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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON SANTA SUSANA

+ + + + + 

TUESDAY

APRIL 20, 2010

+ + + + +

 The Work Group convened in the 

Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport 

Marriott, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, 

Kentucky, at 9:30 a.m., Michael H. Gibson, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Chairman

JOSIE BEACH, Member

WANDA MUNN, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor

ISAF AL-NABULSI, DOE

HANS BEHLING, SC&A

GREGORY BERONJA, SC&A

EMILY HOWELL, HHS

LARA HUGHES, DCAS

BONNIE KLEA

JEFF KOTSCH, DOL

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

JIM NETON, DCAS

JOHN STIVER, SC&A
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Welcome and Introductions 4 

Agenda Items 7 

Status and Update by NIOSH 10

Status and Update by SC&A 31

Unresolved Issues 62

Findings of External Database Review 69

Tracking Rocketdyne Workers Exposure 79

Findings of External Database Review 113

 (Cont.)

Environmental Models 153

Summary of Action Items 165

Adjourn 169
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 9:30 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning everyone 

4 on the phone. This is Ted Katz.

5 MS. KLEA: Hi, this is Bonnie.

6 MR. KATZ: Hi, Bonnie. I'm the 

7 Designated Federal Official of the Advisory 

8 Board on Radiation and Worker Health. This is 

9 the Santa Susana Work Group. And we're going 

10 to get going here beginning, as usual, with 

11 roll call. We're going to start with the 

12 Board members in room, and please note your 

13 conflict of interest lack or lack thereof as 

14 we go around starting with the Board.

15 Mike.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Mike Gibson, 

17 Chair, no conflict.

18 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Phil Schofield, 

19 Work Group member, no conflict.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach, Work 

21 Group member, no conflict.

22 MR. KATZ: And Board members on 
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1 the line.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Wanda Munn, Board 

3 member, Work Group member, no conflict.

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. And, Mark, do we 

5 have you?

6 (No response.)

7 No. Okay. And then NIOSH ORAU 

8 team in the room?

9 DR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH, no 

10 conflict.

11 DR. HUGHES: Lara Hughes, NIOSH, 

12 no conflict.

13 MR. KATZ: And on the line, NIOSH 

14 ORAU team. Are you expecting any company?

15 (No response.)

16 And then in the room, SC&A.

17 MR. STIVER: John Stiver, SC&A, no 

18 conflict.

19 MR. BERONJA: Greg Beronja, SC&A, 

20 no conflict.

21 MR. KATZ: And on the line, SC&A.

22 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A, no 
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1 conflict.

2 MR. KATZ: Welcome, John.

3 DR. BEHLING: Hans Behling, SC&A, 

4 no conflict.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. Then federal 

6 officials or contractors and HHS, DOL, DOE in 

7 the room.

8 MS. LIN: Jenny Lin, HHS.

9 MR. KATZ: And on the line.

10 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, NIOSH 

11 contractor.

12 MR. KATZ: No conflict.

13 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS, no 

14 conflict.

15 MS. AL-NABULSI: Isaf Al-Nabulsi, 

16 DOE, no conflict.

17 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, DOL, no 

18 conflict.

19 MR. KATZ: Great. Welcome to all 

20 of you and then members of the public on the 

21 line.

22 MS. KLEA: Bonnie Klea.
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1 MR. KATZ: Welcome, Bonnie.

2 All right then. Mike has sent 

3 around an agenda late. I sent it to be put up 

4 on the NIOSH website but only this morning. 

5 So it may not be up yet. But Mike can run 

6 through what the day looks like and we'll get 

7 going.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

9 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It's been a 

11 little over a year since our last meeting. So 

12 I thought what we'd do on the agenda is have 

13 an update from NIOSH about the things that 

14 have transpired since the last meeting. And 

15 then SC&A could give us their status and 

16 updates. Then later in the morning before 

17 lunch we can get into some of the unresolved 

18 and open issues that we previously had.

19 And then after lunch we could 

20 discuss some of the new issues that have come 

21 up since our last meeting, things that we may 

22 not have been working on. And then if there 
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1 are any other items later in the afternoon, we 

2 could discuss those and get some actions and a 

3 path forward.

4 If there aren't any questions, 

5 I'll turn it over to NIOSH and just give us an 

6 update about -- brief scan on Santa Susana and 

7 what's gone on since our last meeting.

8 DR. NETON: Lara's going to lead 

9 that.

10 MR. KATZ: Could I just before we 

11 get on with that? Jeff's on the line, and I 

12 believe he's on their -- Jeff, are you 

13 planning to stay for the entire meeting or?

14 MR. KOTSCH: I'll try, but I have 

15 other commitments.

16 MR. KATZ: Okay. Because I know, 

17 Mike, you have an agenda item that's really 

18 germane for Jeff, right? So if we want to 

19 give him an idea of --

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Which is just 

21 how the workers are tracked, is that?

22 MR. KATZ: Yes, your issue of --
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I don't think it 

2 was not only -- just a DOL issue. It's also 

3 if you -- affect dose reconstruction model, 

4 but -- what NIOSH comes up with as far as how 

5 many hours that would affect your dose if you 

6 worked six days a week or a lot of overtime.

7 MR. KATZ: Okay. Yes, but I'm 

8 just trying to cover so that we have Jeff for 

9 that discussion since part of your concern, I 

10 think, is how DOL is handling --

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: How to track 

12 workers.

13 MR. KATZ: Track workers with -- 

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, yes, we 

15 can --

16 DR. NETON: I think the issue was 

17 -- was Area IV of Santa Susana only -- the 

18 only --were only workers in Area IV of Santa 

19 Susana -- could workers from other parts of 

20 the facility gain access to Area IV.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Transferred in 

22 and out.
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1 DR. NETON: Right. Exactly.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And whether, you 

3 know there seemed to be some operations 

4 outside of Area IV that were radiological in 

5 nature.

6 DR. NETON: Right.

7 MR. KATZ: But so if we can book 

8 that for Jeff, and then he'll know when to be 

9 on the line and have the liberty to --

10 MR. STIVER: That would go on the 

11 outstanding issues that we need to discuss. 

12 That's one of the ones I wanted to talk about 

13 as well.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

15 MR. KATZ: Do you want to shoot 

16 for a time certain on that and then --

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We've got it 

18 scheduled for 11:00 a.m.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, Jeff?

20 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, I'll hang on, or 

21 if I drop off I'll come back on.

22 MR. KATZ: Okay. Great. Thank 
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1 you. All right. Sorry for the interruption.

2 DR. HUGHES: Okay. So are we 

3 ready for the update?

4 The last Work Group meeting for 

5 Santa Susana was April 17, 2009. And I'm just 

6 going to list the efforts that NIOSH has -- or 

7 the things that NIOSH has done since then. 

8 During the last Work Group meeting, we 

9 discussed the Class Definition for SEC-00093, 

10 and based on the discussion during the last 

11 Work Group meeting, NIOSH went and revised its 

12 recommended Class for the SEC-00093 to 

13 encompass all DOE workers who worked in the 

14 area of Area IV from 1955 to 1958. This Class 

15 was presented to the Board, and the Board 

16 voted on and issued its recommendation on May 

17 19, 2009, and the Class became effective on 

18 July 18, 2009.

19 NIOSH did further research because 

20 the internal data for this site was an issue. 

21 So NIOSH did further research into the 

22 feasibility of developing an internal coworker 
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1 model to assess doses for unmonitored workers 

2 and dealt extensively with the site, did more 

3 data capture. And upon completion of that and 

4 assessing all the internal data that was 

5 available, come to the conclusion that there 

6 were some issues with the internal data in the 

7 years prior to 1964 -- 1965, excuse me.

8 And therefore NIOSH solicited 

9 another Petition for the site and issued or 

10 prepared an evaluation that is SEC-00156 in 

11 which NIOSH recommended an additional Class 

12 for Santa Susana workers, and this Class 

13 included all workers in Area IV of Santa 

14 Susana Field Laboratory from January 1, 1959 

15 through December 31, 1964. The Class was 

16 presented to the Board on February of this 

17 year, and the Board had issued a 

18 recommendation on March 5 of this year. And I 

19 believe the effective date for this Class will 

20 be May 5 of 2010.

21 Since Area IV has three related 

22 sites that -- sites that are in the vicinity 
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1 of Area IV and were operated by the same 

2 company, NIOSH has also looked into SEC 

3 evaluations for these three sites. These 

4 sites are the Canoga Avenue facility, the 

5 Downey and the De Soto facilities.

6 NIOSH actually received an 83.13 

7 SEC Petition for the Canoga Avenue facility 

8 which was also completed and presented to the 

9 Board in February 2009. Upon some 

10 consultation with the Department of Labor, 

11 NIOSH has issued a revision to this report, 

12 and the Board finally voted on March 31, 2010 

13 to add the Class to the SEC for Canoga. And 

14 this Class will be all workers at the Canoga 

15 Avenue facility who worked from January 1, 

16 1955 through December 31, 1960 at this 

17 facility. This is the entire covered period 

18 for this facility.

19 In addition, NIOSH had completed 

20 two Petition Evaluations under paragraph 83.14 

21 for the De Soto and the Downey facilities, and 

22 those are currently scheduled to be presented 
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1 to the Advisory Board during the May Board 

2 meeting -- the upcoming -- in 2010. That was 

3 the NIOSH focus was mainly since the last 

4 Board meeting, as you can see, was mostly on 

5 SECs, getting the SECs done, because that's 

6 the high priority issue.

7 As for TBD and other activities, 

8 NIOSH has also completed the external coworker 

9 model for Area IV and related sites. However, 

10 this is currently undergoing revision. The 

11 internal coworker model is still being 

12 developed. NIOSH has sent some detailed 

13 information on the database that is used for 

14 the internal coworker model to the Work Group 

15 because there were some outstanding questions 

16 from the last Board meeting.

17 NIOSH is also in the process of 

18 developing a White Paper on the NTA film 

19 issue, the neutron monitoring issue, which is 

20 currently under development and is actually in 

21 the completion stages. However, it has not 

22 completed issue resolution clearance before 
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1 this meeting.

2 Also NIOSH, based on some 

3 questions that came up during the last Board 

4 meeting regarding site coverage, NIOSH had 

5 committed to looking into whether or not we 

6 could find any documents that would indicate 

7 that DOE nuclear work was performed in any 

8 other areas than Area IV. And NIOSH has 

9 completed a revision of its databases of all 

10 the documents that were collected during SEC 

11 and TBD research. But it has really located 

12 any kind of documents that would indicate that 

13 DOE related nuclear activities were carried 

14 out in these areas, and therefore nothing was 

15 submitted to the Department of Labor to 

16 reconsider anything because we haven't found 

17 any information.

18 Revisions to the internal, the 

19 external, and the environmental TBDs are in 

20 the completion stages. These revisions for 

21 now are to address the SECs to include SEC 

22 language to complete appending claims. We 
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1 still need to address some of the other issues 

2 that need to be resolved.

3 During the last year, NIOSH did 

4 two data capture trips to the site and one 

5 data capture trip to the Federal Records 

6 Center. They were completed in September and 

7 November of 2009, and overall the site visit 

8 database now contains over 1,500 documents 

9 that are related to Santa Susana Field 

10 Laboratory and its related sites.

11 And NIOSH has also received four 

12 reports from SC&A. One was received in 

13 October 2009 which was a draft review of the 

14 Santa Susana Field Laboratory Special Exposure 

15 Cohort Petition and the NIOSH SEC Petition 

16 Evaluation Report. The second one was the 

17 review of the NIOSH Site Profile for the Santa 

18 Susana Field Laboratory with Attachment 1 

19 which included the site expert interviews 

20 which were conducted in 2008, I believe. 

21 NIOSH also received the draft White Paper 

22 which included the review of the database that 
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1 was used to develop OTIB-0077, the external 

2 coworker model for Area IV, which was received 

3 March 8, 2010. And SC&A reissued a revision 

4 to this document which was received by NIOSH 

5 March 15, 2010.

6 That about brings us up to date 

7 with NIOSH efforts.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Do we 

9 have any questions of NIOSH, or do we want to 

10 just let SC&A give --

11 MR. STIVER: Well, I have a 

12 question.

13 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. Can I 

14 ask a question?

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Go ahead.

16 MS. KLEA: Did Lara not receive 

17 the letter I sent that was dated 1996 from the 

18 Department of Energy, Mike Lopez to Boeing's 

19 Majelle Lee, listing three offsite areas where 

20 DOE did work and they were left contaminated 

21 which was Building 373, the old conservation 

22 yard, and the OMR, the organic moderated 
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1 reactor in Building 9. Those were all offsite 

2 of Area IV, and they were DOE projects, and 

3 they left the property and the buildings 

4 contaminated.

5 DR. HUGHES: Yes, I did receive 

6 that document, and I looked at it. But if you 

7 look at the map of Area IV, these three 

8 facilities are included in Area IV. Now they 

9 are outside of what is called the DOE segment 

10 of Area IV. But since the entirety of Area IV 

11 is covered under this program, it is not an 

12 issue. I mean if you look at our TBDs, you 

13 actually see that these three facilities are 

14 discussed in our TBDs. So any worker who 

15 would have worked at any of these facilities 

16 would be covered under this program.

17 MS. KLEA: Okay. So you do have 

18 that memo that Laurie Breyer circulated?

19 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

20 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, in 1996, 

21 they said it was outside of Area IV.

22 DR. HUGHES: No, it's outside the 
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1 DOE portion of Area IV.

2 MS. KLEA: Okay.

3 DR. HUGHES: Not all of Area IV 

4 was DOE operations. Part of it was Rocketdyne 

5 or whatever the company was called in 

6 different periods. But as it's relevant for 

7 this program, DOL defines the site coverage by 

8 area. So Area IV is covered, not just the DOE 

9 area.

10 MS. KLEA: Okay. But from what 

11 I'd seen there's a very difficult time to 

12 distinguish when the areas were changed 

13 originally and the map I circulated at the 

14 last Board meeting. It was only the SRE in 

15 1956 and we're exactly not sure when the other 

16 areas were included in the DOE areas. We have 

17 trouble with the boundaries.

18 DR. HUGHES: Okay.

19 MS. KLEA: So in 1996 a letter was 

20 written, and the subject is Completion of 

21 Projects Outside of the DOE Area. So it's 

22 been the assumption that all of Area IV is the 
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1 DOE area.

2 DR. HUGHES: No, not all. Area IV 

3 is larger than just the DOE area actually. If 

4 you look at the maps, and there's one in our 

5 TBD. There are several maps out there that 

6 are from historic documents like the Sapere 

7 and Boeing document, the site assessment. All 

8 I can say to this is that these three 

9 facilities that are listed would be covered 

10 under Area IV, and we've discussed them in the 

11 Site Profile.

12 MS. KLEA: Okay. Now I don't know 

13 if it's an issue you're going to bring up now 

14 or later. But there are huge gaps of data 

15 missing for the worker claims coming from 

16 Boeing. They don't know where the workers 

17 were because according to the UCLA report they 

18 only had two places to clock in, only two time 

19 clocks for 400 buildings on the hill.

20 And when Boeing was asked for the 

21 key to their code system, some years they used 

22 a two-digit number, some years they used a 
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1 three-digit number. And Boeing has no code 

2 for where those numbers went. And so I have 

3 dozens of claims here that show delinked

4 spaces for the time periods that the worker 

5 worked.

6 DR. HUGHES: I guess that would be 

7 more an issue that DOL would deal with.

8 MS. KLEA: Okay.

9 DR. HUGHES: Regarding the 

10 verification.

11 MS. KLEA: Okay. And this is all 

12 pointed out in the UCLA report, and Laurie 

13 Breyer verified that you all have access to 

14 that UCLA report. So I've gone through it, 

15 and I have page number if you want any of 

16 these details.

17 DR. HUGHES: I'm familiar with the 

18 report.

19 MS. KLEA: Well, you quoted from 

20 it. You quoted from it that there was 

21 adequate internal monitoring records. And 

22 according to the UCLA report there was 
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1 inadequate internal monitoring records. No 

2 worker locations were known because they used 

3 a code. And I asked Laurie if you have that 

4 UCLA report at your disposal. This was a 

5 worker desk study that was done at UCLA.

6 DR. HUGHES: Yes, I'm familiar 

7 with the report. And I'm not sure that the 

8 report discusses inadequacy of internal data 

9 because the whole conclusion of the report is 

10 based on their analysis of the internal data 

11 that was collected. I cannot really say much 

12 to their attempts trying to place worker in 

13 certain areas or the issue with the time clock 

14 location. That's not really something we look 

15 at.

16 MS. KLEA: Well, don't you need 

17 worker location as well as internal monitoring 

18 to do the coworker model?

19 DR. NETON: No. This is Jim 

20 Neton. Bonnie, the coworker model is more 

21 general than that. We would take the total 

22 distribution of all the workers that were 
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1 monitored for internal exposure and select 

2 either the 50th or the 95th percentile of that 

3 entire distribution and apply it to a worker.

4 It's been our experience at many 

5 of these sites that you can't get down to a 

6 level of knowledge of where and when the 

7 workers were. It's just not possible. In 

8 this way, say for instance, if a worker was --

9 clearly appeared to have worked in a job that 

10 needed to be monitored was exposed, they would 

11 receive the 95th percentile of the values that 

12 were observed in the entire population.

13 MS. KLEA: Okay.

14 DR. NETON: That's how we approach 

15 that issue.

