NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 1

 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

 CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

+ + + + + 

 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL 

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

 ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND 

 WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + + 

 WORK GROUP ON THE AREA IV OF THE SANTA 

 SUSANA FIELD LABORATORY SITE PROFILE AND SEC 

+ + + + + 

FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2009 

+ + + + + 

 The meeting convened at 10:00 a.m. 

in the Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport 

Marriott Hotel, Hebron, Kentucky, Michael 

Gibson, Chairman, presiding. 

PRESENT: 

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Chairman 

JOSIE M. BEACH, Member 

WANDA I. MUNN, Member 

PHILLIP M. SCHOFIELD, Member 

THEODORE M. KATZ, Acting Designated Federal 

 Official 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 2

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS: 

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor* 

TERRIE BARRIE, ANWAG* 

HANS BEHLING, SC&A* 

GREG BERONJA, SC&A 

LIZ BRACKETT, ORAU* 

RAY CLARK, ORAU* 

JACK FIX, ORAU* 

ELIZABETH HOMOKI-TITUS, HHS* 

EMILY HOWELL, HHS 

LARA HUGHES, NIOSH 

BONNIE KLEA, Petitioner* 

ROY LLOYD, HHS* 

JOHN MAURO, SC&A 

ROBERT MORRIS, ORAU* 

JIM NETON, NIOSH 

GENE POTTER, ORAU* 

ADAM SALKIN, Public* 

JOHN STIVER, SC&A 

ELYSE THOMAS, ORAU 

*Participating via telephone 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Introductions .............................. 4 

Review of Site Profile Issues Matrix ...... 11 

 SC&A Action Items ................... 12 

 NIOSH Action Items .................. 50 

Review of SC&A SEC Petition and Evaluation 

Report and Issues Matrix ................. 112 

Action Items and Path Forward ............ 169 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 4

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 (9:57 a.m.) 

 MR. KATZ: Good morning. This is 

Ted Katz, the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health, and this is the Santa Susana 

Working Group, and we're just coming on line 

now. 

 Let me just check the phone lines 

and see. Do we have any Board members on the 

phone? 

 (No verbal response.) 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. So Mark was 

possibly going to call in. No Mark, and then 

we have the rest of our Board members here. 

So we're going to start right away beginning 

with roll call, and for everybody in roll 

call, government and contractors and so on, 

please also state your conflict of interest 

situation. 

 So beginning in the room with Board 

members. Mike. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Mike Gibson, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 5

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Chair of the work group. No conflict. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Philip 

Schofield, Board member. No conflict. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach, Board 

member. No conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: Wanda. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Wanda Munn, Board 

member. No conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: All right, and I think 

on the line we don't have Mark right now who 

is the alternate for this, and there are no 

other Board members on the phone; is that 

correct? 

 (No verbal response.) 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. But in the room, 

the NIOSH ORAU team, please. 

 MR. NETON: Jim Neton, OCAS. No 

conflict. 

 DR. HUGHES: Lara Hughes, OCAS. No 

conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: And are there any NIOSH 

ORAU team on the line? 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 6

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MR. MORRIS: Robert Morris, ORAU 

team. No conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: That's Robert Morris. 

 MS. BRACKETT: Liz Brackett, ORAU 

team. No conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Liz. 

 MR. POTTER: Gene Potter, ORAU 

team. No conflicts. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Then how about 

SC&A in the room? 

 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A. No 

conflict. 

 MR. BERONJA: Greg Beronja, SC&A. 

No conflict. 

 MR. STIVER: John Stiver, SC&A. No 

conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: Are there any other SC&A 

on the line? 

 (No verbal response.) 

 DR. MAURO: Not yet. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. You're expecting 

some then. Great. Okay. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 7

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 And then we have? 

 MS. THOMAS: I'm Elyse Thomas, and 

I'm with the ORAU team. 

 MR. KATZ: Did I just skip you 

somehow? 

 MS. THOMAS: Yes, kind of went 

right on to the next group, but that's fine. 

 MR. KATZ: Oh, I'm sorry. 

 MS. THOMAS: And I have no 

conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: You've got to get your 

word in quickly. Sorry, Elyse. 

 MS. THOMAS: No problem. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay, and then we will 

have in the room, but we don't right now one 

HHS employee, but we can get her to identify 

when she comes in. 

 On the line do we have anybody from 

HHS or other federal employees? 

 MR. LLOYD: Roy Lloyd. No 

conflict. 

 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Roy. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 8

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 Okay. Then how about petitioners? 

 Do we have any petitioners on the line? 

 MS. KLEA: Bonnie Klea, petitioner. 

 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Bonnie. 

 MS. KLEA: Thank you. 

 MR. KATZ: And any other members of 

the public or staff from congressional 

offices? 

 MR. SALKIN: I'm from the public. 

Adam Salkin. 

 MR. KATZ: Adam Salkin? 

 MR. SALKIN: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you. 

Welcome. 

 MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie Barrie 

with ANWAG. 

 MR. KATZ: Oh, welcome, Terrie. 

 MS. BARRIE: Good morning. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Anyone else from 

the public? 

 (No verbal response.) 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Then that covers 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 9

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

roll call. 

 MS. ADAMS: Ted, it's Nancy. 

 MR. KATZ: Oh, Nancy. Sorry. I 

should have said contractors, too, I guess. 

Welcome, Nancy. Nancy Adams, contractor to 

NIOSH. 

 MS. ADAMS: NIOSH. 

 MR. CLARK: Ray Clark with ORAU is 

here. 

 MR. KATZ: Oh, okay, another. Ray 

Clark. Thank you. 

 MR. FIX: Jack Fix, ORD. 

 MR. KATZ: Jack Fix. We have quite 

a cast. 

 Any others? 

 (No verbal response.) 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Then for everyone 

on the phone, just to remind you, please, 

please, mute your phones except when you're 

speaking. Star-six if you don't actually have 

a mute button, and please do not put the call 

on hold. If you need to go somewhere, just 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 10

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

disconnect and call back in because the hold 

will mess up the line for everybody. 

 Thank you. 

 I'm sorry. The mute is star, the 

star sign on your phone and then six. It will 

mute your phone. 

 Mike. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. The agenda 

we've got set up for today is to review the 

site profile issues matrix. That's kind of 

like a little bit of history of where we've 

been since the last time we met. 

 The Board assigned SC&A to do an 

SEC petition evaluation. So that will be the 

second item on the agenda. 

 And then once we cover that 

information and probably after lunch some time 

early this afternoon, then if there's any 

claimants or advocates on the line that feel 

we may have missed some things that they feel 

are important, they can raise the issues at 

that time and then we'll take them under 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 11

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

consideration. 

 And then finally the action items 

and path forward to close out the day. 

 So with that, I'll turn it over to 

SC&A for the site profile issues matrix. 

 MR. KATZ: And let me just note 

Emily Howell from HHS has joined us. 

 MR. BERONJA: Good morning. This 

is Greg Beronja. Again, I'm with SC&A, and as 

Mike said, the first thing I'm going to do is 

go through the site profile review. We have 

an issues matrix for that, and what I'm going 

to do is there's a number of these issues 

which are more editorial in nature and we'll 

pretty much kind of skip over those. There's 

a couple issues where I think it will be 

better to discuss during the SEC discussion, 

and then there's a few where there are NIOSH 

action items, and then we can talk about those 

maybe in this context. 

 So I'm going to go through. I 

guess folks on the phone, I apologize if you 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 12

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

don't have this. I'll try and make sure that 

you understand the issue and ask questions if 

you have trouble following from the phone. 

 Yes, go ahead. 

 DR. NETON: I've got a question 

about process here. We're going to do the 

site profile and go over the issues and then 

decide which ones are SEC issues? 

 I mean, to me right now we have an 

SEC evaluation form on the table that has a 

class that's already proposed to be added, and 

I don't know that we want to go back and 

tackle profile issues right now sort of 

secondary to that. 

 Well, certainly it's Mike's, the 

Chair's, prerogative, but I'm just sort of 

wondering. 

 MR. BERONJA: I think the intent 

really was to not really go over any, quote/ 

unquote, site profile issues. 

 DR. NETON: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: I think there were 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 13

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

some issues here that naturally go into the 

SEC where there were maybe action items on 

NIOSH's part that will play a part in the SEC. 

 DR. NETON: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: So if there's 

anything where you think I'm going into too 

much detail -- 

 DR. NETON: No, that's fine. I 

just didn't want to get engaged in some 

detailed discussions of some secondary set 

profile issues that would take up most of the 

day -- 

 MR. BERONJA: No. 

 DR. NETON: -- and then we'd not 

really get into the SEC issues. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: That's mainly 

just historical -- 

 DR. NETON: Okay. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: -- just to get us 

all back up. 

 DR. NETON: That's fine. 

 MR. BERONJA: And my hope, although 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 14

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

I haven't done many of these, is that we can 

get through this in less than an hour at the 

most, maybe even a little bit quicker, and I'm 

going to go through these just by the issue 

number and hopefully everybody in the room has 

these. 

 Issue 4.1-1 was just the discussion 

about the inconsistency of the presentation of 

dates in the operation, and this is somewhat 

of an editorial issue and somewhat of an SEC 

issue that we will discuss in the SEC 

discussion. 

 The same thing is true on 4.1-2, 

which are names used to reference the site in 

the document are not consistent. Again, it's 

an editorial issue that I think when NIOSH has 

time they're going to go back and address. 

 I'm going to move through these 

pretty quickly. So if anybody has any 

questions. 

 4.2-1, there's a discussion about 

the sodium reactor experiment. Again, I think 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 15

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

I'm going to skip this right now because this 

is covered also in the site profile where 

there's a NIOSH action item. 

 4.2-2 is a discussion about just 

the composition of the work force, which I 

think is being adequately handled. So I don't 

want to really go into this, whether it's the 

co-worker models that are being worked on or 

other things. 

 4.2-3 is a lack of sufficient 

detail to assess potential exposures to 

workers. This is covered in more detail. 

It's more specific responses in the SEC or 

later on. 

 4.2-4 references an incomplete 

listing of radionuclides, and I think there 

this again is going to be covered in some of 

the SEC issues, and I think NIOSH has said 

that they're going to revise some of the 

sections and tables of the SEC profile related 

to this. 

 4.2-5 is a discrepancies in dates 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 16

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

presented, and again, it's editorial that I 

think will be fixed when NIOSH does some 

revisions to the documents. 

 Again, 4.2-6 is a presentation of 

the owners and operators, which was a little 

bit confusing in the document, again, 

editorial, and it will be addressed later. 

 Then we move to 4.3-1, is 

insufficient guidance in TBD-3 to perform dose 

reconstructions, and in going through these 

things, I don't think that there's anything 

that we need to discuss here. I think actions 

as far as resolving some of these things or 

how these things will factor and the SEC will 

be discussed at that time. 

 4.3-2 talks about Table 3-2 in the 

site profile that needs to be revised, and 

again, this is an editorial thing that I think 

NIOSH is going to address when they have a 

chance. It was more of a clarification 

related to the presentation of medical 

exposures, but was discussed in 4.3-2. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 17

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 4.4-1 and 4.4-2 is improper use of 

surrogate data for environmental exposure. 

Again, the environmental exposure issue is 

talked about in the SEC and we'll cover that 

there. 

 4.4-3 development of breathing zone 

air concentrations, I think NIOSH is going to 

describe the basis for the factors used in 

doing this in the next revision of TBD-4, and 

this, again, will be covered maybe to some 

small extent during the SEC discussion. 

 4.4-4 is justification for 

assignment of external dose estimates is not 

provided, and the NIOSH response to this was 

it's being reviewed and will be described in 

the next revisions of TBD-4. 

 Again, we have an SEC issue that 

deals with some of the internal dosimetry that 

we'll discuss during the SEC as well as there 

are issues related to the external doses, and 

I'd rather cover those there, but otherwise 

some of these things will be revised 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 18

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

editorially in the next revision of the TBD. 

 4.4-5 talks about consumption of 

potable water. Again, we'll cover this in the 

SEC. There is some information that SC&A had 

noticed in some later documents that we think 

should be factored in in looking at this, but 

I think this is probably more of a dose 

reconstruction issue than an SEC issue, but it 

will be discussed later on. 

 4.4-6 talks about the sodium burn 

pit and some other areas as radiation sources, 

and again, this and the sodium reactor 

experiment and a few other incidents will be 

discussed during our discussion of the SEC. 

 4.5-1 internal monitoring was not 

complete or well documented. Again, we've got 

a discussion on internal monitoring in the SEC 

review. 

 4.5-2 is the same thing, related to 

internal dosimetry, and in fact, I think quite 

a few of the next issues -- 4.5-3, missing 

radionuclides is also addressed later. Four, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 19

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

point, five, dash, two talks about co-worker 

model, and I think maybe we can just hold off 

and talk about that as we get to the SEC, too. 

 4.5-5 is a very specific. It's the 

real chronic intake should be used in 

evaluating bioassay results, and I think NIOSH 

is taking -- I think they've drafted OTIB-0068 

to address some of the correction factors that 

were noted in the site profile. 

 I guess that's -- is that final or 

not? 

 DR. NETON: I'm not 100 percent 

certain. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. 

 DR. NETON: I can look. 

 4.5-6 talks about inconsistencies 

between MVA values described in the text and 

the ones reported in a table. Again, I think 

this is more of an editorial issue that will 

be cleaned up when the TBD is revised. 

 4.5-7 talks about clarification of 

the MVA related to testing methodology. I 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 20

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

think the response here talked about some of 

the analytical methods used for uranium, as 

well as some of the other analytical methods 

used from '75 to '88 are going to be 

investigated by NIOSH to determine whether the 

fluorometric and radiometric methods were used 

for uranium samples as well as potentials for 

exposure. 

 So I think that we can talk about 

that more in relation to the SEC. 

 4.5-8 is, again, just a 

presentation of dates that's going to be 

fixed. Again, a somewhat minor issue. 

 4.5-9 talks about neptunium and 

depleted uranium not included in the table, 

which again will be revised the next time 

around. I'm just looking at some of the 

specific responses here. 

 I think this one is okay. We'll 

talk about that related to the SEC, too. 

 And then there's the specific issue 

of 4.5-10 on the inappropriate solubility type 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 21

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

for lung cancer. I think here OTIB-71 was 

developed to cover uranium aluminide, and so I 

think we do have coverage there as far as the 

specific approach to doing that. 

 I don't know, John. Is there 

anything else related to that? 

 DR. MAURO: From a perspective, 

you'll notice that at the bottom of each of 

these briefings on the status of these issues 

related to site profile there is a 

characterization as to whether we consider it 

to be an SEC or non-SEC, and I think it's 

important that everyone start here, and 

everyone is looking at the SEC when we get to 

that point. 

 We realize that it's really not our 

call of what is and what is not an SEC issue, 

but we do give our opinion where it starts to 

lean toward. 

 So I think it's helpful to start 

with the site profile of all, all the issues, 

and then quickly triage down to the places 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 22

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

where, you know, at least we felt represent 

SEC issues, and then we'll go into those 

later, but I would not want to preclude the 

work group from looking at this and saying, 

"Well, wait a minute. I think maybe this 

should be an SEC issue." It's important that 

that be done. Okay? 

 MR. BERONJA: Thanks, John. 

 I'm going to move on to 4.5-11. 

Again, this talks about elements presented in 

TBD-2, which provided a background of the 

site, are not addressed in TBD-5. Again, this 

is more of an editorial issue, although it 

does plug into the internal dosimetry and were 

the proper radionuclides being monitored. So 

it will factor into that discussion later on. 

 4.5-12 talks about value reported 

by the contract laboratory. Again, I think we 

determined last time around that this was not 

a significant issue. So we'll move on from 

there. 

 4.5-13, the evaluation of uranium 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 23

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

bioassay data, again, we've kind of already 

talked about this, and I apologize. I think 

this was noted in the last time around. There 

are a few issues here. We were following the 

TBDs, you know, kind of one through six. So 

we had issues associated with them, and some 

of them were kind of repeats or overlapping. 

So I apologize for that. 

 4.5-14, personnel exposure records 

do not appear to be complete or of good 

quality, and, you know, I think in going 

through the SEC review we've tried to go 

through and look at a lot of the information 

and pull out if we thought there was 

sufficient information to be able to do dose 

reconstructions or, in general, is there 

sufficient information that you could 

determine if there's enough information there 

to do anything. 

 So I think we've done that 

analysis, and that will come through in our 

discussion of the SEC review. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 24

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 4.5-15 talks about site survey data 

source term cannot be regarded as useful 

surrogate data for bioassay data and the dose 

reconstruction. 

 I think this is going to link into 

NIOSH's progress related to some co-worker 

models and internal dose co-worker models. So 

maybe we can hold off. I think early on in 

our SEC discussion maybe you guys can talk 

about the status of those couple of efforts 

which will address a number of questions. 

 I think that same thing holds for 

4.5-16. Potential unmonitored internal 

exposures associated with radiation incidents 

are not addressed. 

 4.5-1 is no co-worker model on the 

external side, and we'll get to that. 

 4.6-2 is workers were unlikely to 

have been monitored for thermal neutrons, and 

I think we need to have a discussion about you 

guys were going to look at the whole neutron 

issue related to Santa Susana. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 25

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 That neutron issue is also 4.6-3 

and 4.6-4, and then really on 4.6-5 the 

dosimeter response for low energy photons. 

 Let's see. I guess, this one, 

John, you have that issue. So maybe if you 

could. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes. We've identified 

this as not an SEC issue because usually there 

are ways of doing correction factors for 

dealing with responsiveness to low energy 

photons. So I see this as a side profile 

issue. Whether or not the working group sees 

it the same way, certainly, but like I said 

before, I just want to alert you. This is 

sort of the rock we started with and the full 

breadth of issues that were raised. Many of 

them are in the process of being resolved 

because there has been a round of discussion 

related to the site profile issues, and some 

of them are really clearly SEC issues. 

 So I think the reason we're going 

through this is we needed a jumping off point 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 26

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

so that we're all on the same page, knowing 

where we began, and it has been quite some 

time. 

 MR. BERONJA: It has been since 

August. 

 DR. MAURO: So please bear with us. 

 We thought it would be good to get a baseline 

and then we move from there, and then we'll 

quickly move into the SEC issues. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Well, we did touch on 

this in August, did we not? 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes. 

 MEMBER MUNN: I think we discussed 

this. 

 MR. BERONJA: We did, and Lara and 

I went back and forth a little bit on making 

sure that we properly got NIOSH's responses in 

here. 

 The other reason to go through 

this, and I'm combining things a little bit, 

is there are some action items that were 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 27

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

identified in here that we wanted to follow 

upon. I think we're going to hear about those 

during the discussion of the SEC just to keep 

this concise, and then depending on the status 

of that, we can go back to this site profile 

and decide if there's anything else that we 

need to address here, given the action items 

that they had out of this. 

 MEMBER MUNN: My comment was based 

solely on this particular item. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right, okay. 

 MEMBER MUNN: I think this 

particular item was discussed earlier. 

 MR. BERONJA: Oh, right. 

 MEMBER MUNN: And it was agreed. 

 DR. MAURO: And it was agreed, yes, 

and it might be closed. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

 MR. BERONJA: 4.6-6, again, talks 

about the surrogate time periods. Let me just 

look at them specifically. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 28

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 Okay. This one was repeated from 

an earlier one. So we don't need to talk 

about that. 

 And then 4.6-7 talked about Area 1, 

which is not -- I think it is stated it's not 

part of the covered areas. 

 So anyway, that's that. In fact, 

we did it a lot faster than I thought we 

would. 

 I guess in going through that, like 

I said, there are a number of action items. 

In fact, as we go through the SEC discussion 

if there's something from the site profile 

that we don't hit on, I'll come back and make 

sure that we address that just to finish off 

the site profile, but I think we should be 

able to get enough information during the 

discussion of the SEC review to be able to, to 

the extent that we need to, kind of close out 

this issues matrix here. 

