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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

+ + + + +

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

79th MEETING

+ + + + +

WEDNESDAY

AUGUST 24, 2011

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 The meeting convened at 8:30 a.m., 

Pacific Daylight Time, in the Courtyard 

Marriott, 480 Columbia Point, Richland, 

Washington, James M. Melius, Chairman, 

presiding.

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

MARK GRIFFON, Member

RICHARD LEMEN, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

JOHN W. POSTON, SR., Member
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PRESENT: (continued)

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official
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REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH Contractor

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

ANDERSON, DAVE*

AYERS, LYNN, SC&A

BALDRIDGE, SANDRA*

CARRIC, MARY ANN

CRUZ, RUBIN, CDC

DUNCAN, DIXIE

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FRASON, JERRY

GEER, DALE

GIRARDO, MARY

GLOVER, SAM, DCAS

GOSSEEN, SHERRY

HAUG, NORMAN

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

HOWE, THERESE

KINMAN, JOSHUA, DCAS

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

LEITON, RACHEL, DOL

LEWIS, GREG, DOE

LEWIS, MARK, ATL

LIN, JENNY, HHS

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A*

MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU Team

NETON, JIM, DCAS

RAFKY, MICHAEL, HHS

RAVENCRAFT, QUIN D.

RINGEN, KNUT

ROGERS, BRUCE 

ROLFES, MARK, DCAS

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

STIVERS, JOHN, SC&A

TAULBEE, TIM, DCAS

VLIEGER, FAYE

WADE, LEW, NIOSH Contractor

WORTHINGTON, PATRICIA, DOES
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Hooker Electrochemical SEC Petition....... 7 

Dr. Henry Anderson, Work Group Chair

Feed Materials Production Center SEC Petition 

(Fernald, OH)............................. 73

Mr. Bradley Clawson, Work Group Chair

Mr. Mark Rolfes, NIOSH 

Norton Company SEC Petition (1962-2009) . 113

Ms. Wanda Munn, SC Chair

Savannah River Site SEC Petition . . . . . 149

Dr. Timothy Taulbee, NIOSH

Mr. Mark Griffon, Work Group Chair

Board Work Session . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Dr. James Melius, Chair

SEC Petition Status Update . . . . . . . . 248

Mr. LaVon Rutherford, NIOSH 

Ames SEC Petition (1942-1970) . . . . . . 263

Dr. James Melius, Chair

Board Work Session . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Dr. James Melius, Chair

Hanford WG Update . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Dr. James Melius, Chair

Public Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 8:30 a.m.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good morning, 

4 everybody. Welcome to the second day of our 

5 meeting. And, Ted, you want to?

6 MR. KATZ: Sure. Welcome, 

7 everybody here and on the line. Let me first 

8 check on the line and see if we have either of 

9 two absent Board Members. Mr. Presley, Bob, 

10 or Mike Gibson? Are any of you on the line 

11 with us yet? Okay.

12 They're both on the East Coast, 

13 which makes it earlier there. 

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Later.

15 (Laughter.)

16 MR. KATZ: Obviously they're on 

17 the East Coast. All right from there, from 

18 that blunder. So yesterday morning we had 

19 some difficulty with the equipment here and 

20 had to change it out and folks on the phone we 

21 apologize to you. I think many of you know 

22 that we had equipment problems that you 
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1 couldn't hear and then you probably know that 

2 we got it fixed yesterday afternoon for the 

3 afternoon. But in any event I just wanted to 

4 let you all know that all the presentations 

5 that were given yesterday should be up on the 

6 website, on the NIOSH website so you can read 

7 what was presented at least. And you know, in 

8 45 days or so we'll have transcripts for that 

9 and you can read it if you missed yesterday 

10 morning.

11 There's a public comment session 

12 this afternoon starting at 5:00 immediately 

13 following the Hanford Work Group update. So 

14 we welcome you all to come to that and 

15 participate. Also, let's see. Oh, for Board 

16 Members, I've emailed all of you. We have 

17 presentation material for the Pantex petition. 

18 We sent it in yesterday and I've distributed 

19 it to all of you by email. I also have some 

20 hard copies so let me know if you want a hard 

21 copy instead of reading it on your computer. 

22 But you'll have that before tomorrow. And 
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1 just last I would just ask everyone on the 

2 line please mute your phones while you're 

3 listening except when you address the group. 

4 If you don't have a mute button, then *6 and 

5 then pressing *6 again will take you off of 

6 mute. And it's your turn.

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: Is the Hooker 

8 petitioner on?

9 MS. GIRARDO: Yes.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay and our 

11 first presentation this morning will be on 

12 Hooker Electrochemical SEC petition. And 

13 Henry?

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: You all should 

15 have received on the flash drive and earlier 

16 as well all the documents that we reviewed as 

17 well as the process that we used. So I'm 

18 going to quickly go through to update some of 

19 you on the site and the activities that we 

20 performed. Hooker Electrochemical was an AWE 

21 facility from approximately 1943 to 1948 with 

22 a residual -- with a residual period through 
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1 1976. And they primarily produced non2 radioactive chemicals at the plant, WMED, and 

3 the issue that we're addressing is a 

4 concentrated uranium-contaminated magnesium 

5 fluoride slag using hydrochloric acid that 

6 they had that was a waste from the P-45 

7 process. So it was an efficient way to 

8 utilize the existing materials and a limited9 activity processing, the slag material.

10 A special building was constructed 

11 to perform the concentrating operation and the 

12 building was completed on July 11th, 1944. 

13 And most of the slag handling was conducted 

14 outdoors. The P-45 operations ended January 

15 15th, 1946. The concentration of incoming 

16 materials was about 0.2 percent uranium by 

17 mass. Material was concentrated when it was 

18 returned or moved into the processing 

19 facilities elsewhere with a concentration of 1 

20 to 2 percent. I think it was about, what was 

21 it, 500 tons a week, something like that that 

22 they were processing, so a fair amount of 
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1 material did come in and pass through the 

2 processing. 

3 The petition overview. A petition 

4 was first submitted on March 6th focusing on 

5 the furnace room. That was not qualified for 

6 evaluation. The petitioner then was worked 

7 with and revised their proposed Class, sent 

8 that back in on September 26th. That Class 

9 was qualified for evaluation October 16th, 

10 2009, and then an Evaluation Report that will 

11 be referred to as an ER but it's always hard 

12 to remember what all these terms stand for so 

13 ER is an Evaluation Report. It was issued on 

14 May 3rd. It was then discussed and sent to 

15 SC&A, the ER for review in January. The 

16 Hooker TBD from April 2011 was revised again 

17 in June and then there were several papers 

18 that were developed by David Allen looking at 

19 the review document that -- or responding to 

20 the SC&A review document. Our Work Group also 

21 you may recall during this period of time 

22 there was the 6001 was disbanded or the 
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1 documentation for that and each of the 

2 appendices were then moved to be their own 

3 TBD. And so that's partly what the revision 

4 was and that cleared up a number of issues 

5 that our committee raised when that change was 

6 made and the proposal parts of 6001 were no 

7 longer applicable.

8 We specifically asked that a White 

9 Paper be developed by NIOSH relating to 

10 surrogate data following our -- the criteria 

11 that we use. And I would say we have two 

12 really critical documents that we relied upon. 

13 The first is the paper there on the surrogate 

14 data evaluation going through the Board's set 

15 of criteria. And then we asked SC&A to review 

16 that and comment on that document and tighten 

17 it up. And I think it probably represents a 

18 nice summary, those two documents, of the use 

19 of surrogate data and the justification for it 

20 for this particular site. 

21 The basis for the petition and 

22 concerns was unmonitored workers. The 
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1 petition presented an affidavit indicating 

2 there were no internal/external radiation 

3 monitoring at Hooker. NIOSH's review of 

4 records confirmed that and that really moved 

5 us into the realm of the need to evaluate how 

6 we could do dose reconstructions without site7 specific monitoring data.

8 The methodology 

9 originally was in Appendix AA to the TBD-6001. 

10 Then the site-specific Hooker TBD replaced 

11 Appendix AA and in that process changed the 

12 proposed method of dose reconstruction 

13 including revising the approach to use 

14 surrogate data for the internal dose. 

15 External is also surrogate data not specific 

16 to the site but based upon a much more robust 

17 data set in a publication by Christifano which 

18 has been used as surrogate data in a number of 

19 instances.

20 The process at Hooker is about 

21 500-pound barrels came in with C-2 slag. 

22 These were dumped onto a conveyor belt 
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1 outdoors that carried the slag to the digest 

2 tanks and then the waste HCL was added to that 

3 and diluted to a pH of 4. Tanks were then 

4 agitated to dissolve the fluoride and then the 

5 liquid was decanted off and the slurry was 

6 then neutralized and then, not put into a 

7 filer, but a filter press. And then that 

8 material was re-barreled. At the front end of 

9 the operation, when the barrels were dumped, 

10 it went onto a conveyor that was sorted by 

11 size and so the larger pieces that came out of 

12 the barrels were then re-barreled right away 

13 and sent on. So it was only the finer 

14 materials that were put through the process to 

15 be dissolved and then filtered.

16 The internal exposure monitoring 

17 was based on air samples at three facilities 

18 that handled C-2 slag identical to the process 

19 and the slag that came into Hooker. That was 

20 the three facilities used was Electromet, 

21 Fernald and Mallinckrodt. And again this was 

22 just looking specifically in those facilities 
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1 for the data related to the emptying or 

2 loading of barrels, the same type of labor, 

3 mostly shuttling materials though the 

4 processes were very similar. Then in the 

5 process the proposal was to use the 95th 

6 percentile of air sampling results and then 

7 more than 70 percent of air samples are BZ. 

8 And the residual period 

9 deposition/resuspension model used -- you can 

10 see the suspension factor there and then no 

11 source-term decay. 

12 One of the issues that we looked 

13 at is of course mentioned here on the top that 

14 we chose Electromet, Fernald and Mallinckrodt. 

15 There were a number of, or I would say a 

16 larger set of samples that were available from

17 there but NIOSH and subsequently SC&A went 

18 through those to pick out those that were most 

19 relevant to this type of operation. That 

20 meant that the total number of samples 

21 decreased and so the 95 percent result value 

22 there is based upon using 18 samples from 
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1 those facilities. And SC&A looked through the 

2 same data set, selected a somewhat different 

3 set of samples and came out with very similar 

4 percentile distribution results, somewhat 

5 lower than what NIOSH used.

6 So, exposure to workers handling 

7 slag and wooden barrels was then based on the 

8 MCNPX calculations, a modeling exercise. 

9 Exposure to workers from surface contamination 

10 based on the MCNP calculations of the dust 

11 settling and the 95 percentile air 

12 concentrations. And then external dose rates 

13 for the residual period were the same as for 

14 the operating period.

15 So the initial review followed our 

16 process that we had of putting together a 

17 matrix looking at what SC&A comments and 

18 suggestions that they had. We had 10 findings 

19 and three observations. We went through those 

20 in two meetings and came to a satisfactory 

21 resolution of those. Many of those just 

22 involved the revision of the Hooker TBD and 
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1 switching over from an Appendix AA format and 

2 process to a stand-alone TBD. In reviewing 

3 the ER, then we developed seven findings and 

4 one observation and we used the same process. 

5 We went through those and there's a whole --

6 to everyone's satisfaction the process there, 

7 you have those documents and NIOSH's comments, 

8 the SC&A comments and then our decision on 

9 those. As that was going on -- that we felt 

10 that clearly this was going to be because 

11 there was no data, a surrogate issue was 

12 really what would hinge on a decision process. 

13 So we asked NIOSH to specifically put 

14 together a White Paper evaluating using the 

15 Board's set of criteria and surrogate data. 

16 We then discussed that, had a number of 

17 suggestions. You see in the revised updated 

18 White Paper that we asked for an appendix that 

19 actually listed the data used so you didn't 

20 have to go back to the original documents and 

21 try to sort this all out. 

22 So now it's all summarized in a 
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1 fairly concise, we believe a fairly concise 

2 document. And then we sent that to SC&A for 

3 review and SC&A reviewed that and that was 

4 last week or 10 days ago when we had our last 

5 committee meeting. We all agreed that the two 

6 documents were compatible with each other and 

7 that in fact the use of selected surrogate 

8 data would result in plausible bounding 

9 estimates for the internal exposure set at 

10 Hooker and therefore our Work Group believes 

11 that doses can be plausibly reconstructed 

12 using the information in the Hooker Revised 

13 TBD. And we recommended that the petition 

14 SEC-0014 be rejected, that in fact during that 

15 period of time at this facility, dose 

16 reconstructions could be plausibly generated. 

17 Any questions?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any Board 

19 Members have any questions for Henry? Go 

20 ahead, Brad.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: My question is on 

22 using Fernald's air sampling data.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Speak directly 

2 into the mic if you can. I know it's hard. I 

3 know you're trying to face Henry to ask your 

4 question, but.

5 (Laughter.)

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. The thing 

7 is --

8 MEMBER ANDERSON: I can't hear 

9 you, Brad.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Look at me, 

11 Brad. Brad, ask me the question.

12 (Laughter.)

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Using the Fernald 

14 data there was a question, with that being on 

15 the Fernald Work Group these air samples were 

16 in question from the very beginning. On the 

17 Fernald Work Group we can't use the air 

18 sampling data. It's been questioned and 

19 falsified and everything else but we are now 

20 using it as surrogate data to do another 

21 facility.

22 MR. ROLFES: Hi, this is Mark 
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1 Rolfes with NIOSH. Brad, to address what you 

2 had mentioned about the specific allegation of 

3 a Fernald employee falsifying some of the air 

4 sampling data, we did look into that issue. 

5 We believe that that was a limited issue 

6 associated with one particular individual. We 

7 had no indication that was a widespread 

8 occurrence at the Fernald site.

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: It was an issue 

10 and you had a signed affidavit stating of how 

11 these air samples were being done. And now we 

12 want to take questionable information and use 

13 it to do another facility. Basically the 

14 bottom line is it gets down to Hooker has its 

15 own data and we're going to use another site's

16 -- in my eyes that were questionable from the 

17 beginning. It just doesn't make common sense.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

19 questions for Henry? Dick.

20 MEMBER LEMEN: I again have 

21 trouble with the use of surrogate data from 

22 other facilities for a compensation program. 
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1 I'm not -- I don't have that much concern of 

2 surrogate data if used in an epidemiological 

3 study, one that's justified. And the caveats 

4 are all spelled out. But it seems to me 

5 totally inappropriate in a compensation 

6 program such as we are here to represent, to 

7 take data from other plants and use that data 

8 to determine what the compensation eligibility 

9 is for individuals within a plant that is 

10 geographically and physically not in the same 

11 location and work practices are not taken into 

12 account between these two facilities which is 

13 something that should be taken into account. 

14 I just, I'm going to have to disagree with the 

15 committee's recommendation solely based upon I 

16 have still, as I've expressed in previous 

17 meetings, this serious problem with surrogate 

18 data.

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I think --

20 I mean we discussed that considerably and I 

21 think what we looked at in this case is that 

22 it's a -- the surrogate data where we're using 
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1 and the issues related to it as far as 

2 comparability was really focused on a specific 

3 activity, not, you know, the whole plant. And 

4 therefore when you're opening drums and 

5 emptying them and doing so by hand the 

6 processes and the -- we thought it was very 

7 comparable. And therefore rather than using 

8 the data, saying for the whole plant that 

9 workers doing different activities, this 

10 narrowed it down to very focused. We looked 

11 at the data and the range of values and the 

12 description of it being dusty -- every time 

13 you emptied it you got a dust cloud and that 

14 was done outside at the same, at these other 

15 facilities. So we viewed it almost as you 

16 were doing, physically doing the operation at 

17 a different place but doing it, at least the 

18 data we had and what NIOSH confirmed to us was 

19 doing it very similar. And you'll see in the 

20 little appendix, they -- there were some other 

21 activities at the other plants like chipping 

22 and grinding using equipment that was not done 
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1 in the processing here so those data which had 

2 higher values were not used in the process. 

3 So I think we felt that if there was a place 

4 where surrogate data could effectively be 

5 used, this would be a good example of that 

6 simply because it was a very kind of low-tech 

7 processing outdoors doing that. Now, the 

8 other data, the filtering and the indoor 

9 activities there is where there's a more 

10 robust database that's been published and 

11 validated through that way. So you know, we 

12 share your concern simply because there was no 

13 measurements made here and no limitation of 

14 access to the building and things like that. 

15 But that's -- what we tried to do 

16 is focus in on being -- looking at the 

17 description that went with the samples at the 

18 other site to make it as close to it as 

19 possible. And again, there the -- because 

20 that was the approach used here rather than 

21 why don't we just put all the data together 

22 and go with an upper value and say, that ought 
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1 to do it. This did get us down to a 

2 relatively small number of samples, so a 

3 sample size of measurements becomes somewhat 

4 of a concerning issue for us. But we felt it 

5 was over-weighed in the review by SC&A and 

6 they were comfortable with it as well. So you 

7 know, I understand your issues and we did 

8 discuss them and this -- we wouldn't want to 

9 use this as a precedent for how data ought --

10 or we would like to use it actually to say 

11 that this is a good example of how you can use 

12 specific activity surrogate data. Other? Oh 

13 yes.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie, I thought 

15 you?

16 MEMBER BEACH: He kind of jumped 

17 around my question.

18 (Laughter.)

19 MEMBER BEACH: On the inside 

20 versus outside. I know some of the operations 

21 were on the inside versus the outside and it 

22 varied depending on who, based on the reports 
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1 I read, who you were talking to also. So.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

3 David, then Paul.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I wanted to 

5 follow up because, Dr. Lemen, I sort of in 

6 principle agree with your position that, you 

7 know, using surrogate data or imputing values 

8 when there's not a direct observation for a 

9 worker, you know, I feel comfortable doing in 

10 epidemiological studies. I feel much less 

11 comfortable doing when you're having to make 

12 compensation decisions for an individual. And 

13 so that was my starting position. And I've 

14 been struggling for a while to think what are 

15 the principles that would allow us to draw the 

16 line which was the question that somebody 

17 asked on the phone yesterday. How in these 

18 situations where you're making SECs and 

19 there's not direct observations available for 

20 people, what is the principle? 

21 I sort of feel like this is a case 

22 though where I'm on the side of saying I think 
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1 that there is -- that this may be a scenario. 

2 And so I was trying to think about what the 

3 principles are. And if we're starting with a 

4 facility where there's large numbers of 

5 workers and the complete absence of monitoring 

6 information, and at that facility, there's one 

7 work location where there was radiological 

8 material and then a large other part of the 

9 work area where there was not. So a large 

10 number of workers within the proposed Class 

11 would have zero or near zero exposure. And 

12 then there's a group within it who are working 

13 with a source material where if I'm 

14 understanding it correctly there's a large 

15 volume of material that comes in and a 

16 fraction of it, like 10 percent, has natural 

17 uranium in it.

18 MEMBER ANDERSON: But what percent 

19 is it by mass?

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And so they're 

21 -- and then they're undergoing a process in 

22 which there's, if I understood it under these 
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1 work conditions of being an open air 

2 environment, there's less potential for there 

3 being large variation in the magnitudes of 

4 exposures than in situations where there may 

5 be the possibility of some other types of 

6 activities where there could be greater 

7 variation between workers. So, anyway, then 

8 kind of to lead this along the principle sort 

9 of that I've been thinking is in a situation 

10 where the, say the absolute magnitudes of 

11 exposures tend to be very low and the 

12 variation within the population is not large, 

13 that's where I would start to be more 

14 comfortable saying we can bound that. We 

15 don't think that there are some workers who 

16 we're being unfair to by imputing a value. 

17 And we've had other scenarios 

18 where we talked about surrogate data where I 

19 thought I was really not comfortable with 

20 that. Because we could imagine that there 

21 were some workers standing in some locations 

22 where there could be extreme levels of 
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1 exposure. I'm not getting that sense in this 

2 scenario here. So we've laid out one sort of 

3 principle for surrogate data related to data 

4 quality and comparability and I think all of 

5 those are extremely important, but for me at 

6 least the other principle is, when we're using 

7 surrogate data, is it in situations where the 

8 magnitudes of exposure are low and the 

9 variation between workers at the facility is 

10 low. So we're being in a sense -- we're not 

11 penalizing anybody who's in the tail too much. 

12 And the reason I would want to use surrogate 

13 data in that situation is because we have 

14 other situations where we deny compensation to 

15 workers and they're working with materials 

16 that have much higher kind of levels of 

17 activity and much greater between-worker 

18 variation. And we don't want to be in a 

19 situation where we're denying some people 

20 compensation because we're missing information 

21 but they really had a potential for high 

22 exposures whereas here due to ignorance we 
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1 have to bound this with some information and I 

2 think we can do a reasonable job of bounding 

3 it.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: I mean, the one 

5 thing, we found the material or the protocol 

6 that the Board adopted to be very helpful to 

7 go through so we felt we had met that. Now 

8 the question is - is that protocol now that 

9 we're trying to begin to formally apply it and 

10 describe and defend the various decisions, is 

11 it adequate. Should we add some other things, 

12 you know, that would certainly be a 

13 discussion. But again we went through and

14 partly why we're bringing it with this 

15 recommendation is both SC&A and the committee 

16 and of course NIOSH as well felt that it met 

17 these criteria. And if, I guess what we're 

18 looking for is if you don't think it did 

19 somewhere then we can go back to NIOSH and ask 

20 them to fill in. We can certainly do that. 

21 We did that several times again giving --

22 asking them to list what data they had taken 
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1 out and things like that.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So can I ask 

3 you, was my impression correct about this, 

4 that there's -- that the view of the Working 

5 Group is that the potential for exposure of 

6 any worker at the facility is relatively low 

7 in magnitude and relatively kind of uniform? 

8 Is there, I mean --

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Well, it's 

10 relative --

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, not 

12 relatively uniform. The variance in an 

13 absolute sense is not large.

14 MEMBER ANDERSON: If you look at 

15 the data that we used the variance wasn't you 

16 know exceedingly large but -- and because of 

17 the, mostly that's because of the low 

18 concentration in the dust.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right.

20 MEMBER ANDERSON: That you can 

21 only create such a, the dust cloud only gets 

22 so maximally large. Yes.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Well, wasn't it 

2 true that they were working with this on an 

3 all-day basis between inside and outside? I 

4 mean, there were parts of this process that 

5 were inside of a building and parts that were 

6 outside and there was indication that there 

7 was a potential based on the wind direction. 

8 So I mean, there may be a low risk but there 

9 was also, they were working in it for hours 

10 and hours.

11 MEMBER ANDERSON: Again, I would 

12 rely on more the other folks, but my 

13 understanding was once it got inside the 

14 building it was really mostly a wet process. 

15 So you know, then it was going through the 

16 filter presses to push the liquid out and then 

17 you have this kind of cake that was then put 

18 back in. So those processes had lower dust 

19 generation issues where it was really the dry 

20 material coming in, dump the 500-gallon 

21 barrels you know by hand basically and then 

22 onto the conveyor belt. Where you got the 
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1 bulk of the exposure was the outdoors. But 

2 yes, there were different processes and the 

3 dose reconstruction assumption is that it's 

4 high. Yes, go ahead.

5 DR. NETON: Yes, I'd just point 

6 out they processed about 10 tons per month 

7 which is the equivalent of 40 500-pound 

8 barrels. So 40 barrels were processed a month 

9 as our estimate and based on reviewing the 

10 data that they would engage in dumping drums 

11 about 5 percent of the time. That's clearly 

12 the most dusty operation there is. The other 

13 95 percent of the time was involved with wet 

14 processes, the digestion and the acids and the 

15 filtering of the material. So that's a much 

16 lower route of exposure, potential for 

17 exposure. I would say that the material as it 

18 came in was 0.2 percent uranium by weight so 

19 99.8 percent of the material they were dumping 

20 was not uranium, it was an inert magnesium 

21 fluoride slag material. So it was very low 

22 specific activity material to begin with and 
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1 it was eventually concentrated by about a 

2 factor of 10 up to 2 percent uranium when they 

3 dumped back into the drums. But 95 percent of 

4 the time it was in a wet process.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

6 Paul, then Wanda.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: My question 

8 concerns the data integrity issue that Brad 

9 raised. Can we confirm, perhaps Mark, can you 

10 confirm that the samples used by -- as 

11 surrogate samples for this particular case did 

12 not involve or did involve those that were in 

13 question as far as that alleged fudging or 

14 whatever?

15 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes 

16 from NIOSH. To go back to what the individual 

17 at the Fernald site had said, he was basically 

18 requested to re-sample an area where he had 

19 basically collected an air sample, had it 

20 analyzed by the lab and they came back with a 

21 higher, elevated above the maximum allowable 

22 concentration of uranium in air. His 
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1 supervisor at the time had asked him to go 

2 back and re-sample the same process, the same 

3 area to determine whether the first reading 

4 was an accurate reading. And you know, it can 

5 be viewed as a perception issue on that 

6 individual's part. So we don't necessarily 

7 know for sure that this information was 

8 falsified, it's just something that we did 

9 receive, provided to us. 

10 If you take a look at the numbers 

11 with the surrogate data from the Fernald site,

12 if you were to remove that information from 

13 the current approach for the Hooker site the 

14 95th percentile would decrease by a factor of 

15 about 25 percent. So the use of the surrogate 

16 data for this site is actually very claimant17 favorable in that it elevates the intakes we 

18 would assign.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Wanda?

20 MEMBER MUNN: I don't think any 

21 one of us is ever completely comfortable when 

22 we talk about surrogate data because we can 
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1 always bring an issue but what about X factor. 

2 We all use surrogate data in our daily lives 

3 we just don't call it surrogate data. 

4 Everything from my grocery shopping to 

5 Schrödinger's cat requires the use of 

6 surrogate data in some way. I can't use my 

7 information about my knowledge of zucchini to 

8 verify the quality of the cheese that I'm 

9 going to get. But I have considerable faith 

10 in the activities that this Board has gone 

11 through in determining our criteria for 

12 acceptable surrogate data used in this 

13 program. 

14 The Work Group that Dr. Melius 

15 chaired was very concerned about these issues 

16 and went to great extent to try to prioritize 

17 them in a way that made sense. I think we've 

18 done that. It appears that the Work Group 

19 here for Hooker has applied those 

20 appropriately and I thank the Work Group for 

21 its efforts.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. I'd 
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1 like to pause if I could. I would like to 

2 hear from the petitioner who I believe is on 

3 the line.

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: First are either 

5 of my co-members got any comments?

6 MS. GIRARDO: Hello?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, let's do 

8 the petitioner. 

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: She waited. 

11 Then we'll -- we can continue discussion.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Okay.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But I think it's 

14 fair to her we. Go ahead.

15 MS. GIRARDO: This is Mary Girardo 

16 in Niagara Falls, New York, and I have a 10-

17 point statement to read.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

19 MS. GIRARDO: Which is titled 

20 Response to Work Group Denial of SEC Petition 

21 for All Workers in All Locations of Hooker 

22 Chemical. Number one, we the petitioners do 
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1 not accept NIOSH's presentation which claims 

2 that there was not enough exposure to uranium 

3 to cause illness or death. Two, we the 

4 petitioners do not accept SC&A's participation 

5 in this presentation and verdict. We are 

6 convinced by the manner in which this was 

7 handled that none of those tasked had their 

8 hearts in what they were doing. This is no 

9 way to do an independent study. True research 

10 would demand that any new research being done 

11 would start from scratch and turn a blind eye 

12 and a deaf ear to all that NIOSH, Allen, had 

13 done in favor of their own study. Once 

14 accomplished then the two would be compared 

15 showing differences and similarities. This 

16 was not done. Instead, SC&A kept saying that 

17 they were not told to do this or that. This 

18 shows that they simply went through the 

19 motions and the Work Group fell in line. 

20 Three, we the petitioners state 

21 that the use of surrogate data has become an 

22 untouchable in the handling of these 
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1 companies. NIOSH, SC&A and the Work Group 

2 were so mesmerized by the Advisory Board's 

3 regulations pertaining to surrogate data that 

4 they were all going to make some other company 

5 or companies suddenly become Hooker Chemical 

6 irregardless of those companies' past history. 

7 For example, the use of Mallinckrodt which 

8 has the honor of being the first company 

9 against which a petitioner was granted an SEC 

10 and an award. 

11 Four, we the petitioners do not 

12 now, never have and never will accept dose 

13 reconstruction as a fair and truly 

14 understandable method of handling the 

15 qualitative data collected by NIOSH. We the 

16 petitioners were told by NIOSH that the 

17 Department of Labor uses dose reconstruction 

18 in other things to determine payment or denial 

19 of the award. However, in the initial phase 

20 here in western New York the handlers' claim 

21 that it was really only the dose 

22 reconstruction that determines the outcome. 
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1 No one really and truly understands this 

2 method, it's just a number game.

3 Five, we the petitioners claim 

4 that the law, Act, executive order signed by 

5 President Clinton has been so frustrated that 

6 it has not truly been used as originally 

7 designed. Things were to be done in a timely 

8 manner. Eleven years into this is not timely. 

9 The petitioners were not to be frustrated. 

10 This has not been realized. This law came as 

11 an executive order to override the Department 

12 of Energy's unfairness to the claimants. 

13 However, the Department of Energy is still 

14 such a force in all of this collection of data 

15 that NIOSH does. For example, there is a 180-

16 day time limit for NIOSH to respond with their 

17 evaluation but they went over the limit 

18 because the Department of Energy had not 

19 responded with needed data in the Hooker 

20 claim. When questioned, a NIOSH employee said 

21 that the 180-day time limit was not written in 

22 stone. This should have forfeited NIOSH and 
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1 the claim paid. If the petitioner failed 

2 under the timely rules the case would have 

3 been closed. The Advisory Board may want to 

4 seriously consider the late Supreme Court 

5 Chief Justice Rehnquist's analysis of such a 

6 situation as this. If you don't want a law, 

7 repeal it, but don't try at one and the same 

8 time to live according to the law and to 

9 frustrate the law.

10 Six, we the petitioners question 

11 the latest figures published on the internet 

12 giving the Hooker statistics of claims paid 

13 and denied. If NIOSH's findings causes this 

14 SEC petition to be denied then how can the 15 

15 cases paid be legal? This petition deals with 

16 all locations. Weren't these 15 in one or 

17 more of Hooker's locations? Would dose 

18 reconstruction or surrogate data mean 

19 anything? If NIOSH claims that the 0.2 

20 percent was insufficient to cause illness or 

21 death how did the 15 cases get paid? 

22 Seven, we the petitioners 
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1 seriously wonder why the response to NIOSH's 

2 evaluation was never acknowledged by the Work 

3 Group and was glossed over by SC&A. We have

4 noticed that afterwards TBD was made a stand5 alone and was boxed in. NIOSH even used it to 

6 respond to SC&A's review, observation tree 

7 matrix, TBD-6001, Appendix AA, page 1, as 

8 follows, quote, "Since TBD-6001 is no longer 

9 used the observation is not relevant." We the 

10 petitioners wonder about this because after 

11 our response to NIOSH's evaluation TBD ceased 

12 to exist. It was boxed in and Battelle 

13 disappeared. A coincidence? There are those 

14 who say there is no such thing as a 

15 coincidence.

16 Eight, we the petitioners are very 

17 disturbed with the treatment received by NIOSH 

18 since May 16, 2011 Work Group meeting. The 

19 minutes of this meeting were not made public 

20 until the morning of the Work Group's August 

21 16, 2011, meeting. And NIOSH has still not 

22 notified the petitioners that they are 
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1 available. So there was no way for the 

2 petitioners to respond to what was covered. 

3 Granted, there were illegal concerns but to 

4 the petitioners it appears as a stalling 

5 tactic. To further cause concern was all of 

6 the data that was supposed to be dealt with at 

7 the August 16 meeting to which the petitioners 

8 were not privileged. This resulted in M. 

9 Girardo exiting the teleconference after 

10 expressing her displeasure. Then Members of 

11 the Board, what do you think happened? Yes, 

12 NIOSH hurriedly put together all of the 

13 material and Fed Ex'd it to the petitioners. 

