, is that 

adequate? Or is it inadequate? And if it is inadequate, 

where's the objective data that then indicates it's 

inadequate? I think that's really the proper question. 

If the best science is not something that is the final 

thing that we're looking for, then rather than 

spending a lot of time going forward, maybe there's 

another pathway we should take and say the best 

science is not what we're looking for here.

If the best science says we can do good dose 

reconstruction, but that's not going to be adequate, 

then that delay is not appropriate I think. That's what 

I'm trying to raise the issue with here, so and I would 

address the question to SC&A. Are they going to be 

able to look at this database in an objective manner 

and say the data is adequate or inadequate to do 

dose reconstruction in a valid manner.

If it's inadequate, why is it inadequate in an objective 

manner?

Chair Beach: I feel like they've always been 

objective, but I'll let SC&A answer that.

Member Lockey: Looking at it generate data that 

indicates it's valid. There's not a percentage --

(Phone ringing.)

Mr. Barton: Well, I guess two things here. A lot of 

times when we say "adequacy," it's sort of conflated 
64

with weakness, and I think that was really the issue 

that was wrestled with at Savannah River. As far as 

producing objective data on a completeness front, it's 

obviously difficult to do because if there's a 

completeness issue, then you don't have the data to 

analyze to come up with an objective answer.

Member Lockey: There is. If you have a big database, 

you can look for -- you can pick pieces out of it and 

say this reflects that most likely it's not going to be 

representative. So if you have a small database, I 

would agree with you. But if you have a large 

database such as this, then we should be able to find 

something that says yeah, this is not representative 

and this is why it's not representative.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Lockey: So I think the question is I don't 

think we should waste time and extend this out. If we 

get to the end of it and NIOSH and these scientists 

say yeah, this is a great database and we're sure that 

dose reconstruction can be done in an adequate 

manner. But that's not, that's not going to reach the 

threshold that our Committee can be comfortable 

with. 

And so maybe we need to go back and say what is 

the best science and when do we use the best 

science? When do we use the best science, and when 

do we dismiss it?

Mr. Barton: I'm not sure if the question was directed 

at me. I guess I would say when you're talking about 

completeness issues, obviously there's data that's 

missing. So as sort of Tom LaBone hinted at, you 

have to ask yourself a question. What sort of informs 

that missing data and is there a reason to think that 

what is missing would affect your ability to construct 

a coworker model that is representative of the 

exposed population?

Member Lockey: I agree, I agree with you. That's 

right. There's always going to be missing data. I've 
65

never had industrial hygiene data where there wasn't 

missing data, ever in my whole life in large 

databases. There's always going to be missing data. 

But there is a point at least where the missing data 

is going to be covered by the preponderance of other 

data that's available to enable you to do a very valid 

dose reconstruction.

So if any missing data, one percent or two percent is 

going to persuade the Board that it is inadequate 

data, then you don't need to go through this process, 

right.

Chair Beach: What started this was a 40 percent, two 

out of five RWPs or a lack of people submitting was 

the problem. So I don't think we can answer that Jim 

until we get a look at that, at the RWPs and the data, 

which is where we started in what, five years ago. So 

I think we need to move forward with this and see 

where the facts are and make the judgment at that 

point.

Member Lockey: I agree with you Josie, but I think 

the judgment has to be made on just, more than just 

a percent of maybe one year and one data point just 

as 40 percent, and therefore they're missing 60 

percent. It raises enough concern that the data is 

missing, especially when you have thousands and 

thousands of samples available that you can draw 

from to see well, if they are missing, where is it 

reflected? Where can we look at that to see it's 

reflected in the data?

Chair Beach: Hopefully, yes Jim. Hopefully we'll have 

that answer after SC&A has the chance to look at the 

data and the RWPs, and I think someone was trying 

to break in and speak?

Member Clawson: It was me Josie. It was Brad. One 

of the things I want Jim to remember on this, and 

this is one of the things we got into, because one of 

the processes and some of the things that were 

missing on this was termination bioassays. They were 

leaving without this, and this has been a problem 
66

throughout the thing.