 So any questions on that before we 

jump into the heart of the discussion here? 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 29

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MEMBER MUNN: I don't have any 

questions. I have a request. The working 

draft was a document that was sent to all of 

us at one juncture, and I have suffered a 

catastrophic failure of database with my 

system. If we have an electronic copy 

available on anybody's computer currently who 

could send me another copy of that. 

 MEMBER BEACH: I have it on my 

flash drive. You can pull it off if you want. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Good. I'll pull it 

off. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Do you want to do it 

now? 

 MEMBER MUNN: I'll do it later. 

We're not going to be discussing it 

specifically. 

 Thanks. 

 MR. BERONJA: All right. I guess 

just a little bit of background, in 

particular, for the folks on the phone as well 

as people here. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 30

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 And let me just go back and 

describe a little bit to kind of set the stage 

for where we are right now. I think as most 

of you know, SC&A was told to go ahead and do 

the SEC review in September of 2008 at the 

Redondo Beach meeting. 

 At that time, SC&A's contract, I 

think, maybe only had just two or three months 

maybe. I know there were some extensions, but 

the life of the contract was uncertain. 

 So what was decided at that time 

was to do what we call the paper study review 

of the SEC. So we went ahead and did that. 

That was actually published in January of 2009 

and is posted on the Website. So if any of 

you don't have it or want to have access to 

it, it is on the Website under the Advisory 

Board under Area 4. You should be able to 

find it. 

 Since then, in the December work 

group meeting, we were approved contingent on 

us getting the contract and finishing off the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 31

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

SEC review, and we were successful in getting 

the new contract. And then we went ahead and 

finalized our SEC review. 

 Quite honestly, I think we were 

able to do about 90 or 95 percent of our work 

in that paper study. We were able to gather 

the information that we needed to come to some 

conclusion, and so, again, so what is included 

in what is publicly available in that January 

2009 report really has the essence of our 

conclusions. 

 Since then we have finalized the 

report, as well as an issues matrix, and they 

both went to DOE for review on Wednesday of 

this past week. They were both passed through 

DOE review. They have not been Privacy Act 

cleared at this point. So they are not 

publicly available. 

 But I think folks in the work group 

have actually received copies of both of those 

things. So for those folks on the phone, 

unfortunately, you know, unless you are part 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 32

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

of the group that's able to receive that, you 

don't have these documents. You know, you can 

reference the paper study that we have where 

most of these things are presented, and I'll 

try and, to the extent that there's any 

confusion, go through those. 

 So what I'm going to do is I'm 

going to go through the issues matrix that has 

been cleared by DOE, has not been Privacy Act 

reviewed, and I'll be careful about any 

specific information I reference. 

 I guess maybe just in preface, and 

I don't know if this is the right thing to do 

or not, but as a preface, there's going to be 

about five or so major points that we're going 

to cover in this discussion. Some of them I 

think we're going to present. We've pulled 

some information to get in. Quite honestly I 

think we're going to shift the issues over to 

NIOSH and to DOE to deal with, and then if 

there's anything that we can do to follow up, 

we can. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 33

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 And those issues are related to 

what specific areas are covered by the SEC 

petition, and the way the petition is 

currently set up is it applies to Area 4 of 

the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. However, 

there is some conflicting information out 

there both, I think, in the data base that 

talks about the covered areas and so some 

other documentation that we've got documented 

both in the paper study, as well as the final 

review and the issues matrix. 

 And I think that that issue needs 

to be put to bed, and kind of linked into that 

issue of what areas, you know, should be 

covered are the data of operation. There was 

some uncertainty there. I think the way 

things -- and I think 1955, for instance, was 

the date for Area 4. I think that's to some 

extent in stone right now. However, there is 

some conflicting information about when 

operations started. Some information dates 

back to 1953. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 34

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 In our issues matrix, this issue is 

talked about in our issue number one, as well 

as there's some discussion up front about 

this. So I think looking at whether to be a 

little bit more specific, whether some of the 

outlying facilities need to be covered, you 

know, they were addressed to a large extent in 

the site profile. We need to do that. 

 So I don't know if the folks from 

NIOSH or our DOE representative have any 

thoughts. This might be a good time just to 

talk about that, and then we can talk about 

any more specifics if folks want. 

 So that's really the first issue 

that I threw out. 

 DR. HUGHES: Just to clarify, this 

is number nine on the issues matrix, right? 

Just to make sure. 

 MR. BERONJA: It is. I think it's 

our nine -- Yes. 

 DR. HUGHES: Sorry. 

 MR. BERONJA: It's number nine and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 35

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

it's our first, SC&A's first issue. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. I see. 

 MR. BERONJA: So, yes, it talks 

about specifically as we look at it, you know. 

 Canoga Park and De Soto and Downey and 

whether there's any other areas within the 

Santa Susana Field Laboratory. 

 DR. HUGHES: But DOE got treated as 

four separate sites. So would the SEC 

petition -- the petitioner submits a petition 

for a site, and this is clarified in the 

consult call, for which site the petitioner 

wants to petition, and that's the site that 

the SEC report is issued for. 

 Now, the technical basis documents 

can be combined for several sites if the sites 

are related, as for example these four sites 

are somewhat related in that they were 

supervised by the same health physics 

department, which was located at Santa Susana, 

which was the largest site of those four. 

 As to the coverage states, DOE 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 36

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

typically does some research into not 

necessarily when the sites start operations, 

but when nuclear operations start at a given 

site. So I looked at some reports that sort 

of outline what buildings were operating, and 

I haven't really been able to pinpoint 

anything that was in operating shape before 

1955. 

 So, I mean, if you see any 

information regarding that, if you could pass 

it along, but as I said, we don't really look 

at that. That's typically done by DOE who 

determines which periods should be covered. 

 MR. BERONJA: Now, just a couple 

references, and what I might do especially for 

folks on the phone, and I apologize, you know, 

for the documents, but if you look at one of 

the things just on this particular issue, on 

the coverage dates, in 4.2.2 and the paper 

studies at page 25, there's a couple 

references. I would just cite that as just 

the information. You know, here it talks 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 37

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

about nuclear R&D activities in Area 4 

increased rapidly from 1953 into the late 

1960, and then there's a number of statements 

like this, you know. Either the site profile 

needs to be cleaned up to not talk about 

nuclear activities increasing from '53 to -- 

 DR. HUGHES: What they were doing, 

they were building the reactor facilities and 

they were building facilities because there 

was nothing there, as I understand, before. 

So, I mean, the company was operating, but 

they weren't actually running the reactors or 

producing the fuel. So I think that's what 

typically classifies the starting date. 

 MR. BERONJA: I guess as long as 

that can be clarified maybe some of the 

wording there, you know, it says nuclear R&D 

activities increased rapidly. I mean, 

activities, you don't know what kind of 

activities they really were and whether what 

you're saying is true, whether it was just 

construction going on in '53 and '54 and the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 38

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

verbiage just wasn't very good. You know, as 

long as we have that, but there really was no 

fuel sources or whatever therein that time 

frame or other potential exposures. I think 

that would help. 

 I guess the other comment that I 

wanted to make is that -- and I don't know how 

this happened, and I guess maybe just for the 

petitioner's sake -- I think when the original 

petition was done, the original petition 

included De Soto, and then when there was an 

update to the petition, De Soto was taken out. 

 I think they also in the original 

petition referenced the burn pit, and I think 

that was ultimately all narrowed down to Area 

4. 

 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. Can I 

comment on that? 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, go ahead, Bonnie. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. That reference to 

De Soto was an accident. The first form I 

filled out I thought they wanted my work 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 39

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

history. So I put Area 4 and De Soto, and you 

have mistakenly interpreted that as including 

De Soto on my petition, which I did correct. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. 

 MS. KLEA: I've never ever 

petitioned for De Soto. I petitioned for Area 

4 because I knew you could only do one area at 

a time, and it was my mistake in just filling 

out those forms. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay, okay. 

 MS. KLEA: So if I could just 

correct that. 

 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Bonnie. 

That's helpful. 

 MR. BERONJA: So there was no 

intent, Bonnie, or desire on your part at the 

time to do anything beyond Area 4. 

 MS. KLEA: That's exactly right 

because that was the rule, and I was told that 

it would be disqualified if I included 

anything other than Area 4. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 40

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MR. KATZ: The ground rules are you 

can't -- 

 MS. KLEA: That was a mistake on 

filling out the form. 

 MR. KATZ: Bonnie, just to be clear 

about what the rules are is a single petition 

can only cover a single facility. You could, 

of course, submit a separate petition for 

another location, another facility. 

 MS. KLEA: Exactly, and who's 

speaking? 

 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. This is Ted 

Katz. 

 MS. KLEA: Hi. Okay. No, I knew 

the rules very well. It's just that the forms 

were very confusing on submitting my petition, 

and I thought that the form wanted my personal 

work history, and that's what I put. 

 MR. KATZ: Thank you. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: All right. Thanks. 

 In fact, I was just looking back at 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 41

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

it and maybe, I guess, just given what Bonnie 

has said as far as that clarification, that 

helps a lot. The only other thing I'd say, 

and I'm wondering if I have the specifics 

here. I'm actually looking at 4.2.1 in the 

paper study. It would be the same section, 

should be in the same section in the final. 

 DOE in actually identifying the 

covered sites has a database, and then also 

things are listed in the Federal Register. 

The last Federal Register notice that I had 

showing the covered areas was August 23rd, 

2004. I don't know if that's the most recent 

one or not, but if you compared the database 

in that Federal Register notice, they were not 

consistent, and so maybe just for the future 

so that there's no confusion, I think that 

needs to be addressed, but maybe other than 

that, I think this issue, other than maybe, 

you know, on that date issue this thing can be 

put to bed. 

 DR. NETON: I just want to be 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 42

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

clear. You're saying that the Federal Register 

notice was earlier than the -- 

 MR. BERONJA: No, this is a 

location issue. 

 DR. NETON: Oh, location. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes, the covered 

areas. The covered areas addressed in the 

Federal Register notice was not consistent 

with how it was presented in the DOE database. 

 DR. NETON: Okay. 

 MS. HOWELL: That's a DOL concern, 

right? 

 MR. BERONJA: What's that? 

 MS. HOWELL: The Federal Register 

notice, I mean, that would be a DOL-DOE 

concern. 

 DR. NETON: Yes, yes, absolutely. 

But our technical evaluation needs to be 

consistent with what the most current 

definition of facilities is. I mean, I 

understand that. We certainly need to go back 

and make sure that we're addressing the most 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 43

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

current definition of facility. 

 There was a lot of issues early on 

with what parts of those facilities were DOE 

versus commercial, and I remember, you know, 

four or five years ago there was a lot of 

debate as to who was really covered at that 

facility, and I think they finally 

straightened it out, and that was the genesis 

of those Federal Register notices. 

 We'll certainly go back and make 

sure that we look at the most recent Federal 

Register notice. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right, yes. I guess 

maybe to close out these one or two issues, 

however we want to describe these, is that -- 

and maybe, Lara, you can tell me if this is 

okay -- if you guys can maybe just provide the 

Board and use with information to document 

that there were no source materials or other 

things going on with '53 and '54 time frame, 

then we can kind of say, okay, '55 really was 

the first time that there was potential 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 44

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

exposure. 

 I think as long as we have that as 

an action item coming out of that, that should 

close this out. 

 DR. NETON: Well, I think we would 

have to go back and petition or submit that 

information if there were materials to the 

Department of Energy, and they would make the 

determination that it was covered. We can't 

ad hoc start covering exposure to -- 

 MR. BERONJA: Oh, no. I don't mean 

covering. I mean looking into maybe in more 

detail whether there are activities going on, 

and if there were activities, if there was 

potential exposure in '53 or '54, then I would 

think that we would go to DOE or DOL and -- 

 DR. NETON: Yes, we would always do 

that. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. 

 DR. NETON: Absolutely. That's our 

normal mode of operation. 

 MR. BERONJA: So is that something 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 45

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

you guys can do or do we -- 

 DR. NETON: Yes, we'll certain take 

that up. I guess I would suggest that this 

shouldn't hold up the process here because 

sometimes even if you identify additional 

exposure, it takes the DOE or DOL quite some 

time to come to resolution with those issues, 

and so we could move forward with the 

recognition that there may be some change in 

the early period. 

 You know, we've already established 

that we're recommending to add a class 

starting in '55 already. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right. 

 DR. NETON: So it would merely just 

be more than likely probably just retroactive, 

go back and move it back to '53 if that indeed 

were the case. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. 

 MR. MORRIS: This is Bob Morris. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, Bob. 

 MR. MORRIS: Did I hear the action 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 46

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

that's being -- will provide documentation 

proving that there was no nuclear activity in 

'53 and '54? 

 I don't know how we're going to 

find documentation about something that didn't 

happen. 

 DR. NETON: Well, yes. We need to 

look at that, Bob, and see what actually did 

occur, and in fact, if it's not covered by 

Department of Energy prior to '55, yes, then 

there's nothing more we can do. 

 MR. BERONJA: Oh, I agree. 

 DR. NETON: We're not required to 

prove that nothing happened. 

 MR. BERONJA: No, no, no. It's 

just due diligence to see if there's any 

further information that something might have 

happened. 

 DR. MAURO: Well, a lot of those 

dates, the only reason why it came up is you 

ran into some minor language -- 

 MR. BERONJA: That language 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 47

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

would -- 

 DR. MAURO: -- that would pose that 

question. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right. 

 DR. MAURO: By way of ground rules, 

when we look at these documents, for example, 

you're going to hear in a moment the 

definition of the class itself. It should 

have been monitored versus all workers and how 

we have an issue related to date. When we see 

something that catches our attention, it may 

very well catch our attention, but it may not 

be. It may be beyond the mandate of what 

we're trying to do. We're certainly receptive 

to let us know. 

 For example when we pick up 

something that doesn't seem to ring true, we 

think we have an obligation to pass it on 

through that group and then, of course, the 

work group at that point in time could 

consider what they're going to do about it. 

 So you're going to hear another one 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 48

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

in a minute related to the definition of the 

class, I believe. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes, maybe we can 

talk about that right now. 

 DR. NETON: Another type of this 

kind of issue. Why don't you go ahead? 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes. No, I think it 

was our -- I think the language that was 

included in the evaluation report talked about 

all workers who were monitored. I think it's 

our understanding that when the Board right 

now is issuing a class, it's being applied to 

all workers. There's no discussion about -- 

 DR. NETON: It's sort of backwards. 

 I mean, NIOSH made a recommendation as to 

what that class is, and typically the Board 

would go along with an all worker definition, 

and that's mostly in the context of the 

Department of Labor being able to administer 

the class. 

 In other words, you know, can we 

provide them a class that they can actually 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 49

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

address administratively? You can't start 

getting down to specific occupational codes 

because those, frankly, don't exist. 

 DR. MAURO: It's a little more 

general. One of the things we both realize is 

that when we saw the language, the class was 

defined as all workers that were monitored or 

should have been monitored, and it immediately 

struck me that I think in general when the 

language is put together, that parsing is not 

made. 

 DR. NETON: I mean, if you look at 

the Lawrence Livermore, I think, -- 

 DR. MAURO: We did look at that 

one. 

 DR. NETON: -- that definition, I 

think the workers were monitored. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay. 

 DR. NETON: In a sense, if we have 

very concrete evidence that anyone who entered 

an area where radiological sources were 

present, had a batch, I mean, they were 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 50

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

monitored. Then that is essentially a 

surrogate for workers who were exposed. We 

could use that. 

 We thought that this was the case 

at Santa Susana. In looking at this in some 

more detail, we're starting to think that that 

might not necessarily have been the case. And 

given that, we're reconsidering that 

definition. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay, but is this a 

place for us? I mean, in other words, the 

very fact that we brought something like this 

up in our report, is this something that I 

would say, well, really that's not within the 

purview of SC&A? 

 This is the first time it came up. 

 DR. NETON: -- report on that, but 

I think certainly you can bring up anything. 

 DR. MAURO: Sure. 

 MR. BERONJA: But what I'm hearing 

you say, Jim, is that that's something that 

you're reconsidering. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 51

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. NETON: Yes. We thought we had 

very solid evidence that anyone who entered 

essentially the administrative area was going 

to be wearing a badge and, therefore, we could 

use that as an essentially surrogate for 

people who are exposed, and those would be the 

ones who would potentially receive more than 

100 millirem, which is what that definition 

was, or should have been monitored, but that 

might not be the case; in fact, probably not. 

 DR. MAURO: Well, when we see 

something that for better or worse we say, 

"This doesn't seem to ring true," we'll bring 

it to the attention of the Board, and then, of 

course, we dispose of it. 

 DR. NETON: Right. 

 DR. MAURO: In fact, we won't put 

any self-constraints. 

 DR. NETON: We've seen a shift in 

some more recent SEC's where we don't even say 

should have been monitored. We just say 

all -- 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 52

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. MAURO: That's what I'm talking 

about. That was me. You know, Red brought it 

to my attention, and I said, "Hum, I seem to 

recall the language we're using now," you 

know. 

 DR. NETON: Well, there's really no 

hard and fast rule there. It's just a matter 

of we use the data we have, and if there are 

situations where we can conclusively guarantee 

that everybody had a badge that entered RELAP, 

we'd reserve the right to use that, but more 

often than not that's not going to happen. 

 MEMBER BEACH: So we should see 

that definition changing in the near future? 

 DR. NETON: I don't want to be so 

concrete on that. I think we're considering 

it, and it's more than likely to change, but 

I'd like the folks, you know, the SEC team -- 

 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. 

 Can I ask who's considering 

changing that wording? 

 DR. NETON: That's NIOSH. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 53

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 This is Jim Neton speaking. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay, and who entered 

that term? Because I do don't believe I had 

that on my petition. I had all workers. I 

didn't specifically say -- 

 DR. NETON: That's correct. 

 MS. KLEA: -- only the monitored 

workers. 

 DR. NETON: Right, and you're 

right. And we modified that definition based 

on some information we had at the time we did 

the evaluation because we believed it to be 

appropriate. In looking at it more closely, 

it may not be the right way to go, and I'm not 

saying -- 

 MS. KLEA: Remember, Jim, you 

specified that Boeing told you that 

information. 

 DR. NETON: Right, right. 

 MS. KLEA: I remember that from 

Redondo. 

 DR. NETON: Exactly, and you know, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 54

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

we certainly reserve the right to change our 

mind when new information comes forward, and 

that seems to be where we're at right now. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, I'm certainly a 

witnessed. I was not monitored, and I had 

free access to every building. 

 DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. BERONJA: Jim, I'm curious how 

you guys have done your evaluation part. 

Administratively how does that happen and if 

you guys change your mind? Is that something 

that as you go to the full Board meeting --? 

 DR. NETON: We would issue an 

amendment to the evaluation report and say 

this is our current. This happens I won't 

call it routinely, but it's not uncommon in 

these deliberations and discussions for us to 

change some of our positions and, in fact, add 

more time or a different class of workers, and 

we would enter, you know, a severely amended 

evaluation to present to the Board for their 

consideration. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 55

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 Usually we wait until the full 

deliberations are over, although I'm a little 

concerned on this one because we are holding 

up the addition of a class for five years or 

so, '52 to '58. So, you know, this is a 

little different than the other ones where 

NIOSH said, "Well, we can do all year," and 

then, okay, we can go and deliver it. Right 

now nothing is going to happen for this class 

between '52 and '58 until we can do something. 

 DR. MAURO: The fact that right now 

-- you bring up a very important point there. 

 DR. NETON: That's just a concern I 

have. 

 DR. MAURO: And I think everyone 

is. You'll see as we go through this we 

concur with your finding regarding up to '58. 

 You'll see that we had some issues, and this 

is going to really become the heart of this 

discussion shortly, post '58, is are we in a 

situation where until we resolve the post '58, 

the out to '58 is -- 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 56

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. NETON: No. 

