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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 

+ + + + +

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PROCEDURES REVIEW

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

APRIL 28, 2015

+ + + + +

The Subcommittee met via 

teleconference at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Wanda 

I. Munn, Chair, presiding.

PRESENT:

WANDA I. MUNN, Chair

JOSIE BEACH, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

DAVE ALLEN, DCAS

BOB BARTON, SC&A

HANS BEHLING, SC&A

KATHY BEHLING, SC&A

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

PAT KRAPS, ORAU Team

LORI MARION-MOSS, DCAS

STEVE MARSCHKE, SC&A

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

DAN MCKEEL

JIM NETON, DCAS

STEVE OSTROW, SC&A

MUTTY SHARFI, ORAU Team

SCOTT SIEBERT, ORAU Team

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

ELYSE THOMAS, ORAU Team
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T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Welcome and Roll Call

Ted Katz,

Designated Federal Official.............. 4

Review BRS status ............................. 5

OTIB-54

Finding 5 -- Release Fraction Wording

NIOSH, Jim Neton......................... 9

Finding 9 -- Workbook ReviewSC&A, Ron Buchanan...................... 32

Finding 2-Downselect EvaluationSC&A, Steve Ostrow...................... 36

PROC-90 and PROC-92 .......................... 41

NIOSH, Lori Marion-Moss

PER-31- Report Review - (Carryover)

NIOSH, Stu Hinnefeld.................... 50

PER-45 - Proposed Resolution to Responses

SC&A, Hans Behling...................... 54

PER-43 -- Findings 1, 2, 3

NIOSH, Jim Neton........................ 81

PER-52 -- Findings 1 & 2 Response

NIOSH, Jim Neton....................... 102

PER-47 - Findings 1, 2, 3, 4

NIOSH, Jim Neton and Mutty Sharfi...... 110

Administrative Detail:

Routine Note of Abeyance, Items Ready for

Closing-NIOSH.......................... 134

Status of Case Selection RecommendationsSC&A................................... 136

Determination of PER Tasking

for Next Meeting....................... 146

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

2 (10:59 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: So, welcome, everyone. 

4 This is the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

5 Health. It's the Procedures Review Subcommittee.

6 And in doing roll call, let me just 

7 discuss, since I know my Board Members are on that 

8 are going to be joining us, the ethics part of this. 

9 For any discussion about Hanford, Wanda and Josie 

10 have conflicts. So they'll be recused from any 

11 discussion, if there is any, of any Hanford 

12 matters. I'm not sure that there are.

13 And the same for Dr. Ziemer. Paul will 

14 be recused from any matter concerning X-10 or, I 

15 think, LANL after 2000. And I don't think there 

16 should be any matters there either, but just to 

17 cover that.

18 So, I don't think we need to do roll call 

19 otherwise for the Board Members. We know they're 

20 here. Let's move on to the NIOSH/ORAU Team and do 

21 formal roll call.

22 (Roll call.)
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay, then the last thing to 

2 mention is that the agenda is posted on the NIOSH 

3 webpage for this meeting and any related materials 

4 that are available. And Wanda, it's your meeting.

5 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you much, Ted. And 

6 thank you all for being here so promptly. That's 

7 appreciated. I want to point out that Ted is 

8 operating without benefit of the Live Meeting 

9 screen today. So as we are going along, please be 

10 extra careful to make sure that you delineate 

11 exactly what we're talking about for the record, 

12 and for Ted's ability to follow where we're going.

13 As you all know, we're going to lose 

14 Josie at 3 o'clock Eastern Time and so we're going 

15 to try our best to get through our fairly 

16 abbreviated agenda before that time.

17 If we're all set to go, then I'd like 

18 to ask Lori and all of you if you have any additional 

19 comments with respect to where we are with the Board 

20 Review System right now? And thank you to Lori for 

21 getting me to it, with our upgrade on our IT, the 

22 system at CDC. That's helpful. Thank you, Lori.
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1 Anyone have any comment with respect to 

2 where we are, and whether we need to be paying 

3 special attention to something? I think we're in 

4 good shape.

5 MR. KATZ: And before we do that, can 

6 we just ask everyone to mute their phones? Because 

7 someone has a lot of static that's making it hard. 

8 So, press *6 to mute your phone unless you're 

9 speaking. Then you can press *6 again to take your 

10 phone off of mute. Thanks, everybody.

11 CHAIR MUNN: Not sure whether that 

12 helped or not. Now, as we were saying, any comment 

13 with respect to the status of the Board Review 

14 System?

15 (No response.)

16 CHAIR MUNN: Lori has sent us a note in 

17 terms of where the NIOSH updates have taken place. 

18 And Steve, do you have any comment with respect to 

19 where we are?

20 Now I'm not getting any information at 

21 all. I'm not hearing anything --

22 MR. MARSCHKE: I was muted. I 
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1 followed Ted's advice and I was muted. Can you 

2 hear me now?

3 CHAIR MUNN: I can now hear you, yes.

4 MR. MARSCHKE: I haven't used -- to be 

5 honest with you, Wanda, I haven't really used the 

6 BRS very much recently. I don't know if Kathy has 

7 used it more recently, or Steve Ostrow, or somebody 

8 else in SC&A. But I haven't had the opportunity, 

9 or the need, to actually utilize it very much 

10 recently, so I'm not in a good position to give you 

11 much of an evaluation.

12 CHAIR MUNN: As long as we're getting 

13 what we need from it, I think we're fine. Anyone 

14 else with any thoughts on where we are with the BRS?

15 (No response.)

16 CHAIR MUNN: I take that as a good sign. 

17 I'm very happy with it myself. And despite the 

18 fact of our struggling now to get back to Live 

19 Meeting, I'm not quite sure what's going on there, 

20 but hold on just a moment, I'm almost back. Now 

21 I think I'm back. Yes, there's the agenda. Good. 

22 Thank you, all. 
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1 Let's start with OTIB-54. I believe 

2 NIOSH is going to talk to us about Finding 5, am 

3 I correct?

4 DR. NETON: Wanda, this is Jim. I'm 

5 going to lead it off, but I'm going to rely on Dave 

6 Allen for some support here, because he's a little 

7 more familiar with some of the intricacies of this 

8 issue than I am.

9 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you, I appreciate 

10 that.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm still hearing a lot 

12 of clicks on this. Are others hearing that noise?

13 CHAIR MUNN: Yes. It's quite bad.

14 MR. KATZ: Yeah, I don't know what to 

15 do other than we can all hang up and dial back in 

16 and see if that doesn't sort it out. It sounds to 

17 me like an electronic problem, like someone has a 

18 cell phone by their phone or something. I don't 

19 know what it is, but if you want to try that, we 

20 can all dial by in.

21 CHAIR MUNN: Perhaps that would be a good 

22 idea. It's certainly annoying and it seems to be 
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1 continuing. So, I would suggest that we all do 

2 that. Let's give ourselves three minutes, hang 

3 up, call back.

4 MR. KATZ: Very good.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

6 went off the record at 11:07 a.m. and resumed at 

7 11:09 a.m.)

8 DR. NETON: Okay. This is Jim. I 

9 guess I'll pick up where I left off.

10 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, thanks.

11 DR. NETON: Finding 5 had to do with the 

12 use of the modification of the release fractions 

13 that were used in OTIB-54. If you recall, we 

14 modified them by a factor of ten for the fission 

15 products, the particulates, with the thinking that 

16 under normal conditions it might more accurately 

17 reflect the conditions of what was available for 

18 release.

19 We issued a White Paper on this in 

20 December 19th, 2014. And everyone, I'm sure, has 

21 had the chance to review. And that White Paper was 

22 a comparison to determine if one set of release 
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1 fractions was more favorable than the other. And 

2 as usual under these analogies, the answer was: in 

3 some situations, yes; some situations, no. 

4 Although the White Paper did a very good job, I 

5 think, outlining --

6 (Telephonic interference.)

7 CHAIR MUNN: Oh, who just did that?

8 DR. NETON: I don't know.

9 CHAIR MUNN: Okay, go ahead. Sorry.

10 DR. NETON: The White Paper didn't come 

11 to any conclusion about what we're going to do. 

12 And I suggested at that meeting that we were going 

13 to stick with the modified release fractions. And 

14 in the BRS we placed a couple paragraphs, although 

15 it only came out as one paragraph in the BRS; 

16 sometimes when you cut and paste, it takes out some 

17 of the formatting.

18 But, anyways, that discussion was an 

19 attempt to draw a conclusion that we were going to 

20 use the normal, the release fractions that we 

21 modified, because they're more representative of 

22 what we believe are the exposures under normal 
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1 working conditions.

2 It talks a little bit about that, under 

3 certain scenarios, we use fission products using 

4 gross beta results that may not be favorable. But 

5 then if you bring in the whole body counts and 

6 compare them, it would reverse the situation, make 

7 them less favorable.

8 So, overall, there's no one-sided way 

9 that you could use this to be claimant-favorable. 

10 And we're sticking with the opinion that, since we 

11 believe that the conditions that these are used 

12 under, which is normal operating conditions, the 

13 release fractions we've used are more appropriate.

14 That's sort of it in a nutshell. I 

15 guess we can discuss it from here.

16 CHAIR MUNN: Alright. Steve's trying 

17 to get to the finding on the matrix here so that 

18 we can read the wording that was actually placed 

19 on the record. We're almost to it.

20 DR. NETON: Yeah, that's it.

21 CHAIR MUNN: There we go. I don't 

22 think we need to read it aloud. We have it on 
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1 screen.

2 DR. NETON: I think I've summarized it 

3 fairly well.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Remember, Ted doesn't 

5 have Live Meeting.

6 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, I'm aware of that.

7 DR. NETON: I wonder if Ted can get to 

8 the BRS, though --

9 CHAIR MUNN: He does have the BRS. 

10 Yes. Is there any comment that needs to follow 

11 Jim's summary?

12 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Jim, 

13 I appreciate your putting it on the BRS. And in 

14 fact, Ron Buchanan and I and Steve Ostrow read it 

15 this morning. It was very brief. And we see what 

16 you're saying and we understand the situation.

17 And we agree with your summary. That 

18 certainly there can be circumstances where, you 

19 know, one mix, one set of release fractions, is more 

20 claimant-favorable than the other. And I know 

21 from the previous White Paper, a very, very 

22 comprehensive analysis was performed to try to get 
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1 a grasp on those conditions, you know, what would 

2 be what?

3 And, you know, I guess we're really in 

4 a place where we recognize -- and Ron, please jump 

5 in also. I know that you've looked at it, and I 

6 just read your memo to me related to this. And it 

7 looks like we have a circumstance where we're not 

8 trying to do scientific research and develop some 

9 advanced methods that address every nuance of a 

10 circumstance that we encounter. We have to look 

11 for common sense, workable solutions.

12 I guess the only concern, if that's even 

13 a good word for it, is that if there are -- the 

14 argument that the release fractions, DOE's release 

15 fractions, versus NIOSH's release fractions, the 

16 argument that one's an accident and one isn't, 

17 certainly that's part of the mix.

18 I'd go as far as to say even the DOE 

19 release fractions for accidents are crude 

20 representation of release fractions. So, we're in 

21 an arena, I guess this is where, we're in an arena 

22 that it is -- the way I look at it is you can't --
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1 it would be a mistake to try to guild the lily. I 

2 mean, you really can't do much better.

3 It'd be the knowledge of how these 

4 fission products will release fractions for these 

5 particulates, the rutheniums and the iodines and 

6 the cesiums and strontiums. The reality is, it's 

7 a construct. Whether you use a DOE construct or 

8 you use a NIOSH construct, you've got to pick one 

9 in order to get through the day. And there's no 

10 right answer here.

11 And the only place I come out is that, 

12 in the construct that NIOSH has selected, could 

13 there be circumstances where really the 

14 differences could be substantial?

15 I hate to, you know, keep on this case 

16 given the circumstances we're in, but the only --

17 I think that going from gross beta measurements in 

18 the urine and trying to reconstruct what the person 

19 might have inhaled at some point in the past is very 

20 difficult. And I have to say that you've done 

21 everything humanly possible to come to grips with 

22 this. And the release fraction issue is one of 
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1 those issues that you really can't say you know what 

2 the right answer is. There is no -- no one knows 

3 what the right answer is. 

4 So, I'm in this difficult position to 

5 say, I don't think I'm right, but I don't think I'm 

6 wrong. I think we just have a difficult 

7 circumstance. And as long as, you know, there's 

8 a sense that there might be some circumstances 

9 where the difference in release fractions, let's 

10 say, really could be important. And I think your 

11 previous report, the White Paper that came out, may 

12 have provided some insight to that. You know, that 

13 for this particular organ, for example, a type of 

14 cancer, it really does, it could make a big 

15 difference. I don't know if that emerges from the 

16 previous White Paper. So, I mean, that's my take 

17 on where we are.

18 Ron, is there anything you'd like to 

19 add? Because I know you looked at it also this 

20 morning.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, this is Ron 

22 Buchanan, SC&A. I have in the past worked mainly 
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1 on the workbook to see that it provided the right 

2 answer, so I was kind of on the sidelines as far 

3 as the main guts of OTIB-54.

4 And so I was brought in on this earlier 

5 this morning, and so I've just taken a very 

6 preliminary look at it. And I guess my question, 

7 and John has brought this up sometimes in the past, 

8 on the release fraction -- and, Jim, I guess I have 

9 this question for you or someone that knows.

10 We're not really contending whether the 

11 DOE fraction or the OTIB-54 fraction is correct or 

12 the best one to use. I guess my question by briefly 

13 looking at this, why weren't the release fractions 

14 based on the amount of material actually in the 

15 fuel, as opposed to assigning them all, like, .01, 

16 or whatever the number is?

17 It looked like that would've been more 

18 representative and not as organ-dependent. Is 

19 that an answerable question?

20 MR. ALLEN: This is Dave Allen. I can 

21 take a stab at that. As I recall with this entire 

22 document, the release fractions are essentially 
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1 the fraction of that isotope that gets into the air 

2 and becomes respirable. But the amount of 

3 nuclides in a particular reactor, that was based 

4 on some ORIGEN runs.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: Well, when we have a 

6 gross beta, let's say we've got 100 counts of beta, 

7 we divide that out, the way I understand this is 

8 done, is that iodine is part of that, and then all 

9 the others -- the cesiums and the rubidiums and 

10 everything -- are assigned an even fraction of 

11 that, where it looked like it should be assigned 

12 on the amount that's available in the normal 

13 operating when they reprocess fuel, not the 

14 accident scenario. We're not talking about that 

15 now.

16 And so that all, like, the cesiums and 

17 such, they would be based on what was in the fuel, 

18 rather than all assigned the same release fraction. 

19 Is that correct?

20 MR. ALLEN: Well, if I understood you 

21 right, then, no, it's not quite correct. Those 

22 release fractions are not a fraction of the gross 
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1 beta in the air. It is a fraction of, like, say, 

2 the cesium activity in the reactor, or the 

3 strontium activity in a reactor that is released. 

4 Those all add up to make the entire beta activity 

5 available to be inhaled. Does that answer that 

6 question?

7 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, well, say you got 

8 100 counts per minute, or 100 counts from beta 

9 activity. Is the cesium and rubidium and 

10 everything given the same fraction? Or are they 

11 based on what's present in the air?

12 MR. ALLEN: Well, there's a several 

13 step process, I think is why I'm not quite 

14 understanding the question. As I understand 

15 OTIB-54, what it did was determine the activity 

16 fractions of a lot of different isotopes in a 

17 variety or reactors. And then those release 

18 fractions were applied to each of those isotopes.

19 Some release easier than others. You know, some 

20 are volatile, some are particulate. 

21 And then what was released from each 

22 particular kind of reactor was totaled to come up 
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1 with what essentially would be a total activity. 

2 And the amount of each nuclide, the fraction of each 

3 nuclide was determined from that. I believe 

4 that's Table 7-3 in the OTIB. So I still think I'm 

5 not quite getting your question.

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, well, I guess, if 

7 you've got 100 counts beta, is cesium assigned, 

8 like, ten counts, and rubidium ten counts, and some 

9 other ten counts? Or would cesium, if there's more 

10 of it in the air, it would be assigned 20, and 

11 rubidium five. And so are they assigned even, or 

12 depend on what the concentration would be in the 

13 air of that total beta? Because that's generally 

14 what they've been using, it seems.

15 MR. ALLEN: As far as from air, I 

16 believe that is Table 7-3 in the OTIB. There are 

17 activity fractions for a number of nuclides based 

18 on a strontium basis, as well as on a cesium basis.

19 DR. BUCHANAN: Correct.

20 DR. MAURO: This is John. I was 

21 thinking about this. And a way to simplify it so 

22 that you -- because when you think about all these 
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1 isotopes, and they're different; some are 

2 refractory, some aren't. Some are the high 

3 boiling point and a low boiling point. And the 

4 complexity of it and the fact that we're dealing 

5 with ratios, you know, the relative amounts of each 

6 isotope in the air, not the absolute amount.

7 I say, well, let's make this really 

8 simple. Let me try this out, it's a thought 

9 problem. Make believe we're working with material 

10 that is only strontium and cesium. That's it. 