16 MS. KLEA: Okay. Well, you need 

17 to look at that UCLA report. I think Lara has 

18 quoted some of what's in it, and it says that 

19 the internal monitoring peaked in '63 and '64 

20 and then it fell off sharply. Instead of 

21 doing it per incident or per week, they did it 

22 only once a quarter, and many of the workers 
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1 had -- there were no birth dates, no Social 

2 Security numbers, and the personnel records 

3 were not found to go with the monitoring 

4 numbers.

5 DR. NETON: Right. One thing we 

6 need to keep in perspective here is the 

7 difference between the endpoint of an 

8 epidemiological study which I think is what 

9 you're looking at --

10 MS. KLEA: Yes.

11 DR. NETON: -- versus dose 

12 reconstruction for purposes of compensation. 

13 We tend to allow for much larger exposures to 

14 be claimant favorable when data are missing 

15 when that wouldn't be appropriate in an 

16 epidemiologic study.

17 MS. KLEA: Okay.

18 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Bonnie.

19 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver 

20 from SC&A. Lara, I have a couple of questions 

21 about your presentation.

22 For the Canoga Avenue facility, I 
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1 was not present in the February full Board 

2 meeting, but I read the transcript recently. 

3 Apparently the original class was for the 

4 Vanowen Building only. And the reason for the 

5 expansion, was that because Labor was unable 

6 to identify whether personnel were indeed 

7 assigned to Vanowen or were just coming and 

8 going without some kind of access control? 

9 What's the real purpose for that? I didn't 

10 quite come away with an understanding of that.

11 DR. HUGHES: Yes, the research 

12 indicated that the nuclear operations took 

13 place in this one building at the site, the 

14 Vanowen Building. And logically you would 

15 think that only the workers in that building 

16 would be exposed since there was no evidence 

17 of large releases to the environment. 

18 However, upon discussion with the petitioner 

19 as well as the Department of Labor, the 

20 Department of Labor had problems putting 

21 people in the Vanowen Building.

22 Now the records we received from 
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1 the site, we were under the impression it 

2 would be possible. But as the Department of 

3 Labor had pointed out, they not just only need 

4 to place the worker in a particular building. 

5 They also need to verify 250 days of 

6 employment, and it just gets very difficult.

7 In addition to that, the 

8 petitioner who had worked at the site for a 

9 very long time was very adamant that access 

10 restrictions were not enforced.

11 MR. STIVER: Yes, I remember that.

12 DR. HUGHES: So there was some 

13 conflicting information versus some people 

14 being interviewed saying, yes, you could only 

15 get in if you had a certain badge. And some 

16 people would say, no, you could get in if they 

17 needed somebody to help you out. So in order 

18 to be claimant favorable, there just wasn't a 

19 good --

20 MR. STIVER: Do you know what 

21 proportion of the workers were or thought to 

22 have been assigned to Vanowen as opposed to 
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1 the entire facility?

2 DR. HUGHES: Do you mean numbers?

3 MR. STIVER: Yes. What percentage 

4 were actual Vanowen --

5 DR. HUGHES: I don't know. The 

6 site was probably about -- and I don't want to 

7 say anything wrong. I would estimate about 30 

8 percent of the entire site.

9 MR. STIVER: About 30 percent?

10 DR. HUGHES: But I really don't 

11 have any worker numbers.

12 MR. STIVER: Okay.

13 DR. NETON: It was a very large 

14 building though.

15 MR. STIVER: Yes.

16 DR. HUGHES: Yes, it's a large 

17 building.

18 MR. STIVER: Okay. And also for 

19 the Downey and De Soto facilities, what -- I 

20 realize Downey was the -- from 1948 to '55 I 

21 believe was when the operations were going on 

22 there before it was moved over -- to Canoga, 
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1 so I would assume it's just a paucity of 

2 internal monitoring data or inadequate 

3 external and internal data that was the basis 

4 for that petition.

5 DR. HUGHES: The findings haven't 

6 been presented to the Board yet. So I don't 

7 know, can we talk about it here?

8 MR. STIVER: Well, I know there's 

9 been -- you've had an Evaluation Report.

10 DR. HUGHES: I mean essentially, 

11 yes. I mean since the data are between those 

12 four sites we're looking at one large clump of 

13 data.

14 MR. STIVER: So De Soto would be 

15 kind of parallel to what was done for Area IV 

16 because of the missing positive bioassay data 

17 of this report.

18 DR. HUGHES: That's correct.

19 MR. STIVER: Okay. And then I 

20 guess the last thing was you mentioned that 

21 you'd done some TBD updates, but they were 

22 mainly just to put in the SEC language. Are 
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1 you going to defer modification of the TBDs 

2 until after the SEC is settled? Because at 

3 our last meeting I remember there were a lot 

4 of outstanding issues related to TBDs and 

5 environmental data collection and things of 

6 that nature, incidents.

7 Is that going to then be subsumed 

8 into the coworker models? Or will there be 

9 some attempt to also do reconstruction based 

10 for those without monitoring using those TBDs? 

11 I'm not quite sure how that's going to work.

12 DR. NETON: I'm not sure of your 

13 question. There are two issues now. One is 

14 the site is SEC through 1964. So are you 

15 asking are we planning on trying to use 

16 environmental data to do partial dose 

17 reconstruction prior to '64?

18 MR. STIVER: Say -- yes, for those 

19 personnel who don't classify, don't qualify, 

20 for the SEC.

21 DR. NETON: Right.

22 MR. STIVER: Would you then apply 
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1 -- just not do any internal dose assessment at 

2 all for them? Or would you do a partial 

3 reconstruction with an environmental internal 

4 component to it because the basis for the SEC 

5 was a lack of occupational monitoring?

6 DR. NETON: Right. Based on what 

7 we've done in the past, I would suspect we 

8 will end up with a partial dose reconstruction 

9 using environmental models.

10 MR. STIVER: Okay. So that -- the 

11 environmental models then still are --

12 DR. NETON: They're still being 

13 evaluated.

14 MR. STIVER: Okay.

15 DR. NETON: Now it's possible that 

16 we would end up in a situation prior to '64 

17 where maybe a reasonable environmental model 

18 couldn't be constructed. We're not there yet.

19 MR. STIVER: Okay. That's still 

20 in the works then.

21 DR. NETON: Yes, we'll do 

22 everything we can.
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1 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. I just 

2 have a comment to make on the environmental 

3 monitoring. It's my understanding that all of 

4 the samples from the environment were 

5 incinerated before they were measured, thereby 

6 burning off all the volatiles. Now is that 

7 what you're talking about for environmental 

8 data?

9 DR. NETON: I'm not sure. I 

10 haven't looked at that personally recently. 

11 But we have environmental air samples that 

12 were taken that were measured to quantify the 

13 values. I don't recall samples being 

14 incinerated to drive off volatiles.

15 MS. KLEA: That was pointed out by 

16 Greg Dempsey from EPA that they improperly 

17 monitored or they improperly measured their 

18 environmental samples by incinerating them 

19 thereby lowering the numbers. And then also 

20 the air monitoring was improperly placed, and 

21 that's pointed out in the Tiger Team report. 

22 The air samplers were put up on a building 
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1 where they received the air flow only five 

2 percent of the time.

3 MR. STIVER: Bonnie, this is John 

4 Stiver at SC&A. We're actually going to go 

5 into these issues a little later.

6 MS. KLEA: Okay.

7 MR. STIVER: So maybe that would 

8 be the time to discuss that.

9 MS. KLEA: All right. Thank you.

10 MR. STIVER: I think maybe this 

11 incineration might have to do with ashing a 

12 filter in order to perform radio-chemistry on 

13 it. So that may be taken out of context 

14 somewhat.

15 MS. KLEA: Okay.

16 MR. STIVER: But that's really all 

17 I had as far as questions about your 

18 presentation. As far as SC&A is concerned and 

19 in the last year, we really had kind of a 

20 minimal role in the SSFL SEC process. We 

21 produced one document which is the review of 

22 the external coworker model and more 
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1 importantly the database that underlies that 

2 model. In addition, Lara showed that we had 

3 presented updates. We produced updates to the 

4 -- we had originally done the Petition 

5 Evaluation Report as a paper study, and we 

6 produced the final report for that although 

7 the paper study was about 95 percent complete. 

8 And then the addition of the expert 

9 interviews was also added as an appendix to 

10 the Site Profile.

11 But the real important piece of 

12 work that we performed was the -- Hans 

13 Behling's review of the database underlying 

14 the external coworker model. And there are 

15 about five fairly important deficiencies that 

16 were identified regarding that model which are 

17 going to be a point of detail discussion later 

18 on during this meeting.

19 But before we really go into all 

20 these details and descriptions of issues and 

21 things, what I would like to do is kind of go 

22 straight to the chase here and describe SC&A's 
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1 position, our stance, on the SEC and the 

2 reasons for that position. And essentially 

3 there are positive elements, and there's 

4 negative elements. Basically, we have good 

5 news and bad news.

6 The good news is that, as you 

7 recall, last year in our meeting we were not 

8 comfortable with the 1958 cutoff date for the 

9 SEC based principally on our impressions that 

10 this was a bioassay program in its infancy 

11 beginning in 1958. And it was ramping up 

12 obviously in parallel with reactor operations 

13 and nuclear activities. But you see a 

14 proportional increase in the fraction 

15 monitored.

16 And there may well have also been 

17 an increase in the absolute numbers. So we 

18 were kind of concerned about data completeness 

19 issues as well as accuracy issues. Now the 

20 1964 cutoff date resolves our concerns about 

21 those monitoring data, and we're comfortable 

22 with that.
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1 Now looking at the bad news, as I 

2 said, there are several unresolved Site 

3 Profile issues that we feel that if they're 

4 not resolved could impact the SEC. And these 

5 relate exclusively to our review of the Boeing 

6 or the Boice database that underlies the 

7 external coworker model.

8 Our review of that model found 

9 that while it was technically appropriate for 

10 use in an epidemiological mortality study, we 

11 feel that in its current state it's not 

12 suitable for an external coworker model. As I 

13 said, we identified five major deficiencies, 

14 and Hans Behling is going to go through those 

15 in detail later today.

16 However, there is a silver lining 

17 here. We feel that those corrections to the 

18 use of the data for the external model should 

19 be fairly straightforward to implement. So 

20 it's an SEC issue now, but it's a Site Profile 

21 issue as far as the mechanics of fixing the 

22 model.
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1 However, we do have a wrinkle 

2 there, and that's our concern as to whether or 

3 not the deficiencies that we identified for 

4 the external coworker model might indeed apply 

5 to the internal coworker model to some extent.

6 And we understand that in 

7 principle an internal coworker model could be 

8 built given an adequate data set. But it's 

9 not available. We haven't seen it yet.

10 So I guess in summary before we 

11 could be comfortable signing off on this there 

12 are two things we'd really like to see. We'd 

13 like to see that the external model is using 

14 the data in a suitable manner. And we'd like 

15 to have some proof of principle that the Boice 

16 data are indeed suitable for the internal 

17 coworker model.

18 At this point, we've not been 

19 asked to review the internal coworker model or 

20 the data set that forms the basis for that 

21 model. However, we would be happy to do so if 

22 the Board wants us to. And that's really our 
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1 position on this right now. And as I said 

2 we're going to go into the details of those 

3 findings later today.

4 But that really kind of lays it 

5 out. Once those findings are addressed I 

6 think that we'll be in a good position to be 

7 comfortable in providing a final decision on 

8 that. Any comments? Questions?

9 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. I have 

10 a comment. I've been complaining about the 

11 use of the Boice study since the beginning of 

12 my involvement. We have the UCLA worker study 

13 that I have a copy in front of me. It was 

14 published in 1997 and Robert Rinsky from NIOSH 

15 participated in the UCLA worker desk study. 

16 The Boice study was paid for by Boeing. 

17 Boeing picked the doctors and the panel and 

18 paid for that study. And now you're using 

19 that study instead of the one that NIOSH 

20 themselves worked on.

21 DR. HUGHES: Well, the issue is 

22 that NIOSH doesn't actually use any study. 
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1 NIOSH uses the data that was collected during 

2 the study, and the large difference is that 

3 the Boice study scanned all the data and made 

4 it available in a database versus the UCLA 

5 study did not. Or either way, it was not 

6 available to NIOSH to get the data from that 

7 study. Also the Boice study was done later, 

8 so it includes a larger amount of data.

9 That was the only reason. NIOSH 

10 does not use any conclusion from the Boice 

11 study or the UCLA study. So all we're 

12 actually looking at is the data that was 

13 scanned from the site. And the only reason 

14 those studies are involved is that NIOSH 

15 doesn't really want to redo this effort of 

16 scanning all the worker records because that's 

17 a tremendous effort to do. And the databases 

18 were available for NIOSH to use.

19 MS. KLEA: Okay. I understand.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So does SC&A 

21 think that data was adequate or --

22 MR. STIVER: Well, that's what 
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1 we're going to get into later on this 

2 afternoon. You know, we're kind of ahead of 

3 ourselves on the schedule. So maybe we could 

4 compress this a little bit. 

5 What I'd like to do really before 

6 we go into the detailed discussion of those 

7 issues, there is some housekeeping that we 

8 need to address from last year's meeting. 

9 There are some outstanding issues that were --

10 actually, there are really seven action items 

11 that were assigned to NIOSH, and each of those 

12 action items subsumes one or more of the 

13 outstanding issues in the issues matrix.

14 I would kind of like to go through 

15 these if that's okay with the rest of the 

16 group. It shouldn't take long to go through 

17 them because some of these are resolved in our 

18 minds based on NIOSH's responses in the issues 

19 matrix and on the discussions we've had today. 

20 And several of them are really kind of -- can 

21 be grouped under these umbrella issues of the 

22 internal and external coworker models.
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1 If you'd like, I've provided you 

2 all with a status report. It's about a five 

3 pager here. It's entitled The Status Report: 

4 Review of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory 

5 Site Profile et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

6 If you go about halfway down on page one, 

7 you'll see -- you might want to take -- for 

8 those of you who are interested in the chapter 

9 and verse, in this list of the issues, I have 

10 also identified which item in the issues 

11 matrix is related to that particular action 

12 item.

13 If you want to, you can follow 

14 along. I provided the issues matrix mainly as 

15 a reference that really gets into the nitty16 gritty details of the basis for some of these 

17 decisions. But it's not absolutely necessary 

18 to use that if you choose not to.

19 The first action item involved the 

20 start date for nuclear activities.

21 MEMBER BEACH: John, before you 

22 start.
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1 MR. STIVER: Yes.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Which issues matrix 

3 date are you referring to?

4 MR. STIVER: I'm referring to the 

5 redacted version that I handed to John to 

6 email it out --

7 MEMBER BEACH: April 29th.

8 MR. STIVER: -- updated version.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Thank you.

10 MR. STIVER: It should be --

11 MEMBER BEACH: I have it. I just 

12 -- I have three.

13 MR. STIVER: There's a redacted 

14 version that was handed out.

15 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

16 MR. STIVER: This is the version 

17 that I'm working from.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Thank you.

19 MR. STIVER: And item 9, getting 

20 back to this, this related to the start date 

21 for nuclear activities. And there was some 

22 concern as to whether the Atomic International 
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1 sites were operating nuclear activities in 

2 1953 or 1955. And so there was an action item 

3 for NIOSH to establish the start date. NIOSH 

4 has provided detailed historical information 

5 from the reference Lara mentioned, Sapere and 

6 Boeing in 2005. And a review of that shows 

7 that pre 1955 there was really no nuclear 

8 activities. I believe it was the KEWB and the 

9 SRE were the first two projects to come 

10 online, and those weren't operational until, I 

11 believe, '56 and '57.

12 So this 1955 cutoff -- start date 

13 seems to be a valid start date. And as far as 

14 we're concerned, that issue is resolved. We 

15 don't have any problem.

16 DR. NETON: 1965?

17 MR. STIVER: No, '55.

18 DR. NETON: '55.

19 MR. STIVER: This was for the Area 

20 IV. Let me back up. These were all related 

21 to the Area IV SEC. So there was some concern 

22 as to whether activities might have started in 
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1 '53 as opposed to '55. So we're comfortable 

2 with that 1955 start date. That's no longer 

3 an issue with us.

4 The second action item related to 

5 the Sodium Reactor Experiment and the incident 

6 that occurred in 1959. That action item was a 

7 contractor who was supposed to perform an 

8 independent review of different release 

9 estimates. Evidently, there were vastly 

10 different release estimates, one provided by 

11 the company itself, and another provided by an 

12 outside contractor.

13 So there was going to be an 

14 independent review to determine the most 

15 scientifically defensible release scenario and 

16 the extent and necessity of an exposure model 

17 for onsite workers. And the TBD was to be 

18 revised to obtain additional detail of the 

19 incident and so forth.

20 Our position on this, at least our 

21 understanding is that due to the expansion of 

22 the SEC to 1964 that this issue is moot. The 
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1 SRE incident will be subsumed into the 

2 internal coworker model. Now I assume this is 

3 all in line, that it's going to be added to 

4 May 5th for Area IV for SEC-00156.

5 DR. HUGHES: Yes. The workers 

6 that were on site will be included in the new 

7 SEC Class.

8 MR. STIVER: Okay. So I guess our 

9 concern or just to bring us up to speed then, 

10 is this independent review still on line. 