14 Now, is this timely? 

15 Nine, we as the petitioners can 

16 only further state that the whole handling of 

17 Hooker Chemical reeks with suspicion and 

18 underhandedness with no true consideration for 

19 the petitioners. Case in point, the use of a 

20 NIOSH employee as the federal appointee who 

21 runs the Work Group meetings is an example of 

22 conflict of interest since the Advisory Board 
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1 and the Work Group are supposed to be neutral. 

2 Where are the checks and balances? It can 

3 only be asked what is really behind all of 

4 this? What are NIOSH, SC&A and the Work Group 

5 afraid of?

6 Ten, we the petitioners maintain 

7 that Hooker Chemical is the exception to all 

8 these rules and procedures, and since there 

9 are no official records available from Hooker 

10 itself then there is no individual monitoring 

11 data and no workplace data and using other 

12 companies such as Mallinckrodt just adds 

13 insult to injury and is not scientifically 

14 believable when the question remains if the 

15 data from Mallinckrodt was not sufficient to 

16 reconstruct dose how can it be sufficient to 

17 reconstruct dose for Hooker? Thank you for 

18 your time.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

20 We'll continue our deliberations. Mark?

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I am a 

22 Member of the Work Group. However, I did miss 
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1 the last meeting of the Work Group so perhaps 

2 these are some of the questions I may have 

3 asked in that -- in that process. I think, I 

4 mean I tend to agree with a lot of David 

5 Richardson said at least in theory. I think 

6 this kind of -- you have a situation where you 

7 have a sort of discrete task and it seems 

8 pretty clear that it was the highest exposure 

9 potential for employees so to be able to bound 

10 that task is a lot easier than a complicated 

11 site where you have no measures and they're 

12 doing many different activities with possibly 

13 equal or varying risk. 

14 However, I do have -- I worry that 

15 some of this may be a bit of a house of cards 

16 and I just want to go down into the data a 

17 little bit to ask some questions and make sure 

18 that we're being at least thorough in 

19 reviewing the surrogate data that was used. I 

20 mean, one thing I'd like to say is that on the 

21 Fernald question I think that I do support 

22 Brad's comment that while the Work Group may 
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1 end up concluding that this air data was valid 

2 I don't think we're there yet. I mean, I 

3 think that's still an open issue with the Work 

4 Group so from a process standpoint I'm a 

5 little concerned for the Board's work that we 

6 don't rely on data that we are actually still 

7 deliberating on in another Work Group. I know 

8 in a lot of what we're doing, in the Fernald 

9 Work Group and a lot of NIOSH's proposals 

10 especially for the uranium exposures rely on 

11 urinalysis data so that the air sampling stuff 

12 is moot, but I don't think that we've, and I 

13 may be wrong, but I don't think that we've 

14 closed out on that issue as a Work Group. I 

15 know that NIOSH may have and SC&A may have 

16 concurred with NIOSH but I don't think we've 

17 closed that out.

18 And then just to step back, and 

19 then I do want to also speak to Mallinckrodt 

20 because that's come up a couple of times. The 

21 Mallinckrodt data I think on the other hand we 

22 did conclude that the uranium Mallinckrodt air 
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1 sampling data was useful and in fact NIOSH 

2 does dose reconstructions for the uranium 

3 component of the exposures of Mallinckrodt. 

4 Again, someone correct me if I'm wrong. The 

5 SEC was based on thorium, actinium, 

6 protactinium I believe, right? So it's a 

7 different. We did, at least I think we looked 

8 at the uranium issue and we concluded that you 

9 can reconstruct doses for uranium and the air 

10 sampling was the basis for that. So in that 

11 case I agree with but the Fernald I think is 

12 still questionable.

13 And then this brings me back to 

14 the main point which is Table 6-1, -2, and -3. 

15 I just wanted to ask, Henry or NIOSH may have 

16 to help you out here, but the, you know, how 

17 many samples overall, and I apologize because 

18 I should have had this on the Work Group but 

19 how many samples overall are in this coworker 

20 model and are they BZA samples or are they

21 general area samples? Is it a mixture of BZA 

22 and general area? Can you just give me a 
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1 breakdown of those three tables kind of? It 

2 might be useful.

3 DR. NETON: Yes. These are only 

4 approximate but they're going to be very 

5 close. I think there's 18 air samples that 

6 were identified between the three sites, two 

7 at Electromet, four or five at Mallinckrodt 

8 and the remainder at Fernald. The majority of 

9 the samples were BZ samples. I think maybe 

10 11, I can't remember exactly, but the majority 

11 of those 18 were breathing zone air samples 

12 that were collected and we took a log-normal 

13 distribution of them and chose the 95th 

14 percentile of those breathing zone, of those 

15 samples as a bounding exposure. They were all 

16 very similar operations involving the, you 

17 know, working with the slag material, the C-2, 

18 so-called C-2 slag material. 

19 MEMBER GRIFFON: It looks to me 

20 that, from looking at the tables anyway that 

21 all the Fernald data are breathing zone. I 

22 wasn't sure, the other ones don't look like 
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1 breathing zone but I could be wrong.

2 DR. NETON: I don't think they 

3 are. It would be clearly identified if it was 

4 breathing zone.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. So then 

6 this gets into my house of cards questions 

7 because if we're still concerned about using 

8 Fernald then you're down to these other two 

9 sites and you're down to about six samples. 

10 And you know, statistically I just wonder if -

11 - yes.

12 MR. ROLFES: One additional thing 

13 -- this is Mark Rolfes with NIOSH. One 

14 additional thing about the Fernald data 

15 regarding the individual who had alleged that 

16 he had falsified some air sampling data. From 

17 my recollection, I'd have to double-check this 

18 to look back at the affidavit that was 

19 provided to us, he was referring to a separate 

20 green salt operation which was not associated 

21 with a magnesium fluoride process, so.

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: But I'm asking 
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1 more of a process question on that, Mark. I 

2 understand the position, but I just, I think 

3 one the Work Group it is still an open issue 

4 if I'm not wrong. I mean, and I'm troubled a 

5 little bit that we don't let the Work Group 

6 finish that, you know, and close out on that 

7 before we rule on something like this that 

8 relies on that data. I'm not -- at the end of 

9 the day we may end up where NIOSH is, that it 

10 is, we may verify it and say it's fine, it was 

11 -- I mean this, we've pulled this thread in 

12 sites like Rocky Flats and it took quite 

13 awhile but we ended up where NIOSH was on a 

14 lot of the data use, not the --

15 notwithstanding the neutron issues. But I 

16 just think from a process standpoint of a 

17 working Board I'm concerned that, you know, 

18 one Work Group gets ahead of the other. So. 

19 Anyway.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Where is the 

21 Fernald Work Group with that issue? 

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: I don't know. 
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1 I'm not sure.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I've heard of 

3 that as being a significant issue with Fernald 

4 and I just don't --

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: I'm not sure.

6 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver 

7 with SC&A. I might be able to help out with 

8 that. The one issue that we, I guess the sub9 issue regarding the breathing zone and general 

10 air data that went in to create the DWES which 

11 are then used -- which NIOSH had proposed to 

12 use for a thorium-232 intake assessment for 

13 '53 I believe up to '67 there was one 

14 outstanding issue that related to the 

15 uncertainty analysis paper that was used with 

16 this data set to provide an upper bound value 

17 that SC&A and NIOSH concurred was probably 

18 acceptable, and that is this issue of what the 

19 ISO terms "blunders." These are mathematical 

20 errors, transcription errors and things of 

21 that sort. And I believe if I'm not mistaken, 

22 Mark, NIOSH is coming back with a White Paper 
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1 on that particular issue where they look at 

2 those blunders as they would apply to the 

3 Fernald data. And that was really our main 

4 concern because you could have underestimated 

5 I believe if my memory serves up to about a 

6 factor of 10 based on that Davis and Strom 

7 paper that forms the underlying --

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: And that is all 

9 for the thorium air data?

10 MR. STIVER: That's for the 

11 thorium air data.

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: And I think we 

13 don't -- we're not relying on the uranium air 

14 data as much so we've kind of put that issue 

15 aside I think.

16 MR. STIVER: Yes, for Fernald 

17 we're really relying on uranium bioassay data.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: Right.

19 MR. STIVER: But this sub-issue of 

20 just how credible is the air sampling data 

21 really kind of gets to that in more of a 

22 general sense.
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: So I don't know. 

2 I just think, you know, from a process 

3 standpoint we should keep that in mind. 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Bill?

5 MEMBER FIELD: When looking at it 

6 I believe that SC&A, maybe I can verify it. 

7 They had close to 70 breathing zone samples. 

8 And I have to go back and look, I'm not sure 

9 what the breakdown is by site. Do you recall 

10 that by chance?

11 MR. STIVER: Excuse me, you're 

12 speaking with regard to Hooker?

13 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

14 MR. STIVER: I wasn't involved in 

15 that particular development. John Mauro, are 

16 you on the phone?

17 DR. MAURO: Yes, I am, and I don't 

18 have an answer to that question. I do not 

19 have an answer to the number of samples. I'd 

20 have to go back through our work.

21 MR. STIVER: We could go back and 

22 get that for you.
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1 MEMBER FIELD: I believe it was 

2 like 69 or so and they came up with a lower 

3 estimate.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Right and I was 

5 wondering where did they -- how did they get 

6 that bigger population. That was another 

7 question I have too is how did they have a 

8 bigger set of samples and you know, I would 

9 think NIOSH would have used that larger 

10 population of samples if that was 

11 representative. I don't know.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, according 

13 to the NIOSH report I believe that both of 

14 them sort of made some -- used some selection 

15 criteria for the samples that was different. 

16 And so neither -- was sort of using the whole 

17 set and yet excluded --

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: Some excluded 

19 more, right.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And at least the 

21 summary I saw looked as if the exclusions 

22 were, you know, reasonable. But that's just 
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1 from reading the summary report, not the. 

2 Yes.

3 MEMBER LEMEN: Can I just ask a 

4 point of clarification? When Mr. Clawson 

5 spoke earlier he said that the data from 

6 Fernald was not acceptable for use in Fernald 

7 but it's acceptable for use here. My 

8 clarification question is with the exception 

9 of one sample that you had talked about when 

10 is the rest of the data at Fernald be used or 

11 is it not being used?

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Actually one of 

13 the things that's interesting about Fernald is 

14 they have good urinalysis. So we're basically 

15 using urinalysis -- now, are we getting the 

16 other part when we have really -- 

17 MEMBER LEMEN: I can't hear you, 

18 you need to turn your mic on.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Oh, that would 

20 probably help. Sorry about that. At Fernald 

21 we're using the urinalysis because they did 

22 have, they had some like 200,000 that we're 
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1 going for. Because the air sampling data was 

2 in question. So we've gone to the urinalysis 

3 that we're using that. Now, when it gets into 

4 the other parts of it, the daily weighted 

5 averages and stuff like that, then they're 

6 having to -- this is where we've got several 

7 open questions at this time that we're going 

8 through right now mainly pertaining to the 

9 thorium part of Fernald. To my understanding 

10 and Mark, correct me if I'm wrong, but we're 

11 not using air sampling data with Fernald as 

12 far as the doses. We're using the urinalysis.

13 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark and I'll 

14 clarify what Brad has stated here. We haven't 

15 needed to use the air sampling data because of 

16 the large magnitude. We have nearly 400,000 

17 bioassay samples, uranium urinalyses that were 

18 collected over the operational history of the 

19 site. We are using air sampling data for the 

20 earlier years as John Stiver had indicated. 

21 We basically extracted thorium air sampling 

22 data and used those daily weighted averages to 
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1 assign essentially the worst case scenario, 

2 95th percentile kind of intakes to unmonitored 

3 thorium workers for the earlier operational 

4 years prior to the operation of the mobile in 

5 vivo monitoring lab onsite at the Fernald 

6 facility.

7 MEMBER CLAWSON: So to answer your 

8 question we're not using it. We're using the 

9 urinalysis.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: I mean if you 

11 follow the hierarchy of data use you would use 

12 the biomonitoring data first before you would 

13 even look at the air data. 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We have a 

15 recommendation from the Work Group which 

16 essentially serves as a motion to us for 

17 accepting the NIOSH Evaluation Report. So do 

18 we have a second for that?

19 MEMBER MUNN: I'll second that.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Second 

21 from Wanda. Do we have further discussion? 

22 People need more -- I guess the question is do 
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1 people feel that they need more information. 

2 I think that that's -- before dealing with 

3 that in which case we could postpone this.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: I would actually 

5 prefer to postpone this at least till our 

6 phone call meeting. I'd like to clarify the 

7 Fernald question and a couple more questions 

8 about the samples that SC&A used. I mean, I 

9 agree with you, Jim, that they used a 

10 different exclusion but it all looked pretty 

11 reasonable. But I'm particularly troubled 

12 process-wise by using Fernald's when we -- I 

13 don't think we've closed out on that and I'm 

14 just troubled that we move ahead on that. But 

15 I don't think this has to extend much further. 

16 I think we can handle it soon.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I mean I 

18 think -- well, it's not clear to me when the

19 Fernald Work Group would be getting to this 

20 issue and not the fault of the Work Group, 

21 just other issues that they have that we'll 

22 hear about in a few minutes that are dealing 
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1 with the SEC petition that they're evaluating. 

2 So do that. David, you had a comment?

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well, I was 

4 going to suggest, I feel like that is kind of 

5 some sort of process question, the issue that 

6 Mark's bringing up. The other thing that 

7 might be useful is to see some sort of -- a 

8 little bit of an evaluation of the sensitivity 

9 of the kind of -- the values to inclusion 

10 versus exclusion of Fernald and just some of 

11 the other issues. I think that could be 

12 something that could quickly be.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I think in 

14 essence the way it was presented in the report 

15 from SC&A was essentially redoing that and 

16 they came out to be close for 95th percentile 

17 but it could be done. There might be some 

18 other detail that might be useful to that. 

19 I'm not sure there's enough detail in the 

20 report to understand. I don't believe what I 

21 saw included the criteria for excluding doses 

22 so it's a little hard to tell what it is 
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1 without being you know familiar with the --

2 you know, with the information and the data 

3 that was used. So I can understand that. Any 

4 other? People feel differently on not -- on 

5 postponing? Wanda.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, as a matter of 

7 fact I do. It seems to me that the Work Group 

8 spent a great deal of time on this and has 

9 presented us with a reasonable approach to a 

10 site where we have minimal information. There

11 is never going to be a time, at least there 

12 has not been up to now, I can't imagine that 

13 there will be a time when all of us have 

14 perfect information about each one of the 

15 sites that we come to. But if we don't rely 

16 on our Work Group's recommendations then it 

17 puts an additional burden on all of us not to 

18 mention the petitioners with respect to living 

19 in this dreadful limbo where the decision is 

20 half-made but not entirely made. I personally 

21 would prefer to move the question today.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul? 
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: I really have two 

2 questions. One is if we did postpone exactly 

3 what is -- who's going to do what. What will 

4 happen? The other question was I thought I 

5 heard the petitioners say that they were not 

6 given time to evaluate those most recent White 

7 Papers and that would be my concern I think on 

8 these kinds of things. I didn't fully 

9 understand all of the issues raised by the 

10 petitioner but I thought I heard her say that 

11 they were not given the White Papers in a 

12 timely fashion and that's always of some 

13 concern. So I just would like to ask and 

14 maybe Dr. Anderson can clarify that. Do you -

15 - or maybe the petitioner, what was the issue 

16 there? 

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: The issue was we 

18 had our meeting on the 16th of August which is 

19 not long ago and there were the SC&A's White 

20 Paper response reviewed to the NIOSH paper. 

21 That had not -- neither of those had been 

22 cleared by the -- for the Privacy Act issue by 
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1 the 16th. So when we had our teleconference 

2 meeting on the 16th they didn't have those 

3 documents so they couldn't comment and we of 

4 course did so we were discussing materials 

5 they hadn't seen. So that was roughly 10 days 

6 ago. Then they were cleared on the material 

7 but they haven't had a lot of time. I mean, 

8 I'm comfortable with delaying as long as we 

9 have what are going to be the next steps. I 

10 mean, the decision to not accept the SEC 

11 really keeps the status quo as it is now so 

12 it's not as though at this point and I have to 

13 admit on our group the issue of the 

14 reliability of the data was never brought to 

15 our attention that this was potentially 

16 suspect data that was being used in this. 

17 Now, again we can certainly ask SC&A to -- and 

18 NIOSH to actually list the samples that they 

19 included in their analysis. I mean, they used 

20 -- SC&A used 69 samples based on the job 

21 descriptions and NIOSH made it even smaller, 

22 down to 18 that were all specific to shoveling 
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1 and dumping barrels. And what was nice is 

2 even though the numbers are relatively small 

3 in both of those they came very close on the 

4 95th percentile. So you know, we could ask 

5 for that so everyone would be comfortable 

6 exactly what samples from where they were. 

7 Because all we have is the summary documents 

8 that we presented to you.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Mr. Chairman, 

10 could I follow up?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: First, let me say 

13 that from my own personal point of view I feel 

14 much as Wanda does. I'm comfortable with the 

15 report. But I think it's always important for 

16 us to be sensitive to issues raised by the 

17 petitioners. We don't always agree with each 

18 other and that's fine, but if the petitioners 

19 do not have an opportunity to comment we don't 

20 know the -- whether or not their comments 

21 would have impacted on the Work Group's 

22 report. Perhaps they would and perhaps they 
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1 wouldn't. So if we delayed it seems to me we 

2 need a way for the Work Group to react to 

3 those issues and take them into consideration 

4 as to whether or not it affects your 

5 recommendation. That would be my point with 

6 respect to the petitioners. 

7 My other issue is though if we 

8 delay I certainly would want to know what, you 

9 know, delaying is basically tabling and we 

10 can't debate doing that if it's a true motion 

11 to table, but as a point of information I 

12 think the Chair could instruct us as to what 

13 it is that's going to happen before we do.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, we could 

15 also entertain a motion to postpone which --

16 essentially it's the same effect.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: But we need to 

18 know what's going to happen.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, I agree. I 

20 would just add to your comments I agree with 

21 you on the petitioners so that sometimes gets 

22 hard to determine given that there's an 
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1 ongoing process with these. But secondly, I 

2 think it's also important that we allow 

3 Members of the Board to you know at least get 

4 what they feel to be adequate information for 

5 them to make a decision. And since this is 

6 the first time this is being presented from 

7 the Work Group and after review I think 

8 normally it's been our practice to give --

9 allow the other Board Members to get adequate 

10 information so that they feel comfortable in 

11 reaching a decision. And so that's more of an 

12 observation than a recommendation. So I think 

13 we could.

14 And I would just make one more 

15 sort of procedural point that we, given the 

16 number of Board Members that are absent I'm a 

17 little concerned that if we try to do a vote 

18 on the motion which would -- is a 

19 recommendation to the Secretary we would have 

20 to wait until we heard from the absent Members 

21 and that would further delay going forward on 

22 this and which I think is not a good thing. 
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1 So I think you know, I would certainly, 

2 hearing from who -- person that made the 

3 original, the Work Group Chair has said that 

4 he's comfortable waiting. Again, subject to 

5 the conditions I think that similar to what 

6 you said, Paul, stated. So I guess if we hear 

7 a motion -- I'd entertain a motion to 

8 postpone. Bill?

9 MEMBER FIELD: Yes, I'd like to 

10 make a motion to postpone.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'll second it.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any 

14 further discussion on that? 

15 MEMBER MUNN: Exactly what happens 

16 now?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well that's --

18 yes. Okay. And what I heard was that we 

19 wanted at least two things. One was further 

20 information on the review of the data sets and 

21 particularly what were the exclusion criteria, 

22 how were those data sets selected. And I 
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1 think that information should be readily 

2 available from both NIOSH and SC&A so I don't 

3 think that's a large task but I think it's 

4 something they need to bring back to the Work 

5 Group and for the Work Group would report back 

6 to us at an appropriate time. 

7 Secondly, I think there needs --

8 they were looking, and this may be a little 

9 bit more complicated is at least additional 

10 information on the Fernald situation. And I'm 

11 not familiar enough with that to know. Mark, 

12 maybe you could help? Or Brad?

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I mean I'm 

14 also concerned like you are, Jim, that you 

15 know I don't know how timely we can be in 

16 coming to a conclusion on that issue on the 

17 Fernald Work Group. So that's -- but my 

18 understanding is, and John Stiver maybe can --

19 I think you already said that when you spoke. 

20 My understanding is that it's still an open 

21 issue on our matrix of issues for the.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But are we 
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1 asking -- I mean, I'm trying to get us into a 

2 procedural step would be for the Hooker Work 

3 Group wants to be briefed on and understand 

4 what the Fernald Work Group is doing and SC&A 

5 and NIOSH relative to these, you know, this 

6 data, these data from Fernald and whether that 

7 ongoing review will affect their decision. 

8 And I think then they can decide based on 

9 that.

10 MR. STIVER: Dr. Melius, as you'll 

11 see in the Fernald presentation that's coming 

12 up there are issues that still need to be 

13 resolved and this being one of them.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

15 MR. STIVER: So we'll need at 

16 least one more Work Group meeting before the 

17 next full Board meeting to discuss that. And 

18 I think that we could probably make some 

19 progress on resolving that. And also, the 

20 NIOSH response is due the beginning of 

21 September related to the -- that aspect of the 

22 data quality of the breathing zone air 
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1 samples. So we might be able to -- I can't 

2 speak for the rest of the Work Group really 

3 but I would envision maybe sometime in October 

4 we could have a Work Group meeting and have 

5 these issues at least if not resolved scoped 

6 out to a point that they can be applicable to 

7 Hooker. 

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks. 

9 Yes, Paul.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: But John, isn't 

11 the issue at Fernald more on whether or not we 

12 can use those air samples to reconstruct 

13 thorium doses?

14 MR. STIVER: Well, it really is 

15 kind of a more focused issue. It's not the 

16 overall quality.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, that's a 

18 different question in a sense.

19 MR. STIVER: It is.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Because it's an 

21 issue of can you take the uranium issue which

22 we know quite well and use that to reconstruct 
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1 thorium. That's not the question that we have 

2 here so it seems to me that if you were -- if 

3 SC&A were to brief this Work Group on what the 

4 Fernald issue is and then they can make a 

5 decision as to whether it impacts on them.

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: The other thing 

7 I think we could do especially since SC&A used 

8 a larger data set, we could look at the impact 

9 or NIOSH, the two of them could come back and 

10 say if we don't use the Fernald air data what 

11 would be the impact and is that a consistent. 

12 That way we avoid the, you know, the taint of 

13 the potentially uncertain Fernald air data. 

14 But if Fernald is you know, we really need the 

15 in order to have a sufficient robust database 

16 to do surrogate data then we really have to 

17 make that decision on the Fernald data.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: Paul raises a 

19 good point on the air sampling. The issue 

20 that we're wrestling is the thorium issue and 

21 it was actually thorium test-based sampling. 

22 But the other issue which came up earlier in 
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1 our matrix was uranium air sampling, questions 

2 on the validity of that. It got deprioritized 

3 on the Fernald Work Group because we're 

4 totally relying on urinalysis so it was a moot 

5 point. We could reprioritize it, we could 

6 bring it back up and make sure we get it on 

7 the next Work Group and maybe come to closure 

8 on that. See, we didn't pursue it much 

9 further because the uranium air data was not 

10 being used in any of the approaches. I 

11 believe I'm speaking -- Mark, isn't that 

12 correct? Yes, Mark Rolfes is nodding in 

13 agreement. On that issue.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think it would 

15 -- it seems to me a better way to proceed is 

16 for SC&A to brief the Hooker Work Group and 

17 then -- because I'm also, I don't want to hold 

18 up the Fernald Work Group unnecessarily 

19 because I think they're, they've got other 

20 important issues to deal with relative to 

21 that. So is there anything else for the Board 

22 in terms of going forward? Any further 
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1 comments on this issue? If not I think we. 

2 Brad, oh, I'm sorry.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just want to 

4 make sure that the petitioners are involved. 

5 They're the ones that were there that were 

6 actually involved with this, most of them. 

7 I'm very blessed to be able to have people 

8 that actually work at Pantex and Fernald that 

9 are raising these questions because as us as 

10 Board Members it's very hard for us to come in 

11 and look at their site and say yes, I've read 

12 about this, I've read about this. But they 

13 were the ones that were actually there and I 

14 want to make sure that they understand how 

15 we're doing it and help answer their questions 

16 too.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I think by 

18 holding a Work Group meeting and getting the 

19 information to them that I think can we 

20 address that.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right and I am 

22 just reiterating.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So can we 

2 first do a voice vote on postponing? All in 

3 favor say aye?

4 (Chorus of ayes.)

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Opposed?

6 (No response.)

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

8 MEMBER MUNN: I'll abstain.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Note that Wanda 

10 abstained. Thank you. The next item on our 

11 agenda is Fernald. Brad.

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay, today --

13 did we lose half of everybody? Great. I 

14 guess I upset Henry. Okay, well I'm going to 

15 start with Fernald Work Group. I want 

16 everybody to understand what we've basically 

17 to come to is come to the end of Fernald Work 

18 Group. There's several outstanding issues and 

19 I want to make sure that the Board is apprised 

20 of where we're at, what our difficulties are 

21 with this and I want to make sure if we can 

22 have some of the questions that the Board, the 
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1 other Board Members have so that as we go into 

2 our Work Groups we'll be able to answer those 

3 for you, be able to bring back questions. 

4 Because as has been said earlier we just get a 

5 brief moment on this one. The Work Groups 

6 come and we need to -- we have questions on 

7 this. So this is one of the reasons why we're 

8 bringing it to you. 

9 Like I said, my name's Brad 

10 Clawson, I'm the Work Group Chair. April 

11 19th, 2006, SEC petition qualified all 

12 employees who worked in all facilities at Feed 

13 Materials Production Center in Fernald, Ohio, 

14 January 1st, 1951 through December 31st, 1989. 

15 November 3rd, 2006, NIOSH Evaluation Report 

16 was issued. NIOSH found no part of the Class 

17 under evaluation for which it cannot estimate 

18 radiation doses with significant accuracy. 

19 November 10th, 2006, SC&A Site Profile Review. 

20 July 2nd, 2007, SC&A SEC PER Review. August 

21 2007 through August 2011, eleven Work Group 

22 meetings. May 24, 2011 Advisory Board 
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1 meeting, SC&A presented a detailed summary of 

2 the SEC issues as of April 2011. 

3 Coworker model, this is part of 

4 the SEC issues that we have open to the group 

5 right now. The coworker model for uranium 

6 internal exposure is open. Validation of the 

7 HIS-20 database is closed. We've reviewed 

8 that, we've looked at it, we feel it's closed. 

9 Recycled uranium is open. Use of radon 

10 breath data for reconstructing doses from 

11 inhalation of radon-226 and thorium-230 is 

12 closed. Review of radon emissions from the K13 65 silos and associated exposures, that was 

14 moved to a Site Profile discussion. 

15 Reconstruction of internal exposure for 

16 inhalation of thorium-232 daily weighted 

17 averages from 1953 to 1967 is closed. The 

18 chest count 1968 to 1989 is open. When I say 

19 these are open and closed these are 

20 recommendations by SC&A. Some of the Work 

21 Group Members don't agree with them but as far 

22 as SC&A feels that they can go they're 
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1 somewhat closed.

2 Issue 1, the coworker model for 

3 uranium internal exposures. Description of 

4 the issue: concerns regarding the completeness 

5 and adequacy of the uranium bioassay data 

6 available for dose reconstruction and 

7 supporting the Fernald internal dosimetry 

8 coworker model, OTIB-78. The status of the 

9 issue is resolved except for matters related 

10 to applicability of the coworker model to 

11 Fernald construction workers. And I should 

12 point out that, well, NIOSH performed an 

13 analysis of construction workers, construction 

14 workers versus non-construction workers, 

15 uranium bioassay data for TIB-78 and delivered 

16 a report August 11th, 2011, to the Work Group. 

17 NIOSH indicated analysis complete and the 

18 report is in internal review. The Work Group 

19 hasn't been able to see that yet. SC&A as 

20 soon as it gets through the internal part is 

21 supposed to review this.

22 Issue 3, recycled uranium. 
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1 Description of the issue: concern that the 

2 default concentration of Pu-239 and neptunium3 237 and other isotopes associated with 

4 recycled uranium at Fernald may not be 

5 bounding for some Classes of the worker 

6 activities, buildings and times periods. 

7 Status of the issue -- numerous White Papers 

8 have been exchanged where NIOSH provided its 

9 technical basis in support of its default 

10 values and SC&A provided reasons it believed 

11 that the default values may not be bounding 

12 for all workers and time periods. August 2011 

13 Work Group meeting: SC&A responded to NIOSH's 

14 review of the second SC&A White Paper (March 

15 31st, 2011) and a NIOSH position paper on 

16 recycled uranium defaults (August 5th, 2011). 

17 NIOSH review of the second SC&A RU 

18 White Paper. NIOSH acknowledged processes 

19 that resulted in a concentration of RU 

20 constituents above levels in feed materials. 

21 The dolomite problem, the magnesium fluoride 

22 issues. NIOSH acknowledged limitations and 
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1 uncertainties in the data from the DOE mass 

2 balance reports -- the basis for NIOSH's 

3 default values. Arithmetic mean 

4 concentrations for the 19 subgroup processes 

5 in DOE Ohio Field Office Report (DOE 2000) are 

6 not bounding. Data is highly variable and 

7 uncertain. Proposed upper 95th percentile of 

8 log-normal distributions for all but highest 

9 process subgroups, 1973 to 1989.

10 Issue 3, recycled uranium 

11 continued. August 5, 2011, Work Group 

12 meeting. New NIOSH position on default values 

13 (August 5, 2011). They proposed 1953-1960 

14 proposed no RU uptakes. 1961-1972, proposed 

15 original defaults which you can read there is 

16 100 ppb, plutonium 3500 ppb, neptunium 9000 

17 ppb, technetium. 1973-1989, proposed increase 

18 default values, factor of 4 for plutonium up 

19 to 400 ppb. For plutonium. For neptunium, 

20 11,000 ppb. A factor of 2 for technetium up 

21 to 20,000 ppb (Subgroup 6B). And based 

22 particularly on the magnesium fluoride 
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1 concentrations in the metal reduction (Plant 

2 5) highest continuous worker exposures.

3 Recycled uranium, continued. SC&A 

4 observations -- NIOSH position on RU defaults. 

5 NIOSH correlates increased worker exposure 

6 potential with receipts of plutonium out of 

7 spec which we call POOS feed materials 

8 beginning 1973. Worst was in 1980, Paducah 

9 tower ash. Prior to 1973 NIOSH proposed 

10 original (lower) defaults. However, the POOS 

11 feeds down-blended (Plants 1, 4 and 8) before 

12 being sent to the refinery (Plants 2 and 3) 

13 and subsequent processing steps. Therefore, 

14 concentrated constituents in magnesium 

15 fluoride (metal production step) were mostly 

16 from down-blended material. Because MgF2 data 

17 in DOE 2000 report were from 1982 to 1987; 

18 cannot assess extent of the MgF2 concentration 

19 prior to POOS receipts. If the MgF2 

20 constituent concentrations are not correlated 

21 with POOS receipts higher defaults could be 

22 applicable prior to 1973 (bounding one-size-
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1 fits-all approach).

2 Recycled uranium, continued. 

3 Position on the new proposed NIOSH default, 

4 1953 to 1960. This period can be bounded --

5 could be a Site Profile. However, SC&A 

6 believes that a default of zero is neither 

7 appropriate nor claimant-favorable. 1961 to 

8 1972, this period can be bounded -- could be a 

9 Site Profile. Questions remain to what the 

10 default should be, original versus new or 

11 higher value. Impact of the MgF2 

12 concentration with low feed levels. 1973 to 

13 1989, proposed high default probably bounding 

14 for the highest continuously exposure subgroup 

15 of workers. (Plant 5 metal workers and 

16 associated millwrights). Initial POOS feed 

17 concentration subgroup 10A could have impacted 

18 handlers and down-blenders, also indirect 

19 exposures. Bystanders effect. SEC issue

20 1973-1985, 1986 to 1989 group HP, Health 

21 Physics program. Small subset but cannot 

22 identify based on work records. Likely 
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1 intermittent exposure but not yet quantified. 