11 And we know that cesium is a little bit more 

12 volatile than strontium.

13 And one could say, well, if you had the 

14 same amount of cesium and strontium in a lump, you 

15 know, that's sitting in front of you in a glove box. 

16 And you wanted to know, well, what do you think the 

17 relative amounts of cesium would be to strontium 

18 in the air?

19 Intuition would say, well, you 

20 probably, given that you started with the same 

21 amounts you know, you probably would expect the 

22 total number of the amount of activity of airborne 
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1 cesium to be somewhat higher than airborne 

2 strontium. Okay?

3 Now, so, therein lies your relative 

4 amount. So, but in fact what you're assuming is, 

5 no, we're going to assume they're both the same. 

6 You know, the total amount or the concentration, 

7 airborne, for both cesium and strontium are the 

8 same.

9 Now, let's think about two different 

10 ways. Let's think the person is inhaling some of 

11 this material. Now, by making the strontium --

12 you're in effect giving the strontium more weight 

13 than probably it's due. It should have lesser 

14 relative amounts than cesium. But by doing that, 

15 what happens is, and you assume they're 50-50 

16 airborne, and you inhale that. What you're going 

17 to do, is you're going to overestimate the amount 

18 of strontium that's been inhaled. And, of course, 

19 the amount, I know you're starting with the 

20 activity in the urine.

21 And I would agree, right off the bat, 

22 that by doing that you're giving more weight to the 
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1 strontium than it's really due in terms of gross 

2 beta. You know, both of them are beta emitters. 

3 Both have betas, you know, and by giving more weight 

4 to the strontium than it's due, you're going to 

5 certainly overstate, overestimate the dose to 

6 both.

7 Then I reverse the question. Okay, so, 

8 no doubt that what you did by giving them both the 

9 .01 release fraction, I think that was the number, 

10 there's no doubt, in this little thought problem, 

11 that you're being claimant-favorable.

12 And if you went the other way, you know, 

13 the DOE way, where the strontium would be .001, it's 

14 less claimant-favorable when it comes to, let's 

15 say, cancers that where strontium goes to that 

16 organ, like bone cancer.

17 Now, let's reverse the question, then 

18 say, okay, let's say we're talking about another 

19 cancer, one whereby the dose is to muscle. And I 

20 don't know, there are, I think it's called, 

21 liposarcoma. I believe that's one of the cancers 

22 that developed in the muscle of the body. And it's 
23

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1 the dose to the muscle now that becomes important.

2 And in the circumstance that I just 

3 described, you would be giving relative -- I think 

4 you would end up in a circumstance where you'd 

5 understate the dose to the muscle tissue and the 

6 reconstruction of, I think it's called, the 

7 liposarcoma.

8 And under those circumstances -- see, 

9 I tried to simplify it -- you would probably not 

10 be claimant-favorable because you've given, you 

11 know, more weight to the strontium, which does not 

12 necessarily go to muscle, while cesium does 

13 uniformly go throughout the body, to the muscle.

14 Now, so, when I think about that simple 

15 problem, it tells me that, yes, there can be 

16 circumstances where your mix, as opposed to DOE mix 

17 in terms of the release fractions, could result in 

18 something that's not claimant-favorable.

19 Now, this little story I just told, 

20 which I think conceptually is easy to grasp. Is 

21 it a valid concern? Is it a good example of the 

22 challenge that we're all faced with in dealing with 
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1 these release fraction questions?

2 DR. NETON: John, this is Jim. I think 

3 you're going back to the original discussion we 

4 had, which is why we wouldn't use, run it both ways?

5 And the answer we tried to convey here 

6 is that the fraction scenarios that we're using are 

7 more typical, or more appropriate, for the 

8 conditions under which this TIB is being applied, 

9 which is things like fuel handling, dissolution, 

10 waste management operations, where the fuel has 

11 been out of the reactor for some time, and the 

12 short-lived, the gases and the volatiles that are 

13 typically short-lived, are largely gone. They're 

14 not really appropriate to be assigned at that 

15 point. 

16 So it's the conditions under which 

17 we're using this is the issue here. Not whether 

18 one set of doses is higher for using more release 

19 for gases and volatiles versus particulate. It's 

20 about what is really in this irradiated fuel that 

21 the workers were handling?

22 And under the conditions for which this 
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1 TIB is applied, again, which is dissolution of 

2 materials, waste management issues, the fuel is 

3 somewhat older. It's not like in the reactor under 

4 a current flux of neutrons generating all these 

5 fissions, you know, gases and volatiles, you know, 

6 that stay there only for short periods of time.

7 DR. MAURO: Well, okay, so --

8 DR. NETON: That's, to me, the way to 

9 look at it.

10 DR. MAURO: And I accept that. That 

11 is, what you're really saying is -- listen, to go 

12 back to my cesium and strontium example, which 

13 simplifies it where you can sort of get your head 

14 wrapped around it. You would basically say it's 

15 not so unreasonable to assume that they would both 

16 have a similar release fraction, because they both 

17 would be there. You know, they're not going to 

18 decay away, they're not going to volatilize away, 

19 because, you know, the differences in volatility 

20 isn't that great.

21 But in general we know that cesium 

22 fundamentally has a lower boiling point than 
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1 strontium. But you're saying under the conditions 

2 that you're working, where it's really what might 

3 become resuspended might be more related to a 

4 mechanical process whereby you're handling the 

5 material. And as a result, it's not the 

6 temperature and the volatility of the element 

7 that's truly of concern, because the more volatile 

8 ones have gone away. I'm trying to make your 

9 argument. I'm trying to help you with your 

10 argument.

11 DR. NETON: You're doing good so far.

12 DR. MAURO: Right. So, okay, we're 

13 going to change the paradigm to say, no, no, no, 

14 the real process that's at work with the guy 

15 handling fuel is the mechanical handling of the 

16 fuel is going to result in some type of airborne 

17 radioactivity. That's going to be the controlling 

18 factor that generates the aerosols, the solids, 

19 more so than the fact that one radionuclide has a 

20 different boiling point than another radionuclide.

21 If that's the case you're making, I'm 

22 okay. In other words, you're going to more of a 
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1 mechanical, except for the very volatiles, 

2 everything else you're really going to treat it as 

3 if this stuff is becoming airborne.

4 DR. NETON: And I think we can 

5 acknowledge that there may be circumstances where 

6 this may not be appropriate, and we would deal with 

7 it on a case-by-case basis.

8 DR. MAURO: I'll tell you, if everyone 

9 around the table, so to speak -- see, I'm just 

10 trying to find a way to make it okay with me. And 

11 what I just described makes it okay with me because 

12 you're not working with these -- and this would be 

13 the idea. You're not working with fuel where it's 

14 so hot that the difference in the boiling point 

15 between the different elements, particulates, 

16 solids, is going to be the driver determining the 

17 release fraction.

18 It's going to be more likely the 

19 mechanical handling. And within that context, it 

20 makes sense to me.

21 DR. NETON: And it's more than just the 

22 boiling point, John. It's also the decay of these 
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1 materials. They have typically have shorter 

2 half-lives, the gases and the iodines.

3 DR. MAURO: Well, yeah. They're gone. 

4 What I'm doing really is I'm moving the really 

5 volatiles and the short-liveds out of the picture. 

6 And you just saying, listen -- and I'm going right 

7 to the heart of the matter, in my mind. And the 

8 cesium and strontium are like your perfect example, 

9 because, you know, one is a little bit more volatile 

10 than the other. But maybe volatility is not the 

11 driver here in distinguishing what the release 

12 fractions would be. Maybe the release fractions 

13 is more along the -- for these kinds of 

14 radionuclides, which are solids, you know. And I 

15 think the boiling point for cesium, you've got to 

16 go to 600 degrees centigrade before it becomes, you 

17 know, comes off airborne.

18 All I'm trying to do is find a way to 

19 become comfortable with the simplifying 

20 assumptions that you've decided to adopt, so that 

21 we could create a record that shows that we've given 

22 this some thought. And, I mean, I'm okay with that 
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1 line of thinking if everyone else is okay with that 

2 line of thinking.

3 CHAIR MUNN: Well, our charge as a 

4 Subcommittee here is to try to identify that these 

5 issues are being addressed by the best available 

6 science. The information that I'm hearing tells 

7 me that full consideration is being given to the 

8 science that is being applied to the circumstances 

9 under which this particular OTIB will be utilized.

10 Unless I'm hearing something from 

11 someone that leads our Subcommittee to the 

12 assumption that this is not the best available 

13 science for these circumstances, it sounds to me 

14 as though we're near agreement.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I've got one 

16 question I'd like to have clarified. This is

17 Ziemer. Maybe, Jim, you can clarify this, and it 

18 relates to Ron Buchanan's question.

19 Are the actual fractions that are used 

20 -- I know you're saying the volatiles and all are 

21 gone -- are the actual fractions that are used even 

22 fractions, or are they nonetheless proportional to 
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1 be the amount of each nuclide which has been formed 

2 during the --

3 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I think that 

4 -- Dave, correct me if I'm wrong -- it's the 

5 fraction of the amount of radionuclides that was 

6 formed.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Which would make more 

8 sense. So you're not doing what Ron said, or 

9 suggested, and that's saying that the amount of 

10 strontium and cesium, everything is equal. It's 

11 proportional to what is actually formed in the 

12 process?

13 DR. NETON: Correct.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: In that case, I'm fine 

15 with the proposal.

16 DR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan. 

17 Yes, I agree. That was my question and that's what 

18 I wanted clarified. Thank you.

19 CHAIR MUNN: Do I hear any 

20 disagreement? If not, can we close Finding 5?

21 (No response.)

22 CHAIR MUNN: Hearing no objection, 
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1 Steve, will you please indicate on the BRS that the 

2 Subcommittee has heard the concerns that were 

3 expressed, and agreement was reached and the 

4 Finding is closed.

5 MR. MARSCHKE: Wanda, I've got this 

6 far. Could you repeat?

7 CHAIR MUNN: Oh, yes. Were expressed, 

8 just period. The issue is considered resolved. 

9 The Finding is closed.

10 (Pause.)

11 We're now going to Finding 9, the 

12 workbook review. I trust you have all seen Ron 

13 Buchanan's evaluation that was made available to 

14 you. Ron, I'm assuming you have this?

15 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes. I have this, Ron 

16 Buchanan, SC&A. I'll just give you a very brief 

17 history. The workbook that goes along with 

18 OTIB-54 had some -- we were to evaluate it and 

19 determine if it worked properly. And we had done 

20 this over the last year or so, and we found several 

21 errors. So, NIOSH has been working on that.

22 And we've went back and forth, and I 
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1 think at the last meeting the situation was that 

2 it worked okay, except when you wanted to use an 

3 air concentration. And then it gave an 

4 overestimate, because it gave no fractions. It 

5 just put a factor of one for everything.

6 And so they worked on that and then I 

7 tested it again and found out that it did work okay. 

8 And the way I did that was I -- of course, there's 

9 an infinite number of possibilities, and so I 

10 selected the three examples at the end of OTIB-54 

11 which used a minimum processed beta, a maximum 

12 processed beta, urine, and an air concentration of 

13 cesium, I believe.

14 So I went through and I checked those, 

15 and they worked properly. I even went back and 

16 checked the urine ones and they worked okay. And 

17 so, at this point, I find that OTIB-54 Workbook 

18 matches the current OTIB version and had no 

19 problems with it.

20 CHAIR MUNN: Any thoughts or comments?

21 If not, I am pleased to assume that we may close 

22 this item?
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I 

2 agree we should close it. I reviewed Ron's paper 

3 and everything looks to be in order to me.

4 CHAIR MUNN: Excellent. We'll wait 

5 for Steve to finish our Finding 5 closure.

6 (Pause.)

7 MR. MARSCHKE: It doesn't seem to want 

8 to close the finding.

9 CHAIR MUNN: Oh, really?

10 MR. MARSCHKE: Lori, do you have any 

11 ideas?

12 CHAIR MUNN: Status says closed. 

13 MR. MARSCHKE: Does it? It won't let 

14 me out of here.

15 CHAIR MUNN: The BRS says captured, 

16 Steve.

17 MS. MARION-MOSS: Steve, I'm not quite 

18 sure what's going on.

19 MR. MARSCHKE: If I go back to the main 

20 document, if I just break out and go back, it shows 

21 me that Finding 5 is still in progress. So it's not 

22 taking what I -- let's see.
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1 I'll take an action item, Wanda, to 

2 close 5, and --

3 CHAIR MUNN: I think that's 

4 appropriate. Yeah, let's see if we have any better 

5 luck with 9.

6 MR. MARSCHKE: Want to try 9?

7 CHAIR MUNN: Let's try 9 to see if it's 

8 a systemic problem or if it's just something odd 

9 about Item 5.

10 MR. MARSCHKE: Based on the SC&A review 

11 of the -- I don't know.

12 CHAIR MUNN: Based on the SC&A review, 

13 the Subcommittee has closed this item.

14 MR. MARSCHKE: Okay, am I doing this 

15 right? No.

16 CHAIR MUNN: It's doing the same thing?

17 MR. MARSCHKE: Yes, it puts me in a loop 

18 here.

19 CHAIR MUNN: We'll go on to the two 

20 procedures that --

21 DR. OSTROW: Excuse me, Wanda. Steve 

22 Ostrow. It turns out we actually have another item 
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1 for OTIB-54. That's Finding No. 2, that for some 

2 reason, probably my fault, didn't get on the 

3 agenda. That's a short one.

4 CHAIR MUNN: That's what?

5 DR. OSTROW: It's Finding 2.

6 CHAIR MUNN: That's what we had 

7 originally, right?

8 DR. OSTROW: Maybe. Maybe I got 

9 people confused on this. This was a question --

10 this is about the downselect from the initial seven 

11 reactors that NIOSH was considering to the four 

12 reactors then ended up with, four representative 

13 reactors.

14 We reviewed their large reactor report. 

15 And we didn't have any problem with the downselect. 

16 However, we did make the comment that the OTIB 

17 didn't provide sufficient documentation on how the 

18 downselection was done.

19 NIOSH came out with a short White Paper, 

20 a five-page White Paper, that was attached to the 

21 BRS on April 21st, that addressed this issue. And 

22 the White Paper has two tables in it that show the 
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1 isotopic mix for fission products and activation 

2 products for all the reactor cases that were run.

3 And this is back-up to how they did the 

4 downselect from the seven to these four reactors 

5 that are supposed to be representative. I 

6 reviewed it, and I think that this is sufficient 

7 for SC&A to say we did our due diligence and I think 

8 NIOSH provided enough information to justify their 

9 downselection.

10 So I recommend that Finding No. 2 be 

11 closed.

12 CHAIR MUNN: Thank you, Steve. I'm 

13 sorry. I personally did not review anything about 

14 Finding 2 because perhaps I misunderstood the 

15 communications that we were having with respect to 

16 what was considered open on the OTIB.

17 DR. OSTROW: Yeah, I might have created 

18 some confusion on that.

19 CHAIR MUNN: Did anyone else on the 

20 Subcommittee have an opportunity to review that?

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, this is Ziemer. 

22 I didn't review it, but my notes from last time 
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1 simply indicated that NIOSH was to provide summary 

2 information for item. And I guess that's what 

3 they've done here, that's what they have now. I 

4 believe it was just a matter of making sure that 

5 the summary information was practically there or 

6 available.

7 CHAIR MUNN: Yeah, my notes had told me 

8 that we still were going to look at that group of 

9 findings in OTIB-54 but --

10 MEMBER BEACH: Wanda, I reviewed a 

11 paper that -- I believe it was a NIOSH paper 

12 response to SC&A's Finding 2 on OTIB-54 Revision 

13 1. The paper's not dated, so I know it was a recent 

14 paper, but I don't know what date it came out 

15 because I just printed it.

16 CHAIR MUNN: And I don't either.

17 MEMBER BEACH: It was on Finding 2.

18 CHAIR MUNN: Yeah, I saw something 

19 before I started pulling things together for this 

20 meeting, but I have not seen Steve Ostrow's paper 

21 that he's just discussing here.

22 Does anyone have enough concern about 
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1 this, based on the information we've just been 

2 given, that you feel additional time is needed to 

3 take a look at the verbiage? We were near enough 

4 to a resolution when we last reviewed this.

5 DR. OSTROW: Yeah, at the last meeting, 

6 after we reviewed NIOSH's really big report, we 

7 issued a fairly big report in response.

8 CHAIR MUNN: Right.

9 DR. OSTROW: We had no problem with the 

10 conclusions for Finding 2, we just requested some 

11 additional backup information, tables of the 

12 nuclides that they looked at. And NIOSH did that 

13 in their short White Paper.

14 CHAIR MUNN: I think that's what I saw. 

15 Alright. If there's any concern about our closing 

16 this now, speak now.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think NIOSH had 

18 indicated verbally what we're seeing in writing 

19 here anyway, so --

20 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, we've already 

21 reviewed that.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- if you'd rather get 
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1 that from the record, so I'm comfortable with it.