 DR. MAURO: Good. That's important 

to know because, you know -- 

 DR. NETON: I think it's up to 

Mike, the Chair, or the working group to bring 

back to the Board an opinion that if it was 

his opinion that we are more comfortable to 

move forward, they might be changing the 

definition of the covered worker. So we move 

that issue. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

 DR. NETON: And then we could readd an amendment, addendum and deal with the 

first piece, get that voted on, and then have 

this piece move on. But, again, that's a 

process issue that the working group and Chair 

can deal with. 

 DR. MAURO: Sure. 

 MR. BERONJA: Maybe just to 

summarize kind of where we are, we talked 

really about, I guess, three issues: the 

areas covered, the dates, and now kind of the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 57

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

definition of the class. 

 So I think it sounds like at least 

the areas right now is going to be Area 4. 

The dates NIOSH is going to look at any other 

and make sure there's nothing else that would 

say that there were activities, nuclear 

activities or potential exposure in the '53 or 

'54 time frame, and then as far as class 

that's in NIOSH's court as far as potentially 

looking at the re-definitions. 

 So I guess with that I'm going to 

now formally go through each of these issues 

and the issues matrix, and for those folks, 

you know, on the phone that don't have this, 

what we're going to do is there were issues 

that were raised by the petitioner that NIOSH 

then responded to, and there were eight issues 

in total there. We'll go through those 

issues, and there were some issues that SC&A 

raised, actually five issues, and we'll go 

through each of those. Some of them actually 

are overlapping. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 58

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 The first issue that was raised in 

the petition and addressed through the 

evaluation report was the sodium reactor 

experiment incident. You know, NIOSH 

presented in the site profile that they felt 

they had sufficient information and that they 

felt everybody that maybe would have been in 

that area would have been properly monitored. 

 I guess when SC&A looked at that 

information, we came across a couple of 

reports that weren't referenced in the site 

profile that we thought had some valid 

information that should be considered and 

which showed some of the potential at least 

source terms and areas. 

 And I guess maybe with that I'd 

just put it back to you guys. I don't know if 

you were looking at the idea of developing a 

model or some other further way to analyze the 

potential exposures that occurred as a result 

of that incident. 

 This incident is actually pretty 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 59

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

important in the context of the SEC things 

that occurred in 1959. So it occurred post 

'58 SEC, you know, approved time frame from 

NIOSH right now. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. To address your 

first concern with these reports, we actually 

have -- what NIOSH does is called due 

diligence and data capture. So we look at all 

of our available data source, and these 

reports that you referenced were actually 

reviewed, including a bunch, a large number of 

other reports and memos. Pretty much anything 

that was out there in the literature was 

looked at. 

 It wasn't cited in the evaluation 

report. It probably should have been cited, 

but this particular section talked about the 

releases that were to all these reports. They 

talk about the different estimates of the 

releases from the incident, and that's the 

reports that were cited. 

 So this can certainly be corrected. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 60

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 Now, to your actually much more 

important issue is you're concerned about the 

monitoring situation in 1955. So we're 

looking into that. Fifty-nine. I'm sorry. 

 And we're currently looking at some 

-- since there is no consensus of the 

releases, we're looking into having an 

independent expert looking into the estimates 

and come up with the most scientifically 

defensible estimate an exposure model as a 

result of that that could be used for workers 

that -- the non-radiological workers that 

might have been on site if there was an 

exposure potential. 

 Another issue goes back to the 

internal monitoring. So I don't know if you 

want to discuss it here or if you want to 

discuss it when you go with internal 

monitoring. 

 MR. BERONJA: Maybe let's wait. 

Let's wait. 

 DR. MAURO: For my benefit, you 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 61

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

know, I've been tracking this. So the sodium 

reactor experiment was an incident that 

occurred post -- we'll define it as the 

covered period for the purposes of this 

discussion. So it becomes important. 

 Could you give us a little bit 

conceptually what was the nature of the 

incident and up until the review of this new 

material, what did you have in mind as to how 

you were going to deal with that and now how 

is that possibly changing? 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. The incident, 

this was a fairly -- it's a 20 megawatt 

experimental reactor that was sodium cooled. 

The reactor cooled was underground and covered 

with liquid sodium, and what happened, the 

coolant got contaminated with an organic 

material that caused the sodium flow to 

interrupt in the fuel channels, and it caused 

overheating, and actually the fuel cladding, 

which I believe was -- do you know? Was it 

aluminum? -- melted, and the fuel was solid 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 62

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

uranium metal. So -- 

 MS. KLEA: I'm having a hard time 

hearing. Is that Lara Hughes? 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. I'm sorry. 

 MS. KLEA: You're cutting out. I 

can only hear half of what you're saying. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. 

 MS. KLEA: If you need to get 

closer to the mic. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, she's doing that. 

 DR. HUGHES: How is this? Is this 

better? 

 MS. KLEA: Okay and I'm hearing you 

say the cladding was cracked. Well, you know, 

we have -- we had full-out meltdown of 13 fuel 

rods, and I have three new witnesses that were 

there. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. Well, the fuel 

consisted of the uranium metal, which was 

covered by cladding. So what happened, the 

uranium formed -- it overheated and the fuel 

rod essentially opened up, which you can refer 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 63

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

to as the meltdown, and 13 of the fuel rods 

were damaged. 

 MS. KLEA: Yes. 

 DR. HUGHES: So the issue is when 

fission occurs in a nuclear reactor, you 

produce what's called fission products, which 

among others consist of iodine and cesium, and 

the issue here is whether these fission 

products were contained in the sodium 

 You have to see that the entire 

reactor was covered with liquid sodium. It's 

a very dense liquid, or whether these fission 

products actually went out into the gas phase, 

brought the reactor -- the reactor was covered 

with a noble gas, gas blanket, and whether the 

fission products were then released from the 

cover gas system. 

 The entire reactor was also covered 

with a pressurized gas system. So whether or 

not these fission products escaped not just 

the fuel and the coolant and the cover gas, 

but from the cover gas into the atmosphere and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 64

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

might have exposed workers that were on the 

site that might not have been radiological 

workers. 

 If there was a large release, it's 

absolutely conceivable that anybody that was 

on site could have been exposed. Now -- 

 MS. KLEA: We have a new eyewitness 

who was there at the time as a reactor 

trainee, and he's testified on film that they 

had to bleed the reactor several times until -

- this is one of our biggest conflicts with 

the program and with your point of view, that 

we have expert testimony of a real meltdown 

and releases. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes, it's known that 

some of these gases were released. The issue 

is whether what these gases contained. It is 

known that there were radioactive gases, noble 

gases in the cover blanket. 

 What happens with this reactor 

system, these gases are pressurized into a 

tank where they're held until some of these 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 65

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

fission products are gone. They are 

radioactively decayed, and after which it's 

what you referred to as bleeding, I believe, 

that these gases are released to the 

atmosphere. 

 But that is not all that unusual. 

So the issue, what we're looking into is these 

technical reports to see what could have 

happened. Is it chemically and physically 

possible for large amounts of iodine to be 

released from the sodium into this gas? 

 I think the contention is not so 

much that some of these gases were released. 

That's actually fairly well documented. So 

we're looking into that. 

 And if it turns out to be that 

large amounts of iodine, for example, were 

released, then we would come up with a release 

model that would -- 

 DR. MAURO: So I have to look at 

these and conceptually. So conceptually what 

we have is we have a containment system. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 66

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. 

 DR. MAURO: There are several 

barriers, plus the system that is containing 

to the noble gases even if there were some 

releases and up until, I guess, relatively 

recently, the sensibility was a containment 

system and it was unlikely that there was -- 

and you did actually bleed, which is part of 

the process. All matters were controlled and 

monitored so we have a degree of control and 

we will know what's going on. 

 DR. HUGHES: Well, the incident was 

not a controlled incident. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes, I understand that, 

but as in any reactor transient, there are 

design safety features which clearly come out, 

and eventually there's a protocol by which 

maybe you would burp. We burped the noble 

gases from Three Mile Island under controlled 

conditions. 

 DR. HUGHES: Right. 

 DR. MAURO: But you're saying that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 67

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

there's some new information or maybe not new 

information. You're still looking into this 

confirm that there was some -- that you 

understand what the releases might have been. 

 DR. HUGHES: Right. 

 DR. MAURO: And whether or not they 

might have been significant, and that's where 

we are right now. 

 DR. HUGHES: That is correct, yes. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay, good. That helps 

me. 

 DR. HUGHES: Did you want to add 

anything? 

 DR. NETON: Well, it seems to me I 

recall looking at this. There are sort of two 

camps. There is one analysis put out by the 

company, and then there was some additional 

analysis that was part of a court proceeding; 

is that right? 

 DR. HUGHES: That is correct, and 

there were some like the Advisory Board, I 

think, the Santa Susana Advisory Board, what 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 68

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

they're called. 

 DR. NETON: So we have two reports 

out there, section reports sort of on opposite 

ends of the spectrum, very minimal release and 

then large meltdown release and exposure of 

workers. So we've decided to go commission an 

independent review of both of those reports. 

 DR. MAURO: Excellent. 

 DR. NETON: And said which one 

appears -- you know, let's let science prevail 

here and say which one makes the most sense 

scientifically, and of course, where there are 

doubts we would probably err on the side of 

the claimant. 

 That coupled with the fact that we 

believe there are bioassay monitoring data 

available to some extent that can cover and 

bound these exposures, and that's part of 

another discussion that I think we're going to 

refer to later, refer to or talk about later, 

that has to do with the internal co-worker 

model yet to be developed for various reasons, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 69

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

and we can get into that. 

 DR. MAURO: That's very helpful. 

Thank you. 

 MR. BERONJA: So, Jim, have you 

picked somebody to do this study or is that 

something you're -- where is the process right 

now as far as this independent review? 

 DR. NETON: That's a good question. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. There's 

currently like contract negotiations, you 

know, with this expert. 

 MR. BERONJA: Oh, okay. So 

somebody has been selected and it's just -- 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. 

 MR. BERONJA: -- negotiated with 

them. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes, true. 

 DR. NETON: A contract employee. 

 MR. BERONJA: And any idea how long 

the study is going to take or when people 

could expect to see the report? Do you know? 

 DR. NETON: No, I can't comment on 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 70

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

that right now. We'll certainly update you. 

 MS. KLEA: Did you say you have a 

contractor? 

 DR. NETON: We have a person lined 

up and there are contract negotiations going 

on right now. 

 MS. KLEA: When will we know who 

that person is or what company he represents? 

 DR. NETON: Well, as soon as we get 

the contract in place. I'm sorry, but I’m 

not, you know, in that loop right now, but I 

can assure you as soon as we know we'll make 

it available to the working group. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Who's speaking? 

 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. I'm very 

concerned about a conflict of interest on the 

person you hire to study it. 

 DR. NETON: Understood. 

 MR. BERONJA: Anything else on the 

sodium reactor experiment? Otherwise we'll 

move on. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 71

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 The second issue or I shouldn't say 

"second." Another issue that was raised by 

the petitioner related to radiation badges, 

and it was based on a Tiger team report 

indicating inadequate radiation badges. 

 I think NIOSH addressed this just 

in the context of the state of the art at the 

time and what was done, and I think in looking 

at this we concurred with the information and 

felt it was fine. So I don't think there's 

any further discussion that's needed there. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: The third issue that 

came up from the petitioner was related to 

tritium plumes, and this gets back to folks, 

you know, looking at the potential of exposure 

pathway, of folks drinking water from the 

aquifer at the site. 

 One of the things that we noticed 

was that at least for one of the dose 

reconstructions and maybe somewhere else that 

NIOSH did look at this pathway. A very 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 72

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

conservative model was developed. In fact, it 

was based on water from a monitoring well, not 

from a drinking water well, and there were 

other conservative assumptions used. 

 The only issue that we had was that 

the highest concentration use from the 

monitoring well may have been from an earlier 

time with some later information with a much 

higher concentration, again, in the 

monitoring well, not in the drinking water 

well. 

 And, again, I don't necessarily see 

this as an SEC issue, but as something that 

needs to be fixed related to any dose 

reconstruction. You're looking at that 

particular tab. So I don't know if you guys 

want to. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. We actually 

have a small report prepared on that. Do you 

want to talk about it now or when it comes up 

later? 

 MR. BERONJA: Oh, why don't we talk 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 73

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

about it now? 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. I think Gene 

was prepared to present this one. Is he on 

the line? 

 MR. POTTER: Yes, I am. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. Would you like 

to present it or do you want me to go over? 

 MR. POTTER: I can do it if 

everyone can hear me okay. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, we can hear you 

well. Thanks, Gene. 

 MR. POTTER: Okay. I think you've 

fairly well covered the background on what we 

said in ER and so forth. So I'll skip that 

part. 

 But in SC&A's summary, they mention 

that NIOSH has proposed a boundless exposure 

by assuming that workers consumed water from a 

shallow monitoring well that had the highest 

tritium concentration. 

 That statement is not correct. We 

never said we were using it, going to use any 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 74

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

values from the highest concentration, but 

merely Well, 34A, in which tritium has been 

consistently detected since 1991. 

 And then the comments where you 

mentioned the value of 117,000 pico Curies per 

liter. In fact, we had reviewed those reports 

that you cited in your comments, the 

environmental reports from 2003 to 2006, in 

fact, based the mean value for Well 34A from 

those reports, and 117,000 pico Curies per 

liter was cited in actually the 2005 report. 

That was for a well, which is a newer well 

drilled much closer to the source, which is 

assumed to be primarily Building 4010, where a 

small reactor is operated in an activated the 

shielding materials and earth around the 

building. 

 So that was the basis for our 

choice, not the highest values, and Well 34A 

is down gradient, but somewhat north of 

Building 4010, and I prepared some diagrams 

out of the environmental reports, but I don't 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 75

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

believe you have those unless I'm mistaken 

because it was determined they had to be sent 

for classification review. 

 MS. KLEA: Who is speaking? 

 MR. POTTER: Gene Potter. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Thank you. 

 MR. POTTER: And anyway, so the 

first point is we did consider those reports 

that were cited and picked Well, 34A based on 

its history. 

 Since SC&A's comments were made, 

the 2007 environmental report has been issued, 

and so we looked at that for this review in 

the last month or so, and there are several 

wells that are in the general direction of the 

supply well that was in Area 4, RD17, 27, 30, 

63, 85, and 86, and other than Well, 34A, 

which we used, there was only one other well 

with a positive result, and that was RD63 on 

February 16th, 2006, at 350 pico Curies per 

liter, which is a value far smaller than what 

we were using. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 76

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 And then it was followed at that 

well with two samples in 2007 which were below 

the detection level. 

 So in conclusion, I feel we've 

addressed SC&A's comments to look at this 

newer information, and we stick by our earlier 

decision as the choice of a mean value for 

Well, 34A adjusted for 40 years of radioactive 

decay as being a conservative, yet somewhat 

reasonable approach for bounding that dose. 

 That's all I have. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It's difficult to see 

how one can tie with any degree of accuracy 

measurements from this century with the time 

element that's involved with this particular 

SEC unless no activities occurred anywhere in 

the area that would feed that aquifer, that 

had anything to do with nuclear processes 

following the period of the SEC. 

 MS. KLEA: Wanda, you're cutting 

out. Can you get closer to the mic? 

 MEMBER MUNN: That's because I'm 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 77

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

nowhere near a mic. Hold on. 

 MS. KLEA: Oh, okay. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It isn't reasonable 

to assume that there were no activities 

following the given SEC period, and if there 

were activities following the SEC period, then 

measurements that are made 50, 40, 30 years 

later may have little direct bearing on events 

that occurred during the five or six year 

period that's being considered in the 1950s. 

 It may speak to general activities 

on the site in whole, but it would seem those 

higher values that were seen in the 2004, 

five, six, whenever those measurements were 

made would be very difficult to associate 

solely with the SEC period. Is that not 

correct? 

 MS. KLEA: I'm not understanding 

what you're saying. No one really knows when 

that tritium plume was released into the 

ground. We're assuming it was from reactor 

SNAP-8ER, which failed in 1964. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 78

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MEMBER MUNN: Which is much later 

than this period that we're speaking of here 

today. 

 MS. KLEA: Right. 

 MEMBER MUNN: That's essentially 

what I'm saying, Bonnie. 

 MS. KLEA: Right. Okay. 

 MR. POTTER: Let me just clarify. 

I don't believe I agree with Bonnie's 

statement that the source of this tritium had 

anything to do with the failure of a reactor. 

 Its activation of the shielding materials, 

concrete and so forth and the earth surround 

from rather high neutron levels. 

 MS. KLEA: Wouldn't that come from 

a reactor operation at that building? 

 MR. POTTER: Right, but you 

mentioned a failure of some kind. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, it did. It was 

shut down in 1964, and they lost 80 percent of 

the cladding on the fuel rods. 

 MR. POTTER: But tritium is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 79

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

produced by a neutron activation of the 

surrounding soil. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, yes. Loss of 

cladding doesn't necessarily translate to what 

we're discussing here. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, actually no one 

really knows exactly where that plume came 

from because it was close to all of the 

reactor buildings. They were all in one area, 

and so the source point has not been found. 

 MEMBER MUNN: My comment was simply 

on the timing more than anything else. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 DR. MAURO: Could I try something 

out? So we do agree that some measurements of 

groundwater were taken at some point in time 

where we saw 117,000 pico Curies per liter. 

Now, that might have been in some locations 

which was isolated from sources of drinking 

water. I'm not sure of the date when that was 

collected, but the way I, again, visualize 

what I'm hearing is that, yes, there are 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 80

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

mechanisms whereby groundwater could have 

become contaminated and may have been a 

superficial aquifer in the immediate vicinity 

of the aquifer that could have become 

contaminated through a variety of mechanisms, 

and in fact, obviously was because you don't 

see that kind of level. I mean, I think you 

just don't see that kind of level unless 

there's a contaminating event. 

 And I think that the discussion 

we're having now is that, okay, what do we do 

about people who are drinking water from an 

aquifer in the vicinity of this facility. 

Perhaps it was not the aquifer that was 

contaminated. Maybe it was an aquifer that's 

clearly an unambiguously isolate or an aquifer 

from that source of water. 

 And there is good reason to believe 

that there's no way the tritium from this 

source could have ever gotten to the real 

drinking water source. I haven't heard that. 

 I guess that's what I was looking for. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 81

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MR. POTTER: Well, that is, in 

fact, the conclusion that one would come to if 

you look at the monitoring wells which are all 

fairly modern data, that, in fact, the tritium 

from the vicinity of Building 4010 -- and 

there may have been other buildings, as Bonnie 

said, involved in this as well. The SNAP 

reactor buildings are kind of in a cluster 

there -- but the data would tell you that, in 

fact, the tritium in the shallow monitoring 

wells has only migrated a matter of a few 

hundred feet in 40 years, and the one supply 

well in Area 4, WS17, was somewhat up gradient 

from the location of these buildings, and it 

was a minor source of drinking water. 

 And since it has been sampled, 

which is all fairly modern sampling, there's 

no evidence of tritium contamination in that 

supply well, and it is no longer used as a 

well and hasn't been for years as a supply 

well. I believe that ended in the early '60s 

or mid-'60s, that it was even a source of any 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 82

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

kind of drinking water for the site. 

 So one reasonable conclusion would 

be that, you know, there was never any 

contamination. However, since we don't have 

sampling from 40 years ago, 50 years ago, this 

is the approach that was selected. 

 MR. BERONJA: And have you 

developed a paper or an issues paper or 

developed diagrams on this then? 

 MR. POTTER: Yes. That was, as I 

mentioned, it was determined. I thought this 

was going to be able to go to the working 

group, but it was determined that we should 

send this for classification review even 

though the source of this information is all 

from publicly available documents. 

 MR. BERONJA: And I guess as part 

of that report or maybe building on what John 

said, maybe there's at least a demonstration 

of the aquifers that are being monitored, as 

well as the aquifers that are used for 

drinking water, as well as any hydrogeologic 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 83

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

aspects of this environment as far as 

groundwater flow direction potentially 

changing because of new populations or 

anything else, just to kind of put this thing 

to bed to say based on all of that -- I mean, 

part of the problem might be that the model 

was way more conservative than it needed to 

be, but yet we saw some information, you know, 

just maybe because we didn't look closely 

enough that said, well, if you're going to do 

this, then you should use this value. 