11 It's not going to be done then?

12 DR. HUGHES: No.

13 MR. STIVER: Okay. All right. I 

14 guess for the external component it would be 

15 nothing more than a dispersed krypton-85, and 

16 you guys already did a --

17 DR. NETON: The coworker model for 

18 external --

19 MR. STIVER: Yes. Right. So we 

20 already have that.

21 DR. NETON: I assume we can come 

22 to an agreement on that.
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1 MR. STIVER: Yes.

2 DR. NETON: That takes care of 

3 that.

4 MR. STIVER: Okay. So I guess in 

5 our minds then that issue is resolved as well 

6 given the SEC extension.

7 The third was NIOSH is to produce 

8 a complete and internal coworker model that 

9 encompasses certain accidental exposures. One 

10 of them that was the topic of discussion was 

11 the sodium burn pit, potential for releases 

12 during those activities. Evidently, the 

13 coworker model is still under development. As 

14 we said, we have not seen it, and we haven't 

15 been asked to review it or the underlying 

16 data. 

17 Do you have an idea or an 

18 estimated date when that may be available?

19 DR. HUGHES: It's still in the 

20 process of the data being analyzed and the 

21 development of exposure models.

22 MR. STIVER: Is it? Okay.
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1 DR. HUGHES: So it will be a few 

2 more months. 

3 MR. STIVER: A few more months, 

4 you think.

5 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

6 DR. NETON: Yes. If you look at -

7 - Lara put out a little summary why we believe 

8 that the data prior to '64 or after '64 might 

9 be useful. And a lot of work went on looking 

10 at that database to essentially clean the 

11 numbers. There was issues with plus signs.

12 MR. STIVER: Yes. And the McBee 

13 cards.

14 DR. NETON: And the McBee cards. 

15 But I think at the end of the day there ended 

16 up being something like 40,000 measurements, 

17 most of which are valid.

18 MR. STIVER: Right. Again, 

19 looking at that report, you said that you 

20 tried to get the identified version from 

21 Boeing but were not successful in doing that. 

22 Does that data actually exist, or is it that 
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1 they're not willing to provide it, or is it no 

2 longer available?

3 DR. HUGHES: As far as we know, 

4 Boeing owns the data on the server on which it 

5 was stored, but it's not available because of 

6 --

7 MR. STIVER: Because it seems if 

8 you could get that, that would certainly 

9 resolve the issue of those missing positives.

10 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

11 MR. STIVER: To be able to 

12 identify those workers.

13 MS. KLEA: That was one of my 

14 questions. I had two. So privacy concerns, 

15 is that --

16 DR. NETON: I'm not sure why 

17 Boeing wouldn't release the data. But the 

18 missing positives were prior of '64.

19 MR. STIVER: Yes, '61 through '64.

20 DR. NETON: Well, after '64, this 

21 issue is not an issue. So you have the 

22 identified data that's really not that 
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1 critical for us at this point. And you have a 

2 coworker model that is a generic distribution 

3 of all the monitored workers. Individual job 

4 categories are not critical. It would be nice 

5 to have it.

6 MR. STIVER: It would be nice to 

7 have it, yes.

8 MS. KLEA: Hi, this is Bonnie. On 

9 the burn pit, I understand there are no 

10 records. They kept no log books. And that 

11 burn pit, I think, was burning until about 

12 1977.

13 MR. STIVER: Bonnie, this is John 

14 Stiver. I think that coworker model they're 

15 proposing, like I said, they're going to take 

16 that database and use it to generate a 

17 distribution and then assign doses to 

18 claimants based on proportions of that 

19 distribution to the 50th and the 95th 

20 percentiles.

21 MS. KLEA: Okay. If you have --

22 MR. STIVER: So it's not really 
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1 necessary to model --

2 MS. KLEA: -- an examination still 

3 in that burn pit, right?

4 MR. STIVER: Yes. So it wouldn't 

5 be necessary to actually try to model exactly 

6 what took place in the burn pit like you might 

7 have to do for a dose reconstruction if you 

8 didn't have monitoring. So that's the beauty 

9 of using a coworker model. You have that 

10 actual monitoring data. You have 

11 measurements.

12 MS. KLEA: Okay.

13 MR. STIVER: That you can then use 

14 to generate the distribution and the assigned 

15 doses and be fairly comfortable that you're 

16 being claimant favorable. Because otherwise 

17 sometimes especially looking at these records 

18 with respect to reconstruction, you just don't 

19 often times have the data in a reliable form 

20 or to the extent that you need to actually do 

21 an accurate reconstruction.

22 DR. NETON: Actually, our 
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1 experience has been even when you have worker 

2 titles and job categories, oftentimes they're 

3 not accurate.

4 MR. STIVER: Yes.

5 DR. NETON: People change jobs, 

6 and the human resource database might not have 

7 been updated or --

8 MR. STIVER: Yes. You know, in 

9 the DTRA world when I was doing atomic 

10 veterans reconstructions, we had those 

11 problems all the time. There were issues with 

12 dosimetry. There were issues with 

13 measurements. And then you know the actual 

14 demographic data was oftentimes suspect.

15 If there are no other questions, 

16 I'd like to move on to issue item number four 

17 which was the tritium plume. This relates to 

18 items three and 12.2 in the issues matrix. 

19 This was one aspect of the environmental 

20 exposures where workers may have been exposed 

21 to drinking water that was contaminated with 

22 tritium from the SNAP reactors in Building 
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1 4010. And NIOSH was to prepare a White Paper 

2 describing the model and the base data used to 

3 estimate worker intakes of that, potential 

4 intakes from drinking contaminated water.

5 The information on the tritium 

6 plume has instead been included in the issues 

7 matrix, based on more recent well monitoring 

8 data in the 2007 ASER report and the arguments 

9 put forth by NIOSH in the issue matrix.

10 We believe this issue was 

11 resolved. Basically, we feel that using that 

12 well, I think it was RD 34 which is down 

13 gradient from the presumed site of 

14 contamination and their various parameters and 

15 model estimates, we feel that that is 

16 sufficiently claimant favorable. And we 

17 believe that this issue is resolved. We have 

18 no problems with that.

19 Another thing to bring up is that 

20 even if you're drinking water that's 

21 contaminated with tens of thousands of 

22 picocuries per liter, you're still going to 
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1 just end up with millirem of doses at the end 

2 of the year. So if they're small doses, it 

3 sounds like a major event. But it's not as 

4 important from a dosimetric standpoint as you 

5 might initially assume.

6 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie again. 

7 I would like to add another side on that 

8 tritium. It was found in the soil around 

9 Building 59 also. And then in 1965 when SNAP10 8ER shut down, there was a large release of 

11 fission products from that Building 10 plus 

12 tritium. And it was in the soil around 

13 Building 59.

14 MR. STIVER: Something to keep in 

15 mind though is that tritium is basically an 

16 activation product. So it's going to be 

17 produced by neutron activation, and you can 

18 find it in the vicinity of the reactors in the 

19 soil. And basically it's going to be a 

20 component of the soil water.

21 MS. KLEA: Right.

22 MR. STIVER: And that's the issue 
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1 with movement of a plume into the drinking 

2 water supply. And there's also the idea that 

3 you've got to keep in mind is that you're 

4 looking at the surface levels of water. 

5 You're looking at an aquifer that's probably 

6 physically separate from the drinking water 

7 aquifers that are quite a bit lower.

8 MS. KLEA: Who's talking?

9 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver 

10 at SC&A.

11 MS. KLEA: Okay.

12 MR. STIVER: So you have a very --

13 even if there is contamination which has been 

14 identified, the likelihood of that getting 

15 into the drinking water supply is very remote 

16 based on the fact that you have discontinuous 

17 aquifers, meaning they're not connected.

18 MS. KLEA: Right. Well, that's an 

19 assumption, and we don't really know because 

20 they didn't even look for it until 1989 when 

21 EPA found it.

22 MR. STIVER: Yes. But I believe 
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1 the model that they plan to use in conjunction 

2 with the external and internal coworker models 

3 will provide sufficiently claimant favorable 

4 doses to claimants.

5 NIOSH, would you like to add 

6 anything to that?

7 DR. HUGHES: No.

8 DR. NETON: No.

9 MR. STIVER: Okay. I'll move onto 

10 item number five. This was the lack of 

11 information on the environmental exposures. 

12 This is item number 12 in the issues matrix 

13 and is also related to item five, which is the 

14 issue of air sampling data.

15 The charge was, NIOSH was to 

16 reevaluate the current approach of back17 extrapolating stack emission data collected 

18 from 1971 to '99 to earlier periods. And our 

19 main concern there was there would be an 

20 underestimation of stack emissions for the 

21 earlier years when we know that more nuclear 

22 operations were taking place. Where in the 
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1 '70s essentially all the reactor operations 

2 were ceased and other nuclear activities were 

3 ramping down. So you have the situation where 

4 you're taking data where there's a smaller 

5 release and then extrapolating that to an 

6 earlier time when you know there was more. So 

7 you have the potential for underestimating 

8 doses from those types of models.

9 And in the transcript, I know Jim 

10 talked extensively about your concerns with 

11 using that approach and you were looking into 

12 other methodologies to address that. Can you 

13 provide us an update on the status of that?

14 DR. NETON: Unfortunately, we 

15 don't have much to update. That's just still 

16 in progress.

17 MR. STIVER: It's still in 

18 progress. Okay.

19 Numbers six and seven both relate 

20 to the external dose coworker model. Number 

21 six was that NIOSH was to prepare that model 

22 and release it for use or at least for review. 
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1 That was indeed done in August of 2009, and 

2 I'm going to defer discussion of that to 

3 Hans's discussion of the coworker model.

4 Also subsumed into the external 

5 coworker model issue is the idea of neutron 

6 dose methodology. This was our concern about 

7 the absence of empirical data involving 

8 neutron spectra for reactors and plutonium 

9 fuel storage facilities. I know you had some 

10 data from Hanford that you felt was fairly 

11 representative of the types of reactors that 

12 were in use at Santa Susana that might be 

13 useful for characterizing that.

14 There was the concern about 

15 dosimetry calibration methods and another big 

16 one is the relative insensitivity of the NTA 

17 film for neutrons with energies less than 500 

18 KeV. And you have indicated that you're 

19 preparing a White Paper on the NTA film issue.

20 DR. NETON: Yes.

21 MR. STIVER: Do you have any idea 

22 when that's --
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1 DR. NETON: We're talking and deep 

2 in generalities about what we found. It's not 

3 ready for release.

4 MR. STIVER: It's not ready for 

5 release yet? Are you prepared to talk about 

6 that at all?

7 DR. NETON: Yes, to some -- I mean 

8 to what we can in general terms.

9 MR. STIVER: Okay.

10 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. 

11 For Jim and I guess maybe John also, I have 

12 just a question in listening to the overviews. 

13 I try to key in on the issues that are on the 

14 table that are under consideration and which 

15 ones of those might affect the boundary of 

16 this 1964 end of the SEC period. And correct 

17 me if I'm wrong.

18 Certainly, we'll be talking a lot 

19 of issues that clearly are going to be Site 

20 Profile issues. However, it's not always 

21 clear which of these Site Profile issues might 

22 really have an impact or may be relevant to 
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1 the 1964 date, which means that they become an 

2 SEC issue.

3 And what I heard, and I think it's 

4 important that we all sort of are on the same 

5 page, is that there is an external coworker 

6 model that we have some concerns with. We'll 

7 hear about that more. There is in development 

8 an internal coworker model that eventually we 

9 will have a chance to look at. Both of which 

10 are models which argue to the fact that, yes, 

11 for external exposure and the argument be made 

12 by NIOSH is, yes, we can reconstruct external 

13 exposures using these data and then building a 

14 coworker model. We'll talk about some of the 

15 problems.

16 But in theory one could argue that 

17 -- is there any way that problems with the 

18 coworker model -- and I guess this is to be 

19 discussed as we work through it later -- could 

20 in fact have an effect on whether or not that 

21 boundary '64 is sound. The same kind of 

22 concern in my mind is whether the boundary in 
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1 '64 may be at risk if there are similar 

2 problems with the internal coworker model.

3 And the third piece is that I 

4 heard some discussion just now regarding 

5 airborne emissions in the '70s that were 

6 measured and then back-extrapolating those 

7 airborne emissions to earlier dates. I guess 

8 these airborne emissions go toward 

9 environmental exposures to outdoor exposures 

10 to workers who I presume it goes toward both 

11 external and internal exposures.

12 And my question is, that's another 

13 way to go back in time and reconstruct 

14 exposures. And, again, until, I guess, that 

15 issue is dealt with, is it possible that that 

16 has some bearing on 1964. So I guess I'd like 

17 to hear a little feedback on the degree to 

18 which -- see, in my mind, this is the key 

19 here.

20 Right now, we are at a place where 

21 1964 is being, the end of '64 is being 

22 proposed, recommended, as being the date for 
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1 when the SEC period ends, the end of '64. And 

2 I think that it's very important that we all 

3 are very clear on what issues are at play here 

4 that bear on that. And I guess I haven't 

5 really heard a clear definition of where that 

6 is.

7 And we all know that there are 

8 certainly lots of Site Profile issues and 

9 we'll be talking about them. But I'd like to 

10 hear, almost to round this up, what we just 

11 discussed, where does -- I'd like to hear a 

12 little bit where some of the things that we 

13 just summarized might have play on the date.

14 MR. STIVER: John, this is John 

15 Stiver. I think the external coworker model 

16 and the validity of that model and the way 

17 that data is being used is really the crux of 

18 the issue here. If NIOSH can demonstrate that 

19 they're using that data in an appropriate 

20 manner, then that coworker model can be used 

21 to recreate doses for post-SEC period, post 

22 1964, and also for claimants that don't 
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1 qualify for the SEC for partial dose 

2 reconstructions for the earlier years.

3 Now this is one thing that's 

4 always kind of confused me a bit is, is that 

5 coworker model indeed inclusive of all, 

6 considered to be inclusive of all, of 

7 exposures for the claimant or are there in 

8 addition to that environmental exposures that 

9 would also have to be calculated based on how 

10 that SEC Class was defined? I'm still not 

11 quite sure how that would work. In that case, 

12 then these environmental exposures really do 

13 come into play and the adequacy of that data.

14 But my assumption was that, or my 

15 understanding was that this coworker model was 

16 developed just to alleviate those types of 

17 issues and those types of concerns to begin 

18 with.

19 DR. NETON: I guess I'm still a 

20 little confused -- your concern. Prior to '64 

21 it is our position that we cannot reconstruct 

22 occupational internal dose.
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1 MR. STIVER: Right. But there's 

2 still -- you would still -- 

3 DR. NETON: We're talking now 

4 about the external coworker model here.

5 MR. STIVER: Okay. 

6 DR. NETON: So the external 

7 coworker model. We would still reconstruct 

8 external dose for non-presumptive cancer prior 

9 to '64 given that we have a valid model.

10 MR. STIVER: Right. And you would 

11 still also --

12 DR. NETON: And we would attempt 

13 to reconstruct environmental models. That's 

14 still undergoing completion. But if it's in 

15 the past, we can come up with a valid way to 

16 either back-extrapolate later or review 

17 additional information. And we would assign, 

18 at a minimum, the environmental exposures to 

19 workers. Even though they may have been 

20 occupationally exposed, we can't reconstruct 

21 that. But at the minimum exposure they would 

22 receive would be what? What the environmental 
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1 background was at that time.

2 Normally a person when -- like say 

3 after '64 we can reconstruct occupational 

4 internal exposures we do not assign 

5 environmental because that's assumed in that 

6 estimate. So just sort of phased approach. I 

7 mean we would do the best -- we always 

8 maintain that we'll do the best we can given 

9 the data that are left to reconstruct anything 

10 we can during partial dose reconstructions 

11 during the SEC period.

12 MR. STIVER: And certainly that's 

13 the best you can do I mean.

14 DR. NETON: And most often that 

15 almost always includes medical exposure.

16 MR. STIVER: Right. Medical 

17 exposure.

18 DR. NETON: Would include 

19 environmental if we have a valid environmental 

20 model as well as external badge data support 

21 of coworker model in that era.

22 DR. MAURO: Would it be fair, Jim, 
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1 to say until the Work Group and, I guess, SC&A 

2 has a chance to look at the internal coworker 

3 model, the environmental extrapolation 

4 approach and, of course, we resolve some of 

5 the issues on external which we'll get to 

6 later, it's really hard for SC&A at this time 

7 to say that "Yes, we think that 1964 is a good 

8 date?"

9 DR. NETON: Well, absolutely, 

10 John. That was what I was going to offer is 

11 that it seems that we have three issues here, 

12 internal/external coworker models and 

13 environmental, all in various states of 

14 review. And until all of those are complete 

15 and you've had a chance to review the final 

16 products, I don't think we can say anything 

17 about the '64 date.

18 DR. MAURO: Jim, thanks. I just 

19 needed to hear that to make sure that everyone 

20 -- that was my understanding also.

21 DR. NETON: Yes.

22 DR. MAURO: And I wanted to make 
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1 sure. These are all important issues, and 

2 they're not just Site Profile issues. They 

3 are issues that may also have significance 

4 related to, ultimately, a judgment made by the 

5 Work Group and, of course, the Board regarding 

6 1964.

7 DR. NETON: And indeed we may feel 

8 we have a valid model after '64 for internal. 