2 NIOSH action is to qualify down-blending 

3 intervals and assess impact. SC&A action 

4 items: review NIOSH's assessment.

5 Reconstruction of internal 

6 exposures from the inhalation of thorium-232. 

7 6B, use of chest counts to reconstruct 

8 thorium-232 exposures (1968 to 1989). No DWE 

9 data after mobile in vivo counting introduced 

10 in 1968. Therefore, completely dependent on 

11 integrity of chest count data thereafter. 

12 SC&A believes that the uncertainties in data 

13 sets are not adequately quantified. Status of 

14 issue: White Paper exchanged; issues first 

15 discussed in detail at the April 19th, 2011, 

16 meeting of the Work Group. April 19, 2011 

17 Work Group meeting: NIOSH action item, post 

18 for review newly acquired data for the in vivo 

19 calibration. Document posted and new White 

20 Paper provided on May 6th. SC&A action item 

21 to review the new calibration document in the 

22 context of the June 10th White Paper review 
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1 (data adequacy). Provide a formal response to 

2 NIOSH concerning the issue of whether thorium 

3 workers may be under-represented in the 

4 coworker model (data completeness). New 

5 response provided (August 2011: data adequacy, 

6 data completeness).

7 6B, the use of the chest counts to 

8 reconstruct thorium-232 exposures, 1968 to 

9 1969. Discussed new NIOSH White Paper and 

10 SC&A response on data adequacy and 

11 completeness. Data adequacy. 1968-1978, 

12 reported in milligrams of thorium, period of 

13 the thorium processing. Questionable 

14 calibration methods, screening versus 

15 quantitative. Questionable calibration source 

16 used to derive the MDL contaminated with 

17 radium-228. Questionable method to evaluate 

18 age of source and transform actinium-228 and 

19 lead-212 activity into in milligrams thorium20 232. No raw data, just milligrams of thorium 

21 reported. Examples indicate actinium-228 was 

22 used, very sensitive to age of source, 
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1 uncertainty in age of source at the time. 

2 Intake factor, about two at the closed system 

3 using lead-212. Orders of magnitude if 

4 actinium-228 used. Uncertainty in the 

5 resident time in the lung, progeny in-growth 

6 and translocation; factor of 0.25 or more. 

7 The MDL of 6mg not supported by reference or 

8 data. Only 3 percent of the results greater 

9 than 6mg. Uncertainty of the MDL from noise 

10 on values less than the MDL. Inconsistencies 

11 between milligrams thorium and nanocuries of 

12 lead-212 for periods of overlap, 1978 highest 

13 milligram. Thorium-232 corresponds to 

14 negative lead-212 results (SC&A White Paper, 

15 June 2010 table 1). Data for individual 

16 workers inconsistent with biokinetic processes 

17 (SC&A memo to NIOSH, April 6, 2011). Large 

18 variability and uncertainty in milligrams 

19 thorium data and lack of knowledge on 

20 derivation may preclude ability to bound 

21 intakes from 1968 to 1978. It's an SEC issue.

22 Data adequacy, 1979 to 1988 
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1 reports in nanocuries thorium based on lead2 212 and actinium. Period stewardship. Large 

3 impact of measurement variability. Nanocuries 

4 of lead-212, actinium and derived result. 

5 Uncertainties in resident time in the lung 

6 (progeny in-growth/translocation). 

7 Uncertainty in the REMAB phantom (up to a 

8 factor of 3, pre-1983). MDL of 0.25 

9 nanocuries greater than 84th percentile 

10 uncertainties from noise in values less than 

11 the MDL. Equilibrium factor of 0.42 for lead12 212 measurements based on a closed system (no 

13 translations out of the lung). Experimental 

14 data indicate the equilibrium factor could be 

15 lower. Raw data are available for nanocuries, 

16 thorium data may be adequate to bound the 

17 intake. This is a Site Profile issue. A 

18 NIOSH coworker model uses a GSD of 3 based on 

19 biokinetic modeling. Does not appear to 

20 address measurement uncertainties. Possibly 

21 adequate when applied to a distribution of 

22 results for multiple workers over a year but 
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1 not quantified. 

2 6B, the use of the chest counts to 

3 reconstruct thorium-232 post-1968. SC&A's 

4 concerns -- data completeness, assuming data 

5 adequate for coworker model. SC&A's tasking -

6 - formal response (February and April of 2011 

7 Work Group meetings), are thorium workers 

8 adequately represented in the data set. Only 

9 one reference identifies thorium workers with 

10 a specific production year (1968). If not, do 

11 chemical operators provide a reasonable 

12 surrogate for thorium workers for use in the 

13 coworker model? Is sample frequency 

14 correlated with lung burden? Sample is 

15 directed at the most highly exposed workers. 

16 SC&A's response, finding 1, thorium worker 

17 results generally higher than chemical 

18 operators, at most percentiles. Thorium 

19 worker 95th percentiles are higher in all but 

20 four years when compared with either all 

21 workers or chemical operators in 95th 

22 percentiles. Non-parametric 95 percent 
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1 confidence intervals for the 95th percentile. 

2 Only 1971 showed significant differences 

3 between the thorium subgroup, the chemical 

4 operators and all workers. No evidence that 

5 chemical operator groups provided definitive 

6 upper bound for thorium worker exposure.

7 6A, use of the chest counts to 

8 reconstruct thorium exposures, concluded. 

9 Finding 2, less than 3 percent of the in vivo 

10 records for milligrams thorium are at or above 

11 or assumed MDL of 6mg. This combined with 

12 uncertainties regarding the accuracy and the 

13 veracity of the MDL, call the utility of the 

14 model into question. Nonetheless, thorium 

15 workers appear to be well represented among 

16 the in vivo results at or above the MDL. 

17 Workers comprise 7 percent of the total but 20 

18 percent of those were positive results. 

19 Samples comprise 13 percent of the total by 

20 nearly 33 percent of the positive results. 

21 Finding 3, no positive linear correlation 

22 between thorium monitoring frequency and 
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1 magnitude of results. Uranium monitoring 

2 results showed much better linear correlation 

3 between monitoring frequency and the results

4 relative magnitude of results. Suggests that 

5 the in vivo program may have been targeting 

6 higher risk workers based on uranium 

7 activities. NIOSH's action item was a formal 

8 response to the SC&A responses before the next 

9 meeting. SC&A will review that.

10 In summary, the issues remain to 

11 be dispositioned with NIOSH and SC&A. The 

12 Work Group deferred action on recycled uranium 

13 from 1973 to 1985 pending further assessment. 

14 NIOSH to locate historical information 

15 regarding the time required for down-blending. 

16 From this it may be possible to estimate 

17 periods during which the down-blending and 

18 bystanders may have been exposed to subgroups 

19 10A concentrations and determine whether the 

20 new higher defaults are bounding. SC&A to 

21 review NIOSH's quantitative analysis when it 

22 becomes available. Work Group defers action 
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1 on thorium chest counts data, 1968 to '78 

2 pending further assessment. NIOSH to provide 

3 formal responses to SC&A on the August 11th 

4 data adequacy and completeness report. SC&A 

5 to review this report when it becomes 

6 available. 

7 I know that that was a lot to take 

8 in there but one of the things that comes into 

9 it, and that's an understatement, but guess 

10 what? You know, going through all these Work 

11 Groups, here's the bottom line. Are the 

12 questions being answered? Do you have 

13 quantitative information to be able to do it? 

14 And you know, every one of these sites that 

15 we are dealing with we have to deal with the 

16 information that we can get and some of it 

17 comes into question sometimes. This is why 

18 I'm bringing this before the Board now because 

19 if there's questions out there that as we're 

20 going into this we want to make sure that they 

21 are answered in a manner that is going to help 

22 you make your decision. So are there any 
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1 questions?

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul and then 

3 John.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is not really 

5 a question but really a comment. I think 

6 first we need to salute Brad for sharing Work 

7 Group with a very complex site to evaluate. 

8 And I'm on the Work Group and I have a hard 

9 enough time following all the issues. Brad 

10 has summarized them well here. But for those 

11 on the Board who aren't on the Work Group I 

12 know you realize how complex these are. 

13 Whether they're open or closed these have been 

14 complex issues that the Work Group has 

15 struggled with.

16 So this is a good summary for you 

17 to have here. There's probably more detail 

18 than the non-Work Group Members can absorb all 

19 at this time but you have this for future 

20 reference. And I think there's been good 

21 progress made over the past several years and 

22 I personally thank the Chair for you know 
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1 doing the strong effort that's needed to keep 

2 this moving along. And I think we're -- we 

3 are getting toward the end and that's why it's 

4 important for people to have these issues so 

5 that when the time comes for the discussion 

6 you know this is not like Hooker which is a 

7 simple operation. So thanks, Brad, for giving 

8 us this summary, complex as it is, so that we 

9 have it for our future reference.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think John was 

11 next.

12 MEMBER POSTON: I'm not a member 

13 of the Work Group so I'm one of those that's 

14 confused. So I'm really just wanting a 

15 clarification so that I can better understand. 

16 Finding 3 on slide 13 says no positive linear 

17 correlation between thorium monitoring 

18 frequency and magnitude of results. I'm not 

19 quite sure what that means. So can somebody 

20 help me?

21 MR. STIVER: Yes. This is John 

22 Stiver. This issue 3 came up as a result of 
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1 the Work Group discussions where it was 

2 brought up that the thorium workers and the 

3 uranium workers who had the highest potential 

4 for intakes would have been monitored more 

5 frequently. For example, somebody came in 

6 with a high result they would sample more 

7 frequently on that worker. And so there 

8 should be some correlation between the 

9 magnitude of the result and the frequency of 

10 sampling. And so we took a look at that. And 

11 for thorium there was just a data cloud with 

12 no apparent correlation whatsoever.

13 MEMBER POSTON: But why were you 

14 assuming it was a linear relationship? That 

15 was what threw me off. I don't have a clue 

16 what you mean by that.

17 MR. STIVER: This analysis was 

18 really more qualitative just to see if there 

19 was some discernible correlation between those 

20 two variables. And we were able to determine 

21 that there was with uranium, but not so with 

22 thorium. And granted there's probably better 
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1 correlation methods out there than just some 

2 linear approach.

3 MEMBER POSTON: What would be the 

4 solution to these findings?

5 MR. STIVER: Well, the real 

6 important one was that -- you know, you've got 

7 to remember that both the data completeness 

8 and data adequacy studies were done in 

9 parallel. And the data completeness study is 

10 kind of based on the presumption that, okay, 

11 let's just table the adequacy issue for now, 

12 assume it's good. Let's see if they are 

13 complete enough that it would be adequate for 

14 a coworker model. And I believe it was a 

15 couple of Work Group meetings ago NIOSH had 

16 come back with this issue of are thorium 

17 workers adequately represented in the data set 

18 to where they wouldn't be under-represented or 

19 their intakes wouldn't be under-reported in 

20 the coworker model. And so that was really 

21 the origin of our action item to look into 

22 this. And so that was really the gist of that 
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1 particular study to see if the thorium workers 

2 were adequately represented in the high end of 

3 the distribution. 

4 And the other issue was that 

5 thorium, there's only one reference that 

6 really identifies thorium workers and that's 

7 for one year in 1968. And so there's this 

8 issue of can we even identify who they are. 

9 And because of that NIOSH had indicated well, 

10 we believe the chemical workers would be an 

11 adequate surrogate if you couldn't identify 

12 the thorium workers. And so we looked at the 

13 thorium workers that are available and 

14 compared them to the chemical workers and 

15 that's what the statistics came out of that, 

16 was that -- actually the thorium workers were 

17 probably in most cases except for the 95th 

18 percentile confidence interval on the 95th 

19 percentile for at least four years out of that 

20 period they were actually higher than the 

21 chemical operators. So we concluded, or came 

22 to a preliminary conclusion I guess when you 
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1 look at the assumptions that went into the 

2 analysis that the chemical workers really 

3 don't provide a bounding intake for the 

4 thorium workers.

5 MEMBER POSTON: I'm just trying to 

6 resolve finding 2 with finding 3. The 

7 statement says less than 3 percent of the in 

8 vivo records were above the MDL for thorium. 

9 And you know, are these findings or are those 

10 just statements of fact?

11 MR. STIVER: They're really 

12 observations.

13 MEMBER POSTON: It says findings.

14 MR. STIVER: The milligram, yes I 

15 guess maybe "finding" isn't the best term to 

16 use.

17 MEMBER POSTON: I think it's a bad 

18 term.

19 MR. STIVER: It's more of an 

20 observation. And you know, obviously the MDA 

21 issue gets back to the data adequacy so it's 

22 kind of common to both analyses. I hope that 
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1 helped to clarify this for you.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mark, you had 

3 something to add?

4 MR. ROLFES: Yes, this is Mark 

5 Rolfes from NIOSH. We did take a look at the 

6 two White Papers on thorium and help me out, 

7 was there a third? There was a third White 

8 Paper that SC&A had sent over. Anyway, we do 

9 owe responses to the two thorium White Papers 

10 that we recently received. We provided our 

11 initial thoughts on the information contained 

12 in the SC&A reports at the last Work Group 

13 meeting. Regarding the comparison of the 

14 thorium workers to the chemical operators we 

15 had actually provided some comments on the 

16 SC&A report tentatively. Our project 

17 statistician had actually compared the lung 

18 burdens of thorium workers and chemical 

19 operators and our statistician concluded that 

20 there was no reason to believe that they were 

21 two separate populations of workers. So the 

22 highest potential for exposure was typically 
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1 the chemical operator Class of employees and 

2 we believe that the thorium workers were in 

3 that Class as well. So that was one of our 

4 initial comments which we provided on the SC&A 

5 report. We have not formalized our response 

6 yet because we're trying to prepare more 

7 detailed White Paper responses to those two 

8 issues, those two White Papers.

9 Regarding the uncertainty in 

10 thorium lung counting we certainly agree that 

11 there are many uncertainties. However, I 

12 think most of the comments that we recently 

13 received from SC&A focused on theoretical 

14 uncertainties and didn't really focus on the 

15 uncertainties on our White Paper. Basically 

16 they didn't focus on the specific uncertainty 

17 in the age of thorium. We made some 

18 assumptions in our White Papers about the 

19 disequilibrium between thorium-232 and 

20 progeny, information about translocation of 

21 thorium progeny from the lung, many other 

22 different things that we've discussed and 
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1 assumptions that we've made. And a focused 

2 review of those issues would be more helpful 

3 to us in addressing the coworker intake model 

4 used for Fernald. 

5 Looking at it initially my opinion 

6 that it wasn't an issue of whether or not the 

7 thorium lung count data existed for Fernald 

8 employees, it was just the uncertainties 

9 involved in lung counting of thorium. And we 

10 certainly acknowledge that there are a lot of 

11 uncertainties. However, we do feel that we 

12 can combine those uncertainties in a claimant13 favorable manner to give the benefit of the 

14 doubt in the dose reconstruction process for 

15 each dose reconstruction we complete. And we 

16 will be providing information with that basis 

17 in our next response.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: While you're up 

19 there my question was when.

20 MR. ROLFES: Sure, I understand. 

21 We had just received these I believe it was a 

22 little over two weeks ago. And so we're 
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1 working to get responses done I believe by the 

2 end of September so that we can have a Work 

3 Group meeting prior to the next full Board 

4 meeting.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

6 That is being responsive, thanks. Mark, I 

7 think you had questions?

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: I was just going 

9 to -- and Mark is correct on that description 

10 that we're -- that's one of the issues that we 

11 had the most discussion I think at the last 

12 meeting around that issue. But I think both 

13 sides had just received White Papers right 

14 before the meeting as is our practice 

15 sometimes. So anyway, we still have to give 

16 NIOSH more time to look at that. But I think 

17 the crux of the question is SC&A laid out many 

18 of the uncertainties in the in vivo counting 

19 for thorium and the way NIOSH is handling it 

20 is in the coworker approach they believe with 

21 the way they're handling the data is going to 

22 encompass all those uncertainties and bound 
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1 all those uncertainties. And then I think 

2 there's a little bit of discussion of you know 

3 to sort of prove that to us. We're not quite 

4 there yet. It's a little different than some 

5 of the previous uranium models and things that 

6 we've looked at but I think that's where we're 

7 at on the Work Group, so.

8 The only other thing I was going 

9 to point out is in the third slide. I'm glad 

10 Brad pointed this out, but the footnote is 

11 important. I think SC&A has closed on some of 

12 these but for instance that 6A I believe is 

13 the thorium daily weighted average approach 

14 and I think SC&A kind of agrees with NIOSH on 

15 this. I for one still need to be a little 

16 further convinced on that one. So I think 

17 it's certainly SC&A's closed/open items, maybe 

18 not the whole Work Group yet, so.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

20 Gen.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: My question is 

22 on slide 9, reconstruction of internal 
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1 exposures. And talking about the chest 

2 counts, the mobile in vivo counts, probably 

3 it's because I don't know what DWE stands for. 

4 It implies that they have to depend 

5 completely on these chest counts and they 

6 don't have this other data. Can somebody 

7 explain what that is? 

8 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes 

9 once again. The DWE data is the air 

10 monitoring data, their daily weighted exposure 

11 reports. Early on in the Fernald operational 

12 history in the early '50s members of the 

13 Health and Safety Laboratory had visited the 

14 Fernald site and basically explained and 

15 helped to prepare daily weighted exposures, 

16 basically tracking several different 

17 individuals, chemical operators, laborers, 

18 many different Classes of employees that were 

19 involved in doing hands-on work with 

20 radioactive materials, either uranium and/or 

21 thorium. Basically the Health and Safety 

22 Laboratory would take an air sample result, a 
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1 breathing zone air sample result, provide the 

2 duration of that exposure for that employee to 

3 that air concentration and track that employee 

4 to the next operation, take an air monitoring 

5 result. So there's a combination of breathing 

6 zone air sampling data as well as general area 

7 air sampling data with specific durations of 

8 exposure and whether or not respiratory 

9 protection was used for each operation that 

10 was conducted at the Fernald site. So we have 

11 that data available to us for thorium 

12 operations in addition to uranium. And that 

13 is the basis for our methodology to 

14 reconstruct thorium intakes for the earlier 

15 operational period from the 1950s up until 

16 1968 when the mobile in vivo radiation 

17 monitoring lab came from the Y-12 facility to 

18 perform lung counts of the Fernald employees 

19 that were thorium workers as well as uranium 

20 workers. 

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: Thank you.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other -- go 
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1 ahead.

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: Just one more 

3 point and I think Paul kind of hinted at this, 

4 that you know, there were a lot of slides and 

5 a lot of detail there which I think Brad did a 

6 good job, you know, laying out some detail so 

7 the Advisory Board is sort of ready for this. 

8 But I mean, if you look at all this I don't 

9 think I'm overstating this by saying that 

10 we're down to probably two main items which is 

11 the recycled uranium and the thorium --

12 thorium in two different time periods with in 

13 vivo versus DWE. But I mean, it's -- we are 

14 getting closer. So you know, there's a lot of 

15 slides but I think there's primarily two big 

16 issues that we're trying to close on.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else 

18 have questions or comments? Yes, Brad.

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Paul summed it up 

20 earlier. When you look at Fernald, when I 

21 first went into this I thought it was just 

22 uranium. And this is what their basic process 
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1 was. But at all these sites, like all of us 

2 have found out they have their unique little 

3 quirks to them. A lot of other things came in 

4 because of the thorium issue. Fernald became 

5 the site, it was the repository for all this 

6 thorium. And when I first started going into 

7 thorium I was thinking small batches and 

8 stuff. We're looking at railroad cars from 

9 all over the place. They brought in, they did 

10 little tests to try to richen up the uranium 

11 as it went in. It wasn't a real big one. 

12 They had some come in from Idaho that was too 

13 high. These are really, there's a lot of data 

14 in there. And then to have this plant was ran 

15 as a heavy metals plant until in the '80s it 

16 really didn't start getting in just like all 

17 these other sites, didn't start getting into a 

18 real appropriate RadCon program until in the 

19 late '80s.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, I have a 

21 question for you. When do you -- do you have 

22 any estimate of when the Work Group will be 
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1 able to come to the Board with a 

2 recommendation? 

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: After we get 

4 these White Papers processed. I'll be right 

5 honest, this is like at the other sites and 

6 I'm not throwing stones because either side 

7 wasn't. But we didn't get some of this data 

8 until the day before the Work Group meeting. 

9 We're shooting for the September time frame 

10 but one of the stipulations that I went on the 

11 record of saying is that we need to have at 

12 least three weeks for either side to be able 

13 to review the papers on this time.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Because 

15 this petition has been around a long time and 

16 we need to try to reach some conclusion on it. 

17 So. I know you agree with that. Okay. Yes, 

18 David.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Can I just ask 

20 for one point of clarification about what's 

21 being proposed for coworker data? And this 

22 was sort of an issue that was raised in the 
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1 10-year review. Are the coworker models here, 

2 are they job area time period-specific 

3 coworker models, or are they plant-wide 

4 coworker models? How is that being 

5 envisioned?

6 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes. 

7 Basically what has been done, NIOSH had 

8 proposed a thorium-232 coworker model using 

9 the in vivo lung count data back in May of 

10 2008. We basically looked at several thousand 

11 lung counts and developed a distribution of 

12 the thorium lung burdens. For any employee 

13 who was a potential thorium worker we would 

14 assign a thorium intake based upon the lung 

15 data. But this only applies to the 1968-

16 forward period. Prior to 1968 we would be 

17 relying upon the daily weighted exposure-based 

18 intakes. We've actually gone through on many 

19 of the questions that SC&A had on the earlier 

20 intake model using daily weighted exposures 

21 have been resolved because I believe we are 

22 now choosing the highest daily weighted 
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1 exposure intake for that facility for any 

2 year. I have to go back, it's been awhile 

3 since we've discussed the daily weighted 

4 exposure intakes.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Does the 

6 calendar year applied to everybody at a 

7 facility?

8 MR. ROLFES: Yes, it would be 

9 specific to the year or time period that the 

10 work was being done. 

11 MR. STIVER: If I could kind of 

12 expound on that a bit. The daily weighted 

13 model looks at not just per year but per 

14 plant. So for any given plant for a given 

15 year that will be looking at kind of a one16 size-fits-all model for those workers in those 

17 facilities. But it's not across the entire 

18 FMPC.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean I would 

20 just add, I would also be interested in that 

21 same issue and be sure to look at that, but 

22 also job title or other factors that may 
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1 separate people. At least on large coworker 

2 models I think can be problematic and so.

3 MR. STIVER: Dr. Melius, that was 

4 one of the -- the first round of the model 

5 reviews, that was proposed by NIOSH was 

6 breaking it out into three different 

7 categories by job type.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

9 MR. STIVER: We discerned there 

10 wasn't enough granularity in the data to 

11 warrant that.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Paul?

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think it may be 

14 important to let the group know what fraction 

15 of the employees would actually be using the 

16 coworker model, Mark.

17 MR. ROLFES: Well, specific to the 

18 1968-forward time period if the individual did 

19 not have a lung count for his entire duration 

20 of employment then we would assign the 

21 coworker intake model. If, however, he had 

22 data in his file showing that he had a lung 
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1 count we would use his data. As far as the 

2 specific number of people who, I don't have 

3 that information available right now.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. 

5 MS. BALDRIDGE: This is Sandra.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I know, I'll get 

7 to you in just one minute here, okay? I just 

8 want to have one -- so Brad again, if I'm 

9 trying to understand the schedule and so 

10 forth. So do you think the Work Group will be 

11 able to come back to us at the December 

12 meeting? Because I really think we need an 

13 update, a recommendation from the Work Group 

14 which can be, you know, either sort of yes, 

15 no, or we can't decide but here are the issues 

16 and the specific issues that we pin down. I 

17 think the Board then is going to need to 

18 decide what to do. 

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, I do believe 

20 that we will be able to have a recommendation. 

21 I just, I wanted to be able to get this to 

22 the Board because at this time so that when we 
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1 do come to them that they've got a better 

2 understanding of the issues that we've dealt 

3 with and gone forward. When we voted to bring 

4 this to the Board last time it was, you know, 

5 it was a split decision and Paul wanted to 

6 make sure that we were aware of that. This is 

7 also, I want people away from the Work Group 

8 because Paul summed this up. This is very, 

9 this is a very cumbersome site, there are so 

10 many variables to it - it was unbelievable to 

11 me. And so I wanted to make sure as we bring 

12 this forward to you in this next Board meeting 

13 that you have a better understanding of it. 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. No, 

15 we appreciate that and we appreciate the 

16 complexity. I think now we'll give an 

17 opportunity for the petitioner to comment.

18 MS. BALDRIDGE: Yes. I was 

19 looking through my notes on thorium which is a 

20 concern of mine and I have noted here that in 

21 1958 they were working with thorium residues 

22 that were improperly coded. They were 
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1 exploding. They needed to be re-inspected, 

2 re-drummed and that some of the product was 

3 being oxidized. It was determined that there 

4 was sufficient radium-228 in the residues to 

5 contaminate the Miami River from surface 

6 runoff or groundwater seepage to levels 1,000 

7 times the MPC level for drinking water. And 

8 during these processes they actually lost 

9 product into the sewage system. So the issue 

10 with thorium is a considerable one, at least 

11 from my point of view.

12 I'd also like to make a statement 

13 concerning the surrogate data that was being 

14 presented for Hooker. The air samples were 

15 exempted from consideration by Fernald in the 

16 SEC because the air quality issue was 

17 determined in a federal court to be valid. 

18 It's more than just one affidavit by a person 

19 stating that there was corruption in the air 

20 data reporting. A federal judge made the 

21 determination that there was significant 

22 discrepancy in the reality and what was 
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1 presented, that it resulted in a medical 

2 monitoring program for workers at Fernald. I 

3 believe that's about all I have to say at this 

4 time. But it's not that they chose not to, 

5 they couldn't use the air sampling for the 

6 dosing for Fernald based on what the SEC 

7 presented. Thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you, 

9 Sandra. Any other Board Members have further 

10 comments or questions on Fernald? Okay. 

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is Brad 

12 again. You know, I want to take this 

13 opportunity. Paul told me thanks, but I 

14 wanted to thank Sandra Baldridge. I wanted to 

15 thank numerous people from the Fernald group 

16 that have been continuously there and that 

17 have dug up an awful lot of this information 

18 that has helped us better understand how the 

19 process went. And she's right that there was 

20 a lawsuit on it but this is outside of the 

21 boundaries of the site, but we still need to 

22 take into consideration of what it did. It 
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1 implemented an awful lot of things outside of 

2 the boundaries of the site. And she is 

3 correct in what was said here today. But I'd 

4 like to personally thank her and Ray and all 

5 those that have helped us out so much.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks. 

7 Anybody else? Okay. It's a little after 

8 10:30. We are scheduled again at 11:15. Why 

9 don't we take a break, then we'll come back at 

10 11:15 for Norton Company.

11 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

12 matter went off the 

13 record at 10:35 a.m. and 

14 resumed at 11:18 a.m.)

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, the Board 

16 is going to reconvene and the issue we are 

17 talking about is the Norton Company SEC 

18 petition. And Wanda Munn from the Procedures 

19 Work Group will make a presentation. Wanda.

20 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you. You've 

21 seen and heard almost everything there is to 

22 know about Norton already I think. These are 
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1 the Subcommittee Members. I chair this group. 

2 And you may recall that Norton is something 

3 you've seen at least two times already. It's 

4 the AWE that was located on New Bond Street in 

5 Worcester, Massachusetts. Operated from 1945 

6 to 1957. During that period of time we looked 

7 at the SEC petition for this period. We 

8 originally received an 83.13 and in the 

9 process of reviewing that NIOSH segregated and 

10 expanded the period that had been covered by 

11 the original petition so that it was 

12 segregated into the operations period from 

13 January 1st of '45 to the end of 1957. We did 

14 recommend that SEC and that letter went to the 

15 Secretary back in 2009. The post-operative 

16 period is divided also into two different 

17 areas. One period was the D&D period from '58 

18 to '62. You have looked at that and have 

19 recommended the SEC. That's going to the 

20 Secretary early this year. 

21 One should note at this time that 

22 the cleanup on this particular facility was 
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1 extensive. I don't know whether you recall 

2 that from the presentation that you saw at the 

3 time we granted the SEC for the D&D period. 

4 But these folks did an awful lot of work 

5 cleaning this place up. What we're looking at 

6 today is limited only to the residual period. 

7 At the time that we were looking at the 

8 entire post-op period this Board had 

9 recommended that Procedures take a look at 

10 what was going on during this residual period 

11 primarily because TIB-70 was being processed 

12 by the Procedures group at that time. 

13 We did that back in March and we 

14 charged our technical contractor with focused 

15 review of this particular period. They got 

16 that to us on July 7th. They had two 

17 findings. One is they were concerned about 

18 the fact that NIOSH was basing their entire 

19 dose estimates, both internal and external, on 

20 a single set of samples that had been taken in 

21 1958. They felt that might be inadequate. 

22 Bear in mind, please, that 1958 if you recall 
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1 from what I just said was early on in the D&D 

2 process. The second item was that the source3 term depletion factor of 1 percent a day which 

4 had been used from OTIB-70 in looking at this 

5 was still up in the air as far as Procedures 

6 was concerned and as a matter of fact today we 

7 still are dealing with that in our review of 

8 the procedure itself.

9 The Subcommittee met with the 

10 agency and with SC&A on July 14th this year. 

11 And we spent a significant amount of time 

12 looking at these two issues and working 

13 through exactly what NIOSH had done and 

14 discussing why it was felt that their review 

15 and their conclusions were acceptable. After 

16 the conditions with respect to the air 

17 sampling were explained carefully and those 

18 air samples, remember, were taken early on in 

19 the D&D process. They were taken in an area 

20 which was the high activity operation area 

21 near the grinding wheel where the thorium 

22 activities were based and near the hood. 
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1 Following those air samples the extensive D&D 

2 that I mentioned earlier transpired. All of 

3 the debris was cleaned up. The furnaces and 

4 the kiln were literally taken apart brick by 

5 brick. All of this material was cleaned up, 

6 stored in barrels and over that D&D period 

7 from '58 through '62 those 287 barrels 

8 constituting a couple of thousand tons of 

9 material was transferred offsite and buried in 

10 a remote location. 

11 After this discussion SC&A agreed 

12 that the circumstances involved made it 

13 reasonable to rely on those air samples as 

14 adequate to bound the exposures because 

15 anything that would have occurred following 

16 that would have been lower source-term 

17 markedly. So that for our residual period 

18 that we were looking at certainly not only the 

19 cleanup itself but the decay and activity that 

20 would have occurred following that would be of 

21 necessity less.

22 The second item is an interesting 
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1 one. I think Dr. Neton will speak with you 

2 more about that later. The default depletion 

3 factor that -- of 1 percent per day which had 

4 been used did not follow well with experience 

5 that we've had in similar kinds of facilities 

6 and with data that had been collected from a 

7 wide variety of sources. This depletion 

8 factor involves not only the resuspension 

9 calculations that are made but also the 

10 distribution of the lessening amount of 

11 material over this period of time and decay 

12 factors that all have to be taken into 

13 consideration. That being the case, NIOSH had 

14 suggested a depletion factor that was -- a 

15 default depletion factor that was at least an 

16 order of magnitude less than what had been 

17 originally used when we were looking at this

18 period for the first time so that there --

19 they agreed they would issue a correction to 

20 the original 83.14 which they had presented. 

21 So that the correction factor would be 0.67 

22 percent per day rather than the 1 percent 
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1 which had been used in the previous

2 calculations. So NIOSH has now issued that 

3 addendum and using that agreed factor. That 

4 was August 4th issuance.

5 There are no remaining unresolved 

6 issues applicable to the SEC Class for this 

7 residual period. And that's all we're looking 

8 at right now is the residual period. At our 

9 July meeting when we looked at this we did not 

10 have a quorum present so we can't bring you a 

11 formal recommendation from the entire 

12 Subcommittee. But all of the Members in 

13 attendance agreed with the resolutions that 

14 had been reached and we support the NIOSH 

15 recommendation to not grant SEC status for 

16 this residual period. It's fairly obvious to 

17 those of us who were there that bounding doses 

18 can be estimated with sufficient accuracy and 

19 certainly both our contractor and the agency 

20 have looked at these issues very carefully. 