 But anyway, think that if what your 

report shows is that, you know, the 

groundwater flow direction has unlikely 

changed, that there is a separation between 

the monitoring of this aquifer and the other 

aquifer, then you know maybe that hopefully 

should put everything to rest here as far as 

this being an issue. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, could I add 

something? This is Bonnie. 

 We used wells in the other areas 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 84

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

for supply wells, and they were known by OSHA 

and Rocketdyne to be contaminated with 

chemicals, and I have those records from the 

Department of Health. 

 And also I found out that all of 

the water runoff and waste water from Area 4 

was piped into the other areas, and it went 

into their water system. So all of the water 

from Area 4 was used to spray the rocket 

engine test when they fired. So anything in 

that water would have been then re-suspended 

in the air and would have gone into the 

aquifer in other areas. 

 MR. BERONJA: I guess the one thing 

is unfortunately we can't look at the 

chemicals in this particular work, Bonnie. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, I understand that, 

but the chemicals is an indication that the 

contaminants have gotten into the wells, and 

the fact is that the company never tested for 

radionuclides in the drinking water ever until 

EPA told them to, and that was in the late 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 85

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

'90s when the tritium was discovered. 

 So they just didn't monitor. That 

doesn't means it wasn't there. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes, and probably the 

best we can do right now is look at the 

modeling that they're doing right now to say 

whether it's likely given the monitoring 

results that we have and the groundwater flow 

direction and everything else to see whether 

it's, you know, at all possible. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes, if you look at 

the maps of the site where the plume is 

located, I mean, where the sampling was, to 

narrow down the location of the plume is 

fairly well out of line. I know the TCE 

concern was because the other areas use TCE as 

a degreasing agent of the chemical contaminant 

that Bonnie refers to. 

 So it would have been a much larger 

exposure source, I think, for that, but as you 

said, there are reports out there that outline 

the sampling that took place and where the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 86

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

plume is actually located and what the levels 

are. 

 We haven't gone into any 

hydrogeological discussion. 

 MS. KLEA: And Area 4 had its own 

plumes. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I think what 

Bonnie might be saying is you could use the 

chemical as a tracer for the water being taken 

somewhere else and then getting back into the 

system. 

 MS. KLEA: Exactly. 

 DR. HUGHES: That's chemically very 

-- 

 DR. NETON: That's pretty dicey. 

It's an analogy that I'm not sure holds very 

well for a radionuclide versus an organic. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I've got a 

question. 

 MEMBER MUNN: The reverse is true. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: If during the 

time frame when these reactors are going, were 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 87

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

there samples done on supply well for 

activated sodium? I realize this has got a 

very short half-life, but my concern is, is 

this supply well when they're run a source or 

not, or was there any testing done for that at 

all? 

 DR. HUGHES: They did not test the 

water supply for radionuclides as far as I 

know. They did not. 

 MR. BERONJA: Well, maybe the next 

step on this, you know, if the Board would 

want, if NIOSH can prepare a report on this, 

if the Board wanted we could take a look at 

this report. 

 DR. MAURO: I think the modus 

operandi always is white paper issued by you 

folks. If the Board wants us to look at it, 

if the work group wants to look at it, we'll 

look at it. 

 Certainly I think that the issues 

raised here is that there may have been more 

than one way in which tritium could find its 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 88

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

way to drinking water supplies, is what I'm 

just hearing. One way, the little model I had 

in my head was somehow there might be a 

connection between the superficial aquifer, 

perhaps a deeper aquifer where the drinking 

water is obtained from. 

 But it sounds like that you've got 

arguments, strong arguments that that just 

didn't happen, but now we're hearing that, 

well, maybe there was some other way. The 

drinking water aquifer might have been 

contaminated. 

 I don't know, but in any event what 

you have to do is sort of convince yourself. 

Listen. You just can't conceive of a way in 

which tritium could have gotten into the 

drinking water supplies back in the late '50s, 

early '60s, and that's a story that needs to 

be told and we'd be happy to look at it. 

 MEMBER MUNN: And we do need to, I 

think, limit ourselves pretty much to tritium 

with respect to the specific radionuclide that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 89

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Phil brought up earlier. You need to remember 

that that particular radionuclide, whether 

you're talking about activated sodium or nonactivated sodium, you're talking about one of 

the most reactive chemical compounds that 

exists, and sodium is not going to go 

anywhere. It's going to react with water, 

with air, with anything you can possibly 

imagine. It's not going to become an aerosol 

and be transferred into the water supply. As 

soon as it touches water it turns into 

something other than an activated compound. 

It's going to stop. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well, we do know 

from Hanford though that some of the workers, 

the water they were drinking did have 

activated sodium in it. That's a proven fact 

there at Hanford. 

 That's why I'm asking is it 

possible the supply well during the operation 

of the reactors, would this be a problem? I 

realize it's going to only be a problem during 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 90

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

the time the reactors are operating, but you 

know, you have to look at this from an 

internal exposure standpoint. 

 DR. HUGHES: It takes a while for a 

chemical to get all the way down to the 

groundwater, but you know. 

 DR. NETON: It can migrate through. 

 I don't know. We can look at this. I think 

sodium was an issue raised somewhere else in 

this review. 

 DR. HUGHES: It was raised as an 

internal -- 

 DR. NETON: An internal exposure 

issue. 

 One thing I'd like to point out to 

sort of bound this a little bit though is that 

I don't think we're talking about a major dose 

exposure pathway. 

 DR. MAURO: Well, the MCLs of 

tritium are -- I'm trying to think of the 

drinking water standards. You know, they're 

pretty high, but I mean this number certainly 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 91

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

is, you know, well above that. But I'm just 

saying that -- 

 DR. NETON: But the dose metrically 

is -- 

 DR. MAURO: Well, if it's 900, it's 

four millirem per year. I'm drawing on my 

memory of the drinking water standards, for 

EPA, which didn't come out until 1976, but 

somehow the number that sticks in my head is 

four millirem per year associated with about 

800 pico Curies per year. 

 DR. NETON: For continuous use. 

 DR. MAURO: Continuous, two liters 

a day. 

 DR. NETON: This is work 

environment, probably a little lower. So 

anyway -- 

 DR. MAURO: I was just trying to 

set -- 

 DR. NETON: Yes, and there's 

certainly a dose that would need to be 

considered in a dose reconstruction, but as 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 92

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

far as assignment of dose, it's going to be 

one of the more minor components. 

 DR. HUGHES: I think part of the 

drinking water source was bottled water, but 

part of it was also just groundwater. So I 

think the workers were provided drinking water 

that was shipped in from outside, but there 

were also taps and coffee makers and things 

like that. 

 MS. KLEA: I'd like to add a 

comment here. This is Bonnie. 

 Lara said that it would take a long 

time for anything to percolate down to the 

aquifer. Well, that's not true because we had 

two major fault lines that ran through that 

property down into our local reservoir, and 

that whole site was riddled with fractures and 

fault lines, and we have early memos from 1954 

that the company was planning to build a big 

pit and dump all of the radioactive waste into 

that pit. 

 I'm working with DTFC, and we're 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 93

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

doing a follow-up to see if they actually did 

that, and I know it was common in that time 

period to dump everything into the ground. 

 DR. NETON: Right. Bonnie, this is 

Jim Neton. 

 We were talking about Sodium-24, I 

think, in that context, and it has a fairly 

short half-life. I forget how many. 

 DR. HUGHES: Fifteen hours. 

 DR. NETON: Fifteen hours? So, you 

know, in sort of groundwater migration time, 

the 15 hour half-life is pretty short compared 

to how far things migrate in the groundwater, 

unless it's still suggesting that some kind of 

equilibrium could be built up or it's just 

continuously being infused, but even so, I 

think -- 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: But that would 

only be a problem during the time that they 

are running the reactors. Effectively there 

is no problem when they're shut down. 

 MR. BERONJA: All right. So I 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 94

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

guess the report is going to be generated, and 

John said if we need to review it or whoever 

would like us to review it, we can take a look 

at it, but I think as Jim said, too, I think 

this is a fairly minor issue. It's not an SEC 

issue. It's more dose related to doing dose 

reconstruction -- I'm sorry. Site profile. 

Thank you. 

 MR. MORRIS: This is Bob Morris. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, Bob. 

 MR. MORRIS: My recollection of the 

EPA drinking water standard is that four 

millirem per year for continuous -- as the 

only source of drinking water comes from 

drinking 20,000 pico Curies per liter. 

 DR. MAURO: It's 20,000. Okay. 

Thank you for correcting me. 

 MR. MORRIS: Twenty thousand. 

 DR. MAURO: It's that high. Okay. 

 I stand corrected. I know where the 900 came 

from. I stand corrected. 

 MR. MORRIS: And so I think the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 95

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

conclusion you can come to just at face value 

is that dosimetricly the number will be small. 

 DR. NETON: Whether it's 30,000 or 

100,000, you're in the ballpark of around ten, 

12 millirem per year maximum. So these are 

small doses to consider, although necessary to 

be included. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay, all right. 

Moving on, the next issue related to uranium 

fires where the petitioner referred to 

numerous uranium fires and cites a couple of 

incidents of sodium explosion and concern 

about the monitoring, NIOSH concluded that 

there was data available for the various 

uranium fires that would allow dose estimates 

to be bounded. We actually reviewed quite a 

few different studies related to this and 

really came to the same conclusion that NIOSH 

did on this. So I don't think there's really 

any further discussion that's needed on that. 

 Issue number five talks about air 

monitoring. Again, this was a petitioner 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 96

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

issue that, you know, sufficient air 

monitoring or air monitoring was insufficient 

related to, you know, determining exposures. 

 I think NIOSH concluded that there 

was a concern prior to 1958 about this. You 

know, I think we concurred with NIOSH's 

conclusion about that prior to 1958. You 

know, we did have some questions about post 

1958, and I think that's going to probably all 

get wrapped up in some of the other 

discussions that we have with the other 

issues. So we can talk about those there. 

 The next issue is the sodium 

disposal facility or sodium burn pit. The 

facility was not adequately monitored and/or 

records are missing. NIOSH had a number of 

statements that they made where they said that 

they didn't really feel this was a significant 

issue just given some of the safety issues 

associated with going out to the facility, 

given some of the levels of radionuclides' 

present at the site. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 97

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 And you know, I think in general we 

still had some concern just about, you know, I 

don't think there's still very good 

information on when some of this contamination 

took place or some of the incidental exposure. 

 You know, I think probably still in general 

are feeling as probably the exposures that 

folks would have gotten would have been 

relatively minor, associated with walking by 

this facility. 

 I guess the only things I don't 

know if you guys have looked at any other 

information related to the sodium burn pit or 

any kind of modeling or anything else, Lara. 

 DR. HUGHES: What we looked into is 

more we have actually been in the context of 

some of the other issues into looking and 

producing co-worker models. So anybody who 

might have gone out there that may have not 

been monitored, you know, those could 

conceivably be bounded with the co-worker 

model, considering this was an intermittent 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 98

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

operation. 

 So you would not have a worker at 

the burn pit eight hours a day seven days a 

week. Yes, so actually looking into the coworker model covering this exposure. 

 MS. KLEA: I have eyewitnesses on 

that situation, and I certainly don't agree 

that only the workers at the burn pit would 

have been contaminated. They would have 

released airborne radionuclides, would have 

covered the whole site. 

 MEMBER BEACH: And this is Josie 

Beach. I have a question. 

 It says contamination was 

discovered in '78. Do you guys have any 

records of when it was monitored prior to '78, 

when the last -- 

 DR. HUGHES: It was not monitored 

prior to '78 because it was not intended to be 

a radionuclide disposal facility. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Right. 

 DR. HUGHES: It was a sodium 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 99

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

disposal facility. So I think when they 

started -- I'm not exactly sure what triggered 

the monitoring. I think it was the thought of 

clean-up or -- 

 MEMBER BEACH: It said they had 

intermittent modeling done or not modeling, 

but intermittent -- 

 DR. HUGHES: Disposal, like they 

were disposing sodium, like a pump that had 

sodium in it, and they would douse it with 

water, submerge it in water to react to sodium 

to make it -- essentially remove the sodium 

hazard that Wanda had pointed out because 

sodium is so reactive. 

 MEMBER BEACH: So there's no 

previous monitoring data available until '78? 

 DR. HUGHES: No, because they did 

not intend for it to become contaminated. It 

did become contaminated, but again, if you 

look at the reports, this environment, those 

levels are fairly low; they are in the pico 

Curie range of cesium. So it's not -- there's 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 100

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

no indication that this was a major disposal 

operation of radioactive -- 

 MS. KLEA: No, actually it was, and 

I have a witness who before he died went on 

record and on videotape that he was ordered to 

do releases over the side of the hill, and you 

may or may not know it did go down the hill 

and got into Brandeis-Bardin Institute. 

 So the story the company is telling 

isn't true at all. This was a major, major 

clean-up pit, and the workers were ordered 

without any protective clothing to pump it. 

They had to pump it out over the side of the 

hill. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Pump what out? 

 MS. KLEA: The liquid. 

 MEMBER MUNN: What liquid? 

 MS. KLEA: These were pits. These 

were earthen pits. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but we were 

talking about the burn pits, weren't we? 

 MS. KLEA: Yes, the burn pits. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 101

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MEMBER MUNN: And so -- 

 MS. KLEA: They would wash the 

contaminated parts to get the sodium off, and 

it was great fun for the workers to see the 

explosions. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it's a very 

spectacular reaction. 

 MS. KLEA: Yes. 

 MEMBER MUNN: And when it's over, 

it's over, but -- 

 MS. KLEA: Anyway, the area was 

contaminated with cesium, strontium, and 

plutonium, and the workers had to pump the 

liquid out that were in these pits over the 

side of the hill, contaminating all of the 

property below in Simi Valley. 

 DR. MAURO: So I'm visualizing two 

concerns here. One is it's a burn pit and 

things are burning. 

 DR. HUGHES: It's the sodium 

reaction with water. 

 DR. MAURO: Sodium is reacting. So 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 102

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

you have a very exothermic process, steam 

coming off there. 

 DR. HUGHES: Just hydrogen. 

 DR. MAURO: Sodium is being 

oxidized. Water is steaming off, and you've 

got some kind of convective movement of air up 

and out with water vapor, and in the pit there 

is some cesium, perhaps some strontium, 

whatever, now so that the key issues then 

become, okay, what type of concentrations of 

what radionuclides might have been in the pit 

when. 

 DR. HUGHES: Exactly. 

 DR. MAURO: And second, when you do 

this kind of thing, there are many models out 

there that are run. It's like burning oil and 

what comes up. You could sort of say -- okay. 

 I'm not saying you should do this, but if I 

was trying to convince myself, okay, how do I 

convince myself that the amount of airborne 

radionuclides because of the burning process 

is relatively small, and what contribution 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 103

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

could have to the dose is relatively small. 

There are probably ways of doing it, a 

bounding analysis. 

 Is that something that you folks 

have done or are looking at or basically 

you're basically using more heuristic 

arguments why this is not an important 

contributor? 

 DR. HUGHES: Well, we're looking at 

in general workers handling radiological 

materials and workers handling sodium reactor 

components we presumed were monitored or at 

least I would assume that a larger part of the 

workers that would have gone out there were 

monitored. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay. 

 DR. HUGHES: So we're looking into 

the whole internal and external monitoring 

data from the site in the form of a co-worker 

model to bound doses to workers. 

 DR. MAURO: So the argument being 

that the bioassay data that you have for 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 104

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

workers would have captured that. Whatever 

contribution to intake, what might have 

occurred while they were working with or in 

the vicinity of the burn pit, the bioassay 

data would capture those intakes and you 

could, you know, along with other intakes that 

you might have experienced from handling 

material. 

 I just want to understand what the 

line of argument is. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. 

 DR. NETON: The primary emphasis is 

on the bioassay. 

 DR. MAURO: I have to say that 

these kinds of transfer models are your last 

resort. 

 DR. NETON: But keep in mind that 

the concentrations are fairly low in these 

materials, the pico Curie per gram. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes, and that's 

important, and that's well established. 

 DR. NETON: And so they're 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 105

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

measurements. 

 DR. MAURO: Somebody measured it 

and so you know it's in there. 

 DR. NETON: So when you have pico 

Curies per gram, the cancer per exposure is 

pretty low. You just can't entail enough 

material to get a significant dose, but 

nonetheless, we would propose to capture with 

a co-worker model. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay. Is that all part 

of the evaluation design profile or just 

something that is coming out in the white 

paper? 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes, it's the white 

paper. 

 DR. NETON: The co-worker model is 

yet to be developed. 

 DR. MAURO: Okay. 

 MS. KLEA: I'd like to add. This 

is Bonnie. 

 I'd like to add that we had similar 

pits behind the SRE in the early days of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 106

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

operation, and I have a new witness that can 

confirm this, and it's also written in 

reports. They had ponds that they filled, 

open ponds behind the SRE, and they used those 

to wash the contaminated parts that had sodium 

on them behind the SRE, and then those opened 

dams broke, and all that liquid was released 

down the hill, and then they put in piping 

along the road to take the waste water from 

the SRE over the Silvernale Pond, which was in 

Area, I believe, Area 3. 

 So I don't remember if you have 

information on the SRE pits. 

 DR. HUGHES: Bonnie, this is Lara. 

 I do believe we do, but if you want 

to make sure, if you could forward any reports 

that you have to us, if you want to make sure, 

that would be fine. 

 MS. KLEA: I don't know that I have 

anything that I haven't forwarded to you. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. 

 MS. KLEA: I think it's from that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 107

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

historic -- 

 DR. HUGHES: I do remember. 

 MS. KLEA: -- data. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes, I do remember 

reading about this. 

 MS. KLEA: Right, and I have, like 

I said, a new witness that was there at the 

time, and he can testify as to what they did 

in those pits, and then it's on record that 

those earthen pits broke and everything ran 

off the side of the hill. 

 MR. BERONJA: Well, again, I guess 

on this one with the issues paper or the white 

paper, co-worker model, we can take a look at 

that if the Board wants, but otherwise I think 

we can move on unless there's anything else. 

 Let's see. The seventh issue, 

again, came through the petitioner. It was 

identification of workers with blank radiation 

exposure record sheets in their file, and I 

guess that NIOSH had discovered through an 

interview with current folks at Santa Susana 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 108

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

that all individuals were issued a blank 

record sheet in their file called a blue card, 

and if an individual entered into a controlled 

area, they were required to have a film badge, 

and any exposure was entered into their file, 

and that this practice was corroborated by 

NIOSH through random personnel record reviews 

and other reviews. 

 SC&A was able to pretty much 

acknowledge this practice of these particular 

cards, these blue cards, and of course, I 

don't think we had the same level of 

information probably that NIOSH did in 

corroborating as far as just people entering 

controlled areas, that they all had film 

badges and everything, but I think hopefully, 

you know, the co-worker models and other 

things that are being looked at would address 

this also. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, I know that that 

was not required until 1968. We had free 

access to everything when I was there. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 109

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. HUGHES: I think the 

terminology is more people that routinely 

worked in this area. It is possible somebody 

had access to facilities. So we're looking 

into that with the co-worker model. 

 MS. KLEA: Right, and like I say, I 

read that those requirements were not enforced 

until 1968. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. The next issue 

is monitoring of firemen from other sites who 

were involved with fires or other events at 

Santa Susana, and NIOSH mentions that firemen 

wore film badges when working in areas with 

the potential for radiologic exposures, and 

one person interviewed mentioned that the 

firemen consistently wore badges. However, 

one fireman did not have monitoring records in 

their file. You know, I think there is still 

some question there. 

 Again, hopefully issues like this 

would be addressed, you know, through the co-
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 110

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

worker models, I assume. I don't know if 

there's anything else that you want to add on? 