9 But past history you know there may be some 

10 issues with the quality of the data and the 

11 quantity of the data and early periods that we 

12 need to discuss. It's not slam dunk at this 

13 point. We feel fairly comfortable, but until 

14 we can produce it -- and, as you know, all of 

15 the major radionuclides of exposure, not just 

16 a couple. That's usually the hard part of 

17 getting down into the lesser, the 

18 radionuclides that have -- or lesser exposure 

19 pathways where the monitoring data may be much 

20 worse.

21 I wish we were further along with 

22 that. But the fact is, we're not. As Lara 
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1 indicated earlier on, we put a lot of effort 

2 in getting these SEC petitions out the door 

3 this year, and we decided to put efforts into 

4 moving that forward because we feel it's 

5 important that we get the SEC Classes 

6 established once we identify that they're 

7 there.

8 And now we're in the midst of 

9 tackling the remaining several issues here. 

10 Although I would be very happy to go through 

11 the external comments you have and we can talk 

12 about them.

13 MR. STIVER: Well, we're 

14 definitely ahead of schedule. Would you like 

15 to do that after the break, just go ahead and 

16 go into the external coworker issues that we 

17 have instead of deferring that to the 

18 afternoon?

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We can take an 

20 earlier break and then start the discussion. 

21 But we need to, about eleven o'clock, start 

22 talking about this issue of how to track 
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1 workers and stuff since Jeff is going to be on 

2 the phone.

3 MR. STIVER: I think that's really 

4 the remaining outstanding issue, isn't it? 

5 Why don't we just go into that now then?

6 MR. KATZ: Anybody need a break 

7 already?

8 (Chorus of nos.)

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Do you guys 

10 have any time frame when you think this, what 

11 you're doing on this issue will be ready?

12 DR. NETON: It's going to be in a 

13 months time frame, not weeks.

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay.

15 DR. NETON: That's the best I can 

16 tell you. I wish I had a better -- we were up 

17 against also this deadline to produce all the 

18 backlog of claimants that we've had. It's 

19 been a priority.

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 COURT REPORTER: One at a time 

22 please.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

2 MR. KATZ: So, Jeff, are you with 

3 us still? Jeff Kotsch?

4 (No response.)

5 He may have dropped off, be 

6 rejoining us at eleven.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

8 MR. STIVER: So we just defer that 

9 to eleven then?

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes. We told 

11 him we were going to start around eleven. 

12 Shall we take a break then?

13 MR. STIVER: I don't know if 

14 anybody needed a break.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, we've been 

16 going for an hour. We can --

17 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. 

18 Before we go to the break, did the discussion 

19 that just took place incorporate issue number 

20 seven, Neutron Dose Methodology? I didn't 

21 hear -- I wasn't aware of any comment at all 

22 being made about that last --
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1 DR. NETON: I think, Wanda, that 

2 may come up in this external review.

3 MR. STIVER: Yes, we're going to 

4 go through in detail the findings of our 

5 external coworker review and that is one of 

6 the findings. So we wanted to defer that to 

7 Hans's discussion.

8 MEMBER MUNN: All right. So we're 

9 going to do that this afternoon.

10 MR. STIVER: Yes. Or after we 

11 finish with the discussion with Jeff at 

12 eleven.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Right. Thank you.

14 MR. STIVER: Okay.

15 John Mauro, did you have any other 

16 questions or concerns about the status? I 

17 mean I think we're kind of on the same page 

18 here.

19 DR. MAURO: No, that was exactly 

20 what I needed. Thank you very much.

21 MR. STIVER: Okay.

22 So we have some time left. Jim, 
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1 could you at least give us the broad brush 

2 stroke view of where you may stand on some of 

3 these environmental issues?

4 DR. NETON: It's under 

5 development. I can't give you anything, any 

6 more than that to go on.

7 MR. STIVER: Okay. Well, I had 

8 one concern related to what Jeff was going to 

9 discuss. But I guess we can talk about that 

10 as well, and that was the issue of the free 

11 movement in and out of Area IV.

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 MR. KATZ: I think Jeff needs to 

14 get into that discussion.

15 MR. BERONJA: Want to move to 

16 Hans.

17 MR. STIVER: That's really all I 

18 have on the outstanding issues, I think. I 

19 guess we can just go right to Hans's 

20 discussion and then come back out when we need 

21 to talk to Jeff and then continue later.

22 MR. KATZ: Yes. Sure.
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1 MR. STIVER: Hans, would you like 

2 to take over and present your findings of the 

3 external database review.

4 DR. BEHLING: Yes. Let me just 

5 make a comment with regard to issue number 

6 seven that was just brought up by Wanda. 

7 Issue seven, Neutron Dose Methodology, may --

8 it does affect the OTIB-0077 Coworker External 

9 Dose Model, but it's not strictly confined to 

10 that either. So just as a retrospective 

11 statement here, the issue of the neutron 

12 dosimetry and the methodology, inclusive of 

13 the threshold value of 500 KeV and the lack of 

14 neutron spectra is something that's also in 

15 addition to affecting the external coworker 

16 model. It's also a separate issue that goes 

17 beyond the coworker model, just a fact-stating 

18 statement.

19 Let me also then go ahead and 

20 start. But it's not likely we're going to get 

21 through all of the findings by eleven o'clock. 

22 So I guess any time you feel that we need to 
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1 break and give Jeff Kotsch a chance to partake 

2 in the other discussion, give me a heads-up 

3 and then we'll take a suitable amount of time 

4 to take a break from the external coworker 

5 model discussion.

6 The thing that I'm going to be 

7 talking about is going to pretty much track 

8 the draft White Paper that was issued by SC&A 

9 on March 8 this year. And I will probably 

10 make reference to pages and statements in that 

11 paper. So I'm hoping that at least for the 

12 Work Group people and perhaps NIOSH and 

13 others, they will have a copy of that report 

14 so that when I make reference to specific 

15 statements they can actually track it. For 

16 those people who do not have access to this 

17 report, I will try to at least provide some 

18 background information so they'll understand 

19 what the issues are. 

20 As has already been stated by John 

21 Stiver, the Boice 2006 database was really the 

22 backbone for this coworker model. And, as 
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1 I've stated in my report, I have no problems 

2 in accepting that particular database for the 

3 initial intended purpose. In other words, the 

4 Boice data study was a retrospective cohort 

5 mortality study of the 5,742 radiation workers 

6 who have external radiation exposures. And 

7 just, again, for those people who may not be 

8 familiar with the Boice study, that particular 

9 study really was not confined to Rocketdyne or 

10 Atomic International. But it basically tried 

11 to track their lifetime exposures.

12 Whenever you deal with an 

13 epidemiologic study where you're trying to 

14 establish cause and affect relationship 

15 between radiation exposure and cancer 

16 incidence, you're not really all that 

17 concerned about precisely which year that 

18 exposure occurred. What you're really 

19 interested in establishing for a given worker 

20 is what was his lifetime external/internal 

21 exposure occupationally and then see if 

22 there's any excess cancers that you can
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1 reasonably attribute to that lifetime 

2 exposure.

3 In the case of a coworker model, 

4 we're looking for a much more refined 

5 assessment of data. In other words for a 

6 coworker model, what we're really looking for 

7 is really yearly exposures and yearly 

8 exposures that are defined by external and 

9 internal relationship to the time of the 

10 cancer diagnosis and also trying to really 

11 understand where those exposures occurred. 

12 And important to understand in the Boice 

13 methodology was that they really only required 

14 that a worker be employed at the Santa Susana 

15 facility for at least six months and have some 

16 exposure data during that time interval.

17 And what that really implies is 

18 that for many, many of the workers that are 

19 part of this coworker model, their exposures 

20 occurred at places other than at the Santa 

21 Susana facility. And we don't always know 

22 exactly where these individuals worked and the 
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1 conditions in which they work and to what 

2 extent these dosimetry data that have been 

3 collated as part of a lifetime exposure really 

4 qualify, with regard to implementation guides 

5 that basically defines the usability of 

6 surrogate data. And that is one of the major, 

7 major concerns here in this particular 

8 coworker model. And we're going to go into 

9 this as we discuss specific issues.

10 Let me start out by just giving 

11 those people who are not familiar with the 

12 database some statistics. Of the 5,742 

13 Rocketdyne/Atomic International workers, 

14 approximately one-third had exposures at 

15 facilities other than Santa Susana or 

16 Rocketdyne -- we'll use those names 

17 interchangeably -- either before or after 

18 their employment at Santa Susana.

19 And I think one of the things that 

20 I'm going to urge people to do is to really 

21 get an understanding of what the database 

22 really represents. And on page five of my 
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1 report in the footnote at the bottom of page 

2 five, you will see the ability to access this 

3 thing on the NIOSH O:drive and I provide the 

4 filing, et cetera. What this database really 

5 represents are individuals, and they have been 

6 redacted so that no person has been identified 

7 by name or Social Security number or anything 

8 else that can be traced to a given individual.

9 But that database represents over 

10 5,800 individuals, and you can identify each 

11 individual by an arbitrarily assigned number. 

12 And the database contains three tabs, and the 

13 first tab really provides demographic data. 

14 The data identified the exact years during 

15 which the individual was employed at Santa 

16 Susana. And, of course, in many instances, 

17 those years are very, very limited. As I said

18 before, the criteria for accepting a worker 

19 was limited to he would only have to work 

20 there for six months. And yet that means he 

21 could have worked for many, many years before 

22 and after, as we will show in my examples 
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1 here, at other locations where that 

2 individual's exposure would be collated into 

3 this database.

4 Let me go and identify the very 

5 first issue by paraphrasing -- actually not 

6 paraphrasing, but I will quote part of the 

7 OTIB-0077 statement as it appears. And I'm 

8 taking this quote on page four. And I will 

9 read it for those who don't have access to my 

10 White Paper. It says, "The Santa Susana Field 

11 Laboratory database contains dosimetry data 

12 for penetrating dose which is a combination of 

13 gamma and fast neutron dose." And this is 

14 important. The next statement is important. 

15 "Because it is difficult to separate 

16 statistically significant neutron dose from 

17 the penetrating dose and because the shallow 

18 dose data is not available in the database 

19 described above, the neutron dose component, 

20 which represents less than five percent of the 

21 total data points available, was left embedded 

22 with gamma dose, resulting in penetrating dose 
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1 values that are favorable to the claimants." 

2 And that really represents our first issue.

3 The first issue, and I'll skip to 

4 page six of my report. And the first issue I 

5 stated is that NIOSH may have misinterpreted 

6 worker dose that was prepared by Boice, et 

7 al., in their 2006 publication. In essence, 

8 the statement that I just read to you would 

9 imply is that the Santa Susana coworker data 

10 that is represented in tab two of the 

11 database, which I think has a misleading 

12 statement because it refers to total external 

13 dose. It really should have said total 

14 external photon dose.

15 And I think this is possibly 

16 where, or at least I believe, the 

17 misinterpretation on the part of NIOSH may 

18 have come. And I say that the neutron dose 

19 was not in fact embedded in the total external 

20 dose, and I proved that by giving you some 

21 examples. On page six, I provide a table that 

22 shows the number of workers where the total 
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1 neutron dose is greater than the total 

2 external dose, which implies that the total 

3 external dose cannot possibly incorporate the 

4 neutron dose or embed the neutron dose along 

5 with the photon dose.

6 In fact, if you look at the 

7 database itself, you will see, as I said, 

8 three tabs. The first tab identifies the 

9 demographic data for each of the 5,800 some 

10 workers.

11 The second tab identifies annual 

12 exposures by year starting in the '40s and all 

13 the way up to 1999. And that, I believe, is 

14 strictly the external deep photon dose.

15 And then in tab three you start 

16 all over again with early years going through 

17 1999, and it provides separate neutron doses. 

18 And the two are not collated. In other 

19 words, the neutron dose are very, very 

20 definitely separate entities into that 

21 individual's historical exposures on a yearly 

22 basis. 
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1 So, for instance, if you look at 

2 the examples that I provide on page six you 

3 have worker and identify that individual by 

4 worker number 2968 in the year 1956, you can 

5 look at his exposure data and realize that 

6 that person's total external dose was 300 

7 millirem. Yet for that same year his total 

8 neutron dose is 534. So one can easily 

9 conclude that the total external dose does not 

10 incorporate the neutron dose.

11 And I think that's very important 

12 because right now I believe the coworker model 

13 as defined in table two of OTIB-0077 provides 

14 the 50th and the 95th percentiles. And NIOSH 

15 will have, obviously, the chance to respond to 

16 this issue. But it is my interpretation that 

17 dose numbers really reflect only tab two, that 

18 is total external dose, and with the 

19 assumption that the neutron dose is embedded 

20 in that. So that is our first issue is that 

21 NIOSH may have misinterpreted the database as 

22 presented by Boice.
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1 Let me go to the issue number two.

2 MR. KATZ: Hans, before you do, I 

3 mean do we want to do these issue by issue or 

4 --

5 DR. BEHLING: It may be 

6 appropriate to do so because it might be 

7 difficult for everyone to remember what the 

8 issues were later on. If NIOSH chooses to 

9 respond to each issue as we go through it, 

10 that's great.

11 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Hans.

12 DR. NETON: We're responding to 

13 the neutron control?

14 MR. KATZ: If you want.

15 DR. NETON: We agree, I think. I 

16 looked at the data set just yesterday, and it 

17 appears that you're correct, Hans, that the 

18 neutron dose is not included in the total dose 

19 column. So it's just a matter of correcting 

20 that representation.

21 DR. BEHLING: Yes, and, Jim, this 

22 also then sets a stage for the issue that I 
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1 identified as issue five. Now that we realize 

2 we do have a segregation of external photon 

3 and external neutron dose, you can in fact now 

4 adjust those neutron doses based on quality 

5 factors and other issues that is really part 

6 of issue five.

7 DR. NETON: Absolutely. Yes.

8 DR. BEHLING: Okay. So issue two, 

9 the misuse of termination dosimetry data, one 

10 of the problems that I think we faced here is 

11 obviously an issue again that defines the 

12 Boice database. Boice did not try to --

13 again, as I mentioned before, in a 

14 retrospective mortality epidemiologic study, 

15 you're not really all that concerned whether, 

16 let's say, a cumulative dose over five years 

17 that it may involve, let's say, 50 rem, ten 

18 rem each year, is integrated into a single 

19 dose for a given year or in the case of our 

20 coworker model that, however, becomes a major 

21 problem because we don't want to necessarily 

22 lump a huge dose that represents a termination 
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1 report dose into a given year.

2 And I think for those people who 

3 may not be familiar with it, the termination 

4 dose is frequently obtained by a report that 

5 gets sent to the NRC or some other agency that 

6 says, "This individual has had a cumulative 

7 exposure up to some moment in time that 

8 represents a value." And it's important to 

9 note that number because in those days the 

10 5(N-18) criteria was very much involved. And 

11 in order to be sure that person didn't exceed 

12 the 5(N-18) you have to have known what his 

13 cumulative lifetime exposure was.

14 So when Boice attempted to 

15 assemble a lifetime exposure record for each 

16 of the 5,800 workers, all he really was 

17 interested in in many cases was what was his 

18 total exposure? And it didn't matter whether 

19 or not those doses were lumped into a single 

20 year, as opposed to segregating it by years of 

21 prior exposure at the facilities other than 

22 Santa Susana.
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1 So the termination report, while 

2 it would serve the purpose of the Boice study, 

3 it is inappropriate to use termination data. 

4 And I provide some very high dose values in my 

5 investigation of the Boice database. For 

6 instance, on page seven now, we have a sample 

7 of annual doses that are likely cumulative 

8 with termination doses. And I provide an 

9 assessment of the ones that I have found to be 

10 extremely high.

11 In the case of, for instance, 

12 worker number 2704 who was employed -- and 

13 this is important -- he was employed at Santa 

14 Susana Field Laboratory between 1959, and 

15 that's important to write down, 1959 to 1968. 

16 And yet in 1957 two years before he was 

17 employed at Santa Susana, we have what is 

18 obviously a termination report that says he 

19 was exposed in 1957 to 67,205 millirem or 67.2 

20 rem. That's a huge, huge dose that you would 

21 assign, or Boice assigned, to this individual 

22 for a year that predates his employment by two 
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1 years at Santa Susana.

2 And you'll see other ones down the 

3 line. This was the one that I found the 

4 highest. But there are others of 63 rem, 44 

5 rem, et cetera, and in all instances, they 

6 precede the employment at Santa Susana.

7 Now, one could argue the point 

8 here that these values will certainly drive 

9 up, especially in the early years of the 

10 database, the 95th percentile value because 

11 these guys would obviously contribute to the 

12 highest dose for any given year. But it 

13 doesn't really significantly affect the 50th 

14 percentile value because that's the value that 

15 most likely will be used to actually identify 

16 a surrogate dose assignment for people were 

17 possibly not monitored.

18 So the value of including these, 

19 NIOSH may argue that these would only raise 

20 the bar to some extent, in the coworker model 

21 would in all likelihood really not do a whole

22 lot because very few people would really 
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1 benefit or be assigned the 95th percentile 

2 value as defined in table two of OTIB-0077.

3 Again, the use of termination data 

4 without breaking it apart has a way of skewing 

5 the high doses for any given year, and they

6 are most prevalent in the database for the 

7 early years, when people came into or became 

8 employees at Santa Susana with a fairly 

9 substantial lifetime exposure dose that they 

10 received prior to coming to Santa Susana at 

11 other facilities where, again, we don't really 

12 know where these people came from and whether 

13 or not their data really qualifies as 

14 surrogate data regardless of the termination 

15 issue that I just mentioned.