I understand what you're saying about the best 

science and everything else like that, and we always 

try to be able to go to this. But this is not just going 

out there and evaluating what somebody's dose 

possibly could have been or could have feasibly been 

here. This is also a compensation program. This isn't 

a science project. It really isn't.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Lockey: I think we need to take that to the 

Board. This is a dose reconstruction program. This is 

a compensation program. When we do those dose 

reconstructions on individual Work Groups, it is to 

determine compensation in relationship to that 

person's total dose. So I agree with you on that. But 

there is a point we have to say the science is 

adequate enough to do a precise dose reconstruction 

on the people who were working at a facility. I mean 

there is --

Chair Beach: Well, and Jim I agree with you on that. 

When I started thinking about moving forward, we 

can take this to the Board and we can ask for an SEC 

for that time period in question. But the Board is 

going to ask us to do this work anyway I believe. So 

I feel like the question needs to be answered. It's not 

a new question, how complete is the complete data.

We don't know until we get a chance to look at it, so 

are you disagreeing with the path forward in having 

SC&A tasked to look at the two reports and the RWP 

data? 

Member Lockey: No. I think if SC&A thinks they're 

qualified to do it, which I think they are. But I would 

like them to be much more precise than they were 

before, and come up with objective criteria of why 

they think the data is inadequate, okay? Not just a 

percentage, that they only sampled in Year 2000 40 

percent, this one particular job tasks during this one 

particular period.
67

That doesn't cut it for me, especially when we have 

so much data available. It has to be something above 

that, okay.

Chair Beach: Okay, that's a fair enough question, I 

think. SC&A, you agree?

Mr. Barton: Well perhaps I'm misinterpreting Dr. 

Lockey's comments. I think in the end, a lot of times 

this comes down to a judgment call by the Board as 

to what constitutes a complete data set. So I 

absolutely understand that, a single data point 

where, you know, in 1999 it was a single RWP 40 

percent.

Now obviously that doesn't speak to any sort of or it 

doesn't speak to the whole picture of completeness 

of your data set. But when you say like, you know, it 

shouldn't just come down to the percentages. I'm not 

sure what we're left with as far as objective criteria, 

in saying this is an acceptable level of completeness 

and this isn't. 

And ultimately I think that that's really a judgment 

call for the Board. We can present the analysis in 

much the same way NIOSH does, and look at it 

perhaps from a few different angles, and present that 

to you all. But ultimately the -- at least as it currently 

is, how complete is complete is really a judgment call 

for the Board. What I think I'm hearing you say, Dr. 

Lockey, is that the Board should really establish what 

is acceptable. 

However, you know, with every different site 

situation that does get murky as far as setting down 

ironclad guidelines as to what an acceptable level of 

completeness when you have a case that you're 

trying to use to construct doses to monitored 

workers. 

Chair Beach: And if I'm not mistaken, that's the same 

thing that they do with the coworker models. They 

use the data to make the coworker models. So what's 

the percentage there as well? It's a judgment call for 
68

the Board to make. It's the same. 

Member Lockey: The data that's used, if it's an 

extensive database and they're reusing redundancies 

to look at the validity of the data, and there's a high 

correlation relationship to one database to the next 

database and the next database, and you're putting 

the limits at 95 or 99 percent, and you're looking at 

the highest potential exposures that occur at the 

facility, to me, that's a rather rigorous program. 

And whether when we come out the other end it's 

validated remains to be seen, because NIOSH has 

gone forward and done that. But I would like SC&A 

to go through the same process that NIOSH goes 

through and say, yeah, we used what they did. We 

looked at the whole database. We looked at their 

approach, and their approach is a valid approach. It 

gives us confidence that we can do dose 

reconstruction, but there are some holes in it, and 

here are where the holes are and these are 

unknowns, because two percent of the workers in this 

job weren't monitored and 20 percent in this job 

weren't monitored during this year. 