2 CHAIR MUNN: Josie?

3 MEMBER BEACH: I am too, Wanda.

4 CHAIR MUNN: Very good. Steve, will 

5 you please indicate that all concerns have been 

6 addressed? The Subcommittee has closed Finding 2.

7 MR. MARSCHKE: Wanda, I'm writing down 

8 all the changes I have to make and so I will do that 

9 once I talk to Lori and we figure out what's going 

10 on here.

11 CHAIR MUNN: Good. Alright, thank you 

12 much.

13 DR. OSTROW: So, at this point, pending 

14 NIOSH issuing another revision of the OTIB perhaps 

15 in the future, all the findings have been closed.

16 CHAIR MUNN: That places the entire 

17 OTIB now out of our hands.

18 DR. OSTROW: It's off the list now.

19 CHAIR MUNN: Yeah, that's good.

20 DR. OSTROW: Off the books.

21 CHAIR MUNN: Excellent. And Steve 

22 will see to that too.
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1 Alright. Now, I hope that you all have 

2 the PROC-90 and PROC-92 information from our last 

3 meeting that you've taken a look at. We had to 

4 postpone taking a look at that because of the length 

5 of our agenda last time. I think they're 

6 relatively brief. 

7 And NIOSH, Lori, are you going to go 

8 that? Who's doing the presentation for NIOSH on 

9 these two procedures?

10 MS. MARION-MOSS: This is Lori. We 

11 have an ORAU representative online. Pat, are you 

12 on?

13 MS. KRAPS: Yeah, Lori, I just jumped 

14 on.

15 MS. MARION-MOSS: Before we get 

16 started, I just wanted to remind the Committee, 

17 basically an overview of these two procedures, 

18 starting with PROC-90. I believe PROC-90 

19 addresses our CATI process. Currently in the BRS 

20 we have several in abeyance findings that the 

21 Committee had not gotten around to closing out.

22 This procedure has been revised for 
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1 quite some time now where NIOSH has attempted to 

2 address the Committee's concerns and issues. So, 

3 Pat, ready to start?

4 MS. KRAPS: Well, just real briefly, 

5 we've revised both Procedure 90 and Procedure 92, 

6 twice since the first revision, which I believe is 

7 where the findings stemmed from.

8 CHAIR MUNN: Yeah, I believe they were.

9 MS. KRAPS: And in addition to that, 

10 based on the Working Group and comments made on the 

11 CATI script specifically, the script was revised 

12 and approved by the OMB. And the original revision 

13 to that was in February of 2010.

14 CHAIR MUNN: So it's been a long time 

15 since we actually debated any of this?

16 MS. KRAPS: Yes. So, my point being, 

17 between the revision to the CATI script, which you 

18 all went into for several months, in addition to 

19 both procedures having been revised twice since the 

20 original revision, I think we should be in good 

21 shape.

22 CHAIR MUNN: Good. Does anyone have 
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1 any concern? I trust everyone's had an 

2 opportunity now to take a look at the revisions and 

3 see whether anything jumps out at us. They are 

4 markedly different in several respects to the 

5 original issued document, which, as has been 

6 pointed out to us, we chewed on rather thoroughly 

7 for a number of months.

8 As a matter of fact, over a period of 

9 a year and a half, two years, we worked on trying 

10 to make these as claimant-friendly and as easy to 

11 follow as possible.

12 So, do I hear any concerns from any 

13 Member of the Subcommittee with respect to the new 

14 revisions that you've now gone through? Paul?

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm trying to recall 

16 whether we actually did anything side-by-side to 

17 make sure that all the concerns, original concerns, 

18 were in fact taken care of.

19 Actually, it's been a couple months 

20 since I went through this and everything looked 

21 fine to me at the time. But I think we didn't lay 

22 it side-by-side with the old document.
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1 CHAIR MUNN: Do you feel that's 

2 necessary?

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't know. I'm 

4 asking the question as to whether we have any 

5 concerns about the original issues and whether we 

6 feel they were taken care of.

7 CHAIR MUNN: Well, I did not review 

8 each of the findings, actually. I felt that we had 

9 gone over them very thoroughly at the time that we 

10 were spending a great deal of focused energy on 

11 them. But by going through --

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, to what extent were 

14 all -- the comments that were raised originally 

15 have been incorporated here in some way or another 

16 or addressed, as you understand it?

17 CHAIR MUNN: As I understand it. Have 

18 any of the SC&A folks taken a look at this?

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm not sure they were 

20 actually tasked --

21 CHAIR MUNN: I don't think we actually 

22 asked them to do it. And the question arises for 
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1 us whether we feel that's necessary, do we truly 

2 deem that's necessary. I personally have not 

3 gotten --

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think this is a 

5 matter of making sure that the original concerns 

6 actually show up. That's something we can do 

7 ourselves. I'm just saying I haven't actually 

8 done it.

9 CHAIR MUNN: No, nor have I. Have you, 

10 Josie?

11 MEMBER BEACH: No. I've read the 

12 reports, but I wasn't involved originally. I 

13 think it would be a good idea to task SC&A, or to 

14 take the time ourselves to look at it, if tasking 

15 is not what you want to do. But I think we should 

16 take the time to review it.

17 CHAIR MUNN: Well, actually, I don't 

18 think tasking is truly called for, because what 

19 we're doing here is ascertaining that the final 

20 product, which we have in our hands now, in both 

21 cases, that the final products meets our personal 

22 requirements for what we want to see done during 
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1 these interviews. And they've been vetted through 

2 more than one organization. And they've met the 

3 requirements that we stipulated when we first 

4 started going through these.

5 So, the bottom line here is, unless some 

6 Members of this Committee have seen something in 

7 these revised documents that gives them pain, that 

8 does not meet the criteria for interacting with the 

9 claimants that we feel is appropriate, then, from 

10 my perspective, we're done with it.

11 But if anyone saw anything in either of 

12 these two that you felt was inappropriate or was 

13 not adequate, more than adequate, for the purpose 

14 it's derived, then let me know. If I don't hear 

15 anything, then it's going to be my recommendation 

16 that we close these two items on our BRS.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yeah, these two items 

18 are actually a little different than many 

19 documents, in that these go, I think, to OMB and 

20 get approved.

21 CHAIR MUNN: That's correct.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: And they have been 
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1 approved by OMB and are in use.

2 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, that's correct.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Were we to make any 

4 changes, it would require, I think, that process 

5 to occur all over again. As I said, I read through 

6 them and I didn't see anything that raised concern.

7 So, although I haven't laid it 

8 side-by-side with the other -- we had concerns with 

9 the original document, but I didn't see those 

10 concerns this time, so I'm comfortable with, in a 

11 sense, closing these. There were not technical 

12 issues on these. These were issues of how we 

13 interacted with the claimants. And I think I'm 

14 comfortable with the new document.

15 CHAIR MUNN: They're fully 

16 administrative and I, too, am comfortable. Josie?

17 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, reading through 

18 the documents, preparing, I am comfortable with 

19 those documents.

20 CHAIR MUNN: Good. Steve, will you 

21 please add these two procedures to your list of 

22 items which have now been closed by the 
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1 Subcommittee?

2 MR. MARSCHKE: Okay. Wanda, can I ask 

3 a question?

4 CHAIR MUNN: Yes.

5 MR. MARSCHKE: There's a number of 

6 different categories of findings here. A number 

7 of them are in abeyance, which I can close with no 

8 problem whatsoever.

9 Some of them, at least one or two of 

10 them, are identified as "addressed in finding." 

11 And if that's one of the findings that we had in 

12 abeyance, I assume we can close those findings as 

13 well. And then there's at least one finding that 

14 is transferred someplace.

15 CHAIR MUNN: Where does it say it's 

16 transferred to?

17 MR. MARSCHKE: And it's Finding No. 16. 

18 It says it's transferred. I don't know if there 

19 may be other ones or not. And I don't know what 

20 the Subcommittee wants to do with those.

21 MS. MARION-MOSS: Steve, this is Lori. 

22 That particular item is actually transferred to the 
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1 other procedure, Procedure 92.

2 MR. MARSCHKE: Oh, it's transferred to

3 Procedure 92. So if we close them under Procedure 

4 92 then we should be able to --

5 CHAIR MUNN: Then we're closing that 

6 item.

7 MR. MARSCHKE: We can close it here as 

8 well.

9 CHAIR MUNN: Exactly.

10 MR. MARSCHKE: Okay, so there would be 

11 some tracking down, I guess to make sure you know 

12 all the interconnections are correct.

13 CHAIR MUNN: Do we have anything other 

14 than that particular item that says transferred? 

15 Everything else, I believe, is either closed or in 

16 abeyance.

17 MR. MARSCHKE: We have these --

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 CHAIR MUNN: The "addressed in 

20 finding," as far as we are concerned, we've already 

21 made that determination. And if we're closing the

22 entire set of findings, then that closes 
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1 automatically.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu. At least 

3 one of those "addressed in findings" refers to a 

4 finding in either another finding in the same 

5 procedure, or it refers from 90 to 92.

6 CHAIR MUNN: Yes.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: And so, I mean, I think 

8 the "addressed in findings" probably are all 

9 addressed by closing the findings in the two 

10 documents. I mean, the two are kind of related, 

11 and they relate back to each other.

12 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, they are. And in our 

13 parlance, addressed in some other finding 

14 literally it takes them our plate. It means when 

15 we close the other finding, they're automatically 

16 gone.

17 MR. MARSCHKE: Okay. So, basically 

18 the goal is to go through and make sure that all 

19 the findings in PROC-90 and -92 have been closed.

20 CHAIR MUNN: That's correct.

21 MR. MARSCHKE: And if I have any 

22 questions or anything that stumps me, I will inform 
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1 the Subcommittee.

2 CHAIR MUNN: Right, please do. Very 

3 good.

4 Now we are ready to address PER-31, I 

5 hope. And that was our carryover also from our 

6 last time. NIOSH, who has the action there?

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean, we're 

8 just going to give a status report. This is Stu. 

9 We're just going to give a status report on 31. 

10 This is the Y-12. Yeah, it's the Y-12 

11 TBD revision. And the finding really that we're 

12 working on is the comment about in vivo results 

13 reported in units of milligrams.

14 And so we've been in contact with Y-12 

15 trying to understand, get some calibration or other 

16 information that may help us understand how they 

17 made that interpretation. And we've had one 

18 back-and-forth. They provided things that were 

19 from a different era; they were more recent, so they 

20 weren't helpful.

21 So we're going back and there's also 

22 potential that there's some air sample data down 
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1 there that may have to replace the thorium, or that 

2 may be useful for thorium dose reconstruction --

3 in other words, thorium air sampling data -- that 

4 would be used in place of the in vivo which the Site 

5 Profile now describes.

6 So, that's kind of the nature of the 

7 finding, is that, hey, this is your Site Profile, 

8 which you've just revised, that says you're going 

9 to use thorium in vivo data to reconstruct thorium 

10 doses, but the thorium data are reported in units 

11 of milligrams, and how you going to interpret that, 

12 you know, in terms of what are the radiological 

13 components. And so that's what we're trying to 

14 sort out. And as of yet, our only status is we're 

15 still trying to get the information needed to sort 

16 it out.

17 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. So we really don't 

18 have any change in status here.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: That's correct.

20 CHAIR MUNN: We're still open. And 

21 are we anticipating that we'll have any change in 

22 status by the time we meet a couple months from now?
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Frankly, no.

2 CHAIR MUNN: Okay.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: You can leave it on the 

4 agenda and we'll report whether we have any change 

5 in status or not, but I think it would be unlikely 

6 in a couple months that we would have the results.

7 CHAIR MUNN: Alright. Let's see if we 

8 can continue to carry that. I will just assume 

9 that it will show up on our agenda next time and 

10 until we are able to resolve at least some portion 

11 of the concerns we have with that.

12 If that's the appropriate 

13 understanding, we'll just move on to PER-45. 

14 SC&A.

15 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes. Let me briefly 

16 ask John Stiver: are you prepared to show the 

17 different reports that Kathy had forwarded to you 

18 on behalf --

19 MR. STIVER: Yeah, this is John Stiver. 

20 I can go ahead -- which one do you want to pull up?

21 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay, the one that 

22 really is the dominant one is the document that was 
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1 issued back in March 24th, 2015. And that's really 

2 my response to NIOSH's review of the findings.

3 MR. STIVER: Okay.

4 DR. H. BEHLING: For Aliquippa Forge.

5 MR. SIEBERT: I apologize. This is 

6 Scott Siebert. I'm just questioning, is that 

7 report in the BRS somewhere for us to look at?

8 DR. H. BEHLING: I don't think so, no.

9 MR. SIEBERT: Okay, thank you.

10 MR. STIVER: Okay, Hans, the one I have 

11 is pulled up is the one you said was dated August 

12 2014.

13 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes.

14 MR. STIVER: Okay.

15 DR. H. BEHLING: No, that's not the 

16 one. The original review of the TBD, which was the 

17 document that prompted PER-45, Aliquippa, I may 

18 want --

19 MR. STIVER: Alright. I found it, 

20 never mind. Sorry about that.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Hans, you said that's 

22 the March 24th one, correct?
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1 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes. Yes, it is.

2 MR. STIVER: Hang on just a second, 

3 I'll get it.

4 DR. H. BEHLING: It was just a few 

5 pages. But I also have -- in that document, I have 

6 NIOSH's response to the eight findings and the two 

7 observations as an Attachment 1. And, John, I may 

8 ask you to at least show one of the pages which 

9 involves the Finding No. 5, which is very critical 

10 to my presentation.

11 MR. STIVER: Okay, can everybody see 

12 the memo?

13 CHAIR MUNN: We can.

14 MR. STIVER: Okay.

15 MS. K. BEHLING: Excuse me, this is 

16 Kathy Behling. Scott, would there be a way to get 

17 this -- probably not, I guess. I apologize for not 

18 posting this on the BRS.

19 MR. SIEBERT: That's okay, I already 

20 tracked it down. Thank you.

21 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay. My apologies.

22 MR. SIEBERT: That's okay. Thank you.
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1 DR. H. BEHLING: This is Hans. As a 

2 quick reminder to John Stiver, I do want to also 

3 ask you to be able to prepare the page that comes 

4 out of the revised TBD for Aliquippa Forge that 

5 shows Table No. 5. Or, if you don't have that, you 

6 can use my response to that review, and it's Table 

7 No. 3. And I can give you the pages.

8 Either one will suffice. Table 5 out 

9 of the revised TBD for Aliquippa Forge, or, in my 

10 review of that document, it's Table No. 3, which 

11 is a facsimile or the duplicate of Table 5.

12 MR. STIVER: I'm not quite sure that I 

13 have that, Hans.

14 DR. H. BEHLING: Let me see, because 

15 that's kind of critical here. Do you have 

16 available the actual review of -- my review of 

17 PER-45?

18 MR. STIVER: Yes.

19 DR. H. BEHLING: If you do have it, it's 

20 on Page 19, and it's Table 3. Just so that you have 

21 it available.

22 MR. STIVER: Yeah, I just want to make 
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1 sure I've got it cued up here. Okay. There's a 

2 Table 3, annual internal and external exposure --

3 DR. H. BEHLING: Exactly. That's 

4 correct.

5 MR. STIVER: Okay, I've got it ready.

6 DR. H. BEHLING: And I will ask you to 

7 put that in in a few minutes.

8 MR. STIVER: Okay. Alright.

9 DR. H. BEHLING: I guess for Ted -- I 

10 don't know exactly when he said he doesn't have 

11 access to the screens. I'm probably going to be 

12 a little more careful in identifying things that 

13 will obviously be important to you to know.

14 So, let me start out by just giving a 

15 very, very brief piece of information regarding the 

16 background for this. In August 2014 -- and that 

17 goes to what's currently on the screen. I'll read 

18 that. "In August 2014, SC&A submitted its draft 

19 report, A Review of NIOSH's Program Evaluation 

20 Report DCAS-PER-045, 'Aliquippa Forge TBD 

21 Revision.'" 

22 And in that review we identified two 
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1 observations and eight findings. If it's okay 

2 with everyone, we'll skip the two observations and 

3 really address the eight findings.

4 CHAIR MUNN: Absolutely, please do 

5 that, Hans. The observations are secondary for 

6 us.

7 DR. H. BEHLING: Yeah. In response to 

8 our findings, NIOSH prepared a document that was 

9 dated January 23, 2015, which is enclosed in this 

10 document that's being shown right now as Attachment 

11 No. 1.

12 During a teleconference meeting that 

13 took place with the Subcommittee on February 18, 

14 2015, SC&A was tasked to review and comment on 

15 NIOSH's responses to those eight findings. And 

16 that is, by and large, this particular report that 

17 you are looking at right now.

18 Before I continue on this report, which 

19 is really the protocol for elaborating on how I 

20 propose to resolve these issues, let me just 

21 quickly go back just a little bit and give you some 

22 relevant background information.
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1 Starting in January 1947, Aliquippa 

2 Forge was under contract to the AEC to produce 

3 uranium rods from uranium billets that had also 

4 been produced at this facility by rolling. And the 

5 rolling operation at Aliquippa Forge ended on March 

6 30, 1949. And that's an important date to remember 

7 when I talk later on about what we are doing here 

8 and what the TBD revision really addressed.