16 So I think having said that, I 

17 will ask Lara or Jim to comment on that issue.

18 DR. NETON: This is Jim. Again, 

19 shocking, but we're in total agreement with 

20 you again on this issue. I think it was just 

21 an inappropriate use of the database itself 

22 without cleaning it as such. I think it would 
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1 tend to skew the results high, and I do agree 

2 with you that you would be unlikely to affect 

3 the 95th percentile values. But it certainly 

4 shouldn't be in there.

5 One thing I would like to just 

6 comment on is, I think in the report, and you 

7 mentioned it a little earlier, that it's sort 

8 of an inappropriate use of surrogate data. In 

9 this particular case, I wouldn't really call 

10 that surrogate data. We weren't really using 

11 it as a surrogate.

12 It was just, I think, 

13 inappropriately left in the database. It 

14 wasn't our intent, at least my intent, that 

15 those data be used to reconstruct external 

16 exposures for workers at Santa Susana. It 

17 should have been stripped out of the database.

18 DR. BEHLING: Yes, and as I said, 

19 the -- and we'll get into in the next couple 

20 issues that the inclusion of pre-Santa Susana 

21 employment data is most pronounced in the 

22 early years, mainly obviously starting in 
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1 1948, in those early years where, as I will 

2 talk in a few minutes here, where essentially 

3 all of the data that we have available as part 

4 of the coworker came from facilities that we 

5 don't really have any knowledge about.

6 DR. NETON: Right. And the only 

7 other thing I might offer or add here is I 

8 think John might have mentioned this earlier 

9 in the meeting that it seemed to me based on 

10 my look through the database that there's 

11 sufficient information in the demographic 

12 columns to be able to strip out those 

13 inappropriate exposures. Because we have a 

14 database that indicates these employment years 

15 for each person, and it would be a fairly 

16 simple matter just to discount the records 

17 that are there for years when they weren't 

18 working at the facility.

19 DR. BEHLING: Yes, and, as I said, 

20 I think John Stiver had already mentioned that 

21 a substantial amount of data stripping may 

22 make the coworker model palatable. Although 
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1 you're going to realize you're going to be 

2 dealing with a lot fewer data points. 

3 DR. NETON: Right.

4 DR. BEHLING: But it may still be 

5 sufficient to come up with some estimate of 

6 coworker data by year.

7 DR. NETON: Right.

8 DR. BEHLING: Issue number three 

9 and I'm on -- 

10 MR. KATZ: Before we go -- this is 

11 Ted Katz -- so is that an action item in 

12 effect, is DCAS going to --

13 DR. NETON: We're going to revise 

14 --

15 MR. KATZ: -- revise --

16 DR. NETON: -- 77 to --

17 MR. STIVER: Okay. I think that 

18 will involve several of the other issues Hans 

19 is going to describe, too.

20 DR. HUGHES: Yes, they would all 

21 be addressed.

22 MR. STIVER: Yes, they will all be 
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1 addressed. We went over all action items.

2 MR. BERONJA: Okay. I know it's 

3 about five minutes till eleven. I don't know. 

4 Is this a big issue this next one, Hans?

5 DR. BEHLING: Well, I think it 

6 might be a good time to take a quick comfort 

7 break here and then come back in time for Jeff 

8 Kotsch to be on with the issue that we need to 

9 address at eleven o'clock.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Why don't we do 

11 that? Thanks, Hans. And we'll take a brief 

12 break and then at eleven we'll start up again 

13 and hopefully have Jeff on the phone. 

14 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

15 matter went off the record at 10:54 a.m. and 

16 resumed at a 11:03 a.m.)

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. We're back 

18 together. Let me check first and see that we 

19 have Jeff Kotsch on the line.

20 MR. KOTSCH: I'm here, Ted.

21 MR. KATZ: Great. And, Wanda, are 

22 you still with us?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I am.

2 MR. KATZ: Great. So, Jeff, we're 

3 going to begin discussing matters relevant to 

4 you. I think John Stiver has some sort of 

5 preliminary discussion.

6 MR. STIVER: Yes, I think it may 

7 echo what Jeff is going to say. But in 

8 reading the Board meeting from February, this 

9 was a very hot topic of discussion and I guess 

10 what you have is a situation that's kind of 

11 similar to Canoga and representative microcosm 

12 where you have poorly defined boundaries for 

13 Area IV. In combination with that, the 

14 boundaries are changing over time and 

15 expanding. And yet there's very poor access 

16 control into areas. So you have essentially 

17 free movement in and out of Area IV by non18 Area IV workers, the Rocketdyne workers.

19 And so while they're there, 

20 there's a potential to be contaminated to 

21 radionuclides which originate in Area IV. I 

22 guess there's kind of a fairness issue here. 
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1 Now I realize that the SEC petition was 

2 designated for Area IV personnel. But it 

3 seems like there's a large group out there who 

4 may be there for a 250 day period and may not. 

5 At this point, we don't know who may have 

6 been exposed.

7 And, of course, that's really my 

8 concern about that. And at the meeting, it 

9 was extensively discussed, but there was never 

10 any resolution or nothing ever came out of 

11 this in the new guide and I was left hanging.

12 Jeff, I guess I'll let you take 

13 over here and give us your perspective. 

14 MR. KOTSCH: At DOL, we're just 

15 trying to verify employment for the DOE area 

16 that's actually within -- it's actually for 

17 Area IV. And we can't -- as far as people 

18 moving between the different areas out there, 

19 you know, the test stand and I think that's 

20 Area 2 and you know the NASA test stand and 

21 stuff like that, we don't get into that per se 

22 because we're just interested in placing 
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1 people into Area IV, you know, basically the

2 DOE facility there.

3 MR. STIVER: Okay. So your area 

4 of interest was within Area IV how to define 

5 who was in the DOE portion of that area. 

6 Okay. I understand.

7 MR. KATZ: So, maybe you can 

8 explain for John just to be explicit about it. 

9 What does DOL do about employees who are not 

10 formally employees of the Area IV that's 

11 covered but that are coming in and out of the 

12 area and were perhaps accumulating exposures 

13 associated with those visits.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Excuse me. 

15 There's also one other issue tied into that 

16 and that's that there were company employees 

17 who may at times have been assigned to Area 1, 

18 2 or 3, but then a workload picked up. They 

19 were assigned, not just moved in and out. 

20 They could have been there for extended 

21 periods of time. You know there seems to be a 

22 lack of records to demonstrate that.
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1 MR. STIVER: So is your statement 

2 based on record input then or recollections? 

3 There are really no employment records or 

4 demographic aid that would demonstrate that.

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: There's still 

6 the fact of a lot of overtime, six day work 

7 weeks. And there's -- when we toured the site 

8 out there, even the DOE and the company 

9 couldn't tell us how they tracked workers or 

10 once you get past the guard at the entrance of 

11 the plant, there you go.

12 MR. KATZ: Right. So just to be 

13 clear you're talking about employees who are 

14 formally assigned to that area or not and then 

15 are coming into the area. Which are you 

16 speaking of?

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It can work both 

18 ways. If they're formally assigned to the 

19 area, Jeff, can you address that? I mean, if 

20 they're formally assigned, then we do their 

21 dose reconstruction. They're covered 

22 employees, right?
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1 MR. KOTSCH: If they're assigned 

2 to that area, yes. I mean again everything is 

3 done on a case-by-case basis based on records, 

4 you know, employment records, security 

5 records, affidavits if they're presented and 

6 things like that. But certainly if they're in 

7 Area IV or if they appear to be employed at 

8 Area IV and we can verify that employment 

9 area, then they would be covered.

10 MR. STIVER: I guess the dose time 

11 impact is 250 days, doesn't it? I mean if you 

12 have a person who's assigned to Area IV and it 

13 appears on paper that they were there 250 

14 days, but maybe they weren't. Maybe they 

15 left. So that might have implications for 

16 working the other way of folks who were 

17 assigned in 1, 2, or 3 and then came in for an 

18 extended period who are not get consideration 

19 in the SEC.

20 Now Ted brought up a point. Would 

21 dose reconstructions be performed for 

22 claimants from those other three areas? I 
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1 mean they clearly wouldn't fit the definition 

2 of the SEC. But that would not be --

3 DR. NETON: We would only 

4 reconstruct doses that are sent to us from the 

5 Department of Labor.

6 MR. STIVER: And those would be 

7 for Area IV and they wouldn't be.

8 DR. NETON: From what you're 

9 saying, the person would have to demonstrate 

10 some employment in Area IV.

11 MR. STIVER: A period of --

12 DR. NETON: Without that and 

13 demonstrating that I don't think they would be 

14 accepted in the claim which is different from 

15 the other sites. If you look at -- you know 

16 we had Canoga where you had the Vanowen 

17 building. The whole site was covered even 

18 though for all practical intents and purposes 

19 the Vanowen building is the only building with 

20 DOE activity or ADC activities took place. I 

21 think that's sort of the distinction that's 

22 been made here. Why is Area IV different than 
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1 that?

2 MEMBER BEACH: What would you 

3 consider an acceptable demonstration of work 

4 in that area?

5 DR. NETON: That would totally be 

6 up to Department of Labor.

7 MR. KATZ: That's a question for 

8 Jeff Kotsch.

9 MEMBER BEACH: That is?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Jeff, did you hear 

12 that question?

13 MR. KOTSCH: I'm sorry. Could you 

14 just repeat that?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I was just 

16 wondering what would be considered an 

17 acceptable demonstration of working in Area 

18 IV. If you weren't assigned to that area and 

19 yet you worked in that area how would you 

20 prove that you were actually in that area?

21 MR. KOTSCH: Again, on a case-by22 case basis, it's confirmation from DOE or I 
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1 guess it would be Boeing. There might be 

2 security records. There might be affidavits 

3 presented. Personnel records. I mean there's 

4 a host of things that are used by the claims 

5 examiners when they attempt to determine 

6 whether the person was employed, you know, I 

7 mean worked in Area IV basically or for there 

8 because that was the area that was under the 

9 DOE contract at Atomics International.

10 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie. I'd 

11 like to add something. We had a lot of the 

12 support services that were out of Area IV, but 

13 they were in Area IV all the time for the 

14 maintenance and for the -- they used the -- A 

15 lot of people used the x-ray lab. 

16 Nondestructive testing came in and out. Used 

17 their x-ray lab buildings.

18 And don't forget the fire 

19 department. They served all the areas. They 

20 were the first on the site for uranium fires. 

21 And a lot of the records only show a shack 

22 where they were working which was where they 
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1 clocked in. Very difficult to know exactly 

2 which building they were in. Are you there?

3 MR. KATZ: Yes. Thank you, 

4 Bonnie. So it sounds like in some of the 

5 situations where they don't have records I 

6 think Jeff was saying that's where they rely 

7 on affidavits, other forms of confirmation 

8 that the person was employed.

9 MS. KLEA: Well, it's difficult to 

10 get an affidavit because most of the people 

11 are dead. I mean this is 50 years ago.

12 MR. KATZ: Right. Well, I'm sure 

13 there are limitations to what DOL can do to 

14 confirm coverage.

15 MS. KLEA: Right.

16 MR. KATZ: But that's a process 

17 that goes on then at DOL before NIOSH ever 

18 sees the claim. It doesn't come to NIOSH 

19 unless DOL can confirm that the person was 

20 working within the covered facility.

21 MS. KLEA: Right. Well, almost 

22 every worker, it's like an unanimous opinion 
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1 that it was not controlled. They were in and 

2 out, clocking in at Canoga, then going up and 

3 doing electrician -- you know, electricians 

4 would go up and work or the x-ray laboratory 

5 would be used and they went in and out without 

6 even thinking of any areas. Most of the 

7 workers didn't know there was such a thing as 

8 areas up there.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, and that certainly 

10 sounds like a challenge for DOL in some of 

11 these cases.

12 MS. KLEA: Exactly.

13 MR. KATZ: I recognize that.

14 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver. 

15 It seems that there's kind of a parallel 

16 here. It's almost like a precedent that's 

17 getting set with the Canoga facility by 

18 expansion. But yet from Labor's standpoint, I 

19 can see how they can say that in that 

20 situation we really can't identify a person 

21 for the full period with any -- whereas we can 

22 with Area IV.
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1 I guess, Jeff, what is the -- say, 

2 you have a site that's defined for a certain 

3 area for a certain category of workers and 

4 evidence is presented that may not be 

5 adequate. There may be other workers that 

6 indeed could have received doses in that area. 

7 What's the Labor process for going through 

8 and potentially redefining any area based on 

9 new information?

10 Jeff, are you still with us?

11 MR. KOTSCH: Yes. We would need -

12 - we would have to submit evidence of 

13 operations if you're talking periods outside 

14 of our facilities outside of what's already 

15 defined, proprietary interests and --

16 MR. STIVER: What types of 

17 information would be considered adequate for 

18 considering an expansion of an area 

19 definition?

20 MR. KOTSCH: Well, like I said, 

21 evidence of contracts with DOE or AEC, 

22 proprietary information if that were 
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1 available, information on operations.

2 PARTICIPANT: This is --

3 MR. KOTSCH: Hang on a second.

4 MS. ENDERS: This is Caroline

5 Enders. I'm here with Jeff Kotsch, too. One 

6 of the things we're running up against here is 

7 the scope of the DOE facility and, with regard 

8 to Santa Susana, Area IV has been defined as 

9 the DOE facility. And so to change definition 

10 -- to expand what constitutes a DOE facility, 

11 one needs to meet the definition of a DOE 

12 facility that's specified in the law.

13 And you know here -- and that 

14 would be you've got to have operations 

15 conducted on behalf of DOE facilities on 

16 behalf of DOE. And then DOE either has to own 

17 premises of the building or there has to be a 

18 management in operating, a management in 

19 integration, construction services or 

20 remediation type of contract in place for that 

21 location.

22 So that is what defines the scope 
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1 of the facilities. It's really different that 

2 that, but it's related to employment.

3 MR. STIVER: Okay. I guess the 

4 other facet to that is that once that facility 

5 is defined then workers would be subject to 

6 that definition would then have to provide 

7 some kind of concrete proof that they were 

8 indeed there for any specified period of time. 

9 And that's what we have here. We just don't 

10 have proof. We have recollections, but we 

11 don't have any documented demographic data 

12 that would indicate that.

13 MR. KOTSCH: That's correct.

14 MR. STIVER: So we're kind of 

15 hammering on the stand still at this point.

16 Anybody else have comments they'd 

17 like to provide regarding this issue?

18 MS. KLEA: Well, I'd like to say 

19 one more thing that it's very difficult to 

20 find the proof. I have several workers who 

21 work at the Van Nuys facility and in the '50s 

22 the fuel rods were taken from the SRE for 
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1 reprocessing at the Van Nuys facility. I have 

2 reports done by the reporter writers. I have 

3 eyewitness testimony. Yet no contracts were 

4 found with the DOE on using that facility.

5 So these workers were given credit 

6 for being at the De Soto facility when they 

7 actually weren't. There is very little 

8 evidence of a clear definition of the DOE 

9 buildings and the DOE boundaries and it's 

10 consistently changed as I showed you at the 

11 meeting in Manhattan Beach. I showed you the 

12 boundaries in '56 compared to the boundaries 

13 today and we don't know when exactly that 

14 evolved. So very unclear as to a true 

15 definition of the scope of this facility.

16 MR. STIVER: And I think the 

17 changing boundary issue is really more related 

18 to who might have been there without having 

19 awareness of it or who could have potentially 

20 been exposed.

21 But I think having that kind of 

22 come into this midgame I guess I'm really not 
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1 100 percent sure what type of due diligence 

2 has been done or whether there's additional 

3 work that could be done to try to identify 

4 records for these personnel that might Mike 

5 Gibson and Bonnie have talked about. I mean 

6 there may be records out there that just 

7 haven't been identified that could then be 

8 used to used to possibly do dose 

9 reconstructions for these persons.

10 MS. KLEA: Very little records.

11 MR. STIVER: But do we know for a 

12 fact that there aren't any records that might 

13 exist?

14 MS. KLEA: Well, we've done 

15 research especially at the Van Nuys facility. 

16 I've presented reports and I've presented 

17 claims on workers who were there and a map 

18 which showed all the DOE facilities in this 

19 area. Showed the Van Nuys facility. Yet no 

20 records have been found showing a contract 

21 with DOE.

22 So whether it was a subcontract 
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1 out of Atomics International De Soto facility 

2 to use those buildings I don't know how the 

3 system works. But we're certainly lacking on 

4 information, lacking on areas where we can 

5 place the workers because there were only two 

6 places to clock in for 400 buildings. 

7 And I have two dozen claims at 

8 least here for the families which showed lack 

9 of anything for the time periods. No 

10 buildings were listed. Just blank spaces. So 

11 this is one of the really difficult issues. 

12 How can you do dose reconstruction for people 

13 when you don't know where they were?

14 MR. STIVER: I guess I'm looking 

15 at this as to whether the Board would consider 

16 it worthwhile to conduct further research.

17 MR. KATZ: That's already 

18 essentially been done. I mean NIOSH reported 

19 just in this meeting that they've looked 

20 through their records and don't have more to 

21 substantiate expanding at least from the 

22 records that NIOSH has come across. I mean it 
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1 really is a DOL issue, not a Board issue to do 

2 research on the boundary definitions for the 

3 operation or to have other means by which to 

4 place people as covered employees.