I mean, I think we had discovered the same 

things as far as there being some 

inconsistency as far as the firm and having 

badges or not having badges. 

 If there's nothing, let's see. 

That's it as far as the petitioner issues. 

What we'll do, unless folks want to take a 

break, we could keep going and move into the 

issues that SC&A had. Some of these actually 

will have been covered already. 

 The first issue -- I'm sorry? 

 MR. KATZ: Bob? 

 MR. MORRIS: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes? 

 MR. MORRIS: The last conversation 

on the blue cards, I think I heard SC&A say 

that they agreed with the NIOSH position, but 

then the topic changed sort of midstream. 

Could you confirm that that's exactly what you 

said? 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 111

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MR. BERONJA: I think we concurred 

with what NIOSH had found. I think the 

conclusion was, what Bonnie was saying, is 

that this practice actually started in 1968, 

and what NIOSH was talking about as far as 

workers being badged was workers routinely 

working in specific areas. 

 Otherwise people maybe who were not 

routinely working may not have been badged, 

and that the co-worker model would hopefully 

address these particular incidents is I think 

what was stated. 

 MR. MORRIS: But I'm not quite 

following. I think this is exactly my 

problem, is that the issue was unfilled blue 

cards; is that right? 

 MR. BERONJA: I'm sorry. Could you 

say that again? 

 MR. MORRIS: The issue was blue 

cards with no data on them; is that right? 

 MR. BERONJA: Right. 

 MR. MORRIS: And you confirmed that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 112

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

that was an appropriate expectation 

considering the common practice of business 

through those years. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right. 

 MR. MORRIS: Okay, and then the 

conversation shifted and it was some other 

topic came in, and I'm not sure that I got 

that. 

 Is it a new issue that has been 

brought up or not? 

 MR. BERONJA: No, I think it was 

what Bonnie stated, that this practice began 

in 1968. 

 MR. MORRIS: But I think we know 

that that practice of blue card being in the 

files was before '68, wasn't it? 

 MR. BERONJA: I don't remember 

offhand. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes, that's correct. 

I think Bonnie was referring to it being 

enforced, that workers that were not monitored 

were not able to access radiological areas, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 113

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

whereas before that it was possible for them 

to access these areas if they wanted to. 

 DR. MAURO: So we have workers in 

earlier years that may have gotten access, 

received some exposure. 

 DR. HUGHES: They might have had 

access in -- 

 MR. STIVER: Or would have a blank 

blue card. 

 DR. HUGHES: They would have a 

blank blue card. They were not monitored. 

 DR. MAURO: And in theory, if you 

have enough data, with good data from the blue 

cards, somehow that could be used to build a 

co-worker model for those workers who did not 

have records. 

 DR. HUGHES: That is correct. 

 MR. BERONJA: And may have been 

exposed. 

 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. 

 I have plenty of workers and worker 

families who say there has been some more 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 114

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

monitored, and there are no records found or 

there are big, huge data gaps in the records. 

 DR. MAURO: For the benefit of the 

work group, this issue is regarding 

limitations in the data set for worker 

exposures, whether it's external or internal, 

more so I am assuming external. This would be 

helpful, is when there are missing data, 

incomplete data, but there is a body of real 

data. What the question becomes is: is the 

body of data representative enough in time and 

location and job category that when you 

collect that data -- let's say you start to 

try to build a co-worker model with it where 

you assign some distribution and try to, say, 

pick off an upper 95th percentile that some 

workers might have gotten -- the question 

always is: are there subpopulations of people 

because of their job categories or in time, 

which usually turns up to be even more 

important? 

 For example, if your data is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 115

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

limited to post some year but you're worried 

about people in an earlier year, building a 

bridge over time is a challenge. I know in 

the past we've seen this where an effort is 

made to show why the data collected post -- 

I'm going to use 1965 -- should be applied to 

workers earlier and almost in a way really 

there's a burden of proof here. You have to 

feel pretty confident that because of the 

nature of the operations, your understanding 

of process knowledge, what took place, that 

you could make that extrapolation. 

 That's not always easy to do. 

 DR. NETON: I'd like to know we've 

done that. 

 DR. MAURO: In time? Okay. Do we 

have one here? 

 DR. NETON: We've tried to go back 

in time, but we've never been successful in 

convincing the -- 

 DR. MAURO: It sounds like you 

might have that here. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 116

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. HUGHES: No. 

 DR. MAURO: You don't? 

 DR. HUGHES: No. 

 DR. MAURO: I misunderstood then. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. I'm sorry. 

 DR. MAURO: So basically you're 

saying in time there are just some workers for 

some reason that just didn't get picked up. 

 DR. HUGHES: No. This whole issue 

was something that I actually brought up when 

I looked through the record because for each 

claimant we get records from the site, and 

sometimes this record would include an empty 

health physics record or what they refer to as 

a blue card, and they would say, "Oh, this 

worker was, for example, a janitor and was not 

monitored." That was just an example. 

 Now, some other records came back 

and say we don't have any health physics 

record for this worker. Therefore, he was not 

a radiological worker, and there was a 

discrepancy, and that's why we looked into 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 117

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

this, and it turns out that the site, Area 4, 

had different operators. That's this whole 

confusion about the different operators. 

 You had Rocketdyne workers, and you 

had Atomics International, and forgive me if I 

get this wrong again. So the workers that 

worked for Atomics International, anybody 

would be issued this health physics card 

because they were under health physics 

supervision, and other workers who worked for 

Rocketdyne were not working with the nuclear 

operations, but they were working on Area 4. 

So they are covered under this program. They 

can file claims and we do a dose 

reconstruction. 

 So that's the source of these two 

different sets of records. Because I was 

confused when I looked at it. It was like, 

well, do we have missing data here or do we 

not, and I was concerned. So that's why we 

looked into this, and that's actually this 

whole issue. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 118

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. MAURO: Thank you. 

 MR. BERONJA: Anything else on 

this? 

 Otherwise we're going to move into 

the issues that SC&A have, and the first one 

that we had was on the -- 

 DR. NETON: Could we possibly take 

a ten-minute break? 

 MR. BERONJA: Sure. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. 

 DR. NETON: Before we move into the 

SC&A issues. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: So we're going to take a 

ten-minute break. I'm just going to put the 

phone on mute, but it will not cut the line. 

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off 

the record at 11:43 a.m. and 

resumed at 11:54 a.m.) 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. This is the Santa 

Susana Work Group, and we just were on a break 

for about five minutes or so, and we're going 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 119

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

to start up a little again, and then we'll 

have a lunch break. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Before we go back 

to you, Greg, just as far as planning, do we 

want to go another hour or so and have lunch 

or what do we want to do? I know some people 

have flights out of here at four, 4:30. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Mine is at six now. 

 They just changed it. 

 MR. KATZ: Josie has more time 

here. What time do you have to leave? 

 DR. MAURO: I'm 4:30. I guess if 

it keeps going I can sneak out. Do you think 

we might be able to finish up? How much more? 

 MR. BERONJA: I don't see us -- 

even if we have lunch, I can't imagine us 

going past three o'clock. 

 MR. KATZ: Even if we have lunch? 

 (Laughter.) 

 MEMBER MUNN: Skipping lunch is not 

an option. No. 

 MR. BERONJA: Even if we have a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 120

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

regular lunch, it should. 

 MEMBER BEACH: So you're asking 

another half hour, another hour? Is that what 

you asked, Mike? 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes. Maybe go 

until 12:30 and then break for lunch? 

 MEMBER MUNN: Why don't we break at 

12:30? 

 MEMBER BEACH: That's fine. 

 MR. KATZ: And we can try to do a 

quicker lunch and get back. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: Back into it, we're 

going to start in now with the issues that 

SC&A had related to the SEC, and the first one 

actually we've already addressed. This is the 

issue of which areas should be considered. So 

I think it looks like all parties have agreed 

and are comfortable with the fact that this is 

focused on Area 4. So we don't need to 

discuss that anymore. 

 I think as part of that, the dates 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 121

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

were included, and NIOSH is going to be just 

going back and looking at '53 and '54 to make 

sure there's no other information that would 

indicate or information that would indicate 

that there were actually nuclear activities 

going on at that time. 

 The second issue that we have is on 

the adequacy of the internal monitoring 

program pre and post January 1st, 1959, and 

this thing is actually -- well, it's not quite 

as long as I thought it was. Maybe we have 

some longer ones. I think the crux of this 

particular one is that -- and maybe just a 

little bit of background. 

 First of all, we concur with NIOSH 

that the pre-1959 information is really not 

sufficient, and I think that we concur that 

the SEC should be considered for that 

particular time period. 

 Post 1958, what we did is we 

actually went through and looked at the claims 

that were filed related to Santa Susana, and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 122

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

if I remember right, I think that this was 

100-plus claims that we looked at. Yes, maybe 

at the time that we did it I think it was 

close to 200. I don't know if that had -- 

 DR. HUGHES: We have had well over 

200 claims for over a year. 

 MR. BERONJA: So it was right 

around 200, I guess, that we looked at. What 

we did in looking at those was we looked at 

those claims and, in particular, the periods 

that the workers worked at the site, and then 

we looked at what percentage of the workers 

actually had internal dosimetry work, and then 

we plotted that. 

 Actually in Section 4.3.1.1 of both 

reports, and I think maybe just for a little 

bit of background here, we originally had 

multiple graphs presented in this section. We 

had a graph that showed from the early period 

all the way through '65 the percentage of 

workers that were internally monitored, and 

then we had the number of workers that were 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 123

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

monitored over this period, and then we had 

the same two graphs, the percent and the 

number that were monitored from early on to a 

much later time frame, and actually the reason 

we did that was we wanted to focus on this 

through the '65 time frame. 

 When this document went through DOE 

review, they were a little bit concerned about 

us putting the number of workers that were 

monitored. So we actually pulled that out of 

that particular report, and while I thought I 

had lost a little bit of kind of the flavor 

for the number of people, I don't think it 

lost kind of the point that we're trying to 

make. 

 If you look at the graphs, what it 

shows is as far as the percentage of workers 

that was internally monitored, there's really 

nothing really that much that happened before 

'58, and then it picks up and there's a pretty 

increasing slope as you get into the '61, '62 

time frame, and then there's a pretty strong 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 124

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

baseline when you hit that '62-'63 time frame. 

 It then kind of comes down after that. 

 And really this particular 

information, the sodium reactor experiments -- 

some uncertainty there -- there has been some 

reports that have shown that there were places 

that folks didn't think that there were 

materials, that there were materials. There's 

one particular memo in '62 related to this. 

 All of this kind of gives us 

concern that this program was really not fully 

robust, potential of really going until 

probably at least about the '62 time frame. 

We have that concern in the '59, '60, the 

early '60s time frame. 

 While there are still some issues 

that we had post '62, '63, '65, I think as far 

as the program being a stable program and 

being able to have sufficient information out 

there to develop a co-worker model or 

something else, I think, you know, in general 

we thought it was fine. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 125

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 But it was this period as, you 

know, the program was established and getting 

going that we had some concerns. So that's 

really kind of the crux of what came out of 

some of this particular analysis. Again, 

there's some specifics as far as how the 

program was developed and some deficiencies, 

but I guess I'd be curious just about, again, 

the data set that we looked at was the claims 

that were filed. We did not look at a bigger 

data set or anything else that might have 

said, "No, you guys didn't look at enough or 

this class of workers." 

 So I'd be curious if NIOSH had any 

different experience or what they thought 

about these particular graphs, in particular. 

 DR. HUGHES: I don't particularly 

understand what your total is. You said a 

percentage. What is the total again? 

 MR. BERONJA: It's the percentage 

of workers that were working at that period of 

time. So those workers that were working, for 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 126

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

instance in 1959, what percent of those 

workers were internally monitored. 

 DR. HUGHES: But this is solely 

based on our claim information? 

 MR. BERONJA: The claim 

information, strictly on a claim information. 

 MEMBER BEACH: So that would be ten 

percent. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes, but we have -- 

okay. How did you limit those claims to 130? 

I mean we have 240. Which ones did you 

eliminate and what was the basis of that? 

 MR. BERONJA: You know what? I'll 

go back and look. There were no claims 

eliminated at all -- 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: -- in what we looked 

at. I don't know. In some cases there may 

have been claims where maybe it was outside a 

certain period. 

 DR. HUGHES: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: You know, that we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 127

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

were looking at. 

 DR. HUGHES: That makes sense, yes. 

 DR. NETON: This may be a moot 

issue anyway, though, because we're not going 

to base our co-worker models at all on the 

claimant's data. There are a large number of 

internal monitoring data available that we 

have access to. Unfortunately right now its 

in de-identified form, and that's the data 

that were used by Boice and others to do an 

epi study recently that was released at 

Rocketdyne. 

 And I'm not totally familiar with 

the numbers, but there is -- 

 DR. HUGHES: I have some numbers to 

throw at you. The entire work force was 

46,970 people off the site, and I'm not 

entirely sure this was only Area 4. It might 

have consisted of other areas, but the 

entirety of internally monitored personnel at 

the site over the entire course of operation 

was 2,200. Excuse me. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 128

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 So I do not have the total number 

of data points. I did not count them, but we 

do actually have all of this data, all of the 

internal monitoring data that was scanned and 

abstracted during this study. It's available 

in database format. 

 There is currently an issue with 

some information that the site needs to 

provide in order to use the entirety of the 

data, which is in the form of clarification of 

notation that was used mostly, and currently 

the site cannot respond to any request because 

they have funding issues. So this was 

actually where this was being held up at the 

moment. 

 MS. KLEA: Say that again, Lara. 

 DR. HUGHES: The sites, Boeing site 

currently has no funding to cooperate with 

NIOSH making data available, and this is the 

current hold-up of the development of the 

internal co-worker model, and the resolution 

of questions that we still have on the data. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 129

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MS. KLEA: I thought they got 

funded from NIOSH. 

 DR. NETON: No, I don't think NIOSH 

funded them. I was wondering if the DOE. 

 DR. HUGHES: It's DOE funding. 

 DR. NETON: DOE funding, and there 

was some issues with the continuing resolution 

and budgets and that sort of thing, and I 

think DOE is working through that, and I 

suspect that that should be alleviated fairly 

soon. 

 But there was also an issue about 

us using -- certain sites have the concept of 

we should only have access to claimant data, 

and that's not true. We have access to the 

full range, and we're working that through. 

We just need to get the right people talking 

to each other for them to drop that issue off 

the table. 

 But literally I think there's 

hundreds of thousands of bioassay records that 

have been collected that we'll have access to 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 130

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

develop these co-worker models. 

 Now, the question still remains 

whether it's a robust data set and were the 

right people monitored and that sort of thing. 

 DR. MAURO: To put it in -- the way 

I see it is that when you look at the claimant 

records that we looked at, for whatever reason 

we had 138 or something. 

 MR. BERONJA: Well, no, actually I 

think -- I'll have to double check the 

numbers. I think there were close to 200 that 

we looked at. 

 DR. MAURO: Let's use that. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. 

 DR. MAURO: We have 200 and we say, 

"Okay. You know, what percent of them were 

those 200 claimants?" 

 And we see that there is an elbow 

in the graph, and we plot it as a function of 

time. You know, it stays pretty low, and then 

we would hit under ten percent. You know, 

it's nothing before 1957. Then it starts to 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 131

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

creep around a little bit, but then you see it 

takes off, and by 1963, you're up to 35 

percent. 

 So I mean, it's very simple. We 

just look at it and say, "hmm." It looks like 

you might have a deficiency of data based on 

just looking at those 200 claimants, you know, 

prior to the '62-'63 time frame. 

 MS. KLEA: Do you think that the 

DOE is not allowing you to publish the number 

of the workers doing internal monitoring? 

 DR. NETON: No. 

 MR. BERONJA: Actually I did say 

that. The DOE in their review had some 

problem from a -- I'm sorry. Maybe not DOE -- 

on the Privacy Act concern, the Privacy Act 

review. They had concerns. I couldn't quite 

figure it out, of presenting the number of 

workers -- 

 DR. NETON: Oh, in work products. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes. 

 DR. NETON: But the Board has our 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 132

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

work products. You're talking about the 

Privacy Act cleared -- 

 MR. BERONJA: That's right. That's 

right. 

 MS. KLEA: So that's the workers 

who had internal monitoring records. 

 MR. BERONJA: That were internally 

monitored, right, yes. 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Liz HomokiTitus. 

 Let me just clarify that for you. 

The Privacy Act Director for CDC gives us 

directions on how to get a Privacy Act 

clearance, and if it's a group of nine or 

less, and you can determine who that person 

is, then those numbers need to come out, and 

that's why they're taken out of the third 

version that goes to the public, but it is not 

taken out for the Advisory Board. The 

Advisory Board has all of the information. 

 MS. KLEA: You're indicating that 

the internal records are nine or less? 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 133

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MR. BERONJA: No. 

 MS. KLEA: Are the workers 

monitored? 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: no, I'm not 

indicating that. I'm saying that they may 

have said these three people -- 

 MS. KLEA: Oh. 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- and then if 

they were talking about a group of nine or 

less, then that number would have to come out 

so that those people cannot be personally 

identified. 

 I'm not saying anything about how 

many people may have actually had some type of 

internal monitoring. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Who is speaking? 

 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: This is Liz 

Homoki-Titus. I'm an attorney with HHS> 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes, in this 

particular case, Liz, and I'm not sure if I'm 

completely understanding you, I mean, this is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 134

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

a plot just of the number of workers or 

percentage of workers. There was no way to 

figure out who these workers -- I mean I don't 

think there's a way to -- 

 MS. HOWELL: We don't need to have 

this discussion in the middle of this meeting. 

 DR. MAURO: Well, I mean, the point 

I was simply trying to make is that there's a 

time period where it looks like there's a 

paucity of data based on the 200 claims that 

we looked at. Now, what I'm hearing is for 

those very same time periods you may have not 

only the claimant data, but all worker data 

whereby you have a much more complete data set 

of bioassay, not only, you know, number of 

workers or percent of workers, but also the 

number of samples per worker, what they 

consisted of, the range of workers. 

 And what I'm getting at is when you 

start to talk about adequacy, the data 

adequacy to build the co-worker model or to 

rebuild your construction, we walked away from 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 135

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

the work that we did, and you got a problem in 

the early '60s. 

 DR. NETON: Based on the claimant 

data. 

 DR. MAURO: Based on the claimant 

data set. 

 DR. NETON: I can understand that 

conclusion based on that, but like I say, 

we're in the process of developing -- 

 DR. MAURO: This is important. 

 DR. NETON: -- a full data set, and 

-- 

 DR. MAURO: To me this is a big 

issue. 

 DR. NETON: I would point out that 

just because there's a paucity in the early 

years one, of course, has to look at what type 

of work activities were going on, the type of 

work, the amount of work, that sort of stuff. 

 That has got to be looked at in context. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes, I mean, and 

Larry, you probably know this, I mean the '60s 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 136

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

was a pretty active time for this site. 

 DR. HUGHES: I think somewhat what 

you see in here is very likely consistent with 

the operations of the site that they ramped 

up. You know, they started small in '53, 

constructed, and then they wound up to mid-

'60s, maybe late '60s, when they stopped 

operating a lot of these facilities, and 

finally went into decommissioning. 

 DR. NETON: So anyway, at least 

with this, like John said, you know, we had 

access to the claims data. We looked at it. 

You know, we started looking at it, and we saw 

this and we said, "Well, we'd better look at 

more of the claims just to get a better 

represented sample." 

 We did that and we still saw the 

same thing. So I think, you know, we still 

have a concern, but if you guys have better 

information to be able to develop a co-worker 

model, whatever. 

 DR. NETON: I mean, I wouldn't be 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 137

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

surprised if we see a similar pattern of rampup because, in fact, you know, we have a 

technique where we could use claimant data to 

develop co-worker models, and it's a valid 

approach, but again -- 

 DR. MAURO: It's mostly heuristic 

unfortunately. At some point everyone has a 

judgment. Well, when do I have enough data or 

enough time periods, enough different types of 

workers where I'm starting to feel comfortable 

that I could use that data to build it around. 