21 We're comfortable with them and agree that the 

22 calculations that are necessary to bound doses 
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1 for this residual period only can be made. 

2 Any questions?

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Why don't we 

4 hold questions, let Jim Neton present the --

5 his presentation. Because I think it would be 

6 easier because we ask questions about the 1 

7 percent, the correction for that. You're 

8 going to refer to him, correct?

9 MEMBER MUNN: I believe that would 

10 be very nice especially in view of the fact 

11 that he can answer all your questions and I 

12 can sit down.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, no, we're 

14 not letting you off without questions.

15 (Laughter.)

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just thought 

17 rather than --

18 MEMBER MUNN: That's fine. Dr. 

19 Neton?

20 DR. NETON: I'll see what I can do 

21 here. Well, thank you. Wanda did an 

22 excellent job outlining the issues at hand 
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1 here and so I won't go over and repeat what 

2 she said. What I'd like to do is just make a 

3 few comments on the issue of the depletion 

4 rate that was used. We had a conundrum at 

5 Norton because as Wanda said the facility had 

6 been fairly well cleaned up but at the same 

7 time we had no survey data to demonstrate how 

8 clean it was. I mean, it sounded good, they 

9 took all the bricks out, they buried them, 

10 they used solvents to clean the equipment and 

11 everything but we just had nothing to prove, 

12 you know, how clean was clean. So we didn't 

13 have a starting point. But we thought we 

14 needed to have some way to assign some dose so 

15 we did as Wanda suggested use as a starting 

16 point for the residual period air samples that 

17 were taken just around the beginning of the 

18 cleanup period feeling that would be bounding. 

19 But secondly now we didn't have an anchor 

20 point to say, well, how much contamination was 

21 there at the end of the period which I think 

22 goes out to 2009. The issue with that is 
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1 because Norton continued, after they cleaned 

2 up the thorium they continued to make 

3 commercial thorium product unrelated to AEC 

4 operations. So any measurements that were 

5 taken later on which I think we had some were 

6 potentially biased because of all the 

7 commercial production that went on. So we had 

8 to have some sort of an anchor point at the 

9 other end and TIB-70 as we all know has 

10 several alternatives and one of the 

11 alternatives is when you have no anchor point 

12 at the more contemporary period we could start 

13 with the anchor point at the end of production 

14 and use a 1 percent per day depletion to come 

15 up with some sort of an estimate of the 

16 exposure. The problem with that is that we 

17 developed that some time ago, it was based on 

18 some published literature that we had reviewed 

19 and since then, as Wanda said, we've done 

20 empirical evaluations at a number of sites and 

21 it's certainly, that 1 percent per day is not 

22 consistent with what we've seen at several 
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1 sites. 

2 And here's what I mean. If you 

3 look at this slide this is right out of the 

4 addendum. There were -- we went back and 

5 looked at any site that we actually had a 

6 beginning point and an ending point and 

7 calculated -- and what we used in the -- well, 

8 the ERs or Site Profiles, wherever we ended up 

9 using the information. And these were the 

10 depletion rates that were observed at these 

11 four facilities. There is some variation but 

12 the average value comes out to be 0.0067 per 

13 day or 0.067 percent. That's about a factor 

14 of 15 slower clearance than TIB-70 would allow 

15 for. So we believe that based on the 

16 empirical data that we have for these four 

17 sites we are proposing to use that value to 

18 reconstruct the doses during residual period 

19 at Norton, keeping in mind that we believed at 

20 the beginning of the day that things were 

21 pretty well cleaned up to begin with.

22 I just present this last slide 
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1 here to sort of give you a graphic 

2 representation of the differences. You can 

3 see the 1 percent per day clears out pretty 

4 quickly, that's pretty intuitive that you 

5 know, with that fast of a clearance rate 

6 you're not going to have much left at the end 

7 of the year and I think we had some prescribed 

8 -- it never went to zero. It was some flat 

9 line value that was prescribed in TIB-70. But 

10 the red line you see here is the new value 

11 that we're going to end up -- we're proposing 

12 that would be used for Norton. 

13 I guess the next question would be 

14 well what about TIB-70. We haven't revised 

15 TIB-70 yet but we certainly will take that 

16 into consideration and probably end up 

17 incorporating this conceptually into either 

18 TIB-70 and/or TBD-6000. Because really if you 

19 think about it this sort of ends up being a 

20 TBD-6000 issue, what do you do for clearance 

21 at uranium type facilities and thorium 

22 facilities. So that's the end of my formal 
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1 comments but I'd be happy to answer any 

2 questions or refer them to Wanda if I can.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any questions 

4 for Wanda or Jim? Oh Bill, sorry.

5 MEMBER FIELD: Jim, I'm just 

6 curious with the variation that you see in the 

7 depletion rates what processes may be causing 

8 that variation. I mean it's not huge but it 

9 does differ. Is it just sampling differences 

10 or?

11 DR. NETON: Oh no, I think it's 

12 just process, differences in facilities. I 

13 mean, you're talking about four different 

14 facilities that did somewhat different things. 

15 These facilities were actually still in 

16 production mode where see you're going to have 

17 a faster -- in my opinion there would be a 

18 faster depletion rate if you have ongoing 

19 operations rather than a facility that's shut 

20 down and you know is closed up you wouldn't 

21 have as much potential for clearance. But 

22 these are just different facilities and I was 
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1 actually surprised how close they were given 

2 that there are differences. 

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: Just to follow up 

4 on that, Jim. I'm looking at these and I'm 

5 thinking you've used this approach in many 

6 more sites I believe. I'm wondering does this 

7 sort of show your full range of what you've 

8 identified? For instance, I see W.R. Grace is 

9 one we just went over yesterday. That 

10 proposes I think a similar approach to go from 

11 operational to -- 

12 DR. NETON: W.R. Grace --

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: FUSRAP data.

14 DR. NETON: Right. W.R. Grace is 

15 a new one that we just did and that wasn't 

16 available when I did this one. I think we've 

17 captured all of them.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: These are all of 

19 them? Okay.

20 DR. NETON: There are only four 

21 sites where we're able to do this approach and 

22 I think there are several sites -- I went back 
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1 and looked -- where we use the 1 percent per 

2 day that if we adopt this we're going to have 

3 to go back and re, you know, do a PER 

4 essentially to reevaluate the residual 

5 contamination period at those sites. But I 

6 think this is the gamut of all the sites.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry?

8 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes. Are any of 

9 these -- how similar are they to the Norton 

10 site? As far as what went on during the 

11 residual period. You know, you can average 

12 them as you have. On the other hand you could 

13 say well, really Blockson is quite a different 

14 circumstance or Dow Madison is you know more 

15 difficult.

16 DR. NETON: Yes. Well, what we 

17 are talking about here is resuspension of 

18 material and not about the actual processes 

19 that are occurring so much. You know, there's 

20 activities, people milling around, sweeping, 

21 vacuuming, you know, those type of things that 

22 occur in a general environment. I'm not so 
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1 sure the actual process that occurred is 

2 relevant. It may have some bearing.

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: What was going 

4 on in the building.

5 DR. NETON: These were all active 

6 sites, I mean they weren't closed up 

7 facilities where you know there's just nothing 

8 going on. They were actively doing something, 

9 some commercial operations.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: Nothing was 

11 going on?

12 DR. NETON: Oh Norton was 

13 producing thorium the whole time. Well, not 

14 the whole time, but during the residual period 

15 Norton was doing commercial activities much 

16 like these were producing commercial products 

17 of some sort. Not necessarily radiologic, 

18 radioactive products, but. 

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: And Wanda I'm 

20 just curious, early on there was a question 

21 that you just have one sample or one set of 

22 samples. How was that resolved?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: That was resolved as 

2 I pointed out. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jim. 

3 As I pointed out the old samples were very 

4 good samples. They were taken early on in the 

5 D&D process so that what -- and they were 

6 taken in an area where the highest 

7 contamination would have been, where the real 

8 action was going on. So because those samples 

9 were taken where they were and when they were, 

10 that is, early on in the D&D process before 

11 all of the things were cleaned up it follows 

12 that as things were cleaned up and taken away 

13 you were not going to have at the end of the 

14 cleanup period a higher rate of activity than 

15 you would have had at that moment. So those 

16 samples were taken during the D&D period for 

17 which we have already granted an SEC and sent 

18 that recommendation to the Secretary. So 

19 those samples were taken early on in that 

20 period. Anything that transpired in the 

21 residual period after all of the cleanup had 

22 been completed could not possibly be higher 
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1 from our AWE source than it was at the time 

2 those samples were made.

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes, I 

4 understand that. The question is yes, that's 

5 -- they couldn't have been any higher but is 

6 that a realistic starting point for applying 

7 then this depletion. It would seem to me your 

8 estimated exposures are going to have been 

9 much higher than they ever could have been so 

10 it's a bound but it might be a very 

11 unreasonable high bound.

12 DR. NETON: I'm sorry.

13 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

14 DR. NETON: That's the conundrum. 

15 I mean, you have a facility that's been 

16 cleaned up but you have no data to say how 

17 much it was cleaned up and so to bound it 

18 you're going to use something that was in, 

19 that was more than likely more contaminated in 

20 the cleaned-up facility but you're taking a 

21 general area air sample, not a process sample 

22 where they're machining the material, just a 
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1 general area sample of what were the 

2 concentrations of thorium in the general 

3 environment of that facility in 1958 I think 

4 it was, '59. And that will bound your 

5 starting point for the residual period. 

6 Otherwise I don't know what you do. It's --

7 our first guess actually, my first pass at 

8 this was to say it was cleaned up, there was 

9 no residual contamination. But you know, you 

10 just can't say that with any confidence. So 

11 this in our opinion is a bounding value to 

12 apply to something that was more than likely 

13 much lower. 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Along those 

15 lines and the original SC&A comments actually 

16 weren't about the -- sort of the 

17 representativeness for that year as much about 

18 the -- I think it's a limited number of 

19 restricted air sampling time and then some 

20 technical issues about how the samples were.

21 DR. NETON: Right. But I think 

22 what -- their argument was that they were not 
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1 necessarily representative of the activity and 

2 I pointed out during the meeting that we have 

3 agreed awhile ago that general area -- you 

4 don't necessarily need representative air 

5 samples of some process if you're just trying 

6 to characterize what's being resuspended from 

7 the ground. A general area air sample about 

8 the building is going to be representative of 

9 what's being kicked up from the deposited 

10 activity, not you know, we don't really care 

11 how much activity is being generated by 

12 grinding, cutting, that's just, it's not 

13 happening. And SC&A agreed with that.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I just 

15 wanted to get on the record how we addressed 

16 that.

17 DR. NETON: You're absolutely 

18 right.

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: What were the 

20 values?

21 DR. NETON: Of the?

22 MEMBER ANDERSON: I mean how --
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1 how high are they I guess. I mean are they so 

2 high that --

3 DR. NETON: I'll try to keep my 

4 significant figures down here, but 4.6 dpm per 

5 cubic meter. It's fairly low, not very high.

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: That's what I 

7 wanted to know.

8 DR. NETON: About five, less than 

9 five.

10 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

12 Mark?

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: I know I've made 

14 these comments before but it's really 

15 regarding TIB-70 in general and my concerns of 

16 this approach. I mean, I wonder if it gets 

17 into the we-can-solve-this-problem mode. But 

18 you know, you said in this residual period and 

19 I think we've all thought about it this way, 

20 in a lot of the discussions, that you know the 

21 depletion rate is sort of people are milling 

22 around or sweeping or things like that. My 
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1 concern and from firsthand experience is in 

2 those 20 or 30 or so years a lot of what --

3 now this is a little different because you had 

4 commercial operations come in afterwards so 

5 it's complicated in that way, but in a lot of 

6 the other facilities I've worked in a question 

7 is raised that in those middle years workers 

8 went up and tore out ventilation systems and 

9 tore out old process equipment the footprints

10 of which ended up being highly contaminated. 

11 So these general FUSRAP samples which are 

12 actually -- I mean, they're -- we all know 

13 that that sampling effort, in most of these 

14 cases I think the sampling effort was scoping, 

15 you know, do we need to do cleanup on this 

16 site. So they would just do some general area 

17 samples and if you had a couple that were over 

18 limits you didn't need to go much further. 

19 They weren't necessarily designed to sort of 

20 characterize exposures to employees. So my 

21 concern is not the general activities that 

22 would have went on but the sort of maintenance 
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1 activities and you know I guess you get into 

2 the discussion of whether this would bound 

3 those conditions or that kind of thing.

4 DR. NETON: Well, I'd remind you 

5 this site's a little different because it was 

6 cleaned up. I mean they took the kiln brick 

7 by brick apart and buried 18 to 20 tons of 

8 material that by their estimate contained 

9 about I think 15 pounds of thorium total 

10 included in that 18 tons of residue that they 

11 pulled out of that building. So I think this 

12 is a little different than that.

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: I don't know the 

14 specific case but you know I did quite a bit 

15 of consulting cleaning up sites that were 

16 cleaned up.

17 DR. NETON: I understand.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean sites that 

19 were cleaned up in the '70s --

20 DR. NETON: Right.

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- and ended up 

22 being, you know, big projects in the '90s, so. 
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1 Anyway.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's also our 

3 conversation yesterday, just a comment is that 

4 you know, people will get individual dose 

5 reconstruction if we follow through with this 

6 recommendation. So if someone applies and 

7 find out that there was, you know, a task that 

8 went on for a significant period of time what 

9 would have been much higher exposures or 

10 something you know I think and I would hope 

11 that NIOSH would recognize that situation and 

12 say maybe we don't have adequate data to do 

13 the, or this approach isn't adequate to 

14 address that. I mean I think that's --

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean, I'm not 

16 arguing that the exposures would have been, 

17 and even at the start of that D&D it seemed, 

18 you know, obviously they were at very small 

19 levels. I'm just, you know, so that's why 

20 it's a troubling area because in one way you 

21 know the exposures were low but the question 

22 is can you really -- do you really have enough 
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1 information to characterize the exposures. 

2 That's my dilemma. And this depletion rate 

3 just assumes, you know, general sort of being 

4 in the area, not these sort of intrusive 

5 activities. Because I don't think any of 

6 these FUSRAP samples would have represented 

7 those kind of areas where you know within 

8 ventilation systems or under process 

9 equipment. I'm pretty sure, they might have 

10 done a few sub-surface samples but usually 

11 it's surface.

12 DR. NETON: Right. I'd like to 

13 focus on this issue here though for this 

14 facility, not the general issues. This is 

15 applicable to this facility I think is what 

16 I'm suggesting, not is it applicable across 

17 the board. We haven't modified TIB-70 to do 

18 this but I think for this particular 

19 application I think it's appropriate. Given 

20 what we know about the cleanup activities and 

21 the removal of the kiln itself. 

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: You're deriving 
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1 depletion rates based on other sites where my 

2 characterization might have been applicable, 

3 right? I mean, I think.

4 DR. NETON: Well, I don't know. I 

5 mean because these are surface contamination 

6 levels that were observed on the accessible 

7 surfaces. And we're talking about accessible 

8 surfaces that were here in this building 

9 because the kiln and the materials where they 

10 produced it are gone now.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: Are gone. That's 

12 a good argument, you're right. And that's --

13 because that -- and was that true in these 

14 other cases? I guess that would be a 

15 question.

16 DR. NETON: Well, what I'm arguing

17 though is they measured the depletion rate of 

18 accessible surfaces and we're trying to model 

19 what the depletion rate for accessible 

20 surfaces would be at this facility. Because 

21 the kiln and everything is gone. So whatever 

22 holed-up material there might have been in the 
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1 ductwork and stuff is really not relevant for 

2 this particular situation. I grant you that 

3 maybe for another facility where there is a 

4 footprint of contamination, you've got a 

5 point.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes. It's 

7 definitely a stronger argument when you --

8 DR. NETON: And so each facility 

9 needs to be taken --

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- say this stuff 

11 was removed.

12 DR. NETON: And I totally agree 

13 that each facility needs to be taken on its 

14 own merits. You know, this is not sort of 

15 going to be universally applicable I don't 

16 think. That's why we didn't rush to make this 

17 a TIB-70, you know, modification yet, at least 

18 in some other form.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

20 questions?

21 DR. NETON: David I think has 

22 something.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I had one 

2 question. I was wondering, the picture you 

3 had of comparing the first model, the prior 

4 model to the current model, it looked like 

5 after 100 days basically there was nothing 

6 left under this 1 percent per day model. And 

7 so I was wondering if I understood what that 

8 meant about 1 percent per day. Is it -- I was 

9 imagining like a compartmental model where 

10 there's some mass and then you're moving over 

11 a fraction of it out of the compartment to a 

12 second --

13 DR. NETON: A clearance rate.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: A clearance 

15 rate. And so you calculate kind of like 

16 compound interest.

17 DR. NETON: Exactly.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And so this is 

19 an exponential decay model.

20 DR. NETON: Exactly. So you have 

21 a 15 times longer half-life -- a lambda value. 

22 A clearance rate. And so your total intake 
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1 in terms of dpm per cubic meter days, if you 

2 integrate that curve it's 15 times more 

3 effectively dose because milligram per cubic 

4 meter days is dose, your intake. So you're 

5 allowing for -- if the material is there a lot 

6 longer it's available for resuspension 

7 inhalation for quite a much longer period of 

8 time. 

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So the picture 

10 just -- the picture was giving me the 

11 impression that this was a linear decay model.

12 DR. NETON: Yes, and that's an 

13 issue with the scale because it's not linear, 

14 it's an exponential, it's just compressed on 

15 that scale so much it looks like a straight 

16 line.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because these 

18 are years and you're getting out to --

19 DR. NETON: Exactly. Yes, so it's 

20 --

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Thousands of 

22 days. That's what's going --
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1 DR. NETON: That's the problem, 

2 yes. So it's a very fast -- 1 percent per day 

3 is too fast. I mean, I totally agree with 

4 that, it just doesn't -- in retrospect what we 

5 know about these sites and -- just not a good 

6 number to use.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

9 questions? If not I believe the Work Group 

10 did not have a specific recommendation, I 

11 think you lacked a quorum if I understood you 

12 but so do you wish to make a motion?

13 MEMBER MUNN: Mr. Chair, I am 

14 delighted to move that this SEC petition not 

15 be accepted and that NIOSH address the 

16 residual period in the manner that's been 

17 described here today.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do I hear a 

19 second to the motion? 

20 MEMBER FIELD: I'll second the 

21 motion.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 
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1 you, Bill. Any further discussion? Not --

2 Ted, do the roll call.

3 MR. KATZ: I don't know whether we 

4 have had any Board Members join us on the 

5 phone so I'll run through their names for the 

6 two that might as well. 

7 MEMBER FIELD: Jim, could you 

8 restate the motion?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The motion is to 

10 accept the NIOSH recommendation that for this 

11 residual period that it not be added to the 

12 SEC essentially. So it is to not grant the 

13 Special Exposure Cohort for this time period 

14 at Norton which is the residual time period. 

15 I don't have the -- all the elements doesn't 

16 change what happened before, no.

17 MEMBER MUNN: The others are 

18 already gone. This is the only one that's 

19 left and the position that we have is that 

20 NIOSH is able to bound these exposures in such 

21 a way that for this residual period only they 

22 can provide dose reconstruction that's 
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1 adequate.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Ready? 

3 MEMBER BEACH: I'm sorry, can you 

4 just -- the dates are a little confusing. So 

5 1958 -- 

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Sorry, '62 through 

8 2009, correct?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, because you 

11 look at the ER and there's a lot of dates 

12 going on.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, I know, I 

14 was actually, I had it up on my screen earlier 

15 and I've been scrambling to find it again.

16 MEMBER MUNN: This is specifically 

17 from October the 11th, 1962, through October 

18 the 31st, 2009. 

19 MR. KATZ: Ready? So, Dr. 

20 Anderson?

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

22 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

5 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Mike Gibson are you on 

7 the line? Mr. Griffon.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen.

10 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

14 

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

17 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Bob Presley, are you on 

19 the line? Dr. Richardson.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

22 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: So the motion passes 

6 unanimously and we have some votes to collect.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

8 We'll be breaking for lunch here shortly. I 

9 remind the Board Members that we have a Board 

10 work session this afternoon. Come back, we'll 

11 do Savannah River and after that we'll have a 

12 Board work session. And at least two of the 

13 issues that will come up, one as I mentioned 

14 yesterday is the timing for some dates for 

15 some upcoming meetings for April and June, at 

16 least that's what's proposed by Ted. We also 

17 have a public comment session comments to 

18 review which is a document that Ted sent to 

19 you in the last few weeks and also -- you 

20 should have it on the material that was handed 

21 out today. And I think we have some Board 

22 correspondence. Hopefully we'll have some 
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1 additional SEC letters ready for review also. 

2 But the one I wanted to really mention was I 

3 wanted to make sure on the dates that Ted has 

4 proposed, potential dates and also the public 

5 comment session comments. That's a long 

6 document and may take some time to look at.

7 MR. KATZ: Another heads up for 

8 Board Members. We have a letter we just 

9 received from Savannah River site petitioner. 

10 So I've tried to forward it to everyone. I 

11 keep getting a failure for some reason but 

12 we'll print them out in hard copy so you can 

13 see that letter. Or did some of you receive 

14 that from me? I sent it just during this 

15 session. Okay, so anyway, we'll print that 

16 letter out for everybody. 

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we also, 

18 another issue that'll come up in addition to 

19 the dates for our June meeting, there's also 

20 site issues. And we have some congressional 

21 correspondence regarding a request that we 

22 hold the meeting in the Los Alamos area, so. 
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1 Something else to think about and consider. 

2 But we'll discuss those in detail this 

3 afternoon. We'll break and we reconvene, talk 

4 about Savannah River at 1:30 this afternoon.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled

6 matter went off the record at 11:56 a.m. and 

7 resumed at 1:35 p.m.)

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, we'll 

9 reconvene now the Board meeting. Ted?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes. So we have a 

11 Savannah River Site presentation, but before 

12 we start that, let me just check on the lines 

13 and see if we have either of two Board 

14 Members, Bob Presley or Mike Gibson. Are you 

15 on the line, either of you? 

16 (No response.) 

17 Okay.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Then let's start. 

19 Tim Taulbee.

20 DR. TAULBEE: Thank you, Dr. 

21 Melius. Before I get started here, let me 

22 first apologize to the Board for the lateness 
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1 in getting this report to you all, as well as 

2 to the petitioners. This is one of those 

3 scenarios where we've got a definite lessons 

4 learned of allowing a little more lead time 

5 for discussions between us and other agencies 

6 regarding SEC petitions. The other thing I'd 

7 like to say is I'd like to thank my colleagues 

8 from ORAU who participated and prepared this 

9 particular report. In particular, Mike 

10 Mahathy, he led the team with the help of Bob 

11 Morris, Bryce Rich, Leo Faust, Sam Chew, Mel 

12 Chew, and Jason Davis. I just have the 

13 privilege of presenting it to you all today.

14 So to give a little bit of an 

15 overview of this presentation, the petition 

16 itself was received November of 2007. In 

17 December of 2008, we presented it here to the 

18 Advisory Board. This was in Augusta, where we 

19 presented it. At that time we reserved 

20 thorium exposures from that particular 

21 petition because we needed to do more 

22 research. Over the next year and a half, we 
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1 continued that research and we issued an 

2 Evaluation Report Addendum and this was 

3 regarding thorium. We presented this to the 

4 Savannah River Site Work Group of the Advisory 

5 Board in Cincinnati in May of 2010 and then in 

6 January 2011 the Work Group and SC&A provided 

7 comments back to us on this Evaluation Report. 

8 And one of the most significant findings of 

9 their comments that we received was the 

10 potential for thorium work in other areas not 

11 discussed in the Evaluation Report Addendum.

12 So in February, during the 

13 Advisory Board meeting, I gave you an update 

14 of where we were. This was again down in 

15 Augusta. And I indicated to you then that we 

16 needed to do some more work on thorium and 

17 other areas. And so we've been continuing to 

18 do that since February. In May of this year, 

19 we gave an update on our priority issues and 

20 particularly discussed thorium, but the main 

21 focus of that whole talk was to discuss how 

22 isotope production or development and 
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1 production process worked at Savannah River, 

2 to explain the different areas across the 

3 sites. And we talked about laboratory 

4 research, semi-works areas, fuel target 

5 fabrication, reactor irradiation and then the 

6 chemical separations. At that time of that 

7 presentation I indicated to you by the August 

8 Board meeting, this meeting, that NIOSH should 

9 be in a position to make a recommendation to 

10 the Advisory Board, and that's what we're here 

11 to do today.

12 And so what we're going to be 

13 recommending throughout this presentation is 

14 that a Class be added to the Special Exposure 

15 Cohort based on internal thorium exposures in 

16 the 773A and the TNX facilities that we don't 

17 feel we can bound. The Class Definition is 

18 actually based on external monitoring and I'll 

19 get into more details about this as I give 

20 this talk. And we really can kind of separate

21 Savannah River workers, based on their 

22 external monitoring, into workers who were 
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1 likely exposed to thorium, workers who may 

2 have been exposed to thorium, and then workers 

3 who were not exposed to thorium. So I hope by 

4 the end of this presentation you'll be able to 

5 follow along with my logic as to how we've 

6 been able to determine this.

7 So the thorium research and 

8 development, just to recap in one slide where 

9 I spent a lot of time in the last presentation 

10 in May doing. At Savannah River when they 

11 were developing a new isotope, in this case 

12 uranium-233 was the product, and they used 

13 thorium to do so. It started with lab work in 

14 the 700 area which is there in the upper 

15 northwest quadrant of the site. And once they 

16 got some of the processes down from there they 

17 scaled up into a semi-works plant or a pilot 

18 plant, if you will, and that was down in the 

19 CMX/TNX area which is in the lower, the 

20 southwest quadrant of the site. Once those 

21 processes were all set, they went into full22 scale production. Now at Savannah River there 
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1 were three main divisions of workers. There 

2 was the technical division which did the lab 

3 work and the semi-works, the production 

4 division which did fuel fabrication, reactor 

5 irradiation, chemical separations and heavy 

6 water production, and the third one was a 

7 construction division that basically built 

8 facilities as well as remodeling facilities 

9 throughout the plant site.

10 So, once it was turned over to 

11 production, the thorium would be sent to the 

12 fuel and target fabrication. And I talked 

13 last time a little bit about most of the 

14 thorium was canned offsite at Sylvania and it 

15 came onsite for finishing, and this was 

16 identical to the work that they were doing 

17 with uranium prior to 1965. And then those 

18 canned fuel elements -- so now the thorium is 

19 encapsulated in an aluminum sleeve basically. 

20 Those of you who went on the tour the other 

21 day in the B reactor area, you could see some 

22 of the encapsulated fuel slugs of uranium that 
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1 were sitting there. It was the same thing 

2 with thorium. It was completely encapsulated 

3 with aluminum before putting it into the 

4 reactor. 

5 At the reactors, then, all the 

6 fuel was encapsulated. When it came out of 

7 the reactor to go to separations prior to 

8 1964, all of that fuel was sent to Oak Ridge 

9 National Laboratory. There wasn't any 

10 chemical separations here onsite in the 200 

11 areas prior to 1964. So the chemical 

12 separations is that final step to extract the 

13 uranium-233. And then, just to complete the 

14 production cycle, you do have heavy water 

15 production for a moderator for the reactors.

16 So thorium work at Savannah River: 

17 our dose reconstruction methods we developed 

18 and discussed in Addendum 1 and then Report 46 

19 described how we felt we could reconstruct the 

20 thorium doses in the 300 area. There was a 

21 potential for internal exposure there, but we 

22 do feel we have a bounding method from that 
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1 standpoint. I showed you some slides the last 

2 time of the dip method of canning, as well as 

3 the hot press bonded and then the glove box 

4 for the latter years where they were working 

5 with thorium oxide. The other areas that we 

6 wanted to look at was: did they handle 

7 encapsulated thorium or unencapsulated or 

8 both? And so when it's encapsulated there's 

9 really no potential for internal exposure. 

10 When it's unencapsulated, clearly there's a 

11 potential.

12 This is a repeat slide of what I 

13 presented to you at the May Board meeting, but 

14 I just want to quickly re-emphasize here that 

15 in the reactor areas we're dealing with 

16 encapsulated thorium. For the 235F it was a 

17 support facility where they also did some 

18 canning operations, kind of overflow from the 

19 300 area, during a few select years. And so 

20 we feel that the 300 method, 300 area method 

21 of bounding should apply to that particular 

22 facility. The 200H canyon is where most of 
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1 the separations occurred. Prior to 1964, 

2 there was no thorium in the 200H area. They 

3 didn't do any separations there until that 

4 time period. 300 area I already discussed, 

5 heavy water area, no thorium exposure. The 

6 700A Savannah River Laboratory. This is where 

7 they were doing all the research associated 

8 with it. This is one of the areas that 

9 surprised us when we looked at thorium 

10 inventory reports. And so I'll talk about the 

11 difference between the red and the orange 

12 there of a high potential for exposure and a 

13 medium potential when I get into that 

14 particular laboratory. 

15 CMX was the reactor semi-works 

16 plant, again mostly dealing with encapsulated 

17 thorium. TNX, that was separations pilot 

18 plant where they did dissolve down natural 

19 thorium in some of their tests. 777M was the 

20 physics lab and I've got this as 

21 unencapsulated, low potential for exposure. 

22 And this is because they were doing just 
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1 reactivity measurements in that area so they 

2 would -- most of the fuels were actually 

3 encapsulated but they did have a few bare 

4 slugs that they did work with, but they didn't 

5 do any grinding, cutting, welding, anything 

6 with them, they were just handling, put them 

7 in the reactors, taking reactivity 

8 measurements, taking them back out, changing 

9 configuration. So I really feel the 300 area, 

10 where they were cutting, grinding, doing some 

11 of that work would bound those potential 

12 exposures. The central shops area, thorium 

13 was not present. However, construction trades 

14 workers could have worked anywhere onsite. 

15 And you'll see that with our Class Definition 

16 on our recommendation to you all. B area, the 

17 heavy water components test reactor, handled 

18 some encapsulated thorium in just 1964.

19 So since I talked to you all in 

20 February of this year, we've reviewed the 

21 inventory reports or monthly accountability 

22 reports. These detail where thorium was 
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1 located onsite. We did this in March of 2011 

2 this year. We also looked at monthly 

3 technical reports as another source to find 

4 out whether there was thorium work going on 

5 and where. In June of this year, we reviewed 

6 the Health Physics log books for the 773A in 

7 the CMX/TNX area. We've conducted additional 

8 interviews with workers asking specific 

9 questions about what they did in 773A as well 

10 as TNX. And so what I want to focus on for 

11 this presentation here again is the other 

12 areas that the finding represented, and that 

13 would be Savannah River Laboratory, the semi14 works plant, burial grounds and the 

15 separations area.

16 So let me start with Savannah 

17 River Laboratory. And part of why this wasn't 

18 included in the original addendum was our 

19 interviews with workers that we had conducted 

20 prior to this year had all indicated generally 

21 small quantities of thorium was worked with in 

22 that laboratory. So when we embarked on 
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1 checking the inventory reports, I was fully 

2 expecting to see that the inventory in the 

3 773A would be quite low. And we found that it 

4 wasn't, it was on the order of a few tons. 

5 And so we conducted more interviews to find 

6 out what's the discrepancy that we have here. 

7 And because the discrepancy that we're seeing 

8 here, you know, we have a report indicating 

9 that sinter sections were cut from 12 

10 irradiated slugs. These slugs are 8 inches 

11 long, they were cutting 1-inch sections out of 

12 them and then dissolving them down using an 

13 underwater saw in the cave area. And then 

14 they would analyze eight milliliter samples. 

15 Well, these are all small quantities that they 

16 were working with in these laboratories. 

17 The picture that I show there is a 

18 dry box for the electrolysis of thorium and 

19 here you can again see the lab was just doing 

20 that particular work. It's small, it didn't 

21 really match with what we saw in those monthly 

22 accountability reports. So what was the 
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1 discrepancy?