5 MR. BERONJA: I guess there's the 

6 two options then. They can either go on by a 

7 case-to-case basis and gather whatever they 

8 can gather or change the definition of what's 

9 included in Area IV, right?

10 MR. STIVER: Right.

11 MR. BERONJA: So I guess, is Labor 

12 comfortable in going ahead with the case-by13 case or if they say it's not possible in many 

14 cases and then we may need to have some other 

15 consideration just like Canoga. Isn't that 

16 true?

17 DR. NETON: Well, Canoga, the 

18 facility was already broad based. It was the 

19 entire Canoga site.

20 MR. BERONJA: That's what I mean. 

21 Do we have to go to the whole site for Area 

22 IV?
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1 MR. KATZ: I think what DOL has 

2 said but, Jeff, you can amend that -- I mean 

3 what DOL has said in this meeting is that 

4 their documentation doesn't provide them a 

5 basis to expand the boundaries beyond Area IV. 

6 We don't have a cover facility basis for 

7 other areas even though employees may have 

8 come into the area for -- I mean that's one of 

9 the different questions.

10 MR. STIVER: Right. You couldn't 

11 define a DOE facility.

12 MR. KATZ: They're not working for 

13 the covered facility when they're at their 

14 normal place of work. Only when they come 

15 into the boundaries and the whole issue is 

16 just then affirmatively showing that they did 

17 come into that area and work for the covered 

18 facility in which case again affidavits where 

19 you don't have documentation. If you don't 

20 have survivors or what have you to even be 

21 able to produce affidavits I think I don't 

22 know what DOL does in that circumstance.
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1 Jeff, is there more you want to 

2 elaborate from my attempt there?

3 MR. KOTSCH: No. But again, all 

4 of Area IV is covered right now. That's 

5 what's considered the building.

6 MR. BERONJA: So there has been no 

7 other precedent within the NIOSH program or 

8 something like this where there's other 

9 outlying facilities outside of DOE defined 

10 facility where there was movement of people 

11 back and forth where the area was --

12 DR. NETON: No, we've had some 

13 situations where additional facilities have 

14 been added to an existing facility. For 

15 example, I think of Chapman Valve and the -- I 

16 forget the name of that offsite. But there 

17 was another building where it was actually 

18 determined to have possibly moved some 

19 material. So that was annexed onto the 

20 Chapman Valve.

21 MR. BERONJA: But that was more 

22 operation based than employee based.
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1 DR. NETON: Yes.

2 MR. BERONJA: It hasn't been done 

3 for an employee.

4 DR. NETON: It's always been 

5 operation.

6 MR. STIVER: The issue we have 

7 here is an inability to the process to add 

8 class of employees without facility definition 

9 without providing some sort of documented 

10 proof that they were indeed there for a period 

11 of time. 

12 MR. KATZ: So I imagine this 

13 occurs at other -- Jeff, you could correct me, 

14 but I imagine this same situation occurs at 

15 other facilities where you have employees who 

16 come into the site but are not covered 

17 employees. They can't demonstrate that. 

18 They're probably at various other facilities 

19 where this occurs to some extent.

20 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, that's true, 

21 Ted. And then you also have the people that 

22 come on the sites that aren't actually 
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1 employees.

2 MR. KATZ: Right.

3 DR. NETON: Your contractors.

4 MR. KOTSCH: Your vendors, guys 

5 delivering mail or some machine or whatever.

6 MR. STIVER: But again you don't 

7 have a demonstration that they were there.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So, Jeff, this 

9 is Mike. Does your current definition of Area 

10 IV does it include Building 9 and Building 

11 373?

12 MR. KOTSCH: Mike, I'd have to 

13 check. I mean if it's in Area IV it would 

14 cover it. I don't know that there's any 

15 restriction by building. It's just the 

16 boundary basically.

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: The boundary 

18 you're currently using, I just want to know if 

19 Building 9 and Building 373 is included inside 

20 that boundary or in other areas of Santa 

21 Susana.

22 MR. KOTSCH: Yes. I'd have to get 
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1 back to you, Mike, because I don't have that 

2 right in front of me. What buildings again? 

3 Nine and?

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Three seventy5 three and also the old conservative yard.

6 MS. KLEA: Lara mentioned, Lara 

7 Hughes mentioned, that it was in Area IV. But 

8 this letter I have in DOE in 1996 says it was 

9 outside of DOE areas.

10 DR. HUGHES: Yes, it says outside 

11 the DOE portion of Area IV. I'm not sure what 

12 map DOE uses, but the one NIOSH uses for the 

13 TBDs does include these three facilities in 

14 Area IV and they're covered in our Site 

15 Profile. So I can't speak to DOL.

16 MR. KOTSCH: This is Jeff Kotsch. 

17 If NIOSH is including it, we included it, 

18 too.

19 MS. KLEA: Okay. So that means 

20 that any worker at these areas would be under 

21 the SEC?

22 DR. HUGHES: Yes.
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1 MR. KOTSCH: Right.

2 MR. KATZ: Yes, unless they don't 

3 have a covered cancer or their required days 

4 in which case they would get a partial dose 

5 reconstruction.

6 MR. KOTSCH: Again this is Jeff. 

7 I think we consider in Area IV. If they're in 

8 Area IV, then that applies.

9 MS. KLEA: Well, the problem is 

10 they didn't use the building numbers for 

11 locations. They used a code and there is no 

12 key to that code. So we don't know which 

13 buildings anyone worked at.

14 MR. KOTSCH: Again, I'd have to --

15 I'm not quite sure how that's handled other 

16 than on a case-by-case basis they'd attempt to 

17 place the people within Area IV if they could 

18 based on whatever evidence that they have.

19 MS. KLEA: Well, this is really 

20 one of the big issues because the surviving 

21 families have no idea where members worked. 

22 They have no idea really what they did. So 
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1 this is a difficult situation.

2 MR. KATZ: Jeff, is this something 

3 that DOL might research, this code that they 

4 have against whatever records DOL has from the 

5 facility to be able to crack the code so to 

6 speak?

7 MR. KOTSCH: I think -- I mean 

8 certainly we could look at it, but I think you 

9 need to have that submitted as a formal 

10 request to here at headquarters so that we 

11 could review it.

12 MS. KLEA: I have some reference 

13 for that. It's very much spelled out in the 

14 UCLA report and I have the page numbers. And 

15 I was told by Laurie Breyer you do have that -

16 - You have that as a reference. It's already 

17 in the Department.

18 MR. KATZ: Well, Bonnie, that 

19 sounds like something worth pursuing with DOL 

20 formally.

21 MS. KLEA: How am I going to do 

22 that? I can tell you right now the UCLA 
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1 report published in 1997, page 11, details the 

2 problems with the areas. They used a two3 digit code for some of the years. And for 

4 some of the years they used a three-digit 

5 code. They had two places to clock in for 

6 the 400 different buildings and Boeing has no 

7 key to the codes.

8 MR. KOTSCH: This is Jeff Kotsch. 

9 My recommendation, Bonnie, is that you just 

10 submit a brief letter describing whatever 

11 information you want us to look at and send it 

12 here to Rachel Leiton.

13 MS. KLEA: Okay.

14 MR. KOTSCH: I think that's the 

15 best way to approach that.

16 MS. KLEA: Okay. But you already 

17 have the information. Can't you just go ahead 

18 and do it?

19 MR. KOTSCH: I personally don't 

20 know. I mean I don't have that information. 

21 I could check around and see. But these are 

22 usually better handled by formal requests so 
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1 that they get responded to and that you get 

2 some decision.

3 MS. KLEA: Okay. So just tell her 

4 what's the UCLA report and ask her for a 

5 response.

6 MR. KOTSCH: Yes, I mean site. 

7 Ask the question that you're trying to link 

8 the codes to whatever you can reference that 

9 report I guess.

10 MS. KLEA: Okay. All right. 

11 Because they're not linked to any -- The codes 

12 are not linked to anything. They're not 

13 linked to a building. They're not linked to 

14 an area.

15 MR. KATZ: So, Bonnie, in your 

16 letter I would encourage DOL to have 

17 discussions with Boeing and try to pursue that 

18 further. I mean it may be that Boeing doesn't 

19 have the answer at its disposal. But more 

20 digging at Boeing might produce an answer to 

21 this problem. So it might take a little work 

22 on the part of Boeing.
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1 And you know they don't get paid 

2 for doing this stuff. So in some cases I 

3 think we've had the experience where the 

4 employers at these who don't have any current 

5 contract and so on, they may not go to the 

6 full length of effort that you might want them 

7 to without more encouragement and they could 

8 get that encouragement from DOL perhaps. You 

9 should pursue that and lay that out in your 

10 letter to DOL.

11 MS. KLEA: Okay. So a hard copy 

12 send it by snail mail or should I do an email?

13 MR. KOTSCH: Bonnie, this is Jeff 

14 Kotsch. I think a letter is more appropriate.

15 MS. KLEA: Okay. I'll do that.

16 MR. KOTSCH: I appreciate it.

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So it continues. 

18 Did Hans have more?

19 MR. STIVER: Yes. Hans has more 

20 show.

21 Hans, are you with us still?

22 DR. BEHLING: Yes, I'm still here.
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1 MR. KATZ: So we probably could 

2 just pick right up with -- I think we're on 

3 issue three.

4 DR. BEHLING: Issue number three, 

5 yes. And for those who have the report I 

6 would ask you to turn to section 4.3 on page 

7 eight and issue three is really an overview of 

8 how the database consists of information that 

9 goes beyond the Santa Susana Field Laboratory 

10 exposures. And I have multiple examples on 

11 that.

12 In the first set of examples, I 

13 have identified worker number 3,344 and worker 

14 number 5,668 as examples. And their annual 

15 exposures are defined in table three that is 

16 on page nine of my report. If you look at, 

17 for instances, worker number 3,344, he was 

18 employed at Santa Susana for only five years 

19 between 1958 and '62. And the other worker 

20 5668 he was employed only at Santa Susana for 

21 three years, namely 1960 and '62.

22 And if you look at the table, for 
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1 instance, the first worker 3344, his first 

2 exposure was identified in 1948. And of 

3 course that exposure is 6,186 millirems and of 

4 course that's in all likelihood was the 

5 determination for it. Then he worked for ten 

6 years -- No, he worked for five years or so. 

7 No, it's even more than that. If you look at

8 the data, I don't have the count. But he 

9 worked obviously for a total of 33 years of 

10 which only five years were spent at Santa 

11 Susana. And in the five years that you're 

12 looking at -- I'm referring to table three 

13 now.

14 If you're looking at the dates 

15 here, he worked at Santa Susana for '58 to '62 

16 and yet there's only two doses assigned for 

17 those five years. And yet the bulk of his 

18 exposure comes from facilities that are 

19 unspecified including that very large initial 

20 dose in 1948 of 6,186 millirem.

21 For the second worker 5668, again 

22 we start out with obviously what would be a 
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1 determination dose of 11,711 millirems. And 

2 then, of course, he worked at all these other 

3 facilities and we don't know which ones. But 

4 they are unspecified. And there are some very

5 hefty doses there. Obviously, when you look 

6 at 1958 and 1959, he had doses of 5.6 rem and 

7 8.7 rem. And these are all exposures that he 

8 received some place other than Santa Susana. 

9 On the other hand, he did receive some 

10 substantial doses at Santa Susana for the 

11 three years that he worked there from '60 to 

12 '62. 

13 But what it really points out to 

14 is that for many of these workers and these 

15 are probably extreme cases we have an awful 

16 lot of annual doses that were received at 

17 facilities that remain unspecified. And at 

18 least for these two people and there are 

19 plenty of others their exposures, their 

20 lifetime exposures, were relatively minor 

21 exposures received at Santa Susana as exposure 

22 received at facilities elsewhere.
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1 MR. BERONJA: Hans, this is Greg. 

2 Just for clarification, when you say Santa 

3 Susana are you talking about all four sites or 

4 is Boice talking about all four sites as far 

5 as just Santa Susana or Area IV?

6 DR. BEHLING: Well, I think again 

7 I'm not so sure because in tab one of the 

8 spreadsheets it only identifies the years of 

9 employment at Rocketdyne and Atomic 

10 International. And I'm not sure whether that 

11 includes Area IV or is more restrictive. I 

12 really don't know.

13 MR. BERONJA: Okay.

14 DR. BEHLING: But I listed it 

15 here. So you can just look at table three on 

16 page nine and identify those years where I 

17 have Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the 

18 columns that says, "Okay, this is exposure 

19 that perhaps may be the only exposure that we 

20 should have in this coworker database as 

21 opposed to all the other exposures that these 

22 individuals received at facilities other than 
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1 Santa Susana and may not qualify for inclusion 

2 in the coworker database."

3 Any extreme example when we talk 

4 about perhaps the use of inappropriate data 

5 from other facilities is really defined for 

6 instance for the very first year. If you look 

7 at table two of TIB 77 for 1948, that table in 

8 TIB 77 identifies 46 individuals as 

9 contributing to a dose that is defined at the 

10 50th percentile to 95th percentile.

11 And if you look at that database 

12 for 1948 and that's defined in table 4 on page 

13 11 of my report, you will realize that not a 

14 single worker for the first year for which 

15 this database is intended to be used, 1948, 

16 not a single worker of the 46 individuals who 

17 contributed to that estimated dose at the 

18 50th/95th percentile was actually employed at 

19 Santa Susana. And I think that is really 

20 something that is a hallmark of perhaps the 

21 data that is currently used in the coworker 

22 model. It is perhaps not appropriate. And 
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1 the extreme case here is the very first year 

2 in 1948 where all 46 individuals that 

3 represent the 50th and 95th percentiles dose 

4 values were individuals who worked at 

5 facilities that had nothing to do with Santa 

6 Susana.

7 I went the next step and I said, 

8 "Okay. Let me go and look at another data 

9 point and that is for the year 1950." And for 

10 the year 1950 based on table two of TIB 77, 

11 the number of data points they identified here 

12 was 118. And I again looked at that 

13 particular dataset and said, "Okay. Let me go 

14 look at all 118 individuals that represent 

15 that year's 50th and 95th percentiles dose 

16 value and determine whether or not they were 

17 actually working there at Santa Susana and 

18 received that dose there or someplace else." 

19 And it turns out that 59 exactly 

20 half of 118 individuals had exposures at Santa 

21 Susana and 59 or the other 50 percent of the 

22 individuals who contributed to that set of 
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1 annual doses were exposed at facilities other 

2 than Santa Susana.

3 But then I did one more thing and 

4 I said, "Let me look at the exposures that 59 

5 people who actually were employed at Santa 

6 Susana received and then look at the other 59 

7 individuals whose exposures occurred at 

8 someplace other" and I found something 

9 interesting. For the 59 people who received 

10 their exposures at Santa Susana, the average 

11 dose -- this is an arithmetic mean -- was 1112 

12 millirem. For the 59 individuals whose 

13 exposure was received at the facilities other 

14 than Santa Susana, the exposure was -- the 

15 average of the arithmetic exposure was 462 

16 millirem. So by including exposures that 

17 occurred at facilities other than Santa 

18 Susana, you're actually diluting. In other 

19 words, the people whose exposure, the 59 

20 people who were exposed at Santa Susana, had 

21 more than two times the average exposure 

22 received by people who were exposed at 
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1 facilities other than Santa Susana.

2 Again, when I look back at some of 

3 the statements that were made in OTIB-0077, 

4 the statement was by including exposures 

5 received at other facilities we're basically 

6 upping the exposure. And therefore it is a 

7 claimant favorable issue. It's not the case 

8 at least for 1950 as I pointed out here. By 

9 including exposures of people who were not 

10 employed at Santa Susana you are in fact 

11 diluting the exposure.

12 And I think I'll let Lara and Jim 

13 comment on item three.

14 DR. NETON: Well, again, we agree 

15 with you. We have to take this under 

16 consideration when we reanalyze the data of 

17 the coworker model in TIB-77 and also we need 

18 to reevaluate whether or not, in some of the 

19 earlier years at least, the remaining data are 

20 sufficient to have a valid coworker model 

21 keeping in mind that the site is already an 

22 SEC Site prior to 1964. We would like to be 
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1 able to reconstruct external exposures. But 

2 if there aren't sufficient remaining data 

3 points, it might be the case that we can't.

4 DR. BEHLING: Okay. That brings 

5 us to issue number four and that's the 

6 interpretation of length and the potential for 

7 unaccounted dose. Here I looked at the data 

8 and again the database is very, very large. 

9 As I'd mentioned, you're talking about 5800 

10 individuals who are identified in that 

11 database. And just to scroll down for each 

12 year you realize you're dealing -- if you do 

13 this manually, it's a very tedious job.

14 But what I did was I looked at at 

15 least a sampling of individuals and in this

16 case, I looked at people whose employment 

17 record suggested a certain number of years of 

18 work at Santa Susana. And then I looked at 

19 those years and said, okay, to what extent is 

20 even the doses assigned for their employment 

21 at Santa Susana complete?

22 Because if I looked at the blanks 
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1 for other facilities, it's possible that they 

2 may have been employed elsewhere for 

3 intermittent periods of time where there was 

4 no need to monitor them and there was no need 

5 for exposure. And so therefore when I see a 

6 blank, it's really a question of is this a 

7 period of time where that individual was not 

8 exposed and perhaps didn't need to be 

9 monitored or is it still an issue that 

10 involved missing records?