Then it's up to the Board to decide whether that's 

adequate or not. But I think as we move forward in 

time here, Josie, our databases become more and 

more rigorous and the exposures are less and less 

over time, and we do have to reach an approach 

where we can say that what represents an adequate 

database to do adequate dose reconstruction, all 

right, because we're never going to catch everybody 

at any one point in time. It's never going to happen. 

That's not the way it works.

Chair Beach: But that is also why we have SC&A, and 

they do -- looking at this data, I'm sure they will give 

us an objective view of what's available and the 

Board can then make a decision within our Work 

Group and then the full Board. So I think those are 

all good points, and I think SC&A will take those all 

to heart when they're doing their review and looking 

at the available data.
69

So it sounds like we're all in agreement to move 

forward. Any other comments or questions? 

(No response.)

Chair Beach: NIOSH, I guess I'm going to ask, LaVon, 

can you give me a timeline of when you can have the 

data online available to SC&A, because that's going 

to -- I can't ask them for their deadline without 

knowing when you'll have that available to them.

Mr. Rutherford: I'll work to get that done as quickly 

as possible, and I also -- I'll give, I'll let SC&A know 

how long I do believe it will take. I will provide the 

email, because I did find it where I told you that we 

were including all of the RWPs in this, and I'll also 

include the email where I talk about the plutonium 

analysis. 

Chair Beach: Okay.

Mr. Rutherford: I'll pass it on to the entire Work 

Group.

Chair Beach: Okay perfect, and then if you'll just pass 

on to the Work Group the timeline and then if -- or if 

Bob has any questions or has any need for anything 

else, if he can just shoot you and us an email so that 

this --

(Phone ringing.)

Member Lockey: This is Jim Lockey. I have to get 

back to my --

Chair Beach: Yeah. Jim, so thank you for joining us 

in this difficult time period for your family.

Member Lockey: I apologize for this. They're calling 

me back to the room.

Chair Beach: No. We appreciate you being able to be 

on. So thank you and we'll catch up with you later.

Member Lockey: Okay, bye-bye. Bye-bye everybody.
70

Member Clawson: Hey Josie, this communication 

with SC&A and with NIOSH, could you please -- you 

do very well to be able to forward us whatever you 

get, stuff like that. But when this is being sent out, 

could it go to the full Work Group so that we're all on 

the same page?

Chair Beach: Yeah. If it goes to Rashaun, I'm sure 

Rashaun can -- is better able to get it out to the full 

Work Group. If I see something that's not, I will 

forward it on to Rashaun to review, to send out.

Member Clawson: Right.

Chair Beach: Is that okay Rashaun?

Dr. Roberts: Yes, that's fine.

Chair Beach: Okay, okay. So if there's -- if there's 

anything else? Otherwise, I'll move that we close for 

now.

Member Clawson: I just want to make sure that SC&A 

is clear on what our tasking is, and if we need to 

clarify anything for them as it comes down the road, 

we need to make sure the whole Work Group is 

involved in making sure that we're going down the 

correct and best path. So Bob, is there -- at this time 

you may not have any, but is there any questions?

Mr. Barton: Well, I guess just to -- let me restate my 

understanding of what our tasking is, is that we look 

at Report 0101 and 0102 in very much the normal 

fashion we would, with sort of the add-on task of 

expanding past just the plutonium access list RWPs, 

to look at some of the other RWPs that required 

urinalysis with some of the other source terms. That's 

my understanding.

Member Clawson: Yeah. I'd also like to see if this is 

the -- I feel like it varied from what the Board exactly. 

I'd just like you to -- was this the best approach that 

they went? And that should, that shouldn't be much, 

but I'd just like to see that.
71

Mr. Barton: I understand. I'm certainly not 

necessarily in position to comment on it right now, 

but as we get into the data and look at some of the 

other RWPs, I think it will probably be fairly evident, 

and we'll strive to answer that question for you Brad.