 We've been there before. 

 DR. NETON: And of course, a lot of 

it, the more sparse the data that you have the 

more claimant favorable you end up tending to 

be. For instance, we've had very few data 

points at some sites and said, "Well, we 

really don't know the distribution, but we're 

going to take the highest value." 

 I mean, we've done that at several 

sites, or we'll take the 95th or -- 

 DR. MAURO: We're in the middle of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 138

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

that in a couple of places, and we've had some 

disagreements on if, in fact, the intent was 

to monitor the people that had the highest 

potential for exposure, then that argument 

starts to hold nicely. 

 But then, again, the burden of 

proof is to make that case. Yes, these are 

the people, you know, and we've been through 

that before. So, in effect, if it turns out 

that even if you only have -- let's say it 

turns out you only had ten percent of your 

workers that have bioassay data. Right now my 

sense is that's not -- you know, you're 

missing -- you know, is that good enough to 

build a co-worker model where you could place 

a plausible amount down on all workers, which 

may be so you only have ten percent. 

 But if somehow you could make a 

case, and we're going to get into this when we 

talk about the OTIB bond on Y12. If you could 

make a case that says, no, we could 

demonstrate that those workers were, in fact, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 139

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

the workers that are the highest potential, 

and if we pick the upper 90 percent, even 

though it's only a small percentage, if we 

picked up 90 percent of those and we assumed 

that everyone gets that consistently, I as a 

health physicist would say that sounds pretty 

good, but right now we don't have that. 

 DR. NETON: I always like to use 

the analogy, you know, the percentage of 

workers monitored is a very poor indicator of 

how robust the monitoring program was, and I 

always like to point out that's like saying 

only two percent of people who work in a 

hospital are monitored and, therefore, it's a 

poorly monitored program. 

 In fact, the only people that work 

in the Radiology Department are the ones that 

need to be monitored. I mean, so you've 

really got to look at what's going on. 

 DR. MAURO: But that case has to be 

made. 

 DR. NETON: Exactly. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 140

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. MAURO: Really the burden of 

proof is on you guys. 

 MEMBER BEACH: So this is Josie. 

 What can we expect NIOSH to 

develop, a white paper or -- 

 DR. NETON: A co-worker model 

using -- 

 MEMBER BEACH: For this issue. 

 DR. NETON: -- using the full set 

of data we have available from this facility. 

 MEMBER BEACH: When it's available. 

 DR. NETON: And we're working very 

diligently to secure those data. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Right. 

 MR. BERONJA: I guess from a 

procedural perspective, I mean, and it sounds 

like you guys have a roadblock right now from 

doing that, right? 

 DR. NETON: Yes, it's my 

understanding we actually have the data set, 

but it's to be identified. So that limited 

use to do what John has been asking, to just 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 141

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

sort of see where the right people, kind of 

monitor, that sort of thing. 

 We have the full data set of 

records for a bioassay that I used. It's 

better to have identified data to look at if 

you can match people with what categories, 

that sort of thing. 

 DR. MAURO: This is, by the way -- 

you know, I've been involved in many SECs, 

like next week is a big week. This is the 

recurring theme over and over again. 

 DR. NETON: Now, and this is a big 

ticket item here, and we talked about a lot of 

issues with fission products and tritium. 

This is where the doses are really going to be 

assigned from particularly the uranium values 

and how many radionuclides, the big dose 

items. They're going to drive the 

compensation CDs in most cases. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes, I guess as far 

as post '58 we'll hold off until the work that 

you guys do. I guess the question you have to 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 142

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

ask is, you know, right now if all of us are 

saying, yes, through the end of '58 we all 

agree, then is there a significant change as 

far as information available in '59 and '60 

and '61, or what's the difference between 

those things or is it still, you know, a 

fairly small level? 

 DR. MAURO: That was part of our 

original mission, if you recall. If you take 

a real close look, they draw the line, you 

know, at the right place, and that's where we 

zeroed in, in addition to everything else. 

 MR. BERONJA: The next -- I don't 

think there's anything else there. There's a 

lot of specifics here, but I think we'll just 

hold off and wait and see what you guys find 

in that particular study. 

 The next issue we had, and we've 

discussed this already, this was an SC&A issue 

that also was a petitioner issue, and that is 

related to lack of information, related to the 

potential exposures with some facility 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 143

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

incidents like the SRE and sodium burn pit, 

and I think in both cases we've got an 

independent study that you guys are going to 

do on the sodium reactor experiment, and I 

think the model that you're developing on the 

sodium burn pit or at least another co-worker 

-- part of the co-worker -- 

 DR. HUGHES: Wrapped up in the coworker analysis. 

 MR. BERONJA: So there's actions 

being taken related to this. 

 DR. NETON: We're going to sound 

like a broken record. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes. 

 DR. NETON: We need to move forward 

here, but the co-worker models, we've had many 

discussions about how we handle incidents, and 

we believe that the co-worker models tend to 

incorporate many of the incident exposures 

that would have occurred. 

 The next issue, and we could be 

finished here before lunch, given the co-
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 144

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

worker model part of this and everything else, 

but we really just had two more issues, and 

they are not as important as the internal 

issue we just talked about. 

 But issue number four is the lack 

of information on environmental exposures. 

We've already talked about the drinking water 

aspect of this. The other, you know, concern 

that we've had all, although I don't know; 

probably from an exposure standpoint, and it's 

not a big one, is just the use of the staff 

data as far as an environmental exposure. I 

think what was done there, and this might be 

contrary to what you were saying, Jim, but you 

don't typically do is I think they took some 

information from '71 through '99 and then 

apply that and actually use some of that 

through the earlier years. 

 I mean, probably we don't have too 

much of a concern even -- I know we were 

talking this morning about the .01 factor that 

was used and whether that's conservative or 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 145

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

not, but the issue that some of our folks had 

here was that it was used '71 to '99 when a 

lot of the heavy activity was going on. Maybe 

there's more activity going on in the '60s, 

and is that really a representative time frame 

or is it really possible to take that time 

frame and then apply it back to the earlier 

years? 

 So that's probably the big issue on 

this. Otherwise we've dealt with the drinking 

water side. 

 DR. BEHLING: Greg, can I interrupt 

for a second? This is Hans Behling, SC&A. 

 MR. BERONJA: Sure. Thanks, Hans. 

 DR. BEHLING: This is one that you 

should rate, and it's really a question of 

going back to essentially Exhibit 1 in my 

write-up, but of course, you probably don't 

have it, but it's a replication of Figure 2-3 

in the TBD, and if you look at Figure 2-3 and 

you look at the activities as a function of 

time from the early operations to the later 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 146

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

ones where we do have environmental 

monitoring, and you realize that there is a 

real disconnect here. So much work, and 

different type of work, was done in the period 

during which there was absolutely no 

monitoring. 

 So the real question is can you 

realistically extrapolate backwards in time 

from the time period during which 

environmental monitoring was done and then 

translate that kind of data into the time 

period where there was none done and realize 

that the activities associated with the site 

were so much different in terms of both 

quality and quantity. 

 MS. KLEA: Thank you, Hans. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes, you know, I 

guess before I forget and end up looking at 

the specifics in some of these writings, with 

you on the phone, Hans, I know one other issue 

we had or there were several issues, Hans, 

that we had and I think we had kind of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 147

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

postponed this discussion on the neutron dose. 

 I don't know, Lara, if you guys want to talk 

about what you're doing with that. 

 DR. NETON: Let's finish up what 

we're doing with this environmental thing 

first maybe. 

 I just had a couple of things. One 

is I wanted clarification. When I was talking 

about back extrapolation, I was specifically 

referring to external, occupational external. 

 I think we have in a couple of instances 

maybe done some back extrapolation using 

environmental. 

 And so this would only apply to 

people who would not fit in the co-worker 

model, correct? I mean, so these are workers 

who would not be considered radiological 

workers at all, essentially be judged to have 

no potential for exposure. 

 So one can sort of envision that 

their doses would be by nature fairly low and, 

in fact, some small fraction of what we were 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 148

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

assigned to the workers. 

 So I'm wrestling a little bit with 

this back extrapolation. I think we're going 

to have to go back and look at it, I guess. 

 DR. MAURO: So what I'm hearing is 

that given that there's a problem of back 

extrapolation, as Hans pointed out, there 

might be other ways to come at the problem 

 DR. NETON: Yes, there are 

certainly ways to bound. I'd certainly bound 

a non-radiological worker though. I don't 

think it's an SEC issue, but we would have to 

come forward with some more appropriate 

approach, I guess. 

 This would be maybe appropriate. I 

know I haven't looked at this hard enough. 

 DR. MAURO: And again, so 

everything is linked. Ultimately the linchpin 

here is those bioassay data, especially in the 

'56, '57 -- 

 DR. NETON: Well, I'm not sure. I 

mean, the bioassay data are definitely linked 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 149

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

to what we would consider a radiological 

worker, but there are instances where we would 

say this person is deemed not to have done 

radiological work and just by virtue of being 

present at the site could have breathed some 

stack emissions and gotten some small amount 

of gamma dose. 

 You know, I used to think that 

while certainly giving that person the full 

occupational dose would be bounding, but you 

know, you kind of wonder is that really a 

plausible bounding dose. So then what 

fraction -- we had to decide what fraction, 

what's the appropriate fraction of the 

occupational dose we would assign to 

essentially non-radiological workers. It 

looks to me like we need to do a little better 

job here explaining if what we did is valid 

or, if not, coming up with a better approach. 

 I'm confident we can do something 

here. I don't think we've ever had an 

environmental exposure be the basis for an 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 150

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

SEC. There's always a first, I suppose, but 

I'm sure there's something we can do. 

 MR. BERONJA: Anything else on 

environmental? 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes, Greg. This is 

Hans again. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

 DR. BEHLING: I guess I do have a 

question regarding you had mentioned 

previously that you felt comfortable with the 

reduction factor or the issue of the reduction 

factor as identified in the TBD of 0.01 was 

one that you feel has been resolved, and I 

guess I wasn't aware what was stated in that 

behalf, but it seems like a single value for 

the entire site seems to be something of an 

over generalization, given the size of the 

site and the potential source terms throughout 

the site where a person might have been 

exposed so that one size fits all seems a 

little bit over generalized. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes, I'm the guilty 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 151

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

party, Hans. What I looked at is typically 

when I look at environmental exposures from 

airborne emissions, whether elevated or ground 

level, is you get the source term in pico 

Curies per second averaged over the course of 

a year. You multiply by atmospheric 

dispersion factor, chi over Q, and that's 

location specific, and you come up with a 

concentration at some location off site, 

average annual concentration at some off site 

location. 

 In this case they didn't do that. 

In this case they started with the point that, 

well, let's say we have a source term. Of 

course, that's what we're discussing was -- 

 DR. BEHLING: Stack emissions. 

 DR. MAURO: Stack emissions. You 

have stack emissions, and there's certainly a 

concern there, but .01, and what they're 

saying in their site profile is if I know the 

concentrations, the average concentrations 

going out my stack over the course of a year, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 152

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

I'm going to assume that the highest exposure 

anyone could experience walking around the 

site would be .01 concentration. That is a 

very conservative assumption because I know 

what the chi over Q is going to give you. 

 DR. NETON: Worst case it is-- 

 DR. MAURO: It is as bad as you can 

get. Now, I don't especially like that 

approach because you've never done it before. 

 Looking at all of these cases, you've always 

used the chi over Q, but you know, if that's 

what you've elected to do here to place an 

upper bound, you know, I can't argue that 

that's not an upper bound. That would be an 

upper bound. 

 DR. BEHLING: Admittedly, that's 

the conservative value, and I'm just comparing 

it to what was done at the Hanford site where 

we have basically a very real breakdown by 

location, and I'm not sure whether or not such 

data is available here, but the second issue 

that I raised in my write-up was that this 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 153

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

particular value of 0.01 does not incorporate 

resuspension from contaminated ground service. 

 This is strictly a value that is assigned to 

point releases, and it does not address 

potential long-term deposition and 

resuspension of radioactive materials. 

 DR. MAURO: That's true. You're 

absolutely right. Quite frankly, I didn't 

even give that a thought. I was just thinking 

in terms of the atmospheric dispersion. It 

would probably be a worthwhile exercise to see 

if that contribution could change anything. I 

have not done that. 

 DR. NETON: I'm not an expert 

environmental modeler, but it would seem to me 

that would be a very small contribution to the 

overall dose. 

 DR. MAURO: That would be my 

intuition, but I hate to leap to those things. 

 I tend to do that too quickly, yes, but it's 

certainly something I did not consider. 

 DR. NETON: Okay. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 154

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. Does 

anyone look at the types of cancers that were 

predominant at the different facilities? 

 DR. NETON: Bonnie, This is Jim 

Neton. 

 We are looking at that sort of as a 

side project that really is not related to how 

we go about doing does reconstruction. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, I've seen, 

well, the majority, and I've gotten the county 

from the department. The majority of cancer 

is lung. The second highest cancer is 

bladder. So let's assume we all got internal 

doses, even those of us who were not 

monitored, and that mirrors the studies done 

by the BEIR Group, the BEIR 7 report. 

 DR. NETON: I'm not sure what you 

mean by that. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, the BEIR 7 report 

found that the two cancers that were 

statistically higher than they expected was 

lung and bladder. Now, I know that the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 155

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

bladder cancers are only being compensated at 

three percent in the United States. So you're 

obviously using old data. NIOSH is obviously 

using old data that says that the bladder is 

not very radiosensitive, and obviously it is. 

 DR. NETON: I'm not sure that 

that's a correct characterization of that the 

BEIR 7 report is saying, but that's a separate 

issue which is related to our risk modeling 

and not necessarily related to the ability to 

do dose reconstruction. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Do you look at 

the statistics on what kinds of cancers are 

predominant? 

 DR. NETON: We are looking at that, 

but remember these exposures are multifaceted, 

and there are many chemicals at these 

facilities as well, and there's radionuclides. 

 So an association in and of itself would not 

necessarily point to the radiation being the 

causative agent. You just can't -- 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, that's what 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 156

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

the BEIR study found, and they studied the 

radiation exposures of the Japanese, and they 

found that bladder and lung rose statistically 

higher than they had expected. 

 DR. NETON: Well, we are very 

engaged in looking at the BEIR 7 report and 

have draft models for risk assessments using 

those parameters, and we're carefully 

evaluating them, and at such time as, you 

know, we can validate them properly, we are 

considering updating the version of IREP, but 

there are a lot of other issues behind the 

scenes. 

 In some cases the risk goes up. In 

some cases it goes down depending on what 

population you're looking at. Some of those 

data were based on looking at mortality data 

instead of incidence data, which is what we 

use in this program. So there's a lot of 

things to consider in doing this. 

 But the bottom line is we are 

looking at BEIR 7, and if we believe there's 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 157

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

appropriate parameters to adopt in our risk 

models we would, and as usual with this 

program, any time we make a change, we would 

go back and reevaluate all the cases that had 

been previously denied to see what effect they 

might have on their outcome. 

 MS. KLEA: Thank you. 

 And I just wanted to make you aware 

that I'm a survivor of bladder cancer, and all 

the new cancers are being diagnosed even with 

the reactor operators. Everyone had bladder 

cancer, all of the survivors. 

 DR. NETON: Thank you for that 

comment. 

 MR. BERONJA: Well, you know what? 

 I guess the only thing I'd say, we might be 

able to finish this up in the next half an 

hour unless there's a lot of other issues that 

people want to keep going and try and do that. 

 I'll leave it up to you all. 

 MEMBER MUNN: We have to go through 

our little exercise with what next and then 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 158

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

next. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay, okay. 

 MEMBER MUNN: And we have 

housekeeping issues to deal with. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: And we'll need to come 

up with recommendations for the class that can 

be recommended to the full Board at the next 

meeting. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Lunch. 

 (Laughter.) 

 MS. KLEA: And when did you say the 

telephone participants would be able to ask 

questions? 

 MR. KATZ: There is no public 

comment session, although as you note you've 

been free to comment all along and you'll be 

free to comment some more when we reconvene, 

Bonnie. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: But so it's 12:30 now, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 159

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

and it will probably be at least 45 minutes 

for lunch. Is that good? Maybe an hour. So 

in any event, probably 45, 50 minutes we'll 

reconnect the phone, okay, for everyone on the 

phone. 

 MS. KLEA: Thank you. 

 MR. KATZ: And thanks for 

attending. We'll hear you after lunch. 

 MS. KLEA: Have a nice lunch. 

 MR. KATZ: Thank you. Bye-bye. 

 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 12:30 p.m. and 

resumed at 1:30 p.m.) 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 160

1 

2 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 161

1 AFTERNOON SESSION

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 (1:37 p.m.) 

 MR. KATZ: Good afternoon. This is 

Ted Katz with the Santa Susana Work Group of 

the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health, and we are reconvening after a lunch 

break. 

 And let me just check the phone 

lines to see if we have some people with us. 

Bonnie Klea, are you back with us? 

 MS. KLEA: Yes, I am. Bonnie Klea, 

petitioner. 

 MR. KATZ: That's great. 

 Do we need to check on anyone else? 

 I think that's really -- we're okay. 

 MEMBER BEACH: You might see if 

Mark is on there. 

 MR. KATZ: Mark, well, I wasn't 

really expecting him, but Mark Griffin? 

 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, I thought you 

were. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. No Board members? 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 162

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MS. ADAMS: Ted, Mark hasn't been 

on the call at all today. 

 MR. KATZ: No, I know that. He 

thought he might possibly join us for a couple 

hours, but that's why I was asking. 

 MS. ADAMS: Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Mike. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Greg, do 

you want to pick back up where we left off? 

 MR. BERONJA: I am. I think we're 

really on the final issues that SC&A had 

related to the SEC petition, and the first one 

is actually involving external doses, and I 

guess two issues to discuss, maybe an external 

co-worker model, as well as just a discussion 

on the neutron dose. I don't know if you guys 

want to talk about those. 

 DR. HUGHES: With regards to the 

external co-worker model, it has actually been 

completed, and it is currently being reviewed. 

 It has not been issued yet, but it should be 

issued within the next month, I think. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 163

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 In order to develop the external 

co-worker model what was analyzed is over 

40,000 data points, and the date range is from 

the beginning of the covered period through 

1999, and it was determined that there were 

over 5,000 individuals that were monitored for 

external radiation exposure over the 

operational period. 

 MEMBER BEACH: What year did that 

start? I missed it. 

 DR. HUGHES: The co-worker model is 

actually based on the epidemiological study 

data that actually starts in 1948, but it's 

for all of the four sites. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. 

 DR. HUGHES: So we have '49 to 1999 

that we have actually co-worker data on for 

external exposure. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Thanks. 

 MS. KLEA: Is that to worker death 

study? 

 DR. HUGHES: It's the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 164

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

epidemiological study by Boice, yes. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, of course, you 

know that I've objected to using that study 

when we had the UCLA study. 

 DR. HUGHES: Well, the data that 

both studies are based on is essentially the 

same. The only difference is that Boice 

scanned all of the data into a database, and 

that is what we used because we don't have to 

-- we didn't want to go back and scan every 

record again just because it would take a very 

long time. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 MEMBER MUNN: So to clarify, you're 

using the data, not the Boice study itself. 

 DR. HUGHES: No, we're using the 

data. That's correct. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. HUGHES: We don't rely on any 

conclusions they might have drawn or anything. 

 It's just the data that was scanned from the 

worker files. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 165

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you. 

 MR. BERONJA: Anything else on the 

neutron dose that you want to do? 

 DR. HUGHES: It's still being 

reassessed. We don't have anything else to 

report at the moment, and it will be 

reassessed during the TBD revision. 

 MR. BERONJA: John, is there 

anything that you have to add related to that 

issue? 

 DR. MAURO: Oh, no. 

 MR. BERONJA: I mean just on that. 