11 But that question, I wanted to 

12 avoid having to deal with that by focusing 

13 only on those years during which a given 

14 individual was in fact employed at Santa 

15 Susana and then looking at the exposure 

16 record. And for that, I looked at worker 

17 number 19 and worker number 1 right up at the 

18 top of the list. And those workers are 

19 identified by exposure and year in table 

20 number -- no, it's actually not a table. It's 

21 on page 15. I didn't even identify it as a 

22 table.
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1 But you will see a series of 

2 blanks. In the case of worker number 19 you 

3 will see he was employed from '57 through 1975 

4 at Santa Susana. And yet we have some very, 

5 very high doses in the first recorded year of 

6 dose. In 1958 he received 2950 millirem.

7 The next year 1960 he was 2410 and 

8 in fact there's a typo in there. It should be 

9 '59 and so forth. But then you skip to 1965, 

10 again that's bracketed. In 1964, he had 4240 

11 millirem and for 1965, there's a blank and 

12 there's another blank in 1970 among all these 

13 exposures.

14 And the question that comes to 

15 mind is, what happened in those years? Is 

16 this truly a situation where the individual 

17 was perhaps not monitored because he didn't 

18 need to be or are we looking at incomplete or 

19 gaps in the dosimetry data even for people who 

20 worked at Santa Susana?

21 And the same thing again applies 

22 to worker number 1 where we know that he
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1 worked from 1946 to 1982 as an employee of 

2 Santa Susana. But for the first four years 

3 there are blanks. And then you see, 

4 obviously, exposures for a number of years and 

5 then that's followed by three more blanks and 

6 so on and so on.

7 And again the question that comes 

8 to mind is was this individual truly not 

9 monitored and therefore he didn't need to be 

10 monitored and there's no gaps in the data. Or 

11 was this -- or is this really a question of 

12 not necessarily having all of the data that we 

13 should have on behalf of that individual?

14 Normally, I would look at the 

15 database and if I saw a zero there, it would 

16 at least appear that the individual was 

17 monitored but perhaps his exposure was below 

18 the limits of detection for that whole year. 

19 And therefore at least we can reasonably 

20 conclude that there was no significant 

21 exposure other than perhaps a missing dose 

22 that needs to be assigned. When I see a 
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1 blank, I do have to question whether or not 

2 there was a -- this is a case of missing 

3 dosimetry data.

4 I guess at this point if you go to 

5 page 16, I have to say that the existence of 

6 blanks raises really two interrelated 

7 questions. And the more significant question 

8 -- I think I already addressed question one --

9 is really a question of gaps or missing data.

10 But question number two, what do 

11 we do for workers number 1 and number 19? 

12 Because if we were to -- let's assume here 

13 both of those workers were claimants. What 

14 would we do in terms of their dose 

15 reconstruction if we encountered these gaps? 

16 Suppose workers 1 and 19 had a claim with 

17 NIOSH and we needed to somehow address the 

18 issue of missing data. We would in essence, 

19 based on our current protocol, assign them the 

20 95th percentile dose based on our guidance 

21 that we have to adhere to, and yet these are 

22 people off the coworker model. So we're 
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1 looking at this circular problem here where 

2 the coworker data model is in effect possibly 

3 deficient and needs to be addressed because, 

4 as I said, if these individuals were 

5 themselves claimants we would have to fill in 

6 those gaps and we would have fill in with the 

7 95th percentile coworker model which in 

8 essence is a circular form of reasoning.

9 DR. NETON: Hans, this is Jim. I 

10 don't know that that's necessarily true. I 

11 think the external dosimetry implementation 

12 guide speaks of other ways of imputing those 

13 other than the coworker model, and that is 

14 some of the more traditional techniques that 

15 have been used in other studies such as nearby 

16 doses where if you clearly have a case in 

17 front of you and the guy had exactly the same 

18 job description for three years running and 

19 the middle piece is missing you could use 

20 those two endpoints to come up with some sort 

21 of a estimate of what that missing dose was in 

22 the middle period.
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1 On the other hand, if clearly the 

2 guy changed job titles and was working in a 

3 potentially non-radiological operation we have 

4 to rethink how we would fill that in. So 

5 there are techniques other than just purely 

6 using the coworker model.

7 DR. BEHLING: As I said, I don't 

8 know. If you look at Implementation Guide 1 

9 they offer you multiple things such as you 

10 would assign the maximum dose as an upper 

11 limit --

12 DR. NETON: Right.

13 DR. BEHLING: -- that was a 

14 permissible dose at the time. Or you would 

15 interpolate between the two adjacent exposures 

16 for years and somehow or other assign a value. 

17 But in any case, I'm looking at some of the 

18 gaps here, these blanks, and I'm questioning 

19 whether or not these are truly periods of time 

20 when the individual was not exposed to 

21 radiation, therefore there was no recorded 

22 exposure, or whether these are gaps in our 
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1 dosimetry data.

2 DR. NETON: Right.

3 MR. BERONJA: Hans, this is Greg. 

4 One other side issue that I'm just looking 

5 at, worker number 1. Now are you saying that 

6 this worker worked at Santa Susana from '46 

7 until '82?

8 DR. BEHLING: That's what the tab 

9 one indicates on the spreadsheet, yes.

10 MR. BERONJA: And this person got 

11 some reasonable doses from '50 through '54.

12 DR. BEHLING: Yes.

13 MR. BERONJA: So before the 

14 covered period.

15 DR. BEHLING: Yes.

16 MR. BERONJA: I mean I don't know 

17 how that occurs. It's just suspicious one way 

18 or the other.

19 DR. BEHLING: I mean if you look 

20 at worker 19 he had some very high doses from 

21 '59 to '64, you know, 2900, 2400 and in 1964 

22 4240 millirem as an annual exposure. So these 
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1 were exposures that he received at Santa 

2 Susana, at least, according -- if the tab one 

3 that is the employment period that defines, 

4 for worker 19, '57 through '75, if that's 

5 correct, then these are exposures he received 

6 at Santa Susana.

7 MR. STIVER: Well, you know, Greg 

8 has a point. If we're -- pretty good data 

9 that would indicate there wasn't any potential 

10 for an exposure in those early years and he 

11 has those doses, then maybe these are from 

12 another facility that were then brought back 

13 in. So it could be that this tab one data is 

14 suspect.

15 DR. BEHLING: Well, I'm not so 

16 sure. But at least if we at this point assume 

17 that the demographics defined in tab one are 

18 correct -- that is the use of employment at 

19 Santa Susana is correct -- then these 

20 exposures are attributable to the Santa Susana 

21 facility.

22 MR. BERONJA: Yes. Could have 
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1 been at Downey.

2 MR. STIVER: But I think that the 

3 --

4 (Simultaneous speaking.)

5 MR. STIVER: Yes. Okay.

6 DR. HUGHES: This data would 

7 encompass all four sites.

8 MR. STIVER: There's a tendency to 

9 focus on Area IV.

10 DR. NETON: Right.

11 MR. BERONJA: But the SEC for the 

12 four areas is beginning -- what is it for 

13 Downey?

14 MR. STIVER: It's based for the 

15 entire period. It's '48 though --

16 DR. HUGHES: Forty-eight.

17 MR. BERONJA: Okay.

18 DR. NETON: The whole time period.

19 MR. BERONJA: Okay.

20 MS. KLEA: Hans, this is Bonnie. 

21 Do you have any locations or projects that 

22 would identify worker 19 or worker 1?
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1 DR. BEHLING: No, I don't. As I 

2 said, at this point, Bonnie, I only have what 

3 the database's spreadsheets provide me with 

4 that the Boice people put together to come up 

5 with their retroactive mortality study. Other 

6 than the fact that these people would have 

7 been employed at Boice, but I assume they were 

8 employed at Santa Susana during those years 

9 that's under tab one.

10 If you want to, you can go on the 

11 O: drive, Bonnie, and identify what these 

12 individuals' data represent, demographic data 

13 and dosimetry data. I've taken that dataset 

14 at face value without questioning their 

15 accuracy.

16 MS. KLEA: Okay. Would this be 

17 external or internal monitoring?

18 DR. BEHLING: This is only 

19 external monitoring.

20 MS. KLEA: Okay. Because I read 

21 that there was no internal monitoring done for 

22 the SRE in '59. Would you say that these high 
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1 doses for worker 19 would indicate accidents?

2 DR. BEHLING: Well, it doesn't 

3 have to. I mean in those early years the 

4 exposure doses or the limits for exposure 

5 doses was 3 rem per quarter and, of course, 

6 5(N-18) and, of course, not for 1 and 19, but 

7 the other ones that I showed in the previous 

8 one in table five, you know, they're -- no, 

9 actually four, those are termination doses. 

10 We look at 11,000 millirem. Those are clearly 

11 exposures not received in a single year, but 

12 obviously in a number of years and we don't 

13 know how many years that termination report 

14 really represents.

15 MS. KLEA: Thank you.

16 DR. NETON: Well, I think from our 

17 perspective SC&A has pointed out something 

18 that we probably need to go back and do a 

19 little more homework on and see if we can 

20 evaluate a little better what the existence of 

21 these blanks actually entails.

22 DR. BEHLING: Okay. I think if 
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1 there are no other comments we can go to the 

2 last one and that is we will come full circle 

3 again on the issue of neutrons. In issue one 

4 I had suggested that perhaps NIOSH 

5 misinterpreted the database where the total 

6 dose was in fact a combination of photons and 

7 neutrons. And if I recall, Jim's comments 

8 were yes, we agree that the neutrons were 

9 separate from the photons in tab two.

10 So at this point I will only 

11 address the fact that now if we conclude that 

12 the neutrons can be separated as they are in 

13 tab three, we can also make the proper 

14 adjustments. And the adjustment we have to 

15 address is can we reasonably conclude that the 

16 NTA methodology that was used for neutron 

17 exposures can be accepted based on what we 

18 expect the neutron energies to be where the 

19 NTA film -- the limitations of NTA film have 

20 been addressed. If there's some reasonable 

21 assumptions that can be made, how the NTA film 

22 dosimeters were in fact calibrated?
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1 But at a minimum, we do have to at 

2 least address the issue of quality factors 

3 that brings those neutron exposures in 

4 compliance with the ICRP 60 values, Q values. 

5 So that would be at a minimum a recommended 

6 change.

7 DR. NETON: Okay. And I mentioned 

8 earlier that we have a draft report, I have it 

9 in my hand, that describes in outline -- well, 

10 it's not an outline. It's a full report -- it 

11 has not been reviewed -- about how we would 

12 approach looking at neutron data at Santa 

13 Susana. And I can briefly describe our 

14 rationale.

15 You have to think of the neutron 

16 monitoring there in three distinct periods. 

17 That's 1955 to 1970, 1970 to '87 and then 

18 after 1987. Between 1955 and 1970, Santa 

19 Susana relied exclusively on NTA film which 

20 has been well established in this project or 

21 this program to be essentially unresponsive to 

22 neutrons, thermal neutrons, lower energy 
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1 neutrons. And that's typically considered to 

2 be -- as a cut point possibly.

3 So because of that there's no 

4 ability to determine what that means other 

5 than the fact this NTA film was exposed to 

6 neutrons greater than 500. So we would use 

7 that at face value and assign that to fast 

8 neutrons.

9 To get a handle on the thermal 

10 component, it turns out that in the site 

11 research database there are surveys that were 

12 taken at the plant between 1963 and 1971 where 

13 they used orbital neutron measurement devices 

14 that were capable of discriminating between 

15 thermal and fast neutrons. This is all in the 

16 report. I can't -- I'm not going to go into 

17 all the details. But the SRDB reference 

18 numbers in this report that have established 

19 ratios that vary considerably between '63 and 

20 '71. I'm looking at a table where the fast to 

21 thermal neutron ratios varied anywhere from 

22 6.8 to 162. Actually as low as 4.0 to 162. 
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1 So they're all over the place. But what it 

2 really tells us is that the majority of the 

3 neutrons were the higher energy neutrons, not 

4 the thermal neutrons.

5 If one uses the four as a lower 

6 bound, it would indicate or at least imply 

7 that a correction of about 20 percent would be 

8 appropriate to apply to any measure of 

9 neutrons using the NTA film. That is you just 

10 would take whatever was measured on the NTA 

11 film and increase it by 20 percent and find 

12 the appropriate quality factor. That's up 

13 through 1970.

14 DR. MAURO: Jim, this is John 

15 Mauro.

16 DR. NETON: Yes.

17 DR. MAURO: I have to take a 

18 little exception to the way you've parsed this 

19 and it's almost cautionary in terms of the 

20 1964 date because I keep thinking in those 

21 terms. What we're saying here is you're using 

22 NTA film right through '64-'65 right up until, 
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1 it sounds like up to 1970.

2 DR. NETON: Right.

3 DR. MAURO: And you're thinking in 

4 terms of breaking it between thermal and high 

5 energy. But the real break point is 1 MeV. 

6 Beginning at 1 MeV and as you move down, what 

7 I'm getting at is having a full appreciation 

8 of the energy distribution of a neutron around 

9 the 1 MeV down to 500 KeV and then from 500 

10 down to thermal there's a lot of distance.

11 And the way in which you're going 

12 to develop your coworker model using the 

13 knowledge of, or some knowledge, of the energy 

14 spectrum post '64 goes towards the SEC 

15 boundary. In other words, if you feel 

16 confident that using the NTA film and you have 

17 sufficient information on the energy 

18 distribution of the field that workers 

19 experienced, you're in the position to use the 

20 NTA film and build a coworker model and 

21 reconstruct external neutron exposures to all 

22 the organs right through '64 and on.
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1 And then, of course, after, I 

2 guess 1970, you may have moved on to even a 

3 better dosimeter for neutrons. But I think 

4 it's more than just separating thermal from 

5 high energy. I think it's really having an 

6 appreciation of the full energy distribution.

7 DR. NETON: And, John, I'm 

8 paraphrasing very loosely this report. So I'm 

9 just trying to give you a flavor that we do 

10 have an energy spectrum of some type and I 

11 appreciate your concern about the completeness 

12 of that energy spectrum delineation. I don't 

13 have in front of me the actual instruments 

14 that were used and their ability, you know, 

15 what the actual readouts were. But I do 

16 appreciate what you're saying.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes. I --

18 DR. BEHLING: Just a comment John, 

19 too. When we look at Hanford as a facility 

20 that would provide us with perhaps some 

21 surrogate data, we do in fact when we look now 

22 at Hanford they have essentially abandoned the 
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1 NTA dosimetry data during the time period when 

2 it was used. And it's only from 1970 on when 

3 the TLND or the albedo TLD badge was used that 

4 we accept the ability to actually measure 

5 neutrons. So it may prove to be a time frame 

6 that goes beyond 1964 and perhaps up to 1970 

7 that may be driven by the inability to really 

8 provide accurate neutron exposure data.

9 DR. MAURO: I think that's an 

10 extremely important point, Hans, and that is 

11 if there is precedent whereby the SEC period, 

12 for example at Hanford, is driven by concerns 

13 on the energy distribution for neutrons and 

14 the inability to build a coworker model using 

15 NTA film. I'm not sure if that's the entire 

16 reason why the period of coverage for Hanford 

17 was extended. But if that is, I think that 

18 has to be factored in here also. 

19 I mean what we're looking at and I 

20 always zero in looking at the '64 might not 

21 hold up.

22 DR. NETON: But you're comparing 
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1 apples and oranges here. I mean Hanford is 

2 one site, a very complicated site with 

3 different types of reactors. There were very 

4 few reactors here. I mean there were a 

5 couple.

6 DR. MAURO: Okay.

7 DR. NETON: And we have at least -

8 - I can't speak to the number of these

9 measurements, but there are certainly several 

10 for each year it appears. They were taken at 

11 various locations around these reactors. So 

12 it's really going to speak to the robustness 

13 of this neutron survey data that I'm bringing 

14 up and maybe it was premature to even throw 

15 this on the table because I don't have all the 

16 facts in front of me here.

17 DR. MAURO: My sense is that if 

18 anything about the external coworker model 

19 that is where these are soft and where you 

20 might -- I know you can clean up the photon 

21 problem.

22 DR. NETON: Right.
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1 DR. MAURO: I understand that. To 

2 me, when you do that you're going to be -- you 

3 probably will still have -- even though we do 

4 have the blank issue, we have the termination 

5 report issue and you have the protocols and 

6 the mechanics in place to fix that. So we'll 

7 certainly look at that if the Board -- Work 

8 Group asks us to look at that.

9 But I could see that the place 

10 where, at least with regard to external, the 

11 1964 date could actually be in jeopardy as 

12 being the cutoff point if things are soft with 

13 regard to neutron dosimetry.

14 DR. NETON: And I would say wait. 

15 Reserve judgment until you see our report.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes, I understand. 

17 I'm just putting the spotlight on that one 

18 because I could see something.

19 DR. NETON: I would still say 

20 though if you have a reasonable termination of 

21 the spectrum of the neutron and you have an 

22 NTA measurement you can account for the 
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1 efficiency of the badge.

2 DR. MAURO: I agree with you 

3 completely.

4 DR. NETON: Okay. So let's wait 

5 and see the quality of the survey measurements 

6 that are taken around the reactors.

7 Just to finish the picture, after 

8 1970 Santa Susana switched vendors or procured 

9 the services of Landauer who provided NTA film 

10 again as well. But in this situation they 

11 added a cadmium filter to the film badge. And 

12 the idea was they could quantitatively 

13 estimate the lower energy neutrons, the 

14 thermals, using the difference between the 

15 exposure under the cadmium and the lead 

16 filters.