9 But the AEC contract, although the 

10 rolling operation ended on March 30, 1949, the AEC 

11 contract ended only in February 28th, 1950. And 

12 that again is a critical date to remember.

13 For dose reconstruction, NIOSH assumed 

14 that the residual period extended from March 1, 

15 which is the day after the AEC contract ended, and 

16 extended from March 1, 1950 through December 31st, 

17 1987. And a second period from January 1, 1989 to 

18 December 31st, 1992.

19 So you have, in essence, a year missing 

20 in those two periods that are considered residual 

21 periods. And the importance of that is that in 

22 1998, beginning in 1998, the storage activities 
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1 began in Building No. 3, which is really critical 

2 to this whole PER-45.

3 And it was in Building 3 that was 

4 essentially used for the rolling operation and the 

5 likelihood that residual contamination might 

6 remain at elevated levels during the residual 

7 period.

8 And I will briefly read something 

9 quickly here from the TBD. Again, a few statements 

10 that are critical to this whole issue of my review. 

11 And on Page 15 of the TBD I quote the following: 

12 "Interim remedial actions were taken from October 

13 to December of 1988 to enable additional restricted 

14 use of Building 3 for expansion of a small forging 

15 operations." So they continued doing some work 

16 there in Building No. 3. "And the controlled areas 

17 were established to prevent access to 

18 contamination." So they realized there was 

19 contamination in Building 3 in 1988. 

20 And the scope of the remediation action 

21 that took place in the later part of 1988 was also 

22 described on Page 22, Section 5, of the TBD. And 
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1 they state the following: "Interim remedial 

2 activities were conducted by BNI in 1988 by 

3 removing contaminated materials and equipment and 

4 placing a barricade around the remaining 

5 contaminated area. DOE noted that access to the 

6 contaminated areas was not allowed."

7 In subsequent Page 24, the TBD also 

8 states the following: “In addition to general 

9 exposures from residual contamination, two cleanup 

10 efforts, one in 1988 and the second one starting 

11 in 1993 to 1994, were performed and could result 

12 in additional exposure. The 1988 effort was 

13 limited to Building 3, and occurred in November and 

14 December of 1988. Vacuums were fitted with 

15 high-efficiency particulate air, HEPA, filters to 

16 clean the floors and walls. Contaminated bricks 

17 and soil were removed as necessary. In addition, 

18 respiratory protection equipment was used to 

19 reduce the likelihood of inhaling contaminated 

20 particulates. Further, workers were required to 

21 wear lapel air monitoring that were analyzed every 

22 24 hours.”
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1 And then it goes on to say that the 

2 decontamination techniques that were applied in 

3 1993 and 1994 were much more aggressive than in 

4 1988. In addition to HEPA vacuuming, which was the 

5 main method for 1988, mechanical shot blasting, 

6 concrete saws, jack hammering were employed, et 

7 cetera, et cetera.

8 So the point here is that there was a 

9 preliminary or interim remedial action taken in 

10 1988 that, as I've just described, involved 

11 decontamination of walls and floors, removal of 

12 certain equipment, materials, and also vacuuming 

13 and removing soils that could be removed with 

14 limited effort, not by means of jack hammering, et 

15 cetera.

16 And that's important because one of key 

17 elements in my findings was the issue of the 1988 

18 cleanup activity that were not necessarily 

19 considered in terms of the methodology that was 

20 used to approach the effort to establish internal 

21 and external doses for the residual time period 

22 from 1950 through the 1990s.
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1 So, anyway, from the foregoing 

2 statements, SC&A concluded that, one, the interim 

3 remedial action of Building 3 may have allowed 

4 Building 3 to be released for at least a limited 

5 scope, not unrestricted use, but for restricted use 

6 only. But also may have also been less than the 

7 extensive contamination that was taking place in 

8 1992 and 1993. 

9 So, from what I could divine from these 

10 statements, was that the interim remedial activity 

11 may have resulted in some reduced contamination 

12 activities as was measured in 1992, which is a very 

13 important point in time.

14 Also the removal of contaminated 

15 equipment may also reduce the external dose rates. 

16 And this will obviously be an issue that I'll 

17 discuss in a few minutes.

18 So, let me do something here. John, if 

19 you could identify Table 5-1, or Table 3 in my 

20 report -- I think you said you had Table 3 from my 

21 report -- and bring that up.

22 While we're waiting for John, let me go 
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1 back and say, our review, or my review, of the 

2 revised TBD for Aliquippa Forge identified eight 

3 findings, I'd already mentioned. And that all of 

4 these findings related to assumed model parameters 

5 and methodologies used by NIOSH to devise annual 

6 internal exposures from inhalation and ingestion 

7 and external exposures from both penetrating and 

8 non-penetrating exposures as a result of residual 

9 radioactivity that may have remained between the 

10 time periods of 1950 and 1995. 

11 So, when you look at Table 3 here, which 

12 is by and large the same table that appears in the 

13 TBD, you will see four columns that start with 1950 

14 and go all the way into 1995.

15 And the first column is the derivation 

16 of internal exposures resulting from inhalation. 

17 And you see, obviously, the metric there is 

18 picocuries uranium per day. The second column is 

19 ingestion of the material which is due to the 

20 inhalation by a constant. And the third and fourth 

21 columns involve penetrating exposures in rem, and 

22 non-penetrating from beta radiation.
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1 And so this is really the entire 

2 revision of the TBD, because it's strictly confined 

3 to the issues of the residual time period that 

4 starts in 1950 and extends into 1995.

5 And so at this point, John, I would 

6 probably ask you then to go back the report that 

7 I wrote, and stay with Page 1 at the bottom because 

8 I want to point out a couple things there.

9 When I looked at the findings and 

10 assessed them, all but Finding No. 4 are really 

11 linked to two things. And they are at the bottom 

12 of the page: NIOSH's derivation of the starting air 

13 concentration that NIOSH defines as 0.211 dpm per 

14 cubic meter in 1950. And, two, the use of this 

15 value for deriving a source term depletion rate of 

16 1.15 times ten to the minus four per day. 

17 And those are the two critical findings 

18 that I believe NIOSH, at this point, is going to 

19 concede based on their response to the eight 

20 findings that I had identified.

21 The reason why they are likely to 

22 resolve all of the issues is the following. If we 
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1 go to the next page, you will see the methodology 

2 that NIOSH used. And here's the crux to the issue.

3 On top on that page, I will read for 

4 those who may not have access to the screen. After 

5 the end of AEC rolling operations, a July 1949 

6 survey was performed. The survey indicated that 

7 the maximum air dust concentration, taken during 

8 normal operations in the furnace area, was 5.9 

9 micrograms per cubic meter, which translates to 

10 8.94 dpm per cubic meter.

11 Now, when I looked at that data and I 

12 looked at the actual document from which those 

13 numbers came from, I came to a very different 

14 conclusion that NIOSH did originally in their 

15 write-up. I realized that that value was likely 

16 to represent an air concentration that's 

17 representative of the residual period. This is in 

18 contrast to what NIOSH assumed.

19 They assumed that this was still part 

20 of the operational period, and they in essence then 

21 decided to start the assessment process by deriving 

22 an air concentration that was based on a very 
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1 different number. They actually then used the 

2 number of 8.94 dpm per cubic meter, and then decided 

3 to actually allow that number to represent an 

4 operational air concentration value that would 

5 then be allowed to exist for a period of one year, 

6 settle to the surface, and then by means of 

7 resuspension factor, that is -- I'm now in the 

8 second paragraph there.

9 Actually, by a deposition velocity of 

10 0.00075 meters per second, remain there, and then 

11 using a resuspension factor of one times ten to the 

12 minus six per meter, came up with a derived air 

13 concentration that was identified in that line 

14 there that says 0.211 dpm per cubic meter.

15 So in essence they start out by assuming 

16 that, in 1950, the air concentration based on the 

17 original value of 8.94 dpm per cubic meter, but not 

18 using that number as an air concentration, but 

19 deriving an air concentration by assuming that that 

20 activity was settled for one year, allowed to stay 

21 on the surface, and by means of a resuspension 

22 factor they came up with a value that was 42-fold 
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1 lower. And in the process, they used that as their 

2 starting point.

3 And then as a back-end, they went, as 

4 you go further down there, they derived a 1992 value 

5 by using a survey measurement that started out at 

6 350 dpm alpha per 100 centimeters squared. And 

7 then, again, converting the activity to per meter 

8 squared, and then using the same resuspension 

9 factor one times ten to the minus six, came up with 

10 the conclusion that in 1992 the air concentration 

11 was now at a value of 0.035 dpm per cubic meter.

12 So, now you have essentially two data 

13 points. One that derived in 1950. And as I 

14 mentioned before, again, you can look at the Table, 

15 the starting point of air concentration 1950 was 

16 0.211 dpm per cubic meter. And in 1992, by way of 

17 a contamination level, they derived an air 

18 concentration in 1992 of 0.035 dpm per cubic meter.

19 So, using these two points, they 

20 derived a source term depletion value -- which is 

21 now towards the bottom of that paragraph, and I 

22 highlighted -- at 1.15 times ten to the minus four 
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1 per day. So, using two air concentrations, one in 

2 1950 and one in 1992, they derived the depletion 

3 rate, source term depletion rate, and then 

4 calculated the air concentration that would have 

5 existed, based on these two data points, between 

6 1950 and 1995.

7 And that is what John showed you 

8 earlier, Table 5-1 in the TBD, or Table 3 in my 

9 document. 

10 Well, as I said, when I looked at the 

11 data, I came to the conclusion that that potential 

12 air concentration in 1950 should have been 8.94, 

13 rather than 0.211, or 42-fold higher.

14 And so not only -- and we can go now go 

15 to, in fact, John, if you can show Page 4 of 

16 Attachment 1. It's NIOSH's response to Finding 

17 No. 5. 

18 (Pause.)

19 Now let me locate, there it is. Okay.

20 Finding No. 5, for those -- I won't read it, unless 

21 the court reporter would prefer me to read it, but 

22 I'll assume everyone can see this. The Finding No. 
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1 5 is my finding that says I personally believe that 

2 the starting air concentration for 1950 should have 

3 been 8.94 dpm per meters cubed.

4 And to that, obviously, you can read 

5 NIOSH's response now that says we agree. And if 

6 anyone wants me to read it for the record, that's 

7 fine, but for those that have access to the screen 

8 you can see what NIOSH's response is. And I'll 

9 give everyone thirty seconds to quickly read it and 

10 convince themselves that my finding was obviously 

11 approved.

12 CHAIR MUNN: Yeah, the key sentence 

13 there is the last one there. NIOSH considers the 

14 1949 air sample itself representative of the start 

15 of the residual period and will revise the Site

16 Profile to use 8.49 dpm per meter squared as the 

17 starting point for the residual period. 

18 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes. And now the 

19 concession really is not just the fact that the 

20 starting air concentration has increased 42-fold, 

21 but also the fact that you now have to realize that 

22 the source term depletion value that was defined 
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1 for the lower value has now to increase obviously, 

2 too. Because you're now going from 8.64 dpm as a 

3 starting point down to the value in 1992, which 

4 means that there is a much increased change in slope 

5 of the linear loss of activity that defines the 

6 airborne concentration.

7 So, by default, by virtue of accepting 

8 that particular value, my starting value, you also 

9 have to agree to the fact that, with the new 

10 starting air concentration, you will have to also 

11 change or revise your source term depletion value. 

12 And that's very critical to this whole 

13 issue here, because it affects all -- the entire 

14 Table 5-1 now has to obviously change, because all 

15 of these values are driven by the air concentration 

16 between 1950 and 1992. And that involves the 

17 inhalation dose, the ingestion dose, internal 

18 ingestion dose, and the external expose to 

19 penetrating and non-penetrating, because they were 

20 linked.

21 For penetrating radiation, the 

22 starting point -- or the point, really, of value 
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1 that became part of Table 5-1 was the dose rate that 

2 was the maximum dose rate that was established in 

3 1992. And then that was back-extrapolated by the 

4 same source term depletion rate that now has to 

5 change.

6 So that in essence, between accepting 

7 Finding 5, and the need to revise the source term 

8 depletion value in accordance, you've changed all 

9 four dose estimates of Table 5-1, from internal 

10 inhalation, internal ingestion, external 

11 penetrating, and external non-penetrating.

12 Now the only thing that remains an issue 

13 that I had identified as a finding was the fact that 

14 NIOSH had not addressed the issue that the 1988 

15 interim remediation action has impacted both the 

16 air concentration that they derived for 1992 as 

17 well as the highest maximum external exposure rate.

18 And I have conceded that we may not be 

19 a position to make a change. In other words, if 

20 the 1988 remedial action had actually reduced the 

21 source term contamination levels that became a 

22 major component in deciding what the residual air 
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1 concentration would have been for 1992, as well as 

2 the dose rate, I can't provide you with any 

3 guesstimate as to what the change would have been.

4 In other words, by accepting 1992 which 

5 I'm going to do, we're probably essentially 

6 underestimating the air exposures that were now 

7 believing as 1992 would have potentially been 

8 changed by realizing that in 1988 the remedial 

9 action did in fact cleanup some of that activity. 

10 That if that 1988 decontamination actually had not 

11 taken place, we would have observed both a higher 

12 air concentration and residual contamination 

13 levels for external, but we can't really look back 

14 and make a change to that.

15 And so we'll accept the 1992 value and 

16 linearly extrapolate, straight down, without 

17 stopping at 1988 and saying maybe that would have 

18 been a higher value up to 1998, rather than 

19 defaulting to '92 without considering the changes 

20 introduced by 1988.

21 So that's pretty much what I'm 

22 proposing to do here if NIOSH is willing to accept 
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1 the fact that the starting air concentration is 

2 42-fold higher than the one then had issued.

3 And then using that higher air 

4 concentration for 1950 and revising their source 

5 term depletion rate, I think we will end up with 

6 changes to Table 5-1 in all four categories that 

7 I believe could probably turn out to be a favorable 

8 change and resolve the eight findings that I 

9 identified.

10 As I said, the other finding on the last 

11 page of my write-up addresses briefly the issue of 

12 Finding No. 4, which I had identified as maximum 

13 concentration that was observed in the same 

14 document that established the 8.64 dpm per cubic 

15 meter of air concentration.

16 And that was a measurement that was 

17 taken during the clean-up in 1950. And was 

18 confined to a sweeping activity in a specific 

19 location. And I'm going to concede that that's 

20 possibly a number that's real, but it is an episodic 

21 event that may not apply to the air concentrations 

22 that would have potentially affected the people 
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1 during residual periods.

2 So I feel that Finding No. 4 can be 

3 looked at, as the highest value observed, but it's 

4 not necessarily an activity that is a continuous 

5 activity or an activity that is throughout the 

6 building so I withdraw Finding No. 4.

7 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. NIOSH do you have 

8 a comment with respect to Finding 5?

9 DR. NETON: This is Jim, we have no 

10 problems with making the changes we indicated to 

11 Finding 4, and also the corresponding changes in 

12 the depletion rate, and subsequent doses that are 

13 estimated.

14 It was clearly just an error on our 

15 part, you know, interpreting that sample. This 

16 was listed as an operational air sample, it might 

17 have been taken during uranium operations, when in 

18 fact it wasn't. It was taken after clean-up had 

19 occurred.

20 So Hans is right, we're going to make 

21 those changes.

22 CHAIR MUNN: All right. In my mind, 
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1 that puts Finding 5 into abeyance.

2 DR. NETON: Well actually, I thought 

3 all of them went into abeyance.

4 CHAIR MUNN: And withdraw Finding 4. 

5 The others can all go into abeyance.

6 DR. H. BEHLING: As I said when I looked 

7 at Finding No. 4, it was just an observation I made 

8 when I tried to verify that original number of 8.64 

9 dpm per cubic meter. And then I identified that 

10 180 was just very, very high, and an increased 

11 number of course.

12 But I also concede and I agree with 

13 NIOSH that that would probably not be appropriate 

14 to apply here because it's too episodic with floor 

15 sweeping, and it's not likely to really affect the 

16 air concentration and the doses received in the 

17 residual time period.

18 DR. NETON: Yes, maybe we could close 

19 Finding 4. And then put the other findings in 

20 abeyance.

21 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, we will close Finding 

22 4, as having been withdrawn. And we'll indicate 
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1 that the others are in abeyance and that NIOSH will 

2 revise the original document accordingly.

3 DR. NETON: Sounds good.

4 CHAIR MUNN: Any problem with those 

5 instructions to do? Steve.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer, I agree 

7 with that, also thank Hans for his work in 

8 clarifying these issues.

9 DR. H. BEHLING: I realize this is 

10 somewhat complex and I was hoping that these people 

11 could following the basic narratives in explaining 

12 why I think this could be easily resolved. And I 

13 think NIOSH's willingness to concede the air 

14 concentration in 1950 really let the door open for 

15 resolution of all the other findings.

16 CHAIR MUNN: I certainly appreciate 

17 that. Josie, do you have any comment?

18 MEMBER BEACH: No. No, I agree with 

19 the discussion.