 DR. MAURO: With regard to neutron, 

just for my own information, are you leaning 

toward utilizing neutron-photon ratios or do 

you have some kind of calibration of knowing 

what the neutron energy flux was and, 

therefore, you can use the NTA film and then 

make adjustment factors to it based on 

knowledge of the energy distribution? Which 

strategy looks like it's unfolding? 

 DR. HUGHES: I don't think we've 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 166

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

gotten to the point where we can say. We 

brought it up in this evaluation report that 

we could look into the photon-neutron ratio, 

but I'm afraid I would have to get back to you 

on that. 

 DR. MAURO: I just was curious. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. 

 DR. NETON: It's an option. It's 

definitely an option that we have available. 

 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans. 

 I guess one of the things that was 

raised in one of the findings was the issue of 

thermal neutrons because the TBD states that 

people were monitored for both fast and 

thermal neutrons. Has that been resolved? 

 Because it's my understanding based 

on the evidence that I've seen that the 

ability to monitor for thermal neutrons didn't 

exist. 

 MEMBER MUNN: I think that's what 

we're discussing right now, Hans. I had 

thought that's what we were discussing. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 167

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Specifically, the workers were unlikely to 

have been monitored for thermal neutrons was 

the wording that I think we were addressing, 

right? 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay. Actually that 

really covers the issues that we have. I 

guess maybe just to summarize some of the 

things, and this might not be a complete list. 

 I'm going to go through this again. 

 As far as action items or things 

that I think we're going to see coming from 

NIOSH, kind of to follow up, I have, you know, 

a re-look at the years 1953 and 1954 to 

determine if there are any nuclear activities 

or there could have been some exposure. 

There's a study that they've actually selected 

a contractor, are in negotiations on the 

sodium reactor experiment, and there's going 

to be an independent study done there. An 

internal co-worker model is being developed 

where the sodium burn pit has also been 

addressed or at least a method of addressing 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 168

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

that. 

 A tritium report is being prepared 

to just, I think, demonstrate or document the 

likely exposure there. I think Jim mentioned 

to take a relook at the environmental 

exposures, the applications since 1971 through 

later to earlier periods to determine if 

that's still the way that they want to go 

there. 

 And the last thing we have heard is 

this -- well, a couple of things. The 

external co-worker model is done, and it is 

going to be released in about a month, and 

then also relooking at the neutron dose is 

being evaluated again. 

 So I think those are the main 

things that I have as far as potential action 

items on things that we'll say. Again, I 

think maybe just in conclusion, you know, from 

our perspective, you know, I think we concur 

with NIOSH's thoughts as far as the 1958 and 

before period, and you know, we think things 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 169

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

are still a little bit soft, and you're 

welcome to look at other data in '59 and the 

early '60s. 

 And then I think you are just 

welcome to look at any other information 

that's being generated. 

 DR. MAURO: I'm operating under the 

assumption that we don't have any action items 

right now. We will wait to hear from the work 

group and then Ted to confirm when such action 

items are triggered. 

 MR. BERONJA: Sure. 

 DR. MAURO: But right now we sit 

and wait. 

 MR. BERONJA: Right. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Jim, when do you 

think you guys will have a final decision on 

whether you're going to modify the definition 

of co-workers? 

 DR. NETON: That's a good question. 

 I think we can resolve that issue in the next 

week or so. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 170

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Because I think 

as far as me personally -- and it's up to the 

rest of the work group. I could be 

outnumbered here -- but at least until we get 

that I don't think I would recommend anything 

as far as this SEC as it sits. 

 DR. NETON: I guess what I'd be 

willing to commit to is that once we do 

decide, we certainly would let you know and 

the rest of the working group that that's a 

change in our position if that's the case. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I mean, I'm not 

trying to say that's the only issue that we're 

concerned about. Obviously potentially -- 

 MR. KATZ: If you can draw -- I 

mean, that's just a question of where the 

start date begins for that, but you can draw 

up your recommendations to the full Board 

without knowing for a week or two what the 

start date is. I mean, it's not going to 

change any of the facts on the ground in terms 

of -- 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 171

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, see, that's 

one thing that would at least keep me from 

making a recommendation, based on what 

everyone else things, but -- 

 MR. BERONJA: I'm sorry. I missed 

it. When you said date, are you talking about 

the all workers or are you talking about the 

date? 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, number one, 

the all workers. That's what I was asking Jim 

about, and then I clarified that to say that's 

not the only issue. 

 DR. NETON: I'm just trying to 

figure out in my mind like let's say that we 

did decide that it was going to be all worker 

position. What's the mechanism then forward? 

 How are we entertained to get this thing 

moving, to get the SEC? 

 I guess we would have to issue an 

advised addendum to the evaluation. That's 

what we would do, issue to you, and then the 

Board through the working group could take it 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 172

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

up at their discretion. Because we have 

already presented the evaluation before. We 

did the addendum. I don't want to presume 

what the Board would do with that. I mean, it 

would be nice to get this class moving forward 

if everyone was in agreement that was the 

case. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It seems a logical 

approach. The question is one of timing. Is 

that going to be possible between now and, 

say, the full Board's meeting in Cincinnati? 

 DR. NETON: Oh, in Cincinnati? I 

would think so, yes. I thought you were going 

to say in Amarillo. That would be pretty -- 

 MEMBER MUNN: I can't imagine that 

you could do it between now and Amarillo. 

 DR. NETON: It's possible. 

 MR. BERONJA: Is that the end of 

May? 

 MEMBER MUNN: That's only three and 

a half weeks away. 

 DR. NETON: It depends on how 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 173

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

quickly we make this decision, I guess. If we 

can get this out next week some time, I don't 

want to speak for others that have to make 

some decisions in light of what all the other 

things are going on and prepare for the next 

Board meeting. I don't want to prejudge, but 

certainly I think by the Cincinnati meeting. 

If not, maybe a Board working group call, 

although I don't think SEC has been really 

dealt with in a final vote on a Board call. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It's hard to do on a 

Board call. 

 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean, I think 

generally they're done face to face unless 

it's just a complete non-issue. 

 DR. NETON: One of the messier 

issues, this is a little messier than some of 

the ones where we've said we want to add this 

class and are reserving the rest of the 

period. This would be sort of a carving out 

of a current evaluation. 

 I'm not sure how we've ever dealt 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 174

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

with that. We must have dealt with it. 

 MR. KATZ: It's not a problem at 

all for the Board to go forward with a class 

that's covered. It's done it a number of 

times where it has gone forward with a 

recommendation for a portion of the SEC 

evaluation. It's not a problem at all. 

 I guess I would just suggest that 

this working group -- I mean, you can sort of 

-- you understand what the contingency is. 

OCAS may not get through with this work in 

time for the Board meeting, but anticipating 

that it's possible they would, I mean, you 

could come to a conclusion as to say OCAS 

comes through with a conclusion that it really 

should be all workers, but it's for the period 

up to '58 is a definite go. 

 I mean, this work group could come 

up with a decision that, well, we support the 

recommendation up to '58 for all workers. You 

could come up with that conclusion now for 

that contingency, and then if this does go 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 175

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

through, you know, like a greased pig and it's 

there, then when the Board meets in Amarillo, 

the Board could actually make a decision and 

at least some of these claimants could get 

paid, I mean, as opposed to waiting. 

 MS. KLEA: Does anyone know the 

number we're talking about of claimants? 

 DR. NETON: No. Well, maybe Lara 

does. I don't know. 

 DR. HUGHES: The current proposed 

class that we limit it to monitored workers, 

we're talking about ten claims, and the 

numbers of claims if we included all workers, 

we're talking about 37 claims. That would be 

people with SEC cancers and required work 

period. 

 DR. NETON: Between '53 and '58, 

yes. 

 DR. HUGHES: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: I would just make the 

point that whether it's ten or 37, it's ten or 

37 people that get compensated months sooner 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 176

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

if there's Board action. 

 MR. BERONJA: So you're saying I 

could go ahead and do this proposal even no 

matter what NIOSH does as far as -- 

 MR. KATZ: I mean this would be 

just a contingent recommendation. If NIOSH 

determines that it's all workers, then this 

working group supports that recommendation. 

 DR. MAURO: And would make a move 

on the front end and then the back would catch 

up later. 

 MR. KATZ: Right. That's just an 

option. I'm saying that's an option. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Some of the rest 

study, Wanda, Phil, Josie? 

 MEMBER MUNN: This is difficult 

because SEC is limited in area more than 

anything else, and it seems to be impossible 

to limit workers who were assigned to this 

area as opposed to workers who were present in 

the area at one time or another. 

 So if you say all workers and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 177

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

you're talking about all workers encompassing 

only those whose work site was Area 4, then 

that's an easy task for us to debate here and 

deliberate. 

 If you're saying all workers with 

the assertion that that means all workers who 

had access or who were likely to have been for 

brief periods of time in Area 4, then you have 

another issue entirely. 

 So I'd want to be very clear about 

exactly what you mean when you say "all 

workers." 

 DR. NETON: This would have the 

same caveat or proviso as almost all of our 

other definitions, which is the requirement 

for a 250 day work duration in Area 4. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Specifically at Area 

4. So it -- 

 DR. NETON: Or an aggregate with 

other SECs, but yes. 

 MEMBER MUNN: So anyone who worked 

in one of the adjacent facilities, even though 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 178

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

they may have far more than 250 work days in 

the aggregate, if they were not assigned in 

Area 4, they would not be compensated under 

this particular SEC. 

 DR. NETON: That's correct. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Correct? 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And are their 

employment records sufficient enough to 

document workers who may have had a home base 

outside Area 4 and was assigned to Area 4? 

 DR. NETON: Well, all I can say 

there is that we vet these class definitions 

through the Department of Labor, and they were 

comfortable with the way we worded it here 

saying all workers who were monitored for Area 

4. So somehow they must have felt they were 

capable to segregate or delineate the area for 

workers. 

 MEMBER MUNN: However, they were 

talking about people who were monitored in 

Area 4. If we're going to say all workers in 

Area 4, then that's a different question, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 179

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

right, Mike? 

 DR. NETON: Well, but it still it 

seems to me to be the same evaluation process. 

 I mean, it's a two step. It has got to be 

monitored and be an Area 4. Now we're just 

saying forget the monitoring. You've just got 

to work in Area 4. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, and have proof 

of working in Area 4. 

 DR. NETON: Well, they had to do 

that anyway under the original definition. 

They also had to have proof that they were 

monitored. So it's a little less restrictive 

or is less restrictive. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Our terminology was 

always monitored or should have been 

monitored. 

 MEMBER BEACH: Should have been, 

right. 

 MEMBER MUNN: And so I guess my 

real question is whether the Department of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 180

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Labor definition is specific enough to be able 

to make the Board's usual recommendation in 

the same way. 

 DR. NETON: Well, we have gone away 

from monitored or should have been monitored 

for several SECs now. In fact, it was too 

difficult for the Department of Labor to 

determine who was monitored or should have 

been monitored even with our advice, and so to 

work around that issue we have decided for 

most SECs now to drop that designation and 

just say all workers. It's much more readily 

implemented by the Department of Labor. 

 MS. KLEA: And who's speaking? 

 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Thank you, Jim. 

 DR. NETON: So I suspect that they 

would be quite okay with this definition if it 

were to become -- it's the easiest class for 

them to administer when they have already 

decided who is an Area 4 worker because they 

sent cases to us, and so, in fact, it really 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 181

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

would be just the cases that we have in our 

possession that are listed as Area 4 

claimants. It has already been essentially 

decided now that I think about it. 

 I mean, we have those cases in our 

possession. We have a pick list in our 

computer programs on which site did you come 

from. It's checked. 

 MR. BERONJA: Jim, just to clarify, 

I think you've did say '53 and '54, but I 

don't think you really meant that. Did you 

really mean '55 through '58? 

 DR. NETON: Yes, yes. 

 MR. BERONJA: I just wanted to 

clarify that. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, that was the 

other clarification I was looking at. 

 MR. BERONJA: Okay, yes. 

 MEMBER MUNN: As long as we're very 

specific about what workers are covered when 

we say "all workers" and as long as we're 

specific about the time frame that we're going 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 182

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

to place before the Board, I have no objection 

to our doing it with the caveat that NIOSH 

will complete the study that's being done, and 

we're assuming that there will be no 

unexpected consequences from that that would 

cause us to change our mind. 

 I have no objection to offering 

that to the Board. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Phil? Jim? 

 MEMBER BEACH: I am more 

comfortable with the definition changing and 

also bringing that to the Board once we know 

that the definition has changed. I hesitate 

to wait because I don't know how long it's 

going to take to clarify those additional 

years after '58 till '52 I think is what we 

were talking about. 

 MR. BERONJA: '53, '54? 

 DR. NETON: Yes. That would take 

some time because we would -- 

 MEMBER BEACH: And I hate to wait. 

 DR. NETON: I mean, we may be able 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 183

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

to decide if we did find additional 

information. We would have to send that on to 

the Department of Energy, and they would have 

to review it and they typically don't just 

turn it around quickly. They'll do their own 

investigation. 

 On top of that, also I think it 

seems to me after our discussions today the 

exposures after '58 through '59, it's going to 

take some time for us to flesh out the rest of 

these technical issues based on what we talked 

about today, developing a co-worker model 

where internal is not going to be short term. 

 So I'd be happy to say let's just bump it all 

together if I felt we could get this done in a 

month or two, but I suspect that's not going 

to happen. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I agree with 

that Josie said, but once that definition 

changes, they may. I think that comports with 

that recommendation. 

 DR. MAURO: Is there agreement that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 184

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

if that doesn't happen, even the definition 

from, you know, monitoring, should be 

monitored, right on the way it's worded, it 

sounds like that, correct, that you agree 

that's certainly at a minimum what would be 

recommended by the working group but may even 

be expanded beyond that if between that time 

period you're able to modify the evaluation 

report and its recommendations to use the 

language "all workers"? Then, of course, that 

would expand the definition of the class. 

 But right now at a minimum am I 

correct there's agreement that at a minimum 

the recommendation would be for the definition 

f classes that you have right now. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: One question I -- 

 DR. MAURO: I don't know if I heard 

that. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: What I'm saying 

right now is personally -- and it's just my 

opinion -- I would not make that 

recommendation. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 185

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. MAURO: You would not. See, I 

wasn't sure. I was following the 

conversation, and I wasn't exactly sure what 

was decided on. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: That's one area 

that can be fixed it seems like fairly easily 

if NIOSH decides to do that, and that's one 

area that's not going to muddy up the water. 

 MR. BERONJA: One question that I 

have, and I haven't been through these like 

you guys have, but can the Board go through 

and say we want it to be all workers no matter 

what NIOSH has put in the evaluation report? 

 I mean, so you can go forward with 

that and then if Jim disagrees, you know, 

after a full Board meeting, I don't know how 

that works. 

 DR. NETON: It's NIOSH's 

preference, at least my preference, that we 

sort of agree on these. If we are in 

agreement it's much easier, I think. The 

process is much smoother. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 186

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MEMBER MUNN: So clarifying again, 

one more time, all workers, Area 4, years '55 

through '58, calendar years '55 through '58, 

correct? And the caveat will be worded how? 

 MEMBER BEACH: Were monitored or 

should have been. 

 MEMBER MUNN: No, that's not the 

caveat. No, the caveat has to do with 

cleaning up the additional information that 

NIOSH is putting together. If anything comes 

out of that. 

 DR. NETON: No, I don't expect that 

by this Board meeting we would have -- we 

don't control the time frame for when the 

additional years might be added. 

 MEMBER MUNN: I understand, but 

that's what I'm trying to identify. We 

started off talking about the caveat is if 

everything that you finish up whenever you 

finish up does not cause any disagreement with 

what we've discussed here today and talking 

making the change, then our recommendation is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 187

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

go for it. 

 MR. KATZ: Just let me clarify. 

The contingency that's being talked about here 

is whether or not it's all workers or just 

monitored workers. That's the only contingency 

that Jim is saying possibly could get involved 

in time for the next Board meeting. The 

question of whether it's all workers or just 

monitored workers within the scope of their 

add recommendation. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Because the current 

SEC says monitored. 

 MR. KATZ: Because the current, as 

it's written now, it says monitored, but Jim 

is indicating that it is possible that would 

be switched to all workers before this 

upcoming Board meeting. That's the only thing 

on the table as a contingency for the upcoming 

Board meeting. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: The reports and 

stuff, we just need to know about them in 

order to schedule our next meeting. Okay. So 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 188

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

that's settled. Glad to see that happen. 

 MR. KATZ: So the settled is then 

that there is not a recommendation from the 

work group at this point. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: At this point, 

correct. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Well, then there 

will not be a work group meeting before the 

Board meeting. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: No, I understand 

that, but even through a call between the subcorporate members, if this language comes out 

prior to Amarillo, they may have a 

recommendation for the Board. 

 MR. KATZ: I mean, you have to have 

a work group meeting to come up with a 

recommendation. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Can't you get on 

the phone? 

 MR. KATZ: Well, if you had a 

schedule work group meeting, but I mean, given 

the amount of time that's left, that's -- 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 189

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MEMBER MUNN: We essentially can't 

do it. 

 MR. KATZ: It will be hard to do. 

I mean, I guess if you're talking about, you 

know, a 30 minute call, I guess, or 15 minute 

call, I guess it's possible. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, yes, that's 

all I'm talking about, yes. 

 MEMBER MUNN: My understanding was 

that what Ted had suggested and what I thought 

we were agreed to as we went around the table 

was what I was just clarifying, that we would 

recommend, that our group would recommend to 

the Board at the Amarillo meeting that the SEC 

covering all workers at Area 4 from the years 

1955 through 1958 would be accepted as a 

special exposure cohort. That's what I 

thought we were going to say. 

 Given the fact that NIOSH is still 

looking at other years as possibilities, but 

our recommendation for those years will be -- 

 MR. BERONJA: Well, I think it's 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 190

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

based on Jim relooking at the all workers 

issue, is the only thing that -- 

 DR. NETON: If NIOSH issues a 

report, I think Ted is suggesting maybe the 

working group could pre-agree that if that 

report came out, it would be the 

recommendation at this meeting. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Just the change 

on monitored workers to all workers. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but if we can 

agree to that here today, then we can make 

that recommendation to the Board, and the only 

thing then that would hold the final 

completion of that particular SEC would be the 

release of the NIOSH report. The date the 

NIOSH report is released, unless it says 

something contrary to all workers, then it's 

done. 

 DR. MAURO: One problem we're going 

to continue to see a recommendation -- and 

that's what I'm here; it's conditional -- is 

what does the Board do. If they can't act on 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 191

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

it, then we can say we were granted -- 

 DR. NETON: No. If the report 

comes out, then the working group would have 

the authority to say -- 

 DR. MAURO: Oh, I see. I thought 

it might come out after the -- 

 DR. NETON: No, no. 

 MR. KATZ: It would be a 

conditional recommendation. 

 DR. MAURO: Got it. Now it works. 

 MR. KATZ: And the one thing I 

would just say about the idea of having 

another conference call for 15 minutes or what 

it would be to wait for this report, it's 

going to cost us $5,000 in the transcription 

fee for that five minute call to say, "Okay. 

It's out. We agree." 

 I mean, if you make the 

recommendation conditionally now, it's no 

different, but it's free because we're already 

here. 

 Now, I would hate to spend $5,000 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 192

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

just to wait and see it when there's no new 

information. I mean, you have all of the 

information in front of you now to make this 

judgment, understanding it's conditional, and 

the record is very clear at this point that 

it's conditional. 

 MEMBER MUNN: And if the stars 

align so that that report can, in fact, be 

available at Amarillo, then it's a moot point. 

 DR. MAURO: Is that what we've got 

here? 

 MR. KATZ: If the report is 

available, then your conditional 

recommendation goes into effect, and the Board 

has a new report from NIOSH, and it has a 

recommendation from this working group, and 

then the Board can take it up and add that 

small piece of this petition to the cohort if 

it decides there's a hole, that that's what it 

should do. 