Member Clawson: Okay, thank you so much.

Chair Beach: Okay, and Gen, anything else for you?

Member Roessler: Nothing here.

Chair Beach: Okay. LaVon, y'all?

Mr. Rutherford: Nothing from me.

Chair Beach: Okay, appreciate you guys. Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Josie?

Chair Beach: Yes, go ahead Rashaun.

Dr. Roberts: There is an item on the agenda for 

petitioner comments.

Petitioner Comments

Chair Beach: Oh, I apologize. You're correct, yes. 

Thank you so much. It's buried under my stack of 

paperwork. So, yes, at this time, if we do have any 

petitioners -- I think Andrew was on the line. And if 

you're still with us, if you'd like to make any 

comments, that would be great.

Mr. Evaskovich: Yeah. This is Andrew Evaskovich. I 

appreciate the opportunity to talk. Getting ready for 

this, of course short hand, because I just received 

the reports on Friday and trying to come up to a 

response, I'll have to do it in writing as far as detail. 

But I do have some comments. I'll bring up my sheet 

here. I want to go back to 835, because they only 

have that one report from 1999, and in 1989 LANL 

was subjected to the Clean Air Act, and they were 

sued for not being in compliance with it, and they still 

weren't in compliance with it even until after three 
72

audits. I think those were completed in 2002.

So even though you say you're not relying on 835, 

the fact that they weren't in compliance on this other 

issue and there were quality assurance issues that 

came out of the Clean Air Act as far as usage of 

materials, and I think that plays a part as far as the 

monitoring that goes for workers.

An issue of the bioassay kits, we go back to that and 

I've brought it up before, is bioassay for different 

materials were done in different kits at least I know 

of. Plutonium is one kit and uranium is another kit. 

So capturing, you know, other radionuclides and 

you're obviously saying you don't have in vitro 

bioassay for the exotics again.

Now referring to the frisking and monitoring upon 

exit, there have been failures in the system as far as 

the equipment goes. I can speak specifically to the 

Sigma SM-66 and TA-3 with the americium incident. 

The individual that was involved, he hand-frisked 

himself and they know that he did because they 

found contamination on the equipment. 

But the equipment failed to detect the contamination, 

and there have been incidents of individuals leaving 

areas and going home, and it was not discovered that 

they were contaminated until they returned back to 

work the following day. So saying that, you know, the 

program was rigorous in that aspect, I don't think it 

was. I managed to find a paper from the Health 

Physics Association concerning bioassay monitoring 

of mixtures of radionuclides.

Now the paper appears to be well, concerned with the 

primaries such as plutonium and americium, and 

they do mention neptunium. Some excerpts from it 

are this. A mixture is defined as a collection of 

radionuclide constituents that are present at the 

same time in the same process, such that intake of 

one of the constituents must necessarily coincide 

with an intake of all the other constituents.
73

To go further, because of the differences in uptake 

and biokinetic behavior for a given radionuclide in 

different physical and chemical forms, the dose 

delivered to a given person by a certain quantity of 

radionuclide is not always the same. 

Even for known physical and chemical form, 

biokinetic models are often highly uncertain, leading 

to large uncertainty in the potential dose. For that 

reason, the quantity of a single radionuclide in 

process that leaves a substantial for a one millisievert 

CED to be established by using some standard 

method such as those laid out in NRC regulatory 

guides.

Monitoring thresholds for pure radionuclides used at 

Los Alamos National Laboratory have always been 

established. However, determining monitoring 

thresholds for radionuclide mixtures presents special 

challenges. It is not necessary for the potential dose 

of any single constituent to exceed one millisievert, 

in order for monitoring to be required under 

regulations.

However, in some cases it might neither be -- it might 

be neither feasible nor necessary to monitor for each 

constituent of a mixture. 