20 CHAIR MUNN: All right, very good. 

21 I'm assuming Steve will work with getting the 

22 appropriate wording with that onto the BRS after 
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1 we find out how we can best do that.

2 The question now is whether, I think we 

3 will go ahead and break for lunch right now. We're 

4 a half hour ahead of schedule and that's very good. 

5 We'll probably need that half hour this afternoon. 

6 Can we split the difference here and give ourselves 

7 and almost 45 minute lunch break instead of either 

8 a 30 minute or a one hour one?

9 We don't want to take the full hour 

10 because of the time limitations we have on our 

11 closing time. But if we can go until 1:15 return 

12 time. Is that agreeable to all concerned?

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Ziemer here, does that 

14 give Josie enough time?

15 CHAIR MUNN: Back from lunch at 1:15, 

16 that will still give us, yes. Josie's going to be 

17 with us until 3 o'clock your time.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, thanks.

19 CHAIR MUNN: So eastern time. Is that 

20 correct, Josie?

21 MEMBER BEACH: I actually have until 

22 3:15, so.
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1 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. So that's good. I 

2 think we'll be in good shape. If we'll return at 

3 1:15. All right.

4 MR. KATZ: Sounds good, thanks.

5 CHAIR MUNN: Thanks, much. Bye-bye.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

7 went off the record at 12:36 p.m. and resumed at 

8 1:18 p.m.)
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N

2 (1:18 p.m.)

3 CHAIR MUNN: Then let us begin our 

4 deliberations this afternoon with PER-43. We 

5 have, my record says we have three findings 

6 outstanding. And NIOSH.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Jim, do you have that 

8 one?

9 DR. NETON: I'm sorry, yes. I was 

10 daydreaming here.

11 CHAIR MUNN: That's good, I'm glad 

12 somebody can.

13 DR. NETON: Can we bring up our 

14 responses on the BRS? We did provide, I think 

15 there were two findings on this one?

16 CHAIR MUNN: Well, I show three, but 

17 maybe there are only two.

18 DR. NETON: I'm pretty sure this one 

19 has two.

20 DR. H. BEHLING: No. There's three, 

21 this is Hans Behling. There are three findings.

22 DR. NETON: Okay, well, we'll bring 
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1 them up then.

2 DR. H. BEHLING: Although, Jim, the 

3 first two findings are interrelated.

4 DR. NETON: Yes.

5 DR. H. BEHLING: So you could consider 

6 two findings, because finding one and two are 

7 linked to each other.

8 DR. NETON: Right.

9 MR. MARSCHKE: Which finding do you 

10 want, Jim?

11 DR. NETON: The first one.

12 MR. MARSCHKE: The first one is closed.

13 DR. NETON: Oh, what am I looking at 

14 then?

15 MS. MARION-MOSS: Well, the first 

16 finding, this is Lori. The first finding is two, 

17 in the BRS.

18 DR. NETON: Okay, well, maybe there are 

19 just -- well, okay, can we bring up the response? 

20 I think there's a response in there, it's pretty 

21 short, I believe.

22 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, I think Lori posted 
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1 those, I believe --

2 DR. NETON: Yes, but there is a 

3 response. I thought we had a response in here for 

4 this? 

5 MR. MARSCHKE: That's the response. 

6 DOE, DOL has the authority to specify cancer, NIOSH 

7 does not.

8 DR. NETON: It's so short, I couldn't 

9 see it. It seems a little bit abrupt but really 

10 this is a very complicated case because this is a 

11 PER that was bringing back cases because some of 

12 the organs that had to be reconstructed based on 

13 ICD-9 code had changed.

14 One of them was, this particular ICD-9 

15 classification of [identifying information 

16 redacted], which is [identifying information 

17 redacted], primary cancer of the [identifying 

18 information redacted]. The new TIB says, it 

19 should be reconstructed for any [identifying 

20 information redacted] surfaces. And keep in mind 

21 this is, [identifying information redacted] is a 

22 primary cancer.
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1 Department of Labor sent this over 

2 incorrectly, with a designation of [identifying 

3 information redacted] as a primary cancer. When 

4 in fact it was actually a secondary cancer from the 

5 original [identifying information redacted]

6 cancer, the primary [identifying information 

7 redacted] cancer that was identified previously.

8 So in reality, this case should not have 

9 been forwarded up for dose reconstruction, except 

10 that the secondary cancer of the [identifying 

11 information redacted] qualified this case for 

12 compensation under Part B, as part of the SEC for 

13 this site.

14 If it sounds odd, but secondary 

15 [identifying information redacted] cancer is 

16 qualified, it's a qualified cancer hidden under the 

17 SEC in this program. There are reasons for that 

18 I won't go into, but it is.

19 So the second time this was sent over 

20 for dose reconstruction, was really not to see if 

21 it deserved compensation under the Part B for 

22 $150,000, but if the case also now qualified for 
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1 medical benefits since it was already in the SEC.

2 Again, they sent it over as a 

3 misidentified [identifying information redacted], 

4 even though it was clearly a metastatic cancer. 

5 I'm not sure what the fix is for this though. 

6 Again, we don't make these calls. We do make every 

7 effort to identify, you know, cases where there's 

8 a clear disconnect.

9 In the PER process it was done 

10 correctly. It picked it up as a [identifying 

11 information redacted], and reconstructed as 

12 [identifying information redacted], and it still 

13 wasn't compensable for medical benefits at least 

14 under the program.

15 So I've racked my brains here. I'm not 

16 exactly, I understand the nature of Hans' finding 

17 but I'm not sure what corrective action there would 

18 be on something like this.

19 DR. H. BEHLING: Can I make a comment 

20 here, Jim?

21 CHAIR MUNN: Please do.

22 DR. H. BEHLING: The reason I mentioned 
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1 it, it goes back to my write-up here that involves 

2 Exhibit 3, and Exhibit 4 on behalf of this finding.

3 And Exhibit 3 was part of the record, 

4 and it was written by Dr. Ronald E. Goans, who was 

5 the medical reviewer in Exhibit No. 3. I don't 

6 have it up on the screen here for people to see, 

7 but I'll read it for you where he writes in the memo, 

8 and this was dated April 6th, 2011.

9 He says, "I have reviewed claim 

10 [identifying information redacted] and supporting 

11 documents. In NOCTS we have the following 

12 notations." And he goes on, "In my professional 

13 opinion, the [identifying information redacted]

14 tumor metastatic to [identifying information 

15 redacted] is a secondary metastatic tumor, 

16 undifferentiated from the primary [identifying 

17 information redacted] tumor of the [identifying 

18 information redacted].

19 I think the ICD-9 code for the primary 

20 appears to be correct and I have not tried to change 

21 the ICD-9 code for the metastatic tumor. I will 

22 be happy to do so if you choose, but I generally 
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1 do not change ICD-9 codes on my own."

2 In Exhibit No. 4, this was --

3 DR. NETON: Well Hans, can you stop 

4 there for one second? I think you're under the 

5 impression that this was a DOL physician?

6 DR. H. BEHLING: I have no idea, but he 

7 was --

8 DR. NETON: Actually he was a 

9 contractor.

10 DR. H. BEHLING: Well I don't know who 

11 he is, but he was obviously the medical reviewer.

12 DR. NETON: Well he's our internal 

13 medical reviewer, because when this case was 

14 originally reconstructed, the [identifying 

15 information redacted] required an internal medical 

16 review.

17 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes.

18 DR. NETON: Not to determine whether it 

19 was metastatic or not, but to determine which part 

20 of the [identifying information redacted] would be 

21 reconstructed.

22 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay. But in Exhibit 
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1 No. 4, it was a note to reviewer, and I'm going to 

2 ask a question here. A person by the name of Jodie 

3 Phillips on April 7th, 2011, writes the following. 

4 "Note to reviewers. Based on the email from Dr. 

5 Goans stating, the [identifying information 

6 redacted] tumor metastatic to [identifying 

7 information redacted] is a secondary metastatic 

8 tumor, undifferentiated from the primary 

9 [identifying information redacted] tumor of the 

10 [identifying information redacted], the internal 

11 organ applied to the [identifying information 

12 redacted] was the same as that applied to the 

13 [identifying information redacted], i.e., 

14 [identifying information redacted]." And so my 

15 question is, who was she? Who's Jodie Phillips? 

16 Is she DOL?

17 DR. NETON: A program constructor.

18 DR. H. BEHLING: Oh?

19 DR. NETON: Yes, someone on our dose 

20 reconstruction staff. She followed Goans' advice 

21 saying, I'm going to calculate this as a 

22 [identifying information redacted].
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1 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay. So why was it 

2 given the [identifying information redacted] ICD-9 

3 code?

4 DR. NETON: Well, that was incorrectly 

5 applied by the Department of Labor.

6 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay. I mean, I just 

7 looked at that, and I said this is something that 

8 needs to be looked at.

9 DR. NETON: Yes, I understand what 

10 you're saying. And in all reality, this case 

11 should have never been -- well, it should have been 

12 sent back and said, we're not going to reconstruct 

13 a secondary cancer.

14 If it was properly sent over here as a 

15 secondary cancer, with a secondary cancer ID, we 

16 wouldn't have reconstructed it. It wouldn't 

17 qualify for another reconstruction.

18 But Labor identified it incorrectly 

19 even though they recognized it was metastatic, they 

20 coded it as a [identifying information redacted]

21 primary [identifying information redacted]. And 

22 that's how the PER was carried out correctly.
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1 Now I do acknowledge there's an error 

2 here. But I'm not sure what the corrective action 

3 is in this situation.

4 CHAIR MUNN: I think what's being said 

5 is, whether there is or is not an error in terms 

6 of the ICD-9 code, this is established by some 

7 authority other than ours.

8 And we have no authority to change what 

9 that authority has chosen. We have to assume that 

10 to be the bottom line with what we have to deal with. 

11 That's my interpretation.

12 DR. H. BEHLING: And I agree Wanda, but 

13 you know this is not the first time I personally 

14 have identified issues that involve the DOL, and 

15 we've been told this is outside of our purview.

16 But I think in some instances, I believe 

17 Ted has taken upon himself to notify them and say, 

18 there is an issue here that you may want to look 

19 at. We can't resolve it for you, but if you agree 

20 with our concerns, you may change something. 

21 We've done that obviously several times in the 

22 past.
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1 MR. KATZ: Right, Hans, that's 

2 correct. I just, the one thing I'm unclear about 

3 is to whether that is, there's any appropriate 

4 action to take here is, would it matter anyway?

5 DR. H. BEHLING: There really won't. 

6 Ted, no it would not matter because the chances are 

7 it would reduce the PoC, because --

8 MR. KATZ: Right, that's what I thought 

9 I understood, thanks Hans.

10 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: So then in this case there 

12 is no reason to communicate with DOL about it. 

13 There's an error in the system, but it's not of any 

14 practical significance. I think now that we 

15 understand the whole mess, I think you can just 

16 close it because there's nothing, there's no 

17 remediation to do that might help the claimant.

18 DR. H. BEHLING: No, there isn't, as I 

19 say they had an initial PoC for this that went 

20 significantly up to 35 percent and had the revision 

21 not been introduced, we would have stayed with the 

22 original PoC which was much, much lower.
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1 So no, there's nothing you can do at 

2 this point other than to maybe say, there's an issue 

3 here that may affect other cases as well, and I 

4 think maybe the medical reviewer involved in this 

5 maybe we should be more careful about acknowledging 

6 the change or whatever his recommendation was to 

7 change the ICD-9 code.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes.

9 CHAIR MUNN: But even --

10 MR. KATZ: The medical reviewer was 

11 internal, so that's a NIOSH business, but seems 

12 like then really you could just button up, there's 

13 nothing more to do here.

14 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes.

15 CHAIR MUNN: I believe that to be the 

16 case. Paul, do either you or Josie have any 

17 contrary view?

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: It seems like it needs 

19 no further action. I think we just close it. 

20 Understand there wasn't but there could have been 

21 an issue particularly if it had changed the 

22 outcome, but I think we let it ride.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I'm fine with that 

2 too, Wanda.

3 CHAIR MUNN: Very good. This being, 

4 I'm assuming we have not automatically resolved 

5 something marvelous with respect to the BRS over 

6 lunch time, and so we will add to Steve's charge 

7 following our meeting to indicate that agreement 

8 was reached that we have no authority to change ICD 

9 codes, and the item was closed, Finding No. 2 was 

10 closed.

11 And we go onto Finding No. 3. Who has 

12 the action with No. 3? We in both cases, I think 

13 we were expecting a response from NIOSH.

14 MS. MARION-MOSS: Jim, this is for the 

15 same case I believe.

16 DR. H. BEHLING: No, I think we're 

17 still on the last one here, we have to go one step 

18 further. This is PER-043-04 Subtask 4, is the 

19 response from NIOSH.

20 CHAIR MUNN: Oh, so I'm in error, it 

21 should be --

22 MS. K. BEHLING: Excuse me, this is 
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1 Kathy. There's two additional ones I believe, no?

2 DR. H. BEHLING: No, there's just the 

3 next one. It's PER-0043-04 that --

4 MR. MARSCHKE: What happened to 03, 

5 Hans? The reprogram one --

6 DR. H. BEHLING: I think we just took, 

7 yes that was, that took care of that one.

8 MR. MARSCHKE: Both of them? Two and 

9 three?

10 DR. H. BEHLING: Two and three, yes. 

11 There were as I said up front, you know, the Finding 

12 No. 1 and two, that I had were linked to each other. 

13 That says there was an error here in the assignment 

14 of a metastatic cancer for a revision.

15 And the Finding No. 2 if the intent that 

16 metastatic cancer be recognized as such, there 

17 wouldn't be a need for a dose reconstruction. So 

18 the two were, Finding 1 and two in my write-up were 

19 essentially linked. And I think Jim needn't 

20 address those two together.

21 DR. NETON: Right. I'll agree with 

22 that. Okay, this next one has to do with a medical 
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1 review in the new TIB that, I think it was for 

2 [identifying information redacted] cancer, it's 

3 [identifying information redacted]. And could 

4 either go [identifying information redacted] or 

5 [identifying information redacted] cancer, I think 

6 is what that was. And we selected [identifying 

7 information redacted] in this case.

8 I think it said a medical review should 

9 be done. And our position was that in the PER 

10 process, it's expedient to just, if you can do the 

11 dose reconstruction with the [identifying 

12 information redacted] which produces a higher PoC 

13 and the cancer is still below 50 percent, there's 

14 no need to stop the process and go get an 

15 independent medical review to move the case 

16 forward. And that's basically what we've done 

17 here. So that's our position.

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes. Can I comment on 

20 that? As I said, I sort of get, I agree with you 

21 if it had gone over 50 percent you would have had 

22 another review of this process, but is that a 
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1 guarantee?

2 In other words, you know, SC&A's not 

3 necessarily always saying let's go for the highest 

4 dose, if it's not the correct dose or the correct 

5 PoC. I looked at this and I looked at the 

6 [identifying information redacted] that was there 

7 to essentially provide the constructor to say get 

8 a medical review if necessary, if they're 

9 surprised.

10 And in this case I decided that it was 

11 warranted because it looked like an [identifying 

12 information redacted] type of cancer based on what 

13 I see. And in your response, you sort of said 

14 first, NIOSH disagrees for several reasons. SC&A 

15 has no indication that a medical review would have 

16 resulted in [identifying information redacted] --

17 well, we don't know that until you have a medical 

18 review.

19 So your opinion that we don't know if 

20 it would have changed anything, of course we don't 

21 know but a medical reviewer's purpose is to 

22 identify the most appropriate organ that is 
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1 potentially subject to the evaluation of the dose.

2 And secondly, when you say, while SC&A 

3 may emphasize the phrased, appropriate internal 

4 organ in [identifying information redacted] of 

5 OTIB-05, NIOSH would like to emphasize the word, 

6 should. This word indicates it's not necessary in 

7 every situation to obtain a medical review, as the 

8 case here.

9 Well, you know, I looked at -- I'm very 

10 sensitized to the issue of shall, and should, as 

11 it's usually written in various documents. And 

12 first of all I consulted the American Collegiate 

13 Dictionary that says the word, should, denotes 

14 duty, proprietary, and expediency. Also it gave 

15 a synonym and the synonym for should in accordance 

16 to the American Collegiate Dictionary, is the word, 

17 must.

18 So that when you look at again, the 

19 definition of must, it in turn says, "To be bound 

20 by some imperative requirement, to be obliged or 

21 compelled to do something." And then I went 

22 further because I'm very sensitive to the DOE 
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1 documents that use the word should, shall.

2 And in looking at the DOE documents, 

3 that is the DOE radiation manual that actually has 

4 a very extensive citation of the meaning of should. 

5 And I can read to you the wording that occurs in 

6 the DOE RadCon manual that says, "The word should, 

7 means the contractor has the responsibility of 

8 either following the provisions or demonstrating 

9 technical equivalency by an alternative solution."

10 In other words, unless you have a reason 

11 that is a very strong worded reason why your 

12 approach is superior to the compliance of 

13 directives, that says, or uses the word, should, 

14 you should not simply ignore it.