2 Well, the discrepancy was the 

3 metal fabrication lab, and this was the back 

4 area of 773A. And when we talked to workers 

5 about this, people who had thorium bioassay, 

6 we contacted several of them to find out, you 

7 know, what were you doing with thorium. They 

8 were all talking about low-level quantities. 

9 And so we brought up this metal fabrication 

10 lab and many of them would go, oh yes, okay, 

11 back there they had the ability to build a 

12 full-length assembly from scratch. So that's 

13 where the bulk of the thorium material was, 

14 was back in this metal fabrications lab, and 

15 I'll show you a picture of that here in a 

16 minute. So that accounts for the tons that we 

17 are seeing. 

18 But in these labs there was some 

19 low-level quantities of thorium. I say low20 level, I shouldn't say that because they did 

21 have some irradiated slugs that did result in 

22 some contamination. And so, although they 
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1 were small in quantity, there was a high 

2 potential for exposure in these other labs. 

3 There was intense research activities from 

4 1953 into 1957 on the production of U-233, 

5 that was their whole goal at that time. But 

6 then they stopped, and the main reason they 

7 stopped was there's a high content of U-232 

8 associated with the U-233 and it was causing a 

9 gamma problem. And so it was making the U-233 

10 undesirable, effectively. So the research 

11 just basically stopped. 

12 However, in 1959 they started 

13 doing research with neptunium and what we 

14 found from the monthly reports was they would 

15 use thorium as a surrogate or a stand-in 

16 chemically for neptunium because it was less 

17 radioactive, I presume, and had the same 

18 chemical properties. They started using that 

19 for their neptunium research. So although the 

20 main research for uranium-233 appeared to 

21 stop, they were still using thorium there on 

22 the site, which accounts for why the 
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1 inventories kind of continued along that time 

2 period. The research picked up again in the 

3 early to mid-1960s and continued until about 

4 1971 in the lab. 

5 This is a diagram of the 773A lab. 

6 This front part, what you see here is what's 

7 called A wing. There to the left is B wing, 

8 to the right is C wing. The back gray area, 

9 that's the metal fabrication laboratory and 

10 then off to the left, the grayed out area 

11 there is the high-level caves. When we went 

12 through the Health Physics log books, we 

13 started noting every time they would discuss 

14 thorium in a lab, a contamination survey, 

15 people working with it. We would write down 

16 that lab room. The grayed out boxes that you 

17 see throughout the diagram there are the rooms 

18 where we know thorium was worked with. And 

19 this would be prior to about 1958. So what 

20 you can see is: it's not the whole building, 

21 obviously it wouldn't be, but there were a 

22 significant number of rooms where thorium was 
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1 worked with within the laboratory. The yellow 

2 boxes indicate change rooms and health physics 

3 offices. And so to gain access to that back 

4 area, you had to go through a change room, put 

5 on smocks, shoe covers, pick up your dosimeter 

6 badge, to go back into that area and all the 

7 way back into the metal fabrication where the 

8 bulk of the thorium was. 

9 One of the things we found with 

10 the Health Physics log books is, clearly 

11 Savannah River had an active radiological 

12 protection program. There were routine 

13 surveys of the corridors, most indicating no 

14 contamination detected, but there were 

15 documented spills. Within these log books 

16 there's discussion of when things went wrong 

17 and even low-level ones. When you consider 

18 one spill indicated 37 counts per minute 

19 smearable was the highest, that's about 150 

20 dpm per 100 square centimeter. So it's not 

21 much activity there that they were actually 

22 calling a spill at that time. Other spills 
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1 were in the several thousand counts per minute 

2 so you had kind of the whole range across 

3 this. There were routine surveys of special 

4 work as well as materials leaving the 

5 building. 

6 One of the things that was

7 interesting from the Health Physics log books 

8 was the general researchers or technical 

9 division personnel's conduct of operations. 

10 And I say here that it was sometimes less than 

11 formal. There were times when the radiation 

12 control technicians would catch the scientists 

13 doing things they weren't allowed to do or 

14 supposed to do, they were violating 

15 procedures, and they were written up in these 

16 log books. There's clear documentation of 

17 this person did this on this day and I 

18 reported it to my supervision. So this is why 

19 I say there was an active radiological 

20 protection program. They were trying to keep 

21 everything contained.

22 Now, when you have a less than 
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1 formal conduct of operations, it doesn't 

2 necessarily mean you can't do dose 

3 reconstruction; it just means it can be harder 

4 and you have to rely on other data. Bioassay, 

5 for example, if somebody's doing something 

6 they're not supposed to be doing, if they're 

7 getting intakes, you'll see it in the bioassay 

8 that it's pretty clear these people were doing 

9 things that they shouldn't have been. 

10 For Savannah River, for thorium we 

11 only have bioassay data in 1956. We have 225 

12 samples for 175 workers. So some of the 

13 samples were repeated because they came up 

14 high the first time. They showed positive, 

15 and so they re-sampled, again illustrating an 

16 active radiological protection program. One 

17 of the indications in a Health Physics log 

18 book was that they began to compile a list of 

19 workers who ever worked with thorium. They 

20 indicated this in early 1955, that they 

21 started writing down this list of who to 

22 sample when the projects ended. So the 
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1 problem with the 175 workers, that could have 

2 been everybody who was potentially exposed in 

3 773A but we have no way of verifying that. So 

4 I can't tell you that that's the only people 

5 who were ever exposed. So we've had to make 

6 the net bigger in order to designate this 

7 particular Class.

8 Air sampling. When you have 

9 really good air sampling of breathing zone or 

10 in the workplace, you can still estimate the 

11 dose. But in this case none of the air 

12 samples were breathing zone samples, and we 

13 confirmed this through discussions with the 

14 workers, interviews with the scientists. They 

15 talked about that the air samplers were on the 

16 walls and on the ceiling. So these were 

17 checked by the radiation control technicians, 

18 but they were not in the routine breathing 

19 zone for the workers.

20 One of the other difficulties with 

21 this is: we've not been able to locate a 

22 significant number of air sample data. 
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1 There's some in the log books, but not like

2 the 300 area or 100 or 200 areas, where 

3 there's log books that are individual sheets, 

4 kind of like 3-ring binders that are numbered 

5 pages. And there's literally about a thousand 

6 boxes of these where you can just open up the 

7 book and just page, you know, day after day 

8 after day, same location, different locations, 

9 where you have all this data. We've not been 

10 able to find that for 773A. I'm presuming 

11 that that is because it was the technical 

12 division and not the production division. We 

13 can find all this for production. We haven't 

14 been able to find it for the technical 

15 division. 

16 I believe that it has been filed 

17 effectively under each radiation control 

18 technician, because that's how the log books 

19 appear to be filed. Within these log books 

20 there is smear data. However, it would take a 

21 tremendous effort to try and locate all of 

22 these individual log books and code the data 
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1 to develop an exposure model. And let me give 

2 you an example of this. With the log books, 

3 they're filed by individual radiation control 

4 technicians. So first you would have to 

5 develop a list of all the radiation control 

6 technicians that worked in the area during 

7 this time period of interest. Next, you'd 

8 have to try and pull all of those back from 

9 Federal Records Centers, which would be a 

10 tremendous effort. For looking at the 30, I 

11 think it was about 33 log books that we pulled 

12 back for June, these came in about 30 boxes. 

13 There was only one notebook in each box, and 

14 they pulled these back from the Federal 

15 Records Center. 

16 Then you'd have to go through and 

17 try and code all of that data, but the problem 

18 is that many of the routine samples that were 

19 taken in the labs, some of them will indicate 

20 where the sample was taken on the edge of a 

21 hood, others, they don't have any indication 

22 of where it was taken. So within the lab, 
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1 were they just smearing the floor, were they 

2 smearing the counters? We don't know.

3 So most of the data though in 

4 these log books do indicate no contamination 

5 detected. Again, there are spills that are 

6 discussed but we don't have any further 

7 information about where these samples were 

8 taken within the lab. So after all this 

9 analysis, if we went through it, and we're 

10 really looking at a couple of years' effort to 

11 try and do this, I still don't know that we 

12 could come up with a reasonable exposure 

13 model. So this is why we're not using the 

14 smear data that is out there.

15 The final term, whenever you don't 

16 have any of the above that you could possibly 

17 do dose reconstruction with, would be source18 term modeling. At Savannah River in these 

19 labs, there was different chemical physical 

20 forms in every laboratory and within 

21 laboratory. It's not like you were handling a 

22 single piece of uranium and doing one thing 
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1 with it, you know, moving it over here or 

2 modifying it slightly. It's not like you're 

3 actually handling one particular chemical or 

4 physical form. The physical form changed 

5 within the lab, as well as the chemical form. 

6 They were trying to learn how to dissolve 

7 this. So it's not something that you can 

8 really model. There was also constant 

9 movement of material between laboratories. 

10 And finally, we can place people within 

11 buildings based upon the external dosimetry 

12 that I'll show you here shortly, but within 

13 the laboratory I don't have any way of placing 

14 who was in lab LB131 versus LB111. I don't 

15 have any method of doing that. So, as a 

16 result, we're recommending that the 773A area, 

17 those back areas in the regulated part where 

18 people would be badged, would be added to the 

19 exposure Class.

20 So now let me shift gears to semi21 works. And this is a picture of the CMX/TNX 

22 area. And what you'll see here is that CMX 
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1 and TNX were two buildings side by side. The 

2 entry into this area that required badging was 

3 effectively the same for both areas. So we 

4 really can't distinguish who was in CMX, who 

5 was in TNX, they're too close together. CMX, 

6 again, had encapsulated thorium. They were 

7 doing pilot studies for the reactors, they 

8 were doing thermodynamics, heat transfer 

9 studies, you know, how fast the fuel would 

10 heat up, how it propagated and boiled the 

11 water. The 678G TNX building was chemical 

12 separations. They were doing the pilot 

13 studies for the canyons. So they'd take a --

14 scale up from a beaker working in the 

15 laboratory up to a 100-gallon tank effectively 

16 and then work through the dissolving of the 

17 slugs and how this worked, unirradiated slugs. 

18 At this point, everything was done with 

19 natural thorium for this particular scale-up 

20 process to get it down. 

21 So the inventories, the monthly 

22 inventories we reviewed in March indicated 
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1 intermittent work with thorium in the TNX area 

2 from August of '54 through December '56, and 

3 then it picked up again in September of '64 

4 through December of '69. The inventories 

5 indicated significant quantities of thorium, a 

6 few tons, and some of the inventories got even 

7 more detailed as to how many tons were located 

8 in the dissolvers that they had built down 

9 there, which was a few tons. 

10 The internal radiation monitoring 

11 program, there was no bioassay that we've been 

12 able to find for this area, although some of 

13 the workers, when we looked them up in the 

14 bioassay log books, looked up their individual 

15 files, we will see some designation for TNX in 

16 addition to 773A. So we know some workers 

17 moved between those two areas. We don't have 

18 any air sample data for TNX. The Health 

19 Physics log books are similar to 773A. There 

20 are surveys that note levels of contamination 

21 or no contamination, but not exact locations 

22 where they were taken. 
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1 From a source-term data, similar 

2 issues to 773A but less complex. By the time 

3 it got up to the pilot scale, they kind of 

4 knew which process they were going to go for 

5 to produce the uranium-233, so it's not as bad 

6 as all the individual laboratories. But 

7 again, it's still a source-term configuration 

8 without -- with processes changing chemical 

9 physical forms. So for that reason we also 

10 recommend including the TNX.

11 Now the burial grounds is the next 

12 area I'd like to discuss, and this is where 

13 material was going from different areas to the 

14 burial grounds. This was waste disposal. In 

15 the 300 area radiation survey log sheets, we 

16 have indications of surveys being conducted on 

17 the thorium that's leaving that area and going 

18 to the burial grounds that's surveyed, made 

19 sure it's free of external -- or of removable 

20 contamination. 773A Health Physics log books 

21 indicate the same thing where materials 

22 leaving the area would be swiped and tagged in 
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1 order to go to the burial grounds, TNX the 

2 same thing. The thorium from the high-level 

3 cave waste, this was highly radioactive and 

4 decontaminating or getting down to a level of 

5 no removable was not really feasible and so 

6 they encased it in concrete, much like what we 

7 heard out on the Hanford site, out here with 

8 the PFP, where they would take a large glove 

9 box or something like that and grout it, 

10 completely fill it with concrete and then bury 

11 it. And so Savannah River was doing the same 

12 thing. They'd encase it in concrete and then 

13 send it to the burial grounds. So for this 

14 reason, we don't think the burial ground 

15 exposure is significant from an internal 

16 exposure standpoint, and we're not 

17 recommending that this be included in the 

18 Class.

19 The 200H separations. And let me 

20 again emphasize that prior to 1964, there 

21 wasn't any thorium in the 200H separations 

22 area. The product here was uranium-233 and so 
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1 when you think of making plutonium, you're 

2 irradiating uranium-238 and then you're going 

3 through the canyons from one end, starting 

4 with the slugs, dissolving them down and you 

5 end up with plutonium nitrate on the final 

6 product. Same thing happened with thorium. 

7 You dissolve it down, you're going out and the 

8 final product would be uranium, not thorium, 

9 from this particular process. So the uranium 

10 went into the B lines, that would be the 

11 equivalent of the plutonium finishing plant 

12 out here. That was where the uranium-233 

13 went. Thorium for the first cycle was 

14 considered waste. It was pumped directly out 

15 to the waste tank for that first cycle. After 

16 that first cycle, they felt that the thorium 

17 was important to recover and so they went 

18 through a recovery process. So that first 

19 front end part of the canyon step, those 

20 irradiated slugs are very radioactive. We are 

21 looking at dose rates that are in R per hour 

22 type of range. You are not going to be 
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1 getting that close to them. In fact, they 

2 came in in casks. A crane would pick up the 

3 cask and dump them into a dissolver for the 

4 canyon operations, just like out here. 

5 So throughout this process, the 

6 thorium at that point became a wet process, 

7 because they were dissolving the thorium to 

8 get to the uranium-233. For those later 

9 cycles past the first one, the thorium was 

10 transferred to a holdup tank and it was kept 

11 there until they got to a certain level and 

12 they would pump from the holdup tank into 

13 railroad cars. The railroad cars were then 

14 sent to Fernald for further processing. So 

15 the thorium at that point left Savannah River 

16 in the form of the thorium nitrate. 

17 The transfer to the cars, we 

18 looked at that. There is a nice report about 

19 the transfer that these rail cars were 

20 equipped with filters, ventilation filters on 

21 them, to prevent particulate contamination 

22 during filling and thermal expansion. We're 
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1 in South Carolina, it can be hot in the 

2 summertime, so you will get some heat-up, some 

3 pressurization, so these vents were there and 

4 the whole purpose of the filters were to 

5 prevent any contamination getting on the 

6 outside. These railroad cars were actually 

7 quite radioactive, not in the R per hour 

8 range, but down above 10 millirem per hour but 

9 less than 100 millirem per hour. We have some

10 dose rate measurements on these from three 

11 feet away. As a result of that high dose 

12 rate, up next to the railroad cars they roped 

13 them off. These became regulated areas. They 

14 controlled them as regulated areas. And this 

15 particular report even indicates that the 

16 railroad cars were inspected from a distance 

17 using binoculars to make sure that workers 

18 weren't getting too close to it and getting a 

19 dose that was not appropriate. It was kind of 

20 ALARA practices, if you will, to try and 

21 minimize their exposures. 

22 So for this reason, we don't feel 
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1 that the 200H separations area should be 

2 included in the Class. Now I do believe this 

3 was a topic of discussion during our last Work 

4 Group meeting, and I think Mark is going to 

5 talk a little bit about this, and he might 

6 want us to go and look a little closer at this 

7 particular operation in this detail, but I'll 

8 let him do that and I'll wait for the report.

9 So as a result of these other 

10 areas, what we've come up with is this Class 

11 Definition for the Savannah River Site. So 

12 let me walk you through this. What we are 

13 proposing to you is that all externally 

14 monitored employees at the Department of 

15 Energy, its predecessor agencies and their 

16 contractors and subcontractors, who worked at 

17 the Savannah River Site from January 1st, 

18 1953, through December 31st, 1957, whose 

19 dosimetry records have codes A, G, CMX, or TNX 

20 be included in the SEC Class.

21 Now, if you notice there's a break 

22 there. Why did we stop at 1957 for that first 
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1 part? The reason is the dosimetry codes 

2 changed. On October 1st of 1958, they 

3 switched to an IBM system and so, while the 

4 exposures didn't change, the dosimetry codes 

5 changed. So we've broken the Class into two 

6 parts here.

7 We pick it up the very next day of 

8 January 1st, 1958, through September 30th of 

9 1972, and this second definition here we have: 

10 "whose records have dosimetry codes 5A, 5C, 6B 

11 through 6Z, 12D through 12H, or 12J through 

12 12Z for a number of work days aggregating at 

13 least 250." 

14 So let me go into a little more 

15 detail of how these dosimetry codes work 

16 within this area. This is a similar chart to 

17 what you saw before with the separations area. 

18 So this is covering that first time period, 

19 1953 to 1957, and again this is because of 

20 dosimeter code changes. This isn't a change 

21 in exposure potential, this is dosimeter code 

22 changes and identifying the Class. So for the 
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1 200F area, the dosimeter code was actually 

2 just F. For H area it was H. And there I've 

3 got a table of unencapsulated thorium, yes/no, 

4 encapsulated thorium, yes/no, and then whether 

5 we recommend including in the Class. What 

6 you'll see for the manufacturing area, the 

7 300M, is that they had unencapsulated thorium 

8 and they had encapsulated thorium, but we're 

9 not recommending including them because of 

10 Addendum 1 and Report 46. We feel we can 

11 estimate the doses in those areas. We get 

12 down to 773A and the semi-works plant, we 

13 don't feel we can include or we can estimate 

14 those doses and so dosimeter codes A and the 

15 semi-works, it can be A, G, CMX or TNX. And 

16 so all of those are included there with that 

17 one. The reactors where only encapsulated 

18 thorium was handled, we've got dosimeter codes 

19 R, P, L, K and C but we're not recommending 

20 including those people in the Class because 

21 there is no potential for internal thorium 

22 exposure. 
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1 The central shops is again an area 

2 where people could have worked anywhere. 

3 These are construction trades workers and so 

4 people with a G dosimeter code could have been 

5 issued a badge out of the central shops, gone 

6 up to 773A and do remodeling, work there for a 

7 number of months and come back to the central 

8 shops. And so over their time period, they 

9 easily could have accumulated 250 days.

10 So looking at the next set of 

11 codes, one of the things that you'll see when 

12 you look at Savannah River codes, dosimetry 

13 codes, is they got more complex as time 

14 progressed. So in this previous one you're 

15 really just looking at the different areas, A, 

16 F, H, M. From '58 to '72, they started 

17 breaking down within area where people were 

18 issued dosimeters, and when you get post-1972, 

19 it gets even more complex as to the different 

20 areas and where the badges were being issued 

21 from and where people worked. So you've got a 

22 scale-up here. So for the '58 to '72 time 
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1 period, you can see here the dosimeter codes. 

2 The HP area code is what I'm looking at here. 

3 Follows through the same thing. And you can 

4 see them all numbered there, 1A was the 

5 separations area, 2A was 200H separations 

6 area, 3A, 4A, 5A was Savannah River 

7 Laboratory, 773A. 5B, technical division, was 

8 777M. So before, all we had was A area and M 

9 area and now we have within the technical 

10 division you've got the same designator, 5, 

11 but which part of the technical division they 

12 were working in. 5C was the CMX/TNX area, A 

13 area support was -- this actually goes 6A 

14 through -- or 6B through 6Z. 6A was excluded 

15 for this particular set, and let me explain 

16 why. It's in our report in a little detail 

17 but, 6A was the 703A building. This was the 

18 main administrative building there at the main 

19 entrance to Savannah River. This is where the 

20 site manager sat, where all of his program 

21 directors sat. They were all issued badges 

22 there out of their facility. Now, for me, the 
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1 workers are the ones who are handling the 

2 thorium. These were managers, this was their 

3 job, to run the overall site. It was more of 

4 a convenience as to why their dosimetry was 

5 issued there, not that they were actually 

6 working necessarily in A area or being exposed 

7 to radioactive materials. But they would 

8 certainly have access to everywhere. So we 

9 excluded them from the Class Definition. 

10 Reactor area, 7A all the way down 

11 through 11A, and then the central shops. And 

12 these codes also go 12A through 12Z. 12A, B 

13 and C were excluded because 12A was the 

14 locomotive shop, 12B was the traffic and 

15 transportation shop, so that would be the 

16 garage where all the vehicles onsite were 

17 serviced. 12C was the traffic and 

18 transportation offices. So we excluded those. 

19 When you get into the 12D through the others, 

20 you start picking up the carpenter's shop, the 

21 pipefitter's shop, the electrician's shop. So 

22 these codes, that's why it's more inclusive 
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1 for these other people. We looked at who 

2 might have a potential for exposure to do 

3 extended work in 773A or TNX. 

4 So kind of summarizing here, let 

5 me first -- the first bullet there. All 

6 workers who had to wear a dosimeter to enter 

7 these regulated areas, this was in procedures, 

8 clearly in procedures. We've interviewed 

9 workers who indicated that this was the case. 

10 There's entries in the log books indicating 

11 that when they caught people doing things that 

12 they weren't supposed to be doing, they were 

13 written up, they were notified. And we have 

14 seen entries where people entered an area 

15 without a dosimeter, and the rad control 

16 technicians caught them and reported them to 

17 their supervisors, made them go and get a 

18 visitor badge. So it's consistent with what 

19 we've heard from some of the workers in that, 

20 you know, I didn't always wear my badge in 

21 this area. You were supposed to have worn 

22 your badge in that area from all the 
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1 procedures, and there was people checking to 

2 try and make sure that everybody had a 

3 dosimeter in that area.

4 We've defined the Class into three 

5 groups: workers likely exposed to thorium. 

6 And that's 1953 to 1957. These are people who 

7 worked in 773A and in CMX/TNX area. And we 

8 can identify these people worked in these 

9 areas. In the latter time periods, that's 

10 dosimeter codes 5A and 5C.

11 For workers who may have been 

12 exposed, here we expand out and I'll focus on 

13 the '58 to '72 to give the example. 6B 

14 through 6Z were all the A area support 

15 facilities. These were other radiological 

16 facilities in the A area, that general area, 

17 where people could have picked up their 

18 dosimeter that morning and gone and worked in 

19 773A because they could walk there, 

20 effectively, and do their work in 773A and go 

21 back to their main office in maybe 736 or 

22 something like that. So we've expanded the 
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1 Class to people who had work in the general 

2 proximity or were issued badges in the general 

3 proximity of 773A building. We've included 

4 them. We've also included the construction 

5 trades workers, who also could have worked for 

6 extended periods of time in either of these 

7 buildings. So we've cast the net larger here 

8 than just the people who worked in those 

9 buildings. 

10 And then there's the workers who 

11 were not exposed. The reason I say they were 

12 not exposed is that they were issued 

13 dosimeters out of the reactors. This is a 

14 310-square mile site, so if you're issued a 

15 dosimeter out there in the 100 area, that was 

16 where you were working. You would not on day 

17 in, day out go out to the 100 area, pick up 

18 your badge, go work in 773A, go back to the 

19 reactor area, drop off your badge every day, 

20 it just wouldn't happen. The site's too big 

21 for that. So these are people that we feel 

22 should not be included in the Class because 
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1 there's no evidence that they were exposed to 

2 thorium.

3 Another example would be when you 

4 look at a person's dosimeter code and it says 

5 they worked in the 4A area, 400D. You talk to 

6 them through a CATI and they indicate that 

7 they worked in the D area, doing tritium or 

8 heavy water production. You look at their 

9 bioassay and their bioassay says they worked 

10 in the D area. Clearly, this person was not 

11 exposed to thorium. And so this is all part 

12 of that Class, of why we've defined it the way 

13 we have to try and break apart the site and 

14 identify people who had the potential, who 

15 were likely exposed to thorium, who may have 

16 been exposed to thorium from the people who we 

17 have pretty clear evidence were not exposed to 

18 thorium.

19 So the SEC end-date: September 

20 1972. Why that date in particular? Why did 

21 we stop right there? Well, there was a major 

22 drop -- the main thorium campaigns ended. 
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1 They had already ended by 1971. And so then 

2 there was some cleanup that began in the 300 

3 area to remove the thorium oxide room. This 

4 really signified the end of effective research 

5 in the area of U-233 production. The 

6 inventory in 773A at that point dropped to 

7 less than 225 kilograms, and there was no 

8 inventory in the TNX facility. Also, we've 

9 got some whole body count information, it's 

10 more readily available through NOCTS. So let 

11 me give you some quick slides here.

12 So this is the thorium inventory 

13 by year across the site, and here you can see 

14 the two main production campaigns, the first 

15 one in 1955-56 time period and the second one 

16 from '65 through 1971. After this time 

17 period, though, there was some additional 

18 thorium work that we've identified here 

19 onsite. We need to do some more research 

20 post-September of 1972. We do have a data 

21 capture or a data review trip planned. I've 

22 talked with Kathy DeMers from SC&A about 
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1 joining us on that particular effort, 

2 hopefully later next month. And what we're 

3 looking at is where these small quantities of 

4 thorium were worked with at that time. And 

5 the reason I say small is if you look at the 

6 full scale here, this is thorium in production 

7 or received. It goes from zero to 4,000 

8 kilograms, and let me go back up to the 

9 thorium inventory. This is the quantity in 

10 that very first tick at that bottom level. So 

11 you're looking at much smaller scale of 

12 thorium operations that's going on.

13 And we know that some of the 

14 thorium work continued on. Earlier this week 

15 I was searching their database at Savannah 

16 River, and ran into that some thorium work was 

17 going on into the 1990s, as they were looking 

18 to vitrify the waste tank information, or the 

19 waste -- the first thorium cycle that went out 

20 to the waste tanks. So they were looking at 

21 pulling some of those samples, doing chemical 

22 analysis to vitrify it. So this work has 
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1 continued all the way out. So we need to look 

2 at this closer and come up with a, I guess a 

3 better end-date, if you will, of thorium 

4 operations where we feel we can and can't 

5 bound doses. But we know through September of 

6 1972, we don't feel we can bound them and we 

7 didn't want to hold this whole thing up until 

8 that time period. So we're going to continue 

9 to look at this.

10 Whole body count data also begins 

11 to play a role here. If you notice from the 

12 1960s, 1961 is when Savannah River started. 

13 These are the number of whole body counts that 

14 we have in NOCTS, that we have available right 

15 now, and once you get past 1972 they increase 

16 up fairly rapidly to around 1975 where we have 

17 80 to 100 whole body counts in NOCTS that is 

18 readily available for us to analyze and look 

19 at the different regions of interest and 

20 whether we can estimate thorium doses for the 

21 few people that might have been doing some of 

22 the work. 
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1 So the -- from a feasibility 

2 summary, all that I've got here is the 

3 thorium. From 1953 through 1957, people with 

4 dosimeter codes A, G, TNX, CMX, we do not 

5 think it's feasible to reconstruct their 

6 internal doses due to thorium. From 1958 

7 through September 1972, with dosimeter codes 

8 5A, 5C, 6B through Z, 12C -- actually that is 

9 a typo, that should be 12D, I apologize -- 12D 

10 through 12H and 12J through 12Z, we don't feel 

11 it's feasible to reconstruct those doses. 

12 External dose we do feel that we can 

13 reconstruct through the whole time period. 

14 Health endangerment. The evidence 

15 that we reviewed in this evaluation indicates 

16 that some workers in the Class may have 

17 accumulated chronic radiation exposures 

18 through intakes of thorium. Consequently, 

19 NIOSH is specifying that health may have been 

20 endangered for these workers covered by this 

21 evaluation who were employed at the site --

22 who were employed for a number of work days 
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1 aggregating at least 250 work days within the 

2 parameters established for this Class or in 

3 combination with work days within the 

4 parameters established for one or more other 

5 Classes of employees in the SEC. Our 

6 recommendation to you, the Board, is: "for the 

7 period of January 1st, 1953, through September 

8 30th, 1972, NIOSH finds the radiation dose 

9 from exposure to thorium in 773A and the TNX 

10 facilities as identified by those dosimeter 

11 codes cannot be reconstructed for compensation 

12 purposes." And with that, I'll be happy to 

13 answer any questions.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Board Members 

15 with questions? Bill, then Brad.

16 MEMBER FIELD: I had a question. 

17 What was the exchange rate for dosimetry? Was 

18 there a pretty standard exchange rate?

19 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. In the early 

20 time periods up through 1957 -- or yes, 1957, 

21 not all the way through '57, it changed, it 

22 was weekly. And about mid-1957 it became 
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1 biweekly, every two weeks. That continued 

2 through 1962. 1962 it changed again to 

3 monthly and then in post-1972 time period it 

4 went to quarterly.

5 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. So to meet 

6 the hurdle for the 250 days, would they need 

7 to have one of the dosimetry codes for that --

8 for a 250-day period or work at the facility 

9 and have that code for some period of time?

10 DR. TAULBEE: This, I guess it 

11 kind of boils down to how DOL administers the 

12 Class. My opinion of this, and this is 

13 something we can work with, is they would only 

14 have to have one dosimeter through that time 

15 period. The reason I say that is: in that 

16 early time period those dosimeter cards, 

17 though there was monitoring, each individual 

18 badge, you can go back and get each one, but 

19 at the bottom of the card has an area 

20 designated as to where they were issued their 

21 dosimeter. So I would go by that letter, 

22 letter A, G, CMX, TNX, to designate the entire 
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1 year. So it would be one of those cards with 

2 that designation on there. When you get into 

3 1958, where they're biweekly, we do have each 

4 dosimeter code where that dosimeter was 

5 issued. So I guess technically you could go 

6 through and do an aggregate 250 days if you 

7 wanted to. I think for simplicity and to 

8 administer the Class more effectively, it 

9 would be easier to just take one. Once you 

10 get into the monthly time periods, the 

11 dosimetry reports that we have are quarterly, 

12 so there's only four per year. So again, I 

13 think one within that time period should be 

14 sufficient.

15 MEMBER FIELD: I guess the 

16 question would be, say you had 200 days at a 

17 certain specification, a certain dosimetry 

18 specification, I guess the assumption would be 

19 that you could bound that if you had less than 

20 200 days, which sounds like it would be 

21 problematic to do.

22 DR. TAULBEE: It could be 
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1 problematic to do at times.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad?

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Tim, I've got to 

4 compliment you on the work that you did. 

5 You've gone into great detail on this.

6 Me and you have discussed numerous 

7 times, though, the complexity of Savannah 

8 River and I'm looking mainly at the 

9 construction workers. I've had opportunity to 

10 be able to interview many of them, and when 

11 we're getting to this badge data, many of them 

12 worked outside the facility where they deemed 

13 they didn't need badging because they weren't 

14 in the facilities, but they were digging up

15 drain lines to the tanks that you were talking 

16 about. They had left, come back, all the area 

17 they had excavated was now contaminated and 

18 things. Then they were re-badged, but I'm 

19 wondering if they would be re-badged with 

20 those codes that you were just talking about. 

21 Savannah River is complex, from 

22 the standpoint of -- the construction trades 
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1 at Savannah River did more work than probably 

2 at any other site, more operational work and 

3 so forth and we've talked about that. And I'm 

4 just, I'm worried about this badging part 

5 because outside of the facility they probably 

6 didn't have that badge or there's the question 

7 of: did they even have a badge? 

8 DR. TAULBEE: One of the things 

9 with Savannah River that I'd like for you all 

10 to keep in mind is that, of the claimants that 

11 have filed within NOCTS, within our program 

12 that we've done dose reconstruction for, 80 

13 percent of them we have dosimetry badges for. 