17 And I don't want to get into all 

18 the details about how they did this. It was 

19 actually published in Health Physics. So 

20 that's what they were using to correct those 

21 values from 1970 to 1987. That would be our 

22 dose in that time period possibly supplemented 
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1 by addition neutron survey data if it were 

2 available.

3 After 1987, it is our belief that 

4 the potential for neutron exposure went away 

5 and there was no requirement to monitor 

6 workers after that date.

7 That's a brief summary of where 

8 we're going. Again, I would reserve judgment 

9 until we can provide you the actual report 

10 with real data. You can dig into the SRDB and 

11 look at the survey data, independently 

12 evaluate the robustness of the dataset 

13 yourselves.

14 We do have a plan or path forward.

15 MR. KATZ: Mike.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Just as long as 

17 -- it's been mentioned several times, but as 

18 long as it's on the table, the issue right 

19 now, it would be good to -- they don't have 

20 anything to do right now at SC&A with respect 

21 to this. But we might just go ahead and task 

22 them with when the internal model comes out if 
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1 they can get to it right away evaluate that. 

2 Is that okay with you?

3 DR. NETON: Is that the internal 

4 model or the external?

5 MR. STIVER: There also the issue 

6 of the internal, the dataset that's going to 

7 be used for it, and maybe you could get 

8 started on that pretty quickly.

9 MR. KATZ: Is that okay with the 

10 Work Group to task us --

11 MEMBER BEACH: It was one of the 

12 things I was writing down. So you can start 

13 with the dataset right away?

14 MR. STIVER: The dataset that's in 

15 tab three that has been provided.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

17 MR. STIVER: We can begin 

18 evaluating that pretty significantly in the 

19 coworker model.

20 DR. HUGHES: What you are 

21 referring to as tab three I think is what the 

22 external data came from. That's not --
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1 MR. STIVER: I may be mistaken.

2 DR. NETON: I was a little 

3 concerned about SC&A developing their own 

4 model in advance of our model.

5 MR. KATZ: No. They can evaluate 

6 it all in one when they have the internal 

7 model in front of them. They can take up the 

8 data that supports it at that time.

9 MR. STIVER: I think it would be 

10 kind of analogous to what we did with the 

11 external model. We just looked for 

12 suitability without really trying to develop 

13 any sort of model parameters on our own. And 

14 then when the model does come out, then we 

15 could look at that.

16 MR. KATZ: Regardless, I think you 

17 can report on the model and the data 

18 underlying it in an integrated fashion in one 

19 report.

20 MR. STIVER: Yes.

21 DR. NETON: Prior to release of 

22 our internal model?
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1 MR. KATZ: No, no. After you 

2 release your internal model, that's when they 

3 would take up reviewing the model.

4 DR. NETON: That's fine.

5 MR. KATZ: If they've done some 

6 homework on the database prior to that, that's 

7 fine. But they just integrate it into one 

8 report and --

9 DR. NETON: I'm fine with that.

10 MR. KATZ: -- respond once it's 

11 all --

12 MR. STIVER: Yes. We wouldn't be 

13 trying to do --

14 DR. NETON: You know, it's awkward 

15 for SC&A to sort of characterize the database 

16 and say this is inadequate --

17 MR. KATZ: No, there would be no 

18 report.

19 DR. NETON: -- meanwhile we're 

20 still in the process of putting our best 

21 effort on the table.

22 MR. KATZ: There will be no report 
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1 until they have your final model to review.

2 DR. NETON: That's fine.

3 MR. BERONJA: Hans, before you go 

4 on, I guess I had one question. I think Lara 

5 had clarified something. I think I had asked 

6 before if this was based on Santa Susana and 

7 all four sites or whether it was based on Area 

8 IV. And I think it's probably evident now 

9 that it's really based on all four sites. I 

10 guess my next question then, is it appropriate 

11 for a coworker model to be developed for four 

12 sites?

13 DR. NETON: Yes. You raise a very 

14 good question.

15 MR. BERONJA: Rather than a 

16 coworker model being developed for each site.

17 DR. NETON: We need to go back and 

18 make sure that that is true that it can be 

19 used for that. You're right. Because there 

20 could be -- what you're suggesting and it's 

21 possible that there could be underlying 

22 distribution --
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1 MR. BERONJA: Yes.

2 DR. NETON: -- that are different 

3 among the different sites. I think that's 

4 hard enough to prove that for a single site 

5 let alone multiple sites.

6 MR. BERONJA: I'm sure there's 

7 much less data at the other three sites than 

8 Area IV.

9 DR. NETON: So it may or may not 

10 affect --

11 DR. HUGHES: No, it's not true. 

12 It's just that two of those sites are SECs. 

13 So although -- it goes to 1948 but what we'll 

14 potentially be looking at is for the non SEC 

15 period mostly. So we would only actually look 

16 at two sites. The third one is the Area IV.

17 DR. NETON: Yes. Right.

18 DR. HUGHES: -- not to mention any 

19 partial dose reconstruction it might be used 

20 for in earlier period.

21 MR. STIVER: There would still be 

22 the issue of --
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1 DR. NETON: We still need to go 

2 back and look at what's remaining and see how 

3 the combination of those site data in one 

4 database could the affect the viability, 

5 suitability model.

6 MEMBER BEACH: Will that be in 

7 your coworker report then?

8 DR. NETON: That needs to be 

9 explained in the model. 

10 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

11 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans. In 

12 light of the fact that NIOSH is still working 

13 on the internal coworker model the question I 

14 see as a problem is that when you deal with 

15 the problems that we face for the external 

16 model where obviously data was taken involving 

17 workers exposure outside before or after their 

18 employment. The problem with internal is that 

19 suppose a person walks into Santa Susana in 

20 1956 and he may not get a bioassay done on him 

21 for a year and you don't know at this point

22 whether perhaps that bioassay represents 
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1 internal exposure received at Santa Susana 

2 versus before he got there at another 

3 facility. And so this is a potential problem 

4 that I just want to throw up as a caution flag 

5 in saying how do we know how to read internal 

6 exposure, segregate exposure received at Santa 

7 Susana versus elsewhere.

8 DR. NETON: Hans, that would be an 

9 issue at virtually any site we have a coworker 

10 model for and it's not something unique for 

11 this facility.

12 DR. BEHLING: Well, sometimes you 

13 can segregate it based on the baseline 

14 bioassay like a baseline whole body count or 

15 something that says you came to us with a 

16 certain body burden and we're not going to 

17 take credit for that and so forth. But in the 

18 older days often times there were no bioassays 

19 for years and then all of a sudden you 

20 introduce it.

21 But as a minimum we do -- I'm sure 

22 the internal database for the Boice probably 
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1 also identifies bioassay data that precedes 

2 their employment or postdates their employment 

3 at Santa Susana. And I would hope that we 

4 could possibly remove that and not enter that 

5 or develop a coworker model that suffers from 

6 the same problems that the external coworker 

7 model has.

8 DR. NETON: That's a good point. 

9 I mean it's something that we certainly need 

10 to consider.

11 MEMBER BEACH: So, Mike, I have a 

12 question. Will we need to do a formal tasking 

13 for SC&A to review the NTA film issue that's 

14 being developed? I think it's closer to 

15 coming out than the internal.

16 MR. STIVER: It sounds like the 

17 NTA film paper is just about ready and it 

18 might be better to start with that if it's 

19 going to be coming out.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Do we have to 

21 formally task on that one as well?

22 MR. KATZ: You are so tasked.
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1 MR. STIVER: That's good.

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: It seems like 

3 the NTA film issue is going to have broad 

4 implications for a lot of facilities and 

5 sites. It may be almost generically.

6 MR. STIVER: Yes. Could it be 

7 applicable to or far-reaching beyond Santa 

8 Susana?

9 DR. NETON: It's really on a case10 by-case basis with the NTA film I think.

11 MEMBER MUNN: It is being covered 

12 on many other sites.

13 DR. NETON: Yes. I mean we have 

14 gone through this on like 12 where we actually 

15 created spectra for the energy and account for 

16 the difference.

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: What I was 

18 thinking is the different energy, some of them 

19 you're going to see over and over at different 

20 facilities to bring it into the questions here 

21 in some of this where we run into at other 

22 facilities where that same question is coming 
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1 up about roughly the same energy level.

2 DR. NETON: Yes. The problem with 

3 that is that it tends to vary quite a bit. We 

4 have this situation going on at Mound right 

5 now. What is the energy spectrum at Mound? 

6 And it's totally dependent upon the shielding, 

7 the type of shielding, the orientation.

8 MR. STIVER: Each source term is 

9 going to essentially have its own spectrum, 

10 isn't it?

11 DR. NETON: Yes. And you're 

12 right. At one point I thought we could have a 

13 generic model for NTA film for, say, a reactor 

14 facility. And we had our people look into 

15 this and it just turned to be a very difficult 

16 --

17 MEMBER BEACH: There's too much 

18 variation.

19 DR. NETON: -- a bounding value on 

20 it.

21 MR. STIVER: Yes.

22 DR. NETON: And it was a very, 
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1 very difficult process.

2 MR. STIVER: Site specific, yes.

3 DR. NETON: Years ago we tried and 

4 so far we've not been successful putting a 

5 generic neutron spectrum.

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I withdraw my 

7 comment.

8 DR. NETON: I think you made a 

9 good comment. I wish we could do that.

10 MEMBER BEACH: I have another 

11 question for NIOSH. In Lara's report, it 

12 talked about all of the different products 

13 that they received from SC&A. Are there any of 

14 those that you'll be issuing any memos or 

15 White Papers based on SC&A's reports that you 

16 can talk about? There were four items.

17 MR. STIVER: One is the Petition 

18 Evaluation Report update.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

20 MR. STIVER: The addendum to the 

21 Site Profile and then the others were --

22 MEMBER BEACH: One was the staff.
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1 DR. HUGHES: Well, the external 

2 coworker model will definitely be based on 

3 what we just all discussed.

4 DR. NETON: I think right now I 

5 see three issues that we need to provide. One 

6 is the revised external coworker model. One 

7 is the complete internal coworker model. And 

8 the third one has to do with the explanation 

9 of how we're going to do environmental doses. 

10 Those are the three in my mind unless I'm 

11 missing something.

12 MR. STIVER: And the NTA film --

13 within the external coworker model.

14 DR. NETON: Well, there's four 

15 actually, four possible.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Thanks. I just 

17 wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. 

18 Thanks.

19 MR. STIVER: Yes, that's good.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Thanks.

21 MR. STIVER: Very good.

22 DR. NETON: If you sit for a few 
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1 Working Group meetings, they all kind of blur 

2 together. So go back to Hans. Is that right?

3 MR. KATZ: Is that it, Hans?

4 DR. BEHLING: Yes, I think we 

5 covered the points that I identified in my 

6 White Paper and unless somebody else has a 

7 specific question, I think I'm pretty through 

8 with the presentation.

9 MS. KLEA: Hans, this is Bonnie. 

10 Are the mixed fission products -- now it was 

11 pointed out that they were unspecified as to 

12 which radionuclides were in them. Is that as 

13 important as the neutron issue?

14 DR. BEHLING: I can't really 

15 address that in the coworker model because 

16 we're only dealing with penetrating radiation.

17 MS. KLEA: Okay.

18 DR. BEHLING: Meaning external 

19 exposure to hard photons that obviously 

20 penetrate at least 1,000 millirems of 

21 centimeter square filter and register as such. 

22 So I can't really comment as to whether or 
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1 not that is complicated by issues surrounding 

2 the mixed fission products.

3 That might -- you know when you 

4 talk about mixed fission products we have to 

5 always identify whether they're talking about 

6 external versus internal. Some fission 

7 products like strontium-90 are only internal 

8 issues and not external. Some are both 

9 internal and external.

10 MS. KLEA: Okay. Thank you.

11 MR. KATZ: Thanks for your good 

12 work, Hans. Anything else?

13 DR. BEHLING: Do you think you 

14 guys are ready for lunch?

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Anything else 

16 before we break for lunch?

17 MR. KATZ: Are you ready for 

18 lunch, Hans?

19 DR. BEHLING: I don't eat lunch.

20 MR. STIVER: I think we're pretty 

21 well summed up now. 

22 MR. KATZ: What is left on the
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1 agenda? We have the actions forward for SC&A 

2 and for DCAS.

3 MR. STIVER: We've discussed all 

4 the issues that SC&A has.

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Make sure we've 

6 discussed new issues that haven't been raised. 

7 I mean we're kind of making them altogether. 

8 Just to briefly go over that to make sure 

9 that --

10 MR. STIVER: No, we don't have any 

11 more than what we've already presented.

12 MR. KATZ: I think that's the 

13 menu.

14 MEMBER BEACH: Well, and no, this 

15 isn't on the menu, but because we haven't met 

16 for a year Site Profile issues. I know we had 

17 a Site Profile matrix. Where -- I guess I'm 

18 kind of wondering --

19 MR. STIVER: As of last year we 

20 went through the Site Profile and resolved 

21 most of the issues. The others that weren't 

22 resolved were put into this SEC profile.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: So they were path 

2 forward.

3 MR. STIVER: So they were moved 

4 forward.

5 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

6 MR. STIVER: And we've discussed 

7 all those today.

8 MEMBER BEACH: Before me I have 

9 three matrices and trying to cash all of 

10 what's there. 

11 MR. STIVER: I understand. They 

12 get kind of confusing. Definitely. But I 

13 think the real remaining issue from the issue 

14 matrix was the environmental model.

15 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. Great.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: The 

17 environmental one that is actually covered in 

18 work you've already done, right? Is that --

19 my understanding correct?

20 MR. STIVER: This is really a 

21 NIOSH item to continue developing their 

22 environmental.
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1 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: You guys are 

2 already working on that issue.

3 MR. STIVER: It just hasn't been -

4 - it's not completed yet.

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay.

6 DR. NETON: SC&A essentially was 

7 questioning the applicability of later data 

8 and going back in time to --

9 MR. STIVER: Back extrapolation 

10 issue.

11 DR. NETON: -- back extrapolation, 

12 yes.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. I just 

14 wanted to make sure I understand that 

15 correctly.

16 MR. STIVER: Let me just kind of 

17 summarize what I have so far and make sure 

18 we're all on the playing field. As far as the 

19 environmental models that NIOSH was going to 

20 continue working on that and at some future 

21 date then provide a product related to that.

22 We were to review the internal 
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1 coworker model and the underlying datasets.

2 And NIOSH is also going to look at 

3 revising and cleaning up the database of the 

4 external model and then there will be some 

5 determination as to whether the remaining data 

6 are still suitable for the external coworker 

7 model. It's going to be kind of far down the 

8 road, but I suppose at that point that it 

9 would need to be reviewed as well at that time 

10 when that final database is provided.

11 And related to the external model 

12 would be our review of the NIOSH paper on the 

13 NTA issues. That's what I have as work 

14 things.

15 MEMBER BEACH: That's what I have.

16 DR. MAURO: This is John. Just 

17 for clarification, and, Ted, you could help us 

18 with this, it sounds like with regard to the 

19 material, the White Papers, or the material 

20 that will be coming from NIOSH in the future 

21 whether it's environmental, cleaning up the 

22 external including both photon and neutron, 
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1 and of course eventually the coworker model 

2 for internal, all of those will take some form 

3 as a report coming out of NIOSH. Are we 

4 getting the task at this time to review them 

5 when they come out or do we wait direction?

6 MR. KATZ: No. That's what we 

7 said already that you will review them as 

8 they're released.

9 DR. MAURO: Very good. I just 

10 wanted to make sure I understood that.

11 And the other thing is the only 

12 action item and correct me if I'm wrong that 

13 we actually have right now that we're going to 

14 move forward with is to start to look at the 

15 internal database, not write any reports, but 

16 start the process of reviewing it which would 

17 allow us to have a leg up when NIOSH's 

18 coworker model for internal comes out.

19 MR. KATZ: Right. It's fine for 

20 you to start your homework there.

21 DR. MAURO: Very good. Okay. I 

22 think that's it in terms of SC&A's authorized 
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1 work.

2 MR. STIVER: That's how I see it, 

3 John. I think we're on the same page here.

4 DR. MAURO: Good. Because you 

5 know very often it's easy -- I just want to 

6 make sure what's your -- so we could actually 

7 move forward with regard to internal. But 

8 we're going to sit tight regarding the other 

9 items.

10 MR. STIVER: Until -- as they're 

11 produced.

12 DR. MAURO: As they're produced, 

13 yes.

14 MR. KATZ: Right. And as current 

15 tradition goes just a brief memo from you, 

16 email from you, listing out the action items 

17 from SC&A. Same from DCAS. That way everyone 

18 has a paper record of the action items.

19 DR. MAURO: Very good.

20 MR. KATZ: Is there more, Mike?

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Do we need to 

22 break for lunch or just adjourn?
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1 MR. KATZ: I think we can adjourn.

2 MR. STIVER: Why don't we just go 

3 ahead and wrap things up?

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

5 MR. KATZ: Thank you everybody for 

6 your hard work this morning.

7 DR. MAURO: Bye-bye everybody.

8 MS. KLEA: Are we done for the 

9 day?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, we are done, 

11 Bonnie. Thank you.

12 MS. KLEA: Thanks everyone.

13 MR. KATZ: Thanks for your 

14 participation. Off the record.

15 (Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the 

16 above-entitled matter was concluded.)

17 

18 

19 

20 

21