15 And so I looked at that and both on the 

16 basic of definition, I sort of think perhaps the 

17 medical review of this case should have been 

18 conducted. That would have potentially 

19 eliminated the whole concept of using the liver as 

20 a higher dose and higher PoC value.

21 DR. NETON: Well, I think we need to 

22 look back to the reason -- what's the purpose of 
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1 the PER? Is to have the Department of Labor to send 

2 back any claims that would go over 50 percent given 

3 the change in a procedure or document.

4 In this case, it was very easy to triage 

5 this and demonstrate that the case did not need to 

6 be sent back, by using the [identifying information 

7 redacted] instead of going out and getting a 

8 medical review to come back with a lower PoC value.

9 But I think it's just part of the 

10 process here that, you know, there's no reason to 

11 go and get the medical review. The purpose of the 

12 PER had been fulfilled using the higher organ dose. 

13 I mean, the point of the triage of the PER is which 

14 cases need to come back? This case, it was 

15 decided, didn't need to.

16 DR. H. BEHLING: Now, I guess I wasn't 

17 aware Jim, that the medical reviewer first does the 

18 higher organ dose to calculate dose in PoC. And 

19 only if it's over 50 percent is there a real need 

20 to reassess that, to determine whether or not the 

21 right organ had been in fact identified?

22 But in fact it could have been 
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1 [identifying information redacted] which would 

2 have meant you would have had to go through the 

3 process all over again.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu, can I 

5 offer something here? If this case had come to us 

6 for dose reconstruction, then that's what we would 

7 be under. If this was a dose reconstruction 

8 report, then we should certainly have gotten a 

9 medical review.

10 Because even, we don't want to say it's 

11 an overestimating approach to use [identifying 

12 information redacted], and then a guy gets another 

13 cancer. And then have to explain later on, we 

14 really shouldn't have used [identifying 

15 information redacted].

16 So, had this come over for dose 

17 reconstruction, we should have gotten that review. 

18 That's not why it came over. It came over for us 

19 to determine if there was a chance this could exceed 

20 a greater than 50 percent PoC, given our change in 

21 dose reconstruction approach.

22 If that's the reason it came over, it's 
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1 perfectly fine to say, well, what's the highest 

2 dose, and therefore highest PoCs? What's the 

3 highest PoC this thing could have? And if that 

4 comes out less than 50, then you can say we don't 

5 need it back. And we don't need a medical review.

6 So there's a different thought process 

7 since this came over as a PER consideration, 

8 compared to whether, if it came over for dose 

9 reconstruction.

10 DR. NETON: I might just mention that 

11 it really didn't come over to us. I mean, this was 

12 --

13 MR. HINNEFELD: No, I understand that 

14 but that's why we were looking at it.

15 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay, yes I agree. 

16 Now that I understand this fine point that you just 

17 made about, that if it was a straight dose 

18 reconstruction, or forwarded as a result of a PER. 

19 I didn't realize that there is a difference in your 

20 obligation to engage a medical reviewer under those 

21 two different conditions.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I think we don't 
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1 write it that way anywhere, but from our standpoint 

2 it's clear to us that if our objective in looking 

3 at the case for a PER, and say is there any way this 

4 case can go over 50 percent? And, you know, the 

5 potential organs that could be a target organ. If 

6 the one that gets the highest PoC doesn't put it 

7 over 50 percent, then there's no need to use up the 

8 time and the project's money sending a medical 

9 consultant to look at the case.

10 CHAIR MUNN: Good. Can we say that SC&A 

11 accepts NIOSH's explanation and the finding is 

12 closed?

13 DR. H. BEHLING: This agrees with me.

14 CHAIR MUNN: All right. Any 

15 objection, Paul?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. I can live with 

17 that.

18 CHAIR MUNN: Any objection, Josie?

19 MEMBER BEACH: No, none here.

20 CHAIR MUNN: Fine. Then after the 

21 fact, we will do so. Are other people having 

22 trouble with your Live Meeting? Or am I the only 
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1 one whose screen has not been functioning properly?

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm seeing okay.

3 CHAIR MUNN: It looks like I've gotten 

4 it back now. But I had it lost for quite a while. 

5 Okay, very good.

6 Thank you. That closes our 

7 outstanding findings on PER-43.

8 The next item I have listed is PER-52. 

9 My notes say we have Findings 1 and 2. Should have 

10 responses to them. Hold on while we pull up the 

11 PER-52, Finding 1.

12 MR. MARSCHKE: Okay.

13 CHAIR MUNN: Reading?

14 DR. NETON: Okay, this relates to 

15 guidance for adjusting intakes based on partially 

16 monitored versus completely monitored. I think 

17 there was a little misunderstanding on SC&A's part, 

18 as to what we were talking about and I think it's 

19 completely understandable.

20 If you look at the, what is this, 

21 OTIB-54? No, PER-52, if you look at that, the 

22 document that assigns internal dose, there's a 
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1 table that is based on gross alpha in air, gross 

2 alpha air samples, that assigns intakes by year to 

3 workers.

4 And that is, the table said, it should 

5 be assigned to workers who were unmonitored. And 

6 that's true. However, this site had a unique 

7 situation where there's three potential 

8 radionuclides that they could have been exposed to, 

9 uranium, thorium, and plutonium. And remember 

10 that we only have gross alpha in air.

11 So let's say for example, a person has 

12 monitoring data for uranium, then we would use that 

13 bioassay data to calculate an intake in picocuries 

14 per day, and assign that intake based on the 

15 monitoring data.

16 And then take the difference in the 95th 

17 percentile gross alpha air sample, between the 95th 

18 percentile gross alpha in the table, subtract the 

19 intake that was calculated from the uranium intake, 

20 and assign the thorium, or plutonium exposure based 

21 on the remainder to which ever nuclide gives the 

22 higher dose.
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1 So it's a little confusing, but that's 

2 really what's done here is to accommodate the fact 

3 that really the people in this plant were exposed 

4 to three possible radionuclides.

5 And in some cases, we have what we call 

6 partially monitored exposure, and that would, 

7 partially would typically mean we would have some 

8 uranium data and reconstruct that. But we still 

9 need to reconstruct the balance of the dose that 

10 for intake that would be assigned using the table.

11 There's one other piece of this which 

12 was really an error that was left in the template, 

13 and I forget what that referred to. Can you guide 

14 us a little bit on this, Steve?

15 DR. H. BEHLING: I can take you, Jim, 

16 I can cover that issue. I think it's because that 

17 was part of my confusion. I think you were 

18 referring to a second bulletin on Page 11 of the 

19 document that says, "For completely unmonitored 

20 workers, unmonitored exposure should be based on 

21 the geometric mean intake." There are no 

22 geometric mean values defined in Table 2A, 2B, 2C, 
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1 and that's really what threw me off when I --

2 DR. NETON: That was a cut and paste 

3 there on our part, and that's been resolved. The 

4 template, it's already gone from the template, so. 

5 But the other difference between partially 

6 monitored and completely monitored, I think I kind 

7 of explained how that works.

8 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes, and Jim, I agree 

9 with you, had Table 2A, B and C stated intakes for 

10 partially monitored, unmonitored operators, I 

11 would have understood what followed, the guidance 

12 that you just made reference to, or explained.

13 But when I looked at unmonitored, there 

14 was no reference that this also applies to 

15 partially monitored. And then that's what threw 

16 me, in addition to the recommendations using the 

17 geometric mean value when there was no GSD value 

18 identified in the tables.

19 DR. NETON: Okay. Yes, like I said, 

20 we've already, that's already been corrected in the 

21 template, the inclusion of that sentence that 

22 talked about the GSD and geometric mean and the GSD.
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1 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes.

2 CHAIR MUNN: So is our status now, SC&A 

3 accepts the NIOSH response?

4 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes.

5 CHAIR MUNN: Item closed for No. 1. 

6 Now can we go to Finding No. 2?

7 DR. NETON: Okay Finding 2, Mutty are 

8 you on the phone? I think, Mutty Sharfi, I think 

9 --

10 MR. SHARFI: I am.

11 DR. NETON: Maybe you could take a stab 

12 at explaining --

13 MR. SHARFI: Sure.

14 DR. NETON: -- this one, please?

15 MR. SHARFI: All right, Finding 2 is, 

16 there's a table in the template that covers the 

17 associated radionuclides, especially with 

18 plutonium intakes. And it seemed that the comment 

19 is, assuming that this is listing the alpha rated 

20 nuclides, within current, really just saying for 

21 gross alpha intake what would you assign in a ratio 

22 to the gross alpha intake?
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1 So though plutonium-241 is listed in 

2 the ratio of how it's assigned to the gross alpha 

3 intake, it's not implying that plutonium-241 

4 itself is an alpha emitter. That's why the sum of 

5 the ratio is actually greater than one, and 

6 otherwise if it was considered a true alpha 

7 emitter, then the sum of the ratios would be one.

8 DR. H. BEHLING: Again, I understood 

9 that right away too. I mean, I looked at the table. 

10 And this table is in reference to the 12th 

11 percentile fuel grade plutonium mixture. And it 

12 lists obviously four radionuclides of which 

13 Pu-238-239, and americium-241 when you add then up

14 they obviously establish the unity of 100 percent.

15 And I realize that the Pu-241 alpha at 

16 14.2 couldn't possibly be part of that, so I 

17 realized it was just really a misleading use of 

18 plutonium-241 as an alpha, whatever that means. 

19 And I realized it has to be included in the dose 

20 reconstruction.

21 So I'm fully aware and then I just 

22 brought it to your attention so that maybe the 
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1 designation of Pu-241 as an alpha emitter is just 

2 something that you want to potentially avoid.

3 MR. SHARFI: I don't think the 

4 intention of the table was ever to insinuate that 

5 Pu-241 is an alpha, though it isn't assigned, the 

6 dose from Pu-241 is assigned as an alpha dose, 

7 because the majority of the dose from plutonium-241 

8 is from the americium-241 indicates it.

9 DR. NETON: Yes. I think, isn't there 

10 a colon there? It's like plutonium-241, colon. 

11 alpha?

12 MR. SHARFI: Yes. Alpha, colon, 

13 Pu-241.

14 DR. NETON: Right.

15 MR. SHARFI: So it's showing the Pu-241 

16 ratio to the alpha intake.

17 DR. NETON: It's a ratio. I mean, it's 

18 a colon, not an alpha, you know.

19 MR. SHARFI: Yes, but the table -- I've 

20 yet to have a DR misunderstand, so I mean, on my 

21 end I haven't had a confusion that we're 

22 insinuating Pu-241 is an alpha emitter.
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1 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. So undoubtedly as 

2 a part of the basic training, that would be 

3 received, that would be seen and understood 

4 correctly. Haven't had a problem with this, it 

5 sounds like.

6 Is that acceptable, Hans?

7 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes, as I said, I also 

8 recognized it right away that it can't be assumed, 

9 or it's not assumed to be an alpha emitter just by 

10 looking at the three other radionuclides, which 

11 total up to 100 percent.

12 So that you know it's obvious, I just 

13 thought that perhaps we could avoid mistaking use 

14 of that particular number, by someone who may or 

15 may not necessarily come to that conclusion.

16 CHAIR MUNN: An abundance of caution is 

17 always appreciated. Does anyone have any 

18 objection to our closing that with the same 

19 statement as our previous findings?

20 (No response.)

21 CHAIR MUNN: If not, then we shall do 

22 so after the fact. And we will move on to PER-47 
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1 which my notes tell me has four outstanding 

2 findings, one through four.

3 DR. NETON: Right. And I think, this 

4 is Jim, I'm going to rely on Mutty to carry the water 

5 on this one as well.

6 CHAIR MUNN: All right. What's the, 

7 I'm sorry, what's the site on this one?

8 MR. SHARFI: This is the Grand Junction 

9 --

10 CHAIR MUNN: This is the Grand Junction 

11 one, okay. Thank you.

12 DR. NETON: Mutty, are you still there?

13 MR. SHARFI: Yes, I'm here. I'm 

14 trying to re-read the findings on them.

15 DR. NETON: This first one has to do 

16 with the exclusion of the measurable, 

17 non-measurable data for deriving the 95th 

18 percentiles.

19 MR. SHARFI: Okay, so in the findings, 

20 and Kathy can correct me if I misstate what their 

21 point was. In the Evaluation Report they do a 

22 summarizing table of the data, really of the 
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1 non-measurable and they provide the statistics of 

2 the above zero reported values.

3 But when we did the full, kind of you 

4 want to call it coworker analysis to do dose 

5 assessment, we looked at the entire data set as a 

6 whole. So of the 528 data points, only the 118 of 

7 those are actually reported above zero. Only 

8 about seven of those are actually reported even 

9 above 50 millirem.

10 So you could already see all the, for 

11 that particular year, that for 1985 which was the 

12 one they gave the example of in their full findings. 

13 They concluded there is a very low exposure 

14 threshold, or not threshold, it's a general 

15 exposure rate that's shown in the dosimetry data 

16 for the site.

17 So to us, it felt that there's no real 

18 basis to stratify the data and exclude the non, the 

19 zero data from this data set, rather than it

20 indicates that the actual external exposures are 

21 actually probably low. And that the data set 

22 should be looked at as a whole.
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1 So basically the assessment was just 

2 done as a whole data set using OTIB-20’s guidance 

3 on how to calculate external coworker exposure.

4 DR. H. BEHLING: Can I make a comment?

5 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, do.

6 DR. H. BEHLING: Well, what really 

7 brought me to this whole issue was, I was aware of 

8 some data involving the Grand Junction issue for 

9 external exposure. And I didn't even know at the 

10 time that I used it, and I made my initial finding 

11 that the data that I was looking at came out of the 

12 Grand Junction SEC Petition Evaluation Report.

13 And that in turn, we used for external 

14 only the 118 people who had exposures of measurable 

15 value. Okay? And when I realized that in the 

16 write-up for, your write-up here, that for Grand 

17 Junction, the data was 118 measurable dosimeter 

18 responses for 1985, were co-mingled with 410 

19 measurements that were below detection.

20 And that's, two things came to my mind. 

21 Why is there a difference? Why did NIOSH for the 

22 purpose of the SEC Evaluation Report, only select 
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1 the 118 cases for 1985 that had measurable? And 

2 then for the TBD decided to include 410 

3 non-measurable below LOD values?

4 And that, so the inconsistency between 

5 what NIOSH reported in the SEC report, and then in 

6 the TBD report struck me as something that needed 

7 to be looked at. Why is there a difference? Why 

8 would you cite one set of data for the SEC Petition 

9 Evaluation Report and another one for the TBD for 

10 dose reconstructors?

11 And sometimes I do have to question when 

12 you look at, and I realize in today's world 

13 sometimes the abundance of caution gets you to 

14 monitored personnel that you know up-front are not 

15 going to be exposed anyway, but they become part 

16 of an average value that tends to dilute the real 

17 numbers for those who probably should be definitely 

18 monitored.

19 And therefore when you do dose 

20 reconstruction on people whose exposure you're 

21 trying to assess in retrospect, you may show, 

22 change then by using data where the majority, 80 
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1 percent, when 80 percent of the data were used to 

2 calculate the potential exposures involved people 

3 who didn't have measurable exposures.

4 And so this is -- and I went through that 

5 in my exhibits where I looked back -- in fact, the 

6 reason why I came into this whole discussion is 

7 because it was at the urging of Ted, who said, you 

8 can't make these statements without necessarily 

9 looking at these numbers.

10 Because I initially cited this as a 

11 conditional finding, because I couldn't reconcile 

12 those numbers that came out of the SEC Petition 

13 Evaluation Report against the numbers I saw here.

14 And when I guess, NIOSH supplied me with 

15 the original data, and only then I came to the 

16 understanding that the difference resulted from 

17 the inclusion of 410 people out of a total of 

18 possible 528 monitored people, who had exposures 

19 that were non-measurable. And that's the genesis 

20 of this finding.

21 I mean, this is an arbitrary decision 

22 to include or not include. I just wonder why the 
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1 SEC Petition Evaluation Report shows only to 

2 include the 118 people in their assessment?

3 MR. SHARFI: I mean, the Evaluation 

4 Report, that table's just summarizing the positive 

5 data. In the dose reconstruction plan, I can tell 

6 you that the reason why they're all included is, 

7 if you look at the total data even if you talking 

8 about that there's 400 below detection, there's 

9 actually less than, about one to two percent that's 

10 actually barely above 50 millirems, which is barely 

11 above detection.

12 So really 98 percent of the entire 

13 people monitored are right at the detection limit 

14 in 1985. So to exclude, to say that there's you 

15 know, a large source of people that had non-detects 

16 are not part of a distribution, when 98 percent of 

17 the were right around detection, I did not see a 

18 reason to say that I need to disclude these people 

19 from this overall data set.

20 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim. I 

21 haven't looked at the Evaluation Report recently 

22 but it sounds like, and I think Mutty's probably 
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1 correct, and it is correct that to characterize the 

2 data, not necessarily present what we would use as 

3 a coworker model.

4 MR. SHARFI: Correct.

5 DR. NETON: There's a difference 

6 there. I mean, characterize what the exposures 

7 were versus, you know, how are you going to 

8 reconstruct the doses for unmonitored workers? 