14 So this is a site that has a high percentage 

15 of actual badging. So for the cases that 

16 you're talking about there, Brad, where people 

17 might have been working in outside areas, in 

18 some cases they didn't need a dosimeter badge 

19 to do construction or something else. The one 

20 that you just described, though, would be one 

21 where I can see they would have needed a 

22 badge. The one that you're particularly 
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1 talking about of the drainage lines and so 

2 forth in outside areas, this is where -- with 

3 the thorium exposures we're looking at inside 

4 the buildings. So, while these might be waste 

5 contamination lines, and I don't know if the 

6 particular case is a transfer line between F 

7 canyons and the tank farms, or H canyons and 

8 the tank farms, or what time period this 

9 particularly covers, as to whether there would 

10 be a potential for exposure for those 

11 particular individuals. But in general, the 

12 people who were the construction trades 

13 workers out at central shops where they would 

14 be badged to go work in one of these other 

15 areas that contained thorium, we've included 

16 them in this particular Class.

17 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, my next 

18 question is probably for Labor, because we got 

19 into this before. I'm really questioning if 

20 Labor is going to be able to instigate or if 

21 they're going to be able to implement this 

22 classification.
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1 MS. LEITON: It's a good question. 

2 It's something that we've been working back 

3 and forth with NIOSH on when they were coming 

4 up with this Definition. We do not think we 

5 could place them in areas without the 

6 dosimeter codes, but it is our understanding 

7 that we can -- that since the dosimeter codes 

8 are there, DOE can give us those codes. Most 

9 of these people were badged. We will be able 

10 to do it that way. With the caveat that I 

11 can't guarantee you that, you know, people 

12 aren't going to come out to us and say, "But I 

13 was there," or --they can come and say they 

14 weren't there. If they don't have -- they 

15 might say, "But I wasn't badged and I was 

16 there." That's something we're going to have 

17 to deal with on a case-by-case basis. But 

18 it's our understanding that the majority of 

19 these -- that these people were badged.

20 And so, if they were badged and we 

21 can get that information from DOE, which is 

22 what our understanding is, that's why we would 
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1 be able to administer this Class. Again, I do 

2 foresee some complications, I can't say that 

3 claimants aren't going to come and say one 

4 thing and we're just going to have to rely on 

5 DOE and we'll have to deny them if we can't 

6 show that they had these dosimeter badges.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I just think 

8 that it's also a question not of were they 

9 badged or not but are those badges going to be 

10 -- the information contained with those badges 

11 going to be accurate and valid for placing 

12 them within these codes? I mean, I think 

13 that's the further complication. And when you 

14 were talking about some of the practices and 

15 changes in practices over time, I get even 

16 more worried about those, you know, changes. 

17 So my question I guess for -- I don't think 

18 Department of Labor has had a chance to look 

19 at this in detail, but for Tim would be is the 

20 -- have you looked at this issue?

21 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, we have. When 

22 you look at the dosimetry reports from --
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1 let's use the 1958-1962 example where we have 

2 for each individual badge the dosimeter code, 

3 if you will, for every individual badge in the 

4 quarterly reports. When a person changed from 

5 one area to the other there was a code 67, and 

6 code 67 designated badge location change and 

7 they recorded it. And you would see a whole 

8 series of like 1A, 1A, 1A for badges and then 

9 it would switch to 2A, 2A, 2A. And right at 

10 that switch, there would be a 67, indicating

11 that there was a change in their dosimeter 

12 card. So this is why I'm indicating to you 

13 that, when you look at the whole dosimetry for 

14 a quarterly basis, if you see one of these 

15 codes for any quarter in that time period, 

16 then I would recommend including them then in 

17 that Class. But yes, they stayed on top of 

18 it, there was dosimeter change codes, change 

19 paperwork that was filled out when they 

20 changed these locations.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Paul? Then 

22 David, then Mark.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Clearly you've 

2 uncovered some areas that you didn't know 

3 previously had thorium. Is there some level 

4 of confidence that we now have identified all 

5 the thorium areas or might there be others yet 

6 to be found?

7 DR. TAULBEE: I'm quite confident 

8 that we've identified all the areas, because 

9 of the material accountability reports. These 

10 are actually classified reports that we found 

11 in the vault and went through, and they 

12 identify which locations the thorium was 

13 worked with and they kept an inventory down to 

14 the pound of thorium. So, and there was write 

15 offs, there was losses, and they would 

16 indicate which department had losses. And so 

17 because of that tracking of thorium at such a 

18 low detail, I feel pretty confident that we've 

19 identified all the areas that might have had 

20 thorium. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I suppose if 
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1 in fact that were not true, if another area 

2 turns up, and if this were an approved SEC or 

3 not, but let's say it's an approved SEC, then 

4 another area could be added. But, whichever 

5 way, it could be dealt with at the time then.

6 DR. TAULBEE: That's correct, sir.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: David.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I think, I 

9 mean, if I were going to go about this for 

10 research purposes the way I would do it. I 

11 mean, I like kind of the basic approach. 

12 You're making use of the available 

13 information. And we did actually a lot of 

14 work with these health physics area and health 

15 physics department codes also. And kind of 

16 ended up with the same organization that 

17 you've had. Now, the -- kind of the 

18 outstanding concern that I always had using it 

19 is that unlike the statement -- actually, the 

20 presentation you're very careful, I hope, to 

21 communicate to people that the badge is not a 

22 GPS, it's not tracking someone's work 
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1 location. The badge was -- that piece of 

2 information is an administrative piece of 

3 information, and as I understand it, it's 

4 identifying in a sense where you picked up 

5 your badge, but maybe even in a broader sense 

6 which health physicist was administratively 

7 responsible for a group of workers, and that 

8 has some spatial sense to it, but not 

9 entirely. And you pointed out there are 

10 workers who move around the site. And so 

11 we've got questions about, if you're concerned 

12 about exposures that occur in a building 

13 you're right, I don't believe at Savannah

14 River, we actually, we had some workers who 

15 didn't have badges. We dug into it and we 

16 actually found that they also had information 

17 that hadn't been computerized but we were able 

18 to dig that out. It looks essentially like 

19 everybody's wearing a badge when they're going 

20 into these areas, at least for the prime 

21 contractor employees, but that doesn't mean 

22 that people who are badged in one area 
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1 couldn't enter into those areas.

2 So you've pointed out the 

3 situation where if they catch somebody who 

4 wasn't wearing a badge, that's a problem. The 

5 concern I would still have is that people, 

6 that this is a subset, potentially, of a 

7 larger group of people who could be going in 

8 and out of those buildings. And I think 

9 you've done a great job of identifying the 

10 most plausible sets but I'd sort of be 

11 interested in kind of the workers' 

12 perspectives on whether people who were under 

13 the control of health physicists outside of 

14 being coded 5A or 5C may be going in and out 

15 of those buildings.

16 DR. TAULBEE: I believe that there 

17 are people who are outside of those codes who 

18 could have entered. I do not believe that 

19 this was routine; this was not their main 

20 workplace. They could have gone in for a 

21 meeting or to discuss something with somebody 

22 and then they would leave. They wouldn't be 
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1 working there day after day. Two hundred 

2 fifty days means a full work year. And so for 

3 somebody to have worked in there an entire 

4 year and never had one of those codes, and we 

5 do have visitor badge information as well, and 

6 to have never had one, I just don't find that 

7 to be really credible.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, and I 

9 wouldn't be thinking about visitor scenarios 

10 so much I guess, but --

11 DR. TAULBEE: And we do have a lot 

12 of visitor badges that would indicate it.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Mark, I don't 

14 know if you have a question, but I'd also like 

15 you to comment as the Chair of the Work Group. 

16 You meant to review this.

17 MEMBER GRIFFON: Several things 

18 that I was going to bring up as my report have 

19 already come out, so I won't be redundant but 

20 I think, you know one, question that I was 

21 going to raise was the -- and this came up in 

22 one of your earlier questions, was the -- you 
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1 identify central shops and I think in your 

2 presentation you said that this included the 

3 construction trades workers. And I think, by 

4 adding central shops you're making that 

5 assumption. I just wonder do you have any 

6 idea of what the percentage is of the 

7 construction workers that would have went 

8 through central shops for their badging?

9 DR. TAULBEE: I don't. I don't 

10 have an indication of how many. I know each 

11 of those 12 series dosimeter codes designated 

12 a different shop from pipefitters, 

13 electricians, carpenter shop, boilermakers, et 

14 cetera. That's what each of those different 

15 letter designation on that 12 series 

16 indicates. Within, as you know from Savannah 

17 River, a good deal of the maintenance was done 

18 locally in-house by non-construction trades --

19 they called them mechanics -- for the most 

20 part, and these would be doing kind of low21 level type of maintenance type of work there 

22 in the facility. They were badged with those 
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1 dosimeter codes 5A, 5C if they were in 773 or 

2 TNX. That's where those mechanics all show up 

3 under that role 2. And so when you look at 

4 the role 4 folks, construction trades workers 

5 with Savannah River, that's where you see the 

6 majority of those 12 code designations. Does 

7 that answer your question?

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, yes, I think 

9 so.

10 DR. TAULBEE: Okay.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: It still doesn't 

12 give me a percentage, but you know. I think 

13 at the -- you know, and several of the 

14 questions that were raised sort of -- this is 

15 a little bit of my Work Group report, but 

16 things that we raised during the conference 

17 call, some concerns were, not only the 

18 unbadged, but just like David said the 

19 migration of people from other areas into 

20 these areas that might not have had those 

21 badge codes and the frequency of that. So 

22 it's both issues on being able to, you know, 
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1 establish the people that are in the Class. 

2 And I think, you know, to some extent I feel 

3 like we've been down this path before and a 

4 lot of times we end up, after a lot of 

5 heartburn, we end up back to an all workers 

6 sort of definition but that's just commentary. 

7 The other thing that we discussed 

8 as a Work Group was the different areas. And 

9 we do believe, and Tim mentioned this in his 

10 presentation, and I won't go into all the 

11 areas but there's certainly some other areas 

12 that are still open for discussion at the Work 

13 Group, that SC&A actually has raised questions 

14 about NIOSH's ability to bound or to do dose 

15 reconstruction for those other thorium areas. 

16 300M is certainly one of them that's been 

17 raised, but there's several others. So it's 

18 sort of, you know, I don't want to lose that 

19 piece of the whole thorium issue. 

20 Let's see, the other thing, and 

21 Tim mentioned this in his presentation but I 

22 will reiterate that we have some questions 
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1 about the time frame ending at '72 and I think 

2 you said that you also, even though there's 

3 smaller quantities, there's still some more 

4 work to be done beyond '72 into the late '70s 

5 and maybe later. Go ahead.

6 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, if I could. 

7 The September 1972 was actually a very 

8 specific date, mostly because of the 

9 additional work going on but also the 

10 dosimeter codes changed again October 1st, 

11 1972. So just like we'd have another break 

12 from that '57 to '58 time period, there will 

13 be another break between October 1st of '72 

14 forward. 

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: Right. Okay. 

16 And then I guess just, you know, off of the 

17 thorium topic, I think Tim didn't give sort of 

18 a summary of the entire progress of the Work 

19 Group but just there's -- I just wanted to 

20 mention that we have several other issues that 

21 still remain outstanding on the Work Group, 

22 including other radionuclide models, coworker 
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1 models that NIOSH is still in various stages 

2 of completion on. A couple of them, I 

3 believe, are completed and in final review but 

4 haven't been delivered to the Work Group or 

5 SC&A to look at yet. These include: polonium6 210, neptunium, americium, curium, tritides, 

7 other exotics, neutron exposures. So there's 

8 a lot of coworker models that we just haven't 

9 even looked at yet on the Work Group. I just 

10 want to be clear, for those on the phone or in 

11 the audience, that thorium is not like our 

12 last issue here with Savannah River and so 

13 that's certainly a concern and a concern on 

14 the time as this stretches out. And also 

15 other remaining issues, I won't go into the 

16 details, but we also have a remaining issue on 

17 bioassay completeness and an issue on 

18 construction worker versus non-construction 

19 worker models. In fact, the coworker models 

20 tend to rely on all the coworker data together 

21 and there's been some question as to whether 

22 that was a claimant-favorable approach for the 
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1 construction workers. 

2 So all these issues remain on the 

3 table and I think you know -- and I do 

4 appreciate, because I raised this thorium, I 

5 think it was two Board meetings ago, that we 

6 really thought this was a critical issue to be 

7 resolved. And I was ready to make a motion at 

8 that point, so I appreciate that NIOSH 

9 prioritized this. But also we have a lot more 

10 to do on this site. So that's sort of my Work 

11 Group report along with a few questions.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, Phil.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I've got a few 

14 things. First, did they have a centralized 

15 contract who handled all the badging?

16 DR. TAULBEE: Yes. The prime 

17 contractor through 1989 was DuPont. It was 

18 the only contractor onsite, as opposed to 

19 other facilities where they changed 

20 contractors and would branch things out. Up 

21 through 1989 it was all DuPont.

22 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. The 
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1 second thing I'd like to know is when they 

2 assigned a person a badge depending on the 

3 designation they put on, did that 

4 automatically put in motion what type of 

5 bioassay program they were going to be under?

6 

7 DR. TAULBEE: No, it did not. The

8 badges were issued by general work location. 

9 And so you would pick up your badge in the 

10 morning and you would drop it off in the 

11 evening at each individual work location. And 

12 these dosimeter codes are effectively 

13 identifying the location. The additional 

14 bioassay was treated by a case-by-case basis. 

15 So if a carpenter picked up his badge and it 

16 was 12I, let's say, or not 12I but one of the 

17 12 series and he went to the reactor areas and 

18 he did work he would have to leave a tritium 

19 bioassay. That was part of their procedures. 

20 If he left there and he came back to central 

21 shops, next day he went to 773A, if he was 

22 working with uranium, plutonium or americium, 
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1 curium, californium he would be required to 

2 leave that dosimetry if he was exposed to that 

3 area. So there was an individual assessment, 

4 especially for construction trades workers, 

5 based upon where they were doing their work at 

6 that particular time period.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, go ahead.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: Just Paul asked a 

9 good question on the side here, is the Work 

10 Group coming forward with a motion to 

11 recommend NIOSH's position on this. We had a 

12 phone Work Group meeting. We had the report 

13 one night before so I think we all agreed that 

14 it was best to come to this meeting and 

15 present some of our concerns about being able 

16 to identify who was in the Class and concerns 

17 over other thorium areas and let the entire 

18 Board deliberate rather than try to develop. 

19 We weren't comfortable enough to actually 

20 support it at that point so we don't have a 

21 motion to bring to the Board.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Brad, Josie, 
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1 then David.

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: I just wanted to 

3 clarify. You said at the Work Group I believe 

4 this was granulated thorium that was coming in 

5 from Fernald? 

6 DR. TAULBEE: No. Let me clarify, 

7 there's two time periods for which different 

8 types of material are coming in. In the prior 

9 to 1965, the thorium coming in to the site, to 

10 say the 300 area was all metal and it was 

11 partially encapsulated at that time through 

12 canning processes at Sylvania. In the 773A 

13 and TNX area they had all forms of thorium. 

14 So they might have started with metal and they 

15 might have turned it into a powder. They 

16 might have turned it into a liquid. They were 

17 doing research and experimentation with it. 

18 So it was all chemical forms when you got to 

19 the Savannah River Laboratory as well as TNX. 

20 Does that clarify?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, it does to a 

22 point, but where did -- where did it come 
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1 from? Did it -- I know that the thorium went 

2 back to Fernald in the railroad cars but 

3 didn't some of it come from Fernald?

4 DR. TAULBEE: The thorium oxide in 

5 the latter years, I don't know whether it came 

6 from Fernald or not. I just don't know the 

7 answer to that, I'm sorry.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Josie?

9 MEMBER BEACH: Tim, at first 

10 glance this, the way you've identified how you 

11 will identify the people in the different 

12 areas looks good. My question is what form of 

13 documentation will you be giving to DOL to 

14 identify those different areas with the badge 

15 numbers.

16 DR. TAULBEE: When we do dose 

17 reconstruction, when we request records from 

18 the Savannah River Site, they send us their 

19 dosimetry reports. And so we get these 

20 individual cards prior to 1957 for each 

21 worker. From 1957 or 1958 through latter 

22 years, I guess up to about 1976 time frame we
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1 get a large printout and they will print out 

2 each page that has that worker's name on it. 

3 And so these are large PDF files, if you will, 

4 that have about 500 pages and maybe 30 to 40 

5 workers on each page. And they'll go through 

6 and they'll highlight each individual worker. 

7 Beside that worker's name it has his payroll 

8 ID number as well as his dosimeter location. 

9 And so we get that for dose reconstruction, 

10 this is how we determine whether this person 

11 should have been monitored for plutonium and 

12 we check to see if there's plutonium 

13 monitoring. So it would be those same records 

14 that we receive is what I would anticipate DOL 

15 would be looking at to find those dosimeter 

16 codes. So it would be every cycle and every 

17 quarter that we get that has to be searched 

18 for one of these particular codes.

19 MEMBER BEACH: Okay and have you 

20 done any sampling to assure that there won't 

21 be any mistakes? Because DOL just informed us 

22 that they wouldn't, if they weren't on that 
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1 list or on that PDF they would have to deny 

2 them. Have you done any form of sampling just 

3 to?

4 DR. TAULBEE: What kind of 

5 sampling are you talking about? Like taking a 

6 hundred people or?

7 MEMBER BEACH: I only ask this 

8 because of experience with the radon SEC that 

9 we passed for Mound and we're finding a lot of 

10 problems with it because of the log books that 

11 were given to DOL to determine who had the 

12 tritium samples. So not to get into that. So 

13 I guess sampling to make sure that a person 

14 that did work in any of these areas will be 

15 covered in the event that they need to be 

16 included in this Class. I don't know if I'm 

17 explaining that well enough. Just like a 

18 check and balance.

19 DR. TAULBEE: I understand I think 

20 what it is you're asking. I mean, I think we 

21 could do some sampling. The problem is 

22 finding out who were all the construction 
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1 trades workers in 1958. Who were they? And 

2 so we almost rely on when a person files a 

3 claim. We get their dosimetry and look at it 

4 from that standpoint. Because we don't know 

5 what the total N is for a particular one of

6 these dosimeter codes, how many badges came 

7 out of that department. 

8 We do have some information to 

9 where we could possibly do something along 

10 those lines. By each area there are dosimetry 

11 summary reports which indicate the number of 

12 badges that were issued out of a particular 

13 area. So we might be able to do something 

14 from the standpoint of looking at the 

15 quarterly reports, comparing it to that number 

16 that were issued out of that area. But I'm 

17 not sure that we could actually, other than a 

18 worker-by-worker basis go through and do that. 

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead.

20 MS. LEITON: Just for 

21 clarification, it's my understanding we're not 

22 necessarily going to get a list from NIOSH on 
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1 this so it's not going to be the same as Mound 

2 in that they already obtained these records 

3 from DOE that provide them with the dose 

4 reconstruction or the dosimeter information 

5 for dose reconstruction cases. Not all the 

6 cases are obviously going to go to dose 

7 reconstruction so you know, we will be able to 

8 obtain the same kind of information directly 

9 from DOE which is a lot different from Mound 

10 which we rely on a particular list and if 

11 they're not on the list then we have problems. 

12 In this case I think it might be delayed a 

13 little bit by that. 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But Rachel, 

15 would you get information in a way that if a 

16 person somehow identified as having worked in 

17 one of these areas but not being badged in one 

18 of these areas, would you identify that? 

19 Would you be able to include them in the 

20 Class?

21 MS. LEITON: If they've indicated 

22 they were badged but we have no evidence they 
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1 were badged that's where we would run into 

2 problems.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's what I 

4 thought. Okay. Thank you. David, you had a 

5 question?

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I think your 

7 question was different than her answer. I 

8 think if they said I worked in that building 

9 but I was badged over here, they would say 

10 well, the way the SEC is written, if your 

11 badge doesn't have these codes you're not --

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's what I'm 

13 saying, that's what I thought she answered but 

14 maybe. Okay. Now I've confused you on your 

15 question.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Oh, there were 

17 two things. Maybe the first thing is -- I'm 

18 trying to remember. I know that, you've got 

19 written here that if the work location or the 

20 Health Physics area is blank then NIOSH should 

21 assume that the worker was potentially exposed 

22 and be in the SEC. I didn't see that made 
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1 explicit maybe in the definition.

2 DR. TAULBEE: I think that that's 

3 something that we would need to talk with DOL 

4 about more in greater detail. There are time 

5 periods where I wouldn't say -- it's not 

6 common, but you will see a 000 indicating they 

7 didn't know the location of that badge or it 

8 was their first badge issued. So I actually 

9 see it more common for first badge being 

10 issued than any other time. But it's I would 

11 say the vast majority of the records there's a 

12 dosimetry code there.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Phil?

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No, I'm sorry, 

15 I had two things. I was trying to look 

16 because I mean, we worked with these quite a 

17 bit and I know that we ended up imputing, I 

18 mean, again for epidemiology it's different. 

19 We imputed work areas, you know, by using 

20 subsequent information or whether -- but this 

21 is a different idea so I'm trying to make some 

22 recollection. I remember also that it's 
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1 largely complete but there are codes either 

2 that are illegible, they don't correspond to 

3 anything that's meaningful or they're missing. 

4 And those would all be options in which it 

5 would seem like if we were going to start 

6 defining an SEC based on numeric codes then 

7 you have to actually be, you'd have to kind of 

8 perhaps be exhaustive about it. 

9 The other thing that's related on 

10 a similar note to that, some of the codes that 

11 are in the definition, the one that's most 

12 concerning to me is 12J, which my recollection 

13 is was promptly re-coded as 11A which puts 

14 them into the 100 area. So that would be one 

15 I would look at. It's not used very often. 

16 The other one is 12Z, I think is almost --

17 almost never used and if you follow that 

18 person out they're actually in 12G later on. 

19 That has less implications for you, it just, 

20 it would fall back in the same group. The 12J 

21 one to me was a curiosity at the time.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Rachel, you had 
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1 further comment?

2 MS. LEITON: No, I was just saying 

3 that I was -- I was just going to agree with 

4 Tim on that issue, those issues that he just 

5 mentioned. If there's blanks or there's 

6 nothing in there then that's something we 

7 haven't contemplated yet so we'll definitely 

8 have to coordinate on that issue.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: If you look 

10 at, you know, imagine the number of values 

11 that are recorded in the database, you end up 

12 encountering everything, right? I mean.

13 MS. LEITON: Usually our claims 

14 examiners are going to look at whether or not 

15 they were badged and they have that particular 

16 code and that's going to be as far as they're 

17 going to be able to look because they're not 

18 scientists. You know, they're going to be 

19 given a very specific definition and say this 

20 is the code they had and this is where we'll 

21 place them and that's pretty much as far as 

22 they're probably going to be able to go. But 
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1 again, we'll talk further about it with NIOSH.

2 DR. TAULBEE: And just to re3 emphasize, many of these 000 codes is the 

4 first badge. The very next one will be 1A or 

5 something along those lines and so you can 

6 clearly see where they worked in subsequent.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Phil had a 

8 question.

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, I've got a 

10 question. Not being familiar with the way 

11 security operates at Savannah River I was 

12 wondering if a person who is badged for one 

13 particular area, if they go into another area 

14 and their badge does not have that 

15 nomenclature on it, does security log these 

16 people in in a notebook? Were they separate 

17 zones, say for security?

18 DR. TAULBEE: I don't believe that 

19 they were. I don't have any basis for that, I 

20 don't have documentation, hard documentation. 

21 I have heard through interviews with workers 

22 that until recent years in late '80s, early 
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1 '90s there were no signs onsite. So getting 

2 to say the C reactor, if you didn't have a 

3 reason to be there you were never told where 

4 it was, what roads to get there. So, but I've 

5 never heard any formal type of aspect as far 

6 as whether security checked individual badges 

7 from that standpoint.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm not sure if 

9 petitioners are on the line and would like to 

10 speak. We do have a letter from the 

11 representative of one of the petitioners which 

12 has been handed out. It came in today and 

13 this representative somehow had been left off 

14 the distribution list and I believe only got 

15 the report yesterday. I don't even think the 

16 petitioners actually got the report until 

17 Monday or something if that. And so I just 

18 draw your attention. In a short period of 

19 time looking through the records of this 

20 representative I think found a number of 

21 potential discrepancies with, or problems with 

22 the use of these codes and relying on badging 
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1 as a way of identifying people that worked in 

2 those areas. Now, while it's not been 

3 confirmed I think it is information that 

4 raises questions about how complete and how 

5 valid this process would be in terms of 

6 identifying all people that worked in those 

7 areas. Because I think that's really what 

8 we're trying to get at. This is in a sense a 

9 surrogate, the badging is a surrogate for 

10 having a way of locating people that worked 

11 near. I think you pointed that out earlier 

12 and I think we, as has been stated we've had, 

13 certainly had problems in the past. I also 

14 frankly worry that we're sort of rushing into 

15 this. The Work Group had very little time to 

16 review the report, Department of Labor has had 

17 very little time. I realize there's a good 

18 faith attempt to get this done and it's a lot 

19 of work but you know, whether we're really 

20 ready to answer -- is it fair to even answer, 

21 ask some of these questions and expect to 

22 answer them. But first let's -- are any of 
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1 the petitioners on the line that would like to 

2 speak? Okay, thank you. 

3 MR. ANDERSON: Excuse me, I'm 

4 sorry. Can you hear me?

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Now I can. 

6 Could you identify yourself?

7 MR. ANDERSON: My name is David 

8 Anderson and I'm with the Law Offices of Bob 

9 Warren and I believe you've been talking about 

10 the letter that we emailed to the Board 

11 earlier this afternoon. And we are sorry and 

12 apologize for it getting to you so late.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, no, that 

14 is the letter we're talking about and I said I 

15 think there's valid reasons for it being sent 

16 in late. 

17 MR. ANDERSON: Right.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So no need to 

19 apologize.

20 MR. ANDERSON: Okay. And as 

21 you've already mentioned the coding is of 

22 major concern to us. 
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

2 MR. ANDERSON: Okay, thank you 

3 very much. 

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. So, 

5 how do the Board Members feel about this? We 

6 have no recommendation from the Work Group, we 

7 have no motion. 

8 MEMBER BEACH: I think we should 

9 turn it over to the Work Group to look at in 

10 further detail.

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I have to agree 

12 with Josie. I think this should be looked at 

13 more in-depth. We'll see if we can narrow it 

14 down.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I mean I --

16 my tendency coming into the meeting having 

17 read the report was hoping that it would be a 

18 way of stepping forward, but I'm afraid we 

19 would be -- could be starting a process that's 

20 going to be unfair to -- and Bob, a lot of 

21 work and some possibly changes or 

22 clarifications. And I would like to have a 
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1 little bit more, I'm not saying it's 

2 infeasible but I'd like certainly to have a 

3 lot more certainty, information on how this 

4 could work and also some thought to 

5 alternative proposals. So I think as we found 

6 the alternative approach usually comes back to 

7 including the whole site and I think that's, 

8 that raises other issues about other areas on 

9 the site and so forth which are still under 

10 evaluation. Mark, do you have any comments?

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: I was just going 

12 to say, I mean, I do tend to agree. I was 

13 hoping that we could move something today also 

14 but I think what I would offer is that we'll 

15 schedule, even if it's another phone Work 

16 Group I think we should schedule one fairly 

17 soon to at least scope out what we want to do 

18 now, what are the issues we need to look into 

19 and is it SC&A's task to look into it or 

20 NIOSH's task to look further. 

21 For instance, I think there could 

22 be some value in following up on some of the 
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1 people we interviewed. There may even be some 

2 information gleaned from the CATI reports. 

3 I'm interested if NIOSH could look at all the 

4 CATIs. You've got a lot of CATI interviews on 

5 this site, sort them by area and pull out the 

6 files for 773A and see how many of those 

7 people were actually badged for that, you 

8 know, fall under your badge settings. 

9 So, I think there's some possible 

10 paths forward but I think I would arrange a 

11 Work Group meeting fairly soon, within the 

12 next couple of weeks, just do a phone call 

13 meeting and scope this out. Because I think 

14 we really need to move on at least part of 

15 this overall petition.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And whether, you 

17 know, like Mr. Warren was offering some 

18 information that might be helpful and I would 

19 ask more. I certainly think that the 

20 construction trades might also in terms of, 

21 because those are some of the groups we're 

22 trying to, we get concerned about in terms of 
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1 badging practices and designations and do 

2 that. Phil, you had a --

3 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I've got 

4 almost, it's more a question than a comment 

5 and that's, I don't really know how feasible 

6 it would be for them to take a sample and how 

7 big a job that would be for them to sample 

8 some of these. Just take random employees, 

9 look at their badge, look at their history of 

10 their badging and which areas they were badged 

11 in versus their CATI report.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I would 

13 just add that I think some sort of sampling 

14 information-gathering, the problem that you 

15 might run into would be trying to -- how do 

16 you do a large enough sample as to be a lot of 

17 effort to identify who's missing. And yet if 

18 it were 10 percent or whatever and maybe 

19 certain years and so forth. I think as we 

20 found in other situations it's not always a 

21 straightforward effort. But I think let's let 

22 the Work Group, I think you're a Member, 
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1 right?

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Make an effort 

4 to do that. Okay. Any other comments on 

5 this? Okay. I think we're -- I lost my 

6 agenda here, but I believe we're due for a 

7 break till 3:15. Why don't we be kind and 

8 give ourselves till 3:20 or so. 

9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

10 matter went off the 

11 record at 3:00 p.m. and 

12 resumed at 3:29 p.m.)

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: These are the 

14 two letters on Piqua and Don, Norton that we 

15 reviewed earlier. I'll read. The standard 

16 procedure for the Board that if I don't hear 

17 back within 30 days that we notify the Board 

18 and so forth.

19 The first letter on Piqua. 

20 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, 

21 parentheses, the Board, has evaluated Special 

22 Exposure Cohort Petition 00126 concerning 
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1 employees who worked at the Piqua Organic 

2 Moderated Reactor in Piqua, Ohio, under the 

3 statutory requirements established by the 

4 Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

5 Compensation Program Act of 2000, EEOICPA, and 

6 incorporated into 42 CFR 83.13. National 

7 Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 

8 NIOSH, has recommended that individual dose 

9 reconstructions are feasible for all employees 

10 of the Department of Energy, its predecessor 

11 agencies and their contractors and 

12 subcontractors who worked in any location at 

13 the Piqua Organic Moderated Reactor during the 

14 operational period from January 1st, 1963, 

15 through May 1st, 1966. NIOSH found that it 

16 has access to adequate exposure monitoring and 

17 other information necessary to do individual 

18 dose reconstructions with sufficient accuracy 

19 for members of this group and therefore a 

20 Class covering this group should not be added 

21 to the SEC. The Board concurs with this 

22 determination. Enclosed is supporting 
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1 documentation from the August 23rd through 

2 25th, 2011 Board meeting held in Richland, 

3 Washington, and earlier meetings where this 

4 potential Class for the SEC was discussed. If 

5 any of these items are unavailable at this 

6 time they will follow shortly. Anyone have 

7 corrections or additions to that?

8 (No response.)

9 Okay. I'd like to thank Dr. 

10 Poston for pointing out correctly in your 

11 slides. The dates were a little confusing 

12 from the report so thank you for that.

13 Second letter. This is on the 

14 Norton. The Advisory Board on Radiation 

15 Worker Health, the Board, has evaluated 

16 Special Exposure Cohort, SEC, Petition 00173 

17 concerning workers at the Norton Company in 

18 Worcester, Massachusetts, under the statutory 

19 requirements established by the Energy 

20 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 

21 Program Act of 2000, EEOICPA, incorporated 

22 into 42 CFR 83.13. The National Institute for 
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1 Occupational Safety and Health, parentheses, 

2 NIOSH, has recommended that individual dose 

3 reconstructions are feasible for all atomic 

4 weapons employees worked in any building or 

5 area at the facility owned by Norton Company 

6 or a subsequent owner in Worcester, 

7 Massachusetts from October 11th, 1962, through 

8 October 31st, 2009. NIOSH found that it has 

9 access to adequate exposure monitoring and 

10 other information necessary to do individual 

11 dose reconstructions with sufficient accuracy 

12 for members of this group and therefore a 

13 Class covering this group should not be added 

14 to the SEC. The Board concurs with this 

15 determination. Enclosed is supporting 

16 documentation from the August 23rd through 

17 25th, 2011 Board meeting held in Richland, 

18 Washington, and earlier meetings where this 

19 potential Class for the SEC was discussed. If 

20 any of these items are unavailable at this 

21 time they will follow shortly. Any comments 

22 or changes to that?
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1 (No response.)