 DR. NETON: And if it doesn't come 

out before the Board meeting, then you need no 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 193

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

action. 

 MR. KATZ: It just waits, just as 

it would now. It would just wait till the 

next Board meeting. 

 MEMBER MUNN: We are waiting. 

 MR. KATZ: So it just needs 

confirmation of this work group as to what you 

want to do. 

 MEMBER MUNN: I would suggest we do 

that. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It's done. 

 MEMBER BEACH: I agree. 

 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I agree. 

 MR. KATZ: Let the record show it's 

unanimous. 

 DR. NETON: And we'll do our best 

to get this report out as soon as possible. I 

can't speak for the people who have to revise 

it. It seems simple on the surface, which it 

probably is, but there's a queue for these 

things to go through. 

 MEMBER MUNN: There's always 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 194

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

somebody in the details. 

 MR. KATZ: Bonnie? 

 MS. KLEA: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: I just want this to be -

- I imagine this is all clear to you at this 

point. Yes? 

 MS. KLEA: Yes, it is clear to me, 

and I've seen many other SECs that have the 

early years passed and then there was 

continuing work to include, you know, more 

years. 

 Now, my petition has been approved 

through 1965, and I would like to see the work 

go forward on those years also because really 

from '58 to '59, what really changed? You 

didn't have records and then you did have 

records. 

 So I would like to see the early 

year get passed until Mike knows a reason why 

it shouldn't, but only if all workers are 

going to be covered. 

 MR. KATZ: So that is the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 195

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

recommendation of this work group. It's for 

all workers, Bonnie, and I just want to make 

certain this is clear for you because this 

petition is not actually on the agenda for 

this upcoming Board meeting. So it's 

particularly important that you're aware that 

this could come up at this Board meeting. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. So are we going 

to wait until May to have a final decision on 

this? 

 MR. KATZ: So the Board, yes, the 

full Board is meeting in May, the 12th and the 

13th, and you know, I can't tell you where on 

the agenda this would fall, whether it's on 

the 12th or the 13th, but it would fall on one 

of those days. It will only be taken up 

though if NIOSH gets this report out, this 

addendum out, and we would certainly get you 

notification of that as well. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: So you would know. 

 MS. KLEA: All right. So I'll let 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 196

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Mike, since he's the head of the work group, 

you know, make the final decision. 

 MR. KATZ: The work group has voted 

already -- 

 MS. KLEA: Oh, okay. 

 MR. KATZ: -- to make this 

recommendation. So they want to go forward if 

they can. 

 MS. KLEA: All right. Well, it's 

something. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes. I think that's 

good. 

 MR. BERONJA: I imagine there's 

other SECs being discussed. 

 MR. KATZ: It's dwindling. 

 MR. BERONJA: Oh, is that right? 

 MR. KATZ: There's definitely room 

on the agenda for this. That's a good thing. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. As long as you 

don't forget the rest of the years, you know. 

 MR. KATZ: Absolutely, Bonnie. 

Everybody here recognizes that there's a lot 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 197

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

of work left to do for the rest of the years. 

 MS. KLEA: And like I said, I have 

new witnesses here, and I hope that SC&A gets 

back out here. I have witnesses from the SRE, 

lots of witnesses. I also have a witness from 

the Owensmouth facility at Canoga. Now, I 

know we're working on Area 4, but I submitted 

evidence to SC&A of a huge nuclear accident 

there in July of 1958, and all of the workers, 

45 of them, were put under lifetime secrecy. 

So that's something else I want to bring up. 

 At the same time we lost a reactor. 

 Okay? They were running a L-47 reactor, and 

at that same time period when we had this 

recorded accident, L-47 reactor was never 

heard of again, and when the NRC came out to 

find out what happened to it, no one knew 

where it was or what happened to it. 

 So you know, we have the lifetime 

secrecy problem of not having data. 

 MEMBER MUNN: It's pretty hard to 

lose a reactor. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 198

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MS. KLEA: Well, this was a small 

one. It was actually very small, and it's was 

-- it's gone. 

 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but whenever a 

reactor goes away, it's like an old song. The 

memory remains and so does a very definite 

signature in terms of radiological leavings, 

that it's pretty hard to just move a reactor 

and have it disappear. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, this one was 

small. It was like a great big, huge popcorn 

maker. It was a small training reactor, L-47, 

and when the accident happened at Canoga, the 

AEC ran in screaming, you know, "We're all 

crapped up," which was a slang for 

contaminated, and when they tested the roof of 

the building and outside in the roads and the 

dirt, everything was hot, and then the workers 

were all forced to sign lifetime secrecy. So 

don't know what happened there. 

 MEMBER MUNN: NRC had them sign 

secrecy -- 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 199

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MS. KLEA: It was the AEC. 

 MEMBER MUNN: AEC. 

 MS. KLEA: Required lifetime 

secrecy, and then the NRC came out to find out 

what happened to the reactor and they could 

find no records, and the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers found high levels of radiation in 

the groundwater underneath that Vanowen 

Building. 

 So, you know, woman's instinct just 

tells me that there might have been a 

correlation between that lost small reactor 

and a large accident at Vanowen in July of 

1958. 

 MR. KATZ: Bonnie, you know, if you 

have new information, any new information, 

interviews, et cetera, that you want to submit 

the door is always open on that. 

 MS. KLEA: No, I've already 

submitted the notebook. I have a worker who 

was at Vanowen when this happened, and he put 

together a huge notebook, and I copied it all 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 200

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

and I sent it to SC&A. So that's already in 

your possession. 

 But I have new workers that I've 

found, and I wish you could come back out and 

interview them. 

 MR. KATZ: And information that's 

submitted to SC&A typically gets shared then 

with OCAS. 

 DR. MAURO: Yes, we would have it. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, that's the 

[Identifying Information Redacted] case, and I 

was on a conference call yesterday with a 

worker who was in Vanowen at that time, and he 

died in 1963 of Hodgkin's. So I told that 

interviewer about that accident, and that was 

new information, and my question on this 

interview is why is NIOSH processing claims 

for cancers that are not covered. Hodgkin's 

is not a covered cancer. Yet it has gone 

through the processing. It has gone through 

dose reconstruction. 

 DR. NETON: Bonnie, this is Jim 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 201

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Neton. 

 Hodgkin's lymphoma is a covered -- 

all cancers are covered under this program for 

dose reconstruction with the exception of 

chronic lymphocytic leukemia. What you might 

be thinking of is the presumptive cancer list, 

which Hodgkin's lymphoma is not one of the 

presumptive cancers. 

 MS. KLEA: So as far as you know, 

would Hodgkin's disease be covered? 

 DR. NETON: Hodgkin's lymphoma is a 

covered condition, a covered cancer that we 

would reconstruct a dose for to develop a 

probability of causation for the Department of 

Labor. 

 MR. KATZ: Bonnie, it's covered if 

you have a dose reconstruction for that 

individual. It's not covered if the 

individual is in the special exposure cohort 

and it would be compensated that way. They 

would not be compensated as a member of the 

special exposure cohort with that cancer. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 202

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, now this 

claim doesn't show Hodgkin's lymphoma. It 

says Hodgkin's disease. 

 DR. NETON: Well, that's the same 

thing. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. So good. That's 

good for the family. So you're saying 

Hodgkin's is covered. 

 DR. NETON: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Covered for dose 

reconstructions. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay, and so he was 

there at Vanowen when they had that large 

accident, and I just met with the family last 

weekend and told them about and showed them 

the notebook of information I have. So that 

was new data. 

 MEMBER MUNN: That information 

needs to be a part of his claim, correct? 

 MS. KLEA: Well, that's exactly 

what I did on the conference call yesterday, 

and I told him, I told the interviewer who is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 203

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

from Cincinnati. I said I've already sent in 

a witness testimony to SC&A. This man is 

[Identifying Information Redacted] now, but he 

put everything in writing. He had names and 

addresses and phone numbers of all the 45 

people who had to sign lifetime secrecy, and 

before he died it was his goal in life that 

these families should get compensated if their 

husbands died of cancer. 

 MR. KATZ: Can I just say something 

at this point about this conversation? 

 MS. KLEA: Excuse me? 

 MR. KATZ: This is Ted again. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: We should be careful. I 

mean, I know people from the public can say 

what they want on these calls, but this, 

you're giving a lot of details. You're 

getting into more details now about 

individuals, and we try to protect the privacy 

of individuals. 

 MS. KLEA: Oh, okay. Exactly. I 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 204

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

shouldn't say any names. Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: So it's fine to talk 

about the general situation, but -- 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Is this going to 

be recorded and be on the Internet later? 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, there will be a 

transcript, yes, of this working group 

meeting. 

 MS. KLEA: Oh, okay. So you'll 

probably take that out. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, we'll certainly 

redact anything that might lead somebody to 

identifying an individual, yes. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Great. 

 DR. MAURO: Question. The matter 

of interviews, records of interviews that did 

not make it into a work product. That's still 

something that's going through the clearance 

process. So I think by setting the landscape 

of the situation, it is that whatever material 

has been compiled usually is in years, and 

that always lags behind our work products. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 205

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 Right now our plan is to continue 

to finish that up, get it cleared, get a 

computer clearance, get it into the full Board 

and NIOSH as the rest of our deliverable as 

these always lag behind. They just have to. 

 The degree to which the notebook 

that reference was made to is part of that, I 

can't speak to that right now. 

 MR. BERONJA: I don't know if it 

went to Kathy or where it went. 

 MS. KLEA: It went to Kathy. 

 DR. MAURO: It went to Kathy. So 

then it will be captured there, but right now 

other than putting out that word product and 

making an addendum to our report as an 

attachment, which those are, there is no other 

action item in this statement. 

 MR. BERONJA: I think that's right. 

 I think my priority would be to wait and see 

the information that comes from NIOSH for all 

of this information that we've talked about. 

If we determine based on any additional stuff 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 206

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Kathy gets and it makes sense to go out and do 

interviews to help us come to that, we would, 

but otherwise we may not just if we have 

sufficient information. 

 DR. MAURO: But the sequence though 

is that we do have to finish up the attachment 

that has to do with interviews. 

 MR. BERONJA: Yes. 

 DR. MAURO: That's moving through. 

 We're doing that without any direction. 

Anything else over and above that, that might 

be appropriate and needed, we don't have until 

we're given direction by the work group. 

 MR. KATZ: Right, but if something 

new comes to light from the information that 

Kathy is pulling together -- 

 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: -- you would, of course, 

report that out. 

 DR. MAURO: Oh, sure. We'll report 

it out, but we won't act on it until we're 

directed to do so. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 207

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 MS. KLEA: Do you have a paper 

review of the SEC that I could get a copy of? 

 MR. BERONJA: What we call a paper 

study actually is on the Web, the January 

version of the paper study, Bonnie. 

 MS. KLEA: How many pages is that? 

 MR. BERONJA: It's about 50 pages. 

 MS. KLEA: Oh, dear. Could 

somebody send me out a hard copy? 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, absolutely, Bonnie. 

 Ordinarily these get sent out automatically 

to the petitioners, don't they? Or maybe not. 

 Okay. Well, we will certainly get 

that out to you. I think the final report is 

in Privacy Act review. 

 MR. BERONJA: That's right. Yes, 

that's right. 

 DR. MAURO: This is on the paper 

study. 

 MR. KATZ: Well, I understand. I 

understand the paper study was already done 

and it's Privacy Act reviewed. So, Bonnie, we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 208

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

have the final report that's the sort of fullblown report that SC&A has done. It is going 

through Privacy Act review, and we can get 

that to you, which would have everything in it 

as soon as the Privacy Act review is 

completed, if that makes sense for you. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, whatever I 

don't have I want, and -- 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. We'll get you 

both. 

 MS. KLEA: -- matrix. 

 MR. KATZ: We'll get you both, and 

I don't know if the matrix is Privacy Act 

cleared or not. It's not. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, as soon as 

anything is available, I'd appreciate it 

coming in the mail and you don't have to send 

it overnight or anything like that. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. We'll get those 

to you. 

 MS. KLEA: I'd appreciate it. 

 DR. NETON: I have a question about 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 209

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

the material that was sent to SC&A that we 

might not have. Did I miss something? 

 MEMBER BEACH: The notebook? 

 DR. NETON: No, not the notebook. 

There was some -- 

 DR. HUGHES: The incident -- it's 

not really related to -- 

 DR. NETON: Something about the 

interview with the claimant that was sent to 

you. Did I miss something, Bonnie? I thought 

there was something that SC&A received from 

you that we might not have a copy of. 

 DR. MAURO: Is that the notebook? 

 MR. BERONJA: Either the notebook 

or the incident in '58 that -- 

 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. 

 MS. KLEA: There was a very large 

incident at the Vanowen Building in July of 

1958. I've been unable to get anything from 

DOE on that, but there were 45 men in the 

sealed development processing group who were 

in a conference room, and the AEC from the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 210

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Wilshire Division came running in down the 

hallway screaming that we're all crapped up, 

and tests were ordered of the roof of the 

building, outside on the road, across the 

street on the sidewalk, in the pool, and 

everything was hot, and the AEC made every 

single worker sign a lifetime secrecy, and I 

submitted every one of those names. 

 The person who gave me the notebook 

is very concerned, that he thinks every one of 

these workers should automatically be an SEC 

without going through dose reconstruction, and 

the person that made the notebook, now, he has 

been compensated, and he has a dozen different 

cancers. 

 But I have three witnesses that are 

still alive that testified to the same thing, 

the same large accident, and like I say, at 

that same time, this small training reactor 

disappeared and was never ever found again. 

So you can draw your own conclusions. 

 And also, I have eyewitness 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 211

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

testimony that in their fuel laboratory at 

Vanowen they had accidents that were so 

terrible that the workers broke through the 

walls. The walls were drywall and they broke 

through the drywall just to get out of the 

laboratory. 

 DR. NETON: Okay. I guess my 

question is does NIOSH have this workbook or 

whatever. 

 MS. KLEA: I sent it to SC&A. 

 DR. NETON: Right. 

 MS. KLEA: To Kathy DeMers. 

 DR. MAURO: I do see an action item 

on our file. We've got to get a status report 

of where our attachment, the interview 

attachment, and any other supplemental 

material that was provided to Kathy, where it 

is right now in the system, and give you folks 

an update on where that is and make sure, of 

course -- it has been our standard. 

Everything we get you get. 

 DR. NETON: No, I understand. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 212

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. MAURO: The only reason we have 

something you don't have, we will get it to 

you. 

 DR. NETON: That's fine. I just 

want to make sure. It sounds like it's 

something we don't have right now. 

 MS. KLEA: I also have a question 

of missed sites. What about the Atomics 

International Science Center? I see they're 

not even listed, you know, as a covered 

facility, and then we also had Atomics 

International in Van Nuys in the late '50s. 

 DR. NETON: Well, some of those 

sites have changed names. I'm not sure. 

Again, that's a Department of Energy call, not 

ours, but if you have information that you 

believe supports the fact that they should be 

on the list, if you send it to us, we'd be 

happy to forward it on to the Department of 

Energy. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. What would I do, 

write you a letter? 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 213

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. NETON: Yes, that would be 

fine. 

 MS. KLEA: And who would I send it 

to? 

 DR. NETON: You can send it to me. 

 MS. KLEA: And who are you? 

 DR. NETON: Jim Neton. 

 MS. KLEA: Jim Neton. 

 DR. NETON: Yes, N-e-t-o-n. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Jim, could you 

send me an E-mail? Do you have my E-mail? 

Maybe you could send me the address to send 

the letter to. 

 DR. NETON: Yes, I can do that, 

sure. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Do you have my Email? 

 DR. NETON: I'll get it. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Thank you. I'd 

appreciate that. That way I know exactly 

where I'm mailing it. 

 I have two other facilities that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 214

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

were not even ever mentioned. Well, the 

Science Center, the Atomics International 

Science Center, operated out of the De Soto 

facility until they got too big, and then they 

came over here and rented space from Thompson 

Ramo Wooldridge actually two blocks from my 

house, and they operated there for four years, 

and that site is now -- has their own 

groundwater, and the whole property is 

radioactively contaminated. 

 I've never read any mention of the 

Science Center. 

 MEMBER MUNN: That may have 

something to do with their private side of 

their operations. 

 DR. NETON: Well, Bonnie, I'm 

looking at the DOE Website here, and Atomics 

International is listed as a covered facility, 

which includes both Los Angeles and Ventura 

Counties. 

 MS. KLEA: Oh, well, Ventura County 

would be the Science Center. Now, it would be 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 215

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

Thousands Oaks. Is that --? 

 DR. NETON: Oh, I'm sorry. For 

some reason it only covers a beryllium vendor 

facility. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, that's not 

good enough. 

 DR. NETON: Okay. You believe that 

there was other material. See, they give 

workers with radioactive materials. 

 MS. KLEA: Yes, the Science Center 

was at De Soto. Then they came over here in 

Canoga Park. That would have been on 

Fallbrook Avenue, and then in 1964, they 

relocated and built a new facility in Thousand 

Oaks. 

 DR. NETON: Canoga is listed here 

for sure. Well, if you send the information, 

that would be very helpful, if you sent the 

work with radioactive materials you believe 

would qualify as a covered facility. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, I wouldn't know. 

I wouldn't know what they did because we can 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 216

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

get no information whatsoever. 

 DR. NETON: So that's not going to 

be very helpful then. 

 MS. KLEA: No. 

 DR. NETON: If I can't provide them 

any additional information, it would just be 

me sending out a recommendation should be 

added without any substantiating 

documentation. 

 MS. KLEA: Well, I don't have it. 

You can't get substantiating documentation 

because every workers there also when they 

left had to sign lifetime secrecy. 

 DR. NETON: Okay. Again, anything 

that you would have I'd be more than happy to 

send down, but -- 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 DR. NETON: -- it does need to be 

something that indicates that there was some 

type of covered activity there under the AEC. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Anyway, we'll 

work on my petition for now. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 217

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

 DR. NETON: Okay. 

 MS. KLEA: You know, it's a step at 

a time. 

 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Bonnie. 

 MS. KLEA: You're welcome. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So is there 

anything else? I don't think right now we're 

in a position to schedule a future meeting. 

 MR. KATZ: We probably need to get 

a sense of when all of these co-worker -- 

 MS. KLEA: I have one more 

question. It was mentioned that Boeing 

doesn't have a budget to produce data. Is 

this data on worker claims? 

 MS. KLEA: I have one more 

question. It was mentioned that Boeing 

doesn't have a budget to produce data. Is 

this data on worker claims or is this on site 

description? 

 DR. NETON: This is providing 

employee monitoring information. 

 MS. KLEA: Oh, my gosh, how can 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 218

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

they do that? 

 DR. NETON: Well, they don't work 

for free -- 

 MS. KLEA: Wow. 

 DR. NETON: -- like most people. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. What's happening 

in the other sites? Is DOE paying for the 

facilities to --? 

 DR. NETON: Well, the DOE pays for 

DOE facilities to provide information to us, 

and there has been a sort of sporadic missing 

funds for a while because of various budgetary 

issues. 

 There's also an issue most recently 

with personally identified information, 

whether DOE has put a hold on sending 

information until they can get encrypted 

electronic drives to these sites so that the 

data are adequately protected for the Privacy 

Act and such. So there's a number of -- 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. Because I have 

met and been in touch with several old 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 219

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

employees who had cancer maybe, oh, ten years 

ago, and they're just now filing claims, and 

so that means that they won't be able to get 

the records. 

 DR. NETON: Well, I expect this to 

lift fairly soon. This is not going to be a 

continuing problem in my estimation. 

 MS. KLEA: Okay. 

 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Is there 

anything else from anyone? If not, I think 

we're ready to adjourn. 

 MR. KATZ: Thank everybody for all 

the hard work. 

 MS. KLEA: Thanks, everybody. 

Bonnie signing off. 

 MR. KATZ: Goodbye, Bonnie. 

 Thanks to everyone else on the 

line. 

 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter went off the record at 2:29 p.m.) 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

 220

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15