9 And we've done this numerous times in the external 

10 world, you know, 50th percentile with or without 

11 the full distribution as applied. I've forgotten 

12 exactly how we do that right now.

13 And if a person were in a job category 

14 that required to be monitored, looked like they 

15 should have been monitored and weren't, then they 

16 clearly get the 95th percentile of dose. They're 

17 not short changed necessarily as you indicated.

18 There's some movement afoot as you 

19 know, in the draft implementation guide there. A 

20 world of how we're going to go back and relook at 

21 some of this stuff. But right now, I don't see 

22 anything inconsistent here with what our current 
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1 procedures specify.

2 We've done numerous, numerous reviews 

3 of doses of coworker models and we don't, I can't 

4 recall when we've ever thrown away all the zeros, 

5 or the non-detects.

6 CHAIR MUNN: Is that reasonable to you, 

7 Hans?

8 DR. H. BEHLING: Well, again, we're 

9 dealing with something of a subjective issue here, 

10 and I will default to NIOSH's decision to include 

11 them. But I guess one could argue the point, but 

12 it wouldn't resolve anything. So I'll simply 

13 default to their interpretation.

14 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. Any comments from 

15 any of Subcommittee Members?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. Clearly, it's 

17 true that for the coworker models we generally have 

18 used all of the data. Might have been monitored 

19 individuals even which is non-detectables.

20 I don't recall on the SEC Petition but 

21 that was simply a compilation of, I believe it was 

22 just a compilation of what the actual exposed 
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1 individuals had got, was it not?

2 When used to, was it used in an attempt 

3 to bound, or what was the issue there?

4 MR. SHARFI: The DR was just to 

5 summarize the data that was available, it wasn't 

6 to be used at all.

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

9 DR. H. BEHLING: Paul, your question, 

10 for the SEC Petition, as I said they only used the 

11 data for the 118 people with positive exposures for 

12 the 1985. As opposed to the full 528 individuals 

13 who were monitored in total, of which 410 did not 

14 have measurable doses.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Then how was it used? 

16 Or was it just used to show exposures, or?

17 MR. SHARFI: It was just presented. 

18 It wasn't used at all.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: It wasn't used. So I

20 don't see any inconsistency of the actual use of 

21 the distribution for dose reconstruction.

22 CHAIR MUNN: I don't think there's 
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1 anything else we can do with this, correct?

2 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes, as I said, Wanda. 

3 With Jim's and Mutty's explanation, if this is the 

4 policy to interpret data differently between SEC 

5 Petition Evaluation versus dose reconstruction, 

6 then there's no argument left.

7 CHAIR MUNN: All right. We will see 

8 that that one also is closed. Our next finding 

9 would be Finding 2 and the same PER. If we can go 

10 to that one, Steve?

11 Finding 2, here it is. There's a new 

12 response from NIOSH.

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 CHAIR MUNN: Mutty, would you like to 

15 expand on that?

16 MR. SHARFI: Sure. This is a little 

17 bit similar in the sense of the data. This is about 

18 neutron dose. In this case we did a compilation 

19 of the neutron dose.

20 There's very little neutron dose, the 

21 site really mainly had a neutron exposure for 

22 people using, all the geologists that used logging 
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1 sources and stuff like that.

2 I provided some SRDB's to show really 

3 when they actually had a routine operation that we 

4 would likely see neutron exposure.

5 So what we did is we calculated the 

6 geometric mean and the 95th percentile for the 

7 neutron data from the REMS database. And then we 

8 actually apply it site wide to all claimants.

9 Even though most workers would likely 

10 have almost zero with no potential for neutron 

11 exposure, it was difficult to always place them 

12 with somewhere. We give everybody at least the 

13 geometric mean dose.

14 And for geologists that likely would 

15 been actually using that they, but we found that 

16 most geologists would have been monitored for 

17 neutrons. If they happened to be unmonitored we 

18 used the 95th percentile for those exposures.

19 DR. H. BEHLING: This is Hans. I agree 

20 with the fact that this is somewhat similar, but 

21 there are also some differences on this one.

22 In total there were a total of 81 for 
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1 the year in question, 1986, that I chose to assess. 

2 There were 81 neutron dosimeters distributed, of 

3 which 15 dosimeters had an exposure that was part 

4 of the compilation of dose with less than LOD over 

5 two.

6 Normally we regard that as something 

7 that in itself would be corrected. Where we say, 

8 when you're below LOD, you end up usually using a 

9 factor of LOD over two, period.

10 And in addition to 15 of the 81 neutron 

11 dosimeters, a total of 14 neutron dosimeters were 

12 below LOD, 40 millirem, and as I said 15 dosimeters 

13 were less than LOD over two.

14 Only 26 out of the 81 neutron dosimeters 

15 had registered doses greater than LOD, or 40 

16 millirem. And one of the things that I looked at 

17 was, that we're really concerned mostly about 

18 geologists.

19 These are the people who carried 

20 obviously the neutron sources for doing 

21 measurements. And based on the fact that for 1986, 

22 we had 26 neutron dosimeters with LOD greater than 
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1 40, and I realized that the geologists at Grand 

2 Junction would have probably been very few in 

3 numbers, so what you're really looking for is a very 

4 select group of people.

5 And I have no idea how many geologists 

6 would have been there at the time, or how many 

7 geologists would have been represented by the 

8 actual dosimeters that we're looking at? Would 

9 they have been part of the 26 that were greater than 

10 the LOD?

11 And if that's the case I would again, 

12 tend to think that you're diluting the potential 

13 exposure to a geologist where we're looking to 

14 assign the 95th percentile. So by including in 

15 among the 81 dosimeters, 40 that were below LOD, 

16 and 15 that were less than LOD over two, and you're 

17 trying to potentially assess the exposure to a very 

18 select and few people who are qualified as 

19 geologists, you're somewhat diluting their 

20 numbers.

21 DR. NETON: But Hans, you're assuming 

22 that all these geologists were unmonitored. And 
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1 they were trying to reconstruct dose to unmonitored 

2 workers here. With no monitoring data.

3 I find it hard to believe that only 

4 geologists were unmonitored. Or mostly 

5 geologists --

6 DR. H. BEHLING: No, I wouldn't say 

7 that. But in our table as I incorporated into my 

8 write-up. We have obviously geologists pre-1981 

9 and geologists '81 through '85. And the measured 

10 dose is assigned to them at a 95th percentile value.

11 So on the assumption that there were 

12 some geologists, otherwise we wouldn't make that 

13 an issue. You would probably expect a dose that's 

14 possibly at the higher end among the 26 people whose 

15 dosimeters were greater than 40.

16 DR. NETON: But this is a slightly 

17 complicated issue because honestly geologists use 

18 these devices offsite, which is not really covered 

19 exposure. We don't know where they used them. 

20 We're assuming they used them onsite, but by and 

21 large, most of the geologists were doing work 

22 offsite. They're not even really a covered source 
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1 of exposures.

2 So I don't know, it's hard for me to 

3 think that we're missing large exposures to 

4 geologists that had no badging. And you know, 

5 we're defaulting to assigning the entire site 

6 population, some small you know, neutron dose based 

7 on what we have for the monitored people, who were 

8 probably mostly geologists.

9 I don't think it's, I think it's fairly 

10 claimant favorable in my opinion.

11 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay. I just had a 

12 hard spot with using even dosimeters that were 

13 below LOD over two as credible dosimeter readings.

14 DR. NETON: It's all available. I 

15 mean, I don't know whose, that's --

16 DR. H. BEHLING: I mean, normally we 

17 don't accept those numbers even when we do dose 

18 reconstruction for missed dose. We always assume 

19 when there is a registered dose, let's say of five 

20 millirem at a time when film dosimeters had an LOD 

21 of 40, we used to default to LOD over two that says, 

22 instead of getting the registered dose of three 
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1 millirem, we give them 20 millirem.

2 So that we usually do make some 

3 consideration to extremely low values as being not 

4 numbers that you want to necessarily assign to 

5 anybody.

6 DR. NETON: I don't necessarily think 

7 that's true. I mean, if we'd had incomplete, 

8 uncensored data set, I think we would use it. 

9 We've done that in the past.

10 DR. H. BEHLING: Well, I know for a fact 

11 during dose reconstruction when we have someone who 

12 was given a dosimeter dose of let's say ten 

13 millirem, external whole body, and we realize that 

14 at that time there was a LOD value of 40, we usually 

15 default to, in fact I think you've written it into 

16 your procedures, that you default to LOD over two 

17 as opposed to giving a lower value than LOD over 

18 --

19 DR. NETON: There's a difference 

20 between doing a dose reconstruction assignment and 

21 constructing a coworker model though.

22 DR. H. BEHLING: Okay.
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1 CHAIR MUNN: So where are we?

2 DR. H. BEHLING: As I said, earlier, 

3 this is strictly my interpretation. And I admit 

4 that I'm not always going to be right, or get my 

5 way.

6 CHAIR MUNN: Well, no I think the issue 

7 here is that, the difference in the applicability 

8 of the approach for different ends.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, Jim, if you're 

10 doing an actual dose reconstruction versus doing 

11 a coworker model, for the coworker model you use 

12 the distribution of the dose, right?

13 DR. NETON: Correct. We would really 

14 use, data that was uncensored throughout.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: But you do an 

16 individual dose reconstruction, then you doing the 

17 LOD over two, right?

18 DR. NETON: Correct.

19 CHAIR MUNN: So I don't want to put 

20 words in your mouth, Hans. Even though, as you 

21 know, I'm always eager to close these. We don't 

22 want them closed if the real meat of the issue has 
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1 not been --

2 DR. H. BEHLING: Well, Wanda, 

3 considering the nominal differences in doses, I 

4 don't think it's worth the argument to continue 

5 this discussion. So I will say, let it be as is.

6 CHAIR MUNN: All right. Very good. 

7 Accepted No. 2.

8 And then we go onto Finding No. 3 which 

9 is a question about raw data and documented sources 

10 for 569 air sample measurements associated with 

11 D&D from '89 through 2006.

12 MR. SHARFI: Wanda, this is --

13 DR. NETON: Let Mutty summarize this 

14 one. We provided the reference ID for all the raw 

15 data. So I'm not sure where we go from here with 

16 that. Whether SC&A wants to review these or 

17 whether the implication is that we should have put 

18 the raw data -- DR. H. BEHLING: 

19 Well, did you, I'm not going to argue the point 

20 here, but I'm looking at the Technical Basis 

21 Document, and on Page 16 it identifies air 

22 monitoring data. And in Bullet No. 2, it says, 
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1 "569 air sample measurements were recovered for 

2 onsite D&D work including both general area and 

3 breathing zone samples. These samples can be used 

4 to assign doses to D&D workers and other 

5 supervisor," et cetera. "If individual bioassay 

6 results are not available."

7 Now, I looked at that and I said, okay, 

8 who would go and make -- go through that effort? 

9 And your response, you know, you identify all of 

10 the different sources that you'd have to go 

11 through.

12 And your response, the raw data for 569 

13 air samples are available in the following SRDB 

14 reference IDs, and you list them. There are a 

15 total of 16 documents. Do you honestly expect 

16 someone to go through that and then reconstruct the 

17 doses based on 569 air samples that are contained 

18 in these documents?

19 This was my question.

20 DR. NETON: You raise a good point 

21 here, Hans. I think we're going to have to take 

22 this one back and look at it a little closer.
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1 MR. SHARFI: Why can't, we've already 

2 done the analysis. So we've pre-did the analysis 

3 for DRs to be able to use that data.

4 DR. NETON: Okay.

5 MR. SHARFI: So in an individual DR 

6 case, they wouldn't have to go and recreate it every 

7 time. That's part of -- you know, I mean, there's 

8 not a TBD for this site, but as part of the template 

9 though to make an official process that we develop 

10 for this site.

11 DR. H. BEHLING: Right.

12 DR. NETON: Mutty, is this part of the 

13 template for that?

14 MR. SHARFI: I'm assuming so. Hans 

15 has been referring to a TBD. I don't think there's 

16 a TBD for this site.

17 DR. NETON: I think it is a TBD.

18 DR. H. BEHLING: I'm sorry, it's a 

19 template. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have referred to 

20 --

21 MR. SHARFI: Yes, I assumed that's what 

22 you're referring to was a DR template.
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1 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes, yes I am.

2 MR. SHARFI: And this is a methodology, 

3 so in part of developing the methodology, we went 

4 ahead and did the statistical analysis of all that 

5 data.

6 So that is available to the DRs if they 

7 need it. You wouldn't individually at every DR go 

8 back and recreate it. I agree that would be 

9 inefficient.

10 DR. H. BEHLING: Yes. Should there be 

11 some statement here that says, you have the data 

12 available for those who choose to use that, those 

13 569 air samples? Because there's no indication 

14 here in the template that would suggest that data 

15 are available for use in dose reconstruction?

16 DR. NETON: I tend to, I think I'd like 

17 to look at this a little closer. I wasn't looking 

18 at it from the perspective that you just 

19 communicated.

20 (Simultaneous speaking.) 

21 DR. NETON: And I think we'll hold off 

22 on this one discussion maybe if that's okay until 
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1 I've got a better feel for the data have been 

2 summarized, characterized, and are being used. I 

3 really don't have a good feel for that.

4 DR. H. BEHLING: Well, I thank you, 

5 Jim, because you kept me from striking out. 

6 Because I lost the first two. So I'm still in the 

7 ball game.

8 DR. NETON: I think we will eventually, 

9 but I'm saying that I don't know enough to, you know 

10 --

11 DR. H. BEHLING: I may have to take my 

12 thank you back when you get to that point.

13 DR. NETON: No, I just need to look at 

14 it because I'm not comfortable without having seen 

15 what we've done and how we're using it to discuss 

16 this intelligently, I guess.

17 So we'll take a look at it and report 

18 back at the next meeting.

19 CHAIR MUNN: Good, we'll continue to 

20 carry Finding 3, with the work that NIOSH is going 

21 to review it and report next time.

22 DR. NETON: Yes, we'll take a closer 
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1 look at it, because I wasn't looking at it from that 

2 perspective. Okay.

3 CHAIR MUNN: All right. Then we will 

4 move onto to Finding 4, the derivation of intake 

5 rates for radium-226 and thorium-230, NIOSH failed 

6 to employ activity fractions cited in Table 3 of 

7 Attachment A.

8 DR. NETON: Mutty has prepared a 

9 response here and it looks like we do agree that 

10 we're going to be overestimating by a factor of two. 

11 Mutty, is that an oversight on our part, or is that 

12 --

13 MR. SHARFI: Yes. Okay, this was the 

14 one where we ratioed to the total uranium. And 

15 really what we should have ratioed to was just the 

16 234, where the total uranium is the site of all

17 three. So in reality we end up resulting in a 

18 slightly above factor of two. And we need to go 

19 to five or you know, it's a very small fraction of 

20 the intake is left.

21 DR. NETON: So the total uranium 

22 activity which is a combination of 238 and 234?
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1 MR. SHARFI: So that ends up, when 

2 really you should just be, they're in equilibrium 

3 with each other, so they'd be equal to the U-234 

4 intake. So in respect, we end up over estimating 

5 the radium and thorium by a factor of two because 

6 we're ratioing to the two of them, so.

7 DR. NETON: That's seems like 

8 something that we could fix. I mean we --

9 MR. SHARFI: Oh yes. That's something 

10 we would fix the template and --

11 DR. NETON: Yes, because the dose is 

12 going to go down. But --

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 DR. NETON: I think it's a good fight. 

15 I think we need to correct that to be technically 

16 correct. Yes. So, we appreciate the finding and 

17 we'll respond accordingly.

18 CHAIR MUNN: All right. The template 

19 will be corrected. And that will put that item in 

20 abeyance, correct?

21 DR. NETON: I guess, yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Well that's pretty 
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1 straightforward. Why don't you just close it?

2 CHAIR MUNN: Well that's easy.

3 DR. NETON: You might want to hold it 

4 in abeyance and make sure that we do follow up and 

5 do it.

6 CHAIR MUNN: So it's --

7 MR. KATZ: Check.

8 CHAIR MUNN: Very good. We will. That 

9 completes PER-47, if I'm not correct someone please 

10 tell me so.

11 And that brings us to our 

12 administrative detail. Lori had notified us some 

13 time ago that we were going to make as routine, our 

14 abeyance items that NIOSH is going to look at on 

15 a regular basis to see if there were more items that 

16 were ready to close.

17 Lori, do you or someone else at NIOSH 

18 have any information for us this time?

19 MS. MARION-MOSS: Yes, Wanda, this is 

20 Lori. Fortunately for this meeting, I don't have 

21 anything to report, to bring forth to the 

22 Subcommittee. Hopefully, I'll have something for 
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1 the next meeting.

2 CHAIR MUNN: All right. We will 

3 check. The item is going to be on the agenda every 

4 time until someone tells me otherwise.

5 We were, there was going to be some 

6 activity with respect to case selection 

7 recommendations. Is that correct?