2 Okay. Good. We'll -- we have 

3 some sharp eyes on here. Paul already picked 

4 up one error yesterday, grammatical, so. Have 

5 faith, right?

6 Why don't we move on to the public 

7 comment session comments which is a 60- or so 

8 page document. It's on your information that 

9 was passed around under Board Work Session. 

10 No? But I thought I found it also on here. 

11 MR. KATZ: The public comments 

12 from February with responses that we 

13 distributed a couple of weeks ago. I emailed 

14 them to everybody, that's certain, but let me 

15 see. I don't have it here because I didn't 

16 even copy everything off the flash drives.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We did receive 

18 it. Well, I shouldn't say that. I received 

19 it as part of the Board correspondence from 

20 Ted. I can't -- because I actually printed it 

21 out, that's why I have it with me. I have a 

22 copy here. 
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1 MR. KATZ: We can make copies.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But it's long 

3 and double-sided and given the state of the 

4 copier --

5 MR. KATZ: Well, we can -- how 

6 many people are lacking it?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: A lot of the 

8 size is including the transcripts and 

9 information. 

10 MR. KATZ: I can't re-send it 

11 because I'm not on the internet right now. Is 

12 anyone on the internet right now who can send 

13 it? Wanda or Paul? Can you send it? Well, I 

14 mean a lot of people have it but Bill needs 

15 it. 

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, why don't 

17 we move on and if everyone can take a look for 

18 tomorrow's work session, we'll do it. It's 

19 sort of -- no, I found it also but it's a 

20 tedious document to look through, though most 

21 of the information is just sort of the 

22 spreadsheet part of it. Then there's the long 
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1 transcript parts that follow and so there 

2 really aren't that many comments. And again, 

3 I looked through it and I didn't have any 

4 problems with the way they were, the

5 disposition of the comments which is really 

6 what we're talking about: are they being 

7 properly assigned for follow-up. So.

8 MEMBER ANDERSON: It wouldn't go 

9 to Richard Lemen, it wouldn't go to Mike 

10 Gibson, it didn't go to Mark Griffon. 

11 MEMBER LEMEN: I got it.

12 MEMBER ANDERSON: Oh, you did? It 

13 says undeliverable. 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: My understanding 

15 is certain people have not yet passed -- done 

16 their security updates or whatever, and some 

17 of us have. Some people will have to stay 

18 after school. That's right. Okay. 

19 Scheduling meetings. 

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, we have a few 

21 things to do with respect to scheduling. 

22 Jenny? Okay. On scheduling, the first item 
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1 is -- which it's not indicated here but we 

2 have a February meeting, February 28th through 

3 March 1st. We did not settle on a place for 

4 that and it's probably about ripe time now to 

5 do that given some of the places can be 

6 difficult for finding a hotel. So I have a 

7 number of possibilities for you to think about 

8 and I think we talked about some of these at 

9 the last meeting, too. We also, we have, you 

10 know, we have some letters that have some 

11 bearing too at some point that we'll be 

12 talking about, congressional letters. So here 

13 are some thoughts I have. One, I don't know 

14 at what point -- where we will be on Savannah 

15 River Site come the end of February but that's 

16 one possibility. And I'm giving you locations 

17 where we could travel at that time of year 

18 fairly reliably. And then we have Santa 

19 Susana you'll be getting more information from 

20 DCAS this fall, later this fall, so that's 

21 probably pretty safe for Santa Susana which 

22 would be Los Angeles area. 
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1 Northern California, there are a 

2 number of sites where we have things ongoing. 

3 For example, we have Stanford Linear 

4 Accelerator. SC&A will have finished work on 

5 that. And then there is Lawrence Berkeley, we 

6 have a Work Group there, we have -- there's 

7 work to do. The Work Group hasn't worked yet 

8 on that matter but this is a ways out. I 

9 don't know if that's a possibility. And what 

10 else? There's some element of Sandia at 

11 Livermore, too, and I don't know what progress 

12 will be on Sandia but apparently those two are 

13 sort of hitched. So there's, anyway, there's 

14 some activity in the northern California area 

15 so that might be, and we haven't been there in

16 quite a long time. 

17 And then there's the Albuquerque 

18 area. I'm thinking that Santa Fe itself, 

19 traveling to Santa Fe is not that safe that 

20 time of year but Albuquerque is probably 

21 pretty easy to get in and out of and we have 

22 Sandia again and we also have, we also have 
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1 the operations office in Albuquerque and --

2 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: And it's really 

3 not that big a drive from Los Alamos, so.

4 MR. KATZ: Right and so they could 

5 get there. That was part of the thought, they 

6 would be able to get to Albuquerque more 

7 easily than the Board could get to Santa Fe.

8 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: So anyway, those are 

10 three options I thought about. And then 

11 there's skiing in Idaho.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: What time was 

13 the snow melt this year? 

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: July 27th.

15 MR. KATZ: So do people have 

16 thoughts about these three locations? Because 

17 it would be nice to pin that down and work on 

18 hotels.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We do have a 

20 letter from, as I may have mentioned earlier, 

21 from Senators Udall and a letter from Senator 

22 Bingaman requesting that we schedule a meeting 
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1 in New Mexico so as to allow claimants to 

2 offer direct testimony before we make a final 

3 decision on that SEC. I don't know if we're 

4 going to be ready. It would certainly be 

5 before, but it will -- how much before. I was 

6 thinking that the following meeting might be 

7 more appropriate for that but I don't know. 

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: I was looking 

9 for, I don't think Joe Fitzgerald's here but 

10 to be honest with you I'd have to check and 

11 see where we're at with action items for NIOSH 

12 and SC&A on that Work Group. Yes. Arjun 

13 might be checking now so maybe we can come 

14 back to that. But I'm not sure if we'd be 

15 ready to have anything for the Board to vote 

16 on at that point. It doesn't mean we can't go 

17 there and get input from them but, you know, 

18 I'm not sure we'd be ready for a final 

19 decision.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Northern 

21 California then? I'm thinking if we haven't 

22 been someplace.
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1 MR. KATZ: It's the very end of 

2 February and the first day of March. Twenty3 eighth and 29th, it's a leap year, and March 

4 1st.

5 MEMBER BEACH: So Mark, are you 

6 talking LANL?

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I'm sorry.

8 MEMBER BEACH: What about Savannah 

9 River? Is that going to be anywhere close?

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, I mean, I'm 

11 just trying to think. Several of these other 

12 coworker models that we have are just going to 

13 be delivered to the Work Group in late end of 

14 this year. Now the thorium issue, hopefully 

15 I'm hoping we can move something before that 

16 time frame, but for the other issues I'm not 

17 sure the timing will be that great. I don't 

18 know, Tim, if you have any thoughts on that? 

19 On Savannah River, the timing to have a Board 

20 meeting end of February, early March?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We were just 

22 there.
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, we were just 

2 there. 

3 DR. TAULBEE: Yes, we were just 

4 there in February. By the February, by the 

5 time you'd be having that meeting we would 

6 have at least one coworker model done but the 

7 other ones would not be done yet.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: So I think, you

9 know, yes, I don't think it would make sense.

10 MEMBER MUNN: I would like to be 

11 enthusiastic about Los Angeles but the Santa 

12 Susana Work Group has not made any progress.

13 MR. KATZ: Well, we're talking 

14 about the end of February here, beginning of 

15 March.

16 MEMBER MUNN: I know.

17 MR. KATZ: And Santa Susana I 

18 believe DCAS has deliverables to the Work 

19 Group which is what they're waiting on that 

20 are coming I believe in, I thought, in the end 

21 of September maybe. So there's time for the 

22 Work Group to make progress.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, we just don't 

2 have anything scheduled and that makes me 

3 nervous.

4 MR. KATZ: Right, but this is, 

5 again, we're going six months out here.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: How long has it 

8 been since we've been to northern California?

9 MR. KATZ: Oh no, very long.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: A very long time 

11 and that's --

12 MR. KATZ: Okay, so let's -- is 

13 that good for everyone?

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: Ted, when you 

15 say northern California, are you talking about 

16 Livermore?

17 MR. KATZ: Yes, the Livermore 

18 area, right. Berkeley, Livermore, I mean 

19 those are the -- that's where we have sites.

20 MEMBER ROESSLER: Is it feasible 

21 to meet like in Oakland or something, or is 

22 that too far from? It's kind of -- I thought 
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1 it was kind of a challenge to get all the way 

2 out to Livermore.

3 MR. KATZ: Well, we've done it 

4 before.

5 MEMBER ROESSLER: We have done it.

6 MR. KATZ: There is Livermore. 

7 Berkeley of course is by -- would be near 

8 Oakland.

9 MEMBER ROESSLER: I would think 

10 Oakland would be a good place.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Let me comment. 

12 We've met out in Livermore and I'm not sure 

13 more than one Livermore person came to that 

14 meeting. And it seems to me that it doesn't 

15 make sense for us to sort of kill ourselves 

16 getting out there.

17 MEMBER ROESSLER: That was what I 

18 was afraid of when I was going out there is 

19 getting killed.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I know we 

21 have to be as available as we can but we were 

22 right there in town and people didn't come.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We don't have an 

2 SEC there, right? I mean, under evaluation. 

3 MEMBER FIELD: How about San Jose?

4 MEMBER ROESSLER: You can fly into 

5 San Jose.

6 MEMBER FIELD: It would be 

7 Stanford.

8 MR. KATZ: So we have SC&A work 

9 being delivered before then on Stanford. So 

10 is that a good compromise, San Jose for 

11 Stanford and there's Lawrence Berkeley? I 

12 don't know where we'll be. Is that a good, 

13 San Jose? So that would be first choice at 

14 least in that area. Okay, we'll look into it 

15 and we can continue the conversation by email 

16 if we have issues. Tim, is that?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, good.

18 MR. KATZ: So then timing. We 

19 need to schedule a teleconference for this 

20 spring and I've identified sort of the date 

21 frame for that for April 16th through the 

22 20th, that ballpark, the 23rd, 26th and 27th 
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1 are open. So the 16th through the 20th, 

2 that's a full week and the middle would be. 

3 We want to do Wednesday. This is April of 

4 next year we're talking about. Sixteenth 

5 through 20th. 

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: The 16th through 

7 the 20th is the EIS conference.

8 MR. KATZ: I wouldn't know. I 

9 trust you. 

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Our taxes are 

11 also due.

12 MR. KATZ: Taxes are due on Monday 

13 though, so. 

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Seventeenth up 

15 in New England. We have Patriots Day.

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: Twenty-three, 

17 26, 27 is fine.

18 MR. KATZ: Right. So how are 

19 those days? Twenty-third, 26th or 27th. I 

20 think the 27th is a Friday. Twenty-sixth? 

21 How is the 26th of April? 

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Twenty-sixth.
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay, very good. And 

2 then face to face, the right date frame is 

3 June 4th through 8th, 11th through 15th if 

4 either of those works. 

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I have 

6 commitments the following week. And I haven't 

7 been invited to the state epidemiologists. 

8 June. Okay, I can't so I will not.

9 MR. KATZ: That week's out for Dr. 

10 Melius. 

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We should try 

12 to get around to the Oak Ridge area at some 

13 point.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Can't it be the week 

15 before? The first week of June.

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: Well, it's the 

17 last week of -- the week of the 28th. June 

18 4th.

19 MR. KATZ: I thought that's what 

20 you were saying, Andy, that 4th through 8th.

21 MEMBER ANDERSON: No, the 4th 

22 through the 7th. The 8th is --
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1 MR. KATZ: We need -- yes. 

2 MEMBER MUNN: So you can't do the 

3 first week.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: When is Memorial 

5 Day?

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The 28th.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes, exactly.

8 MEMBER ANDERSON: Then the week of 

9 the 18th is fine.

10 MR. KATZ: So the week of June 

11 18th? How's that week? It's a stretch but we 

12 can -- does that work for everyone?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

 MR. KATZ: Yes, 19th, 20th, 21st 14 if 

15 that works for everyone. That's the middle of 

16 the week. Sorry?

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: The 19th would 

18 probably be better for me but.

19 MR. KATZ: Right, the 19th, 20th, 

20 and 21st.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Earlier.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It's an in-
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1 person meeting, three days.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Three days.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Ted, what are the 

4 dates for February again?

5 MR. KATZ: So February is the 

6 28th, 29th and March 1st. 

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And what is the 

8 date for the call?

9 MR. KATZ: The call that we just 

10 agreed to?

11 MEMBER BEACH: April 26th.

12 MR. KATZ: No, the prior one is --

13 the prior call is January 25th. January 25th. 

14 Okay, so we're settled, right? 

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Do we have a 

16 tentative site for June?

17 MR. KATZ: No, no, no site.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, LANL.

19 MR. KATZ: Oh yes, LANL. That 

20 makes sense because by then. What's that? 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Henry wants to 

22 go fishing.
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay, so and that's 

2 LANL right? So LANL. Well, LANL it could be 

3 -- I mean at that time of year we could be in 

4 Santa Fe and close. It'll just be heat.

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: What day? Do 

6 we want to do Albuquerque?

7 MR. KATZ: We're not doing 

8 Albuquerque. We're doing northern California.

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Right. I was 

10 just going to say --

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, talking 

12 about June. 

13 MR. KATZ: Oh, so June, in June, 

14 LANL. So that's the 18th -- wait. 

15 Nineteenth, 20th, 21st.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: And where is 

17 that located?

18 MR. KATZ: That'll be probably in 

19 Santa Fe.

20 MEMBER LEMEN: Not Albuquerque.

21 MR. KATZ: No because we can be 

22 close to the site and that would be better for 
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1 the LANL folks.

2 MEMBER LEMEN: So a June meeting 

3 in Santa Fe.

4 MR. KATZ: Exactly. Yes. 

5 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: It might be a 

6 stretch trying to make it in there.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We'll come pick 

8 you up, Phil. And Brad can get in a 

9 snowmobile and come down from the snow 

10 country. Okay. And I think that also answers 

11 our Board letters. Yes. 

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Do we owe them a 

13 response?

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We owe them a 

15 response and I'm just going to--

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Just tell them 

17 that we are going to meet there.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. We got --

19 the letter from -- the letter came from the 

20 office of Senator Udall and then that was the 

21 one that was emailed around to everybody and 

22 the Board. And then I received via DCAS a 
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1 similar letter, not exactly, but same request 

2 from Senator Bingaman's office. So I will 

3 just respond politely and accordingly. 

4 Sandia Work Group, got a number of 

5 requests. I've asked Dr. Lemen to Chair with 

6 other Members being Josie, Gen Roessler and 

7 Henry. Sandia. 

8 That really takes care of our 

9 Board work session. We'll have some letters 

10 tomorrow possibly depending on our actions on 

11 some sites. And we'll have the public 

12 comments to address. Do you have anything 

13 else, Ted?

14 MR. KATZ: I do not.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. My 

16 preference would be to do the Hanford Work 

17 Group update closer to the public comment 

18 period without a break. We have it scheduled 

19 now 4:30 to 4:45 and we have a short 

20 presentation prepared that would fit into that 

21 time period, but my suggestion is we wait 

22 until around 4:45 or so to start that or 4:30. 
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1 I can't tell if people are signed up. And it 

2 appears to be a few people. Can you actually 

3 check to see where we are in terms of signing 

4 up? I don't want people to have to wait 

5 around longer than necessary at the same time 

6 if other people are planning to come in around 

7 5:00 or before I'd like to get it, try to 

8 accommodate them.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Mr. Chairman?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: I'm wondering if 

12 we couldn't go ahead with the public comment 

13 matrix this afternoon. I know the Chair has 

14 to leave a little bit early tomorrow and -- do 

15 enough of us have copies of that now that we 

16 could go ahead and do that?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The other 

18 thought I had is that, since we have time, is 

19 Mr. Rutherford. We have an SEC update.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Or an SEC update.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. 

22 MR. RUTHERFORD: Is it on? All 
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1 right. I'm going to give a status of our 

2 upcoming SEC petitions. Our format has 

3 changed somewhat just to do something 

4 different. We normally do this update at 

5 every Board Meeting, give the Advisory Board 

6 an idea of upcoming SEC petition evaluations 

7 for planning purposes. 

8 The SEC summary table, as you can 

9 see we're up to 190. That was as of August 

10 1st. Actually 191 now with the Rocky Flats 

11 petition that just came in. We have five 

12 petitions that were in the qualification 

13 process and 113 petitions, evaluations that 

14 have qualified for evaluation. And you can 

15 see that we have 112 where we've completed 

16 those and we have one evaluation in progress.

17 Clinton Engineering Works. This 

18 has been under evaluation for some time. We 

19 have really completed our evaluation. 

20 However, there was a designation question that 

21 we had for the Department of Labor. We're 

22 still waiting for a response from the 
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1 Department of Labor from that. We do expect 

2 that soon. We have been talking to Jeff Coach

3 and Rachel about that. I do expect to get a 

4 response from them very soon. Hopefully we'll 

5 be able to present this at the next Board 

6 Meeting.

7 The following sites have 

8 evaluations that were partially completed and 

9 we had committed at the time to continue our 

10 evaluation. Grand Junction Operations Office. 

11 This was for the period of February 1, 1975 

12 through July 31st. We do expect our 

13 completion in October and we would be ready 

14 for the next Board Meeting. Sandia National 

15 Lab, we are looking at the post-1960 period. 

16 We continue this evaluation -- it continues. 

17 We believe we'll have enough information, and 

18 complete our evaluation in time for March of 

19 2012 and I guess that would push us to the 

20 June meeting of next year. 

21 The following sites have petitions 

22 undergoing qualification. Actually, the 
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1 Pinellas Plant petition did not qualify and so 

2 it is not in the qualification phase. At the 

3 time it was still under qualification. 

4 Hanford, we have a Hanford petition that's in 

5 the qualification. Sandia. Oak Ridge 

6 National Lab, the ORNL, I will tell you will 

7 qualify and we are working towards moving that 

8 evaluation forward. And then Titanium Alloys 

9 Manufacturing is another one that we're in the 

10 qualification phase. And that's about it.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Questions 

12 for LaVon? Okay. Don't sit down. Ames.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. Let's 

14 get them over with.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I would just 

16 add for the record, the petitioner did not 

17 wish to participate in this, they indicated. 

18 So that's why we're doing it out of schedule. 

19 Normally when the petitioner is either going 

20 to listen in or participate then we would do 

21 it at the appointed time. But that's not the 

22 case here so I think we're comfortable doing 
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1 it at this time.

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. I'm going 

3 to provide actually an update on the Ames 

4 Laboratory SEC Petition Evaluation Report. We 

5 actually presented this during a Board 

6 conference call. I'll give you a little 

7 summary of how we got to where we are. In 

8 November if the Board will remember, we 

9 completed a review of the existing SEC Class 

10 Definitions and presented the findings of that 

11 review to the Advisory Board. The findings of 

12 that review indicated that we wanted to move 

13 forward with an 83.14 to change the Class 

14 Definition for Ames. So in March of this 

15 year, we informed an Ames Laboratory claimant 

16 that we were unable to reconstruct the 

17 radiation dose for that claim and then we 

18 received an 83.14 SEC petition in April. In 

19 April we qualified that petition and we issued 

20 our Evaluation Report in June of this year.

21 In July we presented the 

22 Evaluation Report to the Advisory Board and 
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1 during the Board's conference call. Prior to 

2 taking action on the recommended Class, the 

3 Advisory Board wanted a better understanding 

4 of how DOL determines eligibility of claims 

5 under EEOICPA for the Ames Laboratory. So we 

6 also issued a revision to our Evaluation 

7 Report. We changed the Class recommended 

8 start date from January 1 to August 13 to be 

9 consistent with the Manhattan Engineering 

10 District. And here's our proposed Class that 

11 we presented at the conference call. I'm not 

12 going to read it all, but basically it's all 

13 Department of Energy employees from August 

14 13th, 1942 through December 31st, 1970. I 

15 think I have the old presentation on here if 

16 you want any additional information. 

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do people have 

18 questions like additional information? This 

19 was a consolidation of a number of previous 

20 petitions and I think was -- that we had 

21 approved. It was to clarify the Class 

22 Definition. 
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1 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And correct, I 

3 think there was an error in terms of -- not an 

4 error, but there was some clarification in 

5 terms of time period also.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And our question 

8 I think was I think both, if I recall right, 

9 David Richardson and Paul Ziemer had questions 

10 about the -- who would be covered during that 

11 time period, how extensive was it in terms of 

12 the employees of the university there at Ames. 

13 Grad students. And while we don't have, you 

14 know, full detail on that, I thought that 

15 Rachel's slide yesterday clarifying the 

16 Definition, how they administer that and who 

17 they consider to be a qualified employee I 

18 thought clarified that and essentially 

19 narrowed it down sufficiently, but that's my 

20 opinion. 

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: This actually 

22 consolidates the Classes from the sheet metal 
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1 workers that was previously a maintenance and 

2 sheet metal workers as well as it pulls in the 

3 Class Definition, the previous Class 

4 Definition earlier years with -- tied to 

5 thorium exposures. 

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody have any 

7 -- yes, Paul.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Could you remind 

9 us of how many claimants are already in the 

10 system from Ames?

11 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, I can't. I 

12 don't recall. I'm not sure if we have any of 

13 those numbers available to us. I know this is 

14 not a large change in numbers. 

15 DR. NETON: I can look it up in 

16 just a second.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

18 MR. RUTHERFORD: We have 187 

19 claims through all years and it is still a 

20 covered facility at this time. 

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any other 

22 questions, comments? If not, do I hear a 
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1 motion? 

2 MEMBER BEACH: I would like to 

3 make a motion that we accept NIOSH's Class 

4 Definition for Ames.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So 

6 essentially accept their --

7 MEMBER BEACH: Recommendation.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Their 

9 recommendation, this report, right. Do I have 

10 a second to that?

11 MEMBER FIELD: Second.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Any further 

13 questions? If not, Ted, do you want to call 

14 the roll?

15 MR. KATZ: Dr. Anderson.

16 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field.

22 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Mr. Griffon.

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lemen.

4 MEMBER LEMEN: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius.

6 CHAIR MELIUS: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston.

10 MEMBER POSTON: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler.

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Dr. Ziemer.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: It is unanimous with 

20 some absent Members. I'll collect their votes 

21 afterwards. Motion passes.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we just so 
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1 happen to have a letter prepared. Again with 

2 the usual proviso that this is passed down 

3 within 30 days or the Chairman will notify the 

4 Board. The Advisory Board on Radiation and 

5 Worker Health, the Board, has evaluated a 

6 Special Exposure -- SEC Petition 00185 

7 concerning workers at the Ames Laboratory at 

8 Iowa State University under the statutory 

9 requirements established by the Energy 

10 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 

11 Program Act of 2000, EEOICPA, and incorporated 

12 in at 42 CFR 83.13. I believe the 83.14 will 

13 be dropped. The Board respectfully recommends 

14 that SEC status be accorded to all employees 

15 of the Department of Energy, its predecessor 

16 agencies and its contractors and 

17 subcontractors who worked in any area at the 

18 Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University 

19 during the period from August 13th, 1940, 

20 through December 31st, 1970, for a number of 

21 work days aggregating at least 250 work days 

22 occurring either solely under this employment 
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1 or in combination with work days within the 

2 parameters established for one or more other 

3 Classes of employees included in the SEC. 

4 This recommendation is based on 

5 the following factors. One, individuals 

6 working at Ames Laboratory during the time 

7 period in question worked on the production of 

8 materials for nuclear weapons. Two, the 

9 National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

10 Health, NIOSH, review of available monitoring 

11 data as well as available process and source 

12 term information, various production activity 

13 at Ames Laboratory found that NIOSH lacked 

14 adequate information necessary to complete 

15 individual dose reconstructions with 

16 sufficient accuracy for internal radiological 

17 exposures due to thorium, plutonium and 

18 thoron, and for most external exposures during 

19 the time period in question. The Board 

20 concurs with this determination. NIOSH 

21 determined that health may have been in danger 

22 for these Ames Laboratory employees during the 
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1 time period in question. The Board also 

2 concurs with this determination. 

3 Based on these considerations and 

4 the discussion at the August 23rd through 

5 25th, 2011 Board Meeting the Board recommends 

6 that this Class be added to the SEC. Enclosed 

7 is the documentation from the Board Meeting 

8 where this SEC Class was discussed. The 

9 documentation includes transcripts of the 

10 deliberations, copies of the petition, the 

11 NIOSH review thereof and related materials. 

12 If any of these items are unavailable at this 

13 time, they will follow shortly.

14 Any comments or changes? Yes.

15 MEMBER ANDERSON: The second 

16 bullet I think, the last -- second to the last 

17 line, questions should be just question.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Yes, 

19 David?

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I recently 

21 learned that CFR Section 83.13 supersedes 

22 Section 83.14 and so 83.14 could be struck.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's what I --

2 I did strike it. If you had been listening.

3 (Laughter.)

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Jen.

5 MS. LIN: I think I actually have 

6 the version that hasn't been reviewed by OGC 

7 and OGC has a different version that should 

8 report to you. But I'm just going to read the 

9 changes here, what I have, and I'll share with 

10 you the electronic copy.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I mean it 

12 was shared with you over a week ago.

13 MS. LIN: Right, but I think the 

14 OGC shared a different version with us and 

15 then we sent it back to Nancy. But anyway, 

16 there's just -- we can just do this right now.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

18 MS. LIN: For the second bullet 

19 point in the middle of the sentence where it 

20 says that NIOSH lacked adequate information 

21 necessary to complete individual dose 

22 reconstruction with sufficient accuracy for 
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1 most external exposure and internal 

2 radiological exposures due to thorium, 

3 plutonium, thoron and mixed fission products 

4 during the time period in question. And other 

5 ones are just editorial changes so I'll email 

6 them to you.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Addition 

8 of and mixed fission. Yes, Paul.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Could I ask one of 

10 the NIOSH people was the work at Ames actually 

11 considered production in the sense that it's 

12 used for nuclear weapons as opposed to 

13 research or -- I mean, we've used in this 

14 document that they worked on the production, 

15 both the first and second bullets talked about 

16 the production of materials for nuclear 

17 weapons. I don't know if there may be --

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I actually took 

19 that from the Evaluation Report. I had the 

20 same question. Like it caught -- no, I agree.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: If I get this 

22 wrong, I think somebody will correct me. If 
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1 I'm not mistaken, Ames did in fact -- that's 

2 the site that developed the uranium bomb 

3 reduction process which was uranium produced 

4 for the uranium metal for the early program, 

5 the early uranium produced for the MED. I 

6 believe that was Ames.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: They actually 

8 produced the material used in the weapon.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: There was material 

10 produced there. I assume they also did 

11 research but there was material produced 

12 there.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, just wanted 

14 to clarify.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Some of this is 

16 based on thorium work. I think it was the 

17 same kind of thing. They developed the 

18 process and produced some thorium. I think 

19 they did production at Ames. Now, they may 

20 have also done research.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: The development of 

22 the process I'm very clear on. My question 
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1 was --

2 MR. HINNEFELD: I know they --

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: They produced it 

4 for one weapon. That's enough.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: But it was for the 

6 reactors.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Why don't 

9 we move on to the -- I'll just ask Jen, can 

10 you make sure the Vitro letter? Because I 

11 have a similar version up here that we were 

12 given that was printed out. I want to make 

13 sure -- that's for potential discussion 

14 tomorrow. We haven't discussed it. To make 

15 sure it's the right one that's a little. 

16 What?

17 MS. LIN: I also just sent you the 

18 --

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you. 

20 Thank you. Okay. I'll compare what you sent 

21 me. Public comment session comments. I guess 

22 the easiest thing is, it may be a little bit 
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1 tedious to go through them one at a time 

2 unless people have picked out ones that they 

3 have concerns about. Why don't we do that 

4 first? Anybody have any that they have 

5 concerns about? The first one is Dr. McKeel. 

6 The disposition of that. Second one is the 

7 letter from the Alliance of Nuclear Worker 

8 Advocacy Groups. Third is --

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: So have these 

10 responses been sent?

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: These have been 

12 directed to. We don't do a complete follow-up 

13 because these are where they're directed and I 

14 think the purpose of this review as we set it 

15 up was to make sure that everything did get 

16 directed that was appropriate to direct. Some 

17 of this, you know, some are just comments and 

18 they don't.

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: But when it says 

20 response date, that means there was a --

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, this will 

22 be tracked going forward but our, I think our 
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1 review at this point is really the initial, 

2 you know, an assignment for follow-up and that 

3 things that everything -- anything that was 

4 not followed up on that people think should be 

5 followed up on.

6 MEMBER ANDERSON: Fair enough.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: This used to be 

8 a compact spreadsheet and then we said no, we 

9 need more information. We added the -- so we 

10 made it. I will add one thing I think that 

11 might be helpful in the future is if we could 

12 number these. Yes. Identity numbers so at 

13 least we would have -- it would be a little 

14 easier to talk about. 

15 So I'm on page 27. There's a 

16 comment regarding the Savannah River Site 

17 which is, for example, directed to Tim Taulbee 

18 and Mark. Again, some general comments from 

19 Terrie Barrie that were directed. Faye 

20 Vlieger. The category coding is from the 

21 Outreach Work Group. 

22 MR. KATZ: And the condensing them 
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1 can be quite a deal. There were like 23 --

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, yes.

3 MEMBER ANDERSON: The numbers 

4 don't go up as high as this.

5 MR. KATZ: The numbers only matter 

6 if you wanted to do some sort of analysis of 

7 them down the road. 

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The comments on 

9 behalf of Senators Gillibrand and Schumer, 

10 straightforward. Public participant had a 

11 question. Next. It's on page 43. Fernald 

12 petitioner had a series of questions, some of 

13 which were answered, some of which were 

14 referred. A Linde petitioner had some 

15 comments and questions. Again, this goes back 

16 to February. The Norton petitioner had 

17 questions. Savannah River is page 68. 

18 Question.

19 MEMBER BEACH: My question on page 

20 73.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we'll skip 

22 on to page 80.
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1 (Laughter.)

2 MEMBER BEACH: Of course I took on 

3 Mound which is page 73 and Mr. Hinnefeld had a 

4 response. In the date, the 7/26/11, is that 

5 the due date or is that what that's for? 

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: She's on page 

7 73.

8 MEMBER BEACH: It was just on the 

9 Mound, the tritium stuff is due.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: I didn't print out 

11 the 63 pages. I don't have it in front of me. 

12 What's the comment address?

13 MEMBER BEACH: It addresses the 

14 tritium and then it has your name as the 

15 responsible and then a date, 7/26/11, so.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: For the tritium 

17 report?

18 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. He just has 

19 three points on that tritium and how it's 

20 being used for --

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, well I think 

22 at the time it was assembled that was probably 
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1 our planned delivery date on tritium which is 

2 like now in internal review so we're a little 

3 late on that date.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Unless I missed 

6 one the final one is on -- that's it. Yes. 

7 So we have no further. I don't think we need 

8 to vote or anything. No, okay. Good.

9 MEMBER ANDERSON: It is helpful 

10 having the transcript.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, because if 

12 you have questions, it's right there. You 

13 don't have to go looking for the transcript. 

14 Yes. And it's also something that's very 

15 difficult to do on a Board call which is why 

16 it tends to be delayed. 

17 So I have around 4:20. Why don't 

18 we take a short break, come back. We'll do 

19 the Hanford presentation and then go right 

20 into public comment period? So why don't we 

21 take a 15-minute break and plan on coming back 

22 about 35 of or so? 4:35, 25 of.
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1 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

2 matter went off the 

3 record at 4:23 p.m. and 

4 resumed at 4:52 p.m.)

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, we will 

6 reconvene now. I don't think we're missing 

7 anybody right now. So I apologize for people 

8 in the audience, it's the way we're set up 

9 here. I have a brief update on where we stand 

10 with the Hanford site. And I'm going to first 

11 do a brief update on the review of the SECs 

12 that are underway and then Sam Glover is going 

13 to give a sort of complimentary update on 

14 other -- those and other NIOSH activities 

15 related to Hanford. The Hanford Work Group 

16 has been actively reviewing these early SECs. 