And another excerpt, "Along the dose coefficient, the 

routine in vitro bioassay monitoring threshold, is a 

key characteristic of a mixture. In particular, 

monitoring thresholds must be calculated for the total 

mixture, as well as for the individual constituents. 

These calculations analogous to calculations of the 

dose coefficients." In determining monitoring 

thresholds, some assumptions must be made to 

estimate the fraction of material that could venture 

into the body. 

And another except, "More often than not, employees 

work with a variety of mixtures, all with different 

ages and compositions. The combination of mixtures 

an employee is or might be working with can be 

characterized as a metamixture." 
74

And another excerpt, "In practice, determining which 

constituents to monitor is a complicated decision 

involving a number of technical and practical 

considerations. These decisions must be made on a 

case-by-case basis, and may need to be revisited as 

considerations change, example when a new 

technical capability becomes available. Determining 

which constituents of the mixture should be directly 

monitored is a complicated decision.

And this part is from the Appendix of the article. 

"However, it is not always clear which nuclides must 

be monitored. For example, it may be that monitoring 

threshold for a mixture is exceeded without 

exceeding the monitoring threshold for any of its 

constituents." And this is from 2017, 

Healthphysics.com. I can forward it to you, but I 

think that, you know, goes back to the plutonium 

bioassay, because it does refer to different types of 

plutonium present, plus americium and neptunium.

And I bring this up again. There was a finding that 

the neptunium was not properly monitored for in the 

air and sampling when it was worked on at TA-55. I 

haven't been able to find the article, but I also believe 

it was worked at, worked on, that project was worked 

on at CMR before going to TA-55.

As to the exotics and their locations, you've excluded 

TA-54, which has all types of materials in there. TA2 was the reactor, and that was in the process of 

decommissioning. I believe they completed that 

before I started to work there in '98. But it did go into 

this time frame, and there were mixed fission and 

activation products that were present there during 

the decommissioning.

Another area that was decommissioned was TA-21 

DP site, and that wasn't completed I think until the 

2000's. They were finding a lot of components in 

there, and we were staffing in there, providing 

security as far as during the decommissioning plus 

before that, because there were stations in there that 

were operating until I believe 2000, that we staffed 
75

and there were people working in there, even though 

it was decommissioned.

So there is the potential for exposure there as we 

were doing that work. So I'd just like to point that 

out. I think there are deficiencies as far as what's 

being addressed in 0101 and 0102, and I'll try to 

come up with a written argument here in the next 

few weeks, because I have a lot of research that I 

have to do. 

I have to go back through a lot of my material, which 

you know is quite extensive, to find the items that 

I'm looking for that, you know, concern the basis of 

my argument. And that would be all I have to say 

today. I thank you for the opportunity and I thank 

you for this meeting.

Chair Beach: Thank you, Andrew, and thank you for 

your written comments. And, yes, if you can get them 

to Rashaun, then she'll distribute them to all of us, 

the ones today and then anything additional you want 

to add.

Mr. Evaskovich: Okay.

Work Group Discussion & Path Forward

Chair Beach: That's always helpful. Thank you very 

much. Okay. Let me look at that agenda. I think that 

brings us to a close, unless there's anything I think 

path forward. I don't believe we will need to have a 

presentation other than just a regular update at the 

April meeting, unless you think something different 

is needed Rashaun.

Dr. Roberts: No, an update during the Board work 

session I'm assuming.

Chair Beach: Yeah, yes.

Dr. Roberts: That should be fine, uh-huh.

Chair Beach: Other Board Members, questions, 

comments? Are we okay to close? 
76

Member Clawson: This is Brad. I'm good to close.

Chair Beach: Okay, I believe Gen said earlier she was 

--

Member Roessler: Yeah, I'm good.

Adjourn

Chair Beach: Okay. It's good to see everybody, and 

thank you for all your comments and thoughts on this 

one. 

Member Clawson: Okay. We'll see you guys later. 

Have a marvelous day.

Chair Beach: Yep, bye.

Dr. Roberts: Bye.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 1:42 p.m.)