8 MS. K. BEHLING: This is Kathy Behling. 

9 I guess I can refer you to a memo that I had sent 

10 out on March 16th. And that memo included not only 

11 the newer, newly issued PERs, but I also had gone 

12 back into the BRS system, this was several months 

13 ago, just to confirm that we had put in any place, 

14 I looked at all the PERs plus the Subtasks forward.

15 And if we had already completed those 

16 and we didn't have any findings, I wanted to ensure 

17 that we put in a finding of no findings.

18 In that search, I identified -- and if 

19 we have the memo available, I'm going to go the 

20 actual last page of that memo, which is Page 6, I 

21 had identified two PERs that was PER-8 and PER-11.

22 One had to do with the modifications to 
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1 the NIOSH-IREP lung model, that was PER-8. And 

2 PER-11 was the K-25 TBD and associated TIBs. We 

3 had actually looked at both of these. We've 

4 completed everything up until the Subtask 4, and 

5 on Page 6, do you all have that memo, Subcommittee 

6 Members?

7 CHAIR MUNN: Yes.

8 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay. And we had 

9 recommended for PER-8 that we may want to review 

10 three cases. And under PER-11, we identified 

11 perhaps four cases and we have two selection 

12 criteria there.

13 And so I don't know if that's something 

14 that you are in a position to task us with today, 

15 or if it's something you want to continue?

16 MR. KATZ: Kathy, can you just remind 

17 me, just the lung model. I thought this was one 

18 where ages ago we said, this is not necessary to 

19 do the case selection for this. But maybe I'm 

20 confusing this with a different PER.

21 Is this something, did we just recently 

22 complete the rest of the work for that PER? 
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1 Because I thought there was lung model one where 

2 there was really no point in the case review, that 

3 related to a lung model one.

4 MS. K. BEHLING: Well, this was done 

5 quite a long time ago. And I can go back and check 

6 again. I know that initially we had recommended 

7 doing three cases, but perhaps we decided that it 

8 was not necessary.

9 MR. KATZ: I'm thinking, I could be 

10 confused, but I'm thinking though that there was 

11 quite a discussion about that.

12 MS. K. BEHLING: Yes, there was. Yes, 

13 there was.

14 DR. H. BEHLING: And can I cut in here, 

15 Kathy?

16 MS. K. BEHLING: Yes.

17 DR. H. BEHLING: Let me shed some 

18 light. I reviewed the IREP lung model and came to 

19 the conclusion that there was a potential serious 

20 error there that would overestimate the 

21 Probability of Causation for all the people who 

22 would be obviously compensated.
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1 And I reported that to I think, either 

2 the full Board, or maybe a Subcommittee group. And 

3 they concluded that this was beyond their scope in 

4 terms of technicality. And that they would 

5 potentially have to go outside the organization to 

6 assess this whole issue.

7 The relative risk model that was used 

8 to assess dose as a functional age. And this is 

9 the area that I questioned in terms of, is this 

10 legitimate? And I think this was obviously 

11 something that was done by SENES or somebody else 

12 outside who was part of this IREP lung model. And 

13 it was never resolved. And so I guess there was 

14 reason to not necessarily select particular cases 

15 for evaluation based on the outstanding concerns 

16 --

17 MR. KATZ: Hans, but I'm thinking 

18 actually the reason we had just, if I'm not confused 

19 about which PER we're talking about, I thought the 

20 reason we decided there's no point in case 

21 selection is because implementation was really, 

22 there was nothing difficult. It's perfectly 
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1 straightforward, the implementation, which is why 

2 there's nothing to be gained by doing a case review.

3 DR. NETON: Ted, this is Jim. You're 

4 absolutely right. I mean, this is a change in the 

5 risk models.

6 MR. KATZ: Right.

7 DR. NETON: And there's no dose 

8 reconstruction involved here. The dose 

9 reconstruction is just run using one risk model, 

10 and another risk model. Because we combined, you 

11 know, we had those two risk models that we now run 

12 in every case. And earlier, we only had one. But 

13 there is no dose reconstruction at all.

14 MR. KATZ: Right. Right. So this is 

15 that, I am remembering the right PER then, whatever 

16 the right situation. So this anyway, the 

17 Subcommittee did talk about this and put it to bed 

18 that we didn't need cases on this.

19 And then this one, because these are 

20 sort of coming by the same mechanism to forward to 

21 the Subcommittee, I would just be worried that the 

22 K-25 is another one of those cases. That was 
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1 already decided, although I couldn't tell you that 

2 for a fact.

3 CHAIR MUNN: And I don't know either.

4 MS. K. BEHLING: I agree, never mind on 

5 PER-8.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. I mean, by all means, 

7 Kathy, if you want to check on K-25 and see whether 

8 we didn't discuss it already. It just seems like 

9 a good possibility that we had already discussed 

10 it.

11 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Well, Kathy, I was 

13 looking at a document you put out December 8th of 

14 2014, and K-25 and eleven, were both listed in that 

15 as not being, Subtask 4 not being assigned. Along 

16 with Rocky Flats.

17 MR. KATZ: So right, they weren't 

18 assigned but the issue is why they weren't 

19 assigned?

20 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, yes. It doesn't 

21 go into that detail unfortunately.

22 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, it wasn't that they 
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1 were not addressed. It was that they were not 

2 assigned. Yes.

3 MS. K. BEHLING: And I can look further 

4 into that.

5 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Kathy --

6 (Simultaneous speaking.)

7 MR. KATZ: -- definitely bring it up at 

8 the next meeting if that one that slipped through 

9 the cracks.

10 MS. K. BEHLING: Right. And I had 

11 simply identified these as I said, as I was going 

12 through the BRS system.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, I recall that from the 

14 Board meeting materials. Right.

15 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. I think that's 

16 correct.

17 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay. And Wanda, I 

18 don't know if you would like me to go on with, 

19 continue on with this memo that I sent out with 

20 regard to the PERs that had, the newly issued PERs?

21 And as I said, one that I had identified 

22 during this BRS review, namely that was PER-21 
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1 which is the Rocky Flats plant dose reconstruction 

2 method modifications.

3 And I know that that was one that sort 

4 of caught my attention because I realized that 

5 Rocky Flats is a very complex site and I did know 

6 that Ron Buchanan is very much involved in 

7 everything that's been going on with Rocky Flats.

8 And I asked him if there was any reason 

9 why we had not looked at this PER? And I don't 

10 think he could come up with a reason either. So, 

11 that is added on Page 3 of this memo that I sent 

12 out, along with the newly issued PERs.

13 And I've highlighted those PERs that I 

14 -- and I gave reasons for why I thought they were, 

15 of this seven that I have listed here, I've 

16 identified actually two, three, four, that I 

17 thought might be worth looking at. And let me just 

18 spend a little bit of time and I'll ask for some 

19 assistance here, I believe.

20 On Page 5, I also have listed PER-57 

21 which is General Steel Industries. And if perhaps 

22 either Bob Anigstein or John Mauro are on the line. 
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1 What we had concluded for this particular PER, is 

2 that we were very much involved in the revisions 

3 of the General Steel Industries' TBD.

4 And so we didn't -- this is a little bit 

5 different from what we've done in the past. But 

6 we didn't feel it was necessary for us to do our 

7 typical Subtask 1 through Subtask 3, but just go 

8 to the case reviews.

9 And I believe there's a little more 

10 detail that perhaps either Bob Anigstein or John 

11 Mauro can add, as to why we felt that it was 

12 necessary to at least suggest to the Subcommittee 

13 that we look at a few cases.

14 Is Bob Anigstein on the line? 

15 Apparently not.

16 CHAIR MUNN: I hadn't heard him.

17 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay, John Mauro? 

18 They've all abandoned me.

19 CHAIR MUNN: They left it in your 

20 capable hands, Kathy.

21 MS. K. BEHLING: What I was told is 

22 that, even though there is another revision that 
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1 NIOSH is working on, on the General Steel 

2 Industries, they felt it necessary because they 

3 were, and maybe if Jim Neton and even if David Allen 

4 is on the line, they can add to this.

5 They're working on the new additional 

6 revision however, they recognize because of 

7 changes that have already been made in Revision 1, 

8 there were going to be some cases that were 

9 overturned. And I think there were quite a few.

10 Now, based on, I believe, some meetings 

11 there had been some concerns that all of these cases 

12 are being looked at appropriately, and so that was 

13 why we were suggesting that at this point in the 

14 process, we just pick a few cases and Bob Anigstein 

15 was going to, he said he could present some 

16 selection criteria and suggest the number of cases 

17 that may be worth looking at. If that's something 

18 you would want to consider?

19 MR. KATZ: Can I just suggest, Kathy, 

20 and I think it's a good idea for Bob to -- I mean, 

21 because that'll sort of flesh it out. If he wants 

22 to put forward case selection criteria and 
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1 rationale, then that would give the Subcommittee 

2 or the Board, whoever does this tasking, sort of 

3 full information to judge as to whether they want 

4 to task.

5 MS. K. BEHLING: Right. So we'll put 

6 something in a memo? Would that --

7 MR. KATZ: Yes, that memo would be 

8 great, and I do think it makes a lot of sense exactly 

9 what you're saying if they're going to review, it 

10 would be just jump right to the case review. 

11 Because that would sort of button it up.

12 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay, very good.

13 CHAIR MUNN: It would be very helpful. 

14 Thank you. We'll look forward to Dr. Anigstein's 

15 selection of cases for General Steel.

16 MS. K. BEHLING: Okay. And I don't 

17 know if you all have made any decisions on the newly 

18 issued PERs, and considered our recommendations or 

19 not? If you would like to discuss that.

20 CHAIR MUNN: I think we've all taken a 

21 look at them. And that moves us onto our next item 

22 there. We have had a note from Dr. McKeel about 
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1 one of those, PER-58, which I don't think we're 

2 ready to address. I believe Ted, you had some 

3 information?

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, this is Dow is asking 

5 for, and the SEC Issues Work Group is, we're trying 

6 to schedule a meeting now for that Work Group to 

7 take up the Site Profile. And then, until we've 

8 done that, and looked at the Site Profile, we won't 

9 know whether there's value in going further and 

10 also reviewing the PER.

11 So that's the next step and it should 

12 be coming pretty shortly. I know Jim has already, 

13 Jim, excuse me, Dr. Melius has already just 

14 recently, today queried DCAS on readiness, what 

15 timing for having a group meeting on this matter. 

16 So that should get sorted pretty soon.

17 CHAIR MUNN: Yes, good. That will 

18 work its way out. And PER-55 and -56, both were 

19 going to be on our plate for a decision today, 

20 correct? Am I incorrect in that? I think I got 

21 that out of your memo, Kathy?

22 MS. K. BEHLING: Oh, I'm sorry. I yes, 
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1 actually Page 2 and let's see here, actually there 

2 are Page 2, three, and four I've highlighted in 

3 yellow those. There are one, two, three, four PERs 

4 that SC&A thought you may want to consider tasking 

5 us with.

6 PER 55 was TBD 6000 revision. And there 

7 were numerous changes and they were on numerous 

8 cases. And that was why we recommended that maybe 

9 perhaps selecting that for a review.

10 Also PER-21, as I said that's the Rocky 

11 Flats plant. And then PER-51 is Weldon Springs. 

12 Again there were quite a few changes there and a 

13 significant number of cases involved. PER-53 is 

14 Allied Chemical Corporation and again, numerous 

15 revisions and over 200 claims that were initially 

16 identified.

17 And in some of these, I also want to make 

18 certain recommendations also because sometimes the 

19 selection criteria is not you know, very clear in

20 these cases because of so many different changes. 

21 I just was recommending that we may want to look 

22 at those, or the Subcommittee may want to task us 
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1 with those.

2 CHAIR MUNN: Do I have any 

3 recommendations from other Members of the 

4 Subcommittee?

5 MR. KATZ: Wanda, thinking of those, 

6 can I ask maybe Kathy if she recalls? The Rocky 

7 Flats, I don't know if this is a very recent one, 

8 because at one point we discussed Rocky Flats PER, 

9 and I thought, and decided it shouldn't be reviewed 

10 until the SEC matters were closed on it. But maybe 

11 that's something else not related to this?

12 CHAIR MUNN: Well, no. I was dragging 

13 my feet too, because I was looking at Rocky Flats 

14 because there's still so much going on with it.

15 MR. STIVER: Ted, this is John Stiver. 

16 I remember that too. We decided to table that 

17 until after the SEC issues were decided.

18 MR. KATZ: Oh, right.

19 CHAIR MUNN: Right. I don't think we 

20 can go that route yet. And good heavens, I just 

21 lost my screen that I had your memo on, Kathy. I 

22 don't know what I did with it, it's gone.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think we have 55, 51 

2 and 53 work that we can act on?

3 MR. KATZ: Well, Paul, and then Weldon 

4 Springs, I'm looking at that and I'm thinking that 

5 that is awaiting Work Group progress which hasn't 

6 occurred yet on Weldon Springs. And that's 

7 ringing a bell too. I'm not sure about that, but 

8 I think.

9 CHAIR MUNN: And I don't remember it, 

10 and I've lost my screen, so I don't even know what 

11 I'm looking at right now.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Well, that leaves us 

13 with 55, and 53 possibly?

14 CHAIR MUNN: Fifty five, 53, six, no, 

15 51, 55, and 53.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Fifty five is the Weldon 

17 Springs one, and I --

18 MR. KATZ: Weldon Springs, I'm almost 

19 certain that that Site Profile review by SC&A, the 

20 Work Group hasn't met because I think, NIOSH is 

21 still doing some work to get ready to respond to 

22 that, I think.
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1 MR. STIVER: Yes, Ted, this is John. 

2 We submitted that review pretty recently, so yes, 

3 I think it was going to be, need to be a Work Group 

4 meeting.

5 MR. KATZ: Yes.

6 CHAIR MUNN: So 55, and 53. We have 

7 any concerns?

8 MR. KATZ: Fifty five, we just talked 

9 about right, isn't that the GSI, the cases where 

10 we need to get the criteria?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, that's 57.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay, okay, sorry, whoops.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think 57 is --

14 MR. KATZ: I think 57 is Dow.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

16 CHAIR MUNN: Yes.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Fifty seven is General 

18 Industries, that's the one that's on, we're 

19 waiting.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, I got them backwards, 

21 the numbers. Okay.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Fifty five is the 
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1 TBD-6000 in general. And that --

2 CHAIR MUNN: We need to assign that.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, so 55 and 53.

4 CHAIR MUNN: Do I hear any objections 

5 to assigning those two?

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I agree what you 

7 just named for us.

8 CHAIR MUNN: If not, then let's do 

9 assign those two. Anything else?

10 MEMBER BEACH: And then I've got a 

11 question, it's, Kathy on your memo, that will 

12 include PER-8 and 11 on the status of those? Or 

13 just eight?

14 CHAIR MUNN: I think eight, and 11 are

15 issues.

16 MEMBER BEACH: That's what I thought, 

17 thank you, eight and 11, yes.

18 CHAIR MUNN: So we've already 

19 dispensed with those, and they woke them up again.

20 If there are no other issues before us 

21 right now, let's take a look at our calendar. And 

22 see when we might expect our next meeting. It 
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1 looks as though we do not have a particularly heavy 

2 calendar, and so it doesn't look as though we'll 

3 need to have anything in the immediately 

4 foreseeable future.

5 Is it the general feeling that we can 

6 wait for our next meeting until after the Idaho 

7 meeting? Or do you think we should have one prior 

8 to that, that is a meeting scheduled in late July?

9 MEMBER BEACH: No, I agree with that 

10 Wanda, this is Josie.

11 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. First part of 

12 August perhaps? How is the first week in August 

13 looking for people?

14 Wednesday, the 5th?

15 MR. KATZ: Hang in there, please. I 

16 need to get there. Thanks. Okay, August, yes, I 

17 have no issues with that first week in August right 

18 now.

19 CHAIR MUNN: Okay. Anyone else?

20 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu, I don't 

21 have any issues on that week.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm clear also.
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1 DR. NETON: But I believe that's the 

2 week of the NIOSH Intramural Science meeting. I 

3 don't know --

4 MR. KATZ: Okay.

5 DR. NETON: I have that on my calendar. 

6 That's the 4th through 6th.

7 MR. KATZ: 4th through 6th. Well, why 

8 don't we just go to the next, the week of August 

9 11th?

10 CHAIR MUNN: Let's take a look at that. 

11 How is the 11th? Is that a good day? It is for 

12 me.

13 MEMBER BEACH: That's fine.

14 CHAIR MUNN: All right. Let's say, 

15 August the 11th.

16 MR. KATZ: 11:00 a.m. Eastern time.

17 CHAIR MUNN: 11:00 a.m. Eastern. The 

18 Committee will meet at that time. We'll be 

19 accruing items for the agenda in the meantime.

20 Is there any other thing that needs to 

21 be brought before the Subcommittee at this time?

22 MEMBER BEACH: No. Thank you, Wanda 
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1 for adjusting your schedule to meet mine.

2 CHAIR MUNN: Well, thank you for giving 

3 us a heads up and enough time to do that. We 

4 appreciate it.

5 No other information being 

6 forthcoming, we are adjourned. Have a good week 

7 everybody and we'll see you in Idaho Falls.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, thank you everybody for 

9 a good meeting.

10 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

11 went off the record at 2:40 p.m.)

12

13