17 Again, working with NIOSH, we've added a 

18 fairly large Class already to the Special 

19 Exposure Cohort but there continue to be 

20 ongoing issues. The petitioner has actually 

21 brought some new ones to us recently based on 

22 some more recent information that was made 
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1 available. And there's a fair amount of 

2 activity. I'm not going to spend a lot of 

3 time going through each of these issues but --

4 and the Board Members, we have it in your 

5 information guide. Unfortunately some of 

6 these got cut off when they went into a PDF so 

7 they look a little bit confusing. But I don't 

8 think it's real critical information with 

9 that. But there's a number of ongoing 

10 activities related to evaluation of thorium. 

11 I have about three or four slides of these. 

12 So there's internal exposure issues related to 

13 questions of data adequacy. There's other 

14 data dose reconstruction issues there, Super S 

15 plutonium, which we've dealt with before and 

16 others, tritium and possible tritide exposures 

17 that need to be followed up on in terms of 

18 dose reconstruction. And then there's -- some 

19 of these are some newer issues that have come 

20 up, sort of ongoing issues, both the sort of 

21 data quality over the years, some issues about 

22 records that were destroyed and trying to make 
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1 sure that the destroyed records don't 

2 interfere with the dose reconstruction. We 

3 believe that a lot of them are duplicates but 

4 -- or are not essential to dose reconstruction 

5 but some may be and so that needs to be 

6 clarified. And recently the petitioner 

7 brought to our attention some problems with 

8 Building 324 and cell B and related to that 

9 and whether that will affect data adequacy for 

10 dose reconstruction. 

11 So all of these are under active 

12 evaluation and continue to be. And we've been 

13 working very closely with NIOSH. We had a 

14 Work Group call last week briefly trying to 

15 get everything prioritized for moving forward. 

16 One of the activities on that, we tasked on 

17 the Work Group call we did -- there's a newer 

18 petition, at least 155 that we had talked 

19 about at our last meeting as presented. It 

20 had to do with some falsified testing, whether 

21 that would affect dose reconstruction. So we 

22 have now tasked and in the process of tasking 
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1 our contractor SC&A to do follow-up on that 

2 and to produce a report which will take some 

3 period of time but we're making progress on 

4 that. And let me turn it over to Sam Glover 

5 from NIOSH who will now update you on sort of 

6 the NIOSH activities that sort of complement 

7 what the Board Work Group is doing in 

8 connection with SC&A. Sam?

9 DR. GLOVER: Thank you, Dr. 

10 Melius. This will be a very brief 

11 presentation, probably about as long as it 

12 took me to find it. So I'm just going to very 

13 briefly provide you an update. We had a Work 

14 Group call last week at the end of the week. 

15 SC&A provided an extensive report and matrix 

16 update so they reviewed the SEC issues, where 

17 did our TBD updates, how did those -- where 

18 did that kind of leave us, what TBD issues 

19 might be closed. So an extensive set of 

20 information. 

21 And so let me just first start out 

22 where do we stand. We have one current SEC 
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1 petition before the Board. As Dr. Melius 

2 said, this addresses the U.S. Testing data for 

3 the plutonium. They specifically said 

4 plutonium finishing plant. That really was 

5 the highest plutonium activity out here and 

6 they were very specific about people who had 

7 bioassay and fecal measurements. From the 

8 time frame, very narrow, 1987 through '89. 

9 And so as Dr. Melius said, you've tasked them 

10 to provide additional reports on that. Now 

11 there are three current SEC Classes and 

12 actually number 3 subsumed the previous two. 

13 So the first one, so the very earliest years 

14 where many forms of bioassay were not in 

15 place, 46 through 68 were for sort of we'll 

16 call them exotic radionuclides, highly 

17 enriched uranium, thorium, promethium, and 

18 then we've also realized that we couldn't put 

19 people in places and that the time frame 

20 really was better covered by June 30th, 1972. 

21 And so that's all areas of Hanford through, 

22 and that went into effect January 2010. 
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1 So just to give you a flavor for 

2 Hanford, it is one of the big sites. There 

3 are 4,156 claims, 160 of those are active, 742 

4 have been pulled for various reasons, often 

5 SEC, either Hanford or a combination of other 

6 facilities. Thirty-two hundred and fifty-four 

7 are done, have been completed with 1,058 with 

8 a greater than 50 percent PoC. 

9 DOL maintains a running series of 

10 these, probably for some of the big sites, but 

11 this is an interesting graph that I'm sure you 

12 have it in your packet. I thought it was 

13 interesting just from the aspect as, how does 

14 it change compensation and claims as a 

15 function of the SECs. And so they actually 

16 show as a function of dates what happens with 

17 compensation, what is the slope. Some of 

18 those are going to be claims probably that 

19 after H you probably see just claims that are 

20 old and being impacted by the SEC. But you 

21 still see a fairly significant slope after 

22 that initial slug, so you see more cases. I 
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1 know DOE here saw a large increase in cases 

2 and being new cases. So I thought that was an 

3 interesting, you know, what is the effect at 

4 Hanford of these different SECs. I think 

5 we're around $450 million so far in total 

6 compensation.

7 So what have we been doing? Since 

8 2009, since we initiated that report, we have 

9 continued to have an extensive set of research 

10 activities here. We realize that some of the 

11 -- there were some shortcomings in where we 

12 left things but understanding the source terms 

13 and the size, where things are. We really had 

14 to go do additional research. We've continued 

15 to have the Board Members as well as SC&A 

16 participate in these as much as they feel, and 

17 actually I believe at every one of these, 

18 we've had presence. We will include the 

19 reports, the extensive reports by SC&A that we 

20 just received as we develop our plans. We 

21 still are working on this and now that DOE 

22 just provided a path forward on writing 
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1 classified documents here, they have a stand2 alone system so we'll be able to prepare a 

3 series of classified White Papers to support 

4 this activity. That's how we plan on 

5 approaching this.

6 So just to give you a feel of the 

7 amount of effort that we've put in here and 

8 how much Gail Splett and her staff and folks 

9 have accommodated, we have 53 official 

10 requests where we have asked Hanford for data, 

11 often for Hanford but other sites as well. 

12 For Hanford, we've reviewed over 424 boxes of 

13 data including what we're doing right now. 

14 We're actually reviewing data this week. 

15 We've visited Hanford 41 times including times 

16 when we've come here just to scan documents, 

17 but a significant presence onsite over the 

18 last four years. We have almost 9,000 

19 documents received from Hanford. And they 

20 have accommodated many, many classified and 

21 unclassified interviews. And so we've had an 

22 extensive presence here.
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1 Our path forward is to address the 

2 source terms and the coverage, how does the 

3 bioassay compare, you know, what do we really 

4 have. So we will update the White Papers that 

5 we produced as part of the Technical Basis 

6 Documents and then we will provide those 

7 updates to my boss and we will develop a path 

8 forward in connection with the Board. So, Dr. 

9 Melius?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any Board 

11 Members with questions before we go? Okay. 

12 We'll now open the public comment period. 

13 Ted, do you want to do the instructions?

14 MR. KATZ: Yes, thanks. Well 

15 welcome for those of you from Hanford who've 

16 come for this public comment session and also 

17 welcome for anyone who may have joined us by 

18 the telephone. Just to alert you to sort of 

19 the ground rules in terms of recording your 

20 comments. All of these Board Meetings are 

21 fully transcribed so everything that everybody 

22 says is captured in a transcript which ends up 
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1 on the NIOSH website which is available to the 

2 whole public. So when you make comments 

3 everything you say will be available to the 

4 whole public. Anything private you say about 

5 yourself will be. And the only exception to 

6 that is that if you talk about private matters 

7 of other persons, their privacy will be 

8 protected. So we will redact information as 

9 we may need to, to protect other people if you 

10 tell stories about other people, give private 

11 information about them, what have you. But 

12 those are the basic rules and if you want to 

13 see them, you know, in explicit detail they 

14 should be available out on the table outside 

15 of here and they're also, for people on the 

16 phone and so on, they're available on the 

17 NIOSH website under the Board section of the 

18 website in the Meeting section. Thank you, 

19 that's it.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We also ask that 

21 you keep your public comments to 10 minutes or 

22 less time and that we will -- we also have 
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1 people on the phone that do have comments and 

2 we will entertain them. We usually try to 

3 start with the people in the room first. If 

4 we can give you a quick and direct answer to 

5 your comments we will do so here but that's 

6 not always possible. And we will try when you 

7 have a question or something but again, do the 

8 best we can. Now there will be -- there is 

9 follow-up. All the comments are followed up 

10 and if you were here a little earlier today, 

11 you would have seen us going through comments 

12 from an earlier Board Meeting, public comments 

13 trying to make sure, reviewing to make sure 

14 that those were all being followed up. Again, 

15 sometimes that takes some time to do but that 

16 is something we track and we try to make sure 

17 that everybody comments if they have a 

18 question or information that it is -- someone 

19 does get back to them on that.

20 So the first person I have signed 

21 up: Theresa Howe. She didn't? Okay. She 

22 signed up yesterday, wasn't -- decided not to 
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1 and didn't come back. I now have Faye 

2 Vlieger. I'm getting better. Took me about 

3 five tries, right?

4 MS. VLIEGER: It's a name that can 

5 get lost in the phone book.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, Melius 

7 isn't always easy either.

8 MS. VLIEGER: Thank you again for 

9 letting me speak. I slid right in here and I 

10 apologize for my dress. It in no means 

11 reflects on the Board. I wanted to reiterate 

12 the ANWAG's policy. I'm here representing 

13 ANWAG and Cold War Patriots. ANWAG's policy 

14 on surrogate data has not changed. We do not 

15 believe it should be used because it's 

16 inaccurate and faulty. 

17 Also we would like to let you 

18 know, let the Board know that we will be 

19 sending a letter concerning the conflict of 

20 interest for the Dade Moeller and the EE&G and 

21 contracts that we had brought up yesterday. 

22 As I stated yesterday, I have a real issue 
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1 with people that sit on both sides of the 

2 fence, one side opposing the workers in labor 

3 and industry cases and then hopping on the 

4 other side and saying that they can, with no 

5 bias at all, do a dose reconstruction. I 

6 haven't seen anybody that's successful about 

7 talking out of both sides of their mouth at 

8 the same time, I really -- just doesn't work. 

9 So that was it for tonight, just that ANWAG 

10 does not support surrogate data. It's proven 

11 to be faulty, and that we will be providing 

12 you a letter on the conflict of interest 

13 issues for Dade Moeller and EE&G. And thank 

14 you very much for the meeting. 

15 I was trying to listen on the 

16 drive in and we had a lot of dead air starting 

17 about 3:30 so I don't know -- not when you 

18 were on break because you said you were going 

19 to be coming back. So just so you know, there 

20 were some technical issues tonight.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank you 

22 for letting us know that, though, because we 
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1 try to -- I believe it's Mary Ann Carrico is 

2 it? I may have.

3 MS. CARRICO: I'm going to pass, 

4 thank you.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Oh, okay. 

6 Anybody else here in the audience that would 

7 like to make a public comment? Yes? If you 

8 could come up to the mic and identify 

9 yourself. Either mic. Doesn't make --

10 whichever you prefer.

11 PUBLIC PARTICIPANT: When I got 

12 the letter, I wanted to come say thank you, 

13 how cooperative everybody has been. I can 

14 just see on the phone they're smiling and 

15 wanting to really help me with my claim. I 

16 just wanted to come and say thank you very 

17 much, I appreciate it.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, thank you 

19 for that. Yes, sir.

20 MR. GEER: I just got in here so I 

21 hope I do this right. As a nuclear process or 

22 nuclear chemical operator --
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Could you please 

2 identify yourself? 

3 MR. GEER: Yes. My name is Dale 

4 Geer. I was out at Hanford for a little over 

5 30 years, the majority of that, 28 years at 

6 tank farms, both east and west area. This 

7 ordeal with going through EEOICPA started 

8 actually in 2004 and that was me trying to 

9 investigate some health problems that I had. 

10 And so unfortunately there's no guidebook on 

11 which doctor is going to look at the claim 

12 properly or what might be wrong with you 

13 properly. And so I found out after a lot of 

14 trial and error that I needed to deal with 

15 environmental medicine or toxicology. So 

16 that's what I did.

17 And I ended up getting a urine 

18 toxic heavy metal test and the doctor that 

19 administered the test, it was sent back east 

20 to Doctor's Data. It came back to where my 

21 lead level for exposure was off the chart. 

22 And I also showed very elevated for cadmium 
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1 and nickel. Nothing for mercury. That test 

2 was done August of 2004. I ended up trying to 

3 get some treatment and follow up with some 

4 further tests. I had the same three tests 

5 done. The second test was in January of 2007 

6 and my lead level dropped down to about one7 third of what it originally measured which, 

8 like I say, was off the charts to start with. 

9 Cadmium stayed quite elevated and so did 

10 nickel but, surprise to me, mercury showed up. 

11 Mercury. 

12 And in another test that I had 

13 which was seven months later, I was checking 

14 my progress because of chelation therapy that 

15 I was going through and it dropped way down to 

16 where the lead was within the reference range 

17 but the mercury was persistently staying high. 

18 In other words, it's probably one of the 

19 harder ones to get out of your system. So I 

20 offer this paperwork for you to look at. You 

21 won't -- you couldn't possibly imagine how 

22 many times I was admonished that it was the 
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1 wrong test, the doctor doesn't know what 

2 they're doing and all of this through 

3 AdvanceMed. And when the AdvanceMed first 

4 came to Hanford, I presented this toxicology 

5 paperwork to them. I says, how in the heck is 

6 this happening. And I never really got a good 

7 answer from it. It was always fighting what 

8 was shown as the test results. And I told 

9 them right from the start, I says, if you show 

10 me a better test let me know and I'll go take 

11 it. And all of a sudden it got very silent 

12 every time I happened to mention that with --

13 on several occasions, okay?

14 I have an employee concern which 

15 they call a PER. Problem Evaluation Report I 

16 believe is what it is. I don't know if you've 

17 heard that or not. It requires an official 

18 response and the response came from the safety 

19 group out there. And I finally got a response 

20 after a lot of ho-humming and they admitted to 

21 2,200 kilograms of mercury in the tanks. Now, 

22 all of our tanks out there, I believe, are 
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1 higher than 77 degrees, some of them are next 

2 to boiling or less, a little less than that. 

3 But mercury goes to vapor at 77 degrees and we 

4 were not allowed any protection there because 

5 we were never told of the danger on that. So 

6 I have that paperwork to submit to you, if you 

7 like.

8 Also I had to battle with 

9 Washington, D.C. Curtis Johnson came out, a 

10 very knowledgeable, very good attorney. He 

11 took my court-recorded deposition for which I 

12 have a copy. I ended up doing that twice. 

13 The second deposition was done probably about 

14 a year and a half ago. I can get an exact 

15 date. But in that time I presented a lot of

16 different evidence to him and it mysteriously 

17 got misplaced with a lot of it. And the 

18 second deposition that I had, like I say, 

19 about a year and a half ago brought that out. 

20 Because I had evidence that it was submitted. 

21 And one of the things that I had 

22 to do with Department of Labor to try to get 
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1 them on the same page as Department of Energy 

2 is Curtis Johnson said there was 50 chemicals 

3 that were identified in the tanks. And if you 

4 get on the DOL website, I have it right here, 

5 there are 2,229 chemicals that are mixed up 

6 and used at Hanford and flushed down to the 

7 tanks when they're through using it. That's a 

8 horrible number to throw at people and expect 

9 them not to do anything about it. I also have 

10 a letter from Shirley Olinger when she was 

11 head of ORP and what I had asked is that they 

12 respect the findings of the Hanford Concerns 

13 Council for which I ended up going for about a 

14 year and three quarters, and here is my 

15 exposure history that they did. There's 

16 several pages that need to be laid out in a 

17 graph and they're very self-explanatory, but 

18 it showed the different chemicals and toxins 

19 that I was exposed to and the Hanford Concerns 

20 Council is sanctioned by DOE, the state of 

21 Washington and -- I'm sorry, I can't remember 

22 the third one right now. But it was set up as 
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1 a legal authority to go ahead and move ahead 

2 with proving exposures. Okay, so I have that 

3 for you, also, if you would like a copy.

4 But this letter from Shirley 

5 Olinger, I would not have gotten that. What I 

6 did was I asked them to go ahead and respect 

7 the findings of the Hanford Concerns Council 

8 and so Shirley Olinger wrote to Jonathan Brock 

9 who is the head of the Council and asked for 

10 verification on that. So I ended up, got a 

11 letter of that. Also on the DOL website, 

12 you've got toxic substances listed and what it 

13 does is -- shows that they were used at 

14 Hanford. It puts my job category in the 

15 exposure area and then it speaks for the 

16 different substances that we were exposed to, 

17 including mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel. 

18 There's some other ones. Okay, but the main 

19 thing is that even with all this proof and two 

20 recorded depositions from Washington, D.C., I 

21 still have been fighting my case even with 

22 doctor's letters and all of this stuff as 
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1 proof. I didn't know that you had to have the 

2 ICD-9 codes which ended up hanging up my case. 

3 Now, my case, I proved to Gail Splett and I 

4 can't remember the -- the other fellow, Bill 

5 Taylor. But I would not have gotten a letter 

6 generated on my behalf from the ORP level 

7 unless I would have proven it to them. And I 

8 couldn't expect them to write anything that I 

9 could not prove. So that's what I ended up 

10 doing. And it took a few days but we ended up 

11 getting that letter and DOL has pigeonholed 

12 every piece of evidence that I know of either 

13 by losing it, misplacing it, oh, we never saw 

14 that. But I have proof in my court deposition 

15 that was done that yes, they did have it. And 

16 I'm still hung up right now even though I have 

17 40 percent loss of my lung capacity and I do 

18 have toxic metal poisoning that, thank God, at 

19 least to a certain extent I help myself and 

20 out of my own pocket to try to save my life 

21 because I went through chelation therapy for 

22 about two and a half years.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. We 

2 understand the frustration. This Board deals 

3 with the cancer side of the program, the 

4 claims that come in. There is somebody here 

5 from the Department of Labor that usually 

6 attends our meetings. I don't know if, Jeff, 

7 directly involved with that side of the 

8 program as much but maybe you can direct him?

9 MR. GEER: Well, I'm not trying to 

10 insult you but at the same time we didn't 

11 separate cancer or chemical exposure out at 

12 Hanford.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, I understand 

14 perfectly well that but again --

15 MR. GEER: It's all-inclusive.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I just want 

17 you to understand that our -- what our Board 

18 is charged to do has to do with the cancer 

19 side of the program, not with the DOL claims 

20 that you're talking about, the Subpart E and 

21 that. But so there are people here from the 

22 Department of Labor, if you'd like to talk to 
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1 them about that. That's who I was trying to 

2 direct you to, okay?

3 MR. GEER: They've heard from me 

4 once or twice.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank 

6 you.

7 MR. GEER: Thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else 

9 wishes to make public comments? Is anybody on 

10 the phone that wishes to make public comments?

11 (No response.)

12 Okay then. We're done. Okay. 

13 Adjourned. Do we? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, 

14 sir, I didn't see you behind the podium. 

15 Could you please identify yourself?

16 MR. FRASON: My name is Jerry 

17 Frason. I used to be safety chairman for tank 

18 farms for between 10 to 15 years. I worked in 

19 a research lab, chemical engineering lab. I'm 

20 the one that built the truck that did all the 

21 sampling characterization. I know my 

22 challenges are mainly chemicals but with -- I 
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1 have helped several people that had cancer, 

2 one of which was a relation. And every year 

3 when he went in for a physical, he was told to 

4 go see his doctor and take his medical reports 

5 with him. And for 10 years he did this. One 

6 year he went to see his doctor and his doctor 

7 was on vacation. He was referred to another 

8 doctor. He went in, he seen the doctor and 

9 the doctor talked with him for a little while 

10 and he says you need to go down to the 

11 hospital and have X-rays because you have 

12 cancer. And anyway, he got the X-rays and, 

13 sure enough, he had cancer throughout his 

14 whole body. And they had him go back and get 

15 his X-rays from work and for 10 years you 

16 could see the X-rays -- I mean the cancer in 

17 his X-rays. 

18 Myself, when I went down to 

19 represent -- I used to be part, in fact, 

20 instigated the vapor team, I went down and I 

21 talked with AdvanceMed. And they asked, what 

22 can be we do for you. And I said well, in the 
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1 beginning, the vapor team asked for certain 

2 things. One, that you would notify the 

3 medical community of radiation and chemical 

4 exposure but you can't because we were 

5 notified it was against the law, state law. 

6 Two, that you would help diagnose us with a 

7 challenge that we're having and we were 

8 notified again that they cannot because it's 

9 against a state law. Three, that you would 

10 help our doctors, notify our doctors of what 

11 is wrong with us but you can't because, again, 

12 it was against the state law because of 

13 Boeing. Four, that you would refer us to a 

14 toxicologist or a doctor that would help us in 

15 whatever our need was except, again, you 

16 cannot refer us to a specialist or anyone else 

17 because of Boeing, being self-employed, they 

18 got it passed where the self-employed medical 

19 department cannot do this. Now that's what I 

20 was told. And I approached the medical board 

21 at AdvanceMed and there was no reply, no 

22 denial. Dale Geer was with me, he was also 
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1 addressing the chemical vapor team. 

2 My thought is this. We need help. 

3 We need to be directed in where to go the 

4 best that we can. Dale mentioned the fact of 

5 his runaround of all the doctors. I went 

6 three months without any wages. I had to pay 

7 back because, at the last second on short8 term, they said we don't accept that doctor. 

9 And I didn't have time for rebuttal. I had to 

10 pay back almost $69,000. I lost three months' 

11 wages on top of that. I used to own my house. 

12 I had to mortgage my house. I had to take 

13 out $70,000 of my 401(k) just to live and all 

14 I needed was, okay, I need somebody to point 

15 me in the right direction. I'm not talking 

16 for me now, I'm talking for those that are 

17 being affected now. I have always fought, 

18 this is the first time now since I was laid 

19 off in '08. I was laid off because of sleep 

20 apnea. Soon as I had talked to AdvanceMed, 

21 the next day I was gone. 

22 Now the thing I'm saying is, there 
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1 has got -- somebody's got to come out of the 

2 woodwork and help those people that are 

3 infected. I know I mentioned the fact of the 

4 truck that did all the sampling. They also 

5 came around, they showed us a suitcase. There 

6 was a portable gas spectrometer would sample 

7 fumes every five seconds and in 15 seconds it 

8 gave you a printout. It would do all but just 

9 a few chemicals. They said they couldn't take 

10 it out on the farm because they would 

11 contaminate it. The truck that I took that I 

12 built, I built from a pencil sketch, sampled 

13 all tanks, was never contaminated. And it 

14 drove out, not carried out, to all the tanks. 

15 And I'm saying it cost $20,000 and I think 

16 that the insurance, the way that I would feel 

17 towards how my company supported me, $20,000 

18 is a drop in the hat when I would work a 

19 graveyard shift and there would be 50 guys on 

20 one job. Twenty thousand dollars is nothing. 

21 All we ask is for your help, 

22 whether it be cancer or it would be chemical 
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1 exposure or anything else. I hate to say this 

2 but I think the workers deserve more than 

3 we're getting. We're giving our life. I'm 89 

4 percent disabled. I can't work, I can't 

5 preach and I'm a preacher. I can't drive. 

6 But I'm still trying to help those that are in 

7 need.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. Were 

9 you referring, when you referred to the state 

10 law is this to do with the state workers 

11 compensation law about referring to doctors?

12 MR. FRASON: I was told that if 

13 you were self-insured like we are and Boeing 

14 is, that their doctors could not diagnose us 

15 with anything. I had one doctor. He said, 

16 Jerry, when he saw my blood work after being 

17 exposed in S102, he said Jerry, you're in 

18 trouble and you need help and you need it now. 

19 I said, what do you mean. He said well, 

20 you're in trouble. What do you mean? You're 

21 having trouble with -- whatever it is, he 

22 says, it's affecting your immune system and 
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1 that's all I can say. And I said, well, I 

2 can't remember things, could you write it 

3 down. He said -- and also he said there isn't 

4 a doctor on this side of the mountains that 

5 can help you. You need to go to the other 

6 side. And I said, well, I plan on going to 

7 Virginia Mason but he didn't tell me what 

8 doctors or anything else. I did see two of 

9 them. I took as much information as I could 

10 and they said, information is good but I don't 

11 know anything about chemicals and then he just 

12 passed it down. 

13 But you're going to have to excuse 

14 me, my mind floats real quick. You mentioned 

15 about the state law because of -- their 

16 insurance program. Their doctors would say 

17 the guy was okay and go back to work and et 

18 cetera. And the workers went before the state 

19 and got it passed where they could not 

20 diagnose anyone, my understanding, and the 

21 doctors did not dispute anything that I stated 

22 to them at AdvanceMed. Am I answering? My 
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1 mind floats real quick.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I understand. 

3 The other question is, the Department of 

4 Energy does operate this former worker program 

5 for people that used to work, and does the 

6 medical screening here. I don't know if you 

7 participate. That's another --

8 MR. FRASON: I participated in it 

9 and not a single one really said you need to 

10 go see this doctor, this doctor, this doctor. 

11 You need this help, you need to do this. 

12 They don't give you. They say this is -- they 

13 got my records. In fact, I have two sets of 

14 records within six months and they're 

15 completely opposite. They're completely 

16 opposite. And these are my medical records. 

17 Like I said, I used to be big-time in safety 

18 and, anyway, did I answer your question?

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, you did.

20 MR. FRASON: I can't remember.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You did. And 

22 thank you. Yes, you had another question or 
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1 comment?

2 MR. GEER: Just real quick but to 

3 what Jerry's saying. I didn't find out 

4 through medical records that I had to put in 

5 at least three times to get for my breathing. 

6 I didn't find out until 2008 that AdvanceMed 

7 documented in 2003 that I had COPD. Nobody 

8 said anything to me and it kept getting 

9 progressively worse. So this is probably 

10 shall we say, par for the course, for a lot of 

11 employees that they're not told. And I could 

12 have sought medical assistance during that 

13 time but, because it was put off and not told 

14 to me nor given me the records I didn't find

15 out till five years later, and I don't 

16 appreciate that. That's not a doctor doing 

17 their damn job.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I agree with 

19 you. I mean it's been a problem at other 

20 sites, too, but it doesn't make it right 

21 obviously and it's a problem. And I know 

22 there's -- I've heard of many other people out 
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1 here who have similar issue. I understand it 

2 a little bit better now.

3 MR. GEER: Thank you. I didn't 

4 want to butt in.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, that's 

6 fine. Anybody else in the audience that 

7 wishes to make -- yes, sir. And please 

8 identify yourself.

9 MR. ROGERS: I'm Bruce Rogers. I 

10 worked out at Hanford for 31 years as a 

11 nuclear process operator. I started at T 

12 plant, went over to -5, 234-5. I was involved 

13 in an incident over there in January of 1980 

14 and I took a face full of Pu-239. And they 

15 recovered us, brought us out, got us cleaned 

16 up and you know, took pretty good care of us, 

17 RCTs. 

18 At that time we weren't offered 

19 DTPA shot which picks up heavy metals so they 

20 kind of blew it a little bit on that one. But 

21 the, here's a little something, a little 

22 background. A complete NIOSH package was done 
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1 on 11/2003 and the records show that I had an 

2 intake of Pu-239, -240, plutonium-238, 

3 americium-241, plutonium-241. In addition, 

4 the following committed dose equivalents were 

5 calculated for the indicated organs and 

6 tissues, 170 rems to the bone surfaces, 56 

7 rems to the lungs, 19 rems to the liver, 14 

8 rems to the red bone marrow and 2.3 rems to 

9 the gonads. 2003, guess what happens? 

10 Prostate cancer. Okay. They came in, they 

11 removed my prostate, okay? And that's not a 

12 fun operation to go through. So I just 

13 thought I'd leave a little information. 

14 And my claim has been denied. And 

15 denied. I've got a whole notebook full right 

16 here of denials. So what happens is we went 

17 through Oak Ridge and they came out and they 

18 did, I think it was 2010, they sent me a 

19 letter, said they wanted to do a medical on 

20 me, examination and everything. So they sent 

21 me through everything. 

22 I went through the exams. They 
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1 came back and said, hey, you know, you've got 

2 some pleural plaquing on your lungs, we don't 

3 know what it's from. It looks like it might 

4 be, well, I was an asbestos worker too. I 

5 worked with, man, I worked with everything out 

6 there, everything you could think of, 

7 plutonium to -- I packaged and buried and 

8 retrieved and worked the core-drilling trucks. 

9 I unloaded tankers of radiation waste into 

10 the tank farms. And like Dale Geer was 

11 saying, man, you're looking at over two 

12 thousand and some chemicals that we were 

13 putting into those tanks and treating. And as 

14 an operator, a process operator, I was out 

15 there doing all the transfers in the tank 

16 farms. Of course you've got all these tanks 

17 venting on you; you're smelling ammonia. The 

18 mercury is boiling. You've got all kinds of 

19 stuff cooking out there for you and yet we 

20 can't find anybody to help us. I've got a 

21 real problem with this. I'm really getting a 

22 case of the whatever you want to call it, but 
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1 I'm being nice. But I just wanted you to 

2 understand what we're going through. I mean 

3 this -- you get all this paperwork and this is 

4 all you're getting. You know, this is 

5 terrible. This is not a way to take care of 

6 your workers. I'm an old Navy submarine 

7 sailor and I don't think anybody wants to be 

8 treated this way. Thank you very much.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you. 

10 Anybody else?

11 MR. ROGERS: Oh, I've got one 

12 thing. I'm sorry.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sure, go ahead.

14 MR. ROGERS: I did, on the pleural 

15 plaquing, it was sent in to the state. It 

16 came back, there was a relationship with 

17 asbestos. For all those years I was out there 

18 repackaging asbestos, walking through it, 

19 walking through the pipe galleries and things 

20 like that, pulling it off the ceilings, 

21 pulling it out of the tank farms, off the vent 

22 lines. We had no protection, we weren't 
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1 wearing a mask. We're out there you know, 

2 because they didn't, there was no rule to have 

3 a mask on at that time in the 1970s. Just, 

4 you know, we were involved in a lot of 

5 different situations. But we were in weapons 

6 production in all the buildings. It was the 

7 Cold War you know, so. And we couldn't say 

8 nothing. If you had a problem, you really 

9 couldn't say anything to anybody. But the 

10 pleural plaquing went through to the state. 

11 The state looked at it and said, well, yes, it 

12 does look like there may be some asbestos 

13 related to it, asbestosis, excuse me, because 

14 there was no cancer supposedly. 

15 So they took a look at it. The 

16 first stage looked pretty good; it looked like 

17 it might have been asbestosis-related. They 

18 got up to another stage and guess what they 

19 did? They chopped off part of the claim. 

20 Yes, I have pleural plaquing but they can't 

21 tell me what it is and they're not going to 

22 admit to the asbestos. They say, okay, Bruce, 
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1 you've got to prove it. Well how in the heck 

2 do you prove it other than you worked with it 

3 for 31 years? So, this is where we're at. 

4 You know, this is what you guys need to take a 

5 look at. You know, you're -- a lot of the 

6 guys that I work with, oh and this is a good 

7 one here. Twenty-five guys that I worked with 

8 in that production plant, 234-5, had prostate 

9 cancer. Think about that. That's called a 

10 cluster. But what they do is they take you on 

11 individually and they fight with you. They 

12 turn you over to some lawyer and he runs you 

13 ragged trying to prove your case. I've got 

14 all these guys calling me, I had a whole list 

15 of guys that I was keeping in contact with. 

16 We were just trying to get a breakthrough 

17 someplace where somebody could, you know, we 

18 could see something happening. Everybody got 

19 the same response. Man, I'll tell you. 

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

21 MR. ROGERS: May the Force be with 

22 you.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks. Anybody 

2 else like to make public comments?

3 (No response.)

4 Okay. If not thank you and we 

5 will adjourn.

6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

7 matter went off the 

8 record at 5:39 p.m.)

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